i am an atheist

Started by Roberto1223, December 15, 2008, 11:08:30 PM

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Tidenburg

*sigh*
The universe has been here since the beginning of time because as far as we know time doesn't exist outside this universe and was created when it was. Hence why only things since the Big Bang are relevant to us.

Also PapaSkull, you seem to think that the people who wrote the bible had pretty advanced concepts of time and science for people who lived in mudhuts and believed in a man in the sky. :)

Westfall

The big bang theory can be disproven by the planets/stars that are older than we predict the universe to be. These stars/ planets that are older are scattered as though they existed prior to the big bang. There is no proof as to if the univere has always been around, or just started. Time seems to coincide with photons, and when time expires, these photons will be completely at random.

However, it still seems there are greater energies at work.

Papa, your god doesn't dig being given a label of "he". Also, how does time just start if there is no constant, in this case...the universe. So, god made everything...then pressed play? That's either really deep, or nonsensical. I belive the latter. Let me ask you this: Did God always exist...being created by whom, or did the vast darkness exist finally sparking consciousness?

frvge

Talking about the  "first thing" is so 2008. I believe we'll either have an answer to it in 2010-2011 because of the LHC, or never.

Because it's Darwin year, what about talking about evolution or the creationists view about that?
Quote from: savior2006SCDA has more bugs than a rain forest.
Quote
Treat your customers with respect you make more customers. Treat your customers like pirates, you make more pirates.

Snakebit.

What about evolution. Everybody knows it exists but nobody can tell for sure how it works.

Tidenburg

^Hehe, some loons wouldn't agree.  ;D

Farley4Fan

Quote from: Westfall on February 07, 2009, 07:13:46 AM
The big bang theory can be disproven by the planets/stars that are older than we predict the universe to be. These stars/ planets that are older are scattered as though they existed prior to the big bang. There is no proof as to if the univere has always been around, or just started. Time seems to coincide with photons, and when time expires, these photons will be completely at random.

However, it still seems there are greater energies at work.

Papa, your god doesn't dig being given a label of "he". Also, how does time just start if there is no constant, in this case...the universe. So, god made everything...then pressed play? That's either really deep, or nonsensical. I belive the latter. Let me ask you this: Did God always exist...being created by whom, or did the vast darkness exist finally sparking consciousness?

No, what I think is this.  God designed the creation of the universe.  The Big Bang, the expansion, whatever it may actually be.  Through this the universe was created.  God didn't just plop things out from the sky like a puppet show.  So, yes, you could say he was responsible for our universe/the creation of it.  Did God always exist?  I could not possibly know that.  What I was proposing, that since it says God always existed in the Bible, if God came to be in a timeless nothingness does that mean he always existed since there is nothing to measure when he came to be?  I don't know, I wasn't saying that this is the way it happened, just saying maybe so.

Quote from: Tidenburg on February 07, 2009, 01:54:35 AM
*sigh*
The universe has been here since the beginning of time because as far as we know time doesn't exist outside this universe and was created when it was. Hence why only things since the Big Bang are relevant to us.

Also PapaSkull, you seem to think that the people who wrote the bible had pretty advanced concepts of time and science for people who lived in mudhuts and believed in a man in the sky. :)

Not at all.  I think that the people who wrote the Bible got a basic message from God, or a message from the people who got a message from God, I'm not anyone to say for sure.  I think this because each of the stories that are being investigated in the bible are found to be partially/mostly true, with some exaggeration or they are found to have been badly translated throughout the years.  Noahs' ark for example was found to be true, just on a smaller scale.  A smaller flood, a smaller ark, and less species to unload and repopulate a certain area.  Still true, just a bit exaggerated.  Or Soddom and Gomorrah.  "Fire and Brimstone rained from the sky", but it was really fallout from a giant comet that landed hundreds of miles away.  There was no way for people back then to describe exactly what happened.  Nowadays we'd think it's impossible for fire to just "rain from the sky" in a non-volcanic area, right?  A lack of scientific understanding and multiple translations and such just caused the Bible to appear less of a scientific book or history book, and it's too bad.  There is a lot of truth to be found in these words (although I think a lot of it is just to teach us lessons as well).  Could this have been intended by God to have the Bible a bit less believable as the years go by?  Yet another thing planned by God just to increase the test of faith?  Who knows?

  These inconsistencies in the stories are not at all surprising with human error and the few translations throughout the road.  People that we never thought to exist, at all, are later found to exist.  THERE IS truth in the Bible, and there are some exaggerations, but the meat and bones of the stories are true.  That's reason enough for me to believe in it, more or less.  This is what I recommend.  Read it, process the stories, realize that through human error there have been a few changes in the actual text, but a lot of it isn't fictional like you think.

Westfall

QuoteTHERE IS truth in the Bible, and there are some exaggerations, but the meat and bones of the stories are true.  That's reason enough for me to believe in it, more or less.  This is what I recommend.  Read it, process the stories, realize that through human error there have been a few changes in the actual text, but a lot of it isn't fictional like you think.

The meat and bones are true stories.....I don't even have to say anything here.

This book was written as a moral guideline, with fables upon fables that land us to "and the moral of the story is....". I do not deny that Jesus was a real person who knew how to live and what was morally sound. He was able to make it to a state of nirvana, just like Buddha thought him to have achieved...same thing with Mohamed. Getting rid of want, desire, greed, need, envy....the 7 deadly sins for instance...those are the keys to living a good life. The problem is, with us evolving and growing smarter, we've seen "need" come into play more an more. We're raised on the material factor, which sucks because it's a conditioning that is quite tough to overturn.

One problem I see more than often is "judgment". This is one of the greatest sins you could commit, yet I rarely hear about it.

Farley4Fan

Quote from: Westfall on February 10, 2009, 04:49:13 AM
QuoteTHERE IS truth in the Bible, and there are some exaggerations, but the meat and bones of the stories are true.  That's reason enough for me to believe in it, more or less.  This is what I recommend.  Read it, process the stories, realize that through human error there have been a few changes in the actual text, but a lot of it isn't fictional like you think.

The meat and bones are true stories.....I don't even have to say anything here.

This book was written as a moral guideline, with fables upon fables that land us to "and the moral of the story is....". I do not deny that Jesus was a real person who knew how to live and what was morally sound. He was able to make it to a state of nirvana, just like Buddha thought him to have achieved...same thing with Mohamed. Getting rid of want, desire, greed, need, envy....the 7 deadly sins for instance...those are the keys to living a good life. The problem is, with us evolving and growing smarter, we've seen "need" come into play more an more. We're raised on the material factor, which sucks because it's a conditioning that is quite tough to overturn.

One problem I see more than often is "judgment". This is one of the greatest sins you could commit, yet I rarely hear about it.

You deny that the meat and bones of the stories in the Bible are true, then you go on to say that you don't doubt the basic story of Jesus?  That's like the biggest story, even.  Fables upon fables?  Fables are written from scratch, nothing true at all - not even the characters in it.  Not the Bible.

There are things that are true in the Bible.  There are people that have certainly existed in the Bible.  There are a lot of things we doubted, then researched, then went "wait a minute, maybe it IS kind of true" or maybe "This person DID exist..."  It includes facts.  Facts in the stories. 

I won't argue with you, however, that a good amount of the Bible is laced with some exaggerations and plain ole moral stories.  But this is expected through hundreds of years of retelling and translating.  I'm not saying take it word for word.  I'm saying: look and read the stories, accept that they could have happened albeit on smaller scales, or maybe they are completely true, or maybe they are just stories intended to teach moral values.  DO NOT just say well pfff it's all fiction there's no way God created the Earth in 7 days - that's a terrible mistake.  The Bible offers many clues to what happened in those times, many factual clues.

I agree with you on most of the rest.

Westfall

Do you agree that God did not create the world in 7 days?

Also, while I said I believe in there being a person named Jesus, I did not say I believed in the stories people wrote about him. He seems to have been quite a good person and lived well, but most of the stories are stretched.

Tidenburg

Plus the only record from a living source at the time about one of his miracles was proven fake. You'd have thought someone would have wrote about it? 50 or so years is a long game of chinease whispers so to have a book written THAT long after it happened makes it likely the stories were stretched.

Farley4Fan

Quote from: Westfall on February 10, 2009, 05:13:08 PM
Do you agree that God did not create the world in 7 days?

I don't know.  7 days, could be 7 days of millions of years.  7 days is just a symbol, maybe for 7 different key stages.  Maybe the creation of Earth was designed in 7 "days", then he created it.

Also, while I said I believe in there being a person named Jesus, I did not say I believed in the stories people wrote about him. He seems to have been quite a good person and lived well, but most of the stories are stretched.
How are we to know what is stretched or not?  How are we to know what is fact or not?  This is all that I'm saying.  Don't simply think it's all fiction but at the same time say that maybe there is some truth in there.  There are some stretches, maybe some exaggerations, but there is truth.  We may never know which is which but that's why we can't afford to just simply throw it in the trash.   

Farley4Fan

Quote from: Tidenburg on February 10, 2009, 06:49:02 PM
Plus the only record from a living source at the time about one of his miracles was proven fake. You'd have thought someone would have wrote about it? 50 or so years is a long game of chinease whispers so to have a book written THAT long after it happened makes it likely the stories were stretched.

Yup.  The ark wasn't as big as it was stated, but there was an ark, the flood wasn't worldwide, but there was a flood.  The parting of the "red sea" might not have been the parting of the ACTUAL RED SEA, but a smaller body of water that was somewhat parted during low tide by a large sand bar.  There are exaggerations, but the basic story remains, and it's all that is really needed to teach lessons.  It's all that God really cares about remaining.  This is simply human error, and to deny everything in the book because of basic human error is foolish. 

Snakebit.

#282
Quote from: Papa Skull on February 10, 2009, 07:24:10 AM
Quote from: Westfall on February 10, 2009, 04:49:13 AM
QuoteTHERE IS truth in the Bible, and there are some exaggerations, but the meat and bones of the stories are true.  That's reason enough for me to believe in it, more or less.  This is what I recommend.  Read it, process the stories, realize that through human error there have been a few changes in the actual text, but a lot of it isn't fictional like you think.

The meat and bones are true stories.....I don't even have to say anything here.

This book was written as a moral guideline, with fables upon fables that land us to "and the moral of the story is....". I do not deny that Jesus was a real person who knew how to live and what was morally sound. He was able to make it to a state of nirvana, just like Buddha thought him to have achieved...same thing with Mohamed. Getting rid of want, desire, greed, need, envy....the 7 deadly sins for instance...those are the keys to living a good life. The problem is, with us evolving and growing smarter, we've seen "need" come into play more an more. We're raised on the material factor, which sucks because it's a conditioning that is quite tough to overturn.

One problem I see more than often is "judgment". This is one of the greatest sins you could commit, yet I rarely hear about it.

You deny that the meat and bones of the stories in the Bible are true, then you go on to say that you don't doubt the basic story of Jesus?  That's like the biggest story, even.  Fables upon fables?  Fables are written from scratch, nothing true at all - not even the characters in it.  Not the Bible.

There are things that are true in the Bible.  There are people that have certainly existed in the Bible.  There are a lot of things we doubted, then researched, then went "wait a minute, maybe it IS kind of true" or maybe "This person DID exist..."  It includes facts.  Facts in the stories. 

I won't argue with you, however, that a good amount of the Bible is laced with some exaggerations and plain ole moral stories.  But this is expected through hundreds of years of retelling and translating.  I'm not saying take it word for word.  I'm saying: look and read the stories, accept that they could have happened albeit on smaller scales, or maybe they are completely true, or maybe they are just stories intended to teach moral values.  DO NOT just say well pfff it's all fiction there's no way God created the Earth in 7 days - that's a terrible mistake.  The Bible offers many clues to what happened in those times, many factual clues.

I agree with you on most of the rest.

Many actuall facts how god created earth in 7 days ? Thats nice , last time i checked i didn't find any. Not to mention that some of those 'facts' don't actually fit in modern science.(Guess they will need to correct it in the soon coming 100 years, need to keep the bible up with modern science. The church doesn't like a lot of scientists because some of their inventions 'disprove' the existance of god. Makes some thing in the bible sound like utter crap) If you can even call them facts. All that is written , how god created the earth , might be called a theory . If it had some facts ,it would have been proved by now and all the scientists would shut up about the Big Bang theory and other theories.

But really , right now , there is a big contradiction between how god created earth in 7 days and modern science.

Westfall

Quote from: Papa Skull on February 11, 2009, 12:58:05 AM
Quote from: Tidenburg on February 10, 2009, 06:49:02 PM
Plus the only record from a living source at the time about one of his miracles was proven fake. You'd have thought someone would have wrote about it? 50 or so years is a long game of chinease whispers so to have a book written THAT long after it happened makes it likely the stories were stretched.

Yup.  The ark wasn't as big as it was stated, but there was an ark, the flood wasn't worldwide, but there was a flood.  The parting of the "red sea" might not have been the parting of the ACTUAL RED SEA, but a smaller body of water that was somewhat parted during low tide by a large sand bar.  There are exaggerations, but the basic story remains, and it's all that is really needed to teach lessons.  It's all that God really cares about remaining.  This is simply human error, and to deny everything in the book because of basic human error is foolish. 

The flood was a continental devastation. Do you even know how the flood happened? I can't wait for that answer. I assume you think it rained for 40 days/40 nights. Get ready for the idea that rain and weather had nothing to do with it. Also, I assume you believe that Noah....took 2 of every animal/insect in the wooooorld. Such good credibility there.

Smaller body of water...how about a shallow lake. The translation is sea of reeds. The Reed Sea is a shallow lake, but if in fact it is talking about the "Sea of Reeds", do you know what a Reed is? How about somewhere equivocal to grain or wheat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canarywu/1934275905/

Denying what the book says due to human error is not foolish, and such a statement is arrogant. A book was created out of power-mongering. It has some truth, but so much is stretched to catch the innocent, ignorant minds of humans that you can't even see the bigger picture. I would take experience of a life through good morals, than experience of a life through a book's guidelines of good morals. ESPECIALLY when those morals are not always good (i.e. beating wives, selling wives, whoring wives/daughters, no such thing as homosexuality, thoughts of homosexuality being a disease, etc.). The only thing the Bible has going for it is the powerful thought of someone as pure as Jesus, which can still be compared to that of Buddha and Mohamed.

Farley4Fan

Quote from: Westfall on February 11, 2009, 10:36:27 PM
Quote from: Papa Skull on February 11, 2009, 12:58:05 AM
Quote from: Tidenburg on February 10, 2009, 06:49:02 PM
Plus the only record from a living source at the time about one of his miracles was proven fake. You'd have thought someone would have wrote about it? 50 or so years is a long game of chinease whispers so to have a book written THAT long after it happened makes it likely the stories were stretched.

Yup.  The ark wasn't as big as it was stated, but there was an ark, the flood wasn't worldwide, but there was a flood.  The parting of the "red sea" might not have been the parting of the ACTUAL RED SEA, but a smaller body of water that was somewhat parted during low tide by a large sand bar.  There are exaggerations, but the basic story remains, and it's all that is really needed to teach lessons.  It's all that God really cares about remaining.  This is simply human error, and to deny everything in the book because of basic human error is foolish. 

The flood was a continental devastation. Do you even know how the flood happened? I can't wait for that answer. I assume you think it rained for 40 days/40 nights. Get ready for the idea that rain and weather had nothing to do with it. Also, I assume you believe that Noah....took 2 of every animal/insect in the wooooorld. Such good credibility there.

No. Quit assuming.  I'm quite open to logic and reason. 

Smaller body of water...how about a shallow lake. The translation is sea of reeds. The Reed Sea is a shallow lake, but if in fact it is talking about the "Sea of Reeds", do you know what a Reed is? How about somewhere equivocal to grain or wheat.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canarywu/1934275905/

Yeah, this is where I agreed with you. Where is the indiff smiley when we need one?  Just because there were some exaggerations in the Bible is no reason to not believe that a parting of some body of water parted allowing them to walk through it.  Is it?  That's what I'm saying.

Denying what the book says due to human error is not foolish, and such a statement is arrogant. A book was created out of power-mongering. It has some truth, but so much is stretched to catch the innocent, ignorant minds of humans that you can't even see the bigger picture. I would take experience of a life through good morals, than experience of a life through a book's guidelines of good morals. ESPECIALLY when those morals are not always good (i.e. beating wives, selling wives, whoring wives/daughters, no such thing as homosexuality, thoughts of homosexuality being a disease, etc.). The only thing the Bible has going for it is the powerful thought of someone as pure as Jesus, which can still be compared to that of Buddha and Mohamed.

Denying everything in it is very foolish.  Some of the stories were exaggerated, sure, but this does not mean the basic story is untrue.  Maybe due to those people not seeing anything like this before they wrote about it in amazing esteem.  A simple parting of a sea of reeds boggled the minds of those who got the message, and so was exaggerated through the generations.  This is no reason to take these stories w/o 1 grain of salt.  Can't we both agree to this somewhat?