Here is a blanket statement: debating with devoutly religious...

Here is a blanket statement: debating with devoutly religious people is like

I always find it humorous that the religiously devote always think of themselves as being open minded, yet the vast majority have never read their holy books. yes they get fed cherry picked lines each week, but they haven't read the book from start to finish. I have read the Bible, and it is the very reason I don't believe in any God. It makes no sense. it is contradictory. It is full of of horrendous ideas of how people should live such as stoning people to death for being gay, wearing clothes made from mixed fibres, touching a female while she is on her period or working on a Sunday for example.

All fairly reasonable.

Or do we cherry pick around those all to often occurring awkward moments, shall we no longer say it is gods law to force a woman you have raped to marry you to appease god, shall we no longer treat women as property?

Oh no its allegory and needs to be interpreted doesn't it. Yes of course, because an all knowing, all powerful super being who gets mightily annoyed when his pesky creations dont do as he expected, despite that fact he should have known this, what with his fabled omniscience, he decides to have a book written that doesn't provide a clear mandate on what to do. He leaves it to us, his obviously flawed creations to interpret his godly meaning.

He is also a very vicious god, the old testament stuff is on some next level of depravity... but yes I know, you only use the stuff from the less awkward new testament... apart from when asked about where you get your morals from, then thats old testaments 10 commandment time. Lets not mention rape or enslavement of weaker or poorer beings, lets spend the first 4 commandments making sure people don't make your god jealous. yes, of course. perfect.

Its always stuck me as extremely strange that you find such a high percentage of devoutly religious people haven't read their holy book cover to cover when they believe it to be the true and unwavering word of the creator of the universe. I mean come on, this geezer created the universe, then wrote a book, and the vast majority of people who believe in him have never read it. What the doodle dandy is that about??!?

Anyway, lets cut all the fluff. have you ever held a new born baby Danhoff, I reckon you have, you probably have your own. When you looked into his or hers eyes, minutes or hours after the birth, did you think that it was an evil, sinful being that deserves to go and spend an eternity in hell if it was to die before being baptised? If you didn't think that there is hope for you yet.

As to Gold, no I do not believe gold evolved from slime. Elements do not evolve. Like all elements heavier than iron, gold was created by the fusion of smaller elements during a massive star's supernova explosion. Most gold formed this way quickly decayed back to stable smaller elements, however some were already stable at formation. These elements stay suspended as dust in space till the process of star and planetary formation cause these elements to eventually condense forming our planet.Through geological processes, gold is concentrated in certain areas and hence we have gold ore.

Gold cannot be duplicated as mass cannot be created or destroyed (law of conservation of mass), we can however change other elements to gold through fusion/fission processes, however the cost of this in terms of energy required and the very tiny amounts of product produced (talking few atoms) make this a very uneconomical exercise.

I believe I may have physics text book from when I was at high school knocking about if you would like to learn more. P&P costs apply.

p.s. I am happy you failed in any attempt you may have made to indoctrinate your daughter. The world will be that little bit better for it.

p.p.s. There are over 3000 recorded gods that have existed around the world that we have some form of record of. Now I assume you don't believe in Mithra, Zeus of Hades or any of the others, just Yahweh of the good christian book. So I put it to you Danhoff, that you are just as much an athiest as me, I just believe in one less god than you. thats all it boils down to, and in time your god will go the way of all the others into myth, legend then bedtime stories that aren't designed to scare the innocent young minds of our children.

Much love.