Feb 4th 2012, 20:16:07
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.
It also states Isaiah 40:22 that God sits above the circle of the earth. They did know it was round. Just because some idiots 500 some odd years ago chose to either misinterpret or overlook that can't be blamed on God.
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?
There are also descriptions of dinosaurs in the book of Job 40-41. The oldest book of the Bible. The Behemoth and the Leviathan as described could only be dinosaurs.
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?
Darwin himself said when he was alive that right now the fossil record is small and we can not prove evolution but in the future there will be many fossil's and the theory would be proven. (i paraphrased not an exact quote). We now have millions of fossils and as far as I now we have yet to find the missing link. There are many fragments of bones people have extrapolated on to try and prove it.
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?
But science does still call it a theory doesn't 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.
Atheism I can't respect it say's there is no God. That in and of itself is contradiction. In order to state something, you can't prove, as complete truth you have to be claiming you know all things. So the atheist is claiming omniscient in doing so claiming Godhood.
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.
I would put out that believing there is no God take as much faith as believing there is a God.
Is this also true for orcs?
An Agnostic I can relate to and respect. He states that "I don't know if there is or isn't a God but I choose to think and live life as if there isn't a God.
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 us even though we surely given you so many reasons to!
If you don't mind challenging your faith, and seriously considering it, you should read The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins; if you read that, and you come through with your faith as strong as ever, then it will probably have been good for your faith even.
+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, atheism is an unjustifiable position.
Scientifically speaking, you wouldn't try to prove that something does not exists, because scientifically, you can not do it.
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.
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
Agnosticism is a much more rational belief than atheism.
Please explain. I've given my thoughts on why I think this is wrong above.
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.
Originally posted by TY:
It also states Isaiah 40:22 that God sits above the circle of the earth. They did know it was round. Just because some idiots 500 some odd years ago chose to either misinterpret or overlook that can't be blamed on God.
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?
Originally posted by TY:
There are also descriptions of dinosaurs in the book of Job 40-41. The oldest book of the Bible. The Behemoth and the Leviathan as described could only be dinosaurs.
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?
Originally posted by TY:
Darwin himself said when he was alive that right now the fossil record is small and we can not prove evolution but in the future there will be many fossil's and the theory would be proven. (i paraphrased not an exact quote). We now have millions of fossils and as far as I now we have yet to find the missing link. There are many fragments of bones people have extrapolated on to try and prove it.
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?
Originally posted by TY:
But science does still call it a theory doesn't 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.
Originally posted by TY:
Atheism I can't respect it say's there is no God. That in and of itself is contradiction. In order to state something, you can't prove, as complete truth you have to be claiming you know all things. So the atheist is claiming omniscient in doing so claiming Godhood.
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.
Originally posted by TY:
I would put out that believing there is no God take as much faith as believing there is a God.
Is this also true for orcs?
Originally posted by TY:
An Agnostic I can relate to and respect. He states that "I don't know if there is or isn't a God but I choose to think and live life as if there isn't a God.
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!
Originally posted by TY:
I hate no one, not even Atheist's
Oh thanks! It's so gracious of you to not hate us even though we surely given you so many reasons to!
Originally posted by qzjul:
If you don't mind challenging your faith, and seriously considering it, you should read The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins; if you read that, and you come through with your faith as strong as ever, then it will probably have been good for your faith even.
+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...
Originally posted by Detmer:
Scientifically speaking, atheism is an unjustifiable position.
Scientifically speaking, you wouldn't try to prove that something does not exists, because scientifically, you can not do it.
Originally posted by Detmer:
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.
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
Originally posted by Detmer:
Agnosticism is a much more rational belief than atheism.
Please explain. I've given my thoughts on why I think this is wrong above.
Imaginary Numbers
If you're important enough to contact me, you will know how to contact me.
Self appointed emperor of the Order of Bunnies.
The only way to be certain your allies will not betray you is to kill them all!
If you're important enough to contact me, you will know how to contact me.
Self appointed emperor of the Order of Bunnies.
The only way to be certain your allies will not betray you is to kill them all!