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AnAtheist
Guest
Yes, but that page doesn’t offer the answers I believe.
edit/ps: the answers on those voting buttons that is
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edit/ps: the answers on those voting buttons that is
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Angel7
Guest
On the Philosphers thing?
It says that some of my Answers Contradict each other, Although those Contradictions are easy to dispell.
Art is a matter of personal choice.
Michael Angelo was a great artist.
I agreed with both.
And I simply think Michael Angelo was a great artist because of My Opinion.
Homo is unnatural
But so is medicine.
Medicine is an outside source that adds to the “benefit” of man
Homosetuality is against the natural law. and does not lead to any benefit.
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Angel7
Guest
I’m not going to Force Christianity on anyone, the point is I’m here because I am interested in these discussians with athiests. I enjoy trying to find out who is right in these areguements, I only want to listen to the Athiest/Agnostic Arguement, and state my Counter Arguement.
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Angel7
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Or were you regering to proof G-d exists.org?
The Answers (Although that the most explanatory) you can catch.
ex. There are Absoultely no Absolutes Morals
Answer to this question is : Is it absolutely true there are no absolute Morals? Yes / NO
I mean why would I want to believe in a theory that contradicts itself? Like Moral Reletivism? What does this say about the theory Itself?
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AnAtheist
Guest
Truth (true or false) is a different category then morals (right or wrong), therefore the adjective “absolut” has a different meaning there. Language is fuzzy, that leads to all kinds of misunderstandings. There is no contradiction.
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Angel7
Guest
This is After Noah’s flood, these creatures would have already been “washed away”.
Behomoth could have very much been the name of Such Creature.
Although the Description is very similar to that of a Sauropod.
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Angel7
Guest
But it isn’t talking about a certain action, rather, it is talking about whether it is absolutely true, there are no absolute Morals. This is what Moral Reletivism states to be true, its a simple arguement, not very explanatory, but simple.
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Angel7
Guest
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people." G.K. Chesterton
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” G.K. Chesterton
I found these quotes and thought they were interesting
No one has replied to any of the Information I placed on my posts, I was hoping for a response, or counter arguement by now
“If there were no God, there would be no atheists.” G.K. Chesterton
I found these quotes and thought they were interesting
No one has replied to any of the Information I placed on my posts, I was hoping for a response, or counter arguement by now
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Angel7
Guest
Furthermore, mutations simply produce new varieties of already existing traits. For example, mutations in the gene for human hair may change the gene so that another type of human hair develops, but the mutations won’t change the gene so that feathers or wings develop.
Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics.
Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties and races of people could have descended from Adam and Eve as the Bible teaches. Well, in principle, that’s no different than asking how children with different color hair (i.e., blond, brunette, brown, red ) can come from the same parents who both have black hair.
Just as some individuals today carry genes to produce descendants with different color hair and eyes, our first parents, Adam and Eve, possessed genes to produce all the varieties and races of men. You and I today may not carry the genes to produce every variety or race of humans, but Adam and Eve did possess such genes.
All varieties of humans carry the genes for the same basic traits, but not all humans carry every possible variation of those genes. For example, one person may be carrying several variations of the gene for eye color (i.e., brown, green, blue) , but someone else may be carrying only one variation of the gene for eye color (i.e., brown). Thus, both will have different abilities to affect the eye color of their offspring.
Science cannot prove we’re here by creation, but neither can science prove we’re here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.
What we believe about life’s origins does influence our philosophy and value of life as well as our view of ourselves and others. This is no small issue!
Just because the laws of science can explain how life and the universe operate and work doesn’t mean there is no Maker. Would it be rational to believe that there’s no designer behind airplanes because the laws of science can explain how airplanes operate and work?
Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected natural laws can never fully explain the origin of such order.
The law of entropy in science shows that the universe does not have the ability to have sustained itself from all eternity. In other words, the universe cannot be eternal and requires a beginning.
It is only fair that school students be exposed to the scientific arguments and evidence on both sides of the creation/evolution issue.
(That was all from “Darwin Debunked” a good web site.)
Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics.
Young people, and even adults, often wonder how all the varieties and races of people could have descended from Adam and Eve as the Bible teaches. Well, in principle, that’s no different than asking how children with different color hair (i.e., blond, brunette, brown, red ) can come from the same parents who both have black hair.
Just as some individuals today carry genes to produce descendants with different color hair and eyes, our first parents, Adam and Eve, possessed genes to produce all the varieties and races of men. You and I today may not carry the genes to produce every variety or race of humans, but Adam and Eve did possess such genes.
All varieties of humans carry the genes for the same basic traits, but not all humans carry every possible variation of those genes. For example, one person may be carrying several variations of the gene for eye color (i.e., brown, green, blue) , but someone else may be carrying only one variation of the gene for eye color (i.e., brown). Thus, both will have different abilities to affect the eye color of their offspring.
Science cannot prove we’re here by creation, but neither can science prove we’re here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.
What we believe about life’s origins does influence our philosophy and value of life as well as our view of ourselves and others. This is no small issue!
Just because the laws of science can explain how life and the universe operate and work doesn’t mean there is no Maker. Would it be rational to believe that there’s no designer behind airplanes because the laws of science can explain how airplanes operate and work?
Natural laws are adequate to explain how the order in life, the universe, and even a microwave oven operates, but mere undirected natural laws can never fully explain the origin of such order.
The law of entropy in science shows that the universe does not have the ability to have sustained itself from all eternity. In other words, the universe cannot be eternal and requires a beginning.
It is only fair that school students be exposed to the scientific arguments and evidence on both sides of the creation/evolution issue.
(That was all from “Darwin Debunked” a good web site.)
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j1akey
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Haven’t had really any time to read any of the new posts here Angel7 but I’ll be sure to see what you’ve said once I’m done with work.
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Contarini
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Job is clearly a poem. No scholar who actually reads Job in Hebrew says otherwise. I’m not sure why you think a poem can’t scold. And I’m not sure “scold” is the right word.
Any view of the Bible which causes you not to see the poetry in Job (and elsewhere) is one I want to stay very far away from! It’s clearly an inadequate view.
It isn’t.
I won’t speak for other posters. I believe that Jesus worked miracles. I accept that the Gospels are narratives of what Jesus really said and did, but I also recognize that the four Gospels are not identical in purpose and approach (Luke is clearly writing some kind of historical narrative–this is much less clear to me in the case of Matthew and John), and none of them are writing with the methodology of modern historians. So I’m not sure that “literal” (in the sense you seem to mean by it) is a word I want to throw around loosely with regard to the Bible.
Why do you (and many other people) assume that either a text must be “literal” (by which you seem to mean that everything in it happened exactly as described) or entirely fictional? I’d go so far as to say that few texts in the history of the world (at least until recently) fall into those extremes. I wonder how much of this is the result of the modern novel, which is unusual among literary genres (and distinct from most traditional epic, myth, and romance) in the sense that readers generally assume that its contents were simply invented by a single author.
“Official” is not the point. Of course it’s official. It’s the official Judaeo-Christian myth of human origins.
Why do you believe this?
Edwin
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Angel7
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Your saying Noah’s flood was a Fib?!?!?!?!
Why is it practically EVERY culture, or ancient society, describes the world coming from "A great flood"The Genesis account, then, indicates that much of the water came from inside the earth. Even today large underground reservoirs of water and a surprising number of underground streams exist throughout the earth. But in the pre-Flood world these were likely even more common.
They cite the Cambrian explosion — the appearance of abundant fossils in the upper Ediacaran (Vendian) Period and lower Cambrian Period — as the pre-Flood/Flood boundary,[28] the presence in such sediments of fossils that do not occur later in the geological record as part of a per–flood biota that perished[29] and the absence of fossilized organisms that appear later, such as angiosperms and mammals, as due to erosion of sediments deposited by the flood as waters receded off the land.[30] Some creationists claim that fossilization can only take place when the organism is buried quickly to protect the remains from destruction by scavengers or decomposition.[31] They claim that the fossil record is evidence of a single cataclysmic flood and not the record of a series of slow changes accumulating over millions of years.[32]
Also note the book of Job is considered, to be one of the OLDEST books in the Bible.
you say Gensis isn’t an exception when it comes to reading literally, then why do you deny the flood?
you said MYTH?!?!
The 4 Gospel Writers were righting to different people, one to Jews, one to Gentiles, and so on. It is a different Audience.
If you Believe in Jesus’ Miracles, why should Gensis be any different? Is it Unscientific? Walking on water, and feeding a crowd of Thousands, with a few loaves of bread and some Fish, is unscientific to.
Why wouldn’t you take the Bible Literrally.
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Angel7
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The book of Genesis is NOT a fairy Tale…
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but of course many people think im crazy for believing in this, but oh well, I stand for what I believe to be true.
If you think Genesis is a fib, and Job is a Poem. Why shouldn’t you think any thing more when it comes to other books of the Bible. Do you think the Parting of the red sea, was a fake to?
wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33168
Chariot wheels found in the red sea.
Or what happened on Mt. Sinai, In Sinai Province?
]but of course many people think im crazy for believing in this, but oh well, I stand for what I believe to be true.
If you think Genesis is a fib, and Job is a Poem. Why shouldn’t you think any thing more when it comes to other books of the Bible. Do you think the Parting of the red sea, was a fake to?
wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=33168
Chariot wheels found in the red sea.
Or what happened on Mt. Sinai, In Sinai Province?
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Contarini
Guest
Of course not.
That’s overstated. Such stories are particularly common in the Ancient Near East, but you do find them elsewhere. One obvious explanation is that every major ancient civilization developed in river valleys, and river valleys flood.
Flood geology was invented by Seventh Day Adventists and only accepted by conservative Protestants of other stripes in the 1960s. That doesn’t prove it false, of course. But I’d be extremely surprised if it turned out to be true. The only reason I refrain from saying outright that it’s a load of garbage is that one of my colleagues, a biology professor, seems to think that the arguments have some merit (though is not entirely convinced by them). He’s the only scientifically educated person of my acquaintance who thinks this. But I respect his opinions nonetheless.
No, it’s not. The only people who think this are people who *begin *with the assumption that it’s historical. People who look at its style and ideas without such preconceptions conclude that it’s one of the later books of the Old Testament.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. My point is that Genesis is not the only part of the Bible which I would read non-literally. In fact, I’m uncomfortable with saying that I read any text “literally.” But obviously some parts of the OT–2 Samuel and 1-2 Kings, for instance–are historical writing, although ancient historians didn’t follow all the same conventions as modern ones. I take those three books to be essentially accurate and written by people who were near-contemporaries of the events described, or at least based closely on documents written by such people. (This is actually a pretty conservative view compared to the current consensus of Biblical scholarship.) The farther back you go from the reign of David, the more the texts can be characterized as legend, and yes, eventually myth.
Yes, and I’ll say it again, and again, and again, until Christians stop being scared of it. It’s a good word. A beautiful word. Nothing to be afraid of.
A God who despises myth is not a God worth worshiping. Fortunately, the God revealed in the Bible obviously loves myth. Many Protestants hate it (and all the other wacky features of the real Bible) because it makes “sola scriptura” unworkable. But that’s their problem.
And different genres, it seems to me.
Different era, different style, different purpose, different authorship–why shouldn’t it be different? To assume that any of the Gospels is of the same genre as Genesis is pretty weird and shows a remarkable degree of blindness to the actual nature of the Biblical texts you revere so highly.
I’m not a scientist, and whether something is “scientific” is not of prime importance with me. But obviously the early chapters of Genesis deal with “scientific” matters in the sense that they talk about cosmology–how the universe came to be the way it is. If you take them literally in the way you seem to be proposing, they seem to clash with the scientific evidence as far as I can tell (though as I said I reserve some doubt due to my friend the biologist). This isn’t generally the case with miracles (the story about the sun standing still in Joshua is an exception, because the story seems to assume a geocentric cosmology). Miracles are by definition acts that go against the way things normally work. They are exceptions and thus cannot be measured by scientific methods.
However, my main interests are not scientific but literary, historical, and theological, and my objections to the way you read Genesis are primarily literary, historical, and theological.
Why would I? I don’t read any text in an entirely literal manner. No text describes an event or other physical reality in a manner that completely and comprehensively corresponds to that reality. All texts involve selection, interpretation, figures of speech, literary artifice of some kind. All texts are shaped by the perspective of the author.
People who read any text as entirely “literal” are reading badly. Period.
Divinely inspired texts are not any more likely to be “literal” than other texts. Perhaps even less.
Edwin
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Angel7
Guest
I really don’t under stand, why is Genesis any Different, I’m a catholic not a protestant, I take the Bible Seriouslly, and I believe what is in it. What evidence do you have to say that it is tampered or a Myth or Legend? why do you think Genesis is a myth, or a legend?
A. Date of the Events: Probably pre-Mosaic, even patriarchal from the second Millennium B.C.
- Job is lacking references to historical events and reflects a non-Hebraic cultural background which little is known about
- Location:
a. Uz was located in northern Arabia3
b. Job’s friend, Eliphaz, came from Teman, a city in Edom
c. Elihu came from the Buzites who lived next to the Chaldeans in northeast Arabia4 - Support for a pre-Mosaic date:
a. The patriarchal family-clan organization reflects the time of Abraham rather than after the Exodus
b. The offering of sacrifice by the head of the family rather than a priest reflects a time before the Exodus
c. The mention of a qesitah as a type of money (Job 42:11) suggests a date which is at least during the time of Joshua (cf. Jos. 24:32), if not during the patriarchal period (cf. Gen 33:19)5 - Support for an early second millennium date of Job as a contemporary with the patriarchs:
a. The reference in Ezekiel 14:14 to Job and Daniel may be a reference to the ancient Canaanite hero Dan’el who was a prominent figure in the Ugaritic epics rather than to the contemporary prophet, Daniel6
b. Other names in Job are authentic for the second millennium B.C.:
- Bildad was short for Yabil Dadum, a name found in cuneiform sources of the second millennium B.C.
- Job is found in the “Babylonian Job”, a cuneiform composition7
B. Date of Composition: Possibly during the time of the Patriarchs (Second Millennium B.C.)
- The Patriarchal Age:
b. This helps support the accuracy of the conversations between Job and his friends; but this is not necessary since portions of Genesis were accurately transmitted by mouth until Moses wrote them down
c. The addition of 42:16-17 could have been added shortly after Job’s death
d. The lifestyle and longevity of Job are similar to that of the patriarchs found in Genesis
e. The moving bands of Sabaeans and Chaldeans (Job 1:15, 17) matches the early second millennium B.C.
f. The literary genre of Job (below) matches that of the patriarchal era
g. The name of Job is found in the Amarna letters (c. 1350 B.C.) and the Egyptian Execration texts (c. 2000 B.C.)8
h. Although the evidence does not demand a second millennium B.C. date, it certainly allows for it. “9
The History of Job aside. I think there are some problems with literall reading.
I guess reading it literarily, would be more appropriate, you are right at that.
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Angel7
Guest
There are times when, there are poetic metaphors. But, I do take Genesis Literally, it is a narrative, of the beggining.
The book of Job referenced “Behomoth” to teach “Job” a lesson.
G-d used animals as a way to convey his meaning to Job, guessing from the Description of Behomoth, it definatley sounds like its referencing a extinct Animal (I believe this is after the Flood of Noah)
Food for thought.
Wouldn’t so much time with the Whole world submerged in Water, and all the Pressure, create the Aged look the Earth does?
The book of Job referenced “Behomoth” to teach “Job” a lesson.
G-d used animals as a way to convey his meaning to Job, guessing from the Description of Behomoth, it definatley sounds like its referencing a extinct Animal (I believe this is after the Flood of Noah)
Food for thought.
Wouldn’t so much time with the Whole world submerged in Water, and all the Pressure, create the Aged look the Earth does?
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AnAtheist
Guest
And you talk of proof and logic?
300 measly days? No way. And all the pressure of the world is not enough to change the nuclear decay rates of certain isotopes used for age detection.
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shoewindow3000
Guest
Let me just start by saying that I USED to be a die-hard atheist, but now I believe in God and have been a Christian since around 2003.
Anyways, here is a question for the atheists on this website. What is your opinion of revelations given to people, such as the Diary of St. Faustina?
Or what about Stanley Villavicencio?
I know it is not much of an argument for atheists (who like to spend their time dictating their views on Catholic forums), but I just thought that I would like to see what you would say.
Anyways, here is a question for the atheists on this website. What is your opinion of revelations given to people, such as the Diary of St. Faustina?
Or what about Stanley Villavicencio?
I know it is not much of an argument for atheists (who like to spend their time dictating their views on Catholic forums), but I just thought that I would like to see what you would say.
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Angel7
Guest
Glad you see the other side
Science and all that aside.
It can not explain supernatural phenomenon. Excorcisms. Possesions. etc, etc …
Where would an athiest see that?
C
Contarini
Guest
But are you listening to what the scholars and theologians of your own Church have to say on these issues? For instance, Fr. Roland Murphy was an acclaimed expert on Old Testament wisdom literature and a devout Carmelite friar. Why not give the painstaking work of committed, learned Catholic priests like Fr. Murphy a serious consideration before you pronounce so confidently on what “taking the Bible seriously” means? (Murphy was one of the editors of the *New Jerome Biblical Commentary, *which of course folks on this forum like to deride as “liberal.”)
I didn’t say that. I’m not even sure what you mean by using that word. Unless you mean that I think that the Bible reflects the human perspectives and concerns of its human authors. Certainly it does, and the Catholic Church officially recognizes this. The divinely inspired meaning of the Bible comes *through *the human meaning–it doesn’t replace it.
Because those are the genres that most resemble the style and content of Genesis. Calling Genesis history stretches any reasonable definition of the historical genre to the breaking point. The early chapters of Genesis look very much like stories explaining the universe (myth). They have much in common with myths from other ancient Near Eastern cultures. Only a person determined not to define Genesis as myth for theological reasons can ignore these similarities. And the question I ask is: why are you so determined? What do you consider “bad” about myth?
The later chapters of Genesis appear to be based on stories passed down orally through the generations (legend). I’d say that the other narratives in the Torah, plus Joshua and Judges and to some extent also 1 Samuel, also look more like legend than history, although with increasingly historical elements as they get closer to the time when things were being written down. One important bit of evidence is that the occasional poems inserted into the narrative look much more archaic than the surrounding narrative. One such poem–generally regarded by scholars as one of the oldest bits of the OT–is the “Song of Deborah” in Judges 5. It would seem to follow that none of the prose narrative of the Torah or the historical books (all of which reads more like later Hebrew than do these bits of archaic poetry) predates the time of Deborah–in fact that all of it was somewhat later. I’d tend to go with the reigns of David and Solomon as the time when narratives started to be written down, although the complete books as we have them were most likely edited some centuries later. (That’s not to rule out the possibility that there might have been older books too in some pre-Hebrew language from which things were later translated–but the texts we have surely must be significantly younger than the bits of archaic poetry embedded in them).
This is actually a pretty conservative view compared to what most scholars in the field would tell you. But I’m not a scholar in this field and I suspect that many Ancient Near East scholars have a strong skeptical bias, so I tend to take the most conservative view possible. (I recognize that you think much more conservative views are not only possible but required. I respect your opinion but I have to disagree.)
That is not an evidence for an early date. Rather for a late date and a non-historical purpose.
These aren’t arguments for pre-Mosaic authorship. They are arguments for a pre-Mosaic setting, which is undisputed.
This presupposes that these other texts were written at the same time as the events they describe. Furthermore, the implicit argument (that Job must have been written at the same time as the events described in these two books, because a later text would have used a different term for silver money) is self-refuting. The time of Abraham and the time of Joshua were separated by centuries. If the same currency was in use in both those eras, there’s no reason it couldn’t still have been in use many centuries later yet.
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