Random - ''Religious'' topic (not bike related) [Archive]

Ninja2

October 03-2007, 10:53 AM

I would have to disagree with you there Pete. If atheism is a position that affirms the 'nonexistence of gods', then surely anyone who affirms the nonexistence of any Gods could be said to be an atheist.

For example, if you are a christian, one of the main beliefs is the old "I am the one true god, you shall have no other gods before me" or something like that. The main interpretation of it all being that christians don't believe in any other gods. Which means, for example, that they don't believe in the Greek Gods. By affirming that the greek gods don't exist, in that context you are an atheist. Whether you believe in the christian god has no bearing on how the greek believers view you, in terms of their own theism.

I dont think he is trying to convince someone that they believe the same thing as he does. He is trying to show a person (who obviously doesnt understand his viewpoint) how their views arent so different. I have heard the quote before, and I quite like it. People sometimes find it hard to grasp how someone can manage to not believe in a god. As Roberts points out, its not a huge step from 'not believing in the other few thousand and just believing in one' to 'not believing in a few thousand and one'.

Rick B

October 03-2007, 10:57 AM

barry_kellett99

October 03-2007, 11:02 AM

Religion, politics and Treadmill aviation.

All should be Banned topics on all forums!

jimjam

October 03-2007, 11:47 AM

To be an athiest though you would need to have complete knowledge of everything under the sun (and beyond) to be sure that there is no God. If anyone therefore has perfect knowledge he can make the claim. Until then, he is an agnostic.

Does that confuse thing further?? :)

No. Atheism or "non" theism is the rejection of a dogmatic belief in something that has no grounding in reason. You dont need to have a degree in leprechauns to not believe in them.

Donncha

October 03-2007, 11:49 AM

I would say that logic is flawed Rick. Agnostics say it is not possible to know whether there is or is not gods. The example often given is there may be a giant magic teapot just hidden behind the moon we can not see. An agnostic would say there could be a giant teapot - it is impossible to know.

(This is not how any science works. It assumes the null hypothesis, no effect, no relation ship, no magic teapot, until evidence dictates otherwise.)

It is an interesting quote but Pete makes a good point about the actual meaning of the words. An atheist does not believe in any gods while a theist believes in one or more gods.

kenny

October 03-2007, 11:52 AM

October 03-2007, 12:49 PM

Have any of you read Lance Armstrongs autobiography, where he discusses religion (think it's the second book)?

He quotes this -
"It's unequivocally clear that life begins at birth and ends at death, and if most people on this planet understood that, they would lead their lives very differently. We find religious or mysterious forces to fill in for our inadequacies, but heaven and hell are both here on earth every day, and we make our lives around them"

I can't remember who originally wrote it, but it's certainly food for thought.

keith

October 03-2007, 12:58 PM

m_c I got worried when you quoted Lance Armstrong a man whom i admire, because americans have a nasty habit of thanking god for everything that they do.

But in topic I have always liked this quote:

I considered atheism, but there weren't enough holidays

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 01:04 PM

It is an interesting quote but Pete makes a good point about the actual meaning of the words. An atheist does not believe in any gods while a theist believes in one or more gods.

But theists still don't believe in certain other gods. Maybe the quote is wrong in the sense that Mr. Roberts described him and another person who follows a god equally as atheist as one an other, but he is still trying to put the point forward that when the other person realises and understands why they dismiss other gods, then they will understand where he is coming from.

So, the question to be asked is why do you not follow other gods (if you even do follow a god/s)?

Answer yourself that, and you will understand why Mr. Roberts dismisses all other gods.

In order to follow one religion/set of beliefs, then you must also dismiss others, just like Mr. Roberts has dismissed this persons.

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 01:14 PM

wiki definition - Atheism, as a philosophical view, is the position that either affirms the 'nonexistence of gods' or rejects 'theism'.

Just realised there, an atheist is described as someone who rejects 'theism'.

A catholic, for example, will reject the 'theism' of, lets say a Buddist. And vice-versa.

Are they not both atheist then, just as much as the person who believes in the non-existance of gods? They both do exactly as is described in the definition.

That definition basically says that if you follow a god/s, but reject others, then you must reject the theism behind the belief in that god/s, thus rendering yourself an athiest.

Making any sense here?? lol :rolleyes:

Ninja2

October 03-2007, 01:31 PM

It is an interesting quote but Pete makes a good point about the actual meaning of the words. An atheist does not believe in any gods while a theist believes in one or more gods.

But the definition (as quoted by pete) doesn't say an atheist does not believe in any gods, it says 'nonexistence of gods'. So by the definition, if you affirm the nonexistence of a God, you can be classified as an atheist.

Speedfreak - that was kind of my original point. To any religion, you will by their definition be an atheist to them if you don't believe in their religion / god.

jimjam

October 03-2007, 01:32 PM

Just realised there, an atheist is described as someone who rejects 'theism'.

A catholic, for example, will reject the 'theism' of, lets say a Buddist. And vice-versa.

Are they not both atheist then, just as much as the person who believes in the non-existance of gods? They both do exactly as is described in the definition.

That definition basically says that if you follow a god/s, but reject others, then you must reject the theism behind the belief in that god/s, thus rendering yourself an athiest.

Making any sense here?? lol :rolleyes:

Yes and no. But really no, a christian ( for the sake of arguement) may reject islam but that doesnt make them an atheist becuase they still have "theistic" beliefs. They still believe in a devine power. Just not anyone else's "divine power".

In the eyes islam they are a heretic and vice versa. But they are both theistic.

An atheist rejects the concept of a "divine power", any "divine power" in favour of science, logic and reason.

kenny

October 03-2007, 01:48 PM

jimjam

October 03-2007, 02:06 PM

^^^ And then you're on to intertwinned religions. Christianity, Islam, and Judaism all have the same god. So you're a heretic for believing in the same thing, just in a slightly different manner. What's that all about?

42!

Ninja goat!

Not to mention the fact that there are so many different off-shoots of christianity and islam, all believing in the same but slightly different things, and each one of them convinced they are the chosen ones.

wise man once say

I dunno much but I tell you this man, Im gonna get my kicks before the whole sh*thouse goes down in flames.

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 02:50 PM

So what Mr. Roberts says is wrong then. Sorted! :D

jimjam

October 03-2007, 02:57 PM

So what Mr. Roberts says is wrong then. Sorted! :D

Well if you were being a pedant, in terms of definitions of words then yeah he's wrong. Im sure he'd probably just say he is using a bit of artistic licence to get a point across.

The fact that he was wrong in the way he wrote the thing doesnt mean that there isnt any validity to his point though.

What he could have written would be
"we are both heretics" that would be technically correct I suppose.

Then again some clever dick might just come along and explain why Im wrong.

kenny

October 03-2007, 03:19 PM

The same thing happened in Treadmill Aerodynamics (of course it takes off). The actual spirit (pardon the pun for the context of this thread) of the question was forgot, and everyone ended up being pedantic about the definition of the question.

Tiff

October 03-2007, 03:41 PM

Some good comments - I'll shed my own opinion on it

*lets leave word definitions out of it for a minute as I think we all know what he is trying to say*

I find that in this country chances are you were brought up going to church, being taught the Christain belief, wether that be Cathlioc or Protestant, its still Christianity.

What I find so true about this statement is that people accept Christianty simply because it is the religion of this country rather than having any reason to choose it other than thats how they were brought up.

If you thought clearly about it surely it would make sense to try out every relgion and then choose the one you felt was true. Such as buying a car, you dont buy the car your parents have, you try loads then pick one.

There are so many religions how can they all be correct? And why would a person with a single belief dismiss all the others when they have never tried them.

And its that principle of dismissing other religions that can be turned against the one you follow, thus rendering anyone who only follows one religon to be almost athiest. (athiest meaning - no belief in religion)

Jonnyc

October 03-2007, 03:58 PM

You also have to take into the consideration that the definition of religion is

"a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe" - Dictionary.com

So in actual fact atheists are just as religious as Christians, Muslims, Scientologists, etc, etc

On the general theme of religion and picking up on Lance Armstrong's thoughts, death is the end of this mortal life of us all, and there can only be one thing that happens then. It might be an after life, it might be nothing, it can't be both. If it is the latter, then none of this really matters, however if it is the former there is going to be a lot of disappointed people!

PBR_Streetgang

October 03-2007, 04:07 PM

DH or XC?

jimjam

October 03-2007, 04:12 PM

There are so many religions how can they all be correct? And why would a person with a single belief dismiss all the others when they have never tried them.

Thats the exact "spirit" of the question. That and no more.

Ignoring any linguistic pedantry I'll add my two cents.

In my opinion a religion is only relevant as long as its followers are alive. Its easy for followers of any religion to get short sighted and think that their religion is the only truth, after all its probably all they have ever known in their lifetime, and their parents lifetime and so on back for millenia. When christianity dies out it will be seen as no more or less of a quaint superstition than belief in the sun or zeus. We just cant imagine that far forward at the minute, but it is inevitable.

The reason why the vast majority of people never choose to experiment with other faiths or with atheism is due to fear caused by indoctrination from birth.

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 04:16 PM

DH or XC?

I don't believe in XC, it's not so much that I dismiss their beliefs, I just can't understand why they want life to be such an uphill struggle! I'd rather my life was spiralling downhill all the way to be honest, so I follow (not to disrespect any other religions here) the DH way! :D

Aaron p

October 03-2007, 04:53 PM

''I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours''

Stephen Roberts

....

I belive it is trying to say that basically he believes there is no god. His argument being, if you take say A die hard christian who will beleive nothing but and not have a word said against christianity, and ask them why they dont beleive the other religions, the reasons they will give are simply the same reasons he rejects their religion also! Just my thoughts though! I dont go for the whole religion thing though so it is probably a very biased analysis;)

Tiff

October 03-2007, 04:59 PM

The reason why the vast majority of people never choose to experiment with other faiths or with atheism is due to fear caused by indoctrination from birth.

exactly my opinion

I cant remember the phycologist but I remember reading my friends physcology book and if you are raised to belief that this face is actually blue :D -- when we know it to be green beucase you have only ever known it to be blue you will have a very hard time adjusting

Donncha

October 03-2007, 05:12 PM

Not strictly relevant but def worth a read:

http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/

kenny

October 03-2007, 05:30 PM

On the general theme of religion and picking up on Lance Armstrong's thoughts, death is the end of this mortal life of us all, and there can only be one thing that happens then. It might be an after life, it might be nothing, it can't be both. If it is the latter, then none of this really matters, however if it is the former there is going to be a lot of disappointed people!

If there's an afterlife, do you necessarily need religion? Is that not just various religions point of view of an afterlife and their scare tactics to get you to follow their particular code?

Donncha

October 03-2007, 05:34 PM

Tiff:
I cant remember the phycologist but I remember reading my friends physcology book...

Seems a stange thing to be in a book about seaweed & algae!

ColB

October 03-2007, 05:48 PM

I don't believe in XC, it's not so much that I dismiss their beliefs, I just can't understand why they want life to be such an uphill struggle! I'd rather my life was spiralling downhill all the way to be honest, so I follow (not to disrespect any other religions here) the DH way! :D

i think perhaps you are missing the whole concept behind the uphill struggle, it is that flash of light and feeling of wholeness that one gets when completing the difficult task at hand and then the sweet and gentle reward of the downhill that follows - in all it completes most of the basic premise of existence for me, struggle and a brief fleeting reward for countless hours toiled in the uphill struggle -- could even be a metaphor for my life....

;-)

as BK says - politics, religion and aviation themed treadmill threads should not be allowed.....

suspectmonkey

October 03-2007, 07:00 PM

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 07:33 PM

Hahaha, man that's good! You could use that for anything probably! lol.

I believe that you are not a cyclist (using the term as example of course, couldn't afford to be politically incorrect here! lol).........screw that! lol

Only muckin man, very good twist with that quote! :D

BTW - If you're pushing yourself as hard as you can go, you're a good DHer in your own right!!! So feck the XC and stick with what you know is right! lol ;)

tankslapper

October 03-2007, 08:41 PM

Actually you are all wrong there is only one God and he can be found here:

http://www.venganza.org/

http://www.venganza.org/piratesarecool4.gif

Conti Vert Pros

trailfox

October 03-2007, 09:00 PM

Whether or not you believe in a 'God' I think it is almost impossible for there not to be a creator God, Even though I'm only doing my GCSE sciences (all three) there gould be no way that 'it' (as in everything) could all be created 'by chance'. I'm nearly finished getting deeper into atomic theory and how everything and anything comes together to make your everyday items like the water in your tap for example... and how our inner-workings of our eyes and brains 'just happened' to suddenly form from either a big explosion or a few miniscule (sp?) cells that 'just happened' to get deformed in some way to form a different cell to eventually create a whole human made up of millions of different cells, or how the earth is just the right distance away from the sun and at just the right tilt and orbit pattern to stop us freezing or burning to death 'just by chance'.
It's just not logical! I just think there has to be some sort of designer, some sort of creator... i.e. 'God'

I found this on another forum...

The bombardier bettle is a creature on earth that has 3 substances in it. and any combination of two of those substances would result in the creature blowing itself to pieces. So this is a huge problem for scientists that believe in evolution!!!! true fact!
This (http://scienceblogs.com/afarensis/2006/02/22/icons_of_creationism_the_bomba/) is what the evolutionists had to explain for this special critter. Apparenty, it takes a few mutations from a mud puddle and hey presto!! A beetle that can shoot fire (hot acid stuff) from its but!! lol :D
Funny, but the evolutionists are still talking a load of turd IMO

If there's an afterlife, do you necessarily need religion? Is that not just various religions point of view of an afterlife and their scare tactics to get you to follow their particular code?
That opens up a whole other debate and really comes down to each individual's personal decision.
The 'afterlife' or the existance of 'heaven and hell' is mentioned by most if not all the major religions so they cant be all wrong. If you take islam, their god is 'Alah' which translates into english as 'God'. Judaism has 'God' as does Christianity (If you believe in christianity, the big story about the whole God-Jews who screwd up a bit, some said sorry, others didn't and then God-Christians became what it is now is muy interesting. Not saying that Jews aren't still bad, I just think they have a different version/certian belief pattern than christians do, pretty much.), buddism also has one main character too - Buddha. The Bah'ai faith also has a single inperishable creator 'God' too. All of these religions (if my memory does not fail me) include a heaven/hell interpretation of an afterlife. So I think yes, there is such a thing as 'Heaven' and 'Hell', it would be pretty useless if there wasn't such a thing. And so, in turn 'religion' would be necissary.

Cristianity teaches if you hoke about in the NT a bit that to be a christian it not to follow a 'religion'. It is to have a relationship with Jesus (i.e. 'Christ').
IMO christianity as a religion is getting quite obscured in the world's eye. People say they are christians when they aren't, people teach things which they say are in the Bible but in fact are a twisted truth which then sparks up numerous debates etc.

If you are a christian, that doesn't mean you don't follow that religion, all of those things taught by christianity are still necissary and should just follow naturaly anyway.
I think, as far as afterlife is concerned... it just depends on where you want to end up! :-)

Just my 2cents worth... (make that a big 2:D )

marko

October 03-2007, 09:05 PM

sunshine and lollypops, rainbows and.............

Tiff

October 03-2007, 10:31 PM

Tiff:
I cant remember the phycologist but I remember reading my friends physcology book...

Seems a stange thing to be in a book about seaweed & algae!

My apologies - psychologist and psycology.

Whether or not you believe in a 'God' I think it is almost impossible for there not to be a creator God, Even though I'm only doing my GCSE sciences (all three) there gould be no way that 'it' (as in everything) could all be created 'by chance'.
Trailfox - this is a little piece taken from - A brief history of time.

''Its is a bit like the well known horde of monkeys hammering away on type writers - most of what they write will be garbage but very ocassionally by pure chance they will type out Shakesperes sonnets. Similarly, in the case of the universe, could it be that we are living in a region that just so happens by chance to be smooth and uniform? At first sight this may seem very improbable, because such smooth regions would be heavily outnumbered by chaotic and irregular regions. However, suppose that only in the smooth regions were galaxies and stars formed and were the conditions right for development of complicated self replicating organisims like our selves who are capable of asking the question: why is the universe so smooth? This is an example of the application of what is known as the anthropic principle, which can be para-phrased as 'We see the universe the way it is because we exist''

Page 137 - Stephen Hawking - Published by Bantam Books

Basically through the massive number of chances with in the universe no matter how improbable you may think it, life has developed. Imagine the odds of rolling a 6 - 100 times in a row on a dice.

But what if you just kept rolling - eventually you would roll a six 100 times.

trailfox

October 03-2007, 10:47 PM

But you would need ALOT of sixes Tiff! ;-)

marko

October 03-2007, 11:27 PM

i am a god

Speedfreak

October 03-2007, 11:31 PM

Mark is a God....with a capital 'G' so that means he is like, soooooooooo powerful!!!!

marko

October 03-2007, 11:34 PM

your hamster worships me! i also have an almighty power over sheep and all manor of small creatures............ bow down to thy almighty

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 01:37 AM

I watched a program recently on Discovery, which was Created vs Evolved.

Despite varying scientific attempts, no-one has yet disproved the theory of a creator God. In fact as science progresses it only further points towards such a creator.

Many anti-God parties, have used a lot of "science" (which has since be disproven by it's own scientists) to "prove" God does not exist. Peltdown man, neandertal (sp), carbon dating, are all regularly used to "prove" God doesn't exist. However if anyone looks at todays facts, they are all shown to be hoax's or grossly in accurate.

On the other hand I have heard of "religious" people claiming that dinosaurs didn't exist. Which is just stupid considering there are plenty of physical evidences of them. When they existed is a different question entirely!

My personal favourite was when one of the scientists claiming evolution to be the right theory was questioned to explain how a living organism came from a rock at the point in history, he stumbled and in true Jeremy Paxman style the interviewer put to him that his "Great great great ...grandfather was actually a rock!" I wet myself.

trailfox

October 04-2007, 08:43 AM

I second what Jonny said... It's like when they thought the world was flat. Before that 'theory' was proven wrong, people where soo convinced that that theory was absolutely correct. And even when the theory was proven wrong, some people still denied it, but eventually everyone got a bit of sense about their lugs :-)

As far as I know Jonny, there is something in the Bible that mentions great beasts that walked amoungst men, or something similar...

Tiff - even stephen hawking, one of the greatest minds in the world got stumped in one of his books or was it one of his lectures... i cant remember but even he said ""the actual point of creation lies outside the scope of presently known laws of physics" if they read "a brief history of time" they'll see a hint that hawking does believe in a god of sorts! even einstein believed ""God does not play dice.".. ie everything was not just created by chance as hawking suggests someone about monkeys and typewriters...

A very interesting essay for ye Tiff (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/abhotswh.html). Hawking doesn't Deny there is a God afterall!

barry_kellett99

October 04-2007, 09:14 AM

I sometimes ride a road bike :o

ColB

October 04-2007, 09:35 AM

I sometimes ride a road bike :o

hi my name is ben and i sometimes ride a road bike too....

:o

keith

October 04-2007, 09:57 AM

It is strange that the burden of proof rests with the scientists to prove that God doesnt exist rather than the other way around.

On another note, when i saw this post I did wonder how long it would take before it moved off topic and onto a does god exist motif. And btw neither Einstein or Hawkins believe in any kind of personal god.

Ninja2

October 04-2007, 11:14 AM

In fact, the Pope met with Hawking and a few other prominent scientists to ask them not to look further back into the creation of everything. He was getting worried methinks... Currently scientist have been able to derive what happened up to a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the big bang, but they haven't gone any closer. Unfortunately the gravitational fields are so strong before that, physics as we know them cease to accurately predict behaviour as the assumptions fall apart in such circumstances.

I agree with Keith though, strange how religious types seem to assume its up to scientists to disprove the existence, rather than the other way around. I dare say most scientists are quite busy working on things that are actually useful and couldn't care less about disproving the existence of god.

As for people who don't believe in evolution.... I'll not go too far into that, I'll probably offend someone. My Doctor friend said it best when confronted with a hardline religious type in hospital. "If you don't believe in evolution, then you won't mind if I give you the flu vaccine from 1900, because as the virus hasn't evolved, surely that will be just as effective as one from today...."

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 11:37 AM

I agree with Keith though, strange how religious types seem to assume its up to scientists to disprove the existence, rather than the other way around. I dare say most scientists are quite busy working on things that are actually useful and couldn't care less about disproving the existence of god.

I didn't mean it that scientists have to prove the existence of God, only to point out that many anti-God (atheist, agnostics etc) people use "science" as their basis for their argument against it, when in fact the science they base their POV on is non-existent itself.

Which of course is no different to the lack of hard evidence that "religious" people have regarding their faith, hence both evolution and faith being theory based makes them both religions. (I am basing this on the fact that I have yet to come across someone who has proven evolution, not theorised it. I am off course open to a view change on this)

And to balance my point I mention that there are religious people who claim dinosaurs didn't exist, despite physical evidence to the contrary

The overall aim of my point was to highlight the fact that your ultimate destination is something which everyone should at least think about once in their lives, and in doing so should look at the actual "evidence", not hearsay or social/traditional religion or parental indoctrination. What they decide at the end of that process is entirely up to them.

As for people who don't believe in evolution.... I'll not go too far into that, I'll probably offend someone. My Doctor friend said it best when confronted with a hardline religious type in hospital. "If you don't believe in evolution, then you won't mind if I give you the flu vaccine from 1900, because as the virus hasn't evolved, surely that will be just as effective as one from today...."

This is where I get confused, and again we are getting back to definitions.

What your friend is talking about is a change within the flu virus, not the flu virus evolving into something else. It didn't "evolve" into a leprosy virus or something else (or even changed into another form of organism, virus to a reptile, virus to a mammal, etc), just changed within itself.

Which in the animal kingdom is a bit like a Labrador and a poodle both coming together to make a Labradoodle, it is not a Labrador or a poodle, but is still a dog. It hasn't changed into a cat, which is what evolution would say happened at one point.

So is evolution just a change within a species/mineral, etc or is it a change from a mineral into a species?

Is that what some people call natural selection or survival of the fittest?

keith

October 04-2007, 12:19 PM

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 12:53 PM

Jonny, evolution has never said that a dog suddenly changed into a cat or a mineral into a species, but it does say that due to outside influences a species make changes to adapt and these changes are continual over large periods of time. the change of the flu virus is a small step in evolution.

Yes and no, I think

Evolution as most people view it, goes something like this:

Nothing - Big Bang - Universe - Earth - Organisms - Fish - Amphibians - Mammals - Monkeys - Men

I know that is a very simplistic view, but for it to be possible, there must have been a dog/cat type crossover at some point, be in mineral - species, fish - mammal, or monkey - man.

Does that simplistic definition of evolution match what your define evolution as or is it something different.

Again all down to definition.

I am sure I have seen plenty of evidence of genetic mutation, natural selection, gene pool dilution, but those are all bound with species.

I am really actually enjoying this thread, I am a bit of a discovery channel type geek

keith

October 04-2007, 01:16 PM

Jonny your wrong in thinking that evolution is an arguement for the origins of the universe. It doesnt try to explain solar systems or even the origin of life. It is concerned by the progression of life and its development. In a simple way it can be considered as the counter arguement to the religious view of intelligent design. ie intelligent design would say that living beings are so complex that it would need to be designed that way and not the result of chance. Evolution says that it isnt chance but a continual procession of developments.

baz

October 04-2007, 01:29 PM

I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track,
And as a go I love to sing,
My knapsack on my back.

Atheism, anyone?

Steveb

October 04-2007, 01:31 PM

I find the whole creationist/evolutionist discussion interesting, very interesting.

I would have to say I'm an evolutionist, but that is only because it seems to be the widest held view. Also I would say I'm not a beleiver in any type of god, therefore I must disagree with creationism? Right?

The problem comes when you look below the surface of either POV. When considered both seems somewhat fantastical: God created man, and everything around him. One minute there was nothing, the next everything. Or we all evolved from micro-organisms thrown up when a "big bang" occured. Both are as equally beleiveable as they are unbeleiveable.

I guess for me it comes down to which do you trust more, science or faith? And as always I find myself coming back to Keostlers Ghost In The Machine for the answers.

Interesting thread BTW.

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 01:31 PM

ok interesting point.

Would you say that evolution supports (or has even proven if it be the case) the "man came from apes" theory?

*I hope that my posts are coming across in the right way, as I am genuinely interested in this stuff and don't want them to be seen as a Christian who is trying to poo poo everything that isn't supporting Christianity. My personal belief is that God created the Universe and everything in it, quite how he did it in the physical and chemical sense, I have no idea and hence my intense interest in all things evolutionary.

Steveb

October 04-2007, 01:37 PM

Would you say that evolution supports (or has even proven if it be the case) the "man came from apes" theory?

Science has proven that man evolved from the ape, yes I think this is fair to say. I think that's different to waht you asked though. Evolution can not "prove" anything as such, it is the thing that needs to be proven.

Bloom

October 04-2007, 01:44 PM

Religions don't need to prove God exists. That is were 'faith' comes in. I mean if any God wants you to follow him you'd think he'd show his face, but no, you have to have 'faith' in the existence. And with that religion never has to prove itself. I mean come on.

Anyway, don't really want to get into this. Oh look, Baz's got a Nicolai G-boxx jobbie.

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 01:45 PM

Science has proven that man evolved from the ape,

That is my problem, that is a widely held belief, but from what I have seen/read it is an incorrect one.

As far as I know ape - man is still a theory, and while people say it is not, I am still looking for evidence that it has been proven.

Closest I have heard is that human DNA is 97% similar to ape DNA, but if my understanding is correct, that species of similar appearance and makeup will have similar DNA. For instance while a cow and a blue whale are completely difference beasts, you'd expect their DNA to be closer than a cow and a bacteria. Neither proves anything.

And while it can be argued that the closeness of the DNA indicates a common ancestor/origin or evolutionary source, it can also be argued that it points towards are single creator with common design habits. Just like you can have two 4 cylinder, 2 litre, oil cooled cars, one being a Subaru Impreza and the other being a Subura Impreza WRX. 2 completely different machines, with polar abilities, both having the same base makeup.

keith

October 04-2007, 01:52 PM

Ok, we are on dangerous ground for me here. I am not studied sufficiently in evolution to put forward the arguments I think you are looking for. I would say that I personally believe that evolution explains the complexity of life more completely than intelligent design can do but I am in no position to persuade others.

I would like to ask you about you last statement about 'God' creating the universe. This would again come down to how you defined God, whether it is the personal god in the sense of a creator who answers prayers and watches over us like the christian God, or a God who created the universe and then had nothing more to do with it, or whether god was a process as yet unknown to us.

Steven Weinberg said in 'Dreams of a Final Theory'

Some people have views of God that are so broad and flexible that it is inevitable that they will find God wherever they look for him. One hears it said that 'god is the ultimate' or 'god is our better nature' or 'god is the universe'. Of course, like any other word, the word 'god' can be given any meaning we like. If you want to say that 'God is energy', then you can find god in a lump of coal.

Tiff

October 04-2007, 02:03 PM

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 02:08 PM

For me, it would be the personal God option.

Darran@BOMB

October 04-2007, 02:08 PM

I always feel sorry for the apes that missed the whole evolution thing, i'm going out in my car for a nice meal tonight, meanwhile my ape cousin is swinging in the trees eating bananas. He doesn't have to work to keep the bank manager happy though so maybe the ones that missed the evolution train got it right!!!

Just realised, i've been a mamber here for 3 years and i'm still a newbie

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 02:12 PM

We have gotton onto evolution as and Keith said I dont think any of us know enough about the subject to argue.

The reason I liked the ORIGINAL comment so much was that someone who has been trying to understand religion for a long while now it matched the answer that I on my own arrived at.

My biggest reason for not having any belief in a God/s is due to the huge number of different religions and that everyone who becomes religious simply chooses the one taught to them from birth.

This comment highlights that for example a christian will dismiss every other God for the exact same reason an Athiest dismisses ALL Gods.

Generally they will have no reason to dismiss other religions as they havent tried them or learnt about them, but from fear through the fire and brimestome teachings are afraid not to belive what they have been told from birth. (This is my view from my experience)

So does that mean if you are born into a Christian, Muslim, Atheist, etc family, you are destined to follow that religion? I would have thought the difference in belief structure between the last generation and this in UK alone would fall against that.

And what about the millions around the world that are risking their lives to move from the religion of their family or the state, to another religion (including Atheism)

keith

October 04-2007, 02:13 PM

Rather than work i am caught up in this amusing thread.

A little bit of study has show me this quote from Darwin himself in his 'Origins of the Species'

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.But I can find no such case.

Creationists and proponents of intelligent design have yet to find any candidates.

Tiff give it up, this thread now has a life of its own and it aint ever getting back on topic.......

Tiff

October 04-2007, 02:15 PM

So does that mean if you are born into a Christian, Muslim, Atheist, etc family, you are destined to follow that religion? I would have thought the difference in belief structure between the last generation and this in UK alone would fall against that.

No - I born into a christian lifestyle - will choose either christain or nothing with out any consideration for the other relgions. People born into muslim familes will be muslim or nothing. Thats what i think anyway.

If i were going to be religous it would be christain, without any thought for the others.

How can all religions be right- some have to be wrong, why should chrisitianity be right, surely you should shop around and choose the one you think is working for you

keith

October 04-2007, 02:17 PM

Jonny, I dont want to turn this into a personal attack on your belief and I am not going to start trying to convert you, but I am genuinely curious about what you have based your belief on?

baz

October 04-2007, 02:17 PM

Evolution doesn't argue that man comes from ape. Evolution argues men and apes evolved from a common predecessor, which, from common consensus, probably looked a bit more like an ape than a man.

It argues (put really simply) that this animal (let's call him John) had 2 children, both slightly different, due to normal genetic differences, like those that make you and your brother/sister different. Not that controversial. These 2 kids had 2 children, again, both different. So on 2nd generation, we have 4 Johns, all with very slightly different genetic make up.

These kids have 2 children each, giving us 8 children with different genetic make up. So by this stage, the Johns probably start to look a bit different from each other. They're still the same species, but noticeably different.

Let this continue for a few tens of thousands of generations, and the differences become very, very noticeable. One John will look quite a lot different to another. This is bio-diversity from one animal, due to normal genetic differences from parent to child.

Now, let's add mother nature to the equation. She has lions that eat the aforementioned Johns (let's for simplicity, assume the lion doesn't evolve). So at generation 3, we have 8 slightly different Johns. Obviously one of them will be slower than the rest, so there's a chance he'll get eaten first. So he can't pass his slow-assed genes to any further generations. Another may be more stupid than the rest, so he gets eaten as well and he can't pass his stupid-assed genes on to the next. So there's 2 sets of 'inferior' genes that have been dumped out of the gene pool. One of the John's may be very clever and figure out that lions can't climb trees, but he can. So he has 6 children instead of 2, because he's not busy running away form lions, and all the chicks think he's pretty cool. So in the next generation, the gene pool has a distinct 'climbing John' bias, because he had more kids. In genetics terms he's more successful. This is natural selection.

Several of the different Johns will, for one reason or another, have abilities that lead them to better deal with life's problems, like lions, for example. So these successful Johns, and continue to breed. As their children continue to look slightly different with every generation, so different species eventually, over a long, long time, with many, many generations, evolve into different new species.

Evolution argues that man and gorilla evolved from the same predecessor (John) because they could solve nature's problems in different ways.

And now, in 2007, they have finally put aside their differences to work together in a Dairy Milk Chocolate add. What more proof does evolution need!?!

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 02:40 PM

Jonny, I dont want to turn this into a personal attack on your belief and I am not going to start trying to convert you, but I am genuinely curious about what you have based your belief on?

Don't worry Keith, I don't view anything like this as a personal attack on my faith or me, I actually like the fact that you seem genuinely interested in what I believe and will give it respect whether or not you agree with it, as I do with your beliefs.

My faith as a Christian is based on several factors. And at some points in life my faith is stronger than at others, Christians get doubts too!

Getting into those factors in depth is not something possible in this medium due to the length of time required and the personal nature of some of them.

Do I believe God created everything - yes
Do I believe God changed me when I became a Christian at age 23 - yes
Do I believe God answers prayers - Yes, many times for me
Do I believe God has an active part in the direction of my life - yes
Do I have questions about God - yes

I am a sure that many people will read that and think I am mental, sad, weak, deluded or all of the them. But that is my honest answer.

jimjam

October 04-2007, 03:03 PM

Alright everybody calm down - I have the answers. Well actually I have rhetorical questions which will render any arguements pointless. Just incase anyone gets smart I am basing this on Abrahamic religions, and no more.
Forget about evolution, lets talk about god.

Firstly God is not nice. If you think about it would you really want to meet him?
If you believe in him/it then you must believe that god is an infinitely vast infinitely wise omnipotent eternal being. What does he do with all this wisdom and power? He creates you. He gives you what amounts to a trillionth of a trillionth of eternity to either believe in him - or not, or he will sentence you to an eternity of never ending pain and sadistic torture. What a guy. And as if that wasnt sick enough he actually gives you ample reasons to believe he doesnt exist. Nevermind knowingly sending his only son to a painfull and protracted death.

Secondly, lets assume despite the fact that god is not so nice,you choose to believe in him anyway. So you believe in jesus too. But there is one small problem - Jesus is in hell. Why? Jesus knew he was the sun of god, he obviously knew that christianity was the one true path to salvation (what with being christ and all) but he decided to be a jew. He was born a jew and he practised judaism until he died. This surely is basphemy?. Still not convinced jesus is in hell? What about suicide? Jesus can walk on water, teleport fish and bread, wrestle the devil and raise the dead. In fact he is god so he has loads of other super powers too. Its pretty safe to assume he could have stopped himself from being crucified, even if only by attacking the romans with fish telekineticly, but no he decided to do nothing. His own inaction directly led to his death. Therfore he commited suicide - which is a sin - so he is in hell.

At the end of the day would it really suprise you that god would send his own son to hell after all the other **** things he does in the bible? Not me anyway.

Ninja2

October 04-2007, 03:10 PM

(...) hence both evolution and faith being theory based makes them both religions (...)

(...)

What your friend is talking about is a change within the flu virus, not the flu virus evolving into something else. It didn't "evolve" into a leprosy virus or something else (or even changed into another form of organism, virus to a reptile, virus to a mammal, etc), just changed within itself.

(...)

So is evolution just a change within a species/mineral, etc or is it a change from a mineral into a species?

Is that what some people call natural selection or survival of the fittest?

I think one thing that people get very confused about is the difference between a theory and a scientific theory. In day to day life, theories are usually just ideas that people have. But in science to quote Hawking:

"a theory is a good theory if it satisfies two requirements: It must accurately describe a large class of observations on the basis of a model which contains only a few arbitrary elements, and it must make definite predictions about the results of future observations"

So a scientific theory is one which is backed up by a large volume of evidence, and it must make predictions about the future. Of course, it cannot be certain - nothing can be. But most scietific theories have been proven correct so many times that they can be said to be certain (with certain caveats). For a simple example, there is a small chance the sun won't rise tomorrow morning. It's a miniscule probability, but it could happen. But does anyone actually genuinely believe it won't rise? I doubt it. So we can be fairly sure it will rise tomorrow. Another example - running into a wall. Physics would say that you will hit the wall, bounce off it and land on your arse, probably with a broken nose. However, (I believe its quantum mechanics which states) there is a small possibility that you will pass right through the wall. Does this disprove "every action has an equal and opposite reaction"?

Evolution is a scientific theory backed up by a large volume of evidence.

My friends comments about the flu virus is evidence of evolution. You are getting confused by evolution versus the classification of new species. Viruses aren't the best examples in this case... but if you accept the fact that organisms change over time, then it isn't a huge step to evolution. Humans are getting taller on average - this is evolution. We aren't a new species yet, but its still evolution.

Evolution of a new species occurs when something changes sufficiently to make reproduction with the original species impossible. For example, dogs and wolves. Evolved from the same thing, but cannot breed. You can see that dogs and wolves are fairly similar... so it isn't a huge leap to say that they possibly originated from the same point at some time in the past. Multiply that by a few billion years, and you have primordial soup ---> humans ;)

I'm quite lucky I suppose, I see evolution in action every day. My PhD concerns applying evolutionary principles to designing bits of engines. So to cut a long story short.... I come up with a base cases, my program 'breeds' them (mathematically), assesses them based on my criteria, kills of the weak ones (natural selection), throws in a slight bit of mutation every so often, and then they breed again. This is how we design things now, and its all based on Darwin's theories.

AndyL

October 04-2007, 03:11 PM

I will read the whole thread sometime, honest, but till then here's my 2c sorry for any repetition. All to be preceded by in my opinion, btw...

Organised religions are a way of instilling the difference between good and bad in people, teaching values and trying to make the world a better place. Great idea, shame about the implementation. Many of the main tenants of religions are the same, peace, harmony, love of your fellow man. All good stuff. Except it falls down when they claim they are the one true religion, therefore others must be converted for their own good. This leads to conflict.

When Christians worshipping the same God cant even agree on who is right, what if they are both wrong? What happens if a religion you have never even heard of is the true religion, are you damned for eternity? A little harsh, surely. But when the bible states that the only way to heaven is through Jesus, that rules out everyone from other religions who dont share that stance getting to heaven. How many people do pass the pretty strict criteria for entry I wonder. And how did satan fall from heaven, did he sin while he was there? Is that even possible?

The devil is in the detail, as they say, and as soon as you move away from the big sweeping statements (love thy neighbour, peace and fellowship etc) and look at the details, you get divisions. Divisions that, if someone believes strongly enough in, can cause them to do harm in the name of a religion that may preach peace and fellowship as its central beliefs.

Pre determination: if God is omnipotent, and knows everything that ever was or ever will be, then he has predetermined people to go to hell. God already knows that this will happen, and it is inevitable. This is my personal sticking point. He knows there will be wars, and suffering, and children dying due to no fault of their own, as it is predetermined. Not the way you treat people you love in my opinion.

Did god create the theory of evolution? Lets see. God, omnipotent, creates everything, that would inclide Mr Darwin, and as he was predetermined to do so, he creates evolution. In my book, evolution and creation aren't mutually exclusive.

My head hurts, I need a lie down...

Ozzy

October 04-2007, 03:19 PM

I cant see how as I was born into one religion that I was taught that this religion is right, and the teachings of this faith are right.
If I were born into a completely different religion I would be taught this religion is right, and the teachings of this faith are right.

Each individual is influenced/pushed/taught by their family, friends, upbringing, background what to believe in.

Lets face it, nobody is right or wrong so stop trying to disprove others and live life as full and happy as you can make it, as for me, when your gone your gone, so enjoy while it lasts.

By the way I have asked for Gods help on several occassions while out on the bike,

"Oh Jesus not again pleeeeease..................CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

barry_kellett99

October 04-2007, 03:49 PM

Evolution argues that man and gorilla evolved from the same predecessor (John) because they could solve nature's problems in different ways.

And now, in 2007, they have finally put aside their differences to work together in a Dairy Milk Chocolate add. What more proof does evolution need!?!

I bet you thought that this genius comment would have put and end to this thread, didn't ya!

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 03:57 PM

Pre determination: if God is omnipotent, and knows everything that ever was or ever will be, then he has predetermined people to go to hell. God already knows that this will happen, and it is inevitable. This is my personal sticking point. He knows there will be wars, and suffering, and children dying due to no fault of their own, as it is predetermined. Not the way you treat people you love in my opinion.

That's a bit like saying a father who looks at his two sons and knows which one is going to end up in trouble or hurting themselves should lock that son away in a room and give him no choice in the matter. If he doesn't then he is a bad parent.

Just because the father (or God) knows something is going to happen doesn't mean it pleases him or he won't let it happen, and he certainly did "pre-determine" it to happen.

He has given everyone free will and although he knows what that might mean, he still wants them to be free and make their own choice.

jimjam

October 04-2007, 04:05 PM

AndyL

October 04-2007, 04:06 PM

jimjam

October 04-2007, 04:13 PM

Tight one.

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 04:14 PM

but if he knows what is going to happen, then its not free will, he already knows the choice that will be made. Thats the tricky bit, to be omnipotent and know that has or will be, then you follow a predetermined path.

I am sure it won't surprise you to know that "pre-destination vs fore knowledge" is a widely discussed subject in the Christian Church

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 04:20 PM

So when god lets a starving child die he is just giving that child its right to freedom? And if they happen to be unlucky enough to have never been baptised then they're going to hell for their non believing ways too.

But this isn't what the Bible says, so how can you hold it up as an argument against Christianity?

keith

October 04-2007, 04:25 PM

How exactly is what is written in the bible to be taken exactly??
Literally? or do we pick and choose what we think is now applicable?

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 04:34 PM

How exactly is what is written in the bible to be taken exactly??
Literally? or do we pick and choose what we think is now applicable?

That indeed is a problem, both for Christians and non-Christians who use parts of the bible out or context either to defend or attack.

On JJ subject, in the account of the rebellion the Israelites, it quote God saying

"Not one of these men, this evil generation, shall see the good land which I swore to give your fathers. Moreover, your little ones who you said would become prey, and your sons, who this day have no knowledge of good and evil, shall enter there, and I will give it to them and they shall possess it."

Which shows God's view that children have no knowledge of good and evil.

Now whether you agree with the bible or not is a different matter, but you at least have to use what it actually says in any discussion.

jimjam

October 04-2007, 04:37 PM

But this isn't what the Bible says, so how can you hold it up as an argument against Christianity?

Sorry, I didnt realise that it wasnt in the bible. I thought that if you didnt accept christ as your saviour that you were damned. I wouldnt be suprised if thats not in in the bible, but also I would be suprised if there wasnt something in there that could be interpreted that way?

Its a long time since I read the bible, Im no scholar by any means but Ive been told that by so many christians that I just assumed it was in the bible somewhere.

A few years ago I had a discussion with a christian from a very large and prominent church here. He was adamant that this was the case. When I presented him with an extreme example ie. a child molesting murderer accepts christ on his deathbed - repents and is baptised would he go to heaven? Yes was his answer.

So I asked him if someone led a completely good and moral life all their life but never heard of jesus ie. an aborigine 600 years ago. would he go to hell? Again yes.

Now obviously not all christians have the exact same beliefs but they are all to a certain extent based around the same basic principals. I have nothing against anyones beliefs but frankly I think thats just insane.

Fair enough his knowledge of the bible might have been flawed and his interpretation of it clearly radical, but nonetheless his church still saw fit to let him out into the public to preach attrack converts and generally be offensive and derogatory to anyone who didnt share his views, and have done frequently since. Him and and his fellow missionaries.

AndyL

October 04-2007, 04:37 PM

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 04:42 PM

I admire peoples faith, and sometimes wish I shared it. But I am very questioning, and cannot come to terms with some pretty big fundamentals of Christianity. Which is why, even though I was raised as a christian, I couldn't believe fully.

I enjoy debating religion, especially with someone who has faith, knowledge and an open mind. Those who believe blindly, without question, and to the detriment of others, I have less time for.

Look forward to reading the rest of this later!

I think the problem is that many people see "religious discussions" as being personal attacks on them and as such throw up big barriers and won't enter into discussion fearing the chance someone else might think they are stupid. I believe what I believe and if mocking, name calling, social exclusion etc was going to put me off it would have done it by now

jimjam

October 04-2007, 04:51 PM

I admire peoples faith, and sometimes wish I shared it. But I am very questioning, and cannot come to terms with some pretty big fundamentals of Christianity. Which is why, even though I was raised as a christian, I couldn't believe fully.

I enjoy debating religion, especially with someone who has faith, knowledge and an open mind. Those who believe blindly, without question, and to the detriment of others, I have less time for.

Similar feelings here, though I think I have gotten over not having any faith by now I think. Its not easy, and it takes time and strength of mind. Also human beings by our very nature are social animals so we have a desire to belong to a group.

I really enjoying debating it, and a few of my friends are christians. Its always enlightening one way or the other, truth be told though I enjoy debating with the more blinkered small minded types more. I mean how often in life do you get to meet people who believe god placed dinosaur bones in the ground to test or faith?

Jonnyc

October 04-2007, 04:56 PM

I mean how often in life do you get to meet people who believe god placed dinosaur bones in the ground to test or faith?

LOL, that is class

jimjam

October 04-2007, 05:01 PM

He actually said that. He also said that homosexuals didnt deserve to live, and islam is a religion based purely on hate. Outside spuds. On a friday night.

Bloom

October 04-2007, 05:38 PM

He actually said that. He also said that homosexuals didnt deserve to live, and islam is a religion based purely on hate. Outside spuds. On a friday night.

Were many a wise word is spoken.

jimjam

October 04-2007, 05:43 PM

Were many a wise word is spoken.

Yeah looking back on it, he may have just been a retard escaped from the local retard shelter or what ever a more pc terminology would be. Mentalasium or something. Only the fact that he had some professionally printed up leaflets and that there were about 20 other people doing the same thing led me to believe he was part of a church group.

I mean seriously, there are people preaching that. Here and now. And people who will listen to it, believe it and go and spread it. They are allowed to drive cars, probably get a firearms licence if they wanted to and are allowed to breed! That scares me.

marko

October 04-2007, 09:02 PM

i am god

trailfox

October 04-2007, 09:25 PM

Do I believe God created everything - yes
Do I believe God changed me when I became a Christian at age 23 - yes
Do I believe God answers prayers - Yes, many times for me
Do I believe God has an active part in the direction of my life - yes
Do I have questions about God - yes

I am a sure that many people will read that and think I am mental, sad, weak, deluded or all of the them. But that is my honest answer.
Ditto :-)
Only I'm slightly younger than 23...

I think the problem is that many people see "religious discussions" as being personal attacks on them and as such throw up big barriers and won't enter into discussion fearing the chance someone else might think they are stupid. I believe what I believe and if mocking, name calling, social exclusion etc was going to put me off it would have done it by now
Definetly agree there, I know a lot of people out there with ye olde blinkers, it's just sad to think that they have such little faith in their faith in God (if that makes sense) that they will block out even the slightest resistance or even questioning of their faith. Personally I love these types of discussions/debates. Although it does hurt my head sometimes :-)

[Jimjam has triggered this :D]

You seem to have your wires crossed a wee bit Jimjam...

Secondly, lets assume despite the fact that god is not so nice,you choose to believe in him anyway. So you believe in jesus too. But there is one small problem - Jesus is in hell. Why?

Jesus knew he was the sun of god, he obviously knew that christianity was the one true path to salvation (what with being christ and all) but he decided to be a jew. He was born a jew and he practised judaism until he died. This surely is basphemy?
Jesus was born into a Jewish family (do I need to explain why a Jewish one??)
Christianity is not a completely separate faith to Judaism, it's hard to explain but...
In the old testement (first bit of the Bible), God chose the israelites (who eventually became Jews when God had a chat with moses about the laws/commandments etc. (one of the Jewish ones is painful...'snip' 'snip' :D) ) These israelites, now called Jews where to be the chosen people who where to enter into heaven to cut it short. But throughout the years the Jews screwed up a good few times and God in turn forgave them. BTW, you've probably heard that one of the laws/rules where, 'the wages/consequences of sin (when they disobeyed/screwed up) is death'.
God eventually saw that the Jews weren't doing too well so instead of going ahead and wiping them out (he's done it before with the whole world once -the flood, and a few extemely sinful cities!!), he sent his son, Jesus (Who was born into a Jewish family (for obvious reasons)) to eventually (after all the teaching and stuff) give them the decision of weather they still wanted to follow God (i.e. follow Christ and inturn become a christain) or not and then Jesus would bear all the sin from what they have done (i.e. that law about sin would be applied to Jesus (who was blameless/sinless BTW). His plan was simple really -the ones who decided to follow Jesus/God would go to heaven and the ones who refused christ would go to hell, it may seem harsh but I'm not going to criticise the way he works:-)

So that brings us back to the birth of Jesus, he was born - taught - healed - gave them the choice to follow him or not. But what do you know, a lot of the Jews screw up again by denying that Jesus is the one that God told them would die for their sins (Duh!). So the Jews begin to really dislike jesus for doing all this teaching and healing that God said he would do and decide that they have to kill him (God had intended it this way, it's a matter of free will as what's been said before, the Jews just decided on the wrong choice). God then makes the decision that whoever from the Jews that accepted Jesus can become a christian and in turn - go to heaven and then He will allow the Gentiles (Gods way of saying the rest of the world) the opertunity to accept Jesus and therefore they too can be allowed into heaven. So he sends out the 12 deciples (read Acts in the NT) out into the rest of the world to spread the news of what god had decided to do (i.e. 'spread the gospel').

And so the comes to a close. Before Jesus ascended to heaven after his crucifiction (again, read Acts) he told his deciples to tell everyone while they are out and about around the world that he is coming back again sometime soon to have a wee looksee to see who has decided that they don't want to go to hell and want to follow Jesus and who does. (i.e. the big Judgement thingy (read Revelation). Now it all depends now on which side of the big gate thingy Jesus mentioned you want to be on when the time comes for him to come back...

BTW... Christianity has all the same principal laws (i.e. both judaism/christianity have the same old testemant rule books (Leviticus-Dueteronomy i think))...
Jews just didn't like Jesus bit of them in the New Testement you see...

I hope that helped a bit JJ
[/trigger]

There you go, another 2cents :D
Sorry if that was a tad too long, I just had to get it out.

marko

October 04-2007, 09:46 PM

who is to say god or gods are not just a cult that has caught on.

i am therefore going to proclaim myself as God. Forestry service shall be my devil.

trailfox

October 04-2007, 10:00 PM

Cults where usually formed around people with big egos (on a sort of smaller scale of how satan managed to get thrown out of heaven- he thought he could 'be like God') or just primarily revolved around a twisted truth or plain satanic motive.

EDIT:
Don't take that personally marko!! I didn't mean you had a big ego lol ;-)

Rick B

October 05-2007, 10:02 AM

Ditto :-)
Only I'm slightly younger than 23...

There you go, another 2cents :D
Sorry if that was a tad too long, I just had to get it out.

Ditto, only slightly older (33)

Well stated Trailfox. Entire biblical history condensed into a MTB forum post. Nice one!! :cool:

jimjam

October 05-2007, 11:57 AM

You seem to have your wires crossed a wee bit Jimjam...

Jesus was born into a Jewish family (do I need to explain why a Jewish one??)
Christianity is not a completely separate faith to Judaism, it's hard to explain but...
In the old testement (first bit of the Bible), God chose the israelites (who eventually became Jews when God had a chat with moses about the laws/commandments etc. (one of the Jewish ones is painful...'snip' 'snip' :D) ) These israelites, now called Jews where to be the chosen people who where to enter into heaven to cut it short. But throughout the years the Jews screwed up a good few times and God in turn forgave them. BTW, you've probably heard that one of the laws/rules where, 'the wages/consequences of sin (when they disobeyed/screwed up) is death'.
God eventually saw that the Jews weren't doing too well so instead of going ahead and wiping them out (he's done it before with the whole world once -the flood, and a few extemely sinful cities!!), he sent his son, Jesus (Who was born into a Jewish family (for obvious reasons)) to eventually (after all the teaching and stuff) give them the decision of weather they still wanted to follow God (i.e. follow Christ and inturn become a christain) or not and then Jesus would bear all the sin from what they have done (i.e. that law about sin would be applied to Jesus (who was blameless/sinless BTW). His plan was simple really -the ones who decided to follow Jesus/God would go to heaven and the ones who refused christ would go to hell, it may seem harsh but I'm not going to criticise the way he works:-)

So that brings us back to the birth of Jesus, he was born - taught - healed - gave them the choice to follow him or not. But what do you know, a lot of the Jews screw up again by denying that Jesus is the one that God told them would die for their sins (Duh!). So the Jews begin to really dislike jesus for doing all this teaching and healing that God said he would do and decide that they have to kill him (God had intended it this way, it's a matter of free will as what's been said before, the Jews just decided on the wrong choice). God then makes the decision that whoever from the Jews that accepted Jesus can become a christian and in turn - go to heaven and then He will allow the Gentiles (Gods way of saying the rest of the world) the opertunity to accept Jesus and therefore they too can be allowed into heaven. So he sends out the 12 deciples (read Acts in the NT) out into the rest of the world to spread the news of what god had decided to do (i.e. 'spread the gospel').

And so the comes to a close. Before Jesus ascended to heaven after his crucifiction (again, read Acts) he told his deciples to tell everyone while they are out and about around the world that he is coming back again sometime soon to have a wee looksee to see who has decided that they don't want to go to hell and want to follow Jesus and who does. (i.e. the big Judgement thingy (read Revelation). Now it all depends now on which side of the big gate thingy Jesus mentioned you want to be on when the time comes for him to come back...

BTW... Christianity has all the same principal laws (i.e. both judaism/christianity have the same old testemant rule books (Leviticus-Dueteronomy i think))...
Jews just didn't like Jesus bit of them in the New Testement you see...

I hope that helped a bit JJ
[/trigger]

There you go, another 2cents :D
Sorry if that was a tad too long, I just had to get it out.

That really doesnt square it away in any sense for me. You still cant get around the fact that jesus was born a jew, practised judaism and died a jew. Does he ever tell the jews to stop being jews, no he asks them to follow his example and be nicer jews.

I think the fact that early christians had so many fall outs and splits over whether or not converts to christianity needed to circumcised or not gives an indication that their thinking was not far removed from judaism at all. Also the fact that they worshipped jehovah would indicate to me that they were essentially jewish in all but name. They are no less jewish than the church of ireland are less christian than catholics ie not at all.

There is no getting around the fact that jesus christ the lord and saviour of christians was not a christian. Despite presumably having foresight in this department.

You can argue that judaism and christianity are similar religions but I doubt you could just walk into a synogogue and be automatically accepted as a jew, you could argue that islam is a similar religion but you probably dont hang out at your local mosque.

Aat the end of the day you dont worship the same god that jesus did - jehovah the god of the isrealites. You worship jesus and the christian god. When jesus prayed to god he was not praying to the same god as you.

Also you didnt really touch on the fact that jesus let himself die. He effectively killed himself which correct me if Im wrong is a sin?

Also every religion starts off as a cult. Christianity was refered to as a cult in its early days. The difference between a cult and a religion is just a question of size. 15 yeas ago you could probably have refered to scientologists as belonging to a cult. 200 years from now they might well be an established religion.

If cults are started by people with big ego's then jesus must have had a mighty one.

suspectmonkey

October 05-2007, 02:26 PM

jimjam

October 05-2007, 03:06 PM

Lots and lots and lots.

Jonnyc

October 05-2007, 03:10 PM

I think that it has been a successful thread because is has had feedback from all quarters regarding their beliefs and hasn't just focus on one group of people trying to prove the others wrong.

I have learned a lot of interesting stuff about evolution which I didn't know before, and while it doesn't change my belief in God, but it certainly increases my knowledge about science.

As many have stated this kind of thing is one of their favour topics to debate as it stretches the mind no matter what you believe.

Thanks to all involved

trailfox

October 05-2007, 06:20 PM

You still cant get around the fact that jesus was born a jew, practised judaism and died a jew. Does he ever tell the jews to stop being jews, no he asks them to follow his example and be nicer jews.
Jesus (Christ) was the founder of christianity. Like I said, God sent him to give the Jews the opertinity to get into Heaven (their primary/final goal in life). God has decided that Judaism wasn't going to work for them so he decided that Christ should be sent down to form Christianity to separate the true followers from the not true ones. Gods idea was that most (if not all) of the Jews would accept Jesus as their messiah [sp?] (i.e. One who was sent to save them from hell because of their constant disobedience) and become Christains (As i've said christianity has mirrored rules/principles to Judaim apart from a few new ones God wanted to be intoduced [the ones Jesus taught in the New Testament] to allow for a smooth transition from Judaism to Christianity.). But most of them where too far gone in their disobedience and denied the fact that Jesus was sent as a messiah which eventually led to them building a hatred for Jesus and then the eventual intended crucifiction (which led to the rest of the world opertunity thing I mentioned before). Jesus knew when he was teaching and stuff that he will have to be killed eventually because that was what God had told him he had to do to save the accepting Jews (and now gantiles). Don't get me wrong, Jesus could have stopped this crucifiction with no problem ata all, I do not deny this JJ. The bible explains he could have called on thousands apon thousands of angels to just wipe them out, but because Jesus had such a compassion for the Jews and, now, the rest of the world that he continued with it to finish what he came to do.

Also the fact that they worshipped jehovah would indicate to me that they were essentially jewish in all but name.
lol ok JJ, 'Jehovah' means God (or 'Lord') in Hebrew (their native language). 'Jehovah' is the same god as God (If you know what I mean)
'Jehovah' is still used in english to describe God in a more simpler way to us and so I can see where you are getting confused there, but 'Jehovah' is by no means a different God it's just 'God' or 'Lord' in a different language...
some of those hebrew descriptions I was talking about:
Adonai-Jehovah -- The Lord our Sovereign
Jehovah-Elohim -- The Eternal Creator
Jehovah-Jireh -- The Lord our Provider
Jehovah-Nissi -- The Lord our Banner
Jehovah-Ropheka -- The Lord our Healer
Jehovah-Shalom -- The Lord our Peace
Jehovah-Tsidkenu -- The Lord our Righteousness
Jehovah-Mekaddishkem -- The Lord our Sanctifier
Jehovah-Sabaoth -- The Lord of Hosts
Jehovah-Shammah -- The Lord is Present
Jehovah-Rohi -- The Lord our Shepherd
Jehovah-Hoseenu -- The Lord our Maker
Jehovah-Eloheenu -- The Lord our God

Aat the end of the day you dont worship the same god that jesus did - jehovah the god of the isrealites. You worship jesus and the christian god. When jesus prayed to god he was not praying to the same god as you.
(see end of bit after first quote)

Also you didnt really touch on the fact that jesus let himself die. He effectively killed himself which correct me if Im wrong is a sin?
(see the bit after the first quote)

If cults are started by people with big ego's then jesus must have had a mighty one.
Your just slagging now, Jesus even asked God if thee was any way of getting around thw whole crucifiction thing, but he eventually knew that he was the only way and so went ahead with it!

Sorry if I sound angry today, Lack of sleep is starting to get to me (I'm never taking strong coffee at 11:40pm again!!) :D
I'm really a nice person when I'm not sleepy, Honest! :-)

jimjam

October 05-2007, 07:13 PM

About the cults and jesus having a big ego - I wasnt slagging, I was using your own definition of a cult and applying it to christianity. Like it or lump it christianity started off as a cult. To say that a cults are just groups formed around people with big ego's is a gross simplification - If your pastor/priest/minister/reverend etc decides that he had a fundamental disagreement with his church group as a whole for the sake of arguement over gay marriage and decides to split from the main church and form his own. If you and ten others decide to follow him you could be percieved as a cult by others. No need be pissed off.

Regarding jesus being the founder of christianity, Im not sure I agree with you. I think he was the inspiration for christianity but I dont think he was the founder of christianity as you practice it. Even jesus' own brothers church was "christian judaism" basically it was judaism which incorporating christs teaching - not a seperate religion. The same could be said for many of the early christian "cults". It wasnt until saint paul (a man who never actually met jesus) organized the first cononical old testament that modern christianity began to take shape.

After his conversion to christianity emperor constantine used the military might of rome to "clean house" as it were and establish a single christian church - the roman catholic church. He failed to completely eradicate the various other sects or "christian cults" but he succeeded in making the roman catholic church the largest.

During its evolution christianity has become a very different religion to judaism although they share a common root. If your saying that the difference between jehovah (jewish) and god (christian) is just a question of language then your praying to exactly the same god as the jews - does this not make you jewish?

trailfox

October 05-2007, 07:44 PM

No need be pissed off.
Don't worry, I'm not :-)
I do admit I was being a bit overexaggerated in saying it was just people with big egos that formed cults, I put it down to my lack of knowledge on that particular subject on 'cults'. I just took it for granted that, from the cults I've heard of that it was the general trait that all cults have a sort of charismatic character who seems to be trying to be like God. But I had a lookup in the dictionary and It seems that there are two types of cult... 'In common or populist usage, "cult" has a positive connotation for groups of art, music, writing, fiction, and fashion devotees,[1] but a negative connotation for, extreme political, questionable therapeutic, and 'pyramidal business' groups. For this reason, most, if not all, non-fan groups that are called cults reject this label.'
I think I was more describing destructive cults (or 'the occult') than the general religious/music fanclub ones and I'm sorry at that for my mistake.

If you want to Call christianity(or any other religion for that fact) a cult or a religion, so be it. IMO, it doesn't change what it means to me to be a christian (not to just follow the religion. A lot of people who just go to church once a week, sing songs, pray a bit and go home do that these days, but moreso to be a christain) or even how christianity all began. It's just another word for it to me. Sorry for being touché, it's just what I believe.

chris_the_sham

October 05-2007, 08:07 PM

hatches matches and dispatches are the only reason i go to church. not really sure what i am

Tiff

October 05-2007, 08:26 PM

hatches matches and dispatches are the only reason i go to church. not really sure what i am

lol lol lol lol

jakeC

October 07-2007, 02:02 PM

Ehh???

"..called on thousands apon thousands of angels to just wipe them out, but because Jesus had such a compassion for the Jews "

It's more likely that he spared the oft unlucky jews from the legendary family wrath due to his 'occult-esque' divinings of the future. Through the crystal ball of time I have no doubt he saw another would-be messianic figure going about the old 'wipe them out' business. Being a bright chap, and noting that the ensuing backlash was bad for public relations, unless you're going for the lunatic fringe, he plumped for the lesser of two evils.

Compassion over genocide.

What a stand up guy.

Though much like the Carlsberg Principle, could Bigga-J not have opted for a 3rd path other than soppy lovey-dovey-ness or maniacal death spree and just transported himself, Star Trek like, to the Bahamas and lived out his years spreading his word via carrier pigeons and fanzines?

trailfox

October 07-2007, 02:44 PM

?!?!?
Sorry, I got none of that :confused:
What are you trying to say again?

...due to his 'occult-esque' divinings of the future.
lol... I doubt jesus christ would have had anything to do with 'the occult', The satanic features of 'the occult (http://www.allabouttheoccult.org/) would be an absolute opposite to God and everything he stands for. You cant mix satan with him, if that's what you're getting at, or maybe you mean something else..:confused:

jakeC

October 07-2007, 05:27 PM

What do you mean you got none of that??? Strange, perhaps you’re not a trekkie. But it’s good of you to bring Satan into this. Fashionably late, as always. He is an archetype of style after all. It was not my original intent to mix Satan and any or all gods (or anything else for that matter), but I do like;

"Satanic features of the occult"

???

You are aware that the word occult is not interchangeable with Satanic? That may upset Occultists and Satanists alike, though generally the former.

I liked the link to the site, very informative. I especially like the scare mongering. The site in question; whatwethinktheoccultisallaboutbutisntandwearesofar ofthemarkitisntevenfunny.org. A paragon of factual inaccuracies at best. Isn't untruth a sin?
My particular favourite is SATAN WORSHIP – (An Objective Approach), and not just as a past time.

For example, Anton Szandor 'I liked big Dogs' LaVey's Satanism does NOT engage in theistic Satanic worship :eek: (they do not believe Satan actually exists, mind-bending I know), eating human body parts for starters/main courses or otherwise:eek: , and they do not torture animals or humans.:eek: :eek: In fact if you were to peruse the so-called Satanic Bible you would find instructions to NOT kill people for kicks and to NOT (and this is a big no-no) torture or kill cuddly animals, cos it's just not right. I have read it and there is very little in it that is inherently evil. They are infact rather Athiestic in their out look. They be a bit of a let down in the old scary department. Shouldn’t even be called Satanists, but apparently they like the clothes.

I bet you didn't know that. ;)

To quote said above site (I’ve omitted an h)
"Satan worship entails nudity, perverted sexual acts, homosexuality, and torture of animals and humans."
Fun to some, but not everyone’s cup of virgin’s blood apparently. But let us break down this rather dramatic statement see what we find.

Nudity – Do we not all get buffwardly bound at some point of the day? Not very evil, so not very Satanic. Next up..

Perverted Sexual Acts – P.S.A’s fun they may be, the sole preserve of the Cloven one they are not. I don’t think we need refer to the churches recent troubles here do we? This brings us nicely to..

Homosexuality – You now have clergy that are gay as bells and thrice as lavender. Didn’t old yahweh in his ‘ye shall be smoten’ days of yore smoke a city full of them? Bit of a u-turn there. And finally…

Torture of Humans and Animals – besides highway and songs of praise, I draw alls attention to the Inquisition, the 3 or 4 centuries of witch trials etc ad nauseam ad infinitum. Perhaps you can find a Satanic killing/torture spree of similar or greater extent, but you wont.

So there you go. Satan worship may way entail all the joys of the above but by all recent evidence, so does you-know-what.

Fun aside, my original point, for those the missing thereof, was how absurd a notion it is to state in the bible that ‘the son’ had the option to summarily annihilate thousands of people. Why would they even feel the need to point that out to anyone? Rather sinister. And the fact that angels, not demons, would be doing the dirty work, well that rather knocks their halos abit. And the fact that followers of this particular religious path seem not to have a problem with aforementioned statement and similar threatening writings is also quite interesting.

And why don’t angels transport rather than fly? Then they wouldn’t need the girly wings.

Tiff

October 07-2007, 06:00 PM

Jake

your above post - witty and very real written, an enjoyable read I must say.

As for the content, good points.

How can the church allow gay priests when that goes against everything they are ment to stand for

marko

October 07-2007, 06:10 PM

boys go to the pub for fecks sakes.

trailfox

October 07-2007, 06:24 PM

This thread has sort of gone off course... but anyhoo..
I, myself am not very up to date in the whole cults vs. destructive cults and/or 'the occult' so excuse my lack of knowledge on this one.
That site I posted up was just a quick google to explain what type of cult/occult I was talking about. I didn't read into the site much, I just saw the list of the methods etc. and just chose it. I wasn't promoting the types of methods on that site..

My particular favourite is SATAN WORSHIP – (An Objective Approach), and not just as a past time.
you're begining to worry me, you wouldn't happen to be a satanist yourself would you Jake?

Nudity – Do we not all get buffwardly bound at some point of the day? Not very evil, so not very Satanic. Next up..
lol, of course! I think it means like Porn etc. though..

Perverted Sexual Acts – P.S.A’s fun they may be, the sole preserve of the Cloven one they are not. I don’t think we need refer to the churches recent troubles here do we? This brings us nicely to..
I know what you mean about 'the most recent troubles' and I do not deny that they happened (most where with roman catholic priests etc. though). But do not tag all of christianity or all of 'the churches' with this. If these people where true christians at all they wold have known that the Bible states that these are extremely out of order, with no excuse whatsoever for doing any form of PSA's! So dont start tagging everyone, thats being stereotypical..

Homosexuality – You now have clergy that are gay as bells and thrice as lavender. Didn’t old yahweh in his ‘ye shall be smoten’ days of yore smoke a city full of them? Bit of a u-turn there. And finally…
Yep, there where actually two neighbouring cities, Soddom and Gomarah (sp?)
God gives man free will as Ive mentioned before so there is nothing stopping anyone as far as God is concerned from being Homosexual. But NO ONE should EVER lead any christian church if they practise any form of homosexuality, It's a real abomonation (sp?) and blatant defiance to the old and new testemant laws. Again, not all churches are like this, the media like to pick out the minority ones though, but thats what they like doing :rolleyes:

Torture of Humans and Animals – besides highway and songs of praise, I draw alls attention to the Inquisition, the 3 or 4 centuries of witch trials etc ad nauseam ad infinitum. Perhaps you can find a Satanic killing/torture spree of similar or greater extent, but you wont.
'ad nauseam ad infinitum.'
Ehh... as in this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_nauseam)?
The bible does state that:
'But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone'
So I think that witches and sorcerers do deserve punishment ('the wages of sin is death') unless they 'repent' (truly tell God they are sorry and then turn away from that lifestyle to follow the one Jesus intended them for).

This may be hard to comprehend how there could possibly be a lake of fire during the time of Jesus' return but You really need to read revelation to get the full scope, I don't selectively believe what the bible explains, I believe it will all will eventually be done no matter how uncomprehensible it is. Anyway, I don't think everyones brain put together could manage all the info. even if we did know how:-)

Boy we've went off topic! :D

jakeC

October 07-2007, 10:44 PM

Back again, tis a busy day for Jake, what with successfully willing Hamilton out of the race and engaging in a lengthy and rather enjoyable theological debate with the local mountain biking fraternity.

First point of order for this post is to address the concerns of those that I gather are not all that happy about this debate. Pray indulge me just a short while longer. Or go play Halo 3. Frag-a-riffic.:D

Next up, I'd like to thank Tiff for the kind words, and beginning this thought provoking thread. I don't post often but it's great to be well received when I do. Positive re-inforcement and what-not.

Onward then.

My own personal beliefs I tend to keep to myself, I'm not the preachy type, were it true for all. Ergo, I will not go into them suffice to say that I do not adhere to trailfox’s beliefs as I have divined them thus far.
You touch on the subject of porn or more precisely, porno. Without wanting to drag this subject further off topic (though always keeping the mantra: stagnation = death in mind) I can't see a problem with it. The dodgy stuff the glitterman has become famed for, by all means destroy (along with all concerned), but the wholesome stuff? Surely you cannot begrudge a man a Men Only here and possibly a Model Directory - Just Girls there?
I have an artiste’s eye, and there is nothing more beautiful than women. Particularly if they are wanting for clothes. Hmm, curvy.

The bible I know reasonably well, having, like many others, endured a lot in the way of it's teachings for a good part of my childhood. The book of revelation I know more so than the rest as I found it more interesting, but I'm afraid no more believable. I do get the point it rather overtly tries to make, though I much prefer the geographically closer lore of the Ragnarok. Cheerio - Odhin. Watch out for the great wolf....oops too late. Lakes of fire are not a great concern for me, neither is a judgement.
I have not sinned according to my own beliefs and I steadfastly refuse to accept any tyrannical dictums regarding my soul.

You touch on a few other points I could go into but I’m afraid they would take us well off-topic, and I do not wish to become any more of a thread hijacker than I already have. Though at least we’re still in the same region as its origin, we haven’t started discussing just how great a movie Tron is, for instance. It is. Old but great, like The Thing or MILFs.

To go on topic, in a nod to Tiff of the Kind Words so thoughtfully mentioned by myself in an earlier paragraph, and I do think someone stated this before, a theist believes in a god, an atheist believes in no gods. If I believe in say Loki as my god regardless of whether or not I believe in zeus, ra, inri or the late great trouble in the jungle the man, the myth the rev. jimbo ‘white night, they be right on us’ jones, I am still a theist as I have a theistic belief. So not an atheist then. If I believe in many, I be a polytheist just, like our pagan brothers, sisters and forbearers.
In my view his first sentence is illogical, his contention is wrong. Stephano is an atheist, his mucker is a theist most likely a monotheist, no matter how you look at it. His last sentence is rather poetic, sensible at first glance but gets murky as you think about it.

The End is Nigh.

So theism is the belief in god/s in general.
Monotheism is the belief in one god like allah or the god commonly, and rather imaginatively, refered to as 'god', or even Satan who's waving at the back not having been mentioned much in this post.
Polythiesm is the belief in many, akin to the idolisation some have for fussball teams, and pagans which the old movie dragnet (remember that one?! awesome. bait-maids abound) taught us are people against goodness and normalcy:D

Back on topic once more. Splendid methinks.

jimjam

October 07-2007, 10:45 PM

Ive read LaVey's satanic "bible". Well most of it anyway, its not really satanic at all. Its more of a how to have all the craic you want and not feel guilty about it guide. Personally I think the satanic aspects of it are ways to glamorise or maybe legitimise doing "what thou wilt".

With the exception of LaVeys church of satan there is no large organised satanic group. In fact the idea of an organised satanic church actually goes against the "spirit" of satanism in a lot of peoples eyes. So called proper satanist have have long criticised Lavey for trying to market and popularise a more palatable version of satanism.

Satanic groups do appear sporadically all over the world, sometimes murderous but mostly not. The idea of worldwide satanic movements or satanic cults is a complete load of crap, a quick trawl around the internet and its pretty obvious to see that 99% of websites talking about satanic cults/movements/organisations are christian websites. Its scaremongering and bulls***t.

I really dont like the way that certain christian churches talk about "satanic" "demonic" or "occult" influences in everyday life. Even if I was a believer I would want to investigate both sides of any faith related arguement, but for pastors to discourage their flock from experiencing anything that might contradict them is wrong. This creates robotic gullible idiots who believe blindly without even understanding what it is they are believing in. Good for the pastors pockets but bad for society imo. George Bush anyone?

marko

October 07-2007, 11:18 PM

guess what fellas i rode my bike today

trailfox

October 07-2007, 11:55 PM

:( almost got to mine today but coursework dragged me away :rolleyes:

Rick B

October 08-2007, 10:25 AM

How can the church allow gay priests when that goes against everything they are ment to stand for

A good point indeed. Once again the Christian church falls on its face and becomes nothing more than a set of religious beliefs with little benefit to those who follow them. The modern day church is a pale reflection of what following Christ should be.:mad:

I on the other hand follow the bible as God's inspired words. I study the bible every day, I do what it says to the best of my ability and then have to rely on God to change the parts of me that I cant. This can be misinterpreted as becoming a robot or a brainwashed muppet. The bible calls it becoming Christlike. If you dont believe it, I hope and pray some day that you will consider it. I have yet to find any of the teachings of Jesus to be untrue or unbenefical and I lead a much more contented life because of it.

This life doesnt last that long whereas if the bible is true there is an eternity coming after this life. As JonnyC stated before - if there is an afterlife as described by the bible shouldn't that worry us?

And yes, most Christians are hypocrites, to be fair. Most of us are just scared of going to hell but not willing to live for Christ which is a complete contradiction in terms.:(

I have not sinned according to my own beliefs and I steadfastly refuse to accept any tyrannical dictums regarding my soul.
...and your right - you have not sinned against your own beliefs. Your God/s will not send you to hell - but my God does not condone a lot of things yours accepts so I guess its a case of who's right and what do we base our beliefs and confidence on?

baz

October 08-2007, 10:25 AM

But NO ONE should EVER lead any christian church if they practise any form of homosexuality, It's a real abomonation (sp?) and blatant defiance to the old and new testemant laws.

I always wondered, where in the New Testament does Jesus condemn homosexuality? Or was it someone else in the New Testament? What laws of the New Testament do you refer to?

Rick B

October 08-2007, 10:33 AM

I always wondered, where in the New Testament does Jesus condemn homosexuality? Or was it someone else in the New Testament? What laws of the New Testament do you refer to?

It's not mentioned in the New - only in the old.

Jesus said that he did not come to destroy the law but to fulfil it. He made it possible for us to live up the the standard that was set in the Old testament so the laws set still stand (Apart from the ceromonial laws for the tribe of Isreal obviously).

Only through accepting Christs sacrifice for our wrongdoings can we made righteous enough to stand before God without fear of Judgement. A link in my sig makes the point fairly well if anyone wants to look at it.

Bloom

October 08-2007, 10:54 AM

:( almost got to mine today but coursework dragged me away :rolleyes:

Working on a Sunday?

Michael

October 08-2007, 03:41 PM

If you don't believe then don't believe that's freewill (oh sorry freewill is God given!). Personally I do believe and very much am enjoying my journey.

Tiff

October 08-2007, 04:12 PM

Em I am pretty sure we all have freewill God or no God

Michael

October 09-2007, 01:10 PM

As I believe in God it would then naturally follow that I believe freewill is God given. As I said if you believe you believe if you dont thats your choice.

Ninja2

October 09-2007, 02:50 PM

As I believe in God it would then naturally follow that I believe freewill is God given. As I said if you believe you believe if you dont thats your choice.

I dont think it's a choice as such. If someone believes, they can't suddenly decide not to believe, and vice versa. It's like we can't decide to like the taste of something we don't. If someone or something presents evidence or info then we might change our minds, but it isn't as simple as 'choosing' one way or another.

jimjam

October 09-2007, 03:06 PM

Anyone see that documentary about suicide bombers last night? Its amazing what you can convince people to do in the name of religion. Or indeed in the name of a bit of hot virgin action.

Michael

October 09-2007, 03:21 PM

It is still a choice as wether to believe or not - people do come in many different ways to believing 'seen the light' or 'progressive journey types'. Agree its not 'right you either believe right now or thats it', evidence, feelings and mindsets can change over time and therefore the path is always open. Well until the end of days and your name is not in the book... then its a DHer you need. Dont want to see the girly looking lucifer myself.

andyh

October 09-2007, 03:58 PM

Anyone see that documentary about suicide bombers last night? Its amazing what you can convince people to do in the name of religion. Or indeed in the name of a bit of hot virgin action.

It's all about oportunity and finding people who are most vulnerable to persuasion for any number of reasons, and it's not just alleged religous bodies thay prey on those people, Governments, Gangs, Cults ..........

It is true though that many wars and attrocities have been undertaken in the name of religion, but perhaps that is because they had and have leaders who are corrupt and exploitive ?

baz

October 09-2007, 04:48 PM

Religion tends to be the excuse or justification for most wars, not the real reason.

Tiff

October 09-2007, 05:33 PM

Religion tends to be the excuse or justification for most wars, not the real reason.

good point actually

danny1985

October 09-2007, 09:05 PM

Surely some religions are more prone to wars than others? For example, although Buddhism is one of the World's main religions there has still been not one war fought in its name despite massive provocations in many respects (China's Tibetan policy for example, or Myanmar and its "kill Buddhist monks" policy).

With repect to the points made above with regards to free will - in my view free will is a birth right, not a God given right.

trailfox

October 09-2007, 09:35 PM

It is true though that many wars and attrocities have been undertaken in the name of religion, but perhaps that is because they had and have leaders who are corrupt and exploitive ?
I agree with andy there. For instance Osama Bin Laden and his followers faught in the name of islam or alah (their god). But Islamic teaching strictly forbidds the killing of innocent people (Just started this in core RE in school :-) ). It is sad to think that the media can take a minority group of extremist terrorists and then cause the general public to tag that whole religion or country with the same image.

As I believe in God it would then naturally follow that I believe freewill is God given. As I said if you believe you believe if you dont thats your choice.
Ditto what michael said, I believe that because God created man and the earth (and everything else for that matter, again that's up to personal belief), he has the right/ability to destroy it too. But God decided to give us free will to allow us to make our own decisions and choices.
If we weren't allowed free will it would get extremely boring for us and God :-)
But as michael said, it's up to you wether you want to believe it or not...

Conor

October 09-2007, 10:12 PM

When you say God created the earth etc, are you talking about the Christian one? Or the Hindu gods, or do you mean the Islamic God? Oh, nearly forgot about the Egyptian and Roman Gods! Were they involved as well?

I'm so confused, pretty much EVERY human society that has ever existed has created some sort of organised religion for the purposes of spiritual guidance, moral control or blatant political/social manipulation, which one of the thousands is correct?

marko

October 09-2007, 10:13 PM

i built a jump with a spade. i then rode the jump. i smiled and i went home happy. :)

barry_kellett99

October 09-2007, 10:20 PM

i built a jump with a spade. i then rode the jump. i smiled and i went home happy. :)

Pm me the details. I need the practice.

tinkerhil

October 09-2007, 10:45 PM

i built a jump with a spade. i then rode the jump. i smiled and i went home happy. :)

I smiled even more because you crashed again Marko;)
Only Sleggin :p

trailfox

October 09-2007, 10:46 PM

When you say God created the earth etc, are you talking about the Christian one?
Yep! That's what I believe, like I said. What's been said about the existance of God (i.e. the christian/jewish God) has already been mentioned, dont start me back tracking :-), it's up to your beliefs/faith now...

I'm so confused, pretty much EVERY human society that has ever existed has created some sort of organised religion for the purposes of spiritual guidance, moral control or blatant political/social manipulation, which one of the thousands is correct?
I found this (http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html) site. I think it saves me alot of typing. ;-)
Take what you will from it :-)

thetrailbuilder

October 09-2007, 11:10 PM

I found this (http://www.everystudent.com/features/isthere.html) site. I think it saves me alot of typing. ;-)
Take what you will from it :-)

that didnt impress me one bit, its my opinion but i think people that believe in god are thick

chris_the_sham

October 09-2007, 11:36 PM

explain dinosaurs!

trailfox

October 10-2007, 12:15 AM

My head hurts!! I need a rest, try googling for some of the creation debates/forums. You might find what you need there... unless anyone alse can contribute :-)

EDIT:
It does mention somewhere in the OT about, 'Great beasts that walked amoungst men' sham, so maybe there was dinosaurs way back when. I'm not going to say that they never existed if they can find whole skeletons of those beasts. But I'm sort of extremely tired so excuse my laxidasical typing/quoting
Sorry, I can't remember the exact verse of that quote, I'll have a dig for it (no pun intended :-)) later, if I can remember.:D

roverspeed

October 10-2007, 12:51 AM

From back in my Physics days, I ironically strongly believe in a higher being, studying nuclear physics everything is just too well organised and everything fits far too well together to be just happening by chance. I mean, everything just works perfectly!

But would a being of such infinite power require us to not work every sunday, or chop our foreskins off. I wouldn't have thought so.

So I don't know what catagory I fight into, does a Sumpreme being exist, yes I believe so, do I feel the need to go to a building to whorship him, No.

And this is what really gets me about church goers, and no offence to any on here. In reality all church goers are saying is you must follow the rules or you don't get into heaven. So..............who are they really thinking off, themselves and only themselves. I am not just talking christian, i am talking all religions, and I am not dissing individuals, but the whole concept to me is, you better fall into line or else. I believe the all contradict their own teachings.

Religion has been used time and time again for an excuse for conflict, murder, genocide, infantacide and war, so generally one is much better off without it.

No doubt they would find another excuse, but at least people couldn't be so preachy about it lol!

To anyone I may have offended, sorry in advance. :)

Michael

October 10-2007, 09:40 AM

that didnt impress me one bit, its my opinion but i think people that believe in god are thick

What about the ones that believe in God?

As for the Christians only thinking of themselves we actually encourage people to join! You only have to look at the amount of mission work that is carried out in God's name.

Rick B

October 10-2007, 10:11 AM

that didnt impress me one bit, its my opinion but i think people that believe in god are thick

Thanks for that man. Didnt realise I came across that way:D

Some of us on here believe in the God of the Bible. Many don't. Why do we have to follow a list of rules? well, why do parents set rules? To annoy us? To make us miserable? Dont think so. A good parent sets boundaries so that his/her child can live in safety and be kept from harm or detrimental influences. God does the same.

Why do many be preachy about it?
If you saw someone standing in the middle of the road and a bus was about to hit them, would you walk away or would you do eveything you could to warn them? I believe in the bible and what it says about heaven/hell. If someone is heading to hell, according to the bibles standards, should I not, if it is my firm belief, at least try to warn them - whether they listen or not is up to them.:(

Rick B

October 10-2007, 10:27 AM

explain dinosaurs!

Job 40:15 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=Job&chapter=40&version=nkjv#) </SPAN>"Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you;
He eats grass like an ox.
Job 40:16 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=Job&chapter=40&version=nkjv#) See now, his strength is in his hips,
And his power is in his stomach muscles.
Job 40:17 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=Job&chapter=40&version=nkjv#) He moves his tail like a cedar;
The sinews of his thighs are tightly knit.
Job 40:18 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/tools/printer-friendly.pl?book=Job&chapter=40&version=nkjv#) His bones are like beams of bronze,
His ribs like bars of iron.

Sounds like a dinosaur.:)

kenny

October 10-2007, 10:36 AM

Going by your italics, Dinosaurs existed at the same time as yer man Job.

Suppose they had too if that 6 day creation thing on page 1 is to hold up.

Could be a camel.

Bloom

October 10-2007, 10:36 AM

Sounds like a dinosaur.:)

Behemoth (Hebrew בהמות, behemot; Arabic بهيموث bahīmūth, or بهموت bahamūt) is a creature mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. In

The word is most likely a plural form of בהמה (bəhēmāh), meaning beast or large animal.

Rick B

October 10-2007, 10:44 AM

Going by your italics, Dinosaurs existed at the same time as yer man Job.

Suppose they had too if that 6 day creation thing on page 1 is to hold up.

Could be a camel.

Tail like a cedar tree?? :)

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 10:54 AM

It always puzzles me why people on both sides of the fence get hung up on dinosaurs.

First of all the word "dinosaur" wasn't invented until the mid 1800's, longer after the bible's description of behemoth. After all you can't expect the people in the bible to call something by a name that didn't even exist.

Then you get people saying that dinosaurs never existed, which is silly, given that many skeletons have been found.

And to top it all, you have the blue whale which is alive and well today and is as big if not bigger than any "dinosaur" or "behemoth" that ever lived, only it happens to be swimming about, so people think it isn't the same.

Now the next topic for discussion could be was blue whale the only "dinosaur"/"behemoth" to survive the flood?

And on another topic of extinction, these animals have all gone extinct in 20th Century alone, will people in the future say they didn't exist either?

The Barbary lion from Morocco (1922)
The Caribbean monk seal (1932)
The Bali tiger (1937)
The Japanese sea lion (1951)
The Javan tiger (1972)

Either way you look at it, I think both "religious" and "non-religious" people spend too much time trying to prove each other wrong and most of time using facts that don't actually exists, hence the arguments roll on and on and on, because as with anything based in fiction it can always be twisted to suit the current discussion.

kenny

October 10-2007, 11:13 AM

Tail like a cedar tree?? :)

A micro machines Scania truck is like a Scania truck. Just not he same size.

Interpretations of words and definitions: sounds very like Lilliput and Blefuscu.

beechill_banty

October 10-2007, 11:20 AM

As for the Christians only thinking of themselves we actually encourage people to join! You only have to look at the amount of mission work that is carried out in God's name.
Saving the savages from their own belief systems? jolly well done :rolleyes:

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:22 AM

No matter what you believe, you have to admit there is some resemblance.

http://www.dkimages.com/discover/previews/836/45010644.JPG

http://www.dinosaurdepot.com/images/dinosaur_i8.jpg

kenny

October 10-2007, 11:26 AM

Can't see the tail moving like a Cedar tree :p . A deliberatley vague description, to start debate.

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:33 AM

Can't see the tail moving like a Cedar tree :p . A deliberatley vague description, to start debate.

LOL!

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:58 AM

So to summarise, so far in the discussion we have:

- People who believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

- People who don't believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

- One person who has declared himself a jump building and riding god.

Have I missed anyone?

Bloom

October 10-2007, 12:23 PM

So to summarise, so far in the discussion we have:
- People who believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

- People who don't believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

I for one would change my views if God came floating out of the sky and whisked me off to heaven for a wee look around. Fairly extreme case I know.

On the flipside, if aliens landed on earth, would that change a Christians belief?

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 12:26 PM

I for one would change my views if God came floating out of the sky and whisked me off to heaven for a wee look around. Fairly extreme case I know.

On the flipside, if aliens landed on earth, would that change a Christians belief?

In either case everyone else would declare you a madman and discount your visit to heaven or alien encounter!

Bloom

October 10-2007, 12:39 PM

In either case everyone else would declare you a madman and discount your visit to heaven or alien encounter!

So I would be declared a madman for visiting heaven? Mmmm, interesting.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, as society advances, religious teachings seem to 'update' themselves to explain things. If the teaching was correct when it was first given then it should still be correct today.

baz

October 10-2007, 12:46 PM

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 12:59 PM

So I would be declared a madman for visiting heaven? Mmmm, interesting.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is, as society advances, religious teachings seem to 'update' themselves to explain things. If the teaching was correct when it was first given then it should still be correct today.

That is quite an interesting point, can you give a couple of examples, so we can debate them, as dinosaurs seems to have died a death! (Pun not intended)

Bloom

October 10-2007, 01:23 PM

Haven't researched these so a bit of a guess;

Life on other planets.
Cloning animals.
Growing human body parts in the lab.
Gay marriage.
The 10 commandments seemed to have been relaxed since I was a lad. Sunday for me in a religious upbringing, meant no computers, no playing, no working. It seems that is all acceptable nowadays.

Thats just me throwing a few things out there. I'm sure someone is better qualified to suggest some more.

Rick B

October 10-2007, 01:25 PM

The 10 commandments seemed to have been relaxed since I was a lad. Sunday for me in a religious upbringing, meant no computers, no playing, no working. It seems that is all acceptable nowadays.

Very true - cause most 'Christians' want to suit themselves rather than follow God.:(

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 01:40 PM

tankslapper

October 10-2007, 01:46 PM

Brian: Look, you've got it all wrong! You don't NEED to follow ME, you don't NEED to follow ANYBODY! You've got to think for yourselves! You're ALL individuals!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes! We're all individuals!
Brian: You're all different!
The Crowd (in unison): Yes, we ARE all different!
Man in Crowd: I'm not...
The Crowd: Shhh!

Bloom

October 10-2007, 02:29 PM

I agree with Rick, it is not the "rules" that changes, it is the people that follow them

But what you do on a Sunday now would have been frowned upon as little as 100 years ago. Why has it changed in that time?

Donncha

October 10-2007, 02:39 PM

So to summarise, so far in the discussion we have:

- People who believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

- People who don't believe in a single creator God, and who's views won't be changed by any sort of evidence set in front of them.

May be wrong here but isn't the whole thing about Religion is that there is no evidence? Isn't based on Faith?

Bloom

October 10-2007, 02:48 PM

That is quite an interesting point, can you give a couple of examples, so we can debate them, as dinosaurs seems to have died a death! (Pun not intended)

Ok, the Hubble telescope discovered that the universe is still expanding. Everyone accepts this as true, church and all. Prior to this discovery the church believed the universe was created at the beginning of time and that was it, it was done/completed/finished.

andyh

October 10-2007, 03:04 PM

Here's another deep, philosophical question:

Which is the more impressive statement, humans are the most intelligent species in the universe, or humans are not the most intelligent species in the universe?

I find either one quite fascinating.

Ipossible to answer because we don't know for sure what is in our universe

What about Infinity, it would appear to be a reality, because there can't be an end as an end is destinguished by some kind of border with something else ?

So does that open up a possibility for God/Gods ????

chris_the_sham

October 10-2007, 03:04 PM

carbon dating

Rick B

October 10-2007, 03:12 PM

But what you do on a Sunday now would have been frowned upon as little as 100 years ago. Why has it changed in that time?

As Jonny said - Its the people change - not the commandments. I believe I stick by the commandments to the same degree christians would have 100 years ago despite all the changes in the world. If other Christians don't that's their decision to compromise. That is the reason that Christianity is not respected - because the representatives dont represent what needs to be represented. :rolleyes:

If I walked into almost any church, sat through a meeting or two, followed about some of the members of the church even for just a day, I wouldn't want to be a christian. Thats why I look strictly to the bible for guidance or to those who have proved themselves to be true to the bible (most of whom have passed away and we only have audio or books about their lives/teachings :( ).

kenny

October 10-2007, 03:17 PM

What about Infinity, it would appear to be a reality, because there can't be an end as an end is destinguished by some kind of border with something else ?

So does that open up a possibility for God/Gods ????

Just a weird note about infinity.

There's an infinite number of rational numbers (numbers that can be represented as a fraction), but between EVERY rational number, there is an infinite number of irrational numbers (numbers that cannot be represented as a fraction: 'pi' and 'e' are the 2 most well known).

So there's infinetly more irrational numbers than there are rational numbers, even though there's an infinite number of rational numbers.

That hurts my head, and that's before you even get on to complicated things like g(G)od(s).

Bloom

October 10-2007, 03:37 PM

Good on you Rick. If you're doing something, do it right.

Ninja2

October 10-2007, 03:47 PM

Rick B

October 10-2007, 03:57 PM

The concept of different sizes of infinity is an interesting one. For example, add up all the odd integers between 1 and infinity. The sum will be infinity. Then add up all the integers between 1 and infinity. This will be infinity too, but will be twice as 'big' as the first one.

My brain hurts:confused:

chris_the_sham

October 10-2007, 04:09 PM

i reckon the G(g)od(s) never thought that planes and treadmills would generate more debate though

tankslapper

October 10-2007, 04:31 PM

BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front?

REG: **** off!

BRIAN: What?

REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.

FRANCIS: ******s.

BRIAN: Can I... join your group?

REG: No. Piss off.

BRIAN: I didn't want to sell this stuff. It's only a job. I hate the Romans as much as anybody.

PEOPLE'S FRONT OF JUDEA: Shhhh. Shhhh. Shhh. Shh. Shhhh.

REG: Stumm.

JUDITH: Are you sure?

BRIAN: Oh, dead sure. I hate the Romans already.

REG: Listen. If you really wanted to join the P.F.J., you'd have to really hate the Romans.

BRIAN: I do!

REG: Oh, yeah? How much?

BRIAN: A lot!

REG: Right. You're in. Listen. The only people we hate more than the Romans are the ****ing Judean People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah...

JUDITH: Splitters.

P.F.J.: Splitters...

FRANCIS: And the Judean Popular People's Front.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

LORETTA: And the People's Front of Judea.

P.F.J.: Yeah. Splitters. Splitters...

REG: What?

LORETTA: The People's Front of Judea. Splitters.

REG: We're the People's Front of Judea!

LORETTA: Oh. I thought we were the Popular Front.

REG: People's Front! C-huh.

FRANCIS: Whatever happened to the Popular Front, Reg?

REG: He's over there.

P.F.J.: Splitter!

kenny

October 10-2007, 04:47 PM

i reckon the G(g)od(s) never thought that planes and treadmills would generate more debate though

It doesn't need debate. The plane will take off, Insha'Allah.

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 05:03 PM

I think the confusion comes from the fact that a propellor plane won't take off, because it needs air speed to create thrust, whereas a jet creates it own thrust

honourablegeorge

October 10-2007, 05:06 PM

I think the confusion comes from the fact that a propellor plane won't take off, because it needs air speed to create thrust, whereas a jet creates it own thrust

:) :) :) :)

andyh

October 10-2007, 05:15 PM

We probably need to ask the mice, and while we're at it check to see if the Vorgons are coming !

kenny

October 10-2007, 05:29 PM

If it hadn't been for those hairdressers we would have known everything by now.

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 05:44 PM

As Jonny said - Its the people change - not the commandments. I believe I stick by the commandments to the same degree christians would have 100 years ago despite all the changes in the world. If other Christians don't that's their decision to compromise. That is the reason that Christianity is not respected - because the representatives dont represent what needs to be represented. :rolleyes:

If I walked into almost any church, sat through a meeting or two, followed about some of the members of the church even for just a day, I wouldn't want to be a christian. Thats why I look strictly to the bible for guidance or to those who have proved themselves to be true to the bible (most of whom have passed away and we only have audio or books about their lives/teachings :( ).

You can also look on this another way, both biblically and in recent history.

Firstly biblically the Jews gave Jesus some dirty looks when he healed on a Sunday, and that was because of their adherence to the biblical teaching on the Sabbath, or at least their interpretation of it.

In recent history (and to take one of Bloom's examples) if you had been outwardly gay 100 years ago, your personal safety would have been in serious jeopardy, but nowadays the case is less so. But the bible's teaching on being gay is no different. And I am 100% sure that Jesus' treatment of a gay person would be polar compared to many "Christians" today.

tankslapper

October 10-2007, 05:47 PM

You can also look on this another way, both biblically and in recent history.

Firstly biblically the Jews gave Jesus some dirty looks when he healed on a Sunday, and that was because of their adherence to the biblical teaching on the Sabbath, or at least their interpretation of it.

In recent history (and to take one of Bloom's examples) if you had been outwardly gay 100 years ago, your personal safety would have been in serious jeopardy, but nowadays the case is less so. But the bible's teaching on being gay is no different. And I am 100% sure that Jesus' treatment of a gay person would be polar compared to many "Christians" today.

I hardly think Jesus would have said 'Can I push your stool in for you'

IGMC

chris_the_sham

October 10-2007, 05:50 PM

We probably need to ask the mice, and while we're at it check to see if the Vorgons are coming !

or even the Vogons

andyh

October 10-2007, 06:04 PM

yeah them too

tankslapper

October 10-2007, 06:07 PM

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/read.php?f=2&i=3281067&t=3281067

Let the fun commence:D

ColB

October 10-2007, 06:21 PM

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/read.php?f=2&i=3281067&t=3281067

Let the fun commence:D

what have you started :D :D

Speedfreak

October 10-2007, 06:25 PM

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/read.php?f=2&i=3281067&t=3281067

Let the fun commence:D

Hahaha, nice one slapper of a tank! :D

I'm nearly tempted to go on every bike site possible and do that!! lol.

Tiff

October 10-2007, 07:25 PM

marko

October 10-2007, 09:17 PM

mummy made my lunch

trailfox

October 10-2007, 09:34 PM

excellent - i have never considered that

if infiinity = x

2x = infinity

so that leaves us with x<infinity<2x ::yikes::
Aargh! Brain pain! Excess maths!! :confused: :confused:

It's funny the way this thread has been soo popular but the content on it has managed to disintegrate into complex inequalities.

infinity must be somewhere around 1.5x then? Or you can take your pick from the infinite number of reccurring decimal values :D :rolleyes:

jimjam

October 10-2007, 09:50 PM

The bible evolved.

The behemoth could have been an elephant. Or just evidence of powerfull psychedelic drugs. Like a lot of the bible.

There is a flood myth in ancient summarian culture nearly identical to the one in the bible, minus the big boat. Thought to be inspired by an actual flood around 8000 BC.

People dont need religion to understand how to treat one another. Chimps can live together without Jesus dying for them. Yes they occaisionally do each other up the bum and fling poo but thats about the worst of it. As far as I know there is no evidence of chimps torturing each other, burning at the stake, mountain huge expeditions to wipe out every chimp that doesnt agree with them etc.

There are celtic manuscripts found in ireland which pre date christianity's arrival here by hundreds of years which lay out what could be described as "christian" morals.
Yes they did drink from the skulls of their dead enemies, but lets face it who doesnt?

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 10:50 PM

There are celtic manuscripts found in ireland which pre date christianity's arrival here by hundreds of years which lay out what could be described as "christian" morals.
Yes they did drink from the skulls of their dead enemies, but lets face it who doesnt?

Now you are hitting upon something interesting there.

I think from memory, the historians have placed the flood around 2300BC, taking the historically verifiable date that King Solomon built the first Jewish temple and working backwards using biblical date stamps.

According to the bible the only humans left on the earth were Noah and his family and it is from them that the rest of us came one way or another. And as the descendants of Noah spread out across the earth they would have undoubtably taken God's law's with them.

One could then assume that over a period of time the people furthest away from civilisation (at that time middle-east) would have diluted these laws through the generations, mixing in their own superstitions etc.

Hence when modern age explorers came across Red Indians, Jungle tribes, etc the all have a sense of higher beings and laws, whether it be mountain gods, animal gods, spirits etc.

Debate!

barry_kellett99

October 10-2007, 10:52 PM

As far as I know there is no evidence of chimps torturing each other, burning at the stake, mountain huge expeditions to wipe out every chimp that doesnt agree with them etc.

You obviously dont watch as many interesting and informative wild life shows as me then.
Chimps are well known for appearing to single out a seemingly random member of the group and outcasting them and then randomly all in unison going ape (haha) and killing the poor chimp.

chris_the_sham

October 10-2007, 10:59 PM

You obviously dont watch as many interesting and informative wild life shows as me then.
Chimps are well known for appearing to single out a seemingly random member of the group and outcasting them and then randomly all in unison going ape (haha) and killing the poor chimp.

or...

MTBers are well known for appearing to single out a seemingly random member of the group (Pete) and outcasting them and then randomly all in unison going ape (haha) and slagging the poor chimp.

Tiff

October 10-2007, 11:09 PM

According to the bible the only humans left on the earth were Noah and his family and it is from them that the rest of us came one way or another. And as the descendants of Noah spread out across the earth they would have undoubtably taken God's law's with them.

Debate!

So, Noah and his family would have had to have incest in order to breed more humans.

But we know

A) the bible looks unkindly at incest

B) Incest doesnt work, the offspring will almost certainly be very disabled and unable to reproduce themselvels. If this had happened there would have to be several generations of incest in order to create enough of a gene pool but by this stage they would be so many deformaties that the off spring would no way be healthy or human. Unless of course Noah and other humans then were some superior being and even after alot of inbreeding the genes are still usable and you are left with humans as we are today

There was an example in the daily mail a few months ago how a german couple were actually brother and sister that had been split up from birth but met and got married. They didnt realise and they had 5 kids. All 5 kids are heavily disabled. And that is with only one round of breeding. So for example Noahs family would have to sleep with each other many many times and the genes would become so mutated... there is no possibilty they could ever have continued the human race

Its A level biology - incest doesnt work

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:18 PM

Tiff

October 10-2007, 11:20 PM

Hold on - Ive just read the story of Noah again - its complete ludacris.

A couple of points

Genesis 5, v32 ''and Noah was 500 years old'' (what did i say about super humans)genesis 6 v 1 onwards

Noah had three sons - so after the flood noah and wife, 3 sons and thier wifes had to repopulate the earth - no chance, the off spring would be badly mutated, 4 mating couples wouldnt work
the ark shall be 300 cubits long (cubit being around 2 feet) so a 600ft or a 200 metre boat built by a 500 year old man.
2 Of every animal, how, they would never be room in this boat for all the animals, there are simply too many, how did he collect them from all over the world. An elephat would find the entire boat too small.
Feeding these animals for 40days and nights, how much food is that?
Noah was 600 when the flood fell. 100 years to build his boat
The flood destroyed everything - what on earth would all the animals eat once they left the boat.Its incredible

Conor

October 10-2007, 11:27 PM

Ah yes Tiff that is all very well, but you are leaving God out of the equation.

If he could create a universe and cause a global flood, then I am sure a little bit of genetic engineering wouldn't be beyond him

You can't explain away something by leaving out the biggest factor.

That's the problem with these debates. The religious side just has to say "God did it" and they are happy. If there is some scientific proof or evidence that counter acts their argument then the "God did it" line comes out. E.g fossils etc. And you manage to rubbish things like stratigraphy and dating methods (dendrochronology is hardly guess work). I'm not even going to go any deeper into this!

I'm happy in what I understand about our universe and to be honest how it was created, how we became, who/what started it all doesn't matter to me in the slightest. I'm jsut going to live my (ONLY) life they way I want to and I don't need some 2000 year old propoganda to tell me how I should.

Fact: Our universe is ancient, vast, and hugely complicated.

Fact: Humans are too primitive to grasp even the basic concepts of this.

Therefore we turn to philosophy and religion for answers to questions we do not understand.

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:29 PM

As per my previous point regarding leaving God out of the equation.

On the point of the animals, how many species do you know roamed the earth at that time? And also consider that 2 baby elephants don't take up much room!

And on what did the animals eats after the flood, don't you remember the bit about the dove bringing back the fig leaf?

Again the most important thing is that leave out God and yes then all these things are silly, and also the bible would be useless.

But put God in the equation and it is all perfectly possible.

You simply can't explain something away and leave out the main element. It would be like rubbishing any science about our solar system and leaving out the sun.

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:36 PM

And you manage to rubbish things like stratigraphy and dating methods (dendrochronology is hardly guess work). I'm not even going to go any deeper into this!

I know very little about these, can you explain what the big words mean.

I am genuinely interested.

J

chris_the_sham

October 10-2007, 11:42 PM

try here... (http://www.just****inggoogleit.co.uk)

Jonnyc

October 10-2007, 11:59 PM

Ah ok, dendrochronology is the study of tree rings.

One of the problems I have seen from scientists (not creationists) is that some of these methods, (I think it was radiocarbon dating) rely on assumptions like the rate of decays have been constant and in equilibrium since time began.

Would this also apply to dendrochronology which relies on rings forming at the same rate?

I saw a program once on National Geographic (one of the biggest anti-creation organisations) about ice cores in the polar regions. Scientists had initially said that the layers had been formed by summers and winters and were dating the earth using them. Then after years of monitoring they discovered that it was actually formed by warm days and cold nights (relatively speaking) and hence their earth age measurements were much compressed.

In my experience I have found that for every scientific idea, there are several different views upon it within the scientific world itself, and I would be surprised if everyone in the scientific world hailed dendrochronology as being accurate.

Do you agree with any of that?

Please understand that I am not dismissing the validity of your points, I am just playing devils advocate and asking questions based on experience. I know it is cliche, but back in the day, half the world thought the earth was round and half thought it was flat.

tankslapper

October 11-2007, 12:27 AM

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 12:52 AM

excellent - i have never considered that

if infiinity = x

2x = infinity

so that leaves us with x<infinity<2x ::yikes::

Not quite.... if x = infinity then the first part of your inequality cannot be correct. If 2x = infinity, then the 2nd part of your equation cannot be correct. It would be:

if infinity(1) = x
and 2x = Infinity(2)

Then Infinity(1) x 2 = Infinity(2)

Thus Infinity(1) < Infinity(2)

Simple as that.

trailfox

October 11-2007, 01:50 AM

En anglais por favor Ninja?

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 10:11 AM

Dendrochronology is very accurate. We used it at Belvoir on old tree stumps felled in the 1940's and were impressed with the results. Trees are a remarkable link to the past which not only measure age through rings, but also climate change, weather patterns, drought etc.

Did you do work with anything further back in time as 1940's is fairly recent.

My point on the accuracy was more focused on measurements in the 1000's of years order. I am sure climate records since 1940's are pretty accurate, but does that mean that those records are applied to measurements 1000's of years ago.

Again I am not poo pooing the idea, I am just playing devil's advocate on the assumptions that are being made and am genuinely interested in this as I said before I am a bit of a discovery channel geek!

kenny

October 11-2007, 11:17 AM

Why would scientific facts suddenly change between 6000 years ago and now.

On the subject of carbon dating. Of the top of my head, it is correct to say the radioactive decay is not constant (on a per atom basis, in fact it is random), but given the number of atoms in a sample, the overall probability that a decay rate of a sample is constant is very very very high. Hence radioactive decay rates for different elements are knwon.

Why/how would/could this decay rate change? Have the strong and weak (not sure which one is responsible, if either) forces cahnged in the previous 10,000 years? Because god willed it is not an acceptable answer, imo. If there is a creator, why would he suddenly change the design/behaviour of the atom. That would go against the arguement of god given freewill, if he changed atomic behaviour, why stop there.

Another theory.
Maybe the Earth is just a region in a game of Risk being played out by the gods over eternity, and our beaviour is goverened by their moves.

And I know I certainly have a universe in my pocket (I'm just not glad to see you), but i think these jeans are due for a wash soon :eek:

Conor

October 11-2007, 11:20 AM

Again I am not poo pooing the idea, I am just playing devil's advocate on the assumptions that are being made and am genuinely interested in this as I said before I am a bit of a discovery channel geek!

"Assumptions" made in techniques such as radio carbon dating (i.e. the rate of decay of C14 to C12) are akin to the assumption that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. There are of course accuracy tolerances, and the longer yo go back the accuracy decreases (well actually it's a constant % factor but this translates as increasing years as you go back).

Bloom

October 11-2007, 11:24 AM

Sure the church (not sure which denomination) denounced the story of Noah's Ark saying it isn't meant to be taken literally, after it was proven no such flood (large scale) took place. I read this on a Christian website yesterday - I'll try and find the link.

tankslapper

October 11-2007, 11:36 AM

Did you do work with anything further back in time as 1940's is fairly recent.

My point on the accuracy was more focused on measurements in the 1000's of years order. I am sure climate records since 1940's are pretty accurate, but does that mean that those records are applied to measurements 1000's of years ago.

Again I am not poo pooing the idea, I am just playing devil's advocate on the assumptions that are being made and am genuinely interested in this as I said before I am a bit of a discovery channel geek!

Johnny

OK to explain

The tree's were felled in the 1940's and samples were taken which showed the trees to have been planted / seeded in (if memory serves) 1540's(?) this would give an indication that the oldest trees in the Belvoir Estate are circa 16th century. Dendrochronology takes know samples from all over Britain and matches them so, if a known woodland was planted in say 1735 and accurate estate records show it to be so, then we can simply use a core sample taken from the timber which shows a progression of the years following the tree's establishment. Similarly where we know nothing of a tree's history we can again take a sample and lay it along side the sample taken from the known sample. Ring sizes and climatic change will be similar allowing us to accurately date the tree. Simple.

The park itself is a strange microcosm of the worlds plants and, it is believed, holds some of the very earliest rhododendrons in Britain. That's the ones brought back from the great age of the plant hunters.

tankslapper

October 11-2007, 11:46 AM

Johnny

The technique was well developed by University of Arizona to date Bristlecone pines. The chronology now dates back some 9000 years (7000BC)

If only trees could talk!

http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/dendro.html

TrixR4kidz

October 11-2007, 11:55 AM

Question to the born-againers.
What made you choose to believe in the bearded, fair skinned, christian god bloke. There are other 'better' made up beings you could have picked to blindly follow.

Here's is seldom used quote from the bible (in fact it my well have been removed during one of the many 'editing' sessions that have happened over the centuries): "Believe nothing of what you read, and half of what you see".

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 12:06 PM

Here's is seldom used quote from the bible (in fact it my well have been removed during one of the many 'editing' sessions that have happened over the centuries): "Believe nothing of what you read, and half of what you see".

Can you give us some references and dates for this.

I am aware of "editing sessions" but I have never really looked into it and so would be interested in hearing what actually happened.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 12:16 PM

Question to the born-againers.
What made you choose to believe in the bearded, fair skinned, christian god bloke. There are other 'better' made up beings you could have picked to blindly follow.

Ok, well to start with you have to have a belief in God. And to be honest, the accounts of God and the creation make a lot more sense to me than a lot of the scientific theories regarding the origin of the universe and man.

If we look at science up through the ages, one generations science is the next generations laughing point, (Flat earth, Missing link, as examples). So what makes scientists now so sure that in 100 years time someone won't be laughing at them?

Then if you take a step back and look at the world as it is today and it's history, it follows the same pattern as forecast in the bible. Man pushing God further and further out of their world and then wondering why things are all going down the swannie.

Then look at creation itself and it's beauty. To say that has all happened because of pure chance and that our appreciation of it is again just by pure chance, just doesn't make sense to me.

Those along with several other reasons, all convince me of God's existance, and after that the rest is easy.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 12:33 PM

Ok, thanks to Kenny and Shane for the explanations.

It is not true that tree ringing and radio carbon dating has been performed on the same objects and differing results have occurred?

Again i don't know that's why I am asking

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 12:35 PM

Google is a great thing, here is an extract from a piece that compares the 2 methods:

Do this make sense to either of you? I don't know a great deal about the methods, so interpretation of this is a bit beyond me

To calculate the radiocarbon age of a specimen, we need to compare the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio now, with the carbon-12/carbon-14 ratio at the time of death. However, we do not know the ratio at the time of death, which means we have to make an assumption. Modern radiocarbon dating assumes that the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio in living organisms is the same now as it was in ancient organisms before they died. In other words, the system of carbon-14 production and decay is said to be in a state of balance or equilibrium. Yet this assumption is questionable, even for an old Earth.

The problem is akin to a burning candle (cf. Chittick, 1970, p. 66). Without stretching the analogy too far, let us imagine that the wax represents carbon-14. We could take a ruler and measure the length of the remaining candle. We could even measure the rate at which the candle is burning down. But how can we know when the candle was lit? We simply cannot answer this question without knowing the original length of candle. Perhaps we could make a guess from a nearby unlit candle, but it would only ever be a guess.

In the old-Earth model, the process of making carbon-14 began billions of years ago. The evolving atmosphere filled rapidly with carbon-14, but this rate slowed as carbon-14 found its way into the oceans and the biosphere. Eventually, the carbon-14 would break down into nitrogen-14, thus completing the cycle. Geologists freely admit that this process has not always been in equilibrium, but they maintain that this will not affect the radiocarbon method in any practical way.

The first signs of trouble with this assumption surfaced in Libby’s early work. He settled on a specific decay rate (SDR) of 15.3 atoms per minute per gram of total carbon in the specimen, and a specific production rate (SPR) of 18.8 atoms per minute per gram of carbon in the Earth’s active carbon inventory. Libby never seriously questioned the discrepancy between these two numbers. He felt that his method was accurate, and that the numbers were close enough. But during the 1950s, researchers started to notice a regular disagreement between radiocarbon and “well-established” archaeological dates. As Aitken comments: “In retrospect it seems to have been unduly optimistic to assume that the modern values were the true starting values for all time past” (1990, p. 66).

These problems encouraged a systematic study in which researchers used the radiocarbon method to date tree rings. Two levels of error emerged. One was a small-scale, short-term variation that can make a given radiocarbon date appear up to four hundred years older or younger than expected (Taylor, 1987, Figure 2.11). Much of this error may be the result of sunspot activity, which in turn affects solar radiation and the production of carbon-14.

A second error comes from an S-shaped, long-term trend (Figure 2). One bend of the curve peaks in the middle of the first millennium A.D. Radiocarbon ages during this period overestimate dendrochronological ages by up to a hundred years. The curve switches direction around 500 B.C., when radiocarbon ages begin to underestimate supposed dendrochronological ages. The discrepancy grows as we go back in time, so that by the fifth millennium B.C., radiocarbon dates are too recent by 800 years.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 12:50 PM

Taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine

Currently, the oldest (acknowledged) living organism known is a bristlecone pine tree nicknamed "Methuselah" (after Methuselah, the longest-lived person in the Bible), located in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of eastern California, and measured by core samples to be 4,789 years old. The U.S. Forest Service does not reveal the actual position of "Methuselah" in the bristlecone grove, in order to protect the tree.[1]

Prometheus
Donald R. Currey, a student of the University of North Carolina, was taking core samples of bristlecones in 1964 when he discovered that "Prometheus" was over 4,000 years old. His coring tool broke, so the U.S. Forest service granted permission to Mr. Currey to cut down "Prometheus". After Prometheus had been felled, 4,844 rings were counted on a cross-section of the tree, making "Prometheus" at least 4,844 years old, the oldest non-clonal living thing known to man.[2]

Does this mean that Dendrochronology can only be applied to things less than 4844 years old?

Or as it alludes to later in the artical, have much older specimens been found?

TrixR4kidz

October 11-2007, 12:54 PM

I am aware of "editing sessions" but I have never really looked into it and so would be interested in hearing what actually happened.

Jonny you seem like a good bloke and I really have no wish to offend you. (My days of reducing christians to tears are over me now). If I personally chose to live my life based on the teachings of a book, written hundreds of years after the 'events' depicted in it took place, I would be very interested in the parts that have been removed.

Why would anyone remove or add text? Who would have the power or authority to do such a thing, and to what ends? And most importantly - what has been changed?

The fact that you are aware of these changes and still believe what the bible teaches is typical of the blind faith (i prefer ignorance personally) shown by many christians. If the bible was written by god and had remained unchanged then (apart from the fact as a story it is completely ridiculous), I would have no gripes with anyone believing it. But it was written by man and adapted by man.

Does you faith in god stretch to faith in your fellow man?

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 01:10 PM

Jonny you seem like a good bloke and I really have no wish to offend you. (My days of reducing christians to tears are over me now). If I personally chose to live my life based on the teachings of a book, written hundreds of years after the 'events' depicted in it took place, I would be very interested in the parts that have been removed.

Why would anyone remove or add text? Who would have the power or authority to do such a thing, and to what ends? And most importantly - what has been changed?

The fact that you are aware of these changes and still believe what the bible teaches is typical of the blind faith (i prefer ignorance personally) shown by many christians. If the bible was written by god and had remained unchanged then (apart from the fact as a story it is completely ridiculous), I would have no gripes with anyone believing it. But it was written by man and adapted by man.

Does you faith in god stretch to faith in your fellow man?

You make a good point.

However as a said earlier in this thread, I became a Christian at the age of 23, I am now 29 years old and therefore have been a Chrisitan for 6 years.

In six years it would be nigh on impossible to have a full understanding of the bible, never mind the bits left out, or for that fact all the possible scientific points that have been made in this thread.

I decided 6 years ago to put my faith in the God I believe existed and accepted as his inspired word the bible.

Now of course during that time you are not the only person to have cast doubt on the sanity of that decision and I freely admit, many of the arguments that have been put against me, I don't have a full understanding, never mind a concrete answer for.

And that case in point I believe adheres to the fact that many people that dismiss Christianity do so on the basis of things which they have put blind faith in themselves (scientific assumptions, theories, others research, etc) and in fact that makes them no different to me. After all, no matter how much you argue that scientific assumptions are based on other known things, they are still after all assumptions and you must accept with that the fact that you might be wrong. Science, while it does have provable laws, is in fact a constantly changing entity, and as can be seen throughout history science of the day, can be disproved the next! The only thing that makes scienctists more convinced at this scene in time that they are right is the things they know, they haven't taken into account the things they don't know.

So as you can see both science and Christianity are religions which at some point require blind faith, it just depends on which one you pick!

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 01:31 PM

Then look at creation itself and it's beauty. To say that has all happened because of pure chance and that our appreciation of it is again just by pure chance, just doesn't make sense to me.

I don't think pure chance is the correct wording for this. It's like rolling a dice and being amazed that you got a six by pure chance. Maybe it is chance, but it was also not entirely inprobable. The creation of the universe is the same thing, but with worse odds. Thankfully, time has existed for infinity, and so there were an infinite number of dice rolls, only one of which had to come up with a six to give us the universe we see today.

Have you ever heard of the weak / strong anthropic principle? (the following mostly summarised / quoted from "A Brief History of Time")

The weak anthropic principle states that in a universe that is large or infinite in space and/or time, the conditions necessary for intelligent life will be met only in certain regions that are limited in space and time. The intelligent beings in space should therefore not be surprised if they observe in their locality the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence.

The strong anthropic principle takes this a bit further, proposing that there are either many different universes or many different regions of a single universe, each with its own initial configuration and perhaps with its own laws of science. In most of these universes/regions the conditions would not be right for the development of complicated organisms; only in the few universes that are like ours would intelligent beings develop and ask the question "Why is the universe the way we see it?" The answer is then simple: "If it had been different, we would not be here!"

To me, the anthropic principle takes care of the "It's too complicated to all have been chance" argument. If it hadn't been as complex, we wouldn't be here. So we wouldn't be able to ask the question.

But then again, 'Beauty' and 'appreciation' are totally subjective, and I don't really see them as the basis for a logical argument. Arguing that things are beautiful, therefore can't have been created by chance has two very strange assumptions. Firstly, it is assumed that the world is inherently beautiful. This is impossible to quantify, and indeed could be 'disproven' by finding someone who doesn't find it terribly beautiful. If you want to find such a person, go to the shantytowns of Sau Paulo, I'm sure they wouldn't tell you that the place was beautiful. Anyways... the second assumption is that beauty cannot occur by chance, and had to be created by something or someone. Is there any evidence for this? If so, I would be interested in hearing it. If these two assmptions cannot be proven to any kind of degree, then the statement " To say that has all happened because of pure chance and that our appreciation of it is again just by pure chance, just doesn't make sense to me" collapses as entirely illogical.

Donncha

October 11-2007, 01:33 PM

May be wrong here but isn't the whole thing about Religion is that there is no evidence? Isn't based on Faith?

I would diagree that science requires blind faith. Sure there are lots of things that people can't completely explain yet (Saying a god made or did it does not offer an explanation).
As I said at the very start of the debate science always works from the null hypothesis; there is no relationship, no effect, until it is proved otherwise.
Science, for example, may say there are no black swans until someone produces evidence for a black swan.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 01:49 PM

and indeed could be 'disproven' by finding someone who doesn't find it terribly beautiful. If you want to find such a person, go to the shantytowns of Sau Paulo, I'm sure they wouldn't tell you that the place was beautiful.

I have been to places in africa that are ravaged by poverty, disease, and civil war and had ordinary civilians tell me about the beautiful land they live in being destroyed by army and rebels fighting, but knowing that once that has long gone, it's beauty will return.

kenny

October 11-2007, 01:49 PM

Taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristlecone_pine

Does this mean that Dendrochronology can only be applied to things less than 4844 years old?

Or as it alludes to later in the artical, have much older specimens been found?

Dendrochronology can be used on trees thats have fallen (and can be carbon dated :) ) and preserved by some means so that the rings can stil be seen. e.g. wooden beams in archaeology that once were fence posts for instance, or trees that have fallen into a boggy region.

Queen's university is well up on their dendrochronology after lots of studies of trees found in boggy holes in ireland. Think it was Horizion documentary on a couple of years ago where prof from Queen's was one of the main knowegable blokes (with a beard obviously).

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 01:51 PM

Dendrochronology can be used on trees thats have fallen (and can be carbon dated :) ) and preserved by some means so that the rings can stil be seen. e.g. wooden beams in archaeology that once were fence posts for instance, or trees that have fallen into a boggy region.

Queen's university is well up on their dendrochronology after lots of studies of trees found in boggy holes in ireland. Think it was Horizion documentary on a couple of years ago where prof from Queen's was one of the main knowegable blokes (with a beard obviously).

How old where these specimens? I am particular interested in ones that are more than 4844 years old

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 01:58 PM

I have been to places in africa that are ravaged by poverty, disease, and civil war and had ordinary civilians tell me about the beautiful land they live in being destroyed by army and rebels fighting, but knowing that once that has long gone, it's beauty will return.

Aye, but one person saying it's beautiful doesn't prove it, beauty is subjective. Any thoughts on the other points I made?

AndyB

October 11-2007, 02:07 PM

A friend of mine from way back did a PhD in dendrochronology and paleocology (sp) reconstructing ancient climates from tree ring patterns, I remember a very similar debate(about the accuracy of radio carbon, tree ring data, pollen, ice core...etc) over a few too many beers some years ago in QUB staff common room and although each of the 'experts'(prof's and research assisstants from each lab) admitted that there were innaccuracies in each of they're techniques, all the data lined up, so were the dendro record ran out it over lapped and lined up with pollen data which overlapped and lined up with ice core data... etc and it all lined up pretty well with the radio carbon.....
A.

AndyB

October 11-2007, 02:11 PM

just made a quick call, the bog oak record for ireland dates back to more than 5000BC.
A.

Conor

October 11-2007, 02:12 PM

Sister is doing a phd in Palaeoecology. She spends her days looking at remains of beetles in mud. I think she's discovered two new species so far. Yet to name any of them after me though :(

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 02:16 PM

and indeed could be 'disproven' by finding someone who doesn't find it terribly beautiful. If you want to find such a person, go to the shantytowns of Sau Paulo, I'm sure they wouldn't tell you that the place was beautiful.

Aye, but one person saying it's beautiful doesn't prove it, beauty is subjective.

You can't be changing the goal posts on me now Ninja!

On your other points, I am still trying to understand the antropic principles bit.

As for thinking that my belief that the beauty around us did not occur by chance being illogical, that is your view. I on the other hand find it illogical that give the order of things on this earth that we just appear here by chance. Just depends on your point of view, it doesn't make you right.

How do you know time has existed for infinity? Where is the proof?

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 02:20 PM

just made a quick call, the bog oak record for ireland dates back to more than 5000BC.
A.

Thanks Andy, so useful info there.

Did your contact say how much more than 5000BC it was? 5005BC or 100,000BC?

TrixR4kidz

October 11-2007, 02:22 PM

4844. Why is that such an important date? Is this the biblical age of the earth?

Maps exist, drawn circa 1600 AD (based on earlier maps) which accurately show the outline of the Antarctic land mass. Why is this relevant? Because for the last 10-15000 years it has been covered in ice/snow. The maps compare closely to maps made in the 1960's using new fangled technology. Either that technology existed way back then - or the maps pre-date the last ice age.

Conor

October 11-2007, 02:24 PM

How do you know time has existed for infinity? Where is the proof?

Excellent question. Even though I'm pretty happy with my (logical) beliefs relating to life, universe and everything, the thing that I feel we are beyond understanding is what was before our universe. Was there anything, time, space, energy? Was there another universe before ours? Does the process of universe creation, destruction and re-birth continue ad infinitum? Is our universe mearly number X of an infinite number that have existed, or will exist, or even exist right now. Our biggest difficulty in understanding these questions is the fact that we can only see time as a linear concept, and the fact that we can only see "our" universe.

There's no doubt that our universe was created, but the question we will never be able to answer is what started it all, a supernatural being, or just a simple inevitable event?

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 02:27 PM

4844. Why is that such an important date?

It is the date that tree in the article was dated at

honourablegeorge

October 11-2007, 02:38 PM

There's no doubt that our universe was created, but the question we will never be able to answer is what started it all, a supernatural being, or just a simple inevitable event?

The funny thing about God as an explanation for that is that it explains nothing. If you assume God created it, then who created God? How do you account for nothing existing at all, except some omnipotent being? Where did that come from? You're back at square one, except you're trying to explain the existence of something far, far more complicated than energy and gas.

Bloom

October 11-2007, 02:40 PM

There's no doubt that our universe was created, but the question we will never be able to answer is what started it all, a supernatural being, or just a simple inevitable event?

The mind boggles at this sort of thing.

What was there before it all started?

If God created the universe, who created God?

Our universe is ever expanding, but what is it expanding into? What is beyond the very edge of our universe?

When will my bike be ready, Steve?

There are no answers.

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 03:05 PM

You can't be changing the goal posts on me now Ninja!

On your other points, I am still trying to understand the antropic principles bit.

As for thinking that my belief that the beauty around us did not occur by chance being illogical, that is your view. I on the other hand find it illogical that give the order of things on this earth that we just appear here by chance. Just depends on your point of view, it doesn't make you right.

How do you know time has existed for infinity? Where is the proof?

True, those were two different angles on the same argument. But I feel that both my points remain valid. Firstly, not everyone thinks the world is beautiful. Secondly, beauty is subjective (hence two people can view the same earth and one can see it as beauitiful and another can see it as ugly). Both points related to the same thing.

The real point being that the earth is neither ugly or beautiful. These are not intrinsic properties, they vary depending on the viewer. Better yet, they cannot be measured and so cannot be quantified in any way.

So, it is your perception that the earth is beautiful, but surely you can appreciate that this is only a perception?

Secondly, noone said we 'appeared' here by chance. Religious people arguing against the origins of the universe and evolution (although both are unrelated) seem to have a problem with things 'suddenly appearing'. Our solar system is about five thousand million years old. Thats 5,000,000,000. The first two thousand years were too hot for anything complicated to develop. The remaining three thousand million have seen biological evolution from the simplest single molecule creatures, to us as we are here today. The probabilities of life developing may have been small, but the time the solar system has been around for is so large/long that eventually it happened.

Lastly, I didn't simply think that your view was illogical, I explained why the logic didn't work. If you can explain to me how it is a logical conclusion to assume that a} the earth is beautiful and b} beauty like this cannot be created by chance, then I will happily retract my statement that your argument is totally illogical.

On the subject of time being infinite, well I got nowt on that one! Now that I am thinking about it, I couldn't honestly say whether I thought it was or it wasn't. I guess I should watch my language more closely - the may thrust of what I was getting at there was that there was enough time since the beginning for one of the dice rolls to come up as a 6.... hope that clarifies things.

(As with everyone else, hope this isn't coming across as being pointed or anything, I'm finding all of this pretty interesting).

kenny

October 11-2007, 03:14 PM

Has time existed for infininty?

Edit, just saw Ninja's post explaining his meaning on infinite time.

Are all the big bang theories not based on space-time? They both started at the same singularity. About 15 billion years ago according to the latest reckoning (Hubble constants, dark matter and all that stuff).

Anyway, the chance theory still holds in my opinon, as the scale of the universe, while not infinite, is still too big to comprehend.

The question what was before the big bang is described by physicists as being meaningless, but I haven't heard it explained in layman's (or at least from someone with a engineering/scientific background, not purely physics) terms can understand.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 03:19 PM

Ok, I understand a bit clearer now your statement on beauty and accept it. * I think I actually meant wonderous

Can you show me the proof for this statement?

Our solar system is about five thousand million years old. Thats 5,000,000,000. The first two thousand years were too hot for anything complicated to develop. The remaining three thousand million have seen biological evolution from the simplest single molecule creatures, to us as we are here today. The probabilities of life developing may have been small, but the time the solar system has been around for is so large/long that eventually it happened.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 03:21 PM

The question what was before the big bang is described by physicists as being meaningless, but I haven't heard it explained in layman's (or at least from someone with a different scientific background) terms can understand.

How can they say it is meaningless? Surely science cannot just ignore things?

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 03:22 PM

It's meaningless to go before the big bang because close to the big bang, the laws of physics as we know them start to break down. To cut a very long story short, before the big bang, a totally different set of physical laws could have applied. We would have no way of knowing what these laws were and so we cannot predict or explain anything that would happen before the big bang.

Thats my understanding anyways.

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 03:24 PM

Can you show me the proof for this statement?

Unfortunately not right now - as I have to go and actually do some real work! I know, shock horror ::yikes:: . I'll see if i can dig up the proof later on.

honourablegeorge

October 11-2007, 03:50 PM

Unfortunately not right now - as I have to go and actually do some real work! I know, shock horror ::yikes:: . I'll see if i can dig up the proof later on.

SPLITTER!

Ninja2

October 11-2007, 04:19 PM

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 04:22 PM

Rick B

October 11-2007, 04:46 PM

jimjam

October 11-2007, 05:06 PM

I'm not aware of any changes made to the bible. Could someone please clarify what they mean by changes? Do you mean the modern translations like New Century version etc.. or like chunks added/removed?:confused:

The bible has undergone constant revision. The busiest period of change occurred in the hundreds of years after jesus death when Christians tried to incorporate all of the gospels and information relevant to jesus life and death into one book. This didnt prove easy as there were many very contradictory gospels kicking around. An example would be the gnostic gosple of judas which portrays judas as an almost tragic figure figure who is merely obeying jesus wishes as opposed to a back stabbing poo pusher.
Check out the russian orthodox or greek orthodox bibles for an up to date example.

The figure who was most instrumental in the creation of the roman catholic connonical bible was St. Paul, who it turns out never met jesus but decided to write his own gospels based on "visions" or being mental. He is the person most directly responsible for removing gospels that were contradictory to his new christian church. He decided which gospels were "gospel" (pardon the pun) and which gospels were hereticla nonsense, even though they may well have been written by jesus apostles.

As Ive written earlier it wasnt until emperor constantine converted to christianity (pauls version) 200 years later that christianity began to flourish. Constantine used the military might of rome to wipe out the “sects” or “cults” within christianity who believed in the wackier gospels of the apostles. He also passed laws forbidding jews from owning christian slaves, forbidding the circumcision of slaves, and banning christians from converting to judaism.

Also the bibles treatment of say the devil/satan has been a constantly evolving process, he went from being an angel who read out your sins before god to overlord of all thats evil, through a process of manipulation. This was I believe to get around the problem of free will. God gives man free will - man kills man. God made man so god killed man?? The simple way around this problem, oh the devil made man do it.

baz

October 11-2007, 05:12 PM

Jonny, if you are interested in this sort of thing, check out a book called The Science of Discworld (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0091865158), by Terry Pratchet and some scientists. It goes through a brief history of the universe, spliced in through a Discworld story (for those follows of the Discworld series). I read it and found it fascinating. It goes into most of the interesting topics, and discusses them from a purely scientific but fairly simple point of view.

It discusses, for example, how it might have been possible for the eye to evolve, rather than be created. It talks about how life may have actually started from minerals, and how the universe, our solar system, our planet etc., may all have emerged. If you are looking for a view of an alternate, scientific, non-faith-based view on everything, it's an excellent start. Obviously, there's no room for God in it, but the book does at least explain why. I have a copy if you'd like to borrow it.

Personally I found it much more interesting than A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. It seemed to discuss who worked in each of the scientific areas of discovery, rather than what they discovered and how it all fit together.

Chances are you may disagree with everything written in it, but it's just a suggestion if you want to widen your view point, or at least read a bit about what the other side think. I'd recommend it to all Christians and other faiths who want to understand a non-faith scientist's view of life, the universe and everything.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 05:18 PM

Im not a splitter! I had to meet with my superviser about my feckin thesis. So very quickly, the age of the universe was established by radiometric dating. Have a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formation_and_evolution_of_the_Solar_System#Estima tion_of_age

Additionally:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_the_Earth

Thanks Ninja, some very interesting reading there. Takes a few goes through to understand what is being said.

From what i can see they gauged the age of the earth by doing uranium-lead dating on the zircon they found in Australia.

However I still think they are taking the same assumptions as carbon dating.

1. That it is a closed system and the samples have never had any outside influence, which I find hard to believe that after 4 billion years that nothing could have interferred with the material, changing it's makeup.

2. They are assumming that no lead existed in the samples at the start 4 billion years ago. How can they know this? Surely if there was lead already in the zircon, it would screw things up a bit

3. They are assumming that the process of decay stays at the same rate and has done for 4 billion years. Everything else in nature is open to change in process speeds by outside influences, heat, cold, radiation, erosion, etc. Why would uranium-lead decay stay the same?

Those are pretty big assumptions that are being made. They are fine for theorising but are certainly not a basis for claiming something to be proven.

The only think I can think it like in layman's terms is like walking into a room with a burning candle. You can tell how fast it is burning, and when it will burn out but you have no idea how big it was when it started. Maybe it was burning twice as fast when you weren't in the room.

Jonnyc

October 11-2007, 05:21 PM

Conor

October 11-2007, 05:21 PM

Early catholic church is well known for it's drastic manipulation of scriptures. They did this so it was easier to exert their power. The early catholic church was a more of a political and economic super power than a church. The deamonising of certain figures in the bible(s) is one way they did this. A prime example of this is the portrayal of Mary Magdelin, and the general deamonising of women- the catholic church was (and still is) male dominated so they stripped out pretty much all references to women in the bible and what they left in was almost invariably negative.

As I've said I'm happy to let people believe what they want to, and I'm open minded enough to objectively listen to their arguments. But the major problem is that the main reason d'etre of religion is to give certain members of society power and control over the resto f said society. It's evil.

jimjam

October 11-2007, 05:23 PM

A prime example of this is the portrayal of Mary Magdelin, and the general deamonising of women- the catholic church was (and still is) male dominated so they stripped out pretty much all references to women in the bible and what they left in was almost invariably negative.

Well I think we can all agree that was a good move ;-)

The gospel of mary magdelene would be another one of those silly gospels.

kenny

October 11-2007, 05:25 PM

See one of my posts above about carbon 14 decay. That's the thing about radioactive decay. It is random, but predictable. And indeed "when you weren't in the room" the material was decaying faster. It'sExponential decay (Wiki again) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponential_decay).

Rick B

October 11-2007, 05:31 PM

The bible has undergone constant revision. The busiest period of change occurred in the hundreds of years after jesus death when Christians tried to incorporate all of the gospels and information relevant to jesus life and death into one book. This didnt prove easy as there were many very contradictory gospels kicking around. An example would be the gnostic gosple of judas which portrays judas as an almost tragic figure figure who is merely obeying jesus wishes as opposed to a back stabbing poo pusher.
Check out the russian orthodox or greek orthodox bibles for an up to date example.

The figure who was most instrumental in the creation of the roman catholic connonical bible was St. Paul, who it turns out never met jesus but decided to write his own gospels based on "visions" or being mental. He is the person most directly responsible for removing gospels that were contradictory to his new christian church. He decided which gospels were "gospel" (pardon the pun) and which gospels were hereticla nonsense, even though they may well have been written by jesus apostles.

As Ive written earlier it wasnt until emperor constantine converted to christianity (pauls version) 200 years later that christianity began to flourish. Constantine used the military might of rome to wipe out the “sects” or “cults” within christianity who believed in the wackier gospels of the apostles. He also passed laws forbidding jews from owning christian slaves, forbidding the circumcision of slaves, and banning christians from converting to judaism.

Also the bibles treatment of say the devil/satan has been a constantly evolving process, he went from being an angel who read out your sins before god to overlord of all thats evil, through a process of manipulation. This was I believe to get around the problem of free will. God gives man free will - man kills man. God made man so god killed man?? The simple way around this problem, oh the devil made man do it.

Suppose it's hardly worth debating but here's a link for you to look at which would say historical evidence is very much in favour of the bible we have.
http://www.allabouttruth.org/origin-of-the-bible.htm