Christmas poll

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Originally Posted by JMS

Likewise if you expect it not to include God.

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Yep.
I expected nothing. I found something. And I found out later that it had a name... Dzogchen Buddhism.

No God. Just an illusion. And an experience that has no requirements. It just changes. And it doesn't have a forseeable end.

I don't expect most people to understand it. And I don't say this pretentiously, its just that most people live their entire lives inside the box they were born in. I couldn't.

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Originally Posted by livingontheedge

Nope, nothing there to convince me. The religious teachings of be kind to your fellow man, etc. are IMO great and I don't dispute the benifits to society. But a belief in an all seeing all knowing being is also an excellent way of controling a widely dispersed and largely unpoliced populance, thou shall not kill, not because the police will catch you, but because God is watching, and you will not go to heaven, unless you ask for forgiveness and accept him into your heart? That is, if you have never used his name in vain, for that is unforgiveable!?

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Knowing where to dig is just as important as knowing how. Here's a page a little deeper into the GTY website.

Search

Click on a link and if there has been a broadcast message it will give you a "listen" option

And here are some deeper context on Faith Facts

Common Misconceptions about Christianity - Faith Facts

World Religions & Theology - Faith Facts

I Might Consider Becoming a Christian If... - Faith Facts

Apologetics: Why the Bible is Trustworthy - Faith Facts

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v3.../flamewars.jpg

This thread still kicking? I shall now present:

YouTube - UFO Believers Vs Religious Believers

I've got another that I really want to post, but I'm afraid I'd get banned for it...

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Originally Posted by ENUF2

Common Misconceptions about Christianity - Faith Facts

World Religions & Theology - Faith Facts

I Might Consider Becoming a Christian If... - Faith Facts

Apologetics: Why the Bible is Trustworthy - Faith Facts

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That's a very biased website. It states that it is obvious to any thinking person that there is a God, but it is obvious to me that there isn't one. And to presume that the only reasonable way the universe could exist is if God created it, begs the question, "Then where did God come from?", to which the uber-religious reply, "It is not for man to question God! That is arrogant!". So in reality, their circular reasoning proves nothing but a pre-existing condition of faith-based faith, rather than anything fact-based.

If man could prove the existence of God, it would've happened already.

Maybe you should have a look at this...

SAB Contradictions

So then, if they did 'know' that it was a lie, what would they have to gain by dying? :)

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Originally Posted by TheBaron

I can't believe I'm letting you suck me into this argument.

How do you know that the apostles didn't know it was a lie. Take yourself outside of your blind faith for a moment and consider another point of view. This was an era where having a religious following meant having a source of money, power and possibly an army of soldiers willing to die for their faith. Also consider the apostles were normal men and capable of both good and bad deeds like the rest of us.

If Jesus was the real deal then these apostles were men that new it and where willing to die for him. If Jesus was not the real deal (or didn't even exist and was just a figure head of a bunch of false stories) and the apostles new it, then these apostles where men trying to gain power and eventually the local authorities caught up with them and killed them for their crimes. In that list Enuf posted I noticed none of those men committed suicide, so it is realistically POSSIBLE that none of them were willing to die but instead forced to in order to stop their lies and uprising.

The question of the thread is whether or not a Jesus existed and your proof is that a group of men with something to gain by his existence died because of it.

Your statement is not proof of his existence, it is only proof that he could have existed or that a group of men started a cult and where killed by the local authorities for it (not unlike branch dividian).

Stronger proof of the existence of a man named Jesus would be documentation from witnesses on the opposing side of the argument. If there is documents written by the romans or Jews that corroborates the existence of jesus (that the author actually witnessed). Then you have very strong evidence that the man actually existed. Until you can come up with said text then all you have is your belief (faith) that he existed.

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

So you would agree with what I said about the world beginning around 11,000BCE? This is far too short a time period for anything even remotely space/time related to effect. Again (again), you are just stating here that "certain events" are true because they are in the Bible without any corroborating evidence. If you are trying to prove the validity of the Bible on a chronological, geological scale, then this is most certainly a case where I think evidence should be required. Do a forum search on creationism for more info.

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I never said that. If you can't win an argument without trying to put words in you opponent's mouth (or keyboard) you should just admit defeat and stop trying. I never said the world started 11,000 years ago. You are not paying attention. As I said before, there is plenty of evidence to support the events in the Bible.

As I stated in my post, the Universe is expanding faster today than it was immediately after the Big Bang. In FACT, the rate of expansion is expanding at an ever increasing rate. Try reading Michio Kaku, Steven Hawking, Edwin Hubble, and a host of other contemporary astro physicist and you will see that I am correct. Because if the expansion was steady or slowing, the Universe would at some point reach a peak size and immediately start to collapse on itself. While man may go extinct long before this happens and we really don't have to worry about it, but it would definitely happen.

My point, which went way over your head is that time and space are inextricably linked and an increase in one yields an increase in the other. For every increase in the size of the Universe there is an incredible increase in time. I.E., every time the diameter of the Universe increases, the volume of time in the Universe increases by a factor of pi squared. In my example of the surface of the balloon representing the amount of space in the Universe and gas inside the balloon representing time, a small increase in the surface of the balloon is brought about by a large increase in the gas inside the balloon.

If you start today and follow the expansion of the Universe in reverse, you would see that the Universe would contract at a seemingly slow rate but would contract at an ever increasing rate as you approached the Big Bang because of the difference in time in the Universe. For every day we live on earth, the Universe expands by billions of light years. If you contract the Universe at the current rate of expansion, you would see that the first few days of the existence of the Universe had expanded by billions of light years each human day.

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Do a forum search on creationism for more info.

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While I gladly recognize this forum as the definitive source for information on Straight Razor Shaving, I do not consider it (or most of the members) to be a reliable source on anything other than shaving, least of all the Bible or astro physics. If there is a PhD. physicists in the audience, I will gladly defer.

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

So what you're saying here is that it has nothing to do with plate tectonics, climate change, ocean floor fault lines or anything like that? You may want to check up on what you think you know about evolution and the changing landscape of our planet (beyond 11,000 BCE). You are not thinking on a large enough scale. Prior to land tortoises on the Galapagos, there were no Galapagos. The animals that live there are DIRECTLY a result of the volcanic activity in that area, which FORMED the islands and CAUSED the warm water climate in the immediate region surrounded by cool, depths which, as any marine biologist will tell you, is a ****tail that tons of both land and sea animals thrive upon. God nothing.

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Don't be absurd. I never said nor did I ever imply such a ludicrus idea. There is plenty of examples of these. Nor did I say there were no dinosaurs. Nor did I say that the earth didn't begin forming early in the existance of the Universe. In fact, I don't subscribe to the earth being only 11,000 years old, but that is another discussion entirely. But, time in the vacuum of space doesn't pass at the same rate as it does on earth. In fact, it has been proven that time at the top of a mountain does not pass at the same rate as it does on the base of the mountain. This is why atomic time is used as the authority on the exact time and it is beamed around the earth to satellites and their time is used to calculate positions with GPS.

So my question to you, based on your statement:

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Prior to land tortoises on the Galapagos, there were no Galapagos. The animals that live there are DIRECTLY a result of the volcanic activity in that area, which FORMED the islands and CAUSED the warm water climate in the immediate region surrounded by cool, depths which, as any marine biologist will tell you, is a ****tail that tons of both land and sea animals thrive upon. God nothing.

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How did the tortises, and other animals, get onto the Galapagos Islands? Did they swim such a great distance? I don't know how they actually got there because I wasn't around when they did.

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

This paragraph is pretty out of control. There is no "exponential expansion of space/time" the way you describe it. Read up on red/blue shifts in measuring interplanetary expansion. Scientists have been able to measure and trace the expansion of the universe to the point of the big bang but not before. I've spoken about this in other threads but it keeps coming up. If you want to get into creationism (again) I suggest we start a new thread.

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Read my first response (again).

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

Why not? Wasn't my question legitimate? Or are you happy just believing EVERYTHING that another sect believes save a few minor details? Are Catholics / The Vatican wrong for entertaining evolutionist ideas?

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I never said which side of an argument about Catholics I would take. You are making an assumption here and we all know what you do when you assume.

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Originally Posted by Oglethorpe

Incorrect. The agnostic says "I don't know if there's a [God, higher being, etc] or not." Unless Christians have some other definition for it that I'm not sure of, in which case, I'll stand corrected (by Christians).

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Here we go again, you are misunderstanding a simple concept. True, agnostics say that there may be a God, and they aren't going to say there "is no God", they just decide to let the question be unanswered and they don't take a side. The atheist says there is "no God". For this reason I respect the atheist more than the agnostic because at least the atheist is willing to make up their mind and take a side. I may not agree with it, but I am more than willing to let them live and die with their decision if they maintain that position after having heard the Word.

It is a source of amusement that atheist and agnostics jump on religion so vehemently. If there is no God it wouldn't matter what the Christians believe and they would be content to let us go on deluding ourselves.

I am not putting words in anybody's mouth. If you read the Bible literally (which you imply by stating that there is no evolution thereby being a proponent of creationism), then you are inherently stating that the world began with a superpower that snapped its fingers (repeatedly over seven days) and conjured up what we see today. This all supposedly happened approximately 13,000 years ago. The Galapagos are no exception, according to you, and God put everything that's there now, there. Is this not what you said? Don't tell me I misread your entire post. Either that or you need to do a better job of explaining yourself.

Also, I'd love to see the evidence (beyond secondhand accounts) of Biblical events that are not purely historical. For example, the Bible can be corroborated with some events in history -- such as wars with Egyptians and Romans, even the Exodus. But if that's all that was in there, then Christians (Jews, Muslims) would not be as grandiose as it claims. What drives all this discussion is the claims that are not of this world. And I would suggest that none of the evidence you allude to proves any of it to be true.

As for the rest of your arguments, I have read works from the same reputable physicists as you, and it appears you take the same liberties of interpretation with them as you do the Bible. Nowhere in any of those books does it say that the "7 days" described in the creation story fits into the big bang / universe expansion theories. You just plain made that up. Admit it, or point to the spot where I can find it.

I'm done beating this horse. I have nothing against Christians/Christianity, but as Glenn said, if you try to make fact claims about the validity of "reference material" that is impossible to validate, I will support the stance of the materials and research whose claims are validate-able. This is not an attack upon anybody, it's an exercise of logical thinking. There is nothing logical behind Christian claims.

Enjoy the holidays. I'm ducking out of this one because I'm already mad at myself for getting sucked into another one of these discussions.

Happy shaving!

I think that we possibly might get nowhere with this threat about the man named Jesus.
So maybe we should change into some other famous person of worldwide interest.

Do you believe that there ever was/is a human-man person named Harry Potter?

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Originally Posted by MinniesMate

It is a source of amusement that atheist and agnostics jump on religion so vehemently. If there is no God it wouldn't matter what the Christians believe and they would be content to let us go on deluding ourselves.

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I find it amusing that you put yourself above the argument. Aren't you also jumping on atheists and agnostics? Isn't it part of the "human" side of Christianity to "teach the Word"? What do you do when the "Word" is not received with vigor as you expected, and instead is challenged with logic, reason, and requirements for proof? The same exact thing. Don't be a hypocrite.