Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – please welcome Alex, a Christian who has asked to debate me

not so polite dinner conversation, Uncategorized 4 Minutes

A Christian has asked to debate me, Alexander Phaethon, of the blog Peace of Mind. He comes to us from commenting on my last blog post, about a christian who insists that everyone agrees with her. You can see what kind of a Christian he is on his comment here. He also commented that he is “I’m technically 50 percent white 50 percent Latino.” He does think that Elizabeth, the one who insists that everyone agrees with her is correct. We’ll get to that in a bit.

You can follow along in the comments below. If it gets too unwieldly, I’ll open another post to continue.

To start off, Alex has asked this “Well, lets just start with our base beliefs and then will get to Elizabeth’s claim. What are your reasons for believing that there is no God, and also what then do you believe is the point of life?”

Alex, the reason I don’t believe in any gods, including the many variations of the Christian god, is that there is no evidence at all for their existences. Not one event claimed to have been caused by your god, or any other, can be shown to have happened. There is also no evidence that any of these gods come through for their worshippers as they promise in the various holy books that theists have.

Now to focus the Christianity we both are familiar with, there are dozens, if not far more, of versions, all of which contradict each other. That Christians cannot agree on the most basic things in their religion, (e.g. how one is saved, what heaven and hell are, what this god considers a sin, what morals this god wants, which parts of the bible to consider literal, exaggerated or metaphor, etc), nor convince each other that their version is the “right” one, shows that there is little reason to think that there is any “right” version. This is especially true since not one self-described Christian can do what your supposed messiah promised you would be able to do. Those abilities are described in Mark 16, John 14 and James 5, among other places.

I do say self-described since that is the only way to know who a Christian is since you all point at those Christians who don’t agree with you and claim they aren’t Christians, but you cannot show this to be the case.

Could there be a “right” version? Perhaps, but I see no evidence of what it is or that it exists.

The second part of your request is “what then do you believe is the point of life?” I don’t see that there has to be a “point” aka “meaning” for life that is external to the person living a life. There is life since physics allows for it. I’m alive, a meerkat is alive, my cats are alive, the collard greens plants in my backyard garden are alive.

I give meaning to my own life, and that is to help others when I can so they can enjoy their life too, to enjoy my life which means loving my spouse, my kitties, my friends, having tasty meals, a comfy bed, a nice glass of wine or beer or bourbon, creating art, gardening, etc. I am largely Epicurean (a brief description: “Epicurus believed that the greatest good was to seek modest, sustainable pleasure in the form of a state of ataraxia (tranquility and freedom from fear) and aponia (the absence of bodily pain) through knowledge of the workings of the world and limiting desires.”) in worldview, with a splash of Stoicism.

When I was a Christian, I was taught that the meaning of life was to obey the god of Christianity, and if I was approved of, I’d get to exist forever in heaven. I’m quite happy to have left that behind, since I finally did realize that the god of Christianity wasn’t anything I would want to obey, even if it were real. I read the bible and found out what it says, not the expurgated version that pastors and priests give. I found I had far better morals than this god from reading comic books and watching Star Trek than what the bible teaches. No promise of eternal life would be worth following such a horrible being as the god depicted in the bible.

Now, you probably are asking about what I found “horrible”. The following:

1. A god that condemns everyone for the supposed actions of two. This eliminates free will. This also is the story of Eden, where this god intentionally keeps Adam and Eve ignorant of what good and evil are, and blames them for not obeying him when they would have had no idea that not obeying this god was “evil”.
2. A god that kills every living thing on earth except for 8 people horribly by drowning. This includes children and animals who did nothing wrong. See the noah flood.
3. A god that mind controls humans so it has an excuse for abusing and killing them, including children. See Exodus 4, Joshua 11.
4. A god that repeatedly commits and commands genocide and rape of girls, see Numbers 31.
5. The idea of a blood sacrifice by torture required for “salvation” from this god’s actions that it screwed up in Eden. See the whole Jesus story.
6. The idea that if you don’t believe in the right god you deserve eternal torture. per both Jesus and paul.
7. The lunacy and viciousness of Revelation where this god works with its supposed archenemy to corrupt its followers after it kills everyone else.

If you’d like me to clarify, do ask. Alex, my questions to you are how do you know your version is right? What is the best evidence you think there is that your god exists? And what do *you* think the meaning of life is?

Addendum: 5/4/22: how this ends up here: https://clubschadenfreude.com/2022/05/04/not-so-polite-conversation-my-discussion-with-alexander-part-2/

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intelligent, female, atheist, science fiction fan, great cook, excellent alewife, cat lover

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119 thoughts on “Not So Polite Dinner Conversation – please welcome Alex, a Christian who has asked to debate me”

  1. Alright, first I’d like to thank you for linking my blog and for taking the time to do this. To start, let me just answer that last question you asked about my political stance. I’m a moderate because I think you have to look at the perspectives of both sides, and you can’t just agree with everything one person does. I didn’t vote in the last election and to be honest I really try to stay out of politics, so I cannot say who I would have voted for, but given what I have seen from Biden if I had voted then it probably would have been Trump. That said I don’t agree with everything Trump does, did, or says. Like I said, I’m a moderate.

    Now to answer your next questions: How do I know that my version of Christianity is right; what do I think is the best proof of my God; and what do I think the point of life is. Well, I think that there are some versions of Christianity that are wrong, and I think a good way of determining that is by looking at the Bible. For instance, the Bible says no to worship anything besides God, that means that Catholics practices of praying to saints and such is wrong. That being said, I think every person’s personal relationship with God is slightly unique: We should all strive to follow the same rules laid out in the Bible, but I am not going to pray to God the same way that other Christians might, and they might not worship the same ways I do. How do I no if my version is “right,” well I do my best to follow God, I ask Him for forgiveness if I’ve done something wrong, I mean, I don’t really know that I have anything fancy attached to my faith that could make it more right or wrong than others.

    Now, proof of God. I think if you look around and look deep enough you’ll find proof of some sort of architect. For instance how is Fibonacci’s sequence found so often in different objects throughout nature? And what’s with all the circles: Galaxies (roughly circular in shape), spin in a circular motion, within them, planets (roughly spherical in shape) spin in a circular motion and orbit in large circles around stars (also roughly spherical in shape), moons orbit around the planets in circular motion, and it goes down to the atomic level, with protons, neutrons, and electrons all orbiting around a nucleus. I think though, that one of the greatest pieces of evidence in my life for God’s existence is what he’s done in my life. Perhaps you’ll find that a lame answer, but it’s true. When I was young my parents divorced. I was so sad and upset, and I literally thought I was going to live with my mother in the same house in Pennsylvania until I grew up an moved away. Then, surprise! My mother found the most perfect person ever, they married and we moved down south where I still currently live. That may still sound tame, but you have to factor in my disabilities. I was born with Food Allergies, meaning that eating certain foods could kill me. Not a lot of people understand this struggle of mine, but my stepdad did. Within the first couple weeks, maybe less, of meeting me, he got rid of every food in his house that could possibly hurt me. After coming all this way, I still look back and see how God turned what to me was the worst possible situation, into the greatest blessing I’ve ever known.

    Now, about what this life means. Well, I think you and I share some similarities in our view of life’s point: We both want to help other people. Except, I would also like to show Jesus to other people. In my view, the point of this life is to share the Good News with as many people, and live out God’s purpose for you, whether that means striving to become an author, like I am, or becoming a baker, an actor, whatever. Do what you do best and God will use that to reach people. The thing I never understand with atheism, and which maybe you can help me understand, is how they can believe that they can help people if the difference is minimal. In an atheists worldview, everyone dies and stays dead, there is no saving people from hell or getting them to heaven, in essence their efforts may help people in life but can never prevent the inevitable: death.

    Whew, that was a lot of writing, let me know what you think.

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    1. explain this and give examples: ” but given what I have seen from Biden if I had voted then it probably would have been Trump. That said I don’t agree with everything Trump does, did, or says. Like I said, I’m a moderate.”

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      1. Well, Biden does not seem to have it altogether mentally, and because of him gas prices are really high. Trump seemed like a good leader, though he does have a lot of controversy swirling around, and if what i’ve heard is true I don’t approve of what he has done, but I personally feel that he was a good president through Covid and that if people hadn’t made things harder he might have been able to do more by closing down travel to china earlier and such

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      2. Again, examples of Biden “not seem to have it altogether mentally”. As for gas prices, Biden has nothing to do with that. Gas prices are determined by the oil companies and supply and demand. The current war in Ukraine also has influence on it since it destabilizes all consumables. That’s why food is rather expensive now too.

        Trump is a good leader? How? He has been repeatedly shown as a liar. Now your religion’s god says that lies should never be told. This seems rather hypocritical of you to claim that Trump is okay. We also have nothing to show that Trump was a good president through the covid crisis since he repeatedly lied about how to treat it.

        As for closing down travel to China, we can see the truth of things here: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/the-facts-on-trumps-travel-restrictions/

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    2. Alexander
      Okay, let’s unpack what you’ve written. I’ve already asked you to clarify about your political claims so I’ll get to the rest.

      “Well, I think that there are some versions of Christianity that are wrong, and I think a good way of determining that is by looking at the Bible.”

      Every Christian makes the same claim, that only their version is “biblical”. The Catholics do it and so do you. Catholics say they worship no one but the Christian god. I know Catholicism fairly well, and I know most protestants are often completely ignorant of what Catholics say. What, per your understanding, do Catholics worship other than the Christian god? Praying to saints for intercession with this god is not worship.

      Christians do not agree on what these rules you claim in the bible are. Every Christian claims they do their best to follow this god, asking forgiveness for what they think this god considers a “sin”. The problem is that you don’t agree on what this god considers “wrong”/a sin.

      So far, it seems you have nothing to distinguish your Chrisitanity from others.

      You then offer the argument from design, which is a common Christian claim. This doesn’t work since you can’t get from this vague designer to your rather particular god. The laws of physics can explain everything and no god is needed, just impersonal laws that can be as eternal as any god.

      Orbits are rarely circular in nature. They much more often ellipses. You also seem to be operating from a long outmoded atomic structure, assuming that particles are in set orbits, what’s usually called the Bohr model. The reason people still see that outmoded model is it is a place to start from. Here’s a good article about it: Why It’s Okay to Teach Wrong Ideas in Physics – Scientific American Blog Network

      Claims of a god acting in your life is used by most, if not all theists, and it always fails since it is no more than a assignation of god to a coincidence. And yes, it does sound “tame” since this god ignores people with far worse problem than a kid whose parents get divorced. Plenty of people have food allergies too, and yep, it is a difficulty, but again, thanks to humans we can control those allergies. There is no evidence of a god taking care of people with such problems. You don’t magically get better after eating an allergen; you need an epi-pen or something similar. People died from allergens until humans figured out what was going on. Your step father being considerate is nothing different from any other human being doing the exact same thoughtful thing, no god needed at all.

      Now on to the question of the meaning of life. You say you want to show Jesus to other people, but that Jesus is just your version, and there is no evidence this character ever existed nor that it does anything at all of benefit. There is nothing of human worth in the bible that can’t be gotten from a source that isn’t polluted with genocide, mind-control, killing children, and approval of slavery. Everyone should indeed do what they do best (excepting anything that would harm another), but no one needs to do it *for* some imaginary being. You also have the problem that people claim to be doing things for this god that are horrible.

      Now, ,you wrote this: “The thing I never understand with atheism, and which maybe you can help me understand, is how they can believe that they can help people if the difference is minimal. In an atheists worldview, everyone dies and stays dead, there is no saving people from hell or getting them to heaven, in essence their efforts may help people in life but can never prevent the inevitable: death.“

      This is a common thing from theists, and especially Christians, the claim that atheism has to be no more than nihilism. Yep, everyone dies and stays dead when you don’t believe in magic to make people live forever. This makes helping people that much more important since we all only get one chance at this. The difference isn’t “minimal” at all. It does trouble me that so many Christians wouldn’t help anyone if they didn’t get some present for doing so which is what your words indicate to me.

      No one needs hell or heaven, you assume such sadistic and selfish things are real when there is no evidence for them. Death is indeed inevitable, and that’s okay. We have our chance and then make room for others to live.

      Don’t worry about responding quickly. Currently, I have a lot of time on my hands so I can respond much quicker than I usually would. I’ve also done this quite a few times so I’ve written much the same before and, being a quick typist, it doesn’t take me long. Good night!

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      1. Okay, so lets see.

        I have not actually spoken with a lot of other Christians believe it or not, so I don’t really know what they would say about their religion, but I stand by what I say, that the “right” Christianity is one that conforms to the standards laid out in the Bible. Yes, there is some interpretation and ambiguity, but the majority of Christians, I would think and hope at least, except that murder is wrong, rape is wrong. Homosexuality and gender and such is a bit disputed but I think that’s due to cultural pressure from the outside; in my opinion the bible makes it more than clear that homosexuality no matter how lovingly the relationship is intended is not good. This may come across and homophobic, and if so I’m sorry that it seems that way, but I just think that homosexuality is not good, not necessarily the people who practice it. As for the Catholics praying to saints, I believe that that would be worshiping something other than God. If it wasn’t than neither would be praying to demons or the devil, but such would be seen as devil worship. See, prayer is talking to God, but it also worship, it’s how we thank him for all the stuff he’s done.

        Side Note: I’m not trying to distinguish my Christianity from others, I’m just telling it like it is.

        I am aware (slightly) that my knowledge on atoms and such might be a little skewed, and that orbits are not perfectly circle, but I stand by my claim; they aren’t orbiting in squares. As for physics, I think that one what we know of physics is even further proof of God; so many people seem to think that science disproves God, but I actually think it just validates His existence further; just because we know how He does something doesn’t mean He didn’t do it. On the flip side, if you don’t trust Christianity because it has so many variations, why would you trust physics, which as you pointed out with my atom example, changes all the time?

        Well, my Jesus is actually the version found in the Bible, at least I strive to emulate that version. I’m sure this is disputed but I believe that history and geology has actually shown that there is a lot of evidence for Christ’s existence, and even if there weren’t that is why we have faith. I’m sure you’ve heard that argument before, but that’s the truth, and it’s probably all you are going to hear from a good Christian.

        Now, I did want to tackle your claims about the Bible
        Genocide: Well, these people were practicing detestable things including child sacrifice, the Israelites did the same thing that U.S. did in WWII.
        Mind Control: Not sure if you are referring to the prophets or the bit where God hardens the King of Egypt’s heart, but in the first case these people warned God’s people about their sins and how to avoid punishment so they did a good thing, and in the second case God chose to use a bad person as an example.
        Killing Children: sounds grotesque but the truth is that we all deserve to die for our sins; we were intended to be perfect but due to our sin we brought this on ourselves and God has every right to kill us, but thanks to Jesus’s sacrifice we can be forgiven. Furthermore, God did not want to kill those children: Ezekiel 33:11 tells us that God does not take pleasure in the destruction of the evil.
        Slavery: I think people often confuse the slavery in the Bible with modern day slavery. The slaves of the Israelites were given the option to go free after a time. God obviously does not approve of slavery otherwise he would have left the Israelites to stew in Egypt.

        Well, you can choose to call my situation a coincidence but just as I have no proof it was God besides my feelings, you have no proof it wasn’t. I also think you are thinking about things a little fantastically. God does not have to do His work by using ‘Magic,” he may choose to at times, but He doesn’t have to. An epi-pen can be just as much proof of His hand as a miracle. You claim he also ignores people with far worse problems, well that falls into the whole free will things doesn’t it? You’re either a robot with no free will, which totally defeats the purpose of a human at all, or your a human with free will who can make mistakes. Plenty of people also don’t accept or ask for God’s help. Have you ever heard that story about that guy in the flood, who didn’t evacuate like everyone else because he believed God would save him? He sat on his first floor as the water came in, and someone offered to save him. “I’m good,” he said. “God’ll save me.” The water rose forcing him to the second level of his home and someone came by and offered to save him. “I’m good,” he said. “God’ll save me.” the water rose and forced him onto the roof and someone offered to save him. “No thanks,” he said. “God’ll save me.” The water kept rising, he kept waiting and praying, but he was swept away. What the man never realized is that God gave him a lot of chances to be saved but he chose to wait for a miracle instead, basically rejecting God’s help.

        Yes, Christians have used their religion as an excuse for doing horrible things, but that doesn’t mean God approves of the things they do, nor that they are actual Christians. Remember, to be Christianity it has to line up with the Bible’s standards.

        Alright, onto the next thing, if everybody dies anyway then why do you try helping people anyway, in fact, if they are going to die anyway why are we so upset with murders and terrorists. I mean, by an atheists logic, they are going to die, there’s no way to stop them and nothing to tell them before they do so we might as well get rid of them, especially the ones who are using up all the resources in India and Africa and China. I’m not saying you would do this Vel, but this logic and your distaste with the Bible for “child murder” and “genocide” do not add up.

        What do you think?

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      2. My added note to the discussion …

        AP, you wrote — I’m sure this is disputed but …. IMO, this is the core of the entire debate as related to Christianity. Think about it. WHY is it disputed? If “God” were all that believers claim “he” is, there would be no dispute.

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      3. Well, Nan, that’s not technically true. I believe God is all we claim He is, but even if you believed that it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be disputed. After all, I could say that I don’t believe you are a real person, doesn’t change the truth but the point is still disputed because neither of us agree.

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      4. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. Let me try again.

        You made the comment: “I’m not trying to distinguish my Christianity from others.” The way I see it is … -IF- the Christian God truly existed, why would you even need to make such a comment? Surely he would reveal himself the same to everyone and thus, there would be no “disputes” or the need to “distinguish” your Christianity from others.

        But of course there are such disputes. And people DO need to make distinctions. And to me, the reason is obvious.

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      5. Well, Nan, there are Christians who claim to be Christians but don’t live like Christians, painting a picture that there are multiple types of Christianity. I wrote that I was not trying to distinguish my Christianity from other peoples “real” Christianity. I guess you could make the argument that I was distinguishing my Christianity from other people’s fake Christianity, but I was pretty sure I had defined what Christianity was.

        Like I said last time, God’s existence is not dependent on who believes in Him and who does not.

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      6. Your write — there are Christians who claim to be Christians but don’t live like Christians.

        And this is the point I was trying to make. If “God” truly existed, there simply would be no distinctions. Everyone would know and understand exactly what this god wanted. As it is, it’s all about “personal interpretation” of how “others” should act.

        I’m not saying these things to offend you … just to make you think.

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      7. Don’t worry, I get it. I like to make people think too.
        The way I see it God gave us freewill, and with that comes the ability for each of us to interpret the Bible differently. I think in a way that different perspectives and interpretations are actually good, because it allows us to see things from different angles and add more depth to the meanings in some of the Scriptures. Of course, there are wrong interpretations, and that’s where you get some of the fake Christians. I think we also need to think about the fact that God wants us to see His significance. By allowing us to come interpret the Bible for ourselves and slowly come to the Truth, we are able to appreciate His significance much more than if we had just had the perfect and correct Bible interpretations downloaded into our heads at birth.

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      8. Alex, you claim you know what “wrong” interpretations are. How? And seeing how you can’t do what Jesus promised his true followers would be able to do, why should we not consider you just one more “fake Christian”?

        “By allowing us to come interpret the Bible for ourselves and slowly come to the Truth, we are able to appreciate His significance much more than if we had just had the perfect and correct Bible interpretations downloaded into our heads at birth.”

        This is a common Christian excuse for why they can’t agree on their “truths”, often called gradual revelation. This makes no sense since this god damns people to eternal torture for not getting things “right”. This also contradicts the claim by Christians that somehow everyone knows what this god wants “in their heart” which is indeed a claim of “perfect and correct bible interpretation downloaded” at birth.

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      9. I’d like to ask a question for Alex (& anyone else here who would like): by a ‘Christian’ do you mean someone who believes that Jesus rose from the dead & conquered death & tries to shape their lives from that perspective, or something else? If the former, why do you make the assumption that means believing in the infallibility of the Bible (whatever that means)? If something else, can you please describe/define it?

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      10. Sure Raina. I’m specifically speaking not just about people who believe Jesus rose and conquered death, but also about those who turn to Him, accept Him as their savior, and turn and repent of their sin. Believing in the infallibility of the Bible, basically means that we don’t think the Bible has any errors. Some Christians believe the Bible to be infallible some believe it to contain human made errors. I choose to believe that whatever the Bible is for the most part infallible, and that whatever errors there might be do not change it’s overall meaning. Of course I’m sure Vel will probably disagree with me and argue this is another thing Christians are disputed over. Does this help you a little?

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      12. “Sure Raina. I’m specifically speaking not just about people who believe Jesus rose and conquered death, but also about those who turn to Him, accept Him as their savior, and turn and repent of their sin. Believing in the infallibility of the Bible, basically means that we don’t think the Bible has any errors. Some Christians believe the Bible to be infallible some believe it to contain human made errors. I choose to believe that whatever the Bible is for the most part infallible, and that whatever errors there might be do not change it’s overall meaning. Of course I’m sure Vel will probably disagree with me and argue this is another thing Christians are disputed over. Does this help you a little”

        Yep, Vel will indeed point out that christians don’t agree on the most basic claims in their religion, each inventing their own and contradicting the others, all whilst piously claiming that only their version is the “right” one. Unsurprisingly, every Christian is sure that they are the ones who do this “who believe Jesus rose and conquered death, but also about those who turn to Him, accept Him as their savior, and turn and repent of their sin. Believing in the infallibility of the Bible, basically means that we don’t think the Bible has any errors.”

        Now, for that infallibility claim. You are quite right, Christians don’t agree on which parts of the bible to claim as “infallible” at all, nor can they since they have no idea what it means, so they cannot compare it to any reality and show it is a correct presentation. You all use your own “magic decoder rings” to invent which parts you want to claim that this god “really” meant and that it “really meant” what meaning *you* assign to it. You may choose to believe in this; you cannot show that it is true.

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      15. Yes, I do not believe that you haven’t “actually spoken with a lot of other Christians”, but this is likely because you consider only yourself and those who agree with you to be a Christian. You claim to know all about how other Christians are wrong “there are Christians who claim to be Christians but don’t live like Christians, painting a picture that there are multiple types of Christianity”, but now I have this denial from you that you “really don’t know what they would say about their religion.”

        Every Christian, including you, does indeed stand by what they claim, that they and they alone have the only “right” version of Christianity, and again, not one of you can show this to be the case. Christians do not agree on what the standards in the bible are, again, each claiming that only they know these “correctly”. Your claim of the “majority” is also baseless, apparently an attempt to use an appeal to popularity fallacy.

        When it comes to morals, one would indeed hope that most humans, including Chrsitians would find that rape and murder is wrong. However, many of these Christians have no problem with those things *as long as their god approves them* when this god does such things in the various verses I noted in my blog post above. I do have to wonder if you’ve ever read your bible to know what it says. This approval of horrible things when this god does them demonstrates an entirely subjective moral standards when it comes to Christians.

        Homosexuality is given a death sentence per your bible god. The bible does not show how homosexuality is not “good”, it simply claims it is “wrong” with no evidence of that being true. This is also the case for other gender issues like wearing whatever is determined as “men’s clothing” or “women’s clothing” is simply claimed as wrong, with nothing to support that claim: “5 A woman shall not wear a man’s apparel, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does such things is abhorrent to the LORD your God.” Deut 22. That’s all it says, no explanation. The next verse is about birds and their nests and more incoherent baseless “standards”.

        As is typical, Christians, including you, pick and choose what you want to accept from the bible and ignore the rest. So we get many different versions of Christianity, with many excuses offered why a certain bit doesn’t apply to the Christian involved. I can be relatively sure that you don’t go around killing people for working on a “sabbath”, which demonstrates that you simply pick and choose what you want your god to be concerned about when you want to hate homosexuals. You are indeed homophobic. Your attempt at the claim to “hate the sin and not the sinner” fails. You can’t separate the human from being human.

        What you misunderstand and claim to be true about Catholicism isn’t true, so you again demonstrate how Christians try to claim each other are wrong in their version but again can’t show that their version is right. Prayer isn’t always worship, but nice try to change definitions of words to try to make your argument work. This is also a very common Christian tactic. You are indeed claiming your Chrsitianity is the only correct one, by claiming that other Christianities are wrong. Unfortunately for you, you cannot show that they are any less Christianity than your version. You simply think you are right, assuming your version is “like it is”.

        No, I don’t think you were aware that your claims about atoms were wrong. Your claims weren’t just a “little skewed”. You may “stand by your claim” but you have nothing to support it and it is wrong. Your attempt to claim that some god is needed for circles has yet to be demonstrated.

        No matter what you think, it isn’t true until you can provide evidence for your claim. You are ignorant about physics so you have no idea how it might show that your god exists, you only make baseless assumptions. We have no evidence your god merely exists, much less is doing anything at all. Considering that physics is supported by evidence, and your god has yet to have any, you are failing in your attempt to excuse your god’s failure to show up with pointing out that human descriptions of physics does change. Our understanding of physics improves with our ability to observe and measure; your god has become vaguer and vaguer as history has progressed.

        No, your Jesus is not the version in the bible, and again, every Christian claims that their Jesus is the only right version, found in that very bible and confirmed to them by the ol’ Holy Spirit. Funny how you all contradict each other. An example of how Chrisitans make up their own versions of Jesus is easily demonstrated in pointing out the parable of the minas in Luke 19. Now in that parable, we have Jesus telling about how he will leave and return, using the imagery of the nobleman. This “nobleman” demands that his followers bring anyone who doesn’t accept this “nobleman” as their king before him and murder them. Is that your Jesus?

        You again try to claim there is historical and geological evidence for your supposed messiah but you offer none. Your belief is meaningless if you can’t support it. If a Muslim told me that “I’m sure its disputed but I believe history and geology has actually shown that Mohammed rode to Jerusalem on a magic pony” I wouldn’t consider his baseless claims worthwhile either. It’s notable that you immediately admit that you have no evidence and try to invoke faith.

        You’ve tried to “tackle” my points about the bible. In regards to genocide, there is no evidence of “child sacrifice” by other cultures, so your excuse for your god supposedly committing genocide and demanding genocide fails (happily, we see no evidence of this supposed genocide in reality, only in the bible myths). The US and the allies did not commit genocide, your claim “the Israelites did the same thing that U.S. did in WWII.” Is false.

        You plead ignorance when it comes to the verses I cited about this god and mind-control. I cited the verses so your pleas of ignorance fail. I’m not sure what you mean by “in the first case” since the first “case” I mentioned was Exodus 4, which does not have any of this “these people warned God’s people about their sins and how to avoid punishment so they did a good thing” at all. The second case was Joshua 11 and it also has nothing about this “God chose to use a bad person as an example”.

        Why yes, killing children does indeed “sound grotesque” and it is grotesque. You try to excuse your god’s actions by trying to claim that it is okay since we “all deserve to die”. Now, do explain how justice and fairness applies to children who have done nothing being killed. If you want to invoke “original sin” to excuse your god’s actions, then your claims of free will die since if we are blamed for the actions of others, we never had a chance to make a choice. Your argument is that a parent has every right to kill a child, nothing more than an invocation of the morality of “might equals right”.

        As for your claim that your god didn’t want tokill children, that fails since this god is omnipotent and omniscient, and its will is supreme, per your bible. If it doesn’t want to do something, it doesn’t have to, unless you do want to claim that something is above it. It is also nice that you mention Ezekiel. If this god takes no pleasure in killing the wicked, then it doesn’t have to do it. There is also a set of verses in Ezekiel where this god promises never to punish children for the actions of their parents or others “2 What do you mean by repeating this proverb concerning the land of Israel, “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? 3 As I live, says the Lord GOD, this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel. 4 Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.” Ezekiel 18. This god does what it promises never to do. That’s a problem for you.
        You then try to excuse your god’s approval of slavery in the bible by trying to claim that slavery in the bible wasn’t the same as we know it today. That is demonstrably false and it always amuses me when a Chrsitian tries this, as if no one can read their bible for themselves. This is false “The slaves of the Israelites were given the option to go free after a time.”

        Male Israelites who had sold themselves into slavery to other Israelites had a chance to go free and if they married a slave woman, they had to choose between remaining with their family or being freed. (exodus 21) Women Israelites were sold into slavery by their fathers and could only go free if they weren’t treated well by their masters (exodus 21). Every other slave was considered property and could be handed down to descendants of the master (Leviticus 25). They also were not considered human, since punishment for injuring or killing a slave was not equal to that of doing the same to a male Israelite (exodus 21).

        As for the story of the Exodus, which you refer to here “God obviously does not approve of slavery otherwise he would have left the Israelites to stew in Egypt.” That’s not quite the story as it appears in your bible. I’ve done a review of the entire thing on my blog so you might want to read that, and your actual bible to see what it says. Your god managed to forget that the Israelites were slaves and they had to remind him. How *does* that work with an omniscient god? You also have this verse as a problem: “18 Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. 19 For it is a credit to you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. 20 If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps. – 1 Peter 2 This isn’t the words of a god hates slavery when it commands slaves never to seek their freedom.

        You are right, you have no evidence for your god at all, including your attempt to claim your god took care of you in your situation with your step father. I have plenty of evidence it wasn’t this god since this god could help people with far worse problems and it doesn’t.

        I do love the accusation that somehow I am thinking about things “a little fantastically” when its you who claims magic works. Your god does have to do things by magic, e.g. the supernatural by changing reality to fit what it supposedly wants. You try to claim that this god works by things like epi-pens, which begs the question, why did your god let so many many people die of allergens before it got around to “giving” the epi-pen to humans?

        You also try to invoke free will again, but that is destroyed if you want to claim your god put this man who became your step-father in to his place as that. If it was this god’s will, then your step-father had no choice. You also offer a false dichotomy with claiming there has to be free will or everyone is a “robot”. Per your own bible, there is no free will, Jesus says this in Matthew 13 and Paul says it in Romans 9, so you are already losing. Us humans don’t have free will but we do have the illusion of it since we are not conscious of everything that influences us.

        You also try to blame the victim when you try to excuse your god by saying “Plenty of people also don’t accept or ask for God’s help.” Hmmm, you appear to be trying to claim that no amputee has ever asked for this god to restore his limb, that no starving person has prayed for food, etc. I do love that story about this god sending “help” when this god sends no help at all in any situation. It’s always humans doing the hard work, and if humans don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. Many theists love to try to ignore this, trying to claim their god did something when that is not the case at all, stealing the praise that humans deserve for their god.

        You are incorrect, Christians have not used their religion as an excuse to horrible things, they have used their religion as a reason to do horrible things since this god commands that they do things like killing homosexuals, killing people of different religions, insisting that anyone who does not obey this god deserves death. That this god does nothing to stop people from doing horrible things shows that it either approves of them or is impotent. This god, per the bible, had no problem in immediately killing those that displease it. Funny how it doesn’t do that now, just as if it doesn’t exist.

        Then finally, you return to the claim that somehow it is “atheist” logic that since people die we should “get rid of them”. I don’t ascribe to that logic nor do most of the atheists I know. It seems you’ve again tried to misrepresent atheists and tried to claim they are nihilists, which is bearing false witness against others, Alex. Why do you choose to lie about what many atheists think? You are indeed suggesting I believe in your strawman since you claim I’m contradicting myself here: “I’m not saying you would do this Vel, but this logic and your distaste with the Bible for “child murder” and “genocide” do not add up.“, so your attempt to claim otherwise is just one more false claim.

        This tendency for some Christians to try to tell atheists what we think is amusing and goes right back to the false claim that Elizabeth Prata made that everyone really agrees with her and her version of the Christian god. We don’t agree with you and we don’t believe what you want to claim we do so you can demonize us. That removes quite a few arrows from your metaphorical quiver in your need to defend Christianity.

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    3. Alexander, I am an atheist. I am also neurologically incapable of generating actual religious faith – even when I was trying to pursue theistic objectives, at no point was I able to shut down the “still, small voice” that said “No, I don’t believe this. I can’t believe this. It just doesn’t make sense.” Please don’t double down on Elizabeth’s egregious lie that somehow I know that the god of the Bible exists. I don’t. I never have, and I probably never will.

      As for meaning and purpose, two things:

      First, a purpose assigned by an outside agent – a god, a parent, doesn’t matter – will never be your purpose. It’s just puppetry.

      Secondly, I believe that meaning is 100% subjective, unique to every individual, and exists only in the present moment. There is value in what we do in the here-and-now, and it doesn’t matter if it all gets wiped out at some time in the future. In fact, eternal life destroys meaning by making it mathematically impossible to ever get to “the point of it all.”

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      1. Hey Asteja,

        First off, you are not alone. Even Christians struggle with doubt from time to time. I believe that sense is little bit subjective. Things sometimes seem make sense to humans but imagine if you were from a thousand years ago and you saw the technology we have today, it most likely would not make sense to you. Still exists, right, it just doesn’t make sense. Eternal life if it were on earth would probably destroy meaning, but the bible says we either spend eternity in heaven or in hell, not on earth, and neither of those places are concepts that humans can really understand with our limited knowledge. So, I see what you are saying, but I think that you might be trying to think about it a little to humanistically (if that’s even a word); some things we just cannot understand. I encourage you to give Christianity another try, remember it isn’t always like someone flips a switch and everything gets better, it might feel uncomfortable at first, but if you can come to realize that God loves and is for you, then maybe it will help you to carry on in your moments of doubt. 🙂

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      2. That Christians struggle with doubt underlines how incompetent this god must be, if it exists.

        In that humans all make up their own versions of heaven and hell, this also shows that Christians are simply making up what they want. You try to claim we “can’t understand” when you get the hard questions, but you all have no problem in telling us that you know exactly what this god wants. You want to have your cake and eat it too, and it doesn’t work that way.

        You also claim that we should give Christianity “another try.” Which version, Alex? Per your bible, it does indeed claim that someone flips a switch and it suddenly gets better. This god promises that it will completely take care of its followers, and they will suffer nothing. You do remember Psalm 23, right? The speech about the lilies? Those promises never come true and it requires the entire industry of apologetics to try to invent reasons why.

        Even in the bible itself, we do not see that this god loves anything nor is concerned about humans. It wants no more than obedience, stroking and glory for itself. it can’t even come up to the half-decent definition of love that is in the bible.

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      3. Well, Vel, can you tell me exactly how the universe was created, whether it is really expanding, and how far away the ends are. (ooh, and the multiverse thing as well, what about that)? There are questions within science that are hard to answer as well. As for psalm 23, people only feel taken care of if they choose to, it’s called being grateful. The people who think God doesn’t take care of them are the people who weren’t looking for Him in the first place.

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      4. “Well, Vel, can you tell me exactly how the universe was created, whether it is really expanding, and how far away the ends are. (ooh, and the multiverse thing as well, what about that)? There are questions within science that are hard to answer as well. As for psalm 23, people only feel taken care of if they choose to, it’s called being grateful. The people who think God doesn’t take care of them are the people who weren’t looking for Him in the first place.”

        This is getting quite fun. Nope, I cannot tell you these things, and unsurprisingly, you have nothing to show your claims about your religion are true. There are indeed questions within science that are hard to answer, but scientists don’t claim that a baseless hypothesis is some objective truth as you have done so far.

        I do love how you again try to misrepresent what the bible says. There is nothing in Psalm 23 about this “people only feel taken care of if they choose to, it’s called being grateful. The people who think God doesn’t take care of them are the people who weren’t looking for Him in the first place.””

        Psalm 23 is a promise that this god *will* take care of people. It mentions nothing about how the act of being taken care of is perceieved or being grateful. The psalm is a short one and I’ll quote it here: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul. He leads me in right paths for his name’s sake.

        Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff— they comfort me.

        You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

        Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long.”

        You are engaging in victim blaming again, Alex. Your words do show a common thing with theists. “The people who think God doesn’t take care of them are the people who weren’t looking for Him in the first place.” I could put in any god here, and have the same baseless claim, which requires the theist to assign actions to their presupposed deity. You find you must claim that your god does things for you, and selectively ignore the times when nothing happens.

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      5. I’ve run out of reply buttons, but here’s my reply to Alex’s May 3, 1:20 p.m. post:

        > Hey Asteja,

        *eye roll* Oh, great – can’t even spell My name correctly.

        > First off, you are not alone. Even Christians struggle with doubt from time to time.

        Alex, get this through your noggin right now: I do not “doubt.” I disbelieve. I have no belief whatsoever in your god. None. Zero. It’s a fiction to me, and this is *not* in doubt.

        > …but the bible says we either spend eternity in heaven or in hell, not on earth…

        Alex, I don’t give a fuck what “the Bible says.” It’s a work of fiction to me

        > I encourage you to give Christianity another try.

        Nope. Not interested in a belief system that sees humanity as “filthy rags,” refuses to let us pay our own debts, and glorifies a human sacrifice. Christianity is a blight upon humanity, and there is nothing of actual value in it that cannot be obtained elsewhere in a more benign form.

        > but if you can come to realize that God loves and is for you…

        (reaches for Clue-by-Four™) *BONK* Shaddup, mortal. I don’t accept secondhand messages from deities. If your god actually exists and wants to talk, it can make an appointment and come to My office at its convenience. Your services are not required.

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  2. Biden does not seem to have it altogether mentally — And Trump does??? Have you ever really paid attention to some of the things Trump says? Coming from someone that (you believe) has it “altogether mentally,” your standards must be very low.

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  3. Btw, about Trump and Biden. Like I told Nan, this is just based off of what I know, I’m not saying it’s true or perfect, it’s just a perspective. You’re free to believe otherwise, it’s the gift of America, but I would expect a liberal to claim Trump is bad, just as I’m sure you’d expect me or a republican to claim he was good. It isn’t really that important to this discussion either.

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    1. Discussing your politics is important to this entire discussion since it shows how much you value honesty. You have made claims about Joe Biden, and you have yet to support them with facts. It isn’t perspective that you have, it is baseless opinion, verging on lying, e.g. making false claims with the intent of benefiting from that.

      Now, having watched the news last night, I can cite directly where Trump is making the same addled claims as usual. In Ohio, he can’t even get the name of the candidate he is supporting straight. He has claimed the candidates name is “J.D. Mandel”, when there are two candidates, Josh Mandel and J.D. Vance. He has done this repeatedly, all through his presidency, with various people, calling them the wrong name. We also have him trying to alter a map regarding a hurricane with a sharpie to try to make his lies true. This is a man caught in lies repeatedly, including about January 6, Ukraine and Georgia.

      it is no surprise that you cannot refute, and try to ignore, the points in the factcheck article I cited, choosing to cling to your false narrative. Your excuse “based on what I know” is a common dodge by someone who chooses to be willfully ignorant. It appears you don’t want to be held accountable for what you say.

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      1. I do choose to be willfully ignorant. For example, I rarely watch or read the news and the only thing’s I’ve provided for examples are from the little knowledge I have of both presidential candidates. I’m sure Trump lies, I’m sure Biden lies, that’s called being a politician unfortunately. As for my views on honesty, that has nothing to do with my political views, I am a liar, you are a liar, we are all liars. That’s why we need Jesus, who you of course don’t believe exists. But I’m here for a religious debate, not a political one.

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      2. “I do choose to be willfully ignorant. For example, I rarely watch or read the news and the only thing’s I’ve provided for examples are from the little knowledge I have of both presidential candidates. I’m sure Trump lies, I’m sure Biden lies, that’s called being a politician unfortunately. As for my views on honesty, that has nothing to do with my political views, I am a liar, you are a liar, we are all liars. That’s why we need Jesus, who you of course don’t believe exists. But I’m here for a religious debate, not a political one.”

        wow, quite an admission there, which means anything you claim is subject to scrutiny since you do not care about the truth at all.

        You of course, try to claim that everyone lies, but again, you can’t show that to be true, and you just use it as an excuse for your actions. No, dear, not everyone is a liar and we don’t need you or your Jesus. So, if you are a liar, and you claim you are, do tell why we should consider your claims about your religion true since you present no evidence?

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  4. It seems the uniformity of gravity is a big mystery…

    I saw a glaring No True Scotsman in there.

    As well as many fallacies embedded in there it would take some time point them all out.

    …and a moderate for the orange idiot. I lol’d

    If I had anything to say to your guest it would be “wiki has a great page on logical fallacies ” You ain’t even learnt how to think yet if fallacies are your basis in reality.

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  5. Hi Alexander,
    You wrote:
    I mean, by an atheists logic, they are going to die, there’s no way to stop them and nothing to tell them before they do so we might as well get rid of them,

    By atheist logic (or at least this one) we only have this one life, so we try to live it to its fullest. We are animals that form communities, that which harms the community is bad. Violence is bad because it harms the community. But violence is occasionally necessary to protect the community. All we have is each other and we do the best we can.
    By Christian logic, why save a person from physical death? When they die they are going to heaven if they are Christian, so why bother? More than that, “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person”. By the Christian faith if someone threatens to kill your family you should just let them. Turn the other cheek and all that. Better to die than sin.

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    1. Okay, I see what you mean and you have a very good point about Christians saving people from physical death. However, I think you misinterpreted the quote. True, sometimes we should not resist an evil person, because doing so would violate our faith, but if you look at where Jesus says turn the other cheek, you will find two other sayings with a similar meaning: “if someone steals your tunic give to him also your cloak, and if someone forces you to walk one mile with them walk two miles with them.” Notice how He doesn’t say give all your clothes to the thief or walk forever with your captor, or keep on turning cheeks until you are dead. The meaning is a little bit more like don’t react angrily to bait. I am not saying that Atheists should kill people, I am just saying that by their logic, I don’t understand why they would be upset with murderers and such. But you are right, Christians also feel the same way as atheists about worldly suffering, the difference is that depending on a persons beliefs they may not go to Heaven, so there is an incentive to go and tell the world about Jesus

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      1. You Write:
        I am just saying that by their logic, I don’t understand why they would be upset with murderers and such. But you are right, Christians also feel the same way as atheists about worldly suffering, the difference is that depending on a persons beliefs they may not go to Heaven, so there is an incentive to go and tell the world about Jesus.

        Culturally, murder is a bad precedent to set, you allow murder to happen then other murders can occur. That’s bad for the community. I always worry when Christians ask why atheists are moral, the assumption being that without knowledge of Heaven and Hell why not murder? This says more about the Christian than the atheist. As if the only thing keeping you from murdering someone is the threat of Hell. I don’t murder because I cherish life. You don’t murder because you fear eternal damnation. I find that a sad state of affairs.

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      2. A very true argument, though I think Christians ask Atheists about morality more so because if Atheists have a conscience about what is right and wrong, that must mean they are getting their rules from somewhere or someone, and that someone is God.

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      3. No God or gods required for a sense of morality. A desire for personal security, family security and community security as well as a sense of empathy are all found in a variety of animals, we are just further evolved with more complex societies.

        Interesting you would credit your God with the source of morality when He specifically demanded that mankind have no knowledge of good and evil. Infact, humans gaining that knowledge made him mad enough to damn man to eternal hellfire for all the generations to come. According to God, if man hadn’t eaten the fruit of the tree he would have no morality, and could murder without understanding that it was evil. As a believer you should thank Eve for your morality, God did not give it to you, he forbade that knowledge.

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      4. Hi Myridian,
        I have got to say, you have so far presented the most compelling arguments. But I still think there is a problem with your statement. Not knowing what good and evil was Adam and Eve were default to good (the Bible says that God’s creation was good), the serpent (satan) planted the first lie and introduced Adam and Eve to the concept of rebellion, inticing them to sin. They took an ate of the fruit, and viola, they now knew how to murder, kill, steal, and destroy.

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      5. 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

        4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

        Not sure where the lie is. Eve did not die. They ate and their eyes were opened and they were like God.

        21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

        Man was kicked out of Eden because God didn’t want him to live forever. Even though there was no pronouncement not to eat from the tree of Life.

        Also, since Eve didn’t know the concept of rebellion, and didn’t know good from evil, how was she supposed to know that her rebellion was wrong? And God punished mankind throughout the generations to _eternal damnation_ for something He had to know was part of his creation. Seems like giving the gift of free will then punishing them for all eternity for exercising said free will, without giving them the Knowledge to make an informed decision, makes your God, even if He existed, a right bastard.

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      6. Eve should have known it was wrong because God said not to, simple as that. Also, we don’t know what kind of lifespan humans would have had if they hadn’t eaten the apple. Alternatively dying could be a reference to the fact that now there was the chance for people to go to hell (instead of living forever in Heaven).

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      7. How would she have known? It wasn’t just knowledge of Evil that was being kept from mankind, it was the knowledge of Good as well. Is it Good to follow God? How Was She To Know? Was it wrong to rebel? How Was She To Know? And your earlier assertion that they were living in an all Good state, obviously they weren’t because the first thing they did was hide their nakedness. Nakedness must have fallen on the Evil/wrong side of the coin, but God let them prance around naked, nothing says they wouldn’t have done murder with the same callous indifference they had towards nudity.
        And while on the subject of murder, let’s take a look at Cain and Abel.
        “Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. 3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.”

        Did God give any sort of guidance on what kind of sacrifices he demanded? Both brought the results of their labor, but God chose one over the other _knowing_ that it would cause Cain to murder Abel. God knowingly instigated the first murder. He gave no indication what form of sacrifice he preferred and then showed clear favoritism. God even gets a dig in at Cain saying “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” even after God looked with disfavor on Cain’s offering.

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      8. Well Myridian
        You are of course allowed to believe what you want, but trying to prove God is a murderer is futile. Cain made his own choice, and just because the Bible does not specify what kind of sacrifices God wanted doesn’t mean he didn’t tell them. Moreover, Cain gave some of his vegetables but Abel gave the best of his flock, the firstborn, so God favored one offering over the other.

        Adam and Eve hid their nakedness because their sin opened them up to shame. Humans have a predisposed feeling of shame when caught in public naked. On your argument about whether or not Eve knew right and wrong before eating the apple. Children do not always understand why they shouldn’t touch an oven, but a parent does. Similarly, Eve was given an order by God which she should have followed for her own good, she disobeyed. You also have to factor in Satan. Satan was the one who instigated the event; the original sin is a product of satan’s doing.

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      9. You are assuming elements that aren’t in the Bible, that God did not see fit to include? Cain did make his own choice, but God _knew_ he would choose murder because of God’s disfavor, yet God showed favoritism. And God as a murderer is well documented, but more of a digression than this subthread.
        you wrote:
        “Eve was given an order by God which she should have followed for her own good”
        For her own good. which she didn’t know anything about. She could no more know disobeying God was wrong than she could know being naked was wrong. She had _no_ knowledge of Good or of Evil, Can her actions be judged right or wrong when she has not been given any context other than “you will die” Which proves to be a false statement. The serpent said she wouldn’t die, and she didn’t. And don’t pull out that old chestnut “Death of the Soul,” because you’d think God could be clear about such You say:
        “Satan was the one who instigated the event; the original sin is a product of Satan’s doing.”
        Satan instigated the event as much as God instigated Abel’s murder. Both knew the results of their actions would lead to sin and murder. respectively. And who created Satan?

        Something to think about:
        Looking through the parts of Genesis concerning Adam and Eve” No where does God indicate he is casting them out for disobeying him. No where does God indicate this is a sin. No where does God indicate that he is condemning their souls to hell. No where does God indicate future generations will be cast into the pit for the sins of their fathers, All that comes later by others interpreting this. You’d think since He would eventually have to sacrifice His only Son, He would have mentioned that? Maybe right at the beginning he could have warned people that eating shrimp is a sin? Would have been a good thing to mention right at the beginning. The myth of “Original Sin” pervades the religion and you seem to adhere to it, do you know where it comes from? If there is no Original Sin then there is no need for Christ’s sacrifice. No Original Sin, no Christianity.

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      11. “Well we have Christ’s sacrifice so we must have needed it, hence original sin.”

        no evidence for Christ, any of the versions, nor that there was any sacrifice. Your claim is built on a baseless presupposition. Your argument is no different than a Muslim saying “Well, Mohammed flew to Jerusalem on a magic pony, so he must be real.”

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      12. That’s like shooting someone then claiming, well he was shot so he must have needed shooting. I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think the bible talks about original sin at all. All added by later theologians to explain why the sacrifice was needed.

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      13. Myridian, you are mostly correct. Jesus never mentions original sin. We see that pop up in the later bits of the bible. There may be one psalm that could be construed as mentioning orignal sin, Psalm 51: “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,and in sin did my mother conceive me.” However, sine this is supposedly David speaking we have no idea what this might actually mean.

        There is also the claim by this god, per the author of Ezekiel that says that this god would never punish others for the actions of another. “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”

        this directly contradicts the concept of original sin.

        Now, looking around, I found another interesting verse. For the claim that we somehow have a conscience put there by some god, even this god says this isn’t the case “39 And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. ” Deuteronomy 1 Here we have that children evidently need to be taught good and evil; there is nothing innate. This lack of knowledge of good and evil makes them innocent in this god’s view since they are allowed to go into the land this god promised.

        this set of books is quite a mess.

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      14. Babies having no knowledge of good and evil make the dashing babies bit pretty…evil? Even if the Biblical God did exist, it’s not something I’d worship.

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      16. “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your love.” Marcus Aurelius

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      17. Showing this god as a murderer is not futile at all. Why would it be? As per the claims of the bible, this god kills innocents for its own benefit. Cain made no choice, he was told to bring a sacrifice and then this god, who never said what it wanted, refused this sacrifice for no reason whatsoever, showing favoritism, as Myridian indicated. You attempt to misrepresent the bible again, Alex. It doesn’t say what you claim “Moreover, Cain gave some of his vegetables but Abel gave the best of his flock, the firstborn, so God favored one offering over the other.”

        “3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.””

        It is always curious when a Chrsitain tries to evidently hide what the bible actually says, and who tries to add things that aren’t there.

        You also misrepresent what the bible says again witwh trying to claim that sin opened up people to shame. That is not what happened at all. The knowledge of good and evil, finally received by Eve’s action, indicated that being naked was somehow “evil”. Now, you have the probelm with a god that, if it is the source of all objective morality, has allowed two humans to commit evil, being okay with it *only* if they are ignorant of it. Now, how does this work with a supposed “good” god?

        I do see that you argue for mindless obedience, rather than a god that gives knowledge on why something should happen. The common Christian attempt to frame their god as a parent and humans as children doesn’t work since this god can always allow humans to understand, if it is omnipotent. It chose not to. Why?

        As for original sin being Satan’s doing, that is also incorrect. Per Christians, everything is this god’s will. It cannot be otherwise since this god supposedly has an endpoint in mind. This god put in all of the pieces for original sin to happen, including putting the magic tree where it could be got at. Why would a “parent” put a hot iron where the child could touch it and *knows* it would touch it? This god also either intentionally allowed Satan into the garden *or* couldn’t keep it out. Neither choice reflects well on your god. It becomes an abusive parent.

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      18. “A very true argument, though I think Christians ask Atheists about morality more so because if Atheists have a conscience about what is right and wrong, that must mean they are getting their rules from somewhere or someone, and that someone is God.”

        yet another baseless claim. As Myridian indicated, no god needed for a conscience or morality. Now, if we are indeed getting our “rules” from your god, why is it that Christians don’t agree on what rules this god wants and cannot show that their god approves of their version? The next baseless claim of yours follows:

        “No technically true, Nan, a decision always has a consequence whether we choose to believe it or perceive. That’s why Christians share their faith, because they want to enlighten people to the consequences of their actions.”

        A decision does always have a consequence, but again, Christians don’t agree on what that “consequence” will be per their interpretation of their religion. Christians each share their version, which contradicts the next. There is no reason we should believe any of you, if you can’t get your act together.

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      19. There is no misinterpreting the quote. It is very plain “Do not resist evil people”. No exceptions.

        “38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; 40 and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; 41 and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.”

        These do have a similar meaning and it says to go all of the way and *more* in each case, not as you try to claim that “well, since JC didn’t say to give all of something, that means I can pretend he didn’t mean that”. In your paraphrased version, it says what you want to claim, not in the actual bible.

        You have repeatedly claimed that “atheists” believe the following: “I mean, by an atheists logic, they are going to die, there’s no way to stop them and nothing to tell them before they do so we might as well get rid of them,” so it is a false statement from you try to back off what you said with this “I am not saying that Atheists should kill people, I am just saying that by their logic, I don’t understand why they would be upset with murderers and such. ”

        Why do you continue to make false claims about atheists, Alex?

        You claim that there is an “incentive” to tell people about Jesus. Again, which Jesus? And since your bible says that this god has already chosen who it wants to believe in it, you are showing you think you know better than your god, which is nothing new with Christians.

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      20. Giving to the poor is not wrong, and sharing with the needy is not wrong. If you take a look you will see that one verse ends and another begins between the two statements.

        As for you second statement see the comment I made on your comment to Myridian.

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      21. “Giving to the poor is not wrong, and sharing with the needy is not wrong. If you take a look you will see that one verse ends and another begins between the two statements.

        As for you second statement see the comment I made on your comment to Myridian.”

        No, giving to the poor is not wrong and neither is sharing. Again, let’s take a look at what this says:

        “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well;and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. 42 Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.””

        Chapters and verses are additions to the bible quite late. What we see from the above is that the author has Jesus making a point that one should go even further than asked to keep your soul pure. This goes on into the next bit of Matthew ““You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet only your brothers and sisters,what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

        the gospel of Luke also has a version of this ““But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

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  6. Does it really matter what “kind” of Christianity anyone follows or believes vs all the “other” ones; the thousands and thousands of variations of the same mindless theme? It’s all magic-mumbo-jumbo in an easy-open can, with all the answers to all the questions, even the ones they’re too dumb to fathom.

    But Alex, free-will? Do you want to explain how an all-knowing (omniscient) god, whom already knows what you’re thinking (and everyone else in the world), saying, dreaming even, and will know on your last dying day the thoughts going through your head, renders you free will? You can’t make another choice about anything or god would have been wrong and that’s not possible, right? Ergo, no free will. Your free will is an illusion.

    And god wants “us to make the right choice?” So did my parents when they told me if I disobeyed again I’d be grounded for the weekend. God does as well when he says that if you don’t come to him of your own volition you’ll go and burn in hell for eternity. Hmmmm, let’s see……..god or burning in hell for eternity? I’ll have to marinate on that one for a while I guess, seems like a difficult choice. Fortunately for the purveyors of this Ponzi Scheme most of the sheeples never question anything so the dough continues to roll in! Yipeee!!

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    1. Not really sure what you mean by all that but here’s the gist of it. You have choices. God tells you what you will receive for each choice. You make a decision. God does not force you to make a decision. Having a better reward for one choice does not take away free will, just makes choosing easier.

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      1. Of course the bottom line is whether or not there even IS a god. Since atheists don’t believe such a being exists, the choices/decisions/rewards you mention have no meaning to/for them.

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      2. No technically true, Nan, a decision always has a consequence whether we choose to believe it or perceive. That’s why Christians share their faith, because they want to enlighten people to the consequences of their actions.

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      3. Funny … I find the laws of this nation are pretty good at “enlightening” me to the consequences of my actions. Never really noticed that the bible or Christians play much of a role — albeit the latter definitely TRIES to!

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      5. “Not really sure what you mean by all that but here’s the gist of it. You have choices. God tells you what you will receive for each choice. You make a decision. God does not force you to make a decision. Having a better reward for one choice does not take away free will, just makes choosing easier.”

        This is entirely false and is demonstrative of a Christian who has no idea what his bible says or who intentionally tries to ignore it. both Jesus and Paul are quoted as saying that this god has already chosen who can accept it and that this god will damn those who it didn’t choose. This is in Matthew 13 and Romans 9.

        This god is also repeatedly shown to have controlled minds so it can do what it wants, this is all throughout Exodus and in Joshua 11. We also have it doing this in Revelation 17. This god repeatedly forces decisions.

        You also cannot show that this god exists nor that its supposed choices are “better” or not. Your god offers no more choice than human Christians gave Jews during the Inquisition, obey or die. That is not a choice. That is blackmail.

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      6. Just because God has the ability to control humans if he wanted to, does not mean he did not create us with free will.

        Additionally, I have provided multiple pieces of evidence that God exists, you have just not chose not see it as such.

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      8. Atheism is also personal interpretation. I found this with the last atheist I debated. He could sure come up with his reasons for why God didn’t exist but he could never actually use them as definitive proof.

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      9. Oh this is rich! … he could never actually use them as definitive proof. And you believe that YOU are coming up with definitive proof? Dream on, my friend. Dream on.

        And atheism is “personal interpretation”?? Oh my …

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      11. “Atheism is also personal interpretation. I found this with the last atheist I debated. He could sure come up with his reasons for why God didn’t exist but he could never actually use them as definitive proof”

        this is yet one more false claim by you, Alex. Who was this “last atheist” you debated? You see, Alex, I’ve seen plenty of Chrsitians make a claim like this, accusing atheists of something or other, and funny how they can’t support their claim.

        Do tell us what supposed reasons this supposed atheist used and why they weren’t used as “definitive proof”. Also, do tell what you think the term “definitive proof” means, and how it might apply to your own claims that a god *does* exist.

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      12. I believe the atheist was named Jim- with the hyphen (Nan will remember him he was there), and I believe the post was on Why Christianity Fails. If you would like to see the trade off then go check it out.

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      13. Yep, I know exactly who you’re referring to. And “Jim” has a very different outlook on religion which believers are hard-put to understand, let alone debate. And you lost in your discussion with him just like you’re doing here.

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      14. “Just because God has the ability to control humans if he wanted to, does not mean he did not create us with free will.

        Additionally, I have provided multiple pieces of evidence that God exists, you have just not chose not see it as such.”

        Your god, per your bible, does control humans to get what it wants. As soon as it does that, free will is ended. It is not a matter of it being able to control humans; it is a matter that, per your bible, it *does*.

        You have provided no evidence your god exists. You have made baseless claims with nothing to support them. It is not a matter of my choosign not to see your evidence as such, it is because a baseless claim isn’t evidence for itself. Here are some of the things you have claimed as “evidence”:

        “I think if you look around and look deep enough you’ll find proof of some sort of architect.”

        this is nothing more than the argument from design and you cannot show your god existing much less as the “designer”. It is one of the common things that Chrsitians do, assuming that the various cosmological, teleological etc arguments lead to their particular god. They do not. At best, they assert some kind of force, but that assumes that this is needed and that is not established as true.

        “I think though, that one of the greatest pieces of evidence in my life for God’s existence is what he’s done in my life”

        Personal testimony is nonsense, and is used by most, if not every, theist. You cannot show any evidence of causation.

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      15. I’m not sure you’re up to the task of this discussion. “Gos doesn’t force you to make a decision” by holding up eternity in hellfire vs worshipping him?

        You have an incredibly simplistic, even childish, notion of your faith. Maybe when you grow up we can discuss it again.

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      16. Glad to here that you think I hold a simple, child-like view of my faith, after all the Bible says to have faith like a child. I’m afraid I have to inform you that though I’m always maturing, I’m never growing up.

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      17. It’s not that I THINK you have a childish understanding of your faith, it’s that what comes out of your mouth PROVES it. You are not up to an intellectual debate regarding your faith because you come back with all the airy-fairly replies we used to get from our parents and pastors when we were children. That mindless nonsense doesn’t fly here, Alex; most of us know much more apparently about scripture than you so you’ll have some work cut out for you in order to hold your own in a discussion with intelligent people. You just aren’t up to snuff here and so many of us will assume we’re just wasting our time.

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      18. Well technically, you do think I hold a childish perspective, otherwise everyone would tell me that and they don’t. Am I super great at intellectual debating, well If you want to whip out documents (besides the Bible) that clearly sate that God exists and why, then you will be disappointed by every Christian argument.

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      19. “well If you want to whip out documents (besides the Bible) that clearly sate that God exists and why, then you will be disappointed by every Christian argument.”

        and that is quite a telling admission, Alex. You have nothing, Alex. The bible is a set of claims, it is a not a document to support those claims.

        That no theist has any evidence for their god, just like you, shows that there is precious little reason to accept any of your baseless claims. Even you cannot settle on what your bible actually means, and as we have seen in your discussion with Myridian, you simply make things up out of whole cloth to try to excuse your god’s failure. You throw out multiple scenarios, each contradictory and none of which are even hinted at in the bible to try to invent reasons why this god isn’t a murderer, why this god isn’t simply a right bastard.

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  7. Goodness. Phaeton is an intellectual ghost. Try to pin him down on anything, and he fades away. “Well, I don’t really know anything about that …” “Well, I don’t know much about other Christians …” “Well, I’m not really very political …” All this after making firm, declarative statements about the very thing.

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    1. that is quite true, arjaybe. This is very typical for Christians. They do not like to be held responsible for their claims, which is understandable since their claims are supported by nothing.

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  8. Okay, let me see if I can respond to everything you said, and then I’ll try to tackle some of the Elizabeth stuff. I’ll go comment by comment as I saw it one my blog.

    First the political thing. Well, who does it matter who I would vote for? You claim it has to do with honesty but any outsider would find a myriad of problems with your views just as you do with mine. Political arguments are my least favorite form of discussion because everyone winds up worse off and with no better knowledge than before. My views on honesty are not dependent on who I vote for, and besides, find me an honest politician, there are none. When it comes to voting you choose who you think’ll do best and that’s it. As I’ve said before it’s not a political debate it’s a religious one.

    No, seriously have not talked to a lot of other Christians. I have only one friend at the moment who is not family that talk on spiritual matters with. Believe it or don’t. Like I keep on repeating, if you would like the “real” version of Christianity please check that it aligns with the Bibles standards. There are fake Christians and real Christians, some will say they are real when they are fake, if you are taking them at face value then I suggest maybe rethinking that.

    Side Note: I’ll address the whole moral thing you said shortly.

    You claim that the Bible does not give a reason for why Homosexuality is bad nor why it is wrong to cross dress. Well, it doesn’t say why rape or murder is bad either. We perceive these things as wrong because we can see their immediate, detrimental effects. There is nothing to suggest that Homosexuality is harmless; it could be dangerous but we haven’t yet felt it’s repercussions. Also, God created humans as male and female and intended sex to be between one man and one female, just a basic look at the two’s anatomy will tell you that (as well as present more proof of God’s existence), when we disrupt what He created by crossdressing and sleeping with people of the same sex, we dishonor His creation. You probably wont like the whole honoring God thing, but if you were the creator of the universe, wouldn’t you want humans to show you a little respect?

    If you have never met me, how can you say I am homophobic? As for your claims about picking and choosing what to follow in the Bible I’m sure I am guilty of doing that, but when I notice it I try to find a way to correct it. Christians are not perfect, they make mistakes too. I would actually agree that a pick and choose kind of ideology exists today and that may be one of the reasons why there are so many version of Christianity. But again, if it doesn’t line up with scripture, is it Christianity?

    I honestly don’t care what you think about what I think about Catholicism, I believe that we shouldn’t be praying to anybody but God. Furthermore, Catholics believe you have to pay your way to heaven, which isn’t true.

    Now, about your whole Physics thing. To be honest there is no way you could possibly claim that physics isn’t proof of God. You have so far shown me that you care an immense amount about evidence. If this true than you cannot disprove my claim that physics proves God’s existence because you cannot provide evidence. Furthermore, you may think that physics is improving, but people also thought the world was flat, and I’m sure if you’d asked them they would have said they were dead sure it was flat, not round, not square, flat. So science is just as fallible as religion, especially when it is so “theoretical.” Jesus has only become vauger because less people believe in Him. But that actually makes sense, the people who had seen and heard God speak, and witnessed Jesus’s miracles would spread the word and make sure people knew about it. Times passes, people who did not see these things don’t believe it, plus more people populate the earth so more people trying to formulate their own theories about why we exist and so forth. But, like I told Nan, God’s existence is not dependent on the amount of people who believe in Him.

    On the matter of my Jesus. Yep, that’s my Jesus alright. And btw, you left out a huge part of that story. You only seized on the last bit probably because it had to do with people getting killed. I think that’s a little unfair, especially since the story mentions that the people he killed “hated” Him, and when you hate the king . . . well what do you expect? This story illustrates why it’s better to follow God than not. The people who handled there masters wealth well were given their own reward. The person who did nothing get everything taken away. And the people who outright rebelled got about the same.

    I fully admit that my historical claims of Jesus were weak, but I deny that they were unfounded. Also I meant archeological not geological, though, doubt that changes your mind any. I guess all I can say is that there is just as much chance that my Jesus existed as there is that the universe created itself. But let’s be fair, if you don’t believe Jesus existed than why do you believe Pythagoras existed or Herodotus or any of those people who were even older than Jesus (it was only 2000 years ago). If you have no reason to believe Jesus existed, you have no reason to believe anything older than him did either.

    My point with the Israelites and WWII is that Hitler was murdering people and the U.S. stopped them. Those people the Israelites fought were sacrificing children, and if you don’t believe me then who is this Molech character referenced in the Bible?

    As for mind control. There is a difference between telling someone what to say and hypnotizing them, the passage you cite has very little evidence to support your claims of Mind Control.

    Now the killing children bit. I admit that my argument last time was hard to understand (though, I still hold that it is logical). How about a visualizer? You build a robot. The robot smashes up your house. It’s your creation so don’t you have right to take it apart (basically kill it)? Or should you let it continue destroying your house? We are God’s creation, if we defile and destroy the other things He has created, then who can say He isn’t aloud to remove us from the situation. Furthermore, I don’t think you have any proof that these children were innocent. This all ties back to the moral thing I said I’d tackle, is it immoral if it perfectly within God’s right? If you need further visualization than how about this? Being a liberal, I assume that means you are pro-choice? If not, please correct me. If you don’t like children getting murdered than how is it okay to abort a child simply because the mother “doesn’t want to deal with it?” (I except that is not always the case, and that there sometimes are medical reasons. I respect that).

    You claim that God doesn’t have to do something if he is omnipotent and omniscience. Do you think a judge is happy to see the people he has to send to jail sent to jail? Probably not, but he has to uphold the law. Similarly, what kind of God would God be if He didn’t do what was right and just. Killing wicked people is just, but that doesn’t mean He enjoys destroying His creation. You also quoted this verse “Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.” There’s your answer isn’t it? Those children must have been sinners.

    I still don’t see how your argument changes anything about the Bible’s depiction of slavery. The laws were different surrounding slaves, but there were still laws in place to prevent their harm. The comment that slaves should obey both abusive and good masters has nothing to do with God condoning slavery. The Bible says that God comes to set the captive free, so really what this verse is about is holding on until your rescue comes, and persevering for God.

    God is also perfect, so though it may seem like he forgot about the Israelites he didn’t. In a sense they were living out what I said above, persevering until their rescue came.

    I’m sorry but the truth is you are thinking too fantastically. I’m serious. I want this to be a friendly debate, but if you are expecting nothing to be miracles or everything to be miracles, then you will never have any miracles. If you want miracles start looking for them. God gives people inspiration, whether people choose to run with it is up to them, hence the epi-pen was invented because somebody ran with it. It also goes back to free will. We have struggles in life because Adam and Eve ate the apple, we have food allergies, limited knowledge, etc. because of the original sin.

    I’m sorry, but again, too fantastical. I hope by now I have made the point that humans are imperfect, so, number one: we don’t deserve any praise, all our ability comes from God. Number two, it’s not true that humans always do the work, sometimes there is something supernatural, but we shouldn’t always expect that. Number three: amputees can get prosthetics, again, God answering prayers in a non-supernatural way.

    Am I misrepresenting atheists? Maybe a little. My apologies. But my point is if there is no afterlife, than a quick and painless death whether through murder and otherwise is no longer an issue. That person would have lived, maybe done some temporary things, then died. I also again bring up the abortion argument. If you are pro-choice, which you may or may not be, I don’t know yet, then why is it okay to murder unborn babies but not children? It’s exactly the same. On the flip side, I think you have no right to be upset if I am misrepresenting atheists, because since this debate has started you have not said one good thing about Christianity. Many Christians travel the world spreading the gospel, while also bringing clean water, food, and other much needed supplies to third world countries.

    Now we’re getting down to the Elizabeth thing and then I’ll move onto the next of the comments you made. I think Elizabeth was right but went about the wrong way trying to prove it. She tried to prove that everyone agreed with her and not with God. But wouldn’t it make sense, that if God really did create the universe that everyone would know Him somewhere inside? You are actually correct that this statement contradicts my earlier one to Nan, about the Bible not being perfectly downloaded into our conscience. I suppose then it’s our human nature that causes us to suppress the knowledge. Let me know your thoughts.

    As for me not being able to drive out demons and protect myself from sickness, that’s again where you have to look at it in an artistic manner. Christians do drive out real demons, but we also drive out the demons of sadness, insecurity, fear, etc. negative things. Protecting ourselves from sickness. Well, we still get sick, but when we have God we are able to worry less about all sorts of stuff, essentially protecting ourselves from the sickness of fear.

    Now, a debate is a debate. But as my brother likes to point out to me, debates have an outcomes, and arguments don’t. I can feel that this is becoming more and more of an argument. I’ve have done my best to stay friendly, but if you can not do the same then I’m afraid our discussion might be coming to a close.

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    1. Alex, you said “number one: we don’t deserve any praise, all our ability comes from God.”

      That, Alex, is a disgusting and shameful thing for you to say. Don’t you fucking dare give your imaginary fiend the credit for the hard work of real people. In particular, never, ever misappropriate the credit that belongs to medical professionals – I consider that utterly unforgivable.

      And you know what? I’m done with you. You ceased being “friendly” the first time you reiterated Elizabeth’s lies about non-believers, and you’ve just gotten worse and worse with the same tired old clichés about what atheists “should” do or feel or believe. You obviously came here to preach, not to make a sincere attempt at understanding us. You’re just Bible Parrot #49,352, and you’re not getting any more crackers from Me.

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      1. Friendly does not mean I will agree with you or will not say things that challenge your understandings. Friendly just means I won’t use the f-word when trying to talk to someone.

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      2. No, the term friendly does not mean that you need to agree with anyone. It does mean you need to treat us fairly, not making baseless claims and not lying about us. It is notable that you find being “friendly” only about not using certain words.

        As for challenging our understanding, you haven’t done that, Alex. You’ve made baseless claims that you refuse to support (about Biden, about atheists, about your bible) and after your claims have been shown false, you still insist on repeating them as if that will make them magically true.

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    2. I’ve already told you why it is important to know how you treat political candidates since it shows how you treat the truth. Unsurprisingly, you still have not shown any evidence ot support your baseless claims about Joe Biden, and you have admitted that you are willfully ignorant. You also make baseless claims that some “outsider” would disagree with me, but you cannot show that to be the case either. You simply make up this supposed outsider and as usual cannot support your claims with facts.

      Your views on honesty do reflect who you would vote for. You also keep trying the lie that everyone lies so they are equivalent. That is also not the case since degree and situation determine everything. You lie when you claim there are no honest politicians. I have quite a few up here in Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, Patty Kim, Tom Wolf, etc. You try, as is common, to pretend that everyone agrees withyou on how to vote and why. We don’t, and you fail again just like Elizabeth and her similar presumption.

      You, like so many other Chrsitians, are so sure that you have the right version, that you can’t even stand any of your fellows. It is nothing new to have a Christian like you show up on an atheist’s blog. You can’t convince your fellow Chrsitians how great you are, that you must try to find another audience. I see that with your claim that only your version “aligns with bible standards” and you cannot show that is the case any more than any other Christian. I also love how you whine about me accepting their word when a Christian claims to be Christian. You want me to agree with your version so you might claim that an atheist knows who the “real” Christian is and its *you*. It isn’t. I take you at face value too.

      The bible does not give a reason why homosexuality is bad nor why it is wrong to cross dress. And yep, it doesn’t say why rape and murder is wrong either. It is a very ignorant set of books that depend on obedience, not intellect or explanation. We do indeed see that rape and murder are wrong because we do indeed see the detrimental effects. Funny how we see none when it comes to homosexuality or cross-dressing. So your argument fails immediately. You try so very hard to invent a “slippery slope” fallacy but that fails too. Hmmm, it’s been thousands and thousands of years, where people have been homosexual and cross-dressing and nothing bad has happened because of it.

      You have yet to show that your god created anyone, so your claim about how this god created male and female separately is simply a false claim based on an unsupported presupposition. Your house of cards falls. You are also ignorant of anatomy and how physical anatomy isn’t the binary you ignorantly claim. Oh yes, you are willfully ignorant of anything that shows you are wrong. How nice of you to have admitted that. Even Chrsitains don’t agree with homophobic nonsense, so claims of “dishonoring his creation” is just one more baseless opinion from you. If I was the creator of the universe, I wouldn’t be bothered by humans who would be doing what I intended or need “respect” from what would be ants to me. I’m not that ignorant or petty as your god.

      I know you are homophobic from your very own words. It’s hilarious that you think your words shouldn’t be considered when someone is evaluating you.

      You are quite right, you pick and choose, just like every other Christian and no you don’t try to find a way to correct it. You simply insist that your way is the only “right” way. Nope, Christians aren’t perfect and neither is the religion that each makes up in their image. Again, you insist that only your version “lines up with scripture” and cannot show that to be the case. You pick and choose and lie about other types of Chrsitianity. They, like you, believe what they want, with no evidence to support them, just like you. The bible has that one must give money to “pay their way into heaven”, with the tithe nonsense. Your god killed two people when they didn’t give enough.

      No, Alex, I can certainly claim that physics isn’t evidence for your petty god. I do indeed care about evidence, and you have provided none to support your claims (as noted above). We see no evidence for your god, nor the suspension of physical laws for its supposed miracles so we have no reason to think your god exists at all. Physics isn’t improving; physics *is*. The study of physics continuously reveals more and more about it. Ignorant people claimed the world was flat when other people did the research and found it wasn’t. Ignorant people, like you who have proudly claimed that he is willfully ignorant are to be held accountable and shown wrong. They have nothing to do with science.

      You fail again.

      Jesus has become vaguer since Christians don’t like the stories in the bible, so this god/messiah has lost a lot of its viciousness and ignorance. Many Christians would prefer not to remember the nonsense in the bible that has this character killing people.

      Yep, people cease to believe in fairy tales that cannot be shown to be true. “once upon a time” this god supposedly did lots of things and as humans have advanced and questioned, this god is only to be found in the “gaps”. You are correct, a god’s existence doesn’t depend on the amount of its followers. The problem comes in when its followers can’t produce their god.
      I’m glad that you admit that you have invented your own jesus like every other Christian. I also enjoy that you think if someone hates you, that allows you to murder them: “I think that’s a little unfair, especially since the story mentions that the people he killed “hated” Him, and when you hate the king . . . well what do you expect?”. How nice. Your morality has been shown to be no more than might equals right. Per your claim, its better to follow this god since it will kill you if you don’t.

      You only admit now that your false claims about a historical Jesus are weak when they are shown to be that. They are indeed unfounded. And you keep changing what you supposedly meant and those excuses make no sense in the context you originally presented your claims. You originally said “historical and geological” which means archaeological and geological. Trying to change “geological” to “archaeological” makes no sense at all. In either case, you have yet to present any evidence for your nonsense.

      You make yet more baseless claims about your jesus existing, and no there is not as much chance as there is the universe creating itself. We have a known mechanism for the universe, we have nothing for a magical man/god.

      I don’t need to believe that Pythagoras or Herodotus existed to know that there are facts that they mentioned. This attempt to claim that since we don’t’ have great evidence for historical figures that means Jesus Christ was real is a common theist claim and it fails. We know we have ancient writers, nothing extraordinary about those at all. It is an extraordinary claim to insist that some magical man/god rose from the dead and therefore you need evidence for this since your entire religion fails if you can’t appeal to the authority of this supposed god.

      Your point with the Israelites and WWII was no more than a false claim. There is also no evidence of anyone sacrificing children to excuse your god’s supposed actions. You also have the problem that this god demanded the sacrifice of children too, per your bible. As for that character Molech, it apparently was a god, and there is nothing to show that it demanded child sacrifice. The only mention of that is in the propaganda of the bible.

      “As for mind control. There is a difference between telling someone what to say and hypnotizing them, the passage you cite has very little evidence to support your claims of Mind Control.”

      I always love when a Christian either didn’t read the verses or has chosen to lie about them. Let’s see what Exodus 4 and Joshua 11 say, Alex:

      “21 And the LORD said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders that I have put in your power; but I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go. 22 Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD: Israel is my firstborn son. 23 I said to you, “Let my son go that he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; now I will kill your firstborn son.’”” Exodus 4

      “20 For it was the LORD’s doing to harden their hearts so that they would come against Israel in battle, in order that they might be utterly destroyed, and might receive no mercy, but be exterminated, just as the LORD had commanded Moses.” Joshua 11

      How about another one? “10 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his officials, in order that I may show these signs of mine among them, 2 and that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I have made fools of the Egyptians and what signs I have done among them—so that you may know that I am the LORD.”” Exodus 10

      Your argument about killing children wasn’t hard to understand at all. It was wrong. Now, you try to claim that it is the “right” of this god to kill whom it wants, and thus, abrogating their free will quite distinctly. If we are to believe your bible, this god is omniscient, correct? So it created humans and knew what they would do. It cannot hold humans accountable for what it intentionally did. If your robot analogy is carried out to its conclusion, and I made a robot that I knew would destroy my house, it is not the robot’s fault for doing so and no I have no “right” to destroy it because of its actions.

      it’s also notable that like many Christians, you want to claim that children aren’t innocent. But you then whine about the ‘innocent children” when it comes to your anti-abortion lies.

      Now, this is a lovely thing you claimed “, is it immoral if it perfectly within God’s right?” Thanks for demonstrating that there is no objective morality from your god. Here we have the instance where a Christian says anything this god does it okay, even things that this Christian would, hopefully find horrible of a human did the same thing. Since their judgement of the morality of this action depends on who/what something is, their morality is entirely subjective, e.g. dependent on another factor.

      I am proudly pro-choice, and abortion isn’t the murder of children. But if you want to claim that the end of a pregnancy is murder of a child, then you must accept that your god murders children every day with every miscarriage, bad genetics, incorrect implantation, etc. I have no right to decide for another person what their healthcare needs are. You have no right either. I do note that Christians aren’t adopting every child from foster care, so Christian concern for children is spotty at best, dependent on the person, not the religion.

      “You claim that God doesn’t have to do something if he is omnipotent and omniscience.” Where did I say this or anything like it? Now I did say “As for your claim that your god didn’t want tokill children, that fails since this god is omnipotent and omniscient, and its will is supreme, per your bible. If it doesn’t want to do something, it doesn’t have to, unless you do want to claim that something is above it.” And yes, I do think a judge is happy, satisfied, etc when they send someone to jail if they committed a crime.

      We see nothing of a god that is “right” or “just” when this god kills people for the actions of others. You have no idea what this god considers “wicked” you just make it up, like all Christians. You end up with the circular argument: God killed them so they must be wicked so god killed them….” This is the circular argument you invented here too: ““Know that all lives are mine; the life of the parent as well as the life of the child is mine: it is only the person who sins that shall die.” There’s your answer isn’t it? Those children must have been sinners.“ You also avoid the problem that you have when this god says it will punish children for what their parents did, you know, back in Exodus 20? In the nonsense of “original sin”?

      This god also evidently changes laws since Chrsitians don’t agree on which ones it wants.

      Your claim of not understanding doesn’t change that you lied about slavery not being the same as we know it now. I also enjoy when you make baseless claims that the verses from 1 Peter 2 supposedly have nothing to do with this god approving of slavery. If this god didn’t approve of slavery, do explain why it tells slaves not to seek their freedom. And this god rescues no one at all. It’s always quite convenient to make a promise of “you’ll be free *later*” when no one can confirm that you did or didn’t.

      No evidence that this god exist or is perfect. And the bible says it forgot about the Israelites. You simply gainsay your bible, inventing things that are not there.
      You do not want this to be a friendly debate, Alex. You want to make baseless claims and not be called to support them. That is not friendly at all. You make up strawmen to attack and ignore questions asked of you. You try to claim that I need to look for miracles, and when I find none, you only try to blame the victim. You make baseless claims that this god “inspires” people. You can show no examples.

      You try to claim that it was your god that was responsible for the epi-pen. Of course, you ignore that the problem that this god could have “inspired” someone far earlier and avoided many deaths. This is what comes when a selfish and greedy theist tries to steal the good act of a human for his god. If there was free will, we would not all have to struggle because of original sin; the actions of two people aren’t the actions of everyone.
      No, it isn’t “too fantastical at all”. You find you must reduce your god in power and scope to try to make it make sense and that is the only reason you try to claim that taking the bible as it is written as “too fantastical.

      Humans are imperfect and the only reason you are alive is because of humans with their research. We do deserve praise for the abilities we have earned and invented. None of our abilities come form your god, and it is always so pitiful when a human like you tries to steal from others so you can pretend your imaginary best friend is so wonderful. You claim that there is “something supernatural” but you, as usual have no evidence for that baseless claim. And yep, we should never expect magic since magic never happens. It’s again the Christian trying to make up excuses for why his god fails.

      You claim that amputees can get prosthetics and that counts as this god “healing” them. Now, Alex, what about those people who were around before c-limbs were invented? How about the ones that still get stump ulcers because not everyone can afford a really top of the line prosthetic? Go here, if you aren’t a coward, and tell me how this is “healing”. (warning: graphic medical images)

      Yes, you lie about atheist. And more than a little, and repeatedly (since this god hates lies and liars, one has to wonder why you have chosen to do so). You only apologize now since you were caught in your lies. You again try to claim that atheists shouldn’t care about living beings since they will die. Fetuses aren’t children, and if you wish to claim they are, then your god murders children by your own definition. Are you good with that, Alex?

      “On the flip side, I think you have no right to be upset if I am misrepresenting atheists, because since this debate has started you have not said one good thing about Christianity. Many Christians travel the world spreading the gospel, while also bringing clean water, food, and other much needed supplies to third world countries.”

      Wow, so you want to argue that it is okay for you to lie about atheists because I point out that Christians aren’t the good people they claim to be. There is not one good thing about Chrsitianity. Some Chrsitians do help others; some do not and that is not based on the religion. If it were, then *all* Chrsitians would do the right thing. They don’t. Spreading the gospel, aka baseless claims and often outright lies, is not a good thing. Many, if not most, missionaries demand attendance and conversion for their help. Now compare that to the various secular aid organization who don’t require people to be a certain religion or to listen to baseless claims for help.

      Well, finally we’re to the false claim that everyone agrees with you. You and Elizabeth have invented a god in your image and claim that everyone agrees that you are right and it is real. We don’t. You first try to claim that this god created the universe. NO evidence for that. Thus there is no reason to think it would be reasonable to think that this god would make everyone known it ‘inside’. It is not required by being the creator at all, nor this claim supported by any evidence at all. There is no knowledge so there is no knowledge to supposedly “suppress”. And yep, you contradict yourself as your baseless claims are even too impossible for you to support.

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  10. You know what? I think our discussion has come to a close. No matter how hard I try, or how much evidence I provide, I know that in your current state you will never change your mind. You insist on standing by your science which is wonderful but seems unable to cure things like cancer. Tell me, if we didn’t need God, then shouldn’t science be able to solve all of our problems? Shouldn’t science be able to make sure that parents never get divorced? Shouldn’t science make sure that wars never happen (instead of helping people develop nuclear weapons?) Shouldn’t science be constant, never changing, always true, instead of always being refuted? See, the bottom line you guys, is that you can call my claims baseless or unfounded, and maybe they are (that’s why we have faith after all), but your claims are just as baseless. You cannot prove to me that some divine hand did not create the universe simply because there is evidence it had to do with physics. I can throw a rock and you can tell me all the reasons why it flies in the path it flies based off of weight and velocity, the fact remains however, that I threw that rock, not physics. And you are all upset about me “lying” about you guys. Okay, how’d I lie? By pointing out that in world with no afterlife, it doesn’t matter how far science advances to make us comfortable we can never prevent death, therefore there is no point in us existing anyway and we might as well just clean up the population problem by removing people who are making it hard to live our pointless lives? If that’s what your mad about then I’m afraid you’ll have to deal. After all, you called my God both a liar and murder, not to mention that you didn’t mention a single good thing about Christians. Do not judge others lest they judge you by your own standard, (there’s one you ought to like). Call me a chicken, call me a fool, or even a child. I happen to like chicken. God hath chosen the foolish things to triumph over the wise, so the more foolish I sound to you the better. And as for a child, well I like to think that I’m still a kid at heart. I have done my best to be kind and courteous and all I got for it in return was a couple f-words from a lot stiff necked people. It’s funny though; I’m very mad and frustrated with y’all but my God would still forgive you and show compassion to you, so I will too. You are all welcome at my blog anytime so long as you keep it civil (to my standards). I appreciate all the time you took to set this up and the traffic, however short lived, you sent my way. I hope you all will find within you that thing Elizabeth was talking about. She might not have presented it the right way but it’s in there, and I hope that those of you have fallen out of faith will come back and those who have never had one will choose to accept Jesus into their hearts. Best wishes to all of you
    -AP

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    1. SCIENCE??? You insist on standing by your science — Every person that has commented as referenced BIBLE scripture. Your accusation is just one more very familiar attempt that Christians use to discredit the superior knowledge that atheists and non-believers have of YOUR faith.

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      2. “That’s what I’d expect you to say.”

        hopefully so, Alex. And you still have nothing to support your claims. Atheists do not need you or your god. the quote by Marcus Aurelius that Myridian posted is what we need to be concerned about. And heck, if no one remembers me, who cares?

        In the tv show Babylon 5, there is an episode called “Comes the Inquisitor”. The basic idea is that the leaders of the forces of light are being challenged to see if they are worthy of the position. it comes down to if you care about your cause enough to die alone and in the dark, no one to remember you, no one to care. Not a god, not a person knows what you did. “”Are you willing to die friendless, alone, deserted by everyone?””

        “”What about the people you work with, the people you call friends? Are you willing to sacrifice them? What about your family, what about your God, what about truth, what about blood, what about right, what about wrong, what about your future, what about faith, what about sin, what about hell, what about death, what about life?””

        “”How do you know the chosen ones? No greater love hath a man than he lay down his life for his brother. Not for millions, .. not for glory, not for fame. For one person, .. in the dark .. where no one will ever know .. or see.””

        “”I have been in the service of the Vorlons for centuries, looking for you. Diogenes with his lamp, looking for an honest man willing to die for all the wrong reasons.”
        — Sebastian to Delenn & Sheridan in Babylon 5:”Comes the Inquisitor”
        “At last, my job is finished. Yours is just beginning. When the darkness comes, know this: you are the right people, in the right place at the right time.”
        — Sebastian to Delenn & Sheridan in Babylon 5:”Comes the Inquisitor”
        “The city was drowning in decay, .. chaos, immorality. A message needed to be sent, etched in blood, for all the world to see: a warning. In the pursuit of my .. holy cause, I .. did things, terrible things, unspeakable things. The world condemned me, but it didn’t matter, because I believed I was right and the world was wrong. I believed I was the divine messenger. I believed I was–”
        “Chosen?”
        “.. I was .. found by the Vorlons. They showed me the terrible depth of my mistake, .. my crimes, my .. presumption. I have done 400 years of penance in their service. A job, for which they said I was ideally suited. Now, perhaps, they will finally let me die.”

        “Good luck to you in your holy cause, Captain Sheridan. May your choices have better results than mine. Remembered, not as a messenger, remembered not as a reformer, not as a prophet, not as a hero, not even as Sebastian. Remembered only .. as Jack.” – Sebastian, “Comes the Inquisitor” Babylon 5

        I am.

        Are you?

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      5. Oh, is that what all those quotes were for; the ellipses and all the numbers made it kind of confusing. Well if that’s what you think, that’s what you think, I really hope you reconsider though. One last thought. Why exactly is it that atheists choose not to believe? If what you have told me is true, and they live to help people, and they expect that they’re going to die, then why not put their faith in God and if it turns out Christianity is real they go to heaven and if it isn’t then they don’t. Your problem seems to be that you think God is a murder and somehow wrong for orchestrating His creation, but if you look at the Bible in it’s entirety, you’ll see he really does care, and does do what is just, and does want the best for us. Are there parts of the Bible that we don’t understand? Yes. If you think about it, why would the affairs of an allpowerful God make sense to a human being anyway? If you accept that God is visible in the surrounding world, and not simply only the supernatural, then it becomes very hard for me to understand why there are atheists at all. I mean when it comes down to it, the difference between a Christian and an Atheist is that a Christian believes that, if a person asks Jesus for forgiveness and repents of their sins, then they get to go to a wonderful place. When you think about it that way, it almost doesn’t make sense that there are atheists at all.

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      6. As predicted, Alex is back.

        “Oh, is that what all those quotes were for; the ellipses and all the numbers made it kind of confusing. Well if that’s what you think, that’s what you think, I really hope you reconsider though. One last thought. Why exactly is it that atheists choose not to believe? If what you have told me is true, and they live to help people, and they expect that they’re going to die, then why not put their faith in God and if it turns out Christianity is real they go to heaven and if it isn’t then they don’t. Your problem seems to be that you think God is a murder and somehow wrong for orchestrating His creation, but if you look at the Bible in it’s entirety, you’ll see he really does care, and does do what is just, and does want the best for us. Are there parts of the Bible that we don’t understand? Yes. If you think about it, why would the affairs of an allpowerful God make sense to a human being anyway? If you accept that God is visible in the surrounding world, and not simply only the supernatural, then it becomes very hard for me to understand why there are atheists at all. I mean when it comes down to it, the difference between a Christian and an Atheist is that a Christian believes that, if a person asks Jesus for forgiveness and repents of their sins, then they get to go to a wonderful place. When you think about it that way, it almost doesn’t make sense that there are atheists at all.”

        Why would I reconsider? Your god is a horrible character. I wouldn’t worship such a thing even if it were real.

        I don’t choose not to believe in Alex’s version of the Chrsitian god, since that’s all you have. I can’t believe in things with no evidence. Atheists do what they want, and they do and don’t help others.

        All you have offered is Pascal’s wager. This makes your god particularly stupid if it accepts anyone who believes “just in case”. I have better moral standards than your god so I don’t care about its heaven or hell.

        Your god is a murderer and a liar, and imaginary. I’ve read the entire bible and there is nothing in it that shows it cares about anything but being stroked off. So your claim fails already.

        There is no part of the bible I don’t understand. It is the ignorant and vicious belief of humans in a vicious and ignorant god. There is nothing mysterious about your god, it is as pathetic as any god invented by humans. And dear, I don’t even remotely accept that your god exists,much less is “visible in the surrounding world”.

        Again, Christians make up what their god disapproves of e.g. “sin”. Why should I care about what you’ve made up? There is no evidence of a “wonderful place”. And your “wonderful place” is a horror, with a moronic god that kills people for no reason, who commits genocide, who approves of slavery. This “city of heaven on earth” is quite the demented wealth fantasy, where everything is this tacky mess of gold, jewels etc. I can’t be bribed with such garbage. Christiansn can’t even agree on what this “wonderful place” is. The complete ignorance of Christians on what their bible actually says about the supposed afterlife is hilarious.

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      8. Ahhh yes! The parting “shot” … believe what you want to believe. But of course, you’re going to DIE in your sins! Right, Alex? SMH

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      10. The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get. – John C. Maxwell

        Failing’s how you grow and learn your lessons, kids – NF, from the song LOST

        Remind thyself, in the darkest moments, that every failure is only a step toward success, every detection of what is false directs you toward what is true, every trial exhausts some tempting form of error, and every adversity will only hide, for a time, your path to peace and fulfillment. -Og Mandino

        From failure, we learn, from success, not so much. -From the movie Meet the Robinsons

        We are persecuted, but God does not leave us. We are hurt sometimes, but we are not destroyed. – 2 Corinthians 4:9

        I hope you learned as much as I did Vel, Nan, Astreja, Myridian, and all the rest. All the best.
        -AP

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      11. Thanks for the well wishes, Alex … even though I was already well aware of all the scriptures and beliefs you presented. Hopefully someday you will see the futility of believing in a non-existent entity.

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      12. thoughtless glurge isn’t impressive, Alex, and again, you claimed yuo were leaving and yet here yuo are, still trying making false and baseless claims.

        Amazingly how 2 Corinthians 4 is yet one more of those failed promises in your bible. Chrisitans commit suicide as often as anyone else, so the pious prating of how Christians don’t despair is a lie. Of course, you’ll claim that those who commit suicide weren’t “real Christians”, and indulge in the victim blaming that so many Christians do.

        And you are a lovely example of how Christians fail in this ” 2 We have renounced the shameful, underhanded ways; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God.”

        I learned nothing from you, Alex. You just confirmed what I knew already, that Christians have nothing.

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      13. Not arguing. Just posting more thoughtless glurge. 🙂 Enjoy:

        In the process of tearing somebody down;
        A person often tears themselves apart;
        That’s why I feel sorry for the bullies of the play-ground;
        Because the first they destroy’s their heart;

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      14. And yet more lies and failure from Alex. Thanks for showing how you choose to lie again, Alex. This is from a Trump supporter, who has lied, and who has no problem supporting the bullies he accuses others of being. No one has torn themselves apart showing how you bear false witnesses against others. Our “hearts” are quite intact.

        “Because the first they destroy’s their heart” ROFL.

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      15. Of course you have to remind everyone I’m a trump supporter (even though I said I did not agree with everything he did or does), otherwise you start to lose a foothold. I’ve been analyzing your tactics and while it seems to me that you like to address things, if I take a step back it’s inexpertly expert. Here’s a list.

        Number one: Demand definitive proof. This coming from a physicist (if I remember correctly), and everyone knows that one of the ways physics progresses is by having people coming up with theoretical hypothesis, some of which sound so fantastical one might call them *fantasy*
        Number Two: Try to degrade the other person’s point of view by using sentences such as “you bible is nonsense” “your God is a murderer” “this is a false claim” “your claims are baseless” “you failed” and so forth. This presents an image to the other viewers that you in some way know better or more and that the other person is not to be taken seriously. It also helps you when you try and make light of the other person’s claims. For instance: “Because the first they destroy’s their heart” ROFL. You took the most meaningful and truthful part of my little poem and tried to make a joke out of it. Don’t think I didn’t notice that out of four lines you didn’t choose the one about tearing people down, tearing yourself down, or how I feel bad for bullies, but the one which portrays you in an honest light.
        Number three: Similar to number two, you try to degrade the other person by trying to damage their reputation. For instance, saying I am lying about atheists, when I explicitly said that I did not mean that you were doing those things. Furthermore, you tried to get me to disclose my political opinions, most likely because you know how sharply people of different political stances look down on each other, and then tried to make me look like a trump supporter. (Which I don’t get, are all atheists liberals or something?)
        Number four: Ignore the best of my side and the worst of your side. You like to cite the parts of the Bible which (in your eyes) make my God look bad. You also mentioned how Christianity has been used as an excuse for a number of bad things, all the while never mentioning the horrors committed by the PRC, a group which mostly ascribes to atheism. Oddly enough, though I won’t make a definite claim, the genocide being committed in China seems to strangely mimic the comments I made about an atheist’s logic of death and life.
        Number five: remain willfully ignorant. Interesting how you accused me of being willfully ignorant. I’m okay with that, because in a number of things, such as politics, I am. But seriously. If you can look around this world and not notice the awesomeness of it and accept that physics or no physics, it’s something we as humans could never create from scratch or fully explain, nor see the potential for a God then you are incredibly closeminded. Similarly, if you look at the bible and immediately seize on children dying, people getting killed, and all manner of bad things befalling a wicked species of creature (humans), and manage to ignore that God loved a broken people so much he sent His Son, and allowed Him to sink to the lowest point of humiliation possible followed by a horrific death, all to free us from the trouble we brought on ourselves, then there is something is wrong with your judgement. That or you are intentionally blocking something out (being willfully ignorant). A good example would be when you presented the Luke 19 argument. There was so much good in that parable you totally skipped over just so you could point out the killing bit. I’m ashamed of myself that I even deemed you could properly and sound mindedly debate with that kind of thinking in your head.
        Number six: Twist people’s words. Similar to two and three. I go from being a moderate who has professed he doesn’t agree with everything trump does, to being a full blown trump supporter. I go from being a guy who points out a nihilistic aspect of atheist logic to a guy who is lying about atheists.
        Number Seven: Use the advantage of owning this blog to not play by your own rules. You didn’t dabble in this too much, but you made a pretty large assumption. For instance “I do not believe that you haven’t “actually spoken with a lot of other Christians” (who’s a liar now, hmm?). You wrote in The Bosses Office that “lying and making baseless insults when you have nothing else” would get a person kicked off, so what’s the matter, you can’t play by your own rules?

        You know Vel, it’s almost kind of funny looking at this now. Are you a good debater? Sorta’. But I’d say you only win on muscle. It’s the same with all bullies, they succeed on fear alone, and usually the reason is because they themselves are afraid. And that’s what I was getting at with my Pascal’s Wager argument. If you take out your skewed views on the Bible, it quickly becomes apparent that an atheist gains nothing by being an atheist, and that whether a Christian is right or wrong their life still ends on a high note. So, the question is, what are you afraid of Vel? God is to be feared, but feared and respected, not feared and hated. He is willing to forgive every wrong thing you’ve ever done, if you’ll just turn to Him. You and I, we’re the same. I could’ve murdered someone and you could’ve stolen a stick of gum from the store and we’d both be on the same train to hell, but God offers us a chance to leave behind our faults and flaws. Now, if you’d like to continue being an atheist go right ahead, but I’d hope you’d be kinder to everyone in the future. And I’d really hope that, mad as I am with you, that you’d reconsider your beliefs. Maybe to you I seem like a fool, accept the fact that you might look exactly like that to someone else. Oh, and I hope you don’t pull the “Alex failed again,” card, because what’s the first thing a scared person says when asked if they’re scared. “I’m not scared.” And is it true? No. All the best.
        -AP

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      16. And here is Alex again, still making false claims.

        Yep, I mentioned you are a trump supporter and that is quite true since you’ve admitted that. You were asked to tell us what about Trump you don’t support and you refused. Now, why is that, Alex?

        I haven’t lost any “foothold” at all. I do love the baseless claim that you have “analyzed” my tactics, and then you come off with incoherent nonsense like “while it seems to me that you like to address things, if I take a step back it’s inexpertly expert.” Oh darn a liar and a failure makes yet more baseless claims that I’m whatever “inexpertly expert” means. It’s always great fun to see a Christian now start to make up concepts that don’t exist in order to try to claim an opponent is wrong, rather than actually showing them wrong.

        Yep, I do demand evidence for your claims, and I don’t demand “definitive proof”. You’ve chosen to make that up. You have no evidence for your claims. You’ve lied about myself and others, unable to support your accusations. It’s great to see you flailing around with nonsense terms like “theoretical hypothesis”. As you dig yourself deeper and deeper, your willful ignorance becomes more and more clear. Alas, an ignorant man like you has no basis to consider any hypothesis in physics to be “fantasy”, since he doesn’t understand the most basic concepts, as you have demonstrated earlier with your nonsense about atoms.

        Your bible is nonsense and you have made false claims that you cannot or will not support. This is not degrading anyone, it is a fact. I always enjoy when conservative Christians like you get upset when reality doesn’t match your nonsense. Your god is demonstrably a murderer. Yes, dear, stating facts does indeed show that I know better and more than you do and you are not to be taken seriously since you make up baseless claims.

        You make baseless claims, and then when trying to pretend how great you are, you rather amusingly fail at basic spelling and punctuation. That incompetence just underlines your willful ignorance. That sentence, “Because the first they destroy’s their heart” was not meaningful or truthful at all, and yes, I made fun of your incompetent arrogant nonsense. I did address the rest since I pointed out that you support bullies when it suits you. No one has been “torn down” showing you are ignorant. Alas, nothing you have said has shown anyone in an honest light. All you still have are baseless claims.

        Your reputation here is of a conservative Christian who lies about others, cannot support his claims and who is proud how willfully ignorant he is. You have lied about atheists and atheism with your pitiful attempts to try to convince atheists that they are really nihilists. You did not explcity say that you did not mean that I was doing those things. You said: “I’m not saying you would do this Vel, but this logic and your distaste with the Bible for “child murder” and “genocide” do not add up.” This is an example of you trying desperately to cling to your lies about atheists and atheism. You also said “ I mean, by an atheists logic, they are going to die, there’s no way to stop them and nothing to tell them before they do so we might as well get rid of them, especially the ones who are using up all the resources in India and Africa and China.” You were told that you were wrong and you returned to your lies like a dog to its vomit with “I am just saying that by their logic, I don’t understand why they would be upset with murderers and such” and “I go from being a guy who points out a nihilistic aspect of atheist logic to a guy who is lying about atheists.” And “Oddly enough, though I won’t make a definite claim, the genocide being committed in China seems to strangely mimic the comments I made about an atheist’s logic of death and life.”

        Since there is no atheist logic that has anything to do with nihilism, you simply lie again.

        You have disclosed your political opinions with your baseless claims about Biden, and claims about Trump. I didn’t have to try anything at all. I look down upon people like you because you are liars. And you have said you are a trump supporter. You’ve also been repeatedly told that atheism is only the conclusion that there is no god or gods. You “don’t get” a lot of things out of your pitiful willful ignorance. Atheists have all sorts of worldviews and that goes against your lie that atheists must be nihilists.

        You’ve demonstrated no “best” of your side, and you have yet to show a “worst” of my side. You have done nothing but make false claims about how atheists *must* think like nihilsts. Christianity has been used as a *reason* for many bad things, so you again try to intentionally mis-state what I and others have said. Happily this is a recorded medium and your attempt to change facts fails.

        You now try a common Christian lie to claim that atheism leads to horrible things when you cannot show this to be the case. The PRC (which I assume means the People’s Republic of China) is a dictatorship, and as we have seen throughout history, it is dictatorships with their megalomania of those in charge that cause horrible things, not atheism. If your claim was correct, I should want to commit genocide, but since I’m not a megalomaniac, nor am I a nihilist, your claim is shown to be a lie.

        You have claimed to be willfully ignorant, “I do choose to be willfully ignorant.” so you have lied when you try to present this as a baseless accusation from me. You then try to use the baseless claim that the universe is evidence for your petty god, and you still have no evidence for that. Most, if not, every religion tries the same baseless claim, and gee, you don’t believe them, so there is no reason to believe you. Yep, the universe probably isn’t able to be created by humans; still no evidence for your god.

        The usual accusation of being me being closed minded by a Christian who can’t get the external validation he desperately wants is nothing new. I am quite happy that my mind isn’t so open to accept baseless nonsense from people like you.

        I do like the whine you give when people dare to show how your bible fails and notice that this god isn’t what you claim. Happily, it is only your baseless opinion that humans are a “wicked species” and that your god exists at all. I’m quite glad not to need to believe in a ridiculous story of a god that has to have a blood sacrifice by torture to make itself happy. Per your own bible, humans brought nothing on themselves, an incompetent god failed and then took thousands of years to try to correct itself, ending in said murder by torture. There is nothing wrong with my judgment at all.

        That I know your bible better than you shows that I am blocking nothing out at all nor that I’m willfully ignorant of your nonsense. There is nothing good in the parable of the minas, it is a story about people being harmed for not believing in the imaginary being. And oh darn, poor Alex is upset that I dared to point out how his god wants non-believers brought before him and killed. It’s always good when a Christian finds his bible embarrassing and inconvenient.

        You should be ashamed of yourself, Alex. You again try to lie about me when you claim I’m not of sound mind. You have demonstrated well that you have nothing else left but more false claims.

        I have not twisted your or anyone’s words. But you are welcome to point out where I have. I’m waiting. You are not a moderate at all since you make baseless claims about Biden that I showed you weren’t true. You parrot the lies of the QOP and Fox demonstrably. You are a guy who lies about how atheists must be nihilists and when you are shown wrong, you simply ignore what was said and double down.

        And do show where I’ve lied and made baseless insults, Alex. I’m waiting. I know you’ve spoken to plenty of Christians since you are so very sure that they are wrong.

        Now, we have you assuming your baseless opinions count for anything, Alex. I’m quite a good debater and you are not. You cannot support your claims with evidence. You make false accusation and again, can’t support them with evidence.

        Then you return to Pascal’s Wager, which fails again. Alas, my views of the bible aren’t skewed at all, and you have yet to show that I’m wrong. What you try to demand is that I don’t show how you and your bible fails and if I would not do that, I’d agree with you. That quite funny. I gain plenty by being an atheist. I don’t waste time and resources on imaginary things. I also have a much more moral outlook on life, and I don’t find myself needing to make false claims as you have.

        Your life has ended up here with being exposed as a fraud. There is nothing to show that a Christian’s life will ended on high note at all. This claim is again baseless.

        I’m happily not afraid of much, especially a god made up by you. Your god, aka you, is not to be feared or respected at all. No one needs your god’s, aka your, forgiveness at all since we’ve done nothing wrong.

        We are happily not the same at all. For instance, I’m not so stupid to say that murder and stealing a stick of gum both require eternal torture. Your pleading for me to agree with you is amusing. Your attempt to claim I’m not kind for showing your failure is also amusing. Who cares if you are mad about that? And why would I think it matters if a failure like you thinks I’m a fool?

        Alex failed again.

        Liked by 1 person

      17. You know, I am ashamed of myself. I entertained a bully, and allowed them to get the better of me. I said some things that I shouldn’t have and I only helped prove your point (however, wrong it was). I broke the third commandment and misrepresented my God by acting out this way. I’m prideful in a little too many things, and this was one of them. No, atheists, not all at least, are nihilistic, and I believe you were, right that I tried to portray them as such. Despite that however, I still maintain my beliefs; I *KNOW*, whether it be in my soul or my mind, that there is a God, that there is a Heaven, that there is a hell, that the Bible is truth, and that Jesus grants everlasting forgiveness. My job as a Christian is to emulate that to the world, not argue everyone into agreeing with me. My apologies for anything I said that was truly offending. I hope all of you, and I mean all of you, will really dig deep and think about what you believe. Too often in life we strive for things to make sense, we feel comfortable with facts, when the reality is that sometimes the only way forward is to do something that doesn’t make sense; some of the greatest people of our times paved the road to where we are today because they chose a path unsupported by facts. I hope you also think about my poem. It was intended to be a blow, and I apologize for that, but it’s also true. I tried to tear you down, and in the process found I was only damaging myself. One last time though, I must point out where you were wrong. I am not a failure. As a physicist you must know that when an experiment fails it is only a failure if you don’t try something else. That’s what I meant with those quotes. Was this debate, me trying to show off my knowledge, a failure? Yes. But have I learned so much from it? Yes, I’m sorry if I made some dodgy claims about my political affiliation, but the truth is I just am more partial to Trump and his mindset than Biden and his, and in a free country that is OKAY. Once again, I hope you guys will think about all of this, and I really do hope that maybe you will rethink what you are doing on your respective blogs. Once more, I apologize for any and all things I did to try and hurt you. Truly, all the best.
        -Alexander Phaethon

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      18. And alex is back again with his lies. Yow now try to blame me for your false claims. How Christian of you.

        You don’t “KNOW” anything at all, and it’s rather pitiful that you think making the word in caps means it’s true.

        Your claim of apologizing is as false as your other nonsense. You try to blame everyone else for what you chose to do. You then keep trying to claim that no one has “dug deep” and try yet again to claim that we really do agree with you.

        Then you try an appeal to authority fallacy, with the common Chrisitan nonsense that if smart people believed in some god, that god must be real.

        Your poem was a lie, nothing more. It wasn’t a “blow” at all, that’s just your fantasy.

        You are a failure and gee, I’m not a physicist. You can’t even go back and read what I told you I am. What a nitwit and a liar. Again, you are a pitiful Trumpee and haev tried to spread lies about others. In a free country, lying isn’t okay.

        We’ve thought about it and you hurt no one at all, no matter how much you hoped you would. You are just another impotent fraud.

        Like

      19. Well, I, for one, accept your apologies, Alex. I know Vel can be very harsh in her condemnations of Christianity, but I do think her heart is in the right place.

        In any event, I only have one thing to add. You wrote: I hope all of you, and I mean all of you, will really dig deep and think about what you believe. You see, Alex, the thing is … everyone that responded to you has already done this — and it is EXACTLY the reason why we reject Christianity and/or any other “god” beliefs.

        More to the point … you would do well to take a hard look at what ALL the scriptures say … and not just rely on the trope that is taught via sermons and religious schools.

        Liked by 1 person

      20. “I hope all of you, and I mean all of you, will really dig deep and think about what you believe. ”

        is why I find there is no reason to accept a false apology. He chooses to continue to be willfully ignorant of what he has been told.

        Liked by 1 person

      22. “Indoctrination tends to embed itself deeply.”

        yes, it does, and it is no excuse. Alex, and many other theists, choose to be willfully ignorant so they may spread their false claims. my heart *is* in the right place since I call out false claims and outright lies of Alex and his ilk and it is not harsh to do so.

        Like

      23. that the Bible is truth

        Are you aware that the majority of Jewish rabbis openly accept the Pentateuch is historical fiction?

        I can fill this thread with quotes from rabbis, but here are just a few

        Conservative Rabbi, Steven Leder, of the Wilshire Boulevard Temple:

        “Defending a rabbi in the 21st century for saying the Exodus story isn’t factual is like defending him for saying the Earth isn’t flat. It’s neither new nor shocking to most of us that the Earth is round or that the Torah isn’t a history book dictated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai.”

        [The Pentateuch is an] “extended metaphor” ( Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, Dean of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism)

        “The Pentateuch is the Jewish Mythology. My duty as a Rabbi is to interpret the Bible and consider it as my Mythology, as the founding story of the people of Israel, of course not to take it literally… it is not a book of facts, but a myth.” (Rabbi Nardy Grün)

        “The Pentateuch is filled with wonderful mythology of our beginnings.” (Rabbi Robert Schreibman)

        “The Torah is a piece of human literature. Its stories are fictional and that is how I teach them” (Rabbi, Jeffrey Falick)

        “The actual evidence concerning the Exodus resembles the evidence for the unicorn,” (Baruch Halpern, Professor of Jewish Studies of Pennsylvania State University.)

        “We looked for evidence for the Exodus in the Sinai Desert and found there was nothing in the Sinai Desert. We looked at the Patriarch stories and the times in which they supposedly lived, and it didn’t seem to match. Then we looked at the stories of the Patriarchs in the time they were apparently written, historically, and that matched much better.” (Rabbi Adam Chalom)

        “The story of Abraham has less to do with 1800 BCE, when Abraham presumably lived, than with 700 BCE when his story was created.” (Rabbi Sherwin T Wine)

        “The Torah is not a book we turn to for historical accuracy,” (Rabbi, David Wolpe)

        I could go on, but you get the point.

        So, the OWNERS of the story know it’s fiction.. why don’t you?

        Liked by 1 person

  11. I don’t know what it’s like for anyone else, but things get weird when there are too many replies to one comment. They become a long column one letter wide. Even when they’re not TL;DR, they become impossible to read. Okay, not impossible. Just really hard.-)

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    Reply
  13. Pingback: Not So Polite Conversation – my discussion with Alexander part 2 – Club Schadenfreude

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