has anyone read the newsweek column by Rabbi Gellman "Trying to understand angry atheist"?
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Yes. Judging from the responses I've heard from atheists, Gellman needs to try harder. I don't know anyone who was satisfied with his analysis. Some atheists became angry simply because of the article. lol.
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No, it’s not the divine word of Dan Brown anymore. Sorry, you’re doomed to hellfire and damnation, as are we all. Although I should point out that when it’s been done in the past it’s been called revisionism and this in turn would produce a whole new following along with belief structure. So hooray! We’re all saved again (sigh). \n\nYa know, I'd also like to say that I’ve also been reading a lot of your past questions and seeing the responses you’ve gotten from most of them and I realize one thing, people honestly feel that god can’t take a dirty joke. If God created us in his own image wouldn’t that mean he also had a sense of humor? Seriously! I mean if I were an atheist wanting to choose a life with god, these people would seriously give me reason to reconsider it. I for one wouldn't want to spend eternity with them, I'd probably be cast into the pit of hell for farting hard.
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Oh oh, yes!  Here's a link to a clip from the show: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9zwbhAXe5yk\n\n"The Atheists Worst Nightmare... The BANANA!"\n\nHee hee... it's classic.\n\nOf course, after you watch that, please watch this: http://youtube.com/watch?v=SsBJlea848c&mode=related&search=
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Dude, you're back!!!  I have the same problem, but he is much more forceful about it.  I just argued as an atheist and basically told him his views were bullsh*t.  He got so pissed off that he took the rest of the day off and was granted a transfer to another shift.  The rest of us had a party!  Other than that, bring in your own boom-box and jam it louder.
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Thank you for the article- it had some interesting insights!\n\nI have long thought that there was something odd in the part of Genesis 2:1 and the phrasing Genesis 1 used. I've been looking for things that explained it and your article did just that.\n\nIt simply makes no sense that the God who sent His people to the wilderness for 40 years would have (or needed to) rush the planet in 6 days, then fake various items to make it seem much older. He does not work that way at any other time, so why then?\n\nI have said for years that when the Bible and science or reality conflict, our understanding of one or the other is flawed- and I think we've really messed up our understanding of the Bible!
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Wow, this is a tough one.\n\nThough I disagree with him greatly, I'd be totally remiss if I didn't put Schneb at the top of my list. We've had some great discussions here.\n\nCloser to my side, I'm always happy to read what Atheist and Fibrosa have to say.\n\nLately I've been amazed with emilyrose's powerful answers. She has beaten me to the punch several times in the past few weeks and I love reading what she has to say.\n\nOn the flip side, I also like to read what pregowtwins, eyelovesjesus, and you, Renee have to say.\n\nI'm sure I'm leaving out plenty, but if I think of them I'll come back to this one.
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I do, I struggle with it.  i do just that, I read it like there is some very good history to it,  I don't try and get science out of it.\n\nI am receiving in the mail this week or next a qu'ran and I intend to read this also.\n\nI have no intention of converting to chrsitianity or islam, but believe both books, bible and qu'ran,  can hold a special place in my intellectual moral and spiritual growth,\n\nI come here often and ask about contradictions in the bible,  i believe the books were altered by man even within the first gospel to the last,  to rehash the story,  not that it changed the meaning,  but that it changed,\n\nthe best example of what i mean is the two men on the cross are mocking jesus,  then 20 years later the gospel account has one asking for forgiveness,  and this i believe is to win more converts, i dont know for sure that happened, why did the earlier one leave it out?\n\ni wrestle with that, do you realize i spend an hour thinking about that yesterday, and this for me is something real i think about,\n\nand i come here and ask about it,  and its hard cause most of what i do is kid and joke around,\n\nbut indeed,  the book you speak of, bible, is a good one,  a challenge, its not your challenge to give,  it is clearly a book with such a huge cultural impact anyone who doesnt read it,  is missing out on joining the human race\n\ni wish everyone could read this answer to see what is in my heart, instead of the clown around stuff i type out when im in a bad mood
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Cain was concerned with the people that the Elohim created BEFORE the christian god created Adam and Eve.\n\nHeck.  I would be concerned and scared too if I were being sent out into a world among people I don't know after my parents isolated me from everything else.\n\n=======================\n\nThe following is an Article published six or seven years ago in Green Egg.\n\n*We Are the Other People*\n\nby Oberon (Otter) Zell\n\n"Ding-dong!" goes the doorbell. Is it Avon calling? Or perhaps Ed McMahon with my three million dollars? No, it's Yahweh's Witlesses again, just wanting to have a nice little chat about the Bible... Boy, did they ever come to the wrong house! So we invite them in: "Enter freely and of your own will..." (Hey, it's Sunday morning, nothing much going on, why not have a little entertainment?) Diane and I amuse ourselves watching their expressions as they check out the living room: great horned owl on the back of my chair; ceremonial masks and medicine skulls of dragons and unicorns on the wall; crystals, wands, staffs, swords; lots of Goddess figures and several altars; boa constrictors draped in amorous embrace over the elkhorn; white doves sitting in the hanging planters; cats and weasels underfoot; iron dragon snorting steam atop the wood stove; posters and paintings of wizards and dinosaurs and witchy women, some proudly naked; sculptures of mythological beasties and lots more dinosaurs; warp six on the star-filled viewscreen of my computer; a five-foot model of the USS Enterprise and the skeleton of a plesiosaur hanging from the ceiling; very, very many books, most of them dealing with obviously weird subjects... To say nothing of the great horned owl perched on the back of my chair and the Unicorn grazing in the front yard. You know; early Addams Family decor. And then, of course, it being late in the morning, you can expect Morning Glory to come wandering out naked, looking for her wake-up cup of tea. Morning Glory naked is a truly impressive sight, and the Witlesses look as if she'd set titties on stun as they stand immobilised, hands clasped over their genitals. With the stage set and all the actors in place, the show is ready to begin.\n\nTheir mission, of course, is to save our heathen souls by turning us on to "The Word of the Lord"- their Bible. I guess they figure some of us just haven't heard about it yet, and we're all eagerly awaiting their joyous tidings of personal salvation through giving our rational faculties to Jesus. Every time they come around, I look forward to trying out a new riposte. Sure, it may be cruel and sadistic of me, but hey, I didn't call them up and ask them to come over; they entered at their own risk! This time should be pretty good. After letting them run off their basic rap while lovely Morning Glory serves us all hot herb tea, I innocently remark: "But none of that applies to us. We have no need for salvation because we don't have original sin. We are the Other People."\n\n"Hunh? What?" they reply eloquently. It's clear they've never heard this one before. "\n\nRight," I say. "It's all in your Bible." And I proceed to tell them the story, using their own book for reference: (Genesis 1:26) The [Elohim] said, "Let us make humanity in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves, and let them be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, the cattle, all the wild beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth." Elohim is a plural word, including male and female, and should properly be translated "Gods" or "Pantheon." (1: 27) The Gods created humanity in the image of themselves, In the image of the Gods they created them, Male and female they created them. (1:28) The Gods blessed them, saying to them, "Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and conquer it. Be masters of the fish of the sea, the birds of he
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I take no joy in anyone's disgrace. However, the irony of the situation isn't lost on me. It makes me wish that the Fundamentalists and other groups would lighten up on the gay issue so that people could just come out of the closet instead of living lives based on secrecy and falsehood. It's a recipe for hypocrisy. My own church is open to gay clergy, and we haven't seen anything like this coming from them; we already know they're gay, so there's nothing to hide. It's a sad commentary on one individual--in this case, the minister in question--but a worse indictment of his own church and its homophobic agenda.
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Ddi you know that anyone can wrte a book, especially if you pay to have it published.  That is whay Mr. Koestler did.  His last name is Germanix, so he hates the Jews for destroying Germany.\n\nEvery academice who has read this book calls is a lot of made up crap!  There is nothing of value in it.  It is all lies.\n\nJews have always accepted converts, but conversion to Judasim was outlawed by the CHurch.  THe Church was worried because people were more attracted to Judasim than Christianity!\n\nThe Khazars were a tribe that converted to Judaism en masse by order of their king.  Hebres, Israelites, Israelis, nd Jews are all temrs used to identify the members of the Jewish tribes descended from Avram!\n\nGenetic test have show that Jews can trace backk their ancestors to 4,000 years ago.\n\nDo you know there is not a singl piece of evidence that Jesus ever existed.  Why don't you read about that.\n\nJeffrey
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Yes I will be ordering the Gospel of the FSM shortly. Praise his holy meatballs! \n\nRAmen
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I think there is a Magazine called "Christianity Today"
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From amazon.com:\n\n"Editorial Reviews\n\nAmazon.com\nAre Christianity and science incompatible? If there is a God, is he only an impersonal starter force? An introductory high school biology class first propelled Lee Strobel toward a life of atheism. God and science, he reasoned, were mutually exclusive. When the former legal editor of the Chicago Tribune converted to Christianity, he decided to investigate the science he had once accepted as truth. Did science point toward or away from God? As Strobel interviews a variety of scientists on everything from debunking evolutionary icons to the implications of the Big Bang to the existence of the human soul, he builds his case: scientific evidence points toward Intelligent Design. \nAlthough the discussion often veers into the academic, Strobel works hard to make it accessible to those without scientific training. Throughout the book, he salts interview transcript information with interesting personal stories of his own spiritual and scientific quest for knowledge, as well as sometimes over-detailed descriptions of the actual interviews (right down to the type of beverages consumed). Each chapter contains suggestions for further reading on particular issues of science and faith. \n\nStrobel concludes that, when correctly interpreted, science and biblical teaching support each other. He quotes physicist Paul Davies, "…science offers a surer path to God than religion." Open-minded readers will find that this book, and its questions for reflection and group study, invites conversation and investigation.--Cindy Crosby \n\nFrom Publishers Weekly\nStrobel, whose apologetics titles The Case for Christ and The Case for Faith have enjoyed strong popularity among evangelicals, approaches creation/evolution issues in the same simple and energetic style. The format will be familiar to readers of previous Case books: Strobel visits with scholars and researchers and works each interview into a topical outline. Although Strobel does not interview any "hostile" witnesses, he exposes readers to the work of some major origins researchers (including Jonathan Wells, Stephen Meyer and Michael Behe) and theistic philosophers (including William Lane Craig and J. P. Moreland). Strobel claims no expertise in science or metaphysics, but as an interviewer he makes this an asset, prodding his sources to translate jargon and provide illustrations for their arguments. At times, the interview format loses momentum as seams begin to show between interview recordings, rewrites, research notes and details imported from his subjects' CVs (here, Strobel's efforts at buffing his subjects' smart-guy credentials can become a little too intense). The most curious feature of the book—not uncommon in the origins literature but unusual in a work of Christian apologetics—is that biblical narratives and images of creation, and the significance of creation for Christian theology, receive such brief mention. Still, this solid introduction to the most important topics in origins debates is highly accessible and packs a good argumentative punch. "
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Yes, just as crazy.\nThe "Bible rib story" is pretty fooking retarded as well. Guess it lies in personal comprehension. Simple people need simple answers.
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I haven't read any of his books, but as a regular viewer, I will say that sometimes he is indeed a moron.... but other times, he can be quite sensible.\n\nI think that his problem is in the delivery of the message, rather than the message itself, as he comes across as a chronically angry individual.
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I find it very helpful, plenty of notes, references, defintions - it taught me a lot. \n\nIt does rabbit trail some. If there is something you disagree on in the side notes, just put the idea on the shelf and go on. There is an abundance of information in those annotations. \n\nI recently found out he put together the "Zondervan Expanded Concordance" that I want to buy and check out. \nI think it was from the 70's.\n\nAlso check out http://www.dakebible.com \nit has other books and such, and also a new biography about him is out now.
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I will confess that I have not read Brian McLaren's book "A New Kind of Christian: A Tale of Two Friends on a Spiritual Journey", although I did read the summary and some reviews on Amazon. I think that is enough to give me something to comment on. \n\n1. It sounds accessible to me. However, as a scientist myself, it sounds a bit over-simplified.\n\n2. When you ask about the church, it strikes me that "the church" is not at all monolithic, and that is part of the problem. It is fractured into literally thousands of quarrelling sects and cults. \n\n3. I have to admit I have been startled over and over at the attitudes I have found in American churches; incredibly inflexible and dogmatic and angry. And often very igorant of their own faith.\n\n4. I think it would be very healthy for American churches to move in this sort of direction. I do not think that they will. It does not sit well with the American psyche, or American culture, which is an angry culture and a culture of extremes. The US is like an adolescent, and is prone to temper tantrums, and it likes its religion like that as well. \n\n5. Although the book does not sound like it has much meat in it, I still think it makes some good points. \n\n6. Predictably, the noses of many of the American reviewers of the book on Amazon.com were put out of joint.