Sanctification

[btownmeggy]

Mmm, I really liked that Post 2.

[luns101]

f*ck all of you dumb fucks (that's B.K., luns, and any other raving lunatic out there

Well now....the 'voice of reason' speaks. I hope you read this heavycola and remember what Jesse just said the next time you make an accusation against those of us on the other side being "unreasonable".

[Jesse, Bad Boy]

f*ck all of you dumb fucks (that's B.K., luns, and any other raving lunatic out there

Well now....the 'voice of reason' speaks. I hope you read this heavycola and remember what Jesse just said the next time you make an accusation against those of us on the other side being "unreasonable".

While I apologize for the rather rash statement and admit it was a tad overdone, it doesn't invalidate my further mentioned points. After dealing with this debate for most of my academic career, it gets a bit tiresome when people tell me that my job is made up of "myth's and lies" without any real (as in, logical or rational) backing.

Again, I apologize and blame it on my inability to reign in what has become a short temper, but this is shit that I deal with almost everyday with my super Christian in-laws.

Moreover, I would doubt that counts as "unreasonable". Immature, maybe, I'll admit that. Unreasonable? Not in my line of work. People like you who haven't studied evolution or the sciences around it are the exact same people who try and disprove it with your bullshite "logic" and pseudo-science.

Also, don't patronize me with that "voice of reason" shit. It's unbecoming of a former Marine and Christian, as well as someone trying to gain the upperhand in a debate they cannot win.

[Jesse, Bad Boy]

After waiting 45 minutes, it is interesting to see that you completely dodged everything else I had written.


Oddly enough, this is the standard issue with most Creationists once they get to the stage of actual facts.

[luns101]

After waiting 45 minutes, it is interesting to see that you completely dodged everything else I had written.


Oddly enough, this is the standard issue with most Creationists once they get to the stage of actual facts.

Jesse,

My job is such that I have a little bit of time in between helping kids with their homework to glance at the forums. I take the time to post here and there in between appointments. I usually have more time in the afternoons to take the time to read more in depth of what someone has posted. Since your post is really long, please give me some time, ok?

I'm also dealing with my upcoming marriage, so as we get closer to April, I will have less time to post my thoughts. Hope everyone understands that. [I can hear some of you saying, "Good riddance"...lol] If you are already married and have gone through the preparation process, then you know what I'm talking about.

[beezer]

People like you who haven't studied evolution or the sciences around it are the exact same people who try and disprove it with your bullshite "logic" and pseudo-science.

Also, don't patronize me with that "voice of reason" shit. It's unbecoming of a former Marine and Christian, as well as someone trying to gain the upperhand in a debate they cannot win.

So you get to be the one who sets the terms for how we argue our position, quite nice! How can you even begin to tell a Christian what is and is not becoming...you don't even believe the same things that we do or live your lives the same way that we do.

Also, what has someone's former profession got to do with anything. So now, we're not allowed to argue for what we believe or not believe based on jobs we used to have???!!! For someone who is a "man of science" you sure do express a lot of "unobjectic" emotion. Even if you were right, I would have a harder time buying into your points just based on your attitude.

[b.k. barunt]

So now that we all know that the "bad boy" can cut and paste (listens for cheering, hears none), i have a question. Jesse, are you, or were you ever capable of debating without throwing one of your hissy fits? Could you try once to debate with what's in your head instead of offering the usual cut and paste booklets that someone else wrote? Maybe mommy and daddy bought you a primo education (or so you've bragged on many a thread), but what have you done with it? Have you ever achieved any recognition in your field? I don't think so, because you seem pretty desperate to impress someone. Try, in your own words please, to explain to me why "scientists" outright rejected evidence that proved to be contrary to their theory (not fact) that dinosaurs have been extinct for 60 million years. *ducks head and waits for the plethora of cut and pastes*

[luns101]

Jesse, it would be impossible to use the quote method to respond to everything you've written so I won't even try. But I did take the time to read everything you posted.

What I see is that you do take the time to consider the arguments against evolution with dating methods, skeletal adaptations, etc. etc. But it doesn't seem that you give those arguments much credit and just move on with more information. I'm listing just a couple of problems I saw:

1. Radiometric Dating Methods - There are still serious problems that exist with C14 and Argon40-Argon39 dating methods. The KNM-ER 1470 fossil case is an example. Despite the 'recalibrations' that you insist have corrected old assumptions of constant decay rates, we are still getting varied dating of this fossil in comparison to the KBS Tuff (volcanic ash) where it was found. It was originally dated at 212 - 230 mya [million years ago] while the KNM-ER fossil itself was thought to be around 2.6 mya. In fact, Richard Leakey gave F.J. Fitch & J.A. Miller a 2nd sample of the KBS Tuff to test again until they arrived at a closer date. In other words, the dating methods you mentioned were ignored and altered to conform to the presupposed age of the KNM-ER 1470 fossil. A 3rd test of sediment done by (using the dating methods you've explained) near the original KNM-ER 1470 find also seemed to confirm a date of around 2.6 mya. So everything is cool, right? However, Brock & Issac [the 2 conducting the 3rd experiment] finally admitted that "the correlations are not fully independent, and rely partly on K.Ar and faunal evidence as well as upon the basic polarity data." A 4th test of the area involved assessing the Kubi Algi Formation [which was strata that lay underneath the KBS Tuff that I mentioned before...so it should be older, right?] The Kubi Algi Formation was tested to be only 1.8 mya. How could that strata underneath the KBS Tuff be younger than the KBS Tuff itself?

Jesse, I know you're probably going to say that 'overprinting' took place causing the inconsistent dates of the strata. Possibly...but I doubt it, and even if it did, that would compromise the "firm date" that Leakey gave us.

My point is this...the C14 & radiometric methods used to date the strata produced results that were incompatible with the date given to the fossil itself. The dating of the KBS Tuff was tested & retested until it lined up with what the paleantology community wished it to be in order to fall into line with the Geologic timetable that you presented.

In the end, C.W. Naeser of the US Geological Survey, Denver said, "The accuracy of any age can only be guessed at, in that we do not know the true age of any geologic sample. We can only strive for the best agreement with K-Ar and the other dating methods." If you won't listen to me, then listen to him.

2. Archaeopteryx - I'm surprised you used this one actually. The fossilized impressions of the feathers on the wings of Archaeopteryx have been found, and it shows it was warm-blooded, not cold-blooded and definitely not having scales like reptiles.

Also, why have there been no transitional forms found between Ornitholestes and Archaeopteryx? There should be many such finds of a transitional life form between these two to demonstrate the adaptations that took place. But what about the teeth? Many organisms have teeth, such as reptilians, fishes, and mammals. It doesn't prove evolution.

Since the guys on your side of the aisle claim that there was an 80 million year developmental period between Ornitholestes & Archaeopteryx, why are there not scores of objectively preserved fossils of this half-reptile/half-bird? An artist's rendering is not proof!

One last thing on Archaeopteryx...since reptiles have tiny air sacs and birds' lungs have tubes, how did that transition from air sacs to lung tubes take place while ensuring the survival of the half-reptile/half-bird? The survival of such a creature is totally inconceivable! If you won't believe me then please believe George Gaylord Simpson who said concerning Archaeopteryx, "The origin of birds is largely a matter of deduction. There is no fossil evidence of the stages through which the remarkable change from reptile to bird was achieved". - Tempo and Mode of Evolution, pg. 106. Once again, don't believe me, believe one of your own.

3. Hominid evolution - I don't know where you got the picture from of hominid evolution. Are these the actual fossils themselves? As far as my research goes, only a handful of people actually have access to the originals. For example, most of the fossil originals that Richard Leakey found are kept in a "hominid room" at the National Museum of Kenya in Nairobi. The Transvaal Museum in Pretoria, South Africa is another facility that houses 'original' fossils. 'Steinheim Man' is housed in a German museum. The 'Peking Man' originals were lost, so we don't have access to them anymore.

Most pictures (I'm assuming the one you posted as well) are plaster casts. That would mean that you and I are at least 'one step removed' from the original evidence of hominid evolution. The only time that I can recall when the 'originals' were on display was in 1984 for the famous Ancestors exhibit held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. I remember because our Earth Science class got to watch newscast video of it when I was a sophomore in high school. Even then, many nations refused to cooperate with sending in their 'originals' to be part of the display. [I honestly don't know if there has been another reunion of original fossils since then, Jesse...but I think you probably would know since you keep up to date on things within your field]

The original fossils all had plaster casts made of them earlier before the exhibit opened. What happened when they attempted to set the original fossils on the mounts that were based on the plaster casts?...they didn't fit at all and the mounts had to be readjusted! Reproductions are not something to base scientific observation on. This is the point once again, you and I are at the very least one step removed from observing the originals. Showing me a picture of hominid cranial skeletons lined up to fit a pre-conceived evolutionary model is like me showing you a picture of Michelangelo's famous painting of God in the Sistene Chapel and saying, "see, that's proof that God exists".

I'll talk about why I don't believe the evolutionary hominid model:

Neandertal Man - the date of his existence has been revised multiple times, the most recent places him around 200,000 ya with no explanation of his sudden disappearance around 34,000 ya. The Kebara 2 find in Israel produced evidence that Neandertal Man had a hyoid bone at the base of his tongue. This means he had speech capability around the 60,000 ya mark...The Middle Paleolithic Age. Most paleantologists have now classified Neandertal Man as completely human. Don't believe me...believe those on your side of the aisle once again: "Neandertal Man may have looked like he did, not because he was related to the great apes, but because he had rickets. The diet of Neandertal Man was definitely lacking in Vitamin D". - Neandertal Had Rickets, Science Digest, 1971, Volume 69, pg. 35

Java Man - First determined to be from the Middle Pleistocene era and later changed. It's finder, Eugene DuBois, never conclusively proved that the skullcap and femur belonged together as part of the same skeleton. Even evolutionists are now stipulating that they are separate.

Piltdown Man - Even you guys would admit that this was one of the biggest hoaxes ever. My own theory is that Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was the one who filed down the teeth.

I could go on and on with why "Lucy", Australopithecus, and others are fraudulent claims as transitional hominid examples, but we would be here forever. The fact is, there exists no complete transitional life form proving men evolved.

Jesse, if I insinuated that you were full of bs, it wasn't intended. You are obviously well dedicated to your field. I could write so much more about why I disagree with the evolutionary model, but it would take so much space. I can't possibly cram what I studied for over a year into one hour of a post. You have probably studied much longer than that since it is your field (I still don't know what your job is, but I'll take you at your word that it's within the scientific community). I'll let my comments stand for themselves.

I'm not a scientist...but I took the time to read your post and material from many evolutionists before you. I quoted just a few here in this thread. I am not willing to gamble my eternal destiny based on all the holes I find in evolution. The Bible had more answers for me than Charles Darwin. I switched faiths and it was a difficult decision. You are more than free to live by the faith of evolution, I will live by mine.

For all others reading this discussion, I hope you will just find it within yourself to at least consider that Christians do not come to their faith blindly.

[luns101]

Luns - the bible says the earth is flat. Does that make round earth theory a religion too? how dare they not teach flat earthness in geography! Go picket!

Are you trying to make a serious point? We had this discussion already. Look back on page 4, the very 1st post. I quoted an exact book, chapter, and verse of what the Bible said about the shape of the earth. Isaiah 40:22 specifically says that the earth is NOT flat. You even quoted me on it...how could you have forgotten?

Are you really taking the time to read what I'm writing?

[heavycola]

Luns - the bible says the earth is flat. Does that make round earth theory a religion too? how dare they not teach flat earthness in geography! Go picket!

Are you trying to make a serious point? We had this discussion already. Look back on page 4, the very 1st post. I quoted an exact book, chapter, and verse of what the Bible said about the shape of the earth. Isaiah 40:22 specifically says that the earth is NOT flat. You even quoted me on it...how could you have forgotten?

Are you really taking the time to read what I'm writing?

Yes, and I was being facetious (for a change). It's a bad habit of mine. We could both point to our respective verses and I could accuse the bible of contradicting itself, and round and round we would go...

Look: as a non-believer, I can see hypothetically that if the bible taught that gravity was caused by satan pulling us towards hell with invisible strings, then newton's theory of gravity would have been met - and would still be met - with the same christian opposition as has evolution. This is probably meaningless to you, because the bible doesn't say that, but to me it might as well.
Evolution is not some separate facet of science, it is just the only major scientific theory that contradicts fundamental biblical teaching (leaving aside miracles etc - this is about the origin of life, after all). Please don't accuse me of being religious because i subscribe to evolution - I believe it the way I believe in gravity.

ONE MORE THING: your response to Jesse's evolution 101 demonstrates how much thinking and research about this you have done, but it is still, like all 'serious' creationist arguments, just a series of attempts to point out the gaps in evolutionary theory - gaps in the fossil record, in our understanding etc. But so what? Even its adherents can't agree! A lack of evidence for a transitionary fossil hereor there is not evidecne FOR creationism. In fact I would love to hear any evidence actually in support of it.
OH and congrats on the forthcoming nuptials Luns - I'm getting hitched in August and it's already rushing towards us...

[MeDeFe]

"Good riddance"? Not at all, not when you take your time to respond civilly and mostly to the point. Unlike others who throw in a verse they like and tell us that we'll see soon enough.
And congratulations, my best wishes to you and your future wife.


And here's something to both sides (time for an attempt at peace-making), just as pointing out holes in scientific theories doesn't invlidate "the whole thing", pointing out contradictions and flaws within the bible doesn't invalidate it either.
It just means that you must either reconsider your position to accomodate the new points, admit that there ARE holes (easier to do for science since it's continually developing and new evidence is being introduced. The bible (or any religious writing) is a closed text to which nothing more is added so the only way left is to reinterpret what's already there or maybe to say that certain parts are not fully understood.) or dogmatically stick to your point of view.


I cannot even pretend to really understand people who claim that every word in the bible is true and divinely inspired and explain away anything that seems to contradict biblical teachings as false by default.
On the other hand, I also cannot understand people who claim that the bible is worthless and contains nothing of any value whatsoever. That science (of all things!) has shown that there is no place for god and that we do not need "fairy tales" to live our lives.

Science has shown no such thing, someone quoted a biology teacher in this thread who said something along the lines of "I can only show you how these things work, based on them I cannot tell you whether there's a god or not". I fully agree with that.
If you're a believer and science can tell you how this creation works, why not embrace it? And if you're not this knowledge of how the world functions doesn't make any potential creator more or less likely (or more or less at all for that matter).
I don't see an opposition between science and religion, it's only there if you make it so.


I'm of the firm opinion that if there's a creator (that actually created the world and not just a "prima causa" that set it off), this being is beyond our understanding. That's one of my main problems with most organized religions, they also claim that we puny humans cannot understand God, but they claim to know exactly what He would want of us. They base this on some scripture, originally because it was already old then (like the bible), because it claims to be divinely inspired and received in a vision (like the Quran), and then later people might start to look for even more reasons to validate it, like prophesies and what can be interpreted to be knowledge that was (or is supposed to be) centuries ahead of what people could know when it was written down.

I don't see the big deal if names and places mentioned in religious writings can be verified to have existed. If you're writing something you might as well write about things you know SOMEthing about (even if it's only that they exist). It's hard to make up a good description of an imaginary place, far simpler to take something people will at least have heard of and have an idea about. Or, for example, why do you think Hogwarts is described in great detail but London isn't?

If there are prophecies in the bible which the bible in other places claims came true, it's not much different from an author putting in prophecies in a novel and then later having them come true in this novel. Yes, I know, "the texts were written by different people several hundred years apart", it really isn't hard to add a line somewhere, or even just change a name to make it fit current events. I have few illusions regarding those points. Even if you claim that copies had to be proof-read and burned if faulty this just means that the interests of the proof-readers were the ultimate judge of whether a copy or the original was to be destroyed or whether both were to be kept. This is no more a conspiracy theory than the theory of burning faulty copies is.

It all comes down to what one thinks is more reasonable, I study languages and literature, and changing texts has been part of literature for as long as we have recorded texts. These changes origin from anything between typos to the aesthetic ideals of the type-setter or copier. Hence why I don't understand the "fundamentalists" who claim that their scripture is the only true one and has remained unchanged throughout the centuries.


As for "not needing fairy tales", our whole lives consist of nothing BUT fairy tales. "Justice", "Freedom", "Honour", "Purpose in Life", "Moral", "Self". They and many more are all things that humans have made up in order to be able to live in a way they consider desireable. Always influenced by their previous experiences and the things they had been taught by others. There you've also got my idea of "The Self" in a nutshell. "I" am made up of "my" experiences, and what other people who are made up in the same way (just by different experiences) have told "me". The "core" of my personality is the imaginary point where all these experiences intersect and interact. If there's also a soul there, I don't know.
I don't see this as nihilistic, just because these things were made up by humans and not imposed on us by a deity doesn't mean there isn't an absolute being somewhere, or that these things we made up don't correspond to what this being would want us to be like (if you believe in that sort of thing, personally I find it hard to believe that the whole universe was created for nothing more than to give us a place in it).

As for "the bible being worthless", even if it is nothing but a bunch of old texts written by people who, for whatever reason, felt the need to write what they did the bible is far from worthless. It has been one of the main bases of the society of the western hemisphere for the last 1700 years or so. That alone is enough to make it one of the most important book on earth. Parts of the Quran are derived from biblical texts, so there you go, you might as well add the whole islamic part of the world as at least "influenced by the bible". Even when people rejected the claims of the bible they were influenced by those claims and by the society surrounding them. To say that the bible is of no importance to us is at best to ignore reality or to sorely misrepresent it.

[luns101]

ONE MORE THING: your response to Jesse's evolution 101 demonstrates how much thinking and research about this you have done

That's really all I was looking for. In the end, neither model can be taught as 100% conclusive. We all have to rely on faith at some point for the things we believe.

OH and congrats on the forthcoming nuptials Luns - I'm getting hitched in August and it's already rushing towards us...

GET OUT WHILE YOU STILL CAN! RUN, RUN!!

No seriously, congrats to you as well. An old pastor friend of mine gave me this advice. Just memorize these 4 lines and your marriage should be in good shape.

1. "I'm sorry"
2. "I was wrong"
3. "Please forgive me"
4. "I love you"

Women run the world and we don't even know it!

[b.k. barunt]

As a 35 year veteran of marital bliss, i concur with luns on the perfect formula there. The problem is that we men can only repeat those words so many times before we reach critical mass and explode with the antithesis: "You never . . ., you always . . ., you're acting like your mother" . . .

[Jesse, Bad Boy]

So now that we all know that the "bad boy" can cut and paste (listens for cheering, hears none), i have a question. Jesse, are you, or were you ever capable of debating without throwing one of your hissy fits? Could you try once to debate with what's in your head instead of offering the usual cut and paste booklets that someone else wrote? Maybe mommy and daddy bought you a primo education (or so you've bragged on many a thread), but what have you done with it? Have you ever achieved any recognition in your field? I don't think so, because you seem pretty desperate to impress someone. Try, in your own words please, to explain to me why "scientists" outright rejected evidence that proved to be contrary to their theory (not fact) that dinosaurs have been extinct for 60 million years. *ducks head and waits for the plethora of cut and pastes*

*rolls eyes* I don't have time to cater to insipid minds like your own. I had sorta promised myself not to get myself worked up before this weekend (taking a nice, relaxing trip to Aussie land tomorrow), but you've gone and proven yourself a grade A asshole again, b.k.

I'll ignore most of your baseless taunts, ad hominems, and strawmen, and go instead for the debate about the "plesiosaur".

While I have never been schooled in Crypto-Zoology or Oceanography, I am taking the word of my friend Grant who insists that it is not a Plesiosaur, and who also pointed me to this article. Apparently, the chemical research shows that it is no more then a basking shark during its decomposing stages, not some "Loch Ness" monster or equally world shattering discovery.

On the (unpossible) possibility that it is a plesiosaur, I don't see what point this proves. It certainly doesn't disprove evolution, because evolution does not state that a species will or must become extinct. Moreover, it does not disprove that extinction occurred 65 million years ago, by any stretch of the imagination.

[b.k. barunt]

A basking shark?! Did you look at the pictures? If anyone here would like an idea of just how stupid this pampered, still living off mommy and daddy's money wannabe can truly be, google japan plesiosaur. And take a look at the pictures. They had the carcass for godsakes. They took samples of the tissue and bone structure. Someone else please look at the long necked creature in the photos and tell me how that could be a shark? And now we have the word of "my friend Grant" to contend with? Well hell, my friend Bob said that Jesse is full of shit, so i guess that's it for tonight folks.

[Jesse, Bad Boy]

A basking shark?! Did you look at the pictures?

I have. I've also read several articles on it. My stance remains the same.

If anyone here would like an idea of just how stupid this pampered, still living off mommy and daddy's money wannabe can truly be, google japan plesiosaur.

Why google it when they can just read the article I provided above? It provides the pictures and original sketches. You're really grasping for straws here b.k.

And take a look at the pictures.

Pictures can be deceiving. Relying simply on pictures is no means for establishing a scientific breakthrough.

They had the carcass for godsakes. They took samples of the tissue and bone structure. Someone else please look at the long necked creature in the photos and tell me how that could be a shark?

*rolls eyes* It's funny how you defeat your own argument. The tissue chemicals came up nearly exact to those of control Basking Shark chemicals, maybe off by a point or so in some cases.

If you don't believe me, read the article I provided, which has even more sources.

And now we have the word of "my friend Grant" to contend with?

He's a kiwi Marine Biologist that has worked with folks who have tested the remains of the "plesiosaur". I trust him as a reliable source, and he also gave me the link to the article which I suppose you missed.

Well hell, my friend Bob said that Jesse is full of shit, so i guess that's it for tonight folks.

Whatever b.k. Go run to your mommy and tell her that the mean historian used facts backed up with resources instead of wild speculation and hysteria in a debate. You're a fucking joke.

[b.k. barunt]

Like i said before, would someone ELSE look at the article. It's not that i believe you're incapable of reason Jesse, it's just that you're . . . well, um, . . . incapable.

[Jesse, Bad Boy]

Like i said before, would someone ELSE look at the article. It's not that i believe you're incapable of reason Jesse, it's just that you're . . . well, um, . . . incapable.

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Whatever. It's clear that you're just some joke troll. Damn shame that you weren't one of the suckers killed when Katrina hit.

[b.k. barunt]

Gee whiz jesse, i sure wish i could do neato things on my PC like you. Hey i just realized that i could answer a previous question from you. When i said that your sources are biased and you said "what sources would those be praytell?" Well there (^) you have it. I referred you to a source, and rather than look at it and reply, you came up with one of your own that somehow was able to completely refute the conclusions of the japanese scientists. Strange that you say they had tissue samples, because according to the news article, no other scientists wanted to even look at the thing. Go figure.

[Abishai]

[quote="unriggable"]

Besides you are forgetting that the Bible was edited an uncountable amount of times during the process of translation; the people who translated it from Roman to English, for example, could have changed something to more accurately reflect modern scientific thought.

......................End guote.................
The textural evidence does not support this if you look at the hundreds upon hundreds of texts they are all very very similar. you see minor variances like the and and's and a and things liek that left out or added in due to the fact that some are understood and they do not have words for them. You really find they were translated much more accurately than than normal books at the time. Like virgils aneid or homer's odyessy and there are hundreds more copies.

[Abishai]

"The Bible was edited countless times" is something people say because they've heard it somewhere. There is no proof, based on any scientific evidence, that the Bible was ever "edited". The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pretty much laid that argument to rest. It is now an unfounded cliche thrown around by the unstudied.

Then how do you explain the agnostics? You know, the tales that didn't 'make it' into the bible?

I'm assuming you meant the "gnostics"

D'oh! That's what I meant.

The gnostic gospels have been pinpointed to later in history. Somewhere around 175 AD. We just cannot find any evidence they existed during the times when the books we have in the New Testament were written.

[Abishai]

"The Bible was edited countless times" is something people say because they've heard it somewhere. There is no proof, based on any scientific evidence, that the Bible was ever "edited". The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls pretty much laid that argument to rest. It is now an unfounded cliche thrown around by the unstudied.

First you have to contend with translation. This would lead room for much interpretation. On a parallel, ever read "The Master and Margarita"? It was written by a Russian author (in Russian) as a satire. However, several translations exist. With these several translations, different tones are set, and different interpretations are presented. To argue that editting did not occur is pure lunacy, and downright naive.

Next, we have that little issue where older manuscripts of the Gospel "Mark" seem to be missing 12 verses (notably, Mark 16:9-20). Editing, or did the author all of a sudden forget how to write (the transition is awkward at best)?

Moreover, we have to contend with that we do not have a single autograph copy of any of the New Testament writings. The oldest versions you'll find come from the third century. With this in mind, any number of fudgings, edits and other literary changes are impossible to trace.

But again, this is all moot considering that a dearth of evidence for Jesus is available.

What I find interesting is that when it comes to the bible it has to have 50,000 witnesses who all testified in court and they all had to have they testimonies authorized and put in a safe box and passed down through the geerations and no one could go near the place they were stored to prove there was not tampering.......and so on.
Did you ever stop to consider how much you would have to disregaurd if you use the same standards on other things of that time?
For instance. We only have copies of

Caesar's Gallic War? It was written between 58 and 50 B.C.. Scholars possess nine or ten copies, the oldest of which was written 900 years after the original.

The Roman history of Livy, written between 59 B.C. and 17 A.D.? Today we have twenty manuscript copies of portions of this work. The oldest copy in our possession (and that only fragments) was written in the fourth century A.D.


Plato's writings. Seven copies of Plato's works, written between 427-347 B.C., are available to us. The earliest copy we have is from 900 A. D.


we possess approximately 100 copies of Sophocles' works, written between 496-406 B.C. But the earliest manuscript is from the eleventh century A. D.


But classical scholars do not question these works. The copies are considered as good as the originals.


So using the same test, how does the New Testament compare? Please read carefully. There are 8000 manuscripts of the Latin Vulgate, and 1000 manuscripts for the other earlier versions. There are between 4000 and 5000 Greek manuscripts and over 13,000 manuscript copies of portions of the New Testament. The earliest copies of the Greek manuscripts date to the second and third centuries. That means the interval of time between the original and the copies we possess was within 200 years. Furthermore, nearly all of the New Testament can be reconstructed from quotations of early Christian writers.

[Abishai]

Moreover, by historical grounds, I don't believe Jesus even existed. ......

I can tell either i did not express myself well or you misunderstood. I did not mean the Odyseey was fact only that people do not question if what we have today is actually what homer wrote. The only copies we have are at least 1,000 years later than homer was known to have lived. How many "changes" were made in that time, but people just accept that as being what homer wrote. How do we know. But when you have documents say 100 copies that says a then b then c and you have 1 that says a then c then b about certian events you can conclude that the later is wrong if they are all claiming to be eye witneses.
So as I said it does not matter if you have the original documents. The fact that the copies are all so close with hardly any variences from different places shatted throughtout the roman empire show that the people did a good job copying the original texts and you can reconstruct the originals for the copies. St 10 people in different rooms and tell them to copy a 10 page paper word for word. If someone errors you are going to be able to tell. You will also get a very good sense of what the original 10 page paper said f the people are truely trying to copy the paper correctly. if someone tries to add things then you will know. Take in the facts that these people thing they are delivering God's word to people. If they really believed that do you think they will do it half donkey??? you bet not, and they would not let those who would do it either.

[Abishai]

That's pretty injust. Bowing to someone you don't want to bow to and you don't have a choice in the matter.

Maybe it's pointing to look at page 40. Or maybe that's how many 1000's of years Christians have to wait to have Jesus back.

Not a matter of choice it is a matter of respect and awe we will all bow to the one who created us and who has the power to bring all things under his control. (philippians 3:21) Oh yes I did just paraphrase the Bible, not that I expect you to believe, but if you wanted to know where I pulled it from. We will all have no choice then but to admit the truth and the truth itself is grounded in reality which is also controled by Christ, cause it flows and is formed from who He is. the funny thing is you think that your act of choosing is more powerful than GOD.

[Abishai]

[quote="Jesse, Bad Boy]
What about the geologic column and carbon dating?

What about clear indications of evolution along the way?

Or did you skip that thread that already addressed these issues that I posted?[/quote]
So what about carbon dating? How does that work? Does it not measure the rate of decay of carbon? Are there variables? Say material was submerged under a flood that lasted oh saya year would it decay at the same rate as something I had sitting in the son for a year on my back porch?