God doesn't exist - Change my mind

Erfisflat

"Now I'm really confused. After thinking about the implications of the flat earth idea, I now am wondering where the sun plays into this. When we look into sunsets we see that they vanish into the (horizon), such as this:



How would this be explained through flat earth theory? I'm not sure what to believe now."

This is a very good point, and at first glance it would seem that the everyday observation that the sun appears to go down over the horizon is evidence that favors the globe earth model, until we account for atmospheric refraction.

First, to be sure that the water here is still as flat as it seems, we can make another observation.


This reflection is only possible on a flat surface. This is demonstrable with experimentation. Take a piece of reflective material,  like sheet metal flashing and flatten it out while holding it close to your eye,  aiming at any light source. You'll notice the reflection is elongated and in a straight line. Similar to headlights on a flat and straight road:


If you start bending this material,  you"ll see the reflection all but vanishes. This is because a specular highlight is formed on a reflective convex surface,  and the reflection wouldn't reach around the curve to the observer.


Now that we can see beyond doubt what shape the water is, the question can be asked: "How can a sunset happen on a flat earth?" In the flat earth model, the sun goes around overhead in a circle, at approximately the same altitude, so theoretically, it would be impossible to go below the earth. This is the beauty of intelligent design. Now we consider and test refraction. We know from experimentation that water vapor in the air will cause a displacement, but it also causes a magnification. Take a container of water, and place it near the observer, and place an object behind it. Play around with the setup and you will see, with your own eyes, the object appear to set below a flat counter. Here is a demonstration you can try at home.



This guy goes a bit further and finds a humid warehouse to do the experiment and effectively causes a sunset without liquid water and some distance.



"Traditionally evolution does stem from the big bang theory but the idea behind natural selection can still exist without the big bang." 

As far as adaptation, where a species of animal starts developing longer necks to reach higher food,  that is plausible. As far as a dog giving birth to a cat,  or speciation, there is no evidence for it.


"The formation of life remains a mystery, and I think that scientist's need for closure has gotten the best of them, so I'm not sure what the creation story is. As for heaven, I have never seen anything in the sky that could look like heaven. Is heaven what most consider stars in the sky?"

Not exactly, but let's refer to heaven, in this context, as the firmament. See my post in the first page of this debate:

https://www.debateisland.com/discussion/1730/is-space-fake/p1

Erfisflat

"Now I'm really confused. After thinking about the implications of the flat earth idea, I now am wondering where the sun plays into this. When we look into sunsets we see that they vanish into the (horizon), such as this:



How would this be explained through flat earth theory? I'm not sure what to believe now."

This is a very good point, and at first glance it would seem that the everyday observation that the sun appears to go down over the horizon is evidence that favors the globe earth model, until we account for atmospheric refraction.

First, to be sure that the water here is still as flat as it seems, we can make another observation.


This reflection is only possible on a flat surface. This is demonstrable with experimentation. Take a piece of reflective material,  like sheet metal flashing and flatten it out while holding it close to your eye,  aiming at any light source. You'll notice the reflection is elongated and in a straight line. Similar to headlights on a flat and straight road:


If you start bending this material,  you"ll see the reflection all but vanishes. This is because a specular highlight is formed on a reflective convex surface,  and the reflection wouldn't reach around the curve to the observer.


Now that we can see beyond doubt what shape the water is, the question can be asked: "How can a sunset happen on a flat earth?" In the flat earth model, the sun goes around overhead in a circle, at approximately the same altitude, so theoretically, it would be impossible to go below the earth. This is the beauty of intelligent design. Now we consider and test refraction. We know from experimentation that water vapor in the air will cause a displacement, but it also causes a magnification. Take a container of water, and place it near the observer, and place an object behind it. Play around with the setup and you will see, with your own eyes, the object appear to set below a flat counter. Here is a demonstration you can try at home.



This guy goes a bit further and finds a humid warehouse to do the experiment and effectively causes a sunset without liquid water and some distance.



"Traditionally evolution does stem from the big bang theory but the idea behind natural selection can still exist without the big bang." 

As far as adaptation, where a species of animal starts developing longer necks to reach higher food,  that is plausible. As far as a dog giving birth to a cat,  or speciation, there is no evidence for it.


"The formation of life remains a mystery, and I think that scientist's need for closure has gotten the best of them, so I'm not sure what the creation story is. As for heaven, I have never seen anything in the sky that could look like heaven. Is heaven what most consider stars in the sky?"

Not exactly, but let's refer to heaven, in this context, as the firmament. See my post in the first page of this debate:

https://www.debateisland.com/discussion/1730/is-space-fake/p1

poco

@Agility_Dude So you would have to admit that Christianity as we know it would be incorrect if I can find one flaw with it? You would have to give up your entire Christian ideology because you would never know what is correct vs incorrect.

If that's what you had gleaned from what I wrote, I failed with my explanation.  Christianity relies on the New Covenant from Jesus.  That doen't mean that the OT isn't important .... To the contrary.  One needs to understand the OT to grasp the NT completely .... which I don' think anyone has fully grasped either.  That may be impossible, but really doesn't matter. 

I referred to the 8500 word language that the ancient Hebrews had at their disposal to say everything they had to re the OT.  Many words had many meanings for the same word, such as the English word 'set.'  It has 464 diff meanings.  It only figures that with their limited vocabulary, we have not fully grasped what each meaning is ..... or at least agreed on those individual words meaning the same.  

The ancient word 'yom' means a time duration anywhere from daylight to dusk, all the way to millions of years.  Here we have differing arguments re the age of the universe & earth. 

But the main gist I was trying to establish is that the individual situation does not matter nearly as much as the overall message does.  & that's what helps with understanding the individual words & verses.  Many atheists will take a singular verse here & there, & attempt to change the context of whatever the event or situation was.  Singular words & verses must be considered within the entire chapter, and/or context of the message given.

There would be so many variations on interpretations of the bible, kind of like what is happening currently with all the splits but 100 times more.

No.  Using that analogy does not utilize scholarly interpretation.  What you are referring to is individuals going their own way with their own narrative saying their own interpretation w/o considering the overall message.

We aren't much different. We both must deny many of the interpretations of the bible being true. I just go one step further and deny yours. Your belief doesn't have to be in line with anyone else's for you to have this discussion with me. Just let me know if you have a modified christian belief so that we can be on the same page. However, the burden of proof is on you to prove that god exists, and that is why I have this discussion.

No, there is no burden of proof on me for that.  That's just like me asking you to prove loyalty.  If that were possible, then we'd all follow that SOP to determine who is loyal or not.  What one needs to believe in things that require faith, like God, love, loyalty & many other daily aspects of life that we consider as 100% certain, but in reality they are only considered that bc of the faith we possess in them for reliability.  So we have faith in them bc of the evidence we have been presented with b4 we start having faith that we can believe they are true.

& besides, God told us He want our belief in faith, not bc of proof.  He knew that if all the past OT miracles didn't suffice as proof for humans back then, they wouldn't suffice with additional proof for us believing in God now.  Throughout the bible, God tells us that faith in Him is what He wants. 

Just think if one morning we woke up to find the Alps sitting in the middle of the Sahara Desert.  God lets us know that was His way of showing proof He exists.  How many people would believe in Him that didn't b4 out of love?  I think that most would believe out of fear, & fear does not compel one to believe, they just do it bc of the possible negative consequences associated with not believing.  & therefore, they do not really believe they way God wants us to love Him ...... thru faith in Jesus' teachings.

I think that the absence of worshiping any of the gods would be more beneficial to me rather than worshiping one god because I believe that it is more likely that a god that would send me to heaven would be very unlikely, especially among all of the other ideas that I could have of gods. So I choose to live the atheist life. I do not think that gods such as the Christian god would be possible in this world, but I do think that a god of some kind is possible.

I'm not here to preach or even convince anyone there is God that chooses not to believe.  That's your business.  My position is to argue from the standpoint that taking things out of context, or a purely literal interpretation of the bible in all aspects can only lead to incorrect assumptions about God ..... such as what you have presented.

If you are going to make the proposition that the interpreters could have misinterpreted the bible, you need to explain how it actually should be interpreted so that we can have a rational conversation.

My main thrust, other than what I stated just above, is one must study the bible w/o bias, like most other literature, to understand what it's about ..... to understand its message & what it means to us as a whole, & individually.  

So, if you accept my "interpretation" as explained here, then that's about as far as I can go. 

Agility_Dude

@Erfisflat:

That explanation for the sun makes sense. The sun itself could be an inferior mirage:

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter19/infer_mirage.html

Inferior mirages are made when light passes through different layers of air (such as the atmosphere in this case), which would make perfect sense in this case. I looked at your other ideas in the "is space fake" debate and they all seem good.

"As far as adaptation, where a species of animal starts developing longer necks to reach higher food,  that is plausible. As far as a dog giving birth to a cat,  or speciation, there is no evidence for it."

There is. Let's look at some other examples of mutation:



This is an image of the world's tallest living man next to the world's shortest living man. Evolution is a process of random mutation (for good and for bad) and natural selection. The individuals who are best adapted to their environments survive. You even imply that mutation can happen in small instances. I never said that a dog could give birth to a cat. Theoretically that could be possible while extremely unlikely, but evolution is a very slow process, taking thousands of years. Sure, in one generation the most it could probably do is make a giraffe's neck longer, but over many generations the giraffe could change a lot. We have seen similar instances of this happening in real life. People did an experiment with foxes and artificially bred them by picking the ones that were the least aggressive to pass on their genes. A few or less generations later all of the foxes had droopy ears (like some bred dogs do) and none were aggressive. If this were beneficial to an animal's survival it again wouldn't happen overnight. Artificial selection happens much faster than natural selection does.

Vaulk

@Agility_Dude

The use of your example of artificially bred foxes in your conclusion that Evolution can and or does happen undermines your conclusion entirely.  A generation of foxes with droopy ears rather than pointed or rigid ears is no evidence in the slightest of evolution, at best it's adaptation and relatively speaking...incredibly small to scale.

The need or lack thereof pointed ears can indeed result in adaptations affecting the ears of certain species of animals, particularly if those animals naturally depend on hearing for survival.  Indeed future generations could spawn with more droopy or even more rigid ears depending on the environmental effects they're subjected to.  This however, does not support in any way, shape or form an evolutionary change of kinds.  The original fox with rigid ears could be stood next to the 10th generation fox with droopy ears and you wouldn't have two different species, you'd have differently adapted animals of the same species.  This does not represent a change of kinds nor would the rigid ear fox serve as a transitional specimen.

poco

@Agility_Dude
"The bible was inspired by God, not dictated, so depending on the author, their audience, their political flavor etc, ...... all that influenced how & what they wrote.  I imagine they tried their best to say what God wanted them to, but they were for the most part, not the most studied people with regards of later authors/historians as we know.  the message was more important than being precise re some incidentals they may have gotten wrong.  As far a credibility goes, as stated b4, the authors' job was to relay what was important in God's view, not where a city was exactly, if you catch my drift.  & God's message was re His plan & our spiritual life."

However, god would have told the authors exactly what to write, so there would be no confusion. In the same way that god told Noah in the story of Noah's ark exactly what to do before the flood happened to help god out.

That's the problem with assuming things.  Measurements need to be precise, overall messages for the ages need to be understood ..... for the ages. 

"My question to you is, why could God not have used evolution to get mankind to a certain ...... maturity so-to-speak?  He then may have infused man with a soul to make him special & in His image.  Would the ancient authors want to write about something they could not possibly fathom?  

Why would you assume that humans are special as opposed to other animals? Chimpanzees are very intelligent. There is evidence that our ancestors had languages as well. What differentiates us from any animals?

I stated b4, that when humans became mature or reason or whatever enough ......  Other animals evidently never reached that point.

"I think God's inspired words were delivered with relation to the times, & literal comprehension.  There is nothing in the OT to say otherwise.  An Adam & Eve is certainly something they could have understood.  the message for that entire story was how sin/evil entered this world, & how serious God treated sin."

Okay, so now I understand your position that you take the bible literally.

After all that I have said here, how could you think I am a literalist?  Geez.

So you'e a catholic I assume?

No.

I disagree with the idea of sin actually because I believe in evolution. It's a coherent idea and let me explain how. For a species to evolve anything that would be a detriment to said species has to go away and anything beneficial that appears has to stay. This applies to humans. Why would we have empathy which is the basis for all morality? Because as a social self-interested individual it is in my best interest to be "kind" to others as they will likely be kind back. It explains every moral situation. I don't believe in objective morality I actually believe in objective practicality because there are things that are going to be most beneficial to you. This isn't morality in any way because morality is on the basis of what is "good" or "bad" while my theory is on the basis of what is "practical" vs "impractical". And this is why "sin" as religious people understand it cannot exist.

That doesn't even equate to explaining sin.  Practical vs impractical adherence would indicate selfishness would it not?  But again, that's your business, & your choice.

Haven't we overcome some detriments by being proactive re those things? 

"If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method.  

So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?

Again, the bible because of this is fallible."

Did Jesus even exist? I have seen no records of his existence in any way other than in religious texts.

Please google secular historians/writers that have written about Jesus & His movement. 

You admit that the bible is fallible.

Fallible in things that do not affect God's message.  You seem to like to pose leading questions/statement that support your position.  Please refrain from that .... not cool.

I'm once again confused on your beliefs on all of this which is very important if we want to have a discussion on this topic. Could you explain your beliefs on everything mentioned here and everything that we might bring up in advance? I had this same problem with @Evidence earlier in the debate. How do we separate what is correct vs incorrect in the bible?

How can I say this anymore clear than I have the multiple time I've stated it?  Explain my beliefs?!?  You also attempt to give time consuming tasks.  A few paragraphs above you do the same.  Be specific with what you want to know, read what I say previously re what's the important theme of the bible ..... that never changes, & do not worry about things that do not matter .... such as a wrong geographic location here & there. 

"So, if you're going to call the bible fallible bc of our appendix, I'd have to ask you why?  Does the bible give an exact age of earth or humans ...... & how they really got to the point of being human?  I am not saying that the bible's version of Adam is absolutely wrong, knowing God's power & all, but I think God could have used evolution with us also.  Would the ancient listener to the biblical stories comprehend evolution, & the 13 billion yer old universe?  Nah.  

The bible relates a central message for our spiritual health, not necessarily geographic & other types of errors that have nothing to do with God's plan for humanity."

I call the bible fallible because he advocates the golden rule while at the same time hypocritically doing the opposite with the appendix.

What?!?  Explain being hypocritical here.

And he's supposed to be loving. I't clear that you don't believe entirely in the story of Adam and Eve shown in the Bible because it says that Adam was made out of dust and that Eve was made from a rib pulled out of Adam. It actually makes me shiver thinking about it. I'm trying to imagine watching god create Eve it makes me sick to my stomach.

So?  See, you get all wrapped up with the words, yet miss the beauty of the  making of a perfect mate for Adam.  That's the diff between a literalist & a person understanding what's said.  (Are you seeing a pattern here)?

The listener could have comprehended evolution if they were told about it,

You are assuming this from a 21st Western perspective.  That's another mistake.

but they wouldn't have known otherwise because there was no mention of it in the bible. You talk about how the bible has a message for our spiritual health, but how do we know that message is correct? Again we have to differentiate between what is correct and what is incorrect if we are going to have this discussion.

Bc it's the main theme of the entire book, & Jesus' teachings.

Once again, I'm not going to go thru each page & enumerate anything for you.  You keep wanting to focus on things that don't seem to matter ...... for arguments sake.  If you have a question, I'll attempt to clarify it for you.  But if you cannot understand what I have stated many times here re what we are to understand, then I'll say you have such a bias as to not want to understand anything other than what you presently think the bible is about.

I'm all for discourse.  But discourse is a 2 way street. 

Erfisflat

Agility_Dude said:

@Erfisflat:

That explanation for the sun makes sense. The sun itself could be an inferior mirage:

http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/chapter19/infer_mirage.html

Inferior mirages are made when light passes through different layers of air (such as the atmosphere in this case), which would make perfect sense in this case. I looked at your other ideas in the "is space fake" debate and they all seem good.

"As far as adaptation, where a species of animal starts developing longer necks to reach higher food,  that is plausible. As far as a dog giving birth to a cat,  or speciation, there is no evidence for it."

There is. Let's look at some other examples of mutation:



This is an image of the world's tallest living man next to the world's shortest living man. Evolution is a process of random mutation (for good and for bad) and natural selection. The individuals who are best adapted to their environments survive. You even imply that mutation can happen in small instances. I never said that a dog could give birth to a cat. Theoretically that could be possible while extremely unlikely, but evolution is a very slow process, taking thousands of years. Sure, in one generation the most it could probably do is make a giraffe's neck longer, but over many generations the giraffe could change a lot. We have seen similar instances of this happening in real life. People did an experiment with foxes and artificially bred them by picking the ones that were the least aggressive to pass on their genes. A few or less generations later all of the foxes had droopy ears (like some bred dogs do) and none were aggressive. If this were beneficial to an animal's survival it again wouldn't happen overnight. Artificial selection happens much faster than natural selection does.

So, now that we're clear on the shape of the earth and the firmament, I'm unclear on what you consider evidence of God, if that isn't enough? These facts align with what the Bible says, and disagree with scientism's current models, so how can you trust the institutions to tell you any truth? Have you hear about the great deception?

https://www.biblestudytools.com/kjv/2-thessalonians/2-11.html

Agility_Dude

@Poco:

"If that's what you had gleaned from what I wrote, I failed with my explanation.  Christianity relies on the New Covenant from Jesus.  That doesn't mean that the OT isn't important .... To the contrary.  One needs to understand the OT to grasp the NT completely .... which I don' think anyone has fully grasped either.  That may be impossible, but really doesn't matter.  

I referred to the 8500 word language that the ancient Hebrews had at their disposal to say everything they had to re the OT.  Many words had many meanings for the same word, such as the English word 'set.'  It has 464 diff meanings.  It only figures that with their limited vocabulary, we have not fully grasped what each meaning is ..... or at least agreed on those individual words meaning the same.   

The ancient word 'yom' means a time duration anywhere from daylight to dusk, all the way to millions of years.  Here we have differing arguments re the age of the universe & earth.  

But the main gist I was trying to establish is that the individual situation does not matter nearly as much as the overall message does.  & that's what helps with understanding the individual words & verses.  Many atheists will take a singular verse here & there, & attempt to change the context of whatever the event or situation was.  Singular words & verses must be considered within the entire chapter, and/or context of the message given."

Could you then explain to me which denomination of Christianity you are so that we can be on the same page with your beliefs? I apologize if you think that I'm creating a Strawman of your ideas I'm not trying.

"No, there is no burden of proof on me for that.  That's just like me asking you to prove loyalty.  If that were possible, then we'd all follow that SOP to determine who is loyal or not.  What one needs to believe in things that require faith, like God, love, loyalty & many other daily aspects of life that we consider as 100% certain, but in reality they are only considered that bc of the faith we possess in them for reliability.  So we have faith in them bc of the evidence we have been presented with b4 we start having faith that we can believe they are true."

Theoretically the burden of proof wouldn't be on you. It wouldn't be on anyone. However, in the same way that Steven Crowder for instance makes "Change my mind" videos where the burden of proof is on the people sitting down to argue, I created this discussion to have the burden of proof on my opposition because I find that the arguments become irrational when the burden is shifted.

"& besides, God told us He want our belief in faith, not bc of proof.  He knew that if all the past OT miracles didn't suffice as proof for humans back then, they wouldn't suffice with additional proof for us believing in God now.  Throughout the bible, God tells us that faith in Him is what He wants.  

Just think if one morning we woke up to find the Alps sitting in the middle of the Sahara Desert.  God lets us know that was His way of showing proof He exists.  How many people would believe in Him that didn't b4 out of love?  I think that most would believe out of fear, & fear does not compel one to believe, they just do it bc of the possible negative consequences associated with not believing.  & therefore, they do not really believe they way God wants us to love Him ...... thru faith in Jesus' teachings."

The idea that God wants belief in faith and not in proof is suspicious. I understand how (at least) the Catholic church works. It draws people into their doctrine through bribery and then indoctrinates the followers. You get exposed to the idea of god so much that you start believing in it without any evidence. Children get forced into the doctrine young before their age of reason. That's what happened to me. It's how the church survives. It doesn't want belief in proof because if it did the church would fall apart. No one ever gives any evidence for god in masses because they don't want followers thinking critically about their beliefs.

"I'm not here to preach or even convince anyone there is God that chooses not to believe.  That's your business.  My position is to argue from the standpoint that taking things out of context, or a purely literal interpretation of the bible in all aspects can only lead to incorrect assumptions about God ..... such as what you have presented."

This is what I am looking for however. I have strived to think as critically as I can an want to know the truth. I want to have correct beliefs because they will in turn give me correct actions besed on those beliefs. That's why anyone has beliefs.

"My main thrust, other than what I stated just above, is one must study the bible w/o bias, like most other literature, to understand what it's about ..... to understand its message & what it means to us as a whole, & individually.   

So, if you accept my "interpretation" as explained here, then that's about as far as I can go."

You have helped me in this rebuttal understand your position a bit, and thank you for that. I hope to read the entire bible in the future as I have not read much to understand the ideas because even though I don't think that god exists I think that it's produced some of the best philosophical ideas in history, such as the golden rule which I believe we should all adhere to.

"That's the problem with assuming things.  Measurements need to be precise, overall messages for the ages need to be understood ..... for the ages."

However we understand that people have all sorts of biases and are quite fallible, so we can not have a clear message of what actually happened which is one of my problems with christian apologists. I disprove one thing and they make the excuse that their interpretation was not the correct one. The political biases could be as bad as when people portrayed the George Zimmerman case as a white man shooting a black man while in actuality it was a Hispanic man getting brutally beaten so he pulled out his gun and shot the attacking black man out of self defense. The consequences of this twisting of the story were massive.

"I stated b4, that when humans became mature or reason or whatever enough ......  Other animals evidently never reached that point."

That statement can never be proven or disproved, so I'll ignore it. That doesn't mean the I concede however.

"That doesn't even equate to explaining sin.  Practical vs impractical adherence would indicate selfishness would it not?  But again, that's your business, & your choice.

Haven't we overcome some detriments by being proactive re those things?"

I don't believe that sin exists, I'm just explaining how what people think of as sin works. It's all about practicality. Sure my idea would indicate selfishness, but it's a way to be (ironically) selfishly unselfish. This is just naturally how we evolved. It is in our subconscious.

"Please google secular historians/writers that have written about Jesus & His movement."

Such as these?

https://www.indy100.com/article/historians-are-questioning-if-jesus-ever-existed-at-all-7801396

""I call the bible fallible because he advocates the golden rule while at the same time hypocritically doing the opposite with the appendix.""

"What?!?  Explain being hypocritical here."

Sure. The golden rule is to treat others the way you want to be treated. No one would want an organ placed in their bodies that could potentially have life threatening effects. God still has put these organs in our bodies though. Therefore, he goes against the golden rule. He advocates the golden rule through the ten commandments. Therefore, he is a hypocrite. The point here is that let's just say that god exists for a second. If god is killing many people every year with this likely intentionally placed organ, then should he deserve to be loved? Should he deserve to even be believed in? Especially considering that Christianity is a doctrine that often demands that you believe in.

poco

@Erfisflat @Agility_Dude

B4 that, I'm not sure how this site works.  Does one have to copy & paste, (what I'm presently doing) parts of the posting I want to refer to, or does it automatically post somehow? 

When I respond, does it automatically post the conversation I am in, or do I  have to copy & paste as I stated above?

Agility_Dude

@Vaulk:

The artificial selection of the foxes not only changed the ears, but also the aggressive behavior, which was what I was trying to say. Maybe I wasn't clear on that. This is a huge difference. Adaptation is evolution actually, because evolution and adaptation are both based on the idea that animals will change according to their environment to best survive in it. With this example the dogs wouldn't be two different species yet, however with enough changes they would. Neanderthals look quite similar to us and we consider us and them two different species. It all depends on what constitutes different species, which is up for debate, but I'm sure that we can agree that us and a virus are two different species, which both have their common ancestor at probably around 1-3 billion years ago, lots of time to change from a microbe to us. Remember, I'm not saying that natural selection goes at the same rate as artificial selection, not even close. However, over dozens if not hundreds of generations you will see a change in species, sometimes becoming different species in the process.

Agility_Dude

@Erfisflat:

I don't think that the dome that surrounds the earth would be the heavens. I do think that there is probably something keeping us from space, but not the heavens.

Erfisflat

poco said:

@Erfisflat @Agility_Dude

B4 that, I'm not sure how this site works.  Does one have to copy & paste, (what I'm presently doing) parts of the posting I want to refer to, or does it automatically post somehow? 

When I respond, does it automatically post the conversation I am in, or do I  have to copy & paste as I stated above?

You can hit the quote button to copy the post, or copy and paste the quotes, i do both,  depending on whether I want to respond to several points at once or seperately.

Agility_Dude

@Poco, I'm not sure myself. I don't think that I've had to do it, but I might want to know in the future. @Erfisflat knows. He tends to respond relatively quickly to posts so he should be able to tell you within the next 6 hours.

Erfisflat

Agility_Dude said:

@Erfisflat:

I don't think that the dome that surrounds the earth would be the heavens. I do think that there is probably something keeping us from space, but not the heavens.

As in "space", are you referring to the illogical idea that there is an infinite vacuum that we were allegedly flying around in when you thought we lived on a spinning ball?

poco

@Agility_Dude

"Could you then explain to me which denomination of Christianity you are so that we can be on the same page with your beliefs? I apologize if you think that I'm creating a Strawman of your ideas I'm not trying."

Non denominational.  Please do not try to figure this out based on presupposed ideology such as denominations.  What I say, is my beliefs ..... & many other Christians of multiple denominations feel the same way.  I'll say that I believe in the bible, & use it to guide my belief system.  I know that may not fully explain it to you, but I can compare it to politics with regards to a person being a constitutionalist, rather than belonging to the Republican, Democrats, or other political groups.

"Theoretically the burden of proof wouldn't be on you. It wouldn't be on anyone. However, in the same way that Steven Crowder for instance makes "Change my mind" videos where the burden of proof is on the people sitting down to argue, I created this discussion to have the burden of proof on my opposition because I find that the arguments become irrational when the burden is shifted."

I didn't join this discussion with the intention of changing your mind with verses, or attempting to prove anything other than showing that incorrect preconceived bias, or notions influence what we believe, & therefore guides us in life.

I think I showed you that God doesn't want to be "proved."  So, why try?  But, if there are certain 'truths' that aren't really true, or untrue biases that dictate what we believe, why not use that incorrect info to influence someone to think about something in a new way.  Not necessarily to change their mind 180 degrees, but they may discuss that subject with a diff insight or "truth."

"The idea that God wants belief in faith and not in proof is suspicious.

OK.  How about your kids?  Do you want them trusting you bc they have faith in your decisions in the past, so they don't necessarily need proof to believe you'll guide them correctly in the future? 

I understand how (at least) the Catholic church works. It draws people into their doctrine through bribery and then indoctrinates the followers. You get exposed to the idea of god so much that you start believing in it without any evidence. Children get forced into the doctrine young before their age of reason. That's what happened to me. It's how the church survives. It doesn't want belief in proof because if it did the church would fall apart. No one ever gives any evidence for god in masses because they don't want followers thinking critically about their beliefs."

I grew up Catholic, but didn't feel closer to God, so I quit going to church in high school.  Thing is, I never felt indoctrinated.  I just didn't understand some rules, & why we were not encouraged to pursue a personal relationship with God.  I'm sure now that I was told in so many words that was the goal, but if I didn't realize it then, it was either my fault, or theirs. 

Butt to say it was a case of bribery ..... not at all, but maybe you can explain that.  I went to Catholic school in the 60's.

You mention evidence.  Hopefully you're not referring to courtroom type evidence, bc you'll never find that, plus, most of what guides us everyday, courtroom evidence cannot be given.  Evidence, according to one definition, is one or more reasons for believing that something is, or is not true.  This evidence can come from all sorts of venues, as long as it enables us to believe.

I think you're wrong re not thinking critically is a goal of churches.  If one doesn't pursue more understanding thru critical thinking, how do they grow in understanding?  I'll admit this may happen in some fringe churches, but nowadays, we are told to do anything to enable spiritual growth.  Granted, those that attend church every Sunday, & don't participate or try to  learn anything or emulate Jesus during the week, will not get any more benefit than not ever going to church.

I hope to read the entire bible in the future as I have not read much to understand the ideas because even though I don't think that god exists I think that it's produced some of the best philosophical ideas in history, such as the golden rule which I believe we should all adhere to.

Please don't just 'read' the bible as one reads a book for entertainment.  If you don't understand the why's of this or that, look it up on the internet & ask questions that you need answers on.  My older brother told me one time he read the bible 3 times, but found it wasn't for him & never answered anything about anything.  He read it, but didn't study it.  All he did was read the words, which means it's just like a history book.  When we don't understand something, we usually put it aside .... if we don't really pursue or want it or have an effect on us.  Asking God to help you with this every time you read helps also.  But be sincere, or it's just like anything else ...... worthless chatter.

"However we understand that people have all sorts of biases and are quite fallible, so we can not have a clear message of what actually happened which is one of my problems with christian apologists. I disprove one thing and they make the excuse that their interpretation was not the correct one. The political biases could be as bad as when people portrayed the George Zimmerman case as a white man shooting a black man while in actuality it was a Hispanic man getting brutally beaten so he pulled out his gun and shot the attacking black man out of self defense. The consequences of this twisting of the story were massive."

Thing is with 'disproving' something is does it really disprove it entirely, or just parts of it, or do we see it in the proper context, etc.  If you could give me an example of something you disprove, maybe we can get a better handle on what each other means here OK?

Using the Zimmerman case is a good one.  The way I looked at it was that Zim should have never pursued that kid armed.  That is the main reason his defense was not base on a stand your ground law.  Yes, was Zim right in his thinking he could have been killed while being beaten?  Maybe, but he was initially at fault in that regard.  He was a wanna be cop.  I've been carrying concealed since the late 70's.  & I look at it from that perspective of knowing the carry conceal laws, & also I do not think it's 'cool' to carry a gun now.  I carry all the time, but no one ever knows I have a gun. 

"I don't believe that sin exists, I'm just explaining how what people think of as sin works. It's all about practicality. Sure my idea would indicate selfishness, but it's a way to be (ironically) selfishly unselfish. This is just naturally how we evolved. It is in our subconscious."

Sin can be called by many names. 

I don't buy selfishness is inherent.   It's a learned trait.  Look at puppies & infants.  What malice or ill intent do we ever observe from them ..... as long as there's not a mental problem involved.  All of my dogs that I have had since their puppyhood, have loved everyone that they see.  Other dogs I have had, but picked up as an adult, were more inclined to show a mean streak once in a while. 

"Sure. The golden rule is to treat others the way you want to be treated. No one would want an organ placed in their bodies that could potentially have life threatening effects. God still has put these organs in our bodies though.

An appendix by itself does no harm.  Something has to infect it to cause harm to our bodies.  Just like any other disease or malady we could have.

Therefore, he goes against the golden rule. He advocates the golden rule through the ten commandments. Therefore, he is a hypocrite. The point here is that let's just say that god exists for a second. If god is killing many people every year with this likely intentionally placed organ, then should he deserve to be loved? Should he deserve to even be believed in? Especially considering that Christianity is a doctrine that often demands that you believe in."

This is a good example of incorrect info.  Please show me how a healthy appendix causes death.  Appendicitis, or swelling if it, is caused by infection somewhere else in the body, or a blockage of stool, foreign body or cancer ..... just like any other organ or internal body part.  Is it God's fault that we have an infection that causes any disease?  We blew that one from jump in The Garden.  the removal of God's complete protection by Adam introducing sin/evil/whatever, into this world & mankind.  But that's another story for another time. 

Erfisflat

Agility_Dude said:

@Vaulk:

The artificial selection of the foxes not only changed the ears, but also the aggressive behavior, which was what I was trying to say. Maybe I wasn't clear on that. This is a huge difference. Adaptation is evolution actually, because evolution and adaptation are both based on the idea that animals will change according to their environment to best survive in it. With this example the dogs wouldn't be two different species yet, however with enough changes they would. Neanderthals look quite similar to us and we consider us and them two different species. It all depends on what constitutes different species, which is up for debate, but I'm sure that we can agree that us and a virus are two different species, which both have their common ancestor at probably around 1-3 billion years ago, lots of time to change from a microbe to us. Remember, I'm not saying that natural selection goes at the same rate as artificial selection, not even close. However, over dozens if not hundreds of generations you will see a change in species, sometimes becoming different species in the process.

This adds an unfalsifiable axiom to the conclusion. Evolutionists throwing a "billion years" at something doesn't make it any more plausible. This makes it pseudoscientific. You've discovered that thry are hiding intelligent design by creating a false world that allegedly came from nothing. Evolution is no different.

poco

@Agility_Dude

regarding https://www.indy100.com/article/historians-are-questioning-if-jesus-ever-existed-at-all-7801396

1st of all any publication worth reading is going to have an author, this doesn't have one.

Did you actually read this article?  It consists of opinion, & no fact based research whatsoever.  Very poor example to question Jesus' life on earth.  Seems as tho this news entity has written other articles re God & Jesus in the negative aspects.  I do not give credence to biased left or right wing publications ..... especially ones that do not include any type of reliable & scholarly research to back up what they have opinion about.

poco

@Agility_Dude

regarding https://www.indy100.com/article/historians-are-questioning-if-jesus-ever-existed-at-all-7801396

1st of all any publication worth reading is going to have an author, this doesn't have one.

Did you actually read this article?  It consists of opinion, & no fact based research whatsoever.  Very poor example to question Jesus' life on earth.  Seems as tho this news entity has written other articles re God & Jesus in the negative aspects.  I do not give credence to biased left or right wing publications ..... especially ones that do not include any type of reliable & scholarly research to back up what they have opinion about.

Evidence

@Agility_Dude ;
Evidence
I do agree that the bible has some amazing philosophical ideas in it. I used to believe in that theory of how the moon was formed, but now I have realized that because flat earth theory is most likely correct, and now I believe it to be, that the moon must have been formed another way.


Yes, maybe it was created? Or maybe it just evolved?
Since we can't use the Bible because it was written by man, I guess the only way of knowing is landing on it and observing it first hand!?

Wait, you're 14years old?
What's your IQ if I may ask?

Evidence

poco said:

Let's look at the idea of creationism, which talks about how every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is, never evolving or changing over time. But this is blatantly wrong if you look at Darwinian evolution. Let's look at the evolution of humans:



We have found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years. We have even seen evolution for ourselves. Take a look at the peppered moth, a white moth with black spots. This coloring helped it to camouflage. But in the industrial revolution for about 20 years, there was so much pollution that the trees were covered with soot. The moths turned black, but then when people stopped polluting the air so much, the soot cleared away and the moths turned back to normal.

We have even seen some evidence pointing away from the idea of creationist intelligent design. For example, let's look at the appendix, a tiny organ on the side of the colon that serves no major purpose. It ruptures in so many people's bodies, it even ruptured in my mother's. Why would an intelligent creator add that to our bodies? And there are many other examples.

My question to you is, why could God not have used evolution to get mankind to a certain ...... maturity so-to-speak?  He then may have infused man with a soul to make him special & in His image.  Would the ancient authors want to write about something they could not possibly fathom? 

I think God's inspired words were delivered with relation to the times, & literal comprehension.  There is nothing in the OT to say otherwise.  An Adam & Eve is certainly something they could have understood.  the message for that entire story was how sin/evil entered this world, & how serious God treated sin. 

If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method. 

So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?

Again, the bible because of this is fallible.

So, if you're going to call the bible fallible bc of our appendix, I'd have to ask you why?  Does the bible give an exact age of earth or humans ...... & how they really got to the point of being human?  I am not saying that the bible's version of Adam is absolutely wrong, knowing God's power & all, but I think God could have used evolution with us also.  Would the ancient listener to the biblical stories comprehend evolution, & the 13 billion yer old universe?  Nah. 

The bible relates a central message for our spiritual health, not necessarily geographic & other types of errors that have nothing to do with God's plan for humanity.

So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.

I apologize I haven't gotten the time to watch the video you posted but I will when I get the chance. Also, can you tell me more about the idea of flat earth, mud fossils, and giants? And finally, the idea of god being space intrigues me. Could you show me some websites/videos/books that could help me learn this? That would be great.


I want to thank you for having this discussion and I look forward to hearing what you have to say about the information I brought up because I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion.

@poco

Hopefully you won't mind if I butt in here.  It seems as tho, you guys have a great discussion going on.  Very Cool.

Of course we don't mind, the more the merrier, it is how I learned so much, debating is where it's at! Come on buddy, join us! 

poco -Evidence I want to respond to what you said and ask a few questions. I first want to talk about the idea of an infinite god. Infinity cannot exist because it is mathematically incoherent.

So let's look at some basic addition and subtraction first:

1 + 1 - 1 = 1

1 - 1 + 1 = 1

In both cases I used different orders to complete the equation and both of which resulted in 1. We can do this with any set of numbers. Here is another example:

2 + 4 - 3 = 3

4 - 3 + 2 = 3

This is a basic law of addition. You can rearrange the numbers as long as you don't change the operations attached to them, like you cannot modify the phrase " - 4" But let's see what happens when we use infinity in these equations. We will be using the letter "I" for infinity here.

I + 1 - I = 0

Infinity plus one is still infinity, and then minus itself equals 0. But then:

I - I + 1 = 1

Infinity minus infinity is 0, and then plus 1 is 1. Infinity breaks this law of addition I mentioned, so it cannot exist. But let's say that god is a very high number, so very powerful. My question is how do you get to the conclusion that infinity is conscious?

God is Infinite, not infinity. Infinite is without borders, thus all things are in Infinite/God.
Infinite is Mind/Spirit, we have Infinite as our mind also, given to us, "breathed into the body made of dust" and to prove our mind is Infinite, we test it.
I can think of innumerable numbers of sci-fi BB-universes, and they can all be multiplying and expanding at the same time, yet I know my mind is still Infinite. I could keep putting gazillion expanding universes in my mind, as complex as anyone could make it, yet again my mind remains Infinite. Never runs out of room, because?
Because Infinite is borderless.
I find this easy to see/understand, because I don't visualize my Infinite mind from what we've been taught that's in my brains memory, which is from a finite/created perspective, which is how you started explaining 'Infinite'  as infinity, right? Instead I see/understand these things with my Infinite God given mind.

poco - So my next problem is what evidence do you have for all of these claims? Is it the bible?

Psalm 147:5

Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.

The Lord is hidden in plain sight in this verse, because understanding is of/by the mind, which is Infinite. The information is another thing, now that is in the brain, in the brains memory. Now that can get overloaded really quick. For some more quicker than for others.
If you're interested, I can give you a good demonstration between Infinite-mind and our brain. Have you ever programmed a robot, .. if you have, you would know how difficult it is, how much information that needs to be put in just for it to keep balance, like what the Honda ASIMO can do, .. hop on one leg and so on, takes millions of lines of info to have ASIMO do what it can do. if you're interested, I can show how this relates to brain vs. the mind.

poco - Because I can give you an example in which the bible was wrong, so how would the bible be credible? If there is one incorrect piece of information in the bible, then there couldn't be an infallible creator to write the bible. So in this case, the christian god couldn't exist.

Just remember this, that we were created in Gods image. So we are "like God, our Creator".
Can God make a mistake?
No.
But here is something else that He has, which we also have, .. empathy.

Genesis 8:20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21 And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart,
“I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination[a] of man’s heart is evil from his youth;
nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

So you see, this may seem like "God messed up, .. made a mistake and repented from it. Here is where mortal men use to try to demean God, like Oprah said on her show about the Bible mentioning that "God is a Jealous God" which she thought was petty/trivial for an omnipotent, all knowing God.

poco - Problem with stating things are wrong with the bible re facts, may be that the ancient Hebrew language consisted of only 8500 or so words.  It's up to the interpreters to come up with the best way to explain what the ancients were attempting to say. 

The bible was inspired by God, not dictated, so depending on the author, their audience, their political flavor etc, ...... all that influenced how & what they wrote.  I imagine they tried their best to say what God wanted them to, but they were for the most part, not the most studied people with regards of later authors/historians as we know.  the message was more important than being precise re some incidentals they may have gotten wrong.  As far a credibility goes, as stated b4, the authors' job was to relay what was important in God's view, not where a city was exactly, if you catch my drift.  & God's message was re His plan & our spiritual life.

If it's mentioned, you better believe that it is important! Like it says that "all the books in the world couldn't contain all the things Jesus said", .. so I always wondered why did Mathew, Mark, Luke and John mention the same events? Now I know, just like us parents when either we, or our kids are going on a trip, we tell them over and over regarding their safety, the important things.

poco - We have even seen some evidence pointing away from the idea of creationist intelligent design. For example, let's look at the appendix, a tiny organ on the side of the colon that serves no major purpose. It ruptures in so many people's bodies, it even ruptured in my mother's. Why would an intelligent creator add that to our bodies? And there are many other examples.

Yes, and some people break a leg jumping off from a few steps of stairs. We need everything God put into us, and everything has it's useful purpose. Evolutionist hate Gods creation, which is why they degrade man to an animal, an ape. Why do you think "organ donation" was invented, money for one, and the other is to try to come off as if they were smarter than God, like the six-million-dollar Man, .. we can make him better, stronger, etc. I strongly feel, from all that I've seen and heard with my eyes and ears that there is no need for organ transplant. It's either a lie that you need a transplant, and you get one anyways, just like when they tell you have cancer and need chemo, it's either the cancer that will kill you, or chemo and or radiation treatment.

poco- My question to you is, why could God not have used evolution to get mankind to a certain ...... maturity so-to-speak?  He then may have infused man with a soul to make him special & in His image.  Would the ancient authors want to write about something they could not possibly fathom?

You have it backwards; it is us who are ignorant and can't fathom, or unable to see lies. The "ancients" even the fisherman and sheepherders would never have fallen for the moon landing, or the globe-earth.
Why not evolution? Because that would take God millions and billions of years longer to achieve, and would NEVER turn out as He wanted it to. We would have millions and millions of horrible mutations dying at all times before evolution could get even one right.
Evolution doesn't happen, and cannot happen, .. even evolutionists admit it.

The rest, I will try to answer later my friend.

Erfisflat

Aristotle once posited,  despite opposing views on the matter, that "the brain is of minor importance, perhaps necessary to cool the blood" and there the matter stood until the 1500's. We don't "know" everything,  and new discoveries occur daily. The appendix was discovered to be a "reboot system" for the digestive system.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/2007/10/08/30907.aspx

Judaism

Erfisflat 

So that proves a flat earth? If we don't know everything, perhaps you're wrong?

Erfisflat

Judaism said:

Erfisflat 

So that proves a flat earth? If we don't know everything, perhaps you're wrong?

Not in the very least and I'm not sure how you got that impression. This however, does.


https://www.google.com/amp/s/beyondhorizons.eu/2016/08/03/pic-de-finestrelles-pic-gaspard-ecrins-443-km/amp/


Perhaps I'm wrong, but you've neglected to show how.

Judaism

Erfisflat 

For one thing, you could start by stop calling NASA liars

poco

@Erfisflat

Thanx

Erfisflat

Judaism said:

Erfisflat 

For one thing, you could start by stop calling NASA liars

Why would I do that? Show me one picture of the earth as a ball, you'll see.

Evidence

poco said:
Evidence

Hopefully you won't mind if I butt in here.  It seems as tho, you guys have a great discussion going on.  Very Cool.

- cont.

@poco said: Let's look at the idea of creationism, which talks about how every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is, never evolving or changing over time. But this is blatantly wrong if you look at Darwinian evolution. Let's look at the evolution of humans:

Have you ever seen a Great Dane and a miniature poodle? They both started out as dogs, and ended with dogs. Where do you find that: "every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is", .. God loves diversity, ;.. it is Satan that want's us all to be like robots, .. mindless animals, apes.
From every human starting with Adam and Eve is all different, every snow flake, every tree and every leaf on the tree, look around you, the miracle is finding two things identical, not finding things different.

poco - We have found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years. We have even seen evolution for ourselves. Take a look at the peppered moth, a white moth with black spots. This coloring helped it to camouflage. But in the industrial revolution for about 20 years, there was so much pollution that the trees were covered with soot. The moths turned black, but then when people stopped polluting the air so much, the soot cleared away and the moths turned back to normal.

My brother, if anyone "found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years", and you can show me this, I will forsake everything I know and believe, and become just another mindless robot, or any animal of your choosing, even an ape.
There is a huge MK-Ultra going on, especially over the past 120 some years, 



also this:



Yes, animals, bugs adapt, so do we humans. Like my wife who grew up in 90 - 100% humidity (especially when it rained in the Philippines) adapted to 12% humidity and almost no rain (here in Phoenix).

poco - If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method.

Yes, .. it explains why Jesus used parables, to keep the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law confused, for they acted all pompous as if they knew it all. So Jesus just threw them into a bit of confusion with parables, which he later explained to his simple fisherman as you said.
Jesus was around "from the beginning of all creation", for it was through him; the Word that God created everything through and by. But you will never find in the Bible that he was God.
God is One, He alone is our Savior, .. through Christ (John 3:16)

poco - So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?

Again, Jesus was not God, just as the Fiery Angel in Exodus that God used to talk with Moses was not God. The Christian Religion created by the RCC under Constantine deified the man Jesus into their sun-god;



poco - So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.

NASA, starting with "operation Paperclip" took over our government, they don't really ask for funds, (only superficially) they simply take it and fund themselves.

Who says no one in the government sounded the alarm on this NASATANIC organization? If the message in this next video don't reach the depth of your soul



.. and wake you up, only God could through prayers of the saints, those who are still followers of "the Way" (not the Trinitary, or Christian denominations using the same name!)

Space, you know, that imaginary expanding Spacetime Vacuum where all them Tatooine-like planets spin and twirl is a trademark of NASA. They own 'space', just as "They" own Antarctica. If any country wants to go into NASA's imaginary space, they have to follow NASA guidelines, .. instructions like when they should use the Green-screen, and when and how to film in the space-pool to reduce the bubbles that occasionally roll out of the cult uniform they call "Space Suits", .. and so on.

Look at this next video, especially (time 8:35)



MK-Ultra programming us by saying: "NASA having some fierce competition", which leads to the justification of NASA robbing us of more money, which should eventually end our American way of life.

poco - I apologize I haven't gotten the time to watch the video you posted but I will when I get the chance. Also, can you tell me more about the idea of flat earth, mud fossils, and giants? And finally, the idea of god being space intrigues me. Could you show me some websites/videos/books that could help me learn this? That would be great.

Infinite/God is not 'space' instead He is the Ground of being, the Ground of creation. But 'space' is what we call the area between two or more objects in different mediums.

Thank you, and may God bless you with spiritual insight.

Judaism

Evidence

What do you think of my last post to you?

Erfisflat 

poco

@EvidenceJust to clarify, someone has me, Poco, mixed up with someone else. Only 2 of the quotes attributed to Poco was my doing.  The rest was someone else.

Erfisflat

@Judaism

That image is a painting by the way. I've linked a high res image, and beside the obvious fact that we never went to the moon, one they were caught red handed lying about that:  



Also notice that the article where the image is stored is still being edited as of Feb. 20,  2018, for...reasons.

https://www.nasa.gov/content/blue-marble-image-of-the-earth-from-apollo-17

It's 2018 and you give a me a picture from 1972???

Erfisflat

poco said:

@EvidenceJust to clarify, someone has me, Poco, mixed up with someone else. Only 2 of the quotes attributed to Poco was my doing.  The rest was someone else.

There are currently 5 active debaters here.

Agility_Dude

@Evidence:

I'm actually 13 years old, but I will be turning 14 in 1 month. I'm not sure what my IQ is now, because I was tested when I was 6 and IQ values change depending on your age, but at that time it was according to my parents 132.

@Erfisflat, @Evidence, @Poco, @Judaism:

There has been a mixup here. What everyone was quoting Poco on was my first post by me that Poco was doing a response on. There were a couple as Poco said that were his, but most were mine.

poco

@Evidence

@poco said: Let's look at the idea of creationism, which talks about how every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is, never evolving or changing over time. But this is blatantly wrong if you look at Darwinian evolution. Let's look at the evolution of humans:

Have you ever seen a Great Dane and a miniature poodle? They both started out as dogs, and ended with dogs. Where do you find that: "every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is", .. God loves diversity, ;.. it is Satan that want's us all to be like robots, .. mindless animals, apes.
From every human starting with Adam and Eve is all different, every snow flake, every tree and every leaf on the tree, look around you, the miracle is finding two things identical, not finding things different.

The real Poco: I did not write the above quote.

poco - We have found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years. We have even seen evolution for ourselves. Take a look at the peppered moth, a white moth with black spots. This coloring helped it to camouflage. But in the industrial revolution for about 20 years, there was so much pollution that the trees were covered with soot. The moths turned black, but then when people stopped polluting the air so much, the soot cleared away and the moths turned back to normal.

My brother, if anyone "found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years", and you can show me this, I will forsake everything I know and believe, and become just another mindless robot, or any animal of your choosing, even an ape.
There is a huge MK-Ultra going on, especially over the past 120 some years,

The real 'Poco:'  I did not write the above quote.

Yes, animals, bugs adapt, so do we humans. Like my wife who grew up in 90 - 100% humidity (especially when it rained in the Philippines) adapted to 12% humidity and almost no rain (here in Phoenix).

Speaking of Phoenix, I'm thinking of relocating to AZ shortly.  Isn't the heat oppressive in Phoenix?

poco - If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method.

Yes, .. it explains why Jesus used parables, to keep the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law confused, for they acted all pompous as if they knew it all. So Jesus just threw them into a bit of confusion with parables, which he later explained to his simple fisherman as you said.

Poco: No, Jesus wanted all to 'get' His message ... even the Pharisees.  He was completely inclusive.  Biblically, please show me where/how Jesus didn't want the Pharisees to change from their 'law' mentality to one of love.   True, Jesus sparred with them continually, altho He pursued them to change  also.

Jesus was around "from the beginning of all creation", for it was through him; the Word that God created everything through and by. But you will never find in the Bible that he was God.
God is One, He alone is our Savior, .. through Christ (John 3:16)

Poco: This is for another debate, altho there are many verses referring to Jesus as God.  John 1:1, & John 10:30 are a couple.

poco - So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?

Again, Jesus was not God, just as the Fiery Angel in Exodus that God used to talk with Moses was not God. The Christian Religion created by the RCC under Constantine deified the man Jesus into their sun-god;

Poco:  Explain the many verses in the NT that proclaim Jesus as God. ..... but not now ....  later.

poco - So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.

NASA, starting with "operation Paperclip" took over our government, they don't really ask for funds, (only superficially) they simply take it and fund themselves.

Who says no one in the government sounded the alarm on this NASATANIC organization? If the message in this next video don't reach the depth of your soul

the real poco:  not my above quote, nor the next one attributed to me.

poco:  I do not watch videos or look at pictures in a debate forum.  Videos are made to influence bc of a certain bias the creator of the video has.  If you want to reference reliable scholarly peer reviewed researched data, then by all means do so. 

Agility_Dude

Poco is right. What was not his was mine.

Erfisflat

Agility_Dude said:

Poco is right. What was not his was mine.

It's fine, you can respond to the points you made and poco, his.

Evidence

Judaism said:

Evidence

Thank you for your response. I do recall now that you're a "follower of the way," I guess the difference between that and what's normally labeled as 'Christianity' is the Pope and trinity. I'll do my best to respect that, and if I go off on the wrong path, please correct me.

@Judaism

I'll start with our divide on sin. In my tradition, man isn't inherently evil, all I need to do to prove this is point you to a short verse in Genesis 4:7. 

"Is it not so that if you improve, it will be forgiven you? If you do not improve, however, at the entrance, sin is lying, and to you is its longing, but you can rule over it."

Based off this verse, man is not evil from his conception, at least in the Creator's eye. That puts the fire alarm on New Testament doctrines, wouldn't you say?

Sorry, I almost missed this post of yours, thanks for reminding me!

After the fall of man, every human born of woman was born into sin, or corruption. Read what happened to Eve, to Adam and to the earth as whole, we are all fallen creatures destined for death.
Now God did provide another "way" back to life, which is through Christ. John 3:16
Remember what Jesus said: "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father (into Heaven) except through me!", so if you want to 'live', there is a New, incorruptibly body waiting for us all, but where and how you will spend eternity in it is the big question? Choose life my brother, choose life, and it is NOT in your flag that you fly, .. quite the opposite.

Judaism - Again, the shedding of blood was only used for unintentional sins. Therefore, you should believe that Jesus died for your "unintentional sins," because that's the only time a sacrifice was offered.

Hmm, .. unintentional!? So if I lie, steal and cheat, I'm not doing it intentionally? First was eye-for-an-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth, but God seen that if this went on any longer, all of His People would be blind, toothless cripples.
So maybe burning up perfect sheep, or doves, ..paying good money for sacrifices that they can't get anything out of will help them? But no, they made a business out of that too: Here brother, I'll give you a blemished sheep for two perfect doves, .. you can always eat the sheep!
Or it was: "Get your lambs here, two for the price of one where the blemish is barely noticeable after the whitewash! Get your sheep here!"

Mathew 21:12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.

You also misrepresent both the Kabbalah and Star of David, the star was on his shield, its six-pointed, the pentagram is five, a big difference if you ask me.

Judaism - You then cite me a passage from 2 Corinthians. Bold move. But it won't help you're case, because I can counter it. From the prophet Isaiah, 45:19, we discover whether or not G-d would ever "veil" His children:

   לֹ֧א בַסֵּ֣תֶר דִּבַּ֗רְתִּי בִּמְקוֹם֙ אֶ֣רֶץ חֹ֔שֶׁךְ לֹ֥א

אָמַ֛רְתִּי לְזֶ֥רַע יַֽעֲקֹ֖ב תֹּ֣הוּ בַקְּשׁ֑וּנִי אֲנִ֚י יְהֹוָה֙
                      :דֹּבֵ֣ר צֶ֔דֶק מַגִּ֖יד מֵֽישָׁרִֽים

Judaism - You see, followers of Jesus have a problem, their problem is that they don't understand what a brit is. A brit is an oath. Can G-d go back on His oaths? No. Can we? That depends, though we're not suppose to. What's the cut of the brit? The Brit milah (circumcision of the flesh). That was the seal for all eternity. When talking about the covenant, we usually refer to the one with Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. That's the one, not Solomon or whatnot, and those passages I've shown only prove my point, so far, you've been silent on them, they stand correct, they have not been adequately refuted, and I don't think its possible. Now, I'll cite to you one of many passages which clearly prove the Jewish position:

"So said Adonai, Who gives the sun to illuminate by day, the laws of the moon and the stars to illuminate at night, Who stirs up the sea and its waves roar, HaShem of Hosts is His name.  If these laws depart from before Me, says Adonai, so will the seed of Israel cease being a nation before Me for all time. So said Adonai: If the heavens above will be measured and the foundations of the earth below will be fathomed, I too will reject all the seed of Israel because of all they did, says the G-d of Israel." (Jeremiah 31:34-36)

Is that what the above scribble says? Why didn't you show that in the first place?

Look, as Jesus said in
Mathew 5:17 “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.

Can a Jew like you (that's if you have undefiled bloodline), or any Israelite fulfill the law? If you break one (which Eve and Adam did) you break them all, which is why all humanity is dying. The problem is, how do we come clean/pure again, back to God? What do Jews of today say about their salvation, or is it "Eat, drink, for tomorrow we die!"  



.. because if that's how the Jews of today feel, then what's the purpose of your argument?

Judaism - Evidence, you seem to believe in the Bible, right? Well, is G-d a ? Because He is if you choose to believe in Jesus, because it is obvious to any person that none of this has yet happened, therefore, G-d hasn't rejected us as a people yet, which explains how He preserved us so well over the centuries against all odds. The reason we were chosen was to be a light to the nations (Isaiah 49:6). You're right, being chosen doesn't mean you're saved, but, like Genesis 4:7, we can work on it.

Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. 2 Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. 3 And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is [b]a debtor to keep the whole law. 4 You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.

Now honestly my friend, do you think these Jews are "working on it"?



Do you think by putting out their welcome mats, and opening the doors to abomination as the Jews are doing in Israel, especially in cities like Jerusalem mostly known throughout the world for the righteous Jesus teaching there?
Take a look at this, I mean they tell you this is a tranny right? Grew up in Nazareth, Look at (time 0:52) now tell me who else has that very similar look?



But what they don't say is that Gal Gadot is a tranny too.



This is a boy, he even admits it in interviews (if you can read the signs) especially at the Idol-awards. We been fooled, lied to, brainwashed, which includes the biggest lie, Christianity.
I know you're against Christians, but what you, nor Christians know is what exactly is Christian, and which god do they really worship. Look at this video:



Especially (Time 1:30) How would a Believer and a follower of Christ be on one of the biggest pedophile show on television; "Full House", where the Olson Twins were molested right on the show. And how could Kirk Cameron (who by the way may be also a girl) a devout Christian Fundamentalist, approve of her being on that show?
Because they are all Transgender.

Judaism - Let's now study Jeremiah's prophecy, because it has nothing to do with Jesus, but with our breaking of the brit - even though G-d will always forgive us as a father chastise his son, so that we can learn a few lessons from our exile. The problem with you is that you read "Jesus" into everything, if Jeremiah had no problem communicating about Jesus, wouldn't it make more sense just to call him out by name? I mean, he could have wrote, "Hey guys, you'll get a new covenant and all laws with be abolished when the Messiah comes. Oh! And did I forget to mention that his name will be Jesus?" But he didn't write that. He was quite, why? Does G-d want Jews and Christians to fret all the time? Jeremiah was clear about the new brit, I don't know why you think its strange, we'd have the same Torah, the same laws, what's strange with that? You say that its unreasonable for G-d to keep forgiving Israel. . . well, it happened. And it will, again and again, until we finally do it right.

You have to look at where a person, or peoples of the nations are heading to see if they are "working on it" or not? And from what I know of Jews, I ask what exactly are they working on?

Why didn't Jerimiah speak out Jesus name? It was hidden from him for obvious reasons. Remember the promise of a Messiah before the Exodus, all the firstborn killed?
Same with when Jesus came, Herod kills all the children.

Mathew 2:6 Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry; and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet, saying:

18 “A voice was heard in Ramah,
Lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children,
Refusing to be comforted,
Because they are no more.”

Same with the second coming of our savior/Messiah:

Mathew 24:36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of [f]heaven, but My Father only. 37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. 38 For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, 39 and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Judaism - You further wrote: "Your Kabbalah explains that it was Gods fault all along. . . that He just didn't understand His own prophesies." I'm sorry, but do you have a source for this? You claim that the rabbis "put everything into perspective," again, a source?


What I meant was that the Kabballah comes off as one explaining what God was trying to say, or do. What He really meant to say. The source is your debate here trying to prove Jesus didn't exist, or at least wasn't who he claimed and shown he was.

Judaism - You then put up a link covering all 353 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus, the problem is, of course, is that we too have a link with all 353 answered. Here! Take a look:

https://judaismresources.net/of-whom-speaketh-the-prophet/ 

Yes, I see the 353 prophesies, and of course these Jewish counter replies all look good to you right? It is, .. I am sorry to say, but pitifully poor debunking. 

Judaism - I;m sorry, but I won't acknowledge you're claim that we don't worship the G-d of Israel, if you think that's the case, I can't help you. You then say that I rely on a bunch of commentaries, I do, because I trust these rabbis were doing their best, but all I ever quoted to you so far, to my memory, was Scripture. You say you can't read or speak in Hebrew - but that's the point, my friend. There is no "better" translation in any language than the original. To know the Bible, one must be required to learn Hebrew. After all, you just admitted, "I agree, if you speak Hebrew, I would loose every time." Yes, you will. Just look at Isaiah 7:14, they say its a virgin, but they don't know the Hebrew, because its really “ha’almah” (הָעַלְמָה)!

But if you really want the best translation out there, I recommend this source from Chabad: 

https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/63255/jewish/The-Bible-with-Rashi.htm

Do you speak Hungarian, .. or Serbo-Croatian? Because virgin is virgin in both of those languages, including in my third language English. In Hebrew may be just an unmarried girl, which according to Moses Law, better be a virgin or she'd be stoned, right?

Judaism - Just remember what my rabbi taught me about the importance of Hebrew, after all, it is nearly impossible to replicate the grammar structure of Hebrew to English, or any language, meaning, one will produce an entirely different translation than the original. For example, a translation may use many words to describe just one word, or vice-versa; as well as delete and add words to understand a concept. Also, any given word in Hebrew can have many meanings when based on context alone, hence, the impossibility. 

Shalom (peace),

If I only knew one language, maybe I would fall for that "impossible to translate into another language", but like I said, I speak three languages, and even though a joke might not come across as intended in one language to the next, the translation still the same.

Judaism - P.S. If you're a "follower of the way," where's your organization? Where do you get your funds from? How many congregants believe in this, or are you only the beginning? I'd like to know where I can further find information on this new sect because I've never heard it before. Thank you. 

My organization, ..you can start reading all about it in Mathew, then Mark, Luke and so on. It stated with Jesus picking his 12 Apostles. After his ascension back to Heaven, the Believers referred to themselves as those who followed the Way, or "followers of the Way", and no, it seems I cannot yet convince any Christian, Jew, Muslim or of any Religion to give up their Religion along with their gods, starting with the three, called the Trinity-gods and return to The Way!?

I believe someone from this Forum (or that other Christian Forum I sometime visit) pointed out that there was a Church called the Way, and that they were not trinitarian either. I was all excited, until I contacted them, and had two Ministers come over my house to recruit me. They were not really interested in my opinions, or what I had to show from Scripture, even though they were amazed and would not disagree that what I said was true and proper Bible interpretation, only they were more interested in recruiting me, they said they were already an "established Church for over 70 years and that they were not looking to change any of their Christian Doctrine.
Oh yeah, they gave me their Monthly magazine and told me "this one is free".

So you see, I'm pretty much alone with my little family (Not my siblings, they are hard core Christian, and I won't say any more about that.) So I guess I continue where the Last of the "Followers of the Way" something like 1,700 years ago left off! The rest of my Congregation is waiting for me in Heaven, but I hope to at least start the True Way back to God, outside of Organized Religion.

Are you interested?

Erfisflat

"@poco:  I do not watch videos or look at pictures in a debate forum.  Videos are made to influence bc of a certain bias the creator of the video has.  If you want to reference reliable scholarly peer reviewed researched data, then by all means do so."

I'm not entirely sure who to attribute this quote to, but I do have an issue with this. Using "reliable scholarly peer reviewed data" is fine and all, but if that data is somehow compromised, and I post a video on the internet explaining how that data is wrong with verifiable, empirical experimentation, why would any research paper be any more valid than this?

poco

@Erfisflat

I think you answered that in your reply to me with, ""reliable scholarly peer reviewed data." 

I rather doubt that any of the videos posted have the same reliable & unbiased research that is required for a scholarly reviewed researched paper.  Maybe cite your video creators so they can be verified as unbiased & reliable.  I was referring to all the flat earth 'proof' that, I thought, was at your doing.  If not, I apologize.

Evidence

poco said:

Hopefully you won't mind if I butt in here.  It seems as tho, you guys have a great discussion going on.  Very Cool. @Evidence I want to respond to what you said and ask a few questions. I first want to talk about the idea of an infinite god. Infinity cannot exist because it is mathematically incoherent.So let's look at some basic addition and subtraction first:1 + 1 - 1 = 11 - 1 + 1 = 1In both cases I used different orders to complete the equation and both of which resulted in 1. We can do this with any set of numbers. Here is another example:2 + 4 - 3 = 34 - 3 + 2 = 3This is a basic law of addition. You can rearrange the numbers as long as you don't change the operations attached to them, like you cannot modify the phrase " - 4" But let's see what happens when we use infinity in these equations. We will be using the letter "I" for infinity here.I + 1 - I = 0Infinity plus one is still infinity, and then minus itself equals 0. But then:I - I + 1 = 1Infinity minus infinity is 0, and then plus 1 is 1. Infinity breaks this law of addition I mentioned, so it cannot exist. But let's say that god is a very high number, so very powerful. My question is how do you get to the conclusion that infinity is conscious?So my next problem is what evidence do you have for all of these claims? Is it the bible? Because I can give you an example in which the bible was wrong, so how would the bible be credible? If there is one incorrect piece of information in the bible, then there couldn't be an infallible creator to write the bible. So in this case, the christian god couldn't exist.Problem with stating things are wrong with the bible re facts, may be that the ancient Hebrew language consisted of only 8500 or so words.  It's up to the interpreters to come up with the best way to explain what the ancients were attempting to say.  The bible was inspired by God, not dictated, so depending on the author, their audience, their political flavor etc, ...... all that influenced how & what they wrote.  I imagine they tried their best to say what God wanted them to, but they were for the most part, not the most studied people with regards of later authors/historians as we know.  the message was more important than being precise re some incidentals they may have gotten wrong.  As far a credibility goes, as stated b4, the authors' job was to relay what was important in God's view, not where a city was exactly, if you catch my drift.  & God's message was re His plan & our spiritual life.Let's look at the idea of creationism, which talks about how every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is, never evolving or changing over time. But this is blatantly wrong if you look at Darwinian evolution. Let's look at the evolution of humans:We have found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years. We have even seen evolution for ourselves. Take a look at the peppered moth, a white moth with black spots. This coloring helped it to camouflage. But in the industrial revolution for about 20 years, there was so much pollution that the trees were covered with soot. The moths turned black, but then when people stopped polluting the air so much, the soot cleared away and the moths turned back to normal.We have even seen some evidence pointing away from the idea of creationist intelligent design. For example, let's look at the appendix, a tiny organ on the side of the colon that serves no major purpose. It ruptures in so many people's bodies, it even ruptured in my mother's. Why would an intelligent creator add that to our bodies? And there are many other examples.My question to you is, why could God not have used evolution to get mankind to a certain ...... maturity so-to-speak?  He then may have infused man with a soul to make him special & in His image.  Would the ancient authors want to write about something they could not possibly fathom?  I think God's inspired words were delivered with relation to the times, & literal comprehension.  There is nothing in the OT to say otherwise.  An Adam & Eve is certainly something they could have understood.  the message for that entire story was how sin/evil entered this world, & how serious God treated sin.  If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method.  So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?Again, the bible because of this is fallible. So, if you're going to call the bible fallible bc of our appendix, I'd have to ask you why?  Does the bible give an exact age of earth or humans ...... & how they really got to the point of being human?  I am not saying that the bible's version of Adam is absolutely wrong, knowing God's power & all, but I think God could have used evolution with us also.  Would the ancient listener to the biblical stories comprehend evolution, & the 13 billion yer old universe?  Nah.  The bible relates a central message for our spiritual health, not necessarily geographic & other types of errors that have nothing to do with God's plan for humanity.So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.I apologize I haven't gotten the time to watch the video you posted but I will when I get the chance. Also, can you tell me more about the idea of flat earth, mud fossils, and giants? And finally, the idea of god being space intrigues me. Could you show me some websites/videos/books that could help me learn this? That would be great.I want to thank you for having this discussion and I look forward to hearing what you have to say about the information I brought up because I think this is going to be a very interesting discussion.PyromanGaming @Evidence @PyromanGaming @PyromanGaming

poco said:

Hopefully you won't mind if I butt in here.  It seems as tho, you guys have a great discussion going on.  Very Cool.

@Evidence I want to respond to what you said and ask a few questions. I first want to talk about the idea of an infinite god. Infinity cannot exist because it is mathematically incoherent.

So let's look at some basic addition and subtraction first:

1 + 1 - 1 = 1

1 - 1 + 1 = 1

In both cases I used different orders to complete the equation and both of which resulted in 1. We can do this with any set of numbers. Here is another example:

2 + 4 - 3 = 3

4 - 3 + 2 = 3

This is a basic law of addition. You can rearrange the numbers as long as you don't change the operations attached to them, like you cannot modify the phrase " - 4" But let's see what happens when we use infinity in these equations. We will be using the letter "I" for infinity here.

I + 1 - I = 0

Infinity plus one is still infinity, and then minus itself equals 0. But then:

I - I + 1 = 1

Infinity minus infinity is 0, and then plus 1 is 1. Infinity breaks this law of addition I mentioned, so it cannot exist. But let's say that god is a very high number, so very powerful. My question is how do you get to the conclusion that infinity is conscious?


So my next problem is what evidence do you have for all of these claims? Is it the bible? Because I can give you an example in which the bible was wrong, so how would the bible be credible? If there is one incorrect piece of information in the bible, then there couldn't be an infallible creator to write the bible. So in this case, the christian god couldn't exist.

Problem with stating things are wrong with the bible re facts, may be that the ancient Hebrew language consisted of only 8500 or so words.  It's up to the interpreters to come up with the best way to explain what the ancients were attempting to say. 

The bible was inspired by God, not dictated, so depending on the author, their audience, their political flavor etc, ...... all that influenced how & what they wrote.  I imagine they tried their best to say what God wanted them to, but they were for the most part, not the most studied people with regards of later authors/historians as we know.  the message was more important than being precise re some incidentals they may have gotten wrong.  As far a credibility goes, as stated b4, the authors' job was to relay what was important in God's view, not where a city was exactly, if you catch my drift.  & God's message was re His plan & our spiritual life.

Let's look at the idea of creationism, which talks about how every living thing in the world was created exactly as it is, never evolving or changing over time. But this is blatantly wrong if you look at Darwinian evolution. Let's look at the evolution of humans:



We have found skulls of apes changing into us over millions of years. We have even seen evolution for ourselves. Take a look at the peppered moth, a white moth with black spots. This coloring helped it to camouflage. But in the industrial revolution for about 20 years, there was so much pollution that the trees were covered with soot. The moths turned black, but then when people stopped polluting the air so much, the soot cleared away and the moths turned back to normal.

We have even seen some evidence pointing away from the idea of creationist intelligent design. For example, let's look at the appendix, a tiny organ on the side of the colon that serves no major purpose. It ruptures in so many people's bodies, it even ruptured in my mother's. Why would an intelligent creator add that to our bodies? And there are many other examples.

My question to you is, why could God not have used evolution to get mankind to a certain ...... maturity so-to-speak?  He then may have infused man with a soul to make him special & in His image.  Would the ancient authors want to write about something they could not possibly fathom? 

I think God's inspired words were delivered with relation to the times, & literal comprehension.  There is nothing in the OT to say otherwise.  An Adam & Eve is certainly something they could have understood.  the message for that entire story was how sin/evil entered this world, & how serious God treated sin. 

If you'd notice, Jesus, being God & was around as long as ..... forever so states the bible & that's what were using as a reference here, His main teaching method was parables/stories that told His message, altho not necessarily true historically.  They told us what His message was in ambiguous form so the listener would have to investigate/discuss  what was said in order to understand Jesus' point.  Jesus explains this in Matthew 13, using parables with why He used that method. 

So, since Jesus was around during the OT as God, the inspired word certainly would have had hidden messages, allegory/metaphors for the same reason He used them during His time on earth.  Why change the MO of God getting the message out, right?

Again, the bible because of this is fallible.

So, if you're going to call the bible fallible bc of our appendix, I'd have to ask you why?  Does the bible give an exact age of earth or humans ...... & how they really got to the point of being human?  I am not saying that the bible's version of Adam is absolutely wrong, knowing God's power & all, but I think God could have used evolution with us also.  Would the ancient listener to the biblical stories comprehend evolution, & the 13 billion yer old universe?  Nah. 

The bible relates a central message for our spiritual health, not necessarily geographic & other types of errors that have nothing to do with God's plan for humanity.

So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.

I apologize I haven't gotten the time to watch the video you posted but I will when I get the chance. Also, can you tell me more about the idea of flat earth, mud fossils, and giants? And finally, the idea of god being space intrigues me. Could you show me some websites/videos/books that could help me learn this? That would be great.

 
I want to thank you for having this discussion and I look forward to hearing what you have to say about the information I brought up because I think this is going to be a very interesting  discussion.

@poco So none of these posts were from you?
All this information that I carefully put together and answered were not even on your post? So I've been talking to myself?
And you don't look at videos??? How about the pictures, what, you just put a sticky-note on your screen to block you from seeing them?

Evidence

poco said:

@EvidenceJust to clarify, someone has me, Poco, mixed up with someone else. Only 2 of the quotes attributed to Poco was my doing.  The rest was someone else.

@poco Please state your question to me in a New reply, and please identify yourself as "real poco" so I know your post is a response to this here post of mine.
Another thing, are you 'poco' or 'Poco'?

Thanks

Evidence.

Evidence

poco said:

@Erfisflat

I think you answered that in your reply to me with, ""reliable scholarly peer reviewed data." 

I rather doubt that any of the videos posted have the same reliable & unbiased research that is required for a scholarly reviewed researched paper.  Maybe cite your video creators so they can be verified as unbiased & reliable.  I was referring to all the flat earth 'proof' that, I thought, was at your doing.  If not, I apologize.

I am not speaking for Erfisflat, don't need to, this is just my opinion.

@poco you do realize that scholarly reviewed researched papers have been reviewed with a "Globe earth created by gravity",   "we evolved from a rock to amoeba, and from there to ape" and a scholarly understanding that; "there is no God because we didn't see one"  mentality, right?

Also, if you don't watch videos, why cite its creators? Who cares who made it? If it reveals the truth with evidence, who cares?
Maybe the person in the video don't want to be identified because they have some inside information from working for NASA or CERN, .. you know, so they wont end up as "pureed" sausage meat at the supermarket!?

What I'm getting at is, we are just now, after 500 years of TPTB putting globes in our schools and over 100 years of "Video/TV MK programming" (which is most likely why you don't watch any of the videos we post, knowing the power it has to convince) that we live on a spinning Globe that is hurling through an expanding Vacuum space, and that NASA landed on the moon many times, only they lost the tens of thousands of pictures and videos taken from there, and us finding out we been lied to just about everything regarding Evolution and space.

Erfisflat

Evidence said:

poco said:

@Erfisflat

I think you answered that in your reply to me with, ""reliable scholarly peer reviewed data." 

I rather doubt that any of the videos posted have the same reliable & unbiased research that is required for a scholarly reviewed researched paper.  Maybe cite your video creators so they can be verified as unbiased & reliable.  I was referring to all the flat earth 'proof' that, I thought, was at your doing.  If not, I apologize.

I am not speaking for Erfisflat, don't need to, this is just my opinion.

@poco you do realize that scholarly reviewed researched papers have been reviewed with a "Globe earth created by gravity",   "we evolved from a rock to amoeba, and from there to ape" and a scholarly understanding that; "there is no God because we didn't see one"  mentality, right?

Also, if you don't watch videos, why cite its creators? Who cares who made it? If it reveals the truth with evidence, who cares?
Maybe the person in the video don't want to be identified because they have some inside information from working for NASA or CERN, .. you know, so they wont end up as "pureed" sausage meat at the supermarket!?

What I'm getting at is, we are just now, after 500 years of TPTB putting globes in our schools and over 100 years of "Video/TV MK programming" (which is most likely why you don't watch any of the videos we post, knowing the power it has to convince) that we live on a spinning Globe that is hurling through an expanding Vacuum space, and that NASA landed on the moon many times, only they lost the tens of thousands of pictures and videos taken from there, and us finding out we been lied to just about everything regarding Evolution and space.

@poco So you prefer pseudoscience over the scientific method, understood. The Bible, for thousands of years was considered a reliable source, and people once put blind faith into those words. No evidence at all was needed. How is this any different than your method of believing anything branded with "peer reviewed scientists say so"?

poco

@Evidence

It doesn't seem as tho you are familiar with what is, & what is not considered a valid source in academia. 

Your, "... "we evolved from a rock to amoeba, and from there to ape" and a scholarly understanding that; "there is no God because we didn't see one"  mentality, right?" 

This is no where near scholarly research I am referring to.  Scholarly research is written by experts in a particular field of study - generally for the purpose of sharing original research or analyzing others' findings. Scholarly work will thoroughly cite all source materials used and is usually subject to "peer review" prior to publication. 

I think what you are referring to is popular research, which goes with the flow, so-to-speak, of a certain popular belief.

Your, "
Also, if you don't watch videos, why cite its creators? Who cares who made it? If it reveals the truth with evidence, who cares?" 

Who cares?!?  Everyone should.  Any article CAN influence the readers to believe what it says ..... regardless of truth or bias.  Even if it is truthful, but leaves out conflicting data to its purpose, the article deceives the reader/watcher.  But since most videos are based on the creator's mindset, they are all, to  degree, biased.  That's why I do not intentionally use biased data. 

Your, "(which is most likely why you don't watch any of the videos we post, knowing the power it has to convince)'" uses assumption to come to that point.  I have seen my share of biased videos & articles, & have seen people influenced by them w/o ever researching the other side of the story.  (This includes all subjects, not only yours, whatever that may be.  If you'd notice, I stated "videos," not any specific ones).  It's so dangerous to jump to conclusions as you have here. 

I am not interested in your side argument re a flat earth whatsoever.  I have been addressing what the OP addressed .... the argument of "God doesn't exist ... change my mind." But when there's time, & since I'm addressing household renovations, I will read over some of your comments re it OK?

But why would they lie about space?  What's the motive/benefit to them?

As far as evolution, it's a theory, not fact re human evolution.  But have you ever thought that God could have used evolution to bring humans into this world to where we are now, since time is not of the essence in many cases re God?

poco

@Evidence

Oops, the last one was from 'the real poco.' 

Erfisflat

@poco said
"But why would they lie about space?  What's the motive/benefit to them?"

We've been tricked into believing, bit by bit, that we came from nothing. That we're just an insignificant speck in an unfathomably large universe. What if this is a special place? What if it was put here just for us? You've asked for proof of God, this is what the OP addresses. We're on a stationary, geocentric, flat earth, and someone is trying to hide this fact from all of us.

poco

@Evidence

Your, "So I looked into some of your ideas in the debate "is space real?" and I have a question. Can you show me that NASA is wrong about everything because I think that if the government is spending so much money on this, and if no one in half a century in the government has gone out and supported you claim it is most probably wrong.

Not me above re any 'space' discussion.
I apologize I haven't gotten the time to watch the video you posted but I will when I get the chance. Also, can you tell me more about the idea of flat earth, mud fossils, and giants? And finally, the idea of god being space intrigues me. Could you show me some websites/videos/books that could help me learn this? That would be great.

Certainly not me above.
 
I want to thank you for having this discussion and I look forward to hearing what you have to say about the information I brought up because I think this is going to be a very interesting  discussion.

Since we're getting closer to knowing what I have & what I haven't said, please tell me what you'd like to discuss.

The real, poco.

poco

@Evidence

Your, "My organization, ..you can start reading all about it in Mathew, then Mark, Luke and so on. It stated with Jesus picking his 12 Apostles. After his ascension back to Heaven, the Believers referred to themselves as those who followed the Way, or "followers of the Way", and no, it seems I cannot yet convince any Christian, Jew, Muslim or of any Religion to give up their Religion along with their gods, starting with the three, called the Trinity-gods and return to The Way!?

I believe someone from this Forum (or that other Christian Forum I sometime visit) pointed out that there was a Church called the Way, and that they were not trinitarian either. I was all excited, until I contacted them, and had two Ministers come over my house to recruit me. They were not really interested in my opinions, or what I had to show from Scripture, even though they were amazed and would not disagree that what I said was true and proper Bible interpretation, only they were more interested in recruiting me, they said they were already an "established Church for over 70 years and that they were not looking to change any of their Christian Doctrine.
Oh yeah, they gave me their Monthly magazine and told me "this one is free".

So you see, I'm pretty much alone with my little family (Not my siblings, they are hard core Christian, and I won't say any more about that.) So I guess I continue where the Last of the "Followers of the Way" something like 1,700 years ago left off! The rest of my Congregation is waiting for me in Heaven, but I hope to at least start the True Way back to God, outside of Organized Religion."

poco:  What is your organization called, & what are its precepts/mission type statement?  I read a little about the formal "The Way" folks, & agree that they seem to be interested more with changing people & preconceived notions re what a person has to do to be part of them.  Not cool.

poco

@Erfisflat

It seems as tho you & I were mixed up re our conversation a bit ago.  I evidently was addressing you back then.  Are you still interested with discussing/debating what was brought up?

Erfisflat

poco said:

@Erfisflat

It seems as tho you & I were mixed up re our conversation a bit ago.  I evidently was addressing you back then.  Are you still interested with discussing/debating what was brought up?

Specifically what? The shape of the earth? Or religious doctrines like this, which is peer reviewed?

http://www.scs.stanford.edu/~dm/home/papers/remove.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2014/nov/25/journal-accepts-paper-requesting-removal-from-mailing-list

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