Have you heard how negatively you've spoken about religion here? Sounds pretty cynical, at least in regard to religion. To believe that God is an evil egomaniac seems like a shallow interpretation to me. This kind of reminds me of Fight Club, which I think is a pretty inspirational movie. I think it was also an argument of the atheistic philosopher Sartre, who really made some arguments close to Kierkegaard, minus the final acceptance of spirituality. Why does this matter if there is no such thing as God? If there is no meaning to life, civility and love are simply exercises of ego. Why try if there is no point? So you like to think the complexity of nature occurred randomly? Maybe all this and God is true. According to the bible we were given free will; I think we are all shards of divinity, a part of the larger cosmos and all. Perhaps another couple things you should consider ...the Seth books by Jane Roberts make it seem hard to believe that there is nothing beyond this life. Can be tough reading, but they are also pretty amazing. ...for the sceptic, a try it yourself option - astral projection. Instead of simply just having faith, why not take action and find out yourself. I simply don't believe anyone can be a true nonbeliever unless they exercise all options.
Life's a bitch, mate. :wink: Debate is a blood sport and I take it seriously. Nothing personal at all, but I use whatever ammunition is available to destroy an opponent's argument. Whatever I argue, I back up with facts, sources, and supporting evidence. It's always going to prevail over wild-ass guesses and unattributed, anecdotal suppositions in a debate. You know, there are outlaw bikers that are called "Hell's Angels". May I point out that, despite this name, none are from Hell nor are they angels. No, I said that calling someone a Jew does not make one an ethnic Jew and that ethnologists are sorting all of this out with DNA studies. Then, when you said that others "must have" survived the flood, I pointed out that the Bible specifically states that God destroyed all people except Noahs family. You are suggesting that God failed to destory human life in the Flood. The Bible says that nowhere. You make huge assumptions and giant leaps of logic to come to your conclusions and all I have to do is point out where the Bible states the issue authoritatively. Obviously you are not a "Bible is the literal truth" kind of fundamentalist. This has been an interesting argument because I've never met a True Believer who just blows off scripture that doesn't fit his personal interpretations of God's Will. Most of them cling tightly to The Word and get hung up on the many contradictions. You, on the other hand, make unique interpretations so freely that The Word itself gets in your way. Sorry, a cut-and-paste that long without paragraph breaks constitutes audience abuse. I'm going to skip it. It's beside the argument anyway and I'm more interested in your viewpoints than a Sunday School lesson.
Yes you have to "imply" a lot of things and make many blind assumptions to reach your conclusions, that almost nobody recognizes. That is why your argument is so weak compared to authoritative statements in the Scriptures that say otherwise. We've already covered this! Please pay attention. A geneology shows all the ancestors and descendents of a person. I linked for you a geneology of Adam and of Cain that was compiled from Scripture and Cain is most certainly there. You just can't get around Genesis 4:1. Adam knew Eve and she bore a son named Cain. What you cited and keep calling a geneology is actually (and so titled) a list of the generations between an ancestor and a descendant. Such a list tracks lineage through a single child in each generation. The one you cite is the list of the generations of Adam through his son Seth. Cain would never appear on such a list because he is not a decendant of Seth. This not rocket science. The Bible also lists the generations of Cain but it ends early because Cain's descendants did not survive the flood and Seth's did.
i went to a baptist church until i was about 13.I left ,because i had questions that they could not seem to answer.I did not lose my belief that the bible is God's word,just that the things i was being taught didn't fit. Easter was the first one of these questions.Ever try to squeeze 3 days and three nights into good friday -sunday morning.You cant do it.so either what i was being taught was wrong or Christ lied.It did not take long to discover Easter is a misstranslation ..it is supposed to be passover...and Christ did not lie.He spent 3 days and 3 nights in the tomb just like he said. The apple story in the garden...now that is an obvious lie..when you ask your so-called authorities about this ...they will say"well,we really don't know if it was an apple,it could have been an orange,or it could have been some fruit that is extinct now...don't you believe there has to be more to it than that? So..you take the KJV bible and a strong's concordance and you find out what those words really mean.The tree used for the tree of knowledge means spine or backbone. A wooden fruit tree has no spine or backbone.And what runs through your spine or backbone?.Your central nervous system and all the knowledge that a man would have .I didn't just pluck that definition out of no where .Strongs' concordance ,Red ,A Strongs concordance.Every english word translated back into hebrew or greek. A talking snake in the garden.Sorry,i don't believe in talking snakes.The word means to speak lies and desribes the character of the man who is in the garden speaking lies.That isn't a leap of faith ,that is just common sense.A leap of faith would be believing in a talking snake. Every one of Adam's or Cain's descendants is tracked through his first born only .Adam's descendant Able was killed ..so we are given Seth's You say, I make unique interpretations.When the english translators of the bible say to check them out and i do...and find out that the word that they use for sorrow is actually {labor pains} and the word for again.."again she bare" is to continue , so i say she is having twins,because when a woman has just had one child and CONTINUES in labor that is what is occurring.Once again ,just a little common sense. I will give you another word in genesis .genesis chapter 1 verse 2 and the earth was without form and void.The word void actually means destroyed as in there was an earth here ,with life and it was destroyed.Job speaks of the earth of old and mentions the behemoth and leviathon{dinosuars}. day = without any qualifying words,.day is an undefined prolonged period of time. So here you go Red,another disagreement i have with any church that would teach that this earth is only 7000 years old. red, you have a little trouble with understanding.I do not make huge assumptions.genesis chapter 6 verse 4..the very reason for the flood of noah...and also after that... after what?after the flood of noah...they survived. 4 There were giants [nephilim] in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Agian you make assumptions not in evidence. Nowhere does it say that the list of generations between Adam and Jesus was between firstborns. You made that up. You have only to see that it lists Isaac as the generation after Abraham, when the Bible makes it clear that Ishmael was Abrahams first born. But Ishmael, like Cain before him, was disinherited and banished leaving Isaac as Abraham's heir. Able was dead and Cain was banished and disinherited. Seth was Adam's only remaining son and since that line includes Noah, no other lines exist. No, that's what we call an erroneous conclusion based on a assumption. Not at all. In fact, day is an extremely specific period of time. By definition, it cannot be prolonged beyond 24 hours. day -noun 1. The period of light between dawn and nightfall; the interval from sunrise to sunset. 2. The 24-hour period during which the earth completes one rotation on its axis. Let me 'splain somethin' to you. You can't translate from a dictionary--especially in ancient languages. Ancient Hebrew only had about 8,000 words as opposed to modern English with over 120,000 words and their grammar was primitive. It was difficult to express nuances without placing a word in context, especially in an oral tradition. Take "Thou shalt not kill" of the King James Bible. Ancient Hebrew just didn't have the words for execution, battle death, suicide, homicide, fratricide, regicide, etc. But clearly the sixth commandment was intended to mean "thou shalt not murder". The original Hebrew of the sixth commandment is lo tirtsach. Tirtsach can mean to break in pieces, kill or murder. Lo is the Hebrew negative. After all, what did Moses do when he came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments and found the Israelites worshipping an idol? He had 3,000 of them killed! In fact, in the first five books of the bible, death by stoning is prescribed for breaking any of the first 7 commandments except possibly the second. Surely the commandment did not include killing by execution. David and Solomon were beloved of God yet they slew "thousands and ten-thousands" in battle. Surely the commandment did not include killing in battle. "Thou shalt not murder", while not traditional in the King James Version, is actually the proper translation of the Sixth Commandment. It just did not survive multiple translations from Hebrew to Greek to Latin to English unscathed. In the same fashion, one cannot just find an English translation of an ancient Hebrew word and start making assumpions that scriptures themselves are mistranslated. You have to read the context carefully and even then is is often subjective. Another scripture that means nothing to the conversation. Another huge assumption. How do you explain away the Word of God saying that he will kill every man? Was he lying or did he fail? Or perhaps . . . are you simply wrong?
Red ,you use the english dictionary to define a word written in a different language thousands of years ago? How idiotic is that? the word is yom or yome ...it can mean a 24 hour period or without any qualifying words an undetermined prolonged period of time. word for wooden tree is ets which can also be used to mean a plank ,a stick, a staff or pretty much anything made out of wood the word for the tree of knowledge is not that kind of tree.it means spine or backbone...nothing to do with wood. I need to some shade tree's in my backyard ,Red...you got any seeds for that tree of knowledge,maybe i can plant a whole grove of them.
red ,you actually have this right ...it is .."thou shalt not murder".How can you correctly tranlate this and let things so obvious has ...oh $hit...I have had a revelation ..it is an apple .i am headed to the grocery store right now so i can pick me up some of those fruits of knowledge.:grin:
Like most Hebrew words, context is everything. Yome has over 30 English translations. Far from provng your point, it effectively proves nothing at all because it can mean so many different things.. Yome can mean either a day (in the ordinary 24-our sense), the daylight portion of an ordinary 24-hour day (i.e., day as distinct from night), or, occasionally, an indefinite period of time (e.g.. "In the time of the Judges" or "In the day of the Lord"). Without exception, in the Hebrew Old Testament, the word yome is never used to refer to a definite long period of time with specific beginning and end points. Furthermore, it is important to note that even when the word is used in the indefinite sense, it is clearly indicated by the context that the literal meaning of the word day is not intended. The author of Genesis has gone to great lengths to properly define the word day the first time it appears. In Genesis 1:4, we read that God separated the "light from the darkness." Then in Genesis 1:5 we read, God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. In other words, the terms were being very carefully defined. The first time the word day is used, it is defined as the light to distinguish it from the darkness called night. Genesis 1:5 then finishes off with, "And the evening and the morning were the first day." This is the same phrase used for each of the other five days, and shows that there was a clearly established cycle of days and nights. God could have created the whole universe, the earth, and all it contains in no time at all. So why did God take as long as six days, anyway? The answer can be found in Exodus 20:11. "For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them and rested the seven day. Therefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it." This is a direct reference to God's creation week in Genesis 1. Obviously, whatever is used as the meaning of the word day in Genesis 1 must also be used here. Even a thousand years would be out since the Israelites only wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Moreover, we are told in Genesis 1:26-28 that God made Adam on the sixth day. Adam lived through the rest of the sixth day, through the seventh day, and then we are told in Genesis 5:5 that he died when he was 930 years old. If each day of creation was, for example, 650 million years to jibe with geologic time, then there are real problems. In fact, if each day was only a thousand years long, this still makes no sense of Adam's age at death.
So,why would any word in hebrew have more than one meaning if according to you they can only mean one thing? Once again Red,this is a disagreement I have with fundamentalist churches that teach Adam and Eve were the first and only people created. It has to do with the word adam and the difference between that word and the words "eth ha adam"after God rested on the seventh day. Your way all the animals are created and then adam was created in genesis 1...then in gen 2 adam is created and then the animals are created.Do you see this? Many theologians say this is explaining the paragraph before. [That gen 2 is explaining gen 1}Well, if it is explaining the paragraph before it would seem logical that they could at least get the chronological order right. God created all the wild animals and fish that the people he was about to create on the sixth day could hunt and fish for...then he made mankind{all the races}and it was good and he rested. On the eighth day he creates THE MAN ADAM ,"eth ha Adam",the word adam with the article "Ha" and the particle "Eth"This makes the meaning of the word adam different from mankind.He makes him a farmer...then he creates the farm animals that Adam will use .gen 2 verse 5 ...{this is after he rested on the seventh day}....for there was not a man to till the ground.{ I believe this would be a farmer}Why? because those people god created on the 6th day were hunters and fishermen. Your way ,major contradictions.Did he create Animals first or Adam first? Where did all the races come from?Some churches teach that some of the children of Noah were cursed,and the curse was to change them from White to yellow or black,or red,or whatever.Sorry ,i don't buy that.Do you?Do you think a black couple can have sex and a oriental person is going to be their offspring? according to the bible every thing gives birth to it's own kind. For someone who claims to be a curious agnostic ,saying the bible is just a bunch of campfire folktales,you sure seem to stick to the fundamentalist generally accepted version of events,even ignoring the major holes in that concept. let me give you one other word...it is the word "hell" and my beliefs regarding this. Three different words are used that were all translated into the english word hell.Sheol,torturro,and gehenna...sheol simply means to be buried underneath the soil like a potato.torturro means to be caged away in a dark place and is only used in regards to angels,not man.That leaves the last word gehenna.This was a valley on the edge of Jeresulem ,where trash was dumped ,into a burning pit.Trash ,dead animal bodies,etc were dumped there.Once,Christ uses this burning pit as a symbol for what happens to those souls cast into a lake of fire.Christ says my father can destroy both body and soul in hell{a gehenna like fire}Is destroy everlasting torment in some hellfire?Are not the wages of sin death?meaning ceasing to exist ,poof,the end,finis,school is out ,church is over,you're done,blotted out ,never to be thought of again or is it living forever in some hellfire torment.Isn't it vain of mankind to think we live forever regardless of what we do,we just get to choose where?good or bad ,heaven or hell,happiness or everlasting torment This teaching probably started with the poet dantes inferno.But whatever started the teaching ,i don't buy it.My belief is you get tossed into the lake of fire,you are toast,poof ,up in smoke. I wiill make this one easy for you.This particular belief is called "annihilationism"In fact, every one of my beliefs have some kind of "ism" or doctrine ."British israelism",is another...Serpent seed doctrine is another.Old earth creationism a form of gap theory is another.I usually don't post those particular things because most internet sites are written by and for regular fundamentalist churches and do not accurately describe that particular belief. If you do happen to look up any of these "isms".I am not a seventh day adventist,who believe the mark of the beast has to do with the sabbath day ,or a jehovah's witness ,who have christ coming back every year since about 1914 ,or a member of the worldwide church of god.And as far as the serpent seed doctrine, I am also not a member of The christian identity churches which i have called rascist in other posts.They have taken this teaching which i believe to be true and corrupted it horribly to fit their rascist,hate filled agenda. I also don't believe in the rapture theory which started in about 1830 .You can look up margaret mcdonald in glasgow ,scotland and john darby and edward irving on this one.
Only I never said that. Note that I am not saying that I believe the bible account; I am just dealing honestly with what it actually says, with the realities of the language. You concoct biblical alternate worlds that have no basis in the document in question. Now, you're going off on new tangents as a distraction. Just start a new thread instead.
