mountainman

Good questions.

Rhetoric is the refuge for those without evidence. The evidence points to a mythical jesus not an historical jesus. Hence the rhetorical slurring we have witnessed from those without the evidence in their position for their position.

aa5874

Why do you BELIEVE the Jesus story? Why do Christians BELIEVE Jesus LIVES in OUTER SPACE and will come BACK for them and take them to LIVE in OUTER SPACE.



Ac 1:11 - Where in the SKY do Christians BELIEVE Jesus live?

Is Jesus one of the SKY people?

Is Jesus one of the Pygmies?

Maybe Jesus LIVES WITH the SPACE ALIENS.

I just want to know where in SPACE Jesus lives.

Joh 14:2-3 How is it that Jesus have so many MANSIONS in SPACE?

Because there is LOTS of SPACE in SPACE.><><

I want Gakuseidon to tell me about those MANSIONS in SPACE that Jesus is preparing for BELIEVERS.

Jesus MUST have MANSIONS in SPACE for PYGMIES if he was telling the truth.

mountainman

Good questions aa5874,

Is Captain Jesus Kirk really in control on the bridge?

Best wishes,


Pete

Solo

'Bible hijacked by religion' ? Do you have any idea how flakey that sounds to someone outside Dawkins' group of woshippers ? I frankly don't see any difference between his atheistic messianism and the sweet reason that I was taught by the communists where I grew up. It's an identical headset: science conquers superstition; once the evil of religion is eradicated, peace and brotherhood will surely prevail. It's not that I disagree with some of Dawkins' ideas - e.g. I am 100% behind the French public school secularist model of education. But the guy is an atheist fundy cuckoo - he can't be possibly wrong if he sees Ted Haggard's church as Nurnberg rally . How can you not see that ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr0RgqxadTI

Excellent rebuff of Dawkins:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/com...cle1784953.ece


Hell, I watched through the video, and in vain I waited for Sam Harris to address the 'nuanced, liberal, intelligent' Christian thinkers; he kept returning to the horror show of stoning non-virgins on wedding night in Leviticus, or a mother who just a year back who sent her soon-to-be mass murderer to a church exorcist instead of a shrink, and then ruminating how much he would like to grant that God authored the Book and spoke metaphoriclly but, honestly, why would any of that not be written by a first century guy on sacrificing animals, keeping slaves and who is to be killed and why. Nothing about elctricity, nothing about DNA.......

This is such insulting sermonizing horseshit; yeah, ok, so let's grant may be some people who might not be slaughtering animals before they go to church, or yes some religious freaks who actually would allow their kids to receive transfusion, and I am not saying that all priests are into altar boys, but you know at the end of the day, why would anyone want to believe the bronze age crap, with all that great science around.....

None of this touches me in any way. So, I have some friends who are bright, and are into kids, and camping, and home renovations. They live with half of a brain that believes Jesus Christ will take them up when they are done down here, if they don't screw up. So what ? Everyone lives with some kind of BS inside that side of the skull that helps them cope with reality: Nirvana, a Thousand Year Reich, a communist paradise on Earth, Manchester United winning the triple, Messiah coming to Jerusalem, Clear Light of Reality, the big boobs of Zuzana (my high-school wet dreams). So tell us Vork, what makes you any different in feeling that your beliefs are superior to everyone else's ?

So, let's just say that if you do not believe you have to right to kill, mutilate, torture, and do other things that you don't want to be done to you, who should give a hoot what you call your beliefs ?

So what does Sam Harris think of Albert Schweitzer, Karl Barth or Paul Tillich ? Curious to hear. Send us a clip when he gets around to it.


Jiri

ApostateAbe

Yeah, it does seem a little silly to propose that we shouldn't let the Bible be hijacked by religion, when religion has been the engineer, owner and operator of that vehicle ever since it was first built. I don't think there is any shame in encouraging everyone else to hijack the Bible (and other ancient holy scriptures) away from religion. The Bible makes for an extremely useful historical resource, whether or not it is done right, but especially when it is done right.

GakuseiDon

:lol: All can join in the fun! Although, you don't need to be a remote viewing Tibetan monk to see that Dave has a hard time answering questions put to him.

GakuseiDon

I don't think anyone would disagree that the Bible is an important cultural artifact, a valuable time capsule for ancient beliefs. That's not the opposite view to "Bible, literally true or rubbish". It's the idea that not taking the Bible literally is wrong. As Sam Harris puts it in the first link you gave, taking the Bible literally is "having the courage of your convictions".

Read the first few lines of Harris's response below. Does he see that atheists taking a literalist reading of Scripture as being wrong, as being naive?:

Question: Do atheists take a literalist approach to scripture?

Sam Harris: Well this is a common criticism – the idea that the atheist if guilty of a literalist reading of Scripture no better than the reading of fundamentalist. And that it’s a very naïve way of approaching religion, and that there’s a lot more sophisticated and nuanced view of religion ______ and the atheist as disregarding that. A few problems with this. Anyone making that argument is failing to acknowledge just how many people really do approach these texts literally or functionally – whether they’re selective literalists, or literal all the way down the line. There is a . . . there are certain passages in Scripture that just cannot be read figuratively... Now it’s true that you can cherry pick Scripture, and you can look for all the good parts. You can ignore where it says in Leviticus where it says that if a woman is not a virgin on her wedding night, you’re supposed to stone her to death on her father’s doorstep. You can ignore that. And to my knowledge, all Jews and Christians do ignore that. In fact that’s not true. There are some Christians who actually do – you know, constructionist Christians, diminuinist Christians in the U.S. – who will say, you know, I think the penalty for adultery should be death. So there are people who have the courage of their convictions."

I wouldn't need to change much of the above to make it sound like it is coming from the mouth of a staunch fundamentalist.

hjalti

So we shouldn't take the stuff about stoning women "literally"? Is it an allegory? A parable? :huh:

GakuseiDon

Take it any way you like. Who is to say which way is wrong or right? The fundamentalists? Sam Harris? As Harris says, "people who have the courage of their convictions" take it literally.

hjalti

Now you're just being silly.