Logic dictates that there is a God!

[vtmarik]

Hey, i'm just theorizing here. I'm trying to use logic.

Isn't that what this thread is all about?



Also, didn't God make man and woman at the same time? Genesis 1:27
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them."



And afterward Eve was created from Adam's Rib.

This first woman must have been a mistake. But God can't make mistakes...

Hm, interesting...

[jay_a2j]

Hey, i'm just theorizing here. I'm trying to use logic.

Isn't that what this thread is all about?



Also, didn't God make man and woman at the same time? Genesis 1:27
"So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them."



And afterward Eve was created from Adam's Rib.

This first woman must have been a mistake. But God can't make mistakes...

Hm, interesting...

Chapter 1 tells what God did. Chapter 2 is the specifics of Chapter 1.

You probably knew this and are just tring to annoy me. I guess I'll stop feeding the trolls.

[vtmarik]

No, I'm quite serious. It seems like a bit of a grevious example of really bad editing, or as they would call it in a film: A Continuity Error.

But if you want to concede, I won't stop you.

[reverend_kyle]

VT theres a rule against what you are doing in the new forum guidelines.

[vtmarik]

VT theres a rule against what you are doing in the new forum guidelines.

I am not Trolling, nor am I being anti-religion. I am simply trying to clarify things.

[reverend_kyle]

VT theres a rule against what you are doing in the new forum guidelines.

I am not Trolling, nor am I being anti-religion. I am simply trying to clarify things.

Two: Am I trolling or feeding a troll?

[heavycola]

Actually, if you read the OT (which is the Hebrew Torah), Satan isn't the serpent. The serpent was just a serpent.

It didn't become Satan until St. Augustine got a hold of the book and wrote an apocryphal text on it.

I am aware its called the Torah. Are you mad? The serpant mentioned in Genesis is Satan. Satan is called by many names.... The Father of Lies, the Evil One, the "one who decieves", and serpant to name a few.

No, Marik is right. Satan isn't mentioned in Genesis. That interpretation came later. It was a snake. God punishes it for tricking Eve by forcing it to crawl on its belly and eat dust... why would he punish all snakes if it wasn't a snake?

And i think the key word in that wikipedia article is 'alleged'. Does witchraft exist? yes. is there a shred of evidence - apart from in movies, obviously - that it 'works'? No. None.

[jay_a2j]

No, Marik is right. Satan isn't mentioned in Genesis. That interpretation came later. It was a snake. God punishes it for tricking Eve by forcing it to crawl on its belly and eat dust... why would he punish all snakes if it wasn't a snake?

And i think the key word in that wikipedia article is 'alleged'. Does witchraft exist? yes. is there a shred of evidence - apart from in movies, obviously - that it 'works'? No. None.

No, Marik is wrong. It was a snake... SATAN incarnate! If you didn't know this, snakes do not talk... therefore it would real hard for a mere snake to temp Eve.


I knew someone was going to pick up on the "alleged" thing. Now first of all its an encyclopedia and of course they are not going to show a bias one way or another. The word alleged does not render it false or not true. Just like OJ "allegedly" commited double homicide. Now, he was found not guitly but we know the truth. If you don't believe witches exist or that they really don't have any power, why don't you google it or find one in your neighborhood and ask them to cast a spell on you (just for kicks of course)

[vtmarik]

No, Marik is wrong. It was a snake... SATAN incarnate! If you didn't know this, snakes do not talk... therefore it would real hard for a mere snake to temp Eve.

But according to the bible hares chew cud, bats are birds, and insects have four legs. Why wouldn't this book be able to claim that snakes can talk?

Sounds like more weird Biblical Biology to me.

EDIT: And as a side note, it was St. Augustine that added in the Satan stuff, the actual scripture makes no mention of Satan or explains how Satan would be able to enter Eden since at that time he apparently didn't exist (This is still Genesis after all, and neither Lucifer nor his fall is mentioned in these early sections of Genesis).

I knew someone was going to pick up on the "alleged" thing. Now first of all its an encyclopedia and of course they are not going to show a bias one way or another. The word alleged does not render it false or not true. Just like OJ "allegedly" commited double homicide. Now, he was found not guitly but we know the truth. If you don't believe witches exist or that they really don't have any power, why don't you google it or find one in your neighborhood and ask them to cast a spell on you (just for kicks of course)

Well, speaking as a person who has a few friends who are witches, I can say with certainty that movie-style witchcraft (Ala The Craft or Charmed) doesn't exist. Ritual, as far as I can tell, is meant as a focus for meditation and as a catharsis for negative emotions.

I don't see how our interpretation of what witches can do has any meaning to what they can do in your mind. If you get some footage of a witch conjuring fire or flying through the air, then we can talk. But just as I am no expert in Biblical affairs, I can safely guess that you are no expert in witchcraft and the occult.

[Mirak]

Jay


"If you didn't know this, snakes do not talk.."

First sensible thing I've heard you say.....or were you being sarcastic?

[Mirak]

By the way Jay, thanks for sharing the floorplan of Noah's Ark with us
Could you possibly let me have the menu for the last supper if you find the time and if it's not too much to ask I'd love to know where I can get some of that water which turns to wine, ...O a few of those magic loaves would be good too, maybe you have the recipe somewhere...

[heavycola]

Well a lot of stuff happens in the bible that would seem to be at odds with reality as we know it. Jonah getting swallowed by a whale, the Red Sea parting, the passover, people living for many hundreds of years...
but a snake talking - that is just pushing things a bit far, right jay?

[jay_a2j]

Well a lot of stuff happens in the bible that would seem to be at odds with reality as we know it. Jonah getting swallowed by a whale, the Red Sea parting, the passover, people living for many hundreds of years...
but a snake talking - that is just pushing things a bit far, right jay?

Yeah, its pretty amazing the things God can do that boggles our puny human minds.

Oh, the menu for the last supper, don't know for sure but I'd bet there was wine and bread. There is no "special water" that turns to wine. It was regular water. No magic loaves just another display of God's power.

[Mirak]

Heavy...Jay is such a reasonable and pragmatic guy he couldn't let any of us get away with the absurd notion that a snake might talk....heaven forbid that we should be fooled by such silly notions

Thanks Jay for bringing the discussion back into the realms of sensible, unemotional and constructive debate

[jay_a2j]

No, thank you for displaying your intolarence of anything YOU don't understand.

[slash1890]

And thank YOU for using god as your fallback answer on anything you can't explain.

[P Gizzle]

is it in anyway possible that god used evolution? has anybody ever thought that? i mean, is it possible that not everything is black and white, but maybe gray?

Actually no. If we are talking about Christianity.

GEN 1:24

And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds"

Meaning a dog will breed dogs, a goat will breed goats and apes will breed apes.

ok, im a christian, and the bible is very metaphorical, no? so is it possible the bible was using this as a metaphor

[OnlyAmbrose]

That largely depends on your interpretation of the Bible, P Gizzle. Several more "fundamental" Protestant sects interpret nearly every aspect of the Bible literally, including this one.

Many other Christian sects, including, I believe, the Catholic faith (which is my own), interpret Genesis on a more metaphorical scale. Though I'm not certain exactly WHAT Catholic doctrine on the matter of evolution is (I specialize in moral theology, not the Old Testament ), I'll see if I can find it. In any event, I generally believe that, because the Catechism of the Catholic Church EXPLICITLY states that there is a direct connection between reason (science, in many cases) and the Faith, that the two are connected. So... I generally believe that the whole "7 days" thing is symbolism- before Earth was created, what difference would "time" make anyways? Clearly symbolic there. As such, I don't find it outside the realm of possibility that the method by which the Earth as we know it came about is not literally what the Bible says, but more of a timeless tale which suits the moral needs of modern folk just as well as the ancient Jews.

Less on the topic of Christianity and more on the topic of logic dictating that there is a God, I firmly believe in it, as does the Catholic Church. Though the Catechism says it rather archaically, I reason it like this-

I don't see the issue as pertaining to how LIFE came about (theoretically it was all by chance chemical combinations to form the amino acids), but rather, how MATTER came about. The former can be explained scientifically- the latter is explained by the atheistic community as "it just is and always has been around." Interestingly, that's pretty much how the religious folks see God. However, us theists simply believe that matter couldn't exist without God.

Now, how do atheists claim that matter became what it is today? The Big Bang Theory. All the matter in the universe was massed at ONE SMALL POINT (for our purposes let's assume it's the size of the head of a pin) at an infinitely small size, and it exploded, and now the universe is ever-expanding outward at mind-boggling speeds.

But how long was all that matter massed up like that? If matter has always been around, and before it resembled what it is today it was all amassed at that INIFINTELY SMALL point, then logically the argument by atheists must be that before matter expanded into the universe as we know it, it was at that point INFINITELY LONG.

Impossible. Against the laws of physics. Matter cannot exist for ANY longer than an infinitely short period of time in such a condensed form. When there is a high concentration at one point (in the case of our proverbial point in which all the matter in the universe is housed, the density/concentration is near-infinite, clearly a HIGH concentration, right? ) and a lower concentration at the other (since we're talking ALL the matter in existance, this means the concentration everywhere but that one point is zero, so we're talking an infintely large difference between the two), it will expand to fill the difference. That's why, scientists say, the Big Bang occured in the first place, and why we're still expanding.

But HOW was this infintely dense point held together for an INFINITELY LONG PERIOD OF TIME? In a one word answer, I'd tell you the following:

God.

Plain and simple. The presence of a supernatural being is a perfect explanation for why such a point could ever come into existance.


Link to the CCC: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

[P Gizzle]

k thanks, because i always thought that the bible was written in most parts to be maetaphorical

[vtmarik]

Interesting. You raise a good point OnlyAmbrose.

But I was taught by various books and teachers that the big bang occured the instant that the matter reached that infinitely condensed state. That the pent-up energies held within that single point of space that it reached critical mass in such a short amount of time that it couldn't be measured.

The Hawking-Penrose theories go that the Universe has a big bang and what is called a Big Crush as it shrinks back down to that single-point size. At least I think it was them two...

Anyhow, that's what I remember from various books and lectures. Talk to 100 scientists and I guarantee you not one of them can agree on the Big Bang. Sure, they may generally come to some consensus that it could have occurred but good luck trying to get them all to say it occured the same way. Kinda like that little fight within a group of friends about where they want to go eat dinner.

Still, very interesting thoughts Ambrose, I shall mull them over in my mind and consider them.

[OnlyAmbrose]

I appreciate it

And while you're at it, here's a bit more in response to your last post:

But I was taught by various books and teachers that the big bang occured the instant that the matter reached that infinitely condensed state. That the pent-up energies held within that single point of space that it reached critical mass in such a short amount of time that it couldn't be measured.

Precisely. But what made the matter reached that infinitely condensed state? That's where my view of the supernatural comes in... if everything around is vacuum, what force could make matter defy the laws of physics and converge into an infinitely small point, thus doing exactly the opposite of what the laws of physics suggest, it SHOULD go the other way around, unless there is an external force... see where I'm going?

[vtmarik]

Precisely. But what made the matter reached that infinitely condensed state? That's where my view of the supernatural comes in... if everything around is vacuum, what force could make matter defy the laws of physics and converge into an infinitely small point, thus doing exactly the opposite of what the laws of physics suggest, it SHOULD go the other way around, unless there is an external force... see where I'm going?

Yeah, I see where you're going. Makes sense in some way, I'm just not sure if it's the explanation that works for me.


I like you Ambrose, you approach these things with intelligence and finesse. Perhaps one day we could meet and have coffee.

[mr. incrediball]

First of all we must agree that there is a difference between evolution and adaptation.

but there IS no difference between evolution and adaptation! Evolution is just a series of adaptation until eventually something has adapted to it's surroundings so much it gradually becomes a completely different animal!

[heavycola]

Precisely. But what made the matter reached that infinitely condensed state? That's where my view of the supernatural comes in... if everything around is vacuum, what force could make matter defy the laws of physics and converge into an infinitely small point,

I agree in as much as I believe that if a higher intelligence was involved in the existence of things, then the big bang is where it operated. But we need to be careful - before the big bang there were no laws of physics, and there was no vacuum surrounding it, at least the way I understand it. Some scientistst think the big bang might have started as a singularity, i.e. a black hole in another universe, and because singularities screw with the laws of physics the only way for it to continue is to bud off into another universe i.e. ours. In which case we are supremely lucky to live in one that is able to produce and sustain life...

but yeah, no one knows. A copy of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion just landed on my desk. I can;t wait to read it.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Precisely. But what made the matter reached that infinitely condensed state? That's where my view of the supernatural comes in... if everything around is vacuum, what force could make matter defy the laws of physics and converge into an infinitely small point,

I agree in as much as I believe that if a higher intelligence was involved in the existence of things, then the big bang is where it operated. But we need to be careful - before the big bang there were no laws of physics, and there was no vacuum surrounding it, at least the way I understand it. Some scientistst think the big bang might have started as a singularity, i.e. a black hole in another universe, and because singularities screw with the laws of physics the only way for it to continue is to bud off into another universe i.e. ours. In which case we are supremely lucky to live in one that is able to produce and sustain life...

but yeah, no one knows. A copy of Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion just landed on my desk. I can;t wait to read it.

lol, then atheists make FAR bigger leaps of faith than believers. I for one find it far easier to believe in a God than a paralell universe SOMEHOW chucking enough and the right type of matter into THIS one in a completely random scenario which then explodes and somehow we wind up with humankind.

A bit of irony there I guess, that atheists make such a more complicated leap of faith than a believer