Can I please, please, please post this vid? :D

What about the ark? I hope so.

NO

User was banned for this post.

Which one of us are you ripping?

Addendum to my last post: And even if the story is inspired by the ziggurat, that doesn't make the story true and it certainly doesn't make the Tower of Babel real.

IT'S NOT 'THE' ZIGGURAT, THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF ZIGGURATS, AS IN THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF TOMBS! NOT 1, HUNDREDS, 1, 100, 1, 100! JEZAZ

So how does that prove your point?

Eh. I was talking about Etemenanki. That doesn't change what I was saying.

Your insistence on picking at fine details implies to me that you have no actual facts to back up your argument.

Ok, calm, which point, the one that the Tower of Babel is real? Fuck my I don't know, you guys are destroying my mind. It's real, I made that clear back when I was sane a while ago and you even provided proof with that wikipedia article.

And as much as I love this riveting argument, I'm off to watch the Apprentice...Aidan out.

Yeah I really don't think you read that Wikipedia article very well.

For the record, it says Etemenanki INSPIRED the Tower of Babel STORY. This does NOT prove the Tower of Babel existed, OR that it served the function it did in the story.

your correct there
that can be said for most religions but in the eyse of a religious person there will always be that one right religion

I have to agree with BM on this one, if your raised into a family that belives a certain religion then your more likely to think that one is the right one, I know this from first hand experience.

I have only, as always, parried blows. I haven't even begun to deal my own.

It has always been too much to ask that one side of a debate will be convinced by the other, unless the issue is a purely scientific one had between scientists (where it happens all the time). When the topic is religion, only by embarking on that journey yourself will your mind be changed, and in debates those people are in the audience sitting with rapt attention. In a formal debate the proposer and opposer of a motion are expected to be well educated and therefore already know the other side's position, it is the audience who are being convinced, shown by before and after votes. The swing decides the victor, not the numbers. That is not the case here, and I don't suppose there is anyone for me to convince, let alone that I have. Particularly since "the audience" are also participants. I can but put it to our peers: who has presented the most compelling argument, regardless of their views?

As it is, I would be happy only to shake your confidence in the arguments you have presented. If it does nothing but to force you to seek and understand better arguments for your position, well, that's progress of a kind, and I take that as a victory.

I could not possibly convince you of anything here. I can't prove a negative! But I am confident in being able to argue against most any argument, among other things. I know of atheists who look at religion, particularly Christianity, and wish it were true, wish that they could possibly believe it. I do not count myself among them, and I think I can make a very could case explaining why.

Baseless assertion! You are correct, though, in saying that a religious person will never admit that their faith is wrong. By the time they have been convinced of that, they are faithless. A state that I wholly recommend, by the way.

Please share these reasons. As I plan to tell my children: they are free to believe whatever they will, but I expect that anything that will persuade my children of the truth of their religion will also be able to persuade me.

I'd say Bullet won the debate, except it wasn't a debate so much as a trainwreck.

I'lld have to agree bullet definately won this debate

Perhaps he did, may I firstly say that the crashing and burning comment was not aimed at you Bullet Magnet, more so at other characters who shall remain anonymous.

Please make this case, I am intrigued.

I'm sure you would, but this debate has (perhaps unfortunately) brought me to question over the last few days, some of the things I have always held closely as truth, the Ark for example, did Noah bring plants to the ship?bacteria? Virus? If you are trying to destroy my faith in God or convert me to Atheism, perhaps you are taking a small victory but I hope it is not celebrated, it's a sad thing for some one to lose hope or stop believing in something they hold dear, not that I no longer believe in God.


I don't think you want me to answer this so as to see what a decent reply will be but merely because you think I have no answer and hope I called your bluff as it were.
Well, obviously, I have been brought up as a Christian, to see that God is true and his teachings have corrected me and guided me through my early life. Moulded me into a semi-decent person even if I fail to keep all his laws. Perhaps if my parents were Hindu I would be a Hindu but...perhaps if this were the case I would instantly convert to Christianity the one truth apostolic faith. Of course this is a pointless and trivial pursuit because it touches into fantasy and mindless speculation, not religion or science.

Your children, I am sure, are far more impressionable than you, if I was to take control of them (assuming they are still relatively young) I could indoctrinate them with God but maybe it would be better to allow them to reach an older age and give them a Bible..."Is this possibly how life is, how it is made and what lies ahead for you," I was never given the option to make the decision for myself, maybe this is a curse but to me, it was the most beautiful gift, the chance to have the worship of my God installed in my mind, so that I don't have to make the decision for myself...this may sound extremely idiotic to you but no, I prefer to have been indoctrinated and by Lord I would not have it any other way.

I'm sorry to here that. Though I never expected to win as in win a battle or a match, that is not what I am striving for, as I stated in the beginning of this affair, I am trying to hold my own and restore some sense of respect that apparently someone once held.

You're doing a pretty poor job of it.

You held Noah's Ark as truth? I didn't think any Christians today, no matter how diluted, still considered that to be anything more than a bedtime story. I mean, the "two of every animal" thing is so absurd it's almost Seussian.

Who cares if he held it as truth? I'm more disturbed by the fact that he clearly hasn't bothered to even read the story that he holds as canonical truth.

Noah didn't need to take plants on the ark because God allowed them to regrow as the flood waters receded. And if you don't believe me; how did Noah discover that the flood had ended?

Quoted and bolded so more people will notice.

Boy I wish I could sig that.

Self-aware zombie. I dont know whether to laugh or cry. I'm stuck between the two, like when you hit your elbow.

I think you did a pretty good job of holding your own and I dont think anyone has crashed and burned, the fact is nothing BM has said has disproved religion, it has only supported science and knocked down any attacks sent to him, also just about everything he said is accurate

No, Scrabtrapman has done a really poor job of defending himself; while Bullet has backed up his opinions and arguments with scientific evidence and reasonably well-constructed logic, STM has been using faith as his one and only argument, and keeps falling back on "well that's just my belief, hurr" every time he is challenged.

Not really no. I haven't actually said anything like that, at least I don't think I have...if you can back that up then fine.

Here you go:

...Not all of that was part of my argument...hmm

But plenty of it is. I used examples from other threads to underline my point, which is that religious debates always end up with one side (guess which?) saying something like "well that's just what I believe/some people just have faith".

I recently had an argument with April about religion, and Abbey's exposure to it.

Abbey had heard someone talking about god at some point, and she asked me about it. I told her in very basic terms what the story was, and I told her why it wasn't real. April overheard me, and confronted me about it, saying that we should let her find out for herself what she believes in. I responded that while I am okay with her believing whatever she wants, I will be damned if I am not going to explain to my child the way that the world works. And furthermore, it isn't like Santa Claus, which is fun, innocent, and not harmful in any way. This is religion, which is disgusting, hateful, and a source of great pain all throughout human history.

To make a long story short (mostly because I was in a rage, and I can't remember most of the conversation), I ended it by saying that I will not be told to keep quiet about something which is so fundamental to who I am in my own home, and be damned to you if you ever ask me to again.

I just think it's weird that anyone would wanna keep a fact secret from their own kid just because they'd want them to find out for themselves. Unless of course, April is religious. X_x dunno if you ever mentioned that.



Luckily, I grew up in an atheist home. When I was a kid, my friend tried to convert me, and I politely did what he told me to do(like praying and stuff), just to try it out. Can't say I ever found it very rewarding, it felt kinda stupid praying to yourself knowing that no one hears you.
And I never got that Kitten that I wanted anyway :(

She's more passive agnostic to my militant atheist.

I could never live with a religious person. That wouldn't work.

Well even if she's agnostic, that must mean she doesn't believe the religious story. otherwise she'd be religious. so I still don't see why anyone who's not really religious would want their child to "find out for themselves" thus possibly sending them into a spiral of really bad religion.

It probably doesn't mean much, but I'd say you were right in fighting against Abbey finding out for herself, and just laying out the truth directly.

Like I guess it would be the same as saying that every child must burn their finger on the stove in order to know not to touch it when it's on, instead of just warning them that it will burn them.

Yes, well, you'll get no argument from me.

So OANST if your daughter became a religious follower what, would you disown her? And I do remember you giving me a bollocking because at some point you were a Baptist, am I wrong there, just generally wondering?

Did you even bother to read what I wrote, or did the part where I said that she can believe whatever she wants escape your understanding?

I was raised Baptist. I went to a Baptist school, and went to church three times a week. My entire childhood was spent studying the Bible, and learning the Christian idea of morality. I spent my teen and adult years unlearning all this bullshit.

Oh, out of interest, what made you atheist? I hope I'm not prying into something that you don't want to say or anything I'm just curious as to what converts someone.

The fact that Christianity is absolute nonsense is what did the trick.

Seriously. They hated me at the school and the church because I was the one kid who was always saying that it didn't make sense, and could you please explain it to me. They wouldn't let me back for high school.

Well if they didn't answer your questions and things then It's understandable you converted, how can you educate something as delicate and extensive as religion, any religion without answering questions?

There were no answers to my questions. That's because it's nonsense.

Says the atheist.

Exactly. But when I first started saying it I wasn't an atheist.

Like it or not, pretty much all of your arguments boil down to faith, as does the argument of every religious person. The problem with this is that the only reason that you have this faith is because of the indoctrination. You've never seen anything that implies that the Christian god is real. Let's put aside whether or not you "see" or feel god in everything that surrounds you. The Christian god is your god because your parents said that was the real one, and you bought it, you fucking sheep. No matter what you're told, such as the fact that the Jesus story was told verbatim as the Horus story one thousand years before Jesus' supposed birth, it doesn't matter. Because you're too fucking scared to allow that when you die that's it, you're dead, or you're too fucking stupid to put two and two together.

And yet, your kind is dying off little by little. Every generation sees a rise in the number of atheists, and I thank your imaginary, ridiculous god for that.

Your wrong, and when you die, look St. Michael in the eye for me and tell him he's not real before you fall.