136 Forum Posts by "Jqoc"
At 9/4/04 02:03 AM, Soul_Specter wrote: no but you wanted a few explanation as to why people believe in god and the bible
me? nah. i used to be very religious myself, so i know why people believe in God and i have no problem with it. but i tend to get a little anal retentive when someone tries to prove their beliefs.
At 9/3/04 09:15 PM, Soul_Specter wrote: 1. you cant disprove it
you can't prove it either, which is what i've been trying to show these past few pages.
2. it explains what happens after death
which could be true or not. though i think most people are more inclined to believe in life after death because it's the easiest to accept.
3. weve found parts of it to be true
those parts have many more explanations than just one, and also have many inconsistencies.
4. there are things that could have been passed down from one generation to the next, ex. almost all cultures have their story of a global flood (noah and the arc) which may have something to do with the continental drift
that doesn't mean it was an act of God.
6. when you read the bible it makes sense to most
not to those who are willing to question it. IMO i think it's morally correct (well most of it, anyway), but i have a hard time believing the mystical side of the stories.
7. jesus did exist, we have also found that out as well
but it doesn't prove that he was God.
At 9/3/04 12:50 AM, FatherVenom wrote: It's still suction towards the inner point.
yes, suction down towards the drain. think about it; if you were to look at it upside down so that the whirlpool were to pull things up, wouldn't it still flow from the bottom up?
Where do you think the cold air comes from?
granted, some of it does comes from above, but that air pushes down through the center of the funnel, it doesn't pull anything up.
Those are not the major power behind a tornado. The power comes from the cold air.
technically that's true, however since cold air is denser than warm air it can only fall, which means that cold air does not create an updraft; it can only intensify an updraft. and since air pressure and temperature become proportionately lower as you get higher in altitude, you need a significantly low pressure system near the ground to cause these events. and how is a low pressure system formed? warm air.
You said it yourself. The cold air replaces the warm air.
the key words in my statement were 'pick up'. falling cold air does not do it, rising warm air does.
That's where different currents come into play.
which are also formed from warm rising air on the equator.
Heat and temperature are not the same thing.
yes, but what does that have to do with varying temperatures in patches of air?
That's what I meant by vegitation, which decreases the chance of tornados.
vegetation does not decrease the chance of tornadoes because the Philippines alone has much more vegetation per area than most places in central Asia. and farmland is generally void of large shrubs; it's basically the same as wide open plains.
You misunderstand. A focal point of our arguement depends on which one of us is correct.
well ok then, this quote from this website should be enough to prove my point: "Tornadoes can form anywhere in the world."
There is no historical evidence, logical evidence, or meteological evidence.
generally you're not likely to find evidence of a tornado that happened 3500 years ago.
I know this, however we are not talking about the slavemasters in the US, we're talking about a society in which all the slaves are essentially kept together for the work of the nobility.
you mean the noble? anyway what i'm saying is at some point the Egyptian slaves may have somehow become more of a burden to them than an asset, especially if the conditions that the slaves lived in were so poor that it eventually started to affect the nobles.
You are missing the point. As soon as a master frees a slave he no longer has control.
not true, he would still have indirect control because the power of his empire would still intimidate his former slaves. it's like telling someone"you can go wherever you want, but if you do this or that i'll beat the crap out of you."
How did you come to this garbage conclusion?
remember what the original discussion was about? it was about whether God was perfect or not, assuming he exists. if he exists, then he created the human mind, which would mean it was designed by Him to be imperfect. i suggest you think about these things a little more before you call someone elses opinion garbage.
At 9/2/04 01:38 PM, FatherVenom wrote: Ever made a whirlpool in a household drain? It's the same principal. Go look at it now. Tell me whether it starts on the top or the bottom.
that's not the same principal because water has to slowly empty into a container beneath it to form a whirlpool. plus a whirlpool sucks things down; tornadoes toss things into the air.
That's just the wind pulling the sand up.
and how is wind caused? by cold air rushing in to fill low pressure areas, which is caused by rising warm air heated near the surface. the rapidly rising warm air is what forms dust devils and land/water spouts.
Clouds only indicate the presence of concentrated moisture in the air. It doesn't matter whether they are present to start weather pattern.
clouds follow wind direction, so eventually they end up wherever there is a low pressure system. but since dust devils start from the ground, they don't have much effect on clouds.
Air currents create wind. Where are these currents? In the upper atmosphere.
air currents also start from heated surfaces. and if they are in the upper atmosphere, why would they pick up leaves on the ground?
Level terrain is conducive to venting heat evenly.
that does not affect warm and cold fronts that travel from the poles and the equator.
besides, if the heat were vented evenly, tornadoes or even the severe storms that create them would not form.
Most of it isn't at the same altitude, therfore colder, and those plains have more vegitation which absorbs heat but doesn't release as much.
average temperature has almost nothing to do with how likely a tornado will form; differences in temperature between patches of air do. and i'm pretty sure Asia has much more farmland than the US. but even if that's false, that does not explain why the Philippines historically has had more tornadoes than central Asia, considering how the Philippines is very mountainous, has very little temperature change, and has plenty of vegetation.
but anyway we've apparently lost touch with what the original debate was about; so putting it all together, based on the fact that weather systems begin from warm rising air, tornadoes and land/water spouts can occur virtually anywhere, which means that there may have been a tornado in ancient Egypt which caused the so-called plague of frogs raining from the sky (god that's a mouthful).
Wrong thinking. Slavemasters would work them to death, strength or not.
not all slavemasters do this, e.g. some of the slavemasters in the history of the US.
He could not have had controll over that and you know it.
well if he could control them as slaves . . . it's all about the intimidation.
The tomb of the pharoh that had to deal with all these plagues.
any websites? at the moment i don't have time to search for them myself.
If there are a set of rules, exceptions show that those rules are flawed.
rules are concepts created by the human mind. and human minds were designed to be imperfect, but that does not necessarily mean it's imperfection of existence.
At 9/2/04 01:33 AM, jaymc403 wrote: your ignorance and stupidity is vandalism and thou shall shut the f*ck up and speak modern english.
your vulgarity and stupidity is vandalism and thou shall shut the f*ck up and respect others.
yes, i'm aware of the irony. just making a point.
At 9/1/04 05:02 PM, FatherVenom wrote: Nope tornado. Why do you think people don't know that they skip? It's because it hard to see.
what do you mean by hard to see? and tornadoes don't skip across the ground; it's a popular misconception that tornadoes drop down from the sky. the vertical wind pattern that causes tornadoes forms first and pulls a funnel cloud down from the sky. in fact, the tornado itself is actually invisible; it's usually a few meters wider than what we can visually see.
and if you're referring to how they can skip houses, it's probably due to how they constantly fluctuate in intensity (i can't confirm this, though).
Tornados don't start on the ground. No weather pattern does.
so then explain why dust devils rise from the ground up, without a cloud in the sky. or why leaves spin in a circle on a clear day. or how clouds form in the first place.
Usually. Why do you think the runway in the US has so many? It's because it's open plains.
no, it's because the terrain is perfect in that area to allow two distinct fronts from the north and south to collide during spring and autumn. that's why countries in Asia with the same latitude measurements and flat plains don't get anywhere near the number of tornadoes the U.S. Alley does.
Yes because every master is concerned about making sure there's enough resources for their slaves and every freed slave does what the master wants them to do.
if he can't support them, they would be absolutely useless to him, considering they wouldn't have the strength to work. and he probably demanded that they do what he want, in exchange for their freedom.
There is historical record in them believing, but not worshiping.
source?
So you would agree with me that the universe isn't perfect then?
no, i'm saying we don't have the amount of knowledge needed to explain every inconsistency. or most things, for that matter.
At 9/1/04 03:20 PM, WolfwoodZ7 wrote: 1)Why do people keep on saying the Jews killed the Savoir. What the hell. Just because they didn't want change does not mean they killed him. Just because Jeawdu betrayed him doesn't mean the Jews killed him. Join the KKK or Nazi if you think that way.
actually i posted this in another thread once; Christianity does not blame the Jews for killing Jesus, it takes their actions as a representation of humanity.
At 9/1/04 02:24 PM, FatherVenom wrote: I'm talking about the ability of a tornado to come close enough the ground to pick stuff up. People don't usually realize this, but tornados don't travel along the gound. They actually perform a skiping motion. The only touch ground if the conditions are right, usually a largly flat area.
you're talking about the funnel cloud. the actual tornado is comprised of rapidly spinning rising air on the ground, which is usually visible through dust and debris, and the funnel cloud itself. 'touch down' is the term used when the funnel cloud touches the ground, but a tornado does not need to touch down to cause damage.
also, it doesn't need to be in a flat area to touch down.
Every warm area has cold if you go high enough.
yea of course, but that's not enough to cause a tornado. there has to be an unstable mix of warm and cold air on the ground to cause one (at least i think; i studied these things back when i was a kid, and nobody knew how tornadoes formed back then; so i can't be sure if this is correct).
Is it now? Well think about it, what motive is there to tell it like it isn't?
oh i don't know, maybe what actually happened was the Pharoah decided to let the Jews go due to lack of resources to support them, and simply requested that they tell the same story he does, so as to avoid embarrassment.
There is no historical record of them denying the existence of the Hebrew god.
But is there any historical record of them accepting Him? seriously, unless there's undeniable proof, these are all merely subjective points of view, and there's no point in trying to prove them.
When they are speaking for God that was a frequent message.
when put into context though, it sounds like he is aggrandizing himself.
and how tornados work. I look at it as the natural evolution of the debate.
heh.
The more we know the more we see natural flaws.
That's only because we don't know enough to explain them.
At 9/1/04 04:10 AM, FatherVenom wrote: It's all about pressure changes. Tornados won't set down just anywhere and you need a large body of water to make it conducive to setting down and becoming a water spout.
where did you hear this? water spouts form from warm rotating rising air that is stretched upward and narrowed, which intensifies the rotation. this can happen over both land and sea; it does not need to be over a large body of water. (when over land, it's called a land spout). tornadoes usually form from wall clouds in severe thunderstorms, and can touch down just about anywhere. and although they form differently, a tornado is called a water spout when it moves out over water.
No, but you have a climate that would allow it.
not exactly; tornadoes usually form where warm and cold air meet, and that usually happens during spring or fall. we don't have any seasons in the Philippines (well ok, there is the rainy season, but that doesn't count since there's virtually no temperature change).
Because that's what really happened. Some people just tell it like it is.
well ok, i can tell that this is going into the realm of opinion, so i think there's pretty much no point for us to debate this any further.
Thus they believed, at the least, that somebody was controlling these plagues. Since they had someone taking the credit for it, I don't see why they wouldn't accept that.
well usually when someone fervently denies something, he/she sticks to their guns, so to speak. kinda like what we're doing right now :P
A quote heard from every prophet.
I'm willing to bet not every prophet said this:
Matthew 24:5 - "For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ'
The physics is very complicated. The science behind this has to do with the behavior of the particles in the wave. Dumbed down for everyones benefit, it's basically about the particles stoping their movement in a wave pattern, which changes the definition of light as we know it and redefines energy transfer. It's not that the light is going in tons of little straight lines its that its moving completely differently.
apparently this page is supposed to explain how light can curve, though to be honest i'm too lazy to verify this. besides, since when did we know everything about the physics of the universe?
At 8/31/04 03:38 PM, FatherVenom wrote: Eventually, but long after they had fled Egypt. I'm talking about the Egyptian account and the Hebrew oral tradition as it was recorded.
were there any other written accounts before the Hebrew oral tradition was recorded, aside from the Egyptian accounts?
You need a larger body of water than a river for a water spout and no tornados do not happen just anywhere, Siberia for example.
water spouts are technically tornadoes over water, so no, you don't need a large body of water. and tornadoes do happen everywhere; i should know, as i've studied them before. not to mention a tornado uprooted a tree a few blocks from my house earlier this year. and the Philippines isn't known to have tornadoes.
Because that's what really happened. Yeah the leader of the nation is going to make up stories about how a foreign god kicked his butt.
but why would he even admit that a foreign god kicked his butt? the motives just don't make sense. even if the events did happen, unless the Egyptian pharoah himself converted to the Hebrew faith he had every reason in the world to downplay or deny that the events happened. and i don't recall anything about Egyptians converting to the Hebrew faith.
the only way i could make sense of it is if the hieroglyphics were taken out of context to support the passage from the Bible, or if the Pharoah himself had underlying motives to record these events the way he did.
Yes and no. They eventually succumbed.
Just because they succumbed doesn't mean they believed. They just simply didn't want anything else to happen to them.
He never said that he was. It's been made very clear that he didn't aggrandize himself before the night of betrayal.
John 8:42 - "Jesus said to them, 'If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me.'"
It reflects and refracts in straight lines, which isn't the same thing as curving.
reflect means "to bend back," and refract means "to deflect from a straight path." curve is just another way of describing something that bends 100 times over in miniscule segments.
At 8/31/04 01:31 PM, FatherVenom wrote: Seeing as how the Jews were freed before the story was written in the pyramid and they didn't read Egyptian, that's impossible.
But the Jews also wrote about it, didn't they? and other authors could have simply copied off of them.
Also doesn't happen in Cairo, besides they only had frogs, not fish.
last time i checked, water spouts as well as tornadoes can happen anywhere in the world.
But he didn't deny it.
So why didn't he? like i said, even if the events really did happen, he had every incentive to deny that they did.
I never said they believed that He was the only god.
But if they were unimpressed by Moses' threats and actions, that means that they also did not believe in his god.
So he was preaching tolerance, which is the opposite of what you said.
no, what i said is he perhaps had a change of heart about deceiving the Jews into believing he was the Messiah, in order to cause Jewish rebellion against the Romans.
Light moves only in straight lines.
but it does bend when it comes across a glass structure or solid surface. the only reason light doesn't bend otherwise is because almost nothing can change it's path. except very strong gravity.
At 8/31/04 12:45 AM, Camarohusky wrote: It's funny seeing you people argue with eachother. Truth and falacy are all subjective. Facts are meaningless unless interepreted, and in many cases, facts can be interpereted in many dofferent ways.
actually that's exactly what i've been trying to point out; you can believe what you want to be the truth, but you simply cannot prove it.
At 8/30/04 11:04 AM, FatherVenom wrote: True, but there's just as much genetic variation between different people as family and age doesn't affect the DNA. Everybody in Egypt would have to be at least a carrier for that recessive gene to be passed on to only the first born. The possibility that only the first born in every family, assuming they were all carriers, which is already considered impossible, is so big that it's considered to not be possible in an uncontrolled environment. So my point about there not being any way for a plague to target a certain generation still stands.
ok, you have a point. After reading up a bit more on the subject, i found out that gene mutations are permanent, so even if the genetic trait shared among Egyptian males were to be the recessive gene, apparently it's not possible for only the first born to be affected. But going back to my previous arguement, unless there's physical evidence i don't see how you can confirm that the event happened, or even if it happened in that exact way.
I don't see how multiple historic descriptions isn't enough evidence.
The authors of these historical documents may have copied from a single source, which would explain why multiple descriptions would say the same thing.
True, but that happened due to a huricane. They don't get too many of those in Cairo.
They don't always happen due to a hurricane. any strong updraft such as a water spout can also cause this.
Ok the Pharoh controlled what was writen in the tomb and he was at the center of the controversy.
That still doesn't make sense because the Pharoh had every incentive to deny what had happened and no incentive not to, regardless of whether they were the work of God or not.
Oh, like that matters. They could decide not to worship Him, but that doesn't mean they didn't believe in Him.
but if they were polytheistic, it would be blasphemous of them if they were to believe in a 'one true God'.
When was this?
There was a chapter in the Bible that said a Roman soldier came to Jesus and asked him to heal his daughter. the people surrounding Jesus told him not to help him, but he preached against not helping him just because he was a Roman.
No, it can't that's why you get light moving in a ring instead of a straight line.
well ok, that's pretty much what I meant to say. it can't escape the gravity, but at the same time it's not within the event horizon, so the gravitational pull is not strong enough to pull it into the black hole. and thus, you get a ring of light; there's no contradiction there.
At 8/29/04 10:40 AM, FatherVenom wrote: Not possible, as there's nothing genetically different between different ages.
to quote this site: "The passing of genes over thousands of generations results in genetic traits that reach beyond the immediate family and may extend throughout a nation or race of people."
"The source of this variation occurs as DNA in ovum and sperm cells mutates, recombines, and is passed down to our offspring."
genetic traits can also vary between siblings, e.g. baldness. granted, it doesn't explain why it would be consistent that only firstborns would recieve this genetic trait, but that's not to say it's impossible.
None of them are anywhere near feasible though, I mean raining frogs from the sky? That's kinda hard to do with ancient technology.
again, that assumption is only based on words, and not on physical proof. besides, you have heard of fish raining from the sky, right?
Considering that the only person who controlled the presentation of the history and he was the one involved there really isn't too much motive for telling the truth, which is what eventually happened.
not entirely sure what you mean . . .
No they didn't. Where did you come up with that?
I meant they rejected the Jewish god.
Flawed. Next theory I can debunk?
it's not entirely flawed; if you remember Jesus did eventually preach against prejudice towards the Romans.
I would assume so since they took the time to do the investigative reports on it.
who are you referring to?
It's easier when things don't contradict, but things in this universe do. Such as a ring of light on an event horizon.
if it's on the event horizon, it's not a contradiction since light can still escape the gravitational pull.
At 8/29/04 02:35 AM, FatherVenom wrote: Nothing deadly and a first born son doesn't necessitate any specific age.
Well, there are such things as genetical defects that can mutate in form and be passed down from father to son. Perhaps there was a particular virus released by the plagues that only attacked this specific defect, which could only be found in a certain generation of Egyptian males? anyway point is, there are so many more ways of explaining how such an event could happen, rather than just simply blaming it on God.
Answer me this, why would they paint such a bad picture of themselves through lying?
i'll answer that by replying to your next statement:
there can be stories from one side however that were never revealed to the other that could explain why they admit the same thing, and were never recorded.But that's not the way this situation played out, not that I understand what you're saying.
what i meant to say is that there could've been underlying conflicts, controversy or motives among the Egyptians that were never revealed to the Jews, and was never recorded in historical documents, which could explain why the Egyptians eventually say the exact same thing the Jews do.
They believed in polytheism. They didn't believe that God was the supreme god.
But they did reject their god, nonetheless. and considering that they did it so fervently, you would think that they would still deny everything that happened.
Except the Jews were the ones who chose to crucify him.
Perhaps because he had a change of heart? anyway it's just a theory.
The majority of the 300+ prophecies aren't included in the Bible. Don't expect me to track it down for you.
lol of course i won't; but what i meant was are there any other sources that record Jesus' actions fullfilling those prophecies? not whether the prophecies are confirmed in other documents, as you already mentioned that before.
Um, last time I checked the universe as a whole wasn't perfect.
well if you ask me it is, considering how everything seems to be in such a perfect balance that one property doesn't cancel out the other. the way i see it, if anything were to be in overabundance it would destroy that unseen balance in the universe and everything would collapse.
At 8/29/04 12:32 AM, FatherVenom wrote: No, but I do tend to believe government documents and histories put up in ancient tombs so that the spirits of the dead don't forget thier lives.
and there's the rub; wouldn't you think that if they were placed inside a tomb to remind the dead of their lives, that they could possibly be doctored so that anything on it wouldn't upset the dead?
There is nothing that would genetically separate the first born from any other young Egyptian male. Besides the Herod culling was reported as genocide, but these deaths were unexplainable.
but there are viruses that only attack males that are of a certain age; at least i'm pretty sure there are. and going on what i said earlier, there aren't really any trustworthy sources that can tell us that these males were all firstborns.
From both sides of the account? In all of history, there's never been two sides of the same story being the same if the sides were feuding.
there can be stories from one side however that were never revealed to the other that could explain why they admit the same thing, and were never recorded.
and even if God really did have a part in all of it, why would the Egyptians still admit to these events happening if they fervently denied the existence of such a God? surely they would come up with different stories to explain what happened.
All 300 tracked down by one man so that he could emulate them completely, before he came of the age to interact with the world? Doubtful considering reading would have come afterwards.
It's a long shot, but it could be possible that the emulation all started with his parents, which was passed on to him to continue until his death. and motivation? the Jews were oppressed by the Romans at the time; this all could've been staged to help incite Jewish rebellion.
But besides all of that conspiracy theory mumbo-jumbo, are there any other documents aside from the bible that record these prophecies being fulfilled? there has to be a reason why the Q'ran (spelling?) acknowledges Jesus' existence as a prophet but not as a Messiah.
No it doesn't. Humans aren't perfect, but 1 + 1 = 2 is perfect and we came up with that.
1+1 = 2 isn't always perfect. I'm sure I could come up with some better examples, but for now i'll just use this cliched example: 1 man and 1 woman come together and have a baby. three people now exist, thus 1+1=3.
plus, if God isn't perfect, how can he possibly create perfection? flawed beings will always overlook one thing or another, and considering the vast number of physical laws and properties that exist in the universe, only a perfect being could possibly create such a thing without overlooking anything.
At 8/29/04 12:36 AM, Celly07 wrote: I think this has gone really insane and out of hand! I think some peopel are really taken this seriosally! Its a simple debate. We dont mean to crunch and bruise toes! Even tho a supreme being does exist. Not saying like all the well documented ones of most religions. Just a supreme being. Might not even be called god... Who knows/
nah, i'm not trying to personally attack anyone here, i'm just trying to point out some possibilities we could all think about. besides, i personally enjoy debating; it's good for the mind and helps me to stop being the ignorant moron i am :P
aight, i'm not banned anymore.
At 8/25/04 02:06 PM, FatherVenom wrote: The Egyptians admitted to it happening.
that doesn't mean it's the truth. would you believe everything that Fox news tells you? or, as a better example, Weekly World News? for all you know, they could be used as historical references 2000 years from now.
The problem with that is that noone else was targeted.
The same thing could be said about the newborns that were targeted by King Herod. And there are such things as viruses that only attack certain demographics.
Why would the Egyptians admit to the fact that they got screwed by a God they didn't even believe in? It's all about motivation and the Egyptians had enough reasons to downplay it all, but they didn't
how can you be so sure of their motivations? you weren't there. and for all we know there could've been an underlying story that was never recorded.
True but then him going on and fulfilling every other of the over 300 prophecies? That's too much of a "coincidence".
the prophecies that were fullfilled in his later years could have been easily staged. the earlier prophecies i'll admit are a bit harder to explain; but then again prophets were constantly making predictions of the future. a few of them were bound to be correct every so often.
Neither of those say that he is perfect, just his plan and his commands.
But if his plans and commands are perfect, how could God not be perfect? perfection has to come from perfection.
This was a Roman legal document. It was as bland as a lawyer's notes, because that's what it basically was. Government documents tend to be much more factual when reporting the facts.
Documents can always be doctored. I admit it's very unlikely, but it's still possible.
At 8/25/04 08:17 AM, Sheepling wrote: Hey, there's more of you respectful Lvl 10 guys out there than I thought!
lol, nice touch with the sarcasm.
At 8/25/04 04:10 AM, FatherVenom wrote: We're talking about the death of an entire cities first born sons, that in and of itself is too much of a coincidence
how could anyone possibly prove the death of an entire cities first born sons? even if someone were to discover their corpses, there is absolutely no way to prove they were first borns. and if it did happen, isn't it possible that they had simply died from the plagues? or even genocide?
add on top of that over a dozen plagues.
is there any physical proof of these plagues occurring? documented history cannot always be trusted.
This goes way beyond my sphere of training, but the one I'm sure of is that the season and place were correct for Jesus to be the Messiah.
that still doesn't mean it could'nt have happened by coincidence.
He's never been portrayed as perfect, He just plays by the rules he set forth.
2 Samuel 22:31 - "As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is flawless. He is a shield for all who take refuge in him."
(and yes, I searched that on the Internet, you can stop laughing now)
There's documentation of Jesus being tortured to death.
Again, documentation cannot always be trusted.
At 8/25/04 12:28 AM, _stem_ wrote:At 8/25/04 12:26 AM, C-Damage wrote:i eat penguins. especially ones with funny hats.
I wish I were a penguin with a funny hat.
i wish i had a mug that was made of lucky charms.
you have a mug made of used horseshoes.
i wish i had a life.
At 8/24/04 11:01 PM, southwest_strangla17 wrote:At 8/24/04 10:34 PM, Falker wrote: What if jesus was just like us, trying to prove his own belief to be true? People's minds are easy changed, and so he had followers. Now he is a mahsah, even through he could be just lieing.why would he lie and go thru what he did?
how do you know he went through what he did? how do you know it wasn't all a charade?
At 8/24/04 12:15 PM, invisible_guy wrote: but why should God let someone into heaven that doesnt belive in him?
If God is truely the perfect being he's supposed to be, he would not keep a deserving man out of heaven simply because he doubted his existence.
even some "christians" wont get to heaven because they didnt believe that jesus' death paid for their sins.
where exactly in the bible does it say this? and do you have any proof that Jesus is God?
At 8/24/04 11:45 AM, invisible_guy wrote: the system isnt flawed you just need to understand the system. we will assume that what the bible says is true and jesus died on the cross. in doing so he is able to forgive all sins. so in actuallity being evil and sinning wont keep you from heaven, but whether you accept jesus' work on the cross.
so in other words, you're saying that no matter how repentent Muslims and Buhddists are, they can't get into heaven if they don't convert to Christianity?
i agree more with what -flux- said. It shouldn't matter what your beliefs are, as long as you are truely remorseful for all your past misdeeds you should be allowed into heaven.
that is if there is a heaven. or an afterlife. or even a God.
At 8/24/04 04:05 AM, FatherVenom wrote: So many plagues so close together would seem to me to be more than coincidence.
True, such an event occurring may be extremely rare, but rarities do happen. that's why shows like Ripley's Believe It or Not exist.
Anything is possible, but this isn't probable as many of the early proofs he couldn't have faked.
what exactly were these early proofs? and were they prophesied to happen, or were they just events that appeared to be miraculous?
I'm going to bet that you don't run in the same circles
well apparently I don't. :P but what i meant to say was, if there was any research that showed undeniable proof, it would've at least been highly circulated.
At 8/23/04 03:17 PM, FatherVenom wrote: I didn't say they were proofs for the existence of God, just that they were proofs for the veracity of the Bible.
well ok, granted the Bible may be accurate in documenting these events, but it does not mean that these events happened exactly the way it was described, through numerous supernatural events.
I know this, however I have accounted for these things. Egyptian heiroglyphs tend to be short on details and are usually pretty accurate, which is the proof on the plagues and the famine.
Again, just because those events may have taken place doesn't mean that a man blessed by God rose his staff and caused these so-called miracles.
The proof of the flood isn't even from a historical document. The geological record at an early period of human history around the cradle of civilization has turned out evidence of high water levels. It didn't cover the whole Earth, but most of the early stories of the Bible are just that, stories.
That was exactly the point I was trying to convey; it is very easy to make up a story about how a character builds an ark that saves all life on the planet. How can we be sure that the same thing hasn't been done for the other stories as well?
The Egyptians didn't have a navy on the Red Sea.
but they did have ships right? or at the very least, boats. anyway i don't know all that much about Egyptian civilization.
The coming of Jesus was prophecy for hundreds of years before his actual birth.
But how exactly did we get the knowledge of that prophecy? Isn't it possible that someone somewhere along the line simply made that statement up after the death of Jesus? and even if it actually was prophesied, isn't it also possible that Jesus himself had heard of the prophecy and simply deceived everyone around him into believing that he was the Messiah? That is if Jesus even existed, or if those stories are even true.
People are idiots. Beyond daily living most people don't care about other things. Even in daily life you'll find ignorence. These are things that people should know because they've been dealing with it their entire adult life, but they don't know. Why? It's just human nature to not do all the research.
Agreed, but there are people that have dedicated their lives to researching these things, and last i checked no-one has yet discovered undeniable proof of the veracity of the stories in the Bible.
At 8/23/04 11:15 AM, FatherVenom wrote: And there's proof to back up the latter. There's evidence of the flood, and Moses' plagues, and the famine predicted by Joseph, and the prophecies of Jesus.
actually i have heard of these so-called 'proofs' before, but i don't really believe them to be proof of God's existence, for two reasons:
1. historical documents tend to be very inaccurate and new discoveries are constantly popping-up, changing how we view past civilizations. physical evidence can also be explained in many more ways than one; for example, how can we be certain that the skeletons found in the red sea weren't left there from a sunken military ship that hasn't been found? or how can we be certain that the prophecies weren't actually written after the prophesied events took place?
2. considering the fact that people are constantly trying to prove or disprove God's existence, you would think that if these evidences could not be disproven, they would be common knowledge by now, and that all debates on this topic would've been closed.
At 8/23/04 03:23 AM, FatherVenom wrote: I hate to burst your bubble, but that applies to almost every scrap of knowledge you acquired in school.
not exactly; subjects like science and math are a necessity to learn in order to get along in everyday life. it's not a matter of choosing to believe that knowledge; you just simply need these things to get by.
it would, however, apply to subjects like history; although the difference between that and religion is that there's ample proof to back up the former.
