BrazenPenguin

It was, but more specifically it was saying I don't believe the claims in the Qu'ran because I don't believe in Allah. But i didn't list all of my reasons for not being a Muslem. One of which is that I don't believe in a religion in which you get to heavan based on the works that you did while here on earth. Also, I don't believe that a having seven(?) virgins in heaven as a reward for being a marty fits very well with the other Islamic beliefs. Ask me this later after I have read the Qu'ran a few times and have studied Islam more.

Weltall

Wow, 100 posts and the OP still hasn't responded. Not that it's inconsistent with his other post on the topic, but still. You'd think he'd notice...

Rational BAC

Just shows to go you -----

----just need a catchy title for a subject and everyone will join in and you can slip out the back door without anyone noticing.

Happens a lot.

Rhaedas

Of course you realize that one part of the bible claims this very same thing, while another conflicting part claims what you probably prefer to believe, that faith alone gets you into heaven.

If I was a believer, I'd hope that the works was the correct one, since only those who do good on earth would make it to heaven. I wouldn't want to share a heaven with those who did nothing to help humanity, but believed in their own salvation through blind faith.

Mullibok

Hey, you're right, I forgot about him. But we got Penguin to pick up the slack! Thanks, Penguin!

Wayne Delia

Well, Magus55 won't go away on his own, so we generally take this opportunity to demonstrate his hypocrisy. Apparently, we're close-minded because we won't accept Christianity, but M55 won't even respond about whether he's open-minded enough to accept another non-Christian religion.

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Be open-minded and believe everything?

Of course not. From Magus55's post, the intent is anyone who doesn't accept what he believes is close-minded.

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Yes, that is what many people imply when the charge a person with being closeminded.

Then that would be unreasonable. Rather than being completely "open-minded," someone who believes everything would be completely "gullible." Instead of being dependent on the amount of different beliefs accepted, "open-mindedness" and "close-mindedness" reflect the amount of different beliefs considered. In that sense, atheists are generally among the most open-minded people around, because they're not tied or committed to a particular dogma, ideaology, or world-view; thus, the term "freethinker". (It's not a bad thing.)

For example, as a Christian, you were asked whether you would accept the claims of the Qu'ran as evidence of Islam, and you replied (in a later post) "No, that is because i don't have faith in the Qu'ran or Allah." That's a close-mindedness in which you are unwilling to consider other alternatives. But on the other hand, atheists generally respond "Sure - show me what you got!" to Christian claims of evidence for their God, which we evaluate according to what makes sense to us: logic, reasoning, and physical effects in the real world. We evaluate them WITHOUT a presupposed belief in what you are supposed to be providing evidence for. But all we get are logical fallacies, invalid analogies, and excuses why the evidence can't be presented: "Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God! Pascal's Wager, you can't go wrong! Believe God exists, then go look for evidence, and you will find it! Archaeology proves the Bible! It meant something different back then! (etc.)" After we get the same fallacies and poor analogies for the hundredth or thousandth time, they tend to get dismissed, as you found with your reference to Lee Strobel's "The Case for Faith," which appears to be close-mindedness, but it's already been considered, debunked, and dismissed many times before.

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I firmly believe that Incubus is the best band in the world. Nothing that anybody tells me will change this. Does that make me closeminded?

In the sense of you being unwilling to consider alternative points of view, yes.

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The only way that I would rate Incubus as a lesser band would be if they starting sucking or I heard another band that was better.

If you were willing to objectively (well, as objectively as can be) determine whether Incubus is starting to suck, or entertain the possibility that the performance of other bands could be better, then you are more open-minded than your original position.

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My search for the best band in the world is like a person's search for a religion/belief.

It doesn't sound like you are actively searching among alternatives and evaluating them for either your favorite band or your preferred religion. Also, if I disagree with you about the quality of your favorite band, would the band, along with you and everyone else at an Incubus concert, threaten me with an eternity of punishment in hell?

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However, my God does not change, and I have not found a better religion/belief.

Actually, your God went through a dramatic, significant, almost schizophrenic personality change from the Old Testament to the New Testament. In the OT, He was a homicidal maniac, flooding the world, ordering the genocide of an entire nation of innocent people for the already-punished offenses of their long-dead ancestors (1 Samuel 15:1-3), and recommending ghastly things to be done with virgin girl prisoners of war (Numbers 31). There seems to be considerably less of the criminally insane behavior in the New Testament, so "my God doesn't change" doesn't wash.

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While I try to find this best band, I will think, Incubus is the best until i find something better.

"Incubus is the best until I find something better" is radically different from "I firmly believe that Incubus is the best band in the world. Nothing that anybody tells me will change this."

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Closed minded? I guess so, we all are. Whats so wrong with it?

I don't know, but whatever it is, it was enough to inspire you to write your post.

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Im not trying to just pick on you, WMD.

You were picking on me? From what I read, you haven't even started. However, your complaints applied very well to Magus55. He, in fact, brought up the whole issue of close-mindedness. And all that hoo-hah would be irrelevant, because in this instance, an atheist (me) is saying it to a Christian (Magus55) for the reasons cited in my post. People are certainly welcome to say that to me, but if they can't back it up as I did with Magus55, it's nothing more than schoolyard taunting.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Absolutely not. A Christian Atheist, in the Church of England, is someone who follows the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without holding the belief that Jesus was actually a son of God, or God Himself - regardless what anyone thinks Jesus actually said about Himself.

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Yes, this verse confused me greatly. What does he mean by the Law? The Ten Commandments? Alll the laws of the Jews? I'm not sure. I didn't understand this verse, nor do I understand the human brain.

The Law is the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible, attributed to Moses, even though Moses somehow was able to include details of his death and burial in his own books). There are perhaps over 600 different laws in these books. Exodus contains several versions (no kidding) of the so-called "Ten Commandments." Leviticus and Deuteronomy contain most of the Law. Jesus said in Matthew 5:18ff that He did not come to alter any of the Law at all, and it would remain in effect until heaven and earth pass away, one of which I notice has not yet passed away, unless I am confused or very much mistaken.

The Prophets are the various Old Testament books attributed to people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others, which contain future predictions as well as regular statements that have been turned into alleged future predictions of Jesus as Messiah, claimed by Christians.

The brain is the central organ in the human nervous system which controls cognition, intelligence, memory, reasoning, and voluntary as well as involuntary motor actions. These mental capacities and motor controls are achieved through a firing of neurons over small gaps (called "synapses") in a neural net of biochemical processes. Lack of a brain is considered a disadvantage. ("My brain? That's my second favorite organ!" - Woody Allen)

WMD

Wayne Delia

You missed the point. The question is not whether you care to go to the church you were brought up in. The question is whether or not you can be sure that Christianity is the truth if you haven't been exposed to very many other religions. I've been an atheist for perhaps 25 years, and I still retain habits from the rituals of the Catholic Church.

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I no longer follow my parents religion and am old enough to decide for myself what i will believe in. The real test will be when I go to college, that will show what me and my religion are made of.

Indeed. It was late in college when I abandoned my belief in Christianity, shortly after I read "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. If the possibility of critical examination of your own religion bothers you, perhaps you should consider a Christian college, where they will make sure you don't have the opportunity to entertain doubts; most likely, the library at a Christian college will not have "The Age of Reason."

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Once again, its back to faith. "I have faith that there are errors only in insignificant places..."

You would do well to abandon that strategy. You are trying to defend Biblical inerrancy (your claim from your first post) by saying that the errors that ARE there are insignificant, yet you cannot positively identify any particular error, just that you have "faith" that the errors are insignificant translation errors. You are basically assuming the truth of the proposition you need to demonstrate is true.

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But I do accept the cristian beliefs as true! I just can't prove that they are.

I wasn't talking about you, I was referring to skeptics and atheists who do not presuppose the beliefs you have without evidence.

WMD

Wayne Delia

You are correct: it is not a good example. Basically, you've made a leap of faith from "Is it possible that God could be in the unshaded part?" to the implication "Therefore, my God exists." Do you think it's possible that a non-Christian god could be in the unshaded part? For the same (well, similar) reason you don't believe in the non-Christian god - lack of sufficient evidence to persuade you to accept that belief, in light of your current belief in the Christian God - atheists do not believe in your Christian God, for a similar lack of sufficient evidence to persuade us to accept that belief.

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Yeah, what are atheist teachings?

Well, you coined the phrase, so I was asking if you could supply any examples.

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The only official atheist belief is that there are no gods, right?

Absolutely not. Atheism is a lack of belief in gods of any kind, which does not imply any positive belief that no gods exist.

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Why can't they have more beliefs, like you should be nice to people?

I was thinking that you couldn't get any more wrong than you were after your previous statement, but you managed to accomplish a higher level of wrongness. That's "Rosie O'Donnell Lap Dance wrong." That's as wrong as a turtle fucking a rock.

Do you honestly believe that atheists believe ONLY that no gods exist? And they believe nothing else? How would you deal with my situation: I lack belief in gods of any kind, and I believe the Boston Red Sox will win the 2003 World Series. Here I lack belief in gods, and I hold at least one other belief. If I'm not an atheist, then what kind of theist am I?

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If you can't believe that God exists, then you are an atheist, not a Christian Atheist.

I do not identify myself as a Christian Atheist, nor have I ever claimed to be one. You got confused somewhere along the way. I brought up the term as used in the Church of England to describe those who followed certain moral teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, without holding to the belief that Jesus was actually a god, or that any gods necessarily exist.

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I wasn't meaning to say that Christianity was valid because they changed the calendar when Jesus came. I was just saying that it was a big thing that happened. Course, I'm not sure what that says about the Norse gods.

That's because you don't believe in the Norse gods, so calendar-association doesn't mean too much. But being a member of the Jesus Fan Club, calendar-association is suddenly "a big thing that happened." The best estimates of Jesus's birth are circa 4 BC, a consensus among sacred and secular Biblical scholars. If it was such "a big thing that happened," why then the four-year mistake?

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Hmmm, this seems like another one of those translation "mistakes", maybe?

"Mistakes," as in "errors," as in "what an inerrant Bible has none of?" You seem to have softened your original hard-line inerrantist position considerably since your first post.

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Maybe, in Herbrew, the first two legs of an insect are reffered to as his arms, the back four, are referred to as his legs. I don't know.

That's why you won't persuade a skeptic: "Here's how it could have been. Therefore, it must have been this way, and thus, the Bible is still inerrant." What would your reaction be if it turns out it was not mistranslated? Your ad-hoc "what if" explanation could possibly (not necessarily) apply to insects, but would remain wrong for birds, unless the wings were referred to as "legs", which would be... well, wrong.

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But if I ever meet a Hebrew with a degree in biology, I'll ask. I didn't find the part about the birds with four legs.

Why would the biology major need to be a Hebrew? Or why would a Hebrew linguist need to have a degree in biology? This is not a brand-new problem we're asking you to explain. The proper translation is, indeed, "four legs" for insects and birds - not "forelegs" meaning upper arms. The authors simply got the number of legs wrong.

Now that you mention it, there is a significant discrepancy between the King James Version and Revised Standard Version for Leviticus 11:20-21. King James Version uses the term "fowls" (immediately following a discussion of birds) while the RSV uses "winged insects." "Fowls" are not "insects", but either way, "four legs" is wrong - it's either two for birds, or six for insects.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Now, suppose you were arrested and charged with criminal solicitation to commit murder. Do you think you would be found innocent, since somebody else did the dirty deed? The penalty for the crime you described is a jail sentence in the neighborhood of eight-to-ten years in prison, and you are using this as an allegory that you're innocent.

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As you said, God saved Lot and his family because they were righteous, not because they were perfect. Righteous means a person who's sins have been forgiven, or moral.

How could Lot's sins have been forgiven if Jesus wasn't born yet, much less crucified and resurrected yet? If sins could be forgiven before Jesus was born, why was Jesus's sacrifice necessary? Why couldn't God forgive the sins of the people He destroyed in Sodom and Gomorrah? For that matter, why couldn't God have forgiven Lot's wife's sin of simply looking back at the firestorm? Why did such a righteous man as Lot, whose sins were presumably forgiven, engage in drunken debauchery and incest with his two formerly-virgin daughters after the firestorm, without any mention of punishment or condemnation from God?

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When God created humans, he gave them free will, the ability to chose to do right or wrong.

That's not what Genesis stated. Adam and Eve were unaware of the difference between good and evil until they ate from the aptly-named "Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil," so their free will was morally neutral. They did not know that disobeying God was evil.

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Would you rather have imperfect children (pretend you have some if you don't) chose to obey you, or would you rather have perfect children who you controled completely?

The parent/child analogy is utterly useless and invalid when involving God. First of all, I have two beautiful, bright, inquisitive, happy children who are as perfect as they could possibly be. Although they certainly don't need it, I frequently remind them of their remarkable accomplishments in school and sports. As just an example, my son Joe earned a black belt in karate at the age of 8 (in 2001), has "run the table" in his report cards for the past three quarters (the highest possible marks in every possible category), and has been invited to study abroad in England and France next summer. I could talk about them all day, but I'll stop now. Anyway, wife and I love our children very, very much, but we are not omnipotent like God is claimed to be, so we have limitations. We are aware that certain hormonal changes in their upcoming teenage years will result in very normal teenage behavior, like rebellion. My 8-year-old daughter, Lisa, is very intelligent and pretty, but already has a teenager attitude. We do not intend to curse our children to an eternity of punishment in hell for acting like normal teenagers and possibly rejecting our authority. Nor do we intend to wipe out the entire neighborhood for the minor sins of a few kids in the neighborhood. Nor do we intend to kill Joe so that we will be able to forgive the arbitrarily-defined offenses of other people, as long as the other people believe we killed Joe as a sacrifice for them. If we did any of that, we would be arrested, tried, convicted, and thrown in the asylum for the criminally insane. But if God does the same things, it's called Christianity. Luckily for our family, your analogy is invalid.

WMD