Bingo.

And cuchulainn all you've done there is to prove my point that you're cherry-picking. Disregarding the nasty bits that can be taken no other way (as any respectable bible scholar would agree) and accepting the nice bits or distorting the text entirely to find some decent way of presenting it.

faith is to believe, hope is to wish for they are different things.

Why do you get up every day ? If you didnt have faith in yourself or the world around you then you wouldnt bother... we all need faith to live.... if we are faithless then we die.... where does the need of faith come from ? From the need of Love. Who and what is Love...... God is Love, you cant prove love , but it doesnt stop you needing it , thats why we have faith....

Out of interest who has read the bible, I dont mean via study sites . I mean the actual bible as a whole book from beginning to end ?

Ive read it twice , first time I was a teenager, 2nd time I was in my 20 s and Im now on my 3 rd time, Im reading the New International Version , which is different from the others as it has a lot of study notes, so its very interesting.

Dawn

I don't get up because I have faith in myself, I get up because I know I have a finite amount of time on this planet and I want to do what I can to enjoy it. That is nothing to do with what you call faith.

I haven't read it, which is why I try not to discuss specific things about it, just the general ideas of religion. The fact that there are so many religions anyway only shows how none of them are right. You can't just pick one and say it is true, they all have different teachings, different explanations of life and the universe, and all in contradiction with each other. I have no interest in reading any of them at the moment, perhaps in the future I might out of interest, but I would treat them as any other book I read - I only read fiction.

Dude, you just saved me a post. Thank you, and brilliantly said. Your first paragraph is exactly the way I live.

The only thing I want to add is that Love can be proven scientifically like any other emotion as it's a chemical reaction in the brain and be measured by an MRI machine.

In a less cold manner, love between people is simply not taken on faith. You know another person loves due to lots of different actions. The look in the eye, a touch, self sacrifice, kind words, a kiss, sex. All of these things come in through the senses and are evidence for determining how a person feels about us. I could say Kate Beckinsale loves me but I would be doing so on faith as I have no evidence to conclude she does. Believing someone is in love with for no reason is called erotomania and is a psychological illness.

People romanticise love, but there really is nothing mysterious about it at all.

Oh and I have read the bible, I read it last year. The most disgusting, absurd and ridiculous thing I have ever read. It's beyond me how anybody can actually read it and come out a theist.

never been in love have ya? nothing mysterious about it? lol who u trying to kid!

see i dont think you have read it! maybe dawkins version of it! if u had you wouldnt be making the absurd suggestions you came out with in your pervious post

Yeah whatever dude. There isn't anything mysterious about love because we understand it at a scientific level, that was the point of my post. Dawn said it can't be proven, it can, just like any other emotion. The effect it has on our psychology is huge, just like any other emotion, but mysterious it is not.

oow it can be proven but as how love works its still a mystery! what trickers it? we dont know and to be honest do we really care! im sure thers signs of it all rite!

just like add maybe thats another example of things we will nvr know! unless u are saying science will explain it!

It already has. **** sake. It's simple. Love is an emotion. We understand exactly what causes emotion, we understand how it evolved, we understand it's chemical and biological aspects and we understand it's psychological effects.

I have never in my life come across someone so unbelievably stupid. You're not just willingly ignorant and utterly delusional, you are just devoid of any common sense and even a modicum of intellect or education. I swear you must have an IQ of below 50. It's just unbelievable.

u really are an idoit

but to be honest i believe your a lot closer to accepting god exists than u think! everything you say is pointing towards you thinking that the universe is the exact thing god is! your just not willing to believe that it is god. but give u a while and ull be one of of those ex atheists on tv!