I'm not sure one should dismiss God anymore

[Boris Godunov]

The universe couldn't be the way it is now, and not have 14ish billion years of age behind it. Even slightly different constants, which would still require a 14ish billion years to be where we are now, wouldn't allow life (As it is now) to form. Other small changes wouldn't allow star formation.

The universe appears fine tuned. The easy wiki link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

You aren't asking 'why it needs to appear ~14 billion years old?'. This isn't an independent question (if you believe in God) from 'why is life how it is, why do stars exist, etc'. You can't have one without the other.

All these things (fossil record, canyons, mountains, etc) are all required in order that life (As we know it now) exists.

Your question is false, your problems are false, you don't understand the way the universe works. It is like you are asking "why didn't God make 2+2 =5?".

Wow, are you ever missing the point. I'm not arguing that universe doesn't need to appear ~14 billion years old because I believe it needs to appear such because it IS that old. What I am addressing is the notion that the universe might be only ~7000 years old, but made to appear 14 billion years old, which is utter nonsense. The "fine tuning" argument (I note that you imply that the argument is settled, whereas the Wikipedia article you link does not suggest that... nice try) is irrelevant, because the universe could have been made to appear to us only 10 billion years old, or 30 billion years old--why 14? Why make the earth look 4 billion years old when it isn't? Those things I mentioned like canyons and tall mountains wouldn't be necessary for human existence, so why fake them?

Why would a fake fossil record be required if God created two people 7000 years ago from whom we all sprung, and he poofed all animal species into existence then as well? There is absolutely no logical reason to fake a fossil record whatsoever, except to deceive us. Why have fossils that show that 99% of the species that ever lived went extinct well before Genesis supposedly even starts?

I don't think you understand Christianity. Christ was known for telling stories... it is only a few who claim that stories are evil and lies. Almost all Christians recognize that stories are powerful, the best means of communication. And that Christ told stories, not things he observed. Things that were true as stories and not literal occurrences.

I think it's pretty obvious that the Parables are quite distinct in style and manner from the creation story being told in Genesis. At any rate, I do find it hard to reconcile the ideas that Jesus was real and divine but yet he didn't support a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. Consider:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0801lead.asp

2. Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you –Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words? (John 5:45-47). In this passage, Jesus makes it clear that one must believe what Moses wrote. And one of the passages in the writings of Moses in Exodus 20:11 states: For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. This, of course, is the basis of our seven-day week –six days work and one day rest. Obviously, this passage was meant to be taken as speaking of a total of seven literal days based on the Creation week of six literal days of work and one literal day of rest.

So was Jesus really saying, when he said if you don't believe what Moses wrote then you can't believe what he was saying, "I don't mean literally of course! All that Creation in 6 days stuff is hooey!"

And Adam and Eve is true as a story. If you think the focus of the story was on the literal fruit then you are being childlike. Literalness or non-literalness is a secondary issue. And not what the story is concerned about, what use would the actual literal description of creation (in whatever form that took) be to people 4000 years ago? What use would it be to people today?

In what reasonable sense is a story "true" if the characters, items, actions and setting described are fictional? And why do you assume people 4000 years ago couldn't handle a more literal description? Your admitting that ancient writers had to make up a mythology about Creation to appeal to the contemporary people's inability to grasp reality doesn't speak to it being "true." If one accepts that we evolved from other primates over millions of years, how could there be a "Fall"?

This isn't cherry-picking. It is known that God, in the Christian tradition, uses symbolism and story to communicate with those He reveals Himself to. Because that is how we understand high and complicated subjects. It doesn't make the revelation any more suspect or less valuable. Or any less true.

So delineate which parts of the Bible are only symbolic and which parts are literally true. If you can chalk the Genesis Creation up to mere symbolism, then you can do it to anything you like, such as the Flood, Exodus (for which there is zero actual evidence), and so on. Why even believe Jesus existed as described in the New Testament--maybe the Gospels are just symbolic stories about a guy who never really existed made up to explain something that simpletons of the time couldn't grasp except via cobbling together a bunch of Resurrected Savior myths that had been circling the ancient world for quite some time?

It seems to me a lot of Christians like the message/feeling of Jesus but don't like all the necessary context so they choose to selectively interpret parts of the Bible as "symbolic" to avoid coming to some more unpleasant conclusions. I mean, Jesus did say that not one stroke of the pen of the Old Testament laws had changed with his coming...

[Jon Miller]

Did you read about what was being discussed in the fine-tuning wikipedia article? It is fact that if the universe constants were slightly different that life as we know it couldn't exist. The argument is about what that means.

And what do you mean by 'fake'? If I want to do an experiment, I set it up. I set up all the conditions so that it could exist. I don't take the scintillator somewhere, and expect to see neutrons/etc from quasi-elastic scattering of an electron with helium-3. I have to set up the electron beam and build the injector and set up the helium-3 and all of that stuff. Just because it is an experiment doesn't mean that everything doesn't need setup. Or for a biological experiment, you need the environment/etc. You can't just expect to see the behavior by putting the animal in some observatory box. And just because you construct the environment doesn't mean that the environment shouldn't be built in such a way that it would mimic the environment the animal was meant to be in.

How much more so for people? Wouldn't things not work out near as well if we were in an environment that was unnatural? How could you, much less God, do such a thing?

You problems are nonsensical. If it is obvious to human scientists, then it would be obvious to some higher power (especially God).

Boris, the fact that you say something is 'mere symbolism' means that you don't understand it. We are to believe Christ's words, but He spoke in parables and stories (And used symbolism frequently).

I seem to remember that you are one of the people with whom conversations on this topic has no value.

JM

[MOBIUS]

Wow, are you ever missing the point. I'm not arguing that universe doesn't need to appear ~14 billion years old because I believe it needs to appear such because it IS that old. What I am addressing is the notion that the universe might be only ~7000 years old, but made to appear 14 billion years old, which is utter nonsense. The "fine tuning" argument (I note that you imply that the argument is settled, whereas the Wikipedia article you link does not suggest that... nice try) is irrelevant, because the universe could have been made to appear to us only 10 billion years old, or 30 billion years old--why 14? Why make the earth look 4 billion years old when it isn't? Those things I mentioned like canyons and tall mountains wouldn't be necessary for human existence, so why fake them?

Why would a fake fossil record be required if God created two people 7000 years ago from whom we all sprung, and he poofed all animal species into existence then as well? There is absolutely no logical reason to fake a fossil record whatsoever, except to deceive us. Why have fossils that show that 99% of the species that ever lived went extinct well before Genesis supposedly even starts?



I think it's pretty obvious that the Parables are quite distinct in style and manner from the creation story being told in Genesis. At any rate, I do find it hard to reconcile the ideas that Jesus was real and divine but yet he didn't support a literal interpretation of the Old Testament. Consider:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0801lead.asp



So was Jesus really saying, when he said if you don't believe what Moses wrote then you can't believe what he was saying, "I don't mean literally of course! All that Creation in 6 days stuff is hooey!"



In what reasonable sense is a story "true" if the characters, items, actions and setting described are fictional? And why do you assume people 4000 years ago couldn't handle a more literal description? Your admitting that ancient writers had to make up a mythology about Creation to appeal to the contemporary people's inability to grasp reality doesn't speak to it being "true." If one accepts that we evolved from other primates over millions of years, how could there be a "Fall"?



So delineate which parts of the Bible are only symbolic and which parts are literally true. If you can chalk the Genesis Creation up to mere symbolism, then you can do it to anything you like, such as the Flood, Exodus (for which there is zero actual evidence), and so on. Why even believe Jesus existed as described in the New Testament--maybe the Gospels are just symbolic stories about a guy who never really existed made up to explain something that simpletons of the time couldn't grasp except via cobbling together a bunch of Resurrected Savior myths that had been circling the ancient world for quite some time?

It seems to me a lot of Christians like the message/feeling of Jesus but don't like all the necessary context so they choose to selectively interpret parts of the Bible as "symbolic" to avoid coming to some more unpleasant conclusions. I mean, Jesus did say that not one stroke of the pen of the Old Testament laws had changed with his coming...

Seems to me with this whole age of Earth/Universe thing that God is trying awfully hard not to be believed in - in which case we should all take the hint.

I know I already have...

[Boris Godunov]

Did you read about what was being discussed in the fine-tuning wikipedia article? It is fact that if the universe constants were slightly different that life as we know it couldn't exist. The argument is about what that means.

It is irrelevant to whether or not the Biblical God would have to fake the age of the universe! Fine Tuning is used as a teleological argument by some religious folks to prove the existence of God based on accepting the fact that the universe is really as old as it looks and the physical constants are indeed constant. I am not arguing that point, I am granting the existence of God for the sake of argument. So yes, it's irrelevant, for ****'s sake.

The universe would appear just as "fine tuned" to us without canyons, tall mountains and fossils. In fact, it would appear more so. We could exist on an earth that was 3 billion years old or 7 billion years old instead of 4, so why did it have to appear to be 4? Likewise, we could exist in a universe younger or older than ours, so why appear 14?

Moreover, if God exists outside of time as some posit and is omnipotent and omniscient, if he wanted a universe that was 14 billion years old, there's no reason not to just start it off (like with a big bang) and let it evolve naturally over that 14 billion years. That's certainly more reasonable and logical than poofing it into existence a few thousand years ago and faking the appearance of age.

And what do you mean by 'fake'? If I want to do an experiment, I set it up. I set up all the conditions so that it could exist. I don't take the scintillator somewhere, and expect to see neutrons/etc from quasi-elastic scattering of an electron with helium-3. I have to set up the electron beam and build the injector and set up the helium-3 and all of that stuff. Just because it is an experiment doesn't mean that everything doesn't need setup. Or for a biological experiment, you need the environment/etc. You can't just expect to see the behavior by putting the animal in some observatory box. And just because you construct the environment doesn't mean that the environment shouldn't be built in such a way that it would mimic the environment the animal was meant to be in.

This is just asinine, and you admit that it does require deceit. Reducing humanity's existence to being some sort of science project on the part of a Creator is pretty startling, coming from a religious person. Even more so from someone who believes in a faith where salvation is predicated on believing in the existence and benevolence of the experiment's creator. If you think it makes some sort of theological sense for an omnipotent God to create a universe with the appearance of vast age, of evolution occurring, etc. and then say to his creations via divine revelations that is supposedly his own words something completely different from how he created it, and then have the temerity to be upset with his creations for believing the evidence he created over the revelations... well, that's on you. But I can say with no uncertainty that it's philosophically absurd, not to mention morally dubious.

I don't see scientists creating experiments where the point is to set up a "fake" environment for a subject and then punish the subjects if they believe in the well-constructed fakery...

Boris, the fact that you say something is 'mere symbolism' means that you don't understand it.

Mere symbolism doesn't mean that symbolism is meaningless, only that it is totally symbolic as opposed to factual. Quit being a condescending douche.

I seem to remember that you are one of the people with whom conversations on this topic has no value.

JM

Then you're free to stop responding to me. I am beginning to feel the same away about you, because you respond with nonsense, contradiction, vague and condescending statements of "ohhhh you just don't understand!" rather than engaging in real arguments.

[Caligastia]

With regard to the subject of hell, and the death of Jesus, this makes much more sense to me than the Christian doctrine:

188:4.8 When once you grasp the idea of God as a true and loving Father, the only concept which Jesus ever taught, you must forthwith, in all consistency, utterly abandon all those primitive notions about God as an offended monarch, a stern and all-powerful ruler whose chief delight is to detect his subjects in wrongdoing and to see that they are adequately punished, unless some being almost equal to himself should volunteer to suffer for them, to die as a substitute and in their stead. The whole idea of ransom and atonement is incompatible with the concept of God as it was taught and exemplified by Jesus of Nazareth. The infinite love of God is not secondary to anything in the divine nature.

188:4.9 All this concept of atonement and sacrificial salvation is rooted and grounded in selfishness. Jesus taught that service to one's fellows is the highest concept of the brotherhood of spirit believers. Salvation should be taken for granted by those who believe in the fatherhood of God. The believer's chief concern should not be the selfish desire for personal salvation but rather the unselfish urge to love and, therefore, serve one's fellows even as Jesus loved and served mortal men.

188:4.10 Neither do genuine believers trouble themselves so much about the future punishment of sin. The real believer is only concerned about present separation from God. True, wise fathers may chasten their sons, but they do all this in love and for corrective purposes. They do not punish in anger, neither do they chastise in retribution.

188:4.11 Even if God were the stern and legal monarch of a universe in which justice ruled supreme, he certainly would not be satisfied with the childish scheme of substituting an innocent sufferer for a guilty offender.

-The Urantia Book

[Elok]

Well, that pays close attention to about half of what Jesus said while taking great pains to ignore the other half. Which isn't to say that the Satisfaction Doctrine isn't nonsense.

[Jon Miller]

It is irrelevant to whether or not the Biblical God would have to fake the age of the universe! Fine Tuning is used as a teleological argument by some religious folks to prove the existence of God based on accepting the fact that the universe is really as old as it looks and the physical constants are indeed constant. I am not arguing that point, I am granting the existence of God for the sake of argument. So yes, it's irrelevant, for ****'s sake.

The universe would appear just as "fine tuned" to us without canyons, tall mountains and fossils. In fact, it would appear more so. We could exist on an earth that was 3 billion years old or 7 billion years old instead of 4, so why did it have to appear to be 4? Likewise, we could exist in a universe younger or older than ours, so why appear 14?

Moreover, if God exists outside of time as some posit and is omnipotent and omniscient, if he wanted a universe that was 14 billion years old, there's no reason not to just start it off (like with a big bang) and let it evolve naturally over that 14 billion years. That's certainly more reasonable and logical than poofing it into existence a few thousand years ago and faking the appearance of age.

This is just asinine, and you admit that it does require deceit. Reducing humanity's existence to being some sort of science project on the part of a Creator is pretty startling, coming from a religious person. Even more so from someone who believes in a faith where salvation is predicated on believing in the existence and benevolence of the experiment's creator. If you think it makes some sort of theological sense for an omnipotent God to create a universe with the appearance of vast age, of evolution occurring, etc. and then say to his creations via divine revelations that is supposedly his own words something completely different from how he created it, and then have the temerity to be upset with his creations for believing the evidence he created over the revelations... well, that's on you. But I can say with no uncertainty that it's philosophically absurd, not to mention morally dubious.

I don't see scientists creating experiments where the point is to set up a "fake" environment for a subject and then punish the subjects if they believe in the well-constructed fakery...

Have I, or the Bible, ever presented the point that you must believe in a 7000 year old earth in order to be saved? That you will be punished if you don't? In fact, I argue that the story is about something completely different then the facts of how the universe began. That those were just incidental for the time, as they couldn't understand then (and we probably can't understand now). 100 years ago, if I started talking about quarks, everyone would think I was insane. What do you expect of 4000 years ago?

I will admit that there are Christians who think you must believe in a 7000 year old earth. But these are a rarity, even among denominations (like my own) which hold to creationism.

I don't see anything inconsistent with a creation happening 1, 100, or 7000 years ago. For us to be us today, we need the natural history. It is as much a part of the universe as the speed of light or the fine structure constant. And if you assume that the part of creation that God cares about is humanity, then what is wrong with creating a universe at a certain state? How is that startling? We have science projects because we want to observe things in a certain state (have things in a certain state). God obviously would too, many theologies have Him mostly interested in sentients with social structure. This started ~7000 years ago. So there is a reason, a requirement, and if you believe in God an ability. I fail to see your problem.

And I fail to see your problem with it being symbolic. Which is definitely the focus. No one claims the focus is about fruit eating.

Mere symbolism doesn't mean that symbolism is meaningless, only that it is totally symbolic as opposed to factual. Quit being a condescending douche.

Then you're free to stop responding to me. I am beginning to feel the same away about you, because you respond with nonsense, contradiction, vague and condescending statements of "ohhhh you just don't understand!" rather than engaging in real arguments.

Your claims and reasoning is nonsensical. What else do I have to say? And you keep implying that things that are symbolic have less meaning/value then those that are not.

You are continually attacking strawmen, and attacking me when I try to point this out. Unless we can discuss the same thing, it isn't valuable to have a conversation.

JM

[Caligastia]

Well, that pays close attention to about half of what Jesus said while taking great pains to ignore the other half. Which isn't to say that the Satisfaction Doctrine isn't nonsense.

Which half is ignored? And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "Satisfaction Doctrine" - are you referring to the teaching that God could not be satisfied except by the blood sacrifice of a perfect specimen?

[David Floyd]

JM, the problem I'm having is this. 500 years ago, we had no clue what the speed of light was, nor the distance to the nearest star, nor the distance to the nearest galaxy, etc., etc. What we did have was religious faith. However, once science established answers to those questions, rather than say, "Hey wait a second, this religious stuff is a bunch of nonsense based on what we can SEE", many people instead said something like, "Well, we KNOW x religion is true, so if we are going to believe in our physical observations of the universe, we must try to reinterpret the Bible to fit science/reinterpret science to fit the Bible." It's completely asinine, and contrary to logic and reason.

[MOBIUS]

With regard to the subject of hell, and the death of Jesus, this makes much more sense to me than the Christian doctrine:

And all this stuff above. None of the 'believers' on this site even seem to believe in the same thing - you're all Christians, aren't you!!?

Not only that, but each of you seem to be happily to disregard entire sections of whichever set of beliefs your churches preach because you don't like them (as above, but not just you Cali), how can you do that!? Surely you can't be allowed to pick and choose what you feel like believing in - surely it's an all or nothing thing, this concept of believing in a divine being? Either you do, or you don't.

[Caligastia]

JM, the problem I'm having is this. 500 years ago, we had no clue what the speed of light was, nor the distance to the nearest star, nor the distance to the nearest galaxy, etc., etc. What we did have was religious faith. However, once science established answers to those questions, rather than say, "Hey wait a second, this religious stuff is a bunch of nonsense based on what we can SEE", many people instead said something like, "Well, we KNOW x religion is true, so if we are going to believe in our physical observations of the universe, we must try to reinterpret the Bible to fit science/reinterpret science to fit the Bible." It's completely asinine, and contrary to logic and reason.

I hope his answer isn't something along the lines of "God put dinosaur bones there to test our faith".

[Jon Miller]

I do believe in a divine being.

I don't believe that any of us, from myself to Caligastia (to Mobius) understands all of God or spirituality. Thus, while I think that I have some things right (obviously), I understand that others can think differently then me.

Just like how there are many different ideas/models/theories/etc in economics, physics and so on. Theology is a much more difficult subject then those (in theory, in practice it is often just a bunch of BS).

I also understand that I have some things which I don't understand yet.

I obviously don't think that dinosaur bones exist to test our faith. Most likely they exist because millions of years ago dinosaurs walked the earth.

JM

[MOBIUS]

Yeah, but the impression I get is that is about the only thing all Christians have in common with each other - everything else depends on your specific denomination and your own whims...

If I wanted to believe in a divine being, I truly wouldn't know where to begin...

[Caligastia]

And all this stuff above. None of the 'believers' on this site even seem to believe in the same thing - you're all Christians, aren't you!!?

Not only that, but each of you seem to be happily to disregard entire sections of whichever set of beliefs your churches preach because you don't like them (as above, but not just you Cali), how can you do that!? Surely you can't be allowed to pick and choose what you feel like believing in - surely it's an all or nothing thing, this concept of believing in a divine being? Either you do, or you don't.

Huh? What am I picking and choosing? I never claimed to follow the Christian religion. My worldview is tremendously influenced by the Urantia Book, but I don't belong to any formal organizations.

And I actually think it's good for people to pick and choose. It takes more thought to consider each issue and decide for oneself rather than blindly accept a collection of positions - no?

[David Floyd]

JM, did humans live alongside with dinosaurs?