Thirith on 19/1/2007 at 12:19
Quote Posted by steo
It amazes how some people simply refuse to get a joke.
They did get the joke, or at least that's my impression. They simply tried to take it further by mock-taking it seriously, but there really wasn't that much humourous mileage in that.
fett on 19/1/2007 at 13:20
Quote Posted by Convict
Please clarify for me fett? :confused: The Bible talks about Man so I took that to mean humans not animals (or low intelligence alien animals). :confused:
You've got a book that says in the first sentence, "God, in beginning, created the earth and heavens from nothing." (literal Hebrew translation) It's clear that it's purpose is concerned only with the planet earth and it's inhabitants, and has no intention of speaking to anything outside of that realm. It doesn't preclude the message from pertaining to beings outside of that realm. If those who believe in God have a 'biblical' view of him, they would concede that he is 'multidimensional' and even that the means of salvation could be the same for anyone anywhere, as the events making it possible could have happened there as well, possibly even simultaneous to the same events on earth. I'm talking out of my ass now.
Either way, I'm just trying to say that we can't really speak of what would hypothetically apply to 'other beings' when the message of the Bible is intended for a much narrower demographic.
Are we seriously talking about whether or not aliens go to heaven? I need to get back to the Thievery UT thread...
SD on 19/1/2007 at 15:51
Quote Posted by Shug
on a related note, perchance the discovery of recognizable life / intelligence of some sort on planets other than our own would disprove the existence of God and make it a more likely explanation that everything "just happened"
Quote Posted by Scots_Taffer
Unless they too worshipped some mysterious intergalactic deity, then one could not pass off the coincidence as cosmic chance.
Any intelligence on other planets is likely to find us before we find them, so they'll almost certainly be centuries more advanced of us. In which case, they'll likely have left behind the trappings of superstition. To them, we will probably seem as primitive as those crazy tribes who worship (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cults) cargo aircraft seem to us.
And Scots, you seem to be suggesting that religion couldn't develop by chance on two planets, while apparently accepting that intelligent life could... would seem to be something of a contradiction implicit in there anyway.
Quote Posted by Convict
Please clarify for me fett? :confused: The Bible talks about Man so I took that to mean humans not animals (or low intelligence alien animals). :confused:
The fact that alien life doesn't come into the Bible would suggest strongly to me that it was written by men. If it mentioned alien life, then that might actually be a plus in favour of God's existence. Mind you, this is a god who accidentally forgot to mention stuff like dinosaurs and trilobites in the good book; maybe he just didn't have enough space left on the manuscript for such important details after all that smiting.
The Bible was also written pre the discovery of early hominids. Does Australopithecus make it into Heaven? Homo erectus? Since we know that only "men" will make it into Heaven, it'd be nice to know where God drew the line between man and beast.
Quote Posted by paloalto
Since the odds of life happening by chance are astronomical I would say it argues for the opposite.If by chance then the rarer life should be.
Quote Posted by hopper
This is completely unfounded. You have absolutely no idea what the odds of life happening by chance are, nor does anybody else.
Well, I think we can safely say that the odds of life happening by chance are pretty big, since (so far as we know) it only happened once on this planet.
However, that doesn't mean that the universe isn't teeming with alien life. There are 300 billion stars in the Milky Way. If the chances of one of those stars being orbited by an Earth-like planet capable of supporting the evolution of intelligent life is as low as 1 in a billion, that's still 300 planets in our galaxy alone.
When you consider there are about 700,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the known universe, there would seem to be plenty of potential for alien life out there, with or without a god.
Quote Posted by Uncle Bacon
I think this thread has not seen anything like the usage of terms like FLAMING RETARD COCKWIG that such an august topic deserves.
You want the Strontium Dog 2004 model :thumb:
paloalto on 19/1/2007 at 16:27
Quote Posted by hopper
This is completely unfounded. You have absolutely no idea what the odds of life happening by chance are, nor does anybody else.
Given the relatively narrow parameters that life can exist in,carbon based life that is, and the number of combinations of chemicals,peptides,amino acids etc that had to have taken place it is astronomical.
Even a situation where you have bacteria in a petri dish and a dripper that is gradually changing the ph heading toward a ph that would kill them all,the odds of a mutation that would produce bacteria that could stand higher ph would be high given the possible combination of mutations their could be.
fett on 19/1/2007 at 17:12
Quote Posted by Strontium Dog
Mind you, this is a god who accidentally forgot to mention stuff like dinosaurs and trilobites in the good book; maybe he just didn't have enough space left on the manuscript for such important details after all that smiting.
The Bible was also written pre the discovery of early hominids. Does Australopithecus make it into Heaven? Homo erectus? Since we know that only "men" will make it into Heaven, it'd be nice to know where God drew the line between man and beast.
Stronts - have you ever READ the bible? When you say things like this is makes you come off like some odd combination of Southpark and and old time Assembly of God preacher. None of what you said in the above statement is true - it's absolutely false. I'm sorry the English translators didn't dumb it down enough for you.
SD on 19/1/2007 at 17:51
Quote Posted by fett
Stronts - have you ever READ the bible?
Enough of it to know what a crock it is.
Quote:
None of what you said in the above statement is true - it's absolutely false.
So dinosaurs, trilobites and neanderthals are mentioned in the Bible? Would you happen to perhaps have the book, chapter and verse?
ignatios on 19/1/2007 at 18:16
There's one at CommChat 111259:385 but I don't know if it's a trilobite or a Neanderthal.
fett on 19/1/2007 at 18:20
You're missing my point (and I wasn't very clear - sorry). The book of Job mentions dinosaurs several times, trilobites are outside of the scope - the Bible doesn't mention a lot of things - particularly in it's creation account. The ad hoc criticism for that is, "Well of course - it's all made up!" Fine - I'll give you that it probably is, but the Bible is not intended to be an Encyclopedia of origins or every stage of 'man' from Neanderthal forward. Your argument is a strawman.
Going back to Dawkins - this is why so many christians blow off the atheist argument (pay attention - I'm actually trying to help you win that argument btw). You expect the Bible to speak to things which it never claims to speak to. It is very simply the history of a single nation, with some other tidbits thrown in. Have you ever wondered why there are only 2-3 chapters given to origins in the Bible? Because it's not a book about origins. It's a book about Israel. Christians DON'T CARE that the Bible doesn't address evolution because it's not supposed to. Yet, atheists continue to chase this windmill thinking it will dismantle the absurdity of Intelligent Design. It won't.
If you want to attack christian theology at it's heart, attack the origin of Hebrew religion, temple worship, the existence of Abraham. Forget about the resurrection, creationism, and why the two genealogies of Jesus don't match up (they're not supposed to). Stop attacking the Bible's preservation - you can't win those arguments with christians.
You'll hear something similar to this all throughout christendom - "The Bible does not intend to speak to all subjects concerning science, history, agriculture, biology, origins, or zoology. But when it does speak to those subjects, it speaks truthfully." Usually the speaker will point out that it may not even speak thoroughly (as in the creation narrative). You may think it's a loophole, but when you complain about it's lack in these areas, you betray ignorance as to the purpose of the book. And christians are trained to spot that, and turn you off immediately. The reason the bible speaks so thoroughly about salvation, Israel, and forgiveness of sin is because that's what it's about. It doesn't speak to the other things because it's not concerned with them.
Think of it this way - you would think me ridiculous to criticize Dawkins book for not addressing the consistency of fulfilled prophecy concerning the nation of Israel as evidence for God. Dawkins never claimed to address it, and the fact that he doesn't, doesn't mean he has nothing to say on the subject. It's just outside the scope of 'The God Delusion' because he's dealing with things on a more psychological and philosophical level.
I'm honestly not trying to argue with you - I'm trying to show you how 'the other side' thinks because it's very different from what you assume.
Thirith on 19/1/2007 at 18:48
It's ironic, Stronts - you're making exactly the same kind of mistake in your (reduced) reading of the bible that many Christian fundamentalists make. You're assuming that it is 100% literal. If it were, then it would indeed be a "crock". However, the bible uses metaphor and parable much of the time, and it signalises this on a textual level. You don't need to be a Christian to see this (in fact, many literary critics who look at the bible for its literary qualities are not practicing Christians), you just need to be a careful reader prepared to be objective.
SD on 19/1/2007 at 19:16
If it's not literal, then it's annoyingly vague; presumably, my assumption that something which can be interpreted in so many widely different ways has little value as a lifeguide, is an incorrect assumption?
Fett (and I do enjoy reading your posts on this subject btw) - what, then, is the over-riding purpose (or purposes, if we're contrasting Old and New Testaments) of the Bible?
