monkeyseemonkeydo

Yeah, I was thinking he's a bit pants too. And him regularly finishing in the top 3 in the American rally series just supports that idea too. He's crap.

Only if a certain family of Giraffes were subjected to (and survived) very regular tsunamis and so were able to reproduce and pass on the genetic knowledge required to evolve such things. I can't put my finger on it but it seems like this thread is going very slightly off course... not necessarily a bad thing of course, particularly if you're a rather forward looking philosophical Giraffe...

And because no genes can subsequently be passed on for the genetic modification required for the said obliterated giraffes to grow gills or meteor proof exoskeletons!

Technically speaking we can make water by combining hydrogen and oxygen and we also have UV lamps and the ability to recreate the temperatures on the surface of the sun so I guess that makes us all powerful, nae gods. Must. Not. Post. Facepalm.

I pooped a cornish gay man.

Not sure about the bringing life to millions... are we talking ? Would you like to tell that to the 300,000 people who lost their lives in the 2004 Tsunami or shall I? Oh, wait...

Why not? To go off topic, on the reincarnation front I've never quite got the route back up... If you're bad you come back as a newt or a dung beatle or whatever. How, precisely do you lead a prosperous and positive life as a dung beatle in order to work your way up to being a dog and eventually back to a human again? Am I missing something?!

Ah, fair enough. It was inevitable really that that would be the case. Sarcasm/Irony noted. It's not as simple as that though, as has been shown in this thread. For some people, faith is the be all and end all of everything and no amount of facts, evidence, proof or sense will make them question that faith. It's kind of the ultimate trump card, which in their minds is the only answer needed for any non believers. To the logical fact>faith but to someone with faith, faith=faith.

Exactly, what if the heretics had never had the chance to investigate the world in which we live in? If the church (sorry to go back there) had its way we'd still believe the Earth was the centre of the solar system, was flat and who knows what else? Thankfully we haven't burried our heads in the sand of an ancient text and never updated our beliefs and instead have made it our goal to further our own understanding independent of any kind of superior being. No comment. But do you contest that 'the church' of medieval times was Christianity in an organisational sense? Or do you think that 'the church' of old was a corrupt organisation (almost mafia like in its structure) who simply saw the weakness in those who followed the Christian belief system and used that to impart power over the masses and 'work them over' for massive personal gain? Also, respect for the last section of your post which although I don't know the ins and outs of your beliefs I can see that it must be kind of difficult to find acceptance in any of the 'camps'.

All points taken on board . Absolutely. I can't think of a single war started in the name of Buddhism, any extremist terrorist groups using Buddhism as an excuse to murder innocent people or any Buddhists claiming that 9/11 was the work of any kind of god. In fact the only slightly questionable side to Buddhism is the reincarnation thing which, although the cause of quite a lot of road deaths if I understand correctly, is a fairly nice way of thinking about things which doesn't use any threats of violence or pain to try and point followers to do good acts and lead a worthwhile life. Christianity on the other hand... Edit: No animosity intended at all Ben. Your posts often go over my head but it's very refreshing to hear from someone like yourself who can question both sides from most angles, rather than the blind faith shown by Christians and blind trust in proof, understanding and science which I'm afflicted by.

Please don't bother on my account, I'll just ignore it completely and continue to blindly follow my new god, FeS. Ignoring the Crusades, for a very obvious example if you look at medieval england: "In Medieval England, the Church dominated everybody's life. All Medieval people - be they village peasants or towns people - believed that God, Heaven and Hell all existed. From the very earliest of ages, the people were taught that the only way they could get to Heaven was if the Roman Catholic Church let them. Everybody would have been terrified of Hell and the people would have been told of the sheer horrors awaiting for them in Hell in the weekly services they attended. The control the Church had over the people was total. Peasants worked for free on Church land. This proved difficult for peasants as the time they spent working on Church land, could have been better spent working on their own plots of land producing food for their families. They paid 10% of what they earned in a year to the Church (this tax was called tithes). Tithes could be paid in either money or in goods produced by the peasant farmers. As peasants had little money, they almost always had to pay in seeds, harvested grain, animals etc. This usually caused a peasant a lot of hardship as seeds, for example, would be needed to feed a family the following year. What the Church got in tithes was kept in huge tithe barns; a lot of the stored grain would have been eaten by rats or poisoned by their urine. A failure to pay tithes, so the peasants were told by the Church, would lead to their souls going to Hell after they had died." Stuff like that. The Church itself required control over the masses and got it through instilling fear into them of eternal damnation etc. For the people back then, in their uneducated status struggling to just survive, their belief in what they were told was complete and the lived in true fear of the consequences of not obeying the church and its teachings. That's just bullying on a massive scale to gain control and ensure some form of stability. But if I'm reading your points correctly, the aspects which you accept are still acceptable today are things which are simply down to common sense and morals, which are basically part of our genetic makeup. Don't kill people or be nasty for no reason? Don't rape? Don't steal? Don't get jiggy with your mates missus? I'd like to think that in the absence of religion the human race would still realise that those things aren't really acceptable and we know and are taught from an early age (with no link to god, religion or whatever) that these things are wrong and to be nice to each other.

Sorry, that wasn't meant as a serious comment about your (or anyones) beliefs, just a sarcastic comment that popped into my head when I read your post . † Praise FeS †

Don't forget that the book and it's teachings were created in a time when only a very tiny proportion of people (particularly the masses whom I imagine the book was aimed at preaching towards) could actually read or write and so I very much doubt it was intended as a deep philosophical journey to enable them to understand. It would've been written to instil fear in the people and ensure a placid and controlable society while giving them something good to look forward to if they behave themselves in life. Looking back on it with our knowledge today and looking for the 'hidden meaning' of the stories seems pointless as that would never have been the intention.

Give it time. Maybe in 1000 years someone will write a book about how he healed everyone he touched and turned seawater into Gin and Tonics before sacrificing his life for the salvation of us all. Unfortunately the book will mistake his father for Spot the Dog, resulting in two thousand years of people reciting the teachings of Spot and how he got lost and Sally had to find him, before he went to school and eventually visited Sally's grandparents. Many wars will be faught and lives lost over those who believed that Spot was chasing the butterfly in the Gospel 'Spot Goes for a Walk' or whether he was attempting to eat it, thus indicating that the butterfly is in fact the embodiment of pure evil.

And I say

I understand where you're coming from and I apologise for not being nearly as good as you at expressing myself, Ben- you're the master! However, let me just say that I cannot say if there is or is not a god; the 'first cause' or whatever you want to call it. There really is no way of knowing (at the moment at least) just what caused the Big Bang and there will always be unanswered questions. However what I do know, in effectively certain terms in my own mind, is that the Christian beliefs in God, Jesus and the bible are a human created attempt at answering some of the questions which were unanswered at the time. To actually believe what is said in the book today is unbearable to me- they do not consider the existence of god as the 'first cause' but that he made the earth (in 6 days or so), made man, threw in a talking snake, we all sinned, he murdered the world (at least once), murdered children, men and women, sent his son to earth, had him killed (for our sins no less) aaaanddd... hasn't been heard of since. Those are the main points from what I've gathered but even that's enough for me to realise that Christianity, in the form of the bible, is nothing but a 1500 year old kids story to scare them into behaving themselves lest they feel the wrath of god. Soooo, God is an iron sulphide cell? All hail the lord, and he shall henceforth be known as the almighty FeS.

Massive thanks to Sue, Charlie, Sam and everyone who helped set up the course and make the day possible. Regardless of the weather I had a really good day and it was great to catch up with some old faces and see some new ones ripping it up too.

Who said that was the assumption? Humans will always find a reason to fight each other for one reason or another, however religion together with it's ethnic cleansing policies of old and aggressive conversion policy of days gone by has a lot to answer for. Religion is used as an excuse for violence and war in so many circumstances, if only 1% of those were removed by removing the religion excuse, surely that would be a good thing? I'm with Rowan- it's not that you believe I have a problem with, it's the total ignorance and blind stupidity faith which you show that just frustrates me. The difficulty comes in that you have a love towards an imaginary make believe being. It's kind of like having an imaginary friend when you're young, but a whole lot more worrying because, in theory at least, you are an intelligent decision making person who maybe should've grown out of such things. Going back to the Santa analogy, if you were 21 and still 100% believed in the existence of him and were quite open to discuss your beliefs with everyone, you'd get some funny looks for one but also possibly get carted off to a secure psychiatric unit for tests on your sanity. What's different with your blindly believing unquestioningly some just as unbelievable and unlikely story written in the bible?

You wouldn't have to refer to it because people wouldn't be able to call you out on many points because it would actually be based on fact, reality and sense rather than a load of bollocks!! I guess that leads to one of the many things that actually makes me angry about Christianity- their total ignorance in the face of fact and evidence. To me it is a sign of a form of stupidity and complete lack of reasoning. There, I've said it .

There's simply nothing else for it but: All of your examples simply come from the various parts of the bible. You're not grasping the point that the rest of us are failing to see any possible relevance of the good book to any kind of reasonable argument or case. As said before, I may as well start quoting passages of the Lord of the Rings to you about how friendship can prosper through all, how good will always conquer evil, how temptation brings out the worst in people and how to kill a giant spider. However, I kind of doubt that anyone might start to worship Frodo or believe me if I told them that it was all based on real events that happened 2000 years ago. Your god and your Jesus are nothing more than fictional characters in a book which for some reason has been given far far far too much backing over the years and without a single piece of evidence to the contrary. I always thought Americans were the worst for blindly following Christianity, mainly because they tend to be a little on the worldly unwise and dim side (sorry JT) but seeing as the two main hardcore christian's have been from New Zealand and Western Australia I may have to reconsider where in the world the strange people live...

But you have to understand that your opinion is wrong .

I think you'll find that that has zero to do with it. I bet most of the (young) people you'll find who don't believe in God/the bible do so because they have a thought process outside of some fairy story people have been spouting for thousands of years about your god. They realised that it's pretty certainly a complete load of tosh and not worth even considering as being true or worth following. I promise you there are very few, if any who think 'man, all that god stuff sounds like it's for me, but, you know, the no sex thing? Nah, think I'll not bother'. Thankfully that's not going to happen but y' know, at least you won't be disappointed. In all your posts I simply see you quoting bits of what may as well be the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter because that's precisely what your beloved book is like, only not as readable as HP of course. I honestly feel sorry for you, regardless how happy the lies you believe make you, being so closed minded and ignorant, from my point of view, just seems to show a huge weakness and insecurity on your part. Meh.

OOOORRRR maybe God's a made up human creation which has no place in todays society. You can feel free to put God first in your life. We, however, are all going to hell.