Zone1 Belief in God drops to 81 percent

[Ringtone]

you seem to believe past and future are relevant measurements -

View attachment 661426

as the loop indicated there is no beginning or end to eternal ...

Of course, there would be no beginning or end to the eternal, but you're not asserting a timeless eternality. You're asserting that the Universe—which is a physical entity, an entity of nature, an entity of causality and temporality, an entity of space and time and matter and energy—is the eternal existent.

Hence, the question stands and stays!

How can an infinite regress of causality/temporality be traversed to the present, i.e., how could the universe be the eternal existent?

 

[Cougarbear]

My comments are angry because religion and religious people have harmed me in ways I am not willing to recount yet again for this board. Now lets examine the log in your eye. In a discussion on religion you jumped into politics with both feet. That's the problem. Evangelicals have their politics and religion all wrapped up in a mean nasty ugly ball that repels people who value kindness and reason and do not want to hate.

Doesn't matter how you were harmed. You are more angry than the evangelists. I don't go along with much of what evangelists say and do. All Christian churches are wrong in their doctrines and do not have the fulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But, the ones that are zelots are few, just like the alt-left. I only jump in to politics when it comes to religion when the politics are opposed to the laws and commandments of God and harm people way more than they help. Also, when they attack the purpose of God and his plan of eternal life. Abortion does just that. So does LGBTQ stuff as well. But, even with that said, I also believe in following the law of the land as well like my Church teaches. Change of laws of the land should be done in a peaceful way through electing representatives and presidents that see the world the same as I do. Then, through the Constitutional provisions of the country and states, make changes that help and preserve God's plan of eternal life. Not by threats or violence. Not by getting all mad either.
This idea that the only people that can be involved with politics are secular atheists is bull crap. That is communism in it's purest form. Whatever your "harm" is does not cancel out anyone religious politics either. Unless you like this tribal way of America we are currently in. So, what makes you so angry with religion and people who believe in God?

 

[occupied]

So, what makes you so angry with religion and people who believe in God?

I have no problem with anyone as long as they mind their own business. I'm an adult and I have no wish to live in the PG rated world the evangelicals are certain we all need to be living in.

 

[Ringtone]

Pretty much. Like the James Ussher issue with the age of the earth, taking the Bible literally was a nineteenth century invention, and only a small percentage ever went along with it.

Anyone who has studied literature to any extent, can point out the various elements of literature in the Bible. It contains myths, Just-so stories, folklore, legends, biographies, history, prose, plays, poetry, songs, quotes, and apocalyptic literature.

Back in Biblical times, no textbooks, encyclopedias, or even newspapers. There were points our ancestors thought vital enough to pass on to their descendants. They wrapped their wisdom/knowledge into memorable accounts, using various forms of literature.

Just as the purpose of The Wizard of Oz was not to talk about flying monkey, the purpose of the story of Noah is not about loading two of each type of animal onto an ark.

I disagree.

Ussher did not take the Creational Hymn of Genesis as literally as you seem think at all. It is clear from a strict, straightforwardly literal reading of the text that the Hymn doesn't tell us anything at all about how old the Earth is, let alone anything about how old the Universe is.

The Ussherian hermeneutical actually entails is a gratuitous, extrabiblical presupposition imposed on the text. It doesn't appear that you rightly understand what that hermeneutical presupposition is.

You would do well to keep in mind that the Bible always has a literal meaning. It would appear that there's quite a bit about the Creational Hymn of Genesis that you don't take literally just like Ussher, but you should so you don't make his kind of errors.

I'd be willing to bet that that's the first time you ever heard somebody tell you that.

 

[Meriweather]

Ussher did not take the Creational Hymn of Genesis

I said nothing about the Creational Hymn of Genesis as I wasn't referencing it.. In fact, my guess is that Ussher most likely got his 'begats' from either the Gospel of Matthew or Luke.

 

[Ringtone]

That's the problem. Evangelicals have their politics and religion all wrapped up in a mean nasty ugly ball that repels people who value kindness and reason and do not want to hate.

Translation: stay out of politics, Evangelicals. You're second-class citizens. Your slate of rights doesn't include political rights.

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

Translation: stay out of politics, Evangelicals. You're second-class citizens. Your slate of rights doesn't include political rights.

Haha, religious nutters want SO badly to be the victims of something. Anything at all.

 

[occupied]

Translation: stay out of politics, Evangelicals. You're second-class citizens. Your slate of rights doesn't include political rights.

Get bent. We have a right to be free of religion in this country. Evangelicals seek to change that through the political process and then act like their rights are being violated if anyone opposes them.

 

[james bond]

Haha, religious nutters want SO badly to be the victims of something. Anything at all.

The Christians aren't the religious nutters. The atheists/evolutionists are. They think evolution is science when there is no evidence for it. Besides, FLOT and SLOT shows that they believe in lies. They have no evidence for their religious beliefs.

I've already KILLED Dagosa on this.

 

[Meriweather]

We have a right to be free of religion in this country.

We also have a right to live our religion. Seriously, which group has more that they must simply shrug off and try to move on?

 

[Fort Fun Indiana]

We also have a right to live our religion. Seriously, which group has more that they must simply shrug off and try to move on?

Hahaha, hold up, there.

How about people who want to use contraception? Or people who want to be in interracial marriages? Or women who couldn't have bank accounts or credit cards?

Remember, it was within some of our lifetimes that we had to beat the religious oppressors over the head with legislation to get them to stop oppressing these groups.

 

[Ringtone]

I said nothing about the Creational Hymn of Genesis as I wasn't referencing it.. In fact, my guess is that Ussher most likely got his 'begats' from either the Gospel of Matthew or Luke.

You did reference Ussher's hermeneutical timeline vis-a-vis the age of the Earth. Ussher's timeline harks back to his hermeneutical presupposition via his reckoning of biblical lineages.

You stated:

Like the James Ussher issue with the age of the earth, taking the Bible literally was a nineteenth century invention, and only a small percentage ever went along with it.​

Ussher's hermeneutical presupposition is not based on a literal reading of the text as you seem to think. On the contrary, his error is due to his failure to adhere to a strictly literal reading of the biblical text. Clearly, like so many others, you've been walking around under the impression that his notion regarding the age of the Earth is derived from a literal reading of the text.

No, it's not!

There's something very important that I could show you here if you open your mind.

Also, Ussher's 17th Century hermeneutical presupposition took hold for many in the 18th Century.

 

[occupied]

We also have a right to live our religion. Seriously, which group has more that they must simply shrug off and try to move on?

Your religion says that I must be legally compelled to live by religious rules? Apparently a lot of Christians think so.

 

[Meriweather]

Your religion says that I must be legally compelled to live by religious rules?

Which rules are those?

 

[Donald H]

What I own is the deeper study of the Hebrew Bible, not the sons of the Enlightenment who thought they could do away with all tradition (that Jews and even Catholics followed). They thought they could do away with the Hebrew, Greek, and Latin and take each English word literally--when those words they decided to take literally did not accurately present the original language.

English is a language with many words (over 170,000), and it is a subjective language. We use words like "anger". The meaning and usage of words also evolve over time.

Meanwhile, Hebrew is a language of fewer than seven thousands words, and that language paints pictures. For example "flaring nostrils" for anger.

If you don't believe in the young earth teaching of the bibles then you're an partially enlightened Xtian.

Can you also say that your bible can't be taken literally? That's the next step to enlightenment. I think you're weasling your way around that by keeping on about English translation.

In any case, all your points are moot if you can't own "Answers in Genesis."

 

[Ringtone]

Get bent. We have a right to be free of religion in this country. Evangelicals seek to change that through the political process and then act like their rights are being violated if anyone opposes them.

Get bent?! Are you intentionally trying to shut down honest and open dialogue or trying to avoid it?

My experience with folks who talk to and about Evangelicals like you is that they don't want to live according to the imperatives of natural and constitutional law on which this nation was founded, sans the institution of slavery of course.

 

[Donald H]

How does a church pay for the building and everything that goes on in the Church? It's also a business as well. And, will man rob God? Yet you rob me in the tithes you don't pay. And, yes, you follow your gods of gold and wood. You may not see it in this light. But, we do. We see it.

And so you lied.
I suspected that even American churches wouldn't be charging admission.

 

[Ringtone]

If you don't believe in the young earth teaching of the bibles then you're an partially enlightened Xtian.

Can you also say that your bible can't be taken literally? That's the next step to enlightenment. I think you're weasling your way around that by keeping on about English translation.

In any case, all your points are moot if you can't own "Answers in Genesis."

Sigh

The notion that the Earth is 6,000 to 10,000 years old IS NOT based on a literal reading of the biblical text. That notion is strictly based on Ussher's extrabiblical, hermeneutical presupposition.

 

[Meriweather]

If you don't believe in the young earth teaching of the bibles then you're an partially enlightened Xtian.

Do you wish to point out where Jesus said one has to believe in the young earth to follow him? Who first said--or has anyone ever said--that one has to believe in young earth to be a Christian?

 

[Meriweather]

I think you're weasling your way around that by keeping on about English translation.

Study with someone who knows the original Hebrew, and then there might be a meaningful conversation about the English translation.