Bootie reads the bible....

[zaraza]

Yes no facts...you except the big bang by faith just as i except that God created the heavens and the earth.

Yes there are.
Read this: http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/bb_tests.html and this: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/astronomy/bigbang.html#evidence
There is no a bit of faith in BB theory.

 

[Ratzki]

That was nice post, so now we know that Bible today is most likely Bible 2000y ago.
However, that does not imply that statements in Bible are true...especially that it can explain Big Bang or Universe...

To form a good arguement, one has to admit that there is a possibility that they can be wrong, so I will approach the next subject as open minded as I can. I hope that those that may disagree will have just as open a mind. We have to be carefull to not make the bible say things that it does not and same goes for science.
Let's go with the Big Bang, I do not hurry to call it a theory as eveidence in the Bible text might agree with it. The Big Bang proponents would have us believe that:
Creation of the entire physical universe (matter, energy, space and time) from the invisible occured 13.73 billion years ago. The Big Bang. (from the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 2008)
Lets look at the Bible creation:
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. (Genesis 1:1) Supports the Big Bang by saying the there was nothing, then there was something
This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven. (Genesis 2:4) Not just the earth but the whole universe came from nothing.
Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out... (Isaiah 42:5)Sounds like an expanding universe to me, rather Big Bang like.
"It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands, And I ordained all their host. (Isaiah 45:12)Another expanding universe, created from nothing.
For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it... (Isaiah 45:18)Creation something from nothing.
For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible... (Colossians 1:16) Again something from nothing.
"Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they existed, and were created." (Revelation 4:11)Nothing existed before this creation, then, by his word it did. Sounds like a very rapid creation, similar to the Big Bang?...
I will continue after a bit more research on the Big Bang and creation.

There is more on the creation then what is in Genesis. You have to take the Bible as a whole. If Bootie continues to read through it on line(which I hope that he does) we will all see what it has to offer on many subjects. I for one like the light harted "Bootie Banter" after each post. God has a great sense of humour, just look at all of us.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

POS quote- what more do we need to know?

Zaraza reply- Much more than that. If you dont know anything, and you dont want to search and explore, what are you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------


There are great explorers of the material world like Scott, Amundsen etc, and there are great explorers of the spiritual world like the prophets and holy men, none of each group wants to do what the other group does..

 

[zaraza]

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth. (Genesis 1:1) Supports the Big Bang by saying the there was nothing, then there was something

Actually BB does not say that there was nothing. In fact, BB does not know what happened before (someting else maybe does, but it's a different story).
Your quotes could be unterstand as intepratation of BB and it's aftermath, but also as romantic description of everything around. In my opinion, these are not precise enough to consider them as BB theory support.

 

[Ratzki]

The problem with using your opinion is that it does not have to be supported by any form or argument. I tried to not let "opinion" enter in to my argument. You wanted to discuss the BB, this is what I was doing, trying to entertain a beginning that does not include God. That fact of the matter is that these quotes cannot be excluded as they do speak to the creation that seems to run hand in hand to the Big Bang that you seem to be a proponent of. One has to understand that these texts are written for a specific audience at a specific time. Long before science came up with the BB, the Bible does a pretty good job of explaining the process. Looks like a darn good grasp of things considering it was written before deep space telescopes, computers, and thousands of scientists spending most of their lives attempting to come up with some theories as to how the universe was created.
A better scientist then my self is Albert Einstein. He is probably the best known and most highly revered scientist of the twentieth century, and is associated with major revolutions in our thinking about time, gravity, and the conversion of matter to energy (E=mc2). Although never coming to belief in a personal God, he recognized the impossibility of a non-created universe. The Encyclopedia Britannica says of him: "Firmly denying atheism, Einstein expressed a belief in "Spinoza's God who reveals himself in the harmony of what exists." This actually motivated his interest in science, as he once remarked to a young physicist: "I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice" - and to him this was a real statement about a God in whom he believed. A famous saying of his was "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
The fact of the matter is, science is far from knowing what the heck went on in the beginning. It takes just as much faith to believe that there is no God at the helm guiding creation, it might even take more faith as there are some pretty big gaps in the scientific creation of the universe.

 

[[hirr]Leto]

Those who think that there is no such thing as a "God" of some sort in any kind of metaphsical sense are delusional. Almost as delusional as those who believe that this "God" is a christian God and actually gives a damn about any of us (or conversely, cares as much about us as it cares about everything else, including space dust, including the stars and including the spaces inbetween. I believe that these delusions should be tolerated, even promoted if it means good will to men. What I will not tolerate it the supremacy of one belief.

All other arguments are superfluous to anything that really matters: Canadian hockey dominancy.

: )

Cheers!

Leto

 

[PoorOldSpike]

(to Zaraza) The problem with using your opinion is that it does not have to be supported by any form or argument. I tried to not let "opinion" enter in to my argument..

Atheists say "in my opinion there's no god", yet Jesus said "Yes there is".
So whose word shall we accept, theirs or Jesus's?
Hmm tricky one..

 

[PoorOldSpike]

..Almost as delusional as those who believe that this "God" is a christian God and actually gives a damn about any of us..

Jesus said - "I only say what my Father tells me to say" (John 12:49)
Then went on to say-
"Love God, love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor"

So it looks like God does give a damn about us after all..

 

[zaraza]

The problem with using your opinion is that it does not have to be supported by any form or argument. I tried to not let "opinion" enter in to my argument.

My opinion on this issue is irrelevant. I can think whatever i like, those are not precise date. No description of cosmic background radiation, no description how universe expands, no description of element creation.
All we can see is something that can look like big bang if presented that way. We could also say 'Universe was always like this', and point somewhere in Bible to support that.

One has to understand that these texts are written for a specific audience at a specific time.

Then i guess we need a new Bible, this one is obsolete

Long before science came up with the BB, the Bible does a pretty good job of explaining the process.

Like i said, that can be applied to anything.
Big Bang, instant creation, whatever...

And we must not forget rest of Genesis, where order of events is totally wrong.

Einstein's famous epithet on the "uncertainty principle" was "God does not play dice"

Steven Hawking would disagree.

 

[McIvan]

Jesus said - "I only say what my Father tells me to say" (John 12:49)
Then went on to say-
"Love God, love one another, feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the destitute, tend the sick, visit the prisoners, look after the poor"

So it looks like God does give a damn about us after all..

Riiiiight, Mick. That would be why God:

Designed weather systems that kills tens of thousands every year and make hundreds of thousands homeless, while knowing in advance that this would occur;
Designed a planet in such a way that earthquakes and tsunamis occur, killing hundreds of thousands and causing untold misery, while knowing in advance that this would occur;
Created and released all the parasites and infestations of the world that prey on other animals, insects and people in the most horrific ways, while knowing in advance that this would occur; and
Created and released all of the bacteria and viruses that, until the invention of modern medicine and anti-biotics in particular, were taking the lives of half of all children before the age of five; once again while knowing in advance that all this would occur,

....to name just a few examples.

I'm sorry, but the whole principle of a God of Love that cares about humanity immediately fails if you just step back and take a long hard look at the world as supposedly created, and the actions of God described in the Bible, from the Old Testament cruelties to the New Testament Revelation massacres.

In my opinion, the world is entirely consistent with no God (of the type conceptualised in the Bible, Koran, Torah, or any other holy book), and religions are entirely consistent with tribal myths & stories being repeated down enough generations to be mistaken as fact and/or hijacked for secular power.

Having said that, they can give a useful sense of comfort and purpose to some people...within limits. They fill a need within many for "something more" (connected, I think, with the human id/ego and its perfectly understandable reluctance to comprehend or accept the prospect of being extinguished) or for explanations of natural phenomena that they could not at that time comprehend. It is unsurprising that so many peoples have filled that need with thousands of varied explanations and "gods" over the ages.

Whether there exists somewhere in the universe a theistic power of the type envisaged by Leto is possible, but presently unknowable.

 

[Rico]

Richard Dawkins on militant atheism
Richard Dawkins urges all atheists to openly state their position -- and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science. A fiery, funny, powerful talk.

Besides this one (agree or disagree with the man... personally I lean towards his views), there are some fascinating talks on this TED website on all kinds of subjects and all kinds of speakers -- well worth listening to and exploring.

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[USS Wyoming]

All very interesting on the creation of the universe, but I think spending more than a passing moment on it every few years is wasting our precious time.

Learned thinkers and writers for centuries have pondered it in every manner and...no decision. I rather liked the association of the BB theory being tied to creationism. But, I consider it a much greater leap of faith for someone to believe that man's creation was a mere accident following a cosmic collision of gaseous elements than the result of some intelligent design.

Out of that collision emerged a walking, talking, reasoning, tool user who in a few thousand years went from a primitive tribal existence to space orbiting explorers...? All the while the archeologists exhume every imaginable plant and creature to ever roam the planet over the eons, but in comparison; finds scarcely a trace of the one creature who evolved beyond all of them.

Well, that's it. I shall return to ponder our origination's...in a couple years.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

...God designed weather systems that kills tens of thousands every year and make hundreds of thousands homeless, while knowing in advance that this would occur; Designed a planet in such a way that earthquakes and tsunamis occur, killing hundreds of thousands and causing untold misery....parasites, viruses....the world is entirely consistent with no God..

God openly ADMITS he causes misery as a punishment for rebellious humankind, so his message is clear-"Shape up and you won't get slapped around!"
From Isaiah ch 45- "I am the Lord , and there is no other. I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster, I the Lord,do all these things."

For example see if you can spot the Indonesian earthquake and tsunami here, where he gives fair warning first-
Isaiah ch 24- "The Lord will lay waste the earth and devastate it. It is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes and broken the everlasting covenant..
Therefore a curse consumes the earth, its people must bear their guilt. The city is left in ruins, its gate is battered to pieces.
So will it be on the earth and among the nations, from the west they acclaim the Lords's majesty. Therefore in the east give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, in the islands of the sea.
The floodgates of the heavens are opened, the foundations of the earth shake. The earth is broken up, the earth is split asunder, the earth is thoroughly shaken. The earth reels like a drunkard, it sways like a hut in the wind, so heavy upon it is the guilt of its rebellion"

It's not rocket science- "Whatever the natural cause, sin is the true cause of all earthquakes."- John Wesley (1703 - 1791)

For fun let's speculate that God is not a person, but is a set of laws that govern the universe, which if broken, plunge us into a world o' hurt.
Carl Sagan hinted at it with- "If by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God"

Einstein said- "Reality is an illusion, but a very persistent one", so if we're all trapped in an illusion or fragile dream, bad vibes might affect its harmony and set it jangling like a spider's web.
For example a billion muslims praying to false god Allah might trigger a hurricane or earthquake anywhere in the world, and every time an atheist says 'there's no god', it might trigger a birth defect in a womb anywhere in the world.

 

[PoorOldSpike]

...Richard Dawkins urges all atheists to openly state their position -- and to fight the incursion of the church into politics and science...

I had a brief snail-mail correspondence with Dawks about 15 years ago and we got on alright, but sadly since then he's become more and more neurotic and paranoid, and is heading for a nervous breakdown if he don't watch out. I mean, why on earth does he think the church is hindering science?
For example I got College of Preceptors exam passes in Science I and II and am all for science research, why would I not be?
Dawks is an atheist of course, and for two pins I'd say Satan was using him as a ventriloquists dummy to spout anti-christian propaganda just as he uses all atheists.
If Dawks was asked if he believed that life-forms evolved from material beings into spiritual beings (demons), he'd probably reply "of course not!", yet he's supposed to believe in evolution..

PS- I've read some of Dawks books but found them full of guesswork, hunches, missing links and outrageous statements like this one in "Climbing Mount Improbable" where he describes how the fishes eye formed- "It was not difficult for a lump of transparent jelly to spontaneously appear".
Ha ha he's funny..

PS again- Like all atheists, Dawks is obsessed purely with the material atoms-and-molecules world and what he can see hear, touch and feel, but Christians look higher-
"For we look at things unseen rather than the seen,for the seen are temporary,but the unseen are eternal" (2 Corinthians 4:18 )

There's no reason science and Christianity can't peacefully co-exist, I like this view- "I believe in evolution, but when I hike the Grand Canyon at sunset I see the hand of God there also"- Senator John McCain

 

[zaraza]

God openly ADMITS he causes misery as a punishment for rebellious humankind,

Why does that include innocent?

Einstein said- "Reality is an illusion, but a very persistent one"

But, he didn't think on living in dreams...

For example a billion muslims praying to false god Allah might trigger a hurricane or earthquake anywhere in the world, and every time an atheist says 'there's no god', it might trigger a birth defect in a womb anywhere in the world.

This is ridiculous.

 

[zaraza]

Dawks is an atheist of course, and for two pins I'd say Satan was using him as a ventriloquists dummy to spout anti-christian propaganda just as he uses all atheists.

??????

If Dawks was asked if he believed that life-forms evolved from material beings into spiritual beings (demons), he'd probably reply "of course not!", yet he's supposed to believe in evolution..

First, you don't need to believe in evolution.
Second, when we find a demon, we will know. Until than....

 

[PoorOldSpike]

..Why does that include innocent?..

The innocent are caught up in it as 'collateral damage', even at the end of the world-
"Wars and rumors of wars...Nation will rise against nation..Earthquakes...
Famines.... persecutions...
Pray that this will not take place in winter, because those will be days of distress unequaled from the beginning, when God created the world, until now--and never to be equaled again.
If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive.
But for the sake of the elect, whom he has chosen, he has shortened them"- Jesus in Mark ch 13

 

[zaraza]

But, I consider it a much greater leap of faith for someone to believe that man's creation was a mere accident following a cosmic collision of gaseous elements than the result of some intelligent design.

There is no much coincidence in chemistry and physics. Hydrogen does not accidentally combines with oxygen giving water, they work together by well know principles. If it is accident, we would have water with 5 hydrogen atoms and 1 oxygen atoms, or whatever...But no, because everything is working by the laws of nature, which was 'established' in first moments of BB, water always will have 2H and 1O...

 

[PoorOldSpike]

..This is ridiculous..

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous what atheists say about the 66 books in the Bible?-
Genesis- NOT TRUE!
Exodus- NOT TRUE!
Leviticus- NOT TRUE!
Numbers- NOT TRUE!
Deuteronomy- NOT TRUE!
Joshua- NOT TRUE!
Judges- NOT TRUE!
Ruth- NOT TRUE!
1 Samuel- NOT TRUE!
2 Samuel- NOT TRUE!
1 Kings- NOT TRUE!
2 Kings- NOT TRUE!
1 Chronicles- NOT TRUE!
2 Chronicles- NOT TRUE!
Ezra- NOT TRUE!
Nehemiah- NOT TRUE!
Esther- NOT TRUE!
Job- NOT TRUE!
Psalms- NOT TRUE!
Proverbs- NOT TRUE!
Ecclesiastes- NOT TRUE!
Song of Solomon- NOT TRUE!
Isaiah- NOT TRUE!
Jeremiah- NOT TRUE!
Lamentations- NOT TRUE!
Ezekiel- NOT TRUE!
Daniel- NOT TRUE!
Hosea- NOT TRUE!
Joel- NOT TRUE!
Amos- NOT TRUE!
Obadiah- NOT TRUE!
Jonah- NOT TRUE!
Micah- NOT TRUE!
Nahum- NOT TRUE!
Habakkuk- NOT TRUE!
Zephaniah- NOT TRUE!
Haggai- NOT TRUE!
Zecharia- NOT TRUE!
Malachi- NOT TRUE!
Matthew- NOT TRUE!
Mark- NOT TRUE!
Luke- NOT TRUE!
John- NOT TRUE!
The Acts- NOT TRUE!
Romans- NOT TRUE!
1 Corinthians- NOT TRUE!
2 Corinthians- NOT TRUE!
Galatians- NOT TRUE!
Ephesians- NOT TRUE!
Phillipians- NOT TRUE!
Colossians- NOT TRUE!
1 Thessalonians- NOT TRUE!
2 Thessalonians- NOT TRUE!
1 Timothy- NOT TRUE!
2 Timothy- NOT TRUE!
Titus- NOT TRUE!
Philemon- NOT TRUE!
Hebrews- NOT TRUE!
James- NOT TRUE!
1 Peter- NOT TRUE!
2 Peter- NOT TRUE!
1 John- NOT TRUE!
2 John- NOT TRUE!
3 John- NOT TRUE!
Jude- NOT TRUE!
Revelation- NOT TRUE!

 

[zaraza]

Isn't this a little bit ridiculous what atheists say about the 66 books in the Bible?-

If that is not ridiculous it does not imply that your statement is not ridiculous.
....And atheists say that some things are ridiculous, some not.