frankiespeakin:
In actuality no matter what God could have "encoded" in the creation account, it would still not have been enough to prove to you divine inspiration. You judge God according to what you think he should have done. A universe consistent, and logical, with intelligent life that is able to contemplate its existence to you offers no prove that God exists, to me it offers all the proof I need.
Sorry frankie, I was trying to take you seriously. Now you've lost the argument (that it wasn't possible to encode data into the creation account to prove divine inspiration - saying you don't think you lost it just makes you look dellusional or that you have no idea about how debates work), you attack me personally by saying it wouldn't be enough to prove divine inspiration to me. That's intellectually dishonest and an ad hominem argument with no basis.
You talk about "consistent, and logical", yet you are happy to sup down the illogical and inconsistant if it relates to your belief in god, and use the anthropic principle without realising the vacuity of the argument.
It is germane to the subject, of moral rightness, for morally God could do what ever he wants to His creation, He owes us nothing.
So god can morally either directly or indirectly murder and rape?
By your logic, a parent should not be prosecutable for killing or raping their child. The child is a creation of the parent and the parent owes nothing to the child. Of course, this idea is morally bankrupt and obscene; and it is when you apply it to god too.
No charge can be leveled against Him, for we belong to Him, to do with us as He see fit. No matter how much we protest about His perceived injustices, that are merely according to our limited intellectual capacities and lack of thorough understanding of His ways.
You are just moving to the sad, tired and lame religionist excuse; "if you don't understand it's your fault, god knows better". Jesus seemed to think it was quite possible for people to "take in accurate knowledge of me and he who sent me". You obviously think you know better than, well, god. I think that your hands should erupt in blisters for having the gall to even type the words "logical and consistant"!
I think though you are confused on some issues, while God gave man a sense of right and wrong to help guide him He also gave man "free will" which would allow him to choose, between the two and not automatically to follow the sense of right as if locked into it like a robot.
Yes, but this sense of right would still be offended by a murderous child-abusing god. Come on, stop being a religonist and THINK about it;
Her name was Ashaka. She lived in what's now called Israel, and just like other people who live in Israel today her life was destroyed by a nation believing they have a divine right to the land she and her people lived on. One day she was coming back to her village with her brother Jodash; she had kept him company whilst he herded the family's goats. As they came closer to the village they could hear the noise of fighting... Jodash ran ahead, pulling his sling from his pouch and slipping a stone into it... Ashaka tried to keep up, but her was older and faster.
She caught up with him on the edge of town; he was lying against the well, a javelin in his abdomen, bleeding and dying; all around large men in heavy leather armour and bronze swords ran about. She ran from her brother to their house to get help, crying... and to her horror saw her mother and aunt, their throats cut lying on the floor... and her father with his brains bashed out.
She turned to run, and collieded with one of the large strange men... he grabbed her, and lifted her bodily, desp[ite her struggles screams and kicks - carried her a few paces to a couch in the corner of their living space and threw her bodily down onto it... she laid there, terorised as he began unbuckling his belt...
Now, if you look at that as a human being, and not as a religonist, if you imagine what it would have been like for a little girl to be raped after seeing her family hacked to death, can you tell me that it would be moral for god to approve of such an action? Can you tell me you could happily accept such an entity as your GOD in the unlikely event god is such a scumbag? I thought Satanists were meant to be the child abusers!
God never gave man omnipotence to know absolutely what is right and wrong in every matter for God never made man to be an independent creature, that is independent of his Creator. Nowhere is that ever implied in Scripture. God made man to be subservient to him always, which is perfectly within in God's rights morally, since He made everything.
Ah, so we have the freewill to be subservient. Glad you cleared that up for us, we could do with more of your logic and consistancy. Seems god was afraid that man was entirely too good at being independant, judging from Babel.
And you justify this by 'god is our creator'. Well, it would be NICE IF HE PROVED IT, WHICH HE COULD HAVE, AND DIDN'T. Not that allowing his people to rape girls would be jusitifiable even if god DID make us.
Step back frankie; you are justifying murder and child rape. Isn't it more likely that the Bible is just a quasi-historical account of a people, and is not divinely authored or accurate?
'Cause you can either believe the Bible perhaps has some wisdom in it that god wants us to benefit from, but that we have to sift this out of the flawed book we have today, or you can insist the Bible is an accurate and reliable reflection of god's will and the history of the world, and have to try to justify murder and child rape.
Let's see you be logical and consistant and have no preconceptions in thinking about that... oh, and I am shocked a Christian doesn't know their Bible as well as a secular humanist;
Judges 21:10-24 NLT
So they sent twelve thousand warriors to Jabesh-gilead with orders to kill everyone there, including women and children. "This is what you are to do," they said. "Completely destroy all the males and every woman who is not a virgin." Among the residents of Jabesh-gilead they found four hundred young virgins who had never slept with a man, and they brought them to the camp at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
The Israelite assembly sent a peace delegation to the little remnant of Benjamin who were living at the rock of Rimmon. Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives. But there were not enough women for all of them. The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel. So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead? There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever. But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."
Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem. They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards. When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife! And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding. Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'" So the men of Benjamin did as they were told. They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance. Then they rebuilt their towns and lived in them. So the assembly of Israel departed by tribes and families, and they returned to their own homes.
Numbers 31:7-18 NLT)
They attacked Midian just as the LORD had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings ? Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba ? died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword. Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho.
Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the people went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the military commanders who had returned from the battle. "Why have you let all the women live?" he demanded. "These are the very ones who followed Balaam's advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the LORD at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the LORD's people. Now kill all the boys and all the women who have slept with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.
Deuteronomy 21:10-14 NLT)
Suppose you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God hands them over to you and you take captives. And suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and want to marry her. If this happens, you may take her to your home, where she must shave her head, cut her fingernails, and change all her clothes. Then she must remain in your home for a full month, mourning for her father and mother. After that you may marry her. But if you marry her and then decide you do not like her, you must let her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have humiliated her.
God is moral, and at great sacrifice to Himself. You and I do not fully understand God's moral standards, nor do you or I, fully understand why there is suffering in the world. You speak so absolutely, with such little knowledge.
Errr... you don't even know your own textbook for faith has evidence for the forcable sexual use of captive women; oh, at the time, most girls over 14 would have been married, so they would have been killed with the others whilst their little sisters were picked out for sexual servitude... by the killers of their parents...
Nice. You puff yourself up with statements about 'little knowledge', when you are basing your knowledge on a quasi-historical poltico-religious propoganda piece you don't even know properly, that was written by bronze-age pastoralists to justify their actions and create a structure for their society; just like all the other holy books of the period.
Of course you do not believe in Jesus Christ, or that he was God, and so this probably means nothing to you.
I believe in gravity; I believe in gravity because there is proof. Jesus? Might have had a historical basis. Is alleged to have said some rather cool things. But if he wanted me to 'believe' in him as god.... well, I think a third-rate PR agency in Tulsa could do a better job than the Bible. Of course, if Jesus is God, then Jesus would know that BILLIONS of peope are not Christians as Christians can no more 'prove' their faith than Buhhdists, Muslims or Hindus. I am sure you will show me the logic in this, and that it won't look like an excuse for a book of myths being passed off as anything other than what it is without any proof...
I've noticed that about you, you have a very subjective way of veiwing things, and try to make it appear objective.
Errr... I provide evidence to suppport my argument; you provide assertions that have no evidence to support them. Make your talk of subjectivity and objectivity rather empty...
You even use the fallacious idea that science somehow disapproves God's existence. It does not.
Strawman argument; I did no such thing. Logically, the idea of a entity such as described in the Bible is silly; the Bible is scientifically and historically flawed and has much information in it that is unprovable. If god has the character described say, in the Bible (oh, yes, I know it changes quite a bit), then putting down the lack of proof to some ineffable plan (or similar excuse) when it seems (according to the Bible) that one's future existence is dependant upon adherance to the way described in the Bible is in direct contradiction of god's described character. Oh, you're a Hindu? Hard luck then... oh what do you mean you've never heard about the Bible's message... huh, hard luck...
For all your talk of god being able to do what it likes you haven't addressed the issue that by doing so god contradicts himself, makes himself a liar. And it says that Satan is the father of the lie... so, God IS Satan? Satan the Father, Jesus the Son and YHWH the Holy Ghost? That clears the child abuse up then...
Obviously the clear indications that YHWH, BibleGod, whatever you want to call it, is a man-made invention do not mean there is no god; it just means that anyone believing in the petty, violent and thoroughly human god of the Jews is probably offending the real god (if there is one) by subscribing divinity to such an appaling monster as you do.
Abbadon, sometimes you sounds so silly, to me anyway, trying to give the impression, that science can explain how "anything" came into existence, from nothing.
This statement shows you haven't even looked into the subject... and I look silly? You make statements about things you know nothing of and try to justify a monster child raping god using a book you don't even know well, and I look silly?
It can't go outside the Universe, and tell you what is out beyoud the universe, it can only speculate, which simply means to make guesses, about that which they have no way of proving.
You talking about religion again frankie? I stake your book of bronze-age goatherds myths, very similar to many other books of bronze-age goatherd myths, against science. You prove nothing, assert everything (using the bronze-age goatherd book as proof!), and end up justifying child abuse without realising what a mockery you make of the idea of god. Are you a Calvanist by any chance?
Science can prove quite a lot; what it can't prove it can theorise about, using FACTS to base the theories on; for example, the Big Bang's 'echo' (background radiation of 4 degrees Kelvin) was predicted experimentally before it was measured. In a similar way they use facts to base the theories of how the Big Bang came about on. Obviously, theories can be wrong. If they are they get changed.
Religion also has theories; they are based upon someone suggesting this is what god told them to write down as distinct from being based on facts. If these theories are shown to be wrong, then the believers come up with vastly entertaining excuses for them being wrong that they will then refuse to impliment in a consistant and logical manner.
Have the honesty to say you believe for internal reasons; trying to justify your belief externally just makes you sound like a someone justifying the rape of children as okay because it's what their god wants... I thought only Satanists did that?
Mindchild:
Hi there Skipper, how's life?
Brummie:
This is a good site:
http://www.neanderthal-modern.com/
Essentially, it's down to you now. Do the research - and not just on the Internet, read the books, develop knowledge and from this form an opinion. Partialy watched Discovery programs are not a good starting point. If you get stuck, PM me; I'm happy to help out but I don't want you to think what I think, I want you to think what you think.
Were H. neanderthal human? Define human. The earliest images were based on arthtitic skeletons; Neanderthals actually were quite upright; they had larger brain capacities than H. sapiens, brow-ridges and a knob on the back of their skull. They had shorter arms and legs, and were very chunky in build (better build for cold climates). Visualisations of hair and skin colur etc. are guesswork as theres no proof of these things. They revered the dead (flowers in graves), made instruments and tools...they probably spoke, we don't know. We equally don't know why they died out while H. sap didn't.
I personally think that Neanderthals were pretty human; they weren't our ancestors, they were distant family who had been as human as H. sapiens ancestors had been when they moved out of Africa. H. sapiens evolved from this root stock in Africa, whilst H. neanderthal evolved in the Ice Age envrions of Europe. When H. sapiens met H. neanderthal at the end of the ice ages it is doubtful they could communicate; whatever language they had at that point would have diverged too much to be mutually intelligible. But people are human even if you can't understand what they say and look different; whether H. sapiens was quite so PC, we don't know.
One possibility is that brain evolution diverged and the H. sapiens brain (which started changing 100,000 year-old tool designs) was just more adaptable. We don't know.
But, if you go back to my example of Alfa Romeos, we don't know if H. neanderthal was a 166 twin spark or not, but just the way it looks makes it obvious it's an Alfa Romeo.
Over to you Brummie...
