SEB regular DaBroad dropped by with a couple of links to articles about a warning from the American Family Association about the upcoming release of The Golden Compass. It seems they’re the latest religious group to get their panties all in a twist over this movie without even having seen it yet. They’re so in a panic that they put out this drastic warning to parents:
Therefore, without yet seeing the film, at least one pro-family group—the American Family Association—is alerting Christians to the potential dangers of The Golden Compass. Because of Pullman’s clearly articulated anti-Christian motives, AFA is warning all viewers to run from the film.
Potential dangers? Viewers should run from the film? Makes it sound like Godzilla is attacking or something. The way their talking you’d think that this film had some sort of unholy power to deconvert people into atheists within the span of an hour and a half or something. It leaves you wondering just how fragile their faith really must be if they’re that worried that a single film will cause so much damage to innocent young Christians. Whatever happened to their unshakable faith in Christianity that they’re so upset over one little film that will, by all reports, have its anti-religious message watered down to the point of not really being there to begin with?
Of course it’s not so much the adults they’re worried about, it’s the kids. They know they’ve got to get ‘em while they’re young and you can’t afford to allow any competing ideas get in their heads or something akin to common sense or the questioning of authority might take hold. This is made clear in the second link provided by DaBroad to an article about the film at BreakingPoint.org:
One of the prominent themes of the book is “Dust,” a mysterious “charged particle” from the sky. In the closing chapters of the book, the protagonist, Lyra, finally learns that Dust is “the physical evidence for original sin”; and Dust is what powers her “alethiometer” (the golden-colored, compass-looking device for which the book is named). From the Greek, alethiometer means “truth-measurer.” It is a device she consults, through a kind of clairvoyant process, to learn secrets and discover truths; it never lies or misleads. Dust and the alethiometer—central symbols in this book—together send the clear message that truth is measured by the power of original sin. In the closing pages, Lyra decides that Dust is a good thing after all, and she determines to go on and defend this original sin against the Church. Thus we are ushered into the second book.
This is certainly not a message we want our children to take to heart. Still, we cannot lose sight of the fact that Pullman is working on our turf when he tells his tale. I’ll gladly stand up our story against his! The story of Christ has drama, it has strong characters, it has relevance, it has a truly stupendous surprise ending—in short, all the elements of great story. Best of all, it’s not fiction. It happened! So we need not respond defensively, or with anger, or by picketing the movie, or with any of the worldly methods Paul warned against in 2 Corinthians 10. This is the time—especially since the movie is coming out at Christmastime—for us to tell the true story of Jesus Christ, in love and with a positive tone.
I’ve read both the Bible and all three books in the His Dark Materials trilogy now and I have to say that the former pales in comparison to the latter in terms of enjoyability, but then some might say I’m biased.
These folks, however, are most upset that Scholastic is involved in helping to promote the book with materials offered to schools:
Yet there is a limit, and Christian parents ought to stand guard on behalf of the next generation. The Golden Compass—book or movie—does not belong in our schools.
Again it’s interesting to note how fragile they consider their religion to be that it needs such efforts on their part to keep it protected even from total fictions that challenge it. At least with Pullman’s works he’s not trying to pretend it’s reality.
I did leave….work. Now I am home. Not a lie, it’s just snowing like crazy here and there is nothing else to do right at the moment.
If only more fundies would drink the magic cool-aid. I’m sure god is demanding these sacrifices, and it would definitely make this world a less stressfull, war-ridden place.
Sure, we’d still argue, and possibly even go to war, over stupid things and for all the wrong reasons no doubt.
But at least we wouldn’t take our own lives so lightly and waste them on futilities like trying to prove that we are right and the other guy’s deity is a sham. We’d realise there’s only one life, and if we kill ourselves, it’s game over. For good. No retries and save games. Final.
It’s a scary thought, and I can understand how it scares many people that much that they’ve resorted to an elaborate make-belief afterworld, where you get that much desired second chance.
It takes courage to be an atheist.
Religious people don’t have that kind of courage. But once you’re past the fear of hell-fire and damnation, there’s a whole lot less to be afraid of.
But I don’t expect Rick to understand that. His brain just can’t grasp the concept.
You only have the word of the bloke who wrote it down. Do you really not demand any proof for anything? Did Moses take a stenographer up the mountain with him, or are you just accepting his word? I’ve never really understood that bit about boiling goats in their mothers milk.
Frankly, I see very little name-calling here (or any for that matter). But that’s because I’m not interpreting the labels “moron” or “idiot” as name calling, because they are after all simply observation.
So far you’ve shown:
Almost complete ignorance of science.
An unusual dislike, perhaps even hatred, of science and scientific research (probably stemming from that ignorance). Except in those cases when the scientist is one of your own kind, and trying to prove the creation fairytale.
The inability to understand many of the things being said here, particularly when those things are explanations of why your interpretation of science and scientific facts is wrong. Just because you want them to be wrong or unfounded doesn’t mean they are.
The philosophical capacity of a 10 year old who still believes in Santa Claus. I don’t expect you to believe me here, but that’s probably part of the problem. From Pascal’s wager to reveling in your persecution complex, not once do you rise above a primary school level of philosophical maturity. You’ve essentially never outgrown the need for a parent-figure who’ll share your responsibility to live your own life.
You call it name-calling, I’m just observing ignorance and childishness for what they are. I also bet you think people here are angry at you, or something emotional and irrelevant like that. But quite the contrary is true. In fact, this is merely a very interesting discussion, and an intriguing peek into the fundie mindset. Fascinating really. And it would be totally hilarious if it wasn’t so utterly sad to see a grown person think the way you do.
You don’t think there were witnesses to these writtings. Why do you think they have been preserved for so long. Someone back then would have just thrown them away if they were not true. Witnesses of those days seen these things happen first hand and seen the impotance of preserving the writtings. These wars in the middle east have been fought since those days for a reason. They have passed on from generation to generation the importance of those places and everyone wants to claim it. The Bible is all the proof I need, it would not have made it this far and have so many followers if it were not true. Even though the apostles of Christ were tortured, beheaded, crucified upside down and put in boiling oil they never changed there story. I am certain if it was all a lie at least one of them would have fessed up before allowing that done to them. But not a one of them turned from what they witnessed and knew was truth faltered one bit. I have thousands of years of proof and God puts things in my life everyday to prove Himself to me even though He doesn’t need to. Some of you call Him an evil god, but he proved that wrong on Calvary when He bled and died for me.
Blah blah blah-fuckity-blah. For the last time fundie, come up with something original and stop reading from the standard True Believer™ script.
Rick shows up to spew some more nonsense..
You just don’t get it. Nobody here is nervous or uncertain, Rick. You’re not guilty of being a Christian, you’re guilty of being an idiot who just happens to be a Christian. There are plenty of Christians out there who manage to not only hold onto their faith, but still make use of the brains their God supposedly gave them. They are capable of having an honest discussion about their beliefs without falling back on tossing out Bible versus as though it means anything to anyone other than themselves. You are not one of those Christians.
And here is where you demonstrate what an arrogant asshole you are as well as being a clueless idiot. You obviously haven’t read anything on this blog outside of this one entry or you’d already know that I used to be a devoted Baptist in my youth. I was a True Believer for many years and I sincerely believed I had a relationship with Jesus and was doing my best to live a Christian life. How dare you come in here and presume to tell me what you obviously don’t know about whether or not I have tried to “live the Bible” as you put it.
It is demonstrative of your ignorance and bigotry for you to make claims about me that are patently wrong as though you know all about what kind of believer I am or may have once been.
Being smart is no guarantee that you won’t buy into stupid ideas and popular delusions. Some of the smartest people in the world fall for the same scams as people that are clearly as ignorant as yourself. That’s part of why a scientific world view is the best approach to reality. It doesn’t mean you won’t be wrong, but it helps to ensure that you eventually get to the truth. Faith has no such self-correcting aspect to it. Faith tells you to just keep on believing the same stupid thing no matter how much it may contradict what the evidence tells you is true.
Of course I can be changed. I changed from being a True Believer into being an atheist and it’s entirely possible that I could switch back if given a compelling enough reason to do so. Only an idiot would claim otherwise. Here’s a tip for you: Nothing you’ve said thus far comes remotely close to being ‘compelling reasons’ to change my mind.
You’re right about one thing however. If I do change it won’t be because of any action on your part. Not if this is the best you can manage.
You haven’t had any prayers answered. You sat around hoping for something to happen and occasionally something happened that you could attribute to your imaginary sky fairy, but more often than not things didn’t turn out the way you were wishing for. If you’re anything like most True Believers you’ll attribute even the smallest bit of good fortune to your God smiling down upon you. Found a penny in the street? Just God telling you he loves you. Got over that cold last week? Just God healing you. Someone offer you a ride home when your car breaks down? Just God looking out for you. Doesn’t matter how major or how trivial you can attribute anything positive to your God.
Yet when something bad happens, well, that’s never God’s doing. If you’re a mild true believer then you’ll attribute it to bad luck. If you’re more hardcore or if it’s a “really bad thing” then you might attribute it to Satan or one of his demons trying to lure you away from God, but it’s never God’s fault. God either only does good things for you or he doesn’t bother to answer your prayer.
Again with the arrogance of presuming to know whether or not I have ever been a “doer of the word.” You don’t know me, Rick. You should try to find out before you pass judgment on me.
No it’s not good. If the argument didn’t win us over the first time then it’s not going to win us over the 700th time we’ve heard it. There’s nothing about your presentation that sets it apart from all the other idiots who’ve tried it.
I made statements of opinion based on the available evidence. So far you’re acting like an arrogant, ignorant, asshole who thinks he has us all figured out when he obviously doesn’t have a clue. It would be name calling if I didn’t have a good reason to say the above things, but there’s ample reason just in the comments you’ve left so far.
Now you’re demonstrating your ignorance once more. I can’t believe you’re suggesting that scientists just make shit up and there’s nothing backing it up. Does this mean you would be willing to argue that there’s no good reason that 2 + 2 should equal 4? After all, the rules of mathematics were just made up by some silly scientists. Surely your God, if he wanted to, could make 2 + 2 = 5 and show all those pesky scientists who’s the greater power, right? So go ahead and demonstrate for us how 2+2=5 and I’ll become a Christian on the spot.
All Noah’s flood explains is how credulous you are.
And here’s hoping you have a Happy Yuletide!
You know, the holiday the Christians tried to usurp by calling Christmas and shifting Jesus’ birthday to the opposite end of the year?
Do you have proof the apostles were actually tortured?
In fact, do you have proof they even existed?
Do you even have proof Jesus really existed?
Do you realise that the bible you’re reading today is less than 30% of everything that was written down back then, and specific gospels were selected only for being pretty much consistent? Some gospels were just too much out there, or too contradictory with the others, to be included. They would raise too many questions, so they were unceremoniously scratched from the final release.
As far as written proof goes, I think the Dead Sea Scrolls are still proving to be a very annoying source of contradictory information, even though most of it consists of holes and missing pages. So even what can be interpreted is not adding up. Never mind the parts that are forever lost to decay and other damage.
Historians know a lot more about the origin of early christianity than you’ll ever be able to find within the confines of the bible.
But once again, the things they’ve found out make you feel very uneasy, so it’s much more convenient to ignore them and keep on keeping on in blissful ignorance.
Your statements sound alot like double standard. You seem to assume alot about me also. I never meant to make it sound like I was refering to you alone. It was a statement. You are assuming that I am an idiot just because I believe something other than yourself. I am sorry if I offended you, that was not what i intended to do. I was merely trying to state that I feel like that is why some people do not get anything out of reading the Bible.
As far as having any proof whether the apostles were tortured or even existed. Yes I have proof. It’s in the Bible. Do you have any proof I am wrong? The proof I have that Jesus existed is the work He does in my life, the work I see him do in the world. I know you don’t understand what I am saying but that’s my proof. It’s why they call it faith.
I do not mean to offend anyone, I just have my right to talk about God just as it’s your right to have your opinions. There’s really no reason for anyone to be called an idiot or stupid, jsut a difference in beliefs. really don’t see where I have been hipocritical about anything. I’m just stating what I believe as you are about what you believe. All the talk about how crazy or stupid we are does not constitute discussion either. There must be something there or it would not be such a debate for so long.
By the way, who did come up with 2+2=4 anyway? And who decided that the work week had to be 5 days?!!!
Perhaps you should pop down your local Sikh temple. They’ve got lots of stuff very similar. If that constitutes proof- lots of old stories, then perhaps you should try another faith with lots of old stories. Think of the money you’d save on haircuts and shaving gear.
Let’s talk science. As you raised it, let’s talk flood. Now, we know what the current geology of the earth is. Now here’s the clever bit. Geologists can work out what the geology would look like if the flood happened. It doesn’t look like it does now.
The facsinating thing here is that Creationist haven’t tried to disprove the model. Rather they played that trump card “Godidit”. They said god made it look the way it does now. No scientist can do anything there. If the second you can not explain something you invoke divine will then yes, scientists will be unable to answer you.
1000 years ago people saw lightning and said ‘godidit’. We now know what causes lightning- no divine intervention needed, just particles in the upper atmosphere rubbing together. So 1000 years ago it was nothing to do with god, it was just an unexplained process.
Trade Unions, socialist collectives workers rights campaign groups.
Actually we assume you’re an idiot because you talk like an idiot.
Yes what you described is faith and no, it isn’t proof. Faith != proof.
And we have the right to call you a moronic fucktard. Especially because you actually are a moronic fucktard. It’s nothing more than the truth. It must be true or else you wouldn’t be debating it for so long. If you didn’t doubt that you weren’t a moronic fucktard why would you get so upset and mad over it?
Ya know, I’m subscribing to this one. Interesting it is, yes.
The Canyons the rivers all the fossil fuel buried under tons of earth. It makes sense to me anyway that like the Bible says..There was water on the earth and water above the 1st heaven. Which would have been between earth and the atmosphere. There was not always this much water on the earth. Anyway, I believe with the pressure and the healthy environment that the water above would have created was why the animals and plants got so huge. Then when the flood came the Bible tells how the water came up from the earth and down from the heavens to completely cover the earth. Now if water burst forth out of the earth and that much water started receeding once the rains stopped, it would explain why the earth looks like it does now. All the mud that silted in over the animals and plant life is was what caused enough pressure on them to create our oil supply. Before the flood men and animals probably could have traveled longer distances with only seas in the way instead of oceans of water cutting them off. This is why we find fossils and such preserved all over the earth. This would also be why you don’t find any trees any older than we do today.
I really don’t understand how scientists could make a model to look like the earth would after a flood if they don’t know what it looked like before one. Creationist’s don’t really need to try to disprove science because science is continually trying to disprove creation. Scientist’s are the one’s that are hell bent on trying to disprove something it seems to me.
Christians do not look at lightning and say God did it. We know God made the world and the universe to work in this way. Scientist’s are just way behind at figuring out how smart God really is to get everything to work together like it does. The way God makes the seasons all work, it’s really quite amazing. I think scientists are very smart for the most part. They just can’t understand that God could have been smart enough to put it together like that. They have a long way to go to try and figure out what He built.
Rick tries again…
Not at all. All of my opinions so far are based on the comments you’ve left. It’s entirely possible I have an inaccurate impression of you, but given the evidence you’ve provided that’s not at all unreasonable.
No, I’m concluding you’re an idiot because you keep demonstrating that you are by engaging in the same tactics even after you’ve been told they are pointless and by the fact that you keep making statements about people that you couldn’t possibly have any knowledge of.
Did I say you offended me? No. I’m annoyed by your arrogance and bigotry, but I’m not offended by it. It takes a lot to offend me.
That may be true for some people, but it is a mistake to assume is true for all people. Which is exactly what you’re doing. You assumed none of us have walked that path and you have no reason to make that assumption.
You still don’t get it. The Bible isn’t proof of anything other than some people wrote some stuff down and said “this really happened!” Using the Bible as proof with people who do not accept the Bible as true is pointless and stupid. Where’s the historical accounts from outside the Bible? A single source doesn’t suffice. It takes multiple sources to lend credibility. Most of the events described in the Bible do not show up in any other historical records despite the fact that many of the events would have been major news of the time period.
We understand what you’re saying just fine. I even accept that you are sincere in your belief. That doesn’t make what you’re saying true. It just means you have a penchant for attributing stuff to an imaginary friend.
Unless they’re acting like a stupid idiot. Which, in my opinion, is what you’re doing. And I say that not because you believe in God, but because you fail to grasp the very basics of having a rational discussion with people who disagree with you.
I never said you’ve been hypocritical. I said you were being an arrogant, ignorant, ass.
Indeed. I believe you’re an idiot based on what you’ve presented so far.
That’s faulty logic. I can debate all day about completely pointless and trivial things if the mood strikes me. If I sit around debating whether or not Invisible Pink Unicorns prefer to consume beer and brisket over wine and fish for days at a time, and I’ve had such debates just for the fuck of it, that doesn’t mean there MUST be Invisible Pink Unicorns out there. It’s possible to devote a lot of time and energy to things that don’t exist and your God is just one of many such things.
Allow me to offer an example: Surely you admit that people have believed in other Gods throughout history. We know, for example, that for quite a long time the Greeks had a number of Gods they believed in. You surely don’t believe any of those Gods actually existed. Yet the Greeks built massive temples and engaged in elaborate rituals and generally wasted a lot of time, money, and energy worshiping those Gods. By your logic they MUST have existed otherwise no one would have bothered to go through all that trouble.
The first examples of basic arithmetic as a mathematical system come from central Africa between 18,000 and 20,000 B.C.. The first examples of a formal understanding of most arithmetic principles comes to us from the Babylonians circa 1900-1800 B.C..
It’s probably a misnomer to say that any one person “invented” 2+2=4 seeing as the expression is pretty much a self-evident result of the development of counting. If you take two somethings and combine it with two other somethings and then count up the number of somethings you have you’ll end up with four somethings.
Moving on to your next reply…
I now suddenly realize which creationist you’ve been following. I like to tune in on Dr. Carl Baugh on occasion just for the sheer humor factor of his presentations. It’s some very funny stuff if you can get past the fact that there are people out there, like yourself, who buy into that nonsense.
I’d ask the obvious questions your theory poses, but I’m sure you’d just cut and paste the silly answers found on Answers in Genesis and other creationist websites as a reply.
Most scientists don’t give a rat’s ass about creation or trying to disprove it. That’s not how the scientific method works and you’ve just shown you have no understanding of the scientific method.
And here, just as I predicted, is a textbook example of how you just attribute natural phenomena to God. You look at the seasons and think God is amazing when there’s nothing to show that God had anything to do with it.
You have no real grasp of science, no real grasp of logic, no real rational discussion skills, and an astounding lack of understanding of probability.
They say ignorance is bliss. You must be near-orgasmic.
Guess I just can’t compete with those invisible pink unicorns. I thought maybe they liked that magical cool-aid.
You error when you all think you have made me mad, I don’t get mad at such bashing. It really is kinda fun!! I sorta get a kick out of listening to others squirm when God is talked about and they don’t know Him. Makes it hard for them to figure out what to say so they say stupid stuff like fucktard and invisible pink unicorns and the like. You know, that mature stuff that you all are starting to use.
Rick babbled the following…
Nope, they’re definitely a beer and brisket bunch. I should know, I have one in my garage and that’s all he ever asks for.
You’re delusional again. No one claimed we were making you mad and no one here is squirming. If anything we’re probably laughing at you or shaking our heads in wonder at how one person can contain so much stupid without exploding from the pressure.
Nothing we’ve said is any stupider than the crap you’ve been trying to tell us is true. The idea of an Invisible Pink Unicorn is no more absurd than the idea of an Magical Old Man in the sky who hands out wishes to those who believe in him and sends the rest to an eternal torment.
There’s nothing mature about your beliefs. They are childish fantasies borne out of ignorance for no other reason than they provide succor for those who can’t cope with reality.
Rick- you sound like you might be a nice guy, so I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, and try to explain our position without calling names. I’ll just rehash what has already been said here, but hopefully in a clear and concise way.
About the name calling: most people here, like anywhere else, are quite willing to be polite if they’re treated politely. But what you may see as a sincere effort on your part to bring the Truth to us, we tend to see as just another drive-by evangalizing.
If you look through the archives, you will see that you’re not the first Christian to show up here with the Good News. And when the Good News, time and again, consists of, basically, “the Bible is the Word of God because it’s true, and it’s true because it’s the Word of God”, and “whatever God does is good, because God is good”, then no rational reply is possible. And after a while, people get tired of wasting their time, and they get pissed after the umpteenth time they hear the same thing.
You may not see it this way, but we regard what you are doing as arrogant. Why? Because:
1) You show up here and start making implicit assumptions about what we know and don’t know, and what we have experienced or not experienced, without asking us first, or checking out the archives.
2) You make pronouncements about subjects such as evolution without having done even a modicum of homework about them. Only someone whose knowledge of evolution comes entirely from fundie evolution-deniers could ask: “if we evolved from apes, why are there still apes?” We, on the other hand, have done our homework: most of us here have read the Bible pretty thoroughly, many of us have been Christians, and some of us are Christians still. An equally clueless question about the Bible, as yours about evolution was, would be something like “if Santa Claus is Jesus’ father, why doesn’t Jesus come down chimneys too?” Until you do some research, all we can say to you is “no, evolution does not work that way”.
3) You impugn our motives for dismissing your arguments, by claiming that we’re “squirming”. In addition to what Les said about this, I’ll add another reason we bother to discuss God with believers: whether we want Him or not, He is shoved in our faces all the time (less here in Austria than in America) and plays a not inconsiderable role in the problems people have in getting along together. Sure, there are economic reasons for distrust and hatred, but religion all too often makes them toxic. Of course, there are religious people working for peace and harmony too. But many conflicts are incited, and exacerbated, by religion. I suspect we wouldn’t be immerded in Iraq right now if it weren’t for the support of the Bush Administration by the Religious Right.
So there you have it. Rational, non-circular arguments are welcome. Flinging Scripture at us, or simply asserting that the Bible is true, is not. You can decide if you want to engage us on those terms or not.
Rick said:
Did you even bother to read what I wrote at all? How about the fact that your precious bible is only a third (1/3) of everything that was written down in the centuries after the alledged birth and execution of your messiah. How about the fact that the other two thirds (2/3) are very inconsistent? If you’re using the bible as proof, how about showing us why it’s actually admissible as such? We don’t know who wrote it, we don’t even know when it was written down (at least no more accurately than “about 50 to 100 years after Jesus died”), and we have no idea of the intention/motives of the writers, so it’s very likely half the stuff is made up.
Just because you think it’s written by god, and just because the book itself says the same, doesn’t mean it is.
I think the bible would do well with the classic movie disclaimer:
Ii know you’re unable to grasp this concept, but try to imagine someone using Arthur Conan Doyle’s writings to prove that Sherlock Holmes really existed. The mind boggles at the idea. Yet this is exactly what you are doing. The fact that we don’t really know who the people are that wrote the bible doesn’t make it any more reliable. It actually makes it less reliable as a historical source.
Also, zilch, that doesn’t really look like an Austrian flag
exarch- I know, I know. Even though there are some right-wing politicians who would like it to be…
Article in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune – apparently, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ own reviewers gave the movie great praise:
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/12204851.html
I guess it’s causing a bit of controversy.
Sweet, the day is finally here! I speak of course of Pearl Harbor Day, but I will be seeing The Golden Compass today so it’s no longer just a day of national remembrance.
I merely showed up on this site because it had a link to the Golden Compass movie. I stated my opinion and started getting responses from other people. I did not even come to this site to discuss whether God was real or not. I know I have said all I need to. Like I said before, my intentions were never to sound arrogant or anything of the nature. It is like anything else, the more you say the more things start getting out of hand by both parties involved.
I answered questions or tried to anyway with my opinion. You all ask questions with your opinions in the way that you wanted. Plain and simple, 2 different views get 2 different responses.
Have a great day and best wishes!
Since that the first time the word “Golden” appears in any of your posts at this site, I doubt you came here to discuss that. Given that you’ve already shown that you’re a human sacrifice advocating, genocide approving liar with absolutely no set of functioning ethics, it doesn’t seem surprising that you’re shaving the truth now.
Discussing the existence of your imaginary sky-monster is exactly what you were doing. And did someone give you the impression that we were interested in your opinion?
Actually you did not give your opinion. You just kept reading from the standard True Believer™ script. And you did sound arrogant.
That’s awfully funny that at the top of this page it has the headlines that read:
AFA is scared shitless of “The Golden Compass”.
Maybe you should be the one to do a self check.
There are over 20,000 manuscripts that document the New Testament dating from 100A.D.
Job 26:7 He stetches out the North over empty space; He hangs the earth on nothing.
I wonder how long it took science to catch on to the fact that the earth was hanging on nothing.
Ecclesiastes 1:6 The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to the north; the wind whirls about continually and comes again on it’s circuit.
Isaiah 40:22 It is He who sits above the circle of the earth.
Do you remember from your recent history books where man still thought the world was flat or was trying to figure out if it ever had an end to it. God was telling man it was round all along.
Leviticus 17:11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.’
The blood carries water and nourishment to every cell, maintains the body’s temperature, and removes the waste material of the body’s cells. The blood also carries oxygen from the lungs throughout the body. In 1616, William Harvey discovered that blood circulation is the key factor in physical life—confirming what the Bible revealed 3,000 years earlier.
Job 28:25
To establish a weight for the wind,
And apportion the waters by measure.
The fact that air has weight was proven scientifically only about 300 years ago. The relative weights of air and water are needed for the efficient functioning of the world’s hydrologic cycle, which in turn sustains life on the earth.
These are just a very few of the proofs I have that my Bible is getting proven by science.
Self Check in progress: Self is Self, Check
And now, I shall read from the Book of Cerebellum, Chapter 6, starting with verse 3.
3 – And it was that the Land was invaded yet again by the Snarky, and the Unintelligent and those with No Brains for They can not countenance ones with so.
4 – And lo, they who shall be faceless behind the blue Gravatar emblem leads the fray and they are called Rick.
5 – Upon this scene did the Sweet Zombie Jesus behold and sayeth to his First Risen Lazarus “See, that which has No Brains? He is verily an abomination to mine eyes! Go forth and deliver mine displeasure unto him that he might leave mine flock be.”
6 – And swiftly did Lazarus go calling His minions to his side but, whither they arrived it was seen that Rick was not but annoyed by the Intelligence of the faithful.
7 – Forthwith did the Minions attempt to convert but it was for naught. For Rick had not a synapse, nor ganglia to imbibe.
8 – And Lazarus in His fury did reach for a brick which to smite the arrogant tard. And smite He did.
9 – But no good came of it, as the skull of Rick was to mighty even for Lazarus who called “Woe be unto us, can not mine ally Sweet Zombie Jesus find the chink in his stupidity?”
10 – And a voice replied “Forget it, he ain’t got the Brains Dad promised a door knob. Come on home, the spaghetti is ready.”
11 – And Rick, left to his own devices, eventually ranted his self out not realizing that his invisible sky daddy was being laughed at by all the other invisible sky daddies of the Universe.
And thus concludes the lesson of Rick and the arrogant rant. Refreshments are now being served in the community building including Pasta dishes for the visiting Pastafarians.
In His Decaying name we moan
Braiiiiinnnnssss
How does that have anything to do with the fact that you lied when you said you came here to discuss TGC?
Look at my 1st post on page one. I was responding to one of the posts ahead of mine. Posts that were discussing the books and the movie.
Bastich makes my point of not having anything REAL to say. Although he/she makes a good arguement by the intelligence level for evolution from a dumb ape. Maybe his/her family could have evolved just a couple centuries ago. Seems a good possibility due to the fact of his/her kindergarden iq level….no, most 5 year olds have more common sense than that. B
Batich you better get your book bag ready and check on your lunch account balance before the school bus leaves you. Your mom will be mad if she has to come and get you again.
You may have responded to a post that was discussing TGC but you still have never onced TGC. Plus you claimed you came here to discuss TGC.
This once again proves that you’re a lying liar who lies lyingly.
Guess we’ll see you in hell. We can discuss TGC there perhaps.
And once again you demonstrate that you have no idea what evolution means. Moron.
And once again you demonstrate that you have no idea what evolution means. Moron
And once again you have proven you only take what you want to hear from something.
In a few years his/her kid’s kid’s kid’s may be standing upright and using full understandable sentences. There’s hope there!!
No hope for you unfortunately. You have already traded in your brain for the illusion of heaven. Moron. And a self-made one at that.
I don’t think anyone spent enough time with you when you were younger. So much hostility in you. I’ll be sure and put you on our Church prayer list.
There you go again. Go sacrifice some children why dont you?
Rick: IIRC, Eratosthenes not only “proved” that the world was a sphereoid, but also reasonably calculated its circumference of the earth in Biblical times. If I remember Aristotle’s system of elements, air must have weight because fire rises into the air. IIRC, only aether/quintessence has no weight because it is incorruptible. And It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to observe that without bloodflow the flesh dies. A caveman could pick up on that cause-and-effect pretty quickly.
Granted, the Greeks did some pretty stunning things with a woeful lack of instrumentation. (Sadly, I can’t give an adequate shout-out to the Chinese and Indians of the same eras simply because I don’t know that much about them). But the point is that the classical world was far more scientifically advanced than you give them credit for. Or, more aptly, try to give to the Hebrews who penned the Bible.
Btw: If you’re going to make flat-earth arguments, how do you explain the Devil showing Christ all the kingdoms of the world from the top of a mountain? You can’t see South America from the top of Everest. Spheres don’t work like that. So for the Gospels to be correct, they would have to ignore work that was done—what? Three centuries previous?
Or how about Joshua making the sun stand still? The earth moves, not the sun (except in the sense that the whole solar system is moving it its arm of the traveling Milky Way). Why didn’t Joshua make the earth stand still?
I have been summoned
I’m going to be dealing with Rick. It’s difficult to get a firm grip on where to start, particularly with his style but I won’t quote back further than P4.
You don’t need to have that tone, it’s also counterproductive to your own cause because people be less willing to take in what you’re saying
It hangs on the gravitional pull to the sun. Also since science tries to look at observations you have to treat it seriously, at least if you want to understand or figure out how to bring it down. It cannot be denied unless you can come up with a more convincing, waterproof explanation
How did god’s words make their way into the bible in the first place? Why should we believe that the bible had any inspiration from god at all? In order for us to believe, you’ll have to answer this.
By and large I’ll accept that (though the lymphatic system has a role)
But that has nothing to do with anointment of the soul – I mean the soul isn’t even meant to be physical (if it can leave the physical world). Even then – how is something non-physical like a soul controlling a physical body? By what mechanism would it interact with the brain?
You do not need a scientific model of measuring weights, pressures, etc just to know that wind and water exist – could you imagine the early cavemen, they would have some concept of wind and water because they’re environmental factors they have to contend with
This is completely unnecessary – what does it achieve?
Same goes for everything you said after that
Let us assume that Rick is sincere. The problem appears to be he can not do that shift in viewpoint to understand our arguements.
Rick Try this.
A man approaches you. He tells you he is God come to earth.
Do you believe him?
You say how can you be sure he is God.
He replies God would not lie to you, so if he says he is god, and God doesn’t lie, he must be telling the truth. Ergo he must be God.
Does that explain our difficulty with your claims when you start quoting the bible as the source. How do we know the Bible is correct?- The bible tells us so.
What if the bible is incorrect- how could we tell?
To restate it more precisely, the fact that we’re all here standing around here arguing about it is proof that it all managed to come about by chance. It’s a curious lack of imagination that can accept an invisible man performing curious actions solely for everyone’s benefit, despite all evidence to the contrary; and can’t look at the geological and genetic proof, stare up into the sky with a telescope and look at light that’s measurably spent the better part of several thousand years to reach us, and can’t understand how vast and old the universe is. Rather than trusting observable evidence you’d rather invent some to deny it? That’s reasonable behavior in a defense lawyer, but not many places else.
Wow, I post something, go to work and look what happens. Rick, since you’ve seemed to miss the whole point in you arrogance (and yes, that’s exactly what it is) I’ll tell you what I was trying to get across. That whole post was a distillation of what you’ve been doing to us this entire time. Asinine? Yes, I’ll grant you that but it proves Julian’s point in a way I hoped you might listen to. Instead of preaching at us can you provide proof outside of the Bible? Otherwise all you’re doing is engaging in a very poor game of circular logic.
My Bible is right because it says it is and I believe it because it says it’s right.
And if those insults of yours are the best you can do I’m insulted! My 5 year old niece can do better.
Oh and Rick, it’s he. Just thought I’d clear that up.
cubiclegrrl- you channelling me or something? That’s pretty close to exactly what I would have said.
Rick- You claim you came here to discuss The Golden Compass. I went back to your first post and found the only allusion you made to it was tangential in the extreme:
Everything else was just more evangelizing, and has been since then as well.
My question for you: you obviously hadn’t seen the movie when you made that comment, as it hadn’t yet been released. So- have you read The Golden Compass? If you have, I’d like to hear your evidence that the devil is using it to bring people down (this should be fun!). If not, your claim of wanting to discuss it here is, at best, arrogant: wanting to discuss a book you haven’t read. If you are merely going on what other protectors of the Truth are saying about The Golden Compass, then, with all due respect, you deserve to be laughed to scorn.
Story-wise, if he’s creating the universe from scratch, what the hell else is he going to hang the Earth on? He hasn’t created anything yet.
That first verse doesn’t really say anything about the shape of the Earth, it just says teh wind blows around. The second verse says the Earth is circular, and you know what, if you look around, the horizon IS circular.
But more importantly, who was the one clinging to the arcane, outdated notion that the earth was flat and the center of the universe? Right, the church, and they argued that to say otherwise was blasphemy.
I suppose they read the same verses you did, and interpreted them to mean quite the opposite.
That verse is so vague it could be twisted to mean anything. But most importantly, it doesn’t talk about cells, or oxygen, or nutrients, it talks about the soul.
It was established “scientifically”. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t already known well before then, it just means that they were finally able to stick a number onto it. Like the speed of light. Or DNA. Or atoms. People had known about those prior to their “discovery”, they just didn’t have the tools to say anything more precise about them.
No, this is just one more proof that some fundies are spending a lot of time looking for verses that comply with the things that have become mainstream science. Mark my words, there will come a day when fundies are frantically looking for bible verses that might be interpreted in such a way that they appear to confirm evolution. Why? Because it’s the one consistently observable trait. When it becomes too silly to stick with the current story.
At least science never made a secret of the fact it does this. Quite the contrary, when evidence contradicts the story, the story is altered to fit the new facts, rather than perpetuating a known lie. But that’s not a bad thing, it’s a good thing.
fuck.
-me if you like, just email and I’ll see if I can arrange a meet
You really have no life, do you?