glumbert

I'm an atheist and I like to fornicate. While you're at church I'm balling my brains out.

What if I'm wrong and there is a god? Then I'll tell him you made me do it. If god does exist he must also have created Bush so how smart can he be?

What if you are wrong and there is no god? Then you missed out on a lot of fornicating.

You want proof there is no god? I've been bad all my life and I still get Xmas presents every year.

You want proof there is a god? If evolution and elimination of the weak were true the Bush family would've become infertile generations ago.

Try worrying less and fornicating more. That way we would all be happier until we all die of hypercapnia or the great tribulation, won't matter both ways.

There might be more reasons. I'd love to see them.

Really, I dare Christians to prove God exsists in any way by proof in a form besides the Bible. I DARE you.

"I dare Christians to prove God exsists in any way by proof in a form besides the Bible. I DARE you."

Um, study nature and life? Study the Laws of Thermodynamics and the conclusions (like matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed; data (which DNA is comprised of) is immaterial, it has no mass or volume (a blank disc weighs as much as a full disc for instance) yet is constantly created and destroyed, therefore is not of our material world)?

Try to apply logic and unbiased reasoning. It's as self-evident as math once you cut through all the delusions foisted on you by your state-sponsored education camps.

FrogPrince:

The second law of thermodynamics, matter cannot be created nor destroyed, is only in closed systems--the universe is an open system! You are horribly, horribly wrong.

Also, intangeable numerics, or data, do not have a physical representation; they exist in theory...so this idea is invalid, as well.

I'll stick w/ the empirical, state-sponsored education, thanks for trying.

Zamp,

First off ignore the Bible. The Bible is NOT proof of God. The Bible is proof of man's belief in a God.

The proof of God is in the evolutionary theory itself!!!

Evolution says that all life came from the same place. Forget the "we came from Monkeys" arguement because its moot. We came from single cell organisms, as did ALL life on Earth. So OF COURSE monkeys and man have a common ancestor. So do monkeys and spiders if you go back far enough.

And let's look at spiders shall we?

According to evolution, a spider comes from an ancestor that at one time could not produce a web. So the spiders ancestor at best was simply a creepy crawly getting its food the old fashioned way...it jumped on it killed it and ate it.

Then somewhere along the line, the spider somehow "evolved" the complex organs to spin a web AND the knowledge on how to take that web and build a NET with it in order to catch more food.

This means that the spiders ancestor started evolving organs that had NO USE whatsoever.

Now now think about it. The organs had to start evolving prior to their actual ability to produce any webbing whatsoever!!! Which means the organs continued to evolve until they had some sort of use.

This flies directly in the face of natural selection as the very thing that allows a spider to catch its food today evolved from an organ system that had no use a million years ago.

What does this tell us?

It tells us that the evolutionary theory is incomplete!!! It is incomplete because to accept it as natural selection would NOT allow for the survival of the spider's web producing organs. Nor would it allow for the survival of humans.

think about it. We have no claws, no real fur to keep us warm, we are slow as hell compared to other animals and by evolutionary standards would have been prey not a predator based on our physical disabilities 9 in animal kingdom terms ) Yet our eyes are set to look forward ( the trait of a predator ) We survived the elements with very little ( to no ) fur to protect from the elements AND we have NO physical trait that give us an advantage over other animal species, with the exception of the opposable thumb. But the opposable thumb without the intelligence to use it properly (I.E. tools and weapons) leads to extinction.

So if humans couldnt survive evolution and the spider evolves useless organs into useful organs, then how does this prove God exists you ask?

It doesnt. BUT ( notice the very big but ) it does give us evidence of a design.

how so?

If useless organs continued to evolve into useful organs over many generations, why would they do so? The genetic structure of the prewebspinning spider MUST have had some ...knowledge for lack of a better word, of the future use of its evolving useless organs.

Knowledge of the future on a genetic level??????? Huh???

Ok while this IS possible when we look at quantum mechanics and how some quantum particles actually move backwards in space-time, one can be led to only one logical solution to the question and that is:

The useless organs evolved into useful organs because they were genetically coded to do so. They evolved because they were designed to evolve that way.

Logically there is no other explaination.

And logically, if there is a design....then there MUST be a designer.

And that designer is God.

mpkfa: "The second law of thermodynamics, matter cannot be created nor destroyed, is only in closed systems--the universe is an open system! You are horribly, horribly wrong."

okay, let's use your theory based on natural philosophy (today's modern science); where does the universe import or receive (whatever word you want to use) energy/mass from as an "open" system? where is the "empirical" evidence for this, i.e., data? (but you say data is just a theory, as if to downplay data somehow..?)

mpkfa: "Also, intangeable numerics, or data, do not have a physical representation;"


I've already stated this essentially, no mass or volume, non-material, yet we know it exists, simply because we are able to "know" anything at all.

mpkfa: "they exist in theory...so this idea is invalid, as well."

You don't realise that you've just admitted you know absolutely nothing (data/information cannot be established as real being only a theory) and in the same breath make a declarative statement, which invalidates itself based on your own belief system. How can you know that anything is or isn't if you cannot even be sure that what we call "data", which facts are based upon, is valid? Perhaps you go on "faith"? Ahh now we get to the meat, in fact everyone bases their whole perception of reality on faith. What I base my faith on is that there is a God who transcends our material existence, tied to time and space, and exibits that fact in proven prophecy (revealing history in advance, far far in advance in many cases) kinda like what scientific laws try to do: predict how things will occur in the future; except in the case of the bible, you have trillions upon trillions upon trillions of factors to account for in these predictions, as opposed to "law of gravity" for instance, making it that much more amazing.

Perhaps you misunderstood my original post you're responding to? I hope what I just laid out doesn't apply to you, because that would be just miserable to think how you do.

mpkfa: "I'll stick w/ the empirical, state-sponsored education, thanks for trying."

Indeed you will, as you have no idea of the history of the education establishment in the US (and Europe for that matter) and the academic and scientific establishments and who controls them and their goals. Trust in man's wisdom all you wish, all of it is folly.

Try reading "The deliberate dumbing down of america" by Iserbyt

Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms.

free ebook : http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

or even better "Antony Sutton - Americas Secret Establishment An Introduction to Skull and Bones (1983)"

Here's a collection of quotes from it:

"The Order Controls Education, we will describe how Daniel Coit Gilman, President of Johns Hopkins University, imported Wundt psychological methods from Germany, then welded education and psychology in the U.S., established laboratories, brought these educational laboratories into major Universities and generated 100s of PhDs to teach the new educational conditioning system. One of the first of these Johns Hopkins doctorates was John Dewey. The result we well know. The educational morass of the '80s where most kids - not all - can't spell, read or write, yet can be programmed into mass behaviour channels
p. 37

Now go look at who John Dewey is and understand you have been reduced to a simple program engineered by psychologists based on the philosophy that you are a weaker specie to be dominated and enslaved by belief systems sponsored by "the state".

another snip:

"Our present educational chaos can be traced to three members of The
Order: Daniel Coit Gilman (First President of University of California and First President of Johns Hopkins University), Timothy Dwight (twelfth President of Yale University) and Andrew Dickson White (First President of Cornell University).Gilman imported the experimental psychology of Hegelian physiologist Wilhelm Wundt from Germany. This psychology was grafted onto the American education system through the educational laboratories at Columbia and Chicago University. And they moved a familiar name, John Dewey, a pure Hegelian in philosophy, along the fast track in his career. This has been aptly termed "The Leipzig Connection" by Lance J. Klass and Paolo
Lionni. p. 53 (ebook)

"However, it is puzzling that the educational system allowed reading to deteriorate so markedly. It could be that The Order wants the citizen components of the organic State to be little more than automated order takers; after all a citizen who cannot read and write is not going to challenge The Order. But this is surmise. It is not, on the basis of the evidence presently at hand, a provable proposition.
In any event, the system adopted the look-say method of learning to read, originally developed for deaf mutes. The system has produced generations of Americans who are functionally illiterate. Yet, reading is essential for learning and learning is essential for most occupations. And certainly those who can read or write lack vocabulary in depth and stylistic skills. There are, of course, exceptions. This author spent five years teaching at a State University in the early 1960s and was appalled by the general inability to write coherent English, yet gratified that some students had not only evaded the system, acquired vocabulary and writing skills, but these exceptions had the most skepticism about The Establishment.
p. 62 (ebook)

"During its time, the Illuminati had widespread and influential membership. After suppression by the Bavarian Government in 1788 it was quiet for some years and then reportedly revived. The significance for this study is that the methods and objectives parallel those of The Order. In fact, infiltration of the Illuminati into New England is known and will be the topic of a forthcoming
volume.
So far as education is concerned, the Illuminati objective was as follows:
"We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behaviour, show, condescension, popularity and toleration of their prejudices which we shall at leisure root out and dispel." As Rosenbaum has pointed out in his Esquire article, the Illuminati ceremony has similarities to The Order. p.69 (ebook)

"Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), Professor of Philosophy at University of Leipzig, was undoubtedly the major influence on G. Stanley Hall. Modern education practice stems from Hegelian social theory combined with the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt. Whereas Karl Marx and von Bismarck applied Hegelian theory to the political field, it was Wilhelm Wundt, influenced by Johann Herbart, who applied Hegel to education, which in turn, was picked up by Hall and John Dewey and modern educational theorists in the United States." p.73 (ebook)

Influence of Dewey:

"Looking back at John Dewey after 80 years of his influence, he can be recognized as the pre-eminent factor in the collectivization, or Hegelianization, of American Schools. Dewey was consistently a philosopher
of social change. That's why his impact has been so deep and pervasive. And it is in the work and implementation of the ideas of John Dewey that we can find the objective of The Order.
When The Order brought G. Stanley Hall from Leipzig to Johns Hopkins University, John Dewey was already there, waiting to write his doctoral dissertation on "The Psychology of Kant." Already a Hegelian in philosophy, he acquired and adapted the experimental psychology of Wundt and Hall to his concept of education for social change. To illustrate this, here's a quote from John Dewey in My Pedagogic Creed: "The school is primarily a social institution. Education being a social process, the school is simply that form of community life in which all those agencies are concentrated that will be most effective in bringing the child to share in the inherited resources of the race, and to use his own powers for social ends. Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living."
What we learn from this is that Dewey's education is not child centered but State centered, because for the Hegelian, "social ends" are always State ends." p85

Dewey talks about the "lost individual," and then restates Hegel in the following way: "freedom is the participation of every mature human being in
formation of the values that regulate the living of men together." This is pure Hegel, i.e., man finds freedom only in obedience to the State. As one critic, Horace M. Kallen stated, John Dewey had a "blindness to the sheer individuality of individuals." In other words, for Dewey man has no individual rights. Man exists only to serve the State. p.86

"Here's a quote from Assemblyman John Vasconcellos of California, who also happens to be Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Master Plan for Higher Education and the Education Goals Committee for the California State Assembly - a key post:
"It is now time for a new vision of ourselves, of man, of human nature and of human potential, and a new theory of politics and institutions premised upon that vision. What is that vision of Man? That the natural, whole, organismic human being is loving . . . that man's basic thrust is towards community"
(quoted in Rex Myles, Brotherhood and Darkness, p. 347).
What is this "widen(ing) the individual conscienceness" (Dewey) and "thrust . . . towards community" (Vasconcellos)? p.87 (ebook)


"The National Education Association, the lobby for education, produced a program for the 1976 Bicentennial entitled "A Declaration Of Interdependence: Education For A Global Community. "
On page 6 of this document we find:
"We are committed to the idea of Education for Global Community. You are invited to help turn the commitment into action and mobilizing world education for development of a world community." p.87 (ebook)

"An objective almost parallel to Hegel is in Self Knowledge And Social Action by Obadiah Silas Harris, Associate Professor of Educational Management and Development New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico:
"When community educators say that community education takes into consideration the total individual and his total environment, they mean precisely this: the field of community education includes the individual in his total psycho-physical structure and his entire ecological climate with all its ramifications - social, political, economical, cultural, spiritual, etc. It seeks to integrate the individual within himself (sic) and within his community until the individual becomes a cosmic soul and the community the world."

And on page 84 of the same book:
"The Cosmic soul ... the whole human race is going to evolve an effective soul of its own - the cosmic soul of the race. That is the future of human evolution. As a result of the emergence of the universal soul, there will be a great unification of the entire human race, ushering into existence a new era, a
new dawn of unique world power."
This last quote sounds even more like Adolph Hitler than Assemblyman John Vasconcellos. It has the same blend of the occult, the ethnic and absolutism.
p.87 (ebook)

Too many important quotes, but I'll leave you with this one:

"in 1981, James S. Coleman of the University of Chicago produced a study of public schools for the U.S. Department of Education. In this study Coleman used the National Opinion Research Center to contact 58,728 sophomores and seniors in 1,016 public, parochial, and private schools across the United States. His findings were:
• private and parochial schools provide an education closer to the common school ideal than do public schools,
• private school students learned more than public school counterparts,
• Coleman wrote it was paradoxical that "catholic schools function much closer to the American ideal of the common school . . . than do public schools."
• private schools provide "a safer, more disciplined and more ordered environment" than public schools,
• "blacks and Hispanics perform better at private schools."
The reason? Private schools are less under the influence of the Dewey educational philosophy. They still have to use accredited teachers, but these teachers - quite bluntly - have been able to survive the teacher training conditioning. p.91 (ebook)

Enjoy your state (more like international..UNESCO) sponsored education on how to be a good drone in the rising global government (assuming you survive the coming global holocaust) complete with a global religion and global leader (as the Bible foreordained) based on what you already have faith in: evolution, moreover, on humans becoming superhumans or "gods."

BTW, the people who pushed evolution theory were men like T.H. "Darwin's Bulldog" Huxley (grandfather of Aldous Huxley who wrote "Brave New World" and Sir Julian Huxley who helped charter and was the first Director of UNESCO; both being Fabian Socialists) has H.G. Wells as his protege who in turn was a Fabian mentor to Aldous Huxley and George Orwell (Eric Blair) who all wrote about the things coming about today and ran in the same small cirlces of people who run the education systems that teach..evolution! especially as a centerpiece to indoctrinate the masses' world view of themselves and life.

Something tells me I'm wasting time... it may be too late to unbrainwash the masses.

frogtoprince: Your post is mildly interesting, particularly in your lack of conciseness, which is doubtless a result of "the state" corrupting the educational system.

You present the example of the prophecies of the Bible. Yet how many times has the Bible been translated, rewritten, and copied by independant sources? How can it still be trusted as a historical source when any of the translators could make slight adjustments or reinterpretations over the millenia? The only religious source I know of that prevents this problem is the Torah, which cannot be translated or copied in anyway except verbatim.
Christian or not, I don't believe the Bible is a valid historical text, even the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were made after the destruction of accurate copies at the library of Alexandria.

Unfortunately you exhibit a lack of knowledge about history. Our educational system was copied from the Prussian system of education during the period of Frederick the Great, right down to the multiple subjects, and period(incremented time class) system. However, his system was designed to restrict free thought in order to have a voting system and remain in control. AS for your "freedom is the participation of every mature human being in
formation of the values that regulate the living of men together" quote, I think he leaned more to democracy, seeing as the word was formation not enforcement. The alternative is being able to do as you will within law, but having someone else determine laws. That is likely why kindergarten has a German eytemology(did I spell that right?). In order to grow leaders, Frederick had the Realeschule(literally real school). America only copied the "sheep" school. So the second part of your post is really nothing new.

In your attack on our current educational system, you fail to analyze the arguments you present. For example, our current literacy rate, as judged by the UN and the CIA is at 99 percent. I really don't see what you prove with statistics from the 70's except to show what a lack of a unified educational system provides. Your argument is that private and Catholic schooling provide better education, but you ignore both social factors, and the human spirit. The students who go to private and Catholic schools have money, and probably want to learn. The school may not be any "better" but they certainly have more motivated students to work with than some rural school whose students are worried about the crop that will provide them food in the winter, or inner city students worried about not getting shot on their way home. I also find your lack of faith in evolution disturbing. Correct if I'm wrong, but you write from a Christian perspective. I always find it interesting how other religions seem to have no problems with the concept of evolution. Theres just something about seeing antibiotics stop working that makes evolution tougher to doubt. The argument about systems evolution is easier to swallow when one considers elements of our current organs that have no use. Examples are our minimal hair and tail bones and possibly the appendix. Natural selection is quick to remove those elements that harm reproductive success but slow to remove those that provide no disadvantage for exactly this reason, that those useless elements may again come in useful whether in combination with new elements or in a drastic change in circumstance.
I particularly enjoy your rant (I don't know what else to call it) about global unification. Even if this were possible in the US(just this forum would show the impossibility of it), than what of the rest of the world. Look at the education systems in Japan, the Middle East, Europe or any other place in the world. It is so different I doubt any of it could come to pass. In conclusion, I urge you to examine new viewpoints with an OPEN mind.

it's faith. it requires no proof. that's the whole point. when they try to prove the unprovable, they just look silly.

Frog prince:

It’s not the masses who are confused.

As it is proven by the laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics does not apply the same to open systems. The rationalizations for this are somewhat complicated, so I suggest you go to the library you need further evidence. I assure you, it’s sound based on all observable evidence; you are wrong.

You are correct that theories do not always have physical representations—that their physical representations of how their data are encoded is different from the message. For example, there is no perfect circle in nature…but we know circles exist because of pi*r^2 and geometry and other data. Do not confuse encoding systems with the higher-level abstractions they symbolize.

Next, who ever told you that the scientific method was static and unchanging?—or that it even knows anything absolutely. Scientific theories can be wrong given new information—not nearly as wrong as faith-based theories which do not have such integrity—but wrong nonetheless. I am not certain about anything—and neither is science—and the entire system works on doubt and rigorous and continued observation and experimentation. However, just because it may be uncertain, it does not mean that the scientific method cannot flush out the falsehood of kooks and charlatans. Einstein himself said, “It is difficult to recognize what truth is, but sometimes it is easy to recognize a falsehood.”

Next, I care nothing about your futile, post-modernist attempts to defile and contaminate the scientific method; good scientists analyzing nature do not either—regardless of political conditions. That is why the scientific method was put in place; to eliminate bias and as a best attempt to obtain truth from falsehood. Given good results and replicated experiments from peer review, this alleviates and eliminates sources of bias.

I hate to break it to you, but I think you’ve been fooled. I think you need to re-evaluate the pecking order of science versus religion. After assimilating this conclusion, I don’t see why the two systems couldn’t exist independent—maybe even a bit dependent—of one another.

Frog- Thank you for some very thoughtful insight. You will see it is not only met with ignorance of fact but also a sore lack of understanding as to what science can and cannot "know".
I erroneously allowed myself to get drawn into a battle on the "Universe" thread. The self-proclaimed carriers of the scientific banner have no idea how deeply wrong they are when it came down to the basics. Western culture is truly on its way to hell and it is being lead by people who reject the tenets they suppose they are supporting.
I recently read a great piece, and if you are interested:
www.geocities.com/cobblestoneministries/2007/DebatingWithAtheists_Christians.html

When cornered you will notice that the arrogance flies and so does the bile as anyone who is not of the orthodoxy must be (a) a religious zealot, (b) a Southern redneck (c) simply stupid.

I may not have done the best job convincing anyone of what I believe, but I did leave the Universe thread exposing how my beliefs hang on faith...and even more so do theirs.

1993: American Association for the Advancement of Science annual convention. Philosopher Michael Ruse says to an astonished room of scientists: "Evolution is a religion. This was true of evolution in the beginning, and it is true of evolution today."

As support for that statement, please read the Universe thread and much of what is in this one as well.

you have to be a fool to believe that.

He's not talking about a literal God stoopid!

But who created God???????????

Who created God.. I can answer that. Man.

Great science? Any book that says EVERY species of animal was put on a boat that was afloat for 40 days and nights is clearly fiction. It's scienctifically impossible.

zamp:

Where does the bible say "Every species of animal was put on a boat"? Have you actually READ the bible or are you just spewing something you heard someone else who hadn't read the bible say? Sea animals were on the boat? insects? nope, you really haven't a clue, but you like to pretend you do.

BTW, "Species" is not found in the bible and is a manmade category which even scientists can't agree on; the bible does mention "kinds" as in one animal begets another animal after its own "kind" which is what we observe today, as opposed to new information beeing observed to manifest in genotypes or phenotypes, including in mutations (which is the opposite of evolution).

THANK GOD I'M NOT AN ATHEIST!!

redraxil:

I remember asking that question when I was 5 or 6 years old. Then I grew up and began to reason and apply logic. There was always something that had to exist if anything was to exist at all; hopefully you don't argue that nothing exists..

Anyways, God is not a creature, creatures are MADE, they are CREATED. Hence there is the Creator and the creatures he made.

God is eternal, without a beginning or end.

Asking when and where God exists is a symptom of our seperation from him in his domain, we are living in a cursed reality- a subset of a more ultimate reality (science now shows our universe is FINITE on the micro and macro scale and had a beginning), when you are humble enough to admit this, the darkness will flee from you and you will know.

frogtoprince, a species is a group of animals that can mate and produce viable, reproductively capable offspring.

wow you are a fucking idiot. lemme help you with some of your logical fallacies. Here's your post:"
"I dare Christians to prove God exsists in any way by proof in a form besides the Bible. I DARE you."

Um, study nature and life? Study the Laws of Thermodynamics and the conclusions (like matter/energy cannot be created or destroyed; data (which DNA is comprised of) is immaterial, it has no mass or volume (a blank disc weighs as much as a full disc for instance) yet is constantly created and destroyed, therefore is not of our material world)?

Try to apply logic and unbiased reasoning. It's as self-evident as math once you cut through all the delusions foisted on you by your state-sponsored education camps"

You are intentionally uninformed. Go check out the talkorigins forums.
DNA is not comprised of data as you so boldly assert. It's comprised of 4 nucleotides. AGCT(look em up if your uneducated). Their interactions with amino acids in no way contradict the laws of thermodynamics as you have asserted.
You need to bring some logic to the table when you try to assert your claims.
Bring proof. The bible says too much bullshit to deny that its parable.
And quit eating shellfish if your so goddamn pious. Their another abomination according to your bullshit goddamn bible.

To frogtoprince

Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee

If you don't see the irony in a Christian quoting this, well...

I don't really feel like scrolling through all of your posts, so here are a few:

"Heh. You just summed up theory of evolution, only it was backed by great wealth and power for political reasons ."

And Christianity wasn't? Most major religions in the world that exist on a dominant level today have had political backing or was backed for political purposes at some point in time.

"Pretty good for a self-conceptualized advanced ape (oh excuse me, you're not an ape, you just had the same ancestor as one, big diff!)"

We (as humans) did not descend from apes, monkeys, orangutans. We, in all probability, share a common ancestor. And yes, it is a very big diff.

""Species" is not found in the bible and is a manmade category which even scientists can't agree on"

The definition of species is two organisms that can successfully reproduce and have viable offspring. This is standard biology or anthropology. Take a high school class.

You base your beliefs on the Bible, yes I've read it, three times even, although i have not made it such an intense study. Never mind that the Bible has been translated multiple times from Hebrew to Greek to Latin or from one to another and eventually down the road to English with Hebrew and Latin being convoluted languages where scholars still debate the meaning of classical texts today and Latin being a dead language and all.

You seem to be the only one convinced of what you believe and for no better reason than some old history book (if you can call it that) says so. If you want anyone to listen to your arguments atheist or otherwise, you're probably going to have to come up with a more intelligent method than what you're currently spewing. Atheists don't put much stock in the Bible, it is not "earthly" proof of anything. It has a great deal of common sense that would promote social harmony, but by no means is it the end all for answers.

And Protestant or no Protestant, they weren't a whole lot better than their predecessors. Even if many of the non warmongering Christians today (oh wait, war in Iraq) are Protestants, there is plenty of corruption and politics in Protestant organizations. They (you) have had their share of discrimination, prejudice, bias, and i say this quite blatantly, they have also committed what would probably be considered war crimes today. Instead of stuffing your head with history from a couple millenniums ago, look a little closer.

Christianity has been as tyrannical as any other institution throughout history, maybe somewhat less so in the last 2 centuries. I shudder to think what this country would be like if Christian nationalists took over. It would be another cesspool like the Middle East only in North America. Death war and racism have been spawns of religion for over two thousand years.

Personally I'm an agnostic and perhaps you could call me a deist, but whether or not God exists I don't think I would ever be Christian. Christians, or members of most major religions for that matter, oft claim that science is full of holes. Yeah, so is the Bible, Quaran, Talmud, whatever. Reality is but a perception, you can perceive whatever you want, just realize that you're not convincing anyone. And honestly you're a poor show of being Christian, or at least adhering to their ideals.

mediatedthought:

"You are intentionally uninformed. Go check out the talkorigins forums.
DNA is not comprised of data as you so boldly assert. It's comprised of 4 nucleotides. AGCT(look em up if your uneducated). Their interactions with amino acids in no way contradict the laws of thermodynamics as you have asserted.
You need to bring some logic to the table when you try to assert your claims.
Bring proof. "


Lets restate then: DNA as a structure is comprised of data, better yet, "code" as it's called. The point is that the molecular structure of DNA is just the physical carrier of data!! Data is an organization, some coherent signal, of ANY medium, be it scribbling on paper, smoke signals, Morris code, writing in the sand, wood carvings, digital media, molecules, etc. You need serious help if you cannot grasp this simple concept.

Besides that, even the smallest subatomic particle/wave itself can in fact be considered information, particularly as shown in quantum physics, which blows apart the theory of evolution on a deeper, "quantum" level, but that's a whole other subject too huge to get into.

Again, a blank disc weighs the same as a full disc which means information has no mass or volume, it is nonmaterial and so cannot be explained by a materialistic worldview. Writing info on a chalkboard, then erasing it; the chalk is still there, but the data was destroyed, and matter cannot be destroyed, therefore data/info is immaterial. If you refute this you refute science.

This is The Conservation of Mass-Energy which deals with logical conclusions of thermodynamics and vice-versa as understood by science.


mediatedthought: "The bible says too much bullshit to deny that its parable.
And quit eating shellfish if your so goddamn pious. Their another abomination according to your bullshit goddamn bible."

Parables? Yeah those are used to communicate something REAL, kinda like people do all the time when they use metaphors to aid in comprehending something...? Should that be banned or something? Those are clearly distinguished when in use as Jesus spoke in them often as is told in scripture. You don't have to be a rocketsurgeon to figure that one out. The material world is used to reveal the higher ways of God.

Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, [even] his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse

Shellfish? That's Old Testament genius. Obviously you don't know the dynamics in play when Christ literally fulfilled the old laws which you are hopelessly in the dark about.

Can't expect a self-conceptualized advanced ape to understand that tho, as it is of a matter higher than the mundane vanities you're enslaved by.

1 Corinthians 2:14
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned.

phauna,

I've taken college biology classes, zoology even (got A btw) and I know there are grey areas in assigning animals to certain categories like "species," the most famous being that dingos, dogs, wolves, coyote, etc can interbreed yet are considered different species if not family in some cases, if I remember correctly. This is just one example of how artificial taxonomy is with animals and biologists are constantly debating and changing text books in this area. The bible keeps it clean and simple, animals produce after their "kind", dingos, wolves, dogs, foxes and coyotes are the same kind of animals and probably all had a common ancestor: a dog

@frogtoprince

Quote ---

Again, a blank disc weighs the same as a full disc which means information has no mass or volume, it is nonmaterial and so cannot be explained by a materialistic worldview. Writing info on a chalkboard, then erasing it; the chalk is still there, but the data was destroyed, and matter cannot be destroyed, therefore data/info is immaterial. If you refute this you refute science.

This is The Conservation of Mass-Energy which deals with logical conclusions of thermodynamics and vice-versa as understood by science.

---End Quote

We need a definition here. Can we assume that for this argument you are using Information and Data and Thoughts interchangeably? If I speak I am conveying thoughts to you via sound waves. If I write you a letter then I am conveying data to you via paper. If you read this then I am conveying information to you via electronics. So, you are correct that information/data/thoughts have no mass. But the representation of data does have mass: paper, discs, chalk.

Now consider this. What if I speak or write in Swahili? Can you understand me? Probably not but that does not mean that the data does not still exist. In the same way when I erase a chalk board, the physical representation of the data I wrote on the board still exists just in an unreadable form. You have not destroyed the chalk nor the data. You have simply rendered it unreadable.

This is actually a type of encryption. It is to encrypt data in such a manner that we are unable to decrypt it again but we have not actually destroyed data. We have simply changed the physical properties of the physical representation of data.

As to your point about a blank disk weighing the same as a full disk. The faulty logic here is that a disk is ever actually blank. They are not. Every data point on a disk has two settings 1 and 0. They are two sides of the same bit. When you write data to a disk you are only flipping those bits to 1 or 0 in a specific manner that can be read by some device.

A little different view. Imagine that I have a "disk" that can hold 1 byte (8 bits of information). I am going to build this disk out of a piece of wood and 8 pennies. Each penny has a head side and a tail side. I am going to let the head side be 0 and the tail side be 1. Now when my disk is "blank" all of the pennies will be head side up, representing 00000000. When I store information on my disk and I want it to represent the numeric value 2 then it would be 00000010. That is all of the pennies except for the next to the last would be head side up. Now I have "written" data to to my disk but the weight remains the same.

One last thing. If I take those pennies from my disk and rearrange them - I have not destroyed the data but simply changed the representation of that data. However, there is no guarantee that anyone would ever be able to use that data.

This isn't really worth a response, but hey. Do some basic research, read up on systematic theology, and you'll find that your statements are factually incorrect. You create your own contradictions, because you don't *want* to believe in God.

Cheesemonkey u got nothing 15 - love to kahn

kahn,

the only errors in scripture come about from lack of facts and misunderstandings (I speak of the Textus Receptus manuscripts- the ones the Apostles wrote and shared- NOT the Alexandrian/gnostic texts written 100s of years after the fact and used by the "Holy" Roman Empire). You do realise you speak from a limited 4 dimensional perspective don't you? Nontheless, God is unchanging, but his laws can be fulfilled and/or broken triggering ramifications which to some will seem inconsistent/arbitrary.

And just because I know your response to something before it happens doesn't mean you had no control over that behavior to begin with, and so it is with God as he is not limited to our space-time domain, as we see in the hundreds upon hundreds of fulfilled prophecies, some VERY specific and proven in secular history. Anyone who tries to bring up Nostradamus' prophecies and compare it with biblical prophecy is quite ridiculous to anyone who studies the material.

Well, if you read the bible, it says the earth is 6000 years old, which is totally at odds with a huge amount of documented science in a wide variety of fields. So what is wrong with his poking fun at that. And the whole idea of "don't contradict the bible - it is god's law!" is just ripe for sarcasm, as it is so laughably circular. Can we question that this is really god's word? No! Why not? That is blashpemy and contrary to god's will!

To get some idea of how a religion gets started, read Jon Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven. He documents how the ridiculous Mormon religion began, from a charismatic person that was able to feed a pack of just obvious B.S. to some vulnerable people which snowballed from there. Of course every religion begins the same way, but the history of how people originally started believing in the equally preposterous claims of christianity or islam are just lost in antiquity. The mormon story highlights how religion may make perfect sense to those who believe, but to any outsider not raised in that particular religion, the claims are simply worthy of ridicule. Why is it more believable for example that some guy was born to a virgin, and then came back to life a few days after dying, any more than the idea of reincarnation? Or that there are 72 virgins waiting for certain martyrs? Or that god told Joseph Smith that it would be totally cool to get as many wives as possible? All religion is based on selling ignorant and cowardly people a neat little fairy tale because they are afraid to use their reason and minds and see reality for what it is.

lwboy... exactly.

"Well, if you read the bible, it says the earth is 6000 years old"

Um, if you read the Bible, you'd know that isn't true at all. That's just something some misguided Christians came up with at some point.

It's a satire! Good grief! Don't people understand humour when they see it? Yes, he's using religion against itself, but only because it is so endlessly easy to do. There is no end to the holes and garbage in the bible.

WriterWriter
www.stupid-files.blogspot.com

www.zeitgeistmovie.com
http://best.online.docus.googlepages.com Look for The God Delusion on there under religion

lwboy: "from a charismatic person that was able to feed a pack of just obvious B.S. to some vulnerable people which snowballed from there."

Heh. You just summed up theory of evolution, only it was backed by great wealth and power for political reasons (to mold humans into their own image).

Pretty good for a self-conceptualized advanced ape (oh excuse me, you're not an ape, you just had the same ancestor as one, big diff!)

This clip takes advantage of scriptural ignorance and bias. btw, not all who call themselves Christians are Christian, of course being so ignorant of the Word of God, you'd never know this.

writerwriter:

Zeitgeist takes advantage of ignorance of the Bible. The reason so many cults foreshadowed Christ was because the oldest passed on knowledge from mankind stems from the Mazzaroth (which you know as the Zodiac) which is spoken of long long before the time of Moses, going all the way back to Enoch (seven generations from Adam) and is the story of the Redeemer of man, the earliest told Hero. So, as a result, all the pagan cult mythos of saviours was fulfilled in Christ.

Just as Christ fulfilled the religion of the Jews, so did he fulfill the religions of the Gentiles.

This subject is huge and of the oldest knowledge man has known and deserves intensive studying for anyone who want to get to the bottom of this.

To be sure, the bible is up front about this, from the beginning:

Genesis 1:14. And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for SIGNS, and for seasons, and for days, and years..

Notice how SIGNS is first in the list? Constellations are also named in book of Job (written before Moses) and there are many many other allusions strewn throught the bible all the way up to the book of Revelations.

Atheism=ignorance of truth/facts/history

Wow thats amazing....

Do some research.. Cancer has been known to spontaneously reverse. And every study of the efficacy of prayer (and there have been several, go ahead and Google it) has shown NO evidence. I an happy for your aunt. Personally, I'd credit her doctors, medicines, and her own will to survive.

Maybe it would be nicer next time if the church prayed for Aunt Betty BEFORE she gets painful stage 4 cancer throughout her body. I guess you just are not praying hard enough for all those millions of cancer vicims that succumb to the disease each year. Or god has some plan for letting them all suffer a painful death.

i suppose all the people that die from cancer daily have nobody that loves or prays for them. God only answers when whole congregations ask, right? the prayer of a small boy for his grandfather not to die isn't really enough.

Right, and saying all life came from the absence of nothingness is pure science (which if you exclude any source (God) of data and energy outside our observable universe is the ultimate logical conclusion).

Go on monkeyboy, have a banana.

Scientists freely admit that they haven't worked everything out yet and in some areas may never do so. However they are actually trying hard to enlighten the world, they do more good than all the religious people, that's for sure. Jesus heals the sick? Well scientists have healed many more people than Jesus 'did'.

phauna:

"Scientists freely admit that they haven't worked everything out yet and in some areas may never do so. However they are actually trying hard to enlighten the world, they do more good than all the religious people, that's for sure. Jesus heals the sick? Well scientists have healed many more people than Jesus 'did'."

You somehow think that I'm against science, no, I'm against fake science. Science isn't some pure tangible fruit that grows on trees today, but a means of learning of our world and us, but do we assume to limit it to our five senses?

I don't expect scientists to know everything, none of us do obviously. I also don't expect scientists to make up ideas and back them with scandalous frauds to support them backed with your and my tax dollars, which is what the case is with "evolution."

Jesus ministered for 3 years, so yeah, I think scientists would be able to do a bit more since there are many more of them and have been working for many more years since. Quality over quantity in my book. How many scientists were born pure and lived pure and prophecied in 100s of different ways? What's the point in this, you have some fetish for slandering your only hope? Count yourself unworthy then, it effects me not, I'm just trying to get people to think around here.

"Right, and saying all life came from the absence of nothingness is pure science (which if you exclude any source (God) of data and energy outside our observable universe is the ultimate logical conclusion)."
Um who says thats the logical conclusion, have you ever heard of the experiment done my Miller and Urey? They proved that its POSSIBLE given a pre biotic atmosphere (CO2, CH4, NH3, H2, H2O, CO) all the necessary molecules needed for life, with an energy source, can produce monomers. Dry the monomers via dehydration synthesis and you get polymers, then clumps of protein which combine to make lipids and microscopic structures. Etc etc, sure this theory is far from proven, and hell its probably not 100% correct but its better than saying, "GOD DID IT"

mitos... he's obviously an atheist. It's called satire. Why do you think this person is liberal? What does the word "liberal" actually mean? Or are you just regurgitating what Rupert tells you?

Yup. Sure is. All us athiests ever have time for is killing, raping and y'know, generally being horrible people. Whereas religious people are always doing great things.... like the pope supporting the holocaust; like Ted Haggart being 'straight'; like all those nice priests getting down with all those little boys; like Jimmy Swaggart; ahhh. forget it... I know your answer; "Those are not real Christians."

Whatever. Circular reasoning.

writerwriter: "forget it... I know your answer; "Those are not real Christians. [referring to Roman Church/Papacy]"


Hey genius, ever heard anything about that whole thing way back in history called THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION? No? Oh okay, so you really are an ignoramus spewing emotionally-charged idiocy. Just Checking, carry on.

If anything, protestants, especially evangelicals are even worse than catholics. They are definitely ten times as annoying and work harder to get the government to ignore science and generally bring back ignorance.

phauna,

That's today's "protestantism," which I agree is attrocious and misguided. Most churches today are 501c3 organisations, which makes them corporations of the gov't, thus they have rules on what they can/cannot say. I haven't found a church I'd like to go to yet, so I study on my own.

The early church fathers for the most part were on solid ground with the true received texts (textus receptus, not alexandrian texts), differing in side issues not effecting the main doctrines. However we've slipped a long way and of course the bible speaks of this how many will not endure sound doctrine and turn to fables with itching ears, etc. and a great falling away near the time of Christ's return.

The World Wide Council of Churches is behind much of the infiltration of the churches in America and around the world and they are soon to merge with..the Roman Catholic Church. Big surprise.

Then you'll love evolution as fossil records are dated off of the admittedly made up dates from the geological columns (which doesn't exist as presented in text books) which are dated by the fossils found therein.

Radiometric dating methods also lean on these methods of dating and make other huge assumptions that we know now to be wrong (like the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, etc).

Excellent.

just because there is no exact timeline doesn't mean they are not correct. Some things from the past may just be unknowable because any useful evidence has deteriorated. However, it's clear to see from DNA which animals are related to which.

keep the faith phauna, forget all those pesky inconsistencies in your theory. Facts schmacts, just go with the flow..

What does a Queens of the Stone Age song have to do with this?

Look buddy everything in our knowledge can't be known right now. Thats the progress of science, we learn things, we tweak things, we change things, we perfect things. Just because your're satisfied with your view doesn't mean it will work for everyone else. I would rather figure out that there is a God rather than just believe there is one, I would find what is REALLY GOING on out there. If it turns out there is a God, then so be it, but until then that definition will not work for me.
Your view seems to make you and billions of other people happy, but as they say...ignorance is bliss.

The bible is a creation of committee not god.
and to set the record straight, god IS NOT OMNIPOTENT.
He's a pussy bitch who couldn't overcome chariots of iron.
"And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

— Judges 1:19 Image:Bible-icon.png

frogtoprince:

In reading through your posts, I had respect for you, as you clearly demonstrate a wealth of studious knowledge and an excellent ability to unearth the implicit nature in the texts at hand. However, you began to succumb to unnecessary asshattery in the face of what could be frustration, in addition to what appears to be your own misunderstanding of the views of your opposition.

1 Timothy 6:20
O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane [and] vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called

Take your quote to heart, good sir, for you contradict your own impressments.

Go get em frogtoprince!!

You and I both know that if science can't explain something then it must have been a giant invisible omnipotent omniscient spiritual being with a penchant for death and destruction, who sacrificed himself, to himself, to save us from ourselves.

Maybe a few more bible quotes will convince these heathens...

mediated thought:

I guess God should just do EVERYTHING for EVERYBODY ALL the TIME. Why even bother to have Moses WALK right? Learning experiences and gaining appreciation for the good things in life might actually follow experiencing the bad and painful..can't have that now can we? You must be a pampered effeminent person yourself with such a shallow observation.

keepingitcivil:

In reading through your post, I had respect for you, as you clearly demonstrate a thoughtful choice of words and nickname. However, you began to succumb to unnecessary asshattery (quite civil) in the face of what could be frustration, in addition to what appears to be your own misunderstanding of my views and evidence of your opposition.

Take your words to heart, good sir, for you contradict your own impressments.

ps. would you like to refute my statements or just comment on my statements, providing no substance but great form?

redmist:

redmist:

Hey cool, you're cool dude. like yeah! sarcasm? what sarcasm? no way dude, this isn't the only method I know how to react when I can't deal with the facts and info you lay out. Dude, I think you're like soooo evolved man. Hey, you think maybe we can evolve faster by killing all the subhumans and weak and infirm?

Maybe if we make up more psuedeoscience and cram it down people's throats at an even earlier age everyone will understand how smart we are and lame those medieval mystics are with their hippie lovey-dovey, pie in the sky fairytales, and they'll understand it's for the good of the species and mother earth that we slaughter them all, cus their holding us back from entering the New Age. Right doooooood?

or: Ooga booga? monkeyboy wanna banana?

frogtoprince:

You have succumb to nothing but childish namecalling and personal attacks in your responses. If you truly have the time to write such excellently detailed rebuttals to the people of a little-known youtube knock-off, then certainly you must have the time to examine your own inane practices. These are the "profane and vain babblings" in which you have failed to avoid, in your presence on this site and which embody your own sarcastic attacks. I have nothing to impress upon you, aside from the self-conceit which you brandish in your writing. You make an extraordinary conversationalist, however I refuse to continue our discussion if you cannot adequately question my suppositions without mocking me or poking fun at my alias. Put simply, please argue like an adult in the future.

anonanon: "Well, how can God have free-will (its future not written yet) AND be able to see into its future? If it's truely omnipotent, then both must be true... but it's a paradox. purely impossible. God is NOT omnipotent, God is a man-made invention to control the masses..."

To begin with, time is a product of our finite universe; God is not under any time constraints as he dwells outside our space-time domain. Try thinking outside the box, or in this case, outside the universe (and you thought Christian doctrine was supposed to be closeminded..).

Also, you got it backwards, evolution was foisted on the scientific/academic community for political purposes by folks like Marx, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Pol-Pot, and other dictators who founded their beliefs-philosophy on Material-dialectics like evolution and remaking the image of man (master races) through socialism which just about the whole world is in the grip of now. Death, war and racism are the pillars of evolution theory:

"Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of higher animals, directly follows" - Origin of Species, Darwin

Here's the whole title of the book:
"The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection
or,
The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life"

All the would-be dictators drooled over this as it psuedo-scientifically legitamised complete and utter tyranny (social darwinism) bearing fruits like "purges" and "holocausts" and world wars.

Secondly, omnipotence, or more specifically, omniscience would be a requirement of a living Creator God, the causal source of all things, the author of knowledge. The fact that God knows even his own reckoning beforehand highlights what Christian doctrine has always said, God is unchanging, something other people will argue against because they lack knowledge of scripture from God.

I think this quote sums it up nicely:

James 1:17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.

No variableness, not even a SHADOW of turning, he is the Father of lights. This verse is two-fold in expression which helps illuminate and reveal his ways to us in that which is seen to us so that we may understand his unseen ways, just as we should not be deceived by sinful flesh.

Once again, the naysayers' best arguments is pre-empted by scripture. Try cracking open that bible sometime, it'll quiet down many of these unlearned questions.

anonanon: "In the wise-words of some internet person I read on Digg.com once... "God made me an Atheist, who are YOU to judge his wisdom?"


Actually I don't judge his wisdom, but your mental faculties instead. Many people are atheists simply because they are ignorant (as I was in regards to evolution vs. creation) or flat out don't care about the consequences of a God vs. a random nothingness as the origins of everything.

anonanon: "Nuff said. :)"

At least you convinced yourself of what you already believed. Well done.


Hosea 4:6
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee

princetofrog (very original!),

you got it backwards bro, people who believe in the Word of God are the ones humble enough to say "man's mind is puny," as I've learned: the more I learn the more I understand how little I know. I accept the truth in whatever form it comes. But sometimes black is white. Others will not or can't comprehend that immense answers are hidden right under their noses (usually snot-nosed it seems) for so long, maybe it doesn't seem mysterious enough or exciting enough so they have to go on to make-believe stories and call it "science" so they can feel intellectually superior to the rest while indulging themselves (plus you've just thrown out a final accounting in the restoration of creation, the judgement), meanwhile as science (true science) progresses, slowly knowledge is catching up to "ancient" manuscripts recorded by "prophets" which just CAN'T be can it? so often new scientific discoveries (in many diverse fields) are censored, or spun by propagandists, many times simply to protect thier world view. But, why CAN'T it be this way? Is proof not enough?

I used to be one of those people who scoffed the bible, but then I got into information and learning, and I discovered that it was not by accident that I had adopted such views as I had, but that we as a society are being conditioned and led by very wicked folks who have more wealth and power beyond our imaginations and go back for countless generations (who control the Word Bank and IMF, the floks who print the money and circulate it). And there is a method to the madness, why evolution was indoctrinated into the school systems, and it has everything to do with why we're in wars (soon to be blamed on "the Jews" for reasons obvious to biblical students, particualrly in prophecy studies) and the direction technology is heading (to enslave mind, body, and finally the soul), and what's going on with the economy, and globalism, etc. It's all intertwined even down to the current clothing fashions and tv shows. This will without doubt sound absurd to most, that's fine, but the proof will shake you.

It boils down to the world view that things (history) all happen by a series of accidents (like evolution theory)

or that there is a plan and a reason, and things are being guided by hidden forces (like creation).

Conspiracies are very real and the entire globe is run by secret societies, older and more powerful than Freemasonry which is just a subcategory of higher, darker global societies. Conspiracies go all the way back to Satan conspiring to overthrown the Highest. The word Con-Spiracy itself gives this message: Con - meaning together, and Spiracy meaning breath or spirit.

There is so much documentation that our world has been run by ancient cults that this message board would freeze up if I tried to post it all. Quotes by the bigwigs themselves admitting what I say. How they want to reduce the global population to around a billion to a few hundred million and "global warming" is just a precursor to set the stage for this along with "global war on terrorism" and a "global economy" etc etc.

I suppose one of the best places to start pulling on this thread would be who were the ones behind setting up the Federal Reserve in 1913, how it leads back to the bankers of Europe who have been funding both sides of wars since at least the French Revolution and on to the Russian revolution, several if not all American wars, the World Wars, the current wars in Iraq (Babylon) and the war with Iran next (Persia) and the downfall of America to be replaced by global governance, which American's will actually beg for, trashing the Bill of Rights/Declaration of Independence.

Learn about what the "age of enlightenment" was really all about, learn about the protestant reformation, learn about the pontifex maximus, that the pope holds the office of caesar today, and all nations are under this office, learn about the Medici library ("cradle of western civilization") in Florence Italy, learn about Cardinal Woolsey and Machiavelli working together, learn of Cecil Rhodes, Moses Hess, Adam Weishaupt, the Jesuit order, learn about the City of London, Vatican City, Washington DC and how they interconnect (all 3 and sovereign city-states), learn about how Saddam was trained by CIA in the 50s, how Bin Laden was CIA agent (code name Tim Osman), Prescott Bush-Nazi connection, Skull

Should we kill?

* Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not kill."
* Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."

vs

* Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, . . . and slay every man his brother, . . . companion, . . . neighbor."
* I Samuel 6:19 " . . . and the people lamented because the Lord had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter."
* I Samuel 15:2,3,7,8 "Thus saith the Lord . . . Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. . . . And Saul smote the Amalekites . . . and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword."
* Numbers 15:36 "And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."
* Hosea 13:16 "they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with children shall be ripped up."

For a discussion of the defense that the Commandments prohibit only murder, see "Murder, He Wrote", chapter 27 (Losing Faith In Faith: From Preacher To Atheist).

Should we tell lies?

* Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not bear false witness."
* Proverbs 12:22 "Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord."

vs

* I Kings 22:23 "The Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."
* II Thessalonians 2:11 "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

Also, compare Joshua 2:4-6 with James 2:25.

Should we steal?

* Exodus 20:15 "Thou shalt not steal."
* Leviticus 19:13 "Thou shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him."

vs

* Exodus 3:22 "And ye shall spoil the Egyptians."
* Exodus 12:35-36 "And they spoiled [plundered, NRSV] the Egyptians."
* Luke 19:29-34 "[Jesus] sent two of his disciples, Saying, Go ye into the village . . . ye shall find a colt tied, whereon yet never man sat: loose him, and bring him hither. And if any man ask you, Why do ye loose him? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of him. . . . And as they were loosing the colt, the owners thereof said unto them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, The Lord hath need of him."

I was taught as a child that when you take something without asking for it, that is stealing.

Shall we keep the sabbath?

* Exodus 20:8 "Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy."
* Exodus 31:15 "Whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death."
* Numbers 15:32,36 "And while the children of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. . . . And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the Lord commanded Moses."

vs

* Isaiah 1:13 "The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity."
* John 5:16 "And therefore did the Jews persecute Jesus and sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the sabbath day."
* Colossians 2:16 "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days."

Shall we make graven images?

* Exodus 20:4 "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven . . . earth . . . water."
* Leviticus 26:1 "Ye shall make ye no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone."
* Deuteronomy 27:15 "Cursed be the man that maketh any graven or molten image."

vs

* Exodus 25:18 "And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them."
* I Kings 7:15,16,23,25 "For he [Solomon] cast two pillars of brass . . . and two chapiters of molten brass . . . And he made a molten sea . . . it stood upon twelve oxen . . . [and so on]"

Are we saved through works?

* Ephesians 2:8,9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith . . . not of works."
* Romans 3:20,28 "Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight."
* Galatians 2:16 "Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ."

vs

* James 2:24 "Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only."
* Matthew 19:16-21 "And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? And he [Jesus] said unto him . . . keep the commandments. . . . The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven."

The common defense here is that "we are saved by faith and works." But Paul said "not of works."

Should good works be seen?

* Matthew 5:16 "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works."
* I Peter 2:12 "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that . . . they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation."

vs

* Matthew 6:1-4 "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them . . . that thine alms may be in secret."
* Matthew 23:3,5 "Do not ye after their [Pharisees'] works. . . . all their works they do for to be seen of men."

Should we own slaves?

* Leviticus 25:45-46 "Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, . . . and they shall be your possession . . . they shall be your bondmen forever."
* Genesis 9:25 "And he [Noah] said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."
* Exodus 21:2,7 "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . . And if a man sell his daughter to be a maidservant, she shall not go out as the manservants do."
* Joel 3:8 "And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it."
* Luke 12:47,48 [Jesus speaking] "And that servant, which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few stripes."
* Colossians 3:22 "Servants, obey in all things your masters."

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* Isaiah 58:6 "Undo the heavy burdens . . . let the oppressed go free, . . . break every yoke."
* Matthew 23:10 "Neither be ye called Masters: for one is your Master, even Christ."

Pro-slavery bible verses were cited by many churches in the South during the Civil War, and were used by some theologians in the Dutch Reformed Church to justify apartheid in South Africa. There are more pro-slavery verses than cited here.

Does God change his mind?

* Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord; I change not."
* Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent."
* Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go back, neither will I spare, neither will I repent."
* James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."

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* Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people."
* Genesis 6:6,7 "And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth . . . And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth . . . for it repenteth me that I have made him."
* Jonah 3:10 ". . . and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."

See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35, Numbers 16:44-50.

See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets God to change his mind about the minimum number of righteous people in Sodom required to avoid destruction, bargaining down from fifty to ten. (An omniscient God must have known that he was playing with Abraham's hopes for mercy--he destroyed the city anyway.)

Are we punished for our parents' sins?

* Exodus 20:5 "For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." (Repeated in Deuteronomy 5:9)
* Exodus 34:6-7 " . . . The Lord God, merciful and gracious, . . . that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth generation."
* I Corinthians 15:22 "For as in Adam all die, . . ."

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* Ezekiel 18:20 "The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father."
* Deuteronomy 24:16 "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin."

Is God good or evil?

* Psalm 145:9 "The Lord is good to all."
* Deuteronomy 32:4 "a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he."

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* Isaiah 45:7 "I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things." See "Out of Context" for more on Isaiah 45:7.
* Lamentations 3:38 "Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?"
* Jeremiah 18:11 "Thus saith the Lord; Behold, [[[[iframe]]]] evil against you, and devise a device against you."
* Ezekiel 20:25,26 "I gave them also statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they should not live. And I polluted them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the Lord."

Does God tempt people?

* James 1:13 "Let no man say . . . I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man."

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* Genesis 22:1 "And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham."

Is God peaceable?

* Romans 15:33 "The God of peace."
* Isaiah 2:4 ". . . and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more."

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* Exodus 15:3 "The Lord is a man of war."
* Joel 3:9-10 "Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong."

Was Jesus peaceable?

* John 14:27 "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you."
* Acts 10:36 "The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ."
* Luke 2:14 " . . . on earth peace, good will toward men."

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* Matthew 10:34 "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household."
* Luke 22:36 "Then said he unto them, . . . he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."

Was Jesus trustworthy?

* John 8:14 "Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true."

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* John 5:31 "If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true."

"Record" and "witness" in the above verses are the same Greek word (martyria).

Shall we call people names?

* Matthew 5:22 "Whosoever shall say Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire." [Jesus speaking]

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* Matthew 23:17 "Ye fools and blind." [Jesus speaking]
* Psalm 14:1 "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."

Has anyone seen God?

* John 1:18 "No man hath seen God at any time."
* Exodus 33:20 "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."
* John 6:46 "Not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God [Jesus], he hath seen the Father."
* I John 4:12 "No man hath seen God at any time."

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* Genesis 32:30 "For I have seen God face to face."
* Exodus 33:11 "And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend."
* Isaiah 6:1 "In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."
* Job 42:5 "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."

How many Gods are there?

* Deuteronomy 6:4 "The Lord our God is one Lord."

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* Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make man in our image."
* Genesis 3:22 "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and evil."
* I John 5:7 "And there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."

It does no good to claim that "Let us" is the magisterial "we." Such usage implies inclusivity of all authorities under a king's leadership. Invoking the Trinity solves nothing because such an idea is more contradictory than the problem it attempts to solve.

Are we all sinners?

* Romans 3:23 "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
* Romans 3:10 "As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one."
* Psalm 14:3 "There is none that doeth good, no, not one."

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* Job 1:1 "There was a man . . . who name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright."
* Genesis 7:1 "And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."
* Luke 1:6 "And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless."

How old was Ahaziah?

* II Kings 8:26 "Two and twenty years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."

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* II Chronicles 22:2 "Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign."

Should we swear an oath?

* Numbers 30:2 "If a man vow a vow unto the Lord, or swear an oath . . . he shall do according to all that proceedeth out of his mouth."
* Genesis 21:22-24,31 " . . . swear unto me here by God that thou wilt not deal falsely with me . . . And Abraham said, I will swear. . . . Wherefore he called that place Beersheba ["well of the oath"]; because there they sware both of them."
* Hebrews 6:13-17 "For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no greater, he sware by himself . . . for men verily swear by the greater: and an oath for confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath."
* See also Genesis 22:15-19, Genesis 31:53, and Judges 11:30-39.

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* Matthew 5:34-37 "But I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven . . . nor by the earth . . . . Neither shalt thou swear by thy head . . . . But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil."
* James 5:12 ". . . swear not, neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation."

When was Jesus crucified?

* Mark 15:25 "And it was the third hour, and they crucified him."

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* John 19:14-15 "And about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out . . . crucify him."

It is an ad hoc defense to claim that there are two methods of reckoning time here. It has never been shown that this is the case.

Shall we obey the law?

* I Peter 2:13 "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man . . . to the king, as supreme; Or unto governors."
* Matthew 22:21 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." See also Romans 13:1,7 and Titus 3:1.

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* Acts 5:29 "We ought to obey God rather then men."

How many animals on the ark?

* Genesis 6:19 "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark."
* Genesis 7:8-9 "Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah."
* Genesis 7:15 "And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life."

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* Genesis 7:2 "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."

Were women and men created equal?

* Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them."

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* Genesis 2:18,23 "And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. . . . And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man."

Were trees created before humans?

* Genesis 1:12-31 "And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: . . . And the evening and the morning were the third day. . . . And God said, Let us make man in our image . . . And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

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* Genesis 2:5-9 "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground . . . And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food."

Did Michal have children?

* II Samuel 6:23 "Therefore Michal the daughter of Saul had no child unto the day of her death."

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* II Samuel 21:8 "But the king took the two sons of Rizpah . . . and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul."

How many stalls did Solomon have?

* I Kings 4:26 "And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."

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* II Chronicles 9:25 "And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen."

Did Paul's men hear a voice?

* Acts 9:7 "And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man."

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* Acts 22:9 "And they that were with me saw indeed the light, and were afraid; but they heard not the voice of him that spake to me."

(For more detail on this contradiction, with a linguistic analysis of the Greek words, see "Did Paul's Men Hear A Voice?" by Dan Barker, published in the The Skeptical Review, 1994 1)

Is God omnipotent?

* Jeremiah 32:27 "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?
* Matthew 19:26 "But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible."

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* Judges 1:19 "And the Lord was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

Does God live in light?

* I Timothy 6:15-16 " . . . the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach . . ."
* James 1:17 " . . . the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning."
* John 12:35 "Then Jesus saith unto them, . . . he that walketh in darkness knoweth not wither he goeth."
* Job 18:18 "He [the wicked] shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world."
* Daniel 2:22 "He [God] knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him." See also Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians 6:14, and Hebrews 12:18-22.

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* I Kings 8:12 "Then spake Solomon, The Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1)
* II Samuel 22:12 "And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies."
* Psalm 18:11 "He made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies."
* Psalm 97:1-2 "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice . . . clouds and darkness are round about him."

Does God accept human sacrifice?

* Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods."

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* Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of."
* Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay to offer the fi