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Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

Rusty Tyler said:
Why do you claim that lactose digestion is caused by evolution?

Why do we have lactose intolerance now? A step backward?
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We always had adult lactose intolerance.

Random mutation provided adult lactose tolerance. Human bands with lactose tolerance had a new source of food - milk from livestock - to see them through hungry times. Not starving to death is quite a useful advantage.
 
Rusty Tyler said:
That's some impressive progress for 10,000 years. - LOL

And now we have lactose intolerance. Is that the next evolutionary step?
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Not 'lactose intolerance', 'lactose persistance'. If you actually read the posts responding to you, you might learn something..

P.J. Denyer

Merged Post in thread '(edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible'

Rusty Tyler said:
Has humankind evolved since Adam?
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Well, there was no Biblical Adam, but since the agricultural revolution (which in evolutionary terms was a heartbeat ago) humans have evolved lactase persistence, slightly smaller teeth and jaws as our new cooked diet is softer and those that migrated to Northern and Southern latitudes with less intense sunlight for much of the year, lighter skin to aid the synthesis of vitamin D. This list is not exhaustive.
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Thermal said:
I don't recall saying anything about Christianity being unique? It's only uniqueness is the foothold and community in Western countries, usually providing familiarity even in a strange town. My wife used to have a little state of Mary in our very rural front yard, and we once had a young lady that knocked on our door whose car had broken down and she took it as a sign of welcome and willingness to help strangers.

Yeah, that's in the Old Testament, but I'm not recalling Jesus' Sermon on thd Mount saying "yea verily shalt thou bone a bitch proper if her husband disses thee". Salad bar and all that.

This gets argued a lot, and Jesus also said that he brings the New Covenant, that supercedes the Old. The Old was fulfilled, and hence continued its morphing, as the Law allowed.

Jesus didn't change a word, but his existence brought the changes on, in accordance with the old laws, which allowed for the messiah to change the game. Nothing changed in the law, because the law always allowed for this to happen
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That is the Pauline religion you are describing, Jesus couldn't have been clearer that all the laws are in place eternally. But that would have been hard to push onto non-Jews so Paul directly contradicts what Jesus says and came up with his apocalyptic cult. It was that cult that prospered, became the state religion of Rome and then was spread by the sword throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond.
 
Pixel42 said:
You know a significant amount of evolution by natural selection typically takes hundreds of thousands to millions of years, right?

Small increments is the most that can be expected to occur in just 10,000 years.
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To be clear it doesn't require that long, we have seen speciation occurring within a human's lifetime. (And because the definition of species can vary I am using it here to indicate that the new species can't breed with the old one.) Often microbes are mentioned but we've seen it with large animals - for instance Galapagos finches and the lizards on Pod Mrcaru. But considering how long our generations are it is quite remarkable to see how much we have evolved in just tens of thousands of years.
 
Darat said:
That is the Pauline religion you are describing, Jesus couldn't have been clearer that all the laws are in place eternally
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And they were. The New Covenant was always part of gods law, it just hadn't come to pass till Jesus strolled along.

And both the New Covenant and the Sermon on the Mount are from the Gospels, not Paul's writings and interpretations.
Darat said:
. But that would have been hard to push onto non-Jews so Paul directly contradicts what Jesus says and came up with his apocalyptic cult. It was that cult that prospered, became the state religion of Rome and then was spread by the sword throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond.
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Yeah, Constantine fo sho picked and chose what would suit his needs politically. That's why a lot of us were brought up to not take it crazy literally- there's good in there, and leftover ◊◊◊◊ that should have gotten a good rewrite.
 
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Thermal said:
And they were. The New Covenant was always part of gods law, it just hadn't come to pass till Jesus strolled along.

And both the New Covenant and the Sermon on the Mount are from the Gospels, not Paul's writings and interpretations.

Yeah, Constantine fo sho picked and chose what would suit his needs politically. That's why a lot of us were brought up to not take it crazy literally- there's good in there, and leftover ◊◊◊◊ that should have gotten a good rewrite.
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Nope. Jesus is clear that they should still be stoning to death kids who don't honour their parents. There is no let up on following the law in Jesus's words.
 
Darat said:
Nope. Jesus is clear that they should still be stoning to death kids who don't honour their parents. There is no let up on following the law in Jesus's words.
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He said no such thing. The Law was not restricted to the law of Moses. Jesus was speaking from a higher perspective and had the authority to declare so (so goes the teaching of more progressive protestants, anyway).

You might recall another story of a woman being caught in the very act of adultery, and being asked if they should follow the law and stone her? Jesus said "Nah man" (paraphrasing). You can't really laser focus on one verse and ignore the whole context of everything else he did and said.
 
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Give me evidence. Not excuses why you can't provide any.

Is there any evidence of not just of a snake talking to humans, but any animal? Is there evidence of anyone living three days inside the digestive tract of a big fish/whale? Or the sound of horns toppling stone walls? Or bushes talking as one that supposedly talked to Moses? Or walking sticks/staffs turning into snakes?, Or people magically turning into salt?. Or someone losing their strength because their hair was cut? Or zombies climbing out of their graves and walking the streets?

All I have ever asked for since I was in Sunday School is some evidence that would make it believable. But it was pretty clear early on that none would ever be provided. Then for years I treated my religion as something that taught us the right way we should treat each other. That was, until I committed myself to read the book cover to cover.

I just couldn't pretend, not just that it made sense. But that it was good. I'm sorry that this will offend theists that say "God is good."

No he isn't! The Abrahamic God is horrible. Truly the most hideous being ever created by man. Certainly not worthy of worship.

All I have to say is thank God there is absolutely any evidence that it exists..

Can I have an "amen?"
 
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Well this thread deteriorated in a hurry into what so many other proselytizing threads became. Rusty Tyler is just stringing you along now, folks. Any point he might have been trying to make has long been abandoned. I'm out.
 
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