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WBraun
climber
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Hahaha
You been waiting all this time ....LOL
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Jaybro
Social climber
Wolf City, Wyoming
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All power to dark mater...
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C. Small wall climber.
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All power to dark mater...
You leave our mothers out of this!
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TripL7
Trad climber
'dago'
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Gobee- "Superman, your a jerk when you get drunk".
That's hilarious Gobee, I am going to hafta remember that one.
Hahaha!
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 10, 2009 - 01:44am PT
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Dr.F.,
Just because the devil wants everyone not to believe in God, doesn't mean it's true, don't believe his lies!
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 10, 2009 - 08:11am PT
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Did you ever consider Dr. F., that you may have just traded one extreme delusion for another?
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rectorsquid
climber
Lake Tahoe
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Nov 10, 2009 - 11:59am PT
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"I find it amazing that posters whom have never experienced a relationship with Christ, find it so easy to pass off those of us who have that relationship as delusional"
Do you consider adults that believe in Santa Claus delusional? How about adults that tech it to their kids in the exact same way they teach them about Christ? How is that different? Just asking.
Dave
P.S. Also consider the sicko indoctrination that takes place when kids are brainwashed into believing that there is a Santa. Now that is just evil.
[edit to add] I am not a true atheist because as a scientist, I cannot rule out the possibility of God and therefore, cannot believe that there is none. I can only evaluate the probability given the existing information on the subject. Given that all documentation on the subject is very old and contradicts all other documentation, that probability sure seems low. For instance, all Egyptian writings mostly contradict Christian writings. None can have more weight than the other in a comparison and therefore, both are equally suspect as being falacy.
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 10, 2009 - 12:03pm PT
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Jesus; Anointed
Psalm 2:2, The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying,...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 10, 2009 - 12:07pm PT
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rectorsquid-
If only more atheists were scientific and logical rather than polemical about their beliefs!
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Gobee
Trad climber
Los Angeles
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Nov 10, 2009 - 03:37pm PT
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It seems better suited here!
The missing Link?
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dirtbag
climber
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Nov 10, 2009 - 09:33pm PT
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BTW, PBS is showing part two of its program on human evolution at 8 local time. The last episode was very enjoyable.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 11, 2009 - 12:39am PT
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in Gobee's latest spam above a very strange argument is set up:
"Like today, the enemies of truth found it easy to criticize but difficult to explain how so many lives were transformed from despair to hope, from anger to love, from enmity to Christ to fellowship with Him."
I don't find it difficult to explain at all. One makes a choice in life, it is not so hard to discern what is "good" and what is "bad." It seems the oft asked question, by believers, is: what makes me choose to do "good."
None believers can choose to do "good" too, nothing prevents them from doing it... and if you choose to do good because your best bud is Jesus, well fine... believing that something good is going to happen to you because you do good is also fine... be it the cycle of reincarnation or the idea of a reward after death... doing good "just because" is legitimate too. I don't see that Christians have any special place here...
The questioner in the above quote is set up to be an "enemy of truth," I guess for disagreeing. But lives transformed in the manner stated above can happen for a number of reasons, not exclusively because one accepts Jesus and Christianity.
Why must there be such a dichotomy? we deplore such things when expressed by other religions.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 11, 2009 - 01:53am PT
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I agree, that people should not have to be in fear of what will happen to them in order to behave. In fact, I like the Hindu notion that the universe was created as God play, for God's entertainment, and our role is to play well on the stage of life, always being aware that our current lives are just theater in a much longer drama.
Then there is the Confucian notion which works very well in Japan, that one behaves well so as not to bring shame on one's family, friends, neighborhood, or country. One behaves well to create a safe and harmonious society, not out of fear of the afterlife.
Another good point made up above was the estrangement of western religions from nature and the idea of human exceptionalism. Since Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism stress the harmony of man and nature and respect for all life based on the belief that animals too have souls, human's relationship to nature there is quite different.
Bottom line: A lot of the valid critiques of religion made on this thread apply only to western Abrahamic religions and not to all religions on this planet. If one considers religion as a universal human experience as an anthropologist must, then one sees a different and less antagonistic picture.
And one also sees that no one religion has an exclusive claim to truth.
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WBraun
climber
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Nov 11, 2009 - 02:08am PT
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So truth is higher than religion?
Axiomatic truth ....
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C. Small wall climber.
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Nov 11, 2009 - 02:15am PT
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Would now be a good time to talk about solipsism? Sometimes I think you were all invented to keep me company and entertained.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Nov 11, 2009 - 04:20am PT
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We're doing our best Mighty Hiker!
First though, I must admit that I had to look up solipsism. It's not a part of my household vocabulary.
I don't know about the others, but of course I think the material world outside myself can also be known. I just have problems with the materialists saying that everything about my solipsistic self is material. And even greater problems with the religionists who claim that they know how both myself and the material world should be, especially when it just happens to be exactly like their particular western, Anglo Saxon, North American view of the world.
Meanwhile I'll also add that the inner study and control of one's mind in my experience, is far harder than understanding either the physical or religious world.
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Homer
Mountain climber
Santa Cruz, CA
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Nov 11, 2009 - 11:34am PT
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What surprises me the most is our belief that we can use incomplete information and (what seems to us like) rational thought to derive absolute truth. I guess we have to believe something.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Nov 11, 2009 - 12:07pm PT
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from camille paglia:
"As an atheist who respects and studies religion, I believe it is fair to ask what drives obsessive denigrators of religion. Neither extreme rationalism nor elite cynicism are adequate substitutes for faith, which fulfills a basic human need -- which is why religion will continue to thrive in our war-torn world."
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Nov 11, 2009 - 02:34pm PT
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and probably the ultimate cosmic irony, religion and faith are probably also part of our genetic heritage... it is hard wired in... by the very process that many of faith find objectionable.
Go figure...
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