3 minutes ago, McFoy said:

Oh boy, I get to dust this off again.

Do you believe in dragons and Unicorns McFoy?

1 minute ago, All Shields Forward said:

Do you believe in dragons and Unicorns McFoy?

No, of course not. They got killed by the flood.

3 minutes ago, McFoy said:

No, of course not. They got killed by the flood.

Guess they're with the dinosaurs now

Just now, All Shields Forward said:

Guess they're with the dinosaurs now

Buried lower actually, there were dinosaurs on the ark. Dragons were a fire hazard and Unicorns killed for pleasure which goes against God.

I don't think Atheists are wrong nor Theists, I hedge my bets by being Agnostic. The bible shouldn't in most cases be taken literally but there are core messages that are good. Religion is in general a bad practice mostly because of how much power the respective hierarchy in that Religion can get over followers and the damage it can do. Faith though is a fundamental good for most people because Faith builds a community.

I think if Atheists spent more time attacking all religions the way they do Christian denominations they'd get less flak but most Atheists are western and as a result come from probably historically Christian families so it's all they know. The other two Abrahamic religions are just as bad to have associated with Government, probably worse if you embrace western values. I'm not well versed enough in the many others to really comment on their suitability for a valid seat in a nation.

13 minutes ago, McFoy said:

most Atheists are western and as a result come from probably historically Christian families so it's all they know. The other two Abrahamic religions are just as bad to have associated with Government, probably worse if you embrace western values. I'm not well versed enough in the many others to really comment on their suitability for a valid seat in a nation.

Exactly this.

Dragons.... may have existed. (Bam!)

On 11/27/2020 at 12:03 PM, Cuz05 said:

I had a browse of the site, out of interest. The one thing that stands out for me is that their Science defaults to what the bible says. Because it's a trustworthy, eye witness account of things. Which is obviously taken as categorical, rather than metaphorical.

The logic is, if I paraphrase a bit....

Did God make the world recently? Let's ask Science. Do we have an eye witness to ask? Yes, the Bible, it says he did.

Ok, so, can we make fossils really fast, to prove that? Do some kitchen science. Yes.

Right, so the Bible says he made it not long ago and we can make fossils fast.

Point proven. Earth young. Thanks Science!

I can logic my way into all sorts of things if I have an end point in mind and I'm willing to stop thinking before my mind gets all atomic.

People live their lives on belief, not on fact or truth. As I tried to indicate earlier, those latter 2 shift greatly depending on the fractional point of view the lone observer has. There is a bewildering array of things that people believe, in order to give themselves less of an emotional overload from just existing in this vast apparent craziness.

Feeling the need to treat your belief as truth, or fact, being driven to have it stand up in comparison to the beliefs of others, suggests a shaky foundation to me. The presence of an emotional equilibrium that is overly dependent on belief equalling independent fact. That the belief is not strong enough to carry it's own weight

Which is natural, since belief is simply something you opt into, to help you make sense of things. Because you have a mind that makes thoughts. Belief is something you have because you had questions that you couldn't find satisfactory answers to from just living your life. So you place belief in the findings of others on more abstract puzzles.

Belief in Science = fact and truth is similarly shaky ofc. Even Science has a tendency, a need at times, to build from a belief that what has been previously understood, has been understood as well as it can be. Things that once seemed complete and final are often rewritten thanks to new, contradictory understandings that show things in a different light.

I mean, even Maths. Which I thought was pretty cut and dried.

Recently, thanks to Quantum things, how our universe works appears to be dependent on the observers inclination....

Science can still only reveal answers that are within it's conceptual reach. Because thats how a mind works. But science does, at least sometimes, understand that it's a process of understanding, not necessarily a producer of hierarchical facts.

Confirmation bias is one of the single biggest factors driving modern society. My hope is that it won't take the general population too long to remember and recognise the pitfall.

The digging of our own holes. Deciding what our reality will be before experiencing it.

It's kind of in the bible, if you read it metaphorically. In us is the God that is all creation... blah, blah...In the present, we co-create our reality, within and alongside, our own creator, which is us and everything else. All is one and when we get that, we all banish the nonsense and live pretty awesome lives. So follow the path of least resistance, yada yada.

So yeah, the bible can be cool.

Basically. Our perception of the full spectrum of reality, that which creates us, as a species, is pretty narrow. So we just have to agree that a lot of the stuff around us is what we label it as, because it's the same to all of us. From there, we start getting creative and agree on all sorts of things. Like maths. And disagree on others.

But it's all just made up, creation, which is great and liberating. DWYWM.

At least the cutting edge of mainstream Science appears to be finally catching on to that.

There really is nothing to prove.

We exist. I'm not convinced belief is the best coping strategy. It seems to have been struggling for a little while.

The Word is God, cause it's God's word. And God cannot lie. That may mean nothing to you. However, that is logic to me. That tells me he exists. And also the fact my family would be.... probably homeless without Him.

Re'em does not translate to unicorn, it translates to wild ox. Tannin means serpent, not dragon. 17th century Englishmen were not very good with Hebrew.

On 11/30/2020 at 7:55 PM, All Shields Forward said:

There's dragons and unicorns in the bible... It's clearly a faery tale. It's full of contradiction and scientific inaccuracies. It's morality tales often doesn't make sense when mentally developed further, and shouldn't be treated like the definitive treaty on morality.

It's just a collection of outdated morality tales for desert nomads that got rewritten by those in power to enforce their own beliefs.

Steady on...I do agree with a lot of what your saying but dismissing the bible in a whole I feel is very...shortsighted. A lot of our morality stems from it, yes it may have evolved from it, but some (not all) of those moral lessons don't apply.

I do enjoy some of the stories from it even as an athiest.

On 12/1/2020 at 12:00 AM, KCDodger said:

That's just rude, you know.

Can non religious folk really just, not dump all over theists constantly for once..?

As an Atheist, I agree. To an extent. Most of my life has been nothing but prejudice from religious people because apparently them believing that it's wrong to be gay gives them carte blanche to oppress me.

I am a firm believer of nothing exists beyond yourself. You can believe what you want, but once your actions move beyond yourself and to others to enforce your beliefs it starts to enter a grey area that can be for good and for bad.

I can't stop someone from not liking gay people, and I have no right to tell them how and/or what to think. Once you start to instigate rules and laws to stop me from being gay because it doesn't fit with your view of life, that's when you cross the line and to me whenever I've seen religion used, it's always used under the guise of "I don't like this, but because that would be childish and immoral to say so, here's something that I can get away justifying it as: religion."

So yeah...I don't exactly ascribe to the "Oh I feel victimised! Please stop!" cry of religious people after years of myself being a victim of religious peoples beliefs.

1 hour ago, Ebak said:

Steady on...I do agree with a lot of what your saying but dismissing the bible in a whole I feel is very...shortsighted. A lot of our morality stems from it, yes it may have evolved from it, but some (not all) of those moral lessons don't apply.

I do enjoy some of the stories from it even as an athiest.

As an Atheist, I agree. To an extent. Most of my life has been nothing but prejudice from religious people because apparently them believing that it's wrong to be gay gives them carte blanche to oppress me.

I am a firm believer of nothing exists beyond yourself. You can believe what you want, but once your actions move beyond yourself and to others to enforce your beliefs it starts to enter a grey area that can be for good and for bad.

I can't stop someone from not liking gay people, and I have no right to tell them how and/or what to think. Once you start to instigate rules and laws to stop me from being gay because it doesn't fit with your view of life, that's when you cross the line and to me whenever I've seen religion used, it's always used under the guise of "I don't like this, but because that would be childish and immoral to say so, here's something that I can get away justifying it as: religion."

So yeah...I don't exactly ascribe to the "Oh I feel victimised! Please stop!" cry of religious people after years of myself being a victim of religious peoples beliefs.

Like no disagreement pal I'm lesbian and trans I GET what it's like, just no reason to attack someone for being a theist, you know?

11 hours ago, Ebak said:

As an Atheist, I agree. To an extent. Most of my life has been nothing but prejudice from religious people because apparently them believing that it's wrong to be gay gives them carte blanche to oppress me.

Religion shouldn't oppress people... it should free them.

I don't agree with your lifestyle, but I do feel sorry for you, and will agree to disagree.

14 hours ago, TopHatGorilla said:

Re'em does not translate to unicorn, it translates to wild ox. Tannin means serpent, not dragon. 17th century Englishmen were not very good with Hebrew.

That's the point. The bible has been rewritten many times. By human hands. It has no divine authority.

36 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

That's the point. The bible has been rewritten many times. By human hands. It has no divine authority.

If it was made by man it would not even exist. If it was made by man, the first four books would be false and Moses would have taken a very long time to come up with all those names!

29 minutes ago, ImperialYeet said:

If it was made by man it would not even exist. If it was made by man, the first four books would be false and Moses would have taken a very long time to come up with all those names!

I'm curious if you think Harry Potter is real now. 😄

5 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

I'm curious if you think Harry Potter is real now. 😄

How would you know? And now you are not even reading what I said.

1 hour ago, ImperialYeet said:

How would you know? And now you are not even reading what I said.

How long do you think it takes to make up some names?

1 minute ago, All Shields Forward said:

How long do you think it takes to make up some names?

SOME names? There're hundreds!

1 minute ago, Bravo Null said:

SOME names? There're hundreds!

How long?

4 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

How long?

Let's see, making up a name can take a minute, so as there's 3,000 different names in the bible, that's about 50 hours. Add the time to write the names, and you have a good week of non-stop writing.

2 minutes ago, Bravo Null said:

Let's see, making up a name can take a minute, so as there's 3,000 different names in the bible, that's about 50 hours. Add the time to write the names, and you have a good week of non-stop writing.

So completely reasonable considering the bible is several books written by many people over several lifetimes.

6 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

So completely reasonable considering the bible is several books written by many people over several lifetimes.

Exactly. Which means it took hundreds, if not thousands of years to write. 😁

Just now, Bravo Null said:

Exactly. Which means it took hundreds, if not thousands of years to write. 😁

There's currently 14,004 individual *humans* alone listed on wookepedia. How long then did it take to write that?

I guess there was more truth to the "a long time ago".

1 hour ago, All Shields Forward said:

How long do you think it takes to make up some names?

So you're trying to say that the facts in the bible such as the jews escape from egypt or the missioary journeys of Peter and Paul are just made up? Cause those can be historically backed up. Believe in God or not, most of the bible can be backed up and is not just a made up fairy tale

31 minutes ago, bllaw said:

So you're trying to say that the facts in the bible such as the jews escape from egypt or the missioary journeys of Peter and Paul are just made up? Cause those can be historically backed up. Believe in God or not, most of the bible can be backed up and is not just a made up fairy tale

London exists in Harry Potter too. That doesn't mean Harry Potter is real.

12 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

London exists in Harry Potter too. That doesn't mean Harry Potter is real.

i wasn't saying that since Jerusalem exists then Jesus Christ is the savior of the world. I was simply saying that the bible, as a historical document, is true. You were saying it's just made up, which it isn't