As Drakim said--while there is evidence of flood (destruction) and repopulation myths across the world, the flood itself needed not be global, simply globally remembered.
But that's a minor point. Please bring something relevant to the discussion at hand, Zolem?
Oh, and kudos Drakim. Just pwned my post, you did. XD
A true Philosophical Question.
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Quote (Drakim)
To assume that unproven things exist is madness
Indirect proof of God is not enough
Isn't this basically what the evolutionary theory is? Trying to prove that we evolved from monkeys with no concrete proof? They haven't found the mysterious missing link yet, although people claim to see a 'bigfoot' that many believe is real. This isn't to say that there isn't direct proof of evolution, since there obviously is, but there isn't and hard evidence of us coming from monkeys.
Also, the way you described the blue moon goblins would basically make them a higher power. So, even if that guy who touched someone and healed them got his powers from the BMG, he still got it from a higher power.
The way you discount all the so called 'miracles' basically counts out the chances for pretty much everything and anything that a higher power would be able to do. "Oh, that guy said there would be an earthquake and there was, but it's probably just a coincidence," "that guy told me not to get on that plane because something bad would happen, and it crashed on takeoff, must've been a lucky guess," "that man touched my terribly ill grandfather and he got better. I'm sure it just the repetition of the same meds and daily routine he had for the past two years that made him well all of a sudden though." etc etc.
This isn't necessarily a 'is Christianity correct' discussion so much as 'is there a higher power' discussion. While the article is 100% biased towards Christianity, simply used it as an intro for the conversation since I was too lazy to look up a different one. I never said I supported the article, I simply said I found it interesting and wanted people's feedback on it. I'm well aware of a number of fallacies and biased statements it makes.
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"Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man." (James 1:13)
"And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham." (Gen 22:1)
Bad translation. The King James version is full of grammatical and translation errors. This is because it was written to be a more poetic sounding Bible, and so in the process many things were translated incorrectly.
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James 1:13
When tempted, no one should say, "God is tempting me." For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
Gen 22:1
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
"Here I am," he replied.
Big difference as soon as you get out of the crappy translation. Of course, you could contest that testing and tempting are the same thing with different connotations, much like leading and manipulating. Clearly though, they are different.
That's all for now, I have homework I have to get done. Stupid classes >_>
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Thanks for the reply. There are more "meaty" things to talk about now. ^^
Actually, no.
Evolution is just the theory that species change over time though natural selection.
The notion that we evolved from monkeys is a conclusion that we have drawn from evolution. It is not part of the "evolution theory".
Let me put it in another context. We think planets are shaped by gravity, having a small ball of mass, that becomes larger and larger because it's gravity pulls dust to it (very simplified). However, we do not say that planets forming is part of the "theory of gravity". If somebody proved that planets formed by some other means than gravity, it wouldn't disprove gravity. It would only show that gravity didn't do the work in this particular case.
The theory of evolution would still work if I said that we evolved from cats. Or if I said we evolved directly from viruses. Man evolving from monkeys are more of a "suggestion" than part of the evolution theory.
The theory of evolution doesn't necessary contain the history on how species arose. You could for example say that God created everything as it is, and THEN started evolution. That would completely toss the man from monkey idea away, but still retain evolution as a happening concept.
They most likely never will. Fossilisation is super rare. Most species on this earth has never left any bones for us to find. It is just the sheer amount of animals that has lived that makes up so that we can find lots of fossils anyway.
It's like, let's say 1 out of 100 000 species leaves a fossil, and all the others are forgotten. But, there have been 100 000 000 000 species. Even with the rare rate for a species leaving a fossil, you will still end up with a lot of them. But very spread out, and almost impossible to draw a line telling what went to what. We can at the very best only draw a evolutionary map based on educated guess.
Correct. There is no hard evidence for us coming from monkeys, but there are plenty hard evidence for evolution in general (such as drug resistant bacteria these days).
However, since we have observed that evolution happens for life forms in general, wouldn't the most reasonable guess be that we, also being life forms, also evolves? What would mysteriously keep us from evolving?
Ah, you misunderstood me a little. I didn't discount it completely. I called it "indirect evidence", since it isn't, well, direct proof. It's only an indicator, so to speak.
But, exactly, how do you link healing somebody with a higher power? Which steps do you make from "I can put my hands upon somebody and heal them", to "I got these healing powers from a higher power"? People seem to jump from one to the other directly, but I've never heard a direct reason as to why they would suspect a higher power, and perhaps not a random power, or unknown "magic gravity", or just sheer luck getting the powers. etc.
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Isn't this basically what the evolutionary theory is? Trying to prove that we evolved from monkeys with no concrete proof?
Actually, no.
Evolution is just the theory that species change over time though natural selection.
The notion that we evolved from monkeys is a conclusion that we have drawn from evolution. It is not part of the "evolution theory".
Let me put it in another context. We think planets are shaped by gravity, having a small ball of mass, that becomes larger and larger because it's gravity pulls dust to it (very simplified). However, we do not say that planets forming is part of the "theory of gravity". If somebody proved that planets formed by some other means than gravity, it wouldn't disprove gravity. It would only show that gravity didn't do the work in this particular case.
The theory of evolution would still work if I said that we evolved from cats. Or if I said we evolved directly from viruses. Man evolving from monkeys are more of a "suggestion" than part of the evolution theory.
The theory of evolution doesn't necessary contain the history on how species arose. You could for example say that God created everything as it is, and THEN started evolution. That would completely toss the man from monkey idea away, but still retain evolution as a happening concept.
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They haven't found the mysterious missing link yet, although people claim to see a 'bigfoot' that many believe is real.
They most likely never will. Fossilisation is super rare. Most species on this earth has never left any bones for us to find. It is just the sheer amount of animals that has lived that makes up so that we can find lots of fossils anyway.
It's like, let's say 1 out of 100 000 species leaves a fossil, and all the others are forgotten. But, there have been 100 000 000 000 species. Even with the rare rate for a species leaving a fossil, you will still end up with a lot of them. But very spread out, and almost impossible to draw a line telling what went to what. We can at the very best only draw a evolutionary map based on educated guess.
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This isn't to say that there isn't direct proof of evolution, since there obviously is, but there isn't and hard evidence of us coming from monkeys.
Correct. There is no hard evidence for us coming from monkeys, but there are plenty hard evidence for evolution in general (such as drug resistant bacteria these days).
However, since we have observed that evolution happens for life forms in general, wouldn't the most reasonable guess be that we, also being life forms, also evolves? What would mysteriously keep us from evolving?
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The way you discount all the so called 'miracles' basically counts out the chances for pretty much everything and anything that a higher power would be able to do.
Ah, you misunderstood me a little. I didn't discount it completely. I called it "indirect evidence", since it isn't, well, direct proof. It's only an indicator, so to speak.
But, exactly, how do you link healing somebody with a higher power? Which steps do you make from "I can put my hands upon somebody and heal them", to "I got these healing powers from a higher power"? People seem to jump from one to the other directly, but I've never heard a direct reason as to why they would suspect a higher power, and perhaps not a random power, or unknown "magic gravity", or just sheer luck getting the powers. etc.
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Quote (Drakim)
But, exactly, how do you link healing somebody with a higher power? Which steps do you make from "I can put my hands upon somebody and heal them", to "I got these healing powers from a higher power"? People seem to jump from one to the other directly, but I've never heard a direct reason as to why they would suspect a higher power, and perhaps not a random power, or unknown "magic gravity", or just sheer luck getting the powers. etc.
Well, I imagine it's because of the 'supernatural' aspect of such an occurrence. Sure, amazingly good luck can have some profound results, but I've never personally heard of healing or prophecing. As for random power and 'magic gravity', it would still fall under supernatural since it's not something found in nature. Also, the time frame of the 'miraculous healings' would be another thing, since your body can only repair itself so fast naturally.
Unless it's simply some uber rare naturally occuring mutation, in which case I wish I was a mutant.
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The theory of evolution doesn't necessary contain the history on how species arose. You could for example say that God created everything as it is, and THEN started evolution. That would completely toss the man from monkey idea away, but still retain evolution as a happening concept.
That's actually what I believe. There's solid evidence of evolution like you said, and ignoring it completely is just retarded. As for your question about people, we have evolved somewhat. No one really knows what exactly people looked like in Bible times, so for all we know they could have been drastically different looking beings.
Also, the ancient great white sharks to the current great white sharks is a good example. They did indeed evolve, but it really only resulted in a changed in size. Of course they did change other ways, but thats just a simple idea.
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Well, I imagine it's because of the 'supernatural' aspect of such an occurrence. Sure, amazingly good luck can have some profound results, but I've never personally heard of healing or prophecing. As for random power and 'magic gravity', it would still fall under supernatural since it's not something found in nature.
Indeed, however, a "higher power" and the "supernatural" isn't the same in that way. The supernatural might be a mindless force, like, uhm, The Force, without it having to be what we would call a "God".
Yet, I almost always see "miracles" being tributes to a higher power, without any thought for that there might be other explanations. That's why I don't think they are very good evidence, as they are being biased from the start.
Anyways, I shall continue my arguments.
Arguments from holy scripture
Seeing that holy scripture is part of most religions, and therefore also tightly tied to the idea of a higher power (God), I'm going to make a few arguments about them.
A) A lot of proof from holy scripture uses circular reasoning
One thing that a lot of people seem to miss is, that you can't use something to prove itself. If I was a murder suspect, you can't use my testimony to clear my own name.
However, I've more than once seen miracles in holy scripture, that are first mentioned in the scripture, and then proven in the scripture.
One example of this is the resurrection of Jesus, which is first claimed by the Bible, and may Christians (I've seen a lot of articles call it a "historical event") think it's proven because the Bible says that there were several hundred eye witnesses. But this would be the case of circular reasoning. How can we verify those witnesses? The same goes for a lot of miracles in the Quran and so on.
What you would need is some outer source that can confirm claims.
B) Proving part of something won't verify everything.
Book of Drakim:
1. The sun is made of hydrogen
2. The sea is salty
3. The moon is made of cheese
Now, we know that 1 and 2 is right. We can verify that those two points are correct based on our knowledge. However, does that make 3 correct too? Of-course not. It would be quite foolish of us to believe 3 simply because 1 and 2 is correct.
However, this is something I've seen a thousand times when it comes to holy scripture. Let's say that the resurrection of Jesus was proven. Would that, however, prove that there was a global flood? Would it prove that Adam and Eve existed? Sadly, many seem to think so, even when we can clearly see the error by putting it as an example (book of Drakim).
Personal Testimony
While a personal encounter with something anomaly, such as a ghost may be very convincing for yourself, it won't hold up if you want to prove the existence of ghosts to others.
It may sound cold, but humans are simply too easily tricked. Even perfectly normal humans can be convinced of something fundamentally wrong by a very powerful experience.
And the fact remains that we dream. We day-dream. We even hallucinate. We can have the most convincing vision ever, about just about anything. We aren't perfect machines, but humans, and humans can often be mistaken. Our memory changes constantly, often by nothing but time or suggestion.
I'm not saying that human experience are useless. We can still get a murderer conviced of murder based on the accounts of eye witnesses.
However, as I pointed out before, the claim of a higher power is quite a spectacular and reality shaping one. It requires more than something that may be a dream.
