Quote - > Quote - a mother is preparing to bake bread. She gets all of the ingredients together - except the yeast. She puts the bread in the oven and when the timer goes off and she pulls it out of the oven she finds it has not risen. AND THEN SHE GETS MAD. Now of course she KNEW it would not rise because she intentionally left out the yeast - and YET...   she still got mad. DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?

Bad premise - bread dough doesn't have any concept of free will.

It is a GOOD premise. The "free will" aspect has nothing to do with it at all. If God is truly omniscient, it makes no difference whether it is inanimate bread dough or free-willed humans - he SHOULD know everything BEFORE it happens. That was the point and that premise makes it quite clearly.

Quote - > Quote - The devoutly religious really do not ask the hard questions and the vast majority of the time resort to "We don't understand Gods' Plan."  Uhh...  yeah.

Do you fully understand String Theory, enough to repeatably and reliably prove the concept in a laboratory?

You don't?

Well, I guess String Theory is false then, and the scientists working on it are fools. Best get on with ignoring it and finding something else.

(...and before you say it, note that even the biggest proponents of this physics theory don't fully grasp the thing, and will readily admit as much).

We're not talking String theory here. We're talking about religious people asking the hard questions about their God and their faith. You can't equate the science of String theory with faith. One will or will not be proven by science - the other cannot and is based solely on faith.

Quote - You also make a lot of bad overly-generalistic assumptions - that the "devoutly religious do not ask the hard questions". How on Earth would you know that? ...all of them? What questions would you consider "hard" enough, given that outside of geologic scales of measurement, "hard" is a subjective term?

The "hard questions" deal with all of the errors and inconsistencies in the Bible as well as the changes made conciously and unconciously in the Bible. Most Christians have NO IDEA that the Bible they are reading is inacurrate and many of those believe that it is the inerrant word of God. We know this to be false, yet how many Christians do you know actually KNOW this? And...   if they DO know it, how many choose to ignore it? How many do YOU know who actually delve into it at length. As someone has already pointed out here, people generally believe what their religious leaders tell them - NOT on what they read and/or research.

Quote - It also happens that misinterpretation (either through mistake or by malicious design) occurs with alarming frequency in secular documents as well - see also the series of UN/IPCC reports.

So no, misinterpretation is not a religious thing - it's a human thing. Which is part of what I was trying to say all this time.

I won't argue with that because you're right. However...   the point here WAS that the religious have twisted the words in the Bible to allow them to campaign against same-sex marriage. Feel free to start another thread concerning secular misrepresentations and I'll join in there - most likely agreeing with you as well.

Quote - IOW, I'm really sorry, but atheism does not make one superior, nor does it grant you anything special. You're still as human and frail as the rest of us, and just as statistically prone to our foibles and failings of intellect and wisdom... and just as prone to speaking it as if it were (s'cuse the pun) Gospel. ;)

/P

Uhmmm...   you must be talking about someone else here. I never said I was an athiest and I never said that being an athiest makes one superior. I consider myself an agnostic because I SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW if there is or is not a God. No one KNOWS for certain based on any facts. They know for "certain" based only on faith. I have no problems with ANYONE from ANY religion - as long as they do not try to legislate based on their faith. No one should be forced to abide by somone elses faith. And THAT is the sole reason for my being in this thread. As long as the rights of others are not infringed upon - yours, mine or anyone elses - then I see no problem with people believing whatever they want to believe. But when they cross that line - such as here with same-sex marriage - that's when I get irritated and step up to the podium. I am not gay nor do I find the prosepct of two men marrying particularly great, but then WHO AM I TO JUDGE? If they are two consenting adults, then they should be allowed to do as they wish. Who is anyone else to judge them that they should NOT be allowed to marry?

And I now step off the soapbox.....  :)