Hitch is dead

There is evidence for random chance as well as many other actions within evolution but there is zero evidence of any intelligent design or designer and overwhelming evidence that there is no plan or goal.Sorry but GDR and many others are simply using the Gods they create as an answer to the questions that they want to hear.It's fine to believe that there is a GOD that is the creator of all, seen and unseen but to pretend there is any external purpose or rhyme or reason to all that is seen and unseen is just hubris.

Only kinda sorta Phat, but I'll explain my position yet again.No one has ever presented a model, method, mechanism, process or procedure that would all someone to know GOD or test to verify that what the think is GOD really is GOD. You haven't. GDR hasn't. Faith hasn't. But the evidence found in the Bible and every other religious text shows definitively that humans are very good at creating God(s) and god(s); the Bible is filled from beginning to end with descriptions of gods that are mutually exclusive. The God in Genesis 1 is entirely different than the God in Genesis 2&3. Correct, there is zero evidence of that God's existence and the evidence shows again definitively that as the mythos changes so do the gods. Correct. I do not limit god or create a god in my image. I do not create a god that favors one creation over all others. I do NOT give god responsibility beyond believing that GOD if GOD exists is the creator of all, seen and unseen, not just the creator of what some humans consider "good".

But Wait...There's more.You did not post the full definition or point out that it is merely a legal definition rather than a scientific definition.The rest of that definition is: So it refers to opinions and not actual facts.

Well, first there is no such thing as "the whole things" when it comes to the Bible and it is not even as close to being a unitary thing as the Harry Potter Series. The Bible is a creation of several different committees designed primarily as a propaganda tome specific to the particular flavor of Christianity involved.Each Canon is different.

But that is simply silly. The stories show all of the characteristics of folk tales including the classic techniques that latter became the Saturday one reelers, the continuing cliffhanger that will get the folk back in next Saturday.Nor is the Bible 66 books. Some are but the shortest is but 5 books (almost all fiction) and the largest over 80 books.To quibble over whether a story is fiction or fable or folk tale or propaganda is just silly. The stories were written as entertainment or to sell a political or cultural history or to document laws or power bases or tribal aliances and if making stuff up made the story better the authors made stuff up.

Well no, it most certainly is not clear that they were historical rather than folk tales. Did the authors believe that what they were writing somewhat kinda sorta nearly probably possibly described what they thought kinda sorta nearly probably possibly did happen? Very likely BUT as the story got retold each author embellished it with details that kinda sorta nearly probably possibly might have happened.That is also true of Saul's conversion and the Great Commission and other parts of the New Testament as well.Are parts of the Bible true? Certainly, but also colored and embellished and polished and edited and revised to fit a narrative that might have had absolutely nothing to do with reality as seen by the original authors.All of the important parts, that Jesus even existed, that Jesus died as described, that the resurrection happened, that the ascension happened are things that Christians accept based on faith and belief and certainly not on facts, evidence or history.We can look at the teachings and ask if they make sense as a way of life; as a morality but those are all things that we can decide and adopt or reject regardless of whether or not anything in the Bible is factual or historical.Edited by jar, : appalin spallin

But as I went on to say..."Did the authors believe that what they were writing somewhat kinda sorta nearly probably possibly described what they thought kinda sorta nearly probably possibly did happen? Very likely BUT as the story got retold each author embellished it with details that kinda sorta nearly probably possibly might have happened."The authors may well have believed and wanted to sell their writings as historical but that does not preclude those writings being total fiction.Our President is a great example of just that syndrome.

You can have absolutely totally fictitious accounts from eye witnesses to an event.

There is though one really big, plausible and verifiable explanation for the rise of Christianity and the form it took and that is getting adopted as the State Religion by the Super Power of the day. Until that happened Christianity was and remained a very minor fringe cult.

Sorry but that makes no sense at all. First, almost all life is mindless. The fact the we might be sentient beings is a data point so minor, so irrelevant to live now or at any time in the past that it cannot be evidence of anything beyond the fact that all known God(s) and god(s) have been created by sentient beings in the image of sentient beings.If sentience is your reason to think there was an intelligent cause wouldn't the fact that almost all life at all times that life has existed on the planet both now and in the past is and has been not sentient but rather mindless be stronger evidence that the cause was mindless?

Yet that is exactly what ALL of the evidence shows.