Let's talk about Satan

[just me]

Sorry for not responding. I was a little bit busy and these kind of questions require serious thinking and pondering.
But anyway, if you still are willing to talk a bit, I ll try to answer a bit.
Firstly, I have to make sure that you agree with the nature of the christian God and His attributes...

[h=1]Global Christianity — A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population[/h]

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​

 

[Skarekrow]

With regard to mistakes... Even if we will delete all the passages that were supposed to be added later, all the christian doctrine would remain untouched and unchanged. The doctrine of the Trinity is taught and implied in many other biblical passages. And so is the teachings of Jesus with regard to miracles and speaking in tongues...


The Bible doesn't have any explicit or implicit contradictions as far as I know. And there are men more competent and smarter than you and me who tried to prove there are, and they failed. There are reasonable and reliable explications for any apparent contradiction found in the Bible. Morever, most of them aren't even apparent contradictions, there are differences and issues that cause misunderstandings.

But my question to you is...and really honestly I am asking you this... do you really want to understand the Bible ? Because if you already decided that the Bible and Christianity can't be true, then you won't see anything...
I believe Theism can be argumented as a logical and rational worldview that is reliable and the best of all the other worldviews. But to believe in Christianity, only God can reveal this to a man...



You are right. There are some discrepancies between the copies. But not even one of them touch important doctrines. Most of them are copists errors. Hoevewer, the acurracy of the copies of the New Testament exceed any other important documents in history.
Given the fact that there are at least 5,500 copies at least, the margin for accuracy is 96%. This is only 4% discrepancies, and again, there are no important doctrinal changes in it.


Yes, there are various interpretations... there are literalists with their style....yet there is objectivity in all the Bible... like you said, the parables of Jesus were made up stories, but carying important teachings in them.
With regard to creation, I myself don't think its literal sense, but neither I think is a "parable".



Well it could go hand in hand, but I think it's not. I think there are not any evidences for evolution, at all. It is a theory, like creationism. Between the two of them, I chose creationism not because I am a Christian, but because I think is a rational options, much more logical than evolution.
But your position, which I think is called theistic evolution, it could be a valid worldview, I have nothing against it. Evolution guided by God is a much more logical idea than evolution guided by chaos, or by nothing...


I think you don't understant what the Bible is saying here. Only those who believe in Jesus can be saved, Bible clearly states that. Yes, God sent His perfect Son to save the whole world, but He won't save people, and He can't actually, that don't want to be saved.

Here's a quick article for you as I am just on a break at work -
http://news.msn.com/science-technol...human-relative-sets-age-record?ocid=ansnews11
I have a feeling though, that no matter how much scientific proof I hand you it will not make a difference.
I will respond to the rest of your questions when I get home.

 

[Skarekrow]

[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]
Even if you deny the scientific data, and the results contrived from radiometric dating....you have already conceded that there are discrepancies in the Bible...logically one can no longer look at it as an absolutely perfect writing anymore. And understand me please...to me...even if a verse is shown to have been altered slightly, a word changed to mean something similar but still not quite the same...then I will always question what else has been altered. Maybe there are not 10 commandments....maybe he gave them one and that was to love each other....who knows. But to me, and the way I think, it is now faulty and I have to take that into consideration...I personally cannot ignore that, and honestly I don’t know how so many people can and do.
If you would like to discuss the accuracy of radiometric dating we can, but before we go any further with our debates and talks, I need to know if you are just going to continue to deny scientific data on a whim by making statements such as “It isn’t provable” Nothing. Nothing is 100% provable....not even your hand in front of your face according to quantum physics. But the idea Lucy is that I’m pretty sure my hand is in front of my face, just as you are with your hand...we have things that help to prove the ideas of evolution, of dinosaurs, or the age of the Earth, the universe. There is no proof say for a book (the Bible) that any of what you are claiming to happen, actually happened. You see, I have tangible proof, you have stories....and yes, some stories in the Bible have been shown to most likely taken place...such as the star showing the birth of Christ....which has corresponded to a supernova documented by the Chinese and various other countries. But there are correspondences like that in the Quran too...it doesn’t prove the validity of the supernatural actions contained within.
Thoughts?

 

[LucyJr]

Prove it. Not just for a few either. Prove it is universal for all of them. Otherwise you are assuming and are also guilty.

Sory, but I don't understand what you are saying here. You seem to say that I contradict myself somehow, because I'm doing the same think which I accuse scientists of doing. Can you explain, maybe with example ?

What about the possibility that scientists hate creation?

Again I don't understand... I know that scientists actually hate creationism, but this is what you wanted to say?

 

[sprinkles]

Sory, but I don't understand what you are saying here. You seem to say that I contradict myself somehow, because I'm doing the same think which I accuse scientists of doing. Can you explain, maybe with example ?


Again I don't understand... I know that scientists actually hate creationism, but this is what you wanted to say?

Oh? How do you know?

Personally I don't think most hate it. I think there are a few that hate it, and there are others that think it is simply incorrect - big difference. But even I cannot prove this, it is my personal assumption based on what I've seen. I only know what I've seen and read and heard, and there's no guarantee that it is true.

I want to know how you just claim to know something and then fault others for bias.

 

[LucyJr]

Oh? How do you know?

???

Personally I don't think most hate it. I think there are a few that hate it, and there are others that think it is simply incorrect - big difference. But even I cannot prove this, it is my personal assumption based on what I've seen. I only know what I've seen and read and heard, and there's no guarantee that it is true.

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. -----Lewontin Richard

Perhaps they don't really hate it, but surelly they don't like it.

As for the assumptions, check the above quote and see how many assumptions are made, which are based on naturalism, the view that there are only natural causes.
I don't take the dinosaur bones as a fact. Even if you take evolution as a fact - which I don't-, is still a major jump to go from there to the "dating" of dinosaur bones at 65 mil years. This is not sciente, my friend. This is imagination.
As far as you said that I contradicted myself, I disagree entirely on all your counts.

 

[LucyJr]

[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]
Even if you deny the scientific data, and the results contrived from radiometric dating....
If you would like to discuss the accuracy of radiometric dating we can, but before we go any further with our debates and talks, I need to know if you are just going to continue to deny scientific data on a whim by making statements such as “It isn’t provable”

Oh, but I don't deny any radiometric dating, at least the C14 method is very "convenient" for me, as it only works for 40-50 thousands years maximum. The dating for dinosaur bones are made on the expense of some important assumptions, one of them being that evolution is true. Those assumptions are not necessarely made...they are made actually to arrive at the conclusion, namelly that dinosaur bones have at least 65 mil years. That's not very scientific for me, at all. It seems a bit dogmatic, honestly.

you have already conceded that there are discrepancies in the Bible...logically one can no longer look at it as an absolutely perfect writing anymore. And understand me please...to me...even if a verse is shown to have been altered slightly, a word changed to mean something similar but still not quite the same...then I will always question what else has been altered. Maybe there are not 10 commandments....maybe he gave them one and that was to love each other....who knows. But to me, and the way I think, it is now faulty and I have to take that into consideration...I personally cannot ignore that, and honestly I don’t know how so many people can and do.

I think you are a bit harshly with dicrepancies. Please make an effort to understand that is natural for copists to make errors. Well, you will say probably then why God didn't protect the copists for making such errors? Perhaps He didn't wanted to. Because the idea of perfection of the word of God does not reffer to perfection of expression, or perfection of language, or perfection of translation.
I think Biblical inerracy reffers to the teachings of the Bible, not the style that different authors have written. This can be easily shown with regard to different recors of the goespel and ministry of Jesus. Four men, four completely different styles of writting.
As long as the doctrinal teachings of the Bible remain true, which honestly I think it is so, then I don't think anybody has any excuses.

But don't worry, the New Testament manuscripts are 98.5% textually pure. ( not 96%, I think I was wrong) given the incredible number of 24.000 manuscripts. Just check it out. It has been estimated by secular scholars this amount of accuracy.

But that is not the supposed problem. It's obvious we don't have the originals. If we don't have the originals, yes, like you said, we can't prove to you that there are really 10 Comandaments. Yes, nobody can prove you that. Maybe one or 5 of the Comandamensts has been added later, who knows?
Like you said, nothing is 100% provable.

I think Bible can be proven as the supreme document with regard to the accuracy of copies over all the other antic documents, and over any other religious document or book. Not only the accuracy of the copies, but other things also, the amount of arheological and historical proofs. This should tell something to anybody.

But again, this would only prove that Bible is somehow better preserved than other documents, but not the fact that is true

So when it comes to wether the Bible is the Word of God or not, my honest advice would be this: approach it humbly, with the desire to understand it. Pray for this. If this God of the Bible really exist and the Bible is His Word, He will speak to you, undoubtly. This is what the Bible says after all:
You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. - Jeremiah 20:13
Please don't interpret this that I'm preaching to you or something, or that I appeal to the "emotional factor" in a debate. I'm not, at all.
For me, it would be better to believe in Bible on the assurance of God then on some proofs from otside of it. Thoughts?

 

[LucyJr]

[MENTION=5045]Skarekrow[/MENTION]
I will post on why I don't think evolution is true later. I think I have some serious reasons for doing so.

 

[sprinkles]

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, . . . in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated commitment to materialism. . . . we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. -----Lewontin Richard

Perhaps they don't really hate it, but surelly they don't like it.

As for the assumptions, check the above quote and see how many assumptions are made, which are based on naturalism, the view that there are only natural causes.
I don't take the dinosaur bones as a fact. Even if you take evolution as a fact - which I don't-, is still a major jump to go from there to the "dating" of dinosaur bones at 65 mil years. This is not sciente, my friend. This is imagination.
As far as you said that I contradicted myself, I disagree entirely on all your counts.

If this is imagination then what do you propose we should have instead? Fiction??

[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]

I think it is very clear through your reactions in the entire thread, and how these reactions relate to each other that you've already decided the matter a long time ago. Also I think you know that's what I'm pointing to and you don't want to admit to it.

You basically admit that you already think the Bible is fundamentally correct in spite of also admitting that you can't prove anything about it. This makes you worse than the scientist in my opinion.

And I am a scientist, LucyJr. I am one.

Edit:
Also, why don't you prove that Richard Lewontin actually said that quote?

Don't bother, because I already know that you can't prove that he actually said it. Even if you actually heard him say it because maybe you were there, you still can't prove it to me, because I don't know that you were actually there. I'd have to believe you.

What I was trying to tell you is that every scientist must make an assumption, and one assumption is that they can reliably know anything at all. Just like when you quoted Richard Lewontin. Why did you do it? Did you believe that the quote is true? Did you think I would believe it is? Why do you accept this quote as valid, hmm??

It's because in order to get anywhere in life, you some times have to pretend that some things are granted, such as the reliability of a source of text.

In reality you can't even prove that there really ARE scientists who care about evolution. Not that I'm saying that you should doubt it, but I'm saying that really none of us are agnostic.

 

[SealHammer]

Glad to see the echo chamber is still going strong in this thread. There's nothing I love more than watching someone debate not because they are searching for truth, but because they believe they have already found it.

e: Gnosticism: The Great Disease

 

[Rcs6r]

Considering all the coolest of people are in Hell, such as George Carlin and Voltaire, I can only assume Big S is pretty cool too.

 

[LucyJr]

1. Evolution can't acount for the existence of the Laws of Reason.

-No belief is rationally inferred if it can be fully explained in terms of nonrational
causes.

-Since everything in nature can be wholly explained in terms of nonrational causes, human reason (more precisely, the power of drawing conclusions based solely on the rational cause of logical insight) must have a source outside of nature.

-this is because reason canot came from non-reason (non-rational causes).

-If reason came from non-reason it would lose all rational credentials and would cease to be reason.

-in short, if evolution is true(and naturalism), the scenario is that there's no reason and...BUM:loook! sudenly there is reason; it has been argued that this would be self-defeating

I will quote C.S. Lewis on this:

One absolutely central inconsistency ruins [the naturalistic worldview].... The whole picture professes to depend on inferences from observed facts. Unless inference is valid, the whole picture disappears.... Unless Reason is an absolute--all is in ruins. Yet those who ask me to believe this world picture also ask me to believe that Reason is simply the unforeseen and unintended by-product of mindless matter at one stage of its endless and
aimless becoming. Here is flat contradiction. They ask me at the same moment to accept a conclusion and to discredit the only testimony on which that conclusion can be based."
—C.S. Lewis, Is Theology Poetry?

.It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?"
[Chesterton, Orthodoxy;The Suicide of Thought p.33]

"If my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain, I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true ... and hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms." (J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds, p. 209)

2. Evolution openly contradicts The Second Law of Termodinamycs

-it has been argumented by evolutionists that the Second Law does not pose any problems for the origins of life, but I think that's inccorect;

-the idea here is that nature does not increase order, it doesn't organise things, and it certanly does not event preserve order and organisation in any given time;

-in fact, the nature, conform to The Second Law of Termodinamycs, disorder and rondomise things as the time pass by;

-Evolution, with its ever increasing order and complexity, appears impossible in the natural world;

-science can not show that physical process operating under realistic prebiotic conditions can bring about full-fledged cells from nonliving material;

How did life arise from nonliving chemicals, without intelligent intervention, when nonliving chemicals are susceptible to the Second Law?

Yes, I know there are many theories in response to this, the theory of complexities of cristals and other such things. However, I think every one of them fails.

The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
Sir Arthur Eddington- The Nature of the Physical World 1928

3. Evolution can not acount for the new genetic information

-where did the information come from for the first bristles, stomachs, spines, intestines, complex blood circulation systems, intricate mouthpieces to strain special foods out of the water, and so on, when these were supposedly not present in the ancestral species?

-Mutations and natural selection overwhelmingly destroy genetic information and produce creatures more handicapped than the parents - again, the same case for the Second Law:
evolution goes completely against the gain of new genetic information; moreover, mutations and natural selections only get things worse, not better;

Fred Hoyle calculated the chance that biological complexities would develop from simple
mutations and natural selections. The probability is 10 at 40,000, which means is plain imposibility.

4. The lack of transitional forms in the fossil record

The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils....Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study.
Stephen J. Gould - "Evolution's Erratic Pace," Natural History, vol. 86 (May 1987), p. 14.

I think Gould had been generous here, but not really honest. There are, in fact, no dicoveries of any transitional forms in the fossil record.

5. Irreducible Complexity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaVoGfSSSV8

All these arguments I think are valid against evolution. With the exception of the first one, which is philosophical in nature, and the second one, none of the arguments I think totaly refutes evolution as a theory, maybe just establish its credentials as very low. As for the first two, and especially the first one, I think are very sound reasons to deny evolution as a rational theory.

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]

I can tell you that "2. Evolution openly contradicts The Second Law of Thermodynamics" is flat out wrong, because the Second Law refers to Isolated systems. An Isolated system means there is no matter or energy transfer through the system boundary: this is entirely impossible with life forms because they eat, give off heat, and produce waste.

Also, entropy is allowed to decrease locally, and still always increase globally. This is why air conditioners can cool off a room.

"4. The lack of transitional forms in the fossil record"
Is an unfair statement, and is also a bit false. They have found some transitional forms. There's still plenty of gaps, and there always will be because fossils are not easily created, and not all body parts or organs fossilize well. It's unfair to expect otherwise.

Also hardly anyone supports Irreducible Complexity anymore because it's been pretty well scientifically defeated by now. That's a very dated argument. I guess some people haven't caught up...

As for your other points, I don't know enough to address them, and I'm not even sure what the first one is trying to say because it's very gibberish to me. Maybe try cleaning it up a bit.

 

[technics]

And let's start it off with a question, does Satan exist?

No, Satan does not exist. The figure is basically a derivation from Zoroastrianism where gods were summarized into good and evil, one being Ahuda Mazda, the other - I forgot the name. Also, you can realize what an invention this is, if you look into other religions, such as Buddhism, where there is no polarization of good and evil. And some African cultures even developed a theology only based on good, without evil.

If you want to have your feathers ruffled, you should read Nietzsche, and liberate yourself from this lie called the "concept of evil".

 

[SealHammer]

intelligent design

Holy shit you are dumb. How do you get dressed in the morning?

I know that most scientific resources are in English and you don't know English real good, but your lack of understanding does not mean the principles you are disputing are untenable.

 

[Radiantshadow]

Holy shit you are dumb. How do you get dressed in the morning?

I know that most scientific resources are in English and you don't know English real good, but your lack of understanding does not mean the principles you are disputing are untenable.

Ad hominem contributes to neither the quality of debate nor others' willingness to listen. Please, contain yourself.

 

[muir]

Holy shit you are dumb. How do you get dressed in the morning?

I know that most scientific resources are in English and you don't know English real good, but your lack of understanding does not mean the principles you are disputing are untenable.

No he's intelligent and speaks at least two languages

His english is also very good

 

[SealHammer]

Ad hominem contributes to neither the quality of debate nor others' willingness to listen. Please, contain yourself.

Me calling him an idiot is not ad hominem, it's just me being an asshole. When one's argument is predicated on one's faulty understanding of a concept, it is not ad hominem to point that out.

 

[LucyJr]

Holy shit you are dumb. How do you get dressed in the morning?

I know that most scientific resources are in English and you don't know English real good, but your lack of understanding does not mean the principles you are disputing are untenable.

Looks like you have a really funny style of dropping comments from the air without engaging in the discussion. Or are you the moderator?

This has happened since the discussion on the "INFJ myths" thread when I was debating "weirdness" with sprinkles and you thumbed down some of my posts and after that sending me a really nasty private comment. Considering that even sprinkles ( with who I was debating) didn't send me such a comment, why did you do it?


I don't think me being dumb has anything to do with the arguments that I posted... You say you are interested in "Polite and thoughtful debate". The arguments are not my arguments, I didn't invented them. Those arguments are developed by many thinkers in hystory, and yes, most of them being proponents of Inteligent Design theory.

So, in case you don't hate (hopefully) the entire race of Inteligent Design advocates, please, feel free to share what is bothering you so much, and I will try to answer. And we'll see who is the dumb one...

 

[sprinkles]

[MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]

I think you're doing pretty well and that you're not dumb. Maybe you got a couple things wrong but that's easy to do when there are people who propagate wrong views, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics one. That's a pretty common myth and if you trust who you're reading, it can be easy for many to fall into because it sounds like the writer knows what they're talking about.

I've made similar mistakes myself which led me to become far more skeptical of what I read - I don't care if somebody is a doctor, or if they're famous, I still have to approach what they say with caution because I've been burned by not doing so. So, if it happens, I don't see a point in blaming you, I'd rather just try to show you another way.

Also on the note of fossils, we have a lot of them but not nearly as many as there have been creatures. Fossils themselves are rare and many species are probably not fossilized, and many that have been fossilized probably are not found yet. To get an idea of this we only need to compare how many extant specimens there are vs how many actually get fossilized. For example the Pikaia, which used to be thought a flat worm, is now contended to be the predecessor of bony fish - it has the proto spinal cord but does not have bones.

However we only have about 100 Pikaia fossils. That's a very small number! Can you imagine how difficult it must be to make and find a fossil, such that with ubiquitous marine species we only found 100 of one type??

It's not hard to believe that even entire species do not get fossilized because fossilization occurs in sedimentary strata. It has a bias towards bony structures since soft structures decompose more quickly and are more prone to be crushed when covered, or don't even last long enough to mineralize. Not to mention how the specimen dies is important - it has to be not eaten by scavengers and strewn about, nor eaten whole and digested, and both of these are super common in the cycle of death and renewal. Even when ants have a feast they don't often leave much of a corpse behind.