Christians vs. Atheists.

[Nah]

So your saying that its messed up to give someone a second chance?

I think he's saying that there's people who aren't worth a second chance. Whether or not that's true is another discussion altogether.

The Bible is proven to be historically accurate.

I won't argue with that, but historical accuracy does not mean that the supernatural aspects of the Bible are true.

Radioactive dating is inaccurate- petrified trees and lack of stress marks in the Grand Canyon prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old.

Do you have links for this by any chance? Although radiometric dating has nothing to do with stress marks or the lack of them in the Grand Canyon.

 

[J9794]

The Bible is proven to be historically accurate. My non-religiously affiliated textbook in History class uses the Bible. Radioactive dating is inaccurate- petrified trees and lack of stress marks in the Grand Canyon prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old.

Okey, now this thread will get interesting

 

[Omicron]

So your saying that its messed up to give someone a second chance? To those who died prior to the coming of Jesus- they had to believe that God was sending Jesus down to earth to save them and put their faith in God. The laws in Deuteronomy don't have to followed after the coming of Jesus (he tells people not to stone a prostitute, Peter's dream, etc) because the times have changed. The archeological evidence proves that the story was real, I don't see how it could be exaggerated. Most Atheists (and people of other faiths) believe Jesus existed- just that he wasn't God. The Bible is proven to be historically accurate. My non-religiously affiliated textbook in History class uses the Bible. Radioactive dating is inaccurate- petrified trees and lack of stress marks in the Grand Canyon prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old.

How exactly do petrified trees prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old?

 

[ShinyUmbreon189]

The Bible is proven to be historically accurate. My non-religiously affiliated textbook in History class uses the Bible.

How so? The bible was written by man that didn't know right from wrong themselves. I find it very hard to believe the writing in red is the actual words of Jesus Christ. If you can give me stated evidence and proof that the bible is accurate I'll definitely look into it as will everybody else. That doesn't include going to a biased Christian forum and getting it there, it's not a reliable source; I want a reliable source. Until then don't make feeble statements that has yet to be proven.

History textbooks are also written by man, religious or not. Just because a history book says the bible is accurate doesn't make it true.

And scientist have calculated that the earth is 4.5 billion years old through scientific studies.

 

[Aeroblast]

...

So your saying that its messed up to give someone a second chance?

@Zekrom summed it up well.

To those who died prior to the coming of Jesus- they had to believe that God was sending Jesus down to earth to save them and put their faith in God.

I feel like we're talking about different people here.

I wasn't talking about people who lived prior to the coming of Jesus. I was talking about people who died before they ever had a chance to accept or even know about Christianity.

The laws in Deuteronomy don't have to followed after the coming of Jesus (he tells people not to stone a prostitute, Peter's dream, etc) because the times have changed.

"You don't have to follow the laws from the Old Testament"... not the first time I heard of this, and certainly will not be my last.

"And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." (Luke 16:17)

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16)

I also find it a bit ironic that you are quick to dismiss the Theory of Evolution because you believe in the creationist creation of the world which is supported by... you guessed it, the Old Testament.

The archeological evidence proves that the story was real, I don't see how it could be exaggerated. Most Atheists (and people of other faiths) believe Jesus existed- just that he wasn't God. The Bible is proven to be historically accurate

Parts of the Bible might have reflected a true event that happened in the past, but certain stories in the Bible, like Jesus walking on water for example, is physically impossible.

Are there any links to those archaeological evidences? I might be interested in seeing them.

My non-religiously affiliated textbook in History class uses the Bible.

Are you sure? If so, then something is seriously wrong with your school... unless you live in the Bible Belt or something, which then I'm not surprised by.

petrified trees and lack of stress marks in the Grand Canyon prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old.

I don't see how that has anything to do with radioactive dating? I also fail to see how petrified trees are a proof that Earth is not 4 billion years old.

 

[Bounsweet]

Directed to OP: I've been Atheist for a good 10 or so years of my life, Agnostic prior to that, and raised Christian as a child.

Honestly, I've never had to deal with any zealous Christians (or frankly anyone of any other religion) trying to convert me. It's not a matter of religion. I've met many *******s from all over the spectrum - spiritual beliefs are so irrelevant, you've just dealt with crappy people lmao.

Beliefs are all so entirely independent among the individual - even individuals of the same religion, that there's no point in comparing them as far as morals and ethics go.

 

[The Void]

"You don't have to follow the laws from the Old Testament"... not the first time I heard of this, and certainly will not be my last.

"And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." (Luke 16:17)

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16)

Traditions change. You quotes Luke 16:17, but look at the next verse, Luke 16:18, and you see, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery." The Law of Moses actually allowed divorce, but only because their "...hearts were hard. But it was not this way in the beginning." (Matthew 19:8)

As for the second verse, the belief is that the Bible is indeed divinely inspired, but its writers were still humans, not God. What would you think "profitable for doctrine" mean?

Parts of the Bible might have reflected a true event that happened in the past, but certain stories in the Bible, like Jesus walking on water for example, is physically impossible.

True, walking on water is impossible, which is why it's called a miracle. You can't really disprove that it actually happened based on historical events, but I can't prove it with logic either.

The Bible is proven to be historically accurate. My non-religiously affiliated textbook in History class uses the Bible. Radioactive dating is inaccurate- petrified trees and lack of stress marks in the Grand Canyon prove the Earth is not 4 billion years old.

BadPokemon, it always helps to cite your sources, especially when engaging in archaeological/historical debates. Who/what organization/website/affiliation claimed "lack of stress marks" as proof Earth is not 4 billion years old? Because most archaeologists would use the Grand Canyon as the same reason why the Earth is at least 4 billion years old, with proofs ranging from depth of silt layers to basaltic lava flow from up to 100,000 years ago. (Beus and Morales, 2003; pp. 317-319). Here's an entire, legit academic article about it: http://www.icr.org/article/excessively-old-ages-for-grand-canyon-lava-flows/

...also you should check your history book's reliability and objectiveness checked.

 

[Nah]

BadPokemon, it always helps to cite your sources, especially when engaging in archaeological/historical debates. Who/what organization/website/affiliation claimed "lack of stress marks" as proof Earth is not 4 billion years old? Because most archaeologists would use the Grand Canyon as the same reason why the Earth is at least 4 billion years old, with proofs ranging from depth of silt layers to basaltic lava flow from up to 100,000 years ago. (Beus and Morales, 2003; pp. 317-319). Here's an entire, legit academic article about it: http://www.icr.org/article/excessively-old-ages-for-grand-canyon-lava-flows/

Ah, thank you for posting that link. I gave it a read, but I unfortunately don't remember how to interpret a rock's age from a rubidium-strontium isotope plot, so I can't really go much further with that (how did I get a B.S. in geology again?).

 

[Aeroblast]

Traditions change. You quotes Luke 16:17, but look at the next verse, Luke 16:18, and you see, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

Traditions change, yes. And the tradition that was written in Bible happened roughly two millenia ago when mankind was largely ignorant about science and the natural world. Now that many scientific discoveries are directly contradicting the Bible, people are turning away from the religion that supports Bible.

The Law of Moses actually allowed divorce, but only because their "...hearts were hard. But it was not this way in the beginning." (Matthew 19:8)

And in the verse right after, Jesus says "Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery."

But what about the Ten Commandments? God makes it very clear, "you shall not commit adultery." No mention of any sort of exceptions whatsoever. If there are supposed exceptions, then why not state that in the Ten Commandments in the first place?

As for the second verse, the belief is that the Bible is indeed divinely inspired, but its writers were still humans, not God. What would you think "profitable for doctrine" mean?

That's right, belief. Belief without evidence. There's not a single evidence outside the Bible that supports the notion that the bible is divinely inspired. If you want to, you could count some anecdotal evidences (ones where someone died temporary and saw heaven and god, for example), but anecdotal evidences are generally considered unreliable.

True, walking on water is impossible, which is why it's called a miracle. You can't really disprove that it actually happened based on historical events, but I can't prove it with logic either.

I can disprove it, because miracles do not happen. Of course, unless you believe in what Bible says, which cannot be done unless you have faith in it.

 

[ShinyUmbreon189]

True, walking on water is impossible, which is why it's called a miracle. You can't really disprove that it actually happened based on historical events, but I can't prove it with logic either.

I jumped out of a plane yesterday without a parachute and before I was about to hit the ground a miracle happened, I could fly. I can make up fantasized miracles all day and claim them to be true. I'm a human, the writer of a bible were humans, meaning it's no different. Hate to break it to ya, but miracles don't happen like that.

 

[Ice1]

I personally dislike only religious debate, as they mostly get too heated for my personal liking, but I'll chip in.

I'll start off with saying I am an Atheist, so I may unknowingly be biased. I don't belief in a God, nor do I think that words could convince me, but I respect other decision to belief. I love religion and books like the bible because I like the mythology aspect, and the metaphoric message in most of the passages is something all humans should take to their heart, religious or not. I belief that religion is essence is a thing of beauty, and is nothing but hope-giving. The only problem is that religion is very central to most people their lives, which gives certain people a position of power over them, which, of course, is bad when mistreated and used for warmongering.

I saw someone react with saying would I think implied Jesus wrote the bible, this isn't the case, the bible is a collection of books, which are written over the period of hundreds of years by multiple writers, neither of them were Jesus.

When thinking about christian traditions and bible writings, keep in mind the bible could only be read by members of the clerus for more then a thousand years and was had to be hand-copied to produce new copies. Translation and copying goes wrong, so almost undoubtedly there have slipped some errors into the original writings. Originally there was more than one bible, and there were commites to decide which parts of which bible should be part off the official biblical cannon.

People that treat atheist as if their gonna go to hell are people I won't interact with. I don't know people that belief in hell, and I personally belief that the concept of hell is outdated and used only to instill fear in others. I belief the concept of eternity in itself is so cruel, that no man, and yes, not even Hitler, deserves eternal torture. I don't think a moral God would be okay with this concept, so I don't belief in hell for that very reason. I don't belief in hell even more as I don't belief in God, haha.

I also think that you can't judge people by their religion. If you belief that religious people are moral, but non-religious aren't, then I belief you are an immoral person, because as far as I understand, you don't believe in mankinds capability to do good things.

People who don't belief in evolution haven't studied the theory enough. There's no denying evolution for scientist, because they know how the theory works. There is proof for all the concepts of evolution on small scale, just putting them together on bigger scale is not viable to observe. Although we domesticated animals, which is clearly a concept of evolution.

Gays are natural, religious peoples who deny that shouldn't even identify with common christianity.

I must say that Poki's post in the beginning is kind of militant in the same way he dislikes in Christians. I do get this feeling though, if you're someone who browses the atheist part of reddit, where only idiotic christians get in the spotlight, or come from extreme christian area's.

 

[Lucky#13]

I'm back. Tour was great, but now I'm tired and don't really want to sing in my classes tomorrow.

Now that I'm here, I'm seeing discussion about the Old testament. To be honest when I look at the old testament, I approach it with quite a bit of skepticism.

I don't know how much is exaggerated. I don't know how much is symbolism. The New testament often disagrees with the Old testament. My main focus lies on the Gospels and the letters written to different churches/locations about how to act and such.

I view much of the old testament as stories (questionable as to whether they happened or not) with thematic points that give a guideline for how to act a specific culture. That culture is outdated. There are still some lessons that can be learned from these stories, but some of them don't serve much of a purpose.

ShinyUmbreon makes a good point.

Miracles don't happen like that.
Miracles only happen through faith, going in line with the "All things are possible through faith" I mentioned earlier. Though with that specific example a more appropriate verse would be Luke 4:12 Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Miracles do not happen often and that is partly due to lack of faith. Though it is important to note that Individual Faith is not very strong, especially when surrounded by a lack of faith. Collective Faith is nearly limitless.
Mark 13:58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Aero, We've already discussed the versus. It is less of one verse discrediting another and more one verse includes an exception to what is stated in the first.

 

[Aeroblast]

Now that I'm here, I'm seeing discussion about the Old testament. To be honest when I look at the old testament, I approach it with quite a bit of skepticism.

I don't know how much is exaggerated. I don't know how much is symbolism. The New testament often disagrees with the Old testament. My main focus lies on the Gospels and the letters written to different churches/locations about how to act and such.

I view much of the old testament as stories (questionable as to whether they happened or not) with thematic points that give a guideline for how to act a specific culture. That culture is outdated. There are still some lessons that can be learned from these stories, but some of them don't serve much of a purpose.

Some **** in the Old Testament are just downright brutal, so brutal that no amount of context and symbolism will ever justify it. Old Testament repeatedly condones slavery, rape, human sacrifice, and random acts of violence (e.g. genocide, infanticide), all in the name of the supposedly "good, just, merciful, and all-loving" God. It's also why lots of christians choose to turn blind eye to Old Testament in these types of arguments (I'm glad you actually acknowledged your skepticism, though, even if you said a bit), saying that they don't matter any more.

It's OK to be skeptical. It shows that you've actually read some of the Old Testament, have sense of morality outside of what bible tells you, and most importantly, and can think for yourself without the influence of a holy book.

ShinyUmbreon makes a good point.

Miracles don't happen like that.
Miracles only happen through faith, going in line with the "All things are possible through faith" I mentioned earlier. Though with that specific example a more appropriate verse would be Luke 4:12 Jesus answered, "It is said: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Miracles do not happen often and that is partly due to lack of faith. Though it is important to note that Individual Faith is not very strong, especially when surrounded by a lack of faith. Collective Faith is nearly limitless.
Mark 13:58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.

Miracles do not happen. Period.

Aero, We've already discussed the versus. It is less of one verse discrediting another and more one verse includes an exception to what is stated in the first.

I don't think we'll agree on this, to be honest. But it just shows that the Bible can be interpreted differently in many different ways, which seems a bit weird for a holy book that is supposed to be flawless.

 

[Ice1]

Keep in mind that most verses are written to please the people first, and to teach them second. If your God wants everybody to love each other, and your tribe get's plundered and raped by the neighbouring tribe, you wouldn't write in your bible "Love everyone, even thy neighbour." You would write "Love everyone, except those damn neighbours." Otherwise your religion wouldn't get traction. God isn't brutal, mankind is brutal. Also, slavery was really normal. It seems inhuman now, but just keep in mind the times the bible was written in. If you said you said, free thine slaves, nobody would even take you serious.

 

[Aeroblast]

Exactly. Bible is man made, and the very concept of god was also made by men long time ago in order to explain things that they couldn't at that time due to their ignorance on many scientific subjects that we know now.

If the god of the bible was real, and if that god was truly merciful, all-loving, just, and kind, we wouldn't see contradictions all over the bible that suggest otherwise.

 

[Ice1]

Why wouldn't we? I see were you're coming from, but God didn't write the bible, so the contradictions could just come naturally in the translations process, right?

 

[Aeroblast]

I don't exactly understand what you're trying to ask, to be honest.

And there are multiple ways bible contradicts itself. Sometimes from faulty translations, yes.

 

[Ice1]

If the god of the bible was real, and if that god was truly merciful, all-loving, just, and kind, we wouldn't see contradictions all over the bible that suggest otherwise.

I was referring to this line. God probably had minimal influence on the writing of the bible, so those contradictions can still be man-made, even with an all-loving and merciful god existing.

 

[Aeroblast]

I was referring to this line. God probably had minimal influence on the writing of the bible, so those contradictions can still be man-made, even with an all-loving and merciful god existing.

I see what you're trying to ask - I think we agree on core concepts, just that we're not sure if we agree on the details.

Let me put it this way: If god was truly merciful, all-loving, just, and kind, why is he portrayed as a horrible being that promotes wicked things like slavery, infanticide, misogyny?

And of course, your argument was that sense of morality was different back then and was also underdeveloped, which is why god of that time reflect that - and I do not disagree with that. The flaw in all this is that people who follow by the morals and teachings of the bible are now limiting themselves to living by a largely outdated holy book.

 

[Ice1]

The bible may be a little outdated, but it core concepts are not. I do not know of, and have never heard of, christians that still promote slavery or infanticide. Even orthodox christians do not. With misoginy, I believe people are raised with it and merely use the bible to justify it. I don't believe religion causes misoginy. Most modern day christians don't take the bible that literaly, you seem to refer to extreme orthodoz christians, which is a dying demographic. I do agree with you, though, with the fact that those things are extremely outdated, but I don't think anyone disagrees on that point.