logic-is-overrated

That's a very poetic title for an elementary schooler. Anyways - enjoy middle school as much as you can. Grades really don't matter until you hit high school.

This appears to be the new religion thread so I'll ask here. Could any of you christians or well-read people in general reccomend a good book on the subject of prayer (as it relates to the christian belief system and the Bible)? To give you an idea of what kind of information I'm looking for let me explain the problem I'm having. Every prayer request I've ever heard are for things like for people to get home safely from their trip, for people who are sick or in the hospital, or "our country" and things like that; basically for things where the situation turns out positive just as many times if prayer is used as opposed to no prayer. But my real problem is that everybody at my church had been praying for my pastors neice for awhile-she died. My pastor said he doesn't know why, he doesn't know God's plan. What I want to know is why don't they pray for her to come back from the dead? There is a girl in my church who was born with 8 fingers. How come they don't pray for her fingers to grow back. A guy lost half his left leg in a war. How come they don't pray for his leg to grow back? If prayer really works how come every prayer request I've ever heard in any church is for "safe things"? Is it that I've just never met a christian with enough true faith to pray for something that would require a bona-fide miracle to happen? Or does the Bible just not allow for things like that? I hope you can kind of see what kind of information I'm looking for.

But who decides which values apply? Using the examples Lewis gave like not running away in battle and not double crossing people, I think a good argument can be made that those are simply values that are required for a civilization to endure or values that logically allow for progress. It just seems to me to be more of a picking and choosing type thing.

^^To MPC: I just read your post asking why atheists argue/debate^^ It's a little late, but the reason I debate is to know the truth. I want to clarify what I believe to be true and correct my thinking where ever it is wrong. My goal is actually not to trample other people's beliefs, although it might seem like it at times. If I believe one thing and somebody else believes I'm wrong, then one of us is not seeing the truth. My goal is to find it.

Of course Mary didn't have ancestors. Where does the Bible describe Mary's genealogy? The genealogy of Jesus in Matthew and the one in Luke both give his heritage through Joseph. Those are the only two that I know of.

Did you grow up in a christian family?

I've got a few questions. What is your opinion of the first books of the Bible? Like when do you think they were written, who were they written by, and do you take the accounts to be literal history or more of a metaphor/allegory type thing? My problem is that my Bible dates Moses' life to be 1525-1405 BCE. But everything that I've found in research says that the very earliest the Torah could have been written is around 7-8th century BCE. This is due to various things, like the Hewbrew used in the time Moses supposedly lived was Northwest Semitic (or Proto-Sinatic) and it possessed 27 consonants and had differing inflectional endings. Yet the type of Hebrew used in the oldest example of Biblical writing was written in a language that is considered a descendant of the ancient Northwest Semitic, in that it used 22 consonants and lacked the inflectional endings characteristic of the 16-15th century BCE Hebrew and the oldest example of this descendant writing from an archaeological context is the Gezer Stone, which is dated to be 10th Century BCE. Then, a lot of the sites that are mentioned in the Pentateuch have been excavated, and it's been found that a lot of them didn't come into existence until the late 7th century BCE (Beersheba, Gerar, Calah, and Bozrah among others) so the Pentateuch couldn't have been written before this period. And then there's the stuff Paine writes about and other things but so far it seems to be at least 5-600 years after Moses supposedly lived. Another problem I have is the varying religions that existed prior to The Bible. The Persians God created the world in six days, a man called Adama and a woman called Evah, and then rested. The Etruscan, Babylonian, Phoenician, Chaldean and the Egyptian stories are much the same. The Persians, Greeks, Egyptians, Chinese and Hindus have their Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life. So the Persians, the Babylonians, the Nubians, the people of Southern India, all had the story of the fall of man and the subtle serpent. The Chinese say that sin came into the world by the disobedience of woman. And even the Tahitians tell us that man was created from the earth and the first woman from one of his bones. As for Noahs Ark, the Chaldean Flood Tablets have the story of the rain, the ark, the animals, the dove that was sent out three times, and the mountain on which the ark rested. So the Hindus, Chinese, Parsees, Persians, Greeks, Mexicans and Scandinavians have substantially the same story. My last question is since the same stories have been in existence throughout various cultures, many of them sharing almost every detail, and almost all of them predating the Old Testament, what separates the Old Testament stories from the previous stories? Since I'm not an expert on anything I find it hard to understand a lot of the "expertise" language that is used in a lot of websites so I just try to understand it the best I can. So if anything I've said is wrong or misinformed please correct me.

If I have a boy, I'll name him dude or man. That away it will be pretty hard to forget it. If I have a girl...meh, I'll sell her to a pawnshop.

So...what happens to the eskimoes and their igloos? Gets too hot, they get homeless?

Scare tactic by AC fanboys who just want you to think it's getting hotter so you invest in air conditioning stocks.

Biblical: the various genocides in the old testament where God commanded various nations to be wiped out by the Israelites: Jebusites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites, etc. Historical: From Wikipedia:

First off Insane, I apologize for the "terrible analogies" line. (1) It was terrible wording because I really only find 2 or 3 of his analogies to be flawed so I shouldn't have made it seem like I was criticizing all of his analogies and (2) Since he primarily uses them to explain his points in another way/make his points clearer, whether or not I feel his analogies accomplished their goal is irrelevant if I agree with his orginal points and for those 2 or 3, I did. So yes, I do find fault with 2 or 3 of his analogies, but I think his use of them isn't really important so I concede that there was really no point in me saying that. Having said that, Or we're just ignoring/spiting this instilled morality. Lewis said that this Moral Code is in humans and it tells them what they ought to do. If a civilization at one time in history does something and they genuinely belive it's acceptable and there is nothing wrong with it, and a civilization in another time in history genuninely believes that what the former civilization did was completely wrong and immoral, then how is that relatively the same? If the former civilization was ignoring or spiting this instilled morality then they would have to know what they were doing was wrong in some way because how can they ignore or spite something they don't know exists?

Why the heck would you want to?

I'll get to this when I have more time. His point is that civilizations have had relatively the same moral code throughout time. The reason for this moral code is because God instilled it in humans. Therefore, if humans have not had the relatively the same moral code throughout history, then God didn't instill morality into us. I concede there have been minor differences for whatever reasons but I think it is obvious that there have been plenty of times in history where this moral code that has supposedly always been relatively the same has at times been completely different. Point in case: you wanted to relabel those instances of murder as sacrifice; okay then. Sacrifice, whether it be people or animals, is common throughout history. Today in American society you would be labeled crazy for doing that.

I've just started reading Mere Christianity and so far I've gotten through books I and II. I must be missing something because so far it has been, lets say, less than convincing. Book I appears to be an eloquent argument for absolute morality. But besides his terrible analogies I have a few questions. (And as a note I do research sources that both criticize and defend the book but I do read the book first without any prior research to at least minimize any kind of preconceived bias. So after only having read the first two books I try to skip over anything that relates to the last two.) But here is a quote from Book I: He says there have been slight differences between the moralities of cultures throughout the ages but nothing completely different. I quote this from one of the sites I visited: I fail to see how any of these are slight differences. Then he claims that most of the changes in societal morality that have come about are due to advances in factual knowledge, not different moral principles. Again, I disagree. Sometimes it is a genuine clash of morality of a certain practice: gay marriage, the ordination of homosexuals, abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, sex education, drug legalization and the use of contraception, to name a few. As for absolute morality itself, I don't feel qualified to argue that but I do plan on reading a few books about it. Book II I think the logic Lewis uses to discredit Dualism can easily be used to discredit Christianity also but that isn't really my main question for this book. It appears to me that Lewis uses a basic form of the Liar/Lunatic/Lord argument to prove that Jesus Christ was who he claimed to be. I believe the Lord/Liar/Lunatic argument to be completely flawed and if anybody seriously wants to debate that I will be glad to. But my question is basically, am I missing anything? Is that really his main argument there. If I'm wrong about anything or if I am misunderstanding anything I think it would be best to clear it up before I move on to the latter part of the book. *edit*-I just finished the last two books and there isn't really too much to comment on. They appear to be aimed more for christians and since they're basically explaining books there doesn't seem much to argue with.

I find it more reasonable to take events like that at face value, but I guess it comes down to interpretation. And I think once it reaches that point then most arguments become fruitless so I'll just leave it.

Heh. Good call. Logic - before I continue further, I'm confused by your first point about the use of the word day. Explain a little further why it can only mean a 24 hour period. According to my KJV Study Bible when the author of Genesis describes a day in reference to the creation, the Hebrew word used is yom. In the other four books attributed to the author of Genesis (Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy), every time yom is used in the same sense as it is used in the creation, it refers to a 24 hour period. Every time day is used in reference to a certain span of time other than 24 hours, a different Hebrew word is used. There's multiple uses of the word so I assume there is multiple Hebrew words and as I said, I am not an expert so I can't say I know what those other words are. If that doesn't make sense I'll try to explain it further or if you disagree with it then let me know. I'm just using my Bible here and if you can't trust the Bible, who can you trust?!

Before I begin let me say I am not an expert on evolution or anything close to it, I am not an expert on hebrew, or scripture origins or pretty much anything else so if I'm wrong on anything please let me know. My goal is not to bash any particular side, rather it is to clarify my knowledge so I can be sure what I believe is correct. That being said, this post is to "theist evolutionists." First let me define a few terms. When I say theist evolutionist, I mean somebody who believes in an intelligent designer (God) who uses "evolution" to accomplish what we see in biological history and the current biologicial system. The definition of evolution, as quoted from talk.origins archive: <-If I'm correct, I believe it is accepted as fact that the process of evolution does occur. But throughout this post this is not what I will refer to when I say evolution. The definition of evolution, as it will apply to the times when I use the word is: To put it simply, we started with microscopic organisms and evolved to where we are today over hundreds of millions or billions of years or whatever. If those definitions are not correct in anyway, again, let me know. But I am not trying to play semantics, I am simply using those words as placeholders for the meanings which I have applied to them. Now to my main point: I believe the belief in evolution and the belief in the creation story as presented in the Bible, can in no way be reconciled. I believe it has to be one or the other and that theist evolutionists are, quite simply, mistaken. My goal is not to attack the theist evolutionist himself, just his belief. I will now attempt to explain why I believe such. As a side note: most of this will come from my KJV study bible. Apart from the use of the word day in verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31, where it describes the days of creation, it is used in at least four ways in the first two chapters of Genesis: (1) the 12-hour period of daylight as opposed to night (vv. 14, 16, 18); (2) a solar day of 24 hours (v.14); (3) the period of light that began with the creation of light on the first day (v.5); and (4) the entire, six-day creative period (2:4). The day I refer to in this point is the one in 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31; the days which are used in reference to the creation. In these verses the original Hebrew has day translated into yom. Everywhere in the Pentateuch the word day when used (as in 1:5) with a definite article or numerical adjective means a solar day or a normally calibrated, 24-hour day. So according to the Biblical account of creation, God created the world in six literal days. But lets go further. 1:11,12 - It is quite obvious, that the fruit trees were created already functioning and bearing fruit. Just as animals and humans were created as already functioning and able to reproduce "after their kind." If I'm wrong about anything please let me know and if you are a theist evolutionist please explain to me how they can be reconciled. I have read The Case for Faith and The Case for Christ but it's been awhile so I'll have to reread those. I've just received More than a Carpenter and Mere Christianity in the mail so I'll read those. And I should be getting New Evidence that Demands a Verdict and He Walks Among Us any day now.

^^Being the intellectual layman that I am, I can't join in that discussion.^^ But I do have more questions for the christians of the forum. I have just finished reading "The Age of Reason" by Thomas Paine. Basically, he wants to prove that the Bible is "the word of man" not "the word of God" by using nothing but the Bible. In his work, he examines various books of the Bible and makes various claims. I don't follow him completely on a lot of his claims (such as Chronicles being older than Genesis). But some, I do find to be logical and one in particular I have a question about. This: "The Age of Reason" can be found free online and only takes a couple hours to read (5 or 6 maybe if you go through and try to look up the scriptures and try to piece together everything he's talking about); so if you don't agree with what he says about the Torah at least have read why he comes to that conclusion. (To be honest I don't think it would hurt you much to skip part 1) If you accept his claims that the author of the Torah is unknown then you basically have an anonymous book that has no authority to confirm anything that was written in it. I am not an expert in anything so I could only validate his reasoning as far as I could by following the scriptures he referenced. Saying that, here's my point: Do you accept his claims about the Pentateuch? If not, why? If so, how does this affect your view of the Bible knowing the foundation it rests upon has been stripped of any authority?

I'll discount it then-$4.99.

I'll sell you some of my posts for 5 bucks. Quick, before Phil locks this.

When I see Pianofreak, Insane, or Astraline, I think religion. Death By Pod, Mercifull and HugATree-anti-religion. When I see Ghostranger or Scruffy, I think here comes a really long, really smart post. When I think Lionheart_0, I think, the guy who can't spell. How2Pk-movie guy. Indy-anarchist. MPC- I usually find him pretty funny, except occasionally he gets a little to "trolly". Bubsa- you never know what you're gonna get. And Phil-the lockmeister, the lockster, the locktific lockinator. Besides that though, for some reason people just really don't "stick out" to me.

I wouldn't wish for anything. The wish granter could be a spiteful fluffer like the one on x-files and screw me over. And since I only have 1 wish, I wouldn't be able to change it.

I wouldn't wish for anything. The wish granter could be a spiteful fluffer like the one on x-files and screw me over. And since I only have 1 wish, I wouldn't be able to change it.

I wouldn't wish for anything. The wish granter could be a spiteful fluffer like the one on x-files and screw me over. And since I only have 1 wish, I wouldn't be able to change it.