Quote from Lanthanide

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All dogs today could have come from a single dog.

Assumption.

It's a proposition of something could have happened, to show that your original assumption might not be completely solid. That's all. I'm not saying they all did, I'm just saying you can't say they all didn't.

Quote from Lanthanide

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Also, the animals on board were probably babies.

Assumption. Baby animals are also much more difficult to look after than adults, and much more likely to die during a 40 day and night voyage. So you're trading the "space" problem for one in difficulty of actually caring for young. Most young mammals can only survive on their mothers milk, also.

They don't have to be infants, just smaller than full-grown adults. Perhaps a good age to start mating once they get off of the Ark. I was just providing another possibility to show that your original assumption isn't necessarily true.

Quote from Lanthanide

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There are only a couple thousand different KINDS of animals.

In which case you're argueing in favour of evolution. There are lots of different existing species of animals that can be shown to be infertile when bred together. As in, tens of thousands. But apparently there are only about a thousand "kinds" of animals? So how come new species exist now which cannot interbreed with each other.

We all know full and well that a specific type of evolution exists: http://www.staredit.net/287565/ . The thing is that many people have a hard time believing that everything arose from a rock. It's also not a far-fetched idea that all dogs today came from a common ancestor, yet today we have many species that are infertile from one another due to current differences between the species. The new species would arise from isolation of population, to where certain aspects of the species would arise. There's just a limit to how far a kind of animal can go. A monkey being breeded over and over and over until the end of time, will always result in a monkey. A rat breeded with another rat over and over until the end of time will also result in... A rat. I say this because this is the only thing we have thusly observed and confirmed so far in all the scientific studies that have existed up until this day.

Quote from Lanthanide

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Also, you're assuming people were the same size as they are now; according to Creationism people were a lot larger in the past due mainly to nutritional and atmospheric differences, actually, all organisms were larger including trees and the cubit (length of forearm) used to measure the ark.

If all this happened less than 7000 years ago, lets see all these skeletons and fossils of these huge people and other animals.

Sorry, but all your answers fall into "wishful thinking".

Well okay, where are all the millions of missing links that Evolution calls for? If there was a catastrophic flood lots of things would be lost under sediments and crushed into oil, including the bones. I have no idea where to get reputable sources for this, but a simple google search yields that the idea of large ancient skeletons isn't completely unheard of. Weren't the Neanderthals excessively large too? But I doubt anyone will even click on my link and take a look at anything, and nobody has the motivation to.

I'm a bit tired of people responding to people's posts without reading all of it, taking it seriously, or even looking at the sources provided. If I see anyone contributing to discussions in a negative manner, especially by doing the things detailed in the previous sentence, you will be suspended and your post will more than likely be deleted. Just take some time, put some thought, and honestly consider what other people are saying: this is supposed to be a discussion, not a place to shove your beliefs down someone else's throat.

7 feet tall really isn't that unusual.
Depending on the skeletons (I didn't see any pictures) the horns could be something done by deforming the skeleton from birth. It is known to happen in different cultures.
On the other hand, they could be nephilim, a "cross breed" of an angel, or alien if you prefer, and a human. That's more of a mythological thing though.

This is silly. Read a biology textbook. If you actually believe that evolution has a controversy, I can only laugh.

There are more scientists named Steve that support the theory of evolution than there are scientists who do not.

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I say this because this is the only thing we have thusly observed and confirmed so far in all the scientific studies that have existed up until this day.

Are you familiar with microbiology? Pathology? Hell, it seems as though you're not even familiar with the scientific studies you speak of.

Quote from Sacrieur

This is silly. Read a biology textbook. If you actually believe that evolution has a controversy, I can only laugh. There are more scientists named Steve that support the theory of evolution than there are scientists who do not. ---

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I say this because this is the only thing we have thusly observed and confirmed so far in all the scientific studies that have existed up until this day.

Are you familiar with microbiology? Pathology? Hell, it seems as though you're not even familiar with the scientific studies you speak of.

Not once in that entire statement did you make an argument, observation, theory, or give evidence, ideas, or use common sense. You did not present us with anything new. All you managed to do was point out that you think someone else is wrong.

How many scientists do you know of named steve?
Listening to the crowd is not evidence.
Quite honestly anyones belief that their god created the world is no more unfounded than you're belief that humans evolved from apes. You hae absolutely no evidence, and you read a book to find the answers you're looking for.
This is what bothers me personally.
"Scientist told me you are stupid because you believe what someone else told you."

I'm glad you decided to post an entirely derogatory statement on a thread that's been dead for 12 days. Then you quoted the only sentence in Cecils post that you could possibly say anything contradictory to without looking like a total fool.

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I'm a bit tired of people responding to people's posts without reading all of it, taking it seriously, or even looking at the sources provided. If I see anyone contributing to discussions in a negative manner, especially by doing the things detailed in the previous sentence, you will be suspended and your post will more than likely be deleted. Just take some time, put some thought, and honestly consider what other people are saying: this is supposed to be a discussion, not a place to shove your beliefs down someone else's throat.

Quote from K_A

How many scientists do you know of named steve?

Familiarize yourself with Project Steve.

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Quite honestly anyones belief that their god created the world is no more unfounded than you're belief that humans evolved from apes. You hae absolutely no evidence, and you read a book to find the answers you're looking for.

Evolution is different than the origins of the Universe, or for that matter, abiogenesis. Evolution attempts to explain the diversity of life on Earth, not how life was first formed on Earth. I will get to my "unfounded" belief later, but for the time being, I shall take your two premises, that neither of us have any proof, as true.

You say that there is no evidence for position A, but there is also no evidence for position B; therefore, position A is equally valid as position B. This would be true. However, if there is no evidence for position B, then position B is invalid via inductive logic. Position A, by the argument above, is also invalid. This means that neither is an acceptable position.

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"Scientist told me you are stupid because you believe what someone else told you."

For the record, I am a scientist, but this has nothing to do with anything.

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I'm glad you decided to post an entirely derogatory statement on a thread that's been dead for 12 days. Then you quoted the only sentence in Cecils post that you could possibly say anything contradictory to without looking like a total fool.

You confuse me.

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I'm a bit tired of people responding to people's posts without reading all of it, taking it seriously, or even looking at the sources provided. If I see anyone contributing to discussions in a negative manner, especially by doing the things detailed in the previous sentence, you will be suspended and your post will more than likely be deleted. Just take some time, put some thought, and honestly consider what other people are saying: this is supposed to be a discussion, not a place to shove your beliefs down someone else's throat.

[/quote]

You want to see the evidence? Here is the evidence of common descent:

"Cloned endogenous retroviral sequences from human DNA."
"Long-term reinfection of the human genome by endogenous retroviruses"
"Role of Pax Genes in Eye Evolution: A Cnidarian PaxB Gene Uniting Pax2 and Pax6 Functions"
"Genomic Divergences between Humans and Other Hominoids and the Effective Population Size of the Common Ancestor of Humans and Chimpanzees"
"Quantitative Estimates of Sequence Divergence for Comparative Analyses of Mammalian Genomes"
"Origin of human chromosome 2: An ancestral telomere-telomere fusion"

And these are just what I pulled up in about ten minutes.

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Go get a B in a college biology class, then we'll talk.

Project Steve is rather amusing, considering I only ever see evolutionists claim that because more scientists believe evolution, it is true. (See Faz's posts in the evolution thread). Upon occasion someone will say that real scientists believe in evolution, in which case a list of scientists who don't believe in evolution is a valid refutation of said argument.

I would say that there is evidence of God. Therefore my position > your position ;o

Your evidence isn't really evidence. What they say is 'these things are similar in humans and chimps, therefore they both had a common ancestor.' Correlation does not imply causation. To be counted as evidence, there must be a) no other explanation, and b)a repeatable experiment proving that there was a common ancestor of both chimps and humans.

Quote from Jack[RCDF

Project Steve is rather amusing, considering I only ever see evolutionists claim that because more scientists believe evolution, it is true. (See Faz's posts in the evolution thread). Upon occasion someone will say that real scientists believe in evolution, in which case a list of scientists who don't believe in evolution is a valid refutation of said argument.

I would say that there is evidence of God. Therefore my position > your position ;o

Your evidence isn't really evidence. What they say is 'these things are similar in humans and chimps, therefore they both had a common ancestor.' Correlation does not imply causation. To be counted as evidence, there must be a) no other explanation, and b)a repeatable experiment proving that there was a common ancestor of both chimps and humans.

Your evidence isn't really evidence. Basically you're saying "this book is written by many people, and things told in this book is possible in a way, thus it is true".

Quote from Raitaki

Quote from Jack[RCDF

Project Steve is rather amusing, considering I only ever see evolutionists claim that because more scientists believe evolution, it is true. (See Faz's posts in the evolution thread). Upon occasion someone will say that real scientists believe in evolution, in which case a list of scientists who don't believe in evolution is a valid refutation of said argument.

I would say that there is evidence of God. Therefore my position > your position ;o

Your evidence isn't really evidence. What they say is 'these things are similar in humans and chimps, therefore they both had a common ancestor.' Correlation does not imply causation. To be counted as evidence, there must be a) no other explanation, and b)a repeatable experiment proving that there was a common ancestor of both chimps and humans.

Your evidence isn't really evidence. Basically you're saying "this book is written by many people, and things told in this book is possible in a way, thus it is true".

Link me to where I gave that as evidence of God. You could be a great farmer, because you're REALLY good at making strawmen.

Quote from Jack[RCDF

Quote from Raitaki

Quote from Jack[RCDF

Project Steve is rather amusing, considering I only ever see evolutionists claim that because more scientists believe evolution, it is true. (See Faz's posts in the evolution thread). Upon occasion someone will say that real scientists believe in evolution, in which case a list of scientists who don't believe in evolution is a valid refutation of said argument.

I would say that there is evidence of God. Therefore my position > your position ;o

Your evidence isn't really evidence. What they say is 'these things are similar in humans and chimps, therefore they both had a common ancestor.' Correlation does not imply causation. To be counted as evidence, there must be a) no other explanation, and b)a repeatable experiment proving that there was a common ancestor of both chimps and humans.

Your evidence isn't really evidence. Basically you're saying "this book is written by many people, and things told in this book is possible in a way, thus it is true".

Link me to where I gave that as evidence of God. You could be a great farmer, because you're REALLY good at making strawmen.

I'm not saying you used that as evidence. I just stated what you needed to think if you are to really believe in god.
EDIT: Like evolution, creationism is full of assumptions. The only difference is evolution is built from pieces of scientific information and evidences collected by many people, whereas creationism is built from faith and then people started wading through the piles of information to find just the evidence that proves creationism is possible (with lots of assumptions to taste). So don't criticize our logical evidence.

Which assumptions does evolution rely on? Scientific theories by their very nature cannot rely on assumptions. All conclusions must be inductively proven (e.g., all experiments we have conducted show that objects fall at the same speed regardless of mass).

How about this assumption: everything I can observe repeatably is fact. Or even, Everything proven by the scientific method is fact. Both of those are assumptions scientists make.

Quote from Jack[RCDF

How about this assumption: everything I can observe repeatably is fact. Or even, Everything proven by the scientific method is fact. Both of those are assumptions scientists make.

You forgot the thinking, hypothesizing, researching, discussing and collecting proof parts.
Also, it's still better than "everything written by groups of people who claim to took part/witnessed it is a fact".

Via Project Steve:

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Just like gravity, the theory of evolution is compatible with theism, atheism, and agnosticism. Can someone accept evolution as the most compelling explanation for biological diversity, and also accept the idea that God works through evolution? Many religious people do.

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However, the theological aspect of young-earth creationism—the assertions about the nature of God, and the reasons why that God created the universe and permitted it to develop in a particular way—cannot be addressed by science. By their nature, such claims can only be—and have been—addressed by philosophers and theologians.

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The question "Do you believe in creation or evolution?" has the same problem. Like color and shape, "creation" and "evolution" do not occupy competing categories, but are complementary ways of looking at the universe. "Creation" is a philosophical concept: it is the belief that the universe depends for its existence upon something or some being outside itself.

More: http://ncse.com/religion/god-evolution

Quote from Raitaki

Quote from Jack[RCDF

How about this assumption: everything I can observe repeatably is fact. Or even, Everything proven by the scientific method is fact. Both of those are assumptions scientists make.

You forgot the thinking, hypothesizing, researching, discussing and collecting proof parts.
Also, it's still better than "everything written by groups of people who claim to took part/witnessed it is a fact".

Good thing that isn't the assumption we make.

Quote from Jack[RCDF

Quote from Raitaki

Quote from Jack[RCDF

How about this assumption: everything I can observe repeatably is fact. Or even, Everything proven by the scientific method is fact. Both of those are assumptions scientists make.

You forgot the thinking, hypothesizing, researching, discussing and collecting proof parts.
Also, it's still better than "everything written by groups of people who claim to took part/witnessed it is a fact".

Good thing that isn't the assumption we make.

I'm not talking about your assumption. I'm talking about your believes.

Quote from Jack[RCDF

How about this assumption: everything I can observe repeatably is fact. Or even, Everything proven by the scientific method is fact. Both of those are assumptions scientists make.

A scientific theory is not fact. It is an explanation for a phenomena or phenomenas that occur. it is based on evidence and inductive logic. What you seem to be doing is attempting to undermine the theory by undermining inductive logic itself. Therefore your argument is not against evolution at all, but rather against inductive logic.

Facts are deductive. Science is inductive. Any scientist who claims that the theory of evolution is fact clearly does not understand science or the scientific method. We gather evidence and draw conclusions about that evidence.

If I were take a survey of people who wears red shirts on campus, and had three people in the survey who all wore red shirt, and concluded that all people on campus wore red shirts because of this, it would be a bad argument. If I were to take a survey of say, twenty thousand people, and based my conclusions on that, it would present a much stronger inductive argument.

Inductive arguments can never be factual or 100% true, they can be strong, and they can be weak.

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/God

Ok, so that's not entirely serious, but I like the idea of God disappearing in a puff of logic.

Edit: I should probably expand this before I get in trouble.

Let's swap out the Babelfish for Evolution. If religion is based on faith then does proving that creationism is true and evolution false, show that religion is based on flawed logic?

Quote from CaptainWill

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/God

Ok, so that's not entirely serious, but I like the idea of God disappearing in a puff of logic.

Edit: I should probably expand this before I get in trouble.

Let's swap out the Babelfish for Evolution. If religion is based on faith then does proving that creationism is true and evolution false, show that religion is based on flawed logic?

I see no problem with having my faith be more likely due to supporting evidence ;o

Quote from CaptainWill

http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/God

Ok, so that's not entirely serious, but I like the idea of God disappearing in a puff of logic.

Edit: I should probably expand this before I get in trouble.

Let's swap out the Babelfish for Evolution. If religion is based on faith then does proving that creationism is true and evolution false, show that religion is based on flawed logic?

Faith by no means in logical to begin with. We do many things otherwise illogical as humans, it is why I think that yes it helps to know logic, but not to rely on it.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

- A cruel god would place the tree of knowledge there and either: not tell them the consequences or trick them into eating it.
- A cruel god would create a bunch of lesser creatures and force them into unscrupulous situations and declare that they obey his own rules or suffer when they never deserved it in the first place
Neither case is that of the Christian God. Now unless you're talking about certain other views like that of the Westboro Baptist Church...

Your first point, I simply say - why place the tree there at all?
Your second point, I disagree. I see your situation as follows. We were created by a being so we could love and worship and obey him for eternity. When this is not done, we are punished. For many, the punishment is eternal torture. This is to me exactly the situation you prescribed a cruel God would create.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

No. Archeological and Historical findings did show us that slaves and free workers existed throughout Egypt. Historians and archeologists made it clear, however, that most of the slaves and workers were not foreigners but rather came from their own people. The problem is people like to then falsely extrapolate that the Israelite were never there in the first place. Nobody said the Israelite constituted the entirety of the slave population to ever have existed in Egyptian culture, not even the Bible said that these people built all the pyramids and structures of that time. They were for what, about a couple centuries? And think about how long the Egyptian civilization has been around. If the historians were able to properly and perfectly map out every detail of the longest recorded civilized human society in history, we wouldn't have historians or archeologists anymore. Unless we were there some millenniums ago, we may never know whether anything ever existed and not a huge collusion or lie, but anyways:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Exodus#Historicity_debate
Complimentary wiki link, see the Archeology section, the other sections are good reads as well. For those wishing to whine about Wiki's veracity, click the citations and read the cited sources. Basically this is your word against overwhelming archeological evidence from experts in the field. The Israelites themselves did a massive search on it and came away empty handed, and they had every reason to find even the tiniest shred of evidence they could.

Here is a good overview of the slavery misconception as well: http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/slaves.htm I don't blame you, I was falsely taught the same during high school and only recently discovered otherwise. It is a shame findings such as these take so long to circulate through society. Honestly, I suspect religious influence is to blame.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Innocent? Egyptians? They burned their own children to worship their gods and idols, they brainwashed their children and other people at the time. Pharaoh's people aren't as pristine as you think they are (besides, if the people did, they'd probably try to stir a revolution).

http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/humansac.htm -info on human sacrifices in egypt
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sacrifice - wiki link see egypt section

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Also, regarding the first borns. First nobody knows for sure if every one of these people were all innocent and innocuous. Like I said it's possible they could've been brainwashed by their parents.
This is an appeal to ignorance. Starting with a fallacy as your first point does not fill me with confidence.
In addition, I only have to say that just one innocent first born was killed. Your the one that has to then try to justify that fact with an omnipotent being going on yet another killing spree.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Second, sure the Egyptian first borns may have died but think about how many Israelite first borns the egyptians killed annually. Historians have said that the ratio of Egyptian first borns killed to a few years worth of Israelite first born deaths is about 1:40.

Can you cite this please I can find no such thing. In fact here is another wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Ancient_Egypt saying there was no evidence of infanticide. Perhaps you are confused with the Greeks or Romans? At this point I am suspecting you just made that up. Ignorance is something I can forgive, wilful ignorance is something I abhor.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Even killing ALL the egyptians at the time wouldn't have equaled the cumulative number of deaths the Israelites suffered - your assertion that "the Egyptians are hurting people, so we will hurt them back even harder" is invalid because God actually went pretty easy on these people.

Once again can you please cite this 'fact' which I now suspect you are pulling out of your arse.
In addition, my assertion still stands. Regardless of how many Egyptians he killed and to what ratio it was compared to Israeli deaths does not change the fact that it is the same old barbaric thinking that you come to expect from authors of that time period "they are hurting us so we will hurt them back". Eye for an eye.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Third and more importantly, when innocents die, they aren't being punished at all, thus god wouldn't be sending these people to hell. There's this whole issue of the "age of understanding" theologians talk about everyday.

This is basically going back to what I have said in my previous post. If you are accepting that God is omnipotent as step 1 then every single action no matter how tremendous you will have to justify. Your third point shows this to the letter, you have basically conceded that God can kill anyone he wants for any reason and we would not be able to condemn him for it, have you not? If you start with the question "IS God omnipotent?" and then look at his actions, which is what I have done, you will of course come to the obvious conclusion. He most certainly is not.

You have also failed to mention perhaps my biggest gripe I have with the whole firstborn slaughter thing. Why is it moral for God to transfer the punishment for one person's sins to other people? If my father murders someone, I do not go to jail. Yet when the Pharoah sins, others pay for it.

It is the same with Jesus, every single person, no matter how their sins, can earn forgiveness through redemption in Christ. Their sins can just slip away. Scapegoating! Transferring your own moral responsibility onto another. This is a cowardly, monstrous action that I despise. When a man rapes and murders a woman that evil will always taint him. He will always be a murderer. Always be a rapist. Yet your God says no, forget about all that, Jesus will take all that on to himself. That is what Heaven is full of, scapegoats. People who have thrown their moral responsibility onto another. Frankly, I would despise such company.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

You have yet to show me an example of where God murders innocent people for no reason at all. Please show me examples in the Bible and I'll tell you why God did what he did.

Well as I have just said this is a rather meaningless task if you concede in your third point that God can murder innocents for whatever reason he wants. And I'm not saying God kills for no reason, I'm saying God kills for stupid and bad reasons. Especially when he doesn't have to kill at all there are so much more peaceful ways for an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God to remove someone. Here is one of my favourites I like quoting:

2 Kings 2:23-24
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. %u201CGet out of here, baldy!%u201D they said. %u201CGet out of here, baldy!%u201D He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

Here's another good list for you to go ahead and justify: http://lukeprog.com/religion/evil_bible_stories.html

Quote from MillenniumArmy

You asked or raised issues regarding what's in the Bible so why would you refuse biblical quotes which corroborate what I'm telling you? If you hold such a bitter sentiment towards what the Bible says, fine, but if you are only going to continue posting here with a closed and bigoted mindset and only argue for the sake of venting out your hatred, then you need to stop wasting your time and move on.

Yes that was a nice little rant there but hardly becoming on a forum such as this. Refrain from throwing around such accusations in the future...

Now I do not hold a 'bitter sentiment' towards the Bible, I merely believe the majority of its contents to be inaccurate and not useful to today's society. Even treating it as a work of fiction I can find little enjoyment from it.

I will expand upon what I said, quoting Bible passages mean nothing to me. I want to hear what is actually your own words, just throwing some random line out from the Bible and leaving it hanging there as if it actually represents a coherent argument is laughable. I'm asking why God is it moral for God to punish us with something for which we have no control. Every human is born with sin already burdened on their shoulders. It is impossible for a human to live free of sin as they are born with it due to ancestral/original sin. We are created by God caged, and then Jesus is the key dangled in front of us. Now, in your own words, why is it moral for God to do this. Why must we be born imprisoned and already condemned to the flames.

Quote from MillenniumArmy

I already told you, "beaming" his message of loving into everyone's brains is NOT giving people the choice to love and develop relationships. Thus my point still stands.

Ugh, wow. That is all you have to say? Beaming the message people still have the choice to follow that message or not.

Aaand I'm still asking the same question from my previous post. Why was his method of forgiveness a human sacrifice. A human sacrifice!!! Not anyone of you here today witnessing that same event would just sit and watch a god damn human sacrifice. That is barbarity and stupidity of the enth degree, yet stopping such an act would have been an affront to your God.

And WHY is it conditional, if to forgive people, why not forgive them, unconditionally? Is he really so petty and spiteful that he will condemn millions to eternal torture for not thinking he exists?

Quote from MillenniumArmy

Just like how laughable I find your views on Christianity/religion. I've seen better and less myopic arguments/views from Christians and apologists. In fact, even the other Atheists here on this site and other communities I'm a part of offer more thought provoking and mature arguments than anything you have said here. I suggest you learn from those people first.

Yes nice bit of ad hominem here in an attempt to shore up your wet-tissue argument. I guess I can say the same, you are basically doing what the majority of other internet-Christians I have discussed with are doing.

Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to be true. Put that aside and look only at the facts.