Unless you do adhere to a literal reading of the bible, then there's little conflict between it and science really. At worst there are some unverified (and unverifiable) claims. Part of the problem though is that the Bible isn't specific enough in most areas to really justify a comparison with science, so much of the conflict arises from interpretation and assumption rather than actual statement.
To refer to Genesis again, many people believe that God created the world in seven days, and those seven days are the same as ours. There isn't anything in the bible which supports this though (and it would be strange for God to be working to a calendar which wouldn't be established until after Jesus ). From my reading of the text, I think the language used is intended to convey that it is actually God himself who is causing the day/night cycle. In other words, it wouldn't matter if it took five hours for him to part the land and oceans or five million, it's not going to be nightfall till he says it is.

I should think it would occur in most bibles, but if you look for the phrase (or translational equivilent)
"He looked upon his creation, and saw that it was good" combined with the description of the night passing "then it was night, and the morning dawned on the x day".
On Day 6, God creates the animals. We then have the "God saw that it was good", but there is no night. Instead, he creates Adam before calling it a night. If the structure of the verses at this point followed the rest of the book, God would have called it a night after making the animals, then created humanity on Day 7 rather than resting (which is strange in itself. Why would God require a day off?, furthermore, it appears to be the only Holiday the poor bloke gets in the entire Bible.).

Even without assuming that they borrowed from other religions, there are compelling reasons why seven days would have been placed in there. Generally, religions have two days in the local equivilent of the week cycle. One has a holy significance, when the temple would be particularly active. The second was a 'holiday', when the priests would be excused from their duties (even priests need to wash their socks sometimes). Since the actual length of a week changed several times since the bible was written, it would be necessary (in order to maintain the link) to alter the creation story accordingly. It would also likely be strange if God took a week and a couple of days, or half a week, to create the universe (something common to all legends. You never hear of heroes taking a day and a few hours, or a month and a bit to do anything. It's always handily done in the nearest time period. Quite an amazing feat in the days before they invented the watch).

IIRC the initial instruction is two of every animal, then the seven and two, then back to the two. Now it could be God decided that he wanted more of the clean animals, then realised the plans he'd furnished Noah with didn't take this into account. What's more likely however is that it's the result of two seperate flood stories becoming amalgamated. Flooding (even on a global scale) was quite popular in the early period (in many ways they were the classical version of a disaster movie). The basic structure of the story is almost identical to that found in other contemporary or even earlier texts, for example the Sumerian Gilgamesh Epic (circa 2100BC). In it, the God Ea warns one of his followers that he's going to flood the world, and he should build a boat to carry all the living beings to survive. In the epic, the flood lasts for seven days and six nights, the boat comes to rest on a mountain and the disciple releases three birds to check if the flood is over. A similar story exists in both Persian and Roman legend too (right down to the birds. You'd think by now they'd have found a more efficient way of figuring it out).
The most likely explanation is that the original flood myth recorded in the Bible (or the works which were to become the bible) was the same as that which had been 'floating' around the ancient civilisations for some time, giving the two pairs of every animal version. The accout would likely have been revised later, not only to differentiate it from the other versions, but also updated with the list of clean and unclean animals (one thing to remember when discussing the bible is that it was a living book for much of it's early history, and used not only as a holy text but also as the source of law. Not unlike a modern constitution in that respect).

More than two. Not only do you have the divisions within Christianity itself, but you also have the non-Christian Abrahamic religions (would a Christian give the same weight to an Imam or Rabbi 'biblical expert') plus the atheist experts.
Who you'd consider an expert or authority would depend on your faith as much as anything. With regards to the walking on water account, I would quote Archbishop and Theologist John Henry Bernard - "“If we only had Jn.’s account of this incident, we should have no reason to suppose that he intended to record any ‘miracle’.”. Whether you consider him an expert or not is up to you.

Hard to do without knowing more about how your current studies are based, and whether you have any background in history or anthropology. I can probably turn up something suitable if you want, or if there's a specific area you're interested in. There's regrettably few books on the subject which approach it from a true neutral point of view however.

I've never seen any reason why natural selection couldn't explain the origin of our species (unless your talking about life itself, the origins of which have nothing to do with evolution).
Mutation in the sense you're using it is also not normally considered as part of natural selection. Spontaneous and random mutation (at least in mammals) is almost always caused by a defective gene or outside source (such as radiation) and in most cases is fatal to the host. With natural selection your looking at a more evolutionary form of mutation (which is the non-random part), i.e. the more an organism makes use of certain traits or abilities, the more they develop and alter over time.

If the universe is actually infinite then that would be true

I fail to see why the time would be convenient. Unless you're a believer in the young Earth theory, which the church itself disproved in the late 19th century.

..................u really arent that bright......

not u archonsod some other guys.....

think about this.........

One day a 6 year old was sitting in a classroom. The teacher was going to explain evolution to the children. The teacher asked a little boy:

TEACHER: Tommy do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
TEACHER: Tommy, do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yes.
TEACHER: Go outside and look up and see if you can see the sky.
TOMMY: Okay. (He returned a few minutes later) Yes, I saw the sky.
TEACHER: Did you see God?
TOMMY: No.
TEACHER: That's my point. We can't see God because he isn't there. He just doesn't exist.

A little girl spoke up and wanted to ask the boy some questions.

The teacher agreed and the little girl asked the
boy:
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the tree outside?
TOMMY: Yes
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy do you see the grass outside?
TOMMY: Yessssss!
LITTLE GIRL: Did you see the sky?
TOMMY: Yessssss!
LITTLE GIRL: Tommy, do you see the teacher?
TOMMY: Yes.
LITTLE GIRL: Do you see her brain?
TOMMY: No.
LITTLE GIRL: Then according to what we were taught today in school, she must not have one!

BURN!

"FOR WE WALK BY FAITH, NOT BY SIGHT" 2 CORINTHIANS 5:7

We should cut the teacher open to make sure...
We might find god in there.

I'm actually talking about the idea that single cell organisms eventually changed over a long period of time to become the species we know today, including humans - and yes, mutations are required for this.

DNA differs greatly between the organisms we know of today - and it varies all over the place, including different numbers and lengths of chromosomes. When reproduction occurs within a single species, the DNA does takes the half of the information from the mother and half of the information from the father and combines them - the result is that the amount and length of the information is unchanged.


In addition, it is found that the information often follows certain rules, as found in Punnett squares:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punnett_square

In this case, there are certain dominant and recessive alleles that are combined in a finite number of ways, and the only way to go beyond the finite number of combinations possible is to use mutations. In addition, since the number and length of chromosomes generally does not vary within a species, mutations are required to achieve the variety of chromosome structure we see today.

Natural selection is not by itself a form of mutation - it's simply selecting traits from an existing gene pool. Only mutation really allows for creation of new traits, so yes, it's required for the "molecules to man" explanation of life found in most textbooks.



This is called "Lamarckism" and is an old theory that has since been replaced with the "natural selection + mutation" theory I referred to.

The problem is, there is little genetic basis for Lamarckism - it's known that DNA has four bases of A, C, G, and T, and that one base doesn't slowly change into another. As far as we know, DNA does not record events over an organism's lifetime, and the traits the organism received when it began its life are the traits it will pass to its offspring.



OR it could be brevity, as I had mentioned. I don't think it's uncommon for a person to give the big picture, then explain it in detail, then to use a shorter version later to keep things simple. In fact, most of my college essays use that style, with the body having the most detail, and the introduction and conclusions having less detail.

Here's what I see (Genesis):
6:19 - Basic generalized explanation. Establishes the basic idea of bringing a pair of most animals to the ark.

7:2 - More detail. 7 (or 7 pairs) of every clean animal and birds "of the air" (shamayim Strong's H8064) would be bought in. Note that other types of birds (probably flightless or "unclean" birds) would be bought in as a single pair, as indicated by 6:20.

7:8 - refers everything as "pairs," reinforcing the idea of 7 pairs of clean animals entering the ark rather than 7 animals.

Frankly, all I see are differences in detail, not necessarily contradictions. There's a small squabble about the number of birds, but the more detailed verse includes a qualifier not found in other verses - something that was missed in my NIV translation .

http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/c.pl?book=Gen&chapter=7&verse=3&version=KJV#3



Odd. The Blueletter Bible claims that both day and night were in the Hebrew:

http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/c.pl?book=Gen&chapter=1&verse=31&version=KJV#31



We humans need an occasional rest - and what better way of showing this than by example?

And oh, yeah - later during the Exodus God also gets the passover as a holiday .



If there was in fact a large scale flood, it would only make sense that everybody would be talking about it!



. . . which would make sense if they were based off of the same event . . .



My studies are based primarily off of the education I had at the Christian school, some websites I've found, and some books I've read. Sorry, no background in history or anthropology, just computer science, although logic and information theory can often be applied to other practices.



Interesting assertion. How do you know if this is true?



Lemme put it simply:

Frog -> Prince = fairy tale

Frog + millions of years -> Prince = "science"

In other words, time is a type of "god in the gaps" for naturalists. It's the convenient catch-all explanation given when other explanations fail.



I've heard of a lot of possible disproof from the scientific community, but not much from the church. AFAIK, the Bible never mentions creation as a long period of time, with only anecdotal evidence from passages that don't discuss the creation event. 18th century sounds about right, though: This is the period of time when people started to use their own hypotheses about the workings of the universe to interpret scripture.

Check around in there, I lost my remote!

some of u guys overthink things waaaaaaaay to much haha


=D

There was a study that was done that people that were prayed for, fared better in an illness.
I would like to see that proven, because in all the Scientific magazines and Books i have read quoting similar tests, all the tests gave results which showed that the prayed for actually got worse and had more complications. The test group was split up into three : known to be Prayed For; Bein prayed for but not knowing, and not prayed for and not knowing. The the group who weren't prayed for got better faster than th eother two groups. So I'd just like to see how benovelent this God fellow is.

The problem is that we can smash open the teachers skull and find a brain, yet we cannot smash open the sky and find a god. Ask the astronauts, they'll just tell you it's space outside of here.

is this the pot calling the crack illegal?

let's take a step back here. you're saying "other people" on here aren't very bright? you consistently fail to use proper grammar and spelling, and while this certainly doesn't speak to your brightness in a direct relationship, it doesn't leave you with any apperance of intelligence.

your arguments in favor of your beliefs are simplistic and easily counter-argued, and your arguments against other ideas consistently suffer from the straw man fallacy.

(a straw man fallacy occurs when you take an argument or idea, distort it into something else, and then proceed to "disprove" that something else instead of the original idea. it'd be like beating up mike tyson's grandmother and calling yourself world heavyweight champion).

now with that said, you just insulted an unspecified number of people participating in this forum. the rest of us have managed to remain civil with each other and avoid insults, despite the sensitive issue we're discussing. this isn't my forum, but nonetheless i'd have to ask that if you can't remain civil, please refrain from participating. otherwise, please don't hesitate to continue your involvement if you so wish.

cheers

u r rite, sushistrip

doo u no if their is a bibel that is spelt liek u and i rite? cuz i hav problems wif big intemellectual words like "you" and "are". pls help me 2 bcome smartur, kthxbye.

While I am a Christian, I must differ with your assessment of atheism. I don't believe that there is any sort of trustworthy evidence that God does not exist, however some people may find some evidence compelling enough to make them trust it.

It is moral relativism that is a paradox. To say "There is no absolute truth" is an absolute statement which denies itself. To say "No one should judge anyone else on their beliefs" makes a judgement on others who believe judgement is required. It therefore is logically inconsistent as well.

But atheism is not logically inconsistent. It denies the facts of the wonderful world around us, sure, but there is no inherent logical fallacy.

Astronauts are statistically far more likely to believe in God than the general population.

“To look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is to me impossible, ... It just strengthens my faith. I wish there were words to describe what it's like.”

-John Glenn

im sry i cant spend the extra 2 seconds to spell out words for u

cuz i just care soooooooooooooooo much

and the reason i dont spell out words is because i spend soooooooooo much time talking with friends (cuz u know, i hav ton) that its alot easier to type this way



if u had friends, ud know wut i was talking about

=P

...........and no matr how many big "intemellectual" (as u so lovely put it) words u sugarcoat a sentence with, the simple meaning can mor easily be explained with a few words..............

Since human Beings started running around beating the living hell out of anything they didnt like - life hasnt changed much in the last million years   - there has been utter certainty that various objects, icons, natural phenomina are the true Diety. There was no way at the time you could ever shift their belief, yet here we are now with yet another set of beliefs in a Supreme Being.

Many so called Religious Leaders of many genres, including the Middle Ages leaders of two particular Major Religions in the period 600AD to late Middle Ages, (still current today but now more civilised) were raving thugs, responsible for an incredible amount of War and general mayhem. In a few hundred years providing we have decided not to blow ourselves to smithereens, or made the Planet uninhabitable, there will be another set of "Religions" all declaring they are the true faith.

I view Religions as a viable declaration of ethics and declaring standards by which to live. In terms of some Superior Being, thats not something I personally believe in, but I do believe the way of Life put forward by Christian Faiths is something to aspire to without going down the extremist/exibitionisst route.

One things is for sure, if there is a Supreme Being who is supposed to be looking out for us etc, It must have taken an extended holiday in the last 2,000 years as the Human Race tried damned hard to slaughter all its neighbours by any means it could. It someone mutters "thats gods will" I will scream .....

I will fight for the right (and have done) for individuals to hold whatever Religious beliefs they wish, providing they dont use those beliefs as an excuse to go out and committ general genocide. My personal view is many hold beliefs driven by a need to hold onto something that promises continuance after death, and cant grasp the fact that we - like all animals of the Planet - just live and die, Period. But, if it makes them content and happy, I dont have a problem with it, providing they dont try and ram their beliefs down my throat.

Meanwhile, I will happily follow christian values (but not a belief in a Supreme Being), continue slamming the Door on the feet of Jahova's Witnesses who are in the mistaken belief that a tacticaly placed foot in the doorwell stops me shutting the door ..... and die knowing that at least in my final demise I will help fertilise the local Rose Bushes with my ashes.

Regards
Zy

You just made the same fallacy with using the word "know" for "believe". I can accept that the world is flat, doesn't mean I know it is.

You accept the things written in the Bible and believe in them. It doesn't mean you know that they are true



What facts does it deny?

You don't need a god to take pleasure and find awe and wonder in the Universe.

Ah, I see what you mean. The theory basis itself on the assumption that all life ultimately derives from a single common ancestor, which is not necessarily true (gets into the various theories of arbiogenesis though, and I'm no expert there) .

Yeah, yet the biology of pretty much any organism shows a distinct history of advancement.

To be honest, it's not the use of mutation I was challenging, but the idea that it's completely random. You can't for example expect a human to be born with a trunk or tentacles, there's a limit to precisely how far DNA can bend between generations.

In modern communication it isn't, but in the bible it's not as common. I would say it's fairly rare, but to be honest the writing tends to veer wildly from the over detailed to what could best be described as 'hastily scrawled'. It's to be expected of a collection such as the bible though.

IIRC the numbers in 'contemporary' myths range from 2 to 6. There's some disagreement on species too - Ravens and doves tend to feature prominently, but there's also pigeons, crows and a number of other birds in less common numbers.

If they were recording the same event, I suspect Noah actually left the birdcage open and just tried to cover it up!

That's the point. The day appears to go missing sometime between the early Greek translations and the official adoption of the religion by Rome, which also coincides with the 'standardisation' onto a seven day week. I'd suggest it was a Greco-Roman alteration to make Genesis fit in with their weekly calendar rather than whatever the Jews were using at the time.

Two holidays in several millenia. No wonder he got his son to take over the family business!

The problem being the original myths predate the biblical account by around two thousand years, and the later accounts would have the flood occuring a few thousand years after Noah built the Ark. If they were recording the same event, we would expect to find more agreement, even if just a narrower possible range, for the time of the flood.
The other problem is that, while flood stories can be found throughout the world, not everyone mentions a huge flood (which would be strange if it was worldwide), nor is there any agreement on the time it occurred (it is possible that several of the myths were caused by the same event, but this wasn't a worldwide flood - it was limited to the middle east and parts of the Mediterranean. We know there were a number of large floods caused by volcanic activity in the area which gave rise to a number of legends. The one mentioned in the bible and contemporary accounts would most likely be the large flooding which followed the volcanic destruction of what is now Crete).
The final problem is that there is no geologic evidence of a worldwide flood, nor in fact enough water present on Earth to manage it.

You'd likely be better off with some of the books dealing specifically with the historic and archeological record of the bible. I'll see if I can find any non-propoganda texts.

Logic

Anything which is possible (no matter how unlikely) must eventually occur if the universe is infinite, since it has infinite time to do it in.

The problem is it's a rather compelling argument. Even if you don't accept macro-evolution, micro-evolution would eventually lead to a species which is completely different from it's forebears over a sufficiently long timescale.

The original refutation came from a Catholic priest who was heavily into his astronomy (the argument was based on astronomic principles rather than geologic ones). Can't remember the chap at the moment, but I'll see if I can dig it out.

The bible never mentions the age of Earth, those who posit a young Earth theory base it on the geneaologies in the bible (i.e. they assume that Earth cannot be more than a week older than Adam). The thing is, these people often also argue that people lived much longer back then due to a more pure genetic code. Kind of screws up the whole theory if Adam happened to be a couple of millenia old before he had kids
(IIRC I don't think the bible actually specifies how long Adam & Eve actually spent in Eden prior to the fall, although it does specify that Death wasn't around until they left...)

Reminds me of stories I heard, not saying they are true because I haven't verified them yet, about the things that happened to Mr. Einstein after his death. A large number of people were quite interested in examining his material legacy.

According to one story, a group of Israeli soldiers/agents appeared and removed all his written materials & etc. they could find, for one thing (wtf were Isreali agents doing flashing badges in the U.S.?).

The next part of the story tells how a certain U.S. professor/biologist/doctor(?) somehow got hold of Mr. Einstein's brain, which had been removed and preserved. After the long legal/political battle to get it, he promptly wrote a paper about the findings of his "important study." Nothing to really point at, nothing so obviously abnormal or godlike was noted in his first paper.

Then he proceeded to slice it into over 200 pieces. The pieces were sent out to various other persons who had also requested to study it. Nobody found anything fantabulous to report from the study of the little pieces he sparingly doled out (in return for what?).

Then he requested all the pieces be returned, and used his legal custody status to enforce it. Then, lo and behold, after reassembling the brain and studying it again, he noticed something different! There was a slight abnormality in a fold of a lobe on one side, or something similar. That, of course, required the writing of another paper, and more attention!

From my sometimes cynical view, I think Einstein "knew what the monkeys were going to do with him" after he died, and he would be helpless to prevent it ... but he still gave permission before he passed away (to get them to stop bothering him?). He made some subtle remark about what they would find and how he wished them well.

Maybe we could smash open people's heads to see what's inside, but unfortunately, anyone stupid enough to resort to such desperate tactics wouldn't be capable of understanding what they found anyway; or else they wouldn't resort to violence in the first place. Monkey-magic does not work.   

"In Space No One Can Hear You Scream."

--Poster for Alien (1979)

Ergo there is no god

Horse patties! Where is this study?

this really isnt related to the topic but its realy heartfelt, and if ur not touched by this then u realy need to rethink ur priorities in life.......


THE FIREMAN

In Phoenix, Arizona, a 26-year-old mother stared down at her 6 year old son, who was dying of terminal leukemia. Although her heart was filled with sadness, she also had a strong feeling of determination. Like any parent, she wanted her son to grow up and fulfill all his dreams. Now that was no longer possible.. The leukemia would see to that. But she still wanted her son's dreams to come true. She took her son's hand and asked, "Billy, did you ever
think about what you wanted to be once you grew up? Did you ever dream and wish what you would do with your life?"
Mommy, "I always wanted to be a fireman when I grew up." Mom smiled back and said, "Let's see if we can make your wish come true."

Later that day she went to her local fire department in Phoenix, Arizona, where she met Fireman Bob, who had a heart as big as Phoenix. She explained her son's final wish and asked if it might be possible to give her six-year-old son a ride around the block on a fire engine. Fireman Bob said, "Look, we can do better than that. If you'll have your son ready at seven o'clock Wednesday morning, we'll make him an honorary fireman for the whole day. He can come down to the fire station, eat with us, go out on all the fire calls, the whole nine yards! And if you'll give us ! his sizes, we'll get a real fire uniform for him, with a real fire hat-not a toy one-with the emblem of the Phoenix Fire Department on it, a yellow slicker like we wear and rubber boots. They're all manufactured right here in Phoenix, so we can get them fast."

Three days later Fireman Bob picked up Billy, dressed him in his fire uniform and escorted him from his hospital bed to the waiting hook and ladder truck. Billy got to sit on the back of the truck and help steer it back to the fire station. He was in heaven. There were three fire calls in Phoenix that day and Billy got to go out on all three calls. He rode in the different fire engines, the paramedic's van, and even the fire chief's car. He was also videotaped for the local news program. Having his dream come true, with all the love and attention that was lavished upon him, so
deeply touched Billy that he lived three months longer than any doctor thought possible.

One night all of his vital signs began to drop dramatically and the head nurse, who believed in the hospice concept that no one should die alone, began to call the family members to the hospital. Then she remembered the day Billy had spent as a fireman, so she called the Fire Chief and asked if it would be possible to send a fireman in uniform to the hospital to be with Billy as he made his transition. The chief replied, "We can do better than that. We'll be there in five minutes.

Will you please do me a favor? When you hear the sirens screaming and see the lights flashing, will you announce over the PA system that there is not a fire? It's just the fire department coming to see one of its finest members one more time. And will you open the window to his room? About five minutes later a hook and ladder truck arrived at the hospital and extended its ladder up to Billy's third floor open window 16 firefighters climbed up the ladder into
Billy's room. With his mother's permission, they hugged him and held him and told him how much they loved him.

With his dying breath, Billy looked up at the fire chief and said, "Chief, am I really a fireman now?" "Billy, you are, and the Head Chief, Jesus, is holding your hand," the chief said. With those words, Billy smiled and said,
"I know, He's been holding my hand all day, and the angels have been singing.."

He closed his eyes one last time.

BEAUTIFUL