19015 responses tohttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.jesusallaboutlife.com%2F2009%2F09%2F08%2Fwere-here-because-were-here%2FWe%27re+Here+Because+We%27re+Here2009-09-08+04%3A28%3A04blackhttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.jesusallaboutlife.com%2F%3Fp%3D190 to “We’re Here Because We’re Here”

1. 

   Greg the Explorer September 10th, 2009 at 15:04

   Hi Black – i am a Christian but I totally understand the things you are writing about. As a Christian I am totally embarrassed by the inane advertisments that are going to be all around the place pretty soon. I question the sanity of getting an atheist to do the ads but I question the value in doing the ads at all!

   Anyway I think intelligent sites that engage respectfully in dialogue are of great value and so you have every right to be here just as the other JAAL site does.

   I’m afraid most of your arguments are similar to those of Richard Dawkins and so are interesting but don’t hold a great deal of water. It is very easy to knock down superstitious Christianity because it is stupid – but genuine faith is not so easy to deride

2. 

   black September 10th, 2009 at 15:16

   Thanks, Greg. I respect your right to your own faith. Had one myself once…

   As a matter of fact I am working on a post to be titled “R-e-s-p-e-c-t”.

   I don’t think I’ve personally made any Dawkins-like statements (we are a number of writers), but I have not read any of his books. Perhaps it was one of the others.

3. 

   Gee Suss September 15th, 2009 at 02:18

   probably me, I think people that have imaginary friends are stupid in that regard, yea. That’s my opinion, no worries. Nothing wrong with that either. I think a belief in the flying purple people eater is stupid too, regardless of the fact you might be a brain surgeon (and in that case, I would be REALLY worried!).

   Dawkins is just a good writer that is respected in the field of evolutionary biology (you know, evolution, that fact that the theory of evolution is based on, and which as a core foundation of much of all biology today, you know that stuff that saves lives more than prayer.) He in his second last book managed to cleanly put down a lot of the understandings and questions that many atheists have been asking for many years .. the religious, with their concepts of deifying stuff, try to push him as some kind of ‘leader’ because they are just followers, and don’t understand much different, or exactly what atheism actually means.

   Each to their own, but when this mind virus of religion is actively pushed in schools, and has rights above and beyond secular groups doing the same thing, for sure it makes me angry. The fact I have not really met any christian that understands WHY I see that as a bad thing, is one of the many reasons I have the aforesaid opinion.

   self righteous pomps most of the time.

   *shrug* atheists are just non-believers, we vary wildly in why we are, and what we think outside the fact there is no god, jesus, allah or any other of the thousands of gods that have been claimed.

4. 

   Ian Interested September 15th, 2009 at 23:11

   Hey all,

   I am interested in thinking things through logically. Could anyone explain to me how the human body came to be? Because I can’t.
   If someone could, it would surely help me in my journey towards Atheism.

   Cheers,
   Ian

5. 

   Gee Suss September 15th, 2009 at 23:36

   Ian, have you tried reading about the fact of evolution? I’m surprised you are asking the question, it’s pretty straight forward concept.

   I suggest you look at how it works, and the immense amount of evidence science has gathered and continues to gather regarding the origins and makeup of our species.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

   could probably start you off, or use google.

   Also check out :

   http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

6. 

   black September 16th, 2009 at 00:18

   “Ian Interested”, if you’re really going after things logically, you might put the old “evolution is the opposite of god” canard to one side.

   As far as your journey toward this capital-a “Atheism” goes, I wonder what you expect to find there. A unified central creed is the first thing you will NOT find.

   Tell you what: if you are a believer, and you definitely come across as a believer, then you just go on believing. It would seem appropriate for you to do that.

   You may wind up an atheist anyway.

7. 

   Greg the Explorer September 16th, 2009 at 16:37

   Hi Black and Gee Suss (had a good chortle at that name!). Being a Christian doens;t mean that I do not belive in science, in fact a year of human bio-science at university gave me a great respect adn admiration for science and the marvel that is our body.

   I don’t agre with some Christians who teach that evolution is not compatable with Christianity…in fact the ‘evolution” I see being attacked by ID Christians is not any evolution I was taught at uni…the argument that there needs to be a missing link (half man half monkey) to prove evolution is just ridiculous.

   Gee Suss you said:

   Dawkins is just a good writer that is respected in the field of evolutionary biology (you know, evolution, that fact that the theory of evolution is based on, and which as a core foundation of much of all biology today, you know that stuff that saves lives more than prayer.)

   I agree that biology is great- but so is prayer – something doesn’t have to save lives in te medical sense for it to be a ‘life saver’ in a spiritual sense – the two are not mutually exclusive, but are in fact mutually beneficial. Your tone suggets you may think that all Christians have had their brain taken out at baptism and are no longer able to think, certainly tere are some who seem to find comfort in literal interpretations of the bible and who tink tat scinece and scientific thinking are of the devil – I am not one of those and nor are most of te Christians I know…and I know quite a few.

   I’d encourage you to read(along with your biology) some books by the likes of Brennan Manning or even John Smith (Sharpening the cutting edge – Advance Australia Where) to get a better grasp of what Christian thinking can look like.

   Cheers big ears

8. 

   Gee Suss September 16th, 2009 at 17:19

   Two hands working do more than a million clasped in prayer.

   Give me one bit of evidence that pleading to your god works.

   You can say I think ‘all christians should have their brain taken out at baptism’ but I dispute that children are born christian, they are TAUGHT it. A child has no choice over baptism, the ceremony is placed upon them before they have real choice over the matter.

   Anyway you are just making a straw man of my views on the stupidity of basing your whole life on something with no evidence whatsoever. Yea I think that is a stupid thing to do, makes no sense to me. In fact, I think it’s a dangerous precendent that has people not think or evolve moralistic views based on the intrinsic social evolutionary nature of human kind. It just palms that off to not be thought about or questioned, just accepted or interpreted to suit.

   With regard the writers, why? Why should the lifestyle of certain christians in any way justify the story or majority concepts?

   The simple fact is there are good people and evil people, it has nothing to do with ‘christian thinking’. The most secular states in the world are the least violent, and the most religious the most violent.

   Regardless, stating basically ‘there are good christians’ in no way justifies their being a god, that that god is your god .. or really anything at all.

9. 

   Ian Interested September 16th, 2009 at 22:14

   Thanks for all of your comments. Gee Suss, I have had a look at the Wiki sites you suggested and also Googled. I understand the fact of evolution and have done for some time. Also, I have studied the Physical Sciences at university level and so I have a firm belief in Science as it has been discovered so far. I think – largely for this reason – I am having a lot of trouble believing that ‘useful’ things just happen.

   What I am really interested in is finding out who or what made the rules of science. Especially as we humans are still and seemingly gradually working out these rules or laws. I do not understand how this could just have happened – and like I said before, I cannot believe that the human body could be a result of chance. I think that evolution could be a part of it, but can evolution happen without being designed?
   Obviously creation cannot.

   Ian Interested

10. 

    black September 16th, 2009 at 22:49

    Well then, Ian: you seem like a bright enough lad!

    I think you’ve made your mind up already, and it appears a little disingenuous to be seeking answers here when academic AND religious sites can offer you much more than a site set up to discuss the devious way the JAAL campaign is targetted and run.

    Mr Suss has your email, as do I. Your time on the comments is up.

11. 

    Gee Suss September 17th, 2009 at 01:15

    Ian, if you know all about evolution, you will know that there are very simple explanations that totally make sense, about how the complex beings we are work, right from the molecular level. This is all VERY well understood.

    Either you don’t know about evolution, proteins, DNA, RNA, the basis of cellular structure, how cells ‘fold’ setting off the chain of life thru simple processes VERY well understood (and BTW you would also therefore know that we including animals all have common ancestry etc etc) or you are trying to put forward these concepts as CHANCE, which they are NOT, for the benefit of other readers. Effectively ‘lying for jesus’.

    Of course evolution can happen without being designed, in fact there are multiple theories as to what you are referring too, abiogenesis, any one of them show how life could have formed, we may not know how it DID form, but we know how it could have.

    The leap you are making is a leap to a conclusion based on no evidence whatsoever, and that’s why it is called FAITH. It’s this suspension of weighing evidence and seeing there is none, that is one of the primary dangers of religion. A ‘dumbing down’ if you will.

    As stated, there is no credible evidence or reasoned logic to the concept of a ‘designer’, and TYPICAL christians are all to ready to try and point to those things science doesn’t know YET ,rather than picking the log out of their own eye, and the total lack of any evidence whatsoever for their claims.

    We can talk science all we want Ian, but your leap to believing in a fairy has no logic or evidence behind it, so excuse me if I find it laughable when folk such as yourself state they did science, then talk about the human body being a result of chance.

    If you knew anything about evolution, you would not be claiming it as chance. Go read some more, bet you went to a christian school.

12. 

    Gee Suss September 21st, 2009 at 11:32

    For the casual reader, you may be interested in the process of gastrulation. Have a search for it, there’s plenty of information. The process is the same for all animals (humans included)

    This occurs when the initial ring of cells ‘fold’ starting the process of the building of a complex form from the cellular level. The fold causes the start of the formation of the central nervous system, or nuerulation.

    Interestingly, this process, which christians claim as being ‘too complex to not be designed’ is easily simulated on a computer, using local actions specific to each cell, there’s no need for a ‘design’, it’s simply the result of the contraction of the wall of one cell, that sets off the whole process.

    Anyway, my point is all this stuff is VERY well understood, is common across all species (as we are all from common ancestors). It’s not design, it’s simple base reactions that are very well understood, not some wooo-wooo ‘must have been done by a designer’

    fooey.

13. 

    veritas September 25th, 2009 at 04:33

    Hello Black..

    ..cute blog. i was expecting some meat but nevertheless not bad.

    http://www.jesusallaboutlife.com/testimonials/

    In regards to the above. As a Christian, I’m cynical. Life is a lot more complicated than that. I understand it’s a hurting world, I ain’t going to add injury to that because I’ve seen some horrific things that don’t gimme peace you know. Don’t kid yourself into thinking Yahweh is going to babysit you while the world topples you up and down. Because He won’t.

    When supposedly the whole world is against you, when you’re being spat at, loved ones dying etc. etc. then perhaps in that moment of losing all hope, in that distressful time etc., quite frankly to be honest you sound like you come from a sheltered, plenty of food kind of life. Maybe you should spend a day in Sudan for awhile.

    But there will be a moment, that I can assure you by virtue of me directed onto your site. It isn’t so much me coming to condemn you, I’ve come to help you, you gotta be careful sometimes playing with negative karma especially in the spirit realm. Even as an atheist, surely you must be familiar with for example the ‘evil eye.’

    Anyway in that moment there might be a sign. A sign you yourself need to realise as coinciding with your awakening. For the meantime jargon all you like about evolution, creationism blablable.. yeah I studied phil, politics, psych at uni yadidada kappa kappa, fun fun too, you sound kinda cute, are you all cute?

    Peace,

    veritas

14. 

    black September 25th, 2009 at 12:14

    Hi Amos.

    You’d be wrong about the sheltered bit: do you worship at Our Lady Of Farfetched Assumptions?

    The “Evil eye”? So, if your superstition isn’t good enough, I should perhaps use another?

    You don’t seem cute to me, despite your obvious efforts to appear like somebody who seems to follow a complex syncretism of judaism and christianity.

    If you think it was god directed you to this site, then everybody and his dog are on puppet strings. If it was somebody else, out with it, or condemn yourself for playing with partial truth. I suspect you’re well-acquainted with telling a few porkies by omission.

15. 

    Gee Suss September 25th, 2009 at 12:41

    Veritas, for someone that studied the things you say you did, I have no idea what you are saying, nor where to start with replying, as it is so disjointed.