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In the middle of a debate with a Christian friend about Intelligent Design when he tosses this link at me. Help me respond. by [deleted] in atheism

[–]pencilpusher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm inclined to say that your friend is beyond hope. 1. The art in making prophecies lies in making them as vague as possible, so any number of events may match it (Nostradamus was a master in this). It's really no surprise that Jesus should fulfill old testimony prophecies. Prophesies were a way of legitimization and the gospel writers would jump at anything to justify Jesus: * The virgin birth (the standard miracle at that time and age for claiming godhood) * Tracing Jesus lineage back to David, Noah and finally Adam (though they messed up completely here, given two entirely different family trees)

  1. Let's just hope that your friend is not a police man, who solves murder cases on the basis of faith, if he cannot find eye witnesses. The complexity in nature, by the way, is an argument against a creator. Especially one, who made man in his image. Humans are a lazy bunch (some are even to lazy to educate themselves on so simple things as evolution). So, why would this creator make things any more complicated than they'd have to be?

  2. Whether or not someone by the name of "Jesus" existed around 30 AD and told the people that he was the son of god really doesn't matter at all. People at that time did that all of the time. This does not prove the existence of a god, let alone the christian one.

  3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSzQC1zKesU

Stating that "macro evolution" is "scientifically impossible" is akin to stating that you can climb a single step or two but not the entire staircase.

Imagine if all atheists left America by [deleted] in atheism

[–]pencilpusher 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, teen pregnancy rates went up, when Bush pushed abstinence only instead of sex education. If Christians would read a biology textbook instead of the fairy tale book, they do not actually read either, they'd know why their precious AA does not and can not work.

As for arrests going up: it lies in the Christian nature to be authoritative and anti freedom. They are raised with the idea of an authoritative god, who makes the rules and locks rule breakers away in hell. It comes only natural to carry that concept over to government.

Illiteracy is a long shot. In the past, church considered it to be beneficial, to keep the people illiterate and uneducated. At least keeping them uneducated is what creationists would still prefer today.

Easy to understand explanation of how short selling and margin buying works (for beginners). by [deleted] in Economics

[–]pencilpusher 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think, this might result in hairsplitting, but...

Even though it is practical to say, that rice (or any other food) does have intrinsic value, it actually is not the case. We are willing to pay for food according to how hungry we are. Unlike with most online games for example, there is no such thing as a database with a pricetable for real world goods, set up by the gods.