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r3x29yz4a said:
you're arguing morality based on modern standards. what about the multiple wives in the bible?



What "multiple wives in the Bible"?

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the marrying of daughters/sisters was more common and accepted then as well.



Indeed. God specifically forbade those marriages at the point of Exodus. They were condoned pre-flood and some millenia post-flood because the degeneration of human physiology through intercourse with closely related individuals was minimally cumulative. By the time of Moses, the blood was getting too thick for offspring to be safe from closely related intercourse, so God commanded that people could only marry other people far removed. At that time, in the Old testament, it was all good and fine--However. My comments on incest involved sexual intercourse between adults and 4 year olds--As concluded by the skeletons. The Bible never tolerated such detestable behavior. The fact that it was older family members, prolly parents, is just what makes the situation worse.

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Gay guys and kissing cousins don't equate to an immoral society.



I'll overlook that kissing cousins thing, cuz' that doesn't really have anything to do with the topic. Gay guys though, is not what I'm titling "immoral". Would I say their more common behavior is immoral? Yes. Sodomy's not as easily explained away as people'd like to think. It's shown to cause problems rather than maintain benignity. Anyway, I think we're getting very off-topic here. Just a reminder: My assertions regarding religion aren't based on it deciding what's right and what's wrong, but rather that if it wasn't for religion in the first place, secularity wouldn't have any moral basis in and of itself and all cultures would prolly maintain a Machiavellian policy.

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Laws are set up to clarify moral standards (or at least the base laws are) and keep people in line by setting down what those moral standards are.



"Laws", in the purest of definitions, have nothing to do with morals or "clarifying moral standards". That's true for today's cultures, but they've already been egregariously affected by religion. Past cultures that weren't religion-influenced (namely Christian/Judeoism) were primarily law kept through types of objectivism. Laws weren't kept cuz' they were moral, they stayed sacred because they kept society from breakdown. The Russian, Viking, and Egyptian societies (to name a few) didn't have any semblence of "morals" within their regulations.

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That's not true. You can't say the bible happened because it says so in the Bible.



Yes I can.

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There are flood myths in several cultures. Each is really just as "provable" as the Biblical one.



They are and they aren't. I hear there's some evidence that the Babylonian one happened, however that doesn't mean they're referring to the same flood. The Babylonian flood was most definitely localized--If it actually happened. As I already mentioned to MJ, the Biblical deluge is the most proveable in that it's in the Old Testament, which is accepted as a historical document and that the date implied by the Old Testament is consistent with the flood-strata and the timeframe in which it was created--And that's not even mentioning the credibility it's given from the confirmation of the other historical events, from the Bible, proven true from geological study. Moreover, as I said before, there's only been one consistent flood strata found. If there was more than one that was world-wide, there'd be multiple strata of that variety.

Those flood myths are in no way comparable to the Biblical Deluge.

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Did you watch footage from the Tsunami?
When a massive tidal wave comes in (and the bible doesn't say this is a slow flood that takes time to rise) it decimated what it hit, it didn't lift the cars and the buildings and the modern era boats and carry them safely along the sea.



That's a very keen observation r3x, but the only way that the hemisphere containing the block of ice (during the Ice Age of course) could have caused the flood (and trust me, that was the cause) was if it was indeed a slow flood.

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Uh, yeah it was.
The Pope told the knights that this was a holy "crusade" and that any acts committed would be forgiven upon reclaiming the holy land.



First of all: This statement, if it's true, only proves that it was retaliatory. If they went out and invaded without provocation from the Muslims in the first place, whilst in that state of mind, I'd be more inclined to agree with you. However, such is not the case.

Second of all: The Papist wasn't the supreme ruling power. Did he have influence? Yes. However, he wasn't the one sending out the military. In which case, religion wasn't their prime motive for fighting.

Is that supposed to be a direct quote or are you talking out of your ass....Again?

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I think it came up as you were saying the christians were persecuted and I was making the point that they persecuted plenty of people themselves.



I know. I was talking about Muslims. Although, if you're trying to debunk anyone for crimes of persecution instead of just trying to play favorites with the Christians, you could note that the Jews persecuted Christians whilst the religion was in early growth.

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I'm not a fan of either religion, however I find Christians to be the most offensive in terms of their beliefs and pushing it on others.
I live in downtown SF and everyday see some Christian guy with a sign condemning this or that, some christian guy passing out flyers.
I've never met an Allah's Witness.
I don't hate Christians, I don't really hate any religion or people. I think its all a waste of time to be honest.
Christians irritate me the most because they have to make sure everyone knows we're sinners in their eyes.
I just wish they'd keep to themselves and didn't try to force everyone else to conform to their view of things.



Until I see hordes of Christian armies imprisoning people and forcing them to convert like in the inquisition days, I can't sympathize with this. Especially since we've seen plenty of "Allah's witnesses" kill thousands of our own people as well as many foreign others in the Middle-East.

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Its just one example. And look at the last few hundred years. There is a clear animosity between Christians and Jews that goes back to the time of Jesus when some Jews became Christians and some didn't.



At which point though, as I noted earlier, during the centuries closer to Christ's death, Christians were discriminated against by Jews. Singling out Christians in that department seems fallacious.

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But "faith" has more power for people than "logic" in most cases. Because logic dictates that if you want your life to change then you make it change, but faith is this magical thing that says if you want change believe in god and it'll all work out in Heaven.



In "most" cases? Gimme a break. You do realize that you just re-defined both "faith" and "logic" right? You seem to be of the misconception that "faith" and "logic" can't co-exist or mesh together. What's more, you're claim as to what affects people more is highly subjective. Scientists, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, etc. have faith, yet they operate on the logic you claim dictates their fallacy. That fact alone proves you wrong on both counts.

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You're kidding, right?
What about fossils and sedimentary layers that show the earth as being millions of years old.



They don't show anything of the sort. As it stands, Carbon-14 can't be properly used on fossils and geological extracts. And radiology, the currently used geological dating method, is too erratic and innaccurate. Sedimentary layers aren't any sort of static indicator of history. Aside from the fact that they constantly shift, their placement creates more diversity in the soil sample through temperature changes, mineral concentrations, and pressure from other layers than through the passage of time. Simply put: All that sedimentary layers do in ways of informing us about the history of the earth, from a purely terra-forming (theory) perspective, is tell us how voluminous it's been/remained. Same for the fossils: All they show is what animals used to be alive on Terra Firma.

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Would it really be so hard for you to just say that god took his time in making the earth?



No, it wouldn't be hard....If that's what was actually indicated by geological evidence as well as the Bible. But as it stands, secular sources have failed to prove the earth and sun as being billions of years. They've furthermore failed to disprove the historical events of the Old Testament.

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Or that the seven days in the bible is maybe an inacurate idea?



I'm open to the idea that "7 days" may not have meant 168 hours. However, I'm not so much concerned with that so much as I am the Bible's vehemence in noting that we were created. Right there on the spot.

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Again:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_flood
I think you should look at mythology as a whole. The ancient world is not just a few countries in the mideast, Pariah.



Flood strata isn't found only in the mideast, it's found all over the world. I already addressed your link up top.

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theory9 said:
it wasn't a mistake that the Catholic Church tacitly sided with the Nazis in WWII anymore than all religions continue to assert us vs. them throughout the world.



The Catholic Church did no such thing. Pope Pious, what I'm sure you're referring to, was harrassed by the Nazis. How exactly are you going to try and assert that the Church "sided" with the Nazis when they denounced them just as vehemently as the allies?

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Im Not Mister Mxypltk said:
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theory9 said:
P.S.
No religion has a monopoly on ethics or morals.



Aye. You can be a decent guy without being religious. My logic is that, if when I die I get "punished" for not discriminating gays or not going to church, then that's simply unfair and that God fella is gonna get a piece of my mind.



No one in this thread ever said that religion had a monopoly on morals and ethics. My assertion is that secularity wouldn't have any moral basis in and of itself and all cultures would prolly maintain a Machiavellian policy and all citizens within would maintain strict objectivism without its past foundation.

As for your comment on gays: Fuck off.

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magicjay said:
Earliest Sign of Human Habitation in East Asia Found in China




Do you think you could give me a link that contains more specifics? I mean, the article is four years old, I figure with its kinda implications, it'd give me more to work with. I'd do it myself, but everytime I www.fuckinggoogleit.com I keep coming across these other sites that each individually say their coverage has the oldest human habitat--They're all a bit more recent as well.

Rather strange.
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Human Habitation in South America

The oldest known dates for human habitation in the Americas are from sites in South America. The Monte Verde site in southern Chile has an occupation floor that is dated at 33,000 years ago.



I said that the majority of each agrees that they were first in the Fertile Circle, not that they were there thousands of years ago.

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You state that that selularists and creationists are in agreement over the 'facts' you present in point 2 of your post. Apparently your secularists think the universe is only 12000 years old, too.



Again, no. They don't. Logic would suggest they do after the flood was proven to have happened around 7000 BC, but they retain the 5 billion year hypothesis.

P.S. I said that I believed Earth is 12,000 years old. I didn't say anything about the universe.

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My question for you is this: Are you ignorant or just a liar?



Ever get tired of being insane?