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DennisTate

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No problem....

what show?

When a polite and friendly Atheist wanders over into this
group..... they could well get so many replies that they can't quite manage to answer all.......
even if they truly want to.......

Here is a paragraph on the information that led to me getting myself disfellowshipped from the Worldwide Church of God.... and from the Philadelphia Church of God..... all in about a month or so back in 1991........

Dr. George Ritchie, near-death.com:
 
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BNR32FAN

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There are a few things about evolution that doesn't make sense to me. For example we don't see any evidence today of life forms still in the process of evolving from one state to the next. AKA the missing link. Then there's the question of how could these first life forms survive the beginning stages of the evolution process if it takes billions of years for the process to occur? What are the chances that the conditions would stay consistently correct for these early fragile forms of life to survive for the amount of time necessary for them to evolve? How and why did this natural mutation occur in the same manner worldwide. For example all humans have 10 fingers and 10 toes, 2 eyes ect. Not only is the form of humans alike worldwide but animals as well. Sure there are different variations of species but the overall basic design is the same. The placement of our bodily features show signs of an intelligent design no doubt. Our hands and fingers and opposable thimb, the placement of our eyes, and countless more features in the design of not only the human body but also other animals also indicates intelligent design. The design of all life on earth indicates intelligent design not evolution or mutation. Then there's the question of the perfectly balanced ecosystem of our planet. The way that some forms of life exhaust certain elements and others replenish them. For example the plants provide oxygen and require carbon dioxide and mammals require oxygen and produce carbon dioxide and the balance of these two elements stay within the correct parameters to sustain both mammals and plants without the over population of one or the other that would result in an imbalance of these elements and ultimately kill all life. Then there's the ozone, gravity, water, planet placement and these are only a tiny fraction of the requirements for life to exist on earth. So not only does the construction of the many forms of life on earth indicate intelligent design but also the design of the ecosystem, our planet, and the solar system. If Jupiter didn't exist our planet would be completely demolished by meteors. So what we can come to a pretty sound theory that this intelligent creator would have to have the ability to influence all of these things I've mentioned. Could it possibly be aliens? In many ways God would fit the description of extraterrestrial life. These things I've mentioned are so much more are discussed in the video I provided in my earlier post. It shows actual scientific evidence of all these examples and gives the names of the scientists who conducted these studies. It doesn't show a bunch of myths and superstitions but hard core facts that have been proven by science. Its a very interesting series. You should check it out. I'll post it here again. If you want to skip the intro and get to the scientific studies skip to about 7min 30sec in the video. Have a blessed day.

 
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Joe Fizz

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sorry to burst your bubble but no mere "person" is superior to any "person" only God/Jesus is superior to us in any regard!
 
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BNR32FAN

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Yes I agree there have been many forgeries in Christian writings. It's unfortunate that is makes us question the validity of all Christian writings but then again even if the forgeries didn't exist we would still question their validity just the same. In the end no one will ever prove God's existence without a doubt. That's just the way God wants it. It seems apparent to me that God wants us to believe on faith not hard solid proof. Personally I think the reason for this is because I don't think He wants us to obey Him out of fear but instead out of a desire to do good. But that's just a thought. I believe He knows what's best for us and He has His reasons.
 
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BNR32FAN

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sorry to burst your bubble but no mere "person" is superior to any "person" only God/Jesus is superior to us in any regard!

We're restricted from criticizing other denominations? Wow are you new here? Have you seen the Protestant vs Catholic threads or Purgatory threads?
 
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Winken

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that is hardly the "correct" attitude to take biblically,because if one can't forbear other outlooks then what faith have ye?
Mine is not an "attitude." Mine is an avoidance of that which questions the existence of my Savior. I need no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that He died for me.
 
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mark kennedy

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If Jesus did not exist why do people use calendar after him? Shouldn't atheists have thier own , because every time you say 2017 you say time since Jesus was born .

I don't know if there are any calendars after Mahomet or Buddah
They don't say AD and BC anymore, they call it the common era or some such.
 
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grahamsnumber

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A number of authors have done extensive analyses of the UFO phenomenon. What I've seen is that the vast majority are hoaxes or misunderstandings. Humans make incredibly lousy witnesses, to a degree that most people have no idea about. Because of this, stories get exaggerated tremendously, and not on purpose. After repeating a story, we tend to believe it ourselves, even if it contains slight exaggerations. This problem gets repeated over and over, and the story eventually grows on its own. Every time I've seen an investigation of a story, the story turns out to be false. A great example is the so-called Roswell Incident in 1947 (I think). We have a great understanding of what happened there, but over the years the story got exaggerated repeatedly, until in the 70s the story had grown to the point that there were bodies recovered. This continued until the current day, by which time the story in the popular culture is way, way bigger than the original. Another famous case occurred in Ohio some years ago, in which two police officers chased for almost 80 miles an object that turned out to be Venus. The human brain can be fooled very easily once it has decided that what it is seeing is a recognized object, and from then on significant details will be filled in automatically.

A good place to start in UFO discussions is, I think, to look at the details of your favorite case, to establish what the basic facts are.
 
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Dirk1540

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LOL a guy I used to work with loved the recovered bodies story haha. He talked about it all the time.
 
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grahamsnumber

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I definitely realize that I am in the minority, even among secular scholars. I have watched many debates between Christian scholars and secular scholars, and many between secular scholars and other secular scholars. But I have found the arguments of the good mythicists, especially Richard Carrier, very convincing (David Fitzgerald too, but he is much less formal than Carrier, who has the first peer-reviewed research on the subject that reaches the mythicist conclusion). Carrier has a PhD in ancient history and the origins of Christianity from Columbia. This isn't to say that there aren't many impressive scholars with equally impressive PhDs on the other side -- there certainly are, and many more, in fact -- it's just to say that he has real qualifications and so his work is at least worth a look, even if you disagree with it.

As far as the Acts of Peter, I'm definitely not saying that it has the same weight as the canonical stuff. In fact, that's exactly the point: it's only in that poor source that anything about Peter's crucifixion is mentioned, thus underscoring that we really don't know much about it (historically, that is - faith itself is another matter). I don't include others like Eusebius in the evidence, simply because they wrote much later, and were quoting what earlier Christians were saying, and so just can't be seen as separate evidence. Now, a later author can be useful if he or she cites their sources, even if we don't have those sources, because often there is quite a bit that can be deduced from the descriptions. But Eusebius almost never does, at least about subjects like Peter (I'm not 100% sure on this - I'll have to look it up). Clement, again, doesn't write as a contemporary, but much later. I think scholars think probably the early second century, and certainly not earlier than the very end of the first century, and it's very disputed who the author actually was. Mostly I can't take the later writings as evidence, as they are quoting earlier writers and don't explain their sources.

Now, I agree that's an easy hand-waving argument, but we have to start somewhere. In particular, I think it's useful to start with the oldest sources and move forward from there.
 
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grahamsnumber

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Thanks - I've brought the document up in a browser tab (that's one way to have a to-do list , and will read it. It may take a bit, as things get busy at work (I'm writing this at 12:30 am).
 
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grahamsnumber

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Hi, Apostle Joseph. What are Holy Ghost fireworks?
 
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grahamsnumber

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I'm probably not a great choice (if I understand you), as I'm against teaching Intelligent Design in schools.
 
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grahamsnumber

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I have a good friend whom I've known for 40 years who was a long-time member of the WWCG, and became very disillusioned after the death of Herbert W. Armstrong.
 
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Dirk1540

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Any Youtube debates that stand out as some of the best ones? I did have these 2 printed out articles in my closet, but haven't read anything on this topic in a long time...

yama7

https://www.jashow.org/articles/soc...istianity-arise-out-of-the-mystery-religions/

Yes I was not trying to get overly confident on my historical argument for Peter being martyred upside down. I was just pointing out that a historic case for him trumps the other non-Paul apostle martyrdom traditions. The Bible is silent on Peter's and Paul's death. IMO that is a very strange omission, unless the NT was complete before they died, they were very prominent figures in the NT story. I also find it odd that not a single verse in the Bible would tell us about the destruction of the Temple, had the Bible not been complete after 70 AD. Now I know, arguments from silence are weak...but in some rare occasions I think they can be deceptively impressive. This would almost be like reading a biography about Ronald Reagan and it ending with him still alive.
 
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grahamsnumber

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I've marked the video to watch. In the meantime, I'll try to address your points (although there are a lot of them, so I might have to split up the responses! I've gotten more responses to my OP than I thought - it's hard to keep up with! ).

There are a few things about evolution that doesn't make sense to me. For example we don't see any evidence today of life forms still in the process of evolving from one state to the next. AKA the missing link.
Actually we do have tons of intermediate forms in the fossil record, and we see transitions by the thousands in the genetic record.

Then there's the question of how could these first life forms survive the beginning stages of the evolution process if it takes billions of years for the process to occur?
The early life forms don't survive. They change. Chemical process after chemical process, going on and on, slowly, very slowly, becoming more complex because of tiny random changes and filtering.

What are the chances that the conditions would stay consistently correct for these early fragile forms of life to survive for the amount of time necessary for them to evolve?
The early "life forms" aren't that fragile - they're very, very simple, and as conditions change, so do they. If they don't, they die. Only the ones that were adapted stayed around.

This is exactly what would be expected. The complex forms that are similar didn't evolve in a bunch of places exactly the same way. Rather, the successful forms reproduced and spread. And in that process, they changed. That means that mistakes (ones that didn't significantly affect an organism's ability to reproduce) also got transferred. One example is that the most common version of the eye has the optic nerve exiting the retina from the inside, producing a blind spot. A properly designed eye would have the nerves leaving the retinal cells from behind, thus avoiding a blind spot. If I remember correctly, the squid has the "correct" version. But ours was good enough, and spread.

I disagree - there are tons of design "mistakes" all over the place, and lists of them can be found online. Examples include the poor design of the eye, mentioned above, the human appendix, poor set-up of the human spine, using the same passage to swallow and breathe, and many, many others, making the whole thing not look intelligently designed, but looking exactly like a "good-enough" product to be expected by a slow evolutionary process.


I'll have to get to the rest a bit later. I can see that all these discussions will be interesting and fun. But a lot of them!
 
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AV1611VET

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Hi there! I'm an atheist who enjoys talking to and debating with Christians and others in a mutually-respectful manner.
Hi, Graham! Welcome to CF!

Have you been an atheist all your life?
 
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DennisTate

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Have you spent any amount of time researching what evolution might be like in fundamental or nearly fundamental energy........
rather than on earth?

I personally think that this is the next step in Evolutionary Theory that will take it to a place that is significantly more appealing to us Theists.

Do you want to see Intelligent Design taught in universities and schools?
 
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