Ed

No, I have provided likely and rational scenarios that are based on what we know about nature of God and human nature from the scriptures.

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jtb: The theist does NOT know that logic works, or that it has any relationship to any hypothetical "real world" even if it APPEARS to work within his own mind. Ed: He doesnt KNOW it works but it IS a rational assumption given that without logic you cannot even think. jtb: And an atheist can make the SAME assumption, for the SAME reason. The difference is that, having made this assumption, the atheist can then use these faculties to investigate WHY they work, and come up with a more complete answer than the theist can. Ed: Yes, he can assume that logic works but he cannot reason out of himself to the existence of a subject-object correlation because he denies the existence of a personal creator whereby a correlation would have been established. jtb: EVOLUTION establishes the subject-object correlation, as a survival trait. This has been explained to you, many times. Therefore, in claiming that the atheist CANNOT rationalize a subject-object correlation, you are LYING again.

No, first you have to establish that the evidence for evolution or any thing outside of the person actually exists and is not a dream.

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Ed: But you have still not established that all this evidence is not part of just a realistic dream (see above about subject-object correlation). jtb: Neither have YOU. But I have good reason to trust subject-object correlation, UNLIKE you. I don't believe in the existence of a being that is capable of generating this delusion: you do. The Bible says that God sends delusions, and will play cruel tricks even on his own followers (Book of Job).

Yes, I have. See my post where I reason starting with my own existence and logically demonstrate that subject-object correlation was established at creation.

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Ed: I think I have demonstrated that for a theist he is acting rationally to believe that an external reality exists, see above. While the atheist does not have a rational basis for believing that an external reality exists. jtb: This statement is false, and you know it. Therefore you are lying again. Ed: No, see above. jtb: The statement IS false. Therefore you ARE lying.

Nope it is true, read around page 15 I believe.

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Ed: Actually if physical laws exist then that means there is order in the universe and order only comes from a Mind. jtb: This statement is obviously false. You've never seen crystals form? Ed: No, you are assuming what you are trying to prove. I said if natural laws exist then there is order. Crystals are the result of natural laws and orderliness of the molecules. You need to provide evidence that order can come about without either natural laws, intelligence, or a pre-existing order, ie the molecules of the crystals. jtb: Why should I wish to "prove" such obvious nonsense? OF COURSE there are natural laws! OF COURSE that's how crystals form! The "obviously false" statement is your claim that "order only comes from a Mind". Crystal formation is an example of an orderly process that does not require the intervention of a human mind, or any other known mind. There's NO reason to assume that natural laws require INTELLIGENCE. You have it backwards: intelligence arose from natural laws (evolution).

No, crystal formation is orderly because of the orderly structure of the molecules. You need to answer where THAT order came from.

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jtb: Evidence that names were deliberately omitted from Biblical genealogies: { } Evidence that they were NOT deliberately omitted: the continuity of dates. The actual age of each person when HE (not someone else) begat the next. Therefore this claim is bunk. Ed: No, see explanation of Dr. Green's comparison of the genealogies in Ezra and I Chronicles. jtb: And see explanation of why Dr. Green is just making stuff up. Also, see the point I made in the above-quoted post: genealogies where there is a continuity of dates, unlike Ezra and 1 Chronicles. And, in the case of Matthew, the specific use of the phrase "ALL the generations", and the COUNT of the number of generations (fourteen). Dr. Green is wrong.

What explanation? You just erroneously accused him of being a fundie. That is the extent of your explanation. It is possible that the genealogy that mentions the ages of the patriarchs may not have gaps in them. But the evidence points to all the others as having them.

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Ed: Also, ironically, it is only because you have been influenced by His moral laws (being raised in a Western Judeo-christian society) do you even think that such things are evil. People who have rejected His moral teachings such as the Nazis don't consider all those things evil. jtb: Plenty of other societies recognize these things as evil, and the Nazis were predominantly Christians. They didn't reject Christian morality: that is clear from YOUR defense of genocide on this thread. Ed: No, they were not predominantly christians, reread my earlier thread about the excellent bio of Hitler by Ian Kershaw. Again as I said genocide is the destruction of a group because of the WHO they are, I was defending the punishment of evil DOERS, ie WHAT they had done or would do in the future from the perspective of an omniscient God. jtb: Kershaw's biography of Hitler doesn't change the FACT that the Nazis were predominantly Christians (at least 85% of Nazi Party members).

I was referring to the Nazi leadership, but even the ordinary members that claimed to be christians were not orthodox christians who accepted the authority of the scriptures. The majority of Christian churches and groups had been strongly influenced by Wellhausen and liberal theologians to the point that they thought the scriptures were full of errors and no longer believed in moral absolutes.

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jtb: This is the definition of "genocide", from www.mirriamwebster.com: "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group". The massacre of the Amalekites (a racial, political and cultural group) WAS genocide. It is clear FROM THE BIBLE that the Amalekites were killed because they were members of that group.

No, it plainly was not racial because they were of the same race as the hebrews, ie Semitic. And God didnt care about their politics or culture except where it violated the rights of other human beings. That does not fit genocide. Otherwise locking up thieves would be considered genocide because they belong to a culture of thievery.

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jtb: It is also clear FROM THE NAZIS that they sought to justify the Holocaust from what the Jews did (or were accused of doing).

They sought to justify it for those reasons to the outside world but that was not the primary reason for themselves why they did it. See Kershaws book.

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Ed: Notice God never mentioned individuals, he used the term "Amalekites". This was primarily for national guilt, only secondarily individual guilt. jtb: What the freak is "national guilt"??? A nation isn't a PERSON.

But God deals with both individuals and nations in similar ways.

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Ed: These nations were cut off to prevent the corruption of Israel and the rest of the world see Deut. 20:16-18. jtb: After FOUR HUNDRED YEARS of this "corruption"?

Its called a grace period.

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Ed: In some cases during the Holocaust I am sure God ended some suffering quickly to prevent long term suffering. Why is that evil? As long as it is done by someone that knows the entire situation exhaustively, ie God. jtb: He allowed a LOT of suffering, for MILLIONS of people, over several YEARS.

See my post above about why suffering is good if evolution is true.

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Ed: No, he was merciful to the original ones, except of course in the afterlife for the ones that didnt repent. It just came about that after 400 years of mercy that justice needed to be satisfied. jtb: Why won't you address my point that punishing one generation in sixteen is incompetence, not "mercy", and that this means there is virtually no danger of punishment? Ed: Down thru time only social darwinists have called mercy, incompetence. So such a charge is expected coming from an atheistic evolutionist like yourself. jtb: God is incompetent because he doesn't EXIST. He is no more "merciful" than the Tooth Fairy. And down through time only theists have called genocide "holy", and you have persisted in this evil.

No see my post where I demonstrate the rationality of his existence using the Law of Causality. And see my post above where if evolution is true, evil does not exist.

lpetrich

Actually, what "dark energy" has is a big negative pressure:

Pressure ~ - (Mass-energy density)*c^2

The mass-energy density is still positive, however.

And that is the expected behavor for the potential term of a scalar (spin-0) elementary-particle field. Such a field's kinetic-energy term, however, behaves in a "normal" fashion, producing a positive pressure as well as a positive mass-energy density.

So there must be some way for some scalar field to have a tiny nonzero potential while changing VERY slowly.

And *that* is *difficult*.

lpetrich

Ed:
No, I have provided likely and rational scenarios that are based on what we know about nature of God and human nature from the scriptures.

More like a Procrustean fit of the Bible into a presumption of perfect virtue.

No, first you have to establish that the evidence for evolution or any thing outside of the person actually exists and is not a dream.

I wonder what Ed would consider acceptable evidence for evolution.

No, crystal formation is orderly because of the orderly structure of the molecules. You need to answer where THAT order came from.

One does not need much fancy structure in order to produce ordered crystals. Closely packing spheres together can easily produce crystal structure.

(Ed' belief that the Nazis had been wicked because they had departed from Biblical literalism and supposedly did not believe in "moral absolutes"...)

The trouble is that there has been a long history of Christian anti-Semitism, justified by the belief that the Jews have committed some great sins.

In fact, Ed's defenses of the genocidal massacres of the early Old Testament are remarkably similar to the views of many anti-Semites about Jews -- that they bear collective guilt for this or that great sin -- executing Jesus Christ, hammering nails through Communion wafers, using the blood of Christian children in Matzohs, being crooked capitalists, giving the world Communism, corrupting culture, dragging Germany into defeat in the 1914-1918 war, lusting after nice Nordic women, etc.

Jesus Christ being Jewish is no counterargument, because an anti-Semite would say that Jews are wicked for having turned their backs on their Messiah.

And the Nazis were BIG believers in their own brand of "moral absolutes".

See my post above about why suffering is good if evolution is true.

Evolution just is, and is not a moral statement.

Jack the Bodiless

I don't recall any argument in which you haven't abandoned the scriptures.

But the "God of the Bible" is actually very easy to understand, once you realize that he's a fictional character written by multiple authors. The good bits of the Bible were written by good people: the bad bits, by bad people.

The mistake you keep making is your assumption that the bad bits are somehow negated by good bits elsewhere in the Bible. If one chapter describes an evil and vindictive God, then it's pointless to refer to a different book and quote that author's belief that God is good. That is out-of-context: the context, in analyzing scripture, is what THAT AUTHOR is saying, not what the Bible as a whole is saying.
Ed, YOU do not know if an external reality exists. NOBODY knows if an external reality exists. We must all ASSUME that an external reality exists.

However, once this ASSUMPTION has actually been made, both the theist AND the atheist can start to use their faculties to investigate WHY those faculties exist. And the atheist gets better answers than the theist gets.
No, you are lying AGAIN. You have never "demonstrated" any such thing, you have merely CLAIMED it. As you have never demonstrated that subject-object correlation wasn't caused by EVOLUTION, then you cannot claim to have established the true cause.
I CORRECTED your error on page 15.

I think what we're seeing here is a new form of idolatry, the "doctrine of Eddian infallibility". You expect me to accept that your assertions are true because they're on this thread. Anything you type becomes a "scripture" for you.
No, I do not. YOU are the one claiming, with absolutely NO evidence whatsoever, that "order only comes from a mind". I can just as easily go "new-age" and assert without evidence that order only comes from crystals. At least crystals are older than minds, so it makes more sense than YOUR version.
There is NO evidence that the gaps were DELIBERATE. Again you're having problems accepting that the Bible is an inconsistent compilation of many accounts, from many authors, in various states of corruption.
It is a FACT that the scriptures are full of errors. But I note that you have still not addressed the absurdity of your position: that the Nazis "went bad" because they LOST belief in the literal truth of the doctrine that the Jews were all sinners deserving of death, and condemned to fry for eternity in the Lake of Fire for their rejection of Jesus!
The Amalekites who were "punished" had NOT violated the rights of other human beings. The Bible makes it clear that they were killed for being members of a CULTURAL GROUP that was accused of this. That is GENOCIDE.
Because he was invented by HUMANS who lack the ability (and the inclination) to identify and punish the ACTUAL perpetrators of crimes.
And we have already explained why this is baloney. ENTIRE GENERATIONS lived long and happy lives in this "grace period". When it came to an end, the perpetrators were long dead, and "God's punishment" fell on those who did NOT deserve it.

As usual.
Evolution IS true. But that doesn't make suffering "good", it's simply a fact of life. WE are not the ones claiming that this whole setup was arranged by an "omnipotent and omnibenevolent" being.
You have never addressed the simple fact that evolution IS a "sufficient cause". And there are plenty of "evils" that serve no useful evolutionary purpose. Evolution "requires" only that those whose genes make them poorly suited to their environment do not reproduce. It does not "require" them to suffer, nor does it "require" deaths which aren't due to genetic factors.

Ed

Why are you acting as if suffering and death are evil or bad? If evolution is true then they are just a fact of nature, like gravity. Therefore railing against them is just as irrational as railing against the law of gravity. Liberal Christianity is a more irrational form of Christianity and in fact in some forms is no longer Christianity.

Ed

Exactly. One is a brief summarized genealogy to introduce a more detailed genealogy.

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Ed: No, I Chronicles and Ezra were written at approximately the same time, so the Jews living at the time would have been able to compare each of the books and either corrected them or rejected the one that was incorrect. jtb: They did not do that. In fact, they NEVER did that. The Bible contains many contradictions between the writings of different authors, in both the Old and the New testaments. Probably, nobody dared to correct these "holy" books. Ed: No, there is evidence in later copies of the scriptures where some scribes DID try to "correct" what they thought were errors. jtb: Then they did a VERY poor job of it. The Bible still contains references to polytheism in the Old Testament,

Of course it does, all of the surrounding nations were polytheistic. And as time went on, even some of the jews rejected God became polytheistic themselves.

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jtb: and even in the NT Matthew ascribes "prophecies" to the wrong prophet.

Where?

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Ed: No, you misunderstood my analogy. Ezra was traveling WITH these people back from Babylon! He KNEW that it would be impossible for Aaron's grandson to be traveling with him. Let me restate my analogy, it would be like a Nobel prize winning historian believing that George Washington's son fought with this historian in the Vietnam War! Now do you see absurdity of your claim? So this is plainly an example of a deliberately abbreviated genealogy. jtb: How do you KNOW that this book was written by a man who was travelling WITH these people back from Babylon? You DON'T.

We don't know for certain but most of the evidence points to Ezra as writing most of the book of Ezra.

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jtb: Nothing "above" addresses the specific problem of Matthew's "fourteen generations". You have failed to provide any credible answer to this problem. Therefore, when you say "Fraid not, see above", you are attempting to direct us to a rebuttal which exists only as a hallucination in your own increasingly addled mind. Ed: No, I have demonstrated with the Ezra genealogy that often there are gaps in biblical genealogies. jtb: I'm not disputing that there are GAPS, Ed. I'm disputing that they would DELIBERATELY leave out entire generations, and THEN say "these are ALL the generations", and put in a COUNT of the generations which is ALSO deliberately wrong! The Bible says "ALL the generations". The Bible says "FOURTEEN generations". How much CLEARER can this possibly BE?

There were names deliberately left out in the Sumerian King list. See W.F. Albright, BASOR, No. 88(1942). Also the leaving out of names to establish patterns like groups of 14 was a fairly common jewish practice in NT times. See A.L. Williams, "Christian Evidences for Jewish People." And it was a well known practice to include only people of significance in ancient genealogies.

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Ed: There is no computation or summation of these genealogies in the scriptures to fix a date for creation or the flood as there is for the exodus so if the author had intended such a computation, he would have included it. Also Moses lived among the Egyptians and had a high office so he would have access to the Egyptian historical records that show plainly that people lived before 6000 years ago, so he would not intend for these genealogies to be summed. jtb: The author DID include the information which allows the Flood to be dated as surely as the Exodus can be dated.

Where?

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jtb: But historians now believe that the entire Exodus story was fictional. Not just the miraculous parts, but the whole premise that the Jews were ever captives in Egypt and then left in one large group. There is no archaeological trace of them in the places they're supposed to have stayed at, and DNA analysis shows that the Jews are identical to the Palestinians except for the European genes picked up after the Diaspora. There is no reason to assume that Moses existed, or that he held high office and had access to Egyptian historical records even if he DID exist. Many aspects of the Moses story (including the baby in the floating basket) are blatant rip-offs of earlier myths. They're just dates ascribed to a fictional genealogy written centuries later by a primitive people with no access to any historical records that would contradict their story.

Nomadic peoples generally do not leave many archaelogical traces behind. So we would not expect to find much of anything in the Sinai desert where they wanderings took place. As far as the exodus occupation of Canaan, fairly recently archaeologists John J. Bimson and David Livingston have provided evidence that the Middle Bronze Age dates should be shifted down approximately 100 years or so from 1550 BC to 1420 BC. When this is done there is almost a perfect correlation between the archaeological evidence and the biblical account. See Biblical Archaeology Review 13 no. 5 (1987), "Redating the Exodus".

Ed

No, they just imposed a desire upon us, you can overcome a desire by your own will.

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Ed: But a computer would always be limited by its program. Humans are not limited in such a way. Only humans can freely react to novel situations. ng: Wrong. Animals can also react to novel situations.

Yes animals can adapt up to a certain point, but they do not have a true will. For example, no normal hungry animal will refuse food, but a normal hungry human can and will in some cases, ie food strikes, diets, etc.

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Ed: No, all of your attempts to refute my arguments on this subject are just superficial and exhibit tunnelvision to the overall context of the scriptures. The story of the Amelakites is just one story within a bigger story. ng: The Amalekite story shows the nature of your false God who was created in man's image. That is the bigger picture. Even the story of Adam and Eve shows that Yahweh avenges himself on the children for something the parents did. That is also the case with David's child. There are many more examples like the Egyptian children who were massacred in order to punish Pharaoh and Jesus who says that Pharisees are guilty because of something the ancestors did. It is also stated clearly that Yahweh avenges himself on children Isaiah 14:21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. There are others. You see, Ed, it is not just one story. It is the overall picture which is marred.

The overall teaching of scripture regarding death for all humans is in Romans 6:23 and Romans 3:9-23. We all deserve death including children but sometimes the timing of childrens deaths is used as a punishment of the parents. I have never denied this and that is what the passage you quote refers to.

Ed

Their research was mainly just psychiatrical and anthropological written studies.

No, but their thought was strongly influenced by his writings on things such as religion.

Actually many of the people killed by the Nazis WERE believers. And you have my explanation reversed, the Nazis "went bad" because they no longer believed that God would send THEM into the Lake of Fire for slaughtering human beings. They thought he was just a myth, sound familiar? BTW, the lake of fire is a symbol for hell, there is probably not an actual lake of fire in hell.

This is the end of part I of my response.

Jack the Bodiless

You believe in gravity, right? So, should I assume that you think gravity is good, and you'd be happy to jump out of an aircraft without a parachute?

Evolution simply IS. But that doesn't mean that suffering is DESIRABLE. I don't WORSHIP evolution.

I am NOT the one who is arguing that the present setup was "designed" by an "omnipotent and omnibenevolent" being!
...So why are you claiming that the DETAILED genealogy is deliberately left incomplete?

And why claim that Matthew is lying about "fourteen generations"?
The Jews were originally polytheistic, and the Bible still contains verses which acknowledge the existence of other gods.
If you had actually bothered to READ the SAB's False Prophecies section, you would know the answer to that question.

Check out entry 120.
"It's true because Christian apologists say so". You will have to do better than that, Ed.
BOTH are dated from the genealogies: from the age of each person when he "begat" the next.
There is NO archaeological evidence of the Exodus. There aren't any relevant artifacts to re-date!

You're missing the point that, according to Exodus, the Jews were NOT a nomadic people. They were slaves! Slaves aren't nomadic!

We're talking about a mass migration of many thousands of people, which left no trace of its passage.
A hungry animal WILL refuse food if it has a reason to do so. In fact, a "hunger strike" is one means of detecting that a pet is unhappy about something.
Yet again you have abandoned the context. You cannot use Paul to negate what the Old Testament says! The text doesn't just magically go away because Paul said something different!

But you have never explained WHY "we all deserve death, including children". This is nonsense. It doesn't suddenly "make sense" just because Paul says it!
...Which do NOT show that the Jews actually WERE an inferior race!

Because they AREN'T!
Yes, and by other things too, including Christianity.

Nietzche was't an anti-Semite. And he was an atheist. The Nazis were anti-Semites (due to Christianity, NOT Nietzche) and were mostly Christian.
Were the Israelites sent into the Lake of Fire for killing the Amalekites?

Remember, the Nazis were convinced that God was on THEIR side. Every Wehrmacht soldier carried the motto "Gott Mit Uns" (God With Us). They were doing GOD's work. They did NOT think he was a myth.

...But now YOU are saying that part of Christian doctrine was a myth? Does that mean that YOU are becoming a Nazi, Ed?

Ed

And then I refuted your "argument."

Huh? Christianity explains why good and evil exist. But see above where I demonstrated that if evolution is true then good and evil don't exist. Christianity also explains where emotions come from. By analogy you understand how to fix a car engine but you think it just came into existence by accident.

No, the regularity and objectivity of nature is referred to in many places in the bible, the Psalms, Job, and etc.

The biblical form of slavery is more like indentured servitude, ie they were freed in the Year of Jubilee.

No, you failed to read verse 21 where Paul encourages those who are able to, to seek freedom.

End of part II of my response.