Exactly man. Even the bible itself says this. Did you feed and cloth the homeless person who had no friends or hope? Were you there for your friends and family when they needed you in any way? Are the intentions for your fellow human being pure ? These things go back to one single thing, the human heart. I know so many fellow christians that know their bible back and forth as if they were some sort of christian mega-computer but I dont see them ever smile, I dont ever see compassion or empathy for others. Just have teh desire to wanna be there for others. This is a great first step. Some christians are so serious that they dont even laugh anymore. Stox as for my post, I was making a point. Most people got my point. There was no deceit about it. Everyone knows that you cant turn leaves into a life form, but it proved my point 100%.
Who's ever claimed it was possible? or are you reduced to wandering around in a daze making obvious statements these days?
The Bible is a tool like every other sacred book. If it brings you inner peace, you've used it correctly. Those who recite verses and beat their wives read the same book but why don't they seem Christ-like? It's all a matter of interpretation, what works for you apparently didn't work for the guy that beats his wife. There's nothing special about any religion in the sense that it's superior, but special in the way that it resonates while other religions may not. Just spokes on the wheel. Not that you in particular needed to know that, i think you're most comfortable with that thought. Just my opinion.
Whatever you look for you will find. Whatever you ask for you will get, maybe not in the way you thought but it will come! I do believe in A God but I think I control it, not the other way around. Evolution is the only thing that makes sense to me. Here's my tip - God is thought!
Aha, finally you agree with me that things cant happen out of random chance. Some kind of purposefull force has to be set in motion for events like this to happen. Universal laws dont come about by random chance, and the universe couldnt have come about by random chance. Everything in our universe has structure and order. Something had to set all of this in motion. Stox you rock, and thanks being totally unboased enough to admit to this, glad we can close this debate on this. Amen
Is everything you say these days based entirely on dishonesty? I asked you a question, have the dignity to answer it. Who has ever claimed that falling leaves could form a talking horse? If you think the mechanisms of evolution or physics suggest anything even remotely like this then your flaccid grasp of either disciplines is even more pitiful than i first thought. You may have to reconsider your "faith" if you need to fabricate these kinds of arguments to defend it; "aha, leaves can't make talking horses.... So god exists!" - i mean seriously, how do you expect to say this crap and not have people laugh at you?
Order does not arise from random chance. You can I was fabricating this and I never said that you said leaves can form a donkey but like I said you know fully well what I meant and this is why you are calling me dishonest, but inside you understand that my point is correct and that is why you are resorting to say im being dishonest. So dar I havent seen one person laugh at this point yet, besides you. Just remember structure arises from order and purpose, otherwise Atheists believe the universe can arise " puff" from thin air and magic. god bless BushRanger , you make a good point and I have long pondered about the quote " I think therefore I am" but that doesnt explain everything that happened before us and this is the one thing I couldnt explain to myself before, but I used to believe the soul could arise just from conscienceness but now I believe there has to be something more, maybe a catalyst.
Good point. But I think it's a separate argument. I don't think many people believe the moral teachings in the bible or most other religious scriptures are a bad thing. It's what it claims and what it tries to teach us about the world around us that is often proven to be false. It's a book of stories and lessons. I'd like to say it's not meant to be taken literally but that would be untrue, because the authors most certainly intended it to be. Either because they believed it themselves or because it was necessary for it to be believable in order for it to have the effect of control over it's followers that it has. What we need to understand now is that we shouldn't take it literally. The problem: If we do that the foundation of most religious beliefs crumble. And the people in power in said religions and the people who don't want to (or can't) come to that realization, can't allow that to happen.
George that is simply untrue and I have yet to find one atheist that can prove that the universe and its laws could have come about by random chance and its akin to me creating a cat or a dog by throwing leaves in the air. It just makes no sense at all and when given this fact most atheists will resort to getting emotional. No need for emotions in a debate. A fact is a fact and if something is correct why try to deny it? This one basic fact is hard to face because it flys in the face of everything they believe in and forces them to acknowledge that there is even a chance that god exists.
The Bible is a book of teachings of Jesus Christ. The teachings say people have free will weather you act on the teachings or not. The Bible is made up off 66 books which are brought into one big book. The bible preaches to respect and love people, its teachings only want to help people and try make the world a better place. I just think its amazing that the Bible is so old and still being used to this day!
Ahh you and your leaves I don't respond every time you post that because, well frankly, no matter how many times you post it and it is refuted I know you're still going to cling to it. Talk about emotions, you remember the first time you tried to get us all to believe in your leaf theory? You went ballistic to teh point there was just no reasoning with you. Every time you post about that it only solidifies my belief that you truly do not have a grasp of both what time really is and general high school level physics.... 100s of millions of years of trial and error is enough time for anything to be possible. A rational mind could see that. For a religious person you sure do love to think in absolutes (when it suits your purpose ). You need to really sit down and think, or at least try to fathom, just how long 100s of millions of years is. I know your mind has been crippled by blind faith (that's not an insult it's how I see it) but just try for a minute or 2. Imagine trying to do something over and over again 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Then imagine doing that every day for a year. Then think about doing that for an entire lifetime. Then think about how small your lifetime is when compared to just 10 thousand years. Compare that to a million years... and so on. Or think about doing any one thing just one million times. Now as for my high school physics comment. What I meant by that is that you're thinking on a singular path.... Leaves, and plant life in general, are on a completely different evolutionary path than mammals. So trying to compare them as an example is either being purposely intellectually dishonest or it speaks volumes about the lack of thought you've really put into this. I find it pleasantly ironic you went the "getting emotional route". Agnostics/Atheist arguments are actually based on facts or at least evidence they perceive as fact. Ask ANY religious person about past arguments they've had with atheists about religion and they will readily admit that for them it all comes back to faith. ie., not facts. But atheists ar ethe ones who resort to emotion when faced with facts eh? Classic.
Well, you can say that if you want,... but I pretty much think the reason why it is being use/read today is due to force and promotions, bribery and it is not so much because it is a "holy" bible/koran etc,.. When you were a child, you inherited a religion from your parents and for the most part, have no say on it...Force. People in an early centuries were force to convert or die. Religion is constantly promoted in you face like marketing. You can't help it to not notice it is all around us: Holidays, Schools, public, television, politics...everywhere! You are given gifts or emotional care or even a wife and get to be in their inner circles of friends and hoping you can be "saved" or convert into their religion, the more you can convert, the better your religion can defend itself from other religions or non-believers...When you don't convert you can be ostracize from the community or at times be threaten with your life. The convert or die methods. If you have a brain and most people do and able to use it with less fear and intimidation, you'll read the bible/koran and will find it to be nonsense in many ways, unless you are weak and in need to believe on some intelligent form, then that's fine, how far you go with it is another.
I have to disagree there. People make there own choices, if people follow what the bible says or "forced" into reading and following the bible well its not the Bibles fault? Its the person forcing it. You need to blame the people rather than the book.
As has been explained to you before, on countless occasions, there are natural, unguided mechanisms which can give rise to systems which we may perceive as ordered. Gravity and evolution are but two of these mechanisms. Just because you refuse to acknowledge that your facile points have been refuted doesn't mean no refutation has been provided, It simply means you are in the unfortunate position of having to cling on to nonsense that has been discredited, Shame that tactic comes at the expense of your integrity and intellectual honesty. The claim that gravity can produce spiral galaxies or that natural selection can produce new species in no way suggests that throwing leaves in the air will produce a talking horse. You seem to rely entirely on misrepresentation and your own weak grasp of science these days. That is what makes you dishonest.
I hope you're right because the suggestion that throwing leaves into the air could produce a talking horse would just be silly. It would be as silly as thinking that someone threw a staff on the ground that turned into a snake.
Just as i said order doesnt arise by random chance and chaos. No need to rehash a debate your were allready wrong about my good friend. We werent talking about turning a staff into a snake which if you had incredible intelligence and superior knowledge of chemistry im very sure that it could be done. Im talking about the universe arising with an order to it out of chaos. The more you talk about it the more people will see that it is just common sense. Everything around us suggests order , order , order. Just like the former champion of atheism the scientist Anthony Flew who regained his sensee and switched sides to become a deist. This guy who was debating against theologians all over the world is now giving atheists fits about his incredible conversion of common sense. Hats off to the Great Anthony Flew THE FORMER ATHEIST. Its an incredible story stox , you gotta check it out . http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/belief/scripts/antony_flew.html
20 years ago I read a fantastic book called 3 Magic Words authored by U.S. Anderson that explains God all so perfectly. It answered all of my questions and set me up for life. I gave my copy away back then to someone that needed it but recently bought it again. I'd call it the thinking man's bible.
That's the one thanks wwws. The book is a lot bigger with a much better explanation but that will give the main gist of it.