But you can view humanity as merely a stepping stone in evolution, if you'd like, though I find that survival for survival's sake is pointless. (Especially since we will inevitably fail.) I don't know if I can express that to you; it just seems like common sense to me.

And what is free will? What is choice?

It can all be pre-determined by god, so in what way can we not be defined as automatic?

What are joy and despair, except proven chemical reactions in the brain?

Religion can only answer questions like these through citation of the existence of axioms, which seem unfathomable, and which are therefore just said to exist, rather then explained.

While in the end, our biological purpose may be the survival of the species, that involves love. Maybe in essence love is meaningless, but that doesn't matter, because our attachement to it is instinctual, and requires no intellectual vindication.

Yes, the extropolated atheist does not believe in absolutes, but it is perception, not reality that spurs emotion, and subjectivity therefore does not deny the effectual existence of meaning and purpose.

That could easily be interpreted to mean that man intends to do evil by going about getting good things in the wrong way. That is a matter of wording. Don't mistake my saying that evil is the incorrect pursuit of good as an excuse for mankind – we are still evil in nature. The point is that evil is perversion of good, not something all its own.

So in other words evil is the result of a misdefinition of good, or an irreverence to the consequences of its achievement?

The way in which all of reality, past and future, can be seen by God is because God is outside of time, not because he progresses along with the timeline and can predict or control the future.

Then all of time has already happened, and has always already happened, making us nothing more then inanimate portions of picture. So, by that arguement, we aren't even alive.

If god can know the consequence of every action he makes, before he makes it, then of course he can control the future, and he is also in a way responsible for it.

Survival of the species doesn't necessarily involve love – at least, not all the kinds of love that we can experience. Nor is our love purely instinctual. Should one see a drowning man in a river, and choose between solely his instincts, he would inevitably choose not to help if it were more likely that both should die if he attempted a rescue. This is his survival instinct overcoming his herd instinct. But what is it, if not love, that would make someone dive in to help?

Perversions of survival instincts.

That infers that there is no actual good or evil, no real right and wrong. Which is incorrect. You can see that by examining humanity's behavior. That would make Nazis no more to blame for their views than for their hair color. And it's not just that things are inconvenient that makes us oppose them – I, and everyone else, would be angrier at someone who purposely tries to trip me and fails than someone who accidentally did so and succeeded.

You might say that people have different morals – and it certainly might seem so at first glance. But this 'difference' is only because humans often subdue (or have subdued by their environment) their moral impulses until they've convinced themselves that it isn't wrong.

As well, morals aren't created by society. (Not that they'd have a reason to come up with 'em in the first place.) If they were, then morality would vary from location to location. But people are clearly comparing their morals to a standard; i.e., there is an actual right and wrong.

Umm...morals DO differ from location to location. And morals ARE created by society.

Just wonderng, PianoMan, could you name me some of these locations where morals are different, at least by a noticible margin? Thank you, I''m just wondering.

Well, there's the sense that it's perfectly within morals to oppress women in tyrannical countries such as in the Middle East, whereas there is no such oppression in other countries.

The basis of creating morals such as not killing, stealing, or lying is to benefit the society (or group or pack or herd or whatever you want to call it). We humans discovered that by banding together, we had a greater chance of surviving individually.

The mere fact that we can compare societies' moralities and say that one is tyrannical or bad and another is not proves that there has to be something, some kind of standard, that we are comparing them to.

Do you feel that anything is universally "bad", PMG?

as long as those people's beliefs don't infringe on any of my rights or harm anyone in any way,

I recognize that they come from a mixture of how I was sociolized and what I've thought on personally, I must respect that other people have different ideas of what is good and moral and what isn't.

Wow... tough criteria. Can you give me a couple examples of beliefs that would not infringe on your rights or harm anyone in any way?

But saying that another society's standard practices are "bad" or "immoral" is entirely subjective. Other societies (such as Communist ones) look at American society as being "bad" and "immoral." So you can't say that it's a global litmus test, because it depends on where you grew up and how you were sociolized to think.

I wouldn't say it's "love your neighbour" so much as "let your neighbour be". "Love" seems like a very active and strong term. You don't have to love or support other people if you disagree with them, but as long as they are not harming anyone by their beliefs then you should tolerate them.

That would make sense if we all thought our own country's social standards were right and thought everyone else's were wrong. But such isn't the case; I know that I personally have a very low opinion of the US's practices, and I'm certainly not the only one.

But what if they're hurting themselves?

So you agree that if someone is hurting themselves, then intervention is acceptible.

So if someones beliefs were hurting them, then it would be necessary to confront those faulty beliefs, to correct them. This is particularly true when one's life and/or eternal destiny were at stake.

I'm not entirely convinced it is entirely a matter of opinion.

...particularly since I have reason to believe that they are uniquely qualified to address that issue.

Not the same thing. This is a matter truth. If Jesus is in fact the person the Scriptures claim him to be, and if indeed he commented on the nature of eternal life, then these things are not a matter of opinion. At the very least, they do not fall within that category of opinion that I can safely ignore, for to do so would be equivalent of allowing someone to harm themselves without intervening.

Perhaps from the perspective of someone down here who does not have access to all the relevant facts. However, can we be at all certain that this is the case from God's own perspective? One would have to be qualified to speak on God's behalf in order to make that assessment. One would have to have divine authority.

But if he actually had that authority, and did something spectacular to prove it--say, rise from the dead three days after being brutally tortured to death--then what?

Mythicists notice that there are many pagan parallels to the resurrection story. The Greek god Dionysus was said to be the "Son of Zeus." He was killed, buried, and rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of the father. His empty tomb at Delphi was long preserved and venerated by believers. The Egyptian Osiris, two millennia earlier, was said to have been slain by Typhon, rose again, and became ruler of the dead. Adonis and Attis also suffered and died to rise again.

The Persian god Mithra, revered by many Romans, was said to have been born of a virgin in a sacred birth-cave of the Rock on December 25, witnessed by shepherds and Magi bringing gifts. He raised the dead, healed the sick, made the blind see and the lame walk, and exorcised devils. Mithra celebrated a Last Supper with his twelve disciples before he died. His image was buried in a rock tomb, but he was withdrawn and said to live again. His triumph and ascension to heaven were celebrated at the spring equinox (Easter).

Anybody who was anybody in those days was born of a virgin and ascended to heaven. The Roman historian Suetonius, whose brief 2nd-century mention of "Chrestus" in Rome is sometimes offered as evidence of a historical Jesus (though few believe Jesus visited Rome, and "Chrestus" is not "Jesus"), also reported that Caesar Augustus bodily ascended into heaven when he died.

Christianity appears to have been cut from the same fabric as pagan mythology, and some early Christians admitted it. Arguing with pagans around 150 CE, Justin Martyr said: "When we say that the Word, who is the first born of God, was produced without sexual union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified and died, and rose again, and ascended into heaven; we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter (Zeus)."

If early Christians, who were closer to the events than we are, said the story of Jesus is "nothing different" from paganism, can modern skeptics be faulted for suspecting the same thing?