Do you believe in God?
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- TenEightyOne
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Sort of on-topic-cuz-evolution, new flower discovered in Shetland Islands. Scientists know the source of the original (imported) flower but the evolutionary change that it's undergone to adapt has happened in a mind-bogglingly short time.
For those who don't know where the Shetland Islands are... think of somewhere that's absolutely nowhere and then double it. They're past there.
For those who don't know where the Shetland Islands are... think of somewhere that's absolutely nowhere and then double it. They're past there.
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zzz_pt
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I'll leave this article from The New Yorker here that I've read today as I find it interesting for the topic.
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
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Ok this has gone too far! I should have known! If I came bitching about Christianity lots of you would have given me some "likes" and no one would have argued me or even defended Christianity, just for the sake of objectivity, just like you are trying to defend islam. Oh and by the way, few of you actually defended islam by defending it! You defended it by launching an attack on my beliefs etc...
Anyways... excuse me guys cause it's becoming an illogical situation here:
First, do you expect me to reply to each of your posts?! One guy answering lots of questions coming from lots of guys?! What am I, a teacher in a class?!
Answering by writing too?! Do you know how much time that'll take!? Do you know that I have a real life and a job etc.!??
I tried to answer lots of your questions but it seems as @zzz_pt mentioned above, nothing will be able to change your minds as nothing will be able to change mine!
So let's move on now!
Second, no I should not provide any evidence myself. Scholars, researchers and historians spent decades and decades searching for truth!
Do you expect me to do that now?! That's really ironic! So now you no more accept references?!
Did anyone of you actually go into verifying that Evolution theory?! Or you simply rely on that Darwin and his followers (Dawkins and Co.) etc...
Third, the amount of atheism has reached scary levels! I can ask you lots of questions that will put you in some trouble like: what's your source of ethics? Who says what's wrong and what's true?! and lots of existential philosophical questions; but of course I won't do that because I don't have the time to go into that deep conversation!
Luckily, there are lots of people doing big part of that for us:
Take some spare time and enjoy these:
If you can't stand watching, go read "the case for Christ" book by former atheist Lee Strobel!
Or "the abundant life" by former atheist Greg Viehman.
I mention the above because those were atheist that went into research to prove Christianity is wrong and that Jesus never rose or even existed; but during their research they discovered the opposite!
Some awesome readings about proofs of resurrection: Those include historical proofs out of the Bible.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
http://www.xenos.org/essays/case-christs-resurrection
Fourth, about that verse in Luke 19:27, I don't have time to re-go into it, so refer to some of these:
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-27.htm
Even if you neglect anything, and if we agree that Jesus was a sane honest guy (if not, we don't need to argue then), we should agree then that he doesn't contradict himself!
So when he says "Love your enemies" in lots of places, and when he says that "Don't judge so you won't be judged" and that judgment is only the mission of God, then you'll be able to understand what the context of that parable is. It is an indication of the final judgement for Satan and his followers that refused God.
Fifth, if someone really seeks the Truth, which is Jesus Himself as He stated : I am the road, the truth and the life; If you seek Him you will find all of those.
You may be able to reject Him, and to not believe Him. You're free to do whatever you want, but me too!
And I do strongly and undoubtedly believe in Him and His word; to answer to original question of this Topic!
Sixth, regarding Islam, have fun watching some of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgsrnmzxEUY ==> great visual illustration!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRxwa008Nxg ==> this is in your countries guys! I wonder if you live under a rock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrGVeB_SPJg ==> pretty much your situation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZPfj514Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSl5Ah3f6Fg ==> some atheism in there too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feFusq8ZRLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jdv8kdhy4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ePVxRLDM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohn3qL1Vz34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0qxp7E7ZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z2aqF9CQfg ==> also a good one about resurrection.
Wake up people!
See you around guys and may God open your hearts and minds!
Ciao!
Anyways... excuse me guys cause it's becoming an illogical situation here:
First, do you expect me to reply to each of your posts?! One guy answering lots of questions coming from lots of guys?! What am I, a teacher in a class?!
Answering by writing too?! Do you know how much time that'll take!? Do you know that I have a real life and a job etc.!??
I tried to answer lots of your questions but it seems as @zzz_pt mentioned above, nothing will be able to change your minds as nothing will be able to change mine!
So let's move on now!
Second, no I should not provide any evidence myself. Scholars, researchers and historians spent decades and decades searching for truth!
Do you expect me to do that now?! That's really ironic! So now you no more accept references?!
Did anyone of you actually go into verifying that Evolution theory?! Or you simply rely on that Darwin and his followers (Dawkins and Co.) etc...
Third, the amount of atheism has reached scary levels! I can ask you lots of questions that will put you in some trouble like: what's your source of ethics? Who says what's wrong and what's true?! and lots of existential philosophical questions; but of course I won't do that because I don't have the time to go into that deep conversation!
Luckily, there are lots of people doing big part of that for us:
Take some spare time and enjoy these:
If you can't stand watching, go read "the case for Christ" book by former atheist Lee Strobel!
Or "the abundant life" by former atheist Greg Viehman.
I mention the above because those were atheist that went into research to prove Christianity is wrong and that Jesus never rose or even existed; but during their research they discovered the opposite!
Some awesome readings about proofs of resurrection: Those include historical proofs out of the Bible.
http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/historical-evidence-for-the-resurrection
http://www.xenos.org/essays/case-christs-resurrection
Fourth, about that verse in Luke 19:27, I don't have time to re-go into it, so refer to some of these:
http://biblehub.com/commentaries/luke/19-27.htm
Even if you neglect anything, and if we agree that Jesus was a sane honest guy (if not, we don't need to argue then), we should agree then that he doesn't contradict himself!
So when he says "Love your enemies" in lots of places, and when he says that "Don't judge so you won't be judged" and that judgment is only the mission of God, then you'll be able to understand what the context of that parable is. It is an indication of the final judgement for Satan and his followers that refused God.
Fifth, if someone really seeks the Truth, which is Jesus Himself as He stated : I am the road, the truth and the life; If you seek Him you will find all of those.
You may be able to reject Him, and to not believe Him. You're free to do whatever you want, but me too!
And I do strongly and undoubtedly believe in Him and His word; to answer to original question of this Topic!
Sixth, regarding Islam, have fun watching some of these:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgsrnmzxEUY ==> great visual illustration!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRxwa008Nxg ==> this is in your countries guys! I wonder if you live under a rock!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrGVeB_SPJg ==> pretty much your situation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEZPfj514Kk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSl5Ah3f6Fg ==> some atheism in there too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feFusq8ZRLo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Jdv8kdhy4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6ePVxRLDM0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohn3qL1Vz34
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gN0qxp7E7ZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z2aqF9CQfg ==> also a good one about resurrection.
Wake up people!
See you around guys and may God open your hearts and minds!
Ciao!
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It's not your critisism for your critisism in islam but the false double standard you hold for your own believe.
I have looked into evolution. I'm sorry to be so blunt but not believing evolution is the intelectual equivalent of not believing gravity or the earth beeing round.
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Now go read our Human Rights thread and you'll see just how little trouble that puts us in.
Meanwhile, you'll have to defend your 'ethics' from any suggestion that the book they came from is a translated version of a translated version of a translated version of an anthology created by the Catholic Church from some translated books but not some others and might not be the perfect word of your deity any more - regardless of any considerations of whether it ever was. Although he's been a bit quiet lately on that front - I wonder why he's not been telling anyone to write new ones with all these apparent new threats.
Feel free to add these into my post if it helps: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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You can provide references. So far you've not provided any that actually provide the sort of proof that you're claiming, however.
Some of us are actually scientists, yes, and have reviewed key parts of the evidence that supports evolution. If you subscribe to the Christian world view, then you could say that it's what God gave us brains for; so that we could use them to (among other things) learn about the world around us.
You're scared of atheists? OK. They're not really that scary though. That sort of hyperbole is how people justify violence against other people who they deem to be different to them.
You should know that just because you would find it difficult to answer those sorts of questions without the justifications provided by your religion, that's not true for everyone. Some of us either do have answers to those questions or have no trouble living our lives without clear answers.
For someone who doesn't have time to go into it, that was a fairly massive post. While you're admittedly attempting to tackle a mountain with the broad swathe of generalisations and inaccuracies that you've posted so far, you might find it more productive to cut that down to one or two. One that most seem keen to discuss is the historical accuracy of the resurrection. Perhaps try focusing your efforts on that one first.
You should probably know that this is kind of a negative for non-Christians. It's a book that by definition is designed to support a certain world view, and parts of which are clearly somewhere between outright fiction and fable. While some parts of it may be historically accurate, using it as supporting evidence for such a claim is not generally considered a particularly strong argument.
Honestly, I think you'd have a hard time proving to a reasonable standard that two thousand years ago a specific person died and was buried in a specific place, even if there weren't miraculous events surrounding it. I mean, do we really know where the tomb from which Jesus arose was?
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/jesus-christ-tomb-burial-church-holy-sepulchre/
This would suggest that they have a primary candidate (the Church of the Holy Sepulchre), but that they still lack much evidence to select it over any other apart from the fact that someone in the past found good reason to do so. It's cool that they're doing research to try and find more evidence, but I fail to see how you're so adamantly sure of the truth of a miracle when it's difficult to even identify a simple tomb when the relevant events are so far in the past.
zzz_pt
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Ok. I won't reply to your posts any longer just so you can (if you want) do what Imari suggested:
I'll leave it to you to share the best references / evidences for that claim and I won't raise any other question regarding any other point you've been making.
Scaff
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Well that's a rather inaccurate presumption. Would you like me to link to the posts in which inaccuracies in the Koran have been pointed out and discussed?
Provide repeatable, objective and falsifiable evidence and I am 100% happy top change my mind.
"That which is presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence" and "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" are the two quote that spring to mind.
Yep, its not actually that difficult. However as I have already said, you don't even understand the basics, and have started from an utterly false premise that evolution has never made.
My source of ethics is me, I don't need an imaginary friend to stop me from attacking, murdering and raping people. Its a part of all communal spaces.
Seen most of those before, and no not a bit of 'evidence' in them.
Whoever wrote those doesn't undersatdn the conspet of evidence and starts with unproven assumpotions.
The first two of these are not 'truthes' as claimed, but rather claims made in one uncorroberated source taht contradicts itself about the chain of events.
- The tomb in which Jesus was buried was discovered empty by a group of women on the Sunday following the crucifixion.
- Jesus' disciples had real experiences with one whom they believed was the risen Christ.
- As a result of the preaching of these disciples, which had the resurrection at its center, the Christian church was established and grew.
So in Christianity its metaphor, but in other faiths its a direct call to action? That is whats commonly know as a double standard.
I don't personally care what anyone believes, as long as it does interfeer with the lives of others. However start to claim it as fact and your going to need to support that.
More inaccurate, biased and bigoted nonsense.
I neither require or appreciate being ministered to.
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- mistersafeway
Wow, if you weren't openly theistic I'd actually be able to guess at that fact just because you complained about not having enough time to respond and then launched into a giant post without even attempting to respond to one of us.
No, of course you shouldn't. 
Yeah! Atheists are so dangerous, what with murdering satirists... oops, that's Islam. Er, having a huge civil war oops, Islam again. Warring with Buddhi- seriously, I'll get this right in a minute.
...
Oh! Invading Middle Eastern countries for resources, murdering a bunch of kids because they're being taught how to be accepting of differences, blowing up abortion clinics, carrying out campaigns of sustained bombing against my country. That was atheists, right?
Logic, as opposed to a book which says gay people should be executed, but someone who rapes a virgin just pays her father, marries her, and is never allowed to divorce her. Of course, you could throw that away, but then you have to throw away the Ten Commandments, and you're just left with do unto others as you'd have them do to you, which would necessitate you stopping having such a problem with people who aren't Christians.
I'm going to do you a favour and not refamiliarise myself with that name, so I'll just think he's a joke rather than the deeply pathetic individual I vaguely recall him being.
Have you even read your holy book? I honestly find it amazing that believers can think he's sane, expecting non-believers to agree to that is ridiculous. Off the top of my head, look at the way he gets angry so quickly when he doesn't get his own way and kills a fig tree.
Danoff
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Love this one so much.
Numbers 31
Oh it goes on. It's not just Yahweh commanding the slaughtering of children and the sexual slavery of virgin girls. There is so much more blood from Yahweh in "the good book". But I'm going to move on in a different, less bloody, direction:
Genesis 22
Let's pretend we're Abraham for a moment. Yahweh is telling you to kill your child for him as a test of your faith. In other words, your faith in Yahweh is more important than you desire not to kill your child. You have 2 choices. Be ready to kill your child as Yahweh commands (immoral), or do not kill your child as Yahweh commands (moral). If you choose the latter, your sense of morality comes from someplace other than Yahweh. If you choose the former, you are an immoral person, ready to commit whatever murder or atrocity is commanded you by an immoral god. You're merely defining moral as "whatever Yahweh commands", which is an arbitrary and bizarre definition of morality that includes the murder of innocent children as moral.
This alone demonstrates that morality comes from someplace other than Yahweh. This is further evidenced by every single law against murder or any other kind of immoral act that existed in history before Yahweh or Jesus were purported to start telling humanity how to behave. We're to believe that prior to the ten commandments everyone was just killing and thieving along the way? Morality literally did not exist? We needed a Yahweh to tell us to slaughter each other in order to find Morality?
"Yea but Jesus..." doesn't work either. Yahweh is still your god. The same entity from the old testament, that's your source of Morality. The "jealous", "vengeful" god is your perfect source of morality. It's laughable. There's so much more material in this discussion, but what I've said above is sufficient.
Joey D
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I don't think anyone is defending Islam, rather they are looking at it critically and calling you out for saying untrue things.
I'm not sure if you fully understand how a discussion board works. You answer topics in writing that you're interested in having a discussion about. I suppose you could upload verbal replies via Soundcloud, but I doubt many would give it a listen. Perhaps if you want a more face to face debate, you should talk to your Muslim friends on the subject.
Since English isn't your first language, I took the liberty of looking up what "discussion" is in Arabic: niqash or I guess تَناقَشَ
And yes, several people have gone on to research the Theory of Evolution, that's why it's a theory and not just a random hypothesis. Theory can be hard to grasp because of misinformation.
Uhhh....boo?
I'm not atheist, but I don't think they're scary and typically most of them have well-reasoned arguments against the plausibility of a higher power.
Even if I'm not atheist, I'm by no means religious. I get my ethics from "not being a jerk to others", seems to work out just fine. Also, you know laws and what not keep an sane person from going around killing, raping, and stealing.
I'd only trust God to open my heart or mind if he's a qualified cardiothorasic or neuro surgeon.
Dotini
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Human-like footprints on Crete dated to 5.7 million years ago.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...t/news-story/2e60cbd7386573dd2a45c5cc9d79297d
http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...t/news-story/2e60cbd7386573dd2a45c5cc9d79297d
- 20,681
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- TenEightyOne
There are a few errors in the article but it's still a fascinating find. It remains to be seen whether this can be linked to other hominids in (broadly) the same area at the same time or whether this is a distinct development on the then-isolating peninsula.
It's a stretch to call the print "human" (as some news outlets are doing) but it definitely demonstrates several of the evolutionary waypoints that we expect to see.
Dotini
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I expect human-like beings, together with their myths of origination, have appeared and disappeared several times over geologic history. Cataclysms, disasters, and diseases of sundry origin can do that. May well happen over and over and again on into the distant future. Events like the Toba volcano eruption (~70k years ago) and the poorly understood Younger Dryas (~12K years ago) seem to have brought the present species of humanity to a very low point. The temples of Gobekli Tepe stand as enigmatic monuments to a lost civilization, likely only one of a great many. Sic transit gloria mundi - alas for the passing of the beautiful things of this world. At our present stage of development, we conjure with muddled concepts of nature, gods and aliens to understand it all. I believe we, like over ripe fruit, are past due for yet another extinction. Not only are we subject to the whims of nature, gods and aliens, but we ourselves have developed a variety of technological, political and economic means to bring ourselves to the graveyard of civilization, or even species. Like Sisyphus, we roll a huge stone to the summit, only to have it crash down upon us over and over again for eternity. More like a treadmill than a race.
I posit the case for a Cosmic Trickster rather than a god, who delights in toying with us like paper dolls.
I posit the case for a Cosmic Trickster rather than a god, who delights in toying with us like paper dolls.
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- 7,689
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It's neither about amusing or satisfying Bob. It's about amusing and satisfying the AUP. Clearly this thread, by its very title, is about discussi god and religion. If your intent for that post wasn't to discuss god or religion, then it very very obviously isn't meant for this thread.
Dotini
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Half our polled members IN THIS THREAD totally deny the existence of God. Occasionally mentioning the developing archeological evidence and discussing the alternatives to God seems entirely a worthwhile thing to do IN THIS THREAD. Just who is it that hasn't got their head in the game?
(Hint: The title of this thread is "Do you believe in God?". It's not "Let's discuss God and religion".
)
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Dotini
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Well, if you feel so strongly about it, I suggest you complain to the management and ask to have the post which you so strenuously think offends the AUP moved elsewhere. By the way, by "off topic to the over discussion of this thread", to mean to say this thread is over discussed? Or do you mean to say that the topic of this thread is over discussed?
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Over was meant to be over all. And I am not an admin. Enough of them visit and participate in this thread, I don't feel the need to pm them. More to the point, I was asserting that posting the link in the appropriate thread isn't about appeasing Bobk, it's about following the AUP.
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Get used to it. Dotini's modus operandi is dropping random posts into places that they shouldn't be and then claiming that he has no opinion or anything to say. It's come up several times in this thread alone, and it's quite antithetical to the idea of "discussion".
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