Hand-to-hand weapons aren't the best choice. If the zombie-disease is spread by saliva (bites), it's probably also spread by blood. If you hack a zombie apart with a sword, it will spray its blood everywhere. You get that in any open wound, or even your eye, and you're a zombie.
Bow and arrow would be better, as it has both range and unlimited ammo (you can recover the arrows)
I love the link. But, as for the argument, hard books are better for now. E-book technology is still in infancy, and while there's no reason it shouldn't improve, there are still downfalls.
First, eBooks are the epitome of "putting all your eggs in one basket". If something happens to your device, it gets hacked, lost, broken, stolen, etc., you've lost all your books. Not so with real books.
Second, along the same lines. If the eBook device screen is damaged, but not enough to get a Warranty repair, then every single page of every single book you have is also damaged. If you rip/mark a real book page, it's only one page of hundreds or even thousands.
Third. This is more of an opinion, but there's nothing quite as satisfying as turning that final page, or watching your progress eat through a large book. Sure, there are percentage bars on Kindle (at least), but it's not the same.
Fourth. Also along those same lines. It's easier to find quotes in real books, as you know generally where the quote was in the book. On eReaders, you can't flip pages nearly as fast as in real life to search. Also, due to the convenient font size changes available, pages look different every time on eReaders.
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That's my opinion. I'll admit, eBooks are much better for people who travel frequently (multiple times a month, or even a week), as they don't have to carry a library around with them if they need to read. Also, text formats offer the advantage of string searching, allowing for quick look-ups if you know a direct or partial quote.
But, to me, those advantages do not outweigh the disadvantages they have over real books.
Keeping on-task with said present distractions are part of the process of becoming a competent adult. You can't just take out homework because it doesn't apply to the work ethic of our students. Students need to change their work ethic to apply to the real world.
I personally don't want to time travel, due to the mind-bending implications. (You go back in time to kill Hitler, and it works. Then, in the alternate now, Hitler did't kill people, and thus, you wouldn't go back in time to kill him....)
If you want a long-living pet, get a turtle or a parrot. The turtle will definitely outlive you, while the parrot will give you a run for your money.
"However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows."
--Matthew 24:36 (NLT)
However much calculations anybody does, you cannot figure our the day of the Advent. Also, the idea of a 'secret rapture' is refuted by the Bible:
"For as the lightning flashes in the east and shines to the west, so it will be when the Son of Man comes."
--Matthew 24:27 (NLT)
"Look! He comes with the clouds of heaven. And everyone will see him"
--Revelation 1:7 (NLT)
"Then I saw heaven opened, and a white horse was standing there.... He wore a robe dipped in blood, and his title was the Word of God.... From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike down the nations.... On his robe at his thigh was written this title: King of all kings and Lord of all lords.... Then I saw the beast and the kings of the world and their armies gathered together to fight against the one sitting on the horse and his army.... Their entire army was killed by the sharp sword that came from the mouth of the one riding the white horse."
--Revelation 19:11-21 (NLT)
The first two refute the 'secret' rapture. The third shows that Jesus Himself will come down to finish everything. No rapture, and the Advent certainly won't be a secret.
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Now, to pre-refute future arguments, here's another quote:
"People didn't realize what was going to happen until the flood came and swept them all away. That is the way it will be when the Son of Man comes.
"Two men will be working together in the field; one will be taken, the other left. Two women will be grinding flour at the mill; one will be taken, the other left."
--Matthew 24:39-41
This isn't the rapture. It's equating the Advent with the Flood. Nobody knew when it was going to happen, and the Flood surprised everyone. Jesus is saying it'll be the same with the Advent: you're working in a field and, all of the sudden, Jesus is here.
Surprise!
Kotzebue, AK
That town is literally in the middle of nowhere, half of it on a swamp, the other half on the Bering Sea. It's cold all year long, and most likely freezes every night.
Unless zombies (or anyone else, for that matter) have antifreeze in their blood, there's no way they'd reach Kotzebue via walking.
"(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"
--Romans 2:14, 15
I'm not sure if anyone will read this, but I certainly hope so.
By saying 'no', I'm not saying they won't be in heaven. Nobody will get to heaven 'first'. Everyone goes at the same time. The closest thing we have to 'getting there first' is being the first off the ground.
"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air"
--1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17
As for athiests being in heaven, there most certainly will be.
"(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)"
--Romans 2:14, 15
Or, as C. S. Lewis put it: "Therefore if any man swear by Tash (Satan) and keep his oath for the oaths sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him."
I'm not saying that any cliff is deadly to jump off of. I've done my fair share of leaping for 15- to 20-foot-high cliffs, but those falls are quite short (and still hurt if you hit flat-footed). But when you're talking about a 20-second fall, there's no way you'd survive that.
For the sake of this particular discussion, I'd say jumping off a bridge is better. A) I'd have already checked to make sure it was safe. B) I'd be willingly jumping off it.
For the cliff, falling generally indicates no will in the situation. And the majority of cliffs (if taken from a grab-bag of the world's cliffs) probably aren't safe to jump/fall from.
if it's deep enough you won't hurt yourself that bad.
I'm going to refute this for both here and the one above. If you fall for long enough, the force of hitting the water will be the same has hitting concrete.
The terminal velocity for a pencil-diving human is around 300 mph, which equates to around 44 feet per second. That gives you less than 0.15 seconds for you to push a column of water 6 ft by 2 ft (depending on how thin you are, and sort of rounding off the width of shoulders to the thin depth of the body) out of your way.
The impact alone will kill you.
.... yeah, and totally piss off all the remaining extremest muslims? We've probably already made a martyr. Why would we go throwing it in their faces?
I say it's good enough that he's dead, and that he left no grave for worshipers to worship.
Just to be original, I'll take it a different way.
It's because, in these trying times, people need heroes.
Either that, or movie companies are just showing off their cool CG, and loving the fact that they can actually do superhero movies well, for the first time.
And, yes, the money.
"Hell exists in our own mind and lives"
Although I understand the spirit of your statement, please humor me. For the sake of argument, can you provide biblical supports (to go along with the introduction to this topic)?
"I do not believe it is a physical place with Satan ruling over it."
I find it interesting that you should point out that last part, "With Satan ruling over it". I think it's almost funny how that idea has become so mainstream, yet the Bible clearly states that Satan will suffer its effects more than anyone else, if that's at all possible. In fact, the Bible implies that Hell was/will be created for Satan.
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Mat. 20:28b "Only God ... can destroy both soul and body in hell." (NLT)
Luk 12:5b "God ... has the power to ... throw you into hell." (NLT)
Rev 19:20c "...the beast ... [was] thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur" (NLT)
Sorry that it took so long for me to respond to you. I hope you can forgive extreme tardiness.
"There are various scriptures where Jesus describes hell as a place of fire."
Yes, there are. I've looked up the other times 'geenna' occur, and, besides Jesus' 'cut off your eye' speech, Jesus says this: "Fear only God, who can destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28b, NLT) If Hell, or 'geenna' were a place of eternal fire, than God wouldn't destroy sould and body, merely place them there.
Further studying mentions that 'Geenna' originated/refers to the vally of Hinnom, where trash (and dead animals) were taken and burned. Such fires were not permament, only the results.
"the angels had yet to die their first death"
That is true, but the Second Death is the term used for us humans, who tend to die fairly easily. Although, technically, the term is 'Second Resurrection', but, once resurrected from death, the damned will die again, thus, Second Death.
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Also, you might bring up the term 'unquenchable fire' that crops up many times. To make a pun of the previous sentence, the term shows up in Jesus' parable of the farmer separating the wheat and the chaff.
"He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire." (Matthew 3:12, NLT)
The word used for 'burning' is Greek 'katakaio', which means 'to consume with fire'. The chaff is totally burned up, gone. However, had the fire been quenchable, one could conceivably put out the fire before the chaff was done burning. But this fire cannot be stopped--all of the chaff will be consumed.
This conveys the image that, once again, the effects are eternal. The evil will be totally consumed by the fire, but will not burn forever.
Although I find the idea of it completely appalling, and the Constitution doesn't allow it, it might be interesting.
If religion was made illegal, it would only make it grow. That's what history has taught. Oppression usually weeds out false religions (being religions set around control and not spiritual enlightenment), leaving only true religions to flourish.
But when the rich get healed from serious diseases, there's really no inherent superiority in it. They still suffer from the same sicknesses that poor people do; the rich can only cure them. But when you have an entire class of people genetically immune to those diseases, you do have inherent superiority. And nothing can stop them from lording over the little people.
It makes logical sense to choose certain genes to go into our children to make them immune to certain defects. That part is moral, yes.
But I'm guessing that this would be fairly pricey, limiting such services to certain classes of people, which means that there would eventually be two types of humans--enineered, and natural. What is to stop the 'superior' engineered people from lookind down and/or discriminating against the 'inferior' grab-bag-type people? Or the other way.
Thus, no. Unless you can find a way to make sure there is no discrimination, it's probably not a good idea.
"a god which completely knows his creation in the now will know how it unfolds into the future."
Life isn't a bunch of billiard balls on an infinite frictionless plain. Once humans (and other animals, to a lesser exent) get involved, you cannot predict things indefinitely.
I would agree that God would be able to see the nearly-infinite possible futures that exist, based on the millions of choices the billions of people on the planet make each moment, and how they'll interact with each other. But the thing about free will is that we can still surprize God. If I suddenly killed someone for no reason, I'm sure that would surprise God, as that's not who I am.
You could even say that, knowing all these futures for the world, and the people in them, He could even predict the most likely route that it will take. But that is a far step from actually seeing the future.
If God could see the future, then it eliminates any free will we have, and replaces it with a mere illusion. Once that happens, no matter what you do, God knew you were going to do it, and you cannot escape that fate. "Fate" is exactly what it becomes.
And once that happens, there's no reason that God couldn't just end it now. For if He knows who is going to be Saved and who isn't, than why wait?
"God as a super natural entity exists "outside" of time, time is his creation correct?"
I'm not sure if God created time. You'd have to ask Him. He might have created the ability for time to flow as it does, but that does not mean that He can see the future (which doesn't even exist yet), any more than an airplane manufacturer can say exactly where that airplane will fly to in its lifetime.
"So, an all loving all powerful god decided to make man, a corruptible and atrocity-committing creature that holds will above Himself, because that is the best God can muster up?"
No, God created man, a corruptible creature with free will, because God wanted men--creatures with free will. We're not the "best God can muster up", but we're what God wanted. There's a big difference.
"Could a god like yours not create a perfect universe where free will entailed the choices between only good actions?"
So you're wanting God to limit your choices? You want only half-free will? You can chose X, Y, and Z, but only if they coincide with these rules. That's not free will, but forced will.
"What permitted him to make such a broken choice, allowing innocent death and rape and murder amongst His most beloved creatures?"
All along God created humanity to be able to chose between God's way or their own way. Those are the only two options. The fact that we believe such raping and murdering to be evil indicates that God was right in saying that His law was written on our hearts long before it was written in stone.
When we decided that we knew better than God, we allowed ourselves to rape and murder. Had God taken those options away, than He would have taken away our ability to decide for ourselves. Yes, we could have the 'free will' to two 'good' options, but that's not real freedom. That's very, very limited.
Once again, God didn't want robots when he created mankind. If He did, he would have made robots, and the world would still be perfect.
"The oldest copy of anything from the OT ... date to somewhere between 200-100 BC"
But there is evidence that Israel as a nation existed back in the 1000-900 BC. A tablet from Egypt places a nation called the Israelites in Canaan during that time.
Also, for somebody to have put parts of the OT into caves in the 200s, it would be logical to assume there were a few hundred other copies floating around the cities, those probably much older.
"is there anything in the Bible that explains how people got all the way out to the Americas thousands of years prior to European exploration?"
It would be understandable that the flood would have caused such changes in the environment to allow crossings of the Bering Land Bridge. In Genesis 10:25 it says " the people of the world were divided into different language groups." Since the Native Americans had their own language groups, this would probably apply to them, too.
"Why would the world need god constantly in it to not degenerate?"
My theory is that it's just what happens. Observation has shown that random events tend to destroy rather than create, so when the Creator God left Earth via humans' wishes, the random events slowly destroy the Creation that was created, if that makes sense.
It's just what happens, just like running out of power is just what happens when a laptop isn't plugged into the wall.
"Freewill has a couple different meanings"
When God gave us free will, it was the free will to accept our natural dependence on Him, or not. We chose not. Had God stuck around despite our wishes, than it wouldn't be free will, but an illusionary choice. Such an illusionary choice is not unlike the illusionary choice the citizens of Oceania had of whether or not to love Big Brother (1984).
"Your suggesting that humans have control over god by the way."
In a way, yes. God respects our choices, so we do sort of have a power over Him. But that power isn't inherent in humans, it's God's choice to respect our choices.
"Naturally if there were a god, he would be nothing close to what Christians describe."
How do you know? What makes you say that?
"I'm quite sure there is no such thing anyway."
That has as much weight as me saying that there is a god.
"I find the one described by you as god to be tyranical and hateful."
Ah, I see now that sending your son to die for people who don't love or believe in you is tyrannical and hateful. You try having your son die instead of a mass-murderer because you love that murderer enough to see him get another chance. But, of course, if you did, you'd be tyrannical and hateful.
"Just because someone may be of middle-eastern descent, that doesn't make them a terrorist."
That is true, but how many terrorists have been middle-aged white Americans? Why should we search 80-year-old women for bombs when no terrorist have been 80-year-old women?
Why not use statistical math to make our scans more efficient?
Many of the phobias are irrational, so saying there's no need to be afraid of gays doesn't mean people aren't. There's no logical reason to be afraid of open spaces, but that's a real fear. Anthophobia is fear of flowers, and there's no good reason to be afraid of them, either.
Rationality is often thrown out the window when it comes to phobias. So, yes, I'd say homophobia is real, and that some people are afraid of gay people.
Sorry, but one more thought. Feel free to downvote this to zero to keep the scores realistic.
"No, no, no. By you, I was referring to the authors of the Bible, or perhaps Constantine..."
Also, if they were writing for sheer power, to gain themselves a position above that of their peers, it would seem they would have written something other than humility. Throughout the Bible people say "Don't look at me, look at God!" Even those that did amazing things never took credit for it, nor was any given.
Moses' actions parted the Red Sea, and yet he never claimed to have the power, nor did anybody give it to him. Ever after that feat was attributed to God and God alone. It seems that if Moses wrote that (which he probably didn't), he would have given himself a little credit.
Also, it would seem that we would know who the authors of the Bible were more often than we do. Sadly, history remembers those who used falsehoods to elevate their position more often than those who actually deserve said position. And yet, most of the authors of the Bible fade into anonymity, while God is probably the most famous person out there (if you include Allah, which even the Muslims agree is the same as the Christian (and Jewish) God).
"It seems religion is a product of an advanced mind, a human mind; in part due to the lack of it in less advanced minds."
Yes, the entire Creation is supposed to glorify God. But, as the animals don't speak English, let alone the trees and the mountains, than they're probably glorifying God by the only way they know how: Doing what God made them to do.
And this seems to be contradictory to humanity, who tend to do what they feel would be right , or what others tell them to do, or what others are doing. Which is probably why we're told to glorify God using simple things: Dancing and music.
And no, not tribal, sacrifice-peoples'-hearts-around-a-fire dancing. I'm sure God wouldn't mind a disco. :P
"Well you don't really have to go into specifics, the overall concept [of other religions] can be debated on a more general level"
Okay. In my view, it would seem that humanity tends to lean toward polytheism. After the flood, when all of humanity came from an obviously-monotheistic family, polytheism still cropped up, and fairly recently if Gilgamesh can be taken as at least semi-true. (Gilgamesh, by the way, mentions Noah and his monotheism, which I find interesting). And so it would be no wonder that cultures that spread out after the Tower of Babel would develop their own religions. I'm guessing that many would have undertones of the ancient Hebrew religion (now Jewish, Christian, and Muslim). But I cannot say without further research. Sorry.
"what if [the authors of the Bible] were lying?"
If they were lying, we'd never get to know, as it obviously wouldn't be true. It's unprovable until you can prove whether or not God exists. So now it's up to your own beliefs, as it tends to do.
"I think I should directly ask you: setting aside what Paul and the early Christians believed, do you believe in Hell?"
I believe that Hell doesn't exist, but it will for a short period of time. During Jesus' 3rd Advent (1000 years after the 2nd), and Satan rallys up all the evil people who recently underwent the 2nd ressurection to attack the Holy City, Hell will descend in the form of God's righteous fire and consume them all in one last act of justice. And that will be it. The unsaved will be dead forever. Non-existent. My resources and references would be Revelation 20.
The comment of why only the Middle East got Jesus
Again, I'm not sure. Maybe God saw that the region had the potential to affect most of the world. The Greek and Roman Empires surely ruled so much, not to mention the Muslims (who also descended from Abraham and had the message of God) ruled much of the middle-east and Africa while the Latins ruled Europe. The Romans were more likely to record things than the Indonesians and native Americans, thus preserving knowledge through time until people could go and preach the word.
As for why Jesus didn't come multiple times, I'd say it's because one sacrifice was enough for the whole of the world. He didn't die for the Chinese because there was no need. That one sacrifice allowed all to be saved. Thus Christ's final mission for His followers: "...Tell people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." --Acts 1:8
If used properly, CGI does wonders. Especially today, when you can have a purely CGI film and not even realize it (no, I can't think of any examples, but they could make re-make Shawshank Redemption using only CGI and make it like the old one).
Although I agree with the spirit in which your argument was written, I have hit the 'dispute' button.
"we can think for ourselves"
An excellent quality in all--atheists and theists alike. Thinking for yourself allows you to question what you're taught and find truth, even if it's hidden in falsehood.
"People killing each other left and right because god told them it would be a good idea."
This is half-true. Most of those times, people killed people because they wanted to, and justified it by saying it was their god(s)' will. Others, they misinterpreted God's will, and killed anyway (e.g. Hitler).
"I don't trust any words coming from a book that tells me to stone my neighbor if he dares to pick up sticks on Sunday."
"Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days a week are set apart for your daily duties and regular work, but the seventh day is a day of rest dedicated to the LORD your God."
Just a minor technicality, the seventh day is the Sabbath, not the first. Look at the Jews. They've been keeping track of this forever, so they probably have the right day.
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But other than those, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Free thought is an amazing thing. Sadly, so many people lack that capacity.
No matter what you might think, you cannot clump people together like that.
Yes, there are most likely unintelligent atheists, just like there are unintelligent theists. But there are also very intelligent people from both sides as well. For instance: scientists and doctors.
But I feel (arrogantly, perhaps) that if I post an argument and my opponent does not respond, it is a victory on my part.
I'd say you have a right to feel that. Good arguing!
"Can you provide a Biblical quote that clearly supports [the notion that God cannot see the future]?"
A single verse, no. But there are hints to it. For instance, if God could see the future, than He knew Eve and Adam would eat the fruit. So why even have the test? Exodus 13:17 says "God said, 'If the people are faced with a battle, they might change their mind and go back to Egypt.' " If God could see the future, why would He wait until the Israelites were complaining to rain Mana down? There are many times, especially in the OT, where God does things in response to human activity--which wouldn't be true if God could see the future.
And now for more modern examples: God would have seen Hitler's reign of terror, why not push his pregnant mother down the stairs? He would have seen the various arguments about His existance today, why not put something in the Bible--some advanced scientific truth--to prove it?
"What methodology can I use to support your understanding over any mutually-exclusive understanding provided by a different religion?"
Sadly, and embarrasingly, I'm not up to speed on other religions. Not enough to be able to answer this question. Sorry.
"this indicates that God had a specific audience to appeal to. Yet a "creator of the universe" should be trying to communicate to all audiences, right?"
Yes, He should, and did. God did it in steps, however. First the Israelites. When they failed, He tried the early Christians (which did a pretty darn good job of it for the first few hundred years). Now, there are all sorts of missionaries spreading the Good News.
"I was referring to the authors of the Bible [as possibly being power-hungry people]"
As the authors of the bible tended to be people of very humble origins, I'd say not. David was but a sheepherder when He wrote most of his stuff. Paul wasn't anybody special, and even made points to not get any power ("Some of you are saying, "I am a follower of Paul." Others are saying, "I follow Apollos," or "I follow Peter," or "I follow only Christ." Can Christ be divided into pieces? Was I, Paul, crucified for you? Were any of you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, for now no one can say they were baptized in my name.") As for other authors, we really don't know who they were. Maybe Daniel, and the rest of the prophets (but they were considered crazy, so probably didn't have any hopes of gaining power).
Constantine, on the other hand, probably had power on his mind, along with many of the church leaders.
"If true, that should preclude the concept of Hell, shouldn't it?"
Ah-ha. We come to another point we will probably disagree on. If Hell (as an eternal fire-pit) existed, would that destroy sin in the Universe? No, it would simply keep it in one place. And what kind of loving God (Who, although He did destroy most of humanity, it "broke his heart" to do so) would send people to suffer for eternity? The very fact that Paul didn't mention Hell at all indicates that he probably didn't believe in it, either. And as he never wrote about it, it might be safe to assume the rest of the early Christians didn't as well.
"Also, should a sinning human's convictions be taken as universal truth?"
Possibly. This is a human who spoke with Jesus face-to-face, so I'd take his word for it.
"What is it about the middle-East that means these concepts are superior to any other religion, farther away?"
I'm not sure about other religions, but the Middle East is practically in the middle of the world. What a better place to spread the story?
"If it is all true, why shouldn't an Indonesian recognize it, regardless of his experience with the Judeo-Christian concept of God?"
There isn't, which is why missionaries are able to go to those places and teach.
Honestly, I like debating with you.
It is fun. Sorry for disappearing. I probably had good reasons at the time. :P
So you indirectly support the main point of the person who posted this debate?
I was rather arguing the other way. God respects our free will, thus He cannot see the future.
So what is your point of dispute, then? That God is not, in fact, omnibenevolent?
No, that God cannot see the future.
why can't a perfect being create a perfect argument?
In a way, He did. Paul says that even those who've never heard of God can believe by looking at Creation. Maybe not that it's now flawed, but the complexities. How a single cell is more complex--and infinitely more automatic--than a modern city. In how many things must happen for a muscle to twitch a fraction of an inch, and how quickly it has to happen.
are you sure about there were no wars?
Sorry, I should specify. There was pax romana. No wars in Rome, and Israel was in the Roman Empire.
My points are totally irrelevant IF you are a local religious leader trying to gain power.
No, I'm not a leader trying to gain power. Sadly, however, you've hit the nail on the head. I am quite sad that Christianity has become a religion. Most organized religions are about gaining power, which often deters people from listening to the small nuggets of truth that may or may not reside deep inside.
As for a universal truth, how about this: "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." --Paul, Rom 8:38.
You can take that or leave it, but I quite like that verse.
Supposition should logically preclude omniscience.
Yes, but although the religious leaders were about power, the people still believed in God , which is why Jesus was able to gain listeners. If he had gone to, say, Indonesia where they hadn't even heard of God, He probably wouldn't have gotten very far. Nor would it have been likely to be recorded, like it was in Rome.
So Christian morality concludes that a woman turning around out of curiousity merits death,
And that slavery is a-okay.
No, God shaped those rules around the accepted norm of the day. Again, we have no idea if Lot's wife's intension were only curiosity. The Hebrew word (nabat) has slightly deeper connotations than just a glance. Maybe she desired to be with her friends, and thus, away from God.
Also, those rules about slavery (and things like what to do if your house has mold) were written for the people of the time. The only standing laws were written by God on stone tablets known as the 10 Commandments. None of them have anything to do with saying slavery is okay.
The Laws of Moses were fulfilled and abolished with Christ's death. And since slavery isn't okay in today's culture, God wouldn't (and hasn't and doesn't) tell us to go buy slaves.
A note: Those laws never say to buy slaves, but only apply if you buy slaves. Since it's difficult to buy slaves nowadays, they don't apply even if they were still enforced.
Yet he should have known this would come to pass, and yet he allowed it anyway. (and various other comments as such)
You provide excellent arguments that I myself have used, but for a different purpose. The way I see it, if God can see the future, than there is a future to be seen, thus removing our free will. God can still be all-knowing, able to see the nearly infinite number of alternate futures, and thus He can plan as such.
Otherwise, you're right. If God could see that His creations would break his heart, than why create them?
Also, you ignored my alternate plan.
Yes, I did. I'm sorry. I don't know why God wouldn't/didn't do that. I really hate to pull this card, but I'm sure God knew what he was doing when He did it.
Then why not [send Jesus to die] in the first place?
He was. The time Jesus came was a perfect time for Him to come. There were no wars going on, not to mention an entire nation that was (supposed to be) devout Him. Among other things that I can't remember right now.
1. Since he allowed Noah and his family to survive, he obviously didn't completely wipe out the human race. So what happened here? Can an omniscient being change his mind?
It might be possible. There are a few stories where God seemed to change his mind, but it's unclear whether He did, or whether He was just testing people's integrity.
2. If it was man that bothered him, why wipe out all of the other life forms too?
Because God was sorry that he had made everything on Earth. "I am sorry I ever made them." The entire Earthly Creation was causing Him enough pain to justify killing it all.
3. Most importantly: WHAT DID THIS ACCOMPLISH?!?
It gave humanity a second chance. As you yourself have pointed out, humanity isn't nearly as evil as back in Noah's day.
God was latter driven to be born as a human and spread the Good word (an act which also didn't do a darned thing about evil, and also likely drives people to atheism due to its lack of verifiability)
Various parts of the Bible indicate that this was always a plan, in case things went wrong (which they did and have). And Jesus' sacrifice did do something. It allowed us damned humans to be able to go directly to God for help instead of symbolically cleansing our sins via sacrifices. Jesus didn't come down to preach the Good News as much as He came down to die. Sin and evil will be wiped out during the Second Coming, which is obviously still in the future.
I can say though that turning innocent by standards who happen to look at a city they are from, burning, into a pillar of sale = evil. That god is evil. So no problems.
Except that she disobeyed a direct request from God. The actual biblical story is quite brief, and there were probably good reasons why He did so. What if Lot's wife looked back and wanted to be with her now-dead friends? What if God was simply doing what she was wanting Him to do?
Also that thing about you're aloud to beat a slave.
This was a society where slavery was morally acceptable, and slaves were the property of their owner. But the Bible clearly states that if the slave receives permanent damage from a beating, the slave is to go free. It sounds fair to me.
There is no reason why sinning must result in evil or harm, rather such a thing is due to the creator ie god.
And there is no reason that unscrewing a light bulb would result in it going out, rather such a thing is due to the electricity in the wall. After all, the electricity has the power to light the bulb, so why doesn't it?
You can't state that the bible says otherwise so your claim must be wrong, you must address the evidence supporting the claim that the existence of evil is an argument against the existence of a benevolent God
I have addressed it. Read my arguments on the left.
As for the Bible, it says many times that sin (evil) is a result of man and man alone. In the Garden, God gave humans a choice: trust in Him, or try their own way. By eating the fruit (most likely merely a symbol of said choice), they chose their own way, pushing God out of their lives. Thus, sin; thus, evil.
If you know evil is occuring and you do nothing to stop it you are as bad as that evil.
No matter how 'right' God would be to end sin and evil, it would be morally wrong. Again, this battle between God and ex-Lucifer is to show that God's way is the right way. If God simply destroyed anything that went against His way, nothing would be proven, except that maybe God is a tyrant.
No but is it God's fault that hundreds of millions live in poverty and have to drink contaminated water that will kill you by the time you are 30?
Not really. First off, my comment of water was to show that it's not God's fault that evil is in the world, just like it's not the water's fault that someone who refuses to drink it dies of thirst.
Second, poverty and water contamination originated from that first sin by Eve and Adam. Such things wouldn't exist had humanity not pushed God away.
Could you quote a verse or two stating that he is benevolent
"God is love" --1 John 4:8
"I am the LORD, I am the LORD, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness." --God, Exodus 34:6
What is love if not benevolence?
If god respects our choices, he wouldn't of sent a flood.
""So the LORD was sorry he had ever made them. It broke his heart. And the LORD said, "I will completely wipe out this human race that I have created. Yes, and I will destroy all the animals and birds, too. I am sorry I ever made them."" --Genesis 6:6, 7
If God sent the flood out of hate, it wouldn't have broken his heart to do so. God respected their choice to not follow Him, just as He respected Noah's choice to follow Him.
Also, the problem of evil isn't against the biblical god specifically
Than which god are you talking about? Ra? Jupiter? The Flying Spaghetti Monster?
you will find the bible used against you and quite efficiently
Go ahead.
god would not be involved in his creation.
He gets involved with those who accept and want His involvement. Everyone else doesn't want Him to get involved, and so He doesn't get involved with them. Thus the evil in the world.
There have been natural disasters long before humans, and there will be natural disasters long after humans.
Here you show your worldview and how it affects your reasoning, as mine affects mine. I believe that God created the world and humans fairly recently (<100K years ago), and that He created it without natural disasters. Such things only entered the world when humanity drove God away.
I understand how natural disasters come about. Well, mostly understand. Not enough to predict hurricanes and earthquakes months in advance, but I know they're natural processes. But God could easily stop them, if humanity wanted Him back in the world.
there is no need for it to be a punishment from God because it is a natural process
I never said they were punishments. If they were, than God's sense of judgement would be off as thousands of innocent people die with those He might be punishing. No, they're only a result of what happens without God's healing hand over the Earth. If you unplug your laptop from the wall, the draining battery isn't the power company's punishment to the laptop. It's only what happens when you take the computer away from the power source.
When a child like that gets cancer and dies how does such an event happen in a world create by a loving God?
Because the world that was created by a loving God is degenerating due to humanity pushing God away. The original Earth didn't have disease or cancer, and thus things like this wouldn't have happened. But when God was no longer there to keep things in balance, such things arose.
A more accurate analogy would be that God is a computer programmer, and since God is the designer and he created the program of the universe, he still created it with evil in it, or at least created beings capable of choosing evil and by proxy is responsible for evil. The bottom line is that God designed a system that contains evil.
But computer programs contain everything programmed into them, and retain them forever. They monotonously carry out whatever task they were told to do. People, on the other hand, have free will. And that free will pushed Him away. Like if the program pushed the programmer away so the programmer couldn't fix the code if it developed flaws. Which it has.
Evil isn't a thing. It cannot be created. Evil is the absence of God. If God created evil, than He would have had to created something without Him being there. You could argue that man created evil by pushing God away. Like if you turned off a light bulb. You didn't create darkness, you turned off the light. It's not the light's fault that you cant see anymore, and the light didn't create the dark.
Does God 'employ' evil? If He did so, like you said, he wouldn't be omni-benevolent. But the Bible says He is, and thus, He can't employ evil. There's a difference for employing evil and allowing evil to run its course.
But He really doesn't do that, either. As I said on the left, God respects our choices. We pushed him away, and He respects that. And we live with the consequences--evil. The absence of God. If you chose not to drink water, is it the water's fault that you die of dehydration?
That's an interesting riddle, and it provides a sound argument if you didn't know the history of evil. At least, the history as I take it from the Bible.
In the beginning there was God. God created a perfect kingdom with just rules and a happy populace. One day, one of God's high-ups decided that he was sick and tired of not being God. He felt he should have the same power. So he started teaching the other beings that God's laws weren't just, that God was a tyrant, and that his own laws were better.
God, knowing everything, knew about this. But what would happen if He had killed Lucifer right there? Is that proof that His laws are really just? No, it just shows that God doesn't want people to test them. Even if they are just, nobody would want to follow them except out of fear of what God would do.
So God let Lucifer live, but He cast the rebels out of his perfect kingdom. Lucifer goes down and looks at Earth, where God gave us free will. Lucifer turned that will against God, and our actions drove Him away.
It was/is our free will, our choice to disobey God's law, that has brought on evil, for evil is the absence of God (just like darkness is the absence of light). Yes, there are natural disasters and the like, but that can be explained by humans driving God's presence from Earth. God could easily stop hurricanes and earthquakes from happening, but our actions pretty much told Him to go @%#$ Himself, and He respects our decision.
You could argue that free will is God's fault, because it is. God gave us such will because He loves us for who we are. He doesn't want mindless robots, he wants people. But God is not at fault for the choices we make. Just like we don't arrest a rapists' parents, we arrest the rapist. It's not the criminal's parents' fault. If it was, we could push the blame all the way back to whatever you believe (either God, in this case, or that original primordial slime from whence some believe we came).
No, it's each person's choice to what they do. And that is the cause of evil.
Although I got to thinking that the Pledge sounded kind of ... 1984-ish, I feel that it has great connotations to patriotism. I realize that simply saying the pledge probably doesn't automatically make one more patriotic, but it does give a sense of "I am an American".
And maybe, just maybe, if enough of our children view themselves that way, they'll be able to clean up the mess that the US of A has become.
For my part, I felt attacked based on my ridiculous initial post that was meant to incite little more than some humour in the debate. To be honest, had you not downvoted that post, I would have responded in kind.
Well, there we go. This whole thing was a giant misunderstanding. In retrospect, I know a rational individual wouldn't honestly believe that they're the beginning of the universe. However, this is the internet, and so such a person might exist. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
I don't think the creator meant a few spelling errors. I'm pretty sure you're safe from being 'broken', as you used proper punctuation, and seem to be the kind of person who would type in paragraphs.
As for the argument, I believe that poor grammar can destroy respect, especially on a site like this. wen u teyep like ths w/out ne cair 4 spling or gramar its hard 2 take u srsly
Note: Although the usual bold-face quote, regular-font reply is logical, I will not use it here, as that would make these conversations become massive and ugly.
When I said I knew I was being sarcastic, I wasn't being sarcastic. Nothing in my "Three weak paragraphs" was meant to be sarcastic. Your next few 'disputes' were taken completely out of context. When I said that you used sarcasm, I wasn't criticizing you. I was showing you that you used sarcasm to show a point. I never said you could learn sarcasm in school, but sarcasm is a learned thing. If it wasn't, small children would use and understand it, but they don't. Somewhere along the line, we learned it.
You are correct when you say that people who only use sarcasm probably aren't all there, but I have yet to find someone like that. If you are implying that I use only sarcasm, than you probably aren't even reading these posts.
"Contrary to your example sarcastic sentence" is technically proper form, with all the types of words where they should be, but you're right in saying I could have made it flow better. However, as there was not a misspelled word in my post, I don't understand why you'd tell me to spell-check my posts.
If logic and reason are inherent in humans, why are there so many illogical and un-thinking people in the world?
And now for your abuse at my use of ellipses. Yes, that first sentence would trail off had I said it out loud. "Yeah, that's not narcissistic at allllllll----". But instead of putting eight ls and a few dashes to indicate that, I used an ellipse. If I read the sentence "Forgive us our trespasses....trespass against us" without knowing better, I would think it was two sentences.
I really hope that we can soon cease this pointless 'debate'. After all this time, it seems the only thing you've managed to criticize about me is my sarcastic nature, my non-existent spelling errors, and various attacks on me (such as calling me a moron or saying I'm ugly). This, in general, makes me a little sad. There are too few coherent people on this site, let alone the internet, for there to be pointless and ill-founded attacks on those you haven't met, especially since you're one of the coherent.
Yes, I realize that I was being sarcastic. But sarcasm can be used in an argument to show a point. Just like you used sarcasm to attack my writing style by saying "Good thing we have representatives for logic and reason like you."
I'm not sure where you learned sarcasm, but most people who use sarcasm don't talk like idiots, contrary to your example sarcastic sentence. As for your request to have me uninstall my internet, I must respectfully decline. After learning spelling, grammar, and sentence construction, not to mention logic and reasoning, in school, I feel I have earned the right to be sarcastic at certain times.
And I place ellipses in my sentences to show where my voice would trail off if I were talking. Four periods indicate that the ellipse is also at the end of the sentence. You could think of it as the ellipse, and then the final period, if you wish. In my post, I used it to indicate that I wasn't stating a fact, but was being sarcastic.
It should be mandatory for students (probably in the High-School age) to learn the major religions of the world, where they came from, and what they generally believe. So much of the world's cultures have deep religious connotations. It would be impossible to know why some things are happening without a knowledge of certain religions.
Religion has played an important role in history and culture. Schools shouldn't teach religion as fact, but it would greatly help out students' understanding of the world if they knew what Muslims and Buddhists believed. And others, obviously, but those two were just a point.
Cutting out religion means cutting out the reason for the Crusades and the Holocaust. Yes, Hitler was a bad person, but even he had reasons. In his mind, the Jews killed Jesus, and thus they should die. And in medieval Christianity, the pope was pretty much God, and he wanted the Holy Land.
I've always held the belief that hypothermia would be the optimal way. I love sleeping, and hypothermia makes you all warm and you just fall asleep. Sounds good.
On the other side, I think drowning would be pretty far down the scale. Knowing you're going to die but not being able to do anything about it .....
When reading the Bible, I'd recommend a more modern translation. My favorite is the New Living Translation, but the most popular would be the New International Version. The KJV was written back when those odd words were in common use.
Also, more modern versions have the benefit of things like the Dead Sea Scrolls to make sure their original material is actually the original text. So here's your verse in NLT:
"Like roaring lions attacking their prey, they come at me with open mouths.
My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me.
My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead."
--Ps 22:13-15
But at the end of all of this, the author writes:
"O LORD, do not stay away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!"
--Ps 22:19
The verse, like many in Psalms, is the author crying for help from God. He is saying how weak he is, and he knows that God can save him.
Um .... why wouldn't we. Japan is in terrible need of help, and to not do so for any reason would be ridiculous.
But even if the US government decided to just leave Japan to Japan, I'm sure that thousands, if not tens or hundreds of thousands of Americans would voluntarily go to offer their help. That's the way the world works, now, and I'm quite proud of it.
Except that Area 51 is an air force testing area. All the expiramental US aircraft are tested there. The U-2 spyplane, the SR-71 Blackbird, and the F-117 stealth bomber were all tested there.
A Boeing 737 flies in and out of there daily, and from certain angles its running lings seem to hover over the ground.
If you believe evidence then you must accept that planets are common and earthlike ones are uncommon but not unique. That is what the indirect evidence suggests.
Planets are common, yes. But still, as of yet, we haven't found another earth-like one. The indirect evidence is statistical math, which also fails to apply to casinos and weather.
It sounds to me like you just don't want to accept that you aren't unique in the universe.
I'll accept it when there's evidence to do so. As of right now, there is none. So it seems that you're more based on faith (at least in this regard) than I am.
Like I said, emotional evidence.
How is that emotional evidence? It's bleedin' physical! Did you even read what I said? You're arguing that the supernatural doesn't exist. I give an example that cannot be explained naturally. Fifty-five pound bags cannot weight 45 pounds. That's a fact. But it did. That's physical evidence for a supernatural.
Same goes for paint bubbling out of the ground. None of it is emotional. It's physical.
Sounds like you just don't want to accept that.
If religion is a human invention, then god must be as well, as it is a religious concept with no external evidence.
No. The Constitution of the US provides set rules with which to rule a country. In the 200+ years we've been doing so, there have been dozens of views on how to interpret the document. These views are not originated by those that wrote the constitution, but are the product of people since that time.
But that doesn't mean that the Constitution, or it's writers, are a product of people since it was written. If I suddenly decided that those who wrote the Constitution didn't exist, that it was written by people in the early 1900s, than there would be no external evidence for them. I could easily discredit everything written about them as just being fantasies of a confused culture. Nobody talks to them nowadays, thus severing all evidence.
Except God does talk to people today. Imagine if you will you were able to take pair of HAM radios, some battery packs for power, and a buddy, back to the 1400s. Your buddy goes off somewhere, but you keep in contact with the radios.
Nobody would believe that your buddy exists. You're using a level of communication that's beyond the science of the day. But just because it wasn't physically and scientifically possible at the time, doesn't make it impossible.
Because they are defined to be outside the boundaries of nature, no natural evidence (your senses, the world, whatever) can be used to validate their existence as supernatural entities.
What about natural evidences that cannot be explained naturally. Like if gravity turned off all the sudden. Or something smaller, like a mountain getting up and jumping into the ocean.
Your bit on my car
I have no qualms with finding the physics of the universe. I actually love it! I'm all for reverse-engineering the parts of the car to find how and why they work. But the answer to the origins of the universe might not be in there, just like the origins of the car aren't actually in the car itself.
Under certain conditions equilibrium can be achieved in allele frequencies, thus ending evolution.
But then Yellowstone erupts, changing the environment and it throws off the equilibrium. Once a creature stops adapting and changing, it dies. Michael Crichton (yes, a fiction author, but lots of good research) wrote a book on it. It's quite good. It's called The Lost World. You should read it, if only for the amazing plot-line.
The bible claims that god exists, then claims its writings as proof (those allegedly historical writings), and THEN claims that it can be trusted because it is the word of god
The OT is an observation of events, most likely passed down word-of-mouth until somebody got around to writing them down (and no, it probably wasn't Moses, despite popular belief). That those events happen to show the existence of God doesn't disprove them anymore than the credibility of a history book would be in danger if it mentioned the Holocaust when the world didn't believe it ever happened. That is, of course, an analogy as I'm sure the Holocaust is still believed.
Also, if you have enough wind to push the massive bulk of a sea in half, you have enough wind to tear apart anyone who walks in the path of that divided water.
Or you could have a steady (but quite powerful) wind that allows people to walk on a shallow section of a sea. It's conceivable and has been studied. I believe the number was 67 mph, which is much less powerful than, say, a hurricane.
A flat earth is not indicated in the geological record, as our highest mountains are millions of years old, not thousands.
Honestly, just out of curiosity, how do we know the mountains are millions of years old? Surely they can't use carbon, as the rocks weren't living. Or did they use the same process that dated fresh rocks from Mt. St. Hellens to be a quite old? Or did they assume that the strata layers have been deposited the same rate forever?
Wouldn't it be possible that a massive flood set down the layers before the mountains came up?
Yes, and it was part of a trend in today's youth to repackage Sci-Fi as syfy for trendiness. Also, I use British spelling which is a different, but correct, system.
But there's no harm in saying you watch channel 59, is there? So why is there harm in calling channel 59 by it's name: SyFy?
And, semi-honestly, do the British spell 'civilization' with an 's' instead of a 'z'?
It is not biologically possible for the dead to resurrect once the brain decomposes past a certain point
It is also not physically possible to make a bag weighing at least 55 pounds weight 45 pounds, but it happened. It's also not possible to have paint bubble from the ground, and that happened as well. And there's really no point in trying to discredit those stories, as me and my family have witnessed them first-hand.
Or my brother-in-law's friend suddenly being cured totally of cancer, with the medical x-rays to confirm it. Here's him with the tumors, and here's him without any. No treatment in between.
When dealing with large numbers, it makes claims that the earth is unique sound specious.
I would agree. But I'm going to believe evidence, and so far it's come up shy. Yes, we've only dipped our exploratory cup into the ocean of the universe, but I will be skeptical until we find another habitable planet. Yes, it will take a long time, and the math does show that it's possible, but statistical probabilities don't always hold true against reality.
There are photographic records from that period. Our telescopes do not merely see great distances from us, they can see back in time, on the order of billions of years. The early universe is observed by measuring Cosmic Background Radiation.
Our telescopes can't sea anywhere near the Big Bang. And the cosmic background radiation might be a residue effect of "Let there be light."
Odd how religious people will have faith in things which are supported only by emotions but won't trust that which is supported by evidence. Selective scepticism, really.
How's this? When traveling on a mission trip to Indiana, Peru (not Peru, Indiana), we were limited to a single personal checked bag. The other slot was taken up by things like medicine for the villages we would visit, all packed into massive 45-pound bags (as they couldn't exceed 50 lbs due to a price bump in the cost, and we were quite poor).
The main group had gone left Salt Lake City for Atlanta, leaving only four of us with six medicine bags. One of our people was having passport troubles, while the other was helping him. In the end, the one guy couldn't come with us. So we divided that 45-pound bag into the five other 45-pound bags, and they all still weighed 45-pounds.
Or when my sister's mission trip found a well of house paint bubbling up from the ground when they ran out while fixing an Appalachian house.
Seems like evidence to me.
Have you ever studied a single religion besides the one you were raised to believe in? Have you never studied ancient and extinct religions? To make a claim like yours one has to be completely oblivious to foreign cultures.
I'm not claiming that religion is infallable. I'm claiming that God exists. There is a big difference between the two, just as there is a big difference between God's will and what people say God's will is (e.g. the Crusades). Religion in often invented by humans, usually for the purpose of controlling other humans.
There is nothing that demonstrates or could demonstrate that an alleged "Almighty Creator and Ruler of the Universe" is communicating with us.
Interesting. You say nothing could demonstrate the existence of God? You are so adamant and resigned that absolutely nothing could do it? What if Jesus came back in the Second Advent, with his army of angels and the trumpets blaring? Would you not be convinced then, or would you search for a natural explanation?
If we built reactors with sodium coolant instead of water, not even a coolant shutdown would cause a meltdown. So I'm all for them. To agree with the person above me, though, it's probably smart to be selective in placement. Nowhere near natural-disasters in waiting.
Revelation informs the reader that 'hell' is the Second Death:
Revelation 2:11b "Whoever is victorious will not be hurt by the second death."
Revelation 20:6a "Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. For them the second death holds no power"
Revelation 20:14 "And death and the grave were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death--the lake of fire."
Revelation 21:8 "But cowards who turn away from me, and unbelievers, and the corrupt, and murderers, and the immoral, and those who practice witchcraft, and idol worshipers, and all liars--their doom is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death."
As for death, itself, the Bible also states that there is no life in death, no spirit surviving on. You're dead, in the ground:
Ecclesiastes 9:5 "The living at least know they will die, but the dead know nothing"
John 11:11 "Then he said, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep[1], but now I will go and wake him up."
[1] The Greek word used here (koimaō) is also used in Matthew 27 to describe dead people. It also describes death in Acts 7 (Stephen's death), Acts 13 (King David is now sleeping), and others.
So the first death is sleeping, but everyone will get awoken at some point in time. The Second Death would then be 'sleep' without waking. Dead. Gone.
Thus, Hell is not an eternal fire-pit, but an eternal death
Those are not mechanisms. They are assertions with no depth behind them. Examples of mechanisms are evolution by natural selection, thermodynamics, genetics, etc. These all contain elaborately documented, tested and insightful mechanisms.
Mechanisms aren't required when the creator is working outside of the universe. Just like the mechanisms for building a car aren't contained in the car itself. As for everything you mentioned, it's quite possible that God invented all of those things. Once again, like a car manufacturer builds the electrical and mechanical systems of a car--both are quite complex.
Look up the burden of proof. It is the established position in science that life's needs are not unique to Earth. You are making a claim that negates this established position, and therefore must substantiate your claim.
The burden of proof is still on you, and you have yet to supply it. All the exosolar planets I've heard and read about are quite different from Earth. The closest thing would be Kepler-10b, which is only 1.5 Earth radii, but the temperature of the surface is a sweltering 1833 K. The next might be COROT-7b at 1.5 Earth radii as well, and it's also around 2000 K, not to mention eight times as massive. And both of those not-close planets are around 500 light years away.
Gliese 581 c and d are in that zone at their star, and the star is a mere 20.3 light years from us, out of a universe billions of light years across.
Gliese 581 c has never been directly observed, but has more than 5 times the mass of Earth, and reports of atmospheric conditions cast doubt on habitability. 851 e is the closest to earth-sized, but it's far too close to the star.
Ever heard of the Hardy–Weinberg principle? That's basic biology.
Please enlighten me.
You believe in an unproven, untestable, unfalsifiable assumption that uses magic
It's easy to say God uses magic as we can't understand Him. Just like the parts of the car probably think (if they were sentient) that the car manufacturing plant is magic, as there's nothing on the car that could do what the plant could do.
The bible is not evidence of its own authoritativeness. This is obviously a violation of the basic rules of reasoning.
And why not? Much of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is history. Historical text. Normally historians love text that old that tells what happened. It's called 'primary source'. As for the parting of the Red Sea, it wasn't 'magic'. The Bible clearly states that God used wind to do it. And science has actually confirmed that under the right circumstances, wind can push water significantly.
And there is enough water on Earth to completely cover the land--if the land was flattened a bit. Okay, a lot a bit. But what's to say the pre-flood Earth wasn't quite flat? Certainly something like a worldwide flood would change the landscape. Maybe the flood was what set the tectonic plates in motion, causing the modern mountains to rise up out of the water.
You must be very young to use that word, "syfy" when it was always called "science fiction."
There is a name for what you're doing. It's called Argumentum ad Hominem. Syfy is actuall a channel on TV. Judging by his grammar and writing skill, I'd say that he's actually a well-educated adult, or at least a well-educated young adult. I've noticed that you've made more spelling errors than he has.
Anyway, I do not believe you have a foot to stand on after just telling me that you believe in zombies and magical floods.
I've covered the 'magic' part. As for zombies, people raised from the dead aren't zombies. Zombies are mindless living-dead creatures. People God has raised are ex-dead people. In the New Testament, which is an amazing Primary Source, has recorded several people coming back to life through God's power. That you refuse to believe historical text is quite disappointing.
I'm going to jump in on this argument, starting with a few observations. First, I've noticed that this started off small, and with time each argument grows in length until one could probably write a short book about it.
Second: Mr. Aveskde, you said, "Prove it. I follow parsimony, you do not." As I recall, you brought up the argument that there are tons of other planets like Earth. Due to the burden of proof, you are the one that has to prove it.
You did not negate my statement. There are billions of billions of planets out there. Life seems to just require the right solar distance, time, liquid water, and organic compounds. These are common things in the universe.
Once again, there is little proof of this. With all of the solar and exosolar planets we've found, none of them come even remotely close to meeting the requirements for Earth-like life.
What you actually said was:
My answer is the authority of primitive man (they invented your god, after all). They were not there when the universe began, but I would rather trust in their account than some scientists.
What you said, if we actually follow your assumptions, was:
My answer is magic. I would rather trust in magic than reason.
Slippery slope, or something like that. Here's a fact: no human was around at the beginning of the universe. There is no written records from anywhere around that time. The big bang is a theory supported by some evidence, but it's still a theory, and in the end you still have to have faith that it's true. I really don't want to go into the 'does god exist or not' argument, as it really has little to do with the idea of space exploration, but I'd say that God also has some evidence going for him.
You have no more proof that primitive man invented god than you do that the big bang happened. To turn your belief-centered reasoning back on itself, I'll hit you with a phrase similar to yours.
"What you actually said was:
My answer is the authority of quite-possibly damned heathens. They were not there when the universe began, but I'd rather trust in their account than the Almighty Creator and Ruler of the universe."
Just food for thought.
If and when the space elevator get's built, the cost of putting things into space will drop around 99.9909%. It currently takes around $22,000 to put a single pound into orbit, but the elevator could do the same in less than $2.
This side should win.
Based on the statistics, this side is using more advanced language, with an average word length of 4.18 letters, while that side is only 3.95. This side is arguing at an 8th grade level, while that side is arguing at a 6th grade level. And, to top it off, this side has (as of just before this post) a total of 582 words going for it, while that side has a mere 388.
The statistics speak for itself. This side obviously knows what they're talking about, and, thus, should win the debate.
Yes sunday is the sabbath day! thats why we get the day off in order to worship the Lord and rest!
"And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy, because it was the day when he rested from his work of creation."
--Genesis 2:3
the worldly belief says that monday is the start of the week, but i have no desire for the material or worldly things because they won't ever get me to heaven!
How does Monday have to do with material or worldly things?
Actually Catholics completely disregard the Sabbath because it is a ceremonial law that lost it's relevance with the crucification of Christ, along with others in the pentituke (like clean and unclean meats, side burn cutting, cloth weaving, etc...).
Except, unlike the ceremonial laws (written by Moses), the Sabbath is part of the 10 commandments, written by God on stone. But there's also evidence that the Sabbath was in place long before the 10, almost elevating it above the others (It's mentioned in Creation).
You mentioned that Christians didn't start worshiping on Sunday until 800 AD, but there is evidence in the bible that Paul was meeting with the disciples on Sunday (which was well before 800 AD).
Yes, they did meet on Sunday, but they never worshiped on Sunday. Paul never treated Sunday like the sabbath. All the examples of the apostles (and even Jesus) worshiping, it was always on Saturday, the Sabbath.
I'm not sure what's worse, that this topic even came up, or that two people agreed with it.
How can homosexuals cause an earthquake? That doesn't even make sense. But let's say that God caused the earthquake because of the gays. Why not take out other gay populaces? There are plenty around the world. Or, instead of causing millions of dollars of damage and killing innocent people, why not just strike the homosexuals dead with a disease or heart failure or something?
Natural disasters are just that--natural. Things happen in places. You build a city on a fault line, you'll get earthquakes. You build it on the south-east coast of the US, you'll get hurricanes. Build it below sea level on that coast, you'll get flooded in the next hurricane. Tornado alley has tornadoes, and the windward side of mountains get storms.
Things happen in the world, but that doesn't mean anybody's to blame. Except when there is somebody to blame, like American's oil addiction and the Gulf Oil Spill thing. But hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, volcanoes, storms, etc. just happen, and we expect them to happen. It's nobody's fault.
