Seemed like a question to me ... how was I supposed to know? Ancient Babylon (1780 BCE), well before your book was a thought, seems to be the earliest recorded concept of reciprocity. That is why I provided a link for you, I didn’t need it??? It seems like you don’t have any use for this concept at least as far as anything goes concerning your dogmatic views. There are a lot of good concepts in the bible; they just don’t seem to affect your religious demeanor at all. You have god on your side so anything you cram into your confused mind just has to be true too … and everyone else is wrong just because … the mantra of an incapable person IMO. I think everything you say without proof is funny, in a bad way. Is there actually anything you want to discuss???

Not really.  Just wanted to let you know that Christianity includes the golden rule, too.

 

I didn't think you did, too bad. The bible says a lot of things that you guys ignore but that is to be expected from the pickers and choosers. In the case of evolutionary theory though, it seems like you want 'us' to treat 'you' and your puerile book the way you treat science and the rest of the actual worldwide knowledge we do possess ... not a problem for sure.

I don't like talking to you because you constantly insult anyone who believes in Christ, or really, anything different than you say.

Good enough for me but trying to not comprehend well that is you modus operandi not mine. My mind could be won over quite easily but it requires more than just your say so. You do not appear to be educated enough or even interested in evolutionary theory and you surely are clueless as to how it works. Yet because you have faith in the impossible and the improvable you mock reality with witticisms like “… it just doesn’t work” or “I like forward looking science but not the backwards looking science (whatever that means???)”. I ask for proof and you supply hearsay … I offer proof and you scorn it without even reviewing it (because you just cannot which can only be translated as you don’t want to) because deep down you know what you would find and you are afraid. Sorry for that but it is your problem because the information is available to everyone and ignorance (especially self-induced ignorance) is no excuse at all … but it is all you have besides your faith. The only reason you HAVE to have faith is because you have no proof … you don’t need faith if you have proof and thus your conundrum. Then it all becomes obvious as to what you are doing when you tell me that you don’t even understand the science you are scorning.

Until you can validate your book Jythier, I am not concerned with the contents in any guiding light sort of way. I have read the bible and am competent enough to make my own mind up. Monotheism offers absolutely no options with all their claims of free choice. What you choose to believe and why you choose to believe it is not my concern. I certainly don’t search you out when I need to figure something out, anything. Start yourself a Christian neighborhood and wall it off. Practice whatever pagan rituals you choose (considering the real authorities). Lie to your children and promote their ignorance too (the real shame here). Explain to them how genesis is the flawless word of god and how it will make perfect sense when you get through. Teach them about original sin and explain why they are sinful too just because they were born. Shelter them from reality, explain to them how corrupt science is and doom them to mental medievalism. I really do care, but there is nothing I can do to help you until you realize you need it.

You are your own god that is why it seems to know everything in your personal life (above all others, priority number one) and why you just happen to like and dislike everything it does too, go figure. Of course your opinions hold no sway towards me but it is the thoughts that count. In these benevolent religions it seems that only catholics are eligible for the impossible ploy for getting to heaven, or just Christians, or just Muslims or just Jews … and every other religion and all other humans are just doomed IYO of course … which is not my opinion.

 

The Real God: An Epiphany   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j8ZMMuu7MU

Imagine there's a car on your street, and you observe it for a minute.  It's moving very slowly.  You can look at that and project that it will get to the street at that speed in an hour, and then you can come back in an hour and check to see if it is, indeed, at the end of the street.

Evolutionary and origin science would be like examining that, and then trying to say where the car started from an hour before that.  But you and I don't know where the car started from.  An hour before, it might have been 60 miles away or at the other end of the street.  There will never be a way to know that, unless you have someone who saw the car to tell you about it.

Now, science would say that since the car going forward at that speed arrived at the location you predicted for it, that you can then project where the car was an hour before, a year before, etc.  But that's really nonsense and so is evolutionary theory when it looks at origins.  Unless you have someone who was there and saw what happened, or whether the car was there or not, then you cannot say for certain that the car was where it was - even if you can predict with accuracy where the car is now.

The main thing that scientists are doing today that is inaccurate is they are basing thousands of years, and then billions of year, of history on a very small sample size of time, and things may possibly have changed from now to then that we believe are constant do to never having observed any difference.  It all makes perfect sense unless you have a source that says it happened differently.

Fact 1: Imagine there's a car on your street, and you observe it for a minute.  Fact 2: It's moving very slowly.  Assumption !: You can look at that and project that it will get to the street at that speed in an hour, and then you can come back in an hour and check to see if it is, indeed, at the end of the street. Cars don’t travel at a constant speed no matter how hard you try which means you can accurately predict nothing without some advanced math that deals with variable velocity and accelerations.

Evolutionary and origin science would be like examining that (a joke right?), and then trying to say where the car started from an hour before that.  You told me here where the car was an hour ago (???), a fact. But you and I don't know where the car started from.  OK??? An hour before, it might have been 60 miles away (not based on your stipulations) or at the other end of the street (ditto). But you didn’t give me any useful information to deduce from … it could have been anywhere based on your wild speculations???  There will never be a way to know that, unless you have someone who saw the car to tell you about it.

Now, science would say that since the car going forward at that speed arrived at the location you predicted for it, that you can then project where the car was an hour before, a year before (how in the world do you accomplish this???), etc.  But that's really nonsense (yes it is) and so is evolutionary theory when it looks at origins. It is good that you told me you are ‘unscientific’ because evolution is nothing at all like this car nonsense which you set up to fail from the very beginning.  Unless you have someone who was there and saw what happened, or whether the car was there or not, then you cannot say for certain that the car was where it was - even if you can predict with accuracy where the car is now. This is just silly Jythier, I will write a better example at the end.

The main thing that scientists are doing today that is inaccurate is they are basing thousands of years, and then billions of year, of history on a very small sample size of time, and things may possibly have changed from now to then that we believe are constant do to never having observed any difference.  It all makes perfect sense unless you have a source that says it happened differently. I cannot battle or argue against magic so I am not going to anymore. You believe in magic or you don’t and I don’t. Your argument is silly because I could charge you with the same lack of human observation for all your miracles and such. You have an old book with names and that makes impossible claims that are only observed by the characters in said book. How in the world could all those wonders have taken place in the real world … without the real world even so much as acknowledging one miraculous thing? We could discuss evolution but you will not even allow a discussion when you flat out deny it without a personal understanding of why it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work as an opinion just doesn’t cut it for me. And you telling me how it works is as feeble an argument as I have ever heard. I might be more inclined to discuss your religion but you seem content on continuously telling me how science works (not) and what assumptions I must make (not) and why they cannot possibly be true (not).

PS – I will give you a much more realistic example of why we don’t have to be there to know things.

There was a murder and nobody was there to witness the event. By your surmise, we must let the perk perp (thanx Doc) go because we didn’t see the murder and therefore cannot prove him guilty, just hogwash. Our scientific investigations provided a witness who saw the perk enter the premises, then there was a shot and the eye witness entered and saw the man standing over the victim and nobody else was observed. It was also determined that there was a beef between the two. He was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life. Problem solved to the best of our abilities. Ten years later science develops the techniques of DNA as evidence so we update our scientific whatevers. Re-examining this case, DNA was found and they not only figured out the perk was innocent … they matched the DNA with the actual murderer and a miscarriage of justice was corrected (as best we can) and all without any observers. You believe in miracles and magic regardless of the fact that you have never experienced one that wasn’t personal and isolated to yourself (mental only) … but you believe just because a 1^st century book says so and you do not even know who wrote it or even when.

It was eventually determined that there were other people with a grudge and when our original perk perp entered he saw a confrontation and then saw a shot. He had just gotten to the body when the eye witness entered and although he told all this at his trial, it didn’t weigh as much and he was found guilty. If we had absolute laws, the man would have been murdered for his innocence and martyred when it was found out … but he would be dead nonetheless. Eye witnesses are good for only so much because it is a known fact that eye witnesses see different things and certainly none see everything nor do they have any facts to work with … just their observations.

PS – How old do you claim the earth to be, just curious because I am not going to play with a short lived earth anymore because it is ridiculous.

So, my statement to you is that the age of the earth is currently in that state of miscarried justice.  There are facts that are unknown to scientists and as they are discovered, they will find that the earth is actually 6000 years old and that we are not actually from a common ancestor with apes. 

N/A, sorry for any inconvenience.

PS – Who  is  was trying to communicate here and who is trying not to???

PPS – I have my answer (didn’t catch it at first) thank you very much. As long as you think the earth is 6,000 years old, (I would ask you to prove it but we both know you cannot), there will be no more from me under this ridiculous pretext. Find someone else willing to play your silly games … PLEASE!

N/A, sorry for any inconvenience.

Richard Dawkins If Science Worked like Religion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5TUozIJeOc

This absolute rightness, truth, wisdom, knowledge or whatever else that floats the dogmatic boats … is really getting on my nerves. We are all dealing with human beings here and every single religious faction (alone) are the only ones that know and understand these things … EVERY FRIGGING ONE OF THEM … and they are all exclusive. Every click (individually (1 at a time)) poses the only perfect people on earth … give me a break … perfect people on earth, what planet have you been raised on? Take a close look at the map in the video, a good look.

I'm not angry.  I don't know why you are reading anger into text.

What bugs me is that I have an understanding of the science, and when I criticize it, I am told I don't understand it, and to look at this new piece of it, which fits right in with my understanding of it, but my position is still somehow invalid.  If you say so.

 

Also, that is basically your entire approach to the conversation - nothing anyone else says is valid unless it matches you, and therefore everyone is to be mocked by you and said to 'believe in magic'.  By a book that I know exactly where it came from, but you keep saying I don't know who wrote it.  If you say so.  I'll just keep my knowledge and you can keep your knowledge. 

You are a liar as well as an incompetent then. Either that or you are the only living human being that knows this information but in keeping with your inability to actually answer a question with an actual answer (just more of your typical nonsense) you know but aren't going to tell anyone, typical christian gobbledygook. Besides, knowing who wrote them does nothing to validate them … if you could just remember who they were long enough to pen their names, yea right. You told me yourself that you were scientifically inadequate and that was why you rely on the expertise of creation ‘scientists’ … were you lying then or now? Why do you refuse to justify your beliefs instead of trying to disprove mine? I think you are inadequate to both tasks (religion or science) because you take one on faith alone and you disavow the other again based on faith alone. I don’t have any use for faith and you have no use for science … so we don’t have much to discuss do we?

Just as a reminder: Jythier - "I'm not a scientist. I don't really care that much about science. I'm an accountant, or a programmer, or something like that. But there are scientists who disagree with the scientists you agree with. I agree with them. Answers in Genesis, for one. See, they are able to look at those research papers, understand them, and find where the problems are and point them out, because they have been trained in those scientific fields. I can only tell you what they said."

Prove the world to be 6,000 years old or stop bothering me with your silly faith. You may not want to believe the earth to be 4.45 billion years old … but surely you can prove the earth to be 6,000 YEARS old, surely.

PS - You don't even want me to reiterate the things that bug me about your approach to life, but you do like to whine don't you.

Excavating The Empty Tomb - Part 2   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msZ5X3uyeeA

 

When we look at the timeline of the synaptic gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in the same sequence (imagine that), we can see the progression and things just get worse and worse for humanity with time but befitting a religion based on an illiterate caveman’s perspective of well everything. Shit like this would force me to disavow it even if it were true, but assuredly not because it isn't.

Jythier, if the truth were as much a concern for you as it is for me, then you would need to be saying the same things whenever something comes up. But you (like Lula) change your 'faithful unchangeable views' to suit the occasion and are seemingly unconcerned or forgetful about these other deceits. Jythier you always say you know ‘this and that’ and whine about my lack of empathy … but it is always “I know this and that” … end of story.

You realize that science cannot prove the earth as either 6000 or billions of years old, right?  Either way you are making assumption, and that isn't science.  The mainstream assumptions lead to billions of years old, and the assumptions when viewed through a Biblical lens lead to 6000 years old... but neither can be scientifically proven.

There you go again with your idea of what science can and cannot do??? I know full well how old the earth is hocus pocus and all aside. What ASSUMPTIONS aren't scientific or is this just more of your internal know-it-all stuff that you refuse to reveal for fear of incriminating yourself again? I have no idea at all as to what you would even consider a reasonable response from me because the little time you offer doesn’t give me much to work with at all. The only thing you seem to believe is the bible … oh and other creationists claiming to be scientists. Wonder how their biased conclusions seem to come to you as virtuous as the scriptures themselves … absolute perfection indeed.  The age of the Earth is 4.45 ± 0.05 billion years (± 1%). This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples. What do you offer to this discussion besides it just cannot be true? Ok if it is 6,000 years so be it.

Here is my wild ass guess as to what was happening planet side before the invention of your complete universe (not mine though). If you are going to discuss the timeframe of genesis, then I would have to discuss some of the Cultures that existed on the real earth when your ‘first two’ humans were being poofed from dirt. Like the Badari culture on the Nile (c. 4400–4000 BC), Comb Ceramic culture (also endured the 6th, 4th), Maykop culture, Yangshao culture, Merimde culture on the Nile (c. 4570–4250 BC), Predynastic Egypt, and Proto-Austronesian culture is based on the south coast of China. They combine extensive maritime technology, fishing hooks, nets and gardening. (c. 5000 BC), Samara culture, Sredny Stog culture, Lengyel culture in eastern Europe, Ubaid culture, Cycladic culture—a distinctive Neolithic culture amalgamating Anatolian and mainland Greek elements arose in the western Aegean before 4000 BC, Vinča culture (also endured the 6th, 4th, and 3rd millennia) and Yumuktepe and Gözlükule cultures in south Anatolia. But we aren’t going to go there are we? How am I supposed to even discuss genesis with you???

Yea, i'm sure you really want to have a discussion of the times before the world began.

I just do not understand the back-ass-ward christian mindset???  We are told the bible is the inerrant word of god as the internal characters purported to have ‘experienced’ their stuff first hand like. Unfortunately the church destroyed as much original documentation as possible (was there any?) otherwise we would have the first copies and wouldn’t be stuck with copies of copies etc. How this first hand ‘knowledge’ gets improved on over the ensuing centuries is beyond me considering their claim of perfection in the first place. Riddle me this: How can the 1^st century revelations from god itself be improved and censored be people to the extent (god forbid) of removing, modifying or adding to the perfect word. Christians seem to think they can attach a 21^st century (science filled) perspective to the psyche of a 1^st century mindset and tell all of us what they really meant. Buuuut … they only had a 1^st century mindset to work with and could never have dreamed of anything besides a flat earth being the center of their universe world view and everything being under the control of one god or another.  

Biblical embellishment 

 

Sorry but we have no problem with either figure and can prove them both.  Are scientists competent at anything besides unimportant things like putting a HP HD telescope in orbit so we could pretend to take pictures and then lie about them? Or that that they can cure the biblical diseases wrath’s of god (how can that be?). How about the invention of prosthetics you know … just because god felt it beneath him during the time of miracles … and thereafter. There is so much we do have (undeniably so even by you) and you think we are incompetent enough not to be able to look back a measly 6,000 years … I have not heard of such a pitiful excuse in a while, thanks for the laugh. Do you have a library near you where you can get some useful information?

PS - They will also have a fully functional computer free of charge ... hint ... hint.

But it is not just the +/- embellishments; it is the outright fabrications that have been added that confuse me here. Take the adulteress in the gospel of John. It seems to be missing in the earliest manuscripts we have, quite a few of them in fact. I am not sure how an (religious) eye witness can be so absentminded as to have forgotten something that will needs be ‘remembered’ hundreds of years later like in the 4^th century, but of course. Here is a list of the oldest manuscripts of the gospel we have that seem to miss this later addition as they should considering it was just made up.

John's missing ending

 

I think that reality and the truth are synonymous with … to the best of our abilities … assuming honesty. Now religious dogma for some reason doesn't seem to find our abilities useful, at first, except for a few. Credulity is probably the most desired (why children are always sought) because that one is limited only by their imagination and won’t be questioned by the newly dumbfounded. Next I would say is faith, which you have to have when you pretend (your alternate un-reality) you know something but cannot prove a damn thing. Lastly is the unconditional necessity for absolute submission to the church (certainly not to any god). Until one capitulates there are no good pursuits in life (geese) just debauchery and accounting … but after … there is no rational argument they will accept but then miraculously science somehow becomes good … for the few who have already declared the allegiance to god and magic, just like you, go figure. I have cited many christian (even a catholic) scientists who value the truth above all (as I) and have made their peace between reality and god and religion somehow. But even they aren’t good enough for you because you disagree with them too, just because you have faith and are compelled to do so, I suppose.  I wonder how you tell the difference between the good christian scientists and the bad ones, puzzling even if we all know why you do it. It looks like I am discussing things … what are you doing besides telling me what cannot be done as usual??? If my ‘lack of personal opinions’ needs to be expounded upon just give me a yell, otherwise continue on pretending I don’t have any of my own.

PS - Jythier you have noted that this post was filed under ethics ... don't you think it is about time for you find some? Try just being as honest as you can all the time and life is so much easier ... just a godless thought mind you.

I agree with you, kind of.  Any God only has influence over man through the actions of people inspired by the God.  Not through direct actions (I always took the stories in the Bible to be allegorical).  And since man is an imperfect creature, many claim inspiration when in reality it is just self aggrandizement in most cases. 

One of the reasons I rarely discuss religion.  Too often you get a fanatic on one side or the other (religious or atheist) who is not trying to debate or discuss, merely to convert.

I once read a book where one of the main characters had total control over his environment.  He Chose to make it hot and muggy, with mosquitoes constantly buzzing around.  When asked why he made his environment so nasty, he replied (paraphrasing) "you cannot know joy without knowing misery".

Things have been worse.  They may get worse.  But as long as man has individual free will, the capacity to do good will be matched by the capacity to do evil.  It is inescapable.  That is a truism regardless of a belief in a higher power.  The alternative is  the removal of free will.  And while some would consider that a good thing, how would we know what was good?

I never won any beauty contests, so no argument there  - Friend.

Actually, the only insult she gave me was that I was not pretty.  But that is not really an insult if it is true (and it is).

Perp?