JJM wrote: I shall answer your questions in the order to which they were asked.
1. First of all when you mention the lottery, that is because so many people to win, so the odds of at least one winning a not that long. Also note that Washington and Captain Sully are both religous men, amazing things can be accomplished be people of faith, for more proof study Joan of Arc and Rodrigo Diaz de vivar.
Yes, and so many battles have happened that in some of them amazing results happen by chance.
Also, up untill a couple centuries ago pretty much everyone was a religious man, so in every battle that a religious man got "God's favour" another religious man got "God's wrath". Funny how that works.
JJM wrote:2. I do not see your point. Nostradamus was a Catholic. You are simply bettering my case.
So god gave Nostradamus his clairvoyance powers is what you're saying?
How about all the other thousands of supposed clairvoyants, how many of them do you think have divinely granted supernatural abilities?
JJM wrote:3. Jim Jones followers were people who had felt left out and had wanted a leader, if you watch interviews with survivors many of them will say that they wanted to escape. Jesus followers remained loyal even through being persecuted. Jesus had many more believers. Jesus drew crowds on his various travels.
Jim Jones convinced 1000 people to commit suicide. Show me that Jesus knew 1000 people that later died for him. (No the ones 5 centuries later don't count, they were dying for the myth of the son of god, not for the actual man, Jesus).
Church of scientology members are also remaining loyal under persecution.
JJM wrote:4. That is something that you can not put a statistic on but is something thatI have noticed. As for your point, lets judge by accomplishments instead of test scores. Every US president was Christian. Most world leaders are people of faith. So are most successful military leaders, Eisenhower, Petraeus. Even the majority of Scientists. Einstein was Jewish and Darwin was a Christian.
Yes, it is precisely the sort of thing you can put a statistic on. Dumber and less educated people are more likely to be religious.
The US has a democracy and a majority of the population is Christian, so the presidents will be Christian, it has nothing to do with capability. Indeed if any of the US presidents had declared he was not Christian he wouldn't have been elected.
Scientists, nope : http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html There are barely any hardcore religious scientists.
Einstein, nope:
Einstein wrote:The word god is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.
---
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Darwin, nope:
Darwin wrote:In my most extreme fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the existence of a God.— I think that generally (& more and more so as I grow older) but not always, that an agnostic would be the most correct description of my state of mind.
I wonder, why is it that in general less educated people are religious while educated and smarter people (scientists specifically) are not. Interesting that ...
JJM wrote:5. You mention Sea shells on mountains. If carbon dating is the decider then it shows that they have been up there since Earth early days as the world was forming. Also there was a rocklike structure found on an Iranian mountain that Scientists have said could very possably be petrafied wood and fits the dimensions of Noah's Arc.
If you're seriously debating the occurrence of the Noah's ark story ... well, I'm gonna hope Symmetry is right and this is trolling.
Just in case, here, enjoy
