Several questions concerning the fall and evil

[neo-x]

I would say Buddhism is far more unique than Christianity as there is no sacred or holy entity to be worshiped in Buddhism.

Just for your information, there are models of Buddhism which do worship a deity. Only the more westernized ones do not have a deity concept.

[neo-x]

MAGSolo » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:28 am

Well it probably should be how you actually conduct your life that matters and not arbitrarily believing in an invisible being that never speaks, never shows himself, and gives 50/50 responses to prayers that you could just as easily get by praying to a frog or a cat. Which religion makes more sense, the one where what you do in life matters or the one where all that matters is believing in an invisible guy in the sky?

I expected more civility from you, seems like you would like your views to be respected but you can not grant others the same courtesy. It often amuses me how most atheists never seem to care what they say about others beliefs, I have heard so far a lot of names for our God we revere with most sincerity, be called unicorns, fairies, magical monsters, I'm sure there are tons of other names out there as well. You seem to equate the deed of praying as futile as praying to a frog. My o My ,what respect do you have for others beliefs, huh?

I, not so long ago, once stated on this very forum that, to me atheism is utterly stupid, I found it flawed, and you know what happened, most atheists went all teary-eyed on this. I was called a lot of things, including evil and attributing evil to others as well, not open-minded and not respectful to others who disagree, various other things as well. Anyway, Did you even stop to think that you can disrespect someone belief by calling and equating them as such. I guess you didn't. Well do not be surprised if you get the same treatment from the other side, and think of it only natural, as you yourself are not very different. If you cannot be civil, expect the same in return and do not cry over it as your were doing a couple of pages behind about "how when someones disagrees with Christianity they are labeled as not-open minded" or something very similar to this.

I would tend to not make gross, stereotyped statements like you did, it generates more anger and seldom brings the result you hoped for.

[Danieltwotwenty]

I hear you Neo and that is why I am now walking away from this thread, there is no reasonable discussion here.


Dan

[Zionist]

@ mag
im very sorry that you feel the way that you do but in my post i did state there is a lot of evidence that points to the legitimacy of the Bible if you are willing to take the time to do the research. For you to make accusations against the Bible when you have not taken the time to do the research or truly read for yourself with your heart and mind open is pretty childish. Your lack of response to my post shows me that you are just picking and choosing posts to wage arguments with. i do hope that you'll open your eyes, ears and heart to the truth. until you can open your mind and heart for earnest truth the cross will be foolish to you. 1Corinthians 1:18 If you honestly want to seek truth it will shown to you Matthew 7:7-8 but til then sadly all we're doing is casting pearls before swine (i hope that is not the case). Matthew 7:6. The ball is in your court Mag and the choice of life or death is yours alone to make but like Moses said to the Israelites please choose life. Deuteronomy 30:19.

[MAGSolo]

I am sorry Leo, but I am going to have to call you out on this and ask you to defend these statements you have made.

There are more plausible indicators of a local flood than a global one. God did not wipe out all humanity, just a specific region and there are quite a number of reasons why that happened,

Please see my comments above on this, God did not wipe all humans, period

The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. 7 So the Lord said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.

The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than fifteen cubits.[a] 21 Every living thing that moved on land perished—birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark.

How can you seriously expect me to take you seriously when it seems you do not agree with the bible yourself? I wonder why you would say something like that when all one has to do is open the bible and read that it clearly says in explicit detail that God wiped out all life on Earth except for Noah, his family and those living things in the ark. I will respond to the rest of your post but this is a firm example of why the bible is not to be believed because it can say something crystal clear and christians will come and say thats not what happened and act as if its not a big deal that they just said that something the bible clearly says happened didnt actually happen at all.

[MAGSolo]

@ mag
im very sorry that you feel the way that you do but in my post i did state there is a lot of evidence that points to the legitimacy of the Bible if you are willing to take the time to do the research. For you to make accusations against the Bible when you have not taken the time to do the research or truly read for yourself with your heart and mind open is pretty childish. Your lack of response to my post shows me that you are just picking and choosing posts to wage arguments with. i do hope that you'll open your eyes, ears and heart to the truth. until you can open your mind and heart for earnest truth the cross will be foolish to you. 1Corinthians 1:18 If you honestly want to seek truth it will shown to you Matthew 7:7-8 but til then sadly all we're doing is casting pearls before swine (i hope that is not the case). Matthew 7:6. The ball is in your court Mag and the choice of life or death is yours alone to make but like Moses said to the Israelites please choose life. Deuteronomy 30:19.

I am 31 year old and have been a christian all my life until very recently. I have asked a very simple request, I dont think I have asked for anything outlandish or unreasonable. I have asked why I should believe the bible was inspired by God and here you are unable to answer. Look at my scenario again:

So say I am such a person who has never even heard of the bible and you tell me all the things you are saying now. I ask how you know these things and you say that it is written in this book here (the bible). My response is what is so special about that book that I should accept what is written in it as fact. You tell me it was inspired by God and I ask how do you know it was inspired by God? What is your answer?

So your answer to this is: there is a lot of evidence if you are willing to do the research. How can you use the bible to bear witness when you cannot give good cause for why the bible should be seen as special in the first place? You are claiming the book is special yet you seemingly cannot provide any evidence that it is special. You arent even able to point me in the direction of any research (im assuming since you didnt do so.)

[MAGSolo]

MAGSolo » Wed Jun 20, 2012 11:28 am

Well it probably should be how you actually conduct your life that matters and not arbitrarily believing in an invisible being that never speaks, never shows himself, and gives 50/50 responses to prayers that you could just as easily get by praying to a frog or a cat. Which religion makes more sense, the one where what you do in life matters or the one where all that matters is believing in an invisible guy in the sky?

I expected more civility from you, seems like you would like your views to be respected but you can not grant others the same courtesy. It often amuses me how most atheists never seem to care what they say about others beliefs, I have heard so far a lot of names for our God we revere with most sincerity, be called unicorns, fairies, magical monsters, I'm sure there are tons of other names out there as well. You seem to equate the deed of praying as futile as praying to a frog. My o My ,what respect do you have for others beliefs, huh?

I, not so long ago, once stated on this very forum that, to me atheism is utterly stupid, I found it flawed, and you know what happened, most atheists went all teary-eyed on this. I was called a lot of things, including evil and attributing evil to others as well, not open-minded and not respectful to others who disagree, various other things as well. Anyway, Did you even stop to think that you can disrespect someone belief by calling and equating them as such. I guess you didn't. Well do not be surprised if you get the same treatment from the other side, and think of it only natural, as you yourself are not very different. If you cannot be civil, expect the same in return and do not cry over it as your were doing a couple of pages behind about "how when someones disagrees with Christianity they are labeled as not-open minded" or something very similar to this.

I would tend to not make gross, stereotyped statements like you did, it generates more anger and seldom brings the result you hoped for.

You are probably right, I apologize.

[neo-x]

I am sorry Leo, but I am going to have to call you out on this and ask you to defend these statements you have made.
There are more plausible indicators of a local flood than a global one. God did not wipe out all humanity, just a specific region and there are quite a number of reasons why that happened,

Please see my comments above on this, God did not wipe all humans, period

Mag, see this link

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... flood.html

I will respond to the rest of your post but this is a firm example of why the bible is not to be believed because it can say something crystal clear and christians will come and say thats not what happened and act as if its not a big deal that they just said that something the bible clearly says happened didnt actually happen at all.

You can not ignore the various contexts in which the Bible was written, their use of language, metaphor and idioms etc and then say that the Bible is not clear, let me illustrate, If I say "The world mourned at the death of lady Diana,", does this mean that every single person on this planet mourned for Lady Diana? but the English saying is a way to say things, right?

or Tom cruise is known all around the world? does this mean that everyone on the planet know him?

Recently someone pointed out to me an error..."God said in genesis that all the fruits and vegetation which have seed, were for man to eat. He objected therefore that since we know that there are poisonous seeds and plants therefore God didn't know that...", he concluded that its an error.

So I explained that there are ways to express things, "Johnny can eat all the ice cream in the world", that's how a mother might describe her 5 years old's tendency to eat ice cream. Would you take this as literal as it is, that little 5 yr old johnny can actually eat all the ice cream in the world? No, you would not, why? because you know the context in which the expression was made, therefore it is perfectly normal for you. The same way, it is an expression that all seed bearing fruits and vegetation can be eaten by man, it doesn't actually mean every single one of them.

Biblical culture through out the ages had its own language, and it is therefore vital to understand what they meant when they used expressions, which when translated might be a bit problematic to understand, especially if you are not aware of the terms and their usage. Such things need study, that is why I asked you three times to explore further, study if you really wanna understand God and the Bible.

[PaulSacramento]

It seems that Mag is getting replies to his answers, He just doesn't want to accept them.
Which is fine and is his prerogative of course.
But based on that, what exactly is going on here?
None of these questions that Mags posts are new and if he had wanted to search for the typical answers to them he would had found them.
So why come to a forum to DISCUSS these things if you are NOT open to discussing them?
By that I mean you are NOT open to the possibilities of these answers to your questions?

[MAGSolo]

I simply dont find the arguments presented very compelling.

Mag, me dear, This is precisely what I have been trying to show you all along that your argument is flawed to begin with. You are taking liberties to ascertain God (even for the sake of the argument) to fit a certain criteria you deem best, else you do not think he exists.

This is what happens when God is unwilling to show himself, speak to us, provide some undeniable sign of his existence, or send prophets capable of doing things to prove he exists, and requires us to accept his existence based on faith? That is the risk that is run. Why should I believe in the supernatural having never seen any evidence to support it? If the people of the bible could get prophets and disciples performing miracles and God himself performing miracles why are we asked to just believe based on faith?

I dont believe God is responsible for good or evil. I think he just doesnt exist. Let me explain what I mean. If a bear or a lion or a shark happens to kill a human being, this is a bad thing, an example of human suffering, but God did not make the bear, lion, or shark kill the human, its just something those animals do. Likewise if a human happens to be close to a bear, lion, or shark and it doesnt attack the human it is not because of God either, its just that the lion, bear, or shark wasnt in a killing mood at that particular time. We would see it as good that the animal didnt kill the human, but its not goodness that comes from God and its not badness or evil that comes from God. Likewise when humans do good things or bad things, God has nothing to do with it. Humans have the capacity to do good or to not do good, just like bears, lions, and sharks have the capacity to kill humans or not kill humans. A human killing a human is no more from God than a bear killing a human and a human doing good towards another human is no more from God than a bear not killing a human.

It could be any number of factors. Environment one was raised in, mental health, overall health, education, any number of factors could come into to play in determining why some people are good and some are not.

So good or bad are simply results of factors and actions and are not grounded realities. You see, this is the exact reason why I do not find subjective morals very impressing. Because in the end they boil down to your own preferences. And at the end of the day what you think about animals and humans and how their actions are equal to be carried out in a comparison as to draw results, is just your opinion, nothing more.
Okay. I dont really get what your point is?

I personally respect all life on this Earth. I try not to even kill bugs in my house if I can seriously avoid it. To me it doesnt matter what Hitler or any other person who does bad things might think about the matter. Daily I read about people who take the lives of others over the most trivial of things. Human lives taken over 40 and 50 dollars. I often wonder how human life can have so little value to some people. So all I can say is that goodness matters to me and my opinion is what matters to me.

And that exactly is the problem. Everyone with subjectivity on their mind is bound to say "I do not care what others think of the matter". As I told you, Hitler or Stalin or anyone can say the same and believe what they think is right, doesn't really make an iota of difference, whether that be you, me or Hitler, our opinions
can only cater to our own make-beliefs.
Okay, and?

Who says that God is the objective standard of goodness. By my standard anyone who has the power to prevent suffering and evil and doesnt is not good.

Without God there is no objectivity, there can be goodness in the compassionate sense of the word but no objectivity. Else each to his own, your opinion or mine with objectivity are just our opinions, whose to say which one is the better, other than decided by preference or vote. Even your statement above is subjective to begin with because it is "your take" on the matter, hence subjective.
How does God bring objectivity? God says thou shall not kill, then repeatedly tells his people to wipe out their enemies, repeatedly says that certain people should be killed for various offenses such as being gay, not being a virgin on their wedding night and etc., then in the new testament preaches that you should love your enemies. That doesnt seem very objective at all.

There are examples in the bible where God called upon the Israelites to slay entire nations down to the children. There are other times when he said that women left alive to be used as they pleased. Maybe when you get your notions of what is good and bad from a book written by goat herders 3000 years ago, you dont see these things as a big deal. But what specifically makes God so good?

You are right, not the best examples, but these are examples of warfare. I do not think there is a single war which can actually portray a good picture. But is there anything as a just war, perhaps a war against Hitler was a just war. may be may be not, it gets opinionated. There are number of reasons why God commanded such a brutal act. I do not think you have done any studies in detail on the subject though, I would encourage you to do so, that is if youreally wanted to get an understanding. I mean what good is criticizing a position you do not fully understand works.

So you cant go to war without killing children? Sure in modern wars where bombs and rockets are used its not unreasonable to expect an occasional child to be killed, but outright commanding that noncombatant women and children be killed?

Then I heard the LORD say to the other men, "Follow him through the city and kill everyone whose forehead is not marked. Show no mercy; have no pity! Kill them all – old and young, girls and women and little children.

Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children.

This is what the Lord of hosts has to say: 'I will punish what Amalek did to Israel when he barred his way as he was coming up from Egypt. Go, now, attack Amalek, and deal with him and all that he has under the ban. Do not spare him, but kill men and women, children and infants, oxen and sheep, camels and asses.

You are my battle-ax and sword," says the LORD. "With you I will shatter nations and destroy many kingdoms. With you I will shatter armies, destroying the horse and rider, the chariot and charioteer. With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens.

Werent you just talking about how everyone deserves a chance at redemption or something like that? Furthermore God has commanded children be killed in other situations as well.

If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted.

In my honest and sincere opinion, you have a very superficial understanding of God, classical theism and apologetic. Perhaps you would like to study to know more. Do you presume that I have not considered the topic you have brought up? about how evil exists and so does God, as a matter of fact there is plethora of studies on the subject so feel free to explore.

So God was not just when he wiped out all but a literal handful of people during the flood?

There are more plausible indicators of a local flood than a global one. God did not wipe out all humanity, just a specific region and there are quite a number of reasons why that happened, that however is not for this thread. Plus, I thought I made it clear, you can't use the Bible if you want me to not use it as proof too.

Me personally, I would kill every person who sought to do harm to another human being on the spot.

That is precisely what human nature is, angered, frustrated at times vengeful, at times justified vengeful on a larger scale of things. You should be glad that I am not using your approach, because If I would, your argument would turn 180 dg on you. What if I told you that the nations God commanded to kill were involved in human sacrifices, child sacrifices, throwing and making their children walk on fire, participating in savage brutal warfare, and this was the reason God commanded Israel to wipe them all out, by your reasoning of "Me personally, I would kill every person who sought to do harm to another human being on the spot" I think the Isrealites are justified and they should be justified, as they did exactly the same as in your opinion, they did nothing more than what you hold you would have done.
I said I would kill everyone who sought to do harm to another human. Under no circumstances would I ever kill a child. I dont have a problem at all with Israel going to war with its enemies and killing enemy combatants and even people caught in the act of doing terrible things. I do not think indiscriminately killing every man woman and child, just because they belong to a nation you are at war with is justified. Again this paints the picture of the trouble with getting your moral compass from a 3000 year old book. You were just claiming claiming that fallen humanity deserves a chance and now here you are claiming that the Israelites were justified in wiping out their enemies because they did bad things. So do evil, fallen people who do bad things deserve a chance or is it justifiable to wipe them out? Which is it?

It seems very much like a game to me. God creates Adam and Eve, creates a tree with fruit on it and tells adam and eve not to eat from it knowing they will do it anyway and then punishes them severly when they do the thing he already knew they would do from the start

Only because you do not know God. You say you were Christian, do you mean you knew Christ? or was it just a religious life style, going to church, giving alms, etc etc.?
all I can say is I once believed, whether I knew Christ or not I can not rightfully say?

What is the fallen state? What does that mean and why does God want to rescue mankind from it?

You can easily Google it up.
I want to know what you think it means so that there will be no misunderstanding. We have already seen that there are explicit passages in the bible itself that you disagree with so whats to say that anyone elses idea of what the fallen state means is necessarily what you think it means? Im asking you because I want to know what it means to you since you used the term.

Some people dont deserve that benefit of the doubt. Some people are simply evil and dont deserve to live imo. At the point where you just start hurting and killing people intentionally, I dont personally believe you are worthy of redemption or forgiveness and you deserve to simply die

You are entitled to your opinion. Nothing more I want to say on that. I just wanted to show you the problems in your argument. I think I have done a satisfactory job to cover the basics of those problems if nothing else.
It seems you agree with my opinion though since you just said the Israelites were justified in wiping their enemies out because they did evil things. It seems you agree that some are not worthy of redemption.

Again you will have to explain what "fallen humanity is" and I do believe there are some things people should be forgiven for and given a second chance but I also think there is a line people cross where they no longer deserve a chance. For instance I dont think a person who robs or steals is beyond redemption, but when you get to the point where you start physically hurting people and taking lives, then to me you do not deserve a chance.

As I said, God is not the same as man and therefore would not act the same as man either. We may think he should, that doesn't in itself plentiful reason that he should. You see here your criteria is physical hurt, to condemn people to death. what about someone who lies continuously and hurts people emotionally, or someone who blackmails someone, does he deserve a chance, what about some one who is extreme, militantly extreme, has a higher inclination to violence but is till not hurting people, is that still cause enough to kill him? It is an endless debate of do's and dont's and but's and maybe's, resting upon nothing than your personal whim. No sane person will accept it. Try it out.

So during the flood do you think that Noah and his family were literally the only good people on the entire planet? On all of Earth there were only about 7 good people? Do you really believe that? At any rate I do agree that God shouldnt wipe everyone out but why cant he simply destroy the truly evil people.?

Because all evil is evil. there is greater and smaller evil in the eyes of man, but to God all mankind is somehow flawed and therefore evil, in the most broadest sense of word with the connotation of theism. If you lie and are prone to rage, you are flawed. It is not merely who did murder, but who is perfect and since no one is perfect, everyone is lacking one thing or the other. The guy who murders simply lack more than you - who thinks about killing evil people but do not act out on it. So to God all humanity is fallen one way or the other. No one is perfect, therefore humanity deserves a chance. It is simply illogical for us to be angry on something we have no right upon. If God grants mercy to you, why cant he do it to others. They are his creation too. We can not say "suppose there is a God" and then devoid him of characteristics which make him God. Its like I say "imagine I have a car" and then go on to claim that it can run without an engine.
Well my problem with this is that repeatedly in the bible God has shown that he has no problem with wiping out evil people whether it was those of Sodom and Gomorah, the enemies of the Israelites or whatever, repeatedly God has show that wiping out masses of people because of their evil is not an issue to him. So I dont see what the issue is now. Just as you can argue that any evil doer now deserves mercy, you could easily argue that any evil doer that God wiped out or had his people wipe out were deserving of mercy, least of all the children of those people. You cant have it both ways.

God has done it before so its clearly not unprecedented. According to the bible there was a time when humans were so terrible that God figured it was best to wipe them out and start over

Please see my comments above on this, God did not wipe all humans, period.

No I wouldnt agree with that at all. Fruit was made to be eaten. If we could not eat plants or animals then we could not sustain ourselves. Please dont waste my time with completely absurd arguments just for the sake of argument or to make some ridiculous point.

This is called moving goal posts. Where did you get that fruit was made to be eaten? Made by whom? decided to be eaten by whom? And don't drag in the Biblical verses to back it up. On the contrary, I would suggest you do not waste other's time at the expense of your whims. And back to the point it is absurd precisely because it is the logical conclusion to which your argument can be taken. It is absurd and flawed. Your argument until now is only one thing "I think this, I think that, I don't like this, I don't like that".
I should have said that fruit evolved to be eaten

To me all life is not precious. The lives of evil people are not precious. Are you going to argue that the lives of evil people are precious to God while children die of starvation? Evil people should be spared because their lives are precious to God but he does not care enough to stop them from taking the lives of other?

All life would definitely disagree with you if they had a voice. The bottom line is you are no one to decide whose life is precious and whose is not. All life is precious, its just that some have fallen too much, if the most beautiful vase in the world, cracked and broke down in pieces, does that mean there was no inherent value to it ever. No, you can argue that if broken it is nothing more than trash and should be disposed, as I think you will probably do, but to God who made that beautiful thing, who is the real owner, is still trying to fix it.

I thank God that HE is indeed not like a human being. If he had gone by your standards (which are self contradictory on various levels) there would be no one left, including you. Speaking in the position of a former atheist, I would like to tell you that you need to study before you dive into subjects you have a very thin understanding of. This is only meant as a helpful pointer, so do not take it as an insult, because it is not intended to be one.
I think ive shown that you could do to brush up on your studying a bit as well since you flat out contradict specific biblical passages. I should ask under what authority do you do so. If the bible says that God destroyed all life on Earth, under what authority do you claim that this is not true?
God's grace is so abounding that at times I think our minds can not fully comprehend the magnitude of it. I think to some it is so baffling that they choose to reject it rather than rationalize it.

If you are going to stick to your opinion and ask to debate on that then I don't think I should oblige because at the end, I do not see any validity to your objections; I have tried to point out the problems as I see them, so far I see a lack of acknowledgement on your part to deal with those issues. Before you cry "foul" rest assured that my conclusion is not based on my belief but rather that you have presented a poor case for your argument to stand to any healthy criticism. Not to mention I think there are serious misunderstandings on your part about theism in general and I would encourage you to explore further.

I also believe that you may have had imagined or have gone through some experience which was painful, I might be wrong on this, of course but the reason I say this is because, at a very depressed time in my life, I started to have suicidal feelings, hatred and much more but to the point. I thought that if God took away the girl I loved (she was very sick at that point), I would be forever angry, I would be bitter, I would never ever forgive God for taking away the only person I love more than my self and I will stop believing that he is good, I even gave myself to inclination of murder if it came to that to vent out my anger. I'm one of those who have a "rich imagination" if I could put it that way, and in my mind I felt betrayed by God, by reason; helpless and at a utter loss to regain what I have lost (only in my thoughts but it seemed the only viable option at the time as if what I imagined, actually happened then there was no more response in me but hatred for God.), it poisoned my reasoning. Took me some time to recover from that, took a lot of love too. Just saying, perhaps you have something entirely different, perhaps there is more to you than the average protester, a bit extremism if I may point it out. I can not say for sure may be I am over reading your words, but somethings struck me similar so I thought to bring this up.

As a matter of fact If I would to present your case, suffering is the last option I would take to disapprove God, this debate however is for another day.

[Byblos]

It seems that Mag is getting replies to his answers, He just doesn't want to accept them.
Which is fine and is his prerogative of course.
But based on that, what exactly is going on here?
None of these questions that Mags posts are new and if he had wanted to search for the typical answers to them he would had found them.
So why come to a forum to DISCUSS these things if you are NOT open to discussing them?
By that I mean you are NOT open to the possibilities of these answers to your questions?

Not only that, he is resorting to the unfortunate but typical antagonistic attitude we commonly see from many atheists. They often put us in a position to have to moderate them severely or ban them then they cry foul that we're the intolerant ones. Then again, maybe some are looking for more trophies and the whole thing is deliberate from the get-go.

[PaulSacramento]

Personally I wish that people would stick to ONE issue at a time and NOT create a whole page of quotes and re-quotes and answers to quotes within quotes...sheesh....

[MAGSolo]

I am sorry Leo, but I am going to have to call you out on this and ask you to defend these statements you have made.
There are more plausible indicators of a local flood than a global one. God did not wipe out all humanity, just a specific region and there are quite a number of reasons why that happened,

Please see my comments above on this, God did not wipe all humans, period

Mag, see this link

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetic ... flood.html

I will respond to the rest of your post but this is a firm example of why the bible is not to be believed because it can say something crystal clear and christians will come and say thats not what happened and act as if its not a big deal that they just said that something the bible clearly says happened didnt actually happen at all.

You can not ignore the various contexts in which the Bible was written, their use of language, metaphor and idioms etc and then say that the Bible is not clear, let me illustrate, If I say "The world mourned at the death of lady Diana,", does this mean that every single person on this planet mourned for Lady Diana? but the English saying is a way to say things, right?

or Tom cruise is known all around the world? does this mean that everyone on the planet know him?

Recently someone pointed out to me an error..."God said in genesis that all the fruits and vegetation which have seed, were for man to eat. He objected therefore that since we know that there are poisonous seeds and plants therefore God didn't know that...", he concluded that its an error.

So I explained that there are ways to express things, "Johnny can eat all the ice cream in the world", that's how a mother might describe her 5 years old's tendency to eat ice cream. Would you take this as literal as it is, that little 5 yr old johnny can actually eat all the ice cream in the world? No, you would not, why? because you know the context in which the expression was made, therefore it is perfectly normal for you. The same way, it is an expression that all seed bearing fruits and vegetation can be eaten by man, it doesn't actually mean every single one of them.

Biblical culture through out the ages had its own language, and it is therefore vital to understand what they meant when they used expressions, which when translated might be a bit problematic to understand, especially if you are not aware of the terms and their usage. Such things need study, that is why I asked you three times to explore further, study if you really wanna understand God and the Bible.

Paul, I would sincerely expect a book inspired by God and intended by God to be his lone means of communicating his desires to us, to not be plagued by such petty nuisances as language, metaphor, idioms, and translation. If there is one thing that God should have ensured we would be able to trust that what is said is what happened it should be the bible. If the bible is the inspired word of God and my only way of knowing about God and his desires, I should not have to worry about reading passages in the bible, and then being told "well thats not what it meant and the original language meant this and when it was translated this happened? The bible is my only resource to God. If I have to go to the internet and do a google search for what passages actually mean or do a google search for what actually happened, then what good is the bible? Do you realize how little sense it makes to claim that the bible is the word of God but that there is stuff in there that you wont really understand unless you look up what actually happened or what it meant happened on the internet, which has only been around for less than two decades. Why should I have to use outside sources to decode what in the bible means literally what it says, and what was messed up in translation? What good is the bible if I cant know if a certain passage can be taken to mean what it specifically says, or if the it really means something completely different and I have to go and search for what other men interpret specific passages to mean? These are issues I expect from a book conceived by men, not a book conceived through the divine will of the Supreme God. Do you really not see the problem with this? How can you witness to someone when the bible cannot be taken to mean exactly what it says? Do you not see the problem with telling people that they need to go to the internet or to go to a library to scour through man mad books to find out what passages in the bible really mean?

[MAGSolo]

It seems that Mag is getting replies to his answers, He just doesn't want to accept them.
Which is fine and is his prerogative of course.
But based on that, what exactly is going on here?
None of these questions that Mags posts are new and if he had wanted to search for the typical answers to them he would had found them.
So why come to a forum to DISCUSS these things if you are NOT open to discussing them?
By that I mean you are NOT open to the possibilities of these answers to your questions?

Not accepting answers does not mean you are not open to discussing them. I could give you answers on why the American slavery system was a good thing. That doesnt mean you have to accept them and you being unconvinced by my answers does not mean you were not open to discussion. Do you understand that? This is not a rhetorical question.
I asked in the first thread why was Gods punishment and curse of Adam and Eve a reasonable punishment. Not a single person has answered. I have asked numerous times why a good and allpowerful god that permits evil and suffering is worthy of worship and praise. Not a single person has answered. I have asked what evidence is there that the Bible was inspired by God. The only answer I got was that there is a lot of evidence if you are willing to research. Is that what you mean when you say I get answers and I dont want to accept them? If they have been answered then please show where they have been. Please show me a specific question I have asked and where you think it was answered to your own personal satisfaction.

[jlay]

Paul, I would sincerely expect a book inspired by God and intended by God to be his lone means of communicating his desires to us, to not be plagued by such petty nuisances as language, metaphor, idioms, and translation. If there is one thing that God should have ensured we would be able to trust and understand it should be the bible. If the bible is the inspired word of God and my only way of knowing about God and his desires, I should not have to worry about reading passages in the bible, and then being told "well thats not what it meant and the original language meant this and when it was translated this happened? The bible is my only resource to God. If I have to go to the internet and do a google search for what passages actually mean or do a google search for what actually happened, then what good is the bible? Do you realize how little sense it makes to claim that the bible is the word of God but that there is stuff in there that you wont really understand unless you look up what actually happened or what it meant happened on the internet, which has only been around for less than two decades. Why should I have to use outside sources to decode what in the bible means literally what it says, and what was messed up in translation? What good is the bible if I cant know if a certain passage can be taken to mean what it specifically says, or if the it really means something completely different and I have to go and search for what other men interpret specific passages to mean? These are issues I expect from a book conceived by men, not a book conceived through the divine will of the Supreme God. Do you really not see the problem with this? How can you witness to someone when the bible cannot be taken to mean exactly what it says? Do you not see the problem with telling people that they need to go to the internet to find out what passages in the bible really mean?

The Bible has been read for long before modern technology. In one way it helps and in another it hinders. We have to interpret everything we read. How we read is called hermaneutics. When we read fiction, poetry, news or history we automatically begin applying a hermaneutic whether we know it or not. Since the Bible was written in certain times, by certain peoples, then it only makes sense that we consider these things when handling the text. But you say, nay nay.
It just simply isn't an argument that human failure or shortcomings make the Bible uninspired. And I don't think that people failing to agree is a valid argument either. That certainly doesn't hold up when analyzing other written works.
Does the Bible have difficulties? Yes. Does the Bible have apparent contradictions? Yes. Does that cause it to be uninspired? No. You may say, the Bible should be this, and should be that, but you are only saying that YOU are the mearsuring stick. Why is your opinion more important than the millions of others who consider (and for sound reasons) the Bible inspired?

Mag, you say you "used to be a Christan." I'm curious to learn more about what you mean by that. If you genuinely used to be something, what did it mean to be one, and how did you 'un' be it?