Do you believe in god?

Originally posted by Bad wolf
Personally I don't believe in god, I feel that much of science (evolution and such) contradicts the bible too greatly; for example, the bible says the world and everything in it was created in a week, science says the world took millions of years to form and life and life on it took millions upon millions of years to evolve. This science has been backed up ...[text shortened]... uter models and proven theories, but the bible could so easily be written by a few philosophers.

So you will abandon faith in favor of science?

Originally posted by Phledos
You are right that the book has survived thousands of years. The only way we can tell if it is still genuine is if we find the original manuscripts.

These have been found.

Some of them are kept in Ireland in the Chester Beatty Museum. http://www.cbl.ie/perm_exhib/

These have been carbon tested and have been found genuine.

I do belive in the Devil ...[text shortened]... ) but non-the-less God does give the strength to overcome his attacks and tests.

Bye from Tim

I'm sure the original texts have been carbon tested and found to be genuine, genuinely old and genuinely real, but that hardly proves them to be anything other than old and real.

Love your reply and got just the reaction I was hoping for. No really, it was.

I'm glad you beleive in both God and the devil, as so many people I know accept god but not his opponent. Can I ask why you believe - if it isn't personal?

I don't beleive in God or the devil, but I do believe in Good and Evil.

Capital letters used to show no offence to your good self.

Yes, I believe in evolution, yes I believe we all started out as as tiny molecules, and so on and so on to the stage where we became monkeys. But I don't believe in god.

Please see my reply to the first reply.

Originally posted by Phledos
You are right that the book has survived thousands of years. The only way we can tell if it is still genuine is if we find the original manuscripts.

These have been found.

Some of them are kept in Ireland in the Chester Beatty Museum. http://www.cbl.ie/perm_exhib/

These have been carbon tested and have been found genuine.

I do belive in the Devil ...[text shortened]... ) but non-the-less God does give the strength to overcome his attacks and tests.

Bye from Tim

Hiya Tim,

Okay the book has been found. In ten thousand years times will people once believe in Harry Potter?

I have no faith. But as said earlier I believe in good and evil.

Originally posted by TheSphinx
I have no faith. But as said earlier I believe in good and evil.

I don't think you have any basis to say whether something is good or evil.

Originally posted by kingdanwa
I don't think you have any basis to say whether something is good or evil.

Evil: Acting for the benefit of one's self, and possibly those immediately around, without care for anyone else.
Good: Acting selflessly for the benefit of others without regard to self.

Is it any more complicated than that?

Originally posted by echecero
Evil: Acting for the benefit of one's self, and possibly those immediately around, without care for anyone else.
Good: Acting selflessly for the benefit of others without regard to self.

Is it any more complicated than that?

Why not call acting selflessly Evil and its opposite good?

Originally posted by echecero
Evil: Acting for the benefit of one's self, and possibly those immediately around, without care for anyone else.
Good: Acting selflessly for the benefit of others without regard to self.

Is it any more complicated than that?

So eating is bad, and sacrificing one's life to fix another's hair is good. No, I'd say it's a bit more complicated.

Originally posted by echecero
An important note: if you assume that God exists, then it is perfectly acceptable to believe that the Bible is still utterly intact, because the God of the New Testament wouldn't fail true believers by giving them a false book.

What about all the believers for centuries that didn't have a 'complete' Bible? Did God fail them by giving them a book that is not 'utterly intact' and thus, according to your reasoning, 'a false book,'?

Originally posted by kingdanwa
Why not call acting selflessly Evil and its opposite good?

To an atheist, the worst possible thing is a shortened life, because there is nothing before or after this short existence. Therefore, life is good for an atheist. For believers of every faith that I have come into direct contact with, life is a neutral to good thing, and the taking of life is generally an evil thing (there are always qualifiers).
To act selflessly is to support life on the broadest scale, and therefore would do the most positive thing possible for either of the above sets of people. For atheists, this is helping the greatest number of people live the longest amount of time. For theists, it is following the mandates of their faith.
To act selfishly, on the other hand, is generally destructive (or at least irreverent) to life. This is clearly a negative to anyone who values life, which is something even more precious to the atheist than to the theist, for there is no afterlife. Thus, the one time alone counts.
The primary difference is that the atheist believes that any action that causes no harm cannot be negative, while theists hold that their god will punish them even for actions that bring no one harm (lust, for example, if not acted on is often still negative).

Originally posted by echecero
[b]To an atheist, the worst possible thing is a shortened life,

Perhaps not. If this life sucks, and an end of it means no more pain, isn't no pain better than daily hellish pain?

Originally posted by yousers
So eating is bad, and sacrificing one's life to fix another's hair is good. No, I'd say it's a bit more complicated.

eating is bad If the point of the eating is eating, then yes. (self indulgence). If the point of the eating is pleasure, then yes. (self indulgence). If the point of the eating is to be able to continue life in order to help others, then no. (selflessness).
sacrificing one's life to fix another's hair is good As far as morality goes, yes, it would be a Good act. A very stupid one, but good as opposed to evil.