The Bible is 100% true and to be read literally

[thaiboxerken]

God, on the other hand, used his power to lay his life down in pain on our behalf. (Sorry to be so preachy!)

So your god is dead?

 

[CynicalSkeptic]

So your god is dead?

Well, 1/3 of Him was dead for a few days.

 

[2LifeGuy]

Just to name one example: Human populations that have lived at high altitudes for many generations (such as the Native Americans living in the Andes mountains) have large chests and short stature, making them ideally suited for their environment. Did God make them that way?
.

You are using an example of natural selection within a species...use of existing genetic material, selected by harsh environment. The genetic code contains the information for varied traits. But this is existing genetic information, allowing for variation WITHIN a kind. In the Bible it says that all creatures will multiply AFTER THEIR KIND. The humans in the Andes are not evolving to a different kind of creature. I, like you, believe in this type of observable, scientific "evolution"--if you wish to call it that. But this is not evidence for a creature evolving into another type, or evidence of man's descent from simpler organisms.

I would recommend for more on evolution that a different thread be initiated to go more into the specifics.

 

[thaiboxerken]

Look at an arrowhead vs. a regular rock. It's obvious which is desinged, even though you don't know how to make an arrowhead.

According to you, both were designed.

 

[Zep]

Just so we understand, what is a "kind"? Be very specific, please.

 

[DrDisco]

The Greek word translated "hanged himself" is the word apanchomai which is used in Greek literature to mean choking or squeezing one's self as with great emotion or grief. In English we have a similar expression when we say that someone is "all choked up." We do not mean that they have died. We mean that they are overcome with emotion. Judas cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and left doubling himself over with grief.
from "judasdeath" article on Tekton [I can't post links yet..and apparently cant' copy them in quotes, either!]

Even Robert Turkel, author of the above link, admits that he only found this use of the Greek word once in his research (although I didn't see where he found this use; he didn't show his readers that usage so we could compare it with its use in Matthew), but how can you make that argument? Are you really going to go along with Turkel's assertion that this episode is merely a "type" copied by the author of Matthew? If so, I'm not sure how that solves the problem. I'll address this further below.

Regardless of what line of reasoning you want to follow, I think the burden is upon you (since Turkel failed to do so) to document the use of the word apanchomai in Greek literature as meaning "choked up."

According to my Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, apanchomai means "to throttle, strangle, in order to put out of the way; to hang one's self, to end one's life by hanging" and then Matthew 27:5 is referenced as an example.

Turkel doesn't know anything more than what he can dig out of apologetic literature he finds at his local seminary. He is certainly not qualified in these ancient languages to any degree above and beyond anyone else who has access to Hebrew/Greek/English lexicons or local seminaries. He is no more qualifed to speak authoritatively about them than anyone else. He can report what other people have said, but he is not carving out any new territory. He's more of an apologetic journalist than he is a full-blown apologist in his own right.

He stated that Matthew's story of Judas' death paralleled that of Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23). The story of Ahitophel goes as follows:

When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his donkey and went off home to his own city. He set his house in order, and hanged himself; he died and was buried in the tomb of his father.

Sounds pretty good. Judas, like Ahithophel, hung himself. Oddly, and without any reason whatsoever though, Turkel states, "Matthew is indeed alluding to the traitor Ahithophel in this passage, and is therefore NOT telling us that Judas indeed hung himself, but that Judas fulfilled the 'type' of Ahithophel by being a traitor who responded with grief and then died." Why is Turkel making this statement? Why doesn't the parallel include the actual type of death both suffered? Why is the parallel only extended between Ahithophel and Judas being traitors, their grief-stricken responses and the fact that they died? Why does the parallel break down suddenly, becoming only a "type," when it comes to the actual mode of death? He makes a "therefore" statement but doesn't draw on the necessary logic to do so.

If you are going to refer to Turkel’s article on Tekton which merely reports on another article, I can do the same by referring to The Oxford Bible Commentary and its discussion of Judas, his mode(s) of death, and the Ahithophel/Judas parallel.

There are three other early Christian accounts of Judas’ death –Acts 1:16-20 and two fragments assigned to Papias apud Apollinarious (of Laodicea) and preserved in catenas to Mt. 27 (a short account) and Acts 1 (a long account). Although very different from Matthew and each other, there are common items; (I) money from Judas purchases a property near Jerusalem (Matthew: the chief priests use the money of betrayal; Luke: Judas himself acquires the land): (2) that property was known as ‘the Field of Blood’ (but whereas in Matthew the name is associated with the innocent blood of Jesus, in Acts it derives from Judas’ gruesome end); (3) the fate of Judas fulfils Scripture (Matthew and Luke cite different OT texts); (4) Judas comes to a bad end (Matthew: he hangs himself; Acts: he bursts open; Papias’ short version: a wagon runs over him).
…The story of Ahithopel is recalled in v. 5 (cf. 2 Sam 17:23) making Judas akin to the famous betrayer of David. The correlation between Judas and Ahithophel was traditional. (pp.882-883)

What you notice missing from The Oxford Commentary is Turkel’s illogical leap ("therefore") that Matthew did not intend his readers to understand that, like Ahithopel, Judas also hanged himself, driven by guilt and betrayal. In fact, the Commentary –like every reasonable reader of the text—clearly understands Matthew to be telling the story of Judas’ death by hanging. Why Turkel makes his leap is a mystery. If you are going to take up this line of reasoning from Tekton, perhaps you can draw the conclusion that Turkel did not.

 

[kmortis]

You might even say that the engineering of aircraft is evolving....

Actually, as one who works in the Aerospace industry, I would. Just the systems that I help create are not biological. They're WAY simpler than that. That is an analogy that can be made between mechanisms and biological organisims, they do both, indeed evolve. And for many of the same reasons, a collective system that performs in its given environment gets copied. If the flight controller that I'm working on didn't work in the last aircraft that it was used on, we wouldn't be reusing 80% of it. You don't try to make an aircraft be a submarine.

Granted, both a submarine and an aircraft need a pressure vessel, and the two designs may have influenced one another (I don't know, I'm not that familiar with the histories of submarine design or aircraft design).

From these aspects, organisms are like mechanisms. And I'm sure that you could find mechanisms that were designed to copy many things that organisms are just born with. Cameras for eyes, microphones for ears, lateral control electronics for the inner ear etc. The big difference between the two are, that mechanisms are not (and will probably continue for the forseable future) self-replicating. Organisms have a mechanism in place to make new organisms. Some times it takes two (i.e. sexual reproduction) and sometimes not (asexual).

Now, if you wanted to make the argument that Gunderscored leads reproduction and is the one that introduces the mutations...um...ok. Whatever. I don't really see the need to complicate the process anymore than it already is. But to say that evolution doesn't exist is just stupid. There's too much evidence for it. Face it, if there is a creator god, then he used evolution to make the variety of life that we see.

 

[NobbyNobbs]

The humans in the Andes are not evolving to a different kind of creature.

How do you know? Evolution takes time. Come back in 500,000 years or so and they may well have evolved into a genetically different creature.

 

[2LifeGuy]

If you freely admit that you hold "uneducated, backwards" beliefs, then what are you doing here? Are you trying to learn something, or just preach? Do you think that you will convince people who hold educated beliefs?

The subject is Bible 100% true... There is a difference between preaching and discussing the subject. I think I have stuck to the subject and aswered the questions, which did trail into religion.

The uneducated/backwards was more of a lighthearted tongue-in-cheek statement, though I have found in life that there is always someone smarter, funnier, better looking.

DO I think I will convince people... Is that what this discussion is for? I'm new. I chose a subject I like. I understand you view the literal biblical view as uneducated. OK, whatever.

 

[Cosmo]

DO I think I will convince people... Is that what this discussion is for? I'm new. I chose a subject I like.

This discussion derailed rather quickly. Neither you, nor anyone else here (except for perhaps the mods) can assert or enforce what this discussion is "for".

I understand you view the literal biblical view as uneducated. OK, whatever.

I said no such thing. Please reread my statement that you quoted.

 

[Freethinker]

Your question to me is where do I think all the water went. The earth is about 2/3 covered with water. It's there. It is reasonable to say that without the deep basins, this water could conceivably cover the earth. My own uneducated, backward, belief is that is what happened. Your belief is opposite. I can live with that.

Yours is a belief, mine is a fact. Here's an analogy: Your claim is much the same as saying that your house flooded to the point the refrigerator was completely submerged, and the water that did that is now in the basement.

Your "deep basins" are simply the absence of land. To make them go away, the have to be filled with something. If that something is part of the earth, it had to come from somewhere. Wherever it came from...amazingly enough….will now hold exactly the same amount of water displaced by it moving into these basins. The water will stay at the same level.



Explain freshwater fish. Fish were not brought onto the ark. If the ocean level rose to flood the earth, all of these freshwater fish were suddenly immersed in saltwater. Guess what happens to most freshwater fish in saltwater. Now all of the freshwater fish are dead, and when the water level drops, all of the lakes are full of saltwater and saltwater fish. Where did the freshwater fish come from?



Besides, the bible tells us it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 days and 40 nights of rain, huh? 5 miles of water divided by 40 gives us 660 ft of rain per day. I guess we can assume they had some big diesel pumps aboard the ark to keep it from sinking.

The bottom line is evolution and the geologic record are facts, just as much as gravity. Noah's flood is so preposterous that only the most closed-minded brainwashed Christians can even consider it.

 

[2LifeGuy]

This discussion derailed rather quickly. Neither you, nor anyone else here (except for perhaps the mods) can assert or enforce what this discussion is "for".



I said no such thing. Please reread my statement that you quoted.

I'm asking only, not making a statement... not asserting. Are people coming here to be convinced of something they doubt? I doubt it! I came to discuss the topic, you brought up something about convincing the "educated..."

 

[thaiboxerken]

discussion invoves having a mind open enough to change based on the merits of arguments.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Your question to me is where do I think all the water went. The earth is about 2/3 covered with water. It's there. It is reasonable to say that without the deep basins, this water could conceivably cover the earth.

Cover it, yes. Flood it to the tops of the highest mountains, as the Bible alleges, no.

The radius of the earth is 6,378.1km, which gives a volume of about 1.09x10¹²km³. The volume of the world's oceans is about 1.37x10⁹km³. If you add that to the earth's volume and work backwards for the radius, you get about 6,380km. In other words, without the deep basins, floating all of the world's oceans on top of the Earth would raise the water level by about 2km. Since Mt Everest is 8.85km high, you would not even get a quarter of the way up.

 

[Cosmo]

I came to discuss the topic, you brought up something about convincing the "educated..."

This is patently false and an outright lie. YOU were the one who first mentioned education and "backwards" beliefs. These are your words:

My own uneducated, backward, belief is that is what happened. Your belief is opposite. I can live with that.

Scroll up, 2Life. It's on this page.

 

[aggle-rithm]

You are using an example of natural selection within a species...use of existing genetic material, selected by harsh environment. The genetic code contains the information for varied traits. But this is existing genetic information, allowing for variation WITHIN a kind. In the Bible it says that all creatures will multiply AFTER THEIR KIND. The humans in the Andes are not evolving to a different kind of creature. I, like you, believe in this type of observable, scientific "evolution"--if you wish to call it that. But this is not evidence for a creature evolving into another type, or evidence of man's descent from simpler organisms.

Your claim was that there is not a single instance of a mutation that is beneficial to the organism, not that no species has ever evolved into another type. That is a completely separate issue.

 

[2LifeGuy]

Your "deep basins" are simply the absence of land. To make them go away, the have to be filled with something.

Explain freshwater fish.

Besides, the bible tells us it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. 40 days and 40 nights of rain, huh? 5 miles of water divided by 40 gives us 660 ft of rain per day.

The bottom line is evolution and the geologic record are facts, just as much as gravity. Noah's flood is so preposterous that only the most closed-minded brainwashed Christians can even consider it.

1. Please reread my post. Subterranian water...springs of the deep, expelled, land (ocean basins) depressed
2. You are assuming the flood was one of salt water. Oceans gradually grow saltier. I have no problem with fish changing over time to be able to survive in salt water. But their ancestors are still fish, with all the genetic code needed to survive a variety of changing climate and environmental conditions.
3. It rained, plus the springs of the deep broke open
4. Please list a source for where the geologic column in the proper order can be observed. A worldwide flood is not preposterous. We observe much grander spectacles in our own solar system. From moons completely covered by chemical oceans to devestating comet impacts on Jupiter to rings that encircle entire (large) planets. The cataclysm described by the Bible is perfectly conceivable.

 

[2LifeGuy]

Your claim was that there is not a single instance of a mutation that is beneficial to the organism, not that no species has ever evolved into another type. That is a completely separate issue.

True, but variation within a species using existing genetic code is not positive mutation. Your example is not an illustration of mutation.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Actually you sort of make my point by saying, "It was MEANT to go into..." Who meant for it to? The designer. The plane obviously has a designer.

I'm just saying earth is the same. When you see a screw and a nut, and they fit, and they work, you know somebody made it and had a purpose. God has a purpose too in his creation. The neat thing is that he also has a purpose for us. (oops, here I am preaching again...and I'm not a preacher... really.)

For most of his children, God seems to intend that they will spend eternity in Hell.

 

[2LifeGuy]

Gotta go for now, but good to talk. 2Life