Nope, your math is off a bit, you didn't seem to remember the last couple thousand years that has to be (is supposed to be) included in that calculation so that would make it ~41 centuries ago. You only have 5012 years to work with and you seem to forget that these people had already formed an empire by then; something that the rejects from the garden could not have accomplished considering god even had to sew their clothes for them.  So less than 1,000 years exists in which the biblical gods could create everything, decide it was all corrupt, murder everyone and kill everything else and then repopulate the earth from some spot on an isolated mountain from ‘kinds’ and a small family.  Tell me you don’t believe in Sci-Fi. The point about China is that there was nothing known about it for thousands of years before the first Jew or Christian stepped up to the plate and mentioned it and I can just imagine how that encounter went. I wouldn't expect you to comprehend Jythier, why should this topic be different than all of the others?

PS – Jythier, if a few thousand years is important to you here, then you are still clueless of what the argument is even about.

I made the statement that absolutely nothing about God would change if there were never a NT or an OT for that matter.

And you asked that I explain it without using the Bible....and I did citing reason, true religion, supernatural faith, and Sacred Tradition. 

You may think of reason, true religion, supernatural faith and Sacred Tradition as having no substance but you are wrong. There is no possibility of that. Just remember that the teaching, governing and sanctifying Catholic Church came before the Bible. Catholic teaching and doctrine is not her own, but Jesus' who sent the Church to teach all nations until the end of the world in His name.   

True because Jesus Christ is true God..that as God He existed from all eternity; that as man He was born in time; true God and true man at that same time. He came in order to redeem us from sin and Hell and only God could do it. Jesus Christ worked miracles that can happen only through God's Almighty power, taught the true religion, founded a Church upon St.Peter, established a sacerdotal priesthood and sent His Church to teach all nations until the end of the world when He will come again to judge the living and the dead. Christianity is ancient Hebraic Judaism fulfilled.

Now, first understand that I love the Bible and greatly appreciate it's importance, however......God sent His Son Jesus Christ, who established one definite CHurch to which He gave His teaching authority. Interestingly, the Bible itself calls the Church the "pillar and bulwark of truth". In another passage, Christ tells us 'to hear the Chruch", not read the Bible.

So, apart from the Bible, I do know "up from down" concerning faith and morals...and that's because of the Catholic Church whom Jesus Christ said He would give it the Holy Spirit to teach it all truth.

By Infinite and finite, I mean that God is Infinite; we are finite. God has Infinite Intelligence, knowledge and understanding; we have finite intelligence, knowledge and understanding....

God possesses each and every perfection in an infinite, unlimited degree.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,

6,000 years

-4100 years

= 1900 years.

Now, how long do you think it takes to create an empire?

Again, from reason and the things God has created and given us, we can know that ....

God is Pure Spirit and He does teach, but you seem to persist in defiantly denying the most self-evident truths. He gave us (you) life, a free human will  and within us a conscience---a strange mysterious power which is constantly comparing all our actions with an absolute standard of right and wrong---by which you make practical judgments upon the good or bad of your every thought, word or deed.

God does teach oh, in so many ways; it's only for us to listen and respond. Life is a journey and God hasn't left us high and dry. He gave us His Church to teach us as well. But the human will can freely reject, deny God, His laws, His truths, and His teaching Church. 

The Psalmist is right in calling the Atheist a "fool" and St.Paul is right in declaring him "inexcusable". Roman 1:20-21. "for the invisible things of Him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made; His eternal power also, and divinity: so that they are inexcusable. 21 Becasue that, when they knew God, they have not glorified Him as God, or given thanks; but became vain in their thoughts, and their foolish heart was darkened." St.Paul has more to teach about this in 1Cor. 2:14.

 

Most Christians accept that the young earth ‘perfect paradise paradigm’ is based upon what the Bible says because it is not found elsewhere. In reality, the perfect paradigm fails in its lack of biblical support and also in its underlying assumptions that it forces upon a "Christian" worldview. Under the perfect paradise paradigm, God is relegated to the position of a poor designer, whose plans for the perfect creation are ruined by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, the only two people he created. God is forced to come up with "plan B," in which he vindictively creates weeds, disease, carnivorous animals, and death to get back at humanity for the sins of his own perfect creation, man … but the thousand year life span of the fallen remained in effect for quite some time (a longer time to punish people?). Considering that you folks seem to think your god is all knowing, this could reasonably be construed to mean that he created man for the sole purpose of punishing him starting from square one. If the earth and the universe were originally created for the pleasure of his creation mankind, well this is a nonproductive way to view pleasure unless one is a masochist? No matter how one looks at this, it can only mean that the ‘perfect garden’ was a sham and never intended for mankind … or god changed his mind because he didn’t know everything after all.

PS – Jythier, what does Jesus have to do with the Garden of Eden, not that you have a one track mind? Is actually reading something a requirement for you to comment or not? Is that just too much to ask?

Jesus is not plan B.

You persist in these ‘self-evident’ truths of yours as if they should or even could be viewed by everyone else such that only the Christian conclusion has merit. My parents gave me life, but your god was relegated to the back row when he tried to give me some kind of sin ridden soul that had nothing to do with me, my parents, with Christianity, with the RCC, or any of MY lineage all the way back to scientific ‘Adam and Eve’ more than 50,000 years ago. I cannot be given faith, a religion, a church or a god by you or even by a god without something real to verify it. And I am afraid that there is no book compiled from folk lore from many thousands of years ago that will convince me that it represents anything besides their dogmatic views from forgotten points in mankind’s early and barbaric history. Well, they aren’t really forgotten for me, just for you. There is nothing provable about being born in sin or how being born is itself intrinsically evil without the capacity to even tell right from wrong. There is no way one can use common sense or logic concerning the creation of the universe from ANY biblical perspective … without the faulty bible you don’t need to use.  There is nothing self-evident about creating a god who would destroy his own perfect creations and then do it all over again with the same projection … the demise of the human species. There is nothing intuitive about destroying all life on earth and then repopulating it from a single point with so little. There is nothing innate about fantasizing such things as just a Christian’s utopia and hell. Hell certainly doesn’t exist in the OT which only talks about the grave "Sheol” (same as I do) so whence came it if not with the creation of Christianity and the NT?

PS – What was the last (or first) thing that god taught you personally?

Seriously? I hope you know that this attack on Genesis does not  totally disprove all the claims concerning Original Sin!  

Although each and every word of Genesis need not be taken literally, the substance of the account of Creation is certainly true though we have not fully perceived every detail given in that account. And there is nothing in favor of Darwinism Evolution to justify doubting the direct formation of Adam and Eve by God.

Science almost compels the conviction of the origin of mankind from only one pair of ancestors and true religion declares it.

Original Sin is a reality.

God created our first parents perfect in every way, in a state of original happiness, so much so that the earthly life in the Garden of Paradise was a type of life in the Heavenly paradise.   He gave them certain gifts chief among them was sanctifying grace. They were free from concupiscence, from disease and death. They were filled with wisdom and great knowledge and given dominion over all the things of the earth.  They were created immortal and had they remained in a state of grace, had they been faithful to God and not sinned, these gifts would have been transmitted to all mankind as the possession of human nature.

They were also gifted with free will. And so after granting them His abiding grace, and blessing them with wonderful gifts, and giving them an earthly paradise and an abundance of everything with no want or vexation, He gave them a command not to eat of the fruit of a certain tree, and warned them that if they did eat of it, they would die the death. a command which they could freely choose either to side with Him or against Him.  He gave Adam and Eve the freedom to choose Him even though it meant they could abuse their freedom of will and reject HIm. It seems clear that becasue of His committment to justice and free will, God requires the beings He has created for an eternal destiny in Heaven to demonstrate freely their love for Him.

 Unfortunately for themselves and all mankind, Adam and Eve, through pride, did not obey God's command. With this original (first ) sin, death, disease, violence and cruelty entered the world. Mankind since then has had to live with the effects of Original Sin ---an earthly environment that can be extremely harsh, an imperfect human nature that can easily incline away from the pursuit of good and which needs God's grace constantly, an intellect that can make mistakes, and subjections to the temptations of Satan and other fallen angels. The gifts previously possessed by Adam and Eve was thrown away by sin.

The punishment of Adam and Eve reveals the infinite justice of ALmighty God. But at the same time we see how merciful God was even to fallen man. Before He drove them out of the Garden into the misery of the outside world,  He gave them the promise of a Redeemer. The curse contained a consolation..."I will put enmities between thee and the woman..." told Adam and Eve that sin and the devil would be overcome someday and the gates of Heavenly paradise would be re-opened to them.

Accodring to St.Paul, Adam was a type of Christ.  Adam is the father of all according to the flesh, Jesus Christ is the spiritual Father of the faithful, for through Him alone do they receive life. Through Adam sin and death came to all men, and through Jesus Christ, we have received grace and eternal life. Sin and misery came into the world by Adam's disobedience, but our redemption was wrought by Jesus Christ who became obedient even unto the death on the Cross.   

I'd say the certainity of His existence...by looking around at the order and beauty everywhere manifest in this universe of ours and knowing what I see can only be the result of a First Cause..God.

So it is just like I said god taught you ... nothing at all. It is late here and I am a bud or two over my limit (a fictitious number for sure) and I don't want to add more that I would have to try and explain tomorrow. So I will hold off till the morrow then to address the rest … sweet dreams. (Have to have the last word you know, hahaha)

Jythier, about the time Sumer was first being settled (~4,000 BC), the Jewish god was in the process of creating the universe and everything in it (as is) including the first two humans … and I believe there is a conflict with just one side of this equation? For instance…

The Ubaid period: 5300 – 4700 BC (Pottery Neolithic to Chalcolithic). The people from this period produced fine painted pottery that has been found all throughout Mesopotamia and beyond. The people who gathered here were farmers who first pioneered irrigation agriculture as opposed to hunter-gatherers. Their early dynastic period included figures like Gilgamesh and historical references in Star Trek have to be true, right? The archaeological record shows clear uninterrupted cultural continuity from the time of the Early Ubaid period to the present.

What are all the claims of the ‘original sin’ that you talk about because I only know of one? Seriously I do! Lula, everything involving evolutionary theory points away from any biblical creationism not towards it. If that is not the case, then why are we having this discussion and why do you deny everything evolutionary as contrary or just wrong? Sometimes I have no idea what you are trying to say??? Take Genesis for example:

I have read Genesis more times than I like and I know what it actually says, just like you. What I don’t do is interpret it for others. I only relate what it mean to me, or doesn’t. I do not speak for any other person or any organization at all. I don’t associate with the republican or democrat parties and enter those realms with the utmost distaste. I am not going to try and relate the facts of life anymore because you are just wiggly happy about your world view. What puzzles me and it should puzzle you too, is that with a world population of ~7 billion people, you cannot even appreciate the fact that there could even be one or two others. If that level of dogma is anything besides sinful pride, I don’t know what is. You like to use words like ‘reveals’, ‘can only mean’, ‘we must conclude’ and other non-conclusive terminology as if it were true and conclusive??? God didn’t create the perfect parents; he supposedly created the first perfect people (that weren’t). Your god either made a mistake or he created something imperfect or his intent from the beginning was to punish people just for being born. If you want to discuss Genesis line by line, well I would like that. But you are not going to pull a bunch of stuff out of It, pretend it is all true because it says so in genesis and then use those ‘conclusions’ to justify ‘original sin’ that also appears nowhere else besides in there but of course.

… I’m sure you do, but you have no idea at the scope of things both microscopic and macroscopic that can only come from the sciences you deplore, as you search your bible for all the answers.

Well which words are not literally true and which ones are? I think it safe to say that you believe every single not so literal word(s?) with the exact same gusto as the real ones, just a hunch. If you want to discuss the difference between "what really happened" and "the 'substance' of what was supposed to have happened" talk to your answer-men because it is clear as day and night are distinguishable to me??? When and where did god (you are blaming him for writing it right?) do this ‘writing’ … and the answer to that will open another can of worms for you, just saying. Every detail my hind end, you have no details at all now, so waiting for all of them is well not going to happen but it is quite Catholic. Geez, what does "Darwinism Evolution" have to do with your creation myth??? 

I have not been back to this forum in quite a while and missed reading these last few replies.

I know that! And that's why Atheists love Darwin Evolution (DE) and won't let it go into the dustbin where it belongs.  Darwin used the word "evolution" to explain the origin of animal species saying that all life forms came into being by pure chance and over eons of time slowly evolved from one common ancestor to simple organisms to complex ones. By excluding God from Creation, Darwin created a dogma for the emerging new world religion...Atheistic Humanism. The Atheists of the last century grabbed the opportunity of turning Darwin's work of Evolutionary theory against the Bible and God. They conjured up the notion that Darwin ET ended the religious concept of the origin of man, by proving that he evolved from lower animals.  This dogma is preached as a true fact in schools everywhere.    

Darwin's evolution theory is false, a lie, because there is no such thing as a process of change over eons of time from one species into a completely new, different one, (simply called change beyond kind as in reptiles to birds or apes to mankind). DE never occurred, isn't occurring and will never occur. Darwin Evolution has been used to deceive many but with the advancement of modern Science, the truth is coming out that Darwin's ET of change beyond kind is impossible to occur, then, now or ever. 

Scientists have relegated Darwin ET into the museum of atheist inanities, along with spontaneous generation. Any theory that assumes man to be a transformed ape is a mock to common sense.   

For sure, my knowledge of Science is minimal, but over years of debating Darwin's ET, I've come to know that the cell and DNA bring a lot to the table in supporting Biblical Creation and refuting Darwin's ET. I say that because now we know that in every living organism the information, or program if you will, for how to reproduce itself is written in the genes which in turn are combinations of many DNA molecules. It's the way the program of the DNA of living things is specially designed that allows microevolution or change within kind, but prevents Darwin's Evolution Theory or change beyond kind. 

 

 

 

 

Where did you get that Almighty God did the writing (of Sacred Scripture)? 

Because He didn't. No, the words were written by the writers, but under Divine guidance. Inspiration means that the Holy Spirit influenced, illumined their understanding and caused them to write the books and letters (Epistles) that are in the Bible.

 

 

 

This is going to come back and bite you, take my word on it.

One thing my Catholic research revealed to me, an important thing worth mentioning; I have sort of glossed over this ‘idol worship’ aspects of the RCC and Co. To recap: I was just born into Catholicism but that didn’t make me a Catholic in anything but name. However I was and remained a Christian for many years in harmony with the wonders of well everything especially the sciences (except for chemistry). Well, christianity is so tainted today that I would have had to deal with the RCC eventually, but I went there first and that is what destroyed Christianity for me, even though I have come to now realize the vast difference between the love for a perceived deity and the love for a book. I now know there is no need for a god because we have made the universe work to the best of our ability and we will continue to discover so much more that well I wish I were younger is all (arthritis is kicking in around some old injuries, yuck). But I have no problem with anyone who wants to have a god or two … until the practitioners attempt to foist their biased perceptions of said god(s) on me without any acceptable options at all. That in itself is intolerable but it gets worse. YEC’s have the audacity to try and use our deplorable and not workable sciences themselves to ‘prove’ that those sciences are deplorable not workable themselves … got to love the irony of circular logic. Sorry I digress. The point I was making is that if your satan the lord of the earth were to accomplish as much damage as possible to thwart the Christian god … he would only have to control Constantine I as he persecuted and murdered as many ‘Real Practicing Christians’ as possible and destroyed as much original documentation as he could find to enable a rewrite of history as only a barbaric culture could. With complete ignorance of nature they ‘compiled’ a book that contains more errors than any book of supposed ‘knowledge’ ever written … the inerrant word of god huh. The earth was known to be round centuries before the bible was compiled … but those rascally illiterate Jews just knew better didn’t they because the inerrant ‘god of the cosmos’ was on their side … not. Then what else, convert to ‘christianity’ and make it national (State and church combined into one always operates on corruption and profit) and IMPROVE on god’s revelations??? So even they picked and chose among the different ‘scriptures’ written and threw out more than they kept … for god mind you. And the best they could cobble together is full of virtually nothing that can be taken literally and seriously at the same time, absolutely nothing. Lula, I cannot discuss evolution with you as long as you are going to pretend a literal interpretation of bible has any use whatsoever in the real world other than to control the sheeple. Because it doesn’t mean anything to ashepple … therefore it must be meant for YOU and other fallen christians who have been deceived by their avowed masters the caretakers of satans word … from Rome, as it was then ... as it is now. Just opinions mind you. Go play tit-for-tat with someone else, I prefer to express my own thoughts and analyzing others. You are more than welcome to prove me wrong … but you are not going to tell me I am wrong end of discussion … because you have faith … gethefuckoutahere (high pitch hahaha). Put up or shut up but in any event STOP TELLING me what is up.

 

Distortion of the Universal Truth   http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=zn1S7tqrUvE

PS - This is more a deist perspective (I think) but it is quite applicable to organized religion today as it always has been. Glad I don’t need to believe in +/- gods, whew!

A Chrisitian is someone who trusts in the finished work of Jesus Christ for salvation.

GFT, did you ever trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ for salvation?

Hello Jythier, the obvious answer is no but I don’t know what you are referring to by finished? Because of what the Catholic Church has done to obfuscate the real words of Jesus (assuming some truth) with a barbaric tail of cruelty, absolute submission and sacrifices (especially the blood type) but only of the peasants bore the brunt. The blood suckers at the top were always in control just as they are today in the church and in the government. And they live the life of Riley, except when they look out the windows of their castles, all they see are potential sheeple and more money for more palaces. Poverty around the world is ignored so the most self-professed pious people on earth can live in luxury palaces with staffs of personal slaves. I have not found a way of looking at the bible as anything but a Catholic construct that has been perverted beyond redemption. I can accept a wise Jew named Jesus and as best I can determine he was pious and practiced what he preached, spirituality, tolerance, peace and love for mankind. But the Catholics destroyed whatever they could find so that nothing can now be traced back to the 1^st century … after the 3^rd century I wouldn’t believe one frigging word or give it credence, but that is just me. This is why I have a difficult time with people who specifically name the biblical Jesus as their personal savior … a god himself. Simply stated, without the Catholic bible there is no Jesus at all???

You were never a Christian, so please stop stating that you were.  You were an unsaved Catholic, which is very different.

It's no wonder you don't understand anything about Christianity when I talk about it, because you keep viewing it through the lens of an ex-Catholic.  Here's the problem - you cannot get Catholic interpretations from reading the Bible alone.  They don't add up.  So you would look at the Bible and say, "This doesn't make sense" because you have someone on the pulpit lying to you for your whole life about what grace means, and what you need to do to be saved.

I feel badly for you.

Despite all that, at least you are secure in your beliefs that science can really prove how we got here.

I am perfectly capable of reading the bible for myself and I do not need your interpretations nor that of the RCC to decide what it ‘means’. OK if it makes you happy I was never a Christian at least not one with your level of expertise for sure. Not a problem, (actually a non-squinter) because Jesus is not a factor in my life but thanks for the sympathy, the more the better … whoa … that doesn’t change a damn thing does it, sorry, besides I neither desired it nor do I need it. These are only my opinions mind you … but they are irrefutable on the simplistic levels of life you seem to want to think are important.

Thanks for the compliment ... but ... science will never tell us how we got here in the absolute terms you seem to need, that is just not what it is designed to do. Science deals only with things we can detect and measure and rationalize and potentially disprove. You cannot disprove any god nor can you disprove any of the tales surrounding that god for the same reasons (circular logic). Why should the asheeple care without proof or with just your hearsay, surely not ... and you are willing to bet yours and your children's lives on … the literal bible … just because you have 'faith'... in a pipe dream???

Man is by definition an ape, surely you know that. You can argue this all you want to but it is difficult to justify any arguments against our own definition of the species. Concerning the taxonomic classifications by modern man, well we have come a long way now and have it down to: Kingdom, Subkingdom, Phylum, Subphylum, Superclass, Class, Subclass, Infraclass, Superorder, Order, Suborder, Infraorder, Superfamily, Family, Subfamily, Tribe, Genus, Subgenus, Species, Subspecies perhaps just to create more niches for the boffins themselves … because they have so much damn information to document. I don’t think biology teachers’ poison the minds of children (any more or less than other teachers) by teaching evolution; I think they teach the theory of evolution because there is no other viable option available and that is what the curriculum says to teach. It’s not some deep dark conspiracy you know … oh I suppose it is for you???

No death before the fall of Adam huh, well if they ate anything …? Just because all the lions and bears and alligators (somehow) were not carnivorous (in their present form?) … they had to eat something besides dirt too??? Do you have any idea of how much life can be destroyed with a few sips of water? Without a microscope, those illiterate Jews were oblivious to the fact that they destroyed life everywhere they went and with everything they did. They had no idea that the process of life itself comes on the back of life being destroyed. Particularly if you believe life begins at conception with a fertilized egg, a cell mind you. I presume your god already knew all this stuff … so why are you pretending it is all untrue now that we have figured out a thing or two with no help from any god?

GFTess,

Last part of #40, stooping to guttural language      is uncomely.

So that makebelieveword is the meat you got out of post 40 huh, should have known. It is sort of funny though ... you getting pissed over the use of an IMAGINARY word when everything you believe in is imaginary too??? Surely you are not talking about respect here are you? Besides I am an uncontrollable atheist without your moral guidance so you should expect nothing better from an ‘ignoramus’ who believe in science and not the divine spaghetti monster ... or whatever.

 

You have an amazing tact for oversimplifications. I don’t expect you will be more forthcoming with information this year than you were last year but what the heck.

We have discovered stands of linked trees that are more than 100 centuries old. Pre-Egyptian tribes were established in the Nile valley ~75 centuries ago. The literal biblical creation of the universe would have been ~60 centuries ago. The Egyptian civilization coalesced into a powerhouse (not began) ~51 centuries ago ~1000 years BEFORE the earth was biblically bared and left to be populated by three RELATED couples. We have live California trees that are ~50 centuries old. Your biblical flood which supposedly removed all flora and fauna from the face of the earth (except as biblically noted) would have taken place ~40 centuries ago. Also, there were many other civilizations some mentioned above that flourished both before and after your proposed biblical flood. If you cannot see a problem with this time line, then it is simply because you don’t want to.  

FYI: China is very interesting. The China of today was populated by Homo erectus more than 10,000 centuries ago and they were using stone tools and fire as little as ~120 centuries ago. The Xia Dynasty was established (not started) ~41 centuries ago. Unfortunately the illiterate Jewish tribesmen of the Middle East didn’t even know China existed and considering their isolation, their mode of travel and their self-serving local interests, how could they possibly have known about any of this other stuff?

PS - didn't realize I was on page 1 of 2, oh well.

 

 

When I started this discussion topic part of the intention was to point out how agnosticism is open to possibility and is closer to a scientific line of thinking over atheism. Is it funny how dark matter is generally accepted but not the metaphysical subjects like God? 

 

Here is a short video that makes an argument when the subject of miracles is brought up.