DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE ANY OF THIS?

The Bible has the following either implied or stated as fact:

Our universe was spoken into existence out of nothing…by a floaty thing  in the sky
Plants were created before the sun was.
The first man was created from dust.
The first woman was made from a rib taken from the first man. (we both have the same number of ribs however)
They are in a garden that has ‘magic’ fruit, to make people live forever and be smart.
There is a talking snake.  (did it have legs I wonder)
Incest was used to jump start the population.
There are Angels…good and bad…and demons.
There are giants and Unicorns.
There are witches, wizards and magicians.
There are bad Angels that rape human women.
Human pregnancy/reproduction is possible with no human father. (just like some of the other gods around the time of Jesus).
People can rise from the grave and walk the streets. (Zombies anyone?)
People live as long as 900+ years.
Dinosaurs and people lived together.
God commits genocide by flooding the earth and only saving 8 humans. (apparently the thought of just starting completely over never occurred to Him)
God makes the Sun stay in the sky so a human battle can be completed.
There is a talking, burning bush somewhere in the mountains of the Sinai desert .
There is a talking donkey.
People (other than Moses) can change wooden staffs into live snakes
A man sees Jesus in a beam of light…and all of Jesus’ thoughts and wishes are downloaded to him. (Hollywood Blvd. anybody?)
There is a man that lives inside a fish for 3 days.
Insects are said to have 4 legs (would a God REALLY be this stupid??)
The cure for leprosy is dove blood sprinkled on the toes (REALLY??)
If you position mating livestock in front of a stripped stick, they will produce stripped offspring.

Today we can actually disprove most of these Biblical assertions/stories.

Do mainline Christians really believe any of this is true?  Or is it just the fundamentalists wackos among us.

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God is Magic

If you believe in the Christian God, Jesus, and the Bible, ipso facto you believe in magic; you therefore have to believe in Demons, Spirits, Ghosts, Angels, and supernatural stuff.

Have you ever seen any proof for the above mentioned phenomena?  Has anyone you know well…ever seen any evidence for magic, and can they prove it?

Has there ever been any real history of any people using or controlling magic?

Magic is just like UFO’s…lots of talk, but never any real proofs.

I think the Christian God just went away…long ago…or maybe never was.

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Migratory Humans in North America

Very interesting site with a long list of dates and probable happenings up and down the Mexican, California, Oregon, Washington, and British Colombian coast from a Veeerryyy long time ago. Evidences of Man/Women traveling around this part of the planet from more than 20,000 years ago…way more. The Chinese, Japanese, and other Asiatic people were no doubt visiting and settling in North America, long before the white Europeans came to the East coast.  http://www.telusplanet.net/dgarneau/indian2.htm

I don’t think the last story has been written about the many travels and accomplishments of ancient man/women across the time stream of this earth.

The Biblical story of human Genesis purported to be some 6,000 years ago in the Middle East has occupied and limited our vision for way too much time.  It has caused so much doubt of what the scientists have been saying for hundreds of years. We need to listen to them, as they are telling the real story of humanity.

Humans have accomplished so much more than a lot of people think. We have traveled the globe from early on; invented so much, so early on, but religion keeps trying to hold us back, to stop the advances, to saddle us with non-existent magic and supernatural and demons and the sins (?) of our fore-fathers.

Well anyway, check out the site when you have time, it has some really interesting time-lines. When you come across the geological sea level data, think about all the Native American flood myths.

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Intelligent Design and Science

Interesting find while surfing this morning. The ID people keep claiming they’re all about science, but the never reveal any.

ISSR Statement on the Concept of ‘Intelligent Design’

The authors of this statement constitute a group set up for the purpose by the Executive Committee of the International Society for Science and Religion. Through a process involving consultation with all members of the Society, the statement has now been accepted by the Executive Committee for publication as a statement made on behalf of the Society.

The International Society for Science and Religion is a scholarly society devoted to ongoing dialogue between the sciences and the community of world faiths.  It was established in 2002 for the purpose of promoting education through the support of interdisciplinary learning and research in the fields of science and religion, conducted where possible in an international and multi-faith context.

The society greatly values modern science, while deploring efforts to drive a wedge between science and religion. Science operates with a common set of methodological approaches that gives freedom to scientists from a range of religious backgrounds to unite in a common endeavor. This approach does not deny the existence of a metaphysical realm but rather opens up the natural world to a range of explorations that have been incredibly productive, especially over the last 400 years or so.

The intelligent-design (ID) movement began in the late 1980s as a challenge to the perceived secularization of the scientific community, which leaders of the movement maintained had been coloured with the philosophy of atheistic naturalism. ID theorists have focused their critique primarily on biological evolution and the neo-Darwinian paradigm. They claim that because certain biological features appear to be “irreducibly complex” and thus incapable of evolving incrementally by natural selection, they must have been created by the intervention of an intelligent designer. Despite this focus on evolution, intelligent design should not be confused with biblical or “scientific” creationism, which relies on a particular interpretation of the Genesis account of creation.

We believe that intelligent design is neither sound science nor good theology. Although the boundaries of science are open to change, allowing supernatural explanations to count as science undercuts the very purpose of science, which is to explain the workings of nature without recourse to religious language.  Attributing complexity to the interruption of natural law by a divine designer is, as some critics have claimed, a science stopper. Besides, ID has not yet opened up a new research program. In the opinion of the overwhelming majority of research biologists, it has not provided examples of “irreducible complexity” in biological evolution that could not be explained as well by normal scientifically understood processes. Students of nature once considered the vertebrate eye to be too complex to explain naturally, but subsequent research has led to the conclusion that this remarkable structure can be readily understood as a product of natural selection. This shows that what may appear to be “irreducibly complex” today may be explained naturalistically tomorrow.

Scientific explanations are always incomplete. We grant that a comprehensive account of evolutionary natural history remains open to complementary philosophical, metaphysical, and religious dimensions. Darwinian natural history does preempt certain accounts of creation, leading, for example, to the contemporary creationist and ID controversies. However, in most instances, biology and religion operate at different and non-competing levels.  In many religious traditions, such as some found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the notion of intelligent design is irrelevant. We recognize that natural theology may be a legitimate enterprise in its own right, but we resist the insistence of intelligent-design advocates that their enterprise be taken as genuine science – just as we oppose efforts of others to elevate science into a comprehensive world view (so-called scientism). See the website: Here

Intelligent design is nearly universally condemned as science and as a concept. Most people recognize it for what it really is; a wedge devise to sneak WASP religion into our school systems. The only support for it is from evangelical fundamentalists, Young Earth Creationist (YEC), and some Old Earth Creationist (OEC).

Now proponents of Intelligent Design (ID) are using ‘Stealth Candidates’ who are running for positions on local and state school boards without declaring or admitting that they will advocate teaching ID in schools when elected. They just don’t get it…and they will try anything, including dishonesty, to achieve their goals. That they would use dishonesty in the furtherance of their religious sect speaks volumes about the true value of their faith.

Most people don’t analyze this battle enough, and don’t seem to realize that the ultimate goal of the religious right is to take over our country and remake it into a religious society; kind of like the Dark Ages in Europe when the Catholics ruled, and the strength and direction of your belief…decided whether you lived or died.  A lot of people don’t realize that the religious right has taken control of the Republican Party.

Cognite tute-think about it/use your head.

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Heaven or Hell…God or Satan

Below, in today’s post, I am corresponding with a nice young man named Justin. He is in college and is a very evangelical soul. Although I disbelieve in his worldview, I am happy to ‘talk’ with him. I hope you find our discussion as interesting as I do. You-refers to Justin. Me-refers to me. 😉

You: I’m going to try to ignore possible sarcasm in these questions and answer simply. Refers to post Here
Me: What? Me being sarcastic….Noooo 🙂

Me: Did matter always exist in the universe?
You: God began time. God created matter.
Me: Standard non-believer response…who or what created God?

Me: *Did God always exist in the universe?
You: No, God created time. God created the universe.
Me: Standard response, see above.

Me: Was there ‘nothingness’ everywhere that was filled up with a sentient cloud of electrons or atoms? Or was there absolutely nothing there…but, somehow, something…was a God?
You: There was God. Then he created.
Me: See above.

Me: Were we, and our universe, as we know it, purposely created to ‘glorify’ a cloud of sentient nothingness?
You: We were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Me: Again with the ‘glorify’ thing. What is it with all Gods that we have to glorify them? Doesn’t he realize that the human race has evolved away from the wide-eyed innocence that priests in the past could count on for easy obedience in the flock? The church leaders couldn’t come up with anything better than he needs to be glorified? God doesn’t need to be glorified. Satan doesn’t need to be glorified…this ‘glorified’ crap needs to be re-examined. It sounds like an easy way out of explaining a phenomenon that really needs to be re-examined in the light of our better understanding of the world, and the universe, and human motives. Besides, how is God’s wife (Asherah) going to feel, if we go around glorifying him and leave her out? J

Me: Are we even real? Could we be a dream that a cloud of nothingness is dreaming? Shades of Matrix 🙂
You: We are real. Interestingly, it is the Christian worldview which states that we are real and the laws of nature are unchanging that allows science to take place.
Me: Well, actually I was being a little sarcastic there. The laws of nature, so far, don’t need a God to explain things. They’re a little fuzzy on the very beginning of things, as even I will allow for the possibility of ‘God’ or something having started it (time…the universe), but after it was here, natural processes can account for everything. We still come back to the conundrum of who created the creator. “He was always there” doesn’t cut it in my humble estimation.

Me: Why would a God set up a paradise, with a snake/Satan that he knew would cause Eve to “Sin”? and Why was Satan…the sinner…even around then, or allowed to be in the garden?
You: God was not surprised. He allowed people to do what they did as part of His prearranged plan. God gets all the proper glory and credit in the end.
Me: So, let me get this straight; God, even in the beginning, was setting up this little plot to terrorize and murder mankind? He sets up this drama so the glory and credit will fall on him when we go through this horrible experience that is our human history? Man, that’s Evil with a capitol E. Who needs Satan when we have a God that can plot all of this from the beginning of time? *^{see asterisk below}

Me: How was Satan even considered evil or sinful, when there was no evil or sin existing at the time?
You: Satan began to think of Himself like God. That was wrong. Through Adam the curse of sin entered mankind who was made in the image of God.
Me: Yea, those youngsters that we create get all full of themselves when they hit the teen years. We humans all seem to attribute anthropomorphism to our creations. If we are made in his image, I picture a 6’6″ human shape floating around in space, trying to figure out which end is up. Obviously not true that we are made in his image.

Me: Why was Satan even allowed to be around later in this fairy tale?
You: Not a fairy tale. However, see above comment on prearranged plan.
Me: *See above asterisked comment. That’s really Evil to plan something like that.

Me: Why would an intelligent cloud of nothingness set up the trap for his creations (us), knowing what the outcome would be? Isn’t that kind of like leaving a very sharp butcher knife in front of your one-year-old kid?
You: Not an intelligent cloud of nothingness. He is the Creator. He is God. See comment on prearranged plan.
Me: That God is Evil.

Me: Why would a God even create an evil being?
You: Does cold exist? It is the absence of heat. Does darkness exist? It is the absence of light. Does evil exist? It is the absence of God.
Me: I believe that is flawed logic. You are using physical phenomena that have no relationship to metaphysical reasoning. Yes there is good and evil in this world, and they are opposites in our logic. But, the absence of God does not mean all that’s left is evil? I have no sense of God in my mind, and I am far from evil. In my logic of un-belief, you really have no God directing your actions, and I believe you are probably not evil.

Me: Why is God so directly involved with the killing of so many humans?
You: I do not tell you what to do with your broken microwave. Please be respectful by not telling God how to initiate His justice against a rebellious creation.
Me: Well, the thing is…I’m one of the creatures that your God goes around indiscriminately killing and maiming with His Love. His ‘plan’ as described by various church leaders and evangelical civilians….sucks.

Me: Who tempted Satan to sin…why? If there was no sin before, what was the sin?
You: *Humans did not sin because they were tempted by Satan.* They did so because they chose to do so. You could say they were morally neutral unlike humans today who are inclined towards sin. I am speculating here as I have not done a study on it, but perhaps the angels were created morally neutral.
Me: * I’m sorry, did I miss something here? Didn’t Satan in the form of a snake, tempt Eve to take that fateful bite? Because he is an evil, arrogant, conniving, devilishly convincing fast talker. Here was poor Adam and Eve, literal ‘babes in the woods’ in a world that, to them, was brand new…they had no history to draw on, no instruction classes on the evil ways of some creatures, nothing to base critical decisions on. How gullible are we as young people…before we have had some bad experiences? And, if as you suggest earlier, this is just a pre-arranged plot…that’s just Evil.

Me: If there is no sin in heaven how did Satan sin? Do sins just pop-up, so to speak?
You: You have an incorrect presupposition. Take that away before reading this next sentence. Satan chose to have a rebellious attitude and thus sinned.
Me: Well we know from your exegesis that this was pre-arranged for him to act this way. He was destined from the moment of his creation to be sinful. So I guess God was just setting up this universe and us to be puppets in a play.

ME: What happens if we get to heaven and, God forgive…have a sinful thought?
You: Christians are born again and given a new nature. When in Heaven, there will be no sin. How exactly will that work? There are multiple theories, but I don’t think that is specifically laid out in the Bible. God created the universe. He can handle it.
Me: Ah, there it is. We are born again. The theory that explains it all.

Me: Since there is no visible heaven, will we be among the stars, on earth, another planet, or in our own imagination/minds?
You: Your question has a presupposition. Take that away before reading this next sentence. From my understanding, Earth will be restored and Christians will have access to it and Heaven while the unredeemed will be in Hell.
Me: So the earth will be like new again, and we (well…you) will live on it…and in heaven. Just Christians though. So approximately 40 to 80 billion souls will burn in hell?

Me: Where exactly do you think hell is, and why would a ‘loving God’ want to burn and torture people in it for eternity?
You: Hell is God’s place of justice. God is love. He loves life, therefore he hates murder, Love requires hate in a sense. God is loving and just, therefore Hell must exist. As it is just, it cannot be defined as torture.
Me: I’m sorry, but that’s some really bad logic there. 🙂 I’ll take the last part first: “As it is just, it cannot be defined as torture.” I think that’s what George Bush and Dick Cheney are rationalizing to themselves as they torture people. The rest of what you’re saying here is just so convoluted I can’t even wrap my brain around it enough to reply. I worry about your soul, in a metaphorical way.

Me: Did you ever examine your belief that Santa Claus is not real, and why you think that way? It’s because of the evidence…right?
You: Yes
Me: Give me something real.

Me: Do you Really believe that a ‘Universe Creating God’ would make up this little story of sin and redemption you claim we are all living?
You: No, I do not believe God would make up the story. It is not little either.
Me: You’re right; it’s not little. In most of the above discussion you assert that God did make up the conflict, from ‘the beginning.’ You’re trying to confuse me, right?

Me: Why do you still believe the Bible is the real inerrant word of a God, when you have been shown the many errors in it?
You: Your question has a presupposition. Examined correctly, there are no errors in the Bible. Secondly, I know the perfect God so His Word cannot error.
Me: “Examined correctly.” Those two words speak volumes about Christian Apologetics and the faith in general.

Me: Jesus was, without a doubt, preaching of the second coming of the ‘Kingdom of God’ in the near future, and here we are two thousand years later, still falling for it. Why?
You: People redeemed are part of God’s Kingdom. Christ’s return is coming soon in God’s accounting of time. Be ready.
Me: This doesn’t answer the question. Jesus was preaching the soon to come, new Kingdom of God, the second coming. Where is it? He said some of the same people he was preaching to would still be alive when it happened. If his words were inerrant, as all the words are (?), what happened?

Me: Evidence that believers cannot reach a consensus on the Bible (or the Koran for that matter) is found all over the Christian and Jewish communities. They disagree with each other…sometimes violently…over interpretations of their so-called Holy Script. That alone, is testament to the non-holy status of the Bible, and their sects founded on it. If the Bible and religion were true…the divisions would not even be there. The whole world would be under its sway.
You: You presuppose that if God wrote it, everybody would agree. You’re simply wrong on this point.
Me: Well, I think you’re wrong. 🙂 If there were a ‘True God’ out there in our world, the whole earth would know it, and the nightly network news would be doing interviews. That wouldn’t be something that would be denied in our world today…if the proofs were there. You have to step away from this little ‘Pre-planned By God’ drama. In the ancient world these mythical stories couldn’t be denied because not only wasn’t there enough knowledge about ‘things.’, but people were very gullible. They were not educated and hardly had knowledge of things further than their own horizons.
As people get educated and learn about the real world, these purposely planted superstitions fade away. There is no observable supernatural or magic phenomenon operating in our world. There is not any evidence or proofs that there ever was. A real God operating in our universe requires that magic be true…it isn’t.

Shalom

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Original Sin, Angels, Christians, and Human Suffering

If God is perfect and he created Angels, then all Angels must be perfect…Right? For what earthly reason would a perfect God want his mistakes to run around and torment men/women. Surely he is not following the awful melodrama/ script that humans have made up…Is He?

We are special; we are the people chosen by God/Jesus to live forever, if only we worship Him enough. Christian believers tell me that Satan is jealous and wants earthlings to worship him, instead of God. What is it about Christians and worshiping? Does anybody really believe that God and His creation-Satan, are competing for numbers of worshipers?

Do you really believe that God/Jesus revealed this unreal melodrama to Paul so he (GOD) could be the subject of ever widening human worship? Or is there a possibility that a frail human invented the story and wrote the script. Why would a GOD want or need this kind of adulation, down on the knees worship?

Imagine a human trying to do this to family and friends; what would you think of him/her? Would you want your children to kneel down in prayer and worship to you? No, all you want is a little respect; right? 🙂

In our egotistical, self-centered view of ourselves I don’t think we can ever understand the suffering that people down through the ages have under gone. There is no possibility that a live human can truly understand the terror and bowel loosening fear that people undergo when they are looking unnatural death in the face.

Would you believe the God who created man can feel this; or do you think a God would not care, or does not notice?

If God does notice and can feel this human total terror and fear at facing extinction and still, not only let it happen, but at times cause it, then He is worthy of rejection. If God does not notice what is going on with his worthy creations, when faced with unnatural death, then He is worthy of rejection.

Think of Adam and Eve, kicked out of the Garden with no resources, in prehistoric times. Is that a worthy response from a God for a first time mistake? Not one I would want to recognize.

Think of this mythical story that has been unveiled to humanity by priests, rabbis and ministers….Does it REALLY make any kind of logical sense….would we humans even be privy to it?

A lot of people follow and worship this magical spirit. Well, you know the old saying: “twenty million Frenchmen couldn’t be wrong” (I know, I know, it’s two billion 🙂 I sure would like to see some magic to verify things.
Some think that Demons and the Devil, or Satan, are fallen angels…Imperfect creatures that were created By God. If God created Satan and Satan is evil and allowed by God to run around and torment humanity then what does that say about God? Yea, I know. It’s part of the script.

Does the son really inherit the sins of the father? If a father killed someone and afterwards couldn’t be found; is it OK to kill his son? “Vengeance is mine saith the Lord.” Since when have WASP’s believed that?

I have a new granddaughter. I look at that beautiful little sweetheart, hold her in my arms and I say: No way is she full of sin; that’s just bullshit. Excuse the profanity please. I didn’t say that out loud, but it was fully formed in my brain.

 

No Conflict in Science and Religion he says..

Again with the column, it’s just so much easier to write here, and it gives me another column :-}

You write:
>>Why can’t you see it in a slightly different light? The Bible and science deal with two totally different areas of human life. Science deals with the physical world and the Bible is about the moral world. One without the other is simply incomplete.<<

I completely agree with you. They are two worlds we are talking about. Although, science seems to be self-contained. Most scientists see no need for religion. The only real conflict happens when religious ones tries to tell someone who is schooled in the sciences that there was a worldwide flood and that the earth and universe are 6000 to 10,000 years old…and maybe a few other things. Oh, and when someone says magic is real, they tend to get a blank look on their face.

You write:
>>There is no need to find any contradiction between creation and evolution as the Bible clearly says that earth appeared first, then came plant life and it was followed by animal life. Man came to the scene only at the last stage. We see general agreement between the two. I believe that God was behind that evolutionary process which I call creation.
I say that the Bible has nothing to say about the age of the universe at all. In fact it is only logical for a Bible believer to think that the universe is indeed millions of years old. The word ‘day’ in Genesis could never be understood as twenty four hour day. We say that a day is twenty four hours on earth based on earth’s relation to our Sun. We know that day is not twenty four hours in Mars, for example. <<

I suppose there could be a chance that someone started all of this, but it was Billions of years ago, and man was probably not a special creation, just one in the long line of bi-pedal mammals. But, if we were created specially, then the one creating us had to have a creator, and so on, and so on, etc. etc.. To believe otherwise makes no logical sense. Regarding the24 hour days of creation, there are a LOT of people here in the States that will disagree with you. Not that I agree with them. A day on Mars is a few minutes longer than 24 hours. It’s year however is well over 600 days, compared to our 365. The length of day is predicated on rotation on planetary axis

You write:
>> That our universe is guided by immutable laws is unquestionable. That every action has its equal and opposite reaction is a universal law of science. This is true both in the physical and in the moral realm. Since every man failed miserably in the moral realm, God in His love has made a provision in Christ which if any one accepts would be beneficial for that individual. If some one does not want that provision, that individual is wholly responsible for his/her actions.<<

I agree with the first parts about the laws and science. I totally disagree with the fails miserably in the moral realm, but I agree about Karma part 🙂 Paul made up the part about original sin and inherited sin. God himself said that the son does not inherit the sins of the father. But, he also said the son does inherit the sins of the father, so who knows. Besides that whole “Garden of Eden” thing was a set up…A real God would have known exactly what was going to happen, so that too was probably allegory.

You write:
>>God to me is not a mere feeling. I transact business with Him on a daily basis. As for me I handed over my case to Christ and He is now responsible for me. My past is forgiven and as I continue to take advice from Him daily, I am strengthened for day to day living. This I did just as I hand over a civil case to an advocate because I can not handle it alone. If some other person can handle it alone, let him/her do it alone.

Christ to day is my advocate and I know that He is going to be my judge tomorrow. I think it is very wise on my part to hand over my case to today’s advocate who is going to be tomorrow’s judge. What do you think?<<

I applaud you.

Thank you very much for your reply. Srsly.

Christian or Scientist…yes / no

Would you answer these questions if given to you by a friend?

Do you expect your children to go to a regular secular colleges?

Would you like all schools to teach creationist/Christian beliefs in science classes; i.e. Evolution didn’t happen?

Do you think that our government should be Christian based and run from a theological perspective?

Do you think our government should be able to tell its citizens how to live, love, marry, raise their children, etc?

Should our government be able to follow the Biblical principles of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?”

Do you believe that evolution is “bad science?”

Do you accept the geological column as described by scientists as real?

How old do you think the earth/world is?

How old would you guess the universe to be?

How old do you think humanity is?

Describe briefly how you think our world began.

Do you think that men/women lived at the same time as dinosaurs.

Do you think the whole world was flooded at one time (Noah’s Flood) about 4000 to 4300 years ago.

Do you think intelligent design (ID) is about science or religion?

If you believe it is science; who or what is the intelligence behind it?

If you believe it is religion; why would you want it taught in public schools? Separation of church/state issues here.

Have you heard about Neanderthals?

Do believe that were real?

Do you know how long ago they lived?

Describe where you think they came from.

Do you think that scientists commonly lie about what they find, or the truths they uncover.

Do you think there are magical forces in the universe?

How big a part of your life does religion play?

Do you think non-religious people are ‘bad?’

Do you think people of ‘other’ religions are bad or mislead?

Have you seen proof of a Christian God, or Muslim, or Hindu, or Brahman, etc.?

If yes; please describe.

Do you always follow Biblical teachings?

Do you think the Bible is literally true in all ways?

Do you think men/women are inherently good or bad?

Do you think Adam and Eve were created 6000 years ago in the “Garden of Eden?”

Since Neanderthals were alive at that time; where did they come from?

Did Cain marry a Neanderthal, or his sister?

Do you believe that scientists can accurately date artifacts from thousands of years ago?

Do you know how many methods there are of dating prehistoric artifacts?

If you are a Biblical literalist; do you believe all methods of dating artifacts are lies/wrong?

I have a few overtly Christian friends I am going to ask to answer these questions. In a proper non-confrontational, friendly manner of course. Some times the different thoughts they express are very confusing. It’s like they mix and match world views. Might be fun, or I might lose some friends. Hope not.

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