any creationists about?

[longlostlady]

wishing to cause no insult to anyone.....please PLEASE explain how this set of beliefs is in ANY way credible?

i mean, taking the literal word of a flawed, translated document as actual truth? huh?

please, I'd love someone to explain....

 

[Renrue]

Also to add in, are there any fundamentalists about? Though, technically I guess they are creationists, but then again, I think the term fundamentalist encompasses creationist.


[Renrue]

 

[spidergoat]

Occaisonally, there are some members who care to defend Creationism, but perhaps they are all talked out by now.

 

[Mosheh Thezion]

-MT

 

[Renrue]

Mosheh Thezion,

And that is... I don't quite understand it, and it seems like a bunch of scribbles to me. Care to explain it in a more simplified version?


[Renrue]

 

[Mythbuster]

All i see is melted clocks:

 

[Jan Ardena]

wishing to cause no insult to anyone.....please PLEASE explain how this set of beliefs is in ANY way credible?

i mean, taking the literal word of a flawed, translated document as actual truth? huh?

please, I'd love someone to explain....

I am not a creationist (institutionally), but please state what you believe is flawed about the translated document, then we'll take it from there.

Jan.

 

[Ophiolite]

All i see is melted clocks:

You are obviously just dallying, not taking this at all seriously.

 

[charles cure]

I am not a creationist (institutionally), but please state what you believe is flawed about the translated document, then we'll take it from there.

Jan.

well, first of all the greeks translated hebrew words incorrectly in some instances because they did not understand the nuance of the language in which some of the texts were written. Material that corroborates a view differing from that of the view sanctioned by the fathers of the church at the time that the bible was compiled into its current form was altered or culled and then copies of that material or material expressing similar views was sought out and destroyed by agents of the church leaving behind virtually no record (until recently) of the myriad of differing viewpoints on the life and times of christ. this was undertaken for at least 1,000 years. after the council of nicea in 325, all anti-trinitarian viewpoints were declared heresies, most notably Arianism, and this led to the eventual exile and destrution of "christian" sects that did not support the political and doctrinal goals of the church hierarchy. this type of suppression occurred continually throughout history. in the 1500's the author and physician Michael Servetus was burned at the stake by John Calvin for having expressed his doubts about the existence of a holy trinity (though he was indisputably christian) in a book called Christianisimi Restitutio which was subsequently sought after by both catholic and protestant agents and eradicated until today only 2 copies are fully intact and a third (calvins own copy) partially intact after being hidden away in private collections for centuries.
thats why the bible is a flawed document. it is a work of deliberate misinformation, mistranslation, massive editing, and the result of brutal suppression of any contrarian voice.

 

[Jan Ardena]

well, first of all the greeks translated hebrew words incorrectly in some instances because they did not understand the nuance of the language in which some of the texts were written. Material that corroborates a view differing from that of the view sanctioned by the fathers of the church at the time that the bible was compiled into its current form was altered or culled and then copies of that material or material expressing similar views was sought out and destroyed by agents of the church leaving behind virtually no record (until recently) of the myriad of differing viewpoints on the life and times of christ. this was undertaken for at least 1,000 years. after the council of nicea in 325, all anti-trinitarian viewpoints were declared heresies, most notably Arianism, and this led to the eventual exile and destrution of "christian" sects that did not support the political and doctrinal goals of the church hierarchy. this type of suppression occurred continually throughout history. in the 1500's the author and physician Michael Servetus was burned at the stake by John Calvin for having expressed his doubts about the existence of a holy trinity (though he was indisputably christian) in a book called Christianisimi Restitutio which was subsequently sought after by both catholic and protestant agents and eradicated until today only 2 copies are fully intact and a third (calvins own copy) partially intact after being hidden away in private collections for centuries.
thats why the bible is a flawed document. it is a work of deliberate misinformation, mistranslation, massive editing, and the result of brutal suppression of any contrarian voice.

The docs may be flawed, in that they have been mistranslated and mistranslated as you say, which shows they have derived from an original document. Unless the tamperers were complete imbeciles, or people with something to hide, they must have based there translations on the original script, using it to their advantage. If the bible is the word of God, then it is absolute truth, and if it is truth, it must (essentially) be axiomatic. If it is axiomatic then any part of it is equal to the whole, and can be understood from any connection with it.
If you claim that the essential point of the bible (God) is flawed, then you must express why it is flawed. If you claim that there is no evidence of God, that will not be a satisfactory explanation as to why it is flawed.

Jan.

 

[longlostlady]

surely as they are flawed, they cannot be taken as the literal truth? i mean, some of that stuff is pretty specific, and some people seem to take it very literally. what i'm asking is how that defense of detail can be justified when it may very well be flawed.

 

[charles cure]

The docs may be flawed, in that they have been mistranslated and mistranslated as you say, which shows they have derived from an original document. Unless the tamperers were complete imbeciles, or people with something to hide, they must have based there translations on the original script, using it to their advantage. If the bible is the word of God, then it is absolute truth, and if it is truth, it must (essentially) be axiomatic. If it is axiomatic then any part of it is equal to the whole, and can be understood from any connection with it.
If you claim that the essential point of the bible (God) is flawed, then you must express why it is flawed. If you claim that there is no evidence of God, that will not be a satisfactory explanation as to why it is flawed.

Jan.

you start off from a false premise. the bible is NOT the word of god. it is the word of man. the torah is not the word of god, and it is the old testament of the bible. there are things written in the bible that can be demostrably proved false, like say - the entire genesis chapter. now, there may not be a complete explanation for the earth's creation, but we can be sure of several ways in which it didnt happen, one of them being the description given in genesis.
another problem with your analysis here is that because something is an absolute truth then it must be axiomatic. this works with scientific laws in the natural world, for which there is observable evidence and logical proof. there is no such evidence provided by the author or authors of the bible, or by god, so it does not automatically follow that the truth of the bible is axiomatic and can therefore be boiled down to some very essential threads of knowledge and truth that can be applied to humanity as a whole despite age, race, sex, and geographic location.
the third problem is that you assume that the bible has an "essential point" or central theme. this is untrue. if you mean that the central theme is live by god's word and you shall receive salvation, then contradictions abound. there are examples of people who live virtuous lives through and through and then slip up once and are damned. there are obvious contradictions to that essential point surrounding us each and every day as innocent children starve to death or are ravged by war, disease, and poverty. they receive worldly torment as reward for their virtue in life whether they receive salvation in the end or not. that being said, i think it would be difficult to find an essential point in the bible without some interpretation on your part, which leads us to the fact that axiomatic or absolute truths are not subject to interpretation. they apply basically the same way all the time no matter who tests them or how.
your argument here is weak. the bible was written by men, not god, and as such should be seen as flawed right from the beginning even in the eyes of christians.

 

[charles cure]

The docs may be flawed, in that they have been mistranslated and mistranslated as you say, which shows they have derived from an original document.

oh and i have a bone to pick with some other point made here.
the mistranslations were made from original documentsssssssss. not one original document. the bible is nothing but the jewish torah with a bunch of stories about the life of jesus added to it later. the key here is that some PERSON had to choose from literally thousands of primary documents, potential gospels, and claimed first hand accounts to decide what specific information would make up the bible. then, once the cut was made and a semi-cohesive body of material was put together, translators transferred the stories from whatever language they were originally written in to Greek. then they were further translated into latin, english...etc.
through this process, the "essential point" of the bible was determined by people through the choices they made of which material to include and which to exclude. there is no way that you can demonstrate god's hand at work in those choices, but you can see the effects of a political agenda and how the message of the carefully assembled bible seeks to bolster that position.

 

[Jan Ardena]

charles cure,

you start off from a false premise. the bible is NOT the word of god. it is the word of man.

The claim is that God spoke through 'man' to reveal these works, so ultimately it is the word of God, so my premise remains in tact.

...there are things written in the bible that can be demostrably proved false, like say - the entire genesis chapter.

Can they be proven beyond any shadow of doubt?

now, there may not be a complete explanation for the earth's creation, but we can be sure of several ways in which it didnt happen, one of them being the description given in genesis.

Please demonstrate why you are so sure.

another problem with your analysis here is that because something is an absolute truth then it must be axiomatic.

Why is this a problem?

this works with scientific laws in the natural world, for which there is observable evidence and logical proof.

So?

there is no such evidence provided by the author or authors of the bible, or by god, so it does not automatically follow that the truth of the bible is axiomatic

If the author associated with God, why would he feel the need to provide modern-scientific evidence? What would be the point of that?
"He who has ears let him ear"......and so on.
If the bible is not what it is claimed to be then your point is taken. The thing is though, you have to prove that the information in the bible purely man-made.

the third problem is that you assume that the bible has an "essential point" or central theme. this is untrue. if you mean that the central theme is live by god's word and you shall receive salvation, then contradictions abound.
there are examples of people who live virtuous lives through and through and then slip up once and are damned.

Well obviously the bible has a central theme, which you stated, but I fail to see how you can judge whether someone has lived virtuously. By what criteria do you judge whether someone is virtuous or not?

there are obvious contradictions to that essential point surrounding us each and every day as innocent children starve to death or are ravged by war, disease, and poverty. they receive worldly torment as reward for their virtue in life whether they receive salvation in the end or not.

You are talking about the flesh not the soul. In genesis it clearly points out that the flesh and the soul are different things.
If you don't believe souls exist, that's fair enough, but it is not enough to say the bible is a flawed document.

that being said, i think it would be difficult to find an essential point in the bible without some interpretation on your part, which leads us to the fact that axiomatic or absolute truths are not subject to interpretation.

Everything is subject to interpretation, including your naturalist belief, which is why eventually, the only real truth comes from within, and all information received, either enables or disables that.

your argument here is weak.

It seems weak to you, because you have not been provided with the nuts and bolts, and because of your presupposition of naturalism. But you have not stated why the bible is flawed, only given your personal view.
My argument may be weak, but at least it takes the whole claim of the bible into consideration. You do not (as yet) have an argument, you have only made bias claims.

the bible was written by men, not god, and as such should be seen as flawed right from the beginning even in the eyes of christians.

Yes it was written by men, men who claim to be inspired by God, but your claim is one of personal choice and therefore only relevant to yourself or others who share the same opinion.

the mistranslations were made from original documentsssssssss. not one original document. the bible is nothing but the jewish torah with a bunch of stories about the life of jesus added to it later.

My point still stands.

the key here is that some PERSON had to choose from literally thousands of primary documents, potential gospels, and claimed first hand accounts to decide what specific information would make up the bible.

If the bible claim is truth, then how would this present itself as a problem?

once the cut was made and a semi-cohesive body of material was put together, translators transferred the stories from whatever language they were originally written in to Greek. then they were further translated into latin, english...etc.

I see your point but it does not mean that the bible is flawed. I concur that there are different interpretations but it does not follow that the bible is flawed.
At some point you have to use the bible to understand whether it is flawed or not, and this is where the different interpretations are formed, but it does not mean the bible is flawed, only the reasoning of most interpreters.

..through this process, the "essential point" of the bible was determined by people through the choices they made of which material to include and which to exclude.

The essential point of the bible is God, period. It always has been and still is today. People may have used the bible in their selfish ways, but the essence always remained the same. Though bits may have been excluded, the essence (God) always remains, and it is this essence that people connect with.

there is no way that you can demonstrate god's hand at work in those choices, but you can see the effects of a political agenda and how the message of the carefully assembled bible seeks to bolster that position.

Maybe I can’t demonstrate it, but it doesn’t mean God’s hand isn’t at work.

My point is, everything points to what you believe.

Jan.

 

[Ophiolite]

The claim is that God spoke through 'man' to reveal these works, so ultimately it is the word of God, so my premise remains in tact.
.

Cyclical argument. Hardly surprising, as its the only one you have.

 

[(Q)]

The claim is that God spoke through 'man' to reveal these works, so ultimately it is the word of God, so my premise remains in tact.

Yes, that is the claim, from people who knew nothing about the world, who lived in caves and believed in all kinds of superstitions.

You appear to be living out of your time, Jan.

The thing is though, you have to prove that the information in the bible purely man-made.

It must be. Nothing has ever been shown to show the information is valid, ever.

 

[charles cure]

charles cure,

The claim is that God spoke through 'man' to reveal these works, so ultimately it is the word of God, so my premise remains in tact.

no, your premise remains false because first of all god would have had to have made itself known to and spoken through many different men (because we know that the bible started out as many different stories and then was assembled into one book), and so all of these men would have had gods word filtered through their imperfect understanding. as far as i can tell, this would taint the message. the caveat there is that there is actually less than no proof that something like this ever happened to bring about the bible as it is known today.

Can they be proven beyond any shadow of doubt?

the earth being created pretty much as is in 6 days and being only 6,000 years old? yes it can.

Please demonstrate why you are so sure.

its called "evidence", you know, that stuff that earth scientists and archaeologists and palentologists and anthropologists collect and analyze over and over again to prove or disprove a certain premise. theres an abundance of it out there running contradictory to the events described in genesis unless you were to do some interpretational acrobatics with the scripture, which i would thing violates the axiomatic nature of absolute truth.

Why is this a problem?

its a problem because that is not the case in all situations.

If the author associated with God, why would he feel the need to provide modern-scientific evidence? What would be the point of that?
"He who has ears let him ear"......and so on.
If the bible is not what it is claimed to be then your point is taken. The thing is though, you have to prove that the information in the bible purely man-made.

thats where youre wrong. the burden of proof rests on the person making the claim. for creationists, it is their responsibility to back up the claim that god created the earth and that the bible is an absolute truth. people arent claiming the opposite, they are saying look, a lot of the observations we can make contradict these things, so i choose to believe that they are not real. people who think the bible isnt the word of god arent making a claim, they are denying one until proof is given to the contrary.

Well obviously the bible has a central theme, which you stated, but I fail to see how you can judge whether someone has lived virtuously. By what criteria do you judge whether someone is virtuous or not?

you judge by your own stadards of virtue and by the standards that are established by the society in which you choose to live. they are human standards established to judge the negative or positive effects of human actions, and they are the only ones with any meaning in a world in which humans are the only beings capable of judgement.

the bible does not have a central theme, the new testament does. however, that is not the whole of the bible.

You are talking about the flesh not the soul. In genesis it clearly points out that the flesh and the soul are different things.
If you don't believe souls exist, that's fair enough, but it is not enough to say the bible is a flawed document.

it may not be enough for you, but it is certainly enough for me. there has never even been so much as an inkling of evidence that human consciousness exists in any form whatsoever after the death of the body. we do know from studies of anatomy and biology and physiology however, that the mind and body are crucially linked and that a synthesis of sensory input and processing from these two parts forms consciousness. in such a case i would think that physical and "spiritual" torment must be linked if not be one in the same.

Everything is subject to interpretation, including your naturalist belief, which is why eventually, the only real truth comes from within, and all information received, either enables or disables that.

naturalist belief? i dont have any belief. i try to have knowledge. faith precludes knowledge and distorts it.

It seems weak to you, because you have not been provided with the nuts and bolts, and because of your presupposition of naturalism. But you have not stated why the bible is flawed, only given your personal view.
My argument may be weak, but at least it takes the whole claim of the bible into consideration. You do not (as yet) have an argument, you have only made bias claims.

i can give you nothing but a personal view of why the bible is flawed. i dont speak for millions and i cant provide any evidence that you will accept because you deny reason and support extreme improbability based on nothing more than personal opinion. if you deny the validity of the eveidence that the majority of humanity recognizes as valid, then of course no one can ever prove the bible is flawed, you have made up your mind that it isnt and so because no one can provide you with an absolute truth that stands in obvious, conclusive, and direct opposition to your insane superstition, you nullify the argument. we are clearly on different terms here.

Yes it was written by men, men who claim to be inspired by God, but your claim is one of personal choice and therefore only relevant to yourself or others who share the same opinion.

wrong. it was written by dead men who conveniently died without ever leaving anything behind to justify or corroborate a claim that they were somehow divinely inspired. how convenient that now the premise must just stand on its own without the possibility of ever being supported with fact. it is up to those who claim that the bible is divinely inspired to come up with some acceptable reason or proof that it was if they ever expect that people should abide by its message and standard. since none of those things have ever materialized, yet the claim continues to be made, it is easily brushed aside as nonsense.

I see your point but it does not mean that the bible is flawed. I concur that there are different interpretations but it does not follow that the bible is flawed.
At some point you have to use the bible to understand whether it is flawed or not, and this is where the different interpretations are formed, but it does not mean the bible is flawed, only the reasoning of most interpreters.

it follows that the bible is flawed if not all material that was divinely inspired has been included. nearly everyone who wrote a gospel or a piece of apocrypha claimed to be divinely inspired. so the exclusion of any of this material at all would flaw and alter the message of god. however, some of this material was excluded. the reason it was excluded is because the divinely inspired word often contradicted itself and men seeking to acheive a specific end decided what parts of the divinely inspired word were acceptable. im sure now you will say "oh well thats ok because the people who put the bible together were divinely inspired too and you cant prove that they werent", because that is the nature of your argument. accept it, the bible is not the word of god or at best the imperfect and incomplete word of god.

Maybe I can’t demonstrate it, but it doesn’t mean God’s hand isn’t at work.

well, when you make a claim it is incumbent upon you to demonstrate why that claim should have credibility, since you cant, it has lost all credibility except what will be given to it by people who desire to believe in fantasy and fairy tales as a part of living reality.

 

[ggazoo]

I've always been a supporter of creationism just by looking at the world around us. Everything looks... designed.

For example, the stripes on a zebra. The complex pattern on a cougar. Or even sex - a shaft that fits into a hole. An utterly simple concept that had to be thought of, or designed by something.

How does a chameleon know to change it's colour when in danger? Did it evlolve that way? Probably. But what force behind the species knew that camoflouging his skin would be a good way to hide from it's predators? Whether it's evolution or not, there has to be a reason. A though process... if there wasn't then the chameleon would just have to run and hide.

 

[(Q)]

I've always been a supporter of creationism just by looking at the world around us. Everything looks... designed.

AHA, so rather than understanding evolution and taking a good hard look at the mountains of evidence supporting evolution as fact, you simply stood up, looked around and decided everything was designed.

So, why aren't you running the world? Stand up and look around.

 

[Jan Ardena]

Cyclical argument. Hardly surprising, as its the only one you have.

Regardless of what you think, that is the actual claim, take that away and there is no argument. And more importantly, that claim is the basis of this discussion.

Jan.