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If I line these up:

Study and teach the scriptures -> Learn established moral codes, and pass them on to others.
Heal lepers -> Help Others Physically.
Heal the blind -> Help Others Physically.
Heal the deaf -> Help Others Physically.
Cast out demons -> Help Others Mentally.
Walk on water -> No particular purpose.
Feed a crowd of thousands with five loaves of bread and two small fish, with 12 baskets of food left over after all of that -> Help Others Physically.
Raise the dead -> Help Others Physically.
Be crucified for claiming to be God (YHWH) -> No particular purpose.
Be resurrected after being buried -> No particular purpose.
Get taken up to heaven -> Live a good life, and die happy knowing you did your best.

If the goal is to emulate Jesus, and spread the teachings about living with others and myself in harmony, what's god got to do with it?

QUOTE Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse.[/quote]

This seems rather... polarized. Maybe Jesus was just a really good guy with an even better PR department?

Something I bought up before that got rather lost is one simple question, do you think that people can choose the fundamentals of what they believe?

That goes to both deists and atheists.

Urgh, now I remembered why I didn't get involved in these threads. People ignore/don't acknowledge the good points you make, can't see their own ignorance and arrogance for what it is, and make sweeping generalisations about groups of people, and even seemingly-reasonable people like Adept have the audacity to say that admitting you don't know the answer to something is a "poisonous viewpoint." What you would us rather do? Boldly and arrogantly claim that we have the answers to absolutely everything? Go "oh yeah, that's a good point, I'll just throw it all in then" ??

Gandalf2 wrote:QUOTE (Gandalf2 @ Jun 21 2012, 11:34 PM) Urgh, now I remembered why I didn't get involved in these threads.

A thread named Creationism AND science can go wrong and most probably must go wrong.

QUOTE This is not a possible scenario. Half of what Jesus tought was about God and heaven, and who he was. It's impossible to believe the teachings of Christ and not believe in God.[/quote]

Sorry Gandy, not trying to duck your point.

I disagree with you here. I think you could study the bible, apply it to your daily life, and quite happily not believe in any god what so ever. I think a lot more people try to do this, and end up unhappy. Lots of people do it everyday, have internal conflicts about whether or not god exists, etc. Actually, that's a little sad that they do all the right things and maybe feel like they are missing something. I've personally met people who have said that they "lost god for a time, but found him again", or other things like this.

"But BT! if you just picked the ones you liked, that's not following ALL the teachings!"

Well, quite true. But then again, if a frank lloyd wright shows me how to build a house, and says I have to wear a hat while I do it, I can certainly build the house exactly the same way, not wear the hat, and still call it a frank lloyd wright house, can't I?

If I follow all the earthly requirements of the bible, and just say to myself: "hey, maybe there's a god, maybe not, it's ok either way."

does it work out?

Gandalf2 wrote:QUOTE (Gandalf2 @ Jun 21 2012, 04:34 PM) Urgh, now I remembered why I didn't get involved in these threads. People ignore/don't acknowledge the good points you make, can't see their own ignorance and arrogance for what it is, and make sweeping generalisations about groups of people, and even seemingly-reasonable people like Adept have the audacity to say that admitting you don't know the answer to something is a "poisonous viewpoint." What you would us rather do? Boldly and arrogantly claim that we have the answers to absolutely everything? Go "oh yeah, that's a good point, I'll just throw it all in then" ??

Errrm Gandalf, that's one of the main points of this thread. Admit we don't know things, and use the scientific method to look for answers.

Gandalf2 wrote:QUOTE (Gandalf2 @ Jun 22 2012, 12:34 AM) even seemingly-reasonable people like Adept have the audacity to say that admitting you don't know the answer to something is a "poisonous viewpoint."

Hang on a moment there Gandalf. That's hardly the core of what I was saying.

The poisonous bit was the fact that even when an argument is brought forth that illuminates an essentially unfair or deeply problematic aspect of the religious world view, it can be dodged by basically saying that "it must be good because god is good, it just looks bad to us humans because we aren't smart/good enough to see the truth".

That whole "god works in mysterious ways" defense, that can be used to justify pretty much anything.



I'm 100% serious in my question Gandy, and I really would appreciate if you can answer me. Isn't it problematic in your view, that million of people have been condemned to hell without any chance of salvation. They just lived before god revealed himself to the Jewish tribes, or were non Jews before the time of Christ.

That seems like a huge problem to me. I think you don't see it as a problem, as you are a believer, but I'm sure it has occurred to you since you are a smart guy. How do you reconcile it?

Hi Adept,

You mentioned that having subjective supernatural experiences caused me to be convinced of the christian worldview lock stock and barrel. This is hardly the case, because the christian worldview is not one unchanging perspective. The christian perspective has changed over the many years, and particularly exciting in recent history where new "older-dating and presumably more accurate" scriptures have been found, and where the use of modern computing power and the internet to expand the information available to bible academics has allowed for a more comprehensive evaluation of all scripture available.

I am interested to hear Gandalf's response to your statement, but you mentioned "that million of people have been condemned to hell without any chance of salvation". That fact statement is debatable itself within scripture. I don't see it as a problem because my faith does not conclusively establish that statement.

grarrgrarr wrote:QUOTE (grarrgrarr @ Jun 21 2012, 09:26 PM) I am interested to hear Gandalf's response to your statement, but you mentioned "that million of people have been condemned to hell without any chance of salvation". That fact is debatable itself.

Slow down here . That's not a fact.

Whoops.. I never did mean to say that it was a fact, but only because some people present it as such. Will make amendments to this technical error : )