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Please be careful with statements like this. The bible (esp. the Old Testament) is chock full of historical inaccuracies because IMO a lot of it is not supposed to be taken completely literally. For example, some things (Jesus's trial and execution) can be taken as factual, other things (Methuselah living 900+ years, the creation story), probably shouldn't be.

Similar claims of long life spans are found in the secular literature of several ancient cultures (including the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Chinese). I know I will get blasted for this but, the Earth pre-flood had much more tropical enviroment, The Earth used to have more pressure with a ice layer around the atomosphere, the electromagnetic field was much higher and there was more oxygen due to better plant base(30%). The soil was richer and made much better food sources than post flood. In Japan they only simulated the oxygen levels and pressure and made a giant tomato plant that put off insane amounts of tomatoes and grew to be the size of a medium tree. People talk about Christians being closed minded, but I find this to me somewhat funny.

Similar claims of long life spans are found in the secular literature of several ancient cultures (including the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Chinese). I know I will get blasted for this but, the Earth pre-flood had much more tropical enviroment, The Earth used to have more pressure with a ice layer around the atomosphere, the electromagnetic field was much higher and there was more oxygen due to better plant base(30%). The soil was richer and made much better food sources than post flood. In Japan they only simulated the oxygen levels and pressure and made a giant tomato plant that put off insane amounts of tomatoes and grew to be the size of a medium tree. People talk about Christians being closed minded, but I find this to me somewhat funny.

Umm there are lots of legitimate historians And recorded history from The time period you speak of. Yet I find it curious that all these miracles and stories of people living hundreds of years are only ever mentioned in religious texts, never historical texts written by respected historians

Why would that law come to be without a built in fear and knowledge of it being bad? Just curious.

I would make an educated guess and say it has developed in us during the evolution.

I think there are some more educated statements out there.

Keep in mind that while we take for granted that murder is bad, that has not historically extended to members of other societies. It's just not called murder then (obv I'm talking about wars of conquest and tribal fighting - and you don't have to go back thousands of years to find examples of this, any US citizen familiar with 19th century history should be able to come up with examples, let alone citizens of European colonial nations).

Also keep in mind that cannibalism was an accepted practice in several societies historically - again, not within one's own social group to my knowledge, but nonetheless.

The idea that we're imprinted with a proscription against murder isn't tenable imo, regardless of whether we're talking about divine intervention or evolutionary biology.

Keep in mind that while we take for granted that murder is bad, that has not historically extended to members of other societies. It's just not called murder then (obv I'm talking about wars of conquest and tribal fighting - and you don't have to go back thousands of years to find examples of this, any US citizen familiar with 19th century history should be able to come up with examples, let alone citizens of European colonial nations).

Also keep in mind that cannibalism was an accepted practice in several societies historically - again, not within one's own social group to my knowledge, but nonetheless.

The idea that we're imprinted with a proscription against murder isn't tenable imo, regardless of whether we're talking about divine intervention or evolutionary biology.

This.

I mentioned before "Yeah, the reason people dont murder other people often is more out of social norms than anything else, and fear of punishment and retribution IN THIS LIFE, not the next."

Man has been around for ~ 100.000 years. God for 10.000. So who created who?

Man has been around for ~ 100.000 years. God for 10.000. So who created who?

Is there some legit stuff to back this up or are you just guessing numbers? Never really thought about it, maybe religion is only 10,000 years old due to language/some kind of social structure/etc needed for it to flourish, but I'd think 50,000 years old they'd be weirded out by the sun/moon/seasons and come up with some rationale for how it works.

Edit: Unless you're referring to the literal interpretation of the bible thing, some quick googling indicates actual religion has been around for wayyyyy longer.

Double Edit: I think I'm reading into your comment way too much and you're just referring to the birth of Christianity rather than the concept of religion or god?

Is there some legit stuff to back this up or are you just guessing numbers? Never really thought about it, maybe religion is only 10,000 years old due to language/some kind of social structure/etc needed for it to flourish, but I'd think 50,000 years old they'd be weirded out by the sun/moon/seasons and come up with some rationale for how it works.

Edit: Unless you're referring to the literal interpretation of the bible thing, some quick googling indicates actual religion has been around for wayyyyy longer.

Double Edit: I think I'm reading into your comment way too much

When I made the post I was thinking about Christianity.

much of why people disagree about whether god exists or not is purely conceptual. Atheists by definition don't believe, so they view the problem as an intellectual one and use logic to show that it doesn't make sense, or that they see no reason to believe. But much of the misunderstanding comes from not agreeing what is "god" in the first place. If you believe, you will certainly not be talking about the same thing as an atheist. Even believers can hardly put into words what it is they believe and struggle among themselves to make sense with each other, while in the end they know they are talking about the same thing.
Believing has little to do with logic and the rational mind. Believing is done with the heart, not with the brain, and is essentially a private thing, since it cannot be conveyed, and doesn't need to be. It's a private relationship one has with whatever you wanna call it, or I believe that's how it should be.

Basically whether god 'exists' or not is a silly argument. I believe he exists, he's super real to me, because whatever I believe is true. That's what it comes down to imo.

and is essentially a private thing, since it cannot be conveyed, and doesn't need to be. It's a private relationship one has with whatever you wanna call it, or I believe that's how it should be.

I'm extremely sympathetic to your point of view. Just to point it out, though, this viewpoint (in the context specifically of Christianity) is a historical development related to the Reformation, that it is a Protestant viewpoint, and is at odds with the Roman Catholic (as one example) worldview.

That's not saying anything about whether it's right or wrong, just pointing out that Christianity is not a static thing, that it has been interpreted over time by people (who may or may not have been divinely inspired - if they all were, it's kinda confusing why they'd be lead down different paths imo), and that it doesn't mean the same thing to everyone. I think we tend to forget that once in a while.

Improva, I lol'd, tks.

Christianity is only 2000 years old, isn't it?

If we talk about all the way to the beginning of the bible, the roots of the Abrahamic Religions (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) are about 6,000 years -- at least I always thought.

Sorry, haven't taken the time to look up the info (falling asleep).
Just curious about the numbers being thrown around. Wondering if they are real. 100K and 10K

Actually it's pretty clear it is has been going the other way.

What do you mean?

No no. You dont seem to get it. I know that we are imprinted with what is wrong and right to start with.

How exactly did you come to this perfectly rational epistemological conclusion? Here's a hint: don't say: 'the Bible says so' if you want to be taken at all seriously.

Religion is nothing but man's rituals and has nothing to do with God. Almost all athiest have some major issue understanding that.

No no no. That's exactly what we atheists are saying. This is a common line used to separate Christianity from other religions but it's no more than special pleading and you won't be fooling many with this line of reasoning.

While some Christian belief systems remain completely personal, most Christian dogmas have practices involved with them and so the vast majority of Christianity is actually religious in nature.

Your faith may not be, but that fact alone doesn't give any credibility to it.

There is no more evidence that Christianity is true (whether it involves religion or not) than Islam, Taoism, Shintoism, sun worship or worshippers of the invisible teacup.

If there was life just from random koas, which is hard for me even to write, then why on earth would one have to make laws about not killing or stealing.

To exact justice on those that take away from someone taking something that doesn't belong to them. If someone steals your car, we have a justice system in place that helps you find restitution. If someone takes your life, our justice system attempts to do the same thing. This has to do with justice, not morality. Don't confuse the issue.

The reason we have these things is to prevent anarchy, not teach moral lessons.

It wouldn't matter.

It doesn't, really. We are all going to die anyway, and 100% of even the faintest memory of our existence will eventually fade away, so what does it matter when, or how?

It would never come to ones mind.

And it doesn't really (I hope you can say the same for yourself). When was the last time you genuinely desired to murder someone? It has never happened to me, and most probably will never, because I have a healthy brain, a healthy upbringing and a healthy life.

I think all people have nothing to offer more than dirty rags to God and the world. It is all just crap compaired to Jesus's life. No one on the planet could ever hold a candle to him, but we should all try.

I remember the endless suffering this type of thinking cause when I was a Christian. I'm so glad that it is gone from my life now. People are fallible and we all make mistakes and perfection is unattainable. Even if it was and Jesus was perfect who cares. I'm not him and I wouldn't be me if I tried to be anyone else.

The Christian god creates us sick and orders us to be well (or be punished for eternity). What a bunch of superfluous nonsense.

For the record fwiw, I am a born again Christian of no church. It was just me and my life and a place I came to. I was at one point an athiest and said all the things that side says in these type of threads. I think I always believed in God, but I was just angry with how things had gone for me up to that point. I have had things happen in my life that I could never be convinced that were not signs of him being there in one fasion or another. I don't push my views on people. I don't judge people on the things that they do like the Christian anger mobs on TV which I think is a very small part of the actual God types.

I used to be a born-again Christian. I had a life changing 'experience with Christ' where I could literally feel him enter my heart and cleanse my inner being with his pureness. I went to church every sunday, prayed multiple times each day, read the Bible from front to back at least 5 times and literally had God as the center of my life for many years.

But always, my conscience and rational mind was tugging at my beliefs, bringing up the obvious contradictions in the Bible, the irreconcilable inconsistencies that exist in the doctrine, the lack of historicity of the biblical claims, the injustice of hell, the uselessness of prayer, and so on. This created an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance and developed into a rampaging general anxiety disorder flirting with frequent panic attacks. Finally, when it reached its crescendo, I completely broke down and I was forced to re-analyze my faith from a logical point of view: to find evidence or not, to resolve the contradictions or accept them, to establish the historicity of the bible or discard it, to accept the injustice of hell or blind myself. Once I found out the impossibility of having a 'reasonable faith,' I had no choice but to discard it from my life. I can say without question that I am a happier, healthier, more rational and stronger person than I could ever hope to be while lying to myself.

You are entitled to your point of view. One of the great things about living in a free society is our ability to live peacefully along side each other while sharing differences in belief and life practice.

But I have walked before in Christian shoes, so I am competent to judge the Christian faith from a rational point of view.

Actually it is very historical and that is being shown more and more.

It depends what you mean by historical. And we also have to refrain from looking at the Bible as one historical account. It has 66-68 books (depending on your sect) and a multitude of different authors. Some books have multiple authors. Some VERSES have multiple authors. Some books were left out of the official canon, which was determined at Nicea in 325. Where do those fit in?

Is it factual? Probably partially. Are ANY of the miracles or great claims supported by external evidence or documentation? Absolutely not. Is the creation legend taken as literal by historians? Absolutely not. Is the creation legend supported by extra-biblical evidence in any way? Absolutely the opposite. The biblical creation account is completely debunked by many different branches of science. Did Jesus exist? Probably someone existed like Jesus, or Jesus was a literary interpretation of a few different people around that period of time, but even that's debatable. A lot of historians believe he was completely fabricated.

Aside from that, the one event listed in the bible which should have the most evidence if it was true is the exodus. 603 350 people traveling from Egypt to the promised land in 1 year would leave a massive amount of archaeological evidence behind. There would be paintings in Egyptian literature or statues or SOMETHING. But there is nothing. Not a scrap of a broken pottery jar. Not a single Egyptian painting hyeroglyph, statue, or figurine. NOTHING.

It simply didn't happen.

Here's some of my random thoughts:

- I don't believe religion, of any flavour, is bad per se
- I believe people who abuse religion, in whatever way, are bad
- I don't believe if there is a God or Gods that because I don't pray, go to any church etc that I would be judged by those non-action. Rather I think I would be judged by my actions.
- The way I lead my life might be considered an atheist path but I have one nagging question similar in some ways to something Grindcore mentioned earlier in this thread: If the universe was "created" etc and it is accepted scientifically that the form of this creation was the "big bang" - what was there before the big bang?

Finally and probably most importantly - he so called golden rule/ethic of reciprocity:
. If everyone treated others as they would like to be treated themselves and lived their lives by this rule/moral code/whatever you want to label it - the world would be a lot happier/nicer place to live.

If we talk about all the way to the beginning of the bible, the roots of the Abrahamic Religions (Jewish, Muslim, Christian) are about 6,000 years -- at least I always thought.

This is what I really meant and I seem remember that some people claim that they have roots that go slightly further back - and I did not want to offend anyone.

But what did God do all those years? I find it interesting that there are no signs of him for so many years.

This is what I really meant and I seem remember that some people claim that they have roots that go slightly further back - and I did not want to offend anyone.

But what did God do all those years? I find it interesting that there are no signs of him for so many years.

You crack me up to no end. You look at the world with a blind eye and then say if you can't see it that is isnt there. When I look at the world I can't no see signs of God. The thing is the more time I spend trying to talk people who don't believe into admitting it is possible the more time I spend not doing what I should. Jesus never spent one minute trying to talk the non-believer into believing.

Example: People came over a few times from Europe to try and start a new land in what we now call the USA. This failed several times. The first people came for business and they all died off. The first people who came to be able to believe in God the way they wanted made it. To me this yet another subtle example of how he is there.

Example: Why is it that the US military refuses to study how well the Israeli army as faired in impossible fights. They have had either the most amazing luck OR God has been looking out for his chosen people. You will say it was luck and over blown, I will say it was God looking out for them.

Example: The Bible speaks of how the Jewish people would be without their land and then would get it back before it happened. How do you explain away that? I'm and 100% sure you will TRY.

There is one thing I am absolutely sure of: You will stay on your side of the fence and I will stay on my side no matter what the other says. So what is the point of this convo?