RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Deep Topics Is religion good for society?

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PenWing said:
I'll be it

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the G-man said:
However, it seems to me that if it wasnt good for society on some level, it wouldn't still exist.

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Pariah said:
The founding religions of Judeoism and Christianity created society.

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I thought th More than that, it gave future secular societies more stability by actually giving us the concept of morals.

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The only reason the conclusion about religion being detrimental was formed is because people simply didn't like it.

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It was the rage directed at religion that caused the persecuation and execution of so many Christians and Jews, not religion itself.

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poor Christians. have a few inquisitions and crusades and people just don't understand you.
and the jews? wasn't it mainly Christians who have persecuted them over the last few thousand years.

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Can religion be used as a smoke-screen for people who simply have an agenda? Yes. However, the same can be said for anything and any movement--Even the most secular. Thus, trying to abollish it is not the answer.

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the G-man said:
However, it seems to me that if it wasnt good for society on some level, it wouldn't still exist.

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r3x29yz4a said:what about smoking, drinking, Mcdonalds?

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r3x29yz4a said:
I didn't know that the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and Aztecs were Jewish/Christian.
Fascinating.

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Again, I hadn't realized that all of these early societies were evil and without any morals or laws whatsoever.

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Or maybe realized that the bible might not be accurate and was used wayyyy too much to justify death and misery.

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poor Christians. have a few inquisitions and crusades and people just don't understand you.

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and the jews? wasn't it mainly Christians who have persecuted them over the last few thousand years.

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most secular groups can't convince followers of a divine afterlife.

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Pariah said:
The main problem with r3x's post is that lays a whole bunch of arguments down that assume too much. He's like the poster-child of modern stereotypes.

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Those weren't the first civilizations. Pre-flood strata has shown that civilization pre-dated those cultures. And that subscribes to the account of the Old Testament.

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They had laws, but they didn't have morals. The concept of "morals" or even basic individual rights is derived from religion.

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Through anlysis made by paleontology as well as geology, the case for the Old Testament has been constantly reinforced. It's already been proven that there was a world-wide flood and the same goes for the demolishing of Sodom and Gamorrah. The New Testament's already been proven by historians to be an accurate account.

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Tell me, where has it been used to "justify death and misery" as opposed to the majority of past secular cultures?

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R3-cool said:
and the jews? wasn't it mainly Christians who have persecuted them over the last few thousand years.

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Poopy pants-Pariah replied:
No.

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I don't see the relevence. It's the convincing that's the issue, not what they try to convince people of.

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r3x29yz4a said:

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Those weren't the first civilizations. Pre-flood strata has shown that civilization pre-dated those cultures. And that subscribes to the account of the Old Testament.

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okay, I was making a point about old civilizations. But following your flood theory then it only proves my point.
Those people weren't christians and most likely had laws and a moral structure.

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r3x29yz4a said:
actually during the middle ages Jews were better treated in Muslim cities than Christian. The Muslims allowed them to live and practice their religions as long as they didn't mess with or insult the Muslim faith.
In Christian cities the Jews were forced to convert, hide as "secret" Jews, or were exiled.

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magicjay said:

Pariah is full of shit!

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rex said:
Yes, why try to figure stuff out when you can believe in fairy tales?

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r3x29yz4a said:
okay, I was making a point about old civilizations. But following your flood theory then it only proves my point.
Those people weren't christians and most likely had laws and a moral structure.

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Laws by design are based on accepted morals in society.

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Certain events have coroborating evidence that they happened, but no proof as to cause or individuals.

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the Crusades.

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actually during the middle ages Jews were better treated in Muslim cities than Christian. The Muslims allowed them to live and practice their religions as long as they didn't mess with or insult the Muslim faith.

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In Christian cities the Jews were forced to convert, hide as "secret" Jews, or were exiled.

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Jim Jones....Reverand Moon...David Karesh...L. Ron Hubbard.

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magicjay said:
[Of course you realize that Pariah is full of shit! There may have been world wide floods, several in fact. But they happened a hell of a lot longer than 8000 years ago, the point at which Pariah claims the world began!

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And I suppose you can point me in the direction of major journals in those fields that are not funded by or affiliated with the creationist movement that will confirm the truth of that statement.

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Evidence of Sodom and Gommorah
The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been discovered southeast of the Dead Sea. The modern names are Bab edh-Dhra, thought to be Sodom, and Numeira, thought to be Gomorrah. Both places were destroyed at the same time by an enormous conflagration. The destruction debris was about three feet thick. What brought about this awful calamity? Startling discoveries in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra revealed the cause. Archaeologists found that buildings used to bury the dead were burned by a fire that started on the roof.
What would cause every structure in the cemetery to be destroyed in this way? The answer to the mystery is found in the Bible. "Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah -- from the Lord out of the heavens" (Genesis 19:24). The only conceivable explanation for this unique discovery in the annals of archaeology is that burning debris fell on the buildings from the air. But how could such a thing happen?
There is ample evidence of subterranean deposits of a petroleum-based substance called bitumen, similar to asphalt, in the region south of the Dead Sea. Such material normally contains a high percentage of sulfur. It has been postulated by geologist Frederick Clapp that pressure from an earthquake could have caused the bitumen deposits to be forced out of the earth through a fault line. As it gushed out of the earth it could have been ignited by a spark or surface fire. It would then fall to earth as a burning, fiery mass.
It was only after Clapp formulated this theory that Sodom and Gomorrah were found. It turns out that the sites are located exactly on a fault line along the eastern side of a plain south of the Dead Sea, so Clapp's theory is entirely plausible. There is some evidence for this scenario from the Bible itself. Abraham viewed the destruction from a vantage point west of the Dead Sea. The Bible records what Abraham saw: "He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace" (Genesis 19:28). Dense smoke suggests smoke from a petroleum-based fire. Smoke rising like smoke from a furnace indicates a forced draft, such as would be expected from subterranean deposits being forced out of the ground under pressure.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah became an example in the Bible of how God judges sin. "Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before Me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen" (Ezekiel 16:49-50).

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Sodom and Gommorah=”Powerful Myths”
Two geologists think they know how the infamous biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. Graham Harris and Tony Beardow argue in the Quarterly Journal of Engineering Geology that the land near the Dead Sea on which the cities may have stood literally liquefied in an earthquake, swallowing them up ca. 1900 B.C. A similar event, in which loosely packed, waterlogged soils liquefy under seismic force, destroyed an area of nearly 30,000 square miles in China in 1920. Harris and Beardow admit that the "analysis of a past earthquake event, especially one for which there is a lack of data, or even credible eyewitness accounts, is difficult," particularly "when the event is speculative and occurred in the dawn of history." But they suggest that a tidal wave caused by the earthquake might have stranded a large block of salt on shore, inspiring the tale that Lot's wife, ignoring God's command not to look back at the burning cities, was turned into a pillar of salt. Few scholars are likely to believe this hypothesis. "This is Noah's Ark stuff," says ARCHAEOLOGY Contributing Editor Neil Asher Silberman. "The real challenge for biblical archaeologists today is not to search for long-lost cities, but to understand why the ancient Israelites formulated these powerful myths."

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But then came Dr Kathleen Kenyon, who claimed that Garstang had wrongly identified these walls. She excavated from 1952 to 1956 and wrote, "We have nowhere been able to prove the survival of walls of the Late Bronze Age, that is to say, of the period of Joshua. This is at variance with Professor's Garstang's conclusions. He ascribed two of the lines of walls which encircle the summit to the Late Bronze Age, but everywhere that we examined them it was clear that they must belong to the Early Bronze Age and have been buried beneath a massive scarp belonging to the Middle Bronze Age." Digging Up jericho, p.46

The latest excavations at Jericho support this conclusion. "A 19m long north-south strip of Early Bronze Age city wall H was exposed in the excavations of the tel strata. The city wall . . . was built of brown bricks laid on two stone courses. The bottom part of the east face of the city wall was built of narrower bricks. The destruction of the upper part of the wall can be distinguished in the south section of the excavation area." ESI 15 p. 69

With these latest identifications we are in agreement. It was undoubtedly the Early Bronze walls that collapsed, but with their dating we would disagree. The Early Bronze period is usually considered to have ended about 2000 BC, but we would agree with Dr Courville that the Early Bronze period ended about 1400 BC, which was when the Israelites conquered Jericho. That would be when the wall "fell down flat".

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PCG342 said:
It's easier to blame God, Satan, astronomical circumstances, animal activity, etc. etc. etc.

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Religion maintains sanity.

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Pariah said:
As per usual, when the person speaking for the majority voice of the forum gets cornered, the posse in agreement with him congregates a mass circle-jerk of pot-shots cuz' their afraid of being proven wrong.

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And I find that rewarding. Bringing out the defensive nature in everyone means……Well….I WIN!!

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or no one likes you.....

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The first civilization may not have been Judeo/Christian, but they most assuredly retained belief in the God from those religions. However, later down the line, they stopped caring and were proven to be exactly the opposite of what you assert. Body’s that were dug up from Deluge strata, as well as pre-Deluge strata, have shown evidence of mass amounts of sexual deviance (including incestuous pedophilia), cannibalism, and brutality. They definitely didn’t have morals. Whether or not they had laws is irrelevant in light of their behavior. If their actions were those laws, then your argument that implies lawful civilization is junked. What they were doing was neither spiritually nor secularly reasonable to be considered at all logically lawful. ]/quote]
you're arguing morality based on modern standards. what about the multiple wives in the bible?
the marrying of daughters/sisters was more common and accepted then as well.
The only real time you could judge thousand year old acts to be immoral would perhaps be slavery/blood sacrifice or other acts that harmed another.
Gay guys and kissing cousins don't equate to an immoral society.

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Ever seen the movie "Vlad"? Laws are created to hold up society. They're not necessarily ground in morals. They can be, but that's not universally true. Egypt is one of the best examples here.

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Laws are set up to clarify moral standards (or at least the base laws are) and keep people in line by setting down what those moral standards are.
This way people with opposing viewpoints on something can look to the law for a tie breaker, or a man whose been wronged can go to the law for compensation (as opposed to random revenge violence).

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The only account of the flood, which we know happened, came from the Old Testament.

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That's not true. You can't say the bible happened because it says so in the Bible.
There are flood myths in several cultures. Each is really just as "provable" as the Biblical one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_flood

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The flood killed everyone except for a few people and every single species of land animal on earth. The only way they could have survived was with a really huge boat. Noe was documented as having a really huge boat. Coincidence? I think not.

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Did you watch footage from the Tsunami?
When a massive tidal wave comes in (and the bible doesn't say this is a slow flood that takes time to rise) it decimated what it hit, it didn't lift the cars and the buildings and the modern era boats and carry them safely along the sea.

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No. It wasn't. The Crusades was a retaliatory war on the part of the Europeans. Scripture wasn't used to reason the logic of a war.

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Uh, yeah it was.
The Pope told the knights that this was a holy "crusade" and that any acts committed would be forgiven upon reclaiming the holy land.

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It occurs to me that you're trying to create a standard that doesn't exist. We weren't talking about Muslims and you suddenly just bring them up in comparison to Christians.

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I think it came up as you were saying the christians were persecuted and I was making the point that they persecuted plenty of people themselves.

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Apparently you just hate Christianity. I mean, you could have simply said 'Christians did such and such', not 'Muslims weren't as bad as Christians'. Anyway, if you had any semblence of credibility left, it's gone now.

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I'm not a fan of either religion, however I find Christians to be the most offensive in terms of their beliefs and pushing it on others.
I live in downtown SF and everyday see some Christian guy with a sign condemning this or that, some christian guy passing out flyers.
I've never met an Allah's Witness.

I don't hate Christians, I don't really hate any religion or people. I think its all a waste of time to be honest.
Christians irritate me the most because they have to make sure everyone knows we're sinners in their eyes.
I just wish they'd keep to themselves and didn't try to force everyone else to conform to their view of things.

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Before I respond to that case in particular, is it the only one that you feel makes a case for "mainly" Christians being the one's to persecute Jews over the past few millenia?

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Its just one example. And look at the last few hundred years. There is a clear animosity between Christians and Jews that goes back to the time of Jesus when some Jews became Christians and some didn't.

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But how are the proposed end results of their respective movements consequential in every circumstance. They were catering to a certain crowd. They wouldn't have been able to convince everyone on the planet. A secularist movement knows to gain momentum through a secular populace just as a social predator knows to recruit lonely depressed people for his or her cult.

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But "faith" has more power for people than "logic" in most cases. Because logic dictates that if you want your life to change then you make it change, but faith is this magical thing that says if you want change believe in god and it'll all work out in Heaven.

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Actually, I believe the world began around 12,000 years ago. Not 8000; that’s just absurd.

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You're kidding, right?
What about fossils and sedimentary layers that show the earth as being millions of years old.
Lets go from a religious and observational point of view.
When have you seen god just create anything? By your belief god is nature and nature takes time. Would it really be so hard for you to just say that god took his time in making the earth? Or that the seven days in the bible is maybe an inacurate idea?

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Additionally, there wasn’t multiple floods. If that were the case, we’d find multiple flood-strata in different sedimentary layers below the Deluge layer, and we haven’t. Furthermore, please don’t try to pretend to know anything about what I’m talking about. Carbon-14 tests performed at Jericho show beyond the shadow of a doubt that the flood happened around the time of 7800-6200 BC—The date is more specific than that though.

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Again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_flood
I think you should look at mythology as a whole. The ancient world is not just a few countries in the mideast, Pariah.

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Captain Sammitch said:
I'm amazed that past misdeeds play such a big role in determining the net worth of religions worldwide. Animosity is human nature. I'd assert that some of the most successful attempts to transcend animosities have found their roots in religious faith.

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Why else would Christian organizations worldwide be among the first to send aid to the [mostly Muslim] nations devastated by the tsunami?

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Why else would my denomination send money to start a church in the middle of Baghdad?

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I think that faith is one of the most vital weapons in overcoming the baser elements of human nature, and I would suggest that those who believe otherwise are so convinced because they had unfortunate encounters with 'religious' individuals who refused to do so.

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I see religion as an unfortunate crutch that people use to cope.
A means of feeling better by A) being on the "right" side and knowing you'll be rewarded for it after death.

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Pariah said:
As per usual, everything is about me.

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theory9 said:
P.S.
No religion has a monopoly on ethics or morals.

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Pariah said:

Lemme try to sum things up with everything that both creationists and secularists alike agree upon.


1) The great flood occurred at the end of the Ice Age at about 7000 BC and that it covered a great part of the Northern Hemisphere including Europe, Africa, a great part of Asia and of North America.

2) All of the members of the human race that existed at the time of the flood were located in the area that was covered by the flood (and all of the domestic animals as well) unless those that might have taken refuge in a large ship with provisions for several months. Up to the time of the flood, the great bulk of the human race was confined within the relatively small area called the “Fertile Crescent”, which includes Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Iran, and the territory around the Caspian Sea. Furthermore, the inhabitants of this area built numerous towns and cities in which they carried on various simple industries, tilled the grounds and kept domestic animals whilst the remainder of the human race, which was in Europe, Africa, and the part of Asia west of the Himalaya Mountains did none of these things and simply sheltered in caves and lived off the flesh of wild animals.

3) No certain trace of any human inhabitant has been found anywhere in India or China or in any country east of the Himalaya Mountains before 7000 BC, which is the approximate date of the Deluge.

4) Excavations show that Mesopotamia was the first country to be occupied after the flood, that it was in Mesopotamia that the firs system of writing was invented, which was brought to Egypt, to China, and to America where it is still used by the Indians.

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Earliest Sign of Human Habitation in East Asia Found in China


Chinese and American fossil hunters say stone implements discovered in northern China are the earliest evidence of human habitation in eastern Asia.

The tools are around 1.36 million years old, which also indicates early man ventured farther north earlier than previously thought, they report in the British scientific journal Nature.

The artifacts comprise scrapers and borers found in the Nihenwan Basin, near the Sanggan River in northern China, an area of thick lake silt that has been a treasure trove of mammal fossils.

A team from Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington and California Polytechnic State University carried out a dating analysis of the soils.

Human Habitation in South America

The oldest known dates for human habitation in the Americas are from sites in South America. The Monte Verde site in southern Chile has an occupation floor that is dated at 33,000 years ago. The tools at Monte Verde are of simple stone technology, but they indicate local environmental adaptation, not simply a variation of Siberian hunting technology. The degree of adaptation is significant because it indicates successful human occupation of South American coastlines for a considerable length of time.

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magicjay poopy pants-Pariah:
My question for you is this: Are you ignorant or just a liar?

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r3x29yz4a said:

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magicjay poopy pants-Pariah:
My question for you is this: Are you ignorant or just a liar?

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That's like asking is he chocolate ice cream or a marshmellow.

Truth lies somewhere on a rocky road.

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You knob!

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r3x29yz4a said:
you're arguing morality based on modern standards. what about the multiple wives in the bible?

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the marrying of daughters/sisters was more common and accepted then as well.

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Gay guys and kissing cousins don't equate to an immoral society.

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Laws are set up to clarify moral standards (or at least the base laws are) and keep people in line by setting down what those moral standards are.

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

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There are flood myths in several cultures. Each is really just as "provable" as the Biblical one.

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Did you watch footage from the Tsunami?
When a massive tidal wave comes in (and the bible doesn't say this is a slow flood that takes time to rise) it decimated what it hit, it didn't lift the cars and the buildings and the modern era boats and carry them safely along the sea.

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Uh, yeah it was.
The Pope told the knights that this was a holy "crusade" and that any acts committed would be forgiven upon reclaiming the holy land.

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I think it came up as you were saying the christians were persecuted and I was making the point that they persecuted plenty of people themselves.

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I'm not a fan of either religion, however I find Christians to be the most offensive in terms of their beliefs and pushing it on others.
I live in downtown SF and everyday see some Christian guy with a sign condemning this or that, some christian guy passing out flyers.
I've never met an Allah's Witness.
I don't hate Christians, I don't really hate any religion or people. I think its all a waste of time to be honest.
Christians irritate me the most because they have to make sure everyone knows we're sinners in their eyes.
I just wish they'd keep to themselves and didn't try to force everyone else to conform to their view of things.

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Its just one example. And look at the last few hundred years. There is a clear animosity between Christians and Jews that goes back to the time of Jesus when some Jews became Christians and some didn't.

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But "faith" has more power for people than "logic" in most cases. Because logic dictates that if you want your life to change then you make it change, but faith is this magical thing that says if you want change believe in god and it'll all work out in Heaven.

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You're kidding, right?
What about fossils and sedimentary layers that show the earth as being millions of years old.

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Would it really be so hard for you to just say that god took his time in making the earth?

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Or that the seven days in the bible is maybe an inacurate idea?

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Again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_flood
I think you should look at mythology as a whole. The ancient world is not just a few countries in the mideast, Pariah.

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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.

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:

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theory9 said:
P.S.
No religion has a monopoly on ethics or morals.

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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.

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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.

As for your comment on gays: Fuck off.

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magicjay said:
Earliest Sign of Human Habitation in East Asia Found in China

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Do you think you could give me a link that contains more specifics? I mean, the article is four years old, I figure with its kinda implications, it'd give me more to work with. I'd do it myself, but everytime I www.fuckinggoogleit.com I keep coming across these other sites that each individually say their coverage has the oldest human habitat--They're all a bit more recent as well.

Rather strange.

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Human Habitation in South America

The oldest known dates for human habitation in the Americas are from sites in South America. The Monte Verde site in southern Chile has an occupation floor that is dated at 33,000 years ago.

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I said that the majority of each agrees that they were first in the Fertile Circle, not that they were there thousands of years ago.

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You state that that selularists and creationists are in agreement over the 'facts' you present in point 2 of your post. Apparently your secularists think the universe is only 12000 years old, too.

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Again, no. They don't. Logic would suggest they do after the flood was proven to have happened around 7000 BC, but they retain the 5 billion year hypothesis.

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

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My question for you is this: Are you ignorant or just a liar?

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Ever get tired of being insane?

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:

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Pariah said:
As per usual, everything is about me.

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r3x29yz4a said:

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Captain Sammitch said:

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Why else would my denomination send money to start a church in the middle of Baghdad?

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A mosque or a christian church? Because building a christian church in Iraq after we invaded is really insulting and only builds the notion that we're trying to take away their sovereign religious rights.

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You don't start an empty church. There's always been a minority of Christians in Iraq. This church was started as a support structure for those Christians already there - in fact, it was their idea to begin with. What happened to protecting the freedoms of minorities?

And another thing - I know a lot of you can't be expected to understand why Christians and others proselytize. But I find it odd that in so many other threads on this forum, the integrity of paid journalists is defended fiercely, while the motives of non-profit denominational organizations are always called into question.

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Pariah said:

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magicjay said:
Earliest Sign of Human Habitation in East Asia Found in China

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Do you think you could give me a link that contains more specifics? I mean, the article is four years old, I figure with its kinda implications, it'd give me more to work with. I'd do it myself, but everytime I www.fuckinggoogleit.com I keep coming across these other sites that each individually say their coverage has the oldest human habitat--They're all a bit more recent as well.
Rather strange.

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Pariah said:

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Human Habitation in South America

The oldest known dates for human habitation in the Americas are from sites in South America. The Monte Verde site in southern Chile has an occupation floor that is dated at 33,000 years ago.

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I said that the majority believes of each agrees that they were first in the Fertile Circle, not that they were there thousands of years ago.

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Pariah said:

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You state that that selularists and creationists are in agreement over the 'facts' you present in point 2 of your post. Apparently your secularists think the universe is only 12000 years old, too.

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Again, no. They don't. Logic would suggest they do after the flood was proven to have happened around 7000 BC, but they retain the 5 billion year hypothesis.

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

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Pariah said:

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Magicjay said

My question for you is this: Are you ignorant or just a liar?

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Ever get tired of being insane?

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

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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.

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

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

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

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oookay...

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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.

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"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.

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

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

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he said:
Yes I can.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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so revenge is now "cool" for catholics?

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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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?

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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?

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the current pope was a Nazi.

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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.

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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.

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As for your comment on gays: Fuck off.

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Ooooh. Sore spot.

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

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what about dinosaurs? or did I dream them?

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

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True, scientists do operate on faith sometimes. But the very core of their belief in science is that the facts and evidence create conclusions.

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Pariah said:
As for your comment on gays: Fuck off.

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