Facts are correct, faith is make-believe. Stuff that people really, really wish were true, but just isn't. I think it might be nice if an afterlife were real, but the fact is that it isn't. It's a story that humans made up in order to comfort themselves.

"How can a set of beliefs and practices know anything? It is not pathetic or embarrassing, it just makes no sense what you are saying."

The set of beliefs and practices known as Christianity happens to have a heap of historical and scientific misinformation bonded to it inseparably. The institution of religion has always claimed to know the origin of all things and know the answers to all the great mysteries in the universe (even long after a mystery is solved by a scientific breakthrough). The Church once spent centuries executing those who attempted to advance fields such as astronomy and medicine, since those advancements led to discoveries that were in conflict with the religious order of things. Whenever a discovery is at odds with the Bible's account of history, the Church suppresses it (Creation Museum, anyone?) Every bit of knowledge we've acquired in recent centuries has been fought by the Church initially, often persistently. Religion is slowing down the progress of humanity.

The clear inference here is that Christians are ignorant, or as one atheist on here has has said "crazy". (I'll admit that to believe in something that is not real is crazy. But then again to NOT believe in something vital that is real is also crazy.) If Christians are so deluded or ignorant then how do you explain the scientists, astronauts, PhDs, university professors, billionaires, government leaders, etc that follow Christ and believe that he is who He claimed to be? Is this just a type of maladjustment in one part of their lives?

"If Christians are so deluded or ignorant then how do you explain the scientists, astronauts, PhDs, university professors, billionaires, government leaders, etc that follow Christ and believe that he is who He claimed to be? Is this just a type of maladjustment in one part of their lives?"

Like I said in the other thread, published and peer reviewed scientists who believe in a secular universe (admitting, of course, that we still have unknowns) make up over 99% of this scientific community. Being a PhD, professor, billionaire, or government leader does not necessarily mean that someone is among the scientific elite (especially not the latter two).

Is this just a type of maladjustment in one part of their lives?"

YES... Yes it absolutely is. It is the partitioning of the mind and reason. Something that is common and fairly well understood within the psychology sciences.

People can and do believe in preposterous propositions on sunday and can be otherwise perfectly rational on monday.

Religious people absolutely apply different standards of logic and evidence to religious claims than they do to all others.

Please site your source.

99% is admittedly a small bit of an exageration. 93% is closer to the actual number.

"Leading Scientists Still Reject God." Nature, 1998; 394, 313

:...merely 10 % of those who are considered 'eminent' scientists believe in a personal god or in an afterlife" Scientific American, September 1999


There's two that I know of.

I think there's another thread you should respond to as you said you would dave.

......yeah, if an accuracy of +/- 600% is considered a "small bit" by eminent scientists.


and remember, any scientist worth his/her salt is wrong the vast majority of the time.

Heathen -"Religious people absolutely apply different standards of logic and evidence to religious claims than they do to all others."

I like it. I saw an interview where a believer was informed that the Bible was not written by eye witnesses, meaning people who lived at the same time as Christ. He responded "well, they were within a few decades of being eye witnesses." That's a pretty lenient requirement for evidence right there, especially from someone normally very scrupulous.

That's like if I were to write an "eye witness" account of WWII. We'll say I already learned about it in history class, just as they had storytelling in Biblical times. But I had no videos or photographs, just as they lacked 2000 years ago. Now I'm going to provide a historical record for WWII around 1940, a time when I was not yet alive, and have people live their lives by the messages it contains. The Bible is about equally as accurate.

As is becoming an established pattern with you, you spout stuff that is so poorly informed and so inaccurate it has become a waste of time trying to have any dialog with you.

I am not denying that such an interview happened (but the "facts" as reported by you are horrifically inaccurate), but MUCH more likely is that quite a few of the Old Testament accounts were not recorded by eye witnesses. And it is was likely the topic and what the believer was refuting was the mistaken claim that myths are generated that quickly.

I know this as I have sat in debates where William Lane Craig has made this point to counter this argument and his opponent had to concede the point due to accepted understanding in the historian community.