Thread: God

>So Cylde your going to nit pick at the fly well a camel runs over you.

wow Sentaku, your ability to dodge questions would put the most seasoned politician to shame!

>Please cite where you came up with that.
My teacher in middle school told us that, and Ive heard a few things aluding to that not too long ago. When I have time I'll look around (after finals)

>wow Sentaku, your ability to dodge questions would put the most seasoned politician to shame!<

I did not dodge the question at all, so well your trying to swat the fly don't trip over the log.

Smooth or chunky?

Trust me on this.

"at this time period it was not comman for people to just change there beliefs at random when ever they felt like it. "

Yes....... and?

"and he put a spell on 1,000s of people after he died that made them think he had risen and was the Messiah. Anyways since you brought it up:"

No....... he just did some magic tricks. Lets just think about this for a moment shall we? Old women were burnt at the stake long after this point in history, ie. many completely normal people were deemed to have magic powers, because people, like all animals, are biased towards postive correlation.

When you stick a pigeon in a box you can teach it to perform various actions by giving it food, for example you can give it food whenever it points its beak towards the roof of the box, it will soon learn that pointing its beak towards the roof of the box is a good idea, and so repeat it.

But what happens when you give the pigeon food at random intervals? Well it mistakenly thinks that some kind of behaviour is being rewarded, basically it does something random, one pigeon might continually thrust its head in the top left corner of the box, one might spin round several times, etc. etc. this is because it would have done this once and noticed it happened to get food at the same time, then it would do it more often, now eventually, by chance, it would get rewarded again whilst doing the same action. Basically it forgets the negative correlations and remembers the positive ones.

So what is the equivalent in humans? Slot machines! And what happens when we observe frequent gamblers? EXACTLY the same thing, they will wear a favourite sock, or sit in a particular way, or have the same kind of drink every time. Exactly the same process has occured, they have falsely picked out a correlation between two unrelated items.

So how does this relate to the tales of magic in the past, lets take our witch, someone happens to have an accident whilst she is present, then notices that they have had some bad news after seeing her, etc. etc. the same process of false correlation occurs, before long that person thinks she's a witch. Now this effect is magnified hugely by the way we react to other people, once one person claims she's a witch other people latch on to the idea and it snowballs.

So how does this relate to Yeshu? What i am attempting to demonstrate is that claims of magical powers, are not exactly rare, it is very very easy for people who to believe that someone completely normal has magic powers, what do you think happens when someone is actually a conjurer?

Everyone will believe! Heavens EVEN TODAY people believe conjurers have magic powers, look at the legions of 'psychics' out there that do exactly the same thing as mental illusionists except they claim they have powers. Look at the number of followers Uri Geller has DESPITE the fact that his act can be replicated by magicians!

Thats TODAY, when we should know better, imagine what is was like 2000 years ago where magic and supernatural powers were accepted as readily as we accept gravity!

Next........

"Now give me historical proof of someone claiming that Jesus did not preform miracles, and that the darkness did not accor. "

I can't of course, neither can i give historical proof that a minotaur did not exist in a labrynth somewhere is ancient Greece, but i don't believe that either. Because its completely at odds with what we know about the universe.

"A passage on Jesus was contained in Thallus' work on the Eastern Mediterranean world from the Trojan War to 52 A.D. Thallus noted that darkness fell on the land at the time of the crucifixion. He wrote that such a phenomenon was caused by an eclipse."

There are plenty of reports TODAY of miraculous, amazing, physics breaking events, far more impressive than an eclipse, but they always turn out to be bogus, why should we believe texts from 2000 years ago when we don't believe texts from today?

None of these writings offer anything substantial, NONE OF THEM, just as the reports in the past of what witches had done spiralled out into the more and more impressive as the information traveled through chains of people, so too the exact same thing happens with tales of ANYONE who is supposed to have had supernatural powers, the SAME THING happens to day.

You see progressively more and more fantastic accounts of events as the information is passed through more people, the process of chinese wispered is amplified by human exaggeration of events.

Incidently if there REALLY was an eclipse 2000 years ago, then it should easily be verifiable by tracking the orbit of the moon and the Earth back 2000 years. Having said that, it wouldn't suprise me too much, say an eclipse happens 2 months after jesus is crucified it wouldn't take too long before its claimed that it occured as he was crucified, by exactly the process i have described.

You have no more evidence supporting your beliefs than the beliefs that the *insert 'primitive' society* gained *insert magical power* by *insert random ritual* , its all nonsense, its all got much better explanations and its all contradicted by what we know about how things work.

"1 kid in how long has Natural Selection been taughted in schools compared to how long Christinity existed before it was used in horrible reasons?"

What, this whole line of reasoning is UTTER nonsense, its like saying "gravity is bad" because it inspired someone to drop a rock on someones head.

Besides its made doubly invalid because you have no idea whether or not that kid would have shot everyone if he hadn't learnt about natural selection do you? Where is your data showing an increase in crime-rate with the teaching of natural selection? Oh wait you don't have any, what a suprise.

"That kid destoyed your beliefs that with out religon the world would be a better place without religon, you don't seem to get that fact that religon is the scape goat, and removing religon would just lead to another scape goat."

What? Don't you understand anything I say? Any of the reasons I give, AT ALL?

I have never ever claimed that ALL conflict was caused by religion, I have said that in many examples it does fuel conflict and is part of the cause, don't give me that religion is a scapegoat BS, how exactly is religion a scapegoat when FUNDAMENTALISTS fuel conflicts like the conflict in Israel BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY HAVE DIVINE RIGHT.

Did you know that a fundamentalist Jew assasinated HIS OWN prime-minister because it looked like he was going to make peace by *gasp* compramising? No compramising, not when you have DIVINE RIGHT, if God is on your side you know ABSOLUTELY that you are in the right, there can be no compramise.

It is concieveable that the Kid DID in fact kill a load of people because of a misinterpreting of natural selection.......... and? what? natural selection is NOT a belief system, it is NOT a human construct, it is NOT a social organisation, it is a PHYSICAL PROCESS, perhaps we should all go back to living in complete ignorance Sentaku, maybe that would make the world a better place, forget medicine, forget science, forget understanding, because someone, somewhere, at some point in time might do something stupid based on that knowledge.

Well you can go back to living in a cave if you think that the search for knowledge and understanding is socially damaging, but most of the sane population seem to think that knowledge and understanding is a large part of what marks man out as different to the other forms of life on this planet, it is our greatest strenght and far from being socially damaging it is our greatest hope for the future.

"Furthermore, what about the leap in the treatments of others from Roman Socaity, and Jewish culture"

ROFL what leap? Heard of the Spanish Inquisition? The Witch burnings? All the other horrors the Christian church unleashed upon thge world?

"So Cylde your going to nit pick at the fly well a camel runs over you. "

What the hell does that mean?

"Also why do you think it is right to make the only person that is good have to live with people who do nothing but wrong"

How is it that the absurdity of your situation does not hit you? Every life form on the planet did "nothing but wrong" did it? Hellooo! Wake up and smell the coffee! Thats just blatently ridiculous, all those 'evil' animals, all those 'evil' 5 year old children, what a load of balls.

How can you believe in a benevolent God who condones beating of slaves, who put a man to death for picking up sticks, and who wiped out all life on Earth bar a few animals and one family just for kicks?

"Sorry, it wasnt thermodynamics I was looking for...
I thought I had the right word, cant remember it...
Im bad at translating between languages. :P"

It probably is thermodynamics you are looking for, none of Einstein's theories have anything whatsoever to do with evolution. (neither does the second law of thermodynamics but creationists seem to think it does)

"There was a good article in Newsweek a couple years ago on the subject, one of them about a evolutionary scam.. It was pretty old tho, about some butterfly if I recall correctly."

Are you talking about the change in the colour of moths in one of the English cities as a result of polution (the moths went from white to black because it aided camoflage)? Because thats not a scam.

"Either way, the questions listed there werent supposed to make you lash out irrationately, those were just the questions that got me kicked out of my science class.. Those old people really cant take a student opposing them."

Sorry, i didn't mean to lash out, its just that i seem to be constantly up against people who just don't know what they are talking about. BUT there is nothing what-so-ever wrong with questioning, questioning is good, if you got kicked out of science class for them then you must either have a really REALLY bad teacher or there must have been other factors. (like you weren't listening to the answers......)

"And about those scams, I was speaking about them, all my teachers have still used them to get me off their backs... Heard they're more up and at em in Norway tho..."

I assure you that i can give answers to your questions or find you answers to your questions that do not involve scams. And i'm somewhat dubious; maybe your teachers aren't giving you scams at all, you just think they are, give me some examples.

when will the sheer madness of the religion thread stop?? please just let it end already. aaaahhhh

Sentaku how many times must i point out that the bible is not historically accurate, HOW DO YOU KNOW ANY OF THAT IS TRUE?

Dr. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, has said: “No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.”

question how do you know any book is true?

>Adam & Eve, Noah's Ark and the great flood, the age of the Earth, the fact that the bible contradicts itslef is differing accounts of genesis..<
1. I told you lay off evelotion so that gets rid of adam and eve
2. http://www.agsconsulting.com/ark/flood.htm
3. Genesis 2 only deals with the Garden of Eden, not the entire earth.

heres a link for some archeological evidence:

http://www.geocities.com/WestHollyw...thenticity.html

and some contradictions in Joshua

http://www.awitness.org/contrabib/history/joshua.html

david:
in 1993 archeologists found proof of King David's existence outside the Bible. At an ancient mound called Tel Dan, in the north of Israel, words carved into a chunk of basalt were translated as "House of David" and "King of Israel" proving that he was more than just a legend.

Solomon: I know that one of his stables has been found.

well I have to go bye.

"Dr. Nelson Glueck, probably the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology"

According to who? People who happen to agree with him, omg what a suprise he was brought up to believe it was all true, just like you.

"“No archeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference"

.........In the ensuing paragraph, the authors, again insisting upon the historical accuracy of the Scriptures, discuss supposed "archeological confirmations of the Biblical record," calling them "innumerable" in the last century alone. They then mention a Dr. Nelson Glueck, whom they regard as the greatest modern authority on Israeli archeology, and whom they quote as having once remarked: "No archaeological discovery has ever controverted a Biblical reference." As I indicated earlier, such a statement is simply false. Numerous factual errors in the Bible, many of an archaeological nature, can be cited to refute Dr. Glueck's claim (e.g., according to Gen. 1:29-30; Rom. 5:12, 14, 17; and 1 Cor. 15:21, there were no carnivores prior to the Fall, but it is a scientific fact that carnivores have existed for hundreds of millions of years, as undeniably borne out by certain fossils discovered by archaeologists). Judith Hayes, in her book In God We Trust: But Which One?, humorously queries on the subject, "The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?...........

from http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...mentalism.html

"question how do you know any book is true?"

By comparing and considering it within the context of other information. Everything we know about the world points away from God and away from the bible.

"I told you lay off evelotion so that gets rid of adam and eve"

LOL, strong argument.

"http://www.agsconsulting.com/ark/flood.htm "

Listen to me, you are just providing more and more BOGUS arguments, go here for a reasonable discussion (including some answers from the bible! -under "Answers to Creationists):

http://www.flood-myth.com/index.html

and here for a thorough explanation of why the biblical flood could never have occured:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html

"And second, Isaac N. Vail's theory (known as the Vailian Canopy Theory) that the earth's atmosphere was once circled by great rings of water which later collapsed onto the earth, gives a clear, rational explanation of the cause of the Flood.

Bogus

Vapor canopy. This model, proposed by Whitcomb & Morris and others, proposes that much of the Flood water was suspended overhead until the 40 days of rain which caused the Flood. The following objections are covered in more detail by Brown.

How was the water suspended, and what caused it to fall all at once when it did?
If a canopy holding the equivalent to more than 40 feet of water were part of the atmosphere, it would raise the atmospheric pressure accordingly, raising oxygen and nitrogen levels to toxic levels.
If the canopy began as vapor, any water from it would be superheated. This scenario essentially starts with most of the Flood waters boiled off. Noah and company would be poached. If the water began as ice in orbit, the gravitational potential energy would likewise raise the temperature past boiling.
A canopy of any significant thickness would have blocked a great deal of light, lowering the temperature of the earth greatly before the Flood.
Any water above the ozone layer would not be shielded from ultraviolet light, and the light would break apart the water molecules.

from http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-...ark.html#flood

"Geological evidence in favor of just such a sudden disaster mounts every year.........all the evidence, documentary and geologic, is that it was a colossal invasion of the sea from the south"

Except........ there is no evidence, none whatsoever, infact given the evidence we do have it is IMPOSSIBLE that a flood of the scale mentioned in the bible ever happened.

go here: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/geologiccolumn.htm

and skip to the conclusions at the end because you will not have the stomach to wade through all the reasoning.

"Genesis 2 only deals with the Garden of Eden, not the entire earth"

...... you have read genesis 1 & 2 right? They describe some of the same things except they describe them differently; for example in one account man is made before the animals in the other he is made after.

for more contradictions visit http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/notes.html

"in 1993 archeologists found proof of King David's existence outside the Bible. At an ancient mound called Tel Dan, in the north of Israel, words carved into a chunk of basalt were translated as "House of David" and "King of Israel" proving that he was more than just a legend. "

Yes....... and? I don't doubt that part of the bible was based upon real events, just like the story of Noahs Ark was based upon real events (twisted out of all recognition but still based on real events).