The Faith & Religion mega Thread

Originally Posted by SL00b You offered an interpretation of geneology based on historical cultural information, and now you're acting as if that information is completely unverifiable. So since you can't back up your argument with independent sources, I'm going to go ahead and ignore your point.

I see a different picture though.
I've offered you a very good explanation the like of which you couldn't find yourself. One which is absolutely verifiable using the same book. Those genealogies were handled at the time by scribes in the society which WAS religious all through. I will be quite safe, too, assuming that evangelist Luke knew much more about the matter than yourself.
And in any case I don't know how you pretend to believe there could exist "non-religious" sources of such information...

But hey, that's just my opinion and need not discourage YOU! Just don't let nobody and nothing turn you down.
Go and find these sources and then make a good presentation of it. Then I'll see what your "interest" is worth.

Originally Posted by reed9 Ah yes, because a god is sooo much more probable. But you misunderstand a fundamental feature of evolution. It is not by chance. Natural selection, sexual selection, these are non-random processes. That is why there things appear designed, they are. They're just not intelligently designed. And they don't appear to be. Life is terribly inefficient. If God designed life, he's a piss poor engineer.

You call it by chance or non-random process there is no way it can evolve without any external support. Being spent so much time and efforts in science and technology so far, our well qualified scientists even can not develop such a organ, how its possible it got developed with unexperienced non-intelligent non-random process. I came to know today heart also got brain cells and in uterus heart gets develop before brain. This is just one organ we are talking about, look at your full body. Each and every part minor or major is speaking the evidence of designer. Still science has to learn a lot about human body. Life is terrible inefficient????? I heard this first time.

We are spending billions in searching for lives in other planets,
while in our own planet people are dying because of hunger.

Originally Posted by SL00b The story of Jesus itself borrows very heavily from other religions. Just some examples: - When Mary Magdalene washes the feet of Jesus with her hair, this is borrowed straight from the Egyptians, with Mary as Isis and Jesus playing the role of Osiris. - Speaking of Osiris, he was dead for three days and was resurrected. Sound familiar? - One of the central themes of the Gospels is an apocalypse. Apocalyptic traditions were rampant in the Near East at that time, and as it sat astride the major trading routes, all the ideas came through Israel. - On the subject of common themes... virgin birth. Mithras is a primary example. Mithras is also a great example of the concept of substitutive sacrifice, the central pillar of Christian belief.

Easy to say, yet hard to prove. Especially seeing that all the above is hardly the result of YOUR research.

And I read the Bible myself and can at any time produce any needed evidence from it, and these are not mere words.

Originally Posted by ShaanAli You call it by chance or non-random process there is no way it can evolve without any external support. Being spent so much time and efforts in science and technology so far, our well qualified scientists even can not develop such a organ, how its possible it got developed with unexperienced non-intelligent non-random process. I came to know today heart also got brain cells and in uterus heart gets develop before brain. This is just one organ we are talking about, look at your full body. Each and every part minor or major is speaking the evidence of designer. Still science has to learn a lot about human body. Life is terrible inefficient????? I heard this first time.

Let alone the fact, that all this "selection" he's talking about takes place only in the imagination of the evolutionists. The selection, as any educated biologist knows but too well after all these years of observation, has NEVER produce anything that could be recognized as constituting NEW species.

So all these talks about these "selections" is for uneducated people, who don't even bother to study this abundant information available these days through Internet. And those who DO already know, that evolutionists have long GIVEN UP on selection and mutation as means to produce new species.

Just don't forget: between Darwin and our take there has passed SOME TIME. Don't you think scientists were sitting idle all these years. Observation and analysis have been made, conclusions drawn. Selection and mutation DON'T work the way it was originally suggested. Period.

Oh, and DON'T, please, tell me next that 100 years is not enough to notice such thing. It's not about that, it's about the fact that mutation ONLY produces mutilated species and never anything improved. Then in next generations it gradually comes back to normal. The Maker of DNA did his job very well! They will yet break their teeth on it, you know.

Originally Posted by reed9 If God designed life, he's a piss poor engineer.

I don't believe you're sincere on this one, excuse me. At least, you're not at all hasty to part with that "poor" life of yours, it seems?
Well then, eat and say "thank you!" , which is not only good manners, but it makes one feel better himself .

Originally Posted by kostya And those who DO already know, that evolutionists have long GIVEN UP on selection and mutation as means to produce new species.

Wow. Just wow. Totally wrong, of course.

This is what kills me. You all are so certain that evolution isn't true, and yet the caricature of evolution you have in your mind is filled with errors and misconceptions you don't even know what evolutionary theory really says or what the evidence is. I'm done. I can't argue with willful ignorance.

Originally Posted by kostya I don't believe you're sincere on this one, excuse me. At least, you're not at all hasty to part with that "poor" life of yours, it seems? Well then, eat and say "thank you!" , which is not only good manners, but it makes one feel better himself .

And of course I'm sincere. There's tons of examples of poor, inefficient designs in animals, including humans.

Originally Posted by kostya I see a different picture though. I've offered you a very good explanation the like of which you couldn't find yourself. One which is absolutely verifiable using the same book. Those genealogies were handled at the time by scribes in the society which WAS religious all through. I will be quite safe, too, assuming that evangelist Luke knew much more about the matter than yourself. And in any case I don't know how you pretend to believe there could exist "non-religious" sources of such information... But hey, that's just my opinion and need not discourage YOU! Just don't let nobody and nothing turn you down. Go and find these sources and then make a good presentation of it. Then I'll see what your "interest" is worth.

You're saying that, in that time and place in history, it was natural for people to write about their sons-in-laws as if they were their sons. This is not a religious question, it's a historical-cultural question.

The reason it has to be verified by a non-Christian source should be obvious: Christians lie about their sources all the time. They're like God's Fox News.

Nice try shifting the burden of proof, too. I'm not the one making claims about first century Jewish literature practices, you are. The burden of proof is on you. Otherwise, your argument does not merit consideration.

Originally Posted by kostya Easy to say, yet hard to prove. Especially seeing that all the above is hardly the result of YOUR research. And I read the Bible myself and can at any time produce any needed evidence from it, and these are not mere words.

Not hard to prove at all. We've got quite a number of sources on Egyptian mythologies, both from Egyptian and Roman sources. Plutarch is particularly useful on Osiris. Sources on Mithras are a little less common.

Anyway, Mithras was just one of several gods predating Jesus with special birth stories, so enjoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births

Here's another interesting bit Christians borrowed from Osiris, as described by Plutarch: "The death of the grain and the death of the god were one and the same: the cereal is identified with the god who came from heaven; he is the bread by which man lives. The resurrection of the god symbolized the rebirth of the grain."

Hello, eucharist.

Originally Posted by SL00b Not hard to prove at all. We've got quite a number of sources on Egyptian mythologies, both from Egyptian and Roman sources. Plutarch is particularly useful on Osiris. Sources on Mithras are a little less common. Anyway, Mithras was just one of several gods predating Jesus with special birth stories, so enjoy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miraculous_births Here's another interesting bit Christians borrowed from Osiris, as described by Plutarch: "The death of the grain and the death of the god were one and the same: the cereal is identified with the god who came from heaven; he is the bread by which man lives. The resurrection of the god symbolized the rebirth of the grain." Hello, eucharist.

You didn't get it, man.

The Bible is something that I can read myself in various languages and translations.
When you can do the same about the sources you're talking about, then we'll be equal to discuss these matters. So far it is with you like repeating other people's gossip without being able to test and prove it.

Originally Posted by reed9 Wow. Just wow.

Exactly .

While evolution is indeed a "caricature" in itself, it is in no way hidden from public. As they teach it from elementary to high school and college, push it everywhere as a "science", it is pretty much well known thing.

And it fails at EVERY "evidence" it pretends to have. It is not just "probability is wrong" or something. It is ALL false and imaginary from A to Z. Starting from the "transitional links" between species which no one has ever seen, as every species ever found was just that: a SPECIES, finished and perfectly fit as such (by definition), no signs of being "transitional" in any way.
So starting from that and all the way to the obvious fact that evolution as a process just doesn't take place in this world. The matter we see around us doesn't "evolve" on its own, that's all. Therefore you must look for other reason of it being so various in design and complication, and intelligent creation is the only alternative.

Of course, people's minds are so much biased in favour of evolution, that when they are given "alternative look" at it, their reaction is always a "WOW!".

So the evolutionists' view on things (to correct my previous statement) can be justly described thus: "we don't know, yet god we don't want, therefore it MUST be creation, however impossible it may seem". This demonstrates much better their state of mind.
So "evolutionism" isn't a "science" as compared with sciences, it's rather a religion where one's will to believe in it outweighs sound reason and judgement together with factual evidence.

Originally Posted by SL00b You're saying that, in that time and place in history, it was natural for people to write about their sons-in-laws as if they were their sons. This is not a religious question, it's a historical-cultural question.

And since when has the Bible ceased to be a historical-cultural document?
Or, what other such documents of such value about Jewish life are found?

Originally Posted by reed9 And of course I'm sincere. There's tons of examples of poor, inefficient designs in animals, including humans.

It is not "poor design", according to the Bible it is a consequence of sin, the original disobedience to God of the first human couple.
You don't expect to rebel against the Maker and continue in good health, do you? You can steal things from a fellow human and pretend before others these are YOUR things. But God is not someone to be fooled with.

Ah, but since you expel God from the list of existing things, it complicates matters. FOR YOU.

Originally Posted by reed9 Wow. Just wow. Totally wrong, of course.

Not ALL evolutionists have given up on that, of course. Yet the smartest among them have got it that they aren't going to find transitional species. So now they're talking about "instantaneous" change from a "less" to a "more advanced" species. Sorry, I couldn't found any Internet links; but I think you'll have no problems finding them, fond as you are of evolution stuff.