God didn't do any of thatHumans lie all the time and always have

I highly recommend Josh McDowell's book. More Than a Carpenter and Lee Stroebel's book. The title escapes me at the moment. Lee's books especially addresses much of what you're reading now.

Rick

When compared to other ancient texts. It has remained remarkably consistent even with the various translations over the years.

During the Middle Ages, the Bible was kept from people and was only for the priests to read. That lead to massive corruption in the church which was State run. Thanks to the invention of the printing press and the various Reformation movements. The Bible was placed in the language of the people and made readily available.

Even today, people are still translating the Bible into every language and tonge in the world. You'd be surprised how many people groups in the world haven't even SEEN a Bible much less read one. Its sad.

Rick

Still misquoted, taken out of context and not accurately translated even after nearly 2000 years.
It is only sad for you that people still haven't read it, but fear not there plenty of missionaries willing to go to strange new lands to ruin cultures, destroy centuries old traditions with the wonderful word of god, and bring diseases that will wipe out civilizations along with them.

god: still killing even after all these years.

God didnt kill anyone. Humans did.

God doesn't kill anyone because god is a myth. I use god metaphorically to represent organized religion in this case christian missionaries.

Humans kill.That's no surprise

Ummmm. Don't forget. In many of those cases, it was the missionary who ended up dying simply because they weren't immune to the diseases they were exposed to.

If it weren't for Paul's Missionary Journeys to Europe, Western Civilization wouldn't be what it is (or was) today.

Rick :-)

Humans kill.That's no surprise


People kill when God is forced out of the picture. Recent history is full of this. Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Rick

As it has been discussed here many times, the whole Hitler/Stalin actions can't be blamed on a lack of god, anymore than they can be blamed on mustaches.
In Hitler's Autobiography he mentions God several times, in several different ways.
As far as Stalin is concerned, the main problem there wasn't the lack of religion, but that the system he put in place acted too much like a religion.
Not to mention that recent history is also full of people full of god killing too, so your point fails, epically.

Is this the best you got?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Cause all it takes is simple arithmetic to prove you amazingly wrong.

Logic dictates that I laugh instead of countering your baseless argument with an equally flaccid response.

I think you could easily just go to any prison in the USA and ask about god get a tally and realize that killing and god in the picture fit perfectly.

wow.

I know this is going to be a shock, but what people (of the intelligent kind) normally do, is read the book then attempt to falsify the conclusions by using research and verifying evidence.

As far as your reference to radio dating, its clear your ignorance of research is on par with your ignorance of radio dating.

Humans kill.That's no surprise


People kill when God is forced out of the picture. Recent history is full of this. Hitler, Stalin, etc.

Rick











Cain believed in God,even spoke to him, yet he killed as well. Humans kill regardless.

Ooooh boy. Where do we begin here? :-)

First of all I'd love to see the study on the prisoner thing.

Its no secret at the world wide level that Stalin and Communism were based in Atheism. When the Iron Curtain finally came down in the 1990's there was such a spiritual hunger for something other than Atheism.

There's way more Christians being killed for their faith than any other group in the world today. Just look at persecution dot com and read the stories there. Voice of the Martyrs is doing great work in this area to help those in need. The vast majority of the political prisoners in many oppressed nations are Christians.

And back to Cain. When he and his brother Abel were presenting their offerings to God in Genesis, Cain's offering was rejected for he gave it with the wrong motives. So God punished him when he murdered his brother Abel.

Not to get into a long history lesson, but once Western Civilization began moving away from its Judeo-Christian foundations and institutions back in the 18th century, we ended up with the likes of Hitler and Stalin. The reason why I chose them was because they were the worst offenders of the 20th century.

This has been a good discussion overall. :-)

Rick

All I am saying Rick is that people kill regardless of the reason.

Other than the fact that Communism is a Socio-economic/Political idealogy...



How about something from somewhere other than a christian apologist site?

Hitler was not an atheist. So, your arguments are self defeating.
1 atheist, 1 non atheist would seem to me to break the idea that religion or non religion are what make people do bad things. My example of prison is also a great example. . . the idea of god in someones life seems to make little difference in there behavior regarding violence.

This was your theory . . . remember?
Seems you need a new theory.

It is really all very simple:

Either the bible is inspired and of God or it is not.

If it is then we must assume that all of the changes that have happened to the book(s) are result of "God's Will". There are more than 30,000 of these changes documented be they intentional or accidental.

If all of the changes are the will of God then it is safe to assume that all things NOT changed are also persistent by the will of God. That means Leviticus and it's many violent rules are NOT to be ignored by Christianity.

If all of those changes are NOT of God then we can assume that 1) the book is NOT inspired or 2) It just isn't that important to God that the book be unchanged or taken seriously.

======

You need to understand that "literacy" when these text were being copied is not the same as it is now. Many of the people copying the texts could not IN FACT read. They simply copied one scroll, character for character, to another. This is true for HUNDREDS of years until educated scribes began making copies. However, at that time, they were already making copies from errant copies.

Errors were unavoidable when you consider that people copying may not have been able to read and the two "original" languages, Hebrew (OT) and Greek (NT), had interesting syntax systems. Hebrew writings do not use vowels and Greek writings of the time did not use spaces between words!

What am I saying:

Fr h s lk rfnrs fr --- no vowels
godisnowhere --- no spaces


=======

People who say that Hitler was without religion have no idea what he was really about. FURTHER, the most powerful single religion, the Catholics, were in bed with Nazism in many places. The Vatican not excluded.

Christianity has been used to defend some of the most atrocious acts of man. Slavery worldwide, the annihilation of the natives in the Americas, the kidnapping of the native children in Australia, right down to forced marriages at the age of 13 to men 30+ years older.

======

Lastly, Rick

You have no idea of the impact religion has had on civilizations. The fact is most civilizations that have risen to the level of empire set the ground work for their golden ages as Polytheists. It is only after they become monotheistic that they begin to suffer from corruption and true power lusts that force them to collapse from within. This is largely do to the fact that a singular god figure eliminates defendable individuality to a large extent thus consolidating power into a few hands.

In defense of the religious...

Many criminals "find Jesus" while they are in jail. And why shouldn't they?
• they are at a low point in their lives and need some hope
• they want to seem reformed and less dangerous
• the best way to get society off your back is to conform

They may not, in fact, have had religious lives when they committed their crime.

Having said that, in defense of your statements, it seems to me there are many, MANY, priests and preachers who are molesting children/promoting violence to their congregation/stealing from their congregations etc. They have god in their lives... yet...

I think it would be interesting to see how many of those who do find jesus immediately return to crime when they are released.

All I am saying Rick is that people kill regardless of the reason.


Hi again!

I understood what you meant and my comments weren't directed at your posting. I was merely expanding on what I said to make sure I wasn't misunderstood. :-)

You're exactly right. We are capable of killing. Religious preferences have nothing to do with it unless someone belongs to one of those extreme groups.

Have a great evening!

Rick

Ah yes. Unless the conversion is geniune, then you'll see a life changed. If its a "jailhouse conversion" to get out on good behavior then I could see your point.

On Hitler. Maybe not a pure Atheist but darn near close to it. He was more Humanist. To me, the two worldviews are interchangable.

I was scanning some of the other posts and I see we're getting into some pretty way out stuff. Much of it debunked over the past several years. And we've drifted way off topic. So its obvious you're all going to believe what you want to believe so I'll just leave it at that. You know where I stand.

Not to mention I've given all of you plenty to talk about. :-)

With malice towards none, I bid the good Lord keep you and protect all of you! :-)

Rick
As he graciously bows out of this conversation