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09-07-2019, 05:51 PM
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#1 | |
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Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Alberta
Posts: 21
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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I found I disagreed with him on several issues, such as his explanation for eternal punishment, and what I feel is a great misunderstanding on what materialism means, among others. I plan to read more as its been a while and I admit my memory of the specifics elude me, but it failed to change my mind then, I don't think it would now. I like what Awareness said on the subject of atheism, that for a lot of us religion, spirituality, the supernatural, God, etc. doesn't cross my mind most of the time, and I feel no desire for anything supernatural in my life or a need for it. As far as I have seen, every event in my life and leading up to it has been better explained supernaturally than it could have been naturally. Not to mention finding out the why and the how directly rather than relying on faith is so much more gratifying and beautiful in my opinion. If you've ever seen Bill Nye in a debate, he gets so excited over the aspects of the universe that we don't understand, when you would think that this is something that would stumble him. But its not like that, its a chance for discovery, for learning and growth, and filling it with a convenient supernatural explanation without really looking into it feels so lazy and pale in comparison. Something doesn't require a purpose, or a creator to be beautiful. It simply is, and its marvelous. Sorry I'm a little long winded, I don't really have that many people in my personal life I can discuss this stuff with, it just feels good to speak honestly. |
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09-07-2019, 06:33 PM
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#2 |
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Guest
Posts: n/a
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
Hi Nuclear,
I am a scientist myself. I got my PhD in Chemical Engineering and am currently working as a scientist. I can at least understand your questions about the accuracy or veracity of biblical accounts. Recently, I found very interesting series of youtube videos that provided a strong discussion in support of biblical account of creation, contributed by prominent scientists. Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jrw...ruU7I8saDogw3o I hope this helps. |
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09-08-2019, 07:59 AM
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#3 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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I came out of a Christian cult. I know how Christians lie to support their convictions. Even some early church father advocated it. Anyway, watching your youtube link it's obvious that's it's Christian believers presenting the videos, not balanced by scientists. From what I've seen so far they are creationists, and Intelligent Designer's.
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Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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09-08-2019, 01:19 PM
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Οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον For God So Loved The World
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,827
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα καὶ τὸ κράτος εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων ἀμήν - 1 Peter 5:11 |
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09-08-2019, 02:09 PM
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#5 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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The link provided was obviously biased, and not the view of other scientists, as claimed. But okay, let's give Unregistered the benefit of the doubt ... and see if he or she comes out to provide credentials ... if we can trust that. There's plenty of "experts" on the web, presenting fake credentials. Maybe that doesn't happen on LCD and AltV's. Cuz we hold a higher standard than the open web. We've got Untohim vetting who posts. And thanks for the compliment, of Nuclear being my alter ego.
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Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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09-08-2019, 08:36 AM
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#6 | |
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Member
Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Alberta
Posts: 21
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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Its a dishonest form of acquiring knowledge. One goes into research with a conflict of interest, data will be cherry picked, and any conclusions reached are forced into a biblical worldview regardless of what the actual conclusion is. I prefer going into this sort of thing without any pre-set conclusions in mind, and if the data points toward creationism or a God, then so be it. It simply hasn't yet. |
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09-08-2019, 11:07 AM
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#7 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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Back then geologists revealed that the earth is much older than Biblical tradition held ; James Ussher clocking the Bible back to creation on Sunday October 23, 4004 BC. So inerrant Bible believers knee-jerked, and in order to prove the Bible true, cooked a gap between Gen 1:1 and 1:2, and claimed the geologists were discovering that earlier creation. I watched the youtube : Origins "Evolution's flaws," and that is exactly what they were doing. While the truth is, the Bible manuscripts reveal that the Bible is far from inerrant. It also comes out of the bronze and iron ages, when they were completely ignorant of all the Scientific Revolution has discovered. So these Origin Christians on youtube are being made ignorant by holding to the ancient Bible writings. And doing so more than imply that to be a Bible believing Christian requires that you be ignorant ... like the many non-educated early primitive Christians.
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Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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09-12-2019, 11:06 AM
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#8 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Natal Transvaal
Posts: 5,632
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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Instead, here's I hang my proverbial hat, for lack of a better term. God, and a benevolent and kind and powerful God, personally interested in me, seems like a better lot than "chance" or "fate" or whathaveyou. But again, not something that I can make conversation about with others, so whether "God" really exists, and cares, is not something I can push in public discourse. But here's where I stand: did Jesus exist? Clearly he believed in God. "He trusted in God, let Him (God the Father) save him (Jesus) now". (Matt 27:43; cf Psa 22:8). But did Jesus actually exist? Or is it all just a story, fabricated out of thin air, concocted from dreams? A historical will o'the wisp? To me, that's where the rubber meets the road. Or doesn't. I'll answer it this way: Did Julius Caesar exist? Did George Washington? How do you know? Witnesses. Records. Accounts. Was Caesar's "Gallic Wars" a fabrication of later centuries, or a true (ish) contemporary account, i.e. a 'witness'? Did Washington really cross the Delaware river that cold icy night? We 'know' things because of the interlocking witnesses. Multiple reinforcing testimonial cross-referents, as it were. They're established, more-or-less, as 'facts' when we get enough trustworthy (verifiable) voices saying that it was so. So with Jesus' life there are several gospels. The fact that they don't always agree strengthens the witness for me. Did Judas hang himself or burst his bowels open in the field? Can't be both. But the fact that there are disparate voices tells me that there are multiple, separate, independent witnesses. The gospels were written apart, yet still they show remarkable conformity given that. So we have multiple, convergent testimonies of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Then what of Paul? Did he exist? He writes that he knew the Twelve. And the "Acts" by Luke confirms this. Did Peter, James, John, exist? Seems to be a lot of witnessing here. Very, very hard for me to imagine that someone made all this up long after the fact. Then we have Polycarp, who says he saw John. Was he a liar, too? Or a forgery? Then we have Irenaeus, Clement... multiple witnesses, very early. Didache.. the very early documents pile up. Something had to have happened back there, for all this to have arisen. We 'know' that there was a Jerusalem with a temple and so forth. Suddenly there are all these Christians, saying Jesus rose from the dead! True or not? I don't know. But I believe. If Jesus didn't exist I would wish that he had. If he didn't raise from the dead I would wish His Spirit were with us. So I believe, and confess, and go on acting "as if" because that's what is most real to me. It's possible that all these 'witnesses' (Gk: martyrs) were as fogged by wishful thinking as I am... mass, independent yet convergent delusions of some sort, stretching over decades. (But there are a LOT of early witnesses...) Btw, the fact that the Jews' writings don't witness to Jesus doesn't mean anything - actually it's an argument from silence. The Jews didn't acknowledge anything they didn't agree with. If you were a 'minim' you were outcast and never mentioned. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, who everyone knows existed, (independently corroborated) didn't get mentioned by the Jewish writers because he was a 'minim' - a traitor to their nation. So the Jews not mentioning someone in their histories is quite reasonable. Probably something happened back there in the desert. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead on the third day, then I'm wasting my time. But so be it.
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"Freedom is free. It's slavery that's so horribly expensive" - Colonel Templeton, ret., of the 12th Scottish Highlanders, the 'Black Fusiliers' |
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09-12-2019, 02:16 PM
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#9 | |||
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Member
Join Date: Apr 2019
Location: Alberta
Posts: 21
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Re: Nuclear Testimony
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Whereas the old testament for the most part can be dissected and regarded as accurate or not using scientific study, archaeology, etc, its more of an account of Christian mythology then anything else. It sets a pretty solid foundation for the Christian worldview and understanding a lot of what exactly that entails. However from a historical perspective (at least to my very limited knowledge) suspect in its accuracy. I believe a man named Jesus existed, and that in many circles he became a much followed and revered prophet sort of figure. And I believe the general structure and account of his life: rising as a very influential speaker, his baptism, rebuking of the general Christian establishment of the time, and death. Beyond that, and especially the supernatural and divinely related is myth and legend to me. But that's why I kinda want to get into Biblical scholarship, if for no other reason than an intense curiosity for it. Who were the authors of the gospel, and what/who were their sources? Were the accounts of resurrection first hand, or the result of embellishment by oral retelling? Did he have any impacts in other areas of the world or was his arc an entirely isolated event at the time? And so, so much more. As far as I've heard Asimov's Guide to the Bible is a really good place to start for some amateur scholarship, lauded by Christians, atheists and agnostics alike, so I'll see if I can get a copy of that, and if you have any extra suggestions, I'd be super interested in those. Quote:
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09-13-2019, 10:18 AM
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#10 | |||
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear Testimony
I brought this from the open forum. Hope I got the formatting right.
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Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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09-19-2019, 09:03 AM
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#11 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Natal Transvaal
Posts: 5,632
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Some is missing, some is wrong.
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Missing: When they found the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, there was a verse in Psalm 145 that had long been missing that was found, and re-inserted in the "modern text", including, ahem, the RecV. The reason they knew it was missing was that the Psalm was an 'acrostic' with each verse starting with a new letter in sequence. But there it was in the DSS. This shows that the text has been remarkably well-curated if the 2,000 year-old DSS and the medieval copies agree so well, but one can't be too sure that some other bits aren't missing. We just don't know. So a bit of circumspection might be in order, in formulating and holding one's views. Wrong: I already covered the fate of Judas in another post. He's listed as dying in two different ways, which doesn't seem possible. Corrupted: I toted around the KJV for years as proof of my "orthodoxy". One day I read the verses from 1 John 5 aloud in my study group, and everyone looked at me blankly. Evidently this section was called the "Johannine comma" and most modern versions don't have it. Someone in the Middle ages tried to "prove" the trinity concept biblically and inserted it into the manuscript. Again, this is the exception not the rule. But corruption exists. Older texts have remarkable agreement. But there's evidence of deliberate corruption in at least some variants (e.g., KJV). Another case is with Jewish historian Josephus. His text mentions that Jesus was the Christ and was seen on the third day, risen from the dead. "Most scholars currently incline to see the passage as basically authentic, with a few later insertions by Christian scribes." Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, page 249. Paula Fredricksen. http://www.bede.org.uk/Josephus.htm The text was probably corrupted by later Christians who wanted independent textual witness that Jesus was Christ and resurrected on the 3rd day. Of course any textual narrative, when copied by hand over centuries, will endure some unintentional corruption. But the question is, how much deliberate corruption was done at the hands of Christian apologists? I see two cases, outlined above. There may be more, some even egregious. So circumspection is in order. That's all I'm trying to say here. A "Biblical worldview" doesn't mean that you have to believe that every single word is literally true. Some fundamentalists work that way, and I feel bad for their children who must put up with such nonsense to survive. Just to cite one case, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has produced a sea-change in Biblical studies, but other than supplying one verse to the RecV, it's had no discernible impact in the LC. If that's what's meant by the phrase above I agree. But there are Biblical worldviews that differ greatly from the LC variant. Some are quite obliging to scientific methods. I remember serving in a children's meeting, and the elder's wife scoffed, "Everybody knows dinosaurs didn't exist" and I was like, "Huh!?" But of course I didn't say anything because in the LC one didn't profitably argue with the elder's wife.
__________________
"Freedom is free. It's slavery that's so horribly expensive" - Colonel Templeton, ret., of the 12th Scottish Highlanders, the 'Black Fusiliers' |
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09-10-2019, 11:59 AM
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#12 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Location: Natal Transvaal
Posts: 5,632
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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How does pattern matching show intelligent design? It's intuitive, he says. No, it is not. It is 'intuitive' if you WANT to believe that God made it and ALREADY believe that God did it. But it's in no way objective evidence, much less proof, for intelligent design. So these two "prominent scientists" are having fun reassuring themselves and their already-believing audience. But the fact that they fall back on such a transparently weak trope is "evidence" to me that me that they've little to nothing in the bank. They've got their own custom TV studio and little or nothing to say. I just wasted 5 1/2 minutes. Fortunately for me I'm already a believer. But if I was on the fence I'd probably say, "Forget these people." Really. It's embarrassing. When I was a kid I took baths (today I take showers), and when I'd pull the rubber stopper, all the soapy water would start to move to the drain. Inevitably a 'funnel' would appear. Like a swirling cylinder of air in the midst of the water, right above the drain-spout. Fascinating. I'd wave my hand through it, and it would disappear into random air bubbles. Then it would spontaneously re-appear! Now, here was a structure, an actual physical structure - who designed it? The water molecules did, trying to follow gravity's pull, and escape down the drain. They spontaneously self-organized to move more water faster out of the tub and down the drain. No different from a hurricane or a tornado funnel -- it's called a "self-organizing dissipative structure", where an energy gradient forms a temporary physical structure. Seeing form, and structure, and saying somehow this "proves" or "shows" an intelligent designer is just poor argumentation. I might have followed this up until about 5th or 6th grade. I believe because I choose to believe. I want to believe. But I don't pretend my choice is somehow superior to someone else's. To me, people who feel uncomfortable that others have made choices different from theirs show a fundamental weakness in their own decision-making. People don't have to think exactly the way I do for them to be "okay" in my book. No, sorry - if you can't learn from others, how can you teach others? I as a Christian was told by Jesus to take the "last place" and that seems rather appropriate here. People remember what Christians have done to non-Christians over the past 2,000 years, and yes, that includes the last 40-odd years in the LC too. A little humility is in order. Earlier on another thread I wrote that I saw "God's smile" in a fern. Should I be threatened if Richard Dawkins does not?
__________________
"Freedom is free. It's slavery that's so horribly expensive" - Colonel Templeton, ret., of the 12th Scottish Highlanders, the 'Black Fusiliers' |
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09-11-2019, 06:47 AM
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#13 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C...h=517&dpr=1.13
__________________
Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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09-07-2019, 07:03 PM
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#14 | |
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Member
Join Date: Jul 2008
Posts: 8,064
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Re: Nuclear's Testimony
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__________________
Cults: My brain will always be there for you. Thinking. So you don't have to. There's a serpent in every paradise. |
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