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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to Caewren [2017-10-01 18:57:41 +0000 UTC]

Does he at least exist in your heart?  What does your heart tell you?

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to BeautyAndStrength [2015-11-16 11:30:32 +0000 UTC]

Here you go, my fellow Christian: "Did you ever wonder why being in relationship with anyone (friend, family member, spouse, children, parents), a good relationship, makes you happy? Well, it's because you were made in the image of God. And God all by himself is a relationship. I mean who is God? We know that God is Father; he protects us, watches over us. We know that God is Son; a brother to us, a friend to us, someone that we can turn to in need. We know that God is Holy Spirit; someone always there to motivate us and even give us a little kick sometimes to remind us as to what we're suppose to be doing and who we're suppose to be... We are happiest when we are relating."~Father Dan O'Connell

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to BeautyAndStrength [2015-11-07 15:02:25 +0000 UTC]

Thank you, I appreciate the sentiment.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to TheiCarlyAngel [2015-08-07 04:52:22 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for posting. ^_^

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to TheiCarlyAngel [2015-05-18 06:10:09 +0000 UTC]

Now, that is the kind of message I was hoping to receive from this artwork, rather than a bunch of atheists complaining about it (which is what I have gotten mostly so far).  Peace be with you, my fellow christian.

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TheiCarlyAngel In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-05-18 07:06:07 +0000 UTC]

Thank you and to you as well.
I know, so many downers lately, ugh. DX
At least God is positive and loving, right?

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to Fuiron [2015-05-18 04:21:14 +0000 UTC]

When a baby learns to walk, the baby may fall and start crying.  If a parent is in the room, does that make the parent evil?  The parent may comfort the baby, but the parent knows there are risks and struggle in growing stronger. Can you imagine if the child never learned to walk?  We are like that baby. According to Jesus, God is the Father Almighty.  For there to be strength, does there not need also to be sacrifice and struggle.  I am hoping this helps.  Thank you for your long reply, it got me thinking.

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Fuiron In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-05-18 04:47:34 +0000 UTC]

A bruise or two is not the same thing as an entire world mostly hostile to humanity. You don't let your kids anywhere near the rat poison, do you?

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to Fuiron [2015-05-18 05:37:56 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, well the human race is a lot bigger than 1 baby too.  It may all be proportional.

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Fuiron In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-05-18 09:17:33 +0000 UTC]

"May" is not good enough, I think. It is a perfectly reasonable question to ask WHY God would require suffering, if God requires no particular thing. Being all-powerful, God DEFINES what is required, no? So, WHY?

Like I said, there is an escape hatch here, and it boils down to accepting you know as much about God as a tree stump in Texas knows about cowboys. You don't know how or even if God does anything, much less if it is done on purpose or can be done a different way. You've no theory. You only have hope that it is all done with benevolence and purpose, for humanity, and you start the dance from there. Some people don't have that hope as their chief concern (perhaps because they are not Christian), so they are not likely to decide the Universe was designed with humanity in mind in the absence of actual evidence.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to nemedeus [2015-04-07 21:05:59 +0000 UTC]

Well, I would have become an atheist this year, but alas I can not.  Because I moved from believing in God to Knowing God exists many years ago.  There is no doubt in my mind God exists, so the question is why are all these atheists arguments wrong?  I would like you to consider something:

The sun is yellowish white from space, air is clear, so the sky during the day should be clear or yellowish white, using logic...  But wait, it isn't.  So there must be a reason.  And of course, the reason is that the light interacts with the air molecules scattering the light so that we see blue.

The above is a simple example, but it is the very thing that is going on now.  People are using logic to show God does not exist, but he clearly is.  So all people need to do is dig deeper and figure out the real reason why he exists and why the other ideas are not true.

Like I have said, I have experienced miracles, spirits, angels, and I know many others who have as well.  So the question should be: "what are the flaws in the arguments that he does not exist?"  You can't just sit down and think up answers, that is not true science, that is philosophy.  You have to go out and collect evidence and data.

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nemedeus In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-04-07 21:53:46 +0000 UTC]

well, see, that's the thing. As far as i know, there is no indication that the god you think is factual actually exists except that you say it is so.

If you give me your word that you have experienced miracles and angels and other vaguely defined supernatural things as such, then all i have is your word. That is what scientists call anecdotal evidence. This is misleading, because it is not at all evidence (or at the very least cannot be used as evidence).

What you are sugessting we do is the exact oppositeorder of operations compared to science: you start with your hypothesis "God exists" and then to c ollect data.
But science doesn't start at the hypothesis, it starts with the data! when you see a phenomenon that you don't understand, then you try to think of a hypothesis, and test that hypothesis.
testing a hypothesis in modern science is trying to disprove the negative. To show that a hypothesis is correct (or at least not wholly incorrect), it needs to be shown that the universe would not behave like it does if the hypothesis were false. If the result is that the universe deos behave like it would if the hypothesis were false, then the hypothesis is obviously false.

But even then, "god exists" isn't really a good hypothesis. I will try to explain why, though this is going to be a bit complicated:
The problem is that the actual question is "how does a universe without a god behave differently than a universe with god?"
If the answer is "it doesn't", then "god exists" is an untestable hypothesis.
Unless you can tell me how a hypothetical universe A, in which the hypothesis "god exists" is false, is going to behave differently from a hypothetical universe B, in which "god exists" is true, it is not actually a hypothesis. Because to test the hypothesis, there needs to be a difference in universe A and B that is construed so that i can repeatedly look at the universe we are currently in and get a different result depending on whether Our Universe is like the A or B universe, which of course, if i repeat the test, must come up with a result congruous to the result i got before (if the results are different each time i do the test, something is wrong with either the hypothesis or the test).


Ultimately it's just that. you don't collet data and evidence after forming a hypothesis. That's not how the scientific method works. So don't take it personal when i say that i wholly disagree that the question would be "what are the flaws in the arguments that he does not exist?" this question is flawed in itself because it assumes the conclusion. This is a common argumentative fallacy that is called "begging the question". I don't tell you this to try and silence you. Begging the question actually hurts your own argument. because when you cannot show that the arguments for the nonexistence of such an god have any flaws, you have essentially disproven your conclusion/hypothesis.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to nemedeus [2015-04-07 22:14:32 +0000 UTC]

So if you look up at the sky and ask why the sky is not yellow, that is a bad question according to science?

I know you have only anecdotal evidence from me.  But I have first hand evidence from myself.  In fact much of science is based on other people's data and evidence rather than your personal evidence.  Like have you ever done the experiments that test the speed of light or even gravity in a vacuum?

I know a universe without God would work extremely different, but how can we get a second universe to do tests on?

I am not asking you to believe me, I am just saying evidence is stronger than a philosophical statement when it comes to what is real or not.  So it is worth finding your own evidence.

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nemedeus In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-04-08 09:15:06 +0000 UTC]

no, you don't understand: asking why the sky isn't yellow is a legitimate question (to which science has an answer), but what you are expecting me to do is actually to look at the sky and say it's yellow when it's actually blue, and then say "oh it looks blue but it's actually yellow, so something must be wrong with my eyes."
Do you see how i have to make an additional assumption ("something is wrong with my eyes") to explain that the sky looks blue when i insist on it being yellow?

If your first hand experience of these various things (and for the record, don't believe you when you say you have experienced first hand supernatural phenomenon, however i find it much more believable that your brain played tricks on you) is enough for you to jump to the conclusion that "it must be god", then that is fine by me. The problem starts when you want other people to produce scientific evidence that supports your conclusion after getting to that conclusion. I have explained how science works the other way around.

You say "In fact much of science is based on other people's data and evidence rather than your personal evidence." This is correct and it is an important part of the scientific method called "peer review".
The difference between data/evidence and first hand excperience is that it is reproducible, while first hand experiences are by definition not reproducible.
You asked "Like have you ever done the experiments that test the speed of light or even gravity in a vacuum?"
I canot say that i have had the privilege to test the speed of light, but i have "personally experienced" if you wish to call it that, gravity in a vacuum (in the physics classroom in school). I cannot reproduce the firsthand experience, because it is a fixed event in the past, but i know how to test that gravitational acceleration in a vacuum is the same for all objects. That is reproducible data, and to my knowledge it hasn't been shown ever that this is not the case in any situation. That means, peer review has confirmed that the test is legitimate (because it is giving reproducible results).

You say "I know a universe without God would work extremely different, but how can we get a second universe to do tests on?"
but the thing is, you don't need a second universe. I think you are confused in this regard: the question is not "how does another universe where god does or doesn't exist behave?". instead it is "do we live in a universe where god doesn or doesn't exist and how can we test that in this universe?"
Again, you are trying to do it backwards. you assume first that this universe contains an god, and say that another universe must be vastly different. but you should be asking yourself: how do you know how the universe with the opposite truth value for "god exists" would behave vastly different? And well, you don't know that. and it isn't the question. we want to run tests on this universe. if you need another niverse to do the test, you have confused the order of operations or something is wrong with the test. the idea of the hypothetical universes A and B is that both COULD be our universe, but they would have to have a meaningful difference, testable in THIS universe, to show which one of the hypothetical universes A and B is more congruous with ours. But even given that it only leads back to the problem that "god exists" is not testable.

You say "I am just saying evidence is stronger than a philosophical statement when it comes to what is real or not.  So it is worth finding your own evidence."
That may be true, and i would say i agree with you on the philosophy bit there, but then, do you have any evidence? that is, do you have data that you acquired using a test that i can repeat and reliably get a result that is easier explained by "god exists" than established scientific theories? note that "easer explained" is not what ou think it is in this case: "god exists" is an assumption that you put on top of the universe to explain what you see, where the default hypothesis would be "the phenomenon is inherent to the universe." note that the default hypothesis makes no additional assumptions besides "the universe exists and is shaped like itself." this is the default assumption that you always have to make in order to test anything. it differs from "god exists" as an explanation because it is intrinsic, while "god exists" is extrinsic.

You may indeed find that you can explain more easily things you think you have experienced by "god exists."
I still would not know what that infers, because i have never been shown a meaningful difference between "god exists" and "god exists not", so for me (and the scientific community) it doesn't really explain anything.
I have yet to see any evidence, that is not actually just personal experience, from which to unambiguously conclude that "god exists" is true. So if you have reproducible evidence, i can only invite and encourage you to demonstrate it and tell me how i, he, anyone can reproduce it.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to nemedeus [2015-04-10 03:59:58 +0000 UTC]

Well, you sound like an intelligent person. I have lived a rather strange life compared to most people, full of some of the most holy people and psychic people. Maybe that is why I used the analogy of the sky being blue. Because saying "God exists" is like saying "the sky is blue" to me. It is that evident.

Lets skip over the fact that God created the universe for the moment. Lets say God ceased to exist right now (assuming this would not cause everything to vanish, which it might since God sustains it all). Our bodies would all fall lifeless to the ground, birds would drop out of the sky, trees would soon die out. So a universe without God would be quite different. Life and God are closely intertwined.

You can not see your cell phone signals, so your eyes in many ways are not the best instrument for picking us what is going on in the world. I estimate a good 70 percent of existence can't be seen (and I am not just talking about cell phone signals). Most of what we do is all a shell to a deeper reality.

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nemedeus In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-04-10 06:59:55 +0000 UTC]

As i am Assuming you understood what i said, I am quite confident that you know what i say next.

The experiment you propose is the following:
 - check if life exists in the universe
 - if the universe is dead, god doesn't exist
 - if the universe contains any life at all, god exists

You propose that one could test this by imagining (as Thought Experiments are a legitimate experimental technique, albeit no replacement for the "real" thing) god suddenly stoping to exist. But scientist's don't conduct experiments like that.

I can't, for comparision, test that gravity exists by imagining a universe where it suddenly stops to exist (for both obvious and non-obvious reasons). The reason to that is that science didn't start with the fact that gravity exists and then tested for it. Instead, we start with the observation that things fall to the ground whenever they can. "Gravity" is really just a label for this phenomenon*.
That is the idea of the scientific method. You start with an observation, and then try to explain it. And then you do an experiment to test if what should happen according to that explanation, actually does happen. if that is the case, then the explanation is conclusive. If not, a new explanation is needed and has to be tested just as the previous one. Of course, even in the first case, a better explanation still might exist that gives a more general insight in the workings of reality.

Now if a scienctist observes a phenomenon they cannot easily explain, and the best explanation they come up with is "it's magic", or "it's god" or something similar, then the problem will always be that this is not testable and doesn't really help much to explain the phenomenon. Instead, scientists look at and think about the phenomenon again and again until they find a useful explanation, which then is tested etc. etc.

The proposed thought experiment is that we should test for god's existence by imagining that god doesn't exist or stops existing, and find that the universe would be dead. I see several problems here:
 - we do not know that the universe would be dead without a god - for all we know, it might be the same as with.
 - we cannot change whether a god exists or not. (granted, that is the point of thought experiments)
 - if we could, we would all be dead, meaning we would never know about it, so even then it wouldn't technically be testable.
 - again the conclusion ("god exists") is already proposed in the argument ("if god doesn't exist, there can be no life")

I might well say "Had i never been born, the second world war would never have ended." and conclude that "the second world war has ended, therefore i exist."
This is completely untestable - after all, i was born and that fact can't be changed. It is also a terrible argument for my being born, because WW2 ended long before i was born. Everyone can test my existence by simply looking at me etc. so that would be the better test.



Lastly, the thing with what we can and can't see. Well, you are right that there are many things we cannot see with our eyes. your guess is a bit off; as far as i know, it's more like 95% to 98% of the things happening in the universe that we cannot directly see (such as dark matter, dark energy etc.).
However, just because we cannot see these things directly with our eyes, doesn't mean we cannot measure it.
A historical example would be the planet neptune, who was discovered by astronomers after it's exitence was predicted mathematically because of irregularities in the orbits of other, already known planets which were best explained by another planet that was influencing their orbits. 

That's the thing with "invisible" things: they aren't as magical as they may feel. We can make non-visible light visible with special cameras that can "see" them and translate it into visible light. we still aren't seeing them directly, but that is just because our retinas happen to not absorb these electromagnetic wavelengths.
One cannot "see" forces in action - all we see is their effect on objects. after all, forces are interactions between objects, not objects unto themselves. However, these interactions can still be measured.

The problem i have as an atheist with proposed gods is not that i cannot see them directly, but rather, that i cannot even see them indirectly. Practically all things that many religions say that their gods do or have done can be explained by processes that i can see either directly or indirectly, and these processes never seem like they have a "godly spark" in them.



Let me be clear: what you believe in is up to you. i'm not here to convert you to atheism, both because i value people's personal freedoms, including religious freedom, and because to me personally it is frankly inconsequential.
What i care about is a people's understanding of science and rational thinking. There are christian scientists, so you shouldn't think of it as something to stop you from believing whatever it is you believe in, metaphysically.
Life can be explained by biochemistry. the origin of the universe is still complicated, but scientists are working on that (a possibility that was found to be back on the table in the last few decades is that it was always there and doesn't have a definitive starting point). Many things people used to think were supernatural turned out to have natural explanations.



(* which incidentally is why "because gravity" is not an explanation: note that of the four natural forces, the other being the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces, gravity is the least understood. we don't have a conclusive explanation yet, for after all, science is still going. the current state of the art however to explain all these things that happen because of gravity would be "objects that possess a mass are attracted to eachother because mass warps spacetime" etc., which would be genearal relativity - newtons mechanics didn't quite cut it. i do not claim to fully understand general relativity, but then , i am no physicist, just a science enthusiast.)


Wow, that was quite the wall of text. I'm sorry for textwalling, but I feel there are so many important aspects to this, so i don't know if i can stop, haha!

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to nemedeus [2015-04-12 09:07:27 +0000 UTC]

Thank you for being so respectful... And logical (if you were to follow LE2's discussion with me under this artwork to the end you would see she decided not to believe in God just because I spelt a word wrong a couple times, which is both illogical and disrespectful).

But on to the topic at hand... God. God is not simply a god, like any other. He is not some powerful person sitting on a mountain top that causes the winds to happen or the rains to happen. According to scripture God is in all places and sees all things. When Moses asked God who he was, God said "I am that I am" or a better translation would be "I am that which exists." And in fact his personal name "Yahweh" means "He Exists." So God is not really a god like the others. An even better title then God would probably be "Supreme Being."

I love science, and I am not one of those Christians that believes the world was made 6,000 years ago. That would be rediculous. I've taken geology and astronomy in college. Holding a rock that was formed 200,000,000 years ago, and finding out that the light from the Andromida galaxy that is reaching us is from about 3,000,000 years ago. These things have only made me more amazed in the Supreme Being's creation.

Entropy does not work in reverse. You can't have a stack of wood that falls apart to form a house; there are builders who put it together. Same goes for this lush blue-green life filled world with people on it able to discuss things on a website called DeviantArt.

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nemedeus In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-04-12 14:54:04 +0000 UTC]

Well, that is the inevitable point where we just have to agree to disagree. To me it is perfectly logical that everything that exists, ultimately just exists and evolved for no specific purpose, including life and everything not man-made. In other words, i subscribe to existentialism. If "God" is congruent to all of existence itself, as you say, then i do not know that i can infer anything of meaning from that fact alone.

Ultimately, there is just one thing i see: Nothing exists but atoms and the void.
Any meaning beyond that is imposed onto existence by myself (or anyone else for the matter). This is extrinsic to the object i impose meaning onto, and the purpose i put onto it only exists in the context of my own mind.

To "God as a Supreme Being", all i can say is that even then, i cannot infer how the existence of such a being is meaningfully different from its nonexistence.
Ultimately i don't see direct effects of one god or another, be they personalities like the ones from ancient mythology or supreme beings like the one of abraham, so i prefer to go with the idea that essence is imposed onto existence by my mind and inside my mind only.



Regarding Entropy, as you said correctly, entropy only works in one direction; however, you overlook that while this is true on a global scope (global meaning in regard to the entireity of the universe), energy states can indeed become more orderly in a local scope!

Let me explain with an example: say you pick up a stone from the ground and lay it on a table. the stone's potential energy is now higher than before, more ordered and less entropic (meaning energy could be released, and possibly used, by having the stone drop back to the ground. However, the energy you have used up yourself by oicking up and placing the stone, always exceeds the energy that could be gained by dropping the stone again.

Similarly, life on earth is not a violation of entropy: while the earth's energy state indeed is more ordered through it's existence, there is a more "global" system the earth is part of that, for life to develop, has to have taken on a more entropic state. That would be the sun, which constantly is releasing energy from an ordered state (which is the nuclear energy contained in its matter) into a less ordered state (which is radiation, released through a process of, to our knowledge, nuclear fusion).

So as i understand it, while noone can ever definitely rule out that there is a divine intention in the basic operations of the universe, neither can this divine intention ever be unambiguosly inferred from them. Personally, i favor a reductionist view, both for rationality and personal preference.



If i understand you correctly, we might be not so different, you and i. If you can look at the night sky and be amazed by the beauty of the universe, then i can understand that. If that is what you call divine, then i am in no mind to disagree, for i too have, behind all the science and logic and rationality, a leaning to the poetic, and it may well be the same feeling we feel.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to nemedeus [2015-05-18 05:17:08 +0000 UTC]

Than perhaps you do feel an underlining feeling that there is more.  That there is a poetic nature that is not in the realm of science.  The only thing we disagree on is that you think that the poetic nature is only added by the human perception and not something that is already there that underpins all existence.

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nemedeus In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-05-18 11:34:21 +0000 UTC]

That goes in the right direction, howerver it does not entirely decribe my position.
first, i wouldn't call it an "underlining feeling", or "poetic nature" (the word nature is hard to define). it's a quite conscious attribution.
Science = tool for finding and improving explanations. i have a hard time seeing how science chould not be relevant and useful for, let's say, art or something similar that usually is considered "outside of science".
i think saying that something is "outside of science" is in a way a misleading use of the word. humans use science to explain things. The idea that humans posess properties that fundamentally cannot be explained is, in my opinion, an illusion.
i also think that what you call "poetic nature" really only is a function of the human consciousness, so it is not "added" onto nature. rather, it only exists inside a human's mind. I guess that is not too far off from what you mean, though.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to ChiharusMoon [2015-03-10 16:57:48 +0000 UTC]

Thank you, I appreciate it.

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ChiharusMoon In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-10 17:58:43 +0000 UTC]

you're welcome

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Caewren In reply to LE2 [2017-03-25 23:00:48 +0000 UTC]

Because he don't exist bruh

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LE2 In reply to Caewren [2017-03-28 20:39:05 +0000 UTC]

Good a reason as any.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-08 06:36:29 +0000 UTC]

He does show it, you just have to open up your heart. Jesus showed it when he saved the life of the prostitue, he showed it when he healed the sick, the blined, and those who could not walk. He showed it when he fed the poor and hungry. He even showed it when he layed down his life so that we may have a chance ourselves to live forever. Jesus is the word (not just a man) and the word was with God in the beginning of time (John 1:1), now that is saying something. It is truely an almighty way, to have such caring and understanding with you. As it says in Genesis 1:3 "And God said 'Let there be light.'" God's true words are light, just as Jesus was the word of God. There is light in all the dark places of your life. What athiests don't realize when they say that there is no evidance of God, is that the Bible itself is evidance. The Holy Bible actually does things, it opens hearts to the beauty of the soul.

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-08 19:51:54 +0000 UTC]

Open the heart. Right. How many times have I heard that ridiculous cliche? What's Jesus done lately? I've read your Bible. He said he was coming back within the lifetime of his Apostles. Well, they've been dust for centuries and he still hasn't returned! Yeah, he laid down his life because God who was also somehow himself was incapable of forgiveness unless his son who was also somehow himself was killed. Gee, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Light in all dark places? If it has light it's not dark! Stop spouting cliches and make some sense!

Yeah, the Bible is evidence (not evidance) because the Bible says it's so and the Bible doesn't lie because the Bible says it doesn't and the Bible is true because the Bible says it's true....noticing a circular pattern here?

The Bible also inspires people to hate and perform acts of ugliness.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-09 01:47:20 +0000 UTC]

Woot! I found someone on here asking all the questions I have been lately. You make all really good points. Jesus said he was coming back soon, which is indeed odd (although in many cases he was talking about spiritually coming back in each person's lives who follow his teachings). The other times Jesus could just have been wrong, i mean there is somewhere in there that says he himself would not know the hour of the end (which would make him right in that case ). I will try to find it.

It looks like you may have been watching some Bill Maher from the way you said a part in this, which is cool.  I like him too. But my understanding of what the Bible is saying is that Jesus is part of the holy trinity, but he is still seperate from God as well; I mean otherwise why would he need to pray to his father in Heaven? Does a person need to pray to himself? So they must be seperate, even if they are part of the same devine.

What I meant by light in the darkness, you are right. Light in darkness is light.  Which is my point, there is light. If there was no light you could not see, and that goes for your life as well. I know it sounds like a cliche, but I think cliches are highly underated. Some have a lot of truth and meaning in them, and that is how they became overused in the first place.

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-09 18:35:53 +0000 UTC]

If you're asking yourself these questions, you should seriously think about them instead of chanting "God is great, God is good" until those disturbing thoughts go away. Spiritually coming back? That's like having a verbal contract. Sounds a bit phony to me. Oh well, so much for omniscience.

Yeah, I've read/watched Bill Maher, though not recently. He's funny and smart, but I don't agree with him on vaccinations or animal rights. (I like him, but I like sausage just a little bit more.)

Cliches are so overused that they lose meaning. They're just some trite words that get parroted over and over in hopes that someone will take them seriously.

And I have a few more questions for you. Have you asked yourself any of these?

Why do Christians like to cry about how persecuted they are when every president in living memory has professed to be Christian? (Before you mention Kennedy, Catholicism counts.)
Why do Christians get more upset over abortions and same sex marriage than over honor killings in Afghanistan and witch hunts in Uganda?
On that note, which is worse; Aborting a fetus or bringing it to term to be adopted by a gay couple?
Why is it so few anti-abortion activists have adopted children?
Do Christians really think defacing someone's property or threatening them with a Hell they don't believe in will really make them convert?
Why is it wrong to let a woman have birth control but A-OK to give a man Viagra?
Doesn't the concept of Heaven and Hell really sound like it was made up by someone afraid to die but didn't want to spend forever with people they didn't like?
Talking snake...Really? Talking snake?
Did Jesus really sacrifice anything if he rose from the dead and then went to Heaven?
Why are there so many contradictions in the Bible?
Why did God throw such a hissy fit over the Tower of Babel (just a slightly larger than usual mud and dauble building) but did squat when Man went all the way to the moon and back? (If you're one of those nuts who think it was faked, I'm through. Even if it was faked, mankind has still built some structures that make Babel look like a doghouse.)
How did Noah get kangaroos and polar bears? How would all the fish survive the Flood now that all the water is brine?
Why is it atheists seem to know the Bible better than Christians?
What's the deal with baptism, communion, praise and all this other crap? Does God need us to do stuff to prove we love him? (So much for omniscience again.)
What took you guys so long to figure out slavery was bad?
And, of course, the Epicurian argument. Is God impotent or malevolent? Either way, why worship him?

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-09 22:01:39 +0000 UTC]

My family and I are Catholic, Catholics were the first Christians, so of course that counts... but I digress.

I agree that concerning people with abortions and war while ignoring education and health care is very unchristian. When a woman goes through a monthly cycle she may leave behind fertalized eggs, so that does not make her a mass murderer. Plus sometimes a mother and child could die at childbirth, unless the baby is aborted (a rare case, but it still demonstrates a caution to making laws involving abortion, at the very least there are many different kinds of abortion).

Science has proven many things and why people ignore them is ridiculous (look at all science has done for us, that is proof alone that it is at the very least very reliabe). We did land on the moon, we left reflecters up there as a way to verify it. Being gay is natural in nature, so nature must have a purpose for it (maybe to give herds/groups of species a unique and fresh perspective). The story of Adam and Eve and even Noah originate from ancient Babyonian tales.  Even the tower of Babel, means Tower of Babylon, so the Bible itself confirms that these tales are Babylonian. So, I take them with a grain of salt.

In fact discovering this about Babylon this year has lead me to find out that the Christian God Yahweh, was originally the Babylonian god Ea, and that Abraham choose that god out of the many gods as the real one (Joshua 24:2). This means you have to have a lot of faith in Abrahams choosing abilities. This artwork I have done here is my attempt to rekindle some of my spiritual connection.

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-09 23:18:12 +0000 UTC]

You'd be surprised how many Protestant Christians would disagree with you.

Congratulations on not being completely uneducated on the subject of abortion. Normally, I'd insert something sarcastic here like "Your No-Prize is in the mail" or "Want a cookie?" but, this time, I am honestly impressed that you bothered getting educated about abortion. That's how rare it is. You do, however, get an Award of Redundancy Prize for saying "natural in nature". But, congrats on realizing the truth about it anyway.

Most of the stuff in the Bible (including the stuff about Jesus) was cribbed from other religions. Makes the whole thing a bit suspect.

Faith is believing in what your common sense tells you not to. Faith is blindly accepting whatever you're given with no evidence. Faith is just gullibility dressed in Sunday clothes. There's really no point to it at all.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-10 16:53:04 +0000 UTC]

Well when athiests lie to prove a point, it does not help their cause. Because than they seem unreliable. For example "Zeitgeist: the movie" has all kinds of false information in it. It says for exampe that the god Horus was born of a virgin and eventually died and rose from the dead, and that predates Jesus. BUT Horus was actually born of the two gods Isis and Osirus, he was born in a marsh, and he was not resurected but he was stung by a scorpian once. None of that sounds like Jesus. So why make a movie with lies in it if there is so much factual evidance that the Jesus story was made up? I'll tell you why, because there is no evidance the Jesus story was made up.

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-10 20:12:11 +0000 UTC]

One lie (perhaps not even a lie but simple misinformation) from one movie I've never even heard of verses millions of lies from several sources including the Holy Bible itself? Uh-huh.

OK, maybe they got some stuff about Horus wrong. Now explain Attis, Dionysis, Kabir, Vishnu, Marduk, Osiris, Zoraster,  Asclepius, Huitzilopochtli, Quetzalcoatl, Apis, Hercules/Heracles and just to show it's not limited to male gods, Izanami. All born of virgins and/or resurrected and/or accepted bodily into Paradise. Asclepius even had the healing hands!

And the teachings and miracles of Christ weren't exactly new either. The Golden Rule? Cribbed from Confucius. Walking on water? Go read the Aeneid.  Ceasing a storm? How about every nature deity ever? Exorcism? Buddha did it! Turn the other cheek? Ramayana, baby!  Charity and kindness? The Koran and the Paramita were there first.

Incidentally, other than the Biblical scripture, what evidence (not evidance) is there Jesus even existed?

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-11 02:32:40 +0000 UTC]

I said the Horus part was just an example, the movie is full of all kinds of misinformation, and you do not have to watch the movie to feel its effects.  The misinformation is watched and than passed onto you through word of mouth.  Take another example, that you just used: Dionysus.  Dionysus was born from Zeus' Leg, it was not a virgin birth.  How is that anything like Jesus?  What is the motive behind the movie, should be the question.  Why spread lies to make Jesus seem like a fake, and not use real information (if there is any at all).  There is plenty of evidance for Jesus actually, but let me share you a link to a good video that explains why the stories of Horus, Attis, and Dionysus are not like Jesus (the first part gets into it, and that part is only 10 minutes long).  If you still have an open mind, I am sure it will help you to find the truth about the situation:

Link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rRMNi…

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-11 15:13:39 +0000 UTC]

I turned the video off as soon as Hitler showed up. That was the cheapest shot in the book. Ever hear of Godwin's Law? And throwing a few random Bible verses around don't help the argument either.

Boy, you sure like to sift through things until you find the one teeny-tiny gram that doesn't fit perfectly! That whole list of deities and holy texts I gave you and Dionysus is the only one you pick out. Wow, I'm astounded by your thoroughness! (And I'm back in sarcasm mode if you haven't figured that out.)

How am I to feel the effects of a movie I've never seen? Or even heard of until now? And it's hardly the first and only source to bring up doubts about evidence (learn to fucking spell already!) of Jesus. Where is the evidence anyway? No, the Bible does not count. There is no historical evidence that Jesus existed.

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Jeffrey-Scott In reply to LE2 [2015-03-13 00:48:27 +0000 UTC]

I don't remember Hitler being in the video link I sent you. Hmmm. And how is a little bad spelling worse than foul language? I already explained how a movie can effect you without you watching it, through word of mouth (someone sees the video and tells someone else about what they "learned"). And I already explained I was using examples (part of many). If I was going to tell you how all the gods are not like Jesus, we would be here a very very long time (I think there has been around 1000 gods beleived in over time). But since you have decided to stop paying attention to my truths, I suggest we end this conversation.

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LE2 In reply to Jeffrey-Scott [2015-03-15 18:43:53 +0000 UTC]

Did you sleep through the first five minutes? There was some quote about telling lies until they're accepted as truth attributed to Hitler. Once you've played the Hitler card, you've lost all credibility.

I swear and if you don't like it, you can fuck off. I had already told you once how to spell "evidence". Is English not your first language or were you just being contrary for spite's sake?

What someone else thinks about a movie is what they personally think about it. I know this might come as a complete shock to you, but not everyone is going to have the same opinion about something. (I'd like to say I'm in sarcasm mode, but given what I've learned about you, you might honestly not realize that.)

Your "truths" are badly formed opinions. Just accept the fact that not everyone is going to act like your every word is a golden drop from Heaven, and you'll get along in the world better.

If you wanna take your ball and go home crying, that's fine with me.

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