According to Christianity, God is omniscient, omnipotent, and perfectly loving. Based on the Bible, the following has occurred:
1. Nothing existed (well, except God of course)
2. God created everything, including us.
3. A bunch of stuff happens.
4. God kills King David’s baby boy to punish David (see 2 Samuel chapter 11-13). By the way, dozens of stories of God killing babies could be used here. This is merely my favorite.
I submit that it makes no difference whatsoever what happened during Step 3. If a perfect creator creates the universe out of nothing, the creator is directly responsible for whatever happens, and God is a murderer, plain and simple.
It’s so simple, yet Christians will dance, twist, distort, and redefine the English language to handle this obvious truth. They are brainwashed, plain and simple.
Here’s some analogies to help you:
1. A computer programmer creates and distributes a computer virus that under certain totally random conditions will decide to trash the host PC's hard drive. Who is responsible for this destruction? A Christian’s answer: The virus. My answer: The programmer!
2. A Pit Bull owner lets his dog run loose at a local park and “Killer” mauls a baby. Who is at fault? A Christian’s answer: The Pit Bull. My answer: The dog owner!
3. A father tells Tommy, his 4 year old son, to not eat the cookies that are placed on the table while he runs to the store. The father explains to Tommy that if he does, his hand will be chopped off. While at the store, Tommy’s mother tells Tommy it’s okay to have a cookie, which Tommy does. The father comes home, asks Tommy what happened to the cookies, and Tommy tells his dad that he ate them, as Mom said it was okay. The father holds his son’s arm to the table, raises a knife, and chops off his sons hand as he yells at his son “It was your choice!” Who is at fault? A Christians answer: Tommy. My answer: The father.
What would your answer be?
Monday, July 20, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
Ray Comfort
I have for a while now been participating a little bit on evangelist Ray Comfort’s “Atheist Central” blog (click on his name above to go there). Ray is an ultra-conservative evangelist, noted for his association with Kirk Cameron, fear-based street evangelism, and his infamous video about bananas being the “atheists worst nightmare”. Ray makes a daily post, usually about evolution or the origin of life, and then allows anyone to post comments. Ray will rarely respond to comments, rather he will let the commenters duke it out amongst themselves. Ray makes it clear that comments become material for his books, and he has published many. There are some real whackjobs on his blog, but generally the “conversations” are quite civil and interesting, at least for a while The site has this policy about responses:
1. Any comments we deem abusive or outside the boundaries of Christian civility will not be published.
2. Any comments that don't properly, and respectfully, capitalize the name "Jesus" and/or "God," or use these in a blasphemous manner, will not be published.
3. Any comments that include website links will not be published.
I post under the name “Dave B” (which contains a link to here), but all of a sudden, none of my responses have been published. Here is my last comment to be ignored. I plan on retrying, perhaps tweaking it, until it gets posted in some form.
--------------------
Ray, I have completely changed my mind about you. My first exposure to you was the infamous banana video, then I watched a recorded debate with you and Kirk against some atheists that I didn’t recognize at the time. My opinion of the outcome is not surprising given that I am an ex-Christian. I thought you lost. But I was impressed with your composure and conviction and felt your opponents were pretty arrogant. When I first came to your blog here I was even more impressed. I was thinking, “Wow, here’s an evangelical Christian that invites atheists to come and debate. That’s pretty cool.” The fact that you allowed anything, within very reasonable constraints, to be posted by anyone was great.
I’m not one for written debate as I always have trouble expressing what I am trying to convey, but I participated here anyway and it was fun. I was so impressed with some of the explanations that some very knowledgeable participants were taking a lot of time to prepare and post. Steven J, in particular, presents his arguments calmly, logically, and convincingly.
You’d ask some ignorant question to the effect “How stupid is it that atheists believe that everything came from nothing?” Then a furry of activity would ensue where it was explained in painstaking detail that atheists don’t actually believe that. I thought, “Well, that ought to teach him”. Then you’d ask something else like “How could both sexes evolve side by side?”, then a furry of activity would ensue where it was explained in painstaking detail exactly how that could have happened. I thought again, “Well, that ought to teach him”.
After a short while, though, things started to get repetitive. A few weeks later you would do it all over again, asking the same questions exactly as if you had never read any of the responses. At one point in fact, after being away for a little while I came back to your site and literally thought my browser cache was showing me old material.
I did some research and found other folks on other sites that had been here to Atheist Central and had given up. They explained The Ray Formula. Get the unwary atheists so worked up and frustrated that they would over-react and say something personal, aggressive, or emotional. Then you’d grab hold of those comments and use them in your books and other material as a shining example of how “unreasonable” atheists are. Then repeat the process again and again and again…
I believe that evangelists fall into two camps. First camp are those that are sincere and really think it is their mission in life to save souls from Hell. The other camp is nothing but a big money generating scam, a big act to line pockets with cash from the ignorant, people like Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Ted Haggard.
After witnessing the blatant deception, quote-mining, side-stepping, and ignoring of every single valid counterpoint that Steven J and others make, especially this absurd refusal to even give your opinion about the age of the earth, I am convinced you are living a lie.
I am but a mere engineer, making a good living, but I will never achieve the income levels or notoriety that you have achieved. But at what price Ray? Every person in my life that knows me personally respects me for who I am. You, on the other hand, are not only the laughing stock of your opponents, but are becoming the laughing stock of the mainstream Christian community as well.
1. Any comments we deem abusive or outside the boundaries of Christian civility will not be published.
2. Any comments that don't properly, and respectfully, capitalize the name "Jesus" and/or "God," or use these in a blasphemous manner, will not be published.
3. Any comments that include website links will not be published.
I post under the name “Dave B” (which contains a link to here), but all of a sudden, none of my responses have been published. Here is my last comment to be ignored. I plan on retrying, perhaps tweaking it, until it gets posted in some form.
--------------------
Ray, I have completely changed my mind about you. My first exposure to you was the infamous banana video, then I watched a recorded debate with you and Kirk against some atheists that I didn’t recognize at the time. My opinion of the outcome is not surprising given that I am an ex-Christian. I thought you lost. But I was impressed with your composure and conviction and felt your opponents were pretty arrogant. When I first came to your blog here I was even more impressed. I was thinking, “Wow, here’s an evangelical Christian that invites atheists to come and debate. That’s pretty cool.” The fact that you allowed anything, within very reasonable constraints, to be posted by anyone was great.
I’m not one for written debate as I always have trouble expressing what I am trying to convey, but I participated here anyway and it was fun. I was so impressed with some of the explanations that some very knowledgeable participants were taking a lot of time to prepare and post. Steven J, in particular, presents his arguments calmly, logically, and convincingly.
You’d ask some ignorant question to the effect “How stupid is it that atheists believe that everything came from nothing?” Then a furry of activity would ensue where it was explained in painstaking detail that atheists don’t actually believe that. I thought, “Well, that ought to teach him”. Then you’d ask something else like “How could both sexes evolve side by side?”, then a furry of activity would ensue where it was explained in painstaking detail exactly how that could have happened. I thought again, “Well, that ought to teach him”.
After a short while, though, things started to get repetitive. A few weeks later you would do it all over again, asking the same questions exactly as if you had never read any of the responses. At one point in fact, after being away for a little while I came back to your site and literally thought my browser cache was showing me old material.
I did some research and found other folks on other sites that had been here to Atheist Central and had given up. They explained The Ray Formula. Get the unwary atheists so worked up and frustrated that they would over-react and say something personal, aggressive, or emotional. Then you’d grab hold of those comments and use them in your books and other material as a shining example of how “unreasonable” atheists are. Then repeat the process again and again and again…
I believe that evangelists fall into two camps. First camp are those that are sincere and really think it is their mission in life to save souls from Hell. The other camp is nothing but a big money generating scam, a big act to line pockets with cash from the ignorant, people like Benny Hinn, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, and Ted Haggard.
After witnessing the blatant deception, quote-mining, side-stepping, and ignoring of every single valid counterpoint that Steven J and others make, especially this absurd refusal to even give your opinion about the age of the earth, I am convinced you are living a lie.
I am but a mere engineer, making a good living, but I will never achieve the income levels or notoriety that you have achieved. But at what price Ray? Every person in my life that knows me personally respects me for who I am. You, on the other hand, are not only the laughing stock of your opponents, but are becoming the laughing stock of the mainstream Christian community as well.
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