Atheist Q/A (because everyone else has one)

[church]

That was the rule for prophecy. It has to be so specific that it can only refer to one thing. Because it's an extraordinary claim that someone had foreknowledge of something that would happen thousands of years later. Yes it could happen. Anything can happen, but it requires extraordinary evidence. I was acting as a scientist, trying to disprove you first which is what a scientist does. And, in order to disprove you, the verse would have to contradict the rule for being a prophecy, that it has to be specific enough to only refer to one thing. Thus if I found something else it could refer to than it didn't work

And at the same time you say that your alternative is not generally accepted as being a viable interpretation. You are using an inability to falsify an alternative as proof of falsehood. Which is not the the rule, the rule is it must not vague. You have also missed the point of the rule, in that it is to prevent someone from making a prophecy that you cannot understand the meaning then fill the meaning in after something can be stretched to fill it. This is not the case with that wording.

If we are to start using an inability to falsify an alternative as proof of falsehood for extraordinary claims, then evelution, the big bang theory, and abiogenesis must all be false because they are extraordinary claims with alternatives that have not been shown to be false.

Do you think it is possible to come up with a statement that cannot be interpreted in more ways than one? If you do, I will challenge you to come up with one.

Now, for Calment, the significant figures argument is valid. Would you say that any number not given in the smallest unit of measure possible is incorrect? Me thinks not. You sound closer to a school kid being obnoxious to his teacher at this point. It's a childish argument to say because you did not say it in the most precise terms physically possible that it isn't valid. 120 years was the limit independtly shown by Dr. Hayflick and has been confirmed via studies on telemers and aging.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

And at the same time you say that your alternative is not generally accepted as being a viable interpretation. You are using an inability to falsify an alternative as proof of falsehood. Which is not the the rule, the rule is it must not vague. You have also missed the point of the rule, in that it is to prevent someone from making a prophecy that you cannot understand the meaning then fill the meaning in after something can be stretched to fill it. This is not the case with that wording.

But that's exactly what you're doing isn't it? After the discovery of this limit, you're stretching the prophecy to say it fulfills that thing even though it's vague enough that many people think it means many different things.

You are correct, though, on the rule that it needs to only refer to one thing. I was wrong on this one. I'm going to go back to these rules:

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Prophecy

If we are to start using an inability to falsify an alternative as proof of falsehood for extraordinary claims, then evelution, the big bang theory, and abiogenesis must all be false because they are extraordinary claims with alternatives that have not been shown to be false.

That's because the "alternatives" are not testable and thus not scientific. For example, if you make the definition vague enough you wouldn't be able to test ghosts or other spirits.

Do you think it is possible to come up with a statement that cannot be interpreted in more ways than one? If you do, I will challenge you to come up with one.

No I don't, actually. You're right on this point.

Now, for Calment, the significant figures argument is valid. Would you say that any number not given in the smallest unit of measure possible is incorrect? Me thinks not. You sound closer to a school kid being obnoxious to his teacher at this point. It's a childish argument to say because you did not say it in the most precise terms physically possible that it isn't valid. 120 years was the limit independtly shown by Dr. Hayflick and has been confirmed via studies on telemers and aging.

Keep reading through the thread. God doesn't say 120 years plus or minus 2 or 3 years. If the oldest confirmed person was 122, why make that error? Why not go have that woman be killed before she reached the age of 122? This is supposed to be written by God right? He's omniscient right? Why make such an error, especially since he knew this would come up when people used this as a prophecy or as a proof that God exists.

[church]

Ancient calenders were based on lunar cycles (hence lunar calander) so for a time descrepency

, and he mentioned that ancient eclipse observations lend support to the idea that indeed the Moon has undergone a secular (long term) acceleration, meaning that the lunar month (the time it takes the Moon to complete one orbit around the Earth) is appreciably shorter than it was thousands of year ago when the Babylonians made their observations.

http://mathpages.com/home/kmath690/kmath690.htm **

The lunar calendar had longer years than at present. So, even if we say that we cannot count the 120 years as a center mass measurement of lifespan limits (such as median or mean, which I'll remind you almost all scientific data is based) it is still able to be an absolute upper limit for lifespan because of the shortening of the lunar year over time.

** I could not make out the math on it. Worse, the math is inaccurate because from other sources I have read the actual effects need to take relativity into account to be explained accurately.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

So than you're saying 120 years is not the actual limit? So than what is the limit than? And what will you say when that limit is broken?

And that means that the verse is not refering to the hayflick limit anyway because the ancient calendar is different than the calendar the hayflick limit is based on, as you said.

One last thing:

To your argument that it is vague. I'm going to go ahead and point out you're using the letter but not the spirit of the rules. The reason it can't be vague is so that it can't be applied to mean anything, that lets people pick which one turns out to be right. This is to keep the prophecy from several meanings that are wrong, and one that is right. However, every meaning in this one turned out to be right so it defeats the reasoning behind that rule.

So if every interpretation turns out to be right, than it violates the rule on it being vague, anyway, because it can than refer to any of those things. It helps the prophet chose which one to talk about after the fact.

The prophecy must not be overly vague
If a prediction is vague enough, then any number of events can match it. A prophecy like "Two powers shall strive, and an empire shall fall" could mean any number of things: two countries going to war, and one of them being defeated; or two countries going to war and destroying a third country; or even two supermarket chains competing for customers, and one of them going out of business.
If the prophecy is vague, and can apply to various situations, it becomes difficult or impossible to tell which one, if any, the prophet had in mind. This is to the prophet's advantage, since it becomes difficult to discredit him.

[Tea Ess]

Well, first, I would like to thank you for your prompt, thourough reply, and apologize for this late, incomplete post. I just started school, and I am working on organizing the order of the day.

Most of these questions I'm going to have to say quite simply I don't know. I'm not a historian. I'm not a scientist. I've said this many times before. Many things in the science world go over my head even when I do attempt to understand them. That's why I generally defer to experts in their field when it comes to questions of science and history. So most of what I say here is not necessarily true. I'd encourage you to google around and find someone who does know what they're talking about.

Alright. I understand that you are not an expert in every field we bring up. I am definitely not well learned in almost any field; most of what I know has either come from school related studies or has been deducted from these studies.

That one I would have to say no, I'm not familiar with it. If you're talking about testing them to see if they correspond to real events, that's going to be different than testing to see what year they come from I'm sure. No I haven't studied how these are applied to any historical document. I can ask the same of you, have you studied how these apply to the Koran? Or the Bag-avid Gita? Or any other religious text? This one I would be more able to talk about than scientific things because they do tend to just go straight over my head. I can talk about scientific things, but it takes awhile for me to "get it." However for this, I'm more readily able to talk about whatever evidence you have for the Bible having historical accuracy.

Good. The tests are used to study the content of the document, and not the physical matter of the document. I am much more familiar with their applications to the Bible, and not most other documents. I know there are several glaring inconsistences in the Koran in regard to Jesus Christ. These tests are mainly used to determine the accuracy of historical documents. There are three main tests, as far as I know, that test for reliability and consistency of the work or document. Unfortunately, it has been a while since I have studied them, so I will be a bit rusty in my descriptions. I am also unsure of the exact process of converting raw data from these tests into comparable results. As far as I know, this test can be used on any historical book or text.
I will focus on the last test, naturally, since it is the one the Bible excels at. If you are interested in this to a farther degree, I would be more than happy to expand on the other two.
The internal test is used to ensure that there is general consensus within the document. Its main purpose is to search for any contradictions within the historical work. This one is the most straightforward, as it only requires searching throughout the work, and not other pieces and data from the same time frame. The Bible passes this one well, with most inconsistencies –at-a-glance tracing back either to translation or other sources of common error.

The external test compares data in the document to verified sources, such as archeological finds or already accurate documents. This test is the opposite of the internal test, and is different in that instead of deducting for each contradiction, points are added for each match with existing data. I believe that points are deducted for each clash with existing information.

The bibliographic test is the most complicated and important test. If we lack the original document (as we virtually always do), then we must use this process. First and foremost, to be considered a reliable source, the historical work must contain eyewitness accounts or second hand accounts of the events described. If the work does contain this, than it goes through a process of comparing the documents alternate copies. Scientists using this test basically take the time between the original document date and the earliest copy we have. The longer the time is between the two dates, than the lesser the assumed accuracy of the document. The last component of this test involves measuring the number of copies made by different authors, and also examining these copies for any alterations. No change between many alternate copies would mean a perfect score in this regard.

This test the Bible passes with flying colors. I will have to break it up between the Old and New Testament. Typically, the earliest copies we find for most documents are dated to be 500-1000 years old. We also only have 1-10 early copies of most documents. For example, consider the works of Pliny the Younger, a historian in the early years of A.D. We have seven copies of his major work, the earliest of which was written roughly 750 years after his original work. This is considered one of the smaller time spans between copies.
The earliest copies we have of the New Testament were made a mere 25 years after the original book! We also have 24,000 copies all matching almost perfectly, indicating faithful copying over a span of 2000 years! This shows that the New Testament passes the bibliographic test better than any other historical work of its period.

Although the Old Testament does not pass nearly this well, it passes better than most documents considered accurate. The earliest copies we have are the Dead Sea Scrolls, as you probably know. They do not cover the entire Old Testament, but they do contain the book of Isaiah and several other pieces of the Old Testament, giving us a relatively good picture of the copying accuracy of the time. The copies are accurate to the current Hebrew Torah to 95%, with most of the variation being in the spelling of Biblical locations. The remainder of the change is mainly obvious slips of the pen.

I'm a big fan of him, actually. His Narnia books were instrumental to my childhood and my love of fantasy. I do not think he was ever an atheist, as he claims because of this quote:

You can't actually be angry at something that doesn't exist. I'm not angry at fairies for not holding up my house (a favorite example argument of mine ). I'm not angry at Atlantis for not being a real city. I'm not angry at Superman for not protecting the world. I'm not angry at Santa Clause for not delivering my presents. Lewis believed in God the entire time he said he was an atheist, otherwise he wouldn't have been angry at said god. People who believe is God are angry at said god all the time. I've met plenty of people angry at God. But they're not atheists, they still believe in God.

This is fair enough. I would have to do more reading on his biographies to make a firm decision, though. And yes, I thought I was a fan until I met someone who read the books eleven times cover to cover, and is working to convert the second book into a scripted format. I guess that I am probably in the top ten percent of C.S. Lewis admirers, but nowhere close to this person.

As for his Trilemma argument, it's full of contradictions. The basic argument is that Jesus was either a liar, lunatic, or lord as it is often paraphrased. The first, and most obvious, contradiction is that it is a false trichotomy. There are more than three options. For example, he could have been a legend, passed on through word of mouth or some other type of thing. Have you ever played the game telephone? When you give one person a message and tell them to pass it down along the row of people, the message is significantly different from the original message when it gets to the last person in the line. Stories change and get exaggerated over time. The story of Jesus's magical abilities could be a legend like so many other legends throughout history.

Yes, I have played telephone, but my little brother always changed the message on purpose. I don’t even bring this option into the realm of possibility. If Jesus’ divinity is a lie, then there goes the entire purpose of the Bible. I also don’t believe that, as the events were recorded quickly and copied faithfully that there was any room for change.

The statements could have been misinterpreted, another objection. If Jesus actually said them he could have meant something different when he said them. Misinterpretation seems to be a common theme in this thread lately... Apparently, the current historical belief is that Jesus never actually claimed to be divine. I don't know how accurate that is, I just read it on wikipedia so don't take my word for that.

Well, as I said, that would basically shoot down any chance of the Bible being correct, and also bring down the faith of billions of people. The Bible quotes Jesus repeating hundreds of times his authority on earth and heaven, and he confirmed that He was the Son of God. Here is a quote I find helpful on this subject from the works of Flavius Josephus:
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principle men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (The Works of Josephus, William Whiston, Hendrickson, 1998, p. 480)

Let it be noted that Josephus was a definite Jew, and completely unsympathetic to the Christians of the time. He wrote purely to gain sympathy from Rome towards the Jews.

My goodness it always fascinates me to look at all the little subcultures. No, I hadn't heard of them, but after a little short expedition into google, I know who they are. Pretty similar to superstars like Ken Ham and Kent Hovind it would seem.

Well, I was mostly asking to see if they were recognizable names to someone outside of our little world in here. I have gotten to see Dr. Wile in a convention. It was rather humorous to see him being followed by students hampering for an autograph on their textbook.

I would also like to ask this before this conversation gets started: If evolution is so obviously not real and the evidence for it not being real is clearly right there, than why do you think scientists still keep it as a theory? And I should clarify, a theory in science is different from the word theory in everyday use. When scientists use the word theory, they mean an explanation to explain a large body of evidence and experiments. There's gravitational theory, quantum theory, atomic theory, germ theory, and many others. When non-scientists use the word, they generally mean "just a guess."

Now I really have no idea what this is supposed to mean so a quick google search will do the trick. Well, again, I'm not a scientist, but from what I've dug up it would seem that uniformitarianism is the same as gradualism in that they both say that the laws of nature are the same as they've always been and operate everywhere in the universe. Catastrophism is the idea Earth has been affected by sudden, short lived, violent events. Now from what I see, I don't see a confliction between the two. And it would make sense for both to be true, that catastrophes do happen, but the laws of nature still work the same regardless of where you stand in the universe or in time.

Yes, I believe that uniformitarianism and gradualism are very similar. Gradualism appears to be a more refined version of uniformitarianism in that uniformitarianism is almost constant, whereas gradualism would have periods of an elevated rate of geologic change followed by periods where change was almost non-existent. If you are interested, I could post my opinions on the subject later.

Again, no scientist, but from my understanding there is transititonary evidence. It's just that every time a new fossil shows up there are still gaps on either side and everyone just keeps demanding for them to be filled. There's also the fact that not all living things become fossilized. For me, I don't use fossils as evidence that evolution happens. I use modern day experiments and hypothesis. Since evolution is simply the change that happens over generations, we can see changes happen much better in things like bacteria because bacteria have a very short lifespan and can make hundreds of generations very quickly. We can see the biological arms race that happens in our bodies.

If we didn't have an understanding of evolution, we wouldn't know how vaccines work. Vaccines are a little bit of the bacteria or virus or whatever, just enough to try to make the cells adapt to the bacteria, since they have short lifespans as well, so that when the bacteria come in, they can already defend against it. I'm not that good at explaining it, if you like I can find another of my posts on the topic of evolution.

It has been a while since biology, but I believe that it is not so much an adaption as a storage of information regarding the virus or synthetic virus. If I remember correctly, it is a process involving B-memory cells to store the knowledge gained about the virus.
Even using this explanation, there are very few very sketchy fossils that are claimed to be links. If evolution did occur and billions of creatures died along all past evolution, you would think there would at least be some strong links we would have discovered by now.

You mean Pascal's Wager. In anticipation, I would like to say that Pacal's Wager doesn't actually prove God's existence. It only says it is better to believe that God exists to avoid hell. Saying it is better to believe something rather than not to believe it is a judgment of value. It has nothing to do with whether it is true or not.

Alright, thank you. As I recall, you said that we also are atheists in that we do not acknowledge the gods of other religions. I found it interesting that you countered with the question essentially asking why we don’t fufill the requirements of other religions, just in case. Since this is a legitimate question, I thought I would answer with my ponderings on the subject.
I suppose that if it were as simple as completing a journey to Mecca, fasting during the appropriate times, completing the prayers and giving alms, then more people would do this, this meaning fulfilling the requirements of all religions, so that we would have a shot at getting into heaven no matter what. However, just about every religion is more than going around with a check-board, crossing out everything you complete. It demands, essentially, that you turn over control of your existence to the One who created you. Even now, there would be people trying to secure a place in each god’s kingdom. However, it is not this simple. The religions here on earth provide direct contradictions to each other. Trying to serve two conflicting masters is impossible. You must pick one of them, or invalidate either relationship by accepting direct contradictions to your beliefs. We can only commit the time, resources, and energy to a single religion, and the fact that they go directly against one another secures this point.

That doesn't have to do with evolution. Evolution is simply something that happens in nature. It doesn't have anything to do with the origin of life, simply how life works. That's why I always say that the IDers are arguing over a misunderstanding. It isn't evolution that they should have a problem with, it's ideas on how life can come from non-life. Once there is a complete scientific theory for how that works, IDers and creationists (they're the same thing, but they like to have different names to disguise that fact) will accept evolution and move on to that new theory, whatever it will be, and than will say that they accepted evolution all along.

I believe the main idea separating IDers and creationists is that creationists build off of the premise of intelligent design, forming a whole picture, whereas IDers, as far as my limited knowlege goes, typically argue for intelligent design, but aren't connecting that to a relationship with the Creator. And yes, I agree that many of our arguments are directed at non-life to life, and not the process of evolution.

I have two more questions for you:
Do you believe in a worldwide Flood?
What would you say about the faith of the early French people? When my family visited Paris, we toured the Notre Dame. This cathedral was built over a span of several hundred years. This mean that the peasants and workmen building this church knew that neither they, nor their children, or even their grandchildren, would see the finished result. Let me also mention that they worked without steady, or even existent pay, but worked on and off on this magnificent creation for generations. Would you say that these people were crazy or misled (or something else)?

[church]

what will you say when that limit is broken?

Likely the same thing you will say when God speaks to you directly. But just like you don't believe that will happen, I don't believe humans will go past that limit. Although I will point out that there is a plausible mechanism which God carried out the shortening of lifespans in humans. Telemerase exists throughout the human body as I said before, but it is inactivated. Reactivating it causes cancer, cells of which can replicate indefinitely as far as we know. If this enzyme was active in humans, then to shorten the lifespans God would merely have to inactivate it. I'm curious about how cancer was prevented in that scenario, whether it's the active telemerase or the reactivation that causes the cancer. Or if there is another mechanism that could be used to prevent the cancer from developing that was also removed. Not that that's relevant, just very interesting to me to see how the changes could have occured.

And that means that the verse is not refering to the hayflick limit anyway because the ancient calendar is different than the calendar the hayflick limit is based on, as you said.

The Haylfick limit *is* a central tendency measurement. Just like electron orbitals are only where the electron has a 90% chance of being, or the MPG your car is supposed to get. The mechanism that imposes the Hayflick limit puts a limit that is too close to what God said to ignore though. You also sound like you are saying it's wrong either way so no matter what it's false.

Looking at the changes in the calender, we see there are about 354 days in a lunar calander today, whereas the Babylonian calander had about 360 days. that's about a 6 day change in 2,300 years. Taking it back to 10,000 years, since I can't find the math online I am assuming a constant rate of change, 120 years would come out to barely less than 125. I can't say when God made that decree. I can say that unless it happened over 30,000 years ago, it is stinking close to Hayflick's central tendency measure of the human lifespan.

I will also say that the verse isn't saying what the Hayflick limit will be. Both the verse and the Hayflick limit are saying what the human lifespan limit will be.

So if every interpretation turns out to be right, than it violates the rule on it being vague, anyway, because it can than refer to any of those things. It helps the prophet chose which one to talk about after the fact.

I don't know how many times I will have to say this, but I am getting tired of repeating it. The rule is so that when an interpretation turns out false, you can't dismiss it as not being what the prophecy was referring to. If every interpretation turns out to be correct, it doesn't matter which the verse was referring to, because the prophecy is correct regardless of which it was supposed to be.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

I had this big long post written up but than I accidentally x'd out of it. >_>

Well, first, I would like to thank you for your prompt, thourough reply, and apologize for this late, incomplete post. I just started school, and I am working on organizing the order of the day.

As am I, and I'm noticing that I have a lot of work I have to do. I like to be thorough for sure.

Alright. I understand that you are not an expert in every field we bring up. I am definitely not well learned in almost any field; most of what I know has either come from school related studies or has been deducted from these studies.

Same, although a lot of what I've said has come from personal thinking. Most of what I've said so far was from personal thinking and asking questions.

The internal test is used to ensure that there is general consensus within the document. Its main purpose is to search for any contradictions within the historical work. This one is the most straightforward, as it only requires searching throughout the work, and not other pieces and data from the same time frame. The Bible passes this one well, with most inconsistencies –at-a-glance tracing back either to translation or other sources of common error.

Not true at all. The Bible is filled with inconsistencies. It was actually me sitting down and reading the Bible thoroughly that was one of the last things that led to my deconversion. Here's a couple lists of many inconsistencies. Feel free to go through them and try to explain them if you like:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... tions.html
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ ... ncies.html
http://www.cs.umd.edu/~mvz/bible/bible- ... encies.pdf

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Bible to have that many inconsistencies if it was written by an all knowing God. It makes perfect sense if it was written by many different people over a long period of time.

The external test compares data in the document to verified sources, such as archeological finds or already accurate documents. This test is the opposite of the internal test, and is different in that instead of deducting for each contradiction, points are added for each match with existing data. I believe that points are deducted for each clash with existing information.

I don't have a problem with places or people in the Bible being real. Many places and people in the Bible were real, that's not the problem. The problem comes when we get magical claims. Those kinds of claims, like being able to walk on water, turn water into wine, randomly destroy fig trees, and being raised from the dead, need to have extraordinary evidence. Something in a book or someone in a book being real is not enough to verify the magical claims of the documents. Or, for that matter, other documents. For example, say I write a book about W Bush in which he has the ability to fly and use x-ray vision. Now W Bush and Washington, D.C. are real, but the claims of magical abilities are not. Say I write a sequel to that book. So a thousand years from now, archaeologists find my two books about Washington and W Bush's magical powers. They say, well Washington and W Bush were real and these magical powers are confirmed by this other document. They must be real!

The bibliographic test is the most complicated and important test. If we lack the original document (as we virtually always do), then we must use this process. First and foremost, to be considered a reliable source, the historical work must contain eyewitness accounts or second hand accounts of the events described. If the work does contain this, than it goes through a process of comparing the documents alternate copies. Scientists using this test basically take the time between the original document date and the earliest copy we have. The longer the time is between the two dates, than the lesser the assumed accuracy of the document. The last component of this test involves measuring the number of copies made by different authors, and also examining these copies for any alterations. No change between many alternate copies would mean a perfect score in this regard.

So than if there are changes, how do they decide if it was supposed to be that document or if it's a different one entirely? Just wondering on that one.

This test the Bible passes with flying colors. I will have to break it up between the Old and New Testament. Typically, the earliest copies we find for most documents are dated to be 500-1000 years old.

I assume you mean 500-1000 years older than the original document because that would only take you to the middle ages.

We also only have 1-10 early copies of most documents. For example, consider the works of Pliny the Younger, a historian in the early years of A.D. We have seven copies of his major work, the earliest of which was written roughly 750 years after his original work. This is considered one of the smaller time spans between copies.
The earliest copies we have of the New Testament were made a mere 25 years after the original book! We also have 24,000 copies all matching almost perfectly, indicating faithful copying over a span of 2000 years! This shows that the New Testament passes the bibliographic test better than any other historical work of its period.

Although the Old Testament does not pass nearly this well, it passes better than most documents considered accurate. The earliest copies we have are the Dead Sea Scrolls, as you probably know. They do not cover the entire Old Testament, but they do contain the book of Isaiah and several other pieces of the Old Testament, giving us a relatively good picture of the copying accuracy of the time. The copies are accurate to the current Hebrew Torah to 95%, with most of the variation being in the spelling of Biblical locations. The remainder of the change is mainly obvious slips of the pen.

I'm honestly not quite sure what you mean by this. So the more copies of it there are and the closer to the original date someone copied it down than the more accurate it is supposed to be? I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. So if someone wrote a book about a magical flying pink elephant and than someone wrote a copy of it a couple days after he wrote it, it's more accurate because someone copied it down soon? Lots of copies of a document just proves that there are lots of copies of that document, that many people felt the need to make copies. It doesn't prove any of the claims in the document.

This is fair enough. I would have to do more reading on his biographies to make a firm decision, though. And yes, I thought I was a fan until I met someone who read the books eleven times cover to cover, and is working to convert the second book into a scripted format. I guess that I am probably in the top ten percent of C.S. Lewis admirers, but nowhere close to this person.

Obviously there are Christians (and people of all other religions from that matter) who used to be atheists. Of course there are. I just don't think this particular person, C.S. Lewis, ever was one based on that quote. Of course I could be wrong.

Well I'm not nearly that big of a fan.

Yes, I have played telephone, but my little brother always changed the message on purpose. I don’t even bring this option into the realm of possibility. If Jesus’ divinity is a lie, then there goes the entire purpose of the Bible. I also don’t believe that, as the events were recorded quickly and copied faithfully that there was any room for change.

Just because you don't like it or it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean you can just take it off the table of possibility. It could very well be a legend. The point was that it was a false trilemma, there were more than three options and I listed some others. No one ever does do a good job of discounting the other two (liar and lunatic) either, as I pointed out above. Regardless, the argument is full of holes.

And your brother changing the message on purpose is a good analogy. People have written down false things on purpose before. There's no reason that can't have happened here. And there's no reason it can't have been a matter of changing thanks to many people telling each other things over time.

Well, as I said, that would basically shoot down any chance of the Bible being correct, and also bring down the faith of billions of people. The Bible quotes Jesus repeating hundreds of times his authority on earth and heaven, and he confirmed that He was the Son of God. Here is a quote I find helpful on this subject from the works of Flavius Josephus:
“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works – a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principle men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.” (The Works of Josephus, William Whiston, Hendrickson, 1998, p. 480)

Let it be noted that Josephus was a definite Jew, and completely unsympathetic to the Christians of the time. He wrote purely to gain sympathy from Rome towards the Jews.

If that's the case, that's a better cause for him not to have written this. Don't you think that if Jesus really had come back from the dead that since Josephus was trying to get sympathy from the Romans he would have fudged the records a little bit and tried to cover it up. It's a bit more likely that he didn't actually write that, that it was added later to make it more Christian friendly. Once you scratch the surface of Josephus, things start to fall apart:

http://asktheatheist.com/?p=225
http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/josephus-1
http://undeniably-atheist.blogspot.com/ ... ianum.html
http://asktheatheist.rationalresponders ... s_on_jesus

Well, I was mostly asking to see if they were recognizable names to someone outside of our little world in here. I have gotten to see Dr. Wile in a convention. It was rather humorous to see him being followed by students hampering for an autograph on their textbook.

Well they're celebrities like any other than. I've seen a few celebrities myself over the years. Always fun.

Yes, I believe that uniformitarianism and gradualism are very similar. Gradualism appears to be a more refined version of uniformitarianism in that uniformitarianism is almost constant, whereas gradualism would have periods of an elevated rate of geologic change followed by periods where change was almost non-existent. If you are interested, I could post my opinions on the subject later.

I don't take a position on the matter because I'm not a geologist and I really don't want to have to talk about geology because it's just so boring. Geology has to be the most boringist boring science ever. But I will if you really want to. It's just so boring. >_>

It has been a while since biology, but I believe that it is not so much an adaption as a storage of information regarding the virus or synthetic virus. If I remember correctly, it is a process involving B-memory cells to store the knowledge gained about the virus.

Ya, I'm not a biologist, but what you're describing sounds like evolution to me. Of course I could be wrong. I'd have to defer to people who actually know what they're talking about.

Even using this explanation, there are very few very sketchy fossils that are claimed to be links. If evolution did occur and billions of creatures died along all past evolution, you would think there would at least be some strong links we would have discovered by now.

I don't know very much about this. I'd have to defer to someone who does, biologists, anthropologists or archaeologists. But I do know that not every living thing can fossilize. There are distinct things that have to happen for fossils to form:

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjec ... ilhow.html
http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/whatisafossil.htm
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Fossilization

I would like to quote myself on this again because it was a very good question, in my opinion, and a very valid one, but you didn't answer it:

I would also like to ask this before this conversation gets started: If evolution is so obviously not real and the evidence for it not being real is clearly right there, than why do you think scientists still keep it as a theory? And I should clarify, a theory in science is different from the word theory in everyday use. When scientists use the word theory, they mean an explanation to explain a large body of evidence and experiments. There's gravitational theory, quantum theory, atomic theory, germ theory, and many others. When non-scientists use the word, they generally mean "just a guess."

Alright, thank you. As I recall, you said that we also are atheists in that we do not acknowledge the gods of other religions. I found it interesting that you countered with the question essentially asking why we don’t fufill the requirements of other religions, just in case. Since this is a legitimate question, I thought I would answer with my ponderings on the subject.

I thought it was a good question. If someone is going to throw Pascal's Wager at me, I'm going to throw it back at them.

I suppose that if it were as simple as completing a journey to Mecca, fasting during the appropriate times, completing the prayers and giving alms, then more people would do this, this meaning fulfilling the requirements of all religions, so that we would have a shot at getting into heaven no matter what. However, just about every religion is more than going around with a check-board, crossing out everything you complete. It demands, essentially, that you turn over control of your existence to the One who created you. Even now, there would be people trying to secure a place in each god’s kingdom. However, it is not this simple. The religions here on earth provide direct contradictions to each other. Trying to serve two conflicting masters is impossible. You must pick one of them, or invalidate either relationship by accepting direct contradictions to your beliefs. We can only commit the time, resources, and energy to a single religion, and the fact that they go directly against one another secures this point.

You know that game where you have a bunch of cups with a rock under one and someone moves them all around and than you have to choose which one has the rock? Well this is basically like that. Only there are hundreds of thousands, probably more, of cups and only one has the rock under it, according to the Christian world view. Thus you have to choose carefully which one is the right one, only if you choose the wrong one you get really bad things happening to you. This is even worse because most people who are religious belong to the religion of their parents. They were born into that group. Thus most people are going to have bad things happen to them simply because they happen to have born in the wrong place. That's definitely not a loving way to run a universe. Jealousy much?

I believe the main idea separating IDers and creationists is that creationists build off of the premise of intelligent design, forming a whole picture, whereas IDers, as far as my limited knowlege goes, typically argue for intelligent design, but aren't connecting that to a relationship with the Creator. And yes, I agree that many of our arguments are directed at non-life to life, and not the process of evolution.

Well historically, creationists were first. They were the main opposition to the brand new idea of evolution and continued to be until people told them they couldn't teach it in public schools because it's not science. It also violated the constitution's ban on the establishment of religion because the public schools are funded by the government. Thus they changed the name to ID and tried to gut all the religious aspects out of it in an attempt to teach it in public schools. But really they're the same thing only under different names.

Ya, the argument against evolution is just a misunderstanding. Once creationists/IDers realize that arguing against evolution is pretty hard given the evidence, they'll change it around and start arguing against ideas on how life comes from non-life, especially when scientists develop a theory on it.

I have two more questions for you:
Do you believe in a worldwide Flood?

As far as we can tell, the evidence points away from a flood. Again, I'm not a scientists so I'm going to have to defer to someone else whenever that argument starts.

What would you say about the faith of the early French people? When my family visited Paris, we toured the Notre Dame. This cathedral was built over a span of several hundred years. This mean that the peasants and workmen building this church knew that neither they, nor their children, or even their grandchildren, would see the finished result. Let me also mention that they worked without steady, or even existent pay, but worked on and off on this magnificent creation for generations. Would you say that these people were crazy or misled (or something else)?

I would ask you the same question about the numerous large or hard to build religious buildings that people have created over the years. Here are just some:

http://www.decodedstuff.com/10-breathta ... the-world/
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/fe ... ries/17786
The ancient Egyptians considered their pharaohs to be gods and the pyramids were meant to be burial places for the pharaohs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwedagon_Pagoda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf ... =apostolic palace&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1280&bih=697&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=5Wk1UPuxApC-9gSS6YDwCA (this is the apostolic palace, the place where the Pope lives)
http://www.rohama.org/en/news/2360/7-wo ... orldphotos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal

-- 22 Aug 2012 08:47 pm --

Likely the same thing you will say when God speaks to you directly.

Holy poop what's going on in my brain!? Something like that? I'd want to know why there was an independent voice in my head and than I'd talk to it for awhile, probably assume I was crazy.

But just like you don't believe that will happen, I don't believe humans will go past that limit. Although I will point out that there is a plausible mechanism which God carried out the shortening of lifespans in humans. Telemerase exists throughout the human body as I said before, but it is inactivated. Reactivating it causes cancer, cells of which can replicate indefinitely as far as we know. If this enzyme was active in humans, then to shorten the lifespans God would merely have to inactivate it. I'm curious about how cancer was prevented in that scenario, whether it's the active telemerase or the reactivation that causes the cancer. Or if there is another mechanism that could be used to prevent the cancer from developing that was also removed. Not that that's relevant, just very interesting to me to see how the changes could have occured.

Yes, I was going to point this out, but you've already answered it before I even said it, it seems. Why do many people in the Bible live so much longer than 120 years, even after that verse than, if this is what it was referring to?

The Haylfick limit *is* a central tendency measurement. Just like electron orbitals are only where the electron has a 90% chance of being, or the MPG your car is supposed to get. The mechanism that imposes the Hayflick limit puts a limit that is too close to what God said to ignore though. You also sound like you are saying it's wrong either way so no matter what it's false.

Looking at the changes in the calender, we see there are about 354 days in a lunar calander today, whereas the Babylonian calander had about 360 days. that's about a 6 day change in 2,300 years. Taking it back to 10,000 years, since I can't find the math online I am assuming a constant rate of change, 120 years would come out to barely less than 125. I can't say when God made that decree. I can say that unless it happened over 30,000 years ago, it is stinking close to Hayflick's central tendency measure of the human lifespan.

So 120 years in the Bible is going by a lunar calendar, yes? Which would be 125 of our years. But the Hayflick limit was discovered under a Gregorian calendar, 120 years as we know it. That means that the Bible isn't referring to the Hayflick limit regardless here. It's close, but the Bible doesn't say "120 years plus or minus five years." It says 120 years. If God really wrote the Bible and meant to refer to the Hayflick limit, why make that mistake since he is, presumably, all knowing. Why do that when he knew this was going to come up years later in an argument about whether God exists. Sure it goes past the 122 years of the oldest documented human. But it's not the Hayflick limit. If I were you, I'd change my argument around and say the Hayflick limit is what's false. It can be, anything can be false, of course. In fact, it's obviously false. 120 years is clearly not the maximum someone can live.

Also, there is someone else who claims to be 129, though there are apparently some disputes on that. We just have to wait to see if her birth certificate is verified.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... d-bid.html
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/i ... 610a.shtml

I don't know how many times I will have to say this, but I am getting tired of repeating it. The rule is so that when an interpretation turns out false, you can't dismiss it as not being what the prophecy was referring to. If every interpretation turns out to be correct, it doesn't matter which the verse was referring to, because the prophecy is correct regardless of which it was supposed to be.

If every possible interpretation turns out to be right, than the prophet can choose after the fact which one he was referring to, thus it is clearly to vague. The prophet could say, "I was clearly referring to that one," when he might have been referring to the other one or neither. It basically allows him to save himself and say he's a good prophet because he has options. For instance, if I were to say: "Three brothers will rise to rule," that could have several possible interpretations. If all the interpretations someone comes up with come true, I can just choose which one I want to use to further whatever agenda or group of ideas I want. I didn't predict any of those interpretations, but I can say that I did.

Ok so that's the purpose of the rule, according to you, but than what is the actual rule? According to your definition of the rule. What would the rule be to determine that a prophecy is not to vague?

[Tea Ess]

Just so you know, I am working on a reply to your last post. I had absolutely no time yesterday, so I have done most of the writing today.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

That's fine. Take your time. College life can be busy. Trust me, I know.

I'd like to say for anyone just joining us or for people who zoned out during the debate portions, this was started as a question forum. I don't mind debate at all, I think it's a good thing to do, healthy exercise for the mind. However, I am always open to any questions anyone has at any time. If I'm in the middle of a debate with someone, don't be shy, go ahead and throw your questions out there! As long as it pertains to the subject at hand, of course- atheists. Of course you can ask a whole lot of questions from various different topics that fall under that category, so ask away! Before warned, though: I will try to be as thorough as possible in my reply. That means I will attempt to have answers to almost everything that can be an answer to that question.

I would like to ask that you look through the thread just so you don't ask a question I've already answered. I don't mind answering it again, but chances are I'll just simply quote the answer I already gave if it's a repeat.

[church]

Ok so that's the purpose of the rule, according to you, but than what is the actual rule? According to your definition of the rule. What would the rule be to determine that a prophecy is not to vague?

I think you may be missing the point. It's not about being vague. It's about being able to fit anything to match the prophecy so the prophecy can't be shown to be false. How does that apply here?

So 120 years in the Bible is going by a lunar calendar, yes? Which would be 125 of our years. But the Hayflick limit was discovered under a Gregorian calendar, 120 years as we know it. That means that the Bible isn't referring to the Hayflick limit regardless here. It's close, but the Bible doesn't say "120 years plus or minus five years." It says 120 years. If God really wrote the Bible and meant to refer to the Hayflick limit, why make that mistake since he is, presumably, all knowing. Why do that when he knew this was going to come up years later in an argument about whether God exists. Sure it goes past the 122 years of the oldest documented human. But it's not the Hayflick limit. If I were you, I'd change my argument around and say the Hayflick limit is what's false. It can be, anything can be false, of course. In fact, it's obviously false. 120 years is clearly not the maximum someone can live.

I'm starting to think you are going beyond getting to the truth of the matter intentionally now, but I will give it one last shot. God's decree was about human lifespan limit. The Hayflick limit is about the human lifespan limit. Hence, they conicide.

As for every what if you can come up with. It's all nice and dandy to say what will happen (when, if, etc) something happens that goes against it. But until it does happen, I'm not going to pay it anymore attention in real world matters than Stargate or Star Trek.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

I think you may be missing the point. It's not about being vague. It's about being able to fit anything to match the prophecy so the prophecy can't be shown to be false. How does that apply here?

I am able to fit x to match the prophecy, therefore
the prophecy can not be shown to be false.

I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying that if you can fit one thing to match the prophecy, the prophecy can't be false? That doesn't make any sense. And what does that have to do with vagueness? I really don't know what you're trying to say here.

I'm starting to think you are going beyond getting to the truth of the matter intentionally now, but I will give it one last shot. God's decree was about human lifespan limit. The Hayflick limit is about the human lifespan limit. Hence, they conicide.

But the verse is not referring to the Hayflick limit. They're about the same thing (according to you), human lifespan, but your original claim, that the verse was prophesying the Hayflick limit, is false according to your sentence here. Just because something is about something else doesn't mean it is referring intentionally to that something else:

(x=y) does not equal
x is referring to the same thing as y
Not the same thing especially when:
x does not equal y

[Guess Who!]

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in[a] man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.”

Ok. First off, the context is "spirit abiding" so who knows what that means. It could have VERY many interpretations. And "live" really doesn't fit it. I mean, I'm alive, but I'm an atheist, I don't really... I mean... it could mean "abide" as in a special relationship between a god and humanity. In other words, had your messiah lived one hundred and twenty years? Well hmmm, YEAH. Well that would maybe have fit the prophecy TOO. But it certainly didn't happen, not even in the biblical story. So, that's one possibly explanation of what it means for the "spirit" to "abide" and I mean, there could be many others. It is indeed a very vague statement. And that's completely ignoring even the larger context of the verse, which also of course could be important to what it means.

*IF* you assume it is talking purely about a lifetime, which, why would it refer back to the previous, spiritual clause if the purpose was purely to speak of lifespan? Than once again, the prophecy clearly fails. I mean, again if you are going with what the bible says and not supposing Jesus lived 120 years or something and is correct and stuff, than for many generations people lived >600 years. And now? People live according to a central tendency limit, yes, but the limit is ~80 years or so. Maybe ~70. Certainly not 120. Yes, there might be ONE biological limit to cell division in modern human cell growth which (I'm not a biologist) might provide one theoretical limit to the mean value of the human lifespan, BUT, there may be others, such as the length of time a brain working on the human template can keep functioning. Again, there are going to be outliers, but I don't really think there is evidence that THIS limit is exactly 120 years either. Maybe it's more, in which case it's irrelevant, but what if it is less? We *can't* know because um, look, people AREN'T living to a mean value of 120 years! NEVER have. Come up with ANY example of a civilization in which 120 years was the average human lifespan.

You have added very much to that verse, narrowed greatly what it could possibly be referring to, and as such, the prophecy either actively fails or just can't have been determined yet. If a very technologically advanced society can control gene therapy etc. etc. and raises the mean lifespan greatly over what we've been used to but yet through centuries just can't break that limit? And if you'd come up with that limit before any of the genetic information about telomeres had been known? Well, hmmm. Then, I might be willing to credit the idea that this very thread on the ToO was a prophecy. Specific, and ultimately fulfilled. But you already have that information though, about biology, so your prediction is based on that fact, and is just that, prediction not prophecy. And once again, it certainly hasn't been *confirmed.*

ANYWAY. So, this is a question and answer thread, not a debate thread. And it really was pretty great, reading through it and some of the questions and answers were pretty cool to read. But on the other hand. um. yeah. Bang head for me, too. The idea that the verse I quoted up top is incontrovertible proof of christianity et. all and lets spend ten thousand words on it. So, here is my question for jjjj.

Patience!! Where do I get some?! I want as much as you have I would just go rant, rant, rant.

[church]

I hadn't thought that he and his could refer to spirit, not man, before. Spirit (Ruwach) is one of those wonderful words that has a lot of definitions, but it never refered to Jesus, however, one of the definitions of the word is

spirit (of the living, breathing being in man and animals)
as gift, preserved by God, God's spirit, departing at death, disembodied being


There's the problem with your argument. It's based on an average, while we're talking about a limit...

You have added very much to that verse, narrowed greatly what it could possibly be referring to, and as such, the prophecy either actively fails or just can't have been determined yet.

I don't understand. I'd ask you to point out the additions I've made, but I'm not going to be around for awhile after this. I've pointed out what a number of the words are in Hebrew, but I wouldn't call that adding. And it either fails (not sure what you're referring to) or can't be determined yet? ummm, biology has pointed out that DNA in humans can only replicate about 120 years...

And yes, life expentancy has increased, but not the limit to how long humans will live.

Anyway, as I said earlier, I'm not going to be able to continue the conversation since I'm going to be gone from the ToO for awhile.

[bookworm]

I’m confused by your stance on Christians. (Being that you don’t look down on them for sticking with religion as long as they’ve questioned it adequately.)

If you truly feel that way, then I commend you for it and I believe we have equal respect for one another.
I have nothing against atheists, as long as they aren’t just denying religion for the sake of doing it. If they’ve honestly questioned things and come to the reasoned conclusion that there is no God, fine. I believe they’re incorrect of course, but I don’t necessarily hold it against them. Perhaps they haven’t found the last piece of information yet that will bring them around.
The way I see your position (correct me if I’m wrong) is fairly similar. If someone has questioned their religious beliefs and finds them to have merit and sticks with them, that’s fine. You think they’re wrong, but at least they’ve given it thought.

As I said, if that’s really how you think, that’s great. From that kind of mutual understanding it’s possible to have respectful conversations about the two views, as you have. (And I thank you for being willing to do that, it’s a sadly rare thing.) I have questioned my faith, rather extensively, and it consistently held true, which is why I still have it. You may still think I’m wrong, but at least you give me credit for not blindly following it. That acceptance puts both of us in a mindset conducive to open discussion.

But, to be honest, I don’t understand how you can actually hold that opinion. It doesn’t make sense.

I have dealt with several atheist, and their attitudes were all incredibly identical. They clearly held themselves as enlightened beings who have broken through the chains of religion and come to the discovery that God doesn’t exist and we don’t have to be slaves of a church. And because they have reached that pinnacle of knowledge, anyone who hasn’t is obviously an imbecile who thoughtlessly follows religion because they don’t know what else to do. They didn’t only not respect religious people, they disrespected them. They made it clear that if you still cling to a belief in God it was either because you are unwilling or unable to accept facts.

That kind of attitude is obviously not beneficial to anything, but it actually makes some sense.
I assume that you believe your atheism is the true reality. There wouldn’t be a reason to be one otherwise. So that being said, even if you have some level of respect for Christians who have questioned their beliefs, in the end you do believe they are wrong. If that’s the case, then Christians are indeed less intelligent, are they not? If you analyzed religion and came to the correct conclusion that it doesn’t hold up, then anyone who analyses it and finds that it does must either be missing something or simply incapable of proper reasoning.

Do you get what I’m trying to ask? If I was an atheist, that would be the only opinion I could hold. If I truly believed I had come to the correct conclusions, then it would follow that anyone who hasn’t is pretty dumb for not being able to see the truth as I had.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

This is a very good question, one that I haven't given a lot of thought.

You do have to realize there is a certain bias in religion. Religious beliefs have a way of grabbing hold and keeping you in those beliefs, making it hard for you to accept anything else. They keep you in place by playing on emotions, both ones that feel good and ones that feel bad. The fear of hell or the want for heaven are both extremely powerful emotions. Sometimes it can feel like God is actually there. I know all this. I experienced it. A lot of times there is enormous societal pressure to stay within those religious beliefs from friends or family depending on who you surround yourself with. Religion is a very powerful thing. I do not fault anyone in the least, especially if they've earnestly questioned, for having these religious beliefs. They have a very long history behind them. Many people have been religious throughout history. Many of the greatest scientists have been religious. Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics, was a monk. Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, was religious for a long time. Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, and many others were religious. I don't fault that at all because of the powerful influence that religious beliefs hold. It's very difficult to get rid of. I know that from experience. It's not a simple matter of looking at all the evidence and than rejecting it, it's so much more difficult than that. People want to believe it, and for most people, what they want to believe is more powerful than what actually is.

Now my goal is to align my beliefs with reality as best as I can. The first step in doing this is admitting that anything can be discarded, that it's all on the table. Once you do that, you're on the path towards aligning yourself to reality. It hurts because you're not certain. You can never know for certain. It's very different from religion in which you know things absolutely. You are absolutely certain. It's difficult to say that you don't know, that maybe what you think isn't true. It really is. But it's one of the greatest things you can do. When you pull those blinders off and look at things the way they really are.

[bookworm]

That’s all nice, but it doesn’t help my confusion. It actually makes it worse.

You are very correct that this scenario doesn’t play out equally both ways. Me, being religious, having respect for your conclusions as an atheist is easy. Like I said, perhaps you haven’t found that final piece that God will eventually use to get your attention. That’s fine. On the other hand, as an atheist your side seems more straightforward. God either exists or He doesn’t, and once you figure out which one is true it shouldn’t be that difficult to grasp. So you, having done so, I think would be warranted in viewing religious people as less rational, because they remain either unable or simply unwilling to see the light, as it were.

Which leads into your comments about why religion can take such strong hold on someone and why the situation from that end can become complicated. That’s all true, but again, it seems to me that it should strengthen your disdain of people who hold on to those views. You’re saying that religion sticks with someone because of itself. Fear of Hell, experiencing God, etc, all come from the religious beliefs in the first place, so for those to cause someone to stay with it instead of accepting the truth of atheism makes them seem pretty weak or blind, possibly both.

In other words, if atheism is correct, anything that would keep someone believing in religion is fallacious, and therefore not a valid reason to stay with it. So people that do stay with it for those reasons would seem to me, were I on your side, either pretty dumb or just plain irrational, sticking with religion because they are either missing the truth or overlooking it because a religious worldview has become so ingrained in their mentality it prohibits them from accepting anything else.

[Tea Ess]

Sorry I have been so late in replying. This has been most intriguing!

Same, although a lot of what I've said has come from personal thinking. Most of what I've said so far was from personal thinking and asking questions.

Exactly. I have gained much from private deduction.

The internal test is used to ensure that there is general consensus within the document. Its main purpose is to search for any contradictions within the historical work. This one is the most straightforward, as it only requires searching throughout the work, and not other pieces and data from the same time frame. The Bible passes this one well, with most inconsistencies –at-a-glance tracing back either to translation or other sources of common error.

Not true at all. The Bible is filled with inconsistencies. It was actually me sitting down and reading the Bible thoroughly that was one of the last things that led to my de-conversion. Here's a couple lists of many inconsistencies. Feel free to go through them and try to explain them if you like:

I looked at all three of the links provided, and I must say I was not generally convicted or impressed by the collections. I would not be able to disprove all of them, but I can use fact and deduction on a good many. I will still hold to what I said, that the Bible passes the test well, and that most of those inconsistencies trace back to identifiable sources. I noticed a lot of the examples stemmed from the differences in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. As Jesus said and did more than what can be expressed in a book, each of the writers included the highlights of His time here on earth according to their personality. We should expect that each book should differ, and even expect gaps between the four, especially considering that they were hardly all in the same room as they wrote the gospels. The different perspectives of Jesus’ life should provide evidence for His time here on earth, not take it away.
More of these inconsistencies trace back to the Jewish method of genealogy, or quirks in the translating. I recognized three or four of these inconsistencies from a basic junior high class I took. Each one was relatively simple to understand. Not as any kind of insult, but from a point of common sense, if the person who assembled this collection included several points that could be cleared up with a couple hours of research, than why should I be inclined to trust the remainder of this collection?
I would be more than happy to share my thoughts on these inconsistencies if you are interested. Here is just one that I noticed at a glance:
Okay. I looked for the inconsistency, and could not find it where I remembered. I thought it was on the site with the manageable table of contents, but it must be somewhere in the mass of 700 verses on the other website. I will post what I believe it said. Basically, it compared corresponding verses from the Bible from three of the gospels, and claimed that the differing wording was a contradiction. They each had to do with the time the women went to go anoint Jesus at the tomb, and whether they went on the Sabbath, at dusk, or whether they waited until the next day. This was easily understood considering the Jewish method of recognizing the Sabbath:
It lasted from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday.
When this is considered, the verses should actually be more accurate.
I would also like to point out two specific inconsistencies:
“Those that survive the great tribulation will get to wash their clothes
in the blood of the lamb. Gee, that sounds like fun. But how would
washing robes in blood make them white? 7:14”

“Snakes, while built low, do not eat dirt GEN 3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.”

Please excuse my bluntness, but I would just love to see these people try and read through a poem! Is this how they read all metaphors and figurative speech?

It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the Bible to have that many inconsistencies if it was written by an all knowing God. It makes perfect sense if it was written by many different people over a long period of time.

Precisely. We don’t believe that the Bible one day appeared and someone discovered it. It was written over thousands of years through many servants of God. As the books were written, they were compiled into the Old and New Testaments. I doubt this is what you mean, though.
But I am trying to get what you are saying here. I would like to point out that, aside from all the supposed inconsistencies, that the books show very different writing styles, and yet share a deep unity in their purpose. This would be evidence for a book written by many, and directed by One. I believe I understand what you are saying, though. I think most of those inconsistencies were created in the translating process.

I don't have a problem with places or people in the Bible being real. Many places and people in the Bible were real, that's not the problem. The problem comes when we get magical claims. Those kinds of claims, like being able to walk on water, turn water into wine, randomly destroy fig trees, and being raised from the dead, need to have extraordinary evidence. Something in a book or someone in a book being real is not enough to verify the magical claims of the documents. Or, for that matter, other documents. For example, say I write a book about W Bush in which he has the ability to fly and use x-ray vision. Now W Bush and Washington, D.C. are real, but the claims of magical abilities are not. Say I write a sequel to that book. So a thousand years from now, archaeologists find my two books about Washington and W Bush's magical powers. They say, well Washington and W Bush were real and these magical powers are confirmed by this other document. They must be real!

So I am trying to figure this out. You accept the historical dates and facts of the Bible, but not the supernatural events, right?

The bibliographic test is the most complicated and important test. If we lack the original document (as we virtually always do), then we must use this process. First and foremost, to be considered a reliable source, the historical work must contain eyewitness accounts or second hand accounts of the events described. If the work does contain this, than it goes through a process of comparing the documents alternate copies. Scientists using this test basically take the time between the original document date and the earliest copy we have. The longer the time is between the two dates, than the lesser the assumed accuracy of the document. The last component of this test involves measuring the number of copies made by different authors, and also examining these copies for any alterations. No change between many alternate copies would mean a perfect score in this regard.

So than if there are changes, how do they decide if it was supposed to be that document or if it's a different one entirely? Just wondering on that one.

I don’t know all the ins and outs of the logistics, but just from common sense, if the similar documents had the same original author, had the same purpose and original dates, then they should be the same document, even with a few minor changes. However, if all the main facts are changed and the document was written for a different reason and by a different author, then they would be different documents.

I assume you mean 500-1000 years older than the original document because that would only take you to the middle ages.

Sorry. I must have missed that phrase when I went to check my statements. My intending meaning was that the earliest copies of most documents are dated to be written 500-1000 years after the original document.

I'm honestly not quite sure what you mean by this. So the more copies of it there are and the closer to the original date someone copied it down than the more accurate it is supposed to be? I'm not sure how this is supposed to work. So if someone wrote a book about a magical flying pink elephant and than someone wrote a copy of it a couple days after he wrote it, it's more accurate because someone copied it down soon?

Again, sorry. I am rusty on this, and have done a poor job trying to convey these tests.

No, this test has absolutely nothing to do with the content of the original document. It has everything to do with the copies of the document. Let us say that I wrote the book on the magical flying pink elephant, and you wrote the copy. My book could be a complete pile of hogwash. That has nothing to do with this test. In this test, we could care less about the actual topic or content of the original document.
Let’s say that you and two other people each wrote a copy in, say, 100 years. Now, 2000 years go by. We have all died, our civilization has passed away, my book was destroyed in a bonfire, and now there are archeologists trying to figure out when we lived. They find your copy of the book, and then the other two copies. They realize that somewhere along the line, a book on pink elephants was written. Here comes the tricky part.
They apply the internal and external tests to the copies, but they have no idea if that actually proves any historical references in my book. Anyone could have added them along the copying process. None of the information in the book can be trusted, because they have to assume that you and the other copiers changed the book when you copied it down. Rather that innocent until proven guilty, it is more of guilty until proven innocent. They only way the archeologists can prove the copies are true to the actual book is if they use the bibliographic test to show that there was no change in the copying process, and all historical references were not stuck in later.
So, they compare the copies. They find that, indeed, the copies by different people all match. They also find that they were written relatively early in the scheme of things. They go on to the rest of the test, and everything looks good. This is a huge step forward. Now the archeologists can assume the data in the copies remain true to the original, and thus go on to taking a look at the data to see what the content actually is.

So the entire purpose of my point with the bibliographic test is that the Bible blows every other historical work out of the water, in that the figures are so amazing that if we discard the copying accuracy of the Bible, than we must do it with every other work of its time too. Let it be known that this has nothing to do with the content of the original books of the Bible, it has everything to do with the books of the Bible we have today.

Just because you don't like it or it makes you feel uncomfortable doesn't mean you can just take it off the table of possibility. It could very well be a legend. The point was that it was a false trilemma, there were more than three options and I listed some others. No one ever does do a good job of discounting the other two (liar and lunatic) either, as I pointed out above. Regardless, the argument is full of holes.


And your brother changing the message on purpose is a good analogy. People have written down false things on purpose before. There's no reason that can't have happened here. And there's no reason it can't have been a matter of changing thanks to many people telling each other things over time.

Yes, but the bibliographic test shows that the Bible is completely safe in this regard. If you say that for the Bible, then we have to assume every other work was changed drastically too.


If that's the case, that's a better cause for him not to have written this. Don't you think that if Jesus really had come back from the dead that since Josephus was trying to get sympathy from the Romans he would have fudged the records a little bit and tried to cover it up. It's a bit more likely that he didn't actually write that, that it was added later to make it more Christian friendly. Once you scratch the surface of Josephus, things start to fall apart:

Agreed. That quote looks very sketchy based on your websites. I will have to do some research on it, if I can find the time.

I don't take a position on the matter because I'm not a geologist and I really don't want to have to talk about geology because it's just so boring. Geology has to be the most boringist boring science ever. But I will if you really want to. It's just so boring. >_>

Well, no offense to your views or your person, but I think that your opinion would be because most evolutionists have a very long time scheme and a lot less excitement in it. I find most geology quite fascinating because of its root in the Flood.

It has been a while since biology, but I believe that it is not so much an adaption as a storage of information regarding the virus or synthetic virus. If I remember correctly, it is a process involving B-memory cells to store the knowledge gained about the virus.

Ya, I'm not a biologist, but what you're describing sounds like evolution to me.

Well, I’d have to disagree. It’s not really alteration of the DNA, it’s simply ‘remembering’ what the virus was like.


I am aware of the basic requirements for fossilization. As a note, we have discovered fossilized jelly-fish, animals that are around 95% water and that disintegrate in a matter of hours. If these delicate creatures could fossilize, we should have some legitimate links somewhere along the line.

I would like to quote myself on this again because it was a very good question, in my opinion, and a very valid one, but you didn't answer it:

I would also like to ask this before this conversation gets started: If evolution is so obviously not real and the evidence for it not being real is clearly right there, than why do you think scientists still keep it as a theory? And I should clarify, a theory in science is different from the word theory in everyday use. When scientists use the word theory, they mean an explanation to explain a large body of evidence and experiments. There's gravitational theory, quantum theory, atomic theory, germ theory, and many others. When non-scientists use the word, they generally mean "just a guess."

I think there are three main reasons for this. I should have acknowledged your question earlier, but I rather chose to focus on your other questions and arguments.
1- Because they want to. Scientists may try to become un-biased, but there is always bias in human work whether we admit it or not. It is also the biggest theory to explain away God, and there are people out there that like that. (please see last point before any conclusion-drawing)

2- There are also people out there that either hide true science or promote bad science in a vain attempt to prove their view. I suppose that, arguably, these individuals may not be true scientists, but the damage has already been done. Public view can tend to sway quickly, and there are big political motivations for the belief in and promotion of evolution. There have been plenty of hoaxes designed simply to trick the public. As truly unbiased people, evolutionary scientists should be the first ones to strike down false ideas and theories that non-scientists scheme up.

3- Lastly, there is evidence that points to evolution. Any scientific theory has to have something going for it to make it this far. A completely empty theory would have been shot down long ago, I would hope. If we dig down deep (really deep), there is evidence for evolution, although I am reluctant to say this. However, I would like to point out that much of the framework is built off of examples of micro-evolution and natural selection.


So, I think that they believe because they want to, there are motivations for such beliefs, and there is some evidence for evolution.

You know that game where you have a bunch of cups with a rock under one and someone moves them all around and than you have to choose which one has the rock? Well this is basically like that. Only there are hundreds of thousands, probably more, of cups and only one has the rock under it, according to the Christian world view. Thus you have to choose carefully which one is the right one, only if you choose the wrong one you get really bad things happening to you. This is even worse because most people who are religious belong to the religion of their parents. They were born into that group. Thus most people are going to have bad things happen to them simply because they happen to have born in the wrong place. That's definitely not a loving way to run a universe. Jealousy much?

I won’t get too deep into this. The pea game example you gave was a good one, but it was also very sad. Christians should not leave others to be confused. We should stand out better than we do.

Well historically, creationists were first. They were the main opposition to the brand new idea of evolution and continued to be until people told them they couldn't teach it in public schools because it's not science. It also violated the constitution's ban on the establishment of religion because the public schools are funded by the government. Thus they changed the name to ID and tried to gut all the religious aspects out of it in an attempt to teach it in public schools. But really they're the same thing only under different names.

Ya, the argument against evolution is just a misunderstanding. Once creationists/IDers realize that arguing against evolution is pretty hard given the evidence, they'll change it around and start arguing against ideas on how life comes from non-life, especially when scientists develop a theory on it.

What precisely is not science? The Creation is not observable or repeatable, so it cannot be tested according to our definition of science, or the scientific method. However, the evolutionary life to non-life is hardly observable or repeatable either. Please don’t come back with the amino-acid argument. Even if we could somehow construct a single cell, which would take a lot more than some amino-acids, how could we give it the spark of life? The other problem with your point is that many evolutionistic ideas are taught in schools as if they were pure fact when they are not. I could give you a couple examples of arguments that were used in schools long after they had been dismissed in the scientific world.

I have two more questions for you:
Do you believe in a worldwide Flood?

As far as we can tell, the evidence points away from a flood. Again, I'm not a scientists so I'm going to have to defer to someone else whenever that argument starts.

This is a very fascinating topic for me, and one of my favorites.

What would you say about the faith of the early French people? When my family visited Paris, we toured the Notre Dame. This cathedral was built over a span of several hundred years. This mean that the peasants and workmen building this church knew that neither they, nor their children, or even their grandchildren, would see the finished result. Let me also mention that they worked without steady, or even existent pay, but worked on and off on this magnificent creation for generations. Would you say that these people were crazy or misled (or something else)?

I would ask you the same question about the numerous large or hard to build religious buildings that people have created over the years. Here are just some:

http://www.decodedstuff.com/10-breathta ... the-world/
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/fe ... ries/17786
The ancient Egyptians considered their pharaohs to be gods and the pyramids were meant to be burial places for the pharaohs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_pyramids
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shwedagon_Pagoda
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angkor_wat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dome_of_the_Rock
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&saf ... =apostolic palace&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&biw=1280&bih=697&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=5Wk1UPuxApC-9gSS6YDwCA (this is the apostolic palace, the place where the Pope lives)
http://www.rohama.org/en/news/2360/7-wo ... orldphotos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal

You gave a lot of examples!
Alright, I am not as impressed with the works of the Egyptians. They laborers were given fair wages, and the pyramids were basically passageways for the pharohs from this world into the spirit one. They considered proper preparation crucially important this. So, the laborers were building because it was a way to feed their family, and the pharoh had it built so he could pass into the next life. In both cases, there is plenty of personal gain in store.

Now, I am not as sure about the Taj Mahal. I have read two conflicting theories about this, one from a history book I trust, and another from a zany fact book that I have found to be rather untrustworthy. So, I believe my statement below is correct, but I am not absolutely positive. I just wanted to let you know that I have found contradictions to the below sentences.
The Taj Mahal was built by an Indian king for his deceased wife as a tomb. He mourned her loss greatly, and planned to have a similar building constructed as a tomb for himself. Again, this is more for personal reasons than religious ones.

As for the others, I am really not well studied in those areas. I would say most of them were built by:

a) Motivation for pay

b) Personal payoffs

c) Faith

So, what do you believe about the faith of the builders of the Notre Dame and the other religious people who built the monuments I do not know about? Blind faith? Misguidedness?

Since you have been so kind as to share your many links with me, I will give you this one, a link to Dr. Shormann’s blog. Unfortunately, I know nothing about technology or computers, so you will have to type in the link manually. You will see several options for his Creation/Evolution collection. Please read one or two and give me your opinion on the articles.

http://drshormann.com/category/creationevolution/

[Guess Who!]

bookworm, I know I'm not JJJJ, but I'm also an atheist so maybe I can give your question a shot. I tend to think our position is more analogous to yours than you think it could be-- that thinking another person has other personal experiences and hasn't maybe gotten the same evidence we did so therefor came to a conclusion that way, or something about how the religious beliefs were gotten was so that the person is unconsciously dissuaded from fully questioning them....

I think if anyone really doesn't grant that everyone's mind is capable of fooling them of at least something, maybe even a big thing about how reality is, is pretty arrogant and doesn't really understand the human mind or how it works at all, or social structures, or how learning and acculturation work in children, etc. etc. etc. There are like a million reasons why someone would come to believe something that doesn't really match reality, and anyone who's certain enough about their religious/ lack of religious beliefs to be absolutely sure they aren't confused about something maybe equally as big from a matching-reality-standpoint, is pretty much either lying to themselves........ or proving they ARE equally confused, about all those mental effects I described above in this very paragraph

I *will* say, though, being of a minority religious persuasion in a culture which is still really quite Christian, especially if dealing with still living in a subculture which is very fundamentalist, evangelical, serious about remaking the US into the pattern of Christianity, etc. a lot of churches these days are into stuff like that... My point is, being in an environment like that as an atheist is very uncomfortable, Christian people are often just downright MEAN on purpose, and other times blithely unconcerned with even trying to be empathetic and just repeatedly acting like atheists didn't exist that the actual result is nearly as painful as the people who are TRYING to be cruel. Other things are just a bit scary, but not so much personally targeted.

Anyway, my point is, that it is perhaps the case that the atheists you have known in person have been through something like that, and are dismissive and disrespectful to Christians because of this emotional hurt, and not really because intellectually, they don't understand how someone could be, from their worldview, "wrong" and still be intelligent, thoughtful, etc. etc. I was sometimes a bit like that myself for awhile, actually, until I met some Christians who were truly nice, and now I can actually show respect back, rather than just intellectually knowing it to be a possibility but emotionally being burned so often I really didn't want to dare show it in person, for fear it'd be thrown back in my face when I least expected it. So, I kinda tend to give fellow atheists some benefit of doubt when they seem pretty angry at Christians in general, I'd give the same leeway to a Christian who really did come from a majority non-christian society, but I really haven't met that many of those.

I might be back in the thread occasionally, so you can ask me more about how the Christian community feels as an atheist forced to participate, (usually TERRIBLE!!!) and I might be able to answer, but I will say that I wasn't turned off Christianity intellectually because of this, my decision about whether or not it was "right" predated the stuff I'm talking about, so I don't really fit the stereotype of someone just angry at god because people were mean to her or something which is unfortunately common in churches. As if that excused peoples behavior, regardless of it's truth...

[The Hippie]

So if survival of the fittest is what's up, is it okay to just kill off people with down syndrome, or any other mental issue, or even elderly people? Or even just those who are weaker than you are? Or have inferior gene flow than you? This is an honest question.

[jasonjannajerryjohn]

I apologize T.S. Your post is really long and I don't have a lot of time right now to work on it. I just jumped on here real quick. I will get to it, but it might be awhile.

That’s all nice, but it doesn’t help my confusion. It actually makes it worse.

You are very correct that this scenario doesn’t play out equally both ways. Me, being religious, having respect for your conclusions as an atheist is easy. Like I said, perhaps you haven’t found that final piece that God will eventually use to get your attention. That’s fine. On the other hand, as an atheist your side seems more straightforward. God either exists or He doesn’t, and once you figure out which one is true it shouldn’t be that difficult to grasp. So you, having done so, I think would be warranted in viewing religious people as less rational, because they remain either unable or simply unwilling to see the light, as it were.

Wait what? According to that logic, you should also think of me as unable or unwilling to see the light and as less rational. Maybe I'm thinking that perhaps you haven't found that final piece yet if you've honestly thought and questioned. Perhaps that's what I'm thinking here. Why should I think you any less rational? Especially since religion is so hard to shake. It's harder from my perspective. It's harder to become an atheist in a predominantly religious world. It's easy, very easy, to believe in God in this world considering most people do. There's so much societal and emotional pressure involved. There's fear and hope. Emotions are powerful influences here. Especially if you live in the United States, and I assume you do, there's enormous social pressure to believe in God. So why would I think anyone who still believes in God even after honest questioning and rationality to be less rational than me? There's so much at stake: fear of Hell, promises of Heaven, feeling like "God showed up" (oh I know that feeling), family pressure, pressure from friends and other social influences. No, I don't fault anyone for believing it. As I said, some of the greatest scientists who ever lived believed in God, again because of all those reasons I listed. They were much more rational and smarter than me.

Which leads into your comments about why religion can take such strong hold on someone and why the situation from that end can become complicated. That’s all true, but again, it seems to me that it should strengthen your disdain of people who hold on to those views. You’re saying that religion sticks with someone because of itself. Fear of Hell, experiencing God, etc, all come from the religious beliefs in the first place, so for those to cause someone to stay with it instead of accepting the truth of atheism makes them seem pretty weak or blind, possibly both.

No it makes them human. As I discussed above there are so many pressures from others. So many things at stake. If someone's afraid of hell or afraid of what their parents think or don't want to let go because they want that "religious" or "spiritual" feeling I don't fault them for that because I've been there. It is extremely hard. I don't think they're weak or blind. It's perfectly normal. And perfectly human. I have no disdain for anyone because of their religious beliefs. In fact, I love studying religious beliefs and seeing where they came from and how they've evolved and what they are. It's fascinating to me. There's no reason why I should think they're stupid or anything else.

In other words, if atheism is correct, anything that would keep someone believing in religion is fallacious, and therefore not a valid reason to stay with it. So people that do stay with it for those reasons would seem to me, were I on your side, either pretty dumb or just plain irrational, sticking with religion because they are either missing the truth or overlooking it because a religious worldview has become so ingrained in their mentality it prohibits them from accepting anything else.

The same can be said for you. If I were on your side, atheists would seem pretty dumb because anything that keeps people from believing in God and other religious beliefs must be fallacious if those religious beliefs were truth.

But you got the point in that last sentence there: a religious worldview has become so ingrained in their mentality it prohibits them from accepting anything else. That's the main point here. And that is why I don't hate religious people. It frustrates me to see them having a blindfold on and not being able to see the world for what it truly is. But I don't hate them.

Think of it like this. There's a bunch of people walking around in a whole bunch of different directions with blindfolds on. They're all shouting directions at each other, telling each other where to go. Most of them are following the ones shouting directions and they're getting mad at each other for not going in the direction they're going. They're all walking around without really knowing where they're going and they keep bumping into things. Some of them have taken that blindfold off even with all the massive shouting around them to keep it on. Those that have taken it off are able to see what's really going on and are trying to tell people which way to go, but whenever they say that they've taken their blindfold off, all the blindfolded people yell and curse at them because that blindfold is sacred. The people who took off the blindfold feel bad for the blindfolded people and frustrated but they can't do anything to help. The blindfold is so ingrained in their way of life that they don't even notice it's on.

Now why would I have disdain for them because of that?

So if survival of the fittest is what's up, is it okay to just kill off people with down syndrome, or any other mental issue, or even elderly people? Or even just those who are weaker than you are? Or have inferior gene flow than you? This is an honest question.

We don't base our morality off of natural processes. That's the way nature works. Individuals with traits that better allow it to survive and reproduce pass on their genes. Just because that is the way nature works doesn't mean it is how our morality should work. For example: we know that in our own society (capitalistic America), survival of the fittest is the name of the game in the economic world. The company that most people buy from is the one that survives while the others go out of business. This explains why super-stores like Wal-Mart and McDonalds are so prevalent. They swallow up their competition. This is the way our capitalistic system works. That doesn't mean we should base our morality on it. Morality is extremely different from nature. Just as morality is extremely different from law. Just because it is the way it is does not mean it is the way it ought to be.

In fact, we've kind of undermined survival of the fittest in a way. Or at least started to. Because we do keep those people alive and they do pass on their genes, it is not so much a question of survival anymore. It is in the economic world, however.