Creationists Go Round And Round

[Schumikonen 2]

As for how it works, Derren Brown just used hypnotic methods and suggestions to get the people to do and feel what he wanted. So with the guy that he 'pulled' backwards, first he put the guy in a suggestible state, then he said things like "don't worry, this won't hurt" and "don't worry, I'll catch you" so the guy knew subconsciously what was going to happen, then just when the guy was about to fall over all by himself Derren Brown pretends to pull him backwards. It's a very effective trick, but it's no more than that. Btw there are videos on youtube explaining how he does these weird things - they're fun to watch.

Do you really know how hypnotism works?

Maybe there are tricks but so far nobody had done any with me, I have never fallen like that even when i would like to experience something like that, I will check the video again to confirm what you say about the guy falling.

[Schumikonen 2]

It's not really true, Schumikonen. You trust in the Bible far more than I trust in science. My trust in science is no greater than your own, I suspect. When you get ill presumably you go to a (scientific) doctor, right? You're using a (scientific) computer to talk to me, right? You trust that your car brakes will work because science says they almost certainly will, right? You trust the food you get in the supermarket as long as you cook it the way science tells us to because it's then safe to eat, as opposed to raw poultry for example, right? I don't trust in science any more than that. My morals are nothing to do with science. The meaning of life has nothing to do with science. That is a separate issue

My morals come from looking within myself and choosing what I think is right in any given situation. I am open to the idea that God exists, and if He does exist then I think He gave us our consciences so He will be pleased if we use them to the best of our ability.

However it seems that your morals come from a book. I don't think God will approve of doing things that you think and feel are wrong just because it says to in a book. I'd still like to know exactly what moral guidance the Bible offers you that contradicts your own conscience. Can you give me an example, preferably a controversial one? Are you in favour of something most atheists are not, purely because of your religious beliefs?

We trust in thoses thing not because science say so but because we have seen thoses things working, even people who don't know anything about science trust them, you can see a lot of people who trust in car brakes but they don't trust in airplanes even when science say they are safer than cars, we use common sense to trust in thoses things before, common sense tells people that is dangerous to fly because most of the time they see a news about a plane is talking about a crash but news don't talk about how many sucessfull flights we have daily, so basically people don't relay on science to trust that anything is going to work.

Like I mention before what is really morals depends most on where are you from or where you live.

What does your conscience tells you about poligamy?

What does your conscience tells you about marrying a twelve year old girl?

What does your conscience tells you about sending a 31 year old boy to war?

What does your conscience tells you about teaching little kids to hate their neirbhorgs because they are from a different race or a different country?

For many of theses things you can go to jail here but they are normal in many other places, can you give me a moral answer for thoses question that is ok with every conciense all around the world?

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

However it seems that your morals come from a book. I don't think God will approve of doing things that you think and feel are wrong just because it says to in a book.

For me Muzza you have hit the mail on the head with this one. Most non-Christians would probably not have an issue with Christian ideals in terms of a moral code/way of life (I am talking here in terms of the original meaning of the Bible rather than the rallying cries of politicians "God bless <insert name of country>" as they head into a war...)

It is this slavish insistence on believing that the Bible is the word of God that confounds me, especially given the well-documented history of human interference in its writing and very well known and obvious "lifting" of elements from other religions and cultures. The virgin birth, magi, dying and resurrecting God-man, 40 days in the desert (and many more) are all repeated metaphors used across religions in Egypt (Osiris), Persia (Mithras), Roman Empire (Dionysus) and Greece (Bacchus). Now what's more likely - that there have been multiple messiahs going through similar experiences or that this is a metaphor signifying spiritual rebirth? The Mediterranean and Middle East were a cultural and spiritual melting pot in their day and many of these religions heavily influenced each other.

I see many Christians writhing in angst as people question them, yet they are missing the point. The original scriptures were designed to encourage thought, debate and learning rather than dogmatic insistence that the book is right.

I pose a challenge to the die-hard Christians - for one minute, just one minute consider what I have written above and rather than reacting defensively think of the possibilities and implications of this. I did (I was brought up as a Catholic) and started to ask "so what does it all mean?" and started to look beyond the test to what lies beneath.

If you can't do this - good luck - I'll be the one toasting the marshmallows and will wave at you in my eternity of having red hot pokers shoved up my bottom!

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

What does your conscience tells you about poligamy?

What does your conscience tells you about marrying a twelve year old girl?

What does your conscience tells you about sending a 31 year old boy to war?

What does your conscience tells you about teaching little kids to hate their neirbhorgs because they are from a different race or a different country?

Schumi I think you are treading into a minefield here. Christianity, like many other religions has had its fair share of social injustices and morally questionable actions.

Its also very dangerous for anyone to consider themselves morally superior to other countries e.g. (not picking on any particular country):

Who tortures prisoners of war?

Who puts prisoners on islands outside of their country so they can engage in questionable practices and deny them legal support or a fair trial?

Who still carries out the death sentence?

Who let masses of people die during a natural disaster when it was within their capacity to help?

Who has invaded another country and killed thousands on the pretext of security?

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

double post

[Max Mosley 2]

Do you really know how hypnotism works?

Maybe there are tricks but so far nobody had done any with me, I have never fallen like that even when i would like to experience something like that, I will check the video again to confirm what you say about the guy falling.

No-one really knows how it works. But there is no reason to believe that it is religious, especially when Derren Brown is using it to cast doubt on religion. Plus you're missing the point: no-one ever realises they are being tricked. The people in the video genuinely felt that God was real and talking to them. Preachers in Church might use slightly different methods to try to show God to people, but this video shows that those experiences should not be trusted.

We trust in thoses thing not because science say so but because we have seen thoses things working, even people who don't know anything about science trust them, you can see a lot of people who trust in car brakes but they don't trust in airplanes even when science say they are safer than cars, we use common sense to trust in thoses things before, common sense tells people that is dangerous to fly because most of the time they see a news about a plane is talking about a crash but news don't talk about how many sucessfull flights we have daily, so basically people don't relay on science to trust that anything is going to work.

Yes, well it's a bit of both, I think. If you are ill with heart disease and the doctor gives you a pill to take, I doubt you will have seen it work already. You have to have some trust in what science says.

Like I mention before what is really morals depends most on where are you from or where you live.

What does your conscience tells you about poligamy?

What does your conscience tells you about marrying a twelve year old girl?

What does your conscience tells you about sending a 31 year old boy to war?

What does your conscience tells you about teaching little kids to hate their neirbhorgs because they are from a different race or a different country?

For many of theses things you can go to jail here but they are normal in many other places, can you give me a moral answer for thoses question that is ok with every conciense all around the world?

And this perhaps is the real thing worrying you about what I'm saying. You crave certainty. But there is none in life. That's part of God's plan. You can see that it must be because doubt and uncertainty are all around us. The Bible is in doubt too: there is huge debate about what it really means. The Pope is a clever man and he disagrees with the Archbishop of Canterbury who is a clever man, who disagrees with you, and you are a clever man, who disagrees with etc etc. You don't know that an evil spirit hasn't altered the Bible. You don't know that an evil spirit hasn't infected your mind and is making you go against God's will right now.

To answer your question, I have my own views on all of those topics. My views might be different than someone else's views, and that's fine. I might think that person is wrong and has misunderstood the issue, but we can discuss our differences and try to figure out the best solution. Alternatively perhaps that person has a different perspective on an issue that I can learn from. That is just how the world works. There is no certainty. God made it that way, perhaps because He wants us to think for ourselves and try to understand the right way to live.

I hope I have answered your question. But I'd like to know your answer to mine. What act that you feel is wrong would you do purely because it says to in the Bible? If you don't know of any example then I think the Bible is pointless as a moral guide because you could just rely on your conscience for the same guidance!

I see many Christians writhing in angst as people question them, yet they are missing the point. The original scriptures were designed to encourage thought, debate and learning rather than dogmatic insistence that the book is right.

Yes it's ironic really isn't it.

[Max Mosley 2]

PS I just remembered, Meanioni, that today I came across some curry sauce that was milk and gluten free. I never bothered to check for gluten 'til now, but it seems that probably lots of curries don't have it in. I guess two things: (1) you wouldn't trust someone in a restaurant to understand this and (2) you knew about this already. It used maize starch instead.

[Grabthaw the Hammerslayer 4]

PS I just remembered, Meanioni, that today I came across some curry sauce that was milk and gluten free. I never bothered to check for gluten 'til now, but it seems that probably lots of curries don't have it in. I guess two things: (1) you wouldn't trust someone in a restaurant to understand this and (2) you knew about this already. It used maize starch instead.

Ah Muzza always keen to know about more options. Private message me with the name of it. Ta!

Regards

Chris aka Meanioni

[Schumikonen 2]

To answer your question, I have my own views on all of those topics. My views might be different than someone else's views, and that's fine. I might think that person is wrong and has misunderstood the issue, but we can discuss our differences and try to figure out the best solution. Alternatively perhaps that person has a different perspective on an issue that I can learn from. That is just how the world works. There is no certainty. God made it that way, perhaps because He wants us to think for ourselves and try to understand the right way to live.

So you agree that we need so rules to teach us what our morals should be? if your morals views are different from my morals views and so on we will get to a point where morals just will eb impossible to indentify, we won't know what is coming from where, what is acceptable and what is not, I won't agree with you and you won't agree with me, my conciense will tell me that what I am doing is right and yours will do the same, if you need me to talk to you about your views then you are not relying only in your God'd given conciense to rule your life, at some point you or me will have to change what our conciense is telling us to find an acceptable point for both but that point won't be totally right for you and won't be totally for me, at that point also we stop from doing something we consider right in order not to offend each other, that is humanly speaking very nice but waht about your God's given conciense that is telling you that what you were doing it was right? I know that everybody in this world have a point of view on thoses issues I just mention and I know that some people support some of thoses even when they would like that to be different, that is why I think we need God to tell us what is acceptable and what is not because we as human often think about what we like and the about the others and I am not talking about politicians only we may try to bend the rules so we can get an advantage out of the situation, we see countries doing that, leaders doing that and we are not better than them probably we haven't done the same things they do or worse because we have not got that power in our hands.

[Schumikonen 2]

Schumi I think you are treading into a minefield here. Christianity, like many other religions has had its fair share of social injustices and morally questionable actions.

Its also very dangerous for anyone to consider themselves morally superior to other countries e.g. (not picking on any particular country):

Who tortures prisoners of war?

Who puts prisoners on islands outside of their country so they can engage in questionable practices and deny them legal support or a fair trial?

Who still carries out the death sentence?

Who let masses of people die during a natural disaster when it was within their capacity to help?

Who has invaded another country and killed thousands on the pretext of security?

That's why I am against religions but I know there is a God and I am not against him or at least try not to, I just asked thoses questions to get to the point that waht is morally acceptable for someone may not be acceptable for everybody, we have morals points of view so we can not relay on our consience to tell us what is acceptable or not in this field.

For example Mary Jesus's mother is believed to be 12 to 16 years old when Jesus was born and she was married at that time with Josehp who was believed to have around 60 years at that time, Is that morally acceptable today? not here but there are places in the world were that is a common thing.

[Schumikonen 2]

I hope I have answered your question. But I'd like to know your answer to mine. What act that you feel is wrong would you do purely because it says to in the Bible? If you don't know of any example then I think the Bible is pointless as a moral guide because you could just rely on your conscience for the same guidance!

Actually most of the bible agree with the way I was living even as an unbeliever, I thing the bigest problem to have been women, christians think we should have only one wife, that is one of the things I would like to change in the bible, I've been marry since 09/06/1996 and to this day I haven't had any other woman I've been doing so just because the bible say so but "I think" I would be better with a couple more wives here specially if the are working too, I see a blond and don't understand how do you say that something like that can be done by itself or herself, no I can believe that, maybe that answer your question, I feel that is wrong to have only one, there is a song in my country that says so but I obey and try to let that problem behind, why I think is wrong many great men in the bible had many wives like Solomon who is my hero he ws the wiser man on earth and he had 1000 wives, David his father had many wives too and as far as I know they didn't loose their salvations, if this is not what you were asking I think you would need a different aproach for me to get the point.

[Schumikonen 2]

Yes, well it's a bit of both, I think. If you are ill with heart disease and the doctor gives you a pill to take, I doubt you will have seen it work already. You have to have some trust in what science says.

I know that is some case we have to trust in science, I like science and don't have any problem with it, i know science and God can be together and like I told you the more science learn the closer they will be to God.

as an example I can tell you that i trsuted science when they said that is healthy to lot of water a day and that's what i was doing, no they say they haven't found a single reason to believe is like that, thoses doctor were saying you need to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, no that's not like that anymore, we trust but is the same science that is making things harder for us to trust in everything that come from sciencetists.

[Schumikonen 2]

No-one really knows how it works.

Some of us knows how it work but I will not gt into that right now.

I am about to loose my flight today in FXS.

[Ash1 0]

Chap, it's survival of the fittest, you better catch up ...fast

[Max Mosley 2]

So you agree that we need so rules to teach us what our morals should be? if your morals views are different from my morals views and so on we will get to a point where morals just will eb impossible to indentify, we won't know what is coming from where, what is acceptable and what is not, I won't agree with you and you won't agree with me, my conciense will tell me that what I am doing is right and yours will do the same, if you need me to talk to you about your views then you are not relying only in your God'd given conciense to rule your life, at some point you or me will have to change what our conciense is telling us to find an acceptable point for both but that point won't be totally right for you and won't be totally for me, at that point also we stop from doing something we consider right in order not to offend each other, that is humanly speaking very nice but waht about your God's given conciense that is telling you that what you were doing it was right? I know that everybody in this world have a point of view on thoses issues I just mention and I know that some people support some of thoses even when they would like that to be different, that is why I think we need God to tell us what is acceptable and what is not because we as human often think about what we like and the about the others and I am not talking about politicians only we may try to bend the rules so we can get an advantage out of the situation, we see countries doing that, leaders doing that and we are not better than them probably we haven't done the same things they do or worse because we have not got that power in our hands.

No I don't think we need laws to teach us what our morals are. We need to decide for ourselves what our own morals are. Like I already said, sometimes people disagree because one person is wrong, or sometimes the people have different perspectives on an issue so they can each learn from the other. There is no contradiction between that and trusting your own God-given conscience. It just means God has made life complicated for us, and forced us to constantly wrestle with moral dilemmas to which we don't have easy answers. If someone changes their mind about something then by definition they have realised they were wrong, but so what? These are difficult issues and people are wrong, even when they do their best. On the other hand, sometimes people will agree to disagree, in which case we have to live and let live and just do what we individually think is right. God can't punish you for that.

Your problem is that you always want certainty. But it is a fact of life that there is very little certainty in the world. You have given no reasons for believing the Bible is wholly accurate. I think you are just burying your head in the sand and hoping that it is all true. I think you want there to be a definite set of rules to live by to make things nice and easy, so you choose to believe the Bible is that set of rules, despite the obvious problems with doing so. The unhappy truth is that there is no simple set of moral rules.

Actually most of the bible agree with the way I was living even as an unbeliever, I thing the bigest problem to have been women, christians think we should have only one wife, that is one of the things I would like to change in the bible, I've been marry since 09/06/1996 and to this day I haven't had any other woman I've been doing so just because the bible say so but "I think" I would be better with a couple more wives here specially if the are working too, I see a blond and don't understand how do you say that something like that can be done by itself or herself, no I can believe that, maybe that answer your question, I feel that is wrong to have only one, there is a song in my country that says so but I obey and try to let that problem behind, why I think is wrong many great men in the bible had many wives like Solomon who is my hero he ws the wiser man on earth and he had 1000 wives, David his father had many wives too and as far as I know they didn't loose their salvations, if this is not what you were asking I think you would need a different aproach for me to get the point.

Hmm well I want an example of something that you do that your conscience tells you is morally wrong. So your example above isn't quite what I was thinking of.

I'm not sure I understand you either. Are you saying you think everyone involved is better off in polygamy? So the wives and children are better off too?

I know that is some case we have to trust in science, I like science and don't have any problem with it, i know science and God can be together and like I told you the more science learn the closer they will be to God.

as an example I can tell you that i trsuted science when they said that is healthy to lot of water a day and that's what i was doing, no they say they haven't found a single reason to believe is like that, thoses doctor were saying you need to drink at least 8 glasses of water a day, no that's not like that anymore, we trust but is the same science that is making things harder for us to trust in everything that come from sciencetists.

Yes, science changes its views on things. That happens when people learn more about things. That's life. We learn more about things, and we change our views when the facts change. Anyone who doesn't do that is a fool.

Some of us knows how it work but I will not gt into that right now.

I am about to loose my flight today in FXS.

I don't believe that. Derren Brown is an atheist who hypnotised people specifically to cast doubt on religion. I can't imagine God would help him to do that. Your reasoning is circular.

[Schumikonen 2]

I don't believe that. Derren Brown is an atheist who hypnotised people specifically to cast doubt on religion. I can't imagine God would help him to do that. Your reasoning is circular.

Did I mention God somewhere in my answer to this?

[Schumikonen 2]

Yes, science changes its views on things. That happens when people learn more about things. That's life. We learn more about things, and we change our views when the facts change. Anyone who doesn't do that is a fool.

Yes that's exactly my point, science don't know enough to get to the point of finding God and if we live long enough we will see the day when sicence is going to find God. Based on what science nows know we can not discard God existence so we can not discard anything about how we got here which is the main point on this thread that so far has been the longest known thread in Totalf1 to remain on topic.

[Schumikonen 2]

No I don't think we need laws to teach us what our morals are. We need to decide for ourselves what our own morals are. Like I already said, sometimes people disagree because one person is wrong, or sometimes the people have different perspectives on an issue so they can each learn from the other. There is no contradiction between that and trusting your own God-given conscience. It just means God has made life complicated for us, and forced us to constantly wrestle with moral dilemmas to which we don't have easy answers. If someone changes their mind about something then by definition they have realised they were wrong, but so what? These are difficult issues and people are wrong, even when they do their best. On the other hand, sometimes people will agree to disagree, in which case we have to live and let live and just do what we individually think is right. God can't punish you for that.

Your problem is that you always want certainty. But it is a fact of life that there is very little certainty in the world. You have given no reasons for believing the Bible is wholly accurate. I think you are just burying your head in the sand and hoping that it is all true. I think you want there to be a definite set of rules to live by to make things nice and easy, so you choose to believe the Bible is that set of rules, despite the obvious problems with doing so. The unhappy truth is that there is no simple set of moral rules.

I already showed you the tools we use to study the bible, I don't know how for long did you what that video, but for your information we don't only relay on bible for this matter, we also have letter and document writter for thoses who learned from the apostles, thoses authors were their student or disciples, they are called Apostolic Fathers and they teached the same they recieved for the apostles, we use thoses writing to compare them with the bible and see if they got a different idea from what we got, so we have our own way to do some science here and so far we can trust what the bible say based on that info another thing you should know is that the most important part of the bible if we talk about morals is the New Testament becuase there is were we find the fullfilment of the old testament, so we may be unsure about some issues in the bible but like I told you there are many kind of books in the bible but thoses who speak about the way we should live, they are clear and we don't have a problem with them because we have other sources to compare them with the bible.

[Max Mosley 2]

Did I mention God somewhere in my answer to this?

No OK but if you were talking about evil spirits, then they could be responsible for every religious experience if they can have the effects we saw in the video.

Yes that's exactly my point, science don't know enough to get to the point of finding God and if we live long enough we will see the day when sicence is going to find God. Based on what science nows know we can not discard God existence so we can not discard anything about how we got here which is the main point on this thread that so far has been the longest known thread in Totalf1 to remain on topic.

So believing that the tooth fairy created us is as reasonable as evolution? Maybe I am 900 years old and fathered every poster on this forum - is that a theory that can't be discarded? Some views are more sensible than others.

I already showed you the tools we use to study the bible, I don't know how for long did you what that video, but for your information we don't only relay on bible for this matter, we also have letter and document writter for thoses who learned from the apostles, thoses authors were their student or disciples, they are called Apostolic Fathers and they teached the same they recieved for the apostles, we use thoses writing to compare them with the bible and see if they got a different idea from what we got, so we have our own way to do some science here and so far we can trust what the bible say based on that info another thing you should know is that the most important part of the bible if we talk about morals is the New Testament becuase there is were we find the fullfilment of the old testament, so we may be unsure about some issues in the bible but like I told you there are many kind of books in the bible but thoses who speak about the way we should live, they are clear and we don't have a problem with them because we have other sources to compare them with the bible.

There is huge debate over what the Bible means. If the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury can still be debating it (and both disagreeing with you) then I think it is clearly a book that is hard to interpret correctly. They are both very learned men who have spent their whole lives studying it, and hundreds of years of associated research. According to Bart Ehrman, and other leading biblical scholars, there are very many inconsistencies and doubts over the Bible. You know a lot about the Bible, but I don't think even you are as expert as these people.

And what important things do we learn from it all? So far all you've said is that we can only have one wife. What do the Apostolic Fathers have to say about stem cell research, or the level of taxation that is fair, or how to fund our higher education systems, or what to do with the Middle East or how to promote human rights in China or .....

[Schumikonen 2]

There is huge debate over what the Bible means. If the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury can still be debating it (and both disagreeing with you) then I think it is clearly a book that is hard to interpret correctly. They are both very learned men who have spent their whole lives studying it, and hundreds of years of associated research. According to Bart Ehrman, and other leading biblical scholars, there are very many inconsistencies and doubts over the Bible. You know a lot about the Bible, but I don't think even you are as expert as these people.

And what important things do we learn from it all? So far all you've said is that we can only have one wife. What do the Apostolic Fathers have to say about stem cell research, or the level of taxation that is fair, or how to fund our higher education systems, or what to do with the Middle East or how to promote human rights in China or .....

No matter how much do you study the bible you won't understand it without the revelation from the Holly Spirit, there ar many religions that call themselves chrystians but they have never expereince the baptizm of the Holly Spirit, they ggot a lot of knowledge from the bible but they don't right the right meaning, I became an atheist by reading the bible, i found in there so many thing that from my point of views were just imposible and I by myself discarded the idea of a God, natural men can not understand spiritual things because for the natural man the things form the spirit are senseless, something like that is that the bible says about it, just after I recieved the Holly Spirit I am being able to understand many things, sometimes I read the bible and don't pay much attention to a certain passage and later I get the full meaning of that passage that I was not even paying attention to it, that's the work of the holly Spirit.

[Schumikonen 2]

No OK but if you were talking about evil spirits, then they could be responsible for every religious experience if they can have the effects we saw in the video.

Actually they do if not for the Holly Spirit we would be in lot of trouble in this matter but check this out:

1 John 4

Test the Spirits

1Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God

2 Corinthians 11

13For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

ANd this is another way to fight that

1 Corinthians 12

7Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.

[pumpdoc 2]

Religions= cults

Face it people you buy into religion because it makes you feel good, it's nothing more than repeated chants etc.

What a bunch of sheep.

[monza gorilla 1]

You can't beat a good bit of chanting. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I'd rather not talk about the sheep.

[pumpdoc 2]

[pabloh20 1]

Religions= cults

Face it people you buy into religion because it makes you feel good, it's nothing more than repeated chants etc.

What a bunch of sheep.

What's your point? You have sex because it makes you feel good and that is nothing more than repeated chants. And that's with sheep too