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No, it didn't lift any snow it lifted water vapor. And even in that process energy was lost, ie entropy increased. Actually the Second law of thermodynamics is evidence for an superior ordering intelligent creator, because at the beginning of the universe is when there was maximum order.OK, here is evidence of the power that differences in temperature on the planet can have to do real work. It lifted all this snow from ocean level high up into the mountains. No intelligent intervention was needed.
No, the hebrew translated as begat, can also be translated as "ancestor of", or "Z became the father of a family line that included A." So you cannot add them up because they are incomplete and only include people of note at the time. Ancient genealogies are not exhaustive like modern ones.Uh, that is a stretch. Here, for instance, is Genesis 11:10-14:
10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood:
11And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters.
12And Arphaxad lived five and thirty years, and begat Salah:
13And Arphaxad lived after he begat Salah four hundred and three years, and begat sons and daughters.
14And Salah lived thirty years, and begat Eber:
It is obvious that these verse are saying Arphaxad was born 2 years after the flood. Salah was born when Arphaxad was 35, and Eber was born 30 years after Salah. That makes Eber's birth about 67 years after the flood. And the list goes on, all the way up to Abraham. And we are told it is 430 years from Abraham to the Exodus. So we end up with the Exodus within 1000 years of the flood.
So no, the flood of Genesis did not occur in 2 million BC, unless you are willing to accept that the Exodus occurred in 2 million BC.
dm: We have worldwide evidence of a cloud of dust kicked up by a meteor 65 million years ago. The evidence did not erode away. Had a flood covered the whole earth, there would be evidence.
No, my argument is about what happened prior to humans, humans would likely have never come into existence if evolution was guided by natural selection.Odd that. Early on hominids learned to talk to each other and share information. One would think that understanding the concept of truth when communicating would have a huge survival benefit. Are you saying that those who had no understanding of the difference between true statements and lies had equal survival chances to those who knew the difference?
Atheists believe there is an objective reality but dont have a rational basis for believing in it. And the only reason modern atheists believe in an objective reality is because they were raised or influenced by Christian culture which teaches that there is an objective reality and which had invented modern science long before widespread modern atheism came into existence.ed: Because only Christianity taught that there is an objective reality that operates according to intelligible rational laws by an intelligent creator thereby allowing the systematic study of His creation.
dm: Atheists also teach that there is objective reality.
No, most polytheistic and animist religions believe in gods that are shape shifters and play with nature, and turning into animals, rocks, and plants. There is no basic unchanging natural laws by which they can do experiments and make consistent observations. For example, If a wolf is really a god that has changed into a wolf we cannot study wolf behavior.dm: Tribal groups also teach objective reality.
See above.dm: You are going to get nowhere pounding your chest and saying that only your group believes things are real. We will all just look at you kinda funny. What the hay? We all know that things are real.
How is claiming that the flood is historical backpeddling? It also has teachings about the universe that no one could have known about at its writing but were later discovered by scientists 3000 years later. Such as the fact that the universe had a definite beginning, this has been confirmed by the big bang theory. In addition, it has confirmed that the universe came into existence from nothing detectable by humans. Which is what the Bible teaches.ed: In addition, His word teaches that we can learn more about Him by studying His creation.
dm: And yet you have given us no evidence that anything is his word. You have said the Bible has to be his word because it has some historical statements, but then you constantly need to backpeddle to claim that things like the flood are historical. And you have tried to say the Bible has to be his word because people that had the Bible did great things, but I don't see how that proves the Bible is his word.
No, all you have to recognize is that it is threat, you dont have to know that it is hungry or even that it is a tiger. Which is the truth. Even being aware what is real is not the same thing as knowing whether something is true or not. The prey just has to know that the threat is real not what exactly the threat is and what statements are true about it.Of course whether something is true or not is irrelevant to natural selection. How could it be otherwise, and who said it was? Natural selection is a blind, non-conscious phenomenon.
And of course being able to recognise the truth is a characteristic that increases survivability. If you are being chased by a hungry tiger it increases your chances of survivability to be able to recognise that. Quite simply, being aware of what is real and what is not is a useful survival trait.
See my post to doubtingmerle above. I not claiming that great discoveries were not done by non Christians, but rather modern science would not have come into existence without Christians and the Christian worldview bringing it forth.As @doubtingmerle said, this is nonsense. It's obvious to anyone who looks at the world that we can learn about it. Humans have been doing that as long as humanity existed. Great discoveries took place before, outside and within Christianity. Just because James Watt or Sir Francis Bacon or Charles Darwin lived in a country where most people were Christians, doesn't mean Christianity gets to take the credit for their creative thinking. This is just retroactive Christian editing.
Uh no, energy lost does not mean entropy increased. When it comes to heat transfer, you have it backwards. In classical thermodynamics, the change in entropy is defined as the flow of heat into a system divided by the absolute temperature. When heat flows in, the object increases in entropy. When heat flows out, entropy decreases.No, it didn't lift any snow it lifted water vapor. And even in that process energy was lost, ie entropy increased.
Ah yes, no matter the topic of the thread, we always end up talking about Hitler and the beginning of the universe. Sigh.Actually the Second law of thermodynamics is evidence for an superior ordering intelligent creator, because at the beginning of the universe is when there was maximum order.
No, the hebrew translated as begat, can also be translated as "ancestor of", or "Z became the father of a family line that included A." So you cannot add them up because they are incomplete and only include people of note at the time. Ancient genealogies are not exhaustive like modern ones.
That is not true. The fossil record is full of records of past floods that were much smaller in nature than the flood of Noah. We know what flood debris looks like, and we find it buried down there. But we find nothing that looks like a worldwide flood.The meteor provided a mineralogical marker and layer that is easily identifiable, a flood of water that only lasted a year would not leave such an obvious marker but as I said there is some evidence.
Absolutely, over many millions of years. But there is no layer at 2 million years of a global flood, which is what you predict.There are huge hydraulically produced fossil graveyards like at Gibraltar and other areas around the world.
Wait, you believe there was water that covered the earth 2 million years ago? Where did that water come from? Where did it go?In addition around 2mya is when the last major ice age began and many scientists believe that one cause of ice ages are perturbations of the earths axis, which was probably caused by the weight of the water.
I too was talking about animals before humans. They had developed the ability to communicate with others. Those who knew what the truth was; who tried to communicate the truth; and who tried to understand if they were told the truth, were better at surviving compared to those who didn't understand the concept of truth.No, my argument is about what happened prior to humans, humans would likely have never come into existence if evolution was guided by natural selection.
Again, the Greeks and classical Romans had a thriving science long before Jesus. So no, it is not because of Christians that we have science.Atheists believe there is an objective reality but dont have a rational basis for believing in it. And the only reason modern atheists believe in an objective reality is because they were raised or influenced by Christian culture which teaches that there is an objective reality and which had invented modern science long before widespread modern atheism came into existence.
Actually, there is good evidence that many primitive cultures are atheistic.No, most polytheistic and animist religions believe in gods that are shape shifters and play with nature, and turning into animals, rocks, and plants. There is no basic unchanging natural laws by which they can do experiments and make consistent observations.
Endowed on us by our Creator?No, you cant earn rights. They are endowed on us by our creator. No, marriage is biological, it is an organic unity between two persons, homosexuals cannot unite organically as I demonstrated earlier so they cannot marry.
Relying on "It must be right because we've always done it that way" is just another losing argument.I am not, I demonstrated earlier in this thread that only the consummation of heterosexual marriage can biologically and organically unite two persons. This has always been the behavioral definition of marriage.
A novel approach. Losing the argument, so you pretend you were never having it.That is not what we were discussing. We were discussing how do we recognize that God is good, not where our moral conscience comes from, those are two very different questions. We can move on to that question too if you want, but that is not what you asked.
Good. So, you lose.I can provide many examples of me experiencing Him helping me, but of course I cannot prove it with certainty just like you cannot prove that your wife loves you.
True. so, please stop claiming them if you have no way of backing them up.Such aspects of personal relationships cannot be proven with certainty.
Good. @doubtingmerle and I win, then. You say God is the essence of goodness, but you can't prove it. It's just an unsubstantiated, and therefore meaningless, claim.See above about personal relationships. I never claimed I could prove that God is good with absolute certainty.
Irrelevant. The point is, you're claiming a double standard. You say that gay people should not be allowed to marry because its bad for society, but have no trouble with other people whose marriage would also be bad for society getting married.Yes but generally they are weeded out by human behavior and attraction. Most people are not attracted to mentally unstable people.
Already answered, in considerable detail. It is not my job to help you remember these things.If marriage is just based on letting people be happy, why do you limit it to two people? Why do you limit it to humans?
Well, they would be, wouldn't they? These are places where atheists and Christians come to debate beliefs.I have been debating atheists on websites like these for over 20 years and have noticed that atheists that post on these sites are much more skeptical than atheists I have talked to in the real world.
Hmm. So a penis going into a vagina is the most important part of a marriage?It is the most important part because it is the only human behavior that can organically unite two persons.
This is just an empty claim and, as such, can be ignored.The organic uniting of two persons reinforces personhood. Gay sex cannot organically unite persons as I have demonstrated earlier.
Double standard. Explained already.By reinforcing persons society spreads mental and emotional stability. Mental and emotional stability produces successful and strong societies.
There's a rule on Christian Forums that you are not allowed to speak of homosexuality in approving terms.Which rule?
A much-debunked apologetic argument, answered already ad nauseum.Science has pretty much proven that the universe is an effect and therefore needs a cause. That cause according to the rules of logic has to have the characteristics of the Christian God in order to produce a universe like ours.
Good dodge! You claim it's true, but decide you don't need to prove it.I never said I could, that is a straw man.
Honestly, I doubt it. I do think that you are aware that showing your argument is based on the Bible is a losing move, so you've been working very hard to avoid it. But since all of your arguments have been shown to be empty, I just have to assume that your entire stance is based on religious faith.No, this response was to your claim that the Bible did not teach what I was arguing. I was just stating that contrary to your claim about the Bible it does. My argument regarding homosexuality is based on biology as I demonstrated above.
In order to define a dog, you must define it in terms of relating it to other things. But in your definition of God as goodness itself, you have nothing else to relate it to. Goodness is therefore completely arbitrary. God could say that anything was good, and it would be, because He said it was so.No, it is no more circular than defining what a dog is and making that definition the standard for what a dog is.
The definition of circular reasoning.Yes, God is who He is, in fact He himself said, I am Who I am.
How did we get it? Either we developed it on our own, in which case there is no need for a God, or God gave it to us, in which case it cannot be used to prove Him.We have a moral conscience to determine if He is good.
A good general rule, but you can't apply it to Creationists. They've simply been proved wrong too many times, retreating from one iteration to another, desperately chasing a version of their religion that can survive in the courts.No, As soon as you commit the genetic fallacy you lose.
Hilarious! I like how you tacked on "which was probably caused by the weight of the water" as if that can be a part of the sentence along with "many scientists believe."There are huge hydraulically produced fossil graveyards like at Gibraltar and other areas around the world. In addition around 2mya is when the last major ice age began and many scientists believe that one cause of ice ages are perturbations of the earths axis, which was probably caused by the weight of the water.
I think you just conceded my point.No, all you have to recognize is that it is threat, you don't have to know that it is hungry or even that it is a tiger. Which is the truth. Even being aware what is real is not the same thing as knowing whether something is true or not. The prey just has to know that the threat is real not what exactly the threat is and what statements are true about it.
Ah, you're claiming that, are you?See my post to doubtingmerle above. I not claiming that great discoveries were not done by non Christians, but rather modern science would not have come into existence without Christians and the Christian worldview bringing it forth.
No, it was a parable to teach a lesson. Just because a parable contains elements that are objectionable, does not mean that the person telling the parable endorses the objectionable parts of the parable. That would be similar to the idea that since Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he endorses murdering uncles you hate.Moving the topic back to one of many discussed here, this verse is an endorsement of brutal slavery.
Superficially it may look like three gods, but I have demonstrated how it is not with a deeper look. There are two other persons but only one divinity. Yahweh is the only God, ie divine being, but He is made up of three persons.Like we keep telling you, it sure looks like you have three Gods that work together in perfect unity.
The Old Testament Father said he was the only God. And yet your words indicate he had two other "persons" with him that were equally God.
IA and DM: One God made of three persons? That doesn't make sense!Superficially it may look like three gods, but I have demonstrated how it is not with a deeper look. There are two other persons but only one divinity. Yahweh is the only God, ie divine being, but He is made up of three persons.
Superficially it may look like three gods, but I have demonstrated how it is not with a deeper look. There are two other persons but only one divinity. Yahweh is the only God, ie divine being, but He is made up of three persons.
The point is that Luke 12:47-48 takes it for granted that "servants" who don't do what their master wanted will be beat with many stripes. That sounds more like slavery than employment. And yet the New Testament acts as though this kind of slavery is normal.No, it was a parable to teach a lesson. Just because a parable contains elements that are objectionable, does not mean that the person telling the parable endorses the objectionable parts of the parable. That would be similar to the idea that since Shakespeare wrote Hamlet he endorses murdering uncles you hate.
ed: You seem to have a mental block in understanding the difference between humanity and persons. And the difference between divinity and persons. Humanity and divinity are essences or substances. You and your wife are two persons but are composed of the same single essence or substance. God is three persons but is also composed of the same single essence or substance, divinity. Now do you understand?
ia: Of course I understand. You believe in three different Gods. Not very Christian of you, but its your choice, of course. You've told us this many times.
Exactly.ia: And no, my wife and I are not composed of the same essence or substance, unless you mean we are both human beings, which I suppose we are.
No, only someone who thinks the composition of humanity is contradictory would think so. And I and most people dont.ia: You've been trying to reconcile God being one and three at the same time now for quite some time. Are you now beginning to see how contradictory these two ideas are?
Well God is the one that gave it to us.ed: While not explicit, it is implied in 2 Samuel 12:23 and Matthew 19:14. In addition, we know from history that the jews believed that children prior to puberty were not considered adults and therefore were not morally accountable. And as I stated above recent research on childrens ability to understand moral decision making goes back even further to around 7-10.
ia: Since you're dealing with religion, common sense doesn't mean much, I'm afraid.
Actually I agree that children are born with a sinful nature and do sin, but not consciously because they do not have a fully developed will or moral conscience so they are unlikely to be sent to hell. And I believe the biblical evidence and Gods other book, Nature, back this view up.ia: There are plenty of your fellow Christians who will tell you that a human being is sinful from the moment they are born, if not before. I understand that's an unpleasant idea, and that it's helpful to say that innocent children will not be sent to hell, but wishing doesn't make it so.
Well so far you have not proven that I am making things up.ed: You are the one claiming I am making things up. Therefore, the burden of proof is on the one making the claim.↑
ia: No, it isn't. You are the one making the claim, therefore the burden of proof is on you to back it up. All I am doing is pointing this out.
I disagree, that is one of the main points I have been making in this whole thread.ed: You are right that majority was secular humanist at the time, that is why they had no rational objective basis for condemning the Nazis or Hitler had he survived. I notice you didnt answer my question. is it because you cant provide a rational answer?
ia: No, but the answer - the basis of an atheist's morality - would be off topic. If you'd like to start a thread about it I'd be happy to accommodate you.
No, it cant, there is no biblical evidence for either of those things.ed: I did. Here is more:
1. Matthew 23:14 “”How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You devour widows’ houses and say long prayers to cover it up. Therefore, you will receive greater condemnation!
2. Luke 12:47-48 That servant who knew what his master wanted but didn’t prepare himself or do what was wanted will receive a severe beating. But the servant who did things that deserved a beating without knowing it will receive a light beating. Much will be required from everyone to whom much has been given. But even more will be demanded from the one to whom much has been entrusted.”
3. Matthew 10:14-15 If anyone doesn’t welcome you or listen to what you say, leave that house or city, and shake its dust off your feet. I can guarantee this truth: Judgment day will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for that city.
4. Luke 10:14-15 But it will be more bearable in the judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades.
5. James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more severely than others.
6. 2 Peter 2:20-22 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them. What the true proverb says has happened to them: “The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire.”
7. John 19:11 Jesus answered, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.”
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ia: Well, after reading these it seems clearer than ever. Look, you can believe what you want, of course. and if your religion wants to say that there are forty-seven levels of hell, and describe each of them in detail, it can.
Well to me and many scholars they are quite obvious, but of course, you are entitled to your opinion. Your hyperskepticism clouds your reading of the Bible.ia; I'm just pointing out that you're building up your ideas based on nothing much, and this just confirms it. What do you know from these? Several of them read like they're just speaking in metaphors, others might - for all we know - be referring to punishment in this world; and they're all so vague as to mean almost anything.
Actually I agree that children are born with a sinful nature and do sin, but not consciously because they do not have a fully developed will or moral conscience so they are unlikely to be sent to hell. And I believe the biblical evidence and Gods other book, Nature, back this view up.
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