This coming from the guy who believes in the Kabballah. What you gonna do? Find a mix of elements that is biblically relevant and start selling it on the street as a cure-all? Madonna would be proud.

And seriously, get Firefox. It comes with a spellchecker.

Sorry, but what Madonna spends money on is not Kabbalah. Two of your own words are misspelled according to firefox, so shush.

This thread is degenerating into another Verithrax vs. Daganev duel. If this continues any further I'm afraid I'll have to pull out the inane cat pictures, to derail this thread for your own good.

Ironically enough... "Firefox" and "Spellchecker."

Verithrax, resorting to insults now, are you? Doesn't sound like Dag NEEDS to make up crap to make his point...

So a question for mitbulls.

In the OT it says that you will know a false prophet when they try to change the laws... how do you understand this?

verses for refrence....

Devarim 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.


1 All this word which I command you, that shall ye observe to do; thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it. {P}
ב כִּי-יָקוּם בְּקִרְבְּךָ נָבִיא, אוֹ חֹלֵם חֲלוֹם; וְנָתַן אֵלֶיךָ אוֹת, אוֹ מוֹפֵת. 2 If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams--and he give thee a sign or a wonder,
ג וּבָא הָאוֹת וְהַמּוֹפֵת, אֲשֶׁר-דִּבֶּר אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר: נֵלְכָה אַחֲרֵי אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-יְדַעְתָּם--וְנָעָבְדֵם. 3 and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spoke unto thee--saying: 'Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them';
ד לֹא תִשְׁמַע, אֶל-דִּבְרֵי הַנָּבִיא הַהוּא, אוֹ אֶל-חוֹלֵם הַחֲלוֹם, הַהוּא: כִּי מְנַסֶּה יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, אֶתְכֶם, לָדַעַת הֲיִשְׁכֶם אֹהֲבִים אֶת-יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם, בְּכָל-לְבַבְכֶם וּבְכָל-נַפְשְׁכֶם. 4 thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or unto that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God putteth you to proof, to know whether ye do love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

First of all I consider someone hiding behind the guise of intellectualism to preach, insulting. The very message conveyed is far from polite.

The base of Christianity itself is not evil, but it's the root of evil. Similarily with Islam, however Islam still encourages people to slay the infidels. Bigotry and ignorance, which the religion is based upon (read the parts of bible regarding homosexuality for a start) is only further continued by the church's hunting of 'witches' and their burning of literature. Similarily women in christianity are seen as second class citizens, and even to this day there are many christians that are dead against women becoming priests. Historically the church has done terribly bigoted deeds, and outright killed people for having nothing other than a different point of view. Christianity may be a power for good, but it turns from promoting 'good' when one looks at the history of the church. To identify oneself with an organisation like the church, knowing their history and thusly their foundations, simply condones their behavior.

Even in modern times, before Joseph Ratzinger was pope, he rejected the country's bid to join the European Union, describing its Muslim faith as being "in permanent contrast" to Europe's Christian heritage. If that

What right did they have to deny future generations the knowledge those books contained? Didn't hitler have books burned also?

I totally accept christian's views and their belief system, however when people try to 'preach' under another name, that i cannot tolerate when it's on a public medium. Just because something is written with an air of civility, it doesn't mean that it's polite.

You don't beat bigotry with bigotry.

How am I being a bigot? I accept everyone else's view so long as they aren't pushed upon others or myself, and don't attempt to deceive.

Verithrax vs. Daganev, from what I've seen so far, is a far more sportsmanlike and informative debate than its equivalent in the forum I originally came from.

Oh, its all in sport.

The co-worker who I talk to the most and work most often with is an Israeli Fundamentalist Atheist (my label not his) who hasn't been to Israel since he was 7. Its great fun.

But, you see, -we- are programmed to seek purpose. By nature, we set ourselves goals and fulfill them, and that pushes the little chemical buttons in our brains that make us 'happy'. To our brains, there's always something to be achieved, because that's simply the way we operate, the brain wants its next 'mission accomplished' buzz. And of course our pursuits have a purpose - to stay alive and keep our loved ones alive. Assuming that our existence itself is part of some greater plan is simply taking the rules of our existence and applying them to the next scale. We seek meaning everywhere because that quest is part of what defines us.

Hey, now. You're saying that a lack of religion is a lack of hope? I find it much more hopeful to see humanity as having clawed it's way up to its current level of enlightment without outside help than to think, "We had guiding us for all these millenia, and this is all we've got to show for it???!!!"

OH NO IT ISN'T.

I'm a hedonist. And what's more, I don't find any parts of my life empty and I don't have any periods of uncertainty. I base my decisions on my judgement. My life is defined by what I choose to do.

Where is there any need for a God for me?

SORRY TO DOUBLE POST BUT:

Christianity must have sprung from one of two possibilities:

1. A divine entity revealed it's will to some people;
or
2. Some peope made it all up.

But if you belive the answer is option one...

... how can you possibly know they didn't just make it up?

I think it is pretty clear that nobody just "made it all up", there are more possiblities of its origins, such as, a slow evolving process based on a misinterpretation of a miracle, to be just one example.

How is it that every time I have enough time to actually read the forums a little bit, there are hordes of posts that I want to respond to in this thread? I suppose I opened that up myself, can't really complain.

Callus is the lucky first-up for this round of frenzied posting!

This seems like a pretty forced argument. The first couple of chapters of Genesis (which you're referencing) are written in a parallel poetic form. We take the Bible 'literally' in that we believe that it is true. We don't necessarily take the poetic sections as actual, literal events. Those chapters are meant to teach a few things: first, God created the world. Second, He is incredibly powerful (with only a word, he could create everything). Third, He was and is intimately involved with His creation (physically forming man, time in the Garden of Eden). It is not meant to teach us how long it literally took, or how he physically accomplished it.



Only certain denominations baptise babies. Ironically enough, Baptists do not.

Verithrax is the next lucky target (actually, he's the next two lucky targets, because there is so much to say).

The point is that you have not performed those experiments - you simply accept them on faith. Also, there is quite a bit of evidence for the claims of Christianity. Religion itself is (along with most philosophical endeavors) unfalsifiable - at least, until death. Secular humanism would also fall into this category, as would atheism. Christianity has multiple sources - the Bible, the natural and physical world, spiritual experiences. Science has multiple sources, which are testable, but can never be guaranteed to be absolutely accurate. Also, you pose this as if science and Christianity are mutually exclusive, when in reality science can be used as yet another source of evidence for Christianity. The problem is not that there is no evidence for Christianity (or for a God in general), it's that some people, both theist and atheist, are so set in their faith that they outright reject any evidence produced in favor of the opposing ideal.

Statistical flukes are one reason I gave for science being unable to technically prove anything - uncontrolled variables are a much more common cause. Because of those, science cannot prove anything. Granted, it's only a semantic argument, but given that you were accusing someone else of bad science, I found it interesting. You also did not touch on the topic of the One Force, or other such fields of physics which seem to conflict with your suggestion that nature has been proven to be nondeterministic. I actually agree with you that the universe is nondeterministic (if I didn't, I'd be a deist), but you should be more careful about your accusations and assertions of fact.



Absolutely. So, when I make a mistake, would you agree that it is my fault for making that mistake? Or should I blame it on human nature and other external causes?

I'm not sure I understand what you're getting at here. The second option, we don't have to be absolutely perfect - Jesus came and was perfect, but was still punished for us. We do have to accept that - so long as we're still trying to earn it on our own we'll fail miserably.



For the second part, I do not know. God chose that time as the perfect time for Jesus to come - I can't answer why exactly he did it then instead of before.

Your last question doesn't really make sense. That's like asking "what's the point of sending someone to jail if you're just going to let them out again?" There are some implications wrapped up in those three days that I don't completely understand either, but it doesn't make any sense to suggest that suffering for those three days is analagous to not suffering at all.

You're again making the mistake of assuming that the Bible is the only way God speaks. If that were true, how could the Bible ever have been written? God had to speak with people before the Bible.



Why does He have to explain to you or me why He chose to kill someone else? God created them, He sustains them, it is his choice to kill them as well. Again, in the scheme of eternal life, short times of suffering or death are really not all that grievous.

It is still applicable to us, just not in the same way. Also, you have it a bit backwards - the Semitic people who adopted the Bible adopted their lifestyle to match the Bible, not the other way around.



Why do people's laws change? For another point of semantics, God's Law didn't technically change, but we were freed from parts of it by Jesus' death. We no longer have to worry about what makes us 'clean' or 'unclean' because Jesus made us completely clean.

That's actually not true, they were quite important long before Christianity. Still, no need to argue that. You do make the point that Christianity became popular in the Roman Empire - that's true enough, but only if you skip over the period of time where the Roman Empire tried to eradicate Christianity. What was so special about Judaism and Christianity that they withstood all attempts to destroy them, and actually grew instead? Your theories of what it takes for a religion to grow aren't completely accurate, especially in the long term - David Koresh was very good at convincing and converting people to his cause, and his ideas held several of the values you mention. Still, he died, and his sect quickly scattered. Why didn't the same happen to Christianity?



You miss my point. The question isn't about whether Christianity was popular. It's about how it came to be popular. It was a small group of people who watched their leader die. They then were each persecuted and killed in turn because they refused to give up their beliefs. For early Christians, to believe meant your entire family would be tortured and killed - that doesn't sound like a particularly good recruitment program. For Nazism, we can see clear factors explaining how and why it became popular. For Christianity, all we can say is that the people were unbelievably devoted, and that something inspired them to believe even though it meant they would suffer throughout their lives.

This is the standard formate for expositional study of any kind...



The Dead Sea Scrolls were found, and their contents closely matched what had been copied over and over into a modern day. Christianity does not inherently provide for social control, that's usually put in place by the denominations themselves. As for the "code of morals," they are actually relatively vague - excluding obvious passages such as the Sermon on the Mount and the Ten Commandments. The greatest commandments are to love God above all else, and love other people. Other morals are believed to fall into place if we can accomplish those two things.

As for the spreading of religion, the actual reality is that for early Christians, to believe did mean to die. Of course, the very comments you make about the spread of religion could be applied to the spread of about anything, including scientific fact.

Did we somehow acquire this 'wiring' through evolution?



The real problem now is that this explanation, while obviously true and supported by plenty of experiments, doesn't actually make logical sense. How can something be both a wave and a particle at the same time? Notice, however, that when science and logic seem to be at odds, we accept science.



Interestingly, some of these physical laws have been known to behave unexpectedly and unexplicably. They are not 'laws' in the sense that they cannot be broken. So, there are certain laws, we don't know where they come from. We cannot go against them ourselves, but there are times when they seem to be suspended or even act contrary to what we expect.

You use science to answer the questions it can, and ignore whatever questions it cannot. I could just as easily say "I'm going to study Biology. If there is ever a question which cannot be answered using Biology, I will simply accept that we do not need to know."