Iamdan

You can close your eyes, throw a dart at the bible and hit a flaw. For every flaw a Christian will have an answer for that you probably won't be satisfied with. What I'm saying is that there is more to it. God doesn't need to exist for religion to fill it's purpose.

I think it was written by man, for but the sake of argument: How do you know? The stories were passed along by word of mouth for thousands of years and even then not all are in the bible. In any case it doesn't matter if god said so or not. That's the logical answer for why it was in there.

... 1. Metaphor 2. Hygiene issue 3. Masturbation > wanting the real thing > sex before marriage > std

Because they chose a particular one. If not because their parents raised them into it, then probably because it's the biggest religion in their part of the world. The resulting unlikelihood of their deity existing is nothing when you add in the fact that religion is man made. Does it matter? I don't get why you're taking the bible so literally for the sake of ripping it apart. It's a philosophy mixed in with cultural rules written down after a few thousand years of chinese whispers. The nature of all the spooky superstitious stuff and outdated social rules added in means it's easy to pick apart. I agree with you that there is most likely no god, and if there is then it's most likely nothing like any religion describes. But it's not like blindly worshiping something with no purpose. Take out the outdated morals and fundamentalist stuff and it's philosophy and spirituality. Is that so bad? It will make some people better, and some people worse, but it's not our job to play nanny.

Take out the deity and religion is philosophy. You keep saying that there is no evidence. If there were evidence for a deity then it wouldn't be a faith.

and the face, man. Can't forget the face. They definitely need a face. My ex didn't have one and it was a deal breaker for me. They seem to love white guys.

Also I bought like 8 books for around $20 a couple weeks ago. Amazon should focus on cutting costs as well as staying competitive with their products.

Yeah but taking the blame for her being a tard when he didn't do anything will work against him. I would actively move on, and if she tries to make conversation later on tell her that you judged her wrong and what she did was a massive turnoff.

That's not much to go by, but you seemed to be kinda needy. Maybe she was somewhat attracted to you and it was killed somewhere, and she's just being immature about it. It just seems that way because of the having conversations with yourself thing. Do you keep texting her when she doesn't reply? Why worry about checking the door? If your parents walk in and see that then they will quickly learn to knock.

Today I debated about fashion and then cut down a tree that was leaning on my pool fence to even out the manliness. Now I'm trying to organize what I'm doing today and tomorrow but it looks like quiet drinks with the missus and then the beach with some others. Also I have a new favourite song. I just saw the comments, and no I didn't get it from black ops. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfopuBaHQeI

What other reason for dressing well is there other than for career purposes and attracting women? The socially accepted argument really only works if you're dressing badly. If it's to feel all good inside then I'd argue that it's more of a consumerist thing if you're spending that much. Of course knockoffs are going to look like crap, especially after wearing them for a while. I've seen $200 jeans, and they don't look much different to a well fitting pair of quality levis or something. My analogy was directed at accessories being tacky.

No but I think dressing well involves a lot more than busting a gut to save for the perfect jeans, and then the perfect something else etc.

I used to try that a few years ago. By the time you have afforded a fraction of a 'perfect wardrobe' then your body type could change, your preferred style *should* change, and fashion styles definitely will have changed. Buy quality but get value for money, and you can keep up with things. What do you mean? They work. Sure a few people here will call it douchy but girls do the same thing. Next time you're oogling a hot girl you can bet your ass that there is a fat girl in sweatpants nearby thinking 'wow what a showboat.' I haven't owned a $200 pair of jeans. In australia, $100 gets you what $40 will in the states so I try to buy a lot of my clothes there.

I don't now how I can make it any clearer than how I posted it.

So...what do you do with all those girls when you're through with 'em? I give them to roccodog.

This is fashion we're talking about... You pay for quality up to a point. Then you pay for labels. Kids try to dress up in labels. Unless you're made of money, expensive jeans aren't worth it because you can spend the money elsewhere. Belt buckles, teeth whitening, bracelets, necklaces is what you need. Accessories without a specific purpose. For example a $40 pair of jeans with a $150 watch will look much better than a $200 pair of jeans and no watch.

You're better off getting a well fitting pair of levis and spending the rest on something else. I hate cheap jeans with a bad fit, but levis are easily good enough. Spending $200 is kinda redundant.

No. Because when the question was first raised, it was answered with religion and not science. I just explained how science is a massive part of our culture today, while religion used to be. The 'where did we come from' question came from a long time ago, and it was answered with religion. Science provides an alternative. I prefer the scientific one but who are you or I to say which is better? It's a different context. See above. IT doesn't make sense because there is no philosophy behind an invisible teapot circling your head. Scientific based ideas can be disproven with science. Science is a different system to religion and philosophy which is why it cannot disprove it using science. Think about it: the only argument against a philosophy is a different philosophy.

When I was around 4, one time I grabbed a cat that hung around my house by the tail and spun in circles and let it go flying through the air like a hammer throw. Then I went after the cat and did it again a few times before I got bored. I can still remember the sound it made, and I still feel bad :(

That's true but imagine where we would be now. We would still be drilling holes in people's heads to drive evil spirits away, etc. Even if modern medicine didn't use skull drilling, (it does) medicine advances are causing overpopulation which is creating bigger problems for humanity than holes in their skulls. You're missing the point. This might seem condescending and it's not my intention, but I think you're intelligent enough to wrap your head around what he's saying. It's not an easy concept to grasp, but it's accepted in the scientific community. This is the kind of thing that operators of the hadron collider, physics professors, and my astrogeek uncle regularly get together to talk about. Science, numbers and theories don't exist outside of our minds. We created it. If man had no existed to give labels and values to things, and point out consistencies, science wouldn't exist, yet the universe would continue as per usual. Think of gravity. If you hold up an object and let go, and it drops to the ground, that is an event. It's a physical thing that exists. Gravity as an idea, as a label, the notion that mass bends space time, does not. You can drop a second third forth and millionth ball and it will also probably fall at the same acceleration taking into account air friction. However we have only been looking for consistencies for a small amount of time, in a small part of the universe. It's a far from perfect system that works for us in this day and age. It has such a huge part of our culture that we accept it as fact. Importance is relative, and science not existing outside of our minds doesn't mean that it's not important to us. Back in our earlier days, the same thing applied to religion. A god didn't carry the sun across the sky during the day, but that didn't make it any less important. This is why you can never use science to disprove religion. You can't use science to disprove philosophy. They are different systems. Science does a lot of things for us, but the only thing it has actually proven, is that we know very little about the universe. You say we have no reason to believe in a deity. Lots of people say they do. Importance is relative, and if a deity doesn't exist outside of our minds, that doesn't make it any less important either.

No, there are non theists who think we shouldn't be doing it and while I'm for it, I do think they have a valid point. There's really no right or wrong answer in situations like that.

He may do good or bad, therefore it must be bad by default. Right. Do you sincerely believe that religion is slowing down technology?

How can you say that it's not beneficial? Just like that. It's not black and white. You give religion to 1 man and he volunteers his time for people in need. You give religion to another man and he kills his neighbor because his god has a bigger [bleep] than the other god. You can't claim a god exists with scientific terms, because it's irrelevant. Theists don't need evidence. If there were evidence for a deity then it wouldn't be faith. We aren't satisfied with not understanding the world. Technology moves magnitudes faster than our bodies evolve. Just because a small percentage are fundamentalists that doesn't mean scientific progress halts. Even the minority who believe the world is 6000 years old and that is that, don't have to be against advances in water treatment and other important things.

Cmon really? Define good. If it works for the theist then it's a good reason.

There are plenty of reasons to believe in a deity. Fear of the unknown, the want for a higher meaning, I could go on.