Please don't extrapolate my quotes. If you want to know what I really think about something then just ask me the question directly. The holy books are full of nonsense. They only fact each of them ever claim to be certain of is that 'god made the world'. Every other possible piece of information will be denied or stated depending on which follower is talking about it and what they are trying to defend. The bible says nothing about how the world began. Just that god made it. Any advances modern science has made will either be accused of being false OR, as you are doing, claim the bible already says its possible. Orthadox religion teaches nothing. Just that god made the world. They are history, useless, defunct. the older the better. :0
On the contrary, the Bible does speak about how the world began. It says that in the beginning there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And from that nothingness God created everything...man, woman, plants, and animals. Also, another interesting point to bring out. You mentioned that "the only fact they ever claim to be certain about is that god made the world." Actually, if you study the Bible and look at what it actually says, the facts of history have been proven correct. For example, it is fact that there was a man named Jesus, there is a place called Mt. Sinai, and the geographical places named in the Bible are all true and correct. If you follow and research the Bible, you will see that everything is all historically correct.
here is also some food for thought....... You can see God's work in everything, actually. As was mentioned before-- women's shelters, homeless shelters, food kitchens, prisons, etc.... True, man may have had the ability to do all of those things, but where did man receive his ability to do all that? When does man ever have the ability to be compassionate without the love of God? In fact, it is God, whether you believe it or not, who gives man love in order for man to love. God is love and he passes that down to man. Man cannot do anything without the God and the power of God.
My apologies. I just found it quicker to paraphrase. But I did ask you what you thought directly: I still have yet to see a satisfactory answer as to why you believe that the Biblical account of creation is completely false. I agree that you have a pretty good case against a young earth, but not against creation in general. Other than that, all I see are assertions without any backup. To quote my 10th grade English teacher: "He who asserts must prove," meaning that it's fine to hold any opinion you want as long as you can explain why you hold it. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to argue with you. It's hard to express tone and nuance in a written format. I understand that you have a right to your views and that they are probably very important to you, just like they are to everyone else. I'm just trying to get you to give me the reasoning behind your views. There is no scientific evidence that can be reproduced in a controlled environment on the topic of the origin of the universe. If there was, we wouldn't be having this debate, we could just trot out a scientist and let him demonstrate how it all happened, with or without divine intervention. Unfortunately, that is not the case. It's already happened and none of us were there. All we can do is look at the clues and apply logic to them. I'll try to be as direct as possible: How do you arrive at the conclusion that creation accounts (from any major world religion) cannot possibly be true? If there is scientific evidence that categorically refutes the possibility of creation, where is the evidence documented so that I can verify it? That is not accurate. It sounds like your complaints are strictly against the Bible, not all religious texts. To my knowledge, only Judaism (and by extension Christianity), and Islam talk specifically about creation by a god. I will have to do some research to confirm that Islam promotes creation ex nihilo, but let's assume it does for the moment. (Input from someone more familiar with Islam would be appreciated). The Hindu texts say that in the beginning there were Apsu and Tiamat (fresh water and salt water) and that creation (including the millions of Hindu gods) came from them. I suppose you could find that compatible with evolution if you substitute "primordial ooze" for water. Buddhism takes the angle that creation never happened in the first place because all this is one big illusion. Buddhism does not even have a god to cause creation. In the beginning of the Greek mythos, there was Chaos, which gave rise to the gods, not the gods creating everything from nothing. You are absolutely right. The Bible was not meant to explain the intricate details of the process. It isn't a scientific journal of creation, so naturally it will be necessarily light on the scientific details. Any text must be understood and interpreted according to the context in which it was written and considering the audience to whom it was written. This is the basis for interpreting any document, not just religious texts. Well, there are only four possible positions on this: 1. Science is wrong and the Bible is right. 2. The Bible is wrong and Science is right. 3. Both Science and Religion are wrong. 4. Both Science and Religion are right. It seems that you are more concerned with proving the falsity of the Bible than the truth of scientific claims. Why is it so important that science and religion be incompatible? Again, I agree that they are lacking in scientific detail because that was not the primary purpose of the text. They do teach a lot more, but I assume you mean specifically about the origin of the universe. They are history, but the rest of your statement is opinion and speculation, not evidence.
I don't know where the sniggers come from. I read and preach the same Bible you quote from. How does this address my question? And: Cool
God and the bible are totally different concepts. The bible is just a load of stories. A better question is did god have a choice when creating the universe?
hmm he made everything? It took him a very long time to do it. And why did he make 'man' and 'woman' so late in the process? What was he thinking of when he made the dinasaurs? A man called jesus! A place called Mt Sinai! Is that all the bible is good for? There are many men called jesus. None of them have any relation to a god.
The question you asked still has strings attached to it, remove them and I will answer. First of all I dont claim to know much about any particular religion. The only fact I am debating is the existence of a god and the theory that god made the world/universe. You are asking me to explain why I dont beleive a god made the world? You want me to back up my assertion with some facts? Aren't you the one making the assertion that needs backing up? I do not know how the universe came into existence, hence I do not need to prove anything. You are the one who seems to be saying a god created the world or universe, you need to back up your assertions. You can challenge me to disprove the existence of god, but of course we both know proving the non-existence of something is impossible. Not being able to directly disprove the existence of god seems to be the strongest argument creationists have in their arsenal. Nice and friendly here too Hey, we humans don't know how the universe began or even if it has a beginning. Its beyond our comprehension. I think if we ever found out our heads would explode I'm writing this reply whilst reading through your post, I think I answered this question in the longer section above. I dont like organised religion, I don't value their teachings/theories other than being a nice slice of history to treasure. I dont like to look at it as science V bible. The bible is 1 book and science is something completely different, we can't compare. Read your bible and be a nice person. But dont make any claims based on it.
The original post I responded to: The only string attached is that it was largely a rhetorical question. The first sentence of your second paragraph is an enthymeme, a syllogism with an implied second premise. Major premise: Life on earth has existed for many millions of years Minor (implied) premise: The Bible says that life on earth has not existed that long Conclusion: The Bible is wrong. The string is that I pointed out a flaw in the logic of the original statement by showing that the minor premise is not necessarily true. The point of this whole exchange has been to show that you are on shaky logical ground with that statement. The only assertion I've made is that your views aren't being backed up by anything other than opinion as far as I've seen. If someone is going to make a truth claim, they should show a little evidence for it. Not even proof, just some evidence that led them to believe what they believe. Don't assume that I hold a differing view because I am questioning your arguments. I don't like it when people debate things and try to use force of words and rhetorical devices as a substitute for logic. It doesn't reflect very well on a position to have advocates who aren't able to reason out their own opinions. That goes for theist, atheist, democrat, republican, bill gates, linus torvalds, etc... In a historical context, however, atheism is a very new assertion, appearing only in the last three hundred years (a pretty insignificant amount of time considering the extent of recorded history). Atheism is bringing the assertions that there are no gods and that there could not be any gods. Whether you and I agree with it or not, it is making new truth claims and the burden of proof lies on the shoulders of the ideology that is challenging the overwhelming historic consensus, whether monotheist, polytheist, pantheist, or animist. Again, you are assuming that I hold a theistic worldview. Quite right. You don't have to prove it, just give me a reason that has some reason behind it. Religious folk can't get away with saying "this is true because it's my opinion," because it isn't sound logic. Atheists aren't allowed to get away with sloppy reasoning either. And not being able to prove the existence of god seems to be the only argument atheists have. Either way it's an argument from silence. Insisting that god must exist simply because you can't disprove him is just as bad as saying that he can't exist because you can't prove him either. That is my whole point: logic is the same for both theists and atheists. I would like to see more if it from both sides. Maybe then we can have a rational discourse and sharing of ideas. With that, I will get off my soap box. Completely off topic: I saw your location says "coalition forces," so I assume you're in Iraq? Are you U.S. military (if you don't mind me asking)?
You might be suffering from dyslexia. I never said anything about life. I said "humans". The amount of time between God creating life and God creating humans could be millions if not billions of years. The Bible does not say how long between. We can only assume or speculate.
If the bible has no time reference to when god created the world then I'll take your word for it. I'm sure many people will back up that claim and many other people will disagree. There is no logic to assuming the ramblings of a very old book are factual, so please don't tell me you are concerned with making sure everything said in a discussion about god needs to backed up with perfect logic and evidence. Are you still asking me to disprove the existence of god or not? Why don't you go ahead and tell me if you think a god made the world or not? You are asking me to give some reasoning behind not believing something exists. This is illogical. I have not used any sloppy reasing, I do not know how the universe was created or life began. If somebody claims to know something about it then they should explain their reasoning. Do you beileve is god or not? No need to be so ashamed of saying it publicly. Maybe in another 50 years it will be something to be embarrased about, but not ashamed. I'm in the UK, the coalition forces thing is just sillyness when I was active in iraq war threads.
What does the bible tell us about god creating the universe, life and humans? It will either be nonsense or wishy washy statements that can be interpreted to fit around any new facts that have come to life since it was written.
I have noticed people here asking how it is refuted but with no answers. Did I miss where you show this is refuted?
Apologies, refuted is the wrong word. What I meant was that I beileve those claims made in that book are false. Obviously, proving the non-existence of something is impossible. Its extra impossible when we are talking about god. God is just an idea.
And we are made in his image. We have "ideas." One of His ideas is us. Once again, most here who propose science as an explanation to everything cannot by this alone refute God's existence, and mine own belief in His hand in it all. They want us to believe that what they are saying is that if science does not prove God's existence He therefore does not exist. What they are really saying however is that because science cannot prove His existence He therefore cannot exist. And yet the resistence to such scientific pig-headedness is precisely what has led to many of sciences most prolific discoveries. This trumpeting here only hides behind the true cloak of science while applying none of it's most admirable principles.