The Power of God

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A Sane and Logical God

Would a sane and logical God create as many as 80 sextillion stars (update–300 sextillion is new estimate-12-2010) in an observable universe that is about 93,000,000,000 light years ( a light year as distance is about 6 trillion miles) in diameter, all because he wanted to lord over a few people here on earth 6,000 years ago?

Why would a God this powerful and omnipotent want the adoration of a group of goat herders and set in motion the obscene sequence of events on this poor planet that has resulted in the unimaginable horrors that human history has witnessed?

Why would an all-powerful being that has an intellect and (reputed) powers that us mere humans could not even fully comprehend, want a bunch of savages to pray and idolize Him/Her/It and want to tell these “chosen” people how to live, what to eat, how far to set up a latrine from your camp tents, etc., etc.?

Why would an omniscient, all seeing, all knowing God even think up the god-awful stupid melodrama of “Original Sin” and sending a “son” to earth to be a “human” sacrifice to expiate our non-existent “sins”?

How can a loving, caring, compassionate God sit on His/Her/It’s throne and watch the millions and millions (probably billions) of agonizing, excruciating, horrible, bloody deaths of pure innocent humans…women, children, infants, and men who are doing nothing more than trying to care for their families.

How can this omniscient being possibly justify all the misery He/She/It has caused to be suffered by my brothers and sisters on this lonely planet spinning around a third rate star in a third rate galaxy?

But, the best question of all…how can so many people believe this crap with all the stupidly nonsensical,  non-logical, and seriously demented stories?
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Human Origins at the Smithsonian Musuem

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” -Mark Twain

The Smithsonian Museum has a new exhibit at the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins in Washington, DC.  The exhibit will take you through about 6 million years of pre-human and human history.  Their website can be found HERE

“The strong similarities between humans and the African great apes led Darwin in 1871 to predict that Africa was the likely place where the human lineage branched off from other animals – that is, the place where the common ancestor of chimpanzees, humans, and gorillas once lived. The DNA evidence shows an amazing confirmation of this daring prediction. The African great apes, including humans, have a closer kinship bond with one another than the African apes have with orangutans or other primates. Hardly ever has a scientific prediction so bold, so ‘out there’ for its time, been upheld as the one made in 1871 – that human evolution began in Africa.

The DNA evidence informs this conclusion, and the fossils do, too. Even though Europe and Asia were scoured for early human fossils long before Africa was even thought of, ongoing fossil discoveries confirm that the first 4 million years or so of human evolutionary history took place exclusively on the African continent. It is there that the search continues for fossils at or near the branching point of the chimpanzee and human lineages from our last common ancestor.  From Smithsonian: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics

The Missing Links

Some of our missing links and when they lived.
Note that some or all of these times and general information may change as new data emerges or new finds are made.  Sorry, that’s the way science is.

Ardipithicus ramidus
The Ardipithecus specimen, an adult female, stood four feet tall and weighed about 120 pounds, almost a foot taller and twice the weight of Lucy. Its brain was no larger than a modern chimp’s. It retained agility for tree-climbing but already walked upright on two legs, a transforming innovation in hominids, though not as efficiently as Lucy’s kin.  4.4mya to ??

Australopithecus afarensis
The most famous member of the species is Lucy, an adult female skeleton discovered in 1974 and nicknamed after a Beatles song. Lucy lived about 3.18 million years ago and was fully capable of walking and running on two legs.

Australopithecus africanus
A. africanus was an early descendent of Lucy and lived in Southern Africa between 2 million and 3 million years ago. Its brain was larger than Lucy’s and its facial features were more human-like.  Recent finds are probably going to push this timeline further back in time.

Paranthropus aethiopicus
This early ape-like hominid walked on two legs and lived between 2.8 million and 2.2 million years ago. Based on skull measurements, scientists concluded this species had the smallest adult hominid brain ever discovered.

Paranthropus bosei
It is believed that P. Bosei split from the line leading to modern human some 2 million years ago and lived alongside our ancestors for hundreds of thousands of years, but died out after failing to adapt their diets.

Homo habilis
Many scientists believe H. habilis is the missing link between the ape-like hominids like Lucy and the more human-like ones that came after. They had long ape-like arms, but walked on two feet and were capable of creating tools.  2.2 mya to 1.6 mya

Homo ergaster
Scientists can’t decide whether this African hominid is just a failed predecessor of H. erectus or the rightful ancestor of modern humans. It had a thinner skull than H. erectus and was more proficient at making tools and using fire.  2 mya to 1.5 mya

Homo erectus
H. erectus is generally believed to be the direct ancestor of modern humans and also the first hominid to live in caves and tame fire.  2 mya to 400,000 years ago.

Cro-Magnon/Homo sapiens
These people were modern humans and lived in Europe from about 65 to 50,000 BC to present. They are found in Africa from about 200,000 years ago to present. Found in Australia from about 50,000 years ago to present.  Their cave paintings, petroglyphs, and sculptures are the earliest known examples of art by a prehistoric people.

Neanderthal
Stocky, muscular, squat and well suited for the cold, Neanderthals looked distinctly different from modern humans. But they were like us in other ways: they buried their dead, cared for their sick and injured and were probably capable of language and music. Bones of Neanderthal have been found in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Scientists not long ago put together a complete Neanderthal skeleton, and have just this year (2009), completed their genome. They have a 99.5% gene match to us humans.  250,000 years ago to about 30,000 years ago.

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Old Biblical Stories…Redux

I spent a lot of time on this reply, it needs to be on the blog front page.

Hi Marianne, Thank you for writing.

You write:”
I am a scientist that is paying attention. I have spent 30 years in biochemistry, which includes cell biology, toxicology, pharmacology, inflammation, biophysics of DNA and RNA, and medical research in general.

Great, I’ve always wanted to talk to someone in the research. If you are comfortable with it, could you tell me where you received your degree, what degree you have, and what particular field you work in today?

You write:
“Most scientists do not have any proof for what you say. It is all just “tradition.” They just assume evolution did this, and evolution did that. There is no proof. What the lay person perceives as proof is just scientific speculation, based on this traditional thinking.”

So are you saying here that you do not agree with or accept evolution?
How old do you think the earth and our universe is?

You write:
“you make several unsubstantiated comments. Like Noah did not exist. Well there are records of him, just like there are records of Julius Caesar. There was a garden of eden, and the description of what happened to it is consistent with the syrian african rift – most of it fell into this pit. The bible knew about this rift before modern science did. And the descriptions of the Garden match up with local areas, if you understand tectonic plate shifts.”

Here is what I actually wrote in my reply to your earlier post:
“Looking around and paying attention and studying the world we find the evidence that there never was a world-wide flood, which means we are not descended from Noah’s 3 sons. We find that real humans have been walking the earth for at least 200,000 years (means that there was no Adam and Eve as the Bible relates), which also means there was no fall from grace in the Garden of Eden, which means there is no Original Sin…which also means there is no need for a redeemer (Jesus) for our (non-existent) original sin .”

I did not say Noah never existed (although I do doubt that he did) I said there is NO evidence of his supposed flood, and you will find the evidence for this fact is all over the internet. You say there are records of him…could you perhaps guide me to them?

Regarding the Garden of Eden, there are many stories and guesses as to where it was. The Discovery and Nat Geo channels have had a few specials  about that, and it has variously been placed in Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, and Kenya. The Great Rift Valley which goes through Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and goes right by the Afar depression…you know where Lucy and her brethrens bones are found, also the border area between Namibia and South Africa, and probably other places I haven’t heard about.  Yes, I am familiar with plate tectonics

The Largest DNA study on record at this time is the IBM, Nat Geo Genome Project which has over 350,000 DNA samples right now, and they are showing all the existing human bloodlines come from Africa, primarily the Ethiopian, Kenya area and the border area between Namibia and South Africa.

And why would there be a Garden of Eden if Adam and Eve did not exist?

You write:
“I do not accept the Jewish archeologist denying the Exodus or Joshua. I say the opposite. They are uncovering new evidence every day. They have sites where the Red Sea was crossed, and the pharoah’s chariots are still down there, under water. THey also have sites where the Israelites offered sacrifices in the desert, with hebrew symbols. The israelites were instructed to leave markers along their journey, and these markers have been found. “

You do not accept the Archaeological evidence? Do you have other scientific evidence that refutes this? Is this part of your field today? Also it’s not just one archaeologist.

There has never been a discovery of Pharaohs chariots in the Red Sea, or the Reed Sea for that matter, and believe me they have been looked for.  If you insist there is…could you please point me to the evidence, as I have scoured the internet for almost three years now for evidence of this (and other Biblical things) and have had no luck at all.

To the best of my knowledge many, many archaeologists have scoured the Sinai for a hundred years looking for any evidence at all that over a million Hebrews wandered there for 40 years and have found absolutely nothing.  There is even no evidence at Kadesh-Barnea where a million Hebrews supposedly spent the majority of their time during this 40 years.  You know that the evidence of Joshua defeating the town of Jericho and Ai are lacking also, don’t you?  I haven’t heard anything at all about markers.

You write:
“Most modern church and theology seminaries are getting away from the truth, not going toward it. Much is crap. They need the holy spirit to know truth, not a man getting paid a salary. He is just a hireling.”

I guessing here that you are an evangelical fundamentalist and believe in the literal Bible as being inerrant in all matters. Would I be right?  I think a lot of what the modern church and seminaries are doing is trying to keep up with the emerging science that somehow impinges on religion.  This is what’s going on with the Old Testament and Genesis specifically. The circumstantial evidence against Adam and Eve, Noah’s flood, Tower of Babel, Exodus, Joshua, and the subsequent fallout from these stories being false…nothing but myth, is changing our world of religious thought. Denying facts do not make them go away.

You write:
“As far as time on the earth, no data is any better than the tool that measures it. There is no realistic tool that can measure over 500o years. The rest is speculation, and going off the standard curve, which is bad science.”

Have you heard of Potassium Argon dating?  There are also about 20 or 30 radioactive element methods of dating besides the common C-14

Also there are the following:
Absolute dating
Amino acid dating
Astronomical chronology
Biochronology
Datestone
Dendrochronology
Electron spin resonance
Fluorine absorption dating
Ice-Core dating
Iodine-xenon dating
Law of superposition
Obsidian hydration dating
Oxidizable carbon ratio dating
Principle of faunal succession
Relative dating
Thermoluminescence dating

I’m sure I’ve missed one or two…but then you know all this as a scientist.

Dendrochronology can go back 11,000 years now. Not helpful in the Sinai, but useful in other parts of Israel…to sometimes fact check the old stories.

You might want to check out an older post of mine here: https://thewordofme.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/carbon-dating-and-the-bible

In it I reference a Christian writer and scientist who actually works in the age-dating field. I have there a link to a PDF file about age-dating that the man wrote especially for Christians. Also I will post his contact data here: Dr. Roger C. Wiens RCWiens@MSN.Com Dr. Wiens has a PhD in Physics, with a minor in Geology. His PhD thesis was on isotope ratios in meteorites, including surface exposure dating.

He was employed at Caltech’s Division of Geological & Planetary Sciences at the time of writing the first edition. He is presently employed in the Space & Atmospheric Sciences Group at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

He has published over twenty scientific research papers and has also published articles in Christian magazines. Dr. Wiens became a Christian at a young age, and has been a member of Mennonite Brethren, General Conference Baptist, and Conservative Congregational, and Vineyard denominations.
Whole PDF article can be found at: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

Age Dating in the many ways and methods used by science nowadays works…there is NO real dispute about this…except from YEC’s

You write:
“If you want to know Jesus, he will make himself known to you, in a way that is unique to you.”

Is there really a need for Jesus…if there was no Adam and Eve and consequently no “Original Sin”?

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Conversation about God’s reality

The following is part of a discussion between me and a very intelligent Catholic apologist.  We have been at this off and on for many months now and I truly enjoy “talking” with him

Qb: “Now wait a minute. 1) If you believe that man was alive around 250,000 years ago then that’s when Adam was around not 6,000 BC. And “all the earth” can mean either the whole globe or the known world at that time (which could be localized). The moral of the story works fine in either case. You haven’t disproved the flood story by demonstrating that there wasn’t one when Creationist say Adam lived. You’ve demonstrated that either the flood was 250,000 years earlier or you’ve disproved that it was local not global. IOW’s your disproved their interpretation of scripture, you haven’t undermined the bible’s moral story that humanity pays for its sins.”

Me: No, actually there is no evidence for a world –wide flood…ever.  There has been no time in at least the last 100 million years that I (courtesy of science) know of, when the earth was completely covered with water.  The Biblical story doesn’t make much sense if it is interpreted as a local flood.  Why go to all that trouble to build a boat structure (that would have actually been impossible for the times) like described in the Bible, when all you would have to do is herd the animals to the surrounding hills or mountains.

The story just doesn’t make any sense at all; in any context you try to put it.  Logic and geology and archaeology and palaeology say the story is false.  All the information given in the bible, the little and large clues about time and place and people do not lead any further back than 10,000 years, and for thousands of years this is what organized religion has been telling people is the truth.  The Bible is 100% true in all matters they say.  This Christian book is the be-all-end-all in the life of man.  2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This is supposedly one of the Pastoral Epistles of Paul, but was probably written a hundred years after his death by an anonymous author so we probably should discount everything it says.

I digress…sorry.  What I am trying to say is that the Bible has these stories that the Church has been saying are true for 2000 years. It has all these chapters with all these sayings and instructions that the church has passed off as truly inspired from God and therefore true in all ways…it has ground this stuff into our brains for 2000 years…killed to further its vision…browbeat all who would dissent…demonized those who would not accept.

Now humans have grownup and we have learned about our world and its history and for the first time in over 200,000 +- years we can view and plot what has been our and our planets history.  It’s a foggy view at times, but sometimes things are crystal clear…we know things that people who lived many thousands of years ago couldn’t have even visualized or wouldn’t have thought possible.  We can prove things of the past with circumstantial evidence.

We can genetically plot the rise of man from the orangutans  or monkeys. We can genetically plot the meanderings of humanity for tens of thousands of years, across the whole face of the earth.  A real God would have known this and would not write a story that can so easily be dismissed nowadays.  The stories of the Bible are myths written by men to tell around the campfire or to entertain children…they have no basis in a real God…way to many mistakes that we can now see, they do not resonate as truth in today’s time because of the false stories that are passed off as truth…there is absolutely no sign of transcendent knowledge which we would expect a God to have.

Yes the story of Noah’s flood does have a moral, but it a false one because it tells that God will kill you if you do not bow down to him….but where is the God who tells false stories, where is a omniscient God who would know that people would pass off this story as true for 2500 years only to have it disproven later by a much smarter people…people who don’t believe in magic or demons or provably impossible myths.  There is no God…its getting clearer all the time.

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Myths about Jesus…Myths in the Bible

“Many people– then and now– have assumed that these letters [of Paul] are genuine, and five of them were in fact incorporated into the New Testament as “letters of Paul.” Even today, scholars dispute which are authentic and which are not. Most scholars, however, agree that Paul actually wrote only eight of the thirteen “Pauline” letters now included in the New Testament collection: Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, and Philemon. Virtually all scholars agree that Paul himself did not write 1 or 2 Timothy or Titus– letters written in a style different from Paul’s and reflecting situations and viewpoints in a style different from those in Paul’s own letters. About the authorship of Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, debate continues; but the majority of scholars include these, too, among the “deutero-Pauline”– literally, secondarily Pauline– letters.”
Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University

“When the Church mythologists established their system, they collected all the writings they could find and managed them as they pleased. It is a matter altogether of uncertainty to us whether such of the writings as now appear under the name of the Old and New Testaments are in the same state in which those collectors say they found them, or whether they added, altered, abridged or dressed them up”.   Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason)

“All four gospels are anonymous texts. The familiar attributions of the Gospels to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from the mid-second century and later and we have no good historical reason to accept these attributions.”
Steve Mason, professor of religious studies, York University in Toronto

“The question must also be raised as to whether we have the actual words of Jesus in any Gospel.”  Bishop John Shelby Spong

“A generation after Jesus’ death, when the Gospels were written, the Romans had destroyed the Jerusalem Temple (in 70 C.E.); the most influential centers of Christianity were cities of the Mediterranean world such as Alexandria, Antioch, Corinth, Damascus, Ephesus and Rome. Although large numbers of Jews were also followers of Jesus, non-Jews came to predominate in the early Church. They controlled how the Gospels were written after 70 C.E.”
Bruce Chilton, Bell Professor of Religion at Bard College

“Other scholars have concluded that the Bible is the product of a purely human endeavor, that the identity of the authors is forever lost and that their work has been largely obliterated by centuries of translation and editing.”
Jeffery L. Sheler, “Who Wrote the Bible,” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 10, 1990)

“The clerical confessions of lies and frauds in the ponderous volumes of the Catholic Encyclopedia alone suffice …to wreck the Church and to destroy utterly the Christian religion…. The Church exists mostly for wealth and self-aggrandizement; to quit paying money to the priests would kill the whole scheme in a couple of years. This is the sovereign remedy.”
Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity”

“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

Church historian, Johann Lorenz von Mosheim, writes: “The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to employ deception and fraud.” Again, he says: “The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all of them infected with this leprosy.”  “Ecclesiastical History”, Vol. I, p. 347.]

Many scholars think that Eusebius interpolated his writings. In Ecclesiastical History, he writes, “We shall introduce into this history in general only those events which may be useful first to ourselves and afterwards to posterity.” (Vol. 8, chapter 2). In his Praeparatio Evangelica, he includes a chapter titled, “How it may be Lawful and Fitting to use Falsehood as a Medicine, and for the Benefit of those who Want to be Deceived” (Vol. 12, chapter 32).

There is not the slightest bit of physical evidence that supports a historical Jesus; there are no artifacts or dwellings, no works of carpentry, no written manuscripts (by Jesus), nothing.  All we have are writings from other people and there is no contemporary recording of the man/God nothing written while he was alive.  All documents about Jesus came well after his supposed life on earth from people who had never even met him, from unknown authors, or from fraudulent mythical /allegorical writings.  There are no Roman Records that show Pontius Pilate executed a man named Jesus.

“The gospels are all priestly forgeries over a century after their pretended dates.” Those who concocted some of the hundreds of “alternative” gospels and epistles that were being kicked about during the first several centuries C.E. have even admitted that they had forged the documents”  Joseph Wheless, “Forgery in Christianity”

“Pauline/Roman Christians: When the Roman-backed instance of Christianity went in search of the ancient centers of Christianity, they discovered to their horror that the Ebionites and Gnostics pre-dated them. Their un-Christian answer was to edit verses, burn books, arrest and harass the other poverty-stricken Christians until no opposition was left. The form of Christianity that we have inherited from the Roman Empire is far from what Christianity originally was.”
“Types of Christianity: Who were the original Christians?”  by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

According to the Gospels several things happened around the time that Jesus died on the cross.
His death was supposedly accompanied by a three hour blackout of the sun, earthquakes, and the rising of the dead. No record of these events is to be found anywhere outside the Bible.

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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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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.

moar funny pictures

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.