The Evolution of Morality

[bhsmte]

So for you it was a scholarly and historical investigation into the NT which made you think you were wrong. ON the other hand we see someone like Lee Strobel who as an atheist researched the Bible to show his wife how ridiculous it was to believe in God and came to believe rather than to show her she was wrong.

What other realities?

Yes Lee Strobel, I have met the man, he used to preach at the church I attended for a while. Lee makes a lot of assumptions and leaps with no evidence and his book is loaded with interviews with those who only thought one way. Not very balanced for an attorney, who was an investigative reporter. I think there was other motivations with Lee's work, besides what you stated.


You totally misunderstand the concept of knowing. It isn't a matter of convincing oneself of something. It is a matter of God revealing Himself to me in ways that my mind could not have manufactured. I didn't believe before but then I believed, I didn't know before but then I knew. It was a process that was not necessary for me to do, however, it was a process that brought me to the place that went from there might be a God to knowing that God existed and who God was. God exists bhsmte. You may not want to believe that, you may disbelieve that I know He exists, but that doesn't change the truth and that I know God.

How did God reveal himself to you in a way that your mind could not have manufactured?

Let me finish with this; I take no issue with a believer that states they believe God exists and they have strong faith that they are right. What I do take issue with, are those who claim their believe makes them better than a non-believer (who is missing the boat), or they are being led astray and just haven't reached out to God. That, I have a significant issue with, because it is impossible to know that. I also take issue, when a believer states they have objective evidence that anyone can see that God exists and this personal interpretation of evidence applies to all, because that evidence does not exist.

I have always been quite leery of anyone who claims that it is impossible for them to be wrong about something and especially something like God who is invisible. That tells me, they have preloaded their psyche and would never accept objective evidence, even if it hit them in the face.

As I have stated, I may be wrong in thinking a God doesn't exist, because I am always open to observing evidence and observations. I may be wrong in supporting the theory of evolution, despite the boatload of evidence to support the same. There is always the chance, something comes along that has more evidence and logic behind it. I don't see a lot of logic behind the christian God and the story doesn't hold water to me when compared with the real world and a critical examination of the bible. I give the christian God the smallest chance of being real, while giving a universal non-personal God a slightly better chance of being real.

 

[HitchSlap]

It is a simple question. The fact that I don't know where God comes from is no different than you not knowing where life came from. However, in the Christian worldview, God is eternal and always existed. We have a credible answer for His existence. If God created the universe as He claims, and the universe exists, if the universe has characteristics that God claims it to have, if we are intelligent beings that understand the universe as God claims we can due to being created in His image we can assume that He knows what He is talking about. I mean I don't think you or I could actually create a universe filled with all that the universe contains with rules and uniform behavior with our own intelligence. However, if all this is apparent in the universe and if God did exist like I claim, we could indeed trust Him to be telling the truth about His existence being eternal.

Exactly my point ... we don't know. So why muddy the water with an additional belief you don't know about? It violates the law of parsimony.

Also, you keep asserting god says this, and god claims that. Let's be honest here, all you have is what humans wrote down and said "god said it." That's a big difference. We know humans wrote it down, because the Bible's chock full of errors, contradictions, lies and mistakes, and you have no originals, only copies of copies of copies. So please don't insult my intelligence and claim the Bible is written in god's own handwriting, when clearly, it's not.

 

[HitchSlap]

So for you it was a scholarly and historical investigation into the NT which made you think you were wrong. ON the other hand we see someone like Lee Strobel who as an atheist researched the Bible to show his wife how ridiculous it was to believe in God and came to believe rather than to show her she was wrong.

What other realities?



You totally misunderstand the concept of knowing. It isn't a matter of convincing oneself of something. It is a matter of God revealing Himself to me in ways that my mind could not have manufactured. I didn't believe before but then I believed, I didn't know before but then I knew. It was a process that was not necessary for me to do, however, it was a process that brought me to the place that went from there might be a God to knowing that God existed and who God was. God exists bhsmte. You may not want to believe that, you may disbelieve that I know He exists, but that doesn't change the truth and that I know God.

Then Strobel is a simpleton when it comes to critically evaluating historical documents and history. I'll never understand the mental capacity of someone who claims they "investigated" the claims of Jesus, only to discover the paucity of available evidence to suggest a man named Jesus ever lived, let alone was a god-man who performed miracles and rose from the dead. Then comes to the conclusion that god/jesus/holy spirits are real and they want to know me personally.

 

[bhsmte]

Then Strobel is a simpleton when it comes to critically evaluating historical documents and history. I'll never understand the mental capacity of someone who claims they "investigated" the claims of Jesus, only to discover the paucity of available evidence to suggest a man named Jesus ever lived, let alone was a god-man who performed miracles and rose from the dead. Then comes to the conclusion that god/jesus/holy spirits are real and they want to know me personally.

Strobel's work wasn't exactly scholarly, or even remotely balanced. He clearly went into it with an agenda, judging by the people he decided to interview and those he decided not to interview or get comments from.

Review of Lee Strobel THE CASE FOR CHRIST

 

[HitchSlap]

Strobel's work wasn't exactly scholarly, or even remotely balanced. He clearly went into it with an agenda, judging by the people he decided to interview and those he decided not to interview or get comments from.

Review of Lee Strobel THE CASE FOR CHRIST

Yeah, I've read three of his books (Christianity/Christmas/Easter?) and it's apparent he had an agenda and was anything but objective. I don't buy his "I used to be an atheist" schtick.

 

[EternalDragon]

The more incredulous one is where intelligences are magically poofed into being by deities.

Nothing is magically poofed into existence no more than an
automobile or skyscraper is magically poofed into existence.

An intelligence designed elements and built life from those
natural elements. That is why it all looks similar and follows
a similar pattern.

 

[HitchSlap]

Nothing is magically poofed into existence no more than an
automobile or skyscraper is magically poofed into existence.

An intelligence designed elements and built life from those
natural elements. That is why it all looks similar and follows
a similar pattern.

Then who designed "god?"

 

[EternalDragon]

Then Strobel is a simpleton when it comes to critically evaluating historical documents and history. I'll never understand the mental capacity of someone who claims they "investigated" the claims of Jesus, only to discover the paucity of available evidence to suggest a man named Jesus ever lived, let alone was a god-man who performed miracles and rose from the dead. Then comes to the conclusion that god/jesus/holy spirits are real and they want to know me personally.

So you have personally eliminated the New Testament as reliable or talking about anything that really happened. It was all an elaborately devised story. What about the Old Testament?

 

[EternalDragon]

Then who designed "god?"

I don't expect you to wrap your head around this but the
answer is that God is eternal and spiritual. Not subject to
time. Like a ring, he has no beginning or end.

 

[HitchSlap]

I don't expect you to wrap your head around this but the
answer is that God is eternal and spiritual. Not subject to
time. Like a ring, he has no beginning or end.

Then we have an example of an intelligence that didn't require another intelligent being for it's existence. We also have an example of something always existing.

 

[HitchSlap]

So you have personally eliminated the New Testament as reliable or talking about anything that really happened. It was all an elaborately devised story. What about the Old Testament?

As reliable history, yes, the NT doesn't cut muster. Have you ever made a side by side comparison of the Gospels? They're all over the place. The Gospels were written in third person narratives by anonymous persons who never met Jesus and spoke a language Jesus never spoke.

As for the OT, it's historical accuracy is even worse. Not one archaeological fact to suggest the Exodus story ever happened.

 

[EternalDragon]

As reliable history, yes, the NT doesn't cut muster. Have you ever made a side by side comparison of the Gospels? They're all over the place. The Gospels were written in third person narratives by anonymous persons who never met Jesus and spoke a language Jesus never spoke.

As for the OT, it's historical accuracy is even worse. Not one archaeological fact to suggest the Exodus story ever happened.

I've studied the gospels a lot. I don't see any problems. Jesus, if he was who he said he was, could have spoken all the languages of the entire world. But he did speak Greek and he spoke to the Romans as well. So Jesus did speak the language the NT was written in.

What kind of archaeological fact would you want to see for the Exodus to be true for you?

 

[HitchSlap]

I've studied the gospels a lot. I don't see any problems. Jesus, if he was who he said he was, could have spoken all the languages of the entire world. But he did speak Greek and he spoke to the Romans as well. So Jesus did speak the language the NT was written in.

What kind of archaeological fact would you want to see for the Exodus to be true for you?

Here:

Numbers and logistics[edit]
The consensus among biblical scholars today is that there was never any exodus of the proportions described in the Bible.[15] According to Exodus 12:37–38, the Israelites numbered "about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children," plus many non-Israelites and livestock.[16] Numbers 1:46 gives a more precise total of 603,550 men aged 20 and up.[17] The 600,000, plus wives, children, the elderly, and the "mixed multitude" of non-Israelites would have numbered some 2 million people,[18] compared with an entire Egyptian population in 1250 BCE of around 3 to 3.5 million.[19] Marching ten abreast, and without accounting for livestock, they would have formed a line 150 miles long.[20] No evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe or that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds.[21]

Some scholars have rationalised these numbers into smaller figures, for example reading the Hebrew as "600 families" rather than 600,000 men, but all such solutions raise more problems than they solve.[22] The view of mainstream modern biblical scholarship is that the improbability of the Exodus story originates because it was written not as history, but to demonstrate God's purpose and deeds with his Chosen People, Israel.[4] Some have suggested that the 603,550 people delivered from Egypt (according to Numbers 1:46) is not a number, but a gematria (a code in which numbers represent letters or words) for bnei yisra'el kol rosh, "the children of Israel, every individual;"[23] while the number 600,000 symbolises the total destruction of the generation of Israel which left Egypt, none of whom lived to see the Promised Land.[24]

Archaeology[edit]
A century of research by archaeologists and Egyptologists has found no evidence which can be directly related to the Exodus captivity and the escape and travels through the wilderness,[4] and most archaeologists have abandoned the archaeological investigation of Moses and the Exodus as "a fruitless pursuit".[5] A number of theories have been put forward to account for the origins of the Israelites, and despite differing details they agree on Israel's Canaanite origins.[25] The culture of the earliest Israelite settlements is Canaanite, their cult-objects are those of the Canaanite god El, the pottery remains in the local Canaanite tradition, and the alphabet used is early Canaanite, and almost the sole marker distinguishing the "Israelite" villages from Canaanite sites is an absence of pig bones, although whether even this is an ethnic marker or is due to other factors remains a matter of dispute.[26]

 

[EternalDragon]

Yes, I can google too.

Biblical plagues really happened say scientists - Telegraph

The Weekly Constitutional - Scientist prove the Ten Plagues of Egypt really did happen...

 

[Loudmouth]

Nothing is magically poofed into existence no more than an
automobile or skyscraper is magically poofed into existence.

Genesis describes God speaking things into existence. That sounds like "Abracadabra" to me.

An intelligence designed elements and built life from those
natural elements.

Please show me where it says this in Genesis.

That is why it all looks similar and follows
a similar pattern.

Cars are made from the same natural elements, yet they don't fall into a nested hierarchy. Computers are made from the same natural elements, and yet they don't fall into a nested hierarchy. Being made from the same natural elements in no way dictates that they fall into a nested hierarchial pattern.

 

[Loudmouth]

Yes, I can google too.

Biblical plagues really happened say scientists - Telegraph

The Weekly Constitutional - Scientist prove the Ten Plagues of Egypt really did happen...

Did you read the articles? All they have is a bunch of "could haves". Nothing else. Nowhere did they find archaeological evidence that there was a plague of frogs, as one example.

 

[Oncedeceived]

The more incredulous one is where intelligences are magically poofed into being by deities.

Where did anyone claim that intelligence was magically poofed into being?

 

[Loudmouth]

Where did anyone claim that intelligence was magically poofed into being?

Those who claim that claim intelligence was created by a deity.

 

[EternalDragon]

Genesis describes God speaking things into existence. That sounds like "Abracadabra" to me.



Please show me where it says this in Genesis.

God used water and earth to make living creatures. Adam is specifically said to have been made from the earth. Eve was made from a part of Adam.

Do I have to copy and paste the scriptures or do you have a bible handy? It will take one second to turn to Genesis and start reading.

 

[Loudmouth]

God used water and earth to make living creatures.

How?

Do I have to copy and paste the scriptures or do you have a bible handy? It will take one second to turn to Genesis and start reading.

That would certainly be a move in the right direction.