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"Actually, the word used there was "haarets" and often is interpreted as the kingdom of Judea. " Note the use of the word often. Often =always? nope. Also note the phrase"the word used", the word used in what? The original texts? Has anyone ever seen these? Nope. If people believed in the past they were refering to Judea they would have put Judea, they didnt. When someone comes along and points out that this would be impossible the definitions of the words change to fit the facts. That is not intelectually honest. Just like we now know the world wasnt created in 6 days , so, no problem we just change the definition of a day. My point is that the fluidity of biblical interprettations is such that one can often make it mean what one likes. my original response to the idea that the bible is sceintifically verified was showing that if you pull up a verse and intrpret it in a particular way it might seems sceintiifically valid. But that is just selectiion on the part fo the believer. The opposite view can be taken just as strongly with the same text. So no the bible is not verified by science, in fact if anyhting the opposite is true.

I certainly wouldnt deny sanitation had a huge effect on life exptancy. But this doesnt exactly support the notion in Chinese medicine that disease is caused by imbalances in the person.

The Spherical Shape of the Earth It is well known that the ancient model of the Earth was a disc and the sky a dome, this is consistent with the quote you gave, spreading a tent out over a disc wouldn’t be so hard, spreading it over a sphere would. Furthermore you ignore may quotes in the bible that imply the Earth is flat “"I saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth; the tree grew and became strong, reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds." (Daniel 4:10-11)” “The devil took him [Jesus] to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in their glory." Both of these quotes are only possible if the world if flat. So no the bible doesn’t say the world is a sphere, it does say it is a circle, which some modern Christians have convinced themselves is the same as a sphere, it isn’t. The Earth is suspended in nothing Actually the Earth is suspended in space time. Mass distorts the fabric of this object and causes gravity If the bible had said the Earth was suspended on an object I’m sure a few believers would say it supports relativity Its common to make things fit the way you want them to. You might also want to consider this passage “JOB 38:4 Where was thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. This could be used to come to the conclusion that Earth is suspended on something. With a big enough book its easy to find things fit what you want them to. The Stars are Innumerable - "He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars -- if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be" (Genesis 15:5). HHmm, the number of people on the planet is roughly 6 billion. The number of starts in the universe is estimated to be 50,000 billion billion. Seems like the bible is only out by 8333 billion. Vague predictions are easy to make and hard to disprove that’s why we dot pay attention to them. Why don’t you read Genesis? you’ll find the stars are created after the Earth That is in complete contradiction to modern science. But you seem to ignore that point and go with this silly vague predictions. The Existence of Valley in the Seas You can look from a ship and see the sea floor is not always flat, big deal. “The Existence of Springs and Fountains in the Seas - "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month -- on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened" (Genesis 7:11). See also Gen. 8:2; Prov. 8:28.” You want to tell us the story of a 600 year old man is a scientific one. Is this a joke? All scientific estimates of the age of humans in that are in the region of 3 to 4 decades and you calmly present a story of a man living to 6 centuries as scientific. Furthermore if you read up about ancient model of the Earth that the Hebrews were inspired from you will see the floodgates of heaven opening up is likely to be a literal statement. The belief was the Earth was a disc with the stars set in the firmament and water above it! For more info I suggest reading this: http://www.mukto-mona.com/new_site/mukto-mona/Articles/brent_meeker/cosmology.htm The Existence of Water Paths This is a pretty vague statement even if taken literally, so what. I have snorkelled in very shallow waters and seen paths in the sea. The statement also seems to imply man is at the top of the food chain “you put everything under his feet” this is a statement ignorant of the modern understanding of the world which includes the fact micro organisms feed off and kill humans. The Hydrologic Cycle This actually contradicts the story of the flood, because the hydrologic cycle cannot account for the amount of water it would need to cover the whole Earth in forty days. Even to cover Mount Ararat in forty days it couldn’t be done, let alone the much higher mountain ranges of the Andes and the Himalaya. The Concept of Entropy - "In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded" (Psalm 102:25-26). They won’t all wear out like garment some stars for example will explode dramatically, they are called super nova.

The moulton metal - well what metal was it? Aluminium would be my guess it melts at 660 degrees c , why is that problem? Why do you think the extensive fires at tower 7 would not cause it to collapse? Perhaps you think there wasnt enough damage? maybe you should pay attention to the firefighters who were there rather than the paranoid fantasists; here is what firefighter Richard Banaciski said "on the north and east side of 7 it didn’t look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors." "Institutes like the IMF etc OWN countries like yours." What are you talking about? Which countries does the IMF own? Are you aware that the IMF itself is owned by 184 states? , and that the country with the largest ownership , the USA, only has 17% of it? Have you ever known 184 countries to agree on anything? Did they plan the 911 conspiracy?

Im really glad you are a Chrisitan that likes science. But perhaps you hsouldnt be suprised to see many Christians dont, after all in the bible we see passages condemming natural philisophy such as: Colossians 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ or when as so often in the bible illness is attirbuted to demonic spirits, here on of may examples: Matthew 12:22 ( Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. or that anything is possible through faith(if thats so why do research, just prey/) Luke 17:6 And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

Aq have admitted they were responsible for 9-11. They also tried to blow up the world trade centre in the early 90's, attacked Kenya dn Tanzania emabbsies, the USS Cole and attempted attacks on the millenium which failed including a plot to bomb LAX airport. Do the conspiracy theoriests believe these attacks were also by the US government? Why would the US government not only blow up the world trade centre , but also attack its employeees and colleagues at the Pentagon and crash a plane in Pennslyvania? Wouldnt the WTC have been enough. The whole notion is just laughable. BTW here are some quotes from AQ admitting 9-11. http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/09/10/36235.html A 112-page document drawn up by Ramzi Binalshibh, of Al Qaeda, and released by Qatar-based TV station Al Jazeera, admits that the organisation was involved in the terrorist attacks in the USA on September 11th and warns of a wave of new terrorist activities. The document, called “The new reality of the Crusades” is about the justification for the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001 and celebrates the destruction caused by the attacks on the twin towers and the Pentagon, described by the author as “That glorious Tuesday”. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/11/wbin11.xml from OBL "The Twin Towers were legitimate targets, they were supporting US economic power. These events were great by all measurement. What was destroyed were not only the towers, but the towers of morale in that country." The hijackers were "blessed by Allah to destroy America's economic and military landmarks". He freely admits to being behind the attacks: "If avenging the killing of our people is terrorism then history should be a witness that we are terrorists. Yes, we kill their innocents and this is legal religiously and logically." http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26418 "Al-Qaida takes pride in that, on Sept. 11, it destroyed the elements of America's strategic defense,"Abu 'Ubeid Al-Qurashi, accoridng to wikipedia: Shortly before the U.S. presidential election in 2004 in a taped statement, bin Laden publicly acknowledged al-Qaeda's involvement in the attacks on the U.S, and admitted his direct link to the attacks. He said that the attacks were carried out because, "We are a free people who do not accept injustice, and we want to regain the freedom of our nation." In a videotape aired on Al Jazeera on October 30, 2004, bin Laden said he had personally directed the 19 hijackers.[46] Another video obtained by Al Jazeera in September 2006 shows Osama bin Laden with Ramzi Binalshibh, as well as two hijackers, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Wail al-Shehri, as they make preparations for the attacks.[47]

what so wrong with satan? as i remeber in the bible god is responsible for a lot more gruesome murders than satan. Seems to me that anyone who rebels against such an asshole is all right in my book.

what about dunking iron into the sea?

i tihnk in the bible god kills a lot more pople and is a lot nastier than the devil. whilst I believe in neither, if i had to chose Id go with Lucifer everytime.

i had a girlfriend who got screwed up form cocaine, I imagine its a similar experience. she was a christian, I still have Lee Sobels books that she gave me to try and convert me. Last time I saw her though she had given up both coke and god, not sure which drug was worse for her. Of course Ive considered god has a role in the universe , I ve considered it and discounted it.( i was religious when i was younger.) The reason for that is for every positive story you can tell me about the ffects of Christianity I can tell you a negative one. Thats just what we would expect in a world without god. If it were the way you implied why wouldnt all who turn to Christianity be better off? let me give you an example of people that turned to Christianity and what happened to them: Inj 1994 a number of refugee from the Rwandan genocide turned up at the parish of Ste. Famille hoping for sanctuary for the slaughter around them. Did god reach out and save them? No he did not, the local priest was a Hutu power sympathsier and according to 45 survivors who signed the book "In the eyes of the Survivors of Sainte Famille" he assited the interahamwe in the massacre that followed. you can read more here http://allafrica.com/stories/200612010793.html?page=2 about the guilt of the Church in the Rwanda massacres. to give you the most important bit here; "William Church, the Kigali-based director of the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies, has no doubt that the Catholic Church in Rwanda stands accused. "The history of the church in Rwanda is interwoven with the state control apparatus," he said. "For 40 years this was the Catholic Church after independence. There were very few other religious organisations. The Catholic Church did the bidding of the power elite. It took part in the genocide and many leaders were part of the planners." Now if you are going to conclude becuase you've seen the beneficial effects of Christianity that god exists, why do you not conclude the opposite when you see comments like the ones above? i suggest again that you are guilty of data mining ie you select a section of the data set that supports your conclusions and ignore others that are equally valid becuase they don't. That is never a way to come to sensible conclusion. Moreover as I have said before but never got a proper response. Truth is about correspondance with facts it has nothing to do with how useful, pleasent or effective it is. So even if were the case that everyone who turned your religion showed improvement in their lifes, it would have no bearing on whether the claims of that religion were true.

yes i you stick a large maount of zinc up someones nose it may well cause it to run which could be considered as cold like sympton. But if you read the explanation from the manufacturer yuo will see that it does not follow homeopathic principles. The word root is homo which means same, so in that sense youare right. But homeopathy was set up initially and is still practiced today as having the principle of infinitesimals at its core to quote wikipedia "The most characteristic and controversial principle of homeopathy is that the potency of a remedy can be enhanced (and the side-effects diminished) by dilution, in a procedure known as dynamization or potentization...The dilution factor at each stage is traditionally 1:10 ('D' or 'X' potencies) or 1:100 ('C' potencies). Hahnemann advocated 30C dilutions for most purposes, i.e. dilution by a factor of 10030 = 1060. As Avogadro's number is only 6.02 × 1023 particles/mole, the chance of any molecule of the original substance being present in a 15C solution is small, and it is extremely unlikely that one molecule of the original solution would be present in a 30C dilution. According to this molecular paradigm, any glass of water must be regarded as an extreme dilution of almost any agent you care to mention. Thus, critics argue that by drinking water one receives homeopathic treatment for every imaginable condition.[33][34] Proponents of homeopathy are unable to accept the molecular paradigm as a complete account of life phenomena and therapeutics. They believe that the methodical dilution of a particular substance, beginning with a 10% solution and working downwards, produces a therapeutically active 'remedy', in contrast to regular water which is therapeutically inert. However, in terms of chemistry, a dilution of anything at 30C is identical to water."

this is from the manufacturers of zicam web site: " ZICAM™ uses a patent-pending gel matrix to apply ionic zinc directly to the nasal cavity. Research suggests that ionic zinc fills the grooves on the rhinovirus, thereby blocking the virus's ability to bind with the cells lining the nasal cavity, preventing or interrupting the infection cycle. " Now notice that is does not obey homeopathy 1st principle like cures like, nor oes it obery homeopathys 2nd principles , the "law of infinitesimals" the level of dilution is only 2x which no one could possibly say represents a homeopathic dilution. My conclusion Zicam is not a homeopathic medicine. The manufacturers may call it that for whatever marketing reason, but it clearly has nothing to do with homeopathy.

this why i think religion is so fucked up: "I believe because of his addictive personality Francois would have slipped into doing H further down the line(within a few days if the opportunity was there) - God took him away it was the right time .." seems to be implying that your sadness of your friends death is less than your sadness that he had a heroin problem! I have known people to take drugs that I wished didnt but i never would have preffered it if they were dead. This represents one of the biggest problems of religion and it is why religious belief affects everyone. If we believe that there is an after life then we are less likely to value life.Why did medieval torturers enact such cruel terror? perhpas because they believed there was a crueler terror waiting afterwards they could turn people away from; why did islamic terrorists hijack planes and crash them into buildings? perhaps becuase they believed they would leave themselves and other to paradise? I could go on but I think you see the point when belief in after life becomes more widespread then the value of our current lives is diminished. That is a dangerous situation for society to be in and that is why it matters so much if religion is really true , not just whether it feels good.

If it worked for you I can undersatnd that. But dont you think that maybe degrades the concept of truth? After all if someone did well out of astrology that wouldnt make astrology true would it ? Do we asses truth based upon how it affects people. I tend to think something is true or not true independent of whether it has a positive or negative effect on someone. For example, if a straight man dated a transvestite but thought he was going out with a woman, it might be untrue to say he is going out with a woman but to tell him otherwise may have negatvie effects Truth is a seperate concept.Dont you think?

Well if Zicam works thats fine, it seems we r in agreement as we both agree the theory of homepathic dilution is ridiculous. By the way has Zicam been assesed via double blind random trials or is that you saing it works for you? they are not the same, the former would be meaningful the latter not.

actually makrets follow a path known as a Markov process, what the says in simple English is that markets move randomly with respect to their previous price. This is not the same as moving randomly. This implies the markets do not revert to mean. In fact its not clear that such a statement can ever be meaningful as its arbitrary as to what data you would use to calculate the mean: 1 week, 1 year 1 decade? Ii you want to know where the usd will be in the future you should simply lookat the forward price. This price is not a predicter of the future value its a calculation based upon interest differentials. However research has shown its the best unbiased predicter of the future spot rate. It doesnt mean its alwasy right but it has the least squared errors.

If you read my original post you will see what homeopathic dilution is and why it implies homeopathy is ridculous as a result. Most homeopathic remedies are so diluted they have no chance of containing even 1 molecule of the active ingredient. In the case above the dilution is so small that the critique does not apply.

So u r sayig that you have seen your life improve when you turned to god. How you believe your subjetive experience can reveal the existense of deity is beyond me. Let me tell you of some other peoples experience. On sep 11th a few Muslims prayed very hard that their mission would succeed. Im sure the hunddreds of Christians whose planes were hijacked would have prayed their ives were spared. What happened? It would appear that the Muslim prayers wee answered and the Chrsitians were not. Does this prove that Allah is the one true god? I dont think so, but your logic would imply it. Im sure we could go back and forth with people doing well out of prayer and others not, but that is exactly what we would expect in a world with no god. Some people might prey and feel their lives improved others might prey and not (the latter was my experience when I was religious), would the existence of the former group lead to us concluding god exists? Of course not. It reminds me of the esp tests. People were tested to see if they could guess which out of 5 esp card symbols were hidden. By chance we can say 20% of guesses will be right. So each person should get 20% correct. But with a large group of pople we can also say that some poeple will do considerably better than chance, others will do worse. Does the existence of the better than chance group prove esp exisst?B[Believe it or not the new agers do say that some people have esp for this very reason] Again of course it doesnt, we cant take one bit of the data set as meaningful, that is why your personal expeirence is not meaningful either. You also fail to dinstiguish between correlation and causation. So prayer and improvements in your life have been correlated that does not imply they were causual. we have to look at the whole data set before we can even begin to think about meaning, and that inlcudes all the poeple who do prey and nothing happens. Some people have played the stock makret using astrology and made money does that mean astrology can be used to rpedict stock prices? Of course not , we would have to include those that lose at doing it before we would even consider such a possibility. Lastly how do you know that the prayer was not acting in a simlar way to a placebo?

Ive seen something even more ridiculous, not about water but re alternative therapy. therapist are now offering tachyon therapy. look it up, this is no joke!

"Your choice is to believe that the idiot trying to make some money out of christians etc..really believes in God and that is what all christians are out to do ' they may believe, they may not.My point was that thier activties in no way give evidence to gods existence as you claimed. " but i pray and experience God everyday in my life cause it's the choice i made." how do you know this experience u speak of is god and not something else perhaps your imagination?

how do you know it works? what dilution was it?

"After prayer for certain people i have seen 2 people get up from wheelchairs after being paralized for round 20 years , i have seen people get healed from cancer,aids and all kinds of deseases and even broken backs right in front of my eyes " Your statement is meaningless and heres why: One cant possibly see someone cured of cancer, aids or most other serious diseases. In order to say somone is cured takes a long diagnostic process over many weeks or months. So I would ask what is was you saw the made you conclude you saw someone cured from cancer or aids before your eyes? As far as people get up out of wheel chairs. This is a well known trick, what faith healers often do is to interview people before they sit down in the hall. two targets are sought after, one are those in wheel chairs, who need them becuase they cant walk long distances,but can actually walk, the other are the group who dont need wheel chairs but still find walking hard. The latter group are offered wheel chairs and the former group are sat with them. the faith healers then gets people to walk who were in wheelchairs and the audience swears blind that they saw people healed by the faith healer. In fact all they have seen is a confidence trick. This is very similar to a magic trick, all magicians know this one fact; that the audience remebers the rouitne differently to the way it actually happened. The illusion is created and the brain goes along with it and often embellishes it. That is what frequently happens in faith healing. Now I know you dont believ me that this applies to you and that you are sure of what you saw. But I would say two things; one thats exactly what happens in all magic tricks. Secondly if you would like to read the documentation of this , I suggest the following book: "the Faith Healers" by James Randi. Randi spent some time investigting faith healers and amongst other things exposed Peter Popoff who made the audience believe he was diving people illnesses through spiritual means wheareas infact he used a micro transmitter hidden in his ear and was getting prayer cards transmitted to him by his wife! After much investigation Randi conlcuded that not a single case of verifiable faith healing had ever occurred. But even if it had why would that prove god exists? This would be the worst case of selective data mining. There are so many prayers that dont get answered do we count that against the existence of god? Certainly Christians don't. Just like any bad scientist they ingore the mass of data they dont like and if some occasional bit fo data comes along that seemes to verify their beliefs they clutch at it, blinded to the rest. Its a very poor reason to believe. Lastly on your quote "If science has proven 100% that evolution is true " science doesnt prove anyhting, proof only exists in mathematics. What we can get to is a state where there is overwhelming evidence in favour of a hypothesis and that is where we are with evolution. You will find no doubts about evolution in the scientific literature. i live in europe here evolution is not remotely a controversial subject, both theists and atheists alike accept it. Only in the USA (within the Western world) is it seen so controversial, I think that tells you the debate is a cultural one, not a scientific one.

Well i cant speak for Pajs motivation. But if I critique child labour laws in Thailand and a representative of the Thai government immediatley rebutts me quoting me how well Thai child workers are treated in their factories I would think Im quite justified as considering that as a justification of such labour practices. Thats exactly what happened on previous posts. i criticsed the morality of the bible because it allows slavery and Paj rather agreeing in my condemnation gives us reasons why slavery wasnt so bad after all. Soudns like a defence to me. Paj may have explained slavery as due to mans free will, but he doesnt explain why making graven images is prohibited by god but slavery is not.That speaks volumes in my opinion.

"The radio interview was in the UK radio 4 which has a very negative view on anything that remotely questions evolution " How would you expect a physicist to react to someone questioning the spherical nature of the Earth(please no pedant talking about ellipsoids )? there are indeed flat earth Chrsitians they are not so vocal as the creationsits.

You fail to see the defenders of slavery used the bible as a very real defence of slavery. If we accept that god is able to see the future, and Christians do accept this then god would have known this would happen and he let it happen. I have provided evidence fo rthis in previous posts. THis clearly indicated that if the bible gives our morals then we hsould accept slavery as moral. If you wish to argue that the bible was only expressing the morals of the time, thats fine. But then that leads to the conclusion that morality does not come from the bible. You can't have it both ways.