The Story of the Woman With No Authority

Beldaran wrote:You think I'm a militant atheist who will never change right? Never say never. I am an atheist BECAUSE I change. I was a devout christian until age 18. Fortunately, I was smart enough to read books that disagreed with my viewpoints, and I was intellectual enough to entertain "dangerous" ideas.

lol, transparent much? you need to CALM DOWN

also, the next time you have to go to Chapel if you want to ~*rebel*~ I would recommend consuming 4 burritos and a bottle of ipecac before to show what you really think of RELIGION. This would be awesome and earn the respect of me and Ted, probably.

Lilith wrote:lol, transparent much? you need to CALM DOWN

also, the next time you have to go to Chapel if you want to ~*rebel*~ I would recommend consuming 4 burritos and a bottle of ipecac before to show what you really think of RELIGION. This would be awesome and earn the respect of me and Ted, probably.

man, great idea. I should eat all the foods that make me have gas and then sit up front and just fart everyone to fucking death. hahah brilliant. 😊

Beldaran wrote:So Baylor requires all students to spend 2 semesters in what they call "Chapel". It is a one hour long, twice a week, very stupid church service. I find it offensive and ridiculous that I am required to experience the propaganda of the local mystics, so I protest by blatantly playing my gameboy during the whole "service".

So today this fat idiotic lady comes up to me during church and says, "Would you please put that away?" I smile and inform her, "No." And I go back to playing Final Fantasy IV Advance. She then says, "Excuse me..." to which I do not respond because I find her irritating. She tries to get my attention several more times, before I find that she is making my game less enjoyable, so I turn around and say, "Is this against the rules? Will I be forced to not only be here, but to pay attention as well?"

Her: "On the first day of chapel, they explained that you must pay attention."

Me: "Oh, well I had my ear plugs in on the first day, and I was taking a nap so I didn't hear that." [I go back to playing Final Fantasy. She is starting to get angry.]

Her: "What's your name?"

Me: "I am not required to tell you my name."

Her: [getting more angry] "Do you want me to call campus police?"

Me: "Do you want to call campus police and tell them that someone is playing gameboy in church? I might go with you because that would be funny."

Her: "We can take that away from you, you know."

Me: "I suppose if a couple of your staff held me down and stole it you could, but legally you cannot. You are not a police officer, and I am not breaking a law. This is not a class and you are not a teacher. It is a religious event that I am forced to be at."

Her: "Tell me your name."

I say nothing. I go back to playing gameboy. She storms off. I can see that she is waiting by the entrance to get me after the service so I can't scan my student ID and be marked present, so I wait until it is really crowded and chaotic and I leave through another door.

She figured I would be one of those 18 year old freshman, all scared and intimidated by either her weight or her authority (or both), but really I am a 25 year old computer programmer who is too old and too experienced to be intimidated by someone with more bark than bite. I can smell a lack of authority from a mile away, so she can kiss my heathen, godless butt.

Beldaran wrote:For those who can't imagine why I'd go to Baylor, here are my reasons:

I would have had to wait an extra year before going to a state school in Texas because I needed residency. Out of state transfers, at the time, had almost no hope of getting into University of Texas. I could have gone to Texas State or or something, but why would I do that when I can go to such a nice university here at Baylor?

I'm getting an amazing education. I am on a first name basis with several of my engineering professors. Classes are small and intense. I will be lined up with an amazing job at graduation.

I have a kick ass scholarship. Even though Baylor is insanely expensive, it's actually cheaper for me to go here because of my scholarships and grants.

I don't particularly care that it's a religious school. However, I find chapel really offensive. It's not a class. It's a religious service. Nothing is learned. I just sit there and watch people sing and worship and talk about Jesus. It's pathetic. And now they want to force me to pay attention, not just be there. Well fuck that. If I can't play gameboy without being hassled, I'm going to just put my ear plugs in, bring a pillow, and go to sleep.

Comments about this that I'd like to make:

You have your reasons for going to Baylor. I always thought you did - as far as I'm aware, everyone here has done what they wanted to, be it education, work, whatever. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, guys.

You're not a religious person. This was made very clear in that thread I started in which I was unsure in what I believed.* A fair number of us don't want to start that again, including me, mostly because reading all the responses made my head hurt.

[Strike]You were following the rules.[/Strike] As far as we're aware, all you legally have to do is attend 'chapel'. You don't have to join in with anything, do you? You could, theoretically, just sit there and do nothing? [Strike]If so, then there's very little wrong with what you were doing. Again, that's from what you've told us, but why would you lie about that?[/Strike] Re-reading your first post, it may well be that doing what you were doing is in fact against the rules. However, unless you're told so by a senior member of staff, I think you're safe.

You stood your ground. She challenged you, you challenged her back. Huzzah for you. If it turns out she had no actual power, then I'd say you did good. If she did have power and was in the right, I'm sure you'll apologize, right? Y'know, before arguing your case, 'cause that seems like something you'd do.

So, yeah. If you get done for playing your GBA (I guess it's either a GBA or a DS, and since you didn't actually say DS...), then take a book. If you get done for that, take an MP3 player. If you get done for that... etc. Stand for your rights! Or something.

* I'm still not really, but I kinda had to abandon that because it moved over from 'let's help Darth' to 'let's challenge Beldaran on his lack of faith'. I'm not bitter or anything, and I know that's the way things happen on forums, but still...

Lively debate is, to me, a very interesting read/experience/etc. I can't deny I get uncomfortable when people start calling other people names (negative attitudes).

But good lively debates are good for the soul. It's how you expand your horizons.

Dechipher wrote:as opposed to complete morons who think that what they believe is right because the Bible tells them so

I somehow feel called out by that one. Not because I'm a bible-pusher (That couldn't be farther from the truth.), but because there are many millions of people who use belief as a stepping stone to reach their goals. Why put a knife to their throat and send them to their deaths because of their ignorance, when you can be a mentor and a teacher?

By the way, when Atheists and Christians start agreeing with each other, you know something is awry. :scared:

Wow, I think people have misinterpreted me completely. I said that religious debates are worthless because they devolve into Bel posting pictures of extremists and Atma picking out little things in Bel's arguments. It's really stupid and no one learns a thing. Obviously debate is good, in fact I enjoy debating other topics here, but the religious ones are retarded, and it's even worse when Bel uses that in other threads (i.e. when Bel says I can't use logic because I believe in God).

phattonez wrote:Wow, I think people have misinterpreted me completely. I said that religious debates are worthless because they devolve into Bel posting pictures of extremists and Atma picking out little things in Bel's arguments. It's really stupid and no one learns a thing. Obviously debate is good, in fact I enjoy debating other topics here, but the religious ones are retarded, and it's even worse when Bel uses that in other threads (i.e. when Bel says I can't use logic because I believe in God).

Maybe I missed this but what pictures?

If you don't like religious debates then don't read or post in them. It's not that hard.

biggiy05 wrote:Maybe I missed this but what pictures?

If you don't like religious debates then don't read or post in them. It's not that hard.

In a thread earlier this year, Beldaran posted a series of pictures and paintings depicting religious persecution throughout history. Pictures of muslims praying, people being burned at the stake, etc.

I'd shoot you a link, but of course I can't search these forums.

phattonez wrote:^^I have my own personal reasons for my faith that I can't really use in an argument. It's things that I've seen that no one else would understand that convinces me in my belief.

If you consider only two states, atheist and religious, I have seen all four possible reactions to tragedy:

• I know a devout Christian woman who lost a husband to cancer, a son to a car wreck, and then a son to murder, and it only strengthened her faith.
• I know a once-Christian family that went through an awful car crash, blamed God and became atheist.
• I know quite a few atheists that went through tragedy and remained the same.
• I know a family that were athiests; the son went into a coma for no apparent reason, then a few days later was perfectly fine. The family became Christians after this.

I don't think Beldaran's wrong for being an atheist, I think he's wrong for feeling superior for his choice. One or both of us is wrong, and there's really no way to know.

AtmaWeapon wrote:[*]I know a once-Christian family that went through an awful car crash, blamed God and became atheist.

THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE, ATMA! 😮

AtmaWeapon wrote: I think he's wrong for feeling superior for his choice.

You stubbornly refuse to understand this idea that I don't think I'm superior to anyone. I just think my ideas are superior because religious ideas are not ideas, they are childish and inane fantasies that should be laughed at were they not so horrifically dangerous to society.

AtmaWeapon wrote:One or both of us is wrong, and there's really no way to know.

Except you have not one scrap of evidence to support your position that a magic wizard named Jesus controls the universe and I don't need evidence to demonstrate disbelief. In fact, the lack of evidence supports me even more.

Beldaran wrote:Except you have not one scrap of evidence to support your position that a magic wizard named Jesus controls the universe and I don't need evidence to demonstrate disbelief. In fact, the lack of evidence supports me even more.

Your wealth of evidence that a magic wizard named Jesus doesn't control the universe is exactly equal to my astounding proof that He does.

The scale is always balanced; Evidence for: 0, evidence against: 0.

Of course, that's contextual. From the Christian viewpoint, the Bible is adequate evidence. However, if one does not believe the Bible is valid it doesn't exactly hold as evidence. Likewise, no matter what mysteries of the cosmos scientists can uncover, a lot of religious people have no troubles believing that their deity can control these processes.

There's also the nagging issue that I don't need evidence to have faith in something. If scientists waited until they had conclusive evidence before testing their hypotheses, I don't believe there would be very much scientific progress. Surely they do their best to make educated guesses so as to not waste time or create dangerous situations, but if one can verify the result of an experiment without performing the experiment, what is the point of the experiment? Your point is silly.

Also Masamune what was so unclear? I pointed out that I've seen traumatic events and tragedy cause people to lose their faith, discover faith, or simply remain constant. Have you never seen anyone undergo a dramatic change following a traumatic event?

But scientists don't necessarily have faith or confidence in something at the time they perform an experiment to test the hypothesis; in fact ideally the scientist's personal beliefs are completely disjoint from the experiment at hand. Whether the hypothesis is phrased "X will happen" or "X won't happen" doesn't matter, as the same information is produced by the experiment either way.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
Also Masamune what was so unclear? I pointed out that I've seen traumatic events and tragedy cause people to lose their faith, discover faith, or simply remain constant. Have you never seen anyone undergo a dramatic change following a traumatic event?

I think he was pointing out that it might seem strange for people to blame god while becoming Atheist. An atheist blaming god would seem absurd because he does not believe in god to begin with.

Except that the likely situation was that those people blamed god while they were still convinced of his existence, became disillusioned, then moved onto to not believing in god at all.

DarkDragon wrote:But scientists don't necessarily have faith or confidence in something at the time they perform an experiment to test the hypothesis; in fact ideally the scientist's personal beliefs are completely disjoint from the experiment at hand. Whether the hypothesis is phrased "X will happen" or "X won't happen" doesn't matter, as the same information is produced by the experiment either way.

Anyway, see, here's the thing about God. How is God different than any other imaginary deity that I could make up in my head right now? Why does the belief in God carry any more weight? I've got the same amount of evidence for the existence of my deities, the same number of observations that require them as an explanation... Like I've said - if you remove the Bible, which to me makes sense, because I don't see why a collection of 2,000-year-old-mythology should be given any credibility, you've got absolutely zero reason to even begin to suspect that an omnipotent, sentient creator even exists.

Sure, there are a lot of mysteries in this world. But do any of them even slightly suggest that the force behind them is sentient? If reality worked in the same way that it seems to work in that book of yours, maybe I'd see your point. But look around - there are no messages which seem to be from the Creator, no one credible claiming to have spoken with God, or angels, or anything of the sort, no prophets with miraculous powers. In fact, no miracles at all, at least none that can't be simply explained through random chance. Back then, they were drawing water from rocks, leveling cities with trumpets, walking on water... Nowadays what constitutes a miracle is a joke - 1 patient out of a group of 10 surviving a form of cancer that has a 10% survival rate.

You see what I'm driving at? The scientific method - observation leads to hypothesis, which leads to testing, which leads to evidence either for or against the hypothesis. Religious people say the lack of evidence puts atheism and religion on equal footing - it doesn't. That's because religious people just love to skip over that first step, observations, and just make up a hypothesis at random. So you see, the argument that both hypotheses are equally probable is all just a bit of smoke and mirrors. There are no observations that would ever lead the reasonable person to think that maybe an invisible man in the sky is needed to explain them.

Basically, what I'm asking is this - if the Bible had never been written, and if no one had ever told you about God, would the notion of an invisible man living in the sky ever even occur to anyone (who wasn't mentally insane)? I think not - and that's my point. If it weren't for people passing down stories for generations, the whole concept of religion would seem utterly foreign to us. And that's why the two hypotheses are not equally plausible. One relies on observation, and the other completely ignores it in favor of 2,000-year-old mythology.

'How could a just and kind God let this happen? (S)He wouldn't! Therefore, there is no God. QED.'

5 points to anyone who gets the reference, btw.

AtmaWeapon wrote:Ahh but that is where we have the stalemate.

Your wealth of evidence that a magic wizard named Jesus doesn't control the universe is exactly equal to my astounding proof that He does.

The scale is always balanced; Evidence for: 0, evidence against: 0.

The scale is not balanced in the least. Your god is the god of gaps in our knowledge. For every new discovery scientists make that is shown to contradict religion, there's always another 'blank' that you people rush to put him in. It's tiresome and ultimately unavoidable, since like I said, the fundimentalist is never wrong in his or her mind, so if one thing stops validating their beleifs, they'll simply switch to something else.

There's also the nagging issue that I don't need evidence to have faith in something. If scientists waited until they had conclusive evidence before testing their hypotheses, I don't believe there would be very much scientific progress. Surely they do their best to make educated guesses so as to not waste time or create dangerous situations, but if one can verify the result of an experiment without performing the experiment, what is the point of the experiment? Your point is silly.

This is a very ignorant (or perhaps dishonest) comparison between scientific and religious 'methods'. The scientific method is thus:

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.

Reread the fourth step very carefully. Experimental tests of predictions by several independent experimentors and properly performed experiments. This is a forigen concept to fundimentalists, and in Christianity the fourth step in particular is covered by Matthew 4:7 and a number of other passages that explicitly discourages such experiments. Don't pretend like the methods used by scientists and fundimentalists are anything alike.

Alex, do you really believe that a portion of the Gospel that illustrates Jesus' temptation by Satan:

5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" 'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'[b]"

7Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'[c]"

Your point was "Christians are discouraged from testing scientific hypotheses". Your verse supports the point "Christians are discouraged from testing God's existence by attempting to force God's hand into performing miracles." While there is a slight similarity, I'm fairly certain that enough people have attempted to independently verify "Will God save me if I jump off of a building?" to support an answer of "no". The situation at hand was actually "Will God save Jesus if He jumps off of a building?" but Jesus properly identified this experiment as stupid.

It would have been cooler to use a list tag for this list but it's clear that effort is too much for you, you'd prefer to copy/paste ideas you see other people put forth both into your posts and into your mind. I support this notion with the fact that this is not the first time you've said "the Bible says this" by citing a single verse that, when taken in context, refers to something else entirely.

Upon further reflection, I do agree I was incorrect by attempting to link religious faith and scientific faith; there is a fundamental difference. Religious faith is not meant to be tested, and is structured in a way that suggests testing faith will always disprove it much like how observation can alter a measurement. Scientific faith must be tested and only exists temporarily; science seeks to prove anything that is taken on faith. However, I feel there's a clear distinction between a hypothesis such as "If there is a God, He'll prove himself by saving me from this calamity" and "If we can cause a large amount of matter to be created from this reaction, we have new support for the Big Bang theory". The former makes the assumption that one completely understands the intentions and motivations of an omnipotent being that has explicitly stated that it will not stand for being tested; I'd like to say this is fallacy but I'd rather settle for just calling it silly. The latter makes no such assumption; the origin of the universe cares little about whether its secrets are discovered.

So yes, I am instructed to avoid attempting to scientifically verify God's existence by attempting to force Him to perform a miracle. I feel this places no restrictions on attempting to determine whether man was created from dust or progressively evolved from some base species; study of how God created the Earth is not forbidden and I believe it was done through scientific processes that we will one day learn to control (if we don't manage to destroy ourselves beforehand).

It is true that for many people God exists only in the places where our knowledge is lacking; these people earnestly seek to hinder scientific development in the name of protecting their beliefs and I stand in unison with you in contempt for them. I don't like the use of the term "fundamentalist" but I would like to separate myself from them so I'll use that term.

However, there are many like me who find God in the things we have learned as well; everything I see about cellular respiration, evolutionary development of species, the development of oil deposits we need for fuel from the fossils of giant lizards (possibly closer to birds!) that happen to please and awe our young; when I consider that God created all of these things it glorifies Him as an engineer on a level that is unsurpassed by any. The fact that we have trouble understanding <scientific concept> doesn't suggest to me that God doesn't want us to understand it but that He wants us to appreciate its complexity once we do understand it. The reason I revisit these threads is because it seems that some of you seem to suggest that no religious individual supports scientific progress, and I believe this is false.

I'd like to point out that the fact that answering questions tends to spawn new questions by mentioning it is not entirely the fault of fundamentalists. Science loves structured hierarchies*. Our body is made of organs, organs are made of tissue, tissue is made of cells, cells are made of smaller structures, these structures are made of molecules, molecules are made of atoms, atoms are made of particles, particles are made of quarks... Each discovery led us to pat ourselves on the backs and then ask, "Is there more?". When we discovered the atom, we weren't satisfied, we wanted to know why atoms worked, so we worked out protons, neutrons, and electrons. That wasn't enough, we wanted to know why they worked, so we came up with quarks. Once we fully understand those, I am certain science will study why they work. I don't think this is motivated by religion but by the complexity of the universe.

Alex's intelligent errors this post:
[list=1][*]Spelled "fundamentalist" wrong.[*]Spelled "beliefs" wrong.[*]Placed "methods" in quotes to signify they are something less than true methods, but accidentally used a sentence structure that makes this functionally equivalent to:
scientific 'methods' and religious 'methods'
thus weakening his own point.[*]"H" is not a vowel, therefore not preceded by the article "an" unless it is silent. "An honest mistake" is correct, but not "an hypothesis".[*]Spelled "experimenters" wrong.[*]Spelled "foreign" wrong.[*]Spelled "fundamentalists" wrong again.[/list] Seriously what gives you the right to call me ignorant when the only parts of your posts that don't commit sins against the Ghost of the English Language are the parts that quote me?

-----------------------------------------------------------
*I find this odd since the universe is supposed to move towards entropy, but it seems that somehow structure likes to assert itself as well.

Certainly there are some powerful forces at work in the universe. But nothing about these forces even remotely suggests that they are the result of a sentient, omnipotent being, much less a sentient, omnipotent being that cares for us and shows concern for our morality.

It seems far more likely to me that God is the result of our human tendency to anthropomorphisize things we don't understand.

That is a valid and sound point and one with which I will not argue; to those who believe the only real difference about the perception is that where you say there is nothing to suggest the being, they believe that the powerful unknown forces are the justification.

It's really a matter of context; if you believe it makes sense then it does, if you don't believe it then it doesn't, and it's hard to convince anyone that the one they don't believe is right.

AtmaWeapon wrote:It's really a matter of context; if you believe it makes sense then it does, if you don't believe it then it doesn't, and it's hard to convince anyone that the one they don't believe is right.

This defense of religious people can also be made in defense of mental patients, which I think says more about one group than it does the other.

AtmaWeapon wrote:That is a valid and sound point and one with which I will not argue; to those who believe the only real difference about the perception is that where you say there is nothing to suggest the being, they believe that the powerful unknown forces are the justification.

The same argument Atma is using was used thousands of years ago when people said that the fact that it rained during some months and not others was proof that god controlled the rain. It's just now we've evolved from wondering about the rain, to wondering about the big bang, sub atomic particles, and energy. It's still the same, tribal argument but with bigger words to make creationists feel smarter.

Beldaran wrote:This defense of religious people can also be made in defense of mental patients, which I think says more about one group than it does the other.

rock_nog wrote:The fact that you use the word "justification" is exactly what bothers me. You come up with a theory and then look for evidence to support that theory. What about those forces suggests sentience? Or concern for our lives? The fact of the matter is, you can't answer that question without referring to the Bible.

Beldaran wrote:The same argument Atma is using was used thousands of years ago when people said that the fact that it rained during some months and not others was proof that god controlled the rain. It's just now we've evolved from wondering about the rain, to wondering about the big bang, sub atomic particles, and energy. It's still the same, tribal argument but with bigger words to make creationists feel smarter.

Seriously if you are not even going to bother to hide the fact that all you are going to do is troll me then I'm going to quit biting.

The point I've made several times and all of you ignore is that it is impossible to debate on matters of faith. I believe what I believe, and I have challenged any of you to point out how it interferes with scientific thought. Unrelated and irrelevant challenges that have been made are:

• Ancient man was ignorant of modern science
• Fanaticism has caused irrational behavior
• This or that group is stupid
• I have disappointed a guy that's spent so long on 4chan and chat rooms that he can't properly spell any word longer than 5 letters
• The scientific method

The short point is if you wish to claim my scientific integrity is corrupted by my choice of beliefs, perhaps you would do well to support that conclusion with statements I've made that indicate a willing avoidance of scientific research due to some religious obligation. That'd be a much better attack than implying that something some people did around a campfire eight thousand years ago has anything to do with that point.

For the record, I DID read your entire post - it just seemed to me that your use of the word justification indicated you had missed my previous point. The forces I am referring to are the forces like electromagnetism, gravity, etc., as well as the forces which brought this universe into being.

The thing is, it just seems we're talking across purposes. I dunno, maybe I'm not doing a good job explaining myself. I'm just... I think there's a major flaw in your logic, in that you start out believing that God exists, and then look for evidence to support that thing which you already believe. I just don't understand how anyone can claim religion and atheism are equally plausible when it's so hard to imagine anyone in this day and age coming up with the idea of God without having been previously told about God.

If you could somehow show me that people could come up with the notion of a sentient Creator without either having been told about it or having read it in the Bible, then you could make the argument that religion and atheism are on equal footing. As it is, I favor atheism, and it's not a matter of faith, it's because I can't come up with any other theory about the universe without going back to ancient mythology. Which reminds me, I don't think faith today means the same thing as faith did back when the Bible was written, but that's a topic for another thread.

I'll start out by flatly disagreeing with you about the nature of my responses and reassert that everything I have said is pertinent to something you said and that you have done little except to continue to accuse me of being "mean", which I don't accept as a valid argument on any issue.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
The point I've made several times and all of you ignore is that it is impossible to debate on matters of faith. I believe what I believe, and I have challenged any of you to point out how it interferes with scientific thought.

This is very easy to address.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
The point I've made ... is that it is impossible to debate on matters of faith.

First of all, we are not disagreeing on matters of faith. We are disagreeing on matters of philosophy, which is open to debate. My philosophy is that using reason and evidence is superior to believing in magic. Your position is that believing in magic does not contradict scientific thought.

The reason it is impossible to debate between matters of faith, ie christianity is better than islam, is because faith is irrational and intellectually illegitimate. There is no rational way to support christianity over islam because neither belief is based on reason. The only way to argue about faith is with swords and AK-47's.

AtmaWeapon wrote: I believe what I believe, and I have challenged any of you to point out how it interferes with scientific thought.

Science requires skepticism, experimentation, observation, and reason. Faith insults and undermines these activities. Faith is the willingness to betray your mind and hand it over to the whims of your emotions. People who have accepted faith of any kind in anything have opened the floodgates for an invasion of mysticism, charlatanism, occultism, and political manipulation.

By itself, this is bad enough. But what is worse, people of faith feel compelled to spread this corruption. They are rarely happy unless they are trying to suck others into their world of depravity. It is this effect that causes faith to be so truly evil. Faith helps to foster a society controlled by zealots and mystics.

Asking how faith interferes with scientific thought is like asking how being racist interferes with being tolerant.

AtmaWeapon wrote:
*edit* Also I think psychics have had several thousand years to verify their powers but it seems no one has managed it yet. They blame it on the mysteries of their art but it's really weird how whatever fuels psychic activity gets a lot less cloudy when a credit card number has been exchanged.

EDIT: Oh, and sorry for my enthusiasm for the topic, as demonstrated by my constant postings. It's just, I've been "unaffiliated" in terms of religion of a number of years, and just very recently, suddenly I was reading a religious debate on digg, and all of the sudden it all clicked for me.

Good point. Also, the original christians were convinced that Jesus was coming back in a few months or years. I bet they'd be pretty pissed off to discover that not only has jesus not come back, but after the roman empire tortured them to death, it adopted their crazy ideas as its official religion and touched off 1500 years of brutality and persecution in the name of jesus. yay for not thinking skeptically about things!

As another point of debate, do you think that the notion you have of Chrisitians as evil people who try to kill others come from the Roman part or the truly Christian part? Maybe it's the Roman history. Anyway, I'm going away from this debate again, but I wanted to bring in something relevant and interesting.