Not me, I'm a "card carrying" atheist. No half measures here.

I take full responsibility for all of my own shortcomings, I don't need a mythical "man in the sky" to take the blame for me or absolve me of my "sins".

The buck stops right here!

The scientifically accurate part of "the bobble" starts with, "It's a book", and there, the accuracy ends.

Originally Posted by senojekips

Not me, I'm an atheist. No half measures here.

I take full responsibility for all of my own shortcomings, I don't need a mythical "man in the sky" to take the blame for me or absolve me of my "sins".

The buck stops right here!

I am agnostic bordering atheism, essentially I find it almost impossible to believe that a divine "being" exists that has ultimate control and yet chooses not to exercise it and if this being does exist then because it chooses not to help when it has the power to do so it can not be benevolent.

However I know a number of people that see god as a set of rules to live life by and not an entity (sort of a mankind as a whole=god) which I can sort of accept no matter how wishy washy it appears, over all I agree that I am master of my own destiny.

Originally Posted by MontyB

However I know a number of people that see god as a set of rules to live life by and not an entity (sort of a mankind as a whole=god) which I can sort of accept no matter how wishy washy it appears, over all I agree that I am master of my own destiny.

I could live with that. I have a very clear cut set of rules by which I live, and this is one of the reasons that I get quite grumpy when "christians" try to take the high moral ground, as most of them in my experience have few rules of morality which they will not break when it suits them.

As for "the bobble", I feel that many of todays flakey TV sitcoms have a far more credible storyline.

No, I don't believe God exists in the way that many imagine, but I do believe that the set of rules and ideals are good and they are attributed to God. These values are not universal and I think they are good, so I might as well give some credit to the entity to which they are attributed to.
I don't think it's something we really can understand, at least not at this point.

Main messages: Love, forgiveness.

The rest are details. I bet if Jesus could come back to read the Bible he'd go "What the f...."
It's basically a relationship between you and the words really. What other people go about doing is pretty irrelevant.

Originally Posted by the_13th_redneck

No, I don't believe God exists in the way that many imagine, but I do believe that the set of rules and ideals are good and they are attributed to God. These values are not universal and I think they are good, so I might as well give some credit to the entity to which they are attributed to.
I don't think it's something we really can understand, at least not at this point.

Main messages: Love, forgiveness.

The rest are details. I bet if Jesus could come back to read the Bible he'd go "What the f...."
It's basically a relationship between you and the words really. What other people go about doing is pretty irrelevant.

But that is part of the problem, people seem to love attributing the "commandments" to Christianity and "God" however these are rules that society has had ever since we "the human race" became communal.

I think this was something that Rattler was eluding to in an earlier post but many of the rules and regulations that appear as commandments were rules and regulations that Persians, Babylonians, Greeks, Egyptians and Romans all lived under thousands of years before Christianity appeared on the scene.

Besides if Jesus turned up tomorrow, 5.56 would call him a hippie liberal for long hair and and preaching peace so I wouldn't worry about it.

Which is why I don't think Christianity should aggressively consider itself the only one.
These rules and regulations have been around for some time but I'm not all that sure that the primary message of love and forgiveness was the centerpiece of the belief.
In Christianity, it is certainly supposed to be.
Plus, the God worshipped in Christianity is not unique to Christianity anyways. Same God that the Jews and Muslims worship. So who's to say it doesn't go back further than Judaism?

Either way, once the most important part of the teachings are violated, there really isn't any point anymore. But people seem to forget about the important parts and focus on all the small details that could have come from anywhere and from anyone.

Pfft. The Ancient Greeks realized that the entire universe can be expressed in numbers, now THAT is a discovery I respect.

"More fanciful writers immediately start to theorise wildly: that those who built the pyramids, or Stonehenge, must have been guided by super-intelligent aliens, that sort of thing. Andrew Parker, a scientist and proud of it, has no time for such twaddle."


I'm laughing out loud. It couldn't be intelligent aliens, but it's TOTALLY possible that it was actually an invisible omnipotent old man in the sky. What the hell are they smoking?


This is a case of someone seeing what they want to see. There are many, many coincidences throughout history that might seem significant in some way if you have too much free time.

Where it all starts is the question that holds the key. Science and religion; whence?

More interesting as, wherever it started, it appears to rumbling to a finish about now - our contribution I mean.

I think the argument was pretty much stillborn. It never had a real chance of ever going anywhere sensible.

Over 5000 years recorded so far. and counting. Longest search ever.