nextebizguy, you are in my opinion coming up with the wildest & most convenient excuses & twisted "reasoning" to defend your faith. Remember... everyone, including you was born an atheist You are a believer today because you were indoctrinated at an impressionable age.
Exe... I ask you for one question that I may answer one at a time, and you post the web-site of some video... Come on now, you can not hone down your diatribes to one concrete question? Should I just post Christian sites in response to you? Also, you write: Remember... everyone, including you was born an atheist You are a believer today because you were indoctrinated at an impressionable age. But this is not historically accurate which instead proves that the belief of God is intuitive and universal. Kant observed: "Neccesity and universality are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge, and are inseperably connected with each other." I agree. Henry Clarence Thiessen notes: "History shows that the religious element of our nature is just as universal as the rational or social one." And the sheer predominance of the relationship of religion in the fullness of the history of man is undeniable. Whether you believe in God or not, whether anyone you know believes in God or not, the fact is that Man does universally and historically. So extraordinary is the concept of Man without God, any god for that matter, in whatever form, that one archaelogist, Wm. Tessman, made in the 1930's an attempt to discover just this very circumstance ('men without a god') and believed he had in but one small group, the Indians of the Ucayali. Even this turned out to be false as ethnological criticism eventually proved. Therefore, exe, it seems the belief in God is not only historical and complete in the History of Man it must therefore also be considered neccesary. Going back to Kant's original statement: "Neccesity and universality are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge" we can safely disagree with your hypothesis that knowledge of God is rote. With this in mind Thiessen remarked: "we cannot deny [God's] existence without doing violence to the very laws of our nature." Can you "exe" give me any historical basis for your belief? Any sociological examples, studies, histories etc. of your belief? You say that nextibizguy's defense of his faith is "wild," and mere "convenient excuses," you label his to be "twisted reasoning," but you yourself do not possess the intellectual vigor to offer anything more than a web-site. Web-sites are like you-know-what, and everyone's got one What do YOU actually believe? Focus.
Great going Dead Corn, rather than respond to the questions put forth in that video, you demand a single question so that you may dismiss it conveniently as an incorrect interpretation or "faith related issue". Okay, first set of questions related to factual accuracy: Question #1: Noah's Ark (aproximately 4500 years ago); there were only 8 people on the ark according the Bible. For the purposes of this discussion, let us assume that these eight people did indeed repopulate the world & everyone alive today is a descendant of Noah. rolleyes: )If that is the case, why are there multiple races in existence today(asian, african etc)? Noah's family is clearly of one race. Furthermore, if two, or seven, of each species of all animals on earth were on the ark, how did animals from different continents all migrate over seas to one location on earth? #2 Circumference = Pi() x Diameter, which means the line would have to have been over 31 cubits. #3 Unless the world is flat, altitude simply will not help you see all the kingdoms of the earth. Now that's a start So, according to you, historical mistakes & the intuitions of a group of primitive human beings (the ones who start religions, most people are just followers.) over-ride common sense, scientific research and reality? Right? I believe that as a human being, my greatest power is my ability to think (not the ability to follow unverifiable scripture unquestioningly like a retard in the hopes of an "afterlife" in "heaven"). Therefore, I look to rational scientific research & reasoning rather than "believing" any book whose claims and statements can not a)be verified, b)are obviously false, c)are sadistic.
Exe, you prove once again that you yourself have little really to say. But in answer to your querry: "no." I have not watched "the video."" What video? I have no interest in watching some propagandized video. I have asked you for your opinion. Dismiss it? No - I haven't even watched it. What is your opinion? What did the video do for you??? I'm not here, exe, for your assignments. Are you not capable of formulating your own opinion? It may well be of the video but I'm not wasting time reading or watching what you want me to read or watch to somehow gather an inkling of what you believe and why... My interest to this point is in you explaining to me what you believe, be it because of the video, or whatever, but your assignments??? Child, I am long out of school. Here's the fun part. You say: Yet your biggest gripe seems to be that I have not followed .... your video. Seems like you want your cake and to eat it too, now doesn't it. But let us go into the Bible. I have said the Bible is fact. And that faith is real. This I believe. About Noah, I really don't know. I wasn't there. You may well be bringing up some interesting points. I really do not know. But I am not about splitting hairs on Noah. I do believe Noah existed, and I do believe he built an arc. As for the extent of whoever whatever... I really don't know, like I said I wasn't there. It's really not at all important to me. These are at best second tier issues to me. Faith is not about splitting hairs. I know I watched a show many years back on PBS, Nova I believe it was, where some scientists believe they can trace every single human being's DNA back to a single mother, and that they believe this DNA goes back approximately 200 thousand years. I saw this before I became a Christian, so it was not the horse before the cart. I know the voice that I heard, as clear as day some 27 years ago, when I was lost and drifting, burying one friend after another, and I know I heard it whisper into my ear, I can still hear it today, these two words: "Educate thyself." And I know that moment changed my life. I went to the library that very hour and asked the referance librarian for the oldest book ever written. She laughed and said "well, that's either the Bible or Homer." I said, give me Homer. It was Fitzgerald or Fitzpatrick, I really can't really remember now, but it was the Illiad and the Odyssey. And I read, and I read, and I read. Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Plutarch, Pliny the Elder, the Younger, Suetonius, Livy, Tacitus, Sallust, I read and I read and I read... Right on up to Henry Miller. I know today that voice was the voice of the Holy Spirit although it was not for some twenty years later that I became a Christian. I know that there is only One who could possibly love me after the sins, the catastrophies of betrayal and mayhem that I have caused upon this earth. And I know that only God could possibly have led me to Psalms, where I finally found myself. Buried in the pain and confusion of David. I know that in your voice I hear that same anger and despair. Bitterness, so bound up in itself that only it could so despise others their finding of peace. Here, listen to your words: These are truly ugly, angry words. Did you know that Albert Einstein believed in God? Was he a "retard" in your opinion? You talk of "flat worlds" and "cubits" and "circumfrences" and pat yourself on the back when, infact, neither you nor I know a damn bit of the difference of any of them. God is not about that. Nor can faith be measured by any one of them. You conclude: Nicholas Copernicus believed in God. Gonna take a wild stab here... he may not have been smarter than you, but he was certainly smarter than me. Sir Fancis Bacon believed in God... again, going to be presumptuous here... smarter than me. Johannes Kepler "brilliant mathematician and astronomer"... believed in God... smarter than me. Galileo Galilei... believed in God. You might be smarter and given to more "reasoning and scientific research" than him... but he was certainly smarter than me. Rene Descartes (pretty good at math), believed in God, and, again, smarter than me. Isaac Newton believed in God, arguably smarter than me. Robert Boyle Believed in God, smarter than me. Michael Faraday- believed in God, smarter than me. Gregor Mendel, the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics... believed in God, smarter than me. William Thomson Kelvin, foremost among the small group of British scientists who helped to lay the foundations of modern physics, believed in God, smarter than me. Max Planck - best known for "quantum theory" believed in God... smarter than me. Retards all? Do they pale beneath your standards of: "rational scientific research & reasoning."
An amusing response Dead Corn, just as I expected it to be, not addressing any points at all. You asked for direct questions, I put them forth, and you failed to answer them. It's funny how your post contradicts itself. You criticize me for supposedly being "unable to formulate your(my) own opinion". Yet, you refuse to even watch the video & go on to call it "propagandized". You haven't even watched the video. Watch it, and then decide whether you "follow" it or not. You're welcome to agree or disagree & post as to why. Contradiction again. Believing in something doesn't make it a fact. Anyone could believe any absurdity they want to, that doesn't make it a fact though. ^^Failure to answer the questions put forth. What's the matter? Don't possess enough intellectual vigor? So what is faith about then? If verifying the validity of your faith is not important to you I'll tell you, it's about having a false illusionary sense of security & a feeling of belonging -Letter to an atheist (1954) as quoted in Albert Einstein: The Human Side (1981) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdVucvo-kDU Great act, you ought to work in the circuses If you really believe what you wrote, then I feel sorry for your state of mind.
First off, exe, I asked for ONE question at a time. It is my habit also, even here at this thread, to answer one at a time. I started with your Noah and, lol, the bit about circumfrence. Secondly, you write: Boyo, I have said from the beginning, I am NOT going to watch it. I have no interest in watching it. My day of reading assignments are long over You quote me: But let us go into the Bible. I have said the Bible is fact. And that faith is real. This I believe. About Noah, I really don't know. and then you write: Another contradiction. Well, no, it is actually the truth... I have no idea what you are talking about. I do not know anything about cubits or any of the above. I DO know that the Bible is of God, about God, and that God is real. That is fact, it comes to me through faith, just as the Bible said it would. You are so funny. A serious question is posed about the existence of God, and like a child banging his fists on the floor, you try and find one little item, such as cubits, and make THAT the argument? Listen, boyo, I actually preach the Word of God. I use the Bible, the Word of God to preach His Holy Word. NOW HEAR THIS I even warn those I urge to read it to remember that it was written by the hand of Man. Don;t you get it, kiddo? I actually know the Bible far better than you and could point out far more inconsistencies than you ever could. That does not change the fact that it is of God, and about God. You, with all your silly little circumfrences and such are simply straining at gnats. I never said the Bible is God, (if it was I wouldn't leave Him on the bathroom floor so much) but it IS His Holy Word. Most of it And what isn't His Holy Word is so small a parsec of information as to be entirely irrelevant. As per your question of cubits, I have in my library many treatises and study guides that show it was exaclty right. I do not include them for, lol, honestly I do not understand them either. You ask why I do not watch your video. You ask: LOL. No, it does not. LOL... Eainstein did not believe in God???? LOL. That's why I do not watch silly little videos with agendas. They always strain at gnats, just like you are doing now. Oh, and, everyone knows Einstein believed in God. (Straining at gnats again?) Not to mention all the other "retards" like Isaac Newton and Copernicus, etc... Hey, another good question for you might be how many NASA scientists do you think believe in God. For, retard that I am, I thought this thread was about the existence of God, not inconsistencies in the Bible. Answer enough of your questions so far today? Going back to your other post. Today I will answer your question regarding Matthew. Off to work.
How can you "know" that it is real when you don't know why? Simply because "it's in the bible?"? That was one of the three questions & yes that is something you have failed to answer, "little" as it is. Really? How does that explain the quote in my post? Hey I didn't make that quote up, it's verifiable unlike the bible! Just do a google search for that exact quote, it's even found in many authoritative encyclopedias. You wanted me to ask you questions about the factual accuracy and validity of the bible, which I did, and you have failed to answer them. You're the one sounding cacophonous now, cheering on your irrational beliefs without being able to answer three simple questions I put forth about the Bible. Ignorance is bliss isn't it? See no "evil". And in response to you addressing me as "Child", "boyo" & "kiddo" in a pathetic attempt to sound wiser & patronizing: I don't think you know how old I am.
There is evil and war in this world because God gave us the ability for us (humans) to decide for ourselves. God guides us through the Church. But at the end of the day only us can decide what to do with ourselves. Whether we want to use our talents for good or for evil. As regards to why he does not appear. I believe we consist of mind, body and spirit. When we die our spirit continues living in either heaven or hell, or to explain better, we face the consequences of our actions here on Earth. As regards to why there is abuse of children by priests and whatever else. It is like having an employee of your company misusing his/her power. So what since an employee in your company did something wrong, then the whole company is bad? And as regards creation, evolution or whatever else theory is not against the Genesis. The aim of the Genesis is to explain that God created everything, and has the aim of coming back to Earth through Jesus a second time. E.g. If a child comes and asks you how you make money online, would you explain SEO using the same technical terms as to someone who visits DP? The genesis had to explain to the people at that time using their language and knowledge. It is up to the scientists to explain in the exact details HOW it happened, but the main aim of the Genesis is to explain that God created everything. The mystery of God is that God was never born and will never die, God always existed and will always exist.
Again, exe, you try and shift the floor to fit your plank. I asked you for questions in the bible, stating that I thought that it would be "a good way to get to know each other. " I thought, naturally, the questions in the Bible you had to ask me would be germane to the discussion of God's existence, not straining at gnats about "cubits." (More fool I). But as I wrote to you earlier the Bible IS fact and I stated, and do so again, that even the most ardent athiest believes this to be so. The Bible IS a fact. About cubits and circumfrences I have nothing at all to say, lol, like I said I have books that claim the miraculous exactitude of these passages you refer to. I do not include them because I cannot understand them either. I am not a blow-heart, if I do not know the answer I say so. The second question you wrote, regarding Matthew I have already said I will answer tonight (or tommorow - I'm off tommorow). Now answer me one thing: how is it that you consider anyone who believes in God to be "retards," qualifying yourself as a man of "scientific research?" How can you consider such emminent scientists which I listed for you as "retards.," when they were far more successful than you and I will ever be at applying "scientific research?" Just curious.
The bible isn't fact just because you write "IS" in capital letters. No atheist or anyone with the least bit of common sense who has read the bible would believe that the bible is entirely factual. If you are referring to the "existence of the bible", then yes obviously a book called the bible does unfortunately exist. You're twisting my words. I said "not the ability to follow unverifiable scripture unquestioningly like a retard in the hopes of an "afterlife" in "heaven"", it's the act of doing so that is retarded not necessarily the persons themselves. I uphold that conviction. Are you suggesting that it's okay to and not reprehensibly subintelligent to follow unverifiable scripture unquestioningly in the hopes of an afterlife in heaven?
Bingo! Now we are on to something. Now, going back to your first of three questions in that one post Since the topic of conversation here is regarding the existence of God and not errors in the Bible can we not do away with the cubits stuff? Again, as a man who preaches the Word of God I have never once stated that the Bible is God. I think you are either too inexperienced in your advocacy for athiesm or too zealous to realize there are plenty folks out there like me who believe in the inspiration of God found in the Bible yet disagree with many of the mainstream concepts we encounter daily by hard-line conservative Christians (note I said Conservative - most Fundamental's are not Fundamental at all but simply Conservative). See, I as a Fundamental Christian do believe in some form of evolution, and I believe the Bible tells me so. I do believe that someone can get to heaven and not believe in Christ while on this earth, maybe never even hear of Him. I believe this is found in the Bible. I also do believe there are many inconsistencies and errors to be found in the many translations of the Bible. Many more than you are apparently aware of. The preface in the original King James version says as much. Here is such an excerpt: In the preface, the translators of the King James note: “we have on the one side avoided the scrupulosity of the Puritans, who leave the old Ecclesiastical words, and betake them to other, as when they put WASHING for BAPTISM, and CONGREGATION instead of CHURCH:â€. And this is far more important a difference from version to another than a cubit... for it deals with some very touchy subjects (sad but true) amongst us Christians. For another example: "Tyndale's translation was deliberately provocative in a number of ways; he rendered Greek presbuteros, traditionally translated as "priest", as "elder" — a literal translation that slighted the connection between the Catholic clergy and the former Biblical texts; in a similar fashion he translated ekklesia, traditionally "church", as "congregation"; these renditions were at the basis of a notorious controversy between Tyndale and Sir Thomas Moore" If you are looking to disprove God to a true Fundamental Christian you are going have to look elsewhere than inconsistencies in translations. Yet you have never answered 1) why you believe such eminent scientists as Max Planck, the guy who collared quantum physics, and other guys like Descartes are "retards." Nor have you answered the fact that history proves that Man's belief in God is intuitive not learned. Well, back to work.
Great post infonote. Might I also add that since God has said that he cannot abide evil and we as natural man are sinners then for him to appear would possibly cause us to spontaneiously combust since we cannot abide His glory (just a postulation, so don't anyone ask fir Bible references here to prove my point).
Things were a bit different back in those days. You were known by your Father. So people had names like "son of Nahor" or "son of Aaron". Jesus was known as the son of Joseph in the earthly sense which is like "his last name". He also had many honorific titles like Son of Man, Son of God, etc. Jesus Christ is Yeshua Ha Mashia'ch (pardon my poor transliteration). Yeshua can be translated as "God is salvation" and Ha Mashia'ch as "the anointed One" (read: Messiah/Savior).
I find it remarkable, that when John the Baptist's follwers came to Jesus, and MIND YOU, this means, though I have never heard this ever in any whatever - that John at least once doubted. For this was AFTER he baptised Him at the Jordan, and, at that time, John recognised Him completely... Anyway, if you read the Scripture, at the very same time the doubters came and questioned Him, and He responded, "you have eyes but cannot see - there will be NO sign given unto thee," at this very same time came John's boys for righteous confirmation. Mat 11:5 The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. The very same miracles that the others had been seeing all along mind you, yea, in the very company of them what wouldn't, Jesus told them to their face "to this generation no sign will be given;" Ouch. He obviously, by virtue of miracles alone (the same dang ones), certified His deity. So let's put to bed this "teacher" crap. Or this "other prophet" shit. He is exactly who He said He was - or He was fucking nuts. It is by Faith. When we argue cubits we lose sight of everything. That we are of FAITH first. Rom 4:16 Therefore [it is] of faith, that [it might be] by grace You just don't get it till you get it.
What the hell are you on about Dead Corn? Your post contradicts itself numerous times & I see that you have jumped onto the FAITH barrel ("That we are of FAITH first.") rolleyes. No we can not "do away with the cubits stuff". Answer it or remain discredited. And certainly not more zealous & incapable of backing up my convictions than you You don't seem to know a damn thing about the Bible. So far your posts portray you to be someone cheering on his beliefs without backing them up with reason. You said earlier in the thread: You still haven't answered the three questions I put forth. Not even the two others which are not about cubits (which you strangely seem to have an aversion to) I did.
LOL. I have answered it a number of times already boyo. I can see you are very frustrated because you cannot conveniently fit me into a box. The reason you cannot is that I actually READ the Word of God. Let's go over it again. IN answer, exe, you write: Which scripture are you referring to? I'll tell you what I will do. I'll just keep posting and pasting my past answers to this same question, okay? Now a question for you, exe, because I still don't get it. How is it that Max Planck who was the first to come up with the theory of quantum physics is, in your estimation, "a retard?" How do such eminent scientists pale before your own intelligence. How is it that they believed i God and yet were so dang good at applying those scientific standards you seem to pat yourself on the back so much about Can you measure that in cubits? Do you think Planck could have too? Oh, and when you write saying, Well, no, I really do not think you did. Either way, could you just copy and paste your quote on this for me, as I have done here for you, from whatever post it was you said you answered it in. Because I can't seem to find it.
Again with the boyo And no, you have not answered them. You have said that you do not know the answers to them. Then why "don't you know" the answers to my questions? Not much else you can do. Those are "I don't knows", not answers. Here:
Most people will agree that fear is the best form of control, which is clearly one of the main factors that keeps people believing. It's just like disciplining a child; Break the rules and there will be punishment. Stick by the rules and you will be fine.
My post was avoided in the other thread, I figured I might as well bring it over here. I want religious people to address my post and the sources I used for it. What I say conflicts entirely with the Christian faith and if true completely discredits it.