"...and for my next shadow puppet trick,..."
Awakened07
JoinedPosts by Awakened07
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17
virgin mary appears...again
by tula inthis is breaking news.
you would not believe the crowds still gathering.
the line outside is a mile long and has been for a few days.
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Awake! Special Issue - Can You Trust The Bible?
by karvel inhere's a lovely highlight from the new issue of everyone's favorite 'journal.
' notice how they try to talk scientific accuracy two pages after an illustration showing jonah about to be swallowed by fish wherein he is to spend 3 days...alive.
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Awakened07
I "agree" with them:
"when it comes to scientific matters, the Bible is noteworthy not only for what it says but also for what it does not say."
-This is The Word of God we're talking about. For several hundreds or thousands of years, these texts apparently were the only communication we got directly from Him. As such, shouldn't they include much more detailed and accurate explanations of the world around us? Why not more fully explain why people get sick and why they should stay clean (bacteria and virus), explain a few things about the solar system and the universe, explain in more accurate detail the various weather phenomena (and how they are not directly caused by God), explain what the dinosaurs were in case we found their bones one day; educate mankind about what's going on around them? I think this would be a rather obvious job for a God (as it is often the 'job' of parents to educate their children). -It may seem like the Bible would then have been several hundred pages longer than it is today, but I don't think that would necessarily be the case. It wouldn't have to be several bound volumes on science, but a little more detailed (and accurate) than today?
The point made about that - at least by the WBTS - is that the simple peasant/desert people of that day wouldn't have been able to understand detailed explanations. Why is that? I am - for this argument - assuming the Bible is correct, and if so, humans were directly created only a couple of thousand years earlier, and the first few humans were directly educated by God. In other words, these people were no more stupid than we are today - quite the contrary should be the case, with all the degeneration since the fall of Man. Did they know less than we do about the universe? Yes. But was that because they were stupid? No, they would easily have been able to understand things that an eight grader can learn today (to say the least). After all, they were 'trusted' to understand all manner of spiritual concepts, like angels, talking animals (they didn't have the explanation that this was Satan yet, and even if they did, it wouldn't make the topic easier), angels coming down to Earth and taking human wives, etc. etc. Were they so simple minded that they couldn't have understood the concept of God creating such small creatures that the human eye couldn't see them? The notion of this 'small life' may have been ridiculed for a while over the centuries, but would have been vindicated by today. Same with the weather, solar system, galaxies, dino bones, etc. etc.
If we do give a point to the Bible writers for writing that the Earth hangs on nothing and has the shape of a circle (although as VM44 explained above, these are not necessarily valid points), can it be said that this knowledge must have had a divine origin? The sun and moon have been hanging there looking like circles for all the time that humans have been here. It wouldn't be such a huge leap of imagination to conclude that the Earth may be 'circular' and "hanging on nothing" as well. In fact, in going up to a tall mountain or looking out over the ocean from a high vantage point, you might even conclude that the Earth might be (almost) spherical. This may be a moot point though, as it seems more likely they saw Earth as being a circular disc.
As for the hygiene rules of the Israelites: In the mid-1800s, before germs were thought to be the cause of disease and death, Ignaz Semmelweis was working in a hospital with a high mortality rate among pregnant women due to puerperal fever, and he discovered that the ward where the doctors and medical students weren't examining the women had a much lower mortality and disease rate than the ward where doctors and medical students would examine the women. He noticed that the midwives working in the other ward with a low mortality rate were required to have visibly clean hands, while the doctors and students were not, and that the doctors and medical students would go directly from examining dead bodies, to examining the pregnant women. He therefore 'forced' the doctors and students to wash their hands in an effective solution over a period of time, and after a while the death rate of the two wards were pretty much level. Again - he didn't know what caused it all, but he came to this conclusion nevertheless, without God's intervention. The same kind of deductive scenario may have happened in biblical times.
That the universe seems to have had a beginning may raise a few questions, but how come God is the automatic, full stop answer? Why does it stop there? A highly advanced, complicated, powerful and intricate life form wouldn't need an explanation, while a highly intricate universe would?
It doesn't seem to me like the Bible contains anything (physical) we as humans couldn't have concluded by ourselves by examining the things we see from our earthly vantage point.
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Bogus numbers in the Evolution book
by B_Deserter indoes anyone know how they come up with statements like how the chances of the genesis account being right on the progression of life (which it wasn't, actually) was 1 in 3,000,000+ or something?
it seems like the ol' blue book was written by someone who failed statistics in college.
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Awakened07
I think it's "funny" how they some times will use science to show how they are right ("Science agrees that these stages occurred in this generalorder. What are the chances that the writer of Genesis just guessed this order?", implying that science is correct when it comes to the order), but at the same time won't accept that you should apply scientific method to other things. As soon as something in the Bible contradicts science, then suddenly it "doesn't matter", because "Everything is possible for God". But if everything is possible for God, why quote science at all to support your view?
Here's a nice quote from Insight Vol. 1, page 610:
"Various explanations have been offered as to how the waters [water canopy] was held aloft until the Flood and as to the processes that resulted in it's falling. But these are only speculative. The Bible says simply that God made the expanse with waters above it and that he brought the Deluge. His almighty power could easily accomplish it."
In other words; "We know that this water canopy story can't be explained scientifically, so let's just say God can do anything he wants."
Then why sometimes quote scientists at all? What's the point? Anything can be explained away by supernatural powers. 'God could easily hold up the waters and let them go in such a way that it wouldn't harm life and wouldn't cause temperature and pressure changes'. Well - if so, there is no point in trying to explain why science is wrong in it's dating methods, or try to make the creation story fit the general order of events that science professes. God could have created everything two days ago if he wanted, with everything we know and remember intact. He can do anything.
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1 Thess 5:3 - What do you think....
by The Scotsman in1 thessalonians 5:3 says this - "whenever it is that they are saying: peace and security!
then sudden destruction is to be instantly upon them just as the pang of distress upon a pregnant woman; and they will by no means escape.
" nwt... jehovahs witnesses believe this is refering to our time with a final fulfillment imminent which of course triggers total destruction for nearly everyone and everything.
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Awakened07
"Sudden destruction". Well - I guess 'a thousand years is like one day' to God, so maybe in that context... I remember around 1986, it was The International Year of Peace, and Ronald Reagan (I think it was him) had used the exact words "peace and security" as had been "foretold" by the NWT; I saw prophecy being fulfilled before my eyes then.
It's over 20 years ago, so I guess 'sudden' is a relative term.
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How to stump someone that believes the noah's flood happened.
by 5go inone of the key peices of evidence that people sight to try to prove the flood happen is the fact the most cultures have a flood myth or story as they put it.. i was just watching a program that also points out the most, if not all cultures believe in dragons.
even cultures that evolve in isolation have beliefs in dragons and they are all simular though not the same.
just like the flood myth.. so if they believe the flood happened because so many cultures have flood stories.
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Awakened07
- I have an assignment for you, Perry: For every creationist claim you find, you should try to Google up a claim from the other side. I have already done the same (only in reverse) back when I was 'researching' these things and needed to hear the creationist views so that I could debunk the scientist's claims, and thereby could breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out for me.
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2003/PSCF12-03Seely.pdf
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I'm the Ice Cream man stop me when I'm passin' by
by 5thGeneration inforgive if posted already.. today's wt par.16:.
"consider the case of a christian man in a country in the orient.
he had a well paying job as a computer technician.
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How to stump someone that believes the noah's flood happened.
by 5go inone of the key peices of evidence that people sight to try to prove the flood happen is the fact the most cultures have a flood myth or story as they put it.. i was just watching a program that also points out the most, if not all cultures believe in dragons.
even cultures that evolve in isolation have beliefs in dragons and they are all simular though not the same.
just like the flood myth.. so if they believe the flood happened because so many cultures have flood stories.
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Awakened07
Most Flood questions are addressed here: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/flood.asp Description: A site showing how science lies and distorts/misrepresents/manipulates evidence that proves the universe is less than 10000 years old. Most Flat Earth questions are addressed here: http://theflatearthsociety.org/forum// Description: A site showing how science lies and distorts/misrepresents/manipulates evidence that proves the Earth is flat. Most 'Reptilian Alien Race Has Taken Over Earth' -questions are addressed here: http://www.truthism.com/ Description: A site showing how science and governments lie and distort/misrepresent/manipulate evidence that proves the Earth's governments are ruled by a reptilian alien race (and that the Earth is hollow with an inner Sun, and an advanced civilization living on the inside). The Truth is definitely out there. I wish you all a good hunt!
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Another odd thing in my life, I would like explained
by free2beme ini know there are a lot of people on this site who really have issue with the super natural.
as was seen in my post about my dead grandmother.
so this one will probably have people upset too.
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Awakened07
I don't know how much sense this post will make (I'm thinking as I post), but here I go:
-All events in our lives - big and small - are ultimately the result of a mind-numbing row of coincidental events. To use a hyperbole; I would not be writing this post if my great-great-great grandfather hadn't agreed to go to that specific trip and met my great-great-great grandmother who almost couldn't make it either, and if my great-great grandmother hadn't chosen to ride a bike to work that particular day she wouldn't have broken her leg and therefore met my great-great grandfather who was her doctor that day, and if my great grandfather hadn't moved to another county when he was 25, he wouldn't have met my great grandmother, and if my grandmother had died of asphyxiation at birth as she was moments away from doing, she wouldn't have lived to meet my grandfather, and if my father hadn't worn a helmet when he ran off the road on his motorbike at age 18 he wouldn't have lived to meet my mother.
All of the events above had to be in place for me to be alive and have the exact personality I have. Add to that a couple of billion other coincidences that make up my family's history and the things that have influenced me in my own life.... What are the odds that I am me?
Well - there are no odds on that, because it's looking at it bass-ackwards; all those things didn't happen in order to create me - I happened to become me as a result of all those coincidental events.
So life is already full of coincidences. Some we notice, most we don't. You got hit by a car today - - - - but if you had remembered to take out the garbage before you left the house, you would have spent a couple of minutes on that, and the car would have missed you because of it.
As for numbers - yes, I agree it seems too far fetched that this could happen as a coincidence. I guess it all comes down to interpretation. I think I have a few of these events in my life as well. Like all the times I would hear a scripture at the hall, and when I was to find it in the Bible, I would immediately open the book on the correct page number and my eyes would look straight at the correct passage. Or like the time I was fed up with it raining, and for fun "shouted": "Stop it!" - and only seconds later the rain was reduced to a trickle, and then stopped.
I see it as coincidences - you may see it as spiritual events.
Something I initially forgot to add here, are lottery numbers. Lotteries are good examples of coincidences happening. Let's say a friend of yours was put in another room from you, and was asked to write down 12 numbers. Then you were given the task of writing down 12 numbers as well. How amazing wouldn't it be if he came back to the room you were in, and it turned out you had written down the exact same numbers that he had!? But that's exactly what happens in a lottery. Granted, there are perhaps several thousand or even millions of people who enter the lottery, and so the odds of someone among them getting it right are lower. But to the person who wins, it's a big coincidence that he/she wrote down the exact same numbers that the lottery people had chosen as the winning numbers.
Another thing I've been thinking about lately (last couple of years) is all the times a coincidence almost happens but doesn't. Like looking at the phone and thinking of my parents. Nothing happens. But what if - by coincidence - they were to call me at that exact moment? Wow, it would blow me away, right? I think there are lots of those 'almost coincidences' throughout our everyday life, but for obvious reasons we only notice them when they actually happen.
Then again - who knows; there are lots of weird things in science today as well, like in quantum mechanics theory. Maybe we'll have an answer that goes beyond coincidences one day (and 'beyond' the spiritual). Most people experience deja-vu. Maybe it's something like that, and that it has an explainable origin other than what I described above. So - even though I view myself as an atheist and naturalist, I wouldn't completely poo-poo what those who feel they have spiritual experiences experience. But as of right now, I must say I think it's just coincidences, even though it sometimes may appear to be too far fetched and the odds seem to be against it.
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This is not a goodbye thread.
by eclipse injust letting all you fine folks on jwd that i will be going offline for a while.
not for personal reasons, just technical issues.
i will be completely offline and unable to access the net.. so i will not be able to contact anyone via email either.. i dont know when i will be back.
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Awakened07
You will be missed until you return. I'm going to be less active myself in the coming weeks, because I have a few books I should read, and some other projects. As nice and educational this site may be, it also tends to take a lot of time to stay up-to-date on all the interesting topics.
Hope you'll be well, and welcome back when you're able to.
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The concept of "free will" fascinates me...
by changeling injw's speak of humans having free will.
they also speak of the "rebelion" in eden.
are these concepts compatible?.
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Awakened07
About 'good and evil':
-What if Satan, Adam and Eve had all remained loyal to God? Could it be said that mankind would then never have known about good/evil? It seems that the Genesis account points to the Tree of Knowledge as the only path to such. But evidently, Eve could be tempted by an outside influence, and Satan could be tempted by his own desires. So - say a million years after the creation of Adam and Eve - could it be said that in such a scenario, if a man on the opposite side of the globe from Eden was tempted to steal or kill someone else and acted on it, would he then not know that what he had done was bad? Would he have been unable to intellectually understand it by seeing the consequences it had for that man's family etc., and in his thoughts apply the same scenario to himself and his own family? Then what was the point of the Tree of Knowledge in the first place, if the concept of "good vs. evil" at some point would have had to come up anyway? Simply because it was necessary to establish an original, inherited sin? (I know many Christians - especially here it seems - don't take the account literally, but a great deal of Christians do, after all)
