Creationists

[daws101]

When I was looking at lists of books, I ran across an interesting one that was a list of books that all men should read...it was a pretty good one too...

100 Must Read Books: The Man’s Essential Library | The Art of Manliness

got 75% of those here in my library

 

[daws101]

In Harry Potter's defense, they are pretty riveting books. But sadly lacking in any underlying message that I could derive. I love the use of language in them, though. CS Lewis' books, besides being a fascinating dissertation on Christian romanticism, offers up some pretty stunning lessons in mannerly behavior, what constitutes goodness, and honor, and strength of character, and how to face up to situations that are perhaps difficult or ugly, in a way that will allow you to maintain your own sense of self while at the same time recognizing that everybody makes mistakes (a basic tenet of Christianity).

CS Lewis was just an incredible person all around. I read those books every few years, and every time I love them.

the harry potter books and the narnia collection are for kids...
if you want adult fantasy then the hobbit and lord of the rings trilogy are the only ways to go.

BTW CS LEWIS AND JRR TOLKIEN WERE LIFE LONG FRIENDS AND COLLEGE PROF'S
FUNNY HOW TO PEOPLE CAN START IN THE SAME PLACE AND END UP SO DIFFERENT.

 

[koshergrl]

They were written for children, but I make it a point to read what kids are reading. Likewise I make it a point to read works being touted as good literature, regardless of the intended audience. (I was a lit major in another life. I spent an entire year immersed in Shakespeare, lol...and quite a bit of time immersed in World and English lit as well.) I read the Harry Potter books when they first came out, at the same time all the kids did..how could I not?

I read the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, and I still enjoy them.

I've read the trilogy of the rings, a few times....and I think The Hobbit was actually written for a younger crowd. Yes, I knew Tolkein and Lewis were friends.

I don't find them so dissimilar...they both wrote from a Christian viewpoint, and their works have the same thread running through them...there is an Ultimate Truth, that there is evil, and that good must persevere, in the face of great adversity and pain...

"British author Colin Duriez, who wrote the article "Tollers and Jack" in issue #78 of Christian History, explains why this is so in his forthcoming book [ame="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587680262/christianitytoda"]Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship[/ame]. Duriez tells the story of how these two brilliant authors met, discovered their common love for mythical tales, and pledged to bring such stories into the mainstream of public reading taste. Tolkien and Lewis shared the belief that through myth and legend—for centuries the mode many cultures had used to communicate their deepest truths—a taste of the Christian gospel's "True Myth" could be smuggled past the barriers and biases of secularized readers. "

"Early in their relationship, in 1936, after Tolkien had written the children's story The Hobbit, the two men had a momentous conversation about their desire to bring such stories to a wider audience (see below, at the end of this interview, for Duriez's re-creation of that conversation). They actually decided to divide the territory—Lewis would take "space travel," Tolkien "time travel."

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ch/news/2003/aug29.html

 

[ilia25]

He stands in front of them, he breathes on them, he puts a feast before them...but they continue to believe they're in a filthy, dark barn, eating moldy bread and filthy straw.

It's no surprise that this is how a Christian would want the atheists being like. And of course this is just another fairy tale -- but the religious people never had troubles believing in those, did they?

 

[koshergrl]

Huh?

 

[koshergrl]

Oh, I see what you're saying. It makes no sense of course because we benefit nothing by portraying atheists that way.

And really, anyone who reads the posts of the ignorami on this site professing to be atheists can't miss the similarity. It's actually quite comical.

 

[ilia25]

Huh?

You seem to believe that atheists are so blind and ignorant that they will not see God even if he stands in front of them. And that is not true.

 

[koshergrl]

Sure it is. How will you recognize something you don't believe in?

 

[koshergrl]

Besides which, he's standing in front of you now, and you still deny him. That was Lewis' point.

 

[ilia25]

Sure it is. How will you recognize something you don't believe in?

You think I would recognize hell if I end up in it?

 

[koshergrl]

Yes indeed. And I think you'll know exactly where you are and be begging to access heaven.

And you will be denied, if you don't accept Christ before you're sent there.

 

[ilia25]

Yes indeed. And I think you'll know exactly where you are and be begging to access heaven.

And you will be denied, if you don't accept Christ before you're sent there.

So this is what you are saying -- atheists, as a rule, cannot recognize something they don't believe in, unless that something is hell?

 

[daws101]

Yes indeed. And I think you'll know exactly where you are and be begging to access heaven.

And you will be denied, if you don't accept Christ before you're sent there.

another empty threat...

 

[HUGGY]

Yes indeed. And I think you'll know exactly where you are and be begging to access heaven.

And you will be denied, if you don't accept Christ before you're sent there.

I'll step in right here... You don't know a blink of wisdom enough to decide what I should, read, think, want or not want in any religion or do in my life.

You are clearly not at a loss for words but you make no sense. You got a full ride through college on the merit of one fucking paper? Please...

In a way you remind me of my dear and departed mom. She graduated from the University of Washington with a 4.0 at 19 years old. She could speak several foreign languages. AND with all that ability to digest information and spit it back out to the aclaim of her teachers and professors she was hands down one of the dumbest humans I ever met. She was EXTREMELY fortunate her dad died and left her many millions of dollars in the early fifties.

Like you she was so full of herself that she spent most of her time communicating with others telling them what they should think and what was and what was not proper for them to do. She spent most of the money she and my siblings and I had been given suing her brother because HE didn't like being cut out of thier dads will. So he went after the millions that were supposed to be MY and my sister and brothers inheritance and my genious mother spent ALL of it..about 7 million dollars on lawyers and fighting his play for that money until the day he commited suicide. He did that when he figured out that after years of court battles there was NOTHING left to fight over. At least nothing he could get his hands on. My mom BRAGGED about how she WON!!! Then over the years she tried and failed at numeroud crackpot money making schemes, lawsuits with people she didn't agree with and her efforts to prove how smart she was ALL failed and cost her many more millions. Not to worry..her dad left her dozens of huge valuable properties and also bought her and her kids the place up on Orcas Island.

Trust me .. I have had my very fill of know it all self righteous bitches. Don't get me wrong ..I have known many fine women. Loved several of them. But I also learned an important lesson early on about the worth of education and how it can translate or not into something of meaning in one's life and affect those around the "genius". Don't think I do not/did not love my mom...you only get one. I learned to not equate her insanity and stupidity with the reasons one loves his mother.

In short...you can read a million books and still be a world class idiot. You can learn to spell every word in a dictionary and learn every rule of grammar and put the words together like a well writen piece of literature and STILL be a complete fool...

I'm probably wasting my time here but if you are ever honest with yourself you know what I'm talkng about. You know that for the most part you are full of shit.

Now back to religion. If Christ or God or the tooth fairy want my attention I'm not that hard to find. I am a long way from stupid compared to most people. You and a million like you can not convince me to believe a lie...a half truth ..or just some made up jibberish you choose to worship. Stop wasting your time and my attention. I learned to figure out truth from deception from a gifted wordsmith. You are an amature. I don't give a rats ass if it gives you pleasure convincing weak minded people with your mundane nonsense. I don't want to know what you know. I don't like liars and fools. You are not a blood relative therefore you get no special consideration. If I were you I would get real sick and disgusted with myself and put the barrel of a pistol in my mouth and pull the trigger. Lucky for me I am immune to the intentional/unintentional manipulation from people like you.

Are we clear?

 

[Youwerecreated]

Life didn't have to come back into existence. While up to 95% died in some extinctions, that isn't 100% and it didn't have to start from scratch.

Your side knows how devastating extinction events are to your theory,they just can't bring themselves to admit if these events happened that it did not destroy all life.

Earth's Big Five Mass Extinction Events

But yet your side rejects the global flood theory from the bible that has evidence to support it over the entire earth. Notice how little they know of these supposed extinction events they want to believe happened.

There's no evidence a that a Global Flood caused even one of those extinctions, much less 5 seperated by 100s of millions of years. Don't get your first sentence. Could you rephrase it? It sounds like we're refusing to admit something, but I'm not clear as to exacly what.

There is plenty of evidence supporting a global flood. I don't believe in any of these extinction events other than the global flood. I don't believe that the earth was completely lifeless either because God protected the animals and humans to preserve his creation. Atleast God saved two of every kind to repopoulate the earth other then humans.

I was pointing out that your side was making claims about extinction events that they don't know anythging about like when it happened what survived. Talking about making something up as they go.

 

[Youwerecreated]

I disagree with your belief that scientists are trying to denude our culture of divinity. I would argue that in the context of god, science is neutral as there is no scientific evidence that either proves or disproves the existence of a creator. Im not sure what lead you to conclude that modern science is anti god but I strongly suspect that it is to some extent a result of the tremendous disconnect between what conclusions scientist are actually publishing and the way their conclusions are reported in popular media. Non scientific media sources blatantly distort the actual findingS of scientists to support non scientific agendas. Such distortions occur in every controversial scientific debate and are commites by all sides.

A common misconception about the TOE is that it covers the origin of life. It does not. The origin of life on earth can only be explained by several hypothesis that are based on woefully incomplete datasets. The most commonly accepted hypothesis-abiogenesis- is far from convincing. The link concerning the problems with this hypothesis in an RNA world eloquently explains some of the tremendous flaws inherent in that hypothesis

I believe this is what I alluded to,however people like dawkins and a few of the other well knowns in science are very biased and try to keep design out of the question.

 

[Youwerecreated]

I don't think (most) scientists have an intent to do anything to the culture of divinity. Many scientists are Christian, in fact.

It's the bozos like Poki and JS who have just a smattering of knowledge (and most of it comes directly off cable television), who think they are "learned" in science, and then go off half-cocked, spouting idiocies and retardisms that they think make them appear intelligent and scholarly...

When really all they do is illustrate, over and over, their inability to grasp large concepts. It also illustrates, over and over, their bigotry and narrow mindedness...

In The Last Battle by CS Lewis there's a great description of non-believers. They are embodied in the Black Dwarves. The dwarves are taken with distrust after being bamboozled by an ass dressed in a lionskin, who pretends to be Aslan and instructs them to do all sorts of ungodly things. The dwarves find out they've been had, and instead of recognizing their own part in the situation, wash their hands of ALL belief and allegiance to the divine (Aslan = God). They appear throughout the book, chanting "The dwarves are for the dwarves!" and indiscriminately killing those of both evil and good forces (they singlehandedly wipe out whole battalion of talking horses)....

Anyway, at the end of the world (Narnia) when Aslan is raising people from the dead and judging each being, he comes to the dwarves, who before this time had been imprisoned in a dark barn.

He stands in front of them, he breathes on them, he puts a feast before them...but they continue to believe they're in a filthy, dark barn, eating moldy bread and filthy straw.

They come across as anything but learned, wise or intelligent. And that's what the most rabid of the non-believers remind me of. They think they're so clever...but they're just ignorant and blind. And not just about things of God. They're ignorant about the very things they profess to have all this knowledge about. But they can't see it. They're so enamored of themselves, they're completely blind to it.

You REALLY ARE bat shit crazy. And your brain operates like this without LSD? Fascinating!

You 're a foul mouth that knows very little on this issue.

 

[Youwerecreated]

Are you admitting that you're an unread ignoramus now?

Hey twat! I watched the 700 Club this morning...That makes me at least as informed as you are.

Really,your posts show otherwise.

 

[Youwerecreated]

I don't watch the 700 club. I spend my time reading, mostly.

I'm sorry you've never heard of one of the most popular and wide-spread works of children literature ever penned. It makes me sad for you. I thought everybody had heard of the Chronicles of Narnia, and I honestly believed most English speaking people had at some point read them, or at least skimmed them..or at least HEARD of them...


#9 of a list of the 21 best selling books of all time:
HowStuffWorks "The 21 Best-selling Books of All Time"

The Chronicles of Narnia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nope... not really ever been a fantasy reader. I've always believed, and my parents encouraged my belief, that there was more to learn in the real world than in make believe.

Maybe my siblings dabbled ito it but they never mentioned that works. I was more of a back woods kid...exploring the "wonders" of nature up on my families 150 acre farm on Orcas Island. I read a lot but steered pretty clear of childish fantasy.

Wow are you and Loki suffering from the same disease ?

 

[Youwerecreated]

That's too bad. The humanities are invaluable in creating well rounded, sane, and free thinking people. Plus our ability to see beyond concrete reality is what separates us from other animals...i.e., it's what makes us "human".

I won a full ride college scholarship for a paper I wrote about the humanities. I encourage you to broaden your scope a bit.

OK...I wrote a book called "The Pilot" about my exploits as a pilot in the world of International Drug Smuggling. Nobody offered me a scholarship for it. Maybe it was because the content was about lots of sex, drugs and international crime. I don't think they teach any courses in those subjects..

I'm 62. You have no idea how "broad" my scope has been.

Maybe some kid would be open to your way of seeing the world. Me... not so much.

Thats it! you not only were a drug smuggler,but you were a user.