Christians: bad for society.

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are you kidding me?

If there is a god, why did that war happen at all?

Two Egyptian columns with air, armored, and artillery cover entered southern Israel, but were met with fierce resistance from numerous settlements defended by their armed inhabitants and Haganah troopers. The Egyptians were stalled and took heavy casualties, while Israeli losses were comparatively light. These battles were delaying actions, designed to give the Haganah time to prepare for the Egyptian attack. The most notable of these engagements was the Battle of Yad Mordechai, where an inferior force of 130 Israelis armed with nothing more than rifles, a medium machinegun and a PIAT anti-tank weapon, held up a column of 2,500 Egyptians, well-supported by armor, artillery and air units, for five days.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Israeli-Arab_War

That's kinda impressive considering the situation of 19.23 troops for every 1 troop the Israelis had. Not counting the mismatch in firepower. Btw, the Israelis succeeded in delaying the Egyptians long enough for Israel to prepare a counter attack.

and how is this evidence that god was part of it??

here's why the jews managed to stand ground...



no mentioning of "luck" and no mentioning of any odd-god-thingy though.

Leave alone evil caused by humans; how about 'acts of god' that wipe out tens of thousands of people at a time, like the tsunami in the Indian Ocean or the earthquake in Pakistan?

Actually, I believe that standard theology entails this. Open theists are the only theists who I believe avoid making people into puppets. Arminians, Molinists, and Calvinists all do end up with puppetry though.

You cannot convince people who believe in a God or a super being of some sort that it does not exist. They cannot imagine that the raw forces of nature can interact to produce the world we see and understand. Some use unconfirmed and unconfirmable witnesses thousands of years old and some. like ruveyn, try to twist believable natural processes to produce this superbeing. There is not and most probably never will be actual confirmation of the existence of a God. But people invent what they desire out of ignorance and a fear of the unknown and they have a deep psychological need for a caring father figure in charge of the universe. The arguments are endless and useless. Forget it.

I read it. It was about the philosophy of a perfect being. It had nothing to do with cognition.


Actually, you tried a comparative analysis. I objected to that. In any case, you've really been the one driving that discussion. I mostly rebut, you end up choosing what you feel you want to respond to. I rejected the entire direction you were going from the start.


I don't see why I have to feel that I have to prove a point to every individual. Especially since the evaluation of premises ALWAYS has a subjective component, in that objective weightings are difficult, if not impossible to show.

Even further, you wouldn't accept any answer I'd give on moral realism regardless. The reason being that you'd disagree with it and its ontology. So, requiring that I give one is irrelevant in THE FIRST PLACE. Let's just say that I argued the entire thing off of the Islamic scriptures, will that change your mind? No, regardless of whether Allah exists or not. So, your entire requirement has been a non-sequitur from the start, unless you wanted me to disprove your entire theology to start with. So yeah, off topic.

Thirdly, I gave facts. You can give subjective criticisms, the problem is that our moral language is more than subjective, it is intersubjective, a point I believe was made earlier as well. Most people can have reasonable moral discourse, even though there is a fluctuation in moral standards from society to society.

Finally, the argument is "Christianity" not "Christians" the two are separable, as LKL and others pointed out. The same separation can occur even with nationality.


Basically, if we take both of our claims both as valid, we've both disproven God. Period. So that's why I see your arguments as useless.

Additionally, I don't see them as functioning. You might as well argue that since bowling balls are not simple, there are bowling balls that aren't round. The idea is ridiculous.

I did not simply contend. I provided reasons earlier objecting to the philosophical problems of simplicity. Heck, the issue of divine cognition is part of that.


You are not required to do anything. Rather, I have asked that you address the topic.


It is not childish to ask that you stay on topic, and the topic is constructed with premises from my worldview. The facts are just facts though. You can give your interpretation. However, these facts are damning for even your worldview, so don't avoid the actual contention.

@Awesomelyglorious

Like you stay on topic for the Atheism thread. Stop acting like a hypocrit.

I don't think I am as bad as 91 is on a regular basis.

I think 91 is actually doing quite well at dismantling your talking points. He may use a little circular reasoning at times, but it ends up eventually tieing back into the topic.

Actually, I disagree. I think most of what he does is relatively off-topic. I mean, I understand the effort, but I consider my own efforts to be a bit past whatever argument he's trying to make, thus I end up seeming evasive. I just don't think the criticism is relevant, regardless of whether it is true.

No, it's called you letting him do that to you. Not his fault his argument puts you on the defensive.

I have to disagree with you, Christians are people who follow Christianity. All you've done in the first post is argue about how Christianity makes the world worse, not how the Christians themselves make the world worse.

That explains why people make so many donations to charities through religious groups and why religious groups tend to do a lot better at keeping things organized when it comes to disaster relief than the secular Government.

No, it really is exactly how I feel this ought to be handled. I consider his concerns mostly irrelevant, so I evade these irrelevant questions. For the purposes of this discussion I don't CARE about how I answer a lot of these things.