Ah, excellent discussion there guys, WOW are you educated in this field AT and Penguine!!:good: Good points on your part too Waffles. I sort of believe selective parts of each, whatever holds the most water really, I'm basically an evolutionist but I realize its limitations, the big bang theory obviously has major flaws so maybe God created the big bang? And then he sat back and let things take it's course. Then again if you look at the bible there would be no reason to belive this but I'm just thowing it out ya know. Noah's ark gives me the most problems, I don't know much about this so feel free to shoot me down but if all the animals that are present today were alive back then (generally speaking) then that boat would have to be just a tad bigger than it's said to be. To put the whole canablism thing aside I think the living conditions, and resources needed just wouldn't work out. With massive animals like mammoths and buffalo's etc. you'd need a ton of food right. I think Noah and his family would have one heck of a time dealing with God knows how many animals. Also what sort of animals came along? Don't forget insects. Was it every species, or just as general as "dogs" for example? Thanks.
Huh, I have a short attention span so couldn't get myself to read all that. Nevertheless interesting thoughts.
Also, on the topic of the whole reverse evolution thing with chimps and humans I see what you're saying but think about the enviromental factors that we needed to adapt too. If you look back to our ancestors (bare with me if you don't agree) you'll see thaat they greatly resembled apes, because they needed to adapt to their enviroment obviously. Us modern humans have the brain power and reasoning skills that we need over sheer muscle so we build homes and use technology rather than requiring hairly backs, wisdom teeth, an apendix, tail etc. Those are all remenants of our ancestory when we needed those things. So it's not really reverse evolution, just adaptation. Us modern day humans are also much more capable of say, throwing a baseball, or pounding a nail for example. Chimps throw weird under-hand shots and don't have the coordination when it comes to dealing with fine objects. Just my 2 cents anyway.
my opinion, this is all crap, until something proves itself I need an explanation next to the big bang and everything, i need it all to be satisfied ^ - ^ (no offense to anyone, but i can't stand believing something unless it has no proof)
It seems we have a logical vacancy which I'd like to address. Let me clarify that this is directed at anyone who would take both sides of the argument here: It's not reasonably possible to take both sides. I'm going to pull heavily from the writings of C.S. Lewis, but logically you have 3 choices in how one regards the person of Jesus Christ (Yeshua Ha'Mashiach for any Jews who may be reading this), since he claimed to be the Messiah. Those choices are as follows: 1)He was a persuasive liar and a con artist, but not really the Messiah 2)He was a good natured but insane individual, in that he truly believed himself to be the Messiah but was in fact an ordinary man with no grip on reality 3)He was actually who he claimed to be – the Messiah, Son of God, savior of mankind, the perfection of Adam's weakness, etc. If you are following this thread of logic, consider this. If Jesus was in fact a liar and a con man, nothing he said should be given any credence. After all, what good is the word of a liar? And if you can't trust him in one matter, should you take him at his word in another? On the other hand, perhaps he really believed himself in some form of self-delusion to be the Son of God. In that case, though his intents were not necessarily evil, “that would put him on the level of a man who believes himself to be a poached egg” to paraphrase Lewis. If he is not even sure of who or what he is, obviously he can not be trusted in any matters of importance. Finally, we can choose to believe that Christ is in fact who he claims to be, and that as a result his teachings are in fact the Word of God. If that's true, logic forbids that we pick and choose which of his teachings we choose to believe. If he was who he claimed to be, than we must give all of his teachings equal leverage. We don't have the liberty to pay lip service by claiming that he was “just a good teacher”. Liar, madman, or Messiah - those are your choices. If we choose to accept that the teachings of Christ are trustworthy, then we must also accept the old testament in its entirety, since Christ fully endorsed it and spoke of it as the Word of God. Saying “I believe in Christian creation and also in the big-bang/evolution” is nonsensical, since the bible is very specific about the time frame in which the world was created. Also, evolutionary precepts are the antithesis of Christian teachings. There's simply no room for agreement on this point. -AT
i believe from what i have read, 'jesus' really did exist (cave paintings/text can 'confirm' this), but the question is whether or not he really was the son of god
Um, yes, very much so. There are around 16 documents that confirm the exisitance of Julius Ceasar, yet we believe he existed. On the other hand, there are well over 2,000 secular documents which confirm the existance of the man Jesus, that he lived in the time and place he was proported to live, and that a great many events surrounded his existance. You can choose to believe he did not exist, but not on the merits of history.
though couldn't written texts of historical events be altered, re-written or altogether made up for the occasion?
Yes. In that case, throw out your history books, because the holocaust never happened, neither did the revolutionary war, and hell, George Washington was a popular myth. Get real, man. If you don't want to be reasonable, it's no longer a discussion, you're just talking.
Okay, I am going to have a bit too much information to bother posting, but I want to give you guys some links that may help your perspective. It is from a website "Christian Apologetics Research Ministry" www.carm.org This first one is creation vs evolution... http://www.carm.org/evolution.htm The second one is talking about the consistency (or lack thereof) of atheism http://www.carm.org/atheism.htm This last one is "Christianity and Science." I think these links will save some people (namely AT) some of their time and effort if the people interested are willing to give it a read. So if you are seriously interested and/or are debating the issue, please check out the links. Hope it helps, guys!
That's a good point there AT but you said yourself that the texts could be a bit garbled by this point due to multiple translations and all so you wouldn't necessarily have to take every verse word for word, not to mention it's being retold by the deciples, each with his own version right? Here's something that always gave me some trouble: Some say that God has everything planned out and knows exactly what is going to happen and how things will unfold, he's all knowing after all right? So why did he kill just about everyone on Earth in the flood (just about all his creatures too) because they were so evil when He Himself was in charge of their creation, and knew they would become this way. It doesn't seem fair for a loving God to destroy everyting when it would have to have been his plan for them to become evil in the first place? And if he knows everything that we'll do than why do we need to follow any written code? I'm sure you'll have some super rubuttal that will destroy this statement but I thought I'd throw it out anyway.
A couple of things for you to look up... a secular author shortly after the time of Christ named Josephus who didn't believe Jesus was the Christ - he wrote about Jesus quite a bit. And the other thing you may want to look up is the "Shroud of Turin" It is rumored to be the burial cloth of Jesus. I'm sure AT or Levity could go a bit further into it, but I can at least offer your those two items. One more thing - to even bother to argue that all of the historical documents may have been made up is ridiculous... Like AT said, with that kind of thought process, we have to believe that virtually every historical event that we didn't see with our own eyes is false... and that even some of the ones we have seen were falsified with us even watching.
Oh, I'm sure that Jesus existed, that much is fine for me. But then again although lot's of documents do help to support a point, you can never truly prove the existence of something without "hard" evidence, like skeletal remains. Because if you base the existence of something/one of written documents alone then people could say that bigfoot/lockness monster/King Arther/Dragons/etc. existed due to numerous accounts, but I know what you're getting at AT:good:
Like you said, He is all-knowing... that means he knows what's going to happen. The whole point of us even being able to make the stupid mistakes in the first place is called "free will." That is a good thing. That means that He decided it is more pleasant for you to be able to CHOOSE whether or not to worship him or not, argue about his existence or not. I have a quote in my wallet that says "The thing about our choices is: After we have made them , they turn around and make us." So is He a loving God? Absolutely, He loves enough that no matter what you've dont wrong, He will always accept your apologies. I hope that wasn't too preachy or whatever. Just trying to answer the question to the best of my ability. :good:
I'm assuming you're addressing my comment earlier about not having it both ways. You are actually a bit confused on what multiple translations means. We have many translations of the original new testament manuscripts, which are in Greek mainly with a bit of Aramaic. If you don't know, Aramaic was like street Hebrew, the common Jewish language (as opposed to old Hebrew). The only real translation issue is that the languages of the Bible are dead; that is, nobody actually speaks them anymore (not in the same form anyways). Since Greek was once like what English is now, we know a huge amount about it, so any disagreements scholars might have on the specifics of translation have to do with very minor semantical issues. For instance, the NASB and NIV use a different wording, but say mainly the same thing. On the other hand, the New World Translation wasn't translated by linguistic scholars at all, so IMO it really doesn't count for anything. My point is that the translation thing isn't much of an issue. If you don't want to believe it, that's up to you, but you're only being dishonest to yourself if you use foolish excuses to come to that conclusion in the first place. Good question, actually. Many believe that the genetic line of man was literally spoiled by some really foul things (Genesis 6). Apparently Noah and his family weren't tainted, so they were spared to start afresh.
Hmm... Well, as for the "garbled" texts... While it is *possible*, it isn't entirely likely. What we are talking about is the Jewish tradition. There are more documents than just the Torah that have been kept in perfect order throughout the years. If anyone here has read any of the Bible, they'll recognize this reference of "every jot and tittle" being kept in the text? - What it's saying is, every time the documents would be recopied they would have professional scribes copy it *exactly* down to the very accent of the wrist while writing it. Also, I'm not sure - I believe* AT already noted this - But the "Torah Codes" pretty much validate the claim of the preserved documents. As for the retelling of it by the disciples... You have to keep in mind that these are *first generation* accounts. In otherwords, these stories were copied down within the lifetime of other people who were alive and *whitnessed* the events. Hence, as each of the disciples accounts of the event corespond with one another, and they are not denied by anyone else who was there... I fail to see your point. I'm glad you asked!! Yes, God is omnipotent/present... The point of the destruction of the flood (and allowing things to go as they did) is simply: God is omni-GOOD. The whole point of the Christian account and claim is not simply "Christ is God, etc." but "GOD IS GOOD" - Therefore, as we are now looking at it through this lense, let's see - Can God be good while flooding the earth? - Of course. To say "God knew we would be bad, so how can he punish us?" Is a pretty rediculous question, if you think about it. And to say it was his *plan* for us to become evil is a little presumptuous! I mean, is that to say that everything you do is part of God's plan in that, he *causes you to do it*? Then I'm not at fault for murdering someone... As, it was God's will, after all? - It couldn't possibly be that I have my own free will, and God simply *knows me well enough as his specific creation* to know I will do it? There is a big difference between knowing someone will do something and *causing them to do it*.
OK, there are a few points I'd like to bring up in brief. If I were to go into this in any great detail then this would be a book rather than a posting and it's been a while since I read up on this so forgive me in advance for any slight inaccuracies in my data. On the other hand I probably still have all the reference material available so if anyone insists then I am only too happy to dig into my library and find my sources. The story of Christ. In the third or fourth century BC, there was a meeting called the Council of Nicosia of the major authorities of the Christian religion. They met to decide which of the four hundred or so books written about the life of Jesus would become canon. They chose just four of those books while the rest were denounced as "heretical" and banned, and are probably since irretreviably lost. Therefore when we read the New Testament we are only reading that version of Jesus's life that those members of the Council of Nicosia wanted us to read, there are hundreds of accounts of His life that were banned by them. Why? And what do they contain? Frankly we will probably never know. God, loving or vengeful? This arguement I have come across many times, and have heard various explanations as to why the christian God comes across as positively schizophrenic sometimes. The only arguement that works for me is as follows. Just about every major religion that has existed with a very few exceptions has been polythestic, worshipping many gods. The modern christian faith would have us beieve that there is only One True God as depicted in the Bible and that all the rest are "false gods" that should not be followed, however lets consider that a Pratchett-like world exists where there are lots of gods to choose from, not just one. Then we can read the Old Testament not as story of The One True God but rather an account of the struggle of a particular god, just one of the many that existed then, to gain power over the other, very real, "gods." I don't have the benefit of a photographic memory of the Bible but I do recall reading some parts of it that would at least support this arguement. For example why did God look after only the Israelites and treat other races like scum sometimes. Perhaps they were merely rivals in some sort of global power struggle. If this is so then we can maybe look at the idea, to which I hold at least some sympathy, that rather than there being a God, that there was actually two, if not more, rival gods who were fighting amongnst themselves for control of the Israelites, one being a god of anger and wrath and vengeance, the other being a god of peace and forgiveness. Which one won in the end is questionable. Note this is just one possible explanation, it may also simply be that God was schizophrenic and moody. Further to that idea consider this, just how much of a relationship is there between the New Testament Jesus and the Old Testement Jehovah. The stories of the Old and New Testament are quite different. Jehovah was the One True God who brought down fire and brimstone on anyone who tried to harm His people or who worshipped false Gods, Jesus was part of a trinity of gods that taught peace and forgiveness and who was willing to die on the cross for our sins. When Jesus said he was the Son of God, which god did he have in mind? God is all-knowing. Perhaps, but my question is this, what exactly qualifies someone as a God? Some primitive cultures have known to see aeroplanes for the first time and believe that they came from the Gods, why? Because they didn't understand what they were are to a degree feard them. In fact any culture, especially illiterate, low-tech ones, when coming into contact with a culture that is much further advanced then them can be easily led to believe that the advanced culture is a god. So was God actually a god or merely a member of an advanced race that for whatever reason decided to take a part of the human race, the Israelites under His care? Anyone who has read my first posting would perhaps know by now that I subscribe to the latter. Again, were I to try to argue this point any further then I would be writing a book but I will take one story and look at it with this viewpoint: the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. First of all we are told that two angels came to Lot and urged him to leave ina hurry, why the haste, why was God in a hurry? Then we read that Lot's wife looked back and became a pillar of salt (note that this is the wording from the King James version, not the popular myth that Lot's wife looked back and turned into a pillar of salt which is slightly different). This story even has historical evidence in that a Roman historian, generally considered reliable otherwise claimed to have actually seen this pillar of salt. This salt theme also occurs in other sources that describes the mountains around Sodom and Gomorrah as being covered with salt. OK, what does that mean? Well go to Hisoshima or Nagasaki and look for yourself, you will find that the area around the atomic blasts are also covered with a sort of salt that an educated society calls atomic fallout. It is therefore not inconsistent with Biblical writings to suggest that Sodom and Gomorrah were nuked, which would explain the haste that the angels were taking to get out of the city before the scheduled attack, and also explains why Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt for looking back - she was blinded by the blast, lost her way and was caught in the fallout. Note that this is a possible explanation, not the only one, but one that neither the creationists nor the evolutionsts would generally be even willing to look at. Also were this an isolated incident then there would be little point in bringing it up but the amount of evidence that advanced cultures with nuclear capability existed on this planet thousands of years ago is quite extensive. Similiar, and clearer, examples exist in ancient Indian texts while no sensible explanation has ever been put foward os to why excavations found large sheets of green glass, similiar to those found in the Nevada desert after the atomic testing there, underneath what they had identified as a many thousands of years old hunter-gatherer civilisation. Note that this is just a theory, it does not necessarily represent my own "beliefs", which are merely that both the Creationists and the Evolutionists have got it wrong and are looking in the wrong places, but it does represent my idea that if either member of these two faiths, and yes the Evolutionism is more of a religion than a science, were to actually look at the evidence in front of them they would perhaps see things very differently to how they do now. Mainstream science is every bit as dogmatic and intolerant as the Christian faith has been. Sure, so perhaps there have been no crusades or holocausts committed by this new religion (but even that is questionable) but many lives and careers have been destroyed merely because someone held opposing views to the establishment. Neither arguement holds up well under even the line that it itself holds, there is a lot of stuff in the Bible that radically differs from the popular myths and has ignored rather than explained, while the evidence contrary to the Evolutionary myth is pretty extensive, were its adherents willing to look.
