Atheists holding Reason Rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend

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**sirlynchmob**

Relapse wrote:Thanks for the answer, sir.
I'm just interested in everyone's take on different regions religious stories that are similar, because it leads to interesting thoughts.
In my own opinion, I believe in God and the Bible. I know we have lost a lot through mis translation and other factors, but that there are things yet to be revealed.

What will really be interesting if we do get to encounter another advanced civilized alien race, then we could compare notes on science and religion.

**Ronin-Sage**

I somehow knew this would devolve into "you're silly for being spiritual"(and vice-versa).

**Melissia**

It hasn't.

**generalgrog**

sirlynchmob wrote: The Chinese have a written history that started before the biblical flood was supposed to have happened.....

Source?

GG

**Melissia**

There's been examples of writing in cliffs and caves which date as far back as ~6000 BC, which have similarities to early Chinese characters, although there is dispute that this is actual writing and not proto-writing. Other, more strongly confirmed examples date to about 2600-1500 BC depending on the example.

A reproduction of one such example, which was made on an oracle bone.

**SilverMK2**

generalgrog wrote:Source?

GG

Well, the Chinese had written history (although not continous?) from about 5000 BC:

At Damaidi in Ningxia, 3,172 cliff carvings dating to 6000-5000 BC have been discovered "featuring 8,453 individual characters such as the sun, moon, stars, gods and scenes of hunting or grazing." These pictographs are reputed to be similar to the earliest characters confirmed to be written Chinese.[13][14] Later Yangshao culture was superseded by the Longshan culture around 2500 BC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_China

**Mannahnin**

Melissia wrote:But why wouldn't they have similarities? They are all humans, with human desires and emotions, all living on this blue little ball of water and dirt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-_DdX8Ke0&feature=related

**Kilkrazy**

The Chinese cave paintings are meaningless if you don't believe in Carbon-14 dating.

**Melissia**

Kilkrazy wrote:The Chinese cave paintings are meaningless if you don't believe in Carbon-14 dating.

Would the same people say that they don't believe in the science behind firearms if someone just shot them in the chest? Or that they don't believe in the science behind medicine and want to just tough it out and maybe get some leeches?

Science works whether one believes in it or not.

**Ahtman**

Melissia wrote:Science works whether one believes in it or not.

People say the same thing about deities.

**SilverMK2**

Ahtman wrote:People say the same thing about deities.

And despite working, their representatives often don't pay taxes like the rest of us... Disgraceful!

**Melissia**

Ahtman wrote:
Melissia wrote:Science works whether one believes in it or not.

People say the same thing about deities.

Deities don't work. I mean, who would employ the omniscient? That's a conflict of interest if I ever saw one.

**Relapse**

Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.
When Cortez came, many at first believed him to be the bearded white God.

**Mannahnin**

I've never heard that one. Can you link to a source?

**Relapse**

Mannahnin wrote:I've never heard that one. Can you link to a source?

John 10:16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl

The Wiki article is a good jump off point for further research.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
http://ldspamphlets.org/Christ_in_America.htm

This goes a bit more into it with some sources mentioned

**Ahtman**

Mannahnin wrote:I've never heard that one. Can you link to a source?

The Book of Mormon. It isn't a quasi-universal story like the flood, but a specific one from a relatively recent religion.

**Slarg232**

Melissia wrote: I mean, who would employ the omniscient?

Bloody know-it-alls whom expect you to do everything, they are. They also never give credit where credit is due.

**Mannahnin**

Relapse wrote:
Mannahnin wrote:I've never heard that one. Can you link to a source?

John 10:16

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatl

The Wiki article is a good jump off point for further research.

http://ldspamphlets.org/Christ_in_America.htm

This goes a bit more into it with some sources mentioned

Ah, I remember that now. That's a modern American religious belief, based on part on Cortes' claims that he was welcomed and worshipped as a deity. The wiki page gives a pretty good breakdown. The Spanish priests seem to have attempted to argue that Quetzalcoatl had some similarity to Jesus. That's pretty well in keeping with the Catholic tradition of co-opting local deities and religious practices, like how they made the Irish Goddess Bridgh into St. Brigid, and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.

**Ahtman**

Mannahnin wrote:mostly taken from Mithras.

As always, any thread about atheism eventually comes around to Final Fantasy.

**Makarov**

As long as they have their permits, and do everything legally. I couldn't care what they do. It's their right.

<----- Catholic

**SilverMK2**

Relapse wrote:Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.

From my understanding the people that Jesus would have come from wern't particularly... white

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3958241.stm

"the earliest depictions of Jews, which date from the 3rd Century, are - as far as can be determined - dark-skinned"

**Relapse**

SilverMK2 wrote:
Relapse wrote:Something that was always interesting to me is in the New Testament, were a ressurected Christ was telling his Apostles of "other sheep"he needed to go to, and they would hear his voice. Couple this with Central American traditions of a "bearded white God" who came to teach them many things, then leaving, promising to return.

From my understanding the people that Jesus would have come from wern't particularly... white

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/3958241.stm

"the earliest depictions of Jews, which date from the 3rd Century, are - as far as can be determined - dark-skinned"

It could be relative. I know a Mexican or two who have nicknames the translate as "white" refering to their light skin, yet the average Europeon/Anglo would look at them as dark skinned.

**generalgrog**

Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.

I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.

Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.

Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.

GG

**sirlynchmob**

generalgrog wrote:
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.

I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.

Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.

Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.

GG

http://pocm.info/

Try to read through all of this if you want to see the origins of christianity. the section on the dead sea scrolls is really interesting.

**Goliath**

generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.GG

Assuming that XXX is any sort of god, I don't believe in them because I have yet to see first hand evidence that any exist.

**generalgrog**

Goliath wrote:
generalgrog wrote:The fact that a simple question like "Why don't you believe in XXX" will not be answered is quite telling.GG

Assuming that XXX is any sort of god, I don't believe in them because I have yet to see first hand evidence that any exist.

People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.

GG

Automatically Appended Next Post:

sirlynchmob wrote:
generalgrog wrote:
Mannahnin wrote:...and how the myth stories about the origin of Jesus are mostly taken from Mithras.

I love how you say this as though it were fact. It's just another one of your fallacious arguments.

Lets see.... there was a story about mithras that had similarities to the story of Jesus.....soooo.. ipso facto....the Jesus story was made up..Yayyy now I don't have to believe in Jesus.

Why didn't you choose the story of Horus like bill Maher did in his movie religulous? It's just as fallacious.

GG

http://pocm.info/

Try to read through all of this if you want to see the origins of christianity. the section on the dead sea scrolls is really interesting.

Allright.....I'll give it a read.

GG

**SilverMK2**

generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.

GG

The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1] The idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that:

"The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching." [2]

During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was dead. However, the exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3]

According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5]

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.[6] Russell claims "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat," and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

**Slarg232**

SilverMK2 wrote:
generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.

GG

The myth of the Flat Earth is the modern misconception that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical.[1] The idea seems to have been widespread during the first half of the 20th century, so that the Members of the Historical Association in 1945 stated that:

"The idea that educated men at the time of Columbus believed that the earth was flat, and that this belief was one of the obstacles to be overcome by Columbus before he could get his project sanctioned, remains one of the hardiest errors in teaching." [2]

During the early Middle Ages, virtually all scholars maintained the spherical viewpoint first expressed by the Ancient Greeks. By the 14th century, belief in a flat earth among the educated was dead. However, the exterior of the famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch is a Renaissance example in which a disc-shaped earth is shown floating inside a transparent sphere.[3]

According to Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."[4] Historians of science David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers point out that "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference".[5]

Historian Jeffrey Burton Russell says the flat earth error flourished most between 1870 and 1920, and had to do with the ideological setting created by struggles over evolution.[6] Russell claims "with extraordinary [sic] few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat," and credits histories by John William Draper, Andrew Dickson White, and Washington Irving for popularizing the flat-earth myth.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

1) Wikipedia don't count.

2) Doesn't mean that there wasn't a time where people thought the Earth was flat, just that it wasn't during the Middle Ages, if that is in fact true.

**generalgrog**

Kilkrazy wrote:The Chinese cave paintings are meaningless if you don't believe in Carbon-14 dating.

This.

Carbon-14 dating is not that reliable, in that you can date freshly dead animals to over 1,000's of years old. Also it isn't fully understood how a "flood event" may have changed the environment.

Again assumptions of uniformatarianism must be relied on to fully accept radiocarbon and or radiometric dating.

GG

**Melissia**

generalgrog wrote:People used to believe that the earth was flat, because there was no first hand evidence that it was spherical.

And then the ancient Greeks (amongst others, probably earlier ones, too) found evidence to the contrary.

You seem to believe the fact that the scientific consensus changes over time as a weakness, when it's actually science's greatest strength. The scientific consensus changes because we scientists are always searching for the truth of the world. Which means that science is always growing, becoming stronger, and better.

Reflecting more and more of the truth of the universe in the consensus-- one discovery at a time. Maybe, one day, there will be scientifically verifiable evidence of a "god" or godlike entities. In that case, the scientific consensus will change. Until then, there's no real reason to believe in a god from the scientific point of view. If you still want to, hey, that's your choice. But looking down on people who don't just makes you a bit of a jerk.