PATNESS:

Have you ever read the New Testament?

Remember your integrity and answer truthfully.

I bet you haven’t, yet you have it all figured out.  The fruit of a reasonable mind, no?

Yes, I have. I studied it from around the time when I was - I guess about 8 years old when I began my voluntary charge into the Catholic Church.

By 16 I had to question the nature of it. Not only the words were indirect, the phrases and the poetry of it, but, like a poem (the Psalms, pretty but also indirect), it might have carried many meanings. Whose to say that Bethsheba wasn’t very deliberate in her presenting herself upon the roof? God expressly condemned both of them in punishment, but acts as though his seeing her was expressly his wrongdoing? This is politics, after all. When women are demeaned to whores, expect a few clever ones to put it to good use.

The Genesis creation story seems more to me like an allegory for the loss of innocence of mankind; about how, to quote a favorite video game of mine,

“Once a man has changed the relationship between himself and his environment, he can no longer return to the blissful ignorance from which he came. Motion, by necessity, requires a change of perspective”

My mother is, more like yourself, a strict fundamentalist who has to take everything literally. If she were confronted with alien life forms, superior in intellect and technology, she would assume that they were a trick from Satan, because God says human beings are special.

She has to believe it’s true - more and more with every day her imminent death approaches. After all, some 60 years in, who would want to believe they dedicated their whole lives to something they’ve knowingly been insecure about. Now, denial is the only option in the face of scrutiny.

She refuses to talk to me on the basis that she will try to convert me, and I will patiently humanize the whole mess and say “there’s a whole other side of this you’re not seeing”. I forget who said it but, really, which is more likely, that an immaculate woman in a time of Roman conquerers gave a virgin birth to a man, or a Jewish whore lied?

I have read the Bible. It is a book of stories: as real as Aesop’s fables - not more, and not less.

PATNESS:

I asked if you’ve read the New Testament and you quote Genesis and 1 Samuel and throw in a shot at the Virgin Mary. That would be the Old Testament.  Have you read the New Testament?

I bet your mother is happier than you are.  She bore you, cared for you and probably took decent care of you and talk about her like she’s a piece of trash. 

“Honor your mother and father.”

Ignore that and see what happiness you find.  But I guess, after all animals don’t need to honor their parents. That’s convenient for you I suppose and a great reason to believe in evolution—it frees you from the obvious duty to love and respect your parents.  Bah…her death is imminent and she’ll be out of here.  What a jerk.

I love how everyone in your selfish little world is deceitful and corrupt except you..

Actually, yes, she bore me - she smoked the whole time, got the yeast infection from hell, and bore me 11 1/2 weeks early. She denies that any wrongdoing of hers, any mistreatment of her body, might have led to this. Purely coincidence, I imagine, that I have Cereberal Palsy and Epilepsy (the latter of a particularly strange full-brain kind. They had to scan me on two separate machines, three weeks apart to confirm).

And yes, it is certain that she “cared”. By this I mean she possessed sympathy. She wanted good things for me because I was “her” child - except when I needed to rely on her, then I was “only” her child.

She always had trouble defining her priorities (again, a coincidence for someone whose defined their whole lives in the misty fogs of superstition). She struggled to juggle her various family roles - particularly those of “wife” and “mother”.

She was always a very lonely person; very, very emotionally needy. She grew up as the second-oldest child, and raised most of her siblings. Then she became a teacher. Then she became a mother. Twice. Then she divorced my father. My father insists she was a lunatic - a judgement that, while I don’t share, I can certainly see the reasoning behind. She always did rather throw herself behind her religious beliefs wholeheartedly. Enough so, in fact, that she denied me a life-saving blood transfusion on her JW religion, at that time (which again, is one meaning among several that can be applied to Scripture). My mother, meanwhile, didn’t like the role she was in, she didn’t like feeling like “just” a wife, and didn’t, essentially, like my father’s absence and independence from her. Whether she was present or absent, he would find a way to be happy.

She couldn’t do that. To this day, her greatest fear is that she would die alone. Coincidentally, she married a man who was suffering from rather severe Multiple Sclerosis; a man I regard, today, as having the mentality of a child.

How fitting.

It was all of us “children” that she couldn’t juggle, but, inexplicably, needed. She possessed a good intellect, she has an expansive vocabulary and she works hard at keeping her mind sharp on that front. She aced her logic courses when she took them - but I’ll be damned if I’ve ever seen her put them to good use. At least there, my father and I are in sound agreement.

So no - I honour my parents when they’ve done something to earn it. Getting knocked up, then trying to live vicariously through your child via a tenuous relationship between reward and compromise that you can’t settle, does not give one a free pass to treat others as they would like.

Yes, Jesus minded us to turn the other cheek when slapped. He did not say to stand within range of prone slappers. I give them precisely the respect I believe they deserve: because random people on the street who listen to me treat me with more kindness, more generosity, more genuine understanding, and more insight, than my parents (with little exception) ever have.

And yes, everyone in my world is selfish and decietful. Including me. You missed that part from the list of rules I gave earlier.

We’re all monsters. There are those who admit to it, and thereby, empower themselves to actually take responsibility; then there’s everyone else, who still live on the system of punishment before empathy, who are happy to condemn others, provided they don’t have to give themselves a square look in the mirror in the morning.

When I see that, I don’t like me either. The difference is, I take the initiative to change it. I don’t deny it ever existed and I don’t pretend to hide from it. I do something about it: and ye shall know them by their fruits. You should really see what goes on in my circle of relationships. I am only one person, but I do what I can. I don’t pray it all away, condemning other people so I can do nothing while I act like I do something.

The bottom line is this:  Atheists are miserable human beings.  (Prove me wrong.) Why?  It is impossible for an atheist to enjoy the blessings of life:  peace of mind, love, joy, friendship, steadfastness, consolation, hope, security, etc.. Why?  Because God is the sole source of all these things.  You simply can’t get them but from Him.

Wow. What idiotic drivel….wouldn’t even know where to start…

I swore I wouldn’t set down my popcorn and join in, but this is too much.  William- do you even read your own posts?  Do you realize how you are coming across here?

As for my moral integrity, I will let another speak for me—a Protestant by the way—so you can be assured of my good relations with them and that when I call them “idiots” it’s in good humor not murderous threats:

“Bill Michael…[is] a man of outstanding moral integrity, he’s culturally relevant and in-tuned…and he seems to know something about everything. He may be the most brilliant man I have ever met.“ 
Upper School Theology Teacher
Charlotte NC

William, you are arrogant and conceited.  Is it your intention to make Catholics look bad?  Luckily for me, I know some very nice, humble, and intelligent Catholics: my wife, for instance, and my best friend Stefan.  And there are lots of Protestants I admire, too: for instance, the poster here named Positive is quite polite and thoughtful, and even though I disagree with him about lots of things, it’s a pleasure to chat with him.

Just a suggestion: if you want less acrimony and more substance, tone down the snide.  Doesn’t it say somewhere “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger?”

By the way: Positive, you said the Catholic Church translated the Bible into English “centuries” before Wycliffe.  I thought Wycliffe made the earliest translation into English- can you point me to these translations?  I’m reading the Wycliffe Bible now, and I love Middle English.

As for the Quran, if I were discussing the life of Muhammad with a Muslim I WOULD give their sacred writings the benefit of the doubt so long as I had no reason to deny the author’s honesty. 

I would most likely object to conclusions drawn in their religion or assumptions on which it is based. 

Why would you object?

Some damned amusing assertions from William with very little to back them up. I especially liked:

The bottom line is this:  Atheists are miserable human beings.  (Prove me wrong.) Why?  It is impossible for an atheist to enjoy the blessings of life:  peace of mind, love, joy, friendship, steadfastness, consolation, hope, security, etc.. Why?  Because God is the sole source of all these things.  You simply can’t get them but from Him.

Presume much? I don’t think you’d find too many people who know me personally who would claim I am in any way miserable. I’m certainly not the most happy-go-lucky guy in the world, but I’m a far cry from miserable and I know plenty of other atheists that are quite similar.

That said there have certainly been studies that suggest believers tend to be happier than non-believers, but then delusions will do that to you. As George Bernard Shaw once said: “The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.”

The bottom line is this:  Atheists are miserable human beings.  (Prove me wrong.) Why?  It is impossible for an atheist to enjoy the blessings of life:  peace of mind, love, joy, friendship, steadfastness, consolation, hope, security, etc.. Why?  Because God is the sole source of all these things.  You simply can’t get them but from Him.

Thanks for showing that you are not really interested in a debate or discussion. The kindest thing that can be said about you is that you are here to Bible-thump and try to comvert us heathens.

It’s people like you that make me thankful that your church and pope no longer have th power to kill people like me.

You are either a troll or very, very stupid. Probably both. I really see no point trying to hold a conversation with you.

The bottom line is this:  Atheists are miserable human beings.  (Prove me wrong.)

“God” is most certainly not the sole source of love, joy, friendship, steadfastness, consolation, hope. I am thoroughly happy in my godless life, with my godless friends and godless fiance. I don’t require an external source of validation to tell me that my life is full and happy.

Interestingly, my quality of life was significantly improved when I started taking the “pill”. I also had the benefit of access to an abortion following a violent assult. Both things that the Pope would deny me - so I am in fact happier for not believing.

It is, of course, hard to provide proof of happiness - in the same way that it is hard to provide proof that God exists. I can only offer my word - which you can either accept, or not, as you choose.

Wow, did i miss a lot last night.

so much to say that’s already been said… but i’d like to go back a page or two. 

The “there are no atheist principles” argument.(Not that i’m not happy you dropped it, but it was never properly addressed.)

You keep misquoting that as “no atheists have principles.” 

Truth is, we tend to hold our individual principles as more valuable than many religious people.  After all, we’re only accountable to ourselves to uphold them.  I have the option of forgiving my own trespasses, but i’m pretty hard on myself about it.  I don’t get to hide behind a screen and tell someone that doesn’t know me to tell his boss i’d like forgiveness.  I’ve got to look to myself, and decide that i don’t like what i’ve done, and that i shan’t repeat it.  Or i look at that principle, and examine why i broke it, whether it’s my flaw or it’s, and maybe revise it.

Sorry, that was slightly tangential.  The point is, as individuals we may hold principles, but there is no single principle we necessarily share, other than the lack of belief in a(ny) god.  I hate when “we” say we believe there’s no god.  It’s not that i believe there’s not, it’s that i don’t believe there is.

As to evolution… “fit” has nothing to do with strong and week.  A jellyfish is not “strong” but it does fit it’s environment.

And i’m a happy motherf***er of an atheist. I love stronger than anyone you’ve met. My mind is at peace with the fact that i’m enjoying my life as it’s the only one i’ll get.  I have many strong friendships shared with friends (how is this supposed to come from god?), ugh, the rest of those, you’re just plain making fun of yourself aren’t you? I’ll continue.  I’m steadfast in my confidence in myself, and my friendships.  I’m in no need of consolation, as that is a victim’s mentality.  And i hope that it’ll succeed in my endeavors, backed by the knowledge that it’s largely in my hands that i do.

If you’re happy in your faith, i’m glad for you.  Afterall, ignorance is bliss.

Blog ate my comment again.  *kicks blog*

William

You constantly say we are denying the truth of the Bible, yet do not answer when asked how we know the Bible is true.  Your confirmation source- Pliny- does not validate the gospels (two of which were written after his death).  Pliny, like Josephus, commented of Christians, not Christ. 

You say that you would give a Koranic scholar the benefit of the doubt.  Would you do the same for a Sikh or Hindu, who’s religeon contradicts yours inherently? If not, why not.  How can you show your holy book is more true than their holy book.

Earlier we discussed Genesis.  When asked for evidence you avoided, repeatedly, by saying the Bible is not a scientific book.  Yet you persist in saying the bible is literally true.  I ask again:

Are the stories of Creation and The Flood basically accurate?  If so please tell us what the evidence is.  We don’t want a PhD level dissertation- just something that positively re-enforces Creationism/Flood.  I say POSITIVELY because the only Creation arguments we have seen are attempts to disprove evolution, on the misunderstanding that that evolution/deity creation is a binary choice, ignoring the fact that if evolution was disproved it automatically proves God (which it wouldn’t).

Mr. Michael - forgive me if I have misunderstood - but you seem to be asking for proof that justifies resonable doubt as to the truth of the gospels.

This seems something of a fools quest - as in essence it is asking us to proove that God doesn’t exist.

It seems to me that the whole debate comes down to this:

A religious person will believe without proof, as their faith gives them assurance that what they believe is True.

A non-religious person will not believe unless they have proof, as they are inherently skeptical.

Thus asking someone to proove that the gospels are not true is no different than someone asking you to proove that they are.

Personally I don’t believe that written accounts, after the fact, relating what someone claims to have seen are sufficient justification for me to accept the doctrine of any religious organisation.

I also believe that abortion is infinitely preferable to children being born that would be resented or abandoned - and don’t think that one religious group should have the power to deny safe, legal abortion to any woman.

I don’t need a oommandment to tell me to love my neighbour as I love and support gay man and lesbian women - something many catholics don’t seem to be able to do.

Hey LAST HUSSAR

1.  You’re dead wrong about Pliny.  Pliny refers to Christ as a person and assumes his soldier’s knowledge of him as such. See the text here:  http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Classics/plinytrajan.html.  Scroll down for the English text.  (I don’t want to post the paragraph here).

Having assumed there are no personal references to a historical Christ, will this affect your opinion?  Moreover, knowing that this even predates two of the Gospels, does that not lend credibility which you otherwise seem to deny them?

2. When I say I would not doubt the truth of their religious texts, I mean that if Muhammad, or Buddha claimed to hear this or see that, I would not doubt that they may have.  As I said, the grounds for argument may not be in the experiences of their leaders (many or all of which may be true), but often in the interpretation or application of them. 

3. The story of Genesis and the Flood cannot be proven or disproven by mere evidence and you know that (you’ve said as much).  The reason why is that it is possible to maintain faith in those accounts without holding a view that is impossible to reconcile with the evidence.  As you mentioned before, the Christian faith assumes a divine omnipotence that wipes away all claims of what could have or could not have been done.  To expect me to give that up and try to reason after denying my faith would be pointless.  My point is that the evidence can never contradict Christian faith, unless your anti-Catholic assumptions are granted.  They’re not.

If by “positively” you mean after denying basic religious assumptions, no I cannot prove that God created anything.  However, your assumptions lead us only to agree that we cannot know and I acknowledge that—I understand how naturalist science works.

Does that help?  Are you as convinced as other posters that I have no idea what I’m talking about?

And one more thing, Bill. (edit: it turned into more)

For someone who spouts off so much about “context” and “interpretation”, baiting someone with an out of context half-quote is kind of, well, unfair and mean spirited.

Also, your arguments are spurious.  In one post you tell us that the old testament is not a “scientific journal” that it’s stories meant for us to interpret… then you tell us five pages of “debate” later that the bible isn’t Fiction.  Make up your mind.  You are nearly as inconsistent as your good book. (or maybe it’s just the old testament that’s fiction, and the new testament is non?)

Also, you keep talking about the apostles writing the gospels, but even the Catholic church admits that they weren’t likely written by their namesakes.

The one thing i will agree with you on, is that for the most part, the Catholic Church has a more well and clearly thought out version of Christianity than the protestant churches.  Most of which don’t even realize they are protestant, let alone know that their faith is broken of Catholicism. That’s what you get when your only criteria for a preacher is a bible and a voice.

Speaking of which, you made another statement early in your ramblings about how the Catholic scholars could debate strongly on behalf of their faith, but not the lay-catholic. But by your own admission, you are not a scholar (and you’re repeatedly proving it).

“My point is that the evidence can never contradict Christian faith, “

I think we’ve come to an impasse.  You yourself admit that reason has nothing to do with your beliefs.

We hold ourselves to a higher standard.  I don’t know why you bother arguing with us.  You’ve just said that you have no standards, yet you hold us to arbitrary ones.  It’s like playing touch football with a kid who never admits he’s been touched.

And believe me buddy, you’re touched.

Z:

You assume that every claim made throughout world history that any person saw a divine being or heard a divine voice is a lie. Not some or a few, but ALL.  For you to be right, every such claim must have been a lie or an error.

If only one of them is true, then your entire belief system is false. 

FOR ONCE AND FOR ALL, EXPLAIN TO ME ON WHAT EVIDENCE OR LOGICAL GROUND YOU DENY THEIR CLAIMS. 

I’ll leave it at that.  You can spin any interpretation of evidence you want after people grant you this assumption…but I don’t.  You can’t support that claim and your whole belief system is therefore a sham. 

Tell me I don’t get it, can’t understand it, whatever.  It’s all smoke and mirrors.  Your fundamental assumption is simply insupportable.

To those of you losing comments, there is already a post devoted to that topic on this blog. You can search for it for more info…

Basically the problem is you are leaving your comment you have typed in the comment form for too long before posting and the blog software drops the comment (something like this, I don’t know the technical details too well). Anyways to stop this from happening I recommend typing up the comment in a text editor then copypasta to the comment form. Or you can type up the comment and then hit preview before posting. I have waited an hour before posting a comment to test and hitting the preview button first seems to solve things. Then other thing you can do is also get into the habit of copying the comment before posting. This insures you have a backup. Or a mixture of the three should work nicely.

Oh yea, Michael… Are you serious? If you would have spent just ten minutes reading through previous posts on this site you would realize how tiring and pointless your arguments really are.

Bill,

You say that i’m clearly wrong because i don’t believe eye witness accounts by people i can not question.

Yet you have no problem believing these people you don’t know before you’ll trust your own eyes.

You’d rather believe someone who tells you there was a flood… than the geological data that tells us there wasn’t one?

I can look at rocks and know they’re older than man.  Oh, god made them that way to fool me? To test my faith?  But i’m supposed to believe a bunch of people talking to burning bushes?

And you still don’t bother to refute a single point anyone has made.  We challenge your “strongest” arguments.  And all you can say is “you don’t believe a bunch of people that were trying to get other people to follow them”? 

And then we even challenge that.  We bring up Muslims, and Mormons, and their eye witness accounts of god… but you don’t believe those, do you?  No, because that’s not what your parents indoctrinated you into.  But you can’t come out and straight up say that they’re lying (it would undermine your argument), so you say “well, i wouldn’t discount their witnesses, but maybe their interpretations”  so why doesn’t your Catholic church recognize these prophets?  Why don’t they, in all their wisdom, interpret those writings?

Are you yet realizing how deep is the water you’re walking into?  Jesus may have walked on water, but you’re sinking fast.

Just once i’d like to hear you make an argument that makes a modicum of sense.  I’m a reformed catholic, and i could argue for your faith better than you have.

I pity anyone that asks you to foster their kids faith.  They should leave that to the church. This has been a weak showing from someone so confident he’d stand up to the challenge.

That’s right, it was your challenge… we’ve all forgotten that it was you that took up the challenge.  You twisted it to make us think we needed to answer the challenge, but really what you set out to do was argue your case better than the protestants can.  You have utterly failed.  You’ve actually done pretty much the same thing they have.

“the book tells us so!”

William.

You are either completely disconnected from logical thought, or a completely brilliant “Poe’s law’ wind up merchant of the highest order- laughing at us think you are serious.

Having assumed there are no personal references to a historical Christ, will this affect your opinion?

That letter is in no way a personal reference to Christ.  It is written somewhere about 110AD.  He is talking to Christians who likewise are highly unlikely to have met Christ- they would have to be in their late 80s even to have met him as a child. 

Note also in your link how many of this troublesome cult quite happily denounce Jesus by cursing him- the people who converted them didn’t make much of an impression!

Hindus exalt the name of Vishnu.  Does this mean that Vishnu exists, or was a God?  That he performed the miracles attributed to him?  The Bible says not, yet we know Hindus exist, and they believe he does.  The existence of followers of Christ in 110AD is not evidence the avatar of God walked the Earth.  If a Jewish person reveals himself to be the Messiah next week, as foretold in the Talmud, what are you going to believe?

2. When I say I would not doubt the truth of their religious texts, I mean that if Muhammad, or Buddha claimed to hear this or see that, I would not doubt that they may have.  As I said, the grounds for argument may not be in the experiences of their leaders (many or all of which may be true), but often in the interpretation or application of them. 

Bad Catholic. No Wafer.

The story of Genesis and the Flood cannot be proven or disproven by mere evidence and you know that (you’ve said as much).

No, what I said is that there is no evidence that they happened.  You have made an assertion- The Flood happened.  I have pointed out if it did happen then geologist would expect to find certain physical formations WHICH ARE NOT PRESENT.  If I told you that I set your shed on fire, and you can see the shed is still there and not burning, would you say the shed burning can neither be proved or disproved?

As you mentioned before, the Christian faith assumes a divine omnipotence that wipes away all claims of what could have or could not have been done.

There’s the rub- God cheats to hide.  Well, if that’s way we are going to play it I have to tell you that you are wrong about everything.  There is no God- I created this Universe 6 minutes and 34 seconds ago, and have just made it look old, right down to creating all that you read, as well as implanting all those false memories you have.  Now pray to me, or prove me wrong.

Bill,

In answer to your last question of me…

Everyone who has ever told me that the sky is purple, was lying.

Everyone that used to know that the sun went around the earth, was wrong.

See some similarities?

LH:

1. So, ignoring the fact that you were wrong about PLiny’s never referring to Christ, he wrote less than 80 years after the death of Christ. You consider that too far removed from the fact for any credibility?  How old would a Jew have had to be to have seen and remembered Christ 5?  8?  10? Okay, so they’re 88?  90?  in 110 AD.  That doesn’t seem so impossible to me, especialy knowing how alert my children are even at early ages (do you have any children??). 

So we should suspect any written references we hear or read made of anyone who died before 1928?  Are you kidding?  Why don’t you just add Pliny’s letter to your lists of anti-Atheist-assumption references that must be fiction or lies?  You were the one who asked for extra-biblical evidence of Christ…there it is.  You BS your way round it, making demonstrable errors as you go.  Go figure.

2.  The Christians did not deny that Jesus Christ was a historical person.  They denied that He was the Son of God in the face of torture…what does that prove for you?  St. Peter did the same thing. I suppose that account of His denial denies the existence of Jesus as well.  You sem to forget that it would be more impressive to consider the people who DID confess him despite the threat of torture.  Which of the two is more amazing?

3.  As for Vishnu, this is where you don’t understand Catholicism.  As I already said, we do not absolutely deny the visions or religious teachings of other faiths as though they are complete lies and impossible.  Catholic teaching on spiritual beings goes beyong “one God” as the only spiritual being that exists.  Why would an Indian man seeing a spirit deny Catholicism?  Why would a Catholic have to defend the faith against such a claim?  We do not deny such events, only you do.

In fact, we believe that many non-Catholic religions share many ideas with Christianity and as such they are just as “true” as Christianity.  You’ve heard the elephant illustration.  We simply believe most do not go far enough with some of their arguments and make some errors along the way.  This is taught explicitly in the Catholic Catechism (sec. 450ish I think).

Once again, I’m called dumb while you are proven to make simple and observable errors in what you say.  At least I can demonstrate my knowledge of sources before I brush them off and make assertions against them that are simply untrue.

Z:

Thanks for the dodge, once again.  Like I said, you can only stir up dust and avoid providing grounds for your assertion that all claims of divine revelation are false.

As for your statement that I was “indoctrinated” as a youth, that’s yet another prejudiced assumption that is untrue. I was raised in a non-Christian home.

Yup, i’m dodging.

I saw a guy talking to god on the street corner the other day… not just talking, having a conversation.

Was he the next prophet?  No, he was a schitzed out bum.

All those people were lying, mistaken, or crazy.  It’s not that hard to imagine that in 6k years of human civilization, there were enough people that piled onto previous proselytizers belief systems to build the religion you see before you now.

And you’re still not smart enough to read that pliny thing right.  No where in it is a mention of christ.  There is mention of christians.  How many Nazis are there today that never met Hitler?

There is no reference to any of these Christians saying “but i saw him raise Lazarus”.

You are dense.  Call me when you find Pontius Pilate’s email to the Emperor about the cool dude he put to death.  Oh, that’s right, there is one, and even the Catholic Church admits it’s a forgery.

p.s. i noticed that you’re not even bothering to refute any sensical arguments, but instead hiding behind an absurd one on your part.  I can’t prove they’re all lying, you can’t prove they’re all telling the truth… but i can prove that things they say happened didn’t…which does lend doubt to the collection of works.