Do you Believe in God? Religion vs. Common Sense?

[mark]

Here's an interesting one for you... Who was Adam's 'first' wife?

[Neal]

Didn't humans evolve from Cro-Magnon 35,000 years ago?

In any event, Christians will tell me G0d married Adam and Eve, but I'm not sure there was such a thing as a marriage (or even pre-marital issue) prior.

[mark]

Wiki:

The idea that Adam had a wife prior to Eve may have developed from an interpretation of the Book of Genesis and its dual creation accounts; while Genesis 2:22 describes God's creation of Eve from Adam's rib, an earlier passage, 1:27, already indicates that a woman had been made: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The Alphabet text places Lilith's creation after God's words in Genesis 2:18 that "it is not good for man to be alone"; in this text God forms Lilith out of the clay from which he made Adam but she and Adam bicker. Lilith claims that since she and Adam were created in the same way they were equal and she refuses to submit to him:
After God created Adam, who was alone, He said, 'It is not good for man to be alone.' He then created a woman for Adam, from the earth, as He had created Adam himself, and called her Lilith. Adam and Lilith immediately began to fight. She said, 'I will not lie below,' and he said, 'I will not lie beneath you, but only on top. For you are fit only to be in the bottom position, while I am to be the superior one.' Lilith responded, 'We are equal to each other inasmuch as we were both created from the earth.' But they would not listen to one another. When Lilith saw this, she pronounced the Ineffable Name and flew away into the air.

Adam stood in prayer before his Creator: 'Sovereign of the universe!' he said, 'the woman you gave me has run away.' At once, the Holy One, blessed be He, sent these three angels Senoy, Sansenoy, and Semangelof, to bring her back.

Said the Holy One to Adam, 'If she agrees to come back, what is made is good. If not, she must permit one hundred of her children to die every day.' The angels left God and pursued Lilith, whom they overtook in the midst of the sea, in the mighty waters wherein the Egyptians were destined to drown. They told her God's word, but she did not wish to return. The angels said, 'We shall drown you in the sea.’

'Leave me!' she said. 'I was created only to cause sickness to infants. If the infant is male, I have dominion over him for eight days after his birth, and if female, for twenty days.’

When the angels heard Lilith's words, they insisted she go back. But she swore to them by the name of the living and eternal God: 'Whenever I see you or your names or your forms in an amulet, I will have no power over that infant.' She also agreed to have one hundred of her children die every day. Accordingly, every day one hundred demons perish, and for the same reason, we write the angels' names on the amulets of young children. When Lilith sees their names, she remembers her oath, and the child recovers.

[julianm]

Just a quick note. Carbon dating is extremely accurate and while it may be hard for people to understand about radioactive decay, it is real and an accurate measure. Measuring off world objects such as meteor's give us objects that can be older than the earths 4.5 billion years. Just because people don't understand it doesn't make it any less real One of my pet peeves is that science as a whole does a terrible job of promoting itself. Not the "exploding custard" crap that is on TV almost everywhere nowadays either.

Humans (homo sapiens) evolved somewhere between 100,000 to (max) 200,000 years ago from a common ancestor with today's modern apes. This is what throws a lot of people off. If there are still apes today, how did we evolve from there? Simple.. they are our cousins and SHARE a common ancestor with us. Ardi is the latest find in the path down the evolutionary scale of humans and it is dated at 4.4 million years. Obviously a distant precursor to man.

Debating religion used to be a favourite pastime of mine but frankly if people can't figure out we are bi-pedal apes who have one life to live and no afterlife.. oh well

I still stand by my statement of education being the best chance you have to combat this. Neal you should check out arguing from ignorance and magical ideation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfAzaDyae-k
Neil Tyson explaining arguing from ignorance re: UFO's

http://www.psychologytoda.....s/200802/magical-thinking
Article on Magical Thinking.

(edit) One more from Michael Shermer (Editor skeptic magazine). Funny too (Marijuana detector ).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T_jwq9ph8k

Have fun

[mark]

Let’s look back on history:
• 900 CE: Chivalry Introduced
• 497 CE: Founding of the Shaolin Temple
• 476 CE: Fall of Western Rome
• 29 CE: Crucifixion of Christ
• 300 BCE: Creation of the Indian Dravidian Martial Arts System
• 753 BCE: Founding of Rome
• 776 BCE: First recorded Olympic Games / Pankration
• 1,200 BCE: Trojan War
• 1,446 BCE: Moses receive the Ten Commandments
• 2,000 BCE: Pammachon / Pankration Created
• 2,500 BCE: Great Pyramid of Giza Built
• 3,000 BCE: Early Bronze Age and founding of the Egyptian Empire
• 5,000 BCE: Invention of the Wheel and Writing
• 10,000 BCE: Agriculture Invented
• 15,000 BCE: Migration to the New World
• 250,000 BCE: Homo Sapiens Evolve
• 800,000 BCE: Controlled use of Fire
Note: BCE means Before Common Era and is the same as BC and CE means Common Era or AD.
Homo Sapiens are tribal or clan like by nature and since they were hunter gatherers they in the early years were Nomadic going from place to place as food and resources were available.

[Neal]

[mark]

[Neal]

[Neal]

[mark]

My father was a partner in a computer company that he helped start when I was 12 in 1972. It did financial software for banks. So at 12 I was introduced to computers and learned how to program Fortan. By the time I went to college I had been programming for about 5 years and was pretty good at it. I knew Fortran, Cobol, Jovial and various assembly languages. In school, and I went to a good one, I met completely and totally inept professors that taught by the book and weren't open to any deviation even if I could prove that what I said was better. So I was politely asked to leave the CS department and figuring that my resume would get me any job I wanted went into an area that would teach me how to argue - philosophy was natural. It may be a useless degree when it comes to getting a job, but it does teach you how to think.

History is just a hobby, specifically the Roman era and Dark Ages.

m

[Neal]

[julianm]

You obviously don't know who Richard Dawkins is if you are saying no atheists are drawn to biological sciences By the way, the lowest percentage of belief in a personal God is within biology. My point with carbon dating is it IS precise and accurate but most people are too lazy to learn about it and would rather just say it isn't valid. (argument from ignorance). If they learned about it they wouldn't argue it's validity.

Again no offense but I don't even think you bothered to look at the links I posted. Some people have magical thinking so ingrained that they will never be convinced. Debating them is an exercise in futility. I doubt very much that 1 in 100 people know what matrixing is regarding human natures ability to see patterns and faces. This is what keeps the paranormal industry ticking on TV and everywhere

Side note: I was doing some research a little while ago on psychopathy and sociopaths (now called anti-social personality disorder) as I was wondering how the study of them might help us in understanding AI in the future as AI increases in ability. One of the things I learned is that these types of people are very much drawn to positions of power (Enron anyone?) and especially within religions. Some have argued that Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Ted Haggard and (well the list could go on couldn't it) were indeed psychopaths. The damage these people wreak in other peoples lives is beyond despicable. These people don't believe in God anymore than I do. The problem with the Palestinians and Israel is largely their fault. Encouraging the worst of both sides and making it so peace is almost impossible. They want them to go to war as it will be the end of the world and along comes the savior that these confidence men have tricked them in to believing. How many people have died in that conflict?

To quote Christopher Hitchens "lying to young people for a living. Telling them they are going to burn in hell if they don't do what they are told. Disgusting".

Most religions are hateful and polarizing and just plain not wanted (at least by me) in a world that is striving towards tolerance, individuality, liberty and expanding empathy (culturally). I will tip my hat in a nod to the past when it was the only social control available. I used to think that the calming influence during a calamity was one possible "good" thing about religion. But then I realized that they've stolen reality from so many people. Maybe it's just me but I think it's sick. Even their social work has strings attached.

My last kick at the education part. I'm talking about young children and up. The damage is done with most adults and truthfully it's too late. I think the best most kids get these days is that telephone game where you repeat a story by whispering around a group and see how messed up it gets at the end.

God help us (pun intended) if intelligent design gets forced into classrooms. Might be time to look somewhere else to live

[julianm]

You know what I never understood? Why Christianity hasn't dropped the whole 6000 years old bit. I mean, the revivalist of this nonsense came about in 1923 when George McCready Price released his book the new geology. I know there was a guy back in the 16th(? I believe) who originally supposedly figured it out but it didn't become popular in Christianity until fairly recently. Surely this is something Christians could easily put aside? It's not like it hasn't been done before with the world being round all of a sudden and the earth going around the sun (cough). Sure it took awhile but come on; the age of the earth isn't even mentioned in the bible.

[Neal]

[secoff]

How do you make tea without sugar? Completed? Nahh Not Taste feeling. Think of that.