it sums it up right their , evil and good exist . Sure ... their will always be some idiot who thinks good is evil and evil is good , but in the end whether or not something was helpfull will always come clear .

Lets take cocaine for example , while on it people think it to be the greatest thing in the world . In the end it screws their life over and they curse the drug , the time they thought it was a good thing was nothing but mere dillusions .

Now for a more massive scale . The holocaust . Germany thought it was an excellent idea that would bring prosperity and eternal rule to them all , in the end everyone came to realize it was just some evil killing spree started by some seriously psychotic individual . Did the holocaust screw the mass over in end ? Yes .

Sure , their may be som people who still think its a good thing , that doesn't mean good and evil don't exist . It means they are screwed up in the head and highly dillusional .

But what you say about good and evil being subjective does make sense in some circumstances , but those are mainly silly little disputes were the object in question i ussually nor good nor evil . Therefore a nutural version of good and evil exist , but they still exist .

actually, it was Hitler's military strategy of invading Russia poorly prepared that screwed them over, so really, the Holocaust could have been considered good (it is still considered good by some people), I disagree with that, but it doesn't make me any more right about what is good or evil.

Do you think its good to execute women who get raped because they 'asked' for it? fundamentalist muslim law says so, in a community of fundamentalists it is deemed a good thing, who's to say it isn't?

is making up definitions in the rulebook?
i see your point, even then, define being screwed over? something negative occuring? negativity (in this context) is merely a perception which from person to person will change. Majority vs Minority has nothing to do with it. By your logic, Genocide in which the offending country gets away with is a good thing..

tsk tsk, you assume things about me which you cannot possibly know.
Why is Murder wrong?
Why is being selfish wrong?

I'm not saying that i agree with the above, but i'm open enough to understand that such concepts are ultimately flawed.

Makes you wonder if some people think us athiests are running around, without any concept of morals, randomly killing each other just for the sake of it...bit silly given how many wars have been started for the sake of religion

*can't remember a single war fought, or person murdered, for the sake of athiesm *

You see? Our way is the way of peace my friends

That is a pretty big assumption. Many people around the world do not follow an organized religion, but still are able to define good and evil just fine.

I am not completely sure I follow your meaning on this but let me take a stab at it...

How can someone not understand good and evil? How can it not make sense? I don't understand exactly how or why you would say something like that. If a person has a frontal lobe and a room temperature IQ, the understanding of good/evil is pretty straightforward. People outside of organized religion have been able to make sense of the concept of good and evil for millennia. Being a christian/muslim/jew/buddhist/etc. does not give one the corner market on understanding good or evil. Those definitions are made at a societal level, and very often change over time anyway.

As Seraphina just said, christianity/islam/judaism which have the strictest guidelines of good and evil are also responsible for untold millions of deaths over the millennia. It is one of the reasons in my mind that organized religion has such a problem with credibility; the hypocrisy is tough to look past.

Of course we are the ones that choose what is good and what is evil. It has been that way since the beginning of mankind, and still goes that way today. We do things today in our society that would have had us burned at the stake in the middle ages. The society we live in decides what is considered good or evil and as I said before, that changes over time...

of course not , why argue over athieism ? But then again , wars have been fought many times before without religous influence . Since athieism is no religion you could say it has had its parts .


Blaming religions for wars can sometimes be based on ignorance . Although certain things have been started over religion like the crusades , no where in the christian text does it say anything about us doing that . The bible actually says the opposite of the crusades and tells us to ignore those who refuse to listen rather then kill them .

In other words , its not neccesarily religion that is responsible for the war ... but stupid people who start the war in the first place . Kind of like every other war .

No .

none of which were acts that their religion actually supported , just some idiot making up their own twisted ideas and calling it that religion . well ... except for islam , sorry if their are muslims out their but I provide no back up for them .

Depending on the church, yes they do. I know a lot of churchgoing folk would tend to focus on the positive site of modern christianity(the perfect love[agape] of god...), and that is really a wonderful thing...

My concern is with the final trump card that is played when a "conversion' isn't going smoothly. "You will burn in hell for eternity..." has been quite a selling point for christianity for a millennia.

As much as I would like for gods perfect love and all of the positive things that one hears about in a sunday sermon to be the reason that people show up on sunday morning, I think it isn't really the case for a majority of the people there.

I can't say what the original intentions of the early church was, no one can. 2000 years is a long time for motives to get distorted, and I think that they have.

In my opinion, the christian church has been about power from its early history, and the best way to be a powerful religion is to have alot of people behind you.

The "marketing plan" of the christian church is pretty tough to turn down if you think about it...The gist being that if you are aware of jesus(you don't even really need to believe, just be aware), and choose not to be reborn, you don't get inked in the "book of life"...so sorry, we have patio seating for you in hell, no waiting; have a nice eternity...

The new testament is pretty clear in that jesus is the only way into heaven. Talk about a monopoly! Pretty convenient for the church. If you do what our book says, and what we interpret from the book, you can live eternity in paradise, if not, well get the sunblock out; it's going to get toasty. Hmmm...let me give that some thought.

Of course the above criteria puts Mother Theresa in a tough spot being catholic and all...such are the difficulties of being the one true religion.

The "marketing plan" also relies on your followers converting their friends and family; proselytizing at every given chance. Does Amway ring a bell? You can even see it on this board from a few of the members here. Do they have the right to do so? of course they do, our countries forefathers made sure that they did... I wouldn't have it any other way, and would die to defend their right to do so.

There is a final word...us. We make our decisions on a daily basis. We use religion, common sense, and any guidelines that work in order to come up with a community "morality". Religion is definately a part of that process for many communities, but there are other factors to help decide what is right and what is wrong...

its so true moe , I almost didn't become a christian based on the stupidity some of his followers . It really shows on this site as I have had to explain that it wasn't the religions fault but the idiots in the religion that caused whatever about 5 times on this forum so far , I probobly will continue to have to do this many times .

As for you fluff , have you actually read the christian bible ? Could it be that its simply sharing a good thing and not a marketing plan ? Is their anything wrong with simply believing in Jesus and going to heaven ? Its not that big of a requirement and I find it slightly odd you are complaining about it . You act as if its some big sceme and assume its all false before you even truly look into it .

On top of that you should really look into the differant sects of christianity as they are much more differant then you think . I can tell by reading your post you are pretty smart , but still making the same mistake all anti - christians make and that is

1 . accusing us of preaching hellfire on a regular basis . We actually almost never do this

2 . confusing sects ( mix christian ideas with catholic ones and constantly switch between the two , sometimes people even get them mixed up completely ) or even worse ... the saddest display of ignorance in what your talking about "errrr ....uhhhh ..... whats the differance between christianity and *INSERT WHATEVER* ? I dont think there is a differance . "

3 . hasn't actually read the bible , and thats all of it . Its not that long and shouldn't take you longer then a month to read . accusing a religion of being BS without having even read its text is pretty rude .

4.Claiming things are in the bible that are not actually their .

I'd say you seem to have gotten 3/4 down quite well

I never said I didn't have a belief in good and evil...of course there is a "good" and an "evil". (Is it an evil petting zoo?)

My point is that one doesn't need to belong to a given church to be able to define of decide on what is good or evil. The definition of good and evil is made up by people in a given set of circumstances...

Morality is defined as "Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character".

Although the church seems to have a corner market on judgement, it is not the only factor involved, and it need not be. The community makes that decision more often than not.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, but the moral code of the church(any church) changes over time too. The church isn't an self contained entity that sets up the rules. The church is made up of a large community of people that influence how doctrine will be interpreted and applied. Therein lies the rub.

Look at how the church has changed over the past millenia. The church has changed its opinions on many many things over the years. What is acceptable now would have gotten you burned at the stake 300 years ago. The fact that Xenojjin talks about "psi" this or that would have had him BBQ'd as a heratic not so long ago. Change can be for the good.

I am not saying that is a bad thing, I would hate to get stuck with a torquemada running the church. The church is far batter off than it was long ago. I just get fedup with the attitude of many mainstream christians to become instantly superior because of their beliefs.

Do buddhists knock at your door and try to convert("save") you?

Do taoists go into every undeveloped, underpriveledged nation in the world and try to convert entire nations to change their pagan ways?

When was the last time you saw a "Zues Saves" bumper sticker?

Great point, well taken.

It doesn't change the fact that a lot of people were tortured and murdered in order to gain a conversion in the Inquisition. It doesn't mean that people aren't flying airplanes into building with the promise that a bundle of virgins await them when they are done. Those simple interpretations of religion that are now considered "evil" weren't in their day.

What common practice are we doing now that will be considered evil in 100 years?

The bottom line is that religion is open to interpretation. Those doctrines that supported wars, or torture, or murder were gleaned from the pages of the same bible we are reading today. It is vague and open to interpretation in many places. The masses of people accept the doctrine with little or no thought on their own, they assume that the person at the pulpit is telling the "truth". They may be, but what about the books that never made it to the bible? That is an entirely different discussion....

I just want people to think for themselves.

I don't want to talk anyone out of their spiritual beliefs, I have mine and defend them vigorusly, I would expect the same from anyone else.

AMEN to that. May we all use the brain that God has given us and not blindly follow.

Guess what, all morals are subjective, you don't seem to understand this, just because a book sets down the rules doesn't instantly mean that you are right. You say one can have a moral code, BUT it changes over time whilst being subjective, have you even looked at your religion? The morals thrown around in that book have changed constantly, are you sure you've read the bible? Notice how the old testament is distinctly more violent in terms of moral code compared to the flowers and hugs of the new testament, doesn't this demonstrate a change in moral code supporting my claims that Morality is purely subjective.

Atheism is the disbelief in a god/s, just because Religion didn't play a part in a war does not mean that Athiesm did, that would be like saying

Religion didn't play a part in me giving to a charity, therefore Atheism in some way did...

Good and Evil are subjective terms with concepts of both never being the 'correct' concept, deal with it

My brain was given to me by Haashch’eelti’i...

UHHHH..... Sure.

that doesn't change the fact that religion was not the true cause and it was simply stupid people being stupid . And I sense some violation of AC mistake 3 and 4 here , you seem to make smart points ... but for the most part you are only restating basic stereotypes on religion .

congrats man . too bad this reasoning of yours has already been dealt with and pretty much explained in an earlier thread . Rather then repeating myself as the explanation is long you can look through all the other God is God isn't threads and find it on your own .

And yes , last time i checked I had gotten over reading the bible for the 8th time a few months ago . It is quite possible to read the whole thing ...


Speaking of which , this is turning into another god is god isn't debate ... oy ... we might just end up agreeing to disagree like all threads like this end in .

As has been pointed out to you some...8 or 9 times now ...yes it does. The beliefs and doctrines of your religion are about as stable as the average third world diet plan. It has constantly been evolving and changing to 'fit in' with new ideas and times so it can actually remain in place, instead of going the same way as most other religions that have come before it.

It really does boggle the mind that people could look at the wealth of contradictions between religion as it stands now, and what it used to preach, and not think "hang on...they're making it up as they go along "

Again, the 'immortal' code of good and evil followed by Christians fluctuates with room temperature. As you keep dancing around, what the bible told you was evil years ago is now fine and dandy

You think if you'd been alive during the dark ages you could freely admit "I actually rarely go to church" without the witch smeller coming and knocking on your door, shortly before ritual torture and execution? You know, that thing you keep saying would happen to a person in...well...hell, ironically.

The image projected by christianity changes and shifts with the opinion of the public. Claiming "God became a happy, loving dude, because Jesus died for our sins" is a rather absurd arguement for explaining the fickleness of a being who is supposedly eternal, and for whom you repeatedly claim "time does not exist"...if time does not exist for him, wouldn't the time before and after Jesus's death before one and the same? How could he change his mind if there's no division to speak of?

Those steriotypes exist for a reason: that being that people following the same source of moral code as you do, thought that code gave them justification to do what they did. The bible seems a very dangerous thing to use to determine right and wrong.

Probably will The arguement always goes the same way anyway...you argue fiction, we argue logic, you disregard logic in favour of blind assumptions, and so on and so forth

Oh, and on a final note...catholics are christians Just because you seem to think they're not because of the typical (and petty) "their spiritual beliefs aren't the same as mine! They're wrong!" thing, does not make you correct The bible is so vastly open to interpretation, with so many dozens of mistranslations, that let's be honest, no one group could possibly be the correct one (correct in that their beliefs are the closest to those actually preached by the bible).

Well...sorry to burst your bubble dude, but my belief's are logic, and whether you like it or not, your are based solely on speculation and interpretation of an extremely cryptic peice of mythology.

logical: of or according to logic; corrently reasoned; defensible or explicable on the ground of consistency

Basically, the opinions of myself and my fellow athiests here present is formed by looked at the facts surrounding religion, and the inconsistancies of it, and what we have also established to be fact about the world around us.

You and those who follow your dotrines, however, place all your faith in...well...faith, without anything remotely resembling evidence, merely acceping that some kind of divine being is there because you 'believe it', despite the afformentioned logic pointing quite firmly in the opposite direction, and that much of what is said in the bible is swill.

Since you're not basing any of your supersticions on fact, it therefore can't be logical. If "fubar" is a word you especially like, then sure, we can adopt that

Well...he's right there, we'll never have any scientific evidence for that. However, learned minds have presented an alternate theory, which the owner of this site simply disregards, again, because "Biblical arguments for God's existence appeal to a God who exists beyond time and space. Any other kind of god is logically impossible."

One that exists outwith time and space is logically impossible too, bud

Hmm...this is fun...what's the next one...

Your second link is much the same; it assumes the bible is true for its central arguement, yet presents absolutely no evidence to support that statement. You'd think, given each arguement it presents goes along the lines of "now, if we refer back to the bible..." they'd try and validate the bible itself first.

bla bla...most of the others fall into about the same catagory...

Hmm...number 4 (god, you've got a lot of free time...) is pretty interesting...but one of its arguements hinges on the idea that life has not appeared on other planets, but there is currently very strong evidence to suggest that, at one point, single celled life existed on mars (some even claim it's possible that the life on our planet was imported on an astral body such as an asteriod). That was the most credible so far though...had some nice arguements, you're getting warmer

Don't you have any sources that aren't from a biased source that's already formed an opinion because "the bible say so"

"I believe that there needed to be a causal agent outside of the realm of the Universe to start the "Big Bang" and believe that God was that First Cause."

Key words there "I believe"...as soon as that's stated, evidence becomes kind of meaningless, as it's all he's really looking for

Second last link...cute...make that yourself did you?

The last one just looks like a lot of references...if anything, all it proves is that for every arguement in one direction, there's another in the opposite direction against it

However...as much as your ability to post links is...exhasperatingly inpressive, it doesn't change one minor flaw in it...

There's no EVIDENCE of the existance of god. And suggesting flaws in the theories of the opposite camp isn't proof of his existance either Theorising that a being exists beyond space and time as a counter for investigated fact still doesn't hold any real water...especially if the fact that god exists in such a manner, and is therefore 'much more powerful than the god most athiests argue against' is hardly a strong opposing arguement. You can't respond against logic with claims that are nothing but assumptions.

If the absolute best you can do is throw websites at me, and then start accusing me of...what was it? Being a whining little kid I believe? Then, to be perfectly honest, I see you simply don't have the maturity to respond to logic in an intelligent manner

However...the very fact that you could somehow claim an athiest's sense of morals are somehow inferior to your own has already entrenched you into that little niche of superiority complexes and pig ignorance. Especially when it is you, the great, wise, balanced and all loving christian who begins to stoop to accusing the opposing side in the arguement of being children...whining...ignorant...or any of those other insults you perhaps hear blasted from the pulpit as we are condemed by your loving god to a fiery hell

On a side note...

I can't prove smashing a mirror doesn't bring seven years bad luck either, or that a black cat crossing your path is unlucky...does that mean they're not superstitions too?

Ahh good to be back. Did I really sleep tp 1:40 p.m.? oh well.
But getting down to bussiness. Xeno I've been agreeing with about 70% of what you have been saying; but i'm standing with Seraphina on this one. Catholics are Potestant but diffrerant?!!!! Where did you get that one!!! The last I checked the Catholic Church as teaching the way of Christianity way before Luther came around. If you are going to believe that they are not Christians then it is just as easy to say that Protestants are Heritics and that the Catholics are right. And just so you don't get the idea that i am some monk sitting in a monestary i'll give you some backround
I attended thee Catholic church for about 10 years. Then my family left to go to a Nazerine denomination. That Church crumbled and we searched for about 2 years and settled at a small Baptist Church. We stayed at that Church for about two years until my dad broke his back on the job, and my mother almost died from a miscarriage; the Church shunned us because we were "obviously being punished, so we left that Church and have not had a home Church for about 3 years. I have studied many differant denominations to the point that my personal beliefs are about 60% Catholic and 40% Protestant.

No it doesn't...science has a wonderful way in testing ideas in order to see how they pan out. The evolutionary scale is by no means complete. The theory is fluid, and adapts to new findings. It is a work in progress.

I think that one thing we are missing is that science doesn't attempt to claim there is no god. Some scientists will do their best to do so, but that isn't the purpose of science in general. I think that science is an attempt to understand ourselves and our world better. Simply by learning how the process may or may not have occured doesn't mean that there wasn't a motivating force behind it...I myself do not know, but don't rule out anything...

I for one do not think that the evolutionary theory is mutually exclusive of any gods handywork...It is an explanation of how we have arrived here. Is it the process that god used? Who knows. Did the process happen over 6 days? no, I doubt that, but if the timeline of creation were spread out of hundreds of millions of years, it becomes much more plausible. Just my theory. Xenijjin, if you think that the earth is only 9000 years old, then there won't be much of a discussion as you would be too far gone to be able to reason with...

One of the issues that keep going back and forth in the good/evil discussion is that you keep disavowing any relation to a church and the bad things that have happened that have been inpired by organized religion over the millennia, but yet keep claiming "the religion" for yourself:

Can you explain to me how it is that your "religion" doesn't change over time? I am very interested in hearing how you have managed to keep your religion the same over the centuries...That sounds wonderful, but I don't understand how you come to that claim.

Do you refer to a bible? Is it your own religion run by your rules? Is it the Church of Xenojjin?

Really, I would love to know how it is that you alone have been able to keep your religion from changing. It sounds fascinating...

You know the true interpretation? Really? Wow that is amazing! To think that over all of these centuries people have fought so hard to understand the teachings of the bible, and they only needed to ask you...

I would oove if you could help me to understand a passage in the bible since you seem to have access the true interpretation:

I was hoping you could shed some light on the above passage. It is from the bible, and to me I read it to say that homosexuals shall be put to death...Seems pretty harsh, but I am sure you have the answers.

Since we are at it, how about a little more help:

Does this mean that women are not allowed to speak in church? It sounds that way to me, but you seem to know the truth...

Thanks for your help in this difficult subject...

AS for the first quote i think it kinda means their supposed to be uhh dead. But then you are also supposed to die for murder, and David got out of that one.

As for the woman speaking. I looked in a Greek lexicon and from what I can gather it seems that there just not supposed to Preach This still seems like it puts woman in a lower caste; but the Bible also repeteably states that men are to treat woman better than themselves. So maybe there can be a balancing factor there.