How the hell would I know? [;)] Yes that was a pun.
Unfortunately, I only know what I can rule out. I can only rule out what I can see for myself.
If god is omnipotent, and injustice is rampant, etc… than I can only assume it’s not god’s job to deal with it, OR that there is reason god does not deal with it. Either way, I don’t see it as validation for the “there is no god” argument.
Using that logic alone, you could go into southeast DC here, and say “there is no President/government” as well.
Read the verses for yourself in their context then - it really isn’t a sequential list of instructions “1) do answer a fool… 2) don’t answer a fool… 3) now touch your toes” - it is a sermon about fools and folly; you can’t just dissect out a tiny portion of it and expect it to still carry the same meaning.
I won’t even bother to answer the rest of your rant as it appears to be addressed to someone other than myself (unless you’d care to show me where I’ve behaved anything like what you describe in points 1 to 5 (and beyond)).
Even if you had absolute physical proof that there was never a god and that the bible was a complete scam, they would still believe. As where if you show me proof that god exists I’ll change my beliefs rabbit fast, and I imagine so would all other non-believers. So knowing this, who do you think is the more rational thinker?
Great, you can read things out of context. Why didn’t you quote my entire post?
Here, let me do it. I said:
The point I was making is that js_africanus argument is fallacious. Boiled down, his point is that certain parts of various religions are stupid (or crappy, as I put it) therefore, he concludes, all religions are stupid (or crappy, as I put it). There, does that explain it?
Umm… well, I’ve got faith. I’m sure I’ll be cinders at some point, but that’s all I really need. Sure, there are God-awful horrible things. But you know how I feel about it? God created us, and allowed us to stick around long enough to figure out how to treat childhood and adult diseases, the Heimlich maneuver, and whatever else was in your litany. God did things that we perceive as horrible, but try considering a larger picture. You know, the one you can’t comprehend because you’re not omniscient/omnipotent? Maybe there’s something we’re missing. And since I don’t quite believe that humanity has knowledge about everything, nor the ability to control or affect everything, I’m going to go out on a limb and believe there’s someone out there who can. Simply because, well… it’s what I believe. And even though I was born a Catholic, I went through a period where I seriously considered the merits of my faith. I took a good look at the world around me, read the Bible, and decided for myself that God is still worth believing in. Try not to base religion so much in logic, particularly seeing as faith is anything but.
Answering only for myself, as I said above, I don’t believe the Bible to be the infallible, literal and exclusive word of God - it is a book about humans trying to interact with God; my belief in God does not rest on what it says in some book, but rather on what I (believe I have) experienced.
I meant to add to my post above, regarding this comment:
Please can you confirm whether you consider this statement applicable to the comments made by js_africanus too?
I think it is obvious that the statement applies to anyone who professes to KNOW aything about how the bible is to be read and if it is to be taken ‘literally’.
Yeah, I guess I should pay attention to people’s names more, eh?
Though it does lead me to another thought. Why is it that Atheists automatically assume you are a dogmatic Christian just because you do believe in something (just saw his step 2. I can see where you got that, but it does not actually apply to yours truly here…)
Since no one else addressed it…
It is a choice. You are being offered two options. Worship. Burn. You pick. They may not be nice choices (why just last night, my Lt. says “Radar or Stolen Vehicle Recovery,” your choice. I hate both those jobs. But it is still a choice.)
LOL, this is garbage straight out of Jack Chick’s paranoid mind, and the intolerant protestant evangelicals just like him. This “Catholic anti-Bible conspiracy” stuff is frickin’ laughable. The Pope and his “minions”??
Somebody had to call you out on this. Stop posting this tripe, and try again, k?
The problem is that the bible has no standards. It contains IMHO, true prophets as well as charlatans (the book of revelations is obviously a delusion).
There is a lot that is inconsistent, irrational, and sometimes inhumane, but also some gems of wisdom.
I am not sure you understand the poster. He was referring to the reformation period, before which Bibles were only written in Latin (and Greek?). This was for two reasons. It was though that the common man would misinterprete passages or that passages would be mistranslated. And it had the benefit of preserving the catholic church’s monopoly on God. Any other languages were actively banned by the church. One of the first translator of the bible into english Tyndale was murdered in Holland by agents of Holy Roman emperor acting for the Pope. Many clerics were killed for using the newly translated bibles. If you disagree with any of the above please let me know, and I will take you into a class on Medieval History
The analogy falls short for one very important reason:
Despite various epithets about “God the Father”, God is not supposed to be just a father figure. God is supposed to be omniptent. I have much, much higher expectations of an allegedly omnipotent and omniscient being than I do of someone who is merely “superior.”
Your daddy can’t give you everything because he’s not omnipotent or omniscient. He’s bigger than you, sure, and he has access to more resources and knowledge than you, but he has limits. But God is not supposed to have limits. God isn’t supposed to “miss” little details like telling the children He supposedly loves how to cure the diseases which He also created.
Are you saying the Catholic Church never had a stance against translating the Bible into languages other than Latin? That they didn’t consider Martin Luther to be a heretic for doing exactly that?