RE: Why are other civilizations ignored in the Bible?
February 24, 2014 at 1:10 am
(February 23, 2014 at 9:28 pm)discipulus Wrote: Your point assumes that God specifically revealed Himself only to the Israelites and never to anyone else.
Yep, because if god revealed himself to anyone else, it would have been front page news, that when these christians finally got to another country, they found that christianity was already there and established. That would be a
huge point in the religion's favor, and yet we never see that; what we see are distinct, wildly differing religions all across the world, and never once do we find two matching up at all.
So it's not an
assumption that god never revealed himself to anyone else, it's a simple historical observation. The only other alternative was that god revealed himself to another region, but lied to them so they didn't end up with the same religion as the Israelites.
Quote:The Bible never states this and even if it did, you fail to take into account that God has never ceased revealing Himself to them that seek Him.
I have other sources than the bible, and "revealing himself to those that seek him," just means revealing himself to
christians, apparently, since those seeking gods from areas where other religions are prevalent never found the christian god until missionaries got there and taught them about him, strangely enough.
Quote:That is why according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, in 2010 there were 2.18 billion Christians around the world, nearly a third of the global population.
So much for Him only revealing Himself to one group of people!
If you can't see a distinction between a real, extant god revealing himself to people, and
other people who believe in this god revealing it to them, then that's your problem. But I don't see you taking converts to Islam as evidence that Allah is revealing himself to people, probably for the same reason I don't take christian converts as that.
Quote:The scriptures state that everyone that has ever existed has had knowledge of God through what has been made so that they are without excuse.
The scriptures were
wrong.
Quote: Just because you are of the opinion that God could have cultivated His message more effectively in no way leads us to the conclusion that God does not exist. This is simply a non-sequitur.
I never said it did. However, the geographically limited spread of christianity certainly gives more weight to the possibility that it was just made up by a single tribe of people and spread gradually, rather than being the word of an all knowing god who wants his message spread
effectively.
It's like if I had a budget to buy network television time all across the world to spread a message I wanted to spread, but instead I just distributed leaflets to a single neighborhood; would you say I was taking the most effective course of action for my stated goal of propagating my message to everyone, there?
Quote:Now if you have some type of argument you want to present then I am willing to interact with it. Merely stating your opinion in no way counts as a sound argument.
Given that you've failed to understand my argument at all, attempting to reduce it to just an opinion is fairly pathetic.
Quote:Once again, this is your opinion. If you have some type of argument you would like to present then I am willing to interact with it.
Oh, fuck off with that; it's not an opinion it's common fucking sense. If I had as my goal the spread of a message to everyone on the planet- because I love them and want them all to know it- and I had the power to appear to every nation of the world in the form that god did to the Israelites, would it or would it not be more effective of me to appear everywhere at once, clearly and concisely making my point, than to appear to
one group of people and then wait for them to spread my message via Chinese fucking whispers?
It's simple math, dude: if one appearance of Jesus and so on was enough to start a religion, would not
two appearances enhance the strength of the message? Is two a bigger number than one, or a smaller number?