Villain

At some point in time we had no choice (conception perhaps), from then on ultimately I don't know. In the simplest definition of choice, meaning more than one option (perhaps only the illusion of choice), an adult can choose. If we had a beginning, it wasn't a choice, life is a gift or perhaps curse, whether from a deity or merely weird and wonderful chance circumstances, we didn't choose to come into being. I choose to believe that I was created and that my creator is called God, who came in human form by the name of Jesus. It is a choice based in humility and the ideologies that are relayed in the Gospels. Whether or not that is a choice is probably dependent on your definition of choice.

Of course, but as humans we don't achieve anything without the risk of failure. The above concern is exactly why I mentioned ego, as that is probably the single biggest obstacle/protection device from being fooled (depending on which side of the fence one sits) with the choice of religion.

I can get my head around Saviour as one would only have to think of themselves as flawed (not very hard to find reason for such) in order to need a saviour from oneself, Lord could mean a ruler or leader of some sort. I don't think man has a capacity to conceptualise God though. So if you can get past your ego and admit that you are an imperfect being and need an external source to redeem you from your imperfections, then believing Jesus Christ is such is completely a choice. There is always the chance that Jesus could be the wrong choice but as a flawed/imperfect being there is no guarantee in any choice (faith).

Banking details...

Sadly such an honest statement would probably get negative rep in the religious section.

You seem to have mistakenly thought that this topic was about something other than American politics. Just read it again with that in mind and it will start making sense.

I would say no. Take a simple equation of 1+1, 1 is the ideal in the Plato sense, the perfect example of 1. In the world that we exist in however there is no such thing as a perfect 1, only something that resembles 1 in certain ways, futhermore this object resembling 1 is never the same as that object resembling 1 but yet we impose that this (object) 1 + that (object) 1 = 2 (ideals of 1). In mathematics 1+1=2, but it has no real value in our reality since two 1's don't exist.

Your question is an example of philosophy. The concept of science is a product of philosophy.

I think it depends on the definition of belief/believe and I'm not looking for a dictionary quote, but what a person actually means when they say 'I believe....'. Belief is also given context by what follows it. My concept of a house might be four walls and a roof, while someone else's might be a circular building (one continuous wall) and a roof. We could both say that we believe in houses but ultimately mean different things.

Is there an adult version of the above?

I'd be interested in further discussion in a different thread if you're not over consumed by the one that you linked?

The link is of no relevance to the figures that were stated. The figures are referenced from here: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3429402.html They provide an easier to read tables here: http://www.guttmacher.org/tables/3429402t.html#t2 The relevant figures to the pill and male condom can be seen on table 6: 45.1% of pills user's: forgot to take pills (there is no further explanation of what 'forgot to take pills' means but there is a plural to the category which suggest that it is not a one time incident). 41.6% of condom user's: Condom broke/slipped (this does not provide reasons for breaking or slipping and therefore doesn't imply user or manufacture negligence). From your last question I assume that you are under the impression that the people of whom the statistics speak were unaware that having sex could lead to pregnancy. Is that correct?

I'm not going to argue about what is meant by inconsistent use of the pill, I don't think your example is very accurate though. As for the condom breaking, I see no reason for it to be considered as misuse. I would consider the act of driving a car 'low risk' as well but that doesn't mean that I don't put my safety belt on. 'Low risk' means that there is still risk involved and that risk happens to be a potential human being.

Whatever your opinion on abortion is, these statistics are quite shocking. There doesn't seem to be much 'bad-luck' in abortions (indicated by only 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users reported correct use), the statistics clearly show that abortion is primarily used as a primary form of birth control, most don't seem bothered in trying to have consistent 'safe sex'.

My answer to your first question is: no. The second question is answered in previous statements.

We can only judge from our own limited perspective. None of us have access to ultimate reality and therefore no one can judge another's view from an ultimate reality as this is right and that is wrong. Only a possible creator who had ultimate knowledge of everything could make a conclusive judgement. We might classify people in three ways: - Ignorant of knowledge - Knowledge of knowledge, ignorant of ignorance - Knowledge of knowledge, knowledge of ignorance. The last being translated into something along the lines of: the more we know the more we realise how little we know. Hence why in Plato's writings we see Socrates pleading his ignorance and how lesser men plead their knowledge to him even though it is shown that Socrates has a far superior knowledge and intellect. I could just as easily describe your reaction to the OT as childish: I don't like being told what I can and can't do, so I'm going to rebel and throw a tantrum.

Although I used the words 'I can't believe', my argument read in it's entirety is not an argument from incredulity. If you must classify my argument, appeal to reason, is a more appropriate definition. The Bible says that we cannot judge and that is the ultimate truth because no human has access to ultimate reality. This is not a mystic statement just a logical truth.

It is far more logical to think that someone has enough personal evidence to base their belief on and therefore be willing to perform such a task than to say that they are 'wishful thinking'. You are suggesting that they would change their entire behaviour pattern in order to perhaps achieve eternal life and what's more throw away everything of value in the immediate for a pie in the sky dream based on that wishful thinking. Are we really suppose to take you seriously? After saying my personal incredulity is not a valid argument, you make your own personal argument above. Perhaps you might entertain us by suggesting a few of the 'multitude of reasons' as to why a reasonable person would consider sacrificing their child? I say reasonable because from your own words these are people who practice reason in all other aspects of their lives. Do they and what makes you think they do? What would constitute solid supplemental evidence in the case of religion? But yet no one who is sound of mind in all other aspects of their lives is willing to sacrifice their son for belief in the easter bunny, probably because there is no evidence of the easter bunny. Can you see the difference? What you are doing here is applying 'rules' from one system and transferring them as universal rules for belief. There are no rules except the ones that we decide on and suggesting that anyone can be broken makes no sense.

Let's use the Abraham example (bare with me, I realise that you might consider it a purely fiction example but I think we can conclude that there are less extreme versions of such a case today still); He is willing to kill his son, his only true son, the one promised to him to carry the Israelite nation forward, the one that was conceived through a 'miracle' due to the age of conception etc (this son must have been his most valuable 'possession'). Now if we consider all of this, I cannot believe that anyone would do such a thing if it was based purely on a coin flip as to the existence of God. What would their motivation be? Ultimately what I'm saying is unless billions are as you say 'broken' (acting without motivation, which is completely inhuman), there must be some sort of evidence for them to consider God. I don't think the 'pie in the sky' would be enough motivation for the average human to consider such a proposal.

Or.... it makes you the 'alpha male' and you end up ruling the tribe by fear.

Although I mentioned the name Kiekegaard, your above conclusion has no relevance to my comment. I was trying to convey that even faith comes with responsibility and that no one can merely take on faith without choice. People need reason to accept faith as they will ultimately be at the hands of the consequences there of. Faith exists and therefore reason for such faith seems to exist, most likely it is in the form of evidence to those that believe.

Even with faith there is a responsibility from the person accepting the proposals of that faith system. There is no such thing as blind faith because the individual is still liable for the resulting actions of their faith. Soren Kiekergaard's Fear and Trembling is a good example of what the individual has to consider when acting in faith and the consequences there of. To think that someone can blindly follow any system would completely remove them from that system. We can't know whether God exists or not, but we can examine and consider that which is presented to us from Him. I think that the only way that we can effectively evaluate religious text is by considering it without any preconceived morals and values (these are, after all, man made), and consider what the implications of the religious texts would be.

We certainly agree more on certain things but we can't offer an opinion on ultimate reality beyond human interpretation. It would be purely subjective of me to say reality is more likely to be like this or that but ultimately human reality is the one that we experience and therefore becomes reality as such. That doesn't mean that we can, without any doubt, know anything though. The concept of God has been presented to us, either by man making it up or by God through the means that He has decided to use. The choice exists and there is a possibility of a creator, it's up to the individual to make a decision. What they base that decision on is entirely up to them, as is any belief. Reason, logic and rationality are all tools used based on there success in our current environment, whether or not they would be useful in 'discovering' a creator is probably unknowable. Suggesting that people that believe in God are broken doesn't make much sense to me though, how would we know they were?

Anyone claiming to KNOW anything about anything objective is most definitely broken, at best we can only ever hold beliefs about the objective and the only KNOW we can possess is subjective eg. I know what the meaning of the word know is because I have given it that meaning. We might agree with other's beliefs in objective reality and confuse that with knowing but ultimately nothing is knowable and no one can hold a true knowledge of objective reality, only a human perspective.

Everyone knows what you are suggesting because you suggest it in every post that you make, like a stuck record. Constantly declaring that people cannot believe in religion because you don't, is not a very convincing argument btw. You are after all asking people to change the view that they already hold because they found it compelling enough to hold by saying that what they found compelling about it is not compelling to you. Then you ramble on about some or other double standard system that is being used, something along the lines of: God must perform circus tricks whenever we ask Him to otherwise He doesn't exist, Science says... and if God doesn't play by the rules of Science then He can't exist but I will say that God can exist because I don't want to sound like I'm disobeying the rules of Science because I can't prove that he doesn't exist.