You're asking me to comprimise on the belief of a sky fairy?
I've only had one father. My dad.
Anything else is a poor substitution.
Of the three thousand plus gods, each one is thought of as a "one and only" or supreme.
Manitou is not "a god" it's simply a spiritual interconnection. No supreme being involved. The idea is that every thing is sentinel. (not sure if that's spelled right) Essentially, everything has a spirit. Whih I do not believe either.
Now, YOU, sir are a believer I would enjoy a discussion with.
What most believers assume is that non-believers never read the Bible. THis is simply not so. MOST athiests came from a solid religious background. We've studied the Bible while IN that religious environment.
It's when our questions wnet unanswered that we began to read more and learn more.
If the complexity of something proves the idea of a creator, as you contend, then the "creator" must be more complex than what he created. Therefore MUST have been crated himself, and so on ad infinitum.
The watch maker theory doesn't hold up under close examination.
the Noah Flood story is a load of BS. Copied word for word from the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Let's take a look, shall we?
Keep in mind that the Noah story dates to 1450 BCE, while Gilgamesh dates to around 2000BCE. (which makes it a bit older)
Abraham, the patriarch of the desert religions came from the Sumerian City of Ur which would make him quite familiar with the mythology of the area.
The Genesis story describes how mankind had become obnoxious to God; they were hopelessly sinful and wicked. In the Babylonian story, they were too numerous and noisy.
The Gods (or God) decided to send a worldwide flood. This would drown men, women, children, babies and infants, as well as eliminate all of the land animals and birds.
The Gods (or God) knew of one righteous man, Ut-Napishtim or Noah.
The Gods (or God) ordered the hero to build a multi-story wooden ark (called a chest or box in the original Hebrew).
The ark would be sealed with pitch.
The ark would have with many internal compartments
It would have a single door
It would have at least one window.
The ark was built and loaded with the hero, a few other humans, and samples from all species of other land animals.
A great rain covered the land with water.
The mountains were initially covered with water.
The ark landed on a mountain in the Middle East.
The hero sent out birds at regular intervals to find if any dry l and was in the vicinity.
The first two birds returned to the ark. The third bird apparently found dry land because it did not return.
The hero and his family left the ark, ritually killed an animal, offered it as a sacrifice.
God (or the Gods in the Epic of Gilgamesh) smelled the roasted meat of the sacrifice.
The hero was blessed.
The Babylonian gods seemed genuinely sorry for the genocide that they had created. The God of Noah appears to have regretted his actions as well, because he promised never to do it again.
To take the Bible as authoritative is ignorant. Every story contained in it has been done before.
and none of these men were contemporaries of Jesus. No one who knew Jesus wrote anything down. The entire story of Messiah (who meets not a single messianic prophecy) rests on the words of hearsay.
We also know that John 8 was an addition to the origional texts. The story of the adulteress and the famous "he who has no sin..." is fabricated. Which begs the question...""What else has been added?"
We also have not a single contemporary outside source mentioning Jesus in any historical document. Those that do are written via hearsay and years after the fact. Of those, Josephus, his mention of Jesus was proven a forgery in the 18th century.
So what we have here is a fictional story about fictional characters in a historical setting.
Just like "Gone With the Wind".
I think I may start worshipping that big-earred monster...
princemuncher Forum Posts (378)
RE: How come you don't believe in God?
You had me at "Evolution"..