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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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Why does it have to start out that way?
Chance is the only other option in the absence of a guided inteligence. Is there another option apart from this?It may have came about by purely natural causes like natural selection.
Natural Selection theoretically can only kick in after the first self replication systems comes about, so how on earth can you apply natural selection to a pond full of chemicals that do what they do according to the laws that govern them i.e. the laws of physics??????
???? Natural Selection doesn't work at this level, it can't, because we are dealing with chemicals that have no vested interest in survival. In order for the first self replicating system to have arisen you need need an outside intelligence orchestrating events or else it was a fluke chance happening. There is no middle ground no matter how hard you try to squeeze one in.The event of abiogenesis may have been an improbable event as it only happened once(that we know of) but saying it is down to chance is simply a lack of an explanation. We are trying to remove chance as the defining factor.
Of course you are trying to remove chance as a possible explanation, because you know its an impossibility."Even the theory of evolution itself is a chance happening."
What do you mean by this? In the relevant sense of chance, evolution and natural selection are the opposite of chance, they are BOUND to happen.
Anything that comes about as a result of an initial chance happening are sub-chance happenings.0 -
It appears my link mustn't have worked. You can select on Google to show all results from the last year. That might help you find arrests from this year.
I did and the results weren't much different.
Again, here is one of the results. http://www.christianpersecution.info/china.php
It's a christian propaganda site and even it doesn't claim the kind of stuff evangelists want us to believe about china.
Let's look at the first few propaganda stories on that site.
1. Prayer Center Complex Destroyed by Chinese Government
A prayer center complex, known as "Prayer Mountain", was destroyed in China after several elderly Christians were forcibly removed, and then watched helplessly as their building was demolished according to ChinaAid, Worthy News has learned.
Their prayer building was destroyed, no one was arrested/killed/raped etc. If you go into the link you'll see that the reason it was destroyed was that that church was invited to a foreign conference on Christianity and refused the government when they told them not to attend.
2. China Briefly Detains Influential House Pastor
An influential Chinese house church pastor was briefly detained in southern China shortly after authorities evicted his congregation from a hotel, his church and rights investigators said Friday, August 13.
Oh my god they briefly detained him! :eek:
3. Chinese Government Destroys Christian-Owned Factory
Last September, a mob of over 200 men led by Chinese Communist officials injured at least thirty people and demolished a Christian-owned factory in Linfen, along with its house church, Worthy News learned on August 11.
Again, building destroyed because they refused to register it which they are legally required to do.
And a quote from this article; "This was the most violent attack on a house church in China in a decade, says Li Fangping, a Beijing lawyer who later defended one of the church leaders."
Workers injured and a building destroyed is the most violent attack in a decade. Really.1) The USA didn't prohibit Catholicism from as far as I know.
No but it was part of the anti-catholic sentiment in the US during the American civil war and after it.2) Abortion, one child policy and other things are free game to criticise in any free society. It isn't permitted to criticise these in China. Therefore, China isn't a free society. It's really that simple no?
Yes it is that simple.
What are you arguing about ? I never said China was a free society. I said many reasons these people are getting persecuted is everything to do with their politics and nothing to do with their religion whereas you are claiming they are getting persecuted for their religion.3) You post the assertion again, that the Chinese government generally leaves them alone. I haven't seen a single citation from you to back this up.
Read this; http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/features2/651-revival-in-asia/17478-chinas-emerging-church
Or if you have no objections to wiki; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China#House_churches
Have you ever been to China Jakkass ? There are 'illegal' churches everywhere in plain sight advertising themselves with neon lighted crosses. The authorities might threaten them irregularly but mostly they're simply left alone unless they start getting political.4) I applaud both the missionaries who share the truth of the Gospel in China, both foreign and ethnic Chinese. I also applaud the Chinese people who risk their lives for the cause.
So you think a foreigner going over there knowing full well that his status as a foreigner will grab the attention of the authorities and could very well get a lot of people in serious trouble is doing good work ?
Remember they are not going there to spread the word, they're going there to preach to the already converted. And in my opinion they are going there to make a name for themselves, for their own selfish pride.
They're never in any danger of anything but been refused the next Visa. The people they meet with are risking death.
You really think thats a good thing ?5) You claim that the missionaries cause them harm. Nonsense, the Chinese government and their policies do. The victim is guilty mentality is rife in your posts.
The missionaries who go there risk nothing while the people who meet them risk everything. They don't need these people, they have millions of their own who are christian who have been christian for years and who are preachers.
They are responsible for their actions, they know what their presence could likely cause.6) Freedom of speech isn't just a good thing. It's a right. People have the right to speak out against abortion, or any policy of Government in free society. In China they don't have these rights. Therefore China isn't a free society.
Yes i know this, we are not arguing about this. I fully agree with you here. China is not a free society. But this is not a religious issue.
Your saying the reason they are getting abused etc is because of their religion, its not. Its because of their politics a majority of the time.0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »Chance is the only other option in the absence of a guided inteligence. Is there another option apart from this?
Yes, natural selection is not chance. As I have already said twice now, ID theory is concerned with disproving natural selection. If they were offering ID as an alternative to chance in regards to abiogenesis it wouldn't work as who designed the designer is the classic silly regress.Soul Winner wrote: »Natural Selection theoretically can only kick in after the first self replication systems comes about, so how on earth can you apply natural selection to a pond full of chemicals that do what they do according to the laws that govern them i.e. the laws of physics?????? ???? Natural Selection doesn't work at this level, it can't, because we are dealing with chemicals that have no vested interest in survival. In order for the first self replicating system to have arisen you need need an outside intelligence orchestrating events or else it was a fluke chance happening. There is no middle ground no matter how hard you try to squeeze one in.
Read what I said again, I said natural causes. i.e no need for a designer.Soul Winner wrote: »Of course you are trying to remove chance as a possible explanation, because you know its an impossibility.
Yes, a designer clearly aggrevates this problem as it raises bigger issues itself.Soul Winner wrote: »Anything that comes about as a result of an initial chance happening are sub-chance happenings.
So everything ever is a chance happening in your eyes and there is no pattern or logic to anything? Fair enough.0 -
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True, where a 'living system' is defined as a system capable of self-replication. Living systems would include DNA, chemical hypercycles etc.
Agreed, but the function of DNA is to provide information to the cell, to tell it what to become, to provide the nano machines in the cell with information that needs to be processed in a particular way by other machines within the cell. Where does DNA get this information from? What came first? The information? Or the porcessing ellements of this information? Did the information itself evolve? If so, then from what? And what mechanisms can be applied to that process given that information is not a physical component of anything?A mutation is a deviation from an original copy. They are not exclusive to DNA chemical systems. If any configuration of chemicals produces an imperfect replicate of itself, then the deviation is classified as a mutation, and natural selection can occur.
A configuration of chemicals is not the same as a chemical by itself. Do you have an example of a chemical that mutates? In any case, we still need to find a mechanism that can explain how chemicals configure themselves in this way in order to produce the first self replicating system. I still submit that Natural Selection acting on random mutations does not apply at this point. How did the chemicals configure themselves to such a degree as to form the first self replicating molecule? There are no chemicals mutating, there are just chemicals configuring themselves into compounds and such. How can Natural Selection be applied at this stage??? Do you have an example of a chemical that can copy itself? Do you have an example of a mutation of such a chemical that you would call a deviation from this copy? If not, then you cannot apply Natural Selection at this stage. Simple really.Yes, which brings me to the question I asked earlier:
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=67915474&postcount=23366
I answered this already, no???What the simplest replicator? Or, in other words, what is the simplest living thing that must have occured by chance? What is the chance event that must have occured?
OK let me simplify it more.
Earth did not always harbor life right? But it did have all the basic elements that go to make up living systems, i.e. the basic chemical elements. That means that they arose before life arose. So we have a before and after situation here. Before life comes about we had chemicals because chemicals make up the elementary constants for living systems. And we have agreed to define living systems as self replicators. And as chemicals are not self replicators then they cannot be defined as living systems. So we have a situation here whereby some means chemicals managed to configure themselves into life as we know it.
Now to the theories that can explain how chemicals can combine to produce such configurations:- Design
- Necessity
- Chance
Now, you tell me who are being the irrational ones here? The design theorists? or the materialists?What is the most basic living thing?
As far as we know probably RNA. What is your point?Calling existence itself a chance-happening implies there is some propability distribution of existence, wwhich nobody I know would subcribe to.
Well, we are here aren't we? All we can do from our stand point is to project back wards in time to find out to the best of our abilities how life came about or how it could possibly have come about using the minds and abilities that this life has bestowed on us. And when we do we are forced to a crossroads of conflicting explanations, each of which can be assumed as true and still form a basis upon which scientific inquiry can proceed. But this upsets the materialists who will not allow any competing hypothesis to form any kind of basis unless it conforms to their idea as to what they've defined as science. That's just wrong, and it will be to the detriment of science in the end.Although I am interested in what Hawking's new book will say.
In order to avoid the implications of an absolute beginning to the universe S Hawkins is willing to postulate imaginary time, so who knows what he'll come up with on what existence means. :pac:0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »Agreed, but the function of DNA is to provide information to the cell, to tell it what to become, to provide the nano machines in the cell with information that needs to be processed in a particular way by other machines within the cell. Where does DNA get this information from? What came first? The information? Or the porcessing ellements of this information? Did the information itself evolve? If so, then from what? And what mechanisms can be applied to that process given that information is not a physical component of anything?
I will delve into the evolution of the cell, and where that information came from, eventually, but first I would like to focus on the evolution of DNA itself, as this is what we consider 'living' and this is what must be addressed regarding abiogenesis.A configuration of chemicals is not the same as a chemical by itself. Do you have an example of a chemical that mutates? In any case, we still need to find a mechanism that can explain how chemicals configure themselves in this way in order to produce the first self replicating system. I still submit that Natural Selection acting on random mutations does not apply at this point. How did the chemicals configure themselves to such a degree as to form the first self replicating molecule? There are no chemicals mutating, there are just chemicals configuring themselves into compounds and such. How can Natural Selection be applied at this stage??? Do you have an example of a chemical that can copy itself? Do you have an example of a mutation of such a chemical that you would call a deviation from this copy? If not, then you cannot apply Natural Selection at this stage. Simple really.
A chemical on its own cannot replicate itself, true. The initial configuration of chemicals would have to be spontaneous, as the replication of information emerges from the interactions between chemicals. Again, I have to stress that I agree that chance is an ingredient. I am disagreeing with the idea that chance would have to be such a large factor that it is implausible that life could have emerged without intelligence. ID is predicated on the idea that the level of chance needed is so astronomically high (1 in 10^130 was the figure quoted earlier I believe). But the probability of a chemical hypercycle forming a sufficiently self-organizing system could be as high as 1 in several billion, which is no problem if you have billions of reactions occuring every second for thousands of years.
To put it another way: ID proponents are suggesting the process
disjointed chemical ingredients ----> DNA
is too improbable, therefore intelligence was required.
Molecular biologists in the field of abiogenesis are suggesting the process
disjointed chemical ingredients ----> DNA
is too improbable, therefore we should look for other processes, such as
disjointed chemicals ----> auto-catalytic chemicals ----> peptides and hypercycles ---> primitive RNA ----> DNAOK let me simplify it more.
Earth did not always harbor life right? But it did have all the basic elements that go to make up living systems, i.e. the basic chemical elements. That means that they arose before life arose. So we have a before and after situation here. Before life comes about we had chemicals because chemicals make up the elementary constants for living systems. And we have agreed to define living systems as self replicators. And as chemicals are not self replicators then they cannot be defined as living systems. So we have a situation here whereby some means chemicals managed to configure themselves into life as we know it.
Now to the theories that can explain how chemicals can combine to produce such configurations:- Design
- Necessity
- Chance
Now, you tell me who are being the irrational ones here? The design theorists? or the materialists?
Would you agree that, if the amount of chance required for the chemicals to spontaneously self-replicate was low, that design would not need to be postulated?As far as we know probably RNA. What is your point?
My point is that RNA is simpler than DNA. Initial calculations involved the probability of DNA spontaneously forming, and these probabilities were far too low. But we now know that DNA didn't have to spontaneously form, as it could have evolved from RNA. The probability RNA randomly forming is also too low, but not as low as DNA. So what scientists are doing is studying the structure of RNA, to see if it could have evolved from a simpler, but more likely replicator, thereby increasing the probability further.Well, we are here aren't we? All we can do from our stand point is to project back wards in time to find out to the best of our abilities how life came about or how it could possibly have come about using the minds and abilities that this life has bestowed on us. And when we do we are forced to a crossroads of conflicting explanations, each of which can be assumed as true and still form a basis upon which scientific inquiry can proceed. But this upsets the materialists who will not allow any competing hypothesis to form any kind of basis unless it conforms to their idea as to what they've defined as science. That's just wrong, and it will be to the detriment of science in the end.
This is inviting a discussion on the philosophy science. It would be appropriate for this thread, but again, I would like to focus on the probability of natural abiogenesis for the time being, just to make it easier on both of us.In order to avoid the implications of an absolute beginning to the universe S Hawkins is willing to postulate imaginary time, so who knows what he'll come up with on what existence means. :pac:
"Imaginary" is an unfortunate name for the complex field of numbers. The imaginary number i is no more or less real than 2 or 7, and they are an integral structure of quantum mechanics. Such 'imaginary' properties are what allow your computer to work as fast as it does. But again, this is a digression I would like to avoid for the time being.0 -
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A chemical on its own cannot replicate itself, true. The initial configuration of chemicals would have to be spontaneous, as the replication of information emerges from the interactions between chemicals. Again, I have to stress that I agree that chance is an ingredient. I am disagreeing with the idea that chance would have to be such a large factor that it is implausible that life could have emerged without intelligence. ID is predicated on the idea that the level of chance needed is so astronomically high (1 in 10^130 was the figure quoted earlier I believe). But the probability of a chemical hypercycle forming a sufficiently self-organizing system could be as high as 1 in several billion, which is no problem if you have billions of reactions occuring every second for thousands of years.
I agree entirely and like I said IDers don't have a problem with scientists proceeding on the basis that this might be true. What appears to irk them most is that they don't receive the same compliment when it comes to their theory. A theory which they view as a better explanation than the chance hypothesis. I hate calling it chance all the time but it can't be anything but chance in the absence of any guiding process in the mix somewhere. Necessity doesn't work either, necessity can cause stalagmites and patterns in snow flakes but it cannot explain information processing systems.To put it another way: ID proponents are suggesting the process
disjointed chemical ingredients ----> DNA
is too improbable, therefore intelligence was required.
Not impossible, just highly highly improbable, but not just that but its also based on the fact that intelligent minds are known to produce information processing systems just like what we see in these systems. It is not concluded that because chance is impossible therefore design is true. That is an assessment of the theory that is propagated a lot but its simply a false one, nothing more to say on that one except that maybe the same charge can be made in reverse. That the chance hypothesis is based on the improbability of a intelligent agent other than humans. If it works one way then it works the other way too.Molecular biologists in the field of abiogenesis are suggesting the process
disjointed chemical ingredients ----> DNA
is too improbable, therefore we should look for other processes, such as
disjointed chemicals ----> auto-catalytic chemicals ----> peptides and hypercycles ---> primitive RNA ----> DNA
That's fine too, but we still need a mechanism that actually works and natural selection acting on random mutations doesn't work at this level. What we need is a similar kind of mechanism to natural selection that can be applied at this level.Would you agree that, if the amount of chance required for the chemicals to spontaneously self-replicate was low, that design would not need to be postulated?
Even if the amount of chance required was a 1 in 1000,000 chance that would not automatically shove ID out of the bed. Both are theories that cannot really be proven to an absolute degree anyway so one must look at the evidence that is now available and make a decision on what theory best explains what we observe.My point is that RNA is simpler than DNA. Initial calculations involved the probability of DNA spontaneously forming, and these probabilities were far too low. But we now know that DNA didn't have to spontaneously form, as it could have evolved from RNA. The probability RNA randomly forming is also too low, but not as low as DNA. So what scientists are doing is studying the structure of RNA, to see if it could have evolved from a simpler, but more likely replicator, thereby increasing the probability further.
But we don't know if DNA evolved from RNA. But even if we concede that it did, it is still an information processing molecule. So we need to explain where this information came from. What came first? The information? Or the molecule? As far our normal everyday experience tells us, information like this only comes from intelligent minds, we know of no other means where specified complex information like what we observe in the workings of these molecules can be brought about.This is inviting a discussion on the philosophy science. It would be appropriate for this thread, but again, I would like to focus on the probability of natural abiogenesis for the time being, just to make it easier on both of us.
Sound as a pound
"Imaginary" is an unfortunate name for the complex field of numbers. The imaginary number i is no more or less real than 2 or 7, and they are an integral structure of quantum mechanics. Such 'imaginary' properties are what allow your computer to work as fast as it does. But again, this is a digression I would like to avoid for the time being.
I agree, and this ties in well with the information in DNA/RNA problem, like imaginary properties its just as intangible and equally real. So even if we solve the mystery of how chemicals can evolve by natural means, we will then be left with the problem of where this information came from. Whatever kind of mechanism that will eventually be applied to chemical evolution, the evolution of information is a whole different kettle of fish. But one thing at a time ey??
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You are 100% correct on this one.Soul Winner wrote: »That's fine too, but we still need a mechanism that actually works and natural selection acting on random mutations doesn't work at this level. What we need is a similar kind of mechanism to natural selection that can be applied at this level.
Unfortunately, for Materialistic Evolution no alternative mechanism to Natural Selection has been identified ... and NS acting on random mutations doesn't work on any level.
This video clip disproves Materialistic Evolution in 10 minutes ... and it makes me wonder what the Materialists have been doing for the last 100 years ... and how they are still getting away with their invalid hypothesis that functional information can be generated by selecting randomly generated mistakes?
... the probabilities against NS being able to search out functional biochemical combinations at specific times and places for only the components of biological structures (never mind their assembly into coherent co-ordinated functional biological systems) are numbers so great that they vastly exceed the number of electrons in the supposed 'big bang universe' ... and are therefore statistical impossibilities.Soul Winner wrote: »Even if the amount of chance required was a 1 in 1000,000 chance that would not automatically shove ID out of the bed. Both are theories that cannot really be proven to an absolute degree anyway so one must look at the evidence that is now available and make a decision on what theory best explains what we observe.
The way that some Materialists are getting over this particular mathematical problem is to cite the possibility of 'multiverses' or 'parallel universes' ... and they then criticise Theists for beileving in God!!!!
... so the choice facing us in accounting for life, is between Creation by an omnipotent God ... and the selection of random mistakes within an infinity of infinite parallel universes!!!
... and even then, the preponderance of non-functional combinations is such that you would end up with these supposed 'parallel universes' churning out even more useless 'junk' ... produced at each stage in the supposed 'evolution' of every 'biomolecule' and not a single functional cell between them. A mechanism capable of efficiently 'searching out' locally functional biomolecular combinations is required (and the only such mechanism identified so far is the action of intelligence). Scaling up the supposed Materialistic solution (by citing 'parallel universes') also scales up the problem of the proponderance on non-functional permutations.
All that 'parallel universes' can do for biology is to increase the number of supposed universes churning out non-functional randomly produced biochemicals ... but they don't make it any more likely that life arose spontaneously because we are dealing with an exponential 'run-away' of non-functionality, which would produce non-functional produce on such a vast scale, that practically nothing works (and the entire universe should be covered by dead non-functional biochemicals in various states of disarray (which isn't what we find locally here on Earth).
Parallel universes also provide no explanation for the many 'chicken and egg' situations observed in life where you need the very components that life is producing to produce life!!! For example, you need DNA to produce DNA ... and you need hundreds of proteins already acting in consort to produce each individual protein including the hundreds of individual proteins that are acting in consort ... to produce each individual protein!!!!
I can confirm that parallel universes exist allright ... and they are called Heaven and Hell ... and I have already chosen which one I want to live in for eternity !!!
... and the fossils also say no to evolution ... but you can earn yourself a cool 7 million Dollars ... if you can prove otherwise ... by providing an example of a single transitional form!!!
This is an excellent video on the topic ... the only thing that I personally disagree with in it, is the timeline ... but one thing is certain ... evolution (in the sense of 'molecules to man') doesn't exist ... and evolution amounts to nothing more than minor fluctuations and selection within the pre-existing genetic diversity of Created Kinds!!!!
...I especially liked the 500 'million year old' starfish ... that hasn't evolved one iota in all of that Evolutionist time ...
... could the last Evolutionist ... please turn out the lights ... and lock this thread ... on the way out!!!
... so that I won't have to continue wasting my time proving the obvious ... that Direct Creation is a scientific fact ... and that Materialistic Evolution is ... er ... a figment of the imaginations of Materialists!!!0 -
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Soul Winner wrote: »I agree entirely and like I said IDers don't have a problem with scientists proceeding on the basis that this might be true. What appears to irk them most is that they don't receive the same compliment when it comes to their theory. A theory which they view as a better explanation than the chance hypothesis. I hate calling it chance all the time but it can't be anything but chance in the absence of any guiding process in the mix somewhere. Necessity doesn't work either, necessity can cause stalagmites and patterns in snow flakes but it cannot explain information processing systems.
Not impossible, just highly highly improbable, but not just that but its also based on the fact that intelligent minds are known to produce information processing systems just like what we see in these systems. It is not concluded that because chance is impossible therefore design is true. That is an assessment of the theory that is propagated a lot but its simply a false one, nothing more to say on that one except that maybe the same charge can be made in reverse. That the chance hypothesis is based on the improbability of a intelligent agent other than humans. If it works one way then it works the other way too.Even if the amount of chance required was a 1 in 1000,000 chance that would not automatically shove ID out of the bed. Both are theories that cannot really be proven to an absolute degree anyway so one must look at the evidence that is now available and make a decision on what theory best explains what we observe.
I will come back to these points once we have established that life is not too improbable to have arisen naturally, without intelligence.That's fine too, but we still need a mechanism that actually works and natural selection acting on random mutations doesn't work at this level. What we need is a similar kind of mechanism to natural selection that can be applied at this level.
Natural selection can go to work as soon as we have a autocatalysis. I.e. It operates as soon as an autocatalytic system spontaneously emerges. And the chances of this system emerging could be high enough for them to easily emerge naturally.But we don't know if DNA evolved from RNA. But even if we concede that it did, it is still an information processing molecule. So we need to explain where this information came from. What came first? The information? Or the molecule? As far our normal everyday experience tells us, information like this only comes from intelligent minds, we know of no other means where specified complex information like what we observe in the workings of these molecules can be brought about.I agree, and this ties in well with the information in DNA/RNA problem, like imaginary properties its just as intangible and equally real. So even if we solve the mystery of how chemicals can evolve by natural means, we will then be left with the problem of where this information came from. Whatever kind of mechanism that will eventually be applied to chemical evolution, the evolution of information is a whole different kettle of fish. But one thing at a time ey??
To answer the above two points: It is common knowledge that natural selection can and does increase biological information. So once the first chance event has occured, we have a mechanism that naturally produces information for functional biological systems.
To pre-empt an objection you might have to that, you will often hear ID proponents claim that the information must have been intelligently produced, such as in a paper I addressed earlier. (http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j20_3/j20_3_66-70.pdf). What they do is add "extra dimensions" to the framework of information theory to draw parallels between life and artificial creations like cars and books and arches. These 'dimensions' all emerge from the fundamental statistical properties of information that is generated by natural selection. In a way, they shoot themselves in the foot by demonstrating that all the properties we associate with intelligently designed systems can emerge from natural selection.0 -
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atmo said:
He has been around from forever.How does God (who, if he exists at all, must have been around for at least 13,500,000,000 years before now) make so many absolutely basic scientific and moral ‘mistakes’ in his inspiring of the Bible writers? But He has not made any mistakes, scientific or moral, in inspiring the Bible writers.
What has any man's belief about the age of the creation to do with the actual age? Must it be so if the majority agree?Here are some examples:
The Bible claims that the Universe or ‘World’ (Earth and ‘heavens’) was created and populated by living creatures in 7 days ‘at the beginning’. However the majority of world religious leaders (and presumably most leading theologians too) now accept that the Earth is ‘only’ 4,500,000,000 years old, whereas the Universe (‘The Light’, the Word etc.. of the Bible) is (at least) 13,500,000,000 years old.
The earth did exist before man was created. That is part of the creation of man and animals in 6 days to which you refer. If you rule out the former, you can't logically ask about the latter.So how did God create Man and the Animals in the first 7 days (when the Earth did not exist)
Because there was no such delay. Some Christians say the delay was between 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth' and the subsequent events, but that seems inconsistent with other uses of the 'beginning' in the Bible.and where did he keep them from ‘the Beginning’ at 13,500,000,000 years ago until 4,500,000,000 years ago (or in fact much, much later when conditions existed in which they could survide)? Why do the books not even hint at this gap or delay?
Yes, God commanded them to drive out the inhabitants of Canaan. That was ethic cleansing, not genocide. You may be thinking of the genocide commanded against the Amalekites. God is perfectly entitled to dispose of sinners as He sees fit. We are not; we are limited by His commands. He has given us the State to deal with sinners - to punish thieves, rapists, murderers, etc.Did God give the land of Canaan to his chosen people and tell them to wipe out the original inhabitants? This is what we call Genocide today.
As PDN points out, the commandment was to the Israelites under the Law, not us today.Did God inspire his writers to tell us to stone our children to death if they disobey their parents?
The totals are much larger - all of mankind except 8 were killed in the Flood, for example. All of Sodom and Gormorrah; all of the firstborn in Egypt; all of Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea, etc.Scholars have estimated that roughly 2,500,000 people are wiped out by God in the course of the Bible stories by combinations of Genocide, murder, plague, floods etc. (OK, let’s agree on a conservative estimate of only 10% of this total -250,000 humans)
Your assumption is wrong. God also orders us to not return evil for evil - does that make Him responsible for the persecution Christians receive for their faith? No, slavery was a poor economic institution, based on sinful tendencies in man's heart.Slaves are ordered to obey their masters so we must assume that God created and is happy with slavery.
You confuse the rights God has to punish sinners with our rights in dealing with them. And God's patience in bearing with human institutions while restricting abuse.If the self-confessed jealous God of the Bible did indeed inspire these stories and ensure their accuracy to the extent that we can take them literally, then he/it is a being of extremely low moral standards (by our standards of today)
If we were to take it upon ourselves to act as God, we would indeed be a danger. But if we pay attention to what actually He teaches us today, we will be the best of neighbours.and for us to ‘follow’ the teachings of such a being is to make us (in so far as we do follow these scriptures) into very morally dubious and possibly dangerous neighbours and family members.
Certainly that should be the Christian answer.Most religious believers when asked: “are you willing to die for your religion?” will answer “Yes!”
IF they come into conflict, the dying is indeed done by the Christian. Imprisonment and death are the lot of many believers from the hands of those who hate their religion. Even in the West, teaching that some things are immoral can land one in prison. So much for free speech.Surely, in that case, these beliefs are stronger than, and will override all other secular beliefs we have – belief in human rights, freedom of speech, respect for other humans, the environment etc, if the two beliefs come into conflict (as they do every day all around the globe in all societies).
If their religion teaches they should kill for it, that is true. Happily, the Christian religion expressly forbids such 'defence' of the faith. Not that Christians have always obeyed God on that.Also, someone who is willing to die for his/her religion is not so far away from being willing to kill for what is probably a mythological story.
If a secular value contradicts God, it must be abandoned.For religious people, if it comes down to a divide or dichotomy between their ‘secular’ values (love of all humans who are equally good and ‘saved’ – modern ideas of human rights) and doing what God ‘tells’ me (judgementalism and division of humans into ‘saved’ and ‘damned’) then there is no contest: God wins.
Why did He allow Adam to sin? He doesn't say. But once sin entered it degraded every aspect of our ability and distorted our spiritual understanding. That's why God speaks to us in His word - to set us right in our thinking. He gives us help in that by opening our understanding by His Holy Spirit. Not all at once, but progressively do Christians grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ.How did God make the mistake of allowing multiple systems of belief to develop, each of which gives very differing pictures of how he/it wants human devotees/followers to behave?
Wrong. PDN and all Christians are not in the hands of chance. God reveals His truth to their spirits. They are not on their own. God chooses people from every nation, social standing and ability to be His children.Each of these systems of belief is as believable (or unbelievable) as the others – only an accident of birth has meant that you, PDN, have been inculcated into the Christian way of looking at God.
You are an unbeliever as far as 85% of the worlds population is concerned. I just go a little further (and also disagree with the last 15%).
That's a dud.So, there are only three possible interpretations to the Scriptures conundrum:
either
1. God inspired all these differing scriptures (Mormon, Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, etc) and is having a bit of fun watching all these humans struggling with the subsequent confusion (and torturing and murdering millions over differences in interpretations into the bargain)
Close. Only it is no experiment (God knows all that will come to pass) and there are no innocents (all people are sinners).or
2. he inspired only one true story and allowed the others to develop as a kind of Great Earth-wide Experiment – consigning the ‘losers’ (85% of humanity, all innocents) to blind following, for endless generations, of the ‘wrong’ story. (a Good God?)
Another dud.or
3. all the ‘scriptures’ are man-made and man-inspired (as were the stories of Zeus, Poseidon, Zoroaster etc..) and, otherwise intelligent humans have been so indoctrinated from early childhood that they just cannot let go of wholly implausible stories of very dubious moral value.
That says there is no God, or that these men are so taken with their own egos that they just can't abide the thought of being answerable to Him. Given what I've seen of many of them, the latter fits the bill.Over 97% of the scientists in the American Academy of Sciences (comprising many of the foremost scientists, in all fields, on this planet) do not believe in any sort of god. The figure for scientists in Europe is probably higher.
You neglected to mention the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Albania, etc. All were/are models of atheism. health, wealth, lack of corruption, good governance, respect for the rule of law, fairness in decisions of Justice, care for the weaker members of society etc....:pac::pac::pac:The least religious societies on this planet (Sweden, New Zealand, Netherlands, Australia, Canada, Denmark . . . [the list carries on down the most developed societies on Earth]) correlate very closely to those in the top echelon of the “Human Development Index” of the UN (and all other indexes of health, wealth, lack of corruption, good governance, respect for the rule of law, fairness in decisions of Justice, care for the weaker members of society etc..) while those with the highest religious observances and belief systems (mostly in Africa, Middle East and India) are towards the bottom.
My belief system is Evangelical/Reformed/Baptist. I know of no nation actively pursuing any part of that spectrum. So we can only talk of Christianity operating at the local level and in individuals. No doubt many Christians live below the demands of their faith, but in general one can argue that they are noted more for their charity than their violence to their neighbour. I certainly would prefer to be walking past a church at night than a pub.If these belief systems (and yours) were benign I would have no problem with them, but they are extremely damaging to all concerned – believers and unbelievers alike.
May I ask in what god did you believe? And why you think humanism is the right thing?From a recovering former believer - now a humanist (what a relief!)
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John 15:18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.0 -
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