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So being of human form, it's impossible to attain omniscience or omnipotence? What's so limiting about human form that prevents such characteristics?

This is just silly. For omniscience, the brain would have to both contain as many atoms as there are in the universe in order to know everything, and multiplied for temporal states. That's a really big brain. For omnipotence, well, I'm wondering about skeletal loading and muscular strength. Then I guess this god has telekinetic powers, or something? Gee, see how quickly this starts to look like something out of a Dungeons and Dragons playbook?

To be fair, not every Christian denomination believes this, or at least in the way that you're implying.

You're suggesting some Christians then believe that Jesus isn't god? If not, then what was Jesus? Just a really good human by their standards?

Preordination is not a necessary characteristic of God; omniscience and preordination can be easily confused.

Sigh. Isaiah 46:10, Acts 2:23, Revelations 1:8.

No; created free-acting agents that of their own will chose evil.

See previous Bible verses. He created so-called free-acting agents while simultaneously knowing the outcome. Can't have it both ways. Pick one.

Could it be that the contradictions you see in God are of your own misunderstanding of others' beliefs?

The contradictions come from the Bible, which is the source of others' beliefs.

So being of human form, it's impossible to attain omniscience or omnipotence? What's so limiting about human form that prevents such characteristics?

This is just silly. For omniscience, the brain would have to both contain as many atoms as there are in the universe in order to know everything, and multiplied for temporal states. That's a really big brain. For omnipotence, well, I'm wondering about skeletal loading and muscular strength. Then I guess this god has telekinetic powers, or something? Gee, see how quickly this starts to look like something out of a Dungeons and Dragons playbook?

To be fair, not every Christian denomination believes this, or at least in the way that you're implying.

You're suggesting some Christians then believe that Jesus isn't god? If not, then what was Jesus? Just a really good human by their standards?

Preordination is not a necessary characteristic of God; omniscience and preordination can be easily confused.

Sigh. Isaiah 46:10, Acts 2:23, Revelations 1:8.

No; created free-acting agents that of their own will chose evil.

See previous Bible verses. He created so-called free-acting agents while simultaneously knowing the outcome. Can't have it both ways. Pick one.

Could it be that the contradictions you see in God are of your own misunderstanding of others' beliefs?

The contradictions come from the Bible, which is the source of others' beliefs.

So being of human form, it's impossible to attain omniscience or omnipotence? What's so limiting about human form that prevents such characteristics?

This is just silly. For omniscience, the brain would have to both contain as many atoms as there are in the universe in order to know everything, and multiplied for temporal states. That's a really big brain. For omnipotence, well, I'm wondering about skeletal loading and muscular strength. Then I guess this god has telekinetic powers, or something? Gee, see how quickly this starts to look like something out of a Dungeons and Dragons playbook?

To be fair, not every Christian denomination believes this, or at least in the way that you're implying.

You're suggesting some Christians then believe that Jesus isn't god? If not, then what was Jesus? Just a really good human by their standards?

Preordination is not a necessary characteristic of God; omniscience and preordination can be easily confused.

Sigh. Isaiah 46:10, Acts 2:23, Revelations 1:8.

No; created free-acting agents that of their own will chose evil.

See previous Bible verses. He created so-called free-acting agents while simultaneously knowing the outcome. Can't have it both ways. Pick one.

Could it be that the contradictions you see in God are of your own misunderstanding of others' beliefs?

The contradictions come from the Bible, which is the source of others' beliefs.

So, being treated as an equal does not make sense in the context.

The wider context include The Law of Moses and the context it was spoken in. 'An eye for an eye...' is a statement on how the punishment should be proportionate to the crime. The Law also require other things like a fair trial and a burden of evidence before the suspect can be judged guilty. Sometimes you know the guilty won't get what he deserves. It is hard to trust God to avenge you. Ignoring the rest of The Law and taking the matter into your own hands seems like a great idea. You even have a Bible verse on your side! Jesus lived in roman occupied Israel. It is therefore reasonable to conclude He was reminding people that ignoring parts of The Law by avenging them self (and trying to justify it by quoting another part of The Law) was a sin.

It remains a sin today. Say that you are husband and someone have raped your wife. You know all he risk is a few years in a nice, comfortable Norwegian prison cell. Killing him to get justice is still a sin. Say you are the father of an aborted child and you have tracked down the guilty abortionist. Abortion is legal. Killing him to get justice is still a sin. While I assume that it must be extremely hard in cases like those I just mentioned the proper thing for a Christian to do is to leave the vengeance to God in stead of killing the guilty. As Paul said in Romans 12:19 "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."

http://bible.cc/matthew/21-12.htm

you remembered correctly and i think that whole thing of turning the other cheek is taken out of context (and does not cover what you do AFTER turning said cheek).

According to Christian theology, everyone has sinned, and so only those who accepted Jesus as their king and savior will be granted eternal life in paradise. Those who do not, at best have oblivion and at worst eternal punishment, depending on which version of Christian theology you ask.

Of course, according to Jesus himself, it depends on how you treated other people, not on what position you held on a metaphysical point or whether you attended a magical ritual regularly.

A cynical person might almost think that most Christian theology is an attempt to explain away all the Bible's condemnations against oppressing the poor, the weak and the ostracised and worshipping money and power. How else could you possibly go from "Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door." to "it was teh gay!"?

So given those assumptions, perhaps you can see why parents would be deeply concerned as to whether or not their children are showing signs of following Jesus.

I suspect there's also an element of not wanting to risk re-examining their own life and beliefs and perhaps coming to inconvenient conclusions.

According to Christian theology, everyone has sinned, and so only those who accepted Jesus as their king and savior will be granted eternal life in paradise. Those who do not, at best have oblivion and at worst eternal punishment, depending on which version of Christian theology you ask.

Of course, according to Jesus himself, it depends on how you treated other people, not on what position you held on a metaphysical point or whether you attended a magical ritual regularly.

A cynical person might almost think that most Christian theology is an attempt to explain away all the Bible's condemnations against oppressing the poor, the weak and the ostracised and worshipping money and power. How else could you possibly go from "Sodom's sins were pride, gluttony, and laziness, while the poor and needy suffered outside her door." to "it was teh gay!"?

So given those assumptions, perhaps you can see why parents would be deeply concerned as to whether or not their children are showing signs of following Jesus.

I suspect there's also an element of not wanting to risk re-examining their own life and beliefs and perhaps coming to inconvenient conclusions.

You don't get it. Nobody is perfect and even christians sometimes stumble. Once you become a christian then you will understand. You have this really distorted view of what christians are supposed to be. People don't "earn" their salvation. It is a gift. People start doing good works to give thanks, grow in their faith and to be an example for others who will then ask them about their faith.

You don't get it. Nobody is perfect and even christians sometimes stumble. Once you become a christian then you will understand. You have this really distorted view of what christians are supposed to be. People don't "earn" their salvation. It is a gift. People start doing good works to give thanks, grow in their faith and to be an example for others who will then ask them about their faith.

Because sin is still sin.

Regarding the two Old Testament commandments above:
- the first doesn't describe a squinty person as sinful
- the second - the 'hair commandment' was apparently against an idolatrous fashion of the time.
    (Source: http://bible.cc/leviticus/19-27.htm)

To be fair to your point, the Catholic church is itself idolatrous due to its worship of Mary, belief in apparitions and superstitions.

I don't see how that's relevant - many parts of the Bible are history, and good history includes talking about people who did bad things, dumb things, and morally questionable things, not just talking about good people doing good things.

Okay, I'll bite. How about Genesis 19?

1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.

2 “My lords,” he said, “please turn aside to your servant’s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.” “No,” they answered, “we will spend the night in the square.”

3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate.

4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house.

5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him

7 and said, “No, my friends. Don’t do this wicked thing.

8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don’t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.”

Giving up his daughters to be gang-raped apparently wasn't wicked by comparison. What a jerk? Or was he? According to 2 Peter 2:7, Lot was a “righteous man.”

Today, we know that rape is wrong. Why? Because we've ignored the Bible and turned our backs on your petty gods, and instead turned to reason, which tell us that women are human beings—not property—just like men, who therefore deserve all the same rights and protections.

But you and people like you will ignore that progress and will tirelessly defend your beliefs, no matter what horrors they promote. Meanwhile, humanity is steadily moving beyond these atrocious aberrations. We've been doing that expressly because we're realizing there are no invisible, white men in the sky who'll punish us for thinking for ourselves.

In other words, all the moral progress we've seen is in spite of religion, not because of it. That scares you. That's the end of power and a cruel status quo that's existed for nearly all recorded human history.

We have a much more accurate value than Asimov's in Genesis 6:3

"After that Jehovah said: 'My spirit shall not act toward man indefinitely in that he is also flesh. Accordingly his days shall amount to a hundred and twenty years.'" (Genesis 6:3, NWT) That verse could be referring to the fact that God was about to flood the inhabited parts of Earth 120 years later to wipe away the interference of the Nephilim, right after Lamech and Methuselah were about to die. Noah was born when Lamech was 182, Methuselah died when Lamech was 782, and Lamech died at 777. (Genesis 5:25-31) So both Methuselah and Lamech died fairly shortly before Noah turned 600 and the flood came. (Genesis 7:6) The parallel view of Genesis 6:3 suggests that the authors of some paraphrase translations, such as the New Living Translation, didn't consider this possibility, even despite Abraham's over 170-year life.--Genesis 25:7.

God blesses the faithful, so if you are not blessed, you must be a dirty heathen and deserve to suffer.

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

We all suffer. Christianity doesn't offer heaven on Earth.

If you're going to mock a religion, it would help if you didn't show such massive ignorance about it. Here - I'll help you out:

"He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead..."
(emphasis mine)

So unless you can show me a state DMV regulation that requires one to wear a driver's license on one's forehead or right hand...

As an ex-Catholic, this is exactly correct.

There are, I think, a variety of things that go into it. You're very conscious of your religion not being as relevant to the rest of the world as it used to.

Abortion is a Protestant, almost a Fundamentalist issue. You could get worked up about it, but you could get worked up about the Protestants too, but you could actually do what that Yeshua bar Yehosef guy said and shut the hell up about it.

No, it is not.

Yes, it is.

The Commandment is probably closer to "Thou Shalt Not Murder Fellow Jews"...

Anything else you'd like to entirely make up on the spot, while you're at it?

Here's a slew of English translations, all rendering it as "kill" or "murder":

http://bible.cc/exodus/20-13.htm

Here it is in the original Hebrew, with no qualification of "fellow Jews" or anything else for that matter:

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0220.htm

...this clearly only refers to other members of the Judaic tradition, as God later commands genocide...

Or, your inference is entirely erroneous. Outside of stating it is "clearly" meaning what it clearly is not, your other term of characterization is disingenuous as well. "Genocide" is a term implying a great deal that isn't present in your example. Most would consider a counterattack against a culture which had previously been an extreme aggressor to be an act of "war", not "genocide"--as "genocide" is used to imply an "innocent", victimized group. The Amalekites were nothing of the sort.

More information here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalek

You may wish to note the particular mitigating ethical factors given by historical Rabbis, none of which are necessary to demonstrate your characterization is without merit.

Being that "mass-murder" is definitely an instance of the category of "murder", and rather than using the verbal construction "genocide" to misrepresent the historical facts, we use the appropriate term of "war", my statement, and its proper qualification, stand.

War is not murder. The best warriors do not hate their enemy -- Spartans for example.

Assassins don't hate their targets either. They're still murderers. Hatred is utterly irrelevant for whether some particular life-taking was murder or not.

Self defense is not murder either.

It is, however, forbidden.

Neither is the death penalty.

Perhaps. However, Jesus did not use it even when it was required by law, so it should be highly suspect to a Christian, at the very least. Unless a particular Christian thinks he's holier than Christ, of course.

Abortion is very definitely murder; why didn't you address that?

No. Killing a fetus means you pay damages to the mother.

We are supposed to give to the poor and share what we have with others. Letting the government take it at gunpoint and "redistribute" it is not Christian charity. That's just plain lunacy and never works.

The chapter and verse where the evils of setting up a government program to provide for the poor so they are not dependent on the fickle mercy of strangers for their everyday bread is discussed seems to have slipped my mind. Or it could be because I'm a fool who thinks the poor are real people who need to eat too, rather than mere stage props for the rich to show off their personal piety with, and am misunderstanding the purpose of charity as a result.

The rest of your drivel could be summed up by "ye shall know them by their fruits". That's wise. Don't listen to what a man says; look at what he actually does. Obama (and most Democrats) fails on this one. A Democrat always says one thing and does another. For example -- they always want to "help" the poor, but they don't want the poor to get any richer. They need an uneducated lower class for them to stay in power.

Here's a little piece of wisdom: whether Democrats act according to Christian values is utterly unrelated to whether Republicans do. More generally, you can't refute "Republicans suck" with "Democracts suck too", because it's entirely possible that they both suck donkey balls, and in fact are Biblically pretty much guaranteed to do so because they're both made of mere mortals. The question - at least in a two-party system like the USA - is which one sucks less.

War is not murder. The best warriors do not hate their enemy -- Spartans for example.

Assassins don't hate their targets either. They're still murderers. Hatred is utterly irrelevant for whether some particular life-taking was murder or not.

Self defense is not murder either.

It is, however, forbidden.

Neither is the death penalty.

Perhaps. However, Jesus did not use it even when it was required by law, so it should be highly suspect to a Christian, at the very least. Unless a particular Christian thinks he's holier than Christ, of course.

Abortion is very definitely murder; why didn't you address that?

No. Killing a fetus means you pay damages to the mother.

We are supposed to give to the poor and share what we have with others. Letting the government take it at gunpoint and "redistribute" it is not Christian charity. That's just plain lunacy and never works.

The chapter and verse where the evils of setting up a government program to provide for the poor so they are not dependent on the fickle mercy of strangers for their everyday bread is discussed seems to have slipped my mind. Or it could be because I'm a fool who thinks the poor are real people who need to eat too, rather than mere stage props for the rich to show off their personal piety with, and am misunderstanding the purpose of charity as a result.

The rest of your drivel could be summed up by "ye shall know them by their fruits". That's wise. Don't listen to what a man says; look at what he actually does. Obama (and most Democrats) fails on this one. A Democrat always says one thing and does another. For example -- they always want to "help" the poor, but they don't want the poor to get any richer. They need an uneducated lower class for them to stay in power.

Here's a little piece of wisdom: whether Democrats act according to Christian values is utterly unrelated to whether Republicans do. More generally, you can't refute "Republicans suck" with "Democracts suck too", because it's entirely possible that they both suck donkey balls, and in fact are Biblically pretty much guaranteed to do so because they're both made of mere mortals. The question - at least in a two-party system like the USA - is which one sucks less.

War is not murder. The best warriors do not hate their enemy -- Spartans for example.

Assassins don't hate their targets either. They're still murderers. Hatred is utterly irrelevant for whether some particular life-taking was murder or not.

Self defense is not murder either.

It is, however, forbidden.

Neither is the death penalty.

Perhaps. However, Jesus did not use it even when it was required by law, so it should be highly suspect to a Christian, at the very least. Unless a particular Christian thinks he's holier than Christ, of course.

Abortion is very definitely murder; why didn't you address that?

No. Killing a fetus means you pay damages to the mother.

We are supposed to give to the poor and share what we have with others. Letting the government take it at gunpoint and "redistribute" it is not Christian charity. That's just plain lunacy and never works.

The chapter and verse where the evils of setting up a government program to provide for the poor so they are not dependent on the fickle mercy of strangers for their everyday bread is discussed seems to have slipped my mind. Or it could be because I'm a fool who thinks the poor are real people who need to eat too, rather than mere stage props for the rich to show off their personal piety with, and am misunderstanding the purpose of charity as a result.

The rest of your drivel could be summed up by "ye shall know them by their fruits". That's wise. Don't listen to what a man says; look at what he actually does. Obama (and most Democrats) fails on this one. A Democrat always says one thing and does another. For example -- they always want to "help" the poor, but they don't want the poor to get any richer. They need an uneducated lower class for them to stay in power.

Here's a little piece of wisdom: whether Democrats act according to Christian values is utterly unrelated to whether Republicans do. More generally, you can't refute "Republicans suck" with "Democracts suck too", because it's entirely possible that they both suck donkey balls, and in fact are Biblically pretty much guaranteed to do so because they're both made of mere mortals. The question - at least in a two-party system like the USA - is which one sucks less.

i can do better than examples, i can point to ancient themes

arrogance. hubris. pride

it is identified in all ancient human cultures as a weakness

judaism:

http://bible.cc/proverbs/16-18.htm

"pride goeth before the fall"

christianity:

one of the seven deadly sins:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride

islam:

http://www.themodernreligion.com/basic/charac/pride.html

buddhism, one of the five major afflictions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleshas_(Buddhism)#Five_poisons

etc., etc.

i myself am not religious, but obviously religions are major repositories of ancient wisdom and foolishness

you see it in all of these haughty posts. so self-certain, so blind to the effects of this wrong sense of superiority. it's a major cause of self-defeat throughout human history, in momentous ways and small, from family and romantic relationships, right up to international relations

blind foolish pride. a false sense of superiority. how much it has cost human civilization?

You know that in the source document, the term "antichrist" just meant anyone who denied Christ, right? "Anti-" like anticlockwise or antifreeze, or antidisestablishmentarianism. Dunno why you guys need to demonize anyone.

Anyone who ascribes religious fervor to someone quoting Dawkins is projecting. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

You know that in the source document, the term "antichrist" just meant anyone who denied Christ, right? "Anti-" like anticlockwise or antifreeze, or antidisestablishmentarianism. Dunno why you guys need to demonize anyone.

Anyone who ascribes religious fervor to someone quoting Dawkins is projecting. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

You know that in the source document, the term "antichrist" just meant anyone who denied Christ, right? "Anti-" like anticlockwise or antifreeze, or antidisestablishmentarianism. Dunno why you guys need to demonize anyone.

Anyone who ascribes religious fervor to someone quoting Dawkins is projecting. There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio...

Oh, that is wonderful. My first child is due next month. You commented on the difference between a just-about-to-be-born fetus and a just-recently-born baby; would you also comment on the difference between a blastocyst and a baby? In my experience as an expectant father, there seems to be a big difference between a blastocyst and a near-term fetus, so there must be an even bigger one compared to a fully born baby. For me, the important distinction is that when it's inside a woman, it's part of the woman, literally and figuratively and legally; and women are empowered to do as they choose with their bodies.

It's not really a religious issue, though, from my perspective -- not for Christians anyway. The Bible defines life as beginning with breath, while tattoos are explicitly prohibited. It's not clear to me why Christians get so bothered about abortion, which is not prohibited in their holy book, but never seem to spend much energy picketing tattoo parlors.

holy shit!

(for bypassers who don't know their bible by heart: Ezekiel 23:20 on the web http://bible.cc/ezekiel/23-20.htm )

My first thought on reading that it would hold 1,440 people at once..

Church groups plan to build 100 of these around the world in preparation for the fulfilment of the revelations so that the 144,000 can be at pre-designated pick up points.

http://bible.cc/revelation/7-4.htm

If he is a god, let him contend for himself, because his altar has been broken down.

What is this, refutation-by-asserted-category?

If you assert by category while earlier arguing for a specific claim (not category), then my refutation will be that you didn't meet the earlier claim.

Except, as a matter of basic fact, adults factually do believe in them.

I was referring to Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, hence "concede that Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy is less likely to be true then the Biblical god" and "the lie is revealed and rational, grown adults don't believe in them [Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy]".

Waving your hand at a sentence that says there are more

I didn't "wave my hand", I asked where they were specified, to which you waved your hand.

still destroys your notion of equivalence between theism and Santa, as previously stated

No, it doesn't, since going by his figure of 2500 prophecies, showing only 13 means he likely cherry-picked the best examples, but furthermore, he explicitly stated that the Bible itself claims that there were "2000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter--no errors" and "God's prophets, as distinct from Satan's spokesmen, are 100 percent accurate in their predictions. There is no room for error."

If I asked a children about evidence for Santa Claus and documented it all, I'd get similar results. But I've already conceded the Biblical god is more likely to exist than Santa Claus in my previous post, however remotely, if only because the lie is revealed. Though, again, the main reason I stepped in was because you claimed quantum mechanics provided believability.

Don't worry about it. This thread will be quite over, and judging your degree of motivation, you'll be well along toward the point of you getting naturally deselected by then--at which point you and this discussion will be irrelevant.

*shrug* If you don't want to back it as the paper I was looking for, then fine.

I'm not contending the event isn't improbable.

Well that's the entire point. When we do experiments the particles follow a random distribution, which can be predicted in advance. To claim outlandish miracles are allowed in physics is to claim observation of things you wouldn't expect to see in the lifetime of the universe.

No, I'm appealing to it as it properly is, as a matter of science.

I haven't seen any quantum science out of you, other than an appeal to a magic box to drape your mythology in respectability.

For those rare events, you are wholly assuming that the probabilities aren't manipulable, simply because you haven't seen it, and in the face of the fact you do not understand the "why" of the causality here, to be able to exclude anything.

That isn't science, as the science shows random distributions. If you want to claim they can be manipulated by a divine origin, then that's a mythical assertion on your part, which is besides the point, since a divine being has no need to respect the physical laws anyways.

I -noted- it is wholly supportable under hard physics, correctly.

It absolutely isn't. Please cite the science that demonstrates it.

Are you saying that this may have decreased the efficiency of the DNA propagation of members of the Catholic Church

This discussion is already tedious and bizarro world enough as it is: I don't know where you got that interpretation from, so I'm going to ignore the whole "Galileo was a Christian" sidetrack. The main point is that Church doctrine based on a plain reading of the Bible caused controversy around Galileo's work.

Cite away.

http://bible.cc/psalms/104-5.htm : "He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved."

"The poor you will always have with you"
http://bible.cc/matthew/26-11.htm

We will always have poor, and we will always have the responsibility to care for those who cannot help themselves, and help those who can help themselves to begin helping themselves (you have my welfare policy in a nutshell). But, we cannot allow it to be an all consuming policy that detracts from allowing those who do earn from progressing and from mankind as a whole from advancing.

Spave vs Poverty debate is a false dichotomy and I encourage Slashdotters to not fall into this trap.

There's a Jesus parable about teaching men how to become a fisherman, so they can get their own food rather than have to beg others for fish.

Way to miss the point.

God, I'm an agnostic and I knew this.

I always fancied trying something like this on religious folk:

"What if Satan sent us the Bible to turn us away from the natural beauty and wonderfully complex Truths of His creation?"

You might find this to be your response.

You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

Did he?

Care to tell us where he said that?

Matthew 5:17: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

How is him saying that he is (personally) fulfilling the Law and Prophets the same as a commandment for his followers to follow the Law and the Prophets?

This seems like a terribly counterintuitive reading of this passage to me, especially given the preceding segment. A much more intuitive reading of this section is that he is claiming that he will fulfill the Law and the Prophets - the former centering around a complex system of ritual sacrifices, the latter a series of prophesies about the Messiah. Thus the Law is not abolished, but fulfilled. This is the way that Christians have understood it for centuries.

Thankfully, the Bible is interpreted differently at different times: The Bible, as interpreted back in e.g. the 15th century was not very tolerant. While Islam was much more open and tolerant a millenium ago, but had a backlash and today is rather backwards and intolerant.

Not sure I understand the relevance of those remarks. I would say that in society generally the levels of tolerance (versus intolerance) remain fairly constant over time, just that the things we tolerate and the things we don't gradually change. So for instance, 100 years ago we didn't tolerate slavery, but felt comfortable with racism. Now, we tolerate the former, but not the latter. In 100 years time, they will tolerate some things we do not, but will probably regard us as something like monsters for knowingly presiding over a massive extinction event.

Comparative to society at large, Christianity has been relatively free of hyprocrisy on the things it tolerates (versus the things it does not).

Of course,I might hope that people would they no longer need any crutches to explain the world and would meditate on "why do I believe in this? Is it because I was brainwashed into it? What about all the other religious systems, that also claim to be unique? And why do none of them have any effect on the world today?". But people seems to get less sense (homeopathy, new age, birthers, tea party) rather than the opposite

I would say that you are doing a pretty poor job of externalising yourself into the worldview of someone with different religious beliefs. It is a useful exercise - but mainly from the perspective of examining how coherent an rational your own beliefs would appear to someone who does not share them. "Fortunately" for Christianity it's founder seems to have already thought about both underlying issues so we tend to take such things in our stride, having understood and contextualised the presence of unbelief and other religions, as well as the evidentiary framework underlying the things we believe.

You can't pick and choose. Baby Jeebus says the old Testament rules are valid.

Did he?

Care to tell us where he said that?

Matthew 5:17: Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Thankfully, the Bible is interpreted differently at different times: The Bible, as interpreted back in e.g. the 15th century was not very tolerant. While Islam was much more open and tolerant a millenium ago, but had a backlash and today is rather backwards and intolerant.

Of course,I might hope that people would they no longer need any crutches to explain the world and would meditate on "why do I believe in this? Is it because I was brainwashed into it? What about all the other religious systems, that also claim to be unique? And why do none of them have any effect on the world today?". But people seems to get less sense (homeopathy, new age, birthers, tea party) rather than the opposite

Just the Mediterranean. The problem is the Euro: countries who's economy is based on exporting industrial products are helped by it because the other countries drag the value of their currency down, and those other countries - who's economy is typically based on tourism - are harmed because the industrial countries drag their currency up. The result is a trade imbalance within the EU, and those usually end up with someone bankrupt.

This could all be solved easily if all the countries got their own currencies back and let them float freely relative to each other, in which case the imbalances would tend to re-balance themselves. We could even retain the Euro as something all the central banks are guaranteed to buy at current market value in exchange of the country's own currency. As is, the solution we are doing now is simply moving money from the industrial north to the tourist south, which works somewhat but makes the northerners angry and demanding austerity from the south, which in turn makes the south suffer even more.

In any case, this is a completely different case from the US, which really is bankrupt as a whole as a result of decades of mismanagement and several extremely costly wars. Oh, and it's also plagued by a two-party system where one party is a bunch of spineless wimps, while the other is a bunch of crazy religiously zealous sodomites who worship Satan in all but name (pick an issue, any issue; the Republicans will always be on whatever side gets most people screwed over, and specifically thrown in prison, not to mention glorify greed and selfishness) while having a monomaniacal obsession with homosexuality even the most obsessive pervert would be jealous of. In short, it's a miracle it has taken this long for you to begin collapsing, and you won't be rising again anytime soon.

Which is unfortunate, since it leaves China as the next superpower.

Just the Mediterranean. The problem is the Euro: countries who's economy is based on exporting industrial products are helped by it because the other countries drag the value of their currency down, and those other countries - who's economy is typically based on tourism - are harmed because the industrial countries drag their currency up. The result is a trade imbalance within the EU, and those usually end up with someone bankrupt.

This could all be solved easily if all the countries got their own currencies back and let them float freely relative to each other, in which case the imbalances would tend to re-balance themselves. We could even retain the Euro as something all the central banks are guaranteed to buy at current market value in exchange of the country's own currency. As is, the solution we are doing now is simply moving money from the industrial north to the tourist south, which works somewhat but makes the northerners angry and demanding austerity from the south, which in turn makes the south suffer even more.

In any case, this is a completely different case from the US, which really is bankrupt as a whole as a result of decades of mismanagement and several extremely costly wars. Oh, and it's also plagued by a two-party system where one party is a bunch of spineless wimps, while the other is a bunch of crazy religiously zealous sodomites who worship Satan in all but name (pick an issue, any issue; the Republicans will always be on whatever side gets most people screwed over, and specifically thrown in prison, not to mention glorify greed and selfishness) while having a monomaniacal obsession with homosexuality even the most obsessive pervert would be jealous of. In short, it's a miracle it has taken this long for you to begin collapsing, and you won't be rising again anytime soon.

Which is unfortunate, since it leaves China as the next superpower.

Most of the 'deadly sins' are wrong for reasons which should be deducable from similar basic axioms of morality by anyone willing to expend the effort. From that we can conclude that liberalism/progressivism/socialism/whatever it calls itself today is also wrong since it is based on declaring envy a virtue and murder goes hand in hand with it.

Socialism isn't based on declaring envy a virtue, it's based on a desire for liberation from economic oppression - it's selling point is "you have nothing to lose but your chains", not "kill the rich". Capitalism, on the other hand, does explicitly declare greed a virtue. Which, of course, was what caused said oppression and the birth of socialism in the first place. And now the right wing is desperately trying to convince the serfs to labour for the lords for table scraps in the hopes of one day becoming a lord living off of serf's labours themselves, rather than improving the position of the serfs, such as how much of the fruits of their labour they should get to keep.

Still, the Republicans making a big deal of sin when the entire party is made of sodomites does make for good but very dark comedy.

Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs.

Well, I don't see any benefit to society to some Biblical beliefs, such as these beliefs and the one given here and here, and there's definite harm to people as a result of the first of those.

Now, maybe you're not counting all the crap in Leviticus as "Judea[sic] Christian beliefs". If so, what are you counting?

The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.

OK, you're definitely not counting all the crap in Leviticus, giving the pile of stonings to death, etc. called for there.

You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.

Yup. Fortunately for me, and for society, even though I'm a nonbeliever, I'm not one of those people. I know plenty of other nonbelievers who don't believe that stuff either.

Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs.

Well, I don't see any benefit to society to some Biblical beliefs, such as these beliefs and the one given here and here, and there's definite harm to people as a result of the first of those.

Now, maybe you're not counting all the crap in Leviticus as "Judea[sic] Christian beliefs". If so, what are you counting?

The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.

OK, you're definitely not counting all the crap in Leviticus, giving the pile of stonings to death, etc. called for there.

You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.

Yup. Fortunately for me, and for society, even though I'm a nonbeliever, I'm not one of those people. I know plenty of other nonbelievers who don't believe that stuff either.

Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs.

Well, I don't see any benefit to society to some Biblical beliefs, such as these beliefs and the one given here and here, and there's definite harm to people as a result of the first of those.

Now, maybe you're not counting all the crap in Leviticus as "Judea[sic] Christian beliefs". If so, what are you counting?

The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.

OK, you're definitely not counting all the crap in Leviticus, giving the pile of stonings to death, etc. called for there.

You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.

Yup. Fortunately for me, and for society, even though I'm a nonbeliever, I'm not one of those people. I know plenty of other nonbelievers who don't believe that stuff either.

Society is not harmed by people trying to do the right things according to Judea Christian beliefs.

Well, I don't see any benefit to society to some Biblical beliefs, such as these beliefs and the one given here and here, and there's definite harm to people as a result of the first of those.

Now, maybe you're not counting all the crap in Leviticus as "Judea[sic] Christian beliefs". If so, what are you counting?

The worst that would happen is that they would just die after living a life in a relatively peaceful and respectful society.

OK, you're definitely not counting all the crap in Leviticus, giving the pile of stonings to death, etc. called for there.

You on the other hand are doomed if you are wrong. Society is harmed by people that have no belief except for survival of the fittest, and that man is god.

Yup. Fortunately for me, and for society, even though I'm a nonbeliever, I'm not one of those people. I know plenty of other nonbelievers who don't believe that stuff either.

I've spoken to quite a few of [Jehovah's Witnesses] and every single one seemed crazy.

In the first century, Jesus seemed crazy.

Plus, I don't like door to door salesmen.

JWs base their "house to house" ministry on Acts 5:42, if I remember correctly. JWs aren't obligated to preach that way, as I understand it; it's just one thing they can do in addition to sharing the gospel with friends and family.

[A list of verses omitted from most modern translations of the Greek Scriptures] makes me like the KJV that much more.

The Greek Scriptures in the Luther Bible, KJV, and NKJV are based on TR, as opposed to the NU (Nestle-Aland and United Bible Societies) text based on the oldest manuscripts, which underlies NIV, NWT, and most other twentieth-century translations. TR-type texts include back-translations from Latin into Greek of some verses that do not appear in the original manuscripts of the New Testament. NKJV is based on TR, but editions of NKJV published by Thomas Nelson include footnotes as to which verses are omitted in NU, for the benefit of those who believe that these extra verses are not inspired and did not exist in the first century.

Actually, it is flawed, because automobiles are just about the only things for which the courts have upheld this idea...

Oil tanker owner held liable for captain being negligent and crashing. Owner of a building complex that caught fire held liable, even though he wasn't the one who started the fire. Hotel owner held liable for meth lab being setup in room. Owners of male cattle not held responsible for bull killing someone. By the way, that's a biblical reference; I just wanted to demonstrate it's not a new concept. I can provide many, many more examples. It's not just cars. If you own something, you can be held responsible if you're neglegent in the maintenance of it.
Your failure to secure your wifi connection and then having it used in the commission of a crime makes you liable for damages. This has already happened in the UK and Germany. It's currently being looked into in several jurisdictions in the United States. Bottom line here, there is plenty of legal precident here and globally to create, enforce, and have upheld, a law that makes the owners of an unsecured network legally liable for illegal activity which occurs on it.

No, there isn't. I know for an absolute fact that my state laws contradict every single thing you have stated here, the sole exception being the part about automobile liability. And I am pretty sure that most other states are similar.

I have provided several links indicating that at the state and national level, this is something that is being considered, has legal merit, and may be enforceable. Your turn.

And I don't know what version of the bible you're reading

New World Translation, similar methodology to the English Standard Version.

but "without disability" isn't in the King James version.

It was a paraphrase; hence the lack of quote marks. I was expressing my own understanding of what it means when God, the very personification of perfection, calls something "very good". But the KJV does mention "without blemish" several times. Would not low-functioning autism be considered a "blemish" on man?

Are you reading that (very bad) edition that says "do not lie"

My Bible has "You must not testify falsely as a witness against your fellowman." (Exodus 20:16) Among these translations of the same verse, are you referring to the "GOD'S WORD(R) Translation"?

Oh, and imperfection isn't what the bible says Adam and Eve brought about, it was SIN.

Same diff. Sin led to a population bottleneck in AM 1656, and this population bottleneck led to an even more thorough corruption of the genome.

I could even (theoretically) perform the same experiments to see if I get the same data.
The difference is that with trust there *are* experiments I can perform.

So if/when scientists at CERN announce they've discovered the Higgs Boson, are you going to claim trust in their findings is valid because you could, in theory, build your own LHC and validate their findings independently?

Pope John Paul II in his "Fides et Ratio" defined faith as "giving intellectual assent to revealed truth," and religious faith as the same with respect to divinely revealed truth. Thomas Aquinas actually viewed theology as a science, with divine revelation as its data.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 says "Test everything; retain what is good". From the commentary there:

The meaning here is, that they were carefully to examine everything proposed for their belief. They were not to receive it on trust; to take it on assertion; to believe it because it was urged with vehemence, zeal, or plausibility. In the various opinions and doctrines which were submitted to them for adoption, they were to apply the appropriate tests from reason and the word of God, and what they found to be true they were to embrace; what was false they were to reject. Christianity does not require people to disregard their reason, or to be credulous. It does not expect them to believe anything because others say it is so. It does not make it a duty to receive as undoubted truth all that synods and councils have decreed; or all that is advanced by the ministers of religion.

At least that's how it's supposed to be. This fundamentalism from both sides ("Leviticus says gays are evil!" "Leviticus says kill yours kids if they talk smack so God is evil!") completely misses the point of what the Bible is, namely a collection of books chronicling the relationship of God to his people. This is the inerrant truth of the book(s), the development of the covenants between God and man, the story of salvation. It's not a scientific text; the truth in the bible is not cosmological (God didn't create the universe in 6 days), geological (the earth isn't just 6000 years old), biological (Adam didn't live to 900 years), or mathematical (pi != 3). It's mixed parts history, poetry, mythology, record-keeping, and moral lessons like Aesop's Fables.

Fr. Barron puts it better than I ever could.

Nope, the blame lies with God

Even Jesus preached separation of church and state: "And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him."

> the bible says there were pre-Adamic people....
> Female humans per se, were created the (allegorical) "sixth day",...

No, it does not.

See: http://bible.cc/genesis/3-20.htm
"And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living."

As Eve's the mother of all living, she would be the mother of these "non-Adamic people" too (unless they were not "living"). This contradicts your assertion that they predated Eve.

This view (that Adam's children intermarried) is supported by mainstream genetics - 'mitochondrial Eve' is the term for the _single_ common female ancestor for all humans, just And 'Y Chromosome Adam' is our _single_ common male ancestor.

See also:http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c004.html
The law forbidding marriage between close relatives was not given until the time of Moses (Leviticus 18-20). ...
Remember that Abraham married his half-sister (Genesis 20:12) . God blessed this union to produce the Hebrew people through Isaac and Jacob. It was not until some 400 years later that God gave Moses laws that forbade such marriages.

Jewish tradition also asserts Adam's sons married his daughters.

contrary to you hinging your interpretation

That's where your argument is all wrong - it is not "my" interpretation. I am not a biblical scholar, nor are you. I pointed you at several biblical scholars whose interpretation was that this was a passage. Go to this page, scroll past the translated verses, and there are interpretations from dozens of scholars. They all say the same thing - man is being used to refer to the human race. If you have a credible alternate interpretation, by all means share it. Otherwise, let's close this.

Try a statement with some content here. Vague sarcasm isn't it.

If you need it spoon fed, here it is: The passage in question contains the hebrew letter that also means "one-hundred" followed by the Hebrew character that also means "twenty". You could interpret this in two ways: 1. The author meant 120 - exactly 120, and did not qualify it as "exactly". 2. The author meant "about 120", and the reason for being ambiguous is unknown. I've conceded that either is a possibility, and I'm not sure why you keep coming back to this.

You don't like my skepticism that the all-knowing, all-mighty wonder being is being deliberately ambiguous when he clearly must know the exact answer. Fair enough, but that's a separate discussion.

Factually disproven with about 10 seconds worth of googling.

Oh my, did you catch me in a bit of hyperbole??? GASP! LOL, let me know when you find someone who has actually looked into it, rather than someone (like yourself) musing about it on a message board.

God can do anything he wants

I know we'd get to that! LOL. No, he can't because he doesn't exist. Now we're at an impasse until one of us proves or disproves a supernatural entity. Oh, well - ain't religion a bitch?

From http://bible.cc/genesis/2-17.htm

Thou shalt surely die - moth tamuth; Literally, a death thou shalt die; or, dying thou shalt die. Thou shalt not only die spiritually, by losing the life of God, but from that moment thou shalt become mortal, and shalt continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find literally accomplished; every moment of man's life may be considered as an act of dying, till soul and body are separated. Other meanings have been given of this passage, but they are in general either fanciful or incorrect.

And/or, the old testament is written in Hebrew, not English and how you interpret the English version you may be familiar with is not nearly so relevant as what's actually written there in Hebrew...

You may be trolling but just in case you're serious:

Thou shalt surely die - moth tamuth; Literally, a death thou shalt die; or, dying thou shalt die. Thou shalt not only die spiritually, by losing the life of God, but from that moment thou shalt become mortal, and shalt continue in a dying state till thou die. This we find literally accomplished; every moment of man's life may be considered as an act of dying, till soul and body are separated. Other meanings have been given of this passage, but they are in general either fanciful or incorrect.

cf. http://bible.cc/genesis/2-17.htm