Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

4 extremes can mean North South East And West. As for who decides what is divinely inspired or not. The translators never said they were divinely inspired.

N,S,E,W are *directions* they aren't extremes, the only shape with 4 equal extremes, otherwise know as corners, is a square. This is the problem with your approach and religion in general, it doesn't make the least difference what the text actually says, you have to make it say what you want to hear. Surely it must occur to you when you distort almost every sentence in the bible that you've gone wrong somewhere? Or do you just have an infinite ability to fool yourself?

The original authors of the old testament probably didn't say they were divinely inspired either, in fact for the most part, no one even knows who they were. Even where there is a name there is no firm corroborated information as to who that person was. And if they did say they were inspired by God on what basis should we believe them? This is a massive hole in your argument (if you can dignify it with that name): You have on the face of it an old book that appears to be a collection of ancient myths of some minor middle Eastern nomadic tribe and you, against all the evidence, then jump to the totally unfounded conclusion that every word in it comes directly from some supernatural entity, for who's existence you have no evidence either. And it just so happens that, for the most part, all this corresponds with what you learned when you were a child (presumably in some bible bashing area of the States?). Is it any surprise to you that anyone with their head screwed on the right way round has their doubts?
 
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N,S,E,W are *directions* they aren't extremes, the only shape with 4 equal extremes, otherwise know as corners, is a square. This is the problem with your approach and religion in general, it doesn't make the least difference what the text actually says, you have to make it say what you want to hear. Surely it must occur to you when you distort almost every sentence in the bible that you've gone wrong somewhere? Or do you just have an infinite ability to fool yourself?

The original authors of the old testament probably didn't say they were divinely inspired either, in fact for the most part, no one even knows who they were. Even where there is a name there is no firm corroborated information as to who that person was. And if they did say they were inspired by God on what basis should we believe them? This is a massive hole in your argument (if you can dignify it with that name): You have on the face of it an old book that appears to be a collection of ancient myths of some minor middle Eastern nomadic tribe and you, against all the evidence, then jump to the totally unfounded conclusion that every word in it comes directly from some supernatural entity, for who's existence you have no evidence either. And it just so happens that, for the most part, all this corresponds with what you learned when you were a child (presumably in some bible bashing area of the States?). Is it any surprise to you that anyone with their head screwed on the right way round has their doubts?

You cant express extremes as NSEW? News to me.

As for who says the scriptures are divinely inspired, Paul in 2 timothy 3:16. As for why you should believe them, there is none. That is why it is a religion. But there is a clear divide between who was said to be divinely inspired and who wasnt (the translators of the bible).
 
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N,S,E,W are *directions* they aren't extremes, the only shape with 4 equal extremes, otherwise know as corners, is a square. This is the problem with your approach and religion in general, it doesn't make the least difference what the text actually says, you have to make it say what you want to hear. Surely it must occur to you when you distort almost every sentence in the bible that you've gone wrong somewhere? Or do you just have an infinite ability to fool yourself?

The original authors of the old testament probably didn't say they were divinely inspired either, in fact for the most part, no one even knows who they were. Even where there is a name there is no firm corroborated information as to who that person was. And if they did say they were inspired by God on what basis should we believe them? This is a massive hole in your argument (if you can dignify it with that name): You have on the face of it an old book that appears to be a collection of ancient myths of some minor middle Eastern nomadic tribe and you, against all the evidence, then jump to the totally unfounded conclusion that every word in it comes directly from some supernatural entity, for who's existence you have no evidence either. And it just so happens that, for the most part, all this corresponds with what you learned when you were a child (presumably in some bible bashing area of the States?). Is it any surprise to you that anyone with their head screwed on the right way round has their doubts?

I'd say you're motivated by emotional thought although you've presented your argument in a rather pretentious way (which is common with many non-believers). It's fine having doubts. It's not fine when you pretend to hold absolute knowledge which is where it becomes apparent that you're just like the fundamentalists you preach against.

Asides for there being archaeological evidence (and even genetic evidence in one instance) of events in the Bible there are the fulfilled prophecies to support the divine inspiration.

http://www.equip.org/articles/bibli...ence-to-support-the-historicity-of-the-bible/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/07/science/finding-genetic-traces-of-jewish-priesthood.html

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-archaeologist-evidence-cult-judah-king.html

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3557916?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103227160833

http://www.cojs.org/jh.php?id=assyrian&content=content/tiglath_pileser

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ev...t-flood-noahs-time-happened/story?id=17884533

http://www.reasons.org/articles/art...ecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible

"Those prophecies were written after the events occurred!"

Not according to the Dead Sea Scrolls which have been carbon dated.

But the fundamental part of Christianity is the existence of Jesus which has been proven.

http://www.ucg.org/youth/extrabiblical-evidence-jesus-christ/

"But that's a Christian site!"

Okay, here's one from a secular university:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/nonchristianaccounts.html

"You're biased!"

Not really. I'm a Christian arian deist. Also somewhat of a universalist although I believe (based on all the archaeological evidence) that Christianity holds the greater truths than any other religion. It's atheists who, therefore, are being the closed-minded ones as I've accepted the truths of all religions and denied the lies. The atheist encounters one lie in religion (mainly the Genesis story) and denies the majority of the truths because of that or they have an bad experience (i.e death of family member) and become influenced by that. Some eventually begin using science or rationality to reconcile with what is really an irrational belief. Bad experiences drove me to deism because I saw prayer did nothing but I was not foolish enough to denounce thousands of years of logical arguments and grounded philosophy to spite God. Deductive reasoning has made it clear that atheism isn't really a grounded world-view as it denies Cause and Effect and other logical arguments/laws/consistencies and bases itself on mathematical impossibilities requiring huge blind faith to believe in.
 
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I'd say you're motivated by emotional thought although you've presented your argument in a rather pretentious way (which is common with many non-believers). It's fine having doubts. It's not fine when you pretend to hold absolute knowledge which is where it becomes apparent that you're just like the fundamentalists you preach against.

Asides for there being archaeological evidence (and even genetic evidence in one instance) of events in the Bible there are the fulfilled prophecies to support the divine inspiration.

http://www.equip.org/articles/bibli...ence-to-support-the-historicity-of-the-bible/

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/01/07/science/finding-genetic-traces-of-jewish-priesthood.html

http://phys.org/news/2012-05-archaeologist-evidence-cult-judah-king.html

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3557916?uid=3738032&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103227160833

http://www.cojs.org/jh.php?id=assyrian&content=content/tiglath_pileser

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/ev...t-flood-noahs-time-happened/story?id=17884533

http://www.reasons.org/articles/art...ecy-evidence-for-the-reliability-of-the-bible

"Those prophecies were written after the events occurred!"

Not according to the Dead Sea Scrolls which have been carbon dated.

But the fundamental part of Christianity is the existence of Jesus which has been proven.

http://www.ucg.org/youth/extrabiblical-evidence-jesus-christ/

"But that's a Christian site!"

Okay, here's one from a secular university:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/jesus/nonchristianaccounts.html

"You're biased!"

Not really. I'm a Christian arian deist. Also somewhat of a universalist although I believe (based on all the archaeological evidence) that Christianity holds the greater truths than any other religion. It's atheists who, therefore, are being the closed-minded ones as I've accepted the truths of all religions and denied the lies. The atheist encounters one lie in religion (mainly the Genesis story) and denies the majority of the truths because of that or they have an bad experience (i.e death of family member) and become influenced by that. Some eventually begin using science or rationality to reconcile with what is really an irrational belief. Bad experiences drove me to deism because I saw prayer did nothing but I was not foolish enough to denounce thousands of years of logical arguments and grounded philosophy to spite God. Deductive reasoning has made it clear that atheism isn't really a grounded world-view as it denies Cause and Effect and other logical arguments/laws/consistencies and bases itself on mathematical impossibilities requiring huge blind faith to believe in.


Pretentious, Moi? Really it's astounding that you can accuse me of pretentiousness and then reel out a load of totally pretentious bullcrap such as that without batting an eye lash.

And don't give me that crap about believing on "archaeological evidence" that you've managed to dredge from the deepest recesses of internet weirdness. You believe because you haven't the gumption to accept the reality of your own unimportance with respect to the universe and your own impending demise; probably assisted, because you grew up surrounded by something akin to the particular fantasy that you now subscribe to.

I'm not a great fan of being dead either, it's outrageous! But unfortunately I don't have any great choice in how the universe actually is and it's going to happen whether I like it or not. Maybe I'll just get drunk or take some hallucinogenic drugs - that's at least a much more honest approach than fooling myself that I'm going to live with baby jesus for eternity.
 
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I was not foolish enough to denounce thousands of years of logical arguments and grounded philosophy to spite God. Deductive reasoning has made it clear that atheism isn't really a grounded world-view as it denies Cause and Effect and other logical arguments/laws/consistencies and bases itself on mathematical impossibilities requiring huge blind faith to believe in.

Atheism isn't a belief any more than afairyism is, it's just an observation that there isn't sufficient evidence to believe in deities. That at least is how most reasonable people look at it. No doubt, you are an atheist too with respect to all those other religions that you don't believe in. You just need to take it one step further and apply the same criteria to your own fantasies.

You can grind the gears of philosophy until hell (!?) freezes over, but eventually you get back to the obvious conclusion that the grass growing in the garden, that you can *see* out of the window is a lot more likely to have some basis in reality than stuff you can't see or detect, such as fairies, spaghetti monsters or an infinitely powerful deity that gives you brownie points for worship and deducts them when he catches you masturbating over internet porn.
 
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You can grind the gears of philosophy until hell (!?) freezes over, but eventually you get back to the obvious conclusion that the grass growing in the garden, that you can *see* out of the window is a lot more likely to have some basis in reality than stuff you can't see or detect, such as fairies, spaghetti monsters or an infinitely powerful deity that gives you brownie points for worship and deducts them when he catches you masturbating over internet porn.
So then, you don't believe in atoms, right? Just curious. I guess you're quite comfortable with the tried and true: fire, air, water, and earth. Or are you one of those loopy philosophical types that adds aether to the mix in spite of a complete lack of evidence?
 
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Never mind the fact that atoms aren't invisible but how does disbelief in invisible fairies precludes belief in invisible atoms? You are having a bad day dte?
 
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You might consider reading what I quoted, Z. You know, the part where he claimed sight as some sort of litmus test?
 
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LOL ok, he is having a bad day but he has also mentioned "detect":)
 
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LOL ok, he is having a bad day but he has also mentioned "detect":)
Personally, I find the blind certainty and condescending attitudes of both sides of this debate (more the broader argument than this specific thread) to be ridiculous and annoying, so since we're already wallowing in Loopy Land, allow me to throw some mineral spirits on the fire.

On its face, the following is completely asinine and I'm taking some liberties with the strict definition of "conspiracy". Give the underlying parallel a little thought, if you will, as the point is more about the foundation than the silly building I've put on it. How would you prove that either side is wrong?

"Those religious twits are working together, I tell ya. They peddle invisible fairies and silly stories and the only support they've got is 'cuz they say so'. After all, who wrote those books anyway? Convenient that you're the sole source of the only evidence you've got. I think it's really about money and prestige. Convince the sheep and they'll follow you anywhere."

"Those scientific twits are working together, I tell ya. They peddle invisible particles and silly theories and the only support they've got is 'cuz they say so'. After all, who built those machines anyway? Convenient that they're the sole source of the only evidence they've got. I think it's really about money and prestige. Convince the sheep and they'll follow you anywhere."
 
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Sight *is* some sort of litmus test, but that doesn't preclude other methods of detection as the context makes clear. First engage brain before posting.
OK, so did atoms suddenly come into being in the past hundred years? No, they existed all along and it only was a question of developing a way to *see* them. "There is nothing smaller than the atom". Oh, well maybe not.

OK, did invisible fairies suddenly come into being in the past hundred years? No, they existed all along and it only was a question of developing a way to *see* them. "There is nothing like 'God' out there." How sure are you, perfesser?

Engage brain before posting, indeed.
 
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OK, so did atoms suddenly come into being in the past hundred years? No, they existed all along and it only was a question of developing a way to *see* them. "There is nothing smaller than the atom". Oh, well maybe not.

OK, did invisible fairies suddenly come into being in the past hundred years? No, they existed all along and it only was a question of developing a way to *see* them. "There is nothing like 'God' out there." How sure are you, perfesser?

Engage brain before posting, indeed.


Personally I find your condescending attitude just mildly irritating:- Your contributions to this thread make little sense, are not clearly expressed and appear to be just nit picking.

The point that you don't seem to be able to get to grips with is that there is no such thing as absolute proof, there's just evidence. There are billions of ways the universe could possibly be, billions of possible gods, billions of possible fairies, unicorns and other phantasmal creatures that are logically conceivable. That's why we need evidence in order to narrow down those ideas we should take seriously, as possibly existing in the universe we are actually in.
 
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Personally, I find the blind certainty and condescending attitudes of both sides of this debate (more the broader argument than this specific thread) to be ridiculous and annoying

haha ... totally agree, amazed that it has carried on so long and remained relatively civil!

I find the whole 'Santa / Jesus is white' thing going on right now to be much more interesting and amusing. For a couple of reasons:
- The Jesus one because here is someone born in a region that basically ensures he won't look like a nice Ryan Gosling character. So what? Why do so many American Christians have a vested interest in him being white?
- As for Santa, there are SO MANY origin stories of the character that pinning down a particular appearance is mostly meaningless - I mean, sure Saint Nicholas from Greece / Turkey is where it all begins, but where it goes varies. But the modern 'Santa Claus' image is Coca Cola advertising product a nice kindly older white gentleman ... so who really cares ... ?
 
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It's just more evidence that the right and it's corporate controlled press is amazingly stupid. I find it very sad that such complete morons exist and are given airtime.
 
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