Bus campaign.

Yeah, I don't doubt that for a second. It seems whenever you have an vocal 'debate' like this that kind of thing will happen. But, what you're also forgetting, is that 'Atheists' don't really have 'clubs' like religions do, so you won't find statistics about 'how many people thought about atheism' or whatever, like you can with church attendance.

Don't have clubs?
Apart from these guys?
Or these clowns?
Now i know you don't mean this group!

All jocularity aside, i think you'll find that people are becoming sick of the "it's old information so it can't possibly be true" argument, so they're having a look for themselves.

Have you ever read any significant parts of the bible to find out for yourself?

You can't use the bible as proof of the bible. I think you'll find people are becoming sick of that 'evidence'.
Personally I don't know any atheists who use the 'it's old information' argument. A fact is a fact regardless of it's age.

Yep. Plato and aristotle still hold valid and they are older than the bible.

Glenjamin wrote:Don't have clubs?
[...]

Yeah, I think you know what I meant though. As in, it’s almost universal amongst ‘organised’ religions that you associate yourself – and attend – some sermony thing at a concrete location, probably usually weekly. This is not the case with ‘atheism’ – all those things you put up are just ‘atheist/humanist’ foundations/organisations or whatever; not religious groups, which would be like saying that World Vision or The Deaf Society are religions.

Glenjamin wrote: "it's old information so it can't possibly be true"

I didn't quite get what you meant here, but if you meant that people denied the validity of the bible simply because it was old... no, I don't think anyone's done that before (well, probably, but noone I know).

Glenjamin wrote:Have you ever read any significant parts of the bible to find out for yourself?

I gotta go with Trev's response on this.

Umm, Tom- when were Plato and Aristotle around, the OT was an (developing) oral tradition from at least 2500bc (that is to say, probably earlier), i didn't think either of those geeky greekys were about before then?

Whoa. The bible must be true...

But you could also, for what it's worth, say that the philosophical ideas of plato/aristotle have been around (in some form) since the birth of humanity.

Not that time really matters in the slightest...

The 'bible', since most christians don't use the old testament at all apart from genesis, is in this case the new testament, which is only about 1500 years old. You knew what i meant, stop being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative, if you have a point then blurt it out without thought like the rest of us.

Tom wrote: since most "christians" don't use the old testament at all apart from genesis

(quotation marks added by Glenjamin)

Umm, i'm not sure what you've been reading but the opposite is more correct. The OT (in such undeveloped nations as the US and England) is preached on more often than it's counter-part due to the fact that it's easier to do so, also because of the massive amount of prophecy that He fulfilled.

This is an article on those prophecies.

And no, the NT part of the bible is at least 1900 years old (don't make me talk to you about P66, and the other Papyrus documents we have), in fact we have an extant bible (that is all 66 books) that dates to around 300ad- which is far closer than anything you have on Aristotle or Plato (yet you take their words as gospel).

We can have a proper discussion about the facts of the bible in another thread if you'd prefer, as this one should probably stick to the bus campaign, which i support as it generates good discussion, like this one.

Since when did i say that i 'take their words as gospel'! Most of what Aristotle said was complete and utter shite because it was based on assumptions about the world that are utterly wrong. The same can be said for plato, although plato didn't make many writings that could even, in any way be related to 'gospel' because he didn't preach. What he did do was write down a lot of socrates' dialogues which are basically articles on how to argue and not subject based in the slightest.

Stop putting words in my mouth.

Exactly as Tom said. Exactly. That highlights completely the absolute problem with that analogy you tried to make: Nobody (especially not Tom) has tried to claim that plato's etc (or anyone's, really) (purported) work from the past is gospel (Christians do that (and other religions)). Their works are examined, and only those things that can be taken in and of themselves, and therefor are independent of historical facts etc, are taken notice of (unless of course you’re looking at historical things – in which case just because it’s written provides next to no evidence!). Plato’s/socrates’/aristotle’s etc examination of logic is either good or not (time has absolutely no significance in this).

When you talk about prophecies (seriously...?) and such, there is absolutely and utterly no analogy between the two sets of texts that you seem to be trying to compare.

My use of plato was to refute your statement that 'atheists see old as having no value', it was not to offer an alternative 'atheist' gospel, merely to state that many old texts have incredible value to society and still hold truths. This includes the bible, though for atheists it doesn't hold the same truths as it does for christians. Tenets like 'do unto others as you would have others do unto you' are good tenets for anyone and hold value for everyone, regardless of when they were thought up.

Exactly. And those things are independant of historical contingencies etc.

Umm, perhaps i was a little vague- commonly to take something as "gospel" is to understand it as an undeniable fact"- it's a figure of speech guy!

in any case i dun have time to discuss right now, but later i'll wade on in again.

So the fight is set for after school near the swings...