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Author Topic:   Your favourite Bible absurdity
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 3 of 159 (37211)
04-17-2003 10:45 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Brian
04-17-2003 7:23 AM


I still can't get my brain wrapped around the monotheism idea. Unless God has a strange personality disorder:
Genesis 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.
Who's He talking to?
(From "Things Creationists Hate" - still my favorite humor website).
(edited to add link)
[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 04-17-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Brian, posted 04-17-2003 7:23 AM Brian has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 6 of 159 (37218)
04-17-2003 12:18 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by sagg
04-17-2003 10:54 AM


He was talking to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. The new testament says, "In the beginning was the word (referring to Jesus). And the word was with God."
Of course, there were also a myriad of Angels he could talk to as well. A third of the Angels were cast from Heaven with Lucifer, but two-thirds of them were still around.
Oh boy. Now you're complicating things by creating three distinct entities in Genesis? Or at least distinct enough that they could carry on a conversation? You seem to be saying that Christianity is at its roots polytheistic. Unless, of course, you're saying that God was talking to Himself, which brings me back to the personality disorder thing. You have some kind of textual support that Jesus = The Word, and that the Holy Spirit was sitting there as well at the Beginning?
And speaking of textual support, you have some for the "myriad of angels" you noted God could have been talking to? And while we're on the subject, who or what are the angels that you think God is talking to? If you're referring to the "sons of God" (Genesis 6), doesn't that put paid to the whole Jesus thing as the only son of God? If they are just a different kind of "people" or people who have gone to heaven as some texts have it, how could they be there before Adam, the first person? When were angels created? They're certainly bopping around (literally) on Earth by the end of Genesis.
There are many auto-biographies today that include the authors death within them. Obviously, these parts are written by a supporting author.
So, Moses didn't write the whole thing? Which parts did he write and which parts were ghost-written (to coin a phrase)?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 4 by sagg, posted 04-17-2003 10:54 AM sagg has not replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 18 of 159 (37248)
04-18-2003 3:20 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by sagg
04-17-2003 2:29 PM


Why are you being so defensive? All I stated was factual responses to your post. I didn't start off my post going, "OH Boy....", in an attempt to make you feel inferior - as if your ideas were pathetically inadequate. Yet, your first reply is a direct assault on my credibility - which you know nothing about. Why should I answer your questions if you can't extend the smallest amounts of common courtesty and respect towards a stranger?
Defensive? That's called "projection". It's not my belief system that needs justification, so as far as defensive goes... However, if you are insulted by an exclamation as simple as "Oh boy.", or feel that it is in any way denigrating to YOU as a person rather than to the apparent contradiction you posted, then I apologize for not recognizing your hypersensitivity in this matter, and will forebear to use such expressions in the future.
John Ch 1
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with R3 God, and the Word was God. 2 He F1 was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
Ok, so the Word was in the Beginning with God, and at the same time WAS God. This is the basic idea of the trinity... like a clover, three distinct parts, but part of a whole: God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son.
Right. I understand the three-in-one rule. It is literally no different than the Hindu Trinity of Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer - also a three-in-one god, or at least three Aspects of a single entity. However, this is consistent with Hindu polytheism. It's only Christians who seem to have major problems squaring the idea with monotheism. Even your refernces to "sending forth your Spirit" can be either interpreted as sending a messenger - a separate entity - OR as an appendage of the deity. However, the Genesis reference tends to indicate the former, as while God was doing His thing, the Spirit was doing Its thing elsewhere. Of course, you can always just say that "God can do anything He wants how He wants to do it", which while begging the question is a good conversation stopper.
And the concordance with John is arguably an attempt by the new Christians to shoehorn the Jesus myth they base their religion on into the old Jewish traditions. After all, John was writing thousands of years (allegedly) after the Genesis account was related. This is quite plainly post facto rationalization. When I asked for textual references, I was expecting a reply that contained references to a third entity in the OT and that distinctly pointed to Jesus = The Word. You're badly twisting and distorting what is actually written.
The Angels are not people, they are a created being - a seperate type of being than man. Jesus in the only Son of God, because he is the only MAN born of God.
However, this is only your assertion. I refer you to the specific passage in Genesis:
quote:
Gen 6:1-4 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them. That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh:yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days: and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of reknown.
Note the highlighted section. Obviously this is a translation (KJV), so could be erroneous. Still, if that is the case, it doesn't bode well for the rest of the bible, which has also been translated multiple times. I suppose you could make an argument that these were fallen angels (and thus the translation is incorrect), although in that sense you have a timeline problem since this interpretation is contradicted by separate references to the nephilim who ARE supposed to be the fallen angels. It's your mythology, YOU figure out a way to make a literal interpretation consistent.
Nehemiah 9:6
"You alone are the LORD. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them And the heavenly host bows down before You.
The angels are the host of Heaven and were created by God(see Psalm 148:2,5). The time they were created isn't given... but most likely when the heavens were created. Sons of God does refer to Angels in some scriptures - however, this is a different title than Son of God used for Christ, because Jesus Christ was a Man, while the Angels are not. They could not pay the wages of sin because they were not man. Also, any christian can be called a son of God, because as stated above in John 1, Jesus gave them the right to be called children of God.
Nice wiggle. "Most likely"? You have some support for this, or is it merely your interpretation? As to the different terms used, again you can't use the NT as textual support for events or passages in the OT since the NT was written thousands of years after the OT was supposedly handed down. After all, the folks who wrote the NT were trying to justify and clarify their new sect - and writing in a different language, to boot. This is pure rationalization on your part. Once more, do you have textual support for your assertions from the Old Testament? I'll concede that God made the angels - assuming He made anything, we'll agree for the sake of argument that He made everything. That being the case, I'll concede He could have been talking to the angels, OR a be suffering from multiple personality disorder if He's talking to Himself, OR being talking to two other distinct deities. Would you care to try and support and/or eliminate the ones that don't apply?
Of course, all this depends on a linear understanding of time. It is possible, perhaps, that before creation, and currently in the Heavens, that time does not move in a linear fashion. In fact, if something is eternal, it has not concept of time - because there is no beginning or end. So when you ask, When were they created? Were they created before men? It may be the answers to these questions don't exists because these questions rely upon our feeble concept of space and time.
Ah, so the Genesis account doesn't refer to "linear time"? Interesting. Please provide your interpretation of the days, evenings, first/second, etc in Gen 1 and 2.
As you can see, I directly answered your questions. I didn't try to dumb you down, or make you feel inferior. You asked a skeptical question, and I gave you a direct answer. I hope in the future you can extend that same amount of respect to everyone.
Sure - as soon as you either remove the chip from your shoulder and/or stop whining about a simple exclamation. Feel free to "dumb down" your reply or attempt to "make me feel inferior" if you think that will help your cause, or if it makes you feel better. I'm not the one that has to perform mental gymnastics to make a primitive superstition sound rational.
(edited to fix UBB code)
[This message has been edited by Quetzal, 04-18-2003]

This message is a reply to:
 Message 10 by sagg, posted 04-17-2003 2:29 PM sagg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 20 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 10:16 AM Quetzal has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 28 of 159 (37270)
04-18-2003 11:26 AM
Reply to: Message 20 by sagg
04-18-2003 10:16 AM


I did not post any contradictions. You asked for references to my earlier post, and I reponded with those references. Please take this statement back, as it is an erroneous attempt to discredit my position.
Incorrect. I pointed out what I considered an inconsistency in the references you provided. You have not shown - merely asserted - that there is no inconsistency. Therefore, there is no reason nor rationale for your demand that I retract my statement. You are under the somewhat arrogant impression that a discussion of your position is an attack on you personally. This is not the case.
I think you have a misconception here of the Christian view of the Trinity. There ARE three distinct entities. They can be in seperate places: for example, when Christ was on earth, he wasn't in Heaven with God the Father. They work together, though, and are part of the same unit that is God in total. Again, however, this is just a limited understanding of something that is beyond the capabilities of our minds. The finite cannot understand the infinite. His ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. You seem to demand a detailed explanation on God, which is irrational. The supernatural cannot be solved through mathematics or science. Science can't explain Deja-Vu, or the Triune nature of God. All we can know is what God reveals to us through His word, or by His spirit.
And how is this position different from the avowedly polytheistic Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Shiva? Apparently, you are unable to answer this question. Statements such as "the finite cannot understand the infinite" are known as the fallacy of begging the question (also known in logic as the multiple out). In essence, you have taken a position which permits you an inexhaustable series of excuses for why you are unable to answer the question. "Heads I win, tails you lose." Very well, I take it you are unable to explain the difference between the Trinity and polytheism.
I did not twist anything that is written. Again I ask you take this back. I quoted exactly what was written to show that the Word = Jesus. Please take back this statement, again, as it is an erroneous attempt to discredit my position.
Your logic here is faulty as well. You can't discredit the NT because you make some assumption of the writers' motivations. If this were the case, we could not osbserve as truth any historical documents - as most historical writings have either a social, political, or religious agenda, at least, in the eyes of some. If you can discredit it because you assume their motivations were untrue, then I can just as simply credit it because I assume their motivations were true. When the authors were living, there was no organized christian church. They were letters written to scattered groups of followers hundreds of miles apart. They had no idea these letters would be compiled together into the New Testament. They were also willing to watch their families tortured and killed, and then be tortured and killed themselves without recanting a bit of their story. Maybe they had a reason and a power for enduring so much.
You missed the point. You cannot use interpretations provided in the New Testament to support claims made in the Old Testament. This is a post hoc fallacy, as the NT was written several thousand years after the events depicted in the OT. I am free to speculate on the authors' intentions, but that had nothing to do with why you are unable to use the NT in an argument concerning the Genesis account. It wouldn't matter if the NT was 100% true and accurate. It STILL cannot be used to argue the accuracy and innerrancy of the OT, nor can it be used to argue the existence or non-existence of anything IN the OT. Now, please try and provide substantive, textual support to the claim that Jesus is mentioned in the OT as equivalent to the Word.
In this passage, it is understood by most Christian scholars, that the sons of God are the offspring of Seth. They were not suppose to take wives from Cain's offspring... and what we see here, is in fact that crossover. However, we really don't know for sure what is happening here. There isn't enough supporting evidence to say one way or another. It certainly isn't something that discredits the Bible. Again, I ask you take back the statement, "It's your mythology". I don't discredit your belief systems, and I appreciate the same from you. This is again, a shallow attempt (that reveals your true character) to discredit my position - and it was exactly for reasons such as these that I rightly took your "Oh boy" statement to be an exclamation of shrugged off superiotity.
So, in this instance, the phrase "sons of God" is allegory or metaphor for something else? If they ARE the sons of Seth (not the sons of God as is clearly written in the bible), then they must have taken wives from Cain's daughters, because those are the only other people around at the time according to your own texts. Now you're saying "we don't know what's happening", and yet you take every other single word literally? And you don't see the logical flaw in this argument? What does this do to your literal timelines, which you later say are non-linear? Who then are the nephelim? There are many questions and inconsistencies in Genesis that have caused most Christians to treat the whole chapter as allegory. In other words, it most assuredly DOES discredit a literal reading of the bible - or at least of Genesis.
As to your demand concerning the "it's your mythology" comment, why should I retract it? Are you or are you not a Christian? It's certainly not my mythology. It's up to you to defend it, as you apparently have chosen to do.
There was no "wiggle". Yes, this is an assumption. I assume the HOST OF HEAVEN were created when HEAVEN was created. The Bible doesn't say when they were made, so all we can do is assume. This isn't a wiggle, it's called an educated guess. It could be wrong. It could be right.
Okay. Since by your own admission your assertion has no support, we can take any OTHER interpretation as having equal validity? That being the case, I prefer the multiple personality disorder explanation. After all, I have as much support for mine as you do for yours.
Already covered the discrediting the whole NT thing. You know, if the Bible was presented simply as a historical document, and wasn't the backbone of a major religion, you would accept it as truthful. It has been proven to be one of the most historically accurate ancient texts we have. Unfortunately, because it is the backbone of Christianity, it is met with a skepticism and rejection not usually seen in text from different origins.
And again, I was not discrediting the NT. I was stating that you were unable to use it as textual support for your assertions concerning the content of the OT. A stance which you have in no way refuted by the special pleading you are attempting.
As to the accuracy of any history - no one takes any document as historically accurate unless there is additional, unrelated supporting evidence. In the case of the bible, there is none. It isn't because it's Christian, or the backbone of a major religion (by that standard, the Qu'ran and the Vedas should also be taken as "true"), it's because the document has been through innumerable translations and has no extra-biblical support. The problem with biblical literalists is that they assert the bible is 100% accurate from the very first word, with no evidence to back the assertion outside the bible itself. Worse still, it has proven to be one of the most inaccurate historical documents ever to have been produced. As an allegory, or guide for life (especially the NT), it ain't bad. As a historically accurate text, it's abysmal.
You are also trying to project human characterisitcs onto God. No, I can't explain how God works to you, sorry. If I could, then I'd be God. Can you accept that something greater than yourself is possiibly out there, something you can't fully understand or explain?
So, reduced to sophistry? Again with the multiple out. "Can I accept that there's something greater than me" that I can't fully understand? Of course. Tensor calculus is waaaay beyond my meager abilities. Understanding the universe pre-Planck time is beyond me. The universe itself is "greater" than I am. However, if in this context you are referring to the possibility of the existence of the Christian God, then you being the one making the positive claim, it is incumbent on you to provide the evidence. So far, none has been forthcoming.
There are multiple possibilites for the references to days in Creation. A day could be a span of millions of years, or it could be a 24 hour period. How would you possibly expect me to know? I wasn't there. When we say something like, "in the day of Julius Caesar..." - does that me a 24 hour period, or a broader expanse of time? Obviosuly the word "day" can have several meanings. Creations could have taken place over millions of years, and possibly evolution could have been the means through which God created the animals. Or, it could have taken place in one week, and everything was made instantaneous. There is no right or wrong answer here... we simple don't know. You are asking me to be God and explain His ways.
No, I was responding to your claim about non-linear time. I asked for your clarification. You have not provided it, merely equivocated. State your interpretation clearly, and particularly what you meant by non-linear time.
It is really simple: there is no intellectual answer to whether or not God exists. You are trying to solve something with your intellect, that is a matter of the soul, and of destiny. You can't intellectually make a decision, because you have to admit that many people far smarter, far greater than you in science, philosophy, mathematics, etc. have chosen to believe in the Christian God and in Jesus.
So it's all a matter of faith? Okay by me. The appeal to authority and argumentum ad populum are again fallacies which provide no reason to accept your premises. There are a lot of incredibly intelligent people who are Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, Shinto, etc. Why should YOUR particular faith have any special priority?
Just as I have to realize that people far greater than me, smarter than me, have chosen not to believe in God, or in Jesus. Our own pride and arrogance will try to convince us that we are unique, and that we are the one person who has figured it all out. But this isn't very logical, is it? I'm comforted in knowing, however, if I'm wrong - that I won't have suffered for being wrong. I'll have lived a good life by wordly standards, and then disappear into the meanigless abyss of nothingness from which I randomly crawled out of. So, can you admit you might be wrong? That there might be a God? That perhaps Jesus was the savior? Or are you to prideful to admit that? If you can admit it to yourself - what are the consequences if you are wrong? Are you willing to gamble your soul?
Since there is nothing to indicate that God, souls, heaven, etc exist in the first place, why should I be concerned? Pascal's wager was answered 200 years ago. You have provided no new argument that indicates it's newly valid.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 10:16 AM sagg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 11:52 AM Quetzal has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 34 of 159 (37276)
04-18-2003 12:17 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by sagg
04-18-2003 11:52 AM


Nope, I simply thought that your purpose in coming to this discussion board was to discuss. Evidently, you were interested only in preaching, and assumed that everyone would accept your assertions as true without question or comment. If you're unable to back up your claims, why did you post them? Why come on a message board that clearly says in its title "Creation versus Evolution" and not expect to be challenged? Did you really believe no one would question you and your beliefs, especially in a thread marked "Your favorite Bible absurdity"? I think you were very presumptious in this instance. Have a nice life.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 11:52 AM sagg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 35 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 1:06 PM Quetzal has replied

  
Quetzal
Member (Idle past 5872 days)
Posts: 3228
Joined: 01-09-2002


Message 39 of 159 (37282)
04-18-2003 1:40 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by sagg
04-18-2003 1:06 PM


Lies? Childish attacks? Lack of comprehension? Putting words in your mouth? I challenge you to show me where - in any of my posts - I did any such thing. If you are so immature and unwilling to debate in good faith, then I think your decision to leave this board was the smartest thing you've done since you started here.
There is no room for logical debate with someone whose sole purpose is to preach.
Respect, as a final point, is earned. You haven't even come close.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by sagg, posted 04-18-2003 1:06 PM sagg has not replied

  
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