"Christianity says that the world is about 6000 years old"

No it doesn't say that at all.  A small percentage of protestant fundies say that.  They are the ones that this post should be directed against, not the straw man that you have made Christianity out to be.

Indeed.  One large straw man post cum red herring fallacies to be sure.  His next move will be to ask us to pick apart his diatribe, but all I have to say is, quod gratis asseritur gratis negatur.

What the heck, I am bored.

The "Bible" is a Catholic/Orthodox collection of Liturgical documents.  Why would it have been intended for primary religious and moral instruction if 90% of the population could not read until the 19th and 20th centuries? 

The ditty about Catholic clergy "sexual abuse" is so old and over used that I laugh every time it is used in a polemical fashion.  Protestant "ministers" account for way more sexual abuses than Catholics, this is well documented by 3 of the largest religious insurance companies around the world.  Let us next ignore religious groups and talk about secular school, hospital and government position sexual abuse.  This totals in such numbers that the Catholic clergy "scandal" is dwarfed by its oh so evident evil.

Dolphin intercourse for pleasure?  We must take our morality from animals?  Let us inbreed!  Let us eat our young like the primates!  A fallacy to be sure.  To return to your Catholic swipe about young boys:  There are many secular groups that advocate sexuality among our young, and by young I mean as little as 8-10 years old. 

"If it is natural, it must be right"

How far do we take this?

Well, I am in favor of having sex for pleasure, without a marriage too.

> Chris_Balsz wrote:

> The only thing more gay than using real life as an excuse for ditching online debate is attacking the sexual orientation of an opponent.

haha.... I hope that's a joke and that I'm correct in giggling at that one.

Thanks for the other contributions. As you can imagine it will take a while to reply to everyone. I'll do my best tomorrow.

> Justinian I wrote:

> Lol Econ, you need to learn how to argue selectively. You get yourself overwhelmed with pointless crap that only expands the domain of the argument rather than narrow it.

thx for the advice.  I'll be attempting to do that tomorrow. Well not narrow it as such, but keeping my replies to the point.

If a random person walked up to you and says "I just saw god", the first thing that goes through your mind is, "just how crazy is this guy?"

Thats because deep down you all know god doesnt exist.

Han, I'm an American. only crazies and crooks and salesman talk to strangers.  And you can shoot all three in 32 states.

So here is my reply. I want to edit the original post as well to include some thoughts I didn't post the first time, but not sure if I'll be able to right now.

Notice that I'm not attacking anyone as a person - I'm attacking a belief. Instead of posting why my views are incorrect, some choose to get personal. I've experienced this quite a lot. If someone I'm hanging around with starts a conversation about religion then it's often the 'believer' that gets angry and agressive when their views are bought into question, before the 'non-believer', when the same thing happens to them.

This is not a bashing-america thread, it is unforutnate it's looking that way; I have mentioned america because of the high proportion of people that believe in mythical beings and the high number of people from these forums that are from there. Appologies for making the thread look anti-US.

It's definately tricky for me to reply to everyone. You can pick-and-choose the parts of my original post that you think are easiest to discredit, and there are a lot of you, but I'll do my best.

> Chris_Balsz wrote:

> The Pope is quite right that condoms are not the answer to AIDS in Africa.  Condoms or not, there's no safe way to get it on with 12 different partners a month.  You gotta address the problem of people having a dozen different sexual partners a month.

So why spread myths that condoms don't work and abstience is the only way? Kinda makes sence to try both. Sending out inaccurate messages while including gospel is not trying to aid others because it's 'right' and 'moral'. If you truely wanted to help, then give out accurate information about all ways to prevent the spread of disease, and don't include any gospel.

> Yes we will be better treated for serving Christ than in ignoring Christ.  Guess what fella-- mankind has a 100% mortality rate.

Yup and a big fat zero percent go to an imaginary kingdom in the sky. What makes God and heaven real and Athena a pile of belony?

> heck why bother with her, go for the gold
"My God My God, why have you forsaken Me?"  Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Sure why not. Seems the writers of the Bible were quite clever and thought "how can we make it ok to doubt God as long as you come back to him? I know lets have Jesus doubt him for a few min!". Does this make it ok for me to to say that God is a mythological being for my whole life and then change my mind 5min before I die? If so, then I'm in luck!

> guess it escaped your attention that she still got up in the morning and bathed people's pusridden wounds in the name of Jesus. That is the fruit of Faith.  Not jumping around feeling all faithy.

This is one of the things that I really dislike about religion. She wasn't doing that kind of work because God made her. She was doing it because she chose to. It takes the credit away from her as a woman. If God made her do these things, and many of you on the IC forums are very pious; why is it not you out there doing this work? Presumably you follow the same God who would value your work as much as hers.

It's like someone in the news who said "we were praying" "thank God" etc about that US Captain that was rescued by the Navy and Seals. BS. It was the skill of the sailors and other personnel. God did not tell them to shoot. God did not control the path of the bullets. How about the God that the Somalian's believe in. Did he abandon them for the day? Or do they follow a false God and those from the US follow the only one real God? Perhaps he smoothed out the water for them? Go on, please someone debate this paragraph.

>>While political party affliation in the US is not a perfect indicator of religiosity, it is no secret that the "red states" are primarily red because of the overwhelming political influence of conservative Christians. If there were a strong correlation between Christian conservatism and social health, we might expect to see some sign of it in the red-state America. We don't. Of the 25 cities with the lowest rates of violent crime, 62% are in "blue" states and 38% are in "red" states. Of the 25 most dangerous cities, 76% are in red states, 24% in blue states. .. The 12 states with the highest rates of burhlary are red. 24 of the 29 states with the highest rates of theft are red. Of the 22 states with the highest rates of murder, 17 are red.... <<

> They have names.  Name them.  Name these godly states with their major metroplises. I say its a crock.

I'm sure you do say that.  I'm not going to go through and name them all, I'm sure you can do some googling if the following two lists are not enough for you. Of the top 25 states, I count ~15 God'n'Guns republican, 5 swing and 5 liberal. Of the bottom 20 I count about 7 states that love their God. The entire bottom 8 are in the we-don't-quite-love-God-as-much-as-the-other-guys group.

1. District of Columbia 30.8
2. Louisiana 14.2
3. Maryland 9.8
4. Alabama 8.9
5. New Mexico 8.2
6. South Carolina 8.0
7. Georgia 7.5
7. Nevada 7.5
9. Arizona 7.4
10. Mississippi 7.1
11. Michigan 6.7
11. Arkansas 6.7
13. Florida 6.6
14. North Carolina 6.5
14. Missouri 6.5
16. Tennessee 6.4
16. Alaska 6.4
18. California 6.2
19. Oklahoma 6.1
20. Texas 5.9
20. Illinois 5.9
22. Pennsylvania 5.8
23. Indiana 5.6 **US National Rate**
24. Virginia 5.3
25. Kentucky 4.8
26. Ohio 4.5
27. New Jersey 4.4
28. New York 4.2
29. Delaware 4.3
30. Kansas 3.9
31. Nebraska 3.8
32. West Virginia 3.5
33. Idaho 3.3
33. Wisconsin 3.3
35. Colorado 3.1
35. Wyoming 3.1
37. Connecticut 3.0
38. Massachusetts 2.9
39. Washington 2.7
40. Minnesota 2.2
40. Utah 2.2
42. South Dakota 2.1
43. North Dakota 1.9
44. Vermont 1.9
44. Oregon 1.9
46. Rhode Island 1.8
47. Hawaii 1.7
48. Maine 1.6
49. Montana 1.5
50. Iowa 1.2
51. New Hampshire 1.1

I'm not even going to count these, it's so 1-sided that it would be mean to point out the %-ages.
St. Louis     Missouri
Corpus Christi     Texas    
Memphis     Tennessee    
Austin     Texas    
San Antonio     Texas    
Charlotte-Mecklenburg     North Carolina
Milwaukee     Wisconsin
Columbus     Ohio
Atlanta     Georgia    
Portland     Oregon
Toledo     Ohio    
Arlington     Texas    
Nashville     Tennessee
Wichita     Kansas    
Stockton     California    
Dallas     Texas    
Seattle     Washington
Fort Worth     Texas
Cincinnati     Ohio    
Jacksonville     Florida    
Mobile     Alabama    
Indianapolis     Indiana    
Albuquerque     New Mexico
Minneapolis     Minnesota
Oklahoma City     Oklahoma

As for the ultra-religious (I say that because over 80% of the population believing in God seems rather high to me) United States; I would have thought that you loved and cared for your fellow-country men more than most. But it seems not. Your murder rate is rather high [should post this in a "gun control vs no gun control thread"]

# 21        Georgia:      0.0511011 per 1,000 people      
# 22       Uruguay:     0.045082 per 1,000 people     
# 23       Bulgaria:     0.0445638 per 1,000 people     
# 24       United States:     0.042802 per 1,000 people     
# 25       Armenia:     0.0425746 per 1,000 people     
# 26       India:     0.0344083 per 1,000 people     
# 27       Yemen:     0.0336276 per 1,000 people     
# 28       Dominica:     0.0289733 per 1,000 people     
# 29       Azerbaijan:     0.0285642 per 1,000 people     

How did those sneaky Armenian's, Yemenians and Azerbaijanian's get in lower?

>>The dubious link between Christian literalism and Christain values [one would assume that they would display them more frequently than non-christains] is belied by other indicies of social equality.  Consider the ratio of salaries paid to top-teir CEOs and those paid to the same firm' average employees: in Britain it is 24:1; in France 15:1; in Sweden, 13:1; in the US, where 80% of the population expects to be called before God on Judgement Day, it is 475:1. Many a camel, it would seem, expects to pass easily through the eye of a needle.<<

> So what? Concern for the poor is clearly a religious superstition.

Ha! apparently it is a superstition! Thanks for backing me up on that one. So much for high-morals and the rest of it.

>>"While you believe that bringing an end to religion is an impossible goal, it is important to realise that much of the developed world has nearly accomplished it. Norway, Iceland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Japan, the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom are among the least religious societies on earth.<<

> Japan had it bombed out of them...

? The believed in God, then the God-loving USA dropped an atom bomb and now they don't love God? Is this what you are trying to say? If so this is really confusing. Did God instruct the USA that he didn't want the Japanese believing in them anymore?! This is a strange comment.

>>According to the United Nations Human Development Report (2005) they are also the healthiest, as indicated by life expectancy,<<

> Poor Americans can afford meat.

? So can the other countries listed.

>> adult literacy,<<

This started to dip when the US renounced Christian superstititions like individual duty.

I dont know anything about this so can't comment.

>> per capita income,<<

> You know who's got the best per capita income? Dubai.  You get 999 goatherds and 1 billionaire, they got a per capita income of $1,000,004 if goats are $1 each.

Great way to pick out an extreme-example.

>>education attainment,<<

Again this fell off when we felt free to fk up.

>> gender equality,<<

> Yeah, Japan is the land of gender equality!!! BWAHAHAHAHAAAAA

Good one, pick one of the 'measures' out of a list of countries and say "oh look these conclusions are wrong because this one country isn't as good on this one thing!"

>>homicide rate,<<

Again look at America before the 1960s and today...

? 80% of the population still believes in God.

>> and infant mortality....<<

> Baby is born with a 90% chance of dying in two weeks.  In "civilized" societies this is a dead birth.  In America it's a live birth and we could the kid's death against our infant mortality.

I don't know if this is true or not.  As I mentioned at the start, this is not a bashing-america thread, it is unforutnate it's turning out that way. You mention American cause that's where you are from, I have mentioned america because of the high proportion of people that believe in mythical beings.

> Atheism/humanism is a parasitical system

No, it's not. "Atheisim" say's simply that you don't believe in God / heaven etc. It's not a system where it says "since you don't believe in God, you must instead think xyz". That sounds more like the church to me.

>You can't claim any "rights" because your existence isn't the gift of some mythical being, you're an accident of sex and a woman's choice, and a cog in a network--and imagining differently is antisocial and to the degree you refuse integration with society, you are demonstrably insane.

This is another real problem I have with religion. It is ignorance against accepting that we as humans have developed an advanced thought process, can interpret the world and it's goings-on, and can therefore figure out a good way to live together. It's quite simple to follow the thought process of any society, atheist or religious: "I want to be treated like xyz, therefore I should treat others like this, and therefore as a group we should organise ourselves to make sure this happens and the few that do not co-operate will be locked up". You don't need God or Jesus or a Bible to tell you this - you are just discrediting yourself and others.  You are probably discrediting the American fore-fathers, whom I believe were relgious, but when they went about setting up the US they did not want relgion to be part of government.

Guess I'll reply to Avo next.

> avogadro wrote:

> "Where am I generalising? Please be specific."

> "religion is based upon delusion"
"it has caused far more destruction than good"
"Everything about religion appears to be both hyprocritical and inconsistent, well at least Christianity is"
"I have known too many people that have picked and choosed what they have believed in; this only reinforces the idea that any religion is BS."
"It's a cop out. When you profess that the Bible tells you everything how to live a good life"

These are conclusions based upon my discussion. If I had just written these comments with no discussion as to why these are my opinions, then your complain about generalisations would be valid. Since they are conclusions based upon what I have seen/read/experienced etc then you should probably address some of the specific things I have said about how religious beliefs. "I have known too many people that have picked and choosed what they have believed in; this only reinforces the idea that any religion is BS." This one is particularly true; if you believe in a religion - shouldn't you believe in EVERYTHING that the Bible and God has purportedly said, otherwise you are just inventing a new relgion. Yup go-a-stoning your best friend if they don't believe in God.

"If God had a hand in helping that flight land in the Hudson"
"If God saved people that didn't turn up to work on 9/11 "
These are not generalisations - these are what people have said. Those people have not been able to explain why God would send up those birds to crap-out the engines on that plane just to make it land safely. Why did he not magically make the fires in the Towers go out quickly, since there were lots of God-lovers in those buildings. Presumably if he wanted them in heaven with him, he would think of a less-horrifying way to get them there.

> these beliefs that you claim christians or religions in general have are no more christian or religious then they are New Zealender. i got sick finding examples, those will have to do for now.

??? I dont know anyone except a relgious person who would say that God helped land the plane on the Hudson, for example.

> greatest in what way? what point are you trying to make with the last paragraph? no christian that i know of believes "saints" to be super human, or for christian life to be free of struggles.

You doubt that Mother Theresea was one of the greatest Christians? I would say that she would be one of the greatest-ever people full-stop to have lived. Otherwise I have replied to this in my previous post.

> you are making all these generalizations about christians, when you dont know anything about them, you're jsut spouting anti-christian propoganda and are no better then Zidi spouting McCain wouldnt of even tried to improve the US if he was elected. you're a confused kid that is criticizing points of view he doesnt understand.

Again, conclusions, not generalizations. Yet perhaps when anyone makes any conclusions about anything, we could say that unless the test results 100% fit the conlusions, that we are generalizing. And no, Zidi claiming that a president wouldn't try is just stupid.

> No it doesn't say that at all.  A small percentage of protestant fundies say that.  They are the ones that this post should be directed against, not the straw man that you have made Christianity out to be.

You are seperating out different types of religion, I'm not. If you follow the Bible/scripture/Koran of your particular religion then shouldn't you all believe the same thing?

Something I haven't had the chance to get onto yet is moderates vs extremeists. Moderates validate exteremists. Without moderates saying "oh well I believe in God/Allah but that stuff he says about keeping slaves or killing others, he doesn't really mean that" ... then extremeists would have a much more difficult time saying "I'm the same as that guy, but I actually follow everything that has been written". This is an important point.

> it was infact the Catholic Church (the largest sect of christianity in the world) that invented the Big Bang theory

HAHAHA. You never heard of Steven Hawking? I'll give you 1 ounce of credit and say that perhaps they thought this sounded cool, but perhaps you should look up Steven Hawking's Masters/PhD thesis before you say that in public.

ok and Red Phoenix....

> sKoE )= wrote:

> Interesting post.

> We need to lobby Stefan to fix the quote system...

That would be good. I tried to do a few edits to make it easier to follow. Well done if it made any sense to you

"These are conclusions based upon my discussion. If I had just written these comments with no discussion as to why these are my opinions, then your complain about generalisations would be valid. Since they are conclusions based upon what I have seen/read/experienced etc then you should probably address some of the specific things I have said about how religious beliefs."

generalizations based on what you have seen/read/experienced are still generalizations.

"These are not generalisations - these are what people have said. "

they are generalizations because you're not discussing specific people, you're discussing religion, and are inferrring this is what religious people think.

"HAHAHA. You never heard of Steven Hawking? I'll give you 1 ounce of credit and say that perhaps they thought this sounded cool, but perhaps you should look up Steven Hawking's Masters/PhD thesis before you say that in public."

look up Georges Georges Lema