Nuwanda

Excuse me head sage, believing and knowing are not the same. Throwing them together and tossing them out as irrelevant is "not accepted."

You want proof for a miracle? How's this: Life.

There's my evidence. Now prove that life came from the non-living, without... any exercise of "maybe."

GenesisNemesis

Prove that life came from God first. Do not use any "design" arguments, either, as they may be refuted and compared to the Face of Mars. I have my reasons to think that life is not a miracle. Ever hear of elephant man?




There he is. Not a hoax, either. God made this guy to suffer, apparently.

Diogenes the Cynic

That's not evidence unless you can prove that life could not have arisen by natural processes. "Prove it wasn't magic" is not an argument. You have the burden of proof, not us.

Chris Weimer

Dude, take a debate class.

Nuwanda

6,580+ posts,... wow! I'll take a debate class if you'll leave your computer long enough to go outside and meet a real person. Maybe that's why the "life" thing meant nothing to you.

GenesisNemesis

This guy was made to suffer, apparently. And if "life" means nothing, then why do we live in the first place? Why don't all atheists just go out and kill themselves? Why do you resort to attacking someone? You're representing your religion badly, Nuwanda.

Withered

While one single contradiction might not be enough to cause a true believer to reconsider, one wonders why the sheer volume of inconsistancies does not.
Why is that?

Are we really surrounded by people that pretend not to notice that the book they build their lives around, and base their moral codes on, and fight wars for, is wrong about a heck of a lot of stuff?

Roland

1). Either Luke or John got the following story wrong:

Luke claims that Jesus appeared to "the eleven" disciples as they were sitting in the room that first Easter night, but John, relating the same story, claims that Thomas was absent, thus making it TEN disciples present, not eleven.

2). In Matthew's account of the resurrection, he has Mary Magdalene learn about Jesus' resurrection from an ANGEL. In John's account, she believes Jesus' body has been stolen until JESUS HIMSELF tells her he has risen.

3). Matthew claims that the risen Jesus appeared to his diciples in Galilee; Luke and John both show it as happening in Jerusalem. And in Matthew's version, "some doubted" after they saw him but, in John's account, only Thomas doubts (and that's before he sees Jesus).

Jack the Bodiless

Yes, it would be proper to do this. Reality trumps myth, every time. There have been many "catastrophic floods", but no worldwide deluge as described in the Bible: no matter how many myths say otherwise.

The physical evidence of such an event would be unmissable, and unmistakable. There IS geological evidence of much smaller floods from much further back in prehistory: so why is the Noachian Flood invisible to geologists? And how could the Greenland and Antarctic ice-caps (with over 100,000 years of annual layers) have survived such an event? And the Biblical Flood can be dated from the genealogies (how old each Biblical character was when he "begat" the next), placing the Flood in the middle of Egypt's Old Kingdom period, when the pyramids were being built: why didn't they notice it?

Floods are common, because human settlements tend to be on rivers. And there was a worldwide sea-level rise at the end of the Ice Age, when the ice melted. But those stories which closely resemble the Genesis one (with a big boat full of animals) are pretty much confined to the Middle East and regions influenced by Christian missionaries. Other flood stories contradict the Bible, with people surviving by clinging to trees and suchlike (according to Genesis, only the occupants of the Ark survived).
The atheist can indeed prove that the Biblical God does not exist (as this little experiment is demonstrating).

Chris Weimer

Why would I need to meet new people when I have a full time job, a loving fiancee, and a hell of a family?