Pope Francis describes ‘ideological Christians’ as a ‘serious illness’

Roq
(Why not just accept that the earth is flat since that's what is really implied in the bible as everyone knows. You could, for instance, claim that a conspiracy of scientists faked the moon landing just as they fake the theory of evolution, global warming and all those other theories that are so inconvenient to your wonderful faith!)

Why, on earth, would I have a problem with the moon landing and global warming?
They stand in no contradiction to the bible.
 
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Roq:
-As everyone knows...
That frase does not hold as evidence for anything.
 
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TopCat said:
(Pladio)
I do not see that it says the earth has four corners
The sayin "from the four corners of the earth" simply meens to me:
from the whole earth, nothing excluded.
I understand it to be a expression more than a statement.
I could be wrong but thats how I understand it.
If you think that is philosophical, I do not.
I think its the use of an linguistic expression.
Click to expand...


Except that you're now saying the bible is not literal as some sentences might just be allegorical.

So if the bible is not literal as you point out, who decides which parts are and which parts aren't ? You ? The pope ? Your pastor ? Your best friend ?
 
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txa1265 said:
Egad … not only is there nothing new, but this is just getting depressing. Please stop responding to the religious zealot morons - they have no idea about 'science', 'proof', 'theory', or anything else related to logic or factual evidentiary discovery … and it simply isn't worth it. Let them enjoy their happy cult.
Click to expand...

You are right. I think, though, that the increased secularisation throughout the western world may be largely due to better communications. And, in particular, the internet gives people a much larger circle of acquaintances, so that they become exposed to views wider than those of the narrow circle of people around their village. Then it becomes harder to cling to primitive faith based beliefs. So, maybe, discussions such as this have some utility after all?

In general, I don't care what people believe, except when those beliefs spill over into the rational discourse we should all be having on the best way to manage the limited resources of the planet and the sustainability of the environment. Also irrational beliefs and particularly religions can be divisive and promote tribalism, so that people see those outside of their belief system as different in a negative way.
 
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TopCat said:
So Roq
You do have a hard time accepting Noah
If you tell me what part is bugging you, we could have a discussion about that.
Click to expand...

Noah's ark is at least as fanciful as the story of Father Christmas, which I assume you no longer believe in (!?), although at least there should be some snow for his sleigh in Sweden. Both stories would require many miracles: How does Father Christmas get down so many chimneys in one night? How (and why?) did all the fauna get from the four corners (!?) of the Earth to the Ark? etc. etc.

It might have been possible to believe in the Story of Noah's Ark in biblical times, without appearing to be a complete idiot, because one's horizons would have been limited (and father christmas, also, would have had fewer chimneys to rappel down in those days). But today when we understand the scale of the natural world, it's just not plausible and the kindest thing one might say is that such beliefs may denote some kind of schizophrenic separation of fact and fantasy in the brain.
 
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Roq said:
Why not just accept that the earth is flat, since that's what is really implied in the bible as everyone knows? You could, for instance, claim that a conspiracy of scientists faked the moon landing just as they fake the theory of evolution, global warming and all those other theories that are so inconvenient to your wonderful faith!

And, after all, if you're prepared to accept the literal truth of the story of Noah's Ark, a flat earth should be even easier to swallow. In fact you could spend the next few years not finding evidence for all scientific theories, by living in a cupboard or something.
Click to expand...
That's a fairly rude response based on a blatant strawman. I'd expect better from you, roq, being the highly educated grammarian here.
 
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Roq said:
Noah's ark is at least as fanciful as the story of Father Christmas, which I assume you no longer believe in (!?), although at least there should be some snow for his sleigh in Sweden. Both stories would require many miracles: How does Father Christmas get down so many chimneys in one night? How (and why?) did all the fauna get from the four corners (!?) of the Earth to the Ark? etc. etc.

It might have been possible to believe in the Story of Noah's Ark in biblical times, without appearing to be a complete idiot, because one's horizons would have been limited (and father christmas, also, would have had fewer chimneys to rappel down in those days). But today when we understand the scale of the natural world, it's just not plausible and the kindest thing one might say is that such beliefs may denote some kind of schizophrenic separation of fact and fantasy in the brain.
Click to expand...

Well, if you take a look at the world, there are evidence for a flood, wether you like it or not. Nearly 280 flood legends out there similar to the bible, but Roq knows its impossible so it did not happend. Instead we shall belive that that flyes, worms, bacterias and vultures just wasnt hungry at some point hundreds of millions of years ago, resulting in huge quantities of fossils.
 
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Pladio said:
Except that you're now saying the bible is not literal as some sentences might just be allegorical.

So if the bible is not literal as you point out, who decides which parts are and which parts aren't ? You ? The pope ? Your pastor ? Your best friend ?
Click to expand...

Well, I accept the expression "from the four corners of the earth" knowing whats intended, just as I would accept if you wrote "the whole damned earth" without starting to argue that you have made the statement that the whole earth is cursed.
 
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TopCat said:
Well, if you take a look at the world, there are evidence for a flood, wether you like it or not. Nearly 280 flood legends out there similar to the bible, but Roq knows its impossible so it did not happend. Instead we shall belive that that flyes, worms, bacterias and vultures just wasnt hungry at some point hundreds of millions of years ago, resulting in huge quantities of fossils.
Click to expand...

Legends, that's right and the bible story was not the first of them. It's a common mistake to imagine that many legends add up in some way to one truth: Two wrongs don't make a right, nor do 280. As to evidence for a global flood, apart from anything else there simply isn't enough water for that to be even possible. And we know how fossils form...
 
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Ok, so if people from all around the world have a history of knowledge that matches, you would dismiss it, for what reason?

And we know how fossils form…
Thats just my point. You do or you dont ?
The only chans for fossilfounds the way they accur on earth is a catastrophic scenario that barries millions of tons of animals and plants in a second.

And how do you know how fossils form?
 
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TopCat said:
Ok, so if people from all around the world have a history of knowledge that matches, you would dismiss it, for what reason?

And we know how fossils form…
Thats just my point. You do or you dont ?
The only chans for fossilfounds the way they accur on earth is a catastrophic scenario that barries millions of tons of animals and plants in a second.

And how do you know how fossils form?
Click to expand...

In the case of floods, there are many rivers in the world that flood, there is no doubt of that. And to the people of those times a river flooding would be a much more all encompassing event than in the modern day with global news coverage.

As to fossils, I'm not running a science 101 class here, you can easily check out that kind of thing yourself using Google, for instance, if you are curious. Try to avoid the creationist sites though.
 
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Well, then since you`re talking about Noah`s flood. Having all of the world's species on one boat makes factual sense to you ?

If evolution is wrong, this means the boat must have carried at the very least 60000 animals on board (only counting vertebrate animals for no other reason than because the number becomes way too unwieldy to even have a discussion about...http://www.currentresults.com/Environment-Facts/Plants-Animals/number-species.php)

Does this make factual sense to you knowing that one person (with some help from family and a few workers) built the boat on his own in ? Knowing that many of those animals eat other animals as feed and knowing that space would not be like Doctor Who's TARDIS ?
 
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Pladio said:
Well, then since you`re talking about Noah`s flood. Having all of the world's species on one boat makes factual sense to you ?

If evolution is wrong, this means the boat must have carried at the very least 60000 animals on board (only counting vertebrate animals for no other reason than because the number becomes way too unwieldy to even have a discussion about…http://www.currentresults.com/Environment-Facts/Plants-Animals/number-species.php)

Does this make factual sense to you knowing that one person (with some help from family and a few workers) built the boat on his own in ? Knowing that many of those animals eat other animals as feed and knowing that space would not be like Doctor Who's TARDIS ?
Click to expand...

Well, a pair of every -kind- of animal doesnt add up to 60000.
no birds, no fishes, no insects. One pair of baby elephants one pair of dogs, one pair of cats and so on. for that theres plenty of room.
If you look at the size of ship were talking about you might reconsider.
The question that comes to my mind is, how big,skillfull and fab these guys must have been. You should know that the anchorstones thats been found to match
this arch have curved holes drilled through them.
How would you like to find someone today, that would drill a curved hole through granit for you? These were smart guys or at least they had one "smart guy" leading them.
 
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Well, it's nice of you to let all of the insects and birds die… Now we don't have any of them anymore (if you're going to say that they survived by flying then you missed the part where many insects don't have wings, say ants and termites and that the earth was entirely covered by water according to the bible, so no where for the birds to land, ever in 40 days.)

Not to mention the fact that since animals don't evolve you can't just have one type of each animal.
So you don't just have one couple of kangaroos. You need one couple of red kangaroos and also one couple of the eastern grey kangaroos. (they can't interbreed if you didn't get the gist) You easily end up with tens of thousands of animals.
Try again.

Edit: I'll grant you he didn't need to put the fish on his ark, but I didn't count them in the 60k. So moot point.
 
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Remember that song "Nelly the elephant packed her trunk and said goodbye to the circus"? Must have happened something like that, I suppose. One day Nelly collected her two baby elephants and decided to take a holiday far away on Mount Ararat. At the same time Kenneth Koala took an axe to a few eucalyptus trees and dragged them 7000 miles across the ocean with some help from Kara Koala (presumably). Meanwhile, Paddy & Patty the polar bears went to the barber for a shave so they wouldn't fry in the desert heat when they arrived at the ark… And what of Harry & Harriet the hummingbirds who would die in a few hours when away from their food plants? Not sure how they managed to make it, maybe they packed their trunks too?

Dr Seuss, eat your heart out…
 
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Pladio said:
Edit: I'll grant you he didn't need to put the fish on his ark, but I didn't count them in the 60k. So moot point.
Click to expand...

Most freshwater fish would die in salt water and vice-versa, so you'd definitely need a fish tank on the ark, one way or the other.

Most animals in fact are adapted to the very particular environments they live in and would not survive for long outside of them.
 
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Roq said:
Most freshwater fish would die in salt water and vice-versa, so you'd definitely need a fish tank on the ark, one way or the other.
Click to expand...

Ha , got you! There wasnt any saltwater oceans before the flood.
Thats easy to see by the speed the oceans gets saltier every year.
Sweetwater fish adepts to saltwater without problems.
Dont try to reverse though, the fish would die.

No, I do not have to take every spieces aboard. All this variations already exists in their dna.
 
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Pladio said:
Well, it's nice of you to let all of the insects and birds die… Now we don't have any of them anymore (if you're going to say that they survived by flying then you missed the part where many insects don't have wings, say ants and termites and that the earth was entirely covered by water according to the bible, so no where for the birds to land, ever in 40 days.)

Not to mention the fact that since animals don't evolve you can't just have one type of each animal.
So you don't just have one couple of kangaroos. You need one couple of red kangaroos and also one couple of the eastern grey kangaroos. (they can't interbreed if you didn't get the gist) You easily end up with tens of thousands of animals.
Try again.


Edit: I'll grant you he didn't need to put the fish on his ark, but I didn't count them in the 60k. So moot point.
Click to expand...

Animals within one kind doesnt evolve in to different spieces, they already have all the information for these variations in their gene cod.
It was wrong of me to say that the birds did not go on the arch.
I apologise for that, that was clumpsy of me!!

However, the problems with these kangaroos did not exist 4000 years ago, so
I only need one pair of kangaroos as well as one pair of every other kind.
How big do you think the arch was? The size of it is written in the bible.
 
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