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The creator did it.

Rapture Era

Active Member
Sorry, but it is a simple fact. We can even see the evolution of Spanish, French, and English over time from the writings that survive from different time periods. I'd suggest you go try to read Chaucer in the original if you think English hasn't evolved. Both French and Spanish have a long literature that shows the changes over time from Latin to the modern languages.
Look, I agree that within languages they change with dialects and words change. Gay used to mean happy in the 60's. So I get that part of it. But prior to the the Tower of Babel, everyone on the earth spoke one language.This is also an undisputed fact. So the event that happened in history with the Tower of Babel is why different languages were created and those people disbursed to various areas of the earth where they could understand each other. This makes perfect sense of what we see today and the history of each of these languages. Our calendar is based off of the birth of Jesus Christ. So that was just over 2,000 years ago (2019) . Tower of Babel was post flood around 2,242BC. So that places Tower of Babel around say 4,250 years ago. This why we do not see written languages past this point. If modern man had been here 20,000 years ago, where is the evidence of his language dating that far back? And if you want to go back even further than that? It really becomes a problem!
 

Rapture Era

Active Member
Please note that Rapture Era replied to this post, but not the parts in red (I have omitted comments that were not actual or implied questions):
That is not evolution that is abiogenesis. Why the conflation? Don't you know any better?


Tell me about it all - pretend I know nothing about it. What is "information" in a cell? How much is required, and how do you know?



Wow, seems like a great argument against evolution,but it seems very very thin on the details.


So.... You don't understand that you are making two different arguments?

Evolution is about the changes that occur in living things.


Can you really critically think that one of many ancient Hebrew tribal deities is really the one true God, and that this tribal deity created the universe from noting in a day and made a man from dust?
It's difficult time wise to respond in a meaningful way without one-liners to questions when you you have several people coming at you. I have a life, and it's not this site so your'll have to excuse me for not answering you in a timely manor. Please read my response to "Truly Enlightened" (posts 993 and 994) Hopefully it answers these questions and if not ask me again and I'll try answer them as best I can.
 

Rapture Era

Active Member
This is an example of a claim that tells us that you do not understand evolution. Evolution is largely due to two processes, variation, which rarely produces "monstrosities" and selection, which will remove monstrosities almost immediately. There will never be enough of them to be well represented in the fossil record at all. Their absence is predicted by the theory of evolution.
You know? The more you talk the more ridiculous you sound, so just stop, please stop! You talk a lot but say nothing!:confused::rolleyes:o_O
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
I love the lines that keep repeating in that article whenever a contradiction is found:

". Other scholars state that the contradictory stories can be reconciled."

Wiki tries to be PC and not upset people who may be funding them. On historicity they weigh heavily over and over that scholars believe in historicity. Carrier talks about this sometimes, the reasons why you can't say certain things and the weak assumptions they are based on.
Even though there is a strong case for mythicism Wiki will not be able to report this until it's more accepted.

Same thing with OT historicity, Thomas Thompson's work on OT being myth is now standard but in the 70's he had to leave the country to work. His PhD ratifier was a cardinal and he couldn't get his PhD because it was on why Moses and the patriarchs had to be myth based on archeology.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
The Bible is didactic literature. It is neither history nor science .. and it was not intended as such. The Bible stories are myths borrowed and adapted from other cultures.. Egypt, Sumer, Babylon and the North Coast Canaanites.


More specifically the bible is a Jewish version of Pagan myths.
Taken from OT passages - Wisdom of Solomom 2 & 5
Isaiah 52-53
Daniel 9 & 12
Zechariah 3 & 6

and these (the ones we know for sure) pre-christian dying/rising savior sin taker-away demi-gods:
Dying-and-Rising Gods: It's Pagan, Guys. Get Over It. • Richard Carrier
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Look, I agree that within languages they change with dialects and words change. Gay used to mean happy in the 60's. So I get that part of it. But prior to the the Tower of Babel, everyone on the earth spoke one language.This is also an undisputed fact. So the event that happened in history with the Tower of Babel is why different languages were created and those people disbursed to various areas of the earth where they could understand each other. This makes perfect sense of what we see today and the history of each of these languages. Our calendar is based off of the birth of Jesus Christ. So that was just over 2,000 years ago (2019) . Tower of Babel was post flood around 2,242BC. So that places Tower of Babel around say 4,250 years ago. This why we do not see written languages past this point. If modern man had been here 20,000 years ago, where is the evidence of his language dating that far back? And if you want to go back even further than that? It really becomes a problem!
Since the Tower of Babel is simply another myth of Genesis I don't see how you can call it an undisputed fact.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
You know? The more you talk the more ridiculous you sound, so just stop, please stop! You talk a lot but say nothing!:confused::rolleyes:o_O
That is only because your science education stopped rather early in your schooling. Unlike you I can support my claims with valid sources.

And it is never too late for you to learn.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
sooda...what you posted is wrong, very wrong. The bible has 3 areas that scholars look at to verify the reliability of its ancient texts...they are
1. The bibliographical test-(explained below)
2. internal witness-do the authors claim to be the eyewitness, do the authors claim to be giving the account of eyewitness testimony
3. external witness-are there sources dating close to the original authors that support the documents

The bibliographical test examines manuscript reliability, and for more than a generation Christian apologists have employed it to substantiate the transmissional reliability of the New Testament. The bibliographical test compares the closeness of the New Testament’s oldest extant manuscripts to the date of its autographs (the original handwritten documents) and the sheer number of the New Testament’s extant manuscripts with the number and earliness of extant manuscripts of other ancient documents such as Homer, Aristotle, and Herodotus.
Since the New Testament manuscripts outstrip every other ancient manuscript in sheer number and proximity to the autographs, the New Testament should be regarded as having been accurately transmitted. However, although apologists have stayed abreast of the dates of the earliest extant manuscripts and latest New Testament Greek manuscript counts, we haven’t kept up with the increasing numbers of manuscripts for other ancient authors that are recognized by classical scholars. For example, although apologists rightly claim that there are well over five thousand Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, they have reported the number of manuscripts for Homer’s Iliad to be 643, but the real number of Iliad manuscripts is actually 1,757.
https://www.equip.org/article/the-bibliographical-test-updated/



" Everybody who wants to study the beginning of Christianity usually has the same motivation that I had. It was totally typical: if we go back to the beginning, we’ll find what really happened, the original, the perfect, golden nugget. We’ll find the words of Jesus.

What we actually find when we go back there is that the earliest evidence is very diverse. That’s not the story we were told as Christians, because the Christian church chose to simplify it and give us a single version of the story and cut out, therefore, the kind of diversity that we can now see."


What you're saying simply isn't true in the PhD historicity field.

This panel of experts including a Pastor goes over ALL biblical and extra-biblical evidence.
Everything.
What can atheists know about Jesus panel

conclusion, historical reliability cannot be established.

Wiki:
The historicity of Jesus
"There is widespread disagreement among scholars on the historicity of specific episodes described in the biblical accounts of Jesus,[65] the details of the life of Jesus mentioned in the gospel narratives, and on the meaning of his teachings.[5] Many scholars have questioned the authenticity and reliability of these sources, and few events mentioned in the gospels are universally accepted.[65]"


All gospels are believed to have been copied from Mark and each author added their own stories. We know this because there are pages and pages of verbatim Greek.


Wiki - The historical reliability of the Gospels
"The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the Synoptic Gospels because of a similar sequence and wording. ....he majority of Mark and roughly half of Matthew and Luke coincide in content, in much the same sequence, often nearly verbatim."


Also there were about ~40 original gospels, in the 1st century around 50% were what we now call Gnostic gospels (see Elaine Pagels - The Lost Gospels) and the first Christian canon - the Marcionite canon is unknown to us what it actually said.

All information that apologists just completely ignore.



-Elaine Pagels, is an American religious historian who writes on the Gnostic Gospels. She is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Pagels has conducted extensive research into Early Christianity and Gnosticism.

Q: How are the Gnostic Gospels different from the Synoptic Gospels?

A: We use the word “synoptic” to talk about Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and it really means “seeing together,” because they all have a similar perspective. Matthew and Luke — whoever wrote those Gospels — used Mark as a focus and as a basic story. So all of them have a lot in common.

What we call the Gnostic Gospels are a range of other Gospels, some of them recently discovered and previously unknown but probably very ancient. We simply had never known them. They weren’t part of the New Testament. What’s different about the Gospel of Thomas is that, instead of focusing entirely on who Jesus is and the wonderful works of Jesus, it focuses on how you and I can find the kingdom of God, or life in the presence of God.

Q: What is the argument between the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas?

A: The Gospel of John speaks of Jesus as the “light of the world,” the divine one who comes into the world to rescue the human race from sin and darkness, and says if you believe in him, you can be saved; you can have everlasting life. If you don’t believe in him, you go to everlasting death.

The Gospel of Thomas, on the other hand, speaks of Jesus as the divine light that comes from heaven, but says “and you, too, have access to that divine source within yourself,” even apart from Jesus.

What we now realize — and more clearly than ever because of the newly discovered Gospels — is that, instead of one tradition about Jesus, there were in the early Christian movement ranges of traditions about Jesus, several traditions, and they were associated with different disciples. So you would have the gospel according to Matthew, who taught some of the teachings of Jesus, and the gospel according to John, which taught others, [and] the gospel according to Thomas.

When we look at Thomas and John together, we see that they have a lot in common. They used the same kind of language. But I can now see that John was written to say, “Well, yes, Thomas almost gets it right but misses the main point,” which for John is that you must believe in Jesus in order to be saved and that he alone offers the only access.

Q: What is the historical background on this?

A: Everybody who wants to study the beginning of Christianity usually has the same motivation that I had. It was totally typical: if we go back to the beginning, we’ll find what really happened, the original, the perfect, golden nugget. We’ll find the words of Jesus.

What we actually find when we go back there is that the earliest evidence is very diverse. That’s not the story we were told as Christians, because the Christian church chose to simplify it and give us a single version of the story and cut out, therefore, the kind of diversity that we can now see.

Q: Was it political?

A: It was certainly political. It was also religious. Those were not separate.

Q: Was Thomas’s talking about each of us being seekers of God a difficult concept to organize an orthodox institution around?

A: Yes. If you’re going to have a church that says, as one of the primary church leaders, Irenaeus, did, “Outside the church there is no salvation,” there are certain things you might not want Jesus to have said, if he said them. For example: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.” That might suggest you don’t need a church, or a priest, or an institution.

October 10, 2003 ~ Elaine Pagels Extended Interview | October 10, 2003 | Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly | PBS
 

joelr

Well-Known Member

Rapture Era

Active Member
Since the Tower of Babel is simply another myth of Genesis I don't see how you can call it an undisputed fact.
That is only because your science education stopped rather early in your schooling. Unlike you I can support my claims with valid sources.
And it is never too late for you to learn.
Absolutely hilarious!:D You support your claims with evolutionary websites!:D You don't think on your own:D You just copy and paste and make
ludicrous comments:rolleyes:
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
I've read all of your posts. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to respond to every point but, by your responses so far it would matter anyway. I came upon this article by accident because I was looking for something else, but it was very interesting concerning the human body. Both male and female must be full functioning to reproduce. All of the systems in the body must work together as one unit to survive. In an evolutionary process from simple to almost incomprehensible complexity, a reasonable question would be, can you justify how all of these bodily systems, organs, blood, brain, skeletal structure, joints, nerves, blood vessels, muscle structures, the sensing organs associated with each sense, sending information to the brain to help us understand and perceive the world around us is remotely possible by an unguided, information-less random process like evolution? Which parts of the body developed first? How did that random mutation survive to develop into the next and so on? What did kept it alive? Where are the billions of transitional morphological monstrosities prior to the current vast life forms of fish, birds, insects, and crawling things, the animals and human beings?
This is why the creation of Genesis makes more sense to me. All of the living creatures were created male and female with all the necessary organs and chemical structures to reproduce, sustain and survive after their own kind just as expected, and, just as revealed in Genesis. This article in my opinion, displays the immense intelligent mind behind all of creation from an omnipotent transcendent creator. What are your thoughts after reading this?
How Your Body Heals Itself - Center for Nutrition Studies


Genesis makes no sense and says the world was covered in water. It took billions of years for water to fill oceans and the Earth was never covered in water. Water doesn't just float out into space. If that much water was on Earth it would still be here.

No ancient mythology ever came close to showing even an understanding of germs (Jesus even told people it was ok to not wash your hands).
The idea that life requires a supernatural push is not at all related to evidence for fictional stories being real.
It doesn't mean Zeus or Odin created the universe. Yahweh is just an Egyptain deity who was promoted to "one true god" by Abraham. Still not real.
Christianity is just pagan mythology.
If a supernatural push happened to start life it was not at all related to literal readings of divine worship literature made up by humans.
It does not mean Zoroastrianism concepts about heaven/hell, good vs evil, the world ending in fire, baptism to forgive sins etc.. which the Jews borrowed from the Persians after the invasion, are actually real.
 

joelr

Well-Known Member
a7.20372j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Yes of course it is:D The Big Bang according to naturalists exploded matter (formless matter) throughout the universe.
so·lu·tion
Dictionary result for solution
/səˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/
noun
plural noun: solutions
  1. 1.
    a means of solving a problem or dealing with a difficult situation.
    "there are no easy solutions to financial and marital problems"
  2. a liquid mixture in which the minor component (the solute) is uniformly distributed within the major component (the solvent).
    synonyms: mixture, mix, blend, compound, suspension, tincture, infusion, emulsion, colloid, gel, fluid;
    aerosol
    "a solution of ammonia in water"
Any comment on this?


That is a simplification to support beliefs in a deity. The early big bang expanded energy, mass, space-time and everything in the universe outward.
Quantum physics tells us everything is probabilistic. Meaning that if something can happen then given enough time eventually this probability will be realized.

Since we know life IS something that can happen, given enough time it has to happen.
Knowing this some creationists try to make out that the odds of life forming are astronomical.
First of all the universe is 13 billion years old and Earth is ~4 or 5 billion. This is a long time.

But the odds are not what creationists say either:
Creationist odds of life



Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations


Introduction
Every so often, someone comes up with the statement "the formation of any enzyme by chance is nearly impossible, therefore abiogenesis is impossible". Often they cite an impressive looking calculation from the astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, or trot out something called "Borel's Law" to prove that life is statistically impossible. These people, including Fred, have committed one or more of the following errors.

Glossary

Acyl transferase:
An enzyme or ribozyme that synthesizes peptides.
Ligase:
An enzyme or ribozyme that adds a monomer to a polymer, or links two shorter polymers together.
Monomer:
Any single subunit of a polymer. An amino acid is a monomer of a peptide or protein, a nucleotide is a monomer of an oligonucleotide or polynucleotide.
Nucleotide:
Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine and Uracil. These are the monomers that make up oligo- or polynucleotides such as RNA.
Oligonucleotide:
A short polymer of nucleotide subunits.
Polymerase:
A enzyme or ribozyme that makes a polymer out of monomers. For example, RNA polymerase makes RNA out of single nucleotides.
Ribozyme:
A biological catalyst made from RNA.
Self-replicator:
A molecule which can make an identical or near-identical copy of itself from smaller subunits. At least four self-replicators are known.
Problems with the creationists' "it's so improbable" calculations

1) They calculate the probability of the formation of a "modern" protein, or even a complete bacterium with all "modern" proteins, by random events. This is not the abiogenesis theory at all.

2) They assume that there is a fixed number of proteins, with fixed sequences for each protein, that are required for life.

3) They calculate the probability of sequential trials, rather than simultaneous trials.

4) They misunderstand what is meant by a probability calculation.

5) They seriously underestimate the number of functional enzymes/ribozymes present in a group of random sequences.

I will try and walk people through these various errors, and show why it is not possible to do a "probability of abiogenesis" calculation in any meaningful way.

A primordial protoplasmic globule
So the calculation goes that the probability of forming a given 300 amino acid long protein (say an enzyme like carboxypeptidase) randomly is (1/20)300 or 1 chance in 2.04 x 10390, which is astoundingly, mind-beggaringly improbable. This is then cranked up by adding on the probabilities of generating 400 or so similar enzymes until a figure is reached that is so huge that merely contemplating it causes your brain to dribble out your ears. This gives the impression that the formation of even the smallest organism seems totally impossible. However, this is completely incorrect.

Firstly, the formation of biological polymers from monomers is a function of the laws of chemistry and biochemistry, and these are decidedly not random.

Secondly, the entire premise is incorrect to start off with, because in modern abiogenesis theories the first "living things" would be much simpler, not even a protobacteria, or a preprotobacteria (what Oparin called a protobiont [8] and Woese calls a progenote [4]), but one or more simple molecules probably not more than 30-40 subunits long. These simple molecules then slowly evolved into more cooperative self-replicating systems, then finally into simple organisms [2, 5, 10, 15, 28]. An illustration comparing a hypothetical protobiont and a modern bacteria is given below."
continued at:
Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations
 

He has Risen!

JESUS IS LORD FOR HE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD
What you're saying simply isn't true in the PhD historicity field.
What you are saying is not true in regards to what I am posting. I am not posting my own made up stories as many are doing here (including you) that just want to post wiki articles and you tube videos. I have at my disposal many books that include the early church writing as well as the gnostic gospels and gnostic writings of that time. The apostles and NT writers were themselves contending with those who were trying to pervert their message.
Titus 1:9
Philippians 3:1
2 Peter 1:12-13, 2:1
1 John 2:26
Jude 1:3-5

I will end this post with the words of the Apostle Paul in Chapter 20 of Acts....
26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
 

He has Risen!

JESUS IS LORD FOR HE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Absolutely hilarious!:D You support your claims with evolutionary websites!:D You don't think on your own:D You just copy and paste and make
ludicrous comments:rolleyes:
No, I support my claims with science based websites. You support your claims with myth based websites. The computer that you are using was developed using the scientific method.

My question is why do you believe in a lying God? Most Christians do not. Most Christians accept the theory of evolution.
 

He has Risen!

JESUS IS LORD FOR HE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD
Until you learn the difference between a mutation in a germ cell and a mutation in a somatic cell we will not get anywhere. You are still conflating the two.

Somatic cells are the non-reproductive cells in your body. Mutations for them are quite often bad since there is no natural selection for those cells. Mutations will continue to add up if they keep reproducing. That is totally different from a mutation in a germ cell. In fact you have on the order of one hundred mutations in the genome that was passed on to you. Most of those mutations, perhaps all, are benign. If a gamete gets a bad mutation it will often not even survive and develop at all. Or if it does survive it will usually die young and not pass own that mutation. Natural selection removes bad mutations from the genome. If on the other hand a positive mutation occurs that increases the odds of the new gene being passed on and that improves a species.
Think of it this way...
from Google...
Your computer's operating system (OS) manages all of the software and hardware on the computer. Most of the time, there are several different computer programs running at the same time, and they all need to access your computer's central processing unit (CPU), memory, and storage

Now let us think about this...
The computer you are on has an operating system that uses 1's and 0's in a specific order to run many of its systems. Let us rearrange some of those 1's and 0's willy nilly and call them mutations. Do you think that the computer mutations will increase the computers efficiency? Think about your answer...please.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
What you are saying is not true in regards to what I am posting. I am not posting my own made up stories as many are doing here (including you) that just want to post wiki articles and you tube videos. I have at my disposal many books that include the early church writing as well as the gnostic gospels and gnostic writings of that time. The apostles and NT writers were themselves contending with those who were trying to pervert their message.
Titus 1:9
Philippians 3:1
2 Peter 1:12-13, 2:1
1 John 2:26
Jude 1:3-5

I will end this post with the words of the Apostle Paul in Chapter 20 of Acts....
26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.
29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.
31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
32 And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Circular reasoning is why the Bible is not to be trusted.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Think of it this way...
from Google...
Your computer's operating system (OS) manages all of the software and hardware on the computer. Most of the time, there are several different computer programs running at the same time, and they all need to access your computer's central processing unit (CPU), memory, and storage
The computer you are on has an operating system that uses 1's and 0's in a specific order to run many of its systems. Let us rearrange some of those 1's and 0's willy nilly and call them mutations. Do you think that the computer mutations will increase the computers efficiency? Think about your answer...please.
Failed analogy. Computers do not reproduce, they do not undergo natural selection.
 

He has Risen!

JESUS IS LORD FOR HE HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD
Circular reasoning is why the Bible is not to be trusted.
Neither does a "straw man argument" as you just presented. There are at least 7 different authors included in the 27 books of the new testament. So if I am to quote Paul in order to support something Peter or Jude have written, that is not classified as circular reasoning, because I am quoting from different individuals writings.
 
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