DonRamsay

Agree Nev. Not only received it but dished it out back in the army. One o the good things about age is that it can bring a maturity that allows you to discard the BS that you've been handed over time from people you have thought should know. The best thing we can do for children and grandchildren is to encourage them to question everything - except when it is time to go to bed.

I made the obvious mistake of looking up the christian response to the flawless knowledge of Epicurus. It could be described as nonsense or ludicrous but in the end I settled on "sad". Essentially the answers go like this: Willing but not able? therefore not all powerful? Christian Response: Is able because it says so in the Bible (Eph. 1:11) Able but not willing? therefore malevolent Christian Response: This argument presupposes that God should prevent evil and that evil should be prevented by anyone with the power to do so. Questions the moral absolute that evil should be prevented. Asserts the catch all "God works in mysterious ways and just because we don't understand the workings of a super intellect" we should not question it. By allowing free choice between good and evil the latter may be chosen Both able and willing? Whence cometh evil? Christian Response: Biblically speaking, evil originated in the heart and mind of Lucifer. the issue of ability and willingness to prevent evil should not be taken as isolated assertions What is evil? Who defines it? and several other stupid questions with no answers. There is only so much of this crap that you can read without throwing up. The simple fact is there is no logical answer to these four eloquent and flawless questions that are going to come from a person who prefers to believe what somebody told them rather than use their own intellect to judge the logic of what they were told. Logic rarely beats brainwashing and brainwashed people have no interest in logic. Simple as that.

Reminds me of the old "Mad Magazine" that I loved as a young teenager. They had this section called "Scenes we'd like to see".

Interesting that none of the Christian Churches object to fixing the date of the currently movable feast of Easter. On a day that is the holiest of holy, there is an admission that (a) they don't know when it might actually have been and (b) that the current date for Easter was filched from on old pagan festival much the same as the old pagan midwinter feast became Christmas. Another thing that occurred to me the other day is that none of the people who allegedly wrote the new testament knew personally, anything of Yeshua's life until he went public at about the age of 30 years. Since life expectancy then would have been lucky to be 45 years. this was pretty late in life. So all the schizophrenic stuff about visitations from angels, virgin births and the great party trick of turning water into wine is just, at absolute best, a folk story and utterly uncorroborated by anyone who was actually around at the time.

I like that Einstein didn't like Quantum Theory - it made his head hurt. It turns my brain to jelly but then so did most of Einstein's stuff. I love science but it is leaving me behind and I now find I'm taking a lot of it on trust.

Of course the derivation of the word Sinister is from the term for the left-hand. No wonder they don't like homosexuals and won't accept that it is not a choice. If you look at the reported biography of JC in the New Testament, he was a soft and gentle person who loved his mum and who only hung around with men apart from the token fag hag. I wonder if he liked romantic, musical comedy? Could he have been both happy and gay?

You have to love the foresight, tolerance and scientific wisdom of the Bible. I can remember left handed children being caned for using their left hand to do anything especially writing. In the 1960s, Graduate Teachers were ordered not to use their left hand when writing on the blackboard. Read that again not 1860s but 1960s. [ATTACH]47866._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Back to post 1 . . . [ATTACH]47864._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Just in case anyone thought Theism was the default setting for homo sapiens: Atheism is as natural as religion, new research suggests, throwing doubt onto the notion humans are preprogrammed to believe in deities. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/atheism-is-as-old-as-religion-new-study-suggests-a6879341.html

If only I could actually follow my own advice . . .

Bexrbetter, I can't thank you for posting the "debate". I wasted a significant fraction of my existence watching that. Still, I learned something - I'll never make that mistake again. There is no point in a debate with closed minds who believe every (English) word in the Bible is the inspired word of God. You might as well argue with a Muslim about the rot that is in the Quran or a Jewish person over their version of the same mythology. Never again!

My bet is that Neanderthals had made up a God to explain everything, especially the ice ages and these pesky sapiens that were causing them so much grief and shagging their women. Turbo, "Can you come up with proof God does not exist?" is the lamest thing that I have read in over 3,000 posts. Can you prove that the crap Scientology says is true is false? The existence of (a) God(s) is of no interest to a person who can see no evidence for existence and plenty of evidence that the Bible account of the origins of the universe and our specie is silly, even absolute nonsense and patently false. I like the approach of the USA Government that says to creationists that there is only one not two sides to Evolution versus Creation. It is not a debate as one side has a well tested scientific theory and the other has a load of illogical mumbo jumbo that we are supposed to accept on "faith". There is no credible evidence for any of the nonsense in Genesis and there is a conclusive Scientific Theory to explain the origin of the species.

Turbs, I was struck by the illogicality of the 30,000 year argument you usually do better than that. Why would there not have been imaginative, scared people, charlatans, schizophrenics and gullible people 30,000 years ago? Consider the social experiment (theoretical parable really) that was the story og Lord of the Flies. It is the old story that to get to dominate a group you need to invent a deity. Been working no doubt for well over 30,000 years. Almost every civilization has invented one or more deities to calm and control the masses.

Damn! I missed No 3000 by just a couple.

And with a more considered tone . . . [ATTACH]47848._xfImport[/ATTACH]

A lot since I was last here that I would love to challenge but life is short and we only get one go at it so back to the humour: [ATTACH]47847._xfImport[/ATTACH]

Now I've said some stuff about the bible, unflattering stuff and to make up for it and provide some balance here is a video from a new student of the holy book.

Well, if the talking snake wasn't a mistake, telling somebody that they could eat from any tree but one with no good reason offered why not to was just asking for trouble.

Sorry, remind me again, what was the question? Still, the rush will be on soon to see who put up post #3,000

Slightly interpreted but the original is close enough: "There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses." Seems that, according to the Bible at least, size really does matter! Just to add a bit more . . . Seems the original in ancient Hebrew was much more graphic and the above is the "toned-down" version of the King James version - cleaned up so it could be read out to the faithful from the pulpit.

Just for balance, here are a couple of jokes those born again find hysterically funny: "Q: How do you make an atheist appreciate life? A: Break his legs. " Two cannibals are eating an atheist, and one says to the other, "Can you believe the way this guy tastes?" And this one to demonstrate their deep scientific knowledge: "Q: How does an Atheist girl have her hair done? A: In big bangs!

Time we had something to think about like wonderful Bible stories for children at bedtime like this quote from Ezekiel 23:20 [ATTACH]47845._xfImport[/ATTACH]

I must have been thinking about a different Falklands war. The one I recall started with an invasion of an island with only English speaking residents by the Agentinian military dictatorship. Don't think tha one involved a purpose related to increased arm sales. Should the Brits have told the Agentinian Generals "sorry we got in the way of your ambitions" and left the Islanders to the mercy of people famous for throwing citizens out if aeroplanes without a parachute?

A not unreasonable fear but if the Bill of Rights is well written and kept simple and at a high level, a bit the way the Magna Carter was written, then it could be very useful at thwarting power mad governments. The basic human rights when expressed broadly are indisputable and would leave room for them to be interpreted over time and need not restrict the discretion of the highest court. I don't see any need for a High Court above the High Court such as an Australian Privy Council. Charley or his helicopter piloting son make no difference to me. Both require our grovelling servitude and unending gratitude for any "privilege" their governments confer on we unworthy souls. The reason the last referendum on the republic question failed was because of the sneaky way the monarchists framed the question and the fact that the republicans could not agree on what form the republic would take. I would like to see a republic with the Monarch and vice-regal representatives replaced by an eminent person - the sort of person we currently choose for GG. People like any of the last few would be fine. Ex Chief Justices of the High Court almost always make for a sound choice. While Gough deserved to be kicked out for the incredible damage his mob did to the economy (as was ratified by the landslide defeat he suffered) the dismissal was plain awful. All the fault of the then GG encouraged by a desperate Malcolm. I wonder if the Queen would have allowed it? Of course we should never have been in a position where she gets a say in Australian political matters but the system as it was then (and still is) allows that. I wonder if the GG had threatened Gough would Gough have relented or tried to sack the man Gough appointed as GG? We will never know. Not that Gough's government did nothing good . . . No matter how good Gough was, he was surrounded by idiots that he had to keep sacking. And Jim Cairns as Treasurer? Really? Lovely bloke but useless in a real job.

Sadly, the thing that made America a great economic powerhouse is eroding their society from the inside out all courtesy of their system of lobbyists controlling the politicians. It seems to me to be a form of legalised corruption. The Roman Empire lasted 1,000 years and fell (from the inside out) because the Romans took their eye off the ball. After the fall of Rome, the world went into a period of 1,000 years of darkness (the Dark Ages) and the lights were not turned on agains until the 1500s. But then what did the Romans ever do for us . . . The American Empire is likely to have fallen in less than 100 years (from about 1945). The world could become a very cold place for a very long time. Almost glad I won't be around to see a world without the USA "in charge". Despite all their monumental faults and errors, a world where Stalins, Hitlers, Saddams Hussein etc., are unchecked is not somewhere I'd want to live. But then what did the Americans ever do for us . . .