You can use this same logic to ban ethnic groups and nationalities. We all know it's very dangerous to take extremists and extreme views to judge all members of the group. Not all Muslims are extremists. It's a specific "brand" of Islam that is responsible for virtually all the violence...
Shoe... better start reading your own bible. It DOES in fact command you to stone people to death in several places... for example: "If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, "Let us go and worship other gods" (gods that neither you nor your fathers have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to him or listen to him. Show him no pity. Do not spare him or shield him. You must certainly put him to death. Your hand must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone him to death, because he tried to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again. - Deuteronomy 13:6-11 NOW GET THIS!! My favorite one! You should stone disobedient children!!! If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, "This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard." 21 Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. - Deuteronomy 21:18-21 NOW CHECK ***THIS OUT****!!!!!!!! Christian Mom Stones Sons Deanna LaJune "Dee" Laney, of Tyler, Texas, was charged with capital murder after calling 911 to report she had stoned to death her sons, Luke Allen Laney, 6, and Joshua Laney, 8, and tried to kill Aaron, 14 months. She told police God wanted her to kill her children. She was described as an intensely devout member of First Assembly of God, where the minister had just warned about the imminence of the Antichrist, Armageddon, and the return of Jesus. Source: Dallas Morning News, May 12, 2003 They must have been misbehaving so she FOLLOWED HER BIBLE and stoned them to death Yup.... religion TELLS YOU to stone people to death, and some of these psychopaths actually do it!!! Ok ok... here are a few more: While the Israelites were in the desert, a man was found gathering wood on the Sabbath day. Those who found him gathering wood brought him to Moses and Aaron and the whole assembly, and they kept him in custody, because it was not clear what should be done to him. Then the LORD said to Moses, "The man must die. The whole assembly must stone him outside the camp." So the assembly took him outside the camp and stoned him to death, as the LORD commanded Moses. - Numbers 15:32-36 Well gee....I work on the weekends quite often. Better stone me to death shoe!! You wouldnt want to get in trouble with the man upstairs. For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD . Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. - Exodus 35:2 Yep... its your DUTY to put me to death!! Ok one more: Killer Cites Bible A man in West Valley, Utah, charged with killing his wife and small daughter in February, described the slayings as a test of faith similar to the biblical story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. Brian Christopher Sullivan, 38, stabbed to death LaRae Marara Sullivan, 33, and Kehaulani Marie, 4. "By doing what I was asked by my Heavenly Father, I have now secured me a place with them in heaven. . . . I follow God's laws." He claimed to be the predecessor to the "Second Coming of Christ." Source: Salt Lake Tribune, April 4, 2003 You had to ask me WHERE do I get this stuff? Well the BIBLE of course!!! Amazing how many christians dont even know their own book So now let me ask you SHOE. Would you stone me to death on sight? I work weekends... and I attempt to get you to stray from god. Not only that... I was a very misbehaving hyper-active kid. You have MANY biblical reasons to STONE me to death. Of course... im a non-believer and infidel too. So would ya? Let me guess... you dont follow the bible peace axeman
Let the stonings begin!! Im sure im way up on the "christian hit list". You guys are all a bunch of HYPOCRITES!! You BETTER get to work and start stoning all us non-believers and STOP FRONTING. Your a bunch of PRE-TEND christians Spinesless, pathetic, EXCUSES of a christian. Tell me... how many people have YOU stoned this year? Whats wrong? Dont you know ANYONE who has worked on the weekend? HURRY!! Pick up the nearest large rock and BASH THEM IN THE FRICKEN HEAD with it Your god COMMANDS you to! Dont piss him off... after all... whats a little MURDER when you have all eternity to enjoy with your maker??? LMAOOOOOOOOOOO! What a fricken joke! Religion is such SILLY nonsense. peace axeman
Shoe, my problem is that the inventors of Trinity and the other "paradoxes" had no idea about "multidimensionality". It's their methodology for acquiring knowledge I take issue with as much as the "knowledge" itself. I could "decipher" patterns in the clouds to determine it's going to rain on Monday two weeks from now. If it does happen to rain on Monday two weeks from now, does that lend any sort of credibility to my methodology? I think not. Furthermore, it's not just that the Council of Nicaea used mystical methods for reaching their conclusions, they always had a strong "real world" motivation also. As I said, the early Christians worshipped Jesus much more than they worshipped Yahweh, so it just wouldn't do to have Christianity's main man be a creation of the Jewish god. They had to upgrade him to an equal. And throwing the Holy Ghost into the mix also made it seem less obvious that this is what they were doing. Jem, I'll check out those sources you posted. Even though I usually find Christian apologetic quite weak, I enjoy reading it enough to check it out. I've long given up hope that I'll "deconvert" any theists using pure logic. The issue is essentially an emotional one. Unfortunately getting any theist to admit this -- which is the first step before demonstrating how life can be just as meaningful without God -- proves just as tricky a task. In fact, I'm curious about this, do you (Jem) or Shiner or Doubter or any other theist reading this believe it's possible for life to be just as meaningful (or more!) in a godless universe? If not, why not?
No you can't use the same logic to "ban" ethnic groups and nationalities! One can't help belonging to an ethnic group or a nationality. (Although he could denounce them, and be "just human", I guess.) However, one has a CHOICE to belong to a religion. Breathtakingly stupid logic here Shoe! And those that kill in the name of Allah are practising PURE Islam. And they enjoy the support of HUGE PROPORTIONS of the Muslim world, in many countries the MAJORITY. (Even though they all have made-for-TV "experts" that come out and denounce it.)
Here's my point: Every other religion on the planet anthopomorphizes God. God is "humanized". JudeoChristianity on the other hand shows God to be multidimensional. The 1) Trinity, 2) ability to hear simultaneous prayers, and 3) the ability to have foreknowledge/omnipotence simulataneously with free will are all outgrowths of multidimensionality.
These were part of the law and you and I both know that Christians were released from the law. As I've said a dozen times already, I know of no Christians that believe in violence to achieve anything. Now, let me ask you something: is Singapore wrong for caning and other very strict punishments? I say, "No." You can walk their streets at night. Israel was a small nation with strict Jewish laws. If you wanted prostitution, pagan-worship, drunkenness, you needed to go live somewhere else. What's so complicated or evil about that? Same thing with Singapore. You want to steal? I'd recommend going to another city....
Of course it would. But the debate is about whether or not the scientific and other evidence points to God. Your chief argument from what I can tell for your position is "primitive psychology". What you are doing is speculating why someone needed/needs religion and then come to the conclusion that God does not exist. This is a very weak argument, because it is just as logical to assume that man was created with the desire for fellowship with a Creator. That's what we're trying to argue for here: is the psychology created or fabricated?
Quote from spect8or: In fact, I'm curious about this, do you (Jem) or Shiner or Doubter or any other theist reading this believe it's possible for life to be just as meaningful (or more!) in a godless universe? If not, why not? _________________________________________ Was life more or less meaningful in the USSR prior to the fall of communism? Since that was a very large example of a Godless society.