is the bible a lie

It's not a complete lie. Even the old testament has some distorted history mixed in with myths/legends, poetry and here-say.

but the exodus ie out of eygypt myth has been disproved so didn't moses get gods law from mt sinia so thats the framework that the bible is based on from what I remeber is not true

Simply go to the British Museum if you want evidences that the old testament history is true story, if you want some evidences for the new testament, read Josefus work.

But I don't think you want evidences as your post shows that you judged before looking for evidence ... what is typical of the one that wants to convince himself that there is no God ... and that he can do whatever he wants since nobody will ever judge him.

Did you ever read the whole bible yourself before you can say

the bible is a complete lie

or

there is no scientific proof ... in any way or form

?

I doubt.

If you really want to know, ask Jehovah's witnesses, at least, they will answer you with the bible and science if it's what you need. Now, if your point of view is closed and stiff ... keep thinking this way. Anyway, time will show who was right.

"Simply go to the British Museum if you want evidences that the old testament history is true story"

Could you point me at exact exhibits that PROVE the old testament is a TRUTH?

no I have read most of the bible and what I am saying science proves the bible stories cannot be true I believe in science as its a proven method I regard the bible as a falicy/story as there is too much thats not believable or posible

@Neilsr => Carvings of the attack of Lakish, Cyrus cylinder, Nabonide chronicle ... and so on

@IanTh => Does it makes the bible story a lie only because God makes miracles ... if the very definition of a miracle is that it is scientifically inexplicable? And would you dare to tell me that sciences really proved the evolution theory to be true? But I guess you believe in evolution, even if all of the aspects are not "explicable".

And that comment, where does it come from ?

the exodus ie out of eygypt myth has been disproved

I'm sure tehre are tons of things I cannot explain (and I will never be able to explain) and it does not make them lies at all ...

Numbers and logistics
 
According to Exodus 12:37-38, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock.[9] Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550.[10] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people,[11] compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3.5 million.[12] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long.[13]
 
Secular point of view
 
No evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe or that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds.[14] Some scholars have rationalised these numbers into smaller figures, for example reading the Hebrew as "600 families" rather than 600,000 men, but all such solutions raise more problems than they solve.[15] The view of mainstream modern biblical scholarship is that the improbability of the Exodus story originates because it was written not as history, but to demonstrate God's purpose and deeds with his Chosen People, Israel.[16] Thus it seems probable that the 603,550 people delivered from Egypt (according to Numbers 1:46) is not simply a number, but a gematria (a code in which numbers represent letters or words) for bnei yisra'el kol rosh, "the children of Israel, every individual;"[17] while the number 600,000 symbolises the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt, none of whom lived to see the Promised Land.[18]
 
Archaeology
 
A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,[16] and most archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit".[19] A number of theories have been put forward to account for the origins of the Israelites, and despite differing details they agree on Israel's Canaanite origins.[20] The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite, and almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether even this is an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[21]
 
Anachronisms
 
Several details point to a 1st millennium date for the Book of Exodus: Ezion-Geber, (one of the Stations of the Exodus), for example, dates to a period between the 8th and 6th centuries BC with possible further occupation into the 4th century BC,[22] and those place-names on the Exodus route which have been identified - Goshen, Pithom, Succoth, Ramesses and Kadesh Barnea - point to the geography of the 1st millennium rather than the 2nd.[23] Similarly, Pharaoh's fear that the Israelites might ally themselves with foreign invaders seems unlikely in the context of the late 2nd millennium, when Canaan was part of an Egyptian empire and Egypt faced no enemies in that direction, but does make sense in a 1st millennium context, when Egypt was considerably weaker and faced invasion first from the Persians and later from Seleucid Syria.[24]
 
Chronology
 
The chronology of the Exodus story likewise underlines its essentially religious rather than historical nature. The number seven, for example, was sacred to God in Judaism, and so the Israelites arrive at Sinai, where they will meet God, at the beginning of the seventh week after their departure from Egypt,[25] while the erection of the Tabernacle, God's dwelling-place among his people, occurs in the year 2666 after God creates the world, two-thirds of the way through a four thousand year era which culminates in or around the re-dedication of the Second Temple in 164 BCE.[26][27]

god did not create the world it was made by rock coming from the big bang in the early universe combining due to gravity.

was adam the first homo sapien made from dust , the bible says so. what about the other human predesessors like homa erectus, homo florensiensis, homo habilis. Where did the dinosuars fit in go on answer that as if humans where around during the dinosuars era we would have been eaten and killed in the asteroid strike that wiped them out the only reason our species survived was because our ancestors 65 million years ago where probably small mamels that lived underground as that was the only place to survive the global problems

and why do we share dna whith every other mammel on the earth
homo sapiens appeared first in central africal rift valley and from there lead out of africa about 140000- 200000 years ago.

The bible is a collection of stories based upon major events that happened throughout ancient history. These are stories told over and over again. Altered and embellished. Also they were created to explain that which was not understood at the time. Not only explain it, but explain it to an uneducated person in a way he could accept.

2000 year ago did you think you could explain to the masses that the sun is a ball of hydrogen and helium undergoing nuclear fusion? That there were these huge creatures that roamed the Earth for millions of years though you have never seen any sign of them? The Red Sea did "part" but it was due to a volcano on an island off the coast of Greece. I think the hands of God is a bit more understandable considering most never knew what a volcano was at the time.

The Bible and most religion is to fill in the blanks and sate the need to understand the world around us. Also to teach moral fiber. It is stories. It might have occasional correlation with historical events, but it is not a true account.

But how can adam be the first homo spapien made from dust. Woman taken from adam and where did the y cromosome come from. There where females home varients, lucy is a 3.2 million years old homo australopithecus found in the sixties in a part of the world that the bible writters didn't know about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australopithecus

The garden of eden was it in the central rift valley? As that is the basket of human evolution no it was in the middle kingdom wasn't it

does the bible talk of dinosuars no because they were not known until when the victorions started antiquarinism. If there was a god and he talked to people as he does in the bible his knowledge is not woldly he did not know about gravity and all encompassing it just relates to local knowledge that the bible writters had as there is absolutley no information that he would know if he created the the world as the bible claimes. There has been absolutly tonnes of discoveries that prove the bible is a lie like dna, vulcanism, tectonics mathematics etc. Did adams dna come from the dust he is built from no our dna can be traced back to the very first single celled animals although it may have actually been rna at that time. God doesn't even know about volcanoes thats because they are not on the same time scale as human and the fact that there are no volcanoes in that part of the world (local limited knowledge) see where I am going. Your surely not going to try and tell me like you say the flood was actually a tsunami?

Say God decided to explain to you how evolution works.  But he had to do it in a matter of days, he doesn't have the luxury of forever.....because you're gonna die soon.  He explains it as well as YOU are able to understand it.  Now YOU have to go explain it to people with even less understanding.  It would be like me sitting down with Hawking (and I have a fairly good grasp of math) for a few hours and having him explain black holes to me.  Now I have to go teach 5th graders.  Maybe the bible wasn't aimed at the intellectual, but more for the common man?  Your a person of science, tell me does science tell us if we all come from the same first cell?

Well said bergertime. As I said before. The Bible is just stories made for simpler people to understand the world around them.

It is not truth and the zealots that take it all literally frustrate me. The ones that try to teach it to kids as Science infuriate me.

dinosuaurs are not hard to explain it they just need a grasp of how gigantism worked and you take it as given the lizards where just big versions and it takes a few centences
by the  way before us the previous master of earth where dinosuars they where large lizards cold blooded creatures they where killed of by ansteroid strike 65 million years ago

does the bible talk about asteroids or impacts as they have been going on for millions of yeas no its because they didn't know about asteroids or impacts as nothing happened in their location its a fair chance that the shepards followed a comet

>>dinosuaurs are not hard to explain...

Not hard to explain because we grew up knowing of their existence. There would be no accurate way to know what could be accepted and understood by a mind that really has had no interactions or understanding of the things that we take for granted completely.

Just the idea that the earth is round could have been beyond their grasp. I know those in that time did figure it out who were deeper thinkers, but the masses tending to their daily lives might not have. Giant creatures? Millions of years? These concepts are completely out of their understanding.

Much easier to think God put everything here and is watching over them.

Religion is like wisdom teeth. Once it was very important. Today not so much, and can actually be a detriment in some cases.

Why would the bible try and explain dinosuaurs?  If it did, would that convince you that it's all true?  Where do you draw the line.  Let's say the bible said the wise men followed a comet instead of a star.  How would that help the people back then, and would that help you, or would you need the size and shape, possible the makeup, how much water did it contain, well the bible said it only had 60% but we all know that it had to be 70%.  How much info on dino's should we get from the bible.

It's been my experience that people generally find what they are looking for.  You wanna beleive the bible is a lie, there are thousands of reasons to believe that, wanna believe the bible, there are a thousand reasons to believe that.  Want to believe this group is mislead, fine I'm sure you can come up with hundreds of reasons.  I think it all has to do with perspective and that's one thing I think is in short supply in todays world, respect for anothers perspective.

stars do not move as they a millions of miles away so it must have been a comet but they called it a star which is plainly wrong

I am saying people where limited in knowledge I am saying god was

>>I think it all has to do with perspective and that's one thing I think is in short supply in todays world, respect for anothers perspective.

The only problem with that is when the perspective is incorrect and being pushed on others (particularly kids in school).

If a monkey falls from a tree, but from someones "perspective" they think it flew and has the ability to fly at will, that is wrong. The truth is it fell and does not have that ability.

If from my perspective I believe it fell and from your perspective you believe it flew, the truth is still that it fell. It doesn't matter whether I or you believe it or not, that is what happened. Your perspective of flight did not happen, so it is wrong whether you believe it or not.

If you start to teach others that monkeys can fly because it is your perspective, it is still wrong and should not be done.

Please prove the science of the "big bang" (BB) and the singularity (S).  According to BB theory, prior to the S, nothing existed, not space, time, matter or energy.  

BB says all the existing hundreds of billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars, started from a single less-than-atom-sized point of "infinite density".

Thus, the same science whose own most-sacred rule is "energy(/mass) is neither created nor destroyed", believes that all energy/mass in all galaxies came from a single point of ... nothing ... except that the nothing was also everything.

Where did all the mass inside the S come from?  What caused the S?  The BB?  Scientists have NO CLUE.

What makes up the "dark energy/matter" that is the bulk of the mass in the universe?  Scientists have NO CLUE.


As to the Bible, it's NOT a science book.  Its intent is much more significant than that.

If to satisfy your own ego you need to attack the Bible, you can do so.  Just keep in mind, the Bible is not the only thing with gaping holes in its "story".

>> stars do not move <<

Who said it moved?  It was "marking the spot", so to speak, it wouldn't have moved, at least over a short period of time.

Many astronomers think a conjunction of stars might indeed have been responsible for an unusually bright spot in the sky during that time.

Perhaps just a coincidence, perhaps not.

>> and isn't that the basis of christianity ie gods law <<

NO.  Christ is the basis of Christianity -- the name seems very clear to me, but apparently it's not obvious enough for some.

Moses and the Exodus are vastly more significant to Jews than to Christians.

>>Where did all the mass inside the S come from?  What caused the S?  The BB?  Scientists have NO CLUE.

Correct.

>>What makes up the "dark energy/matter" that is the bulk of the mass in the universe?  Scientists have NO CLUE.

Correct.

Scientist never claim to know everything. Scientists are the first to say that there is much more that we don't know than we do. What the difference between Science and Religion is is that scientists take facts and then try to come to conclusions from those facts. Religion makes conclusions and then tries to find facts to back those conclusions up.

>>Many astronomers think a conjunction of stars might indeed have been responsible for an unusually bright spot in the sky during that time.

Correct. I heard a number of different theories as to the astronomical reasons why there was an unusually bright point in the sky at that period in time. From a passing comet to a far off super nova.

Just as the Red Sea parted for the exodus (caused by a volcano as mentioned above), the star was an astronomical event, and not a miracle. Explaining this to the people of the time is much easier as a miracle that was done by God rather than explaining the science behind it that they did not understand. So the story was written based around the facts, but the reasoning behind it is not accurate, though it was the best they could discern at the time.

I never attack the Bible for what it is. A collection of stories to explain the world and provide a moral compass. Many good morals and values can be found in the Bible. A lot of bad morals and values can be found also. I don't attack the Bible. I reason against those that state it is all fact based and should be taken literally.

the big bang yes I have huge question over that too but I have no idea how the scientists can prove it . I think the big bang was an over loading blackhole that exploded as to my mind that is the only way to achieve what is discribed as the big bang but it can be proved that the universe is about 15 billion years old due to the background radiation

what I am saying the bible has a very basic understanding of knowledge (local) What it says about god creating the world can not in ever be believed as we know know that it is roughly 5 billion years old. We know higher molecules where created in previous supernovers. The center of the world is about 4000c, its not hell, it the  left over heat from its violent creation.

I agree the bible is a collection of stories I just dont belive the stories
the dead sea scrolls kind of hint to my understanding that jesus was just a man nothing special

what I am getting at if god created man and woman where did the y cromosome come from there is no mention in the bible of technolgy that is required to for instance to know how to build a the world. Oh by the way where are heaven and hell

heaven was up in the air and now we have aircraft we can see that
hell was down below and we know there is no way an area could actually survive down there

I don't believe that the Bible is a lie. For me, a "lie" denotes deliberate misinformation. I don't believe that the stories and histories in the Bible were created and collected together with the intent of misinforming.

Nor do I believe that the Bible is 'The Truth'. I believe that it was essentially believed to be true by those who created the various parts and by those who collected the parts. As such, it can contain many mistakes and falsehoods without needing to be considered a "lie".

I can believe and proclaim that 'my country' is the greatest and best that the world has ever known. That doesn't make it true, nor does it make it a lie even if it's false. I would call it a lie if I knew that it was a false belief and still proclaimed it to be true.

I haven't known many people (if any) who knew the Bible was false while continuing to proclaim that it contained nothing but truth. Perhaps there have been some who simply never made their knowledge of falsehoods known to others.

Tom

ok not a lie as much more as a collection of stories but it has no basis in reality well maybe 30% in reality

misinformation about 70% for instance the exodus, and thus the ten commandments and the isrealites isn't that the basis of the bible's starting point

I am just stating the information in the bible is not worldly its very local if there where almighty beings surely they would know about say tectonic plates as thats a very important aspect of earth that was not discovered until the 20th century. That would be gods design if he made the earth.

The more discoveries like tectonics, undersea vents and creatures that grow without sunlight are showing me that the bible is even more of a collection of stories.

Adam was made from dust, eve was created from adam yes

the x and y chromosone are about 166milion years old after a platypus finding homo sapien is not 166 million years old we are about 200000 years

I think we established that the Bible is not scientifically sound. It was not written with intent to misinform either. It is a collection of stories that's outdated for the most part now and not as useful in it's task as originally intended.

Some people hold to it as truth but more out of their belief than out of thinking everything in it is accurate to the history of time.

how can it be historically acurate when there is no evidence of the basis like I said the exodus(the isrealites leaving egypt there is no proof) and thus moses going up to get the ten commandment thats the basis for christianity isnt it

there is no evidence for noahs ark if the ark story was true all homo sapiens would be related to noah and his wife and the evidence says all europeans are related to about 60 families that left central afica about 140000 -160000 years ago proved by dna analysis which cannot be refuted and there was not 60 familes on the ark.So the whole basis of the bible cannot be historical when the dna evidence proves it.

Like I have stated several times my belief is based on science not mumbo jumbo

OK, let's look at a  2000-year-old science book and see how much of it is true ... almost nothing I would guess.

>>OK, let's look at a  2000-year-old science book and see how much of it is true ... almost nothing I would guess.

Right. But science is true. We may not have everything right, but what we do understand is the truth of what happened. We are constantly learning and correcting our science, but not our religion.

Thats because science usually gets it wrong.  Are man and ape related, do we share a common ancester?  Or are we two different lines of evolution that shared a common environment?  Did we all come from the same single cell that formed a tree of life, or whatever created this single cell did it created thousands and so we have a whole forest of trees of life.  Given enough time would two different lines of evolution, placed in the same environment, finally merge into the same species?  And why do all multi celled creatures age?  Population control?  To insure survival by adaption? Or just plain being mean?  Couldn't evolution produce a multi-celled creature, that when cell reproduction happens, it in fact creates a new cell, not an aged copy of the original?  Ok, how about this simple task, using science, please explain.  I'll spot you that somehow a single celled creature came in to being, maybe in a hot spring on the ocean floor or whatever, but why did it make the leap from single celled to multi celled?  What DROVE it?  Or was it just a fluke like man landing on the moon?

Now what did Jesus say 2000 years ago that needs to be corrected?  What did Jesus teach that's so outdated today?  I only used Jesus since the op said the bible.

>>Thats because science usually gets it wrong.  Are man and ape related, do we share a common ancester?  Or are we two different lines of evolution that shared a common environment?  Did we all come from the same single cell that formed a tree of life, or whatever created this single cell did it created thousands and so we have a whole forest of trees of life.  Given enough time would two different lines of evolution, placed in the same environment, finally merge into the same species?  And why do all multi celled creatures age?  Population control?  To insure survival by adaption? Or just plain being mean?  Couldn't evolution produce a multi-celled creature, that when cell reproduction happens, it in fact creates a new cell, not an aged copy of the original?  Ok, how about this simple task, using science, please explain.  I'll spot you that somehow a single celled creature came in to being, maybe in a hot spring on the ocean floor or whatever, but why did it make the leap from single celled to multi celled?  What DROVE it?  Or was it just a fluke like man landing on the moon?

All good questions and there are experiments using the scientific method to evaluate them and for us to learn the answers as best as we can. Some of these experiments have been done and reviewed by others for their validity. Some haven't. Science is all about asking these questions and then trying to find the answers. Then verifying and correcting our mistakes and having others collaborate and confirm until we have the best possible answer we can derive to a question based on evidence.

Religion is about whatever the religious leaders say is what you should believe. Don't doubt or question the core teachings though we encourage questions that we can answer or default to God knows and we aren't meant to know or need to know. Evidence is not needed. Just take my word for it or the word of those that first wrote it down thousands of years ago.

>>What did Jesus teach that's so outdated today?

I never said Jesus said things that need to be corrected. Jesus spoke mostly of morals and values and teachings of that sort. He rarely spoke of facts and how things appeared in the world around him other than that God created it all. The values and teachings of Jesus in the Bible are fine. It is the facts that are incorrect, such as Genesis and Garden of Eden or the story of Noah. Most New Testament stories don't pertain to facts such as these.

>> But science is true. <<

Until it is proven false.  Which it is over and over again.  That is the nature of science.


I think the Bible itself makes it clear that the story of Eden is not meant to be taken literally -- after all, it gives two different versions of it.

Again, the Bible is NOT a scientific textbook, nor is it intended as one.  If it were, it would be as useless as all other 2000-year-old scientific text books (and quite a few current ones :-), such as on "global warming", for which there's precious little evidence but plenty of blind faith).

>>Until it is proven false.  Which it is over and over again.  That is the nature of science.

Correct. However the event is still true. using my example of a monkey falling from a tree above: If a monkey falls from a tree, but from someones "perspective" they think it flew and has the ability to fly at will, that is wrong. The truth is it fell and does not have that ability.

Now if science comes to the conclusion that it was thrown off the tree from a squirrel and that is what happened, it could later be discovered that there was no squirrel and the theory is corrected. This is done through peer review and a scientific process based on evidence.

The religious side is to stick with their perspective of the monkey could fly. Argument would be heard but not accepted as it is written that the monkey flew and that is the word of God and that is it. No evidence is taken into account and the story is what is believed.

So while science might be wrong on things, it is a pursuit for more and more accurate truth. Religion generally is not.

>>Again, the Bible is NOT a scientific textbook, nor is it intended as one.

Tell that to all the zealots trying to push creationism into science classes in school. That is where I draw the line.

But science has claimed millions of times the "truth", only to have it proven false later.

Truth in science is transient -- truth in morality is not, however much modern leftists want to make it be.

The greatest mass murderers of all time are all atheists -- when science supplants morality, there is no morality.

Religion is not needed for morality. IMHO religion actually is a detriment to morality.

I do what is right not for fear of burning in hell, or because God told me to, or because of some book. I do what's right because I think it is right.

Religious zealots shoving hell down your throat if you do something wrong is telling you to do what's right for fear of repercussion, instead of because it is the right thing to do. Jesus told you to be kind to others so just do it and don't question it or think about it or think why. Jesus also said not to judge, but many religious judge atheists and gays. So is it that you get to cherry pick the teachings you want to follow? That's called thinking for yourself instead of blindly doing what is in the Bible.

Science no where contradicts morality.

Just because religion hasn't changed their truth in 2000 years doesn't mean it is right. It means they are unbending on evaluating new evidence and new things we learn.

The Essence Of Science Explained In 63 Seconds : Krulwich Wonders... : NPR : http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/05/17/152913171/the-essence-of-science-explained-in-63-seconds

Video included.

"Think about what he saying. Science is our way of describing — as best we can — how the world works. The world, it is presumed, works perfectly well without us. Our thinking about it makes no important difference. It is out there, being the world. We are locked in, busy in our minds. And when our minds make a guess about what's happening out there, if we put our guess to the test, and we don't get the results we expect, as Feynman says, there can be only one conclusion: we're wrong."

That is science. Guess, Compute, Test. If the test doesn't agree with the guess then the guess is wrong. Religion does not test and does not admit it is wrong.

so you are saying dna is not there if god made adam out of dust as the bible claims and he was the first human (homo sapien) then that is absolutely wrong. Our dna is shared by all the animals on earth if you want refute that go ahead you saying you dont have dna so how the hell did you mother create you it was not a divine birth was it! It was your farthers sperm and a egg from your mother.

science is test ,test, test until its proved right

so science is not right then ?

So god made the earth in 6 days so he disigned the tectonic plates, undersea vents, volcanoes, the moon, waves, wind, weather, deserts, mountains. All of this is natural processes like the moon was created when another planet colided with the early earth. Mountains where created by tectonic motion, wind is created by atmospheric pressure, waves are created by the moons gravitational pull.

the bible doesn't talk about solar activety I mean the idea back then was the earth was the center of the universe and its clearly not. We know now that the earth is in the milkyway galaxy which is a spiral galaxy and there are billions of galaxies in the universe

We know that all of the continents where in the past where in a super continent called gondwana about 200 million years ago

the bible does not mention any preceeding its a starting point what I am saying it wasn't even as a story you have to agree the bible creation myths are lies

does the bible talk about weather and wind and rain I am sure it does

>>the bible does not mention any preceeding its a starting point what I am saying it wasn't even as a story you have to agree the bible creation myths are lies

I think the word "lies" is too strong a word in this context.  IMO, the bible stories are myths is a sufficient explanation.  
Dictionary.com - Myth
"a traditional or legendary story, usually concerning some being or hero or event, with or without a determinable basis of fact or a natural explanation, especially one that is concerned with deities or demigods and explains some practice, rite, or phenomenon of nature. "

It is a story without factual basis.

As tliotta pointed out earlier, a lie implies an intention to deceive.  I don't believe that the origin of the bible was an intention to deceive.

Yes, yes, it's all a set of coincidences -- the most extraordinaly, astronomically-against-the-odds coincidences.

At the point of the big bang, gravity itself has EXACTLY the amount of attraction needed to form universes, planets, etc..  Too little or too much gravity, no systems as we see them today.  Gravity even just happens to exist.  What lucky coincidences!

The earth just happened to form in a zone where it was the PERFECT distance from the sun to support our life.  What a lucky coincidence!

The earth just happened to have enough water to enable the vast diversity of life we see.  What a lucky coincidence!

The earth just happens to have the type of core that produces a magnetic field that protects us from all deadly local space threats.  What a lucky coincidence!

Earth just happens to have formed an ozone layer that protects us from deadly sun rays.  What a lucky coincidence!

The earth just happened to be struck by EXACTLY the right-sized body to form the moon, without which life on earth as we know it would not be possible.  What a lucky coincidence!

And on and on.  There are dozens of them.

@ScottPletcher
Exactly what was the above addressing?
None of it has anything to do with the bible.
I haven't read in this thread that anyone denied a creator which is what that sounds like a rebuttal to.

>>Yes, yes, it's all a set of coincidences -- the most extraordinaly, astronomically-against-the-odds coincidences.

Actually it is not astronomically against the odds. It is most likely pretty common considering how vast the universe is. There are more stars in the universe than all the grains of sand in all the beaches on Earth.

With the amount of exo-planets now being discovered in just the few stars we looked at for them it is believed that the majority of stars have planets around them of some sort.

The four most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen, Helium, Oxygen and Carbon which is also the most common elements in our bodies (other than helium which is inert).

Also the Earth developed life only a few hundred thousands years after the bombardment stopped from meteorites, (left over from the formation of the solar system) slamming into it. Not that long in a cosmic scale.

The mathematics suggests there is other life out there. It's too far away and we haven't found any of it. I don't believe we ever will since our efforts with current technology is like we are pretty much doing the equivalent of dipping a teaspoon in the Pacific trying to find a whale.

Life on earth is not an exception, but the norm. It is preposterous and arrogant to think all the other many trillions of stars and their planets are just there but God only put life on our little rock and watches over us.

the earth has molten metal inside as thats was happens when planets coalesce heavy items like metals sink to the centre when the earth was being formed

the moon is moving away by a couple of inches a year also the moon is made up mostly of the same rock as earth so its not devine in any way

the ozone layer was made by life , plants and we are damaging it by using cfc's hardly a devine item ozone la
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_layer

the ozone layer used to be poisenous to humans

we get protected from uv-a, un-b and uv-c by the atmosphere

the suns worst are probably crm's
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection

All the experts say the next war will be over water so we dont have enough to go round

Gravity is a natural process, a nuclear force
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitation
just wait until the lhc guys find the higgs boson as thats what they think gives items mass not gravity as there is nothing else at the sub atomic world

>> Life on earth is not an exception, but the norm. <<

False assertion, with NO evidence to support.  It's all based on supposition.


>> the earth has molten metal inside as thats was happens when planets coalesce heavy items like metals sink to the centre when the earth was being formed <<

No, not many planets have the type of magnetic fields that earth has.

The Bible is collection of writings, not the work of a single person, so it cannot be a lie. It could be all lies, though , but then, that would be very improbable. The likelihood is that it is a mixture of things. In my opinion, I think most of it is written in earnest. People tend not to lie, and if they do, they probably do it unconsciously. However, it would be equally improbable to have a bible that contained no lies.

The most "dishonest" aspect of the Bible in my view, is the interpretation of it by Church, ie the religion that they sell to us. By this I mean the central doctrines of Christianity.

Scientists have then been LYING for MILLENIA as well.

Galileo lied, Newton lied, they all lied, because what they said has been proven now to be FALSE.

>>False assertion, with NO evidence to support.  It's all based on supposition.

You're going to stick with that whole creation and Adam and Eve thing, and then you cry NO EVIDENCE???

The point of all the statements that I made is that what happened on Earth is not some astronomical remarkable chance. It is common to how the universe works and with the sheer number of planets (trillions upon trillions) that are mathematically estimated to be in the universe based on the percentage of stars that we looked at which have planets, it is a very logical assumption to think there is life on some of them.

Do you really think those trillions of stars and planets God put there but God only put people on this little blue rock in some distant corner of a distant galaxy not near the center of his universe that he created?

>>No, not many planets have the type of magnetic fields that earth has.

Planets with a magnetic field:-
Mercury (weak field)
Earth
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune

Planets with no magnetic field:-
Venus
Mars (no field now, but it did have a field once. Some effect is still present in the oldest rocks)

>>Galileo lied, Newton lied, they all lied, because what they said has been proven now to be FALSE.

WHAT? Where did you get this from? These scientists formulated the theories of gravity and motion and discovered moons of Saturn and even invented Calculus! They proved the Earth was not the center of the solar system and it revolved around the Sun in the center. What lies do you find there?

>>The most "dishonest" aspect of the Bible in my view, is the interpretation of it by Church, ie the religion that they sell to us.

Agree!

the lies I am refering to are:

1. the exodus
2. moses getting the ten commandments as that was part of the exodus
3  the flood if that was global see 6
4. Adam and Eve
5 the isrealites
6 noah do you really think you can build a ship to take all the animals in the world it wouldn't be posible today never mind in the past and there animals on earth have been around for millions of years

Ian

Just to pick up on some of those points:

2. moses getting the ten commandments as that was part of the exodus

No different to Muhammed, or any other spiritual figure, going up a mountain and hearing voices.

3  the flood if that was global see 6

The word global is not used, for at that time, the world was not understood to be a globe. The world was simply what the author thought it to be... the place he lived, the extent of his geopgraphical knowledge. There have been plenty of regional floodeds documented in history that may have been viewed by the people of the time as being world floods.

4. Adam and Eve

Strikes me as being an explanation of the development of consciousnes into self-awareness, told in the archaic langauge and concepts of the time. Psychology was not a science then, but psychology existed just as it does now.

6 noah do you really think you can build a ship to take all the animals in the world it wouldn't be posible today never mind in the past and there animals on earth have been around for millions of years

Could be a lie - but could also be symbolical.

So why say it's lies? Why not say "untrue"? Then again, it depends on how you define truth. There is more to truth than empirical reality, and your accusations appear to be based only on that basis -- on your empirical understanding of reality.

the flood was meant to be global "noah get all the animals on the ark"
The word global is not used, for at that time, the world was not understood to be a globe. The world was simply what the author thought it to be... the place he lived, the extent of his geopgraphical knowledge  thats exactly what I am saying local knowledge


ok not a lie an mega untruth

was I am saying there is too much science to belief the bible is a fact

I am refering to knowledge contained in the bible god made the earth in 6 days

Really its about 5 billion years old and was made from loads of debris from the big bang or supernovas. The fact that million and billion were not even invented in their time

God made adam from dust and eve from adam
humans in one form or another have been around for well over 3-4million years and the x chromosone was developed about 166milion years old

Humans evolved in the central african rift valley our species is about 200000 years old
Gorilla's and monkeys share about 98% of our dna as they are our nearest dna species predescendant

so even if the bible is untrue on these points thats a lot of the underpinning

We know now the are animals growing without sunlight at the bottom of the sea in black stockers , undersea vents

>> Planets with a magnetic field:-
Mercury (weak field)
Earth
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune <<


NOT of the type to protect them from all the stuff earth's does.

And Jupiter is large enough and in EXACTLY the right location to deflect asteroids and other space objects that would otherwise do incredible damage to earth.

We've examined hundreds of galaxies and found nothing like Earth really.

We've never received radio signals that were sent by another life form somewhere else, even though we've been monitoring for it (SETI).

If other life is all over, as you claim, some of it should have developed sooner, just by chance, and sent radio waves long enough ago that we would pick them up.

I am refering to knowledge contained in the bible god made the earth in 6 days

Of course. The six days can't be true, empirically at least. But that does not mean that Genesis is a lie, and furthermore, it does not mean that everything in Genesis is wrong. It can and probably does contain a deep truth - that is one of the reasons why it has survived as a text.

>> You're going to stick with that whole creation and Adam and Eve thing <<

I NEVER stated that, but straw men are easier to beat up, I guess :-) .

I've explicitly stated that the "6 days" creation isn't meant to be taken literally since even the Bible itself has two different versions of it.



>> , and then you cry NO EVIDENCE??? <<

Ok, what EVIDENCE do you have of other sentient life anywhere except Earth?

NOne, right?

genisis really point to something in it that can be proved

any god basher claims the bible is literal. I am saying the is no facts that refer to the real world its mumbo jumbo as far as I am concerned

any creation stuff in the bible is a complete falicy as today we know virtually exactly the age of the earth(5billion years), how it was created, how tectonic plates work and continually change the continents. How volcanoes have brought us out of a snowball earth situation due to drop stones from glacia's on top of mountains in deserts.

We know now that humans came from apes/gorillas about 3million + years as our dna is almost the same (98% the same) and there have been loads of pre human sapien homo variants.

There must be sentient life elsewhere in the universe there are too many stars and galaxies. But remember we have been very lucky to be here but certainly not devine

if life on this planet stated in water as assumed due to the way molecules combined
there will be a goldie locks habitual zone around most stars  

and remember sentient life elsewhere could have been wiped out in the last 15 billion years after most of the molecules where created in previous supernovas which would destroy its habitual zone and all of the outer planets

I mean do we actually know how big the universe is we cannot see all of it its just too large

>>NOT of the type to protect them from all the stuff earth's does.

They have the same types of magnetic fields that we do and protect the planet from exactly the same types of damage from the solar winds.

Saturn's aurora offer stunning double show : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100211111537.htm

"Despite its remoteness, the Sun's influence is still felt by Saturn. The Sun constantly emits particles that reach all the planets of the Solar System as the solar wind. When this electrically charged stream gets close to a planet with a magnetic field, like Saturn or the Earth, the field traps the particles, bouncing them back and forth between its two poles. A natural consequence of the shape of the planet's magnetic field, a series of invisible "traffic lanes" exist between the two poles along which the electrically charged particles are confined as they oscillate between the poles. The magnetic field is stronger at the poles and the particles tend to concentrate there, where they interact with atoms in the upper layers of the atmosphere, creating aurorae, the familiar glow that the inhabitants of the Earth's polar regions know as the northern and southern lights."

>>And Jupiter is large enough and in EXACTLY the right location to deflect asteroids and other space objects that would otherwise do incredible damage to earth.

Right. We are very lucky in the formation of the solar system. The moon, spacing, size of planets is all very fortunate for us. If there were only hundreds of stars then maybe it would be astronomical that we formed this way. There are Billions of Galaxies and Trillions of stars! We are lucky, but probably not unique.

>>We've examined hundreds of galaxies and found nothing like Earth really.
>>We've never received radio signals that were sent by another life form somewhere else, even though we've been monitoring for it (SETI).
>>If other life is all over, as you claim, some of it should have developed sooner, just by chance, and sent radio waves long enough ago that we would pick them up.

We have barely examined hundreds of stars in our own galaxy. An analogy would be that we are standing on the shore of the pacific ocean dipping a teaspoon in and trying to find a whale. It's not going to happen with current technology. I think SETI is a huge waste of time and money. We can barely see past the waves even with current technology!

>>I've explicitly stated that the "6 days" creation isn't meant to be taken literally since even the Bible itself has two different versions of it.

I stand corrected. What is your take on the creation of the Earth and Universe?

>>Ok, what EVIDENCE do you have of other sentient life anywhere except Earth?

Absolutely none, and I don't expect us to find any. I also have no evidence that there is a bird in the tree outside my office. It does not mean it isn't there though with the number of trees around my office, mathematically based on what I know of birds (and we know of life) and what I know of trees (and we know of planets) there would be one there.

>>Galileo lied, Newton lied, they all lied, because what they said has been proven now to be FALSE.

I'd really like you to explain this statement if you could though.

>>We know now that humans came from apes/gorillas about 3million + years as our dna is almost the same (98% the same) and there have been loads of pre human sapien homo variants.<<

You must accept that on faith, as the fact we share 98% of anything proves absolutly nothing.  By the very defination af evolution, we should expect to see very similar looks and dna.  It's like saying, I grew two trees in my yard and they both lean to the south, they must be related. Could it not be possible for apes and man to have evolved in the same environment and shared no ancesters?

loads of pre human sapien homo variants.<<
How do you know they were pre human?

any god basher claims the bible is literal.

The question is, what does literal mean? Does it mean it happened empirically, or that it happened on some other level?

It's quite possible that many of the miraculous events described in the Bible happened on a level that is different to that of the ordinary senses. In such cases, the word literal could be applied. For example, if Moses heard a voice dictate the 10 commandments to him, then is that not literal, regardless of where the voice came from?

>>any god basher claims the bible is literal.

I agree with what Jason210 said above.
I would also add that this is a very generalized statement.  It would be extremely difficult to prove.  In fact, it would only take one "god basher"  who does not claim it to prove false.
BTW, what exactly is a "god basher?"

>> >>Galileo lied, Newton lied, they all lied, because what they said has been proven now to be FALSE.
I'd really like you to explain this statement if you could though. <<

My point was, if the Bible is a "lie", then they "lied" also.

>>My point was, if the Bible is a "lie", then they "lied" also.

That is a reasonable statement, IMO.

>> Absolutely none, and I don't expect us to find any. I also have no evidence that there is a bird in the tree outside my office. <<

But we have evidence that birds actually exist; we've seen billions of them.

We've NEVER seen other sentient life.  Assuming it's there is not "scientific" to me, it's pure speculation.


>> . If there were only hundreds of stars then maybe it would be astronomical that we formed this way. There are Billions of Galaxies and Trillions of stars! We are lucky, but probably not unique.<<

I think the odds are no more than that.  The chances of multiple events are found by multiplying the odds.  If there's a 1/10 chance of A, and a 1/10 chance of B, then the chance of A and B is 1/100.  Multiply ALL the PERFECT "coincidences" for earth, you come up with an **extremely small** number.

>>Multiply ALL the PERFECT "coincidences" for earth, you come up with an **extremely small** number.

Right. And we have an **extremely huge** number of galaxies stars and planets in the universe.

If God just put us here, what did he put all the rest out there for anyway?

>>We've NEVER seen other sentient life.  Assuming it's there is not "scientific" to me, it's pure speculation.

It is mathematical extrapolation. No guarantee it is there and I never said it was. I'm saying it is most probable that it is. I don't think we will ever find any evidence as the universe is too vast and too spread out with too many planets to find it.

>>My point was, if the Bible is a "lie", then they "lied" also.

They have evidence. The Bible does not. Truth is based on evidence. They said the Sun was in the center of the solar system. It is in the center. It is a fact. It is truth.

The Bible said the Earth was in the center of the solar system. It isn't in the center. That is wrong no matter how you look at it. I don't call the Bible full of lies, but it is full of mis-information on facts.

>>... if Moses heard a voice dictate the 10 commandments to him, then is that not literal, regardless of where the voice came from?

That would be fine if that is how it was described. It though is described with a burning bush and engraved in stone tablets. That is false no matter how you look at it.

That would be fine if that is how it was described. It though is described with a burning bush and engraved in stone tablets. That is false no matter how you look at it.

As an emprical event, probably false. But what if this was a way of describing something else, or some vision?

The Bible said the Earth was in the center of the solar system. It isn't in the center. That is wrong no matter how you look at it. I don't call the Bible full of lies, but it is full of mis-information on facts.

The Bible is not an historical book. It is a collection of spiritual/religious writings. From the point of view of history, it is not a reliable guide, although in its day it served as an adequate explanation of the Universe in this respect. However, as a spiritual /religious book, it is certainly not a matter of tossing it aside as a "lie" or ledger of "mis-information". and can be interpreted in many ways. For example, Genesis works very well as description of the emergence of consciousness, and the dawn of self-awareness in amnkind - and a remarkable one at that.

>> The Bible said the Earth was in the center of the solar system. <<

Where?  What is that based on?

>>Where?  What is that based on?

How about the church said it.

>>...certainly not a matter of tossing it aside as a "lie" or ledger of "mis-information"...

I didn't call it either. It is a mis-information on facts. There are a lot of lessons in it that are not mis-information at all.

>>The Bible is not an historical book. It is a collection of spiritual/religious writings. From the point of view of history, it is not a reliable guide, although in its day it served as an adequate explanation of the Universe in this respect.

So don't be trying to teach it in school Science classes. Teach it in philosophy or something.

Genesis works very well as description of the emergence of consciousness, and the dawn of self-awareness in amnkind

absolute rubbish mankind has been around for several million years are you saying mankind had no self awareness before

I thought I'd been making this clear.

Have you ever read Shakespeare? If so, do you call it absolute rubbish?

So don't be trying to teach it in school Science classes. Teach it in philosophy or something.

Quite right. But trying to pass this off as science has more to do with society you live in rather than the Bible itself.

>>Have you ever read Shakespeare? If so, do you call it absolute rubbish?

People don't claim that Shakespeare is non-fiction. The Bible they do.

>> But trying to pass this off as science has more to do with society you live in rather than the Bible itself.

Unfortunately yes.

Shakespeare is fiction by design just like the bible afterall he was a play write

what I am getting at the more and more discoveries about things like plate tectonics, volcanoes, continental drift, supercontinents of gondwana and all the other previos supercontinents (these can be proved by geology) etc as these have been around for biliions of years as they work on the geologic time

so when you read something in the bible and know its plainly wrong due to a new discovery the stock answer from a bible basher is its a literal interpretation is clap trap I would rather agree with the science that has proved it

People don't claim that Shakespeare is non-fiction. The Bible they do

Non-fiction yes, but it also contains some profound truths about life, does it not? Also, many of Shakespeare's plays are based on historical events. So there are a few similarities between the bible and Shakespeare. But that is beside the point. The point I wanted to make was that they both use imagery. Take this line, from Richard II, Shakespeare:


This is a decription of the murder of one of Edwards sons. It clearly shows that language can be used to express something real using imagery.

Shakespeare is fiction by design just like the bible afterall he was a play write

Good point. That is the essential difference between a religious text and a work of fiction like Shakespeare. Design. In the scripture, the writers were not deliberately using metaphor, as Shakespeare was. At least not always. I think John's Relevation may do that - to some extent. But for the most part I believe that imagery was used in scripture because that was the only way the writer could express the visions or spiritual revelations they had experienced. It's not metaphor by design. The writer was probably not even aware of metaphor. He wrote what he saw, or imagined, and expressed what he wanted to express in the best way he could.

what I am getting at the more and more discoveries about things like plate tectonics, volcanoes, continental drift, supercontinents of gondwana and all the other previos supercontinents (these can be proved by geology) etc as these have been around for biliions of years as they work on the geologic time

As I said, the Bible is not a history or science book. It is a book that attempts to explain religious experiences using the language and concepts known at the time. What you're doing is judging it as a history or science book but overlooking the spiritual or religious knowledge in it.  It would be equally wrong for me to take a science book and attempt to use it as a basis for a religion, at the same time ignoring it's purpose as a science book.

Please understand that there are two different types of knowledge here. One is called empirical knowledge and it's language is mathematics, and the other is called spiritual knowledge and it's language is the expression of subjective experience through literature. In order for a scientist and a religious person to have a discussion about theire different worlds, it is essential for both to have a clear understanding these two different types of knowledge, and what their limitations are, rather than fall into the trap of believing it all to be the same type of knowledge and then get into a conflict.

how can a 6 day metaphor for god creating to world be based on anything but a untruth because the world day was in normal use at the time. How can anybody even religious vealots must agree that in anyway to represent 5million years.

The phrase Adam was created from mud and woman created from Adam whats that a metaphore for. Adam was not the first of anything homo sapiens had been around for about 200000 years. Adams dna is not a starting point its a continuation of a natural process called evolution that has been going on for millions of years.

So you not telling me that god could have muttered that when he spoke to somebody 'oh by the way the world is round not flat, the earth is not the center of the universe the sun is' if he wanted to help civilization. Thats if he existed.

Where are heavan and hell when we die we get eaten by worms after we decompose so the meatphore for heavan and hell what do they mean. I am fed up with people who say the bible is a metaphor, a metaphore for what. It doesn't even have knowledge from just over the horizon its too local too foucused on the local people and enviroment. Lets assume the bible was written in the 4th and 5th centuary ad by numerouse writters its their stories but its not written in a devine way there is no devine input as if there was a devine power would know what waas happening over the horizon and in the solar system. There have been many gods in the past and they where all eventually found to be nothing more than a man in charge that usually got there by dubious methods. Religeon is a tool to control people after all more people have died because of religeon true of not ?

If the Bible is a lie or a mega untruth then Jesus is the biggest liar, hypocrite, sadomasochist ever mentioned in a story.
It is written that Jesus used to go in Synagogue and read from Scripture the Law of Moses – definitely knowing the entire story of Exodus or Noah and other stories of his people.
It is nowhere written that Jesus denied that.

Contrary, for example in Matthew 24:
37 As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark;

Why the portrait of Jesus is mentioned as the model of truth when Jesus recalls events that did not happen?

You cannot split the events from Old Testament and the Gospels with story of Jesus. They are connected.
I suppose will remain only one more solution: to deny that Jesus existed and is just a legend.
Is it so?

There are 2 things mentioned here so far that worth to be commented:

1) To prove that Bible is a lie it was picked up the story of Exodus and calculation with 600.000 people is made among the other introduced “proofs”. What I do not understand is why this part? Just because is more credible, somehow more close to what we can believe or prove? In your place I would have started a bit earlier, previous to exodus where the story provides many details impossible to be accepted by a 21st century scientist. Let’s see:
          a. Why not to remember the 10 Plagues? Why Bible does not seems to be a lie for that? I mean, how come should we believe such things?
          b.Then God guided the people to the Red See directly and miraculous : Exodus 13: 21 By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night. 22 Neither the pillar of cloud by day nor the pillar of fire by night left its place in front of the people.
          c.The God protected them directly: Exodus 14: “19 Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of Egypt and Israel. Throughout the night the cloud brought darkness to the one side and light to the other side; so neither went near the other all night long.”
I mean, if you want to look at the Exodus as lie then these above are “fairy tales”, not 600.000 people with some calculations behind.

And there is more: what is happening after that in the desert is also incredible.
But why we do not start earlier: how these people arrived in Egypt when Joseph was prime minister of the Egypt after Pharaoh had a dream and Joseph had "fun" in the dungeon? Is not that also a fairy tale?
Well, I tell you: depends how you look at them, what are your references and your background.

With God things are not usual, normal, scientifically.
They are just wonders in our reality. It is the same as beings with many dimensions interact with lower dimensions.
These wonders made also by Jesus have an extraterrestrial origin. Things and laws of nature/universe are different when God is present. If you want they are unique events, not described by human recognizable laws – so closest analogy probably would be: big bang state when the known laws of the physics do not exist anymore as we know them.

2) Is it mentioned that Bible is a framework for morality. It is, but when we look in the New Testament, if would be only that will have no power. The Gospels presents more than that: people with power from God. Unusual capacities and transformations of people’s life when God interacts directly with our world.
          a. Why the stories from Exodus or Noah are so impossible to be accepted and we want to prove them , now, with our science and knowledge, and you do not treat the story of Jesus the same? Was not Jesus a miracle? He has done things unimaginable for us.
         b. When we consider Jesus story is not only about behaving, moral framework. It is about power and changed lives.

But of course, we can say that Jesus is just a legend.
What would be the purpose of such legend in the way how is told?

the exodus is still being debated by experts that been going on for too long and its been discontuined

History proves the exodus cant have happened as some towns are not there when the exodus says it was
Also do you think 600000 people could live in the desert for 38 years to let the giants leave caanan, giants really, there is no evidence for 600000 people anywhere in the sania desert. Also if 600000 slaves left egypt as exodus says egypt would have been in trouble as that would be about 1/3 of the population at that time.

If you are looking for reasons to not believe that Bible is true then you will find many.
There are reasons to believe and reasons to not believe.
Did you think that you may have the wrong approach?

Let’s say that you somehow prove or happened to belive that Exodus is true, then what do you do next? You take the next hard to belive story and try to prove?
Do you have enough time in your life to go like that?

What you are basically saying is the same as Thomas said to Jesus:
John 20:
24 Now Thomas (also known as Didymus[a]), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”
But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
28 Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Thomas needed something at his level of understanding and perception, to put his finger, to touch.
Is not the science today the same? We need to touch and observe, in order to accept?

Sometimes is not like that in reality and history.
Bible speaks about many miraculous things which happened and they are difficult to be accepted today. That’s why Jesus said that He makes the miracles so they could believe that He is who said He is: the Christ.
At that time nobody thought to approach such things in the manner as we think today: with science – just made no sense for them.
Now, let’s imagine that we now, with our science, would have the chance to go back in time and to participate and the miracles from Bible, being confronted with a supernatural forces. What would we do?
If Jesus would live today instead of 2000 years ago and we would see His power then what? Most of the science adepts will say: c’mon, it’s a trick, did you not see Chris Angels at TV last night? Some may want to “catch” Him and analyze Him in the laboratory: His AND, magnetic fields… everything would be as a man of science thinks. And that is not always right.

The main obstacle for many scientists to accept Bible is exactly what make them powerful, what defines them: the rational thinking – because when they cannot explain due to the limits of the actual science level, they cannot accept.
There are events which cannot be always explained or proved in the present, but that does not make them a lie.

We need to touch and observe, in order to accept?

not in some situations obverse and its disapears ( sub atomic )

miracles I dont believe a miracle has happened any where or time have you got a miracle that science has proved using testing

no my statement for the bible is a lie have moved to the bible is a mistruth but my statement about the bible is local still is

if things like the exodus, moses, the ten commandments, 600000 people in the sania desert for 38 years. As these are the base starting point for the bible I am stating that a mistruth at the begining is a pointer to the whole being a mistruth.

As we know today man has been around for about 3-5 million years due to archeology finding remains of lucy a 3.4 million year old half and half human / ape which is the oldest early human prototype known at the moment

Dinosaurs used to be the masters of earth and where wiped out by an asteroid 65 million years ago. Did god create the dinosuars and then wipe them out as he got it wrong. Humans evolved from the mammels that could live underground as the asteroid destroyed most animals on the land. There have been loads of mass extinctions in the geological record so we are as a species very fortunate to be here at all but that is not a coincidence.

the coincidence of the moon just be big enough for a solar eclipse well that will not always be that case and wasn't the case earlier on in history as its constantly moving away the scientists thick our gravity is changing and getting weaker definatley our magnetic shield is getting weaker too. Its a known issue our sun will run out of fuel in about 5 billion years and wipe out our solar system when it does run out of fuel so bye bye earth is that a miracle? No its a scientific understanding of how stars work. The sun could wipe us out if a cme in our direction.

Ian

how can a 6 day metaphor for god creating to world be based on anything but a untruth because the world day was in normal use at the time. How can anybody even religious vealots must agree that in anyway to represent 5million years.

The "world day" was in normal use back then,  but knowledge of how the universe (or consciousness) came about was not known. Genesis is evidently someone's insipred attempt to answer that mystery. The days are not really important - this is just a detail. What is important is the steps of differentiation that take place, and the symbolic events in the Garden of Eden.

If you are interested in finding a spiitual or religious meaning of the Bible and other religious text it can be very enlightening. One thing that I realised quite early on is that the details are the least important factors. It is rather broader concepts that matter, and if you compare these concepts from different religons then they basically amount to the same thing. The problem with religon is that, there is no standard langauge of religion, and therefore it is expressed through the interpretative framework of each culture and naturally these all differ. The mistake is to get stuck in these details, and think that is what is important. All these religious wars we hear about are really wars about different cultures.

It's important to remember always that the Bible is collection of different books by different authors. Some books are based on oral tradition, while other texts are based on earlier texts. Some texts have been formed into a narrative by the author, while other texts represent a vision or dream of the author. There is no standard system of language or metaphor in use, and if we're talking about Jesus, he wrote nothing down. The sources we can trust are those which quote Jesus directly - everything else is someone else trying to be a spokesperson for him - and they probably have their own motives to consider also!

Where are heavan and hell when we die we get eaten by worms after we decompose so the meatphore for heavan and hell what do they mean

If you want to hear people's opinions on these mysteries,  better to start a new thread here. It can be fun discussing.

There have been many gods in the past and they where all eventually found to be nothing more than a man in charge that usually got there by dubious methods. Religion is a tool to control people after all more people have died because of religeon true of not ?

Religion is the aftermath of a spiritual leader. It's what's left behind when the leader has died, and the connection between him and his followers broken. For example, if we read about some of the great opera singers of the 1800's, it means very little to us because we have no way of hearing them. That's because there is far more to those people in person than can be conveyed by text. It's like that with spiritual leaders. There is more to them than just what they say. Another analogy could be a rockstar who you see live. There is a different kind of energy present when you go to a live performance, compared to listening to a recording.

So Jesus's teachings live on only as memories and in literature. This is where the information gets distorted and his meaning lost. In no way was Jesus ever into controlling people or seeking power. Quite the opposite. He found himself disenfranchised and eventually executed. However, the Christian church as we know it did not begin to appear until about 300 years after the death of the man called Jesus. The Church established doctrines that were little to do with Jesus or his teachings. And they did it to make Christianity seem the most important of all religions, so it could dominate and unite people. So you're right, most of religion and religious leaders are questionable.

The purpose of spiritual leaders is to try teach others to get to know themselves. The main credential a spiritual leader has (a genuine one of course) is that he knows his Self. Understanding the Self is the key to it all, and at face value the Bible doesn't really help you do that. Unless you already have a religious disposition, the Bible is of little use - although Jesus's teachings are quite practical and one can live by them.

So the bible is a story thats my point

the are loads of dubious christian teachers/leaders in the usa do you agree that these have a phone line to god, no they are there for making money do you agree

>>because when they cannot explain due to the limits of the actual science level, they cannot accept.

Not at all. Scientists accept many things that they cannot explain. Any scientist worth his salt will tell you that there is more that we do not know than we do know. Dark matter is not explained and the theories of it keep changing as we learn more and more. It is still accepted to be there.

What scientists cannot accept is when something has been proven to be wrong. Unproven either way can still be accepted (dark matter). Proven to be wrong cannot be accepted (Genesis).

>>There are events which cannot be always explained or proved in the present, but that does not make them a lie.

Correct. But if they can be proven to be inaccurate, then they are inaccurate.


>>So you're right, most of religion and religious leaders are questionable.

Agree. Science however is not. People of science and scientists, (and especially the people that fund them) can be, but the science itself never is.

thats because science is on-going its not finished or will ever be finished imho

So the bible is a story thats my point

Not really. It is a collection of books, some of which are stories about spiritual leaders, some of which are lists of quotes, and some of which are texts that attempt to describe spiritual or transcendental experiences. It's not a story, or a lie, or anything that you can precede with an "a" unless you follow it with the word mixture, because that's what it is. A mixture of loosely related books.

the are loads of dubious christian teachers/leaders in the usa do you agree that these have a phone line to god, no they are there for making money do you agree  

I'm sure there are plenty of people who have convinced themselves they they do have a phone line to God, but are probably deluded people looking to make some money. And there are undoubtedly a few who are outright liars too. So I don't blame you at all for having the attitude you do, but I do urge you to consider that there may be more religion than you think.

>> Dinosaurs used to be the masters of earth and where wiped out by an asteroid 65 million years ago. Did God create the dinosuars and then wipe them out as he got it wrong. <<

The dinosaurs were absolutely *vital* to humans having a comfortable life on earth millions of years later, esp. billions of them.  So the dinos were hardly "wrong"; rather well planned, actually.

Why something that is changing continuous as science is more trusty than unchangeable  Word of God?

The science is not perfect, has/had  holes and mistakes. Theories along history changed. Famous people made mistakes.
Just look:
http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-most-famous-scientific-theories-that-turned-out-to-be-wrong.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superseded_scientific_theories
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_scientific_laws_or_theories_have_been_proven_wrong

Does that mean I cannot accept the science for my daily life? No.
But is immature to declare "Science can contradict itself. And that's OK. It's a fundamental part of how research works." http://boingboing.net/2010/11/24/the-best-scientific.html and then to say that Bible has holes and that is reason to not trust.
Is it as you would say: now I do not trust in science because I have seen errors in the past.

The only distinction here between that analogy and Bible is the fact that science evolves.
The Word of God stays.

Why would Jesus say?: Matthew 24:35
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

There so many prophecies in the Old Testament made with hundreds of years before sometimes. They were not science. They Word of God. They happened exactly.
What do you think about that?

>>But is immature to declare "Science can contradict itself. And that's OK. It's a fundamental part of how research works." http://boingboing.net/2010/11/24/the-best-scientific.html and then to say that Bible has holes and that is reason to not trust.

Holes are fine. It is wrong information which will not be let go that is the problem. I've stated most scientists acknowledge there is a lot more that they don't know then they do know. What makes science correct is that whether a scientist thinks the sun is a ball of hydrogen turning into helium through nuclear fusion or a light bulb in the sky doesn't change what it is. Once the light bulb in the sky theory is proven to be wrong, then it is not adhered to to be right.

Religion does not do this. Religion states that if it is in the Bible then that is the way it is and no evidence changes that.

We used to think that dinosaurs were large lizards. We now understand they were more similar to large birds than lizards. Dinosaurs didn't change. How much we know about them did so we learned enough to bring us closer to the truth.

Religion does not allow this. Evolution is the most obvious example. It is overwhelmingly proven that man evolved into what he is today. For the people touting creationism such as Adam and Eve, it is wrong and there is no other way to evaluate that.

Does it make any sense for you to try to prove scientifically that God exists?

>>Does it make any sense for you to try to prove scientifically that God exists?

Not to me. I could also be trying to prove any fictional character exists. All would be a waste of efforts as they are fictional.

Proof that a man known as Jesus Christ existed about 2000 years ago would not be a wasted effort if you were so inclined to do so. I believe there was such a man. I just do not believe he performed all the miracles as described in the Bible.

Proof that a man known as Jesus Christ existed about 2000 years ago would not be a wasted effort if you were so inclined to do so. I believe there was such a man. I just do not believe he performed all the miracles as described in the Bible.

Which is a perfectly reasonable stance to take. Why should we believe these events happened, when they are inconsistent with scientific theory and there is no evidence (except the Bible) that they ever happened. We do not see them happening now.

That said, there is a difference between God and a fictional character. A fictional character is created by design of an author. However, the concept of God was not created this way - it emerged as an archetype in the conscious of mankind. It emerged independently in every culture, in some form or another. That makes it different to a fictional character devised by a writer for the purposes of entertainment. It also has a different meaning to mankind.

In the empircal world, science is authoritative, but there is more to existence than empircal world we inhabit. There is an inner world of subjectivity that, though it cannot be shared, is just as real is the "outer" physical world, because it happens. This subjective, inner world may be made of different "stuff" than the physical world, but it happens to someone, none-the-less. This goes for visions too, such as the oral visions experienced by Muhammed and Moses. Nor will it do to dismiss this inner world as meaningless or unimportant, since it contains all our feelings and emotions, dreams, ideas and creativity. In a nutshell everything that makes us human. The empirical world, on the other hand, is just the world we can see, measure and share. Robots could do this.

One might want to dismiss the visions of Muhammed or Moses as psychotic illness, and yet something positive came out of those visions. So whatever the source of these visions, it clearly was some kind of unconscious, beneficial intelligence. We could label it as a complex, in the minds of these men. But whatever we label it, for one to claim that the empirical world is the only world of any real value is clearly wrong, and to believe that with cock-sure certainty is at best an immature philosphy based on ignorance, and at worst another kind of mental disorder.

>>In the empircal world, science is authoritative, but there is more to existence than empircal world we inhabit. There is an inner world of subjectivity that, though it cannot be shared, is just as real is the "outer" physical world, because it happens.

I fully understand your concept of "empirical world" and other real inner worlds. Thought and intelligence themselves are very real and very important, yet we have no idea how the mind actually works as thoughts. We understand the brain and the synapses and such, but the mind and how it functions we know nothing about, however it is of course very real.

>>That said, there is a difference between God and a fictional character. A fictional character is created by design of an author. However, the concept of God was not created this way - it emerged as an archetype in the conscious of mankind.

This still is not something I believe. Just because more people believe in God does not make him any less fictional than Mickey Mouse. He was created in different cultures because humans have an innate wanting to understand the world around them and explain things. Hence the Gods of different religions were the easiest accepted answer as to how things worked, how they got there, and the reassurance that someone is in control of it all taking care of us.

For God not to be fictional there would have to have been one of him created. The fact that there was God, Allah, Buddha, Zeus, Aphrodite, Mars, Ra, etc shows that it is just a natural process from human society to understand the world around them and appease their lives and society.

God and religion was created by man and each civilization created it differently because they could as there is no fact or evidence behind any of it to test it against or counter whatever they made up. The universe and the stars and mathematics, and geology, and evolution happened. Nobody created them. Nobody has different versions that are accurate. These things happened in one way and we discovered these things and still are discovering them. If there was life on Mars they would scientifically come to the same conclusion as to how the solar system and universe formed as we did and that Pi = 3.1415 and an endless amount of decimals. They might have an entirely different religion though, which would be completely made up and fictional.

Religion is done when mankind is gone. The sun will still convert hydrogen to helium though whether we are here or not to benefit from it.

Just because more people believe in God does not make him any less fictional than Mickey Mouse.

It is not about more people believing. It's about the cause of the God concept, and my argument is that it is an intrinsically different cause than the cause of Mickey Mouse. Such comparisons, akin to the Flying Spaghetti monster, are neither accurate nor helpful, and in debates like this where you are going to come accross religious people, only likely to inflame.

You have put forward a reasonable prospal as to this cause of the God concept - that it was part of a natural process for society to understand the world around them, and a way to get through life. This explains why people happily follow religions, and why religions exist, but it does not explain the mystical origins of those religions. Even religion had a mystical origin and has a mysical background, for example, like Jesus

The universe and the stars and mathematics, and geology, and evolution happened. Nobody created them.

Well, we are here to perceive them. Would they exist without us, or without similar observers? Certainly their names wouldn't, and one could argue that it is consciousness that differentiates their forms out of the primal soup. Everything we see, we see through our interpretative framework, that is partially physiological, partially psychological and partially cultural. To say that these things exist of indenpently of this framework implies that there is some other framwork that serves as the viewpoint of the Universe. Who's or what viewpoint would that be? One could argue that we at least are part of their creation, by our very presence.

What you propose is reasonable, but it doesn't explain the concepts of the mystical origins of religion, for example, such as found in Hinduism, Sufism and Buddhism, and so on.

As far as I know, there is no mystical aspect to Mickey Mouse.

mys·ti·cal/'mistik¿l/
Adjective:      
Of or relating to mystics or religious mysticism.
Spiritually allegorical or symbolic; transcending human understanding.
Synonyms:      mystic - occult - mysterious

No place in there is it mentioned that mystical is real. The Sun is real. The earth is real. The chair I am sitting on is real. Mystical creatures are not real.

>>Would they exist without us, or without similar observers?

Yes they would.

>>Certainly their names wouldn't...

The sun doesn't need to be called the sun, or a star, to continue doing the nuclear fusion it is doing right now and for the next billions of years as it had for the billions of years before we gave it a name.

>>What you propose is reasonable, but it doesn't explain the concepts of the mystical origins of religion, for example, such as found in Hinduism, Sufism and Buddhism, and so on.

The origins of something do not make it real. It doesn't matter where my chair came from as to whether it is real or not. It doesn't matter where Mickey Mouse or God, or Buddha came from to make them be fictional. If they were made up in a story, they are fictional. Intent doesn't make reality or not. Facts and evidence do. The fact that my butt is not on the ground  makes my chair real. The evidence of heat and light and cosmic rays we get from the sun makes it real.

No place in there is it mentioned that mystical is real.

We already discussed the reality of subjective experience.

Yes they would.

You are entitled to your beliefs. But I don't think Kant would agree with you on that one. Also, consider, does an electron have a fixed position and velocity without you observing it? Not according to Bohr.

The sun doesn't need to be called the sun, or a star, to continue doing the nuclear fusion it is doing right now and for the next billions of years as it had for the billions of years before we gave it a name.

How we measure time is also part of our frame of reference. Time and what we perceive as space, and the objects in it, are all shaped by the mind. Without any mind or consciousness to measure them, what are they? Where are they? What defines where something starts, and where something ends? Do they know this themselves? No, we do this in our minds.

What is your reference point?

>>We already discussed the reality of subjective experience.

But that does not mean that subjective experience is the same as a physical reality. What I am addressing here is the physical state of the world and universe around us. Subjectivity does not apply in the physical world over evidence.

>>You are entitled to your beliefs.

Thank you but I did not state any beliefs. I stated facts that exist whether they are believed or not.

>>But I don't think Kant would agree with you on that one

Philosophers are not scientists. Any reasonable scientifically literate person will acknowledge that the sun will be there long after we are not. It has been there long before life on earth and will be long after. I really cannot see how this is debatable in the slightest way in any form.

>>Time and what we perceive as space, and the objects in it, are all shaped by the mind.

No it isn't/ Time and space exist without us or any life at all.

>>What is your reference point?

Evidence. What is yours?

What I am addressing here is the physical state of the world and universe around us. Subjectivity does not apply in the physical world over evidence.

So you are talking about empiricism!

Evidence. What is yours?

Evidence is not a frame of reference, it is an appearance within a frame of reference. Empirical evidence is based on sense inputs to the mind, and shaped by the mind. The contents of mind, and the body of knowledge that results from sharing the empirical knowledge of minds, is one kind of reality.

Evidence tells us nothing about the nature of absolute reality, out "there". It tells us little about subjective reality either. Evidence is where we meet the unknown. It is the result of t the interaction between mind, and the absolute, and the observation of this interaction takes place in the mind. Of course, there is something out there that causes these "things" to appear in the mind, but you cannot know what. You can only know what is in the mind. Sure, the mind can make a representation, and then procede to describe that representation in detail, but the representation in the mind is shaped by the structure of the mind. We can only ever know the mind's perspective. Even scientific knowledge is not objective, but shaped by a human perspective of the Universe.

Evidence, in the form of something observed and shared, is indeed a fact...otherwise what is a fact? But it is wrong to think of facts as absolute certainties, for many reasons. One reason is as I've mentioned, because facts are relative to the interpretive framework they are appear in. What appears in our framework may look very different or insignificant in another.

Another reason is that however certain we might be about a fact, we cannot be sure that it will always be so. This is the basis of Karl Popper's scientific philosophy. His famous example was the white swan, black swan scenario. We may believe that all swans are white due to observation, but it only takes one black swan to be observed once to smash that belief. What we can a fact today, could change tomorrow.  The correct way to consider a fact is that it is just the highest on a scale of probability.

Perhaps the most sturdy facts we know are the laws of the universe, and yet, it has even been suggested by scientists that these laws may be evolving....

The only fact we can really be absolutely certain of is that we are aware, now, that we exist, that right now "I am". This is Descartes, and it is also the philosophy behind the film "the Matrix" if you saw it.

Of course, we may believe that facts are unchanging absolutes, and we may believe that our empircial reality is the final authoritative reality. But these are beliefs, from a technically philosophical point of view.

Your entire argument seems to be based around philosophy rather than science. Understandable since this was originally a question regarding the Bible.

I still maintain that even the most devout Bible believers and philosophers, as long as they are reasonable (as there are some loony ones out there), would maintain that the Sun is a real thing and it wouldn't matter if we or the Earth is here or not for it to continue to be real.

You can look at it from all different angles and methodology that you want, but this is a fact in any reality. It doesn't take sensory input. It doesn't take consciousness. It doesn't take anything at all from us for the sun to be real and continue doing what it does.

It might take sensory input and consciousness for us to recognize it and understand it. Our understanding of something isn't what makes it real. Being real makes something real. The sun however is going to be there regardless of whether we understand it or not.

Back to the question at hand. All the understanding of religion isn't going to change the fact that when humans are gone, so is religion. That is not real. That is made up by us.

Just a small thought experient...

Thinking about a JPEG image....we can have a picture in a JPEG image, of say a dog, stored on CD. We can send the CD to everyone in the world, and they all agree that the picture is of a dog.

No let's take away all PCs, and all knowledge of that technology, including the operating system and software, knowledge about the JPEG algorithms etc and the montior -- everything. Gone. As if they never existed. All we are left with is this CD.

Now what use is the CD? It's just a pattern of 0s and 1as. There is a structure to that pattern, and people will agree that it is the same pattern, but the pattern cannot be understood to be dog. So it raises the question - without the interpretative framework, is therean image of  a dog on the CD or not? Without the interpretative framework, the 0s and 1s on the CD are meaningless.

The universe is like this, a flux with a meaningless patterns, that only collapse into meaningful facts when observed by an interpretative mechanism.

So, to understand the Bible, we need to decode it with the same interpretative framework from which is written - and that framework was not the same as that used in empircal science.

When we talk about physical reality, we usually mean empirical reality, which means objects of the senses. But that's not quite true. Everything that happens subjectively is just as much part of physics, as the empirical world. If not, then what would it be? Supernatural?

Good analogy with the CD of the image of the dog. The CD is data. 0s and 1s is all it is. Putting them 0s and 1s in a certain shape does not make them a dog. It does not make them an image of a dog. It is perceived that way by us when viewed through a computer but it is still just data, as the words I am typing on this keyboard are not words but are also 0s and 1s.

If I take a stick and draw lines in the sand that may look like a house, that does not make it a house or an image of a house. It is still just lines and actually it is still just grains of sand. That is the reality of what it is. It is never anything but grains of sand. Though we may interpret the arrangement of the grains which the stick caused as being the image of a house, in reality it is still sand and nothing more.

>>The universe is like this, a flux with a meaningless patterns, that only collapse into meaningful facts when observed by an interpretative mechanism.

Perception is not reality.

>>So, to understand the Bible, we need to decode it with the same interpretative framework from which is written - and that framework was not the same as that used in empircal science.

I agree that is how we understand the Bible. That does not make it real. I also understand Harry Potter in the same way, but it is not real.

>>Everything that happens subjectively is just as much part of physics, as the empirical world.

No it isn't.

>>If not, then what would it be? Supernatural?

sub·jec·tive/s¿b'jektiv/
Adjective:      
Based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions.

Subjectivity is based on a person's view of something.  When people are gone, nothing left is subjective. That is physical reality.

On a side note: This is a great discussion and I hold your views and intelligence in the highest regards. I am fully fine with our differing viewpoints and only continue for the enjoyment of a good debate with an articulate person. Carry on :)

science is based on maths just like anything else like nature for instance
you can't in my opinion use maths to prove the bible is true

Ok I am restating the original question should have been genesis (and others) is a complete lie/untruth is there is no evidence that it happened in any way or form as fpor instance archeology has found no evidence for specific towns visited in the exodus. If the exodus doesn't happen then moses doesn't happen. If moses didn't happen the ten commandments didn't happen. All these events are linked and can not live alone they are all part of the same time line. I mean giants living in canaan how absurd is that so why stay in the desert for 38 years so its all absurd. If the ten commandments is not true isn't that the basis of christianity/god law.

I am sure this can be said about many old testament stories

The bible is a book.

It means lots to some and nothing to others.

Jesus did exist.
Jesus did not exist.

Again, it means lots to some and nothing to others.

Science has developed. From the science of the earliest days to now, one thing is irrefutable. The progression from what we have known as belief to what we have known as fact is the result of proof. Science produces proof for things we don't yet know. This journey is reproducible in every discipline. Only because we don't know it yet does not mean it cannot be proven.

It also is a process of disproving myths and beliefs. Also irrefutable, but much more contentious.

The bible explained what was known at the time, from the perspective of many scholars. Based on that perspective what was told at the time was wise and all encompassing. But a bible based on a superior beings narrative must include explanation beyond the knowledge of the prevailing time. Whilst it did so successfully by explaining it to the population of that time, and for the past of that time, it fails now in light of what we can proof in many areas.

And that exactly is the problem with any book that states the definitive truth about anything. Its shelf life is limited.

As for the bible the process of out-dating took a lot longer than it would take a similar book if it was written today. So long in fact that whole cults and religions were formed around it all with different interpretations and all one common problem. Time.

As time progresses the scientific proof will become greater and the holes in the bible will become bigger.

Reading through the posts above it is a clear pattern. The believers cling to the fact that not all science is proven and there are holes in the theories of evolution or the big bang, non believers wrestle with the fact that the lines between history and faith are blurred and that were faith starts holes in science don't help.

The fact that there are holes in science is also not debatable. But one thing is clear. As time goes on science will close these holes and unfortunately for the believers the holes in the bible won't get smaller.

For the two type of believers this has different consequences. The ones that want the bible as a guide or source of faith will not be affected. Time moves too slowly to make an impact on the individual. The ones that need the bible for monetary gain and let's face it, for 1950 of the last 2000 years the main use of the bible was for some to control and subordinate many, will not like this one little bit.

Because for every IanTh that questions and debates, that tirelessly challenges the 'accepted' believes and the generous pity on his poor soul by whoever is desperately clinging onto the last bit of not yet disproven or historically verifiable fact, for every IanTh, that raises this very question, the world of knowledge will be a more liberal place.

Thanks IanTh for standing your ground, refreshing...

The bible explained what was known at the time, from the perspective of many scholars. Based on that perspective what was told at the time was wise and all encompassing. But a bible based on a superior beings narrative must include explanation beyond the knowledge of the prevailing time. Whilst it did so successfully by explaining it to the population of that time, and for the past of that time, it fails now in light of what we can proof in many areas.

The Bible is not a history or a science book. If the details are wrong, it does not mean that the inspiration behind the book is invalid. Religion is expressed through the trappings of the era.

The fact that there are holes in science is also not debatable. But one thing is clear. As time goes on science will close these holes and unfortunately for the believers the holes in the bible won't get smaller.

Again, the Bible is not a science of history book. I've been saying this all along. It is a book about the religious or spiritual aspect of existence, which is subjective and not empirical. It is not science that will replace the Bible, but newer religions. And they have done to some extent. Some schools of Buddhism and Hinduism have become very updated- but they do not seek to explain the details of science, not are they necessarily at odds with science.

There are religious people who think that Science is against religion, and vice versa.

Reading through the posts above it is a clear pattern. The believers cling to the fact that not all science is proven and there are holes in the theories of evolution or the big bang, non believers wrestle with the fact that the lines between history and faith are blurred and that were faith starts holes in science don't help.

Perhaps there will always be holes in Science, and perhaps people will rush to fill them with beliefs. Perhaps the more you look, there more there will be to see, and the more holes. I don't see science as closing any holes, but rather as expanding our knowledge in many directions. But the boundary between the known and the unknown - has it changed in any significant, intrinsic way? There is the known and the unknown. Do you really think there can be state where everything is known?

no I stand by my comments genesis must a untruth

holes is science are there they usually mean another scientist will look there thats how it works scientists prove there work by testing if it cant be proved then its incorrect

Every book is a history and a science book. Only because it is not written on the cover does not change that.

No one can seriously claim that the bible was written as a book at all. It just happened to be a collection of scriptures that were told, written down, told again, amended, verified by scholars and eventually translated in many languages.

Still it reflects the knowledge of that time, centuries later. And that's what we refer to as science and history. The topic may be religious now but the content was not then.

I have nothing against faith. But faith is not religion. Science and faith can go hand in hand. Religion has found science to be a threat. Cue the heresy shouts in the middle ages...etc.

The comparison of Christianity with other belief systems and their approach to science is a tricky one. No other religion has killed more people in the name of perseverance and science has been always the number one enemy in the eyes of a religious zealot. But the number of zealots in other religions don't compare, if you take time and spread into account. Equally the amount of business that relies on the ideal of an omnipotent being is much greater in Christianity than in others.

I wonder sometimes if the ulterior motives to cling to the bible do the bible justice. In faith you must challenge yourself in line with the book, but in religious business you must ensure neither you nor the book is ever challenged.

Genesis is a good starting point...

Religous didn't it  kill millions in the middle ages?

science doesn't make war that is people thinking they are a god.

if the scientists 'out of africa' theory would not be any racism. As we would have all been black. Our skin has changed it properties dending on the enviroment where we live.

CaptainReiss

Welcome to the discussion! You are right in what you say when you say the Bible is a "... collection of scriptures that were told, written down, told again, amended, verified by scholars and eventually translated in many languages" - but it had already been discussed - take a quick look through the most recent posts :-)

But what you say is spot on. We should also add that the New Testemant is a selection of about 30 books from the 200 or so Christian scriptures. The selection was made by the Christian Church in about 300 AD. The central doctrines of Christianity were also determined by this early church.

Every book is a history and a science book. Only because it is not written on the cover does not change that

I think you should be more precise in how you use these terms, otherwise you risk destroying their meaning. There are different kinds of science, but mostly when we speak of science we are refering to empirical science. A work by the anacient greek phsycists Archimedes or Heraclitus is distinctly of this nature, while the works of their philosophical contemporaries such as Plato or Socrates are of a distinctly different nature. Then you have religious figures, who again, attempt to describe different aspect of existence.

And so it is today. You can find modern "spiritual" books, free from the trappings of any tradition, such as by Eckhart Tolle, or Robert Bruce. Call them what you will, these people are not liars and nor are they attempting to produce works on empirical science. I think they, and many others, are sincere.

Modern science doesn't replace ancient religion, it replace early science.

Still it reflects the knowledge of that time, centuries later. And that's what we refer to as science and history. The topic may be religious now but the content was not then.

Although the Bible reflects some knowledge of the time, it's content most certainly was religious (or spiritual) back then.

I agree in general with what you say in the rest of your post, in particular this line "but in religious business you must ensure neither you nor the book is ever challenged."

Religious business has pretty much dominated the Christian Church almost immediately after Jesus's death; certainly from about 250 AD onwards.

IanTh

Religous didn't it  kill millions in the middle ages?

The crusades were about killing non-Christians and the crusader kings the first to gain from it. But millions they did not kill - it was just a few thousand. Nor is religion a major cause of war. Wars are fought for resources and power Wars are fought when people know they can win them - as we saw recently in Libya. The strong prey on the weak.

Killing in the name of religion tends to be in the form of religious massacres, rather than war, and religious massacres tend to be isolated and with relatively low causualties when compared to war.

A little research and analysis will show, though killing has been done in the name of religion, it's been done in the name of everything else to. The biggest massacre in history was at Treblinka concentration camp, during the Second World War. In fact all major massacres took place at similar camps. I don't think religion can be blamed on that. The Mongols probably come next, the expansion of their empire be a series of wars and massacres.

Sure, religion was been the cause of some wars and massacres, but only a small percentage. And even with those, it's hard to say how much is fuel by religion, and how much is fueled by racial tribal and cultural differences. Even now, it can blamed only a part of the atrocities of the world.

We'd probably be better off without religion though, the reason being is that people who follow it can't see beyond the trappings of the religion. They look at the unimportant details and think they are important, but miss the important ones.

Anyway, I'm not pro-religion or anything. But you can't argue against the role Christianity played in the development of western culture and civilsation. I wouldn't want to chnage anything (except perhaps I would have included the Gospel of Thomas in the NT).

I just wanted to point out that blaming religion for all wars is common saying but it is an innaccurate one.

Thanks jason.

I think my biggest gripe is the ulterior motive. Not then but now. The bible to me is what it is to me. It has no consequence to others what I think. But for the greater understanding the legacy of branding it the books of all books with all the answers makes it a tall act to maintain.

Especially when nature, time, research, science...call it what you will moves on.

I thought about what you said:

Although the Bible reflects some knowledge of the time, it's content most certainly was religious (or spiritual) back then.

I am not so sure. Unless you talk about the time the Church 'decided' what should go in the book (apologies for the flippancy here). If you put yourself right at the beginning and you assume that historically Jesus existed and his existence gave rise to the spreading the word of the life and death of that man, that does not mean that you would automatically assume that spiritually Jesus existed. Bear with me here.

Whilst I can understand that the populus then may have been more receptive to miracles and wondrous stories about a special person, there was also very little possibility that word would spread fast, mainly due to the folk not being able to read, but also because the daily survival was a much harder task then.

It will be very difficult to truly ascertain how what was to become the bible really affected the first century AD. And at what stage a collection of stories turned into spiritual teachings or guidance. If Jesus was a normal man with a good heart and many more good deeds, then that makes it not better or worse to add a spiritual label, but it sure hypes expectations for years that followed.

If you draw this one a graph the over-importance of the bible over the centuries leaves a difficult legacy. Maybe if it was seen as a book in the sense as I see it, by others it wouldn't have such a tough time.

Captaireiss-

My view of Jesus is that he was a man, in one sense like any other but with a great spiritual knowledge. I don't believe either that any of the miracles happened as empirical events. Who knows what the miracles mean? In my view many originate from metaphorical, symbolical or visionary descriptions and somehow since the time they were first told, they have come to be believed in as empirical events - probably because (a) it's easier to understand them this way and (b) because those with the ulterior motive of reinforcing Christianity saw those miracles as a way of making Jesus seem supernatural and therefore the "true" son of God.

In the early days, word was spread by oral traditional, and many disciples went to other lands to spread it there. For example, it is said, although there is no real evidence for this, that Peter went to Rome and established Christianity there.

It is interesting to note that the primary texts on Jesus are thought to have had a certain format  - a series of loose statements or quotes, that Jesus said and which were later remembered and simply written down, with no narrative connecting them.

The later narratives, as we see in Mathew and Luke, appeared long after the death of Jesus. Both Mathew and Luke were in fact based on Mark, and on a conjectural book called "Q" which was probably one of these early type of texts.

Unfortunately none of these early, primary texts survive, unless you choose to believe that the Gospel of Thomas is one. There is debate over its date, but it's worth a read anyway because it is such a good book. Some scholars put it as early as 60AD, others at 100 - 150AD. Interestingly, it was one of the books the Christian Church decided to leave out of the Canon of the New Testement...

The Gospel of Mark is determined to be the same time as Thomas, and is probably a direct result of Peter's teachings in Rome (if he was ever there ;-))

Of the Gospels, the one which stands on its own is John - origin unknown but dated about 90-100AD. It may have been based on the disciple John - but again, it is unknown. The disciple would have been too old or dead to write it himslef, but the book is certainly the most mystical of all the canoncial Gospels, and one to ponder over.

But the final canon of the New Testament was a result of early the Christian Church fathers endeavours to make a determination of which works were the most central for determining doctrine - their idea of doctrine (although much of it was based on Paul's ideas).

>>Sure, religion was been the cause of some wars and massacres, but only a small percentage. And even with those, it's hard to say how much is fuel by religion, and how much is fueled by racial tribal and cultural differences. Even now, it can blamed only a part of the atrocities of the world.

I think this is way off the mark. All wars is of course wrong, and even most wars would still be incorrect. Many wars though are fought over religion. The Middle East has been at war for decades because of nothing more than religion. Iran and Israel. Al Qaeda terrorism. It is all religion based. Yes there are cultural differences and things, but the religion is the core of the suffering in that area of the world, and others through their terrorism, for years.

Outside of wars, the oppression of women for religious reasons is atrocious. I know the more mainstream follow religion without these acts but this is hardly only the fringe few that do this. It is common place for too many to let religion off the hook as the culprit for these horrendous actions.

>>We'd probably be better off without religion though, the reason being is that people who follow it can't see beyond the trappings of the religion. They look at the unimportant details and think they are important, but miss the important ones.

Well said and I agree with this. Religion has played an important role in history, but today it is more a bane in our existence than an asset. I equate it with Wisdom Teeth. They used to have a purpose and were important. Today they don't really help much, and sometimes make things a lot worse for having them.

If you think this is "off the mark", go and check the statistics.

I'm only talking about numbers. Look at the number of deaths caused by religous wars, massacres and killings, and compare to other causes.

For example, Deaths from Al Quaeda terrorism, are anything but significant, on any scale. Just compare that to the number off deaths carried about by thieves and rapists in New York in one year, or the Mexican drug cartels.

Iran and Israel aren't at war, yet. And the wars in the middle east that have caused the most deaths have been instigated by the USA and their purpose was anything but religious.

I cannot agree that Religion is the core of suffering in that area of the world. I wouldn't like to say what the core is, although conflict between religions and religious factions is certainly a factor.

Religion is a part of identity and thus a cause for division, along with racial, tribal and national and  cultural differences, but religion also makes a lot of people behave themselves. We have to think of that too. It would be best if people would behave themselves without religion, but would they? That is something to consider.

>>We have to think of that too. It would be best if people would behave themselves without religion, but would they?

I agree religion helped a lot of people. Some people need it as a 'crutch' to think someone else is watching over them or causing things to happen. OR they might need it to have someone they are fearful of and a fear of hell to keep them within good morals.

Religion today has been perverted though with Jihad and Evangelicals that do completely illogical. brutal, prejudiced things against others for no reason other than it is in their religion.

If everyone would have their religion in a moderate way then perhaps it wouldn't be so harmful. Unfortunately the extremes become the loudest and most influential force and cause the entirety of their religion to be a better force to be without, than to have.

Atheists -- like Mao, Stalin and Hitler -- are the great mass murderers in history, not religious people, and esp. not modern Christians.

Hitler wasn't an atheist - he at least pretended to be Christian. Not that it matters.

>>Atheists -- like Mao, Stalin and Hitler -- are the great mass murderers in history, not religious people, and esp. not modern Christians.

So you are pointing out the extremes. Kind of like I pointed out the extremes. Extremes are bad. We got that.

Take the extremes out of the picture and lets go to the strongly believing religious/atheists. In this group you have the idiots picketing because a school has a cross in it (big deal, get over it). You also have a group saying stem cells which can save lives shouldn't be researched because it is against God's way or they are pushing creationism into science classes in schools.

The removal of religion solves the problem of all of these as there would be nothing for the atheist to protest against and cry about, and medicine, science, and education would excel as it should. Nobody is killing mass amounts of people on either side here, but the religious heavy side really obstructs a lot more progress.

Show me the last atheist orphanages that started.  Getting rid of religion saves education?  How many schools are started in Africa by religious vs. non-religious?  Religion still serves a very important role in our world.  You may have no need for it, but that doesn't change the fact that millions do.

>>Show me the last atheist orphanages that started.  Getting rid of religion saves education?  How many schools are started in Africa by religious vs. non-religious?  Religion still serves a very important role in our world.  You may have no need for it, but that doesn't change the fact that millions do.

Religious organizations do many good things. I never said they did not. .They also do many bad things, like all groups. If the religious organizations were not doing these examples you mentioned, they would be getting done by other organizations.

You don't have to believe in a religion to want to improve your community, the world, or to help people.

But also: Help for Orphans International : http://helpfororphans.org/

"Help for Orphans International
(HFOI) is a secular not-for-profit organization dedicated to bettering the lives of orphaned children. "

They are out there.

“God does not believe in atheists therefore atheists do not exists.”

Why don't you guys start some new threads on these subjects? This question is done...

Howdy Jason210 . . . yes, this thread is done. This reads like many of the threads I used to participate in . . . and piss people off in.

ianTH, you sound pissed off about this subject. Why?

Steve

I am a an atheist
I think religion is a source of conflict why do we need religion these days in the modern scientific understanding we now live in. We don't need telling how to live our lives any more I can make my mind up what's right and wrong.

I have always thought the bible was just a story and it had no basis in a truthful history
the more scientists find shows the bible is an untruth

god created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th no ....the world was created about 5 billion years ago.

Man evolved from apes not like the bible says Adam was created from dust and Eve from Adam rubbish is that was true how come there where female apes

The cradle of life was the central rift valley in Africa. Dna analysis proves that.
If the story of the flood is true all humans would be related to noah and his wife

The out of Egypt theory must not be true if that's not true then the ten commandments didn't happen. Giants in Canaan what twaddle meaning 38years in the sania desert.

All these stories are linked and can not be true if one didn't happen they all didn't

When bible basher's sprout the line its literal

"I am a an atheist" = God does not exists.

"We don't need telling how to live our lives any more I can make my mind up what's right and wrong" = I am the God of my life.


How come there were/are still enough scientists believing in God?

I understand this statement.

"I think religion is a source of conflict why do we need religion these days in the modern scientific understanding we now live in. We don't need telling how to live our lives any more I can make my mind up what's right and wrong."

You say religion is a source of conflict, and perhaps it is to some degree. But greed is also a source of conflict, as is power, wealth, sex and on and on. So your point, while I understand it, isn't terribly profound.

50 years ago, doctors were promoting smoking. Thanks Science!!

Internal combustion engine. Thanks again Science!

Nuclear waste. Thanks very much for that Science.

Yes science takes very good care of us.

But that's only a tongue-in-cheek view and I realize that science has provided positives. I only say this to point out the odd view that the "bad" that you perceive religion to do apparently to you obviates the good.


Steve

By the way, it is child's play to dismiss bible literalists, but they don't make up the majority of believers.

There is of course a possibility that your claim that the bible is a "lie" contains an element of truth, albeit one that is highly elusive because of your generalizations, and statements like: "All these stories are linked and can not be true if one didn't happen they all didn't."

That kind of remark makes it very difficult to take you seriously.

Also, where do you think your ideas of right and wrong originated? I am not trying to imply anything, I am curious about how you think your values or morals were derived.

Enjoy!
Steve

>>Also, where do you think your ideas of right and wrong originated? I am not trying to imply anything, I am curious about how you think your values or morals were derived.

I never like the way many religious will claim that an atheist cannot have a sense of morals. It's called thinking for myself. Treating others how I would like to be treated. I wouldn't want something stolen from me, so I won't steal. I am driving an see a guy pushing a broken down car on the road. If I was in that situation, I would hope someone would help me. I park and help him push it to a gas station.

I do these things because I feel they are right. I don't do bad things because I feel they are wrong. God, heaven/hell, repayment, being told to. All these have no influence on my decision at the time to act in the way I do.

Religion does teach morals to some. I more respect those that do good because they choose to and not because they were told to, scared not to, etc.

AnthonyRusso . . . I said I was not trying to imply anything. And your answer is basically crap.

"I feel they are right or wrong . . ." What? Is that science? I was asking what makes you feel that and you generalize me.

Steve

Sorry, your answer is not crap. It is what it is, which is not an answer to my question.

I don't like being quoted with the inference that I've said you cannot have morals without religion . . .which is basically what you did. It is your failing that you read my question that way. I am honestly asking how you came by the notion that you would help someone who needs help . . . it would seem to me that the best way to help myself would be to not expend any energy helping anyone else unless it ultimately benefits me in some way. If you are saying that you would help someone because you think it is the 'right' thing to do, I am asking why?

Steve

Ha . . and another thing . . .

Your answer is like an observation made by Dwight on the American version of "The Office".

"Before I do something, I ask myself 'would an idiot do this?' and if the answer is 'yes' then I don't do it."

Steve

I fully understand you were not implying anything, as I was not either. I was just answering your question of where I think morals are derived from and ideas of right and wrong.

I don't follow exactly why you are saying my answer is crap though. I was giving example of my morals.

I was answering the question of where my morals came from. I never meant that you were saying non-religious people could not have good morals. It is something I have heard repeatedly and mentioned it at the end of my answer, but it was not directed as you.

>>If you are saying that you would help someone because you think it is the 'right' thing to do, I am asking why?

Because I would want someone to help me if I was in that situation. I have a strong sense of empathy when I see someone who needs help. I think what would I want a passerby to do in that situation. That is what I try to do.

Understood. . . I was saying your answer was crap because I don't believe for a moment that people are inherently good to the extent that they help others without any expectation. Although, treating others like you want to be treated is a form of expectation.

That is, you say you don't want someone to "steal" from you . . . but if I was starving and thought my only way to survive was to steal from you would you think that I had done something "bad"?

Sorry AR . . . this is way off topic. I thought since you quoted me, you WERE implying something that you now claim you weren't.

Steve

Ian,

Have you thought that perhaps you have the wrong approach?

Historically speaking, we (gentiles) common people know about the Old Testament (his) stories because a man named Paul received a command from his Master named Jesus to spread the Word with the price of his freedom and his life.

So first we had to be informed about the New Testament – which is also difficult to believe for many people. Then attached to that information due to the nature of the story from Gospel we received also the Old Testament information.
In fact all over the Old Testament there are prophecies about Messiah. The New Testament is a fulfillment of the prophecies from Old Testament.

Christians accepts Old Testament events because they accept Jesus.

Now, you just take particular events, some perhaps impossible to be proved today, and consider them as reasons to not believe.
Just ask yourself: if somebody will be able to bring you digestible proves for the Exodus, then will that be enough for you to believe the rest? Or you will search more and more? Up to what point?

In fact you can find reasons to believe and reasons to not believe.
It is the light that you have in your soul. It is how you see the things.

To believe or not is many times influenced by your education and by your life experiences.
I know bad people, never heard of religion or Jesus and was a time in their life when they became believers.
There are also people who grew up in churches and they are not anymore believers.
Everything depends by how serious you take these things.
But one thing is to be remembered: you cannot be in a neutral state.
Right now you reject God, but if you are serious in your search and your position then later may be different.
Paul was in a certain way the same. He did not reject God, he was a strong believer, but he rejected Jesus because he thought is the right thing to do in the name of God.
Something happened in his life, an experience – and he was changed forever.
You just reject God in the name of science and rational.

It is a struggle sometimes. I say that because sometime I just had the impression that instead of statements made by you so far make more sense sentences with questions marks: “is it the Bible a lie?”
Is it like you shout: “prove it to me and I believe.”

First you have to accept that are limits in science. You cannot prove everything “today”.
Then the events mentioned in Bible are not always logical and acceptable for our minds. There is logic and a rational thinking behind but not always in the limit of our understandings.
Jesus said to the people that He performs the miracles also as a reason for them to believe His words: that He comes from God and God is His Father and sent Him to Earth to the people. There was no discussion about proving logical, scientific things.

Fact is that people turned to God usually when they are in trouble, when they cannot receive anymore help from other people. Then they start to search God and to see if any chance is (last chance) there.
I know many who did that way.

Do not forget one thing: we can use our mind to analyze and judge things, but what we know as God is beyond.
To put it in simple words: is multidimensional and when God interacts with our world things appear sometimes illogical.
I like these examples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWyTxCsIXE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnURElCzGc0


What about your soul?
Do you think you have one or not?

>>Just ask yourself: if somebody will be able to bring you digestible proves for the Exodus, then will that be enough for you to believe the rest? Or you will search more and more? Up to what point?

That's called being scientifically literate. When someone tells you something, you ask to know more about it before accepting it. Scientific literacy is the bane of charlatans.

>>First you have to accept that are limits in science. You cannot prove everything “today”.

There not limits to science. There are limits to our understanding of what we scientifically observe. Just because we haven't proven something does not mean it is not true. But if something has been proven false, then it is false.

>>Fact is that people turned to God usually when they are in trouble, when they cannot receive anymore help from other people.

Yes I agree. Most born again Christians are born again because they screwed up the life they were first born with. In fact most very heavily religious people that I have met have some very bad things they regret in their past such as drugs, crime, etc. Only very few I have met have not.

I expected Ian to reply.
“That's called being scientifically literate. When someone tells you something, you ask to know more about it before accepting it. Scientific literacy is the bane of charlatans.”
You can see it that way, but you have to look also different: the time and energy involved to obtain what in the end? What is the end purpose that will help you in any way? – that was my point in asking more.
If anybody thinks that using an intellectual dialogue will transform them from non-believers into believers arguing pro/cons or trying to prove one thing or another scientifically that is wrong. It is not the way. In the best case will help you to ask yourself questions, but as long as you stay with the same light over subjects and you are not willing to change your angle then you die like that. You have to look from another perspective – that’s all.
“There not limits to science. There are limits to our understanding of what we scientifically observe.”
There are things that we will never understand from within dimensions we live. We cannot understand and we will not be able to touch, prove, observe them. That is the limit of science.
And that is said in Bible when miraculous things happened.
What I do not get is why Ian did not take other things – more difficult to believe or to prove – as a reasons to say that Bible is a lie.
Right in the beginning ID: 37965110 when he brings the “arguments” – by the way those seem to be copy/paste from a book or another website and not his own thoughts (showing that he is influenced) – the first argument is not logical at all. Those people who have a military background know that when you go in march for long time you group the people. 150 miles? That is not real at all. Marching ten abreast? Why so and not another way? What about marching armies in the past?

“Just because we haven't proven something does not mean it is not true”
Because we did not prove anything means also that we do not know how is it: false or true. We speculate.
And there are situations when we think, we are sure that we proved something to be true, but we are wrong in the end. Thre are enough examples in history of science.

“But if something has been proven false, then it is false.” Until proven otherwise, when we have a new reference point model, system, theory ...
We work in science we models which are proved to be true on segments of reality.
Things change continuously in universe. The universe is dynamic. In billions of years the things are not the same.
All our theories will not exists anymore. We are here for a limited time  as we see ourselves now.

Because we speak here about lies, things that you cannot trust, point to a situation from Bible when God was a liar.
Why not to put God on trial? as they did here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5caAug5n8Zk

Well, Ian, you may ask harder questions than the example you choose. I can give them to you. But will not help you.
You are already a non-believer. God does not need to prove anything to you or me.
You want to find the truth?
Then you go and search for it – in serious way – which will affect your entire life and your way of thinking.
Are you ready for that?
Do you want a better starting point?
Start with the person Jesus and try to to find truths and lies about Him then later you go back to history of the Old Testament. Right now, Old Testament is too hard for you.

Hello Steve - long time...

Viki
What God means to you may mean something completely different to Ian. You alwasy seem to overlook that fact.  We are all coming from different places, but we only have language to try and bridge the differences.

IanTI
"All these stories are linked and can not be true if one didn't happen they all didn't."

Everyone has different views and perspectives on this matter, but when discussing philosphical issues there has to be commonality and logic if the discussion is proceed in a meaningful way. It is also important for the asker to take heed of what has been discussed earlier in the thread, otherwise it can feel those trying to help are wasting their time and energy.

It has already been highlighted several times in this discussion that the Books that comprise what we now call Old and New Testements have numerous authors with different objectives and that the information is drawn from numerous diverse sources. Therefore, there is no basis to claim that everything is causally linked, and that if one didn't happen then they all didn't. It's quite possible that some "miracles" had some basis in the empirical world. A burning bush may have really happened - nothing miraculous about that. Then again, some "miracles" may have the origin in a non-empirical event such as a vision. And then we have the metaphor - which was a known literary device at the time.

Whatever the origin or purpose of the miracles stories, the stories have most likely been passed down orally and written about then re-written about in narratives and thus been subject to the influences of many.

So whatever your beliefs or convictions, that statement you made that they form some kind of integrated whole doesn't hold up.

„Viki
What God means to you may mean something completely different to Ian. You alwasy seem to overlook that fact.  We are all coming from different places, but we only have language to try and bridge the differences.“

Hi Jason:
You are right about that when we speak generally, as comparison between religions or any spiritual paths.
But here is no confusion at all: Ian does not believe that God exists – no matter what God is that.
Besides, his question from very beginning is addressed with the reference to the God from Old Testament, the God of Jews, that God named by Jesus Father, in the end God of Christians.

if you ask a bible basher please explain how all this started and they start with genesis
then you say it must be rubbish there is no proof of anything and that is the start how can the end be true. All things are linked you can get the end before the start. So if the start genesis is untrue how can the rest. I mean the exodos includes the ten commandments, 38 years in the desert, Giants in Canaan. What?

if the start is debatable and linked to the rest then the whole is debatable yes?

If a "Bible basher" wants to believe that the whole series of books form an integrated, empirical history of the Universe that was somehow overseen by an uber-editor of some kind, then that's his/her problem. There's no rational foundation for that belief.

The reasonable explanation is that hundreds of Abrahamic religous texts were written seperately by different people with information drawn from numerous diverse sources. The books where then assembled into canons by peoplewho came along later and picked out what the thought was best.

There is no logic in saying if one part is untrue then so must all the over parts be.  

This is all besides the point, because Genesis is may not have intended as an empircal explanation of the origin of the Universe, which is the assumption your argument is based on. I don't believe it was intended that way, and while you are open to believe that it was, you need to be aware that this is just a belief. There's plenty of reason to believe that it is a subjective vision with a spiritual meaning instead.

Your question is really just an assertion that the Bible is untrue as an empirical history book, which we I think we are mostly agreed on.

What you don't do is qualify your assertion with the word empirical. If you were to say that the bible is not a history book and is empirically untrue, then we would know what kind of untruth you were talking about .You say it's just "untrue".

Do you know what empirical means?

"I mean the exodos includes the ten commandments, 38 years in the desert, Giants in Canaan. What?"

What is so hard to believe that was true without proving "scientifically" as long as the Manager behind is God directly?
Just think about it: Was that Man named Jesus doing miracles around people - they have seen the miracles and they could not believe.
God's intervention in human life is not human science, is beyond.

You just need a different view perspective.

>> the time and energy involved to obtain what in the end? What is the end purpose that will help you in any way?

The truth.

One more example to try to make the case for science and truth. I don't expect any religious believers to suddenly be enlightened and trust more in science than the Bible but I hope they can at least understand why science is to be trusted.

There is a car accident in an intersection. 2 cars collided and different witnesses all have different accounts of how the car accident happened. Some say the red car ran the stoplight while others say the blue car was speeding and others say the red car was turning left from the right lane and still others say the blue car slid on an oil slick and spun into the red car.

Each person is telling the story from their perspective and what they believe to have happened. This is equivalent to the different religions all having different stories of the past and Jesus and Genesis and Moses, etc. Are they wrong or right? From their perspective they can each be right and it might be a combination of things that caused the crash.

Then there is someone else telling the story that the red car dropped from a helicopter and landed on the blue car and that is what caused the accident.

The police come on the scene and evaluate what happened. Some stories have merit and others do not. One thing is sure though. There WAS an accident. It only happened ONE way. That might include some bits of these peoples different accounts of the accident from their perspective but the accident happened a certain way no matter what anyone says.

There are 2 sets of skid marks coming from the 2 different streets that come into the intersection. This proves that the guy who says the red car was dropped from a helicopter is WRONG! That is evidence that proves each car came from down the streets. The others may have some truth in their accounts from their perspective, but the helicopter story in no way is true.

The red car is found to have turned from the wrong lane judging by tire marks and points of impact. Later a speed camera at the intersection shows that the blue car was speeding. The conclusion of what happened is changed as new data and evidence comes to light. Science changes. The accident didn't chance. It still only happened it's one way. We are just changing what we perceived based on new information.

This is long but really lays out how there is one truth. Finding that ACTUAL truth is what science tries to do. Religion is just everyone's story of how that truth happened. Only the evidence can show what is correct and science looks for the evidence. Religion just keeps telling stories.

hmm miracles ha ha

Genesis is empirically untrue ok ?

There are far more stuff in the bible that science has a very hard time proofing the existence of like noah, the flood, pillars of salt ffs

What I am trying to say I don't think the beginning of the bible is correct and historic and because of that I apply that logic to the whole. I am instead a believer that science can provide the answers we need to exist today. I do agree that science has created conflicts but that's more down to bad people abusing their power.

But religion has caused far more problems I mean look at the middle east !

>> But religion has caused far more problems <<

Quite false.

In reality, of course, the great mass murderers of all time are atheists.

Hitler was following his idea of "science" in his mass exterminations.  Mengele committed his atrocities in the name of "science".

Mao was following his idea of "science" in starving tens of millions of people to death.

The U.S. allowed men to suffer untreated from syphillis, and in other cases for radiation, for decades in the name of "science".

And as Ian stated:

"...but that's more down to bad people abusing their power. "

The middle east on the other hand has been at war for centuries.

Ian, you forget about prophecies from Old Testament.
They are not things to be proved and they happened or will happen.
That is a good reason to believe non-scientifically.
It is called revelation from God. The prophets say it.
Then where is the science when a prophet tells you about your future, even hundreds of years in advance?

How will science help you when a prophet tells you that bad things will happen and you will not believe because you cannot prove, because you rely on what is "tangible" or rational to your mind?

>> The middle east on the other hand has been at war for centuries. <<

Land all over the globe has been in dispute for millenia, most often having nothing to do with religion.  You can't blame land disputes on religion.

IanTI

Genesis is empirically untrue ok ?

OK ;-)


Anthony

This is long but really lays out how there is one truth. Finding that ACTUAL truth is what science tries to do. Religion is just everyone's story of how that truth happened. Only the evidence can show what is correct and science looks for the evidence. Religion just keeps telling stories.

Sounds to me like you're still talking about empirical events here. Is there a science that deals with non-empirical events, the subjective experience of consciousness? Not really - the only famous scientist to try it was the pyschologists CG Jung whose research into his own unconscious was carried out like an archaelogist at a dig site.

You there is only one truth. Perhaps, but what truth is the bible and other religious texts trying to explain? You keep repeating that you think it is the history of the Universe, as in some early science book. Perhaps you are wrong. Perhaps it isn't about that at all. Are you prepared to accept this possibility? Even if Genesis were a scientific attempt to explain the formation of the universe, then that would be incidental to the main themes of the Bible and other religious texts.

You say that only evidence can show what is correct and science looks for the evidence, but what evidence can a person show to prove they heard a voice inside  their head, or dreamed a dream of dragons? These are just my poor examples of subjective experiences, but it cannot be denied that the content of the dream is as real as the content recorded in any media. The difference is it cannot be shared. There are clearly important area's concerning human existence and consciousness that science cannot approach, and that is why we have religion and metaphysics, and it's wrong to confuse science with religion.

>>Land all over the globe has been in dispute for millenia, most often having nothing to do with religion.  You can't blame land disputes on religion.

Yes it has. But those other reasons make more sense for resources or space. Often it is for some ego maniacs power trip but that's going to happen.

The Middle East though has been at war for centuries over religion. For centuries and they are no closer to peace than there were hundreds of years ago!

That's not just a land dispute. That's stupid!

>>...but what evidence can a person show to prove they heard a voice inside  their head, or dreamed a dream of dragons?

Dreams are not real. Voices in your head are not real. These are manifestations of the mind.

>>...and it's wrong to confuse science with religion.

I agree. Now tell that to the backwards school boards trying to teach creationism in science class.

>>You keep repeating that you think it is the history of the Universe, as in some early science book.

No I don't. I repeatedly state that the Bible was teaching people of the time how to understand the world around them and that was important back then. Also the Bible is a book of moral guidance for many. That is all fine.

The problem is in people of today that use the Bible as a historical reference and science book. It is a loud minority and they are indoctrinating school kids with it.

This is atrocious and one of the saddest things I have ever seen:

http://youtu.be/LACyLTsH4ac

I would be amazed that anyone can support such a terrible practice of brainwashing children.

Dreams are not real. Voices in your head are not real. These are manifestations of the mind.

In what way are they not real?

No I don't. I repeatedly state that the Bible was teaching people of the time how to understand the world around them

As I said, a history of the universe.

Creationism has no place in science classes - agreed. In my opinion it has no place anywhere.

>>In what way are they not real?

I win the lottery in a dream, I cannot spend money the next day to buy a mansion.

I can fly in my dream, when I wake jumping off a building still is not a good idea.

I can dream of a car accident, but the next day my car is fine. The accident did not happen.

I can have an idea in a dream, I can act on that idea when I am awake and make it become reality, but while it is in my min d, it is not yet real.

We can talk semantics all you want. Philosophy is not about right and wrong answers and lots of gray area. Religious beliefs as well.

However if you cannot grasp at why I refer to dreams as not real, the conversation will not progress.

“..but what evidence can a person show to prove they heard a voice inside  their head, or dreamed a dream of dragons?”

That was one of the biggest problems of Jewish people from Old Testament.
They did not believe the prophets anymore. More than that: liars, false prophets were among them sometimes.
So how they differentiated between them?
If one would be here now among us, how would we know that is not a voice in his head that has nothing to do with our reality?

Well, when real prophet prophesied things happened. It was the proof of God speaking to them, through them.

They also had a time when they said they want to see God as a proof, similar as Thomas said about Jesus.
When God shown up – they said: not anymore, not 2nd time – they were scared due to the power of God.

Ian, when we speak here about God from Old Testament, do you know how this God is?
You say you do not believe in God.
Then you reject what, who?
Could you describe what you reject?

Anthony
Dreams are indeed of the mind....  I go along with that description, but can you go along with description that the universe as you see it is also a manifestation in your mind: that waking consciousness is a manifestation of the mind?

Now before you jump in and say our waking consciousness is real and dreams are not real, on the level of the mind both these things are real. In terms of a computer analogy (again) a YouTube film of someone's cat is just as real as a 3D computer game. Both are just digital information going through processor, and as such are of the same "stuff". The only difference is the source of these two things but that doesn't change the nature of the software and hardware. In this sense dreams do have a real physical existence - just as real as the picture of waking consciousness.

My point is that the picture in our mind, whether it is formed by waking consciousness or some other state, is both real and nonempirical. The source behind the picture is irrelevant to this discussion right now because the point I'm making is that some things can be quite real and yet the scope of empirical science.

Regarding the souces of dreams, visions and voices - I suspect there are many. CG Jung attributed their origin to the unconscious (or subconscious is often called), but we know very little about that and empircism is like a blunt instrument as tool to explore it. The point is that we are now in the realm that empircal science cannot intinsically explore, because empircial science is always from the outside in, while subjective knowledge starts with the inner view.

The Bible, and other religous texts, deal with this inner knowledge. Science books deal with the outer.

>>...but can you go along with description that the universe as you see it is also a manifestation in your mind

No. The universe will be here without me as it was before me and humans or any life, and will be there when we are gone. It has nothing to do with us and does not need us in any way to be real.

>>...that waking consciousness is a manifestation of the mind?

This is something different. You are putting this in the same sentence but this is a question of consciousness, so it obviously cannot exist without conscious life.

>>In terms of a computer analogy (again) a YouTube film of someone's cat is just as real as a 3D computer game.

They are the same in terms of reality in that they both are NOT real. The cat is real, but the video is not. It is just data, just as the computer game is. They are not real, just as dreams are not real.

>>... the point I'm making is that some things can be quite real and yet the scope of empirical science.

"...some things can SEEM quite real..." would be correct. Dreams and videos and computer games seem real to a point, but none of them ARE real.

>>The Bible, and other religous texts, deal with this inner knowledge.

Fine. That does not make it real though. Keep it as philosophy or something and other things that are important to society, but are not actually real and will always be subjective.

>>Science books deal with the outer.

...which is real.

Anthony
You are overlooking the fact that what you know about the universe, you know because it is appearing in the mind. It is a model you are witnessing. I don't doubt that there is something out there causing it, but that can only be inferred, not known. What you know is the model. Even if you are just staring at the keyboard of your computer, you are in fact witnessing a representation in your mind. When you touch your keyboard, the sensation of touching is also in the mind. Of course, it's fed to the mind by the senses, but the point is, it's all happening in your mind, and you are the consciousness witnessing the events of the mind. It is in this sense that I refer to the Universe - the model in your mind. We can call it the known Universe. Even that differs from person to person. Science provides standards, of course, but ulitmately the result is a model in your mind.

When you dream, again, it's another model or image happening in your mind. The only difference is the source. When you're awake, the source is mostly from the senses, when asleep, it is mostly from the unconscious.

The idea is not new. Descartes was the first to expound it in the west. This was also the whole philosophy behind the film the Matrix, which was influenced by Descartes. Descartes went on to say that we cannot know anything with certainty other than our own existence. But...

So, forgetting the source for a moment, how is a representation in the mind any more real than a representation of an image on television, or a computer screen? Is an image on television real or not real - regardless of the source? It depends how you define reality. If something exists, like a picture on a screen, then I'd say it's real. So is the picture in your mind, whether it's showing the empirical world, or a dream.

So dreams then, are real in one sense, because they exist, and although they are not empirical, they are none-the-less part of the Universe, and thefore real. And the same goes for visions and voices. Dreams often have a meaning that the conscious mind was not aware of, so not only are dreams real, but are often useful if we listen to them.

Now as to the source of those visions, voices and dreams, we can attribute them to the unconscious as Jung did, but we can't simply dismiss them as unreal. And another thing to think of. One of the most real things in the world is love, but it is entirely subjective. In your last post you said that the subjective is not real, yet, can you say that love is not real?

I hope you get the point now. I am not denying your empirical reality, merely pointing out that there are other kinds of realities also.

How's this:

Science is an empirical reality. All the others are not science.

Anthony,
What is the reality of a particle in terms of quantum mechanics?
It is a probability to exist.

What do you think about his ideas of reality?
“The Quantum Activist”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3319MAz4o

Science is an empirical reality.

There's a bit more to science than that though. Science includes a scientific method, hyphothesis, peer review etc. Theories and hypothesis are based on human ideas that originate in the mind, not in empirical data. It means that in order for science to advance, some creative input is needed, something more than just raw empirical data. That's an interesting point don't you think? A bit like evolution. In order for a species to evolve, there can't just be natural selection. There has to be a few other ingredients too, ones which we don't fully understand. While evolution remains a fact, the mechanism of evolution remains theoretical.

So I would say that science is based on empirical reality. I would also say that empirical reality is not completely objective. Because scientists are human, they cannot obtain completely objective observations. Shaping principles influence the data we perceive, and the mind tends to unconsciously fill in patterns based on these notions. Such human contamination is called internal theoretical orientation of data. As a result, totally objective data cannot be obtained.

what I am reffering to the bible is local there where absolutely loads of major events like volcanoes going off not far away. Therefore my point about the bible not seeing over the horizon is correct are you saying the people did not know about volcanoes I suspect that's true but people where being killed by pyroclastic flows.

the whole quantum mechanics debate is not religious and neither is the inner workings below the atomic scale that has been going on for ever. Are you trying to say sub atomic investigation will prove god exists? Absolute twaddle!

"Are you trying to say sub atomic investigation will prove god exists?"

Of course not.
It is just a different way of see things.
How would you tell now to somebody from middle age about sub atomic world if you would be transported in their time?

In future people will understand more about God than they do now.
It is just the same approach.

Spiritual world is a world which cannot be proved by the actual science. That's all.

>>What is the reality of a particle in terms of quantum mechanics? It is a probability to exist.

No, particles do exist. They have been observed both at FermiLab and the LHC at CERN.

>>“The Quantum Activist”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3319MAz4o

Sorry at work and cannot watch videos here.

>>Science includes a scientific method, hyphothesis, peer review etc....

How about Scientific results are based on empirical reality.

>>Because scientists are human, they cannot obtain completely objective observations.

Exactly! That is why good science is done in collaboration. Good science is able to be repeated by others to check for inaccuracies. Good science is published in PEER REVIEWED" journals.

Crackpots work alone and don't let others verify their work freely.

>>Such human contamination is called internal theoretical orientation of data. As a result, totally objective data cannot be obtained.

And the more times an experiment is repeated and measured and by different people, the more this is lessened. That is good science.

Religion follows none of this and is just I'm telling you this so believe it.

>>How would you tell now to somebody from middle age about sub atomic world if you would be transported in their time?

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -  Arthur C. Clarke

>>In future people will understand more about God than they do now. It is just the same approach.

No they wont and it is completely different. They won't understand more in the future because there wont be any new evidence. There will just be more repetition of the same stories and beliefs. Do you think people understand God now better than they did 150 years ago? 1500 years ago? How so? Nobody is trying to understand better even. Just believe stronger.

We will understand more in science as technology allows us to accumulate new information and more accurate measurements. There is advancement. There is no advancement in religion. How can there be if it is not changing? If you think it has changed, please explain to me how.

>> Good science is published in PEER REVIEWED" journals <<

Except for "global warming", which is more a cult than a science.

>>Except for "global warming", which is more a cult than a science.

No Scott. Plenty of Global Warming is published in peer reviewed journals. It also is pretty much accepted as a fact by most who have the slightest understanding of the climate.

The big debate on it is if it is accelerated to any measurable degree due to man made carbon, and if conserving carbon would make a difference, or is it all just cycles of the earth.

I personally believe the latter more than the former.

Of course I meant anthropomorphic gw.  

Although I guess their preferred term now is "climate change" ... so they can blame big storms, etc., on gw ... ROFLOL, they're all Gores now = say or do anything for money.

>>Of course I meant anthropomorphic gw.  

As I said, that is debatable.

>>Although I guess their preferred term now is "climate change" ... so they can blame big storms, etc., on gw

Warm air makes bigger hurricanes. Not that hard to understand that.

>>ROFLOL, they're all Gores now = say or do anything for money.

Wise Food Storage - Emergency, Long Term, and Camping Meals : http://wisefoodstorage.com/

Advertised on every conservative radio program I hear. Guess they say anything to make money. That's not a liberal thing.

>> Warm air makes bigger hurricanes. <<

Isn't it warm **WATER** that makes bigger hurricanes?

Out of sheer boredom, I just reread this entire post.

In many ways, it is simply people stating their opinion seemingly without regard for the questions raised or assertions challenged.

IanTH . . . the notion that "the bible is a lie" was blasted by Jason210 half dozen times. You appear to be setting up a strawman -- the bible is a reference and statement of scientific fact -- and then knocking it down. As Jason210 has pointed out, that's a total waste of time.

First of all, as a Christian, whether or not the earth is 6000 years old or whether it was formed in 6 solar days is utterly meaningless to my belief. There are people who for whatever reason believe this chronology is factual. It certainly could be, unless you believe our current scientific knowledge is complete and unassailable. I don't, nor do I believe that the earth is 6000 years old. And that fact is not central to Christian belief.

viki2000 several times drives a stake in the heart of your assertion a different way. God and Christianity have nothing to do with what science can or cannot prove. Jason210 has alluded to this -- I believe -- a few times as well.

Last, you refer to the damage religion has done. This is perhaps the thinnest of your arguments and -- to me -- reveals your true motive. You may as well asset that water is bad with your proof being that people drown in it.

Reread Jason210's posts and try to respond with intellectual honesty. I think it would be helpful for you. At one point in the past, it was very helpful to me.

Steve

>>Isn't it warm **WATER** that makes bigger hurricanes?

/facepalm

Really man? You couldn't connect the air makes the water warm and leave it at that?

"/facepalm"

Har! Thanks AR

>> Really man? You couldn't connect the air makes the water warm and leave it at that? <<

And you wouldn't connect when I said "global warming" that I meant man-caused "global warming"?

You can be a pedant and expect not to get pedantic back.

>>And you wouldn't connect when I said "global warming" that I meant man-caused "global warming"?

Honestly I really have heard so many conservatives argue that global warming is not happening at all that I didn't think you were referring to man-made global warming. My mistake.

CORRECTION:

You can'T be a pedant and expect not to get pedantic back.

AR

Crackpots work alone and don't let others verify their work freely.

This is true. They also use evidence to try and support their "theories", rather than to refute them. This is also a characteristic of crackpots. Good scientists try to refute their theories with evidence.

However, peers aren't necessarily in possession of the truth. Often they are not. A favourite example of mine is the way the peer group called Washington Geological Society (of the 1920s) thought Bretz's theory about the orgin of the Scablands as ridiculous and rejected it, even though he presented convincing evidence and a sound theory. They weren't about to allow the upsart Bretz undermine their lifetime of work. So they tried to discredit and destroy Bretz.

We now know that the Scablands were caused by single, sudden catastrophic flood of water several hundreds of feet deep. Unthinkable in the 1920s, but accepted now.  Fortunately Bretz was vindicated, but not until after several decades, when he was an old man.

So peers aren't always right - but science does tend to win out over time.

thinking of deleting this as its ruling my life any probs guys

ha ha, understood. It's your thread, delete it.

Aww, what, just not easy enough to bash the Bible and those "stupid" Christians as you thought it would be?

You still Einstein was an "idiot" for believing in God??

But before you close it:

"No other religion has killed more people in the name of perseverance and science has been always the number one enemy in the eyes of a religious zealot."

Total nonsense.

"Equally the amount of business that relies on the ideal of an omnipotent being is much greater in Christianity than in others."

Unverifiable, nonsensical claptrap.

"The ones that need the bible for monetary gain and let's face it, for 1950 of the last 2000 years the main use of the bible was for some to control and subordinate many, will not like this one little bit."

Bigoted, foolish blather.

Wow captainreiss, were you just trying to push buttons?

Steve

Spiritual world is as real as you call the world that you see now reality.
It has its own laws and interacts with our material world.
The present science is focused on the material world. Here is one of its limits.

In the same manner as we notice events from material world having material causes, we can notice events/effects in our material world caused by spiritual world. More than that: a part of each of you has a spiritual side and is affected by spiritual world around you. You just do not realize the cause and consider many events in your life as random or you just assign them to another (wrong identified) causes.

Here is one testimony:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7219499034449459003

I wouldn't delete it as it will upset the admins at EE. They don't like this forum as it is. The last thing they want are problems from this TR! Just close it and assign the points :-)

Jason, do you remember Graphixer?
I am sorry he is not anymore around. I did not agree with him all the time, but I he is a smart guy.
From him I heard about AWARE study. I wrote an email to Dr. Parnia and he answered 1 month later. Since then I follow it.

OK. For the others: look what science says today: we don’t know.

http://www.horizonresearch.org/main_page.php?cat_id=38
http://vimeo.com/11302423
http://folk.uio.no/benjamil/neardeath/

Yes I remember Graphixer. It's a pity many of the regulars here seem to have disappeared - even Callandor. It's a unique forum.

The problem with the AWARE study is that there are only two types of evidence. Firstly, you have anecdotal evidence of the participants, who perhaps claim that they thought things after they "died" or at least were aware. Such claims have the same problem as any spiritual claim. They cannot be verfied or falsified because they are non-empirical.

The second type of evidence is empirical. This means data that can measured with the senses or with a detection instrument. Information collected about consciousness in this way is limited to what your senses or what the machine you are using can tell you.  The most advanced machine for doing this is the electroencephalograph, which simply measures voltage fluctuations in different parts of the brain. Trying to measure consciousness with that kind of equipment is like trying to write a critical appraisal of an 18th opera singer. The essential ingredient is missing. We also have the added problem that when a person dies, so does their brain activity. While this doesn't prove awareness disappeared, it doesn't suggest that it stayed around either.

So again, we are just left mostly anecdotal evidence. However, it's interesting that a methodologic study is being made of these issues.

No.
There are panels with symbols hanged on the ceiling facing the ceiling.
The patient does not see the symbol.
The patient dies.
There is no heart beat nor brain activity for a while: seconds, to minutes to even hours.
Now, the patient comes back to life (clinical death, resuscitation...) and claims bla bla bla.
Then sometimes he describes with good accuracy what happened in the surgery room during his death.
Among other things he claims that he has seen his body from above.

Here is coming Dr. Parnia: did you see that symbol too? What was it?
In case of positive answers after statistics are made, then they will complicate the procedure.
And the question: are we material or something else (soul, consciousness) can exist (without a body) and interact with our world (at least observe it)? - will require an answer from medical staff.
Now, the experiment is going on since 4 years with the participation of 25 hospitals in different countries.
Just keep an eye on it.

The mind is an amazing thing that we know almost nothing about how it works. We are starting to understand the brain a bit but the mind is still mostly a mystery to us as far as thoughts, consciousness and other aspects.

I fully agree with Jason's assessment of the studies. It is interesting about the symbols, but occasional guesses could account for the the cases of "positive answers". A very high percentage would have to be correct for it to amount to anything.

This thread has been a great discussion and I hold all the opinions of everyone involved in the highest respect.

but the brain is not a complete mystery is it and all the other animals on earth have similar brains just smaller. Its just the brain is beyond our technology but that will not be long as they are already trying to make a replica in supercomputers to find out how it does work by modelling that's how every thing is done these days

I am not going to read the whole thing again to give out points ffs

Among many researchers, a contemporaneous pioneer in the brain study is the surgeon Ben Carson:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Carson
If you have time is worthy to spend a bit and watch the movie about his life: “Gifted hands”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gifted_Hands:_The_Ben_Carson_Story
You can also watch online documentaries, interviews with the real Ben Carson.
Is amazing, no matter of you are believer or atheist.

IanTH, AnthonyRusso for what it's worth, I tend to go overboard trying to draw people out, as in "that's crap". I have been called out several times on this forum for that approach. Sorry. No offense intended.

Steve

>>I am not going to read the whole thing again to give out points ffs

I doubt that anyone participating really cares about points.  Choose some simple way to allocate points  and close.
Please do not delete it.  Some people have spent time on their answers and probably would prefer you not have them deleted.

It is interesting, with this about the symbols.

OOBE is possible also without near death. I have had several such experiences. In fact I even have book on it. The author believes something leaves the body, but I don't accept that.

Whatever OOBE is, it is quite real, but it is non-empirical. Nothing is leaving the body. It's just another form of consciousness, where we explore an internal model of the world, not the actual world. That world often appears to be reversed, inverted or inside out because you have 360 vision when doing it. It's like you are exploring a mirrored version of the world.

This is why mirrors have a great deal of folkore associated with them. Amongst this folklore is the belief that the soul projects out of the body and into mirrors in the form of a reflection, which is the origin of the superstition that breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. There is also a belief that the soul can become trapped in the mirror, which in the past has led to children not being allowed to look in a mirror! Mirrors were covered during sleep and illness so that the soul, in its wanderings, would not become trapped and unable to return to the body.

All supersitious folklore, but there's a reason for that folklore that is very real. The experience of OOBE, where you experience the model of the Universe inside your mind in a very different way. It real feels like you leave the body and are floating around in a reversed world. This is a bit like the stories of the Bible - a lot of folklore but something real at the root of it.

Back to AWARE, variants of the roof symbols test mentioned have been tried many times, by serious scientists. A number, written on a piece of paper and placed in an accesible area, such as face up on top of wardrobe, is introduced. The participant OOBEs.

Now if it were possible to read the number, remember it, then report it to those controlling the experiment, then we would have empirical data to support OOBE. Yet there isn't any. Although OOBErs claim they can read and remember information like this, they seem unable to do so in laboratory conditions.

Show me one paper where these experiements have been conducted with conclusive results. Just one.

IanTH

Just award the points randomly and forget the thread. I don't care about points but to request this thread is going to bother IT admins who will not be happy - with you.

/Jason

If there is no soul – an entity with consciousness – which can exist apart, independent of the physical body, then Jesus Christ is a liar.
Then the entire Christianity, based on His teachings is a big error.
And then all the martyrs were/are the stupidest people on Earth.

Is it so?

Why don't you start another thread. This thread is so long it crashes my iPhone browser when I try to open it there. I don't understand why everyone has so many questions but the pile them all into one thread.

if you want me to post some questions I'll do it - just list them.

OK, I stop it here. Just made sense to ask being related with the initial question and the last subject discussed.

The exact answer to your question can be found streaming at the link below, supported by solid facts. The bible isn't so much a lie as it is allegorical. Most of the stories are metaphorical either pointing out morals and ideals, or directly relating to cosmic entities and phenomena. The exact framework for the character of Jesus can be traced back to numerous religions dating back further than christianity which is conveniently presented in the first section of this film.

Zeitgeist

Before you trust that movie you should read also historical data.
Start and check what is mentioned in Zeitgeist as "true" having next references:
No Zeitgeist
No Zeitgeist

Both ridingeternity and Viki2000 - good posts!

Zeitgeist? Really? I just watched the first part and while I am no biblical scholar and I am not a historian, it seemed goofy. At one point, he says the cross isn't a Christian symbol because it's actually a sun symbol or some such non-sense. I didn't realize that product trade marking began so long ago.

One thing that I did notice was that he says something like "Joseph had 12 brothers" and that's not true. I backed up and listened again and he says something like "Joseph is of 12 brothers" and then he goes on to say Jesus had 12 disciples and that Joseph had a miracle birth and Jesus had a miracle birth.

I guess he had to say "Joseph is of 12 brothers" to make the "Jesus had 12 disciples" sound like a parallel. What bunk. And what was miraculous about Joseph's birth? Dad was 70? Benjamin was born after Joseph . . . but being born of a father in his 70s is hardly a comparison to a virgin birth.

I took a course in Archetypal Themes in college and one thing they DIDN'T teach was that if the theme of story B is based on the theme in story A then story B cannot be true, which seems to be the point of the movie.

Steve

I stand by my comments but have changed from a lie to mistrustful

Dna proves the noah flood was local not global as every one in the world is related to about 6 familes who left the central rift valley in Africa between 140000 to 200000 years ago

This is what we know now, but in the future will change - as always.

the more we find out proves my point

Hmmm, not really

point to specific bible story that is from god on a universe level I mean the universe is and  has always been so, so vast we dont yet know how big. I mean he built the world yes meaning he would now about gravity as the world and all planets are made by gravity yes or no. The bible is just a collection of local stories there is no story from over the horizon is there its all local. Go on point to a bible story that is not local and make me laugh

The Bible stories become important to you only when you start to have the important questions about life and you will not consider yourself an external observer, analyzer and cold judge. When you see/identify yourself as subject of important part of life in universe with only one chance to find the truth then you will perceive all things different.
Random life does not have a purpose.

"Go on point to a bible story that is not local and make me laugh."

You seem to have already made up your mind. So what's the point?

Steve

good idea