jim32rr: Fark that relative farking heathen, he'll be in the foxhole soon enough.

I've been in the foxhole, brother, if by "foxhole" you mean "high speed motorcycle accident that I had no right surviving." Was conscience the whole time. My asshole harvested all of the seat foam in one terrified gulp before impact, but at no point did I use what I genuinely thought were my last minutes on Earth to dial up a deity to forgive me.

That's the thing about being logical. You can't really change my mind just because I'm scared. People who find God in foxholes are people who were already prone to believing in the first place. But being scared sh*tless (literally) isn't going to change my belief that the Earth revolves around the sun. So why would I invent a savior?

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.

Of course we invented "God". All the ancient "Gods" and their "Powers" have been disproven. Our modern ones may, too, in the future.

"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.

Anytime a headline includes the term "titty sprinkles" I am going to vote for it.

"So if I believe in God, and I do, it's because I think I'm God," he said.

Goddamn method actors.

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

Would you recognize it if they did.

We know crows have history. They tell their kids about threats and dangerous places somehow. They also fight like motherfarkers with such courage it would make the Spartans impressed. If there's a genuflection to the crow god of battle or something, would you recognize it if it were done right in front of your eyes. Maybe they pull out a feather for luck or his/her name is "CAW!" and they shout it all the fuggin' time.

Keizer_Ghidorah: Ed Grubermann: verbaltoxin: 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.

Neither are the governments of the world, save for those helping to keep them in power. And, unlike God, they actually exist and could rectify the situation.

So how many countries do we have to invade and topple before the world is at peace?

I don't know. Maybe none. But we don't have to continue to support tyrants and warlords just because they let us inhale their natural resources, take in our toxic waste, or let us park a military base there.

I'm not even saying it's the responsibility of other nations to do anything about the problem. Just that we can because we do exist.

verbaltoxin: 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.

Neither are the governments of the world, save for those helping to keep them in power. And, unlike God, they actually exist and could rectify the situation.

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.

sure haven't: There are Christians who also believe in evolution.

Catholics have acknowledged it. At least when I went to church as a kid, and CCD... it was never mentioned. In reality I think Catholics are the least crazy and most accepting major religion (in terms of beliefs). They're more interested in recruitment efforts... and that means bending to all sorts of culture's idiosyncrasies.

You're not going to get a bunch of Mexicans, Africans, you name it by holding on to crazy beliefs.

"On the first day, the Lord said 'Get busy living, or get busy dyin'"