To: RetiredNow who wrote (779059 ) 4/8/2014 5:35:42 PM From: J_F_Shepard Read Replies (3) | Respond to What I tell my atheist friends is this. If you are really a scientist and intelligent thinker, then the most you can say is that you don't know if God really exists, because you have no repeatable evidence. So being atheist makes no sense. Being agnostic might make sense instead. On forums like this which are heavily populated by the very religious and extremely religious, I stopped, a number of years ago, objecting to them calling me an atheist....for compared to them I am atheistic.... But in the more profound scheme of things I am truly agnostic since I don't know the origins of the universe or universe's....What the Bible is is a collection of parables and teachings by wise men doing their best to interpret the Word of God millennia ago. Many of its teachings are very applicable today. For example, the 10 Commandments are excellent rules to live by. Jesus' teachings are also excellent to live by. It's what makes this world a better place. But why do we have to go to extremes, such as Bible literalism? I recall that the Bible also teaches us to be "temperate in all things", which nowadays many interpret to mean "moderation in all things". Good lesson to also live by. The bible in my view is an attempt at putting together a history of creation based strictly on imagination and therefore generally untrue... I think the the so called "teachings" of the bible are all based on common sense you acquire from your parents or your own experience. The 10 Commandments are obvious, I think, to anyone...and humans generally are born with good morals reinforced by your parents and peers... There is nothing mysterious or religious about it... Jesus, I think, may have been a real man but was reinvented as a god to make it easier for people to worship something real rather than an idol or a spirit...
