I think the answer to the first question is pretty simple. "We don't know", nor should any conclusion come from a lack of knowledge.  Why would you just to any conclusion when you don't even understand how it came into existence.  God did it is just as empty as saying I did it, and requires just as much research and proof 0.  You could say I wasn't around then, and I could say well I was in my eternal state at the time outside of space and time.  Nah nah your logic and testability can't touch me.  Once you step away from logical thinking and try explaining things beyond the ability to test and verify anything imaginable becomes acceptable, and on equal ground.  The only thing to conclude on is that we shouldn't conclude on things we do not know yet.  By your logic god would also have to be created.  I think this is why they call things in science theories, so that they are always open for questioning and revision.  Can you say the same for a god theory?

Disrespect??? Comfort broke the rules of the debate within the first 5 minutes, how was that not disrespectful?  They disrespected ever single person in the audience and at home watching by lying to them.  They didn't deserve respect after that.

Sara, I think you need to face the very real possibility that the Bible is wrong about this. That is essentially a self-defence mechanism built into the book. If I ever write a holy book, I will be certain to put something like that in. It offers a perfect explanation to believers who have friends and loved ones whom they respect who leave the faith.

"Oh, my holy book says that is to be expected so that actually helps prove my holy book is true!"

This is the goal. Self-defense. 

Actually, I am pretty certain that he was including a potential multiverse since this concept has been talked about plenty on his show. He simply made the same mistake I did of assuming that this larger meaning of "universe" would be understood.

If there is a mulitverse that is eternal than the multiverse removes any need for your God. Nothing created the multiverse and our current universe came from the multiverse. Or from one of the other theorized origins. Or from some other source we haven't thought of yet. If the first cause is natural, there is no need for an additional magical overseer.

Because a multiverse is far simpler than God. I think you fail to see how complex God would have to be if He were real.

I don't completely reject the "God did it" theory. It is possible. But I see no reason to give that theory priority over simpler, natural theories. It makes sense to you because you have already assumed God's existence.

It did take intelligence to invent the concepts of science and math. But it did not take intelligence for gravity to exist of for there to be 3 spots on the stone I just picked up.

The ability to understand something and the fact of the thing are two different things. We do not see ultraviolet light but that doesn't mean that ultraviolet light is not there. Ultraviolet light didn't suddenly become real when we developed technology to detect it. No intelligence was required for the fact of ultraviolet light.

No, it says nothing as to origin. Why should our not understanding something mean that there must be a higher intellect that does understand it?

Information is nothing more than patterns. Our mind evolved to discern patterns. The more patterns we could discern, the greater our chance of survival. So we evolved to see, hear, etc. Others do it better than humans but we do alright. A brain can only devote so many resources to each area of interest so while an eagle devotes an enormous percentage of its brain to sight, we devote a great deal to abstract thought. None of this has anything to do with the fact of light waves or the fact that some stones have 3 spots while others have 7.

The fibonacci sequence is very efficient. Evolution selects for efficiency. Here is a reasonable article about fibonacci sequences in nature. It is simply the first I found with Google so there may be better, but this one seems at least adequate.

If the multiverse is eternal then the question of "how" disappears. How did God come to exist?

It does not seem inconsequential. It seems critically important. An infinite being with emotions and desires similar to our own sounds exactly like what I would expect Man to design.

On the scale of the universe, we are virtually nonexistent. If we ceased to exist, the universe would not change in any noticable way.

With God you require a violation of known natural laws. You have to assume that God created the universe ex nihilo. The natural hypotheses do not make this claim.

There need be no origin of natural laws. Natural laws are not enforced in Natural Law Court by a Natural Law Judge. They are just a means for us to put our observations about how nature works into language.

Correct. Why do you require an external meaning? You should be able to derive plenty of meaning from your interactions with your fellow humans. That is unlikely to be meaningful to the mass of other life forms that share this planet and it will certainly not be meaningful on a cosmic scale. But fortunately, we live locally. We need only have local meaning.

If you cannot derive meaning from this life, how will an afterlife help you?

Demonstrably false. There are scores of books on this topic and plenty of evolutionary explanations.

The fact that possessions can distract us from what is truly important is not an argument for God. I firmly believe that a big part of the reason that many people are unhappy is because they never take the trouble to form their own personal philosophy. Instead, they just adopt one of the off-the-shelf philosophies such as the various brands of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.

No, my statement above proves that completely different produces completely different. There is no basis for excluding abiogenesis from this natural progression. You have stated an axim but that is all you have done: stated it.

Here, let's take it a step further. My wife and I produced a son. He appears to be more creative, artistically talented and probably more intelligent than either of us. How is this possible? If like begets like and lesser intelligence cannot produce greater intelligence, then logically my son does not exist. But I have proof that he does sleeping about 20 feet away from me.

It is interesting that you can be so certain of that fact when the experts in primatology are not.

Exactly. Which proves that the Bible is false. We finite beings of finite intelligence, ruled by hormones, who can be knocked out of whack by short sleep or bad diet, how close of an image can we possibly be to a perfect, infinite God that exists outside of time? We cannot be similar in any way. A chimp is a brother in comparison.

Indisputably. But that has nothing to do with us being made in God's image. Of course arrogant Man wants to believe that he is made in the image of an all-powerful transcendent being.

All physical evidence proclaims us as part of the animal kingdom. If we were not animals, why would we share DNA with even the lowest form of life? Why would other animals look so similar to us? Have you ever had a close look at the hand of a chimp?

Again, arrogant Man wants to believe that he is special and separate, transcending the base animal kingdom.

My son is a simple example of gaining meaningful information. You can argue that this is simply recombination but that is how evolution moves forward. That is why sex revolutionized evolution. Sex allowed the beneficial mutations to be recombined. In this way, numerous benefits could be brought together in a single organism.

That's great. Now it might be time to read the actual evolution books since you have already invested the time in reading the refutations.

That site is extremely unhelpful. Daniel made many predictions and that site claims that some of them are thought to have come true. But then it never bothers to show which predictions came true or what events occurred in history that correspond to those predicitons. If they had a strong case, it seems like they would lay it out clearly. And shouldn't Daniel have gotten it all right?

It is not towing the party line. Matthew and Luke clearly copied Mark. John was a late addition. Mark appears to have used midrash to discover the story of Jesus from the OT. Much of what Matthew added also appears to be the result of midrash.

Why do you think that Mark's entire passion story is lifted from Psalm 22?

Ah, so then you would consider most Stephen King books to be historical as well since he has so much historically accurate geography and many correct dates in his books. How about the Koran? Mecca really existed when the Koran was written. I guess the Koran is true.

Because Josephus painstakingly documented numerous other wandering preachers with profiles very similar to Jesus who did not attract 4000 people.

People love to write about their victories over those they dispise. And again, Josephus wrote about everything. He wrote extensively about John the Baptist and Herod, but he appears to have failed to notice Jesus. He made one minor mention (two if you count the disputed James, the brother of Jesus line) and that single mention is very out of character for Josephus and very short. It is generally acknowleged as an interpolation with the primary disagreement being over whether or not it is completely fraudulent or merely enhanced. Reading the unmodified statement it would be inconceivable that Josephus would have written only a single paragraph about this "wise man, if you can call him a man".

All of the people in Jerusalem would have known it since Matthew claims they rose from the graves and wandered the streets. It seems someone would have noticed this extraordinary event. Here is the passage for your reference:

Matthew 27:51-53

And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Likewise. Sara, you are obviously very intelligent. I would highly recommend reading the other side. Many of us here have read a lot of Christian apologetics. I read "The Case for Faith", "God Doesn't Believe in Atheists" and "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be An Atheist" just in the past 3 months. If what you believe is true, then reading books like "The Selfish Gene", "The Jesus Puzzle", "Religion is Not About God", "Critiques of God", "The Blind Watchmaker", "Letter to a Christian Nation", etc. should only strengthen your faith.

I think you might actually want to start with "Woe to the Women - The Bible Told Me So". Just click on the Freedom From Religion Foundation banner that is probably at the bottom of this web page. Woe to the Women shows how the Bible views women. I think this is a devastating book. No woman should be a Christian, in my opinion.

Please study for yourself. Hear all of the arguments. Sites like answeringenesis.org and trueorigin.org give you filtered information and often use straw man arguments.

Oh, and be sure to read the Bible from cover to cover. Here is a great excercise: while reading the Bible, write down every piece of advice you find that helps you interact properly with your fellow man. Also write down every action sanctioned by God that you would not promote in our modern society today. I find it helps to think of modern country names when the Bible mentions the Canaanites of the Amelkites. Think Laos and Thailand instead. See how long it takes to get to the first person-to-person ethical advice.

Sara, thank you for the cordial reply.

We can't assume that in science, especially when factoring in natural proccesses that appear designed, yet we know are naturally caused as well as our propensity for identifying patterns.  Snowflakes (and crystals, as Shaun mentioned) are perfect examples of seemingly designed phenomena.  We can document each and every "design" formed by specific weather patterns.  Here's more on Seti and ID: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/seti_intelligentdesign_051201.html

 More on snowflakes and ID:  http://www.talkreason.org/articles/comments.cfm

 Is the bible a good moral compass for society and have its "fruits" contributed in a positive way?  Is there harmony and consistency in Christian theology?  Has the bible been tampered with- is it innerant? Etc...

Of course there are things not seen (by the eye) that exist, but we can see the effects and make predictions, that when fulfilled, show consistency.  Even the unpredictablity in quantumn mechanics, to my limtited understanding of it, can be applied functionally.

Only when they have an emperically testable relationship with the physical that leads to predictability.

Sure, I realize that he didn't mean any unseen/unknown entity or concept, but even if it is just one unseen/unknown entity or concept, it has the same quality of imposition as it would for any unseen/unknown entity or concept. 

Yeah, that's what they say... of course, there's the seed thrown in the rocky soil that grows for a time and then dies, etc... but that doesn't mean that the person was not sincere in their effort (or if you like, relinquishment of effort to God). 

 Purpose is extremely complex when you consider all of the parameters.  God must have weighed all of the consequences in the entire universe, as well as the potential implications, and then made decisions based on them- and then continue to do so for every action.  Human psychology is daunting enough.  The whole convoluted salvation plan with the Fall and orginal sin and prophecies and rights and rules and blood atonement and chosen people and resurrection and ascension and miracles and it's not okay to eat pork and it is okay to eat pork and on and on... it's a very complicated plan that springs from that purpose. 

I do believe that actions are influenced by genes, but it also seems that consciousness gives us some freedom from those urges.  Hence the ability to commit suicide, etc.

I think Shaun answered this nicely. 

"Actually, the harder problem would be to show how a non-physical anything could interact with a physical anything. If thoughts are not physical, how do they influence, interact with, or have anything at all to do with the brain?

And if they don't, then why does removing parts of the brain, putting certain chemicals in the brain, or otherwise altering the brain change our thoughts?"

I would also like to add that (as Richard Carrier points out in his book) that there have been studies that show that we can fiddle with the brain and make people swear that they are hearing music being played in the room or they will swear that they are five years old, etc.  We can have conversations with one side of the brain and then the other and neither side remembers the other conversation.  The idea that souls influence matter is a strange one to me.  Do retarded people have intelligent souls?  Do blind people have souls that see?  For those who believe in soul travel/astral projection (not that you do), I wonder if this can be tested with remote viewing studies... but I digress.  It is enough to know that we need the scientific method to help overcome our epistimological limitations.

 That depends on the context of the environmental pressures in which it resides (and as Shaun alluded to, may be sexual in nature).  

I don't know if that is true.  Alex the Parrot can identify the color, shape, and number of material objects by memory, which requires using symbols and displacement.  Rio the sea lion sorts letters and numbers into classes and can expand classes to include new letters and numbers and even discover simple equivalencies between groups.  Koko the gorilla has a vocabulary of over 1,000 words of sign language and has requested and named a pet kitten (then he was sad when it died!).  Washoe the chimpanzee not only learned 132 signs, but taught them to other chimps.  Kanzi the bonobo learned symbolic comunication by watching its mother learn, and not by direct reward or punishment.  Did they always have this kind of intelligence or did they evolve to have it?  Has anyone documented these kinds of achievements in the past?  I don't think so... But at the end of the day, in the context of Christian theology, what may be just as important is that animals do not deserve the automatic subjugation prescribed in Genesis by default.

If I say that I'm going to read a book tomorrow, that is a viable potentiality, but if I say that tomorrow I am going to jump over the sun, it is not.  Only abstract concepts that are actual parameters of physical reality are potentially viable.  There is no objective abstract concept that does not relate to physical reality that is potentially viable (you were talking about "other forms of conceptual knowledge&quot.  My point is that only the abstract concepts contingent in some way upon physicality are testable and relevant.  I'm sure you disagree.

Whatever emotional responses people make (perhaps you've never seen JP Holding in action) does not negate the fact that religion has absolute principle beliefs that will never budge, while scientific knowledge, in principle, may be overturned (or more often requalified) with evidence.  As you have probably (hopefully) been told, scientific theories go with what is the best evidence and does not make absolute claims.  What drive them nuts, is when there is evidence that gets ignored by laypeople who don't understand it because of obvious religious convictions (you spoke of "towing the party line"- do you have any beliefs that would shock your fellow Christians?).

I can't speculate on the motivations of potentially irrational ancient people or to how much truth there is in the accounts we have in ancient history, especially when errors and interpolations abound.  Sorry.

Do you think it's fair that God leaves the salvation of remote people up to missionaries?

Peace,

Gato

 I did say "I don't know", I said that science has not answered that question as of yet. As far as there being an intelligent source for hieroglypics or the books of the bible, yes there were men who wrote those book. Not a god... There were many books written back then that are not included in the bible such as the book of mary magdilain(spellcheck), her brother, the book of Judas, Esdras, and many others who also were written by real live humans but are not included in most bibles. It took a person to write these books and it took another person to decide which books to allow in the bible and which books to exclude. Heck they even leave out the last verse of Psalms in most bibles because it makes it sound like the entire book of Psalms was only meant for the children of Isreal(Jews).

As for not being able to answer about the molecules you do realize you wouldn't even be able to ask this question if not for the advancement of science. You wouldn't know about molecules if it were not for science.

I think if you go back and reread what I wrote you'll see that your question was answered accurately. Take your time reading it next time.

 Well there are actually some non biased bible scholars out there and most agree that these were probably written by men with these names but I suppose you are correct. I was only trying to make the point though that the bible only proves that each of the books were written by a person and in no way confirms the existance of god.

Again you guys did a swell job.

You make the assumption that the universe had a beginning. Time and Space may very well be infinate and have no beginning or end.

 And again if you had watched the full debate you would have seen that they answered this questions by stating that "if there was a beginning and God was the beginning then who created god?" by your logice he would have to have a beginning also.

Barney the Dinosaur says he loves me too but that does not make him a god.  

This is all we really need to know about you and your arguement. You refuse to debate or think about the issue because you are afraid of what you might find. This is why in an actual debate format that Brian and Kelly did so well.

In your post you offer your thoughts and threats of damnation but are not willing to listen to what others have to say. This makes you a hypocrit.

P.S. sorry for all the posts but i had 12 pages to respond to. I don't get to log on that often.

I don't know why anyone would agree to a discussion with you on these terms. If the words as they are printed in the Bible mean only what you say they mean, then you have already won any argument about the Bible that can be conceived. This entire point amounts to you putting your fingers in your ears and saying "Nyah nyah nyah I can't hear you." 

NO! If God, an omnipotent being, created us, then he is 100% responsible for everything that we do! He has no right to "expect" anything, because everything is proceeding exactly as he designed. Certainly he could have at least created us so that we were unable to violate his wishes.

Why did God create these things if he wanted us to not know them?

I'm playing along fine and believing everything you say about what the Bible says. So far, it is uniformly self-contradictory and nonsensical.

Sorry, doesn't wash. We do what we do because God made us do it. And don't bother trying to hit me with Free Will - you still need to explain why God couldn't have created the universe such that free will, and therefore evil, was unnecessary.

So God set up a system where he has to become a perfect man and be tortured to death in order to save the people that he has forced to break his own laws. Sounds like a bad schizophrenic fantasy. 

And highly mockable it is. 

Good Morning Detritus Maximus, Veils of Maya, ScottMax, Inspector Mustard, Textom, and ShaunPhilly.

You have all posted great information that requires a well-thought out response. Though I must admit that it's a little overwhelming for one person to respond to all of you. So if I miss any points that you have raised, I apologize.

I want you all to know that I am limited on time (I have an almost 2 year old son and one on the way), so as much as I want to respond fully and completely to all that you have written, it will be difficult. But I want to continue with our fascinating debates, so I will plod on.

I hope to have another post on here either tonight or tomorrow that addresses some of your points.

Thanks for the lively conversation.

Sara

 Response to perfectlawministries on previous page.  

LOL if you read my previous post you will see thats exactly what I said Ray believes. I agree thats what the bible says but some christians have altered the criteria for hell anyway. They realize that you have to be a monster to send a handicapped person born without the capacity to understand the message to hell.

I commend WOTM for reading the bible and sticking with the message no matter how grotesque. Everyone born before Jesus except maybe a few Jews went to hell and could have done nothing to prevent it. Most people alive today will go to hell. A five year old raised as a Muslim that dies in a car wreck goes to hell. There is no biblical reasoning to refute this. Most christians dont bother to read the bible (except for the fag bashing verses) and make up their own rules.

Your god is a monster and he is getting hardcore kicked in the balls by satan. You lost the soul war so suck it down bitch!!!!! I would rather go to hell with all the wizards and whores you can hang with Kirk Cameron for all eternity.

Several posters have stated that Kirk & Ray could have done better, they are the Washington Generals of evangelism, superior arguments exists and all that.

Where are these superior arguments for god? I dont see them in this thread. I cant find anything online except for the same babble repeated over and over. If god has better defenders than Kirk point me to them please. I am looking for superior logic not just the same crap repeated with bigger words by bozos with honorary doctorates from patriot university. I do not think a more convincing case exists.

You missed the point that if that is true, people who are non-theists are still moral without god.  And for the record, stating that god exists because without him morality doesn't exist, and morality is the result of god is nothing short of circular reasoning.

 Second of all, stating that morality and god are linked may make sense to you, but to me, they are a total non-sequitur because god is authoritarian and doesn't give reason, which to me is not moral.  The only thing you are actually demonstrating is that morality is relative because what you call moral, I consider immoral.

Wouldn't a perfect God be able to make His perfect morality comprehensible to His favored creation? If the Bible is His message to us and everything that God sanctions is what God considers moral, then we must realize that our own sense of morality is in big trouble. Most of us would not consider it moral to kill homosexuals, adulteresses, non-believers, followers of other religions, blasphemers, rebellious children or those who collect sticks on the sabbath but God sanctions all of these things in the Old Testament.

So if Christians do not get their moral principles by blindly following everything that God condones in the Bible, they must instead use reason, compassion and the values of their shared culture to find a suitable moral code. This is what atheists use as well.

Anthony, I suggest that you have a look at evilbible.com. Use the menu on the left side to see instances of rape, murder, etc. in the Bible.  Go through all of those marvelous examples of how the Bible presents a brutal morality that has no place in modern society. See if you can make peace with all of those quotes.

Peace.

Intersting scottmax I will look those up. Did your christian friends actually read the books you recommended? What books did you propose to them and how did they respond? I am curious how a christian can look deeply into the rabbit hole and remain a christian.

How is it that believers rationalize the differences among the races? Sickle cell anemia for instance, evolved to protect black Africans from Malaria. I believe it is found exclusively in the black population. Did the great intelligent designer decide to warp the shape of particular black people's red blood cells through his almighty powers to protect them from malaria? (why not just get rid of mosquitos or malaria?). And if Christians can admit that it was natural selection which favored the genes for this trait, then it doesn't take a noble laureate in biology to realize that 3.5 billion years of this process will lead to very complex life-forms.

This is just one piddly example of thousands which show there is nothing intelligent about our design.

"You don't understand, if God exists, He is morality. It is His character."

So you are saying that the Euthyphro Dilemma can be solved by simply moving the question of "what makes something good?" from "God's command to do it does," to "God's nature does"? It's that simple?

You don't seem to see the major problem -- either morality transcends the question of God's own existence (and thus God's nature as well, and whatever would dictate said nature), or it doesn't and it is contingent upon some aspect of God's existence. If morality is a contingent thing, then it is as circular to say "God is good" as to say "This part/function of God is of God." Goodness as an external standard is necessary to make any use of it.

If, for instance, God's nature was such that the fellow got off on the torture and molestation of small children, then that would be "good" in your book. Morality contingent on God's nature is just as broken and useless as morality contingent on God's commands. You haven't solved the problem of what makes something good at all, just translocated it from one place (God's commands) to another (God's nature).

 Yeah, why read hundreds of pages of philosophical writing on a complex subject when you can just reference a one-sentence definition that reflects its common usage in society?

You are welcome to use the bible to prove the existence of the bible. The sun can be used to prove that the sun exists but not to prove that Apollo is real.

Not so fast.

I'm not agreeing with you here. First of, the argument you put up is just one of societal bias, not why religion is a mind disorder. You're argument is based on consensus ("Society finds X ridiculous, but not Y. Therefor, they are both ridicuous.&quot. Every religion started out as a cult and every religion is that is small and new will be frowned upon - even by other religious people - but that doesn't make it pathological.

Second, I do not consider worshipping animal gods any sillier or more logical than worshipping the 'Big Brother complex' of Western religion.

Now if someone think his own cat, walking right in front of him, is a deity, that would be easily falsifiable. But unless you can give me psychosomatic causes for this phenomenon, you're abusing the word 'mind disorder'. And I don't like clinical psychology to be pissed on.

It is my opinion that in this scenario, religion is just a mediator in the proces. People may be aroused by religious thought about them being right, but that's nothing other things like politics, race, or culture can't do. Any trait that categorizes humans into groups can do that.

The ME conflict has gotten much international attention because of interests in resources (oil, military allies), and ideologies (like government types). Religion is just one factor in a bigger proces. Like pretty much anything in history, it's all about power.

In my opinion, 'logic' and 'rationality' is prententious and naive bullshit invented by society. There is no such thing as a complete and perfect framework for understanding and explaining the world. Saying that one system is completely devoid of logic. People simply do not have the cognitive abilities to seperate manmade fiction from what we understand as 'reality'. We're to easily fooled by what we think we know. I don't even see a reason to assume objective truth exists.

As a matter of fact, contradictions, paradoxes, and falsehood are necessary for creating stable and usable methods of categorizing and manipulating the world. Read some Douglas Hofstadter or Robert Anton Wilson if you disagree, you'll be amazed. (Wilsons's The Cosmic Trigger and Prometheus Rising are particularly interesting for those who dismiss other people's beliefs as 'insane&#39

You're basically putting your obsession with reason over someone elses preference of pragmatics or essence. Just because something doesn't have a closed set of premises or deductions doesn't give you the right or even a reason to declare a Jihad on religious thought.

Unless you can disprove the existence of god (and you can't -unfalsifiable) or disprove every single argument in favor of theism (and you can't), there's no reason to say a theist must throw all reason and logic out the window.

Moderates religious people do not demand unfailling and unquestioning respect for their beliefs. At least, that's my idea about the whole MODERATE thing.

I just don't see any justification for you vehement anti-religious sentiments and your constant need to diminish religious thought to silly charicatures.

Sounds interesting. I might give it a try one of these days.

First off I would like to apologize, I am not as familiar with forums as some others are, I am cutting/pasting this through MS Word, so I can see better the context of what I am doing, as such the quoting etc, may be off somewhat. My respone will be in blue.

 Response: this is my perfect example, how do you know my D wasn’t also 3? You assumed it wasn’t but it could have been. 

Response: How could somebody lacking sight see all the evidence? I’m sure that’s not exactly what you meant to say, but how do you know that the things supposedly provided by the sun (if you can’t use it for reference) are not provided by large sun lamps?

As a history book there are no things that are disputed by other history books, and there are more things being proven to be correct in the Bible all the time by writings of cultures of the same times that are being found, also the lack of mentioning something in one culture does not preclude it from happening in another..  

Response: Yes if you take verses out of context, you can tear them apart all day long, and yes even back 2000 years ago, humans were humans… just like today, and just like today as then, the quoted verses hold true…

Christ’s Kingdom on earth is HERE, it began with His crucifixion, it continues  forever, and will completed upon His second coming

You know what makes 'me' 'wonder--?

I f a (so-called) "god", gave 'dominion-over' "Earth" to an entity called "Satan",..... then WHY would anyone actually 'trust' ANY-thing 'found' on "Earth" to be "the word of a 'god&#39-?

Wouldn't a "Satan" that had complete-control of "Earth" be able to 'plant' "certain books" (fossils.....etc)-?

 Would 'that' not 'negate' everything that "the-bible" had/has to say-?

Just-asking,.... from a logical-standpoint.

Where are these superior arguments against God? I dont see them in this thread. I cant find anything online except for the same babble repeated over and over. If god has better defeaters than Brian and Kelly, point me to them please. I am looking for superior logic not just the same crap repeated with bigger words by bozos with honorary doctorates from patriot university. I do not think a more convincing case exists.

 I couldn't agree more?  Obciously I changed some words to prove my point.  No one has answered this question:  Which statement is dogma:

1.  I cannot prove God exist, but God exist.

2.  You cannot prove God does not exist, but God does not exist.

 You say that theist are dogmatic while atheist are scientific.  I have heard over and over, "Christians say that God does exist, so the burden of proof is on them to prove His existence."  BUT you have said "God does not exist" - so the burden of proof to prove His non-existence is upon you.  Where is that proof?  I have not seen it yet. 

You will be able to answer the question against God as well as the Christian will be able to answer the question for God.  It is a belief, worldview, or faith.  Ultimatlely, it is a philisophical question and you cannot use emperical science to prove either position.  What is amazing is that the vast majority, including Brian and Kelly, are still looking for the answer and attempting to prove their pisition with emperical science.  Not going to happen.

RevLyle

Not if you believe in the Trinity it's not. Are you a Jehovah's Witness?

You would not have all of the evidence but we have plenty of other ways of detecting the sun besides sight. Relativity Theory and gravity alone would show us evidence of a large object where the sun is. We can also detect the heat of the Sun. But all of this seems fairly irrelevent to your point about using the Bible to prove itself.

I am very excited to hear about all of the things that are being scientifically proven to be correct in the Bible. I assume you mean more than the obvious facts like Jerusalem being a real city and Pontius Pilate governing Judea. I presume that you are referring to things like the earthquake and the dead rising for a stroll through Jerusalem when Jesus died... stuff that is actually relevant to proving that any of the important parts of the Bible are not just fiction based in a historic setting. Please send links to articles. Many of us have been looking for this so I'm sure your new information will be greeted with much excitement here.

Yes, we love to take things out of context. Of course, out of context generally means reading what is written in the Bible at face value without filtering it through some convoluted apologistic process to make it mean what is more socially acceptable by modern society.

For instance, when we read in Matthew 21:19 about how Jesus was hungry and he cursed the fig tree for having the nerve to be out of season and not bearing fruit, we assume that means that he was hungry and destroyed a tree that could not possibly have fed him. I could give you many more examples but you can just look back a few posts and find the many other negative things that Jesus appears to have said and done. But I'm sure you can find some rationalization that puts all of those "in context" to make Jesus a swell fella.

Sorry to be so sarcastic but "out of context" is just about the most intellectually lazy defense I hear of the Bible. I'm getting tired of hearing it.