So you know more about the book and and believed in God your whole life but suddenly you forgot about what the very foundation, the pillar of the religion is? You forgot about faith in this book you know much about? So what, God has to come to you in the form of a burning bush, speak from a pizza box to you? What makes you so special that God has to show you evidence? There's much more evidence for God's work in everyday life than evidence that there is no God.
anyways i only linked to part one of that video. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Root_of_All_Evil? you can find links to both part one and two at the bottom of that wikipeda page. part 2 is good. one of my favorite parts of the first video is when that muslim guy is yelling at dawkins (paraphrased): muslim guy: "you athiests dress your women like whores!" dawkins: "i dont dress women, they dress themselves!"
it is wierd how so much evidence is interpreted so much differently all over the world. lots of people see the evidence and it makes them suicide bombers. the evidence is interpreted all sorts of crazy ways. i'm sure you know the correct interpretations though. your magical dreams or whatever tell the right story.
yeah seriously, what makes you so special? why cant you just believe what you are told based on nothing. evidence? bah! reality? no thanks!
I'm sorry Martin, my faith is weak. I should just believe what is told to me because hey, why does God need to prove anything to me? You just gotta believe man. I can't really give you a single concrete reason why and nobody can, but mannn, you gotta have faith! Amen! Ok, since God is obviously not going to give me any signs, how about anyone else in the entire world. You would think that at least one pious person has seen some kind of evidence in the last 2000 years that they could share with us. C'mon, with the number of believers probably equalling trillions over that span of time you would think just someone would have some sort of contact with god. And are we talking mean nasty vengeful God, or loving gentle meek God? Because the Bible never really clarifies. Even the loving meek one is kindof an ******* for letting the majority of his creation suffer for eternity for not believing, despite the fact that he never does anything to assist in the reinforcement of that faith. You were very lucky if you lived thousands of years ago, at say, the same time people believed the Sun was a god. God himself would appear and tell you what was up. You just can't see Him. You see, the thing is, you will die if you look at Him. But believe me ancient man who would later shape the opinions of supposedly educated people centuries later: He's there. Just don't look! And those people long ago, they had a real gift of understanding the world and were able to discern what was from God and what was just yet unexplained natural phenomenons. Like droughts. And the sun. And plagues. They truly had the capacity to understand what was of God and what wasn't. They had vast more knowledge that we do now of the world, and we should follow their example. And if you don't than uh-oh, eternal suffering for you buddy! And don't question it either: God doesn't like it. It shows weakness of faith. True devotion to God is shown by how good you are at repressing any logical or rational line of thought on an issue. You gotta have faith. The Lord works in mysterious ways... Why is it only a minority of us find this absolutely ridiculous? Is it fear of stepping away from a certain comfort zone? I don't get it...
That has already happened once. Needless to say I haven't touched LSD ever again. How so? Give examples please.
For one thing, there are thousands of brilliant theologians that can help explain the questions all of us have better than I. I have read and continue to read a book to help understand. It really opened my eyes. It's called "Faith and Practice." Anyway, for one, you have evidence that Christ existed and was the Messiah by how people acted around him. The Apostles were Jews.......had been their whole lives as was Jesus. They risked persecution and death to follow Jesus who they believed was the Son of God. You think this group of people were all crazy......were deceived by witchcraft? They saw it with their own eyes and were willing to risk being outcasts, persecution and death for one reason. It was all true. Now the book doesn't say it like that but that's the jist of it. There's hundreds of ways to get the touch of Christ. Like I said I'm not a theologian by any means my friend, but the more you slow down, read, think and just watch things around you, you can see the work of God in everything......and it has never made me want to strap a bomb on myself as Martin says. By the way, Martin is a jew hater and wants all of them dead. So, before you start taking religious advice from him, you may want to find out if he'd like to kill you too.
Nah, don't need Martin for religious advice. I don't look to anyone else to shape any of my views... I am atheist but still respect alot of what religion stands for. Anyway, I pretty much completely disagree with everything else I've seen Martin write. He still brings an interesting perspective to an argument, and I respect that.
I think he was refering to the particular statues laid out in Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and others that had specific remedies for certain situations; ie if your brother dies you marry his wife and get his servants. I don't think he was refering to the 10 Commandments. Most of the 10 Commandments are common sense rules of how to live in society, so even as an atheist I have no problem with them being used as the foundation of western law. Well, except for the explicitly Christian ones like "Remember the seventh day, and keep it holy", and "Thou shalt not use the Lord thy Gods name in Vain"... If I was arrested every time I said G@$D@mm&* when LSU didn't bump n' run Tennessee last year.. Not good :yelwink2:
