Being an adherent of Judaism requires a belief in Abraham's God, therefore you can't also be an atheist.

I will head off in advance any attempt you might make to claim that you're somehow ethnically a member of a religion, because NO religion is an ethnicity or race. although the Ashkenazi faction of Judaism fancies itself to be exclusively such.

As long as you insist that you are a Jew, you are a theist. 

Most biblical scholars admit that there is no contemporary evidence of Jesus' life.  This poses a serious problem.

 Since the gospels were clearly written after Jesus' death, and Paul never met the man, it is obvious (but necessary) to say that the bible as we have it was written (or at the very least compiled) "after the fact."

Further, the bible as we have it was not compiled until much later, when certain books were rejected and others were included in what would become the "infallible" and "irrefutable" word of god.

Here's the important question:  How do christians know that the people who compiled the bible were inspired by god?  There's no prophecy in the OT about a group of new Christians who would dig up all the "real" biblical books.  What evidence do you have that their authority was genuine?

These to e-mails might be to easy to refute but i thought everyone would get a kick out of them.

A man went to a barbershop to have his hair cut and his beard trimmed. As the barber

began to work, they began to have a good conversation. They talked about so many

things and various subjects.



When they eventually touched on the subject of God, the barber said: "I don't

believe that God exists."



"Why do you say that?" asked the customer.



"Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist.

Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be

abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I

can't imagine a loving a God who would allow all of these things."



The customer thought for a moment, but didn't respond because he didn't want to

start an argument. The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop. Just

after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street with long, stringy, dirty

hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and un-kept.



The customer turned back and entered the barber shop again and he said to the

barber: "You know what? Barbers do not exist."



"How can you say that?" asked the surprised barber. "I am here, and I am a barber.

And I just worked on you!"



"No!" the customer exclaimed. "Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would

be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards, like that man outside."



"Ah, but barbers DO exist! What happens is, people do not come to me."



"Exactly!"- affirmed the customer. "That's the point! God, too, DOES exist!

What happens, is, people don't go to Him and do not look for Him.

That's why there's so much pain and suffering in the world. "

SELECT ONE: The original 12 Apostles by name are:

1) Simon/Peter
....Andrew
....James of Zebedee
....John of Zebedee
....James of Alpaeus
....Judas Iscariot
....Phillip
....Bartholemew
....Thomas
....Matthew
....Simon the Zealot
....Lebbeus Thaddeus

2) Simon/Peter
....Andrew
....James of Zebedee
....John of Zebedee
....James of Alpaeus
....Judas Iscariot
....Phillip
....Bartholemew
....Thomas
....Matthew
....Simon the Canaanite

Greetings all,

I started a thread here yesterday titled 'Are freethinkers allowed to think a Creator exists?' Evidently the powers that be didn't want any freethinkers to think too freely so apparently it was deleted, at least I can't find it.

Most annoying is I was given no explantion or an e-mail explaining why it was deleted.

I guess there are just somethings freethinkers should be protected from thinking about.

Here is our rebutal to the drivel posted in the wrong thread, the next posts will be his post and the other responses.

Rational argument (rational: meaning, exercising reason and/or logic) for God did it response:

"How did X happen?":

Sufficient condition = "God did it"

"How did he do it?":

Because God is able to do anything.

Sufficient condition = God

Necessary condition = able to do anything

"How do you know he can?":

I don't need to "know" something to be practicing rationality or logic.  To be rational, as I understand it.. I just need to have a logical construct, or, one that is not illogical (logically contradictory).

Define as you understand it. These words seem to lead to a lot of confusion.. people seem to be using them differently-- so I'm just interested in how you, personally, define it when you use one of the following.

Reason.

Rational.

Irrational.

Logic.

I expect the answer will be yes, but please hear me out.  First of all, we cannot deny the fact that nearly every civilization had its own religeon.  Not until the rise of Christianity did religion start unifying to cover many areas.  When you look at every ancient civilization, they each had their own unique religeon(with the notable exception of the Romans, who stole their religeon from the Greeks) which fit their environment.  Now if we all think that belief in an unprovable god is foolish, we humans have been fools for a LONG time.

Religeon does have its benefits.  The world is undenyably very scary, though maybe not as much in our day and age. The knowledge that there is a greater being would have a calming effect on a populace.  The one thing people fear the most(besides public speaking, apparently) is death.  The belief in an afterlife would also bring some sense of peace to the common man.  A religeon also keeps a civilization in line with a "divinly inspired" code of laws.   We also cannot ignore the political aspects of a religeon.  Not only does it keep the ruler, chosen by the gods, in power, but can also be used to incite a population into war against "heathens"(see the Crusades).

Can a person be free to think that God exists and be call themselves a freethinker?

Or are freethinkers 'forbidden' from thinking a creator exists?

Are freethinkers allowed to be skeptical of the theory of evolution or would that violate one of the bylaws?

Perhaps I should start an I'm a freethinker who believes in God challenge hmmm?