7thangel

Sue Sponte said: The issue I raised was pedophilia, not homosexuality. Regardless, I simply don't follow what you are saying here. How does molesting children help people understand "the mystery of body, soul and spirit," and more importantly, couldn't an omnipotent God find a way to illustrate these things to humans without raping innocent children?

I guess I have a fault. I am expecting that you are asking more of a deeper meaning of such evils to exists. But I said homosexuality, not pedophilia, helps us to understand the mystery of the body, soul and spirit. I guess we will be going out of the topic if I would discuss it on this thread. And if by if experience you do not learn from the evils of pedophilia, then it will have no benefit indeed unto you.

As regarding the need to experience so we would learn, it gives proof that our mind is mechanical in concept. It draws us the more to the concept of Determinism. And as I said in my previous post, we need to experience good and evil to have knowledge of good and evil.

Sue Sponte said: You aren't addressing the morality of killing an innocent, instead simply stating that it isn't your place to judge such conduct. That seems a complete cop out to me. In other words, you support the Christian depiction of "God" regardless of whether his/her conduct is just or moral itself. I refuse to accept a human depiction of a supreme being that would act with such base HUMAN failings.

Actually, if you have understood what I am saying in general, it is God himself who made you to be against Him. That is what it meant by predestination. The reason why you do not agree unto me is because you negated the idea that our relationship unto God is same as of the clay-potter relationship, or, maybe, you do not really understand the implication of such kind of relationship. If you could not grasp that reasoning, how could I further make you understand that the concept of Determinism loses the value of human lives? And that in essence it makes good and evil a mere illusions?

K

Albert Cipriani:

Why is this so hard to believe? We can still see current generations of "morons" doing the same thing. The only difference is that now they have a written copy to pass down.

bgponder

Hey, 7th!

You know, I was wrong about you!

You are a CPist!!! Just not the Van Til kind.

Something really bugs me, though. If we are all just the clay, and God chooses whom he will, why do you always sign out with "God Bless"? If there's nothing anybody can do about it, why bother with such a sentiment? Just habit?

BarryG

Jack the Bodiless

Albert:
But they didn't say that these were created again!

Heaven and Earth came first. Then comes the "firmament", the solid dome of the sky, which separates Heaven and Earth. Then comes the parting of the oceans to reveal dry land.

Heaven is above the Firmament in the Hebrew flat-Earth cosmology. It isn't the Firmament dome itself.

Albert Cipriani

Gee Jack,
You just don’t get it. You can call the heavens heaven, or you can call the “heavens” sky, or you can call the “heavens” firmament. Frankly, Scarlet, I don’t give a damn. Just don’t call the “heavens” something God created twice.

For the metaphorically challenged, the creation of our universe in 10 easy steps as articulated by Genesis calls for two separate ingredients, not the same ingredients two times:

Step #1
“heaven” (= sky, firmament, where angels tread) &
“earth” (= pre-Big Bang branes, dimensions of potential, utter pre-unified field theory chaos)

Step #4
“firmament” a.k.a. “heaven” (= atmosphere, gas cloud, sun’s corona, Saturn’s rings etc.) &
“waters” (= planetary oceans, comets, hydrogen suns)

The other reference to the same term in the form of “firmament of heaven" comes in step #7 where it applies specifically to the earth's sky, firmament, or atmosphere:

Step #7
‘lights” (= dissipation of greenhouse gases as a result of the “green herbs” in step #6 which allowed the stars, moon, and planets to appear for the first time on earth) &
‘firmament of heaven” (= sky, firmament, atmosphere, and NOT where angels tread)

It’s no wonder Genesis uses the same term more than once to mean different things. All ancient and modern languages are noun poor. Whereas, Modern English is the richest language the world has ever known insofar as univocal terms. Just compare the thickness of our dictionary with that of any other language on the face of the earth. For example, where the Hebrews had one word for that part of our anatomy that extended anywhere below our elbows, we have:

forearm
wrist
palm
back of the hand
knuckles
thumb
fingers
digits
ring finger
index finger
baby finger
pinky…

I think you get the picture.


To refresh your memory, here’s the entire recipe again:
-- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic 2/11/03
My Religious Philosophy List

K

Albert Cipriani:

How can you twist your creation myth so violently to explain its meaning to the "metaphorically challenged"? Yet, at the same time, you poke fun at the Chinese and Greek myths and insist on taking them literally. Could it be that all creation myths are just that and you're trying desperately to make special allowances for yours in order to gloss over its glaring inaccuracies?

Albert Cipriani

Dear K,
Your modifier-to-real-word ratio is rising. In only 65 words, I count four:
1) violently
2) desperately
3) special
4) glaring

A sure sign you’re running out of content. Tisk, tisk.

You say that I
I don’t poke fun at them, I exhibit an utter lack of multi-cultural sensibilities in disdaining them for the cartoons that they are. And before you mount a Politically Correct high-horse, let me hasten to add that many of the ancient Geeks had nothing but disdain for their Geek myths, too. I’ll gladly toast hemlock with Socrates over that one.

And I don’t insist on taking the Chinese and Greek creation myths literally, take them any which way you want. They’ll never give you 10 out of 10 statements with which modern science concurs.

Conversely, I do not take the Genesis creation myth metaphorically. I take it literally. All I take metaphorically are those words that convey concepts too big for those words. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic
Albert Rants

Jobar

Dear K,
Your modifier-to-real-word ratio is rising. In only 65 words, I count four:
1) violently
2) desperately
3) special
4) glaring

A sure sign you’re running out of content. Tisk, tisk.



Albert, that is an ad hom argument, and a low and pointless one at that. I take this to mean that *you* are running out of content.

You may criticize K's arguments as much as you wish, but remember what I told you about taunting other posters. Abusiveness and abrasiveness are frowned upon here.

bgponder

Jobar,

This might interest you:

stuff

BarryG

Jack the Bodiless

But can't you see that this is a circular argument, Albert?

You have re-interpreted Genesis to fit the claims of science, and THEN claimed that the "perfect fit" is evidence of supernatural knowledge.

No, it isn't. It is merely evidence of your own creativity. There is no basis for your assumption that "water" was ever intended to mean anything other that H2O, or that "the Earth" refers to anything other than the large object we're standing on.

If I cite a creation myth in which the primal Ocean cast a cow onto the back of the world-turtle swimming in it, and the cow then vomited up the Moon and the first human, this is also a scientifically accurate creation myth according to your own criteria. So is one in which a minstrel played the Universe into existence from the melody of his harmonica (particle/wave duality) or a weaver wove a tapestry (superstring theory).

And you STILL haven't got the order right. Step 8 belongs between 5 and 6: "marine animals" (microbes that eat other microbes) should precede photosynthetic bacteria. And you've erased "birds" entirely from step 8, purely because they appear in the wrong place in the sequence: this belongs between 9 and 10.

Using your numbering system, the actual events listed occurred in the sequence 2, 3, 7, 1a (Earth), 5, 1b (oceans), 8a (marine life), 6, 9, 8b (birds), 10. Step 4 didn't happen (there is no Firmament dome).

Using your revised interpretation of what the verses mean, you're left with 1, 2, 3, 5, 8a, 6, 7, 4, 9, 8b, 10. I've placed 4 after 7 because you're operating a double standard if the appearance of the Sun and Moon must wait until the air clears, but the Firmament does not. And, as previously mentioned, marine life precedes plants of any sort: hence the position of 8a. I have inserted 8b (birds), which you omitted.

Despite much blatant reworking of what the authors clearly meant, you still have the wrong sequence.