by Arlos » Tue May 25, 2004 11:23 am
BTW, as for flying and how that developed, saw a show on dinosaur evolution the other day that has a pretty good explanation for it. Apparently, a lot of the raptor type dinosaurs were actually developing feathers for quite a while. (utahraptor, velociraptor, etc.) Also, the way their skeletons were set up, the motion they used to spring their claws forward to grab something is almost exactly the same motion a bird uses to swing its wings forward as part of the flight motion. So, if you have feathered arms, swinging forward in a flight-type motion, not too far fetched to go from that to using that to get longer jumps, to gliding, to true flight, given several million years.
Now, as for the bible again. Some stuff for our apparently departed christian arguing partner. First, I at least never called you a retard, not once, go look at my posts. Now, some questions:
1) Why is god creating the universe by means of the big bang somehow incompatible with the bible?
2) How is saying "god is the spark that caused the random amino acids created by lightning striking the primordial soup of the oceans to recombine into the beginnings of life, which led via his mechanism of evolution, eventually to allthe birds, beasts, plants and man" also somehow incompatible with the bible? (not that I believe that's how it happened, but I certainly can't disprove that or argue against it scientifically.)
3) Do you believe that earth was created in 4004 BC, as figured out by some bishop a long time ago, by tracing back the lifespans and dates in all the who begat who stuff in the bible?
4) If Adam and Eve really existed, and Kane and Abel were their first 2 children, where did all the people come from that Kane went out among when he was banished from Eden for killing his brother? Shouldn't those 4 have been the only people on earth?
5) What's wrong with Carbon dating? And you DO know there's other radiological dating methods in use besides just carbon dating, to allow us to date rocks?
6) How do you explain dinosaur skeletons, homo erectus skeletons, australopithicus skeletons, hell, how about wooly mammoth skeletons or frozen corpses like you could see about on the discovery channel, that was dated to 20,000 years old?
7) Similarly to the last question, assuming literal creationism, and earth starts in 4004 BC, how do you explain 25,000 year old cave paintings and those temples in Malta that were built in 6-7000 BC?
8) How about life on other planets? Never mentioned in the bible, how'd that get started, or is there none but here?
9) If the bible is "god's word", how do you explain the mis-translations? Like the whole "parting of the red sea" thing, when if you look back at earlier greek version, it should be REED sea (ie, a tidal marsh). How many other errors and inaccuracies do we NOT know about?
10) Again if the bible is "god's word", how do you explain the fact that it was men, many with political agendas, that decided at 2 vatican councils which books would be *IN* the bible? Check out the Apocrypha and Pseudopygrypha (sp?). Those are the collected books that many thought SHOULD be in the bible, but didn't have enough votes to be included.
11) If the jewish slaves fleeing egypt really spent 40 years wandering around the sinai desert trying to reach Israel, why is there NO archaeological evidence whatsoever for any such thing? Deserts are great preservers of man's detritus; in the mojave today you can see tank tracks that look fresh, but were really made in the 1940s by US tank troops preparing to go to North Africa. Yet, in all that area there's no evidence of that many people living there for that long. none. (also, how in hell does it take 40 years to go from one side of Sinai up to Israel? It's what, 200 miles tops? Talk about a SERIOUSLY lousy sense of direction.)
12) What gives christians the right to go out and prosletyze and force their beliefs on others? And yes, it's almost invariably christians doing this. You don't see buddhist missionaries going to africa to convert the natives, nor hindu, nor shintoist, nor jewish, nor even islamic really. People of those other religions believe in their correctness as fervently as you do in yours, so what gives christians the right to try and impose THEIR will on other people?
So, there you go. 12 simple questions. If you have data and evidence to support your claims, by all means, bring it, I want to see it. You may not convince me, but I definitely want to see what you have to back up your claims. If you DON'T, well, it just looks like you don't really have anything, you just can't answer the tough questions and fled rather than having to try. So please, I'm waiting for your response here.
-Arlos
