...Continued

Perhaps you could fill me in. What’s this “good historical evidence” for Jesus and his miracles?

<<Have you [Bushbasher] considered WHY [tax breaks, etc.] happen?>>

Because the Churches have been powerful and there was once a time where the vast majority of the population just assumed it to be true?

Now governments are too scared to do anything about it because they fear retribution from the religious voter but not the Atheist voter.

<<It’s because people believe in God.>>

Oh!

But people believe in astrology too and psychics don’t get tax breaks.

<<If no one believed in God, then no one would murder in the name of God.>>

Yeah, that’s what I keep saying, but other Christians keep dodging the point.

<<But WHY do people believe in God?>>

Usually for emotional reasons.

Because they feel lost; or need meaning in life and can’t find it any other way; because some regret their actions and find the ultimate forgiveness in a God; because they fear death and need to believe they will live for an eternity and be re-united with loved ones when they die.

Or sometimes it’s because they were indoctrinated as young children and don’t know life without religion.

<<Why are there innumerable people of incredible intellect who do believe in God?>>

Because emotions and intellect are two very different things, and intellect - just like common sense - can go straight out the window when emotions are involved.

<<Why are there so many very, very, very intelligent people who consider it rational to believe in God?>>

Because death is an unavoidable reality and a universal fear.

<<There’s NO ONE in the same boat who believes in tooth fairies.>>

That’s because the Tooth Fairy doesn’t offer eternal life. Just a crappy dollar coin and no one likes to feel ripped-off.

Continued...

...Continued

<<Have you contemplated why that would be?>>

Did I mention emotions?

Shadow Minister gave you some good answers, so then you changed the topic a little to something you thought you could win...

<<...religion makes someone believe they're accountable, whereas if you're a naturalist your behaviour is held by no specific code other than whatever feels good to you.>>

That sounds to me like you’re trying to argue that no sane person is going to want to believe in something that’s going to make them feel accountable for their wrongs, so they must be basing their belief on something that they have evidence for.

Right?

Wrong.

Religion feeds off guilt. It takes something that we’re going to do no matter what (usually sex and lustful feelings, etc., sometimes food) then makes its victims feel guilty about it so that the believer has to keep going back to it to feel any sort of solace in life.

Anyway, if you could provide me with some evidence for Jesus, that’d be great. I’ve heard and discredited a lot in the past, so if you have something new, that’d be a nice change.

Thanks.

Just doing some thinking about all the charity and volunteer work I have done....

Not once was I asked if I was religious.

Probably because it simply doesn't matter.

Thank you AJ Philips for taking the trouble to rebut ridiculous claims.
Religions exist because of the indoctrination of children, the expert use of fear and the promise of good things now and hereafter.
Imagine a world where no religion was taught until the age of 18. Then allow religions to present their case. Virgin births! Miracles! Resurrection! They would be properly laughed off the planet.

This from Isaac Asimov:
"Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly".

Runner
That reminds me of someone who suggested to the biologist J.B.S. Haldane that he believes the theory of evolution as a matter of blind faith, asking what would he ever accept as disproof.

“Fossil rabbits in the pre-Cambrian.” Haldane replied.

TAC
> The Dawkins delusion is simply this: in order to categorically deny the existence of God...

Dawkins doesn’t categorically deny the existence of God. He acknowledges that the existence of God cannot be disproved, just as the existence of the magic teapot circling the dark side of the moon cannot be disproved.

He just finds that there is no evidence or reason to believe that it’s true, that all the ‘proofs’ offered for the existence of God presuppose what is in issue, and that the probability that it is true is so small as to be negligible.

While I'm at it, some more interesting and relevant quotes:

Many religious beliefs decline as education level rises. -- George Gallup, Jr.

There is in every village a torch: the schoolmaster -- and an extinguisher: the parson.-- Victor Hugo

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence. Science is simply common sense at its best -- that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.
-- Thomas Huxley

I certainly had no idea how little faith Christians have in their own faith till I saw how ill their courage and temper can stand any attack on it. -- Harriet Martineau

Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration -- courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. -- H. L. Mencken

An Atheist believes that a hospital should be built instead of a church. An Atheist believes that a deed must be done instead of a prayer said. An Atheist strives for involvement in life and not escape into death. He wants disease conquered, poverty vanished, war eliminated. -- Madalyn Murray O'Hair

The habit of religion is oppressive, an easy way out of thought.
-- Peter Ustinov

Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. -- Seneca

Religion to me has always been the wound, not the bandage.
-- Dennis Potter

There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing, which man should not wish to learn. ~ St. Augustine, Augustine of Hippo