lykus i base my beliefs on the new testament because jesus is our lamb and he has changed those laws do you know of mary of madgalane she was a protistute and pople were stoning her but jesus saved her he said whoever that has commited a sin here stone her and no one could so the beliefs of the old have been re written

also what are arguing about this thread is messed up perhaps lykus you should have put a better title also rvw i meant to say the pope made the jews captured the pope back then got rid of the information of 1500 years and more

can't read most of this but iwill be here all day so please at the ned of your post can you round up of what you said for my sake

if only the bible taught you as much about grammar and punctuation as it did about whatever the hell you were talking about.

about

But what if murder was no sin? Maybe we're trapped in the biblical view of ending someone's life being horrible, but why is exactly? I know plenty of benefits. (e.g. help stop overpopulation, and you should be happy that somebody is going to heaven! (In either Buddhism or Hinduism (I forgot which) you are reincarnated to a higher caste if you have lived a good life.))

|> prej·u·dice
[prej-uh-dis] Show IPA noun, verb, -diced, -dic·ing.
noun
1. an unfavorable opinion or feeling formed beforehand or without knowledge, thought, or reason.
2. any preconceived opinion or feeling, either favorable or unfavorable.

Isn't it strange the first item lists "unfavourable" as a property, then the second item specifically mentions "either favourable or unfavourable"? Also, what is even the difference between an "opinion formed without knowledge" and a "preconceived opinion"...? In other words, does "Swedish girls are *hot*" count as a prejudice or not? :p

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|> But what if murder was no sin? Maybe we're trapped in the biblical view of ending someone's life being horrible, but why is exactly?

Last I checked just about any civilisation considers murder to be a pretty bad thing. Sure, there have been a few that just loved a good human sacrifice (Mayas, Incas) or that didn't much care about human lives (the Romans with their gladiators), but those are exceptions. Also, in most cases it was prisoners of war, conquered people or slaves who got killed; civilisations sacrificing "their own people" are pretty rare.

|> you are reincarnated to a higher caste if you have lived a good life

If you don't murder them just yet, you give them another chance to live a good life; killing them right away takes away their chance (or at least greatly shortens it) to earn reincarnation into a higher caste. That's still a pretty bad thing to do.

@Aqua: Pretty much the generic argument against Christians, but why do you believe it all?

How do you know it wasn't just a very intelligent, power hungry man who realized how gullible people are?

I dont understand why people need religion. Well, I understand why, but it just doesnt make sense. Aren't you sercure enough about yourself, to make decisions without consulting the bible, or the quaran. We as, humans should be pure enough to do whats right.

Hey Lykus, still believe in your opening statement? "Most of you here are pretty smart... and it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on religion."

|>Hey Lykus, still believe in your opening statement? "Most of you here are pretty smart... and it'd be interesting to hear your thoughts and opinions on religion."

yes, why wouldn't I?

obviously a majority of the posts here are garbage, but RvW and Aquaholic's posts were interesting.

One of the few times someone tries to be logical on the Christian side of the argument, and RvW gave some of the best counter arguments that I've ever seen.


I was more curious to hear about anything other than Christianity but this was ok.

The same book of the bible that talks about how homosexuality is a sin also suggests stoning unto death as a suitably holy punishment for female adultery..

St. Augustine was a disciple of the prophet Mani before becoming one of the most influential early christian thinkers, explaining why the cynical corruption of Manichaean beliefs (Earth and all that lives on it is inherently sinful, and women most of all) runs through christianity like a snake in the grass.

Literally unwashed masses (These early Christian luminaries considered bathing to be bad for the health) of ignorant crusaders spent centuries invading the holy land in a time when the greatest poets, mathematicians, astronomers, and architects in the world revolved around the court of Suleiman and other enlightened Muslim rulers, and yet today many who profess the Christian belief would point a finger of accusation at the entire religion of Islam and declare it to be inherently barbaric.

Christianity evolved in the full light of history as a mish-mash of concepts from other religions, such as the One God above with Hell below (Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Persia,) Christmas trees, holy wreaths, and the holy mother Mary (taken fully formed from the solstice rites of the pagan druids of the British Isles) and yet today Christians have the arrogance to act as if it was an immaculate conception, the one word of God, ever unchanging, dictated unto the prophets and disciples direct from the Holy Source.

Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals, and conveniently ignore the God-smited babies of Sodom & Gammorah (they were sinners, you see) and the biblical facts (such as the ~7000 year old earth) that are completely at odds with every scrap of evidence we can find, but yet the parts of the bible that humans deem acceptable are taken as the literal truth, sacrosanct and inviolable. Maybe the earth IS older than 7000 years, but JESUS TURNED WATER INTO WINE IT SEZ SO RITE THERE!! Nowadays, of course, everyone cops out and says the age of miracles is past and we just have to have faith (aka unreasoned belief in things for which there are no evidence) and that it would be a sin of pride to expect God to perform tricks just to, you know, save our immortal souls. Even though supposedly he cares to do so and has divine power and could certainly make His presence clear enough if he so desired.

In a nutshell, I consider Christianity's version of the events of creation to be wildly improbable, and even if it were all exactly true, the Christian God would be a dark and hungry God that I could never worship - only fear and despise.

Agnostic++ :)

^VERY well written

Things like that are why i feel the way i do against Christians.

|> (..) stoning unto death as a suitably holy punishment for female adultery (..)
|> (..) immaculate conception (..)

A while ago (was it in the "How it should have ended" series??) someone concluded "If Joseph knew Maria was pregnant and he knew the child wasn't his, he would have had her stoned.".

|> Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals, and conveniently ignore (..) the biblical facts (such as the ~7000 year old earth) that are completely at odds with every scrap of evidence we can find (..)

What makes you so sure the Earth is not in fact 7000 years old? If we allow for a supernatural being to create the universe in less than a week, then how does it make sense to assume that same being would be incapable of creating a planet with dinosaur bones already in the ground? Or to put it another way, what makes you think it's any more than a second old; how do you know the universe already existed when you made that post I'm replying to?
Surely an omnipotent being, in the process of whipping up an entire galaxy, would have no trouble creating one miserable little planet with ready-made life forms and technological devices in place? What's a message in some electronic memories, and your recollection of having typed it in your biological memory, compared to the whole, entire universe? (Of course, that creates the rather interesting question of which sins you have to do penance for and which sins you remember committing but are not your fault since they happened before the universe even existed?)

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Given your "Agnostic++", may I assume you are familiar with computer programming? :p The question is not just whether we live in the Matrix, the real question is whether we live in SimCity. And, the only answer possible is of course "unless the user (~= god) wants us to know, there's no possible way for us to find out". I mean, let's say we work out physics to the full extend it has been designed in the simulation, or we reach the edge of implemented space, what if we probe further? Quite simple, the user hits pause, does a little more designing and when he/she/it has worked it out, only then does our simulation continue. Of course, we'll never know about having been paused, since *within the simulation* (for us!) that's completely invisible.

If you really are a programmer, then you probably already know XKCD's [A Bunch of Rocks](http://xkcd.com/505/), but if you're anything like me, you just love being reminded about awesome XKCDs. ;)

@ Lykus

It's impossible for science to prove the existence of God, period. I believe purely based on faith. Let's assume the bible is false, at least I won't be harmed in anyway. However, if it is true, then I will be glad that I believed it, come judgement day.

@ Devilnis
Christianity evolved in the full light of history as a mish-mash of concepts from other religions, such as the One God above with Hell below (Zoroastrianism, the state religion of Persia,) Christmas trees, holy wreaths, and the holy mother Mary (taken fully formed from the solstice rites of the pagan druids of the British Isles)

Christianity did not "mish-mash" concepts from other religions, instead, it's purely the belief of Christ (that's why the name is christianity). Christians are followers of Christ, and the Bible is considered the words of Christ.

Literally unwashed masses (These early Christian luminaries considered bathing to be bad for the health) of ignorant crusaders spent centuries invading the holy land in a time when the greatest poets, mathematicians, astronomers, and architects in the world revolved around the court of Suleiman and other enlightened Muslim rulers, and yet today many who profess the Christian belief would point a finger of accusation at the entire religion of Islam and declare it to be inherently barbaric.

@AquaHolic, your "logic" on well there is no harm in believing, does not make sense. Lets say, an atheist adopts that belief and becomes a "New-Born Christain". Wont he always have that doubt in the back of his mind? it wont be as if he actually believes

Please, Islam and Christianity are similar in many ways, for example, same God (different names). In fact, the old tastament is the almost exactly the same (as with the Jewish). Christian do not declare Islam to be barbaric, we simply say that they got many details wrong, such as the death of Jesus (Islam believes the existance of Jesus, but denies his death, they believe Jesus is a man of God). Now the crusades is directly against the Bible: "love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew:5:44) The Catholic church was corupted, and I can not defend them, their actions were wrong, plain and simple (and they have admitted to this). However, I am a protestant Christian.

Followers of Christianity cherry-pick from the parts of the bible that fit nicely with today's more humanist ideals

What are you talking about? As a Christian, I read every single word in the bible, and believe that everyone of them is true for Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but not even one of my words will pass away" (mark:13:31) Your pastors will likely tell you to read the bible, not just parts of the bible. Christians do not cherry pick parts of the bible! Many things in the bible are against science, for example, God created vegetations before he created the sun. However, as Christian, we still believe this is true, we do not neglect this, even though it's against science.

|> Christianity did not "mish-mash" concepts from other religions, instead, it's purely the belief of Christ (that's why the name is christianity). Christians are followers of Christ, and the Bible is considered the words of Christ.

That's not what I've heard... For instance, we don't have the vaguest clue at what date Jesus was born. The reason we celebrate it on December 25th (and the entire concept of a Christmas tree) started when the pagan (is that the word??) Germanic tribes were converted to Christianity. In order to make the transition easier (or in order to convince them to convert, I'm not really sure) the missionaries incorporated their existing beliefs and rituals into Christianity; December 25th is not the birth of Christ, it's the winter equinox; the (evergreen) pine tree symbolises the (coming) rebirth of nature.

Sure, the beliefs might be Christian, but many of the customs and traditions associated with Christianity are not of Christian origin.

|> It's impossible for science to prove the existence of God, period.

It's also impossible for science to **dis**prove the existence of God, which I was trying to explain in my previous post.

@KGB128, I didn't say I believe is because there is no harm, I'm simply stating there is no harm. That's not the reason of my belief, i'm only letting you know as a fact. Why I believe is hard to explain, I guess it's becaues God has been gracious to me.

Aquaholic, I'm afraid that just saying something doesn't make it true. The trajectory of history is clear. All of the pieces that comprised early Judaism and then early Christianity were already in place in various religions around the region, especially worship of the sun god Ra, and Mazdaism (also known as Zoroastrianism) which was the world's first major monotheistic religion. As time went by, pieces of other religions, such as the Christmas tree and the virgin mother (a direct parallel to the druidic earth mother) were incorporated in well-documented specific efforts by orthodox Christian churches (especially the Catholics) into the Christian Canon with the expressed purpose of making the religion more enticing to the pagans, thus easing their conversion to Christ. You can go ahead and dismiss thousands of years worth of carefully researched history with an ignorant statement if you want, but like I said, that doesn't make your statement true.

RvW, all of those things you said are exactly true - divinity is self-justifying, so God could certainly make a 7000 year old earth appear to us with our radiocarbon dating (among other methods) to be 4.6 billion years old. You'll notice that I said that I believe the story of Christianity to be "wildly improbable," not impossible :) That's the heart of agnosticism!