Debate: is god true?
Side: no ,god is not true

Sorry, for the delay. It has been a very long school week.“Thumbs and dental sets aid the self.” As do morals. Remember that traits don’t need to be discernibly morphological to be affected by evolution, behaviors also count if they are genetic. And as I pointed out previously, there is notable evidence that what we perceive as moral law has a genetic origin. “Yes, we are social beings, but so are many other animals. Do they have morals?”I bet if you watch 2 or 3 hours of programming on Animal Planet you will find plenty of examples of morality in animals, especially if the shows are about dogs or primates.This article is about a book written on the subject. It provides both sides of the issue (it is a controversial issue), and then documents some of the examples of animal morality in a variety of species. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of examples that ethologists, ecologists and neurologists have turned up. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/5373379/Animals-can-tell-right-from-wrong.html “If it is such an evolutionary advantage, why isn't it more common?”Actually it is. But even if it weren’t, it wouldn’t matter. You could use the same argument for thumbs or our omnivorous dental sets, which are quite handy, but even less common than morality. Or wings, those are useful, why don’t we have those? The answer lies in the fact that evolution is unguided, creatures make the best of what they get. Humans never ended up with claws or wings, but we took quite nicely to our more advanced intellects and social nature. “And, as these morals tell us to value other beings above the self, wouldn't the beings with these morals die out, leaving the amoral to dominate?”Although this can be an issue, at its core it works quite the opposite of what you are suggesting. Humans are great in groups, but in pre-industrial society we were horrible at being independent. Physically, we don’t really have anything going for us. Without weapons we are pretty lousy predators and not that great at avoiding being prey either. We don’t fly, we don’t climb trees particularly gracefully, we don’t have claws, fangs, shells, camouflage, many creatures are stronger or faster than us etc. Now we are pretty smart, but even the smartest person would be hard-pressed to survive in the wild on their own, and would make a good target for large predators. It is in the group that humanity’s salvation laid. By forming tribes, groups of families could organize, singling out people for specific tasks they are well suited to, hunting in groups, tending to children and the ill, and so on. The theory is that morality establishes itself to facilitate group relationships. By having a more-or-less universal comprehension of right and wrong we can not only guide our own lives, but also punish those who deviate from the societal norm. In lesser cases this could result in the individual being ostracized, getting smaller meals or poor-quality tools and weapons. In more serious cases or in particularly stern civilizations, one might get exiled or executed. And, an immoral person is not necessarily a stronger person. They would have to take on the whole tribe. So universalized morality helps keep the group running more smoothly and efficiently than if morality did not exist. Of course there have been plenty of examples of immoral people gaining power over the moral majority. But these cases almost never involve total extermination of the majority. An evil king still needs someone to plow the fields, bake bread and serve in the military. So the moral commoners still end up out-reproducing the King, and moral behavior continues to dominate. “Many saints have worked miracles…” How many lately? Have you ever noticed that miracles seem to get exponentially more common the farther back you go in time? Indeed, it sure does appear to have a strong inverse correlation with our attainment of scientific knowledge. “and who was Jesus, if not the Messiah?”Unfortunately, the only particularly detailed depiction of Jesus’ life comes from the Bible, and even that book is pretty vague about what he did for the first thirty years of his life. For instance, a variant of Buddhism became moderately popular in Alexandria and parts of the Hellenistic world during that period. Some believe that he had early exposure to Buddhist teachers, and may have excelled at some meditation practices (such as being able to appear dead for several days, a feat which has been documented among some meditation masters). This may explain the many similarities between the teachings and even life history of Christ and the Buddha. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallels_between_Buddha_and_Jesus There are some big differences, yes. Jesus obviously didn’t supplant his Jewish beliefs entirely with Buddhism. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t borrow heavily from it.Furthermore, Mystery Religions were pretty popular at the time. Christianity was not such a religion as it was open to anyone who wished to join. However, many of the Mysteries focused on such concepts as eternal salvation, and returning from the dead to cleanse humanity of its sins. The Romans accepted the Mysteries because they were always considered subservient to the state religion. It’s quite possible that Jesus combined certain aspects of the Mysteries with Judaism (and Buddhism), creating something new, and very controversial to the Romans. All that we really know for sure is that Christ gained a large and devoted following (so did the Buddha, as have less estimable folks like Hitler) and that he was quite disliked by the Romans (a pretty common fate of common people who get the support of the masses).  “Why would anyone follow a fake?”Many reasons. You even provided one reason yourself: “These were religious people following him.” Religious people have faith, and faith can be biased towards what you want to be true. Remember that the Jews believed themselves to be God’s chosen people, and they used that faith to weather unspeakable hardships. If someone very charismatic and wise came along claiming to be the Messiah, they might be more inclined to believe him, to elevate his impressive deeds to the status of miracles, to overlook small discrepancies, if they truly believed that this would be the time when their faith would be repaid. And most of his early followers DID believe in prophecy. Among them he might have become a folk hero, a man about whom many unverifiable legends spread. He may also have had legitimate leadership abilities, good ideas, and maybe even tactical abilities. So the Gentiles may have been swayed by the pervasive mysticism around him or they may have seen him as a genuinely capable revolutionary leader.You talk about modern Christians being skeptical about the second coming. Well people in general are more skeptical about things than they were back then. At that time, the idea of dragons, giants, Gods and a whole bevy of mythological creatures were believed on faith. And most ideas about the workings of the world around us were based on faith too, and have been proven demonstrably wrong. Basically these people were ignorant and superstitious. “How do you explain the founding of my religion, and it's massive following?”Your logic is equally applicable to Islam and Hinduism (both of which have almost as many followers as Christianity.) Unless you believe that they are all right, you have to explain why they have such large and dedicated followings as well. Mostly, I’d say social indoctrination is the cause.  “This is not a theory, because people of 2000 years ago saw it with they're own eyes. They didn't say, "Theoretically, he's the Son of God." They said, "Oh my gosh! It's the Messiah!"’That doesn’t mean they were right. They also believed in a flat earth, that beyond the “firmament” was water and that leprosy could be cured using a blood-soaked wand. Besides, eye-witness testimony (almost all of such that appears in the Bible was second-hand or committed to writing well after the fact) is not particularly reliable. Our understanding of what is really happening can be wrong, our memories and senses can be fooled and people can always lie. “We are not gullible. We do not believe everything that people say we believe.”I actually have a lot of respect for the fact that the Catholic Church has done more to debunk false miracles and mysticism than anyone else. But there are two problems:1) This is a relatively new development. There was quite a long period where scientific investigation that went contrary to the Bible (and thus the supremacy of the Papacy) was ignored and even punished. So only fairly recent denouncements should be considered valid.2) Even in the modern, scientifically-backed Church investigations there is still a pretty inherent confirmation bias. These are people who will always believe in miracles and that these miracles are sent from God. Even if they go 200 years without finding a new miracle, they will never turn their backs on the Biblical miracles, and will simply explain (without evidence) that God is unhappy with us, or doesn’t feel we need miracles anymore. These may not be gullible people, but if they are wrong, they will always be wrong. “About parents, it may well be a reaction to need. But there comes a time when we no longer need them, and we know we no longer need them, long before we actually leave.”And a lot of people start rebelling at about the time they realize this. This also is a point when many people are more likely to engage in criminal or immoral activity. I know several people who are quite straight-laced and straight edge now that were huge trouble-makers in their teen years. Basically, these kids start developing the approximate skills and knowledge of their elders, but lack the perspective to realize how minor a role they actually play in the grand scheme of things. Many teens get arrogant and impatient, and they see little to no value for the people around them so they ignore guilt for a while. Most grow out of this as they adjust to the real world in their 20s. And the desire for love and acceptance is transferable to others once one moves away from the family. “Guilt is an emotion, and we very definitely recognize it as such. We can no more develop guilt by our own recognition of what is bad for us than we can develop love or sadness. If guilt is there, it is there from the beginning of our life. If it is not, then it never has been. There is no developing of it, only the development of being able to feel it more clearly.”First, in this conversation you seem to be implying that guilt only exists due to moral implications, but that isn’t true. I am a pretty dedicated student, and when I don’t study properly or don’t do my best on an assignment, I tend to feel guilty. My individual assignments won’t affect my GPA unless they pile up, and my GPA has no indication of my morality. If I bomb out of school, it only affects me. However, if I bomb out, I will be in serious trouble financially and disappoint my parents and friends. So having guilt when I don’t live up to my potential is more rooted in possible detrimental factors and earning the pride of my favorite people. There are other examples. I once turned down a girl who I genuinely respected but wasn’t romantically interested in. She was pretty hurt by it, and I felt really bad, like she deserved me even if I couldn’t reciprocate her feelings. Obviously empathy was there, but there was no morality involved in that decision. Additionally, Freud wasn’t arguing that guilt emerges within an individual. Like any other emotion, we all come packaged with it. What he was saying is that it exists to help us be wary of losing bonds with our loved ones, much as fear exists to keep us from hurting or killing ourselves by accident. It tends to manifest in children as a fear of losing love, mostly because children have a very limited world-view and are dramatic creatures.As far as your analogy with writing, you have your reasons why you don’t think its quite accurate. I only have one, but it’s a big one. Writing is absolutely nothing like actually creating a world. When we write, we are pinning it on something that we are already familiar with. Even in sci-fi we at least have characters that we can identify with. In fantasy we may bring our conceptions of what a faerie wood might be like, and link it to our own understanding of forests. Darn near everything we write has some basis in our experience and understanding of the world around us and the people in it. Even with the most speculative fiction we still have some rules to work with to make a believable and compelling story. But God, if he created the universe, didn’t have any preconceptions to draw from or rules to follow. He pulled everything out of his limitless imagination. This would be what he chose. The problem is, that he apparently chose a world where the innocent can suffer (and don’t always get their prayers answered), where people who are born with certain mental deficiencies don’t have the capability to be moral, where many different religions exist that are mutually exclusive, where his sacred writing REQUIRES interpretation, where the only way to believe he exists is through pure faith. And there are ways he could let us have free will and still guide or actions more effectively. For instance, He could make Heaven and Hell be places that anyone could reach and look into before they died, giving us concrete proof that our mortal actions have an effect on our immortal soul. In that kind of world, everyone would know what they were getting into, and there would probably be little need for other religious teaching to confuse us. He could do a lot of things that would solidly delineate what he tolerates and what he doesn’t without having to rely on faith or our own limited interpretations of his behaviors. Its not even about being good or evil, its about actually knowing what we are dealing with.“Also, there is the fact of Original Sin.”See, this has always been one of the biggest reasons why I don’t accept Christianity. If original sin is considered acceptable to God, than I want no part of Him. The idea that a person’s crimes could be inherited by their descendants was pretty common back in the old days. But it just won’t fly anymore, and for good reason. We are not our parents, or anyone else back in our lineage. We are ourselves, unique and answerable only for our own crimes in any reasonable system of justice. My Dad is a good guy, but let’s pretend that he was a monster. A murderer, rapist, kidnapper, etc. If I grew up, he never got caught, and I got held accountable for crimes that he committed before I was even born, is that justice? As far as sin more generally, I will grant that the way the Bible is written, it is very restrictive and pretty confusing. There are constant refinements to certain rules (first we shall not kill at all, then there are people who its okay to kill, then we find out about people we HAVE to kill), there are contradictions, and there are many little tidbits that made absolute sense at that time and place but have no relevance now. With all of these convoluted restrictions in order, of course we are going to sin one way or the other. It is pretty much impossible not to break at least one of the rules. And chances are we are going to break a lot of them as children, when we don’t realize what we can’t do or why, but we aren’t intentionally doing wrong. Besides, the concept of original sin means we cannot live a sin-free life no matter how pious we are, no matter how saintly and perfect we want to be. It always seemed to me that Christians are more apt to place the importance on “accepting Jesus into your lives” than atoning for your sins. The former arguably trumps the latter, and the whole scheme seems to be about selfishness (attaining your spot in Heaven/avoiding Hell) than out of legitimate altruism. “Jesus is God made flesh. He is the very same God who created the world, and he is completely God.” Let me write out a partial transcript from this video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnj7PlqmJ5o&feature=fvwrel “…but in the Gospels, which are the only documents claiming to record the Christ’s actual words, Jesus never implied any of that at all. Jesus only did what Akun-Atun did, promote himself as the sole prophet of the Sun God. At one point Jesus says that he is one with God, but he clarifies that he is only referring to his purpose, and he claims that any one of us can become one with God just as he is, and that we may perform even greater miracles than he did. But throughout the Bible, regardless of whatever else he may claim about himself, Jesus only ever described himself as separate from and subordinate to God, and he said that the God of Abraham and the bringer of the flood was someone else, somewhere else, who knows things Jesus doesn’t know, can do things Jesus can’t do, and who did things that Jesus didn’t do, but only witnessed, like creating the world. Jesus also spoke about God in third person, and to God in second person, and in one scene, God talks about Jesus in the third person too, when he introduces his son to the Jews. Then the Holy Ghost showed and up and took Jesus to a place he did not already know. None of this could be if Jesus were an avatar, or God in the flesh, because then Jesus, God and the Holy Ghost would all still share the same knowledge, power, identity and position in space and time. So it is pretty clear that Jesus did not believe himself to be the same God as the one he and the Jews both worshiped. When the Nicean Creed was being conceived, the committee took a vote on the identity and divinity of Jesus. Even that was subject to interpretation. Those who said that Jesus was a profit of God, but not the same essence of God lost the vote and were banished to prevent their ideas from influencing the Christian Formation. For a time, both sides labeled the other heretics.”I know that you are not a Bible literalist, and I appreciate that, but since God’s alternate identity as Jesus is only knowable through the Bible, than it does not look good that the Bible does not actually support that idea. Further, the fact that the founders established the concept based on a vote doesn’t make the situation any more believable. “If you were lying, for whatever reason, making up a religion, how long would you hold onto that lie? Would you not tell the truth, even when you only had to say that you lied to free yourself from intense torture and crucifixion? There have been scientists who were certain that they spoke the truth who lied to save their lives from instant, painless death, when they had received no torture. So why would a man who claimed to be the Son of God not say he was lying through all that he suffered, unless He was telling the truth?”Well, as said above, there isn’t any evidence that Jesus actually claimed to be the Son of God, and it is possible that Romans, who were already concerned about the following he was gathering, made up the story to have a legal excuse to punish him, and probably set an example to others. Another option is that Jesus legitimately believed he was God, but really was not. A person can be wrong without lying. A person can believe oneself to be someone or something that they are not, and still be otherwise sane and cogent and wise. Or it could be that Jesus didn’t actually believe he was God, but really and honestly believed that what he was teaching would lead to the ultimate betterment of man and was courageous enough to sacrifice himself despite all the torture because he though it was for the greater good. He might have expected to become a martyr, but may never have guessed that a whole religion would be based on his action.