Dear Believer
by Dan Barker Dear Believer, — You asked me to consider Christianity as the answer for my life. I have done that. I consider it untrue, repugnant, and harmful. You expect me to believe Jesus was born of a virgin impregnated by a ghost? Do you believe all the crazy tales of ancient religions? Julius Caesar was reportedly born of a virgin; Roman historian Seutonius said Augustus bodily rose to heaven when he died; and Buddha was supposedly born speaking. You don’t believe all that, do you? Why do you expect me to swallow the fables of Christianity? I find it incredible that you ask me to believe that the earth was created in six literal days; women come from a man’s rib; a snake, a donkey, and a burning bush spoke human language; the entire world was flooded, covering the mountains to drown evil; all animal species, millions of them, rode on one boat; language variations stem from the tower of Babel; Moses had a magic wand; the Nile turned to blood; a stick turned into a snake; witches, ...
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Love
Grandpa Harley
I wish some of these nuts would go over to Iraq and parachute down into Bagdad and see what fun and how easy it would be to be a martyr for their beliefs.
I like the instant mustache and hair...lol
And I'd bet money that he uses a car...and modern medical treatments...air conditioning, central heating, electric light....all of which were made possible by SCIENCE.
1) There is no scientific way to determine moral values. Science can only examine what people say are moral values and what comes of that in objective terms.
2) Moral values are socially constructed. But this doesn't mean they're *arbitrary* either.
See:
http://www.churchoffreethought.org/cgi-bin/contray/contray.cgi?ID=000011010&GROUP=049
for further analysis
Now then, I have a question for each of these fellows. To the believer I ask: If the only reason to be good is to please your deity so you can get into heaven and avoid hell, doesn't that mean that being good is only a means to an end, and that the *greater good* is really getting into heaven and escaping hell? So if your God told you to rob, rape, and kill, you would do that, just as his followers in the OT did?
And to Brett I ask: Why should someone *not* do whatever they want, even if it violated the general standards of morals held by a community or even by that someone, if they were sure not to get caught?
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