Ancient Domains Of Mystery, forum overview / General / Religion god n all that jazz
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Caladriel: You're right, I'd better re-phrase that. Ishmael wasn't the founder of Islam, he was the founder of the Arabic peoples, one of which was Muhammad, and most of whom are now Muslims. The history of Islam in the Koran (I think) starts with Ishmael. To know if Abraham's teachings (or Moses, or any of the prophets') have been corrupted seems to me impossible. If they were, the original copies of the Torah would be significantly different from the modern ones. We don't have the originals (and neither do the Muslims have the original Koran), but the Jews were always extremely careful when they copied their Scriptures (which were written down by Moses as he received them from God). They would count every letter in the line, then on the page; check every word three times, and so on. The oldest copies we have of the Old Testament match the ones we have today. The New Testament has also been carefully preserved; picture a monk painstakingly writing and re-checking every letter, and you'll get the picture. I think that where the Koran and the Bible differ, one is right and the other is wrong--no "corruption" about it. (I would assume the Koran also has changed little since the original.) Defining Christianity... You are right when you say the Christianity we know today started with Jesus; however, the same God chose the Jews as His people much earlier, and even before that interacted with such people as Adam, Enoch, and Noah. So you could say it "started" with Adam, the first man; or you could say it started when Jesus rose from the dead; or you could say it started when the last book of the New Testament was written. I define "being a Christian" as someone who believes that Jesus became the substitute to bear the judgement of God for that person. Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Okay, as for prophecies, here's a couple (I would need several pages to list all the ones I've noted)... A homeland for Jews--Israel; fulfilled when the state of Israel was created in 1948. "[God] will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land." Prophecies about Jesus: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Jesus was born to Mary, a virgin. The name Immanuel is a title that means "God with us", speaking of Jesus' nature as God and man. "Out of [Bethlehem-Ephratah]...will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." Foretells the birthplace of Jesus--Bethlehem. "See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come...the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come." The messenger this passage talks about is John the Baptist--no relation to the Southern Baptists :)-- who "prepared the way" for Jesus. The covenant referred to is God's promise to send a Messiah. "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion...your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." The Triumphal Entry, a procession in which Jesus entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey. (This is significant because Jesus, as the Messiah-King, should have been riding a horse.) The donkey was a colt that had not yet been ridden. These are all prophecies stating how Jesus died, fulfilled to the letter in the New Testament: "They will look on me, the one they have pierced." --Crucifixion; as well as Jesus' side, pierced by a Roman spear. "All who seek me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads; 'He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him.'" --These were the same words Jesus' enemies used to taunt him as he died. "A band of evil men has encircled me; they have pierced my hands and my feet." --This was written before crucifixion had been invented by the Romans. "They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing." --This is exactly what happened; the Roman soldiers ended up gambling for Jesus's robe. "They gave me vinegar for my thirst." --Vinegar was given to Jesus when He was crucified. "He protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken." --This was true of Jesus. The two men crucified with him, however, had their legs broken to speed their deaths. Jesus was already dead, so his bones were left unbroken. "He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth." --Jesus refused to say anything during his three mock-trials. "Surely he took up our infirmities, and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." This refers to the substitutionary nature of His death, that He would take the punishment we deserve. His punishment brings us peace because when we accept it we are considered sinless by God. "He was assigned a grave with the wicked, with the rich in His death." --Jesus was crucified with criminals and (temporarily) buried in a rich man's tomb. "You will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay." --Jesus was resurrected after three days in the tomb. God does not abandon us to the grave, either, because Jesus rose from the dead (defeating death itself) and will bring those who have accepted his offer of a substitute, back to Heaven with him. OK, I guess I've bored you enough. But it seems to me these are quite specific and many of them could not possibly have been controlled by Jesus Himself if He had wanted to fulfill them and become the Jews' messiah. The only explanation to me is that they are real prophecies fulfilled by a real man (or Son of God, whichever way you look at it). Die Gedanken sind Frei [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/24/2002 at 22:22 (GMT -5) by Iridia] |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Hmmmm, first, let me preface this by saying that I do believe in God. Also, I believe that, on the whole, the bible carries the spirit, if not the exact word, of God's will. I also believe that Jesus was God incarnate, and I believe all the mythology about him in the bible (Virgin, Bethlehem, healings, raised the dead, was resurrected, etc.), but I realize that that belief is based solely in faith, with no hard evidence. I feel that one of the most dangerous statements made in this world is when a person looks at another's religion and says that that religion (or that that religion's holy book) is wrong -- particularly when the person does not have the strongest grasp of the religion they are critiquing. I say this knowing full well that I, myself, do not have the strongest grasp of Islam. Before critisizing a religion, I think one should truly learn about that religion -- not from reading cliffe notes off the web, and especially not with the mindset of trying to find something wrong with the religion; one should attempt to honestly understand that religion and try to see why it has been accepted by so many. . . . At least in my opinion. [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/25/2002 at 11:02 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: History of Islam starts with Ishmael. Islam is a very young religion. It most certainly did not start with Ishmael. The entire religion was started 600 years after Christ. Muhammad claimed to start receiving visions from God. His people were not followers of "The Book" (A muslim term referring to those who followed the teachings of God) Every tribe had their own gods and goddesses at the time. |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: Corruption of the word of God The Muslim belief is that the teachings of God were corrupted in all previous instances. By "Belief" I mean that it is taken on faith, the same way that you and I believe that Jesus is the Christ and that He was resurrected. BTW, They do have originals (remember, Islam is a young religion) The belief in the perfection of the Koran is so strong, that many Muslims think it is sacrilege to translate it (because the translator will be interpretting the words, and possibly doing so incorrectly) Personally, I think that all instances of the teachings of God have been corrupted; this includes that of Moses, Jesus and Muhammad. I believe that this is why the bible is so chauvinist. I think that the Bible was particularly susceptible to mankind's influence, since mankind not only was choosing what to write and how to phrase it (purely my belief) but, centuries later, mankind chose which of the writings to include in the Bible and which not to (fact, if you believe the history of the Catholic Church) There are dozens of scriptures that were not included in the Bible; the cynic in me claims this is because the editors didn't like what those scriptures said. Note: In spite of my critisism, I think that if you read the Bible with the viewpoint of "What feels right" rather than trying to find fault, you can find the true spirit/meaning of God's Word [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/25/2002 at 14:48 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: Prophesies. Again, let me say that I believe what the New Testament says about Christ's life, but that I acknowledge there is no proof of this. Now then, there is something called a circular argument. A person gives Hypothesis A, and supports it with Hypothesis B. When Hypothesis B is questioned, the person supports it with Hypothesis A. Thus, the argument is supported solely by itself. Take your example: The Bible is correct because its prophesies came true. We know they come true because the Bible records the actual events as having occurred centuries later. So, how do we know that these events actually happenned? . . . I assume because the Bible, which records these events, is correct. Do you see the circle? To take one example: many non-believers doubt whether Jesus was born in Bethlehem (let alone born of a virgin or resurrected) They truly believe that this was made up by his followers in order to make him coincide with prophesies. I, myself, think such people are incorrect. BTW, I always thought that the messenger prophesy referred to John the Baptist. Your only example that is somewhat supported by outside events is that the children of Israel will be gathered again in their country. I won't go on a tirade about the legitimacy of the Israeli state, and its crimes, nor will I ask about the other children of Israel (Judah was one of 12 tribes) but I will point out that the prophesy also says that they are supposed to have one King. One thing that the prophesy talks about, among many things, may have happened. I don't call that a fulfillment. [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/25/2002 at 11:45 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Profecies: Don't take this the wrong way Iridia, but IMHO your so called proof is completely useless. You are using the Bible as a source to validate itself. I mean think about it. The writers of the New testament knew of the profecies, and naturaly wrote the new testament in a way that made the life of Jesus fit nicely into them. There is no way we can validate any of the information, so all we have to go by is the word of some of Jesus'es followers (commited to paper several decades after the events took place). As for a homeland for Jews, how do you know that that refeer to the creation of Israel in 1948 and not the events described in the Old testament when the Jews left Egypt and came to and conquered the promised land? All in all all those profecies are no better or worse than any others I have seen, people interpret them in ways to support theyr own beliefs, but none of the "evidence" hold water if you look at them objectively. As Caladriel said, the Bible may well carry the "spirit" of God's intention, but it is written by humans who interpret and edit things to fit into theyr world view, and thus should not be taken at face value by a long shot. Most religions have a core of some moral and etical rueles that are defenently worth following, but everyting else is just muth, legend, fairy tale and historic events all mixed together to "flesh out" a belif system. A religion need a scertain "weight" before people will take it serously, I mean seriously, if you break down the Bible to the bare nesesities on how to live to reach Heaven it would take up like 4-5 pages at the most. The rest is just history lessons, useless profecies, familiy trees and the odd moral storry (to ilustrate the rules), most of wich are in triplicates... Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Jan: . . . Or so you believe. :-P~ ("just myth, legend, fairy tales" seems a bit strong. ;-) ) Out of curiosity, what do you see as the core moral and ethical rules that are found in the Bible? [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/25/2002 at 16:41 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Ok, guess I should have put in a "IMHO" in there a few places, I did say "... and historic events" too though. You made is sould like I dismissed the entire Bible as fiction, I know there are several historical proven facts in there too. What I consider to be the "core" of the Bible? Well basicaly that we schould not lie, steal, kill, be unfaithfull, jelous or disrepectfull, and that we should treat others as we would like to be treated outselves (this is not the same as the religious core naturaly). Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
I know I wasn't being fair. Hence the smilies. :-) |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
The "core" of the Bible, as relating to conduct, is "Love the Lord your God...and your neighbor", according to Jesus. As relating to religion, it's the redemption story of Jesus. About the Bible being chauvinist--I'm not sure I'd say it that strongly. The Bible's writers were all male, so it is written from a man's perspective. However, there are a lot of examples of Christian/Jewish women in the Bible who could easily have fit into the early days of the feminist movement: --Deborah, who acted as a judge (leader) and accompanied the Israelites into a battle, and Jael, who killed the general of the opposing army --Esther, who, as queen of Persia, foiled the plot of Haman, who tried to destroy the Persian Jews --Mary and Martha, two sisters who understood Jesus better than even His disciples did --Tabitha/Dorcas, who was the pastor of a church in Asia Sarah and Hagar, two of Abraham's wives, are presented as of the same intrinsic value as Abraham (e.g. "Sarah" not "Abraham's wife"); this occurs with all other wives of the "good guys" of the Bible. Though women in the Bible are underrepresented and often led by men, they are presented as individuals in their own right. In the New Testament, the Bible speaks of the relationship of a married couple (NOT the relationship of all men to all women), as with the man being the leader. The wife is told to respect, submit to, and love her husband. The husband is told to love his wife as much as Christ loved the church (e.g. enough to die for her) and (surprise!) to submit to her. Basically it's a team relationship with the man in the lead; because of course any team has to have a leader or chaos results (even today there will almost always be a dominant partner in a marriage). I wouldn't go so far as to call it chauvinist; but like I said, the Bible was written by men, so naturally it would be written from their viewpoints. Okay, some hard evidence, the "weight" that made Christianity spread, despite violent persecution against it-- From history, that written by the Roman Empire as well as that handed down by the Catholic church, we know that all the writers of the Bible, except for John, were eventually killed because they were Christians. The New Testament was finished only sixty years after Jesus's ministry, and all the men, except one, who wrote the New Testament had personal contact with Jesus. (The possible exception is Luke, a historian who spent much time with Peter and Paul.) Those writers had seen what they wrote about; they had witnessed firsthand the miracles, the crucifixion, the empty tomb, the risen Jesus; five hundred of them had seen him at the same time after he rose, and many were present when Jesus ascended into Heaven. Let's say they made it all up: They said Jesus was born in Bethlehem, they lied about all those little details that Jesus's death fulfilled during His crucifixion. Maybe they even hid the body and said He rose. Now those same people are standing in a courtroom, or in front of a mob; and they're asked: Do you still believe in Jesus Christ? Would someone who had fabricated a story die for it? Maybe one. Maybe two or three, if they were crazy enough-- but never all of them. Sooner or later, the story would have gotten out; sooner or later someone would have found the body and paraded it around the streets. But they didn't; and all of the New Testament writers, except John (who was tortured and exiled), died for their faith. I don't think they told lies--who would die for a lie? Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
And, oh yeah, you're right-- two days of studying Islam probably isn't enough to really make an educated judgment about it. :-) Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Good points Iridia. Surely if they simply made this stuff up they would not die for it. So they clearly believed in what they where doing. There is no questioning that. However just look at all the "suicide cults" that pop up from time to time, it's supricingly easy, even in todays day and age, to get people so chaught up in the teachings of a carismatic leader that they are willing to literaly die for it. Once someone reach that level of devotion "faking" a few miracles to make others see the "truth" more clearly is not a big leap... There are still people going around saying that that guy who burned himself and a few hundred of his followers alive after a shoot out with the FBI was the Mesiah for example. My point is, dedicated people do the darndest things... Of corse the whole thing can be turned upside down, seeng as there is no hard evidence that the events described in the New testament is false either. The whole thing pretty much boil down to wether you believe it is true or not... Frankly the part of the bible I have the most problem swallowing is the storry about Noah. Was the laws of physics realy different before the flood (raindrops would not split light and create a raindow)? How did Noah get hold of animals from all over the world, and how did he fit them all into the boat? How come a population of animals with less than 100 individuals is considered doomed today because of in-breeding problems, while one pair aparently was enough to re-populate the entire world. Not to mention what the predators lived off the first couple of years without wiping out a few dozen races in the process... I mean that storry is just one giant plot hole IMHO... Yeah I'm getting desperate to find something to poke holes in here, give me a break :) Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/25/2002 at 23:37 (GMT -5) by Jan Erik] |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Yes, I thought of the "suicide cults" thing. There are differences, though. The suicide cults usually chose a relatively painless death (or at least an inescapable one, like the guy you mentioned who burned his followers...who was that anyway?), while the early Christians were often tortured to get them to say they weren't Christians, or to get them to reveal the names of other Christians (Roman records prove this). It takes a pretty strong faith, probably one based on fact, to go through torture and not give up (Some did deny they were Christians, of course, but they weren't the people most likely to know about a hoax if there had been one.) Ohboy, the classic Noah's Flood argument. Yeah, a lot of people have trouble with that one. I'm into science, so I did, at first; but there are quite a lot of Christians in science fields who've come up with some sensible explanations for the whole deal. I don't think the laws of physics were different before the Flood; the reason there hadn't been any rainbows was that there hadn't been any rain. The Earth got its water from underground springs--"a mist came up from the ground and watered the earth" is how it's described. How did Noah fit the animals onto the Ark? Chances are you're thinking of a cute little toy Noah's Ark. It wasn't like that; the dimensions the Bible gives us for the Ark are basically the size of a huge cruise ship today. It would be easy to fit all the kinds of animals into it. (BTW we're not talking species here...kinds refer to broad categories, within which offspring is possible, like "dog" or "elephant".) Noah could have collected the animals himself (he had 500 years to do it in!) or God could have sent the animals to him. About the genetics thing--Let's say, that since God doesn't make mistakes when He makes something, that the original animals were perfect, including their DNA. A few thousand years down the road, they're still basically unchanged because the harmful radiation that mutates DNA is being blocked by the "waters above" mentioned earlier--which I think is probably some sort of water vapor layer which was located high in the Earth's atmosphere at that time. Their DNA being perfect, or nearly so (and Noah would not have selected sick-looking specimens), these animals would have no problem reproducing and producing viable offspring. Many predators can live from plant life for some time; those that couldn't probably became extinct or caused extinctions after the Flood (if they didn't live off fish, which is highly possible). There is evidence of a mass extinction in the fossil record, and the Flood was probably its cause. It's also worthwhile to mention that while Noah took two of many animals, he took seven of the "clean" animals, all of which are prey animals. Finally, there is nothing to prevent us from saying that some animals may have reproduced while still in the Ark, giving them (especially prey animals, which typically have large litters) a head start. Theory (but this is as unsupported by evidence as evolution's meteor-dinosaur-extinction theory) states that the waters of the flood came from the underground springs, which broke up and released water, and from the vapor caopy, which fell. Some scientists think a meteor impact would easily have been enough to touch off both reactions; it would have taken a while for the Earth to settle down and the waters to drain into the newly formed ocean basins. Hope you don't think I'm weird for thinking this stuff is more sensible than believing (and that's what it amounts to) that my great-grandparents were monkeys... Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Oh I don't think you are wierd at all, not unless you are one of those people who still insist that the Earth is flat and such. After all none of the things we have been discussing have been conclisively proven one way or the other. I didn't expect to talk you out of your beliefes without a single hard evidence, I just like a good discussion of such things from time to time. Hope you are not insulted by me trying to punch holes in your beliefs. Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Nope, not insulted; I'm used to it. :) I've yet to discover a "hole" though. Yup, I believe Elvis is alive on a UFO, we never visited the Moon, the Holocaust didn't happen, the Psychic Hotline actually works, and the Earth is flat. (Kidding. Totally kidding.) Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Tha Messiah Registered user Angel of Death Last page view: 7988 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes and 21 seconds ago. |
and that aliens still live in Roswell THE MESSIAH,I'm here now,Worship me. |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Yeah. Forgot that one. ;) Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Tha Messiah Registered user Angel of Death Last page view: 7988 days, 4 hours, 4 minutes and 21 seconds ago. |
I try my best not to post stuff with jayst one sentence.I'll make an exception this time :) THE MESSIAH,I'm here now,Worship me. |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Iridia: Re: Theme of the bible (or, at least, the core of Jesus' teaqchings) I agree with you 100%: First and foremost, love the Lord your god and have nothing else before It. Secondly, love your neighbor. |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: Biblical Chauvinism. I'm a male (My user name is an ADOM thing) and I don't think that that would be an acceptable excuse for currupting God's word. Things can be told from a male perspective which do not trivialize/put down women. Take one of your examples. I'm going from memory here -- Was Jael the one that spiked the enemy leader's head to the ground? As I recall, this was done as a snub/punishment to the Israeli leader. He did not trust the Lord and would not fight unless Deborah came with them, so the God arranged for him to not get the glory; instead, a mere woman would kill the enemy leader. The implication is that God was putting the Israeli chief in his place by taking somebody unimportant (a woman) and giving her all the glory. (See what happens when you read something with the mindset of finding something wrong?) I will concede that Deborah had an important role as prophetess. I sincerely doubt that you can convince (let alone prove to) me that Sarah and Hagar area shown to be as important as Abraham. Heck, I don't even think they are good role-models. Personally, my impression is that Sarah is protrayed as an overbearing and conniving wife , while Hagar is portrayed as a weak, submissive woman. This is actually my honest opinion. Please show me where husbands are told to submit to their wives. I am not being sarcastic when I say that I would veryu much appreciate this information (It will help me when I have to defend the Bible against charges that it is simply a tool used by rich, white, chauvinist pigs to keep womankind enslaved) |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: Evidence in support of Christianity The new testament was not written 60 years after Jesus' death. The Gospels and teachings of Paul were passed down and re-copied for decades before they were chosen (from among many other gospels and teachings) by the burgeoning church and collected into the New Testament. I think that the complete New Testament was compiled sometime in the 4th Century. The 4 Gospels were made official earlier -- in the 2nd century or so. How many outside influences can occur in a hundred or three hundred years? Your argument about surviving persecution, if accepted, lends credence to Islam even more so than Christianity. At least christians could hide among the populace. Muhammad and the early muslims were persecuted and driven out of Mecca. He resettled in . . . Medina, I believe . . . and soon had converted the entire town. He then successfully beat 10 to 1 odds, defeating a combined army of opposition tribes in the open plains. Also, I have heard that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. I do not know if this is true, but, in your view, if it is true, would that lend credence to Islam? As for dying for lies, I could say that the martyrs were dying for what they believed in -- what they had been told -- Just because they believed it does not mean it was true, not a lie. As it happens, I think that their beliefs were (and are) true, but I will readily admit that my thinking so is based on faith, and that my faith is based on my life's experience. Not on hard evidence. BTW, people die for lies all the time. Didn't Enron's high mucky-muck just kill himself because of Enron's lies? [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/28/2002 at 14:12 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Re: Noah Does the Bible actaully say that that rainbow was the first rainbow? I have always read it to be God saying the rainbow will represent Its covenant not to drown us all again. After all, people ate bread and wine before the Last Supper; Jesus simply chose it to represent something it hadn't represented before. As for the rest of Noah's story, Iridia is correct, the Ark was HUGE. I don't know about the animals having perfect DNA, but I would assume that if God is all-powerful, than It shouldn't have that much trouble preventing genetic abnormalities for a bunch of generations -- at least until a decent breeding population was achieved. Besides, maybe the story should not be taken literally. Or maybe God only flooded the Mid East. Personally, I think the entire Garden of Eden and 7 days bit is an analogy (Otherwise, whom did Cain and Seth marry) The flood bit (and the Babble bit) may not be exact either. |
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Caladriel Registered user ReGiStErEd UsEr Last page view: 4908 days, 23 minutes and 42 seconds ago. |
Iridia: Re: Monkeys as ancestors Actually, evolution claims that monkeys and us (and cats, for that matter, if you go even farther back) have the same genetic ancestors. Not that monkeys were our ancestors. Do you believe in creationism? ie. that God created the world as is some 7,000 years ago or so? (or was it 10,000 years?) and a literal interpretation of the first chapters of Genesis? [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/28/2002 at 14:39 (GMT -5) by Caladriel] |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
Biblical chauvinism: The women of the Bible were not portrayed as perfect, but neither were the men: They were all totally human. Abraham lied and David committed adultery and then killed the woman's husband. What made them good was that they owned up to it and asked forgiveness (unlike a certain president!:) The reason God was giving a woman, Jael, the glory of killing Sisera, was that back in those days women were not allowed to be in the army. Having an enemy captain killed by a woman with no military training WAS meant to humiliate Barak--God was saying, "Look, even a woman who hasn't held a sword in her life can fight for me. And you call yourself a general?!" God does that a lot in both the Old and New testaments--using those that society (not God) calls weak, and helping them to do great things. (Examples: Gideon, a coward; Moses, who was 80; David, who was a 17-year-old shepherd; Joseph, also still a teen; Mary and Joseph, who were very poor.) He uses that to prove that if you're on God's side you're in a majority even if the whole world is against you. What you said about Sarah and Hagar could well be true. They were completely human women, and as a woman myself, I can say we are given to conniving and trickery--in fact, we're quite good at it. Sarah wasn't portrayed in a totally bad light, though, because later on when the Bible mentions faith, it mentions the faith of both Sarah and Abraham. They aren't meant to be role models; they're simply a part of Biblical history. The verse about submitting to one another is the topic sentence of a paragraph about husband/wife relations--Ephesians 5:21 "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." The New Testament: It is true that the New Testament was not compiled until a few hundred years after it was written, but that does not mean the individual books did not retain their integrity during that time. We have yet to find any old manuscripts (say from before 200 A.D.) that deviate to any appreciable degree from the New Testament we have today. It is true that many things could have influenced these books during that time, but I doubt they did, since we have no physical evidence of older manuscripts which say anything other than what we have today. What happened to Muhammad was just about the same as what happened to the early Christians--less than ten years after Christ died, they were driven out of Jerusalem by Saul of Tarsus, who took great joy in putting them to death (and was later converted to become a missionary, and a martyr himself). James, one of the Apostles, was put to death in Jerusalem no later than about 35 A.D. Wherever the Christians were scattered out into the Roman Empire, they converted entire towns; Christianity was widespread in Rome by 50 A.D., quite an accomplishment for days with no mail service. Islam may be the fastest-growing religion in the world, but this does not mean that it is true--just popular. Popularity doesn't lend credence to anything. If it did, Noah should have ignored God when he was told to build a boat, since he was the only one who heard Him. These martyrs WERE dying for what they believed in, but have you forgotten that the earliest of them had actually seen what they believed in? James, the first of the apostles to be killed, was part of Jesus's inner circle (you could call it "best friends" today) and saw everything, including of course Jesus, alive again after He died. The very earliest of these people died for hard evidence as well as their beliefs; and those who came after them saw that faith and realized that Christianity must be true. Enron or not, Christianity has never espoused suicide. There are "hard cases", of course, but on the whole, killing yourself because you made a few (or a lot) of mistakes is considered a sin. Noah--You're right. The Bible doesn't say the rainbow after the flood was the first. It seems kind of odd not to take the story literally and think the flood was local. With 500 years to prepare, why didn't Noah take the animals into the mountains? And also, if you don't have the flood, then how do you explain a lot of the geological features we have today (fossil "graveyards", the Grand Canyon, etc.)? Saying that the Flood was local would also be denying the credibility of the Bible (which states implicitly that "all the mountains and high hills" were covered with several feet of water). Cain and Seth could easily have married their sisters. In Genesis it says that Adam and Eve "had other sons and daughters". God at that time had not given a law against incest because one wasn't necessary--as I said, the DNA errors that lead to inbred genetic diseases did not exist at that time. You're right about evolution claiming that monkeys and human had the same ancestor. I wasn't really trying to be scientific, just a bit facetious. Yes, I'm a creationist, for two reasons: that the Bible, which has always proven reliable in the past, says that's what happened; and that evolution has yet to produce any hard evidence of transtitional forms. If God used evolution (as a lot of my Christian friends believe), He would have had to use a messy process full of death and catastrophe (note that I said He is completely good), then destroy all evidence that He did. It takes a lot of faith to believe something which requires hard evidence, but of which we have no evidence that it ever happened. It's easier to believe something which we have no hard evidence for, but which does not predeict the existence of such hard evidence. Circumstantial evidence, BTW, backs up creation. Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
So if the world, acording to the bible, is just 10.000 years old, when where did all the hundreds of million years old dinosaur fosiles come from? Carbon dating might not be eable to tell how old something is with pin-point accuracy, but I asume there is a lot more to it than wild guesses. Also you seem to discount evolution because God would not use a method that caused death and disaster. Well then how come he had no quams about causing a lot of death and disaster in Egypt (killing a LOT of innosent people just because the Faraoh was been difficult), when the Jews reached the promised land he empowered them to defeat the people who ocupied it in a series of wars, and on at least one ocation told the king to kill everyone (men, women and children) belonging to a scertain people/tribe. Not to mention drowning every man, woman and child (save Noah's imedeate family) on earh during the great flood (yeah ok so EVERYONE was evil, but what about the animals). I mean God have clearly not been a stranger to cause death and destruction in the past avodring to the Bible... Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
The point is not that God could cause death and destruction, but that He would have had to cause it before the first sin (which was committed by a human). If sin caused death, then having death before sin, not the other way around, would mess up the cause and effect that leads to the need for human salvation, not to mention blaming God for evil in the world, which messes up a bunch of other cause-and-effect chains... you get the point, I hope. The theory is that, like just before the Flood, Egypt was also a wicked nation. The death caused by the Plagues was judgment on Egypt, not just Pharaoh; the same thing with the people in Caanan. (They were quite evil--I mean, can you get more wicked than burning infants to death in sacrifice to some pagan god?) Still, God looks at individuals, and if there were individual people in Caanan or Egypt that were good, he would have let them live, or at least let them into Heaven. (Rahab, of Jericho, recognized the power of the Israelite God. She and her family escaped Jericho's destruction; the Gibeonites tricked Joshua into a peace treaty, and they remained alive as well.) Carbon-dating is by far one of the least accurate dating methods we have. I was told that a fresh clam shell was dated as thousands of years old and the bones of a seal, sixty years old, were dated at several million. The only reason that carbon-dating is still used is that it gives satisfyingly old ages for evolutionists. Carbon-14 dating depends, basically, on the amount of radioactive carbon in a sample of organic material (not petrified bone--which is composed of rock, by the way). Carbon-14, introduced into any given sample by the respiration of a living creature, decays into carbon-12 in a fixed amount of time, and by measuring how much of each there is in a sample, it is theoretically possible to find out how long it has been since that sample was alive. The problem with that is that you are making quite a lot of assumptions, such as-- -The sample has not been contaminated by C-14 from outside air or water. (How do you make a fossil? That's right--replacing once-living tissues, esp. bones, with mineral compounds leached in from outside air and water!) -The amount of C-14 in the atmosphere has remained constant. (About as viable in saying the amount of ozone in the air, or salt in seawater, has remained constant.) -C-14 has a half-life of about 6,000 years, which means half of any given sample will be gone after 6,000 years. After about 100,000 years, the number of C-14 atoms in the sample will be so low (since C-14 decay is basically random) that it is impossible, with the instruments we have, to date the sample accurately. So, before 100,000 years, and with a sample we can conclude hasn't been contaminated, C-14 dating works on Egyptian mummies and so forth. But dinosaur bones? Nope. Even if you could date back millions of years with C-14, the amounts would be undetectable, any organic material long-gone, and contamination almost impossible to avoid. So how do they date those fossils? They tell you by the rocks they find them in, and the "index fossils" in the rock, which are of creatures thought to have been extinct after a certain age (never mind that some of them are still alive, though rare, today!). But how did they know how old the rocks were, to find the age of the index fossils? Ask a geologist, and he might just say, "we determine the age of a rock by looking at the fossils in the rocks." Circular reasoning if you ask me. Die Gedanken sind Frei [Edited 1 time, last edit on 1/28/2002 at 20:29 (GMT -5) by Iridia] |
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Gyr Returned Unregistered user |
Some problems here: Any idea -what- exactly causes Carbon-14 to form, rather than Carbon-12? Carbon-14 levels are NOWHERE near as easy to change as ozone levels or ocean solute concentrations. That's exactly why it's used for dating. It's also not the only isotope used for such purposes. How do you get a fossil? For mineral compounds leached in by -nearby- sediments. Contamination? Hmm, the idea is that the amount of C-14 in the sample grows smaller over time. What happens if it gets mixed with the outside? The sample is calculated to be -younger-. That would make the readings, if anything, a -late- estimate. Instruments inaccurate? In every appropriate scientific finding you will see the normal variance in readings. It's called standard deviation. They're not too inaccurate. |
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Jan Erik Administrator Last page view: 9 days, 4 hours, 17 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
I have some problems with the "original sin" storry too: First of all, why did God let that happen in the first place (stupid question I suppose, "God moves in mysterious ways" as they say...). God is supposedly all seeng, all knowing and all powerfull, yet one of his own angels where "allowed" go behind his back and trick mankind into "corrupting" itself. And once mankind had been corrupted, he didn't undo the dammage, but rather threw them out like some experiment gone bad... Also the long wait between the original sin, and salvation with the comming of Crist seems a bit strange to me. I mean why allow thousands of generations of humans go to waste before releasing a "patch" that allow them to reach Heaven? Because if people could get to Heaven before Christ, when wasn't the whole crusifiction and resurection thing pretty much a waste? While if it was nessesary then doesn't that mean that everyone from Adam and Eve and onwards where "lost"... Personaly I have some difficulties making all this fit together logicaly... P.S. Astronomy have at least proven that the UNIVERSE is a lot older than 10.000 years, because otherwise we would not be eable to see things that are further away than 10.000 light years. Yeah that doesn't mean the Earth have to be older than 10.000 years, but the Genesis does seem to indicate that NOTHING existed before God created the world... Jan Erik Mydland HoF admin |
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Iridia Moderator on this forum YASD Last page view: 3966 days, 14 hours, 46 minutes and 12 seconds ago. |
There's quite a lot of evidence for an old universe. It's when that evidence clashes with the evidence for a young earth that I don't really know what to believe. There is a Creationist scientist (and I don't yet understand his math, because I've only had calculus I) who says that God created the universe by "stretching out the Heavens" (that's a phrase found in one of the Psalms); kind of a Big Bang, but not quite the same, because it's got some sort of weird 4-D geometry which allows for a center and edges. For a point near the center, time passes much more slowly than for a point at the outside, especially if space itself is being stretched. So, from the Earth's perspective, Creation took six days; from the perspective of an observer at the edge of the universe, it took several billion years. (Read a book on black holes if you don't believe that's real science; it is.) That theory fits the facts, but it's a bit doubtful since there's no shattering evidence for it that doesn't back up the plain-vanilla Big Bang too. After all, no one can go "up" in 4-D to find out what shape our universe has, or whether it has a center. About original sin: Do you value freedom? If you're normal, you do--and so does God. He did not create angels and humans to be automatons who could only do what He wanted them to do. He gave angels a free choice, and a third of them chose to do evil. He gave Adam and Eve a free choice, and they chose to sin. The possibility had to be there for Adam and Eve and the angels, or they would have been just so many computers following God's programs. God could have created someone who would always have chosen to obey Him, but that would only have created the illusion of free will. God's not into illusions; so when He created Adam and Eve, he probably knew they would sin, but he probably also knew that creating them with a free will was the only way they would have freedom to choose Him, or not. Ever heard that verse that says something like, "to God, a second is like a thousand years" or something like that? Forget where it is, but that's the principle you have to remember when you think about God "waitin so long" to send Jesus. God doesn't view the boundaries of time like we do--after all, he created time. Jesus's sacrifice doesn't work within the bounds of time, either--those who believed that God would send a savior were just as much saved as those who saw Jesus, and those who today believe in Him. Even those who've never heard about Jesus can be saved by believing what they know about God, from His creation. If God had waited several thousand years to create a fix for sin, and condemned everyone who lived before that time, He would not be good. Die Gedanken sind Frei |
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