Ed

The difference is God knows the entire situation such as future consequences, we don't.

Starboy

Hi Ed,

It took me a while to figure out which post you were responding to. That post was made on March 5, 2003. You are getting better. At least you responded in the same month.

The original post was:

quote:
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Originally posted by Starboy
Ed, why do you do this? What do you hope to accomplish?
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Originally posted by Ed
To demonstrate the rationality of Christianity.
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Originally posted by Starboy
Ed, how have you done that?
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And finally, your most recent response:

I have a few questions for you.

1) What is the "Law of causality"?
2) What is "rationality"?
3) How does the "Law of causality" demonstrate "rationality"?
4) And how does it demonstrate the "rationality of Christianity"?

Oh and while you are at it,

5) What is Christianity?

I ask these questions because I am not sure we are from the same galaxy let alone the same continent and I need to see if we have any common referents.

Starboy

Ed

While the language of some parts of the scripture are written in a style that implies direct causation, we know from other scriptures such as Job that deal directly with how God handles evil that he allows it rather than directly causing it. But of course, indirectly God is the ultimate cause of anything that occurs. That is why such language is used.

Why? By speeding you are directly responsible for putting their life and other's lives in danger.

They are mentioned though not specifically in Romans 3:9-23.
And a relationship to David's crime.


Fraid so, God makes there a relationship between what happens to his wives and his crime.

I know you don't because you have not experienced him, but those who have know.

Fraid not, see above.

Nope.

Even if he was made by many men we would be able to understand his actions because all humans have a basic nature.

The stories differ somewhat because they are written by different people at different times but there is an amazing consistency when understood in total context.

You took my quote out of context, my response above was to Jesus' words not the book of Revelation. Yes, in revelation it is referring to stars, but in a symbolic sense. As I stated before the book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature is almost entirely symbolic. The falling of the stars symbolizes cosmic disturbances in the created order of the universe, it is not necessarily meant to be taken literally. Though it could mean that from the viewpoint of the observer that stars will appear to fall to the earth.

Of course they used some of the same symbols because those were the common symbols used during that time period, but nowhere does the bible teach these symbols as the actual structure of the universe.

This is the end of part I of my response.

scumble

Yes, I see what you mean. Sometimes it seems like a case of this :banghead: with people like Ed

NOGO

Ed, it is far simpler than that. The God that you believe in is only in your mind. When the Bible says that wrong, contradictory, immoral or just plain silly you sweep it under the rug because you wish to maintain am idealistic view of God. But Yahweh is not that God. Yahweh is vengful, immoral, etc very much the same characteristics as the people who created him.

Once again this example simply does not apply here at all.
This is so because no one can say that God killed your children because you drove too fast. That is what the Bible says.
David's child was killed by Yahweh not by what David did.


Ed, don't be afraid.
The threat to have David's wives raped in public are the toughts of a narrow minded and insignificant priest who wrote this nonsense. By attributing this to Yahweh all that you are doing is making God as petty and ignorant as that priest.


You have not experenced him either, however, if you are the end result of such an experience then all I have to say is ... there isn't much there.


This amazing consistency is obtained by deforming the meaning of any verse that is not in line with this amazing consistency. So although the Bible says that the Amalekite were massacred because of something that happened 400 years earlier BUT to keep you consistency you need to make it say exactly the opposite. Although the BIble says that David's child was killed because of what David did and Yahweh punished the wrong guy you need to twist that into something that aligns with you amazing consistency. Although Jesus says that the pharisees are guilty simply because they are the sons of those who killed the prophets but you need to preserve that amazing consistency and therefore that is not what it really says. Although the OT and Jesus himself does not mention at all the fact that he was sent to save all of humanity because of Adam's sin but that is what Paul thought so that amazing consistency must stand no matter what. etc, etc, etc, I could go on and on ... there are many other subjects which we did not even touch upon.

The only people you will ever convince that the Bible is consistent are people who are totally ignorant of what it says or people like you Ed, who deny what is written so as to preserve the safety and comfort of your faith.

Ed, where the Bible is consistent you deny the consistency.
As I have shown in some detail the idea that stars fall to earth is entirely consistent with all the BIble has to say about the cosmology of the ancient Hebrew people.


It does. You simply deny it because once again that would destroy that amazing consistency that you want to believe is present in the Bible.

As I stated before the view of the cosmos is that of a flat earth supporting a dome of heaven which contained the stars, moon and sun is totally consistent in the Bible and is also reflected in the book of Enoch.

Fiach

I agree with your comments NOGO. But again, none of this is surprising, that the Earth was felt to be flat with a firmament dome and stars and other heavenly bodies embedded in the dome. Remember that the Older parts of the Bible were largely the oral stories of a Stone Age and savage nomadic people just entering the Bronze Age. The difference is that while the Greeks by the 4th Century BC were discovering the spherical earth, postulating evolution and atomic theory, the Hebrews hung on to their primitive Stone Age beliefs. What is astounding is that modern day adults still believe essentially Stone Age Mythology.

Fiach

Ed

Well for one thing we are talking about the OT! Rome did not even exist!

Quote:

Ed: He doesnt become my ancestor until he fathers my great great grandfather and establishes the lineage leading to me. How is that nonsense? It is a biological fact. jtb: No, it is pure nonsense. He is a PART of the lineage that leads to you. He ALWAYS WAS a part of that lineage, ever since he was born. He was a link from HIS father to YOU. If you wish to argue that his lineage at his birth doesn't lead to you YET (because the remaining links in the chain don't exist yet), then this situation doesn't change when HIS son is born, because YOU still don't exist yet! Ed: No, the situation does change, because then my direct lineage is established and that is what the jews were concerned with. jtb: Your "direct lineage" was ALREADY established. He was ALREADY a part of that lineage! By exactly the same argument, the "direct lineage" was established from HIS father to you, when HE was born. So how can he "establish" a direct lineage that already exists? Ed: The direct lineage exists, but how it was connected to the famous ancestor was not established until he had my great grandfather. jtb: And, by exactly the same argument, it was still not connected until he had HIS son. Nor was it connected until HE had HIS son. And so on...

Exactly. The age mentioned is when he had his first child that led to that descendant.

Quote:

jtb: I note that you have failed to provide ANY example of ANY culture, ANYWHERE or ANYWHEN, that uses your system. Ed:Just because the ancient hebrews may have been the only ones that used it doesn't invalidate it. jtb: The ancient Hebrews did NOT use it. It is a fiction invented by apologists who wanted to move the date of the Flood. As there was no global Flood anyhow, this is both unnecesary and futile. Ed: Evidence? jtb: You (or some other apologist) invent a line of nonsensical bullshit, then expect ME to provide "evidence" that it was invented? There is no EVIDENCE that it was NOT invented. There is no EVIDENCE that it was ever used by the Hebrews!

No, the evidence is the bible.

Quote:

jtb: And there is plenty of EVIDENCE that there was no global Flood. But that's best dealt with in the Evolution/Creation forum.

Given that the flood occured so long ago, ie 2 mya, it is expected there would not be much physical evidence, though there is a great deal of textual evidence. Most ancient societies have global flood stories.

Quote:

jtb: Firstly, single adult women would have been fairly common. According to the Bible, the Hebrews fought many wars, and men die in wars. This produces a male/female imbalance: too many women, not enough men for all. Ed: No, widows would have been fairly common due to the early age marriages at the time but not single never married adult women. jtb: It is evident that there would have been an imbalance, IF the Hebrews had been monogamous. However, the Bible indicates that these "morally superior" people were frequently polygamous, and also fornicated with concubines and handmaidens.

God allowed polygamy due to the dangers facing single women at the time, but it was plainly not God's ideal as seen in Genesis 2 and the teachings of Jesus. The fornicating with concubines and handmaidens mostly started occuring during the monarchy when the nation started drifting away from God's laws.

Quote:

jtb: And yet there are NO laws to protect them from rape. Ed: No, you have not refuted my statements above so they still stand. jtb:Yes, I did, they fell long ago.

Fraid not, see above.

Quote:

jtb: The Hebrews did not regard non-adulterous fornication as a crime punishable by death. Ed: It depended on the situation, ie whether seduction was involved, etc. There were different levels of punishment, death was the maximum, financial redemption was among the minimums. See Numbers 35:31, subsitutionary punishments were allowed in some cases. But among the ancient hebrews "adultery" was ANY sex outside of marriage including fornication among unmarrieds. jtb: No, you are lying AGAIN. There was NO death penalty for non-adulterous fornication.

You are right in most cases. The man usually had to pay a dowry and then marry the girl.

Quote:

jtb: And why are you still directing me to random, unrelated Bible verses? Numbers 35:31 says nothing about adultery or fornication, nor does it say that "subsitutionary punishments were allowed in some cases". In fact, it says exactly the opposite of that: "Moreover ye shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, which is guilty of death: but he shall be surely put to death". No ifs, no buts, no exceptions! You're reading "the Bible according to Ed" again, aren't you?

The term translated "satisfaction" is better translated "ransom", "fine", or "substitution". It means that murderers cannot be ransomed by payment or have their punishment substituted by a paying a fine, but means that all other crimes CAN be.

Quote:

jtb: It is perfectly obvious from the CONTEXT that this is rape. "Humbled" obviously DOES mean rape HERE. To believe otherwise, you must lie to yourself: just as you have lied repeatedly about what the Bible plainly states on MANY issues. This is not an ad hominem attack. It is directly relevant to the topic, and supported by many clear examples. Ed: You may think I am lying to myself but I am afraid you are thinking a lie. To me it is quite obvious that rape IS mistreatment and vice versa. I think we have reached an impasse on this issue. jtb: How is YOUR opinion of rape relevant? It isn't!

It is not my opinion, it is rational interpretation given the context and translational evidence.

Quote:

jtb: The simple TRUTH is that "humbled" DOES mean "rape" in the verse under discussion. It does NOT mean "mistreatment", because then the verse would make NO SENSE. It would say "you shall not mistreat her, because you have mistreated her". It is perfectly obvious that these captured women were raped.

No, it would say "you shall not rape her, because she has already been humbled (or mistreated) by the killing of her family."

Quote:

jtb: Sex is a pleasurable activity, not simply a means of procreation. You assume that no woman has ever voluntarily taken part in an orgy? No woman has ever committed adultery? No woman has ever voluntarily indulged in casual sex of any sort? This is your case for asserting that "temple prostitution" is slavery? You have led a sheltered life, Ed. Ed: I said MOST women, not all women. The majority of women desire what I stated above. Next time actually read my post. The overwhelming majority of women would not voluntarily engage in such behavior. So probably most of them were slaves. jtb: You don't actually need MANY women to act as temple prostitutes. Even if only SOME women would be willing to do this, that is enough. Especially if they thought it was holy. People do lots of bizarre things if they think it pleases their deity.

Most of the women that engage in prostitution voluntarily are psychologically vulnerable, ie deep seated insecurities and very poor self image so it would still be a form of psychological slavery.

lpetrich

Ed's ingenuity in thinking up excuses is astounding. He would do well as a sleazy lawyer who defends guilty clients.

But on more pleasant subjects, I note these very nice introductions to the family tree of life:
The UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology (recommended for nontechnical sorts of people)
The Tree Of Life Project (more technical)

And I've been looking for some good references on the high-level phylogeny of the animal kingdom, but it still seems to be a work in progress.

But what's happened is a major revision. The older literature had often pictured a sequence of acoelomate - pseudocoelomate - coelomate (no pressurized body cavity - a fake sort - true pressurized body cavity), but that has not held up well under comparison to molecular family trees. Instead, we see:

Ancestor was a choanoflagellate (collar around single flagellum) protozoan

Placozoans (look like little blobs)
Myxozoans
Sea sponges
Metazoans (true differentiated-tissue animals)

Metazoans ->
Cnidarians (sea anemones, jellyfish, etc.)
Ctenophores (comb jellies)
Bilaterians (have bilateral symmetry)

Bilaterians ->
Acoels, Nemertodermatids (some primitive worms)
Eubilaterians (more advanced; has several Hox genes marking front-to-rear identity, a central nervous system, a heart, eyespots, etc.)

Eubilaterians ->
Protostomes
Deuterostomes

Protostomes ->
Ecdysozoans (named on account of their molting; they are "strippers")
Lophotrochozoans

Ecdysozoans ->
Panarthropods (arthropods + closely related)
Cycloneuralians (brain surrounds throat)

Panarthropoda ->
Arthropods (insects, crustaceans, arachnids, myriapods, etc.)
Onychophorans
Tardigrades ("water bears")

Cycloneuralians ->
Nematodes (roundworms)
Kinorhynchs, Priapulids, etc. (rather obscure seafloor worms)

Lophotrochozoa ->
Mollusks (clams, snails, squid, etc.)
Annelids (earthworms, leeches, etc.)
Lophophorates (brachiopods, bryozoans)
Etc.

Deuterostomes ->
Ambulacrarians (new grouping)
Chordates

Ambulacrarians ->
Hemichordates (acorn worms)
Echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, etc.)

Chordates ->
Urochordates (sea squirts, etc.)
Notochordates

Notochordates ->
Cephalochordates (Amphioxus)
Vertebrates / Craniates

winstonjen

No wonder god and Ed get on so well together. God needs the best lawyer he can get, moreso now that the babble bibble has been debunked numerous times.

Fiach

Excellent post Ipe. I have no need to add to it. We are giving the Magical Creationists the evidence, transitionals forms that they have lied about not existing, and the genetics. But they persist in Magical thinking. Why? Because it threatens Biblical literalism which when debunked, destroys the precious delusion of immortality. Grow up Fundies. Real life stinks but it is all we have.

Fiach