The God Delusion

[Zuuljin]

Originally Posted by Kolle

so how do you explain a dream or deja vu that is written down and then comes to pass?

Coicidence or self inflicted if thats the word for it. When people say they have deja vu, they usually mean that feeling you immediatly get when you think youv seen something before, but just before you can say what happens next, its over (because you really cant, your brain just has the feeling of youv seen it before). Anything where you right it down, would usually be a dream or when your spacing out, which is usually the unconcious mind playing scenario's in your head.

I say self inflicted things because you probably cause the event in your dream to happen because thats what you expect to happen. Imagine you dreamed that on your way to work you got into an accident at one of the busy intersections. So on your way to work today, your nervous about your dream, and as you come up to the intersection, you get this nervous and scared feeling that something will happen, just like your dream, so you tense up, accidently hit the brakes too hard, and the person behind you slams into your rear. OMG you saw it coming! No, you made it happen because you werent paying attention, and were too worried about your dream.

Or its just like Miss Cleo. You have a dream of an event one night, which is vauge, and the actions of the next day kind of conform to that dream, so you think the dream came true. Or maybe it wasnt the next day, maybe it was a week later. BAsically at any time in the future that event might happen, and if it does, your a pychic.

Or its like the prophecies. I predict that tommorow some people will be killed in Iraq! And if noone in Iraq is killed, you forget about it, but if someone is, then OMG I saw the future and you make a big deal out of it.

Basically my point is there are many explanations for why things you dreamt up come true. Again though, like god, I dont rule out the possibility of it, just nothing truely spectacular has happened to make me believe otherwise.

[Faille]

What does the existence of paranormal abilities have to do with the question of wether or not there is a god? Seems to me that neither side really negates the possibility for them.

[Tirinal]

Nothing, really. The last couple pages have basically just been penis envy in text form.

[The Edge]

Originally Posted by Faille

What does the existence of paranormal abilities have to do with the question of wether or not there is a god? Seems to me that neither side really negates the possibility for them.

Because many with paranormal abilities also claim to be in contact with "the other side." So if they are legit, then you have evidence for that something other which could be called god.

[Bralkan]

If you write enough events out, one will appear to have happened before. Its probablilty.

[Kolle]

There's just too many inaccuracies with religion. They get facts wrong and when you apply logic and common sense to some of it there are failures once again. When you pair these flaws with that absolute fact that no religious person can do anything to prove an ounce of what they believe it's no wonder that more and more people are waking up around the world.

But! Just because you don't believe in any particular god or even if you do doesn't mean humans cease having potential. It doesn't mean the universe has run out of secrets. There's plenty of evidence in the world right now that there's more to life than what is accepted by most. At this point in time we just don't have enough humans that can do these things on a consistent basis along with large scale demonstrations.

It's kinda sad in a way since most of us will grow old and die before these types of things come to pass. I suppose if you're the type that believes in reincarnation then we'll all get to experience it later on anyways.

[Jedah]

Originally Posted by Kolle

There's just too many inaccuracies with religion. They get facts wrong and when you apply logic and common sense to some of it there are failures once again. When you pair these flaws with that absolute fact that no religious person can do anything to prove an ounce of what they believe it's no wonder that more and more people are waking up around the world.

Thats only if you accept a literal interpretation of the Bible as the only possibility; its very possible 90% of it is told in metaphor, which, sadly, is a lost art in this day and age.

[Kolle]

Originally Posted by Jedah

Thats only if you accept a literal interpretation of the Bible as the only possibility; its very possible 90% of it is told in metaphor, which, sadly, is a lost art in this day and age.

This excuse can be used for some things, but there are many other cases where it just won't fly. And besides, even if only 0.01% of the bible is wrong then you must doubt the entire book. You can't be 100% certain that what you are reading is true. Of course, there's some really horrible and nasty things in the bible which I'm sure some christians wish weren't true because they're indefensible. Bottom line is there are many factual errors in the bible which have nothing to do with metaphor. Beyond factual errors there are also faults in logic. And this is all assuming the book is what it should have been in the first place. Everything left out of the bible and the way it was eventually put together should be enough evidence to cast doubt into any intelligent mind on the validity of the religion.



The reason so many people get away with this is because they ignore the problems and the faults. I can give a great example:

On "Meet the Press" there was the editor of "Newsweek" and a popular evangelical preacher. They had some decent discussions going, but one of the comments made by the preacher highlights the reason why people keep following the religion without figuring things out. It displays the blind ignorance so many are willing to live with. I quote from the show's own transcript:

DR. WARREN: Yeah. I called it the face of compassionate conservatism and the face of compassionate liberalism. And what they had in common, was compassion, which is the Jesus part. For pro-lifers to attack me is ludicrous. If you’ve read “Purpose Driven Life,” chapter two and chapter 22 specifically says that God had a purpose for your life before you were born, and that abortion actually short-circuit’s God’s purpose for your life. So there are accidental parents, but there are no accidental children. You may not have planned your kid, but God did. So everybody knows where I stand on that.

Now see...most christians will read that and just nod their head. It makes perfect sense. They are so trained to not acknowledge faults that they completely overlook it. Some may notice, but if they do and want to keep believing then they must explain it away somehow or forget they noticed.

He states, as most christians would, that God has a plan for everyone. He has a child's life planned for some purpose or another before he/she is even born. They believe that getting an abortion is interfering with God's plan and that is one of the reasons why you shouldn't do it. Now, if God can plan a child's life before it happens then it's painfully obvious that he also knows when a mother is going to abort the child. The only way you can argue otherwise is to claim that God doesn't know the future and that thousands of moms thwart his will every single day. His plans turn out to not be true or even come close to passing since the baby was aborted. So if you truly believe that God has a plan for each person before they are born then you must also believe he plans for them to be aborted, not to lead some fantastic life.

This is a obvious flaw in popular christian thinking. Yet, most manage to never notice it or if they do they find a way to reconcile it so they can keep believing. But this is why we still have the religion problem. People are either stupid, brainwashed, or good at convincing themselves that the color brown is actually green.

[Jabberwhacky]

If I had to guess, I'd say that a lot of those anti-aborters see themselves in God's plan, specifically in saving the child's life. Ya, God can make/kill kids, but it seems reasonable enough to think that if you saw a kid (anyone or anything, really) in pain, you'd help him/her/it out. So yes, kids can die and it's the Will of God, but you (Christian) can "complete" God's plan by playing with the emotions of a woman who's already really fucked up due to contemplating ending the life inside her.

I think the day I join the side of Pro-Life is the day they have some huge trust fund for every aborted abortion baby to grow up and live a full, prosperous, love-ful life. I don't want them to convince women to give birth if the woman is single and fucking 17 years old with no income and the pro-lifers just bone out as soon as the kid is born.

[Kolle]

My personal stance on abortion is hard to explain. I don't know if a soul/spirit exists for certain. Maybe some sorta thing does exist. No one can prove or disprove this. If we ever develope the technology to discover such a thing as a spirit then one burning question would be, "at what point in human life does the spirit enter the body?" Afterall if there is no spirit present then it's just a clump of mush. It would be no different than "killing" a corpse.

Women should have the right to choose, but honestly if I were the father I would be very upset if she aborted my potential child. Although, I completely understand that not every man out there is like me and that situations can be different for other women.

Then again I carry a somewhat high risk of having kids with a few genetic ailments. I don't have them since they seem to skip generations, but it's very possible that my kids might. One reason why I've decided to never have any. It's possible that if I did get a woman pregnant that we would end up being forced to consider aborting.


Anyways the spirit issue is why I guess religious folks would feel so strongly about abortion. They believe the spirit enters at conception and that when you abort even early on you're killing a human spirit. Unfortunately for them they can't prove such a thing.

[Jedah]

Originally Posted by Kolle

This excuse can be used for some things, but there are many other cases where it just won't fly. And besides, even if only 0.01% of the bible is wrong then you must doubt the entire book. You can't be 100% certain that what you are reading is true. Of course, there's some really horrible and nasty things in the bible which I'm sure some christians wish weren't true because they're indefensible. Bottom line is there are many factual errors in the bible which have nothing to do with metaphor. Beyond factual errors there are also faults in logic. And this is all assuming the book is what it should have been in the first place. Everything left out of the bible and the way it was eventually put together should be enough evidence to cast doubt into any intelligent mind on the validity of the religion.

Not really; the book has been hijacked for some time now by complete retards; bending to their vision of reality and taking a torch to a work that has survived 2000 years, and is among the seminal works of philosophy, seems a bit excessive on their account. What factual errors and logic is there in the Bible that cannot be attributed to metaphor or cultural language and situation of the day? The thing is a story, that should have appeared apparent to anyone who noticed that their were 4 different stories regarding the life of Jesus. The gospels often do not match up or compliment each other, they are individual stories, and were picked from among a dozen others.

This is the biggest problem with having any religious discussion right now unfortunately: "Oh, you're talking about Christianity? Like Jerry Fallwell?" Christianity has been overrun by egomaniacs who impose their vision of reality onto the mouth of God, and they get all the press. Nobody pays attention to the quiet, reasonable people, so Religion becomes a caricature of itself. I would not at all defend popular Christian thinking, but the Bible? I would defend that.

[Kolle]

Originally Posted by Jedah

Not really; the book has been hijacked for some time now by complete retards; bending to their vision of reality and taking a torch to a work that has survived 2000 years, and is among the seminal works of philosophy, seems a bit excessive on their account. What factual errors and logic is there in the Bible that cannot be attributed to metaphor or cultural language and situation of the day? The thing is a story, that should have appeared apparent to anyone who noticed that their were 4 different stories regarding the life of Jesus. The gospels often do not match up or compliment each other, they are individual stories, and were picked from among a dozen others.

This is the biggest problem with having any religious discussion right now unfortunately: "Oh, you're talking about Christianity? Like Jerry Fallwell?" Christianity has been overrun by egomaniacs who impose their vision of reality onto the mouth of God, and they get all the press. Nobody pays attention to the quiet, reasonable people, so Religion becomes a caricature of itself. I would not at all defend popular Christian thinking, but the Bible? I would defend that.

Have you read the book? There's plenty of intended factual statements in the bible. It's not meant to be 100% metaphor and storytelling. It's also meant to be a record of history. This is another example of why so many people still follow the religion. They don't read the bible. Too many people just listen to the preacher. Preachers skip a lot of major faults with the bible and the religion for good reason.

There are many factual errors. Here is an example. If you want more I will gladly post them:

"Ahaziah was 22 when he began to reign, 2 Kings 8:26. Ahaziah was 42 when he began to reign, 2 Chronicles 22:2."

What's funny is that some bibles even reference mistakes like this, but people completely overlook the error and pretend it doesn't mean anything. But let's think about this. This error (and the many others) proves that the bible is not perfect. It proves the bible can be wrong. It proves the authors of the bible can be wrong. It proves that the book for which over a billion people rest their faith and 100% of their knowledge for what happened in the past is faulty. Was he 22 or 42? May not seem like a big deal. I'm sure christians would just shrug something like that off and pretend it didn't make a difference. But the simple fact is this: If even one thing in the bible is wrong then you must also doubt other things the bible teaches.

But ok...so some hardhead christians reads that and thinks, "It doesn't matter that he was 22 or 42 and it doesn't matter that this part of the bible is wrong." Ok. What about prophecy? That's a lot more important, afterall. If a prophet of god makes a mistake then that's something directly from god that's wrong:

"Ezekiel chapter 26 ERRONEOUSLY predicts that during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar [Ez 26:7] the city of Tyre will be UTTERLY DESTROYED, become a BARE ROCK [Ez 26:4; 26:14 - KJV says "like the top of a rock"; NIV says "scrape away the rubble and make a bare rock"], and NEVER BE REBUILT [Ez 26:14; 26:21]. The city was defeated in battle in 587 BC, during King Nebuchadnezzar's reign, but was NOT "utterly" destroyed or "never rebuilt." In fact, today has more than 20,000 inhabitants at the core of a metropolitan area of more than 100,000 people! (Even within Bible times, long after the battle described by Ezekiel, Tyre had already been rebuilt and, in New Testament times it is still portrayed as a CITY (Mark 3:8) and as a harbor where ships could unload (Acts 21:3,7) -- so I guess this could qualify not only as a failed prophecy, but also as a CONTRADICTION."


That's a little more important than getting the age of a king wrong. This not only proves that the bible and its authors can be wrong, but it proves that bible prophecy can be wrong. If that's not enough to make you doubt how truthful the bible really is then I will post more.

[Dumar]

nah kolle your other argument is so much better than debunking the bible based on how old someone said a king was.

god kills human babes therefore god is unjust is just so much better.

[Kolle]

Originally Posted by Dumar

nah kolle your other argument is so much better than debunking the bible based on how old someone said a king was.

god kills human babes therefore god is unjust is just so much better.

How about the Jews when they slaughtered countless women, children, and old people with god's help? That's quite a trick too.

But, you're right. God killing so many unborn babies and children is one of the reasons why I wouldn't worship him. Therefore I wouldn't be Jew, Christian, or Muslim. If I was going to worship a diety I would prefer them to not kill so many people.

[Jedah]

Originally Posted by Kolle

How about the Jews when they slaughtered countless women, children, and old people with god's help? That's quite a trick too.

But, you're right. God killing so many unborn babies and children is one of the reasons why I wouldn't worship him. Therefore I wouldn't be Jew, Christian, or Muslim. If I was going to worship a diety I would prefer them to not kill so many people.

I should have noted that I was mainly interested in the New Testament, not so much the Old. Also, bearing in mind that the contents of the Bible were transmitted verbally for centuries before being written down, so that could account for some of the factual discrepencies. Lets keep this in perspective; this thing is old, Jesus and his followers were illiterate peasant folk, and everything was told in stories by travellers, so anything written about him likely came about in the year 200 A.D. if memory serves (I had a friend who was really into the historical Jesus stuff, so he was a fountain of useless info on this sort of thing). The factual correctness of contents of the Bible, I don't have any interest in debating; the historical truth or non-truth of the Bible doesn't interest me; I'm much more interested in the meaning conveyed in the stories.

Complete non-sequitur: try going around and telling people Jesus was illiterate and watch their heads explode. It's good fun, and its true.