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"My God, it's full of stars!" -2010
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"I do believe that religious people - intelligent people with good will - are delusional." TheFallibleFiend

Wow. That is a blind statement.

Delusional says that they hold beliefs that are false. OK, PROVE that their beliefs are false. Since you can not (it is impossible), then your statement is flawed in its premise.

I understand what you mean, but unless you can prove their "beliefs" to be false then you must respect them. Calling good and intelligent people delusional is spiteful and not productive.

Don't get me wrong TFF, I like the majority of your posts and I have viewed your webpage a few times.

Just because someone holds a belief that you see as illogical does not mean that they are "delusional". Does everyone experience life the exact same way as you...? Of course not. People are exposed to vastly different perceptions and life experiences as you.. be not so quick to judge. That is my point.

Sincerely,


"My God, it's full of stars!" -2010
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Quote:
Originally posted by Mung:
.
Would an invisible world be a better one ?

And G-d saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented G-d that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And G-d said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

Genesis 6 ?

" . " ?

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I am not up on French history, but I?ve never heard before that atheists were responsible for the Reign of Terror. Given that France was a Roman Catholic country both before and after the revolution, that sounds like an odd charge. Where might I investigate this?
- soilguy

I remember when I was a child in an orphanage where I grew up as a strict Roman Catholic, the nun who taught us religious studies read stories about the persecution of Christians during the French Revolution. She read some thrilling stories about how the worship went underground because all the churchs and bibles were destroyed. I will try to find this book for you and will post the details on this site. Oh you have no idea how wild the French people became especially towards Christians, many were guillotined, thousands and thousands. Ofcourse after Napoleon restored order, some of the christians who had fled the country, returned and re-established the churches, but the horros of the revolution were never forgotten.

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A brief google search, using the terms +"reign of terror" +atheist, brought up this link:
http://www.geocities.com/robespierre_et_saintjust/history.html

The excerpt in question:

"The issue of religion and national spirituality was also one heavily debated. In November of 1793, the Convention aspired to rid France of Christianity, which it believed was an unsound foundation. They proclaimed a new Religion of Reason, replacing the Roman calendar with their Revolutionary calendar, and closing down churches. Jacques-Ren? H?bert, an atheist, and his political club backed this decision, although the majority of the common French people heartily disagreed with it. Robespierre, realizing this radical movement could be the undoing of the entire Convention, fought against it. March of 1794 brought about the arrest and execution of H?bert and his followers..."

[Incidentally, your post on this website was the 41st link on that google search.]

In any event, while some radical atheists did have a hand in part of the Reign of Terror, they can hardly be blamed for it.


When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
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Quote:
Originally posted by Rob:
would an atheist world be a better one?
From experience, absolutely not. A rock [planet] without creatures is better, one without man, or beast, or the creeping thing, or the fowls of the air. Better yet, rocks [planets] without creatures, ones without man, or beast, or the creeping thing, or the fowls of the air. But the giants [dinosaurs] in the earth in those days, before the sons of God [Adam, Jesus, Muhammad] came in unto the daughters of men (H. sapiens), they will be missed.

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4944

Archaeologists in Israel may have unearthed the oldest evidence of fire use by our ancestors. The site, on the banks of the Jordan River, dates to about 790,000 years ago. There are older sites in Africa, but the evidence from these is much more hotly contested.The moment that our ancestors discovered how to control fire has long occupied an iconic place in the popular imagination. How many years ago was that last uni-polar-flip anyhow?

Just rocks are better.

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Garry Denke, thanks for your posts. Concerning the Peking man, is this supposed to confirm that the Bible and books like that are untrue. That skull may belong to another species altogether, perhaps some ape like humanoid which died out eons ago. I don't think this proves anything. Besides most of these remains were buried and the pressure of the earth may have distorted the decay of their atoms, creating erroneous carbon dating. Apparently atoms under extreme pressure decay more rapidly.

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"Apparently atoms under extreme pressure decay more rapidly."

I think you're wrong about that. See: Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html


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I think you're wrong about that. See: Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective

You see they are discussing rocks, ofcourse there would be no change to outside surface rocks. I am writing about buried fossils, there is a big difference there. You know yourself how diamonds are formed by extreme pressure and what are diamonds made of.The molecular pattern is influenced by extreme pressure. So these fossilised remains atoms as I stated (I will try to find the material to support my claims) decay much more rapidly due to the pressure sustained over time. This has severely distorted carbon dating of fossilised remains whose dating due to the changes have become like rock.

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I really cannot understand how one can embrace atheism, one doesn't need to go further then oneself. How can a sophisticated human being have been created by accident. Then that trully means we are alone in this universe. Note how the moon and the sun are so different in size and yet are positioned so that they appear exactly the same size in the sky. Note how the moon brightly illuminates to give light at night.
By the way, did you ever consider how the suns rays are converged by the curvature of the atmosphere to give us warmth. Out in space the sun seems distant from our planet, it is the curvature of the atmosphere which acts as a magnifying glass that makes the sun appear large to us. Have you ever noticed how when the sun and moon sets they appear larger. Scientists have not yet found out that the upper layers of the sky form a globe around the earth. This is what heats our planet. The destruction of these upper layers are what is causing the curvature to change leading to change in the refraction. This coupled with the emitted gases is what will destroy this perfectly planned planet. Think about how we see in colour, why are flowers brilliantly coloured. Insects dont see those colors they see something else. So what were flowers made so beutiful for. How come so much on this planet is edible for man, who planned this. All the fruit, grain, meat. How these are digested by bacteria which are benevolent to man. Come on, be serious, how can you even dare consider that there is some greater power out there. Throughout my life I have heard God's voice, he speaks to me from the time I was a child I conversed with Him and He has assisted me many times. In 1990 my wife became pregnant and after three months she developed odema from high blood pressure. My doctor phoned me one afternoon to come urgently to his surgery. He explained that my wife and unborn child were to be hospitalised and recommended an abortion to save her life. I refused, not out of selfishness but because I knew God could intervene and save them both. I prayed intensely to God to save my wife and child. God told me not to worry, everything would be alright, he even dried the tears right before my eyes. Anyway, for the rest of her term of pregnancy she was hospitalised and by the seventh month her condition was such that they decided they would have to remove the child from her womb. They carried out the operation and my poor son was so small and tiny, the doctor who delivered him told me afterwards that three times his heart stopped beating, but they managed to revive him (Strange don't you think) The doctors were convinced that the child would be abnormal because he too had odema, in fact the Paeditrician who attended to him told me personally, that the child would be abnormal, either blind or brain damaged. Today, my son is well and healthy, and absolutely normal. I am glad that I have a God who loves not only me, you all as well and if only you would discount your foolish belief that He does not exist, you might hear His voice and he might soften your heart to understand Him. Don't look any further than yourself for you are made in His image, and His likeness.

Yes this life is difficult, and what we see around us makes us wonder, but then faith in His goodness will make you see the light.

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Quote:
Originally posted by Philege:
... Concerning the Peking man, is this supposed to
confirm that the Bible and books like that are untrue.
Actually the above two (2) witnesses, Homo erectus and Homo ergaster, who observed the last Uni-Polar-Flip (universal polar flip) roughly 790,000 years ago, passed down their knowledge of Uni-Polar-Flips (universal polar flips) by oral tradition to Homo sapiens, being that same knowledge of the vanishing Sun and stars recorded in biblical works.

Three day vanishing Sun and stars

It's not that big of a deal, Philege,
the same taught by Jesus Christ.

Peking Man (called Beijing Man), also called Sinanthropus pekinensis (currently Homo erectus pekinensis), is only an example of Homo erectus. The remains were first discovered in 1923-27 during excavations at Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien) near Beijing (Peking), China. The finds have been dated roughly 250,000-400,000 years ago in the Pleistocene.

Peking man (Wikipedia)

Thus no, Philege,
not Peking man.

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Quote:
Originally posted by Philege:
I think you're wrong about that. See: Radiometric Dating, A Christian Perspective

You see they are discussing rocks, ofcourse there would be no change to outside surface rocks. I am writing about buried fossils, there is a big difference there. You know yourself how diamonds are formed by extreme pressure and what are diamonds made of.The molecular pattern is influenced by extreme pressure. So these fossilised remains atoms as I stated (I will try to find the material to support my claims) decay much more rapidly due to the pressure sustained over time. This has severely distorted carbon dating of fossilised remains whose dating due to the changes have become like rock.
Radioactive decay has been shown not to be affected by pressure, heat, the arrangment of other atoms in the molecule, or the state of electron orbitals. The article for which I provided a link explains that.

C14 dating is generally not done on fossils, because of the relatively short half-life of C14. C14 dating is completely unreliable beyond 50,000 years, and a number of archeologists won't even pay it much attention beyond about 35,000 years (according to the archeologists I've worked with). There are other known issues with it, including greater amounts of C14 in the atmosphere tens of thousands of years ago, and its failure to reliably date organic matter near the poles.


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Quote:
Originally posted by Philege:
I really cannot understand how one can embrace atheism, one doesn't need to go further then oneself. How can a sophisticated human being have been created by accident. Then that trully means we are alone in this universe. Note how the moon and the sun are so different in size and yet are positioned so that they appear exactly the same size in the sky. Note how the moon brightly illuminates to give light at night.
The atheists I know don't "embrace" it, they just came to that conclusion. Few are militant atheists, they just haven't seen evidence that points them toward a belief in a monotheistic-type god.

Viewing anything from a position of complexity ["How can a sophisticated human be created by accident?"] is no way to figure out how it works, what makes it tick, or how it formed. Your musings about the apparent sizes of the sun and the moon mean what? If they didn't appear to be the same size, what would be the consequences? If the moon didn't light up the night sky (and it only does so for a part of the month), would you then be in awe of God's wisdom for allowing us such perfect darkness at night?

Like most religionists, you have your beliefs, and you fit all that you see into it. I prefer to develop my beliefs based on what I see.


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Like most religionists, you have your beliefs, and you fit all that you see into it. I prefer to develop my beliefs based on what I see.

I don't know what the fuss is all about. I am only trying to give my opinion. Why is it that if someone writes about atheism you keep quiet? Is that because you also prefer to be blind and not look to others for answers? I am only responding to the question and what others have written so why do you find what I say offensive.
Are you afraid to be convinced? I pointed out the fact about the moon and the sun because like I wrote before how could it be coincidental that the two cetestial objects appear the same size in the sky. This is because whatever created the moon and the sun in their respective positions did so deliberately not accidently. What about your your human body and it's wonders, you don't write anything about that accident? Also did you not read my notes about my premature son's birth and survival (Another accident I presume) these things happened to me and I would not lie to you. Do you presume I am someone who lives in a church that you refer to me as a 'religionist'. I found God when he revealed himself to me and he most certainly is not what religionists consider him to be. It was my hope that you could see another perspective. Not the frustration that religion can bring. Anyway this is my final post on this subject and I certainly know, that one day you will call out to God.

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blind?! -coming from a theist. I'm laughing.

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Quote:
Originally posted by Philege:
I don't know what the fuss is all about. I am only trying to give my opinion. Why is it that if someone writes about atheism you keep quiet? Is that because you also prefer to be blind and not look to others for answers? I am only responding to the question and what others have written so why do you find what I say offensive.
Are you afraid to be convinced? I pointed out the fact about the moon and the sun because like I wrote before how could it be coincidental that the two cetestial objects appear the same size in the sky. This is because whatever created the moon and the sun in their respective positions did so deliberately not accidently. What about your your human body and it's wonders, you don't write anything about that accident? Also did you not read my notes about my premature son's birth and survival (Another accident I presume) these things happened to me and I would not lie to you. Do you presume I am someone who lives in a church that you refer to me as a 'religionist'. I found God when he revealed himself to me and he most certainly is not what religionists consider him to be. It was my hope that you could see another perspective. Not the frustration that religion can bring. Anyway this is my final post on this subject and I certainly know, that one day you will call out to God.
Now wait a minute. Aren't YOU writing about atheism? You can't understand why anyone would "embrace atheism?" I'm kind of new here, and have not seen anyone promote atheism over other beliefs. In fact, you're the only one who has asked me what my personal beliefs are. (In one of my first posts, incidentally, I responded to someone who claimed that something-or-other was evidence against God. I disagreed.)

I don't see why you think it's a problem for me to disagree with you and explain why I disagree with you. I have not been offended by anything you've said.

If everything is a result of cause and effect, it is conceivable that nothing is "coincidence." That doesn't mean that the sun and moon's apparent size when viewed from Earth was ordered by some mysterious supernatural entity.

The human body IS amazing, but it was clearly not designed from scratch to be what it is today. An engineer would be fired for designing the human eye the way it is, or for wrapping the prostate gland around the urethra.

I know you were hoping to make others see things from your point of view. Ridiculing other peoples' points of view, however, is not a good plan of action, IMO.


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Unfortunately, I do not think you have explained why you disagree with me. In fact you referred to me as a 'Religionist'. I have tried to point out that atheism cannot exist because there is a God. Also I felt that the absence of religion would bring chaos, more chaos than religion brings. Imagine if everyone was an atheist, then people like you would be crying out for religion. Maybe some people like to go against the grain and maybe thats a good thing, variety, the spice of life. Anyway lets agree to disagree and let the matter rest. I guess it appears selfish of me to try and convince people of the futility of atheism. Shame what a lonely life they will have especially towards the end.

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Fool! Listen to yourself, you talk as if you've got everything figured out, when in fact, you are deluded. You preach the importance of religion and talk about the existence of "God" as if it were fact. Where is your proof? The sun and the moon appear to be the same size, the human body works; there MUST be a God because if there wasn't one, we'd all be alone. Unfortunately for us, if we wish something to be true, that does not make it so. So, the fact that you fear being alone, and oblivion, won't make these things not- true. It takes a strong person to accept true reality, and for your information, I don't "cry out for religion", in fact, I think no atheist does.
By the way; (x + 2)^2 = (x^2 + 4x + 4), not (x^2 + 4), even though intuition may tell you it?s like that and you WANT it to be like that to save you some working out, that?s just not the way it is.

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Philege have all the answers.....will have eternal life and never grow old..never have teeth fall out and always be happy....just wait and see

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