Kirk Cameron, YOU FAIL

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
503

[quote]fleeben wrote:
mattfelts wrote:
Look I’ve been very honest with you guys about my lack of scientific knowledge, at least some of you could do the same and admit that you have very limited knowledge of the bible. Using the same tired arguments that all atheist use is not going to cut it, neither is name calling. Im not hear to convert you only to share with you what I believe. Why does that scare you guys so much…Neither am i passing any judgement on you, other than it’s obvious you have limited bible knowledge.

I actually know a lot about the bible and was raised in a religious household and attended mass one or more times weekly until I was 17 and started going to university.

It should be no surprise that so much of what jesus said in the gospel agrees with Paul, as they were largely written as Paul’s teachings were being promulgated, and the writers simply crafted new stories and sayings for Jesus that fit with the emerging social/theological framework, just as they falsified or fudged other historical facts about Jesus’ life(off the top of my head: the whole Jesus being born in Bethlehem and then his parents being forced to travel home for the census is almost certainly false for many reasons).
[/quote]

Again all this is off the top of your head and you have no historical proof of any of this. And it doesn’t suprise me that you are jaded towards Christianity being brought up in a “religious” household. I don’t want to be accused of being “anti-catholic” but from what I know of catholocism it’s very legalistic and works based, but so are some southern baptist churches that I were brought up in and still attend one. Im not slamming you but if we search for truth we will have to agree that much of what we have been taught about God is simply not true. I think your a smart guy and sometimes that leads us to question all that we have been taught; which is a good thing.

504

This is not off the top of my head, the romans simply did not require all citizens to go to the towns of their ancestors who were born 42 generations before them. The gospel writers concocted the story to place jesus in bethlehem and thus fulfill the old testament prophecies. It is a blatant fabrication. What is ironic is that there is no historic evidence to support the idea that Jesus was born in bethlehem or that he was allowed to be taken down from the cross(archaeologists have found very few buried bodies of crucified victims, the romans let them decay on the crosses to serve as a public warning).

But again all of this is besides the point that modern christianity is almost completely based on the writings of a man who never met jesus and met with his close personal friends very few times.

505

[quote]fleeben wrote:
This is not off the top of my head, the romans simply did not require all citizens to go to the towns of their ancestors who were born 42 generations before them. The gospel writers concocted the story to place jesus in bethlehem and thus fulfill the old testament prophecies. It is a blatant fabrication. What is ironic is that there is no historic evidence to support the idea that Jesus was born in bethlehem or that he was allowed to be taken down from the cross(archaeologists have found very few buried bodies of crucified victims, the romans let them decay on the crosses to serve as a public warning).

But again all of this is besides the point that modern christianity is almost completely based on the writings of a man who never met jesus and met with his close personal friends very few times.[/quote]

Bam! I just got schooled. Well I guess that debunks this long standing religion.

506

Well a logical person would look at all the little lies and inconsistencies surrounding the Jesus myth and then ask whether other things we cannot so thoroughly examine either directly or by proxy might be falsified as well. After all, if Jesus did not rise from the dead etc etc, does it really matter WHAT Paul thinks about theological issues? But then again most fundamentalists aren’t logical, as evidenced by their wanton disregard for scientific truth in the face of overwhelming evidence.

507

[quote]fleeben wrote:
Well a logical person would look at all the little lies and inconsistencies surrounding the Jesus myth and then ask whether other things we cannot so thoroughly examine either directly or by proxy might be falsified as well. After all, if Jesus did not rise from the dead etc etc, does it really matter WHAT Paul thinks about theological issues? But then again most fundamentalists aren’t logical, as evidenced by their wanton disregard for scientific truth in the face of overwhelming evidence.[/quote]

That’s a question you have to answer for yourself. Did Jesus rise from the Dead? Was he an actual historical figure? Were they really blatant lies about Jesus’ birth? Seems like you’ve already answered them for yourself. Or has history not told the whole story about how all these events occured and there is something to faith. On both sides of the issue you have two different accounts and both sides say they have evidence. For me Ill say ive seen evidence in my own life, nothing mystical, but evidence enough for me to believe in Christ. You say overwhelming evidence against, I say overwhelming evidence in Christs’ favor.

508

Besides gospel accounts(which are internally inconsistent and thus CANNOT all be true) written anywhere from 30-100 years after Jesus’ death pls list one piece of evidence in favor of:

Jesus’ virgin birth
Jesus’ resurrection
His entombment
any of his ‘miracles’

509

[quote]fleeben wrote:
Besides gospel accounts(which are internally inconsistent and thus CANNOT all be true) written anywhere from 30-100 years after Jesus’ death pls list one piece of evidence in favor of:

Jesus’ virgin birth
Jesus’ resurrection
His entombment
any of his ‘miracles’[/quote]

Lists evidence against. It’s quite obvious that i was not there, therfore could not do a gynological exam on Mary…nor can you disprove it. Jesus’ resurrection has eyewitness accounts of the empty tomb. You said yourself that geologists have found very few evidence of emtombment of crucified bodies, leaving room for the possibility. And for the miracles well if I said there is proof would you believe it.

I can google evidence of Jesus and come up with a million different accounts both for and against. A good book you may want to check out is a book called the Case for Christ. Beware it’s pro Christ…so.

I know you will call this a cop out but without faith the bible and what is says are just empty stories.

I know this is getting philosophical but what is the meaning of life to you and what happens to you once you have expired from this cruel world? I think it’s an important question no matter what you believe in.

510

Bro, if you could show me a genuine miracle that stood up to scientific scrutiny I would absolutely change my mind about a lot of things. In fact every large scientific study on prayer has found that it has no efficacy(indeed people who are told they are being prayed for even did worse than the control group in one study I read).

The point I am making about the virgin birth is that OK you have a particular belief about jesus(he was born of a virgin).

Now look at all the other contemporaneous myths circulating in the same cultural/geographic region that also feature virgin births.

Ok now since the advent of modern science there has not been a single verifiable virgin birth.

So now continuing to think about this logically there seem to be a few options here:

  1. Virgin births happen and continue to happen, but for whatever reason they simply are not brought to the attention of people that might verify the claims.
  2. Virgin births used to happen at a certain time in human history and many important religious figures were all born of virgins
  3. Virgin birth has happened only once and it was the result of God impregnating Mary who gave birth to Jesus
  4. Virgin births do not happen and the accoutn of Jesus’ virgin birth was merely a symbolic element borrowed from other earlier mythologies because of the purity associated with it.

Now if you are really honest with yourself I think you can see how unlikely 1 2 3 are. If there was a legitimate virgin birth that was verifiable today, don’t you think it would be all over Fox news?

I mean honestly, does it not cause you some iota of anxiety?

[quote]
know this is getting philosophical but what is the meaning of life to you and what happens to you once you have expired from this cruel world? I think it’s an important question no matter what you believe in.[/quote]

You know I actually think that is a reasonable question, and though it may sound cliché(in fact it does sound cliché if taken at face value) the meaning of life is what you make it. Humans really have no inherent purpose and our lives are ultimately meaningless from a cosmological perspective. Some people might find this an incredibly depressing though, and to be candid, I do sometimes as well. At other times, however, whether it be in the rapture of a particularly splendid natural vista, piece of music or mind-altering chemical I can do naught but to appreciate the beautiful transience of human life. We are a temporary configuration of matter, clumps of molecules that have arisen from the very same forces that govern the movement of galaxies. In that sense I absolutely object to the characterization of this world as ‘cruel’(and I might ask, if the world is cruel and you believe in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, isn’t that a paradox?). All the evidence seems to point to there being no life after our physical bodies expire, and indeed that we are our physical bodies.

Assume for a moment there is a God and that he created the universe. What do you think is a more beautiful idea, that he created everything we see in a mere six days or that he set a fairly simple set of initial rules that would give rise to all the diversity and beauty you see around you?

511

[quote]fleeben wrote:

Ok now since the advent of modern science there has not been a single verifiable virgin birth.

So now continuing to think about this logically there seem to be a few options here:

  1. Virgin births happen and continue to happen, but for whatever reason they simply are not brought to the attention of people that might verify the claims.
  2. Virgin births used to happen at a certain time in human history and many important religious figures were all born of virgins
  3. Virgin birth has happened only once and it was the result of God impregnating Mary who gave birth to Jesus
  4. Virgin births do not happen and the accoutn of Jesus’ virgin birth was merely a symbolic element borrowed from other earlier mythologies because of the purity associated with it.

Now if you are really honest with yourself I think you can see how unlikely 1 2 3 are. If there was a legitimate virgin birth that was verifiable today, don’t you think it would be all over Fox news?

I mean honestly, does it not cause you some iota of anxiety?

know this is getting philosophical but what is the meaning of life to you and what happens to you once you have expired from this cruel world? I think it’s an important question no matter what you believe in.

You know I actually think that is a reasonable question, and though it may sound clichÃ??Ã?©(in fact it does sound clichÃ??Ã?© if taken at face value) the meaning of life is what you make it. Humans really have no inherent purpose and our lives are ultimately meaningless from a cosmological perspective. Some people might find this an incredibly depressing though, and to be candid, I do sometimes as well. At other times, however, whether it be in the rapture of a particularly splendid natural vista, piece of music or mind-altering chemical I can do naught but to appreciate the beautiful transience of human life. We are a temporary configuration of matter, clumps of molecules that have arisen from the very same forces that govern the movement of galaxies. In that sense I absolutely object to the characterization of this world as ‘cruel’(and I might ask, if the world is cruel and you believe in an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God, isn’t that a paradox?). All the evidence seems to point to there being no life after our physical bodies expire, and indeed that we are our physical bodies.

Assume for a moment there is a God and that he created the universe. What do you think is a more beautiful idea, that he created everything we see in a mere six days or that he set a fairly simple set of initial rules that would give rise to all the diversity and beauty you see around you?[/quote]

No. I know you would think that it would cause me some anxiety, but the fact is if I believe in a God who created the universe then why would believing that God himself impregnated Mary (not in the intercourse way of course), be such a stretch. And yes I have heard of the other religions that claim a virgin birth as well, however there is no proof that these are just lame attempts to copy Christianity. And yes I know you will come back that these were written well before Christ, but there are varying reports on this.

Actually what I see is beautiful is a God who loved me enough to send His son to die on a cross that I may have eternal life. And not just eternal life but a new life, where it’s not about me but about the life he has imparted to me. And no offense, but a God that would set things in motion and then take his hand out of the picture doesn’t seem very beautiful to me. I used cruel world to be “witty”, but the fact is with out moments of cruelty there is no moments for God’s Grace to shine all the more.

512

Non-Jewish parallels have been found in the figures of world religions (the births of the Buddha, Krishna, and the son of Zoroaster), in Greco-Roman mythology, in the births of the pharaohs (with the god Amun-Ra acting through the father) and in the marvelous births of emperors and philosophers (Augustus, Plato, etc.).

But these â??parallelsâ?? consistently involve a type of hieros gamos where a divine male, in human or other form, impregnates a woman, either through normal sexual intercourse or through some substitute form of penetration. They are not really similar to the non-sexual virginal conception that is at the core of the infancy narratives, a conception where there is no male deity or element to impregnate Maryâ?¦.

So no search for parallels has given us a truly satisfactory explanation of how early Christians happened upon the idea of a virginal conception â?? unless, of course, that is what really took place.9

pulled this from equip.org, in an article written as a rebuttal to Peter Jennings’ special the search for Jesus.

http://www.equip.org/articles/the-search-for-jesus-hoax

513

[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Stuff
[/quote]

Nope. By acknowledging the possibility of a creator, you are admitting the possibility the laws of science were at one point violated.

If it is possible the laws were violated, no form of creation is disproven.

Explain why you think god creating the singularity (I use creating in lew of “poofing” since it seems you don’t like that word) isn’t disproven but creation 6000 years ago is. If recent creation is disproven by science all creation is because all creation violates science. If any creation is permissible, then all creation is.

This is like elementary school logic here people.

You are willing to admit the laws of matter could have been violated… but not in the past 6000 years? WTF

It is absolutely 0% more logical creation happened billions of years ago as apposed to yesterday.

This is just getting stupid.

And as I’ve said before infinity isn’t an answer to the existence of anything. It is not a competing theory for creation.

A repeatedly expanding and collapsing universe is also not really a theory, it’s just a thought. Time before the big band is scientifically unknowable because causal relationships are broken because of the physics of the singularity. There is not and can never be any evidence of this “theory”.

In addition, current calculations hold that the current universe is past escape velocity for re-collapse. Meaning the universe is probably not “infinitely” expanding and collapsing. Special density calculations are still pretty sketchy though.

Not to mention, as I’ve been pointing out over and over and over, expansion from a singularity would require infinite energy so the big bang is scientifically impossible anyway.

514

[quote]fleeben wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
Quick, explain a situation where causation is not self evident.

It has been confirmed and assumed by every experiment ever. When investigating ANYTHING in science it is always assumed there is a cause. If you don’t consider it self evident, you have to throw out all of science, which is essentially the pursuit of assigning cause to effect.

How about quantum entanglement? To be honest I think you would be hard pressed to find a single ‘cause’ in the actual universe, especially considering that causes of one event are rather fractal in nature(you could go down to the quantum level to look for them) and themselves are the effects of prior causes. I submit, as does science, I believe, that our ideas of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ are merely categories imposed on the natural world by our minds, and not an intrinsic part of nature itself.

All physics does is tell you how a system will (probably) evolve given [initial conditions] according to [set of physical laws].[/quote]

If you are defining cause the way you are, science has never found a cause. By youâ??re definition gravity is not the cause of a falling object, and applied force is not the cause of acceleration. You are saying that any label science gives for the rules of the universe is merely a place holder for things that arenâ??t understood.

Quantum entanglement is just a rule of the universe; it is the cause of interesting relationships in particle spins. Grant it, that makes the words just a label for the event, but then like I said, so is gravity and everything else in science. And that is really another discussion that doesnâ??t really belong in this thread.

I actually agree with your version of cause (the one that means science doesnâ??t really know anything =0)), but was using a different meaning in my previous post. In essence the manmade cause effect relationship of discrete events. Science is a tracing of causal relationships down to the guiding rules of the universe, where you just run into a label. And yes, that each event is the cause of the one after it and the effect of the one before it. And that relationship is broken by any creation story, which violates what is known about the physical world by science. As is my point.

515

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Ano, I haven’t forgotten your request.[/quote]

Whenever you are ready, there’s no rush. My computer has gone to hell (this is the first I’ve visited this site since we last spoke), so for the time being I can only really hop online when I am on campus and between classes.

517

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Anyone catch Richard Dawkins on the O’Reilly show today?[/quote]

O’Reilly is the last bastion on unbiased media in the free world. Good to know I’m a fascist.

If you’re going to link AiG and rely on that clown, I’m playing just as dirty.

Book you should all read:

Why are there still Chimpanzees?

Intermediate fossils!

Baloney Detection Kit:

Evolution of a new species:

Wings:

Humans and Chimpanzees:

Hawaii:

There is a selection of Richard Dawkins videos for you to pretend you watched. Linked mostly for the people who aren’t intellectually crippled but are just coming into their knowledge of evolution, they might find it interesting.

519

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Makavali wrote:
pushharder wrote:
Anyone catch Richard Dawkins on the O’Reilly show today?

O’Reilly is the last bastion on unbiased media in the free world. Good to know I’m a fascist.

If you’re going to link AiG and rely on that clown, I’m playing just as dirty.

There is a selection of Richard Dawkins videos for you to pretend you watched. Linked mostly for the people who aren’t intellectually crippled but are just coming into their knowledge of evolution, they might find it interesting.

Buddy, you have some serious internal problems going on. Where’s the bitterness coming from?[/quote]

I’m just peachy. Taking my mood from an internet post isn’t the best way to judge how I’m feeling.

Nice sidestep by the way.

521

[quote]pushharder wrote:
Yeah, I have to do some serious sidestepping when it comes to dealing with a keen individual like you.

No, I wasn’t picking on anyone, just wondering if anyone caught Dawkins’ appearance. You sure were defensive about it though. You can’t be high tonight; weed’s supposed to make you mellow.[/quote]

I did like how Dawkins had a pretty tough job of not laughing in O’Reillys face.

I’m defensive because I’ve come to expect a certain type of post from you when it comes to evolution. What can I say, my bad.