Post Your Tough Questions Regarding Christianity

Not really. The story of a flood which killed the whole nation except for one family doesn't actually mean that God was only working for this destroyed nation. At least it doesn't make sense to me. Christians believe that the paths of God are beyond tracing out. But the possibility to talk with God was a "built-in" feature of a human since the very first man. And the Bible tells about it. So, God could talk and inspire not only Jewish people. I see no contradiction at this part of a flood story.

As for good or evil the man is. I can't see the inner part of a man and I have no power and knowledge to evaluate if the person is good or bad. But God can do that. I am partly responsible for only myself and I see that in practice I have to confess and fight with the same wickednesses as it was during the first confessions! I feel that I cannot say that I am good. And I myself am the only human being which is known to be the way that I really can estimate.
The flood is written and described in the Bible. The people really became so bad that they couldn't continue to live. It happens sometimes even in our society, modern society which has volved with a help of completely knew moral system of christianity. The people in times of flood haven't had this... how to say... "tool".

As for a nut who used the power for a lot of dark prophecies to come true - it happened recently in the US. So why do You think it will not happen again and the power will not mean apocalyptic end? The technologies of war are getting more and more deadly and easy. Don't You find it logical that if a nut can use an automatic rifle - he would have a use of nuclear or even deadlier weapon that we don't know?

 

"The reason for the worldwide flood (a fictitious event, by the way) is not satisfactory."
Being not a native a speaker it is hard for me to understand who is not satisfied. You are not satisfied with the decision of God and you would behave differently? Senseless. God is not satisfied with his own decision and reasons? Or the result of the flood is unsat? Such a proclamation is senseless I think.

Tales of Gilgamesh is an interesting fact for the science, but it doesn't prove or deny anything. A typical mistake of those who want to deny religion with the help of science is that religion is not a subject of History, Geography, chemistry etc. Of all the science religion is the subject of theology. But this is exactly the science that the deniers have an unsat with. I don't think that if I follow first 2 commandments (which atheists don't do by default) it is a gaurantee of an ethernal life for me. I might be poorer christian in other commandments rather than any atheists. And apart from atheists I know it! So You missed about the driver to believe.

My own driver is that it makes sense to believe. At the age of 15 I (being an atheist) found a good explanation of my behaviour which belongs to the natural world that defines my living. To some extent it is more important to me than all the astronomy since the first wisard to the latest "curiousity" at Mars. I found a number of facts shown in the Bible told y witnesses. And I found a pratice of church ceremonies which does good for me and millions of my ancestors and contemporaries. My and their eveyday experiment shows just the same result. And then I myself came to a conclusion that actually belongs to Pascal. After Pascal's wager I had absolutely no reason for atheism. At least atheism couldn't provide me with any explanation, it didn't have facts on its own and every atheist had his own beliefs that was hard to find another atheist experiment with the same result. So my reason is not sense but it is a pragmatic driver. The sense starts once You have made a decision to believe. After the decision You have a long long journey in an interesting thousand years' tradition.

As for my abilities to read and comprehend - I can do that for me. But once it comes to someone else - then I cannot guide him, just because it is not my responsibility. I am really afraid that by the time when all of us meet oursid this world and God starts to evaluate the reasons for a behaviour of my opponents in the Internet, I am really afraid that they would blame me that it was me who eventually played a misleading role for them. Guys, I have my own problems to solve. Try to solve yours - yourself. I don't want to explain to a non-believer smth that a believer should comprehend. I can talk science or philosophy. But as for a theology - there are better-educated people who took the burden upon them. It's theirs and not mine.

 

Very good question. Let me try to explain it as thoroughly as I can be so as to bring some kind of acceptable understanding to this true event the great flood that was brought on by Almighty God because of a sinful world gone wrong!

First off, Noah didn't get the animals, the animals came to him. It is written in Scripture. "Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kid of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground will come to you to be kept alive." Gen 6:20 NLT

The Bible indicates that the "Pre-flood" world was much different than it is today, and likely to have been of uniform temperature everywhere (except for the poles)The drastic and extreme climatic difference we have today did not exist before the flood. In fact they are a result of the flood.
When God created the animals, He gave them the ability to adapt. God foresaw the entrance of sin, a world gone wrong. God created His creatures with an incredible ability to survive in various climates. Some tropical animals can survive in cooler climates. And some animals that now live in Polar Regions can also survive in warmer temperatures.

These diverse ecosystems did not exist prior to the flood. Today kangaroos only live in Australia. But prior to the flood, kangaroos and other animals most likely lived near Noah’s home. Prior to the flood, the earth may have been one large landmass. Australia did not exist in its present location. Our present continents are shaped as a result of re-disposition of flood sediments, and receding flood waters.
After the flood there were land bridges (because of a lower sea level) that connected many of the continents. Years later, the glaciers started to melt and the water level rose. This caused many land bridges to disappear.

The animals that were on these continents would be stuck there. Keep in mind too, that many animals were brought to the United States by explorers. They did not travel there themselves. The same may be true for animals in Australia.

For the animals that did migrate on foot, keep in mind one kangaroo would not have to hop all the way to Australia. A group could travel, dying and reproducing for many years along the way. There was probably a lot of trial and error looking for a climate that suited them, in combination with an ample source of food. It's not as if they had Australia as a goal.

So in summary this explanation is reasonable and plausible that can be readily accepted. We know this world is an ever changing world that goes through cycles. People adapted, animals adapted. People migrated, animals migrated. This event the Great Flood happened several thousands of years ago and so the status quo back then is not the status quo presently on a number of things.

 

Can you back up any of this apologist bull(*)(*)(*)(*) with evidence?

Here's a very simple question that can help you realize why your entire argument is idiotic:

Why isn't there a trail of kangaroo skeletons/fossils moving in a line from the Middle East to Australia?

 

The contradiction comes in when people try to pretend it really happened.

 

Oh dear, yet another who just has to read the bible to know more about
geology than every geologist on earth.

Weird though that even though each of them is right, as per god / bible, they each have a different account.

My fav. is the one about how god cleaned up the mess; thats why there is zero evidence now for the flood. And the extra water? Taken by a wind to Neptune
where it shines to this day as a warning beacon against incoming rogue angles!

Since some people think I make these things up, a reference is available on request.

 

1st Time I've seen a christian admit that God knew man was going to sin. But why punish them for something he knew was going to result from his creation? Asked for about the 3rd time.

If the world was basically 1 temp except at the poles as you say, there couldn't have been much glacial melting to raise sea levels needed. Speculation of course, much like your theory.

A lot of theroetical assumptions on your part again. It only seems reasonable to you. But I don't think readily accepted. The RC church doesn't even believe it was a world wide flood anymore. They did at one time.

 

Ok you say you have other sources, lets see some that include scientific .. specifically the scientific proof that a body can lay dead for three days and then re-animate.

You need to research string theory and 'M' theory, which show that something CAN be created from nothing.

This contradicts your previous answer where you state (wrongly) that something cannot come from nothing and please provide your scientific proof that god simply "exists"

Again read up on string & 'M' theory.

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Now for my questions, which I require your evidence to be in scientific form, which you have stated you have.

1. How does the bible account for the fact that all life on earth can be traced back (through a gene carried by females) to a small tribe in East Africa and by mathematical calculation on the time it would have taken to populate the world it shows without any doubt that humans have been around for at least 250,000 years, which is a little more than most Christians think.
2. Matthew 5:17-18 specifically says that Jesus does not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it and that not one thing will be changed in god's law until the end of the heavens and earth .. so there are over 600 laws in the OT (or Torah), including the following -
Deuteronomy 13:13-15
'If you hear that in one of the towns, there are men who are telling people to go and worship other gods, it is your duty to look into the matter and examine it. If it is proved and confirmed, you must put the inhabitants of that town to the sword.'
Deuteronomy 13:6-8
'If your brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife tries to secretly entice you, telling you to go and worship other gods, gods of people living near you, or far from you, or anywhere on earth, do not listen to him. You must kill them. Show them no pity. And your hand must strike the first blow.'
Deuteronomy 22:28
'If a man happens to meet a virgin woman who is not engaged to be married and he seizes her and rapes her but is caught in the act the rapist must pay the girl's father fifty silver shekels. She must marry the rapist, because he has violated her. And so long as he lives, he may not divorce her.'

How does your religion accepts these things, that include systematic slaughter, the killing of ones family and rape?

3. Explain how all human life came to be when there was only Adam & Eve, does god agree with incest and if so why is the human race not genetically weak due to in-breeding.

4. What skin colour were Adam, Eve, Mosses, & Jesus

Those shouold be easy to answer, then we can move on to the more complex questions

 

I really don't want to get into this thread again but for what it's worth, that proverb is better understood from the KJV..

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge"

This idea isn't a contradiction of that John verse. (FYI) I'm not sure which Bible he is using but I always remembered it the way it is written in the KJV.

 

That's a mistakes of believers rather than atheists. There is no point pretending. They must just believe. As for atheists who tell that they care of common sense... well. If one is an atheist than the whole Bible is nothing more than a collection of fairy tales to him! So why does he spend so much energy in trying to convince himself that this doesn't exist? Do we spend as much time to convince ourselves that there are no dwarves and elves? Of course, religion should be present in schools. But the place of religion should never come across biology and geography! It's not because religion is false but it's because it is just not its place.

 

You have to rememeber that You are dealing with an allmighty Power that can stop a moment freezing the light of the Sun in the open space with a possibility to 'wind back' the just collapsed star into a solid one. And such a trick can be performed as easy as click of mousebutton is easy for You. And You also deal with people who must believe into the allmighty God. Now You have only an agreement between dozens of people calling themselves 'scientists', besides half of the ideas of these very dozens was already proved by another scientists to be false, wrong or at least incomplete. So what are You hoping for? The depth of scorn of the most wildest atheist towards religion is probably 10 times as shallow comparing to a condolences of the believers towards atheists.

 

"Forcing oneself to believe the absurd until its internalized..."
Zero violence. It is called trust. Some people here believe that russians are barbarians. I will not be surprised if someone thinks that we live surrounded by bears and drink vodka since childhood. It is an absurd of course, but I know for sure that there was no any NATO officers who forced with his machine-gun these people to believe an absurd stories.
To this or that extent our knowledge of the world is limited at least by our senses. Which means that we will never hear the sounds that a dog can. It is our limitation number one.
But the most limitation is trust. A marxist president might promise so much good changes, but theey are worth nothing if noone believes these promises. At the same time the other President may promise twice less and still deceive his voters. Your choice is not to believe the people who made the Bible and at the same time You do believe in the knowledge which comes from scientists. I doubt that You yourself have been at the dead sea learning the geological structure. I would rather think that You just believe the source which sounded better to You. To me the Bible is an evidence. Like any other else at least. And if it is written that the flood was I don't see any reason to hesitate in it. Bible is a written evidence. It can be misinterpreted and misunderstood. But it is an evidence. If we don't consider such sources as Bible to be an evidence the science would lose almost all the history, half of philosophy and literature study will shoot itself into the head.

"The bible is a compendium of folk wisdom, poetry, legends, good advice, poor advice, reasonably accurate historical accounts, geneology, myth, and some fairy tales".
It extends my initial sentence a bit but doesn't change any sense. The Bible is not an evidence or a source of information to the atheists, so why then they consider Bible at all?

"I spend zero time on that. Never have."
Then the logics tells me that You either are not true (because You have the knowledge of Bible no matter how poor it is and have the knowledge of some evidences that prove the Bible facts to be false, which requires knowledge and time to get it)
Or it means that You have extraprominent capabilities of speaking on some issues that You have a zero information but to guess rightly.
Any faults with such logics?

"Specific things that fundamentalist Christians believe are most clearly false.
The "flood'is a prominent example."
Look we have a written evidence that it was and we have the opinion of many historical individuals who took their origin from one of the three sons of Noah. Of course they all can be mistakening, but if we had a trial in the court than I have millions of witnesses and a written proof to show to the Judge. And what do You have?

"To them, its a make or break thing. IF the flood were false,then their whole religion is false, is that not so?"
Don't forget about misinterpreting and misunderstanding. Unless these cases You are right. Denying single fact ruins everything.

"So they are going to be psychologically incapable of accepting the fact that it never happened. And by extension, they cant accept that any of the data is real, therefore the science behind the data is profoundly flawed."
Bible is more than a science. It is a religion. It answers different questions. Don't we mix 2 different things: religion and science? I would say that trying to calculate the area of God (length of God times His width) is as stupid as a try to find any commandments in the Newton's laws.

"all scientists but the few creationists among them
are duped pawns of satan, involved in total self deception and an attempt to deceive all others."
Oh no. I am not as critical about scientists. They are nice guys. Especially once they tell about the things they really know.

"This all adds up to a very dangerous cultural weakness in the
USA, demanding and celebrating a completely irrational regressive antiintellectualism."
I heard of it, but cannot evaluate really, because I never experienced that. I myself don't consider creationism to be a science. From my viewpoint it shouldn't be taught at regular schools.

 

So which version of the truth is better?

...

Roll' on snare.

 

They all translate the word to beginning with very few exceptions.

 

Why did God choose Noah and his family as the only surviviors of the flood? Human survivors?

 

Where is eternal life?
Where is eternal death?

 

That's an invalid question because it is incoherent, inconsistent, self-contradictory, meaningless. The question is in the same category as asking me the question, "what does the color blue smell like?"

It simply asks a meaningless question that contradicts itself in many ways. Essentially, you are asking me, “Is there any way that the God who can make all things can make a rock so big that the God who can lift all things cannot lift it?”

Worded this way, the inconsistency and meaningless nature of the question is revealed. The question itself has no truth value in order to be evaluated as either true or false. It proposes impossible conditions that can never be met.

In summary, it proves nothing about any deficiency in God, God is omnipotent (having unlimited power or authority, all powerful), omniscient (having infinite knowledge, knowing all things), omnipresent (present at all places and the same time).

 

What are you talking about?...lol I'm doing just fine answering questions coming out of Pandora's box...lol

So far I know I'm doing a great job!... no question has befuddled me!...thank you very much!..hehehe!

 

What are you talking about? I just exposed an invalid question coming from you and a few from others earlier...hehehe

It's impossible to poke holes anywhere when it comes to the Christian faith. Afterall we have our Holy Bibles and our Holy Bibles are the Word of God and so it's the truth because God doesn't lie!!

 

The Bible is a collection of morality tales that were never intended to be read as science or history..

Children of course, love them but they are intended to be read by adults on another level.