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"God Himself is essentially the abstract concept of love." (but intelligent)
and as for the other one, you can't.
(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.)
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.)
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.
You're smarter than you may think. :PSome things can only be argued by an actual theist.
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.I beg to differ.
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.you're taking the Bible as literal again and missing the point.
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.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.
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.
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.
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.
think you mean westboro baptist church, bro, landover is a parody websiteYeah, but I think that's a tiny minority of all atheists. That would be like saying Christianity is represented by the Landover Baptist Church.
oh sorry, probably should have rephrased thatYes you can. "Atheism doesn't instill horrendous moral values, thus an all-atheist society would be better than an all-Christian society."
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.(thing about George Bush Sr.)
Republicans are in no way in favour of atheism and don't even consider them American (!). They are seen as second class civilians
sorry but this is just flat-out wrong. all the days of the week are based off of pagan traditions.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".
sun day
moon day
tyr's day
woden's day
thor's day
frigg's day
saturn's day
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.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.
?_? 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.The Garden of Eden was the most fertile of land. What is interesting is that the fertile crescent coincides with that area.