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Religion What is your take on religion? Do you base your thoughts in life according to your religion? Do you feel that religion should be kept out of Government and Politics?

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Old 10-29-2007, 04:25 PM   #21 (permalink)
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And, isn't the Earth a sphere, rather than a circle?
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Old 10-29-2007, 04:27 PM   #22 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baloney_detector View Post
And, isn't the Earth a sphere, rather than a circle?
My point exactly. But I guess some people just think in two dimensions .

"He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth...He streches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in." Isaiah 40:22

It's quite clearly describing a popular view in ancient civilization. That earth is a flat circle under a "dome" which makes up the sky.
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Last edited by Katczinsky; 10-29-2007 at 04:30 PM.
Old 10-29-2007, 04:41 PM   #23 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Katczinsky View Post
My point exactly. But I guess some people just think in two dimensions .
Perhaps, "the circle of the earth" could be the distance most people in an area thought their world extended to.

But, the Earth suspending over "nothing" doesn't make much sense to me since stars, among other things, are visible from every point on earth.

Go figure...
Old 10-29-2007, 05:12 PM   #24 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by baloney_detector View Post
Perhaps, "the circle of the earth" could be the distance most people in an area thought their world extended to.
In Daniel 4:10-11, the king describes seeing a tree at the 'center of the earth', which can be seen at all the 'ends of the earth'. Obviously, it isn't saying that there is a tree in the Earth's liquid core, and that somehow the king could see through the ground, but rather, in the center of a flat circle earth...to which someone standing on the 'edge' of this flat Earth could see it.

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But, the Earth suspending over "nothing" doesn't make much sense to me since stars, among other things, are visible from every point on earth.

Go figure...
Not to mention, if the Bible said the Earth was spherical, what does it mean to be "over" in the first place? In terms of 3-dimensional space and a round Earth, "over" and "below" Earth is completely relative.

To put it another way, to someone in the Pacific Ocean at the time of Jesus...maybe to the Hawaiians, Jesus didn't 'ascend' to heaven, but rather 'descended' to heaven. The whole mind set of Christian theology according to the Bible hinges on the model of a two-dimensional Earth.
"If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Last edited by Katczinsky; 10-29-2007 at 05:17 PM.
Old 10-29-2007, 05:21 PM   #25 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katczinsky View Post
Not to mention, if the Bible said the Earth was spherical, what does it mean to be "over" in the first place? In terms of 3-dimensional space and a round Earth, "over" and "below" Earth is completely relative.

To put it another way, to someone in the Pacific Ocean at the time of Jesus...maybe to the Hawaiians, Jesus didn't 'ascend' to heaven, but rather 'descended' to heaven. The whole mind set of Christian theology according to the Bible hinges on the model of a two-dimensional Earth.
But Hawaii was completely unknown to the authors of the Old Testament. Infact even at the time of Christ they were only aware of a relatively small area in the Middle East, parts of N. Africa (not south of the Sahara), Arabia and Europe.

There was no awareness of the Americas, Australia, China, Japan, SE Asia, the South Seas and huge parts of the earth's surface until centuries later. Even though there was human life in those places at that time.

Presumably there were no kangaroos, polar bears, kokoda dragons or llamas on Noah's Ark.

The Bible was written within the constraints of contemporaneous knowledge.

But does that mean it can't be the Word of God?
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Old 10-29-2007, 05:42 PM   #26 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by garysher View Post
But Hawaii was completely unknown to the authors of the Old Testament. Infact even at the time of Christ they were only aware of a relatively small area in the Middle East, parts of N. Africa (not south of the Sahara), Arabia and Europe.

There was no awareness of the Americas, Australia, China, Japan, SE Asia, the South Seas and huge parts of the earth's surface until centuries later. Even though there was human life in those places at that time.

Presumably there were no kangaroos, polar bears, kokoda dragons or llamas on Noah's Ark.
Not true. Presumably the only parts of the world they did not know about were the Americas and Pacific Islands. The ancient Europeans knew about India, and continuing on to the far East. The Romans (and many before them) even had relations and traded with the Chinese and the far East.

Not to mention the idea of a spherical Earth existed before even Jesus' time. Eratosthenes (276 BC - 194 BC), Greek mathematician and astronomer, for example, held this spherical belief and quite accurately calculated the circumference of the Earth using sticks and measuring their shadows. It's just that the round-Earth theory had been discriminated against for ages by those using religion and scripture as their justifications...continuing on through to the Christian Church.

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The Bible was written within the constraints of contemporaneous knowledge.

But does that mean it can't be the Word of God?
Yes it does mean that, because the word of an all-knowing God wouldn't be constrained by contemporaneous human knowledge.
"If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Last edited by Katczinsky; 10-29-2007 at 05:53 PM.
Old 10-29-2007, 05:55 PM   #27 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Katczinsky View Post
Not true. Presumably the only parts of the world they did not know about were the Americas and Pacific Islands. The ancient Europeans knew about India, and continuing on to the far East. The Romans (and many before them) even had relations and traded with the Chinese and the far East.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Can you verify that? Were the Romans aware of modernday Japan, Taiwan, Korea and the Malay peninsula? And Africa south of the Sahara?

And what about Australia/NZ?



Yes it does mean that, because the word of an all-knowing God wouldn't be constrained by contemporaneous human knowledge.

That's YOUR assumption!

Maybe God was making sure His message was pitched at a level where it would be understood and believed?

I've often wondered about that. Jesus told his disciples to spread the Gospel throughout the whole world. But huge parts of it were unknown to them at that time, and weren't discovered until many centuries later.

So all the people who lived and died in those places for all those years never had an opportunity to hear the Gospel or to be saved by Grace (not the poster on here).


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Old 10-29-2007, 07:07 PM   #28 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by garysher View Post
Can you verify that? Were the Romans aware of modernday Japan, Taiwan, Korea and the Malay peninsula? And Africa south of the Sahara?

And what about Australia/NZ?
Sino-Roman relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm not sure if the Romans had relations with some of the smaller 'nations' in East Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Korea, etc. were all small insignificant 'cultures' [many of them weren't even unified yet, so trade/relations would have been difficult/impossible] while China was the predominant power. But, obviously if the Romans engaged with the Chinese, they would be aware of Japan and the other island cultures.


Quote:
That's YOUR assumption!
The assumption that God, if he exists, is all-knowing and unbound by the limitations of human knowledge is something assumed by the theist. Not me.

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Maybe God was making sure His message was pitched at a level where it would be understood and believed?
It wouldn't be hard for God to explain the nature of Earth and the universe. People would be more than able to understand that the Earth is round. Like I said, not only did some early mathematicians and astronomers accept this idea, but someone like Eratosthenes (who lived hundreds of years before Jesus) was actually able to rather accurately calculate the Earth's circumference.
"If you want to achieve peace of mind and happiness, then have faith; if you want to be a disciple of truth, then search" -- Friedrich Nietzsche

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Old 10-31-2007, 02:22 PM   #29 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by fxashun View Post
I would never try to dissuade you from your Bible. I think religious texts DO have significance as it relates to known human existence. But I don't think human existence is all that significant as it relates to the planet.
Matter only changes form, it never disappears, so a few hundred years without us and this planet will only have fossil remains of our presence and will pretty much be no worse for wear.

Ever wondered why the entire Bible only ocurs in certain areas of the Middle East and East Africa because it was designed to appeal to people and like Shakespeare did later related to things they new and understood....the Bible would be much more effective if it had stories from other parts fo the world..as it is now it is aparochial work of fiction but a really good one. Look at how many people it has sucked in to its vortex of contradiction and mis-statement..

and what is better is people do nothing but fight over what it means or doesn't mean which makes me wonder why God doesn't just tell us what he means or made us too stupid to understand what he does mean, why make us intellectually defective????...in the end the fight over the bible and what it does or doesn't mean is the fight for power...

Words are power, sticks and stones may break your bones but words will drive us all insane...we can see this in our own country whereby the right wing neo Christains have been spewing forth hate for so long that the hate has become commonplace...which instead of making them happy has oddly made them even angier and crazier then they had been in the past..power given to people who do not understand the thing they rely on for their own validation always makes for angry, and hateful people as we see with many current day Christain cults (denomations) and Islamic ones as well...in other words the really stupid shouldn't be given power or else they start wars they aren't prepared to ever finish or mis-use the power for their own advantage...
Old 11-01-2007, 10:11 AM   #30 (permalink)
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