The Universal Moral Law & Devolution since the Fall

Hi Faith-Well, looks like we’ll have to wait for another thread to cover all the points from that last one. So, focusing on this thread, we should first agree on what it is about. The opening post is too long and scattered to be a topic we should all stay on, so I propose the following:Discussion point: Is there divinely ordained genetic degredation over the past 6,000 years, and is this divine retribution from the Christian God for failing to follow a universal law?There appear to me to be a number of reasons why this view disagrees with Christianity.For one thing, according to Christianity and the Bible, following the law isn’t what’s important. At first it sounded like Faith was saying it was.

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Faith wrote:
I would expect that there would still be people of extraordinary good health living here and there. If you want the spiritual explanation, it's all a matter of sin. Read the Book of Proverbs. Good health and long life are a matter of living according to God's Law.

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And later .
I've been clear that I'm not talking about Biblical law alone. Biblical law is simply the codification of the universal moral law. All cultures have had their own recognition of this law.

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These appear to support the idea that the genetic degredation is due to failing to follow a universal law of niceness, like not murdering, stealing, lying, etc. Basically just commandments 5 through 10 of the 10 commandments.But of course that’s not what the Bible or Christianity say is important. I’ve read the whole Bible, and others probably have too. I think Faith will agree with me that commandments 5 through 10 aren’t the main point (that’s why they are 5-10, and not #1). Even Jesus says that, in Mt 22. The Bible, over and over, stresses that other religions are NOT acceptable, no matter how nice one is. The OT goes into incredible detail about that, and repeatedly gives examples where being the right religion is more important than family (such as the order to publically kill any family member, “even the wife you love”, if they so much as suggest going to a different church, or the time a mother is rebelled against because of her religion, or many other examples). Much of Jeremiah is a rant against other religions. The NT takes this even farther, saying that not only is religion the most important thing, but now trying to keep the law is a threat to your salvation (Gal). Paul goes on and on about how trying to keep the law is a ticket to eternal torture. Any reading of the Bible that doesn’t completely ignore it makes it clear that people like Gandhi (a Hindu) and Anne Frank (a Jew) are screaming in eternal agony right now.Later on, Faith clarifies here position, which does seem to fit more with the Bible:

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As for the Savior, yes, there is only one, and he's what Christianity is about, it's not about living according to the moral law for salvation.

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Christianity is not about obeying the law, it's about needing a savior from it.

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It seems that most cultures do have something like a universal moral law (UML), which condemns murder, torture, stealing, lying, and such. That would be a good topic for a thread on Evolutionary Psychology. It also seems that the Bible mandates something very different, where acceptance of Jesus and only Jesus is what is important, and that someone who is very, very good at obeying the UML has no hope of avoiding torture unless they are Christian, and a Christian is saved from torture no matter how bad they are (Jeffrey Dahlmer accepted Christ before being executed).So, back to my original response to this idea - according to the Bible, and to every major denomination today, it’s being Christian that is most important to God. Yes, I know that plenty of verses can support the idea that following the UML is important as long as you are Christian FIRST. Thus, if Faith’s idea that God’s unhappiness with you results in genetic degradation, then expecting a high mutation rate among those of the wrong denomination or Hindu, Muslim or maybe worst of all, those accepting Unitarians, makes sense.In fact, along those lines, maybe Apo shows that Luther and Calvin had it wrong. After all, Apo and his family are clearly favored by God, and being in a remote village in Italy, I bet they are observant Catholics. So all that prayer to saints, veneration of the pope, and statues to Mary must be the one true faith, and the best way to ward off bad mutations.If we are basing our guess about God’s desires on the Bible and on Christianity, then UML seems to have only a slight effect, and certainly a lot less than being in the right religion.Take care all--EquinoxP. S. RickJB - the answer is that Cheetahs just plain lose because of something someone else did. It’s terribly unjust, but hey, isn’t that the case for the whole idea of the fall and substitutional sacrifice? I mean, everyone is supposed to have original sin and be going to Hell due to something their distant great-great-great-great-grandfather did?Unless of course we make an innocent person suffer to make up for the blame on you that isn’t from you but from some else who did it because God made them that way knowing in advance they would do it?I guess the cheetah suffering from some genetic degredation shouldn’t complain. The Bible (see Rom 9) makes it clear that no matter how unjust it is, God can do whatever he wants and we can’t complain, since he’s almighty. This kind of injustice to the cheetah is nothing compared to the other unjust things God is supposed to have done in the Bible, such as killing millions of innocent animals in the flood, or thousands of male children in the exodus, and on and on.

Hi Faith-Some thoughts-

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We all inherit the original sin from Adam, and original sin is the inclination to sin, and individual sins accumulate since then. God's role has been more sustainer and protector in all this.

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I’m constantly amazed at what an impotent view of God I often hear from Christians, especially creationists. A protector tries to keep something from harming someone, generally because the protector doesn’t want that harm to happen. If God is the protector of humans from disease, disaster or anything else, he’s doing a pretty poor job.If, on the other hand, God is intentionally causing some people to be hurt, then I wouldn’t call him a protector. I guess either everything happens according to God’s plan (in which case he isn’t a protector, but rather an instigator), or it doesn’t. If God is really in charge, then sin didn’t enter the world through Adam’s choice, but rather through God’s choice since everything is God’s choice if God is really in control.

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And by the way there is no such thing as a "Christian God." God is God. The Bible reveals many things about the true God. He's the God of all things, ruler of everything, including you.

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There’s no such thing as the Muslim God. What you call the muslim God is really the one true God, who is the God of all things (including you), as revealed in the Q’uran.There’s no such thing as the Hindu God(s). What you call the Hindu God(s) is really the one true God(s), who is the God of all things (including you), as revealed in the Vedas.There’s no such thing as the Gnostic God. What you call the Gnostic God is really the one true God, who is the God of all things (including you), as revealed in the Gospel of Mary Magdalene.There’s no such thing as the Egyptian God. What you call the Egyptian God is really the one true God (Ra), who is the God of all things (including you), as revealed in the Book of the Dead.There’s no such thing as the Mormon God. What you call the Mormon God is really the one true God, who is the God of all things (including you), as revealed in the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith.

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Those who outright reject Christ are something other than those who never learned of him.

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All the non-Christians I know haven’t rejected anything. You can’t reject something you don’t think is real. Have you accepted the gift of eternal life and blessed pinkness from the invisible pink unicorn, or do you reject this gift? Or are you living a life of sadness due to your missing pinkness?

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God is merciful; it will all make perfect sense in the end.

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Isn’t that what Saddam said to those Kurds? Remember, according to the Bible, God has decided to create the majority of people specifically so he can torture them for all eternity. God decided they would be torture before their birth, and according to protestants, they had exactly zero choice in saving themselves.

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This wasn't to be a thread about Christianity but about the Biblical revelation of the Fall and the implications of that for our physical degeneration which I believe would show in the genome if we would only study it with that in view.

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There are some testable things there. I’ll come to that.

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I would expect Lao Tse, and any who follow his principles of humility and avoiding desire and conflict, to live a long healthy life. Certainly those principles would keep him from sins against the Ten Commandments.

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Again, you are being completely unscriptural. The Bible makes it very clear that commandment #1 is the most important. Lao Tse absolutely fails in commandments 1 through 4 (more important, according to Jesus). Yahweh has burned people for much less than that. The fact that he keeps the lesser commandments is not worth anything, as Paul goes on and on about in Galatians and elsewhere. You quote Paul as an authority elsewhere, but here you apparently don’t think Paul’s writings matter?More later. Gotta go. Have a fun day everyone!-Equinox

One thing I kinda knew, but didn’t realize as much until reading this thread, is how unsupported by genesis or the OT the idea of the fall is (the idea that adam's actions caused death to corrupt the whole world and caused everyone to be guilty of sin). Paul certainly argues for the doctrine of the fall, but it looks like an invention of Paul. Do we have any pre-Pauline source that so clearly expounds the fall? I know that modern Jews didn’t have such a notion - they see the act of adam as just something that happened, and only affected Adam.On reading Gen 3 again, it really does read like a “just so” story - see Just So Stories - Wikipedia. There is no mention of the fall (the idea that this sin is passed on). There is a chapter title in my NIV for Gen 3 that says “the fall of man”, but as we know, those chapter titles were added to the Bible in the 1800’s, so they don’t reflect the original meaning.
The fall has had enormous influence in our western views of the human. One of the main founders of Protestantism, John Calvin, says this:

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the mind of man is so entirely alienated from the righteousness of God that he cannot conceive, desire, or design any thing but what is wicked, distorted, foul, impure, and iniquitous; that his heart is so thoroughly envenomed by sin that it can breathe out nothing but corruption and rottenness; that if some men occasionally make a show of goodness, their mind is ever interwoven with hypocrisy and deceit, their soul inwardly bound with the fetters of wickedness.

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Book 2, end of Chapter 5;What a vicious way to see all of humanity! I think that if I held such a depressed view of humans, then maybe I’d see mass murder as a good thing. How could someone work for a better tomorrow for our children if one saw them all as this depraved?Maybe the whole idea of the fall was invented so as to give Jesus something to have died for? After all, the early Christians knew that Jesus died, and this may have supplied a reason (albeit a poor one) why that death may have been needed.Have a fun day--Equinox.

OK, then, what about Gandhi? He certainly knew about Jesus, and certainly stayed hindu, and certainly followed 5-10 while ignoreing 1 -4, the more important ones.You also didn't respond to my observation that you were saying that yahweh was an impotent god (well, other than the mary incident).OK, back to our main topic. Faith suggested that it may be a good idea to check for testable predictions of the idea that there has been a general degradation since a purported fall, around 6,000 years ago. I said I'd get back to that. Here it is.Such a general degradation across genomes, including both human and animal life (not to mention other kingdoms), should be detectable.The most obvious thing to test are direct samples of ancient vs current DNA. While DNA does generally decay quickly, we do have samples that have survived. Here are some:1. Neanderthal DNA. We have some Neanderthal DNA. While a number of dating methods put Neanderthal DNA to between 40,000 and 100,000 years ago (depending on the sample), creationists usually claim that Neanderthals are normal h. sapiens who died in or before the flood. If so, then they are at least 4,500 years old. Using the creationist number, they had only 20 to 1500 years of degradation, compared to 6000 for humans today. Thus their genomes should have only a tiny fraction of psuedogenes and junk DNA. To try some numbers, we need to know how degraded we are today. I don’t know what a creationist would say, but from the claims of people like Faith, I think they would say a high number, since they feel we have degraded a lot since the fall (otherwise it’s a pretty wimpy force of sin and death). So lets say we have only 40% of our good genome left. If that’s the case, then we’ve degraded 60% in 6000 years. If the degradation is linear (again, big guess), then that’s 1% loss every century. So a Neanderthal genome should have around 0 to 15% degradation.Such a huge difference would jump out to any geneticist looking at Neanderthal DNA. Since numerous studies have been done on Neanderthal DNA, It must not be there. The researcher couldn’t hide it since other people have seen Neanderthal DNA, and more importantly, they wouldn’t want to, since such a find would gain them instant fame. Even if someone were willing to hide data if it favored creationism, they still wouldn’t hid this since it can be interpreted other ways.2. DNA from other ancient animals. We have a huge amount of insects in amber from what creationists would consider pre-flood times. The same math from above applies here, as well as the same logic.3. Frequency of disease in the fossil record. Many diseases leave visible signs in bones. Diseases have been shown in fossils across the board, regardless of age. I don’t know that a quantified study of diseased fossil frequency has been done, but since a degradation from the fall until now should show a big difference, such a trend should stick out like a sore thumb, and I’m sure it would have been found if there.4. Spina bifida in Neolithic England. The barrows around Stonehenge and similar Neolithic religious monuments are dated to around 2,000 to 5,000 years ago. Thus they should have around half of the degradation we have. Note that creationists generally agree with those dates, since we have roman and other records showing that refer to them as past civilizations. The bodies in the barrows have a hig proportion of Spina Bifida (a birth defect). If there has been degradation since the fall, then ancient birth defects should be much lower, not much higher.5. Human age at death over the millennia. We have human fossils all over the ancient time frame, and the age of a human fossil can be estimated from bone growth and bone changes. These fossils do not show that ancient people lived to anything near the ages in Genesis. Instead, they show a steady life expectancy, with variation from time to time due to things like food supply. Of course, one could argue that the bone changes that we use to determine age at death simply happened later, which could explain it, but would require that kids lived to, say, 50 years and were still kids, which seems difficult on the parents.6. Wooly mammoth frozen bodies. It has been shown that sperm frozen in animals who have been frozen whole is still potent even after a few years. This work has encouraged people to think about using frozen mammoth sperm or eggs to breed or clone a mammoth. The DNA of mammoths has been compared to modern elephants to find differences. If the degradation hypothesis is true, then the mammoths would show little degradation , and the elephants a lot as per the math above. Such a difference would again stand out like a sore thumb. No such difference has been found.7. Dendrochronology. Dendrochronolgy, as we know, is the method of counting tree rings to look at their growth in ancient times. Tree ring series go back 10,000 years in some places (I haven’t heard how creationists explain this - maybe a good new thread topic). (Also - what do creationists say about the flying sword mentioned in Genesis 3? Where did it go? Why can’t any skeptic just go and look at it?) Anyway, with better health, trees are known to grow more, giving wider rings. If there has been a general degradation, then it would be easy to see this in the tree ring series, which would show better health in the past, esp 6,000 years ago). They don’t show this however - they show the same amount of health (with variation) today, 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago, 9,000 years ago, etc.Well, 7 is the holy number according to the numerology soothsayers of the Bible, so I’ll stop there. Just a little thought brings more of them to mind (such as how long kings lived in Chinese records, which go back 4,000 years). In all of these cases, it is possible to test the predictions of the degradation hypothesis, and the predictions don’t match the data. Maybe a good way to explain this is to say that God reached in and altered each piece of this evidence to deceive those he’s already decide to burn in hell, just as “Paul” says he would in 2thes2:11?Take care-Equinox

OK, so your just and fair yahweh tortures people like Gandhi and Anne Frank for eternity, while mass murderers like Jeffry Dahlmer and Musolini watch with joy? Forgive me for not praising yahweh, who makes Saddam look like a nice guy.

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I said God is sustainer and protector of even his human creation that spits in his face and you call God impotent for that. Such comments don't deserve a response; I ignored most of your post for that reason.

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Good people and bad suffer alike. We both know that there are many despots living lives of luxury, and good Christians suffering terrible misery. Pretty pathetic protection. The fact that you don't have a good answer is not a reason to say a comment doesn't deserve a response.

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Googling the Neanderthal genome got me the information that so far they've sequenced 0.03% of it, not enough to make any pronouncements about its character. Also, the DNA is so fragmented and corrupted by bacteria that there would be no way to judge the size of the genome or of the junk DNA at this point.

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Um, no. We have a million base pairs, which is 0.03% of the 3 billion in the whole genome. Sequencing it is not the same as simply having it. We can tell a lot from that. Imagine you had a 3 billion word encyclopedia, and you had 1000 random words from that. you'd be able to easily tell if it were in chinese vs. english, and it's quite unlikely that if it were as radically different as you need it to be, that we couldn't tell from this much information. Plus, when the whole sequence is finished in a few years, will you give up on creationism if it is the same?

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Well, what does the DNA from these insects look like? Math isn't important, but the genome could be interesting.

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Like today's insect DNA. If it didn't there would be a huge amount of discussion as to why genomes are degrading.

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Why would it stick out? What's the condition of the dinosaur skeletons? They look pretty healthy.

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as I said, disease is found just as in modern animals. The frequencies appear about the same.
Here is a passing mention of it:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,190356,00.html
Note that it is so common they can have a whole course on it and use it to learn about modern disease.

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The presence of a disease isn't a problem. Diseases started appearing soon after Adam and Eve I would suppose, certainly in some lineages.

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OK, do you see why this looks like moving the goalposts to me? First it you claim a steady degradation since the fall, and now instead you claim that it was nearly instantaneous in some lineages, with hardly any degradation since then? What possible evidence could disprove your hypothesis?

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I would guess it's a matter of numbers. There aren't that many fossilized human remains.

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again you talk about something you don't know about as if you knew what you were talking about. there are hundreds of human fossils. It is a matter of numbers - simple statistical numbers.

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Again, they also haven't yet made a lot of progress in reconstructing the genome.

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and again, you don't have to sequence the genome to know about how big it is or to start comparing genes or stretches of DNA. The mammoth genome need not be sequenced to see how similar it is to the elephant one,and to see that it is not "less degraded". But I guess that means that mammoth degradation all happened right at the fall, or at least happened to do so in every lineage we have sample from?OK, I'll look into the tree ring threads.

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Also, records of kings and dynasties in all cultures are exaggerated.

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including the chronicles?Take care-Equinox

Deuteronomy 5:9 I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me,Deut. 24:16, "The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sinThis disagreement between Faith and RevDG, both quoting the Bible (even the same book-Dt), makes it clear to me that the Bible at best unclear and at worst outright contradictory. Either way it appears to be a poor choice of someting to base one's life on.

OK, so I provide evidence that allows us to empirically test the idea that there has been a genetic degradation since the fall, and it is disregarded with a wave of poor objections at best, and no objection for most of it? Let’s review the evidence:1. Neanderthal DNA - objection was that Neanderthals were recent, denying evidence from biology, anthropology, physics, geology, and other fields. Another was that only 0.03% of the genome has been sequenced, apparently confusing “sequenced” with “studied”. Even if only 0.03% had been studied, we’d be able to see a lot from that due to sampling (that’s still a million base pairs). Neither of the two objections stands up to examination.2. DNA from ancient animals, such as insects in amber - Met with a demand for detailed evidence - to see the DNA, which is a red herring. If there had been the degradation Faith says is there, it would be like lunar scientists missing the fact that there are craters on the moon.3. The very common fact of disease in the fossil record. Faith said that she thought the fossil skeletons didn’t have disease, which like thinking that the Romans didn’t have writing (tons of examples in either case). When I corrected this point and even provided an article describing a whole class based on the many diseases found this way, it was ignored.4. Spina Bifida in skeletons from tombs that everyone agrees date to at most a few centuries after the flood - this was explained by shifting the goal posts from the idea that “Genomes have degraded after the flood” to “genomes degraded, but some lineages degraded very rapidly, nearly instantaneously”. With that, can’t any evidence, from any source, of ancient degradation be chalked up as a “fast degenerating lineage”? If that’s what all of my evidence will be met with, then why bother? And more importantly, then is Faith’s request for evidence an honest one?5. Human age at death from fossils - This was responded to, like #3, with a simple falsehood - that we only have a few human fossils, when in fact, we have hundreds. After that was corrected, this point was ignored like most of the list.6. DNA from wooly mammoths - responded to with a vague “they haven’t made much progress”. They haven’t tried to breed a mammoth yet, it’s not like they tried and failed. More to the point, I believe they are making quite a bit of progress in examining the DNA, and would know by now it were radically different. As usual, it was ignored after that.7. Dendrochronology - no answer other than it “has been discussed here at EvC”. I did search here, no hits, so it probably has been the usual creationist responses to DC, which are a. the post flood world was radically different, with multiple seasons, making more rings, b. multiple rings happen (ignores the fact that they are rare and easy to detect and remove, plus this doesn’t come close to compressing a 10,000 ring record into 4,500 years), or c. trees grew differently then, making many normal rings under the same conditions they make one ring now (ignores that rings are caused by the seasons). So this one doesn’t have a good response either.
So out of those, they give clear evidence that there hasn’t been some kind of degradation.The mention of the records of ancient cultures were dismissed as exaggerated, and followed up with a claim that the Hebrew records are perfect because they are in the Bible. Wonders never cease.I mentioned the iceman, and on more thought, he’s another good source of evidence.The iceman is an interesting data point in this discussion. He’s from around 5350 years ago (date established by a variety of dating methods and confirmed by dendrochronology), putting him only about 650 years after Adam’s creation. Adam lived to 930. Thus, he could have known Adam - hell, he could BE Adam! If not, then he could easily be a son or grandson of Adam with the long lifespans reported in Genesis.We’ve obtained DNA from the iceman, and studied it. If it had the proposed hypergenome, then that would have been obvious. It didn’t - it was like our genome. In fact, genetic problems such as the ones around today were identified in it. Note that for all of the human diversity to come from the (genetically) 5 people on the ark, then there must still have been hyper genomes at least in some significant way at the flood. The iceman died nearly 1000 years BEFORE the flood. If anyone should show a hypergenome, it should be the iceman. Yet his body (and his DNA) is in most respects much like ours.So I guess I’ll call that #8.Faith, our discussion of Gandhi and a UML shows that all cultures share a UML that is not the main point of Christianity - not the important factor that will determine if you burn or are saved, and not the main point of either the OT or the NT. If God was going to imprint a UML on every human, wouldn’t it be a little closer to what God actually sees as important in morality?In fact, the fact that every human from every culture shares some aspects of a UML is something that fits well with evolution. These books, “moral minds” and “the moral animal” explain this well, though of course like any human work there are some parts that fit better than others. The presence of a UML across cultures that makes no mention of specific religions is good evidence for a common evolutionary ancestry, and evidence against some kind of divine creator.
Here are the books:
Please use peek to learn how to shorten urls. Shortened
Take care (as usual, I’ll be out this weekend)-EquinoxEdited by AdminJar, : No reason given.

OK, I'll buy that. I see that these could fit if one makes a separate morality for gods than people, which I know you do. That resolves this apparent contradiction. Take care-
Equinox

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Paul is included in SOME Canon but not All Canon.

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?? Nearly all (like 99.999+ Christians today) have Paul in their canon. However, many early Christians did not (such as the Ebionite Christians, and others).Also, the Canon does not include all of Pauls writings. See 1 cor 5:9, where paul refers to an earlier letter to the corinthians, since this is in 1st cor, there may have been a 0 cor that was lost.

OK, the atheist discussion was off topic, but even without that we are getting off topic with an extended discussion of trees and how Jesus likened himself to a serpent.Back on topic. This thread proposed two ideas, specifically that:1. The God described by and the author of the Bible imprinted a universal moral law (UML) in the brains of everyone.And2. Disobediance to this code has caused the gradual degradation of genome of humans and other animals and plants in the past 6,000 years.These two ideas are testable.For #1, if the UML was from a god associated with the Bible, then one would predict that the UML accurately reflects the content of the Bible. We’ve seen that this is not the case. The most important points of both the OT and the NT are not that we must be kind to other people, but rather that we must worship only the right God, and need Jesus to be saved from eternal torture. Whether one is nice or not has no bearing on the ultimate punishment or salvation, and is of secondary importance at best. Yes, proverbs and other places does say that if you are nice, people will like you more, and there are other places that say to be nice - but Christian theologian, including first and foremost Paul, have been clear over and over that it is faith, not works, that is important.But the UML says nothing about worshipping only Yahweh or that we need Jesus. Those ideas are absent from most cultures the world over. Saying that a UML was imprinted on all so they would follow what he wanted is like saying that God is sadistic, imprinting on everyone a moral code that doesn’t include the only things that will save them from Hell. Really, would a loving God imprint a UML that results in generous, kind, and loving people like Gandhi and Anne Frank going to Hell because they followed the UML that was imprinted by this God?So I don't understand why a Christian would claim some UML. It sounds like a Christian who does this is blaspheming the holy spirit. (Mk 3:29)OK, now for #2.In post #109, 7 pieces of evidence, all of which suggest that genomes aren’t degrading, were given. Since then the evidence from the iceman’s genes came up as well. Those seven were objected to in post #113, mostly by missing the point. These were answered in post #114. That’s were we stand on that point. The subsequent discussion of the iceman (Adam's son?) added #8.In addition, Faith has claimed that the ancient records of the Africans, Chinese and other races are all filled with exaggerations and are unreliable, but the ancient records of the Israelites are correct to the letter. Forgive me for thinking of racism when I hear that.Jazzin’s wrote:

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Isn't Spina Bifida caused by a nutritional deficiency during gestation? That is why pregnant women hawk down the folic acid.

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That’s partly correct - though there does appear to be a genetic basis. Here is what wikipedia says:

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Spina bifida has varying prevalence in different human populations. This and extensive evidence from mouse strains with spina bifida suggests a genetic basis. As with other human diseases such as cancer, hypertension and atherosclerosis (coronary artery disease), spina bifida likely results from the interaction of multiple genes and environmental factors. Despite much research, it is still unknown what causes the majority of cases. Nevertheless, there is substantial evidence supporting a significant protective effect of folic acid (0.4 mg per day) when taken by women early in pregnancy. ... Genetic counseling and further genetic testing, such as amniocentesis, may be offered during the pregnancy as some neural tube defects are associated with genetic disorders such as trisomy 18.

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Edited by Equinox, : added mention of the iceman discussionEdited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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-Equinox
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You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

Archer op wrote:

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But good luck finding any of them in the Tao Te Ching.

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Minor point - remember that many sacred texts are even bigger than the Bible's hundreds of thousands of words. The Taoist Canon is huge (Daozang - Wikipedia), for instance. I'm not sure how much of what is in there.

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Merry Mabon and Happy Herfest.

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Thank you. That was quite perceptive.Have a good weekend everyone, and welcome to Autumn!Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

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-Equinox
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You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)

Faith wrote:

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God inspired the Bible, God seeking man. The others were written from the human perspective, man seeking God.

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OK, someone hasn't looked much at other religions. I've heard the "only in Christianity does God seek man, not vice-versa", from Christians before, and it always shows an ignorance of other religions. Islam is clearly about God seeking man, both by including the history leading up to Abraham and by having God seek out Mohammad to dictate the Qu'ran. Reading the Bagahvad Gita shows God appearing unasked for in the chariot, to explain the meaning of life to someone who wasn't even looking for God. Those come to mind without thinking very hard. Saying that only Christianity has "God seeking man" is like saying that "only Ford cars have radios". The statment is supportable only when one doesn't open the door of the others and look inside.

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As for racism, God could have chosen the Chinese or the Australian aborigines. He happened to choose the Jews.

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Why did God choose only the Jews? Again Christians make out their God to be too small. Why not inspire the message in several or all cultures? Why not write it in the stars or in the crystallographic lattices of rocks,the leaves of trees and the formations that form when water freezes, in addition to "inspiring" a single tribe of a bronze-age people with a contradictory and convoluted text, written in malleable words on fragile paper? Why then stop all inspiration and expect people 2000 years later to get the right message? And that's supposed to be God seeking man? Even Islam has more recent divine scripture than that.However, all those are off topic. Again, we aren't looking at the evidence about the topic of this thread, which I tried to point us back to
In Message 165 .Also, Archer, thanks for explanation of the levels of canonicity.Edited by Equinox, : No reason given.

Faith wrote:

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He SAID He chose the Jews JUST BECAUSE HE WANTED TO. He's God isn't He? A people to carry His word and to be the source of His Messiah. Could have been any people. ... But He chooses whom He chooses. He's God.

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OK, so if his plan was to bring everyone to Jesus, he’s obviously done a very poor job, and anyone could have predicted that ahead of time, even without Godly prescience.For instance, if I were a marketing manager, and a candidate said “I’m going to tell the world a message, and I’m going to do it by inspiring a few people in one culture at one time with separate parts of the message, then I’m going to sit around and do nothing for 1,850 years”. Any manager would know such a “plan” is a recipe for failure. If I were to hire such a candidate, I may get fired for it.Today, even after 1,850 years, a majority of the world’s population either hasn’t heard or has rejected the message. That’s hardly stellar performance, especially for a God that is literally omnipotent, and is supposed to have the power to do literally anything instantly, and is supposed to know ahead of time what will work and what won’t.From all that, doesn’t it seem that God intentionally wanted to create the majority of people as toys for him to torture for all eternity? That’s what Rom 9 says. And that’s a just and moral God? Really, did I misread the Bible? (do you agree that this situation is God’s plan)?

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Why not write it in the stars or in the crystallographic lattices of rocks,the leaves of trees and the formations that form when water freezes,

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Um He did.

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No, he didn’t. He knew the target audience better than we know ourselves, and he failed to make a message that was readable by the target audience. He could have made the universe so that the message appeared on leaves, rocks, and everything else, in the language of the viewer (even when viewed by simultaneously by different people), and have it be obvious without “interpretation”. He could have made the message dance and be different colors to add flair. After all, He’s supposed to be all powerful. How do I know he hasn’t done what he’s obviously capable of and says he wants? Because of this:Faith wrote:

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But I haven't noticed anybody getting the message, have you? Anybody you know reading the trees and crystals and recognizing that God sent a Savior to save us from our sins? That's the message you know.

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in addition to "inspiring" a single tribe of a bronze-age people with a contradictory and convoluted text, written in malleable words on fragile paper?

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Words are clearer than rock crystals and leaves when you want to convey a message like the salvation of sinners, wouldn't you guess?

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No, I wouldn’t guess that for an omnipotent God. As I pointed out above, there are a ton of ways obvious even to my uncreative and limited mind to make a clear message on everything. This seems again to be an instance of a Christian describing a puny, narrow-minded God limited by the laws of science who can’t come up with ways to communicate a message beyond bronze age technology.Communicating the encyclopedia Britannica in an object smaller than a stapler should be easy. Hell, my 256 MB flashdrive can do that, and I expect any God worth his salt should be better than a thumbdrive.

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Um, God is God. Got that? I'm not God, I don't know why He did things as He did, I just know He did, and criticizing Him for it seems a tad, well, foolish at least.

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That sounds like the logic of “Might makes Right”. I could have said to a Kurd in 1991:

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Um, Saddam is Saddam. Got that? I'm not Saddam, I don't know why He did things as He did, I just know He did, and criticizing Him for it seems a tad, well, foolish at least.

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My moral compass is not dependant on who’s regime I’m living in. I hope we can all agree that “might makes right” is not a basis for morality. If something is illogical or unjust, I’m going to say so - it’s the only thing a person with integrity can do, even if it gets them in hot water.It seems to me that:If God is just, then he won’t penalize people for using the minds he gave them.If God is unjust, then anyone with integrity won’t worship or obey him.Either way, thinking and speaking without fear is the result.Honestly, do we see things differently here?Faith wrote:

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All the other messages contradict the Bible. Two opposed messages can't both be true. Elementary logic. If you like Islam then go with Islam ...

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I agree that they do contradict the Bible. I also agree that two opposed messages can’t both be true, though both can be false. Islam doesn’t appear correct to me. I bet we can agree on that point if no others. Just because I’m not convinced by the Bible doesn’t mean that I have to be convinced by the Qu’ran.

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He's God isn't He?

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Maybe, maybe not. Most of the people in the world don’t think so. In all of history, there has never been a time when most of the people in the world thought so (that the Christian God is the one true god).Without knowing which God is real, if any, then we have to rely on our internal moral compass, which doesn’t appear to favor one god over the other. I suspect that most people see Anne Frank, Mother Theresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King as good people. I know I do. They are, respectively, a Jew, a Catholic, a Hindu, and a Protestant. Any one of their religions condemns the other three. Four contradictory messages can’t all be right, but they could all be wrong. Even if all those religions are wrong, the members of the religions can still be good people, who don’t deserve to be tortured.I don't mean to jump all over you, as you mentioned, but rather to point out some logical results of the ideas proposed.Take care-Edited by Equinox, : / on quote

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-Equinox_ _ _ ___ _ _ _
You know, it's probably already answered at An Index to Creationist Claims...
(Equinox is a Naturalistic Pagan -  Naturalistic Paganism Home)