Rain drops

[mzungu]

The cure for cancer is to choose life:

Go tell that to the cancer patients! Let us see the success cure rate of your God's system compared to science's.

I wager a months pay your secret cure is snake oil! Just telling a cancer patient "choose life" will not cure him.

Even better go to a children cancer clinic and tell the parents of your secret cancer cure!

Good lord man have you lost your sensibilities

 

[Gadarene]

Go tell that to the cancer patients! Let us see the success cure rate of your God's system compared to science's.

I wager a months pay your secret cure is snake oil! Just telling a cancer patient "choose life" will not cure him.

Even better go to a children cancer clinic and tell the parents of your secret cancer cure!

Good lord man have you lost your sensibilities

He's technically right in that once you die you don't have cancer. In much the same way that if you cut off your head your headache will have gone away

 

[Jamin4422]

This is somewhat of a problem for your opinion on God because according you there is scientific evidence for the flood.

The first cities were built on flood planes because the land is so furtile there from the silt from the river when it floods the land. Even today for example along the Mississippi river there are years when their are a lot of floods. When there is no flooding they have very rich and fertile farm land. Civilization began in the Euphrates river valley between the Tigris and Euphrates river. At first up north, then later on around the marshes where the rivers drain into the Gulf. Even today if you buy or build on a flood plain then you can expect to at least have trouble getting flood insurance.

 

[Jamin4422]

Go tell that to the cancer patients!

I tell it to cancer patients all the time. We just had a very close friend recover from stage four cancer and she was able to see her three daughters graduate. I went to the graduation party. I usually let my wife explain it to people because she has prayed and seen so many people healed and recover. Her daughter was very thankful to see her mom recover. To me it seems rare for people to be grateful and to give thanks onto God for all He has done for them.

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]Do not correct a [/FONT]scoffer[FONT=arial, sans-serif], lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love. prov 9 8[/FONT]​

 

[mzungu]

I tell it to cancer patients all the time. We just had a very close friend recover from stage four cancer and she was able to see her three daughters graduate. I went to the graduation party. I usually let my wife explain it to people because she has prayed and seen so many people healed and recover. Her daughter was very thankful to see her mom recover. To me it seems rare for people to be grateful and to give thanks onto God for all He has done for them.

[FONT=arial, sans-serif]Do not correct a [/FONT]scoffer[FONT=arial, sans-serif], lest he hate you; Rebuke a wise man, and he will love. prov 9 8[/FONT]​

It matters little in what you believe. The human body is capable of self healing in many cases. Even if your friend truly believed and prayed to the Flying Spaghetti Monster; The outcome would have been the same.

I personally know of 3 cases in my country where the sheer will to survive helped these terminal cancer patients pull through and guess what; All three were atheists and remain so to this day.

Now how do you get a one year old who has cancer to pray? Sorry but your method of cure is to put it mildly Dangerous. Imagine if all the cancer patients just went home and prayed. How many would survive?

 

[Papias]

Back to the subject of the OP:

duordi wrote:

Those that have read the creation story know that all of the water that caused Noah’s flood did not come from rain but due to the ocean floor rising.

Genesis 7

11 In the year 600 of Noah’s life, in the seventeenth day of the second month, that same day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and burst forth, and the windows and floodgates of the heavens were opened.

There were two sources of water for the flood.
The primary cause for the flood was that the ocean bottoms rose which is listed first.
The second reason listed and therefore the less prominent source for the waters of the flood was rainfall.
​

No, please re-read the text. Genesis never describes the ocean floor rising. It says "fountains of the deep". See, the ancient Hebrews saw the world as shown below, with the land as an island with water around and below it, and a clear, hard dome held up the "waters above the firmament" from crashing down. That's why the sky was blue. There were "fountains" in the ocean, and they gave the lower water (not "seafloor rising").

Plus, the text you gave for Gen 7 clearly says where the other water is from. It's from God opening the windows on the hard, clear dome (firmament) above us, and the water pouring through. They surely thought that God did this in places where the water wouldn't pour on the sun or moon in the process.

Your "seafloor" idea ignores the text and reads a modern, scientific understanding of our world back on to the text instead of listening to what the text itself says.

Um, did no one bother to actually read what duordi wrote for his calculations? Let's look at it:

If I make some assumptions:

1. The atmosphere before the flood was similar in temperature and gas concentrations.

Um, if the temperature and gas concentration were the same, how do you get a higher pressure? Are you familiar with the gas law equation?

2. The earths atmosphere can be estimated as a thin layer so I can assume a gravitational constant equal to sea level conditions.

OK.

3.The rain drop fossils were created during the flood.

It seems that a flood is a violent thing, and something as delicate as raindrop marks would be very unlikely to survive a deluge.

4. The rain drop fossils were the largest possible.

Why? Just lucky again?

5. The calculated atmosphere pressure was twice as high as it is today.

How did you calculate the pressure? Care to share?

Then we can say that the loss in atmospheric pressure is about 2 atm - 1 atm = 1 atm

one atmosphere 1 atm = 14.7 PSI.

One cubic foot of water = 62.4 pounds.

A column of water 1" wide by 1" long and one foot high = 62.4 / 144 = 0.43 LB

To get a 14.7 PSI pressure change we will need 14.7 / 0.43 = 32 foot of rain fall.

Yes, 1 atm = 32 feet of water (actually closer to 34 feet). That's a simple conversion factor, though it was nice of you to derive it for us. If the sum total of your "calculations" is just deriving that 1 atm=32 feet of water, then you've got a long way to go to show anything.

Papias

 

[Greg1234]

Just telling a cancer patient "choose life" will not cure him.

Just like telling a man to leave the crack pipe alone won't help.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I do not know that anyone gets away with anything. Believers tend to suffer for their sin in this life, because when they die they go onto their reward. Hell (Hades) and death will be thrown into the Lake of Fire at the end of the 1000 year reign of Christ. As far as I know this means they will be destroyed at that time and they will be no more. I tend to believe the Bible teaches annihilation for the sinner and the unbeliever.

Which is literally infinitely better than what mainstream Christianity teaches. Good for you

God's desire is whosoever is willing let them come. I got to tell you I believe what God tells me. According to the Bible if you do not see that then you are deceived.

I understand what it is you believe, I just don't see any reason to believe it myself. I see no proof that humans are damned to hell, so I don't believe we need a saviour.

People put so much effort into an education that lasts a lifetime. Why not more effort into reading the Bible, because that lasts for all eternity.

Because we know we have a mortal life, a finite amount of time in which to better ourselves and humanity. Not everyone agrees that reading the Bible is a worthwhile endeavour - after millennia of philosophical and theological hand-wringing, the very existence of God is still unresolved.

 

[Jamin4422]

Imagine if all the cancer patients just went home and prayed.

I never said that and actually I expected more out of you then to just build a strawman. We tell people to get all the help you can from the doctors and get all the help you can from the church. If you discourage people from getting help from the church then perhaps you are the one this is doing the harm where good could have come out of it.

It is true that it is very difficult to go beyond the placebo effect. Even when a recovery is rare they still call it spontaneous remission. Even if your odds of recover is one in 1500 you could be the one. Somewhere along the way your going to need the power of God working in your life or you will perish. But then you already know that. So when it is all done and said for what will you have to show for any of this?

They say one third of the people will be saved and some people seem to have a difficult time getting into that group.

 

[Jamin4422]

I understand what it is you believe, I just don't see any reason to believe it myself.

You can believe in electric power but what good is that if you do not plug into it? If you do not plug into God to have the divine power of God working in you then you have gained nothing. Human faith has it's value but that is nothing compared to the faith of God. The faith that God puts in us.

 

[duordi]

I didn't mean to suggest there was no proof.
It does not say Abraham just had faith one day.
It took time and experience and thought.

Then one day he believed God because he had evidence after evidence.

There is however only one way to get evidence.
You have to do something you are told and the promised result happens.
One time is not enough because it could be random chance.
God has chosen searching and imitation as the way to proof.

Scientific proof has a logical problem in that it wouldn't prove anything.


But I am curious as to how you would do things differently.

If God was to live a human life to show us what he was like without all the endless power and intelligence what would you expect Him to do or be like?

Describe your "ideal" human.
If you were God, and you were the most ideal person you could imagine, would you give everyone proof of your existence?

How would you to this?
Would you force anyone?
Would you expect anything from them?
Would you have any rules?
Would you reject anyone?
Would you reject Satan(humor me on this one)?

Duordi

 

[Wiccan_Child]

You can believe in electric power but what good is that if you do not plug into it? If you do not plug into God to have the divine power of God working in you then you have gained nothing.

I asked this before, but no one answered: how does one do this? You (or someone else) said it's easy to check - so how? You say that if we plug ourselves into God, we have "the divine power of God working" in us - how does one go about doing that? And what would happen if we do so?

As I said, I understand what it is you believe, you've just offered no compelling reason for me to follow suit.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I didn't mean to suggest there was no proof.
It does not say Abraham just had faith one day.
It took time and experience and thought.

Then one day he believed God because he had evidence after evidence.

There is however only one way to get evidence.
You have to do something you are told and the promised result happens.
One time is not enough because it could be random chance.
God has chosen searching and imitation as the way to proof.

Doesn't that seem a tad irresponsible, given the stakes involved?

Scientific proof has a logical problem in that it wouldn't prove anything.

'Proof' can mean two things - 'proof beyond all doubt' and 'proof beyond all reasonable doubt'. The former is impossible outside of mathematics, but the latter is what science deals in.

But I am curious as to how you would do things differently.

If God was to live a human life to show us what he was like without all the endless power and intelligence what would you expect Him to do or be like?

That depends on just what it is God was like. If he was at all benevolent, I'd expect him to simply not bother living a human life, and instead to alleviate suffering with a snap of his proverbial fingers.

Describe your "ideal" human.

Someone who devoted their life to alleviating suffering, to increasing the sphere of human knowledge, etc. Thus, my ideal human is Norman Borlaug - the man who saved a billion lives. He is orders of magnitude more good than Jesus ever was.

If you were God, and you were the most ideal person you could imagine, would you give everyone proof of your existence?

Depends. According to Christianity, God has decided to create the afterlife system in such a way that one's eternal suffering or paradise is contingent solely on what one's religious beliefs are at the moment of death - specifically, whether or not one is a 'true' Christian. If that were the case, then I'd make it my highest priority to reveal my existence to as many people as possible, as thoroughly and as unambiguously as possible. As I'm omniscient and omnipotent, that shouldn't be a problem; indeed, to do anything less is an abhorrent moral evil.

How would you to this?

I'd take advantage of the gullibility of humans in ancient history and reveal myself completely and unambiguously to each and every human, consistently revealing myself whenever someone wanted my to.

I'd also stop suffering before it began - if you're concerned about free will,it's trivial to make it so that one could make the choice to rape or murder, but that the act could never actually occur.

Would you force anyone?

If it were within my power, yes. Since the alternative is an eternity of suffering, I'd be remiss if I did not. It's like asking if I would push someone off a train track without asking their permission first - not only would I do it, I'd be abominably wicked if I did not.

Would you expect anything from them?
Would you have any rules?
Would you reject anyone?
Would you reject Satan(humor me on this one)?

No to all four. Regarding the Devil, as I'm God, I am completely immune to any sort of threat, including Satan and his army of angels. His hubris might amuse me, but otherwise his efforts would be futile (confusingly, he'd know this). I'd ensure he couldn't harm anyone else, but otherwise not even he is worthy of eternal suffering.

 

[Gadarene]

There is however only one way to get evidence.
You have to do something you are told and the promised result happens.
One time is not enough because it could be random chance.
God has chosen searching and imitation as the way to proof.

A nice sentiment, but it simply doesn't happen this way. Plenty of people have tried this, and not succeeded.

If God was to live a human life to show us what he was like without all the endless power and intelligence what would you expect Him to do or be like?

Well actually showing the endless power and intelligence would be a good start.

If there's no way he actually can show us it, then it's a bit unreasonable for him to judge us if there is no reliable way for us to know he exists. As I said - many of tried your searching and imitation method before, and it doesn't work.

Describe your "ideal" human.
If you were God, and you were the most ideal person you could imagine, would you give everyone proof of your existence?

Yes, if I actually loved them and was serious about saving them.

Of course, if that were true I also wouldn't have put them in some dilemma of an existence under threat of eternal hellfire if they make the wrong choice.

How would you to this?

Reveal myself at least as prominently as Christ did in a lot more locations in time and space than some obscure Roman province for thirty years 2000 years ago.

Not rely on a cobbled together collection of vague texts - all grounded in varying cultural contexts and generally not eyewitness accounts in any way - to convince people of the truth of my beliefs.

Reward people with eternal life based on whether or not their actions are good, and not make acceptance of one particular extraordinary event actually occurring the lynchpin of whether or not you receive the reward at all.

Not create people I already knew in advance would fail me. In fact, we could skip the whole Earth-as-a-test con in the first place.

Would you force anyone?

No. The only two things I've listed where that could even remotely apply are the first and the last, but if Christians are to be consistent then they will agree that no forcing is involved. Christ's ministry is not considered forcing, so nor should more of the same be. And according to Christians, God's foreknowledge of our sins is not in anyway deterministic and does not violate free will (somehow, but assuming they're right...). So again, entirely consistent with what is already claimed.

Would you expect anything from them?

What should an allegedly perfect being really need from lesser beings?

Would you have any rules?

Ones that made sense based on the natural laws of reality and natural inclinations of the people I created (all of which are under my jurisdiction in the first place), not arbitrary commands like vilifying people of a particular sexual orientation.

Would you reject anyone?

I wouldn't create anyone that I would have known would reject me in advance of creating them.

Then again, I wouldn't treat rejection of me as the vastly heinous sin as the rather touchy Yahweh seems to.

Would you reject Satan(humor me on this one)?

I wouldn't create Satan - being omniscient and all.

 

[mzungu]

You can believe in electric power but what good is that if you do not plug into it? If you do not plug into God to have the divine power of God working in you then you have gained nothing. Human faith has it's value but that is nothing compared to the faith of God. The faith that God puts in us.

My plug is for 220 volts AC 50 Hertz your plug is for 110 volts AC 60 Hertz. If I plug into your socket then your fuse will blow! As you can see our two systems are incompatible. Sorry i don't like using transformers either since they do not change the Hertz.