Same here and thanks. I definitely like a good open minded discussion instead of aggressive mud fighting as if we're still chimps.



The Chinese government has banned a lot of religions, that's sort of unrelated to how people look at that particular religion there. China basically has no freedom of religion, so it's difficult to say what the average Chinese thinks of Buddhism or any religion for that matter.




Not really as history has shown time and time again that historic documents are often quite unreliable. Mainly because the one who lives is obviously the one able to write history. Many kings in the past have bragged so incredibly much that it's difficult to take them serious when it comes to counting taxes (something that's difficult to brag about when it's simple documentation for government purposes).

When it comes to these stories (or myths if you will), it's incredibly difficult to even start sorting out truth from exaggeration, facts from fiction. What I said was that archaeological research does not support many of the stories. If you find only one chariot in the Dead Sea, where hundreds or perhaps even thousands should have been... something tells me the story is wrong.



And the Jews stole it from the Egyptians who stole it from the Sumerians. There's a whole line of religions using the same old stories. Christ-like main characters included!



Yes, the Torah is older, but again it was based on the ancient Egyptian religion(s) and other religions. The fact that the books are old doesn't really mean a thing to be honest with you. Also, apparently it doesn't make your eyebrows frown knowing that Christianity copied so incredibly much from the Torah?

[ quote] I never said that everything was here to begin with, the bible says that God came from another place, meaning that God was not in the physical domain, when God decided to come over He began creation. [/quote]

I know you never said that, but in my opinion simple logic demands an answer to this paradox. I'm very open minded about this though, as the universe doesn't have to make sense according to logic or be still tangible when going down the rabbit hole deep enough so to speak. There are several points from which we have to admit that 'we just don't know yet'.




The coming into existence of our universe wasn't a coincidence. Forget about people that talk about 'chance' and 'chance of life to come into existence'. It's pretty much valueless crap as long as we do not have more answers. Like for example is our planet the only one with life? And so on and so forth.



I respect that, but I use a different definition for 'evidence'. It's not an attack to you or anyone else, but as said before I don't think the Bible is that much of a 'valid source' for itself to be counted as true evidence. I think you have to look into the research that has been done to try and find cities or prove events from biblical times... you'll be surprised how incredibly little has been found to be even remotely (read: can't rule out whether or not it happened or not) accurate,

Cheers