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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.

The Golden rule is not in the Bible btw. What no one has answered at all is why on Earth anyone would give a crap about anyone else in this no God luck box life accident that is so cherrished by so many people. It came to be over time though evolution. There is no proof at all of evolution and yet many people believe that on blind faith and then say a Christian is a blind moron for believing things that have no proof and then turn around and ignore the signs that he is indeed there. I'm getting really bored with this conversation.

I will also add this. If I am wrong then what did I lose? If you are wrong (athiest) what will you lose? Not looking for a reply in here I would just ask you to think about this for a while some day waiting for a plane or at a traffic light. I ask this because I care for all people and do not need the other side to come over to mine to feel better about it, which I don't think is so true for the athiest camp.

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.

You can't be serious. Never does god discriminate between his children. Even less those who are at war, because if they had Jesus in their hearts, they would avoid that at all cost. I mean, that's the whole point, love and respect.

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

You must not now much about history. AGAIN
Similar claims of long life spans are found in the secular literature of several ancient cultures (including the Babylonians, Greeks, Romans, Indians, and Chinese). People not connected all over the world speak of it and have it recorded that way and had no connection to a Christ based religion.

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

Wiki has an interesting timeline page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion

...There is no proof at all of evolution and yet many people believe that on blind faith and then say a Christian is a blind moron for believing things that have no proof and then turn around and ignore the signs that he is indeed there. I'm getting really bored with this conversation.

I will also add this. If I am wrong then what did I lose? If you are wrong (athiest) what will you lose? Not looking for a reply in here I would just ask you to think about this for a while some day waiting for a plane or at a traffic light. I ask this because I care for all people and do not need the other side to come over to mine to feel better about it, which I don't think is so true for the athiest camp.

No proof at all of evolution? Seriously? Wow. I may be misinterpreting what you're saying, but wow.

fwiw, I'm not seeing anyone criticizing Christians itt in the way you suggest, nor anyone attempting to convert anyone, maybe the last point is a bit of an overreaction? Most people itt seem to be expressing viewpoints pretty politely and non-dogmatically imo - some in a more direct way than others maybe , but...

Wiki has an interesting timeline page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_religion

Nothing like leaving it up to wikipedia to solve all debates...especially religious ones. If there's one source that all non-believers should view as less reliable than The Bible, it should be Wikipedia. Just saying.

Nothing like leaving it up to wikipedia to solve all debates...especially religious ones. If there's one source that all non-believers should view as less reliable than The Bible, it should be Wikipedia. Just saying.

you don't understand how wikipedia works do you? that article has 66 sources cited. that's 65 more than the bible.

I broke my rule and posted again on this thread!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Bottom line, nobody knows for sure if there's a God or not, just like the 66 sources on Wikipedia don't know for sure that the data they are presenting is completely accurate because NONE OF US WERE AROUND THEN! It's all speculation, so how about Atheists who can't phathom Christianity being true leaves it alone, and us Christians just stop trying to plead our case and go about believing what we believe in and living our lives.

Interesting thread. Definitely a hot potato.

I'm a bit different than most out there. In my earlier life (early 20s) I was full blown charismatic Christian. I've forgotten more about the Bible than most Christians will ever know. For example, I used to attend all services on Sunday so that I could learn as much as possible. I watched or listened to lectures as religiously as I watch DC vids. I grew up in a Christian household and had ancillary beliefs handed down to me as a child. I was one of the people referenced that believed the Bible to be the living word of God - to be taken literally, and anything less was blasphemous.

It's too long of a story to tell you how I managed to become agnostic. I can't fathom being anything BUT agnostic. I know Christianity (in all present forms) is nothing more than a bunch of BS (sorry if you believe it is) but I also think there's too much for me to believe in no God or nothing. I don't want to go into detail on why this is. I'm still searching for truth, but obviously that's near impossible.

If this thread is about the merits of religions, I have a very unique perspective on that. Religion has some strengths: you believe in something larger than yourself; you can attribute successes or failures to this will - or that all things work together for good for those that love God; all questions of the afterlife are solved; the correct world view is fixed; and perhaps most importantly easy solutions to straightforward issues.

The downsides are absolutely heinous. I found in my own life that my beliefs retarded my growth and development as a person - and to me this is religions biggest crime. Because beliefs get twisted into an idealized model of the world, it becomes easy to infringe on the humanity of others because it's what God would want. We've seen all the negatives of this right here in the USA. You name it... from buildings crumbling with thousands inside to depriving people the right to marry whom they wish, or believing that protecting people from wicked gambling makes it right to deprive millions from playing internet poker in the comfort of their own home.

As harsh as that sounds, I do hold a somewhat fond feeling for religion even though I clearly see that its negatives far exceed its positives.

Perhaps with something such as Buddhism, the benefits would far exceed the negatives - not that I've studied Buddhism but it does appear this way. It looks to me that it builds a better person without creating dogmatic enemies of humanity (and an enemy of the individual). If I were to ever look closer at Buddhism, I would not expect to find the answers to my questions about God, about the meaning of life, etc - but to look for how the beliefs and practices might reflect an objective truth.

I broke my rule and posted again on this thread!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! Bottom line, nobody knows for sure if there's a God or not, just like the 66 sources on Wikipedia don't know for sure that the data they are presenting is completely accurate because NONE OF US WERE AROUND THEN! It's all speculation, so how about Atheists who can't phathom Christianity being true leaves it alone, and us Christians just stop trying to plead our case and go about believing what we believe in and living our lives.

theres a big difference between scientifically verified ages of things like human skeletons and stories in a book that have been passed down over 2k years by word of mouth and transliteration.

let me ask a question, WHY do you believe in christianity? have you compared it to the other options? what evidence do you have that your religion is the correct one?

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.

You commit a number of logical fallacies with this argument. The major one being cum hoc ergo propter hoc: correlation does not imply causation: a faulty assumption that correlation between two variables implies that one causes the other. Just because the people who 'made it' believed in your god doesn't mean the reason they made it was because they believed in your god.

You also seem to cherry pick. If am good at poker whereas some Christians are not does that mean that atheism is more likely true? Clearly not.

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.

Another logical fallacy. A number of factors contributed to the Israeli victories over their Arab neighbors. Would you claim that the Nazis early victories over clearly superior neighbors meant that 'God was on their side?' Get real.

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.

The passages in Ezekiel Jeremiah and Isaiah describing the then 'babylonian enslavement' (which was happening at the time) do predict a return to the 'promised land.' But so what? What would you expect them to say, that Israel is to be abandoned and forgotten? And just because it actually happened 2500 years later doesn't mean anything. If they had not returned by your reasoning that would be negative evidence that the 'prophecy' was true. Guess what? Jesus hasn't returned yet. I guess the prophecy is false!

The Golden rule is not in the Bible btw.

Therefore, whatever you want people to do for you, do the same for them
Matthew 7:12

There is no proof at all of evolution and yet many people believe that on blind faith and then say a Christian is a blind moron for believing things that have no proof and then turn around and ignore the signs that he is indeed there.

There is a ton of evidence for evolution. DNA evidence (chromosome 2 is really ridiculously shocking evidence):

All members of Hominidae except humans have 24 pairs of chromosomes. Humans have only 23 pairs of chromosomes. Human chromosome 2 is widely accepted to be a result of an end-to-end fusion of two ancestral chromosomes.
Fusion of ancestral chromosomes left distinctive remnants of telomeres, and a vestigial centromere

The evidence for this includes:

* The correspondence of chromosome 2 to two ape chromosomes. The closest human relative, the chimpanzee, has near-identical DNA sequences to human chromosome 2, but they are found in two separate chromosomes. The same is true of the more distant gorilla and orangutan.
* The presence of a vestigial centromere. Normally a chromosome has just one centromere, but in chromosome 2 there are remnants of a second centromere.
* The presence of vestigial telomeres. These are normally found only at the ends of a chromosome, but in chromosome 2 there are additional telomere sequences in the middle.

Some argue that chromosome 2 presents very strong evidence in favour of the common descent of humans and other apes. According to researcher J. W. IJdo, "We conclude that the locus cloned in cosmids c8.1 and c29B is the relic of an ancient telomere-telomere fusion and marks the point at which two ancestral ape chromosomes fused to give rise to human chromosome 2.

Among others are paleontological evidence, geological evidence, skeletal evidence, cellular evidence etc. There is tons of information on it readily available but I assume that it's boring for you and you won't accept it because holding on to your faith is more important than seeking the truth. Don't claim to be open minded or the 'same' as everyone not holding your beliefs because that's clearly unture. You are obviously both willfully ignorant and uninterested in having a rational conversation. This, and not the misclaim that God is real, is the main reason that religion continues to thrive. It seeks to shut down the questioning aspect of its' followers minds.

I will also add this. If I am wrong then what did I lose? If you are wrong (athiest) what will you lose? Not looking for a reply in here I would just ask you to think about this for a while some day waiting for a plane or at a traffic light. I ask this because I care for all people and do not need the other side to come over to mine to feel better about it, which I don't think is so true for the athiest camp.

Ahh Pascal's Wager. Yawn.

http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/07/pascals-wager-revisited.html

Once you understand evolution, the wheels start coming off Christianity. This is true, even though the Bible actually does not contradict evolution in its "7 day" creation. For me, realizing that people have been roaming the earth for more than 100 thousand years caused me to think super hard about the beliefs that were handed down to me by a faction of people claiming to have the truth.

theres a big difference between scientifically verified ages of things like human skeletons and stories in a book that have been passed down over 2k years by word of mouth and transliteration.

let me ask a question, WHY do you believe in christianity? have you compared it to the other options? what evidence do you have that your religion is the correct one?

I really don't want to go down this road 1. Because it's not going to make the least bit of difference and 2. my story is an extrememly long one. I'm sure you're trying to get me to say, "I was raised Christian, so I didn't know any better and now just assume Christianity is the way all should live." That's not it. I was raised Catholic, forced into Sunday school, first communion and confirmation. As I got older, it didn't take me long to start looking at other religions and questioning my beliefs. That was college. Then about two years of conisdering myself somewhat Agnostic, I had 2-3 clear "God moments" where He showed himself to me and from then on, I have never looked back. I no longer attend Catholic service with my family and attend a non-denominational church. I don't preach to those who share different viewpoints, only to those fellow Christians or "Bible thumpers" that give the rest of us a bad name. My church and all that attend believe that in order to live the best "Jesus like" life we should be showing his love through action, not words, which is one of my biggest pet peaves when it comes to others.

I just think that Christians are viewed very negatively as a whole instead of being viewed individually like they should be. It's like poker, you will always remember those hands where you get 1 outered for a huge pot which leads you to believe the website is rigged, etc. but you never remember the times where YOU are the one hitting that one outer. Non-Christians sure can easily point out/remember all the flaws that Christians are responsible for, but have a hard time recolecting the truly good things that we have done for this world.

Then about two years of conisdering myself somewhat Agnostic, I had 2-3 clear "God moments" where He showed himself to me and from then on, I have never looked back.

People like this are cool with me; I don't know what you experienced or didn't experience. If it all makes sense for you, then in some ways, I'm jealous.

There's definitely more to life than meets the eye, but I cannot determine what that means. It could mean there is a God, there is no God, that we are somehow immortal, or that everything supernatural in nature is a bunch of BS - I don't know. Wish I did.

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.

I did not say that God wasn't there. I just pointed out that there were no signs of him. Claiming that he was not there is just as stupid as claiming that he was.

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.

The Native Americans do not believe in God as far as I know. Later some people with guns crossed the sea.

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.

What fights are you refering to? It have not studied the history of Israel for 20 years.

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.

You don't get many followers by telling people that they will live as refugees for all enternity. As far as I know they have gained and lost control over the area a few times.

I would have been impressed if The Bible had predicted Holocaust. God looking out for his chosen people?

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?

We are just talking about religion. It's very interesting since history clearly shows how dangerous it is when someone claims to have found the truth and has success convincing other people.

I'm personally just trying to understand why people become religious.