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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph I Might Go to Hell for This: A Look at the Bible: Humanity Survives the Flood & Carries On!

Discussion in 'Community' started by Rogue1-and-a-half, Feb 23, 2013.

  1. NYCitygurl

    NYCitygurl Manager Emeritus star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jul 20, 2002
    The banner is definitely freaking sweet :D

    I most wholeheartedly agree.
     
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  2. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    I don't know. I went to an Evangelical college and all the profs taught and believed in evolution. Some of the students didn't, and that was somewhat awkward. I remember in my astronomy class when we were discussing the age and formation of earth and other objects in our solar system, this one girl in particular kept being all, "but it was created in 6 days! Genesis says so! Aren't we all Christians and agree on this?" And our prof and most of the class were just sort of like, "er...."
     
  3. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

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    Jul 2, 2004
    That just pisses me off.
     
  4. solojones

    solojones Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 27, 2000
    It was also a bit confusing because we all had to take Life and Literature of the Old Testament, in which we talk extensively about the creation account and how it's not literal and its relation to contemporary creation mythology and such... don't know if she wasn't paying attention or was just a hardliner who didn't realize that she'd wound up at a slightly liberal evangelical school. (Which was considered super liberal by midwest evangelicals).
     
  5. LandoThe CapeCalrissian

    LandoThe CapeCalrissian Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2012
    I find it funny that people think evolution and what cosmologists say to be unbelievable and sounds "crazy" to certain people. Yet they'll believe in a fairy tale of a being who resides outside all logic and the parameters of the known natural world, without a shred of hard evidence.

    While there is plenty of evidence to support the claims of scientists but religious folk are hung up on terms like "theory" not even understanding what the term even means.

    To me the bible is complete BS from start to finish and its historically inaccurate.
     
  6. Harpua

    Harpua Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Mar 12, 2005
    Have you read it?

    I actually haven't read it from cover to cover... I don't discount what I've read as complete BS, but I don't buy most of it, either. I actually look forward to reading the posts in this thread.. perhaps I'll be inspired to actually finish the thing... we'll see.
     
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  7. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    Do you mean BS in a particular way? Like it's historically BS? Or do you just mean it's BS as in the philosophy and such?

    I would totally love for people to actually read along here. The readings per post aren't that long.
     
  8. LandoThe CapeCalrissian

    LandoThe CapeCalrissian Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2012
    you can just tell it was written when "man" knew nothing about the world. Its so simplistic in its views of natural life.

    It says if a system is complex it couldn't be created naturally, it would have to have had an intelligent designer. It makes the layperson stupid in the sense if something is complicated we cant ask why or find out how something complex could be made naturally.

    The old example is the human eye. All ignoramus's will say "oh look at the human eye, how advanced it is, it could never be made through evolution." they feel this way because it is something complex, so its hard to explain, so they use the intelligent designer speak to make it more palatable to their brains...
     
  9. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    You are blindly attributing an awful lot that isn't there. It never takes the position that what it describes has to have been that way, or that there is a particular rationale behind it. The only defense the Genesis account makes of itself is that it's describing what in fact transpired.
     
  10. LandoThe CapeCalrissian

    LandoThe CapeCalrissian Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2012
    no religious people def use the intelligent designer to explain things that are complex.

    Like the universe in Genesis. Its so much easier and more G rated to believe an all loving creator made this happen. Its much more complex to actually study the system of the universe in a scientific manner and come up with how it evolved like every other thing in the universe evolves. An how the universe can be a cyclical thing like the changing of seasons.
     
  11. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

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    May 4, 2003
    Yes, but the book of Genesis is not "intelligent design people." You dislike the text because of what some people who read it say about it?

    As an aside, if we're being sticklers for scientific accuracy, the universe did not in any sense "evolve," nor can it ever do so.
     
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  12. LandoThe CapeCalrissian

    LandoThe CapeCalrissian Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2012
    really, every time the universe expands it evolves, every time a new sun is formed it evolves, every time a black hole is created it evolves.. It most certainly evolves.

    and many cosmologists believe the universe will end and just restart again with another big bang.


    And I disagree, the book of Genesis is the exact example of intelligent design. What are you even saying?
     
  13. PRENNTACULAR

    PRENNTACULAR VIP star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

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    Dec 21, 2005
    The more I free myself from worrying about whether the Bible should be taken literally or whatever, the more appreciation I gain for it and the more meaningful it becomes to my life and worldview. There's really some beautiful poetry, metaphors, parables and prose in it, if you take the time to read it and sift through the historically specific weird stuff that doesn't matter much anyway.

    I'm excited for this thread Rogue, and glad you're doing it!
     
  14. Condition2SQ

    Condition2SQ Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 5, 2012
    I was raised Protestant, was a full-blown evangelical zealot for about five years in my teens, and became an atheist at about age 20 after submerging myself in academia. That said, the Bible is easily my favorite book(although, of course, that's cheating a bit, since it's not really a "book" in the traditional sense). What draws me to it above all is that it's such an astoundingly rich tapestry of myth, theology, poetry, and actual history, rendered even more compelling by the fact that where history and myth diverge isn't, and never really can be, exactly demarcated. And for the parts that are mythical, why were they written? What were they meant to convey? This is surely the greatest project of literary/historical exegesis ever known. The sublimely plaintive language of such sweeping and grand conflicts such as those depicted in the Books of Kings can never be replicated; In a traditional fiction narrative, it would be far too simplistic and incoherent. It could never happen in an actual historical narrative, because, well, those kinds of things don't really happen. The only way it can work is as a cultural artifact from a pre-scientific people trying to preserve their culture and history. Precisely because the exact meaning of the text can never be known, we can use it as a mirror for whatever dynamics we find compelling. I will be an enthusiastic participant of this thread.

    Despite my love for the Bible, I find the attempts to reconcile it with our modern understanding of the world while still preserving its Truth to be ridiculous. Sure, you can come up with all sorts of putative scenarios in which Genesis "wasn't meant" to be read as history or that the myriad bizarre dietary exhortations of the Pentateuch "weren't meant" to be eternally binding, or that Yahweh's seemingly insatiable genocidal lust in Joshua and Judges "really" was a prelude to the establishing of a higher form of justice. But, really, are any of these explanations more likely than this one: That the Bible is a document written by ordinary, scientifically ignorant homo sapiens, and that its manifestly absurd narrative of Creation simply reflects that?
     
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  15. SoloKnight

    SoloKnight Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Feb 13, 2003
    Rogue, this looks like I start to an awesome thread and I'll be reading along with you.

    The one thing I'll add now is I believe that apples got associated with the tree because in Latin "Malum" can mean apple or evil. Something like that.
     
  16. Lowbacca_1977

    Lowbacca_1977 Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jun 28, 2006
    In any sense? The sense of change over time is certainly a sense of evolution.

    This is not the current view, as per the evidence.
     
  17. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    Two trees. The author forgot the part about the giant spider coming and destroying the trees, prompting the need to create the sun.

    I went to Catholic schools from grade 1 straight through undergrad, the line between science and religion was always observed. Discussion of "causality" or some kind of intelligent design was always reserved for religion class, evolution taught in science classes as proven scientific theory.

    We Catholics aren't quite the religious wack-jobs many of you think we are.
     
  18. timmoishere

    timmoishere Force Ghost star 6

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    Jun 2, 2007
    I thought the lamps were made first, but then Morgoth destroyed them.
     
  19. yankee8255

    yankee8255 Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    May 31, 2005
    Yeah, but that happens in the boring beginning part, before the elves show up. Don't we all just skip over that?
     
  20. Sauntaero

    Sauntaero Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 9, 2003
    No way, the Music of the Ainur and the creation of Arda is the best part.
     
  21. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    One of the things I always found interesting is that there really isnt a major conflict between the theories of the Big Bang, the formation of the solar system, evolution, and the Book of Genesis. First there is light, then the earth/sun/moon, then sea life, then humans.

    My pet theory is that Adam was anesthetized and Eve was cloned from a genetic sample. It is another theory of mine that they were the first homosapiens; the genetic codes of Cain & Seth "over wrote" that of more primitive humans. After all, Cain was afraid of *somebody* when he was cast out, and I dont think he married his sister in theland of Nod...

    EDIT: I forget which book (Daniel, maybe?) but did you know there is an alien abduction in the Old Testament?
     
  22. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    I think Ezekiel is the one you're thinking of. And, actually, there's another passage that we'll be coming to pretty soon in Genesis that the UFO nuts love to say is evidence of alien abduction.
     
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  23. Jedi Merkurian

    Jedi Merkurian Future Films Rumor Naysayer star 7 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    May 25, 2000
    Ezekiel, right. Thanks!
     
  24. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

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    Nov 20, 2012
    I love reading your "essays" (I don't know what else to call them, reviews sounds too cliché) Rogue, and I am very much looking forward to the progression of this thread!

    Palpatine: I will be watching your thread with great interest.
     
  25. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    No one who loves art (music, literature, painting, etc.) would fail to skip over that.