Old testament speaks of that! and it is old covenant or agreement between GOD and HIS people.
People received a new covenant 2000 years ago when Evil, Justice,Love, Forgiveness met at the Cross and New testament clearly mentions that...

New testament stands completely on the sacrifice and RESURRECTION of one person called JESUS.
So, eating anything that is edible and thanking God for that is absolutely OK.

Jesus says, looking at women lustfully amounts to having sex with her, it is higher standard than ,what the Ten commandments speak of.

How many of you know here, that the first American president talks about God in his address in Thanksgiving day proclamation??(http://grove.ufl.edu/~leo/washington.html)

People who obstruct the very notion of christian values, should hate to be in America, pack bags and leave to gay, lesbo or whichever land they wish....

"Jesus says, looking at women lustfully amounts to having sex with her..."

So, when I'm asked how many sex partners I've had, do I get to include these?

Um, Pras, do you honestly believe that Christ (without explicitly saying so) overrode CHAPTERS of DETAILED information on what can and cannot be eaten (and what work can be done on the Sabbath), but did NOT (again with no explicit comment either way) override a couple of vague verses here and there?

If you do, then you are a splendid example of the point of the article - that people pick and choose a few vague verses here there, and use them to prop up the person's own prejudices.

The Holy Wars, the Spanish Inquisition, the witch trials, the list goes on and on; "We have a long history of looking to the Bible to confirm our prejudices," said Daniel Karslake, director of For the Bible Tells Me So

The only way this will end is when and if the Bible is relegated to being strictly literature. It is only a guide, an outdated guide, to be sure, but a guide nevertheless, about how to live and treat others. The Old Testament was overridden by the one major law, the Golden Rule, if you will, of the New Testament: Do unto others as you would have done unto you. So, unless you would like to be raped, beaten, tortured, robbed, defiled, ridiculed, vilified, etc. and so on, DON'T DO ANY OF THESE THINGS TO ANYONE ELSE. DON'T condone other people doing it. Treat everyone with respect and honor, including yourself. One of the major tenets of the "religion" I follow is: "An' it harm none, do what thou wilt." Harm NONE. Including yourself. YMMV.

People who obstruct the very notion of christian values, should hate to be in America, pack bags and leave to gay, lesbo or whichever land they wish....

Is that what Jesus would have preached?

You're exactly the kind of person the article talks about.

Moreover, as I pointed out the other day, I see no evidence god exists, which is why I don't believe in god.

Clearly, you either have evidence or you're somebody who believes in stuff without evidence. If the first is true, present the evidence. If the latter is true, how can you base your bigotry on belief in an Imaginary Friend?

The note from the teenager at the end of that article is frightening. While I don't believe in god, there could have been a dude running around 2000 years ago named Jesus who taught some good stuff, even if he was possibly schizophrenic and delusional about the why of it (or his biographers were) -- my guess is suicidal teenagers was not his goal!

Amy-

If it gets to your conscience, you must be first one, who should move from there.You are well,enjoying the fruits of the seeds that were sown 200 years back.

Thanks for tying with those people.You spill venom on whoever defends christian faith.I am wondering that you have been told a bunch of lies all your life.

If you have time, find out from the people who talk of coming to christ in third world. They don't earn dollar a day or have access to tech.

I can tell the places where to go, if you are willing to find out.('You cannot leave your comfort zone with your daily pleasure behind!!!)

You must know, on whether we have common definition for evidence.I have evidence based on my personal experience.

How will you know, what I said is true?I dont know you, we hardly trust people!!! giving evidence online???...it looks just like crap to you..and u want it to be experimented by your set of definitions?????

Tell me by what evidence you go on for this bigotry of yours. Surely, if there's evidence you can describe it. Since you are snaking out of it, I've got to assume you believe in stuff without evidence, and all it takes to get you to believe something is a guy in a funny outfit with a buttload of real estate and and some serious interests in keeping small minds living in fear so he can keep the money coming into the ginormous business known as the church. Out of y our gullibility comes bigotry. Small men making smaller men. And FYI, Jefferson disparaged Christianity.

When I asked Daniel Dennett how apparently intelligent people belief in god, he said he thinks people don't believe in god, they "believe in belief in god."

It's 2007. Discover rationality, and please apply it. If your life is based on primitive thinking, fine, but don't legislate or even suggest the rest of us behave according to your evidence-free belief that this contradiction- and impossible-to-believe story-filled document called the Bible is truth, and that there's a big man in the sky moving us all around like chess pieces.

Pras makes me miss [Chuck]les...

big·ot·ry
stubborn and complete intolerance of any creed, belief, or opinion that differs from one's own.

that is dictionary meaning...you know I'm tolerant and I respect your ideas and disagree with you getting others behind your fold.There are people, who are open to truth.

But, you don't respect my ideas, because you say I should get out of the country for having them. I most certainly don't respect yours.

What is "truth"? Your beliefs, based on your not being willing to reason and simply believing what you're told is "true"?

Heh heh...yes, Eric, although I most certainly don't miss the memo format!

The sun is 4.49 billion years old, yet it shines the same way.Being in 2007 has not changed sun's energy.If there is truth, it stands test of time.

I did not come to christ because I was happy, I was in deep trouble and I dint find anyway to go out.I prayed with a person and for the first time in my life I accepted my sins or mistakes 100%.I saw a light that hit me and from down I had heat, that has burned from my stomach to my head and I almost fell down.It is physical experience!Since it did not happen to you.. you can find an excuse to disagree! I beleived there is GOD,because it is my personal experience.....it was four years since it has happend.

I ride a bike, keeping environment safe and use energy from wind and am tech guy and beleive in something which is real.

I asked, if you want to really find out.. you must be moving to third world. If you know, Bono from U2 personally beleives in Christ.. His life changed when he visited some orphanage some where in africa...You will see suffering from close angle and the hope that people have.You are fighting a war against the values on which america was found, in addition to leaving a legacy of vacuum, so that Islam will suck into it

Pras, forgive me for butting in, but I was brought up in a Christian household, and left the church because of all the hypocrisy I saw and heard. I'm glad you found something that works for you, but you cannot force it on others. Every person has to find their own path, and it is not up to someone else to determine that path or condemn them for it. Again, YMMV.

The sun is 4.49 billion years old, yet it shines the same way.

This, perhaps, disputes the notion that a big man in the sky created the world in six days?

Being troubled and grabbing onto a structure that suggests everything in the world is neat, easy, and comprehensible is not evidence of god.

The fact that Bono believes in Christ is entirely immaterial to me.

Do you understand how lacking in the ability to reason you are? You suggest I believe in god because some famous guy does? And Bono, yet? Sheesh.

What evidence do you have that your evidence-free belief in your god is correct while the Muslim's evidence-free belief in his is incorrect?

EVIDENCE. Look it up if you don't understand what that means. Then provide it.

did not come to christ because I was happy, I was in deep trouble and I dint find anyway to go out.I prayed with a person and for the first time in my life I accepted my sins or mistakes 100%.I saw a light that hit me and from down I had heat, that has burned from my stomach to my head and I almost fell down.It is physical experience!

Oh great ... read Battle for the mind by William Sargant. You'll find this situation is covered quite well. It's psychology of stress. It's also very difficult for you (Pras) to accept this. Give the book a read and see what you think.

Flynne-

Yeah, I never force it on others.Whether to accept or not to accept is his or her own choice.

I agree that every person has to find out their own path.

Often we don't beleive in what is said in our backyard, yet, if it comes from different culture or settings, we beleive in it.

The highest form of love is 'FREE WILL'

The concentration camps in II nd world war were not designed by militray generals but,these very atheistic writers propagating their ideas

Pras, atheism is merely not believing in things there is no evidence for. There's no belief system like there is in religion, so to refer to atheism as if it's some sort of collective movement is silly and wrong. You could just say that people operating according to reason are atheistic.

Oh yeah, and Hitler was on your team, honey:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/Hitler1.htm

Hitler wrote: "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.." As a boy, Hitler attended to the Catholic church and experienced the anti-Semitic attitude of his culture. In his book, Mein Kampf, Hitler reveals himself as a fanatical believer in God and country.

What's frustrating in responding to your comments is that you lack the most basic ability to reason. Check out criticalthinking.org

We now interrupt the Pras show for some actual content...

"Nowhere, in fact, does the Bible say anything, much less condemn, loving and committed partnerships between same-sex adults." Nor does it discuss the ethical implications of Goedel's Theorem, since the latter was at the time only a strangely shaped knot in the mind of Gob.

You don't like that paranoid loon in the sky, and neither do I. The Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't either. But to engage those who draw conclusions from what's in ancient tribal texts with interpretations of the meaning of what isn't in them is seemingly to grant authority to those texts, for the purpose of undermining them. Slick rhetoric, but content free. Now, this is probably just me, but when I spot underhanded rhetoric I feel disrespected as a reader. So quit it already.

The highest form of love is 'FREE WILL'

The concentration camps in II nd world war were not designed by militray generals but,these very atheistic writers propagating their ideas

What do these 2 things have to do with anyting here?

Often we don't beleive in what is said in our backyard, yet, if it comes from different culture or settings, we beleive in it.

First, the correct spelling is belIEve. Second, uh...what?

But to engage those who draw conclusions from what's in ancient tribal texts with interpretations of the meaning of what isn't in them is seemingly to grant authority to those texts, for the purpose of undermining them.

But people believe in these texts and are unlikely to stop believing in these texts as step one. I think it's helpful to approach them on their own level of "reality." I sometimes do this with people who write to me and mention that they're religious and that the wife (usually) refuses to have sex with them anymore. I mention that the bible says people need to have sex as a part of marriage. I don't go by what the bible says in the least, but when you're in nonthink land, it's counterproductive to ignore the door with the big cross on it if it's the easiest access point.

Amy-

I see that we don't agree on the common ground for definition of anything. Please answer my question, can you quantify love??

Why do people learn from other's mistakes, so, that we avoid committing them. I take good from everyone. If Bono is famous and he follows certain thing. Then, there must be something strong about it. I am not egoistic about that. I will find out and look for good in it.Hope you are not egoistic.

Please read a book by Ali Dashti, '23 years of life of mohammed'.I have it with me, need it?can send by mail

Okay, you were saying.. things were not created in 6 days...imagine this..if God is so powerful, what is that he cann't create.Can you think outside of TIME?

Well, that book says about the travels of mohammed interacting with rabbis and others and writing quran. Do you know that, grammar of arabic was changed to accomodate quran's writings?

Since it did not happen to you.. you can find an excuse to disagree!
It's not just that it didn't happen to me. It's that "it" happens to a very few people under intense stress; each of those people interprets it differently; and there's no objective way of proving that it happened, much less what it means.

And you keep talking about moving to the Third World and seeing what a difference belief means in a person's life. To what point? I agree that fervent belief, in and of itself, can change a person's life. That does not prove the truth of the belief.

If I go to a man in dire straights and tell him that I can help him, by leading him to my lord. I teach him all of my lord's wisdom, and tell him that my belief has changed my life. He listens, he believes me, he sees that my life is better than his. He believes that his own life can improve through the help of my lord. So He chooses to believe, and he believes that my lord with reward him for that worship and belief. His belief affects how he approaches problems, and the confidence with which he solves his own problems; and his life changes. It doesn't actually prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists, and it doesn't prove that your god exists either.

"If Bono is famous and he follows certain thing. Then, there must be something strong about it."

Tom Cruise is famous and he follows Scientology. I suggest you head right down to the local reading room, and take the e-test or whatever they call it. After all, there must be something strong about it.

Then again, the Dalai Lama is famous, and he follows Buddhism. Better check that out.

What is it that Madonna's into these days?

well, bible isn't a tribal text...

style="mso-width-source:userset;mso-width-alt:2779;width:57pt">

face="Verdana" size="2">Author size="2">2
Date

Written
Earliest Copy

Approximate Time
Span between  original & copy

Number of Copies

size="2"> Lucretius
died 55 or 53 B.C.
 
1100 yrs
2

----


size="2"> Pliny
61-113 A.D.
850 A.D.
750 yrs

7
----


size="2"> Plato
427-347 B.C.

900 A.D.
1200 yrs
7
----


size="2"> Demosthenes

4th Cent. B.C.
1100 A.D.
800 yrs
8
----

size="2"> Herodotus
480-425 B.C.
900 A.D.
1300 yrs
8

----


size="2"> Suetonius
75-160 A.D.
950 A.D.
800 yrs

8
----


size="2"> Thucydides
460-400 B.C.
900 A.D.

1300 yrs
8
----


size="2"> Euripides
480-406 B.C.

1100 A.D.
1300 yrs
9
----


size="2"> Aristophanes

450-385 B.C.
900 A.D.
1200
10
----

size="2"> Caesar
100-44 B.C.
900 A.D.
1000
10

----


size="2"> Livy
59 BC-AD 17
----
???

20
----


size="2"> Tacitus
circa 100 A.D.
1100 A.D.

1000 yrs
20
----


size="2"> Aristotle
384-322 B.C.

1100 A.D.
1400
49
----


size="2"> Sophocles

496-406 B.C.
1000 A.D.
1400 yrs
193
----

size="2"> Homer (Iliad)
900 B.C.
400 B.C.
500 yrs
643

95%


size="2"> New

 Testament
1st Cent. A.D.
(50-100 A.D.
2nd Cent. A.D.

 (c. 130 A.D. f.)
less than 100 years
5600
99.5%

Hi, I am sorry for that post, could moderator remove it...?

Sorry - don't delete here, except duplicates. If you want to repost without the gnarly type size stuff, I'll delete the one above.

Yes, Hitler personally presented Friedrich Nietzsche writings to mussolini.If you know who that Nietzsche is?
''Atheism is merely not believing in things there is no evidence for''

Atheism:Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.

You have inadverently borrowing things from judio-christianic views, other wise,you cannot assign any value to humans or life for that matter.If you believe there is value to life...if you deny..can't help

If I go to a man in dire straights and tell him..............

Once again,if you know personally that God exists, then you tell the guy down the straight.First, you must keep your house in order, rather going by assumptions, which doesn't give any conclusion.

I'm sorry, but why can't you assign value to human life if you don't believe in god? Are you suggesting that you didn't believe in the value of life BEFORE your conversion? That you believed that randomly killing people was OK?

I value my life very much because I believe it is the only one I have. In order for me to go about my business without the imminent threat of someone taking that from me, it makes sense to not go around taking it from other people.

I think generally its those who have been convinced that there is some sort of afterlife and reward for doing as their god wants that de-value life.

New Testament

Date written:1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D)

Earliest copy: 2nd Cent. A.D(c. 130 A.D. f.)

Approximate Time Span between original & copy:
less than 100 years

Number of copies 5600

Accuracy 99.5%

Well, there is no text as accurate as this one. You can compare this one with any other religious books.

''I'm sorry, but why can't you assign value to human life if you don't believe in god?''

I would suggest you to try assigning the value and you would be amazed, unintentionally you are borrowing judeo-christian world views.

Well,I understand more clearly the value of life now, than, blindly assinging value to it, without knowing where that source is from..

I'm lover of peace :)

So the ability of people to accurately copy text proves what exactly? That christians have strong penmanship skills?

*New testament stands completely on the sacrifice and RESURRECTION of one person called JESUS.
So, eating anything that is edible and thanking God for that is absolutely OK.*

There is no superceding of the original text, that which Christians love to label the "Old" Testament (to market your own product successfully also means creating Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about the opposition, in this case, the Jews).

From the "New" Testament, which you so dearly love, comes the disproof of your claim:

Matt. 5:17-18 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

But no matter. It's all hogwash, or in your case, shrimpwash.

> I'm lover of peace :)

Isn't that cute? Let's look at it again.

> :)

That's the kind of endearing warmth you get from someone who's telling you to back your bags and get the fuck out.

I would suggest you to try assigning the value and you would be amazed, unintentionally you are borrowing judeo-christian world views.
How so? I thought Amy did a very good job of explaining that she values her own life, and thus places a value on others. That's got nothing to do with judeo-christian world views. The Christian worldview says that suffering on earth is okay as long as you get to heaven - doesn't that DEVALUE life here on earth?

And by the way, the claim that the copies of the New Testament are 95% accurate because the first copy was made only 100 years after the original ignores the fact that the "original" you're talking about was the original writing - based on word-of-mouth about things that happened long before the original writing.

And I have no idea what you are attempting to claim/prove by saying the bible isn't a tribal text. What does that mean to you?

No. I'm selfish. I like living and I have evidence. I move out of the way when I see harm coming. I've also observed this behavior in most other people. Therefore I theorize that those people like living too.

If someone threatens to take my life, I am going to respond in whatever means necessary, including taking their life, to keep mine. So, since I've observed the same self-preservation behavior in others that I've observed in myself, it makes sense that if I go around threatening the life of others, they are going to respond accordingly. And since the whole point is to hang onto my life, taking other people's lives is illogical.

And blood is yucky.

Gog - I'm not sure what your religious background is, or maybe you don't have one, but it seems a bit silly to proof-text against the "supercession" of a text you don't seem to believe. It reminds me of creationists who wave the 2nd law of thermodynamics around to "disprove" evolution.

So what if the Great Book of the Flying Spaghetti etc. says gay people get fewer rights than straights? An anti-gay law isn’t wrong because you don’t believe in the G.B.F.S.M, it’s just wrong. And if people who do believe it are managing to get laws passed it’s because they showed up and got their votes counted right?

Your argument is not so much with the people who believe in the F.S.M. but with secular people who can’t be bothered to vote or otherwise participate.

You are saying it is stupid and irrational to believe in things without evidence and you make your point. But if the ultimate objective is to get just and equitable laws then what purpose is served in calling people stupid, irrational etc?

People who believe in the F.S.M. haven’t been waiting for some random stranger to walk up and tell them to stop; you have to convince them.

Arguably you are energizing the secular troops by stirring up resentment against the Bible-thumpers and there may be value in that but it is at the cost of alienating the votes on the margin and those are the ones that matter most.

Believe it or not, those deranged people in churches are wrangling with how gay people fit in to the whole “love thy neighbor” thing and I have to say that is more than I see secular people doing. Most people don’t really have any opinions about how to treat gay people that are worthy of the name; they simply don’t know any gay people (or don’t think they do) and are never faced with choices about how to treat them. They might be for or against gay marriage but only in the way they are for or against abortion. Faced with an actual, personal decision, they’d be as surprised as anybody to see what they’d do.

You mention meeting people where they are but you phrase it in terms of “nonthink.” I can’t picture the frigid but religiously observant wife warming up to her husband because someone who despises her religion says so.

Let me give you an illustration of how you might come across to some people: I know a person who is an expert geographer. People come to her with questions about terrain and names of famous places and so on and she always has the right answer. Until it comes to South America. She has never been there, met anyone from there nor seen any pictures of it and adamantly refuses to admit the place exists. All of her maps have the continent cut out. She claims it saved her months of school not having to learn the details of what she calls "coo-coo-land. Example ends.

However deluded, faith is a part of people’s emotional lives and lady, that is your gig. Convincing people to stop believing in Magic Man in the Sky is going to be different than convincing them to stop parking in HC spots and yaking on cell phones in line at BurgerBarn. It will require you to learn more about it, not just pretend it doesn’t exist.

hey pras
New Testament
Date written:1st Cent. A.D. (50-100 A.D)
Earliest copy: 2nd Cent. A.D(c. 130 A.D. f.)
Approximate Time Span between original & copy:
less than 100 years
Number of copies 5600
Accuracy 99.5%
Well, there is no text as accurate as this one. You can compare this one with any other religious books.

you forgot First Council of Nicaea in 325 whein the bible was vetted, edited and many books acepted by churches of the time were dropped - so within 300 yrs history was rewriten

and the First Council of Constantinople in 383 where christianity was revised AGAIN

the two The Council of Ephesus in 431 and 449 where it was argued the christ had no soul
The Council of Chalcedon 451 where it was decided that church leaders were infalible
the Third Council of Constantinople 681 where they decided christ had multipule personalites
The Quinisext Council 692 condemed depicting chris as a lamb and imposed celibacy(and pedophilia soon followed) on church leaders
The Second Council of Nicaea allowed worship of idols, excuse me icons

Do you want me to continue? It seems your knowledge of your own religion is extermely lacking

Tell me do you find disneys portayal in "the Road to El Dorado" an acutrale account of the spanish conqistodors intertaction with the aztecs?

By the way to which of the 3,000+ sects of christianity do you belong to, and wy is your version better than all the other versions?

Martin, first of all, there's a massive problem with your example about the geographer - there is objective evidence of the existence of South America.

What you are arguing is that because millions of children BELIEVE Santa Claus exists, I should treat Santa Claus with respect. I don't care too much that kids believe in Santa, until they start telling me that I need to run my life by Santa's rules, or that I have to fight for the right to make a choice that Santa doesn't approve of. And when they start telling me it would denigrate Mrs. Claus and the Claus marriage if two thin people were allowed to marry, I'm gonna start getting rude about defending my rights.

But you also are arguing that when my neighbor children tell me that I am not allowed to have Frosty on my yard because it is offensive to Santa, I should base my arguments in terms the children can accept rather than just telling them they're idiots if they believe that Santa is real.
Why? It's up to them to prove that He's real. And I'm sorry, but "my parents said so" or "children have believed this for generations" or "I have personally been visited by Santa, but have no evidence that I can show you" are just not valid arguments for His existence.

The gist of the article highlighting Christian hypocrisy (i.e. shrimp vs. homosexuality) is sound, but I'm confounded on the actual scholarliness of the criticism. To any bona fide Bible scholar or critic, the arguments of the article are either offensively dishonest or downrightly ignorant. To wit, the entire section on "clobber passages", and in particular this line: Nowhere, in fact, does the Bible say anything, much less condemn, loving and committed partnerships between same-sex adults. Has anyone quoted in the article ever read Leviticus 20:13? If a man has sexual intercourse with a male as one has sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them have committed an abomination. They must be put to death; their blood guilt is on themselves. Divine or not, you can't really prooftext that one. It seems pretty black and white to me.

tell me billybob how can a man have vaginal intercourse with another msan?

remember sodomy, whether between men or a man and a womam, according to bible 'experts' is different form sex

perhaps levidicus refers to hermaphodites

jenl1625, try not to get too hung up on the S. America thing, analogies can be problematic.

"What you are arguing is that because millions of children BELIEVE Santa Claus exists, I should treat Santa Claus with respect."

Wrong.

"I should base my arguments in terms the children can accept rather than just telling them they're idiots... Why? "

For the same reason you have not called me an idiot even though you might think I am. Your interest in exchanging ideas with me is important enough to you to observe the protocols.

Also given the thousans of times the bible has been ranslated and copied how do we know what it really said

Okay, so one verse against man-on-man action.
Why is that verse still quoted when the following are pretty much ignored?

"Exodus 31:14 'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people."

"Leviticus 20:10 'If a man commits adultery with another man's wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death."

"Leviticus 20:11 'If a man sleeps with his father's wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

"Leviticus 20:27 'A man or woman who is a medium or spiritist among you must be put to death. You are to stone them; their blood will be on their own heads.' "

"Leviticus 24:16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death."

*Gog - I'm not sure what your religious background is, or maybe you don't have one, but it seems a bit silly to proof-text against the "supercession" of a text you don't seem to believe. It reminds me of creationists who wave the 2nd law of thermodynamics around to "disprove" evolution.*

And that's exactly my point, thanks.
Pras claims that the New Testament laid down a new set of rules, so we can ignore the Old Testament injunctions against, say, eating shellfish.

Except that the Matthew quote disproving Pras' claim is from the New Testament itself.

I quote it because, to Pras, the New Testament IS the "truth", although to the rest of us the unprovable nature of all of it just makes the entire discussion ridiculous.

"Leviticus 24:16 anyone who blasphemes the name of the LORD must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death."

"Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone."

Kinda makes the whole argument moot, eh? o_O

My copy has an asterix next to "sinned" saying that the term can be translated as "rotator-cuff issues."

MARTIN!!! That was too damn funny! O_O

Mwaah!
Tip your waiters, I'll be here all week.

Jesus said: "Let one who has not sinned cast the first stone."

A lady from the crowd threw the first stone and then everyone joined in.

After it was all over, Jesus said: "Oh mom, why do you always have to ruin it for me?"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immaculate_Conception

And Jesus (pronounced "Hay-zeus") said: "I think you need a new carburetor."

My faith, or the lack thereof, is my business, same as your faith is your business. Where I have a problem with people's faith is when it's used to justify treating someone like crap or hurting others.

I'm a tolerant person that accepts that not everyone sees the world the same way that I do. If a Muslim greets me with "Allah Akbar", I might even respond with "Gruss Gott", with each of us realizing that we hope the best for each other.

Except for you scientologists. Y'all are a bunch o' abusive fucktards. Piss off, and take your mental multi level marketing and sell it to those nutralife junkies. Ya'll make the Masons look innocent by comparison.

I can accept that not everyone wants to get into Christmas, Haunaka, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, or whatever. Ok. Really, it is. Dance around naked and bark at the moon, for all I care. Unless you're someone who's naked professionally, there's no need to think I'm missing out. Just please, not on a work night, if you live next to me.

What bugs me is the militant atheiests that treat it like, um, SUV exhaust, for lack of a better term. (And strangely enough, these same militant athiests are strangely silent on Islam). If someone's public celebration is not hurting you (the converse of using religion as the basis to deny), leave it be. It's not hurting you to have a few plastic sheep and three bearded guys in the median. It will get picked up of it's own accord, soon enough. I tolerate all kinds of crazyness, secular and otherwise, that offends me for the rest of the year, and most of it at my expense and inconvienience. Get the fuck over it, already.

I'm not a student of my own religion, so I would be absolutely awful at justifying or explaining anything in its' tenets. I don't have to rely on a balance sheet, with everything reconciled between the physical sciences that I love, and those silly superstitions I might harbor. Whatever the corollary to a liberal's obsession with PC might be (Religiously Correct?), I don't have to carry anything to a rediculous extreme and say that the earth is 6000 years old, and buy into creationism 2.0 (that's Intelligent Design, for you home schooled 'tards) for everything to work out in my head.

Suffice to say, when faith adds richness to someone's life, be it a sense of comfort, or a drive to excel, or a justification to show a little moderation on their own, or even provide that extra nudge to not take a drink or not take a drug that's destroying their life, I'm all for it. When you start telling me that it's ok to fly airplanes into buildings, mutilate little girls, or blow yourself up and hurt non-believers because it offends your faith, we have a problem, and until your faith comes to understand that 'free will' concept better, piss off.

AFAIK, there's no major faith that doesn't have dirty hands, save a few Rastafarians. The world news from the last few years has way too many people that are killing each other over having the wrong sub culture of the same faith, and it's not just the middle east. I've seen soccer holligans that are better behaved.

People who are non-believers, and a good many that are, are sick of having chapter and verse quoted at them, and you would be just as offended if someone started quoting the Torah or the Koran to condemn your unclean ways. Knock it off, already.

And that goes for you Gaia Nazi's as well. I'm as sick of seeing Al Gore jetting around with the cult of greenpeace telling me I need to impoverish myself at his expense as I am sick of seeing any other religious leader abusing the faith and good intentions of their own following. Same goes for that 'wishing it were all better, or we'll all have everything we ever need if we all just want it bad enough" - Yeah, it doesn't work for liberals or religious wackos, cutsey lyrics or not, so drop it already.

So There. If that doesn't get me a death threat, I don't know what will.

Correction:

People who are non-believers, and a good many that are *faithful*, are sick of having chapter and verse quoted at them, and you would be just as offended if someone started quoting the Torah or the Koran to condemn your unclean ways. Knock it off, already.

Have a cold one on me Off Dad, nicely said.

As a churchgoing Christian, I just want to say that...bad grammar and punctuation make the baby Jesus cry.

lujlp, my sect is better than all other sects because we literally have a miracle at every service. Transubstantiation, baby!

Anyway, this discussion about the Bible makes me grateful that I'm a Papist and thus shockingly ignorant of the exact text of the Book. We're more interpretive than literalist, y'know. Maybe it's all the incense. Now, if you will all excuse me, I have a sudden craving for some shrimp...

lujlp-

I beleive, as long a bible is a standard, then I don't have any problem in accepting christians, as they belong to me and vice versa.

Thank God, I come from a land of plurality where every religion claims exlusivity and millions of Gods and Goddesses. And they will build temple for this advicegoddess, if they know of

Here,you are either a beleiver or an atheist.. much less confusion, more theories...hahaha.

One women was asking me few months back..'' Is the God you beleive , does he think everyone has to be intellectual to find him out??''

I said, necessarily not. God reaches everyone at their level, where they are.I see people who are not educated and yet they speak of miracles. and intellectuals, who are haters of God..God's mercy is still there on their life. Probably they are not exhausted yet....

I see people who are not educated and yet they speak of miracles.

Yeah, I see them too.

Putting "intellectuals, who are haters of God" together with "People who obstruct the very notion of christian values, should hate to be in America, pack bags and leave to gay, lesbo or whichever land they wish...." means what? All intellectuals to leave America?

Pras, do you hate the Tooth Fairy? Perhaps you do ... it would explain your obsession with hate. I've just scanned over this blog and the only occurrences of the word "hate" are from you. (Apart from this post, obviously.)

Well, I used that word, as I am not a good writer per se.You must understand in what context that word speaks. pls replace another word for it. I was speaking about american history and how it was found. All these writers, those who proclaim they are atheists, can voice their opinion, whichever way they like. But, they are out against the values, moral system on which it was found.

When they succeed,( as you can see a the situation now..) ultimately, america will be in a state of vacuum and Islam will suck into it.. which has sharia in it.

I never meant intellectuals to leave america! What I meant is.. why do fight against a society that goes by a certain belief and has been prosperous and digging its demise?

That word can be replaced by 'dislike'.. I dont know about 'Tooth Fairy' so.. no comments about that..

My faith, or the lack thereof, is my business, same as your faith is your business. Where I have a problem with people's faith is when it's used to justify treating someone like crap or hurting others.

Your faith becomes my business when it's behind legislation or public policy. If you just want to go to church and believe all this evidence-free stuff, no skin off my teeth.

"But, they are out against the values, moral system on which it was found."

On the contrary, I am with Jefferson on Christianity.

http://www.nobeliefs.com/jefferson.htm

Pras, you spout off so lacking in information and logical abilities, it becomes tedious to respond to you.

FYI, even before your particular evidence-free belief system took hold, people had morality. You are yet another religious person who has no sense of reciprocal altruism and cheater detection modules evident in every human society which form the basis of what we call morality.

Also, there's as much evidence for the existence of your God as there is for the tooth fairy. Vis a vis Pascal's Wager (which I reject) why not believe in the tooth fairy, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and a little elf living on your room controlling you through the chimney with strings as well? Just in case, you know?

The founding fathers were Deist, not Christian. America was not founded as a "Judeo-Christian" nation. This is a serious pet peeve of mine.

"Your faith becomes my business when it's behind legislation or public policy."

What do you mean exactly by "my business" ?

There is no place on a ballot to explain the reasoning (or lack thereof) behind the vote. Voter literacy (or compentency) tests are not allowed.

If it is your business to prevent or minimize the impact irrational people have on public policy, what can you realistically do about it?

What I meant is.. why do fight against a society that goes by a certain belief and has been prosperous and digging its demise?

I'm not an American, so I don't speak for US intelligentsia. But I guess they don't agree with you that religious belief has been good for the US, or will be in the future. You can't say, "the US is prosperous and the US is mostly Christian, so being Christian makes you prosperous." If that argument was sound you could also say "the US is has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the world and the US is prosperous, so unprotected teenage sex makes you prosperous." Perhaps being Christian somehow leads to unprotected teenage sex. Perhaps they are all caused by something else.

Intellectuals don't always support the right side. They are used to unusual ideas and sometimes don't have common sense to recognise stupid ideas. But they are not stupid people on the whole, and when you find yourself disagreeing with a bunch of them you have to ask yourself: are they all wrong, or is it just me?

''If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.--Jefferson''

May be this is the foundation of morality you are talking about that was before this evidence thing?

''Humans intuitively know that certain objective moral values exist. For example, we know that kindness is a virtue and not a vice, that torturing babies is immoral, that child abuse is wrong, that a person like Hitler or Stalin is morally repugnant. We know these things virtually without reflection, without thinking them through. While reason confirms the basic rightness of these intuitions, we don’t seem to know this by means of reason. And we regularly rely on these intuitions to make practical, everyday moral judgments.''

continued.....

God’s character explains the objective moral values that logically precede our having a moral sense. You already said there is an existance of morality before this evidence free thing.. then my question to you is

What underlies those objective moral values?

well,''Let’s hear the opposing point made by atheist Kai Nielsen. He admits that objective moral obligation exists. Though he maintains that naturalism can’t account for this, he won’t concede that theism offers a better solution to the problem. He presents the following interesting argument.24 Suppose a parent who believes in God “abandons” or “loses” his faith in God. Is that parent going to love his child less—or not at all—because his supposed “basis or objective morality” is apparently lost? Of course not, Nielsen asserts. A parent would still maintain that it is objectively right to love his child even if God doesn’t exist.

Nielsen offers other evidence to deny that God is necessary to explain the existence of objective morality. He says that when Christians, for example, make moral judgments about God’s acts and commands or about the super ethic of Jesus Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, that implies a standard of goodness independent of whether God exists. To make moral assessments about God’s actions or Jesus’ teachings presupposes the existence of an objective morality.

This apparently persuasive argument, however, is flawed. It rests on a confusion of being and knowing. The normal sane person certainly knows—or at least acts as though he knows—that objective morality exists. But here is the crucial question: How did we get to be that way—moral beings who recognize right and wrong? We have to be moral beings before we can know what is moral. An atheist might suggest that if all humans—both those who believe in God and those who don’t—have correct, objective moral sensibilities, that fact implies moral intuition isn’t somehow rooted in God.''

continued.....

Nielsen, as an atheist and materialist, seems hard-pressed to show how randomness and chance can make sense out of moral obligation or human dignity. Getting back to the parent-child relationship, we have to ask how we could show love and sacrifice when it conflicts with our natural self-interest. Why resist selfish interests for the sake of the children? As the philosopher George Mavrodes has argued, a solely materialistic universe might produce in us feelings and beliefs of obligation—like the protection of our children or survival of our species or subculture—but that’s a different matter from actually having such obligations we ought to carry out. It truly seems odd that objective moral obligation could arise in such a world.25

In the third place, the connection between objective moral values and God has to do with God’s personhood and ours. Christians see an unbreakable connection between objective morality and God. If objective moral values exist, as even atheists like Kai Nielsen believe, it seems plausible to argue that a personal, transcendent, perfect God is the source of and ground for morality. We resemble God—created as valuable persons by a personal Being, divinely endowed with conscience, with a capacity for morally significant relationships, and with certain objectively correct moral intuitions. We are moral beings because we have been created in the image of a moral God. Even those who don’t believe in God possess an ingrained moral sense that corresponds in some measure to God’s moral sense.

This explains how an atheist can know the content of morality without acknowledging God’s existence. For instance, we read in Amos 1 and 2 that God threatens judgment upon the neighbors of Judah and Israel. Why? Because they have flagrantly violated an objective moral law that they knew and should have obeyed. Syria treated its enemies barbarously (1:3); Philistia, with utter inhumanity, sold whole communities into slavery (1:6); Tyre broke a pact and treated Edom treacherously (1:9). The citizens of such nations should have known better.

Why christians believe God as moral law giver, ??..

Scripture assumes that God has written this binding law on the hearts of people. Although the awareness of these objective standards is clouded by the Fall, a seared conscience, and social decline, this doesn’t mean people can’t form moral beliefs or act virtuously through God’s common grace to all.

Another indication that God is the basis for morality is the problem of evil. One of the most common objections to a theist’s belief in God is that evil exists—and that it exists in such vast measure.

Why does God allow Bangladesh to get hit again and again with disastrous tropical storms ( any one noticed, few days back, there was a worst storm? ) Why does he let child molesters carry on their vile activities? Why would he permit large-scale inhumanities to take place in an Auschwitz—or through the brutality of Soviet communism?

Although those who raise this objection seldom realize it, the existence of evil and our grasp of the awfulness of evil cries out for an explanation. Even in a relativistic world, people are still struck with horror at human atrocities like genocide or gang rape. They get the distinct impression that evil really exists. Although the problems raised by evil are frequently marshaled against belief in God, an often-overlooked presupposition in the discussion of evil is GOD'S VERY EXISTENCE

About Evil

What is evil? It isn’t simply chaos or pain or feeling bad. Real, objective evil is the lack or absence of goodness. That is, the presence of evil presupposes the existence of an objective moral standard that is being violated.

If real evil exists, then an objective standard of goodness by which something is deemed evil must also exist. It is hard to see, given a naturalistic view of things, where this standard of goodness could come from if we are simply cosmic accidents produced by purely physical forces.( Evolution, Darwin theory and Amy siding with them....)

Pras, are you done with the plagarism? And did you understand any of it?

"Evil" isn't something that is allowed by god to happen. It just is. Just as "good" just is. All energy is neutral until a force is applied to it; whether that force is "good" or "evil" depends on the will of whoever or whatever is applying that force. ACK! I can't get into quantum physics because I don't know enough about it all. All I know is that it works. There are people out there who are inherently evil, just as there are people out there who are inherently good. It isn't a matter of god making them so, because of free will. Everyone has it, whether they believe in god or not. It's how that person applies that free will that determines whether they are good or evil.

And now, a bit of Zen sarcasm: Never miss a good chance to shup up. o_O

Sorry, that would be shuT up.

Pras, you're not telling me anything that I don't already know.

Pras, I deleted your post above as you put in some nasty-ass code that redirected my blog to some other site. Don't put code in here if you don't know what you're doing, and let me just tell you, you don't know what you're doing.

Post one link per post only, and just paste in the link directly. Don't try to code.

Feel free to e-mail me at adviceamy AT aol.com and I'll send you the text of your post. Fix it and repost it. Without CODING!

Don't mess up my blog!

Gregg: "There was enough bullshit in that file -- none of the size statements were properly bracketed."

When Atheists do good acts it is because they are good people

When Deists do good acts it is hopes of a reward and therefoe done for selfish reasons

So who is more 'moral' those who are inherently good people or those looking to further their own ends?

religion simply shouldn't be an excuse to hate on people.

if you HAVE to hate someone, hate them for WHO they are.

Wow, pras makes me miss chuckles too. Not really, but almost.

Pras -

Step away from the Dave Barton, Christian nation bullshit, it gives me a rash, much like the rap "music." If you want to play the founder's intent game, it is you who should get the fuck out. This nation was founded on the notion of religious freedom. While they both found the notion of atheism rather absurd, both Jefferson and Madison were pretty clear that freedom of religion, should also equate with freedom from religion. (it should be noted that they mostly applied this notion to deists)

Indeed, among the founders were several Deists, most famous, Ben Franklin. Granted the esteemed Franklin's Deism was rather oddball (he would have been quite at home in a Unitarian congregation of the period), like it's progenitor, but he was a Deist none the less. Alexander Hamilton was a staunch defender of Thomas Paine (who arguably had his own influence on the founding of our nation), ultimately securing his release from French prison and providing no small support in his exile to the United States.

lujlp -

Whatever gives you the idea that Deists do good acts in hope of reward? Arguably theists do, but even there there are decent folk who do nice things for folks, not because their gods demand it, but because they're just decent folk. But Deists don't generally believe in any sort of interventionist god, so I don't see the correlation there.

At least Chuckles didn't go coding mad, and divert all my blog traffic to some other site!

Again, Pras, I've saved the contents of your post I had to delete. E-mail me at adviceamy AT aol.com and I will send you the text, which you're free to repost WITHOUT your Three Stooges-like attempts to code.

Anybody who wants to put a link in a comment, it works like this:

One link per comment. Post a second comment with the second link if you have one, lest my spam filter getcha.

Just paste in the entire link like so, and it will be live:

http://www.advicegoddess.com/ag-column-archives/2007/11/prints_charming.html

Or use tinyurl.com, as Crid does, to shrink it, and then post the result, straight, no coding...unless you are very, very, very sure that you know what you are doing in the HTML department, meaning you know what an unclosed tag does to a girl's hard work on her blog, etc.

duwane meant I theists, I wrote that just bedfore going to sleep after being up 20 hours, picked the wrong word out of fatigue

But Deist's do generally believe that they will be rewarded by god for acting morally, either in this life or the next, don't they? They don't have a set of texts that tell them how to behave or what those rewards will be, just some notion of what goes around comes around, directed by some power.

I hope to convince "reward" for acting morally in this life in that my actions will be reflected back by others around me through their reasoning that it makes sense to our own self-preservation to behave that way. Where I would attribute the reward to human logic and reason, a deist would attribute that reward to "good karma" being returned.

I think anyway....perhaps I have my "ists" confused....

moreta -

While some Deists probably buy into that, many (my brother among them) would laugh at that notion. No Deist that I know of buys into the notion of an afterlife or Karma. A more traditional Deist world view is more open to the idea of an interventionist god figure, tending towards a agnostic belief. In modern usage, Deism tends to denote people who would find an interventionist god highly unlikely. The "blind watchmaker" is what modern Deists tend to believe is most likely. Indeed, there is a very fine line between most Atheists and most Deists.

I generally consider anyone who takes the notion of Karma (or similar ideas) seriously to be a theist. The notion of Karma is theistic in origin and for the most part in practice. It presupposes an interventionist god or universal force. One need not base their beliefs on revealed Truth, to be a theist.

In a sense, my own personal beliefs tend more towards theism than Deism. Though I have a strong affinity for the latter, I tend to believe that there is indeed a god or godlike force that can influence reality, to a certain degree. I should note however, that my belief in the nature of god is rather strange and absolutely uncertain. Thus I have been accused of Deism, Agnosticism, Atheism and once even ancestor worship. Most often when I really explain what I believe and my (lack of) understanding of god, I am accused of being a bit nuts - arguably an accurate assessment.

I have been online for 2 years and this has really help me trmendously.

Never knew this, regards for letting me know.