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Re: Is there a God and why?

Sam F wrote:
Darth Praxus wrote:

What that doesn't prove is that the Biblical account is true by any means...

I know that.

Darth Praxus wrote:

... because it's not.

You don't know that.

Really, we do. If there had been a global flood:

1. Most, if not all, plant life would have been destroyed, which means that the herbivores leaving the Ark would have nothing to eat.

2. Those herbivores would quickly have been killed by the carnivores, who also would have nothing to eat.

3. Only two of each animal is not enough to repopulate the earth, especially because of the skewed predator/prey ratio (see point 2.)

4. The Ark itself just does not work in terms of fitting all the animals, let alone their waste, food, etc.

The Biblical account is impossible, if we are to take it literally. And if it's not literal, it means nothing in this context anyway.

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5. Probably best not to mention genetic diversity, either.

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It's also impossible to walk on water or to turn it into wine. If God caused the flood, I assume he could take care of the rest. There are also details about the story we don't know. All we have is what is in the text.

Keep in mind we are talking about God here. To accept the Bible is to accept divine intervention. And you really can't disprove that. You can only choose whether or not to believe it.

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Sam F wrote:

If God caused the flood, I assume he could take care of the rest.

If God sorted the rest what was the point of Noah then?

EDIT: also this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jHaR9rRpLg#t=5m5s

Last edited by Lamer (2014-01-03 22:54:07)

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Sam F wrote:

It's also impossible to walk on water or to turn it into wine. If God caused the flood, I assume he could take care of the rest. There are also details about the story we don't know. All we have is what is in the text.

Keep in mind we are talking about God here. To accept the Bible is to accept divine intervention. And you really can't disprove that. You can only choose whether or not to believe it.

If God could keep all the animals alive despite no food, why does He need an Ark at all? Why not just keep the animals alive despite the water around them? If He can somehow grow populations from nothing, why not allow all land animals to breathe water for forty days? Why the Flood at all? Why not just wipe everyone out instantly?

Which, in the end, is more likely: that God decided to exercize His judgment in the most complicated manner possible, and a curiously limited and inefficient one at that; or that ancient people with nearly no scientific knowledge and a powerful fear of the elements invented the whole thing to rationalize a terrifying situation?

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Darth Praxus wrote:

If God could keep all the animals alive despite no food, why does He need an Ark at all? Why not just keep the animals alive despite the water around them? If He can somehow grow populations from nothing, why not allow all land animals to breathe water for forty days? Why the Flood at all? Why not just wipe everyone out instantly?

I'll refer back to Francis Chan's "Erasing Hell" video and Isaiah 55:8-9, which I posted on the first page of the thread. God accomplishes things by means that we wouldn't always think to use. He uses His people to do these things, and I believe there's significance in that. Arguing against His methods is putting your own flawed sense of justice and reasoning above His. You think your logic is air-tight, but in reality, you don't know everything. In the grand scheme of things, we know next to nothing.

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So the answer is 'the lord works in mysterious ways'?

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Lamer wrote:

So the answer is 'the lord works in mysterious ways'?

Yeah. Not just mysterious, but higher. And I have no problem accepting that.

Last edited by Sam F (2014-01-03 23:18:47)

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Sam F wrote:
Lamer wrote:

So the answer is 'the lord works in mysterious ways'?

Yeah. Not just mysterious, but higher. And I have no problem accepting that.

But that's just it: His ways *aren't* higher. Every time He does something in the OT, it uses only the phenomena that the people of those days would be aware of: flood, fire, locusts, etc. He never does anything that truly demonstrates His superiority and His knowledge of things that we have no knowledge of. It's similar to Hitchens' point: the creation account never mentions microbes or dinosaurs or such things, because the people who wrote Genesis didn't know those things existed and thus didn't know that God would have needed to create them. Everything God does is limited to the knowledge of the people creating Him. There's nothing "high" about His doings at all.

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Re: Is there a God and why?

Sam F wrote:

In the grand scheme of things, we know next to nothing.

And yet you "assume he could take care of the rest". So how do we know anything about this God at all? You can't have it both ways.


Eddie Izzard has another skit about how the flood wouldn't have affected any of the water borne species.
[video (unkown provider)]

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan

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redxavier wrote:

Eddie Izzard has another skit about how the flood wouldn't have affected any of the water borne species.
[video (unkown provider)]

I recently spent a weekend watching nearly all of his standup specials on Netflix. My latest fav is a bit he does toward the end of one of his shows about Darth Vader getting lunch at a cafeteria.

Sorry. Carry on.

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Re: Is there a God and why?

avatar wrote:
Doctor Submarine wrote:

This is a pretty massive generalization, especially the part about there being "virtually no progress" in any of those areas. Actually, the so-called "Dark" Ages had advancement. Just look at the Carolingian Renaissance. That's why most historians agree that the term "Dark" Ages is inaccurate.

Did you actually read the article on the Carolingian Renaissance you linked to? The so-called "achievements" throughout the 9th century are limited to the court, and the term "renaissance" is somewhat of an exaggeration and contested. How did European society actually improve? What are its great achievements, comparable to those before the Dark Ages (maths, astronomy, theatre, history) and those after the Dark Ages (discovery of the New World, anatomy, telescopes, heliocentrism, etc).

Transcribing ancient scrolls is not an 'achievement' if you don't add anything of value to them. Neither is Biblical commentary or yet more depictions of the Virgin and Child.

I know we're way past this at this point, but I wanted to clarify. Preserving so many super-important works of literature is hardly something to be brushed aside as unimportant. I'm not saying that there wasn't something of a decline, but the term "Dark Ages" is incredibly misleading. The first person ever to use the term "Dark Ages" used it to describe the period of time between the end of Charlemagne's rule and the beginning of the Gregorian Reforms. Aka, a period of time where the Church had little political power or ties to powerful leaders. The time period was "Dark" because the Church had little control. It was later co-opted by any number of people to describe multiple periods of time in the Middle Ages. You call something "Dark" so that you can create a negative association with something else. In this case, it's been used so much that it's basically meaningless. Not to mention the fact that plenty of places outside Europe were having a grand old time.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Is there a God and why?

Sam F wrote:

Isn't it peculiar that so many ancient cultures passed down similar flood stories? Maybe it's because a great flood actually happened. Different cultures infused their own myths into the stories, but the fact that so many of them told stories of a great flood tells me that maybe Moses wasn't copying them, but referencing the same actual event.

The very first cities that were ever built are all located between the lower Tigris and Euphrates Rivers... on a flood plain. Uruk and Ur date from the 4th millennium BC... when they invented writing, epic literature, institutionalized religion with a priestly  class, etc. Whenever there was a deluge in the mountains in southern Turkey, it flooded downstream. The Jews were exiled for 50 years in Babylon in the 6th century BC.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Sumer1.jpg/800px-Sumer1.jpg

not long to go now...

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Re: Is there a God and why?

Doctor Submarine wrote:

I know we're way past this at this point, but I wanted to clarify. Preserving so many super-important works of literature is hardly something to be brushed aside as unimportant. I'm not saying that there wasn't something of a decline, but the term "Dark Ages" is incredibly misleading. The first person ever to use the term "Dark Ages" used it to describe the period of time between the end of Charlemagne's rule and the beginning of the Gregorian Reforms. Aka, a period of time where the Church had little political power or ties to powerful leaders. The time period was "Dark" because the Church had little control. It was later co-opted by any number of people to describe multiple periods of time in the Middle Ages. You call something "Dark" so that you can create a negative association with something else. In this case, it's been used so much that it's basically meaningless. Not to mention the fact that plenty of places outside Europe were having a grand old time.

The context of this discussion was whether Christianity was responsible for a diminution of progress. Someone brushed this aside, claiming they were all pagans in the Dark Ages / Middle Ages. This wasn't true - for most of this 1000 year period, the big players in Europe (French, Italians, Germans, Spanish, Saxons were thoroughly Christianized.
And the term is not meaningless. It refers to a specific geographical area (Europe) and it refers to a very specific epoch: mid-5th century AD (Fall of Rome) to mid-15th century AD (Renaissance). The term is at least as, if not more, precise as "Classical Antiquity" or "Reformation" or "Renaissance" or "Enlightenment".

As for what was happening outside Europe... Sure, China had come up with printing, gunpowder, and the compass, and were sending ships to Africa in the early 15th century. But we were discussing Christianity's braking effect on progress. And there was a massive slow-down, stalling, and even reverse of any measure of progress you care to come up with: scientific understanding, living standards, human rights, etc.

Yes, it's now more PC to call it "Middle Ages" because "Dark Ages" has a judgemental tone about it. Academia likes to be very politically correct. But I'm calling a spade a spade. The "lights went out" in Europe for about 1000 years - there was virtually no advance across a whole range of intellectual fields.

If you dispute this, feel free to cite some examples where Europe progressed during this 1000 year interval.

not long to go now...

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Re: Is there a God and why?

Everything about the Great Flood is sort of awesome and hilarious. From the lack of any geological evidence, to the bristlecone pine trees in California that are older than the Flood, to the fact that the whole world had gone to hell just 700 years after Adam, to the "correction" of dates for Methuselah to avoid his being still alive at the time of the Flood, to the animals (4 of each, by the way, and 14 of the farm animals and birds*).

Google Noah's Ark and you'll find people insisting that dinosaurs were on the ark and no animal ate meat until after the Flood and so on. It's amazing.

And just 100 years later, WHILE NOAH IS STILL ALIVE, people are off building the Tower of Babel. And God is like "We** gotta stop this! They'll be building cars and computers next! Make them talk funny!"

http://legacy-cdn-assets.answersingenesis.org/assets/images/articles/2009/01/timeline.gif

* "seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female...." Genesis 7, unless you want to believe the lying whore mouth of Genesis 6

** Him and Satan, I guess? Satan helped him out later when they decided to gamble with Lot's faith.

Last edited by Zarban (2014-01-04 01:57:59)

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Zarban wrote:

* "seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female...." Genesis 7, unless you want to believe the lying whore mouth of Genesis 6

Yeah, that's one of the fun things that was left when the various books were compiled. One string of texts had there being no sacrifices to YHVH until Abraham, so there need only be two of each animal. The other had sacrifices from the start (which caused the Cain/Able spat), so they needed the extra animals so they could be sacrificed at the end of the flood without wiping out the entire set of "clean" species.

I write stories! With words!
http://www.asstr.org/~Invid_Fan/

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Re: Is there a God and why?

avatar wrote:

And the term is not meaningless. It refers to a specific geographical area (Europe) and it refers to a very specific epoch: mid-5th century AD (Fall of Rome) to mid-15th century AD (Renaissance). The term is at least as, if not more, precise as "Classical Antiquity" or "Reformation" or "Renaissance" or "Enlightenment".

This just isn't the case. It's often used to describe the entirety of the Middle Ages, which is ridiculous. It's not precise at all. And even within Europe it's not all-encompassing. Just look how Germany was doing.

avatar wrote:

As for what was happening outside Europe... Sure, China had come up with printing, gunpowder, and the compass, and were sending ships to Africa in the early 15th century. But we were discussing Christianity's braking effect on progress. And there was a massive slow-down, stalling, and even reverse of any measure of progress you care to come up with: scientific understanding, living standards, human rights, etc.

This is just absurd, and it's a distortion of history to suit an ideology. The Church sponsored a lot of scientific endeavors, endeavors which made up the foundation for greater advancement in the centuries to come. Not that the Church represents the entirety of Christianity anyway. The Church is also responsible for the creation of the University system. This notion that Christianity is entirely anti-knowledge because "DAE gOD DON'T REAL!!" ignores Scholasticism, and with it a lot of important scientific figures of history.

It also assumes that scientific advancement in the period before the Middle Ages was much more rapid than it actually was.

avatar wrote:

Yes, it's now more PC to call it "Middle Ages" because "Dark Ages" has a judgemental tone about it. Academia likes to be very politically correct. But I'm calling a spade a spade. The "lights went out" in Europe for about 1000 years - there was virtually no advance across a whole range of intellectual fields.

If you dispute this, feel free to cite some examples where Europe progressed during this 1000 year interval.

What, you think that the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were built on an invisible foundation? That's not how it works.

Look, I'm not saying that it was all sunshine and roses for Europe during this period, but the whole "Dark Ages" thing is anti-history. What does that actually tell us about that time period? Not much.

Last edited by Doctor Submarine (2014-01-04 02:08:21)

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Is there a God and why?

WAIT. I'm totally changing my position. There IS a God.

http://hollywoodlife.com/2010/02/26/jen … ad-autism/

PS I love this forum and, against all odds, this thread.

Last edited by Zarban (2014-01-04 02:29:54)

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Zarban wrote:

** Him and Satan, I guess? Satan helped him out later when they decided to gamble with Lot's faith.

The "us" is a remnant of the days when the Hebrews were polytheistic and there would have been "us". Evangelicals retcon this to say God was talking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

The Satan thing is really interesting: pretty much any time the OT refers to him, it's a deliberate mistranslation of the term "the satan" or "a satan" because a satan was originally a kind of angel. For instance, the angel that talks to Balaam in the road? That's a satan (redacted by the English translations as "the angel"). There was no concept of a singular Adversary called Satan until Judaism began to take its cues from Zoroastrianism.

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Re: Is there a God and why?

Darth Praxus wrote:

There was no concept of a singular Adversary called Satan until Judaism began to take its cues from Zoroastrianism.

Yeah, and that's what's weird about calling Judaism and Christianity "monotheistic". They go way out of their way to claim that 1+1+1 = 1 god, but there's also this god of evil lurking around every corner, ruling Hell, and trying to make you buy dresses.*

*Mainly applies to Flip Wilson

Last edited by Zarban (2014-01-04 02:46:52)

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Is there a God and why?

Zarban wrote:
Darth Praxus wrote:

There was no concept of a singular Adversary called Satan until Judaism began to take its cues from Zoroastrianism.

Yeah, and that's what's weird about calling Judaism and Christianity "monotheistic". There's also this god of evil lurking around every corner, ruling Hell, and trying to make you buy dresses.*

*Mainly applies to Flip Wilson

The idea of Satan always confused me. So he's a fallen angel, and he rules over Hell...wherein he punishes people who don't obey God? Huh?

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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Re: Is there a God and why?

I still can't rationalize the idea of sending your baddest sunabitches humans to the place where the baddest sunuvabitch angel is, and then expect him to torture them.

It's like, how about no, I'm going to take all these guys, train them up and then go invade your pansy ass heaven with my kickass army of human souls. How about that?

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Is there a God and why?

Doctor Submarine wrote:

The idea of Satan always confused me. So he's a fallen angel, and he rules over Hell...wherein he punishes people who don't obey God? Huh?

I'm always amazed how casually believers treat all this. I mean, if it WAS actually true, and the choices you made in life made the difference between eternity in paradise and eternity being tortured, wouldn't you do your utmost to get the fine print right? e.g. To make sure whether it's beef or fish or pork you're supposed to avoid, or whatever, etc. What does it precisely mean to keep the Sabbath holy?
But almost all Christians just seem to do what they want anyway, trusting that the rules (schmules), have a lot of flexibility.

not long to go now...

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Doctor Submarine wrote:
Zarban wrote:
Darth Praxus wrote:

There was no concept of a singular Adversary called Satan until Judaism began to take its cues from Zoroastrianism.

Yeah, and that's what's weird about calling Judaism and Christianity "monotheistic". There's also this god of evil lurking around every corner, ruling Hell, and trying to make you buy dresses.*

*Mainly applies to Flip Wilson

The idea of Satan always confused me. So he's a fallen angel, and he rules over Hell...wherein he punishes people who don't obey God? Huh?

The issue is muddy; a lot of the tradition of Satan ruling hell is just that, tradition. In the NT, it's more implied that he rules over the earth itself (the prince of the power of the air). Hell isn't even the final horror for unbelievers, the Lake of Fire is.

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Re: Is there a God and why?

There's a lot of stuff from Paradise Lost that gets conflated with actual scripture, too. That's where my confusion comes from.

"The Doctor is Submarining through our brains." --Teague

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