(August 15, 2013 at 9:53 am)AnaMejiaP Wrote: The reason I decided to join here is to grasp the different point of views. I did not say that I hold all knowledge of the universe and if I indirectly implied so I am sorry. I can be ignorant at times. I do, hold the opinion that Noah and, the casting out of Demons Jesus perform and among other things were literal. (Can I prove it? No, all I have to go by are through eye witness accounts that Luke claimed it came from and his personal voyage with Paul, his disciples, Jesus's brother, the time gap that all of the gospel were being written, the historical knowledge, outside sources and among other things. Even in the OT, despite its claim (and yes like it has been previously mentioned that most books in the OT were written after the fact. But there's no scholars whether liberal or traditionalist who deny that the OT is a historical book.
I'm not a history scholar, but do you mean historical book as in it's an artifact of history or it's an accurate record of history?
And no, I didn't mean to say that you were wrong about how Christians view the bible, I was just saying most Christians I know are not very literal so I'm interested in your viewpoint .
I'll contest the Noah's ark story:
1. He couldn't have gotten 2 of each species into the ark. Because to do so would require that he travel to many different climates. Islands especially have animals and plants that cannot be found elsewhere, for example, kangaroos and koalas in Australia. Madagascar also has a lot of species unique to that island. So if Noah were to actually do this, he'd have to travel all around and even pick up the penguins and polar bears at the poles. That would have taken him forever with the technology of the time, and he clearly didn't do that.
2. Supposing he did do 1., for the sake of the argument, he would require high tech air conditioning to keep all the animals healthy and alive during the flood. And these animals don't just eat anything, you feed them the wrong things and they'll get sick. What about the carnivores? Do they eat other animals? Are we suggesting that there's enough food to allow for such rapid reproduction?
3. Even supposing all the animals had things to eat, who's going to have time to feed them?
4. According to http://beyondflannelgraph.wordpress.com/...lood-last/, the flood lasted for 1 year. This is madness, we're talking about a lot of water with only 1 place to go: evaporation. If this much evaporation took place, it'd form clouds and rain. (Actually, correct me if I'm wrong, the water couldn't have come from anywhere to begin with. We're talking about worldwide rain for 40 days and nights)
Quote:Like cities in the ANE that once thought to be myths were found to be true in externaI records, the Egyptians names were used accurately etc. (Notice I do not say that they were Israelites in Egypt) I agree most Christians hold the Bible to be more figuratively, and actually about 20% of Christians don't believe in Christ resurrection, and some don't believe that the Bible was inspired by God.I actually didn't know this. Interesting.
Quote:I never said that I am complete certain that I am correct in my thoughts and logic in fact I may be wrong. (I did however say that I do believe Christianity to be more apparent than others but then again, I can be wrong) Among other things the Bible does encourage it to be tested and also states if evidence of Christ resurrection is false then consider it as rubbish. My roots are not merely based on The Bible, it's also about my own personal experiences that seems to difficult to explain. It's the most hardest thing that I believe any human can experience and follow. If any Christian says that being a Christian is easy than they are either A) lying or B) never experience truly what a Christian is about. Every Christian struggles whether it's sin, temptation, doubt, disbelief etc.I actually do understand. ExChristian here, and although hard to believe now, I used to buy the creation story and noah's ark. But my circumstances were very different, I grew up in a religious (Islam) country where evolution has been kept out of school for so long that I've only heard the words "theory of evolution" once or twice by the time I was 16 or so. (I left the country after).
Quote:I struggle, most to many Atheist would label me as "holy, bigot, ignorant, intolerable, jesus freak, etc" ( I say that may come from Christians who are thought to be holy art thou, intolerant, who are legalistic (like Christians can't smoke, drink, use profanity or have sex)that's bullshit by the way)) but really they're Christians who are not like that, they just give us a bad rep. I'm not holy, I won't ever consider myself as if I were, I'm not special or perfect. I won't try to shove my theology, religion, or Jesus inside someones throat, no why would I? The same questions you have asked about God and the Bible, I have asked myself countless time, all I have is to learn more, research and keep looking, oh and that thing called faith lol. By the way, thank you for answering my previous question.Some atheists are aggressive towards the religious for a good reason. Because religions have a kind of buffer in society where it's protected from reality and common sense, and it gets dangerous because everyone takes them seriously. Given my background, I don't care too much about Christianity, but everything about Islam is rather personal to me because I've been oppressed by their laws for a large part of my life. But for atheists who grew up in places where the major religion is Christianity, I think it's personal for some of them (especially for LGBT I would think?), too, I don't know. But it certainly doesn't make religion any less bullshit if we're aggressive about it.
To me Christians can be as ridiculous as they like, as long as no one takes them seriously when they're ridiculous. But we know that's not how things work :/
And thanks for answering mine. .