This Is Why I Believe.

[crackerboy]

Trying to pass off a cut & paste as your own is dishonest at best and at worst demonstrates your inability to think for yourself. http://instituteofbiblicaldefense.com/2010/09/jesus-the-jew/
I will rebut this if you want but since you decided to use someone else's thinking for you, you may have missed that it doesn't address everything I said and merely dismisses with a wave of the hand the idea that a son inherits his tribal affiliation from his father not mother. This writer obviously thinks this is one of those absurd traditions while ignoring that it was Yahweh that created these rules/traditions in the first place.

Yep I sure did copy and paste it. It made a good point and wanted to put it out there. I knew if I just put a link than you would not read it. Just as had happened when I posted the different prophecies and some video's a while back. Its funny that you did not try to counter it. I guess you needed more time to find a way to twist it as well. You had no argument on it so your only recourse is to insult me. I readily admit that I often will copy and past from reference sites all the time. It is simply easier then typing it all out. I feel that it made the point well and there is no reason for me to even try to re word it. Would you prefer that I waste my time to re-word just to make it sound as if I wrote it. So we can squash this whole subject because I will continue to copy and paste at will if it helps make a point. Its not that uncommon. I think I have more than proved that I am capable of articulating my point. So don't act as if all your arguments are your original work. ALL of you argument are the same ones that people have failed to prove over and over again. You are simply repeating them to me in hopes that I am not educated enough on the subject to be able to counter. It is comical how you try show how smart you are all the time. Your not that smart buddy.

 

[crackerboy]

damn....caught...would one call that an educated fail?what i like best about the link to the site which he copy and pasted from....is the first thing you see on the right is a donate link...i wonder how much of any of the donated money has taxes taken out of it

Is that the only argument you have huh. Education fail? Lets see your Hebrew or Greek translations. Oh wait you probably barely understand English.Try to come to the debate with some insight on any of these subjects.

 

[rzza]

his insight about the dinosaurs was epic.

are you gonna ask for forgiveness later for making fun of his understanding of english?

i know im not half as educated as you guys are and perhaps i dont belong here but i have read every word ITT and if anybody is curious how an ordinary, uneducated (peabrain if you will), non religious, secular (?) citizen views this debate ...

everyone whos arguing for church and god sounds just like a five year old with alot of knowledge. i mean everything is so fairytale-ish that it seems like your trying to convince a child that his cartoon is reality.

coming into this debate as an observor and knowing almost nothing about church and god, has opened my eyes so much. i couldnt even imagine going on the side of the believers.

heres a question though ....
i am athiest. however im having an extremely hard time trying to comprehend life, the beginning and how/why our universe stays soooo perfectly in tact. im of course talking about our moon and sun and earth and its spinning and day and night etc....

could someone talk about that or link me to a pretty good and simplistic article that may help me understand it better?


padawa, do you listen to the skeptics guide to reality? i have heard michael shermer describe a few things the same way you have....

 

[mindphuk]

Yes I read all of that chapter. Why are you adding your own words to the chapter? You are really stretching this chapter to fit what you want it to say. Even Jews that deny Christ as God still agree that this is a prophecy about the messiah. Only a few extremist view it as you do.

You must be smoking some fine shit.

Seriously, put down the weed for 5 minutes. Where did I add my own words to the chapter? I quoted directly from the NIV. The only thing I added was to bold the pertinent sentences to prove my point. Not one Jew that I have ever met thinks that Isaiah 7 is about the messiah, unless they are a "Messianic Jew" which is code for Jews that become Christian but retain their Jewish traditions. Hell, I bet no one here in this forum will think it after reading my post. You're the only one, when faced with the facts, still continue to deny them. I think it's hilarious you call my view extremist, when you are the one trying to make things fit where they don't.

 

[mindphuk]

Yep I sure did copy and paste it. It made a good point and wanted to put it out there. I knew if I just put a link than you would not read it. Just as had happened when I posted the different prophecies and some video's a while back. Its funny that you did not try to counter it. I guess you needed more time to find a way to twist it as well. You had no argument on it so your only recourse is to insult me. I readily admit that I often will copy and past from reference sites all the time. It is simply easier then typing it all out. I feel that it made the point well and there is no reason for me to even try to re word it. Would you prefer that I waste my time to re-word just to make it sound as if I wrote it. So we can squash this whole subject because I will continue to copy and paste at will if it helps make a point. Its not that uncommon. I think I have more than proved that I am capable of articulating my point. So don't act as if all your arguments are your original work. ALL of you argument are the same ones that people have failed to prove over and over again. You are simply repeating them to me in hopes that I am not educated enough on the subject to be able to counter. It is comical how you try show how smart you are all the time. Your not that smart buddy.

I did counter it and even told you I would spend more time rebutting it if you want. I really wonder if you read through my posts at all or just skim them.

I have no problem with cut and paste, the problem is not identifying that you did so, trying to pass someone else's work off as you own. When you quote from someone, you should provide a link as a reference so that we can go verify it as well as just being good netiquette. Repeating arguments that others have with my own words is not the same as trying to pass someone's words off as my own. The fact that you can't see the difference just confirms what I said about you earlier. If you remember, my initial post stated very clearly that these were arguments from a Jewish perspective, not an atheist one or one that I came up with personally. I really don't know where I made it sound like my arguments were original. YOU might have inferred that but I never once implied it.

 

[Padawanbater2]

heres a question though ....
i am athiest. however im having an extremely hard time trying to comprehend life, the beginning and how/why our universe stays soooo perfectly in tact. im of course talking about our moon and sun and earth and its spinning and day and night etc....

could someone talk about that or link me to a pretty good and simplistic article that may help me understand it better?


padawa, do you listen to the skeptics guide to reality? i have heard michael shermer describe a few things the same way you have....

Hey rzza, good post, I feel really similar on a lot of these issues as you do. I became an atheist a little over 4 years ago, since then I've been trying to figure out how the world/universe actually exists/operates instead of just listening to all the religious figures with all the answers...

That search inevitably leads you to asking the questions you just asked. I had the exact same questions, and that's a great start, imo.

So I'll try to answer them to the best of my ability. I'm not a college graduate, but I'm not going to lie to you, if I don't know something I'll be straight up honest about it. It's best for both of us when that happens cuz then we can both find the answer if we need to, one of us wont have to pretend we know...

So first of all, life is extremely complex and takes millions of different forms, the thing about that is they all have similarities, no matter how far away the two species of animals. For example, every single life form we've ever discovered is Carbon based. Another similarity is they all share DNA. DNA and genetics play a huge role in evolutionary biology and tell us an accurate story of common ancestry within the animal kingdom. Now a believer has to ask himself... why would a being with unlimited power use the same element to create life? Why aren't there silicone based lifeforms? Why not any other elements? Also, why use the exact same base structure (DNA with four base pairs) for every single living thing?

That never made sense to me...

The beginning of life on Earth is still a mystery to modern science. There are some good ideas with evidence to support them, but the bottom line is we still don't know exactly how life got started on Earth.

As soon as it did though we have really good ideas about what happened.

The solar system started out with a large expansion of space/time, during the first part of the universe's creation after the initial expansion all that existed were the simplest forms of matter, elements with only a single proton, electron and neutron, Hydrogen. Later, Hydrogen atoms fused together due to gravity to form Helium, the element with 2 protons, electrons and neutrons. You can guess how long this process took, as a single element has an extremely weak reaction to the force of gravity, we're talking hundreds of millions, if not billions of years to make this happen, Hydrogen fusing into Helium. After that, the process continued, pulling more and more of the stray elements together, fusing Hydrogen with Helium, Helium with Lithium, etc. Eventually, enough matter was pulled together and enough heat was created to ignite the stars. (in my mind, this moment had to have been one of the most awe inspiring moments in the entire history of the universe, complete darkness to brilliant points of glowing matter billions of miles away in all directions!).

Out of the stars, everything else is born. Every single atom inside your body right now came from inside of a star. If that doesn't take the steam completely out of organized religion, what possibly ever could?!

So after our star ignited, there was still massive amounts of dust and debris from all the material that our Sun didn't collect during it's creation. As this is all happening, because of gravity, all the material collects into a disk, a lot like Saturn's ring system, you could imagine the planet Saturn being the early Sun, and it's ring system being the debris that would eventually form the planets.

So this process again takes an extremely long time to complete, it's hard to understand the time scales involved because of our human perception.

Eventually, most of the material collects into planetoids, which are early crude versions of our current planets, these are bodies with massive amounts of craters, no atmosphere, no water or oxygen, just rocks, in space orbiting the biggest thing out there, which would be our sun. The bigger the object the more gravity it holds.

Every single planet, with the exception of a few moons that orbit some of our outer planets, orbits in the exact same way, this is further evidence of the disk creation theory I mentioned above. The outer planets are so massive a few of them have captured passing meteors heading the opposite direction of the planets orbit and locked them into orbit around that planet. Creationists use this as evidence against the disk theory, which it's not.

Youtube is an excellent source if you're interested in a visual experience. I'll find a good video explaining all the shit I just posted and post it so it might be a little easier to understand..

Perfect! Found just the man for the job!

Carl Motherfucking Sagan

[youtube]ShJwq3aPLMk&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]xxQR6gdd1P0[/youtube]

I'm not sure if I've ever heard the skeptics guide to the galaxy but I've heard Shermer speak before, that guys great, especially the debates he has! Great speaker

 

[djruiner]

Is that the only argument you have huh. Education fail? Lets see your Hebrew or Greek translations. Oh wait you probably barely understand English.Try to come to the debate with some insight on any of these subjects.

hey there dipshit...dont take it personal that your ass got busted...and i made a few points and had a few questions that you nor any of the other sheep could answer

 

[crackerboy]

You must be smoking some fine shit.

Seriously, put down the weed for 5 minutes. Where did I add my own words to the chapter? I quoted directly from the NIV. The only thing I added was to bold the pertinent sentences to prove my point. Not one Jew that I have ever met thinks that Isaiah 7 is about the messiah, unless they are a "Messianic Jew" which is code for Jews that become Christian but retain their Jewish traditions. Hell, I bet no one here in this forum will think it after reading my post. You're the only one, when faced with the facts, still continue to deny them. I think it's hilarious you call my view extremist, when you are the one trying to make things fit where they don't.

Actually I,m smoking some purple train wreck. It's train wreck x purple urkle. Definitely does the job. Any ways this is the last scripture I will give to you on this subject. You can read it or not. Titus 3:9-12.

 

[karri0n]

karri0n, if the Bible was objectively true, like Christians say it is, then why would people change what they believe is right and wrong with the times? Wouldn't what is right and wrong stay the same all throughout time? Why was it considered to be OK during the time the Bible was written to kill homosexuals? Why is that not considered to be OK today?

Never once did I claim the bible is objectively true.

Do you see any Muslims in this thread? I don't. How bout any Scientologists? No? Buddhists?... Hindu's? No?

Just Christians and atheists.

I don't address EVERYTHING else because I don't have time to. Don't get me wrong, they're all equally as illogical. The thing is, and feel free to pass this around to all the other religious people who simply can't grasp this concept, we live in a country that is dominated by Christians. Why do you find it surprising that that is what atheists would talk about most often? Christian dogma directly affects my life in the United States for both good and bad. I'm not affected by Islamic dogma, I'm not forced to live by Sharia law, if I was I would be criticizing it just as harshly. Pretty easy to understand right?

OK. Your biggest problem is with Christianity because it affects you. That's fine and good, except that for most of this thread you've been speaking directly to me, and every one of your points have been about Christianity. I never once stated Christianity is the right way, and I've denounced the Christian dogma repeatedly. You know my stance on fundamentalism yet you continue to bring up the same points.

It's not the fact that science and education are the first things to get discarded in a childs mind when their parents tell them about their religion.. Nah, couldn't be that...

Please elaborate on how teaching a child meditation or mythology cause science and education to leave a child's mind. Last I knew, they have college courses for mythology, and you can acquire a doctorate in it. Or is this not "true" education?

It's not that billions of people throughout human history have been slaughtered because of a fairy tale... Naaah...

This is the result of tyranny, not spirituality.

It isn't because every single hashed and rehashed version of the same story doesn't make one fucking iota of sense...

The message and the lesson aren't lost simply because the mythology contains sensationalism. Mythology is supposed to be fanciful - that is how it keeps people's attention. It was never meant to be taken literally, even in ancient Greece. Don't even think about replying that some Christians teach that scripture should be taken literally. They are wrong and I've covered that multitple times.

I don't like organized religion because a girl turned me down because I'm not religious.

I know. We covered that.

Reading any of my posts, seriously, how the hell could you come to that conclusion and be serious about it?? I don't understand.

In much the same way that you still are claiming that I'm Christian and that there are only Christians and Atheists in this thread.

This is what you don't understand about being an atheist, because you aren't one yourself. It's a choice you make for yourself. Not for anyone else. There really is no "choice" about it because it's just a default position to take in light of absent evidence of a claim.

What, exactly, is it that you think I don't understand? I'm serious on this, please elaborate. I was raised as an atheist; an ACTUAL atheist, not an agnostic. I've been in the exact same position as you - I debated with my boss repeatedly on the nature of spirituality, repeatedly stating everything she said was a pile of bullshit. It wasn't until I truly looked objectively at the evidence and dropped my pre-conceived notions and arrogance that I started to really see the world for what it is. Being a skeptic is only halfway following logic. There is plenty of evidence out there for just how important spirituality is to the human experience, and ignoring it and counting only on something that can be explained with math and statistics is equally as arrogant and ignorant as blindly following scripture. You've never been exposed to anything truly spiritual or had a spiritual experience, and it's apparent that the reason is that the only spiritual model you've ever seen is Christianity.

Smartest thing you've posted to me yet. I don't say "religion", and never have, because a person practicing their religion at home in private isn't a problem. It becomes a problem when these people get together, organize, and try to make everyone else believe the same things they do.

Bullshit. If this were really your belief you wouldn't be arguing with me in the first place. You want everyone else to be an atheist just like the Christian church wants everyone to be Christian.

Yes it is. Tolerance for other religions is nowhere to be seen in any of them. How bout those ten commandments...

I am the Lord your God
You shall have no other gods before me

As a Christian, you shall have no other gods before Him. If you aren't Christian, you don't need to worry about that. Not every sect of Christianity treats non-christians as the enemy, and you damn well know it. I'll even point out that there are some sects of Christianity that outright do *not* take that particular stance. The Unity Church is a pretty good example. And once again you say "all religions" when you mean "christianity". Fuck off with that.

Meant Christianity, suck my balls.

The Old Testament is Jewish. Keep pulling at straws, though. You'll get somewhere, I'm sure.


Ok, work with me here. I know forming something coherent without anti-christian rhetoric or hate in it is going to be difficult for you. Without referring to the obvious human rights issues and disinformation of the three major religions(since you already know my stance on this), give me some valid reasons why teaching people about spirituality, meditation, prayer, and gleaning life lessons from religious mythology(such as do unto others, resist tyranny, don't seek power as power corrupts) is something negative and something to be resisted and fought against. I want a reason that religion and spirituality IN GENERAL are negative things, not "well the Roman Emperor used it as an excuse to do this or that" - If not for religion he would have found another reason to commit these acts of atrocity.

 

[mindphuk]

[youtube]B1AXbpYndGc[/youtube]

 

[rzza]

well padawan, i wasnt sure that you would even respond let alone with such detail. thanks for that. i have read your statement and i will go through and read it again before jumping into the videos you supplied me with. this should be a good start to a great journey.
quick question though, how long after the big bang do we expect the earth was thrown in the rotation?

 

[Padawanbater2]

well padawan, i wasnt sure that you would even respond let alone with such detail. thanks for that. i have read your statement and i will go through and read it again before jumping into the videos you supplied me with. this should be a good start to a great journey.
quick question though, how long after the big bang do we expect the earth was thrown in the rotation?

They estimate the big bang happened 13.7 billion years ago +/- with a 1%-3% margin of error, they estimate our Sun is around 4.57 billion years old;

The Earth and the rest of the planets were formed shortly after the Sun, so also around that time.

 

[rzza]

omg what if we (human race along with stable living environment) make it for ..lets say twenty billion years. could we evolve to having tires instead of feet for example? i mean we could evolve into real human vehicles. or transformers if you will ...

 

[djruiner]

They estimate the big bang happened 13.7 billion years ago +/- with a 1%-3% margin of error, they estimate our Sun is around 4.57 billion years old;

The Earth and the rest of the planets were formed shortly after the Sun, so also around that time.

wait wait wait...i thought things like this was made in 7 days.well they also believed the earth the flat,invisible men,burning bushes,parting of seas,magical places in the clouds....why not...seems they will buy anything. think if you believe all that..might as well believe in zombies,goblins,vampires,werewolves....if you take bullshit package A.,you might has well believe the rest of the myths floating around.

 

[RavenMochi]

Coming on this late as hell, i know, but emotions aren't a thing, they're a relationship. So while I'm not discounting that there is a god, unless you believe god to be a relationship rather than an entity, this theory doesn't work well...

 

[RavenMochi]

wait wait wait...i thought things like this was made in 7 days.well they also believed the earth the flat,invisible men,burning bushes,parting of seas,magical places in the clouds....why not...seems they will buy anything. think if you believe all that..might as well believe in zombies,goblins,vampires,werewolves....if you take bullshit package A.,you might has well believe the rest of the myths floating around.

†LOL† chick, you are cynical as hell....almost as if they're was an anger behind it.
as far as "the rest of the myths" Myths are rarely, if ever, what they are made out to be, but the vast majority seemed to be based on reality, though normally a misunderstanding of reality, let me give an example
Vampirism, and the myth that they not only existed but could change into a bat or wolf... = rabies.... †LOL† aint that some shit? The animals that most commonly had rabies at the time were bats and k-9's, and of course men could get it as well...So they saw they're neighbor start foaming at the mouth and become a monster, then of course after they put him down, they see a wolf, or bat showing the same foaming at the mouth, and same aggressive behavior, OMG, they're monster/neighbor is undead!!!! with that said, rabies is obviously real, though the misconception was bullshit.

So I guess my point is, rather than roll your eyes at the bullshit man comes up with, it can be alot more entertaining to find out what was really happening. The facts that lent themselves to fantastic interpretations...

 

[RavenMochi]

omg what if we (human race along with stable living environment) make it for ..lets say twenty billion years. could we evolve to having tires instead of feet for example? i mean we could evolve into real human vehicles. or transformers if you will ...

I don't *think* so, though with that said, leaving normal evolution out of it, prosthetics could provide a way to do this...why not, they already took some cells from a rat brain, grew it in a special pitri dish with circuit contacts all over it, and plugged it into a computer and taught it to fly a flight simulator....

 

[Kushafornia]

I think humans are not native to earth "]

 

[karri0n]

Vampirism, and the myth that they not only existed but could change into a bat or wolf... = rabies.... †LOL† aint that some shit? The animals that most commonly had rabies at the time were bats and k-9's, and of course men could get it as well...So they saw they're neighbor start foaming at the mouth and become a monster, then of course after they put him down, they see a wolf, or bat showing the same foaming at the mouth, and same aggressive behavior, OMG, they're monster/neighbor is undead!!!! with that said, rabies is obviously real, though the misconception was bullshit.

Where did you hear this?

 

[RavenMochi]

start here...
http://www.neurology.org/content/51/3/856.abstract
thats not where I originally heard this, but honestly, can you remember the exact source of every useless fact you've ever learned? I googled it for you, then result seemed the most valid...