Daystar

[lukec]

I don't know if you have read my definition of the Hebrew ruach and Greek pneuma elsewhere on these boards, I think I touched upon it with you earlier, but basically it means anything which is unseen and yet produces visible results. That could be wind, breath, mental inclination ... cultural, traditional influences that are so subtle you may not even know that they exist.

I think I understand what you mean, but I don't really see what it has to do with the discussion, sorry- I'm a bit tired right now. These influences may exist, but what do they have to do with belief? I mean obviously, they could be viewed as roots of belief systems, such as a Wind God, a Spirit, etc, or the way that cultural influences change the beliefs of people in that culture.

Religion is only dangerous in the wrong hands, the same as science. It doesn't take a particurally gifted person to see the potential for abuse in sceince or religion. The thing that amazes me is that when someone is in that mode of opperation they don't see it because they are not willing to see the cause and effect.

These are not the same. Religion is a belief system based on faith and is immutable, and cannot be wrong. The tenets (theories, etc) of science, as I have said several times, can change throughout time. But there is not "following" per se for science as there is for religion. People do not meet to pray to science. So no, I would not say that science in and of itself has a potential for abuse in the same way as religion, since it is based on evidence from experiments etc. But I repeat that you would not be able to mass an army (set say, in the middle ages when religious wars were quite numerous) based on science itself. The two are not analagous ideas. Do you think I am in a "mode of operation?" I have to admit I don't know what you mean exactly by that.

The Holocaust, for example had more to do with social and cultural if not material causes. I have seen neighbours killing each other over vidio game and sports shoe preferences. People will kill one another for anything - good or bad. Love, money, religion, anything.

Yes, perhaps at the top the Holocaust had some political causes- but how exactly do you think those soldiers (who were mostly christian) rationalized the murder (not in battle, simply murder) of so many people? Well there are two facets- the Nuremburg defense, and the idea that the people they were killing were Jews- not fully human, even. So, religion gave the Nazi leaders the ability to convince a country to commit such an atrocity.

As for the killings over video games or sports shoe preferences? I can hardly see this as a widely applicable "reason for killing." Religion, on the other hand, is able to unite many people (vs simply one person who's angry about losing at Halo) and convince them that other humans deserve to die simply because they do not believe the same thing. This is again, not so with science.

The evidence for a global flood is very possiblly mistaken. The expanse that shielded out some harmful radiation would have drastically prolonged the lives of mankind. The cosmic radiation as a result of its removal would not only have been genetically harmful but would have altered the rate of formation of radioactive carbon-14 so as to invalidate all radiocarbon dates prior to the flood.

The earth's crust is relatively thin and there would have been a shifting of the crust. New mountains thristed upward and old mountains rising to new heights. Shallow sea basins deepened and new shorelines established with a result that 70% of the surface is now covered with water. Water pressures would have been sufficient to fossilize fauna and flora very quickly.

mammoths and rhinoceroses would be found in different parts of the earth, such as Siberian cliffs or preserved in Alaskan ice with food still unchewed in their teeth. Lions, tigers, bears and elk are found in common strate indicating they were all possibly destroyed simultaneously. The evidence could be seen as a flood or something else. Who knows? No one for sure.

Now this is something I have heard before from creationists, but I have never actually seen any evidence. What expanse exactly are you talking about? Where did it go all of a sudden?

If there was a global flood, which somehow also killed off all the aquatic dinosaurs (why?), why aren't those dinosaurs found in the same strata as dolphins? I suggest you read Evolution by Prothero- don't be put off by the name, a good chunk of the book is about geological records, and the man has no beef with religion or belief, he simply presents facts. It shows quite well how meticulously documented the fossil/geological record really is. However, if you have some data which backs up your ideas I'd be glad to read them.

The global Flood legends could have and would have come from one source as indeed language seems to. It is all how you interpret it.

Maybe- but if all language comes from one source, a flood legend passed down from a single germ society would be based on a local flooding, which is supported by geological data from the area around Babylonia.