Great testimony, Darkslash.
You know what I find extremely ironic about this thread?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmanuel_(Bible)
Edit: (The link messes up. Just add the ) at the end in the address bar.)
3mmanuel, your thoughts are only thoughts. It's the spirit that really matters. I did some thinking, and I realized that there really is no such thing as an atheist, because there was a time when nobody believed in God, but only because the Gospel didn't reach them and/or the spirit wasn't touched by that Word. It isn't like you are born being an athesit; some people were given that spiritual doctrine at a young age, or not.
You are still young; there is MUCH room for growth. You can't call yourself an atheist because you don't believe, you just don't believe YET.
Umm yeah Heartz. I generally don't bash people who support the Bible, and I feel nothing wrong with the Bibl generally, but when you are talking about Atheists as deluded, that’s where you are wrong. I am not an Atheist, but as far as Christianity being fact, its got a poor history.
The Bible is in short historical fiction, and I am going to focus on the Old Testament and historical evidence because it is the pillar for Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
The Bible starts out with the horrible depiction of the start of the Earth, creation in a matter of days. It has many inaccuracies, including the fact that flowering plants came before the sun. Science has shown through radiological dating, which is accurate, that flowering plants appeared through evolution around 100 million years ago, while the sun has been in the solar system for many billions of years. It includes other issues, and the whole time frame is screwed up, and it shows modern humans for only 6,000 years through its detailed genealogy, when we have actually been here for around 100,000 years (IE, humans that left Africa).
Now, after Genesis we have Leviticus. Now Heartz, I know you are a major part of OTL, and as a result, you interact with many people who are homosexual, bisexual, among other things, including yourself. Have you ever heard of Leviticus? I read it, its not pretty. “If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.” (Leviticus 20:13). According to this, Barge, among others, all should be killed for living how they were born, and some translations seem to oppose relations between women.
These laws were created when procreation to save the human species was of the utmost importance, however, now, it is almost unnecessary. Therefore, most of the reasons for “God’s laws” are gone, and yet we still adhere by them today. We are following 6,000 year old rules that have no application today and yet we still follow them. It doesn’t support the idea that god exists in the slightest, only that some people made this whole thing up.
In addition, scientific studies have shown that suffering for your beliefs causes others to believe them too, and because of this, hard line forms of religion are more likely to dominate. Because of this, religion generally causes scientific studies and technology to slow because of opposition to it, showing that religion really isn’t beneficial to the world. It causes hate, violence, and slows progress. This happened with the Islamic revolution, while Europe was killing each other, Muslims became the primary group that did scientific research and had huge inventions, until a strict reading of the Qur’an stopped it all.
In addition, they have shown in studies with children that the human brain for evolutionary reasons has caused us to find causation for things that happen. For example, if a rabbit moved in the bushes and you couldn’t see the rabbit but saw the bushes moving, you’d say there is something in there. This is very useful because it helped us against predators and helped us hunting. But it also caused us to believe that when something we don’t understand happens, that its “God’s” will. Many 6 year olds believe that if someone dies, God was punishing them or God caused it, even if it was a simple ordinary event like a heart attack.
Next, they have shown that talking to god is identical in the brain as it is talking to a friend. This means we view God as someone only slightly different from another person, making him a very easy creation of the imagination.
They have also shown how this creation could happen, because they have found that we have relations with people that don’t exist so we can maintain social connections, and because of this we can view your dead grandmother as a real person and even talk to her. They have shown that this has friends to create invisible friends and easily could become God.
In addition, they know that ancient Israelites likely used hallucinogenic drugs, including mushrooms. This could easily cause the visions that people were seeing and the religious experiences, and comparisons between manna and mushrooms have been made. A scientist got in major trouble for saying the only logical explanation for the ten commandments from God on Mount Sinai is that Moses was high.
So don’t try to spread your faith over the beliefs of others, no one can disprove the existence of God and therefore he is un-scientific, and should be left out of all discussions until when his existence is proved (if he exists).
Finally, they have shown people view connections even when they don’t exist when they are under stress. A very good example is when people think they are about to die or when they are wondering if there is an afterlife. As a result, they put together evidence that doesn’t point to anything and use it as proof that God exists. It puts their mind at ease generally, but it’s a fallacy in itself.
We are also a nation of many faiths, none of which should be more important than others or play a policy in the government and saying your viewpoint that has a huge number of inaccuracies and many leaps of faith is better than a viewpoint with one leap of faith is plain wrong. Atheism can’t be proved, but don’t trod on others, especially when your viewpoint is as credible as Zeus throwing lightning bolts on Mount Olympus.