If God really cared about his creation, maybe he shouldn't have thrown that gigantic hissy fit and cursed all of it because two humans became intelligent.

"In all of my infinite power, my infinite wisdom, my infinite knowledge, I cannot for the life of me understand why you two specks of life in this infinite universe had the utter GALL to disobey me (true, you had no idea what right and wrong were, but still)! AARRRRGH, IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY THAT I'M GOING TO CURSE ALL OF MY CREATION AND MAKE IT SUFFER AND WITHER AND DIE, JUST TO TEACH YOU TWO AND ALL YOUR DESCENDENTS A LESSON!!".

What religion proves is the incredible hubris and arrogance of man. We create all-powerful beings that always consider us their favorites of all their creation and we have such influence over them that they are compelled to meddle, muddle, and mate with us. Man is always the center of everything in religion, the favorite of the gods and the destroyer of the perfection. Without man, there would be no gods.

On the whole religion bit going on here.

Okay let's just dismiss the snake handlers, creationists, abortion clinic bombers, dominionists, intelligent design trolls, televangelists, prosperity gospel hacks, the hypocrites, the false prophets, the Branch Davidians, the Lord's Army, Mennonites, the Amish, tongue speakers, voodoo practitioners, santeria practitioners, the Rapture Ready kooks, the 700 Club, the Christian Coalition, the Family, all of the nuts, nutbars and nuttiest of the nutty as "not true Scotsmen Christians." All of them, chuck 'em aside. They aren't real Christians. Fine. I'll accept the premise and go with the belief that moderate, mainstream Christians are the true Scotsmen Christians.

Now with all those fakers out of the way, there's still the core arguments, the outlandish claims you insist I accept as truth. The first being the base tenet, that there is one god and only one god, the god of the Israelites and creator of the universe. Second being this god incarnated himself (or begot a divine son, depending where you are on the trinity argument) for the purposes of being killed by his own creations to save us from hell, a hell he made and sends us to for doing things of our own free will - another trait he, according to your supposition, gave to us. Then he rose up from the dead three days later, and promised to be back shortly (Yes, shortly, he repeatedly insists the kingdom of god is at hand, like now, so get ready for it. The apostles were all very adamant about it as well and early Christian writings talk about it.).

Have you ever once just thought about how balls-out crazy that all is? That's all I'm saying. How is that any less outlandish or more believable than Prometheus making man and giving him fire? Prometheus suffered just as much for giving man fire (Literally and symbolically), and he didn't get to free himself of it three days later either. Oh and Greek myths had a flood story too, and all but a few humans were wiped out as well, so all of Prometheus' creations were destroyed because Zeus got ticked. So he gets to have his liver ripped out everyday and he got to see all his creations ruined.

That's all I'm asking for here. Show your work. Convince me you are more right than the ancient Greeks or any religious pantheon or dogma. Show me why the Muslims, Jews, Hindus and everyone else is wrong and you are right.

Kurmudgeon: Well, the only ones I've mainly seen trumpeting the "6000" or whatever many years argument have been militant anti-theists on Fark and similar message boards. Anyone who actually has actually read the account in Genesis realizes that whatever time was before the Sun and Earth were created, it wasn't in 24 hour days and 12 month years.

Hey, did you know that the do polls on these things? You're in luck, Gallup published one last week! Among the relevant findings: 46% of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10000 years or so!



Furthermore, the study also found that 67% of people who attend church regularly believe that the human race is less than 10000 years old. Now, I would agree that the question is poorly worded for exactly what we want to know about: the poll does not ask whether or not people consider humanity and the earth to be the same age. However, this poll does demonstrate that 46% of people believe in a very recent origin of the human race that does not involve evolution at all - a religiously-motivated belief that flies in the face of all the evidence that we have about human origins.

Young-earth creationists were not invented by internet atheists. Young-earth creationists are not some unimportant fringe minority. They're barely even a minority.

Kurmudgeon: As long as you have an excuse that keeps you from actually judging His words on their own merit.

Would you like to discuss the way that Jesus demanded that adherence to his movement render all outside human relationships irrelevant, or the way in which he instructs people to avoid sinning by simply promising that their base impulses will be fulfilled if they do the opposite of what is normally required to fulfill them? Jesus spent at least as much time saying "I'm the most important thing there is, follow me or else" as he did saying "do not repay evil for evil."

/ According to the stories, anyway

bhcompy: So he's going with the Steven Erikson method. Belief in a god creates the god and fuels the god.



/The turtle moves!

sure haven't: There are Christians who also believe in evolution. The "6,000 year old" morons are just the midwest bible thumping racist hate-mongering asshats.

Well, the only ones I've mainly seen trumpeting the "6000" or whatever many years argument have been militant anti-theists on Fark and similar message boards. Anyone who actually has actually read the account in Genesis realizes that whatever time was before the Sun and Earth were created, it wasn't in 24 hour days and 12 month years.
/still haven't heard where they started counting from yet either.

F*cking people get your facts straight.

There are Christians who also believe in evolution. The "6,000 year old" morons are just the midwest bible thumping racist hate-mongering asshats.

The rest of them can be pretty logical.

You can't support your argument by saying "well now that we invented God, we must believe that we're only 6,000 years old". Sure if you're arguing about Baptists only. But not all Deity believers.

Apparently playing one gives you a strong strawman ability.

/the headline made me laugh, haven't seen that in a while, wasn't expecting it

stewmadness: Keizer_Ghidorah: If God really cared about his creation, maybe he shouldn't have thrown that gigantic hissy fit and cursed all of it because two humans became intelligent.

"In all of my infinite power, my infinite wisdom, my infinite knowledge, I cannot for the life of me understand why you two specks of life in this infinite universe had the utter GALL to disobey me (true, you had no idea what right and wrong were, but still)! AARRRRGH, IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY THAT I'M GOING TO CURSE ALL OF MY CREATION AND MAKE IT SUFFER AND WITHER AND DIE, JUST TO TEACH YOU TWO AND ALL YOUR DESCENDENTS A LESSON!!".

What religion proves is the incredible hubris and arrogance of man. We create all-powerful beings that always consider us their favorites of all their creation and we have such influence over them that they are compelled to meddle, muddle, and mate with us. Man is always the center of everything in religion, the favorite of the gods and the destroyer of the perfection. Without man, there would be no gods.

Prove it.

Look at all the other animals. Do any of them worship gods?

verbaltoxin: Ed Grubermann: Son of Thunder: Boatmech: What's that saying? God takes care of all the little children or something like that?

Problem is, God established that part of being human is taking care of each other. But every time we try...

[latimesblogs.latimes.com image 600x400]

Intercepted by a warlord.

Funny thing is, those kids are not starving due to warlords taking away their food. They are starving due to droughts and famine. Two of Gods favorite tools to express His anger. And like the death of the firstborn of Egypt, God chooses to punish the innocent rather than the guilty. What a prick.

Let's not let the authoritarian, kleptocratic regimes in these countries who are ill-equipped to deal with such famine off the hook here. God isn't doing anything about the warlords either.

;)

Keizer_Ghidorah: One Big Ass Mistake America: [i.imgur.com image 640x400]

What an idiot.

"It's time to end the atheist vs. agnostic nonsense and to stop with the stereotypes. We are fighting for reason and science over superstition. People of both labels find themselves fighting side by side on so many issues such as separation of church and state, keeping creationism out of science class, making decisions based on rationalism and evidence, free speech and equal rights."

I've never seen this guys blog before but he certainly makes a couple of good points.
Link
It also has a Video of Tyson explaining why he looks at it that way.
/video was worth 4 minutes of my time

Kurmudgeon: Cubicle Jockey: You believe "Young Earth Creationism" was invented by atheists?

Nope, but I believe it's trumpeted by hostile atheists, much like how snake handlers are mentioned.
It means nothing to me. You believe it if you want to.

I'd believe that you're ignorant but belief is irrelevant when provided proof.

Kurmudgeon: Cubicle Jockey: You believe "Young Earth Creationism" was invented by atheists?

Nope, but I believe it's trumpeted by hostile atheists, much like how snake handlers are mentioned.
It means nothing to me. You believe it if you want to.

Typical Christian - Your god is false BUT MY GOD IS REAL!!!

Son of Thunder: Random thought, since several people in this thread are on the badly-designed-humans thing: Any of you ever complain about how we're overpopulating the planet? If so, would it make sense to then criticize God for not making us MORE effective survivors?

If you look at it from a design-spec point of view, I don't think humans are badly designed at all. Consider: design a mobile, self-sufficient mechanism the replicates itself out of local materials using endogenous available energy as fuel. Must be self-repairing for 70 years and must be able to fend off all manner of opportunistic attacks, both micro and macro. Include two high-resolution input channels plus several low-resolution channels for data acquisition. Must also have a complex data processing unit capable of blending these inputs into meaningful information that allows for split-second decision-making as well as future planning. This processing unit must also be available for low-level system processing and high-level communication. The entire mechanism cannot use more than 100 watts.

Kurmudgeon: I believe on Christ's Words, dispute those if you can

I'll go one further and dispute the existence of this christ person due to a lack of mention by any of his contemporaries.

m1ke: [unfollowingjesus.com image 610x343]

Ed Grubermann: StoPPeRmobile: Ed Grubermann: kingoomieiii: "So if I believe in God, and I do, it's because I think I'm God," he said.

This will be the only portion of this reported by fundie blogs. Mark my words. All of the context will be gone. He will be an arrogant hollywood atheist who believes that HE is god.

According to Bible-humpers I think that I'm my own God. What the hell does that even mean? I don't get it. They seem to think it means something, though.

It's a way of saying you are a satanist.

How can I be a Satanist? I don' believe in him, either.

You don't need to. Read up.

Cubicle Jockey: Kurmudgeon: Well, the only ones I've mainly seen trumpeting the "6000" or whatever many years argument have been militant anti-theists on Fark and similar message boards

You believe "Young Earth Creationism" was invented by atheists?

Here, let me introduce you to the Creation Research Society and the Institute for Creation Research.

I think he was saying that the portrayal of it as a "mainstream" belief is fabricated or at the very least exaggerated by atheists because it's such an easy straw man to defeat. And it is... because in current Evangelical Christianity it is largely considered a fringe belief and some seminaries have gone so far as to decry it cult fodder.

Kurmudgeon: sure haven't: There are Christians who also believe in evolution. The "6,000 year old" morons are just the midwest bible thumping racist hate-mongering asshats.

Well, the only ones I've mainly seen trumpeting the "6000" or whatever many years argument have been militant anti-theists on Fark and similar message boards. Anyone who actually has actually read the account in Genesis realizes that whatever time was before the Sun and Earth were created, it wasn't in 24 hour days and 12 month years.
/still haven't heard where they started counting from yet either.

You need to get out more.

My wife got mailed "God Doesn't Believe In Atheists" by one of her fellow singers in a local women's choir shortly after she her response to "What church do you go to" was that she didn't attend church. She got a "But your so nice!" in response. This young woman was a true blue believer that the Earth was only 6,000 years old, and the atheists can't be nice people (and Mormons are evil cultists, but that's a different subject that was touched upon).

A coworker of mine is pretty fundie in most ways, and goes to a fundie church. He's got a BS in geology though, and understands the universe is at least 13 billion years old and the Earth is 4 billion, give or take a billion years. He believes in evolution (the soul is what God created and infused in man) and a literal interpretation of the New Testament and a more allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament.

He had to stop telling people at his church his real passion is geology and not computer programming when asked about his job, because people kept trying to correct him on exactly how wrong geologists and other scientists were on the age of the earth.

He's right. Titty sprinkles.

I never read it in Morgan Freeman's voice, I read it as Geoff Peterson doing Morgan Freeman.