Glad you're here Yessica, let's check out your comments.

However, if your religion condones such actions, doesn't that mean the religion is just as devoid of reason and logic?

Making valid points and having valid evidence are not the same thing, my dear. It's very easy to get confused, because yes, to a Christian, the Christian has good points, until the person defending logic and reason steps forward and present shis evidence. Evidence is the wieghing function in a debate. And in a debate between a person diven by faith and a person driven by science, who do you think will have more evidence to support thier claim?

Too many times, Christians are presented evidence against their positions and remain defending it, and believing it, usually in spite of the evidence. (And at times, I have seen you become guilty of this at well) Where I understand it is difficult after living a life attached to such claims and beliefs can be hard to give up, at times it can be downright painful (and in some parts of the country, it can even be dangerous) but the question you have to ask yourself is, what kind of person ignores evidence and believes in things without evidence? Do I really want to be one of these people? What sort of things can happen if people just believed things without evidence? I know when I asked these questions to myself (and others) I didn't like the answers. It's one of the reasons I left the faith and turned to reason.

Lets say somebody high up stopped following the evidence and just went on hearsay (the Bible for example is hearsay), like for example, a Judge or a Lawyer (We depend on them to follow the evidence!), and started to actively just accept people on their words for it. Murderers would end up getting off scott free because their testimony could exonerate them, or if they had friends who vouched for them, even though they couldn't be trusted either, and even though we had evidence linking the murderers to the crimes. Innocent people would be convicted of crimes they never committed based on the statements of individuals who hated them or didn't like them.

Granted this stuff happens now, but at such a small, insignificant rate it's almost not even worth mentioning. And, it's because we are so thorough in evidence and not personal opinion or faith, that we can get criminals off the streets and into the jail they belong in. And it's because we seek out evidence that innocent people don't go to jail. Because evidently they couldn't have committed the crime.

Now what if it were surprisingly more serious? What if we just bombed people because of hearsay? (Well, in all honesty, the Iraq war currently going on is EXACTLY for this reason...hearsay = evidence to the Bush Administration, and now many many people are dying because of it!) This is the serious nature of faith. WIthout a strict observance of evidence, all sorts of horrible attrocities can be committed and nobody could say anything, because on the anti-logic that faith provides, faith would simply be enough.

Here's the thing: If two points conflict...one is lying or wrong. For example, in a car accident, if Witness A says that a rainbow car was moving at 300 miles per hour, heading in the southbound lane, with 20 people in the car, and Witness B says that a green car, at around the speed of sixty miles per hour with an approximate count of three people in the car, which one is right? You may obviously point out that Witness B is more probable. But Witness A makes a few valid points in terms of what they saw. Let's look at the evidence for both sides as if you are observing the scene after the witnesses both gave their accounts:

Witness B claims that the car was green, he's sure of it, and indeed the car, upon your inspection is green, but Witness A claims that they couldn't see the color of the car, but when the light flashed on it from the street-lamp, it looked a variety of colors.

Witness B claims that, he can't be sure, but the car appeared to be going around 60 MPH, but because he didn't have the tools necessary to prove it, he's just guestimating that 60 MPH is the speed, based on his own experiences driving. Witness A, however, was sure that his car was moving at 300 MPH, in fact WItness A can state with some authority that because WItness B didn't know for sure, he was probably wrong and way off.

Witness A also used that same claim, to state that because Witness B was giving an approximate guess as to the amount of people in the car, that they probably missed a few people, or couldn't see properly. So Witness A, knowing for sure that there were 20 people in the car, continually states that they must be right. That there were 20 people in the car.

However you can clearly see that there are three people, two adults and one child. Now Witness A says that the Child is really only a young person, so he only counts as a half, so the real total is 2 1/2 people in the car, so that means that Witness B is completely wrong.

You inform Witness A that they has just claimed 20 people, and Witness A replies, "Well, they could have ran away or jumped out the car. I can't really remember, but it IS possible!"

Sure, anything is possible in concept, but what is more probable? This is the key. It's sure possible that the car was moving faster then or slower then 60 MPH, but it certainly wasn't moving at 300 MPH. It's physically impossible, and such impossibilities for a car make it improbable.

It is possible that the child was hidden under below the seat horizon, and if you looked in from the read of the car, you may not even see the kid. And sure it's possible that one can fit 20 people into a car, especially if its a big car, but driving would be all but impossible because you would still need to steer, and use the clutch (if applicable) and break and gas the car to move and stop. Such acts as these would not be probable in a car jammed with so many people.

And the car clearly isn't rainbow, but, when light reflected off it, it could have given the car a variety of color variances, which make it have the appearance of perhaps a rainbow, but not for long. So sure, this could be acceptable. In fact there are some real garrish folks out there who would paint their car a rainbow. (Or, maybe they're not garrish, maybe they just have a lot of Gay pride, which is fine too) But the fact is, the car is neither rainbow nor a variation of colors.

So, in spite of all this evidence, would expect Witness B or Witness A to be wrong or right? It's hard to tell, because some variables aren't given. But thats just the same as with the situation you ascribe above. Both sides can give decent points, and to them they make sense. But When evidence gets involved, one side will have to curve or run.

And just like in your situation, nobody on the reason side is making any positive assertions, we're just giving probabilities. The Theist side is making all the assertians, like a God took on the form of flesh, walked on water, raised the dead, healed the blind and sick with a touch or a statement, rose from the dead, and came back to life in the flesh...and that he is going to come back..some day...nobody knows when...

These are the theistic assertions. These are what people like me go...hmm...well, you claim it, now you prove it. When we hear comments like, "You have to take it on faith" we start to go, "Yes, no evidence, we thought as much." And when we present evidence in spite of their (your) claims (Like the fact that in the history of medicine, nobody ever rose from the dead, or that nobody has ever walked on water and been documented to do so, or that a God has ever taken on flesh in two thousand years even though it was a pretty common theme back then) we get, "Well, there are good arguments on both sides, nobody is right or wrong."

That's simply false. Somebody is wrong. They both contradict each other! They can't BOTH be right! Somebody has to give, and it is going to be the side with less or no evidence. In every case. So which side are you on? Which side do you want to be on?

That isn't what he is saying. He's saying the whole concept of God has been taken down and reconstructed. The God you believe in today is not the same God Christians believed in a thousand years ago, ot even two hundred years ago. This is significantly different then changing dogmatic ideas to modernize.

And sure, modernizing is fine, but only in the constructs of everybody agreeing that their religion isn't truth. Because is religion is true, and your God exists, changing the laws would be blasphemous. And moderate Christians like you would have been stoned as heretics long ago. The whole reason society HAS changed at all sicne the Dark Ages is because of free-thinkers. Without free-thought, reason and atheism (to be direct) there would be no moderate Christianity. There would only ancient laws and lots of death.

Inquisitions, crusades and plague would still rule the world. Because there would be no scientific method, no medical examinations or cures because chemical engineers would not exist, no rational thought and no real trading beyond the known world which would only encompase Europe because people would believe the world was flat and they'd be eatten by monsters, or fall off the edge into void. This is what religion would bring. The ONLY reason you feel modernizing is okay is because free-thinkers have dramatically altered the course of history and thinking.

That's not just a question, that's a refutation. You just refuted your own beliefs and you don't even realize it.

Man visualizes God because man creates God. One of my favorite quotes is from the Infidelguy, Reggie Finely, who said, "How many Gods do we have to stop believing in before we realize we make them all up?"

Rather, man creates God to fill in concepts he doesn't understand. This is called God of the Gaps.
God of the Gaps is defined as:

1. A theistic position held that anything that can be explained by human knowledge is not in the domain of God, so the role of God is therefore confined to the 'gaps' in scientific explanations of nature.

Or in laymens terms, when somebody can't understand a concept, like existence, they insert God (or aliens, or giant snarfwidgets, or titans, or whatever else the imagination can fathom) into the equation and think they have found an answer. But tell me, what is the value of inserting a vague concept into an unknown equation? All you get is a vague equation that doesn't add up to the answer!

This is speculative. Tell me one truth about Jesus, something he did. I bet you can't do it without me contradicting you using your own Bible. Here's the deal, if I can contradict you three times, you have to admit that the idea of God being human is flawed. But I get five chances to do it. If I contradict you in three out of the five, you conceed. But if I fail, then I'll conceed this point to you. SO next time you reply to this, give me five truths you think Jesus did/accomplished when he supposedly lived.

Carrier's statement isn't that Man was made in Gods image, but that God was made in the image of man. In other words, God was anthropomorphized. If a God existed, he would not have human characteristics, because that would make God flawed, physical and frail.

And to claim that we were made in his image is ignoring all the other anthropomorphized Gods that have ever been believed in or conceptualized.

Bingo. Assume and assume and what do you prove? Nothing. Assumption isn't evidence, it's only speculation, and usually it's in spite of evidence.

Looking forward to your replies.