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A simple case for intelligent design

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
You want to believe a Moses wrote Genesis.
You want to believe a Matthew write the first book in the NT.

The problem is that there is absolutely nothing to justify your belief. Biblical scholars, Hebrew and Christian, disagree with your and your beliefs. There is nothing outside of the bible that validates anything in the bible. There is much outside the bible that invalidates it.

The only thing that justifies your belief system is your indoctrination and outdated and/or fraudulent scholarship.






Yes, it became significant. But maybe, you should ask yourself why. Most of the early Christians realized it was important for their new religion to attract as many people as possible. They courted pagans by keeping their holidays. They courted Hebrews by suggesting that Jesus was their prophesied Messiah. It worked back then for a few.

The main reason that Christianity flourished is that the guy who was in charge of all of Rome said Christianity was an approved religion.

Over the past century, Islam has also become significant. Are you a supporter of Allah also?

Help me understand your perspective?

1) It's not helpful to label "Matthew" Matthew, rather, we should call it the first anonymous book of the NT, for example. Yet it still teaches salvation and life principles...

2) There is NOTHING outside the Bible (like the nation of Israel's prophesied re-existence, that validates ANYTHING inside the Bible. So, for example, the Bible contains hundreds of moral and financial principles, NONE of which are established outside the Bible...

3) The main reason Christianity was a rapid-growing religion since the early 1st century was that Rome approved it in the 3rd century.

4) Islam is significant, so to be consistent, I should support it also.

Do I understand your position better now?
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
But there is more than enough time if you understand genetics. There are multiple ways that genes increase variation and already proof that some small changes in control genes have large effects. The differences have been explained in multiple research papers. You can call science baloney all you want but if science is baloney then that makes unproven claims from the bible as pure fantasy.

It's not calling "science baloney" to question whether certain principles in a semi-closed system have enough time to occur. That's something science does on its own theorizing on a regular basis.

Let me ask you rather than project on you: If the genetic differences between chimps and men are 1% in nature:

* How many genetic differences is that?

* How would we account for those differences evolving in say, 10 million years?

The answer to neither of the above is "papers explain all that"... I KNOW you would agree with that statement! Let's see what you've got, for I believe 1) an honest examination can help you 2) my skeptic friends avoid honest examination of certain canards.

Thanks!
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
And there we have it!

The church and government are powerful institutions--government on its own seeks power, I believe in limited government. I also understand that absolute morals come from the church.

We can start with abortion, I have a dollar that says you are fine with the current genocide on babies. This has to be stopped "in the criminal/legal code" as you wrote!
How can you call it "genocide" as a Christian when even the Bible not only does not recognize it as murder but allows abortions to be done in certain circumstances?
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
It's not calling "science baloney" to question whether certain principles in a semi-closed system have enough time to occur. That's something science does on its own theorizing on a regular basis.

Let me ask you rather than project on you: If the genetic differences between chimps and men are 1% in nature:

* How many genetic differences is that?

* How would we account for those differences evolving in say, 10 million years?

The answer to neither of the above is "papers explain all that"... I KNOW you would agree with that statement! Let's see what you've got, for I believe 1) an honest examination can help you 2) my skeptic friends avoid honest examination of certain canards.

Thanks!

Actually it is a foolish tactic to call "science baloney" When you do so you put the burden of proof upon yourself. It is fine to question that which you do not understand. But when you call something that you do not understand 'baloney' you then need to prove that yourself You can't ask questions and demand that others answer them. You are implying that the experts are wrong, that means you have to prove that they are wrong. Our inability to explain what the experts could does not make you right. Your inability to defend your claims does make you in effect wrong. That demonstrates that you made an unjustified, and probably incorrect, attack.

Now if you asked those questions politely and properly then the burden would be on us to have to try to answer them for you to the best of our ability. But even if we as non-experts got some points wrong that would not make the science "baloney".

Do you understand how your unjustified attacks are a very very poor tactic to use?
 

Shad

Veteran Member
Except you have the criminal code precisely because thou shalt not murder, thou shall not steal. The first criminal code....

The Code of Hammurabi predates the Biblical code by centuries.

Without some Christians in the government trying to keep the peace we would be at war every 5 minutes....

Oh yes.... Just like in Europe before WW1 when it was run by.... . Christians... fighting wars at a drop of a hat.

What with evolutionists injecting their false babble into the government of survival of the fittest. After all, we are just animals right, and so slaughtering a few million won't matter much to the evolutionary scheme.... Cull the herd.....

Now you are ranting.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
I have many issues with abortion.
Me too. But I do not think of a mass of cells as a human being. The tough part is where to draw the line. I am more for making late term abortions more difficult to have. There should be a serious medical reason at that point. Early on I have little to no problem with them. Yet if one reads and understands the Bible it does not appear to put such a limit on the abortions that it authorizes. The reasoning for the abortions that are allowed in the Bible is due to its treatment of women as property.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
Except you have the criminal code precisely because thou shalt not murder, thou shall not steal. The first criminal code....

Without some Christians in the government trying to keep the peace we would be at war every 5 minutes.... What with evolutionists injecting their false babble into the government of survival of the fittest. After all, we are just animals right, and so slaughtering a few million won't matter much to the evolutionary scheme.... Cull the herd.....
For tens of thousands of years, long before the old stories were written down, humans lived in civilized communities. They learned that it rarely makes sense to murder one of their own tribe. Throughout nature, animals seldom kill a member of their own group.

Perhaps you believe that there was a chimp Moses and an antelope Moses.
"I can personalize it to this extent, my mother's Jewish ancestors are told that until they got to Sinai, they'd been dragging themselves around the desert under the impression that adultery, murder, theft and perjury were all fine, and they get to Mount Sinai only to be told it's not kosher after all. I'm sorry, excuse me, you must have more self-respect than that for ourselves and for others. Of course the stories are fiction. It's a fabrication exposed conclusively by Israeli archaeology. Nothing of the sort ever took place, but suppose we take the metaphor? It's an insult, it's an insult to us, it's an insult to our deepest integrity. No, if we believed that perjury, murder and theft were all right, we wouldn't have got as far as the foot of Mount Sinai or anywhere else."
-Christopher Hitchens

;)
 

Justatruthseeker

Active Member
"I can personalize it to this extent, my mother's Jewish ancestors are told that until they got to Sinai, they'd been dragging themselves around the desert under the impression that adultery, murder, theft and perjury were all fine, and they get to Mount Sinai only to be told it's not kosher after all. I'm sorry, excuse me, you must have more self-respect than that for ourselves and for others. Of course the stories are fiction. It's a fabrication exposed conclusively by Israeli archaeology. Nothing of the sort ever took place, but suppose we take the metaphor? It's an insult, it's an insult to us, it's an insult to our deepest integrity. No, if we believed that perjury, murder and theft were all right, we wouldn't have got as far as the foot of Mount Sinai or anywhere else."
-Christopher Hitchens

;)
What they fail to realize is that those laws already existed passed down by word of mouth.

Everyone already knew murder wasn't kosher..... Everyone already knew adultery wasn't fine.

But the stubborn people were not satisfied with putting faith in their God. They wanted a covenant with God so that instead of faith they could by their own works be free of sin. So this is exactly what they got and they were unable to fulfill their part of the bargain they themselves insisted upon.

But people that will say anything to try to discredit the Bible act like the Jewish people never knew the history of Cain and Able until it was written down. Didn't know murder wasn't kosher until told so in writing.

Just as our society had precepts against such things long before some politician decided to make laws establishing them as laws. At least Moses didn't write a law saying it was illegal to bathe your mule in the bathtub.... oy vey....
 

ecco

Veteran Member
I also understand that absolute morals come from the church.
I thought you believed that absolute morals came from God.

You do know "the church" is just a bunch of men sitting around making edicts. You do know that among these men are pedophiles - Don't you?

You do know that one of the most important of these men was Martin Luther. You know what Martin Luther believed and taught regarding Jews, don't you?

I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn
...
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.
...
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings be taken from them.
...
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.​
Are these the "absolute morals" you would subscribe to?
 

ecco

Veteran Member
Help me understand your perspective?

1) It's not helpful to label "Matthew" Matthew, rather, we should call it the first anonymous book of the NT, for example. Yet it still teaches salvation and life principles...

2) There is NOTHING outside the Bible (like the nation of Israel's prophesied re-existence, that validates ANYTHING inside the Bible. So, for example, the Bible contains hundreds of moral and financial principles, NONE of which are established outside the Bible...

3) The main reason Christianity was a rapid-growing religion since the early 1st century was that Rome approved it in the 3rd century.

4) Islam is significant, so to be consistent, I should support it also.
Do I understand your position better now?

No you don't. Let's break it down.

1) It's not helpful to label "Matthew" Matthew, rather, we should call it the first anonymous book of the NT, for example. Yet it still teaches salvation and life principles...

What you label the first book is not important. What is important is that no one knows who wrote and on what he based his writings. Nothing in there, like the genealogy, is supported by anything outside the Bible. It is clearly impossible for the author to have correctly recorded the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore that is clearly a story made up by the author or his sources.

The contents have less historical value than, for example, the stories about Johnny Appleseed.


2) There is NOTHING outside the Bible (like the nation of Israel's prophesied re-existence, that validates ANYTHING inside the Bible. So, for example, the Bible contains hundreds of moral and financial principles, NONE of which are established outside the Bible...

Other than references to possible actual historical sites or allegations about rulers, that is correct. There is no outside corroboration for anything regarding Jesus' alleged comments and deeds.

3) The main reason Christianity was a rapid-growing religion since the early 1st century was that Rome approved it in the 3rd century.

Christianity was not a "rapid-growing religion" until at least its adoption by Constantine.

4) Islam is significant, so to be consistent, I should support it also.
No. Islam becoming significant is just another example that religions exist and grow regardless of their validity.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
Without some Christians in the government trying to keep the peace we would be at war every 5 minutes.... What with evolutionists injecting their false babble into the government of survival of the fittest. After all, we are just animals right, and so slaughtering a few million won't matter much to the evolutionary scheme.... Cull the herd.....

Wow! :eek:

That reply is truly enlightening.

What I quoted from you revealed that your post mixed ignorance with false information.

How long have Christians in governments, rulers, princes and barons, been killing not only pagans for centuries and for thousands of years?

The biggest war before the 20th century (eg WWI & WWII) was the Thirty Years’ War (1618 to 1648), fought in Central Europe, where the Protestant Germans rose up against the Holy Roman Empire (HRE) and their allies, where 8 million have died (the war had also caused famines and pestilence).

It was partly political, but it was also due to religious freedom, when the HRE Emperor of the Hapsburg dynasty, Ferdinand II tried to force the Protestant German princes to convert to Catholicism, that’s what sparked the war in the first place. The war became larger, when successive outsider kingdoms of HRE, eg Sweden, England, France, etc, allied themselves with Protestant German princes.

Before that was the Reformation and Counter-Reformation of the 16th century, and that was results of rise of Protestant movement in the HRE and Catholic counter reform, with series of different wars. The Counter-Reformation had also started the Roman Inquisition, which the Catholics started rounding up Protestants, not just against witches and Jews, and charging them with heresy.

And let’s not forget the series of Crusade, at first wars, used against the Islamic empire, then against the Eastern Orthodox of the Byzantine Empire.

And before the Crusade there was Charlemagne, especially a war against the pagan Saxons in the late 8th century, where after the Saxons surrendered, they were forced to convert at sword points. The then Pope praised Charlemagne, and then later bestowed Charlemagne with the title of Emperor, the first of Holy Roman Empire.

You telling us, Christian rulers and Christian governments weren’t warmongers and that they didn’t start wars, just demonstrated your level of ignorance.

But it is your dishonesty (as well as your ignorance) that tried to push Evolution into theism vs atheism argument, as well as politics and wars.

Evolution has nothing to do with religions and government politics and policies. No where does any Theory of Evolution say anything about genocide, let alone condoning genocide.

Survival of the fittest, has more to do with biological adaptation and survival of the species, or risk extinction if they failed to adapt, and that involved no wars and genocide.

You are misrepresenting what survival of the fittest actually mean.

You are certainly ignoring the Ten Commandments about bearing false witness as well as 1 Peter 2:1

“1 Peter 2:1” said:
Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander.

You are lying through your teeth.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
And there we have it!

The church and government are powerful institutions--government on its own seeks power, I believe in limited government. I also understand that absolute morals come from the church.

We can start with abortion, I have a dollar that says you are fine with the current genocide on babies. This has to be stopped "in the criminal/legal code" as you wrote!
Hosea 13:16.

So much for that creepy fetus-worship.
 

tas8831

Well-Known Member
If the genetic differences between chimps and men are 1% in nature:

* How many genetic differences is that?

In terms of DNA content, it amounts to about 32 million bases.
* How would we account for those differences evolving in say, 10 million years?
By known rates of mutation.
Very rough and crude calculation:

10 million years = ~500,000 generations (using an upper-range estimate of generation times of 20 years) yields 100,000,000 accumulated mutations. Since mutations are in effect "events", this number includes indels which can produce 10s, 100s,1000s, or more changes in bases per event.
So, plenty to spare.
The answer to neither of the above is "papers explain all that"... I KNOW you would agree with that statement! Let's see what you've got, for I believe 1) an honest examination can help you 2) my skeptic friends avoid honest examination of certain canards.

So rude and condescending. i do hope that you are not so arrogant to your students.
I note that you present nothing of value on this issue - your "questions" are as usual under-informed and naive.
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
I thought you believed that absolute morals came from God.

You do know "the church" is just a bunch of men sitting around making edicts. You do know that among these men are pedophiles - Don't you?

You do know that one of the most important of these men was Martin Luther. You know what Martin Luther believed and taught regarding Jews, don't you?

I shall give you my sincere advice:

First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn
...
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed.
...
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings be taken from them.
...
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb.​
Are these the "absolute morals" you would subscribe to?

I'm not a Lutheran or a Protestant, remember, I'm a Jewish Christian, and look to the scriptures, not Luther, for life and faith.

Do you have evidence the alleged Bible genocide occurred?

These things are hidden from the wise and intelligent and revealed to infants (pride vs. humility).
 

BilliardsBall

Veteran Member
No you don't. Let's break it down.



What you label the first book is not important. What is important is that no one knows who wrote and on what he based his writings. Nothing in there, like the genealogy, is supported by anything outside the Bible. It is clearly impossible for the author to have correctly recorded the Sermon on the Mount. Therefore that is clearly a story made up by the author or his sources.

The contents have less historical value than, for example, the stories about Johnny Appleseed.




Other than references to possible actual historical sites or allegations about rulers, that is correct. There is no outside corroboration for anything regarding Jesus' alleged comments and deeds.



Christianity was not a "rapid-growing religion" until at least its adoption by Constantine.


No. Islam becoming significant is just another example that religions exist and grow regardless of their validity.

All your contentions are wrong, but I would challenge Christianity didn't proliferate before Constantine, just yesterday, someone pointed out the obvious advantages of adopting an already popular religion as a state religion... and the Bible itself reports the many who trusted Jesus, even before His glorious resurrection.
 

gnostic

The Lost One
1) It's not helpful to label "Matthew" Matthew, rather, we should call it the first anonymous book of the NT, for example. Yet it still teaches salvation and life principles...
I would have no problem, if the apostle Matthew was indeed the author of this gospel, but that’s highly unlikely if the gospel was written some time between 80 and 90 CE.

This (approximate) date of composition would make it unlikely that the author was an eyewitness.

And given that the original composition of each gospels were anonymously written in the 1st century CE and that the names given to each of these gospels by the church in 2nd century CE, also make it highly unlikely that the names of these “alleged authors” are truly whom the church claimed them to be.

As to your points about calling these gospels by numbers instead of names that are currently used, I would say changing it would be needless.

I am personally comfortable calling the gospel of Matthew, as the gospel of Matthew, even if the apostle Matthew didn’t write it. That’s not the issue with me.

The issue is for some Christians, like yourself, claiming that it is the author is indeed Matthew. I would like more evidences before I could accept it to be true. (The same with the other authors.)

You want to blindly accept these authors to be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, then that your choice, but don’t go around claiming something to be “fact”, when it is not and when you have no evidences to support your personal belief.
 

SkepticThinker

Veteran Member
What they fail to realize is that those laws already existed passed down by word of mouth.

Everyone already knew murder wasn't kosher..... Everyone already knew adultery wasn't fine.

But the stubborn people were not satisfied with putting faith in their God. They wanted a covenant with God so that instead of faith they could by their own works be free of sin. So this is exactly what they got and they were unable to fulfill their part of the bargain they themselves insisted upon.

But people that will say anything to try to discredit the Bible act like the Jewish people never knew the history of Cain and Able until it was written down. Didn't know murder wasn't kosher until told so in writing.

Just as our society had precepts against such things long before some politician decided to make laws establishing them as laws. At least Moses didn't write a law saying it was illegal to bathe your mule in the bathtub.... oy vey....
I don't think Hitchens failed to realize at all that people had systems of morality in place long before the Bible ever came onto the scene. You apparently acknowledge that as well, though you seem to think the Bible is the first "criminal code" that humans ever devised and that it is where our modern moral codes have been derived from. Of course, it isn't.

Cain and Abel are not historical figures, rather, they are symbolic or literary figures.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
I'm not a Lutheran or a Protestant, remember, I'm a Jewish Christian, and look to the scriptures, not Luther, for life and faith.

Jewish Christian is an oxymoron.

Christians believe Jesus fulfilled Hebrew prophecy.
Jews do not believe Jesus fulfilled Hebrew prophecy.


Do you have evidence the alleged Bible genocide occurred?

The genocide recounted in the Bible is God's act of horrifically drowning all men, women, and children (including the "unborn babies" that you are so fond of saving).

These things are hidden from the wise and intelligent and revealed to infants (pride vs. humility).
As he ends his post with sanctimonious nonsense.
 

ecco

Veteran Member
All your contentions are wrong, but I would challenge Christianity didn't proliferate before Constantine, just yesterday, someone pointed out the obvious advantages of adopting an already popular religion as a state religion... and the Bible itself reports the many who trusted Jesus, even before His glorious resurrection.
"His glorious resurrection"?
Let's look at the whole picture.

God has existed for eternity.
Somewhere along the line, God acquires a Second Nature - that of the Holy Ghost.
He directs the Holy Ghost part of Himself to impregnate a young human female virgin.
Nine months later she gives birth to the Third Part of Him/Them.
Thirty years later the Third Part gets nailed to a cross and eventually dies.
Somehow his body ends up in a cave and a couple of days later the Third Part walks around again for a few days and then disappears into heaven to reunite Itself with Its other Two Parts.

It's like if I cut off a fingernail and then crazy-glued in back on.


The only sacrifice I see is on the part of the young human female virgin that got raped.
 
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