Yes, dinosaurs are huge, would never fit on an ark...wait a minute, who said they needed adults? The largest dino egg ever found was the size of a football, the babies aren't that big. So, yes, they would fit.

And for the person that said, the older the object being carbon dating is, the more accurate it is...well a mammoth was dated with a led at least 10,000 years older than the rest of his body. If he was millions of years old, wouldn't it have been more accurate?

If you believe in the Noah's Ark story, do you know how -impossible- it would be for the species' to have survived?

Look at any species in the world that has a limited population (I distinctly remember an island in the Phillipines with a bird population under 100 or some such) - the lack of genetic variability almost -always- leads to eventual extinction. Look at over-bred purebred labrador retrievers. Their hips can be screwed up.

Yes, but Bible reading Christians believe that things were a bit different then. God had a hand in keeping everything dandy. And really, if you look at the evidence, the world is not evolving, but the opposite, things are getting worse.

Noah lived to the age of 917.
The stated size of Noah's ark is smaller than the Titanic.
I'll let you read that as literally as you like.
There is a difference between something being scienticially true and it being True. Something in science is true only when the predescribed methods of observation are used. However, in pyschology and with people in general, what is percieved to be true is much more important that what is scientifically true. Take for example a missunderstood relationship. I could really care less if the hormones associated with love and sexual arrosal are active as long as the person I'm with acts and sounds like they are in love with me and never does anything (behind my back or otherwise) to make me doubt it.


As for Jews for Jesus... There isn't a single Jewish organization that recognizes them as Jewish. Kind of ironic really, since they accept so many other "Jewish Sects" but yeah. It would be like saying you are a christian but reject Jesus.

The concept that Jesus was unique and there was nobody in the world like him, is -Precisely- the reason why in Jewish law he would not be able to do anything on my behalf. The only person who can repent for my sins is me. The only person who can save me, is me. Others can help me see the error of my ways, and it is most often the case that you can not "escape your own prison without a rescurer" but in the end, only -I- can choose if I will repent or correct my mistakes. This concept is found in every single Jewish practice and is preceisly the reason why a Bar Mitzvah is such a big event. Once a child turns 13 the parents are no longer responcible for that child's choices. (spiritually atleast)

I'm not saying that Jesus couldn't die for everybody else's sins, but he couldn't die for a Jew's sin. (History shows time and time again that Jews do not follow the established rules of history) As Jon Stewart put in the timeline in "America the book"... "god gives 10 commandments to israelites in desert and promises divine protection. Nothing bad ever happens to the Jews again."

And back to Noah's ark... Noah and so All of humanity was given 7 principles to live by, while Jews at mount Sinai were given 613, in those 7 there is nothing about the rules of sacrifice and responbility, but in the 613 there are.

I would just like to say my opinion of Daganev has just improved dramatically, by the clear thoughtfulness he has conveyed (even if my personal view is different). The same goes for quite a few others, including Rhysus and SirVLCIV.

I think I agree most closely with what Shiri has said, though I don't pretend to be as knowledgeable as everyone else evidently is. I will probably never know if a God or some universal consciousness exists, but until there is an argument for such a thing that isn't in some way circular or self-fulfilling, I have no reason to abandon our conclusions from the evidence for dogma. There is a vast body of evidence in nature that leads us to the concept of evolution, there is a piece of literature which refutes it.

By the way, in response to some of the earlier comments about humans and animals, I actually find most of our current spiritual/philosophical teachings far too anthropocentric. We think of ourselves as somehow separate and superior to everything else in existence, when I don't think anything could be more egotistical or further from the truth.

I just reread a book "Permision to Believe." (its about 90 pages)

The basic premise of the book is that it is NOT irrational to declare that you know G-d exists. It gives 4 basic explanations of how and why a person can be given logical permision to believe. The 4 concepts are, Universal Morality (why every culture says Murder is wrong), Astrophysics (A discussion on Einstien's reluctance to believe in a non static, big bang enduced, universe), Biology, and Jewish History.

I think it is worse for people to insist that anybody who believes in G-d or religion is an idiot, than for people who are believers to question the validity of certain scientific theories.

I do not doubt macro evolution because of any document. I doubt it because of the incompletness of the theory that leads me to ask more questions than gives me answers. I just can not help but look at the inconsistancies in timelines, theories of randomness, and evolutionionary leaps.

We're not saying they don't have permission to believe. But they certainly don't KNOW it's true. It's a -belief-, just that, nothing more.

Universal morality (why murder is wrong).

Animals don't murder. Their reasons for killing may not fit in our means of morality, but nor do the reasons for mass genocide, duels (Alexander Hamilton), boxing deaths... etc.


And the research concerning a possibility that God and religion are merely caused by a small section of the human brain is somewhat interesting.

At page 6 and don't want to keep reading all this back and forth stuff.. but I just want to say, the reason I hate (yes, hate) the devoutly religious, is because they drag their children into it. They don't give their kids a choice. If you were given the choice later in life, if you wanted part of your dick cut off, would you say yes?
Though, that just applies to some religions, it's one of the more extreme cases.

When I was about 8 or 9, there was 'scripture' class in my school. I never really understood a lot of the stuff, that it was beleif rather than fact. I thought it was a history lessons, instead of lessons that revolved around a possibly, and probably, fictional book. So, I went to church with my friend Jade, who's father was was a pastor, learning about all this stuff.. I thought it was a weekend history lessons (possibly part of the reason I love the History Channel so much these day) and didn't mind it so much.. I mean, with the kids and sunday school, things are pretty much always dumbed down. The only passage from the bible I ever learned from all these was (I think) John 3:16.. "For who so ever beleivith in me, should not perish, but have everlasting life"

Think about that line, and think about how scared a child would be to EVER think outside the box. They're practically being told, from the youngest age, that if they EVER question this, they're going to die. So, do you know how freaked out I was when my mum started talking about Wicca?
These days I've pretty much thrown everything I learned from the scripture classes, and church out the window, and even now I can't listen to my mum talking about her opinion about something without rolling my eyes and muttering "Whatever."

You people are damaging the mental health of children with organised religions, and frankly, I hate those who preach to others for that...

Oh, and one last thing.. In the beginning of this thread, there was the question "What power started the big bang" or something like that.. Well, I have to ask.. What power created your God? If the power for the Big Bang can't come from somewhere unexplainable, how can the force that created this all powerful, all knowing being, come from nowhere?

You contradicted yourself.

The various congnition levels and interaction that G-d has with the world is a belief. The fact that he exists is based on knowledge and evidence.

You are misunderstanding the concept of universal morality.

However, some animals do murder.

I find it funny that you use the word "caused."
If my arm rising in the air caused by my muscle contraction? Or is my muscle contraction caused by me rising my arm into the air?

The very nature of humanity is that you "drag your children" into everything. Giving your child anything they want and never giving discipline will damage a child's pysche. Always moving from house to house will damage a child's pysche. Not properly teaching a child the values of your family will damage a child's pysche. It is not possible to not drag your child into something and to give them all possible choices without severly hurting them.

I am very happy my parents gave me a circumsision when I was 8 days old instead of waiting for me to turn 13 and have to go through the procedure then, and yes I would agree to it, knowing what it is all about. It is not a good practice to mock that which you don't understand. (A handy tip to know that you don't understand something is the fact that you would be unwilling to try it although other people do)


For something to exist before the big bang, or to exist before some point in time, time must first exist. By definition, nothing existed before the big bang, because there was no time before the big bang. However, and this is the tricky part, the big bang was a singular event. The universe will forever expand into nothingness untill everything goes dark. The universe itself is therefore a singular event. A singular event, MUST have a specific cause, otherwise it would not be singular. It is far from unreasonable to therefore conclude that an entity that is beyond time and space, and therefore -infinite- was the source of that singular event.

My religion therefore comes in at this point as asks, "How can something that is infinite cause and be seperate from this universe which is finite?" It is theoretically not possible for the two to co-exist. However, the written language and Math are very good indicators as to how this process occurs.

Rhysus your ignorance is amazing!
Anthony Flew a prior Atheist who is an evolution debating champion has recently switched over to Theory of Intelligent Design. He is now a Deist, spent 40 years of his life arguing for evolution and after extensive study of Theory of Intelligence Design has renounced his atheism and belief in Evolution. He claims that "he goes where the evidence leads him", which has lead him to believe in a creation of the Universe. Basically the same thing happened with Einstein who became a Deist after his scientific discoveries. These men were not devoutly religious and their scientific studies lead them to believe in a creator. Now these guys are superior in their scentific knowledge than you and see science to support the theological basis for God. So by claiming creationists are ignorant of science, well then you are in fact the one who is ignorant of the evidence.

I'm a christian and I'm a theologian of sorts. Basically my preference is theological discussion and since I see Daganev is fairly learned in this field, I wish to answer some of his questions he addressed towards Christians and to pose questions of my own.
So Daganev in response to your question regarding a non literal translation of genesis, well there are many, but the one's many christian scientists/theologians and I myself have taken is one called the Day-Age interpretation or Progressive Creationism. Basically as you stated the hebrew word used for day in the book of genesis is Yom, which stands for 12 literal hours, 24 literal hours, or an unspecified period of time. Based on other portions of scripture that use Yom as unspecified amount of time and evidence from Genesis itself has made us almost certain that Yom indeed is talking about an unspecified period of time. If you want to know more about this interpretation I will point you and anyone else interested towards two sites that deal with Creation, Science and the Bible.

Reasons.org and Godandscience.org
Enjoy!

Ok tell me what you think and then I can ask you some questions of my own

That is basically the same understanding I have.

I was asking about those who take "day" to mean 24hours.
Another website, that gets increasingly dissapointing each year is www.TorahScience.org. It gets dissapointing because the professor of plant biology who runs it does not update it much, as the community is smaller than it should be.


I believe in 4 levels of interpreation of the Hebrew of the Torah. I think I mentioned them earlier. The fact that Yom means many things, is just one example of that. Always found it interesting that Yam (sea or ocean) is so similar to Yom. I believe that has to do with the cyclical nature of the two.

It isn't based on knowledge and evidence, though. It's based on faith. I'm not entirely sure where I'm contradicting myself here. Maybe you were thinking I was speaking from my perception of -their- viewpoint? I can see how that would cause problems if so, and it's a reasonable conclusion to draw. What I mean is, you can -believe- what you want, but that doesn't mean it's true. It's not knowledge because there is no 100% certainty. (Okay, that sounds stupid, but I hope you understand what I am saying.)

However you would argue that with science there somehow is that certaintin and its not faith. Thus you are saying knowing G-d exists is a belief with no founding, but science is Truth. Thus saying a rational person could not believe in G-d.

However, just because you have not experienced the evidence and knowledge does not negate that such evidence and knowledge exists. Generally anyone who says they are a believer has that knowledge. Where Faith and Belief come in, is in what attributes that god has, and what the purpose of that god is. Knowledge that G-d exists could be divided into Deism, Monotheism, Panthiesm, Pananthiesm etc. Those are all beliefs, G-d's existance however is not so much a belief as much as it is an acceptance or rejection of theories and evidence.

I may have missed it in all of the posts, but I don't believe anyone here ever said that science is certain. I (and many of the people here, it seems) am not absolutely certain that the theory of evolution is true because it is just that, a theory. I just think that it's the best and most logical explanation, from what I know about the various sides of the argument (Of course, I could go research it all and make an even more informed decision about what to believe, however I won't because I'm perfectly happy with my world-view at the moment).

It has been stated and implied that if a person believes in god or a relgion they are irrational and have no foundation for those theories. This is normally said at the same time as stating evidence of a certain theories that can not be verified or proven. (such as the accuracy of carbon dating, or the Evolutionary process that accured 6 million years ago)

This is true of anything dealing with the past.

I know that many believers (is there another word?) in some form of deity have an internal intuition or sense that Its existence is a fundamental given that can be justified with apparent evidence, but I have never been able to find any. I agree with Shiri here... it is purely on faith that one must trust in a higher power. That does not mean it is less justified or important than science or reason (which is often no more 'certain'), only different.

If you already 'know' that a god of some kind exists, then determining aspects of her/his being is a matter of study and reflection, not faith. If you see a man standing before you, you don't need to have faith in his particular culture to know some form of it exists, you just need to know how to determine it.

I have no current religious leanings though, so is that different to the way you see it?

Greatly different.

When moses asks G-d to see his presence, the responce is , "I will show you my back, for one can not see G-d and Live."

The most clasic explanation of this conversation, is that one can only see the affects of G-d. This would be comparable to you sitting in your house on a summer's day and seeing the breeze go through the trees. You know a breeze exists, but you can not feel it, or see it, or hear it. You can only witness its affect on other things.

When this "wind" is infinite in scope, and its "affects" are the entirty of creation it is not possible to just sit and examine "it." Infact, Science is exactly the process of sitting and examining "it" and science itself can not agree on the validity of certain theories here and there. Science changes all the time, because people have perspectives and sometimes those perspectives change. G-d being infinite would mean that giving our finite perspective we can not know for sure the nature of G-d.

I would not claim to have an internal intuition as to G-d's existance. There is no commandment in Judaism to believe in G-d, as belief is easily shaken, being that it is founded on little of anything. There is a commandmant to Know G-d. The Hebrew here is very explanatory. If you go to Israel, which consists of Athiest and Religious people, and you want to ask if somebody is religious you say "Atah Daati?" Meaning, Are you 'Daati'. The word Daat, in hebrew means Knowledge. To say "I know" You would say "Ani Yodaah" The word for belief, is Amunah, and thats where you get the word Amen from. Similiarly, the word for Art (which in english comes from Artifice or Artificial) is Amanut.

My knowledge of G-d comes from a few basic things. 1)Biology 2)Cosmology 3)The large body of text known as Torah, which to me is more consistant, complete and Truthfull than any other collection of Knowledge I have seen. and 4)The fact that I have been able to change my personality and my behavior which is not the result of any physical change in myself.

Items 1 and 2 leads me to become a Diest. 4, leads me to active spiritualy and number 3 gives me all the rest that I need.

If I did not experiecne number 4, my belief structure would be different, because I would not have that evidence in my arsenal. If I did not ever come across number 3, my belief structure would be even more different! But since finite objects can only witness finite affects or events, nobody can ever know the True "Nature of G-d." As the Zen and probabbly everyone else says, "The only thing we know, is that we do not know."