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Ha. You think I'm Christian? Holy Hell, have you got it wrong missy

God I've laughed so much thanks to this thread....

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what if I started talking **** about christians like yourself

Because, of course, WaveMaster is such a Christian.

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You're really stupid. Like, really really stupid.

I agree, if you don't want to be discriminated, don't discriminate. I personally don't care which is why I discriminate.

Sorry but I have to say something.

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second what if I started talking **** about christians like yourself

You're really stupid. Like, really really stupid.

By all means, wicca, go ahead and flame 'em.

First DWM we dont care what you think about us wiccans and second what if I started talking **** about christians like yourself

Maybe I should!!!!!

Just let it ****ing die.

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All of these wanna-bes annoy me...being a wiccan for 3 years and my grandma heiped me realize the more important cores of life

no offense but I can't understand what you're saying.

This is dead.

All of these wanna-bes annoy me...being a wiccan for 3 years and my grandma heiped me realize the more important cores of life

if recylcing was a religion it would be called wiccan.

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The stories didn't have dates, howeve they were pre-biblical times. And every culture of the ancient world lived near some body of water, as fresh water is needed to survive. And the cultures that have these stories say it was flooding, I.E. rain was the cause.

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The only way you can prove that there was a "Great Flood" is if all these cultures' stories began at the same time. Pre-biblical doesn't tell me anything. I highly doubt these cultures all experienced a great flood, because as Dr. Strangelove said, most cultures like to exaggerate to make their stories interesting. Floods happen all the time all over the world so it wouldn't suprise me if they decided to stretch the truth on the details a little.

Alright, I finally have enough time to fully reply to this again. I say again because I was working on it the other day when my sister deicded to close all my windows and check her email. Anyway, without further ado:

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From the aboriginal to the Irish, to the Aztecs and Africans, almost every single culture on earth with a recording of history or story telling, a story of a catastrophic flood. The Legend of Gelgamesh for example. It is way more then just Black sea or a couple of rivers in the Mid East.

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Every culture on the planet seems to have a story about a great flood because great floods happen all the time, geologically speaking. Valleys and flood plains are innundated, tsunamis occur, etc. Over time it is likely these stories were inflated. Gilgamesh is the perfect example of this. It is obvious throughout this story that it's descriptions are hyperbole. It is not a true historic acount, but a series of myths and ledgends that is based off of possible historic events. The Tirgis and Euphrates in the region often flooded.

Therefore, if we have evidence of localized, naturally occuring floods, but no evidence of a global flood, the answer becomes clear. Since these ancient stories are often extremely exagerated, combined with this evidence the flood in all likelyhood was exaggerated also. Gilgamesh, I beleive, is actually older than Genesis as we know it. It's then likely that since the Hebrews were wandering around mesopotamia, that the Genesis flood is merely an adaptation of the extremely prolific epic into Hebrew mythology.

As to your replies to Earth Goddess:

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And if you consider 7000 years recent, then okey. But there is evidence around the world of a catastrophic event that took place at about the same time responcable for the destruction of serveral civilizations. Som of which were obviously floods, I.E. the Jelly fish fossils in Austrialia.

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Jelly fish fossils in Austrialia? You're not talking about fossils on mountains and stuff like that are you? Read up on plate tectonics.

I want to hear some real evidence of a global flood. Not 2 or 3 different cities being flooded within 3000 years of eachother. This is expected.

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The fact that all of these cultures tell the story around the world, of the whole world being flooded, is a pretty major coincidence.

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No it's not. First off, it's not the same story. Secondly, as I've said before, since these floods happen often, and since humanity has been migrating around the globe for the past 50-100 thousand years, it's completely expectable that some stories based on commonly occuring events would be prolific throughout human cultures.

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As far as whether or not it was God who caused this, We both agree there is a God, correct? Well then if not God, who was in control of it?

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See, you assume that God must control everything. Is it possible these minor floods are just events that are naturally occuring phenomenon? Earth's hydrosphere is governed by the laws of physics. Now, I beleive that it's entirely possible that the laws of physics are created by God. However, I do not see a reason to believe that God is actively meddling with natural processes.

Now, you *could* say that God created these laws exactly so these events would inevitably cause the universe to produce X natural event at the right time. It's a very interesting idea. However, this fails for the flood, because, if the flood was not global it becomes just an everyday geologic event that's been going on for tens of millions of years.

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How does one prove a miracle is from God? With a written statement from God? God shows and we see, this is all the proof anyone can offer of God's working.

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See, the flaw in this argument is that we don't know when God is showing, if he even is actively showing us anything. If we're talking about the almighty, I want to be damn sure that when someone says something was caused by God, that there isn't some simple non-supernatural explaination.

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Your trying to prove God and they way he works physically. This is folly, you can't prove gravity by painting it green and saying "See here it is". There are plenty of things that are not physical that exist, not even scientist are as naive to say that everything that exist has volume.

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Everything doesn't have volume, but nearly everything in modern science is quanitfiable, and can be proved or invalidated by repeated experimentation. Everything, therefore, IS physical, it just doesn't have to involve matter. And since we're pretty sure matter can be converted to energy, that becomes a moot point.

My point remains: The only real evidence of God we will ever be sure to have is Creation itself. Study creation, and we'll learn more about it's creator, or at least it's origins. It's not about "painting it green". It's about understanding how the universe operates. Just like studying a painting or novel can tell us about who created it, studying the natural world should give us information about it's creator.

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However, I will say that any action taken on earth, God knows about, and play a part in. This includes the Trojan war.

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Why does God have to be omniescent? What reason do we have that this would be the case?

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Homer wasn't a scribe nor a historian and was no a part of the Trojan war, the authors of the bible were first hand accounts, or historical investigation.

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We don't even know who wrote many parts of the Bible. How can you say they were part of the event? How is Revelations a first hand account? How do we know that these "historical iinvestigations" are accurate, and not just misinterpreted myth, and the Gilgamesh/Great Flood correlations seem to suggest?

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Again, your wanting some kind of statement of authenticity from God. Okey, if such a thing is possible, prove God knows your name. You can't. So don't play like you actually think physical evidence can be brought up in this case.

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See, I don't believe that God has to know my name. So my beliefs aren't weakened if I can't prove that. Christianity, however, is based on a number of things that can't be proved and actually can be explained by non-supernatural circumstances.
The existance of a creator can be made probable through our current understanding of science. You just can't go making any grand sweeping claims about God and what he (or it) wants with us. This is the difference. One who looks at science can see that God becomes a mostly logical conclusion.

This is the difference between our two schools of thought. To you, God is something that revealed himself to you, or someone in the past. Someone or something had to tell you that God is there. To me, God is a rational answer. A conclusion.

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Do you not think God has some form of moral limit on his creation? If so, how is God to communicate this to us?

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I have not seen any convincing moral limits that have been handed down from the divine. If you do please tell.

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You've developed your own morals? How do you know what is or is not moral? And if you live by your own set of morals, what benefit is that to you when you die? Do you die and judge yourself?

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My morals are a product of my socialization, tradition, and what I have found, through my own observation and introspection, what works for me and still allows everyone else in society to function happily.
I don't know if there is any benefit to me when I die. I don't really expect anything. I have no concept of what the afterlife, if it exists, would be. Therefore I live as if life is all I will ever have. I don't know whether or not I will be judged afterwards. I just live through what I determine to be right.

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So then if we live to be moral we must have a set law of morality from a higher being than ourselves, to tell us what is or isn't moral. And how will we know?

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Why do we have to have a set law from above? Some kind of universal standard? Reasoned thought provides this. Humans have basic patterns of behavior because we've all evolved more or less the same way. This is why we see some generally universal values. Some things just work because of the way we think. The incest taboo, laws against murder, the concept of marriage, these things are conducive to an organized society. That is why we follow them. Not because God told us to.

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In Einstein’s time Postpartum stress was solves by locking a woman in a room for a few months. Does this mean we should brush off Einstein’s discoveries in science? Of course not. I am not talking about the Theologies concerning science, but the Theologies concerning God. Just because a Theologian is bad at math doesn't mean he is stupid about everything.

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Creation and God are inherently tied to science. Science is the study of the natural world, including humanity and human thought. God, if he has anything to do with anything, is tied to these things, miracles or not.
If a theologin doesn't have a basic understanding of how the natural world works, and of some basic facts, then he's going to be prone to making ignorant and superstitious conclusions. If you don't actually include the natural world in your theories, then you're ignoring the whole picture.

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If God himself says to you, "believe this, and you will receive good things, do not believe and you'll receive bad" and you don't believe and subsequently the latter, is this because God is unreasonable and illogical or you?

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It's not about culpability. It's about why I should believe it is God telling me this in the first place. As for all your cliff jumping and house burning, it's completely irrelevent. Reason is not following orders. Reason is understanding if those orders make sense and whether or not you should follow them. Not grasping that results in statements like this:

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Defying authority, especially God's, isn't going to end in happy times.

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Sieg Hiel Mein Furher. The creation of America defied authority. The Wright brothers defied authority. Defying authority causes conflict, but this doesn't mean it's a bad thing. If authority is flawed, oppressive, or quite simply wrong, successfuly defying them and implementing a better idea WILL end in happy times.

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First, I can call a rocket scientist wrong in a heart beat. The easiest thing in to world do to is say, "your wrong". However offering proof a rocket scientist is wrong is much harder to do if I don't understand the science. Your calling Theologians wrong because even hearing what they have to say. And your calling them wrong, who have studied these things and concluded their beliefs, without an quarter the work they've put into their findings.

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That's because their ideas make no sense to me, and the evidence they've presented is weak. And time and time again I've asked for them to explain it to me and they've come up lacking each time. You're doing the same. I ask you to provide your reasoning and you respond by asking me more questions.

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Second, one day people will say of your beliefs, "He came from a ignorant time" and what then, does that make you wrong immediately?

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If they've found better explainations for what I've been talking about, then yes it does mean that I'm in all likelyhood wrong. If you don't understand the whole picture, as the prophets sure as hell didn't, then you make ignorant statements. A child tells you a monster is in his closet because the door moved. Is it really there?

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You are just as guilty of being close-minded to not consider that God can influence men into understanding him. But on top of being close minded, your voluntarily make yourself ignorant to the reasoning of others.

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I do not make myself ignorant to the reasoning of others. I've evaluated that reasoning and found it to be lacking. If you have some better reasoning, by all means tell me. I'm not closing anything off.
God may be capable of influencing man to understanding him, but just as easily a man could be capable of influencing himself to "understand" God. The problem is the way that the man "understood" God was flawed and doesn't make sense in a lot of ways. That leads me to beleive that divine intervention wasn't involved.

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You don't even know Jesus, how can you make judgments on someone who do not even know? The disciples where there, they are way more qualified then you to say what did or did not happen.

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I know some people who've seen Elvis also. I wasn't there, they were. Does this mean they're right? The fact that they were there only tells us that they saw something. It says nothing about how qualified they were to understand whatever they saw. The point I was making was that these men were no different than anyone else from the time. The fact is there were plenty of wacky things people described. This doesn't mean what they thought happened actually did.

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True about a lifetime of study, however to not even take the time to lesson to someone else's finding after that lifetime of study, is complete ignorance.

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As I've said time and time again. I've asked for the freaking findings and I've heard nothing that has made sense. I'm not just calling somone wrong for the hell of it. I always get people dancing around the question and never get an answer.

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Your whole argument is that men cannot understand God. However, men who are created by God, are no doubt given the capacity to know that God exists, and his creator, so then, why can man not come to understand His creator, and the purpose of his own creation.

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My argument is NOT that man cannot understand God. I have no idea where you got that from. My argument is that just because someone says he understands God doesn't mean he does.

Now I'll ask you these questions again. What reasoning do YOU have that the Bible's description of God is accurate? Specifics please.

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Originally posted by EarthGoddess:

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From the aboriginal to the Irish, to the Aztecs and Africans, almost every single culture on earth with a recording of history or story telling, a story of a catastrophic flood.

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Were all of these cultures' stories of a great flood written in the same time period? How many of these cultures lived near large bodies of water (Nile, Amazon, etc.) and how many lived in desert? Did these cultures specifically speak of flooding or tsunamis? Did you know that Alaskan Natives don't have a story of a great flood? Did you know that if there was a recent great flood there would be evidence in the topsoil and the way the land is shaped?

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The stories didn't have dates, howeve they were pre-biblical times. And every culture of the ancient world lived near some body of water, as fresh water is needed to survive. And the cultures that have these stories say it was flooding, I.E. rain was the cause. And yes the Alaskians DO have a Flood story:

Kolusches Eskimos have a story in which they are warned of a great flood that laters comes and destories the world, except some people and animals that are kept alive in a great vessal.

And the Tlingit Eskimos have a story in which (a) God floods the world and destroies everything except a few People and Animals who are kept alive in a great Vessal.

And if you consider 7000 years recent, then okey. But there is evidence around the world of a catastrophic event that took place at about the same time responcable for the destruction of serveral civilizations. Som of which were obviously floods, I.E. the Jelly fish fossils in Austrialia.

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It is way more then just Black sea or a couple of rivers in the Mid East.

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Are you sure it was way more than that or do you think it could be possible that they didn't have the technology to know how far the flood water stretched? If you lived 2,000 years ago and experienced the flooding of the Black Sea and all you had was a boat, and looked all around you, you'd most likely just see water for many many miles and thus assume that the Earth was flooded.[/QUOTE]

The fact that all of these cultures tell the story around the world, of the whole world being flooded, is a pretty major coincidence.

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From the aboriginal to the Irish, to the Aztecs and Africans, almost every single culture on earth with a recording of history or story telling, a story of a catastrophic flood.

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Were all of these cultures' stories of a great flood written in the same time period? How many of these cultures lived near large bodies of water (Nile, Amazon, etc.) and how many lived in desert? Did these cultures specifically speak of flooding or tsunamis? Did you know that Alaskan Natives don't have a story of a great flood? Did you know that if there was a recent great flood there would be evidence in the topsoil and the way the land is shaped?

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It is way more then just Black sea or a couple of rivers in the Mid East.

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Are you sure it was way more than that or do you think it could be possible that they didn't have the technology to know how far the flood water stretched? If you lived 2,000 years ago and experienced the flooding of the Black Sea and all you had was a boat, and looked all around you, you'd most likely just see water for many many miles and thus assume that the Earth was flooded.

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The EVENTS have been vaugely proven as fact. Divine intervention has not. The several events that may be the basis for the great fflood story are all based upon known and fully explained natural phenomena. The flooding of the black sea, the flooding of the rivers in Mesopotamia, it's all known, normal events that, given enough time, will occur again. It's no proof of God.

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From the aboriginal to the Irish, to the Aztecs and Africans, almost every single culture on earth with a recording of history or story telling, a story of a catastrophic flood. The Legend of Gelgamesh for example. It is way more then just Black sea or a couple of rivers in the Mid East. As far as whether or not it was God who caused this, We both agree there is a God, correct? Well then if not God, who was in control of it?

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No miracles have ever been proven to be God's work, and we have absolutely zero proof, aside from a handful of 2000 year old observations. The problem with observations is that they can be biased, incomplete, ignorant, or outright false. And 2000 year old observations tend to exhibit all these traits.

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How does one prove a miracle is from God? With a written statement from God? God shows and we see, this is all the proof anyone can offer of God's working. Your trying to prove God and they way he works physically. This is folly, you can't prove gravity by painting it green and saying "See here it is". There are plenty of things that are not physical that exist, not even scientist are as naive to say that everything that exist has volume.

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Homer's The Oddessey and The Illiad are also around 3000 years old, does this make them historical documents? Did the ancient Greek gods really cause all the "miricales" and disasters that occured in those books? Those books vaugely recount some historical events that we believe actually happened. Does this mean that they are accurate? No.

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I agree with your last statement. However, I will say that any action taken on earth, God knows about, and play a part in. This includes the Trojan war. Still, I think it is easy to see when someone is simply writing an interesting story because they are a story teller by trade, and when someone is writing of actual events that take place. Homer wasn't a scribe nor a historian and was no a part of the Trojan war, the authors of the bible were first hand accounts, or historical investigation.

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Oh, the philosophies in the Bible are not what I think are fiction. Those are very much real and very much a product of human society at the time it was written. It's the belief that the Bible describes what God wants and how he says we should live our lives. There is no proof whatsoever that the Bible is divine. If there is, please by all means show me some. Therefore, if there is no proof, I don't see why I should use the book, rather than my own philosophies and morals that I have developed myself, to decide how I should live.

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Again, your wanting some kind of statement of authenticity from God. Okey, if such a thing is possible, prove God knows your name. You can't. So don't play like you actually think physical evidence can be brought up in this case.

Do you not think God has some form of moral limit on his creation? If so, how is God to communicate this to us? You've developed your own morals? How do you know what is or is not moral? And if you live by your own set of morals, what benefit is that to you when you die? Do you die and judge yourself? So then if we live to be moral we must have a set law of morality from a higher being than ourselves, to tell us what is or isn't moral. And how will we know?

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From the first and foremost of the WESTERN, CHRISTIAN Theological thinkers. First, there are whole other religions out there that have "p