Thursday 7 May 2009

Conversations with a (nice) christian.

This is a response to my 'Alpha Course' post. (If it has scrolled off the bottom of the page then 'clicky!' )
'JL' is one of those nice christians who (in my experience) make up the majority of christians that are willing to talk to me. Currently we are in the middle of a friendly 'holy war' at our school, where she is trying to get me to appreciate Jesus and I am bestowing the gift of Pastafarian knowledge. I have shown her undeniable evidence of FSM's power by making her jump and pointing out how the kind FSM brings her safely back to Earth with his noodly appendages. (He loves us all and keeps us safe - FACT!)

Randomfish, I believe I might even have been the long-haired born-again that suggested an Alpha course to you.


Yep, The most recent one.

It's not like you have anything to lose, anyway :-p

Well, my scientific reasoning for one...

re: 'based on a relationship, not knowledge'
It always makes me smile that people get so OUTRAGED that the Bible is younger than Jesus, or at least most of it. That it's been *gasp* ADDED TO(!!!111) over the years. Of course it has. Ours is a living God. He didn't just speak once 6000 years ago (you heard right, DB!) and that was it. If you develop a relationship with your living God, he will speak to you. And he will tell you do not have a religion based on laws, you have a new life based on His loving gospel.

We agree here. Religion (especially christianity) has evolved. It has HAD to! Let's face it, if we had the same thinking as we did 1000 years ago, you would look pretty stupid now.
We don't get ill because god is punishing us. We get better because we 1) take medicine or 2) naturally get better over time.
Gods don't live in the sky. We are not the centre of the universe. Evolution is happening. The Earth is over 6000 years old. Morality is not owned by any religion...
Damn those astronomers, doctors, biologists, historians, geologists, philosophers...! They have had to make those crrraaaazzzyyy christians do some drastic rejigging of what to believe! LOL.

'Faith is more important than logic'

Logic is more important than blind faith. Blind faith is an insult to intelligence and reason. Blind faith can be harmful. For example, feel my pain when Arsenal lose! (Thankfully rarely!)

Don't pretend that you have faith in nothing, that faith in itself is ridiculous. You have faith in love, if nothing else, surely.

I DO have faith in humanity; kindness of strangers; love and hope. They are essential for understanding our humanity. I just don't attribute an imaginary friend to fill the gaps in knowledge.

Logic tells me that you can't get evolution from one species to another, only within species. Science tells me that even after thousands and thousands of generations of fly mutations, a fly is still a fly. So how did every living species in the world evolve from a fish? Including, presumably: turnips, scabies mite, chinchillas, sharks etc etc? Are you not putting your faith in a straaaange theory of evolution, hmmmmmm? ;)


Fellow humanists/ atheists, JL is a really nice person and please do not judge someone on their lack of understanding of evolution.

http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/different-patterns-of-evolution.html
http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/sat-ii-biology-understanding-origins-of-life.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

'Because of who god is, we will always have questions'
Of course. And let's face it, when Jesus came and proclaimed himself the Son of God, not many people believed him, and what more proof could God really give us? Perhaps you would like a book full of graphs and diagrams, haha.

I proclaim to be the leader of Alpha Centauri. Can you see the problem with that? Jesus was not the first prophet to claim to lead the Jews. He happened to be the most famous. Stories told, generations later, wrote the gospels with a bias to make him more holy. Events were taken from a wide variety of religions (resurrection, death on a cross, virgin birth, claim of godhood, miracles, 12 followers, betrayal, ascension) sometimes even directly rewriting existing religions. See Dionysus, Osiris, Mithra...
http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_jcpa3.htm
Jesus, the man, existed.
Jesus, the son of a god, sadly (but it would actually have been rather groovy) is HIGHLY UNLIKELY. More likely a work of fiction and copyright theft.

"You are sinners and in need of a lord and saviour".
Hell for you probably isn't the same idea of hell for me. I think there is a cartoon idea based on lakes of fire with a little red devil with pitchforks. In reality, to me anyway, hell is death; it is separation from love and joy; from contentment and safety and the Lord. For me, now that I know the Lord, no pit of burning sulphur could ever hold as much sadness and fear as separation from His love. But that's just me.

Ahh, you refer to the 'nice' Hell. Depends on how literally one takes the bible doesn't it? Even Jesus refers to Gehenna.
Two very useful sites below
http://www.tentmaker.org/articles/jesusteachingonhell.html
and this is pure class.
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/hellreal.htm (This nutter is doing theism no favours!)

And finally...
My final point I made in a rather fun theological debate is that JL is ACTUALLY a 'humanist with an imaginary friend'.

Peace to you all.



3 comments:

  1. I can not understand how it is that people think evolution disproves God.

    If I can prove that there is wood inside trees then there is no such thing as dolphins...

    It isn't a decent arguement.

    Evolution is fact, as a scientist I am lucky enough to have access to scientific papers and journals, and I love them. I read them for kicks (sad, I know). The theory of evolution is a particular favourite of mine.

    It is almost undeniable that species are evolving, dogs in particular are a good example, there are over 150 breeds of dog, why would God have made 150 different types of dog? well, he wouldn't have. It is pretty evident that dogs have evolved.

    The deciding factor here is where that first dog came from, it is important that there is a destinction between fact and belief.

    FACT: evolution within a species
    FACT: Speciation, i.e adaptation to the point where interbreeding can not longer produce offspring between the two relatives,
    THEORY: Speciation leads to new species of animals forming.
    THEORY: God made the unevolved prototypes of each species which evolved on the planet.
    THEORY: A puddle of "primordal soup" happened to contain all the components for a replicable cell which then replicated and mutated, and formed all the species on earth.

    I'd like to see this replicated in a lab, so far it hasn't been done, although it has been attempted by many.

    Claiming this extended evolutionary theory as fact means you have as much faith in a theory as a Christian has in scripture.

    Whether Genesis as a book is literal or metaphorical, why does it hold such a high position in the the arguement against God the creator?

    K xx

    ReplyDelete
  2. Phew, this deserves a post on its own.
    I'll address it fully in time, but essentially...

    Scientific theory - with tested ideas, speculations, fits observed patterns in existing life, fossil records, geological proofs of the age of Earth, speed of light in an expanding universe, chemical/ isotope dating methods...

    or 'because the bible says'!?!

    You can take your pick from hundreds of creation stories. I assume you as dismissive of all of the others as I am? Flying turtle anyone? Painted canvas sky? Playground of the gods?

    Also, be careful not to confuse abiogenesis with evolution as they are two completely different theories. :-)

    Personally, I am happy with the 'don't know'. I am happy to simply be amazed at the awesome range of existence out there. From the speculative realms of string theory - quantum mechanics - Newtonian physics - time and space curvature in an expanding universe. Mindblowing! I simply don't need a magical creator to put it all there - for me, that just devalues the wonder. :-(

    Thanks for commenting :-) And for taking such an interest in my blog.

    ReplyDelete
  3. abiogenesis and evolution are seperate, agreed. but if we are to belief that we evolved from a common ancestor that wasn't put here by God then it is an essential component to the evolutionary theory. No?

    The wonder for my comes from this...

    why?

    :D

    ReplyDelete

Comments are unmoderated (free speech and all that) but I have decided to take off anonymous posting. If I can stick my head over the parapet, then common decency suggests that anyone wishing to debate should at least introduce themselves. :-)
Thanks. And feel free to comment about anything!