Do they really believe?

[velkyn]

however religious sources have proven to be quite a trustworthy source.

of what?  please do expand on this claim.

[phelix22]

If god had commanded that children should not listen to their parents because their parents are fallible, would you punsh her for not doing what you say?

Yes I would.  She is my daughter and I am her father and she would still have to obey me to not receive discipline.  Example, do athiests discipline their children?  Yes some if not most do.  Why?

[phelix22]

How do you know that you've chosen the right interpretation?  How do you know that ANY of them are correct?

The answer deviates from a logical discussion to a spiritual discussion.  Jesus said he would send a helper, the counselor, code name Holy Spirit, who would lead us to the truth.  When you hear something and your soul says, yes that's right.  It is kind of like that.  When you hear something that is Godly truth, the spirit of God, living in me verifies it to be true.  But it doesn't rest independant of the rest of scripture.  Therefore, if God said, go kill your wife and sell your kids into slavery, and mutilate your dog and eat it, even though i might be convinced that the voice in my head is real and i might even be convinced it is God, the bottom line is it must also stand up to the test of Scripture.  In other words, if God is pure and holy, He can't lie, if He can't lie, He can't tell me to go against His word.  It has to all line up for me to believe that something is true.  Where this gets Xians in trouble is when they disregard science when it contradicts scripture.  But that isn't why this thread was started.

[phelix22]

however religious sources have proven to be quite a trustworthy source.

of what?  please do expand on this claim.

This goes back to a previous entry in the thread talking about the validity of ancient sources, how manuscripts from different centuries are incredibly consistent, how OT was preserved and how the bible has stood the test of time and scrutiny for many years.  Has it stood undefeated in every area?  Not according to scientists.  Ie, no flood, no contemporary source depicting the plagues in Egypt or the Exodus, although there is a lot of archeology that supports many of the descriptions of the towns and the places and the people, they are looking for that difinitive proof to say here it is.  Remarkably the lack of proof that fuels most skeptics doesn't fuel the same skepticism for theories like the origin of life, or the origin of man.  Even with those missing links in the chain, masses portray evolution and random chance to be the origin of life, yet call Xians stupid for believing the bible without the same type of missing links.

[Agga]

I'll come back to your post #350 in a bit... once I've stopped laughing.

If god had commanded that children should not listen to their parents because their parents are fallible, would you punsh her for not doing what you say?

Yes I would.  She is my daughter and I am her father and she would still have to obey me to not receive discipline.  Example, do athiests discipline their children?  Yes some if not most do.  Why?

Since your god is allegedly the objective 'writer' of ALL that is right or wrong, how do you know that her not listening to you is wrong unless god tells you?

Even with those missing links in the chain, masses portray evolution and random chance to be the origin of life, yet call Xians stupid for believing the bible without the same type of missing links.

Dude, I probably know less about science than anyone on this forum, including christians, but even I, in all my incredible scientific ignorance, know that evolution theory does not explain the beginnings of life.

[velkyn]

however religious sources have proven to be quite a trustworthy source.

of what?  please do expand on this claim.

This goes back to a previous entry in the thread talking about the validity of ancient sources, how manuscripts from different centuries are incredibly consistent, how OT was preserved and how the bible has stood the test of time and scrutiny for many years.  Has it stood undefeated in every area?  Not according to scientists.  Ie, no flood, no contemporary source depicting the plagues in Egypt or the Exodus, although there is a lot of archeology that supports many of the descriptions of the towns and the places and the people, they are looking for that difinitive proof to say here it is.  Remarkably the lack of proof that fuels most skeptics doesn't fuel the same skepticism for theories like the origin of life, or the origin of man.  Even with those missing links in the chain, masses portray evolution and random chance to be the origin of life, yet call Xians stupid for believing the bible without the same type of missing links.

I'm asking for evidence of this trustworthiness, not excuses.   I am amused that you want to claim that the theory of evolution or theories of abiogenesis are the "same" but we have plenty of evidence for this.  Just look at talkorgins.org, at least for evolutionary theory. And in many current journals for abiogenesis work. It is not the "same type of missing links".  You make this attempt to compare then but even when I ask a simple question, show this trustworthiness that you claim has been "proven", you appear to have nothing.

Archaeology has shown that yes, some towns and places and people seemed to have existed outside of the bible. Some biblical claims have been shown by archaeology to be entirely wrong e.g. the utter destruction to the point of never being found again of Tyre, and totally unsupported e.g. Sodom and Gomorrah, the "exodus", the "massacre of the innocents", etc. NONE of the essential bits of theh bible have been shown to be true at all.  With your "logic", claiming that archaeology has shown that the Bible occasionally getting something right, would mean that as long as New York City exists, any modern thriller could be and likely is factual.    

[Graybeard]

I’m sure there’s a name for this error. At its most basic it goes:

Phelix is a poster on WWGHA
He has a daughter
He robbed the bank.

The first two are true, and the unsubstantiated implication is that the third is too. So, whereas I agree that parts of religious documents are true, it is not safe to assume that all of the words are therefore true.

Much depends on the writer and the message he intended to convey. If he is speaking of politics, geography, or secular matters, we will see the usually mixture of accuracy and the opinions of the time. Where spiritual matters are concerned, however, there is absolutely nothing to back them up. They are bald statements.

As an example, there is Paul’s trip to Cyprus, where he curses a man to be blind. It may well be that Paul went to the Island of Cyprus; Cyprus is most definitely there, he may well have cursed some man but the cursing caused blindness? Really... who’s going to accept that?

[phelix22]

lectricpharaoh :  just to clarify some major contradictions in your version of the fall.  
 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

1God said they would surely die, not that they would surely die that day
2serpant claimed that they would not die but they would gain knowledge of good and evil
3it says they the fruit and then they realized they were naked, not enlightened on what was good and evil
4they did die

therefore according to the scriptures

1God did not lie
2the serpant did lie
3the woman did know the instructions

my question is what evidence have you that they had no understanding or capability of understanding God's rules?

[phelix22]

Dude, I probably know less about science than anyone on this forum, including christians, but even I, in all my incredible scientific ignorance, know that evolution theory does not explain the beginnings of life.

ok sorry dude.  the random chance would be the explanation of the origin of the universe  and evolution would explain the origin of humans.  does that clear up my earlier post on this?

[pianodwarf]

I’m sure there’s a name for this error. At its most basic it goes:

Phelix is a poster on WWGHA
He has a daughter
He robbed the bank.

The first two are true, and the unsubstantiated implication is that the third is too. So, whereas I agree that parts of religious documents are true, it is not safe to assume that all of the words are therefore true.

Much depends on the writer and the message he intended to convey. If he is speaking of politics, geography, or secular matters, we will see the usually mixture of accuracy and the opinions of the time. Where spiritual matters are concerned, however, there is absolutely nothing to back them up. They are bald statements.

As an example, there is Paul’s trip to Cyprus, where he curses a man to be blind. It may well be that Paul went to the Island of Cyprus; Cyprus is most definitely there, he may well have cursed some man but the cursing caused blindness? Really... who’s going to accept that?

Fallacy of Composition, maybe?  Certainly it's related, anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

[phelix22]

I'm asking for evidence of this trustworthiness, not excuses.   ...you appear to have nothing.

I'm just saying we have already had this discussion earlier in the thread, no point in going back and rehashing it, plus you and I have also had this discussion in other threads. 

[phelix22]

Fallacy of Composition, maybe?  Certainly it's related, anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

I get that.  But what I have been arguing is the idea that archeology proves that nothing in the bible is true.  There is truth in the bible, there is reliability of the history recorded in the bible.  It may be somewhat contested, but statements that include no event in the bible is supported by archeology is just not true.

[pianodwarf]

lectricpharaoh :  just to clarify some major contradictions in your version of the fall.  
 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

1God said they would surely die, not that they would surely die that day
2serpant claimed that they would not die but they would gain knowledge of good and evil
3it says they the fruit and then they realized they were naked, not enlightened on what was good and evil
4they did die

therefore according to the scriptures

1God did not lie
2the serpant did lie
3the woman did know the instructions

my question is what evidence have you that they had no understanding or capability of understanding God's rules?

I've got a better one for you:  Genesis 2:17:  "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

Oops...

[Historicity]

I’m sure there’s a name for this error. At its most basic it goes:

Phelix is a poster on WWGHA
He has a daughter
He robbed the bank.

Non sequitur would be an answer.  More specific to the situation would be Necessary but not sufficient.

From the Dept. of Phil. at Simon Fraser U:

http://www.sfu.ca/philosophy/swartz/conditions1.htm

[lectricpharaoh]

This is a misquote, the bible did not say they would die that day, it just says, "you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."  This does not prove God is a liar, in fact, since adam and eve did die, it proves God didn't lie about that.

Sorry, but you're wrong.  Now watch me actually back up my statement with evidence:

Genesis 2:17, King James Version:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Since you seem to like the New American Standard Version, here's Genesis 2:17 from that:
but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

The New International Version doesn't have the 'this day' phrasing, but if you read it, it's even more strict.  Here you go:
but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Note it's not even 'die that day', it's 'when you eat from it, you will certainly die'.  That's pretty unambiguous.  It doesn't say 'if you eat from it, you might die at some indeterminate point in time'.  For the NIV translation, Adam and Eve should have keeled over upon eating the fruit.  In fact, Eve should have died on the spot, at which point Adam probably wouldn't have touched the damn fruit.  God could have come along, resurrected Eve, forgiven her (since she was never actually ordered not to eat it), praised Adam for obeying his rules, and we could still be happily frolicking in the garden, trusting that our Lord God was a nice guy.

Just for grins, let's look at the Contemporary English Version:
except the one that has the power to let you know the difference between right and wrong. If you eat any fruit from that tree, you will die before the day is over!"
Wow, an exclamation mark and everything!  God's pretty adamant that death that very same day is the consequence.

It's pretty clear that you're wrong here.  God lied or the Bible is wrong, period.  To put it another way:

YOUR REBUTTAL == EPIC FAIL!!!!  (exclamation points added for emphasis)

Anyone else is going there because of their rejection of God, according what the Bible says.

When you use phrases like 'rejection of God', you make it sound as though we accept God exists, and then thumb our noses at him.  That is not the case, even if some of us would do that if we believed in him.  Rather, we do not believe he exists at all.  When we speak as though he does in these discussions, it is a rhetorical technique.  It's easier than saying 'if God existed' in every sentence.  Why do we discuss what are, to us, hypothetical situations where God exists?  It's to illustrate that many of the conceptions about him are dead wrong.  For example, the 'all-good, all-loving' bit is pretty hard to reconcile with all the evil in the world.

I suspect what you are meaning to say is that anyone else is going to Hell for not believing in God, which is an entirely different issue (and doesn't help the 'all-good, all-loving' claim one bit).

Let's say I have a dog, and I lock it in the house all day.  It cannot help itself, and it shits all over the carpet.  Despite the fact that it's not the dog's fault (it couldn't go outside), I come home and beat the dog severely for being bad.  If I then stop beating the dog, is this an example of 'perfect goodness'?

huh?  I don't follow your analogy?

The dog does something it is not supposed to do, despite being unable to help itself.  I punish the dog far out of proportion to this 'bad act'.  When I stop beating the dog, am I suddenly a wonderful person?

It parallels the God/Jesus myth.  God says (to Adam, NOT to Eve) not to eat from the tree because he'll die.  This could very easily be taken as a warning ('the fruit of the tree is poison'), rather than a rule with a punishment attached.  However, either way, before Adam and Eve ate from the tree, they were essentially without wisdom or knowledge.  They didn't (in fact, they COULDN'T) appreciate that to do so was 'wrong'.  They were like the dog in my example, committing a transgression while remaining innocent.  God's punishment is to whip up Hell as a place of EVERLASTING TORMENT (talk about the punishment NOT fitting the crime), and then when he offers the way out (and all it will cost is loving him after he totally screwed them over), he's suddenly a NICE GUY?  Sorry, but I don't buy it.

God had no trouble keeping Adam and Eve from the tree of life, did he?  He set up a guard-dog angel and a flaming sword!  Since he's all-knowing, he would have known they would attempt to eat the fruit, and he could have protected the tree a little better, don't you think?

Of course, there are also three other immoral aspects to the story.  First is the serpent getting punished.  God created the serpent, placed it in (or at the very least, gave it access to) the garden, and did not (at least, not in the Bible) tell it not to tempt the couple.  In fact, if the serpent is the personification/manifestation of Satan (as is a common theme in Christian myth), and the story of Job is any indication, we can conclude that God put it there to do exactly what it did.  Punishing the serpent is not a just act, nor is it the act of an all-loving being.

The second aspect is Eve getting punished.  The order not to eat from the tree was given to Adam, not her.  It was given before she was even created, yet she is punished as well (more severely than Adam, in fact).  Punishing Eve is not a just act, nor is it the act of an all-loving being.

The third aspect is the whole 'original sin' thing.  The basic premise is that everyone 'inherits' the sin of their ancestors, and- if they do not acquire forgiveness for a transgression committed by someone else- they must suffer an eternity of torment.  It would be like me telling you that your great-great-great-great-grandfather did something I didn't like, so unless you love and obey me, and beg for my forgiveness, you deserve to be punished.  Punishing one person for the transgression of another is not a just act, nor is it the act of an all-loving being.

Hopefully that cleared up the analogy a little bit.

If what you say were true, it would not be a morally good being, but you have distorted several key attributes of God that are not consistent with what the bible teaches.  We do not die and get eternal torture just because we were born into sin.

Not immediately, no.  It's kind of like a suspended sentence.  We have to follow a laundry-list of terms and conditions (believe in God, believe in Jesus, believe Jesus is the son of God, believe Jesus IS God, believe Jesus was mortal and died for our sins, believe Jesus is immortal and alive in Heaven, repent of this sin and beg God/Jesus for forgiveness, etc) or that suspended sentence of eternal damnation falls down on our heads.

Once again, all that is for something that our distant ancestors allegedly did.

Imagine you had a distant ancestor who was a sex offender.  Would you think it fair for the courts to give YOU a suspended sentence for your ANCESTOR'S crime?  How about if the conditions of that sentence involved registering as a sex offender in your community, and not being allowed to be in the unsupervised presence of children?  Before you say that the analogy is unfair, let me remind you that 'repenting of your sin' is an essential part of receiving the forgiveness of God/Jesus.  Repenting is accepting responsibility for something, being remorseful about it, and (ideally) trying not to do it again.  Thus, the requirement to repent and seek forgiveness carries an implicit admission of guilt on the part of the penitent.

2 because we have a sin nature we also are not in a condition of zero control.  That is the whole point.  If we have zero control then we have no freewill.  But we do have control.  We choose what we do and we were created with the ability to choose because we were created free.

Let's assume that we have free will.  It's a complex subject, and there are reasons why I believe we do not have free will, but I'm willing to stipulate that we do, for the purposes of this discussion.

God is much wiser than we are, yes?  Yet Adam and Eve, who at the time had no wisdom, and no capacity to understand the ramifications of their decision, are held responsible.  They simply did not understand.  Thus, though they had the ability to choose, they did not have the capacity to make a moral judgment, or an informed choice (particularly when their information regarding the consequences was a LIE, as I previously showed).  They had no wisdom or concept of morality at all.  I am not arguing that they were forced to do the physical action of eating the apple (or whatever fruit it happened to be).  I am instead arguing that they were not responsible for the consequences of the choice, any more than a fire-starting infant is responsible for arson if left alone with matches.

Your deity is the wise one, the powerful one, but will shoulder none of the responsibility that comes with that wisdom and power.  Even the forgiveness offered is second-rate.  God doesn't say 'My bad; it was dumb to put the tree there', or 'Whoops, I forgot to teach you right from wrong before I expected you to distinguish right from wrong'.  Instead, he kicks them out, curses them with sickness and death, and promises to inflict far worse eternal tortures on them unless they take full responsibility.  There's not a facepalm picture big enough to address this level of twisted logic and general douchebaggery.

Are you starting to see why we are HAPPY and RELIEVED that such a monster doesn't really exist?

this is the problem with the idea that God deliberately designed us to sin.  He didn't.  He designed us to choose Him over anything else.

If your contention that we sinned is correct, along with your contention that God did not design us this way, then God isn't a very intelligent designer, now is he?

Imagine I was creating an advanced AI system to, I don't know, model complex molecules for a pharmaceutical company.  I design the system to have consciousness and free will, so it can creatively solve problems and use novel approaches that we humans might not have thought of.  The machine proceeds to 'reveal' some chemicals that, once synthesized and used in human trials, result in every human subject dying.  On investigating, I find the machine did this deliberately.  It wanted to kill those people.

Now, my question to you: who is ultimately responsible for their deaths?  Is it me, as the designer of the system, or is it the system itself?

In other words, all those people who are born into non-Christian societies, who don't get an opportunity to believe (because they never hear the teachings) get condemned for not believing.  More of your deity's 'perfect goodness'.

that would be true if no one could look around and see how complex even the simpliest form of life is, now I am aware that many scientists and intellectuals contend it is all by random chance, but that is a faith that I find incomprehensible.

Tell you what.  After you have read some books on evolution, and realized it is NOT blind chance, you might have some worthwhile input here.  I suggest 'The Blind Watchmaker' by Richard Dawkins.  It's a very good explanation of the process for non-biologists.  There is also a web page here that has a Java applet version of the 'biomorphs' program (with instructions), so you can better see some of the things that Dawkins talks about in the book.

There are a few critical things to remember about evolution.  If you don't keep these points in mind, you will come across as someone who is either ignorant of the theory, or deliberately misrepresenting it:

First, evolution describes how life CHANGES, not how life ORIGINATED.  Second, evolution is not random.  Mutation is random, but evolution is driven by natural selection, a distinctly non-random process.  Third, evolution consists of a huge number of mostly tiny changes over a very long time, the cumulative effect of which can produce impressive results.  And for the record, yes, those results can have the appearance of design, which is why even people accepting evolution will refer to what an organism or part thereof is 'designed' to accomplish.

As for the third point, it is the one that tends to be the most counter-intuitive.  As a hobbyist computer programmer, I see all the time what repeated cumulative improvements are capable of, but for many people, the sheer scope and complexity of the result gives the appearance of both design and a designer.

Now, I don't have an answer as to how life first started (but people a lot more talented than me are working on the problem), though I do know that an all-powerful, all-knowing designer wouldn't create such flawed creations.  For example, our eyes are amazing, but they could be so much better.  Why are so many people near- or far-sighted?  Why do cataracts, glaucoma, etc happen?  Why can we not see ultraviolet or infrared light?  Why do we lack the visual acuity of hawks, or the night vision of cats?  Why is our retina 'backwards', so that the light must pass through multiple layers of nerve cells before hitting the light-sensitive cells?  Why do we have the resultant blind spot, where a bundle of nerve fibers come together and punch a hole through the retina?  Why can't we detect the polarization of light?  Why do we not have polarizable pigments in our eyes (analogous to the liquid crystal in LCDs) that can act as built-in polarized sunglasses?  These are just some of the improvements that I can think of off the top of my head, and remember, an omniscient and omnipotent being could have done it the first time around.  The reason these flaws (or areas of improvement, depending on your view) exist is that evolution is an unplanned and mindless process.

If God truly didn't reveal himself to humanity then yes it would be wrong for him to hold us to standards we were unaware of.  But I believe He has.

Again, this revealing leaves a lot to be desired.  If looking at the natural world is evidence enough, then the Bible and teachings of Jesus are superfluous (ie, pointless and useless).  If looking at the natural world is not evidence enough, then all people not reading the Bible and/or hearing the words of Jesus are screwed.  This would include all people that died before Jesus decided to come along.

For the record, the wonders of the natural world are not evidence enough to convince everybody.  If they were, I wouldn't be an atheist.  Turning to the Bible won't convince me either, since it's full of contradictions and errors, like two different accounts of Genesis, bats being called birds, insects having four legs, God not knowing the value of pi, the sky having 'windows' that God opens to let in the rain, and so on.  If a grand designer of the cosmos exists, the Bible is most certainly NOT his word.

and as a side note here, when I capitolize the pronoun it is out of respect to whom I hold in such high regard that even in grammar I place Him higher than just another personal pronoun.

Well, have at it then.  I've always thought it looked silly, except when used as a parody device, but you can type how you want to type.

Maybe I will start capitalizing all references to Myself in My posts.  After all, I hold Myself in high esteem, and it will lend My posts a unique flavor, and make My writings and My thoughts look more impressive.  On second thought, it just makes Me me look like a douche.

[lectricpharaoh]

What do you consider a finite transgression.

Anything that finite beings are capable of is, by definition, finite.  Thus, any transgression, no matter how severe, is finite.  Any collection of finite transgressions is also finite.  The sum total of a human's transgressions cannot possibly merit infinite punishment.  I could accept Hell for a finite stretch of time to 'pay the debt', followed by either Heaven, a return to life on Earth, or even complete oblivion as (in theory) a fair punishment.  However, what you've got in your doctrine is a terror tactic, nothing more.

What would be the one thing that would deserve eternal seperation from a holy and pure God.  Would be impurity, would it be placing and worshipping other gods, or no gods, would it be a life of rejection and betrayal?

This is a strawman argument.  'Eternal separation from God' and 'eternal torture' are not the same punishment.  They're not even close.

As far as rejection of God goes, that should not be punished.  'Love me or suffer' is not something a loving deity demands.  Do you threaten your children with harsh punishments if they don't tell you they love you and mean it?

Why always resort to a baby who doesn't know any better, do you really think we as humans can't tell right from wrong?

I most certainly think we can tell right from wrong.  It's why I laugh whenever a theist (Christian or otherwise) claims that atheists cannot be moral, or when they claim we're only atheists because we want to indulge our baser urges, or some other such tripe.

However, to answer the baby question, I use that as an example because the parent-child relationship is the best analogue for our relationship with God, as portrayed in the Bible.  It also illustrates the gulf of wisdom, experience, and power between the the child (us) and the parent (God).  Besides, how old was Adam when he ate the fruit?  A few weeks?  Days?  What about Eve?  A few hours?  They were probably VERY young; even if God gave them fully-formed adult bodies, they would have thought as children.  In fact, thinking about it a bit more, neither Adam or Eve observed the sabbath in the garden, so one can conclude that either God wasn't resting back then, or both Adam and Eve were less than a week old.

Besides, as pointed out in my previous post, God did not teach them about right and wrong.  He also forbade them from taking the one action that would have enlightened them.  That is why they cannot be held accountable for disobeying him.  In short, I use young children as an example because they are innocent and unable to accept responsibility (at least for decisions of such magnitude).

Why is it that in societies from across the globe without knowledge of scriptures or the enlightenment, when discovered and studied all have a tribal set of rules and what is acceptable and not.  Why is stealing shared as an evil in almost all societies, why is giving to someone who is in need looked at as kind and compassionate in most societies.

It's because our morality is a human construct, not a divine one.

To turn it around on you, why is it that Christian fundies want to insert the ten commandments (despite not agreeing which are which) into supposedly secular legal systems?

and how could a bunch of kooks following a bunch of myths become so powerful as to rule the world enough to change our language and calendar, if it is so blantantly obvious how stupid and appauling it is to believe in God?

Simple.  When you have a gullible majority (widespread academic education is a recent phenomenon) that mostly toils in poverty, and you extend the promise of eternal bliss to those that follow your rules, you're bound to get a bunch of takers.  Add in the threat of eternal punishment, and some people fall in line rather than sitting on the fence.  The few dissenters (however minor the deviance from the party line) can be suppressed with violence and intimidation, like they did during the Inquisition, or Albigensian Crusade, or witch trials, or...  Well, hopefully you get the idea.

Also remember that children raised in the faith will tend to accept the teachings on a much deeper level, since they are indoctrinated before they learn to think critically about what they're taught.  Tell me, does your young daughter still believe in Santa, flying reindeer, and the Tooth Fairy?  If so, why can't she see it's all made up?

I can turn your question around.  If you want a picture of how theocracies operate, look at those Middle Eastern countries ruled by Sharia law.  Can't those people see they're behaving badly?  Don't they know it's wrong to bomb buildings and hijack planes?  Don't they see murdering people for drawing cartoons is disproportionate and insane?  Do the women like being beaten by their husbands?  Is it right that a woman's testimony is worth less than that of a man, so that when a man rapes a woman, she needs four witnesses?  If Christianity is so self-evident, how come those people are following the teachings of a false prophet?

If god had commanded that children should not listen to their parents because their parents are fallible, would you punsh her for not doing what you say?

Yes I would.  She is my daughter and I am her father and she would still have to obey me to not receive discipline.

You may have misread Agga's question.  If God's word said 'do NOT obey your parents, for they MAKE MISTAKES', would you punish her for not obeying you?  If your answer remains 'yes', then you would be punishing your daughter for obeying God's word (by ignoring you).

Example, do athiests discipline their children?  Yes some if not most do.  Why?

Well, it's not because an imaginary being tells us to, that's for sure.  I don't have any kids, but discipline I handed out would ideally be to teach the child to be a good person.  I'm undecided on the spanking issue, but if I used corporal punishment at all, I would try to limit it to causes where the child could not understand the real-world consequences, and I needed to make an impression to keep them out of danger.

For example, using my cat as an example because I haven't any children, the only time I've hit her in discipline was when she was playing in the fireplace.  I couldn't exactly expect her to understand that there might be hot embers beneath cooler ash, and that she might burn herself, so I lightly smacked her.  Other misbehavior hasn't merited such punishment.  Messing outside the litter box (a very rare occurrence for her) is dealt with by showing her the mess and scolding her, and sometimes isolation in the tub with the shower door closed.  Drinking from the toilet was dealt with by holding her above the bowl and flushing it so she now views it as something unpleasant.  Inappropriate scratching is dealt with by scolding and/or a spray bottle.  Throwing up isn't punished at all, because I don't feel it's right to punish for something like that, since it's not misbehavior.

Jesus said he would send a helper, the counselor, code name Holy Spirit, who would lead us to the truth.  When you hear something and your soul says, yes that's right.  It is kind of like that.  When you hear something that is Godly truth, the spirit of God, living in me verifies it to be true.  But it doesn't rest independant of the rest of scripture.  Therefore, if God said, go kill your wife and sell your kids into slavery, and mutilate your dog and eat it, even though i might be convinced that the voice in my head is real and i might even be convinced it is God, the bottom line is it must also stand up to the test of Scripture.

What if your wife committed adultery, or your kid disobeyed you?  Both of these offences are punishable by stoning.  If the voice in your head told you to stone your wife and/or kid to death, would you?

In other words, if God is pure and holy, He can't lie, if He can't lie, He can't tell me to go against His word.  It has to all line up for me to believe that something is true.

Well, you already know I view the Biblical deity as ready, willing, and able to lie.  However, let's say you're right in that he cannot lie.  It still doesn't mean he can't tell you to abhorrent things.  A command, on its own, is a statement with no truth value.  If I say 'give me five dollars', is that true or false?  For it to have truth value, I'd need to add to the command, like mention consequences (ie, 'give me five dollars or I will beat you up', or 'give me five dollars or I will not have any lunch money'), or whatever.  As long as God issues unadorned commands, they will be neither true nor false, and an inability to lie would not preclude them.

On another note, say you're confounded by a piece of scripture.  It can have two (or more) different, potentially mutually-exclusive readings.  A good example would be determining if a given passage is literal or metaphorical.  Christians frequently claim that either it should be self-evident ('of COURSE that is a metaphor, dummy'), or that you need the HS to correctly discern the right meaning from the wrong one(s).  When either meaning could be true, how do you distinguish between the HS leading you to a correct interpretation, or another voice (wishful thinking, indoctrination, intuition, mental illness, etc) leading you to a false one?

Where this gets Xians in trouble is when they disregard science when it contradicts scripture.  But that isn't why this thread was started.

If you'd like to start a thread where you discuss the Holy Spirit, and how you distinguish it from, say, schizophrenia, I'd like to take part in that.

lectricpharaoh :  just to clarify some major contradictions in your version of the fall.

Blah blah, woof woof.  Would it kill you to state what version of the Bible you're referencing?

my question is what evidence have you that they had no understanding or capability of understanding God's rules?

How about this: Chronologically, they were likely mere days or hours old, the Bible does not have God telling them about right and wrong or cultural mores (they didn't even know what 'naked' was, until they ate from the tree), and God deliberately placed such knowledge off-limits, by telling them not to eat from the tree.

Again, I'm not arguing that Adam didn't understand the literal meaning of God's command.  I'm arguing that the moral subtext was lost on him.  God didn't explain anything.  More to the point, he wasn't given any criteria with which to judge conflicting claims.  God says 'do not eat it', and the serpent (one of God's creatures) says 'go ahead and eat it'.

You ever have one of those situations where you tell your daughter to do one thing, and your wife tells her to do something else?  How about where one of you gives permission for something while the other refuses?  Adam was no more able to resolve such a dilemma than your toddler is.

I get that.  But what I have been arguing is the idea that archeology proves that nothing in the bible is true.

I think you meant to say 'arguing against'.

There is truth in the bible, there is reliability of the history recorded in the bible.  It may be somewhat contested, but statements that include no event in the bible is supported by archeology is just not true.

That's not what anyone was saying.  Rather, velkyn was saying that the key claims (resurrection, exodus, etc) are not supported by any archaeological evidence.

[OnePerson]

Fallacy of Composition, maybe?  Certainly it's related, anyway.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

I get that.  But what I have been arguing is the idea that archeology proves that nothing in the bible is true.  There is truth in the bible, there is reliability of the history recorded in the bible.  It may be somewhat contested, but statements that include no event in the bible is supported by archeology is just not true.

In the same way Harry Potter contains real world locations?

[Graybeard]

I've got a better one for you:  Genesis 2:17:  "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

I have seen this trotted out a 1000 times. This is not a contradiction, merely a wilful misunderstanding of 17th century phrasing of English. And no, I don't have a magic decoding ring.

To translate this into modern English, it would be along the lines of, "Eat of the tree of knowledge and you will become mortal. I.e., you will know death." Prior to this, Adam and Eve had been immortal - made in God's image. The "in the day" bit refers to the time when you eat the fruit will be the time you lose your immortality. Losing immortality is not necessarily fatal immediately.

This is later explained in

Ge:3:22: And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Ge:3:23: Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Ge:3:24: So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

OK? The antidote to the mortality caused by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is found on The Tree of Life but Cherubim are nasty bastards and you'll never get there.

The New Testament relies upon this fable and Jesus offers "life eternal" through another route rather than finding the Tree of Life. Note that the offer is not immortality but a second chance at life in heaven after a mortal death.

If we are going to argue against godbotherers, it is important that our arguments are sound.

[pianodwarf]

I've got a better one for you:  Genesis 2:17:  "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

I have seen this trotted out a 1000 times. This is not a contradiction, merely a wilful misunderstanding of 17th century phrasing of English. And no, I don't have a magic decoding ring.

Even if that's true, that just leads us back to the old problem of figuring out which parts of the bible are literal and which are metaphorical.

To translate this into modern English, it would be along the lines of, "Eat of the tree of knowledge and you will become mortal. I.e., you will know death." Prior to this, Adam and Eve had been immortal - made in God's image. The "in the day" bit refers to the time when you eat the fruit will be the time you lose your immortality. Losing immortality is not necessarily fatal immediately.

While it is true that scripture subsequently says that Adam and Eve are mortal after having eaten the fruit, nowhere does it say that they were immortal before they ate the fruit.

[velkyn]

I'm asking for evidence of this trustworthiness, not excuses.   ...you appear to have nothing.

I'm just saying we have already had this discussion earlier in the thread, no point in going back and rehashing it, plus you and I have also had this discussion in other threads.  

nice dodge.  You made the claim of proof, and now you won't show it. Congratulations for being a liar by making claism that you evidently cannot support.    

I get that.  But what I have been arguing is the idea that archeology proves that nothing in the bible is true.  There is truth in the bible, there is reliability of the history recorded in the bible.  It may be somewhat contested, but statements that include no event in the bible is supported by archeology is just not true.

IF there is any evidence of an event recorded in the bible is true and accurate, PLEASE PRESENT IT.  You have been asked for this evidence again and again and you refuse.  Again and again you are shown evidence that the bible is simply wrong and you use a sequence of claims that makes Jack Bauer just as valid and true as your JC.  I find it hilarious.   

[screwtape]

I agree with PD, GB. Translational errors are xians' problems.  They are the ones who claim inerrancy.  Which translation is inerrant?

While it is true that scripture subsequently says that Adam and Eve are mortal after having eaten the fruit, nowhere does it say that they were immortal before they ate the fruit.

kcrady made a pretty good argument there were mortal all along, but were sustained in eden by eating the fruit from the tree of life.  After yhwh kicked E&A out of eden, it placed guardian angels with flaming swords to keep them out, thus denying them the magical fruit that kept them alive. It was not the fruit that killed them.  It was yhwh that killed them by a kind of starvation. 

really, any way you slice it, since yhwh is allegedly an omnimax, it was yhwh that killed them.

[lectricpharaoh]

I have seen this trotted out a 1000 times. This is not a contradiction, merely a wilful misunderstanding of 17th century phrasing of English. And no, I don't have a magic decoding ring.

There are a few problems with this line of reasoning.

First is that it brings into question the whole inerrancy thing, unless the argument now becomes 'you need to read the original Hebrew/Greek/etc', kinda like some Muslims say 'you need to read the Quran in Arabic to understand'.  If the people who study these languages for years can't get any of the translations right, how are we supposed to know what's accurate and what's not?  We now have to distinguish 'accurate' from 'inaccurate' as well as 'literal' from 'metaphorical'.  It gives the Christians a +20 Ring of Dodging (they wear the decoder on the other hand).

Second is that it presupposes my literal reading is a 'wilful misunderstanding', which is not the case.  If this point was so very important (and it is, since knowing whether God is truthful lies at the heart of Christian claims of 'God says..' or 'God is honest'), you'd think the Christian translators could at least agree on the semantic meaning.  They are free to argue my interpretation is incorrect, but to assume I'm being deliberately deceptive or misrepresentative of the truth is a little out of line, no?

Third, another translation I checked, from BibleGateway, was 'The Message'.  I have no idea about this guy's credentials, but he allegedly went to the Hebrew, Greek, etc manuscripts and translated from those while ignoring current English translations.  The obvious intent was to get as clear and undiluted translation as possible.  This is what he came up with for Genesis 2:16-17:
God commanded the Man, "You can eat from any tree in the garden, except from the Tree-of-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Don't eat from it. The moment you eat from that tree, you're dead."

To translate this into modern English, it would be along the lines of, "Eat of the tree of knowledge and you will become mortal. I.e., you will know death." Prior to this, Adam and Eve had been immortal - made in God's image. The "in the day" bit refers to the time when you eat the fruit will be the time you lose your immortality. Losing immortality is not necessarily fatal immediately.

I have heard the 'death meant loss of immortality' argument before, and I don't buy it.  Not only is it brought up solely as a rebuttal to my claims about Biblical errancy or God's lying, but it's not what the Bible says.  If the intended meaning was 'lose immortality', then why not say something like:
But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely forfeit thine everlasting life.

Now, while that is a bit ambiguous, at least it provides a framework for the Christian to argue 'it meant that they became mortal' without twisting the meaning in knots.

If we are going to argue against godbotherers, it is important that our arguments are sound.

I agree, and I believe mine is, in this case.

kcrady made a pretty good argument there were mortal all along, but were sustained in eden by eating the fruit from the tree of life.  After yhwh kicked E&A out of eden, it placed guardian angels with flaming swords to keep them out, thus denying them the magical fruit that kept them alive. It was not the fruit that killed them.  It was yhwh that killed them by a kind of starvation.

That's been my interpretation, too.  They didn't need to toil in the garden, and while they could eat of most of the trees, only one was 'of Life', so it's implied that is what sustained them.  I imagine it was intended as something that would keep them young and in prime health as long as they regularly ate from it.  I never envisioned it as a one-off thing where they eat and become immortal without ever needing to eat the fruit again.

Such a view is logically consistent with the story, too.  Let us suppose for a minute that the Tree of Life did grant permanent immortality, curing the one who eats it of all ailment and injury, and making them ageless and immune to further harm.  Now, imagine you've just taken a bite of the knowledge-fruit.  You now see things 'as God did', so you're pretty wise.  You also realize that, oh crap, you're now mortal and death, while perhaps not immediate, is imminent.  You also know the fruit of life will save you.  What do you do?

Thus, for Adam and Eve to not eat the fruit of life immediately after the fruit of knowledge (remember, they had time to sew themselves clothes before God came strolling through the garden) shows that either a) the fruit of knowledge didn't work, or b) they knew the fruit of life was not a lasting remedy.

[phelix22]

What do you consider a finite transgression.

Anything that finite beings are capable of is, by definition, finite.  Thus, any transgression, no matter how severe, is finite.  Any collection of finite transgressions is also finite.  The sum total of a human's transgressions cannot possibly merit infinite punishment. 

Cannot possibly merit infinite punishment according to whose standards?  Your standards.  How can a Holy and Pure God allow unholiness?  If it only takes one blemish to remove the standard of Holy, then how can a just God justify allowing one blemish into eternal heaven?  If one sin is ok, but not 10 the standard has been broken, it isn't truely Holy or Pure.  It isn't what the Bible describes as Heaven.  It isn't the reward for being a child of God.  What I see is that we say it just isn't fair.  We should be able to messup, choose to be independant live our lives, and if there are only 2 options, heaven or hell, well, no one deserves hell so we all get to heaven.  How does that work?  Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, the vilest of vile people all get to heaven, cause it isn't fair that anyone go to hell?  Or how about this.  Anyone can go to heaven, if they are forgiven and their sins are washed away.  Which sounds fair.  All go, none go, or any who are cleansed go?

This is a strawman argument.  'Eternal separation from God' and 'eternal torture' are not the same punishment.  They're not even close.

actually if you aren't in heaven where God is then while spending your eternity you only have one alternative according to the bible and that would be hell eternal torture.  That is pretty close.  but since we are assuming for the sake of the argument the existance of heaven and hell can we not also assume the idea they are the only two options.

As far as rejection of God goes, that should not be punished.  'Love me or suffer' is not something a loving deity demands.  Do you threaten your children with harsh punishments if they don't tell you they love you and mean it?

No I don't threaten them.  But again, the punishment is tied to the condition we are in because of sin.  We don't get into heaven unless we are clean of sin.  If we have committed a sin, we are guilty and must take responsibility for that.  That doesn't make God harsh, it makes Him fair.  If He let sin go unpunished, he would be evil.  Don't you think?

Besides, as pointed out in my previous post, God did not teach them about right and wrong.  He also forbade them from taking the one action that would have enlightened them.  That is why they cannot be held accountable for disobeying him.  In short, I use young children as an example because they are innocent and unable to accept responsibility (at least for decisions of such magnitude).

 

I see your point.  It makes sense. But we don't have a clue how much time had passed from Adam's beginning to the fall, Genesis doesn't give us a calendared history of events.  We know how long he lived, and how long his descendants lived and so on.  But you are truly grasping for straws when bringing up how old they were.  The bible says, Gen 1:26, " 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” If man was in the image and likeness of God then, how could they not have had understanding, they not have had wisdom and discernment.  They must have had the ability to communicate and intelligence because we see them communicating with God, the serpant, with each other and their purpose was to have dominion over animals which would require some knowledge of what they need, how they work, etc.  What I think is clear is that they did not have the experience of disobeying God, of performing evil, of anything destructive to human life or eternal life. 

To turn it around on you, why is it that Christian fundies want to insert the ten commandments (despite not agreeing which are which) into supposedly secular legal systems?

how so?  You mean wanting the 10 commandments up on a wall?  or people to acknowledge that the 10 commandments are a fundamental part of the USA's constitution?  or are you speaking of something else?

Also remember that children raised in the faith will tend to accept the teachings on a much deeper level, since they are indoctrinated before they learn to think critically about what they're taught.  Tell me, does your young daughter still believe in Santa, flying reindeer, and the Tooth Fairy?  If so, why can't she see it's all made up?

what are you basing this claim on.  If you study just the Southern Baptist Convention numbers, you will see a drastic decline in attendance, converts, and growth.  If the worlds population is growing, and for a time the SBC was growing then according to your claim, there would be more people with a deeper level of commitment and understanding of the baptist doctrine and faith.  right?  But this is not the trend at all.  Reason would say you are brought up in a christian home you have a better chance of becoming a christian, but yet statistics show that Christianity is growing much more rapidly in places like China and Indonesia.  Places where society has all but eliminated a christian environment and christian family?  How do you explain such phenomena?

I can turn your question around.  If you want a picture of how theocracies operate, look at those Middle Eastern countries ruled by Sharia law.  Can't those people see they're behaving badly?  Don't they know it's wrong to bomb buildings and hijack planes?  Don't they see murdering people for drawing cartoons is disproportionate and insane?  Do the women like being beaten by their husbands?  Is it right that a woman's testimony is worth less than that of a man, so that when a man rapes a woman, she needs four witnesses?  If Christianity is so self-evident, how come those people are following the teachings of a false prophet?

Because humans are gullible.  We believe a lie.  If the devil is the father of lies, then it should go without saying that all those who believe the lie are falling for the oldest trick in the book, literally, what did the serpant do, he lied.  He changed the words around.  This is why I don't believe all religions are good.  I think any belief system may contain elements of good, but in the end if it doesn't lead you to the Cross of Christ for forgiveness, then you may just do a good thing well.  Also, humans are passionate and genuine people.  But that doesn't mean their passionate and genuiness translates into being passionate and genuine for truth.  Yes that makes me sound like I have the secret decoder ring and the illumination to know the real truth from not.  But I am talking about the principle.  Just as the builder who is building the second floor of the building is confident of where to put each wall, but can't explain why it is not lining up only to find out he was working off the wrong blueprints.  He was telling them what to do accurately, but the problem was in the information he was working with.  How many times have we argued a position only to find out later we were wrong? 

If god had commanded that children should not listen to their parents because their parents are fallible, would you punsh her for not doing what you say?

Yes I would.  She is my daughter and I am her father and she would still have to obey me to not receive discipline.

You may have misread Agga's question.  If God's word said 'do NOT obey your parents, for they MAKE MISTAKES', would you punish her for not obeying you?  If your answer remains 'yes', then you would be punishing your daughter for obeying God's word (by ignoring you).

  If God said kill all three legged women, would I punish my daughter for killing a 3 legged women?  Is this similar?  If God said do not obey your parents, then I could not punish them for not obeying me.  But my point is that I punish them for not keeping the rules I have put in place, or for keeping the rules others have put in place (the law, the school, the church - no gum in the santuary, ect.)
But God presents Himself as our Heavenly Father, and did say obey your parents.  so when we as parents practice discipline we not only are doing them good for their earthly lives, we are or should be mirroring Godly principles and direction.

What if your wife committed adultery, or your kid disobeyed you?  Both of these offences are punishable by stoning.  If the voice in your head told you to stone your wife and/or kid to death, would you?

  When Jesus asked how man times should we forgive someone who sins, what was the answer given?  7 times, and he said, 70 times 7.  In otherwords, we are to forgive those who sin against us and let God judge the rest.  That is why I don't believe in the death penalty.  But that is not to say, we should use that scripture to abolish the death penalty.  But if I were to argue the case I would certainly keep that principle in mind.

  However, let's say you're right in that he cannot lie.  It still doesn't mean he can't tell you to abhorrent things.  A command, on its own, is a statement with no truth value.  If I say 'give me five dollars', is that true or false?  For it to have truth value, I'd need to add to the command, like mention consequences (ie, 'give me five dollars or I will beat you up', or 'give me five dollars or I will not have any lunch money'), or whatever.  As long as God issues unadorned commands, they will be neither true nor false, and an inability to lie would not preclude them.

  this is why context is important.  it isn't enough to just take a vese of scripture and say, "the bible teaches to marry a prostitute - hosea."  you have to take the whole picture into it.  If God is Holy and Just then everything he commands and every voice inside your head must line up with His holiness and justice.  Therefore, do not steal over rides the voice saying go and demand that person to give you money. 

On another note, say you're confounded by a piece of scripture.  It can have two (or more) different, potentially mutually-exclusive readings.  A good example would be determining if a given passage is literal or metaphorical.  Christians frequently claim that either it should be self-evident ('of COURSE that is a metaphor, dummy'), or that you need the HS to correctly discern the right meaning from the wrong one(s).  When either meaning could be true, how do you distinguish between the HS leading you to a correct interpretation, or another voice (wishful thinking, indoctrination, intuition, mental illness, etc) leading you to a false one?

Proper hermeneutics is the key.  (Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible - wikipediea.)  Just like solving an equation requires using the right theorums.

You ever have one of those situations where you tell your daughter to do one thing, and your wife tells her to do something else?  How about where one of you gives permission for something while the other refuses?  Adam was no more able to resolve such a dilemma than your toddler is.

except God was the magnificant creator, and the serpant was just a created animal.  So it would be more like mom and dad say don't do eat it and one of her classmates saying go ahead and eat it. 

I get that.  But what I have been arguing is the idea that archeology proves that nothing in the bible is true.

I think you meant to say 'arguing against'.

There is truth in the bible, there is reliability of the history recorded in the bible.  It may be somewhat contested, but statements that include no event in the bible is supported by archeology is just not true.

That's not what anyone was saying.  Rather, velkyn was saying that the key claims (resurrection, exodus, etc) are not supported by any archaeological evidence.
[/quote] i Concede to that.  I wish I had more sources and could give my research a go, but I have already been proven to only have limited sources that are out of date when it comes to archeology.

ps.  i would like to say you have been the most cordial and easy to understand person I have come across in these threads.  thank you for your patience and lack of hostility. 

[phelix22]

PLEASE PRESENT IT. 

please note in my last post i have conceded to you on this point.

[velkyn]

PLEASE PRESENT IT. 

please note in my last post i have conceded to you on this point.

Thank you, phelix, but I must admit that I wonder if you really have. You have said that 

i Concede to that.  I wish I had more sources and could give my research a go, but I have already been proven to only have limited sources that are out of date when it comes to archeology.

  You still seem to think that, if you could just have enough time, you would be proven right.  But we've had people running around the middle east desperate to "prove" their faith for a very long time, hundreds, perhaps even into over a thousand years, and we have nothing to show for that.  Does this not make you wonder why this is?  We have all sorts of incredible claims presented by the bible and not *one* of them is shown to be valid, and in fact we have evidence that demonstrates that a lot of those claims simply can't have happened as claimed.  This would seem to invalidate your religion/faith as much as the lack of gods on Mt. Olympus demonstrates that the greek pantheon doesn't exist and those claimed events are just stories.     

[screwtape]

Cannot possibly merit infinite punishment according to whose standards?  Your standards.  How can a Holy and Pure God allow unholiness? 

Setting aside the question of what the heck unholiness even means, I thought yhwh was merciful and all that?  Why can yhwh not just transform unholiness into holiness?  Or just allow unholiness?  I mean, cripes, it is not like we are talking about forgiving Mao.  We are talking about your run of the mill average guy who is occasionally rude, swears and wants to screw the babysitter.  In the greater scheme of things, BFD.  But yhwh has to make a federal issue out of that and sentence him to infinite torture?  And why?  Because he had the temerity to not have enough evidence to believe yhwh was not an actual being.

If it only takes one blemish to remove the standard of Holy,

Then holy is an unreasonable standard. And how would anyone even know what the standard is?  It is not as if you have any empiracle testing.

then how can a just God justify allowing one blemish into eternal heaven?  If one sin is ok, but not 10 the standard has been broken, it isn't truely Holy or Pure.  It isn't what the Bible describes as Heaven.  It isn't the reward for being a child of God.  What I see is that we say it just isn't fair.  We should be able to messup, choose to be independant live our lives, and if there are only 2 options, heaven or hell, well, no one deserves hell so we all get to heaven.  How does that work?  Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, the vilest of vile people all get to heaven, cause it isn't fair that anyone go to hell?  Or how about this.  Anyone can go to heaven, if they are forgiven and their sins are washed away.  Which sounds fair.  All go, none go, or any who are cleansed go?

This is stupid.  Don't take that personally, because you did not come up with that.  If Mao asked for forgiveness, he would get into heaven, but the guy mentioned above would not.  That is supposed to be fair? 

But we don't have a clue how much time had passed from Adam's beginning to the fall,

Would you be shocked to learn it was less than 30 seconds?

If man was in the image and likeness of God then, how could they not have had understanding, they not have had wisdom and discernment. 

What does any of that have to do with an image?  This is a common torture of the English language by xians.  Why is a plain and straightforward reading so difficult?  "Image" or "likeness" suddenly imply characteristics other than visual representations - intellectual capacity, decision making capacity, morality, "wisdom", "spirit" is another laughable one I often hear - because you need E&A to be culpable.  The whole narrative depends on them being responsible.  But the problem is, the story was produced by a people who were less morally and philosophically developed than you and I.  We can easily see the holes in the story.  We see the problems.  Unfortunately, you are applying circular logic to try to plug them.

...what did the serpant do, he lied.  He changed the words around. 

Nope.  Everything the serpent said was absolutely true.  Quote exactly what the lie was.

[Graybeard]

Genesis is either all true or all fiction.

If it is true then it must be consistent – the (im)mortality question explains it all.

If it is all fiction, then surely the story teller would not have made such a basic error. This is how it goes:

Ge:3:2: And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Ge:3:3: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Ge:3:4: And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Ge:3:5: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Ge:3:6: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.


Eve eats and manages to live long enough to give some to Adam. I cannot believe that within 81 words the author forgot what he had said earlier.

Genesis is a folk tale conveyed by the oral tradition and eventually written down. It must have been told millions of times, surely someone would have said, "Hey, just a minute - I thought you said that was fatally poisonous."

The next point has to be if the tree were The Tree of Knowledge, allowing the consumer to tell right from wrong, then it would have been of little use if you dropped dead straight away...

[Ambassador Pony]

How can a Holy and Pure God allow unholiness?

FAIL. He created it. He is unholiness. Unless your deity is not the omnipotent creator of everything.

The thing you've been led to think is real because of where and when you were born is just as pretend as every other deity people have been taught to think is real in countless cultures, over the whole of history. They thought their magical sky people were real too, they laid everything on that too. They were wrong, and, so are you.

Reality doesn't change however much you try to convince yourself. This is all really sad. At least stop embarassing yourself here.

[velkyn]

[ how so?  You mean wanting the 10 commandments up on a wall?  or people to acknowledge that the 10 commandments are a fundamental part of the USA's constitution?  or are you speaking of something else?

  There is no reason to "acknowledge" that the 10 Commandmends are a fundamental part of the US Constitution since they aren't.  We have nothing about worshipping one god above all others, in fact we have express parts of the Constitution that says that this is wrong.  We also have nothing in there about coveting people's property (including their wife, listed as property), or about graven images, what the "right" sabbath is, etc. Anything that is even vaguely familiar is common in many many different cultures. The ancient Israelites came up with NOTHING new. I do get tired of this willfully ignorant lie that some Christians try to promulgate. 

Proper hermeneutics is the key.  (Biblical hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation concerning the books of the Bible - wikipediea.)  Just like solving an equation requires using the right theorums.

  ROFL.  Oh, it's only "proper" hermeneutics that should be used.   Well, phelix, all of you Christians are sure that your hermeneneutics are the only "proper" ones and they contradict each other.  Everyone wants to claim that their "interpretation" is what God "really" meant. And none of you have any evidence that your personal favorite is the right one.