Off Topic Posts aka Rabbit Trail Thread - Mostly YEC Geology

If a good, powerful, wise God did create us, He didn't create us in order to confuse us or threaten us.
The Bible is confusing and threatening.
The existance of thousands of different religions based on the same Bible shows that the confusion is true.
The Bible's claims of hell or even spiritual seperation from God shows that the threats are true.Therefore:The Bible is not the result of a good, powerful, wise God that created us.Maybe the Bible's just wrong.
Maybe there's even no such thing as a good, powerful, wise God.
Regardless, the confusion and threats are clear marks of useless wastes of time.We can take a look at where we are, and see where we can go from here.
Or we can succumb to the confusion and threats and waste our time. Thank-you for that.
What a wonderful reason to have faith... in order to do good in the world.Faith can be a powerful tool of preservation and happiness. More people should stop wasting time using their faith for confusion and threats. Very anthropomorphic, for sure. People use confusion and threats to manipulate others all the time, it's a very simple human tool. And people are generally persuaded by it. They do know what's going on, though. People may listen to those who use confusion and threats for a while, but they always know that something isn't quite right. The strong never listen for long. That's why ideas like YEC are fading away, there's too much confusion and threats involved.Religion itself won't go anywhere, though. There have always been those who use their faith for good. Word is finally getting around and people are learning to identify the sources of confusion and threats and get rid of them. Those religions that remove the most confusion and threats will be the ones that last the longest.

If you believe that God controls everything... then yes.
If not... then no. When applied to modern life? Yes. It does not seem to be written with modern life in mind. If that all powerful, all knowing, eternally existing being wrote the book so that man could understand some things... then yes.
If not... then the answer will depend on the book's content. Agreed. If a perfectly divine author wanted us to understand some things, I'm sure He could do so.
If not... then confusion will be rampant.
Confusion does seem to be rampant. Maybe God didn't author the Bible, or maybe God simply didn't author the Bible in order for us to understand certain things. Warnings are nice; but if God is all powerful, why is any future peril necessary? If what you are saying here is something like "an explanation of consequences is different from a threat"... then you are correct.
The issue is that any punishment I have been threatened with is never explained, it's just used as a threat. An explanation of consequences would include comprehensive answers for why the punishment is necessary and why any alternative is unacceptable. I can certainly think of some reasons why I would want that to happen.
I can also think of reasons why I would not want that to happen.
However, my knowledge on eternal life vs. temporal life is extremely limited at the moment as I have only experienced a fairly short temporal life. If it's up to me, I would rather not make a rash decision on the matter, if at all possible. As an atheist, I do not expect anything upon death.
Maybe I'll even meet God.

A very good point... maybe.
I admit I was considering a more simplistic situation.Is God strong enough to make a rock He cannot lift?
Is God smart enough to explain to us something that cannot be understood by us? If what you are saying is the situation, then maybe God should not have "attempted" in the way He did? (Can an omnipotent God "attempt" things, or are they just "done"?).If confusion is a requirement and understanding is impossible... should knowledge be imparted in the first place?
Then again, it's not like all humans are capable of understanding all things... there certainly are smarter people than me.
Maybe I'm just not smart enough to understand God's word, but others are?Interesting questions, but the confusion remains. And the threats. I do not see how to understand the two together on a compassionate, benevolent level. Maybe God should have waited until after we're dead... maybe then we could understand better instead of being confused during this life?

Turning God into a politician!
Then no wonder we're all confused...

Then it is not God's fault that the Bible is confusing.This does not, however, do anything to remove the confusion... or the threats. And therefore the Bible becomes a "waste of time" as a lone source for knowledge about this world.As I said in Message 288:

quote:

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Maybe the Bible's just wrong.
Maybe there's even no such thing as a good, powerful, wise God.

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Perhaps there's a good, powerful, wise being... but not a God that is all-good, and all-powerful and all-wise and sent an inerrent Bible to guide us to His will.In that case, we are left with the Bible being a decent book to learn some things from... but not some sort of master-craft to learn all things from.We should then use all the information available to us in order to make the best decisions possible. This includes things not from the Bible. This may even include things that contradict the Bible entirely... but we should back all our information with knowledge gained from reality. Not from a Bible that is confusing and threatening.

Sounds reasonable to me, and it is one of my current personal conclusions as well.
There are, however, some good things that can be gained from religion.For a single example:
Many people are scared of death and the unknown. Religion has the ability to give some of these people comfort and the ability to think "it's all okay" so that they can continue through life.
It doesn't work for everyone, but it certainly does work for some.
It's possible (even likely?) that it's completely wrong.
It's also possible that there's no other way for some of these people to gain the same level of peace-of-mind.That innocent security is not something I would rob from anyone.
The Bible not being a perfect book, or maybe even a good book, seems irrelevent to this idea.As long as they do not use the religion to hurt other people, I would defend and protect their access to their security on a "freedom of thought (speech?)" kind of level. As well as on a compassionate-to-others kind of level too.