The notion of comparing God, to leprechauns, and Santa, has gained some currency among atheist circles, particularly the popular forms of it. And this has evolved  into a weird sort of perception of God among unbelievers, that doesn't understand the distinction between a being like my neighbor next door, and god, or the distinction between saying Obama lives in the white house, and God exists. 

What I'm going to do is to define God. What I'm not doing is advocating that he exists, nor am i defining it to suit a particular branch of theism, but one that applies to fundies, and the Anglicans alike. What I'm doing is defining God, along the lines of what the word means, and implies, and on what basis  is it to say that "God exists".

Imagine you were walking one day, and you were hit in the head by a rock. Let's hit pause, and let's see what sort of "beliefs" are involved here. You believe, A) a rock hit you, and you believe B) in some sort of "force" that allowed the rock to hit you, regardless if it being the air, or a person with two arms, a black man , or a leprechaun. 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=th6Njr-qkq0

What do you think?

Please continue here. :3

Since its my one year anniversary I thought I would offically say hello and start my first thread. There was really no reason to start one since there was always something I could find to jump in on and I mostly listen anyway. It didn't take long to realize I didn't have anything new to say.

I started out here a year ago looking to win arguments but I quickly realized that that was fruitless since I had to resort to being irrational usually in about 3 steps.

I have been a born again christian for almost 20 years and you guys have really given me some serious stuff to consider. So I guess you are doing a good job. I live in Maryland and I had long standing debates with atheists that were unsatisfying but this took it to a whole new level. Its funny. Somebody early on said that I would be an agnostic in 6 months and an atheist in a year if I stuck with it here. Well I have to say its definitely raised doubts so thats good since most people are a little too sure about what they believe in anyway. I think I was too.

I have mostly appreciated threads by Hamby, Nigel, Todangst, Rook, BobSpence, Kevin, and many others as well. I have learned a lot and it has been challenging at times. I will stick with it and we'll see what happens.

Thanks,

JAB

Hi Cap,

In your discussion with PJTS on the OT stories you wrote

Offhand, I'd say it's in the same place as the lesson as eternal punishment in hell.

Why is eternal punishment acceptable and obliteration not acceptable?

Someone in high school once called me arrogant for being an atheist by saying I thought I understand more than everyone else by choosing to hate God (don't get me started on how ridiculous that reads, just repeating).

But I started thinking...are atheists REALLY the ones who are arrogant? Here's a brief list of some of my deductions on this subject. Feel free to add or argue against ;D

- Religious people feel they're special enough to deserve eternal bliss (I think 2-5 years of Heaven is more than what the average person deserves after a life of mediocrity and consumption, honestly).

- Religious people feel their God is the only one, even though geography determines their faith over enlightenment.

- Religious people feel an omnipotent creator made the planets, stars, Earth, millions of animal life forms...just for us. It's kind of a stretch assuming a God would want anything to do with us (especially love us unconditionally) since we're pretty worthless by comparison. Aww

- Religious people believe they are morally superior, even though the bible is written in blood. It's really not the hypocrisy that bothers me as much as the disbelief that a person can be an atheist and still have morals.

- Religious people believe superstition answers more questions than Science. The denial of facts like...proving the Earth is more than 6,000 years old is what makes them arrogant in this example. Questioning Science is ok, denying it entirely is something else.

It has been argued by many members on this particular forum that there is absolutely no evidence that consciousness can exist independently of the brain and the body. Well, this is not entirely true. There is evidence - namely, NDEs (Near-Death Experiences) and OBEs (Out of Body Experiences). This thread will discuss the near-death experience. 

The phenomenological aspects associated with near-death exepriences are listed below. These characteristics have been reported regardless of culture or society (although the vocabulary employed to describe the experiences have differ).

Greetings!  It has been ages since I've been here and I've grown a lot.  (Namely, I've given up religion but I'm still a spiritual person.  I despise "religion" nowadays.)

Notice that I didn't say "when is theism, religion, etc."  Spirituality is a little different and feel free to correct me with a different word if I'm not being accurate.

So my question really is, when it it 100% okay to be spiritual?  And I mean this in the sense that a spiritual person adheres to no particular doctrine (perhaps a few choice ones that are "loving teachings", for instance) and also they think for themselves.  If anything a good word is "hopeful" for things like a loving afterlife, ultimate justice, etc.

I can understand the need for many of you to change the thinking of people who are irrational in their thoughts so they might better themselves.  But how is just hoping or even believing wrong?

I posed this question because I get the sense that many of you are so stanch in your beliefs that you would be unaccepting of something, because you (like everyone else in the world, it's proven) are not unbiased.

Sorry in advance that I'm not as much of a heavyweight contender as some of you debaters are btw.  

Ok...so God knows how to make:

Everything else is a reaction to a Big Bang (assuming God existed, he would have done this on accident or purpose). Now, just for argument's sake, God also made animals and people, too. Humans are extremely complicated, I'll give him that, but as far as technology goes God seems just a little bit limited.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGpeOjRbPmI

If you ever want to feel sorry for god-botherers watch this Vid.

If you want a good laugh it pretty much works the same way.