Atheist vs. Theist

Pan's Labyrinth

All debates aside. I rented this movie and haven't watched it yet. But from what I hear it has religious undertones to it. Have any of you seen it and do you agree?

Out Of The Logic Loop's picture

Forgiving, Repentence, and the Bible

Just a question for those who are fairly familiar with the Bible.  Is it true that Jesus will forgive nearly anything one can possibly to with the exception of blasphemy against the holy spirit?  What else does the Bible say about forgiveness and repentence?

 

Thanks in advance!!

Out Of The Logic Loop's picture

Trying to Reconcile Good and Evil

This is a point that I think Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and the RRS should focus on more than they do:

One of the terrible things about religion is that once we have people that believe in a kind, mercifull, benevolent god when they witness things like tsunamis killing thousands on the day after Christmas, earthquakes, tornadoes, and starvation, they are forced to basically say that these things are good in one way or another or that they will eventually turn out to be good. I think that this is really bad for society. Some theists may say stuff like, "Ah, millions dying in Africa, that's OK, it's all part of god's plan, everything will turn out OK." Don't get me wrong, obviously MANY Christians do great things in Africa and other places and some are very compassionate people that happen to be Christian. But most probobly do it to please their god. But that is a bit beside the point. My main point is that I think it is terrible for religious people to try and disguise bad events as good.

objective historical evidence as to the existence of the God of the Bible.

In the Old Testament Book of Genesis God made a promise to a man named Abram that he would make him a great nation. That nation was Israel. The Bible mentions that Israel was disobedient to God and went into captivity and suffered the consequences etc. They have been removed from their homeland twice, the second time occurred with the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

For almost 1900 years, the Jews have wandered the earth as strangers who were persecuted on every side. This culminated in the holocaust of WWII, when 6 million Jews were put to death in concentration camps. Yet, against all odds, the state of Israel was reborn on May 14, 1948 and the Jews began to return to their homeland from all points of the compass. This was the second time in their history since becoming a nation that they have come back into their land. Since 1948 they have survived some terrible conflicts, including the 1967 Six Day War and the 1973 Holy Day War. Through all of this, the nation neither perished nor lost its national identity. History has demonstrated that any people who leave their homeland will, after about five generations, lose their identity by being absorbed into the new culture, but the Jews remained a distinct identity.

RationalSchema's picture

Atheism being intellectually dishonest

I found this on another discussion board. Curious as to what people think over here.

 

True agnosticism is intellectually honest - but pure atheism is not. Not even the most brilliant philosopher or scientist - ever - can claim to have sufficient knowledge which would allow him or her to decide with any degree of certainty that no - a priori - Intelligence exists or doesn't exist! An intelligent agnostic recognizes that fact and limitation - and therefore suspends judgment in his deliberations. The agnostic philosopher/mathematician, Bertrand Russell, stated: "in the final analysis there is no way to prove the existence or non-existence of God." There are three positions human beings can take in respect to that age-old question: Believe - Suspend Judgment - Disbelieve.

RationalSchema's picture

Question for Creationists??

I have a serious question for creationists about the book of Genesis.

Where did Cain's wife come from??

Why we worry about RRS and the negative worldview

I read a post on here stating that Chrisitans are worried...This is true, but not for the reasons you may think. Since atheism strips any sense of ultimate purpose, there will be mental consequences to their new-found anti-worldview. People tend to be happier and generally healthier when they have God in thier lives, this is a proven fact supported by studies. If fact, those who don't have God tend to commit SUICIDE for often then those who have a relationship with God. So when an atheist claims that we Chrsitians are worried about RRS and atheism, this is true. This is a link to a scientific study. There are several but I'll only post this one.

e303's picture

God is Plausible - Mathematical hypothesis leads to origin and a God.

God is plausible.

I am not a religious man in the evangelical sense. I will say however that even though there was a Big Bang there also was probably a Banger. To think the whole universe exploded as a spontaneous event from nothing is less believable then thinking you could spontaneously explode where you sit as you read this.

I have, since my early college days, debated with my thoughts and others the logical path to God. I started with what was broken or could be bent in our universe (ie time) and worked backwards to the concepts of infinity, pi and zero. In the 15 years or so I tried to negotiate the Big Bang, dark matter, time, pi, infinity and the irrationals of our usable math. My conclusion leads to something beyond the singularity event that is in fact conceptually God.

An interesting topic to consider.

I was just watching the history channel, and they were doing a special on hidden messages in the bible. http://skepdic.com/bibcode.html

It's somewhat interesting, because I don't know if this is legit or not, but hey it was on the History channel. They did searchs for things like Hitler, and Man on the moon, and World war 2, and Pearl harbor, and other major events/people in history and found hidden messages in the same grids of the area they were looking for that directly correlate with the word they were looking for. Like, For Kennedy, They said they found will be assassinated by an assassin. And, other things that supposedly directly correlate with the events. I found it somewhat interesting however, I'm not sure if it is reliable or not, they say it is too consistent to just take on chance. However... my reasoning is if they are looking for letters to make words.. they could form anything so it could very well not be legit. Any opinions on this? 

Why try to prove the non-existence of God? Have Atheists not made their own God up? {Mod Edit - Moved to appropriate forum}

If atheists believe there isn’t a God. Then why do they try to prove that there is no existence of one? What would be the point in trying to prove there isn’t a God that doesn’t exist?

Do atheists not make their own God/idol up by trying to prove there is no God in the first place?

Are they not religiously trying to prove the non existence of God and by doing so creating a God/Idol themselves that says there is no God? Could their God/Idol not be called “the god that believes there is no God”?

If atheists have themselves created their own God then how can they say there is no God?

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