Nation of Israel and God

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He still slings unwarranted comments at us that know the Lord as well.

You think you know the Lord. All you know are stories about the Lord you have heard and read. The Lord has not seen fit to show himself to humans for over 2000 years, assuming He ever did show himself at all.

I know the difference between experience first hand and in the face and hearsay and wishful thinking.

I never met God personally. Ever. Neither have you.

ruveyn

Do you know the difference between just so stories and attested to and verifiable fact? I do.

Here is the first problem: If you take the Big Book of Fables literally (you really shouldn't) you must conclude that the entire universe is less than 6000 years old. That is a non-starter to begin with.

ruveyn

And you are rude.

I am sorry I said you are rude.

Here's a puppy ruveyn.

Does this make you feel better?

It's interesting you bring that up because witnesses actually agree with what scientific evidence states about the age of earth and the universe. The evidence says that through carbon dating the earth is millions of years old. By that extension the universe would be billions of years old. Both the biblical and scientific accounts gel with each other. How? Well on page 9 of the November 2011 Awake under the question, "How Long is a Day?" it states:

Last edited by kxmode on 12 Nov 2011, 5:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am blunt. Diplomacy is not on my resume.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 12 Nov 2011, 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

It reads like cheap fiction? Really? I wish I could count the number -- even of non-believing scholars -- who profoundly disagree with you on that point. A book that deprecates the very people who wrote it in deeply-cutting, all-to-honest ways, leaving no stone unturned as to the evil inherent in man's heart and its description of him, yet also shows how God loves us enough to save us from our natural and deserved fate -- a book that contains literally thousands of the most visceral descriptions of real human life, and also the most unasailable wisdom -- this is not a book about "just so stories"; it is the total opposite.

Evolution still has the best and most high-profile just-so stories I've ever heard.
Try this on for size: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeNUgY9mSyI[/youtube]
Time index 0:55-1:17



The Theory of Evolution has just-so stories to answer all of the biggest physical questions of the origins of man. (Well, sometimes just-so stories; other times "Well, we don't know, but it happened, okay?! !" Usually, by the time they're shouting, the questioner has asked them about some super-important physical process that they had glossed over with nary a word, hoping you wouldn't ask.) They're generally excellent on the scientific minutia (faked artifacts and data notwithstanding), but offer nothing but arrogantly-delivered guesses as to most important questions (meaning everything else). Evolution has become a narrative, not true science, with it-is-true-because-it-must-be as its circular directive.



The evidence for the Bible claiming 6,000 years of normal (or abnormal) time as the age of the Earth, and the evidence for the actual age of the Earth from man's perspective, are both up for debate if we're to be honest.

Firstly, the geneology in Luke from Adam to Jesus does not denote an exact number of years. "Generations" (in Matthew) as concerning time periods means different amounts in various parts of the Bible, i.e. 25 years in some places, 40 in others. Also, traditionally, someone who was called the "son of" someone else can be his grandson or great-grandson, as shown in Matthew.

Secondly, who's to say God didn't play with time "in the beginning"? I mean, he invented time from nothing, so, why not mess with it? Physicist Gerald Schroeder has an interesting theory on time dilation, and human versus divine perspectives on time.

Wisdom?

You are right that most scholars wouldn't call it just a work of fiction. But rather a compilation of basic tropes in poor attempts to explain how the world works.

On explaining why the world is so f****d up. We get a story about a paradise and a snake. Believe it or not, it is not so uncommon to have stories about men getting banished from their true utopia.

On explaining natural disasters, we get all the stories about god unleashing his wrath on towns that sinned. Again, not exactly a very uncommon story.

It goes on. Of course, at the end of your life/the world. The deities will demand that you demonstrate you followed them and then reward you with better reincarnation life / eternal life / your family will get more money.

Do you really think the book criticizes its authors? In those stories the author is most likely a self-righteous prophet wanting to criticize everyone and proof that he is so much better than the rest. Do you really think the essays of fiction that follow that theme are rare? Plato did exactly the same in his story about Atlantis.

It is not a work of fiction, it is a work of poor fiction, full of cliches and with a dubious ambiguous aesop.

This has become a common speech among IDiots. However, it does not hold water.

No, it doesn't. The theory of evolution proposes a natural law that explains the complexity and differentiation among specials.

It is not as interested at the origin of man as people wanting to bash it think. It is interested in the origin of species as a whole. It might explain men, or monkeys, or birds. Darwin basically provided a lot of evidence for it based on birds.

This is an absurd misrepresentation of facts that makes me unsure about you being intentionally dishonest or not.

It does not help that it is awfully vague.

That it may be explained by some as a narrative does not mean the theory is discredited at all. By any way , the evidence for it has gotten stronger with time rather than the opposite and it is now scientific fact.

The claim that it is not true science is absolute BS. It is a scientific theory, it is also falsifiable, it proposes predictions that can be verified and many of them already have. It has also already had applications and it is by far the best explanation for the differentiation of species and natural complexity we have.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA210.html

Fiction yes. I never used the word -cheap-, ever. Scripture represents a pre-scientific way of comprehending the world. At the time (the bronze age) that was all people had. Visions of gods and other worldly powers. To take scripture literally these days is foolish and contrary to established fact.

Humans have always tried to comprehend the world in the large which was then and still is beyond our powers to comprehend thoroughly. And making the attempt is always praiseworthy. But in the 3000 years between Then and New we have learned some useful tricks. Science is one of them. Scripture is interesting and important -literature- but it is not a compendium of facts and certainly far from the -truth-

ruveyn

What about Roman steel, and as I mentioned in a thread killing post before, what about the writing of the both the Jewish scribes and the Roman scribes in the time of Jesus? They wrote down what they saw him do, the Romans under penalty of death for misrepresentation, what about that?

And here is the oldest known bible in existence, now online:

http://codexsinaiticus.org/en/

So at this point most of you are past the subject of this topic and moving into the realm of "the Bible is a fairy tale". How can common ground be found for a focus of discussion when the foundation itself is made out of gum drops and licorice from the 14th dimension? Which, by the way, is exactly WHERE gum drops come from...

there are plenty of ways to discuss divinity without invoking any texts at all,

they woul siply show how abstract those concepts actually are and how easily they can be turned into a million other similar things.

Then by all means continue. I'm going to bow out of the discussion.

Last edited by kxmode on 12 Nov 2011, 11:00 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Evolution based on falsified artifacts and data? Please, explain this one.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer