Why I am creationist

as a former athiest, i can attest that this is most certainly NOT the case in the slightest. but allow me to go off on a tangent and explain why people would be afraid of "bibleGod."this is a god who lies to his children to keep wisdom from them, lest they become like god. this is a god who confused mankind with different languages, because he was worried about mankind's progress. this a god who instructed his children to steal from their neighbors, and encouraged the conquering of a LARGE portion of the middle east. this text STILL encourages war several thousand years later. this a god who allowed deceit and treachery on the part of his first called servant to go unpunished. this is a god who was alright with the sons of israel killing an entire city for raping their sister, after tricking them into circumcision (god's holy covenant) in order to weaken them. this is a god who said he holds children and even grandchildren responsible for their parents' crimes. this is a god who killed two people for not impregnating their brother's wife. this is a god who decimated egyptian society by manipulating the emotions of pharoah and then punishing everyone for it, including killing many, many innocent children only to get off on how glorious his might is. this is a god who even calls himself jealous -- a very immature and dangerous quality. this is a god who will kill you for touching his stuff. this is a god who tells you kill people who work on saturdays.starting to get the picture of why many unbelievers would not want to believe in this god?anyhow. not trying to insult the religion, that's all just what the bible says, more or less up to the point i am in my current reading. i happen to be a believer myself, as you may or may not remember. i just think we should be honest about what the bible actually says about god. but on to your points: i'm different from you. why is that? you're different than your mother or father, some combination of the two. why is that? common implies two. you have no reason to believe you and who or what came from a common ancestor? according to the bible, all humanity came from a common ancestor. i'm reasonably unconvinced by the bible, having looked at a little geology, paleontology, and archaeology, as well as actually read it, studied it's history, interpretation, errors and inconsistencies. i'm currently in a bible class in college, actually, and the course is doing a number on the christians. the professor is doign things like pointing verse that just don't work or make any sense until you realize some scribe made a typo 3000 years ago. today, we were talking about books that plaigarized other books, and why jeremiah is in a completely different order depending on your bible. we also talked about why some psalms are repeated. elephants paint, and ants have language. it's history and tradition -- recording language -- that puts us "above" other animals. well, no. but people do generally knock the 7-days 6000-years-ago idea because all of geology indicates something else. the bible says very little about biology. if you drop a ball, what will it do? will it always do that? how do you know? has every ball ever dropped done the same? the word "evolutionis" pisses me off. it's not an ideology, it's a scientific theory. there is no -ism attached to it. people don't believe it, they study it.and fundamentalist christians piss me off. because most of the ideology i can prove incorrect just within the confines of the bible itself as literature, yet they never listen to reason. and because they cause most everyone else to laugh at christians in general. i don't think any "evolutionist" is trying to deny religion, just a particular brand of it that says certain things about reality that just don't hold up, only to decieve followers into their particular following.[editted for typos]This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 09-14-2004 07:24 PM

pst, if you're replying to me, hitting the llrb (little red reply button) works better.and i kind of figured it was a joke, but i thought it best that i play along. actually, i am a believer. and if it's blasphemy, so is the bible. all of those stories i talked about can be find in the torah, the first five books. perhaps you should read it? i have. i'm actually somewhere near the end of exodus at the moment, re-reading in the new jps translation of the masoretic text. it's quite a good translation, but it likes to skirt all the hints of early polytheism. for instance, it doesn't like to translate "ben-eloyhim" as "sons of god" or "family of god" because that implies others like god. but um, try reading even the king james version, i don't care. all of those stories are in it. isaiah's not the nt. and i was talking about stories found within the torah, the HOLIEST of the books collection called the bible. the books of moses. i quote the bible. i don't think these things are neccessarily bad. who is one to judge god? i'm just saying that these are things that make unbelievers not so eager to follow. here, i'll break it down.this is a god who lies to his children to keep wisdom from them, lest they become like god who was right, god or the serpent? who lied? they didn't die, but their eyes were opened, and they became, in god's own words, like gods.this is a god who confused mankind with different languages, because he was worried about mankind's progress this a god who instructed his children to steal from their neighbors and encouraged the conquering of a LARGE portion of the middle east. this text STILL encourages war several thousand years later.see any passage regarding the promised land, especially this one: (from my masoretic text translation) have a look at a map, that's not only all of israel and jordan, but parts of egypt, saudia arabia and iraq.this a god who allowed deceit and treachery on the part of his first called servant to go unpunished.see genesis 20. not only do abraham and sarah go unpunished, but god punishes the household of abimalech. if i recall, abraham pulls this same trick three times, and his son isaac pulls it once. and they always get away with it.this is a god who was alright with the sons of israel killing an entire city for raping their sister, after tricking them into circumcision (god's holy covenant) in order to weaken them. genesis 34. i won't post the whole chapter.this is a god who said he holds children and even grandchildren responsible for their parents' crimes. and this is a god who even calls himself jealous -- a very immature and dangerous quality this is a god who killed two people for not impregnating their brother's wifeoh, look, i was wrong. god kills one of them (the brother) quite randomly. this is a god who decimated egyptian society by manipulating the emotions of pharoah and then punishing everyone for it, including killing many, many innocent children only to get off on how glorious his might is.read the first half of exodus this is a god who will kill you for touching his stuff. this is a god who tells you kill people who work on saturdays. god is both good and evil. he defines the two, but above being either one (there is no devil). this is the picture the bible paints of god. we do have the laws of sin and death. we half the second half of exodus, leviticus, and deuteronomy. this is literally called "The Law (of Moses)." it describes what god says is sin and what is punishable by death.as for wars being waged by humans: and exodus is full of atrocities commited by angels of god. i would call killing innocent children -- every first born in egypt -- the very definition of atrocity. have you no eyes to read? have not said "even i -- and none else beside me." in fact, the professor of my bible class tends to completely tear apart anything christians say in his class. no because he believes different, and not because he hates christians, but because the bible says different.what interpretation did i put on those verses above? i read them exactly as they are, and just applied basic reading comprehension to them. it's what the bible says. like i said somewhere here before, i am far more literalist than the literalists. i was mocking your statement. actually, i've dated a fundamentalist christian. i've BEEN a fundamentalist christian. you said earlier god favors those who seek wisdom. i seek wisdom. i read and study and think about the bible. and god's name is not i am. moses asked god what his name was, because according to tradition, a spirit's name dictates it's function: if you control the use of it's name, you command it. moses was one upping god, and failed. god replied to moses that his name was "i am what i am" or "i will be what i will be" etc. this is similar to odysseus's "nobody" when he pokes out the eye of the cyclops. it's designed to mess up the other party. god then says to moses to tell the israelites that "i am" sent him, and then promptly MAKES UP the name YHWH, which is a play on the verb "to be." it's a pun, and it makes no sense in english. the torah can be quite funny, if you read it with proper footnotes. almost every name is a pun on something. "Even I - and none else beside me"consider this a challenge.

i'm challenging your spirit-filled wisdom. yes, i'm pretty sure i had participated in it. i didn't mean to take this off-track, but it was a reason. i have. hasatan is an angel of the Lord, whose duty is to test man. it is hasatan that orders the numbering of the tribes of israel, and hasatan who tests the faith of job. however, the serpent is not hasatan, he is an animal. there is nothing in the text to suggest otherwise, even if you do consider the tree to be a test, which it does not appear to be. god created the world. are you calling god's creation wicked, and therefor implying that god is evil? god is not, according to christianity, a diety removed from everyday life. i don't get your point. i gave you a proper contextual reading of the text, using knowledge of hebrew and mystic traditions. it's still not being used as a proper name. god has a proper name, and it is yhwh, probably plus some vowels. the original pronounciation has been lost. moreover, it seems like god made that name up for moses, and had some other, original name that no one remembers. but that depends on your reading."i am" is not the name of god. the name of the lord comes from the verb "to be" and could losely mean "that which exists"as for their being only one god, the evidence in the torah points otherwise, as well as some later writings. first, we have the word eloyhim, which is plural and means "gods." i'll let you go on this one, because curiously, the verbs used withit are all singular.however, there's another phrase, ben-eloyhim, which as i said before, means "sons of god" or "family of god" or even "other gods." other gods are mentioned in genesis 6, as having sex with the daughters of men and creating nephilim.consider also this verse:

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Deu 32:7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.
Deu 32:8 When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
Deu 32:9 For the LORD'S portion [is] his people; Jacob [is] the lot of his inheritance.

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this is a part where which bible you own makes a difference. the masoretic text seems to get favored here. but the verse makes no sense this way. when god was dividing the world, seperating the sons of adam, he determined the number of countries by how many israelites there were? there were no israelites then, because israel hadn't been born. abraham hadn't been born. just adam, and his sons.the sepuigant and the version found at qumran say something else. instead of ben-yisrael it says ben-eloyhim. the sons, or family of god. one god, or angel, or whatever, to each nation, but israel belongs to yhwh. makes more sense, right? some nervous masorete changed it because it was too overly polytheistic for him.indeed, anytime it says "the lord god" in your english bible, it's using the proper name of god alongside the title of god to tell you WHICH ONE. where did the serpent lie? show me his lie. god said they'd die the same day they ate the fruit. the serpent said they'd live, and their eyes would be opened and they'd be like god. who was right, according to the text? did they die that same day? yes, as commanded by god. are we reading different books here? because choice and faith are important. personally, i believe that the process is designed to institute growth towards to diety status. i've read both. the new testament is flawed, containing greek ideals of diametrically opposed good and evil. and, if you're going to be upity about only one god, then technically, suggesting something in opposition to god is blasphemy. according the jewish tradition of course.instead, as shown in job, we have a temptor, hasatan (a son of god), who is OUR opponent, not god's. he serves the will of god. have you read job? well, where are your refutations then? i said the bible said something, and proved it. where is your proof? so far you've quoted out of context, and NEVER with any form of citation. it is not my opinion that teacher easily refutes any point christians make -- he does. with the bible. that's what i'm trying to point out to you. you have a view of the god of the bible that is incorrect. the bible says otherwise, whether or not you believe in it, or think it's accurate. you said the god of the bible, and i'm telling you about the god of the bible. if you can't accept that god killed thousands of innocent children in a single night in egypt, just to make a good story for passover dinner, you do not believe in the god of the bible. you believe in something else.and no one group of jews wrote the bible. the opinion and beliefs about god changes just within the torah. within the other books, there are many different pictures painted of god. and the god of christianity is very different from the god of judaism, even though it's the same god. twice i told you to read an entire chapter. how is that quote mining? i did not take them out of context. i have read the rest of the text surrounding them. feel free to point out where the local context contradicts what i wrote. i'm not making god look bad, i'm saying that the BIBLE does to people with certain modern value.i'm ok with you believing in that god, and worshipping him. i do. you, however, don't seem to be too fond of the idea, thus demonstrating my point. people react badly to the archaic portrayal of god. yes. i also believe him to be the son of god, a very wise teacher, a messiah, and that he gave his life for us. yes and no. i take the bible with a grain of salt, as far as belief goes. i know it's history, and about different version and translations. i'm interested in what the bible says very literally, and what it means idiomatically. i'm interested in the context, and what the authors meant, not what people have said about it.do i believe it to be historically accurate, or even theologically correct in all areas? no. i am a christian, a follower of christ. i have said nothing against god that bible itself does not say. if you think those actions are bad, you're applying your morality to god. in reality, it's the other way around, god defines good and evil. it is not blasphemy to describe god's actions as told by the bible. if you think i'm saying god is evil, that's your problem.arguments i make against christianity are valid. christians today do not follow the original traditions of jesus of narazeth, they follow the traditions of paul of tarsus. paul often contradicted teachings of jesus, and can easily be shown to be a person not worthy of following. i do not believe paul to be inspired.simple test: who did jesus was the foundation of the church? he left someone in charge, who was it? no. and i have nothing against islam, as i have never adequately studied it. i read a bit on mormonism, however, and decided not to go with that.

haha. i still say the ptolemaic system adequately predicts the motion of the planets. no need for a newer revision!

no, he was testing the faith of job. he had a bet with god that he could crack job. he failed. good job! now, where are peter's letters, and where did this paul guy come from? why is he the foundation of christianity paul, and not peter as jesus said?these aren't leading questions: i don't know the answers. god withheld knowledge, for fear of man overthrowing him. the reason god tosses them out of the garden of eden is because he doesn't want them to become immortal, and be gods. for the next few chapters, god is constantly worried about man growing up too fast, and becoming competition. see genesis 11. and you accuse me of strawmen! i never said god was the bad guy. i said that unbelievers reading the bible have a tendancy to think that, because of what the bible says. excluding the letters of paul, yes. as i covered before, i don't like paul. and, as i said, that is a misunderstanding of the role of hasatan, the adversary. but more importantly, if satan is evil and rules the world, why is that and where is god? wouldn't a good god put a stop to that? your logic has some contradictions in it. satan didn't have the kingdoms of the earth to offer. it was a bait-and-switch deal. as i pointed out, deuteronomy says that each nation has a patron angel, or god, or divine being. satan does not rule them all, he watches over one of them. according to the bible, anyways. you called me a blasphemer for quoting the bible. i was only trying to explain why unbelievers don't like the god talked about in the bible. as a former unbeliever myself. my teacher is jewish, one of god's chosen people. he is a professor of religion. as for of the world, you're making a funny distinction. everyone is of the world, unless they come from another planet. christians do not exist in another plane of existance; they exist in the world. the idea of christianity is to do the best for the world: love one another, and spread hope, compassion, and charity into the world. that's what jesus did.or, am i reading a different book again?

well, yes. that was my point exactly. the question is, can YOU appreciate what it looks like? these are not stories i made up to slander god -- they're in the bible. i believe the bible to be written by the hand of man, about god. i believe that it is not neccessarily correct or accurate in its portrayal. i've heard thought that bible was really a document written favor of something other than god (some other god or devil perhaps?). re-reading it with this in mind, it does seem to say some nasty things about god. well yes, they do make a case against him. that was my point. but they're not my words. take issue with the bible.of course, i don't really care. i believe god to be both good and evil. i don't believe in him because i think he's nice and friendly, i believe him in because i think he's real. i was just speaking of the god talked about in the first six books of the bible, the torah and the book of joshua. it says these things of god. in the text, the plundering, conquering, and division of canaan is a holy war, commanded by god himself, and fought by one of his angels leading the israelites.i do think the bible is wrong in lots of places. and i think alot of it is made up to justify concerns more modern than the text claims to be, such as passages on the promised land. read the bible, think about it. but i was not saying god was evil. i say why people would think that. god can't be evil, nor can he be good. he's above both. it's a little more than a possibility. study the history of the text for a while. you'll find that it's more like 95% probability. agreed. first of all, jesus was not god. read the bits of the bible concerning gethsemane. he pleads with god. he can't be god himself. that's innaccurate, unless you're a gnostic. if christ had a body, he was of the world. christ participated in the world, and consorted with people of ill-repute. this got him into trouble with the church elders, remember? satan is, yes. but you still haven't shown me the serpent's lie. he said their eyes would be open, and they'd be like god. god confirms this happened. the serpent said they wouldn't die that same day, like god said. they didn't die. the serpent told the truth.personally, i believe god was being protective. but the serpent told no lie. that's why he was so "subtle"

ah yes, i knew we had at least one such document from the peter branch of christianity, which didn't succeed so well against pauline christianity.but the question is what caused this to happen, and why is paul remembered when peter is not?

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Mar 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? [there is] none good but one, [that is], God

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is jesus evil? he just said he wasn't good. and he never said that god wasn't evil as well as good. the good here probably means more "honorable" than "the opposite of evil" but that depends on how you read your greek. that's the exact reason the jews don't recognize him as a messiah. but who says he didn't? afterall, what's left of rome now? the roman church, in jesus's name. technically, he conquered an empire. and while we're on the topic of blasphemy, the christ of the book of john is a blasphemer. no human, corporeal being may claim to be god. even if jesus is a son of god, it's still blasphemy. even if he's the ONLY begotten son of god, it's still blasphemy. and the text clearly presents a separation of jesus and god.john starts by re-writing genesis. also a no-no. genesis never mentions a "word" but later traditions (around the time of christ) mention a different name of god: "memra" which means "to speak" or "the word." but this is only one aramaic translation, and not exactly proof of anything. genesis says nothing. the only thing even close to a word of god is "the angel of the lord" who speaks for god. he has a proper name, but i can never remember it. some say that everytime god speaks in the bible, it's really this angel speaking for him. but i doubt that, i think god speaks for himself. the word of god (to man) is the covenant with moses, kept in the ark.

well, i was specifically interested in peter, seeing as how the gospels we do have say that christ left him in charge, yet it wasn't his church to survive.

well, if you wanna use the majority vote standard, john contradicts the other three gospels as far as the way christ spoke of himself.otherwise, it also contradicts the law of moses. if you had to choose between the two, which would you choose? john, or moses? i chose moses. if you didn't want debate, this was the wrong board to come to.

which god of which genesis?genesis 1:1-2:4 and genesis 2:4-4:26 present very different creation stories.the first one, probably from the p source tells a 7 day creation story, with animals created before man, and man and woman created together. god creates by speaking, and is refered to as god. the second, from the j source, tells of a creation with no reference to time, is much mroe poetically written, and describes man being created first, then the animals, then the woman. god creates by forming out of the ground, and is refered to by name.evo's don't need to contradict the bible. the bible does that for itself just fine. i heard an idea on this board that satan influenced the writing of the bible mroe than god. afterall, the serpent tells the truth when god lies...

look, you're gonna have to deal with this sooner or later. according to genesis, god lied. he said, and i quote: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. "adam ate, and lived another 130 years. now, i'm quite thankful god lied, because if that had been the truth i wouldn't be here, would i? tell me where in genesis 3 you see that?here's the punishment i see for adam's sin:

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And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed [is] the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat [of] it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou [art], and unto dust shalt thou return.

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it says he's cursed until he dies. his death seems to be a prearranged condition. god later says that in order to be immortal, adam would have to eat from the tree of life. it's not a condition brought on by the sin -- the curse was. satan's not in that story.in fact, he's not anywhere in the books of the torah. he doesn't really appear much of anywhere until job.you really can't just keep making stuff up, i know what the bible says. trying your hand at being cryptic? doesn't explain away the blatant contradictions between the two stories.

no, look, i quoted the bible. i'll do it again:

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Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

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adam ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. did he die that same day, or did he live? chapter and verse? according to the bible, we've never been immortal, we were always designed to die. that's what genesis says. this doesn't present any problems to your view? the serpent told the truth. he wasn't against god, he just let god's secret out. this is impossible if you believe in an omnipotent god. made by god, from the dust of the earth, like all the other animals in the garden. it explains why serpents have no legs. does satan have no legs? like putting satan in the garden of eden. no, you just sound silly.

what was i arguing? god does that sometimes, sure. sometimes it's arbitrary. god makes the rules. re-read the first dozen or so chapters in genesis. did god issue commands for man to obey? why was the tower of babel destroyed? quote the bible for me, what does it say? why can't you build a stairway to heaven? they certainly seemed to be doing well before god came along. or so the story goes. and we have skyskrapers now that are many times as tall as babel ever was, or was ever going to be. we didn't need all of humanity to build them, and language didn't get in the way. why doesn't god strike down the cn tower in toronto? ever lend something to a neighbor and have them move out the next day? the egyptians didn't know they were leaving. it was borrowing with the pretext of keeping by deception. that's stealing.the things they stole, btw, later comprised the tabernacle. ishmael or isaac?do you honestly think that verses about the promised land don't have anything to do with the war that has been the middle east for the last 5000 years or so? "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children"punishing children for their parents' sins. go back and rethink your argument, because that's what the bible says. pharoah, being pharoah, was probably also a firstborn. if he was ramses ii, as is suggested by the text in chapter 1, then he was the firstborn son of his father seti i.clearly, not EVERY firstborn son was struck down in the land of egypt.and the first born is always the oldest, silly. ok. no, the bible does. trust me, if i had my say in the matter, i'd believe in a good only capable of good, and love, and compassion. but that's not omnipotence, and that's not the way the world has to take shape. why then did you choose to address only a small selection of my points? and why are your posts in the other thread getting so much smaller while you ignore more and more?all but one of those points come from genesis and exodus. the other one comes from chronicles. it's not a wide reading of the bible at all. there are other points about god to be addressed. if a really believed god was just evil i probably wouldn't LIKE HIM as much as i do. or maybe i wouldn't even believe in him. those points were listed to demonstrate another greater point: the bible portrays god in diverse and contradictory ways. one set of things that god is described as doing really turns off the unbelievers.yes, i am ignoring a whole set of things for the purposes of this debate, but that's the idea. i'm trying to point out the stuff that people don't like. if YOU don't like these ideas about god, or they offend you in some way, take it up with the people who wrote the books.personally, i whole-heartedly believe that god works for the greater good, even using things we'd see as evil, as part of a master plan devised out of love. so what if god burns down a church filled with 14 year old girls practicing for a choir recetal? maybe it's to stop one of them commiting some greater act of evil. i've heard the holocaust argued as preventing germany from having the atomic bomb -- if they were just out take over land instead of expansion AND killing jews, we'd have really been screwed because the people who made the atomic bombs in the us were exiled german jews.would you dare the argue that it is not within god's power to turn and even use such evil events for his will of greater good? it's a relatively simple belief in providence; i know i certainly didn't invent.in fact, i'm pretty positive it can be shown in genesis, before the dualistic concept of god versus the devil came about.