If God were real, you wouldn’t need a book

Cypress said:
The Bible is literature, not science, and for the rational person the first step is to approach the story from the perspective of literary criticism, not molecular chemistry.

In English translations, the Greek word epi is usually translated as 'upon'. But epi can also mean "near" or "by".

The telling of the story in the gospel of John is fairly ambiguous.

So the possibilities are:

1) It was a miracle and Jesus walked upon the water.

2) Jesus was walking near the shore, and perhaps just waded out to the boat.

3) The story is parable. The authors of the gospels weren't historians strictly speaking, and their literature would have been pregnant with midrash and parable, which would be entirely consistent with the Jewish tradition of literature.
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The problem is that you have to believe all of these things as literal or Jesus/God, as a divine being, is just a story.
 
gfm7175 said:
If so, then you likewise can't just assume that gods DON'T exist, and that the "heavens and earth" appeared out of (_______?), and that life appeared out of non-life, without asking how.

You still haven't come up with a reasonable way to describe how miracles don't/can't occur.
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^^^
Worships the Mammon-worshiping false god in the WH.

agnhez.jpg
 
ZenMode said:
you haven't read much.

It was.... in 2001 when W banned funding for stem cell research because "life is a gift from our creator".
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2001 was 24 years ago. You aren't being convincing that global stem cell research has been stopped, stymied, sabotaged by Christianity by pointing to news stories a quarter of a century old.
ZenMode said:
I don't think Christians or Christianity is relentlessly evil. I think it's unnecessary and any positives that come from it, could have come from a non-religious source.
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"Could" have come? Now who is engaging in blind faith and wishful thinking?

You have no evidence that Western science, literacy, art, music, education, universities, social ethics could have just easily come from any other source.

Experimental science is unique to the west, as is western forms of art, music, literature. Capitalism and democracy are unique to the West, and probably have roots in the Protestant reformation. Widespread literacy was unique to the West and is directly attributable to the Bible and Protestantism. Giotto. DaVinci, Bach would not exist without Christianity.

Even the esteemed atheist Bart Ehrman says the Christian social and ethical conscience was unique and did not exist in the Greco-Roman pagan world.

Your claim that Western Civilization would have easily been created in an atheist-irreligious vacuum without Christianity has no basis in fact or evidence.
 
Cypress said:
2001 was 24 years ago. You aren't being convincing that global stem cell research has been stopped, stymied, sabotaged by Christianity by pointing to news stories a quarter of a century old.

"Could" have come? Now who is engaging in blind faith and wishful thinking?

You have no evidence that Western science, literacy, art, music, education, universities, social ethics could have just easily come from any other source.

Experimental science is unique to the west, as is western forms of art, music, literature. Capitalism and democracy are unique to the West, and probably have roots in the Protestant reformation. Widespread literacy was unique to the West and is directly attributable to the Bible and Protestantism. Giotto. DaVinci, Bach would not exist without Christianity.

Even the esteemed atheist Bart Ehrman says the Christian social and ethical conscience was unique and did not exist in the Greco-Roman pagan world.

Your claim that Western Civilization would have easily been created in an atheist-irreligious vacuum without Christianity has no basis in fact or evidence.
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other cultures with different religions have come up with equally decent moral systems.

but of course they have their own neocons too, who turn everything to fear greed and violence.

:truestory:

catholicism and all its offshoots are from the devil.
 
ZenMode said:
So, there are no deities needed. People just need to believe there's one who will destroy you in hell if you don't love him and follow his rules.
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no.

cooperation and mutual benefit is the natural evolved morality of humanity.

we just have to let truth happen.

the truth doesnt take armies and force to instill.
 
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