Summations Only

Alright. Alright. I admit to you, Trixie and all that my statement was not well thought out before posting. It is Jesus, Christians and Christianity and the Bible that atheists blame for bad things happening. Just as it is Mohamed, his violent Koran, his apostles who wrote the Haddith and Sunnas, and Muslims who I blame for most of the terrorist violence in the world today. It is not their god, Allah, perse who I blame.LoL. One of us few Biblical creationists here at EvC has 10 adversarial thumb twiddling critiques ever anxious to air any little miss-statement we make. Evolutionists have practically no one to scrutinize their posts so as to air any of the many times they don't get it quite right in their posts.The only active forum I am allowed to post in is The Coffee House. Others are banned from the science threads, including most of the important Bible related threads in there for whatever reason.Evolutionists can say about anything without getting called on it. Chuck and I don't agree on everything, but certainly agree on this point.ABE: Every time Buz posts.......Percy haven't I told you a thousand times not to exaggerate? Edited by Buzsaw, : No reason given.

Really? Thanks for informing me about what I think and believe. Do you realize that a sizeable number of atheists don't think that jesus even existed? It sure would be silly for me to blame a mythical creature for bad things. It burns!!!

Atheists most certainly do not believe there was any properties of deity in Jesus. Most likely, for the most part, they believe that he was a real man who lived in his time or are agnostics as to whether he did. Likely a minority of them categorically deny that he ever lived.I believe Josephus and other ancient historians allude some to to him. There are other evidences such as archeological discoveries, etc which are supportive to his having existed.It appears that we now have your opinion on it, Theodoric, that you allege he never existed if I read you correctly. Perhaps Dr Adequate, Cavediver or other self avowed EvC atheists will weigh in on this.

I assume that you can provide links to such "archeological discoveries, etc which are supportive to his having existed"?

Hi Buz,I originally clicked "Acknowledge" on your Message 142 because it contained little that made sense, but if you're going to adopt a reasonable position then maybe I'll reconsider discussing this with you. First let me make certain of your position. This is the first point, point 10, from the opening post: And this is what you posted about it in Message 142: So just to be very clear, you now acknowledge that the first point, point 10, is incorrect, and that atheists don't hold God, a non-existent being in their eyes, responsible for anything that happens in the real world.Before we continue, do you want to take another read of the thread and check whether your support of any of the remaining points is due to misinterpretation? I'd highly recommend it. You too often find interpretations that don't follow from what was actually written.--Percy

I'm one who contends that there's no historical support for the existence of Jesus (or, at least, that particular Jesus.) My impression, however, is that you're right and that the majority of atheists are accepting of the general consensus that Jesus was a real historical person.Mostly I think that's because they've not yet looked closely and seen that the entire case of the historical existence of Jesus is that, 70 years after he's supposed to have lived, people seem to have believed that he did. (I don't find that compelling. If I ask Alice why she believes Jesus existed, and she says because Bob believes he did too, and I ask Bob and he says he believes because Charlie does, and eventually I get down to Yves, who says he believes because Zed did, only Zed's dead, baby, Zed's dead, and so we can't ask him why he believed - that chain of taking the other guy's word for it doesn't lend any credence whatsoever to what they believe. None at all.)I'm fairly sure Theodoric would agree that he and I are in a minority. As you'll recall, we had that discussion and many atheists came out in support of the existence of a historical Jesus (but were not able to present much compelling evidence for it.)

No. I don't understand it as being block-headed that atheists blame God for everything. Unlike you, I don't see Chuck as a block-headed poster. I regard him as what we lack here at EvC; more Biblical creationist apologists.He, like me, likely knows that atheists do not blame Jehovah, perse for everything, just as I know that the Muslim god, Allah, perse, is not the blame for global terrorism. We both, did what many on your side get by with quite often, as noted in my Message 181. What we posted was not well thought out.Imo, it was good that you and Trixie called us on it. It's just that I regarded your admonition as mean-spirited and demeaning to both of us. First off, some who call themselves agnostics and some who call themselves Christian post and believe just about all that atheism ascribes to. Imo, if some of them were honest, they are essentially atheists, hiding under the cloak as agnostics. That allows them to be fence riders in the debates so as to allow for themselves the benefits of both positions. I believe Chuck alluded to this. No doubt Chuck and I agree to it.Perhaps some of these stealth atheists/agnostics do blame Jehovah for many evil things. I would have to do a long search to see if any self avowed atheists here at EvC have ever blamed God for anything. Perhaps some of them miss-spoke as Chuck and I have.To answer your question forthrightly, yes. Item 10 was erroneous.

You will notice I did not pull a Buz and say all. I did not even say a lot or a majority. I said "a sizeable number". Unlike you Buz I do not speak in absolutes. None are contemporary or cite contemporary sources. All they have is hearsay. Whatever. As always you will provide no evidence for this. Why do you creotards always have to qualify atheist. Do people call you a "self avowed christian"? No. Then why the need to use it with atheist?Edited by Theodoric, : No reason given.

No, no, no.We don't blame your sky fairy for anything. He doesnt exist therefore we cannot blame him because... jesus fing christ Buz are you really this dense?

Okay, on to point 9. This point is incorrect because it not a claim of evolution that "we all evolved from slime by a cosmic accident." The position of evolution is that species evolve through a process of random mutation and natural selection. Ultimately this leads to the conclusion that all life is related if you trace far enough back in time.--Percy

I think you hit the head right on the nail there. It's the same kind of thinking that the radical religious right fringe of the Republican Party had infect that body with as their tail wags them, the dog, more and more. The operative orders for the GOP has been to oppose everything that the President or the Democratic Party (but especially the President) proposes or does. The closest thing to a cogent ideological Republican position, or any actual position for that matter, has been to oppose the President in everything and in every way possible. Regardless of how ridiculous any anti-Obama or anti-Democratic statement or claim may be (eg, the "birthers" who still are not convinced, claiming that the President is an extreme-left socialist even though he is a right-of-center centrist, that the current President is totally responsible for the actions of the previous President and of persistent Republican obstructionism), they will embrace those ridiculous and contrary-to-fact statements and claims fully, such that the possible adjective for the Republican Party these days is "bat-shit crazy". Just like their tail which is wagging them.A little over a decade ago in a Yahoo forum (before the other moderators had left to leave it entirely in the hands of the creationist moderator, who immediately turned it into the kind to totalitarian dictatorship that Buz and Chuck grossly mis-characterize this forum as being), a creationist, before the fore-mentioned change, posted the tired old standard "the sodium levels of the oceans show that they are only millions of years old" claim (which also would say that the aluminum levels would say they're only 100 years old, if these devious creationists were to be consistent). I challenged his claim both by describing the concept of residence times to him (that these elements are not only being added to the oceans, but are also precipitating out of them; ever hear of massive salt deposits, like the ones we have been mining for centuries?), and by asking why, if he believed that the earth is less than 10,000 years old (which was the case), he would embrace a claim that contradicted his own position by showing that the earth would be millions of years old instead of ten thousands. His reply was an epiphany for me: "Because it says that the earth is not billions of years old, as science says it is!"That was the answer! They weren't trying to build any kind of cohesive self-consistent world-view, like science does. All they were interested in, like today's Republicans in re the President, was to oppose science in every way they could, to do and embrace everything possible that would show science to be wrong, no matter how ridiculous or contrary-to-fact.There's also a little insight provided on in a presentation in the late 1980's which was broadcast on the radio. Dan Barker, now labeled "America's leading atheist", was raised a fundamentalist Christian and served several years as a fundamentalist minister; his childhood memory was of his mother going about doing her housework while singing in tongues. In this presentation to a meeting of Atheists United (which was broadcast on radio, in the 15 minutes then given to atheists in Southern California as opposed to the hundreds or thousands of hours of radio time given to Christian evangelists; now there are none given to atheists), he offered this nugget: what happens to fundamentalists is that their theology has become their psychology.Therein may lie the problem. Since we normals all think that way, we expect fundamentalists to have or want to have a consistent world-view. They don't want to; they just want to oppose what they see as the opponent.

I addressed point nine in Message 142

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feel insulted and "dehumanized" when creationists say that people were created in the image and likeness of God, but you have no problem with the evolutionist claim that we all evolved from slime by a cosmic accident.
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Is this what you were referring to when you mentioned the primordial soup? If so, then you realize this is a false, too. On to the next:

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I would say that the primordial soup was a prerequisite to the ToE. No primordial soup; no evolution.

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Well, to be fair, they DO refer to Pres. Obama as a "self avowed christian"--though only to imply he's a Muslim.A political parallel is the "radical leftist" or "extreme liberal" reference. We never hear about moderate leftists or moderate liberals (or even plain vanilla leftists or liberals) from the right: if you disagree with them, that's extremely radical.I think radical Christians say "self avowed atheist" because they want to imply (as they believe) that every atheist knows in his secret heart of hearts that there is a God, and that they just hate Him.*NB: Confession--if creationists and evangelicals could somehow prove to me that their God, as they depict him, is real, I would cast my lot with the opposition.*Pronoun capitalized for clarity.

And Rahvin rebutted this in Message 144

Which is totally false, as was pointed out to you, yet you persist in ignoring the truth.Let's put it this way, in the vain hope that you will finally understand: No life; no evolutionDoes that get through your unobtainium creationist bubble? Primordial soup is by no means at all a prerequisite to evolution nor even to the theory of evolution; life is. Completely and totally regardless of how life had originated.Why is that simple fact so impossible for you to understand? Except if your twisted and perverted theology forbids you to understand simple truths.The view outside your own rectum is truly amazing. You should try it some time.