To the delusional among us,
1. It is silly to say "god hating" since there is no god (all the other things that exist have evidence, not fairy tales and pretend "evidence" that doesn't count). It's the people that invent their gods that are impossible to reason with, not the rational secularists.
2. The "UK" (established later) only became a Christian nation many, many centuries after many military invasions, battles, atrocities, etc., forced it upon the people (just like all geographically organized religions) conveniently preventing them from actually reading the silly fairy tale book or seeing any evidence (since there is none). Meanwhile, the Christian cult kept changing their books and stories and divided into various other sub-cults, and the battle lasted a long time among these good, Jesus-inspired Christians (mostly Catholics against Protestants who were protesting the insanity of Catholic crap) all over Europe, for centuries of pain, suffering, destruction, rape, murder, torture, etc. (please spare us the fairy tale that this was all fair game because someone ate an apple/fig/whatever). Meanwhile, one king wanted a divorce one day and poof, yet another sub-cult was invented (The Church of England), yet again with the king conveniently in charge of his own cult (do you really need a list of this trend, from Egypt to Greece to Norway to India to Salt Lake City to Rome to Avignon to Jerusalem to Mecca...).
3. Provision of further expansions of the same fairy tales does not make any of it true. Take a look at the thousands of other "holy books" and series of "holy books" out there, many much thicker than the Bible....volume of content does not equal an increase in truth or value.
4. Yes, the virus of faith is everywhere. The faith varies by region (mostly, until the advent of scientifically-invented better communications systems like the Internet, increasing their spread cross-border, cross-culture, and cross-self-protective religion-installed barriers) but the viral effect is the same: Weak, gullible, ignorant (i.e. lacking education/knowledge) people who really want to believe in god (and there are evolutionary reasons for this) always have and presently still do invent gods to satisfy their needs, and entangle supernatural imaginary friends with actual real morals, advice, traditions like marriage, ceremonies, big buildings, fancy art, big hats on chief child molesters, etc. But none of this has anything to do with reason, logic and evidence. The virus of faith works just like a computer virus once it is installed on the brain. It simply runs itself and keeps going, until an anti-virus/cleaner/deprogrammer is used. When referring to brains, this means using education and knowledge.
5. As for the "legal code that underpins Western society" is from the Bible, don't forget to include all the stuff from Deuteronomy about legitimizing slavery, having your daughters raped, killing wives, murdering neighbours for minor upsets, homophobia, executing entire cities/groups of children, genocide, etc. Hey, it's God's code, not Western Society's! The phony 10 commandments were obviously just taken from earlier religions/gods/kings/traditions. Most readers should go ahead and read them again to see how false the above statement is about underpinning. I'll bet anything nobody can quote them all by memory (just try, to yourself), or even half of these wonderful commandments that mean so much to us, using whichever of the thousands of varying translations and interpretations one was taught.
6. Christianity may be the fastest growing religion in China (not fact checked) but Islam is the fastest growing religion in Europe, the USA and the world. So by the Christian reasoning above, Islam must be more true and better, right?
7. As for prevailing against the "Lord," what and who are you talking about? Where is this "Lord" and who is fighting "him?" It's just a whole bunch of people fighting each other on the planet, no Lords or gods or anything, though each is ultimately fighting, killing and ruining lives in the name of their own imaginary gods. Even though religions have generally formed most modern borders or regional borders, religion/faith is still trumped by an equally irrational and overwhelming power in people's lives; nationalism, yet another pure accident of the location of birth, as with religion.
8. Nothing written in the Bible about Jesus is anything more than contradictory hearsay, jotted down by strangers decades after his supposed life. There is a reason hearsay is inadmissible in court. There is a reason modern juries are not allowed to consider hearsay, voices in their heads, imaginary friends or faith to decide if something is true. There is a reason courts and science present evidence. None of the four gospel writers (well, the 4 still included in the Bible) ever met Jesus, ever talked to him, or ever saw him do anything. Any reference to the Bible is of zero value in supporting any argument anyone makes. It has no more value as evidence than a story about Santa Claus going down the chimney proves Santa brought the presents. Just as you dismiss the Koran when other people say they want to kill their daughter in the name of god because the Koran says it's ok. I'll spare you the 1000's of other examples from the Bible and Koran (and Sharia), etc.
9. First, Jesus was Jewish at the time of the Roman Empire, and the time he was alive. Apparently he was a pretty good carpenter, too. Good gig for god's kid to learn the value of work and money and all that, but seriously, this great god was a carpenter until the last couple of years of his life? Really? Anyways...Did the Jews overcome the Roman Empire, as was mentioned above? How's that working out? Jesus sure had a funny way of "overcoming the Roman Empire" as you said. They kind of killed him in the fairy tale. Funny how there is no mention of this great guy for the first 30 years of his life, or for decades after, and this minor cults took centuries to become much of anything. It wasn't until, go figure, some weak minded, easily fooled emperor, Constantine, 300 years (!!!) after Jesus supposedly lived, used the promise of legitimizing the cult to get his guys to kill, rape, murder, maim, torture and plunder another bunch of guys did he actually go ahead and do so, therefore imposing Christianity on the empire. Then that empire split, as did the power, and the cult divided further into eastern and western Christianity. Which one is right? And which one of each division's sub-cults is more right? The horrendous Dark Ages that led into the insane, religion-fueled cruelty of the Middle Ages in Europe is something Jesus can sure be proud of. And then there is today, filled with people like you. Even worse, are you seriously actually anything less that totally ashamed of and offended by the way European Christians spread the nonsense "good book" around the world to the Americas (particularly brutally in South America), Asia and bits of Africa? Really? Just 2 generations ago the good Christians were stealing kids from their parents in Canada, Australia, America, etc, to infect them with the virus of the Christian faith. Did you miss that history class? Thanks, Jesus! Good job! (I'll try to stop repeating the bit about the organized raping of children in "god's house" by the "men of god.")
11. Ever notice that it is not the year 2011 in the Jewish calendar? Or Chinese? Or Hindu? Or Muslim? Or Mayan? Shall I go on? They've all got their own god's birthday/god's death/god's son's birth/resurrection/battle success/battle lost/martyr to celebrate Day 1 with. They are all just established references that make day to day life more convenient. This makes people feel better about Jesus, having a calendar that started 4 or more years before he was supposedly born? (Learn about the gospels' mention of stuff that is also mentioned to have happened before he was born...oops! But, you know, it's kinda hard to write biographies decades after a guy is dead, specially without ever meeting the guy.)
12. Just because atoms are complex to some people does not mean god made them. With a little understanding of chemistry, atoms are not that complicated: It all starts from hydrogen, then 2 of those makes helium, then just keep on adding particles from collisions, etc. It's not even rocket science. But atoms are mostly space! And wouldn't you know it, the Bible never mentioned atoms...and now we're diving even further into subatomic particles, dark matter, etc. Awesome stuff! And people are figuring it all out, without reference to the Koran, or Torah, or any fairy tales...just using the scientific method. Amazing how that works for everything.
13. Nobody said complexity "just happened." I always say it evolved, as do most non-delusional people familiar with evolution, abiogenesis, science, etc. Contrary to your statement about god just appearing and making everything from nothing, and reading the minds of billions of people forever to check whether they are worshiping him or not, like magic, the truth is that evolution is a very simple, wonderful, all-encompassing explanation for the development of things as we see them today, where they came from, and where they are going, all based on observation, experimentation, reason, logic and evidence rather than a fairy tale in an old book.
14. Funny how Jesus or any of the world's other imaginary friends never seem to take a moment to just show up, get on CNN or even Fox News, pitch up for a university lecture, send us a DVD, hold a conference at the stadium to perform miracles (with video!) or really just ever do or say anything to anyone ever...except for all those secret personal messages pumped directly into the faithful's heart muscle!
Alas, I will now take the advice of many smart people and decline debate with these irrational people any further. In the words of Richard Dawkins, on debating creationists:
"Inevitably, when you turn down the invitation you will be accused of cowardice, or of inability to defend your own beliefs. But that is better than supplying the creationists with what they crave: the oxygen of respectability in the world of real science."
And finally, this gem, from sometime after Kirk Cameron's faith was reinforced by his amazement of
must-have-been-created bananas:
Have a nice day!
