Do you believe in God?

[VirtualPA]

I am interested to know what the majority of people belive.

I personally believe in a Christian God, Heaven and hell etc.

I raised a strict an athiest

No, it's not really an insult. I tried to explain it because I thought you might understand. It's not even hard. But you just don't. I only say stupid when I really really mean it. On this issue you have shown that you really are stupid.

It's personal in that it's an assessment of you. But it's not an insult, it's an assessment.

Want to test that?

Also the knobby thing is an assessment.

Insults: 4 Facts: 0

That's quite an embarrassing tally to have chalked up there. I'd quit before you are fired, myself.

Does anyone have anything useful or interesting to say about any of my recent posts? They surely must.

Yes, I have completely refuted all the ones referring to my posts and you are ignoring that. Tis too hard for you by far.

And lol at the man of the "deactivated brain" comment to complain about insults. Diddums.

To quote Monty Python, "that's not an argument, that's just contradiction." It's highly amusing when someone claims to have "refuted" something, when all they have done is "said the opposite of" it. Hint: Look up "refuted" in the dictionary.

("Mr Blakey's free, but he's fairly conciliatory. Try Mr Barnard, Room 10.")

weird

You are also the man who questioned the mental state of religious believers. At least I'm not doing that.

We'll take a vote. Who thinks I should report the personal attack posts from today (Sat 26th) at 10:54:00, at 11:00:52 and at 11:04:32 and at 11:06:21, and who thinks they should stay as a record?

I will abide by the decision of the majority.

I think you think that in some odd, roundabout way I am trying to convince you of the existence of God. I have no idea why you would think that.

Oh just report them, who cares. I certainly don't.

I mean, you are a leetle bit sensitive to this.

I certainly refuted your comment "You cannot prove that God does not exist" with impeccable logic.

Not at all. Merely abiding by the rules of the forum.

My debate has been reasoned, measured and has asked questions which, tellingly, have been left more open than a North Korean goalmouth.

No it hasn't, it's been insulting, patronising, contemptuous and derisive.

My daughter has a friend whose family are deeply bible-led christians and they invited her to their church set up in a school hall. I let her go (I am a humanist) and said that the following week I would attend too to see what message was being spread. I duly turned up with her the following week and tried to keep an open mind. The band was christian rock, the people were overtly welcoming and gushing. They cried out in prayer, swayed and murmured their appreciation. The children were herded off to bible class whilst the older members stayed to listen to the lay preacher. He banged on about greed and modern life using various quotes he'd taken from the bible. Eventually, after what seemed a lifetime, he drew to a close but not before asking everyone to give money to their church and projected on the screen behind him shone a bullet point: 10% of your earnings. I left as swiftly as possible rather shaken by the experience really and not in a good way. My daughter chose to attend a couple more times then realised her sunday mornings of lying around in her pj's had disappeared so stopped going. I was more than relieved but I was willing to let her make up her own mind. I tried very hard to be open-minded but found the whole thing really rather scary and unsettling. I don't need to 'belong' and found watching and being with so many 'believers' extremely stressful! To be honest, I felt sorry for them but at the same time have to respect their needs. I wish I could understand the need to believe and to 'belong'. I think it would make life easier to not question but I am not made that way.

So what does everyone else think ? I'm sure they find backtotalk's continuous insults in lieu of actual facts very entertaining (some people probably broke the popcorn out about two hours ago), but it isn't getting us anywhere.

I've been somewhere like that, allbie.

I have Christian friends who have tried several times to get me to come to their church and I went along a couple of times out of politeness. I had pretty much the same experience as you, only without, perhaps, such an overt "Give us yer money" demand. It was weird, and a bit scary - like being at a rave and being the only person not on drugs.

Oh and I'm with you mainly Unquietdad but do see what you are trying to say backtotalkaboutthis. You are polls apart so need to shake hands and move on. Thankyou both though, it has been good.

Why do you need everyone else to validate you? What are you like?

You made a point. You were wrong. I pointed it out. You've been rude, and patronising and all the other stuff. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings by calling you stupid but to be honest I had no idea the man who can be so insulting to others so randomly would be quite so sensitive.

Don't build yourself up as a great rationalist if you don't get the reasoning. Don't insult others as having their brains in neutral when you can't get your brain round it yourself.

Allbie how nice of you

I don't know. Why the need to ridicule? Why not just move along?

And Unquietdad, he asked the congregation to gift aid it too!! Ho!

allbie, I don't like services like that either. They're usually associated with right-wing fundamentalist approach, whereas I'd describe myself as a "liberal" Christian (who doesn't take every inch of the Bible literally).

There's a wide variety of churches out there and if more people gave the quieter, more liberal ones a try, then that side of Christianity would be better supported and represented.

Confusingly, some of the extremely traditionalist old-fashioned churches are quite right-wing too, but in a conservative, "establishment" sense.

Is Jesus God?