christians

[triachus]

I know a christian of my age who once seriously said that "dinosaurs and humans walked side by side." His theory was that dinosaur skeletons and human skeletons are being dug up at same depths, same sand layers, or whatevs.

 

And that the dinosaurs became extinct because "something magical" happened.

 

Yes, his words.

 

 

Also, his computer is set to automatically shut down at 10 PM ... just to make sure he doesn't surf any "sites meant for men" (again, his words) late at night....

 

 

I don't know the full story behond that last one, if his parents did that to his computer, or he himself did that (i'm thinking he lives alone). I don't want to find out, because you might understand why I dont want to speak to that guy. Ever.

[Blir]

Glasssssssseessee if you want people to start taking Christianity seriously then you need to start getting knee jerk violent whenever anyone slightly questions or makes fun of your religion.

 

Try crashing an explosive laden car into WATMMs headquarters or something. Otherwise people are going to be constantly taking the piss out of YOU

[Guest ezkerraldean]

on any forum like this one might go on, there is always a thread like this with some degree of frequency. someone making fun of christians, or criticizing them. yet this happens with no other religion. never, ever, do you see a thread criticizing hindu beliefs, buddhism, or even judaism. you never even see a thread criticizing islam.

huh? most other forums i'm on have perpetual islam-bashing threads, far more than there are anti-christian ones.

[Guest Rambo]

I know a christian of my age who once seriously said that "dinosaurs and humans walked side by side." His theory was that dinosaur skeletons and human skeletons are being dug up at same depths, same sand layers, or whatevs.

 

And that the dinosaurs became extinct because "something magical" happened.

 

Yes, his words.

 

 

Also, his computer is set to automatically shut down at 10 PM ... just to make sure he doesn't surf any "sites meant for men" (again, his words) late at night....

 

 

I don't know the full story behond that last one, if his parents did that to his computer, or he himself did that (i'm thinking he lives alone). I don't want to find out, because you might understand why I dont want to speak to that guy. Ever.

 

rofl that guy sounds brilliant

[Fred McGriff]

jazzband

[Guest glasse]

I don't think dinosaurs and men walked side by side, because I think dinosaurs were wiped out probably by an asteroid about 65 million years ago. Christians who take the creation days as 24 hr periods of time obviously cannot believe that. The Hebrew word for day, yom, can mean 24 hour periods, 12 hour period (during the day), or an age or longer period of time (the day of the Romans). One of the main purposes of giving the creation account in this way was to give men the sabbath, creating a parallel between God's work 'week', and men's literal work week, resting on the seventh day. Many other places in the bible, God uses an example of a smaller period of time to illustrate a larger one, for example the 'weeks' of Daniel, or the Jubilee Years and Sabbatical years.

 

Also, consider if the Sun and the moon were literally made on the fourth day, before the Earth, how could those first 3 days really be called days? The Hebrew word for "made" (asah) refers to an action completed in the past. Thus, the verse is correctly rendered "God had made" rather than "God made." This indicates God "had made" the Sun, Moon and stars earlier than the fourth "day." On the first day we have light, according to Genesis, light and darkness, and day and night. Well how can we we have day and night, and evening and morning, without at least a sun? Here is what is going on. In the very early ages of the Earth it was covered by very thick gases, light could have penetrated through, so from the perspective of Earth day and night could still be discerned. However, it is not until the fourth 'day' that these gases begin to dissipate, and the Sun, Moon and the stars are clearly visible in the sky.

 

Just a couple other things to consider on this, (though there are very detailed articles online), On the third day it says 9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. This is consistent with the idea of a past supercontinent, one land form, and of course then there would also be one body of water My link. Also, it says that He made vegetation first, and that the first animals were created in the sea followed by those in the air, before the major land creatures. I pasted from a scientific article below, actually on evolution (though I of course believe in creation).

 

The arthropods of the Carboniferous had also moved onto the land and had in fact taken to the air. Many of the ancient insects were gigantic compared to present day ones, among them mayflies with a 14-inch wing span, and giant six-winged insects, in which the first pair of wings had been already reduced to nubs but not eliminated as they are in all present-day insects. These insects had long sucking mouthparts with which they sucked the juices out of large primitive pinecones. Feeding on these insects were dragonflies with a 30-inch wingspan!

 

While insects and amphibious creatures may have begun to move on land, we do not get major land animals until the fifth 'day'. Which would get us into the Permian era where we have huge reptile like mammals walking the Earth. However, none of these survived. From the same article as above:

 

At the end of the Permian, 245 million years ago, huge numbers of animals became extinct. About 96% of all marine animal species and 52% of the families disappeared in the greatest mass extinction the world has ever known. Recent data shows that 8 of 27 orders of insects, 21 of 27 families of reptiles, 6 of 9 families of amphibians and most of the terrestrial plant life disappeared at this time. This happened over a remarkably short period - about one million years.

 

96% of all marine animal species wiped out only 245 million years ago. 245 million years for the hundred of thousand to millions of complex and diverse marine species to re-evolve. Many evolutionary scientists are beginning to be faced with the problem that it just really is not enough time. Not to mention issues associated with the Cambrian explosion, the problem of birds and bats, etc.

 

Last thing to address, is that past and present Christians have said that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. This is based on the literal rendering of the creation days, and also by adding up the years in the genealogies back to Adam. Well, what they overlooked is that there are gaps in the genealogies and that only the most notable people are mentioned. It would be appropriate to the language at the time for one to call their great-great-grandfather, their father. This is why there are seeming contradictions in the different genealogies in the bible. Adam would have lived no more than 100,000 years ago. It is important to note that, while we can see evidence of hominids using tools, burying the dead, painting on caves etc. up to 1.5 million years ago, we do not begin to see religious relics and alters until 24,000 years ago and art containing indisputable spiritual content just 5,000 years ago, which brings us to the proto-states of Mesopotamia, Egypt's Nile Valley and the Indus Valleys, the cradle of civilization. Of course many animal species use tools, bury the dead, and even engage in art and music.

 

Whether we believe that God brought Adam out of these early hominids, and that this was the first that we were fully spiritual aware and capable of a relationship with God, or that Adam was created ex nihilo, and God created separate hominids earlier for His own purpose is open to debate. It is important in any case to note the wording of the verse.

 

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

 

Psalm 104

[Guest ezkerraldean]

meh, i don't get the whole thing about bending Genesis to fit with scientific findings. why not just say that Genesis is just some story crap, like every other culture's origin myths?

[Guest taxman]

and i was hoping this thread would consist of funny cut & pasted phrases off that site we all could lol at. fail.

 

"So can an atheist act ethically? Certainly, but he has no ultimate reason to do so"

 

going to that site was worth it for this picture alone

 

 

look at how excited she is

[Guest glasse]

meh, i don't get the whole thing about bending Genesis to fit with scientific findings. why not just say that Genesis is just some story crap, like every other culture's origin myths?

 

you know, maybe you are right, and i just wasted a whole big chunk of my morning casting pearls. it doesn't affect me one way or the other what you think. maybe posting cool songs on the youtube is better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76PLbSuank

[data]

to glasse, this guy says it so much better than i ever could (be arsed to).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAC_cGVnUg

[Guest ezkerraldean]

you know, maybe you are right, and i just wasted a whole big chunk of my morning casting pearls. it doesn't affect me one way or the other what you think. maybe posting cool songs on the youtube is better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A76PLbSuank

lol

[triachus]

I know a christian of my age who once seriously said that "dinosaurs and humans walked side by side." His theory was that dinosaur skeletons and human skeletons are being dug up at same depths, same sand layers, or whatevs.

 

And that the dinosaurs became extinct because "something magical" happened.

 

Yes, his words.

 

 

Also, his computer is set to automatically shut down at 10 PM ... just to make sure he doesn't surf any "sites meant for men" (again, his words) late at night....

 

 

I don't know the full story behond that last one, if his parents did that to his computer, or he himself did that (i'm thinking he lives alone). I don't want to find out, because you might understand why I dont want to speak to that guy. Ever.

 

rofl that guy sounds brilliant

 

not really

[Guest A/D]

serious answer to thread question

 

hi glasse! thank you so much for taking the time to put this together! it was a fascinating read. if you're looking for a good debate on the finer points you listed, you might have better luck elsewhere, but i appreciated reading it. sometimes these discussions stir up OG member Playbynumbers, who I believe is Russian Orthodox and a doctorate student in philosophy (and a BOC real fan). we can only hope.

[Guest underscore]

i was always under the impression this bible thing was just a really boring and old epic fantasy novel.

[Guest A/D]

to glasse, this guy says it so much better than i ever could (be arsed to).

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPAC_cGVnUg

 

i think he's committing the same frauds he's accusing the church of. he's angry that some people want to change his behavior - so he wants to change theirs! a big handicap secular people have in perceiving the church is that they only come into contact with evangelicals; the rest prefer to leave well enough alone. evangelicals have said some pretty ridiculous things. i'm not about to act on any of them, and if they want to look all pat robertson silly on TV, that is fine by me.

 

draw the analogy to government - there are vast good and neutral swaths who do wonderful things, like make sure we have roads to drive on, tap water, bridges, subways, electricity - and then there are others who (by their best judgement) want to change how people act. try to understand where they are coming from. 99% really do want the best for us. they are only misguided.

[Hautlle]

I don't think dinosaurs and men walked side by side, because I think dinosaurs were wiped out probably by an asteroid about 65 million years ago. Christians who take the creation days as 24 hr periods of time obviously cannot believe that. The Hebrew word for day, yom, can mean 24 hour periods, 12 hour period (during the day), or an age or longer period of time (the day of the Romans). One of the main purposes of giving the creation account in this way was to give men the sabbath, creating a parallel between God's work 'week', and men's literal work week, resting on the seventh day. Many other places in the bible, God uses an example of a smaller period of time to illustrate a larger one, for example the 'weeks' of Daniel, or the Jubilee Years and Sabbatical years.

 

Also, consider if the Sun and the moon were literally made on the fourth day, before the Earth, how could those first 3 days really be called days? The Hebrew word for "made" (asah) refers to an action completed in the past. Thus, the verse is correctly rendered "God had made" rather than "God made." This indicates God "had made" the Sun, Moon and stars earlier than the fourth "day." On the first day we have light, according to Genesis, light and darkness, and day and night. Well how can we we have day and night, and evening and morning, without at least a sun? Here is what is going on. In the very early ages of the Earth it was covered by very thick gases, light could have penetrated through, so from the perspective of Earth day and night could still be discerned. However, it is not until the fourth 'day' that these gases begin to dissipate, and the Sun, Moon and the stars are clearly visible in the sky.

 

Just a couple other things to consider on this, (though there are very detailed articles online), On the third day it says 9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good. This is consistent with the idea of a past supercontinent, one land form, and of course then there would also be one body of water My link. Also, it says that He made vegetation first, and that the first animals were created in the sea followed by those in the air, before the major land creatures. I pasted from a scientific article below, actually on evolution (though I of course believe in creation).

 

The arthropods of the Carboniferous had also moved onto the land and had in fact taken to the air. Many of the ancient insects were gigantic compared to present day ones, among them mayflies with a 14-inch wing span, and giant six-winged insects, in which the first pair of wings had been already reduced to nubs but not eliminated as they are in all present-day insects. These insects had long sucking mouthparts with which they sucked the juices out of large primitive pinecones. Feeding on these insects were dragonflies with a 30-inch wingspan!

 

While insects and amphibious creatures may have begun to move on land, we do not get major land animals until the fifth 'day'. Which would get us into the Permian era where we have huge reptile like mammals walking the Earth. However, none of these survived. From the same article as above:

 

At the end of the Permian, 245 million years ago, huge numbers of animals became extinct. About 96% of all marine animal species and 52% of the families disappeared in the greatest mass extinction the world has ever known. Recent data shows that 8 of 27 orders of insects, 21 of 27 families of reptiles, 6 of 9 families of amphibians and most of the terrestrial plant life disappeared at this time. This happened over a remarkably short period - about one million years.

 

96% of all marine animal species wiped out only 245 million years ago. 245 million years for the hundred of thousand to millions of complex and diverse marine species to re-evolve. Many evolutionary scientists are beginning to be faced with the problem that it just really is not enough time. Not to mention issues associated with the Cambrian explosion, the problem of birds and bats, etc.

 

Last thing to address, is that past and present Christians have said that the Earth is only 6,000 years old. This is based on the literal rendering of the creation days, and also by adding up the years in the genealogies back to Adam. Well, what they overlooked is that there are gaps in the genealogies and that only the most notable people are mentioned. It would be appropriate to the language at the time for one to call their great-great-grandfather, their father. This is why there are seeming contradictions in the different genealogies in the bible. Adam would have lived no more than 100,000 years ago. It is important to note that, while we can see evidence of hominids using tools, burying the dead, painting on caves etc. up to 1.5 million years ago, we do not begin to see religious relics and alters until 24,000 years ago and art containing indisputable spiritual content just 5,000 years ago, which brings us to the proto-states of Mesopotamia, Egypt's Nile Valley and the Indus Valleys, the cradle of civilization. Of course many animal species use tools, bury the dead, and even engage in art and music.

 

Whether we believe that God brought Adam out of these early hominids, and that this was the first that we were fully spiritual aware and capable of a relationship with God, or that Adam was created ex nihilo, and God created separate hominids earlier for His own purpose is open to debate. It is important in any case to note the wording of the verse.

 

the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

 

Psalm 104

 

I read in The Science of God, or maybe The Hidden Face of God by Gerald Schroeder that when considering times relativity and the expansion of the universe, that the 7 day creation story could be true. I'm no physicist, like Schroeder is, so i don't really know. Still something interesting to think about.

 

When you talk about the great extinction at the end of the Permian adn animals having to re-evolve that doesn't make sense. The animals that did not die would have simply filled the new ecological niche's and evolved to adapt to the new environment.

 

There has also been some interesting discussion ddebating whether the ancient hebrew text states that god created the world ex nihilo but I can't find the link right now

[Guest KY]

"I thought it was the old man in the sky who determined who gets into this heaven place, not some Korean on a subway".

 

holy shit, do you go through the Port Authority subway station between the A/C/E and the 7 too?

 

jk (i forget if you're actually still in korea), but there is definitely an older asian woman in the corridor between two subway stations that hands out "Don't receive the 666 microchip in your hand" pamphlets almost every day.

 

in any case, definitely watching this thread. i will report any sinners.

[kaini]

[Redruth]

some will never believe, some will need convincing, some will need proof and some just know.

 

think how we all might look at this alittle differently whilst this discussion

was taking place thousands of years ago. just because we are in a blind

spot does not mean that history is false. some of these stories and documentation's are true.

 

it is so easy now to discredit the past with our advanced devices and forms of reasoning, we must be wary of this!

 

a certain amount of everything we hear is true.

[chenGOD]

"I thought it was the old man in the sky who determined who gets into this heaven place, not some Korean on a subway".

 

holy shit, do you go through the Port Authority subway station between the A/C/E and the 7 too?

 

jk (i forget if you're actually still in korea), but there is definitely an older asian woman in the corridor between two subway stations that hands out "Don't receive the 666 microchip in your hand" pamphlets almost every day.

 

 

Sorry, I was referring to the Korean born-agains on the subway in Seoul. I used to get right into it with them, until I got some decent headphones.

[chenGOD]

Website is Related:

 

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

[Hoodie]

Website is Related:

 

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

 

excellent website.

[lumpenprol]

rook's dupe?

[Guest glasse]

Website is Related:

 

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

 

You, yourself are a moderator. When people can see that you are in a thread with them, do they always act the same as they would if you weren't in the thread, or weren't signed in? If they know there are certain things that will get them warned or banned, chances are they will be far less likely to do them. This may not be because they don't want to do them, but they won't because they know they are more or less powerless against the consequences. Of course even if you aren't signed in, they know that inevitably you will be and will see whatever they shouldn't have posted.

 

Contrast watmm with xltronic, where moderators visit far less frequently and Phobiazero is logged in hardly at all. In the rules it states that members are forbidden from creating a duplicate account. However dupes run rampant, no one knows who anyone is, and silly nonsensical threads are the norm. Now here, moderators do log in from time to time, Phobiazero does show up now and then and people have been banned even recently, so there is still a certain level of moderation maintained. Let's take that to the next level with 4chan, where there is barely any moderation, and everyone posts completely anonymously, (except that their ip addresses could be gotten.) Here we see constantly porn and even child porn from time to time. Mockery and debaucherous humor are pretty much mainstays. For everything I ever got myself into, porn, drugs, violence, stealing, I never, and I mean NEVER laid my eyes on any child pornography until I visited this site, and it was basically someone's avatar.

 

Here is the point. If God allowed Himself to be obviously known, and did not hide His face from us, people would feel forced to obey whatever He expected. They wouldn't do so out of love, but out of a sense of coercion. They would realize how powerless they were against this omnipotent creator and basically act as one does who has a gun pointed at their head. Additionally faith would be rendered meaningless, and we are saved by grace through faith so it is very important that faith be preserved. Therefore God must remain hidden and mysterious, and work through subtlety. I am sure He would want nothing more than to be able to grow an amputee a new limb, and of course it is in His power, but it would be very difficult for the world at large to deny His existence if He went around doing obvious things like this. Just as He gave the angels beforehand, He now gives people the right to choose.

 

One other thing. When in the bible do we see more obvious demonic affliction and possession than at any other point in either the Old or New Testament? It was in the gospels, when Christ was in the flesh performing miracles in full view of everyone. Consider the legal courtroom drama we see in books like Job. Did God heal my cancer, and did the devil really tell the Son of Sam through a dog that he should kill people or tell that lady recently to eat her own baby? Thanks be to God for choosing to hide the spirit realm from us, if only to hide the absolute horrors that would fully unleash themselves on us if they were so permitted.

 

Just as Gandalf spoke the language of Mordor in a place where it should never be spoken, in order to make a point of the severe power of evil, so will I post this, if only to convict you of what is real. Of course, even this can and has been written off as mental illness and dissociative disorders. I'll tell you the truth, as I listened back to this when I was about to post it, I immediately felt an urgent and nasty presence that caused me to stop and pray for protection, not only for myself, but for all of you as you play it.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4n9vK0_mdk

[lumpenprol]

 

Here is the point. If God allowed Himself to be obviously known, and did not hide His face from us, people would feel forced to obey whatever He expected. They wouldn't do so out of love, but out of a sense of coercion. They would realize how powerless they were against this omnipotent creator and basically act as one does who has a gun pointed at their head. Additionally faith would be rendered meaningless, and we are saved by grace through faith so it is very important that faith be preserved. Therefore God must remain hidden and mysterious, and work through subtlety. I am sure He would want nothing more than to be able to grow an amputee a new limb, and of course it is in His power, but it would be very difficult for the world at large to deny His existence if He went around doing obvious things like this. Just as He gave the angels beforehand, He now gives people the right to choose.

 

 

I actually understand and agree with that point. But seriously, you've been finding kiddie porn on watmm? I've been here for years, but clearly I must be doing something wrong.