Posted by Gremlin [12.255.181.7 - 12-255-181-7.client.attbi.com] on 12 July 2002 at 21.11.02 ZuluTime:

In Reply to: Who here would be interested in the proof of the existence of a god? posted by whoami on 11 July 2002 at 05.15.04 ZuluTime:

Since a number of things have developed out of a number of branches, and we're getting close to running off the side of the screen in 1024*768, I'm going to go ahead and move the key points here. Maybe we can consolidate this back into one linear thread this way. At least until two different people reply to one post, and the branches start up again.

The key points.

According to Andy, there may be a deity in existence. Apparently, there is either one living deity, or zero deities of any kind. We're awaiting any evidence that the total number of deities throughout time is limited to one, or that it must still exist.
     If souls exist, they may be nothing more than organic elements which die along with the rest of the body. Although, if that's the case, then the term soul is, at best, a coined phrase--like deinosaur describes the Saurischia and Ornithischia or car describes everything from the steering wheel to the engine; if the soul is nothing more than a conglomeration of identified components, I don't see a need to use it as a term.

The bible is definitively fictional. The bible contains elements which are contradicted by established facts: a flat planet, the existence of Y'shua, and so on; established facts exist which effectively prove these claims to be false.
     The rest of the bible--with a couple of exceptions for historical figures--defaults to fiction due to lack of supporting evidence. To say that the unsupported claims of the bible could be true, because we have evidence supporting contemporary elements, is tantamount to saying that Jack Dawson could have been on he Titanic, because we know the boat existed, and no one can prove that the guy wasn't on it when it sank. For that matter, while the bible is reportedly the bestselling book in history, Titanic is the highest-grossing film in history. The two media are identical on a number of levels.

And, if deities exist, they may not be composed of matter or energy, and they may not exist within the universe. We're awaiting evidence of deities living outside the universe composed of something other than the two known states of matter.