kenzomatic said: Andir said: kenzomatic said: Exia said: Here are some of the inconsistencies with the bible OP: I can't to heaven because there is none. Is it just me or is this a little offensive? EDIT: the cussing that is.  If God created language (or the ability to speak | or created language THROUGH people) wouldn't all language be the word of God and therefore be acceptable, non-offensible?  Also, we had another thread discussion where all the religious typesfailed to prove that if God created free will, then why can he not control it. Do you feel better now that you have made yourself look like an ass. Also I see the trend of you not wanting anything censored, so this is what I want you to do go to preschool and start cussing the worst you can in front of the children and see what happens.

I did?  Explain.  Or is this the part where the religious call me a loon and try to discredit me because they cannot answer the question.

The_vagabond7 said: rocketpig said: kenzomatic said: It would all be fine in a history of relgions class. Which I think would be a welcome addition to public education. Absolutely. There is nothing wrong with teaching people about religion in public schools, it's just wrong to teach them to believe in religion.  I actually read an article in Time magazine, that some schools are doing just that. It's a neutral religious class, where they don't teach that the bible is right or wrong, but rather have students study and examine it from an objective standpoint. Does the bible have contradictions? Is the morality presented in the bible perfect or flawed? What is the message of the bible? Is it a cohesive message? It doesn't try to say one way or another if it's right or wrong, it just tries to get students to look at it and think. And that I'm all for. Have a bible class, have a science class. But don't present the bible as science.

The problem with that is that not all teachers can be objective...

Tavin said: The Ghost of RubangB said: So if you love my hypothetical future kids, keep your mouth shut!  I love your future kids .... now the question here is .... do you ??   =D

I guess that depends on whether you think lieing to your kids and putting false beliefs in their heads is love.

@ daddo splat

"Just explain how the 1 st living organism came into existance ??

You recreate it in a lab and show us scientifically how it worked! Iam all ears! or would there be conclusive evidence of this or just speculation and best guess???"

So your best guess and speculation that god did it based on what is written in the bible is good enough for you?

Andir said: kenzomatic said: Andir said: kenzomatic said: Exia said: Here are some of the inconsistencies with the bible OP: I can't to heaven because there is none. Is it just me or is this a little offensive? EDIT: the cussing that is. If God created language (or the ability to speak | or created language THROUGH people) wouldn't all language be the word of God and therefore be acceptable, non-offensible? Also, we had another thread discussion where all the religious typesfailed to prove that if God created free will, then why can he not control it. Do you feel better now that you have made yourself look like an ass. Also I see the trend of you not wanting anything censored, so this is what I want you to do go to preschool and start cussing the worst you can in front of the children and see what happens. I did? Explain. Or is this the part where the religious call me a loon and try to discredit me because they cannot answer the question.

Did I call you a loon NO. You know what

"Forget it, Venkman! You had your chance to cooperate, but you thought it'd be more fun to insult me. Well, now it is my turn, wise ass."

Just lighten up.

And to answer you question it's because my question was in no way about religion but whether anyone else was bothered by the fact that in a would be documentry they keep saying BS. 

Daddo Splat said: Profcrab said: So, what makes Intelligent Design worthy of being taught in school? Because some people believe it even though there is no scientific evidence of it? You have also made a comment out of ignorance. It doesn't sound like you know much about evolution. Evolution has gone far beyond Charles Darwin. The studies of evolution go down to the cellular level. I won't profess more knowledge than I have studied myself (I study geology, not biology beyond what I had to), but you would be well served to talk to a molecular biologist. There are no inconsistancies, there are only gaps in what you can actually find in the fossil record. There is a problem with the fossil record, not all animals live in areas where they are likely to fossilize, and some do not have body structures that fossilize well. Even though I can't go into detail about the the cellular variations, I can tell you about fossils. Sometimes, in geology we are very lucky and we find certain rocks that do have a specific chemical makeup that allows them to preserve micro-organisms and larger organisms with soft-bodies, like early arthropods and softer planktonic organisms. Are record of marine organisms is much more complete because they live where they are likely to fossilize. Land animals that don't live near water they can be buried in often only fossilize because they were caught in a landslide or some other natural disaster. So, you get a very good record of evolution in the ocean. Fossils are useful to us because we can use them to date rock layers quickly and correlate them with other rock layers around the world. We can see how animals changed in response to their environment and in response to each other. If you are going to start teaching some people's religious beliefs in school then which one are you going to chose? There are people in New Guinea that believe, or believed, that the world was created by a great mother who gave birth to her son and left him to grow up on the island on his own. When he turned 15 he missed his mother so much that he cried until he filled the oceans, which is why the oceans are so salty, and his mother returned. When she returned they had children and gave birth to all the people of the world. So, there is about as much proof of Intelligent Design as there is of a goddess that had sex with her 15 year old son to beget the world. Which, by the way, had to happen in the biblical explanation since if there are only Adam & Eve, someone had to "know" their brother, sister, mother or father. Also, stop associating theory with a guess. Theory in science is an explanation for natural phenomena backed up by reliable evidence. Evolution will never be a law of science because laws are natural mechanics, not explanations. For instance, we have laws of gravity which describe gravity's behavior, but how gravity works is a theory.    I know its not popular oppinion but Jesus is the way the truth and the life! 2nd evolution fought its way into the classroom with the same opposition Creationism is getting now! How the tables have turned! the real issue is what faith based religion are you going to follow best guess hypothisis! were one single cell bacteria appeared by random chance or a meteor from outer space which could be plausible it happened on another planet then the bacteria hit the earth before oxone or oxygen so it could possibly have survived its way here through space and form these small living cells all thing evolved! Or that a creator God Spoke the World into existence for his good pleasure! were the bible makes claims about floods and other things! Creationism talks about the fossil record and its complaint to evolution is where are the transitionary forms how did the one first living organism come into existence??? A. E. Wilder Smith a Micro biologist talks about the complexity of just one single cell organism! the fact that its just appears is the greatest miracle of all! I personally believe let the people have the public schools so the social left can train thier recruits about evolution and 10% of all people are gay! and sin doesnt exist its just good or bad behavior!  Why do you think the Homeschool movement has grown so large! Because parents dont need the Goverment and the social left telling them how to raise thier kids! So just like it makes you mad that people want to get thier view expressed! and be taught on a level playing field it also piss me off all the other garbage that gets pushed out in public schools! PS a creation view in the bible would'nt offend any Christian group Catholic Protestant ! also Jews Muslims all hold to a Genesis type creation! I could see hindus and budhist having a problem with it but they might have a problem with evolution to! Just explain how the 1 st living organism came into existance ?? You recreate it in a lab and show us scientifically how it worked! Iam all ears! or would there be conclusive evidence of this or just speculation and best guess???

 

First of all, as to how life formed, we do have clues and can recreate some of that possible process.  One thing is that some simple organic compounds can be produced abiotic, without life creating them.  Some of these also form more complex compounds without life to form them.  RNA, most likely the first genetic code used can reproduce without the aid of life.  One of the problems with demanding that scientists create it in a lab is that we will never have what the earth had to create life, geologic time.  Millions of years during that time.  The conditions would have to be just right for the self-replicating molecules to be encased in a of lipid bilayer protective case (which can also form without needing life to create it).  All life on earth depends on the lipid bilayers to protect the inner workings of their cells.  You have everything you need in these early earth environments for life to exist, give it enough time and the chances that these chemicals are going to come together in just the right way grows.

Also, as I stated, there are always going to be gaps in the fossil record.  If you were a land animal that lived 50 million years ago no where near a large body of water, the chances of you fossilizing are very low.  Animal carcases that are left out in the open do not fossilize.  They are eaten by animals from carnivores to scavengers and their bones do not stand up to weathering.  You also need something to bury them.  This is also why early humans did not fossilize well.  Early humans and their genetic cousins, were land animals who did not live where they would fossilize well.  So, you will find that the fossil record is incredibly biased towards marine life because they do live where they would be preserved.  Also, keep in mind that we are also limited by what we can access.

Even in geology it sometimes becomes a pitfall to throw around times like millions of years like we were talking about seasons.  What still must be understood is that these are immense spans of geologic time.  Single celled organisms dominated the earth for almost 2 billion years.  Once the oxygen level reached a level where complex multicellular heterotrophs (things that don't produce their own food) could grow larger, you had the Cambrian Explosion (about 550 million years ago) where you see lots of complex multicellular creatures pop up in the fossil record.  The features of these animals grew out of the natural process of escalation where animals drive the evolution of each other.  This happens with predators and prey where prey with features that make it possible for them to survive long enough to reproduce live and predators that are better able to overcome these features live to do the same.  This process continues and animals develop more and more features to gain that advantage.  Without considering the time that these processes are working with, they seem unnatural.  You have to consider that these spans of geologic time are each several million years.  These animals existed for sometimes tens of millions of years.

The Earth is a complex machine not a museum curator.  This is why you will never get 100% of the proof you are looking for because the earth isn't trying to preserve everything for us.  Some things preserve, some don't.  Some things even do preserve but then get put under so much heat and pressure that all the fossil evidence in the rock is lost (fossils are the first thing to go).  This happens in metamorphic rock.  The older a rock is and if it is at the right edge of the continent it has a decent chance of being metamorphosed during a continent collision.  Paleontologists are not big fans of metamorphic rock because it destroys what they are looking for.

We have strong evidence for all of this, we have evidence of these early single-celled organisms.  We have evidence that the Earth is that old.  We know the environments that many of these plants and animals lived in.

Let me bring this back to your comment.  If you want to believe that God designed all this and whatnot, that's fine.  I, by the way, never said I didn't believe in God.  Science exists to find explanations for natural phenomena.  All these things tie into each other, Chemistry, Biology, Geology, Physics.  You can't split them away from each other because they interlock.  You can't say that one is the realm of God and can't be touched.  All biology is chemistry, all chemistry depends on physics, all geology depends on biology, chemistry, and physics.  When talking about mutations, biologists have even been able to come up with a clock by which they can chart the rate of inclusions of mutations through time.  It can only give a general age range and is different for vertebrates and invertebrates but has been used to come up with an estimate of an organisms age which geologists later were able to place that organism in that time frame when they discovered a fossil of it (I just read a paper about where they found the earliest organisms ever discovered with bilateral symmetry and what the early estimates were).  I'm sorry but the evidence that evolution occurs and what causes it is there in the rocks.  Biologists will also tell you that the evidence can also be found in our own cells.  If you want to believe that it's that way because God designed in that way then that is certainly OK, but you can't teach that in school because it's only a belief.  Science is not a religion.  Science is not trying to tell you that there is no god either.  Scientists use evidence they have to explain these natural occurances.  If you want to speculate a to the origin of everything, go right ahead, but to deny that these processes exist and to say that we are separate from them is just willful ignorance at this point. 

Help those worse off and less fortunate than yourself. 

If god created the earth and nature, then he is a huge jack ass. Creationists talk about how earth is the perfect habitat for us and all living things, when really it's an EXTREMELY HARSH habitat for us or any living thing, barely survivable for any life. It's subject to rapid climate changes, yearly cycles of having an over abundance of food or having virtually no food at all, sudden mass destruction by means of earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters, and the majority of the land on earth is covered in climates so harsh they can barely support life. If earth is so perfect of a habitat why have countless species that god created gone extinct long before man ever came onto the scene? Why did god create so many animals just to kill them? Why did he create a "perfect" earth that kills more creatures and species than it sustains? If he made the earth the way it is now, then he's an architect but a really really crappy one. Like with all other things with god, just point out the good things, ooh look at the water cycle! And ignore the bad things Ooh look how the water cycle forces creatures to travel half way across africa every year just to get a drink of water during the summer time, with only a fraction of them surviving the trip through the harsh punishing climate!

Also Nature itself does not denote a loving and wise creator. If you were all loving and all wise, would you create a system of life that is based on a cycle of death and pain, and endless painful struggle to pass on one's genes? All life is based on the death (frequently very gruesome and painful deaths, watch a pack of lions kill a baby elephant and begin eating it while it's still alive and talk about how miraculous it is) of other creatures.

God being infinitely wise, powerful and loving could have and by definition should have created a perfectly balanced paradise earth where pain and death are unnecessary. Pain and death shouldn't even be in god's heart, and yet they are the fundamental basis for all life. The bible says in genesis the earth used to be a paradise 6000 years ago, when science and history very clearly show that isn't true.

Trying to reconcile our planet to a loving, powerful, and wise god is a ridiculous and impossible act. And can only be done if you ignore everything that disagrees with you....oh wait....that's how they do it...

Believe in Jesus Christ as God`s only son, who came and died on cross and a third day risen.
believe in him that he will forgive your sins.
that is what i believe

kazadoom said: bluesinG - Here is an easy read about Ahaziah that really explains it in more detail. You can skim down to the explanation that makes perfect since. http://www.letgodbetrue.com/bible/scripture/ahaziah-contradiction.pdf

"Assumptions
"1. God is.
"2. God gave Scripture.
"3. Scripture is absolute truth.
"4. The King James Version is Scripture.
"5. Satan and man are at war against God and truth.
"6. God promised to destroy the wisdom of man.
"7. God promised to reveal the truth to His elect."

We can't make this stuff up, folks.  Kazadoom's source, which he asserts explains how the Bible is not wrong, begins with the assumption that the Bible is not wrong.

This means that, with only one possible conclusion, any amount of twisted logic or leaps of faith (!) is permissible if necessary.*  For example, the explanation for Jehoiachin does not appear to make sense.  Sure, years were counted from all sorts of notable events, but in that case you would mention the event!  When you say "Dude was 8 years old when X happened" the only sensible explanation is that the event is Dude's birth. Otherwise it would read "It was 8 years since XXX that X happened".  And that's not even counting the fact that the two passages are word-for-word copies other than the number itself.

*And actually, that's valid logic.  If you make an assumption, the rest of the argument treats it as absolute fact.  Any twists and turns that happen as a result are necessary and justified.  That's why incorrect assumptions can lead one to a devastatingly wrong conclusion even when one's logic is perfect. 

P.S.  As someone said before me, circular reasoning FTL.