I was severly attacked by an evolution not to many years ago abra, lots of reconstructive surgery, and rehabilitization required!!

evolutions are nasty!!!

Conjecture on your part dear woman. Please, by all means, provide the proof that indicates your superior debating faculties. And just like the bible – no taking a reply out of the context of the thread.

Come on ‘lil lady – rack it up, show us the threads in which you have defended your god and his writing and have clearly come out a winner.



She wont/cant debate.

That's paramount right there.

Far too many Christians tend to be bigoted fools. For example, they want to claim that homosexually is a sin because it was obscurely mentioned a view times in the Old Testament. But now it's ok for women to speak out on religious topics.

It's a "Have your cake and eat it too" stance.

They are so overly anxious to use the bible to pass judgments against non-believers, and against any activities that they personally disapprove of. But when it comes to their own behavior they'll happily twist it all around and claim that the old laws no longer apply today.

What a crock of bull.

>>>>>>>> SCORE <<<<<<<<<



christians -
:frustrated


pagans -





abra, tribo, =

winners = none

from "Thank You For Smoking"

Nick Naylor: My job requires a certain... moral flexibility.

Not to mention that for years past, bi-sexuality was probably the norm in most circles. It would have been considered odd to settle down with one sex or another long term. That would have come along with Christianity and even then, they just hid it. I would agree that it is rather restrictive and seems to be a doctrine associated with a lot of snivelng biggots.

Who keeps passing out there buddy?

I'm drinking the Dr. Pepper.

Absolutely.

The bible was much more vehement about women not speaking out in public on important matters than it was about homosexuality.

Yet today Christian women speak out against homosexuality claiming that it's against Biblical law. That's utterly hilarious when you stop and think about it.

If we wanted to put biblical law into mordern law women would be banned from speaking out on any important topics. All they could speak of is tea and knitting.

Clearly most Christian women would not support God's laws if they actually had to obey them.

Better. Since we all have faith in what we believe. "Religion" has come to take on a special meaning on these threads - so I propose we ban the word for now. It always brings out an air of negativety and lots of false accusatons based on a tendancy of believe of behavior that pretty much does not exist within the people who post here. Non of the believers are going off bombing Abortion clinics here - and non of the non-believers are sacrificing infants to satan in their basements - so we should avoid the broad strokes of painting with those sort of labels. We all know each other to well here to fall back into threads that provoke this.

I'm still catching up - page 22 now.


Feral


You are no different than Abra, or any televangelical preacher, for that matter. You preach what YOU believe and live with the illusion that you are different, because you believe, only you are correct. Abra, and others here, are not necessarily maintaining that they alone are subject to all the truths in the universe, unlike you and spider and Fanta and a few others.

So far Farel, I see nothing in your posts in this thread or any recent ones that would lead me to believe you are being influenced by any outside spiritual force. I have, however, on many occasions wondered what internal forces are guiding your thoughts.



Somehow, a god whose kindness, love, generosity and patience, has limits does not seem to be the epitome of perfection to me. Especially when so much in scripture tends to lead one in the direction of believing in the loving perfection of an almighty, all-knowing god.

Feral


Actually there was a train of thought, a few pages back I believe began by Eljay. It explaines that god does not murder because whether god takes a life now or later, it will be taken. So it’s not considered murder. Of course that doesn’t bode well as a very good lesson to teach. Humans, of course, can simply turn that around to say, “I didn’t commit murder” it was in god’s plan, I just carried it out. The guy was gonna die anyway.”.


Spider


Now THERE’S a real inconsistency. For faith can only be subjective. You can not teach it, therefore, the written scripture is not necessary. Furthermore, if it’s only a matter of believing some pieces of information you are handed down, then how can anyone be sure they are believing truth and with that in mind why would anyone have the audacity, or maybe the illusion, that they alone can proved accurate and correct belief teachings?

On that note alone, this discussion should have been terminated, for no two people will have or teach the same beliefs.

Agreed. That’s a good idea. It’s also quite clear to me that we do not and can not know what beliefs each and every person who posts here holds. That really should not be used either for or against them as far as their ability to tackle the issues set forth.

Im sorry, I didnt quote but was agreeing with Eljay and his latest comment. My bad.

Before I start, I just want to say I wish I'd of paid a little more attention in college. Oh, and I'm sorry for the jump back of a couple pages.


No one will be able to show you conclusively that evolution does exhist on the short time period of two hundred years. Oh, I might be able to point out that the average human is about six inches taller and that his/her live span has increased by an average of 38 years in that same time, but some would argue that this phenomona is directly corellated to the rise of the industrial age and an increase in the distribution of nutritous foods.

However, if you only go back 10,000 years, you can see a physical change in man. There is an increase to the height of the forehead and a decrease to the slope. This was to accomidate a larger brain. The muscling of the shoulders has decreased as well as the muscling in the thighs. We rarely go back to all fours anymore. Go back further and the changes become more obvious, including a decreased jawbone size (we cook now).

Anyone that believe that man was ever a monkey though, doesn't understand the concept of evolution. When humans and monkeys had common ancestors, monkeys and apes weren't monkeys and apes either. They went one way, we went another. But to say monkeys and apes aren't hominids is ludricous in its conception.

Humans weren't tadpoles, or lizards or fish. Our ancestors weren't either. The jump from fish to mammal didn't take place overnight. Mistakes were made I'm sure, but I've always figured God got bored with the dinasours and wanted something else. Yeah, I think God looked at the dinasours and said "this isn't right," or maybe "these are boring," and wiped the slate clean (probably with an asteroid hit to Mexico). He's already said in Revelations he'll do the same to us.

The study of evolution, in my opinion, is nothing more than trying to explain just how God "tinkers" with all living creatures on the planet. It is no threat to the religion of Christianity (I will not speak for other religons, not having a working knowledge).

Well stated Abra. Though the approach to the validity of scripture, and the argument for it, varies greatly from Spider's posts to mine - we do agree that despite the unreasonableness of the bible (more so of the Old Testament than the New - as you have to admit, the stories of the New are far more comprehensable in terms of being reasonable - with perhaps the exception of the cruxifiction) we both see a consistancy in the unreasonableness - as it were, as opposed to contradictions.

Aside from that - what philosophical concept - be it Christianity, Pantheism, evolution - does not have a faith based core of it's beliefs? Surely one needs a tremendous amount of faith to believe that evolution is reasonable - and to make matters worse, that faith has to be put into the hands of men who don't even claim to be inspired, opening the door for elaborate ruses and fakes.

How does a pantheist convince someone God is in a rock - let alone convince someone they believe it themselves without resorting to some measure of faith?

Clearly your post is well thought out and succinct - however a tad exclusionary for me.

Aside from Atheism - what philosophical viewpoint is not faith based? And there's even an argument for having to have more faith to disbelieve in God, than there is to believe in one.

That's just my take on things.

It has never been my understanding that "humans evolved from apes". If this was the case, where would the great apes be today? Where would any apes or monkeys be found? No. There was a parallel and we shared genetics up to a certain point. Then one broke off from the other.

Human evolution, or anthropogenesis, is the part of biological evolution concerning the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species from other hominans, great apes and placental mammals. It is the subject of a broad scientific inquiry that seeks to understand and describe how this change occurred. The study of human evolution encompasses many scientific disciplines, most notably physical anthropology, linguistics and genetics.

The term "human", in the context of human evolution, refers to the genus Homo, but studies of human evolution usually include other hominins, such as the australopithecines. The Homo genus diverged from the australopithecines about 2 million years ago in Africa. Several typological species of Homo, now extinct, evolved. These include Homo erectus, which inhabited Asia, and Homo neanderthalensis, which inhabited Europe.

Feral




So now a woman expects people to believe she has a clear understanding of the theory of evolution. But in the next sentence requests that we give you an example of a complete new species formed in only 200 year span.

This woman I would expect to believe in the bible.

there is an alternative, but i have no physical concrete evidence for it, Man came here from elsewhere, and is the one responsible for all other creatures being made after his liking. I personally believe that over that time man has >>"devolved"<< not "evolved" from where he once was, the only evidence i can show is man's knowledge written in history of what he accomplished during those periods spoken of such as Egypt and other timely civilizations.

Many things recorded, man has accomplished even modern man admits he is not able to do, such as the pyramids etc. We can see from early art, and artifacts that even simple batteries were made by early ancient civilizations, before that we had Atlantis or Mu, or other lost civilizations, that are said to have been extremely more advanced than we are now, so who knows or can say for sure, that we are evolving? we may be more intelligent then we were in our recent history, but that also is just a theory. When the library of Alexandria was burned up, we lost thousands of records or more of knowledge that we will never have privy to, and has limited are knowledge as to what really other earlier civilizations might have know.

WHEW! Done. I did it, I read the whole thing.

doh! I could have been cleaning up my office.


Oh well!

By the way it was a pleasure to read you Krimsa and I will look forward to seeing you in other threads.

Everyone - later now!

Thanks, you also.

To answer this question, most pantheists don't go around trying to convince people that God is in a rock.

For me, my pantheist view is that God is consciousness and that consciousness flows through all things. It flows through them and give them existence.

Each creature or rock or plant has consciousness and that consciousness is God. This consciousness is not the awareness of I Am, but it is a vibration of being.

JB

I'm in total agreement with you on this one Eljay. However, Pantheists aren't running around trying to claim that every who doesn't believe in Pantheism is rejecting God. I think therein lies the difference.

I'll be the very first to admit that my "belief' in Pantheism is entirely based on faith. Well, not entirely, I do feel that I have rational reasons that point in that direction as well. But ultimately it can't be proven and is necessarily a faith-based ideal.

If you've been reading me for very long you know that I'm ultimately agnostic which means that I believe anything is possible. In fact I put the word "belief" in quote in the previous paragraph because when I use the word I only use it to mean that I believe something "may be plausible". I'm not one to have a hard-core belief in anything that I can't directly experience. And even with regard to experience the only thing that I truly believe is that I've experienced it. Or at the very least I've experienced the delusion of having experienced it.

I would eve give the biblical picture of God plausibility. They only reason that I hold that its implausible is because it is self contradictory. It claims that God is unchanging, yet it claims that God changes. To me that's just an outright contradiction. No amount of 'faith' is going to help me believe that things that simultaneously negate each other can be simultaneously true.

So I couldn't put 'faith' in the biblical picture to save my soul. Yet, that's precisely what Christians are claiming I need to do.



I don't think so at all. I personally believe that evolution is the most reasonable explanation of how we got here. It doesn't deny intelligent design. It merely asks us to think that the design process occurred differently.

Why should it be any more reasonable to believe that a magic God waved as magic wand over the dust of the earth to form a man, than to believe that a God created a universe made of atoms that would naturally combine to form DNA and eventually evolve into a man?

I don't see where one is any more or less incredulous than the other. Evolution makes perfect sense to me even if there is a God. And of course, if there isn't a God then it makes even more sense.



Inspired by what? A belief in a God?

What's wrong with being inspired by a desire to know truth?

The whole idea that evolution is an elaborate ruse of fake assumptions implies that all scientists are in cahoots to reach the same erroneous conclusion. Clearly that doesn't hold water Eljay. If science was nothing more than a collection of random fakery it would be filled with a whole lot of different conflicting theories as to how we got here. The idea that we evolved from lower life form is a single coherent idea that all the scientific evidence points to. It's clearly not just an elaborate hoax.



That one of the beautiful things about Pantheism. There's no dire need to convince anyone that its true.




I exclude the biblical story of God because it's absurd relative to its own proclamations, as well as relative to what it claims God is supposed to be like. Not to mention the fact that its in conflict with the natural world.

As a religion I denounce it because it only serves to pit man against man on a global scale. I see no reason to support a religion that causes nothing but political unrests and judgments against neighbors pitting man against man because his belief in his creator differs.

Why support such a negative thing?



I personally feel that it takes a whole lot of faith to believe in Atheism. True atheism. Not just agnosticism.

To truly hold that the belief that there is no God requires much faith. I personally cannot muster the faith that is required to become a true atheist. Sometimes I wish I could. And I have tried. But I've given up. I'm convinced that our true essence is indeed spiritual in nature. This is why I lean toward pantheism rather than atheism. I can't muster the faith to believe in true atheism. And sometimes I seriously wish that I could. Sometimes the though of just dying when life is over is the most pleasant thought I can imagine. The thought of having to live forever does not appeal to me, even if that life is awesomely beautiful.

I think we all need to face the fact if there is life after death then life on Earth is either just the demo program, or the real thing that keep repeating. Either way it's an indication of what the afterlife will be like.

These people who keep preaching what the Biblical God expects from us don't seem to realize that if he's so concerned with this stuff he's going to continue to be concerned with in it in the next life. If he wants women to shut up and to as there are told in this life, then it's probably fair to assume that he will want them to shut up and do as they are told in heaven too.

If he created them to be the helpmate to men on earth, then he'll probably expect them to be man's helpmate in heaven.

Why should he want these things on earth and not want them in his heavenly kingdom.

Even if the Bible could be made to make sense, I don't find it to be an attractive picture. If I could choose my reality between the Biblical picture of God or atheism I would choose atheism. Not so I can get away with things in this life, but simply because I'm not interested in living under the biblical God's ideals for the rest of eternity. I'd truly rather just cease to exist if I have a choice.

So I personally find atheism to me more attractive than Christianity.

But for other reasons I feel that pantheism is more likely to be the real truth of reality.

Pantheism requires the least "faith" on my part because it has the most evidence. Almost to the point where I can't even deny if I wanted to!