Sven

I see. An insult is apparently the best answer to a good advice.

There's no such thing as non-living and living matter. All matter reacts exactly the same.

Doug Shaver

I'm OK with that, if you're OK with limiting the discussion to scientific proof. Do you have a problem with that? If so, what kinds of non-scientific proof do you I should take into consideration when evaluating the truth of some assertion?

EarlOfLade

Well, I have no idea how that weakling you ruin your knees for, could keep a man alive inside a whale when he runs from the sight of iron chariots...

But then again, you may be able to create an explanation of why he can't deal with "chariots of iron", but can do miracles with whales?

GenesisNemesis

I heard an excuse saying that Judah was the one driving them out, not God, but then what's the point of saying "And the LORD was with Judah"? Isn't the whole point of "The LORD being with" someone is to give them power or something? :devil3:

Joan of Bark

I don't have a problem with this statement (although I doubt you believe everything Jesus is alleged to have said).
:huh:
Two questions:

1) What proof do you have that the Hindu gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva don't exist?

2) My proof that the Judeo/Christian god does not exist? When I ask God if he exists, I get no reply.
:huh:

Fortuna

Nuwanda,

I apologize if my statements came off sounding arrogant, but come now, yours come off as arrogant as well, "the atheist's win-win argument" ? And as another said (paraphrased" if you think it arrogant that someone knows there is no god, what of someone who absolutely KNOW there is" ? Think about it, you are sounding equally arrogant here. And for the record, I'm one of those atheists who just cannot define what god is.


Now there is something else you should learn about IIDB. There are many of us here who are well educated professionals. I , for example , am an organic chemist who works in the Pharmaceutical industry. So, when you say to me, a professional Organic Chemist, that "this life just could not have arisen by chance"(whatever you think "chance" means), MY first question is"How can you possibly know that ?" and I am somewhat offended (but I know that you did not know) that you would think that that is something I would know nothing about. Chances are very good that I know volume and volume more about that than you do. But I will admit that I do not know how it happenned, but I cannot say that it could not have happenned. In fact, I can imagine several probable scenarios.

So please ,don't throw those old canards around. Science has disproven the stuff written in the Bible time and time again, so many times I can't count them anymore (cosmology of genesis, wordwide flood, origin of disease, etc, to name a few).



I reject the god of the bible for many reasons. For the Hebrews, and in some of the stories, he is just too convenient, he makes them the chosen people, he gives them justification for murder and wholesale genocide of Canaanite people. (Read the first commandment about yhvh being the god of the hebrews. Do you notice anything ? He never denies the existence of other gods, in fact he says they exist ! But only he is their god, not any of the others. Whoever wote that was NOT a monotheist)

And of course three are textual issues with the stories, what they reaaly seem to say and how the have been translated. (btw, I was raised Jewish and I can read Hebrew and yes there ARE textual problems in the Toah/Tanakh stories, but I don't wanna go there today).

But even further there is one point that I do think you miss when you read others the Bible stories. I said

Let's talk about the "myth" part for a moment. That is, these stories have a moral, a meaning, a conclusion that you are supposed to get from the story,

OK, let's take Gen 1. Surely I don't have to explain that the cosmology is completely wrong. But, it is exactly what an ancient with no telescope, no knowledge of science might think, fair enough ? But, there are a couple of morals to the story. ! - god and his heavenly court created the cosmos, and 2 - they reseted on the 7th day, thus establishing the tradition of shabbat.

Adam and Eve - This story tries to explain why life is so hard , and why humans die. The story alludes that it was because the first humans disobeyed god, and all humsn are thus condemned to hardship and death. (from a justice perspective, we would consider this wrong, but not to the ancient mind.

The Tower of Babel - Why did god confuse their languages. Because the men tried to build a tower to god in order to (literally "make a name for themselves" - whatever that means). The moral of the story, don;t chalenge god, god is much greater than you humans.

Noah's flood story (now this is a good one) - Did you ever read the first part of that story, Gen 9 ? It talks about angels mating with human women and producing a race of some sort of hybrids. Perhaps some of the text is missing, but god tells Noah that the bloodlines have becone polluted, his bloodline is clean (l"perfect in his generations") and all life is destroyed. (and we need not go into all the logical and technical problems with that, and Yes, I have read explanations of how it could have been done and not a single one of them is without serious problems).

Are you starting to see a pattern here yet ? Many of those early Torah stories are myths, classic myths. Not that myths are bad, they teach us (or they taught us in the past).

totell you the truth, no-one has ever been able to define to me just what "god" is. AS I said I reject the god of the Bible as a construction of ancient writers, philosophers and theologians, and the stamp of their culture and belief systems are evident on them.


So, you believe in the god of the Tanakh. Fine. But it was you who came here and told me that I am wrong, arrogant etc, because I use an atheistic win-win argument ?

And I do notice, you have not proven or provided a single piece of evidence that your god exists. Not to me. Your life argument doesn;t work with me and if you and I compare credentials on that, whose opinion would be considered the more valuable do you think.

You started the arrogance !

So, I think you are wrong and you think I am.
MY final question to you is, "Why cannot you just accept me as I am and I will have to accept you as you are?". Obviously we will never agree.

The start of this was Biblical contradictions. So I suggest we get back on topic and I will ask you to resolve one.

When in the Torah did the god who was previously called by the "EL","Elohim" series of names first reveal himself to the people as YHVH ? (compare Exodus 6"2-3 with Gen 4:26 and 4:1). Now, both of these cannot be correct. So, which is it ?

And please, I need to hear your resolution of this very glaring conflict !

Wads4

I think the burden of proof is entirely on the believer because you are treating the question of miracles as if they are a mere coin-tossing 50/50 probability, --as if they were of equal probability. This is not so, for the reason that we have an a priori knowledge of how the natural world works, and of causal relationships in Nature. We have discovered this through scientific endeavour. You are suggesting that we have learned nothing from centuries of Science, and that everything is equally possible,-which it is not. Natural processes are constrained along logical paths and through causal relationships. This is not mere inductive observation of past events, in which we expect the future to be like the past,-perhaps without good reason, but because only certain things can happen, eg certain chemical processes are only possible in one direction and with one outcome. If you say miracles happen it is because you are expecting causality to break down or be switched on and off in an arbitrary manner. That does not happen in our section of the Universe at least. If there is a God, the only way he can perform a miracle is to violate his own perfect creation, and the way it works,- by suspending the laws of nature randomly. If he keeps to the laws of causation then he has not performed a miracle,-merely a spectacular natural event,--like a big flood for instance.

Wads4

This attitude is disappointingly simplistic, and is heading towards another God-of-the gaps fiasco, as has happened so often before when believers make rash claims and statements.
If you or God or whoever, waved your hand in the air and produced a frog out of nothing,-then that just might be a miracle. But just as you ignore causation so you are also ignoring accumulated scientific
knowledge concerning Evolution , Genetics and Abiogenesis,--which have given us have explanations of the origin of species, the mechanism by which they have arisen, and the chemical basis for all living things,-respectively.
Just because we do not have perfect knowledge yet, does not mean we will not continue to approach closer to the fullest explanations. We have only just started; give us say, another 1000 years of science.
Biological life can be extrapolated back through biochemistry , organic chemistry, inorganic chemistry, atomic physics , and ultimately quantum mechanics,-following a chain of logical causal relationships without any intervening magic or miracles. Nature and Life generally are brute facts, and we are beginning to find out how they work,-and there appears to be nowhere to insert your god in the process.

Wads4

Please explain why a big flood, whether it happened or not, has to be regarded as a divine miracle. All the floods I have heard of occur on flat alluvial plains with large leaky rivers flowing through them, as in Mesopotamia, or on the coast, especially around a large river mouth, as in Bangla Desh. Is this mere coincidence? Do you know of a flood that began on a mountain peak in a desert? That might be a miracle.

ggazoo

You have to take into account how the words are being used, and to take things in context at the time spoken. After Judas died, there were only eleven disciples, and it remained this way until Matthias took his place.

In Corinthians, the generic term 'the Twelve...' is used for the disciples because Matthias is also counted within that Twelve, since he also witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Both accounts are factual; an angel told her AND Jesus himself also gave her the message.

Matthew's account does not say that this was Jesus' first appearance. It is entirely possible that Matthew simply passes over the earlier appearences and focuses on request to go to Galilee. Matthew's account isn't all that detailed anyway. He mentions that Jesus had indicated what mountain in Galilee the disciples were to go to, yet he does not mention this when he quotes Jesus later.