Am I a fence sitter for being Agnostic?

[Sogdog]

basics:"So, whose we? That they are Christian Holydays and have been for a long time is more than well recognised. Have you always felt like that or are you just kidding us all?"

Please do tell which holidays are uniquely christian?
Of course I feel that way. You wouldn't know how I feel and you sure as hell don't get to tell me how I feel or should feel!

[basics]

basics:"So, whose we? That they are Christian Holydays and have been for a long time is more than well recognised. Have you always felt like that or are you just kidding us all?"

Please do tell which holidays are uniquely christian?
Of course I feel that way. You wouldn't know how I feel and you sure as hell don't get to tell me how I feel or should feel!

Sogdog,

Calm down ole fella. Christian Holidays begin with the Sabbath which even you have to agree is quite unique. No Paganism there. But let's go back a bit further to find that Pagan rituals really stem from the time of Nimrod who was deemed to be the messiah God predicted at the fall of man. So these rituals that have come about stem from the first Christian message not the other way round. So when Constantine replaced paganism with Christianity and perhaps the times and dates being wrong it doesn't alter the fact that God's prophecy came first in order of importance.

[Sogdog]

Paganism - judaism - christianity - islam

Monotheism is badly plagiarized from paganism.
Pagan rituals go further back than Nimrod and do not only originate from the Middle East.
Your argument is invalid.
Again.

[Cope]

Paganism -

judaism - christianity - islam

Monotheism is badly plagiarized from paganism.
Pagan rituals go further back than Nimrod and do not only originate from the Middle East.
Your argument is invalid.
Again.

Why are intersections between Christianity and other faiths treated as proof of the former’s fraudulence? Man has always possessed the ability to detect God’s presence: what he lacked prior to the Incarnation was a focussed view of God’s nature. The fallen gods and virgin births of pagan mythology, for instance, provide examples of man’s incomplete and obscured, rather than wholly fabricated, understanding of divinity and supernaturalism.



The pagan peoples of the ancient and/or prehistorical ages having posited theistic theories, elements of which bore a resemblance to the truth, is not evidence that the Christian creed is “invalid” on the basis of plagiarism. If it were, one would have to maintain that all learning predicated on the knowledge of others was, as a form of plagiarism, invalid. I find it impossible to believe that you would recognise the usefulness of such a conclusion in any other sphere outside of the religious.

[Sogdog]

All learning that is passed on is objectively verifiable, reliable and valid.
Religion isn't.
The end.

[basics]

Sogdog,

" In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." Note the words, " In the beginning," There was nothing before then. The first two people on the planet were Adam and Eve followed by their off spring Cain and Abel out of which only Abel was considered righteous before God meaning that he believed in Christ coming to take away his sin. That was the first religious venture in man's history and it was all down to faith. We read from that point evil overcame Abel by his murder by his brother Cain and but for a very few violence became part and parcel of life bringing us to the point when God intervened by bringing on the flood. Only eight people survived that so paganism couldn't begin until Nimrod was deified by his father and mother. That deification was built on the promise God made about Jesus the seed and so all paganism stems from that. Religion may be as you say but Christianity is not a religion, rather a faith built on experimental experiences of coming to know God.

[Sogdog]

I can quote books too basics, will this make them real too?

[basics]

I can quote books too basics, will this make them real too?

Sogdog,

Books are good to read, no doubting that, but are they the word of God as the Bible as well as Jesus claims? The answer lies in its delivery. Does God do what it says He can/will do? The answer lies in the millions that have come to know Him personally over the centuries who have testified to that. That's the acid test whereupon Christianity stands and still does to this very day.

[Sogdog]

As does every religion before yours. Christianity is neither original nor special. Your bible is so full of errors I'd be embarrassed to have anything to do with it let alone it's the word of your god. LOL.
Millions did not and do not believe in your god.

[basics]

As does every religion before yours. Christianity is neither original nor special. Your bible is so full of errors I'd be embarrassed to have anything to do with it let alone it's the word of your god. LOL.
Millions did not and do not believe in your god.

Sogdog,

Then obviously you haven't read it to see that there are no errors in the core message it delivers. Perhaps though you might want to point out some of these supposed errors?

[Sogdog]

PR 30:5 Every word of God proves true.
1KI 22:23, 2CH 18:22, JE 4:10, EZ 14:9 God deceives some of the prophets.
JE 8:8 The scribes (copyists, editors, teachers) falsify the word.
2TH 2:11-12 God deceives the wicked (to be able to condemn them).
(Note: Not every word of God can prove true if God deceives anyone at all; teaching from the Bible cannot be trusted if the scribes falsify the word. In other words, the first reference is mutually exclusive with the other three. Thus, the Bible cannot be the perfect work of a perfect, all-powerful and loving God since one or more of the above references is obviously untrue. Note also: Some versions use the word "persuade" rather than "deceives." The context makes clear, however, that deception is involved.)

GE 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven(s) and the earth." (One might ask what "existed," and where God dwelt, before he created heaven and earth. Of course, if God were pure spirit the question could be considered moot, but inasmuch as the God of the Bible allegedly participated in a wrestling match, ate solid food, was seen face to face, spoke with Moses, etc., it would seem that he possesses physical attributes, including form.)


(Note: Some biblicists contend that biblical chronology fixes the date of creation at 4004 B.C. thereby making the earth about six thousand years old. Some present-day creationists stubbornly adhere to a young earth timetable in spite of overwhelming evidence that the earth is actually billions of years old.)


GE 1:3-5, 14-19 There was light ("night and day") before there was a sun. (Note: If there were no sun, there would be no night or day. Also, light from the newly created heavenly bodies seems to have reached the earth instantaneously though it now takes thousands or millions of years.)


GE 1:12, 16 Plants began to grow before there was sunlight.


GE 1:29 Every plant and tree which yield seed are given to us by God as good to eat. (Note: This would include poisonous plants such as hemlock, buckeye pod, nightshade, oleander.)

Thanks too:



And that's just a few. I really could go on basics but your religion is so unimportant in my life, so meaningless, so small, that I will not waste another minute with you on it. I know you are unable to change your mind, look at rational competing evidence. It's not your fault, there are billions of people like you infected by religion, trying to drag society back to the Dark Ages. But know this basics, even though all religion is utterly nothing in my life, it will not stop me opposing and fighting religion as it tries to impose it's way on society.

Already in South Africa atheist and secular groups (of which I am a member of) have stopped religion from imposing it's dogma in public schools, from trying to control what women do with their own bodies (abortion is legal here), from stopping our laws recognising all are equal before the law (same-sex marriage has been legal here since 1997), punishing civil servants who use their religion to discriminate. This is what I fight for and your religion is in the way.

[sumskilz]

GE 1:3-5, 14-19 There was light ("night and day") before there was a sun. (Note: If there were no sun, there would be no night or day. Also, light from the newly created heavenly bodies seems to have reached the earth instantaneously though it now takes thousands or millions of years.)

GE 1:12, 16 Plants began to grow before there was sunlight.

That passage follows a poetic form:

Day 1: Light
Day 4: Celestial Bodies

Day 2: Oceans and Skies
Day 5: Aquatic Creatures and Birds

Day 3: Land and Plants
Day 6: Land Animals and Humans

I recall mentioning that here at least once before, along with comments about whether or not the bible is correct about rock hyraxes and locusts.

And that's just a few. I really could go on basics but your religion is so unimportant in my life, so meaningless, so small, that I will not waste another minute with you on it.

At this point, I think you've sufficiently proven how little it matters to you by repeating the same criticisms of it over the course of five years.

[basics]

Sogdog,

I'm quite sure that you could go on but neverthless here is my answer to what you have written but in part only. From the Book of the revelation of Jesus Christ we find that our history is already made and finalised in heaven, so we are just still going through it in the time God allotted to us. Therefore " in the beginning," there was nothing else other than where God dwells. So there weren't any religions at all. The first chapter of Genesis concentrates on what God did to bring everything about and the second concentrates on the things He did bring about and when we see that we find that all was made mature to be up and running so anyone using instruments at that time would see billions of years where it never existed. So how did the stars get their places in the heavens? At creation all was much closer so their light would be pretty intensive and as He described to Job, God then spread them across the heavens meaning that at no time was there no light seen from them. It makes the speed of light irrelevant. The thing is that before all this happened God Himself lit up the world just as He will light up the world when the new heaven and earth take their place in replacing this creation. So no, before the fall of man there wasn't any poisonous anything that not happening until Adam and Eve were cast out from the garden for all creation fell with him.

As for the dating of the earth of course one sees longevity because things were made mature or up and running and there is a terrific book written by the world's foremost polonium radio halo expert whom against all odds from the establishment has proved the rocks of the earth to be the dating that creationists accept as being the true dating of the earth, Robt. V Gentry being his name. Ever wonder why this planet has so much water and how it got here?

[Prodromos]

Five years of repeating the same inane talking points? Not exactly a matter of a simple "lack of belief", is it, Sogdog? I'd bet you spend more time thinking about God than most self-professed "religious" people do.

[Sogdog]

The bible is a claim not proof basics!

[Sogdog]

Prodromos, I have being repeating myself for 5 years because religion has no memory.
Also it's nothing compared to religion having 2000 years to prove anything and all the best it can do is "you'll see when you die." Pathetic.

[TheLeft]

The first chapter of Genesis concentrates on what God did to bring everything about and the second concentrates on the things He did bring about and when we see that we find that all was made mature to be up and running so anyone using instruments at that time would see billions of years where it never existed. So how did the stars get their places in the heavens? At creation all was much closer so their light would be pretty intensive and as He described to Job, God then spread them across the heavens meaning that at no time was there no light seen from them. It makes the speed of light irrelevant. The thing is that before all this happened God Himself lit up the world just as He will light up the world when the new heaven and earth take their place in replacing this creation.

Sigh...

Basics, I explained to you at length in another thread why God chucking stars around the universe because of the lulz isn't a valid explanation for the formation of the cosmos. But for arguments sake, let's pretend you either didn't understand or simply forgot, here's a refresher as to why it really, really didn't happen in the way you are describing...

OK let's assume for a second that God was able to move the distant galaxies, stars etc.

The problem you have is our old friend "c", or the speed of light. It is impossible for anything to move faster than the speed of light. The nearer you travel to the speed of light the slower time gets. The reason why you cannot travel faster than "c" is because of two reasons.

1. It would require an infinite amount of energy.
2. Time would stop.

That’s the point of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, or E=mc2. He determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and he showed that the speed of light within a vacuum is the same no matter the speed at which an observer travels. In other words, it doesn’t matter where you are, who you are or what you are doing, the laws of physics always apply.

But even if a local star was suddenly "moved" to 13 billion light years away, because "c" is a constant, it still takes 13 billion years for the light to reach us.

While the Big Bang theory suggests that the universe did expand from one point, a singularity, stars, planets and other interstellar objects don't just get moved around like snooker balls. It would require a mind-bogglingly vast amount of energy. Einstein's Theory of General Relativity states that space and time are analogous, and in fact modern scientists refer to them both as spacetime. The Big Bang Theory says that spacetime itself expanded at the dawn of the universe. Spacetime also gets warped by gravity. We can see this everyday by the fact that GPS satellites must have their internal chronometer adjusted a few microseconds every so often to counteract the effects of spacetime warping because of the Earth's gravity. If we didn't do this then GPS, Google Maps and your cars sat-nav would be useless and out of sync. The trouble is with your suggestion that God just picked up the Sun, planets and stars, and 'threw' them across the universe would require so much energy that spacetime would warp to an almost infinite point. This would almost certainly collapse the universe into a singularity or a black hole due to the warping effect on spacetime. I know it’s a difficult concept but imagine spacetime to be like a stretchy rubber sheet with planets, stars and galaxies acting like a lead weight on a rubber sheet. The sheet would get distorted around the heavy object, this is spacetime warping. Now very much like a stone being dropped into a lake, this causes ripples, or gravitational waves. The recent discovery of gravitational waves fulfilled the predictions made by Einstein nearly a century ago. But suffice to say that the ripples from something as crazily large and energetic as all of the trillions and trillions of the universe’s stars being chucked across the universe like tennis balls would be something we can detect because of the gravitational waves they would produce. Which they haven’t been able to detect.

Because it didn’t happen.

[basics]

TheLeft,

God is the energy that you speak of for what is created even as now He is holding it all together in the palm of His hand. He spoke it all into existence placing each thing to be up and running in that six day period. That we find things fluctuating today was because of the fall of Adam but that was not how it was supposed to be as pictured by the garden. All creation is in a fallen state now and one day it will not exist being replaced by another far better one. The thing is that this new place is going to be enjoyed by only those that believe God and have been adopted back into His family. Today we find people all over crying out for man to change his habits as if man's efforts could save anything wanting to do away with this and that. It's all out of their hands one way or another.

[TheLeft]

TheLeft,

God is the energy that you speak of for what is created even as now He is holding it all together in the palm of His hand. He spoke it all into existence placing each thing to be up and running in that six day period. That we find things fluctuating today was because of the fall of Adam but that was not how it was supposed to be as pictured by the garden. All creation is in a fallen state now and one day it will not exist being replaced by another far better one. The thing is that this new place is going to be enjoyed by only those that believe God and have been adopted back into His family. Today we find people all over crying out for man to change his habits as if man's efforts could save anything wanting to do away with this and that. It's all out of their hands one way or another.

I've just explained to you why the universe wasn't created in six days. The answer is the Speed of Light which always moves at 186,282 miles per second. This means that if an object is said to be 50 light years away, then that means it has taken the light 50 years to reach us. The oldest light we have seen is the GN-z11 Galaxy which is 13.4 Billion Light Years away. This dates the observable universe to at least 13.4 Billion years old. Which is a tad older than six days.

Not that any of this will matter to you. I could post reams of provable facts complete with the maths to match, but it won't wash with you because scientific facts don't work on religious fundamentalists.

[basics]

TheLeft,

Well, try looking at it this way that God is faster than the speed of light and would have to be since He is the original light that lit the earth before He made the sun, moon and stars. Ever thought why He clouded the earth in mist and a water firmament and the answer is simple. On making these planets or stars close to the earth would have done incalculable damage to what He already made so that firmament protected the earth. Meanwhile these stars were giving off their light from the moment He made them to do that and so as He spread them over the galaxies that light never failed to be seen from the earth because it was never switched off. No matter where one stood on the planet one could see stars doing what God had made them for. The maths is correct because we see it only from where they are now looking at it from the outside in rather than from the inside to out.