Comments by "MikeAG333" (@MikeAG333) on "Let's Talk Religion" channel.

Firstly, you've no evidence for his beauty, nor for the existence of a soul in anyone at all. Secondly........this is the guy whose devotional book allows the keeping of slaves, condones mass murder, and condones gang rape. Are you really sure you've thought that through?
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@davidsonofyisrael4469 Sheesh, there are hundreds. I'll give you a sample. Let's start with ten commandments, which require slaves to honour the sabbath. Leviticus 17-26 allows participation in the slave trade. Matthew 18: 21-35 Ephesians 6:5-8 Paul tells slaves to remain obediant. Matthew 20: 20-28 1Peter 2:18 Peter tells slaves to revere their masters. There are literally hundreds more of those. Gang rape: Deuteronomy 10-14 Judges 21: 10-24 Numbers 31:7-18 Those all include mass murder, too, and Deuteronomy includes the taking of slaves. Deuteronomy 22:28-29....you can rape someone, but you have to pay her father and then marry her, if you're caught. Judges 5:30. If that's not enough for you, I pity you.
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@davidsonofyisrael4469 Did you bother looking up those chapter-and-verses I gave you?
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@davidsonofyisrael4469 So, how did you get on with those quotes? There are hundreds more where they came from.
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You clearly don't understand the concept of "onus" (burden of proof). Those sceptical of the existence of the biblical Jesus don't have to prove anything. They're not making any claim. The people who bear the burden of proof, the onus, are those claiming the existence of someone based on the evidence of just one book which was not contemporaneous with the claimed life.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen Good try! Firstly, I've told you before that I don't do belief. Secondly, I'm not sure I said christianity condones slavery. It's the bible which condones slavery. Try Leviticus 17-26. The ten commandments requires slaves to honour the sabbath. Matthew 26.51, 18.21-35, Paul's letter to the Ephesians.....it's endless. There are literally hundreds of references to slavery through both testaments, and none of them sya it is wrong/ immoral/ illegal/ against god's will/ law. That's all without counting sexual slavery, gang rape etc.
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Could you make that claim without using the word "belief"? The more thoughtful amongst us try to avoid belief, which is the acceptance of something without supporting evidence or facts. Could you have an intelligent conversation with someone who didn't have any beliefs, or would you fall into the trap that every theist seems to, of assuming those who don't agree with you have alternative beliefs of their own?
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen No, it's me who reads this text for what it is. You are choosing to overlook or forgive the fact that the bible repeatedly condones slavery. You are seeing what you want to see, rather than what is actually there. And yes, if the book had been available to everyone in their language, and the populace had been literate (and not subject to enormous peer pressure and the power of the organised church), then not only would the world not have been christian, it would have been a better place for it.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen You can define it however you want, but you still end up with accepting something without supporting evidence. That is not a matter of your personality, and unsubtle accusations of arrogance don't change definitions.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen Sorry, you want me to accept the definition of a set of people who distort the meaning of a word to suit their own ends? Really? No thanks. I'll stick with the dictionary definition. Which is the "traditional definition", no matter what you say. We're not all that far apart. It's just that you can't see it. "Trust in someone or something" is saying much the same as "accepting something without supporting evidence". At the moment you don't see that trusting people's word ISN'T evidence.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen And yet that is precisly what I am saying. You won't admit it, but it is self-evident. Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross and was then resurrected? Do you believe in the existence of heaven? How about hell? Do you believe that all humans are born sinners? If you answer yes to any of those, how about providing me with some evidence. Testable, falsifiable, repeatable evidence. Evidence that can lead on to the conclusion you have reached. When you can't provide such evidence, perhaps you'll re-assess that you are accepting something as fact without supporting evidence.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen You can keep on saying it, but that amounts to an unsubstantiated claim. Could you provide me with evidence which could lead only to the conclusion that hell exists, for instance? "If X then Hell". Or perhaps you could just stop playing word games and accept that the basis of religious faith is the acceptance of stuff without proper evidence.
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@frankrossiter I wish you'd reply directly to the chap elsewhere in this thread who denies flatly that belief/ fatith requires the acceptance of something without supporting evidence. For you to admit that faith/ belief amounts only to hope is a major breakthrough. Oh, and the heart is an organ for pumping blood. Nothing more. If god knows my heart s/he knows that it beats about 60 times a minute, and produces pressure of around130 over 85. That's it.
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@FiatVoluntasTuaAmen No, that's not the way evidence works. Evidence is evidence, no matter your view. Evidence stands up to scrutiny, is falsifiable and testable......and not subject to anyone's whims. In the case of Augustus, there are endless contemporaneous Roman texts (they were great at keeping records, but interestingly, never recorded a census in Palestine in the 1st century, nor any crucifixions in the appropriate year). There are also Augustinian coins, and lots of inscriptions literally carved in stone all over the empire. It'd be good if you people could produce 1% of that level of evidence for Jesus of Nazareth, rather than scraps written by people who never met him 50 to 300 years after his death.
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@frankrossiter I have no interest in falling out with you, and I don't think we have anything much to gain from this conversation (especially as the Youtube format makes it very difficult to go back and find the trail of posts leading to the current one). However, as I leave you I want you to clearly understand that I have NEVER suggested that faith or hope means "dumb". That's neither implied nor stated in anything I've written. I have made the opposite journey from you....from a strictly religious upbringing to a position of total atheism via a long period of questioning the inconsistencies and sheer nonsense of what I was being told. I have never seen any evidence to suggest that the path you have chosen is correct, but I would never denigrate anyone who has chosen it (or, indeed, had it foisted upon them through childhood indoctrination).
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@frankrossiter Careful with the "negative religious experience" idea. That may well be right in many circumstances, but it is also completely misleading in others. One only needs to understand science and realise that gods and religions aren't necessary for explaining how the world and the universe are, and that's plenty enough. Religion shoots itself in the foot every day of the week with nonsense from extremists denying straightforward science, and making spurious claims about the age of the planet etc.....but that's only a small part of the story. If religion isn't part of the explanation for why the world is like it is, why do we need religion at all?
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@frankrossiter No, no, I insist. Do go ahead. :)
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@frankrossiter I don't believe in anything at all. Cheerio.
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@amossanjeev3524 Don't worry. The world will be a better place when it doesn't divide itself up into different belief communities. Just imagine that no-one in India thought of themselves as Hindu. Or Muslem. Or christian. Religions divide people rather than uniting them.
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