Jesus Camp Trailer

[Gandelf]

OK, here is another thing to contemplate:-

Supposing, just for one minute, that God does exist and that he created the Earth. Now suppose that God created the world to LOOK as if it was millions of years old. How could you prove that to be wrong?

[Luz]

You aren't Jesus. There, I've stopped ignoring you.

Thanks.

Gives me a grand opening to ask, why dont you believe me?
Something written in a book some 2000 years old you believe as facts, with no proof whatsoever, but a post on this forum only a few minutes old you completely disregard.

There are as much proof that God exists as there is that I am Jesus, still you completely ignore my claim and take the other as 100% true.

This my friend, is what I dont understand. Everything in the world need proof, except an old book.

[Luz]

OK, here is another thing to contemplate:-

Supposing, just for one minute, that God does exist and that he created the Earth. Now suppose that God created the world to LOOK as if it was millions of years old. How could you prove that to be wrong?

thats pretty silly argument, its like I would say : pretend for one minute you dont believe in God and then explain how the world looks like it does now?

[Gandelf]

Evolution is a theory - with flaws yes, but its nowhere near the flaws you will find in the bible (where you got your theory from).

<removed one part of this message until I find more info about it>

/Ankh

So really, it's a 2-horse race, that's what you're saying. Do you bet on Creation being first past the winning post or Evolution?

[Cromcruaich]

No offence also, but evolution is still a theory. It has never been proved.

No theories can ever be prooved only disproved.


Please say what it is about the evolution you disagree with and I shall do my best to try and explain it? On the other side, please let us know how you theorise that the current species alive today got here, and perhaps we can try and analyse why it may fall down as a theory in its own right.

A few pointers as to why you dont believe in evolution as a theory:

Do you not believe that mutations occur across generations which are selected for by environmental and sexual pressures?

Do you simply disbelieve in the evolution of homo sapiens from ancesteral primates?

Do you not believe in the age of the planet, hence assuming that there hasnt been enough time for the development of the fossil record and the occurenece of the current species we see on the planent today?

Anything else?

The very thought of not 'believing' in the mechanism of evolution is a complete anaethma - you can see it occur in days within microbial populations with drug resistance and the development of a new strain, to over tens of years in insect populations in industrial areas who quickly select for colourations resulting from darkening of their environment cause by pollution. The mechanism is in action, it exists, to not accept that, is then not to accept the existance of DNA as a chemical blueprint inherited from generation to generation.

What many people completely fail to grasp, is the period of time over which development of species has occured. All we see is a tiny tiny window - the overall progression of species variation within our time period is completely invisible to us.

One of the best illustrations I heard of the sheer time scale overwhich natural selection as a mechanism has operated is if you stretched out your arm, and imagine it represents the whole of the history of life on earth, and took a fine nail file and stroked it once across your index finger - the amount you took off would represent the length of time that man has been on the planet.

What is also truly amazing is that we have all evolved from a common source all those millions of years ago - indicated by the fact that the same base encoding is common to all life.

I think to the layman, the most powerful illustration of the underlying mechanism of evolution, is that we can now make direct predictions of whether people will have inheritable diseases based on DNA sequencing, along side being able to manipulate base sequences in genes, and also insert whole genes to cause phenotype changes in species (be they plant, animal or bacterial), also if you look at the alternative theory, spontaneous creation of species, for which there is no evidence, and which really is so ridiculous its laughable then I would hope that you could accept evolution as a mechanism.

Also note that the acceptance of evolution shouldnt really upset you, within a christian framework there is no reason to think that your god just didnt throw his dice knowing that that would be the mechanism by which the planets species were produced. I guess christians get a bit jumpy at it as they firmly believe in the writings of Genesis, but then, i never rated Phil Collins anyway.

--
On a seperate note, have Gand and Nana read The Age of Reason yet? I also suggest you give The Origin of Species a read.

[Gandelf]

Thanks.

Gives me a grand opening to ask, why dont you believe me?
Something written in a book some 2000 years old you believe as facts, with no proof whatsoever, but a post on this forum only a few minutes old you completely disregard.

There are as much proof that God exists as there is that I am Jesus, still you completely ignore my claim and take the other as 100% true.

This my friend, is what I dont understand. Everything in the world need proof, except an old book.

Just because a book is 2,000 years old (well it's older really, because parts of it were written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ) doesn't mean that it's less valid as evidence. Eventually all literature grows old, but it doesn't mean it will be less valid in another 2,000 years time. It's almost 1,000 years since the Domesday Book was compiled, with your logic, does that mean it's half as believable as truth as the Bible?

The fact is, that the various books of the Bible have been verified to be accurately translated by scholars, some of whom were not believers in God. I am not such a scholar, so I lack the in-depth knowledge to give the definitive proof of the validity of the Bible. I suggest you do some research if you are so eager to be satisfied.

No, you are not Jesus, otherwise the rapture would now have happened. That's the proof that you arent Him. Personally, I believe you are a sub-routine of the Prydwen Net forum, generating comments when certain key words or phrases are identified. I have yet to be proved wrong in that belief.

[Xest]

OK, here is another thing to contemplate:-

Supposing, just for one minute, that God does exist and that he created the Earth. Now suppose that God created the world to LOOK as if it was millions of years old. How could you prove that to be wrong?

Carbon dating.

Owned!

[Cromcruaich]

[quote="Gandelf"]Just because a book is 2,000 years old (well it's older really, because parts of it were written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ) doesn't mean that it's less valid as evidence. Eventually all literature grows old, but it doesn't mean it will be less valid in another 2,000 years time. It's almost 1,000 years since the Domesday Book was compiled, with your logic, does that mean it's half as believable as truth as the Bible?

The fact is, that the various books of the Bible have been verified to be accurately translated by scholars, some of whom were not believers in God. I am not such a scholar, so I lack the in-depth knowledge to give the definitive proof of the validity of the Bible. I suggest you do some research if you are so eager to be satisfied.

No, you are not Jesus, otherwise the rapture would now have happened. That's the proof that you arent Him. Personally, I believe you are a sub-routine of the Prydwen Net forum, generating comments when certain key words or phrases are identified. I have yet to be proved wrong in that belief. ]

The thing with the doomsday book is that its a listing of peoples names and profession - the first census as i understand it, it really doesnt matter in truth wether it is accurate or not.

The problem with the bible, is that you accept is as written by your christian god, which it obviously wasnt, or you accept it as written by people who thought they were talking to god. Now, if you want to look around you can find plenty of modern authers who proclaim that they are writing down what god is telling them. Maradonna even proclaimed that it was the hand of god that was responsible for him scoring against England (though I guess you dont believe that one as he's a roman catholic).

Ofcourse you also run into problems when other religions claims that their holy scriptures were also written by god through his prophets. Maybe they just got it wrong though, and yours is right, which i presume is your belief. You'd just be hard put to actually demonstrate why.

Out of interest, how do you know that your spiritual feeling of enlightenment is nothing more than the devil fucking with your mind?

[Heta]

OK, here is another thing to contemplate:-

Supposing, just for one minute, that God does exist and that he created the Earth. Now suppose that God created the world to LOOK as if it was millions of years old. How could you prove that to be wrong?

Here's the proof for the opposition

He didn't create the Earth. Cause he don't exist!

Only thing I agree with you Gandelf is probably that we are both equally sure of what we believe in. Tho I should let you know that I am the one that is correct

[Luz]

What is this "the rapture" that will happen when Jesus comes walking down?