Trivia Jockey

What do you think about this argument? Pay special attention to the point about coincidence in the last paragraph:

The Bible clearly promises that God answers prayers. For example, in Mark 11:24 Jesus says, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." And billions of Christians believe these promises. You can find thousands of books, magazine articles and Web sites talking about the power of prayer. According to believers, God is answering millions of their prayers every day.

So what should happen if we pray to God to restore amputated limbs? Clearly, if God is real, limbs should regenerate through prayer. In reality, they do not.

Why not? Because God is imaginary. Notice that there is zero ambiguity in this situation. There is only one way for a limb to regenerate through prayer: God must exist and God must answer prayers. What we find is that whenever we create a unambiguous situation like this and look at the results of prayer, prayer never works. God never "answers prayers" if there is no possibility of coincidence.

(from http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/important.htm)

http://www.gallup.com/poll/148763/Muslim-Americans...

This poll shows that Muslim Americans are the staunchest opponents of military attacks on civilians, compared with members of other major religious groups (including Christians).

What are your thoughts?

God supposedly made man in "his image". So why, if God is a perfect, loving and compassionate being, did God make our bodies so susceptible to cancer? Cancer is a horrible disease that can affect really anyone...it's a built-in weakness of our bodies that our cells are so prone to turning malignant.

It's not like sin where man in his "free will" can choose whether or not to sin (thus you can't blame sin on God, the argument goes), but nothing mankind did made our bodies prone to cancer...God MUST have done that.

Why?

I often see creationists using the Biblical term "kind" when stating that animals never evolve from one "kind" to another, and that any changes in a species are just examples of "micro-evolution". (Putting aside the fact that neither "kind" nor "micro-evolution" are accepted scientific terms.)

Some say "birds" is a kind and "fish" is a kind, and a fish is always a fish and a bird is always a bird. This would mean that "kind" would have to be the same as "class", because all birds are grouped within the same class (Aves) and fish into two superclasses. But when it comes to human evolution, in order to keep their argument consistent that humans didn't evolve, they define "kind" in such a way that it means the same as "species" (Homo erectus into Homo sapiens).

This is but one example. So, seeing as how "kind" is used inconsistently, what does it actually mean?

(with a kind nod to David Mills from "Atheist Universe")

According to Christian theology, God is omnipotent, so Hell exists either because (a) God created it, or (b) he allows it to exist. (or both)

The question, then, is WHY does God allow Hell to exist?

If he wants to keep sinners/those who don't accept Jesus out of Heaven, couldn't he have simply created a place for sinners' souls to go that wasn't Heaven, but also wasn't ETERNAL torture in the flames of Hell? Or couldn't he have just made these souls no longer exist, such as before we were born?

It just seems like God could have created a less cruel method of handling sinners' souls...because with Hell, it's either accept Jesus and get into Heaven, or TORTURE. God certainly could have come up with something short of torture.

I completely understand the concept that God gives everyone the gift of choice and they can choose to accept Jesus and get into Heaven. But why does God think Hell is a valid alternative to accepting Jesus? It certainly seems vindictive to go with Hell rather than the alternatives I described above.

Short version: high school student in Louisiana requests that Christian prayer be left out of public school's graduation ceremony, and is subsequently harrassed, threatened with bodily harm and death, kicked out of his parents' house and disowned.

Please check out the article, it's not very long:

http://freethinker.co.uk/2011/05/30/us-high-school...

Many believers who post here have talked about "feeling the holy spirit" in the context of stating that they know God exists. I am paraphrasing and summarizing here, but the argument typically goes something like "I know God exists, because I have personally felt the holy spirit inside me".

But how do you know that the "holy spirit" that you're feeling isn't really just normal human emotion? Might that feeling of "having the holy spirit" be simply the euphoria you get when you believe something good about yourself? And moreover, how can you rely on internal feelings of emotion to prove something objective about reality (e.g. that God exists)?

I recently read an anecdote that highlights this possibility:

A woman receives a phone call advising her that she has won $2,500 in a drawing, and she will compete on television for an additional $50,000. She is happy, and euphoric. She phones all her friends to brag about her good fortune. She honestly feels truly lucky and excited. But then she learns that the phone call was a prank.

Thus, her feelings of euphoria didn't prove anything about her reality. At the time, she FELT it was true, and her emotions matched this belief. Same with religious believers - might they (mis)perceive their own emotions as proof of God's existence?

"Emotions derived from religious belief prove merely that individuals do hold their beliefs religiously." But it doesn't actually prove anything, does it?

(I hesitate to name the author for fear of biasing answers, but since I did quote him, it's David Mills)

...when it says:

Adam, Methuselah and Noah all lived in excess of 900 years. Genesis (various)

Unicorns exist. Job 39:9-10, Psalm 22:21, Numbers 23:22 and 24:8, plus others.

Dragons exist. Isiah 34:13, Psalm 91:13, Deuteronomy 32:33, plus others.

The Cockatrice exists. Isiah 11:8

Satyrs exist. Isiah 13:21.

And then there's the basic stuff like a man living in the stomach of a huge fish for days and surviving.

Previously, creationists argued that "everything that exists has a creator, the universe exists, therefore the universe was created by god". When we pointed out that this also must mean that god has a creator, creationists cleverly moved the goalposts:

"Well, we meant that everything that BEGINS to exist has a cause...the universe began to exist, therefore god created it. God is not subject to this rule because he never BEGAN to exist, he's always existed, he exists outside of time."

But aren't creationists begging the question here? A necessary premise of this argument (god has always existed) assumes that the conclusion it is trying to reach (god exists) is true.

Put another way, in order to prove god's existence they are assuming something about god's existence be true. In order to prove god's exists, they assume god exists.

That's a perfect example of begging the question -- one of your premises assumes the conclusion to be true.

What do you think?

If the Earth is only 6,000 or so years old, how could the North American and European continents have separated via plate tectonic activity, considering they only move 4 inches per year? It would have taken 200 million years to separate them as they are today. Same goes for South America and Africa.

Christ's genealogy, according to Matthew, was 28 people long from David to Christ (through Joseph, despite the fact that Jesus was supposedly born of a virgin, but that's another question entirely).

However, in Luke, the genealogy from David to Christ involves 43 people.

The version in Matthew leaves out such people mentioned in Luke as Heli, Levi and Amos.

In the Bible, the following are just some of the examples of supernatural events that supposedly occurred:

--people rising from the dead (e.g. Lazarus, Jesus)

--walking on water

--turning water into wine

--the burning bush

--Moses parts the Red Sea

--supernatural plagues (e.g. hordes of frogs and locusts in Egypt)

--the literal booming voice of God from the heavans

(there are many others)

Yet in modern ages, none of this happens. Yeah, occasionally people claim that a "miracle" occurred, but they're often hoaxes, or more typically they're entirely subjective experiences where few are witness, and they're not at all VERIFIABLE.

What is the explanation for this? Was god simply "more active" in Biblical times? Or is Occam's Razor the better explanation -- these supernatural events never happened, but people in ancient times were far more willing to believe supernatural events were taking place because they didn't have the knowledge to explain all the things that happened in their world?

The latter explanation would also explain why these events don't happen today - modern man has far more knowledge of the world and can thus events happening in our world are less likely to be interpreted as "magic" or "supernatural" occurrences.

What do you think?

...have you seen this? They found what looks to be yet another one.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110413/ap_on_sc/us_sc...

I just saw this answer from a creationist in another question about transitional fossils:

"Misinterpretation of the fossil record. The pictures in the link show some fairly big 'jumps' from one species to the next, so the question is still valid - 'where are the transitional fossils between the big jumps shown in the pictures?'"

This is a clever but vacuous cop-out answer. Creationists ask "where are the transitional fossils?" So you show them some transitional fossils, and they maintain that this isn't enough and ask you to show them the transitional fossils between these transitional fossils.

They say there's a "gap" in the fossil record between man and the ancestor common to man and ape. When you show them one fossil that fills the gap, they turn around and say "Aha! Now you have TWO gaps! Your theory is doubly wrong!" You could show them two more transitional fossils, and they'd be happy to point out how you now have four gaps, etc. etc.

The failure in logic is maddening.

What are your thoughts on this?

http://www.examiner.com/jesus-christ-in-national/s...

This is awful on both ends...first, you have a pastor who somehow believes his god wants him to burn someone else's holy book, inciting people all over the world. KNOWING that it would cause violence. What's worse, there was no pressing need or reason to do this...nothing of any substance was gained.

And then in equally asinine fashion, the religious in Afghanistan murder people because a book was burned. Including two beheadings of UN workers. It's just sick.

Can you begin to see why some of us want a secular world, without senseless violence caused by religious differences?

Summary of article: pastor in trouble for his belief that there might not be a hell where souls are tormented and tortured for eternity.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110324/ap_on_re/us_re...

From the article:

He describes going to a Christian art show where one of the pieces featured a quote by Mohandas Gandhi. Someone attached a note saying: "Reality check: He's in hell."

"Gandhi's in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?" Bell asks in the video.

In the book, Bell criticizes the belief that a select number of Christians will spend eternity in the bliss of heaven while everyone else is tormented forever in hell.

"This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy that our world desperately needs to hear," he writes in the book.

Please provide me some SPECIFIC examples of Biblical prophecies, and then the real-life occurrence that made the prophecy "come true". I ask because "prophecy" is usually the #1 response when I ask how you know the Bible is true, rather than simply a man-made work.

I suspect that the "phrophecies" are so maddingly vague that they are basically self-fulfilling, but I'm giving you the chance to show my why my theory is wrong.

If the Genesis account of creation is true and God created all life at or near the same time, you'd expect the geologic column to show the beginning of all life forms in the same layer. In other words, animal fossils would all start in one layer of the column, and there would be no animal fossils whatsoever underneath that layer.

But the actual findings in the geologic column demonstrate otherwise...at the bottom there are only single-cell creatures, and as you go up the column organisms get more complex over (long periods of) time.

How is this possible?

Which of these things from the Bible do you believe literally happened, exactly as described? If you do believe, please explain how it's possible, and if you believe it's not literal, explain how you determine what's allegorical and what's literal.

1) Jonah lived in the stomach of a whale for days

2) Moses parted the Red Sea

3) The first two humans were Adam and Eve, they were created in the full human form, and populated the entire human species

4) Lazarus literally rose from the dead

5) There was a global flood that killed all life on Earth except for what was on Noah's Ark

Thank you.

Whenever we ask believers a question about why God allowed the Holocaust, or serial killers, etc., the answer is that God gave man free will.

So what happens when we look at natural disasters, where free will isn't an issue? I was prompted to think of this when I saw all the "let's pray for the Japanese" comments on the internet.

Think about this for a second - what is the point of praying for the Japanese? If the prayer is asking God to alleviate their suffering, and you expect that God might answer this prayer, why was the tsunami allowed to happen in the first place? There's no such thing as "free will" for the Earth and the oceans.

God created this world, so he could have created it without devastating earthquakes and tsunamis. Moreover, even if he had a reason to create earthwuakes and tsunamis, he is omnipotent, so he could absolutely have prevented the disaster. Why didn't he? And if he chose to let it happen, why would he suddenly start answering prayers to end their suffering? If he created the suffering, it doesn't make sense to answer prayers asking to alleviate it.

My ultimate point is this -- doesn't the fact of this disaster weigh in favor of an Earth that's not at all guided or overseen by an omnipotent god, but is instead subject to purely natural scientific phenomena?

One final note -- I refuse to accept the "it's God's plan and we can't know what that plan is" answers. That's a factual and intellectual cop-out. You could explain ANYTHING with that non-answer.