Bible Verses I love to hear.

Maybe Jesus has a fish from the river of life with your name on it for not denying his name?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
My first real, memorable exposure to Christianity was when they made me stand and kneel and chant over and over and over and over at some relative's wedding:

"Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, amen."

[/b]

I don't think I would enjoy that experience either. It is not scriptural.

Mat 6:7-9
(7) But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
(8) Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
(9) After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

I was never terribly fond of single scripture lines, of snippets, so I don't really have any favorites. To take but a line it to lose the context that surrounds it. Just as a word needs a sentence to clarify its meaning and a sentence needs the paragraph, so too do these lines of scripture require the lines around them in order to bring into focus whatever meaning might come from them.

Originally posted by Badwater
I was never terribly fond of single scripture lines, of snippets, so I don't really have any favorites. To take but a line it to lose the context that surrounds it. Just as a word needs a sentence to clarify its meaning and a sentence needs the paragraph, so too do these lines of scripture require the lines around them in order to bring into focus whatever meaning might come from them.

Now it makes perfect sense. It isnt a little skid mark on the toilet but a sewerage treatment plant.

Originally posted by WWindmill
Now it makes perfect sense. It isnt a little skid mark on the toilet but a sewerage treatment plant.

Gosh, you have something resembling an opinion! That's so nice.

Originally posted by Badwater
Gosh, you have something resembling an opinion! That's so nice.

Yes.. The Bible is crap filled with things that are no different from a belief in Santa. Why dont you idiots grow up and start to live a real life without your lies and delusions of granduer.

Originally posted by WWindmill
Yes.. The Bible is crap filled with things that are no different from a belief in Santa. Why dont you idiots grow up and start to live a real life without your lies and delusions of granduer.

You've been away for a long time.

Hope you're well.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
You've been away for a long time.

Hope you're well.

Bosse--who IS that guy?

I like Austin 3:16

Originally posted by PureRWandB
...I have been a Christian since I was little one, around 5 or 6 yrs old.

My parents and Sunday school teachers would read me OT stories like Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel,Tower of Babel, Moses and the Ten Commandments, Jonah and the whale, Noah and the Flood, Abraham and Isaac, Daniel in the lion's den, ...

That sound suspiciously like brainwashing to me. Have you ever considered trying to think what the truth is with a critical and independent mind without just believing what you were always told to believe from when you were young?
I have; ever since I was about five years old. I continually questioned and doubted my mother’s religious convictions even then, not because I wanted to rebel (like some children do) but because I had a lot of curiosity and kept wondering what the truth was and with an independent mind -and that was even before I even heard of evolution! Once I heard of evolution (which was when I was about six years old), I immediately fully understood it despite the fact that my mother hadn’t! and, for me, that was pretty much the death blow to the ‘god created us’ idea.

Have you ever even considered the possibility, uncomfortable as it may be, that much of what you were led to believe just may be completely wrong? I have.

Do you think that if you were brought up in, say, a Muslim family, that you would be a devout Muslim right now?

And, if you were brought up in a strongly atheistic family and was taught science and evolution from a young age and in a way that you found as amusing as those Adam and Eve stories at Sunday school, would you be an atheist right now?

The reason why I ask the last two questions is because if the answer to both these questions is yes then consider this important question:

Given that, without critical or independent thinking, you would almost inevitably believe whatever you have been brought up to believe and given the fact that people across the world are brought up to believe a vast variety of different and conflicting beliefs (they cannot all be right!), how do you know that the particular set of beliefs that you were brought up to believe is the ‘correct’ one?

If your answer to this question is “I don’t” then I beg of you to at least, for the first time in your life, give critical and independent thinking a try.
If you think that you already think critically and independently then I would argue to you that you are mistaken else it is just too much of a coincidence that you just happen to independently come to believe the exact set of beliefs that you were told to believe.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
That sound suspiciously like brainwashing to me. Have you ever considered trying to think what the truth is with a critical and independent mind without just believing what you were always told to believe from when you were young?
I have; ever since I was about five years old. I continually questioned and doubted my mother’s religious convictions e ...[text shortened]... happen to independently come to believe the exact set of beliefs that you were told to believe.

I could not possibly agree more. That is the kind of voice crying in the wilderness to which I would listen. If I had a favourite verse it might be the one in which God says "Come let us reason together"
If I was not already a card-carrying atheist of the "Church of Egypt" I would now be feeling the strings of sensibility tugging at my itellect.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
That sound suspiciously like brainwashing to me. Have you ever considered trying to think what the truth is with a critical and independent mind without just believing what you were always told to believe from when you were young?
I have; ever since I was about five years old. I continually questioned and doubted my mother’s religious convictions e ...[text shortened]... happen to independently come to believe the exact set of beliefs that you were told to believe.

Similar like you I grew up in a home with christian influence. Only I used my independent thinking to go the other way. For a couple years of my life I thought I was doing exactly what they said to do. I was all alone when I figured out the truth about my life. I and I alone am responsible for what I choose to believe. I find this to be crucial in a world where they is a origin or philosophy on every street corner. I am not going to lock step with anyone just because they say it.

"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."

Originally posted by SmoothCowboy
Similar like you I grew up in a home with christian influence. Only I used my independent thinking to go the other way. For a couple years of my life I thought I was doing exactly what they said to do. I was all alone when I figured out the truth about my life. I and I alone am responsible for what I choose to believe...."

“…Similar like you I grew up in a home with Christian influence. Only I used my independent thinking to go the other way. …”

I totally believe you when you say you were thinking ‘independently’; you give me no reason to doubt this. But, as I had implied, it is no good just thinking independently if you don’t simultaneously think critically else there is no way you could know that you won’t convinced yourself of a falsehood -but lets continue:

“…I and I alone am responsible for what I choose to believe. …”

Again, I totally believe what you say. I believe you when you say you independently ‘chose’ what to believe. But, when you say you “choose” to believe -whatever, that demonstrates that you are not thinking critically because one thing thinking critically means is that you don’t “choose” your beliefs.
I did not “choose” to be an atheist for the same reason I did not “choose” to believe that two plus two equals four: I do not let my desires of what I would like to be true determine what I come to believe is true because that wouldn’t be thinking critically -that would just be trying to make myself believe whatever I LIKE to be true as opposed to what IS true.

I see “choosing” to believe that god exists because you WANT god to exist is just as irrational as “choosing” to believe that there is no god because you WANT there to be no god (for what reason is totally irrelevant to the argument here) which, in turn, is just as irrational as “choosing” to believe that people who have lost their legs sprout and grow new ones back because you don’t WANT them to stay without legs.

Thinking critically means trying to use logic and evidence to work out what is probably true and with absolute minimum preconceptions and, as far as possible, to the exclusion of influence from any wants, desires, emotions and prejudices you may have.

For this reason, I do not think you understood the message I was and still am desperately trying to convey.

Originally posted by Andrew Hamilton
[b]“…Similar like you I grew up in a home with Christian influence. Only I used my independent thinking to go the other way. …”

I totally believe you when you say you were thinking ‘independently’; you give me no reason to doubt this. But, as I had implied, it is no good just thinking independently if you don’t simultaneously think critically ...[text shortened]... ason, I do not think you understood the message I was and still am desperately trying to convey.[/b]

What is your strongest reason for being an atheist?

Don't give us your secondary reasons and save your strongest for latter. I'd like to know your stongest reason that is the most important rational you have for atheism.

Originally posted by jaywill
What is your strongest reason for being an atheist?

Don't give us your secondary reasons and save your strongest for latter. I'd like to know your stongest reason that is the most important rational you have for atheism.

Here you go again; using the same flawed reasoning over and over again despite the fact I had laboriously exposed those flaws in other postings.

Firstly, my strongest reason for being an atheist is because the belief that there is a ‘god’ has no reasoning nor evidence nor any other type of premise to support it.

Secondly, you still think that the burden of proof or giving strong reason for belief rests on the atheist equally as it does on the theist -it doesn’t because it is the theist that claims that god exist and therefore it is the theist that has the burden of proof. And, before you ask what criterion am I using to justify my claim that it is the theist that has the burden of proof for claiming that god exists rather than the atheist has the burden of proof for claiming that god does not exists (we have been there before); I will just repeat my answer to this question that I gave in a different posting in another thread:

In this context, the relevant criterion is that the burden of proof must rest on the person that claims something does exist as opposed to the person that claims that same something does not exist.

Let me give justification for that criterion:

Lets assume that that criterion is wrong and should never be applied and then see if we can then make ourselves reach an absurd conclusion as a result of rejecting that criterion:

Lets suppose that I claim that there is an invisible elephant in the sky right now but it is impossible to either prove or disprove that it is there is. Now if you where to claim that there is no invisible elephant in the sky right now, I would just counter this by saying you cannot prove that there isn’t an invisible elephant in the sky right now so there is no more reason to believe there is a that there is an invisible elephant in the sky right now than there isn’t. So, given this limited information, we should assume that there is about equal probability (I.e. ~50% ) that there is an invisible elephant in the sky right now as there is no such elephant (although, of course, it ultimately must either exist or not and not both so, in that sense, there is no probability some where between 0% and 100% that it exists -but that is why I said here “…so, given this limited information,…” for we just have no alternative but to judge by the limited information we have got).

We can use the same reasoning to justify claims that there is about 50% probability of each of the following exists in the sky right now and that each of the following is invisible: a man: a tree, a house, a car, a billion-trillion rampaging nuns, ….the list is endless. Given that there is ~50% probability of each item on this list and given that this list of items is infinitely long, we must conclude that there is 100% probability that the sky is full of a bizarre mix of an infinite number of invisible things existing up there in total perpetual mayhem and all overlapping in space because else there wouldn’t be enough room in the three-dimensional space for all of them up there.

OK. So maybe you would agree with this conclusion? (I don’t honestly know if you would).:

Lets suppose there is an incredibly strong but tiny safe with a faulty lock that means it cannot unlock and there is absolutely no practical or credible way we can open this safe to see what is inside.
Lets further suppose we have absolutely no clues to what has been put in the safe and we cannot ask the owners of the safe because they died a long time ago and they never kept records.

Now, if I claim that there exists a tiny skeleton in the safe but I cannot prove it and we all reject the criterion that the burden of proof must rest on the person that claims something does exist as opposed to the person that claims that same something does not exist, then if you where to now argue that there is no skeleton in the safe, I would just counter this by saying you cannot prove that either so there is no more reason to believe there is a skeleton in the safe than there isn’t. so, given this limited information, we must assume that there is ~50% probability that there is a skeleton in the safe. I can repeat this argument to justify the claim that there is a ~50% probability of each of the following in that safe:
a marble, a brick…the list is endless. Given that there is ~50% probability of each item on this long list and given that this list of items is infinitely long, we must conclude that there is 100% probability that the safe is full of an infinite number of solid items. But, this is an absurd conclusion because there isn’t enough room in a tiny safe for an infinite number of items!

I could also argue using the same flawed logic that there is ~50% probability that there is exactly 3 (I.e. 3 and only 3) marbles in the safe
and that there is ~50% probability that there is exactly 4 marbles in the safe,
and that there is ~50% probability that there is exactly 5 marbles in the safe,
and…so on forever. This would be a mathematical absurdity because the probabilities sum up to more than 100%!

All this absurdity can be simply avoided using the criterion that the burden of proof must rest on the person that claims something does exist as opposed to the person that claims that same something does not exist. Therefore, the burden of proof should rest on the theists that claim that god exists and not on the atheists that claim that god does not exist.