Religious Dialogue

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"something creating the universe" has no relevance to a invisible man in the sky. Why did you not instinctively know the christian religion, if its literally true?

This is one of the dumbest things I've heard today. The argument isn't that everybody is born a Christian. If everyone just knew Christianity was right, then there would be no debate, duh.

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And yes, the native americans had systems of faith. Why weren't they christians?

Maybe had something to do with them being on a seperate continent. Just a thought.

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Why doesn't my 4 year old?

How would I know? Even if your kid can't comprehend or think of God doesn't mean he isn't there.

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As far as unchanging immaterial laws, well, sure. Physics. Chemistry. We can chart them out and calculate them. Doesn't require a gravity-making man in the sky.

You completely missed the entire point, like usual.

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The romans built an empire. The greeks laid the foundations of modern philosophy. They believed in entirely different invisible men.
You haven't built an empire or contributed vast sums of knowledge to human development. Why should I believe in your specific invisible man?

So you have to be a statesman or a scholar to be right about anything? Please, let's take this away from the playground. I'm also going to argue now that air is good thing, but don't take my word for it, I haven't created any countries or founded any schools of thought or whatever.

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And again, even if it did, what makes your particular man in the sky the right one?
You scoff repeatedly at atheists for being "idealistic" but what gives you the insight and wisdom to say that thousands of years of humanity was wrong about their invisible men?

Christianity seems to be the most logical monotheistic religion. I've already counted out atheism and polytheism as utter bullshit, so that's all that really matters to me right now.

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Can you prove that Thor and Zeus aren't the ones creating the weather?
Can you prove my cat isn't creating volcanoes when he sleeps?

Is your cat an omniscient omnipresent all powerful all knowing being? No? Ok, then your cat isn't God. Thank you come again.

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The Piraha people in Brazil are not used to thinking about anything that they cannot see. Missionaries have tried to convert them for 30 years, and they failed to even evoke interested in God and Jesus because the concepts make no sense at all to these people. And they're by far not the only atheist tribe. There are lots of them. Atheist civilizations - entire peoples who have never heard of the concept of God before - definitely wouldn't exist if kids naturally knew what God is. In fact, before the Judeo-Christian idea of a creator God became popular, consensus was that the world has always existed. This is still what everybody thinks in India or China. You are patently wrong.

BASELESS ARGUMENT #2233736, PLEASE REPORT TO THE MAIN GATE. Firstly, I don't care about your stupid tribe. No wonder they're atheists, they don't even have civilization. Let me get this straight though, they cannot think of things they can't see? I wonder what would happen if the missionaries told them about gravity. I also don't know atheist civilizations you are even talking about, unless you are distorting buddhism or whatever.

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Under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, there is nothing you can do.

"Under other meaningless documents, blah blah blah."

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See, I have always believed that ethics are of timeless value. That what's right is right, and what's wrong is wrong. Then, now, and forever more. Otherwise, moral convictions are just as subjective as your personal opinion of the Bible being a "masterpiece". Also, just imagine for a moment that instead of such passages being in the Bible, they were instead found in the Quran. Would you accept a response, such as the one you just gave above, from a Muslim apologist?

The Koran is a masterpeice too, from a literary perspective.
I'm getting tired of replying to these poorly formulated arguments against religion. I'm willing to leave this thread if you guys are, this is just turning into a waste of my time.

Das_ALoveStory wrote:

This is one of the dumbest things I've heard today. The argument isn't that everybody is born a Christian. If everyone just knew Christianity was right, then there would be no debate, duh.

So you concede that people worshipping nature spirits are right?

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Maybe had something to do with them being on a seperate continent. Just a thought.

Why wouldn't the word of a supreme being be universally known and understood?

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How would I know? Even if your kid can't comprehend or think of God doesn't mean he isn't there.

How could he not know, if there was a supremely powerfull divine being that can be proven to exist, and who governs all of creation?
It would be immediately and inescapably obvious, just like breathing or gravity

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You completely missed the entire point, like usual.

Your snide remarks are not really doing your professed faith any favours.

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So you have to be a statesman or a scholar to be right about anything? Please, let's take this away from the playground. I'm also going to argue now that air is good thing, but don't take my word for it, I haven't created any countries or founded any schools of thought or whatever.

Air being good is independently verifiable and testable. Invisible men in the sky are not. What makes your god the right one, if you cannot test and verify the claims you have been told?

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Christianity seems to be the most logical monotheistic religion. I've already counted out atheism and polytheism as utter bullshit, so that's all that really matters to me right now.

The universe is a big place. Nobody cares about you. We're talking about universal truths here.

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Is your cat an omniscient omnipresent all powerful all knowing being? No? Ok, then your cat isn't God. Thank you come again.

Please provide proof that he is not. How do you know he did not will the world into existence?
How can you verify this?
How can you test it?

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So you concede that people worshipping nature spirits are right?

What are you even saying? I said Christianity, not paganism or whatever. The natives still held to the idea of supernatural forces greater than themselves. Great spirit ring any bells?

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Why wouldn't the word of a supreme being be universally known and understood?

Same reason why you're grasping at straws to form any argument. People understand the concept of God.
Also, if he was universally understood then he wouldn't be God.

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How could he not know, if there was a supremely powerfull divine being that can be proven to exist, and who governs all of creation?
It would be immediately and inescapably obvious, just like breathing or gravity

Trying to understand your weird sentences. So you're telling me that your kid can't think "woah, maybe something created the universe"? If so, then there's more problems afoot with your kid then with this forum on religion. Also, I'm getting tired of your psychedelic argument that if God existed we'd all be religious. It's funny to what lengths atheists go to try and verify themselves. But one day, most of stop supressing the truth we always knew.

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Your snide remarks are not really doing your professed faith any favours.

I'm just tired of replying to this forum. It keeps changing but the message remains the same. All I want is for people here to be tolerant towards religion, but no, most just want to be crybabies.

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Air being good is independently verifiable and testable. Invisible men in the sky are not. What makes your god the right one, if you cannot test and verify the claims you have been told?

I don't know, something about him redeeming humanity, letting us live in paradise for eternity, offering salvation and peace to billions. Might have something to do with it.

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The universe is a big place. Nobody cares about you. We're talking about universal truths here.

Yeah sure, throw more stupid arguments this way. "The universe is big, which must mean that your opinion doesn't matter". Same to you buddy.

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Please provide proof that he is not. How do you know he did not will the world into existence?
How can you verify this?
How can you test it?

Sure, go ahead, worship your cat. Anyways, God could take on the form of a cat if he wanted to, but unless that cat is omnipresent, all knowing and all powerful, then guess what? It's not God.

Untill you can give me undeniable proof of Gods existance, i will remain an athiest.

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What are you even saying? I said Christianity, not paganism or whatever. The natives still held to the idea of supernatural forces greater than themselves. Great spirit ring any bells?

So were they right or wrong about the deities they believed in?

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Same reason why you're grasping at straws to form any argument. People understand the concept of God.
Also, if he was universally understood then he wouldn't be God.

People understand the concept of what they've been told. If there was truly
a divinely powerfull creator of all, why would there be ANY dispute about his nature? Why would belief in him be such a hotly contested issue?

Would it not be inescapably clear which religion is the correct one?

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Trying to understand your weird sentences. So you're telling me that your kid can't think "woah, maybe something created the universe"? If so, then there's more problems afoot with your kid then with this forum on religion.

He can think it. But since I haven't lied to him, he doesn't have a concept that it was created by an invisible man, any more than he belives it was created by a cow licking a salt stone as in norse mythology.

And guess what? He won't have that concept unless it's told to him, whether when we talk about religion and he can decide for himself, or through other media.

Because it's an acquired concept.

If your god was real, why would my son not know about him ?

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Also, I'm getting tired of your psychedelic argument that if God existed we'd all be religious. It's funny to what lengths atheists go to try and verify themselves. But one day, most of stop supressing the truth we always knew.

How did you know, unless it was told to you by other people with agendas?
There's little kids all over the world who are told entirely different things about religion by their parents.

Who is lying?
How do you know your god is the right one, amongst all the deities worshipped in the history of mankind?

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I'm just tired of replying to this forum. It keeps changing but the message remains the same. All I want is for people here to be tolerant towards religion, but no, most just want to be crybabies.

So forgive us.

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I don't know, something about him redeeming humanity, letting us live in paradise for eternity, offering salvation and peace to billions. Might have something to do with it.

Provide proof of this.

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Yeah sure, throw more stupid arguments this way. "The universe is big, which must mean that your opinion doesn't matter". Same to you buddy.

Of course my opinion won't matter. It would be delusional to think otherwise.

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Sure, go ahead, worship your cat. Anyways, God could take on the form of a cat if he wanted to, but unless that cat is omnipresent, all knowing and all powerful, then guess what? It's not God.

Please provide proof that he is not.

Das_ALoveStory wrote:

Also, I'm getting tired of your psychedelic argument that if God existed we'd all be religious.

Das_ALoveStory wrote:

I'm just tired of replying to this forum.

You're getting tired?

You hijacked this thread and now you complain that you have to keep responding to our stupid arguments.
Just stop posting then if it's so tiresome. Please.

@Dals: What are you trying to prove? The militant atheists aren't going to change their tune anymore than any other group of fundamentalists. All you've done is provided a somewhat rambling and extremely contradictory defense of bad parts of Christianity. There are flaws in our religions and it's our duty to rectify those mistakes not act like they aren't problems.

You need to examine how the bourgeoisie condition your understanding of Christianity (through established preachers, masses, etc) and turn you against socialism. Marxism is the key to breaking out of bourgeoisie theistic mindsets.

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Untill you can give me undeniable proof of Gods existance, i will remain an athiest.

Until you give me undeniable proof of the nonexistence of God, I will remain a Christian.

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So were they right or wrong about the deities they believed in?

They had a perception of God, that's the point.

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People understand the concept of what they've been told. If there was truly
a divinely powerfull creator of all, why would there be ANY dispute about his nature? Why would belief in him be such a hotly contested issue?
Would it not be inescapably clear which religion is the correct one?

This is ridiculous. Are you claiming that human beings could just look at God like a math problem? We could never understand the incredible nature of God, we just know what he is, all-knowing, all powerful, all this and that.

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He can think it. But since I haven't lied to him, he doesn't have a concept that it was created by an invisible man, any more than he belives it was created by a cow licking a salt stone as in norse mythology.

I'm sure he doesn't. Like as if he doesn't question anything about the universe, ever.

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If your god was real, why would my son not know about him ?

For a reason that is perfectly acceptable to God. Honestly, I think your son is capable of thinking so this doesn't really even apply.

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How did you know, unless it was told to you by other people with agendas?
There's little kids all over the world who are told entirely different things about religion by their parents.

Other people with agendas. Yeah, because this is all just some huge conspiracy.

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How do you know your god is the right one, amongst all the deities worshipped in the history of mankind?

Ridiculous. By that logic nobody should ever form an opinion about anything. What you're saying is that there are lots of different beliefs, so you cannot logically choose any of them? Read the Case for God by Keller, he has refuted almost everything you've said here.

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So forgive us.

Sure, if you were sorry.

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Provide proof of this.

I have tons of little evidential and philosophical arguments I could use, but all of you will just say no and quickly change the subject to some unknown little statistic or something, I'm not here to prove Christianity to you, that'll be impossible until you get off of your smug highhorse. I'm here to say that this entire site should not treat the religious the way they do.

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Please provide proof that he is not.

Sure, but it would cost me a plane ticket and a meeting with you, so no.

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What are you trying to prove? The militant atheists aren't going to change their tune anymore than any other group of fundamentalists. All you've done is provided a somewhat rambling and extremely contradictory defense of bad parts of Christianity. There are flaws in our religions and it's our duty to rectify those mistakes not act like they aren't problems.

I have stated what I want to prove over and over. Militant atheists won't change their tune, true, like any other plague. Also, don't be ridiculous. I don't know what contradictory defense of bad parts of Christianity you are talking about. I may not have complete scholarly knowledge of theology but I have weapon that most people here are severely lacking: common sense. Also, if you think there are these flaws in your religion, then you should reconsider your religion. Do you believe that the complete Koran is the true word of God? Yes or no? "Rectify mistakes"? AGod wouldn't make mistakes. We should never apologize for Christianity, Islam, whatever. It's so funny to watch atheists make these idiotic arguments about the evil in the world, or their own expectations of God; they like to think in their heads that God is not what he actually is.

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You hijacked this thread and now you complain that you have to keep responding to our stupid arguments.
Just stop posting then if it's so tiresome. Please.

I hijacked this forum? This is the timetable, from my memory. For the first part I questioned Dag on his type of Islam I hadn't ever heard of. Then I started defending religion from nearly everybody. Little did I know when I joined this site was that almost nobody was tolerant of those who are religious, I thought in my head, "surely these communists, following suit with most other ML organizations I have encountered, have made their peace with religion and tolerate it. "Surely one can be religious and such without a wild pack of atheists attacking me" That was a bad idea, but I am still glad I'm here. I never thought that I'd have to defend tolerance on a leftist site, though.

This is getting tedious, so let's just cut it short.


No miracle has ever been tested, proven and reproduced.

Nobody has ever come back from the dead.

Nobody has ever found evil spirits in animals or good spirits in a river.

Nobody has ever healed by laying of hands.

Nobody has ever provided proof why their specific invisible man is the one I should believe in, over all the other invisible men.



As far as claims of tolerance, it is abundantly clear that you hold only scorn for Dagoth's beliefs, so why should you be a special case?

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Until you give me undeniable proof of the nonexistence of God, I will remain a Christian.

In the past 24 hours 70,000 Africans have died. Now please tell me how those 70,000 Africans all died because of Gods allmighty will and power, what exactly did they to to piss off the allmighty??
Isn't God supposed all mighty and all caring? Yet he lets all these people die and suffer in squalor? Please explain this to me.

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No miracle has ever been tested, proven and reproduced.
Nobody has ever come back from the dead.
Nobody has ever found evil spirits in animals or good spirits in a river.
Nobody has ever healed by laying of hands.
Nobody has ever provided proof why their specific invisible man is the one I should believe in, over all the other invisible men.

Lies, lies lies lies. You could easily find evidence against this with any effort at all, which atheists seem to be incapable of. I'm not even going to bother pointing you to some sites or something. Just read the Reason for God, go to church and raise your IQ and everything will work out. Also for the record, if you are trying to make me talk for God, too bad. Also, you haven't offered anything at all that has even made the slighty question God at all.

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As far as claims of tolerance, it is abundantly clear that you hold only scorn for Dagoth's beliefs, so why should you be a special case?

I don't mind his beliefs, I'm just completely unconvinced in them, and I do not like he apologizes for religion and almost tries to cater his ideas to the condescending atheists. But, it's clear he has put thought into them, and I respect that. You atheists like to pretend that us religious believers believe in God "just because".

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In the past 24 hours 70,000 Africans have died. Now please tell me how those 70,000 Africans all died because of Gods allmighty will and power, what exactly did they to to piss off the allmighty??
Isn't God supposed all mighty and all caring? Yet he lets all these people die and suffer in squalor?
Please explain this to me.

Wow, people are dying, that must mean that God doesn't exist. Translation: "I don't have any argument that has any substance so I'll use this crybaby one instead"
Firstly, most of them will probably live on for eternity in heaven. Secondly, you aren't a true atheist if you feel there is some mystical force surrounding empathy or whatever. Thridly, humanity has had free will to create whatever social economic conditions it pleases, so that immediately refutes your argument. Fourthly, we could not measure happieness if there was no pain. Next, even if all of the above was false, the reason they died would be one perfectly fine with God.
Everybody should read this book. http://timothykeller.com/books/the_reason_for_god/

Das_ALoveStory wrote:

Lies, lies lies lies. You could easily find evidence against this with any effort at all, which atheists seem to be incapable of. I'm not even going to bother pointing you to some sites or something. Just read the Reason for God, go to church and raise your IQ and everything will work out. Also for the record, if you are trying to make me talk for God, too bad. Also, you haven't offered anything at all that has even made the slighty question God at all.

"I totally can prove that I am right but I am not going to because Im totally right"

Let's just stop wasting each others time here.

runequester wrote:

Let's just stop wasting each others time here.

Indeed... This thread is getting painful.

Das_ALoveStory wrote:

Wow, people are dying, that must mean that God doesn't exist. Translation: "I don't have any argument that has any substance so I'll use this crybaby one instead"

The very fact that you treat the important theological dilemma of the problem of suffering in such a dismissive way shows how serious you are about a real discussion and how open you are to anything but your own ideas.


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Das_ALoveStory wrote:

crybaby

I really want this word put on the filter. It's getting seriously over-used.

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"I totally can prove that I am right but I am not going to because Im totally right"
Let's just stop wasting each others time here.

I don't want to explain to you all of these arguments that I've collected, it'll just spawn more debates in which you and the rest will put your hands over your ears and start singing. But I'm cool with the second idea.

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The very fact that you treat the important theological dilemma of the problem of suffering in such a dismissive way shows how serious you are about a real discussion and how open you are to anything but your own ideas.

No, I was just accustomed to seeing thoughtful questions here, and to see that one, the one they always use and has no substance nor in anyway could disprove God, was disheartening and not worth my time to explain. People seem to judge God as if he's just a human being or something, and I find it funny how atheists use this question as if they themselves can tell us what evil is and account for it. On a side note, has anybody looked at the book yet? It answers the very same question in much more detail then I can here, along with others.

@Das_alovestory there are mature ways of debating and arguing your points and then there is saying i'm write your wrong with nothing to back it up. Then there is you, you don't argue your points with evidence but instead with the stubboneness of a 8 year old child but claim to have the evidense but don't use it because you claim we are the stupid ones?

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In the past 24 hours 70,000 Africans have died. Now please tell me how those 70,000 Africans all died because of Gods allmighty will and power, what exactly did they to to piss off the allmighty??
Isn't God supposed all mighty and all caring? Yet he lets all these people die and suffer in squalor?
Please explain this to me.

Wow, people are dying, that must mean that God doesn't exist. Translation: "I don't have any argument that has any substance so I'll use this crybaby one instead"
Firstly, most of them will probably live on for eternity in heaven. Secondly, you aren't a true atheist if you feel there is some mystical force surrounding empathy or whatever. Thridly, humanity has had free will to create whatever social economic conditions it pleases, so that immediately refutes your argument. Fourthly, we could not measure happieness if there was no pain. Next, even if all of the above was false, the reason they died would be one perfectly fine with God.

You seem to completely ignore the 'please explain this to me part' but thats ok because you are obviously right and eveyone else is wrong it seems the devil has misguided us all in someway for questioning the exisistance of God. Also you are so write i am not a true athiest because you said so, wow i have been showed the light of the lord by this oh kind and gentle vioce of the Lord hallelujah!!

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there are mature ways of debating and arguing your points and then there is saying i'm write your wrong with nothing to back it up. Then there is you, you don't argue your points with evidence but instead with the stubboneness of a 8 year old child but claim to have the evidense but don't use it because you claim we are the stupid ones?

No, I explain the flaws in you ingnore them, rinse dry and repeat.

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You seem to completely ignore the 'please explain this to me part' but thats ok because you are obviously right and eveyone else is wrong it seems the devil has misguided us all in someway for questioning the exisistance of God. Also you are so write i am not a true athiest because you said so, wow i have been showed the light of the lord by this oh kind and gentle vioce of the Lord hallelujah!!

Yes! I'm "write"!
Anyways, you aren't a true athiest if you treat evil like some mystical comsmic force that we acts as a law. And that argument, it's just so cliche. It's insulting to me that people even bring it up anymore. I remember the first time I heard it; I was in grade four and it took me all of fourty seconds to put it down, but here's a simple way to explain iit because clearly you didn't read my previous posts. God gave us free will. We can do with that what we please, if that means creating social economic catastrophe in third world countires then that's the price of the abusing of our own free will. If you hate free will so much, then maybe you do have a genuine feud with God.

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Yes! I'm "write"!
Anyways, you aren't a true athiest

And you aren't in a position to be so smug.

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God gave us free will.

Evidence?

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explain iit

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I explain the flaws in you ingnore them

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if you treat evil like some mystical comsmic force that we acts as a law

Hypocrisy thy name is Das_ALoveStory.
Fine i'll use a different example; in the bible it says God created Earth, Adam and Eve and all the animals and plants in 7 days. Yet science/common sense has proven:
A. The planet obviously wasn't created by God in 7 days, more like 4 Billion years.
B. Evolution proves that God didn't just magic up some humans in his spare time for shits and giggles, they evolved from simpler organisms like all the animals have done aswel.
C. We have a few theories that can explain how life began on Earth. Funny how none of them have 'God did it' in them.
So please can you come of that high horse of your's, and grace us lowly folk with your presense. Pwetty Pwease with a chewy on top.

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Evidence?

God gave you the free will to hate him.

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A. The planet obviously wasn't created by God in 7 days, more like 4 Billion years.

Sure, if you're a young earth creationist.

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Evolution proves that God didn't just magic up some humans in his spare time for shits and giggles, they evolved from simpler organisms like all the animals have done aswel.

or, God guided evolution.

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We have a few theories that can explain how life began on Earth. Funny how none of them have 'God did it' in them.

Funny how none of them are any better either. I remeber laughing watching Ben Stein ask how life could originate and Dawkins became nervous and pretty much just said aliens.

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So please can you come of that high horse of your's, and grace us lowly folk with your presense. Pwetty Pwease with a chewy on top.

High horse? No, I was just trying to bring tolerance and common sense. Even lowly folks are a little tolerant these days.

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or, God guided evolution.

If God guided evolution where do Adam and Eve fit into this? Also if God guided evolution surly it would mention this in the Bible....

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Funny how none of them are any better either. I remeber laughing watching Ben Stein ask how life could originate and Dawkins became nervous and pretty much just said aliens.

Panspermia theory? I would say this possibly the best explanation so far about how life on earth began but there is strong evidence about meteors with proteins and other organic chemistry inside, which could have crashed into earth at the right time, it's debateable.