How Incredibly Wrong Flood Theory Is

Pat Condell with his biting wit discusses the myth of Noah’s flood

I am constantly surprised by the creationists inability to let go of the debunked crap they are using as proof that a world-wide flood happened.

They just won’t accept that ALL the relevant sciences agrees, there was no flood. Get over it folks…come into the 21st. century

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Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has

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More Catholic Sex Scandals

Well, once again folks the Catholic Church demonstrates just how holy and spiritual they are, and proved once again that the Catholic policy on sex and priests and nuns is derailing the Church. I’ll bet if they look real close at the Bible they will find there really isn’t any Biblical reason to keep their priests celibate.

Full story here

“DUBLIN – After a nine-year investigation, a commission published a damning report Wednesday on decades of rapes, humiliation and beatings at Catholic Church-run reform schools for Ireland’s castaway children.”

“The investigation of the tax-supported schools uncovered previously secret Vatican records that demonstrated church knowledge of pedophiles in their ranks all the way back to the 1930s.”

“A climate of fear, created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment, permeated most of the institutions and all those run for boys. Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from,” Ireland’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse concluded.”

“The Catholic religious orders that ran more than 50 workhouse-style reform schools from the late 19th century until the mid-1990s offered public words of apology, shame and regret Wednesday. But when questioned, their leaders indicated they would continue to protect the identities of clergy accused of abuse — men and women who were never reported to police, and were instead permitted to change jobs and keep harming children.”

“The report found that molestation and rape were “endemic” in boys’ facilities, chiefly run by the Christian Brothers order, and supervisors pursued policies that increased the danger. Girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.”

I don’t know about you, but I’ll bet members/officials of the Catholic Church have been doing this for two thousand years and in every nook and cranny on earth where they operate.  We even have historical records of early Popes engaging in sexual no-no’s.   If you keep track of church related sex and pedophile scandals…you have to wonder if these people really think that God is watching, or do they know there is no God and they don’t have to worry.  It goes on daily, and unfortunately, in all Christian denominations.

Does anyone have any ideas as to how these sexual predators in the churches can be crushed and made to see how wrong this is?

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Who Wrote the Gospels?

“Enterprising spirits responded to this natural craving by pretended gospels full of romantic fables, and fantastic and striking details; their fabrications were eagerly read and accepted as true by common folk who were devoid of any critical faculty and who were predisposed to believe what so luxuriously fed their pious curiosity. Both Catholics and Gnostics were concerned in writing these fictions. The former had no motive other than that of a Pious Fraud.” Catholic Encyclopedia

How true are the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John? Can you trust them to be genuine and inspired?  Well, for starters, they were not written by the Apostles Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  We don’t actually know who wrote them, but the men who did, did not know Jesus first hand, they were writing from oral stories being passed along.  They were originally written in the Greek language from 30 to 65 years after Jesus was crucified.  It is doubtful that any of the original Apostles could write Greek.  In the world at that time reading literacy was probably 10% or less, writing literacy 2% to 3% and we don’t know that any of the Apostles were literate outside of their native Aramaic.

Outside of the Gospel of Matthew no other author, Biblical or otherwise, mentions that King Herod slaughtered children around Bethlehem or anyplace else in his kingdom. It seems to be a story made up by Matthew alone, perhaps like John makes up the account of Jesus’ death, to make some kind of theological point.

In Luke we have the story of an empire-wide census that has people traveling to birth places of their 1000 year removed ancestors…in itself a pretty silly premise.  We happen to have very good records of the reign and times of Caesar Augustus, and there is no mention at all, outside of Luke, of such a census at anytime. Why on earth would Joseph or any other citizen of the empire have to return to an ancestral home they probably didn’t even know? Can you imagine the economic upset this would cause?  I really doubt that Caesar Augustus was that stupid.

Another thing to consider is that Luke mentions that Quirinius was governor of Syria when Jesus was born.  The other gospels say that Jesus was born during Herod’s reign.  We know from several other historical sources, including Tacitus and Josephus and from several ancient inscriptions that Quirinius did not become governor of Syria until 6 AD, or 10 years after Herod died.

The genealogy of Jesus is also problematical. Matthew and Luke are the two gospels that give the family line of Jesus; one of the problems is that they disagree.  Both of them trace his lineage through Joseph to the Jewish ancestors, but when you get to the end they disagree as to who is Josephs father, patrilineal grandfather, and great-grandfather.  In Matthew the family line goes from Joseph to Jacob to Matthan to Eleazar to Eliud and into the past.  In Luke it goes from Joseph to Heli to Mathat to Levi to Melchi and on into the past.

Another problem that is as big as the genealogy lineage is the ancestral heritage.  Jesus was supposed to be in the line of David.  The line of David comes through Joseph, but Joseph was not the father of Jesus, God was.  Luke explicitly says that the bloodline is of Joseph, not Mary.  There is no blood of David in Jesus. The two authors of the genealogies, of course, had no idea that their gospels would end up in a Bible and subject to side-by-side comparisons.

We are pretty certain that Mark was the first of the gospel writers and that Matthew and Luke got many of their stories from him…that is why there are so many verbatim agreements between them. In the story of the baptism of Jesus; Matthew, Mark, and Luke all agree that Jesus left immediately for the wilderness.  John writes that on the next day Jesus was gathering his disciples around him and launched into his public ministry by turning wine into water.

Depending on which gospel you read Judas either hangs himself in remorse over betraying Jesus or he falls down and his bowels spill out over the ground.  Matthew has him hanging, Luke in his writing in Acts has Judas falling and spilling his guts.  There is major disagreement on two other points of the Judas story.  Who purchased the field where he died…the Priests (Matthew) or Judas (Acts), and why was it called the field of blood…because it was purchased with blood money (Matthew) or because Judas bleed all over it (Acts).

We don’t have originals (autographs) of any of the four gospels, only copies, and in many cases these are copies made centuries later.  For one part of the resurrection narrative scholars are pretty certain that the final twelve verses of Marks Gospel are not original and were added by scribes in a later generation.  Three of the gospels have different endings for Jesus’ last words or time on the cross.

Another bunch of discrepancies is to be found in the resurrection stories of the Apostles.  There seems to be very little agreement to any of them.  All four agree that on the third day after the crucifixion Mary went to the tomb and found it empty, but on practically all other details they disagree.

Who went to the tomb?
Mary alone  (John)
Mary and another Mary (Matthew)
Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Jesus and Salome (Mark)
Women who had accompanied Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem…maybe Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary mother of James and others. (Luke)

Had the stone already been rolled away from the tomb?
Yes (Mark)
An Angel rolled it away while the women were there (Matthew)

What or Who did they see there?
An Angel (Matthew)
A young man (Mark)
Two men (Luke)
No one (John)

What were the women told?
Tell the disciples to go to Galilee where Jesus will meet them. (Mark)
Remember what Jesus had told them while in Galilee, that he would die and rise again. (Luke)

Then the women tell the disciples what they heard and saw (Matthew)
They do not tell anyone (Mark)
These two different stories will have great significance later that appears to be irreconcilable.

If they tell someone, who is it?
The eleven disciples (Matthew)
The eleven disciples and “others” (Luke)
Simon Peter and another anonymous disciple (John)

What do the Disciples do?
Nothing because Jesus immediately appears to them (Matthew)
They do not believe the women (Luke)
They go to the tomb to see for themselves (John)

Remember that the writers of these stories had no idea that their works would end up side-by-side in a single book.  The gospels aren’t written by who they say they are and there are many many discrepancies.

Do these books testify to an “inerrant word of God” being passed down?

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Who Actually Wrote the Bible?

Who wrote the New Testament?
Of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament only eight of them are probably written by whom they are ascribed to. Of the eight; seven are the undisputed letters of Paul, and the other is the Revelations of John, although we don’t know for sure which John it was.  In the nineteen that are of disputed authorship, some are hotly argued over, such as; 2 Thessalonians, James, and Peter, and for some there is scarcely any debate over they’re being forgeries at all, such as; 1 Timothy and 2 Peter.

Doubts about the authorship of some of the books that became the canon were expressed in early Christian times, but were mostly dismissed or suppressed. Starting in the early nineteenth century however critical analysis and scholarship on the Bible expanded greatly and some amazing facts started coming out.  One of which is the doubtful authorship or forgeries to be found in a book that heretofore had been almost universally accepted to be inerrant.

In the early Christian congregations there was no Bible to draw from, so they used letters and scholarly papers by followers or early converts to hold services and gain knowledge of this shiny new religion.  Anything written by Apostles or disciples was highly valued and even in those times there were people who would take advantage of “market conditions”.  Early scripture was passed from church to church so many people could see, hear, and learn from it.

Another phenomenon of the times was slightly diverse, or sometimes, hugely different understandings of what the Jesus revelation was all about, and many different groups with different understandings formed and expanded…all needing material to use in their services.  A large number of the books used in the new churches were in fact written by people who falsely claimed to be Apostles so they could deceive their readers to accept the views they wanted.

As a result of all this counterfeit and forged “Scripture” it took well over three hundred years for church leaders to decide on an approved book that all could use. Another thing being fought over was whose version of Christianity was the right one.  Was it to be the Ebionites or the Marcionites or one of the several Gnostic groups or the Proto-Orthodox?  Of course we all know that the Orthodox side was the winners, but many lives were taken and much blood spilt over very small theological differences in the meantime.

The Proto-Orthodox writers in those days such as Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Hippolytus, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, and Tertullian shaped our views of the emerging Christianity and turned the Proto-Orthodox into the Orthodox.  By taking divergent views from the Ebionites and the Marcionites they came up with Jesus being both man and God, instead of one or the other, and this became the Orthodox view.  It’s not known precisely where the concept of Trinity came from, although some think that Constantine first forwarded the concept.

There remain a number of early Christian writings left among us. Some of these are known as the Apocrypha and they didn’t have enough votes to be canonized and others are called Pseudepigraphical, they are known forgeries.  Many other papers and writings were suppressed or destroyed by the early church fathers.

Dialogue with Religion

Hello again quickbeamoffangorn,

Nice “talking” with you again.

You write:
“…The Bible’s purpose is to pass on a compact MORAL message…”
“…The Gospel of John’s main point isn’t historically accurate date’s of Christ’s death. If you focus on that you’ve missed the main point. St. John is demonstrating that Christ dies on the cross at the same time as the passover lambs are sacrificed in the temple. Therefore Christ is the true lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. The other three Gospel authors show the last supper before Christ dies on the cross and St. John has it prior to to demonstrate a theological point not a historical one…”

So that’s your theory? When I read stories I expect a certain continuity of scene.  For one person to say one thing and another to say something that totally contradicts the first, makes me wonder about the “truthiness” of what is being written. I expect Christians to take certain liberties with explanation or apologetics with awkward scriptures, but there is a line….:-)

You write:
“…For me that demonstrates integrity of the message….”

My, my.

You write:
“Sorry your likes didn’t have anything prior to the 16th century, so I’ll take it that you don’t mean “early ages of the church”. To be early would mean 30 A.D. up through 650 A.D. Middle would be 650 to 1500 A.D.”

Below is from an earlier post of mine:

“William Lecky wrote in 1877 in his book, A History of European Morals

“If we consider the actual history of the Church since Constantine, we shall find no justification for the popular theory that beneath its influence the narrow spirit of patriotism faded into a wide and cosmopolitan philanthropy. A real though somewhat languid feeling of universal brotherhood had already been created in the world by the universality of the Roman Empire.

In the new faith the range of genuine sympathy was strictly limited by the creed. According to popular belief, all who differed from the teaching of the orthodox lived under the hatred of the Almighty and were destined after death for an eternity of anguish … The eighty or ninety sects into which Christianity speedily divided, hated one another with the intensity that extorted the wonder of Julian and the ridicule of the pagans in Alexandria, and the fierce riots and persecution that hatred produced appeared in every page of ecclesiastical history.

The Donatists, having separated from the orthodox simply on the question of the validity of the consecration of a certain bishop, declared that all who adopted the orthodox view must be damned, refused to perform their rites in orthodox churches which they had seized till they had burnt the altar and scraped the wood, beat multitudes to death with clubs, blinded others by anointing their eyes with lime, filled Africa, during nearly two centuries, with war and desolation, and contributed largely to its final ruin.

The childish almost unintelligible quarrels between the Homoiousians and the Homoousians … filled the world with riot and hatred. The Catholics tell … how three thousand people perished in the riots that convulsed Constantinople when the Arian bishop Macedonius superseded the Athanasian Paul … In Ephesus, during the contest between St. Cyril and the Nestorians, the cathedral itself was the theater of a fierce and bloody conflict … Later, when the monophysite controversy was at its height, the palace of the emperor at Constantinople was blockaded, the churches were besieged, and the streets commanded by furious bands of contending monks.”

Regarding populations and histories in early Europe; I bow to your superior knowledge on the subject and I will study the subjects much more.

Russia is a little more problematical…I don’t see them falling for the Muslim shtick anytime soon”

You answer:
“You’d be mistaken, 40% of the Russian army will be Muslim by 2025.”

Knowing Russia’s past problems with Muslim terrorists, I would like to see your source on this matter. The Russian government I know is really secular and puts up with no religious hi-jinks.

You write:
“King of the North & King of the South – so now your using scripture(which you claim is unreliable and can’t be taken literally) and use the Book of revelations as factual to disprove it? SAY AGAIN;>)”

Sometimes I like to take currant world events and filter them through scriptures from the Bible to see how they fit. Keeps my mind awake and agile. 🙂

You write:
“Given the increase in atheist in this country you’ll have no one to blame but the secular humanist for the mess. Again Catholicism will clean up after you just as we did after Imperial Rome.”

Hey, secular humanists and atheists and non-believers account for less than 20% of the population here…can’t blame them for the messes.  If we had our way religion would be banned (another prophecy from the Bible to be fulfilled before Armageddon) and most of today’s problems would go away.
Don’t send us into another Dark-Age period. And really, you Catholics need to stop giving corporal punishment for spiritual misdeeds.  Remember He’s a God of love. 🙂

Peace  twom

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Science, Church, Death by Religion, Islam, Catholics

I welcome back a debating opponent (friendly) We have been in discussion off and on for a couple years.  He is Catholic and I generally come down hard on them (fundamentalists also)

Hi quickbeamoffangorn,

I didn’t know you were gone, but welcome back.  I have missed you and your intelligent replies. I hope all is well with you and yours. 🙂

You write:
“Just remember that the church gave more financial aid and social support to science than any other and like all other institutions combined over the past 6 centuries.
And you wouldn’t even have the scientific method without Franciscan monk Roger Bacon & Bishop Robert Grosseteste of Lincoln.”

I know and understand that the Catholic Church has supported science for many years and that they have many people of the cloth involved in science. I commend them for that (not that my commendation would mean anything to them).  I would however dispute that they have given more than anyone else combined, unless you mean just other religious sects combined.

You write:
“Your wasting your time attempting to undermind the Bible, when its the interpretation of the Christian Fundementalist that’s mistaken.”

I agree wholeheartedly that the Fundamentalists interpretation of a literal Bible is wrong.  I am really not trying to undermine the Bible…all I do is point out all the discrepancies and misinformation that is already there. It undermines its own authority without my help.  Just found one today…seems Mark and John can’t agree on what day Jesus died…did he die on Passover or on the day of preparation for Passover?

You write:
“That’s a kinard with not a shread of evidence.”  Your reply to my assertion that many thousands or millions of Christians were killing each other in the early days.

“As someone from the British Isles you should know how good your people have been historically at spinning history. Being Irish-American I know these things ;>)”

Going to these sites below will fill you in on the early days of Christian wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Wars_of_Religion
Don’t worry that they’re from Wikipedia; they are right on this, and the facts can be checked against other websites…

Religion today is every bit as violent and dangerous as it was in the Dark and Middle-Ages. Within the last fifteen to twenty years the following religious conflicts have killed millions of people.

Palestine–Jews vs. Muslims
Balkans-Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians & Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims
Northern Ireland-Protestants vs. Catholic
Kashmir-Muslims vs. Hindus
Sudan-Muslims vs. Christians and Animists
Nigeria-Muslims vs. Christians
Ethiopia and Eritrea-Muslims vs. Christians
Sri-Lanka-Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus
Indonesia-Muslims vs. Timorese Christians
Caucuses-Russian Orthodox vs. Chechen Muslims and Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians
India vs. Pakistan-Muslim vs. Hindu-they have already fought 3 wars against each other and now both of these countries have nuclear weapons.
This list above is taken from a earlier post of mine.

I am not from the British Isles…my ancestors were.  I was born and live in the States.

You write:
“The Black Legend still lives and it seems to fit your predisposed outlook. The population of all of Europe in 650 A.D. was 6 million. The church didn’t even have an army at the time.”

I don’t think they needed an army seeing as how they were their own source of laws and always had the local gendarmes to order about.

Population Estimates (in millions) at specified times 500-1450

AREA 500 650 1000 1340 1450

1. Greece/Balkans        5       3       5       6      4.5

1. Italy                 4       2.5     5       10     7.3

1. Spain/Portugal        4       3.5     7       9      7

Total – South 13 9       17 25 19

France/Low countries  5       3       6       19     12

1. British Isles         0.5     0.5     2       5      3

1. Germany/Scandinavia   3.5     2       4       11.5   7.3

Total – West/Central 9 5.5     12 35.5 22.5

1. 5       3

—Russia                             6       8      6

—Poland/Lithuania                   2       3      2

1. Hungary               0.5     0.5     1.5     2      1.5

Total -East 5.5 3.5     9.5 13 9.3

TOTAL EUROPE 27.5 18 38.5 73.5 50

Sorry the list did not translate well, just pick the year on top by position and follow down by position (left to right, column one, two, three, four, five)

The information above is taken from Josiah C. Russell, “Population in Europe:, in Carlo M. Cipolla, ed., The Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. I: The Middle Ages, (Glasgow : Collins/Fontana, 1972), pp 25-71  http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/pop-in-eur.html

You write:
“I’d also think a lot more about how Islam is going to control your intellectual property since most of secular western Europe has lost the literal will to live. Within 35 years there will not be any British, French, Spanish, German, Italian Russia or Polish left in the world. Your breading your selves into no-existence.”

Yes that is a real possibility. England and Ireland are already headed down that road.  Seems there will be Heresy laws on the books soon. Russia is a little more problematical…I don’t see them falling for the Muslim shtick anytime soon.  The actual problem is that the Europeans are not breeding and the Muslims are reproducing in very large numbers.  In the varied countries they live in they will be able to put their own candidates in political offices before long. In England they already are able to influence local and some national laws (i.e. heresy)

You write:
“But your evil arch enemy the Catholic church has already move to the global south where they still believe in life and we’ll rebuild western civilization AGAIN. And they’ll be someone like you in 300 years blaming the Catholic church on the fall of modern civilization.”

I don’t consider the Catholic Church my arch enemy…I pretty much blame them all for the modern day problems.  At the present time I consider Islam the NO.1 arch enemy of the whole world. We are probably seeing the King of the North and the King of the South lining up for the next 10 to 20 years. If that happens, as it almost seems sure to, once again religion will be responsible for millions/billions of deaths.

Will not blame just the Catholic Church…But all religions in general.

I’ve already taken the purple pill.  🙂

Good to “talk” to you again qboa.

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The Book of Genesis is a Fraud

The Book of Genesis is a Fraud

You know, the further I investigate the Christian religion and survey the timelines and civilizations that were flourishing around the Levant and Mesopotamian areas, in the supposed time of Adam and Eve, the more I realize that the creationist people at Answers in Genesis (AiG) are right in their most loudly proclaimed message.  The whole truth or lie of the Bible and the Christian religion is depended on that single chapter of Genesis. The information given in this seminal work of Christianity absolutely has to be true or the whole house of cards falls apart.

AiG and their brethren, the hundreds of evangelical fundamentalist sects out there, have to have this key grounding to their beliefs or the whole theological mess makes no sense.

The earth and the universe have to be only 6,000 to 10,000 years old; otherwise their Noah’s Flood and ‘Flood Geology’ story falls apart because it is dependent on the figuring of generations since Adam.  The Tower of Babel explanation is connected to the timing of the spread of language and the 6 procreating passengers of the Ark. The story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden play the most important part of all.

All of these stories intertwine and depend on each other to shore up the modern day exegesis of the Christian faith as expressed by evangelical fundamentalism.  The drama that is to follow Genesis has to have the elements of this first chapter in it to make sense, for Jesus mentions both Adam and Eve and Noah in the New Testament scriptures.

Matthew 24:37-39: (Jesus speaking) “But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

Matthew 10:4: (Jesus Speaking) “And he said unto them, ‘Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female?”

It needs to be mentioned that of course Jesus had the Hebrew ‘Bible’ (Tanakh) to read in his time on earth, as all the old stories, including Genesis, had been recorded and saved by Hebrew scribes around 500 to 600 BC, probably during or just after the exile. So if Jesus were not the Son of God or God Himself (that Trinity myth gets me so confused) and have firsthand knowledge of these happenings, at least He would know the story and know it was part of His heritage

After the flood subsided and the sons and daughters-in-law of Noah (Noah had no other children according to the Bible) spread over the earth they of course were to multiply and subdue the earth again, and they all spoke one language, as they came from the same land and family.  This ties the Tower of Babel story inextricably to the Noachian Flood.  If a normal person were to hear or read the stories of Genesis (and who hasn’t?) and our beginnings without applying any basic reasoning skills or knowledge of what’s going on in the world now, I think the normal response is to believe they are reporting actual historical happenings.

These stories in Genesis and the other Biblical writings of the Hebrews of the Old Testament and the later scribbling of Paul and other writers of the New Testament have been pushed upon the Western world as an absolutely-totally-accurate description of how our world and humanity began.  Well they have to do this because we’re talking about ‘The God of Everything’ and it’s not possible that He could be wrong, if He is found to be wrong then He has no real authority or potency…in fact He would not be a God.

For two thousand years they have pretty much got away with it.  In the Dark Ages after the downfall of Rome and in the Middle Ages up till around the 1800’s there was little-to-no resistance to the Christian world-view and in fact you could get into serious trouble by actually speaking out about and denying the truth of God, Jehovah, Yahweh and Jesus. Actually, in some places you could get into serious trouble up into the 1900’s for sins against God.

The church and its leaders were quick to protect their turf and muzzle any dissent or opposition to their perceived “Truth.” It is factual recorded history that many many thousands, maybe millions of human were killed in the establishing and early continuation of Christianity.  Many Popes and early leaders of the ‘Mother Church’ were totally depraved and preyed on their flocks, much wealth was stolen and put into church vaults and Cathedrals and buildings and to supporting extravagant lifestyles of the elite.  All in all, the rise of the Christian faith has been a bloody non-Godly event in our human history.

Now, the Christian faith and its sourcebook, the Bible, is facing increasing pressure to prove itself to be a religion of truth or actual relevance as more and more evidence of our earth’s history and the history of mans beginnings is coming into focus. When this Bible was written I doubt there was much thought given to us humans eventually being able to figure out what actually-really happened in our past.  The Hebrews were writing in a time of mythical constructs and beliefs, they had already been through a number of gods before and none of them proved to be strong enough or able to bring the people together. A synthesis was needed.  The Egyptians and Sumerians were next door so to speak and they had pretty well developed theories of godship…Hmmm.

There are many methods to date old artifact, and dating only as far back as 4,000 or 5,000 BC is totally easy and totally doable by a plethora of dating methods that can be easily cross referenced, and for a lot of the times, there are written records.  Egypt and the Mesopotamian area of this planet are arguably the most studied, measured, and scrutinized places on earth. Archaeology has been going on in the Holy Land and surrounds forever, it seems. Scholarly men and women have been digging up and analyzing every sign of ancient habitation for over 200 years there.  We have a tremendous store of factual data on the real history and goings on in this area of the earth.

The Bible says that the earth was created in 6 days and that Adam and Eve were created on the last day…or maybe the first day…depends on your interpretation.  The religious right says this was 6,000 years ago, plus or minus a few years

It is an easily checked fact that Egypt in the Nile valley and Sumeria in Mesopotamia were functioning city states/civilizations at this time.  A little harder to find, but the facts are out there, is that the Indus Valley Civilization in parts of what is modern day Pakistan and India and the Chinese civilization in Asia were flourishing at the Biblical time in which God was supposedly creating the earth, our solar system, the whole universe, and Adam and Eve. You have to wonder what these people were thinking… 🙂

The Sumerian civilization lasted from the first settlement in Eridu in the Ubaid period in the late 6^th. millennium BC through the Uruk period in the 4^th. millennium BC and the Dynastic period of the 3^rd. millennium BC until the rise of Babylon in the early 2^nd. millennium BC.  These dates are not disputed by archaeologists who work in the field, and are fully supported by many different methods of dating…in short, these are facts.  The Sumerians already had a pantheon of gods as evidenced by their artifacts and ruins, but that did not include Jehovah or Yahweh.  The plains of Shinar and the Tigris and Euphrates fall into this real estate, and some say the Garden of Eden was in this area.  So why didn’t the Sumerians know of our God?

In Egypt, by about 5500 BC, small tribes that were living in the Nile valley developed into a series of unique cultures that demonstrated a firm understanding and control of agriculture and animal husbandry. They can be identified by their unique pottery and personal items they produced, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in Upper Egypt, the Badari, was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper.

In southern Egypt, the Naqada culture, similar to the Badari, began to expand along the Nile by about 4000 BC. Over a period of about 1000 years, the Naqada culture developed from a few small farming communities into a powerful civilization whose leaders were in complete control of the people and resources of the Nile valley.  By 3100 BC Upper and Lower Egypt were unified under Narmer and he became the first king or pharaoh of the First Dynasty.  For nearly 3,000 +- years after this event Egypt was the center of civilization

Again, as in Mesopotamian ages, the Egyptian ages are easily found and cross checkable by different methods and held to be true by working archaeologists and other scientists all over the world.  These ages are known facts as opposed to the myths written by a tribe of wandering Hebrew sheep/goat herders.

So what do you think the reaction of the average ancient Egyptians would be to God/Yahweh/Jehovah moving to and fro across the earth while they were trying to farm it and build monuments and such? Those Egyptians were around then, of that there is no doubt at all.  What were the Sumerians thinking as this God/Jehovah/Yahweh was flying around setting up the Garden and making the “first” humans in the middle of their farm fields and interfering with their building of the first true cities.

Something seems to be incompatible and out of place here.  The actual-real-physical evidence says there was no “Garden of Eden” here and that humans had been around for many thousands of years before.

So there was no actual-real-physical creation of Adam and Eve anywhere near 4,000 BC in or around the Middle Eastern area. If in fact there is a God who created the first Humans he did not make them there, and he did not make them in or about 4,000 BC…and we can prove it.  Christians have a book written by a tribe of sheep/goat herders that has many-many errors of dating and impossible goings on.  This book has no more reality attached to it than the works of Jainism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, or any other religion. It has no more claim to be true than any other.  Actually less if you factor in how much scholarship has been expended on it and come up with no factual proofs of its beginnings

What happens if the story of Adam and Eve is proven wrong? Do we just say ho-hum and go about our business, but still believe in Christianity, still believe in the divinity of Jesus? Do we still believe in Angels and magic?

The circumstantial evidence is overwhelming that the creation of Adam and Eve is not a real historical event and that the Bible timeline in relation to the beginnings of humanity and the earth is just wrong in all ways…it is all made up by our human ancestors…there is no truth there.

When was Jesus ?

Jesus was arguably the most famous person who ever lived. His birth, life, and death are written about in the most famous and bestselling book of all time, and tens or hundreds of thousands of priests, pastors, ministers, and common folk speak of, and tell stories and write of his life and ministry every day.

• Jesus was born either around 8-6-4 BC or 6-7 AD;  A 15 year spread
• Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist during John’s ministry, which according to Luke 3:1-2 began in the “15th year of Tiberius” (around 28-29 AD) and may have lasted up until CE 32
• Jesus’ ministry lasted around one (1) year, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, or three (3) years if you believe the Gospel of John
• Jesus was executed by Pontius Pilate, the governor of Iudaea province between 26 and 36 CE
• Jesus was raised from the dead “on the third day”, and appeared to the disciples and others; and according to Mark 16:19, Luke 24:51, and John 20:17, ascended to heaven.

• 8 BC – Suggested birth (earliest estimate based on Matthew)
• 5 BC/4 BC – Herod the Great’s death
• 6-7 AD– Suggested birth (latest), Census of Quirinius
• 26/27 AD – Suggested death (earliest), Pontius Pilate appointed governor of Iudaea  Province
• 36/37 AD – Suggested death (latest), Pilate removed from office

Luke’s account of the census (Luke 2:1-6) reads as follows:
“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled. This was the first enrollment, when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be enrolled, each to his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David . . .”

Quirinius was governor of Syria in the years 6 – 7 AD. He did order a census. However, the assumption that Jesus was born in the year of Quirinius’ census (6 AD) leads to irreconcilable chronological problems in the later events of his life. It is highly unlikely that Jesus was born in the year of Quirinius’ census…most scholars put Jesus’ birth around 4 BC, a good ten years before the Quirinius census.

There was no census of the whole world, which basically meant the entire Roman Empire, declared by Augustus; at least, if there were, it’s not mentioned in any Roman documents that have been uncovered so far. The census was of Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea–not Galilee (where Luke puts Joseph and Mary). Quirinius used this opportunity to also conduct a census of Syria.

The notion that each male would have to register in the home town of a remote ancestor is not very believable. The entire world of the Roman Empire would have been turned upside-down. There would surely have been records of such widespread dislocations, and there are none. Most all scholars of the times in question agree that it is not reasonable to think that there was ever a decree that required people to travel for purposes of tax registration.

Why do we have Luke’s account of the family traveling for a census while Mary was pregnant with Jesus?  Luke wanted to report that Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the City of David, in order to fulfill various prophetic interpretations. He also wanted to report that Jesus grew up in Nazareth, presumably for historic reasons. So he wrote the story of Joseph going to Bethlehem where Jesus was born, for a census, and then returning to Nazareth where Jesus was raised.

Matthew does something similar, but has Joseph and Mary living in Bethlehem, and then fleeing to Egypt until Herod died, then returning to Bethlehem, finding another Herod in place, and so moving to Nazareth where there was actually a third Herod, namely Herod Antipas.

So we don’t really know when Jesus was born or died, we have no canonical stories of the early years of the boy, nor any information of his grown up years until he is about 25 to 30 years old and them we have more detailed info for 1 or 3 years and then he dies somewhere around 26 to 37 years AD….How real is this most famous man of all time?  Most of the Mediterranean world was literate at this time… the Jews had been for 600 years or so.  Where is the accurate information, where are his hundreds and hundreds of followers timely journals or testimonials?

Where was Jesus?

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Will We Ever Agree About Religion or Is God Real Part 4

Hi John Andrew, thanks for your reply.

You write:
“After stating that you’re not hung up on pain and suffering, you immediately bring up an argument that says maybe you are! “

And:
“We don’t understand why God ordered the wiping out of certain people groups, but when we judge God for being unjust, we are a lot of things, none of them right, none of them just, and none of them smart. God has much more information than you. He has reasons for the things you complain about that we cannot possibly understand, because we have too small a perspective and our capacity to understand is so much more limited than God’s.”

John I’m sorry I don’t seem to be explaining myself very well.  What I am trying to say here:

“If God and Jesus were preaching a sermon of love and understanding, what the hell is going on with all the so called Christians killing each other for over a thousand years? Is/was this Godlike?

What on earth was the Jewish God thinking when he was going around telling “His” people to kill and maim everyone in sight?

I’m thinking that if you take in and consider all the horrible things that have happened in the history and name of Christianity or YHWH or Elohim or El, or whatever you want to call this God…it’s all a lie…what we have seen and read about is not worthy of a real God…a real God would not allow such a screwed up operation to go on for over 2,000 years and still be in such disarray…unable to agree on anything.

Why do you think we have so many religions and schisms and enclaves and crazy people running around killing each other….”

I’ll put in plainer talk here.  The whole history of the Christian movement seems to be a chimera…fake, wholly made up by men, a figment of some Hebrew sheep/goat herders imagination, phony, a lie, does not fit the real evidence of our known history.  The known history of the beginnings of this religion does not have any signs of being directed or led by a God. We only know what men have done and there is no signs of Godly leadership or help.

I’m not concerned by all the deaths that are on the hands of Christians…I’m just using the history of the genocides that were caused by them as an example of the absence of a God behind the men who were doing all of this in the name of God…no God would do such a thing.  There was never a God behind all the murders and torturing going on…men did this and used “God” as an excuse for doing it. There was never a God anywhere near the early or later Christians.

The church that brought the Scriptures through the Dark and Middle Ages was the Catholic Church and the Popes associated with it.  Read some non-church history of the “Mother Church” and the Popes and leaders of the times.  Your Scripture was handled exclusively by, and redacted by, evil men of the early church for over 1200 years, again a sign that there is no God behind all of Christianity.

This taken together with other things we have learned about the Bible such as; no flood of Noah, no Tower of Babel, no Exodus and consequent parting of the Red/Reed Sea, modern men/women being on earth for 200,000 years, pre-human Neanderthals walking around for over 200,000 years…which pretty much means no Adam and Eve, and if we lose Adam and Eve there is no original sin story for Paul to concoct, or for Jesus to have to expiate our original sin by dying on the cross for.

If there are mis-truths or lies or false information in the Bible, it losses all authority.  If you can’t tell what is true and what is made up (and there really is a lot of made up stuff in there) how can anybody believe it?

You write:
“With respect, let me also caution you on something. God will not be mocked. When you go from asking legitimate questions to angry dismissals of God and his goodness, you commit the very sin for which God threw Satan out of Heaven. You appoint yourself judge over God! Could anything be more absurd?”

John, with respect to you…I don’t believe there is a God to mock. The evidence is nowhere to be found.  If I were to join a religion I would surely do my homework and examine and inspect it. I would study its history both from its own perspective and from an outsider’s viewpoint.  If it claimed to be the only source of Truth and that it had the only “True God” I would surely examine the claims from all sides, and try to divine and verify its “realness”

This God whose name has been at one time or another; Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, El, Baal, Allah, El Elyon, Yeshua, Adonai, El Shaddai, and who knows what else, does not seem to be anything more than an idea. He has evolved from a God that had a wife, to a stern taskmaster who intrudes in the day to day affairs of a tribe of sheep/goat herders and directs these sheep/goat herders to slaughter other tribes, finally to a “Loving God” under the watchful eye of Paul, who totally changes Jesus’ message.

Don’t feel bad for Christianity though. My examination of Islam and Hinduism and Buddhism did not turn up any better.  Although I did not do as thorough an investigation of these religions as I did of Christianity, I can tell you with confidence that they are pretty hokey and infantile also.  The level of violence is pretty high in both Islam and Hinduism, probably at the same level or slightly higher then Christianity, with Buddhism being fairly gentle.

Their stories and God(s) and histories are about as dopey as Christianity’s is, that is to say they don’t make much sense in our modern times. They also are clearly the product of their times and the sophistication and knowledge level of the ancient writers.

Christians are not the problem…religion is.

You write:
“The fact remains that if one is to learn, one must be willing to be taught.”

In my early years I was taught, in my later years I took Bible study, in my ‘now’ years I have taken to self study.  All the old evidence is still there, and new evidence is falling down faster and harder than at any time in history.

I remain open to change, but there must be better evidence behind it than there is now.

twom