Choosing a faith

It is said (Trumpesque: "People are saying ... I've been hearing ... ") that the pessimist must be the happiest person possible. 99.9% of the time he has the satisfaction of being right ... and on rare occasions he is pleasantly surprised.Of course I'm happy, because you did precisely as I had predicted to GDR in my Message 2561 to his Message 2546: My prediction came true. Though no great accomplishment, that, since you are sadly so stupidly predictable.In my Message 2585 to which you so mendaciously ("in a lying manner", since I also cannot trust your command of the English language) claim to reply, I asked you directly for the answers to my basic unanswered question to all creationists: What are you talking about?In my Message 2585, I worded it thus: BTW, please note that I had to yet again repost something that you have completely ignored. You complain that we don't keep everything "short and sweet", but then you repeatedly force us to repeat everything that we have already told you. If you were to ever deal with our replies, then we would not need to repeat them over and over again and our own replies could be so much shorter.You keep bringing it in on yourself. 
So your "reply" to my very basic and fundamental questions was to ignore them complete and attempt to deflect, divert, and evade (in typical MAGAt fashion, fuck your treasonous ass so very much (spoken as a veteran of 35 years and an actual patriot)).You pulled the typical creationist bullshit there by "replying" to a legitimate and pertinent question with a "challenge" designed to be impossible for the average person on the street to answer (Hell, there are innumerable YouTube videos of man-on-the-street interviews in which most people cannot answer the simplest geographical/etc questions -- so just what the actual fuck does that prove?). I recently called those "gotcha questions", but earlier I called them "impossible questions", because their entire point is to present your opponent with a question that he cannot answer, so your position must be the right one (as if!!!! ).An irony is that the stupid creationists who pull that stupid bullshit don't even understand their own questions. Surprised? I'm not (I'm a pessimist! I'm right 99.9% of the time!)! Refer to my old page (not on my current web site), Bill Morgan's "Unanswerable" Questions I would ask him a direct question and he would throw one of his "unanswerable" questions at me, so I would answer it and return to my original question, to which he would throw another "unanswerable" question at me, and so on and so on ad nauseam. But the funny part is that I would try to discuss his questions with him, questions to which he absolutely insisted he wanted to know the answer, and suddenly he had lost all interest in those "burning questions" of his as he would throw yet another "unanswerable question" to try to deflect and divert me in order to evade my questions.Just as you yourself are now doing.I do not blame you directly, but rather your grooming (yes, I deliberately chose that MAGAt charged term for you, besides which it is highly appropriate). You are just following your grooming.In the case of the Jesus Freaks c. 1970, they had a lot of pamphlets and magazines and tracts (eg, Chick Pubs) most of which depicted everyday encounters with non-believers and the conversation with them (very often in the form of a cartoon or comic strip) in which the Believer would present a big "gotcha" question that the non-believer cannot answer and so one more soul would be saved -- Hallelujah!You tried to run one of those stupid scripts by us. We recognize what complete and utter bullshit your script is. We reject it up front. Story over.If you were to ever come up with any valid claim or argument, then do please present it.Until then, then do please stop with your stupid bullshit.

Well, to start with, such a god would have been able to plan ahead (what a concept!) .Consider topiary, the art of turning shrubbery into pre-planned shapes. We can consider two different models for that.First, we have the Schlockmeister approach in which the Creator must poke his fat fingers into the mechanism (and fuck the entire thing beyond all recognition (FUBAR). Not good (AKA "no joy").The second approach is the mindful gardener in which the gardener trims and directs growth where it needs to go.So, do you worship a clueless Schlockmeister or a true artist?

Here's another question you need to answer: Since you are so devoted to fake creationism, I predict that you will answer "Yes", that life having arisen through natural processes would disprove God.Therefore, the important part of that question is the "WHY?". Whatever would lead you to belief something so utterly stupid?

GDR, if the first eleven chapters of Genesis are simply
metaphors, how do we know the rest of the Bible is not
also to be taken metaphorically?I find that no other writers of the Bible believed that the
book of Genesis was to be interpreted figuratively.If the first eleven chapters of Genesis should be viewed
metaphorically, how could God blame anyone for not
accepting the rest of the Bible metaphorically?The first eleven chapters of Genesis clearly tells us of
God's creation account (renewing of the face of the earth,
as well as the only creation of the first man, woman, and
animals.It defines the fall of man, and why a Savior is needed.I viewed a program a few years back when a major
supporter of theistic evolution, Dr. Hugh Ross, claimed
to be well-versed in the Hebrew language. He stated
his mastery of this language allowed him to better
Interpret the Genesis account.Dr. Russell Humphrey then asked him a question in
Hebrew. He then added "you must answer in Hebrew,"
to which Dr. Ross replied "I cannot."Dr. Ross as well as all TE's do not believe in a global
flood. Dr. Ross insists that it was merely a local flood.He accepted that the flood water rose fifteen cubits
above the mountains, but he insisted that this referred
to local mountains, or hills, as he inferred.With the waters being fifteen cubits above the mountains
there would be no physical barrier to contain the water
from spreading into the Indian Ocean, and then across
the entire globe.Nothing would have prevented the Ark from drifting down
the Persian Gulf into the Indian Ocean.The physical causes of the flood were: all the fountains of
the great deep (world's oceans) broken up, and the
windows of heaven being opened.The windows of heaven refers to waters above the
firmament.If it were merely a local flood, why didn't God just advise
Noah and his family to walk to another location? This is
a serious question.God had all the animals come to Noah (6:20). It would have
been just as simple for God to have had the animals follow
Noah to a new location.Surely TE's do not believe that there were no animals
scattered around the rest of the globe; so, why build an
Ark just to save the local animals?

GDR, why would Noah need to take birds aboard the Ark?
with a regionalized flood they could have simply flew to
safety.Why build such an enormous floating vessel, especially
for a locally contained flood?The Ark had a volume of roughly 1,700,000 to 1,800,000
cubic feet. This equates to 550-575 railroad box cars.A car waiting at a railroad crossing would see ten train
engines pulling roughly 55 railroad box cars each. The
car would sit there for an extended out of time.God promised that the earth would never be destroyed
again by flood.If He were referring to a local flood, He did not keep His
world. That area of the world has seen numerous floods
since Noah's day.Why would a localized flood remain for an entire year?Why do all races, groups, and nations have legends of
a great flood? Most of them have been greatly distorted
over the centuries, but still they remain.Genesis states that God was grieved at His heart that He
had made man. He decided to destroy all humans and
air breathing animals except those aboard the Ark.Scores of times God uses the term "all" when describing
who and what would be destroyed.All flesh; all flesh; all beast; all creeping things; all fowls
of the air; all humans; all life; all etc...He also used the term "every" when referring to this same flood:Every living substance (that I have made will I destroy
from the face of the earth); every creature; every etc...There is a graveyard of fossils that extend from Canada
to Mexico including 14 states.This covers an area of 1800 miles by 1000 miles.Buried in this gigantic death bed are millions of fossils,
including those of dinosaurs; over 400 species of
mammals; and 120 species of modern birds.The graveyard also contains the fossils of both salt-
water and fresh-water creatures.Bird fossils include owls, penguins, loons, parrots, ducks
comorants, albatross, and sandpiper.Oftentimes bird fossils are found below dinosaur fossils.These fossils are buried deeply beneath ash,
Sandstone, etc...Only a global flood would account for this.Some evolutionists assert that this was the result of a
large asteroid hitting the Yucatan Peninsula 65,000,000
million years ago.Common sense tells anyone that the asteroid could not
have been the cause of this massive graveyard.

GDR, TE's believe that the earth is old because geologists
and other disciplines rely on faulty dating techniques.I believe that the earth and universe are older than 6000
years. I believe this because of what the Bible itself
states, not what flawed dating techniques show.I do not know how old the earth is. There is the possibility
that it is only several decades older than the renewing
account in Genesis. It could be much older than that.Isaiah 40:22 states that God stretched out the heavens.One such dating technique is RadioCarbon Dating.
With RCD the main issue lies with assumptions.Testers assume to know the composition of parent
and daughter atom at the beginning, when the rocks
formed.In an hourglass it is possible to know how long it takes
all the sand (red atoms) in the upper bowl to empty into
the bottom bowl (green sand).However, no one was present to confirm the amount of
green atoms present in the rocks when they were
formed.They assume that all daughter atoms (green) that are
measured in a rock today must have been due to
radioactive decay of the parent atoms (red).They have no way of knowing it the atoms were affected
by contamination. There were no observers who
monitored the rocks through the years.Contamination could occur due to ground water,
collection (pools) of water, or by the atmosphere.It is known that certain atoms, such as uranium, move
in and out of water easily.It is also assumed that the radioactive decay rate must
have been constant at today's measured rate.An event, such as a global flood, could cast reasonable
doubt on RAD.I do not dispute the quality of the chemical analysis of
the rocks. They can be repeated and confirmed.What I dispute is the interpretation of "many millions
of years" based on faulty, unprovable assumptions.Diamonds taken from Zaire yielded an age of six
billion years. They were older than the supposedly
four billion years assigned to the earth itself.In 1996, lava from Mt. St. Helen, which erupted in 1986
yielded ages of from 350,000 years to 2.8 million years.What was observed to have happened did not match
using the potassium-Argon method.Dating methods are not reliable.Why would any Christian disregard what Genesis
plainly states in order to align himself with highly
flawed dating techniques?

GDR, I think our friend got a bit confused with his conversation. This Message 2600 does not address anything in my post.I think this was meant for you. I'll leave it to ya'.

Hi c2Again, the Bible isn't a single book. The protestant Bible is a collection of 66 books. The book of Genesis is clearly an ancient mythology written by various authors over who knows how long a period. Other OT books were books of histories as seen by individuals representing their views, or the views of their masters, and presented and meant to be historical. You have books of poetry like the psalms. There are books of wisdom. There are books meant to be prophetic.The one view though that does tie the Bible together is to understand it as a progressive understanding of Yahweh by the Jewish nation that goes all the way from the vengeful genocidal version of God sometimes written about in the OT to the God that we see in Jesus who calls us to love our enemy, to not seek vengeance, be merciful and to love others as we love ourselves.Here is a quote from Samuel 15:

quote:

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1/Samuel said to Saul, "I am the one the LORD sent to anoint you king over his people Israel; so listen now to the message from the LORD.
2/This is what the LORD Almighty says: `I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt.
3/Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [1] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

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Here is a quote from Matthew 5:

quote:

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43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

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How can you possibly say that both of these quotes come from the same deity. How can you possibly square these two quotes. Remember Jesus tells His followers to love their enemy, which they saw as the Romans who brutally maintained control over the Jewish people and taxed them into poverty.To understand the NT accounts you need the OT as there are so many OT references in the NT, so we need to refer back to the OT to help us understand what is meant in the NT. On the other hand we need to understand the OT through the lens of Jesus and the NT. Actually Hugh Ross does not believe in theistic evolution. He is an old world creationist. However putting that aside can you tell me how long after the creation accounts in Genesis did the flood happen? In light of that,, was there a second creation that could account for the massive world wide population and diversity that we see in the world today? Where do the dinosaurs fit into that history?However, once again, in order for that story to be accurate we require a genocidal deity to bring it about.What we can take from the account of Noah is that God will never give up on us even if there is only one good human being left on the planet.

Hi Candle2There is so much in your post it is hard to know where to begin.
If RM dating is so unreliable why haven’t those using it realised it?
After all it’s been around for decades and for C14 alone they’re prepared to spend around $600 per test at one of the more than 100 labs around the world.The Mt St Helen’s date is an old Furphy. Erupted lava can carry old rock from what it is erupting through so specimens for dating need to be selected carefully, and the method used was not suitable for recent events. Volcanism in general presents enormous problems for YEC.There is no obvious reason why water coming and going in the Flood should alter RM decay rates except it is necessary to maintain YEC, and then there’s the problem of getting rid of all the heat.I’d like to discuss Lake Malawi in my next post.

Lake Malawi in Africa is deep enough for the silt at the bottom to be undisturbed by animals boring into it because of anoxia. It was drilled primarily to assess climate. Approximately 500 m of core was extracted, with sedimentary rock below.Carbon dating the upper core showed a fairly linear increase of age with depth to 50,000 years at 28 metres. At 42 metres is a layer of volcanic ash from the eruption of Toba 74,000 years ago.
At 168 m and 242 m are volcanic ash dated about 580,000 and 900,000 years ago.Candle2 : This is exactly what would be expected with long age and unchanged RM decay rates and fairly uniform sedimentation rates.
Why should I not consider that good evidence supporting standard science?
What would you expect to see in a short age situation?

Dwise, it was decided in the Nineteenth Century that the
age of the earth was several billions years old. It crept up
until the earth became over 4 billion years old in the 20th
Century.Evolutionists required this extreme amount of time for
their theory to be viable.It was also determined that the fossils found in each
column determined the age of the geologic column and
vice-versa.Decades before carbon dating (1949) fossils were and
still are the best method of dating and correlating the rocks
in which they occur. All evolutionists believe this.If the scientists do not get the age that they want from
a sample, they rerun the test many times.If the C-14 support their theory, they put it in the main
text.If it does not, they put it in the footnote.If it is completely out of date, they just drop it.This isn't science. If one claims to believe in the dating
methods, then one should adjust his view to fit the
dating method.If the dating is found not to be correct, how can it ever
be trusted?It is impossible for me to accept that the incredibly
complex cell just came into existence, and that this
process replicated time and time again.Also, when one has God's Holy Spirit dwelling in him it is
no longer just faith; it is proof positive that God exists.Still, whether one is an atheist or a TE, the absence of
transitional forms is devastating.

Yet again you completely avoid actually replying to our messages and instead just repeat the same tired old creationist bullshit lies.Do you deny that that is all you have done? So prove it! Quote directly from my Message 2596 that you just falsely claimed to be replying to and correlate each direct quote to what you have just written in this "reply".It's a very simple copy-and-paste operation that anyone can do. You have no excuse for not doing it ... except that you are engaging in deliberate deception. Stop with your bullshit lies.Is that "short and sweet" enough for you?

GDR, Let's get something straight:God is sovereign. He
can pass judgment on anyone at any time.The enjoyment of God' creation is dependent upon
obedience to Him. The very first example of this is
found in Genesis 2:16-17."And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of
every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou
shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eaten thereof
thou shalt surely die."The Apostle Peter in 2Peter 2:6 states that those who do
not turn from sin will eventually fall under judgement.God has judged many people and nations throughout
history.He judged Sodom and Gomorrah. He also judged the
entire world before He destroyed it with a flood.God alone determines what sin is, and when to judge it.
He has extreme antagonism against sin.God used the nation of Israel to show Him to the world.
However, He is not during this present age trying to save
all humans.God made a covenant with Abraham and his descendants
through Issac and Israel (Jacob).God promised Abraham that He would bless those who
bless you. And that He would curse those who dishonor
you.The same was extended to the tribes of Israel. This is the
"line of promise."An offense against the "line of promise" was also an
offense against God.In the OT God was Israel's Leader. He was their King and
they His subjects.One such example was when King Abimelech took
took Abraham's wife, Sarah, as a concubine. God
appeared to Abimelech in a dream, which frightened
the King immensely. Abimelech released her.God intervened during immediate danger.Nineveh was full of wickedness and God sent Jonah to
warn them. The people of Nineveh repented.The Amakakites were extremely wicked, and they had
been this way for centuries. They were sneaky, deceiving,
and manipulative.They had attacked Israel the first time they saw them.
The Amalakites harassed and abused the people of God.The Amalakites were an offense against the "line of
promise," which was also an offense against God.It is also an offense today to persecute God's faithful
followers. To do so is to invite God's judgment and
and recompense against them.In any event, wickedness is a cancer. God will allow is
for only so long.God will raise all who lived down through the centuries,
back to the time of Adam. Everyone who is not in the
first resurrection will be in the second.They will then have their one and only chance of eternal
life.GDR, I know all the books of both Testaments. I also know
who wrote each. I am also aware of when they were
written.

Here are some extremely pertinent questions for you that I repeated in Message 2596 ... you know, my message that you just lied about replying to: And one more question I asked you in Message 2598: You refuse to answer any simple, pertinent question because you either are engaged in deliberate deception or (given that you are a bottom-feeder in the creationist ecology) you know nothing and have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.So then:

1. If you do not know why you oppose evolution, then just tell us that you don't know.
2. If you do not know whether you believe that evolution somehow opposes Creation or God (pick a god, any god) nor why, then just tell us that you don't know.
3. If you do not know what you think evolution is, then just tell us that you don't know.
4. If you do not know how you think that evolution is supposed to work (as evidenced in virtually everything you post), then just tell us that you don't know.
5. If you do not know what you think the consequences would be of evolution being true, nor why, then just tell us that you don't know.
6. If you do not know whether you think that if Life arose through natural processes then that would that disprove Creation or God, nor why, then just tell us that you don't know.

It's really that simple, but you and every other creationist are incapable of ever answering any of those very simple and highly pertinent questions.Since you will very predictably refuse to answer any of those questions, then, given the Nature of the Beast (ie, creationists), your refusal or avoidance of answering will be your tacit admission that you are a brain-dead creationist who knows absolutely nothing about anything, but especially about what you think (Wait! A creationist think? Like that could ever happen!)

quote:

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How can you tell whether a creationist is a zombie or not?
You can't. They are indistinguishable from each other.

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Oh, and you still have not answered GDR's question: And my prediction came true! (unlike any of your predictions): We know you far too well.

The enjoyment of life and happiness in Russia is dependent upon obedience to the Tsar. In China it's dependent upon obedience to Xi. So your god is akin to a war lord communist dictator. The chief’s daughter became ill, and no cure could be found. A wise old man told them to dig up a tree and lay the girl beside the hole. People began to dig, but as they did the tree fell right through the hole, dragging the girl with it. Below lay an endless sheet of water where two swans floated. As the swans looked up, they saw the sky break and a strange tree fall down into the water. Then they saw the girl fall after it. They swam to her and supported her, because she was too beautiful to allow her to drown. Then they swam to the Great Turtle, master of all the animals, who at once called a council. When all the animals had arrived, the Great Turtle told them that the appearance of a woman from the sky was a sign of good fortune. Since the tree had earth on its roots, he asked them to find where it had sunk and bring up some of the earth to put on his back, to make an island for the woman to live on. The swans led the animals to the place where the tree had fallen. First Otter, then Muskrat, and then Beaver dived. As each one came up from the great depths, he rolled over exhausted and died. Many other animals tried, but they experienced the same fate.At last the old lady Toad volunteered. She was under so long that the others thought she had been lost.But at last she came to the surface and before dying managed to spit out a mouthful of dirt on the back of the Great Turtle. It was magical earth and had the power of growth. As soon as it was as big as an island, the woman was set down on it. The two white swans circled it, while it continued to grow, until, at last, it became the world island as it is today, supported in the great waters on the back of the Great Turtle. Great Turtle