T1B

War Wagon wrote:Van, the open minded seeker of faith, humility, and wisdom (but not necessarily in that order), wrote:

I don't give a fuck whether you agree. You're wrong. If we agreed, it'd mean you were right...

Liked that one too, didja?

Terry in Crapchester wrote:

poptart wrote:Some of the Bible is to be taken literally and some is clearly not to be taken literally.

Tell that to the Creationists.

I guess I would fit in as a "Creationist" because as I read Genesis 1, I see it as intended to be read and taken at face value.
There is no attempt at imagery.

But the Bible clearly contains large amounts of writing that is undoubtedly not to be read literally -- Psalms 23, as I noted, as just one of many examples.

I suspect that there may have been a "gap" of some amount of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, btw.

jmo

Christy, the Easter Bunny comment only pertained to a grown man believing in the story of Noah's ark, 900 year old men and the story of Adam. It didn't pertain to all faith in divinity. So, if the comment didn't go unnoticed by you then you should've noticed the context in which it was made, as well.

Or, hell, maybe you too think it's perfectly rational to have faith in the existence of 900 year old men and Noah's ark?

As for faith being a "gift someone has to decide to take," great. Tell me where I can go to take it. Tell me who's offering it. Tell me where they can be found. Let me know what I need to do to get them to offer it to me, so that I can decide to take it.

Should be pretty easy for you, if it's really that simple.

Smackie, I say "not knowing sucks" because it's one thing not to know how to split an atom. It's not a big deal not to know who will win a football game.

There are plenty of times when not knowing doesn't bother me. Most things, I don't know.

The question of whether there is even a god, or a human soul, or life after death? Is my elderly mother looking at the final days of her existence, or is she merely fixing to move on to some eternal existence?

Those are slightly more vexing issues. I'd kinda like to know those answers. Or, at the least, I'd like to have faith that I know those answers, like atheists and devoutly religious people have faith that they know those answers.

It doesn't even matter to me that I think a lot of blind believers are dumb as a rock. I still envy them their confident serenity. In their case, ignorance truly is bliss. In my case, regarding those Big Picture issues, ignorance is a slow burn torture.

Van wrote: slow burn torture.

Oh, so you do believe.

Van wrote:The question of whether there is even a god, or a human soul, or life after death? Is my elderly mother looking at the final days of her existence, or is she merely fixing to move on to some eternal existence?

Those are slightly more vexing issues. I'd kinda like to know those answers.

Of course you would. We all would. But you can't, so why worry about it? It's like getting pissed over water being wet or TiC being humorless. That's just the way it is, there's nothing that can be done about it, so you move on to concerning yourself with matters over which you have some control. No sense frettin' over things you can't control.

Van, not to try to argue any point with you here, but I'm interested in how you arrive at what "miraculous" things you might believe in.

You say that there is some chance that Jesus did in fact resurrect from the dead and yet categorically dismiss that Adam lived to be 900 years old.

Btw, it was not just Adam.
Pre-flood, the Bible records that all people were living those long lives.


900 years old men -- scientifically impossible

Man resurrects from dead -- scientifically impossible .... uhh ... but it could have happened

poptart wrote:Pre-flood, the Bible records that all people were living those long lives.


900 years old men

I know you don't know the answers, but I'll ask anyway. If people were living to be 900, were they, like, 200-yr-old adolescents? Did they just age slower, or were they old when they were in their 80s and just lived another 820 years? Were women in their reproductive years when they were in their teens thru mid-30s, or when they were a few centuries old? I know Sarah was supposedly 90 when Isaac was born, and this was after she was determined to have been barren, so it would appear they got old and just stayed old for several centuries. How did that work?

poptart wrote:Van, not to try to argue any point with you here, but I'm interested in how you arrive at what "miraculous" things you might believe in.

I remain open to the possibility of divinity for Christ, and the existence of god/afterlife/divine human souls.

UCLA beat USC, in '06. Some shit simply cannot be explained.

Fables told in the Old Testament? I dismiss those out of hand. Not even a sleepwalking USC team could make a Bruin DB live to be 900 years old.

The possibility of belief in the former does not require any belief whatsoever in the latter. Merely consider the source of those fables, if not the actual content. Dismissing them couldn't be easier.

You say that there is some chance that Jesus did in fact resurrect from the dead and yet categorically dismiss that Adam lived to be 900 years old.

I don't believe Christ resurrected from the dead and there's no way in hell any human being ever lived to be 900 years old. There's also no way in hell any human being was ever created from dirt. He then did not create woman, merely from his rib. The result of this dirt dude and his McWoman did not contain the genetic material necessary to create both Refrigerator Perry and Whiny Japanese Bukkake Schoolgirl Whore.

Obviously, the story of Noah's ark is merely a children's fable.

Yes, I dismiss all that out of hand.

Christ existed though, of that there seems to be little doubt, and some part of me can't let go of the idea that maybe he was divine and maybe there is such a thing as divinity.

I'm fully aware that the only reason I allow for this possibility is it's been drilled into my head, my whole life. Had I been born and raised in a societal vacuum, one that was devoid of any and all religious trappings, I am certain that if I were to read the bible I would view the entire tome as being highly less plausible even than the works of Tolkien.

I've written parody porn for T1B that was more believable than much of the bible.

Btw, it was not just Adam.
Pre-flood, the Bible records that all people were living those long lives.

WGARA? The bible doesn't "record" anything. It's not an historical document; certainly not the Old Testament. Nobody was around to create actuarial tables in "pre-flood" times.

People said whatever they wanted and it found its way into the "official record" known as the bible.

There was no "pre-flood" era, because there was never any Great Flood. All mankind (except for Noah and his impossible collection of fictional animals) was never wiped out in any single cataclysmic flood lasting forty days and forty nights.

Go ahead and dismiss the Book Of Genesis, completely. Much of the Old Testament, just shitcan it. It's nothing but a charming preamble, like the prologue to a Star Wars novel.

900 years old men -- scientifically impossible

Correct. We can't even manage a quarter of that life span now, despite all our advances in medicine and our vastly increased life span, relative to that of primitive man.

Man resurrects from dead -- scientifically impossible .... uhh ... but it could have happened

It didn't. It's scientifically impossible.

People who others mistakenly thought were dead, sure, those people have been known to rise from the dead.

Dins does it all the time.

People have also been known to believe in crazy visions. In Christ's time, people regularly believed in a never ending stream of stupid, mystical shit.

Christ rising from the dead would fall right in line with the types of things poeple believed in back then.

Besides, above and beyond all that, Christ was supposedly divine, and 900 year old men weren't. Christ's story can at least be explained by his supposed divinity. That explanation doesn't work for desert traversing penguins, or never ending human life spans.

Smackie Chan wrote:

poptart wrote:Pre-flood, the Bible records that all people were living those long lives.


900 years old men

I know you don't know the answers, but I'll ask anyway. If people were living to be 900, were they, like, 200-yr-old adolescents? Did they just age slower, or were they old when they were in their 80s and just lived another 820 years? Were women in their reproductive years when they were in their teens thru mid-30s, or when they were a few centuries old? I know Sarah was supposedly 90 when Isaac was born, and this was after she was determined to have been barren, so it would appear they got old and just stayed old for several centuries. How did that work?

They were all vampires.

Van wrote: As for faith being a "gift someone has to decide to take," great. Tell me where I can go to take it. Tell me who's offering it. Tell me where they can be found. Let me know what I need to do to get them to offer it to me, so that I can decide to take it.

Oops, sorry. There's an expiration date on the free gift offer and you done lost out. You've had your chances, and you wasted them.

At this point, you're better off believing in reincarnation and hoping you come back as someone less hard headed. Not that that's going to work either, but at least you might be able to delude yourself into believing in something.

War Wagon wrote:

Van wrote: As for faith being a "gift someone has to decide to take," great. Tell me where I can go to take it. Tell me who's offering it. Tell me where they can be found. Let me know what I need to do to get them to offer it to me, so that I can decide to take it.

Oops, sorry. There's an expiration date on the free gift offer and you done lost out.

Fuck. That happened to me last week, too, with a pizza coupon.

You've had your chances, and you wasted them.

That really blows. I wish I'd known there were only X amount of chances. Hell, I wish I'd known at the time that I'd arrived at one of those chances. God should issue redeemable vouchers, with little audible beeps, so you'll know when you it's time to cash in a voucher. That way, you'd not only know when it's your turn, but you'd also know when you're starting to run low on chances.

This is like trying to get Green Bay Packers season tickets, isn't it?

At this point, you're better off believing in reincarnation and hoping you come back as someone less hard headed.

Shit, what I was before then, in my last previous life? A cement block?

Not that that's going to work either, but at least you might be able to delude yourself into believing in something.

If I try real hard and I'm real nice to Domer Fan can I come back next time as Megan Fox's vibrator?

Smackie Chan wrote:

poptart wrote:Pre-flood, the Bible records that all people were living those long lives.


900 years old men

I know you don't know the answers, but I'll ask anyway. If people were living to be 900, were they, like, 200-yr-old adolescents? Did they just age slower, or were they old when they were in their 80s and just lived another 820 years? Were women in their reproductive years when they were in their teens thru mid-30s, or when they were a few centuries old? I know Sarah was supposedly 90 when Isaac was born, and this was after she was determined to have been barren, so it would appear they got old and just stayed old for several centuries. How did that work?

As you noted, I don't know the answers for sure, as the Bible perhaps just touches a little on some of them.

We know that after the flood people's life expectancy dropped drastically.
Living/climate conditions obviously changed totally.

Sarah lived to be 127 and Abraham to 175.

I suspect that by that time, a 90 yr old woman being pregnant would be as laffable as it would be today.
That's why Sarah did laff when God told her she would have Isaac at that age.

But as for how long Eve, for example, may have been able to get knocked up ... and at what age Cain grew hair on his nutsack ... I dunno.

If it's not told to us it's not important to know.

pop wrote:Sarah lived to be 127 and Abraham to 175.

I suspect that by that time, a 90 yr old woman being pregnant would be as laffable as it would be today.
That's why Sarah did laff when God told her she would have Isaac at that age.

Maybe she laughed because she was so old she actually thought it was Bob Newhart talking to her.

Jsc810 wrote:There was an interesting show on the History Channel recently, it showed geological evidence of some great floods in that time period, and it also noted that several ancient religions had a great flood story.

It's well-known that many religions have a great flood as part of their lore. It's the issue of a boat that carries penguins, polar bears, desert tortoises, platypi, and dirty brown hamsters all together in its hold that loses me.

Floods, yes. The Great Flood, with Noah's ark containing all the animals of the world, no.

I think you need to do some more research into these afterlife experiences Jsc. Report back with the latest heads up.

Jsc810 wrote:Fine, some of the things in the Bible may not be literally true.

But there is something after we die. I've seen a glimpse of it.

Overhead lights and your anesthesiologist's scrubs covered breasts?

What it is exactly, I don't know. But there is something.

It's another game against Tulane.

Van wrote:The Great Flood, with Noah's ark containing all the animals of the world, no.

Two of evey sort of animal came to Adam, to be kept alive in the Ark -- Genesis 6:19,20

Right. No such thing ever happened.

poptart wrote:Two of evey sort of animal came to Adam, to be kept alive in the Ark

RACK Adam. I see that dude workin'.

Sin,

More "christian" love.

Nobody ever recognized that some Christians are pinheaded @ssholes.
Thanks a million for pointing it out to us, Diego.


Cutting edge.

Oh, I dunno, I'd say that many people have recognized that some Christians are pinheaded assholes.

Van wrote:

At this point, you're better off believing in reincarnation and hoping you come back as someone less hard headed.

Shit, what I was before then, in my last previous life? A cement block?

Van wrote:

Not that that's going to work either, but at least you might be able to delude yourself into believing in something.

If I try real hard and I'm real nice to Domer Fan can I come back next time as Megan Fox's vibrator?

If you don't start believing in it soon you might end up coming back as a Cinder block

~Tosses in the car keys and quickly drives out of this thread~

Quite well played!

Jsc810 wrote:Fine, some of the things in the Bible may not be literally true.

But there is something after we die. I've seen a glimpse of it. What it is exactly, I don't know. But there is something.

Look familiar?


Fester is God

Cuda wrote:5'10"

mvscal wrote:5'10"

Atomic Punk wrote: 5' 10"

Smackie Chan wrote: he's 5'7"

smackaholic wrote: 5'10"

You're collective, and individual, obsession with my body is disturbing.

~~~~~~~

ppanther wrote: 5'10"

Haven't you heard? You're 5'6".

Van wrote:Obviously, the story of Noah's ark is merely a children's fable.

Obviously, you're a fucking idiot.

poptart wrote:Nobody ever recognized that some Christians are pinheaded @ssholes.
Thanks a million for pointing it out to us, Diego.


Cutting edge.

Excuse me, but show me ONE hardcore Christer in history that isn't or wasn't a total pinheaded asshole. Who? And I don't mean some nominal pew renter, I mean a real believer in the One Path To Salvation, blah blah.. Fact is, it's a defining characteristic: close-minded, intolerant, apocalyptic, superstitious, and sheep-like. Really, a true Christer is a very low form of humanity--and a serious asshole.

LTS TRN 2 wrote:Excuse me, but show me ONE hardcore Christer in history that isn't or wasn't a total pinheaded asshole. Who?

Realizing his religious beliefs are to this day subject to debate, Rene Descartes is believed by many to have been a devout Catholic. Not sure I'd characterize him as a pinhead, although he may, as far as I know, have been an asshole. Your results may vary.

Oh sure, so was Issac Newton, but if you think these guys were in any way similar to a actual Christer, forget it. They were intelligent and didn't want to get executed, etc. Compare Decartes with, say, Jonathan Edwards or Ronald Reagan, and you'll get the picture.

Moving Sale wrote:

Van wrote:Obviously, the story of Noah's ark is merely a children's fable.

Obviously, you're a fucking idiot.

Obviously, you're ready, able and willing to provide any sort of evidence to the contrary.

Not just that a boat existed, which was discovered in Turkey, but that the entire fable is true. We're talking killing everything on earth, in one great flood. We're talking re-populating the earth with man and animals, strictly from what the ark was able to carry.

Have at it. Or, just go ahead and bow out, because we both know you have absolutely nothing here...Mr Scientist.

LTS TRN 2 wrote:Oh sure, so was Issac Newton, but if you think these guys were in any way similar to a actual Christer, forget it. They were intelligent and didn't want to get executed, etc. Compare Decartes with, say, Jonathan Edwards or Ronald Reagan, and you'll get the picture.

Sure, comparing Descartes to Reagan intellectually is akin to comparing Yao Ming to Verne Troyer vertically. I'm sure I'll regret asking, but what are the qualifications required to be considered an "actual Christer"?

Close-minded, intolerant, apocalyptic, superstitious, and sheep-like. And while these attributes are standard for any cult, the Christer cult adds only the name of "Jesus" to distinguish itself from the rest.

LTS TRN 2 wrote:After a cursory review it is quite obvious that Dr. Tiller dealt with patients who were carrying very damaged fetuses. In fact, almost all of his patients were referred by other doctors who had determined that the respective fetus was severely impaired. And that's the real story here. The man was a hero, and the asinine religious loons as well as the race survivalists who applaud his murder are pathetic and reprehensible hypocrites.

Epic Fail.

...Tiller (told) a 1995 National Abortion Federation gathering that his clinic had performed 10,000 late term abortions in the last five years, only 800 of which involved fetal anomalies.

As to the anomalies in question, those included cleft pallet, Down's syndrome and healthy twins, the twins because of their presumed economic impact.

http://www.cashill.com/regional/sebelius_must.htm

Sorry, truman, but the report you're presenting is a total fake. It's a staunch anti-abortion site and the audio of Dr. Tiller is a total fake. Sorry.

Van wrote: Obviously, you're ready, able and willing to provide any sort of evidence to the contrary.

Earth to Van. It's an adult fable not a children's fable. There is a lot you could learn from it if you wanted to. You don't seem to want to learn anything from it so you won't, but you could if you did.

It may have began life as an adult fable (for adults who lived in primitive times) but it's now nothing but a children's fable. No reasonable, thinking adult would do anything but smirk at it.

Besides, is that really all you had, again? Your big accusation was to differentiate between an adult's/children's fable?

That makes me the fucking idiot??

Simply hitting "submit," when that was all you had, that truly makes you a fucking idiot. It also makes you look completely desperate.

Oh, and no, there's nothing to learn from the fable of Noah's ark, not unless you're only eight years old. That's what it is: an episode of Davey & Goliath. It's a quaint little cautionary tale, suitable for telling over milk and graham cracker cookies during Sunday school.

Its big message?

"Man was being bad. God got pissed, and he shook up his Etch-A-Sketch, to start the game all over."

Where is the deep, universal wisdom implicit in that fable?
"Don't be bad, or god will destroy the world, and start all over again."

Yeah? Great. So?

Van wrote:Besides, is that really all you had, again? Your big accusation was to differentiate between an adult's/children's fable?

Yes Van that makes you an idiot. The story is a story that is told by adults to adults to help the listeners to learn something. If your mind was not so closed I would spend some time telling you just what that lesson was, but at your advanced age if you have not gotten it by now you are never going to get it.

If I'm wrong just say the word and I will be more than happy to help you out.