I like the Idea of God...

[ding]

The Tower of Babel describes the migration from the cradle of civilization to the rest of the world. It along with the rest of the account of Genesis were recorded in the symbols of the Chinese language because the Bible was correct about the great migration from the cradle of civilization. The account of Genesis literally explains how the account of Genesis was able to be recorded in the Chinese language 4,500 years ago.

lol plain text works just fine; pasting large bandwidth choking graphics into a single post isn't necessary, and in fact it's poor internet etiquette

. So written Chinese is built on the Assyrian pictographics writing. Interesting.

Not sure how I could have typed the symbols, but yes, the well known history and common everyday things were used to make a word so people
could remember it.

Links work just fine, and one can read the articles that go with them, too.

I didn't have a link. It was a presentation that was shared with me by a colleague from China. It seems to me that you are more concerned with my actions than you are the content.

Seems to me you're defensive about legitimate suggestions.

Not really, just surprised that was your reaction to the information that was presented.

 

[ding]

Without Christianity, the story of Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and other nations would be totally different.

History reads like a slow descent into the 9th level of hell.
So whats the downside?

Not everyone sees history the way you do. People with an internal locus of control see it quite differently. Does this mean you can't back up anything you claim... again?

"In the field of science, many of the founding fathers of many areas were Christians, with a devout belief in the God of the Bible and the same is true for the leaders of the Industrial Revolution, which shaped the world we live in. Michael Faraday was a scientist and evangelical Christian whose pioneering work changed the modern world, in that he helped give us electricity and the founder of the Greenwich Observatory that gave us the world’s first great star map, was of course a preacher as well. Many of the people who put man on the moon, working in NASA, were also believers."

What has Christianity done for the world?

Christianity is and has been a bureaucracy. Sometimes the people within the bureaucracy did all the right things for all the right reasons, and sometimes they conducted Inquisitions and waged wars. Christianity is a layer of voluntary government.

Sure, and it took the form of what it saw when it was founded which was effectively a monarchy. It existed beyond the reach of monarchies and is never given the credit for softening the rule of those monarchies. By necessity any organization of men will require a hierarchy unless of course one wants anarchy which will never be long lived as men prefer virtue over chaos.

And sure, being comprised of flawed men and women, they made mistakes, but by any objective measure Christianity has been a force for good.

Christianity, Islam, Church, Synagogue or Temple - The history of the dynamic organization in question is irrelevant since the mistakes that were made advanced Western 'Civilization' as much or more than the righteous objectives achieved.

What matters is the Statement of Faith:

-Do you believe with all your heart that God Himself walked in the skin of a Jew named Jesus?

-Do you believe with all your heart that Allah is the one true God and Mohammad is His prophet?

-Do you believe with all your heart that all things were created by and are actively managed by The Flying Spaghetti Monster?

Do you just call yourself a believer, or do you actually believe whatever story, ancient or modern, that you follow?

​

I don't call myself anything. I'm awake. History is never irrelevant. How else does one learn from mistakes unless they acknowledge them. You can't fix what you don't admit is broken. Yes, faith is important too. Maybe it all matters.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I mean, on the Universal Scale, earth may be Mom to us, but she's a pretty common form of wet rock hanging on a sun-beam in space.

While I think that the 22%-of-all-stars figure posited in "Prevalence of Earth-size planets orbiting Sun-like stars" constitutes enough Earth-sized rocky planets orbiting within stars' so-called habitable zones and receiving comparable levels of sunlight to assert that such planets are fairly common in number, it's essential to note too that of the 150K such stars (star systems) the Kepler telescope had identified as of the issuance of that report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, about 42K were more closely examined by Marcy et al, and only they discovered that among them only 603 (1.4%) potential planets, or "planet candidates," orbited those 42K stars. Of the 603, ten were Earth-size, that is, one to two times the diameter of Earth and orbiting their star at a distance where they are heated to lukewarm temperatures thought amenable for life.

So, yes, abstractly Earth-like planets are common enough; however, as yet, it does not appear that one's constituted so as to support intelligent lifeforms as we understand them and the requirements for their evolving and thriving aren't at all common.

 

[Carl in Michigan]

The odds of any one of the three ancient Arab stories from earth that are driving our modern religion being the last Word on THE GOD of The UNIVERSE are slim, eh?

​

Sorry, no. Do you think 21st century has brought anything new to the table?

 

[AVG-JOE]

Yes, actually. I do.

I also think that the 1st through 20th Centuries brought new information to the table.

As did the sixty Centuries between Abraham and The New Testament.

`​

 

[ding]

Yes, actually. I do.

I also think that the 1st through 20th Centuries brought new information to the table.

As did the sixty Centuries between Abraham and The New Testament.

`​

What was it that we learned in the 20th century?

 

[AVG-JOE]

We've learned a LOT!
​

No more does the West Texas farmer hold his head in wonder and shame asking why some angry god killed his wife with a tornado!

We have The Weather Chanel to explain in detail the physics behind the "Finger of God" that sometimes delivers confusing justice to the uneducated and the gullible ​

Among the things we've learned which have lead to air conditioning and a society with planes, trains and automobiles, we've learned that among all of the religions and methods of Divine Worship that survived European Colonization, God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

We've also learned that the continued prosperity of the wicked throughout Time seems to support the concept of life evolving without supervision on a dog-eat-dog world over the concept of a loving, omnipotent Father figure coaching Sentient life individually and from within via a still, small voice which is strengthened and emboldened through prayer to, and worship of, said Father figure.

 

[AVG-JOE]

If Mother Earth's little semi-Sentient bastards have a Father, His name is Time.

​

 

[ding]

God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

Toynbee and Paschal would disagree with you.

The 3000 year continued existence against overwhelming odds and their corresponding disproportionate success to their numbers is historically speaking inexplicable.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I like the idea of science. God is used to murder people over the need to keep people stupid at all cost in order to maintain the construct.

Science allows for critical thinking and allows for thinking in general.

The idea of a god that ordering his people to **** his daughters, brothers killing brothers and flooding the world is idiocy.

 

[ding]

If Mother Earth's little semi-Sentient bastards have a Father, His name is Time.

​

Intelligence is written into the fabric of life. Given enough time and the right conditions beings that know and create will eventually arise because that is the natural order as prescribed by the laws of nature. Laws which existed before space and time.

 

[ding]

I like the idea of science. God is used to murder people over the need to keep people stupid at all cost in order to maintain the construct.

Science allows for critical thinking and allows for thinking.

The idea of a god that ordering his people to **** his daughters, brothers killing brothers and flooding the world is idiocy.

I like the idea of militant atheists. You guys are so predictable.

 

[ding]

We've learned a LOT!
​

No more does the West Texas farmer hold his head in wonder and shame asking why some angry god killed his wife with a tornado!

We have The Weather Chanel to explain in detail the physics behind the "Finger of God" that sometimes delivers confusing justice to the uneducated and the gullible ​

Among the things we've learned which have lead to air conditioning and a society with planes, trains and automobiles, we've learned that among all of the religions and methods of Divine Worship that survived European Colonization, God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

We've also learned that the continued prosperity of the wicked throughout Time seems to support the concept of life evolving without supervision on a dog-eat-dog world over the concept of a loving, omnipotent Father figure coaching Sentient life individually and from within via a still, small voice which is strengthened and emboldened through prayer to, and worship of, said Father figure.

I'm sort of surprised that the greatest atrocity ever committed in the history of mankind wasn't one of the learnings.

But then again, that's what happens when a people forget God.

 

[AVG-JOE]

I will NEVER forget the greatest atrocity of mankind....

Just look at my signature below.

 

[ding]

I will NEVER forget the greatest atrocity of mankind....

Just look at my signature below.

The 200 million people murdered during the 20th century might disagree if they could.

Relax. Everything will be just fine. Besides if there is no such thing as absolute truth then we are free to pleasure ourselves until out heart's content.

By definition a world devoid of spiritualism is a world of materialism. It wasn't a coincidence that every major proclamation of the soviet union started with man's happiness with a capital M.

Funny thing is that we are doing it to ourselves and we don't even see it.

 

[AVG-JOE]

God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

Toynbee and Paschal would disagree with you.

The 3000 year continued existence against overwhelming odds and their corresponding disproportionate success to their numbers is historically speaking inexplicable.

All that means is that opinions vary on the meaning of 'blessed consistently over time'.

If you think that the Jews have led a charmed life as a people, I would have to disagree. If not for the speculation of a spiritual war being played out all around us as the driving force behind our existence, selling the idea of the Jews as "the apple of God's eye" would be a ***** to close.

 

[ding]

God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

Toynbee and Paschal would disagree with you.

The 3000 year continued existence against overwhelming odds and their corresponding disproportionate success to their numbers is historically speaking inexplicable.

All that means is that opinions vary on the meaning of 'blessed consistently over time'.

If you think that the Jews have led a charmed life as a people, I would have to disagree. If not for the speculation of a spiritual war being played out all around us as the driving force behind our existence, selling the idea of the Jews as "the apple of God's eye" would be a ***** to close.

This isn't just me saying it. Twain recognized it, Paschal recognized it. Toynbee recognized it. Tolstoy recognized it.

"The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?" Mark Twain

"The Jew is the emblem of eternity. He who neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he who neither fire, nor sword, nor Inquisition was able to wipe off the face of the earth. He who was the first to produce the Oracles of God. He who has been for so long the Guardian of Prophecy and has transmitted it to the rest of the world. Such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is as everlasting as Eternity itself." Leo Nikolaivitch Tolstoy

"Over three hundred years ago King Louis XIV of France asked Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher of his day, to give him proof of the existence of miracles. Without a moment's hesitation, Pascal answered,"Why, the Jews, your Majesty-the Jews."

We don't have to speculate what Pascal meant when he gave this answer, because he took the trouble to spell it out. In his masterwork, Pensees, he explained that the fact that the Jewish people had survived until the seventeenth century-the time period in which he lived-was nothing short of a supernatural phenomenon.
Pascal is but one of many scholars and students of Jewish history who have been awed by a story that seems inexplicable by the ordinary rules of logic. When Arnold Toynbee completed his classic ten-volume analysis of the rise and fall of human civilizations, A Study of History, he was troubled by only one seeming refutation of his universal rules governing the inexorable decline of every people on earth. Only the Jews had survived, in defiance of Toynbee's carefully reasoned analysis. So Toynbee proclaimed the Jews nothing more than"a vestigial remnant," a people destined soon to perish."

The Miracle of Jewish History

 

[ding]

God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

Toynbee and Paschal would disagree with you.

The 3000 year continued existence against overwhelming odds and their corresponding disproportionate success to their numbers is historically speaking inexplicable.

All that means is that opinions vary on the meaning of 'blessed consistently over time'.

If you think that the Jews have led a charmed life as a people, I would have to disagree. If not for the speculation of a spiritual war being played out all around us as the driving force behind our existence, selling the idea of the Jews as "the apple of God's eye" would be a ***** to close.

It isn't that hard to close or square it either.

When asked why they have survived and thrived they give all credit to God. Thus their chosenness it the least arrogant position that they could take.

And lastly the OT is an account of a people who cycled through remembering and forgetting God and what happens to them when they do.

Very saeculum cycle like if you ask me.

 

[RodISHI]

God remains uninterested in picking one to bless over the others consistently over Time.

Toynbee and Paschal would disagree with you.

The 3000 year continued existence against overwhelming odds and their corresponding disproportionate success to their numbers is historically speaking inexplicable.

All that means is that opinions vary on the meaning of 'blessed consistently over time'.

If you think that the Jews have led a charmed life as a people, I would have to disagree. If not for the speculation of a spiritual war being played out all around us as the driving force behind our existence, selling the idea of the Jews as "the apple of God's eye" would be a ***** to close.

It isn't that hard to close or square it either.

When asked why they have survived and thrived they give all credit to God. Thus their chosenness it the least arrogant position that they could take.

And lastly the OT is an account of a people who cycled through remembering and forgetting God and what happens to them when they do.

Very saeculum cycle like if you ask me.

One should be able to look at the massive ruins to be able to see that pretty easily. Then again maybe it is too simple for people to see that.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The odds of any one of the three ancient Arab stories from earth that are driving our modern religion being the last Word on THE GOD of The UNIVERSE are slim, eh?

​

Dear AVG-JOE
given that GOD represents infinite things beyond the scope of man,
nobody's depiction is going to capture ALL of GOD literally > that's impossible.
The most we can do is SYMBOLIZE the RELATIONSHIPS.

We can't capture infinity in numbers even if we counted forever.
We can use SYMBOLS
1 + 1 + 1 .....
IN ORDER TO AGREE WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT

That's the most we can, label things so we at least AGREE
what we MEAN.

The laws and languages you list above are for people of
THOSE GROUPS to communicate with each other and
AGREE on points and principles so they operate in unison.

Guess what secular people use? SCIENCE.
we use MATH AND SCIENCE as a common language
to communicate VALUES. RELATIONSHIPS and PROCESS.

So that's all these religions are used to do.
They are relative like French, Spanish, etc. and speak to certain
audiences who share a certain cultural heritage in common.

You are like asking what are the chances of French being a true language or Chinese? None of these languages agree with each other! So what are the chances that they are correct?

Well they all work to speak to a particular audience that
understands and responds to THAT LANGUAGE.

So ALL OF THEM can be used correctly to convey TRUTH
and reach AGREEMENT. They re TOOLS for communicating.

Does that make sense AVG-JOE
Do you like that explanation or do you seek a different one?

I agree that gods are an embodiment of our ignorance.

After all humans have had thousands of gods in our existence each one an embodiment of a particular phenomenon or a group of phenomena of which we had no understanding.

As we became less ignorant we started discarding gods.

Therefore it's only a matter of time before we discard the one that is left.