Dad links son's suicide to 'The God Delusion'

[CoxRox]

Historical innacuracies? The bible is a collection of stories, written by (bare minimum) four different authors, and not a historical account. If the age of the earth is worked out through the bible geneologies (and this has been done by christians too, not only atheists) you get the typical answer of about 6000 years. Sometimes people will say there're gaps in the geneologies and extend that time to 10000. Of course, I realize that not everyone is a Young Earth Creationist, but there you have it. So there's a basic one.

The geneologies date the time period back to Adam. They do not date the creation of the earth which science confirms is billions of years old. Genesis starts with 'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth'. The beginning was billions of years ago. So I see no contradiction here.

Another, you've already talked about- the order of beings being created (which is nonsense anyway) is simply wrong. Adam and Eve certainly didn't exist- so there was no "fall." If they did exist, we (humanity) would be descended from a single mating pair from 6000-10000 years ago, which would not even come CLOSE to explaining why we are so genetically diverse. It's flat out impossible.

I've yet to decide this. I'm wondering about the 'chicken and egg' problem. Maybe this will be explained in my books I'm reading. The bird and land animal thing is a seeming 'problem' granted.


Next big one; the flood. Now, geologists can go a looong way back through the geological strata and there is no data to support a Noachian flood. It is a myth. I know Daystar may say what he's said before- flood data could be misunderstood, or something similar. But that is so unlikely that it is impossible, and personally I would trust the opinions of the many many geologists who've worked in the field and actually looked at the data. A global flood would leave a layer of mud and silt at the exact same level all over the world when the waters receded (this raises the other issue, where exactly did the water go? We don't have enough ice on earth to explain that). But there is no such layer. Instead, all over the world the geological strata are in order, and geologists go back in history the lower they go in the strata.

Ok, there are Christians who believe the flood must have been local for all the reason you mention. They believe that 'the world' referred to was the area in the Middle East, and only here were there humans living. They hadn't spread out over the earth at that point?? I know this might look a bit convenient, or trying to make it fit, but it is a possibility.

As for contradictions, Chatpilot's right- the bible is rife with them. In the creation story itself Genesis 1 and 2 don't even agree about the order of created animals. And even if some of these contradictions don't turn out to be contradictions, many of them still are. How can you trust the rest as truth?

This is the only 'inaccuracy': the bird one. The other so called contradictions: the lights appearing (the sun, moon etc were already created, but there light couldn't shine due to dense cloud) I can supply a more detailed list of the apparent discrepancies and their explanations if any one is interested. For a very simplistic account, it does pretty well I think.