Creation >> DNA Code

[Sailor Steve]

@ u crank: I can see where heartc is coming from, though I'm of two minds on the subject. God destroyed Soddom and Gamorah. Because of homosexuality? Some modern Christians will tell you so. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant. What is relevant to heartc's argument is that God did indeed kill all those people. Were his reasons valid? If you're a believer, how do you question God? His reasons must have been valid. If you're not a believer, then the only thing you can say is that the Holy Bible says that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the God of the Christians, wantonly killed several thousand people and doesn't have to defend himself because he's God, and believers praise him for it. He then ordered Joshua to exterminate an entire race, and the Israelites suffered punishment from Him when they didn't get the job done.

"The Lord moves in mysterious ways." Believers don't question God because God is perfect, and not to be questioned. Non-believers question whether the stories are even true, and if so how could any being behave so callously? Some ask those questions sarcastically, because they do believe it's not true. But some question honestly, and their questions deserve consideration. If answers are not possible, then why should they believe? If answers are possible, the what are they?

Me, I don't know, and that leaves me with lots of questions. The above are not among them. I'm not challenging anybody to prove anything unless they make direct claims of knowledge. The Bible is a book that may be true or may be full of stories. Believe whichever you like. I neither believe nor disbelieve.

Heartc seems to be full of anger over this question. I'm not defending his arguments because I don't feel that way. I am saying, however, that they do have some validity.

[u crank]

@ Sailor Steve: First Steve I would like to commend you for your honesty. It's rare in debates like this one. It's much better to say you don't know than to hold a dogmatic position on something that cannot be proven.

I have believed in God for almost thirty years and my views and beliefs have changed quite a bit in those years. I don't belong to any organization or church. I use to but I asked all the wrong questions and never got a satisfactory answer for any. What I'm most interested in is finding out the truth, whatever that may be. I will admit to you, heartc and anybody else that there is a lot of things about God I do not understand. One thing I do believe is that God wants us to question Him. He claims to be an intelligent and reasonable being. Says so in the Book. If this wasn't so I could be persuaded to give it up.

As for Sodom and Gomorrah and all that I have no answer, but that's just one of many topics I could say that about. I'm still learning and there is much more to learn.

I believe that every bodies arguments should be heard and considered. I may not agree with them but I am open to any relevant thoughts.

[Sailor Steve]

And I'll commend right back. I don't argue for or against the existence of God, other than to say I see no evidence. That doesn't convince me to be an atheist. I tried that, and had just as many questions and just as few answers. As I always say, my only real disagreement is with people who insist they know the truth. In the words of a song I wrote: "I may be right and I may be wrong, but the same is true for you. I know I don't know anything, but I think you only think you do."

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

"I may be right and I may be wrong, but the same is true for you. I know I don't know anything, but I think you only think you do."

I like it Steve. Sounds like a hit.

I don't think it's my duty to convince any one that there is a God. If it were possible it would have been done already. Everyone has to find their own path. The best I can do is wish you and anyone else well on that road.

And I do . Peace and regards.

[heartc]

@u crank: You're just making up your own religion as you go, by picking and choosing the parts you like, like most "Christians" do. That's why you "don't have answers" to all the ugly and genocidal actions, either ordered or commited by the bible god. There's nothing mysterious about ordering your home team to loot a village, kill every living thing therein, to "not show mercy on the children", or taking the virgins as spoils of war, there is nothing to understand about the appalling actions and commands other than that they are appalling.
And as I already said, the idea of treating other people decently (how does that compute with those stories...?) is not originating from the desert god. If that is all you take from that book and pretend to "not understand" the ugly parts and stupid laws, then merrily going on ignoring them, you have no basis for calling yourself a "Christian". Either your god is real and has divinely inspired the authors and composers of your book so that you have no business picking and choosing and redefining your god as to what you "feel" he is, or you assembled him from the parts you like and he exists only in your head.


"One thing I do believe is that God wants us to question Him."

Wrong. You obviously haven't read the book of Job (for example) in any detail, have you? In there, towards the end of the book, over several pages your god is ranting out of a thunderstorm at Job on how he has no business whatsoever to question "Him".

Look, if you need an invisible man in the sky as a reason to act in a moral manner, then by all means go for it. Just don't pretend it has anything to do with the figure described in the bible that condoned slavery and ordered the slaughtering of children.

[u crank]

@ heartc:

Originally Posted by heartc

@u crank: You're just making up your own religion as you go, by picking and choosing the parts you like, like most "Christians" do. That's why you "don't have answers" to all the ugly and genocidal actions, either ordered or commited by the bible god.

Let me see if I've got this straight. You do not believe in this 'desert god' but you are setting up the rules and criteria for others who do. What I actually think you are doing is trying to hold me and others who believe responsible for things that God has done. Sorry friend it doesn't work that way. I don't deny that these things are in the Bible but there is a huge difference between denial and not having an answer. You need to take this complaint to head office. I hear it's open 24/7.

As to your saying I'm picking and choosing you will have to be more specific. What I did say is what I think God says is now important. Most people who have studied this book would agree on this point, that in the Old Testament God was dealing with a group of people, The Hebrews, but in this present age He is dealing with each person individually. Looks like a progression to me. I like it.

As to the book of Job, yes I have read it. Job 13:3 " But I would speak to the Almighty and I desire to argue my case with God." Isaiah 1:18 "Come now and let us argue it out, says the Lord." Seems like a discussion to me.

Finally you need to be aware of the criteria for being a Christian. There is only one that I know of. That is believing that Jesus of Nazareth is the Savior. This works for young and old, rich and poor, gay or straight, moron or intellectually brilliant. It is the great leveller and only qualifier that I am aware of. If I am wrong on this one point then I respectfully concede all arguments.

Peace and regards.

[Blood_splat]

I like what Matt Dillahunty has to say.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Blood_splat

I like what Matt Dillahunty has to say.

So do I. I had never even heard of these guys, but after listening to them if I didn't know better I'd think I listened to them every day.

I like those guys!

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

So do I. I had never even heard of these guys, but after listening to them if I didn't know better I'd think I listened to them every day.

I like those guys!

Aye, AE's a great show to listen to. They tend to be a bit provocative at times, but they also know their stuff.

All their shows are archived on their website:
http://www.atheist-experience.com/archive/

[heartc]

@u crank:
It's really tiresome to discuss their religion with the religious when they don't even know what their book says and start contradicting the words of their own god, as you again have done here. But their book is full of contradictions, anyway, and if they haven't noticed that yet, then it's not surprising that they don't notice their own contradiction to it either. Just as the different anonymous and very human authors of the books / scrolls in the Bible have contradicted each other, and later on some people decided to put some of those books together, and some not, and called it "The Holy Bible / The Word of God".

I might come back to your post more specifically later once I find the nerve for it. But you doing things like:

Originally Posted by u crank

As to the book of Job, yes I have read it. Job 13:3 " But I would speak to the Almighty and I desire to argue my case with God." Isaiah 1:18 "Come now and let us argue it out, says the Lord." Seems like a discussion to me.

i.e., putting two totally unrelated verses from two different books - or "chapters" - right together, as if this was an answer that God gave to Job, even saying "Seems like a discussion to me", while in the real story your god ranted at Job for several pages about how he must not dare question him, makes me wonder if it is even worth the hassle if you are that intellectually dishonest / incoherent.

And as if this wasn't ridiculous enough already, it wasn't even a good hack job, since this "let us reason together" from Isaiah that you quoted has nothing to do with "discussing with / questioning God", instead it is god saying "listen up, I'm gonna explain something to you", which is clear from the context:

KJV, Isaiah 1
18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.
19 If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land:
20 But if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

Hell, it is even quite the opposite of God being in a mood for questioning. LOL.

@Blood splat:

Good link. This one is also fun:

[Sailor Steve]

First, you might want to reduce that to one paragraph and post a link to the rest. Subsim got into trouble not long ago when someone copied and pasted an entire article. Even putting the copyright information in didn't stop the author from asking nicely, with a subtle warning implied.

As to the article itself, it's interesting how he juxtaposes Hebrew and Greek mythology, but then tries to show that 17th-century science is derived from the Torah. Mostly he leaps around a lot and doesn't say much. His quote from Ecclesiastes has more to do with philosophy than science, and he never shows a real connection, just implications with no cause or justification.

Modern science owes more to the Enlightenment than to Homer or the Bible. Neither Homer nor the Biblical authors were concerned with discovering the world around us. One, as he points out, was concerned with telling stories about gods and men. The other was concerned with teaching a lesson about man's duty to God. Both spoke as if they expected their audience to take the story at face value; neither ever claimed to be an eyewitness to the deeds done, and never offered any proof of their claims. Therefore, neither has anything to do with science, ancient or modern.

That some scientists and mathematicians attribute the laws of the universe to God is fine. It also doesn't make them right, just believers.

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

First, you might want to reduce that to one paragraph and post a link to the rest. Subsim got into trouble not long ago when someone copied and pasted an entire article. Even putting the copyright information in didn't stop the author from asking nicely, with a subtle warning implied.

Uhm, I get the feeling there is a post missing between my previous one and yours, right?

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by heartc

Uhm, I get the feeling there is a post missing between my previous one and yours, right?

Yep. Rockstar deleted the post. He didn't need to do that; a paragraph and a like would have done nicely. Now I can't even find the article to relink it.

Oh well...

[heartc]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

@ u crank: [...] What is relevant to heartc's argument is that God did indeed kill all those people. Were his reasons valid? If you're a believer, how do you question God? His reasons must have been valid.

What is interesting is that even if you look at it from the perspective of a believer, i.e. seeing the Bible as the Word of God, shutting down your own moral faculties and saying that whatever God did must be good (see "Divine Command Theory" and "Euthyphro dilemma"), you will still have a problem there. Christians say, "God is love", and one of the verses in the Bible where it says so is:

"And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him."
- 1 John 4:16

Now, when faced with the statement that "God is love" on the one hand, and the atrocities that he ordered and commited in the OT* (not to mention the NT and Revelations, where the whole concept of burning people forever in a lake of fire for not believing in Jesus as the son of god / saviour is revealed, while all the lucky ones are having fun in heaven praising the Lord 24/7/eternity - I could not praise the lord nor have fun knowing that billions upon billions of people are burning at the same time for all eternity), we can try some mental acrobatics in saying that "God's concept of love is different and incomprehensible to us" or "Whatever he does is love, you just might not understand it". Well, aside from the fact that this is absurd and the word "Love" then becomes totally meaningless if it is not understandable, and any notion by Christians that what we understand as "Moral Values" comes from / is proof for God goes right out the window (because so could any - what we would percieve as whicked -
notion come from him), the same Bible who says that "God is Love" actually describes attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13 (NIV):

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.

Christians sure like to point verses like these out, right?
So, the excuse of "God's concept of love is different" doesn't really hold water when we acknowledge the fact that one of his Apostles, Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit ( = God / The "Trinity") described the attributes of love like that, and we recognize it.

So how does

God = Love = 1 Corinthians 13 = God in the OT

God = Love = 1 Corinthians 13 = slaughtering children, ordering the slaughter of children, ordering genocide, comitting genocide, condoning and promoting slavery (for example - but not exclusive to - God sometimes ordered to take the children of a tribe, that he commanded to be attacked, as slaves instead of killing them like the rest), taking the virgins after killing their tribe, death penalty for mundane things like picking up sticks on the wrong day of the week etc etc

compute?

It becomes even more absurd when you break it down into details:

God = Love = not rude = STONE THEM! / BURN THEM! / Summoning bears to tear apart several children that were laughing about the bald head of a prophet

God = Love = not self-seeking = I AM THE LORD YOUR GOD, YOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.

God = Love = does not envy = FOR I AM A JEALOUS GOD.

God = Love = not easily angered = YOU ATE FROM THE TREE!! NOW ALL OF HUMANITY WILL BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY IN HELLFIRE, except for those who believe that I sent myself down to earth to sacrifice myself to myself, even when they were born in India and have heard of my word but stayed in their religion because they were raised as such. Whew, those Americans
and Europeans are lucky, I guess! God is quite geographically biased, don't you think. Oh, and screw the Jews, his "chosen people", too.

God = Love = does not delight in evil = DASHING INFANTS AGAINST THE ROCKS IS FUN!

from Psalm 137:

8 O Daughter of Babylon,
doomed to destruction,
happy is he who repays you
for what you have done to us;
9 he who seizes your infants
and dashes them against the rocks.

(That Psalm is actually what the song "(By the) Rivers of Babylon" is based on, see verse 1 of the Psalm:

"1 By the rivers of Babylon
we sat and wept
when we remembered Zion."

Funny how no one ever sings verses 8 and 9, no?)

God = Love = always protects = Playing bets with Satan over Job's soul, him losing all he has, his family dieing, and getting severely ill in the process (all - except for his original family... - is later restored. Still, didn't protect him from Satan).

God = Love = never fails / always perseveres = frying the great majority of humans in hell (again this is the "nice" NT / and not so nice Revelations here, not OT).


...and you could go on and on and on.

Now, after we've established that the concept of love is defined / described in the Bible and is actually quite familiar to what we would expect it to be, but then seeing how this God who is supposed to be love is not acting on it, we could try a second mental acrobatic here and say that well, maybe God changed his mind from the OT to the NT (although this is a rather pointless try, see above), so basicly the thing that u_crank was trying to pull on me when he said "Well, that was God just dealing with the Israelites." (if only! Ask the tribes he eradicated lol.) and "Looks like a progression to me. I like it". In other words, God was evil in the OT, but then became a loving God in the NT...

Malachi 3:6 "I the Lord do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed".

Matthew 5

"17 Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."

(That's Jesus talking, btw, u_crank. So much for your "But the OT doesn't count anymore." But I grant you the funny thing that Jesus himself goes on and breaks the law on several occasions, then tries to weasel himself out of it with word games or by taking the law ad absurdum.)

And many other verses. But on the other hand, there are indeed verses where it says that he in fact changed his mind, or which are indicative of that. For example in the Flood story:

Genesis 6:5-7 (NIV)

5 The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground ;for I regret that I have made them.";

How's that for cleaning up your act after realizing you screwed up?
The Lord changes his mind not only in so far as coming to the conclusion that his creation is crap, he also changes it again in so far as that he's killing EVERYBODY

"8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD."

so, except for Noah & family and several billion animals. (Too bad the second try after hitting the reset button didn't work out either with those whicked humans, so he had to send Jesus down to be "sacrificed". For 3 days, that is, then he was back again.)

So, I will grant u_crank or whomever the possibility that God might sometimes change his mind. But this then still leaves us with the fact that he was an evil, petty and genocidal maniac in the OT, and that he's going to burn the great majority of mankind in hell for all eternity, which makes him exactly *what* as opposed to the OT?? Or will he maybe change his mind again on that and send another prophet down to tell us about it? In fact, when God changes his mind on things as profound as creating, then wiping out all life on earth etc, how do you have any security about the will of God at all?
Actually, most Christians will say that while God might change his opinion sometimes, he does not change in his nature, i.e. he is perfect love, perfect justice, perfect everything. So, we are back to the first step of trying to make sense of "perfect love" and genocide.

Also, if God is perfect, this would preclude any change from happening, because any change from perfect can only lead to something less than perfect. There is no "better than perfect". Perfect is the superlative. So any change must necessarily be in a negative direction. But then he wouldn't be perfect anymore.
Also, how do the stories that show God changing his mind about something compute with an "omniscient" God? How can you feel "regret" over the fact that you created mankind when you know everything beforehand? And why does a perfect and omnipotent God create an imperfect species that does not use its free will in the way that God has intended for it?(paradox alert, btw) As a matter of fact, giving limited and gullible people free will but then confronting them with a supernatural snake (or the devil) is a recipe for disaster.

There is no sense in any of it. These are writings from ancient men, written over a looong period of time, some of them connected, some of them not really, and later compiled into a single book, the Bible. Some people have only some of the books of the Bible, like the Jews. Some people have some things in common with it, and an additional author, like the Muslims. Or the Mormons.

Believers (at least in the Christian and Muslim faith) should ask themselves how it is that an omnipotent God does not communicate more efficiently with his creation, considering that your soul is supposedly at stake, so that the message would be clear and people would actually stop killing each other over it?

There can be only three possibilities:

a) He cannot communicate more efficiently; then he is incompetent and not omnipotent.

b) He is unwilling to communicate more efficiently; then he is evil, because as a result a great number of souls will be lost / burn in eternal hellfire / whatever your religous mileage.

One of the above must be true. Oh wait, there is actually a third option here:

c) He cannot communicate more efficiently because he does not exist.

Isn't it fascinating how the Bible makes COMPLETE sense the moment you look at it as the works of men. Then there's no mystery in God ordering genocide on neighbouring tribes. There's no mystery in keeping the virgins to oneself. There's no mystery in the story of creation. There's no mystery in a talking snake. There's no mystery in God communicating inefficiently
to modern man while he talked out of the clouds to ancient men.
And this is how we go about things when we try finding out the truth: Rationally. If hypophysis x makes a hell of a lot more sense than hypophysis y, then it is rational to conclude that hypophis y is probably not true.

Simply by looking into it, it is a lot more rational to conclude the Bible is the word and works of men rather than the word and the works of an invisible man in the sky (or omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent anything).

Only because one *wishes* something was true (although I wonder who would ever want a monster like Jahwe to be true), doesn't
make it true. We do not need a daddy in the sky that tells us right from wrong. We can try figuring that out on our own. And indeed, that is what we've been doing all along, only that some of us invented an invisible man in the sky and projected themselves onto him. This might sometimes have positive effects, depending on what the invisible man says in your head or your book. But other times, people fly airplanes into skyscrapers or paint a cross on their shield and slaughter everybody because of it.

Think about it, the Middle East / Palestine / Israel ist still contested territory and a hotbed for violence to this day, and a major - if not the only - reason for that is because people down there cannot agree on what the invisible man in the sky said, and did, and wants.
Europe was in the dark ages for centuries because of the invisible man, until the power of the church was subordinated to REASON, and the separation of church and state took place. Why was this such a blessing, when the Law of God is supposedly something good? Because it isn't. Because "He" isn't. And we sure as hell do not get our moral compass from "Him". Or had better not.

Originally Posted by SailorSteve

"and the God of the Christians, wantonly killed several thousand people"

Try a few millions.








I love how Sam Harris puts it btw,



If you are interested in more from Sam Harris:

The Moral Landscape (long):

[Diopos]

@ heartc

For all the reasons its false to "mix" religious principles in the implementation and analysis of science and logic, the reverse is also valid, meaning the logical and scientific analysis of said religion priciples. The best analogy for religion is not the comparison to science but to art. When you listen to your favorite music you are not interested in the chord progression the song is based on or even if the composer is a good person or not. You are just moved or not by the music. By the same token, in the end you just believe or not.

.