The Bible God or Kali

Quote: Nareed

Because there is a different standard for religious proof. You can pull "facts" out of thin air and make assumptions that cannot be tested and are not falsifiable.

This might be true for you and atheism, but it is not true at all with religion, or specifically I should say the Abrahamic religions. These religions deal with a God who cares for us and enters into our history to teach, correct, guide, and help us. Therefore nothing can be pulled out of think air. This means the religion needs to be based in accord with history and with our understanding of the human person. A good example is the Exodus, you have shown a couple of times that the evidence points to the idea that the numbers of the Exodus as recorded in the Bible are exaggerated. Now you think there is no evidence at all for the Exodus and here you diverge from historical evidence and many experts, but I digress. The person of Jesus Christ and His life are documented as is His amazing and unique effect on human history. The Resurrection is the only valid historical explanation for the spread of Christianity that I have ever heard, and I am open to hearing others. The idea of Original Sin corresponds perfectly with what we know about ourselves, being so full of the potential for good and yet struggling often to reach and sustain it. We are wonderful but wounded. These are all things that are falsifiable and able to be tested by thinking people.

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You can also ignore actual facts not in accordance with your dogma.

You must certainly CANNOT! Please name for me an actual fact not in accordance with my beliefs.

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I'd have the same problem proving The Flash is not real to someone who believed he was, or proving a conspiracy theory wrong, or proving astrology invalid, etc.

BTW, Batman is real :P

I never know when to take you seriously because sometimes you say intelligent thought provoking things and then sometimes you spew idiocy like this. If you cannot prove to someone who is seriously thinking that the Flash or Batman are not real I don't know what to tell you.

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They're all literary characters. you're just cognizant of the fact that the latter super heroes were purposefully invented for a benign purpose.

Jesus Christ was a real person. Do you really think the ancients were so stupid as to believe in and give their lives for an invented super hero?

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Hmm. Interesting story idea:

Again why do you think people would be so stupid. The story you made up here has little to no connection to the story of Christ. He lived and died having never written down a thing. His friends and contemporaries saw Him die and then they claim they saw Him Resurrected. So convinced of this they went out unable to stop preaching about Him even in the face of harsh persecution, trials, torture, and death. This all happened almost immediately after the Resurrection when people knew about Jesus and had seen and heard Him. Jesus or the stories about Him were not hidden away only to be discovered later and believed with blind faith. Christianity was founded by the living presence of Jesus Christ who lived among the people and was Resurrected. The faith grew not because of some old document that might be forged or made up. The faith grew because people knew and experienced and loved the Risen Lord Jesus and it still grows today for the very same reason!

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Your continued and total disenfranchisement of women, for one. Your continued patronizing contempt for LGBT people and Muslims and Jews, for another.

Not having women as priests is not disenfranchisement any more than not letting women be fathers. I have no contempt for anyone much less those who struggle with same-sex attraction or gender identification issues. Jews are my elder brothers and sisters in the faith. I pray for the many good Muslim friends I have as their religion goes through this very difficult period. It is you who have contempt for teachings you disagree with emotionally, but with which you will not engage seriously and rationally.




If I ever open a philosophically-based comedy club, I'll book your act.

Quote: FrGamble

You must certainly CANNOT! Please name for me an actual fact not in accordance with my beliefs.

1) We've never seen creation in nature not involving humans or some lower animals.
2) Homosexuality is natural.
3) Sex within one's own gender is natural, normal and good.

That's three more fact than you've ever brought up in these debates.

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I never know when to take you seriously because sometimes you say intelligent thought provoking things and then sometimes you spew idiocy like this. If you cannot prove to someone who is seriously thinking that the Flash or Batman are not real I don't know what to tell you.

I'd like to see your proof that Batman isn't real. Unfortunately I've never read even one of the Books of the Gotham Scripture, therefore I cannot challenge your proof by referring to some obscure tome no one else has ever heard of.

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Jesus Christ was a real person.

It's very likely. I'm not 100% convinced he actually existed.

But that's irrelevant.

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Do you really think the ancients were so stupid as to believe in and give their lives for an invented super hero?

The ancients were so ignorant as to believe the Iliad, the Odyssey, the various fantasies in the Bible (Eve and co., Noah's flood, the Tower of Babel, the Exodus, etc.), the story of Gilgamesh (who was a real person), the Book of the Dead, the Book of Gates, several other Flood legends, the Popol Vuh, the Aeneid, more Egyptian myths than you can shake a stick at, and many, many more.

Not all of these have a super hero motif, but many do. If they don't seem that superheroish to us, it's because the ancients were far more easily impressed.

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Again why do you think people would be so stupid.

It's just an idea and not a developed story. I'd have to first make a Superman comic book that fits the story. But if/when Constantine sees it appear miraculously before his eyes, then yes, he'd be sure it was a miracle. Add to it he sees it right before a decisive battle, and what other conclusion can he draw? Of course, if it's just Superman foiling a bank robbery, the comic book won't work. but if we see Superman battle a mighty foe, well, the rest just writes itself.

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The story you made up here has little to no connection to the story of Christ.

It's not the story of Jesus son of Joseph, but of Kal-El son of Jor-El. You really need to pay attention.


Hmm. Maybe Constantine would make up his own trinity of Jor-El, the Father, Kal-El, the Son, and the Holy Kryptonite.

But that's too derivative. And Kal-El clearly has a mother. So that would fit with Egyptian-style trinities: father-god, mother-god and son-god, like Ueser, Ist and Horus.

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He lived and died having never written down a thing. His friends and contemporaries saw Him die and then they claim they saw Him Resurrected.

I've read the same about Clark Kent.

Oh, he writes plenty, but only to maintain his Superman cover.

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I have no contempt for anyone much less those who struggle with same-sex attraction or gender identification issues.

How about those of us who don't struggle?

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Jews are my elder brothers and sisters in the faith.

Do you think it's preferable for a Jew to keep practicing their faith from birth to death, or to convert to Christianity?

Quote: FrGamble

Thank God that no one really actually lives by their atheistic ideas and the conclusions it would lead to.

I'm to the point of giving up. You
have no idea what atheism is, nor
do you want to. You act like atheists
are anti god. Some are, most are not.
I never think about god, why would
I, what's there to think about. If you
were in a room full of atheists you
wouldn't even know it if religion
didn't come up. They don't act or
talk in a different way, they don't
wear identity jewelry like Christians
do. We're just average people who
think for ourselves. Free thinkers, I
hear it's called.

Quote: Evenbob

I'm to the point of giving up.

I hope you don't do that. These threads have helped me a lot.

Quote: FrGamble

Now you think there is no evidence at all for the Exodus and here you diverge from historical evidence and many experts, but I digress.

When four highly regarded Egyptologists say there is no evidence, and present in fact TONS of contradictory facts, and you add the fact that one of them, Robert Briar, does believe the story of Joseph to be based in reality, then it's safe to say there is NO EVIDENCE for the Exodus Fantasy.

BTW, Prof. Briar, who went so far as to mummify a cadaver using bronze and stone tools, bases his case about Joseph entirely on the internal consistency of the story. He implies the reality may be that whoever wrote it knew Egypt well.

Is it possible a small group of Jewish or Canaanite slaves were kept in Egypt under harsh conditions? Sure. Is it possible they exaggerated their story and founded a religion in the process? Sure. Is it possible they did it by challenging the nameless Pharaoh's magicians to outdo their miracles, and then did even one of the many impossible things depicted in the Bible? As possible as flying to the Moon by flapping one's arms really, really hard.

I've never tried to get to the Moon that way, nor have read of anyone who has. So I don't know whether that's possible.

Quote: Nareed

When four highly regarded Egyptologists say there is no evidence, and present in fact TONS of contradictory facts.

Stories are stories. If you took half a
dozen Grimm's fairy tales, the real
ones, where kids die in them, and
put the Jesus myth in there as a
fairy tale, the unsuspecting would
never be able to tell the difference.
It's on the same believability scale as
witches who build cottages out of
candy, and bears who get upset about
who ate their porridge. Born of a
virgin, walked on water, rose from
the dead? That's the stuff you scare
little kids with.

Quote: rxwine

I just watched a guy on youtube trying to see how long he could hold his hand in a pot of water on the stove while it was heating up to boil.

Stupid doesn't even begin to describe it. Anyone who can muster two working neurons could tell him: not as long as it will take for second degree burns to heal; and if you thought it hurt to get burned, just wait til the doctor scrapes off the dead skin. And that's if you're lucky. Third degree burns could easily damage the very delicate tendons and small muscles in the hand, and leave you crippled for life.

Quote: FrGamble

I like how you dodged the challenge, avoided conversation and the exchange of ideas, and insulted all at the same time.

On that, though we're at war, you should heed this advice: Do not try to force open the door.

This is not the first time you try to do it, and it didn't end well the last time.


Ok, that's it. Truce is over.

Quote: FrGamble

The idea of Original Sin corresponds perfectly with what we know about ourselves, being so full of the potential for good and yet struggling often to reach and sustain it.

Original sin: "The doctrine of original sin holds that every person born into the world is tainted by the Fall such that all of humanity is ethically debilitated, and people are powerless to rehabilitate themselves, unless rescued by God."

What this says and what you said have nothing
to do with each other. Christians like Augustine
invented original sin to trap people into thinking
the only way out is thru the Christian god. It's
the snake oil salesman inventing the disease
so he can then sell the cure. It's not working
anymore because people are smarter than that
now. They see thru the charade.