secondeve

My one query to the idea that Christ is the only means to salvation is the idea - believed by most Christians on Worthy that I've encountered - that non-Christian or very young children don't go to hell. The theory behind this belief is that even though these children aren't saved - and being born sinful, should therefore have no way into heaven - God excercises an overruling judgement on their lives and lets them in. I think that, scripturally, there's no actual direct statement to prove this happens, but some people infer it from other verses. However, this would seem to be completely contradicted by other parts of the Bible, namely the absolute statement that the ONLY way into heaven is through acceptance of Christ. And because of this, I know there are also people on Worthy - most notably Butero and Whysoblind - who believe that dead children go to hell. Personally, while I find this idea abhorrent (assuming I believed in hell), scripturally, I can't see any way around it; I tend to think that others believe in God's mercy towards children (1) because he is often described as a merciful God and (2) because they couldn't bear to believe otherwise. But my point is, if God overrules the need for salvation to let children into heaven, then you can't say Christ is the only way to be saved - potentially, God could pull the override switch for anyone, and given that there's no scriputre explicitly providing who this can happen to, it makes no sense as an idea to assume that adults are all ruled out. That's my contribution. What do others think?

I think it's fair to say that I frustrate a lot of people here sometimes. But I do try to be respectful, and I have made friends - and the thing is, I do really want to understand, and I get a lot intellectually from being allowed to ask questions. So thanks to everyone who puts up with me.

As I said before - dino bones. You dig up a big skeleton or a massive femur, if you don't know how old it is, you're going to think that kind of creature might still be around.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/parents-d...7777250928.html What do people think?

Guys' I know I'm not scientifically minded and you guys have shown that to me, but in order to exist or start, doesn't something have to originate from a single cell? I mean it's all very good to discuss the big bang theory as opposed to Creation by an Intelligent Author...God, but you can't start something without nothing. Right? With the big bang theory, it just honestly doesn't make sense, regardless on how scientific a slant it has. An Intelligent Creator is far more logical because you can see Order in nature and I refuse to believe we evolved from chaos. Just my simple thoughts on the matter! LNJ God only moves the idea of a 'beginning' back a step - where did God come from? If you believe that God is eternal, without a beginning and without an end, then how is this belief so different from the idea that the universe could similarly be eternal? If God came from nothing, however, then we are saying that one thing in the universe defies our normal concept of physics. And if this is potentially true in the case of God, then why not for the universe? Have you ever seen one of those Zoom picture books? Basically, you start out with one image. On the next page, the 'camera' has pulled back, allowing you to see the image and its surroundings. Then it pulls back again, and again, and again, until you're so far from where you started that it's a little trippy to watch. Consider the proposal that the Zoom book is like the universe, and each page is a level of perception. Imagine that human perception is on the fourth page. We can see pages one through three, too, but we have no idea about pages five through twelve, even though we can reasonably speculate that they exist. From this point of view, when we look at the universe and try to determine patterns in what we see - whether chaos or order is more dominant, which things are more significant than others - we are essentially incapable of taking everything into account. It could be that, if we were on page twelve, we would draw completely different conclusions as to what is ordered and what is not, what is random and what is not, just as we would do if we were on page one. This is obviously just a thought experiment, but the implication is that when we apply human judgements to universal concepts such as chaos and order, because of where we sit in the scheme of things, we are not as well informed as we would like to be. To us, we see it as ordered that there are male and female, day and night, while compared to the entire universe, these examples might well be completely irrelevant when considering what order is on a bigger scale. Humans have an idea of what, for us, constitutes order, gleaned from what we see around us. Take, for example, the idea of even numbers of things. Four seasons, two genders. Yet the only reason those numbers are significant is because human beings think they are, not because of any inherent universal symbolism. If we lived on a planet which had five seasons and three genders, we would probably think that other examples of five and three were significant, too, if we saw other things that shared those proportions. So in that sense, certain thoughts about order and chaos and balance are pretty much exclusively dependant on perception, and the point I was trying to make with all of this (in an utterly roundabout way) was that just because we have an idea that things are ordered, does not mean that the significance we attach to these things goes beyond human culture to the extent that it can be explained only by an intelligent creator. And, finally, given that this is a Christian board, I think it should be pointed out that even if we concluded once and for all that an intelligent creator was responsible for the universe, this would not automatically validate Christianity nor any other religion on this planet, because it is hypothetically just as possible that any creator-being could have ceased to exist just after the moment of creation, that they are an impassive observer who requires no worship, that evolution is correct and that the being only put the first organisms on Earth, or even that they are not utterly benevolent towards humans. It certainly means nothing about a heaven or a hell, or even humanity's perception of gods or religions.

This is akin to saying that because science can't explain how life originated on Earth, my belief that aliens came and dropped life-giving spores on the planet is reasonable, intellectual and obvious, even though I can't prove it.

Well, for me, I understand Christianity a whole lot better - and I'm also learning a lot about people, specifically types of folk who I would otherwise not have a chance to interact with. So basically, I want to understand beliefs and believers. This is a reasonable observation, and the reaction isn't always justified. When it is, though, I'd say it's because you know that we don't believe as you do, and yet sometimes still think that a straight quotation from scripture is a satisfactory answer - which is frustrating. If that were the case, we'd be Christians. We understand that you believe in what you quote, but we're not always asking for what it says in the Bible: we want to know why you believe the Bible in the first place, or what knowledge and observations you have to support the quotes. So that's why it somtimes seems a cop-out - becuase if we're asking for your opinion, that's what we're asking for, not the scripture which inspires that opinion. One of the reasons I'm here is because I think I learn more when I'm disagreed with and am forced to defend my opinions, or to rethink them. If athiests do get hostile at the 'God did it' answer, it's because we already know that's what you believe. It's like this: once you've stated that you believe God did X, and we've stated that we believe Y other theory, the resulting discussion, ideally, should be based on the reasons for our respctive beliefs, as a means of comparison, comprehension and to analyse, potentially, or to have analysed, what other people think of these reasons. So if the answer given to the sample query 'why do you believe in God' is 'because he exists,' this really isn't telling us anything. We want to know why you think he exists - what experiences you've had, or what reasoning you've used. See?

Fair enough assessment. It is something I have admittedly not looked into at all really. It's kind of a pet topic of mine, mythology nerd that I am. In Assyrian/Babylonian myths, Tiamat and Bahamut were two gods who were also dragons, violent and evil; Tiamat was (I think) a firebreather and also a death-goddess. The dragons you find in Nordic myths are much more like Smaug in The Hobbit, big monsters that hoard treasure - that's where Tolkein got his ideas a lot of the time. Then you've got Jormundgur, the World Serpent, which some people now will call a dragon - really, though, it's a sea-serpent, so huge it encircles the world. Compare that to something like a five-clawed Chinese dragon, which hatches from an egg that incubates for a thousand years and which then grows to its full size in a heartbeat. Those dragons look a lot like Falcor from the Neverending Story, and can be either benevolent or angry; I think the different number of claws can vary how intelligent or kind they are. Then take St George and the Dragon - similar to the Greek myth of Andromeda, where the original monster was a sea-beast (see also Psyche). Finally, how many cultures don't have dragons - as in Africa, India, the Middle East? Anyway, I'll shush now.

Dragons are different across cultures. They are wingless and benevolent in China - powerful, intelligent, cosmic creatures - while in Europe, they were monsters, bellicose, bestial and greedy. The representations of them vary; some breathe fire; others do not. Wyverns have only two legs, while other dragons have arms, too. Chinese dragons can fly, but are wingless, and vary in their number of limbs - these can also be feathered. A lot of other creatures, however, are draconic when we're looking across cultures for the similarities, but were not necessarily called dragons, like generically large monsters or somesuch. Mythologically, I'd say there's more symbolic similarity between the thunderbird, phoenix, bennu bird and roc than between different types of dragon - at least as far as behaviour and cultural perception is concerned.

I think it is a stretch to say there were no dragons. From a biological standpoint, it has been proven that the chemical reactions neccessary for a "fire breathing" dragon would be no more complicated that luminous reactions of deep sea bottom feeders. The fact that it's chemcially possible isn't evidence. I'd say the fact that such large creatures couldn't actually fly, plus the complete absence of skeletons, is telling enough.

Woah. Weird!

True, mythology contains alot of dinosauric creatures, it had to come from somewhere, could they have found fossiles back then and made up storys about it? Or could they have actualy lived with dinosaurs, fossil record actualy isn't clear on wether or not dinosaurs and man lived together, They have found footsteps of man with dinosaurs, and also in older cultures, do have simbolism of dinosaurs, like the Indians myth of the "Thunderbird" http://www.creationists.org/mananddinos.html http://www.creationists.org/ysP2d12yiu73/c...ngoprints02.jpg The 'man and dino' footprint has long been debunked as a hoax. Google it. Apart from that and the works of other fraudsters, there is nothing in the fossil record to put man and dionsaurs together. Also, I think humans are imaginative enough to invent animals from bones without having actually seen them. We speak here of a species which came up with the manticore, the chimera, the sphinx and the basilisk. Somehow, I think there's a lot more imagiantion than historical rememberance in the idea of a giant snake-lizard hatched from a rooster's egg incubated by a toad, which turns you to stone with its eyes and which repels spiders. Or, for that matter, in a fire-breathing creature with the three front heads of a goat, eagle and lion with a tail that is actually a snake.

I brought it up because I've heard Christians ask before how evolution could ever work, if both genders didn't exist at the start. It's just an example of the fact that life has all manner of means of reproduction, from mitosis to parthinogenesis.

Well, I can't find it. It was fairly obscure - something I just remembered from class - but until I can back it up (or unless Apothenain knows what I might be talking about?) I'll retract the comment.

It must be in the apocrypha, then. I know we studied it at Uni in Biblical Studies. Give me a mo to try and hunt it down: from memory, it was a prophet who consumed some kind of plant or herb and then, surrounded by numerous scribes, spoke continuously for some weeks with all of them writing down what he said verbatim.

Prophecy is a funny idea. Often, I wonder how much of it could come from reasonable intellectual speculations or beliefs. For instance: say I made a prophecy that 'the great empire will fall.' The concept of empire is an enduring one, and it is also finite. Every empire ever built will fall, sooner or later, and so all I'm really doing is stating the obvious. Let's extrapolate further: at the time I predict this, there is no global power that could be called an empire. But perhaps one forms after my death - or maybe I even saw the political genesis of that empire in my time. At any rate, it forms, grows powerful, and when it eventually (inveitably) fails - as history dictates it must - I am hailed as a prophet well after my death, for saying nothing which wasn't true as a hypothetical. I could specify the area in which that empire arose; chances are that, at some point, an empire would exist in that place - especially if one had already been there before, or if I am politically savvy enough to observe the foundations for one being built. The most interesting kind of prophecy is that about inidivudal people, because I don't see how the fact that the prophecy exists can't influence the emergence of the figure, unless nobody knew about it until long after the event - and even then, see above. But let's say I (the prophet) belong to a persecuted group. I want to give my people hope. I describe an individual unshackled by the problems I percieve as hindering my society - but who is nonetheless a part of it - as coming at some time in the future to save us from bondage. This is pretty much wishful thinking in a way, but it also increases the odds in favour of that happening, if only because of the potential for people in the future to know this prophecy exists and try to insert themselves into it, either because they believe it means them, or because it potentially could, or because they can, and because doing so would help people - not to mention the fact that it implies an automatic support base in the form of believers. But also think of it socially. Nothing is finite. A group once persecuted cannot remain persecuted indefinitely; it will either fade away into obscuirty (in which case, my prophecy is likely forgotten) or it will revolt and become more powerful. That is, again, a truism in some sense - because nothing endures for ever. Impose conditions on a man and he can still meet them, either coincidentally, through work or through claims (or a combination thereof). The point is, the 'verity' of prophecy rests in the interpretation of other people, i.e., their belief that it has actually happened, and not any such proof of the prophet actually being psychic or gifted. Da Vinci designed tanks in the 14th century; that just made him incredibly bright, not a soothsayer. So I'd say that prophecy is made up of desire for a given outcome in the mind of the prophet, knowledge of the way history and the world works, current politics and human creativity/flair for description - hence the ambiguity and poetic structure of a lot of prophecies. And also: I think it should be mentioned that there's more than one Biblical or non-canonical prophecy where it mentions that, coincidentally, prior to speaking, the prophet went out into the desert and ate a special kind of mushroom, and then didn't stop talking for forty days. Psychadelic, man.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/off-th...6290675526.html Parthinogenesis = the ability of the females of certain species to reproduce without the genetic material of a male

Well, given that mythology tends to contain a lot of dinosauric creatures - but that the fossil record in no way supports the idea that man and dinosaurs lived together - my theory is that people dug up the bones and skeletons of dead dinos and thought, perhaps fearfully, that these creatures must still exist somewhere.

A Ganymede, by any other name.

I in no way believe that gay people are more loving than "normal" people, I was just trying to explain a perception I have picked up. Perhaps I should have been a little more specific - I don't think that gay people are any more loving or close than straight, only that, perhaps due to the luck of the draw, I've observed a bunch of healthy gay couples. Heh. You're probably right about throwing out a bunch of purely speculative theories about the nature of love, lust, and relationships. I'll just have to keep that in mind next time. See ya around, Eve.

K.R.E.B.S, just to clarify, it's only percieved as 'hiding' when the religion in question doesn't seem to have any answers on the dissenting subject - then you're trusting in a lack of answers just because the bigger concept is familiar, rather than because, as on other areas, it would appear to make sense. It's seen as a crutch on the implication that the actual truth (or something more likely) is disbelieved, not because it's been researched and/or disproved by the believer, but because, if it was true, they couldn't stomach it, and would rather put faith in a comforting (but potentially false) idea than to accept a realistic (but likely) truth. Thanks, I know...what religions would you say this is true with? Blessings, Joe Potentially, all of them - in fact, scrap that. It can be true of any belief, even athiesm. What it ultimately boils down to is the situation of the individual, and their willingness (or lack thereof) to ask questions. I'm trying to think of a good, coherent way to put this. Alright. Imagine you've spent your entirel life believing that all music is evil. Everyone in your immediate family and circle of friends believes this. Because of this, you have never heard music. But one day, in a new town, you hear something beautiful - and you find out that it's music. Well, then you're left with three choices. 1: Persist in what you've always believed, exactly the same way you've always belived it. 2: Reassess your beliefs - try and learn how, within the framework of your knowledge, something can be both beautiful and evil. Or, 3: Question your belief as a whole, comparing it to other points of view. Even if you eventually reach the same conclusion - that music is evil - the point is, you're more learned in the area, and you have a more solid basis for belief. The 'crutch' option is the first. Confronted with a new idea that challenges their beliefs, the person studiously ignores it, at best putting faith in the idea that someone, somwhere has already solved this problem for them (although there's no need to actually check), and at worst, flatly denying their experience as false, a glitch, a weakness in them or the work of a malevolent entity trying to sway them from truth. The point being that for whatever reason, they don't want to think and they don't want to learn. The second position is a midway point. Depending on how extreme your criticism is, this can be a crutch, or not. Largely, I'd say it's dependant upon the incident. If the question you're posed is only a small one, it's perfectly reasonable to look within your existing view for answers. But if the experience is bigger, and potentially troubling to a key tenet of what you believe, then it would be reasonable to expect the person to look futher afield. The third view is the inquisitve one. This is where you go if you're really making an effort to understand. It doesn't matter what you conclude: the point is your desire to understand and, potentially, your flexibility - to consider (although not necessarily accept) new things. This can happen to anyone: athiest, Christian, Hindu, Muslim. Whatever. You see what I'm saying?

Bollox. Sorry, but I loathe these kind of arguments. As you'll know from my posts, I have absolutely nothing against homosexuality, but I think that any argument to determine which kind of couple, gay or straight, is more 'loving' is just going to be unfounded. The fact of the matter is that people love differently, in different ways, for different reasons and to different degrees. I know gay & straight men and women in loving, committed relationships, and I know gay & straight men and women who are single and enjoy shopping around. And as far as I'm concerned, that's OK: they're old enough and intelligent enough to be responsible for their actions. So cool. But one thing I cannot and will not stand is sweeping generalisations about sexuality. AAA, you're effectively giving the same kind of reasons for why gay couples are more loving as Floatingaxe is giving for the opposite. Which is largely unhelpful. I've come across gay articles before which are frankly hostile to the idea of being 'normal' (hetero), and I find them irritating and largely detrimental to the overall idea that being gay is fine, the same as I also dislike articles in the opposite vein, of sledging gayness for its 'abnormality.' As far as I'm concerned, there's no call to go wading into the land of unsubstantiated, universal claims and theories about who loves better and why; all it does is weaken the argument as a whole and sideline the main point, which is, as I'm sure you'd agree, the fact that gay love (in our opinion) is not just misguided lust, and is as legitimate a feeling as that experienced by heterosexuals.

Words to that effect had been mentioned, yes.

K.R.E.B.S, just to clarify, it's only percieved as 'hiding' when the religion in question doesn't seem to have any answers on the dissenting subject - then you're trusting in a lack of answers just because the bigger concept is familiar, rather than because, as on other areas, it would appear to make sense. It's seen as a crutch on the implication that the actual truth (or something more likely) is disbelieved, not because it's been researched and/or disproved by the believer, but because, if it was true, they couldn't stomach it, and would rather put faith in a comforting (but potentially false) idea than to accept a realistic (but likely) truth.

I agree entirely! Very well said - and I'd say that also describes my position accurately, too.