A few questions for fellow atheists

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by MRT144
even me?

Most notably, yes.

[Archaic]

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Therefore, if we assume for the sake of argument that the Flood happened, we are discussing what this reveals about the fictional character of God. It reveals what we already knew from the Bible, that this fictional character had not yet been granted the "omnimax" attributes by his authors (just as the original Superman could not fly).

Which is why you have things such as Judges 1:19

And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

Iron Chariots - 1
God - Nothing

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by Archaic


Which is why you have things such as Judges 1:19

And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron.

Iron Chariots - 1
God - Nothing

One of the interesting historicals tidbits one can gleen from that passage is that the Israelites must have been technologically backwards at the time. They were obviously still a bronze age people who had a disasterous run-in with an iron age people. God was apparently slacking on his metallurgical studies.

[Urban Ranger]

The fact that God was no match for iron chariots amuses me whenever I see it mentioned.

[Kontiki]

Obiwan, in general I'm going to have to agree with Jack first and foremost. For your points to hold true at all, one has to accept the Bible (or at least significant parts of it) to be completely true.

Second, none of what you posted adresses the fact that if God did indeed reveal himself, it was only to an incredibly infintismal percentage of the human population. Surely he could have, or could now, do better.

Finally, I find it odd that, according to the Bible or accepted religious teachings, one cannot ask God to reveal himself because that would question the very existance of God. What a fantastically circular and self-preserving argument: don't ask me why I'm doing something because it demonstrates that you don't have faith in me. No kidding! That's why I'm asking in the first place!

[Boris Godunov]

[SIZE=1] Originally posted by obiwan18
Six day creation was a huge stumbling block for me since I was in Physics for my first few years in University. The explanation (by no means the only one), that I like is that six 'creation days' are a period of indefinite length of time.

So the only miracle needed is the start of the whole process, creating something from void.

How about the stumbling block of Biblical Creation being against science as we know it?

The order clearly says God created Earth first, then the Sun and stars. We know this is not the case. It even has vegetation appearing before the Sun, which is patent impossibility.

I would also like an explanation for what the "firmament" is...

[Ben Kenobi]

Starting with Kontiki:

For your points to hold true at all, one has to accept the Bible (or at least significant parts of it) to be completely true.

True. Before I can answer anyone else's point I need to answer yours.

Looking at the bible we see several different genres present in both the OT and the NT.

Considering the NT, we have historical documentaries, in the forms of the Gospels, followed by the Pastoral letters of various leaders of the early Church. The last book, Revelations falls into the category of apocalyptic literature, found also in parts of Daniel.

For the sake of this discussion, the important parts of the NT are the Gospels and the pastoral letters. Can these be submitted as historical documents on par with any other historical source of the time?

Looking at the OT, there are 3 main divisions, historical accounts, wisdom literature, and prophecies. Again, for the sake of this thread, the primary section we are concerned with will be the OT historical section, comprising of most of the Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, both books of Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, Nehemiah and Ezra. May I submit these books as an accurate historical account?

I say part of the Pentateuch, because I want to gage the reaction to Genesis. Can I submit all of Genesis past Genesis 9 as an accurate historical account?

This is an arbitrary division, but I want to deal with the Flood, Fall and Creation accounts seperately.

[Kontiki]

Obiwan, I'm not a Biblical scholar, so I wouldn't be able to vouch for which specific parts of the Bible are are "historically acurate" (I use quotes because I think it is a given that any historical document from that time is open to some question as to the absolute veracity of events). I'm sure that someone with a better understanding, such as Jack, would be more qualified than me to discuss this with you.

Having said that, the problems primarily stem from creation, the flood and the fall, which you wish to treat as a serperate issue. For the sake of my argument, at least, these issues are tantamount. If one accepts that there was no flood (ergo, no mass kill-off of people or any other species by God) and that God did not create modern humans in the form of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, then every problem I pointed out still exists. If you do accept that these things happened, then you are flying in the face of almost universally held scientific findings, and will have to explain that.

Put another way, the Bible does not deal with the dispersion of humanity around the globe. If you accept current scientific knowledge, then mankind was well dispursed around the world by the time the historical events of the Bible take place. Again, dismissing the flood (since there is no evidence whatsoever that it occurred outside of the Bible), it becomes self-evident that the majority of humanity has never been exposed to events in the narrow sector of the ME that the Bible deals with. Even if you then assume that every other act of God mentioned in the Bible did occur, including, most importantly, where he revealed himself to mankind, it was of such narrow reach as to really call into question what he had in mind with the other people of the Earth, who, of course, should be equally important to him as those living within the Holy Land during the time frame covered in the Bible.

[Ben Kenobi]

Kontiki:

The points you specify are also in-house Christian debates, ie, one can agree that God exists, yet disagree with the interpretation of these passages.

To determine whether or not God exists does not depend on these sections of the Bible, but on other ones, particularly the Gospels.

(I use quotes because I think it is a given that any historical document from that time is open to some question as to the absolute veracity of events).

True, but you trust the sources we have to be accurate. That is all I can expect at this point.

If you do accept that these things happened, then you are flying in the face of almost universally held scientific findings, and will have to explain that.

That's why I need to make my case for the existence of God, to explain some of these events. Science does not rule out the existence of God, nor for miracles. Just because science cannot explain miracles does not mean that they do not occur.

[Ben Kenobi]

Put another way, the Bible does not deal with the dispersion of humanity around the globe. If you accept current scientific knowledge, then mankind was well dispursed around the world by the time the historical events of the Bible take place.

Hence the vast interest in the Table of the Nations, Genesis 10.

[yavoon]

yes obiwan it is true that just because science can not explain something doesn't mean it doesn't occur. BUT ITS ALSO TRUE. that just because something isnt explained by science u get to makeup something and lay claim to it.

I think I've mentioned it before but science is the only way for rigorous proof of something. all religious arguments are idealogically unscientific, often anecdotal, and sometimes include redneck logic.

none of which should be used by intelligent ppl.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by yavoon
yes obiwan it is true that just because science can not explain something doesn't mean it doesn't occur. BUT ITS ALSO TRUE. that just because something isnt explained by science u get to makeup something and lay claim to it.

I think I've mentioned it before but science is the only way for rigorous proof of something. all religious arguments are idealogically unscientific, often anecdotal, and sometimes include redneck logic.

none of which should be used by intelligent ppl.

That's what I had been trying to say for like 6 pages....

they still won't get it

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Kontiki:

The points you specify are also in-house Christian debates, ie, one can agree that God exists, yet disagree with the interpretation of these passages.

To determine whether or not God exists does not depend on these sections of the Bible, but on other ones, particularly the Gospels.
...

That's why I need to make my case for the existence of God, to explain some of these events. Science does not rule out the existence of God, nor for miracles. Just because science cannot explain miracles does not mean that they do not occur.

Hmmm....you seem to be almost totally ignoring my argument, or at least misunderstanding it.

Let me try to put it this way, and perhaps it will explain why I would say that I am agnostic. When you start to remove rather large chunks of the Bible, or start interpreting them in a different way (although I find it hard to come up with a different interpretation of the flood, for example), it seems to me (and a great many others) that the whole foundation starts to seem kind of weak. And I understand full well that there are in-house Christian debates about the meaning and interpretation of certain parts/passages. However, you also have to consider that until there was a scientific basis that rather convincingly showed that, for example, there could not have been a flood that wiped everything out or that the world was created literally in six days, these passages were taken to be true at face value. When things like this need to be re-evaluated as to whether or not they are true, or maybe just a parable, or not really important in the grand scheme of things when contrary evidence arises, it really brings the credibility of the rest into question. How many more miracles and events in the Bible currently taken to be true will be proven to not have occurred within the next 50 or 100 years? How far can you take the "well, that part can be interpreted in another way"?

I agree that science does not rule out the existence of God, or miracles, and I certainly don't think that "it" (in that science is not an entity or single theory) intends to do so. There are certainly things yet unexplained by science, and there are things that may never be explained, and certainly the "why?" of many things is up in the air. This is why I think it's probably wrong to completely disregard the notion of a higher power at this point (and perhaps forever). However, science has so thoroughly disproven so many parts of the Bible once widely taken to be literally true, and calls into question so many more aspects of Christianity in general (and all other religions as well), that, for me at least, there is no reason to believe that the God held out by Chistianity or any other religion is in any way indicative of what may or may not actually exist.

[Lincoln]

Rembere Galalio was a Christian too as were many of the founders of the fields of science. They had no problem with interpreting scripture in the light of hard evidence. Even a cursory reading of the Bible requires a spiritual interpretation. And Jesus himself said that his words are spirit and life. There is no way that one can pick apart scripture without a spiritual understanding of the contents. If you take Genesis strictly literally for example then there is contradictions in the first page. That would be a glaring and foolish attempt to defraud the world.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Science does not rule out the existence of God, nor for miracles.

It does. How could science exist if pi is one value when you are measuring it but another if you aren't?

Originally posted by obiwan18
Just because science cannot explain miracles does not mean that they do not occur.

Then again, just because a book or somebody said a miracle did occur doesn't mean what happened was in fact something that cannot be possibly explained by laws of nature.

Aeons ago people thought lightning was caused by the gods.