Is Christianity nonsense?

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Even if Christianity is true, how is it moral that my supposed sins are absolved by punishing someone else? In what world would that kind of judicial system be considered just - if a grown man murdered someone, would it be 'just' or 'moral' for his loving mother to take his place on the electric chair because she still loves him, no matter what? Would it somehow absolve him of guilt for the murder he had committed?

Since Islam and Christianity are the same cult according to certain people around here, what do these people have to say about the fact that the penalty for renouncing Islam in the Middle East is the death penalty? Christians keep invoking names like Stalin, Pol Pot, but they say nothing about the death penalty for unbelievers given to people in Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia. What do they have to say about the fact that Iranian gays are executed? Or gays in Uganda being executed?

One hole in your logic: If you were right (which you're not) then by the time i was dead, I would just cease to exist. I would never know I was wrong.
Secondly: Impenitence IS a sin. But the only unforgivable sin is denial of the Holy Ghost.
Thirdly: We are NOT holier-than-thou a****. I am not saying I am better; I would never think that. The only difference is that I am going to heaven because I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior. You don't, so if you were to die right now, you would be in Hell.
And my criteria for who goes to Heaven is that of God's - if you believe you shall see the kingdom of God. If P then Q. P Therefore Q. Simple.
I am NOT judging you. I am not the one to say what you have done. All I know is that if you are NOT saved, then you go to hell. simple.

Are the Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, deists, Jainists, Jews saved?

If not, we have a LOT OF people who are going to hell. And some of these people were born in areas where non-christian religions had control, so they were indoctrinated into believing in those religion, so you can say that they were born to burn in hell for not being saved.

I am not ignorant. Ignorant is defined as 'lack of knowledge of a certain subject.' I don't lack the knowledge. Now I will admit to being ignorant when it comes to say, Theoretical Physics of brain surgery. But in this case, name a piece of information that I am lacking and if I can't refute it, then I am sorry for wasting your time. I will NOT say that I will admit I am wrong, that goes against the core of my being.
Secondly, I am sorry that you feel the need to deny something like the Holy Spirit. I don't know what drives your decision; but I do know that I'm sorry you will have to endure the torture of Hell once you die for eternity. It will never end. So for that, I pity you.

No: If we were to die right now, you think you'd go to heaven and you think we'd go to hell. There is not enough evidence for your beliefs for you to validly state them as fact, rather than belief.

Nor is there enough disproof for you to say that my beliefs are false. Or maybe there is. Please, enlighten me.

That's not how debate works, friend. You're the one making the positive statement ("There is a god, and this is his holy book. We are instructed to behave thusly."). That puts the burden of proof on you.

I cannot disprove your god any more than I can disprove the proverbial teapot in the asteroid belt, but the improbability of either makes a working hypothesis of nonexistence logically valid.

edit: I cannot disprove your god any more than you can disprove the tens of thousands of other gods that you don't believe in.

Ok everybody...
I am very sorry for wasting your time. I am very stressed right now and I took it out here because it pushed ALL the wrong buttons. PMS is involved too.
I would much rather take it out here though than on my siblings or parents. And if I didn't take it out here, they would have gotten it.
Lastly, without this vent I would have inevitably ended up destroyed and sobbing on my bed.
But once again VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY sorry for wasting your time.

Because the lack of evidence on either side, it's impossible to truly debate religion. No religion has a philosophically compelling argument, so until a religion comes along that has a PCA it's pointless to even try to debate.

Those two sides are nonsensical.

I already proposed a methodology to verify the authenticity of the positions. The point is no data means no conclusion means you shouldn't even assume the probability of the hypothetical being in question plus there's the issues of subjectivity. There is no justification for the belief or the 'lack of belief (semantics comes in mind'

OK, fair enough, I can't find that definition with Google but it seems reasonable. This was a side-point though, the main point still stands - namely, that his argument rests upon the assumption that his own morals are right.


Who said the contradictory evidence here was 'convincing' - that it had no flaws, or that I accepted it? The point I made is that Dawkins fails to address his opponents arguments - he just makes personal attacks, which are an invalid form of argument.


How well he supports his own arguments is irrelevant. The question here is how he addresses other people's arguments.
How can you say that's exactly what I'm doing? Have I said 'Dawkins is crazy so don't listen to him'? I posted a video of him!
There's a difference between saying "Look, see for yourself that they're wrong", which is what I did, and saying, "I'm telling you they're wrong, so please don't listen to them yourselves" which is what Dawkins does. Don't you see the difference?


I recognise that's the conclusion you're supposed to reach from his examples. But it's a post hoc fallacy. He provides no proof of that - he only provides examples that fit that pattern, as if that were proof enough. A scientist should know better. To illustrate how the reasoning is flawed, can he prove that any of the bad things he lists wouldn't have ahppened without religion - with the people just using a different excuse than religion to justify them?
Heck, in his documentary 'the root of all evil' he visits Northern Ireland to show what evil can be done by religion - and what Dawkins apparently doesn't notice is that during all his own selected footage, the people are waving not]/b] religious icons, but political icons - it's obvious that the fighting would happen regardless of religion, but Dawkins ascribes it all to religion, because that's what he hates.

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5: Please provide an example of this epic strawman argument you are making. I've read most of his writings and have yet to find an example of that. Once again, hypocrisy much?

OK, I can't believe you're serious now.
How about him using human and chimp skulls as evidence that we evolved from chimps?
How about him saying that all living things use the same DNA code (which isn't quite true) as evidence that we're all related?
How about the [b]very claim he made in the video I posted?
Are you saying these don't fit the pattern I gave (saying X implies Y, we see Y, therefore X)? Or that they are all strawman arguments (i.e. not really arguments that Dawkins or other evolutionists use, just arguments that creationists have invented?)


No, one of the links I post is a creationist website to show why the experiment is worth doing - that the two sides are making conflicting claims about some testable data.
I link to the testable data to support my argument against evolution!


Fine, if you want the conclusion, I'll give you the conclusion. But then you'll just have to take my word for it that the conclusion is right. To have explained a repeatable experiment that you could do to prove the results for yourself was actually for more reliable and scientific, and was not in the least bit "BS".

But fine, here are the various amounts of differences of the various Cytochrome-B genes from the Human gene, which has a length of 1141bp.
132 Chimp (notice that the difference from us is 132/1141= 11.5% - not 98% the same!)
269 Cat
284 Lemur (a primate)
289 Tarsier (also a primate)
291 Gray Wolf
296 Tiger
306 Horse
311 Chicken
341 Hummingbird
344 Tunafish
348 Sturgeon (here are the fish I tested - their CYTB gene is closer to ours than the reptiles)
384 Cod
401 Crocodile
428 Starfish (not a chordate like most of the species here, yet it's gene is closer to ours than the snakes)
442 Adder
449 Water Snake
472 Fruit Fly
848 Rice

Which, as I said, as why Dawkins' claim that any gene will produce a perfect family tree is falsified, and the ID website's claim that the Cytochrome B gene grouped cats in with primates is verified - all from an independent resepected source (an international DNA database). But it would have been more convincing for you if you'd got the data from that source yourself. Which is why, if people genuinely want to know the truth, I encourage them to look data up themselves rather than just letting me cite figures.


If you mean the selecting-interviews thing, you have your evidence right here - I've just provided you with a scientific argument against one of Dawkins claims, and from the fact it was testing a claim made by more famous people on another website, you can see there are plenty of more well-known people equally capable of doing so. Have you ever seen him interview one of those people? Why not?
If you mean the being-abused-as-a-child, it seems I may have misremembered it - I can only find reference to him being abused at school, rather than a church. But while it's certainly not the more detailed quote from him I remember reading, it's hard to find anything on the subject because googling for it just returns the many results on how he considers it child abuse to teach children anything he disagrees with. So unfortunately this is the only relevant thing that comes up.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Richard_Da ... ite_note-1


How you can call this vitriolic is beyond me. Dawkins, as proved earlier, lies to millions of people about the evidence for what could help them live happy lives. Now I could assume him to be doing this out of pure evil, or I could assume that he just tells people whatever he thinks will sell the most books regardless of how many lives it will ruin - or I could sympathise with him on the basis of his having been subject to abuse as a child, and that having caused an emotional imbalance.
And because I go with the third option rather than either of the first two (despite having no evidence against the first two options, I might add), you think me hypocritical and vitriolic, and guilty of slander, just for assuming the best about him?

It's hardly a side point that your supposedly "merciful" god is portrayed as a bloodthirsty tyrant in your very own holy book. Dawkins isn't making any arguments about morals so your point escapes me.



No he doesn't. If you don't accept the "contrary evidence" then why on earth did you mention it? Right now you are doing what people whose point in a debate has been disproven often do which is to retreat to a slightly less assailable position. Well it isn't going to work. As fas as Dawkins goes I read all but one of his books and from my experience he very thoroughly addresses his opponents' arguments and very thoroughly refutes them. If you take the time to read his works you would find that to be the case. If you have read his works and persist in that belief then you are blinded by faith and nothing anybody could say will change your mind. That's the biggest difference between religious fundamentalists and people with enquiring minds - we love to find holes in our knowledge. The unknown is a fascination and being proven wrong on a wrongly held assumption is a good experience for us.



You're playing with semantics. Very often "his arguments" which I was talking about are arguments in direct contradiction to those of his opponents; by their very nature they are "addressing other people's arguments". You posted a 2 minute long video which was clearly a short clip from a public appearance. The comments you made about it were even incorrect (which I will demonstrate later in the post).



How on earth is it a post-hoc fallacy that those things are enabled by religion? The popes were the primary directing force behind most of the crusades. The catholic church was directly responsbile for the inquisition, Islamic terrorists blow themselves and others up in the name of Allah. The fact that some of those things may still have happened without religion is not terribly relevant - what IS relevant is that those specific incidences happened as a result of religion. What you have essentially said is "it's ok that religion makes people murder and torture sometimes because that happens anyway". Yet you make insinuations about other people's morals? Unbelievable. Also if you really don't think that the conflict in Ireland is about religion you are beyond naive. The political parties are aligned along direct religious lines. The orange men and other groups who do the marches which are the source of so much of the trouble are religious groups - the orange order was formed to celebrate and commemorate the day when they killed a bunch of catholics in a religious war. Don't speak about things which you clearly have no idea about because you just look silly.

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Physiological comparisons are absolutely a useful tool although obviously now genetic analysis trumps everything. There was nothing wrong with the "claim" he made in the video. It is accurate. Yes, viruses do not encode using DNA. They use a type RNA which is not capable of encoding to nearly the same level of complexity as DNA. The "deoxy" part of DNA is the important part because that is what allows long chains to form allowing higher life forms than viruses to be far more complex and to be able to reproduce independently, unlike viruses. DNA is nevertheless in a sense an RNA. There is also a strong argument to be made that viruses are not in fact alive because they cannot reproduce themselves without assuming control of a cell of another organism - in which case the statement is correct with no further qualification.



Only your interpretation of the data is horribly mangled. I'll demonstrate why below.



I've taken the time to read about this. The gene codes for a particular protein that is important for respiration. The exact function isn't too important to this. What's important is that mutations at some specific sites of that gene will profoundly effect its function while mutations at some other sites will have very little effect on the expression of the protein for which the gene codes and so will not matter in the evolutionary scheme of things. Those mutations (and mutations occur reasonably often) will be conserved if they occur because they are not causing any harm. So, comparing the sequence of the entire gene as you have done is not really useful. What's more useful is to compare the conservation of base sequences at sites which are important to the function of the protein. If this is done then the very close relationship between human and chimpanzee is evident. Here's a link to a PDF in which just that is done http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/18/4/465.full.pdf . You can read the full text if you like but unless you're well versed in biology you might find it tough going. A little quote to give you an idea though:

The cytochromebgenetic dis-tances between humans and both chimpanzee species
are 0.150 and 0.160 substitutions per site, respectively.
Although these distances are not as small as the dis-tances between different genera reported in table 2, they
are much closer to the modal class of the intrageneric
distance distribution than to the modal class of the in-tergeneric distribution (fig. 1B), which would support
the inclusion of humans, chimpanzees, and bonobos in
the same genus, Homo (Diamond 1992, p. 25

I bolded the important part. I'm not going to make any attempt to post all the data here because it is, to say the least, voluminous so if you want it it's there in the pdf.




I've never seen him interview those people because he repeatedly invites them to debate him and they refuse. I disproved your "scientific argument" so that is dealt with.



So, as is so common in these situations, you make a claim and expect people to accept it as face value and when you are questioned you retreat to less controversial position as you did before.




Haha I love the last part. You made an untrue accusation that his dislike for religion was due to having been abused by religious people - that he was on some bitter crusade for revenge - and you think that is "assuming the best about him". You really are unbelievable.

I'm going to give you an opportunity to save some face. Just admit that religion is a matter of faith and not a matter of proof? "Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: it never comes to the aid of spiritual things, but--more frequently than not --struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God" - that is a quote of Martin Luther, a theologian of whom I am sure you are aware. Obviously I do not find him to be an especially inspiring individual but you could learn from him. Religion and faith are NOT a matter of reason and if you try to pretend that they are you look preposterous. Be faithful; that is your prerogative and I will argue in favour of your right to your faith with just the same fervour as this argument I am making. But be honest enough to yourself that it is a faith and that reason is useless in examining it. Religious people are right; scientific folk cannot categorically, with zero doubt disprove that god exists. I personally don't particularly like Dawkins - I think he alienates people who he could otherwise be helping. On the other hand though religious folk cannot prove that god exists either! It's one of the central points of your religion for crying out loud - you must have faith. So, have faith, good luck to you I say but don't try and claim that faith has anything useful to say about science because it doesn't.

Edited quote formatting again, I think it should be right now :p

Edit again: Another point I forgot to make. The genes which encode for cytochrome b are mitochondrial DNA - DNA which is part of a *specific* cellular structure which is separate from the entirety of the rest of your genome. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited from only one's mother. When people mention the "98% identical" they are not talking about mitochondrial DNA but nuclear DNA i.e. the DNA contained within the nucleus of cells which is responsible for encoding for the majority of proteins i.e. all the non-mitochondrial ones. As an interesting aside it's widely believed that mitochondria were once an endosymbiont which became permanently included into the cells of eukaryotes (i.e. complex life). It's the incorporation of these mitochondria which allows us to respire as efficiently as we do. Personally I find things like that infinitely more fascinating than any religion.

Edit again: What's the problem with just reconciling your faith with evolution by going with the belief that the bible is an allegorical story inspired by god to allow simplistic human minds to understand? You're at least not then trying to fight the avalanche of evidence - evolution can be the mechanism by which god manipulates his creation! While I *still* wouldn't agree with that viewpoint it is vastly more plausible than creationism.

Pakistan does not execute non-believers. Iran and Saudi-Arabia would pribably have executed homosexuals any way (regardless of religion), as it is seen as western lack of moral. Furthermore, the Ayatollah or King Abdullah are no more mentor figures to the average muslim than Josef Stalin or Than-Schwe are to you.

Mitochondria are fascinating indeed. I remember as a student when I first encountered them just how incredible they are. A form of primitive life with its own DNA that lives within almost every cell of every plant and animal. No plant or animal on the planet could live without them. In a way they could be described as the most successful form of life on the planet. Way back in early evolution they formed a symbiotic relationship with other primitive proto-cells and thus began an incredible history of successful collaboration. Studies of the evolution and changes of Mitochondrial DNA have helped to plot the movement of mankind out of Africa and across Europe, Asia and on to the Americas.