WWFStern

I don't believe in any God whatsoever, let alone any specific religion's interpretation of God.

I am an atheist primarily because I believe naturalistic explanations for nature and the universe suffice. I see no reason to bring a supernatural creator into the equation, because naturalistic means do the job, even if only in plausible theories about that which is still unexplained.

Secondly, I see no point in believing in a God, even if one does exist, when I know nothing about this nature or expectations. For example, God could be benevolent and care about my actions. Or, God could be malevolent and care about my actions. Or, God could be benevolent and not care about my actions. Or, God could be malevolent and not care about my actions. Saying "I follow the Christian faith just in case God exists" is utterly nonsensical. That would be like somebody saying, "I follow the Satanist faith just in case a malevolent God exists." With limitless plausible possibilities, there is no way you can "be on the safe side" in terms of not offending God.

As for the Christian faith specifically, which really has been the focus of all my discussions, I simply find Christianity to be anti-science in that it requires one to believe in scientific impossibilities.

Here are some of my scientific objections to The Bible:

1. Adam and Eve story.
a. How did God create a female (Eve) from the male DNA of Adam's rib?
b. How did Adam and Eve successfully mate and produce offspring when, at most, they had identical DNA, and at least, they were twins?
c. How did a snake acquire the ability to speak in human language?

2. Noah's Ark.
a. How is it possible to hold all the world’s species in an ark with the dimensions specified? There are possibly up to 100 million animal species alone.
b. How is it possible to feed these millions of animals?
c. How did specific species and classes of animals become trapped on different continents? For example, most marsupials are only found in Australia. If the Noah’s Ark story were true, then we should expect a more homogeneous converge of species.
d. Why didn't many aquatic ecosystems die off from the massive change in salinity?
e. Why didn't many modern plants die out, as they should have?

By the way, this particular question isn't even really fair to ask. Noah's Ark has been explained:

Ziusudra reigned for ten years as king of Shuruppak, a Sumerian city then on the Euphrates River. Ziusudra's reign was at the end of the Jemdet Nasr period that ended with the flood of 2900 BC. Then as now, river barges were used for transporting cargo on the Euphrates River. This cargo included livestock, beer, wine, textiles, lumber, stone, metals, dried fish, vegetable oil, and other cargo. In June about 2900 BC during the annual inundation of the Euphrates River, the river was at crest stage. A six-day thunderstorm caused the river to rise about 15 cubits (22 feet) higher and overflow the levees. By the time the river began to rise, it was already too late to evacuate to the foothills of the mountains 110 miles away. Ziusudra boarded one of the barges that was already loaded with cargo being transported to market. The runaway barge floated down the Euphrates River into the Persian Gulf and grounded in an estuary at the mouth of the river. After moving to dry land, Ziusudra offered a sacrifice to a Sumerian god on an altar at the top of a temple ziggurat, an artificial hill. Later, storytellers mistranslated the ambiguous word for hill as mountain. The storytellers then erroneously assumed that the nearby barge must have grounded on top of a mountain.

3. Crossing the Red Sea.
Stipulating: The sea is roughly 1900km long and at its widest is more than 300km. The sea floor has a maximum depth of 2,500m in the central median trench and an average depth of 500m, but it also has extensive shallow shelves, noted for their marine life and corals. The sea has a surface area of roughly 438,000 or 450,000km².
a. Stipulating that, how did Moses and the Israelites pass through it? After all, it was substantial enough to deluge Pharaoh's army.
b. If the sea was parted, how precisely was that done?

4. Jesus' resurrection.
a. How did Jesus rise from the dead, and walk around good as new, when after three days of death he would be brain dead, with decayed muscles, bloated from gasses, with blisters on his skin and with millions of dead and useless cells, including dead and useless heart and kidney cells?

It should be noted that brain death is irreversible in every instance. In no circumstance, in no situation, for no reason, is brain death reversible. It cannot be turned back. It is permanent.

For a forensic refresher...

Upon death, this happens:

Although brain cells may survive for no more than 5 minutes after somatic death, those of the heart can survive for about 15 minutes and those of the kidney for about 30 minutes.

The Degree of Rigidity of the Body (Rigor Mortis)

4-6 hr - onset of rigor mortis in the neck & jaw.
12 hr - rigor mortis is well established.
18-24 hrs - rigor mortis is partially resolved due to muscle decomposition.
30 hr - rigor mortis has resolved.

*Note: Jesus still has 42 more hours of decomposition to endure before his corpse reanimates and walks around like new*

The Degree of Decomposition of the Body.

18-24 hr - greenish red skin, rigor is resolving.
30 hrs - rigor is resolved, body is flaccid.
3 days - body swells as gas forms. Blisters form on the skin.

*Note: Did the disciple witnesses mention Jesus was very swollen or had blisters all over his skin?*

And, because I think it is a good argument for atheism whether you believe the Bible to be reliable or not, I'll quote the Scripture:

Now the LORD had said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold." (The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh's officials and by the people.)
So Moses said, "This is what the LORD says: 'About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt-worse than there has ever been or ever will be again.

Rather than simply smacking the Pharaoh upside the head for refusing to let the Jews go free, God instead chose to murder every firstborn son in Egypt. This, of course, was after already turning the sea water to blood, thereby killing all the innocent fish, as well as afflicting the livestock with pestilence, in addition to other such acts of goodwill and charity.

What did the poor slave girl do to warrant her firstborn son being murdered? Did the slave girl set the Pharaoh's policies? Did the slave girl's firstborn son set the Pharaoh's policies? To me, God seems to be shifting the blame from its rightful shoulders (those of the Pharaoh) to a whole mass of innocent people.

Even if the Christian God does exist, I staunchly refuse to worship such a ruthless, evil, violent deity. Indeed, I would scorn such a breathtakingly cruel God. As should you…

Godfather

All of your arguments can easily be explained by 1. Faith and 2. Goddidit. Welcome to the IIDB!

Godfather

WWFStern

Thanks for the welcome.

Luckily for me, neither deferring to faith nor simply saying "God did it" does the trick.

In deferring to faith, one simply states that no explanation is necessary.

In citing God, one simply acts as though a non-explanation serves to explain something. However, citing God in these cases is no more illuminating than citing God as the explanation for lightning or disease. It's the non-explanation that impedes discovery of the actual explanation.

Zeichman

But for Christians, "faith" is not referring to it in that way. The beauty of having such an illogical creation story is that one has to take it on faith alone. For Protestants, this works well, beliving that the acceptance of the Christian God is a matter of faith rather than a matter of rational choice.

But yeah, welcome.

John A. Broussard

That's not only the beauty of it, but it may be a necessary quality of faith.

As Tertullian said, "I believe because it is absurd."

I have no quarrel with theists who hold to this view. It's the ones who start defending their faith as being reasonable which sets me off.

baloria

Your comments on events described in the Bible are logical talk but superfloues:
as proved,it's all fake,fictious and ridiculeous.
It's a humanised astrotheological story invented in the 3th century:myth!
Baloria