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Theism, Religion and Lack thereof

Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

"God Himself is essentially the abstract concept of love." (but intelligent)

that's what i said.

and as for the other one, you can't.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

"God Himself is essentially the abstract concept of love." (but intelligent)

That doesn't really work. He's proven himself multiple times to be things other than love, hasn't he? God is jealous and often angry, isn't he? So how is that love? Besides, he did loads of other things, such as create the universe, and whatnot.

(And moreso. Love doesn't kill people, demand to be worshipped, or set things on fire. As smart as it sounds, your definition doesn't really work. I can understand and appreciate that you're trying to empasthise with theists, but really, some things can only be argued by an actual theist.)

and as for the other one, you can't.

The idea was to have a theist answer it. You may have lost all hope of convincing a person of athiesm over an Internet thread, but I'm still young and näive, and I think it can still be done. I don't think Pwnemon is stupid and if he just takes his God-Goggles for a moment he might see our reasoning, and not cause people here to dislike him for debating something almost entirely with strawmen.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

(And moreso. Love doesn't kill people, demand to be worshipped, or set things on fire. As smart as it sounds, your definition doesn't really work. I can understand and appreciate that you're trying to empasthise with theists, but really, some things can only be argued by an actual theist.)

I beg to differ.

On another note, shouldn't this thread be merged with the religion thread by now?
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

That doesn't really work. He's proven himself multiple times to be things other than love, hasn't he? God is jealous and often angry, isn't he? So how is that love? Besides, he did loads of other things, such as create the universe, and whatnot.

(And moreso. Love doesn't kill people, demand to be worshipped, or set things on fire. As smart as it sounds, your definition doesn't really work. I can understand and appreciate that you're trying to empasthise with theists, but really, some things can only be argued by an actual theist.)

you're taking the Bible as literal again and missing the point.

Inept At Normal said:
The idea was to have a theist answer it. You may have lost all hope of convincing a person of athiesm over an Internet thread, but I'm still young and näive, and I think it can still be done. I don't think Pwnemon is stupid and if he just takes his God-Goggles for a moment he might see our reasoning, and not cause people here to dislike him for debating something almost entirely with strawmen.

sorry, i don't really understand what you're talking about. why does it matter? why would you want to deconvert someone? that's exactly what so many people find obnoxious and annoying about zealous atheists. atheism doesn't work for everyone.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

Some things can only be argued by an actual theist.
You're smarter than you may think. :P

Now then, the whole idea of a day to God being a million years is what happens when people are ignorant. God exists outside of time, and in it (thus omnipresent), this means that there isn't a separation of time flow, God can see all points of time at all times. Second of all, the creation story leaves no interpretation for anything besides 7 literal days. There is no night in Heaven or in God's heavenly kingdom. Night time only exists in the physical universe, and in this case specifically on Earth. The creation story says "and it was night and day". With this in mind, can it be anything besides 1 literal Earth day?

The current 7 day calender we use in today's time is adopted from the Jewish calender. It has 7 days to represent the 7 days of creation. The Jewish day went night and day, just as outlined in Genesis. The names of the days are also very much adapted from this as well. Sunday was the first day of creation, when the sun was created. Monday was when the moon was created. If you look at other Latin-based languages, the word for Monday shares roots with moon, so it's literally "Moon day". I can't quite look at the language for Tuesday-Friday. Saturday was the 7th day, it is also the Jewish Sabboth. It is observed according to God's command. In other Latin-based languages, Saturday usually resembles "Sabboth".

Finally, the Bible cannot be seen as an allegory. It's as much an allegory as your History textbooks. It does in fact have real historical events that have been proven by Biblical archeologists. So unless specifically stated to be an allegory - such as the parables of Jesus - then it is to be taken very much literally.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

I beg to differ.
Eh, you have a point. Still, the definition isn't all-inclusive, and while it might work for certain cases of the Bible, it doesn't work for it all, and that's what I was asking.

you're taking the Bible as literal again and missing the point.
Ugh. See, the Bible can be made entirely true if you twist it, cock your head, and squint. That's the logic that has theists believing in evolution even though the Bible obviously meant that God created people and animals and they weren't evolved over time. I'm sure that certain parts of the Bible are meant to be taken metaphoricaly, but if it's suppossed to be intrepted to the point where your definition works, it's surely entirely worthless.

sorry, i don't really understand what you're talking about. why does it matter? why would you want to deconvert someone? that's exactly what so many people find obnoxious and annoying about zealous atheists. atheism doesn't work for everyone.
Sorry. I worded that terribly and kind of got across something completely diffirent then what I meant. I'm asking questions to try to get Pwnemon to view it from our perspective - as you've just so marvelously displayed, we can and most likely have viewed it from their side very well. If he can see it from our perspective, you can't deny that it will make him more understanding of others, which I think is the inevitable purpose of debates such as these. If he decided to become an athiest after seeing it from our perspective, that's fine and dandy, but my real goal is to get him to understand where we're coming from.
 
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Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

Ugh. See, the Bible can be made entirely true if you twist it, cock your head, and squint. That's the logic that has theists believing in evolution even though the Bible obviously meant that God created people and animals and they weren't evolved over time. I'm sure that certain types of he Bible are meant to be taken metaphoricaly, but if it's suppossed to be intrepted to the point where your definition works, it's surely entirely worthless.

well, first i'd like to say: it's literature. of course everyone's interpretation is going to be different.

i can't say for sure how the Bible was meant to be taken, considering (iirc) the Bible was written by multiple authors over a long, long stretch of time, so every author would likely have a different objective in mind. but i'm saying that it's just illogical to take it as literal.

i guess what i'm saying is: i wholeheartedly believe that the Bible, sans Jesus' teachings, should be completely disregarded by contemporary Christians, except for as a piece of literature.

Inept At Normal said:
Sorry. I worded that terribly and kind of got across something completely diffirent then what I meant. I'm asking questions to try to get Pwnemon to view it from our perspective - as you've just so marvelously displayed, we can and most likely have viewed it from their side very well. If he can see it from our perspective, you can't deny that it will make him more understanding of others, which I think is the inevitable purpose of debates such as these. If he decided to become an athiest after seeing it from our perspective, that's fine and dandy, but my real goal is to get him to understand where we're coming from.

okay. that is very acceptable.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

well, first i'd like to say: it's literature. of course everyone's interpretation is going to be different.

i can't say for sure how the Bible was meant to be taken, considering (iirc) the Bible was written by multiple authors over a long, long stretch of time, so every author would likely have a different objective in mind. but i'm saying that it's just illogical to take it as literal.

i guess what i'm saying is: i wholeheartedly believe that the Bible, sans Jesus' teachings, should be completely disregarded by contemporary Christians, except for as a piece of literature.

Read my above post. :|
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

i didn't see that last paragraph; i guess you edited it in in response to me.

i have never heard of these Bible archaeologists, i guess? i have never been convinced by anyone telling me that the Bible is a history book because they generally seem to talk about the Flood and that is just ... yeah.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

Yeah, but I think that's a tiny minority of all atheists. That would be like saying Christianity is represented by the Landover Baptist Church.
think you mean westboro baptist church, bro, landover is a parody website

Yes you can. "Atheism doesn't instill horrendous moral values, thus an all-atheist society would be better than an all-Christian society."
oh sorry, probably should have rephrased that

what I meant to say is that you cannot argue that supporting an all Christian society is somehow intolerant or morally wrong, but supporting an all atheist society isn't. obviously you can argue in favor of an atheist society via what you just said or a christian society via "Christianity provides a solid guideline of good moral values, therefore an all Christian society would be healthy", because these are both simple extrapolations of facts that many atheists and many Christians believe, respectively. but you cannot argue that one argument is somehow immoral.

(thing about George Bush Sr.)
I'm sorry but could you possibly provide one more source? this was the only thing I could think of myself when considering your statement and I'd like to see something else. and yes Bush's statement is outlandish and abhorrent, but it is just one guy twenty years ago.

I also dislike how you said

Republicans are in no way in favour of atheism and don't even consider them American (!). They are seen as second class civilians

This is a gross generalization. It might not seem like a big deal to you, but imagine your reaction if the reverse of that statement was posted on a conservative forum ("Democrats want circumcision to be banned"), and you should also keep in mind that us v them is generally an unhealthy attitude that you should strive to avoid imho

The current 7 day calender we use in today's time is adopted from the Jewish calender. It has 7 days to represent the 7 days of creation. The Jewish day went night and day, just as outlined in Genesis. The names of the days are also very much adapted from this as well. Sunday was the first day of creation, when the sun was created. Monday was when the moon was created. If you look at other Latin-based languages, the word for Monday shares roots with moon, so it's literally "Moon day". I can't quite look at the language for Tuesday-Friday. Saturday was the 7th day, it is also the Jewish Sabboth. It is observed according to God's command. In other Latin-based languages, Saturday usually resembles "Sabboth".
sorry but this is just flat-out wrong. all the days of the week are based off of pagan traditions.

sun day
moon day
tyr's day
woden's day
thor's day
frigg's day
saturn's day

also according to the Bible, the sun + moon were both made on day four.
 
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Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

Even if it might bore you to read, most of the Bible is history. Quite literal history. many other religions also have talk of a big flood. This is to say, the flood story got altered in other cultures and tribes.

Now, here's a fun one. An area of research for Atheist archeologists on early human history is something called the Fertile Crescent. It is considered to be where progress first took place.
Here's an image:
fertile%20crescent.jpg


Interestingly enough, the location of the Garden of Eden is within this crescent. Here's an image showing the approximate location of the Garden of Eden:
gardenofedenonthefertil.png


Coincidence? You tell me.



sun day
moon day
tyr's day
woden's day
thor's day
frigg's day
saturn's day

Hmm, interesting. However the 7 day week is still from the Jewish calender initially. What I was considering sun was the light perhaps. Carry on then.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

"Guns, Germs, and Steel" is where I first saw the fertile crescent thing. The location of the Garden of Eden is marked by the 4 rivers, which is around the area I circled.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

i mean ... like ... i don't know how you think that is supposed to convince me of anything. "the Bible is factual; here's something out of the Bible!" with ... no actual anything to support it. it's not like archaeologists found ruins and were like "yep! this was the Garden of Eden, right where the Bible said it was! look, it's Uriel's sword!"
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

The Garden of Eden was the most fertile of land. What is interesting is that the fertile crescent coincides with that area.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

okay so the people who wrote about the geographical location of the Garden of Eden put it in the same location as where they lived. this isn't surprising, nor is it indicative of any truth.
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

okay so the people who wrote about the geographical location of the Garden of Eden put it in the same location as where they lived. this isn't surprising, nor is it indicative of any truth.
It's not the same location; it's not every very close. Still, it's close enough that one might use this information to support the theory that the Hebrew people were exiled from a "garden of Eden" and forced to find a new land to call home (a recurring theme throughout Biblical history), but whether that theory be proposed or not, the point still stands that Zoltea has not made any points with this map.
I mean really, what are you trying to say?
That the Bible must be right because it contained a seed of truth (that the Israelites lived in the Middle East, where some land was fertile and some was not)?
 
Re: STUPID, BIGOTED EVANGELICAL FATHER!

The Garden of Eden was the most fertile of land. What is interesting is that the fertile crescent coincides with that area.
?_? Of course the most fertile of land is going to be in a very fertile area. Myths don't spring up out of nowhere; somebody sees the land is very fertile and thinks it must be Paradise, and as the story is passed down the generations it gets spice added to it. It would be very surprising if this myth had arisen about a place that very definitively had never been anything other than barren desert.

Meanwhile, what the actual archaeologists have discovered is that oh, um, actually it's this huge area that's fertile and that little garden doesn't appear to have been anything special, and there were blooming civilizations there long before the time Adam and Eve were supposedly still prancing around naked with no knowledge of sin, while humanity seems pretty definitively to have originated from Africa. Oops?
 
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You can dismantle a machine and look at all its components and try to understand the purpose and functioning of each one in turn, but if the machine in its entirety was never based on logic, then you should not expect any from the individual parts.
 
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