To atheists: Why do you help me?

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Originally posted by Andya Primanda:
Can you think of a person who believe in God firmly, yet at the same time spreading a thought that undermine belief in God with the help of disbelievers in God?

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Your friends have got you here, IMOH. Evolution does undermine the rationality of belief in God. Large parts of science do that in fact. I know some people here disagree. Also, remember that I am talking from a perspective of christianity vs. science. I am not entirely sure how Islam treats such things. In particular, Christianity's big scientific stumbling block is the OT. Accept it literally, the way it was meant to be taken, and you bumb heads with science. I know that Islam accepts the OT as scripture but I am not sure how it fits into the grand scheme of things.

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Do you think it is possible for agnostics and atheists to come to you voluntarily and sincerely to help you understand and, thus, strenghthen your belief in God, or help in spreading the truth about God which is repugnant to them?

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To help you understand? Yes. Strengthen your belief in God? This isn't really on my mind when we talk science. And finally, the truth about God isn't repugnant to me. Its the lies parading as truth that get my goat.

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Do you think they rush toward you because they think you are spreading the truth of evolution which will make people know more about evolution and, thus, believe more in God?

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Nope. I help, or try, because I believe the best answer is evolution. It has nothing to do with God.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by Karl:
In particular, Christianity's big scientific stumbling block is the OT. Accept it literally, the way it was meant to be taken, and you bumb heads with science.

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Big assumption there. Was it the "way it was meant to be taken?". Many Christian theologians, and equally Jewish ones, do not think so.

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Within the mind-set of the authors, I think it is true that it was meant to be taken literally. This, in the same sense that Greek myths were meant to be taken as true. I think it was meant to be a real story about real events, some of them magical. This isn't necessarily what fundamentalists consider literal. I don't believe that the authors of the Bible made many distinctions between what we would call allegory, metaphor and fact. These distinctions don't really show up until the Greek philosophers.Yeah, my statement was too loose. Either way though, the worldview bumbs heads with science.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Andya Primanda:
[B]You may have noticed in my unfortunate forays into the Bible forums that Islam accepts the Torah (not the whole OT) and Gospels (not the whole NT) as holy scripture, but the Jews and Christians were not careful with the original texts, thereby both lost their credibilities.[/quote]Well, clears things up for me! It is amazing what the right tiny piece of information can do.I don't remember you mentioning this when you were debating with Wordswordsman. I think it could have been used to your advantage.

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Thanks. You're always enjoyable here.

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Thank you. I am always happy to hear from you as well.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

[QUOTE]Originally posted by nos482:
Have you ever stopped to consider that evolution could be the 'easy path' that our spiritual sight can correct us on?"spiriual sight"? Do you have any proof of this assertion? No, evolution isn't the "easy path". The easy path is saying, "GODDIDIT!"[This message has been edited by nos482, 11-05-2002][/B][/QUOTE]Well, Nos is back and abrasive as usual but gosh darn if this comment isn't right on the nose. Having to figure things out for oneself is definitely not the "easy way out" The easy way out is "this book says so"------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by schrafinator:
I have to disagree with you here.

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I don't think that the OT was not meant to be taken literally, as most Jews and mainstream Christians will tell you.

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Jews and Christians are talking 3000 years after the fact.Did you see my post #7 on this thread? I elaborated on my statement a bit.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

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Originally posted by nos482:
Isn't Judaism almost 6000 years old?

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Judaism claims an age of very close to that. We are in year 5763 of the Jewish calender, which, supposedly is calibrated to the beginning of the world and hence of Judaism.But I wasn't talking about the age of Judaism but about the people who wrote the various parts of the Bible and what they intended. The oldest text we have of the OT is dated circa the 7th century BC, which is where I drew the date of 3000 years.

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And wasn't the OT originally recorded through much older oral traditions?

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"Recorded through oral tradition" is a bit of an oxymoron isn't it? Ever try to get five or six people to repeat the same thing?

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Or doesn't that count unless it is written down?

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It does count, but how does it effect what I said? One, we don't know what was being passed around prior to our first copy, so you can't argue that the Isrealites were some special case. Two, why would they not believe what they wrote? Wierd as it is, people do tend to take their religions seriously.------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com