Thanks.

They don’t appoint you Guardian of Hell for cherubic smiles and cotton candy.

nrc.nl/inbeeld/2012/11/09/…

Cute Syrian refugee children.

awwww

Yeah.

The phrase "refugee children" makes me sad.

Yeah.

yes, "Adorable" is the first word that i associate with refugee children

That camp looks well organised.

The people too.

that's my disproof of Christianity. i haven't seen a good rebuttal yet.

Oh God.

Why are you on that site??

because that's my one big question about Christianity

most people say that there's no evidence for Christianity. I think it's actually one of the religions you can prove is wrong.

because of the claims it makes.

It is the silliest thing ever, having semi-serious questions about doctrine for others to answer.

@Cerberus im guessing you haven't seen the Jewish one.

some of the questions about Jewish rituals on there, as they pertain to the 21st century, are... interesting

Most religions have various bits of tradition and scripture that can easily be shown to be internally inconsistent. No news there.

@Jez I would sooner chew off my own head.

well, Islam kind of says that god is great but not necessarily perfectly loving

Christianity basically says "Jesus is love, but he walks along the cliff, saving a few people hanging off, stomping on the hands of the rest"

that is demonstrably inconsistent with logic

unless you redefine love to something truly insane

Oh, come on.

?

You're not going to tell me this is the first time you noticed inconsistencies in religious doctrine?

no, of course not. but those inconsistencies don't usually disprove the religion.

they may case doubt on some of the edicts, etc.

I don't even need to look at it to predict inconsistencies with 99 % certainty.

but the fundamental idea that JC is loving must be nonsense.

Can't you just say it's nonsense without going into any details?

@Jez But inconsistencies are just that: inconcistencies. If the Bible says "God is Love, God will never hurt you, blah blah blah" in one place, and later says "God will kill you, torture you, etc" in another place, how does that disprove anything? It just shows that the Bible is inconsistent.

Some people collected various texts written at various times in the past, then someone else gave doctrinal status to certain parts, and created other traditions to be used as "rules".

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Christians are more focused on Jesus than God.

and they say Jesus is infinitely loving. well look at what Caleb said:

@Jez er, it's the same thing

The details are as interesting as an article on the mating of termites if you're no part of the nest.

Jez: Are you saying that Jesus doesn't actually offer salation to everyone, but only to certain people?

Caleb: "Offer" is the wrong word since he "offers" it to all, but yes, he only makes it effectual for some.

right. i'm gonna offer you a free car, but don't take it, because i'm not making the offer effectual.

@Jez The fundamental idea of "god is love" might be nonsense or, at minimum, not a useful thing to worry about, but it doesn't necessarily disprove anything.

Why stick your hand into a termite nest and comment upon their habits?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 if you must believe that Jesus is love to be a Christian, it disproves Christianity

nearly all Christians would say that Jesus is love

in fact, sin-free!

@Jez I wouldn't say that you must believe that "Jesus is love" in any useful way to be a christian. I'd say you must believe "jesus is loving". That doesn't mean "never angry, never hating".

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 how can a sin-free being choose, basically at random, who he is going to save?

isn't it sinful to randomly condemn some people?

does it even make sense to think of Jesus as "sin-free"?

that's what Christians claim.

a sin is something god forbids

clearly god doesn't forbid himself anything

how is it random? he save those who have faith in him. That's not random

@MattЭллен if you check out the (rather long) conversation i had with Caleb on it, he basically says to me that you're only able to have faith in him if Jesus "makes his offer of salvation effectual"

in other words you don't get to choose whether to have faith in him (which is true, as i don't think you get to choose what you believe)

Jesus is causing you to have faith in him or not, and that's his way of saving you.

or not.

I see

I think you're finding inconsistencies in poor explanations rather than proof that it's all hogwash

Boring.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 this is also what i think

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 example?

i also note that the position you're objecting to is Calvinism, which is far from the only theory in Christianity

@Jez example, Caleb's answer doesn't make any sense to me.

@JSBձոգչ That's not what this Calvinist told me!

ahh. well it's one strain of Christianity. But if you don't adopt Caleb's line, you're back to the problem of how Jesus created a very unfair test for humanity

however, i have an important interview in about 20 minutes, so i'm not about to spend my time before the interview arguing about it :)

wish me luck

Good luck!!

Good luck!

@JSBձոգչ good luck

I will secu-pray for you.

lol

heh

ewwwwww

What?

@Cerberus LOL. thanks.

you're making the touch screen all gross!

I'm not licking any speaker or camera openings, don't worry.

You're lucky I'm on my PC, then.

@Jez The problem is that there are essentially infinite interpretations possible of every single line of the bible. And various people ascribe more or less importance to various lines in the bible. And choose interpretations that they find convenient.

No kidding!!

So why do I get the voting arrows next to my posts if I can't actually use them? Bad design.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yeah but let's simplify it down to one thing that all Christians must believe: Jesus is free of sin, and therefore perfectly loving

So "God is Love" is really meaningless.

Hey!

If it isn't the infinite circle!

@Jez free of sin != perfectly loving.

hmm why not?

what does "perfectly loving" even mean? How is that possibly a useful notion?

@RegDwighт I thought that the other day, when I was not logged in, but browsing. Why can I see these things I can't use?

Some silly infidels are discussing religion.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 it means he loves every human equally and to the maximum extent possible

Hi folks.

hi

hi @Kosmo

Heya Kosmo.

@MattЭллен I had that too yesterday, I think.

Yo.

A father loves his children. But the father gives the younger child a candy and none to the older child, and the older child hits the younger child, and the father punishes the older child. Did the father love his older child less?

@Kosmonaut Are you dry yet?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 yes, obviously.

@Jez Yes but "loves every human equally to the maximum extent possible" still doesn't mean anything concrete.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 no, but that's punishment in response to a "sin"

Are you now on your hometrainer, to generate enough electricity for your computer?

@MattЭллен No. Maybe he only had one candy and the younger child asked first.

jesus's unfair test is punishment in response to nothing

@Cerberus We got our power restored last night after having it knocked out a second time by the Nor'easter.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well let's just stick to "equally" then

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 but I'm older and therefore better! damnit.

@Kosmonaut Wow.

@Jez Well, why did the "loving" father put his older child to such an unfair test of not having candy?

I want candy!

Twice, huh.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well, he basically did! the father isn't quite loving them equally. why didn't he give the older child candy?

So what causes these outages exactly? Flooded somethings? Trees falling on wires/poles?

I thought you had lots of underground power cables there?

@Cerberus I am concerned that next week we are just all going to die from a volcano or meteor or something.

@Jez isn't loving them equally? or it just seems that way in the short term?

@Kosmonaut we're overdue for a good meteor.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 well perhaps. but what if he decides to lock the older child out of the house for the rest of his life?

that's rather long term

A volcano? That's...original. Now if this flooding would come on the same day, they would cancel each other out.

@Cerberus The first one was caused by the high winds — bringing down tons of huge trees on power lines — and also flooding of substations

Hmm.

Reconstruct the power lines underground.

@Jez Ah, now THAT is one of the more fundamental issues with Christianity. The notion of infinite punishment for finite sin.

The second one was caused by heavy, wet snow and more high winds, and an infrastructure that wasn't even rebuilt yet

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 It seems to be such an interesting question that John Lawler wrote a freakin' paper on the subject. I hope he sums it up for an answer there.

@Cerberus I was just saying this yesterday — I'm sure it comes down to paying for it

@Kosmonaut It's the "or something" that really has me worried. Now that the Rmoney scare is over, we have to have something to fret about.

@Cerberus That costs a fortune in installation and maintenance. - especially in low-density areas like much of the US

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Well, let's just leave it at high density areas like where I live

Does the disaster relief cost outweigh the infrastructure cost?

@Kosmonaut of course! I also vote for uninterruptible power for Kosmonaut!

@Kosmonaut Yeah, it always does. But I thought you had lots of underground power lines in NY?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But in NY...

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 THANK you. Finally someone making some sense.

@Cerberus Sure. I can't imagine how a billion tons of seawater could possibly harm an underground electrical grid.

how badly are the people who voted for Romney going to take Obama's victory? if it's anything like the last 4 years, there will be 4 more years of non-acceptance and filibustering

@Cerberus I don't live in the city itself.

@Jez Better to claw at the edge of the cliff than willingly plunge over it.

especially listening to those people going to Republican rallies saying obama was a terrorist, Muslim, enemy to the USA, etc.

@Robusto It might not, if the lines are properly insulated?

Hard to see them coming round

they put all their eggs in the anti-Obama basket

@Jez The racists and homophobes and misogynists and islamophobes (even though Obama's not muslim) are already bemoaning the decreasing relevance of old white men and proclaiming the end of America.

@Cerberus Fukushima was supposed to be properly safeguarded.

@Robusto The seawater already messed up the electrical grid, but at least the trees would be a non-issue for electricity.

There are giant trees that are STILL laying on power lines in a couple of areas around me

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 obviously they'll do that, but to what extent will they actively break the law to ignore Obama's victory?

@Robusto supposed by whom? not by anyone that had a clue about nuclear power.

@Jez probably not more than they already have?

@Jez See here, young man.

@Jez And you think the various municipal governments in the U.S. would fare better than the Japanese in that respect?

@Robusto i didn't say that.

@Jez Honestly, based on the way the Republicans acted the past few years, I don't think "this would contradict our previous position" is a concern for them.

The point is, the Republicans are going to be seen more and more as obstructionists, not saviors.

If the country goes to hell because they refuse to cooperate, it's on them this time.

Maybe it will really go differently during the next term, knowing they aren't stopping Obama from another term.

Maybe?

I think the tea party and the moderate republicans are going to have to split and one of those parties will go away.

But I'm not sure if it's gotten bad enough for the moderate republicans to say "enough of this crap"

Don't forget the religious zealots

@Kosmonaut I said "tea party", didn't I?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Is that a complete overlap? All of the tea partiers are religious nuts and vice versa?

The tea party is all the crackpots, isn't it? whether their pot be cracked in religious or misogynistic or racist or whatever way...

Or are you saying that there are actually several extremist factions in the Republican party, all dragging the moderates to the right, but for different reasons

Either way, the current republican party is just too extremist.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That — I think there are two extremist groups, with overlap

@Kosmonaut We can always hope.

@Robusto Yeah, but placing the generating in a basement was stupid. But anyway, that was the disaster of the century: you can't be prepared for everything (actually, nuclear plants should be, but that's just different). But you can and should be prepared for disasters that strike regularly, right?

@Cerberus We're only 12 years into the century, young man. Hasn't your classical education taught you not to tempt fate?

@Cerberus nuclear plants cannot prepare for "everything" anymore than you can "foresee the unforeseeable".

nuclear plants should prepare for the storm of a century, maybe, but not the disaster of a millenium

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Let's have a pot party on Capitol Hill: it's legal now, innit?

@Robusto Both parties did actually work together at one time in the not-too-recent past — I really think it all fell apart when the Republicans annexed the religious zealots

@Cerberus By touchscreen you mean balls, right?

@Cerberus I sure would like to set some crackpots on fire, that's true...

@Robusto You seriously think I could resist hubris?

@Robusto Perv.