Defund Planned Parenthood

Quote: FrGamble

This is your first problem, God did not create the Bible as if it descended from Heaven in its completed form. It is a collection of books and documents, from many people writing many genres and spanning centuries.

Who has the authority to declare the collection of books of Bible finished, and where is that authority given?

The verses of the bible don't prove anything. The first hand accounts of things in the bible are useless - you already pick and choose which ones are "proof" and which ones are merely stories, and the difference is the ones that are stories are the ones that were previously thought to be factual but have subsequently been shown to be not so.

I'm also not arguing the relationship you think god wants you to have with him, I'm arguing his unwillingness to clearly communicate with us.

The lack of communication is evidence that supports several conclusions: he doesn't exist, he doesn't care.

If noah, adam, eve, et al didn't get his message right, that is more evidence that he is a poor communicator or does not wish to communicate with us clearly.

A big brother or a friend in a relationship is not a reason or explanation of why he wouldn't want to communicate clearly with us. Real people in those roles in our real society certainly don't follow that model. Imagine what it would be like if we took that model of behavior from the bible!

Quote: rxwine

Who has the authority to declare the collection of books of Bible finished, and where is that authority given?

It's that whole hand-wavy prayer for divine guidance during human deliberations, followed by blind faith that they actually received some and got things right.

Quote: FrGamble

Besides nature who is forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term?

So If I forcibly keep you locked up somewhere and don't provide you with food or water, who but nature is forcing you to starve, right?

Are you really so naïve, that you think laws forbidding or limiting access to abortion do NOT force a pregnant woman to carry the pregnancy to term?

Quote:

But surely you would agree with me that it would be immoral for me to kill the young kittens in the womb or squash the eggs of my bird because they were inconvenient to me.

I would expect someone who claims to be familiar with ethics to understand what an ethical obligation to a pet is, especially after I defined it clearly.

Quote: rxwine

Who has the authority to declare the collection of books of Bible finished, and where is that authority given?

The infamous "Church Fathers" made such decisions early in the first or second century CE.

Since then it has all, of course, remained unchanged, except for any changes made as the monolithic Christian religion splintered into ever more variants.

Quote: Dalex64

The lack of communication is evidence that supports several conclusions: he doesn't exist, he doesn't care.

If noah, adam, eve, et al didn't get his message right, that is more evidence that he is a poor communicator or does not wish to communicate with us clearly.

I wonder if all the other omnipotent and omniscient beings have the same problem? :)

It is not too surprising to me that these atheistic arguments come up again on this thread. Like the abortion arguments they are based only on emotion and our opinions of what is inconvenient or what can be trusted or not. These arguments are also often fueled by our personal experiences as well and our demands that things happen and are done the way we see fit. Anything that doesn't sit well with us, is inconvenient, or we don't understand or don't like is to be eliminated or can't be true.

You seem to have a rather fixed and inflexible position on what you think an atheist is and what motivates them.

Quote: Dalex64

The lack of communication is evidence that supports several conclusions: he doesn't exist, he doesn't care.
!

This has long been a problem for the Church.
There are examples of true believers, who became
saints even, that god never speaks to them, never
shows his face, and they grieve about it daily.

There's a good reason for that, but they weren't
masters of the obvious in those days.

Quote: FrGamble

Anything that doesn't sit well with us, is inconvenient, or we don't understand or don't like is to be eliminated or can't be true.

The live/ dead cats in two boxes is about as crazy as it gets. You think the Church has done the work required to convince any reasonable person of a rising god/man?

Here I am referring.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2016/may/27/schroedingers-cat-lives-and-dies-in-two-boxes-at-once