Old Man

I too hold that early Genesis is not a compendium of science, but does contain truth when interpreted correctly, which is not the creationist interpretation. Although the creationist interpretation may be construed as a "myth", that interpretation is not necessarily, or even probably, the correct interpretation, and so early Genesis is largely irrelevant to the debate (from my angle).

Radorth

I doubt it. You'd have to be a real skeptic to get it.

Well Fenton, at least my comments have some rough connection to the thread subject.

Rad

Radorth

I'm curious Paddy whether you agree with the following, written by a skeptic.


"The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance....In the enthusiasm of it's discoveries, the (HC) has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe, that by them a hundred ancient worthies... would fade into legend... they record many incidents which inventors would have concealed- the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after his arrest, the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee, the references of some auditors to his possible insanity, his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness....no one who reads these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them. That a few simple men should in one generation so powerful and appealing a personality, so lofty an ethic, and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood, would be a miracle more incredible than any recorded in the Gospels." (Emphasis mine, Caesar and Christ, chapt 26, P557)

Rad

Yellum Notnef

First of all I hope you`re not quoting me as saying "I see now" because I wasn`t the person who said that.

And your comments had a very rough connection to the thread subject,but they seemed more like the barking of a little dog frantically running around nipping at peoples ankles.

Btw,
My question is still unanswered.

Mav

Old Man, I think you missed the point of my post. When you make up things, story,
myths,......we tend to leave some things open and not covered. Fear was the point of my
post. Our own fear drives is to make up such stories to ease the fact that we are all
Morons. Now I'm not saying every one is stupid out there, but that there are questions
that we have yet to ask much less answer, and until they have been asked and answered,
we are (in a way) Morons. In the last 100 years alone, we have come a great ways. We have a lot of road yet to cover.

Pronunciation: 'mOr-"än,
Function: noun
Etymology: irregular from Greek mOros foolish, stupid
Date: 1910
1 : a mentally retarded person who has a potential mental age of between 8 and 12 years
and is capable of doing routine work under supervision
2 : a very stupid person

Compared to the time we can prove the earth has been around, we are about this age or
younger. (just a guess folks) We are all 1. and 2. when it comes to answering all the
questions we have asked so far.

So my point was this: We fear what we can not answer. Thus we make up stories and
such to calm our, questing for answers, minds.

So until we find the answers to these questions, we will keep talking. View points will
change, and feelings will be up and down. Fear will be there still.

Try this: Make a black box with a covered hole in it. Ask someone to stick there hand in
the box. They will display fear before doing it until they find out what is in side.

Mav

VonEvilstein

God the Programmer, who enters the run command, sits back and watches the show (starting with the BB, of course, would be the only type of deity, the possibility of which I would concede.

Worshipping such a being, would be as pointless as the big pink demons in Doom, on my PC, worshipping the iD programming team!

Anyways, until the possibility of alternate, or parrallel universes can be completely done away with, there's plenty of room for an extra-universal, non-divine start-up to the big bang.

With any luck, the Unified Field Theory of Gravity should shed some light on this.

Old Man

OK, but the concept of a parallel universe is no less moronic or irrational than a programmer who presses the RUN command.

Old Man

My point was that fear can be promulgated as the basis of the infidel position as much, if not more so, that the basis of the monotheist position. All humans are subject to fear, and infidels as much so. The manifestation of fear is often in:
- Ridiculing of opponents (ridicule as the argument of last resort, rather than contradiction by rational argument - because you are afraid that you may not possess the better argument),
- Political tyranny (the fear of other men),
- Accumulation of vast amounts of wealth (the fear of insecurity).

For every monotheist for whom you site fear as being the source of his monthesism, I could site an infidel (or two) for whom fear is the source of his materialism.





The fear of the existence of a monotheist God can usually be the reason for ridicule of opponents.

Stephen T-B

Bright people are more inclined than dim people to rationalise that which they need to believe.
The "need to believe," however, has nothing to do with inrtelligence.

Selsaral

I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly don't fear the existence of the christian god. I don't know about you, but I would really really like to live forever, and unlike some other religions, christianity makes it incredibly easy to get eternal bliss. Just proclaim you believe in god, or depending on which cult you follow you might have to follow some rules, or be baptized, or confess your sins etc. Rather easy. I'd gladly put up with all that for some eternal bliss. I'd guess most atheists would put aside their annoyance at the christian god's psychotic behavior documented in the bible for some eternal life.

I also find it amusing you accuse atheists of accumulating wealth out of fear when a look at the catholic church shows the religious do the exact same thing. Personally I'm scared shitless of death, but I live a humble life and I do not spend all my time hoarding wealth. Your stereotypes are critically flawed.

I will also comment on your diest argument. I agree, it isn't necessarily illogical or foolish to believe some being created everything. But it looks extremely questionable after such a long history of this type of belief. People used to think thunder was gods riding around in chariots. Well we now know it's simple weather phenomena. People used to think diseases were curses from the gods. Well we now give purely natural explanations to these things. After thousands and thousands of beliefs to explain the unexplainable get completed debunked and whittled down to purely natural explanations, it is logical to become skeptical of all such 'god of the gaps' explanations. You're doing exactly what ancient people did when they wondered why the wind blew....was it the gods? You're filling in the gaps of our knowledge with myths and fairy tales as humans have done for thousands of years.

Furthermore, going from your deist god to the christian god, or any other being from old religions is quite a leap. Your deist god could just as easily be a being that has no consciousness, that we never encounter, or is the Invisible Pink Unicorn, as much as it would be Zeus or Thor.