Seven Popes

Dave, that points to this page.
Besides, I think it's time for him to clean up his mess.

David B

You must be imagining that

Seriously, I got lost chasing round the board for the right one, and have now edited in the one I wanted.:redface:

David B

Seven Popes

David, excuse me if I don't break out the Mardi Gras masks and and order a round for the bar, but Half-life has started over 20 threads and derailed his own and others (the circumcision derail was a howler.)
I just want him to list all of his threads in one master thread, and say if his beliefs have changed. And apologize to the people who did all of the research that he refused to do, and not DODGE anything that runs contrary to his beliefs, or suddenly dropping threads when they involve reading big words. Conceding defeat for his nutty "hot sun" thread isn't enough. This is the guy that had the hubris to tell atheists what they believe!

Sven

... and interestingly, you snipped the rest of my post.

Seven Popes

David B, I agree with Ian, who posted in the same thread you mentioned. It was post 26:
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...20#post3234920

patchy

Good thinkin', Half-Life...you may be on to something there.

Good for you, for having the courage (and yes, it IS courage) to question things you've always just taken as true before. And while I think all of us should allow you to "go at your own speed" in this process, I can't help remarking on what you said in the above quote--I wonder if you even realize what a breakthrough those two little sentences represent.


You nailed it--the bible implies God is the cause of the rain, yet...we all know the real reason why it rains.

The thing is...it goes way, way beyond that. Again, I'm sensitive to your need to not take this in too big a chunk, but, the exact same logic that you just applied above also applies to, well, a whole world of observations.

The bible says that God made all the animals. Well, we all know where animals really came from. Every bit as surely as we know why it rains.

The bible says that the earth is young--somewhere between 6 and 10 thousand years or so, depending on the interpretation one favors. But we all know that the earth is really about four and a half billion years old.

The bible says that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt by the Pharoah, only to escape in a god-assisted Exodus. But we all know, today, that neither of those things really happened.

The bible says that a global flood wiped out every living thing on earth save Noah's family and two of every animal, but we all know, today, that no such thing happened. Not "we don't think it did," or, "evidence could go either way," or "maybe it did, maybe it didn't"...there is, literally, no way it happened.

The bible says that everybody on earth spoke the same language until God scrambled our tongues over the Tower of Babel "incident." We know, today, that languages evolved on their own, in a natural process that continues to evolve even today.

All of those things were attributed to God, and for the same reason that rainfall was. And all of them were wrong, for the same reason that we have rainfall.

You may have found your first little crack in scripture. But it opens up a whole lot wider, if you have the open-minded curiosity to keep pulling it open.

David B

I, OTOH, think that a degree of latitude can be shown to someone who is having to confront the reality that his long held world view is a house of cards built on sand.

David B

Thomas II

Can you believe Half Life would try to trick us all??

sabrefox

Does "God breathed" necessarily mean literal? I don't think it takes any kind of deep thinking to recognize that the bible isn't literally true all the time, but it doesn't debunk the book itself, or the existence/omnipotence of God. It wasn't meant as a history or science book.

patchy

Probably means different things to those using it, but... I usually see that phrase associated with claims of 100% inerrancy/infallibility. I think usually the reason someone uses "god-breathed" to describe scripture is because they wish to denounce or downplay the idea that the bible was written by men, and thus prone to error.



Not sure what "deep thinking" has to do with Christianity, but, for some reason, there sure seems to be plenty of people, especially in America, who believe that the bible IS literally true, all of the time. I didn't say they were intelligent, or rational, but poll after poll confirms that they are out there, in droves.



Which, unfortunately, doesn't keep millions of people from attempting to use it as both.