No there isn't. My brain is just a complex computer. That complexity started at whatever point the law says I was a person, and ends when my brain activity ceases.

I used to know a man who had a business card that said, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it."

It's easy to believe Jesus said, "Love thy neighor."
It's a bit more complicated to believe he said, "I am not come to bring peace but division."
It's more difficult to believe he said, "I am the way, the truth and the light, no man comes to the father but by me."

I believed this as a boy. Rejected it, in ways I regret to this day as a teenager for a decade or so, and for the past significant time period, believe it again. Now, I didn't just wake up one morning and reject evolution, and believe in talking asses, though I have met-on second thought, I won't go there, but I would say there was a process, a long process where the improbable is no longer seen as impossible. If God is God, why can't He make a donkey talk? and it's a particularly great story too.


Numbers 22
1And the children of Israel set forward, and pitched in the plains of Moab on this side Jordan by Jericho.
2And Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.
3And Moab was sore afraid of the people, because they were many: and Moab was distressed because of the children of Israel.
4And Moab said unto the elders of Midian, Now shall this company lick up all that are round about us, as the ox licketh up the grass of the field. And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.
5He sent messengers therefore unto Balaam the son of Beor to Pethor, which is by the river of the land of the children of his people, to call him, saying, Behold, there is a people come out from Egypt: behold, they cover the face of the earth, and they abide over against me:
6Come now therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people; for they are too mighty for me: peradventure I shall prevail, that we may smite them, and that I may drive them out of the land: for I wot that he whom thou blessest is blessed, and he whom thou cursest is cursed.
7And the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand; and they came unto Balaam, and spake unto him the words of Balak.
8And he said unto them, Lodge here this night, and I will bring you word again, as the LORD shall speak unto me: and the princes of Moab abode with Balaam.
9And God came unto Balaam, and said, What men are these with thee?
10And Balaam said unto God, Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, hath sent unto me, saying,
11Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them, and drive them out.
12And God said unto Balaam, Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people: for they are blessed.
13And Balaam rose up in the morning, and said unto the princes of Balak, Get you into your land: for the LORD refuseth to give me leave to go with you.
14And the princes of Moab rose up, and they went unto Balak, and said, Balaam refuseth to come with us.
15And Balak sent yet again princes, more, and more honourable than they.
16And they came to Balaam, and said to him, Thus saith Balak the son of Zippor, Let nothing, I pray thee, hinder thee from coming unto me:
17For I will promote thee unto very great honour, and I will do whatsoever thou sayest unto me: come therefore, I pray thee, curse me this people.
18And Balaam answered and said unto the servants of Balak, If Balak would give me his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.
19Now therefore, I pray you, tarry ye also here this night, that I may know what the LORD will say unto me more.
20And God came unto Balaam at night, and said unto him, If the men come to call thee, rise up, and go with them; but yet the word which I shall say unto thee, that shalt thou do.
21And Balaam rose up in the morning, and saddled his ass, and went with the princes of Moab.
22And God's anger was kindled because he went: and the angel of the LORD stood in the way for an adversary against him. Now he was riding upon his ass, and his two servants were with him.
23And the ass saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and the ass turned aside out of the way, and went into the field: and Balaam smote the ass, to turn her into the way.
24But the angel of the LORD stood in a path of the vineyards, a wall being on this side, and a wall on that side.
25And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she thrust herself unto the wall, and crushed Balaam's foot against the wall: and he smote her again.
26And the angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place, where was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.
27And when the ass saw the angel of the LORD, she fell down under Balaam: and Balaam's anger was kindled, and he smote the ass with a staff.
28And the LORD opened the mouth of the ass, and she said unto Balaam, What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?
29And Balaam said unto the ass, Because thou hast mocked me: I would there were a sword in mine hand, for now would I kill thee.
30And the ass said unto Balaam, Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast ridden ever since I was thine unto this day? was I ever wont to do so unto thee? and he said, Nay.
31Then the LORD opened the eyes of Balaam, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand: and he bowed down his head, and fell flat on his face.
32And the angel of the LORD said unto him, Wherefore hast thou smitten thine ass these three times? behold, I went out to withstand thee, because thy way is perverse before me:
33And the ass saw me, and turned from me these three times: unless she had turned from me, surely now also I had slain thee, and saved her alive.
34And Balaam said unto the angel of the LORD, I have sinned; for I knew not that thou stoodest in the way against me: now therefore, if it displease thee, I will get me back again.
35And the angel of the LORD said unto Balaam, Go with the men: but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that thou shalt speak. So Balaam went with the princes of Balak.
36And when Balak heard that Balaam was come, he went out to meet him unto a city of Moab, which is in the border of Arnon, which is in the utmost coast.
37And Balak said unto Balaam, Did I not earnestly send unto thee to call thee? wherefore camest thou not unto me? am I not able indeed to promote thee to honour?
38And Balaam said unto Balak, Lo, I am come unto thee: have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak.
39And Balaam went with Balak, and they came unto Kirjathhuzoth.
40And Balak offered oxen and sheep, and sent to Balaam, and to the princes that were with him.
41And it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, that thence he might see the utmost part of the people.

Notice, it does not say that the ass started talking all by itself, it says that The Lord opened the mouth of the ass.

Is it harder to believe that God could do that or that we are just the result of a random collection of chemical instructions so complex that it takes a supercomputer to decode them?

I can understand why you might doubt the event, but why do you doubt people who say they believe?

There is always hope.

Oh you're a riot!

Jesus saying seemingly incogruent things may be explained well by the process of layering that went on as the gospels came to be written.

It just seems like such a distraction and a waste of effort to have to argue about whether something really happened. If it's a great story--great--let's talk about that. I can't understand the emphasis on something actually happening. Maybe you can explain that to me. Maybe it's I who have the peculiar outlook, but the least important aspect of any religion I might consider is some claim that events actually happened. Big deal, even if they did would that mean I automatically had to believe in them? There isn't a positive value necessarily attached just by something happening. At the bottom of this insistence on historical realness is a disdain for myth. But myth can be more valuable than history, and we can see that by the continual renewal of the meaning of mythic stories.

Why's it gone quiet? Have we all fallen out?

Have we said enough about Genesis? Shall we move on to Exodus?

Somebody post something - I miss you all!!!!!!

No, sorry, it turns out there is a great deal of interest in discussing the first chapter of Genesis in more detail.

Now understand, that discuss doesn't mean agree, and specifically, I have been challenged, in another discussion to defend the idea of a Young Earth and why there was light when the Sun and Moon weren't created until day 4.

I promised a simple explanation, and I will give one, but as I thought about it, I don't want to short change anyone. You, and other participants are investing your time and energy here, and Chris and BT have both goodwill and a quality reputation to maintain, so what I am working on is a more robust presentation (don't groan it won't be any longer than 60K words, just kidding, but I want to present both sides of the discussion. I plan to have that posted in a few days. Meanwhile, I would ask that everyon read chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis, up through the part where God rested. And don't just read the words, please think about what you are reading, especially what it means to say God rested.

Oh Dear

I feel as though I'm with the naughty kids at the back of the class!!!

In the meantime I wondered if you might like Ricky Gervais's take on it



Don't be annoyed Stahrwe, I just couldn't resist.

You can go aheaad with this plan, of course, but I'll say in advance that it's a road I'm not interested in going down. It just doesn't have any attraction, plain & simple. It pains me to say this next part, because I know it's presumptuous and I don't like the opposite side from you, either--that sees the Bible as just a tissue of lies that has caused nothing but trouble--but reading the Bible so literally is mindless. Where, within the Bible, is the mandate for this? You and others say that God is God, he can do anything. Couldn't he then make a book that requires of us that we use our God-given ability to understand on different levels, to appreciate artistic approaches? If you must continue to believe that God wrote the book, why not give him more credit.

Literalism, then, is not the pure, God-centered approach that you all proclaim. It reflects, as all things about religion do, the needs of followers. Those needs in this case are for some view of the world and our place in it entirely lacking in ambiguity, one that will remove from our shoulders the burden of having to puzzle it out for ourselves.

Not at all. Didn't recognize the name but when I googled him, I recognize the face. I think he was just in a movie, The Invention of Lying.

Feel free to share, that's what we are here for.

I asked on another thread why you believe the earth is about 8,000 years old and why other creationists think it's 6,000 years old. I asked only because I was curious what kind of contorted rationalization must take place in the attempt to turn generic myth into literal truth and in so doing how two separate groups of creationists can so easily come up with different values for the age of the earth. The rationalizations themselves are not very interesting. I cringe to think how much time you're going to spend trying to explain "both sides of the discussion" as if a literal interpretation has any validity at all. I'm sorry, but a literal interpretation of the Bible is just plain whacky and is not to be taken seriously. I asked you to explain why you believe the earth is 8,000 years old because I was trying to get your perspective, not the creationist dogma from which you get it, because ultimately I hope that if you spend any time thinking about it you will see through the charade of your religion. Unfortunately I think that you mistook my question, and perhaps others as well, as genuine interest in creationist dogma, but I'm sorry, that's not the case.

Genesis Chapter 1 verse 1

KJV
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Hebrew with English letters
Urah <0776>taw <0853>Mymsh <08064>ta <0853>Myhla <0430>arb <01254>tysarb (1:1)<07225>

Hebrew parsed:
Earth the Heavens the God created beginning

01254
The English verb “create” captures well the meaning of the Hebrew term in this context. The verb בָּרָא (bara’) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. 27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing (see Ps 51:10; Isa 43:15, 65:17)

tn The translation assumes that the form translated “beginning” is in the absolute state rather than the construct (“in the beginning of,” or “when God created”). In other words, the clause in v. 1 is a main clause, v. 2 has three clauses that are descriptive and supply background information, and v. 3 begins the narrative sequence proper. The referent of the word “beginning” has to be defined from the context since there is no beginning or ending with God.

sn In the beginning. The verse refers to the beginning of the world as we know it; it affirms that it is entirely the product of the creation of God. But there are two ways that this verse can be interpreted: (1) It may be taken to refer to the original act of creation with the rest of the events on the days of creation completing it. This would mean that the disjunctive clauses of v. 2 break the sequence of the creative work of the first day. (2) It may be taken as a summary statement of what the chapter will record, that is, vv. 3-31 are about God’s creating the world as we know it. If the first view is adopted, then we have a reference here to original creation; if the second view is taken, then Genesis itself does not account for the original creation of matter. To follow this view does not deny that the Bible teaches that God created everything out of nothing (cf. John 1:3) – it simply says that Genesis is not making that affirmation. This second view presupposes the existence of pre-existent matter, when God said, “Let there be light.” The first view includes the description of the primordial state as part of the events of day one. The following narrative strongly favors the second view, for the “heavens/sky” did not exist prior to the second day of creation (see v. and “earth/dry land” did not exist, at least as we know it, prior to the third day of creation (see v. 10).

2 sn God. This frequently used Hebrew name for God (אֱלֹהִים,’elohim ) is a plural form. When it refers to the one true God, the singular verb is normally used, as here. The plural form indicates majesty; the name stresses God’s sovereignty and incomparability – he is the “God of gods.”

3 tn The English verb “create” captures well the meaning of the Hebrew term in this context. The verb בָּרָא (bara’) always describes the divine activity of fashioning something new, fresh, and perfect. The verb does not necessarily describe creation out of nothing (see, for example, v. 27, where it refers to the creation of man); it often stresses forming anew, reforming, renewing (see Ps 51:10; Isa 43:15, 65:17).

4 tn Or “the entire universe”; or “the sky and the dry land.” This phrase is often interpreted as a merism, referring to the entire ordered universe, including the heavens and the earth and everything in them. The “heavens and the earth” were completed in seven days (see Gen 2:1) and are characterized by fixed laws (see Jer 33:25). “Heavens” refers specifically to the sky, created on the second day (see v. , while “earth” refers specifically to the dry land, created on the third day (see v. 10). Both are distinct from the sea/seas (see v. 10 and Exod 20:11).

http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Gen ... =1&verse=1


The Latin phrase ex nihilo means "out of nothing". It often appears in conjunction with the concept of creation, as in creatio ex nihilo, meaning "creation out of nothing" — chiefly in philosophical or theological contexts, but also occurs in other fields.

In theology, the common phrase creatio ex nihilo ("creation out of nothing"), contrasts with creatio ex materia (creation out of some pre-existent, eternal matter) and with creatio ex deo (creation out of the being of God).

The phrase 'ex nihilo' also appears in the classical philosophical formulation ex nihilo nihil fit, which means "Out of nothing comes nothing".

Ex nihilo when used outside of religious or metaphysical contexts, also refers to something coming from nothing. For example, in a conversation, one might raise a topic "ex nihilo" if it bears no relation to the previous topic of discussion. The term has specific meanings in military and computer-science contexts.

In mathematics, ex nihilo can refer to an answer to a question provided with no working, thus appearing to have developed "out of nothing".History of the the idea of creatio ex nihilo
Ancient Near Eastern mythologies, and classical creation myths in Greek mythology and in the Hebrew Bible envisioned the creation of the world as resulting from the actions of a god or gods upon already-existing primeval matter, known as chaos, often personified in the form of a fight between a culture-hero deity and a chaos monster in the form of a dragon (the chaoskampf motif).

The Greek philosophers came to question this (on a priori grounds), discussing the idea that a primum movens must have created the world out of nothing.

An early conflation of these tenets of Greek philosophy with the narratives in the Hebrew Bible came from Philo of Alexandria (d. AD 50), writing in the context of Hellenistic Judaism. Philo equated the Hebrew creator-deity Yahweh with the primum movens in Plato in an attempt to prove that the Jews had held monotheistic views even before the Greeks.[citation needed] A verse of 2 Maccabees (a book written in Koine Greek in the same sphere of Hellenised Judaism of Alexandria, but predating Philo by about a century) expresses a similar idea:

"I beseech thee, my son, look upon the heaven and the earth, and all that is therein, and consider that God made them of things that were not; and so was mankind made likewise. " (2 Maccabees 7:28, KJV)

The Church Fathers from the 2nd century seized upon this idea[1] and developed it into the idea of creation ex nihilo by the Christian God. Church Fathers opposed notions appearing in pre-Christian creation myths and in Gnosticism - notions of creation by a demiurge out of a primordial state of matter (known in religious studies as chaos after the Greek term used by Hesiod in his Theogony).[2] Jewish thinkers took up the idea,[3] which became important to Judaism, to ongoing strands in the Christian tradition, and - later - to Islam.

Theological usage
Approaches favoring ex nihilo creation
Biblical citations
Some verses from the Christian Bible cited in support of ex nihilo creation by God include:
• "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."
John 1:3
• "... even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were."
Romans 4:17
• "And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are"
1 Corinthians 1:28
• "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."
Hebrews 11:3
• "My son, have pity on me; I carried you nine months in the womb and suckled you three years.... I implore you, my child, observe heaven and earth, consider all that is in them, and acknowledge that God made them out of what did not exist, and that mankind comes into being in the same way. Do not fear this executioner, but prove yourself worthy of your brothers, and make death welcome, so that in the day of mercy I may receive you back in your brothers' company."
2 Maccabees 7:27-29 Jerusalem Bible

Logical approaches
Not all ex nihilo thought specifies a divine creator.
A major argument for creatio ex nihilo, the First cause argument, states in summary:
1. everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. the universe began to exist
3. therefore, the universe must have a cause
Another argument for ex nihilo creation comes from Claude Nowell's Summum philosophy that states before anything existed, nothing existed, and if nothing existed, then it must have been possible for nothing to be. If it is possible for nothing to be (the argument goes), then it must be possible for everything to be.[4]
Other support for creatio ex nihilo belief comes from the idea that something cannot arise from nothing; that would involve a contradiction (compare ex nihilo nihil fit). Therefore something must always have existed. But (this account continues) it is scientifically impossible for matter to always have existed. Moreover, matter is contingent: it is not logically impossible for it not to exist, and nothing else depends on it.

Ancient Greek speculation
Some scholars have argued that Plethon viewed Plato as positing ex nihilo creation in his Timaeus. Eric Voegelin detects in Hesiod's chaos a creatio ex nihilo.[5]

Islamic views

Several Qur'anic verses explicitly state that God created man, the heavens and the earth, out of nothing. The following quotations come from Muhammad Asad's translation, The Message of the Quran:
• 2:117: "The Originator is He of the heavens and the earth: and when He wills a thing to be, He but says unto it, 'Be' - and it is."
• 19:67: "But does man not bear in mind that We have created him aforetime out of nothing?"
• 21:30: "ARE, THEN, they who are bent on denying the truth not aware that the heavens and the earth were [once] one single entity, which We then parted asunder? – and [that] We made out of water every living thing? Will they not, then, [begin to] believe?"
• 21:56: "He answered: 'Nay, but your [true] Sustainer is the Sustainer of the heavens and the earth - He who has brought them into being: and I am one of those who bear witness to this [truth]!'"
• 35:1: "ALL PRAISE is due to God, Originator of the heavens and the earth, who causes the angels to be (His) message-bearers, endowed with wings, two, or three, or four. He adds to His creation whatever He wills: for, verily, God has the power to will anything."
• 51:47: "It is We who have built the universe with (Our creative) power; and, verily, it is We who are steadily expanding it."

Arguments against ex nihilo creation
See also: Parmenides and Nothing comes from nothing
Opposition within the Christian theological tradition
Believers within the Judaeo-Christian tradition[who?] can cite[clarification needed] Genesis 1:1 as evidence for Divine creation out of nothing. The quotation, in (for example) the King James Version English-language translation, reads: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."[6] However, this translation fails to capture the inherent ambiguity in the Hebrew, which might translate with equal validity as "In the beginning God created...", and as "When God began to create...the earth was a formless void",[7] implying that God worked with pre-existing materials.

A widely accepted 20th-century translation of the Hebrew text by the Jewish Publication Society offers:
When God began to create heaven and earth, and the earth then was welter and waste and darkness over the deep and God's breath hovering over the water, God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness...

interpretable as the use of pre-existing materials, opposed to creatio ex nihilo.
Gen:1:8-9 also says:
Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together so that dry land will appear
again showing pre-existing materials (the deep exists, prior to God beginning to create heaven and earth, and also land exists (as opposed to earth.)[8][9][10]
Thomas Jay Oord (born 1965), a Christian philosopher and theologian, argues that Christians should abandon the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Oord points to the work of biblical scholars, such as Jon D. Levenson, who point out that the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo does not appear in Genesis. Oord speculates that God created our particular universe billions of years ago from primordial chaos. This chaos did not predate God, however, for God would have created the chaotic elements as well.[11][page needed] Oord suggests that God can create all things without creating from absolute nothingness.[12]

Oord offers nine objections to creatio ex nihilo:
1. Theoretical problem: One cannot conceive absolute nothingness.
2. Biblical problem: Scripture – in Genesis, 2 Peter, and elsewhere – suggests creation from something (water, deep, chaos, etc.), not creation from absolutely nothing.
3. Historical problem: The Gnostics Basilides and Valentinus first proposed creatio ex nihilo on the basis of assuming the inherently evil nature of creation, and in the belief that God does not act in history.[citation needed] Early Christian theologians adopted the idea to affirm the kind of absolute divine power that many Christians now reject.[citation needed]
4. Empirical problem: We have no evidence that our universe originally came into being from absolutely nothing.
5. Creation-at-an-instant problem: We have no evidence in the history of the universe after the big bang that entities can emerge instantaneously from absolute nothingness. As the earliest philosophers noted, out of nothing comes nothing (ex nihilo, nihil fit).
6. Solitary power problem: Creatio ex nihilo assumes that a powerful God once acted alone. But power, as a social concept, only becomes meaningful in relation to others.
7. Errant revelation problem: The God with the capacity to create something from absolutely nothing would apparently have the power to guarantee an unambiguous and inerrant message of salvation (for example: inerrant Bible). An unambiguously clear and inerrant divine revelation does not exist.
8. Evil problem: If God once had the power to create from absolutely nothing, God essentially retains that power. But a God of love with this capacity appears culpable for failing to prevent genuine evil.
9. Empire Problem: The kind of divine power implied in creatio ex nihilo supports a theology of empire, based upon unilateral force and control of others.
A few early Jewish and Christian theologians and philosophers, including Philo, Justin, Athenagoras, Hermogenes, Clement of Alexandria, and, later, Johannes Scotus Eriugena made statements that seem to indicate that they did not hold to the concept of the creation-out-of-nothing. Philo, for instance, postulated pre-existent matter[13] alongside God.

Process theologians argue that humans have always related a God to some “world” or another.[citation needed]

Some[who?] also claim that rejecting creatio ex nihilo provides the opportunity to affirm that God has everlastingly created and related with some realm of non-divine actualities or another (compare continuous creation). According to this alternative God-world theory, no non-divine thing exists without the creative activity of God, and nothing can terminate God's necessary existence.

Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, dismissed creation ex nihilo, and introduced revelation that specifically countered this concept.[14][15] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that matter is both eternal and infinite and that it can be neither created nor destroyed.[16] Latter-day Saint apologists have commented on Colossians 1:16 that the "Greek text does not teach ex nihilo, but creation out of pre-existing raw materials, since the verb ktidzo 'carried an architectural connotation...as in to build or establish a city....Thus, the verb presupposes the presence of already existing material.'"[17]

While the idea of God everlastingly relating with creatures may seem strange, even its opponents in Christian history – like Thomas Aquinas – admitted it as a logical possibility.[citation needed]

Cosmological arguments
Physicists Paul Steinhardt (Princeton University) and Neil Turok (Cambridge University) offer an alternative to ex nihilo creation. Their proposal stems from the ancient idea that space and time have always existed in some form. Using developments[which?] in string theory, Steinhardt and Turok suggest the Big Bang of our universe as a bridge to a pre-existing universe, and speculate that creation undergoes an eternal succession of universes, with possibly trillions of years of evolution in each. Gravity and the transition from Big Crunch to Big Bang characterize an everlasting succession of universes. However, this view does not take into account[citation needed] the problems of infinite regression.

Scientific issues
Creation ex nihilo appears to violate the principle of the law of conservation of mass-energy.
In the early part of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein (1879–1955) demonstrated that matter and energy represent two forms of the same "thing". He showed that - at least in the universe as it currently exists - matter can change into energy and that energy can change into matter, as expressed in his equation E=mc squared (1905). See conservation of mass and conservation of energy.

from wikipedia

Stahrwe wrote:



I don't know how this differs from the 'intelligent design' school of thought. I don't know how you can use the psalms to back up your theory as they are poems and so definitely are not meant to be taken literally.

The Bible says that the sun goes around the earth. Galileo was threatened with execution for pointing out that, through a telescope, one can see for oneself that the earth and other planets, orbit the sun.

Like DWill, I do not wish to ridicule a book which has a lot of beauty and comfort and wisdom from past ages, but to me, to try to say that God wrote it, and that it is the infallible and literal truth, makes it look ridiculous.

It is the equivalent of the flat-earth society, so far as I am concerned and I don't want to be involved with people who refuse to use their common sense.

The reason I feel this way is because I live in the North of England where we have a very large Asian, Muslim population, who are fundamentalist Muslims, with a few fanatics in their leadership. And whereas, I am not prepared to persecute or even dislike a person for their faith, the fact that they are expected to follow their religious dogma blindly will result in our streets flowing with rivers of blood before very long. It is a very distressing situation and now is not the time to begin upholding the equaly blind faith demanded by fundamentalist christianity.

At this point I am not doing anything other than giving information on the verses. I am trying to present a clear picture not only of the verse but also what some fairly moderate interpretations of it are both for and against a literal interpration. That is why I included the information about Ex Nihlo creation.

I must interject however, that the Bible does not say that the Sun revolves around the earth. The Roman Catholic Church promoted that belief based on the science of the day and were not pleased to be challenged. Of course today our scientists are much more objective and welcome challenges to the prevailing ideas and it is much easier to do that today with email, computer records, and the importance of data preservation, just ask Phil Jones*.

As for the Psalms being poems and therefore not instructive, they are phrased in poetic language but that doesn't render them untrustworthy. Psalm 22 for example is a description of the agony a person goes through during crucifixion. What makes it interesting is that it was written a thousand years of so before the practice was being used. I suppose that one could, if one took the time write a math, science or even history book in poems instead of prose.

*"The controversy surrounding the global warming e-mail scandal has deepened after a BBC correspondent admitted he was sent the leaked messages more than a month before they were made public.

Paul Hudson, weather presenter and climate change expert, claims the documents allegedly sent between some of the world's leading scientists are of a direct result of an article he wrote.

In his BBC blog three days ago, Hudson said: 'I was forwarded the chain of emails on the 12th October, which are comments from some of the world's leading climate scientists written as a direct result of my article "Whatever Happened To Global Warming".'

That essay, written last month, argued that for the last 11 years there had not been an increase in global temperatures.

It also presented the arguments of sceptics who believe natural cycles control temperature and the counter-arguments of those who think it's man's actions which are warming the planet.

The leaked files - which show 4,000 documents which have allegedly been sent by scientists over the past 13 years - were apparently taken from servers at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, which is a world-renowned centre focused on studying climate change.

They were then uploaded on to a Russian server before being published on a blog called Air Vent.

The e-mails apparently show researchers discussing how to 'spin' climate data and how that information should be presented to the media."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z0iduC1Uwn

Oh Stahrwe - really!!



The above texts are the reason I maintain that the Bible has its science wrong. I still think it is beautiful and contains wisdom, but as I have several times before maintained, 'wisdom' is not the same as 'knowledge'.

Which is better?