If you believe any thing of those major stories happened in history and are 100% factual. I would call that irrational on the contrary.

again, you ignore the point.
"Well of course it's BS" is not a logical argument.

If you begin from the assumption that there is no God then you can rationalise that those things didn't happen as stated.

If you begin from the assumption that there is a God then there is no problem with any of them.

If you try to begin with no assumptions then you need a lot more research than just "well, of course it's BS."

Many of the stories in Genesis may well have been exaggerated through the ages - they weren't written down until the time of Moses - even if they began as metaphor anyway. The later ones were written down much closer to the time and so are more reliable. Your problem with Jesus' resurrection is down to not believing in God, not based on pure rational thinking.
If you accept that there could be a God (not necessarily is) then you have to also accept that some resultant things are possible.

Ok, really done now.

FenixP pretty much covered it about two posts above the one I quote here. But this whole 'has to be a cause' argument just turns circular: believers say the cause must be God or something that's indistinguishable from God (as you intimated). non-believers say 'Where did God come from?' It's the argument of first cause and i don't think either side can reconcile with the other. However, my 'No' was to refute your argument that if the root cause of the creation of the universe were actually discovered, it would correspond to 'our idea of God'. I disagree, as it could be something far different than what one would call a 'god'. It may perhaps just be a mathematical inevitability, as one line of M Theory predicts.

Really a shit ton of "metaphors" from a book you're supposed to base your life around.

Waiting for someone to say that, that's a metaphor also.

*completely ignores last few days worth of posts*

how the Hell is this topic still going?

I'm actually surprised too, and scared of reading the whole thread, even though it's really tempting to do with popcorn equipped.

..I wish I had an option not to up a thread with my post.

So your problem is that there are too many metaphors to understand?
People have always used metaphors for communication and to teach things.
Unless you think that "look before you leap" is about jumping or "don't put all your eggs in one basket" is about ova and the fine art of basket-weaving.

No, I guess what I'm getting at is how do you know what is metaphors, while other christian sects would take the same things as direct facts not up for interpretation. Then what gives your interpretation any more weight than any others? Did somehow "god" talk to you and confirm that your interpretation was the correct one? (Funny he usually speaks to one prophet at a time..never the whole world which would have been easier.)

Ehm...in the very next sentence I wrote after you snipped the post^^ Not that we've found. However, that hardly makes it impossible. Anyone capable of creating a universe should find the arresting of necrosis and the repairing of a body to be a cakewalk. great, we agree then. God is natural but beyond our level of understanding.


(sorry, I know I said I was done, twice, but I'm bored. Going out now so maybe that's really it)
Which brings us back to: Look at how the language was used at the time and in the culture. (but now we go round in circles)

If god is all powerful, outside of time, etc. It's supernatural.
And I'm going to take this as saying "I don't know." which is something religious people can't seem to admit.

Aquinas didn't think it was possible to prove whether or not the universe had a beginning, so he used arguments that work either way. Modern science does support the universe having a beginning. I think infinity is just an idea that exists in your mind and not something that exists in reality. There exists the possibility that I could be wrong about everything I have interpreted to be true. However, logic in inherent to the universe and is not open to interpretation, so things that are logically impossible will always be impossible, even with an infinite past. Out of nothing, nothing comes, so is logically impossible for the universe to spontaneously and accidentally become.

I'm really not bothered by the fact that people disagree with me, especially when they show very little understanding of my position.

"As the cause of space and time, this cause must an uncaused, timeless, spaceless, and immaterial. The only two things that fit that description are abstract objects, like numbers, or an intelligent mind. Abstract objects can't cause anything, therefore this cause is a personal, transcendent mind.

How else could a timeless cause give rise to a temporal effect like the universe? If the cause were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, then cause could never exist without its effect. If the cause were permanently present, then the effect would be permanently present as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and the effect to begin in time is for the cause to be a person agent who freely chooses to create an effect in time without any antecedent determining conditions. Thus, is is not just the transcendent cause of the universe, but also its personal creator." - William Lane Craig

The argument is that whatever begins to exist has a cause. Out of nothing, nothing comes. If something exists eternally and never begins to exist, then it doesn't need a cause. This is the same thing that atheists have said about the universe being eternal and uncaused. It's like asking what the cause of the first uncaused cause is, which is an illogical question. To clear up a common misunderstanding, the argument for the first cause is speaking ontologically rather than chronologically. It would at least have this one characteristic in common with our idea of God. What the other characteristics this cause would logically necessarily have can be argued for elsewhere.