Simple proof that Jesus rose

[Iamme]

Here it is:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years. So there is the proof, based on the famous quote. Not that many people could be wrong. If it was so easy to discredit the resurrection there would be more people going, "Oh suuuuurrrre"! And then not go to church. People have been given some sort of an inner compass, an intuitive or instinctive-like intelligence, that tells them what is logical. So they logically concluded Jesus existed, died, and rose from the grave, as claimed. You don't find gullible people going to church for centuries believing say in a myth-God, like Zeus. Why not?, if Zeus and Jesus are BOTH myths?

Consider people are not going to church because there are free door prizes after church for going. Consider instead that an offering plate is passed around and they have to give up some of their money...so they can be duped? Think about that once.

So you'd better go to church tomorrow to join up with the smart people who know the truth.

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also. (The third thing always tempers the extremes.) Having a third hand always helps(we do not really need 4 either. It is 3 that is really all that is needed). We also have rock-paper-scissors which is fascinating in the sense that no one single entity is guaranteed to trump the other, when chance comes into play. The number 3 is the smallest number that establishes order: You could argue that two points can create order since the line drawn between the two dots can make a straight line. The thing is though, that 2 dots at random always ensure a straight line. With 3, it does not. But if 3 DO line up, right to the molecule, then it is amazing. We have 3 dimensions that define the geometry of our universe and all creation. Also consider that the number 3 represents the triune God; not 2, not 4...3. Three Blind mice. Three little kittens. Three bears. Three little pigs. The 3 crosses on calvary. We are the 3rd rock from the sun. Kids are brought up to ride a tricycle. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Three top highschool trumpters chosen to play an Easter service (I was one of the chosen 3).

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

[RecoveringYuppy]

And how do you explain Allah?

[Manopolus]

You submit a cliche as proof?

And it doesn't even apply. If I am included in "all" the people, and do not believe in Christianity, then is it not quite likely that I am the one not being fooled?

Umm... are you being sarcastic?

[plumjam]

Men have 2 hands and a mouth. But 70% of women only have 2 breasts. Was God watching reality TV that night?

[Twiler]

I celebrate Easter as a traditional holiday devoid of actual meanng. It's just a time for people to get together.

Also, the number of letters in the OP is 2848, not divisible by three. As such, it is internally inconsistent, and can be safely ignored.

[Iamme]

And how do you explain Allah?

Didn't he have something to do with a magic carpet ride?

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I'm sorry I-am-me but I continue to read your screen name as LAME. Same as your posts. :covereyes

[Brian-M]

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time."


Argumentum ad populum. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum)

You're misquoting Abraham Lincoln. What he actually said was...

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Is religion a case of fooling some of the people all of the time, or a case of fooling all of the people some of the time? I think it's a case of fooling most of the people most of the time.

[Iamme]

Also, the number of letters in the OP is 2848, not divisible by three. As such, is it internally inconsistent, and can be safely ignored.

Hmmm. Maybe I can fix that, and make it work out? Let's see, what is the cube root closest to 2848?

But you think that one little inconsistency somehow trips me up? ...while you ignore the fact that someone picked to have Three(not 4) Little Pigs for a reason? Heh...I forgot about the Three Stooges! Also that Dorothy picked up 3 other travelers on the way to OZ! You think all this stuff is just chance? It is ordained into some certain workings of universal law.

It is getting a little carried away though to think everything is associated with the number 3 in whole or parts. My house might not have shingles divisible by 3, either. So what?! But wait a minute!!! Heh, they picked to have 3 tabs on each shingle!

[shandyjan]

Being taught from being a small child is a case of trying to fool all of the people!

[RecoveringYuppy]

Hmmm. Maybe I can fix that, and make it work out? Let's see, what is the cube root closest to 2848?
Shortening it to the nearest cube root would go a long way towards fixing it.

[Iamme]

Argumentum ad populum. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum)

You're misquoting Abraham Lincoln. What he actually said was...

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Is religion a case of fooling some of the people all of the time, or a case of fooling all of the people some of the time? I think it's a case of fooling most of the people most of the time.

Nope. Because the "some of", in church, would become the "all of", since they are in church. Otherwise they would not have went if they thought it was fake. And since there are so many church goers, that be one heck of a group to be fooling. Right? (This can get confusing.)

[Iamme]

Shortening it to the nearest cube root would go a long way towards fixing it.
You mean like...my blather should have simply been 1 word long?

[Iamme]

I celebrate Easter as a traditional holiday devoid of actual meanng. It's just a time for people to get together.

Don't people though that get together for a meaningful Holiday, based on the reason that the Holiday came to exist in the first place, often say celebrate with ...drunkeness? While those celebrating the true meaning have more fun in a G-rated atmsophere, that includes the kids?

And if that is not true, just why are you so happy then, on some Holiday that deep down you KNOW has no real meaning?

[I Ratant]

You mean like...my blather should have simply been 1 word long?
.
Would have helped, and made you look less foolish, to even shorten that.

[Brian-M]

Nope. Because the "some of", in church, would become the "all of", since they are in church. Otherwise they would not have went if they thought it was fake. And since there are so many church goers, that be one heck of a group to be fooling. Right? (This can get confusing.)


You're assuming that all the people who attend believe it to be true. What about people who attend simply because of tradition, or because their loved ones are attending?

But even if only those who believed attended, this wouldn't mean the they're fooling "all of" the people, since those who aren't fooled choose not to attend. In the case where only those who are fooled choose attend, it only means they they're fooling "all of" the people who choose to attend. This is both a tautology and clearly not what is meant by fooling all the people.

[Lord Muck oGentry]

Here it is:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

I see your misquotation has already been corrected. But let's look at this bit:
Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years.

Well, yes. But rather a lot of people stay away sometimes, and some stay away all the time. Could it be that they — whisper it softly! — are the ones who are not being fooled?

Here's a tip about proofs. If there's anything worse than a proof that delivers less than you bargained for, it's a proof that delivers more than you bargained for.

[Iamme]

.
Would have helped, and made you look less foolish, to even shorten that.

I don't feel foolish. I feel proud. I feel like I know the truth, and have the light in me. Some very religious dead relatives looking down on me, I feel.

There have been a lot of coincidences in my life, that are surely given to me as a sign! Have you ever heard of your house showing up in some other cities paper, featured statewide, and that was your house(out of thousands and thousands of houses that could have been chosen?)?

Ever hit 4 deer at 45 mph and absolutely hit all 4, kill 2 outright and not get a mark on the car?

Ever have the IRS call you up and argue with you that you do NOT owe them money?

Ever pump gas for someone 1700 miles away, who used to pump YOUR gas 1700 miles the other direction?

Ever say to someone, "framigilleconostrafrum" and right when you are saying that someone on tv says that? (Not quite, but I have that sort of thing all the time - ).

Ever almost drowned and be saved by a long stick(when you did not how to swim and was wearing 25 pounds of wet clothes, and only about 8 years old) just moments before ready to float downstream under the ice to join other people who similarly died?

Ever be out in below 0 weather on a desolate stretch with no winter clothes on, at 2:30 am, and not a car in site, only to have a cop show up and take you home, outside his county?


Ever live somewhere where it just so happens that when you lived there, people famous were on tv in that state to entertain not just you, but the nation...but after you moved away, such fame disappeared?

Ever live somewhere to witness record rainfall of all time, just because you happened to live there? Or witness and probably be only person alive to photograph frozen ice columns bridging underside of beach house(on pilings) to the ground (about 8 foot columns), 300 yards off the southern Gulf coast of Texas?!

Ever have a possible prison escapee stay with you, on a remote island community who appeared in the night, and never caused you harm?

Ever have your car break down miles from home and you fortuatously are able to still get home, when maybe you should not have? (such as able to tie an engine back up because engine mount broke and engine falling down, or changing out alternator on interstate 1000 miles from home, or driving home while head gasket pouring coolant into engine?, or diagnosing and changing out malfunctioning fuel pump on side of road up north on a desolate stretch with elderly grandma in aunt and uncle's car, when I was not a master mechanic by no means at about 20 years old?)

Ever be out of money and that day there is an envelope in the mail containing money?

Or to have so many experiences occur, that all these things gave you the ability to conquer almost any problem? It goes on and on.

Including weird stories I get to entertain people with such as living in roach infestation, where there were so many, the live ones could crawl over the dead ones that completely filled up roach motels - fond memories of a time gone by. Ever watch some guy(nut) work on his car out in the apartment parking lot by rolling the car on it's side on a mattress because working on the transmission was easy that way? Or opening up a kitchen drawer and having a great big possom laying there looking up with you with a smirk, showing his great big choppers at you? Or being able to say Holy Mackerel, when a mackerel just jumped in the boat with you? Or wondering who stole your tool box and you get a call from a lady wanting something built, about 5 miles from where you live, and you go there to size up the job and find your tool box hiding under her house?

This is fun, I could on. A girl I just met, decided to strip right in front of me, right down to nothing(an all-time highlight). Or the old man who took off his pants in the middle of a road because thousands of fire ants were crawling up him. The young electrician who showed me how he could cut througjh pipe with a string. My finds of fossilized mastadon bones and seemingly one of a kind other oddities - even a petrified whole crab. How I lived where I could signal shrimp boats to my dock, then catch crab to round out my supper 1/2 block away. Living through a hurricane. Jumping off a building when I thought I was being dive-bombed by a crashing WW2 bomber plane(they were exhaust manifold smoking mosquitoes just above the tree tops, is what they were doing, later I found out!). Standing exactly where the photo was taken for Jimmy Buffets record album, in Key West. Shooting rattlesnakes from my front porch. Rebuilding one half a house roof and tearing it down so that half a roof was still sitting there, due to a tornado strike.

Oh well, I'd better call it quits.

The bottom line is something very unusual has been going on in my life. And I acknowledge that as being signs from above.

[RSLancastr]

Iamme, I believe that a large percentage - sometimes as much as 50% of the people attending a church are not there because they believe in the religion, but because their spouse does, and they are attending in hopes of having sex later that week. I have no proof of that, it is just an observation. And I have every bit as much proof of it as you have "that Jesus rose", apparently.

[not daSkeptic]

There have been a lot of coincidences in my life, that are surely given to me as a sign! ...

Why can these not simply be coincidences? Why must they be something more?

[Loss Leader]

You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)


You do realize that there are other religions in the world besides christianity, right? In fact, most people on earth are not christian. Most people on earth do not believe Jesus was god, or that he rose from the dead. By your own logic, that means it isn't true.

[mythstifieD]

"Simple" is an understatement. I can't believe YOU wrote this? I was thinking this was satire at first but then I see you defending it.. This has got to be one of the most ridiculous works of reasoning I've seen in quite awhile!


Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years. So there is the proof, based on the famous quote. Not that many people could be wrong. If it was so easy to discredit the resurrection there would be more people going, "Oh suuuuurrrre"! And then not go to church.

Actually, I went "Oh suuuuuurrre" and that's why I don't go to church. In another post above you mention that your "all" only includes people that go to church. That's ridiculous since you need to measure it against how many people hear the gospel (which is quite a lot, your missionaries tend to go everywhere, right?) and yet don't go to church.

People have been given some sort of an inner compass, an intuitive or instinctive-like intelligence, that tells them what is logical. So they logically concluded Jesus existed, died, and rose from the grave, as claimed. You don't find gullible people going to church for centuries believing say in a myth-God, like Zeus. Why not?, if Zeus and Jesus are BOTH myths?

The Zeus myth was prevalant for CENTURIES, with no Jesus in sight. The God Jesus apparently embodies was hanging out in a small strip of land for hundreds of years. And before he hung out there, he seemed "fine" letting other cultures have their "pagan" gods.

Consider people are not going to church because there are free door prizes after church for going. Consider instead that an offering plate is passed around and they have to give up some of their money...so they can be duped? Think about that once.

I don't know if it's being duped. There are some preachers that say you're supposed to give up 10% of your earnings and it will be rewarded 10fold in heaven. However, i think most give to the plate because they think the church will give back to the community. For the most part they do, TV-Evangelism aside, of course.

So you'd better go to church tomorrow to join up with the smart people who know the truth.

Sorry, if they're as smart as you I think I'll stay home :) J/k

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also. (The third thing always tempers the extremes.) Having a third hand always helps(we do not really need 4 either. It is 3 that is really all that is needed). We also have rock-paper-scissors which is fascinating in the sense that no one single entity is guaranteed to trump the other, when chance comes into play. The number 3 is the smallest number that establishes order: You could argue that two points can create order since the line drawn between the two dots can make a straight line. The thing is though, that 2 dots at random always ensure a straight line. With 3, it does not. But if 3 DO line up, right to the molecule, then it is amazing. We have 3 dimensions that define the geometry of our universe and all creation. Also consider that the number 3 represents the triune God; not 2, not 4...3. Three Blind mice. Three little kittens. Three bears. Three little pigs. The 3 crosses on calvary. We are the 3rd rock from the sun. Kids are brought up to ride a tricycle. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Three top highschool trumpters chosen to play an Easter service (I was one of the chosen 3).

Ok this is where you go RIGHT OFF THE DEEP END. You're actually saying that because some author decided upon 3 Little Pigs therefore the Trinity is real? This is confirmation bias to a ridiculous extreme. The hindu's have a trinity too, btw, they have 3 main gods: The Creator/The Sustainer/The Destroyer. I guess that means it's true right, because it's 3? The Jews and Muslims have only a One-ity, so I guess that automatically rules them out (based on your adhoc defining of God). Look up basic psychology to find out why the number 3 is so attractive to our feeble minds.

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

I got that happy feeling the last time I saw my favorite band. Music has a strange yet amazing psychological hold on you. If the lyrics are about something you strongly believe in as well, all the better. This has nothing to do with proving any "holy ghost".

...I can't believe I even wasted time dignifying this with a response lol

[John Jones]

Coincidences with delusions of reference.

[TimCallahan]

Here it is: . . . .

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also. (The third thing always tempers the extremes.) Having a third hand always helps(we do not really need 4 either. It is 3 that is really all that is needed). We also have rock-paper-scissors which is fascinating in the sense that no one single entity is guaranteed to trump the other, when chance comes into play. The number 3 is the smallest number that establishes order: You could argue that two points can create order since the line drawn between the two dots can make a straight line. The thing is though, that 2 dots at random always ensure a straight line. With 3, it does not. But if 3 DO line up, right to the molecule, then it is amazing. We have 3 dimensions that define the geometry of our universe and all creation. Also consider that the number 3 represents the triune God; not 2, not 4...3. Three Blind mice. Three little kittens. Three bears. Three little pigs. The 3 crosses on calvary. We are the 3rd rock from the sun. Kids are brought up to ride a tricycle. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Three top highschool trumpters chosen to play an Easter service (I was one of the chosen 3).

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

Okay, so because there are a lot of things that come in threes, this means Christ actually rose from the dead? Perhaps I'm missing some steps in your chain of logic.

[mythstifieD]

I don't feel foolish. I feel proud. I feel like I know the truth, and have the light in me. Some very religious dead relatives looking down on me, I feel..

You do realize that the idea of the dead being in Heaven right now is actually a greek/pagan idea, right? According to Paul, the resurrection is to come and the dead will then be judged and heaven will be granted in "new bodies".

[mythstifieD]

Ever almost drowned and be saved by a long stick(when you did not how to swim and was wearing 25 pounds of wet clothes, and only about 8 years old) just moments before ready to float downstream under the ice to join other people who similarly died?

Two people are both lost in the desert (but not together). Their water is running low and they need a miracle. They both pray to God to save them. The first man is promptly rescued by a traveling caravan and he shouts "Hallelejah! God is real! I will tell my story to millions!". The other man doesn't have such luck, and never lives to tell the world how God did not answer his prayer.

Also, ask yourself why two armies in trenches are both praying to the same God to protect them, and testify that God is real because that one bullet whizzed by his head and didn't kill him. Ridiculous.

Furthermore, where was God for the other people who "similarly died"? He seems pretty selective in his miracles, eh?

[I Am The Scum]

Little late on April Fool's, but good job nonetheless.

[jadey]

As advertised, that was indeed a simple proof. I really did think that this was a belated April Fools joke at first, but apparently it is serious. I believe the post was started on April 3rd ... that's right, 3 ... so there's some additional proof that Jesus rose.

[PbFoot]

Wow, what a steaming pile of logical fallacies.

I urge you to google "logical fallacies", Iamme.

The only thing I got out of all that is: "People who believe in a god were fooled."

-PbFoot

[Brian-M]

There have been a lot of coincidences in my life, that are surely given to me as a sign!

Why would God send you coincidences as a sign, instead of a clear unambiguous message? Why would God waste time producing minor coincidences to benefit you, while letting millions of people starve or sicken unnecessarily?

Given the billions of people on the planet, it's a mathematical certainty that a disproportionately large number of coincidences will happen to some people. The fact that it happens is not proof of any religious or supernatural belief.

Have you ever heard of your house showing up in some other cities paper, featured statewide, and that was your house(out of thousands and thousands of houses that could have been chosen?)?

No. So what?

Ever hit 4 deer at 45 mph and absolutely hit all 4, kill 2 outright and not get a mark on the car?

No wild deer in this country. (Kangaroos are more of a problem.) Aren't some cars designed to be able to hit an animal without taking much damage? Either way, so what?

Ever have the IRS call you up and argue with you that you do NOT owe them money?

So what? The IRS is a bureaucracy, they need to get the figures right. I don't see how this is a coincidence.

Ever live somewhere to witness record rainfall of all time, just because you happened to live there?

Wouldn't everyone who lived there also have witnessed that? Thousands, possibly millions of people? It would be a bigger coincidence if you didn't live there, and just happened to be visiting for the first and only time.

I won't respond to all of these things, it it seems to me half these things aren't even coincidences, just entertaining anecdotes. Fixing a car yourself, for example. Where's the coincidence? Success was achieved by your own efforts and ingenuity, not by coincidence.

The bottom line is something very unusual has been going on in my life. And I acknowledge that as being signs from above.

Even if we were to accept them as signs, how would you get from bizarre things happening in your life to the Christian faith being the correct one? Where's the valid chain of reasoning?

[Minarvia]

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

I DO know. I used to do it. And now I'm happier to be out of all of that.

As a matter of fact, I'm going to have a very nice day tomorrow and not care what day it is. It will be special because I will be with my loved ones. I will be happy. And I certainly do not need a church for that.

Please rethink your view that atheists are not and cannot be happy without a god or gods or any sort. It is simply not an issue for us. Or at least not for me.

[dio]

Nice stories Iamme!

Good thing too that before taking care of your tax return and your mechanical problems God solved the big ones, like children dying of cancer, because otherwise he would have looked like a prick.

[mythstifieD]

Wow, what a steaming pile of logical fallacies.

I urge you to google "logical fallacies", Iamme.

The only thing I got out of all that is: "People who believe in a god were fooled."

-PbFoot

Here, let me help (http://utminers.utep.edu/omwilliamson/engl1311/fallacies.htm).

[mythstifieD]

Ironically, Iamme's list of coincidences sound like very attractive "door prizes". Maybe I'll got to church after all!

...now, to decide which one.. Catholic? Southern Baptist? Reform? Evangelical? Mormon? Jehovah's Witness? .....you can see where this is going :)

[I Ratant]

I don't feel foolish. I feel proud. I feel like I know the truth, and have the light in me. Some very religious dead relatives looking down on me, I feel.

There have been a lot of coincidences in my life,
<snip for sanity>
The bottom line is something very unusual has been going on in my life. And I acknowledge that as being signs from above.
.
You, among all the people on the planet, have been truly blessed.
You, among all the people on the planet that have been murdered and will be murdered by suicide bombers worshiping the Almighty have been selected to have these incredibly trivial coincidences by the Almighty, while he lets all those people die in pain and agony.
What are you going to do to earn that status, Private Ryan?

[fromdownunder]

Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years. So there is the proof, based on the famous quote. Not that many people could be wrong.

You do realise that 67% of the people on this mudball are not even Christian, don't you? Thems some pretty scary numbers for your argument.


The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance.

What has the number 3 got to do with anything? If you are thinking of Jesus being buried three days and three nights, then arising from the dead - do the Math.

If you are referring to him rising on the third day, again do the math, cause it just aint so (you will also need to know when the Jewish day started and finished for this one).

You will discover that at best (if the synoptics are correct, and if the event described even happened) he spent no more than one and a half days "dead and buried" and with the Jewish days, he arose before dawn on the second day, not the third.

Norm

[MattusMaximus]

The bottom line is something very unusual has been going on in my life. And I acknowledge that as being signs from above.

So how is any of that "proof" of Jesus rising from the dead as opposed to revelations from the Flying Spaghetti Monster? That is, assuming it's all true and accurately recalled.

[Staropeace]

So just because people go to church on Easter and stuff like that....it is proof of Jesus rising from the dead?
I hope you arent a research chemist or anything.

[Minarvia]

So just because people go to church on Easter and stuff like that....it is proof of Jesus rising from the dead?
I hope you arent a research chemist or anything.

Or a doctor or a nurse. (((((SHUDDER)))))

[Ferguson]

Your coincidences aren't proof of anything. Often I say something at the same time the TV does, or a friend calls is talking, and says a word the exact moment I read the word on JREF, sometimes very obscure ideas/words, so what? It's a coincidence. Once I got on a plane going Shanghai to Detroit, and in the seat NEXT TO ME was a friend I hadn't seen in years and last I knew moved to Colorado. So what? Plenty of times I've been down to my last 40 cents and gotten a check in the mail that saved me. So what? I had my car break down in the snow and a police officer gave me a ride. That's not proof of God, that's proof of police.
What these "coincidences" ignore is the thousands of days things like that don't happen. It would be more bizarre is strange coincidences never happened.

There's nothing worse than pulling over to help dig someone out of the snow, and after spending two hours of my day helping someone, instead of a simple "Thank you!" they "thank God" for "sending me." :rolleyes:

It's like Bill Maher said, if I want rain and it starts raining, I don't think it's a miracle, I think it started raining because it sometimes rains.

[Darth Rotor]

Simple proof that Jesus rose
Actually, he might have traversed uphill to Heaven on a long series of ethereal switchbacks ...

[mythstifieD]

That's not proof of God, that's proof of police.

<applauds> that's great! hahaha

[Ron_Tomkins]

Here it is:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

Food for thought: Did you know that a long time ago, most of the people thought that the Earth was flat? (And the ones who didn't, well.... they didn't even know where the hell were they standing)

Sorry, your "simple proof" has a lot of simple and zero of proof.


(PS: You're not fooling us, that's for sure)

[Hokulele]

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)


Why do they install lightning rods on church steeples?

Something to think about.

[blobru]

Okay, so because there are a lot of things that come in threes, this means Christ actually rose from the dead? Perhaps I'm missing some steps in your chain of logic.


And it is because of the seven dwarfs... that all must die.

[TimCallahan]

Okay, here it is - the simple proof that Jesus rose:

1) According to 1 Cor. 11:24 Jesus said of the bread, "This is my body . . ."

2) According to the Gospel of John, the Last Supper was not a Passover meal. Therefore, the bread had yeast in it.

3) So Jesus is the bread; the bread in question had yeast in it: Therefore the bread - and Jesus - rose. Q.E.D.

[MattusMaximus]

(PS: You're not fooling us, that's for sure)

Personally, I think Iamme is fooling him/herself, but that's about all.

[MattusMaximus]

Why do they install lightning rods on church steeples?

Something to think about.

For that matter, why do pretty much all churches have smoke detectors? I also assume they come with some kind of first aid kits as well?

[kuroyume0161]

For that matter, why do pretty much all churches have smoke detectors? I also assume they come with some kind of first aid kits as well?

Why do some churches have 'Exit' signs? Shouldn't they read 'Exists'? ;)

[JimBrown257]

Wow, I'm really suprised that not everyone realized that the OP was a parody of religious gulibility and confimation bias.

[kuroyume0161]

Since basically every detraction for your Lame argument has been made, I'd just say that despite lots of people 'believing' the story, there is no evidence that it even happened besides some anonymous writers many years after the fact saying that someone else saw it. Wow! That's irrefutable there - in the same way as me saying that my cousin Larry knows a guy who heard a story about an alien visitation happening to some friend about some person they know. Do you see how stupid that sounds? Welcome to how we view these stories.

[Filip Sandor]

I will be completely honest with you, I truly envy those people who go to church and find peace in the arms of their God and love within their religious community. However, I also do not believe there is anything special about the Christian religion in comparrison to a positive attitude and high moral standards among members of any community.

Religion seems to close that gap between our most basic understandings of life and all that surrounds us and the all encompassing wonder that is those very same things. I am not merely referring to the complex nature of life. I am referring to something far more subtle and not so complex in essense. The simple feeling of life and being alive is something amazing in itself. Waking up on a Spring morning when you can smell and feel the first shifts of the new season edging into the present. Such feelings cannot be quantified or measured by any means at all, they are quite in many instances subjective. How do you communicate such a feeling for example to someone who never experienced such a thing? Yet at the same time, I will admit that there is something genuinely 'religious' about such feelings to me - something very romantic. I can try to to describe this to you by making referrences to other deeply felt emotions you might have had in your life and draw some kind of comparrison.

Then we can both get into a debate about what this feeling might be...

We might even see if others can attain such feelings and to our delight find that we are not alone. We may go so far as to form a group who 'believes' that this feeling represents something real and tangible, something more than just ideas and words. We could even give it a name. My point here is that even though I am speaking of 'just a feeling' it can represent much more than that. I believe this is similar to religion - because religion also seeks to explain something that is difficult to put into words, yet evokes powerful feelings in us. That's why it's so often riddled with mysteries and contradictions and why it may require more faith than perception for some people to accept! Still, I am envious of Christians. Christianity seems to me a safe, easy to accept religion based on good moral values. By safe I mean, well established and therefore, easy to fit into as a member, since it fits in so well with society, as you pointed out. When I say it is easy to accpet, I do not mean the technical or historical aspects of the bible, but the general message of virtue and goodness that it carries and the feeling of comfort and strength it provides for so many. While this is in no way confirming what you stated as "proof" of the Christian religion, it does point to some possible explinations of why so many people agree with the bible over the idea that the meaning of life really can't be explained in words and that perhaps this lack of explination logically means that it's just a technical processes with no substantial or 'spiritual' value.

[kuroyume0161]

I will be completely honest with you, I truly envy those people who go to church and find peace in the arms of their God and love within their religious community. However, I also do not believe there is anything special about the Christian religion in comparrison to a positive attitude and high moral standards among members of any community.

Religion seems to close that gap between our most basic understandings of life and all that surrounds us and the all encompassing wonder that is those very same things. I am not merely referring to the complex nature of life. I am referring to something far more subtle and not so complex in essense. The simple feeling of life and being alive is something amazing in itself. Waking up on a Spring morning when you can smell and feel the first shifts of the new season edging into the present. Such feelings cannot be quantified or measured by any means at all, they are quite in many instances subjective. How do you communicate such a feeling for example to someone who never experienced such a thing? Yet at the same time, I will admit that there is something genuinely 'religious' about such feelings to me - something very romantic. I can try to to describe this to you by making referrences to other deeply felt emotions you might have had in your life and draw some kind of comparrison.

Then we can both get into a debate about what this feeling might be...

We might even see if others can attain such feelings and to our delight find that we are not alone. We may go so far as to form a group who 'believes' that this feeling represents something real and tangible, something more than just ideas and words. We could even give it a name. My point here is that even though I am speaking of 'just a feeling' it can represent much more than that. I believe this is similar to religion - because religion also seeks to explain something that is difficult to put into words, yet evokes powerful feelings in us. That's why it's so often riddled with mysteries and contradictions and why it may require more faith than perception for some people to accept! Still, I am envious of Christians. Christianity seems to me a safe, easy to accept religion based on good moral values. By safe I mean, well established and therefore, easy to fit into as a member, since it fits in so well with society, as you pointed out. When I say it is easy to accpet, I do not mean the technical or historical aspects of the bible, but the general message of virtue and goodness that it carries and the feeling of comfort and strength it provides for so many. While this is in no way confirming what you stated as "proof" of the Christian religion, it does point to some possible explinations of why so many people agree with the bible over the idea that the meaning of life really can't be explained in words and that perhaps this lack of explination logically means that it's just a technical processes with no substantial or 'spiritual' value.

I take it that you didn't read the original manuscript (the N.T.). Read carefully, the case Jesus makes is more of an Essene/Cynic lifestyle. That is, you are to eschew possessions, family, wealth, friends, etc. and go on the road to convert people to do the same. His church was not an institution but a living, breathing movement (akin to the Grecian Cynics that preceded) wherein followers would live a somewhat harsh but hippy lifestyle of hating society, government, institutions, organized religion, ownership, and life in general (since there was a better one after death, ya see). Take the early history of the religion for example. What happened? The devout christians were very willing to accept everyone equally (including women! - for Paul's sake), were very secretive and ostracized, but were also very reticent to revoke their faith which typically led to martyrdom and genocidal massacres of christians in those very early times.

My point is that what you are talking about isn't christianity (!!!). It is Roman values imparted over whatever christianity was previously and then shaped by history. Yeah, community was part of early christianity but not in the parochial sense that it attained as the state religion of Rome and then the institutional religion of Europe (and so on). Let's also not forget that with this came the celibacy of priesthood, lowering of status of women in society, demonization of Jews (for an interpolation to save face of Rome), Grand Inquisitions, crusades, and so on.

The warm-fuzzy, cozy bonding of people within the religion isn't something that comes from christianity itself. It is just a communal thing - a common point of reference for people within a certain distance of each other. It is probably no different for Buddhists, Shintoists, Muslims, Hebrews, or any other religion with long tradition, history, and establishment.

No, I'm not buying it.

[dafydd]

Here it is:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years. So there is the proof, based on the famous quote. Not that many people could be wrong. If it was so easy to discredit the resurrection there would be more people going, "Oh suuuuurrrre"! And then not go to church. People have been given some sort of an inner compass, an intuitive or instinctive-like intelligence, that tells them what is logical. So they logically concluded Jesus existed, died, and rose from the grave, as claimed. You don't find gullible people going to church for centuries believing say in a myth-God, like Zeus. Why not?, if Zeus and Jesus are BOTH myths?

Consider people are not going to church because there are free door prizes after church for going. Consider instead that an offering plate is passed around and they have to give up some of their money...so they can be duped? Think about that once.

So you'd better go to church tomorrow to join up with the smart people who know the truth.

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also. (The third thing always tempers the extremes.) Having a third hand always helps(we do not really need 4 either. It is 3 that is really all that is needed). We also have rock-paper-scissors which is fascinating in the sense that no one single entity is guaranteed to trump the other, when chance comes into play. The number 3 is the smallest number that establishes order: You could argue that two points can create order since the line drawn between the two dots can make a straight line. The thing is though, that 2 dots at random always ensure a straight line. With 3, it does not. But if 3 DO line up, right to the molecule, then it is amazing. We have 3 dimensions that define the geometry of our universe and all creation. Also consider that the number 3 represents the triune God; not 2, not 4...3. Three Blind mice. Three little kittens. Three bears. Three little pigs. The 3 crosses on calvary. We are the 3rd rock from the sun. Kids are brought up to ride a tricycle. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Three top highschool trumpters chosen to play an Easter service (I was one of the chosen 3).

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

I do know what I am missing,my parents made me go to church,and stultifyingly boring it was too.A minority of the population of Europe will be in church today,so your argument does not hold water.

[Lord Emsworth]

You do not know what you are missing.

Is that so?

[Moss]

Since when does a belief in something make that belief true?

[jadey]

Religion seems to close that gap between our most basic understandings of life and all that surrounds us and the all encompassing wonder that is those very same things.

Replace "close that gap" with "drive a wedge", and I'm on board with you.

Still, I am envious of Christians. Christianity seems to me a safe, easy to accept religion based on good moral values. By safe I mean, well established and therefore, easy to fit into as a member, since it fits in so well with society, as you pointed out. When I say it is easy to accpet, I do not mean the technical or historical aspects of the bible, but the general message of virtue and goodness that it carries and the feeling of comfort and strength it provides for so many..

The Abrahamic religions basically teach that human nature is inherently sinful and that one should be "moral" out of fear of eternal punishment. I was brought up Catholic, and am envious of anybody who was not taught such nonsense.

[Legend]

This "simple proof" is a little too simple for me.

Alex.

[PbFoot]

Wow, I'm really suprised that not everyone realized that the OP was a parody of religious gulibility and confimation bias.


You might be right, but you should see some of the posts the JREF gets from fundies. At least this one does not use colored text, is not in all caps, and is mostly spelled correctly. However, those are it's only redeeming qualities.

-PbFoot

[Beerina]

Argumentum ad populum. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum)

You're misquoting Abraham Lincoln. What he actually said was...

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Is religion a case of fooling some of the people all of the time, or a case of fooling all of the people some of the time? I think it's a case of fooling most of the people most of the time.

With a not inconsequential social pressure on top of it, to say nothing of it achieving legal force in many places, and most of human history.


Iamme, even if we accepted your argument as possibly valid, as in the West it's voluntary, and has been for some time, how would you address the suggestion that it hasn't been long enough for it to fade away under voluntary adherence? What you see could merely be vestiges, if large, of that dictatorial past. It is fading in both Europe and the US.

[Beerina]

By the way, sociologists in Europe have noted that The State has adopted many of the things religion does: poor, sick, hospitals, orphanages, you name it. And all this is corresponding to the dropping in the rates of following formal religion.

These were things people looked up to religion for, and happily participated with it for. Now they look fondly on the State. Meme theory works a lot better to explain this transference. They are ideas (groups, in this case) whose net effect is to adapt and spread by inducing you to do activities that aid their spread.

[Red3]

The only reason people go to church is because they are scared of death. That's the only thing church attendance proves - that people have problems facing their own mortality/the unknown. Religion is a comforting facade on an unpallatable and terrifying truth. A bit like John Wayne Gacy in a clown costume.

[JFrankA]

No, the OP is right. He has risen and there is proof of Him rising.

In fact, He has risen just yesterday. I saw an advertisement about Him....

....Huh? The OP was talking about Jesus? Jesus?

I was talking about Dr. Who! And it's Dr. Who's eleventh time!

Hell, Jesus only did it once and NOT ON TELEVISION.










...:D

[Tumblehome]

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also.

Ah, but what's between hot and warm, and cold and warm? The gaps in the faucet record invalidate your theory. :cool:

[John Jones]

Ah, but what's between hot and warm, and cold and warm? The gaps in the faucet record invalidate your theory. :cool:

Excellent.

[bpesta22]

People appear happy when on crack too; at least initially, til reality sets in.

[I Ratant]

...

There's nothing worse than pulling over to help dig someone out of the snow, and after spending two hours of my day helping someone, instead of a simple "Thank you!" they "thank God" for "sending me." :rolleyes:

....
.
I helped a temporarily disabled young lady to her car at the Mall.
I received a "You are a God-send" from her.
I got to cop a feel!
We both won!

[Tatyana]

Wow, I'm really suprised that not everyone realized that the OP was a parody of religious gulibility and confimation bias.

I concur, this has got to be some sort of joke.

[Brian-M]

Wow, I'm really suprised that not everyone realized that the OP was a parody of religious gulibility and confimation bias.


I didn't read the whole of the OP before responding. Looking back on it now, all that stuff about the number 3 does seem well over the top. On the other hand, you often get people spouting over-the-top gibberish in complete seriousness. Take http://www.timecube.com for example. That guy's 100% serious.

Simple Cube Divinity is the most perfectand life supporting form existing in the universe and on Earth - including Earth itself. Do you realize that a 4 corner square rotating 1/4 turn creates a full circle? A full rotated square will create 16 corners, 96 hours and 4 simultaneous 24 hour Day circles within only a single imaginary cubed Earth roation. This amounts to a spiraling quad helix of Earth as it revolves around the Sun - rotating as it revolves around the Sun, to induce the value of the Sun revolving about the Earth. This act demonstrates that both Sun and Earth rotate around each other simultaneously - thus creating Opposites existing only as Opposites with a zero value existence between the binary and cancelling to nothing as One or God theism. All Creation occurs between Opposites, and exists only as Opposites - with a zero value existence. As One or as a Godism, all Opposite values cancel out to nothing. The Circle you see around Earth divides Earth into Opposite values equal to a zero existence. As One or God, both Earth and Human cancel to nothing. The whole of the Universe is composed of Opposites - with a zero value existence - that camcels to nothing as One or a God. Humans worship ONEness of DEATH, thus they are destroying the LIFE of all Opposites by which all Creation exists.

[And so on]

[Ysidro]

Wow, I'm really suprised that not everyone realized that the OP was a parody of religious gulibility and confimation bias.

This is Iamme we're talking about. I have only a small amount of doubt he is completely serious.

[Hokulele]

I concur, this has got to be some sort of joke.


Nope, go read some of his other OPs. They range from the ridiculous to the ridiculous.

[blobru]

...Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)


Direct from YouTube: we really don't know what we're missing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox3QFq3vGJY):

Ox3QFq3vGJY
darn xtians have all the bloody fun
:monmad:

[Mister Agenda]

Are you guys sure this isn't a parody? Iamme's tongue seems to be firmly in-cheek from where I sit.

[Mashuna]

Are you guys sure this isn't a parody? Iamme's tongue seems to be firmly in-cheek from where I sit.

If Iamme is merely acting as a crazed fundamentalist for comedy purposes, he's managed to keep the act going for the last seven years. You've got to admire committment like that.

[sgtbaker]

Here it is:

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

Since soooo many people around the world go to Sunday church services for years, and still more have gone to Easter services though the years. So there is the proof, based on the famous quote. Not that many people could be wrong.



The Flat Earth model is a view that the Earth's shape is a flat plane or disk.

...This view remained long dominant in ancient thought until the realization first recorded around the 4th century BC in Classical Greece that the Earth is spherical. [1][2][3][4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth

A lot of people were wrong about that. But if that's your case, what say you about the increasing number of atheists?

Consider people are not going to church because there are free door prizes after church for going. Consider instead that an offering plate is passed around and they have to give up some of their money...so they can be duped? Think about that once.

So you'd better go to church tomorrow to join up with the smart people who know the truth.

What an amazing point! Jesus rose and the proof is that people believe it.

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life.

...and three is also significant in Taoism, Wiccanism, Hindu, and Bhuddism. Is it possible that they all believed in the significance of the number because of the importance the Pythagoreans placed on it? Then again, Judaism is predates Pythagoras, so perhaps the significance of the number just proves that Christ was not the savior.

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)

*my bold* I always thought they were happy because Easter is a bit longer of a cerimony and they are just thankful it's over so they can resume gossiping about other members of the congregation.

Really, though? The way I see it; While other people are sitting in uncomfortable chairs, listening to awful music, reinforcing a false belief, and donating to their pastor's $80k car; I am sleeping in, spending the day with my kids at the beach or some place fun. We do an Easter Egg hunt because we do worship the Easter Bunny. Then again, I don't generally need Easter to be pleasant and get together with people that I care about.

[KingMerv00]

You don't find gullible people going to church for centuries believing say in a myth-God, like Zeus.

Uh...people did EXACTLY that.

The oldest known Greek myths go back to Homer circa the 8th century BC. The Olympians were picked up and renamed by the Romans who worshipped them hundreds of years more.

Edit: I suppose there is a chance Iamme is joking but he's put up too many goofball posts for me to be sure.

[Miss_Kitt]

He likes himself, he's IAMME
He likes himself, unconditionally!...

[John Jones]

Isn't this a Poe's Law confirmation?

[Manopolus]

Isn't this a Poe's Law confirmation?

Definitely. I even had to look up Poe's Law on Wiki to know what you are talking about and I can see it quite clearly (not all that experienced with forums, actually).

[Filip Sandor]

I take it that you didn't read the original manuscript (the N.T.). Read carefully, the case Jesus makes is more of an Essene/Cynic lifestyle. That is, you are to eschew possessions, family, wealth, friends, etc. and go on the road to convert people to do the same. His church was not an institution but a living, breathing movement (akin to the Grecian Cynics that preceded) wherein followers would live a somewhat harsh but hippy lifestyle of hating society, government, institutions, organized religion, ownership, and life in general (since there was a better one after death, ya see). Take the early history of the religion for example. What happened? The devout christians were very willing to accept everyone equally (including women! - for Paul's sake), were very secretive and ostracized, but were also very reticent to revoke their faith which typically led to martyrdom and genocidal massacres of christians in those very early times.

My point is that what you are talking about isn't christianity (!!!). It is Roman values imparted over whatever christianity was previously and then shaped by history. Yeah, community was part of early christianity but not in the parochial sense that it attained as the state religion of Rome and then the institutional religion of Europe (and so on). Let's also not forget that with this came the celibacy of priesthood, lowering of status of women in society, demonization of Jews (for an interpolation to save face of Rome), Grand Inquisitions, crusades, and so on.

I assure you in fact you probably know WAY more than me about the history of this religion, since I have never studied it in any depth myself. Still, taking into consideration that today's "Christianity" is nothing like the Christianity of "before" it still appeals to me in as much as it provides a 'safe haven' for like-minded people to feel secure and comfy. I'm not saying it's realistic, it just looks nice.

The warm-fuzzy, cozy bonding of people within the religion isn't something that comes from christianity itself. It is just a communal thing - a common point of reference for people within a certain distance of each other. It is probably no different for Buddhists, Shintoists, Muslims, Hebrews, or any other religion with long tradition, history, and establishment.

No, I'm not buying it.

Maybe it's a bit harsh to say this, but your interpretation here seems to point to the same idea, that perhaps it really is purely a technical process and nothing more. Like all ideologies, it is rooted in a belief system and a behavioural model that agrees with the belief system which in turn comprises as sort of 'reality'. Not necessarily a real reality, of course, but not necessarily false either.

[Filip Sandor]

Replace "close that gap" with "drive a wedge", and I'm on board with you.

I meant for the believers Jadey. I didn't actually mention whether I was a believer or not, but if you get the jist of my post and look at the ending you shouldn't have much trouble discerning whether I am a Christian or not.

The Abrahamic religions basically teach that human nature is inherently sinful and that one should be "moral" out of fear of eternal punishment. I was brought up Catholic, and am envious of anybody who was not taught such nonsense.

I was brought up catholic too. I had to listen to the same thing. Then one day after I was in confession I confessed to my mom that I was confused by why the 'father' kept asking me what I was doing with my hands? I had no idea what he was talking about, I tried to answer him.. did I hit my friend beside me? No matter what I said he said "no" that I was doing "something else" and asked me again what I was doing. I never knew what he meant, but my mom figured it out and pulled me out of the church immediately. Hmm.. just what did he want me to tell him about what I was doing with my hands... I wonder. My hands were in my lap, I suppose I was nervous in the confession booth and I was twiddling my fingers a bit.

I guess the "father" was hoping for something naughty that he could forgive me for....

[Iamme]

Why do they install lightning rods on church steeples?

Something to think about.

Oh, you got me there! Ha. Well, we have doctors too. I guess we should not need them either, if God exsits, as he should be able to just cure people who pray. Ever consider that God may have created something like man, to be his instruments, in which to do works and communicate?

You think, or get hung on some erroneous fallicy that God is some giant powerful manlike-being up in the heavens? He, actually IT, is way beyond that. Uncomprehendably beyond something that mythologically simple.

Yesterday I spent time here just reading posts. I was on another religious thread here where you sent the young OP running, with his tail between his legs, when you brought up biology and evoltution. You will not win me in the same way.

The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy. Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods? Maybe we aren't quite there yet as to the complete definition that would satisfy most of us. But won't you admit we are getting closer and closer to that definition, with time? Isn't it conceivable that say since we know that certain animal life can live hundreds of years, and a tree can live 6500 years and still be going, that it is conceivable, by theory, that we could discover our own fountain of youth? Wouldn't that then elevate us to God status, considering the fact we can already create things by jumbling around chemical combinations? Admit this and say yes to what I say so far, so we can move on.

Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

If you are willing to believe that, then since we are just a simple spec in the Universe, why is it so hard to at least consider that something far superior to us, that has been around longer than us (billions of years even - to our hundreds of thousands of years), was and/or is already here before us, and has created far more than we could ever imagine or hope to?

If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever...then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

You ain't going to win me with the evolution argument, as I will simply say so what? So there IS evolution? What does THAT prove? What/who invented evolution to work properly? Ha. You lose! God made all things work - including evolution. It is a tool of his work. It acannot happen with no direction. Why not? Because WE are near God-like, and can't make things just happen, without direction. That's why. We KNOW things take leadership and direction. The God-force is that leader/director. They can't even make a good fake movie without a director, let alone things that are produced. Even simple meetings need someone to be in charge of order?

I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.

I am David, the beloved. I have had too may weird things occur to me in my life and am blessed, and was put here for a reason. (Unlike your perceived unplanned existance.) I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial). I brought a hamster back to life. I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect. I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line! I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.) And all these things cannot possibly be made known to just-out-of-college smarty-pantses, that THINK they know everything, based on taught known facts alone. It takes years of living, and an open mind to all possibilities, to comprehend, and to see the broad picture.

[Darth Rotor]

Men have 2 hands and a mouth. But 70% of women only have 2 breasts. Was God watching reality TV that night?

What do the other 30% have: three, one, or none? :jaw-dropp

DR

[Darth Rotor]

I'm sorry I-am-me but I continue to read your screen name as LAME. Same as your posts. :covereyes

That could be pronounced lamme (Lamme), sounds like lamb, which fits nicely into this Easter thread, what with the Lamb of God, Lamb Chops, Mary's Lamb ...

:cool:

[Darth Rotor]

Iamme, I believe that a large percentage - sometimes as much as 50% of the people attending a church are not there because they believe in the religion, but because their spouse does, and they are attending in hopes of having sex later that week. I have no proof of that, it is just an observation. And I have every bit as much proof of it as you have "that Jesus rose", apparently.
My wife never pulled such a stunt: no sex if you don't go to church. I am skeptical of the assertion that any, or many, wives do such things.

DR

[Darth Rotor]

The only reason people go to church is because they are scared of death.
Wrong. That isn't why I go. You generalize much?

[Fishstick]

Oh hey blind watchmaker already? This thread is going places!*



*78+ pages of creationist drivel that's been debunked multiple times

Also your nickname means "lame" in dutch. I thought it fitting.

[Helen]

I brought a hamster back to life.
Yes, that did it. I am now converted. A resurrected hamster is surely proof that you are here for a reason! Not the noblest of causes, the resurrection of hamsters, possibly, but we can't all be crusaders against evil. Someone has to take care of the humble hamsters as well.

[sgtbaker]

Yesterday I spent time here just reading posts. I was on another religious thread here where you sent the young OP running, with his tail between his legs, when you brought up biology and evoltution. You will not win me in the same way.


With science and logic?

The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy

That about sums it up.

Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

The problem is, your belief in god is derived from a text that claims to be dictated by a perfect being. When facts do not line up (Adam and Eve, age of the Earth, order of what came first), what is a deep thinker to conclude; the facts are wrong, side with the claim?

What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods? Maybe we aren't quite there yet as to the complete definition that would satisfy most of us. But won't you admit we are getting closer and closer to that definition, with time?

No, it seems over time, the definition shifts to suite the society. It went from a bloody, vengful, jealous god (OT) to an all loving hippy(after Jesus), to dark an forceful (the dark ages), back to hippy again (the modern god).

Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

A slight oversimplification of evolution.

If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever....

This shows a complete lack of understanding of evolution.

then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

In the absense of a deity, there is no supreme director. Unicellular, brainless organisms, did not just sit around and contemplate what they are supposed to be doing.

We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

The irreducible complexity argument has been debunked by adaptation and evolution. The eye, for example, has been shown to evolve from a simpler patch of receptor cells. We scoff at the anology because you can put a watch in a petri dish and stare at it for a million years. We can fire atoms at it, we can apply heat, bacteria, do any test we want to it; it will still be a watch. Put living cells in a petri dish and guess what, they will react to changes in the environment. Next?

[I Ratant]

That could be pronounced lamme (Lamme), sounds like lamb, which fits nicely into this Easter thread, what with the Lamb of God, Lamb Chops, Mary's Lamb ...

:cool:
.
I see it as "I am me", but pronounce it "naive".

[Belz...]

Simple proof that Jesus rose

This should be good.

"You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all the people all of the time.

Yeah, I thought it'd be a childish nonsense like this.

Yes, everybody can be wrong about the same thing, simultaneously.

Or are you claiming that ALL muslims and ALL buddhists are wrong, too ?

If it was so easy to discredit the resurrection there would be more people going, "Oh suuuuurrrre"!

Now, you're assuming that people use logic and reason in their beliefs. You are a glaring example that it isn't so.

People have been given some sort of an inner compass, an intuitive or instinctive-like intelligence, that tells them what is logical. So they logically concluded Jesus existed, died, and rose from the grave, as claimed.

And yet Muslims have not concluded this. Is their compass broken ?

A much more likely explanation is that Christianity is not being taught to Muslims, and that they, like Christians, do not use logic and reason in their beliefs.

So you'd better go to church tomorrow to join up with the smart people who know the truth.

Conviction does not equal knowledge.

The number 3 also is a very special number, and was not chosen by chance. The number 3 works out well for everything we can describe in life. We have not only hot and cold, but warm also. (The third thing always tempers the extremes.) Having a third hand always helps(we do not really need 4 either. It is 3 that is really all that is needed). We also have rock-paper-scissors which is fascinating in the sense that no one single entity is guaranteed to trump the other, when chance comes into play. The number 3 is the smallest number that establishes order: You could argue that two points can create order since the line drawn between the two dots can make a straight line. The thing is though, that 2 dots at random always ensure a straight line. With 3, it does not. But if 3 DO line up, right to the molecule, then it is amazing. We have 3 dimensions that define the geometry of our universe and all creation. Also consider that the number 3 represents the triune God; not 2, not 4...3. Three Blind mice. Three little kittens. Three bears. Three little pigs. The 3 crosses on calvary. We are the 3rd rock from the sun. Kids are brought up to ride a tricycle. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny. Three top highschool trumpters chosen to play an Easter service (I was one of the chosen 3).

Four Musketeers. Fantastic Four. Four corners to a square. See where this is going ? Pick any number, and you can draw a much larger list than the one you gave.

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter?

Ever see how happy atheists are when they meet friends and family ? You'd swear this is the same for everyone, and that has nothing to do with belief.

You, are usual, are wrong.

[Belz...]

I don't feel foolish. I feel proud.

Another piece of evidence that emotion doesn't tell you much about reality.

[SonOfLaertes]

Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

If you are willing to believe that, then since we are just a simple spec in the Universe, why is it so hard to at least consider that something far superior to us, that has been around longer than us (billions of years even - to our hundreds of thousands of years), was and/or is already here before us, and has created far more than we could ever imagine or hope to?.

It is not hard to imagine hyper evolved alien beings with powers that we would consider God-like. However, these would be natural beings, not supernatural beings, and as such there would be no reason to worship or deify these powers. Even if they somehow had a hand in directing natural processes to produce conditions conducive to producing life forms such as Man.

Thanks for putting together an argument which helps prove that God is likely a natural manifestation of evolutionary pressures over countless ages. I think most of the churches that you are so fond of would be horrified if you suggested that God is not that special after all, just an incredibly old alien race.


If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever...then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

So, Iamme, answer this question, or admit that all of your blather above is meaningless - if "Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly" than who/what was in direction of how the God you worship was assembled? By your own argument, something had to assemble your God. And why don't you worship the assembler of your God, rather than it's poor stepson?

Try to answer this question honestly, and if you can't then you may finally understand why we "scoff at your analogy" above.


I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.

Not if you don't actually engage us by answering all of the questions we are going to throw at you in a straightforward manner.

Prediction: you will not.


I am David, the beloved. I have had too may weird things occur to me in my life and am blessed, and was put here for a reason. (Unlike your perceived unplanned existance.) I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial). I brought a hamster back to life. I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect. I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line! I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.) And all these things cannot possibly be made known to just-out-of-college smarty-pantses, that THINK they know everything, based on taught known facts alone. It takes years of living, and an open mind to all possibilities, to comprehend, and to see the broad picture.

Here's a question to the other participants on this thread - would it be worthwhile to start a thread where people can relate incredible coincidence that has occurred in their lives just to show Iamme that everybody experiences the same phenomenon? I can think of a few in my own personal experience just sitting here. A search pops up some threads on coincidence but nothing recent, or likely to be read by Iamme.

[Loss Leader]

I will simply say so what? So there IS evolution? What does THAT prove? What/who invented evolution to work properly? Ha. You lose! God made all things work - including evolution.


What/who invented God? Where did God come from? Something as complex as God could not have just sprung into existence. God had to be developed from blueprints. What/who made those blueprints? Ha! You lose!


I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial).


Last night on Lost, Desmond took an electric shock to the brain that turned him into half prophet of God/half guacamole. Is that sort of like you?

[Mister Agenda]

Oh, you got me there! Ha. Well, we have doctors too. I guess we should not need them either, if God exsits, as he should be able to just cure people who pray. Ever consider that God may have created something like man, to be his instruments, in which to do works and communicate?

A God that does things without leaving fingerprints is indistinguishable from a God who does nothing or doesn't exist.

You think, or get hung on some erroneous fallicy that God is some giant powerful manlike-being up in the heavens? He, actually IT, is way beyond that. Uncomprehendably beyond something that mythologically simple.

How do you know so much about God?

Yesterday I spent time here just reading posts. I was on another religious thread here where you sent the young OP running, with his tail between his legs, when you brought up biology and evoltution. You will not win me in the same way.

It's hard to reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into in the first place.

The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy. Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

There's no material evidence for the existence of any God, so one would need to rely on a method that doesn't require evidence in order to believe it exists.

What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods? Maybe we aren't quite there yet as to the complete definition that would satisfy most of us. But won't you admit we are getting closer and closer to that definition, with time? Isn't it conceivable that say since we know that certain animal life can live hundreds of years, and a tree can live 6500 years and still be going, that it is conceivable, by theory, that we could discover our own fountain of youth? Wouldn't that then elevate us to God status, considering the fact we can already create things by jumbling around chemical combinations? Admit this and say yes to what I say so far, so we can move on.

I suppose if we became effectively immortal we would fit most definitions of small 'g' gods, unless it became the standard, since gods are superhuman by definition, and y'know, if everyone is superhuman then no one is.

Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

Our environment, including other organisms, IS an outside source. That's what natural selection means.

If you are willing to believe that, then since we are just a simple spec in the Universe, why is it so hard to at least consider that something far superior to us, that has been around longer than us (billions of years even - to our hundreds of thousands of years), was and/or is already here before us, and has created far more than we could ever imagine or hope to?

It's not hard to consider. Most of us have, at one point or another. There's no substantive evidence that such a being actually exists. It's speculative fiction.

If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever...then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

Unless something is in a state of maximum disorder, order will be found within it. Every complex thing we know of shows signs of being rooted in less complex things, even the things we make ourselves. Evolution IS the evolution of our blueprints, ordered by...whatever works.

We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

The capacity to spontaneously order into more complex structures IS a property of certain chemicals that is not shared by the components of watches. Again, the direction comes through the environment, via natural selection. The particular stupidity of this argument is that it tries to use a property that distinguishes it from a blade of grass (looking manufactured) to reach the conclusion that it is like the blade of grass (that the grass is also 'manufactured')

You ain't going to win me with the evolution argument, as I will simply say so what? So there IS evolution? What does THAT prove? What/who invented evolution to work properly? Ha. You lose! God made all things work - including evolution. It is a tool of his work. It acannot happen with no direction. Why not? Because WE are near God-like, and can't make things just happen, without direction. That's why. We KNOW things take leadership and direction. The God-force is that leader/director. They can't even make a good fake movie without a director, let alone things that are produced. Even simple meetings need someone to be in charge of order?

Can't argue with 'so what?'. Sure, evolution isn't a problem for some definitions of God. So when you bring it up, it is just a red herring, irrelevant to your position. Care to make any claims about the God you DO believe in?

I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.

I rate it as more likely that Harry Potter is a real wizard than that you will convince anyone here of your religion using your current tactics.

I am David, the beloved. I have had too may weird things occur to me in my life and am blessed, and was put here for a reason. (Unlike your perceived unplanned existance.) I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial). I brought a hamster back to life. I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect. I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line! I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.) And all these things cannot possibly be made known to just-out-of-college smarty-pantses, that THINK they know everything, based on taught known facts alone. It takes years of living, and an open mind to all possibilities, to comprehend, and to see the broad picture.

Sounds like a lot of random crap has happened to you.

I recently had an experience at another board with a poster who admitted he is really an atheist, and he kept up the act for quite some time, prolificly. Fundamentalists don't need any help sounding silly, and it's just bad form. My apologies if you're sincere, but how can we take the argument from 'I'm good at fixing things' seriously? If you really mean what you're saying, it should tell you something that I honestly can't tell what you're writing from a prank.

[I Ratant]

Here's a question to the other participants on this thread - would it be worthwhile to start a thread where people can relate incredible coincidence that has occurred in their lives just to show Iamme that everybody experiences the same phenomenon? I can think of a few in my own personal experience just sitting here. A search pops up some threads on coincidence but nothing recent, or likely to be read by Iamme.
.
Got one.
Was making a trip back east on my Honda Super Hawk motorcycle.
It had a large full fairing on it, with a vary large windshield.
At a gas station in Arizona, I broke off most of the windshield when the bike started to fall over.
All I had with me to do anything like a repair was some 3/4" electricians tape, which didn't do much good when I tried it.
Pulled into a rest area on Route 66 there, and was pondering what to do, when another vehicle pulled in and....
and...
and...
he was a -------- DUCT TAPE--- salesman!
Had a trunk full of the stuff!
A little creative duct tapery and off I went for another thousand miles, no problem.
Riding across New Mexico listening to rain pattering off a plastic roof... my helmet... :)
Good times.

[wolfgirl]

And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it?How is this worse than saying "just because we can't explain it, that proves god did it?" As we explain more and more things, gods have less and less of a place in those explanations. Before we understood thunder, we thought gods made that noise. Once we figured it out, poof, no more need for a god to explain it. And that keeps happening.I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.I wouldn't hold my breath on that. Not with the weakness of your arguments.

"Lots of people believe it, therefore it must be true." Really? That's really your proof? The mind reels...

[tsig]

I don't feel foolish. I feel proud. I feel like I know the truth, and have the light in me. Some very religious dead relatives looking down on me, I feel.

There have been a lot of coincidences in my life, that are surely given to me as a sign! Have you ever heard of your house showing up in some other cities paper, featured statewide, and that was your house(out of thousands and thousands of houses that could have been chosen?)?

Ever hit 4 deer at 45 mph and absolutely hit all 4, kill 2 outright and not get a mark on the car?

Ever have the IRS call you up and argue with you that you do NOT owe them money?

Ever pump gas for someone 1700 miles away, who used to pump YOUR gas 1700 miles the other direction?

Ever say to someone, "framigilleconostrafrum" and right when you are saying that someone on tv says that? (Not quite, but I have that sort of thing all the time - ).

Ever almost drowned and be saved by a long stick(when you did not how to swim and was wearing 25 pounds of wet clothes, and only about 8 years old) just moments before ready to float downstream under the ice to join other people who similarly died?

Ever be out in below 0 weather on a desolate stretch with no winter clothes on, at 2:30 am, and not a car in site, only to have a cop show up and take you home, outside his county?


Ever live somewhere where it just so happens that when you lived there, people famous were on tv in that state to entertain not just you, but the nation...but after you moved away, such fame disappeared?

Ever live somewhere to witness record rainfall of all time, just because you happened to live there? Or witness and probably be only person alive to photograph frozen ice columns bridging underside of beach house(on pilings) to the ground (about 8 foot columns), 300 yards off the southern Gulf coast of Texas?!

Ever have a possible prison escapee stay with you, on a remote island community who appeared in the night, and never caused you harm?

Ever have your car break down miles from home and you fortuatously are able to still get home, when maybe you should not have? (such as able to tie an engine back up because engine mount broke and engine falling down, or changing out alternator on interstate 1000 miles from home, or driving home while head gasket pouring coolant into engine?, or diagnosing and changing out malfunctioning fuel pump on side of road up north on a desolate stretch with elderly grandma in aunt and uncle's car, when I was not a master mechanic by no means at about 20 years old?)

Ever be out of money and that day there is an envelope in the mail containing money?

Or to have so many experiences occur, that all these things gave you the ability to conquer almost any problem? It goes on and on.

Including weird stories I get to entertain people with such as living in roach infestation, where there were so many, the live ones could crawl over the dead ones that completely filled up roach motels - fond memories of a time gone by. Ever watch some guy(nut) work on his car out in the apartment parking lot by rolling the car on it's side on a mattress because working on the transmission was easy that way? Or opening up a kitchen drawer and having a great big possom laying there looking up with you with a smirk, showing his great big choppers at you? Or being able to say Holy Mackerel, when a mackerel just jumped in the boat with you? Or wondering who stole your tool box and you get a call from a lady wanting something built, about 5 miles from where you live, and you go there to size up the job and find your tool box hiding under her house?

This is fun, I could on. A girl I just met, decided to strip right in front of me, right down to nothing(an all-time highlight). Or the old man who took off his pants in the middle of a road because thousands of fire ants were crawling up him. The young electrician who showed me how he could cut througjh pipe with a string. My finds of fossilized mastadon bones and seemingly one of a kind other oddities - even a petrified whole crab. How I lived where I could signal shrimp boats to my dock, then catch crab to round out my supper 1/2 block away. Living through a hurricane. Jumping off a building when I thought I was being dive-bombed by a crashing WW2 bomber plane(they were exhaust manifold smoking mosquitoes just above the tree tops, is what they were doing, later I found out!). Standing exactly where the photo was taken for Jimmy Buffets record album, in Key West. Shooting rattlesnakes from my front porch. Rebuilding one half a house roof and tearing it down so that half a roof was still sitting there, due to a tornado strike.

Oh well, I'd better call it quits.

The bottom line is something very unusual has been going on in my life. And I acknowledge that as being signs from above.

Sounds like your life is a lot more exiting than heaven where all the dead relatives have to do is look at you.

[wolfgirl]

Something to think about for the atheist, while other people are happy and putting on their nice Easter clothes and socializing with people of like mind: Ever see how happy people appear when they are standing outside after church, especially on Easter? Ever hear a church pipe organ blast out that song, ... "Christ is risen, Hallelujah!"... as the church choir does a processional down the aisle, with the congregation joining in? You do not know what you are missing. (I wonder if they have that on YouTube?)I spent Easter morning sleeping in and then having pancakes with my husband while wearing shorts and a t-shirt, then I did needlepoint all day and watched some programs we'd recorded all week, and then we each had a Cadbury Creme Egg (our only nod to the holiday). It was a really nice day. We enjoyed it immensely. Very happy, I would say. And yet, no god, no church, no fancy clothes. Can I use that as "proof" that you're wrong, that there is no god, because I'm very happy when I'm NOT at church and would be very unhappy if I had to go to church?

[Fishstick]

Atheists having fun during Eostre/Pasche/Whatever name you want to give it: PROOF OF CHRIST
Replace easter with christmas/yule/winter solstice

Repeat for every holiday thread.

ETA: Why don't threads like this pop up for non-christian holidays, i wonder**



**No I don't.

[Praktik]

I attended Easter Mass in a Catholic church on sunday - and I believe its all a fake..;)

[tsig]

Oh, you got me there! Ha. Well, we have doctors too. I guess we should not need them either, if God exsits, as he should be able to just cure people who pray. Ever consider that God may have created something like man, to be his instruments, in which to do works and communicate?

You think, or get hung on some erroneous fallicy that God is some giant powerful manlike-being up in the heavens? He, actually IT, is way beyond that. Uncomprehendably beyond something that mythologically simple.

Yesterday I spent time here just reading posts. I was on another religious thread here where you sent the young OP running, with his tail between his legs, when you brought up biology and evoltution. You will not win me in the same way.

The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy. Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods? Maybe we aren't quite there yet as to the complete definition that would satisfy most of us. But won't you admit we are getting closer and closer to that definition, with time? Isn't it conceivable that say since we know that certain animal life can live hundreds of years, and a tree can live 6500 years and still be going, that it is conceivable, by theory, that we could discover our own fountain of youth? Wouldn't that then elevate us to God status, considering the fact we can already create things by jumbling around chemical combinations? Admit this and say yes to what I say so far, so we can move on.

Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

If you are willing to believe that, then since we are just a simple spec in the Universe, why is it so hard to at least consider that something far superior to us, that has been around longer than us (billions of years even - to our hundreds of thousands of years), was and/or is already here before us, and has created far more than we could ever imagine or hope to?

If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever...then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

You ain't going to win me with the evolution argument, as I will simply say so what? So there IS evolution? What does THAT prove? What/who invented evolution to work properly? Ha. You lose! God made all things work - including evolution. It is a tool of his work. It acannot happen with no direction. Why not? Because WE are near God-like, and can't make things just happen, without direction. That's why. We KNOW things take leadership and direction. The God-force is that leader/director. They can't even make a good fake movie without a director, let alone things that are produced. Even simple meetings need someone to be in charge of order?

I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.

I am David, the beloved. I have had too may weird things occur to me in my life and am blessed, and was put here for a reason. (Unlike your perceived unplanned existance.) I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial). I brought a hamster back to life. I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect. I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line! I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.) And all these things cannot possibly be made known to just-out-of-college smarty-pantses, that THINK they know everything, based on taught known facts alone. It takes years of living, and an open mind to all possibilities, to comprehend, and to see the broad picture.

Your blessings sound more like curses and owning really bad cars. Maybe if you drove better cars or did a little PM on them you wouldn't be so blessed.

If god is incomprehensible how is it that you know so much about him?

[tsig]

Yes, that did it. I am now converted. A resurrected hamster is surely proof that you are here for a reason! Not the noblest of causes, the resurrection of hamsters, possibly, but we can't all be crusaders against evil. Someone has to take care of the humble hamsters as well.

Maybe the hamster resurrected himself and is now the hamster Jesus.

Let's get our minds out on the great wide open.

[Darth Rotor]

.
I see it as "I am me", but pronounce it "naive".
I see it also as "I am me" but pronounce it to rhyme with Miami. :cool:

DR

[patrick767]

I didn't read the whole of the OP before responding. Looking back on it now, all that stuff about the number 3 does seem well over the top. On the other hand, you often get people spouting over-the-top gibberish in complete seriousness. Take http://www.timecube.com for example. That guy's 100% serious.

heh... after reading the OP, especially all that stuff about the number 3, I wondered if it was the Timecube guy. I kept reading hoping at some point he'd say "you have been educated stupid!"

[Twiler]

Interesting how both GIBHOR and Iamme started with 'proof/evidence', and moved onto standard theist arguments.

[AvalonXQ]

Proof that Iamme's argument is nonsense:
1) Assume Iamme's Theorem: "For any X, if a church of people believing X meets consistently, X is true."
2) Define Statement P: "The Pope is God's representative on earth."
3) Fact: There is at least one church of people believing P that meets consistently (any representative Catholic church will do).
4) Fact: There is at least one church of people believing ~P that meets consistently (I attend one myself).
5) M.P. from 1, 3: P
6) M.P. from 1, 4: ~P
7) From 5, 6: P and ~P, contradiction.
QED, Iamme's Theorem is false.

[Brian-M]

What do the other 30% have: three, one, or none? :jaw-dropp

DR


Yes.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/265734bbd1c5ebf702.jpg http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/265734bbd1d7e60e05.jpg

:D

[Complexity]

Iamme - Your notion of 'proof' leaves something to be desired.

Everything, actually.

Why must you always prate on about the silliest things? I was hoping things would change for the better while I was gone.

[Brian-M]

Oh, you got me there! Ha. Well, we have doctors too. I guess we should not need them either, if God exsits, as he should be able to just cure people who pray. Ever consider that God may have created something like man, to be his instruments, in which to do works and communicate?

Nope. Ever consider the fact that since so many people in different religions, and even within the same religion, have such greatly diverse opinions about God and what we should do in his name that if he did create us to do his work and communicate with him, then God must have really screwed that up?

You think, or get hung on some erroneous fallicy that God is some giant powerful manlike-being up in the heavens? He, actually IT, is way beyond that. Uncomprehendably beyond something that mythologically simple.

I doubt anyone here holds that image of God. You're arguing against a strawman with that one.

The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy.

Philosophy can give you many answers. It can also give you several mutually exclusive answers to the same question, depending on which line of philosophical reasoning you follow.

Answers provided by philosophy alone are hollow and meaningless until they're confirmed by facts.

Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

:confused: You're not making much sense here. If the cause of everything turns out to be something that could have happened without intelligent guidance, then it is no proof of God (but not proof of no God). If the cause of everything turns out to be something that could not have happened without intelligent guidance, then it is proof of God. I don't see what problem you see in this.

What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods?

Nope. I'd define a god as a type of supernatural entity. We are not supernatural, and show no inclination of becoming so.
(By supernatural, I mean not bound by the established laws of physics.)

If you are willing to believe that, then since we are just a simple spec in the Universe, why is it so hard to at least consider that something far superior to us, that has been around longer than us (billions of years even - to our hundreds of thousands of years), was and/or is already here before us, and has created far more than we could ever imagine or hope to?

I have no problem with the concept that superior forms of intelligent life may exist elsewhere in the universe, and I doubt that many others here would have a problem with that either. However, there is no evidence that extraterrestrial intelligences, superior or not, have ever visited earth, and our best scientific understanding of physics suggests that this is incredibly unlikely to have happened. That's what makes it so hard to believe.

I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial).

So have I. And a full Australian 240 volts, not the wussy 110 volts they use in America. So what?

I brought a hamster back to life.

Are you sure it was dead in the first place? Sometimes they appear dead, but they aren't really.

I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect.

Which kind of scorpion? According to wikipedia, there are over a thousand species of scorpion, but only a few have venom which is dangerous to humans. Also, it's possible that the scorpion's venom sacks might have been empty at the time, so it might not have injected you with venom at all.

I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line!

So? All you did was create a temporary patch using a whole bunch of tape. Nothing special about that. Are you saying that the idea to do this was divinely inspired, or are you saying that God made it work just for you, and the exact same kind of temporary emergency repair wouldn't have worked for anyone else?

I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.)

That require professionals? Most things that are usually repaired by professionals can be gotten working again by a reasonably intelligent tinkerer (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tinkerer), which is what you seem to be. Nothing particularly special about that.

[gambling_cruiser]

Iamme doesn't think his proof is a joke.
And it's only funny in the same sense as wetting your pants in public is funny.
The OP shows how wrotten a mind can get if you let the xtian meme run amok.
Iamme my company operates 400 kilovolt systems, would you like to touch some?

[Iamme]

I'm sorry I-am-me but I continue to read your screen name as LAME. Same as your posts. :covereyes

And I continue to think of Hi-O Silver, when I read yours. Please respond to what is said in my post(s) constructively or destructively by point, please.

[Thunder]

of course Jesus rose from the dead!!!

billions of people believe it to be true!!!

are you saying, you are smarter than 1 billion people???

:p

[Iamme]

Food for thought: Did you know that a long time ago, most of the people thought that the Earth was flat?

No they didn't. That is a myth. In fact to this day some believe that Christopher Columbus sailed west, to see how far he'd get before he'd come close to going over the edge. I remember being taught in grade school how sailers thought that.

[Iamme]

I attended Easter Mass in a Catholic church on sunday - and I believe its all a fake..;)


You saying that you found out it was fake, by going to the service?, without any precognition of that fact already?

[Drewbot]

What if you went to church just to make mom happy?

[Iamme]

Men have 2 hands and a mouth. But 70% of women only have 2 breasts. Was God watching reality TV that night?

Ha, well, actually both men and women were given 3 sexual 'things'. From a medical standpoint, one could argue that there are more things, each. But based simply on the commonly identified parts - locker room speak - it is 3, each.

[Iamme]

What if you went to church just to make mom happy?

What if you went to church just so you would not get a spankin'?

[Iamme]

of course Jesus rose from the dead!!!

billions of people believe it to be true!!!

are you saying, you are smarter than 1 billion people???

:p

Me?

I don't follow, if that is a counter-argument to what I have said. You precisely stated the very point what helps others believe: The fact that others cannot believe that that many people possibly can be wrong. Why would I (if the question is directed at me) think I am smarter than they, if they themselves believe it to be true? ???(how do you find the smilies on this board, anyway?)

[Raconteur]

Iamme, you haven't responded to the simple fact that most of the world aren't Christian. By your own definition, they can't be wrong...

[AvalonXQ]

are you saying, you are smarter than 1 billion people???

Odds are about 11 in 13 that any one of us is, yes. :p

[Twiler]

No they didn't. That is a myth. In fact to this day some believe that Christopher Columbus sailed west, to see how far he'd get before he'd come close to going over the edge. I remember being taught in grade school how sailers thought that.

What.

[Bob Klase]

Did you know that a long time ago, most of the people thought that the Earth was flat?

No they didn't. That is a myth. In fact to this day some believe that Christopher Columbus sailed west, to see how far he'd get before he'd come close to going over the edge. I remember being taught in grade school how sailers thought that.

And as we all know, the phrase "long time ago" only includes times up to 520 years ago. Anything over that must be called "long long time ago" which covers 520 years ago to 5000 years ago. After that we must say "really really long time ago" which covers 5000-6000 years. Beyond 6000 years ago we can just say "you know- a little while ago when god made stuff".

[Iamme]

Originally Posted by Iamme
Yesterday I spent time here just reading posts. I was on another religious thread here where you sent the young OP running, with his tail between his legs, when you brought up biology and evoltution. You will not win me in the same way.

sgtbaker response:With science and logic?

Iamme:Like I said, I will not argue science. You cannot win me if I do not dispute your science claims. Ha! I simply claim there is a God, and I still believe in science. HA. You can't win that!!!!! We KNOW stuff just did not get here, with the mathematical laws that simply appeared from nowhere. God put it and science here. Science did not begat science. God begat science. He was the chef. Science is the ingredients that allowed the pie to be made. The ingredients did not both magicly appear and make the pie, from thin air (so to speak). God did it.


Quote:
The approach to answering God's existance is not through facts of how things got here, but through philosophy

sgtbaker response:That about sums it up.

Iamme:That about sums WHAT up? I alreeady have said the argument si not to be one on scienticfic fact becasue what you are doing is trying to pit God AGAINST science. You are so thicknheaded to make it an either/or. God MADE science. The argument for God, simply stated to a common denominator is nothing..... matter, math or science, just popped out of nothing. You show me exactly how it did, and we'll talk.


Quote:
Even if there WAS a God, we all know that God must have made things SOMEhow. And if we discover that somehow?, suddenly that means that God did not do it, ...that it did it on it's own accord, with no direction?, just because we can explain it? Come on guys! Think deeper than that.

sgtbaker response:The problem is, your belief in god is derived from a text that claims to be dictated by a perfect being. When facts do not line up (Adam and Eve, age of the Earth, order of what came first), what is a deep thinker to conclude; the facts are wrong, side with the claim?

Iamme:The text? You mean the Bible? I am not quite sure if I believe everything the Bible says. I believe they, like several other religiions, are on the right track (by saying that some powerful deity put stuff here), and were on the right track by saying it is the "inspired word of God". It HAS to be, if a God created all things, including our minds, that it automatically follows that it is "inspired", because we are only capable of thinking that which God allowed to be in our heads.


Quote:
What is the definition of a God? Wouldn't we all agree that this God is super powerful, highly creative and can live an enormously long time? Don't some of you argue that we ourselves could be considered as Gods? Maybe we aren't quite there yet as to the complete definition that would satisfy most of us. But won't you admit we are getting closer and closer to that definition, with time?

sgtbaker response:No, it seems over time, the definition shifts to suite the society. It went from a bloody, vengful, jealous god (OT) to an all loving hippy(after Jesus), to dark an forceful (the dark ages), back to hippy again (the modern god).

Iamme:I am still pondering the Bible, I will admit that. There are many things that bother me about the Bible. Ever read the Book of Deuteronomy?
I am even bothered by the fact that if Jesus really walked on water, why an entire book was not devoted to questions the disciple had regarding how exactly he was able to do that, and the other miracles, that were claimed and observed by witnesses. Did the fish just poof out of thin air, for example, and did people see that happen? If Lot's wife turned to salt, and someone knew this to be fact, nobody went and retrieved her (the salt pillar) to store somewhere or put this on display?

Quote:
Okay, if what I say so far holds some merit, then consider the fact that we are willing to believe that ourselves, that are Godlike, just appeared, by a combination of things that were a result of blind chance with no direction from any outside source.

sgtbaker response:A slight oversimplification of evolution.

Iamme:It don't matter. Evolution is evolution, by the concept alone. I simply picked out words like "blind chance", sicne that is the opposite of something planned bya planner. But if i am wrong about the "direction part", please tell me who/what the ring leader is? And who appointed the ringleader to be ringleader (there is a form of heirarchy in everything as we know it.)

Quote:
If you want to argue 2 paragraphs above, saying it wasn't simply "blind chance", then we will get caught up in a war of splitting hairs over the definition. If you want to say this bacteria interacted with this, and the bacteria had a brain, and this other part had a brain, and was directed to interact with some other thing, or whatever....

sgtbaker response:This shows a complete lack of understanding of evolution.

Iamme:You think I'm to waste my time here how evolution actually works?, when I could care less?, when I know that something more powerful than evolution put evolution here?, in the same way man plans everything and puts stuff here? You think our lawnmowers appeared because there was a need for them because there was grass? Ha. You can't win. Throw in the towel. Wave the white flag. Preach to me evolution, all you want. You can't tell me how it got here, with the precision of which it works, with no directing force acting on it.


Quote:
then I ask you - under whose supreme direction, by what architect in the organism,... by what jobsite general manager or superintendant, did each piece of the puzzle know what to do, and where to be placed in that organism? We can see from our own complex existance, for as much as we know, for as Godlike as we already are, that there has to be blueprints for something complex to exist. Something has to be in direction of how things are assembled properly. AND how they interact with other things that are not related to the other thing.

sgtbaker response:In the absense of a deity, there is no supreme director. Unicellular, brainless organisms, did not just sit around and contemplate what they are supposed to be doing.

Iamme:Then they did not know how to do it, and the notion is false, and there is a supreme director. Nothing as we know it knows what to do without direction. If you say THIS is the lone exception, you're are making it up, without evidence. I will simply keep going back in time til you have no more answers as to how stuff got here. You can't win. Sorry. This is all too amazing for this all to have just happened - plain and simple, end of story. We are "beyond surviving". THAT is your proof. Evolution allows things to survive. We have pleasure beyond surviving. Why? An oyster on an oyster bed has probably survived millions of years without progessing to any stage like us, to where we can have great pleasure. We are even going ful circule with the universe itself, where the products of the Universe created us so we could look upon it, and even leave our home and explore it. And all that just happened, because a string of lucky events that allowed a gradual progression of one event that begat the next, with no direction? Come on - that is silly. And for you people to say the burden of proof is on those of us to prove God, rather than you to prove how it all poofed here? THAT is silly! YOU guys prove how it poofed here! We have our answer, and it is a simple one, based on how a God-figure fits that which we already observe, regarding heirarchy. Speaking of heiracrchy: God made all things. Yes, we may overly personigfy this God, to be able to comprehend it/him. But something with great knowledge and power made a huge expanding universe. Then something else was created with little lesser power, yet very powerful, and these were what helped to create all things on not just our planet but otherr planets throughtout the universe. If we personify, we can call this sub group, "angels", next down in the heirarchy. They may have been first discussed in the first page of Genesis when God said Let us make man......./. See how I have an answer that actually works? I can make the reason for the large universe make sense, in such a mannor. You guys can make no sense for it, saying that it appeared and then stuff just happened.

I have to call it quits now as these long posts take me like an hour - and I am a working person. I do welcome the challenge, but it is time consuming, as I can't be on this board all day.

How come there are astronauts who believe in God, and even more so when they look down upon the Earth? Or medical doctors. Wasn't Einstein unsure, up to his death? What about Sagan or Stephen Hawking? They all sure there was/is no almighty being behind the workings of the Universe?


Quote:
We all know that if we found a watch out in a field, that it does not fit the scenery, and something made and put it there. If we stand out in the field, we are wayyyy more complex than the watch could ever hope to be. Yet we scoff at that analogy?, and say that watches can't self-create/ improve since they are not based on chemicals? So you think that just because something has chemical ingredients?, that that endows things to simply keep making new and improved combinations?, that happen to become very complex, that interact with other complex things in the world, with no direction? Come on!

sgtbaker response:The irreducible complexity argument has been debunked by adaptation and evolution. The eye, for example, has been shown to evolve from a simpler patch of receptor cells. We scoff at the anology because you can put a watch in a petri dish and stare at it for a million years. We can fire atoms at it, we can apply heat, bacteria, do any test we want to it; it will still be a watch. Put living cells in a petri dish and guess what, they will react to changes in the environment. Next?

Iamme:I've heard the eye argument before. That is probably one of the easier ones that has been explained. And like I said - you are barking up the wrong tree if you think I am out to discredit evoltion. I am not. But what is allowing such things to take place to the extent that everything first started with raw materials that followed the 4 forces of the Universe, that kept reacting with each other to the point that God-like beings came into existance so that these godlike beings get to see, hear, feel, and comprehend (even look down from our very home, by escaping it's gravity, and look down upon the Earth from above!)and wonder about the very thing that allowed them to come into being? It is just too incredible. And it is circular. Similarly, one of the descriptions ascribed to God is - no beginning or end - circle like.

[Hokulele]

Who put God there? Who made God? Why are you willing to believe God just appeared out of nowhere? If God can exist circle-like, why can't the universe?

[wolfgirl]

You precisely stated the very point what helps others believe: The fact that others cannot believe that that many people possibly can be wrong. Why would I (if the question is directed at me) think I am smarter than they, if they themselves believe it to be true? ???It totally depends on where you live, doesn't it? The simple and indisputable fact is, most people end up believing what their parents believed, and that mostly depends on what country they live in. If you had grown up in, say, China, there is a very good chance you would be a Buddhist. And living in China, you could look around yourself and say, "Hey, hundreds of millions of people here (some estimates are as high as a billion plus) are Buddhists; that many people can't be wrong." That would be your "proof" of the truth of Buddhism. (You can replace "Buddhist in China" with "Hindu in India" or "Muslim in the Middle East," etc., to the same effect.)

What say you to that? (Not really expecting a reply, as this requires too much critical thinking...)

[Loss Leader]

No they didn't. That is a myth. In fact to this day some believe that Christopher Columbus sailed west, to see how far he'd get before he'd come close to going over the edge. I remember being taught in grade school how sailers thought that.


So, in Columbus' time, most people thought the world was round. Nobody but you mentioned Columbus. They said "a long time ago." That could be a thousand years ago. What about two or three thousand years before that? There was a time when almost every person alive thought the world was flat. By your reasoning, that means the world was flat.


And I continue to think of Hi-O Silver, when I read yours. Please respond to what is said in my post(s) constructively or destructively by point, please.


What a very silly thing for you to say. Easily a dozen people responded to your arguments. Yet you choose to ignore them to answer one of the few people who didn't. For example, you ignored me. I asked who or what created God. You have yet to address that.


Ha, well, actually both men and women were given 3 sexual 'things'. From a medical standpoint, one could argue that there are more things, each. But based simply on the commonly identified parts - locker room speak - it is 3, each.


So long as you include or exclude whatever does or does not support your statement, you are correct. However, there really is no good reason to count only the parts you want to count except that, when you do so, you get three. And that's the number you were trying to get.


Ha! I simply claim there is a God, and I still believe in science. HA. You can't win that!!!!!


Define "God."


We KNOW stuff just did not get here, with the mathematical laws that simply appeared from nowhere.


We don't know that. You just keep asserting it without evidence. In order to know something, we must have proof. Do you have any proof other than the fact that this is the way things seem to you? Do you have any proof other than your own disbelief in any other explanation? I'm not about to take as a given the very thing you're trying to establish.


God put it and science here. Science did not begat science. God begat science. He was the chef. Science is the ingredients that allowed the pie to be made. The ingredients did not both magicly appear and make the pie, from thin air (so to speak). God did it.


Who put God here? Who begat God? Who made him he chef? God did not magically appear from thin air (so to speak). Who created him?

God MADE science. The argument for God, simply stated to a common denominator is nothing..... matter, math or science, just popped out of nothing. You show me exactly how it did, and we'll talk.


Show me exactly how God popped out of nothing.


were on the right track by saying it is the "inspired word of God". It HAS to be, if a God created all things, including our minds, that it automatically follows that it is "inspired", because we are only capable of thinking that which God allowed to be in our heads.


So, would you agree that my atheism is inspired by God? According to you, God made me. According to you, I am only capable of thinking that which God allowed to be in my head. Did God allow the idea that there is no God to be in my head? Did God inspire me to disbelieve in God?


But if i am wrong about the "direction part", please tell me who/what the ring leader is? And who appointed the ringleader to be ringleader (there is a form of heirarchy in everything as we know it.)


Assuming God is the ringleader, who appointed God to be ringleader?


You can't tell me how it got here, with the precision of which it works, with no directing force acting on it.


The fact that you can't understand something is not proof that it is false.


How come there are astronauts who believe in God, and even more so when they look down upon the Earth? Or medical doctors. Wasn't Einstein unsure, up to his death? What about Sagan or Stephen Hawking? They all sure there was/is no almighty being behind the workings of the Universe?


Why would the beliefs of astronauts and other scientists matter? Earlier you said this was not a matter of science, but of philosophy. So, why now do you invoke the names of scientists?

[I Am The Scum]

Iamme, let's imagine that we were to take a survey among every human being on the planet. This survey contains only one question, and it is this:

Is it the case that a given proposition is true if the majority of the people in the world believe it is true?

[ ] YES
[ ] NO

The vast majority of humanity checks the box that says "no."

Would you agree with them, or disagree with them?

[Loss Leader]

Iamme, let's imagine that we were to take a survey among every human being on the planet. This survey contains only one question, and it is this:

Is it the case that a given proposition is true if the majority of the people in the world believe it is true?

[ ] YES
[ ] NO

The vast majority of humanity checks the box that says "no."

Would you agree with them, or disagree with them?


Good luck getting him to follow that. You just Karl Pilkington'ed the thread.

[gambling_cruiser]

Eat rotten stuff, billions of flies can't err!

[Brian-M]

No they didn't. That is a myth. In fact to this day some believe that Christopher Columbus sailed west, to see how far he'd get before he'd come close to going over the edge. I remember being taught in grade school how sailers thought that.


They definitely didn't believe that in Columbus's time, but there were times and places that people actually did believe that.

If you read Plato you'll notice in one of the books (I forget which one) that Plato (via the character of Socrates) brings up the dispute about whether the earth is round or flat. (The Ancient Greeks did work out the earth was round, and even calculated it's diameter, but that was after Plato's time.)

[Brian-M]

I don't follow, if that is a counter-argument to what I have said. You precisely stated the very point what helps others believe: The fact that others cannot believe that that many people possibly can be wrong. Why would I (if the question is directed at me) think I am smarter than they, if they themselves believe it to be true? ???

His post was a facetious attempt to point out that your "proof" amounts to nothing more that an argument from popularity. But since you're taking this seriously, what about the 67% of the world population who aren't Christian? Are you saying that you're smarter than these 4 Billion people? (source (http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html))

(how do you find the smilies on this board, anyway?)


:jaw-dropp Surely you can't be serious?

But in case you are: The smilies in the Quick Reply editor can be found by clicking the button with the smiley face on it above the text window. The smilies in the Advanced editor appear to the right of the screen, you just look to the right and click on the one you want.

Or, you can just type in the codes directly. Here's some of them, just leave out the spaces and the forum will automatically replace them with the smiley to the left...

:) : )
:( : (
;) ; )
:o : o
:D : D
:p : p
:confused: : c o n f u s e d :
:mad: : m a d :
:eek: : e e k :
:blush: : b l u s h :

[jadey]

I meant for the believers Jadey. I didn't actually mention whether I was a believer or not, but if you get the jist of my post and look at the ending you shouldn't have much trouble discerning whether I am a Christian or not.

My comment was about religion, not about your individual beliefs. I don't see any revealed religion as closing any gap of understanding.


I was brought up catholic too. I had to listen to the same thing. Then one day after I was in confession I confessed to my mom that I was confused by why the 'father' kept asking me what I was doing with my hands? I had no idea what he was talking about, I tried to answer him.. did I hit my friend beside me? No matter what I said he said "no" that I was doing "something else" and asked me again what I was doing. I never knew what he meant, but my mom figured it out and pulled me out of the church immediately. Hmm.. just what did he want me to tell him about what I was doing with my hands... I wonder. My hands were in my lap, I suppose I was nervous in the confession booth and I was twiddling my fingers a bit.

I guess the "father" was hoping for something naughty that he could forgive me for....

That's some scary stuff. Good for you for discussing with your mom, and good for your mom for trusting you over the priest.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Ok, so you've made your point that you do not believe scientific evidence that disproves the bible disproves the existence of a god.
The fact that from the big bang onward there are pretty good theories on how the universe, the solar system, earth and eventually life here formed that do not need a god also do not dissuade you, as you claim that god just invisibly and without leaving traces manipulates things. Such a being can indeed never be disproven.
Some minor philosophy then.
What gives you the impression that a being responsible for the entire known universe even cares in the slightest what happens on an insignificant speck of dust in an unremarkable galaxy. From such a being's point of view humanity has existed for only the tiniest part of its existence.

Also, if all religions are divinely inspired, why do none of them have any true overlap?

Finally, you claim that people (in your direct environment) are happier during a holiday, thus jesus was risen. I am also happy when I take a random day off, what does that conclude? And I'm sure millions of hindu's, muslims, bhuddists and what not are happy on their respective holidays. Does that mean that all their believes are equally true?
I am generally also happier in the weekend when I don't have to work. So, saturn and the sun are worthy of worship? Weekends happen a lot more often than easter after all.

[catsmate1]

I am David, the beloved. I have had too may weird things occur to me in my life and am blessed, and was put here for a reason. (Unlike your perceived unplanned existance.) I have taken full hits of electric shock(not partial). I brought a hamster back to life. I was stung over the heart by a scorpion with no effect. I crashed my truck into a snowbank that just so happened to be there, and was able to tape my brake hose with tape out in 0 degree weather, to drive home 20 miles, and made it, even though hundreds of psi are exerted on that line! I have been able to repair all kinds of things that require professionals with out ever being taught in those trades. (I will perhaps think of more for you.) And all these things cannot possibly be made known to just-out-of-college smarty-pantses, that THINK they know everything, based on taught known facts alone. It takes years of living, and an open mind to all possibilities, to comprehend, and to see the broad picture.

You are delusional. Seek medical help.

I'm going to convert some of you people before I am through with you.No, I don't think so.

[catsmate1]

Here's a question to the other participants on this thread - would it be worthwhile to start a thread where people can relate incredible coincidence that has occurred in their lives just to show Iamme that everybody experiences the same phenomenon? I can think of a few in my own personal experience just sitting here. A search pops up some threads on coincidence but nothing recent, or likely to be read by Iamme.


Excellent idea., here's mine. Over the last eleven years three members of my immediate family have died. At the time of each death I was working with a particular individual (we don't work in the same field but both are contractors) on the same project. Not really that odd. But, I've met him on two other occasions, once in a airport and once when his was waiting for someone in a building where I was working. On both of those occasions a member of my family was taken to hospital that day.
Coincidence, or the angel of death?

OK it's not much compared to Captain Battreau but it's odd.

[bobcarp]

Maybe the title of this post should be, "Simple's proof that Jesus rose"