Hell Hunter - the Church got plenty attention during the French Revolution.

Draygone - That's cool. You're still a neat person to me anyways.

I mean now its getting more attention. Just so many things happening now a days. Either way everyone voted for him to read it except me I voted the last one just for kicks.

Heh. That last option made me chuckle, and the fact that someone (who turned out to be you) selected it.

I was not aware I was hurling charges. I really don't think I was charging anyone with anything. I was just stating my opinion that the whole thing seems kind of hokey. I'm sorry if I offended you. It's just that I take most of the Old Testament along the same lines as Roman, Greek, Norse, or Egyptian mythology. Meaning, not real. A way to explain the unexplainable. That's all. Maybe I will PM you. We'll see.

(So are the Athiests... and the Iraqis, and people in Africa, and people probably some people you know. In other words, who isn't?)

(Don't actually answer that.)

Taizon: So technically your vote could have also meant for him to read it.. since that would indeed stop wasting our time. O.O its a sign!!

Just read it NLY.

^ You answered your own question above Sumisem - it's no big mystery. ^.^

I could care less if he reads it, thats not going to change his mind whether god exist or not.

At least it'd still be an interesting read. Assuming it's a version that could be understood. (King Jame's Version will always be lost on me.)

I like option 5 a lot.

[quote]Man dressed as the devil disrupts ‘Passion’ movie
By Bill Dinkel, THG News
Moviegoers at Country Cinemas in Evansville attending a showing of “Passion of the Christâ€

I'll never watch that movie or even attempt to see it.

Instead of reading the short novel you guys got going here to see if you have actualy mentioned this, here is the skinny on the flood.

According to on rather beleive able story, "the flood" was actualy a story that was handed down from like the dawn of man (seriously, for this to be belived the event had to have taken place between 10,000-and 8,000 B.C. which is around when they say modern humans were just starting to make it as a species) that told of the world getting covered in water. In fact you can find flood myths in almost every old world culture. This most likely goes back to the last ice age when a glacier was blocking the Straits of the Dardenelles. As the climate warmed the ice became weaker and weaker untill it crumbled compleatly. what happened next was that in the space of probably a few days, to at the very least HOURS, the Medeterainian Sea filled the basin that we now call the BLACK Sea. One could immagine that any survivers would tell of how "[thier] whole world was flooded suddenly." this to the feble minded Cro magnon would seem to be the act of some angry god, or spirit, but infact this scnario catualy has a corralary in the new world as well. there are some cientists that beleive that there used to be a HUGE sea that covered much of Mantoba, Saskatawan, Minnesoda,Wisconson, Ontario, and perhaps even some of the Dekotas that had a glacial ice dam holding back the melt water. The only thing with this particular "Glacial sea" was that the dam kept ON breaking, realeasing billions of gallons of watter in one go then freazing up again and only breaking when the water preasure was too great.

This just goes to prove that my thoughts on the contents of the bible are probably correct. Namley, that it's a smattering of fables, popular oral folklore, and a lot of apocraphal history (if you don't know what "apocraphal" means, just remember that you can't spell "apocraphal" without "crap"). Basicaly, in short, that it's less a true account of what realy happend, but rather an account of what MAY have happend, and only according to a select few preists, scribes, and the occasional king or emperor.

Realy, if you take the bible at face value, one can see this clearly. Does this mean that the stories held within are any less important? Of course not. However the modern reader must keep in mind that the writers (which you have to detach from the notion of God as the author) did their writing over 4,000 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. So then must the interpretations of the document as a whole. Indeed, it may even be nessicary to read some passages purely for their literary merit instead of disecting it for some "deeper meaning," or obscure lesson as that meaning or lesson is no longer realavant. One must look back and try to understand why that lesson was input in the first place, and once done you can see how the clerics concerns and superstitions about their world fintered into the text. It is then up to you, the reader, to decide if the concerns are still valid, and if not, then simply ignore them.

All this is not to say that you must disreguard it all, because ture or not, Many of the stories do teach wonderful life lessons. Much about being a thrifty, courious, carring, and in short, how to be a better person are contained within it's pages. I would say for me the bible represents not the utter truth of all, but more the ultimate selfhelp book.

As for what you should do with it, ask yourself this; "Do I have any previoulsy four legged couches or chairs in my house that while other wise still good, are just missing that extra leg?"
I think you'll know what to do next.

I enjoy a good exchange.

As soon as you detach "God" as the author, you immediately loose a basis for morality, ethics, knowledge, relation and coorelation.

As soon as you say that "God" had nothing to do with any part of the Bible, then you run into exactly what Jean Paul Sartre explains as "the absence of true love because there is no true love", and "every man is like a God, and every other person is an intrusion to that 'God'". -- when You take God out of the Bible, you take everything with it, because if the infinite, absolute did not make the moral laws, then you have a finite, non-absolute man telling another finite, non-absolute man a little story about morals - so ultimately, there is no morals without God because their are no ultimate, absolute standards, and everyone's right to do what they believe is right in their own eyes - therefore, kill everyone because there's nothing saying it's wrong.

To say that the Bible is the "ultimate self-help" book and not "truth" is to make this claim - the Bible ultimately says nothing, because without the infinite, absolute giving a direction standard on morality, ethics, knowledge, relation and coorelation, you have a no metaphysical presuppositions necessary in order to declare anything as "right", "wrong", "true" or "false."

The amazing thing is that truth exists, even confirmed in an Unbeliever, despite the fact that people will turn away from it.

(One of the most humorous points of this is when an Atheist declares "there is no truth" while assuming that the very statement is, in fact true, thus falling to the statement's own standards because on could simply ask "is that a true statement?")

Historically, it was not necessarily made to look like something "MAY" have happened, but something "DID" happen - the events of the Bible were not to be a question that points to the unknown, but is an intelligibile relation of something in an active relation to the known (i.e. "something did happen, and this is what happened") - numerous cultures have reported about issues regarding the Israelites, both attatched and unattatched -- in fact, one of the Earliest recordings of living persons comes from Egypt, and translated means "Ham", "Shem" and "Japheth", the three sons of Noah mentioned waaaaay over here in the Israelites as being the three sons of Noah after the entire human population had been destroyed.

Numerous cultures has varified the historical events recorded in the Bible as being true - in fact, it's like I said, if you are really ambitious about studying this section of history, like I said, I have an excellent website about Archaeology and the Bible - how Archaeologists have found so many things which are recorded in the Bible.

What seems so amazing is that, giving even the earliest manuscripts dating back to the Dead Sea scrolls and earlier, is that there's 99.9% accuracy between all those manuscripts and the translations we hold today - there were no changes or ammendments made to the scriptures as if there had been a change - everything is the same as the latest it was written.

Again, we have evolution in which people assume that man formed out of a sea sponge, that the non-mind actualized the mind, and that the impersonal actualized the impersonal - while I've written and spoken numerous lectures about this, a non-mind cannot actualize itself any more into a mind any more than a pile of steel can actualize itself into a skyscraper. (And the problem with the theory of Evolution coinciding with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.)

The flood was presummed to occur at about 5000 BC, as opposed to the creation of the Universe 15 billion years ago, and the Earth 4.5 billion years ago with man coming onto the scene at around 60,000 BC or less, the Ice Age preceeding that by many years, much earlier than when man arrives on the scene.

To speculate that the "Cro-Magnon" man (who didn't even exist) would "assume" it was a God is to assume that there was actually a Cro-Magnon man that actually assumed such a thing -- basically it's a baseless questions which assumes an unknown, speculative belief as opposed to historical cultures (apparently everyone thinks that the earlier line of humans knew nothing, despite the fact that Egypt, at the time they believed in the Son God Ra, created Geomotry among other examples).

Again, there's so much more I could talk about here because I've written numerous lectures on Creation, Theism, and Philosophical Metaphysics. Feel free to PM me to talk more on this because I simply don't have the time to pop in here every now and then and check out this topic. Thanks.

(P.S. Not just Staffy either, but anyone else who's interested can PM me.)

Based on what I've read out of the Bible, it actually seems like Adam was created only 7000 years ago. I forget the exact time specified, but Noah was born within 500 years of Adam's death. Another (I think) 400-500 years passed before the Great Flood, making the Great Flood occur closer to 6000 years ago than 5000.

Also, I am led to believe that the Great Flood actually occurred because of underwater rivers bursting above ground, rather than a median breaking or it actually raining for 40 days straight. Before then, there wasn't really much rain at all, if any, as most of the plants lived off of springs created by the underground rivers.

Also, here's a very interesting (if a little farfetched) article relating dinosaurs and the Great Flood I found some time ago.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/ednks004.html
(Start off with "Where Did Most Dinosaur Fossils Come From" after the first page and continue with all the "Next"s.)

@Staff - so you answered number 4 too?? (except i know you didn't because there is only 1 vote on it... ;_;)

@NWalterstorf - so not reading all that. >.<

I think he chose 8 like me. I only chose 8 because its just his decision, not mine.

hey, it put a wink face at the end of my statment ...grawr.

speaking of it being NLY's decision - when is he coming back to tell us his decision? not that anyone can really answer this but i do wonder.

@ Draygone

A lot of young Earth Creationists theorize that Adam was created about 7000 BC; of course, a lot of Day-Age Christian theorists are on the rise who believe in the 15 Billion year old Universe (4.5 Billion year old Earth) and 1,000,000 to 60,000 BC year old man. The Young Earth Creationists are out there, but are getting smaller - a lot of Day-Age Theologeans and Apologists are on the rise - among some of the latest would be Norman Geisler, Frank Turek, possibly Wayne Gruddem, and myself (as soon as I get published... if I get published... as soon as I finish my book... >_____> ).

But yeah, the underwater spring theory is a good possibility - it's just another way in which God is in control of the Earth.

I've checked out the Christian Answers website and it's pretty good on a lot of things. Sometime I'll PM you the Bible and Archaeology website, you may like it.

@Sumisem

I'm sticking with NLY's "or is it possibly another way for NLY to open a poll?" statement. oh, wait... ;_

Personally, I think that scientists are a little off with their bone studying. What is it called? Carbon dating? How do they know that a bone is 20,000 years old but not more like 2,000 years old? Have they gone back in time and seen the person the bone belonged to?

@NWalterstorf

You sound like you have a conflict with in your own argument. First off, God is a mater of faith. You don't try to prove the existence of God. To prove God (or any deity for that matter) exists makes him FACT not faith. Since God is the product of those that beleive in him, if every one was to suddenly know that he exists, then he would cease to.

So if you love god and would like him to continue to be around QUIT IMPLYING THAT HE EXISTS.

This is called the BABBLEFISH ARGUMENT.

What I was implying was that you should accept that God is merely a character in the narative of the story. It is about him, much in the same way Starwars is about Anakin Skywalker.