Do you believe in god?

[Ack]

Then, of course, there's this.

That's seriously hot.

[Octopod]

That same passage was first stated in Judges 18:1 and it does not refer to god but an actual Israelite king.

And we both know I could provide dozens upon dozens of other examples from the bible and from actual history.

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but there's a whole ton of misleading crap on out there on the internet. I think a lot of the stuff you're reading hasn't been put up against serious scrutiny. Just a quick read through of Judges 21 shows no claimed blessing or instruction from G_d.

A quick rule of thumb: If Israel did it, and it's in the Book of Judges, it was probably wrong.

I don't want to speak with absolute certainty, but I'm pretty sure that there is no G_d-approved wife-stealing in the Bible.

I'm home. I understand what you are saying about the internet but I assure you I am familiar with the bible. No, I do not remember where everything is located necessarily, what chapter or passage, so yes I do look things up.

Like I said though, I never said it was done with gods blessing however it was not against his wishes either. Without looking it up now in Judges 18 or 19 they explain the reason the other tribes of the Israelites were not allowed to married their daughters off to the Benjamites. God was mad at the actions they had taken and he made it know. God did not care about the wholesale slaughter of non-Israelites though. And this is after the ten commandments were laid out, of course the ten commandments only apply to Israelites and their behaviors toward each other, not outsiders.

I would love to have some bible study with you dude but I was just trying to point out to jp1 that people who believe in god sometimes act on shaky ground morally since it seemed to me that he was trying to imply that atheist have no morals or no reason to be moral since they do not believe in god or gods. That is the only reason I even mentioned that as an example.

[Jrecee]

Then, of course, there's this.

That's seriously hot.

Meh, that's nothing. I've been to deviantart.com

[Octopod]

Necro-beastial anal butt sex?? ooooh!!


Someone better get the reference.

[Hatta]

I was just trying to point out to jp1 that people who believe in god sometimes act on shaky ground morally since it seemed to me that he was trying to imply that atheist have no morals or no reason to be moral since they do not believe in god or gods.

Then there are the religious people who feel like they can just be jackasses to whoever and it's OK because God loves them and they can just repent and be forgiven. Or worse, the well meaning do-gooders who do more harm than good due to their moral code being based on bronze age superstition. e.g. abstinence only education, etc. If you believe that you're chosen by God, it's really hard not to be an asshole, no matter how "moral" you think you are. I'd rather be surrounded by entirely amoral people, than have any moralizer push his agenda on me. For that matter, I find moralizing itself to be immoral.

[Jrecee]

I was just trying to point out to jp1 that people who believe in god sometimes act on shaky ground morally since it seemed to me that he was trying to imply that atheist have no morals or no reason to be moral since they do not believe in god or gods.

Then there are the religious people who feel like they can just be jackasses to whoever and it's OK because God loves them and they can just repent and be forgiven. Or worse, the well meaning do-gooders who do more harm than good due to their moral code being based on bronze age superstition. e.g. abstinence only education, etc. If you believe that you're chosen by God, it's really hard not to be an asshole, no matter how "moral" you think you are. I'd rather be surrounded by entirely amoral people, than have any moralizer push his agenda on me. For that matter, I find moralizing itself to be immoral.

I can very much relate to this. I have known people exactly like this. It pisses me off to no end.

[MrPopo]

I was just trying to point out to jp1 that people who believe in god sometimes act on shaky ground morally since it seemed to me that he was trying to imply that atheist have no morals or no reason to be moral since they do not believe in god or gods.

Then there are the religious people who feel like they can just be jackasses to whoever and it's OK because God loves them and they can just repent and be forgiven. Or worse, the well meaning do-gooders who do more harm than good due to their moral code being based on bronze age superstition. e.g. abstinence only education, etc. If you believe that you're chosen by God, it's really hard not to be an asshole, no matter how "moral" you think you are. I'd rather be surrounded by entirely amoral people, than have any moralizer push his agenda on me. For that matter, I find moralizing itself to be immoral.

I can very much relate to this. I have known people exactly like this. It pisses me off to no end.

Obligatory "This does not reflect the view of all religious people" statement so we can move past that. We don't need to rehash the same old "not everyone sucks" argument.

[Ack]

I'd argue that both sides in this argument are just as bad. On the one hand, you have the zealous religious types who have nothing better to do than attempt to convert me, or worse, think that some sort of afterlife and eternal love of a deity will allow them to get away with whatever they want.

On the other hand, you have a group of angry reactionaries who feel they have the moral high ground to do whatever they want by not having a moral high ground, or worse decide to enter such a rebellious state that they must make a mockery of whatever set rules they can, demeaning and insulting not just religion but nearly everything else.

Frankly, both of these extremes suck.

And then you have the religious types that don't force it on you and the atheists who are secure in their beliefs and just want to be left to their endeavors. I like these people, they think what they want and leave others to be free to think what they want. And while they might have individual beliefs that might not mesh with mine, they're not going to take the opportunity to hit me over the head and rub my face in it if it ever comes up.

I grew up in the Deep South, where you see both types hit their extremes: Religion, especially Christianity is quite profound and has made an effect on our daily life even in the way we talk (though I don't attend church or really feel a connection to Christianity, you'll hear me exclaim Lord, Jesus Christ, God damn it, mother of God, and quite a few others). I don't consider this particularly demeaning, more just a habit of speech down here. But we do get the massive churches (Baptists love them), religious mail asking us to go to church, random bibles handed out by Gideons from time to time, so on and so forth. That stuff doesn't really bother me, I realize it's there way of being nice, and I accept it and move on.

Then again, we get the massive anti-abortion rallies with all the gory pictures, which I've never felt necessary, we sometimes have people try to convert us (my brother once spent an hour with a lady reading out of a bible to him in a random book store because he'd asked her where they kept the tarot cards), and we do see signs like the one on I-65 telling us to go to church or the devil will get us.

At the same time, certain elements of the atheists have become so reactionary in response that you can set them off at the drop of a hat, and they'll go about demeaning whatever they feel like it if it's in any way related. Conversations with these people are nigh impossible, and avoiding them more so as they feel the need to shout their beliefs and parade their opposition to the norm any opportunity they can. Being as it's a university, this sometimes translated into having to listen to a professor lecture as he repeatedly bashed the beliefs of some of the students. It might have bothered me less if there had been a reason, but some of them just sort of launched into it of their own accord, and I disliked them for forcing their own beliefs down on me.

The lesson? Both sides have crappy elements within their ranks, but I don't feel either side's all bad. Let's just try to live and let live.

[AppleQueso]

Yeah, extremists, they're few and far between, but all very loud. Illustrating that they're both bad doesn't really say much.

[Jrecee]

The lesson? Both sides have crappy elements within their ranks, but I don't feel either side's all bad. Let's just try to live and let live.

I agree with a lot of the comments posted that evolution takes as much faith or even more faith than believing in a Creator God or intelligent design. Evolution, or more accurately Darwinism has no evidence, not the tiniest shred, it is a THEORY or hypo-thesis. It's based on assumptions and wild guesses. On the other hand, the EVIDENCE of intelligent design is all around us for those that wish to see it as it plainly is. As for the so-called links between stages of "evolution" - show me a single example of it? Little known fact is that Darwin himself was the biggest doubter of his theory, he even admitted it in his "Origins of Man".

Let me briefly illustrate a few examples of the evidence of Intelligent Design: The clock-work precision design and workings of the Universe and the Earth itself, which operates in a very precise and meticulous manner could not have happened by chance; The Earth's location relative to the sun and our exact position in the Milky Way Galaxy; The fine-tuned Earth with all the laws and processes of nature highly inter-dependent on each other to enable life to exist; Even the moon has a major role to play for life to work on Earth; The Earth's exact proximity to the Sun (if the Earth were only a few thousand kilometers closer or farther from the Sun, life would not have been possible); The complex make-up of animals in general and humans in particular (evolved from a single cell ? Wow, that is solid faith for you); The human eye, so astoundingly, perplexingly complex and a true miracle that it even exists and works it’s regarded by most honest scientists, even Darwinists are having trouble explaining this one, is a distinct impossibility to have evolved because all the different parts had to be there at exactly the same time for the eye to have worked or else it never would have!

And, the one thing that really sealed it for me personally, is the intricacies of the human cell. Only recently have science been able to explore the cell right down to its super-microscopic level and scientists were totally blown away and awe-struck with what they found. The cell, as small as it is (can only be observed with a microscope), has even many more infinitesimally small parts that work like an assembly factory that the best robotic human factories or a world’s best computer pales in comparison - everything plays its part in absolute clock-work precision or it will not work at all, and therefore life would not have existed.

Yes sadly, as expected and for unknown reasons, the cell and eye discoveries did make headline news so that people can be enlightened to make up their own minds as to how such absolutely mind-numbing complexity and precision could have evolved from whatever Darwinists say it evolved from.

God, in his holy Word, says plainly that he created everything and there is NO EVIDENCE to suggest otherwise. But He also cautioned in His Scriptures that the world at large will be deceived and blinded and not believe the plain truth that is all around them. Even the religious establishment has succumbed to the unsupported theory of Darwinism.

Think about this, do you really want to believe that Darwinism is true and that you are here today and gone tomorrow forever more ? It is a small wonder that whole world is not desperately depressed at the prospect of never living again. But I believe that in their hearts most believe that this is not it or the end of the road and that the Creator Himself will reveal Himself and His truth to everyone despite His truth having been rejected in this age.

Science and intelligent design is not opponents, except for "Evolution". Science discovered, observed and explained a lot of exacting, flawless and absolute natural laws that is the building blocks of life. God is the Creator that designed those very laws to make physical life a reality. If God did not create those laws, where did it originally come from ? Out of nothing ? I refuse to believe that nonsense!

Darwinism will die a dishonorable death at some point, it's just a matter of time. Just a pity it is taught as “fact” in our schools, while the Almighty God has all but been banished from schools and all public life. Darwinism is the single-biggest thing to ever turn people away from God and see where the world is today. We're heading downhill all the way. Jesus prophesied all these things, it's in the pages of your Bible. But He will return to save us from ourselves. I pray your Kingdom come!

I'd say that's all bad. Ok ok, maybe the dude's a good person. Maybe he's never harmed a fly and he works down at the soup kitchen every weekend. But argh! Just. . . argh! I have to side with the "extremist" atheist in these situations. The logic is all around us. It's plain to see that this guy holds a view, that if believed by the majority of people (about 40% is the number I usually see) would be extremely dangerous to the progress of our civilization. I guess I'm going to say that the guy who refutes this perspective, deserves the high ground. The person who thinks gays have the same rights as the rest of us, deserves the moral highground moreso than the person who would deny them rights (and I'm not just talking about technical stuff like gay marriage or don't ask don't tell, I'm talking about people who truly believe that gays are inferior and don't even deserve the rights they hold now).