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→From the Main Page discussion: Evidence for claims, please
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:"''If my world is baised by a non-Christian worldview (keeping in mind I used to be very, very Christian and have been down that road) then yours is certainly biased pro-Christian.''": Agreed. As someone once said, ''it's not a matter of whether you are biased or not, but which is the best bias to be biased with''.
:But my point in mentioning that your non-Christian worldview is that you were basing your arguments on it. That is, your arguments ''were based on'' your worldview. Even though I am biased towards my worldview, I am attempting to make my arguments on the basis of logic and evidence, not on the basis of my worldview, except on some occasions when I was trying to highlight your worldview-based arguments by doing the same in return.
:"''You say that on occasion God takes it upon himself to intervene when this is something I, nor anybody I know, has experienced.''": I was referring to what the Bible claims. You are, of course, free to reject that claim, but the Bible does claim this, and it doesn't claim, as you were indicating, that God explicitly causes rain every time it rains.
:"''...based on stories that have been re-re-retranslated ...''": What "re-re-retranslat[ions]"? The English Bibles we have today have, for the most part, undergone a ''single'' translation from the original Hebrew and Greek (mostly) to English.
:"''...authored by people who's aim was to convey a message rather than record historcal accuracy''": Again, what evidence do you have for that? How do you know that their aim was not historical accuracy? Indeed, the evidence suggests otherwise. There's so many questions like this that I keep asking and you keep not answering, instead choosing to simply keep repeating unsubstantiated claims such as this. How about actually backing up claims like this?
:"''I have trouble beliving in a God who would divinely intervene to help the Hebrews slaughter their enemies yet who will not stop the violence in Darfur.''": How do you know He won't? Did anybody ask Him to? (See also my last comment in this post.)
:"''...a fickle God who doles out punishments and selfishly picks the battles he fights while ignoring most of the plight of humanity.''": You seem to know a fair bit about the motives and intentions of this God whom you reject! My point is that just because you don't understand ''why'' God doesn't act the way that you think he should is not reason to reject His existence (and I'm referring to the existence of the God described in the Bible, not a vague "originating force").
:"''...if God at one time was content intervening and leading the Hebrews out of their slavery why cannot he lead all those imprisoned out of their bondage?''": Again, you don't know that God "cannot" do this, and just because you haven't the imagination or insight to know ''why'' He is acting in the way He does doesn't give you reason to reject His existence. I'm not saying, by the way, that you should not try to understand; just that not understanding it not itself reason for rejection.
:"''I think I did give an example of literal to metaphorical: the creation story.''": Yes, you gave an example of something that you claimed was once intended to be literal and no longer is; but you didn't explain how this could be so.
:"''...humanity could not genetically have started from just two people''": Why not? If God created Adam and Eve without any defects (genetic or otherwise), there should be no problem.
:"''The gospels (ceratinly the synoptics) were not written by the men who's name they bear.''": So you say, but offer no evidence. I, on the other hand, provided you with a link to an article where the evidence for their authorship was explained. Please start substantiating your claims else this conversation is going nowhere.
:"''While it is true the other gospels are not part of the bible, it does not diminish their validity.''": If they are not Divinely inspired, it does.
:"''Try reading Why Christianity Must Change or Die by Bishop Spong. He outlines very nicely how the Christian tradition grew and this is not some crazy off his rocker atheist, this is a man who genuinely believes in God but that a theistic god is leftover from a past when humanity was not okay with its own aloneness.''": Oh, please. He is an apostate; he doesn't believe the book that he professes to teach from! He blames fundamentalism for the decline in Christianity, when it is the liberal part of the church that he represents that is in decline and the "fundamentalist" part that is growing!
:"''The canon had not been accepted,...": See [http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html here].
:"''... even the authors of the gospels place Jesus' divinity in different places. Only when John came along as the last gospel was Jesus truly a god. Paul understood that Jesus' divnity was put in place by the ressurrection, the synoptics place it at his birth and John pre-birth, creating Jesus as an ever-existing figure.''": Your argument (again) presupposes your view regarding the date and development of the idea. To the extent that you are correct, you confuse date of writing with the date of the concept.
:"''I just dont see though how an all loving god could neglect genocide, injustice, rape, muder, theft, exploitation on such grand scales.''": And if He did prevent it, you would not know about it, and whatever was still around (i.e. on a not-so-grand scale) would then seem to be atrocious, and if He prevented that also, then whatever was still around would then seem to be atrocious, ad infinitum, until the only bad things were pulling a girls hair or saying naughty words to people, and you, not having any experience with anything worse, would still consider that atrocious and make the same argument. God gave us this world, and we rejected Him, so He has given us our wish and left us to our own devices. He still cares, and His heart breaks, but we can't blame Him for our sins.
:"''It seems if God is all loving then an plea in-earnest by anybody would be heard.''": It is heard, but He doesn't necessarily answer the way you want. And I strongly suspect that His actions, depending on the circumstances, depend on who is asking. For example, if a (relative) handful of Christians pray for rain during a drought, He might not answer their prayers, as doing so would be to help the entire population who have mostly rejected His help. But if the nation as a whole, or even the nation's leaders, humble themselves before Him and ask for His help, I expect that He would help.
:[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:37, 19 July 2007 (EDT)