Muhammed mentioned in the Bible and Torah.

[pi]

On current discussion, thought this might be a bit fitting:


I'm totally for evolution btw, far more substantiated, as teewreck was alluding to

[jane1234]

No jane1234, you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding about atheism which I explained at length to you in my reply which you have clearly failed to read.

Atheists simply reject a belief in god. Atheism literally means "without belief". Just because we don't believe in a god doesn't mean we say that there is definitely no god. That would be unscientific. My problem with religion is that it allows people to be certain about something which they cannot be certain about. That leads to grave injustices and abuses as we see in the world.

I wasn't actually referring to your post, just most atheists in general. You can argue about the definitions of atheism all day and "what kind" you are.

Also, a lot of religious people aren't certain about the existence of god. They just chose to believe despite their doubts, acknowledging that non-spiritual beings cannot possibly understand everything about spiritual beings.

I agree with Mao though:

Agnosticism is a metaphysical position that 'God/s is not knowable' (strong) or 'God/s may not be knowable' (weak).

Atheism is a theological position that 'God does not exists' (strong) or 'I don't believe in God' (weak).

A combination of these two makes something along the lines of 'I don't believe in god, but I do not assert god/s do not exist. However proof for such a position may never be found.'

Which, to me, is no different to 'I don't believe in religion, but I cannot be certain whether or not there is a god. In fact, we may never be able to answer that question'. (this is pure weak agnoticism)

Anyway, as fun as this is, there's really no point in discussing it

[Russ]

I refuse to get drawn into religous debates but I will clarify evolution: it cannot be proved scientifically (or otherwise) for various reasons that are irrelevant. But all the evidence gathered so far (and there's a lot of it) supports the theory and none refutes it. Furthermore, we did not evolve from the apes that we see in the world today - they are not our ancestors, they're our cousins.

The simplest way of thinking about it is: if you tossed a coin and it came up heads ten thousand consecutive times, what would you bet on the next toss being?

[MJRomeo81]

The problem is the idea of the coin being heads 10,000 times straight. I mean for evolution to occur the way it did - some remarkable 'luck' indeed.

This also makes for some interesting reading.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/nab2/humans-evolve-apelike-creatures#fnMark_1_4_1

[enwiabe]

@MJR, Evolution is really, really, REALLY well justified. You should do some research on it instead of posting quotes that are really misleading and don't even make sense when you understand how the theory works.

I never said the whole concept of evolution is false. That would be absurd. We can see evolution in our everyday life. However, to accept evolution as an undeniable scientific fact (in the sense that humans evolved from the apes irrefutably) is wrong. This is my point.

If you think evolution says that humans evolved from apes, then you clearly never bothered to learn the theory.

You obviously don't understand evolution, so how can you comment on its veracity? You just accept your bible stories as fact out of hand and don't bother to do any scientific investigation of the actual truth which is evolution.

Evolution is a theory that is as factual as the theory of gravity in the Scientific community. For you to dismiss it shows your absurd, utterly ridiculous ignorance.

[enwiabe]

MJRomeo, are you aware that the driving force of evolution is not luck, but natural selection? Mutations are the luck factor, but then the survival of the fittest selects those mutations which advantage a species and those mutations are kept, forming a new species. So, no, humanity did not evolve by chance. It evolved by billions of years of trial and error before converging on a species that would master every other. That doesn't make us perfect, or 'special', simply more dominant than the species which preceded us.

[enwiabe]

You came into a thread debating religion and offered your $0.02. You don't get to dictate the terms by which I reply.

Go and read my first two posts in this thread on page 4 I believe it is. I didn't come in debating religion. In fact, you're the one who came in stuck your noise into this thread (on page 2). Do you see what this topic is called? Why click on the thread if you don't believe? And don't give me the "oh i have to convince people otherwise because I have LOGICAL REASONING GUYS!". If you don't like the thread stay out of it. You're the one who turned this into a religious debate. My post with John 3:16 attempted to answer a question relating to why should we believe. In my next post I made it clearly evident I was happy to answer similar questions, but not the typical 'religion is bullshit" claim. Yes that's right it's a claim, because you can't prove it.

Yes, I see this topic is talking about matters of religion, and when people are taking these fairy stories seriously I am compelled to set the record straight. You gave a bible quote on why we should believe, and I rebutted why that was false. It's called a debate, and if you're so afraid of having one, perhaps you're not so confident in your beliefs? That is a promising sign. I can quite confidently say that your religion is bullshit. There are no credible historical records indicating that Jesus ever existed. Many forgeries attempted by the churches themselves, but there isn't a shred of credible historical evidence for Jesus. That's a pretty convincing argument against your religion.

 If you want no part of this, then don't view the thread and certainly don't reply. I'm sick of religious people trying to dictate what people can and cannot say about their ridiculous beliefs, lest the poor dears be offended (these same types of people who for millennia, and continuing today, kill people for not believing what they believe unflinchingly and without proof).

I love your view of "all religious people KILL others who don't believe". BTW why do you feel like you have some special obligation to destroy people's beliefs? Man, your argument applies to yourself. If you don't like discussing religion in this thread, GTFO!

I never said that. It is simply a fact that religion will allow good people to do evil things. If you allow someone to believe, on faith, that they are acting on behalf of an all powerful god who will reward them in the afterlife, then you can get them to commit unconscionable acts without thinking. Because they aren't thinking! They're giving that up in favour of "my god said it's true". That's how you get the horrific abuses of religion. I love discussing religion and how the world would be better off without it. You're the one who is so eager to prevent me from trying to argue. Trying to either get me to do it by saying I'm contravening my own forum's rules (I'm not, and I'll get to that next), and then saying "OH I DON'T WANT TO ARGUE" and then subsequently doing nothing but arguing. If you really didn't want to debate this, you'd have left my reply alone, but you seemingly do want to, you just want to try and score some arbitrary points on me by trying to make me look like a bully. I'm simply trying to get you to THINK for yourself.

Yes, I call religion bullshit. Oops don't like that? Then show some proof. A central tenet of education (which is what this community promotes) is critical thought. Faith and religion violate critical thought processes and corrupt them in a most foul manner. I won't stand for that, and I will call bullshit when I see it. And if you take my calling of your ridiculous religion personally then that's your problem, not mine. I guess when somebody actually shows up how your religion is just utterly absurd and totally unbelievable, that puts you on the back foot. But make no mistake, I'm not attacking you. I'm attacking the suspension of critical thought and reason.

Nice try in dodging your own forum rules. Let me spell it out for you one more time:

Any comments making mass generalisations on the basis of sex, race, religion, or sexual preference must be supported by citable empirical evidence. AN takes a zero-tolerance policy to such bigotry.

Your generalisations such as religion is no good for society and religious people kill others are infringing the very rules your team came up with. Once again, you dun goofed.

And no, you haven't proved religion to be utterly absurd and totally unbelievable. You've successfully demonstrated your lack of knowledge by making claims such as "evolution is a scientific fact and everyone who is super smart says so HERPA DERP!!!". Please. Go and do some research.

It is not a generalisation or any falsehood at all to call religion bullshit. There isn't a shred of evidence to suggest that any religion that we have is true. Show me ONE piece of objective evidence that points to it. If the only thing you can point to as evidence is that which is contained in your holy book, then I'll simply declare Harry Potter to be my holy book and say that because it's written in that book that magic exists, then therefore magic exists and it would have EXACTLY the same credibility as your pitiful argument. As it stands there is NOTHING, not one SHRED of evidence which support any religions.

What exactly is the "observable fact" of evolution? First you should be aware that evolutionists recognize two types of evolution -- micro evolution, which is observable, and macro evolution, which isn't. So called "micro evolution" is a process of limited variation among the individuals of a given species that produces the sort of variety we observe, for example, among dogs. Macro evolution, on the other hand, is a hypothetical process of unlimited variation that evolutionists believe transforms one kind of living organism into a fundamentally different kind such as the transformation of reptiles into birds or apes into people. Obviously, no one has ever observed anything remotely like this actually happen.

There are millions of articles of evidence. You very obviously do not understand evolution. But we have observed transitional forms. They are all in the fossil record and there are thousands of them. Just go to any natural history museum to observe them. Also, as it turns out, our DNA code is a perfect family tree and we can see just how much we're related to each other species on the planet. I am no Biology teacher, and I can't teach you evolution over a forum post, but you should really do yourself a favour and bone up on it because you clearly know nothing about evolution as evidenced by the fact that you have made numerous mistakes in detailing both what the theory is and the evidence which supports it.

[enwiabe]

No jane1234, you exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding about atheism which I explained at length to you in my reply which you have clearly failed to read.

Atheists simply reject a belief in god. Atheism literally means "without belief". Just because we don't believe in a god doesn't mean we say that there is definitely no god. That would be unscientific. My problem with religion is that it allows people to be certain about something which they cannot be certain about. That leads to grave injustices and abuses as we see in the world.

I wasn't actually referring to your post, just most atheists in general. You can argue about the definitions of atheism all day and "what kind" you are.

Also, a lot of religious people aren't certain about the existence of god. They just chose to believe despite their doubts, acknowledging that non-spiritual beings cannot possibly understand everything about spiritual beings.

I agree with Mao though:

Agnosticism is a metaphysical position that 'God/s is not knowable' (strong) or 'God/s may not be knowable' (weak).

Atheism is a theological position that 'God does not exists' (strong) or 'I don't believe in God' (weak).

A combination of these two makes something along the lines of 'I don't believe in god, but I do not assert god/s do not exist. However proof for such a position may never be found.'

Which, to me, is no different to 'I don't believe in religion, but I cannot be certain whether or not there is a god. In fact, we may never be able to answer that question'. (this is pure weak agnoticism)

Anyway, as fun as this is, there's really no point in discussing it

There is a point to this, because you also exhibit a fundamental misunderstanding about most atheists. I'm actually yet to meet an atheist who flat out says "there isn't, never has been, and never will be a god". I know they exist, I've read the works of a few such people, but they are actually a minority in the atheist community. Most atheists are weak atheists, like me, who simply want to seek out the truth, and not guess at it haphazardly.

[Russ]

This also makes for some interesting reading.

I almost stopped reading when I saw you'd linked an article from (pretty much) the Bible Belt on "evilution" but; the title is sensationalist because all the scientist is saying is that evolution is an extremely fluid and complicated process (read the direct quotes, not the author paraphrasing).

I don't have time to read the second one right now, because it's bloody long.

[MJRomeo81]

If you think evolution says that humans evolved from apes, then you clearly never bothered to learn the theory.

Point conceded. I know it's because of the common ancestor blah blah but for some reason I said apes.

You obviously don't understand evolution, so how can you comment on its veracity? You just accept your bible stories as fact out of hand and don't bother to do any scientific investigation of the actual truth which is evolution.

I've looked at both sides. Sure, there are some big questions about religion, but scientists have made a lot of assumptions in relation to evolution. Primordial soup for example. It sounds like these scientists are talking out there ass because they're that desperate to find these so called answers. Scientists have yet to produce anything in a test tube that would shake a Fundamentalist's faith. . . . Indeed, the more scientists learn about it, the more extraordinary life seems. The so-called fossil record is found only in textbooks also.  If one tries to assemble the fossils into an evolutionary sequence, there are monstrous gaps between families of organisms.   There is a large branch of evolutionary teaching that acknowledges that there is no fossil evidence for evolution. Once again, more assumptions are made. This isn't scientific proof.

What's next? Are you going to say the big bang is irrefutable scientific evidence?

It evolved by billions of years of trial and error before converging on a species that would master every other. That doesn't make us perfect, or 'special', simply more dominant than the species which preceded us.

"Billions of years of trial and error". This is the part I'm talking about. I find it hard to believe, just like you find Jesus Christ hard to believe. I'm aware of natural selection and how that works.

Most atheists are weak atheists, like me, who simply want to seek out the truth, and not guess at it haphazardly.

But the problem is you seem like you've made up your mind already. You call religion bullshit. You seem fairly confident that Jesus Christ is a fairy tale. You have claimed evolution to be an irrefutable fact. You refuse to look at evidence that isn't compatible with scientific understanding. You remind me of those atheists who say "well when the Second Coming happens, I guess I'll believe then". I understand the notion of not jumping on one side due to lack of evidence, but the problem is you already sound so damn sure.

Yes, I see this topic is talking about matters of religion, and when people are taking these fairy stories seriously I am compelled to set the record straight.

You don't know the truth. No one does. So how can you set anything straight?

It is not a generalisation or any falsehood at all to call religion bullshit.

It was not the generalisation of calling religion bullshit (this is your belief and you are entitled to it). It's insinuating "if you believe God to be true, then one WILL commit evil acts because the Bible says so/ the world is better off without religion". Furthermore, attacking the critical thought processes of believers is a generalisation since from the sounds of things, you regard them to be intellectual idiots who don't respect the laws of science (but instead believe fairy tales their parents told them at a young age). No I am not putting words in your mouth. You seem to think it's ok because you feel an obligation to 'set the record straight', when in fact no one knows.

 For the sake of argument, let's pretend in my previous posts I said the world would be better off without homosexuality because of {list reasons here}. If I went on to say I find homosexuality disgusting and everyone who supports it is morally wrong, that would be generalising. I know that is some-what an informal fallacy, but do you understand my point? If you despise religion that much, remove it from your rules so you can talk shit all you want. Until then, you have effectively infringed one of your own rules, that is, to not make broad generalisations in relation to religion. Don't even bother trying to debate this point. I know you're the CEO and you aren't gonna warn yourself, but you broke the rules here. So yes, you dun goofed. The more you try to deny it, the greater the embarrassment you become in front of your users. Some might be scared to say it, but there are some people on this site who are LOL'ing at you right now for trying to deny this point. So my recommendation is to go and edit the rules. Then, I have no problem with you making such comments.

Harry Potter to be my holy book and say that because it's written in that book that magic exists, then therefore magic exists and it would have EXACTLY the same credibility as your pitiful argument.

Harry Potter? Really? Hmm...thanks for the comedy I guess this thread needs it. You obviously know nothing about the Bible if you want to make hilarious analogies like that.  As for Jesus not existing, people can question Jesus' Divinity, but not the HISTORICAL FACT that He existed. There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, both in secular and biblical history. In fact, we can almost reconstruct the gospel just from early non-Christian sources: Jesus was called the Christ (Josephus), did “magic,” led Israel into new teachings, and was hanged on Passover for them (Babylonian Talmud) in Judea (Tacitus), but claimed to be God and would return (Eliezar), which his followers believed, worshipping Him as God (Pliny the Younger).

It is also important to recognize that in A.D. 70, the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and most of Israel, slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the ground. We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus' existence was destroyed. Many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.

Considering that Jesus' ministry was largely confined to a relatively unimportant area in a small corner of the Roman Empire, a surprising amount of information about Jesus can be drawn from secular historical sources.  People will die for what they believe to be true, but no one will die for what they know to be a lie. Literally thousands of Christians in the first century A.D were willing to give their lives as martyrs for Jesus Christ.

[MJRomeo81]

But we have observed transitional forms.

What about right now? Transitional species must be all over the place, after all, with all the millions of creatures that exist on this planet, at least one of them should be evolving right now!
 
Interestingly enough, that is a dead end as well.  All the fish we find are fish, all the birds we find are birds, all the bats we find are bats, all the people we find are people, and single-celled organisms never reproduce into anything except single-celled organisms.  There’s no transitional species to be found, and evolution (in the sense of organisms increasing in complexity) is not happening anywhere in reality.

If evolution were true, we’d be finding creatures that were:
 
3% fish, 97% land walking lizard
2% fish, 98% land walking lizard
1% fish, 99% land walking lizard
100% land walking lizard
99% land walking lizard, 1% mammal
98% land walking lizard, 2% mammal
97% land walking lizard, 3% mammal...
 
and so on, with similar processes for every type of animal that exists.  Everything would be a transitional species, and we’d find abundant evidence for it.  In reality, there is nothing anywhere close to that scenario.  The fact that there is absolutely no evidence for such transitional species is illustrated by the articles published in 1999 by National Geographic, about the “missing link” fossil that was finally discovered that proved dinosaurs (lizards) evolved into birds.  It was shaped like a lizard, but it had wings like a bird.  They published a huge article with photos and great fanfare, and newspapers reported it with excitement across the country.  Months later, it was revealed that someone just glued parts of different animals together in China and passed it off as a real fossil.  Why would evolutionists be so excited over a single, glued-together, fake fossil?  It almost seems as if they are completely devoid of any evidence whatsoever.

Essentially, evolution is a religion.  It was concocted over 150 years ago, and they're still searching for that first shred of evidence.  At this point, they seem to have given up on evidence, and instead just combine wild, unprovable theories with excuses. The closer you research evolution and the big bang, the more you realise it's all faith based like religion. You just have to 'believe' it happened. Science my ass.

[MJRomeo81]

Here are some additional facts to consider. 
 
 
1) In the history of scientific research, living organisms have never formed from non-living matter.  Evolutionists hold the unscientific belief that this is possible as the first phase of evolution, but they cannot explain, replicate, or prove it can happen.
 
2) Nothing has ever given birth to something more genetically complex than itself.  This is just assumed by evolutionists to be possible.  Never before has information been added to the genome of a species.
 
3) No single-celled organism has ever morphed into a multi-cell organism.  Evolutionists firmly believe this can happen as the second phase of evolution, despite the fact that it has never been observed in the history of scientific research.
 
4) No creature has ever given birth to something that was a different kind of organism than itself.  This is again just believed by evolutionists to be possible, although it has never happened in recorded history.  Evolutionists believe that over time, lizards change into birds and fish turn into mammals.  Yet, of all the billions of lizards on Earth, not a single one is in turning into a bird.  Of all the billions of fish on Earth, not a single one is in the process of becoming a mammal.
 
5) Never in the history of science has any mutation benefitted an animal's species long term, or made it more genetically complex.  Evolution would require billions of these mutations to be happening constantly both today and throughout history, and yet none have ever been observed.  All mutations ever witnessed in reptiles, birds, or mammals are either a loss or a scrambling of existing genetic information, and are either neutral or negative to the mutated animal.
 
6) Transitional species required for the theory of evolution to be true are called “missing links,” instead of “links,” because they do not exist.
 
7) It is impossible for a cold blooded animal to give birth to a warm blooded animal; and yet this is believed by evolutionists in the fish to mammal and lizard to bird theories.
 
Plants have been around since the beginning of life, and despite all the supposed evolution that should've taken place, they have not evolved intelligence.
 
9) There are no instances of plants morphing into animals.

10) Virtually every species of animal has two genders required for reproduction.  How this system could have randomly changed from cell division, when it started, and how it manages to be so consistent is inexplicable by evolutionists.  I wonder how any species survived before it gained the instinct and ability to reproduce.

11) Nature is full of "irreducible complexities," or things that could not function if a single part is removed.  Since evolution is a gradual and slow process, things like the human knee joint could not have evolved, because they would not function until they were fully formed.  If one part/aspect were missing, they would serve no purpose.  This is inexplicable by evolutionists.
 
12) No creature has ever evolved or "adapted" a new body-part to suit it's environment, despite evolutionist belief, and they do not have the capability to do so.  Among the ridiculous claims of evolutionists, one would be the land mammal that evolved into a whale.  I'd like to see the transition where the nostrils supposedly change into the blowhole and move to the top of the head, and learn how the hind legs could magically morph into a tail flipper, all while continuing to function for millions of years.

13) DNA has to already be present in order to create protein, and protein has to be present in order to create DNA.  Both are required as building blocks of a living organism.  Which formed first, randomly, from the primordial soup that may or may not have existed, and how is that possible?

What DOES occur is variation of EXISTING traits.  Dogs can create a variety of dogs over thousands of years, and this is a provable fact.  Breed a beagle with a boxer and you have a new kind of dog, but guess what... it's still a dog, and the size, hair color, and shape (existing traits) vary, but all fall within the limits of the existing dog gene pool.  The confusion comes when people assume that variation of EXISTING traits means that somehow completely new genetic information can be added, thus allowing a cactus to evolve into a porcupine.  To the contrary, organisms can only sample from an existing gene pool. 
 
The gene pool for humans contains the ability to have a variety of skin types, hair colors, eye colors, body shapes and sizes, but never will any human form functioning gills and be able to breathe under water, because that genetic information is not in our gene pool.  A red haired woman and a black haired man can have a blonde child, but don’t freak out - that blonde child isn’t evolving into a new species.  It’s just exhibiting a variance of an existing trait in available human genes.

Another way to imagine the impossibilities of evolution is to think about what evolutionists claim....  that the habitat of an animal (or person) will cause them to develop traits or functions that better suit them to that environment, through information-gaining mutations and natural selection of those added traits.  Let’s take a man and his wife, and say they live by the ocean.  They swim in the ocean all the time, and hold their breath and swim underwater every day.  Then they have kids, which also swim all the time, and hold their breath to swim underwater, because they are all pearl divers.  Generation after generation of this family stays by the ocean, each son and daughter marry other people who live by the ocean and swim all the time.  How long will it take before one of the children has the ability to breath underwater?  The correct answer is never, but evolutionists believe that in a situation like this, eventually one of the children will be born with gills, and will be able to breath underwater.  A logical person would realize this is impossible; a human would never develop gills, because the capability to breath underwater is not in the human genome.  Evolutionists pretend that fish grew legs and lungs because for some reason “it was beneficial for them to leave water.” 
 
Again, it needs to be reiterated that not a single aspect of evolution has ever been observed, and yet such impossible ideas are presented as a fact to children in public schools.  Disturbing indeed.

[pi]

Transitional species: (from here)

If we define transitional species as those that have given rise to new species, then the following extant species are transitional:

- Brown bears (gave rise to polar bears)
- Grey wolves (gave rise to dogs (including dingos), Indian wolves, and Himalayan wolves)
- Coyote (The coyote or something very like it gave rise to eastern wolves 150 to 300 thousand years ago, and also to gray wolves 1 to 2 million years ago).
- Grey fox (The grey fox or something quite like it was the first canid)
- Plains zebra (gave rise to the quagga)
- Chiltepine chili pepper (gave rise to jalapeno, poblano and bell peppers)
- Eastern tiger salamander (gave rise to the California tiger salamander)
- Two species of Sierra butterflies (hybridized and gave rise to a third species)

I know its not the most reputable source, but it does show that many transitional species DO exist atm. For past transitional species (found through transitional fossils): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils (plenty!)


btw, as per evolution, every species you see is technically transitional

[enwiabe]

If you think evolution says that humans evolved from apes, then you clearly never bothered to learn the theory.

Point conceded. I know it's because of the common ancestor blah blah but for some reason I said apes.

Sounds like someone actually went and did some independent research! A great first step

You obviously don't understand evolution, so how can you comment on its veracity? You just accept your bible stories as fact out of hand and don't bother to do any scientific investigation of the actual truth which is evolution.

I've looked at both sides. Sure, there are some big questions about religion, but scientists have made a lot of assumptions in relation to evolution. Primordial soup for example. It sounds like these scientists are talking out there ass because they're that desperate to find these so called answers. Scientists have yet to produce anything in a test tube that would shake a Fundamentalist's faith. . . . Indeed, the more scientists learn about it, the more extraordinary life seems. The so-called fossil record is found only in textbooks also.  If one tries to assemble the fossils into an evolutionary sequence, there are monstrous gaps between families of organisms.   There is a large branch of evolutionary teaching that acknowledges that there is no fossil evidence for evolution. Once again, more assumptions are made. This isn't scientific proof.

What's next? Are you going to say the big bang is irrefutable scientific evidence?

I'm quite certain you'd never given evolution anything more than a cursory glance before today. You conflated our cousins with our common ancestors and are now conflating abiogenesis with evolution. Abiogenesis is what gave rise to the first living organism, evolution is everything that came after it. Evolution is scientific fact, abiogenesis is hotly disputed in the biological sciences, and the scientific community readily admits that this is a knowledge gap

As for your blatant lies about the fossil record. There are thousands of fossils in natural history museums all over the world. Just because you've never bothered to visit them doesn't mean they don't exist. See pi's post and the wiki link for PLENTY of actual fossils.

Secondly, your "gaps" argument has been dealt with most soundly by many evolutionists. I don't think you realise how rare fossils are. Not every organism gets fossilised. In fact it's a tiny percentage. You need JUST the right kinds of pressure and temperature and other conditions for it to work. So it's actually amazing that we have any fossils at all.

But the real evidence supporting evolution isn't in the fossil record, and if you'd done your research properly, you'd see that it is the DNA code which shows all of the transitional changes throughout each species that we observe today that shows evolution to be true.

It evolved by billions of years of trial and error before converging on a species that would master every other. That doesn't make us perfect, or 'special', simply more dominant than the species which preceded us.

"Billions of years of trial and error". This is the part I'm talking about. I find it hard to believe, just like you find Jesus Christ hard to believe. I'm aware of natural selection and how that works.

I know you find it hard to believe. You've been subjected to mirthless brainwashing your entire life. But it's not hard to believe at all. We see the mutations occurring every day, and we see the genomes of different species and the fossil record and it all makes sense if you actually bother to learn it. But you haven't. You really haven't. All of your basic errors reflect an absurd ignorance to what evolution actually says.

Most atheists are weak atheists, like me, who simply want to seek out the truth, and not guess at it haphazardly.

But the problem is you seem like you've made up your mind already. You call religion bullshit. You seem fairly confident that Jesus Christ is a fairy tale. You have claimed evolution to be an irrefutable fact. You refuse to look at evidence that isn't compatible with scientific understanding. You remind me of those atheists who say "well when the Second Coming happens, I guess I'll believe then". I understand the notion of not jumping on one side due to lack of evidence, but the problem is you already sound so damn sure.

Yes, like any rationalist I require evidence. Anything that can be claimedw ithout evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It's not credible for in the slightest for me to say taht there is a small chinese teapot floating in orbit around the sun, is there? But according to you, unless someone DISPROVES me, then there is a good probability that it actually exists. That's fucking bullshit and you know it. The same applies to you. You are not able to offer up a single piece of evidence, whatsoever, that your religion is true. When you combine that with the fact that there are numerous historical contradictions and a complete lack of evidence for your religion, then yes, I can dismiss it out of hand.

JUST LIKE you dismiss Zeus, and Wotan, and Thor, and Ganesh, and Vishnu, and Buddha. Why do you dismiss those gods? Why do you dismiss Ra? Why do you dismiss Ba'al?

They're all gods from mythology. Why the Judeo-Christian god? Because that's what you were brought up with. You're an atheist to all those other gods. I go one god further, because like all of those 'gods', there isn't a shred of evidence for any of them.

Yes, I see this topic is talking about matters of religion, and when people are taking these fairy stories seriously I am compelled to set the record straight.

You don't know the truth. No one does. So how can you set anything straight?

But I don't CLAIM to know the truth. YOU DO. You believe in god. You think you know where we came from, why we're here and what happened to take us here. Who's the arrogant one now? Oh and just for laughs you can't prove any of it! But we're supposed to take your word for it, right?

It is not a generalisation or any falsehood at all to call religion bullshit.

It was not the generalisation of calling religion bullshit (this is your belief and you are entitled to it). It's insinuating "if you believe God to be true, then one WILL commit evil acts because the Bible says so/ the world is better off without religion". Furthermore, attacking the critical thought processes of believers is a generalisation since from the sounds of things, you regard them to be intellectual idiots who don't respect the laws of science (but instead believe fairy tales their parents told them at a young age). No I am not putting words in your mouth. You seem to think it's ok because you feel an obligation to 'set the record straight', when in fact no one knows.

 For the sake of argument, let's pretend in my previous posts I said the world would be better off without homosexuality because of {list reasons here}. If I went on to say I find homosexuality disgusting and everyone who supports it is morally wrong, that would be generalising. I know that is some-what an informal fallacy, but do you understand my point? If you despise religion that much, remove it from your rules so you can talk shit all you want. Until then, you have effectively infringed one of your own rules, that is, to not make broad generalisations in relation to religion. Don't even bother trying to debate this point. I know you're the CEO and you aren't gonna warn yourself, but you broke the rules here. So yes, you dun goofed. The more you try to deny it, the greater the embarrassment you become in front of your users. Some might be scared to say it, but there are some people on this site who are LOL'ing at you right now for trying to deny this point. So my recommendation is to go and edit the rules. Then, I have no problem with you making such comments.

You are borderline illiterate if you think I said that religion causes all religious people to do bad things. Show me where I said that. Give me the exact quote. You're the one who looks foolish here, man. I know you think you're humiliating me but everyone looks at the guy who deludes himself with the idea that he knows everything and knows things that cannot yet be known and tries to argue by thinking he's smart enough, as a <18 year old child, to discredit a scientific theory accepted by the entire intellectual community. You are ignorant, and you are proud of it, and it is quite embarrassing for you, not for me.

Harry Potter to be my holy book and say that because it's written in that book that magic exists, then therefore magic exists and it would have EXACTLY the same credibility as your pitiful argument.

Harry Potter? Really? Hmm...thanks for the comedy I guess this thread needs it. You obviously know nothing about the Bible if you want to make hilarious analogies like that.  As for Jesus not existing, people can question Jesus' Divinity, but not the HISTORICAL FACT that He existed. There is overwhelming evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ, both in secular and biblical history. In fact, we can almost reconstruct the gospel just from early non-Christian sources: Jesus was called the Christ (Josephus), did “magic,” led Israel into new teachings, and was hanged on Passover for them (Babylonian Talmud) in Judea (Tacitus), but claimed to be God and would return (Eliezar), which his followers believed, worshipping Him as God (Pliny the Younger).

It is also important to recognize that in A.D. 70, the Romans invaded and destroyed Jerusalem and most of Israel, slaughtering its inhabitants. Entire cities were literally burned to the ground. We should not be surprised, then, if much evidence of Jesus' existence was destroyed. Many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus would have been killed. These facts likely limited the amount of surviving eyewitness testimony of Jesus.

Considering that Jesus' ministry was largely confined to a relatively unimportant area in a small corner of the Roman Empire, a surprising amount of information about Jesus can be drawn from secular historical sources.  People will die for what they believe to be true, but no one will die for what they know to be a lie. Literally thousands of Christians in the first century A.D were willing to give their lives as martyrs for Jesus Christ.

Hahaha all of those 'records' are either proven fakeries or majorly disputed :')

Like I said, not a single CREDIBLE historical account of jesus.

Moderator action: removed real name, sorry for the inconvenience

[enwiabe]

MJRomeo, are you a young earth creationist as well?