Dear Veronika... you derive all that from your cosmology..but I put to you that if all that was dear to you was suddenly lost.. totally, and you saw no conceivable hope for ever getting it back.... then Pericles 'rich tapestry' would not mean squat.

He rightly criticizes me for not offering an alternative.. but when I do I get bucketed right left and centre.. so maybe it's best for me to wait for his que :) and it came.. now I can.

THE ALTERNATIVE.
-"God works all things together for good, to those who love Him"

Is probably a good example of how scripture sees things. That was Romans 8:28

But when the suicide is accompanied by the sense of utter guilt.. for wrong doing... then more than just 'big picture hope' is needed.. there is a need for a sense of 'putting it right'... for forgiveness.
If the person you have hurt will not forgive?....then the hopelessness is dire. Arriving at the moment the person was about to administer the fistful of drugs to end his life.. was not a moment I ever want to repeat in this life.

But one thing I do know... such a person needs more than 'life is a rich tapestry' to get them out of such a condition. I've now seen it.. faced it.. worked through it -and he is alive and mending.

Pericles says 'No eye witness reports'.. and I'm gobsmacked.. PAUL is an eyewitness.. road to Damascus.. remember?x100. Ok..let's say he hallucinated, that leaves Luke who records a 'witness statement'.

Luke was a Doctor,and such prominent respected people are often JPs are able to take 'Statutory declarations'...I see no substantive difference between Lukes account in Acts (and his Gospel) and such a document.

Specially for StevenLmeyer.

1/ "How can you be sure your brand is the correct one"

Steve...for me it comes back to the overwhelming flood of evidence for the resurrection of Christ. You may begin by looking at today's date.
aa/aa/2008 ....i.e. 2008 yrs from a moment when one man who only graced the world with his official ministry for 3 short years.. taught..healed... liberated....restored... and then..for our sakes died..and was in harmony with his own prediction.. raised to life.

Confirmed by the conversion of one Saul of Tarsus, not by any human intervention or persuasion..but the the direct hand of God.

"If you're a Christian how can you be sure the koran is not the true uncorrupted word of God?"

I've covered this ground many times, but seeing as the question was raised.. I'll briefly re-visit. For me probably the most compelling evidence that is was simply 'made up' for Mohammad's convenience is the way surah 33:50 and 51 came about.

50 is where he declares Allah allows him 'special sexual privilege'..

"This is only for you oh Prophet, not for the believers" What did this refer to? aah..that he may marry 'a believing woman' who offers herself to him. (for a night.. a week.. who knows.. temporary marraige was practiced at that time)

always a giveway for cult leaders like Koresh and company.

When he then begins to take advantage of this, and a procession of women DO start to "offer themselves" his wife gets jealous and complains.. but then.. shock horror.. I did nottttt see this coming ... "Revelation" suddenly comes to say "You may defer who you like and bring near who you like" and thus we now have ayah 51.

Code for "You (and you alone) can do what you like, but the believers have to follow your rules".

Kinda reminds me of the Welsh priest just arrested for uncountable child pornography images in his 'study'.

Okay folks,

“The equation of religious belief with truth is mischievous. If a concept can be established as true there is no need for belief. Belief is in order when one holds a position which evidence does not support.”

One reasonable definition of belief is: “Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something” Basically I don’t get it. Why does truth preclude the need to mentally accept it? Surely people believe all manner of things that are demonstrably true and all manner of things that are demonstrably false? A belief is no guarantee of truth but it doesn't preclude it.

“If there is no atheist belief, there can be no 'fundamentalist' interpretation of that belief. A 'fundamentalist atheist' is akin to an oxymoron in my book.”

This I have seen a number of times and I don’t get it either. Sorry if I’m being slow but surely belief that there is no God is a belief. If someone hadn’t formed a firm belief on the issue wouldn’t they be agnostic?

I also should support Boazy (not for quoting scriptures to debate with atheists which is no more appropriate than talking about spaghetti monsters) but to point out that, contrary to an accusation, he wasn’t the first to depart from GW’s request to avoid religious texts or Mr Dawkins and friends comments. There had already been a comment about the number of Gods and one commenting on the spaghetti deity. Both of them were from people arguing against religion.

Finally what do people hope to achieve by saying that atheism has no hope or that there is absolutely no evidence that god exists and pretty good evidence he doesn't? Aren’t such absolute assertions obviously problematic? If belief is so darn obviously one sided why are we having this discussion?

Please don't feign surprise, Boaz, we've been over this any number of times.

>>Pericles says 'No eye witness reports'.. and I'm gobsmacked.. PAUL is an eyewitness.. road to Damascus.. remember?<<

The issue at hand, Boaz, is not about hallucinations, but of eye-witness accounts, remember? You claimed:

>>we need to examine such events as the Lord Jesus... and in particular the report of His death and resurrection...NOT in a 'scientific' light which excludes the possibility at the outset, but in a 'LEGAL' sense.. based on the evidence of eye witnesses<<

Paul was not an eye-witness. You know as well as I do, Paul never met Jesus.

Ever.

Nor, for that matter, did Luke.

>>Ok..let's say he hallucinated, that leaves Luke who records a 'witness statement'<<

Once again, Boaz, there were no eye-witnesses. The gospels were assembled as advertising material to support the creation and development of a cult, many years after the events they purported to describe.

No court - except one that was preconditioned to regard the Bible as authoritative - would accept such stories in evidence. Especially, I might point out, as its component books are inconsistent, and occasionally contradictory.

I am aware that you would really prefer that everyone believes - as you clearly do - that Luke and Acts were written by a doctor, and companion to Paul. This was all part of the sales spiel in the early days of Christianity, after all.

But you will also be fully aware that there is a substantial body of opinion that places the writings between 70 and 100, to allow for the fact that the author depended in part on Mark.

You know all this, but you choose to ignore it.

Which is absolutely fine by me, I have no issue with what information you select to support your belief.

But it does not constitute the "evidence of eye-witnesses" that you claim.

You can stop pretending to be gobsmacked now.

Boaz's observations about the Koran being invented for the convenience of Mohammed apply equally to the bible. The entire history of Christian theology is a tortuous campaign to rationalise the absence of god in the affairs of man without conceding the obvious conclusion that there simply isn't a god at all.

Again, we can come back to the Spaghetti Monster. If my ego depends entirely upon a belief in his noodly goodness, I will unconsciously filter out any evidence against his existence while giving spurious and circumstantial information more credence than it deserves.

'Again, we can come back to the Spaghetti Monster. '

And forever more. Ramen.

Have you been touched by His noodly appendage? I know I have!