ask a christian

hasnt the whole bible concept been debunked by the Zeitgeist movie, thats what i thought

reply to post by Whateva69


my personal belief(and this is all that it is, my personal belief) is that it is the same as a pat on the head from a parent... as if to say "good job".

take it as acceptance from the most High

edit to add:
people of faith understand things that others don't

people of faith have felt the "presence"

people of faith don't take this as a lie

this message was solely for people of faith

reply to post by jazzguy


yea dude it totally has unless you realize that everything the zeitgeist movie portrays as truth comes from a book that not even atheist claim as truth

Originally posted by Whateva69
reply to post by stuncrazy

 

Yeah I’m sorry, no one seems to be able to help me on this.
Never mind maybe the answer will pop up unexpectedly one day.
Thank you for taking the time to answer me.

Whateva69, according to the bible, the answer you are looking for will come to you eventually.
"For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all." -Luke 8:17

reply to post by stuncrazy

but if you are being rebellious for the sake of being rebellious there is no positive effects of said action.

I'm pretty sure a rebellious slave is being rebellious for the sake of FREEDOM.

The Bible condones slavery, you've offered no good reason for why a Holy Book supposedly inspired by God himself endorses owning people and instead went off on a tangent about how slaves should remain slaves because no slave rebellion has ever done any good. No offense but I'm not at all impressed. However I will move on to my second problem. In the book of Exodus after repeatedly hardening Pharaoh's heart to make sure the Hebrews remained enslaved God decides to kill the first born of Egypt, he then goes out and murders every first born of Egypt. My question would be: Why do people insist on worshiping a genocidal child murderer?

reply to post by Namaste1001


Don't assume what I'm writing is factual - double check this yourself (I might be a little off track in some detail - but I believe the gist of what I'm about to say is right.)

Radio carbon dating is based upon some known facts, and at least two assumptions.

The current atmospheric ratio of C14 to C12 in the environment is known.

The half-life of C14 is known (decays to C12).

The historic ratio of C14 to C12 is UNKNOWN - but is ASSUMED to be about the same as it is today.

An organism that contains carbon, is expected (ASSUMED) to have a ratio of carbon 14 to 12 the same as the environment in which it lives.

At the time of death, the carbon atoms in the remains no longer get added to (no more respiration or eating etc), and so the ratio of C14:C12 changes at the known rate. At some post-death time, the ratio of C14:C12 is measured in the discovered remains, and the ratio is expected to contain less C14 than at the time of death. A little math, and based upon the known facts and assumptions, an estimation of the length of time since death can be made.

PROBLEM 1:
When I was at university in the 1990s, I heard stories of remains that were very erroneous. I looked these up in the scientific papers (since I had an excellent library at my disposal). I can't remember all the details - but I anecdotally remember reading about a LIVE snail, whose shell appeared to be 20,000 years old, and a freshly killed fur seal that measured about 5,000 years old!)

So it appears that some unusual circumstances can cause unexpected C14:C12 ratios.

PROBLEM 2:
To assume that the historic Earth environment had the same C14:C12 ratio is somewhat naive. We know the historic Earth was different. There are fossils of animals that could not function today in the way we'd expect. I always remember the giant dragonfly: en.wikipedia.org...

I recommend any conspiracy minded person to look into the history of gigantic creatures, in all areas of organic life. And why do the most ancient trees not have rings in their centres? The bible talks about a very different Earth, pre-flood.


I apologize to anyone in advance if I've missed out some critical detail in my above description.

I don't expect this answer to change someone's view about God, because that is a matter of the heart, the ego, and more importantly the drawing of the Holy Spirit against one's heart. BUT many of the supposed anti-God arguments are made of straw, and common fallacies do deserve a little debunking.

reply to post by latitude39


1) Scientists are well aware that carbon dating doesn't work on marine animals and have been for decades.

2) Carbon dating is not and cannot be used for things older than about 60,000 years.

Radiocarbon dating (sometimes simply known as carbon dating) is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 (14C) to estimate the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years.

So this dating type wouldn't be used to determine the age of a dinosaur fossil or the age of the Earth. This is actually a common misconception amongst both Creationists/Biblical Literalists and defenders of Evolution. For older materials there are different types of radiometric dating, other than those using carbon 14, that can be used and have proven very reliable.

Stuncrazy, do you, as a ''real Christian" believe that people are capable of being perfect? Why, why not?

Originally posted by Titen-Sxull
reply to post by latitude39

 

...a common misconception amongst both Creationists/Biblical Literalists and defenders of Evolution...

Really? That's unfortunate.

Of course dinosaur fossils don't even contain carbon from the original organism anymore - the fossilization process replaces the original organism's materials - so I can't imagine why a Creationist would even go there...

There is much more in the whole Earth age/Universe age debate. Of course none of us were there very early, not even those ATS members that claim to be alien... So we have our observations, our written history, and we have some theories and assumptions. That's pretty much it. And what fraction of the Universe is theorized to be observable again? How anyone can consider themselves to know enough about the Universe to make definite conclusions of the atheistic variety, based upon observation alone is beyond me.

reply to post by latitude39


Atheism isn't necessarily a definite or rigid conclusion, I know my own atheism isn't. When presented with evidence of a god I would be forced to change my mind. Only Gnostic-Atheists claim to KNOW for certain there is no God, and there are very few Gnostic-Atheists. I do agree that to make a blanket statement that there absolutely is or isn't a God would be absurd given what we have yet to learn and given the size of the Universe. However there is no good evidence in favor of a god, so the default skeptical position is disbelief, not rigid absolute disbelief though.

Creationists love to attack Carbon Dating because they think it is used to date EVERYTHING, its a common misconception. The issue is that they have no science or good ideas of their own so they have to attempt to poke holes in Evolution and other sciences in order to support their myth, as though proving the false hood of modern science somehow makes their own beliefs about supernatural beings (or aliens) more valid.

Anyway this is getting pretty far off topic, U2U me if you'd like to discuss it further but I'd rather not derail the thread.

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


yes, good call, I've sent a U2U. Also, you were right to point out that radio carbon dating has nothing directly to do with people theorizing that dinosaurs walked the Earth millions of years ago. That original posted question by Namaste1001 was faulty - and I should have pointed out that first anyway

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


the bible condones brotherly love. the bible promotes to be giving, sharing, caring and self sacrifice.

the bible also states that if you have slaves to be a good slave owner. meaning treat the slaves as individuals and to care and watch over them as a father watches over his children.

once again your quote comes from the old testament and the old testament is simply a testament to the folly of man. want to know how God truly feels? study the words of Jesus for he is the only one who completely knows God. i'm positive he never condoned slaves.

though the fact remains. a rebellious slave never changed the fact that they were slaves

reply to post by Wonders


of course i believe it is possible to be perfect. the bible clearly states on many levels that one should fight to be perfect.

i don't believe perfect in the sense of flawless, but rather perfect in humility, honor, and virtues.

it is simply a control of ones temperament, and a perfect love for your fellow man

reply to post by Titen-Sxull


if there is no "higher being" or no "ultimate intelligence" then how were all the planets made so perfectly round?

now i get they aren't "perfectly round' per se, but you catch my drift.

here's a science experiment get a large rock place some TNT in it and blow it up. (repeat as necessary)

please post pictures when every fragment comes out as our solar system did.

Atheist here...

I must say that I agree with the Op in regards to many people not being true christians (i.e following the teachings of christ). Most of the flag waving christians I've seen on this site are some of the most hateful, biggoted, backward, narrow minded, spiteful people I have ever had the displeasure to encounter.

IRM

Why the Church hate gay people?

That ain't nice.

reply to post by stuncrazy


Genesis 1:

How could plants proceed the sun and the moon? How could bird life proceed land life?

Genesis 6-9:

How the hell is anyone supposed to take such a clearly false story seriously?

reply to post by Namaste1001


Potassium-argon dating is a more likely method to be used on dinosaur bones. Why? Because they don't have any carbon in them.

Next time just use the general term "radiometric dating".

reply to post by stuncrazy

Originally posted by stuncrazy
carbon dating has also been known to be fraudulent.

No, it hasn't. We've verified it in double blind scientific trials. It does have a limit to the time period it can be valid, but it is far from fraudulent.

try laser dating that is far more accurate.

You do realize that 'laser dating' is a weird way to describe argon-argon dating, which relies on the exact same principles as carbon dating, right?

And argon-argon dating relies on a half life of 1.25 billion years...so the Earth is really damn old.

come back with that seeing as how i have never done research on that subject and i would be highly excited of your findings... especially since i personally would love to know how long ago Adam walked this earth.

Hint: Never.

Why? Well, the world is about 4.55 billion years older than humans, give or take a few hundred thousand years.

The closest thing we have to "Adam" is the metaphorically named "Y-chromosomal Adam" who lived tens of thousands of years apart from "Mitchondrial Eve"

Crazy thing: Humanity is a few hundred thousand years old, the Earth is a few billion.
Other crazy thing: Evolution happens.

reply to post by stuncrazy


What? No slave changed slavery? I'm sorry, but Mr. Douglass would like you to have a seat over there. Escaped slaves were one of the key factors, particularly those like Mr. Douglass whose writings and speeches helped cement Abolitionism.