[Guest]

It seems there is a lot of controversy over this topic on Brainden.... Understandable... Well I just mean spiritual as in God but also as in ghosts and things. What is your opinion?

[Izzy]

Sounds good and all except for the bit about god. Could have gone w/ out that. But its your opinion, so you go ahead and live by that, I won't meddle in your beliefs even I think its just a fantasy.

I actually looked at that as God either really just being a 'God of the gaps' or his way of saying God doesn't exist, because space is pretty much nothing. I guess it was cleverly disguised in poem-ish form?

[Guest]

Meh, whatever. Nice post before that btw.

[Guest]

Go to a search engine of your choice. Find me a compelling argument. Post it here.

I dissagree.... Noahs Ark and the world wide flood was proven wrong.

first of all while science has proven water covered the earth once it was never covered twice.

the first time was durring the creation of the earth. the second would have occured long after man had ground to walk on. and since there is no evidence, well, then Noahs flood was not world wide was it?

Secondly the dead sea scrolls now able to be read with new technology say that Noah was a merchant and his Ark was no more than a few rafts tied together and his cargo would have been livestock and ale(beer). Animals not by the pair but what was sellable at different ports. He was caught in a flood but just a realy bad one for the reagon which was use to flooding on a regular basis. this particular flood caught everyone off guard and Noah was on route when the flood pushed him ofcourse. when he landed he was in a forien land and had debts in his own land so instead of going home he stayed and sold his wares and kept all the profits. when word of this got back to his debtors the sent for him to answer for his crimes.

This is just one of many fairy tales told to keep the people in awe of God and the lesson of getting caught in a typical morral bad choice went untold. Instead we learn "obey God or else" only problem is why dont we all here his voice and why should we trust you when you say you herd him speek?

how can i know you dont have an allterior motive for saying "God said dont do that... do this"

I do believe Jesus had it right! Love is the most important thing to share with others and indeed to have given to yourself as most of us know already.

this was his main point in all his messages, love one another.

im just not sure all the reports are accurate with so many errors found in the bible how can i know.

for instance the stories of Wise King Solomon... he did exist but he was a great alchemist. And most of the known true stories of his life were left out of the bible... replaced with nonscence of cutting a baby in half to figure out who the mom was.... silly thats all.

Look this up bible thumpers: why did jesus refer to himself as greater than Solomon????

thats enough to think about for now..... bye

[Guest]

Heh, nice everyone, I thought this thread was dead!

[Guest]

Okay, looking at the website and skipping over the anti-proofs Octopuppy has already done, here we go.

"Of the events that were to have taken place by now, every one happened just the way they predicted it would" sums it up nicely. Because the article also states that many of the prophecies can be supported through archaeology, I wonder why theists only use this resource when it's helpful for them. During the time the bible was written, it was claimed the Earth was only about 6000 years old. Science was essentially non-existent back in the early CE days, but current archeological research has discovered that the Earth is actually about 4.5 - 4.6 billion years old, and was said to be created 6 (5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 7?) days after the creation of the universe, which we've found to be between 15 and 20 billion years old. If the bible were really written by an omniscient being, surely these errors wouldn't have been included. From this, we can conclude that the bible was actually written by some racist and sexist man, ignorant about science and the world in general.

Here you can find other parts of the bible that just don't hold up. Unfortunately, I don't know anything near enough about the bible and history in general regarding bible prophecies and their reality. I think it's safe to say that since we already know the bible was flawed, and all prophecies that did come true were coincidence (thought I suspect not many actually did), while the rest were never accounted for or verified.

To be honest, I think the rest of the 'arguments' fall apart with what I've included in the spoiler. It's essentially just all 'the bible is true' stuff, and we can clearly see it's not. It's not even consistent with all the books.

what do you mean by with all the books? because the bible isn't in chronological order. And how can you be sure the bible is flawed?

Edited March 20, 2009 by No1slight

[Izzy]

what do you mean by with all the books? because the bible isn't in chronological order.

Umm... Like Genesis and Matthew and er... yeah, those books. Just look at the site I linked to. It should clear things up.

[Guest]

Not all the "books" are even included in the bible. I am Catholic. I know. Anyway, some of the bible is ledgend and should not be taken literally, but rather symbolically. That is wat causes most of the confusions among athiests and theists.

[Guest]

Umm... Like Genesis and Matthew and er... yeah, those books. Just look at the site I linked to. It should clear things up.

*also please note that the bible was written by many different people.

ok...

well first with the genesis proof about Adam not dieing. he did die, but not right away. not everything happens right away. Adam and Eve were originally eternal beings that were sinless. by eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they disobeyed God (which is basically every kind of sin if one thinks about it) and with the penalty of sin being death, Adam and Eve introduced death to the world, thus they were now able to die.

Genesis 2:19

"By the sweat of your brow

you will eat your food

until you return to the ground,

since from it you were taken;

for dust you are

and to dust you will return."

for the second one, there are many different defenitions to fugitive and vagabond.Fugitive: 1)a person who is fleeing, from prosecution, intolerable circumstances, etc. a run away 2) having taken flight, or run away 3)fleeting; transitory; elusive 4) changing color as a result of exposure to light and chemical substances present in the atmosphere, in other pigments, or in the medium(for art) 5)dealing with subjects of passing interest, as writings; ephemeral (just proving a point here) 6)wandering, roving, or vagabond. and Vagabond: 1)wandering from place to place without any settled home; nomadic 2)leading an unsettled or carefree life. 3)disreputable; worthless; shiftless 4)of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a vagabond 5)having an uncertain or irregular course or direction 6)a person, usually without a permanent home, who wanders from place to place; nomad 7)an idle wanderer without a permanent home or visible means of support; tramp; vagrant 8)a carefree, worthless, or irresponsible person; rogue

with all these different definitions for these 2 words, that can mean the same thing at times, it's possible that there could be an error in understanding the content. after all we're all human. just look at these verses.

Genesis 4:10-15

"10 The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. 11 Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."

13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden."

God never senteced Cain to be a "fugitive" or a "vagabond", Cain did that himself.

but that's all i'm going to post for now considering the time here

i'll post more later

edit: grammer and punctuation

Edited March 20, 2009 by No1slight

[Izzy]

In response to No1slight's counterargument:

1. The point is, it's said that when Adam eats from the tree, he will die that day.

3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

[...]

3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

So um, I don't actually know how old Adam was at that point, but I skimmed chapters one and two (have to admit, this is slightly interesting), and apparently he was created right after God finished making the Earth. So, I'm going to guess not a lot of time has passed, certainly not 900+ years before they eat from the tree. However...

5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

2. Actually, I'm not liking the second argument on that site. Mind, I didn't write them, and didn't bother to check through all of them. This one was pretty much two verses taken completely out of context. I apologize for it's crappy-ness. However, I have noticed God asking a lot of questions. Particularly this: 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. . I suppose you could say this is some sort of "confession" thing, but Cain pretty clearly lied to God (4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? ), so I expected something a bit more God-of-the-old-testament-y, ie, vicious, cruel, and foul.

Any response to the Young Earth creationism thing?

[Guest]

In response to No1slight's counterargument:

1. The point is, it's said that when Adam eats from the tree, he will die that day.

3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

[...]

3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

So um, I don't actually know how old Adam was at that point, but I skimmed chapters one and two (have to admit, this is slightly interesting), and apparently he was created right after God finished making the Earth. So, I'm going to guess not a lot of time has passed, certainly not 900+ years before they eat from the tree. However...

5:5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

2. Actually, I'm not liking the second argument on that site. Mind, I didn't write them, and didn't bother to check through all of them. This one was pretty much two verses taken completely out of context. I apologize for it's crappy-ness. However, I have noticed God asking a lot of questions. Particularly this: 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. . I suppose you could say this is some sort of "confession" thing, but Cain pretty clearly lied to God (4:8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? ), so I expected something a bit more God-of-the-old-testament-y, ie, vicious, cruel, and foul.

Any response to the Young Earth creationism thing?

I think there was a concept that said "1000 years is a day to God."

[Izzy]

I think there was a concept that said "1000 years is a day to God."

Reference please?

*edit* Actually, you know what? If God is claimed to exist outside of time and space, and he's omni-everything and hence past, present, and future, there should be no such thing as a 'day' to God. He could calculate days the same way we do, for simplicity reasons, but if we weren't here, there would be no need for a calender-system for God. The '1000 years is a day to God' was probably made exactly for this purpose and ones like it. Either way, reference would be nice.

Edited March 20, 2009 by Izzy

[Guest]

Reference please?

*edit* Actually, you know what? If God is claimed to exist outside of time and space, and he's omni-everything and hence past, present, and future, there should be no such thing as a 'day' to God. He could calculate days the same way we do, for simplicity reasons, but if we weren't here, there would be no need for a calender-system for God. The '1000 years is a day to God' was probably made exactly for this purpose and ones like it. Either way, reference would be nice.

2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day

[Guest]

Reference please?

*edit* Actually, you know what? If God is claimed to exist outside of time and space, and he's omni-everything and hence past, present, and future, there should be no such thing as a 'day' to God. He could calculate days the same way we do, for simplicity reasons, but if we weren't here, there would be no need for a calender-system for God. The '1000 years is a day to God' was probably made exactly for this purpose and ones like it. Either way, reference would be nice.

There is no reference to exactly when Adam would die if he ate of the tree of k G and E. God just says that he will surely die.

[Izzy]

2 Peter 3:8

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day

[My emphasis..]

Similes, what fun. My interpretation: 1000 years feels like a day to God, because as I said, he's outside space and time. However, omniscient-god should be aware of time on human-land, and kill people as he said he would. Apparently he's either forgetful, lazy, or doesn't know everything. He should also have known, when the bible was being written, that I would one day raise this point, and have adjusted it to be literal and not a figure of speech. You could say this is a test of my faith. I'll say this is why I have no faith. He doesn't give us much choice, really, if he's constantly contradicting himself and taking away from his 'perfection'.

1. Perfect beings do not make mistakes.

2. God has apparently made mistakes.

3. Therefore God isn't perfect.

4. To exist, God has to be perfect.

5. God isn't perfect, and therefore doesn't exist.

[Izzy]

There is no reference to exactly when Adam would die if he ate of the tree of k G and E. God just says that he will surely die.

It says Adam ate the apple, and God said he would die. A few verses later, it said God sent him to the ground, where he was taken. 'Taken' sounds like 'taken away/killed' to me.

[Guest]

Hi No1slight, thanks for that link. Unfortunately I can't seem to find anything that constitutes compelling argument though I must admit I haven't trawled the whole site for it. I've read a couple of bits that looked interesting but found them to be full of holes. The site initially starts from a position of "this is what we believe, now let's try and find evidence to support it" which is always a bad sign, but let's see if any evidence was found.

[spoiler=Proof of Science']This had to be worth a look!

We start with "Statements Consistent with Paleontology" in which the book of Job mentions two dinosaurs, or is it just a hippo and a crocodile? You'd think that if dinosaurs coexisted with humans at that time, it would be a big enough deal that it would warrant a bit more of a mention, and perhaps a little less ambiguity. Are we to throw away all fossil evidence simply because nobody is quite sure which two big animals are being referred to here?

"Statements Consistent with Astronomy": The Bible says there are a lot of stars. Science says there are a lot of stars too. Wow!

The Bible says one star is different from another "in glory" (which presumably means that some are brighter than others, a fact which is clearly discernable with the naked eye, though apparently people in the first century AD would not know this )

.. and so on. Mainly what it boils down to is that the Bible has succeeded, on several occasions, in stating the bleedin' obvious.

[spoiler=Messianic Prophecies']Ah yes, here's an interesting one! The gospels do indeed give an account of how Jesus fulfilled many messianic prophecies. And these are independent, reliable, first-hand accounts, right?

Consider this:

At that time there was a political need for a messiah, and a great incentive to cast Jesus as the messiah and show that Jesus fulfilled these prophecies. Take the prophecies concerning Jesus' lineage, for example. Matthew and Luke are both kind enough to list Jesus' lineage so that we may see his descent from David (and hence Eve, Abraham and Judah, also prophesied). Only trouble is, the names in the lineage don't match. Oh yes, and by my count, there are 27 generations from David to Jesus in Matthew, and 42 in Luke! They can't possibly both be true, though if Jesus' lineage was known you would expect to see it listed correctly, probably in all the gospels. The only plausible explanation is that Jesus' lineage was not known, and hence they are both made up. Why would they do such a thing? To demonstrate the fulfillment of a prophesy, of course! They even go as far as fulfilling the virgin birth prophecy, even though this contradicts the aforementioned prophecies since Jesus would have no male lineage. Whoops! When you think about it, there is no way that the accounts of Jesus' birth could be in any way accurate. Which independent eyewitnesses provided these accounts? Luke's description of events is in direct contradiction to known history:

"¹In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. ²(This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) ³And everyone went to his own town to register.

⁴So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David."

Too much detail, Luke! The only census that took place while Quirinius was governor was a local one, which occurred after the death of Herod. The idea that for a census, someone should have to return to the home town of an ancestor who lived about a thousand years earlier, is utterly absurd anyway (on the other hand, being born in Bethlehem was another prophesy, so the story needed a reason to put him there, however implausible )

The originators of these gospels were clearly not at all averse to using unverified (and as it turns out, untrue) stories in order to make it seem that messianic prophesies had been fulfilled.

The later stories of Jesus are probably based on real events, but there is no reason to believe that they are not similarly embellished. As the website states, "The earliest New Testament manuscripts date from the second century (100-199) AD". These are not first-hand accounts, they are legends written by people whose parents were probably not even alive at the same time as Jesus. Given the political need for a messiah, there is no reason to consider them any more historically accurate than the stories we have about Robin Hood, for example. I'm sure such a man existed, but what we truly know, outside of popular myth, is very little.

At this point I've stopped reading through that website since I couldn't really devote the time to refute absolutely everything on it. But honestly, all you have to do is take a critical look at this sort of thing in order to reveal it as complete hogwash. It seems too many christians are all too happy to look and say "OK, there's a lot of stuff written here that claims to be evidence, I'll just accept it as such". Is there something genuinely compelling there or elsewhere that I have missed? Please point me to it if there is.

I looked at a couple of the pages on the site as well and I have a comment to add to Octopuppy's analysis of the Messianic Prophecies.

They offer a few token "What if" scenarios at the end to allay readers' fears about the validity of their arguments, but they neglect one of the most important points that unravels the entire argument. They cover this, "Couldn’t Someone Just Write These Down and Pretend They Were Written Earlier?" which is somewhat silly to ask as its clear that they were written down long before the actions are purported to take place, but they ignore the other side of the question: "Couldn't the writers of the New Testament just have created the events to fit with the Prophecies?" This is a much more important question because it's harder to verify and they skip it because they have the underlying assumption that what's written in Bible is the truth and they also don't have an answer to that question. That's where my argument fits in with what Octopuppy wrote, but I thought it was important to point out the question that they weren't asking.

Also, I've read the book they recommended on the site by Paul Little. It's a fine book for apologetics so long as you are just trying to reinforce what you already believe, but it won't (or shouldn't ) create any converts because his argument is based on a circular fallacy. His book tries to present a logical, scientific rationalization for believing the Bible and it's fairly well constructed, but it depends on accepting that God exists and that he is the Christian God and that he inspired the events depicted by the Bible. If you accept this initial premise, then the rest of the book makes some degree of sense, but to do this, his first chapter is devoted to proving God's existence. Then he uses his proof to justify the veracity of the Bible and extrapolates from there. The only problem? He uses the Bible to justify God's existence! So first he proves God exists using the Bible, and then having proved God exists, he uses that "proof" to prove the Bible is a reliable source. Something sounds a little off about that argument to me... Otherwise, the structure of the book is pretty sound, even if I disagree with most of his conclusions. But considering that his primary argument (upon which everything else depends) is made on an invalid argument, I felt it sort of undermined his entire book.

I glanced at the site Izzy pointed to and it quibbles over semantics of the language...considering that the texts have been translated many times (some times adding inaccuracies or ambiguities) it's hardly going to be a convincing argument, since it's hard to know what exactly the original test actually said. If someone intends to refute the Bible, I wouldn't try sentence by sentence; there isn't much insight you can draw from a single sentence, you need to look at the flaws on the whole if you really want to find evidence for or against something.

[Guest]

...has any 1 ever read the bible cover 2 cover?...my husband's cousin pat has, and he even says there R some flaws wid it...

[Izzy]

...has any 1 ever read the bible cover 2 cover?...my husband's cousin pat has, and he even says there R some flaws wid it...

No, but I plan to. If it's not expensive, I'll buy it at Barnes and Nobles today. While wearing my God Delusion shirt, so no one gets the wrong impression.

[andromeda]

No, but I plan to. If it's not expensive, I'll buy it at Barnes and Nobles today. While wearing my God Delusion shirt, so no one gets the wrong impression.

:lol: Now we wouldn't want that to happen would we?!

I was thinking of buying the Bible. There's one guy on the flea market near where I live that sells old books and he had this huge copy of the Bible. But it was a special one cause it had wide margins on the side for writing notes as you read it. Nothing was written in it yet and it was an old book in perfect condition, but alas, I had no money

I would really like to have and read the Bible, Kuran and Torah... well I doubt that I would read them from cover to cover, but I would like to have them, even though I'm an agnostic.

The funny thing is that one of my close friends is a believer and the other one is a sworn atheist.

And I'm only discussing religion with my atheist friend, to discuss it with my believer friend would be completely pointless.

Edited March 21, 2009 by andromeda

[Guest]

...I have this discussion with all my friends...the pegan, the jew, the muslim, the christian...they all have their own opinion and understand I have mine...that way there is no yelling and such...and any1 is able 2 say 'end discussion...U have 2 have that understanding ahead of time...

[edit]

...plus I've heard U can buy all those books on tape...might B faster...

Edited March 21, 2009 by Atlantis

[Izzy]

Andromeda, yeah, I'm gonna read all of them eventually. I'm thinking of picking up a copy of the Old Testament (English), and the New Testament (English, and if possible, Latin). ...Though I totally just went to Amazon to look up prices. *groans*

Atlantis, if I get it on tape, I won't be able to highlight the inconsistencies.

I was at one point planning to write a book (might do for NaNoWriMo this year) completely debunking the bible. It's probably already been done, but not by me, so yeah.

[Guest]

Andromeda, yeah, I'm gonna read all of them eventually. I'm thinking of picking up a copy of the Old Testament (English), and the New Testament (English, and if possible, Latin). ...Though I totally just went to Amazon to look up prices. *groans*

Atlantis, if I get it on tape, I won't be able to highlight the inconsistencies.

I was at one point planning to write a book (might do for NaNoWriMo this year) completely debunking the bible. It's probably already been done, but not by me, so yeah.

...well there's 'the davinci code' [own it] and 'angels and deamons' [havn't gotten round 2 this 1 yet]...

[Izzy]

...well there's 'the davinci code' [own it] and 'angels and deamons' [havn't gotten round 2 this 1 yet]...

...Both of which are written as fiction, as everyone tried so diligently to point out to bashers a few years ago...

It took me aaages to find it, but check [urlhttp://www.matazone.co.uk/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=14158&view=findpost&p=337292]this out.

[Guest]

...Both of which are written as fiction, as everyone tried so diligently to point out to bashers a few years ago...

It took me aaages to find it, but check [urlhttp://www.matazone.co.uk/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=14158&view=findpost&p=337292]this out.

...I took davinci as fact...

[Izzy]

...I took davinci as fact...

...

Like, all of it?

*edit* Oh, I bought meh bible today. Christians, be afraid.

*edit again* Aww, I totally just read that thread I linked to. I was all atheist when I was 11. I totally don't remember that.

Edited March 21, 2009 by Izzy