Should we work to get rid of Christianity?

The universe has enough of the characteristics of effects within the universe to make the rational assumption that the universe itself has a cause.
There is a fallacy called the fallacy of composition … The fallacy of composition arises when one infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole.
And actually the evidence is growing as the evidence confirming the Big Bang grows.
What evidence and what, exactly, does it show?
 
No, again you are assuming what we are trying to prove. Natural selection does not select for the ability to reason abstractly.
How do you know this?

I would put it in this way, natural selection selects for the ability to learn. We see learning in the animal kingdom, it's just that we're better at it than the rest. The ability to learn requires abstract thinking.
Being able to recognize 2+2=4 does not increase survivability so it would not be selected for.
I dealt with this point and you seem to have ignored what I said. I agree that being able to recognise 2+2=4 is itself not selected for, but the ability to recognise it comes from our ability to learn.
And as I demonstrated above some of the most successful organisms like the cockroach do not have anywhere near that ability. So evolution would have never produced humans if it is based on natural selection.
This shows a somewhat poor understanding of evolution. Cockroaches have via evolution been fitted very well into their environment so there is no evolutionary pressure to change from what they are.
 
No, the fact that the laws of almost all successful societies in history are basically the same as the second tablet of the Ten Commandments shows that these are certain universal principles that are intrinsic to the human moral conscience and therefore could not have been made up by humans.
This is quite a claim with no support. You need to support this with more than you've said here. The ideas of fairness and right and wrong are easy enough to understand and will occur to creatures with the ability to think. There are studies on animals that show an understanding of fairness.
 
Well you seem to be referring to how often He intervenes supernaturally, yes there are certain important periods where He has intervened a little more than other times. But overall 99.9% of the time He operates thru natural law. Otherwise, it would start affecting our free will and evil could not be destroyed forever which is His primary goal. But His existence is fairly obvious if you think about the existence of the universe and its characteristics and causality. In some ways science has made Him less "hidden". 60 years ago it was thought the universe was eternal and therefore didnt need a cause, but the BB theory has shown us that the universe is an effect and therefore needs a cause.
You make quite a few unwarranted assumption here, some trivial, some no so trivial.

Assumption 1) The period when Hebrew nationalism was being forged, the biblical era, is a more important period in time than any other for the intervention of God. It was only more important to the Hebrews and of course they would claim God their own and create a mythos surrounding that containing miraculous proofs of their claim. All attempts at nationalism do.

Assumption 2) Having God's characteristics of perfect justice, grace, and mercy be a certain cause and effect in this would would somehow affect free will. Everyone could still act of their free will, but consequence would be swift and sure-fire in this world to the glory of God. The fact that the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper in this world is evidence that the character of God is not infused into this world. That is why the ancients created a kingdom to come where God's character did rule. They knew it was not in this world - he was hidden. Some even postulated that he was beaten so the concept of a kingdom to come was them folding up camp here and waiting.

Assumption 3) The universe may very well be eternal. If one believes in the big bang they do not believe in a wholesale creation event ex nihilo. They believe in state change of matter from what existed before that cannot be measured to what exists now that can be measured. You already accept the concept of an eternal something... you call it God - a very biased and selective and ad-hoc attribution.

Assumption 4) This one is the worst ones you make with the strongest evidence that your beliefs are wrong. That belief is that a sentient willful mind is what caused what we experience now. Sentience we know is a direct result of biology. It is wholly attached to brain functioning which is a result of matter (the brain). The brain's functioning, which results in sentience, is wholly contingent on matter that did not exist prior to the cause of this material experience. Even now mind cannot exist without matter, yet your God's main characteristic is a disembodied mind. While I accept the duality of man, I also know from where that duality emerges. Your God being a mind without matter makes Him a married bachelor... a logical impossibility.

Assumption 5) God willed creation into being. I refer to assumption 4 in that will cannot exist without mind, but even further, will cannot exist without want or need, both of which your God does not possess. A God who is already the embodiment of the alpha and the omega cannot possess will by definition. He has no want, no need. There is nothing to will about. Creation is like the army exercise of digging holes and filling holes for no known reason. Another married bachelor conundrum in a cycle of uselessness.

Call them paradoxes if you want. It doesn't seem to help the case.
 
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It is a motivation that produces a certain behavior. But as we were talking about babies and children whose motivations cannot be articulated and are generally very simplistic unlike adults, then the behavior becomes much more obvious that the motivation is selfishness.

No, the fact that the laws of almost all successful societies in history are basically the same as the second tablet of the Ten Commandments shows that these are certain universal principles that are intrinsic to the human moral conscience and therefore could not have been made up by humans.
You are using some very bad terminology here. Universal moral principles emerged from navigating the common wants and needs of the human condition over time. You are correct, we did not create them and they did not transcend from a god. They are part of our common nature and are discovered within us as we progress.
 
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You are using some very bad terminology here. Universal moral principles emerged from navigating the common wants and needs of the human condition over time. You are correct, we did not create them and they did not transcend from a god. They are part of our common nature and are discovered within us as we progress.

Until that "monster from the Id" shows up.

You know? the one that wiped out the Krell population?
 
Until that "monster from the Id" shows up.

You know? the one that wiped out the Krell population?
I agree. We are one disaster away from a Leningrad winter where you will see how weak transcendence is in the face of human need. We saw what happens and we created NATO, the U.N. and other organizations to meet human need and circumvent such future crises. If you believe in God, you have to see those are our efforts in the face of God's neglect.
 
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I agree. We are one disaster away from a Leningrad winter where you will see how weak transcendence is in the face of human need. We saw what happens and we created NATO, the U.N. and other organizations to meet human need and circumvent such future crises.

How'd that work out at Columbine?

5wize said:
If you believe in God, you have to see those are our efforts in the face of God's neglect.

Neglect?

Surely you've heard the story that goes something like this:

Joe: God, why didn't you stop Klebold & Harris at Columbine?
God: I was kicked out of Columbine, remember?

1 Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
 
How'd that work out at Columbine?



Neglect?

Surely you've heard the story that goes something like this:

Joe: God, why didn't you stop Klebold & Harris at Columbine?
God: I was kicked out of Columbine, remember?

1 Samuel 8:7 And the LORD said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them.
Yeah.... but you neglect to recognize that there were over one thousand students in that school supposedly bereft of your God that didn't go around shooting anyone. The shooters ideals formed outside of that environment and it is not so much a matter of God not stopping the shooting, but not being present in the small cumulative events and hearts that led to the disappointments the shooters took with them into school that day. That is up to us to cure.

You think Christian kids in Christian schools can't be dismissive bullies? You are talking to a guy here that sent 2 kids to private religious school for the entirety of K-12. I went to public school, in Detroit no less... I saw no difference in the hearts of the private school kids than the public school kids. Personally I think the hearts of the kids in private school today are much more cruel than what I went through, and they have the technology to deliver that cruelty more efficiently.

You want to say we need more God in our lives?..... yeah.... well?
 
You think Christian kids in Christian schools can't be dismissive bullies?

One of our pastors, who is a Bible thumper -- you don't want to sit up front -- talks about how he was severely picked on when he was at Christian school.

He said he turned his back on Christianity for a short time after graduating.

But God never turned His back on him.
 
Of what? What's your point?


Let's not get mired in the weeds on this one.
The man is obsessed. Every thread he posts in, every single one, includes a dig at trans gender issues. You would think he would obsess about something important.
 
One of our pastors, who is a Bible thumper -- you don't want to sit up front -- talks about how he was severely picked on when he was at Christian school.

He said he turned his back on Christianity for a short time after graduating.

But God never turned His back on him.
Another dogmatic human re-interpretation of actual events for the sake of faith. Love is what love does... where was his comforter?
 
Right there.

Going through it with him.
No He wasn't. He felt no comfort. Isn't the main claim of accepting the Christian way that you feel this spirit and comfort?

Now you claim that you don't have to. Every layer of the Christian onion is laced with incoherency.
 
No He wasn't. He felt no comfort. Isn't the main claim of accepting the Christian way that you feel this spirit and comfort?

Now you claim that you don't have to. Every layer of the Christian onion is laced with incoherency.

Really?

Every botanist knows ... or should know ... that, if you grow a flower indoors, then put it outside, the first major storm will beat it senseless, if not downright kill it.

But every flower grown outside can weather those storms much better.

God knows that letting people go through trials builds character.
 
Really?

Every botanist knows ... or should know ... that, if you grow a flower indoors, then put it outside, the first major storm will beat it senseless, if not downright kill it.

But every flower grown outside can weather those storms much better.

God knows that letting people go through trials builds character.
Then the character we grow has nothing to do with the efforts of, or can be attributed to, God then... the atheist's quintessential point. What is the difference between an absent God, an indiscernible God, a God standing with folded arms as we learn stuff, and a non-existent God?

Oh... and we're not plants. Use an analogy where sentience is involved and able to be interfaced with. It counts for something.
 
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What is the difference between an absent God, an indiscernible God, a God standing with folded arms as we learn stuff, and a non-existent God?

A college degree?

Oh... and we're not plants. Use an analogy where sentience is involved and able to be interfaced with. It counts for something.

Post 944 please.

Last line.

Aren't academians supposed to investigate before they communicate?

They sure want us to.
 
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