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There's evil in this world - and I don't see the remedy for that existing beyond the choices that man makes himself. Short of turning man into robots - how does God displace man's freedom of choice with exacting His will, and not be contradictory to His nature, or the Creation? That philosophical question has existed through time, and likely will never be resolved. If God was all-wise, God would know how to solve the problem. Cleary God is not all-wise. That's pretty obvious. The wrong assumption is that God is external. If you keep looking to the clouds for God you'll never find the answers. All you'll find is water vapor. If you want to find God you must look within. You got part of it right. If mankind is going to remedy anything it's going need to come from the choices that mankind makes. Period. The sooner we face that truth the better off we'll be.  As long as we keep praying to the clouds and pointing fingers at each other calling each other sinners we'll never achieve anything. Actually - I'm not about pointing fingers and calling someone else a sinner - I'm not their judge, nor their keeper. In terms of God having solved the problem - He has. Jesus is the solution according to the bible. (Not meant to proselytize, just following through on the point) As far as finding God within - what is the criteria for determining what is God - and what is not? One of the difficulties I have with Eastern based religion that I've discussed at length with those who practice them. From New Age to the Extreme Cultists - which I have never had problems finding in my days in the Cafe's of Harvard Square and the Haight/Ashbury. In those days - I was studying those religions. I never found the answer to that question myself, and most of the friends I discussed it with, felt that this was the quest. Anyway. We're a tad off topic - so, I still await some of the questions I ask in sincerity about just why "Evolution" (and I'm not talking about observable mutations within a species - you get the point) is science? To me - it fits all of the criteria of a philosophy, or "religion" if you will, rather than a verifyable, demonstratable scientific theory. OK! So, the Pope and catholicism are not representative of christianity. Protetantism isn't representative of christianity. No - they are not. Here let's seeif I can dumb this down for you so that you can comprehend the point. While it may be true that the Pope is a Christain - he is not representative of christainity. While there may be numerous Catholics who are christains - claiming to be a Catholic does not make one a christain. Ditto for Protestantism. Now - if you would like to demonstrate how that is incorrect - we can carry that discussion on if you wish. Science, the scientific community, all tangible manifestations from scientific research, has absolutely no authority when it comes to holding the scientific theory of evolution, HAS PIECE AND PARCEL OF SCIENCE!!! I didn't say anything about the scientific community being the authority on Evolution - I said I find no basis for evolution to be science. I would expect you to have the same bjections that I would in this matter if I claimed that Priests are the authority on Christianity - so therefore because they say it's true - it is, despite what you think, you're not being a recognised authority in such matters. Does that prove to you that Christianty is true now. Have I convinced you? Think you've convinced me with this statement? Hold on here! All you've been saying for the longest time 'Eljay', is YOU know better. Well - apparently YOU do - and now you're going to attemt to demonstrate this to me now, eH? Let's see how that goes. Since YOU have been deceived by catholicism, the pope and all 1,3 billion catholics around the world are not really christians. I have never been decieved by Catholicism. Apparently you have though - since you think by merely being baptised as an infant into the Catholicism population that one is now a christian. Could you give me the biblical passages that support that - since I must have missed them in my study of it. Since the scientific theory of 'evolution' contradicts or conflicts, depending on your delicate pick of words 'Eljay', with YOUR world view, or beliefs, or faith, or truth seeking experiment, 'evolution' becomes, as declared by YOU, a 'religion'. Actually - since the idea of Evolution as an origin of the species and an "explination of the development of life on this planet" cannot be verified by true science - it is closer to a religion than it is to science. Unless your definition of religion must include some reference to a deity - or deities. I find that an adequate description of religion is represented by what I find inn the Encarta college dictonary: Religion: a set of strongly held beliefs, values, and attitudes that somebody lives by. Science: The study of the physical world and it's manifistations, especially using systematic observation and experiment. Given these basic understandings - could you please tell me where the claim of man and Ape sharing a common ancester falls? Science - or religion. Youu're response is science - as you seem so adamaent to insist on. I would lie to know when the systematic observation of this took place and the experiments on this - and who they gave the Nobel Prise to for this miraculous EVIDENCE. Tell e when, and by who this was done by, and I'll pick up the evolutionist flag and become a Fundy-Evolutionary like you are. YOU request proof! And you claim fact without it. Even gos as far as claiming it's scientific theory. Yet you put the same demands on Christainity and Creatonism. You're a hypocrit Voile. Else just not too bright. YOU request that the world addresses YOUR capricious and insatiable PERSONAL FAITH BASED CONVICTIONS! No Voile - I ask that they explain their proof so I can believe too. But no one wants me to believe, because all they keep doing is claiming I can't believe because my world view won't let me. Well - when I was an Atheist, I didn't believe it them either, and asked the same quesitons. So what was the excuse then? YOU are convinced about YOUR own convictions, beliefs, experiences. That is good for YOU 'Eljay'! And believe when I say that I am glad that YOU are confortable with YOUR own convictions. But you'll need to acknowledge that YOU are a religion of ONE 'Eljay'. I'm not convinced about MY convictions Voile - I am in extreme doubt about yours. I would love to understand how you can blindly believe that the world is 4.5 billion years old, that we share a common ancester with apes (yet they are pretty sure that common ancester was an ape to begin with - but hey, we aren't decendent from apes.) all of this with no verifyable examples to address the issues. What I happen to believe in does nothing for what I DON'T believe in. I don't believe in pink elephants - but it isn't because I have faith in Christianity. With the humility that I trust you might be able to muster, you'll have to realize that YOUR religion of ONE is supported by nothing other than YOUR personal experiences of ONE, which have no more credibility than the credibility it has for YOU, and have little to no importance above and beyond the personal experiences and convictions of anyoneONE else's. So now that you've built this strawman - what are we to do with it. I find the statement you've just made to be as representative of you - than it is of me. so if you think this is not an accurate picture of you, than obviously you have no idea about how to represent me. The chrisitian world doesn't care much that you do not find it representative of christianity, and the scientific community, as well as the world at large, doesn't care much that you are convinced that 'evolution' is a reilgion. The world will go on without your convictions, and you have the absoulute privilege to hold on to them as you wish. I don't refer to the "christian world's" representation of christainity as false - I claim YOU'RE representation of the Christain world is wrong. See the opening of my post for this explination. To make the EXTRAORDINARY CLAIM that ... the pope and 1,3 billion christians are not representative of christianity, and, ... that the scientific rality of the theory of evolution is nothing more than a 'religion', requires EXTRAORDINARY EVIDENCE, which YOU dear Eljay, with all your personal 'apologetic' studies, and personal biblical word pilgrimages, will never be in a position to establish. Well - I don't know about the Pope - and by the way, neither do you. But if there are 1.3 billion christains - then they represent Christains. If you want to equate Catholism, Mormanism, Jehovah Witness', Christian Scientists, Moonies, Children of God, The Way, The Health and Wealth movement, David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in your all inclusive 1.3 Billion - then I do not stand alone in my disagreement with your analysis of what makes a Christain - and am not a religion of one. But your analysis of what makes a christian brings about a serious concern of semantics, since you don't appear to understand just how to identify a christain in the first place. I also am waiting for someone, anyone to respond to the "scientific reality" of evolution with that demonstratable systematic observation that supports it. To me - it is conjecture. I make no claims about it's validity, or authententicity. Just that it is no more a stretch to claim that God Created the Materialistic Universe - than it is to say that Abiogenesis did, and got us to where we are now. I can't disprove either one, nor could I convince anyone with "fact" and demonstratable evidence. I doubt you can either. Else you would be on the reciepient of Nobel Prizes. The profound lack of crediblity, confusion, conflict, contradictions, mixed perspectives, EXTREME subjectivity, and just being ONE whom has faith which is founded on NO EVIDENCE, just like everyone else, should convince you to regroup, declare yourself whole and happy in your personal convictions, and leave these insane and unwinnable arguments alone, for the benefit of exchanges that might have a REAL chance of making a difference. This is EXACTLY what I have done since Krimsa and Bushio have embarked me on an extensive study of evolution. I have a much better understanding of science - which I haven't had since I studyed chemistry in my youth - and I have even less faith in Evolution than when I first started, since I have been researching Biology and Geology. It's only brought forth more questions that no one is asnswering. I'm told that the more I learn about evolution the more that I do not understand it. So by the time I memorize it - I'll be completely ignorant of it. I guess the idea of it - according to Bushi, is the less you research it - the better you'll understand it. And ignore the idea of asking questions. Let's not confuse this issue by having unanswered questions. Just have faith. No wait. It CAN'T be about FAITH!!! That was the point of my 'scope trial' post earlier: '... How otherwise smart and articulate people whom could make a difference in the world, can come across as rather ingnorant and disingeneuous when hypnotized and posessed by dogma, which as a result, would throws them compulsively in endlessly waging 'LOST BATTLES'!!!...' But what has the Scopes trial done to demonstrate that Evolution is a viable explination to our origins? There was even LESS facts about Evolution at the time of the scopes trial as is presumes and conjectured today. So what was the point of it? And what was the direct verdict of the Scopes trial? |
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There's evil in this world - and I don't see the remedy for that existing beyond the choices that man makes himself. Short of turning man into robots - how does God displace man's freedom of choice with exacting His will, and not be contradictory to His nature, or the Creation? That philosophical question has existed through time, and likely will never be resolved. If God was all-wise, God would know how to solve the problem. Cleary God is not all-wise. That's pretty obvious. The wrong assumption is that God is external. If you keep looking to the clouds for God you'll never find the answers. All you'll find is water vapor. If you want to find God you must look within. You got part of it right. If mankind is going to remedy anything it's going need to come from the choices that mankind makes. Period. The sooner we face that truth the better off we'll be. As long as we keep praying to the clouds and pointing fingers at each other calling each other sinners we'll never achieve anything. Actually - I'm not about pointing fingers and calling someone else a sinner - I'm not their judge, nor their keeper. In terms of God having solved the problem - He has. Jesus is the solution according to the bible. (Not meant to proselytize, just following through on the point) As far as finding God within - what is the criteria for determining what is God - and what is not? One of the difficulties I have with Eastern based religion that I've discussed at length with those who practice them. From New Age to the Extreme Cultists - which I have never had problems finding in my days in the Cafe's of Harvard Square and the Haight/Ashbury. In those days - I was studying those religions. I never found the answer to that question myself, and most of the friends I discussed it with, felt that this was the quest. Anyway. We're a tad off topic - so, I still await some of the questions I ask in sincerity about just why "Evolution" (and I'm not talking about observable mutations within a species - you get the point) is science? To me - it fits all of the criteria of a philosophy, or "religion" if you will, rather than a verifyable, demonstratable scientific theory. |
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Three years at St Charles Bormino Seminary, five years in the Jesusits and I never, repeat never met anyone who took the Bible as literal truth or anything near truth, but only as faith (this is what we choose to believe)literature and poetry. And I met people who dealth with the boy in St Louis whom they based the book/movie The Excorist on. Yes they believe in a mystery and things beyond our comprehension, but not that the Bible is the unchangeable word of g-d. So what you are saying is that your experience has been with Catholicism. Are you presuming that Catholicism is the authority on this matter? I never found it to be so in the many years I was a Catholic, and find it to be even less so today. I do not find Catholicism to be representative of Christainity. It was the Pope who ordered that the Bible be studied to refute Darwin when his published Origin of the Species. This resulted in the Catholic Modernist movement, as well as, masses of Cathokic theologians leaving the Church because they found the Bible full of contradictions and untruths. Most of the Bible critism quoted on this thread comes directly from the research of faith-based people trying to prove the book to be G-d's word and finally having to re-evaluate their faith. I hope you don't find offense in this - but I consider the Pope just another guy, and don't consider Him to be any more knowledgable about Christainity than any other "believer" on this site. I would tend to think that He is more misinformed about Historic Christainity than most laypeople who have read the bible and studied it for themselves - because he is mired down in having to justify Catholic tradition through pretext - since a lot of it is contrary to context. So any mandate from the Catholic church concerning Evolution is irrelivant to me. And again - I do not see the Catholic church's support of evolution or an old earth as representative af anything "Christian". There's no authority there. |
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Edited for brevity
Thank you for finally responding with an answer that actually makes sense.  I would actually agree with much of what you said, but at the same time I have problems with the 'religion' as a whole. I'd just like to share these with you for the sole reason of sharing views. I would certainly agree with that. But at the same time I don't recall anywhere in the Bible where God ever commanded anyone to be perfect or claiming that imperfection was a sin. Especially not of the magnitude to warrant such a catastrophic sacrifice as having his son brutally murdered to pay for our "failings". I don't have much use for "religion" myself. I have spent enough of my life involved in one way or another with a variety of them - from Catholicism to Buddism, and find them all wanting. Especially when it comes down to what I call "Oral Tradition" - or also known as "Majority consenses" as far as interpretation. As to "God" expecting perfection... The biblical mandate coes from Jesus in Matthew 5: 48. It is part of the Sermon on the mount where he discusses "Love for Enemies". To paraphrase the chapter, he asks what purpose is it to only love those who love you, as even the pagens do that. Then we get: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect". Can't get any plainer than that, and it isn't said as a suggestion. Sure - you say, no one is perfect. And the response to that is "Exactly". But this - taken by itself isn't a true representation of the point that Jesus is trying to make. Contextually - Jesus is constantly rebuking the disciples for not seeking guidance from God, and relying on their own understanding. It is a constant theme throughout the Old Testament, and Jesus is just driving the point home. He knows that the disciples are incapable of being perfect - because their tendency is not to seek God. Yet - it is still his directive, because to be in God's absolute will, is to be perfect as He is. At least that is pretty much understood as a central idea of scripture. So - that's where I am with it. Wanting it to be true - not a question I consider asking myself. Having the faith that it is - more and more so with every day that I research it, and it's alternatives. Until there is clear evidence to convince me otherwise, and believe me - if there is, I'd want to know about it, I remain. Well this is where we part ways significantly. I too have researched other alternatives and I've found many that are far more sensible than the Bible, IMHO. So clearly we different vastly on that point. The other place where we clearly differ is concerning the reasons to consider whether or not the Bible might actually be divine and the word of some consistent God. This is clearly where we differ greatly. I see a myriad of contradictions in the Bible, not the least of which is the fact that Jesus didn't even agree with the ways of the God of Abraham. That's seems quite strange to me that the son of a God would disagree with his own father (especially when that this is supposed to be a monotheistic religion of a trinity where Jesus and God are indeed just two faces of the same Holy Spirit). We can't have three seperate Gods here or we end up with polytheism which the Christians were desperately trying to avoid because they didn't want it to end up being like Zeus and Apollo all over again. While I am pretty much aware of the numerous "contradictions" that you have, especially about the Old Testament, I tend to think of these as "conflicts", as opposed to "contradictions" - because a contradiction would be something that is stated contrary to the actual event, whereas "conflict" is more like going against the anticipated event. In other words, it is not a contradiction to establish corporal punishment in Leviticus, and then state "Love thy neighbor as thyself". It may establish a conflict - but it's not a contradiction. At least that's how I term it. Perhaps this is where we digress greatly. I'm not unaware of the conflict of a vengeful and wrathful God - but I don't see it as a contradiction to an omnicient and all powerful God. It is approaching the issue from two different perspectives that I don't equivicate. Also - I don't see the idea of the trinity as that simplistic. Though I don't feel I could explain it adequately, I can certainly comprehend it. In any case, there are a couple of major points that convinced me to walk away. (actually there were a myriad of major points, but the following are significant I think). First off, what does it mean to accept Jesus as your "Savior"? Well, it means that you accept the sacrifice that God made to you by having Jesus crucified. Well, what does that mean? Well, clearly it means that you ACCEPT the crucificion for YOUR SAKE! That's all it can mean. But what would that mean? Well, for starters it would mean that if you had been there at the time of the crucifixion you'd be willing to take part in it or even nail Jesus to the Cross yourself. Absolutely! In fact, if you feel deep inside that you would anything to prevent the crucifixion then you're NOT ACCEPTING IT! The whole idea is to ACCEPT the sacrifice of God's Son. If you feel in any way that the crucifixion was wrong or that you would not condone it, then you are NOT accepting the sacrifice. So to accept the sacrifice of Jesus for your sake would require that you actually accept it, and not try to blame it on those nasty Romans, or Jews, or whomever. If you going to accept the sacricice for your sake then this is precisely what you must do. You must accept that YOUR THE REASON it had to be done, and it was in fact done for YOU, and you ACCEPT this act being done for you. I have serious problems with that. Even if the story were true I'm afraid I'd still have to reject the sacrifice and say, "No thanks, I don't condone that act on my behalf". It wasn't my plan, nor do I feel that I have EVER done anything that would warrant such a punishishment in my entire life. And if I haven't done anything to warrant such a punishment why should I accept someone's sacrifice for things that I don't even feel responsible for. You say that we are all "imperfect". That may be true, but there's a huge difference between being imperfect and having purposefully carried out malicious acts to spite God or anyone else. I've never done that in my life. So, now we must turn to the text and see what the text actually SAYS. Well, Jesus himself was quoted by the very Bible that he did not come for the righteous but for the sinners. Ok fine, maybe that explains it then. God sacrificed Jesus for the sake of genuinely evil people, he wasn't sacrificed for the righteous people. Even the idea that Jesus' mother was sinless proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that there or mere mortal people who are NOT sinners. Yet, other places in the Bible it claims that ALL are sinners and ALL must accept Christ as their savior. This is all INCONSISTENT and totally contradicting. Moreover, if you start going through the Bible with a fine tooth comb to see where the contradictions are you come away with more contradictions than can be kept track of. How you can't see that is beyond me. Even Jesus contradicted the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham clearly had people judging each otehr and stoning sinners to death. Jesus denounced both Judging otehrs and stoning sinners to death. If that's not a contradiction I don't know what is. Jesus and God are supposed to be the same entity. Remember this is supposed to be a MONOthesitic religion! The God of Abraham also taught people to seek revenge as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and confessed to being a jealous vengeful God HIMSELF. Jesus was the antithesis to this. Jesus preached forgiviness and to turn the other cheek. The EXACT OPPOSITE of what the God of Abraham seemed to have in mind. At best, this is a God who changes his mind drastically if not his ENTIRE PERSONALITY. This is a God who sends MIXED messages. Moreover, the God of Abraham clearly instructed the Jews to murder any "heathens" where a heathen is defined as nothing more that someone who teachings something OTHER than what the WORD of the God of Abraham taught. Yet, this same God of Abraham supposedly sent Jesus to teaching precisely THE OPPOSITE things that he taught?  That's not a contradiction? If the Jew were responsible for having Jesus crucified the God of Abraham most certainly couldn't blame them! They would have been doing PRECISELY what he commanded that they MUST DO! This would be a seriously mentally ill God who is sending mixed messages in the worst possible way. How can you justify any of that? I've finally concluded that there are so many contradiction that it can't possibly be true. And also, even if there is some kind of distorted vauge truth between the lines, then it probably does come down to the idea that Jesus had been sent for the sake of the SINNERS and not the RIGHTEOUS, (just like Jesus himself was quoted as having said). I personally think the whole thing is a train-wreck, but I can see where evil people who know they've done really bad things might want to believe it so they can be saved from the terrible things that they've done. But the idea that this God was ever out to make good people feel guilty just makes no sense to me. Again, while I can see the objections - I feel they have to do more with conflict over what is expected, rather than outright contradiction. You're objection to the crucifixion brings out a logical conflict. I don't know of anyone - were they to be standing there in the 1st century - who would have been right along side the Centurians cheering away because their sins were forgiven. Nor do I think that given the choice - that this would be part of anyone's plan. But that's the thing... Who's plan is it? We had no part of our entering this life - how do we all of a sudden have control over it once it's over? In terms of being our own judges - how are we as a species doing with that? The recent government bailout should answer that question sufficiently. Given the freedom to govern ourselves and set our own moral standards - how's that going? And is it going any better anywhere else in the world? Oh - we're capable of being good, loving, caring people - but presented with the chance to fail - as a society, we're pretty consistant with doing just that. So - the idea that a savior for the species is needed? You'd be hard pressed to convince me that this is NOT the case - given a God one anticipates is perfect. That's my take on it. It isn't about what my plan is - I've lived a good part of my life, and If I had to do it all over again, there's a lot of things I'd convince myself was not forwarding "My plan". How about you? Granted - you may not chose to believe there is a need for a "savior" - but I don't see how you don't see that there is a need for one for an extremely large number of people walking on this planet. And there are a myriad of other reasons why I have a problem with this story, as I've been posting them for the past few years now. You say that you find problems with other spirituality. I guess that's where I differ with you the most. I find various pantheistic views of God to be far more realistic and sane. So I guess that's were we truly differ the most. By your own confession, you can't seem to find a 'better' picture so you're stuck with the Bible or Atheism. I've found better pictures of God, so I never had to bring it down to the Bible or Atheism. I guess that's truly are major difference right there.  I wouldn't even mention the Bible if there wasn't so much proselytizing going on for it. But unfortunately the proselytizing for it never stops. And the proseltyzing truly does denounce, science as well as ALL OTHER RELIGIONS, and it even tries to make out atheist to be bad people who are rejecting God. It's just an accusatory religion. In fact, the Protestants denounce the Catholics and vice versa. Protestant demonination denounce other protestant denominations. It's just Christians denouncing Christians all the way around. Not to mention the hostilities of the Jews and Mulsims tossed in, which is basically the SAME RELIGION actually. Clearly if the whole world were converted to "Christianity" that'd just be the beginning of the real "Holy Wars" because this is a religion that is constantly arguing over the interpretation of it's very own extremely ambigious doctrine. I just don't see where it has any positive value for humanity. Not to mention that after you get past all the Jesus stuff you end up with the Battle of Armageddon. It's just negative right to the very end, and isn't conducive to viewing the planet we live on as a long-term home. On the contrary it has 'worldy things' as being the realm of Satan. The religion basically DENOUNCED CREATION as being the EVIL realm of Satan. Whatever happened to "In the Beginning God saw what it was good"? Poor nature is now the domain of Satan. It's a religion that rejects the Earth as the realm of Satan. That's determental to humanity, IMHO. Humans rejecting MotherShip Earth. How is that positive? I don't think this is the right thread to get into Pantheism - so I'll suffice it to say that I know enough about it to see where it would be someone's choice as a path of investigation. I pursued it myself for a period, and have my own concerns as you do with Christainity. But this idea of being "Positive". Again, I see this whole idea of Satan in the equation as a "conflict of expectation". Like you - were I given the choice - there would be no Satan - or the idea of evil in the first place. But this is beyond my control. There's evil in this world - and I don't see the remedy for that existing beyond the choices that man makes himself. Short of turning man into robots - how does God displace man's freedom of choice with exacting His will, and not be contradictory to His nature, or the Creation? That philosophical question has existed through time, and likely will never be resolved. |
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Eljay, I'd also like to point out that once again you've totally evaded my concern, as you always have. Why would anyone want the Bible to be true? Why would you want it to be true that mankind has fallen from grace from his creator and the only way to get back into creator is to have that God sacrifice his son to pay for your sins. In all honesty Eljay, I can't imagine anyone actually wanting the Bible to be true. You'd have to be an emotional sadomasochist to actually want the Bible to be true. Anyone who wouldn't be absolutely thrilled to discover that the Bible is false would necessarily need to be a seriously demented person. No one should actually want the Bible to be true. No one. That's would be utterly ludicous. And you have never even suggesting that you're happy about the idea that you've failed your creator and he had to have his son butchered on a pole to pay for youre bad behavior. I don't believe that you would WANT that to be true either. No sane person would want such a thing to be true. So surely you don't fight for the Bible because you want it to be true. You must be fighting for it because you FEAR that it MIGHT be true. That can be the ONLY reason. No sane person would want the BIble to be true. Okay so you bring up an interesting point - not one that I considered beyond being rhetoric. The fact of the matter - for me anyway - is that it does not come down to wanting the bible to be true. In terms of wanting being equated with desire - I would have to say that I would wish for everyone to reach heaven/Nirvana/Vallahala, whatever one choses to call it... suffice it to say, an eternity that is everything wonderful about life on earth with none of the things that cause sadness, strife and pain. Most of the attributes described in every reliigon known to man. They all seem to have the goal of some sort of "spiritual perfection" - for lack of a better term. That being said, I just discovered a different conclusion in my study of the basic tennets of religions (losely defined as searching for the truth) than you. It has more to do with finding a lack of reasonable premises in all of the other world religions (Atheism included) and not so many with Christainity. I don't try to explaion the why's of the bible, nor do I try to measure it up against my own idea of a moral standard. I merely read it for what it said. Admitted ly, I did not start with the O.T., I began by reading the New Testament, and realized that all that I had thought it said based on my Catholic upbringing, was not what I was reading. Oh, it was close enough - but having read the bible for myself, I found the teachings of the Catholic church rather wanting in terms of what Christainity really is. Having attended a number of "protestant" congregations - I found them to be wanting as well. So I just embarked on dealling with what the bible said on it's own - not for what any denomination was telling me it said. I read christain apologists, and Atheist detractors. I continue to do so. I watch all of the U-tube stuff that is supposed to represent proof that christainity is false. As you might surmise, I'm not impressed with them. They build strawmen that I don't see representing the contectual christianity, and proceed to spend a lengthy time burning them down. It would be much easier if they just demonstrated how thir premises are false to begin with, rather than taking all of the time they to to round-aboutly do just that. Anyway - my point is - I don't find the idea that man "let's down God by commiting "sin"" - or what-ever one wants to call it. Falling short of doing what is right is how I think about it. It's just a fact of life. Everyone does it. There isn't any "fear" about it - it is what it is. There's just no point in trying to convince myself I don't do anything bad - whether on purpose or not. It just makes sense to me - that in considering the God of the bible, as Creator and all that is infered to him, that I have no reason to doubt it. I had numerous questions about the bible over the years, and have - for the most part, had those questions answered through either contextual study, or mere experience. So - that's where I am with it. Wanting it to be true - not a question I consider asking myself. Having the faith that it is - more and more so with every day that I research it, and it's alternatives. Until there is clear evidence to convince me otherwise, and believe me - if there is, I'd want to know about it, I remain. |
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Abra; I did not say that you never wanted the bible to be true. I simply said you don't want the bible to be true. This post here demonstrates it by your own words - and it's not the first time you've said it. You're just the poster child for it. I really couldn't care less how you came about your conclusion - or whether you made the decision 30 years ago, or last year. You prove my point. You don't want the bible to be true. It matters not what pretextual arguments you attempt to create to support your view - it never comes from context anyway. So be it. Oh but it absolutely does matter. You're trying to make it appear that I should just be chalked off as someone who doesn't want the Bible to be true because that's my motivation. But it's NOT my motivation. It's just a realization after I had already recognized that it can't be true anyway. So it's not relavent to the way that you were attempting to imply it should be relavent. What part of "I really couldn't care less how you came about your conclusion" do you not understand. Here - let me explain it for you. I'm not trying to make it appear that there's any motivation on your part. I haven't taken that much time to even think about it. But apparently you have, so now that you've explained your motivation - let's return to my point: You don't want the bible to be true. I know this because YOU posted it. You're arguments that science is faith-based are truly without merit at all and are clearly religiously motivated which is indeed a believe based on pure faith. I find it interesting that you are attempting to to explain to me what my motivation is for my statement. Not only do you make up your own God - you claim to be God. My investigation of "scientific fact" is not motivated by religion, but for a demonstration of truth. I will say this though, I understand enough about the difference between faith and science to know that Evolution is NOT science. It epitimizes the definition of a faith based philosophy. If you were to attempt to teach your ideas in schools parents would indeed have every right to object to you teching such lies. Because they are indeed lies. Science is not faith-based. That's a lie. We're not talking about science - we're talking about Darwinian based evolution - which is a philosophy - it's conjecture not a "scientific theory". Religious beliefs are not on the same footing with science. That's also a lie. Exactly my point. The idea of man and ape sharing a common ancester is anything but science. You can dress that pig up all you want in fancy terms and pseudo observation - but it's still a pig, for there's no demonstratable evidence to support that man and ape "share" an ancester, only conjecture based on an observation that demands a belief in unacceptable premises. You can claim ignorance until the cows come home, but the things you are attemtping to pass off as 'truths' hold no truth whatsoever. They are indeed false by any rational standard. Science is not faith-based, and religion does not carry the same merit. Those are false claims. (i.e. outright lies actually) You keep refering to "science" - obviously you did not read my post. In any discussion with you, Evolution does not equal science. Stop claiming I'm talking about "science" when I'm discussing Evolution. I clearly stated my position on the difference between science and evolution. Adress that issue if you'd like but stop refering to my opinion on science, that strawman burned down long ago. Else, I will tend to think that it is you who knows nothing about science. You can claim to "believe" those concepts yourself, but that doesn't give them merit. I can claim to believe in a purple people eater too. That doesn't give the idea merit. Here - let me clarify this for you. I'm not discussing any concept I believe in on this thread. Never have, never will. My point is that I do NOT BELIEVE in the religion of Evolution. |
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I don't think anyone has mentioned Kevin Spacey yet. Great actor...in a lot of great films. I havent seen him around in a while. Semi-retirement? He's doing theater in London. I think the last film he made was "21" |
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I hate to have to break this to you - but God kills everyone. This is a demonstratable - "SCIENTIFIC FACT". The bible says it is the "soul who sins who will die" - and that "all men sin" We observe that everyone dies. So what's your point? Wow. I mean, really. Scientific Fact? That is laughable. Yes everybody dies, but it is more likely that the corrupt writers of the "holy" text noted that everyone died, and put their own reasons in there to explain it away. Since it is easier to take the ignorant approach, and say "God kills people" then it is to try to actually find the real reasons behind the cause of death. Same with you. Comprehensive reading. The scientific fact is that everyone dies. Please tell me that you figured this out. |
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If one's faith is in the Judeo/Christain God - the biblical authors have no reason to be doubted. That's an oxymoronic statement right there. The very fact that you've put FAITH in that picture is what prevents you from doubting it. But it doesn't change the argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the number of times it has been posted that people just don't want the bible to be true. Check a few dozen of Abra's posts - he's not kept this a secret. And I don't understand what makes you think that someone who believes in the bible hasn't investigated it. This is also a total farce. It's true that today AFTER all my studies and realizations I would not want the Bible to be true. Why should I? If you believe in what the Bible says it's about a God who cast countless INNOCENT people into an eternal hell fire. It's about a God who places BETS with a supposedly demonic angel where human souls are the poker chips! It's about a God who is mean to people who supposedly already love him and are already his LOYAL SERVANTS. To believe in the Bible you truly need to believe that God is so egoistically hung up on TESTING whether or not people LOVE HIM that's it can't be described as anything other than truly SICK. Not to mention the FACT that according to the religion overall, God is supposed to already KNOW what's in our hearts and there is NOTHING we can hide from God! Can't you see the oxymoronic situation here? A God who is supposed to KNOW what's in your heart and yet he doesn't TRUST anyone? But this wasn't the REASON that I gave up on the Bible. Actually back when I rejected it I WANTED to believe it! I didn't think about all these gory details at that time. It was my intention to TEACH IT! So you are way off base trying to portray me as a skeptic who never wanted to believe it. That's simply a completely fabrication on your part and you even KNOW IT. You've heard my history before, to try and portray me now as someone who never wanted the Bible to be true is downright deception and nothing short of dishonest. Originally I wanted the Bible to be truth, moreover I BELIEVED it was true! But that was BEFORE I READ IT! Yes, let's face it, it's NOT IMPORTANT to read the Bible to become a Christian. In fact MOST Christians have no clue what's even in the Bible. They just accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and go on their merry way. If they do read the Bible they DON'T QUESTION IT, then just say, "Well God must have his reasons, he knows best". But I wanted to TEACH the Bible! Telling people "Well God must have his reasons" every time someone asks me to explain something did not cut it for me. Besides people are always saying that the Bible contains ANSWERS to every question. Welll, surely if that's true then it must contain answer to questions that people might normally ask. The TRUTH it that it DOESN'T. That's the TRUTH. No one can even tell you why God can't forgive people unless they've butchered an animals. IT DOESN'T SAY in the Bible why God is APPEASED by blood sacrifices. Now that's a question that should be explained. I can explain it! It's because the authors weren't even being ORIGINAL when they made it up. It's no different than any other Mediterranean Mythologies. Also, there's the issue of why the "Jesus Story" was told hundreds of years before Jesus was born in so MANY different forms. The people who WANT the Bible to be true are trying to claim that the Devil had people make up these stories so that modern generations would see this and think that it's just a plagiarized myth. But that would mean TWO THINGS. First, it implies that Satan knows what God is going to do BEFORE God does it, and secondly it implies that God never KNEW that Satan had done that since he never bothered mentioning in the Bible that those stories existed. The only reason I take about not WANTING the Bible to be true is when people come at me from the point of view of pure FAITH. Why would anyone WANT the biblical story to be true? Why would you WANT it to be true? The story claims that all of humanity fell from grace from our creator and that he had to have his son slaughtered just to save our totally UNWORTHY butts. Why would anyone WANT such a story to be true? I think clearly any SANE person would be truly saddened if the Bible IS TRUE. There most certainly is nothing to 'Rejoice" about if it were true. If Jesus had to die on the Cross it's YOUR FAULT! That's what the Bible is saying! Why would you want to that to be TRUE ON PURE FAITH? That's a faith issue, that you have never addressed in all the times that I've asked it? Why do you WANT it to be true that you've failed your creator and he had to have his son brutally murdered and publicly humiliated to SAVE your butt? Why would you WANT that to be true? And would you be disappointed if you discovered that it wasn't true? If you found out today in no uncertain terms that the Bible is entirely made up by man would you be disappointed? If so why? Do you like the idea that a God had to have his son butchered to pay for your sinful ways? And if you don't like that picture then why believe it on PURE FAITH ALONE? Why fight so hard to support such an ugly picture of not only man, but of God as well? Surely you can see that MAJOR PROBLEM with the WHOLE PICTURE. You supposedly have an ALL-PERFECT creator creating a PERFECT world and then sin miraculously comes into this picture from NOWHERE! That's absurd already. If there was a perfect creator that created an imperfect universe he'd have no one to blame but himself. The idea that it's because he gave people FREE WILL just doesn't cut it. Giving people FREE WILL doesn't automatically create evil. In fact, if God's heaven was supposed to be PERFECT then why did a fully their of God's angels not like it? Clearly it must not have been PERFECT from their point of view. So now we're struck with a 'subjectively perfect' heaven that some people think is perfect and others do not. There can be no such things as ABSOLUTE PERFECTION if we have so many angels disagreeing that it's PERFECT. The whole story is an oxymoronic story Eljay. Trying to discredit people who recognize this by trying to claim that it's just because they don't want it to be true is truly a dishonest tactic. To the people who are interested in REASON I hold that the Bible and the Biblical God is UNREASONABLE. Therefore if we are to believe in the Bible we must believe that God is UNREASONABLE. When reading the Bible all we need to do is ask ourselves the following two questions? 1. Would a truly all-wise, loving God have written or done the things the Bible claims? 2. Would men who are trying to put fear into their readers make this stuff up? When I do that I find myself answering NO to the first question constantly, and YES to the second question all the time. So which question is more likely to be true based on REASON? To the people who claim that we must have FAITH, I say the following: Why would I want to have FAITH that our creator is at war with a measly fallen angel? Why would I want to have FAITH that all of mankind has fallen from grace from God? Why would I want to have FAITH that the only way to obtain the LOVE of this God is to believe that he had his son slaughtered on a pole to pay for my pathetic rebellious behavior? Why would I want to have FAITH that if I can't find the story believable this God will cast me into a pit of eternal damnation even though I'm actually a good person but just couldn't buy into this horror story? Why would I want to have FAITH that God is UNREASONABLE? Yes, you are right about that. Now that I look at this unreasonable book in GREAT DETAIL for over 40 years of LIFE, I've come to the final conclusion that I don't want it to be True. It's a horror story about a God who will send innocent people to hell just because they refuse to believe that God is an insane madman who's at war with a fallen angel, and keeps changing his mind about how he wants to deal with humanity (i.e. one moment he's flushing them away in a global flood, and the next moment he's having his son nailed to a pole so he can forgive them their sins). Hey, as far as I'm concerned BOTH of those solutions to his problems are EQUALLY SICK! This is a story about a supposedly FATHER IMAGE God who has failed MISERABLY as a father and now he's taking it all out on his children. If he were a human being he's be in jail on child abuse charges. And you expect me to accept this story ON PURE FAITH when there is NO REASONABLE reason to believe it? That's crazy. The story is as absurd as Greek Mythology if not more absurd. Yet you don't seem to have any problem at all chalking Zeus off as a lost cause. Why do you cling to this absurd picture when it's basically proven itself to be anything but divine. Abra; I did not say that you never wanted the bible to be true. I simply said you don't want the bible to be true. This post here demonstrates it by your own words - and it's not the first time you've said it. You're just the poster child for it. I really couldn't care less how you came about your conclusion - or whether you made the decision 30 years ago, or last year. You prove my point. You don't want the bible to be true. It matters not what pretextual arguments you attempt to create to support your view - it never comes from context anyway. So be it. If the bible were true that would be horrible. A god that kills babies and commands people to kill their own childern. You have to be a bit sick in the head to want the bible to be true. I hate to have to break this to you - but God kills everyone. This is a demonstratable - "SCIENTIFIC FACT". The bible says it is the "soul who sins who will die" - and that "all men sin" We observe that everyone dies. So what's your point? Scientifc Fact?   There is nothing scientific or factual about a god. Just in case you need a little help with your comprehensive reading. The "scientific fact" is that everyone dies. |
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Edited by
Eljay
on
Sun 03/08/09 03:24 PM
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Three years at St Charles Bormino Seminary, five years in the Jesusits and I never, repeat never met anyone who took the Bible as literal truth or anything near truth, but only as faith (this is what we choose to believe)literature and poetry. And I met people who dealth with the boy in St Louis whom they based the book/movie The Excorist on. Yes they believe in a mystery and things beyond our comprehension, but not that the Bible is the unchangeable word of g-d. So what you are saying is that your experience has been with Catholicism. Are you presuming that Catholicism is the authority on this matter? I never found it to be so in the many years I was a Catholic, and find it to be even less so today. I do not find Catholicism to be representative of Christainity. |
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If one's faith is in the Judeo/Christain God - the biblical authors have no reason to be doubted. That's an oxymoronic statement right there. The very fact that you've put FAITH in that picture is what prevents you from doubting it. But it doesn't change the argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the number of times it has been posted that people just don't want the bible to be true. Check a few dozen of Abra's posts - he's not kept this a secret. And I don't understand what makes you think that someone who believes in the bible hasn't investigated it. This is also a total farce. It's true that today AFTER all my studies and realizations I would not want the Bible to be true. Why should I? If you believe in what the Bible says it's about a God who cast countless INNOCENT people into an eternal hell fire. It's about a God who places BETS with a supposedly demonic angel where human souls are the poker chips! It's about a God who is mean to people who supposedly already love him and are already his LOYAL SERVANTS. To believe in the Bible you truly need to believe that God is so egoistically hung up on TESTING whether or not people LOVE HIM that's it can't be described as anything other than truly SICK. Not to mention the FACT that according to the religion overall, God is supposed to already KNOW what's in our hearts and there is NOTHING we can hide from God! Can't you see the oxymoronic situation here? A God who is supposed to KNOW what's in your heart and yet he doesn't TRUST anyone? But this wasn't the REASON that I gave up on the Bible. Actually back when I rejected it I WANTED to believe it! I didn't think about all these gory details at that time. It was my intention to TEACH IT! So you are way off base trying to portray me as a skeptic who never wanted to believe it. That's simply a completely fabrication on your part and you even KNOW IT. You've heard my history before, to try and portray me now as someone who never wanted the Bible to be true is downright deception and nothing short of dishonest. Originally I wanted the Bible to be truth, moreover I BELIEVED it was true! But that was BEFORE I READ IT! Yes, let's face it, it's NOT IMPORTANT to read the Bible to become a Christian. In fact MOST Christians have no clue what's even in the Bible. They just accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and go on their merry way. If they do read the Bible they DON'T QUESTION IT, then just say, "Well God must have his reasons, he knows best". But I wanted to TEACH the Bible! Telling people "Well God must have his reasons" every time someone asks me to explain something did not cut it for me. Besides people are always saying that the Bible contains ANSWERS to every question. Welll, surely if that's true then it must contain answer to questions that people might normally ask. The TRUTH it that it DOESN'T. That's the TRUTH. No one can even tell you why God can't forgive people unless they've butchered an animals. IT DOESN'T SAY in the Bible why God is APPEASED by blood sacrifices. Now that's a question that should be explained. I can explain it! It's because the authors weren't even being ORIGINAL when they made it up. It's no different than any other Mediterranean Mythologies. Also, there's the issue of why the "Jesus Story" was told hundreds of years before Jesus was born in so MANY different forms. The people who WANT the Bible to be true are trying to claim that the Devil had people make up these stories so that modern generations would see this and think that it's just a plagiarized myth. But that would mean TWO THINGS. First, it implies that Satan knows what God is going to do BEFORE God does it, and secondly it implies that God never KNEW that Satan had done that since he never bothered mentioning in the Bible that those stories existed. The only reason I take about not WANTING the Bible to be true is when people come at me from the point of view of pure FAITH. Why would anyone WANT the biblical story to be true? Why would you WANT it to be true? The story claims that all of humanity fell from grace from our creator and that he had to have his son slaughtered just to save our totally UNWORTHY butts. Why would anyone WANT such a story to be true? I think clearly any SANE person would be truly saddened if the Bible IS TRUE. There most certainly is nothing to 'Rejoice" about if it were true. If Jesus had to die on the Cross it's YOUR FAULT! That's what the Bible is saying! Why would you want to that to be TRUE ON PURE FAITH? That's a faith issue, that you have never addressed in all the times that I've asked it? Why do you WANT it to be true that you've failed your creator and he had to have his son brutally murdered and publicly humiliated to SAVE your butt? Why would you WANT that to be true? And would you be disappointed if you discovered that it wasn't true? If you found out today in no uncertain terms that the Bible is entirely made up by man would you be disappointed? If so why? Do you like the idea that a God had to have his son butchered to pay for your sinful ways? And if you don't like that picture then why believe it on PURE FAITH ALONE? Why fight so hard to support such an ugly picture of not only man, but of God as well? Surely you can see that MAJOR PROBLEM with the WHOLE PICTURE. You supposedly have an ALL-PERFECT creator creating a PERFECT world and then sin miraculously comes into this picture from NOWHERE! That's absurd already. If there was a perfect creator that created an imperfect universe he'd have no one to blame but himself. The idea that it's because he gave people FREE WILL just doesn't cut it. Giving people FREE WILL doesn't automatically create evil. In fact, if God's heaven was supposed to be PERFECT then why did a fully their of God's angels not like it? Clearly it must not have been PERFECT from their point of view. So now we're struck with a 'subjectively perfect' heaven that some people think is perfect and others do not. There can be no such things as ABSOLUTE PERFECTION if we have so many angels disagreeing that it's PERFECT. The whole story is an oxymoronic story Eljay. Trying to discredit people who recognize this by trying to claim that it's just because they don't want it to be true is truly a dishonest tactic. To the people who are interested in REASON I hold that the Bible and the Biblical God is UNREASONABLE. Therefore if we are to believe in the Bible we must believe that God is UNREASONABLE. When reading the Bible all we need to do is ask ourselves the following two questions? 1. Would a truly all-wise, loving God have written or done the things the Bible claims? 2. Would men who are trying to put fear into their readers make this stuff up? When I do that I find myself answering NO to the first question constantly, and YES to the second question all the time. So which question is more likely to be true based on REASON? To the people who claim that we must have FAITH, I say the following: Why would I want to have FAITH that our creator is at war with a measly fallen angel? Why would I want to have FAITH that all of mankind has fallen from grace from God? Why would I want to have FAITH that the only way to obtain the LOVE of this God is to believe that he had his son slaughtered on a pole to pay for my pathetic rebellious behavior? Why would I want to have FAITH that if I can't find the story believable this God will cast me into a pit of eternal damnation even though I'm actually a good person but just couldn't buy into this horror story? Why would I want to have FAITH that God is UNREASONABLE? Yes, you are right about that. Now that I look at this unreasonable book in GREAT DETAIL for over 40 years of LIFE, I've come to the final conclusion that I don't want it to be True. It's a horror story about a God who will send innocent people to hell just because they refuse to believe that God is an insane madman who's at war with a fallen angel, and keeps changing his mind about how he wants to deal with humanity (i.e. one moment he's flushing them away in a global flood, and the next moment he's having his son nailed to a pole so he can forgive them their sins). Hey, as far as I'm concerned BOTH of those solutions to his problems are EQUALLY SICK! This is a story about a supposedly FATHER IMAGE God who has failed MISERABLY as a father and now he's taking it all out on his children. If he were a human being he's be in jail on child abuse charges. And you expect me to accept this story ON PURE FAITH when there is NO REASONABLE reason to believe it? That's crazy. The story is as absurd as Greek Mythology if not more absurd. Yet you don't seem to have any problem at all chalking Zeus off as a lost cause. Why do you cling to this absurd picture when it's basically proven itself to be anything but divine. Abra; I did not say that you never wanted the bible to be true. I simply said you don't want the bible to be true. This post here demonstrates it by your own words - and it's not the first time you've said it. You're just the poster child for it. I really couldn't care less how you came about your conclusion - or whether you made the decision 30 years ago, or last year. You prove my point. You don't want the bible to be true. It matters not what pretextual arguments you attempt to create to support your view - it never comes from context anyway. So be it. If the bible were true that would be horrible. A god that kills babies and commands people to kill their own childern. You have to be a bit sick in the head to want the bible to be true. I hate to have to break this to you - but God kills everyone. This is a demonstratable - "SCIENTIFIC FACT". The bible says it is the "soul who sins who will die" - and that "all men sin" We observe that everyone dies. So what's your point? |
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Edited by
Eljay
on
Sun 03/08/09 03:18 PM
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How is one's belief in Evolution any different than another's belief in the bible? To even ask this question suggests that you have absolutely NO CLUE how the scientific method of investigation actually works. All you're really attempting to do here is claim that Science is entirely "Faith-based". But that's asburd. You also seem to be looking at it from the opoint of view of uneducated students in a classroom that just place their faith in their teachers and text books. That's a TOTALLY ERRONEOUS representation of what science is. Science is NOT just a a bunch of students placing faith in what teachers say. Science is the ACTUAL PHYSICAL INVESTIGATIONS that lead up to the results that are printed in the textbooks. If science were merely faith-based, then we'd have a whole lot of scientists in disagreement with each other. In the case of something as well-established as the 4.5 billion year age of the Earth, there is no disagreement in the scientific communitity. It's not "Faith-based" at all. It's "Evidence-based". You're making your first statement is evidence that you do not understand the question I am asking, not that I do not understand science. I know perfectly well what science is about, and I understand how the whole idea of "SCientific Theory" comes about - and this I get from the scientists who state that Christains do not know what is meant by scientific theory. What I want to know is how the observations of today justify the extrapolations of the past. This is NOT science. It defy's the very definition of science to state that these are "theory" and not "conjecture". A) DNA mutation is "scientific theory" B) Man and Ape sharing a common ancestor is "Conjecture". Perhaps you do not know what science is about. There is evidence for the "A" statement of abouve - no evidence for "B". So how does one equate them? |
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Generally - one holds onto a belief system based on what they read, or hear. For example - every child in High School biology thinks that the world is 4.5 billion years old. Why is that? Because that is what the texts tell them, and the teachers reinforce it. It doesn't matter what the "truth" might be - their faith is in the honesty of the teachers and the editors of the texts. What school kid would ever believe a teacher would lie to them? Well, I don't know about you but I asked questions and never took anything the teachers told me as truth just because they said so. The FACT is that if you ask how they KNOW that the earth is 4.5 billion years old they will explain to you in great depth how they know that it's TRUE. The scientific evidence is overwhelming. It comes not only from methods of dating ancient rocks, but it comes from the observations of how geological processes unfold on the Earth. It's also verified by astronomical observations of how solar systems form. It's also verified by the processes of nuclear physics and how the sun works, and they clearly have that down pat beyond any shadow of a doubt. You can rest assurded that the Earth is indeed 4.5 billion years old. And if you question it all you need to do is study all the difference sciences and see how they arrived at their conclusions. In order to reject the evidence you'd basically have to denounce all of science and REASON. Either that or claim that God made the universe to purposefully decieve us. But then you'd be suggesting that God is decietful. First of all - it has to be demostrated that it is even "evidence" in the first place. How can that be done since there was no one there to even witness the emperical facts of the control substances. I've investigated all of the forms of "dating methods" - and continue to do so in order to understand why this is represented as "science" - and I find a tad too much conjecture there for my liking. The a priori's that must be accepted are not demonstratable. For instance - there is no way to determine the original content of radio-active material found within the control material to come up with anything empirical. Uniformality of environmental influences can be witnessed as obviously incredible. No one can possibly determine that the length of isotropic deterioration of any test subject is accurate - for the length of time it takes to even observe the presummed changes is beyond the lifetimes of an army of generations - so how can these supposed observations be extraolated back into time - based on their being no observation of the necessary controls to support the extrapolation being in evidence. Then there's the question of the flood - which must be unequivacally DENIED in order to even begin to support the premises. Evidence... what evidence. The scientific theory of dating sytems is built solely on a faith based structure. Period. That is not to deny them - it's just there's no justification to give them any more validity than the creation account of Genesis. To claim that science is a mere faith-based method of inquiry is truly ludicuous Eljay. I can't believe that you could even suggest such a thing. You mis-represent me Abra, I don't deny science - I deny it's extrapolations. I think it is rather obvious that there are mutations and changes within the DNA structures of material objects. I think that mere observations of the differences within species is overwhelming proof of that. However - this does nothing to prove the extrapolation of these observations into an evolutionary tree of origins. To ask me to believe that the observable facts of today prove the presumptions of millions of years of this occuring at the grand scale that Darwin conjectured is beyond a matter of faith. It defines it. And this comes from someone who's trying to sell a truly absurd picture of a God that has NO PROOF of DIVINE CONNECTIONS WHATSOEVER? I'm not trying to sell the picture of God and divine connections. I just point out the flaws in your idea's of it. I've never once announced what I believe about God or the bible. I've merely stated that I find the reasons put forth on this site to disprove it have no foundation. I make no claim to proof that it is absolute truth. That can only be demonstrated by faith. My position is that any belief system - be it Pantheism, Christainity, or Evolution is a pure faith based belief. It can be argued that any observation - from the big bang to the mutation of bacteria, can be used to support any one of these world views. You don't see me arguing that Pantheism isn't true because I have "evidence" of Christainity - do you? That is a strawman argument to what my posts are about. You can believe in unseen angels with wings. Demons with pointy tails that are at war with God. A God who supposedly inspiried a male chuavinistic book both throughout the Old Testament and then again though Paul in the New Testament? A God who supposedly had a son who DISAGREE with his previous teachings? All this is based on what? A book that was written by Isaelites and was clearly focused on having God be on THEIR side in all their wars and rejecting all other nations as HEATHENS? Oh please. These are the presumptions YOU have of the bible. They are not mine. I don't pretend to believe in what you disbelieve Abra - I have my own idea's of what the bible says, and they don't fall within your imaginations. So while you may assume to know what I believe about the bible and christainity - it is based on what you understand the bible to be presenting, and has nothing to do with what I believe. I just don't feel it necessary to explain t you exactly WHAT I believe, just that what you THINK I believe is not accurate. Similar to your belief in Pantheism is not based on what I don't believe about it. To give you perspective. And you still have never even addressed the question of why you would even WANT to put your FAITH in such a crazy picture of a jealous God who hates non-believers and will cast them into hell and had to have his son butchered on a pole to pay for YOUR willfull disobedience toward him. Surely since you are so vehement about placing faith in this story you could come up with a reason why a person should WANT it to be true? Why should we want to believe that we are at odds with our creator and that he had to have his son slaughtered to pay for our WILLFUL disobedience of him? Here - you are making the point I just made. I indeed have not stated my position on this conjecture of yours. For to me - any attempt to put "God" (the one of biblical reference) in a box is merely thinking too small. I don't attempt to justify God's working amoungst te creation in human terms. You claim he sends "innocents" off to hell. I look at this and ask - How do I know their innocent - and isn't it THEIR choice where they'll spend eternity? I know that I can examine my life and see I'm not innocent - and that the choice to believe in what the gospel writers wrote about Jesus is MY choice. I don't need to justify anyone elses choices, or their level of innocence. Suffice it to say that I have yet to meet anyone in my 50+ years who is "innocent" of injustice to either themselves or someone else. The day I do - maybe I'll start thinking like you do. But until that point, I find no evidence of any "innocence" anywhere on the planet. I don't even feel that I've been WILLFULLY disobedient to God so the idea that he had to have his son nailed to a pole for MY SAKE makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE to me, much less be something that I'd WANT to believe on pure faith when the evidence against it being true is totally overwhelming. Why should I WANT to have FAITH in this picture? And if I don't WANT to have FAITH in it, then what other reason could their be to put my FAITH in it? It's got to be a WANT-based religion. Unless you're just scared to death that it MIGHT be true and you're cowering down to the threat that if you don't put your FAITH in it you'll be eternally PUNISHED. But that would just be to confess that you worship it out of FEAR and not FAITH at all. Perhaps that is because you measure morality and obedience by your own standards. You are your own God. You set the limits of acceptable behavior - and by your own standards, you are innocent of any wrong doing. By this standard - why are you worried about what the christain God is about. Unless you find that should you be confronted by Him to give account for yourself - as the bible says, that you didn't find it up to your standards - what is it going to matter - because by your account, this God doesn't exist, and therfore you have no need to worry about giving an account. It causes me to wonder why you even bother to post so adamenty against something you don't believe could possibly exist? |
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If one's faith is in the Judeo/Christain God - the biblical authors have no reason to be doubted. That's an oxymoronic statement right there. The very fact that you've put FAITH in that picture is what prevents you from doubting it. But it doesn't change the argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the number of times it has been posted that people just don't want the bible to be true. Check a few dozen of Abra's posts - he's not kept this a secret. And I don't understand what makes you think that someone who believes in the bible hasn't investigated it. This is also a total farce. It's true that today AFTER all my studies and realizations I would not want the Bible to be true. Why should I? If you believe in what the Bible says it's about a God who cast countless INNOCENT people into an eternal hell fire. It's about a God who places BETS with a supposedly demonic angel where human souls are the poker chips! It's about a God who is mean to people who supposedly already love him and are already his LOYAL SERVANTS. To believe in the Bible you truly need to believe that God is so egoistically hung up on TESTING whether or not people LOVE HIM that's it can't be described as anything other than truly SICK. Not to mention the FACT that according to the religion overall, God is supposed to already KNOW what's in our hearts and there is NOTHING we can hide from God! Can't you see the oxymoronic situation here? A God who is supposed to KNOW what's in your heart and yet he doesn't TRUST anyone? But this wasn't the REASON that I gave up on the Bible. Actually back when I rejected it I WANTED to believe it! I didn't think about all these gory details at that time. It was my intention to TEACH IT! So you are way off base trying to portray me as a skeptic who never wanted to believe it. That's simply a completely fabrication on your part and you even KNOW IT. You've heard my history before, to try and portray me now as someone who never wanted the Bible to be true is downright deception and nothing short of dishonest. Originally I wanted the Bible to be truth, moreover I BELIEVED it was true! But that was BEFORE I READ IT! Yes, let's face it, it's NOT IMPORTANT to read the Bible to become a Christian. In fact MOST Christians have no clue what's even in the Bible. They just accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and go on their merry way. If they do read the Bible they DON'T QUESTION IT, then just say, "Well God must have his reasons, he knows best". But I wanted to TEACH the Bible! Telling people "Well God must have his reasons" every time someone asks me to explain something did not cut it for me. Besides people are always saying that the Bible contains ANSWERS to every question. Welll, surely if that's true then it must contain answer to questions that people might normally ask. The TRUTH it that it DOESN'T. That's the TRUTH. No one can even tell you why God can't forgive people unless they've butchered an animals. IT DOESN'T SAY in the Bible why God is APPEASED by blood sacrifices. Now that's a question that should be explained. I can explain it! It's because the authors weren't even being ORIGINAL when they made it up. It's no different than any other Mediterranean Mythologies. Also, there's the issue of why the "Jesus Story" was told hundreds of years before Jesus was born in so MANY different forms. The people who WANT the Bible to be true are trying to claim that the Devil had people make up these stories so that modern generations would see this and think that it's just a plagiarized myth. But that would mean TWO THINGS. First, it implies that Satan knows what God is going to do BEFORE God does it, and secondly it implies that God never KNEW that Satan had done that since he never bothered mentioning in the Bible that those stories existed. The only reason I take about not WANTING the Bible to be true is when people come at me from the point of view of pure FAITH. Why would anyone WANT the biblical story to be true? Why would you WANT it to be true? The story claims that all of humanity fell from grace from our creator and that he had to have his son slaughtered just to save our totally UNWORTHY butts. Why would anyone WANT such a story to be true? I think clearly any SANE person would be truly saddened if the Bible IS TRUE. There most certainly is nothing to 'Rejoice" about if it were true. If Jesus had to die on the Cross it's YOUR FAULT! That's what the Bible is saying! Why would you want to that to be TRUE ON PURE FAITH? That's a faith issue, that you have never addressed in all the times that I've asked it? Why do you WANT it to be true that you've failed your creator and he had to have his son brutally murdered and publicly humiliated to SAVE your butt? Why would you WANT that to be true? And would you be disappointed if you discovered that it wasn't true? If you found out today in no uncertain terms that the Bible is entirely made up by man would you be disappointed? If so why? Do you like the idea that a God had to have his son butchered to pay for your sinful ways? And if you don't like that picture then why believe it on PURE FAITH ALONE? Why fight so hard to support such an ugly picture of not only man, but of God as well? Surely you can see that MAJOR PROBLEM with the WHOLE PICTURE. You supposedly have an ALL-PERFECT creator creating a PERFECT world and then sin miraculously comes into this picture from NOWHERE! That's absurd already. If there was a perfect creator that created an imperfect universe he'd have no one to blame but himself. The idea that it's because he gave people FREE WILL just doesn't cut it. Giving people FREE WILL doesn't automatically create evil. In fact, if God's heaven was supposed to be PERFECT then why did a fully their of God's angels not like it? Clearly it must not have been PERFECT from their point of view. So now we're struck with a 'subjectively perfect' heaven that some people think is perfect and others do not. There can be no such things as ABSOLUTE PERFECTION if we have so many angels disagreeing that it's PERFECT. The whole story is an oxymoronic story Eljay. Trying to discredit people who recognize this by trying to claim that it's just because they don't want it to be true is truly a dishonest tactic. To the people who are interested in REASON I hold that the Bible and the Biblical God is UNREASONABLE. Therefore if we are to believe in the Bible we must believe that God is UNREASONABLE. When reading the Bible all we need to do is ask ourselves the following two questions? 1. Would a truly all-wise, loving God have written or done the things the Bible claims? 2. Would men who are trying to put fear into their readers make this stuff up? When I do that I find myself answering NO to the first question constantly, and YES to the second question all the time. So which question is more likely to be true based on REASON? To the people who claim that we must have FAITH, I say the following: Why would I want to have FAITH that our creator is at war with a measly fallen angel? Why would I want to have FAITH that all of mankind has fallen from grace from God? Why would I want to have FAITH that the only way to obtain the LOVE of this God is to believe that he had his son slaughtered on a pole to pay for my pathetic rebellious behavior? Why would I want to have FAITH that if I can't find the story believable this God will cast me into a pit of eternal damnation even though I'm actually a good person but just couldn't buy into this horror story? Why would I want to have FAITH that God is UNREASONABLE? Yes, you are right about that. Now that I look at this unreasonable book in GREAT DETAIL for over 40 years of LIFE, I've come to the final conclusion that I don't want it to be True. It's a horror story about a God who will send innocent people to hell just because they refuse to believe that God is an insane madman who's at war with a fallen angel, and keeps changing his mind about how he wants to deal with humanity (i.e. one moment he's flushing them away in a global flood, and the next moment he's having his son nailed to a pole so he can forgive them their sins). Hey, as far as I'm concerned BOTH of those solutions to his problems are EQUALLY SICK! This is a story about a supposedly FATHER IMAGE God who has failed MISERABLY as a father and now he's taking it all out on his children. If he were a human being he's be in jail on child abuse charges. And you expect me to accept this story ON PURE FAITH when there is NO REASONABLE reason to believe it? That's crazy. The story is as absurd as Greek Mythology if not more absurd. Yet you don't seem to have any problem at all chalking Zeus off as a lost cause. Why do you cling to this absurd picture when it's basically proven itself to be anything but divine. Abra; I did not say that you never wanted the bible to be true. I simply said you don't want the bible to be true. This post here demonstrates it by your own words - and it's not the first time you've said it. You're just the poster child for it. I really couldn't care less how you came about your conclusion - or whether you made the decision 30 years ago, or last year. You prove my point. You don't want the bible to be true. It matters not what pretextual arguments you attempt to create to support your view - it never comes from context anyway. So be it. |
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(Shortened post) Eljay wrote: So, essentially you have chosen to believe those self proclaimed "scholars" who think they have found numerous errors in scripture, rather than those with Doctorates in the ancient languages who's reports of the accuracy of scripture are wildly supported, simply because they hold a belief in those scriptures. I would think that you should back off a little on your assurity that the bible has been "rewritten" numerous times - until you've investigated this "fact" to support it. Just say that you'd prefer not to believe what is written and leave it at that. You're only fooing yourself if you're taking the word of someone else as authority - not having any idea what their basing that authority on other than a desire for the bible to be a myth. Wanting it to be so - doesn't make it a reality. I am not "assuring" anything. It is just what I believe is true. It is well known that the Bible has been translated and transcribed in to many different languages with words having two or more meanings and that errors in some passages are crucial and can change the meaning drastically if interpretative incorrectly. I think when you put your faith in the Bible you are also very obviously "taking the word of someone else as authority (on history and God) "-- not having any idea what their basing that authority on --" ..other than their desire to have people believe that the Bible is the "word of God" and is accurate and infallible. As you stated: "Wanting it to be so doesn't make it a reality." You are the person who seems to want something to be so. I just want the truth, no matter what it is. A religion based on "faith" and other people's authority (The Bible) is not proof enough for me in the first place, so I don't require proof that it is untrue. It has not proven itself to be true yet. The first declaration you (and all fundamentalists) should ask themselves is why they believe that the Bible is the "word of God" and what authority told them this? The Bible? That is rather circular I think. God certainly did not tell you this unless you are claiming to speak to God directly. In general, I would say that belief in anything carries with it a certain amount of faith. Faith in ourselves for simply being able to reason out a path of logic that says "Sure, I can see that." It is when the things that we observe start to contradict that flow of logic - that one loses their faith in it being a representation of "truth". Generally - one holds onto a belief system based on what they read, or hear. For example - every child in High School biology thinks that the world is 4.5 billion years old. Why is that? Because that is what the texts tell them, and the teachers reinforce it. It doesn't matter what the "truth" might be - their faith is in the honesty of the teachers and the editors of the texts. What school kid would ever believe a teacher would lie to them? The same holds true for those who stand in the pulpets of religions. They blindly believe what the priest or pastor tells them because they have no expectation of deciet. How many Catholics take the decree's of the Pope as though they were coming directly from God? I think that the idea of "fundamentalists" holds true for more than just those who hold fast to the literal interpretation of the bible. I'd say one of the worlds leading "Fundamentalists" is Richard Dawkins. How is he any different than the Jerry Falwells or Oral roberts' of the world. Their beliefs and methods parellel each other - it's just the world view that differes. How is one's belief in Evolution any different than another's belief in the bible? |
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Edited by
Eljay
on
Sat 03/07/09 11:08 PM
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 I trust the scientists. Why - if you don't mind my asking. Because they are in general, sincere in their search for information and truth as it relates to reality, logic and the laws of physics. I am not saying that they have all the answers or that I believe all of what they have declared, in fact I think they are wrong on many points. But at least they continue to seek answers through knowledge and evidence rather than putting all their faith in myth and ancient scripture. That is precisely why science is rewritten. There is a constant learning and readjustment to the knowledge base. We grow and learn. If we do not, we remain in the dark ages steeped in fear, ignorance and superstition. So what you are essentially saying - is that you have a blind faith in scientists. Yet you deem the writers of the gospels writing myth because they reported what they saw and heard? Ummm... sure - makes sense to me. Believe what the scientists report HOW they see something - but that's nt myth, because - what, it's SCIENCE??? If that isn't a "dark age" reaction - what is? And the Bible has been rewritten plenty of times. Had you said the bible has been transcribed many times, and translated into many languages - I could see your point. But rewritten. Where - do tell - are all of these modified copies so that we can investigate the innacuracies? As far as I understand - the 5,000+ copies they have from the time of their original writing have an accuracy of close to 99%. Are you refering to the 1% as "plenty of times"? And if I'm not mistaken - those who have painstakenly investigated these documents from antiquity are themselves - scientists. Dear me. Now what? It has been rewritten as far as I am concerned. Words have been changed that have completely different meanings. Whether this was done in transcribing or translating makes no difference. I trust not the editing of men with agendas. It is also clear that a lot of the Bible has been either plagiarized or simply the retelling of older myths that previously had been passed down by word of mouth. Also in the time of the writing of the New Testament, it was the elite of Rome who had the power of the pen. Governments were as corrupt back then as they are today. I don't trust them then and I don't trust them now. Very few men could read and write and scribes had to be paid hence the wealthy and influential were in control of the creation of scripture rather than men inspired by God. The common man did not have an education nor could he read or write. This was probably true of any cults and their followers. And you know this how? You've read the original greek and aramaic? Or did you read some "expert" with a bias against scripture and figure he knew what he was talking about. If you don't trust the translaters of scripture, why don't you investigate the originals for yourself, rather than dismiss the whole thing as myth? I'm sure that you don't fully understand isotropic dating - how does that effect your perception that the world is 4.5 billion years old? I'm just trying to get a line on your reasoning here. I don't think there are very many people who have read the original Greek and Aramaic in that much detail and I don't think I need to spend my life or waste my valuable time debunking the Bible when there are thousands of experts who are doing a fine job of it. All it takes is a good overview and some common sense to make a logical decision or form a reasonable opinion. The reason I don't investigate it myself is because people have been arguing about scripture for a long time and I'm just not all that interested in that argument, nor am I interested in what people two thousand years ago thought or wrote even if I had the original word for word scripture to study. No I don't know anything about isotropic dating - and I don't much care about how old the world (earth) is. It is as old as it is old, what does it matter? It only matters to fundamentalists because they seem to think that the beginning of civilized humans was the beginning of the earth. One might consider that the term "world" and "earth" might mean two different things. The modern world is not the earth. It is the modern "world." Those things are not the least bit important in my reality because I have not taken it upon myself to defend the Bible or religion, or the scientific theory of evolution. Its a waste of time to try to change other people's beliefs I think. Now if a person can work on changing their own belief, that's really something! The magic is in the belief.  So, essentially you have chosen to believe those self proclaimed "scholars" who think they have found numerous errors in scripture, rather than those with Doctorates in the ancient languages who's reports of the accuracy of scripture are wildly supported, simply because they hold a belief in those scriptures. I would think that you should back off a little on your assurity that the bible has been "rewritten" numerous times - until you've investigated this "fact" to support it. Just say that you'd prefer not to believe what is written and leave it at that. And I presume by your diatribe that you are an expert in ancient languages. You're only fooing yourself if you're taking the word of someone else as authority - not having any idea what their basing that authority on other than a desire for the bible to be a myth. Wanting it to be so - doesn't make it a reality. I love this line. You had a reasonable argument going until you blurted out this line. This is exactly what the entire christian faith does. This what is based on. Ignore the man behind the curtain. Don't use you powers of observation and logic just take our word that jesus lived and died and that there is a god. Don't investigate the bible just take someone elses word for it that it is accurate. I have studied the original languages, though I am far from an expert, there are many inaccuracies. Maybe not so much from one version to the next as they are written in their original languages, but many, many in their translations to modern languages. But it doesn't change the argument. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the number of times it has been posted that people just don't want the bible to be true. Check a few dozen of Abra's posts - he's not kept this a secret. And I don't understand what makes you think that someone who believes in the bible hasn't investigated it. I take exceptin to that presumption of yours - as I've spent over 30 years investigating the bible - both from the vantage point of pro, and con. I'd be quite surprised if you could say you've done the same. I have actually found that in my experience of discussing the bible with people - that the vast majority of people who think it is a myth, haven't even read it. And the number is an overwhelming majority. It is more of a rarety to meet someone who outright rejects the bible - that has even read just the entire New Testament. How about you? Where do you fit in this picture? Have you read the entire New Testament? The whole bible? |
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The topic still is ... '... is evolution compatible with the bible???...' IMO this is still a fundamentalist ANSWER, uninterested in debating, and hypocrytically mascarading its undefendable dogma as a question. Taking a closer look at a historical trial, helps to put the undefendable stance of fundamentalists in its proper perspective. Between July 10-25, 1925, The Scopes 'Monkey Trial', captured the world's attention. The fundamentalist-bible inerrancy-apologist world view, founded on a ‘word-for-word’ interpretation of the bible, was shown to be IGNORANT at best and DANGEROUS at worst BACK THEN. Considering these threads in 2009, it would appear that not much has EVOLVED from the ‘fundamentalist’ perspective. The Scopes ‘Monkey trial’ was essentially the rationalists of the time challenging a Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution. THE CAST: Clarence Darrow, famed and brilliant lawyer specializing in defending underdogs, who volunteered for this case to help combat what many perceived at the time as FUNDAMENTALIST IGNORANCE Versus William Jennings Bryan, known as "The Great Commoner," a tent-revivalist, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State to Woodrow Wilson. His checkered political career over, he switched to the evangelism business. And John T. Scopes, a 24-year old science teacher and football coach, whom had actually defied the Tennessee law by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in his science class. Reading the transcripts of the crucial part of the trial, where Darrow calls Bryan to the box as a witness, revealed to the world the degree of ignorance that the ‘fundamentalist-bible inerrant’ dogma cultivated among its otherwise well-educated, intelligent and articulate adherents. It was a WORLD SHOCKER THEN, and I can’t understand how in 2009, ‘fundamentalists’ hold exactly the same views, and present exactly the same arguments, and somehow expect to be vindicated!!! I invite you to read the following exchanges between ‘DARROW’ and ‘BRYAN, and while reminding yourself that this took place in 1925, noticing the incredible similitude with the fundamentalists exchanges on these threads today. "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?" "Yes I have, I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." "Do you claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?" "I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there ..." "Do you believe Joshua made the sun stand still?" "I believe what the Bible says." "I suppose you mean that the earth stood still?" "I don't know. I am talking about the Bible now. I accept the Bible absolutely." More questions show that Bryan barely understands the workings of the solar system, then Darrow asks: (Darrow)You believe the story of the flood to be a literal interpretation? (Bryan)Yes sir. (Darrow)When was that flood? (Bryan)I would not attempt to fix the day. (Darrow)But what do you think the Bible itself says? Don't you know how it was arrived at? (Bryan)I never made a calculation. (Darrow)What do you think? (Bryan)I do not think about things I don't think about. (Darrow)Do you think about the things you do think about? (Bryan)Well sometimes. Now, the crowd in the courtyard was laughing at Bryan instead of Darrow. (Darrow) How long ago was the flood, Mr. Bryan? (Bryan)Two-thousand three hundred and forty-eight years B.C. (Darrow)You believe that all the living things that were not contained in the ark were destroyed? (Bryan)I think the fish may have lived. (Darrow)Don't you know there are any number of civilizations that are traced back to more than five thousand years? (Bryan)I am not satisfied with any evidence I have seen. (Darrow)You believe that every civilization on the earth and every living thing, except possibly the fishes, were wiped out by the flood? (Bryan)At that time. (Darrow)You have never had any interest in the age of the various races and peoples and civilizations and animals that exist upon the earth today? (Bryan)I have never felt a great deal of interest in the effort that has been made to dispute the Bible by the speculations of men or the investigations of men. (Darrow)And you never have investigated how long man has been on the earth? (Bryan)I have never found it necessary. (Darrow)Don't you know that the ancient civilizations of China are six thousand or seven thousand years old, at the very least? (Bryan)No, but they would not run back beyond the creation, according to the Bible, six thousand years. (Darrow)You don't know how old they are; is that right? (Bryan)I don't know how old they are, but probably you do. I think you would give preference to anybody who opposed the Bible. More questions show Bryan's lack of knowledge of world culture, history and people. (Darrow)You have never in all your life made any attempt to find out about the other peoples of the earth - how old their civilizations are, how long they have existed on the earth - have you? (Bryan) No sir, I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it. I have all the information I want to live by and to die by. (Darrow)Do you think the earth was made in six days?" (Bryan) Not six days of 24 hours. (Darrow)Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife? (Bryan) No sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her. (Darrow)Do you think the sun was made on the fourth day? (Bryan)Yes. (Darrow)And they had evening and morning without the sun? (Bryan) I am simply saying it is a period. (Darrow)The creation might have been going on for a very long time? (Bryan)It might have continued for millions of years. (Darrow)Yes, All right. The local papers went on to report: DAYTON, Tenn. July 25. “Darrow had exposed Bryan as a near imbecile. Darrow asked for and was granted an immediate direct verdict, thereby blocking Bryan from giving a speech he had been preparing for weeks.” “Even today, there are people who deny the fact that all life is connected, and that humans are just part of the equation. Fundamentalist insistence on the literal verity of scripture is grounded in a lack of faith, and inability to see a bigger picture. That being said, it seems to escape fundamentalists, that the vast majority of CHRISTIANS, of whom they claim to be part, accept the Genesis account of creation as what it is, a metaphor. Clarence Darrow said: "Science gets to the end of its knowledge and, in effect, says, 'I do not know what I do not know,' and keeps on searching. Religion gets to the end of its knowledge, and in effect, says, 'I know what I do not know,' and stops searching. Genesis says the world was created in six days. It also says that Adam lived 930 years (Gen 5:5), and that Noah was 600 years old when the flood happened (Gen 7:6). We can take these figures literally, believing that "people just lived longer in those days," or if we have a shred of intelligence or honesty, we can surmise that Biblical time reckoning is on a metaphoric scale. Of course, this allows Genesis to agree with observed evolution.” Remember folks, this was in 1925!!! Is evolution compatible with the bible??? YES! ... IF YOU’RE A CHRISTIAN. and still NO! ... IF YOU’RE A FUNDAMENTALIST!!! Are you getting your information from history - or the "Gone with the Wind" text. The scopes trial did not change Tennessee law. That came later. 'Eljay', It would seem to me that you have missed the point of most of the posts that you address and to which you reply lately. Transcripts from a courthouse are hardly 'gone with the wind' sourced. I can sense that you were attempting to mock my post, but please 'Eljay', 'gone with the wind'!?!?!? As for missing the point alltogether, I choose not to humiliate you by explaining it. I trust you have gotten the point, choose to ignore it, and privilege instead some 2 bit apologetic diversion. P.S.: If you have genuinely missed the point of the post, I'll be glad to address it with you. I meant to type "Inherit the Wind" - my bad. In the early hours I get rather dislexic. Actually - I don't see the point of your post. I hardly think that the "Scopes Trial" deals with anything other than a Subjective opinion about evolution - as it did nothing to demonstrate or add to the facts of evolution that to this day cannot be demonstrated beyond the majority conjecture of scientists. Perhaps you've missed my point Voile. I don't find it any more legitimate of Christains to claim that the bible is supported by science - than I do evolutionists. In order to "believe" the science - one must have faith in the conjecture of the scientists. For instance. The absolute claim that there was no flood is crucial to the suppositions of Evolution. While I cannot definitively claim - nor would I attempt to - that the biblical flood did occur, I think it's wishful thinking to claim with any certainty that it did not. You and I can stand at the precipice of the Grand Canyon and see the same thing. But we'd be talking ourselves in circles if we attempted to "explain" what the cause of it was. Our "belief" of what caused that grewat phenmina would be predicated on our world view and the faith that we have in it - and no "expert" or "scientist" is going to provide "evidence" to the contrary. All they are going to do is attempt to convince one that their presumption has validity because of extrapolation of "similar" occurances in which someone else has observed - and documented. A highly sceptical representation of the truth - as has been demonstrated to me numerous times on this thread as it relates to the authors of scripture. Eye witness acounts are UNRELIABLE. Period. It matters not what the particular account may be about - because - once again - belief in documentation falls into the catagory of WORLD VIEW. If one's faith is in the Judeo/Christain God - the biblical authors have no reason to be doubted. If your world view differs from that - the gospel writers must be incorrect. So - just what exactly is the point you are trying to get me to see? |
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I trust the scientists. Why - if you don't mind my asking. Because they are in general, sincere in their search for information and truth as it relates to reality, logic and the laws of physics. I am not saying that they have all the answers or that I believe all of what they have declared, in fact I think they are wrong on many points. But at least they continue to seek answers through knowledge and evidence rather than putting all their faith in myth and ancient scripture. That is precisely why science is rewritten. There is a constant learning and readjustment to the knowledge base. We grow and learn. If we do not, we remain in the dark ages steeped in fear, ignorance and superstition. So what you are essentially saying - is that you have a blind faith in scientists. Yet you deem the writers of the gospels writing myth because they reported what they saw and heard? Ummm... sure - makes sense to me. Believe what the scientists report HOW they see something - but that's nt myth, because - what, it's SCIENCE??? If that isn't a "dark age" reaction - what is? And the Bible has been rewritten plenty of times. Had you said the bible has been transcribed many times, and translated into many languages - I could see your point. But rewritten. Where - do tell - are all of these modified copies so that we can investigate the innacuracies? As far as I understand - the 5,000+ copies they have from the time of their original writing have an accuracy of close to 99%. Are you refering to the 1% as "plenty of times"? And if I'm not mistaken - those who have painstakenly investigated these documents from antiquity are themselves - scientists. Dear me. Now what? It has been rewritten as far as I am concerned. Words have been changed that have completely different meanings. Whether this was done in transcribing or translating makes no difference. I trust not the editing of men with agendas. It is also clear that a lot of the Bible has been either plagiarized or simply the retelling of older myths that previously had been passed down by word of mouth. Also in the time of the writing of the New Testament, it was the elite of Rome who had the power of the pen. Governments were as corrupt back then as they are today. I don't trust them then and I don't trust them now. Very few men could read and write and scribes had to be paid hence the wealthy and influential were in control of the creation of scripture rather than men inspired by God. The common man did not have an education nor could he read or write. This was probably true of any cults and their followers. And you know this how? You've read the original greek and aramaic? Or did you read some "expert" with a bias against scripture and figure he knew what he was talking about. If you don't trust the translaters of scripture, why don't you investigate the originals for yourself, rather than dismiss the whole thing as myth? I'm sure that you don't fully understand isotropic dating - how does that effect your perception that the world is 4.5 billion years old? I'm just trying to get a line on your reasoning here. I don't think there are very many people who have read the original Greek and Aramaic in that much detail and I don't think I need to spend my life or waste my valuable time debunking the Bible when there are thousands of experts who are doing a fine job of it. All it takes is a good overview and some common sense to make a logical decision or form a reasonable opinion. The reason I don't investigate it myself is because people have been arguing about scripture for a long time and I'm just not all that interested in that argument, nor am I interested in what people two thousand years ago thought or wrote even if I had the original word for word scripture to study. No I don't know anything about isotropic dating - and I don't much care about how old the world (earth) is. It is as old as it is old, what does it matter? It only matters to fundamentalists because they seem to think that the beginning of civilized humans was the beginning of the earth. One might consider that the term "world" and "earth" might mean two different things. The modern world is not the earth. It is the modern "world." Those things are not the least bit important in my reality because I have not taken it upon myself to defend the Bible or religion, or the scientific theory of evolution. Its a waste of time to try to change other people's beliefs I think. Now if a person can work on changing their own belief, that's really something! The magic is in the belief. So, essentially you have chosen to believe those self proclaimed "scholars" who think they have found numerous errors in scripture, rather than those with Doctorates in the ancient languages who's reports of the accuracy of scripture are wildly supported, simply because they hold a belief in those scriptures. I would think that you should back off a little on your assurity that the bible has been "rewritten" numerous times - until you've investigated this "fact" to support it. Just say that you'd prefer not to believe what is written and leave it at that. You're only fooing yourself if you're taking the word of someone else as authority - not having any idea what their basing that authority on other than a desire for the bible to be a myth. Wanting it to be so - doesn't make it a reality. |
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I understand Radiometric dating, althought I do not think you must have fully memorized the details to have a grasp of the idea, and understand the methods that scientists use to gain accuracy. To appreciate how each method is cross checked to insure accuracy. Scientists are human and make mistakes, thus we create proper processes to eliminate those mistakes, peer review it so that we check each other to insure that due diligence has been complete. I think the big deal here people confuse trust and faith, in order to navigate life we must trust certain authorities. Peer review is trusted becuase its only a matter of time before frauds, or poor methods are found out. I will be adding a youtube video on radiometric dating methods here soon to my youtube channel. It will be at least a week, I want to add graphics. I need to get some more pictures and maybe even make some myself. I was going to buy Sony Vegas to make it a nicer vid, so I may need to navigate some learning curve on a new video editor. So maybe a few weeks, but I will post a topic to the science forum. This video will include ALL direct dating methods not just radiometric dating methods, it will also show how multiply methods are used to insure accuracy. Due to my understanding of how proper science is performed, and the methods used, I indeed do trust the results of proper scientific conclusions from proper scientific methods. Ohh yea here is my channel, if anyone is interested. http://www.youtube.com/user/QuiescentlyDangerous Eljay just likes to equate trust in science with blind faith because that at least puts us on even ground (with him), what he fails to realize it that its not blind when you have methodological processes in place to backtrack mistakes. Science IS that methodological process. Bushi; The difficulty I have with Radiometric dating is the presumptions made on the environmental data (Uniformality is required for accuracy in any dating involving radio-active material) as well as the amount of radio-active material that existed in the core speciment in order to determine the "daughter" infomation acurately. Also - the amount of time specified for the loss of electrons from one element transforming it to the other (Depending on which elements are being used) is beyond the lifetime of a thousand generations to observe with any accuracy. I don't doubt the math used in determining the ages - just the presumption that there is a consistancy of exterior influences on the elements, as none of the materials tested have existed in a vacuum. I've yet to see a response on this from anyone - scientist or not. I am curious to see if your U-tube presentation adresses this issue to a point of satisfying these unacceptable premises. Send me off an email when you've posted this. It is something I have been researching over the past month. |
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The topic still is ... '... is evolution compatible with the bible???...' IMO this is still a fundamentalist ANSWER, uninterested in debating, and hypocrytically mascarading its undefendable dogma as a question. Taking a closer look at a historical trial, helps to put the undefendable stance of fundamentalists in its proper perspective. Between July 10-25, 1925, The Scopes 'Monkey Trial', captured the world's attention. The fundamentalist-bible inerrancy-apologist world view, founded on a ‘word-for-word’ interpretation of the bible, was shown to be IGNORANT at best and DANGEROUS at worst BACK THEN. Considering these threads in 2009, it would appear that not much has EVOLVED from the ‘fundamentalist’ perspective. The Scopes ‘Monkey trial’ was essentially the rationalists of the time challenging a Tennessee law forbidding the teaching of evolution. THE CAST: Clarence Darrow, famed and brilliant lawyer specializing in defending underdogs, who volunteered for this case to help combat what many perceived at the time as FUNDAMENTALIST IGNORANCE Versus William Jennings Bryan, known as "The Great Commoner," a tent-revivalist, three-time presidential candidate and former Secretary of State to Woodrow Wilson. His checkered political career over, he switched to the evangelism business. And John T. Scopes, a 24-year old science teacher and football coach, whom had actually defied the Tennessee law by teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in his science class. Reading the transcripts of the crucial part of the trial, where Darrow calls Bryan to the box as a witness, revealed to the world the degree of ignorance that the ‘fundamentalist-bible inerrant’ dogma cultivated among its otherwise well-educated, intelligent and articulate adherents. It was a WORLD SHOCKER THEN, and I can’t understand how in 2009, ‘fundamentalists’ hold exactly the same views, and present exactly the same arguments, and somehow expect to be vindicated!!! I invite you to read the following exchanges between ‘DARROW’ and ‘BRYAN, and while reminding yourself that this took place in 1925, noticing the incredible similitude with the fundamentalists exchanges on these threads today. "You have given considerable study to the Bible, haven't you, Mr. Bryan?" "Yes I have, I have studied the Bible for about fifty years." "Do you claim that everything in the Bible should be literally interpreted?" "I believe everything in the Bible should be accepted as it is given there ..." "Do you believe Joshua made the sun stand still?" "I believe what the Bible says." "I suppose you mean that the earth stood still?" "I don't know. I am talking about the Bible now. I accept the Bible absolutely." More questions show that Bryan barely understands the workings of the solar system, then Darrow asks: (Darrow)You believe the story of the flood to be a literal interpretation? (Bryan)Yes sir. (Darrow)When was that flood? (Bryan)I would not attempt to fix the day. (Darrow)But what do you think the Bible itself says? Don't you know how it was arrived at? (Bryan)I never made a calculation. (Darrow)What do you think? (Bryan)I do not think about things I don't think about. (Darrow)Do you think about the things you do think about? (Bryan)Well sometimes. Now, the crowd in the courtyard was laughing at Bryan instead of Darrow. (Darrow) How long ago was the flood, Mr. Bryan? (Bryan)Two-thousand three hundred and forty-eight years B.C. (Darrow)You believe that all the living things that were not contained in the ark were destroyed? (Bryan)I think the fish may have lived. (Darrow)Don't you know there are any number of civilizations that are traced back to more than five thousand years? (Bryan)I am not satisfied with any evidence I have seen. (Darrow)You believe that every civilization on the earth and every living thing, except possibly the fishes, were wiped out by the flood? (Bryan)At that time. (Darrow)You have never had any interest in the age of the various races and peoples and civilizations and animals that exist upon the earth today? (Bryan)I have never felt a great deal of interest in the effort that has been made to dispute the Bible by the speculations of men or the investigations of men. (Darrow)And you never have investigated how long man has been on the earth? (Bryan)I have never found it necessary. (Darrow)Don't you know that the ancient civilizations of China are six thousand or seven thousand years old, at the very least? (Bryan)No, but they would not run back beyond the creation, according to the Bible, six thousand years. (Darrow)You don't know how old they are; is that right? (Bryan)I don't know how old they are, but probably you do. I think you would give preference to anybody who opposed the Bible. More questions show Bryan's lack of knowledge of world culture, history and people. (Darrow)You have never in all your life made any attempt to find out about the other peoples of the earth - how old their civilizations are, how long they have existed on the earth - have you? (Bryan) No sir, I have been so well satisfied with the Christian religion that I have spent no time trying to find arguments against it. I have all the information I want to live by and to die by. (Darrow)Do you think the earth was made in six days?" (Bryan) Not six days of 24 hours. (Darrow)Did you ever discover where Cain got his wife? (Bryan) No sir; I leave the agnostics to hunt for her. (Darrow)Do you think the sun was made on the fourth day? (Bryan)Yes. (Darrow)And they had evening and morning without the sun? (Bryan) I am simply saying it is a period. (Darrow)The creation might have been going on for a very long time? (Bryan)It might have continued for millions of years. (Darrow)Yes, All right. The local papers went on to report: DAYTON, Tenn. July 25. “Darrow had exposed Bryan as a near imbecile. Darrow asked for and was granted an immediate direct verdict, thereby blocking Bryan from giving a speech he had been preparing for weeks.” “Even today, there are people who deny the fact that all life is connected, and that humans are just part of the equation. Fundamentalist insistence on the literal verity of scripture is grounded in a lack of faith, and inability to see a bigger picture. That being said, it seems to escape fundamentalists, that the vast majority of CHRISTIANS, of whom they claim to be part, accept the Genesis account of creation as what it is, a metaphor. Clarence Darrow said: "Science gets to the end of its knowledge and, in effect, says, 'I do not know what I do not know,' and keeps on searching. Religion gets to the end of its knowledge, and in effect, says, 'I know what I do not know,' and stops searching. Genesis says the world was created in six days. It also says that Adam lived 930 years (Gen 5:5), and that Noah was 600 years old when the flood happened (Gen 7:6). We can take these figures literally, believing that "people just lived longer in those days," or if we have a shred of intelligence or honesty, we can surmise that Biblical time reckoning is on a metaphoric scale. Of course, this allows Genesis to agree with observed evolution.” Remember folks, this was in 1925!!! Is evolution compatible with the bible??? YES! ... IF YOU’RE A CHRISTIAN. and still NO! ... IF YOU’RE A FUNDAMENTALIST!!! Are you getting your information from history - or the "Gone with the Wind" text. The scopes trial did not change Tennessee law. That came later. |
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