Slush Puppie

CalvaryCougar, my apologies if I have made you feel like I am attacking you personally. My interest is solely to correct false information (presented as fact) on either side of the debate so that whatever anyone who reads this chooses to believe, they do so from a foundation of factual understanding. Not one based upon assumption, misinformation or even outright lies. I also find the psychology of belief systems fascinating generally.

As you say, you've answered many questions and while I may not be able to accept all of your answers I do appreciate you taking the time to do so. If you feel it's a little unbalanced, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have (if I can) and in fact would encourage you to ask more.

For the record some of my own personal beliefs; I have no problem accepting the overwhelming evidence for evolution requiring no designer.

I can believe that intervention at some point is technically possible but I think it's highly unlikely and no credible evidence has been found (yet) to suggest it did.

I see zero requirement for it to have happened to create diverse and complex flora and fauna around us. Evolution very adequately explains it. Add to that any so called 'designer' made so many mistakes you would certainly question their competence. I will post more on this issues as I think it's quite an interesting subject.

Anyway to answer your points..

Sounds plausible enough. But assume for a minute that your are correctly interpreting the whole context. Part of the problem (and it's a major one) is that it does rely on interpretation at all. How can you say my interpretation is incorrect?

But again I'm not particularly interested to get to the bottom of this point. My morals don't come from a book (and nor do yours - you happen to agree with what's in the book because of the morals you already believe). There are plenty of other issues in the bible I could seize upon but I'd rather discuss the more important issues.

Also I can't help but think a wise, caring god would simply command for the community to support and respect the woman instead and attach no stigma so that the rapist could be punished and she could get on with her life..

Well first I didn't call them crackpots. I said that the pseudo science is crackpot. Often made to look quite plausible superficially and easy to believe unless you are able see it objectively and demand the credible evidence for it's conclusions and assumptions.

The problem with this it's not enough to cite a x was an atheist and he changed his mind. Although I can see that as a powerful marketing tool and easily mistaken to lend credibility. It's the substance of what they are claiming that's important.

It's hard to comment without watching the whole thing (which I will endeavour to do. My observation from watching the first part it's very focused on trying to present him as credible. But it doest actually tell us anything. So I can't really add much to that.

From what I understand, this has been discredited “the very heart of Meyer’s thesis (and his book [Signature in the Cell]) is wrong.” [Hunt, Yarus]. It's discussed in the link you posted below, although it's fair to say that flaws are claimed in the rebuttal. I'll try and get a better understanding before I can say much else.

As pointed out in the following link there are some problems with this, notably the credibility is devalued by being produced by a creationist organisation and the findings are completely contradicted by the fossil record.

Darwin’s Dilemma: I watched it so you don’t have to. « Why Evolution Is True

I don't claim to be either. I am interested in enriching my understanding of the world around me though.

I've had a scan through the link above and it's hard to go into detail because it will take a lot of time to research it all.

One thing that immediately stands out though is that the above link and also the previous video both make clear reference to the fact that the earth is older than 6000 years, so I'm intruded to know how you reconcile posting this as support when they partially explicitly contradict your own views.

Fair enough, we'll still be here if you decide to carry on.

sabatoa

To be fair, most if not all laws are open to interpretation. It's been 200+ years and we're still seeing cases in the Supreme Court regarding the interpretation of the Constitution.

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Slush Puppie

Yes you make a good point. And those are written very recently, in the same language and notably are constantly being revised (which isn't happening with any religious books).

Instead people pick and choose the bits in the bible that fit with their real beliefs. Either writing off things as "not meant to be taken literally" or just simply glossed over. And many of our social standards and moral have come a long way since the old testament.

Imagine if there really is a god, how much you could piss him off just by meaning well but accidentally getting his instructions wrong!

How secure can you really be in your knowledge of any god's supposed will?

Food for thought I hope.

CalvaryCougar

This is an unfortunate truth, some Christians do pick and choose what to believe, but then again a lot of Christians, such as myself, that view the whole Bible as God's unfailable word and believe it all. Check out Answers in Genesis statement of faith. They believe the whole Bible is the Word of God. Not just parts of it.
The AiG Statement of Faith - Answers in Genesis



Actually if you read the Bible you'll see that God cares more about the heart of someones actions than what they accidentally do.

Examples:

"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.""
1 Samuel 16:7


"“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

25“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

27“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. "
Matthew 23:23-28

This last verse is Jesus talking to the Pharisees who were all about following the Old Testament law but whose hearts were unclean.
As you can see here God judges by the intentions of your heart.


"Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

3“What did Moses command you?” he replied.

4They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

5“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. 6“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’a 7‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife,b 8and the two will become one flesh.’c So they are no longer two, but one. 9Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Mark 10:2-9


As you can see here the law of the old testament was given to show how sinful the people where. God gave the law to the people to show their sins, and to make it clear they needed a savior.

"19What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. 20A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one. "
Galatians 3:19-20



Sorry for all the long verses but I wanted to show the context of the verses.

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JeffreyCH

Wow!! What a wild thread.....we are here to mine gold for aliens so believe whatever you want....

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tylerkat89

With hair like that, how can you deny his credibility

JeffreyCH

How about this dude, quite the fro-man-do goin on

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CalvaryCougar

I quickly wanted to address this. The verses we have talked about are not a problem of interpretation but a problem of not understanding context. To fully interpret laws we must understand the context of the time in which they were given.

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CalvaryCougar

First thank you for your apologies they are accepted. Its always an emotional debate because people's world views are on the line.

To the first part, most of the links do have evidence they use for backing up their conclusions. You might not agree with their conclusions but Answers in Genesis and some other creation apologetic sites use science to back up their conclusions.

To the second part, of course this is not enough. This is why i posted the videos such as the Anthony Flew video. Did you get a chance to watch that?


To the third part, thank you for taking time to watch the video! Its a great video and the video doesnt need to prove strobels credibility because the movie he interviews people with credibility in their fields. Lee Strobel is just used in this video as a narrator about how he arrived to his conclusion, but he interviews scientists.


Lastly when you said that the video says the earth is older than 6,000 years I dont believe that is correct but if im wrong please show me the time so I can rewatch it. I believe the earth is young but that doesn't mean all intelligent design scientist do.

Oh and please do watch the Case for Christ link if you have the time!

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KIRKRIDER

Fascinating....uh sort of.


I write on other forums too, in Italian and english. US climbing or snowboarding forums are the only ones where you find people still spreading religious propaganda like it's something new. In the rest of the world people talks about politics, culture, technology..

USA. The land of the space shuttle...and total backward bigotry. all the way up to the supreme court.

sad.

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