darth_ender said:
Well, bear in mind that there are respectful ways to express one's opinion as well as disrespectful. If I say, "I think you're ideas are a bunch of crap, but it's simply a fact, so don't get offended," it's a little different than if I said, "Well, I feel that because there is no evidence for what you believe, it cannot possibly be true." You tend to speak in terms of the former, when the latter would certainly come off a little less condescending.
I understand what you are saying and I know that is hard to express such an honest opinion like ''what a bunch of crap'' in a way that feels respectful to a believer, I usually add ''with all due respect'' but I guess that won't help much since it sounds more condescending. I guess that you are right about the words I can use to express my opinions.
darth_ender said:
You do realize that there are brilliant people who understand the Bible and its contradictions and that there are challenges to one's faith in a secular and scientific world, brilliant people who are indeed quite scientific themselves, who still believe in God, right?
I'm aware of that fact but let me point out that all those great minds who have contributed to our scientific knowledge have done so by knowing, understanding and applying the scientific rules and laws of the disciplines they studied, they didn't just wake up and pray for all that scientific knowledge that, by the way, none of it is on the bible. What they believed about god and the connection/relationship of him with their scientific field was not related in any way on how actually the scientific world works. They discovered such amazing things by using the reason and logic behind the scientific method. Also there is a lot of great secular/atheist scientific minds but I don't see what difference does it make in my argument, I just feel I had to point that out.
Warbler said:
Can you prove he is dead? Do you really know for a fact that he is dead?
Well, so far he seems to pop up a lot on grilled cheese sandwiches and stones but nobody has show me any recent picture of him, like a 2015 footage of him hanging around on his last vacation trip or so... I can't prove that he is dead but at least is obvious that he is being physically absent from this planet since... well, since he died. Being physically absent from this world since the day you die could be used as a definition of ''dead''. We know that the body was never found but that does not automatically mean that he resurrected.
I shouldn't be the one providing evidence of the obvious absence, you made the claim that he is alive so you should present the evidence of that statement. So... Can you prove he is alive? Do you really know for a fact that he is alive?
Warbler said:
If for you he didn't exist how can you state so mannor of factly that he is dead? If someone is in fact dead, they had to have existed.
I was referring to the biblical reference of him being crucified and killed, a historical ''Jesus'' character may have existed at that time and I think some ancient references can be found in historic texts outside the bible but not the kind of ''I'm the son of god, make miracles and will save all the human race'' references.
To make it clear, for me the biblical Jesus character is just that, a fictional character like Harry Potter, the three little pigs, Zeus, Cinderella, Dionysus, Humpty Dumpty, Mitra, etc.
I love to see that you like to point out contradictions, I know a book full of them in case you want to read some ;)