Quote Originally Posted by spankythehippo View Post
Regardless of the evidence being "outdated", I can still hold my own opinion without falling under heavy scrutiny. Since my opinion is formed from something that cannot be cited nor can it be explained. So you can believe in your god, and I wont care. Just don't force anything down my throat. This is always the case with religion, a topic that is very touchy. I absolutely hate and detest religion. But, right now, it is tolerable.
You claim not to care, then you say "hate and detest", I call that a mixed message myself.

I'm really not bothered by your views, I have been by turns an atheist, a rationalist, a worshipper of Thor (briefly) and an Arrian before becoming an Augustinian.

It's not your views I object to it's the sloppy and combative way you present them, and the fallacies you believe about your opponents.

I'd rather not make another thread about religion. Your aggressiveness and hostility towards my half-arsed, and to be honest, joke of a theory, is why I'm still debating. My intent was not to disprove religion, it was to show that religion is not as innocent as it seems (well in my original post, it was stating that religion is false). Religion is becoming a social thing. People that share the same religion get on well (most of the time), but can have ... uhhh... disagreements with others. This is one of the reasons why I dislike religion. To a lot of people, it is not about enlightenment or faith or being true to oneself, it is almost becoming like a cult.
Christianity is per definition a "Mystery Cult", that's nothing new, and religion has always been social - see this is what I'm talking about.

Sure, there are certain things scientist's cannot explain, but that does not prove the existence of a god (see, now I am disproving religion).
No, you're just arguing against religion, you haven't provided a single "proof" of anything - Viking has provided some attempted proofs, but I think they are flawed.

"Hey, look! There's a hangar. There MUST be a plane in it." That is not always the case (crappy analogy, I know). What if there is no god? Maybe there is something out there who Created everything, but just went to sleep? And according to many religions, god made humans as a spitting image of himself. Why us? Why not any other form of life? And if we are meant to an image of god, why so much imperfection in his creation? Greed, hate, lust, war, envy. These are all human qualities. If god wanted everyone to be happy, why would these attributes exist? Now, some might say "He's testing the faith and goodwill of each human being."
The short answer to your question is, "free will", longer ones invole definitions of "image" and "likeness", and nobody said "spitting image" anyway.

And with your, "A translation of a Papal Bull is a type of secondary source", wouldn't the Bible be classified a secondary source (assuming that the events told in the Bible have a degree of truth)?
I would call a translated Bible a teritary source if anything, almost none of the books collected therein purport to be written by people who were there.

If the presence of a god is uncertain and cannot be measured by any means possible, it is then safe to assume that god does not exist. If any evidence is found in relation to the presence of a god, the assumption is instantly discarded and replaced by a new assumption.
"Safe" to assume? I think not.

You don't know what happens when you die - worst case scenario your brain becomes starved of oxygen and shuts down after your heart stops, there's no reason to believe that'll be pleasent, or there might be a God and a heaven, but you don't believe so you just get brain-shutdown.

In situations like this I think optimism is better than pessimism.

I don't feel like arguing anymore, since they seem to be falling on deaf ears. And also my argument is really crappy and I seem to contradicting myself in certain instances in this thread. I've had a long day.
Well, you're the one switching between bad history attacking the Roman Church and abstract arguments against religion.