Saturday, April 7, 2012

Lonnie's Questions 11-20

11)If the Bible is not true, why is it so universally regarded as "the Good Book"?  It's only considered that by those who buy into the fictional story that it portrays. not "universally"


12)Did you know that the Bible has been the number one bestseller almost every single year since the 1436 invention of the Gutenberg printing press? I have heard that but...It is not on the NY Times best seller list for any of the last 15 years. Because there are many variations of religious books  it is nearly impossible to find reliable sales figures for them. Print figures are missing or unreliable since these books are produced by many different and unrelated publishers. Furthermore, many copies of the Bible, the Qur'an and the Bhagavad Gita are printed and given away free, instead of being sold 



13)If God does not exist, then from where comes humanity's universal moral sense? Society crafts its morals based on what is acceptable at the time, as we realize treating women and other races as property is wrong we modify our laws and our morals as well. A society based on the moral standards in the bible would be a society we in America would not recognize or condone. 


14)If man is nothing but the random arrangement of molecules, what motivates you to care and to live honorably in the world? The same thing that causes any social animal to "care" it is mutually beneficial for me to act in a way that is good for me and my society. 



15)Can you explain how personality could have ever evolved from the impersonal, or how order could have ever resulted from chaos? Personality is a result of many interactions with others and is modified over time based on those interactions. 



16)If Jesus' resurrection was faked, why would twelve intelligent men (Jesus' disciples) have been willing to face death for what they knew to be a lie? 2 of many possible answers 1) perhaps they were also duped 2) maybe they weren't that intelligent
 
17)How do you explain the fact that a single, relatively uneducated and virtually untraveled man, dead at age 33, radically changed lives and society to this day? Sounds to me like he was well traveled for the day,  Steve Jobs founded Apple aged 21, Richard Branson founded the Virgin Group aged 20, Mark Zuckerberg set up Facebook aged 20, talk about radically changing the world at a young age. Alexander the Great became king at 20. But I don't consider any of them to be gods either.


18)Why have so many of history's greatest thinkers been believers? The threat of being killed for being a heretic. That's why "history's greatest thinkers" were. Today's greatest are not, take that threat away and they are free to express their opinion and follow the evidence.
 
19)Have you ever wondered why thousands of intelligent scientists, living and dead, have been men and women of great faith? Public pressure and others choose to ignore the evidence(lack of) because they are comfortable not questioning something they grew up with. 



20)If time never had a beginning, but rather goes backwards infinitely or has gone through an infinite number of cycles, then how is it possible that we are here today? Because if we weren't, you wouldn't have been able to copy and paste this question onto my facebook. That's like me asking why am I here now and not born 50 years ago or 50 years from now. Me being here only proves that I am here and nothing supernatural.