Yeah I know qzjul, I just found it funny to post up a bunch of bible quotes as TY said that everything in the book is true. Now that I post them I am told I am taking it out of context and somehow my facts are worse becuase I copy/pasted them from a website. It really doesnt make them any less valid though, but I suppose if you want to ignore things then at least dont say I didnt show you some inaccuracies. I can easily find more.

I have an equal contempt for all other relgions as well, but this was the specific brand being presented as the absolute truth of today. I will happily do the same tearing apart of any other sillyness as well.

For your sake I do hope what you say is true. Because I do have love for all peoples. If it's not may God have mercy on your soul.

The funny thing is living my life for Christ isn't a bad way to live. Because it forces a certain morality on to me to treat people with respect and decency. If someone claims Christianity and doesn't do that it is a said faith and not a true faith. I will not force any morality onto you though. I have said my peace. Good luck at the end of your life again I hope for your sake your right.

I truly have no hate or anger to anyone for not believing the way I do.

Just a side note there, to have morality you do not need religion. They do not in any way go hand in hand. You can very easily be moral without believing in anything supernatural, and in the opposite you can be very devout and have no morals whatosever (just look at the child molesting priests as a good example)

I agree you can have morality without religion. As for the priest he has a said faith not a true one. There are many who have fooled themselves. The human mind can justify almost anything. I will not blame God for a human given free will failing to practice what he preaches.

That priest and all who have helped cover it up need to be judged and sentence to whatever society sees fit. I have a huge problem with the institution of the Catholic church. It is the cause of most human suffering of the last 2000 years.

Well to be fair to the priest there are plenty of places where the bible states that rape is perfectly fine. Perhaps he just liked those sections better than the nicer ones. :)

Also, TY, you never addressed my post =/

qzjul sorry dude but no matter what is said here you will believe as you do and I will believe as I do. There really isn't at this point a reason for me to continue the debate.

Mouses have Empathy!!!!

as thus some Animals have morals
as thus Morals on human kind are a natural response to the harsh environment in with we evolved as a group rather than individuals
as thus Religion didn't create morals, individuals created religion as a way to justify our natural behavior and align it to the leaders goals
as thus religion is a tool to misguide and shape humans natural morals
as thus the only reason we don't destroy each other isn't based on the judgement day or the reward after dead, but on our much more primitive feelings of empathy with guide us into thinking that some things are simply not right

as thus religion as a whole are just nice messages to keep you aligned to the goals of the creators of said religion

TY, do you believe in literal interpretation of the Bible?

No

there are the followers of The Book and the people who need to be killed by them to make Heaven on Earth. what other religions are so proactive in guiding their followers?

It's not a debate; and both sides should be open to persuasive arguments. The fact that you're unwilling to even consider my arguments shows that you perhaps don't fully trust in either your faith or your reason.

I very much dislike bible quotes.

Ignorance is bliss.

I like to think that if God does exist, he is a hyper dimensional being. God uses all matter in the universe for his brain and the multiple forces that connect and bind the universe together (gravity, light, electrical forces etc) are like our neurons (an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information by electrical and chemical signaling).

ma ma se, ma ma sa, ma ma ku sa

Ford: thanks for the amusement.
my $0.02

you can be a scientist and have a faith in some religion or another. (not all scientists are religious, but a surprisingly large number are, and not just christian)
our choice to believe in a divine being of one form or another, or not to do so, is exactly that, our choice.

I'm pretty sure that the so called missing link has not been completely solved yet but that we are very very close.

Maybe if god is out there, he is a childlike entity, and we are just his plaything, or worse, that He is a scientist and we are just one big experiment...

"It's not a debate; and both sides should be open to persuasive arguments."

Isn't this sentence a contradiction? If we are trying to give each other persuasive arguments for one side or another isn't that what debating is?

"The fact that you're unwilling to even consider my arguments shows that you perhaps don't fully trust in either your faith or your reason."

I never said I was unwilling to even consider anything. What I was saying is that arguing this here was becoming a waste of time for us both.

And that's where it goes downhill immediately. Nitpicking out stuff one does not like to be some kind of metaphor or something. Some weird definition of infallable when much of it's clearly ambigiuous as to what it actually means, and has to be interpreted in a specific way to not seem ludacris...

Don't have the time to dive into this thread now, will likely do so later though ;)

I am not a theologian and don't have the time or typing skills to delve into all that was thrown at me one by one to explain to you why the things posted aren't contradictions. I will bet though that few truly have taken the time to study the Bible or any other Holy book. I will though put forth the name of Lee Strobel as an example.

Lee was a staunch Atheist and an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune when his wife gave her life to Christ. He was adamant to prove that her religion was nothing more that wishful thinking and a farce. He studied it for 2 years. Low and behold after that time he gave his life to Christ and is now one of my faiths staunchest allies.

Lee's credits: Lee was educated at the University of Missouri (Bachelor of Journalism degree, 1974) and Yale Law School (Master of Studies in Law degree, 1979). He was a professional journalist for 14 years at The Chicago Tribune and other newspapers, winning Illinois' top honors for investigative reporting (which he shared with a team he led) and public service journalism from United Press International.

Maybe you have study and still don't believe that is ok with me. But if you have not I would suggest instead of just reading what someone has said please for your own sake study it and make the decision for yourself. Don't let someone elses beliefs form yours.

I am also done arguing it here. My God has said many will be blind to him, some will see and still chose not to believe because they would have to change a life style they cling to. I will say though that it doesn't mean I hate you or that I want nothing to do with you. Quite the opposite. There have been a few, very few I'll admit in my life that argued with me over this very same thing for years. After which they eventually had their eyes opened. They have come to me and told me thank you for setting such a good example. I was never rude, always polite, never stopped loving them for their beliefs and we always parted friends.

I know we have all seen the Bible thumper pushing his beliefs on to you and calling you a sinner forgetting himself to be a sinner. I am not that guy. If you don't want to believe I am ok with that, just please give me and other Christians the same consideration is all I ask.

Religion is the failsafe of lesser minds that can't honesly handle the world, religion makes your life easier it gives the hardest questions a vague answer and allows you to simply accept situations that would break your mind otherwise.

Is easier to think that a higher being has a plan for all of us than to accept that we are on our own, is easier to think that our lives have a higher purpose and that there is some kind of reward/punishment in the end, rather than life having no higher purpose and no reward/punishment.

I believe in a higher being that is solely watching everything I do to his amusement, the god of my world is myself and my will, the only will that matters to me is my own and the sole entity responsible of my actions is myself, is my duty to extend the time of my tool and to fail means to be cast to the void of inexistence.

And blah blah blah

^^^^ Let the insults begin. I knew full well it would happen. It is so funny to me that people of faith are said to have closed minds and are insulting to anyone that doesn't believe the way they do by people that have closed minds and are insulting to people that don't think the way they do.

To those who have kept this conversation civil and have not been insulting, thank you.

To those that want to just be insulting I thank you also. It proves there are uncaring, bigoted people on both sides of the argument. We need you and your mind set to help the others see what hate is out there.

Hmmm me?


I said what I think about religion didn't meant it as an insult :P

Being told you have a lesser mind is hard not to take as an insult. I apologize if I read into it to much.

Unless you don't considering telling someone they have a lesser mind to be an insult you did indeed insult someone.

I am "religious" (I am also "Christian") and I certainly do not consider myself to have a lesser mind. I actually think that what you posit is a naive position based on a generalization about certain types of people and you actually have probably never encountered diverse groups of religious people.

Scientifically speaking, atheism is an unjustifiable position. At least people with faith can have anecdotal experiences to justify their beliefs. Atheists can merely provide reasons why people would believe in a god which may or may not exist, but can not actually offer any evidence that a god does not exist. Agnosticism is a much more rational belief than atheism.

You don't need to read very deep into the bible to find inconsistencies. In fact, you find a good contestor just between the first two chapters.

Gen 1:1-19 days 1-4, creates the earth, light etc.
Gen 1:20-23 creates sea and air animals
Gen 1:24 fifth day over
Gen 1:25 creates beast and cattle and other "creeping" animals
Gen 1:26-30 creates man AND woman in his image and gives THEM dominion over everything
Gen 1:31 sixth day over
Gen 2:1-3 god feels good about himself during seventh day
--and here another version seems to start
Gen 2:4 prologue for the lines that follow
Gen 2:5-6 adds water to the earth
Gen 2:7 creates man out of earth dust
Gen 2:8-14 creates eden
Gen 2:15-17 places man in eden
Gen 2:18-20 creates animals for Adam's company, but Adam still feels lonely
Gen 2:21-23 creates woman from Adam's rib

Clearly two different stories with a badly placed chapter change. They are also highly inconsistent. According to the first, (some) animals are created first, then on the next day both man and woman. According to the second, Adam is created first, then land and air animals, then Eve.



22It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

A circle may as well be a "plate" as a sphere. Describing the heavens as a tent or curtain certainly points to a plate rather than a sphere, and the author likely considered the ground and heaven as the inside of an half of a sphere together, rather than one sphere inside another. If not, where do these curtains touch the ground? Where is the tent anchored?



In Job 40 in several editions in different languages (swedish/danish/spanish, probably more as i only check a few, and only languages with latin alphabet that i have some grasp of), it's explicitly stated that they're talking about hippopotamus. Now you could of course say that these are just bad translations and that KJV is the only tr00 one, but seeing how several different translations mentions this specifically, can you back this up with any objective argument?



What missing link? How many bones is required for you to consider there being no missing links? Do you need a bone from every parent of yours back to an arbitrary ancestor for you to accept that you're related to it? One per every two?

You clearly have a very subjective view on this (and so do I :) ). But seeing how many bones (all?) actually fit well into this model, isn't this a stronger argument for it than any gap, where bones are missing, is against it?



... Really? A scientific theory is the closest thing to a scientific truth any hypothesis (i.e. a proposed but unproved theory, also what many religious for some reason think a theory is within a scientific context) may come. The reason it never becomes "truth" is that scientists like to encompass that they may be wrong.



Its not hard to realize that you can never prove that something doesn't exist unless you're omniscient. It's a bit harder to realize that even if you're omniscient, you can never be aware of this (if you're omniscient, you know that you're not aware of any of those things you're not aware of). Does this mean it's nonesense to say that something doesn't exist? I'd say it is not. I know there are no orcs. I know Harry Potter doesn't exist aside from in the books and movies etc. I know god doesn't exist.

Now surely, on some far away planet, there may be peoples who call their home Middle Earth and who look like what I'd imagine orcs. In another dimension there may be an evil Voldemort escaping from his prison this instant. And finally, of course "god" could be real. However I deem either highly improbable (and a god the least so). If you agree with me in there being no such things as orcs or magicians, you now understand the position of many atheists.



Is this also true for orcs?



I regarded myself an agnostic before I realized that I found orcs and elves to be more likely to exist than god. Today I regard agnostics as people that believe they may be out there somewhere, likely also abusing fat kids from a certain quite little whitebred redneck mountain town with anal probes!



Oh thanks! It's so gracious of you to not hate me even though I've surely given you so many reasons to!



+1, then read God's Debris and The Religion War by Scott Adams to see how a "well tailored" religion could look. Most big ones contain pretty many lose corners by comparision to it...



Scientifically speaking, you wouldn't try to prove that something does not exists, because scientifically, you can not do it.



I agree that personal experiences give theists some merit to believe there is a god or gods. However I think that anyone being aware that you often see what you want to see would also not easily take this for an ultimate truth. Most people should also realize that many such experiences as "being healed" or "being told stuff in dreams" generally doesn't improve the likelyhood of their specific god or gods (unless of course they give reference. Perhaps it was



Please explain. I've given my thoughts on why I think this is wrong above.

Sifos, you yourself said you can't prove that something doesn't exist so I think we agree you can only increase your confidence that God does not exist and never actually say with complete certainty that He does not. You may consider it improbable that something does not exist and maybe since you have never seen an orc, elf or unicorn you are inclined to believe they do not exist. While it is of course impossible to say they do not exist, it is rational to assume they do not due to the rules they are "known" to follow (e.g. they would theoretically have material representation and be of such a size that they would be readily visible). God is a self-consistent immaterial being/force that by the very "rules" ascribed to Him are non-observable. God does serve to answer questions about the universe that are currently, otherwise, unanswerable (e.g. the existence of energy and matter - the existence of universe... God is of course the self-consistent answer that God has always existed).

If the laws of conservation of matter and energy are ever broken then there would be a lot more ground for rational atheism but as things stand you can't see God and you shouldn't be able to and He/religion is currently the only explanation for existence. I do not think it makes sense to put your faith in violation of the laws of conservation of matter and energy to try and find some reason for existence that violates them.

God is the universe, his will are the laws that all that exist (and doesn't) must follow.

As such science is the pursuit of the knowledge of understanding gods will, while religion in general was our early and failed attempt of understanding and imposing on others what we believed was his will; sadly that was just wishful thinking because religion imposes the will of the creatos/leaders of said religion, in other words the law of man, not the law of god.

God wants nothing from you, he wishes for nothing, he is god, he doesn't need your approval, love nor worship, he simply is.

sinful or in right standing, can you know one without the other? Jesus is God (started and ends time space and matter)or He is not. how do I work this out as a scientist?
things change over time, can one thing become another? how do I work this out as a born again ?------------just as the laws of science work for everyone so to the laws of God.

I have tried and failed to answer some of the questions asked. I have a few for you that believe there is no God.

Do we have a soul?

Is our consciousness just a chemical reaction in the brain?

What do you think happens to either one of those things if we do have a soul or to our consciousness if it is more than just a chemical reaction?

Enjoyable response ;) I did say I can't prove it. But I still claim I do know to the extent that it's possible, and that this is a huge step from general agnostic who does no assertion. You claimed that agnosticism is a more rational position, only to diminish any boundary between atheism (as in what I would define it as, and not the "pure" one which requires belief that one is omniscient, which is impossible). I say that everything seem to point against the existance of a god. The agnostic say there is nothing to make an assertion from.

I think you miss my point about orcs. They may very well exist even though we do not see them. What we brand "orcs" are physical, and we would be able to see them, feel their axes and smell the stench. However nothing states that they would have to be on earth, they may very well exist on another planet. This makes them equal to god in my eyes, in the sense that they're human-made characters that we have no legitimate trace of (religions are not, since there clearly can exist false such, I find the bible to fallable to have an as-awesome-character-as-god let it pass quality control etc.).

I do not find god of the gaps arguments to be a viable. There can be no omniscience, thus to say that unanswerable questions exists do not prove god, as there will allways be uncertainty.

God is not proven by our existance. You can't critize our world view because it lacks the foundation of a known creation and purpose, when your own lacks it on the next level. If you assert that god could have existed for all time and given himself purpose, so could a universe without it. Besides there are many religions claiming that their god did it in their way. Even if it did, your religions worldview would still have every other religion to contest it.

The related finely tuned universe argument isn't one either, since we'd never be able to experience one that was not.

As for the laws of thermodynamics, you should read the link someone (TY?) posted earlier about science being based on faith. While it contained one or two bad statements, it makes a good point about the source and general applicability for these laws. We don't know anything about these apart from the, possibly, infinitesimal spec of dust we call our universe, during the, possibly, blink of an eye that is the time from now to wht we call the big bang.

Don't get me wrong, I'm an engineer and I trust these to work in the here and now as well as any other. But we do not know where they come from or if they always has been. Why would changing natural laws be more farfetched than the existance of god? I could of course also throw a general "you can not disprove that the laws has always been correct and that the universe has always had this constant amount of energy" your way. Why would it be less probable than any other configuration?

vilse, much like the thread here is about how ridiculous it is for religious people to use science in an attempt to prove their beliefs, non-religious people using religion to disprove religion is kind of ridiculous, as well.

you believe none of it- at all- but hold any contradictions you might find to be unassailable proof it's wrong? just as outrageous, if not more, because you claim to have logic, fact and reason on your side :(

So life on another planet would tell you that life is equal to God? I am not sure I understand what you're trying to say...



Why do you keep saying there can be no omniscience? That is one of the self-consistencies of God's whole setup... Maybe you don't like God of the Gaps but the more I have come to learn about what we can garner from science (and I am six months away from a PhD in geophysics so I do know quite a bit about what we know and can learn) and I increasingly have felt that even if there were no God that we will never be able to answer at least the question of "where did everything come from?" Everything else seems to be completely on the table for discovery but everything we know about physics would have to be violated for the universe to appear from nothing. God of the gaps is in my opinion by far the most reasonable answer to that question. [/quote]



Yup, no argument here. I don't think this is something I touched on before...



Yup I agree...



That would be in violation of everything we do observe... not the thing's we don't observe. Sure, it is possible, but *THAT* is an unlikely explanation because it is counter to what we constantly observe. It is a conceivable notion that the natural laws are dynamic and different elsewhere, but think about the creation of something from nothing... that makes no sense. The way particles (or non-particles) interact (or don't) or how matter or energy or anything could behave differently elsewhere are fine notions but "nothing" is a pretty robust concept that isn't subject to the laws of physics because "nothing" is the absence of having something for the laws of nature to work on.

Caveat: I am an "agnostic-atheist", which means that I don't believe in god because I haven't been provided sufficient evidence in order to believe in him/her/it. However, I recognize that it is possible that god does exist, and if ever provided with sufficient evidence I would change my stance on the topic.


Detmer: It isn't up to non-believers to prove that god doesn't exist. It is up to believers to prove that god does exist.

That's the way empirical theory works. The default, or null hypothesis has to be the "apparent state" and in this case the existence of god obviously is not the "apparent state" because, well... it isn't apparent.

If we were able to communicate with an entity claiming itself to be god, and/or visibly see it, and it was "apparent" to us that the entity was in fact god, then the existence of god would be the null hypothesis. However, there is nothing we have exposure to right now which puts "god is real" into a position where it is justifiable to make it the null hypothesis.

"the creation of nothing from something makes no sense" <-- perhaps not, but this isn't a justification for the existence of god. Arguing that "A" is implausible doesn't not make "B" true, because it doesn't account for all other possible cases. To say "The big bang theory doesn't make sense, thus god must be real" is a illogical argument because it assumes that those are the only 2 possible explanations.

On a secondary note: "god just always was, that's how he was there to create something out of the nothing" (which is the typical Christian response when you question this story, usually followed by "you just have to have faith" when you push further on the topic) is equally non sensical, if you want to get technical about it.

You can consider it non-sensical however it is self-consistent.

Your points on creating are not the points I was making. I never said the lack of a scientific explanation necessitates God.

Being an atheist is like not having insurance (and I don't mean that in a risk-consequence way). Even if you consider the probability to be very low of needing insurance, there is still acknowledgement that there is some non-zero risk. Being an atheist is the equivalent of saying there is zero risk. Being an atheist you can not know God does not exist, only that you consider His existence to be completely implausible. Logically the possibility is still out there though. To me, being an atheist seems a lot like you are trying to make a statement that you willfully ignore all the possibilities. You could be agnostic and strongly favor the no-God hypothesis - that is very reasonable. (interestingly I typed my response but hadn't read anything above "Detmer:" before submitting... now I see you stated your belief which is seemingly this) To say you deny the possibility of an existence of a higher power though is not logical because the possibility exists. I am sorry that God didn't give you the ability to test Him at will =P

Guys you're all wrong.

Religion is not meant to be proven. Most religion bases almost everything on faith. If you could prove something it would leave little room for faith now wouldn't it?

If religion makes you a better person or happier or more continent in life and is a net positive then it's a good thing; whether or not you believe is irrelevant.

Detmer by your theory no claim to a higher being can be disproved. so if i say i believe in some new god (make one up) would you believe that it is possible that this god does exist because it cannot be disproven?

why is "God" as definened by christans the supreme god? what about all the other religions in the world? why is "God" the one who created everything and not another one?

is someone who believes in another religion wrong? is their god non existant? i mean what if they believe their god was the one who created the universe? how can both of them be right?

Why do you need to disprove or prove the existence of "god", however someone defines it?

I am not saying no higher-being can be disproved. It depends in the details of the higher-being. If you invented a new god that has the same basic story as my God then yes, I would acknowledge the possibility (in a logical sense) of yours. My faith excludes the possibility of the existence of other gods however.




In the Christian faith, one of the tenets is that God is the only god. It is one of the things prescribed by the religion if you believe in it.

If your faith prescribes that all other faiths are wrong by definition, then that would make someone who believes in another religion wrong, in your eyes. If two people have faith in religions that preclude the other then both can not be right.

but.. but.. You are an atheist in regards to all the gods that have ever been created, but one.
I just believe in one less god than you

i see what you did there

Thie thread is derp.

TY: i think i meant you weren't engaging my points, hence it wasn't a debate


Detmer: cyref is basically bringing up what i tried to say earlier; everybody is an atheist with respect to some gods; why don't you believe in Thor? why just the christian god? which god(s) is/are the "correct" god? Because believing in the wrong one would clearly lead you to not get into their respective heaven's, if you follow their teachings.

Also:


I think you got that backwards; if the laws of conservation of matter and energy are ever broken, then there would be a lot more ground for rational religion; as it is, there *IS* no evidence supporting Thor or the god of abraham, thus the *rational* conclusion is that there is no god, as that is the simplest solution to the problem.

The best argument for athiesm is again that you're athiest to all gods except one, true athiests just go one god further.

as much as i hate religion, highrock speaks the most sense on this thread.

I believe in something, i just dont believe anything man has ever written down to be any where near the truth. but hey the all have some good principles about being nice to fellow man so i guess we still have to be controlled somehow.

Their is a higher power we just down know it is thats all. we never will know until we die, and thats just a possibility...

I have my faith in only one God because that is prescribed in the religious writings of my faith. I chose that based on personal experiences and the accompanying anecdotal evidence. I have little rational argument to convince any one of my religion hence I have not attempted as such.




I suppose it works both ways. If we find observable, consistent discrepancies to the natural laws we know, in particular to conservation of matter and energy, then depending on those discrepancies it may be rational to use them to invoke them as a creation explanation. I am not sure why people have started turning this into a discussion as if I am advocating religion. I have been advocating agnosticism.



Polytheism != Monotheism != Atheism
I do understand the point you're trying to make but I have not eliminated other religions based on implausibility which is the basis for the argument made.



[/quote]

But there are different monotheistic religions as well; which of them would you choose?

And would you believe that the 5 billion people who *don't* believe in the christian god are all going to hell? whatabout heaven? if not, then what precisely is the point of believing in anything? and if so, how could a supposedly loving god do such a thing?

"But there are different monotheistic religions as well"

qz: Exactly one religion has as its operating principle that you can and should have a direct, personal relationship with God. Christianity.

Every other religion has the relationship between the "theistic" creation and the human be asserted to be one-way, a teacher-student interaction.. also, every other religion requires the human to enter an altered state to communicate with that higher power.

"would you believe that the 5 billion people who *don't* believe in the christian god are all going to hell" - Yep.

I was really down debating this but I am going to go out onto a limb and give one of the reasons I believe. Because of all the circumstantial evidence that is offered up in the Bible. Circumstantial evidence can be very unreliable I agree. When it becomes overwhelming though even a court of law will convict based off of it. There are hundreds if not thousands of descriptions of what the Hebrews messiah was going to do and what to look for when he arrived. Christ does seem to of fulfilled them all.

Christ claimed Godhood (if you believe the Bible). He performed hundreds of what would be called miracles. The Hebrews of the day and today don't deny he performed those acts described in the Bible.(most Hebrews of today though will say he was a prophet). They say he did it just to fulfill what was said or that the miraculous events were performed through the power of Beelzebub. If they could have proved it they would have done it, they didn't. When they went to Pontius Pilate they had nothing truly to convict him of. Not even there own laws.

Now I guess this needs for one to believe the Bible. Most historians say without the super natural elements the Bible is the greatest historical account of a people we have in existences, going back past the Pharaohs of Egypt. I chose to also believe the supernatural events.

Christ can be only one of three things. He was either God, as he claimed to be, the greatest conman of all time, or just a nutcase that got at first hundreds and then down through history billions to believe him. I choose to believe the first. We all have to make the decision for ourselves. If Christ was God come to us in a human form then that inherently tells me God does exist.

Anecdotes are not evidence.

and LOL@Unsympathetic and believing "everybody not a christian is going to hell"; that seems awfully self centred; is the Earth also the center of the universe? And the sun revolves around it?

You would honestly believe in a god that basically says "you were born in america, therefore you're likely a christian, and likely going to heaven" and in the same breath "you were born in china, therefore almost certainly not a christian, and therefore almost certainly going to hell"; and this is a "loving" god?

Most of the hebrew predictions were extremely vague; and i'm sure the writers embellished to a certain extent; the catholic church hand picked a few pamphlets that they liked to make the bible, and discarded *many* others.

also you guys should read this

http://en.wikipedia.org/...#Ancient_Israel_and_Judah