"no, I'm actually an athiest"

krudler

prinz wrote: »

Wrong. I said non-Christians will have the choice to accept Jesus as a saviour or not.

does accepting him on facebook count?

krudler

MrStuffins wrote: »

Ah, so according to you, it's ok for me to spend my whole life rejecting Jesus and all of the fun things i'm supposed to avoid doing, because i'll get a chance to repent after i die.

Win-win for me so!

Coke and hookers are on me!

Do what you like in life , accept jesus when dead, still get into heaven, this christianity malarkey is starting to seem appealing :pac:

MrStuffins

krudler wrote: »

Coke and hookers are on me!

And now we can use contraception!

Score!

Scanlas The 2nd

prinz wrote: »

Call me deluded if you want, water off a duck's.... accuse me of child abuse if I include future kids in my religious beliefs is not. Insult my intelligence is not.

I do agree it is possibly a form of child abuse. Don't get me wrong, it's not anywhere close to the likes of paedophilia or beating up your child.

It's just not fair to feed religion to a child who will simply believe what anyone in authority says. That said, I don't think most people are bad people for telling they're child what to believe. Most just do it out of a default lemming sort of behaviour and don't really think about it. That's why I think it's so important what Dawkin's is doing by educating people on the subject.

scientific1982

AudreyHepburn wrote: »

Do you equate a parent teaching their child about how Jesus loved everyone and taught them to do the same, which is what the vast majority of childrenl learn nowadays, to some-one who rapes or beats a child? Do you see new parents christening their baby in that way? What about a parent helping their child get ready for communion or confirmation?

Dont just teach them the sugar coated bible. Teach them about the punishments mandated by God, slavery and genocide too. Have the courage of your convictions.

sponsoredwalk

MrStuffins wrote: »

Wait, when? I mean, is it JUST Christians who will get to Heaven? Or will Jesus give us all a chance after we die to follow him?

When will we have this choice?

Contrary to the actual words of the bible, which is apparently the word
of god, prinz has, in fact, without any evidence, shown everyone that
all people of all colours and stripes will be accepted into heaven because
one passage he quoted is open enough to be interpreted as saying that
it's what happens after death that matters so no, it's not just
christians despite the books saying so.

Marcus.Aurelius

scientific1982 wrote: »

Dont just teach them the sugar coated bible. Teach them about the punishments mandated by God, slavery and genocide too. Have the courage of your convictions.

Reminded me of Brian Fleming's comments in his documentary "The God Who Wasn't There", where he said that the fundamentalist christians at least had the courage and intellectual honesty to really believe in the Bible and preach what it said.

Moderate christianity is just a sham.

krudler

scientific1982 wrote: »

Dont just teach them the sugar coated bible. Teach them about the punishments mandated by God, slavery and genocide too. Have the courage of your convictions.

Dont forget murdering children and animals. Remember kids, god loves you, as long as you dont get on his bad side, then hes a genocidal psychopath.

Marcus.Aurelius

This thread needs some Richard Dawkins:

Richard Dawkins wrote:

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here."

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn’t it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?"

Excerpts from The God Delusion (1) and Unweaving the Rainbow (2 & 3).

scientific1982

Caesar Augustus wrote: »

Reminded me of Brian Fleming's comments in his documentary "The God Who Wasn't There", where he said that the fundamentalist christians at least had the courage and intellectual honesty to really believe in the Bible and preach what it said.

Moderate christianity is just a sham.

Id have to agree with him. This a la carte Christianity is intellectually dishonest. As much as I disagree with Islam and fundamentalist Christianity, at least they stick to their guns.

philologos

Galvasean wrote: »

In fairness to him, you did miss out on some quality debate earlier. I had a read of some of the back n' forth between Liah and Jakkass that happened earlier and it was a good read. You'd do well to read such things before coming in and belittling people.

Admittedly, I enjoyed it too. It's a rare event on boards to get discussion like this. You have no idea how nice it is just to be able to talk about the thoughts that go about from time to time rather than going through accusations of delusion. It's such a relief.

On the prinz and the afterlife issue:

MrStuffins wrote: »

I wondered the same thing yesterday and asked Jakkass.

According to him, you must repent here on earth. When you get to Heaven you are given a new body. Thise who don't repent don't get one.

Although, maybe i'm getting it wrong, but it was something like that if i remember correctlyp

I don't claim to be any form of authority on this. I was merely sharing my musings with you.

On the Christianity forum, there has been much debate in the past few years over whether or not people who haven't heard the Gospel will be forgiven by God. The Bible is silent on this. Most Christians would leave it up to God's providence to decide what is best, knowing that God is fair and just in all things.

For those of you wondering which post it was that MrStuffins is referring to. It's here:

Jakkass wrote: »

I think so. Most thinking about the how long the soul lasts is based on Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. Effectively he says that we are given a new body after death, and judgement. However, he only speaks in terms of believers. So it may be the case, that those who will not be saved will not be granted a new body. I.E - It's a subject for speculation rather than any means of certainty from the Bible itself.

Other commentary such as Thomas Aquinas does more with the soul. It's fascinating but I wouldn't encourage it too much, because a lot of it is actually based on Aristotle's De Anima (On the Soul) rather than on the Bible.



We die and then there's judgement apparently. So this would lead me to think that time is up. Christian teaching says of Christians, that from the point of their acceptance of Christ they grow in holiness over time until the point of this resurrection into a new body.

This is only speculation, not anything authoritative but I'm led to think that from that point on, our characters cannot develop any further than they have done already. If decay and ultimately death has ended, then the same may also be true of growth. If eternal life is perpetual and if growth in character is finite, it seems that there would be no further development. Again, it's about 90% likely that I am wrong but this is my thinking.

People can change while they are on earth certainly. Whether or not this is true of the hereafter is certainly unknown.

What I do know, is that I desire for you and all people to know the truth and at the very least have the opportunity to think about it. Mainly because I would wish for you what I found for me. Perhaps that is daft or absurd, but that's how I'm living.

Anything that I have said that is based on my speculation, rather than on Biblical authority, or evidential truth is more than likely wrong. It's just my ideas on it at this juncture in time.

Pherekydes

Caesar Augustus wrote: »

Moderate christianity is just a sham.

Can you explain what you mean by moderate Christianity, please.

Marcus.Aurelius

Pherekydes wrote: »

Can you explain what you mean by moderate Christianity, please.

Do you believe that homosexuality is an abomination? If no, you are a moderate Christian. If you disagree with God murderously inciting his chosen sheeple to savagry and genocide, you are a moderate Christian.

dan_d

Jeez guys, 101 pages in 2 days??
Emotive subject for some people.

Anyone ever hear of the concept of live and let live?

Pherekydes

Caesar Augustus wrote: »

Do you believe that homosexuality is an abomination? If no, you are a moderate Christian. If you disagree with God murderously inciting his chosen sheeple to savagry and genocide, you are a moderate Christian.

When did Jesus call homosexuality an abomination? Did Jesus incite genocide and savagery?

Teutorix

Pherekydes wrote: »

When did Jesus call homosexuality an abomination? Did Jesus incite genocide and savagery?

He didn't, i believe it was Paul who condemned homosexuality. Christianity is no more based on the teachings of Christ as the American system of government is based on the ideals of the founding fathers.

Turtwig

Teutorix wrote: »

He didn't, i believe it was Paul who condemned homosexuality. Christianity is no more based on the teachings of Christ as the American system of government is based on the ideals of the founding fathers.

Hold on now, if Jesus is God then He did say Homosexuality was an abomination. He just changed His mind because the evidence was overwhelming to say they weren't. Also some scholars think Jesus Himself could have been gay or bi. Though I must stress it is not a mainstream opinion.

philologos

Malty_T wrote: »

Hold on now, if Jesus is God then He did say Homosexuality was an abomination. He just changed His mind because the evidence was overwhelming to say they weren't. Also some scholars think Jesus Himself could have been gay or bi. Though I must stress it is not a mainstream opinion.

It certainly isn't. However I've read through some apologists of this position, and I found it quite interesting what they used as basis for this position. It seems rather spurious to me at best. There isn't really anything definitive that would mark Jesus off as being gay or bisexual from the Biblical text.

scientific1982

Jakkass wrote: »

It certainly isn't. However I've read through some apologists of this position, and I found it quite interesting what they used as basis for this position. It seems rather spurious to me at best. There isn't really anything definitive that would mark Jesus off as being gay or bisexual from the Biblical text.

Jakkass wasnt the fact that he was unmarried highly unusual for a Jewish man at that time, not that it means anything anyway.

Marcus.Aurelius

Pherekydes wrote: »

When did Jesus call homosexuality an abomination? Did Jesus incite genocide and savagery?

If Jesus is the God of the Old Testament, and told the people that the Law still stood, then yes, he did.

Do you agree with your god or not?

Tonyandthewhale

Answer these points, should be no bother to you, what with Evolution (and all that term entails) being an irrefutable fact:

• Tell us who our common ancestors were, you know - the species that humans and apes evolved from.
• Tell us were that 'common ancestor' is today.
• If they have died out - tell us why they died out and how.
• Is there hard scientific proof (of course there is, right?)

[/QUOTE]

First off, I'm sorry if someone has answered this already, I haven't finished reading the thread. I'm not an expert in the field or even particularly interested but I did have a reasonable primary school education and access to wikipedia so here goes:
Modern humans (homo sapiens sapiens) are descended from Homo erectus who in turn descended from homo habilis (or a sub-species there-of) who in turn evolved from Australopithecus Afarensis. Before that there was Ardipithecus and before that was Orrorin tugenensis, the earliest common ancestor of both chimpanzee's and human's (although there is some debate about Sahelanthropus tchadensis).
That should answer your first question but if not you should consult a paleontologist rather than an evolutionary biologist. This is because any of the debate surrounding the issue has to do with things like figuring out if two smashed up old fossils represent two differnet species (and those two steps in the human evolutionary ladder) or just one species split into two subspecies and there's nothing in it about proving or disproving the theory of evolution.
Orrorin tugenensis is extinct, much like the vast majority of the animal species who have ever existed and much like many of its contemporaries from the Africa of 6million years ago. If you find it strange that a mammilian species that existed million years ago is now extinct then you have a serious misunderstanding of how the world works. So that should answer questions two and three.
Your fourth question relates to proof. I'm not sure what you want proof of. There is proof that human's and chimpanzee's because we have a fossil record (you can go to a museum and look at examples of this in real life) and because human's and chimpanzee's share certain attributes such as a 95-99% of the same DNA and a larynx that repositions in the first two years of life, social similarities, etc etc.
In a broader sense there is also proof for the theory of evolution in general. The E. Coli experiment by Lenskis showed how e.coli bacteria evolved over 50,000 generations between 1988 and 2010 in a controlled laboratory setting. You could recreate that simple experiment yourself if you so wished and see evolution, as an observable process as real and tangible as child-birth or taxes in your own home.
The only reason we can't say evolution has been proved 100% is because we can't be sure that the whole world (and thus everything we've ever known) isn't a dream or a concotion such as "the matrix" or something from a solipist's wet dream.

Sam Vimes

scientific1982 wrote: »

Jakkass wasnt the fact that he was unmarried highly unusual for a Jewish man at that time, not that it means anything anyway.

To be fair the ability to walk on water was highly unusual too :P

philologos

scientific1982 wrote: »

Jakkass wasnt the fact that he was unmarried highly unusual for a Jewish man at that time, not that it means anything anyway.

It's woeful logic to go from unmarried to gay.

You also have to factor in whether or not Jesus actually believed what He said He did. If He did, there would be little or no point in getting married if He was to die for the world, and return to God. Simply put.

He wasn't usual, or normal. He was the Son of God.

PAULWATSON

Do you ever get the impression that most people are petty, easily duped clowns?

goingpostal

Sam Vimes wrote: »

To be fair the ability to walk on water was highly unusual too :P

So what do we have? An unmarried man, who could walk on water, and persuaded 12 men abandon their wives and children to hang around with him. He could also raise the dead (including himself), turn water into wine and he also lost the head one day and told a fig tree that it was going to burn in hell for all eternity, because it didn't bear fruit to feed him, even though figs were out of season. Hmmmmmm.......

goingpostal

Jakkass wrote: »

It's woeful logic to go from unmarried to gay.

You also have to factor in whether or not Jesus actually believed what He said He did. If He did, there would be little or no point in getting married if He was to die for the world, and return to God. Simply put.

He wasn't usual, or normal. He was the Son of God.

Ah, vicarious redemption through human sacrifice. My favourite part of the whole uplifting christian hoax.

sponsoredwalk

PAULWATSON wrote: »

Do you ever get the impression that most people are petty, easily duped clowns?

Absolutely OP

scientific1982

Jakkass wrote: »

It's woeful logic to go from unmarried to gay.

You also have to factor in whether or not Jesus actually believed what He said He did. If He did, there would be little or no point in getting married if He was to die for the world, and return to God. Simply put.

He wasn't usual, or normal. He was the Son of God.

Thats why I said "not that it means anything anyway".

scientific1982

PAULWATSON wrote: »

Do you ever get the impression that most people are petty, easily duped clowns?

Happy now.

Sam Vimes

PAULWATSON wrote: »

Do you ever get the impression that most people are petty, easily duped clowns?

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