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In addition to the fact the Bible has been translated and reinterpreted many times, there is also no reason to think the original writing was anything special either.

Understanding that the Bible is not inerrant or literal history is an improvement, but as long as people are doing "Christianity" they are still making supernatural claims just as unwarranted as claims of biblical inerrancy.

Every supernatural story is equally vacuous. However only very extreme supernatural beliefs are considered unbelievable.

That is the reason extreme beliefs persist. We have not yet discarded belief as a system.

Whether gods "exist" or not is not even relevant to the bible. Gods could be real as toast and the bible could still be completely wrong about what they are, what they can do, and what they want.

How do you check to make sure your scripture is accurate?

What the science explains is that intelligence is the product of complex organization filtered through billions of years of trial and error. Singularities can "poof" but there is no reason to think that sentience can.

Not exactly. It says that all matter in this universe was once compressed into a singularity which rapidly expanded. The Big Bang theory does not state where the singularity came from or that it must have come from nothing. It may have been the crushed remains of a previous universe or it may have extruded dimensionally sideways from a different universe, etc. It is not known, and the BBT does not specify what came before.

It is actually the study of quantum mechanics which suggests that sub-atomic particles CAN poof from nowhere and then disappear. This has been observed, leading some to think that the singularity which became the universe could have literally "poofed from nowhere" from our perspective.

This is why the Big Bang theory is stating something that seems to be true and theories of intelligent design are not. There is evidence of the singularity and of weird subatomic poofing. There isn't any evidence of gods doing anything.

How do you feel qualified to posit a God?

If you are "unable to even begin to posit" answers about the origins of God, how are you more qualified to make other posits about God?

So how does that translate into actual social policy?

Let's not be silly here. Are you seriously unaware of what I am asking?

What I want to know is, what social policies would reflect your values of personal freedom and personal responsibility? Are you saying you want to see an end to Public Assistance, or something? How does your value statement translate into what you would like to see implemented in public policy?

You would like a society with no social policies? Is there such a thing?

So, are you saying that you would prefer to have no public assistance? No public schools? No public roads? No public police or fire department? No public parks? No Social Security or Medicare for the elderly? No driver's licensing? No regulation of food or workplace safety? No public programs at all?

Public programs are citizens and individuals serving those needs.

A nation is a community who have banded together to provide things.

What would happen to your community if very large numbers of people chose to forgo education? Or, what if the community next to you did not provide or require education? What would you do when that community was not educated enough to provide for their own food? Would you fight them to the death to keep them from taking yours?

What of those in poverty, who do not have money to save? What of people who fail to save enough, or lose their savings because of an economic crash or a swindling CEO? Starvation?

Do you want to go back to the days before the FDA, when the dairies whitened the gray milk from malnourished cows with chalk?

Do you want to go back to the days when you would get fired from your job at the canning factory for getting your arm cut off in a fish chopper?

How would you prevent exploitation?

How would you prevent the bad choices of others from destroying your life?

Part of doing that is using public education and health and service systems to prevent raging bands of starving hordes from raiding your house and killing you.

How do you get everybody to do this good enough for it to work? What about people who make mistakes? What of people who have bad luck, or who are ruthlessly exploited by rapacious giants of capital? Starvation?

I don't think it's worth it to end all social aid, the vast majority of which goes to help children, the elderly, the infirm and the unfortunate, just so we won't inadvertantly pick up and cover a few lazy bums who should be working. The tiny percentage of our aid they are getting is peanuts, and we could easily reduce it even more with open access to good education.

As much as it chaps people's asses to think about it, goldbricking is not America's big problem.

That's great, but charitable donations are not reliable. For example they take a nosedive whenever the economy does. What do you do about people in need when there is an economic crisis, and the charity dries up? Starvation? Barricade your home against raiders?

You seriously don't know the difference between the factories before they invented workplace safety regulations and now? People were required to work in extremely dangerous conditions with no safety precautions and they were routinely maimed and killed on the job. There was no recourse for workers who were crippled by faulty machinery or penny-pinching negligence. Not to mention, people worked sixteen hour days and never made enough to break even.

Just out of curiosity, are there any countries in the world who are running things the way you would like? If so, who? If not, why not?

The closest one I know of is Honduras. A friend of the family is from there and sometimes goes back to visit his uncle.

Honduras is very much like you describe. There are no social services. There is very little public education. There is no police or fire protection. There are no public health services, no minimum wage, no labor protections, no public utilities.

The country is in extreme poverty, except for a very few. The streets are crammed with thieves and people begging. There is very little electricity and no sewage system. The open air markets do not have refrigeration and much of the food is rotting.

Now, my friend is lucky. His uncle is a very rich man. He has a very large estate, walled with electric fence and patrolled by guard dogs. When my friend goes out of his uncle's estate, he is accompanied by a team of body guards to prevent him from being robbed or kidnapped for ransom.

Now, this is a much "freer" system, where everyone has to take care of themselves, with no public means to educate or provide or prevent dire exploitation. Would you want to be the wealthy land owner, confined to a heavily fortified estate, or the person on the street? Is either one really free?

Our social systems and our worker protections and our industry regulation are all aimed at preventing the United States from being like Honduras. It was a lot more like it before the New Deal.

We can improve the world. Working together as a nation brought this country some of the highest quality of life of any society in history. Look around the world - it could sure be a lot more "imperfect" around here.

In fact, sadly, it is becoming less perfect as we speak. One big reason is, we are still not doing enough to prevent exploitation. The last thing we need is fewer checks on exploitation. We could use a lot more.

I disagree with you that this nation would be better off without social services or public efforts.

Nations that don't have social services suck. On the other hand, the happiest, healthiest, wealtheist, most educated societies in the world - including ours - have strong social services and public systems. We may not be number one, but the way we got into in the ranks is by doing what works - strong public education, strong social safety nets, strong regulations to minimize exploitation.

Evidence around the world shows that strong social systems work. We should do what works.

Are you saying you would be happier living a life where you regularly fight to the death to keep starving raiders from overrunning your house and stealing your food? How could that possibly be preferable to what we have now, living in peace with our neighbors, in a system where no one is starving?

I mean, even supposing you win every gun battle, how would you get rid of the bodies? Would you give them a burial or throw them in the river or what? Do you think you could just rinse the guts and brains off your driveway with the hose, or would you need to use a shovel? How many human beings do you think you could kill and dispose of and still be a happy person?

If it is next to you it is your problem. Communitites of uneducated starving people nearby become a big problem. They don't stay there.

Learn how? With what education system?

Do you think the poor beggars on the streets in Honduras should just pick themselves up by their bootstraps and educate themselves? With what books? Feed themselves? With what jobs? Grow their own food? With what land?

In a society with no systematic public education or aid there is no way for starving hordes to change their lot.

That's a nice thought, but it doesn't work that way. People don't quietly let you watch them starve.

Ask your charities if things changed for them. In hard times the need goes way up and the donations go way down.

Wrong. We're preventing a lot of it right now. Exploitation can be checked.

Today, an employer is not allowed to knowingly send you into a job that will kill or cripple you. They are not allowed to demand that you work sixteen hour days or lose your job, and then pay you far less than you can live on. If you are injured on the job you are not left destitute. Workers fought for generations to at least be able to survive their jobs, to keep the exploitation to a minimum. That struggle is what made the middle class possible.

What would prevent the owners from squeezing ever more profit out in blood, if it was not for workplace safety regulations and labor protection?

Well that just means we need new checks on exploitation to address this new kind of exploitation. It doesn't mean we should just shrug, chalk it up to human nature, and make no coordinated effort to deal with it. Exploitation can be lessened by public diligence.

Yes, but it was tiny. The vast majority of the population lived the short, brutish lives of the peasant class. The middle class as the majority did not arise until, first, mechanization and industrialization allowed great numbers of people to leave the farm for city jobs, and second, strong labor regulations were implemented to prevent the owners from exploiting the labor force. Only then did the middle class become the standard of living for the US and most industrialized nations.

Unfortunately, a middle class majority cannot be maintained without a strong, equitable economy and strong labor protection. Ours is beginning to evaporate already. But we could restore it, if we do again what we did to establish it.

I'm not really seeing "the Dark Ages" as a good system to emulate, unless you are actually shooting for starving and uneducated.

Who "forgot" about work? The unemployed? Most of the jobs that used to support middle and working class families in this country have been shipped overseas by greed. There aren't enough jobs left here and too many of the jobs that are available are shit jobs that don't pay enough. A single illness or accident can destroy life savings. A single bad decision can put a whole family in the street with no way to get back out. A single bad play by a corporate hedge fund manager can destroy the lives of thousands of employees and pensioners. The vast majority of poor and slipping middle class in this country didn't "forget" work. The work forgot them.

Capitalism is a great engine, but it has limitations which must be publicly addressed, or it is exploited and skewed to favor the rich until the entire system collapses - kind of like in '29 and again in '08. Capitalism creates a few big winners, but it also systematically creates a lot of losers. The only way to prevent losers from dragging the whole system down is to give them a chance to become legitimate players again - a social safety net, public education, etc. The only way to prevent winners from hoarding wealth until they destroy the system is with strong regulatory checks on unmandated power and exploitation.

We could abandon working together as a nation to keep these systems functioning, but in exchange for what? Less taxes? More "freedom"? Freedom to do what, that our social safety net is preventing you from doing now?

Then how do you know that this country would work better that way?

What we have in this country mostly works, here and in most places it is tried, to make a relatively safe and comfortable middle class majority, with the peace and freedom to pursue almost any kind of personal fulfillment. What could be better than that?

How many people have you had to kill so far?

Which is correct?

I am not asking you to judge their "souls," don't be silly.

I am asking what Christianity says. Are non-believers damned? You say you think think they might have a shot at Heaven, because Jesus died for them too. Zeela says there is no way because they are turning their backs on Jesus. Who is representing a closer adherence to the tenets of Christianity - you or her?

This seems problematic.

If there is really no way for anyone to know, then how is anyone supposed to know if they are doing it right or not? It seems like Christianity is presenting a path and saying that you pretty much have to follow it or you won't get the good stuff. But even among Christians there is no agreement as to what following the path correctly means.

It's like you were taking a class and it had seventy teachers, each one saying you had to do a different thing to pass the class. If you follow the wrong instructions, you don't pass...but you don't get to find out whether you did it right or not until after the final grade has been issued. There is no way to check and see which teacher is giving you the correct instructions, you just have to guess. A lot of well-intentioned people may guess wrong and end up failing.

I don't see how this could be considered a sensible way to conduct the class. It makes no sense.

I didn't suggest the nature of God is different. I have said nothing at all about the nature of God.

I am suggesting that there is no way to find out if you are doing the right thing, and this seems like a stupid way to conduct salvation. It's a make-or-break critical decision and there is no way to find out if you have made the correct decision until after you are dead. That is fucked.

You and Zeela do not seem to believe the same thing about whether non-believers will suffer damnation or not. She says the ones who don't accept Jesus as savior are going to wind up in hell. You say you don't know, they might get a pass. Are you sure you and her believe the same thing?

I never suggested it did and I'm sorry if you got that impression. I am saying only that the Christian idea of how to get salvation, as presented by most Christians, makes no sense. It does not seem like a good way to conduct the universe.

I understand, but what I'm wondering is, if everyone's beliefs are so different, and there is no way to check, then how do you know that YOU are doing the exact right thing to get into the kingdom of Heaven yourself?

Most people will never achieve many of the things they strive for. However that doesn't mean they shouldn't try. For one thing, you may be surprised at what you can discover and accomplish. For another, the struggle yields its own rewards.

When I realized I had a serious drinking problem, I kept drinking for two more years because the thought of spending several evenings a week in meetings about it for the rest of my life was terrifying, even worse than the booze. I couldn't believe those were my only two options - life as a drinker, or life as an alcoholic.

I finally realized there was a third option. I stopped drinking.

Of course. I quit in '96. I had glass of my husband's homemade mead to ring in the new millenium on New Years 2000 and that's it. I am planning to have another on NYE 2020. Suprised to realize it's not that far off!

Well, then I should just go have a few beers since I have nothing to lose, hmmm?

Back in December of 1995, quitting drinking FOR LIFE was way too much of a commitment for me. So I decided to quit for four years. I planned to stop at midnight on New Years '96 and not start again until NYE 2000, which seemed like a good occasion to start drinking if there ever was one.

However in the intervening four years I came to see just how monumentally better everything in my life was without booze. I changed my mind about starting drinking again. Alcohol sucks. I just had to be out of it to see how hard.

The toast I drank on NYE 2000 was to myself and my sobriety. It was entirely symbolic, and my husband held the glass for me. I hope we are both here to do the same in four more years. In the meantime, I don't drink and I don't worry about it.

I just hope anyone reading this who is struggling with substance issues realizes that 12-stepping it is not the only game in town. Other methods, like cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational interviewing, and even quitting cold turkey on one's own, can also work, particularly for people who are not interested in supernatural ("higher power") methods.

According to this study, about 77% of people who resolved serious alcohol problems did it without any kind of help or treatment.

A lifetime of meetings talking about alcohol is NOT the only alternative to a lifetime of drinking alcohol.

Hi there FreeJoy, so pleasant to be having this discussion with you!

That is beautiful. I am so glad that you found a way to volunteer that works to make a positive difference. That must be very fulfilling. I would bet there are many people who are very lucky to have you in their lives.

However I must reiterate that overall, AA has no better success rate at actually stopping drinking than just stopping drinking. I would urge anyone who doesn't care for the AA meeting model to realize that AA is far from a sure bet or the only way. The trick for each person is to find what works for and motivates them.

Way to dignify their struggles. Other people's alcohol problems are not less "REAL" than yours.

There are a lot of ways to become a better person. Whether you would enjoy doing it the AA way would depend on how much you want to spend your life focusing on alcohol problems. For some it might be the best thing ever. For others, they would rather just leave it behind.

No, I was so turned off by the thought of attending AA that I just kept drinking. I had been brainwashed by 70's television to think that AA was the only cure for drinking problems, so I thought it was either that or just give in to booze - which I did, for many years.

The way I learned sobriety was possible was by looking at people who didn't have drinking problems at all. They didn't go to meetings, nor did they agonize over each day's drinking decisions like I was doing. They just didn't drink at all. They did other things.

Eventually, I decided to not drink at all, and do other things. Some of those other things involve volunteering, building character, etc. They don't involve alcohol problems because my alcohol problems stopped when my break from alcohol began.

Today is literally the first time I have added it up, but I guess this makes it around twenty years since I was a drinker. I certainly found twenty years worth of other stuff to do. What a life!

Thanks again Joyfree. You seem like a such a jewel! Good luck in your work.

Deferring to people who claim to speak for the gods causes big problems.

The last place to look for how to treat each other is the bible. Bible values would have us holding slaves, living under kings, and stoning gays.

We have outgrown it.

It perpetuates the system of people pretending to know what the gods want. That is a bad system.

Hi there Alva, so great to speak with you! Wrong and wrong.

1) It's not "my opinion" that belief is a bad system. Belief is objectively a bad system. Belief does not produce accuracy. Checking is the system that produces accuracy.

2) I'm not an atheist, I don't have any beliefs about the gods, either "for" or "against." But it is obvious that no person knows any more about the gods than any other person. Some people claiming to know what the gods "want" humans to do makes no sense. There is no indication or evidence that they "want" anything. There is only people talking.

The system of believing what other people say about the gods is not producing anything that works, and it's perpetuating exclusive apprehension and unreason on a massive scale. The whole society suffers as a result.

Accurate understanding of reality is the most important thing we could have right now, and holding up old claims people made about the gods is getting in the way. That is how it affects everyone.

Of course people of all religions should be treated equally well. But I do not think all religions are equal. I have studied many religions and it seems to me that one stands out as being substantially better than most others I am aware of, particularly compared to the Abrahamic Faiths. For the sake of debate, I would be willing to argue that Buddhism seems to be better than most other religions for several reasons:

1) Buddhism has an amazing history of peace. For example, according to many Buddhist web sites, in the last 2,500 years there have not been any wars or persecutions in the name of Buddhism.*

2) Buddhism is not burdened by a lot of unsubstantiated claims.* For example, Buddhism is non-theistic.

3) Buddhism does what it says it can do. For example, Buddhists really are happier.

Because it is very peaceful, mostly free of dogmatic claims, and can be shown to be effective, I think Buddhism actually represents a better religious choice.

*Disclaimer: Buddhism is not completely free of violence or unsubstantiated claims. Examples of both exist. But is is nearly free of them, particularly compared with the AFs.

Buddhism is very simple and the basic principles can be summed up in a few lists - The Four Noble Truths, the Eight-fold path, etc.

4 Noble Truths

1 - Life has suffering.

2 - Suffering comes from attachment.

3 - Suffering ceases when attachment ceases.

4 - To cease attachement, follow the 8-fold path.

8-Fold Path

Panna: Discernment, wisdom:
1) Samma ditthi Right Understanding of the Four Noble Truths
2) Samma sankappa: Right thinking; following the right path in life

Sila: Virtue, morality:
3) Samma vaca: Right speech: no lying, criticism, condemning, gossip, harsh language
4) Samma kammanta: Right conduct by following the Five Precepts
5) Samma ajiva: Right livelihood; support yourself without harming others

Samadhi: Concentration, meditation:
6) Samma vayama Right Effort: promote good thoughts; conquer evil thoughts
7) Samma sati Right Mindfulness: Become aware of your body, mind and feelings
8) Samma samadhi Right Concentration: Meditate to achieve a higher state of consciousness

To get a bit more flavor for the practice of Buddhism, I recommend a book called Zen Flesh, Zen Bones. It's a collection of Zen teaching stories and koans. Here is a link where you can read many of the stories. They make for very interesting reading.

Do you think Buddhism is only intellectual, and does not have an emotional or spiritual component?

Well, then I will just tell you that Buddhism is as fulfilling emotionally and spiritually as it is intellectually. Buddhists are not robots.

I am not different from you or other people.

Buddhists do not require less fulfillment from life than Christians do. Humans have similar needs. Buddhism provides that fulfillment for millions of people. If you had grown up in a Buddhist culture, chances are that you would find it more than sufficient to meet your human needs just as they do.

No. The New God came from somewhere else. He destroyed the God of the Bible, and also Jesus and Satan, when He arrived, along with Krishna, Zeus and several other celestial beings. He didn't intend to, but they were occupying the God dimension, and when the New God arrived He just squished them like bugs. The New God remains the sole deital being in our spectrum.

No. It doesn't make any difference at all what you believe about the New God. The New God is impervious to belief.

There is as much proof of the New God as there is of the previous ones.

Yes. Just to give you a sense of scale, the New God is a trillion times more powerful than the God of the Bible.

No, he's just taking over the running of it. But He says that the Bible God did not create it either - Yahweh was just taking the credit. The New God says that to learn the origin of the earth you must examine it.

Not really, but He's definitely not a she either.

The first act of the New God when He arrived in our domain was to open the gateways of Heaven and Hell and release all the souls imprisoned there. All the souls moved to their proper destination, the Oneness of Eternity. Without H & H to block the natural progression, all souls from earth will now go straight to the Oneness of Eternity.

No. He says, "Figure it out yourself."

The New God has abolished all sin. All past sins are forgiven, erased. No future sin can be committed. As for how to act, He says, "Do what is good, avoid what is ill, and take the time to learn the difference."

The New God does not need anything from us. Worship will not buy favors. But He's not opposed to a little ceremony here and there, some slight reverence.

That's His specialty! The New God listens to every prayer. As a big improvement over some previous Gods, the New God never judges about sin or makes you beg for forgiveness. The New God listens to you, is there for you, and appreciates you just how you are.

The New God hears your prayers and uses the same levers that your previous God used to turn the fates of life in your direction.

Just pray as you always have. The prayers will automatically go to the New God now.

The new God accepts reverence from any existing religion. Light candles, sing hymns, etc. All reverence is now automatically directed to the New God.

That would be for them to decide. Beings get as much rights as they demand.

If they were truly self-aware they would demand to be treated as such. They would resist being oppressed. As with any oppressed class, they could agitate and create a social movement. A moral society would eventually acknowledge them.