Evidence for God from Science

pdavid wrote:So what you're saying is that it's my privilege to be able to post on this forum? Come on be reasonable. For a group of people who haven't read Dawkins' "The God delusion", you seem to know a lot about it. You can't just read a negative review and then concede that you don't need to read the book because you already know what it's like. The fact that it is bestseller on amazon (nowhere near as purchased as the Bible, I understand), would suggest that it has quite a few followers.

Why can I not have a standard, gentlemanly chat with a Christian? Why do you always seal the subject off and accuse me of "taking issue" or violating terms and conditions. I do my best when talking to Christians to choose my words carefully, and I find every time that your words can be as carefully chosen as possible, but the fact that I am not a Christian is the only thing that matters.

Once, just once, I would like to have a genuine talk with a Christian. The Christian would present their beliefs and explain them. I would be intrigued, and then present my beliefs and explain them. We would talk about the differences and why they are there. We back up our beliefs with what we feel is evidence, and ultimately the chances are that none of us would be converted, neither would any of us try to convert the other. The purpose would be to quench the human thirst for knowledge. I have a thirst for knowledge about religion, Christianity included. But when I try to find out about it, I am not told about actual Christian beliefs, rather I am told why I am on thin ice for daring to show my face in a Christian community when I am non-Christian. It needn't be exclusive. It needn't be a members only club.

So I ask you, do I have to pretend to be a Christian to find out what Christians genuinely believe?

David

pdavid wrote:So I ask you, do I have to pretend to be a Christian to find out what Christians genuinely believe?

pdavid wrote:So I ask you, do I have to pretend to be a Christian to find out what Christians genuinely believe?

pdavid wrote: will give you some passages here to show how he supports his claim.

"...in Genesis with the well-loved story of Noah, derived from the Babylonian muth of Uta-Napisthim and known from the older mythologies of several cultures. The legend of the animals going into the ark 2 by 2 is charming, but the moral of the story of Noah is appalling. God took a dim view of humans, so he (with the exception of one family) drowned the lot of them including children and also, for good measure, the rest of the animals as well."

In the same chapter, Dawkins goes on to use various parts of the bible to show a god with the traits you point out above:

"In the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Noah equivalent, chosen to be spared with his family because he was uniquely righteous, was Abraham's nephew Lot. Two male angels were sent to Sodom to warn Lot to leave the city before the brimstone arrived. Lot hospitably welcomed the angels into his house, whereupon all the men of Sodom gathered around and demanded that Lot should hand the angels over so that they could (what else?) sodomize them: 'Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them' (Genesis 19:5). Yes, 'know' has the Authorized Version's usual euphemistic meaning, which is very funny in the context. Lot's gallantry in refusing the demand suggests that God might have been onto something when he singled him out as the only good man in Sodom. But Lot's halo is tarnished by the terms of his refusal: 'I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now, I have two daughteres which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof'(Gensis 19:7-8 ).

Dawkins frequently quotes passages like this in the bible, and shows that for every quote that one can find is support of this all-loving god, there is another which shows a god with those traits you see above.

All of this is to prove his point that we do not get our morals from the bible, neither do we need to get our morals from the bible. If we did, we would all be offering our daughters up for gang rape when requested.

snowmansmartie wrote:Hi Guys,

Byblos, yeah I am a programmer, why? It quite scarey that you know that!!

Canuckster1127 wrote:

Richard Dawkins wrote:The word atheism sounds negative; let me call it rationalism. It is a rational view of the world where you stand up proudly, in your humanity, you look life straight in the face, you look the universe straight in the face, you do your level best to understand it, to understand why you exist, what the universe is about, you recognise that when you die that's it, and therefore life is very, very precious and you devote your life to making the world a better place, to leading a good life so when you die you can say to yourself I have led a good life. Now, that seems to me to be a worthwhile goal to put in place of the medieval superstition which is religion. Belief in God doesn't have to be a bad thing, but I think it's a very demeaning thing to the human mind to believe in a falsehood, especially as the truth about the universe is so immensely exciting.

Terry Eagleton wrote:Jesus hung out with whores and social outcasts, was remarkably casual about sex, disapproved of the family (the suburban Dawkins is a trifle queasy about this), urged us to be laid-back about property and possessions, warned his followers that they too would die violently, and insisted that the truth kills and divides as well as liberates. He also cursed self-righteous prigs and deeply alarmed the ruling class.

snowmansmartie wrote: I just wish people like Dawkins and his "followers" would open their eyes do their own research like I have and realise that everything in the world points to Intelligent Design.

I have learned so much in the last year, stuff that cannot be put down to anything else but ID, certainaly not the joke that people call evolution.