WrongPlanet.net an anti-christian site?

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As I have been told, "nobody's wrong" in the sense the we each have a right to be wrong ...

... but then maybe nobody has any right to be wrong about the facts?!

Fnord, you claim to have been to Seminary. Certainly, then, you are aware that there are a great many Christians and Jews who do not hold that the Old Testament/Torah is "historically accurate"? I mean, there are a large number of incidents in there which, if literally true as written, should plainly be written up in the histories of other cultures (for instance, one would think that had there been a worldwide flood that killed all but eight human beings, every single culture worldwide would agree completely on when this event occurred, yes?). Instead, we hold the tales to be telling us things more important than history - truths about life and how it should be lived, about the value of love and faith in our lives, about things that affect us as people far more directly than the exact dimensions of something built so long ago it no longer exists.

Now, I will grant you there is a very loud minority that really does believe in the literal accuracy and inerrancy of the Bible, usually of the American New Standard Version. There is also a loud minority of people who believe that Earth is flat, that the lunar landings were faked, and/or that Barack Obama was not born in the United States (there is some degree of overlap there...). We don't treat any of those other minorities as anything more than what they are (a pack of flakes with serious issues with reality); why do the religious loonies get to be treated as if they were spokesmen for every other believer on the planet?

Because it is so difficult to really find much actual fault with the remainder?

Hate to burst your bubble, but there is evidence of major flooding all over the world, and stories of a great flood is not limited to the Bible. There are cities that have been discovered that people thought were made up, cities that were mentioned in the Bible.



Why are you calling people that believe in the historical accuracy of the Bible loonies? They aren't out to hurt anyone, they have a difference in opinion from other people. It is entirely possible that the Bible is historically accurate (I'm not talking the numbers like Earth being a few thousand years old; people of that time wouldn't have been able to comprehend a number as large as a million let alone billion). Comparing them to lunar conspiracy nuts is out of line.

And it is these people that inspire my rants against religion. The rest, as they say, are "Mostly Harmless".

Because they consider themselves - each one, individually - as The Final Word in all matters of ethics, faith, morality, religion, and Theology.

Yet they also blatantly behave as if the rules they wish to impose on us do not apply to them ... buncha gorram hypocrites!

And you are acting like a hypocrit because you are acting exactly the same way you're accusing religious people of being...

Suggestion: We really need to stop using the word "you" quite so much here!

And the Flat Earthers consider themselves the Final Word on cosmology; the lunar-landing conspiracists consider themselves the Final Word on the Truth of What Happened In 1969; the Birthers consider that they themselves are the only ones capable of seeing through the smokescreen (which apparently involves time-travel) about Obama's birth. Why do you not treat them as representative of cosmology and history? Why is it only those of us who believe in God (but in the majority of cases do not believe in the historical accuracy of religious writings) who are subject to being treated as if we were just like the silliest of our fellow-travelers?

All I'm asking for is a little of the famed "superior compassion" that so many atheists claim they have found in giving up religion...

Inuyasha: no, there really isn't. There is considerable evidence that various parts of the world were undersea for prolonged periods - at vastly different points in history. (For instance, where I live right now was sea-bed about twenty million years ago or so, before the Cascade volcanoes began to emerge from the Cascadia Subduction Zone...) However, there is absolutely zero evidence of a singular planetary flood that submerged all land masses, as described in Genesis. For one thing, the water simply isn't there. Not frozen in the polar ice caps, not buried somewhere beneath the crust (we've gotten a pretty good idea of what our planet is made of, with studies of seismic echoes; there are no aquifers anywhere near that huge), not held in some mysterious invisible cloud - nowhere. For another, the age data on emergence of land from below the sea varies widely - and none of it fits into the tale of a massive worldwide flood that happened less than six thousand years ago.

No, it seems far more likely that the story was a fable, swiped from earlier cultures, intended to teach the faithful about keeping faith in God even when all seems hopeless. People draw examples from fiction today - why not five thousand years ago?

I had been thinking of asking that question just a couple of days ago!

There is such a thing as changes in geology, some mountains might not have existed, etc. It could also be that everywhere there was human settlement at the time was covered in water.

Further, the water could have been seperated down to the atomic level where the Hydrogen was allowed to escape into space or bonded with other elements, and the oxygen ended up in the atmosphere or bonded to other elements. We are dealing with an entity that is all-powerful, electrolysis would be child's play for God.

Yes, of course... that's why most geologists are 6 day creationists???


People are called "loonies" if their beliefs are ridiculous. Inerrancy is a claim considered hermeneutically absurd, if not outright impossible by Biblical scholars across the field. The twists and knots required are just considered wild, and as such, scholarship kind of ignores the perspective as fringe apologetics.

As with evolution, if the fundies are right in their interpretation about the Flood then that makes God a trickster. Sure an omnipotent God could do anything, but why would He then make it look like it did happen if it didn't (in the case of the physical evidence for evolution) or make it look like it didn't happen if it did (in the case of the lack of physical evidence for a worldwide flood)?

We find much evidence of the sort we would expect to find if a global flood did not happen, but the type of evidence we would expect to find if it did happen just ain't there. How do you explain that?

A page from the talk origins web site has many FAQ's and links to resources describing the Problems with a Global Flood

I don't think God would lie in the fossils or the rocks. If someone's interpretation of the Bible is contradicted by overwhelming evidence of the physical world, then that person's interpretation might be faulty or maybe the Bible was written by and for people who didn't know as much about biology and geology as we do today.

I am not unable to consider the possibility of that kind of stuff being possible, but I just have no need to believe there was ever one huge flood covering absolutely everything for any given time in order to accept Scripture for what I happen to believe it actually is ...

... and for me, that beats my having grown up (or having been raised) as a confused-and-bumbling KJV-literal-only cultist.

Last edited by leejosepho on 24 Apr 2011, 2:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The OP needed far more eye rolling.

The "harm" is that you are trying to sell YOUR belief as objective Scientific fact, without a shred of real evidence. I think the comparison to Lunar conspirisists is entirely apt; no evidence for your claims, and a fixed false belief. I think Religious interference is Science is incredible dangerous.

You implied that an atheist who loses religion because of the illogic of religion is merely acting on subjective experience that has no objective validity.

Fnord, I remember you from years ago and I always thought you were an atheist. I don't remember ever agreeing with you before but I agree this time. It is true I can't recall you ever claiming to be an atheist before, but I don't remember you ever acknowledging you were a theist either. I did now you were in a seminary but a lot of atheists are former religionists.

A lot of atheists seem to think that all theists are religionists, take the bible to be accurate if not inerrant, and accept dogma from some organized religion. There are quite a few Christians here who don't. Most of the religionists here have been run out of PPR years ago and few new ones who come don't stay for long; yet one might get the idea, from reading this forum, that the common opinion is that we are all religionists.

I apologize for misjudging you.