I follow. I'm a liberal Nazi.

But there's no such... Hey, I see what you did there. That's funny.

what is made up? were you there to experience it? it is made up in your mind, you choose not to believe it. there are other cultures that have stories just as suspicious as Christianity. I've experienced things I can't explain and would sound suspicious to others...I think this is so above anyone's mental capabilities and both sides are arguing just as fervently for things they can't prove.

We are just breeders, that is what every living organism is made to do. What else do you think we are? preservers of the earth? we obviously aren't here to make things better. We are biological organisms, even the smallest organism has a job...to multiply.

"We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks

But to reduce us to JUST breeders discounts the human mind and soul. Mozart had children but I think most people would agree that his primary contribution to the human race was his music.

Do you think infertile people should not be allowed to marry?

You're right, I should probably have been there to know for sure someone can be killed and then live again, or that some dude made fish a bread appear out of thin air, or that a man can defy physics and walk on water, that fires can talk to people, that one man made a zoo boat and then repopulated the planet shortly thereafter, and that one man, and a woman made from his leftover parts are our ancestors and we're just a product of inbreeding where the complications of such inbreeding is only apparent in the last few centuries.

All these things are so up in the air as to if they could happen in reality or not?

things we can't prove. like gravity? i've had my own set of spiritual what the fucks, but i'll still put my stock into a system that can admit when it's wrong and change its worldview as it becomes more clear. the unchanging hand of god was geocentric.

just for the discussion, religion and spirituality are two separate things, have been billed as two separate things in this argument, but stu you're using them interchangeably. could you define and clarify how you view the two? for me there's a huge difference between my connection to the things my body doesn't have sense receptors for and following dogma.

adam and eve are genesis 2. in genesis 1 all of humanity gets created at once.

I dove into a copy of the Lutheran translation of the Bible a few weeks ago. Its emphasis on obedience was weird.

And as Stu (I believe) has already noted way earlier in the thread, a lot of Christian mythology comes directly from pre-existing pagan mythology. Early Christians were genius propagandists -- to gain followers they merely incorporated already existent mythology and holidays into their belief system. Neo-paganism has muddied the waters a lot, and they claim that certain rituals are "ancient" when they aren't, but we know that some of the biggies such as Christmas and Easter are pagan holidays that were appropriated by the Christians.

I think there is plenty of historical evidence to show that Jesus was a real man and a real religious teacher. I actually dig a lot of what he had to say. However, his existence isn't evidence that he is the son of a deity, that he resurrected from the dead, that he performed miracles, etc. He was a dude with some really chill things to say. I'll also note that most of the outspoken Christians that I see in American society today do not follow the teachings of Christ, who was all about helping the poor and the outcast and didn't say one damned thing about gay people.