Pastafarian wins right to wear strainer in driving licence photo

[The Brain]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Watching martinus get stoned might be fun....

He's bad enough as it is.

[Barrister]

One of the central tennets of Christianity was that Jesus was a man as well as the son of God. 

No, that is not true. Not all Christians believe that or hold that to be dogma. The schism on this issue is the one that created the catholic and the oriental churches.

That while on earth he was not a perfect, omnipotent being, but flawed as we all are.

And who ever said that the revelations failed?

Earth 1.0 - Created Eden - Reason for Failing: Eve liked fruit
Earth 2.0 - World full of wicket men - Resolution: kill everybody, except well ehh.. that guy Noah
Earth 3.0 - People unaware of Gods Law - Resolution: Make deal with Abraham; Greatest Moral Rule: Cuz I said so!
Earth 4.0 - Israelites in wrong country. - Resolution: Nature walk through desert followed by genocide. Special fun practical joke played on moses, hey you can see the promised land, but now you die.
Earth 5.0 - Wrong country in Israel. - Resolution: Change rules of the game, all sins forgiven for just asking nicely. Those sinned against and those roasting in hell for picking up a twig on a saturday feel unfairly treated.

Rules get changed each time. The strength and consistency of the muslim argument is that they claim that god didn't get it wrong (one wouldn't think that a all knowing omnipotent and omnipresent god would get things wrong) the humans got it wrong.

First - fair point.

Changing rules?  Funny, as a liberal protestant *I* have always argued that it wasn't that God has changed, but that how we as flawed humans have understood God that has changed.  It certainly isn't an exclusively Muslim point of view.

[Barrister]

"cognitive dissonance" is a nifty turn of phrase to be sure, but you keep repeating it in this thread.

It is a good term, well defined and it fits the issue. Look it up.

I am merely saying that constantly repeating the same phrase is not a terribly effective rhetorical device.

[HVC]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Open your heart to love HVC

Love is fickle. Hate is forever

[Valmy]

In my experience the smarter the religious person the more elaborate the cartwheels he/she has to perform to get around the problem of lack of evidence for and massive amounts of evidence against the existence of god. Basically smart believers have to work harder and smarter to get around their own cognitive dissonance, which is not too much of a problem, because they are smart ones capable of working harder and smarter.

Are the only religious people you meet literalist fundamentalists?

[Ed Anger]

Earth 2.0 and 3.0 is my favourite god. vengful and cruel. not this earth 5.0 hippy god.

Open your heart to love HVC

Church services in a pussy church is boring. Give me that old time gay bashing religion.

[Valmy]

Church services in a pussy church is boring. Give me that old time gay bashing religion.

I will hold you in my heart this Sunday Mr. Anger. 

Awesome avatar btw 

[Viking]

That doesn't make any sense at all. If a god did exist, why couldn't it resemble the Christian god?

You keep arguing against arguments that are not being made. Niko Alm being or not being a dick is completely beside the point, you you keep repeating it as if his niceness matters. You are arguing that not all religions are equal. They have to meet some heretofore unknown standard of true faith. Never before has anybody actually argued that religious rights are contingent on the followers actually believing the dogma.  The fact that you need a new argument to criticize Alm just goes to show how valid his point is. A Religion who's only purpose is to parody religion parodies religion and you say that this religion doesn't count.

The Christian god of one part of his holy scripture is inconsistent with the Christian god of another part of the scripture. Muslims correctly point that out. The Muslim god is also inconsistent. Being all knowing is inconsistent with free will... quoting Hume paraphrasing Epicurus

"Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?"

Even if he exists god does not make sense. It follows that if there is a god he does not have the features ascribed to him by the Christian Books.

[Ed Anger]

Church services in a pussy church is boring. Give me that old time gay bashing religion.

I will hold you in my heart this Sunday Mr. Anger. 

Please don't do that. I'd rather you pray that I get a threesome this weekend.

Awesome avatar btw 

[Valmy]

Please don't do that. I'd rather you pray that I get a threesome this weekend.

Done!

[Ed Anger]

Please don't do that. I'd rather you pray that I get a threesome this weekend.

Done!

Testify!

[The Brain]

More likely: triplets.

[Ed Anger]

More likely: triplets.

My Power Glove is strong.

[Viking]

In my experience the smarter the religious person the more elaborate the cartwheels he/she has to perform to get around the problem of lack of evidence for and massive amounts of evidence against the existence of god. Basically smart believers have to work harder and smarter to get around their own cognitive dissonance, which is not too much of a problem, because they are smart ones capable of working harder and smarter.

Are the only religious people you meet literalist fundamentalists?

Generally the most effective means of avoiding cognitive dissonance is to move away from literalism and treat biblical passages which are explicitly literal (noah had sons and built a boat etc) and decide that they are allegorical. So, no, the religious people I meet are not literalist fundamentalists, or at least they refrain from being literalist fundamentalists for the duration of our conversation.

[Viking]

"cognitive dissonance" is a nifty turn of phrase to be sure, but you keep repeating it in this thread.

It is a good term, well defined and it fits the issue. Look it up.

I am merely saying that constantly repeating the same phrase is not a terribly effective rhetorical device.

It works on people who know what it means.