When I robbed the bank, did I show you ID? Did I recognize you and say "Oh hey! I'm Max, remember me?" It is more likely that the description would be "well, he was about average height, and a little on the built side, and he had a hispanic accent". If I'm the only hispanic guy in the courtroom and fit the physical description (most certainly not the face, seeing as how I'd wear a hood or a mask) then her description does nothing besides confirm that an average, built guy with a hispanic accent robbed the bank. Even if I didn't bother to wear a mask, it could have just as easily been somebody who looks like me.
http://www.external.ameslab.gov/forensics/eyewitness.htm
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/gwells/homepage.htm
http://www.acfnewsource.org/science/false_memories.html
The above links give more insight to eyewitness accounts.

Ah, but what you said begs the question of Jesus actually performing these miracles, something that is extraordinarily absurd. There hasn't been a single supernatural claim proven, ever, so it would be a rational conclusion to say that they haven't happened in the past, for the things that are claimed to have happened in the Bible.

Is there a supernatural claim that has been proven to be supernatural, not natural phenomena? If there is, please let me know.

"The moon is not real" and "Miracles do not happen" are negative statements.
http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/durrus/153/gramch04.html
And yes, it would be up to somebody to prove that the moon exists. And, because of the wealth of information supporting the existence of the moon (if "moon" fits the definition of earth's moon), the negative statement will be incorrect.

Again, ancient account of a supernatural event is not evidence enough to make ANY claim. What makes your claim any different from the many who have seen Lincoln's ghost?

Give me anything showing that God exists, or that his son Jesus performed miracles and was the messiah. Give me a good reason to think its true. Keep in mind, faith alone is not a good reason to believe anything.

You were the one likening my argument to a robbery. However, there is still no solid, presentable evidence that Jesus actually lived! None! It would be like my roommate saying "Yeah, that was Heracles who held up the bank". Certainly, an eyewitness account does imply truth, however, its impossible to determine whether an eyewitness account is accurate besides the word of the one making the witness. People do lie, its part of your natural response to things. The bottom line is that there isn't any good reason to think that Jesus actually lived and performed miracles, other than word of mouth. Likewise, there isn't a good reason to think that ghosts exist or that aliens abduct humans.

The links are meant to identify that eyewitness accounts are not golden. Between people lying, seeing something they assemble to be something else, or by a simple lack of understanding of naturally occurring phenomena, an eyewitness account is exceptionally fallible.

The eyewitness accounts you are describing also fall under the same category of people who are eyewitnesses to UFO sightings, alien abductions, sightings of Bigfoot, the chupacabra, or the Loch Ness Monster.

If a supernatural claim has been proven, that no natural answer is remotely possible, then it would be a big deal to the scientific community. It would be a gold mine to understanding things that would, therefore, beyond our own understanding. But since these claims are conveniently beyond any sort of natural plane, it is impossible to discern any supernatural claim that is true, to one that is completely fabricated. I could tell you that a faerie is next to me and told me that it created the universe 10 minutes ago, and all of the light enroute to Earth, and planted memories in our heads to keep us thinking that we have been around for a while, and it would be totally indistinguishable with any other supernatural claim.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/29/1093717837898.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,1726713,00.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/ukfs_news/hi/newsid_6140000/newsid_6145700/nb_rm_6145768.stm
I am incredibly skeptical of the claims of those miracles.

YES! They are NEGATIVE statements! And the burden of proof always falls on the AFFIRMATIVE! In the case of this moon person, if he has a twisted understanding of what the Moon is and does, then it would be impossible to collect the $100,000 prize. Same with Hovind's wager, he was a twisted definition of evolution that he wants proven, and creates a straw man by doing so.

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Category:Cosmological_arguments

I don't see any "good reasons" to think any of that, simply by picking apart passages, they determine that motives. Besides, would being able to prove those above claims, eliminate the faith required?

Faeries don't exist.

Prove it.

[quote]The gospels were not written during the supposed life of Christ,[/quote]
Explain why this matters in respect to their accuracy.

[quote]nor during the time line at which his apostles lived,[/quote]
If you accept the dating that the majority of scholars give the Gospels, then almost all of them are within the time line of when their apostles lived.

[quote]so they were not written eyewitness accounts.[/quote]
Here we go again.

They certainly claim to be many times. But apparently, that's not good enough for you. What is [i]your[/i] criteria for determining whether something's an eyewitness account or not?

[quote]What evidence to the contrary? your first contention doesn't hold due to the fact they are not eyewitness accounts.[/quote]
I think you're still in Bible mode here. We're not talking about the Bible anymore, we're talking about me seeing someone rob a bank and then someone asserting that Heracles robbed it. Since there is no evidence whatsoever that Heracles actually robbed a bank, and much evidence to the contrary (several eyewitnesses who saw someone who was NOT Heracles...video cameras proving it wasn't), then we have good reason to believe it's not Heracles.

[quote]Implication does not create fact, just because an eyewitness gives a statement, does not make his statement true. We must examine the credibility of the witness. For your contentions we have no eyewitness accounts, in all fact we have no evidence.[/quote]
Of course. I've never denied that we must examine the credibility of the witnesses, and fortunately we can do that with the authors of the Bible.

You're still in Bible mode, though. We're NOT talking about the Bible here.

[quote]In all actuality, one must just read the Bible to realize it is fictitious.[/quote]
*snort* [i]Yeah,[/i] don't even bother with any sort of Biblical scholarship or anything. Everyone who gets paid to critically examine the Bible using the original language and all the historical and social contexts is completely wasting their time. All you have to do is merely open up your modernized English version, completely devoid of any sort of historical knowledge, and it's so [i]obviously[/i] fictitious. Argument over.

That statement was so mindblowingly ignorant, DPD. Especially when you say that "the Bible" is ficticious, despite "the Bible" being a collection of books from a multitude of literary genres and time periods and authors. Way to go.

[quote]Firstly, not all evidence has ties to some supernatural event.
As for what defines evidence, there are many sources of evidence, the bible however is not one of them. The bible cannot be used as evidence, because it is biased,[/quote]
Everything is biased, DPD. Does this mean that we should disregard the RRS's testimony about anything pertaining to atheism since they are biased towards it?

This argument doesn't hold water, primarily because in this case, they would have been biased in a way that would make them want to preserve things even [i]more[/i] accurately. Try again.

[quote]unsupported by historical, or empirical evidence,[/quote]
Nonsense. We have a vast number of archeological confirmation of the places and people described in the Gospels. If you'd like me to mention some, please ask.

As far as empirical evidence goes, should we really be expected to [b]experience[/b] the events described in a book that took place 2000 years ago?

[quote]and is not based on first person, or eyewitness accounts.[/quote]
Your argument to support this is undoubtedly based on a bias. That means that we can disregard it.

[quote]Here, i do agree, the idea that the loch ness monster is somehow in likeness to the existence of Jesus , is completely unfounded, and all around a bad argument. There are first person and eyewitness accounts that surround the loch ness monster, this is not the case for Christ.[/quote]
I'd really like you to actually elaborate on this point for once. I ask again, what criteria do you use to establish if something was an eyewitness account rather than a later fabrication?

[quote]no, it is a completely understandable statement. Gaining understanding in any area adds to our collective human understanding of the natural world. It would also increase the pursuit of knowledge in that area.[/quote]
That's not what he said, though. He said that it would help us understand things that were [b]beyond our understanding.[/b] If something is beyond our understanding, we can't understand it.

[quote]This isn't the case of Christ, so this contention has no relevance.[/quote]
Of course it is. Have you ever heard of the feeding of five thousand? Or, though smaller, the creed presented by Paul that proclaimed several hundred people having seen the resurrected Jesus? What is your response to these?

[quote]A flood that covered the earth, a man who could walk on water, heal the sick, ressurect himself, and fly. Also there is no evidence to support the claims,[/quote]
Perhaps I should ask again, since you didn't answer the first time. What would you consider to be good evidence for any of these claims? If you disregard the Bible from the start, what am I supposed to give you?

[quote]wow it actually seems to hit home, right to the beliefs that the majority of the world hold. I can see it now, the church of the grand architect fairee.[/quote]
I don't think you understand what "properly basic" means.

A good example of a properly basic belief is, "I exist." You can't really prove that. You can't prove that the world wasn't created five minutes ago. But we all believe that we exist implicitly. We all do not believe the world was created five minutes ago implicitly. In order for someone to convince themselves that they don't exist, they must really rationalize it.

[quote]"God exists!"
"prove it"
"I cant, God is beyond my ability to understand."[/quote]
I've never made such an argument, thanks.

[quote]"So are quantum mechanics, but you don't go around making contentions that they are false with no evidence just because they are beyond your ability to understand."
"Good point, i guess i shouldn't say something without any evidence to back it up."[/quote]
Actually, here would be how the conversation would be.

"God exists!"
"Prove it!"
"Well, honestly I'm not sure I have to. Some, like Plantinga, consider belief in God to be properly basic and can make a great case for it. But let's suppose belief in God isn't properly basic. I probably can't prove to you that God's exists, no matter what sort of evidence or proofs I could give you. You're on the RRS website, for crying out loud. But if you wanted me to give you evidence, I certainly can do that. I would point to the evidence from cosmology, the moral nature we have as humans pointing to an objective morality and a Lawgiver, the evidence of what Christianity posits in Jesus Christ, and the independent personal experience and changed lives presented by theism as reasonable evidence of God's existence."
"Oh, okay."

[quote]What he is saying is that if you prove god, you erase faith.[/quote]
Well, since Max can't even get the [url=http://www.tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html]definition of faith[/url] right, why should I buy what he says?

[quote]A little side note...
The Kalam Cosmological Argument certainly isn't good evidence for God's existence.
It claims that for every event, there is a cause.[/quote]
No, it doesn't. You can't even get the argument right, so how am I supposed to trust you when you say it's not good evidence?

The Kalam argument says that whatever [b]began to exist[/b] has a [b]cause of it's existence.[/b]

[quote]Somehow, in this infinite regress, there is the uncaused cause, which you call God.[/quote]
It's [b]not[/b] an infinite regress, since there has not been an infinite stretch of creators.

[quote]Now, it is just as possible, I could argue it to be even more possible, that it was a single molecule of some exotic particles that set off the entire expansion of the Big Bang, creating the universe, and it would hold just as much water as the Cosmological Argument.[/quote]
But this argument is based on a complete and total misunderstanding of the argument, and thus, it doesn't hold "just as much water."

You would first have to explain where this "exotic particle" came from anyway.

[quote]Morality is something that is decided by society.[/quote]
So you're telling me that at one point, rape wasn't actually wrong, but it became taboo over generations?

Child torture wasn't wrong at one point, but became taboo later?

By this view, nothing is actually "wrong" but it's merely taboo. You have no business telling me to stop doing something, since morality is merely a social convention and I don't have to follow what society tells me to do if I don't want to.

[quote]If you are claiming that we get morals from God, then how does God decide what is moral and what isn't? Where did God get the ideas for what is good and what isn't?[/quote]
There was no point where God was sitting around wondering what was right and wrong.

Morality comes from God's very nature, and thus, murder and rape have always been wrong because they contradict his nature.

[quote]Lastly, as for the religious experiences, I would love to hear about some of these, and find a way to, 1) Find a way to believe that they actually happened, and 2) Find a way to see that a religious experience is the only possible explanation.
Unfortunately, its always things like Jesus telling people that things will be OK, not things like coughing up lottery numbers.[/quote]
They're easy to find. There are thousands of people who's lives have been [i]dramatically[/i] altered by becoming Christians.

For one, my uncle was an LSD dealer who only cared about himself. He was saved in prison and now he's completely turned his life around. He is active in the church, a terrific father, a loving husband, and a mentor to many people.

Or, other things...If you've ever heard of Rick Heil, the frontman of the famous Christian band SONICFLOOd, you may know that he once had a very serious case of Chron's disease and was healed right after he surrendered his life to Christianity. He says the following:

“The Lord healed me inside and out. When I was eleven, I was diagnosed with Crohn's, which has no cure. I had about eight feet of my intestines removed. I became bitter and angry with God. Finally, God in His mercy brought people into my life that reached out to me in love and boldly proclaimed His Word. I wound up wanting to completely surrender everything to the Lord. I began trusting God and telling Him that no matter what happened, I would continue to praise Him. I was changed inside forever. Later, I did some research and discovered the Cleveland Clinic. I met a Christian surgeon named Dr. Church. He took out a few inches of scar tissue from previous surgeries and found NO Crohn's disease in my body! There was no disease to treat. There were places where the disease should have reoccurred, and that tissue was pristine. To God be the Glory!”

How would you respond to any of these?

Murder is against God's nature? Stop deluding yourself.

[quote]That same game can be played by racists, too.

"Yeah, and how many black people are in prison for murder, rape, and theft? Compare it to the amount of asians in jail."

I mean, it's not like 78% of America's population claims to be part of some Christian sect or anything. It's not as if atheists amount to less than 10% of the American populace either.[/quote]

Wether or not the population of Atheist/Christians is different, it still means Christians are majority in jail. Here, let be simpilfy a little bit. Precentage is higher of Christians, how I know? Because if you divider amount of Christians (jailed) to (unjailed), its higher than Atheist.

[quote]Plus, your comparison won't even work anyway, for several reasons. The vast majority of Christians are not in jail, and many (not all, of course, but a significant number) of the Christians that are were saved in jail. I would also question whether the conversions were legit; again, not all, but some of them could easily be a ploy to get in well with the prison authorities (as in, "Hey, look at me, I'm a good Christian now, let me out early on the reason of good behavior.") Plus, the concepts of murder, theft, and rape are clearly against the message of Jesus Christ, and thus are inconsistent with Christianity.[/quote]

Saved? How did they get saved? They did too much laundry and decided Jesus is the way?

"Think not that I [Jesus] have come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword." (Matthew 10:34) That doenst sound like a concept of peace.

[quote]Your point is what, exactly? Are you trying to say that if one person gets blessed or gets their prayers answered, then everyone should?

Your logic can be applied in this way too:

"1) Some say that Ford Explorers are good cars.
2) Mine had an engine failure.
3) Therefore, Ford Explorers are not good cars."

It's merely making hasty generalizations.[/quote]

A hasty generalization is what you qouted about your Ford, but when 3.2 million Ford Explorers have engine failure, what does that make it?

[quote]What are you talking about when you say "rare occurences?" Your sentence is gramatically worded as if you're expanding on the previous sentence. Are you saying that people praying to God is a "rare occurence?" Something tells me no; you're most likely saying "prayers being answered" is a rare occurence. But that would require some evidence to support it.[/quote]

Sorry for the [i]real[/i] [b]big [/b]confusion. :? I know it was hard to see I was talking about prayers being answered is a rare occurence. I dont need evidence to support it, you need proof it works, and you'll show a guy who had the diease above, but to be scientific fact prayers need to work [b]every time[/b]. And most people when they pray to a god normally already know they are getting what they want, they use God as a spirtiual backup, as if it would help. Go to a hosptial and find two people that have the same sickness, pray for one. See if anything different happens if you never did anything at all.

So I gave that version of the argument too much credit. It assumes that the universe had a beginning, and that somehow, God can be an argument that has no beginning. Besides, the argument claims that there is this uncaused cause that lies at the bottom of the course of events, and God is granted that great position.

I could just as easily say that this exotic molecule IS the uncaused cause, it simply always has existed, and can only form once the universe begins contraction back to a singularity.

Yes, I would most certainly say that practically all of the things that are immoral were called "immoral" because of society's take on the topic. If you are doing something that society calls bad, then the laws that are formed from those societal views will most certainly punish you. The US finds marijuana to be "bad", and they'll punish you regardless of what you think isn't wrong.

Now, you talk about God's nature, where did God get his nature from?

So your uncle manages to bring his life back together after joining a group of supporting people. Fantastic, now where does religion come into play? LOL, now you are going to tell me that Alcoholics Anonymous actually works better than people quitting on their own.

Now, this example of Crohn's certainly is interesting. If somebody with a "serious case" of this incurable disease manages to totally shrug it off, that's worth looking into. Now, Crohn's can go to the point where you don't feel bad and your symptoms go away, but that certainly doesn't mean the disease left. Now, give me some medical professional to support these claims, and they will be compelling. But all we have is "Dr. Church, a Christian doctor" that would know about this. You'd think he'd shoot out a first name, maybe so people could look into this.

I am unimpressed.

You talked about prayer and how you can't use it to ask things. So you dismiss any claim that prayer has any power at all? Just so I understand your position. In that case, every study of prayer wouldn't be flawed at all, they'd show that prayer has no power on reality, the only glancing nudge the power of prayer would have is the mental support of being prayed for.

Also about chemotherapy, that was a horrible analogy on your part. Seeing as how we medically understand chemotherapy, and prayer seems to have just as much power as rolling a dice and hoping to get a 5.

As for killing innocent babies, do you dismiss the OT?

As for the Cosmological Argument....
The current state of the universe had a beginning. Not the universe itself. Your statements that God has no beginning are totally unfounded, in fact, I'd say they are flat-out BS. Also, its very possible that that clump of exotic matter has the same "exists out of time" aspect, but it doesn't need to be personal. Your description of what makes God personal really don't get far at all, considering there are much more plausible, realistic, and natural understandings of the origins of the current state of the universe. Otherwise, what makes your imaginary God different from my imaginary clump of matter, when it comes to assigning extraordinary traits?

As for morality, I'd most certainly say that things that seem immoral to one society may not be immoral to another. In fact, I can recall a point in history where women were trophies, you married one and she took care of the children, and young boys were the sexual toys of men, and it happened and was accepted. If an entire society, the one you live in, accepts something as moral, then it becomes acceptable. An example is the US vs Amsterdam regarding prostitution and drugs. Acceptable there, detestable here.

Regarding God's Nature, unless God was granted his own nature or moral code from a higher power, God simply decides what is moral and what isn't and applies it to all living persons. If its immoral for a pair of 20 year olds to have sex before marriage, what makes it so? Why would so many people have sex before marriage if it was universally understood to be immoral? Society is the answer, what is moral in a society becomes moral in the society.

As for your magically healed musician, Crohn's, in fact, does go on periods of time where there are no symptoms exhibited. Sometimes this is longer, sometimes it doesn't last a long time. I'm a little disappointed that you haven't heard of things being dormant and coming back for a long time, I'd say that is a leading cause to herpes being spread so much, because the infected individual doesn't even know they have it, although they do. Outbreaks happen when they do, sometimes Mr. Heil's bowels go nuts and sometimes they don't.

As for making the story up, I'd say it is considerably likely, you have somebody with a high social status who wants people to believe in his God, has this incurable disease, and his faith in God takes it away. If I were ignorant, that'd make me convert in an instant.

[quote]OK enjoy your ignorance.[/quote]

Read my sig.

[quote]Now your going to try to make morality come from YOUR religion again? LOL!!!! no it came from the OTHER invisible man in the sky.

You honestly don't know what's wrong with killing babies? OK enjoy your ignorance.[/quote]
[b]THAT'S THE POINT.

I know exactly what's wrong with murdering babies. So do you. We all do. That's because murdering anyone is quite simply wrong. Your explanation of this must be arbitrary, since you have yet to provide me with any sort of reason for why I should consider anything wrong if God doesn't exist and neither does objective morality.[/b]

[quote]And side question: Do you still think science is bad?

"i don't believe in evolution even though there's overwhelming evidence"[/quote]
Of course not. I think science is a great thing that has produced many things that save many lives.

What's your point?

[quote]So prayer only works sometimes then, that is, you only sometimes get what you pray for.[/quote]
It's not that prayer isn't "working" when you pray for a million dollars to appear under your bed and it doesn't, or you pray for God to do your math homework for you and he doesn't, or you pray to be healed from a sickness and he doesn't. It's merely that, for whatever reason, you're being denied.

[quote]If the success of prayer isn't measurable to the point where it is actually useful, then its valid to conclude that it isn't effective. Same goes for the magnetic bracelets or crystals used to align chakra's.[/quote]
Even if that were true, petitionary prayer is only a small aspect of what prayer is, so you really can't conclude that "prayer doesn't work." Stop treating it as if it's a gumball machine.

[quote]That whole idea of "Sometimes, 'no' is the answer to your prayer" is absurd. You just made it non falsifiable.[/quote]
It's only absurd if you look at it with atheistic presuppositions, which you are. The reason it seems absurd to you is that you don't believe God exists. But if he does, then there is absolutely nothing absurd about him saying no to a request...No more absurd than me asking you for money and you saying no. The other possible reason you could be thinking it's absurd was that you were expecting to recieve positive answers every time, which is unbiblical.

[quote]I'm a bit disappointed in your explanation of your chemotherapy/prayer analogy. Science never works in absolutes, so working "every single time" is a fallacy in itself.[/quote]
Okay. Thanks for refuting yourself.

[quote]Secondly, chemotherapy is proven to work, within certain natural bounds, thinks like cancer progression and how your body copes with it. I'm not sure where you are throwing this red herring.[/quote]
If you're allowed to say such things, why am I not allowed to say, "Prayer is proven to work, within certain natural bounds, things like whether it's God's will and timing or not?"

[quote]And what studies are those, that show prayer has any effect at all?[/quote]
[url=http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/prayer.html]"Positive Therapeutic Effects of Intercessory Prayer in a Coronary Care Unit Population."[/url] It's a double-blind clinical study.

[url=http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/smj1.html]Here[/url] is the paper that was written in the Southern Medical Journal.

And [url=http://www.physorg.com/news93105311.html]here's[/url] a seperate one, put on by Arizona State University.

Note, again, that I don't accept either as valid because I think testing to see if prayer "works" misses the point of prayer completely.

[quote]As for killing innocent children, Exodus 11:1-9? As for innocence... Firstly, the children could not help where they grew up, or the decisions of the rulers above them. They could not help that they were brought up in Egypt.[/quote]
Going back to how this request started...Dave originally said that murdering was part of God's nature. I asked him to provide me one example of God killing babies for [b]no reason[/b], which is murder. (I'd make the point that enacting judgement is not murder, but it would probably go right through your ears). He didn't give me one, and neither did you. But that's beside the point.

Let's give some background information on this first and foremost.

Through historical knowledge, we can discern that about 69,000 people would have been killed by this plague. How? Well, it only applies houses with first-born sons (not daughters, eliminating about 50% of households), and it only applied to households with first-born sons that were still living (eliminating around another 25%). Through historical knowledge, we can discern that about 2.75 million people were killed by Pharoah in his infanticide that tried to kill Moses. Keep in mind that for every child that died in the plague, forty would have been killed by Pharoah.

So this is a classic example of Reciprocal Morality. The theme of "you reap what you sow" is firmly established in the Bible, so this makes sense. So this [i]last-resort[/i] plague was God saying that if Pharaoh said it was okay to kill someone else's children, then he was implicitly agreeing that it was okay to kill his own peoples' children.

But I think the most important point to make, especially for you, is that Egypt had laws in which members of families were punished for the acts of one member. It was okay under Egyptian law to do this, so God could 'use' their own law on them. And since you're so big into the idea of "Society decides what's right," then you really can't say that there's anything morally objectionable about what God did, seeing as it was perfectly within the bounds of society.

[quote]As for my "personal tastes", killing anybody, for any reason other than self defense is wrong, there is no reason for one person to kill another. Besides, I'd say society determines what I view as morally right and wrong, and killing anybody who is innocent most certainly falls under what I've been told 'wrong' is. Then again, you might not see it that way.[/quote]
Wait. If murder is simply wrong, then it's simply wrong and that's what I've been trying to say. But if it's wrong because society says it's wrong, then you're acknowledging that it's possible for there to be a society somewhere where murder was okay.

Let's get hypothetical. A man comes and shoots your child right in front of you.

"What are you doing?" you say. "Why did you do that?"
"She was annoying me," he says.
"But you can't do that!"
"Yes I can. Where I come from, if people annoy you you simply kill them."

And with that, he walks off.

Did this man do something wrong?

[quote]A cyclic universe is the best current explanation.
http://www.physics.princeton.edu/~steinh/ for readers not familiar with it. I'd love to hear you put holes in this.[/quote]
There are several problems with the universe being eternal in some matter or another.

Paul Davies says, "Given an infinite amount of time, anything that can happen will already have happened, for if a physical process is likely to occur with a certain nonzero probability-however small-then given an infinite amount of time the process must occur, with probability one. By now, the universe should have reached some sort of final state in which all possible physical processes have run their course."

There are several other arguments against the notion of an actually infinite number of days occuring before today. One being that after every day that passed, there would always be an infinite number of days after it, and thus today would have never arrived. Or the universe would have already run out of energy, or reached heat death, by now if it has been eternal. Etc.

A good place to start would be [url=http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth11.html]here[/url].

[quote]As for you claiming that God always existed, remember those posts about burden of proof? Affirmative Claim means you have to present evidence. Same with your statement that God exists outside of time.[/quote]
As for evidence of the Christian God being eternal and being outside of time, I would give Deuteronomy 33:27, Romans 1:20, Ephesians 3:11, 1 Timothy 1:17, Titus 1:2, Hebrews 9:12, Hebrews 9:14, 1 John 1:2, 1 John.5:20, Isaiah 57:15, Psalm 41:13, 90:2, 93:2, 100:5, 103:17, 105:10, 106:48, and 145:13, Jeremiah 10:10, Daniel 4:3,34, 7:14,27, Micah 5:2, Habbacuk 1:12, Revelation 1:18, Hebrews 1:18, Proverbs 8:23, Isaiah 9:6, 26:4, Ezekiel 16:60 and 37:26, and Isaiah 40:28 in support of such a doctrine.

But otherwise common sense works too. If God exists and created the universe, then God must by definition exist outside of the universe. If he created the universe, then he must have created time, and if he created time, then he must by definition be outside of it. It's not that hard to grasp.

[quote]Cosmology is a satisfying, falsifiable, natural explanation for the current state of the universe.[/quote]
Newsflash: Cosmology and God are not mutually exclusive.

[quote]Funny you should mention rape and lying. As it turns out, its been advantageous for some Biblical characters to lie, as its been handy for a person to lie all the time.[/quote]
You miss the point, however. Just because it's "handy" doesn't change the fact that it's a lie, and lying is wrong.

[quote]As for rape, as long as I rape the girl in a forest, then I should be able to pay her father the proper amount of money, so I may take her as my wife.[/quote]
What's your point? Does this change the fact that the initial act of rape was wrong?

[quote]Stealing, murder, betrayal? Basic fundamentals of a budding civilization. Don't take things from me and I won't take things from you. Don't kill me, I won't kill you. Don't betray me, and I won't betray you. Thin, but stable, morality.[/quote]
But [i]why[/i] is that? Why do we naturally not want people to steal from us? You really think that all it amounts to is just a basic social idea?

[quote]As for God simply saying "This is good, this is bad", that in NO WAY justifies things as being such![/quote]
Why not? If God created us, then he has the ultimate say so. What else is required in your mind? A majority vote?

[quote]According to Leviticus, homosexuality is an abomination, you shouldn't nail a girl when she's on her period, wearing clothing of different cloths is detestable, anybody who asks you to worship other Gods should be put to death... then again, I'd call your dismissal of Leviticus "cherry picking" in the bluntest sense.[/quote]
Of course you would, because you're ignorant and you don't understand why Christians don't kill people who work on the Sabbath.

I could, of course, give you scriptural evidence that we have been redeemed from following this law. But of course, it would go straight over your head.

[quote]According to the 10 Commandments, anybody who worships another God is bad, wanting something that your neighbor has is bad (not for the economy, oh no. In fact, if it wasn't for coveting your neighbor's goods, the economy would be fledgling compared to what it is now),[/quote]
That's not really what coveting is, Max. Coveting is all about the attitude that comes with having a desire for someone else's things...This attitude usually results in doing sin.

[quote]or that the Catholic Church isn't really Christian because of all the brazen images.[/quote]
I'll ignore the flagrant overstatement.

I'll also simply say that since the 10 Commandments are part of the laws of that time period, some of them may not apply anymore. Shocker.

[quote]As for our horny 20 year olds, you haven't presented anything more than your own moral view, which sadly stands alone.[/quote]
Well, you haven't either, so why should you expect me to?

And no, it doesn't stand alone.

[quote]As for your statement about rape, if rape became normal in society, anybody who was raised in a time where rape was normal and accepted, they wouldn't know the difference. Your objective morality, correct me if I'm wrong, has some morals hardwired into people.[/quote]
"Raised in a time where rape was normal and accepted" =/= "rape is right." Putting Jews in concentration camps was normal and accepted in the 30s and 40s in Nazi Germany, but that doesn't make it a good thing.

Max, are you honestly going to sit here and tell me that if a teenage girl was raised in a society where rape was normal, she wouldn't find it objectionable to be taken off the street and forcibly ravaged? She wouldn't know, in her heart, that what this man was doing to her was not a good thing?

Even if you can escape things like legality and normality, you can't escape the [i]feeling[/i] of evil. Even if killing children was normal and legal, your heart would ache when you saw someone doing it.

[quote]As people and ideas die out, morals change. As people who are in high power make laws, morals change.[/quote]
Can you point me to a time where it was ever considered that betraying your fellow man was a good idea? If morals change, we could be able to point to some period of time where are morals are radically different from the ones in ancient times. In all reality the differences amount to things that aren't very serious.

[quote]Growing up in a time where it is acceptable to own slaves would lead you to think that slavery is acceptable. Now, morals change and society accepts them.[/quote]
Which totally explains people like William Wilberforce, Thomas Babington, Joseph Kelley, John Newton, William Dawes, William Forster, Josiah Wedgwood, Jeremiah Thompson, Percival Stockdale, Christopher Newman Hall, Francis Hargrave, Gamaliel Bailey, Charles Beecher, Henry Box Brown, John Brown, Abraham Lincoln, the Edmonson sisters, Johns Hopkins, William Lloyd Garrison, Thomas Paine, and hundreds upon hundreds of other people who were all raised in societies where slavery was acceptable.

[quote]Again, as for your case for God healing somebody, I'd consider you naive for trusting somebody who is trying to promote an idea, without applying critical thinking.[/quote]
So in other words, I shouldn't trust the Rational Response Squad.

[quote]Is there anywhere I can find Dr. Church's official statements about the subject?[/quote]
Probably not. But again, you could always call him up and talk to him directly about the subject if you really cared to...I don't know, promote an idea and use critical thinking at the same time.

[quote]And, even if it does turn out that medical science cannot currently explain the recession of this kid's illness, God is not the answer by default. In fact, any supernatural explaination woulnd't be the answer by default.[/quote]
It's certainly a better answer than, "Well, we don't really know."

[quote=Christfolyfe] Sup yall my name is Desmond and I am 17, new here I heard about this stuff on tv. Now I am a christian and have been one for like all my life. I've met alot of ppl of different faiths and beliefs but this atheist thing has gotten to me today.I am gonna say this, I am no perfect christian as no one is but I know God exists and I know Christ is God for certain. You hear about people saying you can't see em you can't smell em and you can't touch him so he's not real but let me ask you this can you see the planet Mars? Can you touch the planet mars? and lastly can you smell the planet? All these questions would be answered no. You may say you seen pictures well same thing with God I can say I heard him talk to me doesn't make it false or true. To say there's no God is saying that without reason why? Because let me ask you this? Do you know anyone or anything that was created from nothing? If you do I'd love to see it, it seems illogical to think that all this we have happened by chance. You may say with all the bad things in the world how can God allow it? Well he's not your babysitter, He's not gonna save everyone from certain doom. Life will go on and He will not stop it. I would like to hear anything from you guys if you would want to say somethin about how God does not exist and I will try my best to answer you. I am starting my own group against this atheist rising. Wanna be rational... let's get rational ;)[/quote]

Ok Im new here. So Im not even going to read all the responces to this post. Heres my responce.

No, we can not prove that God does not exist.
But can you prove that he does exist?
No.

In 1000 years, will someone be able to "prove" that you existed?

In my thinking, no. There is no REAL way of PROVING something, such as this existed. Sure, the dinosours. Ok, theres a fine example. But to prove the fact, that you, one particular person, did exist, is quite impossible in my mind.

There is no real evidence that you existed 1000 years from now. Sure there will be papers, records, and a tumb stone...but are those fake? Or are they authentic? There is no real way of telling.

Some day, there may be no real evidence of any of us ever existing. How could you tell that some random person dident just create these chats, and forums? How can you tell that we are real people responding to each other?

I believe that we are living a life that could be consittered a myth in 1000 years. That is why I live in the moment. I live for myself, and I will not let anything stop me.

It may seem like this is going in circles, but its hard to explain all the thoughts in my head on this, and condence them down to something understandable in here.

I believe that worshiping something that may not exist is silly. And Im not going to waste my time.

Im an atheist. Im proud. Im not going to change.

Thanks for your time.
Molly

well, I just joined here and I havent taken the time to read all of the posts here, but this is why I have come to the conclusion that god doesn't exist.

Evolution: there is a simple explaination as to how explaination works
-Tuberculosis disease
-take the TB medicine which should get rid of the bacteria
-you feel better after 3 weeks of taking the medicine so you stop taking it, but the medicine tells you to take it for 4 weeks
-although most of the TB died, those that survived become immune to that medicine
-those resistant TB bacteria multiply and their offspring are too immune to the medicine so a new medicine must be used

This shows survival of the fittest and evolution perfectly because the organism adapted to its living situation and found means of survival. It goes against what religion says about evolution but it isnt wrong.

History: Throughout history, there have been hundreds of religions and gods to go along with them. In old world culture alone, there are nearly 200 greater gods. All can be related to a "hero complex" which is a 22 point system that is used to compare religious figures. with key points in their supposed lives. Religions have this nifty tendancy of picking little things from one and other, christianity is the most notorious for doing this. In fact, all main points in Jesus' life (birth, fleet to egypt, return to his home land, 12 apostles, last supper, death, resurection, and more) had already been seen thousands of years before him all around the old world in Roman, Greek, Asian, Persian, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern culture.

To me, it seems just a bit fishy that religion could be true when it is just put up against a brief examination of its own history

This comment has been moved here.

[quote]well, I just joined here and I havent taken the time to read all of the posts here, but this is why I have come to the conclusion that god doesn't exist.

Evolution: there is a simple explaination as to how explaination works
-Tuberculosis disease
-take the TB medicine which should get rid of the bacteria
-you feel better after 3 weeks of taking the medicine so you stop taking it, but the medicine tells you to take it for 4 weeks
-although most of the TB died, those that survived become immune to that medicine
-those resistant TB bacteria multiply and their offspring are too immune to the medicine so a new medicine must be used

This shows survival of the fittest and evolution perfectly because the organism adapted to its living situation and found means of survival. It goes against what religion says about evolution but it isnt wrong.[/quote]
KCahill made the same point, but didn't answer my following questions. Perhaps you can.

If evolution is true as you say, how does it somehow conclude that God doesn't exist? Evolution says nothing about our origins and leaves the question opened, so I'm confused as to your usage of evolution as an argument against God.

[quote]History: Throughout history, there have been hundreds of religions and gods to go along with them. In old world culture alone, there are nearly 200 greater gods.[/quote]
I don't see what your point is here either. Because there are lots of conceptions of gods, [b]none[/b] of them must exist? When is this a valid and scientific method for determining truth?

[quote]All can be related to a "hero complex" which is a 22 point system that is used to compare religious figures. with key points in their supposed lives. Religions have this nifty tendancy of picking little things from one and other, christianity is the most notorious for doing this.[/quote]
Straight out of the God Who Wasn't There, huh?

Even if that were true, how does this disprove the notion that God exists?

[quote]In fact, all main points in Jesus' life (birth, fleet to egypt, return to his home land, 12 apostles, last supper, death, resurection, and more) had already been seen thousands of years before him all around the old world in Roman, Greek, Asian, Persian, Egyptian, and Middle Eastern culture.[/quote]
Evidence, please. Pick one example of this and show me a direct quote from a manuscript that has been confirmed as pre-Christian that says that this savior god dod any of those things.

I somehow doubt you will. Why? Because either you haven't researched this enough yourself to answer that request and you've merely been spouting off what other people say, or because you haven't researched this enough yourself to answer that request and you've merely been spouting off what other people say. The unfortunate truth for Pagan-influence folks is that the manuscripts that say such things almost always come hundreds of years after Christianity, and when they don't, they're irrelevant or stupid comparisons.

Zach, your reasons for not believing in God are invalid, mainly because both can be completely true without excluding God.

The sky is blue, therefore God doesn't exist.
Pineapple is gross, therefore God doesn't exist.
I prayed for a million dollars and didn't get it, therefore God doesn't exist.

These are all irrelevant and stupid arguments, and your arguments, while not as stupid as these and considerably more thought out, are just as logically valid.

~P-Dunn

[quote=P-Dunn][quote]The flood myth is a good example.[/quote]
No it's not, Dave, since the Bible says that no one was innocent except for Noah and his family.

[quote]Im an atheist. Im proud. Im not going to change.

Thanks for your time.
Molly[/quote]
Sorry, Molly. This is a forum for free thinking people, and if you have decided that you won't change, you're not thinking free.

;-)

So why didn't Noah take the babys and raise them to be jewish or whatever the hell noah was.

Welcome to the forum. Hehe.[/quote]

[quote]First off, my evolution example is a valid example of evolution, according to christianity god created everything as it is now and that hasn't and won't change.[/quote]
Your evolution example is a valid example of adaptation/microevolution. But this is beside the point.

"According to Christianity" is a rather silly thing to say. The Bible doesn't specifically say, "God created things as they are." In fact, the Bible does say that God let the earth produce it's own things. This type of language leaves it open to interpretation.

Of course, I don't want to debate science. It's not my purview.

[quote]The evolution of bacteria shows that the bible was wrong.[/quote]
This is only a problem if you think the every word of the Bible has to be literal truth in order for you to believe anything it says in the Bible. This is an absurd standard to hold. I assume you were once a fundamentalist.

If Genesis is wrong, then Genesis is wrong. It doesn't affect things written in Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Disproving one part of the Bible does not disprove the entire thing.

[quote]My point about there being 200 greater gods is simply how do you know which is true?[/quote]
By looking at the evidence. It's not that hard to grasp.

[quote]You worship Jesus, god, and the holy spirit under the belief that all others but you are wrong.[/quote]
Ah, ah, ah. I worship Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit, and [b]as a consequence[/b] of that belief, since truth by definition is exclusive, I can determine that if I am worshiping the correct God, then everyone else is wrong.

[quote]How do you know that your religion is the true one?[/quote]
Because there's a great amount of evidence to support the story of the Gospels, and belief in it is reasonable.

Because of the great amount of things that I and people I know have experienced in relation to this God, including answered prayer, change of heart and character, "peace that passes all understanding," etc.

[quote]There is no proof, in fact more evidence shows that Hinduism has a better chance of being true.[/quote]
You're going to have to back that up.

[quote]My point about the Hero Complex is that all gods and saviors follow it in some way, they are all the same. Your Jesus is no different than all the others. IE he is false too.[/quote]
Sweeping generalization without a shred of backup.

[quote]The sad fact that your beliefs are based off of what you were probably raised too and they are lies that have been told for thousands of years, since before the old testament was written.[/quote]
This is certainly a loaded statement. You have no idea how I was raised, by what means I became a Christian, or what or how I currently believe, so you have nothing more than an assumption here.

Turns out that you are correct to some degree, however. I was raised in a Christian household and became a Christian at a relatively young age. Several years ago, however, I rexamined my faith because it was blind, and now I have turned it into something that is more my own.

About "lies" that have been told...This is a common tactic of the non-theist who wishes to discredit the theists' belief. This mostly occurs in ID debates, however...The opposing side calls the other a "liar" or says that he is "telling lies." However, in order for something to be a lie, it must be a statement that is false that is [b]known[/b] to be false by the person telling it. If you're going to accuse me of being a liar or accuse Christians of being liars, you're going to have to be accusing me and my fellow Christians that we all [b]know[/b] that our beliefs are false already.

I do not take kindly to assertions of lying without any basis, so please cease.

[quote]I was raised and confirmed as a catholic, god was pressed on me for the first 15 years of my life.[/quote]
I'm sorry to hear that. Belief should never be pressed on anyone.

[quote]Then I actually began to learn about my "god" I reaserched books, read the bible, learned about history and science.[/quote]
Out of curiosity, which books did you research? Did you read the Bible from an open mind perspective or did you read it with a slanted mindset? When you learned about history and science, what about the two of them somehow disproved God?

[quote]The only thing that points to the existance of your god is a bible[/quote]
There are many things that point to the existence of a creator outside of what the Bible says. But I suppose that this is for another debate.

[quote]that was supposedly written is his word by unnamed people[/quote]
Why do you say "unnamed?" What is your epistemic test for determining who is the author of an ancient document?

Do you even know what epistomology means?

[quote]2 generations after the death of christ[/quote]
This is not a problem at all. Real historians certainly don't think it is.

[quote]that is so contradictory that 90% of it was declared to have been written by heretics by the church.[/quote]
Back it up, again.

[quote]If the 4 gosples that are in the bible is the word of god, I'd hate to see how crazy the other 36 are.[/quote]
You're lumping all the gospels in one category as if they're all equal. This is not true. Many of the Gospels that were rejected were written several [b]hundred years[/b] after the life of Christ and contain such blatant exaggerations as crosses that walk around and talk to people. THAT's why they were written out.

I don't suppose you have any clue how the canon was formed, do you?

[quote]So don't even begin to call my arguments irrelevent, stupid, or invalid because your tunneled views are an insult to humanity.[/quote]
Zach, you still have not shown how God cannot exist if evolution is true, or how God cannot exist if Jesus was a myth as part of a Hero Complex. If you cannot do that, then your arguments are, by logical definition, completely irrelevant to the debate of whether God exists or not.

How exactly are my views "tunneled?" What views are you talking about, specifically? And how are they an insult to humanity?

You also did not answer my request:

"Pick one example of this and show me a direct quote from a manuscript that has been confirmed as pre-Christian that says that this savior god dod any of those things."

Will you, or will you not?

[quote=P-Dunn][quote]So why didn't Noah take the babys and raise them to be jewish or whatever the hell noah was.[/quote]
What are you talking about, Dave?

Then again, should I even ask? If you have no idea what religion Noah was, then you have no business being in a debate about the Bible.[/quote]

The religion didn't have a name since jews are decendants of abraham and christians are followers of jesus.

[quote=P-Dunn][quote]The religion didn't have a name since jews are decendants of abraham and christians are followers of jesus.[/quote]
Noah's religion was essentially a very primitive monotheism, based on more of a direct interation with God and the moral nature that he had been given.

Now what were we talking about again?[/quote]
So why didn't Noah take the babys and raise them to be Slaves to noahs idea of god/

[quote=P-Dunn][quote]So why didn't Noah take the babys and raise them to be Slaves to noahs idea of god/[/quote]
I think a better question is why [i]would[/i] he?[/quote]
Since your obviously going to try to fit the where do morals come from question into every arguement you fail

[quote]So why didn't Noah take the babys and raise them to be Slaves to noahs idea of god[?][/quote]

Let us look at the ramifications of such an idea for a moment.

If Noah were to take the babies and raise them in such a manner, it would in effect be kidnapping (because I'm sure the parents wouldn't agree to), which I'm sure is immoral in an objective morality framework. If that is so, and if he did, then Noah wouldn't be much of a righteous man and thus would not be saved from the flood. Of course that means we must assume that the means don't justify the ends.

Another aspect to consider is that if Noah were to raise those rug rats in this manner, people such as yourself would accuse him of forcing his religion down their throats. I'm pretty sure that's a no-no in your books.

Soter Out

[quote]yeah, that's MUCH worse than leaving them to die for no reason[/quote]
It's interesting that you say that they "die for no reason." It proves you haven't read the story at all.

[quote]you're' right, those damn sinful just born babies.[/quote]
Right, because the vast majority of people who died in the flood would have been infants.

Puh[i]leeze[/i].

17?.... 17?

I'm in no mood this second to break down all the issues with your post but if anyone is interested, I'd be glad too.