DescentBB

edit: cuda busted meh

It seems i've forgotten my old philosophy

S13driftAZ wrote: your religion is like your genitalia. You keep it to yourself, and don't go running around showing everyone. Everyone is going to keep thinking theirs is bigger and better, and you'll be the only one with any evidence on the table.

S13driftAZ wrote:I agree. I am getting nowhere. I explain my beliefs, and im not imposing them; yet im attacked.

who attacked whom first???

S13driftAZ wrote:Be aware people, because i am going to shut down the six most common myths in religion today; Because im not liking where this thread is going anymore.

sounds like an imposition to me


Nice bow out tho

Fine, I admit I am the one at fault.

I tried to find a picture of Jesus doing an exasperated forehead-slap, but to no avail...

Double whammy

There we go, thanks!
Damn, out of any useful, informative, and interesting topics, this is ★■◆●ing retarded.

then contribute Silver.

btw ...the Jehovah Witness' don't recognize the Pope. ...well the most folks don't, at least not like the Catholic church.

Recognize?

yeah, as in regard him as religious authority over themselves. or in some cases as an authority at all.

So... did this thread just die? Or is the previous conversation about god resting finished?

I see. And, in your opinion, the pope should be recognized as a religious authority figure for a Christian?

Duper wrote:then contribute Silver.

btw ...the Jehovah Witness' don't recognize the Pope. Wink ...well the most folks don't, at least not like the Catholic church.

Ok, lemme contribute. Why does it matter when the day is and why would God give a flying ★■◆● if we're a day or two off after a few thousand years? He works in strange and mysterious ways, but he's not stupid.

It seems as if we're wasting the collected brainpower of this board, which I've found to be very informative for the last 10 years...

Maybe that bad tooth is infecting my brain and causing paranoia and dementia...

Oh, so we're going back on topic now?

It matters because some of (read, not all) hard-core Christian creationists will tell you that the entire physical universe (or at least, the earth and its creation) was created in a literal 6 human (24 hour) days. In some instances, going against or even thinking about how this may not be possible is wrong and you can be excommunicated. Now please don't bite my head off on this one, I know that not all subscribing mainstream Christian religions believe this, but it is true that this is where things are going. Many good, innocent, thinking people I've know have gone down this road.

This, when looked at with science, is absolutely absurd. There are many evidences we can look at, that seem to suggest that it took God longer than 6 literal human days to create all matter (again, or at least the matter on the Earth). Which causes an argument with both sides; because you have people saying that we shouldn't \"water down\" what the bible says, and the other side saying that the evidence is so blatantly clear.

That's why.

Sniper wrote: This, when looked at with science, is absolutely absurd. There are many evidences we can look at, that seem to suggest that it took God longer than 6 literal human days to create all matter (again, or at least the matter on the Earth). Which causes an argument with both sides; because you have people saying that we shouldn't "water down" what the bible says, and the other side saying that the evidence is so blatantly clear.

That's why.

excellent! someone get sniper a beer.

Might I add that using cross references in the bible to figure out scripture (in this case, to see what was meant by a \"day\") is not watering it down. If it is, then Jesus was guilty of watering it down when he quoted from it and used it as reference (ironically to refute the truth) against the religious leaders and opposers that attacked him and with people wanting to know the truth.

<opinion>
What IS watering down the bible is when you don't reference the scriptures and you only take out what you want to read, worship, or believe. True Christians are true Christians - no if's and's or but's. If you're a Christian, you'll follow the Christ and his teachings, and look to the Kingdom as the only source of Government that can bring about lasting peace.

It's not about YOU (and I'm not saying this to anyone specifically) and what YOU think, it's about what God wants, and what God has said. If you do not wish to subscribe to teachings, you have a choice. But you can't be a fence-sitter. You can't pick and choose what you want. It's clear there's a definite path.

But those who wish to follow a different source cannot be condemned by man, for it's up to God to decide.
</opnion>

Also worthy of note:

Yea, that helps the debate a lot…uh huh..uh huh…yup yup.

Yup, those Hollywood liberals have it all figured out.

Reposted from my blog:

We often refer to Genesis as the first of the five "books of Moses". Tradition holds that it was written by Moses during the Exodus or wanderings in the desert. The audience, then, was Israelites who had grown up in Egypt. They knew tales of their ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and had some conception of a God who had made a promise to them, but they had also knew about the Egyptian gods, and had their perceptions of what it means to be a god shaped by Egyptian mythology. For many generations after Moses, the Israelites struggled to understand that God was not merely a particularly powerful creature of the same type as the Egyptian gods, but something entirely different.

Understanding the Egyptian creation story gives us a greater understanding of the key lessons of Genesis 1:

-In the beginning, God. In Egyptian mythology, there was what we might think of as the void or the undifferentiated infinite waters. Swimming within that void were deities of the infinite, the watery abyss, darkness, and the invisible, and those gods oversaw the hatching of the egg that contained the creator-god Amen-Re. In Genesis, God is already there in the beginning, before the void or darkness or water. God is eternal.

-God created... and it was good. In Egyptian mythology, the waters are divided when the creator's egg hatches, as an unintentional side-effect. Amen-Re creates for himself a wife, the star goddess, who has an affair with the earth, so he separates stars from earth and puts the air between them as a guardian, declaring that the stars cannot bear children on any day of the year. This created a loophole for another god to add days to the year using light won from the moon, which allowed the stars to birth five more gods. Finally, humans are created by yet another god, as Amen-Re creates a place for them to live (Egypt) and other creatures to fill the land. Different segments of creation are unintentional or even against the will of the creator. In Genesis, God creates the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, animals, plants, rivers, oceans, and eventually humans, all according to His own plan. Everything within creation is intentional, and it is what God wanted.

- God is sovereign. In Egyptian mythology, the creator loses track of some of his creations through the mist, gets fooled by loopholes and deception, and every night is "hidden" as the great primordial lotus closes up. Amen-Re often has no choice or no power; he is subject to his own environment and the doings of other gods. In Genesis, God is not subject to chance or environment or other creatures; He acts according to His will alone.

- God is separate from the universe. In Egyptian mythology, the gods are things like the sun, moon, stars, air, and moisture, and people are expected to revere those things. In Genesis, God creates each of those things, and none of them are treated as though they have their own personality or desire. They are treated as objects, not as agents; the sun and moon are not even mentioned by name. Similarly, livestock, the Nile, and Pharaoh were considered gods in Egyptian mythology, but God overwhelms those things during the plagues in Exodus. This leaves no room to worship any part of the universe.

When we read Genesis 1 in light of the Egyptian mythology that would have been familiar to its original audience, the main lesson becomes clear: unlike the Egyptian gods, Yahweh is eternal, sovereign over the universe, separate from the universe, and created the whole universe according to His plan and desires. Genesis 1 is not meant primarily as an introduction to history, but rather, as an introduction to Theology -- to what God fundamentally is and is not.

Bettina wrote:Genesis is either literal or it's false.

Or it's intended to teach the above truths about God by contrasting them with the Egyptian creation myths.

It's "false" only in the same sense that the Prodigal Son is "false".

It's my opinion that religon, particularly Christianity, is an issue of faith, so what you believe is the reality in your own world.

Why?

'Cause yer never gunna know the answer!

.

Bet51987 wrote:Your argument was that if any part of that movie was untrue then the entire movie would be suspect and should be discarded.

I think it was more accurately "the entire first third of the movie was dishonest, inaccurate, misleading, and consistently factually incorrect." If someone lies to you for 40 minutes straight, why would you keep listening to them? The movie wasn't like Genesis 1; it was like a creation museum.

There's a big difference between something being NOT CREDIBLE and being NOT LITERAL. Zeitgeist is not credible. Creation museums are not credible. Neither of them teach true things; both distort evidence in order to reach a predetermined but false conclusion. Genesis 1 is not meant to be literal, but it is meant to teach lessons that are true, using the framework of a narrative that was familiar to its audience (but not familiar to us because we didn't grow up in ancient Egypt.)

Did you read the Egyptian mythology I linked to? I'm not "pretending" there's a link; I'm "recognizing" there is a link. It's obvious, when you read the stories side-by-side, that the author of Genesis was familiar with the Egyptian story, and was intentionally reversing lessons from that story. The original audience, having grown up in ancient Egypt, would have picked up on that immediately!

Lothar wrote:It's obvious, when you read the stories side-by-side, that the author of Genesis was familiar with the Egyptian story...

And rightly so, since Moses grew up in Egypt into a high position, and saw and learned about it.

S13driftAZ wrote:MYTH 4 - GOD IS A TRINITY

Sorry for the necro post, but I've been out of touch for a bit and I just wanted to point out that we had a long and detailed debate on the Divinity of Christ in <This Thread>.

Kilarin wrote:

S13driftAZ wrote:MYTH 4 - GOD IS A TRINITY

Sorry for the necro post, but I've been out of touch for a bit and I just wanted to point out that we had a long and detailed debate on the Divinity of Christ in <This Thread>.

Well, you need to understand that S13droftAZ is Jehovah Witness, so that statement isn't a surprise. Good link reference.

Duper wrote:you need to understand that S13droftAZ is Jehovah Witness

I got that.

Duper wrote:Good link reference.

It was a fun and educational discussion. I learned a LOT.

I didn't really want to reply in this thread because i already shot my foot and stuck it in my mouth.

you can't prove or disprove a religion or philosophical belief. if anyone is certain, their certainty is based on faith

Bridseye wrote:you can't prove or disprove a religion or philosophical belief. if anyone is certain, their certainty is based on faith

That depends on what you accept as a common framework. For example, I know one man who predicted that Christ would return in 1992.
Common framework:
1 : We both agreed that Christ's return would be a huge earth shattering event that happens in public and not in secret.
2 : We both accept the evidence of our senses as mostly valid.

Given those two points, he had to admit his belief was wrong when 1993 rolled around.

When dealing with points of Christian Faith, there can also be a common framework. If both parties agree that the Bible is the standard by which all doctrines are to be judged, then meaningful discussion and argument can take place. There is no guarantee that both sides will reach an agreement, but there is certainly the possibility.

And that's no different than many other fields. Scientific debates are much the same way. Common framework or not, sometimes different folks can't agree on what the evidence means.

just because two people agree on a framework doesn't make it true

Kilarin never said it did.

He said that agreeing on a framework can make it possible to prove/disprove a claim (within that framework) for the other person.

right, I guess i just don't see how his point applies then

Birdseye wrote:I guess i just don't see how his point applies then

Perhaps I misunderstood or misinterpreted your statement.

I had just said:

Kilarin wrote:It was a fun and educational discussion. I learned a LOT.

And I assumed your comment was a reply to mine, not to S13driftAZ.

So I thought you were saying that the discussion was pointless since it was about matters of "Faith". Ergo my response. That in ANY arena where you have agreed upon a common framework, or a set of postulates, you can have meaningful discussions. Or to be more specific, points can be "proven".

I can not prove to a solipsist that he exists, because we have no common framework or agreed upon postulates. But a Baptist and a Methodist can have a religious discussion with a reasonable chance of someone "proving" their point because they have a common framework to argue in.