Christ's birthday

[fr0d0]

I don't think anything about your stance chatty I addressed your statement, and your statement, like I said, can only apply if you're a literalist and think faith has anything at all to deal with science. You continually want to dodge this.

That you refuse to think about it Minimalist is your own prerogative. I respect your position of course.

[chatpilot]

When I use the term literalist I am referring to the manner in which certain texts of scripture are interpreted. To some extent outside of the scriptures I am a literalist and agree that faith and science are two totally incompatible concepts and ideologies. The bible does in some instances make claims that try to interpret what we now understand through science, and on many occasions the bibles interpretation has proven to be false.

Example: Joshua 10:13
And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

This so called miracle is placed in an historical context within the text itself. Taking this literally would have to mean that the sun and the moon literally stood still for about an entire day. This would work if you clung to the primitive belief in an earth centric universe. But as you know or at least I hope you do this is an impossibility. The sun is in the center and the planets revolve around it. For this miracle to happen several things would have to occur. The Earth would have to stop spinning on its axis and moving in its orbital pattern, which if this ever did happen then we would not be here discussing this topic at all. If this event actually happened it could cause the destruction of the entire universe as we know it.

One way to interpret this is that someone with no knowledge of astronomy was writing from the point of view of himself. If you wake up each morning and see the sun apparently rise in the East and set in the West then you would surmise that the sun is moving across the skies on a daily basis as the Egyptians and Greeks did. This would make more sense but it still would not explain the extra hours in the day. You can say that this was allegorical but it still does not explain how you would come to that conclusion since the text is embeded in a so called historical event.

[Minimalist]

That you refuse to think about it Minimalist is your own prerogative. I respect your position of course.

But what you mean is that I don't agree with you and you don't respect that at all.[/i]

[fr0d0]

The suggestion that the Sun or the Earth actually stopped still is ridiculous if you think the Earth was at the centre _or_ the Sun. You want to interpret it literally because that satisfies your own bias. The text simply doesn't state it, or require it.

Either the specific phenomenon happened or it didn't. In any case God is true to his signature ~that is he will not leave proof to negate faith as this would destroy biblical logic.

So we can conclude that your requirement of Christianity here is ludicrous because it is proven to be wildly illogical.

You're still dodging.

---

That you refuse to think about it Minimalist is your own prerogative. I respect your position of course.

But what you mean is that I don't agree with you and you don't respect that at all.

You clearly state you won't:

Can't prove it by me

Which I happily allow you to do, without reservation.

[chatpilot]

Not dodging at all I stand behind my beliefs that faith and science are not compatible. Nor do I see reason or logic as compatible with faith either.

Fr0d0 said:
"Either the specific phenomenon happened or it didn't. In any case God is true to his signature ~that is he will not leave proof to negate faith as this would destroy biblical logic."

fr0d0 that last statement is ass backwards. God would not leave proof to negate faith? In that one statement alone you said a mouthful. Your beliefs are based on believing the story as told by the story teller simply because it's in the good book. In order to make your faith work you have to twist logic and reason to kind of fit into your worldview.

The text does state that the sun and the moon stood still. Read it again!
So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

How much clearer must it be stated? Or is this an allegory too? It just goes to show that the bible is bullshit. They (the author of this particular statement) had no knowledge of astronomy and his ignorance is evident in the text.

[fr0d0]

Look at the actual text chatty. It's not like you want it to be.

Yes chatty that is the gist of it. Show me where God has left proof.

[Minimalist]

Either the specific phenomenon happened or it didn't.

Archaeology has dismissed the entire story of the conquest. Many of the sites allegedly destroyed by "Joshua" did not even exist in the Late Bronze Age. Those sites which did exist were destroyed over a period of two centuries.

Ah, but your god does not leave evidence so what does it matter? You "believe" because you choose to believe. Nothing more.

Ai was unoccupied from Middle Bronze (c 2200) until Iron Age II c 800. Destroying a non-existent city is a much bigger trick than getting the sun to stand still in the sky.


From William Dever's, Who Were The Early Israelites.......

http://books.google.com/books?id=8WkbUkK...q=&f=false

Gives a table of "joshua's" alleged conquests.

[fr0d0]

Yeah where were those sites exactly? Like you say, personally I couldn't give a shit. The historicity is of minor importance to the message. The message is what it's actually about.

[chatpilot]

God has left no proof because god does not exist. The message is flawed in so many ways that it makes the bible a joke. Nothing in there can be taken at face value and even its so called history is bogus. It's actually his-story, that is the author of the book or books in question. The fact that many of the authors of both O.T. and N.T. are anonymous alone makes the bible a suspicious piece of literature. In a nut shell: He said, the lord said and revealed these things to him but we do not know who he is. Very logical and very credible from a logical standpoint. Still I see you are trying to downplay the stupidity of the so called miracle of the sun standing still for what appeared to be an extra day (12 or 24 hours?).

You can't re-translate what the text plainly states and if you could I would love to hear it.

[fr0d0]

How _would_ God 'exist' then chatty? Tell me please, I'm all ears.

Those words are not the literal translation. You have to force a particular interpretation on them to summise such a physical phenomena, of a spiritual book talking about a transcendental entity's influence on humankind.