This can be the 'go to' thread for those with a need to interject religion into a perfectly good music forum. Nigel has generously allowed the use of curse words IN THIS THREAD ONLY so that you may fully express your feelings about your favorite Higher Power (kidding, kidding).

In addition to those mentioned in the title, Higher Powers may also include the likes of Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Rick James, and of course, Thelonious Monk.

chas

Let's start light.. My favorite comedians RIP.There is some swearing.I hope it's not gonna offend anyone.It's George Carlin

From atheism to Christianity: a personal journey

http://www.bethinking.org/stories-illust...nal-journey.htm

Do you find it difficult to believe in God or accept the claims of Christianity? I did, when I was an atheist, but I changed my mind, and my reasons for doing so may be of interest to you in your own personal journey and attempts to make sense of life.

I am a freelance writer and lecturer. Since graduating from Oxford in 1973, with a degree in politics and philosophy, I have spent most of my professional life in politics and journalism, loving, as I do, the world of books, ideas and debate. Two questions in particular have always interested me. Is there a God? And, if there is, what is the connection between God and freedom?

Growing up in a non-Christian family with intellectually gifted but unbelieving parents, I used to think that belief in God and the supernatural had been discredited by the advance of science, and was incompatible with liberty. Religious faith seemed to me to involve the blind worship of a cosmic dictator, and the abandonment of reason in favour of �revelation�. Why, in any case, should I take religion seriously, I thought, when the existence of evil and suffering clearly discredited the Christian claim that our world owed its existence to a benevolent Creator?

My scepticism and hostility towards Christianity, which developed in my teens under the influence of thinkers like Ayn Rand and Bertrand Russell, grew even stronger while I was at Oxford. Then, at the age of 24, I met my future wife, who turned out to be a Christian. Shocked by the discovery that this highly intelligent and beautiful woman was �one of them�, I determined to find out whether there was any good evidence for the existence of God and the truthfulness of Christianity, making it quite clear from the outset, however, that I was not prepared to become a believer just to cement our relationship!

I started to read C.S. Lewis, whose Chronicles of Narnia I had enjoyed as a child. I did so for three reasons. First because he had himself been an atheist, and might therefore be able to answer my many questions and objections. Secondly, because I respected his intellect. Here was a man who had graduated from Oxford with Triple First Class Honours in Classics, Philosophy and English, and had then become one of the greatest British academics of his generation. If he could have made the journey from atheism to Christianity, perhaps I was mistaken in thinking that you had to bury your brain in order to believe in God. Furthermore, and this was my third reason for studying his writings, you couldn�t accuse C.S. Lewis of being glib or shallow about suffering. Having lost his mother at the age of 10, been unhappy at school, and then gone on to experience the horrors of trench warfare during the First World War, he was obviously only too aware of the problem of evil. His discussion of these issues would surely, I thought, be illuminating.

This proved indeed to be the case. As I read Lewis�s three most important books, Mere Christianity, Miracles and The Problem of Pain, I found myself not only following in the footsteps of a person who had wrestled with all the issues that were troubling me; I was also discovering intelligent and convincing answers to all my doubts.

C.S. Lewis� illuminating insights about the problem of evil

Since my own father had died when I was only 17, I found what Lewis had to say about the problem of evil particularly pertinent. As he rightly points out, we cannot complain about the existence of evil and suffering, and use that as an argument against the existence and goodness of God, unless we first believe that the standard of right and wrong by which we judge and condemn our world is an objective one. Our sense of justice and fairness has to be a true insight into reality, before we can we be justified in getting angry and indignant about all the pain and injustice we see around us. But if this is the case, what explains the existence within us of this inner moral code or compass? According to atheism, human beings and all their thinking processes are simply the accidental by-products of the mindless movement of atoms within an undesigned, random, and purposeless universe. How then can we attach any ultimate meaning or truth to our thoughts and feelings, including our sense of justice? They have, on this view, no more validity or significance than the sound of the wind in the trees.

But if, on the other hand, we refuse to accept this conclusion, insisting, for example, that it is always and objectively true that you should love your neighbour and you shouldn�t torture children, we are led away from atheism. The presence within us of an objective moral law �written on our hearts� points instead to the existence of an eternal Goodness and Intelligence which created us and our universe, enables us to think, and is the eternal source of our best and deepest values. In other words, Lewis argues, atheism cuts its own throat philosophically, because it discredits all human reasoning, including the arguments for atheism. �If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.� (Mere Christianity). Only by acknowledging that there is a God, he concludes, can we hope to make sense of human existence, the world we inhabit, and, paradoxically, the problem of evil.

But if God is goodness personified and therefore, as our Creator, the divine source of all that is good, true and beautiful, why is there so much evil and suffering? What has gone wrong? The Christian answer to that question, Lewis argues, is that our world has been damaged by rebellion against God. An originally good creation has been spoiled.

If you find this hard to believe, consider the evidence. Look at all the many examples there are of benevolent and intricate design in Nature: the nest-building instincts of birds, the incredibly complex structure of the human brain, the navigational systems of bats and whales, the biological software of DNA in every cell of our bodies, sexual reproduction, etc. All this exists side by side with harmful viruses, disease and death. Can its obvious implications be ignored? Consider, too, the significance of the fact that human beings possess an inner moral code they cannot get rid of yet seem unable to obey. Does all this not suggest some process of deterioration from hopeful beginnings? Is it not also significant that many ancient peoples and cultures, including the Chinese, have some tradition of a lost Paradise in the dim and distant past?

A convincing explanation of the origin of evil

Speaking for myself, I find this evidence convincing, but what has really persuaded me of the truthfulness of the Christian explanation of the origin of evil and suffering, is its inherent philosophical credibility. As C.S. Lewis points out, true love is a voluntary union of free individuals giving themselves to each other for their mutual delight and for the mutual enjoyment of life and all its blessings. Consequently, when God created the first human beings, He gave them the gift of free will. He did so in order that they and all their descendants might share His life, His love, His joy and His beauty, with Him and with each other. As part of this gift of free will, God also gave human beings creativity and intelligence in order that they might be good stewards of the world in which he had placed them, sharing its joys and adding to its wonders and beauty. But the problem with free will is that it can be corrupted and misused. Our inner freedom to relate to God and other people in harmony and love, can be turned on its head. We can choose, instead, to reject our Creator and live only for ourselves. And that, sadly, is what has happened to the human race. It is what lies behind the famous biblical story of the �Fall of Man� in the Garden of Eden: our ancestors disobeyed God, with deadly consequences for themselves and posterity.

For the reasons I have already mentioned, I have no doubt that the �Fall of Man� was a real historical event, but what gives the whole story its �ring of truth� is its totally convincing picture of the disastrous consequences of turning away from God. A creature rebelling against its Creator, Lewis argues, is like a plant refusing to grow towards the sunlight. It results in a broken relationship which separates that creature from the eternal source of all life, love, truth and well-being, including its own. It was therefore inevitable that when the human race separated itself from God through that original act of disobedience long ago, hatred, disease and death came into the world. Some creationist scientists and theologians believe that the �Fall of Man� damaged the whole of God�s originally perfect creation (as described in the book of Genesis), introducing death and disorder into the animal kingdom and the natural world. Others argue that even before the �Fall of Man� the natural environment had already been damaged by rebellion against God in the angelic realm. But whatever you may think about all this, one thing seems crystal clear and made perfect sense to me: separation from our Creator is inevitably self-destructive.

It is inevitably self-destructive not only because it results in death, but also because it is destructive of freedom. Apart from God, we lack the inner strength to resist the downward pull of our fallen natures. Without His help, we cannot overcome all the temptations we face to give in to our lowest impulses and pursue our own interests at the expense of others. And if, in addition, this diminution of our inner freedom is accompanied, as in so many lives, by positive disbelief in God, a new danger arises. We lose our sense of accountability and belief in moral absolutes because we no longer believe that there is a Divine Judge to whom we are ultimately responsible. That is one of the reasons why militantly atheistic socialist regimes have produced the bloodiest tyrannies in history, slaughtering 100 million people in internal repression during the 20th century. It also helps to explain the growth of crime, delinquency and sexual immorality in post-Christian secularised Western societies.

If the human race has cut itself off from God through sin, what has been God�s response? Has he abandoned us, and all His creation, to corruption and death? On the contrary. The whole of the rest of the Bible after the third chapter of Genesis describes God�s rescue plan. And at the heart of that rescue plan is the greatest and most extraordinary event in history: the incredible but true story of God coming down into our world to live and walk among us as a human being � as a first century Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, called Jesus.

Before I started reading C.S. Lewis, I dismissed this whole idea as an absurd fable. Even if Jesus had really existed, how could one believe that he had performed all those miracles recorded of Him in the New Testament? Hadn�t the advance of science revealed that our universe is a beautifully ordered cosmos governed by physical laws which cannot be broken, but which can be described in the precise language of mathematics? Didn�t the laws of physics and chemistry rule out the possibility of a man walking on water or rising from the dead, as Jesus was said to have done? And how could one believe that Jesus had once turned several jars of water into wine at a wedding feast, or fed five thousand people with only five loaves of bread and two fish? You could only believe such stories, I thought, if you were scientifically illiterate, as everyone clearly was in ancient times. Furthermore, I asked myself, how on earth could Jesus� death on a Roman cross �save� us from our sins and reconcile us to God? No-one had ever explained this mystery to me!

Re-examining my objections to the supernatural and miracles

Once again, however, Lewis�s writings forced me to re-examine my objections to Christianity and the historical claims about Jesus on which it is based. As he points out in his brilliant book, Miracles, you cannot rule out the supernatural on scientific grounds without first begging the question of God�s existence. Atheism denies the supernatural by definition, but if atheism is false and God exists, who is to say that God is not able to intervene in His creation? If a human author can change the ending of one of her plays or novels at the stroke of a keyboard, then surely the Creator in whose image we are made can alter the natural environment, reverse the progression of a disease, or conquer death in ways we consider �miraculous�.

In any case, argues Lewis, the whole idea that it is somehow unscientific to believe in God and therefore in the possibility of miracles, is both historically and philosophically mistaken. Modern science owes its very origin to monotheistic religion. To quote Lewis: �Men became scientific because they expected law in nature and they expected law in nature because they believed in a lawgiver.� (Miracles). That is why most of the great founding fathers of modern science believed in God and were Christians who took the Bible seriously. To mention just a few of them and the scientific disciplines they helped to establish, they include: Galileo and Kepler (astronomy), Pascal (hydrostatics), Boyle (chemistry), Newton (calculus), Linnaeus (systematic biology), Faraday (electromagnetics), Cuvier (comparative anatomy), Kelvin (thermodynamics), Lister (antiseptic surgery), and Mendel (genetics). All these men believed in an ordered universe and in the possibility of discovering how it functioned because they were convinced that the evidence of intelligent design in Nature indicated the existence of an Intelligent Creator. As Kepler put it, writing in the 17th century: �The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.�

Lewis not only persuaded me that there is no reason to disbelieve in miracles and the supernatural on scientific grounds; he also pointed out the absurdity of attributing all belief in miracles to ignorance of the natural laws revealed by science. Jesus� contemporaries in first century Palestine may have lacked the knowledge of modern physicists, but they were perfectly well aware that His virgin birth or His instantaneous healing of lepers were events which went against the normal course of nature, otherwise they would never have regarded them as miracles. Joseph, as we are told in Matthew�s Gospel, was resolved to break off his engagement to Mary precisely because he knew as well as you and I do that women don�t usually become pregnant without first having had sex with a man! Similarly, as we are told in John�s Gospel, �Doubting Thomas� refused at first to believe the report of the other disciples that Jesus had risen from the grave, since he knew as well as any modern atheist that the victims of a Roman crucifixion did not normally return from the dead. It is therefore irrational to dismiss all reports of miracles as the unreliable testimony of credulous witnesses. You must examine the evidence for them with an open mind.

If, responding to this challenge, we look with an open mind at the accounts in the New Testament of the miracles of Jesus, Lewis argues, we are brought face to face with an interesting and significant fact. Instead of finding there the stuff of fairy tales � talking animals or frogs turning into princes � we are confronted with something much more rational and believable. What we see in most of Jesus� miracles is what God does in the natural world, as its Creator, but localised and speeded up. Thus every year, for example, tiny seedlings of grain created by God grow into vast harvest fields of wheat and thousands of loaves of bread. The same process of multiplication took place in Jesus� feeding of the five thousand, but localised and speeded up. Similarly, God is always turning water into wine by the action of sunlight and rain on the fruit of the vine, and by the involvement of human beings in all the stages of winemaking. At the wedding feast in Cana (recorded in John�s Gospel), Jesus, as God the Creator Incarnate, also turns water into wine, but here again the conversion process is localised and speeded up. Exactly the same parallels apply to Jesus� miracles of healing. Human beings created by God are constantly recovering from illnesses and diseases through the medical stimulation of their bodies� God-given immune systems. So when Jesus healed lepers with a touch of His hand or a word of command, we again see God the Healer at work, but localised and speeded up, as man to man in ancient Palestine. In other words, says Lewis, the purpose of Jesus� miracles was not just to show God�s love for humanity but to reveal to the people around Him (and to us) the presence among them of their Creator and Saviour.

In addition to convincing me of the inherent reasonableness of the New Testament record of Jesus� miracles, Lewis�s writings also helped me to understand why the Christian concept of God as a union of three persons within one Godhead (the �Trinity�) made sense, and why �God the Son�, the second person of that �Trinity�, had to come down into our world as Jesus, to �die for our sins� and conquer death on our behalf.

As Lewis explains in his most readable book, Mere Christianity, God is Love personified since, as our Creator, He is the divine source and origin of all human (and animal) love. But since love involves relationships between people, we should not be altogether surprised to discover that God in His own Being is a loving union of three distinct persons � described in the New Testament as �Father�, �Son�, and �Holy Spirit�. It is of course true that this revelation may at first appear startling and strange, but it does not seem unreasonable once you think about it. The same thing applies to the apparently perplexing and contradictory notion of unity in diversity. How can God be a union of �three-in-one�? Well, says Lewis, what appears to be an impossibility in our dimension of being is not necessarily an impossibility in God�s dimension of Being. To use his very helpful analogy, you can�t picture a union of six separate squares in a two dimensional world, but you can picture a cube in a three dimensional world. So just as a cube is one body made up of six separate squares, so God is one Being made up of three separate persons. Again, this revelation may come as a shock, but it does not seem unreasonable. And this, argues Lewis, is another reason why Christianity has that strange �ring of truth�. It gives us information about God which no-one would ever have thought of making up, yet still manages to make some kind of sense. It involves a mystery about God which goes beyond our human understanding but not against it, which is surely what we ought to expect if there is a God.

I must emphasise, at this point, that the Christian concept of the Trinitarian nature of God is not something that Christian theologians simply invented many decades after Jesus� death and resurrection. It emerged quickly and naturally as Jesus� first disciples and followers came to understand the logical implications of His life and teachings, and reflected on what He Himself had said about His relationship and union with His �Father�. And since love was and is at the heart of that relationship, and explains why God created the universe and gave us the gift of life, it also tells us why His rescue plan for the human race necessitated His arrival in our world as a human being, and His cruel death under Pontius Pilate.

We are alienated from our Creator

As Lewis puts it in Mere Christianity, the difficulty we face as fallen human beings, whether we realise it or not, is that we are alienated from our Creator because the moral imperfection we have inherited from our rebellious ancestors � our wrong thoughts and motives, as well as our bad behaviour � inevitably separates us from God. This may seem unjust, extreme, and hard to believe, since we are accustomed to being a mixture of good and bad (�nobody�s perfect!� we say), and cannot, in our fallen state, altogether help being imperfect. But the problem is that our Creator God is not only Love, but Goodness and Justice personified, and therefore infinitely �holy� � to use the language of the Bible. This means that He cannot overlook our moral failings and be united to us in love, since His perfect character is repelled by our sinfulness. His justice demands that the human race should bear the full destructive consequences of turning away from Him and flouting His will. We personally may not have rebelled against God at the dawn of history, but like all human beings since that time, we have been morally and spiritually damaged by the severance of that spiritual umbilical cord between God and Man which used to exist in the Garden of Eden. God�s love and goodness and joy can no longer flow unimpeded through us, because our human nature has been corrupted and we have become broken vessels that cannot retain the water of divine life. That is to look at our situation from God�s point of view. If we examine it from our own human perspective, the problem doesn�t get any easier. In order to be reconciled to God, the debt owed to Him by our wrong-doing must be paid, but we are morally and spiritually bankrupt. Reconciliation with God also requires perfect repentance, but it takes a good person to repent since repentance involves not only eating humble pie and saying sorry to God, but also surrendering our lives to Him. If we want to reconnect with our Creator, we must abandon our self-centredness, but the problem is that the worse we are, and the prouder we are, the harder it is for us to do this.

Given this dilemma, what did God have to do to resolve it? How could He reconcile His justice with His mercy? How could He save the human beings He had created in love from the consequences they had brought upon themselves by the misuse of their free will? How, in other words, could God save us from death and separation from Him in eternity? And let�s be clear what this involves, however upsetting it may be. To be separated from God in eternity, means to be consciously and forever separated from the source of all life, all love, all joy, all truth, and all beauty. That is an indescribably terrible fate, about which Jesus spoke with real horror in the Gospels, but it is what we all risk if we refuse to accept God�s rescue plan for ourselves. So what, then, is God�s rescue plan? How can we be reconnected with our Creator?

According to Lewis, God could only save us by becoming a human being and dying on our behalf, because only in this way could He enable us to go through that process of dying to self without which true repentance and reconnection with Him is impossible. Just as we are enabled to think because God created our minds and nurtures our intelligence, so, argues Lewis, we can now repent of our sins and give ourselves to God, because the capacity to die to self is now part of God�s divine nature in Jesus, and can therefore be communicated to us through our union with Him. Our ability, if we choose, to be reunited with God, was also won for us by Jesus because, as Man, and therefore our representative, His death on the cross paid the debt owed to God�s justice by human sin. Like a judge who imposes a fine on his guilty son and then takes off his judge�s robe and pays that fine himself, so Jesus, God the Son Incarnate, suffered the penalty of sin in our place. But since He was and is divine as well as human, He overcame death and rose from the grave on our behalf, having torn down the barrier separating fallen human beings from their Creator. That is the meaning of the Atonement and the Resurrection.

Evidence for the truthfulness of the New Testament

Persuaded by Lewis of the reasonableness of the Christian message, I then examined the evidence for the historical truthfulness of the Gospel records in the New Testament. And once again closer scrutiny of the facts forced me to abandon my old prejudices against Christianity. The first thing I noticed was the internal evidence for the truthfulness of the Gospel accounts. Far from being self-serving propaganda, the Gospels faithfully record the weaknesses and failings of Jesus� disciples, including their frequent inability to understand what He is talking about. Peter, to cite the most famous example, refuses to believe Jesus when He warns him of His impending arrest and execution, and is firmly rebuked for it. Later, at the Last Supper, he swears he will never abandon Jesus even if all the other disciples do, but then goes on to do precisely that, denying all connection with Him in the courtyard of the High Priest�s house after Jesus� arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. The other disciples are revealed in a similarly poor light. On one occasion they are shown quarrelling about who amongst them will occupy the highest positions in Jesus� Messianic Kingdom. At other times they, like Peter, are shown to be either unwilling or unable to accept Jesus� teaching that He, the Messiah, must suffer and die �as a ransom for many�. Not surprisingly, they too abandon Jesus at the moment of supreme crisis in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Even more significantly, all the disciples are taken by surprise by the Resurrection, despite having been told in advance by Jesus, before His arrest, that He would come back from the dead. Indeed, this very fact, mirrored in their slowness to accept the testimony of their women and the evidence of their own eyes, offers powerful support both for the truthfulness and reliability of the Gospels as a whole, and for the reality of the Resurrection. And this brings me, finally, to the two most compelling and convincing reasons for believing in the truth of the Christian message and the story on which it is based: the undeniable fact of the Empty Tomb, and the subsequent careers and martyrdoms of Jesus� closest followers.

As Frank Morison (originally a sceptic) argued long ago in his illuminating book, Who Moved The Stone? none of Jesus� enemies and opponents of the newborn Christian Church could deny the disappearance of Jesus� body from the tomb in which He had been buried by Joseph of Arimathea. Despite having every religious and political incentive to do so, neither the Jewish religious authorities who condemned Him, nor the Romans who crucified Him, were able to produce Jesus� body, and by doing so, give the lie to the preaching of His resurrection by the disciples. If they had done so, Christianity would have been snuffed out instantly. But they didn�t because they couldn�t.

Secondly, only the fact of the Resurrection and the disciples� encounter with the Risen Jesus can adequately explain the change that took place in them, and their subsequent careers. Having been a frightened, broken-hearted, and demoralised group of men, they emerged from hiding and became a band of joyful and heroic missionaries, boldly and fearlessly proclaiming the Christian gospel, in the teeth of persecution and suffering. What is more, all of them except John eventually suffered painful martyrdom for doing so. Three of them, including Peter, were crucified; two were stoned to death; another two were beheaded; Thomas was killed with arrows in India; Philip was hanged on a pillar in Phrygia; another disciple was beaten to death, and Bartholomew (Nathaniel) was skinned alive in Armenia. Is it likely, if the disciples had stolen Jesus� body (as their enemies alleged), that they would have endured all this for something they knew to be a lie? Is it, in any case, psychologically credible to believe that these men, emotionally shattered by Jesus� arrest and crucifixion, would have had the will, motivation, strength, or courage to attempt to snatch away His dead body from under the noses of the soldiers guarding His tomb?

My former scepticism about the Resurrection was further challenged by the undeniable and highly significant fact that St. Paul, the great �Apostle to the Gentiles�, had originally been the fiercest opponent and persecutor of the Early Church. Here was a man who had been passionately convinced that the Christian claims about Jesus were dangerous blasphemy, and that those who believed them deserved imprisonment, beatings and death. Then, suddenly, this same man changed a hundred and eighty degrees and became the greatest and most widely travelled evangelist of the fledgling Christian Church, a transformation, moreover, which began during an anti-Christian heresy-hunting missionary journey! What else, other than his encounter with the Risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, could possibly explain Paul�s dramatic conversion? This conclusion is further reinforced by the telling references in one of Paul�s pastoral letters to the many different witnesses to whom Jesus appeared after His resurrection, most of whom, Paul declared, were still alive at the time he was writing (see 1 Corinthians 15:3-10). Would he have dared to say all this, implicitly challenging sceptics to interrogate these living witnesses, if Jesus had not risen from the dead? And would he, like the other apostles, have endured beatings, imprisonment, stoning by hostile crowds and eventual beheading, for a message he knew to be false?

The more I thought about all these points, the more convinced I became that the internal evidence for the reliability of the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole was overwhelming. Apart from any other consideration, the picture of Jesus they presented was so vivid and compelling. In its pages you see Him challenging the powerful, comforting the poor, exposing hypocrites, and healing the sick and the broken-hearted. He treats women as equals and shows tenderness to children. Even more strikingly, when Jesus speaks of His divine status (�He who has seen Me, has seen the Father�), He doesn�t convey any impression of madness or megalomania. Instead, His words seem to carry authority, and His enemies are never able to out-argue or outwit Him. In fact, they do not even deny the reality of His miracles, merely attributing them to sorcery! If God ever did come down into our world and live and walk among us as a human being, I thought, then surely Jesus was that Man.

Finally, the last nail was hammered into the coffin of my former atheism by the realisation that there was very good external evidence for the authenticity and truthfulness of the Gospels. There are first of all significant corroborating references to Jesus� existence and execution in the writings of Roman historians like Tacitus and Suetonius, as well as in those of the first century historian, Thallus. There is similarly corroborating evidence about some of the details of Jesus� life and death in other non-Christian sources like the Jewish Talmud. To quote one of these, the first century Jewish historian, Josephus, writing in about AD 93: �At this time [the time of Pilate] there was a wise man who was called Jesus. His conduct was good and (he) was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. But those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion, and that he was alive; accordingly he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.� (Antiquities of the Jews)

In addition to all this, the manuscript evidence for the authenticity and reliability of the Gospel texts is earlier and more plentiful than that for any other document of ancient times. In particular, the historical reliability of Luke�s Gospel and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles, which is full of explicit political, legal, medical, cultural and topographical details, is confirmed by a lot of archaeological evidence as well as by plentiful documentary evidence from non-Christian sources. According, for instance, to classical scholar and historian, Colin Hemer, in his study, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History, 84 separate facts in the last sixteen chapters of the Acts of the Apostles have been confirmed by archaeological and historical research.

So, confronted by all these facts and arguments � philosophical, scientific, and historical � I surrendered my sword of unbelief to God, and asked Jesus to forgive my sins and come into my life during the hot, dry summer of 1976. In the years that have followed, I have never regretted that decision, despite many ups and downs and trials of my faith. Through prayer, worship, and the company of other Christians, I feel I have begun to know Jesus personally and to understand something of the breadth and height and depth of His love for me and for all His creation. If, therefore, my journey from atheism to faith has helped in any way to persuade you of the truth of Christianity, I can only hope and pray that you too will experience the joy of reconnecting with your Creator by asking Jesus to forgive your sins and come into your own life. He longs for you and is only waiting for you to make the first move.

On the other hand, if you are still unconvinced by my testimony but are willing to explore these issues further, I invite you to read I Don�t Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist, by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek, (Crossway, USA, 2004). It is a very readable yet scholarly book which sets out, in massive and very interesting detail, the philosophical and scientific evidence for the existence of God, as well as the historical and archaeological evidence for the reliability and truthfulness of the New Testament. Get hold of it and see whether it can resolve your doubts or answer your objections and questions.

I love George Carlin. George calls the shots exactly as they are. I saw him live in Las Vegas and he was amazing.

Sorry Henni I appreciate your opinion but far to much to read for me. I quit after a few lines. George Carlin was a lot more concise and straight to the point.

So!

It's all well quoting someone else. Let me quote out of my own life.

Five and a half years ago my ex wife left me aftyer 33 years of marriage. We were both guitly of the seperation - I take credit for as much of the blame as she should.

For six months I was completely broken. I was now in my mid fifties and not involved in any social activities where one could meet other women. Someone suggested I make my request for a mate known on a chat site.

It produced results & I met a widow who lost her husband through cancer. She was not as much a sold out Christian as I was, but at least she escourted me to all my outreaches which was a blessing to me, as my ex wife never did. She sat in the car at those meetings, but it helped a lot knowing that at least someone I knew personally was close by when I visited the townships & squatter camps.

We were getting ready for marriage, when my "imaginary fiend", as you call Him, started to speak to me seven nights in a row saying only this: "I do not approve of this relationship". Just that, no more. It drove me nuts, for why should I break up with a good woman which is hard to find at my age.

To cut a long story short, after the seventh time, I broke our relationship. It caused much sorrow & tears on both sides.

Two months later I met Monica. She was 18 years younger than me, completely sold out to Jesus. She wrote God a letter and ordered her husband right down to the finest detail, even his age.

The rest is history. She preaches as well as I do. She could care as little for her life as I do. She could outgive me at any moment. She is as sold out on proclaiming the Gospel as I am. I think that our many pics accurately tell our story.

Now tell me: What are the coincidence in all of that? Tell me that she was not given to me by some "higher power".

And that is just one of the great many supernatural experiences I've personally had in my lifespan.

Cheers,

Henni

Hi Nigel,

You are welcome to your opinion mate. a Lot is at stake. I guess a few words might be too much for some. Later on I'll list some near death experiences and share the links to those. And also to the proof that they were not merely hallucinatiion as a result of not enough O2 to their brains.

If my eternity was at stake, I would certainly put some effort into finding the truth. It is out there for the find by those who care enough to search for it.

But I have to state: He left ONLY enough evidence for those who care to find it, as well as for those who care to reject it. No one will ever prove Him without a doubt, for then there is no more faith required in all of this and He CANNOT be pleased apart from faith. Same goes for all who loves Him with all their passion. It will ALWAYS be a matter of faith only as the path to travel is not laid out by roses. To the very extreme contrary indeed...

Cheers,

Henni

+100

Yup my friend,

You trust & direct your eternal destiny based solely on the remarks of a comedian of all things & you find him to be right and absolutely to the point - I need say nothing more on this. You've said it all mate. Talk about wisdom...

And no Chas, I do not beat around the bush when it comes to the things of God. Too much is at stake...

Henni

All 'true believers' seem to end up at the same place, no matter what the evidence shows. The problem arises from their not being able to grasp the concept of 'live and let live'. There seems to be this obsessive need to convert everyone else to their way of thinking, by any means necessary - example: estimated 1.3 to 3 million lives lost to the (7) Crusades.

Should Carlin be dismissed JUST because he's a comedian? We laugh because he is able to point out the absurdity of fundamental(ist) Christian beliefs in a humorous way. That doesn't automatically make him wrong.

Feeding the hungry is admirable but when you say (emphatically) that "I'm NOT a humanitarian, I'm an Evangelist", I'd say that goes to MOTIVE. Blacks in America are STILL suffering the crippling effects of religion, imposed on them during the era of slavery. They suffered unimaginable pain and hardship with the promise of a bright and happy future in the next life, while the Masters enjoyed the bounties of THIS life PLUS the promise of paradise in the next. Same religion, different folks.

I realize that you're probably never going to have a rational discussion with a 'true believer' who responds to everything with "but the Bible says......" or "but God says......", or that FAITH trumps logic, reason, scientific fact...in fact, everything. In the end, George Carlin says it all (and so well).

chas

Chas,

Here you go again, mixing religion with real Christianity. Please allow me to re-iterate again:

No mates, religion is not involved. Let me tell you how it is:

Any human consists of a soul, a spirit & a body. All of us are three beings in one.

When one surrenders his/her life unconditionally to Jesus, the Bible says that He replaces their Spirit with His. He removes their hearts of stone & gives them hearts of flesh that can obey Him.

It is a supernatural thing. The very next day one develops this extreme, supernatural hunger for the Bible and one cannot put it down. It gets carried wherever one goes in ones back pocket.

Then the first name calling starts, EXACTLY as spelled out in the Bible. The first thing one is labelled is being a "Bible Puncher"

This did not come by choice. It came as a direct result of a touch from Him. And then the changes start, by itself, from the inside out. It is He changing one, not one deciding to change ones lifestyle.

I have much, much more to say on this, but it will only result in this thread being locked.

We carry LIFE within us, not religion!!! His life flows in us, through us & out of us. We are new creatures, EXACTLY like stated in His Word. He wrote His laws on our hearts - we can NEVER be he same again!

And all it took was a sincere prayer in which we surrendered completely and unconditionally to Him.

Me & Monica neither belong to nor visit any church. We have no one teaching us or motivating us but His Holy Spirit. Yet see what we do & where we go. "It is Him working in us both to will & to do of His good pleasure", EXACTLY like stated in His Word.

Real Christianity is a experience & a VERY real one too. It is not a set of rules. It's having His life inside of one.

There are many "corpses" walking around professing to be believers, yet they've never had a touch from Jesus in all of their lives. Being brought up in a Christian home does not make one a believer, neither does going to a church. It is a personal handover to Jesus and the change ONLY happens after the handover, regardless of ones age or status. It happens at a specific moment and everyone who've been there can point back to that EXACT moment that he/she was "born AGAIN".

And here's another good test for those proclaiming to be believers: If one fears death, i.o.w. being killed, one does not know Him, neither has one had a touch from Him. For those who did long to be with Him more than anything else. They'll constantly put their lives at risk to make sure as many come to hear about His salvation as possible.

Aaaahhh, but let me stop here. I think this should suffice. All I want to point out over here is the difference between religion & real Christianity. Most who call themselves Christians aren't, even the Bible states so. The Bible says more or less (yes, I can quote it accurately if I wish) that even the demons believe in God, yet they shudder & tremble when they think on their ends. Only believing that there is a God does not make one a Christian. This is "religion" in action.

The Bible says that the letter kills, but the Spirit gives LIFE! It is as simple as that!!!

Cheers mates,

Henni

Henni, logic comes with wisdom.Mostly there is none in religion
It' s just a joke by a very funny guy.At least religious people should have some.

Another thing Chas,

We are ALWAYS reprimanded for quoting the Bible. Now just think on this:

I see most things mentioned in the Bible in my everyday life. Let me use just one example:

I can list more than a thousand instances in the Bible where He spoke audibly to man. That has happened maybe fifteen times or more in my own personal live with major consequences. So how can I not quote from His Word? It is true to the very letter in my every day life.

I know from experience that the Bible holds no authority to an atheist. So then I move over to near death experiences where many, many have seen and experienced for themselves EXACTLY what is written in the Bible.

What do the atheists do: They shrug it off as hallucinations caused by the lack of oxygen to the brain. Next I list documented cases of those who were born blind who saw everything the doctors did to them whilst brain dead. Some even came back & stated accurately what is lying on the roof of the hospital.

The atheists make this off as a joke. They do not believe in ANYTHING, they do not report to ANYONE or any philosophy. They can say just what they want, when they want & they constantly change their story everytime they are in a corner.

I on the other hand have to stick with what is recorded in the Bible. I cannot give ANY opinion whatsoever as that is what it is - just an opinion.

Yet the very Word of God will put an atheist in a corner on EVERY single argument they have, but they still refuse to listen to it.

Been there, seen that, done that many a time. However, we can go there again any time you wish. I am armed with His Word, His Spirit & I'm ready for your arguments.

Let's go!

Henni

I wish religion would encourage people to think more.To ask questions, to be less afraid, to speak their own mind.Not just quoting Bible.To actually encourage people to seek and learn about other religions like Islam, Budhism, Judisam, even Atheism.To learn more..
I think one of the biggest differences between religious and non religious is this.Non religious is not afraid to be proven wrong..

Where atheists differ from believers is that the atheists do not believe in any gods.

However, atheists do believe things and they do believe in things.

It could be acknowledged, for worshippers (or theists, if you will) their god might be so important and vital that not believing in it may seem just like not believing in anything at all...but really, they aren't exactly the same.

Even if a believer cannot grasp the idea of having values, meaning, or purpose in the absence of their god(s), atheists are able to manage it no problem.

Usually, the only thing atheists have in common is their lack of belief in gods.

It's simple...if you want to know what an atheist believes or believes in, you have to ask...and ask about particulars.

It doesn't work to simply ask "what do you believe in"? That question is much too general.

A person could, quite likely, go on for days listing all of the things they believe, and why would they bother to do that for you?

If you want info, you need to be specific. If you want to know what an atheist believes about morality, why not ask that?

If you want to know what an atheist believes about the beginnings of the universe, ask that.

We are not mind readers, and you shouldn't expect us to be.

Ian

What's the point. It's like talking to a brick wall. At least you continue to confirm everything I said in my previous post. So let's talk about something else.....flying. As I'm sure you already know, I'm an ATP with @ 14,000 hrs. in every thing from piper cubs to heavy turbines, civilian and military. One of my flying buddies (we've stayed in contact every since Vietnam) is being inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame and I will be one of the presenters. He earned a Bronze Star, Silver Star, and Distinguished Flying Cross. The one thing both of us agree on is that we would never, ever, ever fly an Experimental (kit built, factory built but not certificated) airplane. They account for a hugely disproportionate number of GA accidents. I admire the spirit and courage (but not the wisdom) of those flying these machines but would implore all of you to NEVER, NEVER take along a passenger (especially your wife). I say this only out of concern for your well-being and that of your spouse. Those who tell you to "have fun with your new toy" have no clue of the risks involved.

Be well (and turn those speakers down),

chas

In my case I was brought up in a religious environment, went to church, discovered god was a broke as we were and while my dad only made $25 a week as a milk truck driver back in 1940, 10 percent of our meager income went into the tray every week. I guess God needed the money more than we did.

I pretty much remained religious until about age 25, a time when I entered the field of cardio-pulmonary medicine. I worked in one of the largest, inner-city hospitals in Baltimore. I got to see, first hand, the worst of the worst. I saw 12 and 13-year old kids with needle tracks and herniated blood vessels all over their tiny, destroyed bodies when they arrived in the Emergency Room dead from heroin overdoses. I saw crack babies convulsing and gasping their last breaths. I administered pain killing drugs to children who were nearly burned alive because their druggie mothers left them unattended in a rat infested, roach infested vacant house heated with a bucket of burning trash, while the mother went off to prostitute herself for more drugs.

I spent endless hours working in the operating room, running the heart/lung machine (pump/oxygenator) to keep someone alive while we desperately tried in vein to repair various heart defects, often in children under 5 years of age. Many, many of them died on the operating table, children that had never experienced the joys of being able to play with other children, or even go outside their home because their conditions were so frail.

I did this for 15 years, and during my final year in medicine, I worked with children with cystic fibrosis. We called them pink puffers. These thin, frail, wonderfully brave children gasped for every breath. They had never experienced life outside their tiny environment of living in near seclusion because of fear of secondary pulmonary infections that would kill them in a heartbeat. Minor infections, sore throat, bronchitis, and other normal childhood diseases were a death sentence to these beautiful, brave babies. I held them in my arms while they slowly suffocated to death. Then, after their passing, I often accompanied the chief resident to the waiting room to tell their parents that their child had died.

We had a resident Chaplin, one that was always on call at the hospital when someone was dying, or had died. Most of the time, he went with us to the parents, husbands, wives, etc..., when we informed the family members of a persons death. He would always tell them that the child, or family member was in a better place and that their horrendous death was "Gods Way." Then he would go into some ridiculous tirade for the next 20 minutes about how good and gracious god had been in taking that child into his arms.

Well, if God was so good and gracious, why did God allow that tiny baby to convulse and die from the crack cocaine the mother continued to ingest on a daily basis during pregnancy? Why didn't God prevent all those beautiful, brave babies I held in my arms from contracting cystic fibrosis in the first place? Why did HE allow those children to be born with congenital heart defects that destroyed their tiny bodies? If HE was so great and merciful, creator of all in this universe, why is he allowing, in the name of religion, jihad to rain down thousands of missiles on the Israeli children?

Throughout my entire life, I've done my best to help others. Not as a bible thumping evangelist, but as one human being to another, and I continue to do so today. I've used my talents to the best of my ability to help those in need to help themselves. In that realm, when I joined the U.S. Navy at age 17, I did so with the full knowledge that if my country were to be attacked by another nation, I would be there to serve and protect. During my time aboard ship, I was heavily exposed to asbestos. My lungs are slowly, but surely, becoming fibrotic. I now face the fate that many of those beautiful, tiny, helpless, brave children - I will slowly suffocate to death over the next decade or less. My blood oxygen levels have fallen dramatically over the past two years, my lung capacity has diminished by 50 percent, and within the next year or so, I will no longer be able to provide musical entertainment. Was this GOD'S WILL? Does GOD really want me to stop making people happy by providing them with musical entertainment? Does GOD want me to slowly suffocate to death, drown in my own body fluids that will accumulate in my lungs and gasp for every last breath? Is this one of those "Mysterious Ways" the only GOD knows of?

Am I being cynical? You bet your ass I am. There's really no good way to die, and believe me, I've seen them all first hand. If their was an easy way, and GOD really did exist, don't you think we would be using it instead of undergoing the horrors of death? I don't condemn anyone for having his or her particular religious beliefs. My daughter is very religious, and she knows that I'm an Agnostic - we NEVER discuss the subject. I don't try to convince her - she knows better than to try and convince me.

Henni and his loving wife probably do lots of good things for people where they live. That's fine and for this I applaud them. What I DO NOT AGREE WITH is individuals that persist in insisting the rest of the world is wrong and they are right, especially when it comes to religion. Keep in mind there's a group of religious zealots out there right now that sincerely believe that if we do not believe in their religious beliefs that we must be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Yep, they believe in GOD too, just a different one.

Enough ranting for now, back to the fun of making music while I still can,

Gary

Might as well add my two bits worth.

After studying religion, many religions, I came to the conclusion that every religion is basically a Fraternal organization with the express purpose of controlling all other men.

After studying religion, many religions, I came to the conclusion that every religion is basically a Fraternal organization with the express purpose of controlling all other men.

[/quote]

Billy that is why religion was made.Not to give hope,but to control people.

My 9 year old came one day from school to tell me this.Her teacher told them if they believe in Santa Clause they also believe in baby Jesus.My daughter asked me if that is true.I told her to ask her teacher if she believes in Santa Clause?
She also told me that her friend from school told her if they say" o my god" , they are not gonna go to heaven.And that is what mom of the other girl told her.
Talk about brain washing and scaring little kids.Good thing kids learn fast and grow out of it ..And I can't believe there are teachers like this in our schools teaching our kids about this ...

If you REALLY want the answer to the question of suffering, you can get more insight over here - although I seriously doubt that the atheists are sincere in asking this. They are just looking for something to pin to God.

I'll paste just the start over here - you can read the rest for yourselves.

http://www.end-times-prophecy.org/why-god-allow-suffering.html

Before sin came into existence, there was peace and joy right throughout the universe. But there was one created being, who for some reason, became full of pride and was not satisfied with the already exalted position that God had given him in heaven. That created being, or angel, was Lucifer, who was perfect when he was created, which confirms that God did NOT "create" evil.

LuciferEzekiel 28:13-15 ...'Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.'

These verses are talking about Lucifer, the most exalted angel in the heavenly kingdom. And as you can see, when God created him, he was a perfect being. So the question is, if God didn't created sin and evil, then how did Lucifer end up being evil? Because of his own FREE WILL CHOICE to go against God's heavenly government. God didn't create a bunch of robots to serve Him. No, He wanted to create intelligent beings who He could commune with and have a loving relationship with. But that wasn't enough for one heavenly character!...

How many people did Hitler, Stalin, Mao + Pol Pot kill in the aim of furthering the cause of atheism?

Mao 30 million
Stalin 22 million
Hitler 16 million.
Pol Pot 2 million in a tiny country in less than 3 years.

Murders in the name of Christianity can't even come close.


So stop blaming God for all the suffering and rather focus on explaining the above to the rest of us mere mortals...

Murders in the name of religion far exceed those figures - all you need to do is take a good look at the history of the world to find that out.

And, you persist in quoting scriptures, but those scriptures were written by MAN - not a higher being. It is purely someone's interpretation - nothing more - nothing less. What makes that particular book correct and the remainder of the world ALL WRONG?

Cheers,

Gary

I think Jesus, Mohamed and Moses, if they are somewhere up there are ashamed of their own names by how many people were killed in their name.

At least killing is not a topic religious folks should talk about.

Is that a FACT Gary? Maybe you should read this & enlighten yourself in the process. You make a lot of unjustified claims my friend - but this is a habitual thing amongst atheists as they are always grasping for straw - they have no foundation of any sorts to stand on.

Henni

Gosh, I wonder why. Oh wait, God's will, right?

My favorite biblical quote (used mostly when 'true believers' can't explain something); "God works in mysterious ways".

This doesn't work with wives, BTW. One has to be more creative.

Dick Gregory, a Black comedian, said that once after a weekend of drinking and carousing and no good explanation for his wife, he stopped by a phone booth on the way home, calls his wife and blurts out, "DON'T PAY THE RANSOM, HONEY, I GOT AWAY FROM THEM". And you doubted George Carlin just because he was a comedian.

chas

Well Henni, the same is also true of all religions.

No foundation.

As Gary pointed out , all these religious books were written by man.Nothing else.Also Harry Potter was written by man, actually a woman.It doesn't matter.Same species.

Hi again Chas,

Wonder how it is then that Monica is still happily married to me. I think it's just about five years now. See what we've achieved together in such a short time span. Just maybe it has something to do with the fact that she is completely willing to throw herself heart & soul into what we are called to do...

As for the rest - I knew from experience none of you would bother to follow the link. So over the next few days I'll post those bit for bit over here.

Psalm 19:1-3 � The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.

Jeremiah 10:12 � He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom, and has stretched out the heavens at His discretion.

Romans 1:20 � For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.

Science means knowledge, and true science always agrees with the observable evidence. Scientific research continues to unfold the wonders and mysteries of our universe. Interestingly, there is one book that has anticipated many of these scientific facts. That book is the Bible.

This booklet presents 101 scientific facts found in the Scriptures. Many of these facts were penned centuries before they were discovered. Scientific foreknowledge found only in the Bible offers one more piece to the collective proof that the Bible is truly the inspired Word of the Creator. How does this affect you? The last several pages provide the answer � you need to read them carefully.


Henni

Uh, wasn't that reference also written by MAN (or did I miss something)?

chas

There is no valid reason to believe any of the dogmas* of traditional apologetics and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true.

Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny.

The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

Ian

*A religious doctrine that is proclaimed as true without proof.

Bad music and bad grammar. Those are my primary gripes against many involved in religion. Before we get into the belief area, most would be better off realizing that God doesn't have to teach you to write or play.

It takes work, and any other approach is just using an excuse.


Russ

1.
The earth free-floats in space (Job 26:7), affected only by gravity. While other sources declared the earth sat on the back of an elephant or turtle, or was held up by Atlas, the Bible alone states what we now know to be true � �He hangs the earth on nothing.�

Visit:
Modern Science In An Ancient (ICR)

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2.
Creation is made of particles, indiscernible to our eyes (Hebrews 11:3). Not until the 19th century was it discovered that all visible matter consists of invisible elements.

Visit:
All About Atoms (Jefferson Lab)

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3.
The Bible specifies the perfect dimensions for a stable water vessel (Genesis 6:15). Ship builders today are well aware that the ideal dimension for ship stability is a length six times that of the width. Keep in mind, God told Noah the ideal dimensions for the ark 4,500 years ago.

Visit:
The Ark�s perfect dimensions (Answers In Genesis)
Safety investigation of Noah�s Ark in a seaway (Answers In Genesis)
Noah�s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic (Answers In Genesis)

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4.
When dealing with disease, clothes and body should be washed under running water (Leviticus 15:13). For centuries people naively washed in standing water. Today we recognize the need to wash away germs with fresh water.

Visit:
-Why do I need to wash my hands?

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5.
Sanitation industry birthed (Deuteronomy 23:12-13). Some 3,500 years ago God commanded His people to have a place outside the camp where they could relieve themselves. They were to each carry a shovel so that they could dig a hole (latrine) and cover their waste. Up until World War I, more soldiers died from disease than war because they did not isolate human waste.

Visit:
The First Book Of Public Hygiene (Answers In Genesis)
Modern medicine? (Answers In Genesis)

Right mate. I have to communicate to you in your native tongue. So hoekom praat jy dan nie so 'n bietjie Afrikaans met my nie, dan sien ons hoe vaar jy.

En dan praat die man nog van slegte musiek ook nog boonop... O vet!!! Die arrogansie darem van sommige!

Henni

6.
Oceans contain springs (Job 38:16). The ocean is very deep. Almost all the ocean floor is in total darkness and the pressure there is enormous. It would have been impossible for Job to have explored the "springs of the sea." Until recently, it was thought that oceans were fed only by rivers and rain. Yet in the 1970s, with the help of deep diving research submarines that were constructed to withstand 6,000 pounds-per-square-inch pressure, oceanographers discovered springs on the ocean floors!

Visit:
Springs of the Ocean (ICR)


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7.
There are mountains on the bottom of the ocean floor (Jonah 2:5-6). Only in the last century have we discovered that there are towering mountains and deep trenches in the depths of the sea.

Visit:
Numerical Simulations Of Precipitation Induced By Hot Mid-Ocean Ridges (ICR)

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8.
Joy and gladness understood (Acts 14:17). Evolution cannot explain emotions. Matter and energy do not feel. Scripture explains that God places gladness in our hearts (Psalm 4:7), and ultimate joy is found only in our Creator�s presence � �in Your presence is fullness of joy� (Psalm 16:11).

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9.
Blood is the source of life and health (Leviticus 17:11; 14). Up until 120 years ago, sick people were �bled� and many died as a result (e.g. George Washington). Today we know that healthy blood is necessary to bring life-giving nutrients to every cell in the body. God declared that �the life of the flesh is in the blood� long before science understood its function.

Visit:
Life in the Blood (ICR)

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10.
The Bible states that God created life according to kinds (Genesis 1:24). The fact that God distinguishes kinds, agrees with what scientists observe � namely that there are horizontal genetic boundaries beyond which life cannot vary. Life produces after its own kind. Dogs produce dogs, cats produce cats, roses produce roses. Never have we witnessed one kind changing into another kind as evolution supposes. There are truly natural limits to biological change.

Visit:
Things You May Not Know About Evolution (ICR)
Creation - Evolution (ICR)
Evolution and the Bible (ICR)
The Fossil Record: Intermediate Links (ChristianAnswers.net)
Archaeopteryx A Feathered Reptile? (ChristianAnswers.net)
The Ape-Man: Missing Link (ChristianAnswers.net)
Biological Evolution Darwin's Finches (ChristianAnswers.net)

11.
Noble behavior understood (John 15:13; Romans 5:7-8). The Bible and history reveal that countless people have endangered or even sacrificed their lives for another. This reality is completely at odds with Darwin�s theory of the survival of the fittest.

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12.
Chicken or egg dilemma solved (Genesis 1:20-22). Which came first, the chicken or the egg? This question has plagued philosophers for centuries. The Bible states that God created birds with the ability to reproduce after their kind. Therefore the chicken was created first with the ability to make eggs! Yet, evolution has no solution for this dilemma.

Visit:
What Came First, the Chicken or the Egg? (ICR)
The Egg/Chicken Conundrum (ICR)

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13.
Which came first, proteins or DNA (Revelation 4:11)? For evolutionists, the chicken or egg dilemma goes even deeper. Chickens consist of proteins. The code for each protein is contained in the DNA/RNA system. However, proteins are required in order to manufacture DNA. So which came first: proteins or DNA? The ONLY explanation is that they were created together.

Visit:
Things that are Made (ICR)
Evolution Hopes You Don't Know Chemistry: The Problem with Chirality (ICR)
Origin of Life: Critique of Early Stage Chemical Evolution Theories (ICR)
The Origin of Life: Theories on the Origin of Biological Order (ICR)

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14.
Our bodies are made from the dust of the ground (Genesis 2:7; 3:19). Scientists have discovered that the human body is comprised of some 28 base and trace elements � all of which are found in the earth.

Visit:
The elements of the periodic table sorted by their presence in human body. (Lenntech)
The Bible is a Textbook of Science (ICR)

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15.
The First Law of Thermodynamics established (Genesis 2:1-2). The First Law states that the total quantity of energy and matter in the universe is a constant. One form of energy or matter may be converted into another, but the total quantity always remains the same. Therefore the creation is finished, exactly as God said way back in Genesis.

Visit:
Modern Scientific Discoveries Verify the Scriptures (Institute For Creation Research)

I am amazed -not negatively or positively,just amazed - at some of the responses here ...
We are ALL believers ... some choose to believe there is a God, others choose to believe there is not ... I choose to believe there is - otherwise, did all this happen by 'luck' or accident? ... but I also have NO IDEA what God's plan is but I expect to find out someday - just not today, hopefully ... I will not impose my beliefs on others, their life is theirs to live ... I will try to be good to my fellow man, and not cause harm or ill will to anyone ...
Life is VERY short and then we find out the truth ... until then, I choose to have FAITH and believe ...
I will pray for ALL people ...
Live your life as YOU want ... we will all find out soon enough ... if I am right in my beliefs, great ... if I am not, no harm done ...

16.
The first three verses of Genesis accurately express all known aspects of the creation (Genesis 1:1-3). Science expresses the universe in terms of: time, space, matter, and energy. In Genesis chapter one we read: �In the beginning (time) God created the heavens (space) and the earth (matter)�Then God said, �Let there be light (energy).� No other creation account agrees with the observable evidence.

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17.
The universe had a beginning (Genesis 1:1; Hebrews 1:10-12). Starting with the studies of Albert Einstein in the early 1900s and continuing today, science has confirmed the biblical view that the universe had a beginning. When the Bible was written most people believed the universe was eternal. Science has proven them wrong, but the Bible correct.

Visit:
Modern Scientific Discoveries Verify the Scriptures (Institute For Creation Research)

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18.
The earth is a sphere (Isaiah 40:22). At a time when many thought the earth was flat, the Bible told us that the earth is spherical.

Visit:
Does the Bible Teach a Spherical Earth
Did Bible writers believe the earth was flat? (CristianAnswers.net)

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19.
Scripture assumes a revolving (spherical) earth (Luke 17:34-36). Jesus said that at His return some would be asleep at night while others would be working at day time activities in the field. This is a clear indication of a revolving earth, with day and night occurring simultaneously.

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20.
Origin of the rainbow explained (Genesis 9:13-16). Prior to the Flood there was a different environment on the earth (Genesis 2:5-6). After the Flood, God set His rainbow �in the cloud� as a sign that He would never again judge the earth by water. Meteorologists now understand that a rainbow is formed when the sun shines through water droplets � which act as a prism � separating white light into its color spectrum.

Visit:
What causes a rainbow? (CristianAnswers.net)
The Rainbow And The Cloud (ICR)

That's enough for today. I'll post some more later. For those who are sincerely interested, just follow the link supplied.

The Bible is the ONLY book giving foreknowledge & even insight into science. No other group can offer a book that could even come close.

Don't tell me all believe systems are equal...

Henni

Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian

10 - You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of gods claimed by other religions, but feel outraged when someone denies the existence of yours.

9 - You feel insulted and "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.

8 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.

7 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!

6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.

5 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.

4 - You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exception of those who share your beliefs -- though excluding those in all rival sects - will spend Eternity in an infinite Hell of Suffering. And yet consider your religion the most "tolerant" and "loving."

3 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.

2 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.

1 - You actually know a lot less than many atheists and agnostics do about the Bible, Christianity, and church history - but still call yourself a Christian.

Hitler�s involvement with the Church:

a) Hitler was baptized as Roman Catholic during infancy in Austria.

b) As Hitler approached boyhood he attended a monastery school. (On his way to school young Adolf daily observed a stone arch which was carved with the monastery�s coat of arms bearing a swastika.)

c) Hitler was a communicant and an altar boy in the Catholic Church.

d) As a young man he was confirmed as a �soldier of Christ.� His most ardent goal at the time was to become a priest. Hitler writes of his love for the church and clergy: �I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal.� -Adolf Hitler (Mein Kampf)

e) Hitler was NEVER excommunicated nor condemned by his church. Matter of fact the Church felt he was JUST and �avenging for God� in attacking the Jews for they deemed the Semites the killers of Jesus.

f) Hitler, Franco and Mussolini were given VETO power over whom the pope could appoint as a bishop in Germany, Spain and Italy. In turn they surtaxed the Catholics and gave the money to the Vatican. Hitler wrote a speech in which he talks about this alliance, this is an excerpt: �The fact that the Vatican is concluding a treaty with the new Germany means the acknowledgement of the National Socialist state by the Catholic Church. This treaty shows the whole world clearly and unequivocally that the assertion that National Socialism [Nazism] is hostile to religion is a lie.� Adolf Hitler, 22 July 1933, writing to the Nazi Party

Hitler and the Pope) Hitler worked CLOSELY with Pope Pius in converting Germanic society and supporting the church. The Church absorbed Nazi ideals and preached them as part of their sermons in turn Hitler placed Catholic teachings in public education.

Each April 20, Cardinal Bertram of Berlin was to send �warmest congratulations to the Fuhrer in the name of the bishops and the dioceses in Germany with �fervent prayers which the Catholics of Germany are sending to heaven on their altars.�

(If you would like to know more about the secret dealings of Hitler and the Pope I recommend you get a book titled: Hitler�s Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII, by John Cornwell)

h) Due to Hitler�s involvement with the Church he began enacting doctrines of the Church as law. He outlawed all abortion, raged a death war on all homosexuals, and demanded corporal punishment in schools and home. Many times Hitler addressed the church and promised that Germany would implement its teachings: �The National Socialist State professes its allegiance to positive Christianity. It will be its honest endeavor to protect both the great Christian Confessions in their rights, to secure them from interference with their doctrines (Lehren), and in their duties to constitute a harmony with the views and the exigencies of the State of today.� �Adolf Hitler, on 26 June 1934, to Catholic bishops to assure them that he would take action against the new pagan propaganda �Providence has caused me to be Catholic, and I know therefore how to handle this Church.� -Adolf Hitler, reportedly to have said in Berlin in 1936 on the enmity of the Catholic Church to National Socialism

The bible is an inanimate object. This is a personification. It can't "lead", "give" or do any other human thing. It can contain things and ideas. This is bad grammar in any language.

"Belief" verses "Believe". That's also wrong, but explained by the cultural/language differences.

Line after line of disassociated thought. Someone should learn how to write.

BTW, Carlin is GREAT!


Russ

Excerpts taken from http://www.evilbible.com/



For far too long priests and preachers have completely ignored the vicious criminal acts that the Bible promotes. The so called �God� of the Bible makes Osama Bin Laden look like a Boy Scout. This God, according to the Bible, is directly responsible for many mass-murders, rapes, pillage, plunder, slavery, child abuse and killing, not to mention the killing of unborn children. I have included references to the Biblical passages, so grab your Bible and follow along.

It always amazes me how many times this God orders the killing of innocent people even after the Ten Commandments said �Thou shall not kill�. For example, God kills 70,000 innocent people because David ordered a census of the people (1 Chronicles 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all the men, women, and children of each city, and the looting of all of value (Deuteronomy 3). He orders another attack and the killing of �all the living creatures of the city: men and women, young, and old, as well as oxen sheep, and asses� (Joshua 6). In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife! Just about every other page in the Old Testament has God killing somebody! In 2 Kings 10:18-27, God orders the murder of all the worshipers of a different god in their very own church! In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 people murdered.

The God of the Bible also allows slavery, including selling your own daughter as a sex slave (Exodus 21:1-11), child abuse (Judges 11:29-40 and Isaiah 13:16), and bashing babies against rocks (Hosea 13:16 & Psalms 137:9).

This type of criminal behavior should shock any moral person. Murder, rape, pillage, plunder, slavery, and child abuse can not be justified by saying that some god says it�s OK. If more people would actually sit down and read the Bible there would be a lot more atheists like myself.

Jesus also promoted the idea that all men should castrate themselves to go to heaven: "For there are eunuchs, that were so born from their mother's womb: and there are eunuchs, that were made eunuchs by men: and there are eunuchs, that made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." (Matthew 19:12 ASV) I don't know why anyone would follow the teachings of someone who literally tells all men to cut off their privates.

The God of the Bible also was a big fan of ritual human sacrifice and animal sacrifice.

And just in case you are thinking that the evil and immoral laws of the Old Testament are no longer in effect, perhaps you should read where Jesus makes it perfectly clear: "It is easier for Heaven and Earth to pass away than for the smallest part of the letter of the law to become invalid." (Luke 16:17 NAB) There are many more quotes on this topic at my "Do Not Ignore the Old Testament" web page.

I know that most Christians believe that God is a good and loving god, and wants people to do good things. I believe that most people want to do good things and behave morally. I also believe that many Christians haven�t really read the Bible, or just read certain passages in church. This is understandable, as the Bible is hard to read due to its archaic language and obscure references. Also many priests and preachers don�t like to read certain passages in the Bible because they present a message of hate not love.

Ian I was just about to put this on...Great post.
Anything extreme can't be good.From extreme Christianity to extreme Islam.Key word there is "extreme" .Doesn't really matter what is after that word.In religion like in everything in life, if you take it moderately it's good.If you take a shot of votka every day, nothing is going to happen to you, but if you chug that big bottle every day you become alcoholic and you do everything in life according to that votka.

Excerpts taken from http://carm.org/god-of-old-testament-a-monster

Far from being innocent, the objects of God�s judgments were involved in gross sin and committed acts of great barbarism, such as ritualistically burning their own children to death as offerings to their false gods. Amazingly, instead of immediately destroying the people involved in such things, the actual opposite is found: the Scripture conveys that God had incredible patience and waited until the full measure of their deeds were completed. For example, while speaking to Abraham about the future exodus of Israel from Egypt, God says the following about the Amorite people: "Then in the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete,� (Gen 15:15).

One has to ask if mankind today would be as long-suffering with such horrible acts? Were such acts as those chronicled in the Old Testament catapulted into the twenty-first century and globally broadcast via CNN, there would no doubt be a universal outcry with military action being prescribed if such actions were not immediately halted. Why then do God�s critics feel justified in labeling the Creator as morally unjust even when God waited, in some cases, for centuries to punish the peoples involved?

After carefully examining the chief Old Testament examples that atheists use to label God as unjust, it has been demonstrated that their criticisms and characterizations are unfounded, and their understanding of the various situations flawed. Further, rather than living up to Dawkin�s caricature of being a vindictive, impatient, quick-tempered, and bloodthirsty deity, the image of God that instead emerges from the Old Testament after a thorough study is just the opposite; God is portrayed as forgiving, patient, and slow to bring forth judgment. However, He is also revealed to be a holy, just, and righteous God who will bring justice about in His time. In short, the God of the Old Testament matches the God of the New Testament.

Whew! Another day I thank god I'm an atheist.

Man, freethinking and no religiosity have to be the best feelings ever...just a teensy weensy bit ahead of playing my Tyros4, of course!

I wish you the best Henni, and I hope someday you'll find even half as much freedom and enlightenment as I have discovered.

As Frank Sinatra sang (with credits to Paul Anka), "I did it my way!"

Best of luck with yours.


Ian the Happy Heathen

Excerpts taken from http://www.isaiah666.com/hell_testimonies.htm

"A respiratory nurse who works in an emergency room told me about a patient who had gone �code red� � he flat lined. She and some other medical personnel rushed over with the defibrillator to try and bring him back to life. They applied the paddles and revived him. She said that he started screaming and shouting �the heat, the heat!� then his heart stopped again. They brought him back a second time. He shouted �The flames, the flames!� They lost him again. Four times the man flat lined and was brought back, each time shouting about the heat or the flames. After the last time, he died and they could not bring him back. She said all the doctors and nurses just stood there for a few minutes and stared at the body. They all knew that man went to hell."

Many, many more http://www.freeevangelism.com/heavenandhell.htm

"How many people did Hitler, Stalin, Mao + Pol Pot kill in the aim of furthering the cause of atheism?

Mao 30 million
Stalin 22 million
Hitler 16 million.
Pol Pot 2 million in a tiny country in less than 3 years.

Murders in the name of Christianity can't even come close."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yours is an excuse many Christians use. To be fair, however, and this is where most fail or just are too hardheaded to try to comprehend, Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot did NOT kill in the name of atheism.

Hitler, for instance, was a baptized Catholic and was never ex-communicated.

Take a look at this:

"The NSDAP Party Program stated: �We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession�.�
Positive Christianity adhered to basic orthodox doctrines and asserted that Christianity must make a practical, positive difference in people�s lives. It�s difficult to maintain that Nazi ideology was atheistic when it explicitly endorsed and promoted Christianity in the party platform."

and

By contrast to all this, the Soviet Union was undeniably an atheist state, and the same applies to Maoist China and to Pol Pot�s fanatical Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s. That does not, however, show that the atrocities committed by these totalitarian dictatorships were the result of atheist beliefs, carried out in the name of atheism, or caused primarily by the atheistic aspects of the relevant forms of communism. In all of these cases, the situation was more complex � as, to be fair, also applies to some of the persecutions and atrocities in which religious movements, organizations, and leaders have been deeply implicated over the centuries."

and

While we do not doubt that religious people were often targeted as enemies of all these regimes� grandiose plans, this was usually because churches and other religious authorities (such as those related to Confucian tradition in China) were seen as actual or potential sources of resistance. Once again, the Soviet authorities were not always on bad terms with the Orthodox Church, and the aim of these communist regimes was to suppress any opposition, from whatever source, while carrying out massive transformations of their countries� economic bases. There was plenty of fanaticism involved, but mainly about holding onto power and engaging in mass-scale forms of social engineering � whether agricultural collectivization, forced urbanization, or, as in the case of Pol Pot�s ��Democratic Kampuchea,�� forced deurbanization and abandonment of learning and technology.
None of this follows from mere atheism, and instead far more comprehensive political and economic ideologies were relied upon. These bear little resemblance to the views of most thinkers in the rationalist tradition that dates back to ancient Greece, and they are remote from anything found in the thinking of high-profile atheists involved in current debates � ��celebrity atheists,�� to use Abramovich�s trivializing expression � who tend to be political liberals and pluralists. Indeed, con- temporary atheists tend to oppose comprehensive, apocalyptic ideologies such as Nazism, Stalinism, and Pol Pot�s agrarian socialism, partly because these imitate so many of the features of monotheistic religion � aspects of religion that contributed historically to pogroms, witch hunts, and inquisitions."

----------------------------------------------------------------------How many has God killed? (Complete list and estimated total)

kill ... I wound ... I will make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. -- Deuteronomy 32:39-42
In a previous post, I've listed and counted God's killings in the Bible. But I only included those that said exactly how many were killed by God. I came up with 2,476,633.

But that didn't include some of God's most impressive slaughters. How many did God drown in the flood or burn to death in Sodom and Gomorrah? How many first-born Egyptians did he kill? The Bible doesn't say, so there's no way to know for sure. But it's possible to provide rough estimates in order to get a grand total, and that's what I'm attempting here.

Total with estimates: 25 million.
The table shows two numbers: the number given by the Bible, if any, and an estimate, when no biblical number is available.

Total number killed by God in the Bible
- Using biblical numbers only: 2,821,364
- With estimates: 25 million

Complete list:
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.tw/2010/04/drunk-with-blood-gods-killings-in-bible.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------1 Samuel 15:2-4

2 Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to
Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.


3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and
sheep, camel and ass.

4 And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim,
two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.



A praise for dashing little children against rocks as a form of revenge:


Psalm 137:8-9

8 O daughter of Babylon, O destroyed one, O the happiness of him who repayeth to thee thy deed, That thou hast done to us.

9 O the happiness of him who doth seize, And hath dashed thy sucklings on the rock!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't get me started on all the pedophilia that happens in the bible. Yet, isn't it Christians that keep mentioning Mohammad and his child-bride while conveniently ignoring the countless child marriages. Or the argument is that this all happened in the Old Testament. Well, the OT is part of the bible, isn't? Genesis is part of the OT and that's widely believed. Why is it perfectly alright to only take what you believe paints a positive picture while either ignoring facts or laughing it off as something that shouldn't be taken literally.

How old was Joseph when he married Marry?

Aren't there quite a number of Biblical prophets, dirty old men, that married children under the age of 10?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Women's rights...or lack thereof:

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: �It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.� But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Good to know that women throw their belief out of the window in divorce court.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Don't tell me all believe systems are equal..."

Beliefs have to earn respect; they don't deserve it automatically. Some beliefs really are ludicrous and deserve derision.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Chas,

Most likely a typo but it's spelled Buddha, not Buddah.

As I said in a previous thread religious speeches are like political speeches in that they always mention details out of context.

Virtually every post that promotes a god takes a single verse from the bible that happens to match a point they wish to make, however if you read the full text in the bible (Rather than in isolation) it has nothing to do with the point that the religious are trying to prove.

If the bible was written today by the same people that wrote the original, but they had the knowledge that we have today, it would be completely different to the one that religious leaders promote.

Science constantly questions itself, and if discrepancy are found it looks to find out why they exist and how to correct it, Bible believers on the other hand assume that because it is in the bible (A book that was written centuries ago) it must be correct as nothing changes over time. (If man had followed the teachings of the bible without question we would still be living in the dark ages)

Bill

"How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock." (Psalm 137:9).

Critics often bring up this verse as an attack on the validity of the Bible. But, does the Bible teach that it is okay to kill children? The answer, of course, is, no, it doesn't. But we must ask what the Psalmist was saying and why he was saying it...

Read more here http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/job-song-solomon/why-does-psalmist-speak-about-killing-children

From http://ehyde.wordpress.com/2012/10/28/the-finest-argument-against-atheism/

The finest argument I have ever heard against atheism would have to be the �argument from reason.� The typical arguments one hears in atheist vs. theist debates do not usually interest me. I don�t find many of them particularly profound. However, the argument from reason is one of those arguments that would definitely cause me to struggle with atheistic claims if I were an atheist.

It should be noted that this is not an argument �for� Christianity, but rather an argument against atheism, specifically atheism animated by philosophical materialism and/or naturalism. An argument for Christianity would follow a very different set of rules.

Naturalism essentially states that nature is a closed system in which all events within the system are explainable (or are explainable in principle) in terms of the natural order. Thus, naturalism excludes any idea of �god� since the divine does not lie within the total system. If one accepts these presupposition then all events, including that of thought, must be explainable in purely natural/material terms. In short, all events must be the result of mechanical processes linked in a casual chain of events that could be traced back to the very beginning of the universe, if one were so inclined.

The trouble for the Naturalist comes into play when one considers the event of human thought. Since thoughts are events, all of our thoughts should be fully explainable in mechanistic terms, and not according to a person�s free-agency. But any thought which is not guided by what is �true� but guided rather by mechanistic, physical necessity is not rational. Hence, Naturalism, philosophically speaking, slits its own throat.

Again, if our thoughts are the inevitable play of firing neurons in our brain set in motion by causal necessity then what we think would be the result of whatever the total system delivered to us, and not because it accorded with �truth� necessarily. If the claims of Naturalism are held with consistency, one would have to concede that belief in Naturalism occurs only because nature has determined it (sort of an atheist�s equivalent of Calvinism). And if one arrives at his philosophy not because he chose it, but rather because it was all the total system would allow, then Naturalism is, philosophically, self-defeating.

I like what the late Professor Haldane of Oxford University said concerning the logical conclusion of a strict naturalism: �If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true � and hence I have no reason to suppose that my brain to be composed of atoms.�

Victor Reppert, piggy-backing off the ideas put forth in the book, �Miracles,� by C.S. Lewis, which gave a well-articulated criticism of naturalism, gave the following syllogism to help summarize the argument:
1.No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes.
2.If materialism is true, then all beliefs can be fully explained in terms of non-rational causes.
3.Therefore, if materialism is true, then no belief is rationally inferred.
4.If any thesis entails the conclusion that no belief is rationally inferred, then it should be rejected and its denial accepted.
5.Therefore materialism should be rejected and its denial accepted.

Reppert continues, �Explaining how a person, as a matter of personal history, came to believe something in a rational way is critical to understanding that person as a rational agent.� Naturalism unwittingly denies such an explanation. In essence, naturalism is a philosophy of existence which precludes human beings from being truly free, rational agents. The very power of reasoning which they use to levy arguments against God is the very power which gives witness to an �intellectual� source for reason in general. Rational inference is the ultimate elephant in the room during most atheist debates.

According to a consistent Naturalism any notion of god must be excluded, but its more than that: any notion of good and evil, right and wrong, love and hate, etc., must also be treated as mythical. At best they are nothing more than helpful categories of thought, but categories with no existence (or ontology) of their own. Life would then be essentially meaningless since its ultimate goal is mere survival, a goal wholly unattainable in a world where death is guaranteed.

This is an extremely brief treatment of the argument and I�ve tried my best to summarize my understanding of its main elements. For the sake of time I�ll let whatever discussion ensues from this article help to ferret out those finer points which were left untouched. Thanks for reading!

from http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=12&article=4157

...The philosophy of atheism is fraught with logical inconsistency and error. It cannot account for the beginning of the Universe (Miller, 2011); it cannot give an adequate explanation for the obvious design in our world (Fausz, 2007); atheism completely fails to offer a satisfactory explanation of human morality (Lyons, 2011); and human freewill defies an atheistic explanation (Butt, 2010). To cling to atheism in the face of such overwhelming evidence takes an irrational belief that is motivated by something other than a sincere quest for truth and knowledge...

Reading Henni's posts I'm reminded of what Shakespeare said so eloquently..."The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Carry on Henni, but personally, I believe you should quit while you're behind.

The bible is not "Good News" but rather "old news" and very poorly written at that.

Some quotes from Hitch...

"Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did."

"The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals."

"Name an ethical statement made or an action performed by a believer that could not have been made or performed by a non-believer."

�What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.�


Ian

Henni if you can do this for me..All these quotes that you post in here.Can you change the names of name characters.God to Allah, Jesus to Mohamed, Christianity to Islam.Even change Henni to Mirza, scince my name is Islamic...hhehehe...than tell me what do you think of that Islamic fundamentalist( Mirza))).Isn't he nuts and too religious.So religious he doesn't have a single thought just by himself.He is just quoting Qur'an all day long..

I have yet to see any reasons to make me believe any religion is true?

So, I am fully justified in taking the same attitude towards theism that I have taken towards claims about UFOs, Bigfoot, the Lost Continent of Atlantis, the Bermuda Triangle, poltergeists, etc.

These are interesting claims, but their proponents are repeatedly unable to offer persuasive evidence on their behalf.

In such cases skepticism is an eminently rational position, and its rarity among human beings is not an indictment of it, but of the gullibility of the majority.

Ian

PS...you know, every Christian is an atheist with respect to the gods of Hindu, Sikhs, Muhammedans God, Zeus, Mithras, Horus, Dionysus, african gods, etc, etc. ...they don't believe in the gods of other religions.

Atheists carry it just one god further.

There are so many contradictions, the whole thing is a mess.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

He (your god) broke most of his own commandments: adultery, murder, looting, etc.
Isn't it wonderful to have so much power, that even when you're wrong, you're still right? For crying out loud, he makes Satan look like an altar boy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher Hitchens had more logic in his little finger than all of his fanatical opponents combined. He would've had you for breakfast.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If something doesn't go according to plan, let's throw in something called "free agency". That way we won't be held accountable when things run out of hand. Or we make up another character called Lucifer. After all, fear is a perfect reason to keep the masses under control. On the other hand, when things go according to plan, when everything and everyone is under our control, we praise the Almighty. And we laugh happily all the way to the bank. Those that are with us, pay, and those that are against us, we'll make them pay.

Well said, Taike, and it is great to see you back posting.

Ian

Two things: Taike, so glad to see you post. Always look forward to your emails.

And Gary; the passion that almost oozed out of your effort to explain your position relative to religion and personal feelings represents a milestone here.

Eloquent, "slice of life", and commendable.


R.

What is demonstrated here is the utter futility of trying to have an intellectual discussion with a 'true believer'.

aint gonna happen.

chas

This is so rude and arrogant! Here you are pretending to be Mr. Nice and all and then you come up with this. Very Christian-like behavior!

First off, I know quite a few of Afrikaners, worked with Afrikaners, heck, I have one uncle who's been living in South-Africa since 1958. All of them speak English so now you pretending like it's not one of your native tongues is plain nonsense. You should know that Arikaans and English were the first two official languages of your country.

Russ doesn't have to communicate with you in Afrikaans because it's not taught in the US (apart from some colleges where they have Afrikaans language studies). English, on the other hand, is taught all over South-Afrika.

" So hoekom praat jy dan nie so 'n bietjie Afrikaans met my nie, dan sien ons hoe vaar jy."

So why don't you speak a little Afrikaans with me, then we'll see how you fare.

En dan praat die man nog van slegte musiek ook nog boonop... O vet!!!

And to top it off, than he calls my music bad.

Die arrogansie darem van sommige!

The arrogance of some people!

Don't think that you're the only one here who understands Afrikaans. Hey, at least you've shown your true colors.

Los Russ uit asseblief! Jy is 'n skynheilige!

[quote=Henni
Before sin came into existence, there was peace and joy right throughout the universe. But there was one created being, who for some reason, became full of pride and was not satisfied with the already exalted position that God had given him in heaven. That created being, or angel, was Lucifer, who was perfect when he was created, which confirms that God did NOT "create" evil.
[/quote]


Lucifer was created by God and he was perfect. But then he was no longer perfect but it still confirms that God did not create evil even though he created Lucifer. What the...?

And you can not find any contradictions in this?

No matter how you twist and turn it, you answer a question with a quote which than gets questioned with a quote which gets contradicted with a quote which then gets contradicted with another quote...and so on. I guess that's why Christopher Hitchens made so much sense. He actually answered questions in his own words.

Folks, a good part of this discussion was interesting and revealing. Part of the responses, from both sides, were courteous and exhibited some sincere thought and reflection.

The rest of it is a insult to literacy and intelligence.

And as Chas has noted, there's not much we can do about it.

How sad!


Russ

Tony, that reminds me of a lyric from a Porgy and Bess tune - 'Everybody wants to go to Heaven, but nobody wants to die' . One of the many dilemmas presented by Christianity. How you doin' Big Guy? Saw your pic from Gary's 'jam'. Lookin' good.

chas

Taike, good to see you 'alive and kicking' (and posting). Isn't it great that Nigel has provided a place where we can go a little nuts once in awhile. Some a little nuttier than others, still it's nice to be able to express oneself openly and honestly from time to time (avoiding hard core personal attacks, of course). Hope you and your family are doing great.

chas

Ian & Gary, referring back to the response you made to my post of the Penn Jillette video, I don't think atheists can be said not to be proselytizing out of love.

The Bible tells us that if you do not believe in Jesus as the Son of God you will spend eternity separated from the love of God, in a place called Hell. Therefore, Penn's point is that, if you truly believed that, which Christians do, it would be an act of love to warn non-believers. Of course, this must be done in a gentle loving way, giving people the right that God has given them not to believe.

If the Christians are wrong in their belief in the Word of God, they have done no harm to the non-believer. The non-believer goes into nothingness as they expected anyway.

In the case of atheists, if they persuade others not to believe and they are wrong, this person is now sentenced to eternal damnation along with the atheist.

Graham, thankfully, there is no such place as hell, nor is there eternal damnation. It's not true...it's made up.

Also, seeing this "hell" and "eternal damnation" crap taught to children is what I'd consider child abuse.

Ian

Personally, I thing intellectual discussions between parties whose views are so diametrically opposed to each other are futile ... neither party is going to 'give in' to the other ... What I can't understand though, is why only the 'believers' are fanatical? Based on many of the comments, are not both sides 'fanatical' (marked by excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion Webster) in their beliefs?



chas ... why just Christianity??? ... many religions believe in an afterlife ...
reminds me of a Kenny Chesney song "Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to go now" but then you don't 'do' country music so you probably wouldn't know that one ... and also, based on this thread, Kenny is SO wrong about 'everybody wanting to go' - people can't want to go to a place they don't believe in can they

We are doing/feeling real good ... my wife has been a "Pampered Chef" consultant for a few years and just reached the title of Director, so we leave Thursday for Louisville KY for a national conference at which she and other new Directors will be recognized ...
The 'jam' at Gary's was a BLAST !!! ...
be well ...

Some nice quotes by :
�Creationists make it sound like a �theory� is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night � Isaac Asimov

2.�I don�t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life. � Andrew Carnegie

3.�All thinking men are atheists. � Ernest Hemingway

4.�Lighthouses are more helpful then churches. � Benjamin Franklin

5.�Faith means not wanting to know what is true. � Friedrich Nietzsche


Quotes 6 � 10

6.�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. � George Bernard Shaw

7.�Say what you will about the sweet miracle of unquestioning faith, I consider a capacity for it terrifying and absolutely vile. � Kurt Vonnegut


8.�I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. � Frank Lloyd Wright

9.�Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. � Denis Diderot

10.�A man is accepted into a church for what he believes and he is turned out for what he knows. � Samuel Clemens

Quotes 11 � 15

11.�The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. � Sigmund Freud

12.�Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. � Edward Gibbon

13.�The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church. � Ferdinand Magellan

14.�Not only is there no god, but try getting a plumber on weekends. � Woody Allen

15.�It�s an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don�t try to make it posthumous. � Gloria Steinem

Another quote...

When the end of the world surely comes..we all will stand before judgement (God)...and we will all know the truth....I will try very hard not to smile ...less I will be standing next to my atheist friends.. ....Quote..Fran Carango

Mirza, those are priceless. Every one comes under the heading, "Wish I'd Said That". Can't wait to see Henni debunk each one....with a Biblical quote .

chas

If I'm still here when the end of the world comes, I'll just be grateful that I was able to live that long......and that my retirement fund didn't run out.

chas

Hi Chas and Russ,

All's well with me and my family. In fact, I'll be returning to Laos on August 30 and stay permanently. Hope you are doing great as well notwithstanding that you're all going to hell. Uh...so am I. We'll end up together after all and it doesn't even cost us a dime.

Here are some religious one too. that I like:

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Dalai Lama

You cannot believe in God until you believe in yourself.
Swami Vivekananda

I love you when you bow in your mosque, kneel in your temple, pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is the spirit.
Khalil Gibran

Jesus is ideal and wonderful, but you Christians - you are not like him.
Mahatma Gandhi

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.
Napoleon Bonaparte

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui.
Helen Keller

My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.
Dalai Lama

Since many of you do not belong to the Catholic Church and others are non-believers, from the bottom of my heart I give this silent blessing to each and every one of you, respecting the conscience of each one of you but knowing that each one of you is a child of God.

Pope Francis

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.
Desmond Tutu

I'll continue to pray that those of you who do not believe today will soften your heart and mind to respond the loving God who longs for you to come to Him!

Thanks very much for your offer of prayer, Graham, but, speaking for myself, I don't need them.

Mirza, here is one of my favorite Hitchens videos...relatively short on length, but long on value and truth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA55jGyq2C8#t=359

I thank you my friend for your prayer.

But I do have to say this.If you really want people to pray for you,just tell them you don't believe in god.You are infidel.Thn everybody says they will pray for you, for your soul.Or......they are just going to do nothing, but still feel good about themself


Ian, I love listening to Christopher Hitchens, also I read all books by Richard Dawkins.The thing is I like reading religious books too.I want to see and feel and learn from different perspective.I am not afraid to learn from it if I like something even if it came from religious book.

Talk about heaven and he'll

Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.
Mark Twain

Twain was an atheist as well...love his work too...sheer genius.

What pisses me off is when religious people preach the utter lunacy of HELL and HELL FIRE to little children...it has to have a serious detrimental effect on them, and I seriously consider it "child abuse" to frighten them with unproven superstition and fairy tales of eternal punishment for "sin".

Not to mention all their friends who were of different faiths that were destined for the devil's furnace...what an incredibly sick outlook on life for a kid to start with.

Of course, religions always try to "get 'em while they're young"...pretty awful, in my opinion.

Child abuse, plain and simple!

Ian

My favorite quote about Sunday school:

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.
H. L. Mencken

It is so sad that our society has separated church and state to such an extent that people no longer understand the truths given to us in the Bible. It just doesn�t feel as real to us, because God has been driven out of our lives, and society has created this image that Christianity is some kind of myth or legend.

Nothing can be further from the truth.

The Bible, in fact is not just one book: it is 66 books written by 40 different authors over 1500 years, written in 3 languages on 3 continents. Yet it tells one consistent message, one message of a loving God, of a God who loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son to earth, so that those who believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The people and places are historical facts, increasingly verified by archaeological research. Even non-Christian writers of the time, the Roman, Greek and Jewish historians all validate the historical reality that Jesus Christ was a real person who was crucified by the Romans, and whose ministry was associated with miracles.

But society does everything, it seems, to mask these facts from us.

Details of Jesus� life, including the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead were prophesied and written down hundreds of years before His birth. And they were fulfilled as written.

The actual events were recorded by eye witnesses; eye witnesses who just for telling what they saw were tortured and cruelly put to death. Never was there a report of one of these eye witnesses going back on the story, even when their own families, their loved ones were tortured and killed, because they knew it was a fact.

The Bible is a dependable and trustworthy Word from God to you.

Graham and Henni and other Biblical scholars here; here is one thing I'm confused about. Those two (bad) guys that got crucified with Jesus but repented at the last second and got into Heaven anyway; that sounds like a better deal than having to 'be good' your entire life. If I can 'eat, drink, and be merry', you know, a little boozing here, a little womanizing there, maybe some minor brushes with the law; BUT...repent in the last few seconds (hopefully at age 99) and STILL make it through the Pearly Gates, I'm thinking this might be the right approach for me. I just want your assurances that this will work; I don't like last minute surprises. What do you think? I don't want to be good a second longer than I have to.

chas

TOTAL BULL SHITE! I've defibrillated more than 500 people in my 15 years of working in medicine - NONE NOT A SINGLE ONE - EVER SAID A SINGLE WORD ABOUT ANYTHING. WHAT A PILE OF CRAP!

Hi Gary, I'll give you my take. Firstly suffering in this world is a reality. Even for Jesus, who not only is God in human form, but also did nothing to deserve what happened to Him (like those blessed children). The Bible also gives us the story of Job who, we are told, was blameless, a man of complete integrity. Yet he suffered tremendous loss and personal suffering.

The reality is that we live in a fallen world. God gave us free will. We were created to live in relationship with God; if He had wanted robots He could have created them. When Adam and Eve made the choice to disobey God, sin entered the world and we suffer still to this very day. We very often suffer because of the sin of others, like those poor children who are dying in the Middle East.

Also we forget that there is another force at work in this world; Satan. Satan�s ultimate goal is to get us to doubt and lose our trust and hope in God. Satan tried this with Job, but he could not get Job to give in. He has substantial power however, and is doing a better job with many others in this world!

Thirdly, the scriptures make it clear that the testing of our faith develops perseverance and perseverance develops character. I believe that the times in which we grow and learn the most about God is during our trials and hardships. So, maybe, some of our hardships eventually have a positive aspect on us, and help prepare us to be the people God wants us to be in eternity.

What people need to know, and what we need to internalize is that God is still God even when there is trouble, even if people do not believe in Him. And, although we, on our own, are so easily disobedient to His will, He still loves us and He put in place a plan for us to finally be in that place of joy, with no more suffering, no more tears, no more death! God loves us so much that He sent His one and only Son, to die a brutal death on the cross as punishment for our sins, so that, by faith in Him, we can be made clean and holy to stand in the presence of God, and live with Him eternally.

Praise God for that!

Hi chas, actually only one of the criminals who died by Jesus' side was taken with Jesus to Paradise. It was the one who recognized that he was a sinner and deserved to die but that Jesus was blameless and did not deserve to die.

To your question, our eternal destiny is not determined by how "good" we are in our life on earth. The truth is that none of us is sinless, none of us deserves all that God has in store for us in Heaven. It is only by our faith in Jesus as the Son of God, by recognizing that we are sinners and deserve punishment and by seeking Jesus' forgiveness that we can hope to spend eternity in Heaven.

So, if you do that today you can be assured of your future regardless of what you have done in your life. The important thing to remember, of course, is that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow, so putting that decision off until tomorrow may be a bad decision that you could spend a long time regretting.

By the way, you can live an awesome joyful life as a Christian!

Please think about this.

Graham, when you've been where I've been, done what I've done, held that helpless child in your arms while it slowly suffocated to death, turned blue, gasping for it's very last breath you may have a tiny inkling of the real world. Until then, the rest of this is total BS, at least IMO. You can preach to those that don't have a clue to what really happens in the real world, and have never experienced death in their arms. I have, I know what I'm talking about - I've been there done that.

I've come very close to death a couple times, and I knew exactly what my body was doing at the time. I held my daughters hand while she lay helpless in the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Unit, a center I helped design back in the 1960s. She had a tracheotomy tube in her throat, a half dozen IVs, broken neck, halo, Foley catheter, electrodes covering her frail body to monitor her conditions, and all the damned prayers in the world would not have helped her survive.

Do you, for one minute, believe that motorcycle accident that she was involved in was "God working in mysterious ways"? BS. The only reason she survived was because of MAN'S INTERVENTION! The training that those nurses and physicians got from other men, the achievements of Doctor R. Adams Cowley, an Atheist from a Mormon family, my old boss, that's what kept my daughter alive - not prayer, not God, not Jesus Christ. Tell that stuff to someone that needs to find themselves in this life - but don't try to preach that to ME. I don't and won't buy it.

Gary

Hi Gary, forgive me if I made you as angry as you sound. You asked a question in a forum thread on this topic. I tried my best to give you a reasoned answer. You don't have to agree with it, but please respect it.

None of us have walked in the other's shoes. But yes, I do believe that the troubles you detail could result from one of the three possible causes I listed. "God moving in mysterious ways" are your words not mine. And I also believe that God could have healed your daughter to bless you even if you didn't ask Him for it. But that's just me.

I am so glad your daughter made it through. Is that the daughter who sang so beautifully at the recent jam, the one you say has such faith in God? I can see she is still today a real blessing to you, perhaps even more than you know!