i reckon i'd rather be in an atheistic prison than a theistic prison, at least in atheist prison you don't have to worship the warden and justify all of his crimes against humanity.

Thx I missed this post. Yes I'm being sincere they are just weird questions, but I would definitely like to know the answer to them. Some are a little silly sounding but I think they are all valid thx!!!

And yet you've just judged all the other theists on here and judged yourself to be a better christian than them.

No I haven't.

I simply answered AceManhattan's question.

You're the one engaging in the cognitive distortion of exaggerating and ascribing.

I merely said I take a lot of risks for God so I know where my loyalties lie.

I don't know how many risks other theists on this board take. Maybe they take some I don't know about.

I just know I take a lot.

I think you should start studying up on cognitive distortions. Why do you have this need to exaggerate and extend the things people say to encompass what they didn't say?

You read something you wanted into my statement.

Honest people ask questions. But since I don't trust you anyways because of your continuous cognitive distortions please don't feel free to ask me any because I'm not going to answer them.

If there is one thing important I've learned about Christianity. It is that the Current language of the Bible is false. All of you quoting the Bible are not actually quoting the original words. Through all the translations and the lies and the adaptions it has changed considerably.

No wonder there is intellectual war between Christians and so many types of church/sect. I just can't take it seriously. Islam would be far more reliable text.

Thats why they hid an old version in a cave to be discovered later.

But your argument holds in relation to translating the language from such a long time ago because of issues with semantics and stuff.

Put me on ignore then. Personally I think you are an incredibly bad advert for christianity and your chances of converting anyone are 0%, hence your reason for passing your life on here rather than out in the real world conversing with real people. As an atheist that's pretty damn amusing. You need to work on improving yourself by lying less, throwing out baseless accusations less, trying to work out why you have such an inflated opinion of yourself. I don't agree with christianity at all but I actually think you could improve yourself if you actually followed some of it's teachings. You should study your bible more rather than searching the internet for lolbad studies that attribute atheism to mental disorders, I think it may do you good.

Regards
Husker

You're not a real person?

^^Cognitive distortion ftw.

Hi Splendour,
I tried PMing you but it didnt work. Can I ask you not to post in this thread? I feel your communication is inflammatory and detracts from the calm discussion I want to have with people here. Hope you see where I am coming from.

I don't know why but I find the thought of

'I take the most risks for God'

quite disturbing.

Regardless, you are all being pretty horrible to splendour.

You're about the 4,000th person who's showed up in the last 8 years.

You're not going to get through the cognitive distortions on here but go ahead and try.

Lol...

What you wouldn't take a risk for a family member?

God is family.

and the cure to free my cognitively distorted self from the atheist prison is to absorb a collection of books written 2000 years ago by people who knew almost nothing about our world, because those people heard a story about a guy who died and came back to life, only to fly away into the clouds.

the cure sounds scarier than the disease

Sounds?

You wouldn't know then, would you?

Peter had to get out of the boat to know.

Have to be polite and skedaddle.

Tootles!

I still think my questions deserve answers

Glad someone like you has finally taken their turn in "the well" (no John 4 reference intended). Been wanting to have this type of discussion and have seemingly scared off all but the crazies (Splendour *cough cough*). So I skimmed this thread so far, seeing as an in depth reading would never allow me to catch up, ignoring all non-lemonzest posts. I sincerely hope you are still "in the well" because I have 2 follow up questions to replies already given and 1 new question.

You first address "original sin", contrasting it to the muslim viewpoint. The sins with which you describe us as being born seem to be very similar to behaviors found in non-human animals (I guess putting the nature in sin-nature). How does belief in sin-nature point you in the direction of God? It seems if anything to point to the very relation to animals from which Christians try to distance us.

Secondly, you seem to rely heavily on NT manuscripts for upholding your faith. Not only was it nearly 300 years later that a canon was decided, but also the oldest manuscript we have is dated nearly 100 years after Jesus's supposed death. Furthermore this copy of the gospel according to John is only a very fragmented 2 verses, which may even differ from more complete later texts. I just feel like having a bunch of copies of texts, which even biblical scholars admit are compilations of other texts that no longer exist, is not really comforting. I also still don't see how you distinguish this from other sacred texts such as those of the Hindus. Just because Islam and Mormonism came from single sources doesn't mean Christianity alone is from multiple revelations.

Thirdly, (my own question) where do you draw the line between literal and figurative in the Bible? I could go into more detail phrasing specific questions about certain parts, but I'll let you answer the more vague question first before getting more myopic.

Anyway, would love to get a good discussion going, even if it means moving to PM or separate thread.

A+

Also you got close to this discussing on the first couple of pages why you personally believe, but I know my personal transition to disbelief was catalyzed by the realization that, though I believed at the time, I had little faith that I would have come to believe had I been presented with the gospel as an adult.

Question: What is there to compel a non-believer to place faith in YHWH other than a personal experience that cannot be forced?

This seems too easy of a question, but I don't think I saw anyone ask it and if so I know I didn't see an answer.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAtheistExperience

More fun than reading books imo. (Although tbh I should probably read more...)

I really like what your doing and fully appreciate it. I doubt anyone here will ever ten Christian but you seem like te kinda person who is open to ideas, and is willing to discuss things without freaking out.

I'm pretty sure most people here don't want to turn Christians into atheists. I think it's a mix of people who are interested in te experience and people who are angry about how Christianity/religion gets involved so much in their day to day life.
If anything your approach can only help

Same story as yesterday. Work keeps getting in the way of posting online :}
I will try and get on this tonight. Cool to see some good questions and look forward to the discussion!
I will try and answer everyone (even newguy )

seems inevitable