-2, for sheepishness

I am not claiming that these things prove that gods are imaginary. I'm claiming starting without any religion, god claims, or otherwise, it is possible to build a consistent interpretation of the world. In that view, the gods all seem imaginary or irrelevant... But it is no surprise that people cling to them.

Your caricature of my argument is unfounded.

But being consistent does not necessarily mean right/truth. Of course truth must be consistent, but it does not necessarily follow that just because one is consistent that they are correct.

If you were arguing merely for utility, then fine. But I thought we were talking about truth.

You said,

You have not shown that "it is plain", you just said that it is possible to be consistent. These are two different issues.

I know of no compelling reason to consider the holy books of any particular religion as unique among human literature, with regards to extraordinary claims.

Of course anything is possible, but moving one baby step away from that statement and into the world, I am willing to go out on a limb and say that sticks don't turn into snakes.

Enough for what?

Going back to the first question - you ever take a poetry class? Read Shakespeare or Beowulf in the original? This collection of ancient documents should be different in some way? So you don't have to do any work to understand? Why would you ever have such an idea?

Here's something you can understand:

Treat others as you wish to be treated.

All the rest is commentary, anyway.

I like the last quote, think its a jewish one...

But bringing up Shakespeare is a good example of where when we look for meaning we can find it.

Back in my highschool days we were studying one of the plays, may have been King Lear, I don't remember which one exactly. We were given assignments. One of the assignments was to look at all the times Shakespeare used the word "something" and "nothing" in the play. Apparently what we were supposed to get is that "something" was used more often in the first have of the play, and "nothing" was used more often in the second half of the play, which was supposed to reflect the play becoming more negative. Do I know that Shakespeare didn't deliberate use these words in this way when he wrote the play? Of course not. But it seems unlikely to me.

That's just a silly example, but my wife, who was an English major, could give us dozens more. It is easy to find meaning where there was none initially. Interpretation is a funny thing, and often we can find ways to find what we were searching for.

Yes, Jesus' contemporary, Rabbi Hillel.

But I don't have to. All I have to do to debunk your claims is show that Horus does not have any of the properties you attribute to him in Egyptian mythology. Which is easy if you do some research - there have been several threads on this already.

There are much better and more interesting arguments against Christianity than making a fallacious comparison with other religions. You could at least mention Mithras or Zoroaster.

I don't think you know what 'sheepish' means.

Me, too. I had an argument about this issue with an English professor who presumed that a poet had planned out his word choice and meter precisely to give the impression of an oak tree. When I suggested perhaps it was less architectural and more instinctive, I was dismissed instantly as a romantic moran who didn't understand how poets "worked."

But I also think that the word choice changing later in King Lear does reflect the increasing darkness into which he descends, whether Shakespeare made the conscious choice or not. Writers tend to feel the feelings of their characters, quite often.

As for Biblical text, in this case it's more like not knowing what "list" means when one reads, "he listeth toward God." Probably not writing out points on a pad, yanno?

Before we get all interprety about stuff, let's at least look up the words of the original language and see what they mean.

I did reference Mirtha and Krishna (in a broad sense... the similar Jesuses in India and Persia 1000 years before Christ, not Zoroaster though, there are more, no need for a comprehensive salvo imo). The info on Horus is not in the original Egyptian Book of the Dead? This is not an argument against Christianity, there are many stories that go this way, if anything it may discredit all of the religions that use this story the same way that it justifies it to those who believe. I am a fan of many religions, but I certainly question the followers who stopped and said... yeah, that makes sense... and had it all "figured out".

It is up to you to provide a compelling reason to believe in any of the afformentioned myths. In the absence of specific evidence for your brand of God (unless you would like me to consider your argument as a compelling reason to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster) then I don't think that what airship said is too much of a stretch.

There is no evidence for [insert religion here] and [insert religion here] is superfluous to a consistent view of the world...

... you concede the latter point, so you need to show me the evidence, or else tell me why it doesn't follow that there is no good reason to believe.

To be clear, that it might turn out to be true doesn't wash with me. If I call for all my chips on the turn and am drawing to one out to win, then I made a poorly reasoned call whether I hit my one-outer or not, even if I have to wait a lifetime before I see the river.