1 Kings 18:22-39:

 ²² Then Elijah said to them, "I am the only one of the LORD's prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. ²³ Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. ²⁴ Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire—he is God." 
      Then all the people said, "What you say is good."

I have found that many times, when a creationist makes an argument against evolution, it seems that they have no understanding of evolution, whatsoever. I've never had a creationist follow up explaining that they, in fact, do understand evolution. For this reason I don't think its fair to keep badgering them and claim that all creationists don't understand evolution.

I am asking creationists to explain evolution, whether or not you believe it in doesn't matter. Just explain it and prove to me that creationists aren't simply ignoramuses.

I ceased to believe in god when I finally let go of the idea that somehow suffering can be part of god's long term plan.  After quite a lot of other sh1t happening, my 30 year old husband of 10 years suffered permanent nerve damage to his lower spine due to cancer.  While he appeared to everyone else to be reasonably healthy, he was in fact unable to urinate.  He also lost sexual function and partially lost bowel function.  He had to self catheterize for the rest of his life.  Which turned out to only be another year due to proliferation of tumours in his brain. 

I am no philosopher.  I find that when people are talking about hypothetical occasions of suffering and god's will, they can always come up with hypothetical ways that God could be working in the situation.  So therefore, apparently, we have no right to judge it as unacceptable for an omnipotent god.  I could dismiss hypothetical suffering as not being in conflict with an omnipotent god.  I did for over a decade.  I could, however, not dismiss the private indignity and pain he suffered daily as being somehow beneficial to something.  No possible benefit could come of my husband being unable to urinate.  Noone will be inspired by a situation like that, and even if they were, it is abhorrent to think that it would in any way justify the suffering and indignity he went through.  It was a humiliation that brought him to depression.  I lost my belief in prayer then, and my belief in god followed along accordingly.

I just received a note on facebook but am too busy to find the threads on this site that deal with the issue, or to type a response out at length, not to mention the fact that I find the argument to be worthy of nothing more than a sentence answer.  I thought though that I should post it here, and maybe some of you could help with the leg work, I'm linking the person who asked me.

Here's the letter:

In a sense, you can think of God like a black hole; they both are mysterious, both are unable to be seen, and they are both infinite.

That's bull shit, in physics infinity is impossible, it's a complete and utter monster. Black holes have been proven of their existence, although with today's aspects of calculating mass and gravity you come to the conclusion that: A black hole is a singularity; it has infinite mass, infinite density, infinite gravity, and an infinite space-time curvature. If that were true, the universe would be one great big black hole, that's just silly. Now black holes were laughable a while back, they seemed utterly impossible, but with modern technology we are able to observe the effects of something that simply MUST be a black hole; an immense amount of gravity in a very small space. Black holes are impossible yet they exist.

God on the other hand is very similar. Although we haven't had any infallible evidence of a god there is an eerie similarity between god an black holes. Now let me make this clear, I'm not talking about the hypocritical, spiteful, arrogant, and idiotic god in Christianity, or any other religion for that matter, I'm speaking of a god or gods that created the universe or even life. Until the big bang theory is proven Theists will keep fighting, I myself being an agnostic find it rather plausible for the existence of some "god-like" figure to linger somewhere. Now God is great and all, but:

@ Current Topic

Just a quick thought I had earlier:

One of the phrases I hear thrown about by Christians is that we are "God's children" I also hear that he is "The Father."  So, look at how civilized society would regard a "father" who forced his children to worship him under threat of eternal damnation and beat the living shit out of his kids to "test their faith" (among other atrocities). 

In my humble opinion, religion was created for quite a few reasons, mostly because people felt comforted by the thought that their life had meaning and direction and that they had someone looking over them and protecting them. Also because the idea of total nothingness after death was terrifying and difficult to comprehend. Another large part of why people choose to follow religion is to better themselves. Religion lays down moral guidelines that lead to becoming a good person with compassion and understanding, and lead away from giving yourself up to the inherent evil in man, by that I mean the compulsion for violence that we all have in us, read lord of the flies for a better explanation.

In my mind there is nothing wrong or evil with religion in it's basic form, it's only a way of making yourself a better person. Wether you take the symbols within a religion like god or the devil as being literal things, or metaphors for the good and evil in people is totally up to you.

Religion itself is not evil, people say frequently that it causes wars and divides people, but in those situations where conflict arises out of religion, it's people's lust for violence, their need for supremacy and their inability to reason that causes it. Let me go over that once more for clarity, it's man's own faults that cause war, not religion, which is an attempt to better man.

im concerned that the loss of god in our society is creating a world that will be an terrible place to live. Look at the news everday the worst type of human behavior is is shown , our society is falling apart. now its true our media is the worst at reporting the truth. They are more interested in selling papers , but looking at the issue god has been removed from the basics of the community, and now people have lost the fear of judgement by god . Since they have no one to fear and fear causes guidance , they feel they are free to do whatever they want , killing , divorce , rape , etc. how do athiest maitain a moral system without guidance ? is there a moral code ? does the law become the guidance ? i need some understanding.

pat

OK, so this is pretty simple. I don't know what I believe (although I'm leaning towards atheism). If you guys could help me solidify my atheism, that'd be great.

PROVE TO ME GOD DOESN'T EXIST.

Here's a question I've been thinking about to get you guys started:

Moral Law - the pretty universal accept of 'right' and 'wrong' like don't kill and stuff like that. At first I though it's redundancy was exaggerated, but I sat down with a cultures book for a whole day and found there were practically no cultures that wouldn't condemn some type of killing.