Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

thejeff wrote:

I already did.

Search for "Son of Man". I listed several :-)

I've always wondered why folks think that being "son of man" is a claim to be God or God's special son.

I am a son of man. I (usually) make no claim to be God or God's special son.

Lame. That's probably the best summary of your post. But giving it more attention than it is probably worth (or than you are probably capable of absorbing):

Calling folks "brother" who A) are not one's brother and B) have not indicated any acceptance of this so-called brotherhood is indeed a disingenuous, arrogant, prick-like move.

Not that I am real big on the being offended game but I certainly would be more offended by someone inappropriately calling me "brother" (how dare you try to declare my kinship!) than by someone calling me a "disingenuous, arrogant prick" (hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion).

"But I have a feeling you are so lacking in self-respect that this term would be lost on you."

And you would be wrong. Care to be wrong about anything else? Your notion of "should be ashamed" is your opinion. It isn't really worth much.

"When you can learn to agree to disagree or engage in civil discourse... "

You may start by refraining from calling folks "brother" who have not indicated that they have any interest in being considered your brother in any sense of the word.

"Until then your just a slug that crawled out from underneath a rock. Please do Humankind a favor and craw back underneath it. "

Hey, that's kinda cute. Extra credit points for you!

in answer to : Remember when "atheist" had a negative connotation?

No, I do not

Pointing Out the Obvious wrote:

anapaix wrote:

you use very little reasoning or facts, and a lot of emotion. You have a lot more in common with the theists than you think.

How do you know how much this fellow thinks he has in common with the theists?

Your insupportable statement gives evidence of an undisciplined intellect.

Thank you Mr. pointer outer. You are correct that my statement had nothing to do with looking down on theists for any lack of reasoning or abundance of emotion, it was just my opinion of the idea of the Christian god.

thejeff wrote:

Agreed... about certain events.

But, I bet you remember every detail about winning your first 5k like it was yesterday? Your wedding day?

Besides, all we have are the finished products of these gospels and epistles. That isn't to say that the men didn't write about them beforehand in private journals. Did they? I have no idea.

Lastly, keep in mind that we have outsiders validating and archaeology vindicating the writers of the Gospels. What we DON'T have is a single piece of writing CONTRADICTING the events of the Gospels.

Actually Jeff, events that are so unique, so emotional and monumental tend to be the ones our memory fails us most on. Why do you suppose so many perfectly reasonable people make poor eye witnesses in court cases? Over a 35 yr period, I'd suggest memory is very bad, for most people in these kinds of circumstances.

And the bigger the event, the worse the accuracy of the recollection.

I could ask my dad who was at his wedding, and I guarantee you he can't name half the people that were.

If you watched some guy walk on water, I'd suppose your recollection of that 35 years after the fact would be quite different to the reality of what actually happened.

Suggesting they wrote this in private journals is simply pointless.

To paraphrase you, what we don't have is a single piece of evidence supporting the idea that a dead man can rise or a man can walk on water or part the ocean. Nor do we have any for talking snakes and boats that can house 2 of every living creature.

thejeff wrote:

once again a swing and a miss wrote:

"What you do NOT see is one piece of contemporary evidence REFUTING any Biblical claims."

Actually there is no evidence for the exodus. In fact, there is evidence against it, no record from Egypt - a country that recorded everything - cities mentioned that didn't exist at the time, etc. Plenty of links available to this and other facts that dispute the biblical account. Look'm up if you want to deal with facts and not conjecture.

Lack of evidence FOR is not evidence AGAINST :-)

PS- I googled "historical evidence for Exodus" and got 1.5 million hits. I will get back to you once I have read them all, but so far, they have all been "FOR".

Try a search for "against" and you will find actual serious sources.

Augusto E. Perez wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I already did.

Search for "Son of Man". I listed several :-)

That isn't a statement of divinity. "Son of Man" is used over 100 times in thr Tanakh and is used to emphasize man's fraility in contrast to God's divinity. God calls Ezekiel "son of man" throughout the Book of Ezekiel.

False. It is a title of divinity. See Daniel 8. In the same post, I gave about 4 other examples.

Augusto, I have a question for you. Why, in a thread promoting atheism, are you attacking Christianity? Shouldn't you be attacking atheism, instead???

The reference in Daniel 8 is not a claim to divinity. See its use in Daniel 7, concluding with Daniel 7:27 that these were "the people of the holy ones of the most high."

As mentioned before, Ezekiel is called son of man throughout his book and no one is stating that Ezekiel was god.

What do you have against slugs, brother?

thejeff wrote:

CoCer wrote:

This thread should be renamed to "Biblical Disputes". There shouldn't even be such discussion anyways as atheism is not solely the disbelief of Christianity, but of all religions. Remember, "We're all atheists. Some of us just go one god further".

I know, right? Weird that all of the followers of Zeus, Odin, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster haven't chimed in...

That's because they are humble.

Follower of Odin wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I know, right? Weird that all of the followers of Zeus, Odin, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster haven't chimed in...

That's because they are humble.

lol. well played :-)

Augusto E. Perez wrote:

The reference in Daniel 8 is not a claim to divinity. See its use in Daniel 7, concluding with Daniel 7:27 that these were "the people of the holy ones of the most high."

As mentioned before, Ezekiel is called son of man throughout his book and no one is stating that Ezekiel was god.

Apologies. It is Daniel 7:

13 “I saw in the night visions,

and behold, with the clouds of heaven

there came one like a Son of Man,

and he came to the Ancient of Days

and was presented before him.

14 And to him was given dominion

and glory and a kingdom,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him;

his dominion is an everlasting dominion,

which shall not pass away,

and his kingdom one

that shall not be destroyed.

Son of Man is used as a description of the divine figure in his dream. Synoptic us of "Son of Man" directly reference this... I also gave several other claims beside this one :-)

Extraordinary Claims wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Lack of evidence FOR is not evidence AGAINST :-)

PS- I googled "historical evidence for Exodus" and got 1.5 million hits. I will get back to you once I have read them all, but so far, they have all been "FOR".

Try a search for "against" and you will find actual serious sources.

If by "actual serious sources" you mean "sources biased against the Bible", then I agree.

But, point taken. I simply googled "historical evidence Exodus". No "for" or "against". As we both might have expected, they are about 50/50 for and against, lol... maybe 60/40 "for" ;-)

I forgive you, cuz :-)

Well done :-)

In all honesty, thanks for facilitating the dialogue... interesting to see so many different worldviews....

TheJeff,So, I took the time to read this entire thread to see where you are coming from and while I think many of the posts have strayed from the original question posed by the OP, I do think some of this is a great discussion. I want to go back to your use of the word "Faith" if you don't mind.I don't know if you were trolling with some of your responses to objections of how you are using the word faith or if you are simply trying to make a point and, thus, you are using that word in a way that I think most people would agree is different than "religious faith". Earlier in this thread you said...

And then you used an example of something as mundane as a stop light changing as an example of "faith"......

Now, I agree that technically your English is correct in regards to the use of the word faith as synonyms include belief, hope, etc. However, I think it is intellectually dishonest to say a persons faith a traffic light will change or faith in another directly observable phenomena is equivalent to a persons religious faith.

Let me ask you this, do you believe non-human animals are capable of having faith? Can a rat have faith? How about a monkey or a chimp--can they have faith? If so, is their faith equivalent to religious faith? Do you believe they have the capacity to accept Jesus or any other prophet or God and there by be saved from eternal damination?

I think (and I could be wrong) with your posts about "faith" that you were trying to make the point that even atheists have faith? Is that correct? If yes, I agree with you. I am not an atheists but anyone who claims a confident belief or a confident disbelief in God is exhibiting a type of religious belief in my opinion.

You're misreading it. When the author states that the beast is put to death, a being like a human ("like a son of man") approaches the Ancient One, etc. Just as in Ezekiel, "son of man" is used to denote humanity. This is a human figure they are referring to.

You read this whole thread? Even I didn't do that ;-)

1. First, let me say that I am completely unqualified to answer your question about animals, but my unscientific knee jerk response is that, no, they don't...faith is a higher level cognitive function present only in humans... up there, say, with the ability to understand a joke or write music.

2. Yes, that was exactly my point. The atheists I have come in contact with seem to thing that having faith is beneath them (although, for the MY first time, I have been contacted on this thread be atheists who do claim to have faith). I agree with you, but I think we would have a hard time convincing an atheist that their active disbelief in God is classified as a type of religious belief :-)

Surprising things I, a person who has never spared a serious thought for the question of "god/not god", let alone the minutiae of the Christian bible, have learned from this thread:

1. Not all biblical literalists are bat-shit crazy. Sure, their apparent terror of living in a universe that is fundamentally indifferent to them (and this is indeed terrifying at times) seems to cause some serious short-circuiting of their critical faculties; but, those critical faculties are not entirely absent. It's fascinating watching someone attempt to defend a "faith" in the supernatural using historical evidence. I always thought the point of "faith" was that you didn't need any material proof-- that needing the latter was actually proof that you didn't really have the former. (And the conflation of "faith" and trust in human-made expert systems-- a form of trust in ourselves, not unseen forces-- was an interesting move.) An aside: Jesus/god would have made it a lot easier for his followers if his "miracles" had been a little more impressive to subsequent generations and not quite so "bronze age". Then again, if this whole business is really about "faith" then probably best to keep them on the modest side.

2. The supposed inerrant word of god contains a set of regulations for the practice of slavery! (And the attempt to defend the benignness of the bible by suggesting that ancient peoples would voluntarily enter into slavery was an spectacular example of point 1 above. How can a person be so familiar with such a complicated text as the bible, yet remain unwilling to give it a sensible reading? For instance, if ancient debtors could "voluntarily" enter slavery as repayment for their debts, why couldn't they just "voluntarily" repudiate their debts? Surely there was a coercive element in there somewhere!)

3. Some atheists really know the bible! These people were either forced to learn this stuff as kids, are religious scholars, or are just polymaths. If the latter, one wonders what other lengthy and arcane texts about things for which they appear to have no fundamental use they have mastered!