Are you a true Christian believer?

[Borchester]

More likely is that it's all a big fairytale and there is no God.

Could be.

Personally, I like the idea of an afterlife where I can go and meet the friends and family who have gone before and wait for the rest to turn up. I particularly want to meet my Dad who will have two tin cans and a drop of petrol and who will happily spend eternity trying to make them run across the room. And my mum, who will be bragging all over the Elysium Fields about her grand daughter the doctor, even if she (mum) can't understand why she (the grand daughter) can't prescribe pills.

And I don't mind God being a crazy old fool. I have had and managed worse bosses.

But when it comes to the awful grace of God and similar windy bullshit, then sod it.

[patman post]

The Bible does not give a time line on Creation. The failure is to read the Bible factually, certainly the OT. It is sometimes poetic with constant imagery and to try and tie it down is to miss it altogether. The Earth was built in 6 days is not our 24 hours but ages of time. Surely the scientific discoveries simply prove that. Man's frustration with the Scriptures is based so much on the need for effort to understand and that understanding comes from reading with faith. Taking snippets and trying to apply them is very misleading, and reading with the head without the heart - a waste of time.

I think I agree with most of that — except your suggestion that snippets cannot be useful.

I'm not a great mathematician, but the one bit of Pythagoras that I remember, and has proved useful, is that a triangle with sides of 3 whatever x 4 whatever x 5 whatever will give me a right angle.

Interestingly, in earlier times, Pythagoras (he was around in about 500 BCE) was revered as a semi-divine figure for, among other philosophical ideas, being an expert on the fate of the soul after death — though many ideas were not actually his, or written by him, but by others climbing on the Pythagorean bandwagon.

Now, when he's remembered, it's as a mathematician and scientist...

[Barry]

I believe the science that stands up to scrutiny, neither anthropogenic climate change nor religion stands up, and you can't give me any concrete evidence for either?

Well, I don't believe in AGW either, so we have that in common.

[Nick]

Which scientists do you believe, Nick?
Only you reckon these figures are "gospel", yet you don't believe the majority of scientists when it comes to anthropogenic global warming/climate change, so you don't always "follow the scientists", do you?

I believe the science that stands up to scrutiny, neither anthropogenic climate change nor religion stands up, and you can't give me any concrete evidence for either?

[Sheepy]

Not particularly Barry but I don't have a problem with those that do, for myself there is a lot more evidence that we are surrounded by multiple dimensions, which science is only just catching on, early days for them I guess. 

[Barry]

If you disregard Lucy we can still trace Mitochondrial DNA back to between 150 and 200 thousand years. Way further than religion says the creation happened. [highlight]Religion simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny.[/highlight]

Which scientists do you believe, Nick?
Only you reckon these figures are "gospel", yet you don't believe the majority of scientists when it comes to anthropogenic global warming/climate change, so you don't always "follow the scientists", do you?

[Nick]

Maybe God and humanity use different time scales.

Remember George Burns in Oh God! where he is having a meeting with a reluctant disciple and He says that His day is different from everyone else? For example, He remarks, when He got up that morning Freud had just started medical school.

More likely is that it's all a big fairytale and there is no God.

[Borchester]

The first humanoid life has been dated to over 100,000 years. And it certainly didn't look anything like us. You have your faith, which is personal to you, but for me none of it adds up.

Maybe God and humanity use different time scales.

Remember George Burns in Oh God! where he is having a meeting with a reluctant disciple and He says that His day is different from everyone else? For example, He remarks, when He got up that morning Freud had just started medical school.

[Barry]

This is the standard line trotted out by theologians all the time and is simply not true. Carbon dating puts you reasonably accurately within a few thousand years, which in the grand scheme  of things considering the Earth is 4.5 billion years old is very accurate.

I'm not saying how old the earth is. I have no idea. My argument is, though, neither do the scientists. They just think they know.
We have totally messed up carbon dating for the future. How do scientists know there was no historical event which messes up their dating theories prehistorically?

So I won't argue about how old the Earth is, or "Lucy" is. Nor what her face looked like, which was totally invented.

The Bible says God did the 6 day thing. (And the evening and the morning were the first day - clearly a natural day).
Believe what you want, Nick, it is what I do.
You are not a Christian believer, we know that.

[Nick]

Nor does carbon dating, Nick.

This is the standard line trotted out by theologians all the time and is simply not true. Carbon dating puts you reasonably accurately within a few thousand years, which in the grand scheme  of things considering the Earth is 4.5 billion years old is very accurate. 

[Barry]

If you disregard Lucy we can still trace Mitochondrial DNA back to between 150 and 200 thousand years. Way further than religion says the creation happened. Religion simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Nor does carbon dating, Nick.

[T00ts]

If you disregard Lucy we can still trace Mitochondrial DNA back to between 150 and 200 thousand years. Way further than religion says the creation happened. Religion simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny..

The Bible does not give a time line on Creation. The failure is to read the Bible factually, certainly the OT. It is sometimes poetic with constant imagery and to try and tie it down is to miss it altogether. The Earth was built in 6 days is not our 24 hours but ages of time. Surely the scientific discoveries simply prove that. Man's frustration with the Scriptures is based so much on the need for effort to understand and that understanding comes from reading with faith. Taking snippets and trying to apply them is very misleading, and reading with the head without the heart - a waste of time.

[Nick]

But that is not Lucy. It is a mock up, Nick, by some very imaginative people.
This is what they actually found in Ethiopia.
You have a lot of faith to believe in that face!

If you disregard Lucy we can still trace Mitochondrial DNA back to between 150 and 200 thousand years. Way further than religion says the creation happened. Religion simply doesn't hold up to scrutiny. 

[Barry]

To be blunt no. The oldest known human named Lucy, who is way older than I thought was around 3.2 million years ago. She walked upright but looked nothing like us, which directly contradicts 'in his image' line. Like I said, there are just so many things that contradict the creation theory.



Lucy

But that is not Lucy. It is a mock up, Nick, by some very imaginative people.
This is what they actually found in Ethiopia.
You have a lot of faith to believe in that face!

[Barry]

Thats conjecture Toots , Id rather hope we have a long way to go before we finnally mess it up big time

For us believers, it is not us that call full time, it is God.
Wherever the Bible says "in that day" or "on that day" it refers to the end.

1 Thessalonians:

16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:

17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

So listen out for the trumpet.