Well, it's very simple really. God blessed America more because,... well, because we're America!! It's pretty blessed to be American ;)

Reminds me of the episode of Mystery Science Fiction theater where the in an old 50's b&w flick some US space travellers were returning from Mars and when they first see the Earth, it is basically a globe... no clouds, and the typical western hemisphere showing.. and the voiceover said, "There's Earth! With the USA showing, as it should be."

Pluto is a planet...oh wait...no...um no it isn't....trust me it is a scientifically proven fact!...until we discover that we don't know jack! lol...don't feel bad it is the same thing I try to tell my wife who thinks "Doctors" have it all figured out...don't mistake me science and doctors etc have made the world a better place...clean water good food...penicillin etc...but they don't know it all...case in point again...a doctor tells a patient...you will absolutly positivley never walk or wake from a comma etc...how many times has that been dis-proven....bottom line when your green you grow when your ripe you rot!..stay green or smoke green lol. :) jk

Not expected of you.

But the "ancient book" is what has been handed down verbally from parents to children since that very time.

Must finish coffee and pack off kiddies. Later. ;)

So you reject the concept of "Thou shalt not steal" or "bear false witness" or "lie" or "murder"? Just because you don't buy into the whole organized religion thing, which BTW i don't either, doesn't mean the Bible doesn't contain some darned good advice.

Rejecting advice just because you don't like it's source makes no sense. If the bible said the sky is blue would you reject that too?

No, but these (social) concepts are nothing new. The Bible didn´t invent them, they existed long before that in many societies. You can be raised 100% atheist and still have a concept of what is right or wrong.

That´s true.

I didn't claim the Bible invented those concepts, but it does promote them and therefore has value as a social guide.

Generally speaking, yes. And the Bible isn´t the only scripture that does that.

Quantum physics might indicate that "anything" is possible, but keep in mind that it is not a theory of everything. The next improved theory that supercedes quantum theory might say anything is not possible. This hypothetical theory obviously wouldn't make people change their religion, so why have supernatural explanations for quantum mechanics in the first place? Don't try to bring in religion into science, since science might change, as it has in the past.

I am not familiar at all with the Dead Sea Scrolls, though a quick google search indicates it was an important archeology finding.?

Finally, assuming God moves at the speed of light, then NO time would pass for him, not seven days. Of course, he could have some mass and be moving very quickly (close to c), in which case seven days could pass for him while several billion years pass elsewhere. If God's speed varies, then the different time periods in the bible could be one day for God. However, isn't this explanation getting a bit silly? Why bother trying to comprehend God using scientific theories?

There is no sense in taking the bible literally. Look at "Thou shall not kill" for example. Literally, this isn't just "don't murder", but a command never to kill, regardless of the circumstances. Only a tiny percentage of fundementalist Christans take it literally, which is fortunate, since there are many good reasons one could have to kill people. It is the damn hippies that follow THAT particular commandment...:ping:

As for being a gambler, in a way, every action anyone takes is a gamble. Specifically, though, for every situation in which there is promise of eternal happiness, there is a mirror situation in which the same actions cause eternal unhappiness. The probabilities of these are infinitesamal anyway, so I only use evidance as grounds for basing a decision upon.

Oh come on! The Pluto controversy was not about establishing facts, but about classification schemes! I'm glad Pluto finally got the boot, though.:ping:
Of course, scientists should have considered the popular ramifacations of Pluto's reclassification. Now we are even more unpopular...

'cause America has Texas, right?
(and now you can let me in on the secret project...)

State and religion has to be seperate from each other. The "one nation under god" quote from Bush shows: Atheist are not wantet in america. This is Racist. And this is what all religions are to a certain degree.

You ask me how many people died in the name of state atheism (Communism)? I can tell you: 100,000,000 and the aditional 30,000,000 who died in wars ecetera.

(Apart from that, true communism never existet. What was in russia i call "Russoism".)

How many people died in the name of State-Religion or religion in General? No sources can be found. (Of course i would be very happy to see someone post this, i couldn't find anything) This shows an obsession to blame atheism.

This is not the first time that I've had to point out that the 6th commandment is specifically "Thou shall not MURDER.". The words in the Torah's Hebrew text is "Lo tirtzach" - "Do not murder", and not "Lo taharog" - "Do not kill." The word "tirtzach" in Hebrew throughout the entire Torah and Scriptures has no other meaning than criminal murder.

And yet, you still don't see all those fundamentalist Christians running around the world, slaughtering in the name of heaven and claiming it's justified because it's not considered murder. And I'll bet even after the entire Christian world discovers my post here at SubSim :p , that they still won't go galavanting around, killing blasphemers and aethiests. Nope. :nope:

Think again.

Will get back and respond to more posts later, if time permits.

Yes and no. For a simple historical perspective of both sides of the coin, read Wikipedia's entry on the subject.

Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean anything "has to be."
1. What race are aethiest? If a religious person becomes an aethiest, do they change their race? Rhetoric.

2. All Bush Sr.'s quote (Bush Jr. didn't say it) shows is that Bush Sr. is a bigot, disgustingly so. Here's a very religious person (me) who gives Bush's comment a big thumbs down. :down: In fact, I agree with most, maybe all, of what was stated in the video linked to in Von Capo's initial post on this thread, though not to the idiotic, insulting and flamebaiting (hey Gizzmoe - pounce! :ping: ) comic which followed it.

Aethiests live and thrive in America. They walk America's streets just like everyone else. More rhetoric.
No. It simply points out that people and beliefs can kill, irregardless of whether they are religiously based or not.

Ah, thank you for pointing that out. It makes the ten commandments much more logical. I've always seen "kill" instead of "murder". I wonder at what point the original meaning was altered? Does the original Latin bible have "kill" or "murder" in it?

Anyway, I don't see how my post could be interpreted as thinking that a bunch of Christans will randomly start killing in the name of god. Nearly all branches of Christianity are more advanced in modern times then in the past, so holy wars are generally off their agenda.

On the religion vs. atheism kill ratio topic, I would like to point out that most religious and atheist people do not kill in the name of their religion or lack of one. Religion is often incidental.

Take Stalin, for example. His state was certainly atheist, but the number of people he killed because of their religion is small compared to the number of people he killed for other crap reasons. I would hazard a guess that the number of religious people killed by atheists because of their religion is fairly small, not on the order of many tens of millions.

Similarly, while religion has certainly caused many deather, the recent Northern Ireland conflict, for example, is more about nationalism then religion (today, of course). Several conflicts in hstory also merely have religion as a pretext rather then the prime factor. Thus, one must be careful when determining the actual amount of people killed by religion.

I really don't see why the kill ratios matter, though. We need to look at things how they are today and projected to be in the future, to determine how to act.

That's not my department. :roll: :p
I misunderstood you. Sorry.
You might be interested in getting hold of the book "The Subversion of Christianity" by Jacques Ellul and reading the chapter "The Influence of Islam."

I challenge you to find a new testatement based teaching on "holy wars."
Personally, I think it can go either way but I don't consider the statistic very relevant one way or the other.
I think the point being argued by others here was about the murderer's religiousity or lack thereof - not the victims.

Years ago, I decided that to argue with someone over their religious views was only making me into an angry person who lost track of my relationship with Jesus Christ. One of my favorite themes that came from the internet is "Give me one fact from your source, and I can find five to rebuke it". Whether those five facts are actual facts, or just someone posting garbage on the net isn't the case. The case is to make my debator think it is fact so they could be molded into what I'm stating.

This next comment is directed to "Christ-ians" or "people like Christ". One must show your relationship as Christ living in you. The evil one is attempting to suck you into the trap of "exposing" your hipocracy. God has a plan for all of us, it's just a matter of accepting that plan!

I'll leave it at this...I've seen bumper stickers with "God is my co-pilot". I say, give him the yoke and see what happens!