As I'm sure many of you know, the Jewish people annually celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and have done so for about 3500 years now.  The Passover holiday is to commemorate the story told in Exodus Chapter 12, where God sent a destroying angel to kill all the firstborn children of Egypt.  God gave the people a way to get out of this horrible fate, of course, by telling them to sacrifice a lamb without blemish and rub it's blood above their doorposts.  Do this, He said, and the destroyer will "Passover" your house.

Okay, So at school this week, we have this thing called interim, and basically, it's a week of no classes, you just pick something you're interested in, and study it. I'm in Exploring World Religions, and, as you can probably guess, we learn about different types of religion. Tomorrow, there are a bunch of clergymen coming in from different christian churches around the area, and we can ask them anything we want to.

We all have to wonder, if Jesus so loved the world then why didn’t he demonstrate calculus and the periodic table? Had he of done so we would have gone to the moon and beyond centuries ago. Cancer as well as many other illnesses would now be a thing of the past. Through the ages, think of all the children that died in their mother’s arms from an infection by a minor cut. Who was this man Jesus? Did he really exist? Does it matter?

We also have to wonder, when someone demands that you follow him and believe in him yet never shows himself, well, you got yourself a con-artist.

Our spiritual thirst is evolutionary derived. But what is it for? Well, for one thing it is to promote social order. Since spirituality is innately inborn in us, it’s probably a good thing to go along with it. However, there are healthier ways to go about it. As we’ve seen with many religions throughout the world, they break the human spirit and demean the human enterprise i.e. extreme right wing radicals.

--There is one question I have. The reasons for christians to share their beliefs with people are clear. But what is the basis for athiests to reveal so much opposition (and alot of times anger) to a belief in God? Why are they so driven to prove to people that God doesn't exist? Is it a pride issue? They want to prove their intellectual superiority by trying to convince people that there is no God? Or is it every athiest looks at the big picture, and visualizes a better world without hatred, fighting, and death caused by religion? Not all wars are holy wars. Not all murders and hatred stem from radical religious beliefs. In fact, not alot of it does. Even if there were no religions, all that would still happen. So that can't be it. What is the purpose? And that general "to free the minds of those suppressed by fear of religion" excuse is a load of crap, so don't even try to use that. Why should athiests care if someone believes in God, which, by the way, Christianity seems to be the biggest target for athiests.... So what is it?

By what standards do you live your life?

I was working today and a customer was wearing a t-shirt saying:

"Dear God why is there so much violence in school?"
-Student

"Dear Student Im not allowed in school."
-God

I like to start a debate...

I. Does the lack of religion the actual reason for violence in school?

II. Should religion be replcaced back into school?

My Answer No to two on the following accounts:
I. I live in New Orleans... In 1960s we had religion in school and yet the school violence was threw the roof. Why? Easy, Intergration.

II. Having a religion in school is bais. Unless they have a way of adding Judaism, Christiany (That would be funny, from Catholic to Witness), (We also need to include the lack of) Athiest/Angostic, (and on the rare accounts) Islam, Buddaism, Hindu, and various others.

(Another topic from the Google cache.)

SovietPants: Now, I realise that not everyone here is an Existentialist or, as I describe myself, a Nietzschean Naturalist, but this topic is here for a discussion concerning suicide and how we should handle such an occurrence both as individuals and as a society.

When one thinks of suicide, the most prevalent thought is that it is incredibly selfish and an act which should be shunned. To those who purport such a thought I must ask you why? Why should one be shunned for taking their destiny into their own hands and ending their existence as they see fit?

(Moved from General Conversations to Freethinkers Debate.)

(This was originally posted by beenz04, but it got lost when the server crashed. Since it was a fairly long discussion, I'm copying and pasting the posts from the Google cache. There were a few more posts, but they were all lost.)

beenz04: I know most objectivists are atheist, or at least agnostic, but are most atheists of the objectivist mindset? I know I've posted about how silly labels are...but it seems to me to be a very logical assumption and i am curious if it is false. Don't know what I'm getting at? Ask Ayn Rand or dictionary.com. ob·jec·tiv·ism (ŏb-jěk'tə-vĭz'əm) Pronunciation Key

No probs.

Meh, my position is that miracles are violations of the laws of physics, and it's a circular argument to argue that God can do them because he's God.

Gen. 2:7 "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

K, so here the bible says we are basically dust and breath.
Dust = Earth = Carbon
Breath = Water (breath on a cold window and see what you get)

now this is common knowledge in biology ( taken from wikipedias article on life):
" Properties common to these organisms – plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea and bacteria – are a carbon and water-based cellular form with complex organization and genetic information."

I wasn't really sure of what to call this topic, so I hope that the title I gave it ultimately satisfies what I'm trying to ask. Many atheists these days are also calling themselves "skeptics." They are skeptical of claims of the so called "supernatural."

Suppose we hear a story like this. I didn't make this up, I found this from a website.

What is your initial reaction to this? As skeptics, you obviously don't believe that it was God who protected the car from frost. So there are several other possible options.

So how do you interpret this story, as skeptics? Do you believe that Mr. Jackson was lying, or do you believe he is telling the truth? What sort of naturalistic explanation would you find satisfactory of this story? And lastly, what would it take to convince you that this story was actually God interacting in the world?

Surely NASA has made it closer to heaven than the Tower of Babel?

Comment split from another thread.

Free bashing to the first fundie who makes some absurd blanket statement like "The OT doesn't apply to us" or "Jesus freed us from the old law".