You forgot the "with a computer" bit. If you program your PDA with camera to "look both ways" for you, then announce that it's safe to cross, then you can patent that and make a fortune, at least until a bug in the software causes you to get splatted because it didn't know lorries counted.
> This would cut down on frivolous lawsuits, but it could also potentially stifle legitimate use of the courts by parties.
It cuts down on frivolity certainly, but it doesn't stifle use of the courts where someone really has a valid case. Loser pays costs doesn't mean loser pays ALL costs as defined by the winner; that's a common misconception. The costs are determined intelligently; if someone takes a company to court who uses a million pound an hour lawyer, that someone won't (necessarily) have a multimillion pound bill dropped on them, but they will get some sort of bill which will be set according to their means. Loser pays costs does not mean the winner has all costs returned, so the winner can in fact still lose out. Even so, I still think this is better than the American justice-goes-to-the-owner-of-the-deepest-pocket circus.
Not really; if you read the account of the exodus you'll see there's a lot that God does for the Israelites apart from Moses muttering "hmm, nice valley, let's kill everyone". There were the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud/fire, manna (and when they got bored with manna, quails), clothes not wearing out during 40 years of wandering in the desert etc.
Oh I see what you mean. That's not hypocrisy, that's conflicting orders, but only if you don't distinguish between the different types of killing. One is unlawful premeditated, and the other is lawful (there's also unlawful non-premeditated, i.e. manslaughter, but that doesn't feature in this discussion, apart from here). Different translations use different words; in the NIV, a modern translation, Exodus 20:13 uses the word "murder." The King James uses "kill", but the New King James also uses "murder." It's possible "kill" and "murder" were synonymous to the King James readers; if so the translation to "kill" would not strictly be inaccurate.
This is why reading different versions is useful, why reading an up to date version is useful, and why there are problems relying on an out of date version. Language changes; word gain different meanings over time (try declaring when happy that you feel gay for example; also try looking up "piss" in the King James verson) and so different translations of the Bible become more, or less, useful over time.
A very useful reference for comparing different versions is Bible Gateway.
OK. I thought I'd already explained that
here and
here.
Presumably you feel God is a hypocrite because he tells us not to kill while retaining the right to himself. But don't different rules apply to God? God created all life, we did not. Thinking of a parallel - if you said to a salesman that he wasn't welcome in your house, then you immediately went into your house, would you be a hypocrite? You've just declared your house off limits, so it should be off limits to you as well. Or you're not a hypocrite because different rules apply (your ownership of the house being an obvious reason, so setting the rules is entirely your business).
10C: I wasn't there for that sermon so I don't know what the guy really said and in what context he said it. So I can't really answer it. I do think you've misunderstood though. But you'd be better of talking to him about it.
The rest: I think that's one of the problems with discussing the finer points of law in a forum like/.; it's too easy to misunderstand. If there's someone you feel should die, and you feel God is calling you to do that, I'm pretty sure you're wrong, but you should discuss it with those nearer to you, perhaps one or two friends, maybe a priest...people who are closer to the situation and are more familiar with it. You'll need to explain why the usual remedy of taking them to court isn't appropriate, and why you think their death will solve your problem (usually it won't, and there's a good chance it won't even make you feel better if it's a revenge killing; whoever they killed is still going to be dead).
Job: True, but he didn't stay fucked over; see Job 42:10-17. Whether or not Job felt the whole thing was fair on him is something you'd have to ask Job. Part of the message of Job to the rest of us is "shit happens and sometimes you just aren't going to find out why; trust God and he'll sort you out in the end."
Is killing ok: others have answered this; the general agreement seems to be that murder isn't ok but killing in the name of war or justice is (c.f the American death sentence). Some countries have abolished the death penalty altogether, often on the grounds that justice isn't 100% perfect and putting one innocent person to death is far worse than reducing all the sentences of those who deserve death to life. As a Brit I agree with our position on this; if you have 100% absolute guarantee that the dude is guilty then fair enough but in reality its at best 99.x% accurate which means that eventually, by sheer force of stats, you're bound to sentence an innocent person to death.
I'm not sure what killing Spaniards has to do with anything; why do you think killing someone in a different tribe is any different from killing anyone else? I'm not aware that the rule changes as you cross a tribal boundary.
Don't know how war is defined; you'd have to RTFD or ask a warmonger.
WWJD: Jesus wouldn't kill; see John 8:7; the woman was to be stoned to death as was required under law, and as God, Jesus would have fully known whether or not she was really guilty, and you can see his response in verse 11: "Then neither do I condemn you; go now and leave your life of sin."
God can kill; I don't see how this makes him a hypocrite because different rules apply to him. But if you want to ignore the fact that he created all life in the first place and the obvious consequence of that, and call him a hypocrite, go ahead; he can defend himself.
The situation during the exodus was no different from the situation any other time in the OT. Israel delivered judgement on those nations that disobeyed God and left in peace those that didn't. So to complete your partial sentence, "Thou shalt not kill(murder)... Now go over that hill there and kill(deliver judgement to) everyone you find because they are disobeying me, but don't go over that other hill because they aren't."
The penalty for sin was laid out way back right at the start: And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17.
So disobedience leads to death. That hasn't changed, not even today.
Since then God has provided means for those that want to, to restore that relationship, which has always been through faith. That also hasn't changed, although the implementation has (old testament (law) vs new testament (grace)).
In the OT judgement was fairly immediate. Living in persistent disobedience risks death, whoever you are. The OT is full of accounts of Israel being disobedient and God allowing their neighbours to kick their heads in, or their neighbours being disobedient and Israel being obedient and God using Israel to deliver judgement (it's possible judgement was also delivered by other neighbours but the OT is about Israel's ongoing relationship with God). Judgement is never delivered on those who are obedient; the account of Jonah shows that clearly; the Ninevites were about to get splatted; Jonah turned up and told them what was about to happen; they repented and thus averted their doom. Thus you can see God is not in fact hypocritical; if X is obedient and Y isn't, then Y's heads will get kicked in, often by X, regardless of who X and Y are, and even then only after Y has been persistently disobedient despite encouragement from other quarters to reform, and if Y does reform then judgement will be averted.
In the NT judgement is deferred; Jesus Christ took our punishment so that we don't need to; righteousness comes through faith in God through Jesus Christ and those who have faith are encouraged to teach, not to kill, those who have not.
Yeah I got that. But my point was: if it's idolatry then it's still idolatry wherever you are, and if it isn't, then it still isn't wherever you are. Something doesn't become idolatry just because of your location. I don't see a problem with a church marking someone's birthday; we often have birthday announcements at our place and I'm sure mentioning that it's the vicar's birthday, singing happy birthday and sharing a cake as part of a service doesn't constitute calling him God.
Not sure what the Jewish position is on what you do in a temple - whether or not it all has to be related to worship. Many Christians view the church building as just a building and the church itself as being the people; Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name I will be there. So from a Christian POV it isn't necessarily sacrilege to do non-worshippy stuff in a church building. If celebration of X is idolatry then it doesn't matter if you do it in a church or not; equally if it isn't it also doesn't matter whether or not you're in a church. It's your attitude towards God that matters, not where you are at the time. The church/temple/etc is a good place to focus on God, but it certainly isn't the only place you can find him; check out Psalm 139.
> Christian dogma inevitably and logically results in...rejection of all rational thought and belief
Quote please. I admit I don't know the Old Testament inside out (which is the part of the bible that corresponds to part of the Koran and the Torah, so what you're referring to must be in there, as opposed to the New Testament which isn't shared by Jews and Muslims); I know "Thou shalt reject all rational thought" isn't one of the TC's, so where is it please?
Or is that just a wild assumption based on no actual evidence, which is what you appear to be accusing fundies of?
BTW, secular doesn't mean rational. Look it up. One does not exclude the other; secular and non-secular only relate to one's assumptions, not one's ability to think about those assumptions.
Not directly, no. Christianity is about mankind's biggest problem - sin; what it is and where it came from, and God's solution to that problem, which is freely available for anyone who wants it thanks to what Jesus Christ did about 1977 years ago (hence the term Christ-ianity). Heaven is where God wants everyone to go and where everyone who believes in him will end up. Those who choose eternal separation from God will not have their free will overruled.
> Christianity is the rejection of natural ideas and the acceptance of supernatural ones.
Sorry to disagree. Christianity doesn't reject natural ideas. If anything it's Science that rejects supernatural ones. I don't doubt that there are Christians out there who do reject natural ideas, but that doesn't mean that's what the entire faith is about.
A person can be a Christian and a scientist at the same time, there is some dissonance between the two, but that doesn't make them mutually contradictory.
Jonah: for myself I have to be honest with you - I don't know how that worked. Jonah didn't take any photographs or scientific measurements and maybe he even hallucinated the whole thing, perhaps after nearly drowning and suffering oxygen deprivation, then some time later finding himself on a beach, maybe thought "wow man, must have been a big fish or summat"; he was the only witness to whatever happened. What seems more important to me is that God provided for him somehow when he was thrown overboard. If we categorically know that sustenance of human life within all known aquatic lifeforms is impossible, then one of (a) it wasn't a fish, and (b) it was a specially constructed fish for the occasion, must be true.
Equally we don't have full information on how the Ark worked. Science doesn't believe in a Flood anyway, so the Ark is unnecessary; life just survived where the land wasn't under water. Again we have a reference to God's miraculous provision; one way or another, the Ark achieved the desired effect.
Lack of full information doesn't make something unreliable though. Science is full of holes and constantly changing due to new discoveries, theories and so on; any scientist worth anything will freely agree with that. But loads of people still believe in it, some even believing it constitutes proof that God doesn't exist or that nothing in the bible can be taken seriously.
Personally I don't have a problem with people taking parts of the bible allegorically; the main point of the bible is the interaction between man and God. Creation/evolution can be resolved with the first four words in Genesis: "In the beginning God..." Jonah survived due to God's provision. Noah et al survived for the same reason. Nineveh was saved from destruction because the people believed God and repented. The bible is about God, not science.
> if you have no means to receive a television signal, from cable, terrestrial or satellite noone can force you to pay a penny and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
Almost correct. If you DO NOT receive television signals, then you don't need a licence. Not if you CANNOT. I can, I have a TV, a Sky dish, cable, it all works, but I have no licence and the equipment is unplugged, detuned, not subscribed to, where appropriate. I use the TV for watching videos and playing games; the Sky box is on a shelf with the card somewhere else; the cable subscription is modem and phone only, and my TV card is in a box in another room. But all of it _can_ be used to receive signals. It just isn't.
Technically, if your telly is tuned in and plugged into everything, but switched off, then you aren't receiving signals and therefore don't need a licence. But if it went to court the magistrate would accept the prosecution's assertion that you could well be using it at other times and perhaps just got lucky when they visited. Detuning and unplugging provides sufficient detachment from the aerial to give the magistrate sufficient reason to believe that you are in fact doing everything possible to comply with the law. TV licencing prosecutions are handled by the lower level courts where balance of probability is needed to secure a conviction, not forensic evidence.
> I don't see why getting programming solely through the Internet should be any different
It's different because it's different technology. The Broadcast Act specifically covers radio broadcast and has been extended to include satellite and cable broadcast (and could well be extended to cover internet broadcast in future, although it would be interesting to see what they say about downloading videos that aren't actively being broadcast). The internet doesn't use a broadcast protocol but a point to point protocol; your download is from the BBC website directly to you through a single personal connection initiated by your browser's request to the site, and is therefore not a broadcast. Anyway in my experience the BBC compress the video so far that it's virtually unwatchable.
Re:Ahh those marketing geniuses!
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Supermarket VOIP
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I heard BT once tried to get into the property market, but had a job finding people who were willing to take out a mortgage on a property, then pay rent on that same property, then pay an additional charge for each room they used.
How can you go down to the sea in a ship? I suppose if the ship had wheels on you'd be ok, bit difficult to navigate down the windy roads you often get coastwards, but generally you go down to the sea then get on a ship.
Fair question. Ideally you don't, but the world isn't ideal due to the fall. It can be quite difficult to understand what God says, especially if there's a disagreement clouding the relationship, but a bible can be read at any time and is fairly clear.
It contains a lot of historical reference which is interesting, as well as being a good source of what God said to and through who in the past. Being a written account of law it's also useful for resolving arguments, e.g. between the "Thou shalt not kill" camp and the "Thou canst killeth from timeth to timeth" camp.
That's nice, given the amazing lack of understanding you've just demonstrated. "in the day" for example even now doesn't necessarily mean "in the exact same 24 hour period", and the translation to "in the day" depends on the translation you're reading - NIV for example translates it to "when". I suggest you learn ancient Greek, or at least consider a few different translations, before you jump on one particular wording of an English translation and declare it a contradiction.
Moses' death...good question. Let's look it up. Deuteronomy 34:5, emphasis mine, "And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, AS THE LORD HAD SAID." Didn't look up the location of the "as the Lord had said" bit, but it seems pretty clear that Moses knew where he was going to die cos God told him.
As for how old Adam was - all we know is that he was created as a mature adult (which is obvious from the context). Yes, even old enough to have sex with Eve when she appeared, but I don't know what questions and contradictions this raises.
Gen 3:22 could mean one of two things. It could mean God and a number of other heavenly beings who knew good and evil (that knowledge is what's meant by "as one of us.") Or it could be an early reference to the Trinity.
Number and names - no, I haven't personally counted them, but it sounds like you haven't either. Twelve before Jesus' death; one of the 12 betrayed Jesus and went on to commit suicide (Judas Iscariot). Acts happened after the gospels, and 12-1=11 if I remember my maths correctly, so you get 12 in the gospels then 11 in Acts (although Judas is replaced by lottery). How exactly is 12 people, plus one suicide, then 11 people a contradiction? I'm not aware of anywhere in Mark that explicitly lists the names of all 12 disciples (I only scanned quickly), but Mark 6:7 is one of a few references to the Twelve that I found. But surely Mark not listing the disciples doesn't make a contradiction with Luke? Does your biology textbook contradict your physics textbook just because it (the former) doesn't have a section on how gravity works? If you have a reference to Mark where 12 names are listed and there aren't two Judas's though, do share that with us please.
Some of the things the bible say are relevant to today, and even relevant to you personally, so you should give them some thought before dismissing the whole thing. You can learn a lot on an Alpha course, but the most important parts in my opinion are:
- all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23) - the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)
If you consider yourself a thinker, find out PROPERLY about Jesus Christ, what he did and why it is relevant (then feel free to reject the whole lot in the knowledge that it definitely isn't for you). Or if you want to prove it false please try to do so. But please don't reject the whole lot without understanding what it's about.
If what the bible says is true, then this is the most important stuff ever. If it's false, then of course it's a bunch of old fairy tales and you'd be doing the world a favour by shopping it.
> Well, why do you believe in God? Because the Bible says I should. Why do you adhere to the Bible? Because it was written by God.
If that's all there were to it then I wouldn't still be a Christian. I believe in God because I have an active relationship with him, not because some dusty old book (which is what the bible would be if God weren't real to me) says I should. There are many times I have doubts, yet God constantly reassures me that he's there.
It is God that assures me that the bible is his word, not just the biblical text itself ("all scripture is God-breathed" - one of the Tims in the NT I think).
hey, if Microsoft can patent NTFS, then anyone else can too, right?
So someone with lots to lose if MS slaps a patent suit on them for FAT should get on and patent NTFS, touch their pinky to the corner of the mouth, and say "One Decillion Dollars!"
Probably because people have just started seeing messages like (can't remember the exact wording from when it happened this morning) "Microsoft Run Time Library - A buffer overflow has just occurred and this program must now be terminated".
Bit difficult to hide when the MS RTL shops you very publicly.
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot the "with a computer" bit. If you program your PDA with camera to "look both ways" for you, then announce that it's safe to cross, then you can patent that and make a fortune, at least until a bug in the software causes you to get splatted because it didn't know lorries counted.
> This would cut down on frivolous lawsuits, but it could also potentially stifle legitimate use of the courts by parties.
It cuts down on frivolity certainly, but it doesn't stifle use of the courts where someone really has a valid case. Loser pays costs doesn't mean loser pays ALL costs as defined by the winner; that's a common misconception. The costs are determined intelligently; if someone takes a company to court who uses a million pound an hour lawyer, that someone won't (necessarily) have a multimillion pound bill dropped on them, but they will get some sort of bill which will be set according to their means. Loser pays costs does not mean the winner has all costs returned, so the winner can in fact still lose out. Even so, I still think this is better than the American justice-goes-to-the-owner-of-the-deepest-pocket circus.
Not really; if you read the account of the exodus you'll see there's a lot that God does for the Israelites apart from Moses muttering "hmm, nice valley, let's kill everyone". There were the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud/fire, manna (and when they got bored with manna, quails), clothes not wearing out during 40 years of wandering in the desert etc.
Oh I see what you mean. That's not hypocrisy, that's conflicting orders, but only if you don't distinguish between the different types of killing. One is unlawful premeditated, and the other is lawful (there's also unlawful non-premeditated, i.e. manslaughter, but that doesn't feature in this discussion, apart from here). Different translations use different words; in the NIV, a modern translation, Exodus 20:13 uses the word "murder." The King James uses "kill", but the New King James also uses "murder." It's possible "kill" and "murder" were synonymous to the King James readers; if so the translation to "kill" would not strictly be inaccurate.
This is why reading different versions is useful, why reading an up to date version is useful, and why there are problems relying on an out of date version. Language changes; word gain different meanings over time (try declaring when happy that you feel gay for example; also try looking up "piss" in the King James verson) and so different translations of the Bible become more, or less, useful over time.
A very useful reference for comparing different versions is Bible Gateway.
Presumably you feel God is a hypocrite because he tells us not to kill while retaining the right to himself. But don't different rules apply to God? God created all life, we did not. Thinking of a parallel - if you said to a salesman that he wasn't welcome in your house, then you immediately went into your house, would you be a hypocrite? You've just declared your house off limits, so it should be off limits to you as well. Or you're not a hypocrite because different rules apply (your ownership of the house being an obvious reason, so setting the rules is entirely your business).
10C: I wasn't there for that sermon so I don't know what the guy really said and in what context he said it. So I can't really answer it. I do think you've misunderstood though. But you'd be better of talking to him about it.
/.; it's too easy to misunderstand. If there's someone you feel should die, and you feel God is calling you to do that, I'm pretty sure you're wrong, but you should discuss it with those nearer to you, perhaps one or two friends, maybe a priest...people who are closer to the situation and are more familiar with it. You'll need to explain why the usual remedy of taking them to court isn't appropriate, and why you think their death will solve your problem (usually it won't, and there's a good chance it won't even make you feel better if it's a revenge killing; whoever they killed is still going to be dead).
The rest: I think that's one of the problems with discussing the finer points of law in a forum like
Job: True, but he didn't stay fucked over; see Job 42:10-17. Whether or not Job felt the whole thing was fair on him is something you'd have to ask Job. Part of the message of Job to the rest of us is "shit happens and sometimes you just aren't going to find out why; trust God and he'll sort you out in the end."
Is killing ok: others have answered this; the general agreement seems to be that murder isn't ok but killing in the name of war or justice is (c.f the American death sentence). Some countries have abolished the death penalty altogether, often on the grounds that justice isn't 100% perfect and putting one innocent person to death is far worse than reducing all the sentences of those who deserve death to life. As a Brit I agree with our position on this; if you have 100% absolute guarantee that the dude is guilty then fair enough but in reality its at best 99.x% accurate which means that eventually, by sheer force of stats, you're bound to sentence an innocent person to death.
I'm not sure what killing Spaniards has to do with anything; why do you think killing someone in a different tribe is any different from killing anyone else? I'm not aware that the rule changes as you cross a tribal boundary.
Don't know how war is defined; you'd have to RTFD or ask a warmonger.
WWJD: Jesus wouldn't kill; see John 8:7; the woman was to be stoned to death as was required under law, and as God, Jesus would have fully known whether or not she was really guilty, and you can see his response in verse 11: "Then neither do I condemn you; go now and leave your life of sin."
God can kill; I don't see how this makes him a hypocrite because different rules apply to him. But if you want to ignore the fact that he created all life in the first place and the obvious consequence of that, and call him a hypocrite, go ahead; he can defend himself.
The situation during the exodus was no different from the situation any other time in the OT. Israel delivered judgement on those nations that disobeyed God and left in peace those that didn't. So to complete your partial sentence, "Thou shalt not kill(murder)... Now go over that hill there and kill(deliver judgement to) everyone you find because they are disobeying me, but don't go over that other hill because they aren't."
Happy to explain.
The penalty for sin was laid out way back right at the start: And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." Genesis 2:16-17.
So disobedience leads to death. That hasn't changed, not even today.
Since then God has provided means for those that want to, to restore that relationship, which has always been through faith. That also hasn't changed, although the implementation has (old testament (law) vs new testament (grace)).
In the OT judgement was fairly immediate. Living in persistent disobedience risks death, whoever you are. The OT is full of accounts of Israel being disobedient and God allowing their neighbours to kick their heads in, or their neighbours being disobedient and Israel being obedient and God using Israel to deliver judgement (it's possible judgement was also delivered by other neighbours but the OT is about Israel's ongoing relationship with God). Judgement is never delivered on those who are obedient; the account of Jonah shows that clearly; the Ninevites were about to get splatted; Jonah turned up and told them what was about to happen; they repented and thus averted their doom. Thus you can see God is not in fact hypocritical; if X is obedient and Y isn't, then Y's heads will get kicked in, often by X, regardless of who X and Y are, and even then only after Y has been persistently disobedient despite encouragement from other quarters to reform, and if Y does reform then judgement will be averted.
In the NT judgement is deferred; Jesus Christ took our punishment so that we don't need to; righteousness comes through faith in God through Jesus Christ and those who have faith are encouraged to teach, not to kill, those who have not.
Yeah, but then you open that whole "mark of the beast" can of worms...
Yeah I got that. But my point was: if it's idolatry then it's still idolatry wherever you are, and if it isn't, then it still isn't wherever you are. Something doesn't become idolatry just because of your location. I don't see a problem with a church marking someone's birthday; we often have birthday announcements at our place and I'm sure mentioning that it's the vicar's birthday, singing happy birthday and sharing a cake as part of a service doesn't constitute calling him God.
Not sure what the Jewish position is on what you do in a temple - whether or not it all has to be related to worship. Many Christians view the church building as just a building and the church itself as being the people; Jesus said where two or three are gathered in my name I will be there. So from a Christian POV it isn't necessarily sacrilege to do non-worshippy stuff in a church building. If celebration of X is idolatry then it doesn't matter if you do it in a church or not; equally if it isn't it also doesn't matter whether or not you're in a church. It's your attitude towards God that matters, not where you are at the time. The church/temple/etc is a good place to focus on God, but it certainly isn't the only place you can find him; check out Psalm 139.
> for something to be scientific, it has to be falsifiable.
So evolution must be falsifiable then. How exactly can evolution be falsified?
> Christian dogma inevitably and logically results in...rejection of all rational thought and belief
Quote please. I admit I don't know the Old Testament inside out (which is the part of the bible that corresponds to part of the Koran and the Torah, so what you're referring to must be in there, as opposed to the New Testament which isn't shared by Jews and Muslims); I know "Thou shalt reject all rational thought" isn't one of the TC's, so where is it please?
Or is that just a wild assumption based on no actual evidence, which is what you appear to be accusing fundies of?
BTW, secular doesn't mean rational. Look it up. One does not exclude the other; secular and non-secular only relate to one's assumptions, not one's ability to think about those assumptions.
> Isn't Christianity about heaven and hell?
Not directly, no. Christianity is about mankind's biggest problem - sin; what it is and where it came from, and God's solution to that problem, which is freely available for anyone who wants it thanks to what Jesus Christ did about 1977 years ago (hence the term Christ-ianity). Heaven is where God wants everyone to go and where everyone who believes in him will end up. Those who choose eternal separation from God will not have their free will overruled.
> Christianity is the rejection of natural ideas and the acceptance of supernatural ones.
Sorry to disagree. Christianity doesn't reject natural ideas. If anything it's Science that rejects supernatural ones. I don't doubt that there are Christians out there who do reject natural ideas, but that doesn't mean that's what the entire faith is about.
A person can be a Christian and a scientist at the same time, there is some dissonance between the two, but that doesn't make them mutually contradictory.
Jonah: for myself I have to be honest with you - I don't know how that worked. Jonah didn't take any photographs or scientific measurements and maybe he even hallucinated the whole thing, perhaps after nearly drowning and suffering oxygen deprivation, then some time later finding himself on a beach, maybe thought "wow man, must have been a big fish or summat"; he was the only witness to whatever happened. What seems more important to me is that God provided for him somehow when he was thrown overboard. If we categorically know that sustenance of human life within all known aquatic lifeforms is impossible, then one of (a) it wasn't a fish, and (b) it was a specially constructed fish for the occasion, must be true.
Equally we don't have full information on how the Ark worked. Science doesn't believe in a Flood anyway, so the Ark is unnecessary; life just survived where the land wasn't under water. Again we have a reference to God's miraculous provision; one way or another, the Ark achieved the desired effect.
Lack of full information doesn't make something unreliable though. Science is full of holes and constantly changing due to new discoveries, theories and so on; any scientist worth anything will freely agree with that. But loads of people still believe in it, some even believing it constitutes proof that God doesn't exist or that nothing in the bible can be taken seriously.
Personally I don't have a problem with people taking parts of the bible allegorically; the main point of the bible is the interaction between man and God. Creation/evolution can be resolved with the first four words in Genesis: "In the beginning God..." Jonah survived due to God's provision. Noah et al survived for the same reason. Nineveh was saved from destruction because the people believed God and repented. The bible is about God, not science.
> if you have no means to receive a television signal, from cable, terrestrial or satellite noone can force you to pay a penny and don't let anyone tell you otherwise!
Almost correct. If you DO NOT receive television signals, then you don't need a licence. Not if you CANNOT. I can, I have a TV, a Sky dish, cable, it all works, but I have no licence and the equipment is unplugged, detuned, not subscribed to, where appropriate. I use the TV for watching videos and playing games; the Sky box is on a shelf with the card somewhere else; the cable subscription is modem and phone only, and my TV card is in a box in another room. But all of it _can_ be used to receive signals. It just isn't.
Technically, if your telly is tuned in and plugged into everything, but switched off, then you aren't receiving signals and therefore don't need a licence. But if it went to court the magistrate would accept the prosecution's assertion that you could well be using it at other times and perhaps just got lucky when they visited. Detuning and unplugging provides sufficient detachment from the aerial to give the magistrate sufficient reason to believe that you are in fact doing everything possible to comply with the law. TV licencing prosecutions are handled by the lower level courts where balance of probability is needed to secure a conviction, not forensic evidence.
> I don't see why getting programming solely through the Internet should be any different
It's different because it's different technology. The Broadcast Act specifically covers radio broadcast and has been extended to include satellite and cable broadcast (and could well be extended to cover internet broadcast in future, although it would be interesting to see what they say about downloading videos that aren't actively being broadcast). The internet doesn't use a broadcast protocol but a point to point protocol; your download is from the BBC website directly to you through a single personal connection initiated by your browser's request to the site, and is therefore not a broadcast. Anyway in my experience the BBC compress the video so far that it's virtually unwatchable.
I heard BT once tried to get into the property market, but had a job finding people who were willing to take out a mortgage on a property, then pay rent on that same property, then pay an additional charge for each room they used.
How can you go down to the sea in a ship? I suppose if the ship had wheels on you'd be ok, bit difficult to navigate down the windy roads you often get coastwards, but generally you go down to the sea then get on a ship.
"Does my bum look big?"
"Can't see it dear."
*SLAP*
Fair question. Ideally you don't, but the world isn't ideal due to the fall. It can be quite difficult to understand what God says, especially if there's a disagreement clouding the relationship, but a bible can be read at any time and is fairly clear.
It contains a lot of historical reference which is interesting, as well as being a good source of what God said to and through who in the past. Being a written account of law it's also useful for resolving arguments, e.g. between the "Thou shalt not kill" camp and the "Thou canst killeth from timeth to timeth" camp.
> Read some research before you claim any rigor.
That's nice, given the amazing lack of understanding you've just demonstrated. "in the day" for example even now doesn't necessarily mean "in the exact same 24 hour period", and the translation to "in the day" depends on the translation you're reading - NIV for example translates it to "when". I suggest you learn ancient Greek, or at least consider a few different translations, before you jump on one particular wording of an English translation and declare it a contradiction.
Moses' death...good question. Let's look it up. Deuteronomy 34:5, emphasis mine, "And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, AS THE LORD HAD SAID." Didn't look up the location of the "as the Lord had said" bit, but it seems pretty clear that Moses knew where he was going to die cos God told him.
As for how old Adam was - all we know is that he was created as a mature adult (which is obvious from the context). Yes, even old enough to have sex with Eve when she appeared, but I don't know what questions and contradictions this raises.
Gen 3:22 could mean one of two things. It could mean God and a number of other heavenly beings who knew good and evil (that knowledge is what's meant by "as one of us.") Or it could be an early reference to the Trinity.
Number and names - no, I haven't personally counted them, but it sounds like you haven't either. Twelve before Jesus' death; one of the 12 betrayed Jesus and went on to commit suicide (Judas Iscariot). Acts happened after the gospels, and 12-1=11 if I remember my maths correctly, so you get 12 in the gospels then 11 in Acts (although Judas is replaced by lottery). How exactly is 12 people, plus one suicide, then 11 people a contradiction? I'm not aware of anywhere in Mark that explicitly lists the names of all 12 disciples (I only scanned quickly), but Mark 6:7 is one of a few references to the Twelve that I found. But surely Mark not listing the disciples doesn't make a contradiction with Luke? Does your biology textbook contradict your physics textbook just because it (the former) doesn't have a section on how gravity works? If you have a reference to Mark where 12 names are listed and there aren't two Judas's though, do share that with us please.
Some of the things the bible say are relevant to today, and even relevant to you personally, so you should give them some thought before dismissing the whole thing. You can learn a lot on an Alpha course, but the most important parts in my opinion are:
- all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)
- the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 6:23)
If you consider yourself a thinker, find out PROPERLY about Jesus Christ, what he did and why it is relevant (then feel free to reject the whole lot in the knowledge that it definitely isn't for you). Or if you want to prove it false please try to do so. But please don't reject the whole lot without understanding what it's about.
If what the bible says is true, then this is the most important stuff ever. If it's false, then of course it's a bunch of old fairy tales and you'd be doing the world a favour by shopping it.
> Well, why do you believe in God? Because the Bible says I should. Why do you adhere to the Bible? Because it was written by God.
If that's all there were to it then I wouldn't still be a Christian. I believe in God because I have an active relationship with him, not because some dusty old book (which is what the bible would be if God weren't real to me) says I should. There are many times I have doubts, yet God constantly reassures me that he's there.
It is God that assures me that the bible is his word, not just the biblical text itself ("all scripture is God-breathed" - one of the Tims in the NT I think).
hey, if Microsoft can patent NTFS, then anyone else can too, right?
So someone with lots to lose if MS slaps a patent suit on them for FAT should get on and patent NTFS, touch their pinky to the corner of the mouth, and say "One Decillion Dollars!"
Probably because people have just started seeing messages like (can't remember the exact wording from when it happened this morning) "Microsoft Run Time Library - A buffer overflow has just occurred and this program must now be terminated".
Bit difficult to hide when the MS RTL shops you very publicly.