Religious Debate Thread

[Razor One]

4. Always consider the possibility that you are wrong and the other side is right. Keep an open mind.

Uh-huh, and would YOU do the same? Let's test it. Hey Razor one, God might be real. Now, I demand that you respect my beliefs and consider the fact that God is real.

Please point out to me at which point I attacked you or your beliefs and/or stated that I was absolutely correct.

That being said...

1. Respect The Opinion of Others.

And as a small infobit about me...

I was raised Catholic. 12 years of religious education, sunday school as a child and later on RE classes in High School. Throughout which, I swung from wholehearted belief, to Agnosticism to brief periods of Atheism. Later years changed the mix to swings between Agnosticism and Atheism, with increasing Atheistic tendencies as time ran on.

Time has changed me as it does all things. In 5 - 10 years, my beliefs may completely invert, or gradually evolve to encompass something entirely different.

Currently I am an Atheist, but that does not mean that I consider those that do believe in god to be lesser then I am, nor do I consider them to be wrong. They simply have a different point of view that neither faults nor elevates them in my eyes.

Bear in mind I could be worse off in the belief department. I could be like my sister and buy into Scientology

[artemis-lady-warrior]

And as a small infobit about me...

I was raised Catholic. 12 years of religious education, sunday school as a child and later on RE classes in High School. Throughout which, I swung from wholehearted belief, to Agnosticism to brief periods of Atheism. Later years changed the mix to swings between Agnosticism and Atheism, with increasing Atheistic tendencies as time ran on.

Time has changed me as it does all things. In 5 - 10 years, my beliefs may completely invert, or gradually evolve to encompass something entirely different.

Currently I am an Atheist, but that does not mean that I consider those that do believe in god to be lesser then I am, nor do I consider them to be wrong. They simply have a different point of view that neither faults nor elevates them in my eyes.

Bear in mind I could be worse off in the belief department. I could be like my sister and buy into Scientology

Well I'm glad you're not one of those nasty Atheist who get all grouchy and angry about people who believe in God. I don't like people (Angry Atheists) like that very much because they get offended easily. Why should they care if others believe in God? They don't believe in him anyway. They shouldn't be offended about something they don't even believe in.

Scientology! O_o you do know that belief system was created by a science fiction writer, don't you? Just one word of warning. Beware Annonymus. That groupd hates that belief system.

[7Knight-Wolf]

Please point out to me at which point I attacked you or your beliefs and/or stated that I was absolutely correct.

And as a small infobit about me...

I was raised Catholic. 12 years of religious education, sunday school as a child and later on RE classes in High School. Throughout which, I swung from wholehearted belief, to Agnosticism to brief periods of Atheism. Later years changed the mix to swings between Agnosticism and Atheism, with increasing Atheistic tendencies as time ran on.

Time has changed me as it does all things. In 5 - 10 years, my beliefs may completely invert, or gradually evolve to encompass something entirely different.

Currently I am an Atheist, but that does not mean that I consider those that do believe in god to be lesser then I am, nor do I consider them to be wrong. They simply have a different point of view that neither faults nor elevates them in my eyes.

Bear in mind I could be worse off in the belief department. I could be like my sister and buy into Scientology

Aw, come on Razor, I wasn't really trying to start a fight. I was kind of joking with you... even so, you did state most emphatically that "the Bible was not written by God. It was written by man," which is in the context of an absolute statement, and which I don't beleive to be true.

But seriously, I don't mind if you say what you think, because I want to be able to do the same. I hate it when people mess with my words because they believe differently, so I'm not asking that you restate anything. I respect you...after all, I believe that there's a God who respects you too...

Anyway, so you're kind of a ping-pong athiest, huh? You know C.S. Lewis was an atheist for a good peroid of time. He was a ping-pong Christain too. And ping-pong beleivers will often come out being the most faith-based Christains ever, who cares about sunday school.

[Wonko The Sane]

I went into the Agnostic circle for a good period of time,but I came back to respect God again,now I have adopted the Gnostic religion,since I believe there is more Gods than one,even God admit it to His people that there is more than one.

[SkyxDB]

For me I used to believe in God as a kid, but I'm more Agnostic now. Mostly because some ascepts of religion kind of confuses me. Also part me does feel a little doutful that there is a higher power, but at the same time another part me does wonder if there is a higher power.

Also I think Artemis makes a good point too. Why do some people care that others believe in something they don't? I may be a little bit on the doubtful side, but I don't care if someone believe in God. Everyone's entitled to believe what they want too. Also in the US, to me sometimes feels like people forget that we had freedom of religion. Which to me that means that we have the right to practice whatever religion we want as long as we're not hurting anyone, and that we also have the right not to have a religion if we don't want to.

[Razor One]

Scroll to bottom for TLDR version, but you'll be missing a lot I warns ye!

Please point out to me at which point I attacked you or your beliefs and/or stated that I was absolutely correct.

And as a small infobit about me...

I was raised Catholic. 12 years of religious education, sunday school as a child and later on RE classes in High School. Throughout which, I swung from wholehearted belief, to Agnosticism to brief periods of Atheism. Later years changed the mix to swings between Agnosticism and Atheism, with increasing Atheistic tendencies as time ran on.

Time has changed me as it does all things. In 5 - 10 years, my beliefs may completely invert, or gradually evolve to encompass something entirely different.

Currently I am an Atheist, but that does not mean that I consider those that do believe in god to be lesser then I am, nor do I consider them to be wrong. They simply have a different point of view that neither faults nor elevates them in my eyes.

Bear in mind I could be worse off in the belief department. I could be like my sister and buy into Scientology

Aw, come on Razor, I wasn't really trying to start a fight. I was kind of joking with you... even so, you did state most emphatically that "the Bible was not written by God. It was written by man," which is in the context of an absolute statement, and which I don't beleive to be true.

But seriously, I don't mind if you say what you think, because I want to be able to do the same. I hate it when people mess with my words because they believe differently, so I'm not asking that you restate anything. I respect you...after all, I believe that there's a God who respects you too...

Anyway, so you're kind of a ping-pong athiest, huh? You know C.S. Lewis was an atheist for a good peroid of time. He was a ping-pong Christain too. And ping-pong beleivers will often come out being the most faith-based Christains ever, who cares about sunday school.

Then I'll consider myself a victim of misinterpretation on my part =)

The bible is written by man. Case in point, who wrote the Gospel according to Luke? God? I'm fairly certain Luke wrote it. The book of Job? Some say that Moses wrote it, whilst other dispute it.

Man wrote the bible. Men have copied down the ages, and make copies of those copies, and made copies of those copies of those copies. This was back in the day before the printing press. Copies had to be done meticulously and by hand, and at times, from one language to another.

The original languages of the bible were Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek. Given lingual drift and vowel shifts, someone from that era would never be able to hold a conversation or share written language with someone who reads and writes the modern variety. As a classic example, I hold the English Language as an example.

Beowulf, lines 1 - 11, ~900 AD

Hwæt! Wē Gār-Dena in geārdagum,
þēodcyninga, þrym gefrūnon,
hū ðā æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Oft Scyld Scēfing sceaþena þrēatum,
monegum mǣgþum, meodosetla oftēah,
egsode eorlas. Syððan ǣrest wearð
fēasceaft funden, hē þæs frōfre gebād,
wēox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þāh,
oðþæt him ǣghwylc þāra ymbsittendra
ofer hronrāde hȳran scolde,
gomban gyldan. þæt wæs gōd cyning!

Translates as...

Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
awing the earls. Since erst he lay
friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
till before him the folk, both far and near,
who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
gave him gifts: a good king he!

Phonologically, English has also changed. Recall the movie adaptation of Beowulf? I cant be certain as I'm recalling from hearsay but I think the language he and his mother speak when talking to one another in the film is meant to sound somewhat like Old English.

A cursory search digs this up on ye olde Youetuebe Because Unnecessary E's are cool to illustrate my point.

Anyway, to both get back on track and to wrap up this rather long meandering tangled monster of a post...

The bible is written by people. While it does cover god's deeds and teachings extensively, the teachings of men are also in there. Jesus was a man conceived by the holy spirit of the virgin mary. He was born a man, with original sin. He was baptised and eventually, he died a man before being resurrected. His disciples then went forth and wrote of him, his teachings and his deeds.

The Bible is a human construct. It carries the word of god, but god did not write it himself, unless he's busily at work with publishers around the world working on his next revision

This does not mean of course that the bible cannot carry divine inspiration. If we take Moses as an example, God dictated to Moses the ten commandments, which Moses the chiseled down. The Ten Commandments, thus, can be said to be a work of man.

And now to wrap up the wrap up...

People wrote the bible. God told them to and gave them direction. A few things may have been lost in translation over the centuries.

Wow, I could have just wrote that^^ instead I guess. Ah well, not gonna make the time I spent making this post go to waste

{Edit}

Yes, I've edited this, however, the above is unaltered, I am merely adding this in.

It's 4:30 in the morning and I'm sacrificing valuable sleep as I type this but I'd like to clarify that I'm aware that Jesus taught the word of God, it's just that sleep addlement made my brain omit that in the above.

[Sinead]

I went into the Agnostic circle for a good period of time,but I came back to respect God again,now I have adopted the Gnostic religion,since I believe there is more Gods than one,even God admit it to His people that there is more than one.

Can I ask you to find that in scripture for me? Because I know of two places where there is direct rebuttal to that statement, which is found in Deuteronomy 6:4- "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." And in Mark 12:29- "'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." So in two different fashions, God said that there are no other gods. It's part of the Ten Commandments, listed under being the first commandment.

Crap. I'll have to continue this later. Work.

[7Knight-Wolf]

Razor One, even I don't imagine God bending over a little writing desk with a pen and paper; he didn't PHYSICALLY write it, but he all the right words into the minds of men, and they scribbled it down. God protects his word, and except for one or two misplaced names and cities, the original points illustrated in the Bible are still the same today as they were when it was written.

Sky, if the Bible says there are other gods, it means things that men have come to think of gods. Hundreds of years ago that could mean golden statues of Baal, in current times it could mean chrome statues--cars. In fact, anything you obsess over is, to your mind, a god. Including atheism. But none of those material gods stand a chance against the living God.

Whoever said they doubted that there was a higher power, (can't remember who said it) can I suggest something? Go outside and look at a tree. Isn't it beautiful? Look closer. It has hundreds of individual leaves. Look how complex the bark is. Go deeper and imagine the millions of plant cells that make up the organism. You can even deeper and imagine the atoms, and then the elements that make up each tiny atom! If you picture all at that, and billions more trees worldwide, how can you doubt a higher power?

I suppose it might be remotely possible that over billions and billions of years, chance might have formed the tree. But if you go back to the very beginning, before there was any goo that could morph into the first atom, before there was any kind of "big bang." There had to be something there FIRST. No matter how far back you trace evolution, something always has to come first before any other organism could be formed. This is the mind-boggling conceot called inifinty! And there are those of us who are lucky enough to know what the force of infinity, the VERY FIRST THING, really was. It still exists today, it is the ultimate spirit of love, and it's called God.

[Sinead]

EDIT WAS TO GET RID OF THE SLAGGIN' SMILIES.

The bible is written by man. Case in point, who wrote the Gospel according to Luke? God? I'm fairly certain Luke wrote it. The book of Job? Some say that Moses wrote it, whilst other dispute it.

Man wrote the bible. Men have copied down the ages, and make copies of those copies, and made copies of those copies of those copies. This was back in the day before the printing press. Copies had to be done meticulously and by hand, and at times, from one language to another.

The original languages of the bible were Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek. Given lingual drift and vowel shifts, someone from that era would never be able to hold a conversation or share written language with someone who reads and writes the modern variety. As a classic example, I hold the English Language as an example.

...

The Bible is a human construct. It carries the word of god, but god did not write it himself, unless he's busily at work with publishers around the world working on his next revision :P

This does not mean of course that the bible cannot carry divine inspiration. If we take Moses as an example, God dictated to Moses the ten commandments, which Moses the chiseled down. The Ten Commandments, thus, can be said to be a work of man.

And now to wrap up the wrap up...

People wrote the bible. God told them to and gave them direction. A few things may have been lost in translation over the centuries.

Yes, man scribed the Word, but the ancient Greek and the ancient Hebrew have something that is kinda beyond comprehension, and at the same time, seriously amazing. They have numerical codes. I mentioned this before. Those codes ensure that the Word of God has remained unchanged since its penning, of which the final book was added just under 2000 years ago. I know that human logic dictates that things change, languages shift, but the original languages of the Bible are Greek and Hebrew, as everyone knows.

However, not everyone knows that in both languages their alphabet doubles as their numerical system. That means that the Bible is one massive math equation. What you'll find is amazing patterns and results. For example, in Mark 16:9-20, there is a fantastic code that proves that while it was written by a man, the words themselves are from God. Watch the statistics. Also, this isn't the only time that this "fingerprint" shows up in the Bible; there are over 600 other occurrences of this trait throughout both Old and New Testament.

Okay, so since I can't paste a link as per rules of the debate (which is inconvenient, but it's understandable), I'll write out a condensed form in two sections: words, and then numerics. This is going to be a long post.

175 (7 x 25) words
98 different words (7 x 14)

553 letters (7 x 79) (stat: odds are 1 in 343)
294 vowels (7 x 42)
259 consonants(7 x 37)

Of the 98 different words:
84 (7 x 12) are found before in Mark
14 (7 x 2) are found only here
42 (7 x 6) are found in the Lord's address (verses 15-18)
56 (7 x 8) are not part of His vocabulary here

So far, those are just ten Heptadic (sevenfold) features. That means that it would take 282,475,249 tries to get this passage through chance or paraphrase. To write it in 10 minutes, you'd be working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and it would take you over 23,540 years.

And the study of this isn't done.

total word forms in the passage are 133 (7 x 19)
112 of them (7 x 16) occur only once
21 (7 x 3) of them occur more than once; in fact, these occur 63 (7 x 9) times

Of the 175 (7 x 25) total words:
56 (7 x 8) words appear in the address of the Lord
119 (7 x 17) appear in the rest of the passage
verses 9-11 involve 35 words (7 x 5)
verses 12-18 have 105 words (7 x 15)
verse 12 is 14 words (7 x 2)
verses 13-15 have 35 words (7 x 5)
verses 16-18, 56 words (7 x 8)
The conclusion, verses 19-20, contains 35 (7 x 5) words.

I don't know what the odds of the added laws are, but it does get worse. Remember that I said that Hebrew and Greek letters were assigned numerical values? Get ready for this:

total numerical value of the passage is 103,656 (7 x 14,808)
value of verse 9 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685)
verse 10 is 5,418 (7 x 774)
verse 11 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685)
verses 12-20, 86,450 (7 x 12,350)

For verse 10:
first word equals 98 (7 x 14)
middle word is 4,529 (7 x 647)
last word is 791 (7 x 113)
total word forms' value is 89,663 (7 x 12,809)


And there's a lot more. There were 75 hepadic features in those final verses in Mark, and they're not all covered here. If you want to see the website that I got this from, which I literally pasted in the numbers here, please PM me.

So. If you want to prove it, or try to disprove it, please be my guest, and let me know how you did it! I'm not much of a mathematician, but this seems simple enough, even though I don't have much in the way of time to investigate it. But I think that this in itself is something that begins to prove the authenticity of God's Word. All of the above and more are just some of the fingerprints that God left on the Word in the original Greek and Hebrew. Phew. Done for now.

[Nurann]

"Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." And in Mark 12:29- "'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." So in two different fashions, God said that there are no other gods. It's part of the Ten Commandments, listed under being the first commandment.

If you don't mind me putting a bit of a spin on your statement, I'd like to add that in a sense you're both right.

I forget which one it was, but I remember in one of Silver Ravenwolf's books she points out that all gods are one god because they are just different ways of looking at the same being. She went on to explain it like a multi-faceted daimond; you can look at any face you want and see something different, but the fact is that it's still the same daimond. That applies to goddesses as well - God or "Spirit" is either and both depending on what facet you're looking at that day.

Now, um, I've been reading through so many pages I can't remember who exactly wrote the post, but if you don't mind me correcting your spelling it's actually "p-a-g-a-n." I've been seeing more and more phonetic spelling of neo-pagan terms lately, and it's starting to become a little grating in general. I don't mean to be berating you specifically, but like I said, after seeing it from a number of people all over the 'net it's gotten a little frustrating.

Please pardon my nit-picking, but you'd probably start to get a little annoyed too if I and half a dozen of my buddies all spelled a Christian term wrong a few times...

And on that note, I recognize the controversial subjects in my statements. Anyone with questions (or flames, for that matter) regarding the above or the below statements please PM them to me.

Now for the BW portion of my post:

A few years ago I was doing some research for a vision quest, and came across some interpretations of totem animals that I thought suited their respective beast-warriors:

Ant: Industrious; stamina; community
Wolf: Family; loyalty; strength / Eagle: Illumination; creation
Rat: Cunning; assertiveness; intelligence
Rhino: Ancient wisdom
Dragon: immense spiritual power (another point for Megs' "god" complex in Nemesis)
Spider: Creativity; fate

Bah, I had one for gorilla too... Something about family and leadership I think...

[Razor One]

Edit: I see what you mean about those accursed smilies =\

EDIT WAS TO GET RID OF THE SLAGGIN' SMILIES.

The bible is written by man. Case in point, who wrote the Gospel according to Luke? God? I'm fairly certain Luke wrote it. The book of Job? Some say that Moses wrote it, whilst other dispute it.

Man wrote the bible. Men have copied down the ages, and make copies of those copies, and made copies of those copies of those copies. This was back in the day before the printing press. Copies had to be done meticulously and by hand, and at times, from one language to another.

The original languages of the bible were Ancient Hebrew and Ancient Greek. Given lingual drift and vowel shifts, someone from that era would never be able to hold a conversation or share written language with someone who reads and writes the modern variety. As a classic example, I hold the English Language as an example.

...

The Bible is a human construct. It carries the word of god, but god did not write it himself, unless he's busily at work with publishers around the world working on his next revision :P

This does not mean of course that the bible cannot carry divine inspiration. If we take Moses as an example, God dictated to Moses the ten commandments, which Moses the chiseled down. The Ten Commandments, thus, can be said to be a work of man.

And now to wrap up the wrap up...

People wrote the bible. God told them to and gave them direction. A few things may have been lost in translation over the centuries.

Yes, man scribed the Word, but the ancient Greek and the ancient Hebrew have something that is kinda beyond comprehension, and at the same time, seriously amazing. They have numerical codes. I mentioned this before. Those codes ensure that the Word of God has remained unchanged since its penning, of which the final book was added just under 2000 years ago. I know that human logic dictates that things change, languages shift, but the original languages of the Bible are Greek and Hebrew, as everyone knows.

However, not everyone knows that in both languages their alphabet doubles as their numerical system. That means that the Bible is one massive math equation. What you'll find is amazing patterns and results. For example, in Mark 16:9-20, there is a fantastic code that proves that while it was written by a man, the words themselves are from God. Watch the statistics. Also, this isn't the only time that this "fingerprint" shows up in the Bible; there are over 600 other occurrences of this trait throughout both Old and New Testament.

Okay, so since I can't paste a link as per rules of the debate (which is inconvenient, but it's understandable), I'll write out a condensed form in two sections: words, and then numerics. This is going to be a long post.

175 (7 x 25) words
98 different words (7 x 14)

553 letters (7 x 79) (stat: odds are 1 in 343)
294 vowels (7 x 42)
259 consonants(7 x 37)

Of the 98 different words:
84 (7 x 12) are found before in Mark
14 (7 x 2) are found only here
42 (7 x 6) are found in the Lord's address (verses 15-18)
56 (7 x 8) are not part of His vocabulary here

So far, those are just ten Heptadic (sevenfold) features. That means that it would take 282,475,249 tries to get this passage through chance or paraphrase. To write it in 10 minutes, you'd be working 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year, and it would take you over 23,540 years.

And the study of this isn't done.

total word forms in the passage are 133 (7 x 19)
112 of them (7 x 16) occur only once
21 (7 x 3) of them occur more than once; in fact, these occur 63 (7 x 9) times

Of the 175 (7 x 25) total words:
56 (7 x 8) words appear in the address of the Lord
119 (7 x 17) appear in the rest of the passage
verses 9-11 involve 35 words (7 x 5)
verses 12-18 have 105 words (7 x 15)
verse 12 is 14 words (7 x 2)
verses 13-15 have 35 words (7 x 5)
verses 16-18, 56 words (7 x 8)
The conclusion, verses 19-20, contains 35 (7 x 5) words.

I don't know what the odds of the added laws are, but it does get worse. Remember that I said that Hebrew and Greek letters were assigned numerical values? Get ready for this:

total numerical value of the passage is 103,656 (7 x 14,808)
value of verse 9 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685)
verse 10 is 5,418 (7 x 774)
verse 11 is 11,795 (7 x 1,685)
verses 12-20, 86,450 (7 x 12,350)

For verse 10:
first word equals 98 (7 x 14)
middle word is 4,529 (7 x 647)
last word is 791 (7 x 113)
total word forms' value is 89,663 (7 x 12,809)


And there's a lot more. There were 75 hepadic features in those final verses in Mark, and they're not all covered here. If you want to see the website that I got this from, which I literally pasted in the numbers here, please PM me.

So. If you want to prove it, or try to disprove it, please be my guest, and let me know how you did it! I'm not much of a mathematician, but this seems simple enough, even though I don't have much in the way of time to investigate it. But I think that this in itself is something that begins to prove the authenticity of God's Word. All of the above and more are just some of the fingerprints that God left on the Word in the original Greek and Hebrew. Phew. Done for now.

**Cracks open dusty old bible used for RE**

The bible I'm using is "The Good News Bible" with Deuterocanonicals and Apocrypha, Today's English Version - Second Edition 1992, Australian Usage text - revised edition 1994.

I looked up Mark 16:9-20. Interestingly, there is a footnote at the bottom of the page which says, and I quote:

Some Manuscripts and ancient translations do not have this ending to the Gospel (verses 9 - 20).

While there is certainly some great math there, that particular verse can be seen as suspect as it does not appear in the ancient texts and was added later on.

Razor One, even I don't imagine God bending over a little writing desk with a pen and paper; he didn't PHYSICALLY write it, but he all the right words into the minds of men, and they scribbled it down. God protects his word, and except for one or two misplaced names and cities, the original points illustrated in the Bible are still the same today as they were when it was written.

While I agree with you for the most part, it's a little more then a misplaced name here or there that is lost in translation.

For example, Kings 14:12-15. In the bible to the left of this keyboard, there is a footnote at the end of the page stating that:

Hebrew has five additional words, the meaning of which is unclear.

What significance could those mere five words have? I found that passage completely by chance by cracking open random pages, however I'll grant that it's in the old testament, so I'll grab another example from the New Testament.

Matthew 6:27

Can any of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?

This passage was in regards to worrying about where food/clothing comes from and the future. The passage also has a footnote at the bottom of the page which states an alternative translation.

live a bit longer; or grow a bit taller.

Living longer and growing taller are quite different things. Though they dont necessarily change the outcome of this particular passage (again, chosen at random) it demonstrates that alternative translations of the same passage can change its meaning and that our translation of the bible may not be as good as we think it is.

Sky, if the Bible says there are other gods, it means things that men have come to think of gods. Hundreds of years ago that could mean golden statues of Baal, in current times it could mean chrome statues--cars. In fact, anything you obsess over is, to your mind, a god. Including atheism. But none of those material gods stand a chance against the living God.

I'll add the most powerful god in the minds of men today to that list: Money. I need not say more in that vein.

Whoever said they doubted that there was a higher power, (can't remember who said it) can I suggest something? Go outside and look at a tree. Isn't it beautiful? Look closer. It has hundreds of individual leaves. Look how complex the bark is. Go deeper and imagine the millions of plant cells that make up the organism. You can even deeper and imagine the atoms, and then the elements that make up each tiny atom! If you picture all at that, and billions more trees worldwide, how can you doubt a higher power?

I suppose it might be remotely possible that over billions and billions of years, chance might have formed the tree. But if you go back to the very beginning, before there was any goo that could morph into the first atom, before there was any kind of "big bang." There had to be something there FIRST. No matter how far back you trace evolution, something always has to come first before any other organism could be formed. This is the mind-boggling conceot called inifinty! And there are those of us who are lucky enough to know what the force of infinity, the VERY FIRST THING, really was. It still exists today, it is the ultimate spirit of love, and it's called God.

Trees did not get here by chance at all. They got here through evolution. Evolution is not a chance based system. Evolution and natural selection destroy any life form that does not work. Life that survives continues. Life that can out-compete other life forms flourish, whilst those that cannot compete are killed off. One step leads to another, gradual changes build up over time. Lift selective pressure and genes can spontaneously rearrange themselves into new recombinant forms. Apply selective pressure and the genetic code can do some very surprising things to ensure its own survival and propagation.

Your argument appears to be somewhat similar to the old "The Eye could not be a product of evolution! It was designed!" argument, which has been thoroughly debunked.

Atoms are themselves composed of subatomic particles. Dig deep enough and you go down to the levels of strings and string theory which I wont even pretend to comprehend. The universe is vast, both on the scale of size and on the scale of complexity. Such however is not proof of a "Higher Power". If it is, please explain as to why that is.

As to the broader issue of the origin of the universe, Science says that there was a Big Bang, the fundamental forces of nature came to be, and our universe evolved to this point and will continue to do so for trillions of years to come.

What came before the big bang? Nobody really knows. Science is still working at it. It's possible that we might never find out what came before the big bang in all of human history yet to come. One theory states that our universe is the product of the impact of branes (correctly spelt, it's in string theory) from other universes. Another is ye olde Big Crush -> Big Bang cycle. In any case, it's highly unlikely to be resolved in the scope or expertise available in this debate.

As to the first thing, I posit this question.

If God was first, what created god? Did he will himself into existence? The only way there can be a first anything is if ones space of reference is finite. If god is infinite, then he has always existed and the concept of first is meaningless. If he was first, then he is not infinite, and thus, not god.

[artemis-lady-warrior]

Razor, Evolution is just a theory. Many, many people know this but they try to make it totally real for some reason but it's just a theory and quite a few of those evolution things have been proven to be fake.
What i would like to know is where all these 'trillion of years" came from. Do these people just reach into a hat of dates and choose one, plus there's the fact that when they find something knew in archeology they just make the whole thing older and older...
a man not the "who created God" question again.
Okay as you know God is an immortal being that can never die. Nothing created God he is omnipresent..

Omnipresence is the ability to be present in every place at any, and/or every, time; unbounded or universal presence. It is related to the concept of ubiquity, the ability to be everywhere at a certain point in time.

He was always there. For how long we don't know. but here is something interesting about the earth in the scriptures.

The earth was without form and void

I have yet to figure out what the meaning of this scripture means but it might mean that the earth was a black mass of something that had no life and had no shape.
and then there is

and darkness was upon the face of the deep

I'm not sure what that means either. It could be referring to water or the universe itself before the stars were made on the fourth day. But of course days could be longer back then than they are now.......
I'll have to look into it some more.

[SkyxDB]

Well, I'm in a geology class and, they don't really just randomly guess an age. They use things like carbondating to figure out how old like a fossil or a layer of rock is.

Like I said, I am a little bit on the doutful side, but they are things that make me wonder is there is a higher power. But I would rather decide for myself. Currently I'm just not sure.

[7Knight-Wolf]

Whoever said they doubted that there was a higher power, (can't remember who said it) can I suggest something? Go outside and look at a tree. Isn't it beautiful? Look closer. It has hundreds of individual leaves. Look how complex the bark is. Go deeper and imagine the millions of plant cells that make up the organism. You can even deeper and imagine the atoms, and then the elements that make up each tiny atom! If you picture all at that, and billions more trees worldwide, how can you doubt a higher power?

I suppose it might be remotely possible that over billions and billions of years, chance might have formed the tree. But if you go back to the very beginning, before there was any goo that could morph into the first atom, before there was any kind of "big bang." There had to be something there FIRST. No matter how far back you trace evolution, something always has to come first before any other organism could be formed. This is the mind-boggling conceot called inifinty! And there are those of us who are lucky enough to know what the force of infinity, the VERY FIRST THING, really was. It still exists today, it is the ultimate spirit of love, and it's called God.

Trees did not get here by chance at all. They got here through evolution. Evolution is not a chance based system. Evolution and natural selection destroy any life form that does not work. Life that survives continues. Life that can out-compete other life forms flourish, whilst those that cannot compete are killed off. One step leads to another, gradual changes build up over time. Lift selective pressure and genes can spontaneously rearrange themselves into new recombinant forms. Apply selective pressure and the genetic code can do some very surprising things to ensure its own survival and propagation.

Your argument appears to be somewhat similar to the old "The Eye could not be a product of evolution! It was designed!" argument, which has been thoroughly debunked.

Atoms are themselves composed of subatomic particles. Dig deep enough and you go down to the levels of strings and string theory which I wont even pretend to comprehend. The universe is vast, both on the scale of size and on the scale of complexity. Such however is not proof of a "Higher Power". If it is, please explain as to why that is.

As to the broader issue of the origin of the universe, Science says that there was a Big Bang, the fundamental forces of nature came to be, and our universe evolved to this point and will continue to do so for trillions of years to come.

What came before the big bang? Nobody really knows. Science is still working at it. It's possible that we might never find out what came before the big bang in all of human history yet to come. One theory states that our universe is the product of the impact of branes (correctly spelt, it's in string theory) from other universes. Another is ye olde Big Crush -> Big Bang cycle. In any case, it's highly unlikely to be resolved in the scope or expertise available in this debate.

As to the first thing, I posit this question.

If God was first, what created god? Did he will himself into existence? The only way there can be a first anything is if ones space of reference is finite. If god is infinite, then he has always existed and the concept of first is meaningless. If he was first, then he is not infinite, and thus, not god.

Every thing I've heard about Evolution says that it works by trial and error. It would be impossible to ever come up with any organism if one wrong spontaneous movement would kill whatever had started. There are countless, lierally countless possiblilities. Thus the only way a trial and error system would work is if the universe was ageless--and even then simple logic disproves. (And for me, my fath in God disproves it.)

But you say that Evolution is a force that destroys anything that doesn't work. You're implying that it's not a trial and error system. If this is true, then you are also implying that there is a force behind evolution, a higher power. There will always be a guiding force, but people dispute over what it is. You say it's a relatively mindless thing called evolution. Christians say it's the three spirits of everlasting love that make up God. Of the two, I'd have to pick God.

Now, subatomic particles. String theories. But what's behind that? It has to be God.

And about your last question, I think the reason it doesn't make any sense to you is because you're thinking of God as a thing. He's not a person who walks around gathering dust and molding it into organisms. God is not a person or an animal (although he did take a human form, Jesus, once in history). God is a spirit, something incomprehensible that is the basis of everything good. God did not create himself because he has always lived. He is the force that caused electric fields to be formed so they could hold protons and nuetrons in working order. God is the force that lets people die so that they can stand before him and choose whether or not to follow him in heaven. he just is. God is also the basis of love and caring, and all other emotions. So while he is the master of science, he is also the master of all emotion, meaning that his unconditional love for humans is greater than any love that ever existed.

God is the force that works in and through all things. He never was created and he never will die; he just is.

[7Knight-Wolf]

I forget which one it was, but I remember in one of Silver Ravenwolf's books she points out that all gods are one god because they are just different ways of looking at the same being. She went on to explain it like a multi-faceted daimond; you can look at any face you want and see something different, but the fact is that it's still the same daimond. That applies to goddesses as well - God or "Spirit" is either and both depending on what facet you're looking at that day.

I mus disagree. For example, the muslims worpship Ala (I don't even know how to spell that!) and Christians worship God/Holy Spirit/Jesus. They cannot be the same thing because Christains believe that "God is love." The Christian God works out all his purposes by himself, has everything under control, and doesn't need humans to help him. Instead he chooses to love humans as his children. The muslim god relies on his people to destroy any religion that is not his own. The muslim god demands death and destuction, the Christain god demands only one thing: faith. These two entities cannot be the same.

Please note that I am not am expert on muslim religion, and also that anything I said about death and destruction applies only to radical devout muslims.

There are many religions, and many gods do closely resemble the Christian God, the bringer of love and justice. However, the key difference is that most pagan gods demand something from their people and will punish their people if they do not do right.

The Christain God does not demand justice for wrongdoing, beacuse his Son already took the punishment for us. The Christain life is incredibly simple. All we have to do is beleive in God and go about enjoying our lives. If we are at peace, then we are far less likely to do something wrong. And even when we do screw up, which happens a lot, God forgives us. Also, God never forces us to do anything. He wants us to have our own brains because he likes having us to interact with. It's our choice whether or not to believe.

I've never heard of a god like that before except in the Christain faith.