davinci

I never said jesus being gay is a fact....I believe I said certain people believed that. what is fact is that the bible was written and rewritten many times. it was rewritten to fit a mold. there is much information that was deleted because it didn't look good. why are the other gospels left out? red sea scrolls?

look, i should add here that I care less about whether he was gay or not. he was a very successful leader with some good ideas. history did him more justice then he surely deserved.

Lenzilla

Wow, are you ever off the mark. How can you be so sure of what I believe? You're wrong. We don't believe there is a god. Not believing in a supreme being-or god-is the very definition of atheism.

I've suppressed nothing. In fact, the only thing I ever did suppress was the deep seated belief that there is a god. Call me a reverse born-again. It took me opening up my eyes and being honest with myself to realize that I didn't believe in god.

Make ourselves god? Wrong again. I am flawed, imperfect, and very self aware of all of it. I'm no god-that's for damned sure. Glorifying and worshiping myself-way, way wrong. I strive to be better than I am. I'm no one to be worshiped-by me or anyone else.

You've shown that you know nothing about atheists in general and precious little about us as individuals. So drop the holier than thou stuff and realize that you're just plain wrong.

Learn something about the people you choose to insult, and I'll pay you the same respect. Until then, you deserve none.

__________________
Len Civitano

Fats Schindee

True, I did leave out those parts (for effect, of course )... but, as you know since you clicked it, I did provide the link to the whole story (so it's not like I was trying to hide part of it or anything). And I did preface my statement with the fact that most religious people I know are normal. But I didn't claim that these two were part of an ordained church or denomination or whatever - I just left my comment to "religion", which these two nutjobs were claiming. You are right that they are not mainstream, and also maybe about the it just being a cover story. But did you see the pix of these two in the link? They definitely looked crazy, and not intelligent enough to pull off a scam like this (...what am I talking about - they didn't pull it off at all - they're idiots).

But I shouldn't have used a blanket statement like "religion rots your brain" like that. My apologies. I wasn't implying that it does and will rot your and/or everyone's brain, but just that believing in illogical and fantastical stories of the religious type can lead to other illogical and fantastical behaviors in your life (such as these two exhibited), if you're not intelligent enough to realize the difference. I should have just said "look what religion can do to you if your a crazy idiot" or something to that effect...

__________________
"And if you say to me tomorrow,
Oh what fun it all would be,
Then what's to stop us, pretty baby,
But what is and what should never be."

-Led Zeppelin

Fats Schindee

It is so easy to get off on many tangents related to this subject (and I find most of them pretty interesting, one way or another), but you're right - let's get back to the original question...

Let's just say that God does exist (and we'll assume we're talking about the Christian god here, because that seems to be the one most of us on this thread "know" the most about), even without any proof. I want to learn more about the nature of this God. And by this I don't mean his/her/its (I'll just use "it" as the pronoun from now on, as it's gender neutral - although I know the Bible does say "he") supposed feelings or actions in the past (as written in the Bible) - as we've heard all the stories of his good and bad deeds - I mean its actual being and existence.

I'm not asking for proof of its existence here, since we've already figured out that you cannot objectively do this, you must just have faith that it does exist. What I want to talk about is what you (the believers reading this thread) believe to be the objective nature of God to be like. Just your personal opinion/belief about these "what" and "how" types of questions (leaving the "why" behind for now), for instance...

What is the scope of its existence? A separate being? Filling all the spaces in the universe? Bigger than the universe? Residing in heaven only? (And on that subject - where is heaven? What is it made of? How do all the souls get there?)

What is it made of? Matter? Light? Energy? Anything tangible? Anything knowable?

How does it have consciousness? Does it have a type of brain, or computer-type of circuit board? If it is as big as the universe, how does it communicate with itself? And for that matter, how does it communicate with us? By what method can it send its ideas or demands into our brains? Or by what method could it animate and inflame a bush and make it speak words to us?

Those of you that claim to have a personal relationship with God - how does it communicate with you? Do you have ideas that you don't know where they came from, and they seem like something God would tell you? If you've seen it, what does it look like? If you've heard it, what does it sound like? Is it sometimes God that talks to you, and sometimes Jesus? Are there any other manifestations that you have a relationship with too, such as the Holy Spirit or Mary or St. Peter or Satan or anybody/thing else? What do they look like (is it like the common pictures we've all seen of them?) and/or sound like and/or feel like?

Is there a physical presence at all, or is it all just mental? I know the word spiritual gets thrown out there as an alternative to either of these two (physical and mental). So if you answer that it's not physical nor mental, but spiritual (or something else akin to this), I'll ask you to answer the same types of questions about the supposed spirits that you know about (whether that of God or yourselves or whatever you think has a spirit). What is spirituality to you? What is the nature of a spirit, and how does it manifest itself to you and communicate with you?

Sorry that this is so many questions at once. You don't have to answer all of them, or any of them (obviously), but I do appreciate any and all who do share. I'm not asking these facetiously, I honestly want to try to figure out how people who believe in God view/see/think about it. And I understand that you can say, "Well, the Bible tells us that God is _______" - but as I mentioned before, I'm not looking for that answer. I would hope that you don't believe in God only because the Bible says so. I'm interested in your personal relationship and how the communication between the two of you works.

Thanks for any answers...

__________________
"And if you say to me tomorrow,
Oh what fun it all would be,
Then what's to stop us, pretty baby,
But what is and what should never be."

-Led Zeppelin

juropilot

My apologies in advance, because this one will be a longer one.

So, I do not come by this knowledge at all? Because I got the info from the bible thumping creationst book? What difference it makes? I know exactly how carbon dating works. Yes, very small amount of nitrogen turns into C14 because of sun radiation.... there is not a thing I don't know.

I went to visit your websites. Let me post some quotes:

"Some critics, particularly religious fundamentalists, argue that neither fossils nor dating can be trusted, and that their interpretations are better. Other critics, perhaps more familiar with the data, question certain aspects of the quality of the fossil record and of its dating. These skeptics do not provide scientific evidence for their views."

Well let's see if we can provide some scientific evidence.

"The raw radiocarbon dates, in BP years, are calibrated to give calendar dates. Standard calibration curves are available, based on comparison of radiocarbon dates of samples that can be dated independently by other methods such as examination of tree growth rings (dendrochronology), ice cores, deep ocean sediment cores, lake sediment varves, coral samples, and speleothems (cave deposits)."

So other methods then? Let me see: tree growth rings? There are trees that have 2, even 3 rings a year instead of one. Your source doesn't specify what trees they used.
But never mind the tree rings.
Ice cores? I believe they want to use the summer and winter layers in the ice argument. THIS IS RIDICULOUS !
Go ask Bob Cardin. This guy went to get WW-II P 38s in Greenland that had been left there 48 years ago. As he went down, he did not find 48 layers, there were hundreds! Ice cores arguments are laughable. It amazes me that Al Gore used this method to prove his points in Inconvenient Truth. All his claims about the dates in his documentary can be thrown into garbage.
So, if you find something under 20,000 layers of ice, and do carbon dating to it to find out it's around 20,000 years old, this alone proves the inaccuracy of carbon dating.

And the cave deposit argument is even worse ! They say that stalactites and stalagmites will grow tops like 2.5 inches per 1,000 years? THAT IS PATHETIC!
I have picture after picture (which I will be happy to share with anyone). In one picture from a mine in Australia which was closed for like 50 years, there are stalactites 30 feet long. 2.5 inches per 1000 years ? And there many more. How about TEPEE Fountain in Wyoming ? That thing is monstrous in 100 years. Not in 250 million years.
100 vs. 250,000,000; not quite the same.
So, if you have a date determined by carbon dating, that is in line with the Speleothems method, this once again proves the inaccuracy of carbon dating.

What about the equilibrium problem? I alluded to this before, but you keep dodging it. Well, of course, your sources don't mention it (unless I missed it). That means you have no clue what it is.

Carbon dating sounds logical, unlike Big Bang. But that my no means makes it accurate.

It is YOU that believes in lies !

preludespeeder

Yet again you show no scientific evidence to back up your claims. You are grabbing on to a piece of real science and thinking it is real work to disprove something.

I tell you something that is true, the universe is over 13 billion years old. Light travels at a fairly constant speed. This is a proven fact and through observations and testing science can prove within a few million years the distances we can see which shows the age. That kinda blows your 6000 year story out of existence.


You can try to disprove carbon dating by citing a 1 or 2 % amount of inconstancies with how science shows the age of things. But when more then 95% of time it is reliable does not mean you have an argument. It means you are grasping at nothing to prove your fairy tale. Also just because carbon dating is not perfect to your standards does not prove that God exist. When you can prove that he exist with something other than a custom made story by man to dupe the masses then we can have a real discussion about your lack of evidence.

__________________
"So, you may think you're going to blow me away with your amazing show of rhetoric, but believe me, I have seen it before, and you're wrong. The thing that you're about to write is not only wrong, but transparently, stupidly, embarrassingly wrong, so wrong that it makes me wince inwardly with shame at the fact that you're a member of the same human race that I am"

Anonymous

juropilot

No evidence ? WHAATT?

Seems you are loosing ground and need to move on to something else. All I said so far is that the carbon dating is unreliable. So save your unrelated arguments for later. You accused me of babbling before, yet that is exactly what you are doing right now.
We are talking carbon dating right now. Either back up your claims, or admit that at the very least you cannot come up with anything else.

After that, we can move on to something else. That is if you want.

davinci

juropilot; dude, you've really got to lay off those wacko websites and do some more rounded research. you're flailing like a cat in a swimming pool.

juropilot

Davinci,

Maybe you could ask someone you know, who is able to read, to tell you that there are no websites I am referring to. All the person will have to do is to go and read what I wrote.

At the end of the month, I am doing a presentation to 4th graders. You should attend. The stuff discussed here may be too much for you.

Honky Tonk

Jesus is God.

If you want to know what a true Christian knows about God, click on the link and read it.

Who do you think that I am? :: Grace to You