Quote:

Pariah said:
What "multiple wives in the Bible"?


Solomon. And it was a standard practice for lords of houses in the Bible to take many wives.

Quote:


Indeed. God specifically forbade those marriages at the point of Exodus. They were condoned pre-flood and some millenia post-flood because the degeneration of human physiology through intercourse with closely related individuals was minimally cumulative. By the time of Moses, the blood was getting too thick for offspring to be safe from closely related intercourse, so God commanded that people could only marry other people far removed. At that time, in the Old testament, it was all good and fine--However. My comments on incest involved sexual intercourse between adults and 4 year olds--As concluded by the skeletons. The Bible never tolerated such detestable behavior. The fact that it was older family members, prolly parents, is just what makes the situation worse.


Please show me the verses in the Bible that discuss genetics.

Quote:


Yes. Sodomy's not as easily explained away as people'd like to think. It's shown to cause problems rather than maintain benignity.


Sodomy used to mean a lot of thinks. There was a point where sodomy was any sex act that wasn't man on top of woman.

Quote:

Anyway, I think we're getting very off-topic here.


Translation: People are getting mad at Pariah for being an idiot.
Quote:


Just a reminder: My assertions regarding religion aren't based on it deciding what's right and what's wrong,


oookay...
Quote:


but rather that if it wasn't for religion in the first place, secularity wouldn't have any moral basis in and of itself and all cultures would prolly maintain a Machiavellian policy.



which is just not true. secular people and secular cultures aren't the babykilling rapists you seem to think they are.

Quote:


"Laws", in the purest of definitions, have nothing to do with morals or "clarifying moral standards". That's true for today's cultures, but they've already been egregariously affected by religion. Past cultures that weren't religion-influenced (namely Christian/Judeoism) were primarily law kept through types of objectivism. Laws weren't kept cuz' they were moral, they stayed sacred because they kept society from breakdown.


and you don't think most of the religious laws are set up to keep people in line?

Quote:


The Russian, Viking, and Egyptian societies (to name a few) didn't have any semblence of "morals" within their regulations.



They were pretty much the same in terms of morals as any other culture at the time.
Remember many "christian cultures" kept slaves for over a thousand years after christ.

Quote:

I said:
That's not true. You can't say the bible happened because it says so in the Bible.



he said:
Yes I can.



you can't base your argument on "because
and expect any one to take you seriously. Its like me saying Superman is real because it says so in Action Comics.

Quote:


They are and they aren't. I hear there's some evidence that the Babylonian one happened, however that doesn't mean they're referring to the same flood. The Babylonian flood was most definitely localized--If it actually happened. As I already mentioned to MJ, the Biblical deluge is the most proveable in that it's in the Old Testament, which is accepted as a historical document and that the date implied by the Old Testament is consistent with the flood-strata and the timeframe in which it was created--And that's not even mentioning the credibility it's given from the confirmation of the other historical events, from the Bible, proven true from geological study. Moreover, as I said before, there's only been one consistent flood strata found. If there was more than one that was world-wide, there'd be multiple strata of that variety.

Those flood myths are in no way comparable to the Biblical Deluge.


and as I've said before. You may be able to show evidence for certain geological events that took place in the bible, but there's no proof of the people involved and the acts they performed.

Quote:


That's a very keen observation r3x, but the only way that the hemisphere containing the block of ice (during the Ice Age of course) could have caused the flood (and trust me, that was the cause) was if it was indeed a slow flood.


but if it was a slow flood then a whole bunch of people would've had time to build arcs and survive, which undermines the point of Noah.

Quote:


First of all: This statement, if it's true, only proves that it was retaliatory. If they went out and invaded without provocation from the Muslims in the first place, whilst in that state of mind, I'd be more inclined to agree with you. However, such is not the case.


isn't there a bible quote about turning the other cheek. and by your logic, are you cool if indians came into your house and slaughtered you because we attacked them first?

Quote:


Second of all: The Papist wasn't the supreme ruling power. Did he have influence? Yes. However, he wasn't the one sending out the military. In which case, religion wasn't their prime motive for fighting.



you don't know much about (real) history do you? the pope back then was not like the pope of nowadays. He could order kings around under threat of excommunication.


Quote:


I know. I was talking about Muslims. Although, if you're trying to debunk anyone for crimes of persecution instead of just trying to play favorites with the Christians, you could note that the Jews persecuted Christians whilst the religion was in early growth.


so revenge is now "cool" for catholics?

Quote:


Until I see hordes of Christian armies imprisoning people and forcing them to convert like in the inquisition days, I can't sympathize with this.


Apparently they're now building christian churches in Iraq...so
Quote:


Especially since we've seen plenty of "Allah's witnesses" kill thousands of our own people as well as many foreign others in the Middle-East.


The IRA, Timothy Mcveigh, David Koresh. Neither side is free of crazy killer fanatics.
I'm talking about your everyday average member of each church. An average Christian will try and convert whenever possible, an average Muslim will not, an average Jew will not.
You look stupid when you assume that all Muslims are terrorists.

Quote:


At which point though, as I noted earlier, during the centuries closer to Christ's death, Christians were discriminated against by Jews. Singling out Christians in that department seems fallacious.


But the Jews got over it. And this was 2 thousand years ago.
The Christians were oppressing Jews as recently as a few centuries ago.

Quote:


In "most" cases? Gimme a break. You do realize that you just re-defined both "faith" and "logic" right? You seem to be of the misconception that "faith" and "logic" can't co-exist or mesh together.


I must've gotten that idea from talking to you.

Quote:

What's more, you're claim as to what affects people more is highly subjective. Scientists, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, etc. have faith, yet they operate on the logic you claim dictates their fallacy. That fact alone proves you wrong on both counts.


True, scientists do operate on faith sometimes. But the very core of their belief in science is that the facts and evidence create conclusions.
I can prove gravity easier than you can prove heaven.

Quote:


They don't show anything of the sort. As it stands, Carbon-14 can't be properly used on fossils and geological extracts. And radiology, the currently used geological dating method, is too erratic and innaccurate. Sedimentary layers aren't any sort of static indicator of history. Aside from the fact that they constantly shift, their placement creates more diversity in the soil sample through temperature changes, mineral concentrations, and pressure from other layers than through the passage of time. Simply put: All that sedimentary layers do in ways of informing us about the history of the earth, from a purely terra-forming (theory) perspective, is tell us how voluminous it's been/remained. Same for the fossils: All they show is what animals used to be alive on Terra Firma.



Fine, Pariah. The Earth is 12,000 years old. We all sprung up from dust and a man's rib.
That really does make a lot more sense than evolution and a slowly evolving and developing planet.

Quote:


No, it wouldn't be hard....If that's what was actually indicated by geological evidence as well as the Bible. But as it stands, secular sources have failed to prove the earth and sun as being billions of years. They've furthermore failed to disprove the historical events of the Old Testament.



The Bible is never wrong. The writers of the bible never fudged the details. Kings and priests never altered it at all over the thousands of years.

Quote:


I'm open to the idea that "7 days" may not have meant 168 hours. However, I'm not so much concerned with that so much as I am the Bible's vehemence in noting that we were created. Right there on the spot.


they why isn't god active in the last few thousand years?
why is he so big in the bible, but more of a mysterious force in today's christianity?
why do good christians die needessly when god can just come along and snap his fingers to save them?

There is no way to believe 100% of what's in the bible through the prism of the real world.

Quote:


Flood strata isn't found only in the mideast, it's found all over the world. I already addressed your link up top.


well, where was (Judeo) god in Japan/China/Russia/the Americas?
Are the mideast people the only ones worthy? If that's true then is it okay to slaughter non-middle easterns because they're not descendants of the holy people?

Quote:

theory9 said:
it wasn't a mistake that the Catholic Church tacitly sided with the Nazis in WWII anymore than all religions continue to assert us vs. them throughout the world.

Pariah said:
The Catholic Church did no such thing. Pope Pious, what I'm sure you're referring to, was harrassed by the Nazis. How exactly are you going to try and assert that the Church "sided" with the Nazis when they denounced them just as vehemently as the allies?


the current pope was a Nazi.

Quote:

Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:
Aye. You can be a decent guy without being religious. My logic is that, if when I die I get "punished" for not discriminating gays or not going to church, then that's simply unfair and that God fella is gonna get a piece of my mind.

Pariah said:
No one in this thread ever said that religion had a monopoly on morals and ethics. My assertion is that secularity wouldn't have any moral basis in and of itself and all cultures would prolly maintain a Machiavellian policy and all citizens within would maintain strict objectivism without its past foundation.


if you think that all morals are based on religious morals then that's the same as saying that religion has a monopoly on morality.
Quote:


As for your comment on gays: Fuck off.



Ooooh. Sore spot.


Quote:


P.S. I said that I believed Earth is 12,000 years old. I didn't say anything about the universe.



what about dinosaurs? or did I dream them?

Bow ties are coool.