We are Doomed! DOOOOOMMED I say!

[MSimon]

I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Which points out the problems with heterosexuality. You get hetero inclined men raping little girls.

[MSimon]

draining of the red sea.

Computer simulations (yeah, I know) showed that with the wind intensity and durations described in the text and given the lay of the land, the Red Sea could have "parted".

[Skipjack]

Since the topic of what was wrong with homosexuality came up earlier in the thread, I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Yeah, with cardinals, bishops and even the pope covering up for them.
Sorry, but the catholic church is not looking too good right now.

Needless to say, none of this is relevant to the GOOD the Catholic church does in the world

I see a lot of pseudo goodness being done by them. That means that they have a lot of organizations that spend money on themselves and do little good but to brag about how good they are. Lots of people sunning themselves in their own goodness.

As I had never heard of SOS Kinderdorf

That clearly shows how uneducated you are! The founder had been up for the nobel peace price a couple of times (but never got it, which tells you a lot about the people in the committee for the noble peace price).

I dare say the Catholics have over a hundred associations in every country in the world.

Most of them doing little good.
You are behaving as if the catholic church has done nothing but good in the last millenia. Not true!
Also, the SOS Kinderdorf was only ONE example for ONE organization. Do you think that this is all there is.

It is axiomatic to what you have said.

How dare you twist arround what I said like that!
I said that you do not need religion in order to teach people right from wrong. Also, a lot of our understanding of morale is based on inherited behavioural patterns. Read Eibl-Eibesfeldt!

Such great faith you have in secular authorities.

Secularity guarantees religious freedom. Without it, you will end up with one religion supressing the others through government power.

Obviously you believe in that fantasy, why criticize people who want to believe in another and more beneficial fantasy?

Because they constantly want to shove their fantasy down my throat and that of my children. Keep that for your church and sunday school!
But what is much worse is that they prevent me and others from doing science that will do some REAL good and save actual lives. That is something that I can never forgive.

If the police force is made up of people that don't have an inherent basis for understanding the difference between good and evil, they we shall all be guilty of some crime.

I take for myself to have a very good understanding of right and wrong. I dont see the need for religion to tell me right from wrong, thanks.
There are many atheists in our police force. It works pretty well.
Oh and to go even further with taking apart your argumentation: A policeman represents the law. Something good can still be against the law, something evil can still be lawful.

You really CAN'T see things through other people's eyes.

You dont seem to be very good at that either.

There is an ABUNDANCE of evidence to indicate a Massive and Major flood over virtually every part of the known human sphere in ancient times. Most science minded people associate the evidence with the great melt of the last ice age, or of the breaking open of the strait of Gibraltar, both events which are known to have happened.

World known by Noahs people. Not known by man!
There are several explanations for Noahs flood.
The one I remembered was based on the theory of the Santorini eruption causing a flood. That is however not the most likely explanation, since that erruption happened after the earliest dated accounts of the biblical flood (earlies account 1850 BC, Santorini 1650 BC).
The explanation you are probably referring to, is that the Black Sea was comparably quickly flooded with water from the Mediterranian Sea, when sea levels rose there. That has nothing to do with Gibraltar though, but the Bosporus, which separates the Black Sea from the Meditarranian sea.
Anyway there were plenty of people living perfectly unaffected by the flood in other parts of the world. That clearly proofs the bible wrong.

To the people recording any such event, it would surely have seemed as if the entire world had been flooded, because THEIR entire world HAD been flooded.

Yes, THEIR world. That however is not what the bible says.

I believe it says 7 pairs of the clean animals, and 1 pair of every unclean animal.

Uhm, the bible I have here says a pair of all animals and "flesh".
It also gives pretty clear dimensions for the whole arch thingy. Way to small to fit even one of all those animals in there that lived in Noahs general area. Definitely to small to fit in all the animals of the entire animal kingdom.

You may be surprised to learn that there were far more animals than this in the world, even several thousand years ago.

Uhm, did I ever doubt that? In contrary, I said that there are way more animals than what could have fit into the arche.

How could they possibly know that?

I can not quite remember anymore how they figured that out. However from what I rememeber, the israelites did not have to destroy the wall. The more likely story is an actual peaceful immigration and settlement of the israelites there.

A creationist could argue that once God started the motor, the motor simply kept on running.

You are clearly avoiding answering my argument.
Again: Your "creation" was clearly not done after 7 days. So this is wrong.

Both of those notions are new to me. I had read and seen documentaries that the redish color of the Nile was the result of contamination from volcanic and seismic activity which was occurring at this time. This theory has the advantage of being able to explain the Plague of Darkness, The Plague of Blood, the Plague of Frogs, the Plague of Flies, the Plague of Fire and Brimstone, and the Plague of Death of the First born, etc.

Interesting! Got some links in regards to that?
Also, this clearly contradicts the claim by the bible that Moses turned the river red, by simply holding his staff into it.

The funny thing about science. The deeper it goes, the more like fantasy it appears.

Ah really? How is that?

What a silly question! Science has not yet mapped out the functions of all the genes. Aren't you in some sort of Medical field or something, and yet you did not know this?

I do not have to point out to you, that it was YOU who made the claim that there is some sort of religion gene. So it has to be YOU who has to bring the evidence for that!
I do clearly know more about genetics than you do. Also, we are very close to mapping all human genes. I expect it to happen within the next 5 years.

For years, many scientists thought that junk DNA sequences were just junk. Now we know that they do have important functions.

Not all of them. Some of them. Again, I have never heard about a religion gene. So please show me at least the peer reviewed paper about that!

Apart from that, we don't even know for sure that everything about being a human is connected to the genes. There is some theorizing going on out there that humans (and other living things) rely on quantum effects for certain functions.

Citation please!

For all we know, there is an eerie quantum linkage between parents and offspring that transcends genetics, and we have yet to even fully understand the genetics!

Citation please.

Really? The Christian religion took mankind from an agrarianism condition of mostly primitive towns and huts (predominately) during the Roman times, to develop advanced science and industrialization.

Ah really?
I recall some 1500 years of mostly agrarianism. It was not until the renaissance and the "rebirth" of the values of the antique, that science and some sort of education as well as some industrialization finally started to happen. All that behind the back of the catholic church, which tried everything to prevent that. It was in the more liberal countries, like the Netherlands where science could flourish.
Also, you should look further back. The Romans were comparably primitive barbarians. The Greeks were much more andvanced in every aspect. The Christian destroyed much of the knowledge of the antiques when they burned down the "pagan" library of Alexandria. After that it was 1500 years of Christian dark ages. Well done catholic church!

China had basically the same stable system for two thousand years prior to Christianity and nearly two thousand years after Christianity, yet it was the Christian nations that became the major world powers.

This can be attributed to the largely introverted politics of the Chinese.
You know, Chinese wall and all that.
They never went out to conquer the world, like the western nations did, the British most of all.
Christianity had very little to do with all that though.

And whose word do we have to take for it that the patient has been successfully treated? Why the people GIVING the treatment!

Uhm, how about the patient? Also, there is always something like a second oppinion. I am not a big fan of psychiatry myself, but it is much more correct than what Scientology farts out.

Like bread and butter. In fact, more closely related. Like intertwined. Like virtually the same thing. Like, they are in fact the same thing. This just goes back to that discussion i've had with MSimon where I keep trying to point out that such barriers are completely subjective. There are in fact no barriers whatsoever except for the human perception of them.

Much of the genetic research has nothing to do with stem cells!
The "human life" argument that you are bringing is therefore invalid in this context. Yet most religions and ideologies, including the christian religion hate genetics and genetic engineering.

[Diogenes]

I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Which points out the problems with heterosexuality. You get hetero inclined men raping little girls.

I literally don't know what to say to you regarding this comment.

[Diogenes]

draining of the red sea.

Computer simulations (yeah, I know) showed that with the wind intensity and durations described in the text and given the lay of the land, the Red Sea could have "parted".

I've seen various programs and read various articles regarding the parting of the Red Sea. I guess the point of all of them was that it remains within the realm of possibility.

[Diogenes]

Since the topic of what was wrong with homosexuality came up earlier in the thread, I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Yeah, with cardinals, bishops and even the pope covering up for them.
Sorry, but the catholic church is not looking too good right now.

Yeah, they probably can't say "Planetaria" either. (My point being, that you have a knack for focusing on the trivial in the larger scheme of things.)

Needless to say, none of this is relevant to the GOOD the Catholic church does in the world

I see a lot of pseudo goodness being done by them. That means that they have a lot of organizations that spend money on themselves and do little good but to brag about how good they are. Lots of people sunning themselves in their own goodness.

Okay, so you hate the Catholics. You've said so before, and it appears pointless to get any sort of objective comment from you concerning them.

As I had never heard of SOS Kinderdorf

That clearly shows how uneducated you are!

CLEARLY!

The founder had been up for the nobel peace price a couple of times (but never got it, which tells you a lot about the people in the committee for the noble peace price).

I have had zero respect for the Nobel committee for years now. The fact that Al Gore and Precedent Zero could win a Nobel prize proves that it is a collection of idiots circle-jerking people like themselves.

I dare say the Catholics have over a hundred associations in every country in the world.

Most of them doing little good.
You are behaving as if the catholic church has done nothing but good in the last millenia. Not true!

I know full well that the Catholic church has done any number of heinous things, but I also know they have done many more things that were beneficial to their followers. You disagree.

Also, the SOS Kinderdorf was only ONE example for ONE organization. Do you think that this is all there is.

Yes, I think that is all there is. You see, i'm stupid. The proof is that i'm trying to reason with you.

It is axiomatic to what you have said.

How dare you twist arround what I said like that!

If it appears twisted, it is because of your perception. Nothing else.

I said that you do not need religion in order to teach people right from wrong. Also, a lot of our understanding of morale is based on inherited behavioural patterns. Read Eibl-Eibesfeldt!

Great. Do you have perhaps an example from history?

Such great faith you have in secular authorities.

Secularity guarantees religious freedom. Without it, you will end up with one religion supressing the others through government power.

That would be terrible! Obviously Kali Worship is just as beneficial to the government as is Buddhism.

Obviously you believe in that fantasy, why criticize people who want to believe in another and more beneficial fantasy?

Because they constantly want to shove their fantasy down my throat and that of my children. Keep that for your church and sunday school!

Let me see if I can make this perfectly clear. If you remain in Europe, you are going to GET a religion shoved down your throat. Your only choice is which one.

If you come to America (Please go to Canada where the people are far more civilized than us ignorant hicks.) you will succeed in delaying the throat shoving possibly longer than the rest of your life. Eventually though, the surviving population is going to have to pick a side.

Unless the magical fantasy that YOU want to believe in (a multi-generational moral atheism ) actually pulls a miracle out of it's @ss.

But what is much worse is that they prevent me and others from doing science that will do some REAL good and save actual lives. That is something that I can never forgive.

Imagined outrages are far more satisfying than real ones. They can have whatever scope the imagination sees fit to give them.

If the police force is made up of people that don't have an inherent basis for understanding the difference between good and evil, they we shall all be guilty of some crime.

I take for myself to have a very good understanding of right and wrong. I dont see the need for religion to tell me right from wrong, thanks.

Most children feel that way as well.

There are many atheists in our police force. It works pretty well.

Like the optimist said after falling off a building and passing the sixth floor: "So far so good!"

Oh and to go even further with taking apart your argumentation: A policeman represents the law. Something good can still be against the law, something evil can still be lawful.

You have described much of modern day America.

You really CAN'T see things through other people's eyes.

You dont seem to be very good at that either.

Tu quoque.

There is an ABUNDANCE of evidence to indicate a Massive and Major flood over virtually every part of the known human sphere in ancient times. Most science minded people associate the evidence with the great melt of the last ice age, or of the breaking open of the strait of Gibraltar, both events which are known to have happened.

World known by Noahs people. Not known by man!
There are several explanations for Noahs flood.
The one I remembered was based on the theory of the Santorini eruption causing a flood. That is however not the most likely explanation, since that erruption happened after the earliest dated accounts of the biblical flood (earlies account 1850 BC, Santorini 1650 BC).
The explanation you are probably referring to, is that the Black Sea was comparably quickly flooded with water from the Mediterranian Sea, when sea levels rose there. That has nothing to do with Gibraltar though, but the Bosporus, which separates the Black Sea from the Meditarranian sea.
Anyway there were plenty of people living perfectly unaffected by the flood in other parts of the world. That clearly proofs the bible wrong.

Clearly!

To the people recording any such event, it would surely have seemed as if the entire world had been flooded, because THEIR entire world HAD been flooded.

Yes, THEIR world. That however is not what the bible says.

Clearly! I guess the part where I said that you simply couldn't visualize anything from another person's perspective was lost on you.

Unless you are going to argue that GOD wrote the bible, then you will have to concede that it was written by human hands. Human hands, human perspective. From the perspective of the writer of that portion of bible, the rest of the world does not exist. The only part that exists is his part. Therefore, when he says the entire world flooded, he is referring to HIS entire world.

What a silly point to argue about. Next we'll be talking about "planetaria" or something.

I believe it says 7 pairs of the clean animals, and 1 pair of every unclean animal.

Uhm, the bible I have here says a pair of all animals and "flesh".
It also gives pretty clear dimensions for the whole arch thingy. Way to small to fit even one of all those animals in there that lived in Noahs general area. Definitely to small to fit in all the animals of the entire animal kingdom.

Well, if we're presupposing a God with miraculous powers, and presupposing that God wanted Noah to put all the animals on the planet in an ark, then the answer is pretty simple. The ark was a TARDIS.

You may be surprised to learn that there were far more animals than this in the world, even several thousand years ago.

Uhm, did I ever doubt that? In contrary, I said that there are way more animals than what could have fit into the arche.

The inside of a TARDIS is theoretically infinite. Plenty of room for all the animals.

How could they possibly know that?

I can not quite remember anymore how they figured that out. However from what I rememeber, the israelites did not have to destroy the wall. The more likely story is an actual peaceful immigration and settlement of the israelites there.

So you're saying the Israelis just felt like making up that portion of their history?

A creationist could argue that once God started the motor, the motor simply kept on running.

You are clearly avoiding answering my argument.
Again: Your "creation" was clearly not done after 7 days. So this is wrong.

You do understand you are arguing that a MIRACLE doesn't meet the rigid standards of your judgement, right?

If one is presupposing a miracle, it shouldn't be a surprise that it is miraculous!

Both of those notions are new to me. I had read and seen documentaries that the redish color of the Nile was the result of contamination from volcanic and seismic activity which was occurring at this time. This theory has the advantage of being able to explain the Plague of Darkness, The Plague of Blood, the Plague of Frogs, the Plague of Flies, the Plague of Fire and Brimstone, and the Plague of Death of the First born, etc.

Interesting! Got some links in regards to that?

No. Most of this information I read in Newspapers and Magazines years ago, back when I was interested in this issue. I dare say these theories have been promulgated widely enough that it wouldn't be hard to find more details regarding it with a google search.

Also, this clearly contradicts the claim by the bible that Moses turned the river red, by simply holding his staff into it.

There's that Lack of perspective again. Were *I* Moses, and wanting to free my people from bondage by convincing someone that the power of God was behind me and would punish Egypt if they did not let my people go, I surely would have told Pharaoh that the Nile turned red after I dipped my staff into it.

Remember, people writing stuff down after the fact sometimes embellish or misremember things. Certainly the staff dipping story was beneficial to the narrative, so it was included.

The funny thing about science. The deeper it goes, the more like fantasy it appears.

Ah really? How is that?

Ask Schrodinger cat.

What a silly question! Science has not yet mapped out the functions of all the genes. Aren't you in some sort of Medical field or something, and yet you did not know this?

I do not have to point out to you, that it was YOU who made the claim that there is some sort of religion gene.

You do have to point that out, because it is in fact not true. I said that Religion was very likely inherently genetic. I did not say it had a specific gene. I will further say, that many characteristics of humans do not have specific genes that cause those characteristics, but instead are the summation product of many genes. I further speculated that other factors may be at work beyond genetics.

So it has to be YOU who has to bring the evidence for that!
I do clearly know more about genetics than you do. Also, we are very close to mapping all human genes. I expect it to happen within the next 5 years.

Clearly!

For years, many scientists thought that junk DNA sequences were just junk. Now we know that they do have important functions.

Not all of them. Some of them. Again, I have never heard about a religion gene. So please show me at least the peer reviewed paper about that!

I have read several articles regarding the theory that religion is inherent in human nature. Whether they be peer reviewed or not doesn't make a bucket worth of spits difference to me. The fact that they were posted on Science type websites is enough to give the theory tacit credibility, and since the subject is of such a nature as to be probably unfalsifiable, it only matters insofar as the insight it provides.

Apart from that, we don't even know for sure that everything about being a human is connected to the genes. There is some theorizing going on out there that humans (and other living things) rely on quantum effects for certain functions.

Citation please!

Is it really worth my trouble to find you cites for this? Considering the degree of contemplation you seem to have given various other of my citations, i'm becoming less inclined to bother even backing up what I say. But since you said please, i'll post a couple.

viewtopic.php?t=2222&highlight=quantum

http://discovermagazine.com/2009/feb/13 ... :int=1&-C=

For all we know, there is an eerie quantum linkage between parents and offspring that transcends genetics, and we have yet to even fully understand the genetics!

Citation please.

You will have to make do with the two I gave you. I have read other articles, but i'm not going to chase them down for you.

Really? The Christian religion took mankind from an agrarianism condition of mostly primitive towns and huts (predominately) during the Roman times, to develop advanced science and industrialization.

Ah really?
I recall some 1500 years of mostly agrarianism. It was not until the renaissance and the "rebirth" of the values of the antique, that science and some sort of education as well as some industrialization finally started to happen. All that behind the back of the catholic church, which tried everything to prevent that. It was in the more liberal countries, like the Netherlands where science could flourish.
Also, you should look further back. The Romans were comparably primitive barbarians. The Greeks were much more andvanced in every aspect. The Christian destroyed much of the knowledge of the antiques when they burned down the "pagan" library of Alexandria. After that it was 1500 years of Christian dark ages. Well done catholic church!

It has been pointed out by others that the long period of very little development known as the "Dark Ages" was very likely caused by the influence of the Catholic Church, and that it wasn't until the protestant reformation that things began to move again. I do not interpret this as the Catholic church performing no good deeds for this period, I interpret this as "it could have been better."

Also, concerning the Alexandria library, I seem to recall reading that the thing was burned three times by various factions, and that the common story of what actually happened is not accurate. I no longer recall the details, or where I read this, so i'm not going to bother looking for a link. In the overall scheme of things which are important to talk about now, this doesn't rank very highly with me.

Oh bloody hell! Here's a link.

http://ehistory.osu.edu/world/articles/ ... .cfm?AID=9

China had basically the same stable system for two thousand years prior to Christianity and nearly two thousand years after Christianity, yet it was the Christian nations that became the major world powers.

This can be attributed to the largely introverted politics of the Chinese.
You know, Chinese wall and all that.
They never went out to conquer the world, like the western nations did, the British most of all.
Christianity had very little to do with all that though.

Sure. That's why the Aztecs were so advanced, and why the Egyptians were so advanced, and why the Persians and the Indians et al were all so much more advanced than the Christians.

And whose word do we have to take for it that the patient has been successfully treated? Why the people GIVING the treatment!

Uhm, how about the patient? Also, there is always something like a second oppinion. I am not a big fan of psychiatry myself, but it is much more correct than what Scientology farts out.

I cannot regard one fallacy more correct than another. I'm sure Scientology has patients that will claim success just as much as psychiatry does. I suspect psychiatry is just as much of a religion as the ones you condemn.

Like bread and butter. In fact, more closely related. Like intertwined. Like virtually the same thing. Like, they are in fact the same thing. This just goes back to that discussion i've had with MSimon where I keep trying to point out that such barriers are completely subjective. There are in fact no barriers whatsoever except for the human perception of them.

Much of the genetic research has nothing to do with stem cells!
The "human life" argument that you are bringing is therefore invalid in this context. Yet most religions and ideologies, including the christian religion hate genetics and genetic engineering.

Because the expert on Christianity which is you says so. Glad you cleared that all up for me. Now I can see more

Clearly!

[MirariNefas]

Skipjack wrote:

What a silly question! Science has not yet mapped out the functions of all the genes. Aren't you in some sort of Medical field or something, and yet you did not know this?

I do not have to point out to you, that it was YOU who made the claim that there is some sort of religion gene.

You do have to point that out, because it is in fact not true. I said that Religion was very likely inherently genetic. I did not say it had a specific gene. I will further say, that many characteristics of humans do not have specific genes that cause those characteristics, but instead are the summation product of many genes. I further speculated that other factors may be at work beyond genetics.

What, the epigenetic religious methylation profile? Or the religious haplotype?

Hmm.... I'm liking it. That could work.

But genetic tendencies toward "spirituality" or even just gullability don't guarantee the success of any given viral meme. Memes mutate and evolve as their environment changes. If the environment changes so much that transmission is completely inhibited, they die. Doesn't seem to happen often though, so I don't expect it's easy to predict.

[MirariNefas]

I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Which points out the problems with heterosexuality. You get hetero inclined men raping little girls.

Always with the stereotypes! Nobody ever points out the problems with heterosexual little girls raping men!

[Skipjack]

Diogenes, you were asking me for examples where I could proof the bible wrong. I brought those examples. Now you are demanding me to use some kind of interpretation that allows the things that I prove wrong to be right again and where that is not enough, you need some bloody miracles to explain the rest.
I am going to stop this conversation here, since it is clearly going nowhere. I have been polite despite multiple insults from your side. Now I am just getting fed up with your bullheadedness.
One last thing: If a miracle by god made all those animals fit into the arche. Then why did it have to be that big? Why have Noah go through all the hassle to build a huge arche with multiple levels, if a simple "phone box" would have been enough?
You dont need to answer that. I am just putting this out here, before I am out of this thread.

[MirariNefas]

Well, "Noah's Folded Space Canoe" doesn't make as good of a title.

Sure. That's why the Aztecs were so advanced, and why the Egyptians were so advanced, and why the Persians and the Indians et al were all so much more advanced than the Christians.

Didn't Persian math and science outdo the west for awhile there? Invented the 0, something like that? Or maybe I'm thinking of algebra.

I'm sure everybody realizes that the (present) success of the West is a complex phenomenon. It's hard to make a good case that the evolving religious forms of the West are greatly responsible for this success. I'm sure you can make up some logic to fit some points, but that just leaves you in the same boat as Freud. Not science. No hard facts. Nothing provable. Just a nice story.

[Skipjack]

I got one more thing:
1. Intelligence is largely inherited. So the difference in progress between Europeans and say africans can be explained with that (yeah I know it is politically incorrect, I am so sorry).
2. Language and writing also is a factor. Chinese writing does not permitt the creation of new words. This does bring up some problems when you want to develop new things.
I am not sure that either of these things really have anything to do with that, but it does seem just as likely as your "we have the better religion" idea.

[taniwha]

Chinese writing does not permitt the creation of new words.

Not true. Chinese writing is very amenable to creating new words. Often, just select the appropriate characters and you've got a new word. If that doesn't quite do the job, it's quite easy to create a new character (or would be if it wasn't for computers) when you understand how the characters themselves work.

Eg: 反物質 (はんぶっしつ) (n) antimatter (physics);
(this is in the wwwjdic Japanese-English dictionary)

Essentially, treat Chinese writing like Latin, and you can express pretty much any imaginable concept.

[edit]fixed an inappropriate choice of wording.

[Diogenes]

Skipjack wrote: I do not have to point out to you, that it was YOU who made the claim that there is some sort of religion gene.

You do have to point that out, because it is in fact not true. I said that Religion was very likely inherently genetic. I did not say it had a specific gene. I will further say, that many characteristics of humans do not have specific genes that cause those characteristics, but instead are the summation product of many genes. I further speculated that other factors may be at work beyond genetics.

What, the epigenetic religious methylation profile? Or the religious haplotype?

Hmm.... I'm liking it. That could work.

But genetic tendencies toward "spirituality" or even just gullability don't guarantee the success of any given viral meme. Memes mutate and evolve as their environment changes. If the environment changes so much that transmission is completely inhibited, they die. Doesn't seem to happen often though, so I don't expect it's easy to predict.

I never suggested there was a "Christian Gene." I suggested that people are genetically inclined towards some form of spirituality, and actually, I didn't come up with the theory. Others did. I simply considered it to be a reasonable idea that may very well explain a lot of human behavior which was previously confusing.

Bear in mind, that our last couple of thousand years worth of learning makes up a very minute percentage of the human evolutionary period. Most of humanity's existence was spent in primitive conditions which selected for characteristics useful in surviving THAT environment, not the one we have now.

[Diogenes]

I thought I would point out that it was a bunch of homosexually inclined individuals raping little boys.

Which points out the problems with heterosexuality. You get hetero inclined men raping little girls.

Always with the stereotypes! Nobody ever points out the problems with heterosexual little girls raping men!

Don't know if any of you have ever read Piers Anthony, but he wrote a story in which he claimed the characters were based on real people, in which a young girl does exactly that. I believe the name of the book is "FireFly" or some such, and to me, it is just further evidence that Piers Anthony has gone round the bend.

He used to be a very entertaining author, but like Robert Heinlein in his later years, He became obsessed with the perverse, and incorporated much perversity into his writings. In any case, the Piers Anthony story makes a plausible case for something like this happening.

[Diogenes]

Diogenes, you were asking me for examples where I could proof the bible wrong. I brought those examples. Now you are demanding me to use some kind of interpretation that allows the things that I prove wrong to be right again and where that is not enough, you need some bloody miracles to explain the rest.

That was just to get your goat. It was at that point I realized that it was just not worth arguing with you about it, So I finally decided to just poke a little fun at you by pointing out that you were objecting to a book of miracles because it had miracles in it.

Do you dislike movies for the same reason?

I am going to stop this conversation here, since it is clearly going nowhere. I have been polite despite multiple insults from your side. Now I am just getting fed up with your bullheadedness.

I can't imagine how you feel.

One last thing: If a miracle by god made all those animals fit into the arche. Then why did it have to be that big? Why have Noah go through all the hassle to build a huge arche with multiple levels, if a simple "phone box" would have been enough?

Well Skipjack, Perhaps you are unaware that an elephant won't fit through the door of a phone box?


What I simply cannot fathom is why you put forth the most silly points, and proclaim them as proof of something, and show completely unawareness of the zeitgeist of the time period we are discussing.


What are your points? The flood didn't actually cover the surface of planet earth, so therefore the bible is wrong. A Stupid point, as I pointed out.

That all the animals on planet earth could not have fit in the ark because it was too small? Another stupid point. (It wasn't all the animals in the World, it could only have been the animals in Noahs world, beyond that, you provide no calculations for this assertion. You just declare it so. You likewise overlook the fact that it was a very old story, possibly garbled a bit, but likewise repeated in several OTHER cultures also. )



That the world could not possibly be created in 7 days, therefor the bible is wrong, that it's been more than 4000 years since creation so the bible is wrong.


You are interpreting the bible with extreme literalism and then declaring it wrong because it doesn't fit your test for accuracy. It was quickly apparent to me that you had no intention of being fair minded in your criticism, so I decided I needn't be fair either.

You dont need to answer that. I am just putting this out here, before I am out of this thread.

I only regret that I cannot give it the full answer that it deserves.