Testing The Christian Apologists

He had a conversation with a snake.

No, silly. His cousin Vinny. Vinny the Snake.The one who tried to hit on Eve.

We don’t just act for deterministic reasons like a dragonfly or a bacterium, we act for reasons we consciously represent to ourselves and can explain to others. In that extended act of consciousness we find we have the agency to be responsible for our reasoning and therefore for our actions. That is the extent of our free will.

Like the threat of eternity in a lake of fire hanging over your every action is not force?Thank you, Phat, for pointing up more religious nutzoidness.

A truly excellent idea. When will you start?

Fear is a heightened awareness, notice, mixed with the dread of pending harm. Wisdom is not just knowledge but awareness of how that knowledge can be used and thus propose potential actions.Interpret this verse as: being aware of the evil of your god is the first step in countering it.You should feel embarrassed that some atheist is required to interpret holy scripture for you.

Uhh, that kinda is their intended effect so you get a firm hell yeah on that one. Snippet? The most evil punishment ever devised, and devised specifically to provide jesus to save you from it? That snippet?The very reason for jesus' existential existence is to provide an escape from this "snippet". It is the very center of your religion. Without this "snippet" you have no christianity. Hard to tell but if you are referring to reality then, yeah, I'm drawn. And, yes, we've been trying to get you to join us for decades now. You haven't noticed that effort? What surprise? That is the great commission for you jesus freaks, is it not? I mean, you may not do as he commands in all things but proselytizing, preaching, that's something you like. Between reality and fantasy? Already there. Your religious fantasy lost. And maybe the Grand Unicorn poops in the universe next door.

No. Science has "proven" beyond a doubt that morality is mostly locally acculturated and that any personality component of a genetic nature spans a spectrum but is usually too weak to overcome the moral dictates of society during childhood. Some kids seem naturally softies while others aren't so nice. Society layers over and dominates that nature.BTW, a philosophy thing ... science cannot prove.Science collects and assesses the evidence and creates models of the reality revealed. We have a greater or lesser degree of confidence in the models we develop. The more the model matches the reality we see the more confidence we have in the model to predict future (reveal past) events accurately. Further, that confidence level is always tentative, as in forever open to modification pending any future data yet to be discovered.Examples would be we have an enormous amount of confidence (evidence and predictive models) for both big bang and evolution. No one has presented any kind of different model (religion, tea leaves, pet theory) with the sheer number and quality of data points in evidence of each. These are some of the strongest and most evidenced models of reality we have ever developed. We still do not say they are proven.In the popular vernacular we can accept "prove" as a shorthand for the actuality.

That's just what I said, Dredge. Are you not paying attention?

A different flavor of fairy tale religion stemming from the older abrahamic fairy tales. Details don't matter. It's a religion just as real and just as dumb as yours.

You weren't listening.Most recently the priests have been telling people to injure and murder others by denying them legal condoms. It just never stops with your evil church, Dredge.

That's one of them jesus crackers backing up into your brain, Dredge. Being free thinking means I can ignore your brand of religious delusion with no problems at all. That is the power of mind - gods one day, gone the next.Gimme an H! Gimme a U! Gimme an M! Gimme an A! Gimme an N!Geaux Yumons!

No. Never had a meat cracker or a Hail Mary. I was raised as Heathen.

Have you seen on the breaking news where some god has shown up somewhere? Anywhere?No. That was me. I'm not exclusive. I vanquish all gods.When you wake up in the morning and hear on the news that no gods miraculously came into existence ... that was me.God idea ... simple glancing human thought ... god gone.It really is that simple. If you get off those jesus crackers, Dredge, even you could do it.

If you can believe in absurdities then you can commit atrocities. - Voltaire