Where do I even start? Ignorance flows freely in just about every paragraph you typed here.
1) I am not blinded by my belief any more than you are by your lack of belief.
2) The bible has no substance? That is prima facie ignorance of the highest order. There is no valid definition of substance that makes that statement anything but false.
3) I can't turn the statement around on you? All evidence to the contrary - and rather effectively I might add - your opinion here isn't worth any more than mine. . . . and I think Red more than debunked your statement about scientists all being atheists. Why do all religious scholars have to study the Bible? Just more ignorance.
4) Your fantasies are very good at cherry-picking various aspects that you are already biased against. I can find 20 passages to every one of yours with not only some merit, but quite a bit truth to them. Free will allows you to not believe anything you like, but certainly doesn't make it contain any more or less truth, just because you choose not to believe it.
5) I would be glad to correct you on this statement. If something is proven wrong, I work to add it to my world view - a world view that still includes religion. That is the real difference between you and I.
6) His conclusion was that God exists - not sure why you even quoted that. He did do his best to dispense with God, and could not - I think that was my point.
7) Umm . . . there are quite a few very well known atheists from that time. I am sure you can Google them all. They may not have professed such views for fear of death at the time, but doesn't mean they didn't have atheist views and were willing to talk all about them. Notable ones, in case you don't care to look - Da Vinci, Machiavelli, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and quite a number who did meet death, but never gave up their atheistic views. Descarte's life was never in danger (he was sickly), even though he started out with complete skepticism as it pertains to religion. Even many of the famous ones that did die, had their writings published after their death, so am not really sure why you think Descartes' conclusions had anything to do with the "danger" of having them.
BTW - your last definition of ignorance isn't even close. It most certainly does not show a lack of knowledge to have faith in something in the face of what you are calling evidence. I think you are ignorant of the definition of ignorance. :*)
1. I beg to differ. As I've said, give me some proof or anything that may lead to the conclusion that your God is real and I will be able to admit I am wrong. I don't believe I could ever follow your God because of the things he's done in the bible and the way he ignores evils of this world, but I'd at least believe. Almost every creation claim in the bible has been completely destroyed by science. And if you believe there have been people who've lived almost 1,000 years, I have a billion dollar penny to sell you.
2. Okay, perhaps substance was the wrong word, but it should be fairly obvious what I meant by the word. There is nothing to the bible that has any relevance to reality. You may count inspirational stories or spiritual verses, but that isn't unique to the bible.
3. You're right. My opinion is not greater than yours. I am just a man and so are you. But, that doesn't mean you are right and I am wrong or the other way around. I already addressed Red's poll, so I won't do that again.
4. Find as many passages as you want that have merit. I can do that in Harry Potter books and the Qur'an. When it comes to scientific fact, the bible is limited by the knowledge of the day. You'll get scholars that argue otherwise. They'll claim that the bible talks of DNA, which is an absolute stretch and completely untrue, but you can do that. For every one of those accurate scientific claims you will find one claiming that Heaven separates the water in the sky from the water on Earth. Oh, and the sky is a solid dome. It's convenient for Christians to believe it is symbolic and not literal. But, whatever.
5. If that is the case, then Kudos to you. But, you can't accept something that refutes your faith and still believe everything else. The bible is supposed to be God inspired or the actual work of God. One error in the bible destroys everything.
6. I quoted that because most people of the day believed him to be a deist or an atheist. And yes, in that day atheist was a huge insult and not something that you wanted to be known as. So most atheists of the day claimed to be christian or a deist.
7. I believe i answered this already, but I'll continue. Not sure about Machiavelli because I honestly don't know enough about him to say for sure, but Da Vinci's religion has been debated for a long time. Some believe he was Catholic. Some believe he was a deist. A lot of his work was related to religion. He speaks much of reasoning and criticizing scholars who thought they knew everything but only parroted others opinions. If you check out others from that time period, you'll find that they claimed religion, but secretly harbored doubts. Rumors of deism or atheism.
