Jersey There are dozens of contradictions if you have read the Bible surely you have spotted them? I'm not going to do your work for you but off the top of my head you mentioned the resurrection I'm pretty sure each Gospel describes who was there angels and humans differently also whether the stone was in place or not. So, OT or not I'm correct in what I'm saying you and modern Christianity are cherry picking what to believe is GOSPEL! Heaven is the stick all Christians are beaten with (and other religions) do as your told or you got to hell! The point is I don't believe it exists but Christians do. Without heaven religion is a pointless exercise. So when we used that rational thought God punished us. Once again WTG Big Guy. Some philosopher comes out with bullshit so its now true? Give me a break! Aye those preferred ones in the Bible did a lot of repenting over and over again so therefore they hadn't really repented had they. Give me just one fact to back up there being a God. PS. You do know only a few hundred years ago you and Rebel would have been tortured to death for not believing the Bible was the Gospel truth. They wouldn't have accepted all the metaphorical nonsense.
It isn't a few hundred years ago. I am interested to see how J-Mac responds to the rest of it as they are reasonable questions to ask. There are answers to them.
Correct thanks for being pedantic about it. Just wondering whether you thought it was longer ago? The Spanish Inquisition was only disbanded in 1820. (Not a lot of people know that! )
and you can still get free beer in Oxford if you wear a full suit of armour, but that doesn't mean it would fly if you tried it.
See now a flying suit of armour I could believe in, Mythbusters would knock one up in a day. (None of this 6 days rubbish.) And as a bonus they would blow it up at the end.
I was only being pedantic because hundreds of years ago a guy like me wouldn't have been equipped to ask the questions to reach that conclusion in the first place. I wouldn't have had access to the information. I wouldn't have been able to read. as bob Dylan said, the times they are a changin
Does it really matter where the stone was?! The Gospels agree on practically all points, though some omit parts. I think that only two mention Jesus' birth. But they agree on the important stuff, e.g. the death and resurrection of Jesus, various miracles etc. About heaven and religion. Yes, it is integral to most religions, but does that mean it's wrong? Of course not! And not all religions or moral philosophies include it, if you follow Kantian Ethics, it isn't morally correct to do anything for an ulterior motive; i.e. heaven is a reward, but you shouldn't be good for that, you should be good for the sake of being good. If you're referring to The Fall, that wasn't rational thought, that was about the evils of temptation and not to give in to desires. You could even link it to peer pressure! About the philosopher, not, just because he says it it doesn't mean it's true, but it was just a way of getting my point across. And I think it makes perfect sense. YOU DON'T NEED FACTS TO BACK UP GOD!!! That is the whole point of Free Will, that we worship God on faith, not because He is making us. People were a lot more stupid two hundred years ago, we didn't know anything about the Big Bang or other stuff.
Time to lower the tone, plus I'm bored ****less. God "There you go Adam this is the Earth it's your new home." Adam "Bloody hell bit big just for me innit?" God "Ungrateful ****, shut ya gob." Adam "Not much to look at round here mate!" God "There you go, a beautiful Sun and other Suns you can call stars at night." Adam "WTF? all those billions and billions of stars, you could have just given me a Christmas tree with lights on!" God "Christmas tree?" Adam "Just made it up mate, sounded good at the time." God "FFS!" Adam " Oi! God. I'm bored with ****ing!" God "No rest for the wicked, come here ya little get." Adam "OW! whats your game? Givvus me rib back." God takes the rib and incants the magic words "Izzywizzyletsgetbizzy" God "There you go this is Eve." Adam "Could have gave her bigger tits and Rachel Riley's arse." God " Twat!" Years pass and Cain and Abel arrive and grow up. Adam "Oi, Abel get the **** off your Mam you perv!" Abel " Sorry Dad, but at least I'm not an uphill gardener like Cane!"
http://www.ubersite.com/m/54310 LMAO The people whose research formed the foundations of modern science, and without which we would all still be dying at 30 from Beubonic Plagues, etc. UBER FACEPALM
My 2 cents go something like this: Firstly, science is all just theory which is yet to be proven wrong. Big concepts from the past have been proven wrong, but the current scientific knowledge is all corroborated by evidence. Evolution has evidence in the fossil record, and in computational evolutionary biology, so as a hypotheses, it stands. Therefore over the age of the earth going back through evolution gives an initial collection of molecules classed as being 'alive'. Experiments such as the Miller-Urey experiment, and similar subsequent experiments, have shown that organic molecules required for life today can be made by non-biological conditions thought to be present around the time of biogenesis. However, they have, as of yet, failed to produce a living organism through this process. Partially, this may well be down to time, as life had thousands of years to evolve, and these experiments don't have those timescales, but this is compensated for by increased concentrations. The failure to produce life means that this is the only point in the history of life that current scientific knowledge has to concede a God is a possible scientific theory. Whether life can be produced by simulating these conditions in the future remains to be seen. With the idea of a soul, this could be the product of evolution also. Organisms have evolved to perform better as a group, as it gives them a competitive advantage against a lone organism in a 'survival of the fittest' situation. As a by-product of group living, more 'moral' organisms (obviously when brain power had evolved to the point of decision making), would therefore be selectively favoured, as their actions would be most beneficial to the group, so in times of hardship, the group would act favourably towards this individual. Over the period of time that life has been on earth, this theory allows a strong moral obligation to develop in organisms, and to us, humans show the most advanced understanding of this. Equally, humans have evolved to the point of being able to think beyond morals, and make immoral (and amoral) decisions. Most 'normal' (I hate using that word) humans have a common concept of what is right and wrong, but some may think beyond this for personal benefit, as our imagination (also a by-product of evolution as it allows us to visualise a way out of danger) allows us to consider them, this can be seen as the origin of immoral actions. An individual will look at perhaps the offer of infinite money for themselves (or even a cure for all disease and world peace) in return for killing Hitler as morally justified, so they are looking beyond the moral decision to murder someone. This creates the 'sin' in the world. So, by applying scientific theory (which is unproven, but not proven wrong as of yet) morals can be deduced. The bible simply writes down this moral code, in a form of stories aimed to educate. When it was written, scientific theory was not at a point to inform some of the stories in it. The bible is the work of humans, who make mistakes, explaining the contradictions and apparent errors. As for the story of Jesus, unless someone can produce a skeleton, and prove empirically it belonged to Jesus, then there is no evidence for it. I believe (and this is therefore beyond science) that the stories of Jesus, and other prophets,etc, in the Bible, simply draw together an oral history of the time and try and link it together to strengthen the messages it contains. Prior to the theory, and subsequent understanding, of evolution, God was used to explain anything science could not, and this hasn't change today. The Big Bang explains the evidence remaining today for the start of the universe, but offers no corroborated theory for what caused the Big Bang, and so that currently must be attributed to a 'God' under current scientific understanding, as must life. You can argue Gods are just a way of explaining the unknown, which may well be true, but until there is empirical evidence to the contrary, Gods can still be considered a scientific theory, albeit one amongst many competing theories for certain events in history. So when it comes to practising religion, I'm agnostic, because I scientifically cannot rule out a God, but I do not practice a 'religion' as such, but simply follow my moral code which evolution has given me. Jesus thats long winded! Edit: Just realised how long winded that was! Well done if anyone read it all! And feel free to pick holes in my logic, I'm sure there are some, but thats just how I currently interpret the universe.
You make a fairly good argument Canary, but a few things: 1. You forget to mention that evolution has been seen, recorded and INDUCED in organisms. 2. You forget to mention that the age of the Earth is known due to radiometric dating techniques, each effective when measuring up to certain dates, and all corroborative. 3. The one thing I strongly oppose in your argument is the statement that because we don't know what caused the Big Bang, we must attribute it to God. Why? Why should that be the case? Why is He the starting point for scintific understanding, and only replaced when a new explanation arises? 4. Likewise for the origins of life. Abiogenesis my friend. (And how can the Big Bang occur, only for God to then create life 10 billion years later?!?)
WhiteRoseTiger: 1. I am aware of this, it simply corroborates the theory of evolution, I don't think it contradicts my points (correct me if I'm wrong). 2. Sorry, I'd assumed that was a given! 3. I'm not necessarily saying that we have to attribute it to God, but currently, thats a potential theory. To my knowledge (and I may not be up to date) there is no evidence to support any theories for the cause of the Big Bang, so a god is one theory, but equally there are other theories. You can't rule out any until they are proven false. So I don't singly believe in God as the cause of the Big Bang, but scientifically I can't rule it out either. 4. All I'm saying with abiogenesis, is that there is a point where the theory fails to explain life. We go from having complex organic molecules, to having life, with self-replication. These two developments were probably separate (as in occasionally molecules combined by some method to form something we would class as living, and maybe only once did this occur in such a way to have self-replicating properties, and survive long enough to produce a decent population size). God is just one explanation for how this occurs, but that doesn't mean I believe in an all powerful creator, its about as likely as some sort of time travel induced paradox (something goes back and plants life) or that something from another universe caused abiogenesis. Good points though! But basically I'm only saying I can't rule out God because there is no evidence in the history of time (and pre-time, seeing as it is thought that the big bang created time) that suggests that a god does not exist, and this won't happen until we have a complete understanding of the past. God is just one explanation, but I'm not saying I believe it more than any other theory. The main reason I mentioned God was simply as this debate concerns religion, and God is the most relevant theory to mention in this context.
