@Dayton3 and @TheLonelySquire posting on Wordforge: @Dayton3 and @TheLonelySquire when they're not posting on Wordforge:
Who gave God the ability to tell good from evil? If God gave us the right to tell good from evil, why do we have things like genocide, terrorism, inequality for women, persecution based on race, child abuse and so on? He did a pretty bad job of giving us this ability, wouldn't you say?
In my opinion, while being free moral agents is a good thing there is an irrefutable part of the human condition that tends to choose evil.
Because we're told not to. But no matter the punishment we still can make that choice. And most humans do.
But it was "the tree of knowledge of good and evil". That means Adam and Eve didn't know any better until they ate the fruit. But you said they had free choice all along. Can't have that both ways. Either God lied about the apple being magic, or he punished people with no free choice.
Why is Dayton offended for being reminded that he believes in a fantasy creature? He's a Trekkie after all.
Dayton drops two golden nuggets like that and nobody picks them up? Wordforge really is dying! I'm ashamed of you people.
Never got an answer on this one, and it's kind of important, actually. Reason it through. No angel fucking, no giants. No giants, no Goliath. No Goliath, no King David. No King David, no Jesus (because the Old Testament prophecies say the Messiah has to come from David's bloodline). No Jesus, the whole thing falls apart.
Oh give me a break. Why should I show El Chups friends any respect? Until this thread I had no idea he had any friends. Gay, straight, or real.
Its also never flat out described how Christ was crucified, but most people assume that he was nailed to a 'T' shaped piece of wood. However, at the time Christ is supposed to have lived, the term "crucifixion" was applied to a couple of different forms of execution, some of which look vastly different than the traditional depiction. Additionally, not mentioned in the Bible, though mentioned in numerous documents of the Romans, is that the people who were crucified were denied burial, and instead remained on the pole or cross or other object until their bodies decayed and fell off. At which point, they were eaten by stray dogs. Which raises the following questions: 1. Does Dayton know that the Bible as it is published today is based largely on what the Catholic Church decided should be considered truthful? 2. That the Catholic Church actively worked to suppress a number of books that were considered by many living at the time to be as valid as any in the current Bible? 3. That both the Nag Hammadi Library and the Dead Sea Scrolls contain either books which were suppressed by the Catholic Church or versions of works currently in all versions of the Bible which differ wildly from those considered "canon"? 4. That at least one of those works, The Gospel of Thomas[ is considered by many Biblical scholars to be the most accurate account of the sayings of Jesus? 5. That at least some of the Pauline writings in the Bible are considered by nearly all biblical scholars to be forgeries? 6. And does Dayton make sure that his wife and daughter have their heads covered when they pray? 7. Does Dayton prohibit his wife and daughter from speaking in church? Since the New Testament says they should not. I could go on for days, but since I suspect that Dayton will run and hide, instead of answering these questions, I'm just going to leave it here. For now.
1) Irrelevant 2) Post a link 3) Also irrelevant 4) No consensus exists 5) Long debated but no conclusions exists beyond what it already says. 6) Appeal to local tradition. Not a commandment. 7) False interpretation on your part. Happy?
Because you're a human being and not a stupid, retarded animal? Plus all that new age, hippy stuff Jesus was into.
How is this "Irrelevant"? Seriously. You dislike the Catholic Church, and they're the ones who decided what went in the Bible, the later folks came along and only tossed out a couple of the books that the Catholics had included, they didn't decide to go back to the oldest versions of the books they had access to and re-evaluate all of them. There's something like 20+ works which were in common circulation back then that the Catholic Church discarded. You're going to argue that they got it all right, save a couple of books? The logical assumption is that they didn't have a clue as to what they were doing and to start fresh. Something which wasn't possible until fairly recently, because many of the books weren't known about until after they'd been rediscovered at Nag Hammadi and the Dead Sea. You mean Like this? How the fuck are they "Irrelevant"? Seriously. These are works which differ wildly than what are presently contained in the Bible, and haven't been subjected to millenia of mistranslation or alteration by people with agendas. Hmmm. As I've pointed out before, my step-brother, an actual Biblical scholar, says that there is. Who do think I'm going to go with? You? Or somebody who got his degrees from freaking Princeton? A meaningless response on your part. There's agreement that some are false, though some disagreement as to whether certain ones are forgeries. Yet none have been discarded. And your evidence for this is? I'm sorry, but how can be interpreted as anything other than women are to keep silent in church? It says exactly that. No more, no less. Furthermore, why should it even be need to be said at all if women were to have the same (or even nearly the same) rights as men in church? Nope.
Chup has a good point about the motivations of science versus religion. Science is a process that (when it's applied properly) wants to be proven wrong, and expects to be proven wrong because there's no such thing as a "finished product". Science expects things to be different/improved/evolved as time goes on because "why" & "how & "what if" are the top priorities that drive science/advancement. That said it is interesting how religious rules/stories/etc. that were accepted by generations past aren't swallowed by today's more educated church goers. But Christianity has a default answer: anything proven to be wrong by science & basic math (Noah's Ark for example or Judas committing suicide twice - by throwing himself off a cliff & hanging himself if memory serves) that were considered literal can now be interpreted as symbolic or figurative. So I guess heaven would be Jesus having an eternal press conference & saying "walking on water? Yes, I did that. Water into wine? Dude, that was symbolic for a teaching point - you can't do that shit for real! Rolling away a big stone so that I could leave the cave after I came back to life? There was a hidden escape tunnel - the entrance was behind that big bookcase in the library."
The dude turned water to wine, hung out with prostitutes, had an all you can eat party, threw a party for 12 dudes which is still talked about 2000 years later.... the dude knew how to party.