Original Sin?

There are indeed many answers proposed, but they can't all be wrong, nor can they all be right. Sometimes they are a confusing mix of both. I believe that the answers Christianity proposes are true for a variety of reasons. I look at the weight of evidence, the significance of what is said, how it all holds together and helps me and so many others. You seem to believe in a strange combination of atheism and reincarnation for your answers. I think you are wrong because of a lack of evidence and that it doesn't help people. Strangely, I think those are the same reasons you think I am off my rocker. If you ever wanted to really openly and honestly discuss these things with an open mind I bet we could actually learn from each other where we are coming from and what appeals to us from the answers we believe are true, but I get the sense you don"t want to do that do you sport?

Quote: FrGamble

I believe that the answers Christianity proposes are true

Because that's what you were told and
you bought it. Now you take any piece
of so called 'evidence' you can find and
shoehorn it into the Church's theory and
present it as the truth. Fools a lot of people
who were waiting to be fooled anyway, so
you've really accomplished nothing.

Are you saying I am a blind fool just following what I was taught and grasping at straws to justify it? I'm afraid you don't know me.

Putting aside your stupid insults please ask yourself the same questions you are asking me. What 'evidence' are you shoehorning into what someone told you and you bought into?

Quote: FrGamble

Are you saying I am a blind fool just following what I was taught and grasping at straws to justify it? I'm afraid you don't know me.

Putting aside your stupid insults please ask yourself the same questions you are asking me. What 'evidence' are you shoehorning into what someone told you and you bought into?

He's referring to confirmation bias, which you pretty much have to engage in to be a believer.

I've trained myself to be as objective as possible in evaluating what is real and what isn't. God doesn't pass the test of being real according to my standards. You have lower standards in that regard, because you are motivated to believe. Therefore, you will enthusiastically embrace anything that appears to confirm your belief system and angrily reject anything that disconfirms it.

You're not unique or even unusual in that regard. I had to train myself away from my own confirmation bias. I realized that I was a believer primarily because I wished my beliefs were true--so I chucked logic out the window.

Like you, and billions of other believers, I simply felt that a world with gods and angels and heaven and justice and compassion and fairness was preferable to the world I actually saw. But after a while, I could no longer successfully fool myself.

Quote: FrGamble

Are you saying I am a blind fool just following what I was taught and grasping at straws to justify it?

Most religious people follow what their
organized religion taught them and try and find
ways to justify their beliefs. What I have
problems with is when the religions beliefs
are referred to as facts. I.e., just about every
Xtion belief, all quadjillion of them, are
usually presented as undeniable facts. Which
they are not.

Is it anything like the so called fact you keep spouting that there is no God?

Quote: FrGamble

Is it anything like the so called fact you keep spouting that there is no God?

I have something to base it on, the total
lack and absence of any evidence that a
god exists.

It can be safely assumed that if a certain event had occurred, evidence of it could be discovered by qualified investigators. In such circumstances it is perfectly reasonable to take the absence of proof of its occurrence as positive proof of its non-occurrence.
— Copi, Introduction to Logic (1953), p. 95

It is perfectly reasonable to say there
is no god.

Are you looking for some type of physical evidence of God besides the fact that the universe exists?

Quote: FrGamble

Are you looking for some type of physical evidence of God besides the fact that the universe exists?

Any evidence at all would be nice. The
universe existing has nothing to do with
a god.

Really the universe existing has nothing to do with a cause, please explain?