Evolution vs Creationism, Why are we having this silly debat

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LiendaBalla
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24 Jan 2012, 4:55 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

The Bible does not explicitly state that Adam and Eve were the first people.

My bibles certainly say that God created Adam as the first humanoid, so where did this "people before Adam" thing come from?

naturalplastic
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24 Jan 2012, 4:57 pm

Back to the OP.
"Why are we still debating this?" is not the question to ask.

The question to ask is why is the outdated model that the earth was conjured into existence in one week 6000 years ago still being proped up by vested interests when most outdated scientific models (like the geocentric Universe, and the system of bodily humors model for infectious diseases) are allowed to fall by the wayside?

We dont "still debate" the flatness of the earth.

ProfessorP
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24 Jan 2012, 5:17 pm

LiendaBalla wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

The Bible does not explicitly state that Adam and Eve were the first people.

My bibles certainly say that God created Adam as the first humanoid, so where did this "people before Adam" thing come from?

Please cite the passage. Genesis 1 has no reference to Adam. Genesis 2 never refers to Adam as the first man. 1Cor 15:45 refers to Adam as the first man and Christ as the second man, so that oviously does not mean Adam was created first.

abacacus
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24 Jan 2012, 6:37 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

abacacus wrote:

No free thinker can accept the existence of any "divine being" while still retaining sanity.

If you you really were someone who wants to find things out for himself, you wouldn't be bothering with the bible which is chock full of contradictions and outright lies AS WELL AS passages supporting slavery and murder.

Studies of Christians who state that they have had spiritual experiences indicate that the vast majority are sane.
Please cite passages from the New Testament which are contradictory or lies.
NT does not support (or reject) slavery. It tells Christian masters to treat their slaves well and Christian slaves to sork for their masters as working for the Lord. I believe that this is consistent with the apol itical nature of the NT. It is not calling for political revolution. It is instead telling people how to behave given the existing government.
I believe that for Christians, the OT should be used as allegory. I believe that the OT is all literally true, but the meanings for Christians require interpretation in light of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament is also not the only bible. Old Testament, remember? The one your also supposed to follow (according to Jesus, Matthew 5:17)? All the laws of the Old Testament apply to you as well, being a christian.

Biblical Lies, an article about demonic possession in the bible. Also known as lies.

"When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. " (Exodus 21:20-21)
Is that telling people to treat their slaves well? It says if you beat your slave to the point he dies the next day you have done no wrong! Exodus 21:2-6 also explains how to make a man your slave for life, but it doesn't support slavery? Seems to me like you need to read your bible a bit more :wink:

Contradictions?

"The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is his name." (Exodus 15:3) and Romans 15:33 "Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen."

"And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ.", Matthews 1:16 and Luke 3:23 "And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli."

If you'd like more see This Page.

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Awesomelyglorious
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24 Jan 2012, 8:47 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

I last read Russell's book over 15 years ago when I discussed it with a former Christian who had become an atheist. My memory is that he has about a chapter on relationships and that he referred to a pastor or minister who had abused his wife who had borne many children.
Thanks for looking this up.

Ah, the problem is that "Why I am not a Christian" refers to a specific essay. You probably read a collection of essays by Russell, that included "Why I am not a Christian".

ProfessorP
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24 Jan 2012, 8:50 pm

abacacus wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

abacacus wrote:

Hi Abacus,
Please keep in mind regarding the OT that all of it needs to be interpreted in light of Christ and His teachings. Consequently, the Christian interpretations of the OT must rely on allegory and metaphor. For example, the Lord may be a man of war in destroying sin. He still gives inner peace (and as my own theology is mostly Mennonite, I believe that He advocates peace). That is why I asked that you find contradictions within the NT. Otherwise, my reliance on allegory and mataphor for the OT will tend to look like I am just stretching words to make up answers.
Regarding the geneologies, it is widely viewed that the geneology in Luke is a geneology of Mary while Mt provides a geneology of Joseph who was not Jesus' biological father. The most ancient explanation of the apparent contradiction of names (ca 200AD) with respect to Joseph's father is that Jacob was his biological father but Jacob died young and Joseph was raised by Heli, a close male kin of Jacob who married Jacob's wife in accordance with Levitical practice. The Roman Catholic explanation is that, since the geneology in Luke is of Mary, Jacob was Joseph's father-in-law.
I did not go through the entire website you gave me. I believe that you can find Christian responses to those alleged contradictions through web searches. If one bothers you in particular, however, I would be happy to to try with my own explanation.

ProfessorP
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24 Jan 2012, 9:35 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

While your simplification misses the point of Pascal's wager I would agree that multiple scanarios are logically possible. It is logically possible that there is a god who punishes people who seek him. Nonetheless, the wager remains a good bet as long as it is more likely that God rewards those who seek Him than that he punishes those who seek him. Billions of people have said that they were rewarded by God for seeking Him. While some say that seeking God made them feel bad, I do not know of any who say that God punished them for seeking him. Please keep in mind that if there is no god, then no one is better or worse off for anything they do.

The problem brought forward is the problem of multiple religions. You failed to grasp the point of criticism. If there is Yahweh, and there is Allah, and Allah only rewards Allah worshipers, and Yahweh only rewards Yahweh worshipers, then you now have three possibilities, and if you pick the wrong faith, you get no reward. Just keep on multiplying this, as most religions have special rewards and reject the direction other faiths try to lead people.

I asked that Abacus pray to God to show Himself to Abacus and that he ask that in the name of His Son Jesus. If the God of the Bible is real, then no other god will answer that prayer. If someother god answers that prayer, then I do not believe that god would show himself to Abacus in a way that makes Abacus believe in the God of the Bible. If there is no answer, then Abacus is no worse than when he started. If there is no god, then it is all pointless anyway.

MCalavera
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24 Jan 2012, 10:16 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

LiendaBalla wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

The Bible does not explicitly state that Adam and Eve were the first people.

My bibles certainly say that God created Adam as the first humanoid, so where did this "people before Adam" thing come from?

To keep it short, most parsimonious interpretation is that Adam and Eve were the first two humans created by God according to the Bible generally.

Awesomelyglorious
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24 Jan 2012, 10:32 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

Well, the devil of another religion could. It becomes a crapshoot too easily.

TheKing
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24 Jan 2012, 10:55 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

http://theflatearthsociety.org/cms/

try telling that to these guys i came across this site last year

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TheKing
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24 Jan 2012, 11:07 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

TheKing wrote:

simon_says wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

ruveyn wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

my problem with Pascal's Wager is that if you are only believing in God on the chance that he MIGHT exist, you arent a true believer so IF your God exists and he is "All Powerful" and "All Knowing" he will know that you are not a true believer so in addition to lying to yourself your now lying to God.

you can reverse Pascal's Wager assuming Hinudism is true, its better to believe in Shiva and Brahma and all the other Hindu gods than not believe, you can use it with any religion just like life, Christians saying that life is ALL the proof they need of God(s) existence can be used for ANY religion since they almost all deal with the origin of man.

personally IF the Christian God exists i would want to go to Hell because in Heaven i would be surrounded by people i generallly hate, very few religious people i like because most are sanctimonious holier-than-thou a**es, and ALL world's Free-Thinkers and Intellectuals are going to Hell OBVIOUSLY thats the place to be. i die, wake up in hell as im looking round i will think "huh, its not too bad down here." lol i told my mom to save me a spot by the fire, my mom is only a Christian because of Pascal's Wager she would rather believe than not believe on the chance that God might be real

I agree that Pascal's wager may be applied to other religions which require that the you accept God.
I am really sorry to read about your experience with other Christians. Unfortunately, I know too many people who have had bad experiences with Christians. All I can do is apologize for those bad experiences and ask you to remember that the Christians who offended you are just weak (probably victimized) people themselves. I try not to act "holier than though" or to otherwise be a bad representative. Of course, with my Aspergers, I am sure that many people just walk away saying "He calls himself a Christian, but he is totally insensitive to other people."
BTW, I consider myself to be a free thinker. It is just that my free thinking has lead me to Christ!
Anyway, I hope that you will forgive us. Even secular psychologists often say that forgiving other people is a very good thing to do.

i have met some pretty awesome Christians, one of my biggest political mentors was my old geometry teacher who also taught Confirmation classes, Mr. Miller was a really great man despite his religious beliefs. he is a strict Constitutionalist and gave me my first pocket Constitution and other important US documents like Declaration of Independence that has become so handy in my Government class, i will quote the Declaration and Constitution to support my arguments. in geometry we spent most of the year learning about corruption in the Government and that we need a small secular Government, yes from my Catholic teacher he wholly supported Separation between Church and State instead of a Christian Theocratic America

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abacacus
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24 Jan 2012, 11:24 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

So basically "I don't agree with the Old Testament so I put my own spin on it. Oh, and those contradictions don't actually say what they say."

This is why I have such a big problem with religion, no matter what I show you in the bible you will have a rationalisation for it. Your belief in the religion blinds you to the obvious contradictions and lies, and you conveniently skim over the parts that don't suit you.

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25 Jan 2012, 12:04 am

abacacus wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

i was a Roman Catholic my whole life, i even used to pray to God to leave me behind during the Rapture so i can help save people. then my Catholic grandma convinced me to read the bible, took like a week and a half the first time then i reread it a 2nd time which took a month and when i finished i became atheist, i tried out other religions and came to the same conclusion, i stopped my exploration for a new God after i nearly got caught up in a cult and here i am today, proud atheist, freethinker, intellectual, hopeless romantic, poet, philosopher, aspiring scientist, and aspiring politician

i even have a legit scientific thesis to my name on radical life extension that i did as part of my final in AP English, me and my teacher reviewed it along with several other teachers and found biggest flaw is the issue of cancer but research is underway for a cure, maybe IF cancer is cured my thesis can become reality.

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ProfessorP
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25 Jan 2012, 10:03 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

Well, the devil of another religion could. It becomes a crapshoot too easily.

I agree that if we accept all logical possibilities and assign an equal weight to every logical possibility, that it is equally likely that praying will be harmful or beneficial.
I do not think, however, that it is reasonable to assign an equal weight to every logical possibility. We should start with some pre-suppositions about the nature of god. Russell obviously did that for "Why I am Not a Christian". While I believe that Russell's pre-supposiitons were simplistic and inaccurate, we cannot go anywhere useful with only pure logic.
BTW, I apologize for leading you astray by my citing a collection of Russell's essays which a publisher entitled "Why I am Not a Christian" rather than just that one essay.

ProfessorP
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25 Jan 2012, 10:09 am

abacacus wrote:

ProfessorP wrote:

This is not "my own spin" on the OT. The NT tells us that the OT needs to be interpreted through Christ. It is part of why Christ is a stumbling block to the Jews.
Regarding accuracy of the gospels, clearly, Luke and Mt did not coordinate their writings. Consequently, each of them describes some different sets of facts. Sometimes one chooses to leave characters and events out of his stories which the other includes. This is natural and should be expected if two different observers each describe events which took place over several years. It does not make either of them dishonest or even inaccurate.
It would still be logically possible for the gospels to contradict each other. For example, if Luke stated that Jacob begat Joseph and Mt stated that Heli begat Joseph, it would be a contradiction. We do not see that contradiction.
Keep in mind that according to the best historical accounts, these authors died at the hands of Roman authorities rather than recant their testimonies about Jesus. They would have simply had to say "OK, You are right. I made this up, and I will now throw incense to the statue of Caesar" and they could have saved their lives. They chose not to do so. That gives a lot of credibility to their testimonies.

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25 Jan 2012, 12:50 pm

ProfessorP wrote:

How is assuming that a good God will remove instances of evil like Russell though simplistic, while reducing the set of possible deities is not? The theological theories are endless as are the justifications. If anything, assuming a good God will do certain things is really the more justifiable assumption.

Quote:

BTW, I apologize for leading you astray by my citing a collection of Russell's essays which a publisher entitled "Why I am Not a Christian" rather than just that one essay.

The collection likely also has the title "and other essays". It's a common practice to do that with a collection containing a major essay and a bunch of minor essays.

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