re: Satanic Temple puts up display at Michigan Capital

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What evidence do you have that there is no God?

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I didn't make the claim that one existed. you did. now you prove it.

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why do I have to prove something that I didn't make the claim to? what a silly thread

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this is a good point, but ask yourself this question. Why do you exist rather than not exist?

Theist will argue that when you ask the fundamental questions about reality the only reason that these are answered the way they are is because God exists.

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this is a good point, but ask yourself this question. Why do you exist rather than not exist?

Theist will argue that when you ask the fundamental questions about reality the only reason that these are answered the way they are is because God exists.

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The only logical answer to existence is God. The materialist answer requires a belief in magic.

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Jesus was a Jew. At the time the Jewish religion was a mockery with followers having to pay priests for sacrifices and only with money that had been cleansed. Of course it costs to change your money. The priests took animals to the top of the temple and "sacrificed" them by supposedly burning them but often they'd kill the sheep and burn the guts and keep the meat for themselves.

They were sell outs to the Romans. They had in a sense sold their soul and turned in rebellious Jews in exchange for protection from Caesar.

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I agree with all of this.

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Jesus set out to reform Judaism, not to start another religion. He continued the traditions of Judaism. So did the apostles.

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Jesus wasn't setting out to "reform" anything about Judaism. He said a number of times what His mission was: He came to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10). I'm sure you've heard/read John 3:16. Even Jesus' cousin, a fellow Jew, knew what Jesus came to do (John 1:29). Jesus foretold His own death several times and the reason for it, such as in Matt. 20:28. The goal was always to be killed as a sacrifice after fulling the law of God so that He could save people from their sins. If His goal was to reform Judaism, what would dying on the cross do for that cause? In John 19:30, He said "it is finished" (like, "mission accomplished") because the mission was to save sinners and His death on the cross sealed the deal.

The rest of the epistles reiterate the same point.

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James and Peter were not at all please with Paul's bastardazation of the religion. They eventually compromised. And the destruction of Rome destroyed the true church of what Jesus left behind.

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Could you be more specific? What, exactly, did Paul teach that is contrary to what the rest of scripture?

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Jesus and the Apostles would be very surprised to see what became of what they were.

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Jesus wouldn't be surprised since He is God, but I get your point. The apostles would have been surprised to see what has become of the faith, but not because the teachings of Paul.

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Plus you can look at it logically.... For 3000 years God's chosen people were the Jews then all of a sudden he pivots and says never mind... Don't do what I asked you to do for 3000 years... Ignore all that and my followers who continue following my words. They're wrong. For the next 2000 years we're doing something new.

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But that's not what happened at all. The entire Old Testament was a foreshadowing of Jesus' mission to save the world. Jesus was the culmination of what all those laws were pointing to. Jesus came to fulfill the law because no one else could.

You act like the Old Testament and New Testament are completely unrelated and that Christianity is some sort of dramatic shift, but that's not the case at all. The entire Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are part of a single story of redemption.

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What exactly do you think believing in an all-powerful, all-knowing creator is?

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It's either a transcendent, immanent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being who exists outside of space and time from which all things move and have their being, OR the universe is a self-contained unit of random brute events that somehow magically came into existence and magically sustains itself.

Choose logic and reason (God)

OR

Magic (Atheism/materialism)

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I just find the whole "prove my imaginary friend doesn't exist!" rebuttal hilarious from posters like NC_Tigah, who is seemingly very intelligent otherwise.

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No ones asking you to do that. It's just what is a more logical explanation for existence? Did a mindless, random universe create itself out of non-existence or is there a transcendent being who IS existence responsible?

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Or it's small individuals in an infinite universe who cannot comprehend the wonders of the universe / multi-verse so they create a magician they make in their own image because those individuals need a nice, neat package to understand what they view as brutal chaos.

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I believe in God, not a magician. You're confused and you side stepped the premise. All you can do is trot out your straw man or the old stand-by canard that we poor little helpless theists just need to believe.

There isn't a god.

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Did a mindless, random universe create itself out of non-existence or is there a transcendent being who IS existence responsible?

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Who said anything about a mindless universe. I think this is where religion gets in trouble, in that it tries to deny the possibility regardless of evidence in order to make the universe fit into their religious beliefs. A long time ago it was denying that the Earth was the center of the solar system, then it became that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. Evolution is still denied by many as clearly it would throw the entire Old Testament out the window. Now the universe has to be mindless or else God created it.

Can anyone explain why God would create such a huge universe but only care about humans on Earth? What about the animals, why didn't they get souls?