Friedemann,
I think you’ve made a choice about the existence of God, but this choice is like a person who gets engaged to one person while still talking about another person from the past.
"About killing, I will never forget the sentence that goes something like this (sorry, I’m translating from Serbian, I don’t know English Bible): …kill everything, every animal, every child on the mother’s breast… . As for the women, the comment goes like this: Woman should cover her head because, as man is lower than God, woman is lower than man. It definitely didn’t seem to me like a comment about specific culture :). Not to mention that in the Genesis god created women to be an ‘assistant’ to a man (so not someone who is absolutely equal), or for example a man who is willing to give his daughters to the horny crowd just to protect his guests (“I have two daughters who still did not know the man…” - sorry, again my clumsy translation, but something like that) - that all was just too much for my stomach :). that’s how I saw and felt about these things - I know that other people will understand them differently (and I’ll be fine with that as long as they don’t try to explain to me that I should read them differently, too). "
Aineko,
I think I used to wonder about those passages as well- things like annihilation of all enemies. This was only for certain groups and it wasn’t always done if you read along further. One group tricked the Israelites with old-looking footwear. Rahab, the “harlot” and her family at Jericho were saved. Mostly, I believe they were to exterminate these groups because their religious practices (idols, probably child sacrifice, etc) and societies were a threat to the monotheistic Hebrews and their cultural practices. The groups they didn’t destroy sometimes caused them a lot of grief later.
I can accept that you may find Paul’s writing about women being lower than men-pretty annoying. As for women being a helper to men, that’s not so bad. If we go back to the original story, I think it was so Adam wouldn’t be lonely. Maybe the zebras weren’t that good at conversation…
About Lot, I think that’s a terrible story, I agree. It shows how depraved that society was. I understand that a host had to protect his guests at all costs and thus the unbelievable offer of his daughters in order to satiate the crowd. Notice, though, in the story that the girls were not thrown to the crowd.
Mait, thanks for your comments. I guess it all comes down to the point of view.
" This was only for certain groups… "
I remember following same line of thought as you just to conclude that god from the Bible is one racist character 
(since children from some group deserved to die while other didn’t - and I can’t stand characters who discriminate children by their ethnicity, have seen enough of that in reality).
"As for women being a helper to men, that’s not so bad. If we go back to the original story, I think it was so Adam wouldn’t be lonely. "
well, between the helper and the entertainment, I have to say I don’t like neither option :).
As for Lot, his intention was quite enough for me and in my eyes it was related with the position and value of the woman compared to man. Why he didn’t offer himself?
And all this wasn’t my first encounter with the Bible, actually the first one was really nice. When I was about 6 my parents got me two books of illustrated biblical stories for kids, Old and New Testament (yea, my parents were atheists but didn’t think that familiarizing child with the religion is a form of child abuse 
). I loved those books and didn’t take the Bible with some big prejudices. But, true, I didn’t go through neither Bible nor Koran in order to search for a god, I was reading them in order to see what is it all about…
I was raised Christian, called myself athiest in college, and now consider myself agnostic (although some may consider me athiest). I don’t know whether God exists or not. Some days I think so, others no. For me, I simply prefer to live my life not considering Him. When I was Christian, what I always remember was the feeling of guilt, and I’d rather not live the rest of my life like that. I was a good teenager, kept out of trouble, and still felt the guilt. Now, however, I want to consider how I should think or behave on what would be best for me and whoever else is involved, not on what “thus saith the Lord”.
Now you would be the perfect candidate to take over after Obama in 2012 or 2016: An African American agnostc woman, unfortunately it doesn’t seem Americans are ready yet for an agnostic/atheist president,
Friedemann
It’s difficult to argue against agnostics one second, Christians another second (who then seem to distance themselves from Christianity and become just spiritual at other moments), then at one point the atheists were told they didn’t give any compelling reasons for atheism and that had to be defended. Though Dawkins’ The God Delusion was put down earlier he does have to say about a belief scale:
- Strong Theist: I do not question the existence of God, I KNOW he exists.
- De-facto Theist: I cannot know for certain but I strongly believe in God and I live my life on the assumption that he is there.
- Weak Theist: I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.
- Pure Agnostic: God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.
- Weak Atheist: I do not know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.
- De-facto Atheist: I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable and I live my life under the assumption that he is not there.
- Strong Atheist: I am 100% sure that there is no God.
To Dawkins he is at number six and says he leans very heavily on number onto number 7. People for some reason people like to come out and say: “SEE SEE!!! YOU’RE TECHNICALLY AN AGNOSTIC!!! YOU ARE! YOU ARE!”
The problem here is that atheists always end up on the defensive for some reason. The truth is non-atheists are the ones positing that there is a god or might be one. It is up to them to give us evidence. Everyday creation distances itself more and more from a creator, evolution its logic, observable truth, and other evidence make the Abrahamic creation story look silly.
You may think you’ve caught us because we openly say “No I cannot prove the non-existence for god.” But that would have been admitted from minute number one. If I see that a painter is carrying a bucket of blue paint into a room that I have never been in and when the painter finishes and leaves has blue spots on his uniform and you ask: “How do you know that room is painted blue?” I would say I’m very confident based on the evidence at hand that the room is painted blue. You could say, “Without walking in there you can’t prove it’s not bright pink.” You’re right I can’t, but the room still is almost certainly blue, and god almost certainly does not exist, this is how we can admit to being sixes on the list that lean heavily on seven.
But please (level 4) agnostics, Christians, spiritualists, the evidence is on my side it’s your duty in these discussions to prove why the room is not blue before we’re able to go inside and look.
should have edited that a bit better sorry…
Chris,
For me, it’s simple.
If someone says “I don’t know IF there is a God”, then that person is an agnostic-at least in my understanding of English. If someone says, “There is no way to prove the existence of God and I don’t believe he exists,” then I would call that person an atheist.
I haven’t gone into great detail about my spiritual background here and I’m not sure if you meant me or locofoco. I knew immediately, that he meant that he was not a Christian and I knew that Friedemann misunderstood him.
A lot of people say vague things like “I like Christ, he was good teacher…etc.”. You can find very famous people who have said things like this, but to me, this means that they have not thought about this very deeply.
If they believe him to be a good teacher, but can’t accept him as saviour/messiah/etc. because of perceived errors in transcribing the Bible, then I can accept that. I don’t mean that it is incorrectly translated, only that this is an acceptable reason for someone to hold this “good teacher” opinion.
Sometimes you’ll meet very famous people who claim to think this way…no reason given.
On the other hand if the Bible is accurate and people hold the “good teacher” opinion, it makes no logical sense. If what Christ said about himself is not completely true, then he’s a liar and it’s not worth praising him as a teacher either.
Atheist vs. Agnostic. I’m not interested in the shades, just the grammar. If someone says “I don’t know if God exists,” that person is an agnostic. If someone says, “There is no God,” then the person is an atheist."
Dawkins doesn’t impress me. He can impress many people, but I think he’s just trendy. It’s trendy to be an atheist now, or a humanist. Saying things about “religion” and “child abuse” will generate a lot of conversation in a lot blogs. It’s a great way to get publicity. Christians will write about him. Jewish people who don’t want their right to send their sons to Hebrew school taken away will write about him. People who think it’s cool to be an atheist will write about him. Christopher Hitchens is more interesting, at least.
PierreM cancelled his account. I regret that. I noticed that he seemed to be somewhat of an independent thinker and I liked that.
Why would anyone just up and cancel their account like that?
Wow, Angela for president, 2016. LOL. I also am not a member of any party, so it is even less likely I would be voted in. The only thing to make it even less likely would be if I were gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) (Seinfeld reference, lol).
@Mait
"If someone says “I don’t know IF there is a God”, then that person is an agnostic-at least in my understanding of English. If someone says, “There is no way to prove the existence of God and I don’t believe he exists,” then I would call that person an atheist. "
and how would you call someone who says: “There is no way to prove the existence nor non-existence of God and I don’t believe he exists,”?
" I’m not interested in the shades, just the grammar. If someone says “I don’t know if God exists,” that person is an agnostic. If someone says, “There is no God,” then the person is an atheist.“”
you see, I’m more interesting in semantics that in grammar. If you think about it, there two questions you can ask to get the “There is no god” answer from someone:
if you ask me :“What do you believe : is there a god?” - I can say “There is no god”.
but if you ask me “Is there a god”, asking me to tell you if he actually exists or not - how the heck can I say “There is no god” when I don’t have any proof (which doesn’t change the fact that I know what I believe in).
My ‘problem’ is not a problem of faith, as you and dooo were trying to present it and put me with the agnostics. I do not question my beliefs for a second and I do not consider the potential existence of god in any of my actions (aybee gave a nice example of agnosticism), - I simply know, from being educated in the philosophy of science, that I can not know the correct answer to something that is not a scientific question (I can only know what is the correct answer FOR ME).
“For me, it’s simple.”
the thing is, when you start thinking about these questions from different aspects (like philosophy of science, for example), they stop being so simple and ‘shades’ (I’d say precise definitions) become necessary and that’s was Dawkins is showing. I haven’t always been saying what I’m saying now. Before I went to uni I was saying “There is no god!” (without specifying “I believe…”). Then I realized that I cannot actually say that, since I do not know that for sure. My beliefs didn’t change a bit, but the way I’m expressing them did. That’s all. I realized that my previous “knowing” is actually a strong (as strong as you can imagine) belief that god does not exists. But I cannot know that and tell you ‘yes, there is no god’ in a way I can tell you ‘yes, the molecule of water consists of two atoms of H and one atom of O’.
so, yes, another number 6.
Dawkins is trendy? Dawkins is one of the preeminent biologists of our time, him along with Gould (rip) (who disagreed on many things btw) are very important figures in society today. Calling him trendy is like when people called the American Revolution and democracy trendy… He is one of the most important scientists of our time, aside from him being the ‘atheist pope’. Whether or not you believe him to be (sic) trendy though is irrelevant. What is relevant are the points he makes in the The Blind Watchmaker and The God Delusion no matter how polemical the latter may be. Except for saying that God is a testable hypothesis (which may not be original either), he really didn’t say too much new anyway, he just put it all in one place for contemporary readers.
Also I too find Christopher Hitchens more interesting, his arguments are more based on why religion is evil and how a belief in god poisons everything. I’m more of a history/politics guy myself which is why I also feel he’s more interesting, but as far as this conversation goes, concerning the existence of god, the relevant writers are Dawkins, Harris, and Dennet. The fact that religion and the belief in god does more harm than good in today’s world (and yesterday’s world) are very evident and people who argue on these topics are smart to avoid them.
The “does god exist” issue is a bit more difficult because ‘true believers’ seem to be able to switch from fundamentalist, the theist, to deist, to agnostic at a whim. The argument for an existing god, whether personal or impersonal needs to start from people like you (mait) and not with the question: “Psssh how can you prove god doesn’t exist?” …because how do you know he does?
On this subject I tend to gravitate towards the late Carl Sagan’s view here - - YouTube and here Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot - YouTube
@“blindside”
“Except for saying that God is a testable hypothesis (which may not be original either)”
that is one thing I do not fully agree with Dawkins or anyone who says similar thing (although we might be talking about different things). I say that the existence of the omnipotent being cannot be dis-proven. What we can disprove is that the action of god is responsible for various phenomena people take as the proof of his existence. However, no matter how many of these phenomena you disprove (or offer a physical explanation for) - people who need faith will find something beyond to believe in (example of catholic church accepting organic evolution - it’s just that god at some point put the wholly spirit or whatever into evolving man). In the extreme case, they could always say “well, maybe god almighty does not interact with us today (for whatever mysterious reason), but he will in the future!” and this cannot be dis-proven as there will always be future and future, as long as there is human species.
even with the phenomena related to god and faith in him, proving and disproving doesn’t go very smoothly. for example, I have all the rights to ask someone who believe that Christ was conceived asexually, to prove that such thing is possible with or without god (if Christ would have been a woman, ok, maybe, parthenogenesis, but - Bible says he was a man). And now we have the following situation: without god it is not possible to happen, with god it is not possible to disprove (since god may refuse to participate in our experiment). so, the faith remains a matter of choice and rather than going around disproving god, we should put more effort into creating world were people would need gods less and less (there was that study showing that as standard and security rises people consider religion less and less important (with the obvious exception of US, in which more people believe that religion is important than in other developed countries). I can’t find the study itself, but here is the link to overview http://bit.ly/cvUGhG )
and, yes, Dawkins is one of the greatest biologists and thinkers of our time and not some trendy writer.
I’m going to try to post here. I’ve been thrown out of the system three times. I’ll try a short post for starters.
@Friedemann
Why are you, a German in China, trying to influence our elections?
"@Friedemann Why are you, a German in China, trying to influence our elections? "
I wanted to influence the presidential elections in Germany and China first but they don’t have one…LOL
“The existense or non- existense of God cannot be proved.”
I think there is a mistake in there somewhere.
Why would the non-existence of God even be required to be proven? We don’t usually try to prove negatives; also we don’t usually accept that something is equally likely to exist or not, on the basis that it can’t be proven that it’s not there. I mean, why is there a different set of rules for this?
confused
Well, a lot of activity here while I was sleeping. Seems we are now aiming for the epic “free will”- thread…
I’d like to add a little point of refinement here which is that science usually only tests the compatibility of an observation with a theory. If the theory is compatible, it gets a “pass”, for now. That does not ultimately prove the theory is right. In fact the great Richard Feynman once said that we can never prove a theory ultimately “right”, we can only prove it wrong. The latter would then require to modify or reject the theory. The same is true for the theory that God Almighty exists.
I find some of the logical arguments against God quite interesting and powerful. For example if God is omnipotent, there cannot be free will (sorry!). If he is omnipotent, which includes being savant and living in a way outside time, he knows the future. But that clashes with the concept of man’s free will the outcome of which God cannot predict (otherwise it wouldn’t be free will). That means he either isn’t omnipotent and probably doesn’t exist or we don’t have truly free will (have we had a thread on “free will” yet?). But if we don’t have free will to do good or sin, the whole message of the Bible is somewhat pointless.
Friedemann
Ivana,
just saw your post. Yes, you’re spot on. Your point about proving negatives it what I was also getting at in my post above,
Friedemann