Comments on: Atheists and rapists top list of people religious believers distrust the most

By: Matthew

Matthew — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:31:12 +0000

I distrust atheists because of the hate the spew at me, and my fellow Christians. I have tried to respect them, and I have tried to be friends with them. But in the end, all they do is stab you in the back. Morality is NOT inborn. It is taught by religion.

By: KnucklesTheDog

KnucklesTheDog — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 21:23:53 +0000

Rob is right, Slim has created his own definition of ‘evidence’ so he can convince himself his claims have evidence to support them.

That article contains conjecture, not evidence. You can’t write evidence, you need to observe it, but he must know that so he’s kidding himself.

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:36:58 +0000

Finally, I agree with you Slim….this argument/debate isn’t going anywhere. Fast. Neither do most arguments between people who think using different methodology. A rational person can’t debate with an irrational person, as we have very clearly demonstrated. When one person thinks 1+1=2, but the other thinks 1+1=a cucumber, its unlikely they’ll see eye-to-eye. The fact that we have different definitions of basic words such as ‘evidence’ and ‘logic’ obviously doesn’t help us reach an agreement. I guess I’ll just have to rest easy, knowing that I follow the same definition of those words as the scientific and the judicial communities do. Your ‘evidence’ would be laughed out of both court and laboratory. Mine would be taken seriously. And with very good reason…..

By: Slim

Slim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:34:23 +0000

And now for the scientific evidence that points to intelligent design (which you would like to claim does not exist) – it can’t be said any better than by someone like Stephen C Meyer. Here is a particulalry good article he wrote in the Telegraph back in 2006. (By the way, I’m not saying Meyer is a Christian, in case you try to misrepresent me again, he’s ‘just’ a scientist.)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3622692/Intelligent-design-is-not-creationism.html

These will be my last comments because we are merely re-hashing old arguments and you are entrenched in your beliefs. This debate is not helpful at all. But I do urge you to actually look at this anew, consider both sides of the argument rather than merely defend your position.

Cheers

By: Slim

Slim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:21:34 +0000

Also, I am fully aware that Aristotle et al were philosophers and not historians. What I was showing was that if you reject the accuracy and integrity of the NT and then subject the writings of Aristotle, Socrates and Homer to the same tests and standards then there would be no sufficient evidence to support the claim that these men were responsible for those writings. They could easily have been written by someone else and falsely attributed to them.

In other words, how can people claim that these ancient writers were such wonderful philosophers and purport to know anything about ancient history but then reject the evidence which shows the accuracy of the account of the NT?? That is just massively illogical and irrational (words I know you are particularly fond of).

By: Slim

Slim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:06:03 +0000

2. You stated that the only record of the existence of Jesus is the NT. Yet when that asserion is proved false you conveniently don’t mention it!

When I was talking about the reliability of the NT I accidentally left out the word ‘ancient’ when talking about the 24,000 manuscripts. They were written within 100 years of the events they describew (in Hebrew, Syrian, Coptic and Aramaic) and between them there is over 99% textual accuracy. That is phenomenally more accurate and detailed than the sources we have used to construct much of ancient history – I don’t hear you calling for all of history to be discarded.

By: Slim

Slim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:52:36 +0000

Now to move on to your staggeringly blatant misrepresentations of what I said and omitting to recognise when your information has been proved false:

1. I never claimed Flew or Einstein were Christians – I said they believed in intelligent design. That’s twice you have deliberately misrepresented what I have said here.

Flew said that his deism was the result of his “growing empathy with the insight of Einstein and other noted scientists that there had to be an Intelligence behind the integrated complexity of the physical Universe” and “my own insight that the integrated complexity of life itself – which is far more complex than the physical Universe – can only be explained in terms of an Intelligent Source.”

By: Slim

Slim — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 08:38:29 +0000

Rob – the first question was merely rhetoric, I didn’t mean anything by it. Other than to point out how arrogant, patronising and condescending you were to state that even though I am a Chrisitian I have the “potential to be a good person”.

Also, I have never stated that you can only be a moral person if you are a Chrisitian. But if you attempted to understand Christianity at all you would understand it is not about living a moral life just for the sake of living a moral life. It is not about just trying to be good because we can never be good enough. The standard is perfection and we all fall short. That’s why the death of Jesus on the cross and the forgiveness of sin is the central theme of the Bible.

By: Liam

Liam — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 22:52:39 +0000

Slim:
“Examine the Bible and its teachings for yourself”

…wow

-So, you believe in mass execution because humans were mis-behaving? [Genesis 7]

-Do you eat pork? [Leviticus 11]

-Believe women to be “unclean” after giving birth [Leviticus 12]

-The classic Eden story

The list goes on

My main question, is..
-if you had kids, and they did not love you. Would you lock them in a basement, and torture them?
Because if im not mistaken, thats pretty much what it teaches

PS, im not quite sure what this “teaches”

Ezekiel:23. 19-23
“Yet she became more and more promiscuous as she recalled the days of her youth, when she was a prostitute in Egypt. There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses”

By: Rob

Rob — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:18:20 +0000

And let me get this right…..God creates the world, and puts us in it, but now needs to rescue us?? From who, himself? Or from what, his actions? And why can’t he just go ahead and ‘rescue’ us? Is he not all-powerful and all-loving?? Why put us in such a world in the first place? If its so we can grow as humans, why not create a world where we can grow without suffering?? Oh, wait, let me guess….god works in mysterious ways (except when something good happens, when his actions suddenly become less mysterious and more attributable)
Only religious people could read a text like the OT, turn the literal words and stories on their heads, and then claim that its a good book…..should i point out some of the horrific lessons of the OT for you?? Or do you think you might find them yourself?