Speak for yourself, and I mean this in the nicest possible way. "You" can't have it both ways, doesn't mean that "I" cannot.
I am not saying I have any answers, or that I am either correct or wrong. Just stating my personal beliefs, but I do appreciate your scrutiny. I will say that your inquisitions (from past discussion) have led me to question myself and to shed some old belief systems. Funny because we almost always disagree on most subject matter!
This is why we must use Nature/Experience to confirm truth. Using any Book to confirm truth is useless without outside validation. Like I stated in previous posts, we can use moderation as an example: Books like the Bible tell us to be moderate in all things. That can mean different things to different people. In the United States, obesity is the number 1 Health Epidemic. This natural Fact confirms Biblical Truth; immodest eating causes premature death and diseases.
Lol yea i know... but weird thing is, that i really like you and i really like your ideas too.
You know, reading that makes me all tingly inside. The fact is that inquiring as to why someone believes something and having those reasons challenged allows you to shed potentially unsupportable beliefs is one of the reasons I like participating in these threads. People that won't question their beliefs (as well as those that give lip-service to the idea) are the truly closed-minded people. Skepticism is all about questioning, and without questioning, mankind wouldn't know the things we do. We wouldn't have science or technology, we would still be living in caves, yet so many religious and 'spiritual' people find it offensive that we question religion or spirituality. I don't question my or other people's beliefs with any animosity but I sure do get a lot of it in return. 
Right. cn .
If I restrict myself to the Bible, we have dozens of denominations at something like war with one another over doctrinal matters all supposedly derived from the same core text. To me, this strongly undermines the claim to be a living and divine document. They all recognize the principle of moderation (except those who take moderation to amazing and distasteful excess) but quibble about implementation. A true text would not support such sniping. Jmo. cn
The Bible is nothing more than the Face of Mankind. Fault, failure, success, goodness, murder, divorce, immorality, war, disease, music, poetry, forgiveness, love, and the darkness of Religion, these are all revealed in Scripture in great detail. The Bible pulls no punches in manifesting who we are at ANY moment in our lives. I've told people, "If you want a mirror that will meet you at any point in your life, pick up a Bible".
Then what of the core doctrine that the Bible is the word of God? In your last sentences you admit that it was imperfectly written by men. I can see no compelling elements in either the text or the traditions built on it that point to divine power at work. That is the entire point of gods: they have power beyond the human and use it. An omniscient but nullipotent God (as conceived by certain Jewish intellectuals) is uninteresting at day's end.
This is where I'm different; the Bible is NOT perfect because imperfect men wrote it. Others claim the Word of God to be infallible, but I wholeheartedly disagree. The Bible is full of mistakes, just like any other Book. There is nothing perfect on Earth, nothing. The Bible also indicates that we were created in God's image, which would allow for interpretations that lead to many questions; has God failed before? has God hated? does God feel anger that we feel? does God cry? Again, Creation reveals answers that validate Scripture and understanding is easily obtained IF we open our eyes to the truth of our surroundings.
I believe many of the Old Testament stories are metaphoric, including the story of Creation.
Purely Epic.
Good points! I do realize that my take on Creation is "My Take". I do base my theory on a solid premise, as anything on Earth that contains human touch, the imprint of a signature is there, regardless if they sign the picture or not. I see Creation as a planned system, with balance, purpose, and destiny. These all point to a responsible Being (IMO).
It certainly doesn't matter if you believe in evolution, because evolution believes in you...
Your take on this matter isn't actually a theory, as theory is the highest form of scientific knowledge and not merely a guess as laypeople misuse the term. Your point here was my point, that since we are designers/creators of the human made objects on our planet, we tend to think that nature and the cosmos must also have a designer. No empirical evidence points to this...
MP alluded to this well; my guess is that you have read creationist literature (probably Behe's) for which there is no scientific backing. I'm also guessing that you have never seriously studied evolution by natural selection. Evolution has been very generous with it's evidence: we have an amazing amount of fossil records of species evolving, which is incredible because the situations that yield these fossils happen very infrequently. But even if we had NO fossils, the dna evidence is undeniable. Evolution is supported by many diverse scientific fields, the process is as much a fact as any other knowledge we possess. IMO, it's a little strange to say you don't believe in something you haven't studied and clearly don't understand...
See my first paragraph in this post...
I think it would help your thinking process if you familiarized yourself with basic logical fallacies, you've demonstrated two here; The Argument from Ignorance and now begging the question. I find my girlfriend's body beautiful because I was evolved to do so (so we would have sex and pass on our genes, the only intrinsic purpose for life). Who invented love is begging the question that love was invented. Love is a neuro-chemical process, a combination of specific neural networks firing in specific ways coupled with the presence of many neuro-transmitters (serotonin, dopamine, etc.). Your question of why music induces peace and beauty is an excellent one. I do not know the answer, but positing a deity as the answer doesn't answer the question. It is a conversation stopper, and hinders the process of actually gaining that knowledge...
Fuck, you guys talk down at me like you're some kind of fucking god. Without looking at the evidence myself?? WTF is that supposed to mean? I've cut myself numerous times, and I've watched people almost bleed to death. Blood clotting is simply your body's defense system to save your life in the event of a tragic accident or injury. The study I did on this pointed out HOW this system works, and HOW this system requires a COMPLETE network of functions in order for your blood to stop flowing. Remove 1 of these functions and you will DIE without assistance from someone who happens to be there when blood is gushing from your wound! Now, you tell me this is wrong.
It takes about 15 minutes of studying evolution before you realize that the theory does not say humans came from monkeys, nor does it predict a half man half monkey fossil. Rather than arguing against evolution, you are arguing against some misunderstood concept in your head which you call evolution.
