An acquaintance of mine once worked in a clerical job for Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s American Atheists organization. She told me she lost count of people who asked her how she could work for those “devil worshippers.” If you don’t believe in God, chances are you don’t believe in the devil either!

On a side note, I agree with #6 smartalix, Christmas is a non-secular American holiday and I don’t see why Jews can’t celebrate it along with the rest of us — Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Ba’Hais, Sufis, Shintoists, Animists, Druids, Wiccans, etc., etc., etc. join us and have a ball!

What you won’t be seeing anytime in the future, are terms like Gift-Hannaka or Gift-Kwanza. Apparently there is at least one made up minority religion that’s too sacred to screw with.

But the Urban Dictionary has some other examples.
http://urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hannaka

There are way better arguments for your beliefs (I’m not going to make it too easy for you) than this line.

OK then, I guess you win?

And yes, history books are FULL of errors! I study World War II for example, which happened less than 70 years ago. There are many, many, many examples of inconsistent eyewitness accounts, wrong dates, wrong events, wrong people, wrong outcomes, wrong conclusions. Historians argue ALL the bloody time. And so do Shakespeare scholars…they can’t agree on what he meant, and he wrote IN ENGLISH!

My wife is a lawyer, and she can tell ya how much so-called eyewitness testimony breaks down under rigorous cross-examination. A group of 4 RCMP officers tasered a Polish immigrant in the Vancouver airport a few years ago, killing him, and they all gave startingly consistent testimony UNDER OATH. Turns out it was all bullshit, and they had colluded together to get their stories straight. Look up the Braidwood Inquiry.

So yes, your bullshit eyewitness testimony is just that…bullshit.

To put it in your terms, a bible is a history book. A history book is written not only decades after the fact, but centuries. Does this make it any more unreliable?

Are the stories of Homer and the philosophy of Aristotle lies because of their age?

So you see your argument is weak in design and your intent is strong in prejudice.

But I am more interested right now in fpp’s question. We have all witnessed Chris Angel walk thru glass, rip people in half, etc and its even “on film.” And when I say “more interested,” that acknowledges you, Benji, Eric, et al, are staying away from the main issue as already stated. Why worship what you cannot understand?—and should not agree with if you ever did?

Punishing people for mere disagreement—why do that?

Like I said, I can respect you, but not your bat shit belief that tells you “those who do not accept him as savior will be cast into the depths of hell” Just that belief alone, belies your and your faith’s arrogance.

As an atheist I can no more claim there is no god any more that you can claim there is. The difference is, my lack of belief is based that so far there has been no real, hard, empirical, evidence to support the existence of A god, let alone a judeo-christian one, so I go about my life not worrying about some guy-in-the-sky passing judgment on me, the same way I don’t worry about fairies, leprechauns, unicorns, etc.

You on the other hand, absolutely claim there is a god, with no evidence what so ever and insist those who don’t believe will suffer. Based on what, some extremely questionable holy books? Again, who is the arrogant one here?

Let’s say for the sake of argument their testimony is perfectly consistent…which it never is…that STILL doesn’t prove Jesus had the powers the bible claims he did. You think magicians have real powers? Lots of people see them do incredible things. That doesn’t make the magician a god.

I laugh because this is more of a court situation than you probably realize. Putting that aside there are events in life you are not likely to ever forget. I dare say the experiences of our “witnesses” fall into the same category.

The amount of consistency between our multiple witnesses through time and distance helps confirm their statements. Therefore to dismiss them for prejudice sake is not logical.

I do believe those who do not accept him as savior will be cast into the depths of hell. However, …… I won’t condemn that very disbelief.”

The perfection of the hypocrisy should not be lost in the human/cyber interface.

#99–Eric is already lost to us. Maybe his hormones will kick in, or he will find out he is gay, and he will get another shot at his world view. I comment because I just can’t get enough of his good christian love: “I do believe those whcast into the depths of hell. Howevo do not accept him as savior will be er,…. I won’t condemn that very disbelief.”

And the fillip: “All I would like is for you to show half of the respect I would show to both of you.” Yea verily, no one needs to be a soul condemning ass-hole when you got god in your corner providing cover.

In a way, I envy Eric. So much room for incredible personal growth. Don’t we all envy potential?

“Proof” goes to something being REPLICATED!!!!! Nothing to do with repetition of aye-witless reports.

More importantly though is the logical inconsistency of all religions. They have to create a god that is all powerful and all knowing and then just can’t square that circule with god being all good as well, and if he isn’t all good, then why worship him?

And that finally raises my moniker==lets take god being everything anyone might say he is, the question remains, why worship him? AND why not let hoomans disagree and choose not to worship? A far less important question, why punish someone who merely disagrees?

Most intelligent, caring, honest, informed religious types ultimately answer the same thing to all religious questions: “Its a Mystery.”

And when everything you think/believe about a subject is a mystery, what do you really have??????

Heh, heh. Stoopid Hoomans.