It's nice that you show "concern" but this is not a website for people to preach at us like we are lost puppies. You are welcome to stay and try to make a case for the deity you think is real. But after this original post you posted here, please skip the preaching.

We scrutinize and blaspheme all claims we find not to be credible, not just yours. I'd suggest that if you chose to post again your claims will get slapped around. This has nothing to do with your civil rights or you as a person. We take debate very seriously, but we do not take preaching seriously.

We won't eat your babies or barbecue your kittens. If you cannot present evidence that we can chew on, we merely will not adapt your position. But we are not lost puppies for you to save.

We have lots of one time hit and run posters. I hope you are not another one. You do not have to fear debating us. But you will not get away with preaching at us.

You are welcome to stay, but please do not preach.

assertions you have inside your head, Citizen Freak.

To wit, jesus exists, loves, protects, there's a heaven, it's amazing, you're going, your loved ones are all there, dead people are aware of going into the ground. 

You are going into the ground, too, whether you like the idea or not. 

That speaks volumes about the alleged deity that passed down this book.

Takes over 1,000 years and 40 authors. And cant get humans to agree.

Sounds hardly efficient for an all powerful god.

If this alleged god wrote instructions on how to assemble a 12 speed bike, you'd end up with squid for spokes and a starfish for gears and peanut butter covering the seat.

The fact is that there is no wrong way to interpret the bible. I'd say however, the ones who are more fundie and violent are biblical litteralists. So if anyone is taking the words to heart morso they are.

Give me 1 million believers and I'll give you a million different gods.

What you are trying to falsely employ is the "True scottsman" fallacy. Look it up.

Everyone says about other beleivers "They're not doing it right". And you are no different. And lucky us just happened to find the one guy who did get it right. Let me guess you're the only one in human history who claims to have the truth?

Didn't smell this one comming.......oh wait, yes I did. A mile away like a dump truck full of rotted meat.

Ahhh....the luv of a spousal abuser...

It's quite persnickety, innit?

The devil is in the details, they say...

I'm sorry to come across as preaching, i wasnt meaning that to happen. And i will gladly debate with everyone and i am not afraid. I believe in my God and will stand up for him. I don't need to hide anything in emails. Ask me and question me about anything right here.

I know i'm going into the ground, but my soul isn't. That's what lives on after you die.

I am not afraid.

I'm not gonna lie, not all loved ones are there. You have to be saved and asked for forgiveness to be there and sadly not everyone does.

Is the Bible not enough evidence to believe there's a God? Over thousands of years, tons of different authors wrote that book. It's not possible to believe that they all could have written about the same thing like they did unless there was a God guiding their thoughts and showing them what to write.

Of course i have doubts. And the way you're putting it isn't exactly correct. Invisible beings don't just roam around. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us. God is in Heaven, looking down on us. God cannot look on sin, which is why His son died for us. His son was perfect, He could look at him.

You sound a lot like I used to when I was a preacher's kid. You need to think about what you consider to be legitimate proof for things. 

Around here we try to have a standard for evidence and we expect things, by degrees, to meet that standard. 

The claims of the bible, many supernatural, are not born out by evidence of any kind. 

This makes holding up the bible as a form of proof a circular fallacy - the bible is true because it says so in the bible.

It's the basis for every marketing campaign, ever. Yet it's utterly worthless from the point of view of objective testing.

What other claims do you absolutely believe about supernatural things on the basis of some book? None, right?

You make very broad statements, I can't answer them that well.

The things in the Bible are not supernatural. Jesus was a man on Earth. Nothing about that is supernatural.

Scientists believe we came from monkeys. You really want your ancestors to be monkeys? Then fine. Be my guest.

jesus was conceived by angelic decree, had huge stars chasing him about the surface of the planet, he was endlessly holding conversations with god - when he wasn't chatting with satan in the desert. I'm blowed if I know how those NT commentators knew what jesus said to satan in the desert when they were alone together. Then there's all those miracles. Scampering about on lake galilee. Multiplying the happy meals. These are not normal human behaviours. The claim jesus was just a man when he was in fact an immortal deity and the son of god is unsupportable.

And as I say, none of us can know if any of these claims are true. Instead we are told to believe or be tormented eternally. Imagine if I was having a debate with some one and instead of offering cogent proofs of my bizarre claims I just pulled out a bucket of gasoline and a box of matches and shouted "Believe me or whump!"

What sort of a person do you think I would be? Is arguing by threat moral or immoral, in your opinion, JF?

DNA evidence shows that humans and chimps shared a concestor 5-7 million years ago (we share 98 per cent of our DNA with chimps) and we diverged from rhesus monkeys 25 million years ago (we share 93 per cent of our DNA with rhesus'). Of course, every single one of the cells in your body is related to the first living single-celled organisms on the planet. Think of it, JF. You are directly related to all life on Earth. Not just monkeys.

You are a colony of single celled organisms living together in a dry suit of skin whose body fluids mirror the primordial ocean you evolved in. This is a wonderful and inspiring thing. Thanks to the specialised cells in your brain, you, JF, are currently part of the self awareness of this universe. Maybe god made his creation this way - it's perfectly possible for you to accept organic co-evolution and still retain your belief in god. Of course, you'll need to lose that literal interpretation of the bible you have going on there. 

Additionally, that point you make above is a fallacious appeal to consequences. You know. If you don't believe my unproven god is real then your ancestor was a nasty, stupid monkey. In fact, genetic evidence suggests both our ancestors was an oceanic bacterium. Perhaps god decided to create life in this way but the bible authors had no evidence of this and they talked to god the same as you and I might do - in their heads and with no direct reply. That means they wrote what they felt was true, not what could be proven to be true using a method of testing tailored to eliminate bias. 

I hate to say that i honestly have no evidence other than the Word of God. But that is what i believe and trust with all my life. God's about faith. Hebrews 11:1 ^"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

You're not supposed to have hard evidence. You're just supposed to believe.

I have been raised in church my whole life. At one point, I was not a full believer, but now I am.

I know that this answer will get a lot of beef, but I'm alright with that.

JF - no one's going to victimise you for projecting your upbringing. It was my upbringing, too. My old man was an evangelical minister, my mother a missionary in Lebanon for 10 years in the 1950s. I grew up in the manse, church camps, billy graham concerts and was indoctrinated by repeated exposure to all the ideas you cleave to and no others and I believed as you do now.

Perhaps my first doubts came as I realised what god had planned for those who don't believe. Not people who are evil mind you, just people who have legitimate doubts. Over time I thought more about it and began to consider what my basis of evidence should be. I came to think differently. The fact you admit there's no proof for the bible's supernatural claims is not a weakness on your part. There is no proof and it is a faith issue.

Can you see how it might for other people who need proof they can really accept, that believing things that sound far fetched should be difficult if not impossible to do?

To my mind, searching for meaning and trying to understand why things are the way they are is a wonderful thing. Curiosity is not a sin. But parking your brain by the roadside and refusing to drive it for fear of torture after your death based on absolutely no proof is a sad way to live your one precious life.  There's more to truth than bible. That is a certain thing. 

does make a difference. When I was a kid it was all about my relationship with my creator. I was a selfish, undeveloped and vapid thing. As I grew older and other people grew in importance in my mind and my understanding of our mutual human self-ness grew I found myself unable to worship a murdering, torturing god concept. When god burned 'sinners' he burned me. 

I had moved from pre-conventional morality to post conventional morality and felt a sense of universal altruism. No one whose life lasts long enough to really love other human beings can remain a literalist christian without intensely compromising their personal principles. This you will you surely learn in the course of your long life, JF. 

I'm looking for an impersonal savior, you got any?

The evidence is that humans share a common ancestor with them, but evolved to be a different species.

You may not 'want' to admit to yourself what the evidence proves, but like not having a choice as to who your parents were, or their parents, etc... wanting it to be one way doesn't change the reality of who our predecessors actually were.

I would prefer to live with God in my life.  It's easier, less responsibility, less care, less worry.  I however pride myself on education, reason, and science.  My higher power is the power of science, and I respect it too much to believe in things that have no proof.  

I know that if I am willing to believe in a God without proof, I should be willing to believe in anything without proof.  I wouldn't want that to happen, I wouldn't want to be a hypocrite.

What if it was just words written by men?  Would you want to believe a lie?  Would you want to base your whole life around it if it was a lie?

Name 3 other things you believe in that you have no hard evidence of.  I contend you don't have other things you believe in without evidence.  If I'm right, then you certainly shouldn't give god a free pass.

That's good.  You should research them.  You'll be blown away at what you find.  Dedicate yourself to research perspectives that are opposite of yours.  Engaging us in a discussion can only expand your horizons.  I hope you keep this thread going.

 If I believe that there are elves made out of chocolate in my closet, will the elves be there when I open my closet? Surely, you understand the concept that people can believe in things that aren't true. Right?

Edit: Ugh, I had a facepalm pic. But, you seem so sincere, unlike most of the people that come to this site, that I decided to edit it out. I wish we could have a more productive discussion now.

Instead of "irrationalities," would you like this thread to be moved to another subforum where the discussion is more tempered?

No, I can't do it. I'm going to try to be more polite. This person seems sincere.   

LMAO

Funny and true!

Right.

I really was dumbfounded by the Santa statement though. That just blew my mind.  

Well, now that this poor kid has noted that we are not so easily convinced and his entire world has been put into doubt, he'll probably run away to recharge his Jesus batteries and never come back to this site. Sad.

Psychologically, granting them too much information which contradicts their beliefs at once will often cause them to mentally shut down. I wish there was a better way, but I guess once they're posting in an open forum, this has to be expected.   

Hey if it gives you something to feel content about, then go ahead and believe (it doesn't bother me), just don't try to mix religion and science, because a literal interpretation of the Bible isn't compatible with science, regardless of what the Young Earth Creationists tell you.

You are one of the few that has basically told the truth, that is very rare here. You admit to not having any evidence. Good for you.

Of course this answer is going to get beef. Why are you supposed to just believe? Because that is what your family sold you? That is what society sells you? That is what an ancient unscientific book says?

Tradition is not a good excuse. The Egyptians believed the sun was a god for 3.000 years.

Popularity is not a good excuse, Muslims have the most numbers around the world, yet you are not a Muslim.

And If I quoted the Koran, you wouldn't simply "poof" become a Muslim. When anyone quotes a holy book, of any label that is called circular reasoning.

Here is what you are doing:

Used car salesman: "I have this pretty blue car for you"

You: "Where do I sign"

On the other hand, here is what the skeptic does.

Used car salesman: "I have a pretty blue car for you"

Skeptic, "Can I have an independent mechanic check under the hood"

Used car salesman: " No, it is a pretty blue, lots of people love blue"

Skeptic, "If, I cant have it checked out, I am not going to buy it"

Used car salesman, "President Obama used to drive one"

Skeptic, "Don't care, you wont let me check it out, see ya"

You have faith because you see the appeal others have in it, and you want to feel like you are part of something. You mistake the natural evolutionary trait of socializing as making the label of religion real, when what appeals to you is that you can belong to a group.

Most of the world's population does this. Placebo religions exist because it is a way of socializing. But it does not make Allah, or Vishnu or Thor real. It merely means that humans invent super heros because the idea of having one is appealing.

You were indoctrinated at a very young age. No one taught you that it was ok to question. No one allowed you to think for yourself. You can live your life without a deity. You CAN be a decent person without believing in magical invisible super brains. You are good without Allah. You are good without Vishnu. Nothing has to change in being a good person if you see that the God of the Bible is just as much fiction as all other religions. It wont make you evil. It will simply mean that you have faced reality as it is, and you will no longer base it on mere wishful thinking.

"Question with boldness even the existence of a god, for if there be one, surely he would pay more homage to reason than to that of blindfolded fear" Thomas Jefferson(He was a deist)

Let me guess. And DNA is a code? Please don't be that lame.

Resist?

I see exactly what you mean. I just don't agree. The problem is that experiments and their results can, in principle, be observed and reproduced by anyone. E.g. I don't have to take your word that mixing chemicals X, Y, and Z will make a clear, blue liquid; I can watch you do it, and then, do it myself. True, you can argue that anyone can take a step of faith into Christianity and have their own personal experience, but that doesn't make the process objective. The results still can't be observed by all, and they're not even reproduced because everyone has a unique experience.

Generally, the individual just attributes meaning to whatever they feel confirms their step of faith, any small coincidence, interesting event or positive thing could be a sign. Even a thought could be interpreted as 'not their own thought,' but a message from God. Even if your God really did exist and was communicating to people this way, it's completely indistinguishable from a simple clusterfuck of confirmation bias, wishful thinking, illusory correlations, seeing patterns where none exist, and other psychological pitfalls. Other religions do the same thing.      

*sigh*

Now, this one is called cognitive dissonance.