God is the eternal self-existing one, there was never a time when God was not present.


Interesting, do you have source for charitable DNA? And what do you see as the primary advantage of charity, doesn't that conflict with Social Darwinianism?

Further, Christians are more likely to be charitable, as charitable-ness is a command in Christianity, I reject that people are simply using Christianity as an excuse to be charitable.

Athiests might be charitable, if they want to loose the extra money, or time, but experience speaks that unless you have an over abundance of either you are unlikely to be charitable. Humans are inherently greedy (which I doubt you would dis-agree with, even from a purely atheistic world-view).

I'm not seeing the logical connection between athiesm and charity, and I certainly don't know if you could derive charity in an entirely athiestic worldview. Now, certainly there are athiestic charities, however I don't know if there is a connection directly between athiesm and charity. And certainly no driving force of it, I guess you could arbitrarily decide if it was good to donate to charities?


vs.

Comparatively you almost sound pro-thiest 

I also knew someone who was beaten for his belief in God, although this was in a public school.

That's not a logically valid statement.

I don't think anyone wants a world ruled by non-profits?

Further, bitcoin and OSS are all nice I use both (Currently running Ubuntu exclusively, with all OSS tools), however the goal of OSS as I understand it (feel free to reference material that says otherwise) is that many people together can create something better than commercial software, not that someone in need would benefit, indeed Linux has only rencently even become user friendly, it used to be a bunch of hackers attempting to create awesome software, usability left off to the side.

Bitcoin, as far as I know was not created for charitable means.

This is the type of thing I am speaking of, athiest use language like this all the time. Word twisting fairly rude, this is basically an ad-hominem attack more than anything else.


Athiesm:
The belief that the universe was empty, then it wasn't, then splat you have the entire Universe. Your ancestors are monkeys, and black people are racially inferior because they are more monkey like. Objective morality doesn't exist, so Hitler was A-OK as long as he thought he was doing good and didn't think the Jews were human. And really even if they were, we're all just molecules in motion. What if a pile of molecules stop moving, who cares?

I am being judgemental (I don't hold judging to be inherently wrong, I make judgements every day, "that car is fast", "Bitcoins are a good investment"), and based on my perception of this thread, as I originally said you get a very hateful athiesm:
That is, if you only had this thread as a representation for athiesm that would be a logical deduction.

I have not seen where I or others, really, have judged athiests by irrational standards on this thread. In fact the only judgement I've made wasn't really a judgement just a criticism of how athiests are behaving in particular this thread.

I'm not saying it's impossible for there to be a kind, loving, tolerant athiest, merely that such athiests are not common (at least from my experience).

Also I would disagree that Christianity leads to hypocrisy,  I suppose you might say that by having perfection as a standard, all Christians are inherently hypocrites. However that would not be hypocrisy, hypocrisy is hiding behind the bible and using to your end instead of God's, holding to parts of the bible you like, and ignoring the rest. I'm sorry that you have had bad experiences with Christians, however that does not excuse your stereotyping. I have heard people say all black people are bad just based on their experience with a few black people, you seem to be using the same strain of logic.

Judging by this thread, athiests are the most intolerant, hateful, and irreverent types of people to have ever walked the face of the earth, however I do not generally judge based on a vocal minority.

It's actually funny, 90% of arguments against Christianity are just basic theological questions.

So, if you have a lot of "why" questions, may I recommend Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem, or Google for that matter.

The death of Christianity has been forecasted since it's inception.

Sorry for the long absence, but now my miner is fully functional (I am currently making the argument for tithing in bitcoins as well  )

However I see there was no counter-argument to my previous points, so oh well.

I think being a violent alcoholic would kind of make him not a Christian, although am I understand you correctly that:
1. You met a someone who claimed to be Christian
2. This person was bad
Therefore
All Christians are bad

I'm actually curious about this point, I'm not really making an argument.

Also, Rassah, you mentioned that you felt offended because God forgives people without consideration of the victim of the crime, this is because in committing a crime someone has offended 3 entities:
1. A Holy and just God
2. The victim
3. The law
One may have forgiveness from you and God, and yet still rightfully go to jail, and people may still ask for forgiveness from God, with the realization that the they have not been given forgiveness from the victim.

Ah, sorry:


Finding them is trivial, just run diff on the manuscripts.

Also, as to China becoming increasingly Christian, I doubt it is a materialistic Christianity. Many Chinese believers are being tortured and put into jail for their beliefs by the Athiestic Chinese government.

Ok, here are the points you make:
1. He was a member of a church
2. He could have asked for forgiveness before he died

As to 1, belonging to a church does not make you Christian, and as to 2 while he certainly could have asked for forgiveness before he died, he would have only been Christian for the remainder of his life, when, ironically he would have then committed suicide.

I shun him as a member of my "camp" for a very obvious reason, he was not Christian, and only attempted to look Christian out in public to gain acceptance. When you look at quotes from his personal life, it becomes quite clear that he was no Christian.

Actually, it was you who brought up Hitler being Christian. So, perhaps you should not have brought it up in the first place.

I am seriously considering quitting this debate now, you have posited no evidence at all for your arguments, go on look for it, none! I'm also considering whether or not you are trolling me.

The only thing you posted _with evidence_ was a firm belief in empathy, and the neurological support for it, the link you posted to wikipedia only stated that there might be a link!


ARE YOU SERIOUS! This is literally in the link you posted:



Show where you have given evidence, and I have not.
The most frustrating thing is your comment at the end

I haven't used the bible as proof for something, despite the fact it is proof.

It's really funny though, you just posted something without making an actual argument, you just stated what you believe.





When then?

Neither is it for me, then neither is it for you.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri



Perhaps you are unfamiliar with how this works, but here goes: When a book is first created, many copies are made, then as these copies wear out due to the nature of the material, new copies are made. Sometimes, small errors may enter if the scribe is not particularly diligent, however the changes are normally so small and un-noticeable that they are easily identified.

I'm saying you're using slavery as a buzz word, the modern conception of slavery, that is man-stealing, was forbidden by death.

However, in the payment of debts, slavery was allowed, it's not that complicated really. This form of slavery is not immoral, and even your empathetical system should have no problem with it. This sytem is much better than simply putting the debtor to death.

All the verses you quote are warning not to serve wealth, not to make wealth your master, and not to make wealth your treasure. The protestant work ethic naturally leads to wealth, but if that is your goal in life, only your wealth you have missed the boat.


Well, actually there is.

In biblical times if you were no longer a virgin, in fact raped, you basically had no chance of getting married. This is to assure that the woman doesn't just fall off the face of the earth. This does not force women to live with the rapist, only for the rapist to provide for her, this happening was common. By marrying the woman she has all the protections of a married woman.

Ah, thank you, sorry for the stupid question.

This is my first custom build, and my CPU did not come with a heatsink, which is why I ask.

Will I need a heatsink and/or fan for my mining rig? There will be no CPU mining. It is an open case rig, with a box fan. I plan on running some form of linux, probably Lubuntu or Xubuntu.

My initial reaction is no, but what does BitcoinTalk think?

You're not even listening to what I'm posting, I'm not saying he was a "bad" Christian, I'm saying he did not even believe in Christianity at all.


Hitler allied himself with the church earlier on because he did not think he could defeat it. I highly doubt Hitler was even a Theist


But I'm sure there is


great controversy over the issue as to whether or not Hitler was Christian.

And I suppose I must concede to your point that there is no evidence that

Hitler was an athiest.

Ah well, I can only speculate from his actions that he was not Christian.


It's not like Hitler would ever use Christianity as tool to gain acceptance either, that is too far fetched.

No.
More like atheists constantly twisting and contorting the bible to attempt to make themselves seem logical.

The difference is between the separation of the words kill and murder.

Which is pretty much what you were doing, or perhaps I don't see your actual argument.
From what I read, which may not be what you intended, as you seem to think you made a point:
1. The word moral is a weapon
2. I think God is bad, despite believing all morals other than mine are bad
3. Atheists can have morals without religion

None of these are actually making any points, just stating what you believe.

So the strongest group decides?

I didn't.

... what?
I completely answered your point, and you say it's thin without even criticizing my actual point?

This type of response from you is getting kind of boring, there's nothing to argue against. The most coherent point you made was choice of writing material, everything else being really ... pointless.

Because the bible is the inspired ward of God? The choice of papyrus as writing material was logical, and quite insignificant.

I'm not condoning child abuse.

The bible does not condone the modern conception of slavery, and in fact condemns it. If you had read my post at all you would have noticed this.

It does condone a specific form of slavery, namely the payment of debts. The idea was if you could not conceivably pay a debt you owed someone you would work in order to cover part of it.

Ok, just typed up a post, and lost it

Here goes again:

I have no doubt that Hitler wanted to seem Christian, but actions speak louder than words. But, in case that's not enough, here's some words too:


In addition, Hitler declared Nazism the state religion and the Bible was replaced by Mein Kampf in the schools.

Moral relativism:
The uncle wishes to continue the rest of his (2 year) life in pain, while making everyone miserable at the same time. Is it morally wrong to kill him, and on what basis?

Child abuse does not need religion to continue, the bible certainly does not legitimize child abuse in any way.

Back.

No, I've selected an option you did not state, that did not fit into your initial argument. You athiests are very skilled at manipulation of words. Nice.

All evidence does not point to the contrary, the point is there are things that God can do that we can't, similar to how the Government has the ability to sentence people to death.

Now you're just being ridiculous, of course there is a separation between murdering someone, and sentencing someone to death because they have murdered.

Morals are not created by those using the moral system (first point), God is still good(second point), and empathy is not a valid source of morality(third point). I suppose I could take three paragraphs to say what I just said, but that would be a waste of space.

Intentional invocation of Godwin's Law was intentional.
So multiple people get together and decide what is moral? Like the German government?

The rest of your argument is "the ten commandments are bad, your morals are bad". The ten commandments are good, a 10th grade could not create a better 10 commandments, and moral relativism = utilitarianism, both are evil, an 10th grader could make a better ideology than moral relativism.

The choice of writing material is a human one,. God shows a clear preference for stone in the creation of the ten commandments. The amount of effort put forth by the Jews in their preservation of the Torah is quite incredible, stone sounds fun, until you realize the practical limitations of it. You need a good source of well hewn stone, you need enough stone to write the Torah, and finally you need more effort to record in stone than papyrus.

The law of God was meant to be used by the people, and stone is not very practical.

Ok.

This is not being simply naughty, this is flat out rebellion by the child. And do not assume young child either, glutton and drunkard are listed as well.

Furthermore this passage is more a protection to the child, in that the child must be taken to the elders of the city to determine whether of not the child's rebellion deserve death, I would imagine this was not a common occurrence. This is not a commandment to stone all rebellious children. Due to the patriarchal system, this stops the parents from simply stoning the child.

I can't imagine this being common at all, as most parents love their children enough not to stone them :/

Slavery
Slavery in the context of the bible is very widely misunderstood. First, when you say slavery, everyone get's the image of the enslavement of the Africans, however man-stealing in the bible is clearly punishable by death. I imagine this would have been a counter-cultural thing to say.


Slavery was allowable in the bible, such as in the repayment of debts or captives in war. However all slaves were granted freedom in the year of jubilee, every 49 or 50 years (at regular intervals of time, if a slave was captured 10 years from the year of jubilee, they were granted freedom 10 years later). Furthermore, all hebrew slave were to be let free 7 years after their enslavement.

If you follow the law based only on fear, you've missed the point.

There are people born without empathy, and there are those that are born with a lesser sense of empathy.

However I am invoking Godwin's Law, in the case that a bunch of people get together and decide that the earth would be a better place by wiping out the Jews (because they thought the Jews were destroying Germany) what right would you have to tell them they're wrong?

Also, second argument, an argument against utilitarianism:
Suppose you have an uncle who owns a business, and has many workers for him. Your uncle has developed a terrible disease which causes him much pain, yet he continues along with his job, instead of listening to doctors. Because of his condition he is very miserable, and so makes all his workers miserable as well. You know that once your uncle dies you will inherit a large fortune, as well as the company, so you could improve the workers' lives.

The most logical choice you decide, is to attempt to kill your uncle, after all, you empathize with his pain. If you were in such pain, a terminal illness at that, wouldn't you want an easy way out? Not only would you be improving your uncle's life, but all the workers', and as well as your's as per the inheritance.

The above would be completely moral by your view.

Or perhaps it fits in a plan that you do not see.

Statler & Waldorf are indeed awesome

The ten commandments are the foundation of biblical law and morals, God is not bound by his laws. However, God is also a good God, thus all the laws he created are generally followed by him.

e.g. Thou shalt not murder, athiests will contend that God has "murdered" people, however there is a separation between rightfully sentencing people to death, and a person deciding they want to kill somone.

Considering all athiests are amoral, I am surprised at the many times they call God immoral. It's quite obvious God would be above the law, God did not create the law for himself, but rather for the human race.

Go on then, Hitler thought he was saving the human race by removing the scourge of Judaism.

If you make one copy of anything, I suspect it would not last very long at all. The torah was however beautifully preserved, each scribe would copy from one book to the other one letter at a time, then they would count the letters, and if they were not the same count as the original, they would start over again. Your ratgher simplistic view of the preservation of the torah is very common.

Ironically the answer to the first is in the link you posted.

Such is the moral law, but it certainly not to be executed by random people. Vigilante justice is not biblical, I imagine that the apostles would have ran into homosexuality as they were going through Rome and Greece, I don't think their answer was to kill them.

The bible does not condone stoning "naughty kids".

I will finish the others soon, brb.

I do not pick and choose, if there its not literal then it's, and it's generally pretty obvious when the intent is literal.


You people have been complaining about the God of the bible for the entire thread. Don't give me this "oh it sure would be nice if ..." just after you get through raging about the bible.

Ok, there's a lot of things about christianity that's argued, happy? But a ballad of blind rage, it is definitely not. It's basically describing the defeat of some of Israel's enemies. For that matter the Canaanites were fairly cruel people, the psalmist was not likely feeling sorry for them in the day of their demise.

Forgive me, but it sounded as if you were being sarcastic :p

Perhaps, although there are important distinctions. That is to say, is it possible one could be omnipotent, and not omniscient? Perhaps, I don't really know.

There are absolute morals. God does not break the moral law, although he is certainly not bound by it.

I have no reason to back down from my argument, and I refuse to take "well these other people lose in debates" as an argument.

Only empathy will lead to utilitarianism. If Hitler thought what he was doing to the Jews would improve the life of everyone on the earth, and save them from the evil destructive Jews, on what basis do you criticize him?

None of these are biblically supportable, most are simply twisted to make the bible seem like ...

Empathy cannot be the basis for moral law. Even the laws of the US are absolute, sure we have jails, so we can decide who


God does not have a gender, however when God is referenced it is normally "he". I understand you are simply doing this to irritate me, but I digress.

The world was not initially created an imperfect world, but rather as a perfect world, however when Adam sinned he brought death into the world.

I'm sorry for assuming you were libertarian, you sig and name made me think you were.

... I suppose I should turn to athiests for my interpretations of the bible? I think not.
I have not mis-represented the bible in any way, you're just upset because you crap-posted a list of arguments you found on the internet, and I answered them.

There are flaws in translations, specifically the KJV which is a bible that was translated over 400 years ago. There are parts not meant to be taken literally, much of the bible is not socially acceptable. However the truth never makes everyone happy.



Interestingly enough, even the huffpost has answered this recently:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/25/psalm-137-7-9-understandi_n_2550586.html

It's not my fault athiests go through the bible cherry picking verses to make an argument.

Not necessarily moving the entire project, just include it with BAMT. Then there would be more interest in it, like packaging Mate with Ubuntu would create more Mate devs.