Has it ever occured to anyone that, over the course of history, humans often come to the conclusion that anything that cannot be explained at the moment is automatically considered to be supernatural? For example, the Greeks. They had a god for just about anything that they could not explain with their means of science or technology at the time. How else could they explain the torrent of fire and molten lava that spwes out of a volcano? By claiming that Hephasteus is simply working in his forge of course.
But fast forward to today. And we know that isn't the case. The advent of computers, automobiles, airplanes, etc etc etc, would simply astound the Ancient Greeks. They would consider us gods. They would be unable to speak out of pure awe.
And since science is never ending in the sense that, with each question answered, more questions are formed... we still do not have a logical explanation for God. That being that supposedly judges us from afar, and moves through us all.
Think about it though... what if we just haven't reached the technological threshold to explain it yet?
It could be possible, that "God" is nothing more than a wave that interacts with our matter. Influencing our decisions with maybe electrical impulses or something similar. Religion is making "god" more important than it really is. With the advent of more powerful technology, we may be able to see what it is that moves through us all. More than likely, it is just another force of nature. It justs exists. It is there, always has been. But it is not a being, it is not something to worship... it is just not something we can understand. YET.
Basically, what I am trying to say is, we humans have proven over time that with the advent of better technology we can understand the ways of nature around us. So what's to stop us from unlocking the secrets of the universe? As well as explaining what "god" really is? We just can't comprehend it yet... but we will in time I think. Just like we did with volcanoes, oceans, telephones, airplanes, etc etc etc.
Religion is powerful in many ways no doubt. It helps certain people get through rough times, and to them, it explains the way things are as well giving them a code of ethics that they can follow. But religion is also on a way ticket to being obsolete. If science can bridge the gap between the two, what now?
Now just so everyone knows, I am not trying to attack anyones beliefs, I am merely wondering outloud if the above could be the case. I would also like to hear what other people have to say. Please be open-minded, and rational.
I will explain in better detail some ideas that I have heard as well some of my own if a great dialogue can be established.
bigdave13, I know what it says in Genesis … I was just making a joke, hahaha. I just wanted to hear their answer sorry. Anyone interested in discussing ark logistics vs. science of course hahaha?
PS: You clicked on the text color icon instead of the background icon.
Again, don't confuse the message with the actions of the messenger. Furthermore, you must first put those things in the context of the time they happened - those were brutal times. Medieval age was no walk in the park, and people back then were also extremely superstitious. The church had a tremendous amount of power and, as such, attracted many who wished nothing but their own personal gain.
Same thing can be said about science. There are those who engage in science for the benefit of all mankind, and those who engage in science for their own benefit and the destruction of others.
The common denominator here is men, not science or religion by themselves. The same type of men who even today abuse their influence over others by claiming that Islam and God wants them to bomb innocent women and children. I would dare to say that most Muslims, however, do not share that point of view and prefer to live their lives in peace.
Unfortunately bad apples exist everywhere, and sometimes all it takes is a couple of them to 'spoil' a whole tree in the eyes of others. But should the whole tree be cut down because of the few rotten apples, when it still gives good fruit otherwise?
FROM: http://christianity.about.com/od/biblestorysummaries/p/noahsarkflood.htm
God saw how great wickedness had become and decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth. However, one righteous man among all the people of that time, Noah, found favor in God's eyes. With very specific instructions, God told Noah to build an ark for him and his family in preparation for a catastrophic flood that would destroy every living thing on earth.
God also instructed Noah to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, both male and female, and seven pairs of all the clean animals, along with every kind of food to be stored for the animals and his family while on the ark. Noah obeyed everything God commanded him to do.
After they entered the ark, rain fell on the earth for a period of forty days and nights. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days, and every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out. As the waters receded, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. Noah and his family continued to wait for almost eight more months while the surface of the earth dried out.
Finally after an entire year, God invited Noah to come out of the ark. Immediately, he built an altar and worshiped the Lord with burnt offerings from some of the clean animals. God was pleased with the offerings and promised never again to destroy all the living creatures as he had just done. Later God established a covenant with Noah: "Never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth." As a sign of this everlasting covenant God set a rainbow in the clouds.
• God's purpose in the flood was not to destroy people, but to destroy wickedness and sin. • With more detail in Genesis 7:2-3, God instructed Noah to take seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, and two of every kind of unclean animal. Bible scholars have calculated that approximately 45,000 animals might have fit on the ark. • Genesis 7:16 interestingly points out that God shut them in the ark, or "closed the door," so to speak.
• The ark was exactly six times longer than it was wide. According to the Life Application Bible study notes, this is the same ratio used by modern ship builders. • In modern times researchers continue to look for evidence of Noah's Ark. Check out this article by Joe Kovacs from © WorldNetDaily.com on the "Ararat Anomaly."
Noah was righteous and blameless, but he was not sinless (see Genesis 9:20-21). Noah pleased God and found favor because he loved and obeyed God with his whole heart. As a result, Noah's life was an example to his entire generation. Although everyone around him followed the evil in their hearts, Noah followed God. Does your life set an example, or are you negatively influenced by the people around you?
Can you all help in understanding this text? I don't think a religious person can understand because they are taught to follow their beliefs regarldless of the influence of people around them so don't really have anything to offer to prove their claims than what they were taught and not what they think. They are in effect trying to be Noah and be spared at the end of days.
So god killed man-kind and everything else from the face of the earth?
>> Morally speaking i don't think god is in the business of commiting mass murder in the name of religion. It reinforces the ideology of suicide bombers killing themselves in the name of god because god kills too in that preference.
Clean animals? Flood that destroys every living thing on earth?
>> As you can see bigdave: texts don't stick to what you are saying. Which brings me back to my original conclusion that texts have been altered throughout the century to the point its questioned the existence of god and accusing religion to being human kinds creation to explain why we exist: " to serve gods will"
Natures course has predators and nomadic creatures which can also be territorial in nature. How god determines wickedness in their course is questionable. They still portray the same characteristics as all animals and reptiles do today so how was there wickedness judged?
I think its an incomplete text written by man to explain god's punishment to people to who don't follow his words and seek to be like Noah. They say god created everything but they cant explain he's actual creations.
God also instructed Noah to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, both male and female?
>> Hermaphrodites are creatures of the same sex: e.g fish, reptiles: It is logical to ask why the text was phrased the way it was. Its incomplete thus once again questioning its validity. They cant take Hermaphrodites in pairs into the ark which means they didn't take everyone and left many to die.
Fish and reptiles are unclean?
Anyway, some time later he decided only jesus should die for our sins?:
If you ask me all of this death in his name doesn't sound like the god people are willing to believe in.
God was pleased with the offerings and promised never again to destroy all the living creatures as he had just done.?
>> really, he's very willing to admit his mistakes unlike some of the religious folks these days as they twist his words left right and centre. He did after all commit genocide on many species but hey there is no law to persecute god of-course because his god?
However, god was very interactive with us those days. What about these days? Not a single religious prophet as risen to rival the previous and any real present sightings and solidified hearings of god have not been documented.
So is god annoyed that he promised not to send a flood on us again and now is so pissed off with us to the point he just decided to enact a vow of silence? It could be that we are very behaved these days compared to those dark times but who makes the decision to decide gods will on the matter?
This is all so weird though how our religions are based on past events while the present offers no dramatic stories.
ONLY WHEN QUESTIONS SUCH AS THESE ARE ANSWERED CAN THEY BE RESOLUTION TO THE BELIEFS OF GOD AND RELIGIONS
I can answer one question....[if it was one]....that's crap for a start....but I'm sure someone somewhere has one that proportion...so it MUST be gospel.
He said the proportion was interesting. And I concur. So I went and looked up some stuff. Ancient Egyptian ships had a 7:1 ratio. Kayaks are about 9:1 to 10:1. Modern ships tend to design for higher length-to-width ratios to navigate choppy waters, but they have the liberty to steer and propel their boats directly into the waves. Noah would not realistically be able to steer the ship. Longer boats are easier to propel. Noah probably wanted to have some degree of control, but he wasn't building a racing boat: his priority was just to survive.
I looked up length-to-beam ratios of modern cruise ships--what I expect to be the closest design to the ark. Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas has a 6:1 ratio. Others range from 8:1 to 9:1, though certainly they're going to have a much higher draft and they have advanced ballast and controllers to stabilize the ship. Plus they're designed to motorboat at 30 knots. 6:1 vs. 9:1...IMHO that is not that large of a deviation. I think there's a lot to be said how some things about boat design have not changed that much over the millennia. And like I said, Egyptian boats were 7:1, so we can safely take any strong biases for/against the Bible out of the equation. I think the big thing to take from the 6:1 ratio of the ark is, this boat was designed for stability in the event of catching a wave to its side--not to be a warship, or fish, or travel somewhere, etc.. Which is significant, considering he spent 100 years building the ark in the middle of what was likely arid land.
Noah was no engineer
If he spent 100 years building a boat, I think he qualifies.
To RiddleKing
To answer the question about why there aren't many prophets is because a good amount of the major ones were prophesying about Jesus coming to earth.
God did not comit genocied he brought two of the unclean animals and seven of all the clean animals and isn't it kinda obives that he wouldn't have to take any fish on the ark. I mean if fish have gills why not let them swim in the water. They could have taken two hermaphrodites with them because they still could reproudce with each other.
Here is my take on this discussion, and just my opinion mind you, but as part of the current intelligent species on this planet I find it somewhat ironic that an equal amount of our time and effort isn't spent on solving the real problems that face us, like world hunger, world peace or disease all of which could be solved with a little more effort. I don't think there is one among you that could argue that by doing this we may also be able to finally find the answer to this whole god question.
Just my opinion mind you but in my mind that's what a god would expect us to do and not sit around the campfire debating the existence of god.
Going by the idea that God made everything in the universe, God made science.
A few premises I disagree with. a) world hunger and world peace cannot exactly be solved with just a little more effort. b ) I don't think I agree that an equal amount of time is not already being spent on those things. And c) In order to establish world hunger as the higher priority, don't we first need to establish what's the purpose of life in the first place? Okay, so we want some people to live longer. Why? Why do we want people to live longer? What exactly have you accomplished besides increase the global population?
One problem with word peace is that it can't happen because the radical Muslims won't stop at nothing to destroy us and that the radicals will also never make peace with Israel.
What? So Muslims and Jews are fighting over the alphabet? Why? What is this "word peace" you speak of?
Can't end a sentence with a preposition....
" What is this "word peace" of which you speak?" ....
Remember..."The red penis your friend..."
Oh you got me. damn.
Radicals won't make peace with Israel? Israel is a radical project in its own right, and the right-wing nutbars there (yes, I mean Bebe's crowd) are just as much to blame for the endless cycle of violence as the Hezbollah or PLO militants are. The failure of the efforts to achieve peace belong squarely at the feet of everyone who is in denial of the need for a two-state solution.
This a stupid answer based on speculation. Stop writing your own bible story.
Bigdave i think you have even lost perspective on what it means to be human and the so called beliefs you hold dear. "world peace is not hindered by religion so please remember that. There is always a peaceful way to changing people ideologies than just exterminating one another. You can't sit back and let people decide violence is the answer. You have to show them a peaceful solution exists and stop at nothing to achieve it (preferably without weapons). Narrow minded views are not acceptable in this world if we are to obtain peace and harmony and your thinking is questionable and your religion as a result is also questionable.
I'm curious : About the story of Noah Ark, Was it Noah himself who write the story? Or was it a folk Lore that been told from mouth to mouth for generations before it was written?
I think it is not relevant for us today to discuss about this story as a historical material, or as a fact, but more of morale teaching that it offer to the readers of the story. Well, I'm sure the writer didn't aim us, modern people who have a lot of materials to deny such story. but, long or short, the story teach the readers to believe in God, and if they believe and obey God's order, they would be save. It was success for thousand of years, and still workable for modern people like us.
I'm also curious, why there is no modern prophet nor teaching about God. Why there is no God intervention to human life? I mean, why God never show himself to us, the people and life with us?
but, I'm also curious with other thing, if God live among us, interfere with everything in this world, would we call him a God, or a Ruler? Would he become the Emperor of the world or just a sage that teach morale and good deed? Would he save people from death, or prevent poverty or would he just let everything like it is? And the last one is, would we happy and kneel, and bow to him everyday or think that we just a tool or slave that the purpose is only to satisfy God's will? What will we do? Do civilization will go like we know now or become something else? and, would we happy to obey his law, to learn his teaching, or maybe our free will would make us rebel against him?
Well, some time I think, that God as a mysterious being is better than him as the ruler of the world... physically.
Well, No law will prosecute me if I massacre all people in my "The Sims" game. Maybe, God see us like us see our sims in the sims game. Who know. I'm not God,
I think our proven track record is, we would crucify Him.
Ah, I forgot that, sorry. But... is it? Well, I'm not Christian (or should I?), so I don't know, and can't claim that Jesus is a God. I can't say that he is a God, or just human. Because I don't know. I can't prove that he is a God, but I can't also prove that he is not a God. So... my stand now is... that We never kill a God.
How is Bibi responsible for any of this? What did he do?
And why is Israel a "radical project"? Where should middle-eastern Jews live?
And what "cycle of violence" are you talking about? There is no cycle. Nobody believes that Jews would ever attack Arabs.
Do you even know any of Bibi's policies?
No. I think he lived before the alphabet was invented.
However, lots of flood stories from the region do exist, written in Sumerian and Akkadian in cuniform (syllable script).
Or was it a folk Lore that been told from mouth to mouth for generations before it was written?
It was folk lore that was told among descendants of Noah's tribe and finally written down by Moses 3300 years ago. At least that is a version that agrees both with historical facts as we know them and Jewish tradition. It's the version that makes sense to me.
No.
I'll leave it to you to figure out the difference between a growing fetus and an amputee.
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