I'll admit freely that the whole Tree of Knowledge thing confuses me...that's one of the things I'm working out about my faith. The way I see it at the moment, Adam and Eve's greatest sin was in disobeying God, and not necessarily in seeking more knowledge. But I DO want to let you all know that I do have questions...I don't believe blindly...I'm secure enough in my faith not to be threatened by some uncertainties.

Science has its place, but so does faith, and neither can replace the other. Some things just can NOT be explained by logic, Anakin, and I think you'll eventually come to understand that. If you think that everything in this world has a logical and rational explanation, then you've obviously never been in love. If you try to ignore the role of the heart and soul in human affairs, human beings might as well be computers.

And that's a wrap for Rogue Angel. *bows out of this thread*

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Ani: I can show you texts by non-Christians talking about Jesus and how he did great miracles. Although nowadays I don't see why Jophesus texts are used more often to back up Christianity. But yes there is a number of texts that say that Jesus Christ did do a number of miracles. And not all of them were not written by Christians.

We did a fun thing in one of my classes not to long ago to that I'm going to tell you about. Alright you start off with Adam and Eve, and then we did their ages and went down through the timeline in the Bible and went through the population. You have to remember that in biblical accounts that many people lived close to 1000 years or more. In theory you go through the timelines. You get a LARGE number of people.

Ohh and GS, even many scientists say that all the world's population can be traced back to 2 people. Neat huh?

You keep on talking about how Christians send out missionaries to convert people. You act like there is something wrong with sharing your beleifs with someone. They don't force it upon anyone. They are there to save people who want to be saved, not to shove stuff down people's throats. Sure we, Christians, think that we are right...that's the whole point of a belief. I just don't really see your point here?

Heh, why don't we discuss evolution while we're at it? j/k!

Yea, I've been reading A LOT lately about Biblical texts. Its amazing how much evidence there is to prove the Bible, more than to disprove.

I mean its the ONLY religion on Earth that is entirely historical accurate. It's funny how the Bible has been tried to be disproved through historical inaccuracies so many times. Yet things will show up to show that the Bible was accurate.

Ani: Your a history buff right? Read the Bible...its prolly the most accurate ancient history book out.

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

*Recalls that the Bible was written by people, and has been translated sooooo many times throughout history, and is also aware of how translations can easily alter meaning and facts and so on. Ever play "telephone" as a kid?*

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Biblical error is very small. Go back to the Dead Sea Scrolls and look at those. You go to the modern day versions we have and you know how many errors you have? They have found only 2, yes that's right. And guess what? Those were so small of errors their like forgetting to capatalize a letter in a sentence that should be. SOOOO, in other words the Bible is probably just as error free as other books that you read.

You beleive in Plato and other greek philosophers don't you? Well, guess what!?! We don't even have manuscripts for many of the Greeks,yet we still use them for fact in many things today. Just think about all the texts you probably trust in and think about how many times they were passed down. Plus the Bible we still have many older manuscripts, and the New Testement even has some that are almost autographs.

The books? You want names? Um...they don't really have names. Like Jophesus didn't name his books, they were just volumes of writings. I think he had 12 volumes in all and they are VERY large.

If you want to read a pretty good book on the subject of proving the Bible accurate read, "Case for Christ" by Lee Strobel. He was a crime investigator for the Chicago tribune. In this book he goes through and pretty much cuts the Bible down to see if it is historically accurate and a bunch of other things. You'll find many of the arguments that you make in here proven wrong by him.

Also, I'm gonna try and find a book for you by a preacher I know of called Dr. Meyer. He is one the most highly regarded ancient Biblical scholars of the world. He taught at Harvard for a long time and lets just say he knows his stuff.

Yea....

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

Logic can solve every problem. There are some problems we don't understand, but in time we'll learn it and it will be a logical explanation. Love has a logical explanation, I just don't know it.

Blake, I never said Jesus was a big ass bull shitter. I know he did grat things for the way of life of the entire world, but he didn't do real miracles. At the time the peopel thought they were, and wrote it in a way that would make us think it too. But you send a scientist or soemone back in time to watch, I don't doubt he'll give you an explanation. How did he bring the guy back to life? He more than likely wasn't dead, ever seen Unsolved Mysteries? It happens.

God, Blake, you're dense. Of course it can be traced to two people, or even one. A mutation is all it takes. A mutation that make this species survive better than that one, and it only takes one mutation to spread it.

No, Blake, Christianity was forced on many natives in south america. Due to the fact they didn't understand it, they took it and said ok. It didn't mean what it means to you to them. There was a tribe who was being "christianized" and they were about to be enslaved by the portugese and said they'll fight if they have to, the jesuits said it's wrong to fight, they said screw what you said, were gonna fight.

Christianity is not entirely historically accurate, dork. The only reason a lot of it can be proven, is because it was written by people who saw things, and actually believed it. But to someone from our times to see it, they would write it completely different because they have a way higher level of intelligence, well, everyone except you.

You're denser than I thought. You really think translations through languages wouldn't change some things? You think error would be minimal. You're high, don't post while you're high.

You're retarded. They don't note errors in spelling or capitalization.

I don't think the Odyssey is fact, dork, it's a story. Plato and others said a lot of common sense type things, that's what we do go by because its the truth, we can prove it today.

I know I'm call people names in my posts, but I just can't help it.

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Point being, as Ani pointed out, it was written to try to explain the unexplainable, I believe. And many of the early mysteries could have (and probably do have) simple and realistic reasons behind them.

I'm still waiting for solid third-party "proof" for people living 1,000+ years. I mean, something is not meshing here. The early earth had a faster rotational spin and thus days were shorter, but not that short. Probably an aforementioned error... should be 100 years, and taking earth's slightly faster spin things could balance out correctly... just a guess.

Oh yeah, and about the early Greek philosphers/scientists... we DO have their early manuscripts, scads of them. That's what generations following read and began questioning... regarding the movement of heavenly bodies and so on, and in this case I can go right now and get a list of ancient books and writings. But science still developed, and doesn't NEED the earlier manuscripts to prove a point because the experiments that WORK and result in TRUTH are REPRODUCIBLE by others...

And thus are scientific laws made. Which is truth enough for me.

[ 04-02-2002 10:13 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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God, Blake, you're dense. Of course it can be traced to two people, or even one. A mutation is all it takes. A mutation that make this species survive better than that one, and it only takes one mutation to spread it.

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No, I'm not talking about through mutation either. Through pure genetics it could logically be traced back to 2 people.

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Blake, I never said Jesus was a big ass bull shitter. I know he did grat things for the way of life of the entire world, but he didn't do real miracles. At the time the peopel thought they were, and wrote it in a way that would make us think it too. But you send a scientist or soemone back in time to watch, I don't doubt he'll give you an explanation. How did he bring the guy back to life? He more than likely wasn't dead, ever seen Unsolved Mysteries? It happens.

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Dude, if your gonna take something from the Bible at least KNOW it! By the time Jesus got to Lazurus he was pretty well dead. Remember this is the days before modern technology and he'd be pretty well off in about a weeks time. Which it was BTW. So it WAS known as a miracle. Heh, its funny you brought this up because we just studied this same exact story at my school...weird.

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No, Blake, Christianity was forced on many natives in south america. Due to the fact they didn't understand it, they took it and said ok. It didn't mean what it means to you to them. There was a tribe who was being "christianized" and they were about to be enslaved by the portugese and said they'll fight if they have to, the jesuits said it's wrong to fight, they said screw what you said, were gonna fight.

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Your making a broad generalization. This doesn't happen all the time. And its not all Christians who want this to happen. You go and talk to missionaries today and see if they do this. If you want I'll give you an email of a Lutheran Missionary who is supported by my church. You'll find out why he is in and what he faces every day....

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Christianity is not entirely historically accurate, dork. The only reason a lot of it can be proven, is because it was written by people who saw things, and actually believed it. But to someone from our times to see it, they would write it completely different because they have a way higher level of intelligence, well, everyone except you.

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Show me where it is not historically accurate.

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You're denser than I thought. You really think translations through languages wouldn't change some things? You think error would be minimal. You're high, don't post while you're high.

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That's why we have them in the original languages, dork! Talk to any preacher who goes through a seminary. They have to learn all the languages the Bible was orginally put in. My grandpa for instance knew Arabic, Greek, and Latin fluently. Along with a handful of other languages.

Like I said before, I've studied this and I know this! We have manuscripts that are 400 years apart and there are NO errors. Thank you Ani, you have been burned.

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You're retarded. They don't note errors in spelling or capitalization.

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Uh...who's retarded? I'm gonna send you some articles in the mail. I'm gonna need your address.

Ani: Seriously, don't even try to act like you know more than me on this subject, because YOU don't! I've had to study about this stuff for a long time. Growing up with a strict religous father you have to.

I'm not trying to attack you guys. I am trying to defend my faith. I know it is hard to beleive at times, but thats why I have faith. Sure there are times when I doubt my faith. But there are times when I am more sure about it than I am about many other things in life.

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I don't think the Odyssey is fact, dork, it's a story. Plato and others said a lot of common sense type things, that's what we do go by because its the truth, we can prove it today.

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I'm not saying its fack, I'm just saying we do beleive we have the orginal story?

And not everything the Greek philosopher's said was true...not by a long shot. There were many good things they did, but they were also very misinformed about other things.

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Ummm, Bob... Genesis and Exodus and I think Leviticus... the beginning of the old testament was supposedly passed through the generations by word of mouth before being written, so of course there could be error. Unless you're going to tell me that Adam started a journal that got passed down through his children and so on???

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Actually I beleive that by word of mouth it was still ok. Remember they were living in a different time where word of mouth was really all you had. You go back even to Jesus's time and the high preists or any preists knew ALL of scripture by heart. So word of mouth is entirely feasiable.

I can't say that there were not maybe some errors. But I can also say that if they were there were none that were probably significat.

I mean these people memorized stuff all the time and I'm sure the way they were passed down. I'm sure they were made to be passed down properly memorized.

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I'm still waiting for solid third-party "proof" for people living 1,000+ years. I mean, something is not meshing here. The early earth had a faster rotational spin and thus days were shorter, but not that short. Probably an aforementioned error... should be 100 years, and taking earth's slightly faster spin things could balance out correctly... just a guess.

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This might be just a faith thing, but I'll see what I can find on this subject. The one thing I can think about for them living such longer lives is that we don't have all the pollution that we have today. I mean it was much more purer earth than it is today.

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Oh yeah, and about the early Greek philosphers/scientists... we DO have their early manuscripts, scads of them. That's what generations following read and began questioning... regarding the movement of heavenly bodies and so on, and in this case I can go right now and get a list of ancient books and writings. But science still developed, and doesn't NEED the earlier manuscripts to prove a point because the experiments that WORK and result in TRUTH are REPRODUCIBLE by others...

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We don't have any manuscripts that are any older than much of what we have of the Bible. If I remember correctly from the book I just read("Case for Christ"). The closest we have is around 400 years or so...yea.

You say scientific law is enough for you? Well I've seen that a lot of your beleifs are not based on facts. Kind of hypocritical don't you think?

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"Can't you hear my motored heart? Your the one that started it!"

-Foo Fighters "Generator"

Cogito ergo sum

Ummm... soooo, then I go right back to my original question: WHO THE HECK DID CAIN TAKE AS A WIFE IN THE LAND OF NOD AFTER HE SLEW ABEL??!!?? And this is in my King James version, by the way.

I, ahhh, think this is where your "genetic proof" breaks down a touch wee. And THAT information above is straight out of Genesis...YES I have read the Bible (well, parts of it at least).

"...Dude, if your gonna take something from the Bible at least KNOW it! By the time Jesus got to Lazurus he was pretty well dead. Remember this is the days before modern technology and he'd be pretty well off in about a weeks time. Which it was BTW. So it WAS known as a miracle. Heh, its funny you brought this up because we just studied this same exact story at my school...weird..."

Ummm... again, this is just what Joey was saying. He probably wasn't dead (used to happen that infrequently people who were thought dead were then buried alive...) and then Jesus came up and "brought him back." From a coma, maybe... or he spontaneously came out of it then. The Bible doesn't mention time here, does it? I mean, doesn't it say Jesus was brought to Lazarus... or he got to him one way or another... and said "rise" and brought him back, right? Doesn't mention that he could have been with him for some time....

"..Your making a broad generalization. This doesn't happen all the time. And its not all Christians who want this to happen. You go and talk to missionaries today and see if they do this. If you want I'll give you an email of a Lutheran Missionary who is supported by my church. You'll find out why he is in and what he faces every day...."

Happened A LOT in history: Spaniards were great, Inquisition and all. You think that Christianity spread out of goodness and light? Heck no, it spread by brute force in many cases, "Believe this or you're a heathen and will die!" So of course many people took it up, sheesh. In the case of the Aztecs they "conformed" but didn't really have a clue what they were conforming to. They still believed in their own system, and because of this were resoundingly stomped upon in the long run. Christians can be so damned cruel when they want to be, all in the name of "The Word," - SHEESH.

"...Show me where it is not historically accurate...."

Still waiting for reproducible proof that it is entirely historically accurate as it stands. I realize parts may be, but there is a lot of allegory in the bible. ((C'mon now, if you're talking that it is entirely historically accurate, then either angels or aliens from somewhere else came down and skedaddled with our women; there's a passage in I think Exodus - maybe Genesis - where it says something along the lines of "...and the sons of god (???) looked down and saw that the daughters of the earth were fair, and came down and took wives of them upon themselves..."))

"...That's why we have them in the original languages, dork! Talk to any preacher who goes through a seminary. They have to learn all the languages the Bible was orginally put in. My grandpa for instance knew Arabic, Greek, and Latin fluently. Along with a handful of other languages..."

Ummm... I don't think that the Arabic then is the Arabic NOW, and translation errors DO occur... I don't even believe that "the original" was in Arabic... um, I didn't think we had the original copies of the first books in the Old Testament. Weren't they in the Ark of the Covenant, which has yet to be uncovered? And even so, it is material written BY MAN in an effort to explain his surroundings. Yes, it was solidly true for the time, and the understanding of natural events and so on. It might stand as a fairly good family tree for some lineages... so if it's so accurate, where is the current living descendant of say, Moses or Saul or anyone? Sheesh, how about Noah? He had tons of sons, where are his I-don't-know-how-many-times-removed grandkids now??? Anyone ever look into this?

You persist in taking all your references within the scope of this topic, and since we are dealing with a faith thing here of course you will find things easy to "prove" in this way. I am STILL waiting for the third party proof... which is where faith parts ways from deductive reasoning, I suppose.

I guess solid evidence to then indirectly support the majority of what is mentioned in the Bible would be if we had the original slab on which God wrote the 10 Commandments... and if we could show that it was made in a manner too advanced for the time. But of course it was thrown down to earth and destroyed in a fit of temper, how convenient. Oh well, the commandments themselves lived on... if indeed they were the ones God gave to Moses and not "tweaked" by him, heh... not that I have anything against them, as they are just great bylaws to live by in general. And in regard to them, sure seems like Christians have gone through history breaking them right and left, all to spread "The Word," especially the "Thou Shallt Not Kill" one.

"...We don't have any manuscripts that are any older than much of what we have of the Bible. If I remember correctly from the book I just read("Case for Christ"). The closest we have is around 400 years or so...yea..."

EXCUSE ME. We have "living" proof of man's early attempts to understand the heavens and "grow," all for the sake of truth. Stonehenge is a large "calendar" base on the motions of the sun and stars; it was built 4,000 years ago. The Mayan culture built an observatory at Chichen Itza (AND IT EXISTS, I'VE BEEN THERE) 1,000 years ago. Ptolemy wrote of his astronomical observations in his manuscript, "The Almagest," in the SECOND CENTURY A. D. (He was wrong, but Copernicus took it from there.) I do believe we have this manuscript in a European museum; I'd have to find where I read this. But I've seen photos of some of his calculations. Anyway, I can dig up others, but these spring immediately to mind.

"...I've had to study about this stuff for a long time. Growing up with a strict religous father you have to...."

All the more reason to step outside the Box. Gather OPPOSING evidence.... Er, by that I mean study evidence that would oppose your view, and try to maintain an open mind. Try to be logical and use deductive reasoning. DARE TO QUESTION. THEN come to a conclusion.

"...This might be just a faith thing, but I'll see what I can find on this subject. The one thing I can think about for them living such longer lives is that we don't have all the pollution that we have today. I mean it was much more purer earth than it is today..."

Ummm... the earth was a much purer place ANYWHERE during the pre-industrial years, and life-spans were wayyyy shorter then. Early man, in fact, was lucky to see 20, I think; we know this from carbon-14 dating and studying bone growth factors in remains we have uncovered. Our lifespans have steadily INCREASED post-industrial age due to the advancing technology that goes along with it.

AND THE GRAND FINALE: "...You say scientific law is enough for you? Well I've seen that a lot of your beleifs are not based on facts. Kind of hypocritical don't you think?"

Please specify "a lot" so I may make a logical rebuttal. So far everything science has uncovered remains proved by test after test of law after law... the only oddball out there, to my knowledge, is the missing graviton (particle associated with the gravitational force). Once we find it, then other mysteries may be solved... like discovering that all the forces of the universe are part of one large one. Kind of like atoms are made of neutrons, protons and electrons, and those in turn are made of quarks. (Well, not the electrons.) We have discovered the existence of these AFTER we theorized of their existence... and have the ancient Greek idea of "atomos" to thank for heading us off in this particular direction.

I guess to me there might be some great unknown (perhaps this is where the Unifying Force will come into play) and perhaps that will be what we come to know as "god." But what I find so hard to believe is the arrogance and self-centeredness of the Bible in general: how EVERYTHING revolves around man, US; in this entire universe WE are the important ones. Good grief, it says "God made man in his own image!" Now if that isn't the ultimate arrogance in existence I don't know what is.

[ 04-04-2002 11:24 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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Science CONSTANTLY seeks to maintain truth by trying to DISPROVE. So far, things keep working out, no matter how diligently science tries to show those things are "wrong." Things theorized end up being proved, and proof is maintained as our technology gets better and better and our means of trying to disprove likewise improve. One big potential "AHA!!!" was the unveiling of the quantum theory, where Newtonian physics breaks down. But this lead to realizing what indeed quantum physics entails, and that particles have their own unique set of laws because they are so tiny... Newtonian mechanics works great on a grand (universal) scale, though. Hehe... we see proof of this every day. Planes fly. Cars go. We have sent men to the moon, and Galileo to Jupiter and Voyager beyond the edges of our solar system.

Faith and religion to me, however, are exactly the opposite. Or beyond, actually, as I see it. All is either accepted as rote, without trying to disprove or prove in any manner. But when questioned, ALWAYS TRYING TO PROVE.

When one tries to constantly prove something, of course he or she is going to stick to what does in fact "prove" his or her idea/theory/belief. This is nothing more than what we call "skewing the data," and leads to unreliable results in a laboratory setting.

[ 04-04-2002 11:40 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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Dork. They only way to track it genetically is if you had the bodies, which you don't.

About the dead guy. 2 weeks could have really been 2 days, but it was translated wrong a long time ago. So, the guy coulda been in a comma, even for weeks, and they didn't take stuff out of the body back then, because, logically, he can't very well be brought back to life without a heart.

Ok, how tall was the giant in the story? 9 feet? People just don't grown that tall, especially back then. It was passed down, translated and shit. Or, it was a BS lie a David supporter wrote to make it look like David did more than he really did.

Eat my butt, you know you want to. You don't know those languages, you don't know if its the same in english. Just watch someone translate someone else for you, it sounds like a 3 year old most of the time.

Blake, don't be dumb, they do not count mistypes as actual translation errors.

A lot of what Greek Philosophers thought can be disproven, but at the time, they didn't know and it was fact.

That's all, I got distracted.

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There is a line where they list Adam and Eve's children - I can't quote it exactly cause i don't have a Bible in English in France an I'm not about to try and translate something that complex to find it but is goes something like that they had Cain and Abel and 11 daughters or so - but gives them no names and they only appear in that line cause as you said yourself it is definitely male oriented... so while he was the only living SON he was not the only living child - the people who wrote it down just weren't concerned with the women cause there was nothing "moral" to write about them - but htey were careful enough to put in that they existed.

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It has to do with electromagnetism, a classic example showing this being why terra is so firma that we can stand upon it. We "stand" because, electromagnetically speaking, "like charge repels like charge." Consider more closely the lowly electron, that subatomic particle of negative charge. WELL... all the atoms in the floor have electrons about their nuclei, as do the atoms in our feet. Like repels like. Hence we "stand." NOW, it has been proven that electrons do NOT "orbit" like tiny planets going about a tiny sun. They pop in and out of existence; actually it's more of an energy level thing. They exist in a "probability cloud" about the nucleus of the atom; there is a probability at any moment that any electron will be HERE, then THERE, and so on. Finally, since it is the electrons in atoms which give us our sense of "reality," if you will, then yes, at any given moment I could indeed walk through a wall.

The ODDS of this happening, of course, are astronomically, unbelievably remote... but those odds DO EXIST. It's been proven, actually.

Science doesn't play mind games. Science isn't someone sitting around, pen and paper in hand, feverishly scribbling away seeing what new mischief he or she can unleash on the world. It doesn't operate like that. Instead, something is FIRST OBSERVED. Science then goes about methodically trying to explain all the hows and whys behind said observation, utilizing carefully gleaned facts. Said facts must in turn be subject to laboratory investigation, so they can not only be used to substantiate said observation, but will also be considered as "actual fact."

Which is where science (fact-based) and belief systems (emotion-based) differ so greatly from each other. AND why most people tend to shy away from science. It's very painstaking, methodical, and thorough. Science doesn't run ONE test somewhere, then say THAT'S THE ANSWER.

And contrary to popular belief, science doesn't go about manipulating the facts to support a theory. Which, unfortunately, seems in turn to be the case with belief systems, where some facts are selectively presented to support a belief while a wealth of others, just as viable (but which don't fit the bill) are handily ignored.

[ 06-02-2008 11:00 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Graysith ]

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