Our founding fathers were Christians?

Oh, your not ramblin' on. I too enjoy these types of discussions.

Ok, firstly one could say that God is violent, or better put has a mighty "rath". Just as it says in the Bible you should fear God. "Fear" not so much meaning be afraid of him but to more orless acknowledge his power. Remember the great flood and Noah, God destroyed the whole world because they strayed too far and the only worthy one left was Noah. Lets talk about violence for a moment. Before God created life there was a war in heaven in which Lucifer and 1/3 of the angels in heaven were cast down. So, is this not considered a type of violence. Lets take a look at what your above statement says,

 "he could have set it so we have freedom of choice without ever having to think of violence."

Now, since when has freedom of choice and minipulation the same thing.

Why cant we just not be violent, he has given us the choice. Again pointing the finger.

On to Jesus. Since you say that there could be anyone out there that is the son of God then show me written references for anyone that has done the things Jesus has done. Anyone, anyone at all since the beginning of time. Something that is as credible as the Bible, not Roman or Greek mythology. The Bible has references to historical events that have have been accounted by historians and the like....When has these peolpe you speak of ever been crucified and beaten and all the while not retaliating and even going as far as to pray, while being beaten, for his torturers to be forgiven for they know not what they do. Who has returned on the third day after his crucifixtion in the flesh? Who else has so many followers, I know you are an analytical guy but on occasion you can use common sense.

On to christians....I dont understand your arguement? All christians worship one God. He does have many names but is the same almighty spirit. As any christian will tell you the way to heaven(the one heaven) is thru Jesus, he is the way, the truth, and the life.

Also God doesnt want a bunch of drones worshiping him as if we are some blind Nazi-type of people. We have freedom of choice, you should believe in something because you choose to thus you should have some conviction in your beliefs.

They actually have archeological evidence saying that Noah was based on a story of a merchant and his family whose land was flooded and his family and some workers tied alot of rafts together to carry his merchandise, which were animals also. So see a raft this size in those days was unseen. It is supposed to have happened in Mespotamia where there is actual evidence of a great flood between the two rivers the Tigris and the Euphrates.

There was also a Mesopatamian religion that influenced all three of the Abrahamic Religions which many of the myths can be traced back to, like Adam and Eve's myth is almost the same only diffence is they have different names, and there is the myth about Noah that all three religions have which the Mesopatanians seem to have written also. The stories come thousands of years before Christianity and even before Judaism.

Also by dating when this world flood happened which is said to have happened 1300 years before Solomon built his temple, and the earliest temple being built at about 950 bc, then that put it at about 2250 bc which Egyptians and Mesopatamians were keeping record before this and have no such records to this. Also alot of civilization wouldn't have come about if it happened in this time, it would take thousands of years for repopulation to happen in this timeline. Romans would probably be on the rise right now, and that might be way to early.Now that I think about it, I believe the bible said that earth was created by god about 6000 years ago. That would be to short of a time frame for two people to populate the earth. There were more Homo Sapiens 25,000 years ago then there were Noah's family, yeat in Roman times the Human population was even close to a billion people, I think it was around 50 million people world wide. In other words their is no way we can be this advanced and have a population this large if Noah's ark is true, or even adam and eve being true.

So maybe alot of the old testiment where god was evil comes from the Mesopatamians and how their gods were evil at some points. And Noah's Ark and probably many other stories in the bible come from fisherman tales. In other words, a fishermen says he caught a 8 foot fish over exagerating it and causing myth when in reality it was a 5 inch fish.

You might like this site. http://www.amarogue.com/noah.html It's a nice site, and even if you don't believe in what it has to say it's a good read.

Common sense tells me if you belive in some who died and came back then your crazy, that's common sense. To me the kind of things Jesus did with walking on water, turning water into wine, healing a blind man's eye's, I think it was said he even braught a dead person back to life, those all sound like a Greek Demi god to me, myth and fairy tale.

Alos the Greeks and Romans liked good stories, but it's aid the Romans never believed in the stories as true but as lessons sent by the gods. Also not all religions were as extravagent with their stories like the Greeks.

Alot of stories in Religions recorded history, it's said that history makes the best stories. The thing is that they are passed down by oral tradition before being written down. People leave out words and certain parts to make the story interesting or to fit the image they want. This can be said about Jesus and his meracles. After all the parts about Jesus were written 50-100 years after he died, that means the writers went by oral traditions of the stories and probably didn't have any eye-witnesses to speak for, they were most likely dead, or even if the chance they were alive odds are you probably wouldn't find them, it's kind of hard to find someone without information or a way to call them. To further that the human brain has a huge imagination, it's hard for the police to go on eye witness accounts after a year or so from the crime because people start saying they saw things differently. So 50 years is definitly a long time.

They all believe in Jesus. But many change rituals and what is considered sin and what isn't. some even say their is a set limit of people allowed in heaven and only the most pure will be allowed in. To me when you change things your not talking about the same religion and same god, to me they only related but totally different. Some Evangelicals hate Catholics, Baptist and a few other Christian sects and say they are anti-christian, so there's even conflict within Christioanity on who is right and who is wrong.

If so then why were there so many strict traditions where you had to goto church every sunday, and you couldn't eat meat on friday's, etc. It seems when people didn't like something they would just change it, so does that mean everyone is going to hell, or does god just not care about rules he set. Christianity is nothing like it used to be thousands of years ago, so how could people be following what god says if they just change it to fit their own needs and wants. God isn't like a Nazi because people don't want him to be, I think god serves Christians then the other way around.

Here pit this in google and click search- bible says the world started 6000 years ago

You will have pages upon pages to look through, but you will get the idea.

Well there is one way to argue against Noah and his ark. It had to be built around 2050, yet while boats were made their the biggest bot we have at that time was 143 feet, by 20 feet wide. The technology to hold so many animals and to make a ship that large did not exist yet. And this is a time when major break throughs were happening for boats.

Also if he carried two of every animal, did he let a few off in Australia and the America's where they weren't found in other parts of the world? You tell me not to give any example's of Greek and Roman relgious stories before, yet alot of the bible has it's own myth's and stories that are impossible for humans.

We were talking about common sense, not science. Common sense says if something is dead it isn't coming back. Common sense says if I put my hand in a fire I'm going to be hurting.

They except is as myth now because our ancestors were forced to. Honestly I wish I could believe in a religion, it makes death alot easier and it gives sense of security in that you know someone is watching over you. I have searched for another religion, one that I could agree with and it doesn't work for me. I can't believe in anything that sounds too mythological. I mean even in Christianity the Saints also have their own magic that you can prey to them to help you. Someone even posted picutres on these forums of two Saints that had animal heads, just like the Egyptian gods.

Christianity isn't taken serious anymore by people. Like I said earlier people now eat meat on fridays, people often will skip church on sundays, people have sex before marriage, it used to be if you did these things you were on a one way trip to hell. Now people convenantly changed the religion to their own needs and still ask for help from God and the saints, so whose servering who?

See that is exactly what I'm talking about. A few hundred years ago you couldn't get away with that in Christianity, you were going to hell because of any sin that was considered very bad like pre-marriage sex.

Evangelicals are worse, you could kill someone, but as long as you believe in God your going to heaven. If I remember right you don't even have to say your sorry. But if you never had done anything wrong and help a thousand people who needed your help and you don't recognize god then your going to hell, seems kind of screwed up.

Another thing that has changed in Christianity is if you killed anyone for whatever reason you were going to hell. But today a person believes he can join the military and kill someone and not goto hell because he was fighting for his country. See how people change religion to conveniantly fit their own wants?

Sometimes I always wondered if there is a god, why would he even want to be known, I mean he doesn't even do anything to show he exists. So maybe he or even them would want us to live life for what it is. Then I wonder if their is a supreme evil, maybe it controls or wants people to join organized religions. The reason I came to that is because oraganized religion seperates people, it's easy for someone to become powerful using it, it can be used to easilly persecute a certain people, and has caused wars and thousands to die in the name of a said religion. Also it's only the religious I hear that have ever been effected by a evil spirit, or atleast someone who says they believe in God.

Like I said though it would make life easier to believe I have some where to go after death or that someone is watching over me, but I can't put myself to it. I used to be a believer, but when things don't make sense, or that so many things have changed over time it just seems to fake.

How you can write 'in fact' I have no idea. There are no 'facts' involved here.

And God created everything so he's responsible for the whole shebang. Including the devil.

He can't get out of it that easily.

That's the mistake right there. He created us wrong.

Yep. But you started it as I recall, saying it was all our fault.

It's arguable, but immaterial. God determined what we would do. (Or, if he didn't he could have done - a sin of omission if not commission.)

I take the responsibility for my own actions. It's God who's trying to wriggle out of his - or, to be fair, you who are trying to excuse him or the wrongs he commits. (For all i know, God himself is quite ready to take the blame - you're hardly his spokesman.)

Again, you have it right there. He gave us the choice. He created the choice. If the choice was between good and evil, he created both of them.

That's his fault.

But I agree that I have a responsibility, as far as I can, to make up for God's failings.

"But I agree that I have a responsibility, as far as I can, to make up for God's failings."

-I guess we are just gonna have to agree to disagree on this issue.

Back on topic

John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin were well know deists. James Madison was a unitarian, and "In god we trust" has only been on American coinage off and on since 1864 when it first appeared. Interestingly enough, Theodore Roosevelt ordered the motto removed from new coins produced during his tenure as President, with the opinion that placing God's name on coinage was sacrilege. He was overruled by Congress however.

Yes of course as it was the Massachusetts Bay Colony's obscene Theocratic Tyranny which proved the necessity of removing religous elements from the federal government.  Oh and the legal foundations of the United States is British Common Law, not the lunatic rantings of some fringe Christian group of fanatics.