The main, singular point (not even really a religious one) of my post that I wanted you to get was this--you lumped all religious people together in your previous posts. I quoted them. You did not say "a bunch of bible-thumpers", you lumped all Christians together NEGATIVELY.

I find it not a little hilarious that when I said you were being closedminded, and portraying viewpoints other than your own as idiotic (you used the word idiot, if I remember), you accused me of calling you a fool and "depriving [you] of [your] humanity".

That was my whole point. When you judge people's minds based on their religion, or lack thereof, you are making the same mistake as the kind of people you so abhor being associated with. Thanks for totally falling into the trap, there, mister.

And by "undesirable", BTW, I meant "closedminded and offensive." Same thing you hate about what Smeggle calls the RN's. Maybe I'll call you an AN? (Seriously, though, no offense...I just like a good argument.)

About that last tiny little bit of your post there, though, there is a legitimate Scriptural response: "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." Job, anyone?

Still waiting.
If I were to believe in him, I'd do what others do, I suppose.
Curse him for taking the life of my fiancee, giving me a bad knee to keep me out of playing college football and leaving me here, to wallow in the misery of life.

I instead, believe that those were the cards dealt to me and that I probably should have stopped her from driving home that night.

You see, I have other reasons to not believe in God.

The Book of Job bugs the crap out of me.

Job (a successful and happy farmer): I <3 God
Satan: Hey God, I think Job only likes you because you made him so successful and happy.
God: Nah. He'd like me just as much if you killed his family and took away his farm and his money.
Satan: I'll take that bet.
[Satan ruins Job's life by killing his family and taking away his money and farm. For good measure, he also gives Job some diseases.]
Job's friends: Dude, what'd you do? God seems pissed at you lately.
Job: I didn't do nothing!!
Job's friends: Yeah, sure. Whatever.
Job: Hey God, no disrespect or anything, but uh... what's the deal? Did I do something wrong? ... <3
God: Eh, not really. I don't need a reason. I'm GOD, remember? Just keep doing your thing, and I'll do mine.
Job: wtf
[God cures Job, restores his wealth, and gives him a new family]
Job: Thanks I guess. <3
God: (to Satan) See I told you.
Satan: Meh.

The moral of the story: God lets Satan do stuff, so... watch out for that.

Ehh, check out Moses.
Why did he have to part the Red Sea when he could have been armed with a tactical nuke?

Tatical nuke would have killed them, not pissed them off and have no more slaves to work on their pyrimads. He wanted to teach them a lesson within the mortal world.

You know I'm with you on this one bro. The thing is, I have to believe there is something out there. I don't believe in the God of the Bible. I think what I believe in is Love as something spiritual. I think if I didn't have some hope that I would see Deb again when this shitty life is over, I'd just snuff myself now.

Ditto!
My best hope is that there is indeed a way for us to meet again, whether it's an afterlife, reincarnation or any of that other shtuff.
May you be able to do the same, my friend.

so you hope there's an afterlife but you refuse to believe any religion that tells you there is an afterlife?

If there's an afterlife, there's no way we'd know about it until we die. As such, no one could ever have written about it with any real knowlege. Thus there very well may be an afterlife, but there's no reason to take anyone's word for it. :p

unless of course God decided to let someone in on the secret.

fixed: double negative removed :D

I HOPE for an afterlife even though I believe that it's not possible, especially in a religious fashion.

Thanks bro.
I looked at that like this :weird: twice then went :confused: then said "Screw it":p

Actually I didn't think it wasn't a double negative. I interpreted...

"I'm not stupid enough to not question the book's authenticity."

...as...

"I'm too smart to blindly accept the book as authentic."



But I may have had it wrong.

Well, it's not a double negative.

"I'm not stupid enough to..."

"...not question the book's authenticity"

Seperate clauses. But CaboWaboAddict already knew that. ;) :D

i r 2 smrt 2 be doopd

I think the reason most people have difficulty accepting the existence of a God is the tendency religions have to personify Him, leading to the "invisible man in the sky" image that most athiests find ludicrous. Personally, I think of "God" as more of a flowing force, that guides occurrences, without interfering with free will. In my mind, God is essencially synonymous with "probability," (simply, the 'force' which decides whether or not any given thing will occur) and that idea works for me on both a scientific and religious level, although I'm sure most people on either side of the argument would disagree with me.

That's a justification of "God" as an item in this world that's already been defined. And that argument work's fine up to a point. As long as I can still call God "probability". But if I do that, it renders the concept of God moot. So in that sense God has to be portrayed as something supernatural. Otherwise it's just adding a name to something that already exists. And after that you can apply whatever specifications you like.

("These are my shoes. The right one is also called 'God'".)

Actually, for me the argument fails long before that. Whether he's personified or not, for me it's a simple matter of evidence. He can be a great oak tree, for all I care, and I'll believe it...if it's proven.

Theist: "God exists."
Me: "OK. Prove it."
Theist: "No, you prove he doesn't exist."
Me: "I never claimed he doesn't exist. The onus is on you to prove your claim."

...and from that, I wait. I've been waiting my entire life, so far. But I'm always hopeful. :)

The best bet for a non-believer is to NOT CLAIM GOD DOESN'T EXIST. Stick to what you know. It makes your argument irrefutable, as then the entire responsibility of evidence lies with the believer. If he can't prove it, he loses. If he gives up, he loses.

This is also why the best bet for a believer is to NOT ENTER INTO ARGUMENTS OF EVIDENCE WITH AN ATHIEST. Stick to faith. Then you can trap the athiest into claiming God doesn't exist. And at that point he loses, because it's impossible to prove that, in an infinite context, something does not exist. This is your opportunity to use science against him. And it works. I've done this myself.

Exactly right Scor.

If I ever get a cat, I'm gonna name it "The Lord." :p
But when I said I considered God similar to probability, I wasn't just applying the name, I was also implying a sense of the supernatural. At least that was my intent.

The Lord isn't really God's name. In the bible in the old testament when you read "Lord" in small caps that means it was originally written as God's name Yahweh or YHWH. The scribes who copied the torah and other OT scrolls and manuscripts began writing Adoni (which means Lord) above Yahweh, because they didn't want to risk taking the Lord's name in vain so they began to refer to Yahweh simply as The Lord.

This writing of Adoni above Yahweh is where Jehovah came from, it's a misinterpretation of Adoni and Yahweh combined somehow or other.

In the new testament you'll see that the word Lord is not written in small caps, that's because by this time they were referring to God as the Lord and not as Yahweh. Even the OT quotes in the NT use Lord because they were quoting from the septuagint, which was the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures and Adoni/Yahweh had been translated as Lord or the Lord in those translations.

Yahweh in hebrew sounds similar to the phrase meaning "I am" I guess God doesn't really need a name, like Bob, since if he really is the only God there is, like he claims, there's no need to differentiate himself from other gods. Additionally, I guess his name could be differentiating himself from other gods, by declaring that he is the God who actually exists as opposed to the other false gods.

Just some fun bible trivia for you. ;)

When I first got my cats I gave them temporary names of "Goddamnit" and "Jesus Christ". Sometimes I still refer to them with these names. But they don't have any supernatural powers, though. That I know of.

"Jesus Christ, what are you doing?! And get off the table, Goddamnit!"

Interesting stuff. :)

I remember hearing about that YHWH/I AM thing recently because apparently AOL IM breifly experimented with the slogan "I AM" which offended some people. I thought it was odd. And I didn't really consider God's name to be "The Lord," that's just his title. My joke about naming a cat "The Lord" comes from one of the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. One minor character claims that he doesn't believe in anything, but at one point says something along the lines of "The Lord knows I'm an honest man." Another character calls him on that, and he explains that "The Lord" is his cat. "At least, he seems to be a cat. I can't really know."

Little did they know that it's impossible to offend a person. Only a person can allow him/herself to feel offended. Well, unless the "thing that offended you" did brain surgery and actually made you feel some particular emotion.

Otherwise, there were enough weak people who cried "that offends us", and not enough leaders to say "that's impossible". Such is the story of the world.