I'm back for a bit. Didya miss me? No? Oh. I see.
But why would god make those animals? What is the purpose? Why would he make skin bacteria (Leprosy )as a scourge on mankind before they had antibiotics? Then instruct moses in the book of Leviticus to sacrifice animals in order to cure men from leprosy? Why didn't god tell him how to culture penicilin instead?
And if all animals ate plants and were instructed by god not to kill (until man's sin) why is the complete animal kingdom made up of prey / preadtor relationships? Did sharks really feed off seaweed? Did lions eat flowers as a dietary staple?
This world wasn't intended to be easy. If it were, then we wouldn't learn jack squat from living here. It would be a joke. Like if I went to grade school and attended the 2nd grade, I wouldn't learn anything. Why not? They don't teach stuff that I don't know yet. Just stuff I've already learned. In order for me to learn, school has to challenge me. So does the world.
As for the animals, I'm not sure what they were like at that time, only that they're different now. Maybe sharks DID eat seaweed, and they've been retooled to keep fish populations in check. Your guess is as good as mine. It's not important, anyway.
Again, why? Why would god need to show satan... anything? If god loved Job why would he allow such horrible things? Would you allow sombody to abuse your Dog to prove a point of loyalty? Or does god not love Job, his faithful servant, as much as I care for my pets?
There are so many WHY questions in the bible it becomes almost absurd..
Why did it take an omnipotent being six days, (or any amount of time at all) to create the heavens and earth?
Hey, he made the earth, didn't he? That's more power than I've got. I don't think God is omnipotent as in "*snap,* it's done." I think he's omnipotent in that God can do anything he sets his mind to do. THAT is real power.
Why did god need to destroy life with a world wide flood which achieved absolutely nothing? Are there not just as many wicked people today as in Noah's day? And wouldn't god know ahead of time that he would have to eventually kill everyone and then allow the earth to repopulate? Why not just do it right the first time?
I wouldn't say it achieved nothing. A lot of people who would have raised their children in stupidity and wickedness were wiped out, and there was once more a decent amount of good people. I don't think good people have ever really been the majority, but if the people as a whole are too evil, God will destroy them. I think that's what the Bible is trying to say, anyways.
Why would god, capable of designing DNA and every creature on earth, ever need to have animals sacrificed to him? The book of leviticus is completetly about the lord's instructions on how to prepare animal sacrifices from many different species of animals for various sins and ailments.. I know that Leviticus is old testament and that Jesus is supposed to eliminate all need for animal sacrifice, but why would god ever need it for atonement of sin in the first place?
God doesn't need the animals. We need to sacrifice.
Perhaps we are looking at ancient mythic text, written by many fallible human authors who all contributed thier own spin on god rather than god's absolute word to us?
Yup. I think that's a pretty good assessment. I also think that they really did talk to God, and that there's a lot we can learn from
A) The mistakes of our anscestors and
B) The advice of God.
Even if you don't believe this particular God is true, it's good advice.
1)Why does God care whether people believe in him or not?
2)Why didn't God make it so that the bible was unambiguous?
3)Why does God punish the descendants of people he disagrees with?
4)Why did God make people so terribly flawed?
5)Why don't demons possess people anymore like they did in the Bible?
Here's my answers. Let's see if you like them.
1) He's offering us advice that will make us happier. He also wants us to accept it of our own, free will, but you have to admit, it's sad to see anger, treachery, hatred, and other such things. Disobedience to God's commandments creates unahppiness. Obedience generates happiness.
2) I think it's because that's impossible. Humans will misconstrue things according to what they want to believe. What the world needs and has always needed is CONTINUING revelation from God. Wouldn't that clear things up a bit?
3) I think more often it's natural laws that punish those descendance, though God takes the credit because he warned us about it in the first place. Also, they're people who disagree with God, not the other way around. If we are to believe anything in the Bible, or the Qur'an or whatever you fancy, God was here first.
4) People are so terribly flawed, in my personal belief, because they're inexperienced. I don't believe God can give anyone experience. That's why God has to tell us what to do. He's got much more wisdom and experience than us, and God also understands the natural laws upon which things like happiness are based. We don't.
5) It isn't as effective, in most situations, as it used to be. People used to be much more superstitious. I think such possession does happen occasionally, mind you, but it's terribly uncommon. Always has been, though a look at four thousand years or so of purely spiritual history (like in the Bible) will make you think it's more common than it is.
I have a counter-question for you: Why can't you answer these questions? Have you looked for answers on your own?
And as an observation, it is totally correct. I'm not sure how "the chinese did some bad things" is supposed to prove the inherit superiority of christianity though. I mean, sure, if you could follow up with ".. while christians did not.", you'd be on firmer ground. But you're not.
The Christians did not and do not. Catholics did, at one point, but that was the time that Christianity was really losing its roots. Then the Reformation happened, and was fairly successful, in my estimation. Not totally, but it was better than nothing. Besides, look at where the original argument was placed, and what it was meant to answer. It was not intended or crafted to say "Christians are better than everyone else." It was intended to refute the argument that the Chinese are somehow more civilized than Christians. Sheesh.
Out of curiosity, how can you be sure of this?
Because it's exactly what happened to the Christian nations. And because the Chinese lost their dominance due to ISOLATIONISM. If they had been evangelical, then they wouldn't have been isolationists. At all.
What you're doing here is looking at a lot of successful countries, and deciding that one factor they have in common is what made them superior to everyone else. If you're interested in the subject of why the christian countries of europe were so successful in defeating their neighbours and exporting their influence and beliefs, I'd recommend taking a look at this. The factors that enabled europeans to conquer and convert the rest of the world were present long before christianity made it's appearance, and very probably any aggressive religion would have served them equally well.
Maybe any other aggressive religion would have served them equally well. You act as though this refutes me somehow. My point is that Christianity seems to have served very well. If you're going to refute me, tell me that Christianity did not serve them well, and back it up with examples. Then you can disagree with me intelligently.
Er.. what? The Russian tsardom was working horrifyingly badly at any rate. They had a weak tsar, and internal strife. It's not like if a modern day US suddenly and without warning dismantled religion and democracy.
Yes, you're right. It was a gradual descent from Christian Russia to Communist Russia, and not a quick drop down an elevator shaft. But Russia did fairly well for itself for a couple hundred years at least as a Christian nation, did it not?
No, in order for your point to hold true, there has to be some sort of evidence that it was the christianity that gave them these advantages. Otherwise you're just playing with statistics. For example, if I have 10 cubes that are made out of different hard materials (steel, iron, diamond and so forth) and paint them all grey, I could similarly claim that all grey cubes are hard, and that the grey colour must thus make them hard.
Yeah, but if the diamond one beat all the other ones up, I'd have to rethink THAT hypothesis. :-)
In an analog fashion, I could even claim that almost every successful culture on earth has had a lot of contact with white europeans, and that this thus proves that no country can be succesful without the help of white europeans. Thus white europeans must be superior to any other race. Go white power!
And why are the white people so successful? I think their religion plays a large part in it. I don't really care if you disagree. If you want evidence that religion can do that sort of thing, look at Islam. Before Muhammed, no one really cared about the Arabs. After Muhammed, they had estabished an empire and conquered Spain. Coincidence? You can think so. I don't care.
I'm glad that you are objective enough to decide that noone else is. Especially since you are fairly clearly taking sides on the issue.
Fairly clearly. That's a good one, I'll have to remember that.
Can you provide any sort of references to this mesoamerican dark age? It soudns quite interesting, though I've never heard of it. I'm also confused about the "successful culture" part. Originally, you seemed to be making the point that chrisianity has made our culture as successful as it is. Now you're making the point that other religion may serve equally well. This seems illogical.
I don't think it is. Just because A is good, does that mean B-Z are bad? I don't think it does. It's true that I don't think any religion is AS good as Christianity, though I can't prove that to any degree of satisfaction, but I also think that many other religions are good.
As for the mesoamerican dark age, it seems to be fairly well-accepted. It was not at all hard to find the following:
Wikipedia: ToltecsYou can see that some civilizations, like the Toltecs and Mayans, died out before the Spanish ever arrived"Dark Ages" pdfAztec myth/record of historyDark Ages Cold PeriodI think "I firmly believe" are the key words here. Unless that you can present some sort of reference that states that the ONLY reason the roman empire fell was their moral decay, that really only is your opinion. A tale about how the soldiers were having homosexual intercourse instead of fighting the enemy at the gates would be acceptable.
Are opinions not allowed? I was under the delusion that they were. That was one of them.
So explain to me what choice his followers, supposedly following his commandment gave the rest of the world when they conquered them and forced them to convert?
I don't think God ever commanded anyone to forcibly convert anyone else. That was a gross misconstruction based on a real commandment, but, you know what? "Based on a real story" is not a real story.
I notice you'tre not actually answering the question. But tell me, how did you determine, through your own research, which books that were real and which were false? Have you actually read all the books from that time period, and used some method to find out which are really the word of god, and which are just the opinions of some writer. And if you've really done this, and drawn the conclusion that exactly the right books were chosen, why haven't you published a paper on this? It is an enormous amount of research to undertake after all, surely the rest of the world could benefit from it.
Oh, be nice. I just happen to be of the opinion that many of the books that DID make it are real. If you must know, I prayed about it. Go ahead. Try it. It's good stuff.
To finish this off, I'd like to state that I'm only critical to Lance's opinions here, and not to the christian faith as a whole. I believe that christianity, as any religion can be a unifying force, and bring forth much good. Of course, in the wrong hands it can equally well bring forth darkness.
Good. I can skip that lesson.

I simply don't agree with the premise that christianity in specific is responsible for our culture being as stable as it is. If nothing else, the dark ages, with their strong religious presence and total lack of any progress are a clear indication of this.
I move that there was a LOT of progress in the dark ages. But you're not going to listen to that. I also move that our civilization REALLY took off right about the time of the Reformation, beginning with Martin Luther. This was some time after the so-called "Dark Ages."
There's also a lot of talk about atheists in this thread recently. I believe it was Terry Pratchett who said that there is no believer so firm as the atheist, for he believes in gods so strongly that he feels the need to deny them. He's always good for a laugh, but I don't think he's stupid.
I, on the other hand, don't believe in atheists. I think that everybody deifies something, it's just not always something supernatural.