How can you possibly believe in a benevolent God

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Once more, acts of 'god' have left communities blown apart.

Does any one really feel these vilages deserved it?

God's a bit of a cunt at times.

Exactly, Chiggers. Or, more likely of course, he simply doesn't exist

Evidence is overrated, in some cases evidence is only evidence until new or conflicting evidence comes along.

No. Evidence remains evidence, the theories it supports or does not will change if new evidence is discovered that does not support that hypothesis. The evidence itself does not change - just our understanding of what it means.

I think there are decent evolutionary explanations of why humans developed religion, as a way to explain phenomena so as to be able to comprehend them. How individual religions develop from the individual to the societal is reasonably well-documented.

To me 'people had a fundamental need to explain things they couldn't comprehend, and the sharing of their hypotheses around those phenomena led to the development of religions' is as compelling an argument (and to me more so) than 'there have been religions of various sorts since early in human history, and therefore religious belief must have basis in fact). But we'll agree to disagree.

On the flood - the best estimates date the Genesis papyri at between 500 and 1500 BCE (well after the earliest Sumerian fragments detailing the flood of Gilgamesh. However, papyrus preserves much less well than stone).

Biblical literalists tend to place the Genesis flood at around 2350 BC, by adding up.

Dione, I'm neither. I have an invested interest in maths and like to read loads. As long as it's all fact. Fiction (and I include the bible in this category) doesn't really appeal to me much.

If you look at a lot of the verses in the bible, you'll see that loads of them contradict other parts. For instance, in Genesis 1:11-12 and26-27, it says that the trees came before Adam. Yet in Genesis 2:4-9 it says that the trees came after Adam.

Another contradiction is in the book of Ezekial 18:20 it says that the sins of the father, stay with the father, yet in the book of Exodus 20:5, it states that the sins of the father are carried down to the generations.

It's the only fictional book that has so many contradictions that it's interesting

FFS, instead of grin, I nearly put groin

Dorrit, it seems that many people are afraid of death and whether there is nothing after it. Many of these people turn to religion to 'appease' their fears about the afterlife (or lack of) which can be comforting, which is fair enough if you want to believe in something that has no evidence and are an adult.

I'm not sure if there is anything after death, and there may be, but I don't think there is a god.

One of the laws of thermodynamics states that matter can't be created or destroyed, and if that's the case, then I guess we can zip among the stars and planets exploring the universe, and maybe even visit alternate universes too. That would be an adventure and a half, in my books

Right you lot, you'll argue till the cows come home. Why do you expect him to stop all terrible things. Why are you all so arrogant to think you know how He works. We're not in Heaven, so why do you expect paradise here. Frankly there are more reasons to believe there is a God than not to. If all you can come up with is "horrible things happen" so there can't be a God, it's not worth the argument.
If Antony Flew (who had more intelligence in his little toe than the whole of you lot put together) and who was one of the most revered philosophers and atheists of the 20th century came to the conclusions he did mainly because of DNA (the article of which seems to have left you all strangely silent), and which his findings cannot be denied, and all you lot can do is bleat on about the awful things God allows to happen then you're not worth arguing with. So rather than argue all night I'm going to hide this thread, for my sanity.

All the best, Sister.

As you say, many of us are more than happy to discuss and explain the basis of our positions while questioning others' where we think they don't make sense. Great way to find things out, but it involves playing the ball, rather than the players.

Milly- poor Anthony Flew was terribly exploited in the last few years of his life when he "converted" to christianity ( while suffereing dementia)

" An abduction of an old man with dwindling intellectual capacities by Christian apologists. In some interviews, and in subsequent publications, Flew made it clear that he had not become a Christian; he had moved from atheism to a form of deism. This is important: it is a mistake to claim that Flew embraced classical theism in any substantial form; rather, he came to believe merely that an intelligent orderer of the universe existed. He did not believe that this "being" had any further agency in the universe, and he maintained his opposition to the vast majority of doctrinal positions adopted by the global faiths, such as belief in the after-life, or a divine being who actively cares for or loves the universe, or the resurrection of Christ"

And to be clear he was not and who was one of the most revered philosophers and atheists of the 20th century- as much as that would suit your world view.

I agree - hugely frustrating, particularly with little digs when people hadn't responded to her questions quickly enough. Quite quite rude.

Did find out where the 'notorious atheist' comment came from though - subtitle of Flew's book about his shift to deism (notably not Christianity).

Can someone be both revered and notorious? That's quite a burden.

Why are you all so arrogant to think you know how He works.

I also don't know how Hitler or Bundy worked either. but I still thought they should be stopped.

Somehow, not "understanding him" only applies when God kills people.

Just a quick point. Anthony Flew was a very popular and well known atheist philosopher/speaker back in the day- pre Four Horseman.

He was rumoured to have converted to Christianity in the early 2000's, but very firmly denied the rumours of several occasions, saying that at the very most he was considering the possibility of some form of Aristotlian "prime mover" - but was thinking about it- he had no accepted it. He was then befriended, in extreme old age and with declining powers by several Christian apologists, including one Roy Varghese, who "ghost wrote" his final book."There is a God". Questioned about the book after publication, Flew was unable to call to mind much of its contents.

And anyway even, if taken as his own work, which is questionable, Flew does not say he had converted to Christianity- and specifically rejected the concept of a benevolent Father God. Christians should call him and this book as supporting them with caution. Whatever the " how to argue with atheists" websites tell them.

Right you lot, you'll argue till the cows come home. Why do you expect him to stop all terrible things.

Isn't that obvious? Because those who believe he exists claim that he is omnipotent and benevolent. If he is benevolent, he would want to stop terrible things, and if he is omnipotent, he would be able to do so. It simply isn't good enough to say that a supposedly benevolent God has constructed a universe and deliberately decided to make it one in which innocent children die of incredibly painful illnesses solely because he wanted heaven to be paradise and something we would all aspire to.

Icimoi, I'd love to see a Christian telling a dying child/adult, who is in excruciating pain, that. They might be told to fark off.

Sister because we atheists/non-believers realise that either god can't stop the suffering, in which case he is useless, or he won't, in which case he's evil for allowing this suffering.

That said, there should be a rule that the bible is to be believed in its' entirety (no cherry-picking the good bits) or not at all. After all, scientists can't really cherry-pick what scientific results they go by.

Interesting that sistermillieroseSistermillierose decided to leave after her Anthony Fry bombshell turned into a bit of a damp squib.

Separately, inspired by this thread, I've been doing reading around near death experiences and deathbed visions from a cross-cultural perspective. Obviously difficult to good, objective data but interesting that across studies that are common across cultures (light, tunnels, life reviews - though one study noted the frequency of tunnels/light seemed to have increased since the 70s) and which were culture-specific (eg religious visions drawing on the iconography of the dominant religion).

That's the thing Jassy, there may well be something after death, but we probably won't know for sure until we reach that point. It has been said that the brain does funny things to the mind when people have suffered a cardiac arrest and are in the process of resuscitation, but I wonder if it's more to do with the blood possibly having less oxygen, but still being 'pumped' around the body during CPR.

Does there come a point where the brain is trying to adapt to survive and is also trying to keep the body calm in order to stop it from using up vital, but dwindling supplies of blood and oxygen, hence the hallucinations/visions? Just a thought

I would suspect that there is a correlation between a person's belief system and their idea of the afterlife.

It's a really interesting field - I thought it particulatlr interesting that more people report tunnels/lights than before descriptions of those were widespread by mass media - it makes me think we might interpret the experience as what we expect to see.