Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Atheos · 01-03-2007, 05:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdd344

"Against God" (Atheos),

Actually it's simply a form of the word "Atheist", one who lacks a belief in any of the various god-myths people seem to believe in. No big deal.

Quote:

Evidence? Please. If you merely go and study the Mt. St. Helens eruption, you will find an area surrounding the mountain that by the scientific standards you are citing APPEARED to be really, really old. Tons of sediment were layered, small canyons cut by the volcano, etc. Had the current 'geologic column' been used to determine age it would register very old indeed. But isn't it interesting that trees were found, the same trees btw, resting upright through several of the layers!

Yet it all happened in a matter of a few days. Appeared old, but was not. And yet you suggest there is all this evidence of natural process evolution over billions of years? Upon what do you base that? The sight of something? You, nor anyone, has observed or recorded evolution of the type of which you speak (macro). So something "looks old." What, you mean like the area around the volcano? Looks can be deceiving, right?

Go check it out.

Okay you've had your turn and others have already spanked your evidence in mighty fashion. Now I'm going to take another turn and point you once again to the one piece of evidence that nobody can ignore: stars. Much of the starlight you can see with your naked eyes has been travelling for hundreds of thousands of years just to land on your retina. Whip out a rudimentary telescope and you can soon be looking between the "bright" stars into what to the naked eyes appears as empty space and see light from galaxies that has been travelling millions of years just to (once again) land on your retina. Go take a gander at the hubble deep field images and you can be wowed at the sight of galaxies billions of light years away.

The distances involved are mathematical certainties. The universe appears to be billions of years old because the light from these remote objects took billions of years to reach us.

Now you can argue about how God could have made the universe "look" old all you like. But as you can see that's exactly my point. The universe looks old. Period. The Earth, at 'only' 4.5 billion years old looks young by comparison.

Julian · 01-03-2007, 05:30 PM

[MOD]
Just a friendly reminder, discussions relating to evolution and the age of the Earth should be going on in the E/C forum, and not here in BC&H, tempting as it is to take that bait.

Julian
Moderator, BC&H
[/MOD]

Atheos · 01-04-2007, 04:02 AM

Julian's right of course and I apologize for my culpability in derailing this fine thread.

The thread title is: The source of the Bible (OT, NT) is the One God of whom it speaks. So far the only "evidence" that has been presented in favor of this assertion is The bible has been (for the most part) copied faithfully by human beings.

Perhaps if the texts had been perfectly preserved you might have a case. Divine intervention could have ensured that there was never so much as a spelling variant. It didn't. With respect for the sincere efforts of those who toiled with great dedication to ensure that these texts they venerated were accurately propagated, I'd like to point out that the propagation was far from perfect. It shows errors. Gloss over the errors all you like. They're still there. An omnipotent deity could have kept them out. As an example, Mark 16:9-20 was not part of the original text. That's not just a spelling error. GJohn has periscopes (not just word variants, but entire stories such as the one about the adulterous woman) that were obviously added decades, and in many cases centuries after the older extant manuscripts were in circulation. There are many other examples.

There is no reason to believe that the level of "accuracy of transmission" for the canonical bible belies anything other than a zealous history of believers who respected the texts they were copying. This argument does not support the OP claim that The source of the Bible (OT, NT) is the One God of whom it speaks.

I have the feeling this thread has pretty much run its course, but I'd like to invite mdd344 to produce any more evidence if he has it to bolster the original claim.

GilgameshEnkidu · 01-04-2007, 04:38 AM

Hi,

I have nowhere near enough knowledge to discuss topics such as this. However, I do wonder why noone mentions text preserved in stone written by babylonians and sumerians which seem to be the basis for much of the Bible's Genesis.

If these works are still around in their original form, and predate the Bible by hundreds of years why aren't they considered true and the Bible just a corruption of them?

Bow down to Enki!

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-03-2007, 05:30 PM	#82
Julian Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Washington, DC (formerly Denmark) Posts: 3,789	[MOD] Just a friendly reminder, discussions relating to evolution and the age of the Earth should be going on in the E/C forum, and not here in BC&H, tempting as it is to take that bait. Julian Moderator, BC&H [/MOD]

01-04-2007, 04:02 AM	#83
Atheos Talk Freethought Staff Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Heart of the Bible Belt Posts: 5,807	Julian's right of course and I apologize for my culpability in derailing this fine thread. The thread title is: The source of the Bible (OT, NT) is the One God of whom it speaks. So far the only "evidence" that has been presented in favor of this assertion is The bible has been (for the most part) copied faithfully by human beings. Perhaps if the texts had been perfectly preserved you might have a case. Divine intervention could have ensured that there was never so much as a spelling variant. It didn't. With respect for the sincere efforts of those who toiled with great dedication to ensure that these texts they venerated were accurately propagated, I'd like to point out that the propagation was far from perfect. It shows errors. Gloss over the errors all you like. They're still there. An omnipotent deity could have kept them out. As an example, Mark 16:9-20 was not part of the original text. That's not just a spelling error. GJohn has periscopes (not just word variants, but entire stories such as the one about the adulterous woman) that were obviously added decades, and in many cases centuries after the older extant manuscripts were in circulation. There are many other examples. There is no reason to believe that the level of "accuracy of transmission" for the canonical bible belies anything other than a zealous history of believers who respected the texts they were copying. This argument does not support the OP claim that The source of the Bible (OT, NT) is the One God of whom it speaks. I have the feeling this thread has pretty much run its course, but I'd like to invite mdd344 to produce any more evidence if he has it to bolster the original claim.

01-04-2007, 04:38 AM	#84
GilgameshEnkidu Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Ottawa, Canada Posts: 422	Hi, I have nowhere near enough knowledge to discuss topics such as this. However, I do wonder why noone mentions text preserved in stone written by babylonians and sumerians which seem to be the basis for much of the Bible's Genesis. If these works are still around in their original form, and predate the Bible by hundreds of years why aren't they considered true and the Bible just a corruption of them? Bow down to Enki!

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.