Amaleq13

Thank you for correcting my error.

variant 13

Ah that would be messy and quite fruitless.

Most people read with their eyes (though braille is an option too).

You mean to look at it from an emotional viewpoint and not be bothered that it's basically a load of crap.

Doctor X

Well I find YHWH's demand for child sacrifice and the mass-murder of infants and Junior's refusal to offer salvation to good men emotionally uplifting. . . .

--J.D.

Love Fountain

PEER

The Bible is a book within a book, until a person learns how to read it with their heart to learn the difference between a servant and a friend, the two will be mistaken for each other.

Happy New Year,
Love Fountain

variant 13

Just repeating the same thing over and over again is not helpful, try answering the question using plain english.

Just how do you read with your heart?

Does it simply mean to to trust that it's true even when it's shown to be inconsistant or even just complete crap?

Toto

Love Foundation's explaination was split off here and moved elsewhere.

Love Fountain

Please come to the local version of outer darkness and we can talk about the heart of love and PEER into reality.

Sincerely,
Love Fountain

Doctor X

Some of my best prose too . . . consigned to the Ninth Circle . . . oh the angst!

--J.D.

Love Fountain

Perhaps the next time I will read "Spot Goes To The Park" so that no one is left out. Then after that maybe everyone can have cookies and milk, but only four cookies each or little boys and girls might get tummy aches and miss "Spot Goes On A Walk".

See Spot looking for perspicacity.

Happy New Year,
Love Fountain

CyberShy

Hi all.
It has been months (year[s]?) since I had some gentle debates () with you skeptic guys and gals(?)

Eventhough I was never intended to leave this forum, I did.
This was not because I ran crying to my mother for the giant choir of critics I had to face. It was morely but sometimes things just happen.

But, another day popped up in history of CyberShy (notice the capital 's') and while he was bored he visited infidels.org.
(which would still rhyme were it not for the fact that the forum is now called iidf.com or something)

Pherhaps I'm not the only one who's bored I hope I can enlight your life with some christian arguments. For some of you it would be easy to make fun of me, because their day has already been made if someone states his believe. (ie. the world is 6000 years old)
Because that cathegory of people is that easy to satisfy, I will ignore them. Why should I put any of my energy to people who are already happy on their own. (ps. in case any of you guys aren't smart enough to see this is not a compliment: it's not)

Oh well, thought I should make some "Hi I'm back" message before starting the usual way of debating.
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Gen 1 / Gen 2 creation stories:

First I want to make clear that I do not insist that the creation should be token literary. 6 days might be a poetic / structured form of telling the story. On the other hand, it may be literary though.

But that's not the point of this debate.
People say Gen2 conflicts Gen1 because of:
A. Chronology
B. The name used for God

ad A.
1. first take a close look at the verse 7/8
in 7 man has been created, in 8 God puts man into a garden which he creates. Notice: God creates the gardan after man.
The fact that God plants a garden (he doesn't create it) requires the concept of 'garden' already to exist.
The trees talked about in verse 9 aren't trees in general.
They're the trees that God plants in the garden (verse 8)
Conclusion: the fact that verse 9 (trees) come after verse 7(man) doesn't mean that according to gen2 trees came after man. It only concludes that the trees in the garden of eden came after man. Besidest that it concludes that the concept of 'tree' already existed before God created the garden.
Since there's no chronological notification in gen2 about the creation of 'trees' between verse 7 and 8/9 we can either conclude that the gen2 account is not chronological (which would end the debate and the conflict with gen1) or we conclude that the creation of the 'trees' was left out of the gen2 account (which ends the debate and the conflict as well) or we conclude that the creation of the 'trees' must appear earlier (which ends the debate / conflict) or later in the account, but since that's not the case this possibility has to be abandoned.

Another overal conclusion that can be made is that gen2 is not about the creation of the earth / everything, but rather is an account of the 'creation' of the garden of Eden, and the position of man in that garden.

2. The conclusion of ad A1 can only be made if verse 4-6 can be explained, for sure since appear to happen before verse 7 (creation of man)

If we read carefully ("These are the generations of [...] every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.") we can see that the concept of plant or herb was already existant when man (verse 7) was created.

The thing with plants/herbs is that they
a. either didn't grow yet, but were created. (but for some reason not yet implemented) or were implemented as a seed but didn't grow yet. The last part of the 5th verse implies that they were created but didn't grow yet for man didn't till the ground yet.
Imagine that man did till the ground, the verse implies that in that case the plants would already have growed.

b. these verses rather belong the first creation story (gen1) than to the 2nd story. (it's a conclusion to the creation of gen1)

c. If there is chronology in gen2 then verse 6 implies that the watering / raining that didn't happen until verse 5 happens in verse 6. For story telling purposes this must mean that the plants / herbs of verse 5 started to grow in verse 6.
And verse 6 chronologically happens before verse 5, if you wish to take gen 2 chronologically.

Conclusion: Gen 2 is not in conflict with Gen 1.
Gen 2 is rather a conclusion to gen 1 (what happened to man after he was created, answer: he went into a garden that was planted by God after the creation. And what happened with the plants after the creation; answer: they started to grow, but not before the mist from the earth watered the ground)
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What about the 'calling onto the Lord'

Matthew 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Acts 2:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Romans 10:13 For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

I'm sorry, but I can't find any contradiction in these verses.
Everyone who speaks english understands the difference between "saying something" and "calling unto something"
I'm dutch, (that's why the english is that bad ) and even I can see the difference.

One can say: "Jesus is Lord but I'll save myself"
He won't be saved by Jesus (because he's keen to save himself, remember)
While someone else says: "Jesus, I can't save myself. I call upon you to save me"

the 2nd person calls for help. The first person states an opinion / fact / fairy tale / whatever.
Of course this comes from the idea that you have to believe to be saved. And indeed, the Bible does say that.
But that leads into the question what 'believing in' means.
Does it just mean "believe into the existance of Jesus"
That would be nonsense, since in Jesus' days everybody believed in his existance. Besides that, the existance of God was not a very big item in those days. It was more what gods to believe in than to wonder if there would be any god(s) at all. (eventhough those people existed as well in those days)

That leaves no room for the 'believe in his existance' interpertation.

I think, and that's indeed an interpertation and I invite you to explain to me why my interpertation is wrong, that 'believing in' means 'believe in what Jesus did for you'.
As in 'believe in yourself' which is a modern saying.
It has nothing to do with 'believe you exist' but morely with 'believe that you can do it' (whatever 'it' is, bc it's irrelevant for this discussion) (yeah, I have to close as many sideroads as possible bc I know you guys are eager to take them )

That means (in my interpertation) that believing in Jesus means believing in the concept of Jesus' death and ressurection for your sins, so he can save you. Which is the same save one asks for when he calls onto the Name of the Lord.

I admit that it is interpertation, but since not the same words (says / call onto) are used it always depends on ones interpertation. (I'm dutch, help me out, do I write interpertation right?)
And differences in interpertation can never lead to a contradiction.
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That leads into the next question: what is an 'acceptable' contradiction.

And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven hundred horsemen

And David took from him a thousand chariots, and seven thousand horsemen

yep, overthere someone made a mistake.
It's a contradiction. The question is if this is the kind of contradiction we're looking for. It doesn't corrupt the message of the Bible, nor the solution of Jesus, nor the authority of God.
It just tells us what we already knew: fallable men have written the Bible. Inspiration (by God) isn't the same as dictation.

This counts for all those other types of contradictions as well, IMHO.

I want to mention the 'satan made me do it' / 'God made me do it' contradiction.
Both the books of Kings and the books of Chronicles are books by men. Men interpertated things that happened. It's obvious that in the one book the writer suspected God to be the one 'who made him do it' while the writer of the other book thought satan was originator of the plan.

Does that contradict with each other? Yes and no.
It contradicts in the sence that one of them is wrong and one of them is right........ unless they're both right (ie. God made the satan made him do it)

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Everybody is welcome to start calling names and making fun of me.
Though you should know that the effect of 'calling me a fundie' might be bigger to me if you surround this kind of statements with some pieces of good argumentation.
Otherwise I might get the silly idea that you're just a fundamentalistic atheist that does not believe in God because you do not believe it and because all your friends tell you.

And I have to admit, I'm happy that there are less people who are claiming God to exist without thinking. Please don't replace them by masses of "the tv tells me thus it's true" kind of atheists.

Be honests, that's not the purpose of iidb as well.

Oh, if I forgot to answer to any contradiction, please list it again. I have read through all 7 pages (was playing a game of civilization and got much time between the turns ) but might have forgotten some stuff.

Besides that, it's very hard to pickup the interesting pieces between the loads of bs expressed by much of you)

CyberShy - happy to be back