Dale

I still have no idea what the point of all these prophecies are, since they appear only to be recognisable after the event.

It seems to me a useful prophecy might help you to avoid misfortune, or gain success. But if you only recognise that something was prophecy after the event, that would defeat the purpose.

It’s a bit like reading last w…[Read more]

 And thus His Life should be visible too.

And yet he only shows up in ancient stories, people’s hallucinations and as images in burnt toast. God should be visible but he is not. He never shows up, not a trace of evidence beyond people’s words, feelings and unverifiable text (if you don’t include shoddy “logical” arguments which we shouldn’t…[Read more]

Johan, you are welcome to post thoughtful or original comments here. You are not welcome to proselytise (or preach or post chunks of religious texts.)

If you want to publicly share your religious insights, please don’t expect interest from an atheist membership. After all, the only reason atheists exist, is because of theistic impositions.

There was a bumper sticker on a car in front of me yesterday that said:-

IN THE BEGINNING GOD CREATED EVOLUTION

so I guess the churches are trying to accommodate science and yet remain relevant.

*spoiler alert – they won’t*

A country with an overarching culture and absolutely minimal smaller highly distinct areas is not particularly diverse. Yes, there is diversity in neighbourhoods but after a few generations they homogenise within the culture. This doesn’t happen in Chechnia, Dagestan, Tartarstan, Merv, North Ossetia etc. And in any case, large Russian cities are…[Read more]

I’m not so clear on the rational side.

I also think that what the Catholic Church covered up by way of abuse, puts them squarely in the unacceptable range. However, in other news…

They accepted that the Earth moved around the sun, only because the evidence that was surfacing was so damn obvious that they had to. So they switched sides to kee…[Read more]

Russia alone (that is without the former 14 other republics) have cultures which range from Turkic, Asian, relatives of Inuit/Eskimos, Finnic, Slavic, from the Caucuses and a LOT more. Linguistically, they natively have languages from over seven completely different language families which vary from Tartar, Mongolic, Sino (Chinese related),…[Read more]

Ehhh…the BBC may only seem left leaning by American standards. It is famously “neutral” and in fact, whenever there is a conservative government they tend to be tepid about criticism of that government, and often do “both sides-sim” where they seem to cover both sides as though they are equally valid even when the conservative policy is…[Read more]

Alright, Michael, now I understand – prophecy is a sort of evidence to help people feel their faith is well placed.

How does this prophecy lead specifically to the abrahamic god?  Why could this prophecy not be pointing at a different root cause, or god, or even a group of gods?

If we accept that prophecy is real and is a ‘magic’ phenomenon (for…[Read more]

Michael, in your belief system, what purpose does the prophecy serve?  Please try to answer me without ‘beasts’ and ‘horns’, etc. I’m not asking about the content or delivery mechanism of these prophecies, just their purpose

Those’ll be the ‘unorthodox perspectives’ I was referring to, Robert.

The aspect of Michael I was pointing out, was his good manners. As far as his beliefs are concerned, everyone’s free to attack them. Or even try to clarify them.

Michael and I have just discovered we share a disbelief. Neither of us believes in hell, eternal torture or vengefu…[Read more]