Anti-theist

Rewriting slightly, don't know if you'll agree: "That's your bible, Phat. The Paulene version of the Jesus religion myth."--Percy

Naturally the community of the church founded by Peter would write an account establishing their church as the one true church ordained by God. The accounts written by other communities say no such thing. That you cite one book of the Bible while ignoring the silence of all the rest is telling. You're in essence saying, "You're as hateful as me," in response to AZPaul3 effectively making the point that yours is a Paulene church. You agree to the hate but ignore the main point.--Percy

Jar's reply wasn't specific, but I think he means Matthew 24 where Jesus relates many prophecies and then says:

quote

---

Matthew 24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

---

--Percy

[tongue-in-cheek] Phat's is the correct view of reality, which is contained in Youtube videos - we all know that! We all know that financial collapses send everyone back to living in caves. But these are different. Images of Don Quixote tilting with windmills come to mind. It *is* a puzzlement.[/tongue-in-cheek]Waxing serious for a moment, there was a huge financial collapse that began in 2007 brought on by the subprime mortgage scandal. Here in the States there was a recession that lasted from the end of 2007 through the middle of 2009. Like you our family was largely unaffected because my wife and I both kept our jobs, though both our companies had layoffs and froze wages. Lehman Brothers failed. Merrill-Lynch was forced to find a buyer, which turned out to be Bank of America. General Motors required a federal bailout. 25 banks failed, nearly overstressing the FDIC. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were taken over by the federal government. The Fed had to print a lot of money. Morgan Stanley was restructured. Bear Stearns had to be acquired by JPMorgan Chase. There was a federal rescue of Citigroup. (All these failures are still familiar to me, but I couldn't recall all of them at once and had to refresh my memory by looking them up.)But it was a pretty difficult time for a lot of people, and many lost their homes (some at the same time they lost their jobs) because they'd been granted mortgages beyond their ability to pay. The triggering factor for the financial crisis was when it was realized, rather suddenly, that most of the bundles of subprime mortgages called mortgage-backed securities deserved junk status.--Percy

No one who's taken seriously is arguing for abandoning fossil fuels before alternatives are in place. Where conservatives and liberals differ is the degree to which government should play a role in encouraging the transition. As new technologies are increasingly adopted they inevitably become cheaper. That's what happens with everything, from cars to rockets to computers. The price of solar is a fraction of what it was 30 years ago, same for wind, same for batteries. To the extent China stays married to fossil fuels they fall further behind. They also remain a major contributor to climate change while making the planet a dirtier place for everyone.--Percy

Please get help. I'm sure that from inside yourself it feels like you're making sense, but you're not. I don't believe your claims of improved health. If you really believe you're getting healthier then you're fooling yourself. It isn't possible that you're getting healthier at the same time that you're sinking more and more deeply into irrationality and senselessness.--Percy

You are way past the point in life when you should be taken in by the equivalent of used car salesmen. I was just looking at a summary of Shapiro's views. I didn't know he believes homosexuality should be classified as a mental illness.--Percy

You keep commenting on Phat's lack of comprehension, but he brings that same lack of comprehension to your comments about his lack of comprehension. It's like explaining thinks to a chatbot. For example, here are some Cleverbot responses to things you've said recently: ... ... ... I submit that Phat is making just as much sense.--Percy

I didn't sense any anger. Did AZPaul3 say he was angry somewhere? If anyone here is guilty of forming beliefs from what others say instead of from the facts on the ground, it's you.Like most people here, the beliefs I hold now formed slowly over time. Actually, it wasn't so much the forming of beliefs as it was the falling away of beliefs I came to realize were not true.When I was maybe 10, for some reason a book about the French Revolution sat face up on the floor in our hallway for a few months. I had read some it and understood that what we knew of the French Revolution came from people who had been there and observed events, and from artifacts and documents. Then on Sunday while reading the Bible I wondered how we knew about the events of the first couple chapters of Genesis. Who were the observers and what were the artifacts and documents? One day I realized there were no answers to these questions.Those who understand they're accepting a religion on faith are thinking clearly.Those who believe their religious beliefs have been proven are fooling themselves.Those who believe that for which there is evidence tend to have more time on weekends.--Percy

I might not be getting you're meaning. Are you saying there are a lot of religious nuts out there not worth arguing with? If so, then moving on to this paragraph: If you ignore the religious nuts and only include the reasonable and rational people then there's no one to discuss with. How do you argue with someone who says, "I believe Jesus is the Son of God, delivering His love and providing a path to salvation. I have no proof of this, but it's what I believe and it is important to me. It doesn't matter to me who else believes this. What's important to me is that I believe this and that I do my best to follow the path of Jesus."But if they add, "Oh, and by the way, the Earth is only 6000 years old because the literally inerrant Bible says so," now you've found someone you can discuss with.--Percy

I look at it a little differently. Religion *can* be good, often has been good, but when push comes to shove, when the pressure is on, religion tends to side with the devil. Jonestown. The pope's cooperation with fascism. Waco. Creationism. Racism. Jimmy Swaggert. Jim Bakker. Peter Popoff. Actually, almost any televangelist. The list goes on and on.The way I see it isn't that religion is straight out evil. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. It's just that too often it's not.There are many things in the world that are both good and bad, but many of them are a net good. I'm not sure whether in the overall scheme of things religion is a net good or a net bad, but I am sure that when it's bad it can be very, very bad.The reason religion can be so bad is because it isn't run by God. It's run by people, and we all know how bad things can get when things are run by people.There's a little TV show called Young Sheldon, I don't know if it's much watched, but the most recent season contained an apropos religious lesson. Mary was a devout member of the church, worked for the pastor for years, but when it became known that her son was having a child out of wedlock and Mary stood behind the young couple she was forced out of the church at a time when she needed it most. That's religion. In practice "Judge not that ye be not judged" becomes "Judge early and often." Religion's motto should be "Hypocrites of the world unite!"--Percy