Refuting the Bible: In the beginning ...

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Oh, by the way, Wendy...

You need to brush up on your knowledge of the English language.

Likeness and image would not need to be plural just because the plurals "Us" ... Read More 

Oh, by the way, Wendy...

You need to brush up on your knowledge of the English language.

Likeness and image would not need to be plural just because the plurals "Us" and "Our" are used. They're singular because the beings are all similar in appearance, which should be clear to anyone. Nice try though.

 

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To steve,

It's clear that the link you provided is to an old archived article. I recently read, on a catholic news site, an article about the Vatican's astronomy division. ... Read More 

To steve,

It's clear that the link you provided is to an old archived article. I recently read, on a catholic news site, an article about the Vatican's astronomy division. Discussed in the article was how the creation story has been dismissed by the church because it's very paganistic and portrays god as nothing more than a nature god. Which, of course, is a very pagan ideal. I'll post the link when I find the article again.

As for McLaughlin, Satan doesn't exist. You're not getting it. The fact of the matter is, that without even very deep inspection the bible is full of contradictions. My next letter will be finished soon, Mike and the rest of you are going to have a hard time countering it very well either.

 

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Danny wow| you can pick what you want out of the bible , but even satan uses scripture to his advantage, thats exactly what you and others do all the time. you really ... Read More 

Danny wow| you can pick what you want out of the bible , but even satan uses scripture to his advantage, thats exactly what you and others do all the time. you really do not understand scripture at all, but i will say at least your reading it - keep on seeking. eventually the tide will change- just keep on reading . You will find what your looking for. ( forever prayers for you ,your life, and your understanding)

 

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I agree to give Danny a rest, but only because he continually demonstrates classic symptoms of bias thus further debate with him is fruitless. If he reads the books Mary ... Read More 

I agree to give Danny a rest, but only because he continually demonstrates classic symptoms of bias thus further debate with him is fruitless. If he reads the books Mary suggests, he'll do so the same way he read the bible three times, not with the open mind of one seeking truth (in other words: all theories are possible) but for the sole purpose of disproving something. Instead of taking Mary's suggestion, Danny is getting ready to pounce on Pastor Clement's response with more "explanations" that he can only see one side of. He should start by discussing Elohim, as the Pastor suggests. Beautifully put, sir.

I'm sure he'll say I'm biased as well, and today I probably am. But I was not always a true believer, and like him when I was younger I was skeptical about religion. I did the same research he claims to have done, but with an open mind, and came to a very different conclusion.

Danny has not proven to be worthy of further debate as his evidence at times is quite misleading:

"As I've said before, even your religion's Grand-daddy, the Catholic Church, dismisses the creation story as nothing more than ignorant myth."

In fact the Catholic Church holds that all things, spiritual and material, were created by God from nothing. See the link if you want all the details.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Adam_Eve_and_Evolution.asp

Danny also claims: "Even the papacy recognizes that evolution is the only logical explanation for how life developed on planet earth."

Neither Pius XII, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI (all modern popes) ever endorsed evolution. John Paul and Benedict didn't exclude it either, stating it could be possible with divine intervention.

Pretty open-minded for the "most intolerant religions (Christianity) in the history of all on mankind's great civilization. Christians make every attempt to block people's rights, as well as take as many steps as possible to hinder scientific progress."

John Paul II said it best: "The Church is not afraid of scientific criticism. She distrusts only preconceived opinions that claim to be based on science, but which in reality surreptitiously cause science to depart from its domain."

Hmmmm...sounds like someone on this blog.

 

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Mark, I suggest you re-read the bible. Lucifer is a far more decent person than your god is. Satan kills a mere 10 people, and only because god made a bet with him that Job ... Read More 

Mark, I suggest you re-read the bible. Lucifer is a far more decent person than your god is. Satan kills a mere 10 people, and only because god made a bet with him that Job would stay faithful no matter what, where as god killed over 2 million for pettier reasons than a bet. God, is in fact, comparable to Adolf Hitler in his actions.

You're right about truth, it's not relative. Truth is truth whether or not one chooses to believe it, and the bible is simply not truth.

Without even reading those books I can make a guess that they're about people's near-death experiences where they went to either heaven or hell. All of these cases cane be scientifically explained. I suggest you look into what happens to the brain when someone dies and is revived.

Meanwhile, since people are suggesting books yet again, I'll suggest a few things myself.

The Universe in a Nutshell by Steven Hawkings, The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins, Anything by Carl Sagan...and that's all I can think of in the way of literature.

I suggest you all also watch Zeitgeist at www.zeitgeistmovie.com, as well as Penn & Teller's BS episodes about Creation, The Bible, and Death/Near death experiences.

 

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Danny, I strongly challenge you to read all the books you can get your hands on by Ravi Zacharias. Most of his books are for "thinking" people. Then, I challenge ... Read More 

Danny, I strongly challenge you to read all the books you can get your hands on by Ravi Zacharias. Most of his books are for "thinking" people. Then, I challenge you to read a couple of other books by some rather unknowns, 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Weiss and A Divine Revelation of Hell by Mary K. Baxter and 90 Minutes in Heaven, Don Piper's story. These are easy reads. If you can keep your mind open to finding the truth, while reading these books, (if you dare to read them)I will be praying for you to find the truth as I hope all involved in this blog will do. Truth is NOT relative, Danny. Truth is true whether one believes it or not and lies are lies and will always be lies and Satan is the father of all lies. He goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. He is the deceiver of many nations. (I'm sure you've read all this in the Bible) Of course, one must WANT to find the truth before one WILL find the truth. Happy truth seeking!
In the mean time, I hope all will give Danny a rest as he has a lot of reading to do. If he dares....

 

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That's the end of the first creation story. This is where things get to be in the opposite order of what happened up until this point. The only thing that seems to match ... Read More 

That's the end of the first creation story. This is where things get to be in the opposite order of what happened up until this point. The only thing that seems to match up is that at first the plants seem to exist, but then only a few verses later god has to plant them in a garden.

2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
2:6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
2:10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
2:11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
2:12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
2:13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
2:14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.
2:15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
2:18 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
2:23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

2:21-23 are in direct conflict with 1:26-28, for starters.

Everything from verse 2:7-2:20 is in direct conflict with 1:1-25, as things here occur in the direct opposite order. In chapter two it doesn't say the creation of just Adam and some of the animals, it says the creation of Man, who he named Adam, and ove every foul of the air of its kind, and every beast of the earth and its kind, and every creature of the sea and of it's kind. Which means every animal. And they're created int eh opposite order of what's contained in Chapter 1.

Good luck getting around that.

Here's some science for you.

In Genesis 1, the entire creation takes 6 days, but the universe is about 13.7 billion years old, with new stars constantly being formed.

Earth is pretty young by those standards, being only 4.54 billion years old. This age has been determined by radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples.

The creation of the earth, and the suggestion that it's the center of the universe, which, due to the bible and the church being a political power, was the widely accepted idea for hundreds of years, with the sun and everything else revolving around the earth, and the existence of other planets, solar systems, galaxies, etc. not even known. Because they weren't in the bible. This alone is proof that the creation story is a myth written by men, in an age of limited astronomical knowledge, well before there even was the scientific study of Astronomy.

They also thought the world was flat and that there were sea monsters and that ships could sail off the edge.

As I've said before, even your religion's Grand-daddy, the Catholic Church, dismisses the creation story as nothing more than ignorant myth.

Even the papacy recognizes that evolution is the only logical explanation for how life developed on planet earth. Everything develops over time from simpler things. Nothing forms immediately as a complex form in nature.

 

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I gave proof. The order of events in chapter two is the opposite of the order of the creation story in Gen. 1:1-2:6.

I suppose I have to post the verses so that you can ... Read More 

I gave proof. The order of events in chapter two is the opposite of the order of the creation story in Gen. 1:1-2:6.

I suppose I have to post the verses so that you can see it for yourself?

Well, before I do that, in response to Wendy, in the direct-to-English translation of the Torah(Genesis in the bible), it says "And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night, and it was evening and it was morning, one day." Ber. 1:5. To further prove my point, here is verse 8. "And God called the expanse Heaven, and it was evening, and it was morning, a second day."

As for my proof of the conflicting creation story, which are obvious to anyone not indoctrinated to take this myth as fact, I shall know post the conflicting verses.

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.
1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
1:21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.
1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2:2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
2:3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.
2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

 

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Danny has feel to show that chapter two is more than God dealing with man on the sixth day in the Garden that God planted on the sixth day after he finished His six days ... Read More 

Danny has feel to show that chapter two is more than God dealing with man on the sixth day in the Garden that God planted on the sixth day after he finished His six days of Creation. The most you will see if you look at his clam is just that a Claim not based on fact. He was asked to show how he know this is more than God Dealing with man in the garden. And He has failed to provide it. He has told use he read it 3 time. Nevertheless, reading it three time dose not show proof. I have read it over 30 time.

Danny show you proof. Stating something repeatedly is not proof.

 

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First of all, the Scripture in Gen. 2 to which you refer is simply an elaboration of day 6 of Creation. Chapter 1 is similar to the introduction or preface of a book. It ... Read More 

First of all, the Scripture in Gen. 2 to which you refer is simply an elaboration of day 6 of Creation. Chapter 1 is similar to the introduction or preface of a book. It gives the Creation story in brief. The verses in Ch. 2 give more detail of the sixth day when God made man and, also, some of the animals. Incidentally, if you want to dispute the literal day, you should attempt to discern the original meaning in the original Hebrew text. The Hebrew word used for "day" means (& meant) a literal day. Also, it says in Gen. 1:5 "So the evening and the morning were the first day."

Secondly, to your argument about Gen. 1:26, perhaps you should take your own advice about a better grasp of the English language. "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;" If this verse referred to more than one deity, then 'image' & 'likeness' would be plural, not singular. Be sure to read the book of John in your third journey through the Bible. John 1:1-3 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." John 1:14 "And the Word was made flesh [the Son part of the Trinity -- Jesus], and dwelt among us . . ." The Trinity can be likened to an apple. An apple consists of the peel, the flesh, and the seeds. There are three parts to an apple, but they are all still just one apple.

Finally, I cannot post this without commenting on your statements regarding grammar, hypocrisy, and education. I find it extremely interesting that someone who is so vehemently opposed to ones he labels "religious nuts", "hypocrites", & "intolerant" can, in fact, be labeled by all those descriptions himself. You are, my friend, a religious zealot (or "nut", to use your word). You are religious in your atheistic beliefs, and quite zealous in your defense of them. You are a hypocrite in that you criticize others of being close-minded and intolerant when your postings on this blog clearly display your own intolerance and close-mindedness. Lastly, perhaps our friend John does not speak fluent English, and thus the reason for his syntax and grammar. That does not mean he's uneducated or unintelligent. A free-thinking, tolerant person such as yourself should welcome the opinions of all who enter here, regardless of their fluency in your native tongue. Incidentally, I could point out several errors in your own grammar, if I so chose. However, just because I made A's on every paper I ever wrote in college (& I wrote DOZENS) does not mean I'll criticize your writings. Kudos to John for not responding to your attack on his intelligence.