cuchulain

Member
  • Posts

    2,721
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by cuchulain

  1. I just can't fathom grown ups believing its true...because it said so. Thats ultimately what it amounts to. I got similar stories AND delivery at the carnivals when i was a kid.
  2. There's this book based on ancient manuscripts from the middle east, and it's totally true because like...it SAYS it is. Its got a flood and all sorts of miraculous happenings and this one central character who's the son of the creator! Everyone should really be spreading the good news of Marduk Kurios, the ancient sumerians say so!
  3. The argument goes...god didnt provide proof so we could have faith, but the proof(that he didnt provide by the way) is prophecy. Then there's the 'he could see the future but didnt' argument when discussing free will. Dan's actually made that one before. Kind of shoots prophecy in the foot though, doesnt it? Either he saw the future...or not.
  4. When a brain cannot accept new information or keeps a person from accepting fact because of previous false information...it's damaged.
  5. A true prophecy should be specific and applicable to one event...and not be written after the fact as though predicting the future but really be about an event that already occured.
  6. I'm still stuck on the title including the word practical in terms of angels and souls...there is no practice to base it on other than possible delusions.
  7. Judge by the fruit. The misinterpreted bible has caused enormous suffering. God the all powerful and knowing could easily have given us all the knowledge in a much better way, but didn't. The fruit of his alleged inspiration has been mass murder and bigotry. Is gods fruit good? If not, take the bibles advice and judge him accordingly.
  8. You cant disprove that there are little green men on the moon who're great at hiding. But it sounds dumb, doesnt it? And it not true just because it cant be disproven. Much better to admit you like christian myth and so choose to accept it rather than attempt to make reality different to agree with you.
  9. What about people that start off liberal or conservative then switch? Reminds me of douglas monroe and his forgeries on druidry. He stated the left brain is artistic and instinctive, feminine. The right is logical and male. Of course he seemed to entirely forget its one brain in one head with a corpus collosum communicating between.
  10. I can paint the flying spaghetti monster but it is not real and a painting proves nothing. Nor does speculation about pics.
  11. Misrepresentation to claim that I believe the universe came from nothing. Better to acknowledge that I don't know how the universe began, but that doesn't mean your version of the beginning is correct.
  12. How does this prove your religion over any other explanation or religion, beyond your claim?
  13. Hypocrisy to claim everything has a cause to disprove the big bang but claim god doesn't have a cause with the next breath.
  14. Atheists have learned your beliefs. You should do the same with evolution to be fair.
  15. The simple counter to this argument: Two wrongs don't make a right. On a side note: I am constantly amazed at how often the argument crops up. "Your beliefs are every bit as much subjective, so you should accept MINE!" What kind of fallacy is that? Now, another counter. If God as the chrisitans describe were real, reality would NOT be subjective by us whatsoever. It would entirely be determined by that divine being. Nothing subjective, at least beyond the divine's own subjective and sometimes demented whims.
  16. If there were no religion, knowledge would have been better preserved in my opinion. How many texts were burned for religious fundamentalism? How many are now beyond recall? How many ideas have been stymied over the centuries because the prevalent religion disagreed with science and sought to silence it? In more recent years I think of stem cell research. In historical terms, how many cadavers were stolen in an effort to learn some small amount about anatomy without the church authorities throwing a burning party? No...religion certainly saved some esoteric texts that supported itself. But in broader terms, it burned where it couldn't convince.
  17. Your base premise is flawed. We do NOT know people are in hell, for any specific reason. One step is to prove that hell exists as an actual place, either spiritually or physically. Proving the spiritual is very difficult, if you are unbiased on the subject. I have had many people attempt to prove the spiritual to me, and fail repeatedly. They usually resort to claiming that I am flawed in some manner or another, mostly that my mind isn't open enough to the truth. It's an erroneous assumption on their part. If someone can provide adequate proof that the spiritual realms exist, I would certainly be open to entertaining ideas regarding the spiritual realms. Of course, that wouldn't necessarily mean I agree with their opinion about what is out there. Maybe the Shinto crowd is the one that got it right, instead of the Christian group(s). I say groups, because there are over 30k denominations of Christianity, most of them claiming to be the only one that is the right one and that all others are false. Then you have Hindu, Buddhism, Paganism(I use the term for a broad spectrum of religions covered by the pagan umbrella term, again multitudinous but with the difference that most of these do NOT claim to be the sole container of truth). So many variations on religion and spirituality to pick from...leading to the pascal's wager. See, most Christians use this as a theatric to attempt to persuade a person to just believe, like there's a 50/50 shot...but with literally thousands of choices, there is a better chance of winning the lottery I think. And they fail to account for the possibility that there is nothing. Funny how atheism often gets set to the side or forgotten, eh? Long winded...the short version. To make a claim of that scale, you should consider proving there is a spiritual life after death in some fashion or another to be considered seriously. Once you prove that, it's time to prove that there is a God like you specify, and that the words you have written above actually were indeed inspired or framed by this deity. Then you need to prove heaven and hell as real places. That's the point where you can show who's spirits are actually incarcerated or not, and develop a plan to bust them from the clink. I mean, if I thought my brother was in the Marion federal pen and deserved to be let loose, I would want to make sure he is there before I went breaking in to get him out, you know?
  18. A person selling their services has a choice. A slave doesnt. Pretty simple stuff here.
  19. I ordered pizza last night for the family. My wife said"ughh... pizza. Ok I guess." My daughter jumped up and down and said"yes yes yes yes yes". The difference is perspective entirely. There are things that we can control in life and things we can't. It's thinking that we should be able to control what we can't or deserve more than we have that makes us disappointed with life or our position in it.
  20. If the truth is usually simple and uncomplicated, how does that lead one to accept a complex mish mash of books that few agree what it actually means?
  21. Nobody tries to culturally dominate atheists? The atheists who put up monuments of their own to show their distaste for state sponsored religion, and that Dan then argues they should just take it because Christians are culturally dominant? I guess when you make up your reasoning on the spot, it's bound to change fairly regular like. Back to the original question...does religion have value? Answer the above questions posed, does the religion in question do what it espouses. That's a first step I think. Once you discover the religion does or does not do what it espouses, then you determine whether that is the ONLY path to do what the religion espouses. Do you actually need religion to do those things? The answer would appear to be no, clearly. I can respect nature, and not be a druid or wiccan or pagan of any sort. And in the cases where the religion clearly fails to do what it claims, such as being all inclusive...I can be all inclusive without any religion whatsoever. I can have a party at my house, maybe a back yard barbeque, and I can let anyone come who feels like it regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, or religion. I could let Dan come if he wanted, in theory, and all without the auspice of religion backing anything at all. So...to the value of religion. If anyone can do any of the things that religion espouses(at least anything that religion can PROVE it can do), then we really don't need it at all and so what value does it have?