Joel Yliluoma wrote:
> and this makes me believe that God's
> reasoning abilities are significantly higher than that of any of us.

I'm curious what part of the bible makes you think that.

>> How come when Joel tells me that I don't understand, I don't get to 
>> point out the parts of the Bible where God says yes, I *do* understand. 
>> Isn't that logical?
> 
> If I understand correctly, you are referring to the "tree of good and evil"
> and interpreting that the tree gave the human powers of understanding good
> and evil equalling that of God.

Yes. Or, at least, that I have knowledge of the difference between good 
and evil, so when I see evil, I am not particularly wrong about whether 
it's really good.

> Genesis 3:22 (KJV) says:
> "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good
> and evil

> This does not unambiguously imply that we now understand everything
> (or even good and evil) as God does. It only says that we've got some
> understanding.

It says "the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil". I don't 
know how less ambiguous it could be. It's a heck of a lot less ambiguous 
than lots of the other stuff in the bible.

Or are you telling me that starving babies in Africa isn't a bad thing? 
Cancer is really good in disguise? Lynching blacks is really *good* for 
them? This is "the best of all possible worlds" argument - since evil 
exists, and God isn't evil, then it must be the case that the amount of 
evil in the world is the minimum amount it's possible to have.

The only problem with *this* argument is that it implies that being good 
won't help - the amount of evil in the world is already at a minimum, so 
nothing you can do can improve the world.

So the original bit still stands - either God *can't* stop the evil, or 
he *decides* not to stop the evil. There really isn't a third choice 
there, even if you say "God is really smart", it just means he's 
deciding not to stop the evil for reasons we can't understand.

And if unbelievers *are* dragged off to the pits of hell at the end of 
the world, it sounds like he's not planning stopping the evil any time 
soon, either.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Tim Cook wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Well, would it be OK for me to say it's the work of Satan?
> 
> Sure thing.  But Satan traditionally is an opposing force to 'God',

Only in *your* tradition. Loki, Bacchus, and Pan aren't opposing forces 
to God. Well, maybe *your* God doesn't like them, but they aren't 
opposing (as you mean it) to the other gods in their pantheon.

> at the very least you've implicitly acknowledged *existence*.  XD

Nope. Only if the "God" you speak of is the God of the bible, at which 
point you're not calling "what did what I don't understand" God. You're 
afirmatively saying "because I don't understand something, the God of 
the Bible exists and behaves the way described therein", which is 
nonsensical.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     It's not feature creep if you put it
     at the end and adjust the release date.

Post a reply to this message

Alain <ele### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> When you propose a theory, you tell peoples:
> I've made some observations, or conducted some experiments, or performed some
> studies. Here are my results, and how I got them. Now, here is my attempt at
> explaning my results. I invite you to evaluate my results and explanation. I
> invite you to remake my work and see if I made any mistake. Try to prove or
> disprove it with every tools at your disposal. If you disprove it, to bad, but
> please show me, and everybody, where I erred. If you prove it, tell that you
> did, and how you did it.
>
> When you proclaim a dogma, you tell peoples:
> This IS The TRUTH! That Truth is absolute and immuable. Nobody can question The
> Truth. If you don't agree with The Truth, you are an heretic, or just plain
> wrong in the best of cases.


indeed.  You just provided a clear case of the differences between religion and
science.  Your point is?... Religion is not science? is anyone claiming
otherwise?  Religion is bad because you are required to believe in invisible
beings dictating actions to "inspired" people who may just be schizoids
wreaking havoc?  perhaps, specially when taken out of context...

Science does not replace God, it only shows His creation all the more
interesting:  thunder is not some god hammering the clouds, just the result of
God's laws governing the physical world.

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> You haven't the first clue what anyone believes beyond yourself, 
> 
> But that's OK, because they're all WRONG!
> 

If we're all wrong, I don't want to be right!

Post a reply to this message

Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> I have seen how people who see the world in clear black and white act.
> They are called sociopaths. And just to be clear. I have never, nor has
> anyone I know that ranges from mildly religious to atheist, *ever* raped
> anyone, killed anyone, lied on the scale that self claimed believers do,
> or committed any of the other large scale sins that *you* are likely
> talking about when saying that we live in an immoral world. However,
> ***every*** person I have ever met that thinks the Bible is literal
> truth, believes they are saved, or otherwise thinks I am the one going
> to hell is invariably a hypocrite, lies constantly, would steal formula
> from a starving baby if they thought God wanted them to, threatens to
> kill people, has committed either rape, adultery, pedophilia, or all of
> those together, and more than a few, attach themselves to other
> *believers* like leeches, to suck money, time, and anything else they
> can get their hands on, from the fools that stand there and defend them
> for doing it.

man, cool down!  Not all believers are rapist, violent sociopaths, I certainly
am not.  Perhaps these cases search salvation exactly because of their
behaviour?  OTOH, how many sociopaths are satanists or atheists?  How many
sociopaths are in the army, supposedly defending their people?

BTW, you're just plain exagerating matters.  You say "I have never, nor has
anyone I know that ranges from mildly religious to atheist, *ever* raped
anyone, killed anyone, lied on the scale that self claimed believers do" and I
can say the same.  I haven't, nor anyone I know, even severely blind devotees
who really believe the Universe was created in 6 days and evolution is a thing
of the devil...

Atheists kill about as much as religious people:  see the comunist governments,
nazi-facists or imperialist potencies.  My take:  religous or not, we are just
sinful men.

> And, the odd thing is, these people do this crap on national TV 24/7 on
> some stations their scamming for the masses pay for, and no one blinks
> and eye.

The catholic church and many modern evangelicals wearing suits have a long
tradition of usurping from their devottees until the last penny.  But salvation
doesn't come from other men, just through the Word.

> We don't have
> saints, authority figures, kings, or people raised to some high,
> unassailable position, from which they may not be challenged.
> ... The only thing most of you are
> likely to do is send letters of praise to the people that act like fools
> in your system of beliefs, or ignore it, as inconsequential.

Rave supporting or ignoring someone is always to be expected in men's social
behaviours.

> Such people are *obviously*
> adding to the evil committed in the world, misleading people into
> believing its acceptable to commit such acts,

it's not acceptable to commit sins, but we're all bound to commit it one way or
the other and should seek forgiveness for it.  True religious people try their
best to avoid repeating their mistakes.  but you know it's hard...

> I am willing to fight against
> that, by exposing such acts. You... ignore them?

why don't you also expose sins by non-believers?  How many scientists have been
living in a fraud in their quest for fortune, fame and glory?  Yes, it's easier
to hide them when you can simply say it's the way science works:  criticise
their work and try to bring them down, if it stands, it's a good, solid theory.
 If not, let's forget.

> And somehow, the entire
> problem is not too much religion in the hands of lunatics, madmen,
> bigots and the immoral, its a lack of religion among those that don't
> fall for their lies in the first place...

Lunatics, madmen and bigots are everywhere in positions of power.  At least,
religion welcomes them and offer them a path to salvation.  If they follow it
or not is their problem and relates to their free will.

> Such people imply a state of
> blindness that only *starts* at blind faith, and merely progresses down
> hill from there.

funny thing is that I used to be a skeptic.  and my faith isn't blind at all,
it's just faith...

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Tim Cook wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> Well, would it be OK for me to say it's the work of Satan?
>>
>> Sure thing.  But Satan traditionally is an opposing force to 'God',
> 
> Only in *your* tradition. Loki, Bacchus, and Pan aren't opposing forces 
> to God. Well, maybe *your* God doesn't like them, but they aren't 
> opposing (as you mean it) to the other gods in their pantheon.

But Loki, Bacchus, and Pan aren't 'Satan'.  "Satan" is traditionally an 
opposing force to "God", though not all things referred to as "God" have 
an entity to oppose them which is called "Satan", and there are also 
entities known as gods which are assigned slightly less power than "God".

>> at the very least you've implicitly acknowledged *existence*.  XD
> 
> Nope. Only if the "God" you speak of is the God of the bible, at which 
> point you're not calling "what did what I don't understand" God. You're 
> afirmatively saying "because I don't understand something, the God of 
> the Bible exists and behaves the way described therein", which is 
> nonsensical.

Hrm...I dunno.  See previous paragraph by me.  I personally don't 
believe in the existence of a specific opposing entity known as Satan, 
merely that Satan is a metaphor/scapegoat to excuse the evil actions for 
which humans are individually and personally responsible.  To me, "God" 
is the sum total of reality which, when considered as a single thing, 
encompasses all consciousness and could embody more than what we 
currently think of as existing.  Basically, in containing all 
consciousness, the universe is itself conscious, though not necessarily 
in a way analogous to what we think of as conscious, and in some way 
that consciousness set up the laws of nature as they exist to allow for 
reality as we know it to occur.  I call that "God".  Does it have an 
active interest in human lives?  I have no way of knowing, but it is at 
least unnecessary whether or not does or not.

Is something that *does* have an active interest in human lives and 
can/does interact with them in any manner intentionally malevolent in 
the sense that we understand?  I think so, based on my personal 
experience.  Anything bad that happens is God's fault, as is anything 
good that might (theoretically) happen, since God *is* everything, and 
all activity is an integral part of God.

-- 
Tim Cook
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-empyrean

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Or are you telling me that starving babies in Africa isn't a bad thing?
> Cancer is really good in disguise? Lynching blacks is really *good* for
> them?

These are human tragedies.  Shit happens.

It's not good for the people involved, but to what extent?  To die as a baby or
to survive only to be enslaved, or abused, and to die of hunger or AIDS
eventually?  How can you say to live is better than to die?  Maybe God has
other plans for these people.  And regardless if you have any faith or not,
these tragedies always end up resulting in something positive in the end,
either making us rethink our way of life or being less egoistical.  It's
actually in such times that we see the best of people coming out and letting be
known.

> So the original bit still stands - either God *can't* stop the evil, or
> he *decides* not to stop the evil.

yin-yang.  One cannot exist without the other.  Evil serves the purpose of
showing the nature of Good by contrast.  Is Evil outside God's control?  Was
Evil created by God as everything else?  Or is Evil just a different God?

these questions are outside my reach.  It doesn't matter, because I chose the
side I'm comfortable the most.

Post a reply to this message

In article <web.475ecd91922777eb773c9a3e0@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> > When you proclaim a dogma, you tell peoples:
> > This IS The TRUTH! That Truth is absolute and immuable. Nobody can ques
tion The
> > Truth. If you don't agree with The Truth, you are an heretic, or just p
lain
> > wrong in the best of cases.
> 
> 
> indeed.  You just provided a clear case of the differences between religi
on and
> science.  Your point is?... Religion is not science? is anyone claiming
> otherwise?  Religion is bad because you are required to believe in invisi
ble
> beings dictating actions to "inspired" people who may just be schizoids
> wreaking havoc?  perhaps, specially when taken out of context...
> 
> Science does not replace God, it only shows His creation all the more
> interesting:  thunder is not some god hammering the clouds, just the resu
lt of
> God's laws governing the physical world.
> 
Science replaced religion all the time, you people just keep moving the 
goal posts and insisting that, "Well, even if we now know X, we don't 
know Y and God is hiding under Y."

And, just to be clear religion is bad because it derails discovery and 
promotes dogma, which, as has already been mentioned, **is not allowed** 
to be questioned. When the first versions of the Bible where published 
in English, it caused paranoia, fear and fundamentalism, since it 
demanded that everyone accept *all* of its contents as literally true, 
by its own definitions, and people where so scared of getting it wrong 
that they where willing to kill people to force them to follow it. 
Rather than providing greater understanding and freedom, never mind free 
will, it generated groups of lunatics, whose sole purpose was to deny 
understandings that didn't fit the Bible, wipe out people that refused 
to bow to the new order, and force people to become puppets to the 
religious dogma, rather than choosing their own path in life. We still 
get the same insane arguments from the fundies today. Now, with Islam we 
are seeing the same thing. Most of the Middle East was fairly 
illiterate. We, from the west, argued that greater freedom would come to 
them if they had real schools, better literacy, etc., but when they got 
that, some of them opted to read *their* holy book, and the result was 
the rise of the same fundamentalism, paranoia and mass murder that 
Christians committed in the early days of wide spread literacy and easy 
access to the Bible.

So, how again is religion, or more specifically those religions that 
deny exploration and understanding, in favor of absolute truths and 
dogma, *good*? Because, after thousands of people die for nothing, 
reformists come along and mostly defang the belief system?

BTW, good read on the subject:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SIMBUR.html

-- 
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    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models,
 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

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In article <web.475ed853922777eb773c9a3e0@news.povray.org>, 
nam### [at] gmailcom says...
> Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> > I have seen how people who see the world in clear black and white act.
> > They are called sociopaths. And just to be clear. I have never, nor has
> > anyone I know that ranges from mildly religious to atheist, *ever* rape
d
> > anyone, killed anyone, lied on the scale that self claimed believers do
,
> > or committed any of the other large scale sins that *you* are likely
> > talking about when saying that we live in an immoral world. However,
> > ***every*** person I have ever met that thinks the Bible is literal
> > truth, believes they are saved, or otherwise thinks I am the one going
> > to hell is invariably a hypocrite, lies constantly, would steal formula
> > from a starving baby if they thought God wanted them to, threatens to
> > kill people, has committed either rape, adultery, pedophilia, or all of
> > those together, and more than a few, attach themselves to other
> > *believers* like leeches, to suck money, time, and anything else they
> > can get their hands on, from the fools that stand there and defend them
> > for doing it.
> 
> man, cool down!  Not all believers are rapist, violent sociopaths, I cert
ainly
> am not.  Perhaps these cases search salvation exactly because of their
> behaviour?  OTOH, how many sociopaths are satanists or atheists?  How man
y
> sociopaths are in the army, supposedly defending their people?
> 
Ok, fair enough. Not all of them are. But my point is that, at least 
among those that consider the Bible unshakable and demand a 
fundamentalist/evangelical view of it, the number of insane nuts that 
are in the group is much higher than one would reasonably expect. As for 
how many sociopaths are atheist or satanists? Why the #$#@$ are you not 
asking how many Buddhists, or anything else are? But, just to humor you, 
1) Satanism is directly derived from Christianity, just with Satan cast 
as the true god, and your god cast as the evil one. They are just as 
deluded as believers, and just as prone to believe in the supernatural, 
magic, etc. You might as well be asking how many Lutherans are 
sociopaths when compared to Protestants, for all asking the question 
makes any damn sense at all. 2) 1-2% of the US is atheist, according to 
most polls. 0.01% of the people in jail are atheists, and most of them 
are not in there for violent crimes. 90% of the people in the US are 
Christians. Something like 98% of the people *in jail* are Christians. 
In other words, if there where an equal number of sociopaths in "all" 
religions, the number of people in jail, especially for things like rape 
and murder, should be the same as that of the over all population. 
Instead, everyone else is under represented, while Christians number 
greater than those that "should be" in there. This makes no sense at 
all.

Oh, and 3) it doesn't matter. If 1 out of every 10,000 thousand people 
where sociopaths, and you had 3 million people to pick from, then the 
mere fact that 27 out of the 30 sociopaths would have to fall in the 90% 
Christian category means that "most of them" are going to be members of 
your group, not mine. The fact that the statistics on jail indicate that 
its probably more like 29.7 out of every 30 that would be Christians, 
doesn't do your claims much good.

But what ever the exact number would be, which we don't have, because 
the vast majority of people flat out don't want to know, and thus have 
to admit there is a problem, its irrelevant. The clearer point is that 
believers claim that belief makes them better people, guides their 
morals, improves their ability to do right, instead of wrong, and 
***all*** evidence suggests that, much like prayer (referencing the 
studies done on that, which is also thought, by believers, to have great 
benefits), it actually either a) has no noticeable effect at all, or b) 
in some cases might actually make things worse.

> BTW, you're just plain exagerating matters.  You say "I have never, nor h
as
> anyone I know that ranges from mildly religious to atheist, *ever* raped
> anyone, killed anyone, lied on the scale that self claimed believers do" 
and I
> can say the same.  I haven't, nor anyone I know, even severely blind devo
tees
> who really believe the Universe was created in 6 days and evolution is a 
thing
> of the devil...
> 
> Atheists kill about as much as religious people:  see the comunist govern
ments,
> nazi-facists or imperialist potencies.  My take:  religous or not, we are
 just
> sinful men.
> 
Nazis where not atheist. They where Catholic. Their symbols where 
Christian, their views where Christian, their entire idea of the Aryan 
race was based on them being Gods chosen, etc. I wish you people would 
stop trying to revise history to claim otherwise. As for the others.. 
Replacing one dogma, based on the irrational, and often distorted, 
dogmas of some real person, isn't the same as atheism. These people 
might have been atheist in the sense that they rejected religion, but 
that says **jack** about anything else they did, and, more to the point, 
it didn't differ in any degree from religion, since it demanded 
absolutely adherence to an ideology, which could never be questioned.

Atheism has no central dogma, no strict tenants one *must* follow, etc. 
Communism did, as did Stalinism, Maoism, etc. It was the dogma that made 
them mass murders, not their rejection of your God. However, **your** 
dogma is part and parcel *of* your belief in that God, so its a whole 
lot harder to claim to, on one hand, reject the murder and violence that 
happens to support it, and claim that the belief itself remains somehow 
untouched. Well, at least without throwing out the dogma behind it, and 
reducing it to a belief that has no foundations at all.

> > And, the odd thing is, these people do this crap on national TV 24/7 on
> > some stations their scamming for the masses pay for, and no one blinks
> > and eye.
> 
> The catholic church and many modern evangelicals wearing suits have a lon
g
> tradition of usurping from their devottees until the last penny.  But sal
vation
> doesn't come from other men, just through the Word.
> 
It doesn't come from just the word either, since it has always been, and 
always will be, required to interpret that word, and the most popular 
means to that end is to follow fools wearing suits, who stand of street 
corners, denouncing each others beliefs, while proclaiming their own 
superior. All that you are doing here is placing yourself on a different 
street corner, and saying the same things they are. Hardly a more 
edifying or righteous position.

> > We don't have
> > saints, authority figures, kings, or people raised to some high,
> > unassailable position, from which they may not be challenged.
> > ... The only thing most of you are
> > likely to do is send letters of praise to the people that act like fool
s
> > in your system of beliefs, or ignore it, as inconsequential.
> 
> Rave supporting or ignoring someone is always to be expected in men's soc
ial
> behaviours.
> 
> > Such people are *obviously*
> > adding to the evil committed in the world, misleading people into
> > believing its acceptable to commit such acts,
> 
> it's not acceptable to commit sins, but we're all bound to commit it one 
way or
> the other and should seek forgiveness for it.  True religious people try 
their
> best to avoid repeating their mistakes.  but you know it's hard...
> 
Not true. First off, even the bloody church can't agree on what is and 
isn't a sin, with half the stuff we don't consider such today being 
things you could be burned for a few centuries ago. Worse, they claim 
the NT says X, base it on the OT, which says Y, and then ignore the fact 
that the *real* OT, from the Jewish faith, says Z. Case in point. 
Cursing and taking the lords name in vein where *very clearly* taken, in 
the original version, to mean asking god to curse someone, or cursing 
god for something you didn't like. The Protestants opted to reinterpret 
the meaning to include anything they personally found blasphemous, or 
mildly objectionable, and now, today, no one follows the original 
meaning, most people don't even follow the Biblical meaning, and its the 
Protestant version of, "Everything from using a word describing a body 
function we didn't like, to actually telling god to hurt your neighbor 
is a sin!" If you can't even get the definition of what is or isn't a 
sin right, never mind explain why it makes sense, at all, to call it 
such, how the heck do you either a) get it right, or b) avoid doing it, 
or c) ask forgiveness of the right things?

And bad language is only one of the more silly ones. There are numerous 
other "sins" on the list that are just plain absurd, and most of them 
are neither mentioned in the Bible, or derivable from it, but are based 
"solely" on definitions invented by the same suit wearing pharisee you 
insist are somehow irrelevant to the process.

> > I am willing to fight against
> > that, by exposing such acts. You... ignore them?
> 
> why don't you also expose sins by non-believers?  How many scientists hav
e been
> living in a fraud in their quest for fortune, fame and glory?  Yes, it's 
easier
> to hide them when you can simply say it's the way science works:  critici
se
> their work and try to bring them down, if it stands, it's a good, solid t
heory.
>  If not, let's forget.
> 
How many scientist are living for fortune, fame and glory? Frack, you 
really know nothing at all about science do you? Scientists are almost 
always universally underfunded, most of them, if they do become famous, 
only get derision and hate mail, and glory tends to universally go to 
war mongers and loud mouth fools, or sports stars, not people that 
deserve it. Maybe you are actually confusing NFL football with science? 
I means seriously, scientists may get paid slightly better than 
teachers, but they also have to beg, kiss ass and very nearly suck... 
well, they have to bend over backward to convince there colleges, the 
government and businesses to give them enough money to buy test tubes, 
never mind do any science. 99.9% of them will never be remembered, many 
of those that are remembered are remembered as fools, or being dead 
wrong about large parts of their theories (and that **includes** Darwin, 
who got more than half of what he proposed dead wrong), and die poor. 
The 0.1% that manage to avoid that are, more often than not, people that 
have sold themselves to some special interest, who don't give a #@$#@$ 
whether their science is sound or not, just that they have a science, 
with some big name, that backs them. And the rest of your comment is 
just bloody ridiculous. The entire scientific process is **predicated** 
on tearing the other guys work down, and showing its flawed, and 
determining if it works.

Mind you, you are probably talking about people like Dawkins. And yes, 
some of us have and do tear into even his stuff, when appropriate. But 
he has gotten famous, not for his science, but because he has *dared* to 
do what upsets people like you, and stood up for a position you refuse 
to acknowledge, don't like, think is wrong, etc. He isn't the first to 
do so either. He is simply the first one to do with when the vast 
majority of people around him (he is English) are open to his opinions. 
Had he tried it, as others did, 100 years ago, he would probably have 
been lynched. And your define of his success as intentionally trying to 
become rich, famous, etc., is about as stupid and meaningless as if I 
had accused Martin Luther of becoming a famous advocate of civil rights, 
not because he cared about it, and people where open to hearing it, but 
solely because he wanted to become a powerful and influential priest.

> > And somehow, the entire
> > problem is not too much religion in the hands of lunatics, madmen,
> > bigots and the immoral, its a lack of religion among those that don't
> > fall for their lies in the first place...
> 
> Lunatics, madmen and bigots are everywhere in positions of power.  At lea
st,
> religion welcomes them and offer them a path to salvation.  If they follo
w it
> or not is their problem and relates to their free will.
> 
It doesn't offer them a path to salvation. It gives them an easy way to 
manipulate the ignorant, a place to hide among those that will blindly 
protect and defend them, and a means to escape most of the legal 
problems that might arise from their actions, since, at least in the 
states, most of the crap they pull falls under, "How their church 
defines their own dogma and practices, which the government may not 
interfere with." The don't choose your salvation, because the reason 
they joined was not to look for it in the first place. They joined to 
take advantage of people that would follow them blindly, ignore or 
recuse their sins, help them commit immoral acts, when stated in the 
right context, and do so from the safety of an organization that won't 
accept that their leader is wrong, question his authority, nor can be 
sued/dissolved by any uncorrupted secular agency, for acting in what, 
even by their own supposed definitions, wasn't Christian behavior. After 
all, all they have to do to avoid the state stepping in the do anything 
about it is have their leader insist its *their* local interpretation of 
right and wrong, and that, since the state cannot question it, even if a 
blind and deaf autistic could tell they are lying through their teeth 
about it.

> > Such people imply a state of
> > blindness that only *starts* at blind faith, and merely progresses down
> > hill from there.
> 
> funny thing is that I used to be a skeptic.  and my faith isn't blind at 
all,
> it's just faith...
> 
What ever. And sorry, but in my experience, skeptics don't convert to 
believers, not unless they where never truly skeptics in the first 
place, and *wanted* on some level for it to be true to start with. And, 
as with every such, "I was once a nonbeliever/skeptic, but I saw the 
light!", you offer no believable explanation for the sudden change, 
offer a lot of ignorance about the history of what you claim to follow, 
show no interest, nor attempt to rationally consider any of your 
beliefs, and make statements about it that are about as blind as you can 
get, without poking your eyes, out. I believe your claim of skepticisms 
about as much as I do the existence of your god. I have seen nothing to 
suggest the former is any more real than the later.

-- 
void main () {

    if version = "Vista" {
      call slow_by_half();
      call DRM_everything();
    }
    call functional_code();
  }
  else
    call crash_windows();
}

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Patrick Elliott <sel### [at] rraznet> wrote:
> Science replaced religion all the time, you people just keep moving the
> goal posts and insisting that, "Well, even if we now know X, we don't
> know Y and God is hiding under Y."

God is not hiding under X or Y, it's everywhere for people with eyes to see and
ears to hear.

> And, just to be clear religion is bad because it derails discovery and
> promotes dogma, which, as has already been mentioned, **is not allowed**
> to be questioned.

Discovery and technological progress is made outside of religion, let religious
dogmas alone for believers.  It's not like one isn't allowed to question, just
that said questioning is moot, since it's a matter of faith.

> When the first versions of the Bible where published
> in English, it caused paranoia, fear and fundamentalism, since it
> demanded that everyone accept *all* of its contents as literally true,
> by its own definitions, and people where so scared of getting it wrong
> that they where willing to kill people to force them to follow it.

"God writes right by twisted lines."

You'd be more accurate, though, to say that many people have died as result of
fanatism of all kinds:  patriotic fanatism, political fanatism, racial
fanatism.    Why stop at religious fanatism?  Besides, the Crusades had mainly
economical motives, not religious.

It's well known how those in power corrupt weaker minds by any means they can
get.  This includes religion, of course.  It's a powerful thing because you can
make people willing to die for salvation to perform terrible acts.  So, yes, the
Catholic Church as an extension for Rome imperialism really committed several
acts that go against anything Christ ever taught.  This does not invalidate His
teachings and guidance, nor God's covenant with the Hebrews.  We're humans,
bound to sin and to misinterpret things due to our bias.

still, by blood, suffering and death has Christ made a new covenant for us with
God.  A similar fate awaited early for those while the religion spread like
wild fire.  you know, "no pain, no gain".

Wasn't it for the Roman Empire and their will to conquer, Christianity would not
be as widespread and many more people would never have heard of the Gospel and
the salvation... evil, it seems, is not without purpose.

Someone asked before what would make me lose my faith, or something.  Well, it'd
be to know for sure that Christ didn't exist; that he was a fraud invented by a
group of hellenic israelites to fit existing prophecies; that his marvelous
quotes and moral quidance are product of poetic and moral inspiration rather
than divine inspiration; that he didn't die for us since he never existed; that
the whole OT is just retro-writing and folk tales.  It all seem very likely and
even logical.  Certainly a sure-bet from the non-believer's point-of-view.

> http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/SIMBUR.html

nice, thanks.

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