The usage of God and logic in the same sentence reminded me of something. If any of you have ever read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you'll appreciate this.

In this short passage, the Babel fish is being discussed. The Babel fish is a purely fictional creature that through an interesting coincidence allows people to understand other languages purely by feeding and excreting. So the passage goes like this:

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final clinching proof of the nonexistence of God.
"The argument goes something like this: 'I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, 'for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'
"'But,' says Man, 'the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'
"'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"'Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next pedestrian crossing."

There is a moral to this story but I have yet to find it.

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Originally posted by ilovebush:
I meant that I could give a rats butt if someone said that parts of the Bible were fictional, not that I believe there are parts.

As clpo has pointed out, this is close-mindedness. An attitude of "I believe it and nothing will change my mind" isn't just counter-productive, it's downright dangerous. What really irks me is that we live in a society in which such thinking is considered a virtue. I mean, when was the last time you heard the phrase "unshakable faith" being used in a negative way? In any case, I agree with clpo wholeheartedly: speculation is fine on certain issues because speculation is all we have, but we cannot let our speculations overpower newfound evidence simply because they were there first. In other words, faith means you don't know.

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Originally posted by parallax_position:
of coures God has the power to create dinosaurs and destroy them, of course God has the power to create everything in 7 days. God is God, He can do ANYTHING

In other words, God is beyond logic and his actions and superpowers are beyond our comprehension. That's all fine and good, but you must understand that if you adopt this attitude you must also accept that you don't know anything about God. Think about it: if the weak human mind can so easily be led to misinterpret or simply not be able to rationally understand God's actions, then none of God's alleged actions thus far can really be taken to mean anything. In fact, it renders the whole Bible meaningless, and just goes to show that God is a mysterious and incomprehensible figure looming large whom we cannot (and certainly should not, due to our extremely limited capabilities to understand Him) try to influence.

I kind of like that point of view, actually. I think if it was adopted worldwide, we might just stop killing each other to attain God's favor.

But when people say things "God's power is unquestionable," they're rarely (intentionally) advocating the above viewpoint. Far more often, they're saying it to mean "The authority of my viewpoints is unquestionable." It's usually followed up by a hypocritical explanation of how all criticisms against their religion are wrong because "people can't understand." This, of course, conveniently leaves out the obvious fact that the believers themselves can't understand what God really desires of them no matter how hard they try. The equivalent of this flawed argument is visible here in the declaration that "if we humans think that some things in the bibles are wrong, and God says it's right, then of course God would be the right one." You see, parallax, God never said it was right. We can't understand Him, remember?

But as productive as the "we can't comprehend God so let's not even try" viewpoint might be, it will never catch on. It's counter-intuitive to human nature. Humans thirst to know answers to their deepest questions, and will never stop asking them. After all, if humans were content with the idea that whatever had created them worked in ways they could never possibly hope to understand, they never would have created God.

why is everyone here questioning God's power. God's power is unquestionable. human minds can not understand Gods power. of coures God has the power to create dinosaurs and destroy them, of course God has the power to create everything in 7 days. God is God, He can do ANYTHING he could defeat any army he wanted to, no matter HOW exaggerative it sounds. as for questions on evolution, things like natural selection is probably true. But humans coming from apes and the first life forms coming from cell colonies is so false. if their was a big bang, well God did it. if their were cell colonies, well, God created the cell colonies. if we humans think that some things in the bibles are wrong, and God says it's right, then of course God would be the right one. you can't compare human's thinking with God's thinking. it just doesn't work that way cuz God is so powerful. no human here on the face of the earth would be able to understand how powerful God is

Very elaborate, and good points, bauhaus.

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yogore, I dont care about what science says about the fictional parts of the Bible. This has been discussed on another board, so I'm not going to go into it. But I could care less what a human being says whats wrong with the Bible...

fictional? So you are saying you know there are stories in the bible that did not happen?

I meant that I could give a rats butt if someone said that parts of the Bible were fictional, not that I believe there are parts.

2 Samuel

In what is surely a biblical exaggeration, we are told that "the servants of David" killed 20,000 soldiers in one day. And that "the wood [forest] devoured more people that day than the sword devoured." It must have been spooky forest to have devoured more than 20,000 soliers. There were probably lots of lions and tigers and bears. (Oh my!)18:7-8

The earth shakes, the foundations of heaven move, smoke comes out of God's nostrils, and fire out of his mouth. 22:8-16

How many soldiers did Israel have? This verse says that Judah and Israel had a total of 1,300,000 fighting men (1 Chr.21:5 says 1,570,000) in this battle. Of course, this is a ridiculously high number for a battle between two tribal armies in 1000 BCE. (The United States had about 1.37 million active duty soldiers in 2001.) 24:9


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Genesis

The Genesis 1 creation account conflicts with the order of events that are known to science. In Genesis, the earth is created before light and stars, birds and whales before reptiles and insects, and flowering plants before any animals. The true order of events was just the opposite. 1:1-2:3

God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). And how could there be "the evening and the morning" on the first day if there was no sun to mark them? 1:3-5

God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. 1:6-8

Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11

God lets "the earth bring forth" the plants, rather than creating them directly. Maybe Genesis is not so anti-evolution after all. 1:11

In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14

God makes two lights: "the greater light [the sun] to rule the day, and the lesser light [the moon] to rule the night." But the moon is not a light, but only reflects light from the sun. And why, if God made the moon to "rule the night", does it spend half of its time moving through the daytime sky? 1:16

"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16

"And God set them [the stars] in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." 1:17

In verse 11, God "let the earth bring forth" the plants. Now he has the earth "bring forth" the animals as well. So maybe the creationists have it all wrong. Maybe God created livings things through the process of evolution. 1:24

God gave humans dominion over every other living thing on earth. 1:26

God commands us to "be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over ... every living thing that moveth upon the earth." 1:28

All animals were originally herbivores. Tapeworms, vampire bats, mosquitoes, and barracudas -- all were strict vegetarians, as they were created by God. 1:30

"God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." He purposefully designed a system that ensures the suffering and death of all his creatures, parasite and host, predator and prey. 1:31

In Genesis 1 the entire creation takes 6 days, but the universe is at least 12 billion years old, with new stars constantly being formed. 1:31

After making the animals, God has Adam name them all. The naming of several million species must have kept Adam busy for a while. But animals were not created instantaneously from the ground, but evolved over millions of years. And we still don't have names for all of them. Ten thousand new species of insects are discovered and named each year. 2:18-22

God curses the serpent. From now on the serpent will crawl on his belly and eat dust. One wonders how he got around before -- by hopping on his tail, perhaps? But snakes don't eat dust, do they? 3:14

Because Adam listened to Eve, God cursed the ground and causes thorns and thistles to grow. Before this, according to the (false) Genesis story, plants had no natural defenses. The rose had no thorn, cacti were spineless, holly leaves were smooth, and the nettle had no sting. Foxgloves, oleander, and milkweeds were all perfectly safe to eat. 3:17-18

"There were giants in the earth in those days." Well, I suppose it's good to know that. But why is there no archaeological evidence for the existence of these giants? 6:4

Noah is told to make an ark that is 450 feet long. 6:14-15

Whether by twos or by sevens, Noah takes male and female representatives from each species of "every thing that creepeth upon the earth." 7:8

God opens the "windows of heaven." He does this every time it rains. 7:11

All of the animals boarded the ark "in the selfsame day." 7:13-14

The flood covered the highest mountain tops (Mount Everest?) with fifteen cubits to spare. 7:20

"The windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained." This happens whenever it stops raining. 8:2

Noah sends a dove out to see if there was any dry land. But the dove returns without finding any. Then, just seven days later, the dove goes out again and returns with an olive leaf. But how could an olive tree survive the flood? And if any seeds happened to survive, they certainly wouldn't germinate and grow leaves within a seven day period. 8:8-11

When the animals left the ark, what would they have eaten? There would have been no plants after the ground had been submerged for nearly a year. What would the carnivores have eaten? Whatever prey they ate would have gone extinct. And how did the New World primates or the Australian marsupials find there way back after the flood subsided? 8:19

Noah kills the "clean beasts" and burns their dead bodies for God. According to 7:8 this would have caused the extinction of all "clean" animals since only two of each were taken onto the ark. 8:20-21

"Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth." Although this would have been good advice for the mythical Noah, it is deadly advice for humankind as a whole. Overpopulation is one of our greatest problems, yet there is nothing in the bible to address it. 9:1

According to this verse, all animals fear humans. Although it is true that many do, it is also true that some do not. Sharks and grizzly bears, for example, are generally much less afraid of us than we are of them. 9:2

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yogore, I dont care about what science says about the fictional parts of the Bible. This has been discussed on another board, so I'm not going to go into it. But I could care less what a human being says whats wrong with the Bible...

fictional? So you are saying you know there are stories in the bible that did not happen?

Would you laugh even if they proved, without a doubt, that it happened? Sure, I'd laugh off any declaration that it happened...unless I was shown rock-hard evidence that it was true. See, what this all boils down to is that there is evidence that some, but not all, events in the Bible did no happen. But there are also some events that have proof backing them up.

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If someone proved to me that the universe was snorted out of the left nostril of a gigantic donkey, I'd give up the antiquated thought that it was created by the Big Bang and happily go about my life secure in the knowledge that has been shown (and proven) to me.

I'm sorry, but if someone told me that the universe was snorted out from a gigantic donkey's nostril, I've laugh hysterically and tell them they were crazy. Maybe I am close-minded, but when it comes to my beliefs, thats just who I am...and I guess people have to deal with that.

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But I could care less what a human being says whats wrong with the Bible...

Even if he gives you proof? See, this is where the closed-mindedness comes in. An open-minded person is willing to forsake their earlier beliefs when proven wrong, as opposed to holding on to the incorrect beliefs.

If someone proved to me that the universe was snorted out of the left nostril of a gigantic donkey, I'd give up the antiquated thought that it was created by the Big Bang and happily go about my life secure in the knowledge that has been shown (and proven) to me.

okay when I said that I believed things the Bible happened, that doesnt mean that theyre always right. Just because you know that it happened doesnt say that you think its okay (i.e. slavery, stoning, etc.).

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Science proves parts of the bible to be false.

yogore, I dont care about what science says about the fictional parts of the Bible. This has been discussed on another board, so I'm not going to go into it. But I could care less what a human being says whats wrong with the Bible...

I brought up the monkey/ape business because I wanted to clear up a major misunderstanding that many anti-evolutionists have.

And that it is okay to have slaves

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Then I imagine you also believe certain people should be stoned and that inces is OK in some cases.

Lol. But you forgot that slavery is okay.

ILB, I was curious if you believed that organisms can adapt and change. I know that before Darwin many people believed in "fixity of species" or that organisms could not change.

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And when I said that "you cant say parts of the Bible are fictional", I meant that either you believe all of it or not of it. You cant straddle the line when it comes to something like that...

Then I imagine you also believe certain people should be stoned and that inces is OK in some cases.

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And when I said that "you cant say parts of the Bible are fictional", I meant that either you believe all of it or not of it. You cant straddle the line when it comes to something like that...

You don't believe the things in leviticus, do you? Therefore, you don't believe all of it either. No one believes everything in the bible. You can "straddle the line" this isn't a black or white situation. There's grey area.

Science proves parts of the bible to be false. According to it's timeline, the earth is no older than something like 5000 years. We all knwo it is much older because of dinosours and all the prehistoric evidence.

okay, I wont say "monkeys" anymore...it sounds to me that you just want to show your knowledge (which I commend you for knowing) on monkeys and apes, but whatever - thats not the point of the board.
And when I said that "you cant say parts of the Bible are fictional", I meant that either you believe all of it or not of it. You cant straddle the line when it comes to something like that...

It's not just a term, bush. There is a major difference between apes and monkeys. Imagine trying to tell someone that dolphins are fish. You'd get laughed at. Dolphins are mammals. Yes, they have tails and swim in the water, but that doesn't make them fish. Similarly, both apes and monkeys have hair and a predisposition towards bananas, but apes are normally ground-dwelling and tail-less, while monkeys live in trees a majority of the time and have prehensile tails.

The two words are not interchangeable and I'd thank you not to use them as such.

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And you cant just say that parts of the Bible are fictional...

We don't even know that any of the Bible is true. There is physical evidence that there were creatures on this earth before man, thus I am more inclined to agree with Crazy on this point.

On a similar point, people often wonder why the Bible never mentions dinosaurs. The answer: it is a religious text, not a history or biology book. This does not mean I whole-heartedly agree with or believe in the authenticity of the Bible, merely I wanted to clear a few things up.

okay I'm finally replying to y'all...

clpo - I said we didnt come from monkeys just as an example - not as something that needed to be explained to me...I know the whole story about how some scientists think we came from apes (and excuse me for not using the correct term).

blue- we were talking about how old the earth is/the 7 days in church just a couple weeks ago. I honestly dont know how old the earth really is...I do believe that God created the earth (as well as the universe) in 7 days, but I can see how people believe that God's seven days were longer...
and what do you mean exactly by your last question? I dont really understand what you mean...

and crazychild, you make absoutely no sense. Obviously you believe in the Bible (or at least some parts, which doesnt make sense), but Adam and Eve werent the fist creatures to walk the Earth? If you dont mean animals (which yes, God created animals first), then God tells us in Genesis 2 that he created Adam and the Eve. And you cant just say that parts of the Bible are fictional...

I don't think that God actually created the earth in seven days, but I believe he did create it. The question is when? We may never know but what we do know is that after the earth was formed, Adam and Eve were definitely not the first creatures to walk the earth. All you gotta do is take a look at dinosaur fossils. They may or may not be as old as scientists say they are, but obviously they must've have come way before humans because obviously, don't ya'll think that the entire race would've been devoured the viscious, carnivorous, giant reptiles? That part of the Bible, my friends, is totally fictional.

Ilovebush, I don't want to attack/mock your beliefs, but I have a few questions for you. Please don't take them the wrong way.

1. How old do you believe the earth is?
2. Do you believe that god created the earth in 7 days?
3. Do believe that organsisms do not evolve and any adaptations are a work of god?