Noah's Ark and the Cheetah

[The Cadet]

Having a personal relationship with the Author helps.

First of all, I spent several years "talking to its creator".

Maybe you should have listened as well.
Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a Buick.
God isn't going to tap you on the shoulder and say "Hi, I'm God." It's more subtle than that.

I did listen, though. I don't know how you feel justified in making these assumptions about me, honestly. I was an open, receptive vessel, waiting to get filled... And nothing happened. God did not speak to me. I got no response.

It's really easy to blame the non-believer for just not listening the right way, but the fact of the matter is, what we have here is an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient creator who, at least according to you, wants to have a personal relationship with me. Regardless of how stubborn or strong-willed I may have been (I wasn't), that god knew what would have been necessary to start a relationship with me or strike up a conversation. That god also knew that by his supernatural nature, he has excluded any reliable means of me discovering him, leaving only personal revelation. So the only answer I'm left with is that god didn't want me to know about him... Or doesn't exist.

Sure we can. We just can't do it scientifically. People study the Word every day.

And how do we know the "Word" is actually divinely inspired? And please don't say faith, because if you say faith, and a Muslim says faith, I have no way to determine whose faith is actually true. The problem with faith is that two people can hold completely contradictory views based on faith, and there is no mechanism to determine which of the two is false. You're stuck.

Only Jesus returned from the grave and only Jesus can save you today.

And if I ask you how you know any of this, you'd probably say "faith", right?

 

[SkyWriting]

And how do we know the "Word" is actually divinely inspired? And please don't say faith, because if you say faith, and a Muslim says faith, I have no way to determine whose faith is actually....

You can determine "Truth" by reading various texts. The scriptures have a ring of truth to them.
This results in faith that they are true and accurate.

I've read many other texts. They don't have a ring of truth to them.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You can determine "Truth" by reading various texts. The scriptures have a ring of truth to them.
This results in faith that they are true and accurate.

I've read many other texts. They don't have a ring of truth to them.

They only have that ring about them because you grew up with them. If you were born Hindu then the Vedas would have the "ring of Truth", and if you were born Muslim it would be the Koran.

 

[The Cadet]

You can determine "Truth" by reading various texts. The scriptures have a ring of truth to them.
This results in faith that they are true and accurate.

I've read many other texts. They don't have a ring of truth to them.

Oh, I'm sure you have. However, a Muslim will be glad to tell you that the Qur'an has a ring of truth to it. And I'll be glad to tell you that neither does to me. Once again, you're appealing to something entirely internal, and if I take your acceptance of truth at face value over my own, I must also take that of a Muslim at face value. This gets us no further than faith unless you can tell me how to determine whose "truthiness" to accept and whose to reject.

We don't determine the truth of a claim by intuition. We examine it by looking at the evidence. And the evidence for the biblical account is very slim on the ground.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Well perhaps, but the male God brought to Noah may have not been of breeding age and he only bred the offspring of the female. Then perhaps the female had all female cubs born to her.
Besides, inbreeding in Biblical times was fairly common. Abraham and Sarah had a common parent.

Why don't you just skip the excuses and go straight to "god uses magic and prevented genetic bottlenecks"?

 

[DogmaHunter]

God had a plan, and the plan worked.

Ahh... yes... the mysterious magic plan.

 

[morningstar2651]

Your antichrist spirit is once again rearing it's ugly head. The antichrist spirit cannot honestly discuss the things of God without perverting it.

In what way are infanticide and slavery not perverse? Is there any scenario that makes these righteous actions?

Move on folks, nothing new to see here.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

• Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet 11 - The Flood
• Basari Creation Myth (West Africa)
• Echoes of Gilgamesh in the Jacob Story (published in the Journal of Biblical Literature)
• Resemblances Between Zoroastrianism and Judaism (Including 6 days of creation)
  
• The Zoroastrian-Biblical Connections
  
• Parallels Between Enkidu and Adam In the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Garden of Eden
  

 

[SkyWriting]

Oh, I'm sure you have. However, a Muslim will be glad to tell you that the Qur'an has a ring of truth to it. And I'll be glad to tell you that neither does to me. Once again, you're appealing to something entirely internal, and if I take your acceptance of truth at face value over my own, I must also take that of a Muslim at face value. This gets us no further than faith unless you can tell me how to determine whose "truthiness" to accept and whose to reject. We don't determine the truth of a claim by intuition. We examine it by looking at the evidence. And the evidence for the biblical account is very slim on the ground.

I was looking for some statement to dispute, but "neither does to me" sums up your post....
and I can't dispute your belief system.

 

[The Cadet]

I was looking for some statement to dispute, but "neither does to me" sums up your post....
and I can't dispute your belief system.

It's not a belief system, though. You seem to justify your belief in the bible by claiming "it has a ring of truth to it". I'm curious how you came to that conclusion - intuition?

 

[SkyWriting]

We don't determine the truth of a claim by intuition.

Yaaaaah we do.

 

[SkyWriting]

It's not a belief system, though. You seem to justify your belief in the bible by claiming "it has a ring of truth to it". I'm curious how you came to that conclusion - intuition?

That's what I was pointing out in your post.
But following that decision, I've found the Christian scriptures to be without error.
I'll be happy to debate any complaints you have on that matter.
The biggest "error" I've refuted is a bat termed a bird, which is simply
a matter of categorization by modern science.

 

[Armoured]

That's what I was pointing out in your post.
But following that decision, I've found the Christian scriptures to be without error.
I'll be happy to debate any complaints you have on that matter.
The biggest "error" I've refuted is a bat termed a bird, which is simply
a matter of categorization by modern science.

Grasshoppers don't have 4 feet, mustard seeds are not the smallest seed, nor do they give the biggest plant. The Earth doesn't have pillars....

 

[The Cadet]

Yaaaaah we do.

No, we really, really don't. Human intuition has a remarkably bad track record. Intuitively, people default to aristotelian mechanics - the pre-newton laws of motion which simply do not describe how things act in reality. Intuitively, the double-slit experiment should not work the way it does. Intuitively, the sun revolves around the earth, and the earth is flat. Intuitively, Euclid's geometrical axioms are the necessary basis. Intuitively, two things happening at the same time is something that happens all the time, rather than something that is impossible. Intuition is not a way of knowing things.

That's what I was pointing out in your post.
But following that decision, I've found the Christian scriptures to be without error.
I'll be happy to debate any complaints you have on that matter.
The biggest "error" I've refuted is a bat termed a bird, which is simply
a matter of categorization by modern science.

Okay. Who bought the potter's field after Jesus's death?

 

[SkyWriting]

No, we really, really don't. Human intuition has a remarkably bad track record. Intuitively, people default to aristotelian mechanics - the pre-newton laws of motion which simply do not describe how things act in reality. Intuitively, the double-slit experiment should not work the way it does. Intuitively, the sun revolves around the earth, and the earth is flat. Intuitively, Euclid's geometrical axioms are the necessary basis. Intuitively, two things happening at the same time is something that happens all the time, rather than something that is impossible. Intuition is not a way of knowing things.

It is your main resource about 100% of your day.
Pointing out 5 pieces of information out of terrabytes a data is confirmation bias. Intuition operates your entire day long. You are very rarely wrong.

"Who bought the potter's field after Jesus's death?"
The chief priests bought one to bury the dead.
Judas also bought a piece of land for himself
where he hung himself and his body was ignored
till it bloated and fell to the ground.

So, out of 1200 pages of text, have you found any other
tidbits that you find confusing? Always happy to help!

 

[The Cadet]

It is your main resource about 100% of your day.

I try not to let it be, because from experience, when I do, I tend to be wrong about as often as I am right.

Pointing out 5 pieces of information out of terrabytes a data is confirmation bias. Intuition operates your entire day long. You are very rarely wrong.

No, logic operates my entire day long. I try to evaluate situations based on what I know.

"Who bought the potter's field after Jesus's death?"
The chief priests bought one to bury the dead.
Judas also bought a piece of land for himself
where he hung himself and his body was ignored
till it bloated and fell to the ground.

But it's made pretty explicitly clear that it's the same 30 pieces of silver used to buy the same plot of land in both cases.

Matthew 27:5-8: And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money." So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day.

Acts 1:18-19: Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the field was called in their own language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood.)

It is the same field; not, as you imply, two different ones. Even if you manage to ad-hoc the contradictory ways he dies out of existence, the fact remains that there are two completely distinct accounts of what Judas does with the silver and who purchased the Field of Blood. Or are there two different places referred to as the "The Field Of Blood" in ancient Jerusalem?

So, out of 1200 pages of text, have you found any other
tidbits that you find confusing?

Well, the entire genesis account is wrong, wrong, wrong pretty much from start to finish, but knowing you, you likely reject the scientific findings that show that, so I tried to keep to the easy ones - points where it's scripture vs. scripture. And there are quite a few. A large endeavor in apologetics is going through and trying to make up ad-hoc excuses for why the bible contradicts itself. Personally, I think any book that needs that much work to make self-coherent probably isn't the divine work of a perfect being, but that's just my denial of god speaking.

 

[SkyWriting]

But it's made pretty explicitly clear that it's the same 30 pieces of silver used to buy the same plot of land in both cases.It is the same field; not, as you imply, two different ones. Even if you manage to ad-hoc the contradictory ways he dies out of existence, the fact remains that there are two completely distinct accounts of what Judas does with the silver and who purchased the Field of Blood. Or are there two different places referred to as the "The Field Of Blood" in ancient Jerusalem?

The details are there, true, and have been gone over by editors, then fact checked.....
all before being written down.

Now, given that is likely, the council could have used the silver that Judas threw at them,
and purchased the field in Judas name. THEY couldn't use the money, right? It was not
their money to use in their name. But they COULD purchase it in Judas name...because
they had openly given him the money.

And the point of his death was that he had no one to take his body down from his hanging.
So his body hung there and bloated till it was juicy and splatted on the ground.

Two separate accounts each tell of his death so we can be sure he died there.

 

[SkyWriting]

Well, the entire genesis account is wrong, wrong, wrong pretty much from start to finish, but knowing you, you likely reject the scientific findings that show that,

The fields of Science and History are diametrically opposed.
History cannot see into the future, and Science cannot see into the past.
Scientists can predict the outcome of future observations, in the imagination.
But cannot test past events.

 

[SkyWriting]

Muslim will be glad to tell you that the Qur'an has a ring of truth to it.

Citations , please.

 

[Armoured]

The fields of Science and History are diametrically opposed.
History cannot see into the future, and Science cannot see into the past.
Scientists can predict the outcome of future observations, in the imagination.
But cannot test past events.

This just gets better and better. Forensic testing? Archaeology? What's that?

 

[Mr Strawberry]

Personally, I think any book that needs that much work to make self-coherent probably isn't the divine work of a perfect being, but that's just my denial of god speaking.

Exactly. If the bible wasn't all over the place the whole field of apologetics would be unnecessary. The fact that apologetics exists, and is such a big field, is rather a giveaway that their book has more than a few problems.