Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[Mojo]

I found the book of Thermal to be a giant rollercoaster of a novel in four hundred sizzling chapters. A searing indictment of domestic servitude in the eighteenth century, with some hot gypsies thrown in.

I wasn't convinced about the wombats.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Yet My Venmo isn't showing that you grasped the profound meaning of auto debit tithing? Do you really want to burn in Hell?

We have record temperatures in the UK right now, I thought I was already!

 

[Mojo]

You weren't there for the Big Bang, right?

Ask Eccentrica Gallumbits.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Joke flying over your head aside, do you believe in Djinn?

I knew it was a joke, but I was being serious.

Yes, I believe in a spirit realm. I call evil spirits demons.

 

[Mojo]

I call them a drink.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

That's what the new testament is for.

Do you have proof for evolution? You weren't there for the Big Bang, right?

Back when I was an undergrad in the '70s I found the work of Tony Bradshaw and his team in the botany department at Liverpool, looking at the development of heavy metal tolerance in plants growing on contaminated soils, to be very good evidence. Some bugger nicked my copy of his book on that.

And then several of us have mentioned a number of other things, but, really, there is a very extensive literature on the relevant research.

 

[Mojo]

Or possibly a taxi.

 

[Mojo]

Back when I was an undergrad in the '70s I found the work of Tony Bradshaw and his team in the botany department at Liverpool, looking at the development of heavy metal tolerance in plants growing on contaminated soils, to be very good evidence.

What did he do, play Black Sabbath at them?

 

[acbytesla]

Would you like to ask a moderator to change the title of this thread then?

You clearly think/believe/state/whatever that there is a lot of evidence.

The rest of us say, "Yeah, nah! That's not what evidence looks like!"

Looks like Captain Rum would have been a better user name here...

Precisely!

Rusty and I have very different ideas about what constitutes good evidence. Yes anecdotes may be evidence. It's just very poor evidence. He can roll out lots of anecdotes to attempt to prove his point. But the plural of anecdote is not data.

Show me a double blind experiment that prayer is effective.

A religious organization, the Templeton Foundation will award you a million dollars if you can prove that prayer works. All you have to do is prove is that o prayer is more effective than chance.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

... When the Pastor reached out a hand to pray for us,
he pulled back immediately saying, "Your hot!" Which resulted in a spark that blew us off our feet.

That certainly sounds like a phenomenon which could be measured scientifically. It would be remarkably compelling evidence of something beyond our current understanding if it proved to be something other than a mundane result of, for example, walking on nylon carpet in plastic-soled shoes.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I wasn't convinced about the wombats.

Dude, the wombats are like, integral to the plot, without the wombats Mother Theresa and Jeremy Clarkson would never have known to rescue Nick Cage from Crown Prince Albert's undersea lair!

 

[Carrot Flower King]

What did he do, play Black Sabbath at them?

Oddly, the first 4 Sabbath albums were among the few things that all 3 of us who shared a flat at university could agree on to play when all 3 of us were around.

So it is arguable that this is evidence of me evolving heavy metal tolerance.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Would you like to ask a moderator to change the title of this thread then?

You clearly think/believe/state/whatever that there is a lot of evidence.

The rest of us say, "Yeah, nah! That's not what evidence looks like!"

The title refers to the type of evidence you want.
Sworn eye-witness with notary stamped documents.

 

[Olmstead]

Yes, I believe in a spirit realm. I call evil spirits demons.

In other words, you believe supernatural claims that can be shoehorned into your existent belief system: evil spirits yes, even in other mythologies; the Greek gods no.

Do you perceive your inherent bias?

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Results of studies in evolutionary biology are widely available in the customary literature. Their logic and data are laid bare for you to examine and challenge.

Couldn't I say that about the Bible?
Plenty of believers out there.
Plenty of unbelievers out there as well.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Mormon bookstores are full of Mormon commentary on the Bible as well as plenty of pseudoscience purporting to support the divine origin and historical veracity of the Book of Mormon. Why should we give your commentaries any special weight?

Who is "we"? Are you a Mormon?

 

[Jack by the hedge]

That's what the new testament is for.

This is still muddling up the concepts of claims and evidence. The new testament contains claims of Jesus healing.

 

[Mojo]

My wife and I went forward for prayer at the end. When the Pastor reached out a hand to pray for us,
he pulled back immediately saying, "Your hot!"

You or your your wife?

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Yes, we reject the ability of a human to walk on water for any number of physical, empirical, and historical reasons. Hence if someone claims to have done it, we want objective, testable evidence that it has occurred.

Miracles have a mind of their own, it seems.
They don't warn us ahead of time so that we can set up an experiment.
Nor are they usually repeatable.

A boy's lunch fed 5,000 with 12 baskets of leftovers collected. (one for each disciple)

 

[Jack by the hedge]

Do you have proof for evolution?

We have evidence for evolution. Some of which has been described already in the thread.

You weren't there for the Big Bang, right?

I wasn't even there for the 19th century. But there is sufficient evidence that the 19th century happened broadly as described that I am content to believe the world did not pop into existence in 1901.