Best-Selling Book?

That's because I burn so many of them.

DisneyOnIce: Weren't you the one whining about "civil discourse" earlier?

For everyone except people who don't use bold and italic tags in their 4 page long post.

Those people deserve no mercy.

/Eat a dick

Excuse me, everybody, may I have your attention? I just arrived in this thread and given that there are hundreds and hundreds of posts within it I just scrolled down looking for pictures. There aren't a lot of them. But worse than that not a single one caused me to chuckle. Not even a little. I really think this is an issue that needs to be addressed.

"Jesus was just a guy!"

"Four aces, and none of your goddamn miracles!"


/anyone,anyone? not freakin' likely - I'd be shocked.

pretty disopointed with the lack of funny pictures in the thread guys. That's the best part of these flame wars.

felixstrange: For everyone except people who don't use bold and italic tags in their 4 page long post.

What a tragedy. The nerve of some people.

/Eat a dick

It's a shame your mother didn't do that instead on the night you were concieved.

Bye-bye.

hoihoi8

I thought the best part was inciteful comments, first punctured then overtaken by attempts at rational discourse which eventually detiorate into mindless name-calling. At least, that's what brings me here day after day.

psypaul2: Please don't put words in my mouth without reading all my posts.

Find me ONE from the New Testament.

God hates Figs:


"And when he saw a fig tree by the road, he came to it, and found nothing on it, but leaves only, and said to it, Let no fruit grow on you henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
"And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon has the fig tree withered away!"
--Matthew 21:18-20

psypaul2: Please don't put words in my mouth without reading all my posts.

Oops. Meant to say "That's why I asked."

I find the Bible to be derivative and lacking in depth. It has a good basis for strong character development, but the main characters get lost in the muddled story line. For a first effort it is very good, but it probably won't stand the test of time.

Sunny Ray: In your experience, do dudes also give a shout out to the Almighty whilst engaged on the receiving end of buggery?

if you pop back in here Sunnyl; i don't know, but i can ask some of my gay friends if ya really want to know ;0)

hey nice timing sunny

bake420

Its like God planned it or something.

Sunny Ray: Its like God planned it or something.

does that mean someone got it in the ass?
holy fark?

And McDonald's is the most popular restaurant in the world. So?

DisneyOnIce

Can there be a group for people who just plain don't give a shiat about Jesus, Jehovah, Allah, Satan, Vishnu et al without having to be lumped in with "antitheists" or "athiests" or "agnostics?"

Here you go. You're welcome! :)

machoprogrammer:
8-bit-nintendo

"LOL FSM! OMG SO FUNNAY!"


Do I sense sarcasm on your part?

bake420

I can say with certainty, that somebody has engaged in anal intercourse.

DisneyOnIce: JESUS.saves: The comments on just about any religious-themed thread makes me very sad for the lot of you. There are some terrible times ahead of you for the path you've chosen. You cannot turn your back on the Lord and not face the consequences.

But I thought God LOVED us! Sounds more like he's a prickly, bad-tempered bastard, and therefore is unworthy of slavish worship. If that's what you want to do, knock yourself out, but save your pity and contempt for someone else.

I'd absolutely love to be a fly on the wall during your visit with the Lord.

The Billdozer

I'd absolutely love to be a fly on the wall during your visit with the Lord.

I'm pretty sure that God doesn't call upon us to display spite and schadenfreude.

fatassbastard

Oh snap!



/obligatory

Ooooh Bevetssss...

Hey, a Bible thread!

Somehow, of course, that means that a thread about book sales will degenerate into Christians, feeling attacked, will align with the wackjobbiest of their right-wing brethren and smugly call nonbelievers all sorts of nasty names, while the opposition will unite behind the banner of "Angry 14-year-old atheists who hate their dads" and claim to be arguing the side of reason and logic while in fact just calling all the believers "stupid sheeple, >=0."

Oh, right, and Bevets will cut-and-paste some out-of-context quotes until he makes someone blow up at him, and Tatsuma will be all Jewy and erudite and actually attempt to have a learned theological debate with people who really just want to scream and fling poo.

/Too lazy to read the thread and see if I'm right.

Wait wait, what do you mean he conquers death?

That makes no sense to me.

He's supposed to be the SON OF GOD. Not some joe schmoe jackass. We're talking about the only child of the almighty here.

Except, of course, he doesn't seem to be mighty enough to miraculously get the Powers That Be to see things his way. Nor to make it so that the Barabbas dude got the shaft instead. Nor to NOT DIE in the first place. Pretty weak to me.

But for somebody who is supposed to be God, where is the "conquer"? That kind of imputes an unexpected amount of effort, a victory that would not be expected of a person in that situation.

For example, I could say that the people that ran the marathon over the weekend (26.2 miles, in the Hawaii morning humidity) conquered it. Why? Because they are humans, I know they are humans. I am a human, and I know I couldn't have done it because I have not put forth the unusual amount of dedication to running that it would require.

This promptly disintegrates when the subject is SUPPOSED to be all powerful. If Jesus ran the marathon, would you say he conquered it? If so, that would mean that it was not something simply expected of a being of such a station.

Rephrased, if your Jesus conquered death, then this means you expected your God to be able to die, and you find it surprising that he didn't.

"For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.""
-1 Cor 1:18-19-

Ishidan

I concur. Omnipotence kinda takes the fanfare out of "conquering" anything. I imagine it would be a bit boring, in that sense, to be God. No challenges to overcome. I'd likely just sit around and watch things that interest me, like, say, this:

http://www.pbfcomics.com/?cid=0PBF43027BC-Angels_Caught.jpg#44

The council of Rabbis who put the bible together in the year 90 did a pretty thorough job, but there are still some loose ends here and there, the kind you can never get rid of in a work of fiction. For example, it says, "the fool has said in his heart 'there is no God'". Well, whose idea was it to create fools?

Mecha-Jesus?

Two thousand years ago he rose from the grave
He rose from the grave, hungry for brains
Now that the savior's gone psycho, who will protect us?
Doctor Yoshimoto, you've got to invent us

MECHA JESUS!

[He's got the laser rays to redeem us
Can't let Zombie Jesus eat us]

I think you can get the Bible for free online..

Somacandra,

That explanation reads like the plot of an anime feature. Illogical, incoherent, but stylized and suggestive of meaning.

Anyway, I thought it went: sheep used to be sacrificed, but for the really big one, only the sacrifice of a god would do the trick. Jesus is God, so getting whipped and crucified was appeasement enough for, well, God. It's a mystery...

He let his god son die to save the mortals...I don't see the mystery.

Lol!

muninsfire: Think of it as moral support. 's what faith amounts to for most folks, anyway.

If all Jesus is good for is moral support, then it's just as well to believe in the FSM.

8-bit-nintendo

Do I sense sarcasm on your part?

Yep. FSM is way over used. Especially since it was originally used to mock Intelligent Design being taught as an alternative to Evolution (OK by me). But it being used in every damn religion debate is stupid. It isn't funny and isn't creative anymore. If I saw anyone wearing a FSM shirt or having a FSM decal, I would probably either key their car and/or think they're a giant douche.

Basically, see http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster to see my opinion summed up very nicely.

I think the main point I'd like to cover in the 'God answers every prayer' argument is that, if he's answering every one, there should be some observable difference, if you scientificly tracked a large enough group of people - They have, and there isn't.

In a study of tens of hundreds of people, the only measurable differences in recovery rates was too small to be anything but margin of error. (It's a good thing too, because the people prayed for had LESS of a chance of surviving, by that tiny marginal difference)

Several people here are harping on the 'well, an omnipotent god could change the test results to anything they wanted, couldn't he?' idea. It looks to me more like the scientists are more powerful than God. By setting up a test to measure the power of prayer, they have forced god not to answer any of the prayers of the people in the test, haven't they? Quite an accomplishment for a few scientists!

See, this is the point where I have to laugh at all the 'god answers every prayer, but can change test results' people. It should be possible to track in aggregate a large number of people and see if there is any statistical difference between those who pray often and those who don't pray at all. Here we see one study at least where exactly that was done - and there's not one shred of evidence that anyone's prayer was answered. Can we prevent God from acting just by observing the people who pray? That doesn't seem very 'all-powerful' to me, does it?

Another important aspect - God is all-powerful, he can do ANYTHING, right? He aswers prayers to anyone who truly asks, with faith - Why has he never healed a single amputated limb? Not one! Is he not able to regrow a limb? Does he not answer prayers for people who lose limbs? Why can he supposedly cure cancer or other fatal illnesses, but can't ever seem to touch a missing limb, not so much as a finger?

Why does God hate amputees?

I really love the way anyone asking for proof of God is immediately accosted with '*I* didn't say god existed, you said he didn't, prove that he doesn't!' As has been said several times, the people making the extraordinary claims are the ones who need to present extraordinary evidence. 'Look at a snowflake' isn't it. We KNOW how snowflakes are made, and God isn't necessary! The more we learn, the more God is pushed out to the margins. 'We can't completely prove that he doesn't exist!' Doesn't seem to be nearly as powerful a convincer as 'You haven't a single shred of empirical evidence that he DOES exist, and all these other things that you used to use as proofs have been shown to have simple natural explanations. Care to try again?'

This silliness about antitheists... Keep playing with definitions! Now you're trying to say that people who have nothing to say about God aren't agnostics, they're athiests. Those who don't believe in god, any god, and are willing to explain why are now 'anti-theists', are they? Yeah, sure. What the hell are agnostics then?

A-theist means 'without god(s)'. That's all. Athiests don't believe in god. ANY god. Whether they're vocal or not, they're still atheists. How can you be anti-something you don't believe in? Am I an anti-santaist? an anti-leprechaunist? I simply don't believe in them, and I'm perfectly willing to explain why.

Sorry for the interruption, please go back to your drivel, theists. Some of it is downright amusing!

I like believing in god. Of course when I jerk off i always want someone to be watching.

For all my fellow god haters to defend themselves when those dumbass christians jews try to one up muslims saying their religion teaches peace.

http://www.evilbible.com/

Only an infinite power could bridge an infinite gap.

Ah, but only an infinite power could MAKE an infinite gap. So your god is attempting to make me thank him for solving a problem he created. What a dick.

Many theologians spend a lifetime coming to grips and understanding the Atonement and the Incarnation. Many here will barf at this, but I liken it to trying to understand some complex problems of physics and chemistry. We have theories that some really complicated shiat happens near conditions like the speed of light, absolute zero, and the size of quantum probability fields, but the learning curve necessary to actually understand these phenomena in detail is mighty high. In a similar way, problems in comparative theology or Christology can drive a person studying them to tears. That's why there are entire seminaries devoted to studying these issues.

You're right. Barf. Religion is NOT supposed to be quantum physics. In addition, most people don't use it that way anyway.

Consider a real example. I come up and hand you a nice, stout stick. You have a friend who is a botanist. He can tell you exactly what kind of wood it is, and describe the rest of the tree it used to be attached to. You have a friend who is a biologist. He can tell you all about the cellular interactions that went into forming this piece of structured cellulose. You have a quantum physicist, that can describe to you the mysteries of its molecular substructure.

Conversely, you have a friend who is a sculptor. Many ideas of how to turn this wood into a piece of art flow through his mind. Another who is a carpenter: what piece of functional equipment could he make with this?

But you also have more mundane of friends. One wants it to burn in his fireplace, to keep him warm at night. Another just broke his leg and has no crutch, can he have it to support himself as he hobbles along? The last just wants to take it and beat you over the head with it.

What is it? Just a piece of wood. The rest is up to interpretation, use, and abuse.

What's the Bible? Just many pieces of wood. Very thin.

This was a nice diversion.

I will now go back to listening to my audiobook copy of "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins and continue to laugh at the laziness, ignorance, and naivety of the average theist.

You can all go back to yammering about Gods and faeries.

/Bible is only top seller when you combine EVERY version.
//Which they conveniently don't do with classics and children's books in this sales comparison.
///Statistic is utter bullshiat.

That is all.

-12-12 12:26:16 AM Mr Sunshine
That is all.

Allow me to be the first to ask...
What's your point?

I just think it would be nice if more people on these forums had more than just a grotesquely oversimplified caricatured portrait of Christianity when they start harping on it. These thinkers are a good starting point.

"Thinker" + "Christianity" = oxymoron

As long as they're upgrading to a more accurate version, good for them.

/KJV was a biased translation