(May 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm)gitonga Wrote: 6. whats wrong with it being rediculous? doesnt make it any less true
As a rule of thumb, an assertion that's ridiculous (extremely silly or unreasonable) is less likely to be true than an assertion that's sensible. In the case of heaven and hell, they're offered as places of infinite reward or punishment after death by a being that embodies justice...but people are finite and can't possibly deserve eternal reward or punishment, so giving it is unjust, which contradicts the idea that the being offering it is supremely just. That's aside from the physics issues with such realms.
(May 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm)gitonga Wrote: so your willing to believe evidence but not search for it?
The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. I have no right to say six-legged hippos live in the depths of the Amazon jungle and assign the homework of proving they don't to those who doubt me. The claim is mine to support and no one should take me seriously if I don't.
(May 24, 2013 at 12:42 pm)gitonga Wrote: if parrots were extinct but you heard they could talk but there was no science behind it, would you actually try do what she's done and find evidence of it being possible or just dismiss it while some other scientist does the grunt work? what i'm tring to say is that maybe snakes did talk but we've just not figured out how.
It's an interesting scenario, but snakes are anatomically incapable of speech. You could put the brain of the smartest person who has ever lived in a snake and the snake still wouldn't be able to speak.
I suggest you go with 'Satanic ventriloquism' as an explanation that will allow you to retain your literalist beliefs, or perhaps serpents lost their voices as well as their legs, but the Bible just failed to mention that part.
Have you ever noticed that Adam and Eve were punished for a sin they committed before they had knowledge of good and evil to know that what they were doing was wrong?
If you're willing not to be so literal, the serpent is a good metaphor for that part of our mind that tempts us to disobey those in authority over us.
