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8th January 2013, 06:12 AM | #41 |
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8th January 2013, 08:28 AM | #42 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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8th January 2013, 08:35 AM | #43 |
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8th January 2013, 08:41 AM | #44 |
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8th January 2013, 09:56 AM | #45 |
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I had a conversation with my mum along similar lines recently. Basically, she thinks it's all a crock, but stays in the church by a combination of inertia and wishful thinking. I could probably understand that on its own, but she goes into schools and teaches them Bible stories as if they were true. Talking snakes, animals on a boat, the whole thing. I have no idea how or why she would do that.
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8th January 2013, 10:38 AM | #46 |
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8th January 2013, 10:43 AM | #47 |
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If the Christian god existed, what would be the point to life? According to Christians, the point of living is to worship a misogynist god who lets children starve and burn to death, allows slavery, war, cruelty, all with the vague notion said god has a reason.
Sounds like a horrid 'point' to life. |
8th January 2013, 10:46 AM | #48 |
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8th January 2013, 10:55 AM | #49 |
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8th January 2013, 11:10 AM | #50 |
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8th January 2013, 11:13 AM | #51 |
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My father seemed to have been made a non believer by his own near death experience he went through after hitting a tree on his motorcycle going 90 mph without a helmet. He was in a coma for 3 days and dead for something like 3 minutes on the table.
He seemed to think most of the experience was a result of random mental stimuli and memory. God seemed like a jolly male authority figure that was aloof and alien, which he said seemed a lot like Santa Claus to him as an archetype. |
8th January 2013, 11:14 AM | #52 |
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I think people overuse the term "retcon," and this is an example. Giving significantly more details about particular parts of a story isn't a "retcon" unless you have to explicitly or implicitly deny significant aspects of the original story in order to do so. Chapter 2 is a significant "filling in" of particular details but I wouldn't call it a "retcon."
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8th January 2013, 11:16 AM | #53 |
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"There's vastly more truth to be found in rocks than in holy books. Rocks are far superior, in fact, because you can DEMONSTRATE the truth found in rocks. Plus, they're pretty. Holy books are just heavy." - Dinwar "Let your ears hear this beautiful song that's hiding underneath the sound," Ed Kowalczyk. |
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8th January 2013, 11:22 AM | #54 |
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With their four faces, one facing each direction, the Cherubim would be very well-suited as helicopter pilots. Their four wings might get in the way, though.
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8th January 2013, 12:23 PM | #55 |
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After my father had his first heart attack he was totally unconscious and remembered nothing. No light to walk into no dead people greeting him. Nothing. He had a friend who was an atheist and he often said. "Maybe Jack Fink is right" Maybe nothing happens afer we die".
He had two more heart attacks and the third one killed him. I hated to see him suffer so but there was nothing to be done for him. |
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8th January 2013, 12:26 PM | #56 |
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8th January 2013, 12:29 PM | #57 |
121.92-meter mutant fire-breathing lizard-thingy
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8th January 2013, 12:36 PM | #58 |
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I don't think she would put it exactly like that
Seriously though, I think she is thinking that the life she has left (perhaps 10 years) would seem pointless to her if she didn't get to live forever in paradise after it was over. Or something like that. I don't agree, of course, I find reality quite intriguing without the fantasies, even though i will only be here a tiny portion of the time. |
8th January 2013, 12:37 PM | #59 |
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8th January 2013, 12:39 PM | #60 |
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8th January 2013, 12:45 PM | #61 |
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8th January 2013, 12:51 PM | #62 |
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8th January 2013, 01:11 PM | #63 |
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"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." - "Saint" Teresa, the lying thieving Albanian dwarf "I think accuracy is important" - Vixen |
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8th January 2013, 01:43 PM | #64 |
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Verse 5 says there were not yet any "shrubs" or "herbs of the field" -- that is to say, cultivated plants -- because man was not yet there to cultivate them.
Note that the words used here to refer to cultivated plants (siah hassadeh and eseb hassadeh) are different than the words used in Genesis 1 to refer to trees and fruit-bearing plants (eseb mazria zera and es peri oseh peri). My Hebrew is pretty rudimentary so Hebrew scholars should feel free to correct me. |
8th January 2013, 02:20 PM | #65 |
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Mine too, but Genesis 2:5 in any case says that some plants were not there, while Genesis 1:11 says that God created all plants. So there is a contradiction, methinks.
A supernatural being who is only concerned with what I may and may not eat? |
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8th January 2013, 06:39 PM | #66 |
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Ah yes, Sisera. My favourite of all Bible stories. After Judah and the Lord are unable to drive out the inhabitants of the valley because of their chariots, Barak and his ten thousand men destroy Sisera's army, including his nine hundred iron chariots, and force Sisera to flee on foot.
Sisera comes to the tent of Jael, who invites him in, covers him with a blanket, gives him milk to drink, and nails his head to the ground while he sleeps. Lovely story. Thanks for reminding me of it. |
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8th January 2013, 06:45 PM | #67 |
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8th January 2013, 06:53 PM | #68 |
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Actually, it doesn't. The word "all" does not appear, and the account only deals with two types of plants, as I mentioned before - seed-bearing herbs and fruit-bearing trees.
I would recommend taking another look at Genesis 1:11 (in Hebrew if possible) and comparing it to Genesis 2:5. The closest you can come to a contradiction is to claim that certain seed-bearing herbs must be cultivated, and to try to imply an "all" in Genesis 1:11 that's not there. |
8th January 2013, 07:59 PM | #69 |
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8th January 2013, 08:22 PM | #70 |
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First of all, as to the "all", Genesis 1 is pretty comprehensive in listing everything that can be created, so why would some plants not be listed?
Secondly, it depends on your translation. NIV translates Genesis 1:11 as "seed-bearing plants". That is any (land) plant except for mosses and ferns. |
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8th January 2013, 08:53 PM | #71 |
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8th January 2013, 08:57 PM | #72 |
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I wouldn't call the Genesis 1 list comprehensive at all.
But even if you assume that Genesis 1 essentially means plants in general, I still don't agree that it's contradictory to then turn around and give an exception for cultivated plants.
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8th January 2013, 09:12 PM | #73 |
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I'm citing the argument, as I understand it, not necessarily that I agree with it.
Also, I don't the idea is completely outrageous. The first premise rests on the answer to the question, "Will humans ever be able to create conscious beings within a computer programme whose experiences will be indistinguishable from our own?" If the answer to that is yes, then the next question is, "Will humans also use that technology to create simulated worlds populated by such beings qualitatively indistinguishable from our own?" If the answer to this is yes, then the next question is, "Will there be more than one of these simulated worlds in existence?" If the answer to this is yes, then the probability of being in one of the simulated worlds, as opposed to the real world, will be much higher depending upon how large a number of simulations exist. Presumably, these simulated worlds would also create their own simulated worlds also. Now, it is possible that there are physical constraints to this and such technology could never exist denying the first premise. There may eventually be social constraints on this, whereby no advanced human or other society would ever allow it to be used denying the second premise. But usually the "argument" against it is "That just sounds silly; I don't believe it." |
9th January 2013, 02:57 AM | #74 |
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Except that for your argument to work, the creation account in Genesis 2 would have to have the creation of all the *other* uncultivated plants after the creation of man as well. Otherwise the second account, according to you, would end up with a world which only has cultivated plants on it.
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9th January 2013, 04:33 AM | #75 |
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Ah, a fellow sufferer. Here in deepest darkest Suffolk there are very few christians but lots of bell worship (the church is only 50 ft from my house). The new religion in rural Britain seems to be campanology.
Quote:
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9th January 2013, 04:57 AM | #76 |
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9th January 2013, 05:17 AM | #77 |
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Genesis 2 is not a "second account;" it's a focus and expansion on particular elements of the account in Genesis 1. Particularly, it gives details about YHWH's interaction with humans on Day Six.
So I don't agree that any particular elements in Genesis 1 have to be repeated in Genesis 2. Genesis 1 starts with the formless earth and takes us through the creation week. Genesis 2 starts with the condition of earth before the creation of man and takes us through man's time in Eden. |
9th January 2013, 05:36 AM | #78 |
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LOL...the story of the bells in Suffolk reminds me of my childhood growing up in Bahrain. House surrounded by four mosques with the call to prayer blaring through loudspeakers five times a day with a slight lag between each mosque so it took quite some time for it all to end. I used to know the entire azaan and also noticed the slight difference between the shiite and the sunni version.
Got so used to it that when we finally left and settled elsewhere, missed it and would actually catch myself reciting it some times...shia version, since the mosque was right next door. |
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9th January 2013, 06:25 AM | #79 |
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9th January 2013, 06:51 AM | #80 |
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What then is missing from the list of things created in Genesis 1? And then I don't mean bacteria or viruses or other things that people in 500-1000BC did not know about?
Sorry, I'm not following. If one assumes that Genesis 1 means plants in general, there is no exception. The Hebrew apparently leaves some leeway in what the word meant. Just like the nowadays English word "American" can pertain to the US or the whole continent, and the context must give clarification which was meant. |
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"I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people." - "Saint" Teresa, the lying thieving Albanian dwarf "I think accuracy is important" - Vixen |
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