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Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 1) 743

Do you actually have any evidence for any of your claims? Do you know who wrote the new testament? And in the end it completely does not matter. No amount of textual evidence can ever prove existence of god, Jesus, his resurrection (nor does his resurrection prove his teachings are right).

But since you say you are a christian, care to explain why? Why aren't you a Muslim or a Jewish for example? What evidence made you a christian? Care to show it to us?

Did god create the earth and the universe? Did god create humans? In the present form? Does the sun move around the earth (it says in the bible it does, and even more god paused the sun's motion around the earth so a certain person could finish its work)? Etc? Any physical or metaphysical claim made by religion is false. Are you willing to look at the evidence or are you going to remain willfully ignorant?

Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 1) 743

Sure, asking for evidence is "weak" argument. All I'm saying is we have plenty of evidence religion and god is man made, and plenty of science to explain how life and the universe can come about without supernatural involvement. Even Occam in 1300s CE England could figure it out before we knew any of the science.

What value are you getting out of clinging to the explanations that come from infancy of our species? Why aren't you confident enough in your faith to recognize it for what it is? Why can't you say, this is my faith, and I believe it despite the lack of evidence or evidence to the contrary. Why do the people who reject reason and evidence based reasoning still try to find some evidence and justification for their irrational beliefs?

Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 1) 743

Atheism is the default position. You were born an atheist and had to be indoctrinated into a religion. Which one depends largely on where you were born (as I pointed out before). So, if you claim that you know something that the rest of us don't the onus of proof is on the side that makes the claim (see Celestial Teapot argument for more).

Besides it all comes down to some human mammal claiming to know the mind of god. They know precisely what god wants us to do, what he wants us to eat, on what days, who we may sleep with and in what position. Sorry, but some of us demand extraordinary evidence for such extra ordinary claims. Yet no evidence of any kind if offered.

You strike me as someone who never examined any of the arguments against your position. You do realize that bible is completely non-reliable non-historical, self contradictory text when it comes to crucial points, let alone minor ones. If you really care about that read something like "Jesus Interrupted" by a new testament professor at Chapel Hill. He does into much more detail than I can here. But suffice to say that there is absolutely no historical evidence that historical Jesus existed at all, the first historical reference occurs in first century CE but not directly to Jesus, but Chrestians, presumed followers of Chrestus. The earliest gospel was written in 70 CE at the earliest, and it was not written by any eye witness (it even says so itself). The others came much later. The mythical Jesus was made into a god much much later in 325 CE at the prompting of emperor Constantine who wanted to unify the empire and have one empire religion. At his prompting council of Nicea convened and created trinity and make Jesus into god incarnate. The rest is as they say history. All other religions were outlawed, evidence of their existence often destroyed, and this single minded culture and sense of entitlement continues to this day

But the biggest thing going against it is the required belief itself. We are all supposed to believe that god impregnated his virgin mother in order that he could die on the cross for what he condemned the humanity to and so he could make himself forgive the transgressions he invented, performed by the beings created in his own image. And his followers are required to eat his flesh, soul and divinity in a form of a cookie which magically turns into him after a few incantations. All that so that we could join him one day in a celestial North Korea, praising the dear leader incessantly, compelled to love someone we fear (essence of sadomasochism).

I am really glad there is no evidence for any of this, because wishing this to be true is wishing to live under dictatorship, wishing to be a slave really.

Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 1) 743

Do you really need some bibliography listed here? How about you take good math foundations, then learn about scientific method, then learn about quantum theory, then see how physical chemistry and atom theory follows from quantum theory, then go to organic chemistry, chemical bond theory, then learn about biology, cell theory, genetic and molecular biology, evolution, learn about diversity of life, astrobiology. Learn about how geology and how geology follows from quantum theory. Lean about tectonic plate theory, geologic time and evolution from geologic point of view. Then lean about theory of gravity, theory of relativity, cosmology, solar system formation, origin of universe (big bang theory), Casimir effect, quantum tunneling, vacuum energy and how a flat universe can come from nothing.

Now contrast that with the world view and understanding of the bronze age herdsmen and the tribe god they invented and the religion that flows from it. Look at the character of the god they have, how he behaves exactly as you would expect the people of that age to behave. Look at the competing religions all claiming to posses the true words of the creator of the universe, yet they are totally incompatible and different to one another. Look at all the claims about the real world and see if they are compatible with what we now know as scientific facts. Evolution of religions and the fact we have multiple religions like this is exactly what you would expect to see if religion were man made.

Yes none of the above claims are backed by any evidence at all. Which brings me to an interesting point. Presumably an omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe would know people would invent scientific method and evidence based reasoning. Would it not be incredibly stupid of god to demand belief in him without any evidence and leaving something important like what to believe and if you will be saved largely correlated with where you were born. If you are born in Saudi Arabia you will be defending Islam, rather than Christianity. Needless to say in Islam, Jesus is not only not the son of god, but he never died on the cross, and never resurrected. Believing otherwise will get you damned to hell for eternity. Yet, how many Christians spend sleepless nights worrying if Islam could be right? And why is that?

There are two kinds of beliefs. One is based on evidence, rational thinking, logic and the healthy mind has no option but to accept them (doing otherwise leads to cognitive dissonance which is rather unpleasant). And then there is belief in something based on no evidence. You could say, it is based on ignorance. This kind of belief is called faith. Religion is really all about faith, otherwise if religion were based on facts it would be a branch of science. All we have in religion is dogma, a set of beliefs no matter how incredible (look at transubstantiation - a central dogma in Catholicism) that one must accept without question to be counted as member. The biggest fault with religion though is that it makes a virtue out of accepting dogma, i.e. belief without evidence. Religion is making a virtue out of ignorance.

Many people were killed for questioning and seeking evidence and challenging accepted dogmas by the religious. But now religion comes to use mild and meek with open hands offering consolation, but we should not forget how it behaved when it really thought it had god on its side.

Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 4, Insightful) 743

If you note I quoted the word "need". This is because science really does not need religion at all, we are all curious enough to want to know the answers to fundamental questions. Religion was our first approximation to all the important questions, like cosmology, astronomy, medicine etc. But like all first approximations it proved to be quite wrong. We now know much better how life evolves, how solar systems and planets form, we now know how even universe can come from nothing. Even philosophy really has nothing useful to say about the real world we live in let alone religion. Religion on the other hand just wishes science would go away. The only thing it has going for it is ignorance.

Comment Re:I guess they would never have hired (Score 5, Insightful) 743

That does not mean what you think it means: Science is constantly proving religion wrong and it gives science an underlying purpose to keep moving forward with its work in every category while religion is constantly revising its interpretations of an apparently flawless book. While at the same time religion needs science because it does actually explain how some of the "miracles" could have occurred if the people in the stories were the thinking kind of people who could predict wind patterns and sun locations. In short, they "need" each other

Einstein was by no means a religious person - in fact, the great physicist saw religion as no more than a "childish superstition". "The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this".

Comment Re:What I Want To Know... (Score 1) 658

Samba uses GPL v3 so it was removed from OS X. Notice how bash in OS X is at version 3.2 from 2005? That's because bash is also GPL v3 and if you want modern bash currently at version 4.2 you have to install it yourself.

Apple has been purging all GPL open source software from Mac OS X and the goal is to have none in the end. This means to get good UNIX experience you will have to do a lot of work of downloading and compiling yourself, kind of like Windows. and Cygwin. Or you could just install Ubuntu.

Comment Re:New technology, old mindsets (Score 1) 559

Do you believe in Zeus? Thor? Horus? And why not? Onus of proof is always on the side that claims to posses the knowledge of existence of something. Atheism means simply that: not-theism, because there is no evidence that any kind of god exists, let alone a personal one that interferes in lives of people, cares what you eat and on what days, who you sleep with and in what position, and who stops the sun in its motion around the earth :D so that certain people in the bible can finish their work etc.

In fact, we have plenty of evidence that religion and personal gods are man made. The mere fact there are competing religions (so different they are all damning each other to hell) all claiming to posses the truth and the word of one divine creator of the universe is exactly what you would expect to see if religions were man made (and they are not just man made, they are man, as in with penis, made).

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