The Religion Thread

[Ombudsman]

Evolution could not have given life on Earth a protective atmosphere to protect us from space-borne radiation and contaminants not found on other planets in our solar system.

Evolution could not have given life on Earth the correct mixture of gases that allows us to breathe; also not found on other planets.

Evolution could not have given life on Earth the proper amount of sunlight needed to sustain our existence.

Evolution could not have given the earth the correct gravitational pull of the moon needed to keep the oceans in check.

The fact that life is possible on so few planets is a good example of it being a random, unlikely event. Darwinism doesn't suggest the atmosphere evolved for the purpose of protecting life. You argument is a straw man.

Evolution could not have produced the complex makeup of the human body, i.e. giving us a brain that could match any computer if we were capable of fully utilizing it, or a heart that sends life-giving blood to every region of our bodies, etc., etc., etc.

The evidence runs contrary to your claim. Intelligent design would not have resulted in a vehicle so apt to be taken down by bacteria, viruses, cancer, autoimmune diseases, etc.

[Ombudsman]

...Intelligent design would not have resulted in a vehicle so apt to be taken down by bacteria, viruses, cancer, autoimmune diseases, etc.

Maybe it was God but S/He isn't very smart.

Perhaps we should begin a movement to implement a public school curriculum promoting Unintelligent Design Theory.

[Bungalow Bill]

When you have overwhelming evidence of something it's just a matter of time before the fundies accept it and say that's what the bible said all along, even though they argue completely against it at first using the same bible.

The earth isn't at the center of the universe, hard to find a Christian that doesn't agree with that nowadays. The same will be true with evolution soon, and they'll deny the bible ever said such a thing, just as they deny the bible said the earth is at the center and the sun revolves around it even though it was heresy to believe otherwise.

That's why they've had to switch from a literal to a figurative stand on
the Bible. After a while, the science just became too convincing to battle
anymore for many believers. So all the parts that science had proven fantastic
turned into metaphors or symbols, etc. Well it wasn't really six 24 hours days
you know. Right, got it.

Something similar happens in political matters too. Gay rights and marriage was
mostly a secular phenomenon. Then, when the mainline churches' theology on
gays started to look bad to the general public, they started to gradually move
in the direction most of the secular world was taking. Too little, too late.

[Mr.B]

"Maybe God's intelligent design is on behalf of bacteria and viruses and we're just disposable tools advancing God's greatest and ultimate creation, people-killing microbes.

Or, if one is a believer, God created the physical laws of the universe and the Big Bang knowing what they would lead to or was willing to kick back and see, and it's blasphemous for Mr.B and homerfobe to deny the greatness and perfection of that creation by claiming H/She didn't get it right from the get-go and had to do further tinkering to correct mistakes."

Comparing Homerfobe's lunacy with my beliefs is your lunacy. Don't do that, please.

[Mr.B]

"Perhaps we should begin a movement to implement a public school curriculum promoting Unintelligent Design Theory."

You sound a lot like my old pal NCRoughneck.



If anyone could teach "Unintelligent Design......"

[bannination]

At the beginning of Genesis 1:1, the Scofield Bible shows the approximate date of it's authorship.
Reading further on, we find that the dates from chapter 5 to chapter 6 change from 4,004 to 2,353 B.C.

Wait what?

The oldest record of the complete text survives in a Greek translation called the Septuagint, dating to the 4th century CE.
The oldest extant manuscripts of the vocalized Masoretic text, which modern editions are based upon, date to the 9th century CE.

That's pretty far cry from 4000 CE


The Ussher chronology is a 17th-century chronology of the history of the world formulated from a literal reading of the Bible by James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh (Church of Ireland). The chronology is sometimes associated with young Earth creationism, which holds that the universe was created only a few millennia ago by God as described in the first two chapters of the Biblical book of Genesis.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scofield_Reference_Bible
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ussher_chronology

[bannination]

That's why Bible believing Christians don't take every word, action, phrase, or personal thoughts in the Bible as literal.

Then what's the point? How can you gain knowledge from something when you don't even know when it's fibbing or telling the truth?


That's good though, I mean talking snakes.... wow what a tale.

[Mr.B]

"That's good though, I mean talking snakes.... wow what a tale."

You talk, don't you?

The serpent (or snake) wasn't a snake until God cursed it to crawl on it's belly....hence the term man coined "snake in the grass"; a sneaky, conniving creature.

[Ombudsman]

"That's good though, I mean talking snakes.... wow what a tale."

You talk, don't you?

The serpent (or snake) wasn't a snake until God cursed it to crawl on it's belly....hence the term man coined "snake in the grass"; a sneaky, conniving creature.

LOL - No. The snake was a snake prior to being cursed, just one that stood upright. You really don't know much about that Bible of yours do you? He told Adam and Eve that despite God telling them they would die if they at the fruit, that in fact they would not but that their eyes would be opened knowing good and evil. So they ate the fruit and it turned out the snake was right and God was wrong.

Talking bushes, snakes and donkeys make good kids' stories, but at some point it's time to put away childish things, don't ya think?

[bannination]

"That's good though, I mean talking snakes.... wow what a tale."

You talk, don't you?

The serpent (or snake) wasn't a snake until God cursed it to crawl on it's belly....hence the term man coined "snake in the grass"; a sneaky, conniving creature.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure you've heard a version that doesn't make a snake talk, because a preacher talking about talking snakes is well.... kinda funny... they have to change the story up a bit so that it doesn't raise any red flags.

I wonder how the snake got around before he crawled on his belly? Did it have legs?

Really though, I love ya Mr. B, but you just literally said that a snake wasn't a snake until it was a snake. :-0?> When you have to make a jump like that, it's usually because something is wrong.

[Mr.B]

At any rate, aww.....never mind.
I don't believe the Earth is only 6000 years old....I'm not a gullible idiot regardless of y'all's opinions of me or the Bible....
I'm happy with my beliefs, y'all are happy with your'n...that's all that matters.

[Mr.B]

"The serpent (or snake) wasn't a snake until God cursed it to crawl on it's belly....hence the term man coined "snake in the grass"; a sneaky, conniving creature."

"LOL - No. The snake was a snake prior to being cursed, just one that stood upright.
You're correct. Although the Bible doesn't specifically point it out, we have to assume the "serpent" was an upright creature before it was cursed, then again, we really don't know what it originally looked like.

You really don't know much about that Bible of yours do you? He told Adam and Eve that despite God telling them they would die if they at the fruit, that in fact they would not but that their eyes would be opened knowing good and evil. So they ate the fruit and it turned out the snake was right and God was wrong.
I don't claim to be a Bible scholar, but I know that God loved Adam and Eve. He told them they would die if they disobeyed Him; He didn't say what form of death they would experience; they didn't suffer a physical death, they suffered a spiritual death, which led to the sufferings and miseries mankind suffers to this day; hence, their eyes were "opened".

Talking bushes, snakes and donkeys make good kids' stories, but at some point it's time to put away childish things, don't ya think?"
God gave us free will. You've made your choices, I've made mine. You keep your "childish things", I'll keep mine. I'm willing to bet my "childish things" will be more valuable than yours.

[Ombudsman]

I don't claim to be a Bible scholar, but I know that God loved Adam and Eve. He told them they would die if they disobeyed Him; He didn't say what form of death they would experience; they didn't suffer a physical death, they suffered a spiritual death, which led to the sufferings and miseries mankind suffers to this day; hence, their eyes were "opened".

Ah the old, "I don't like what the Bible says so let's pretend this one part is figurative" ploy. So talking upright snakes is literal, but death is figurative. Good stuff.

[Mr.B]

Yep....NCR.

[bannination]

Mysterious 10,000-Year-Old Mastodon Tooth Found in Charity's Donation Pile

Shoes, clothing and furniture are the typical items donated to charities on a daily basis. But a 10,000-year-old mastodon tooth? Not so much.

However, much to the amazement of the folks at In the Image, a Christian charity in Grand Rapids, Mich., that's exactly what happened. ...

I wonder if they're some of the ones that believe the Earth is only 6000 years old?

Ha! That's actually quite funny that someone went through the effort to think and do that. I wonder if they'll realize the irony.... that is if they happen to be young earth nuts.

[bannination]

The fact that life is possible on so few planets is a good example of it being a random, unlikely event. Darwinism doesn't suggest the atmosphere evolved for the purpose of protecting life. You argument is a straw man.

I got to thinking about that.... and just had to point out that we don't know if life is possible on "so few planets" since our sample size is extremely small. It could be that life in some form or another is fairly abundant, or at least abundant with respect to the size of the universe we inhabit.

Of course, we could be the only planet with life in the universe (however unlikely) and that by itself still doesn't prove anything, so Mr. B's logic is faulty in ever way possible.

Just picking a nit.

On a side note, I'd say that because of the values in our basic atoms are set to the values they are the probability switched from 0 if they had other values to a statistically likely event with the values we observe!

This just pushes Mr. B's argument about evolution and god one step further back; you know, god set the values of the electrons and all that, and I totally realize this, but it's science that will make him reevaluate what he accepts in the future, and not his beliefs.

[bannination]

I'd agree with you, I could think of more specific places to leave it if that was the intent. Still funny though!

[bannination]

Though I too think Mr.B's logic is faulty for other reasons - for example, life helped create the atmosphere as we know it - I don't get how the rarity or abundance of life on other planets is evidence for or against the existence of God. Can one of you explain it to me?

i also don't see the straw man. Mr.B did not put words in someone else's mouth or reformulate one of our or Darwin's arguments.

Oh it doesn't in any way that I can see, I hope it didn't give that impression. I was more taking apart the science of whether life is rare or not, and not addressing any of Mr. B. points or budsman, I diverged a bit off-topic.

From a religious, well ex-religious perspective, I can see that if life was abundant elsewhere it would cause problems for "our specialness". This may or may not be the common though among the majority if Christians, it just was around the ones I grew up with. Again though, I wasn't arguing for or against that train of thought.

[neoplacebo]

I had a burning bush recently, but it was of my own effort.

[neoplacebo]

No, I mean a real bush....with leafs and stems. Not a bush in the hand.