ELECTROGOD

Are you seriously trying to use these examples as a way to show that your claimed supernatural being exists? Why do some mentally disturbed people believe that tin foil will protect them from the space aliens they are convinced exist? Is this because it's so?

Because folks like you go around saying that such things are true and since they are true everyone should follow the demands of the belief system, even if they don't care to. We have to address it at some point in order to keep our freedoms intact.

Why would that be such a bad thing? I readily accept all sorts of things on a daily basis because there is evidence of their existance and I think it's great.
Is it bad that I don't believe that guy who is trying to sell me the Brooklyn Bridge for $20? He says he is the owner but hasn't shown me any proof yet (he says that he can't get the proof in time before he leaves town and the offer is gone).

MHF

The contradictions are not enough for me to abandon Christianity. All that these contradictions tell me is that the Bible can not be literally true, in other words, the Bible is not written by God. But it could still be inspired by God, and that's enough for many Christians.

However, the biblical violence rules out with certainty that the Bible is inspired by God. I don't have any favorites, I dislike all of the violence. But if want a quote that by itself proves to me with 100% certainty that the Bible is not divinely inspired, then check Psalms 137:9

igfm_spanky

-------------------------------------------------

Ubercat

Because there is not the slightest shred of evidence in support of anything even vaguely supernatural. Because mankind has enough trouble with REAL problems, without people wasting their time, effort, and money supporting shysters. jeebus IS NOT coming back. If he ever DID live, he's dead now. Period. Trashing the environment because you believe he's on the way and will clean the place up, or trying to bring about armageddon in the middle east because you think the rapture will save you, can have deadly consequences for all of us, "fallen sinners" and greedy, selfish christians alike. Not to mention all of the other creatures that depend on this planet that all the fudies are trying to send to hell.

-Ubercat

Truth_Seeker

Thanks
First of all, I stated at the beginning of my story that it was just that. A narrative, not a debate. However, if you care to debate any of the points in my deconversion story, I will be glad to let you know my reasoning behind anything contained within it. Of course atheists are going to be a little partial to a story of a persons deconversion from fundamentalism. What else would you expect on a board with a name like Internet Infidels? I posted it here in hopes of helping people like you understand the process I went through to discovering that God is a myth. That along with the fact that there are many others like me who share many of the same experiences, and reading stories like these are an encouragement to a lot of them. You can go to your local church and get all the encouragement you will ever need.....and there you will find people who will accept your so called "proof" without debate. I come here. And if I can ever help you answer any genuine questions you might have about your faith, I will be glad to do so. Until then, should you choose to continue posting here, you need to expect a bunch of skeptics to be skeptical about any so called proof you might present. I suggest that at a minimum, you ask yourself these two questions.....Could they be right? Could I be wrong? Asking questions like these are the first step to discovering truth.

Wayne Delia

It is. It's in the context of when Jesus began His preaching. Was it before or after John the Baptist was in prison?

Then the author of Mark left out all the details of Jesus's preaching before that? It's a strange point in the story to join Jesus in mid-preaching; it's Chapter 1, and there are only thirteen verses before it. What was it about Jesus's earlier preaching, including the preaching with John the Baptist, that was so insignificant that it didn't merit any mention at all in the book of Mark?

The timeline in Mark is fairly definitive. John the Baptist baptizes Jesus, "and immediately the spirit driveth Him into the wilderness" (Mark 1:12). After 40 days hallucinating in the desert, playing with wild beasts and angels, John was put into prison. Then, Jesus comes into Galilee, preaching the gospel, "after John was put in prison" (Mark 1:14). On the other hand, the author of John seems to think that Jesus and John the B put on a traveling road show together.

Maybe to you, but otherwise, no.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Hang on to your hat; you're about to get royally flamed. To others reading this post, it might be a good idea not to blink, because the original post will be gone in a few hours. And to any moderators, how about giving me a little latitude on this, because it points out a very important infraction.

Posts tend to get long when you pad them out with a lot of material which is not your own. Plagiarism is a Bad Thing. It's intellectually lazy because you didn't trouble yourself to think or develop your ideas on your own, and it's dishonest because you didn't give the proper cite.

That's a very bad debate starting strategy: that you're not trying to convince anyone of anything. I could start out a post with "You are deceived because you are being controlled by gamma rays from Mars beamed into your brain, but I'm not trying to convince you that's valid" - then ramble on as if it was valid.

First of all, try and be a little more honest: it's not "your response." You lifted it from a website and you didn't give proper attribution.

Parts of what I read of your post were written by someone else, specifically, a fellow named Rich Deem on www.godandscience.org. The full URL, of course, will be given a little later.

How fortunate for you that you happened to grow up in a geographical environment where the One True God was worshipped! And how convenient that everyone else needs to find your particular interpretation of God, which you've already found. Many of those other people seem to think the same way, except you're the one who has to find their interpretation of their God.

But clearly, there are other religions which have had even more of a life-changing effect on people than Christianity. For that matter, other cults could make the same claim. And there are reports of a scientific experiment - the "God Helmet" - which artificially induces, on demand, a religious experience in any patient.

Undoubtedly, people have already taken you to task for the life-changing experiences that were undergone by cult members such as those in the Jonestown mass suicides and Marshall Applewhite's Heaven's Gate cult more recently. Those people were so sure of their beliefs they died for them. How could that be possible, if their beliefs were not true?

(snip - please note I'm not dissecting every line of your post.)

Just as the shit I took this morning is evidence of your God, too.

Mainly because the morons who think it DOES exist are trying to legislate that belief into laws and school curricula.

What we find hilarious is that theist apologist wanna-be's are unable to demonstrate in any tangible way how their religious fantasy of God is any more valid than the leprechauns, pink unicorns, and Santa Claus you're laughing at. We're laughing at the same things, it's just that we're including your God (and pretty much all other gods) in the group of things we're laughing at.

That's an absolutely outrageous assertion that is easily proven false. I'll try to keep this short and simple.

There are about 6.5 billion people in the world. Of them, about 2 billion are Christians, and most believe that in order to get to heaven, one must accept Jesus as their divine Lord and Savior. But also among the 6 billion people are about one billion who are Muslims, and most of them believe that in order to get to heaven, one must accept Allah alone as the One True God, and anyone who believes Jesus is divine is headed for the Islamic hell.

Both of those beliefs cannot be simultaneously true. Either both are wrong, or at most one is correct. Yet there is a group with a billion people believing something different than an even larger group of two billion. At least one of those groups is wrong, so there's at least a billion people believing something which is wrong.

So, you're refuted on your assertion that "People don't believe in wrong things" by, oh, say, about seven orders of magnitude.

That entire section was plagiarized from the following website: http://www.godandscience.org/apologe...suffering.html

You dishonestly reported them as if they were your own claims, without giving proper attribution. That's plagiarism, and that's dishonest, and that's why it's against the rules.

I am snipping an additional four paragraphs of plagiarized material from the same URL.

And that material was plagiarized from http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/evil.html

You really need to stop doing that or you'll get in a lot of trouble on IIDB.

Try forming your own opinions and arguments. If you can't, then at least give proper credit to those who are doing your thinking for you.

Part of what gave away the fact that you are plagiarizing is that you randomly included a double-space between some words. Either your space key is sticking on your keyboard, or else you copy-and-pasted extra spaces from the web page you ripped off. Incidentally, the material you cribbed for this argument was found at http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/rock.html.

(snipping out three more paragraphs of plagiarized material to get to this: )

This was plagiarized from the same reference noted before (rock.html) But let's have a look at what was originally on the web site:

"The atheist distorts the biblical definition of omnipotence in order to "prove" that God cannot exist. Contrary to their claims, omnipotence does not include the ability to do things that are, by definition, impossible. Neither does omnipotence include the ability to fail. By defining omnipotence as requiring one to have the ability to fail, atheists have defined omnipotence as being impossible. Of course, an omnipotent God would never fail."

You changed the beginning of the actual author's sentence from "The atheist distorts..." to "Atheists distorts..." (which, apart from being dishonest, is grammatically incorrect). Apart from that, you left the entire paragraph identical to the original author's work.

So says Rich Deem. But what do you think?

'Fess up. Those are not YOUR "favourite arguments." They were thought up by someone else, whom you did not properly attribute.

Only people who don't know very much about science. Maybe you could plagiarize another website and provide this clue you think we need.

But plagiarizing someone else's work is generally intellectually dishonest. How do you think God feels about you doing that? You're supposed to be witnessing for God, and your credibility has just completely disappeared. Is it OK with God if you tell a lie for God?

Well, at least we can think for ourselves, and don't have to resort to plagiarism.

Faith is necessary only because God is too lazy to get around to showing any evidence that He exists. The people who make their living off other people's belief have convinced you, and billions of others, that this "faith" is a very good thing, but it's nothing more than the Emperor's New Clothes (reference available on request).

Not for nothing, but you're also lying when you plagiarize. You're representing someone else's work as your own, without giving proper attribution.

Knock off the plagiarism, and maybe your life might be even more enriched!

WMD

Nectaris

Since Allah is the Arabic word for God and Muslims worship the God of Abraham, are you saying you believe in the son even though you have "refuted" the father?

Dave

Hedshaker

Great post Wayne :notworthy:

I recognised everyone of ggazoo's "arguments" that we've heard so many, many times before, but also the various differences in writing style from ggazoo's was striking. Again, kudos for searching the net and finding exactly where they were plagerised from. Excellent work :notworthy:

{Edited}

fromdownunder

{Edited for consistency}

Naah, he will not. No less a person than Saul of Tarsus has said in writiing that lying for God is perfectly acceptable. And some christians have been doing this for centuries.

ggazoo. Don't give up - keep lying. Paul said you could.

Norm