I have absolute proof that there is no God.

[seeker]

I've just seen in our local paper that a little girl who lives in our town has died. She has been the focus of much prayer since she was taken ill last year. Her parents were thoroughly good Christian people who trusted God absolutely.

The is no way that a loving, omnipotent, beneficent God who notes even a sparrow falling would not have answered these people's prayer.

So, if I had even a scintilla of doubt, it is now gone. There is no God.

Loved that one too techno - will have to show it to DD for obvious reasons !

mum13,if you know of god fearing people who are criminals,report them to the authorities.Justice is important.

Blimey mum13 take it easy ! Maybe some people are scared of death. As my very wise DD said (whilst talking about this very subject) "It is scary ... but ..."

And we can all feel that some things survive death ... simple things like love and memories x

The last few posts really do demonstrate that what masquerades as debate on the Internet is generally composed of ignorance of the topic, ignorance of manners, and ignorance of the rules of English spelling and grammar.

No serious scholar (as opposed to witless comedians and people writing blogs) disputes that Jesus existed. There were plenty of apocalyptic preachers around in first century Palestine - some of whom are mentioned in the NT. None, however, had the extraordinary effect that Jesus had. Most have been utterly forgotten. None had thousands of adherents, and then thousands upon thousands of adherents, years after his death. Jesus was different. There are serious debates about who and what Jesus was within Christianity, and serious studies of the evidence and the historical conditions of the time. I don't however, see any evidence that posters here are familiar with those debates.

Nor do I see any evidence that they are familiar with the long tradition of textual and historical scholarship of the Bible, or of Christian ethics or the history of the church. It's all urban myths and name-calling. Perhaps you might like to go an read Diarmaid MacCulloch's History of Christianity, and then come back and have a little serious debate.

niminy - At the moment I'm inclined to feel that I've spent more than enough time in my life studying "The Good Book" already. (Enough time to know that yes, like the proverbial curate's egg, it is "good in parts") Sadly, since time is short, and many other good books have been written that I haven't read even once, I'm feeling it may be time to move on, and return to this one only on occasion. ( Will resist one of my trade-mark smiles at this point as it could be seen as verging on passive aggressive ? - something I don't fully understand but am keen to avoid )

niminy - well said.

Novack - you may like to paint me as a braindead pew foddery type who believes everything she hears, and never questions. The mere fact I enjoy these discussions should dispel that fallacy. I've questioned all my life, I've read around the texts, I'm aware of the points you make. Telling me I discount scholars is clearly daft, seeing as I use scholars' arguments as much as you do, if from differing sides. You obviously believe the scholars you favour are definitively more correct in such debate, so perhaps have not read as widely as you like to think.

Techno - why thankyou. I was merely pointing out the fact that if all accounts were exacting in their comparison something would be suspect. A bit like newspapers, gospels were written by different people with different emphases. Of course there are discrepancies.

Ahhhh,

Amillionyears, you are still here.

Did you have time to answer my question about how old the planet Earth is?

Decided not to answer that one.Whatever or however i answer about it,you will disagree,so no point.You will disagree with this answer too

Garlic: 'It is obscene, imo, that the preacher of love has been (and is) used as an excuse for violence.'

Yes. It is utterly obscene, and so against the essence of what Jesus is all about. It makes me sick at heart to think of the atrocities committed in the name of someone who loved the poor, the marginalised, the oppressed and who loved so unconditionally. And that his name is used today for any form of violence is inexcusable. I strongly suspect he will have some very strong words to say about all of this. :)

So yes, that's me agreeing with you, that is ^^

First century palestine??? Where is that then. Judea and Sam aria or do you include the Golan in there too. No such place in history as first century palestine so I wonder what actual history you have been reading.

As also no actual person as jesus has been ever proven to exist in any text. Oh granted many have written countless volumes to make themselves money trying to prove a historical actual person but alas alack not one has actually contained any historical fact of the existence of jesus.

Decided not to answer that one.Whatever or however i answer about it,you will disagree,so no point.You will disagree with this answer too

Why would I automatically disagree with you? I am a bit confused

technodad,if I answer with a somewhat bible answer,you will say the bible cannot be relied on.
If I answer,with science,well I couldnt do that,as I havent a clue,and you would know more about that than me anyway.

The Earth is 4.6 billion years old (4.54 + or - 0.05 according to wikipedia)

I also found out today (reminded myself from the ISpy book of the Night Sky) that there are about a hundred thousand million stars in our galaxy. I thought that was quite awesome. I think there's quite a few galaxies too

(I thought of a good way to remember the number of stars ... that starting with a hundred it's then a list of the major units of number measurement ie. a hundred, followed by a thousand, followed by a million ... so a hundred thousand million A thousand million is also known as a billion)

Anyone who doesn't think this is relevant to the thread may have a point ... but then again maybe they should get a new perspective on things !

You've simply ignored my post above Novack about the gospels being widely regarded as authentic historical source material, and about Josephus documenting Jesus in his historical writings, and about the hundreds of manuscripts from extremely early on, and the early Christian writings, and the history of Christianity in general. The gospel writers came up with it to make some money did they? Rolling in it they were As were biblical scholars throughout the ages. Nah. I can think of better paid jobs.

What is really worrying is that about half Americans think the world is only 5000 years old. What a bunch of thickos. Pity we lost the war of independence.

Juggling

Nice post. Isn't our universe amazing!

Amillionyears - just because you don't understand science, it doesn't mean you can't look up facts and learn about the universe. Why were you so worried?

Clearly you wouldn't have said 6000 years, be cause that would be utter utter bollox of the highest order.

Nobody who is a historian accepts the gospels as being historical fact at all. we have already explained to you about josephus being born after the so called jesus was dead.

madhairy read the thread or are you one of those thread hangers who waits until every hundred posts then hopes to be the last comment saying aha so you still have not answered x y z when in fact we have already twice over.

The only one not answering any questions here madhairy is you because you have no facts or evidence to back up your woo woo thinking and belief in a sky fairy.

There are as many galaxies are there are stars in our galaxy, the milky way and it is actually about 300 to 400 billon stars in our one smaller galaxy. There fore the number of exoplanets, planets that can sustain and support the creation of life from thin air without a sky fairy is humongously ginormous.

Why must a god exist??? if a god exist who created it?? If a god could always exist without a creator then so can galaxies and the universe because you know what science can already explain pretty much how all this can come about from .....nothing.....

Ooh, I wonder how many aliens there actually are out there ? I wonder if there is really more than one universe ? That would be too weird wouldn't it ?

Aye, Juggling, and there'd be a supreme being (if there are any supreme beings) for each universe. I wonder if they get together every so often, or at least have conferences via mysterious means of godlike telepathy (skype). For all we know, they might actually exist all together in an über-universe, determining what goes on in each of their domains. Sort of like the gods on Olympus, or the ones in Asgard. Oh, hang on, I'm mixing my myths again ...

My bet is one universe, lots of aliens, no supreme beings ...

Any other offers ?