This amounts to a handwave. The ancients, not just the ancient Hebrews, believed that the ‘sky’ was a firmament - a dome. If they didn’t, then Jesus’s ascension makes very little sense.
So you are saying that God needed to slaughter millions of Jews in order to prompt them into forming the modern state of Israel?
That’s horrendous.
How about God didnt think the current populace had the cerebral capacity to understand the technical description of the atmosphere? Think about having a hand gun from today back then.
People might believe it was sound that caused the hole. They hear it, and a hole appears. They dont see the bullet and dont have the technology to understand it.
The Bible is broken into personal accounts and history.
Old Testament and New Testament are different. Additionally, the Bible taught that we must live within the laws of the times. Many slaves were Jews. While slavery itself may be wrong, doing what your master says while youre a slave will keep you safer from harm. If youre free, dont have slaves of your own. Example
You own me as a slave and I am a Jew. Youre not likely to say that because my God says owning me is wrong, so you will set me free. So God tells me to listen to you. This advice is because it is the life I have and it is the rules I am living in. If obeying you doesnt disobey God, then I should obey.
In my previous response in first quote, I used a hand gun as an example. Back then, that would seem magical. Much of what we have today, would seem magical. TV, Computers, flying et al.
I was thinking video, it’s much, much harder to manipulate video evidence of stuff close up. But of course, you never saw a demon, since they don’t exist.
Like you and evolution?
He doesn’t have to be a liar. He could just be someone who something random happened to. There are going on seven billion of us. Some people are going to have unlikely events happen to them.
That said, he’s probably bullshitting. Certainly more likely than God intervening in getting his daughter a flower when Doyle had the power to do it himself easily. So God manipulates the situation to get that little girl a flower, and on the same day he allowed tens of thousands of children to die of starvation.
Your God is kind of an asshole.
You’d be hard pressed to find a non-Christian audience in America, something like 75% of the country is Christian.
In any case, sure, he didn’t need to lie, and maybe he didn’t, but a random coincidence doesn’t prove God. What if a Hindu was on a train that derailed and survived with no injury. Is that proof that the Hindu Gods exist?
Do you deny what I said? I said facts. It is factual that the people that wrote the bible thought the sky was a solid dome. It is factual that there is no evidence for the Exodus, it is factual that there was never a world-wide flood. These are facts. You can look them up.
And instead of dealing with that, you just pretend they aren’t there.
So Hitler was doing God’s work? That’s a vile thing to suggest.
I think you are confusing “evidence” with “proof”. If I say I feel God’s presence, that’s evidence. It’s not very good evidence, and it’s certainly not proof, but it is evidence.
I believe evolution is a tool of God personally. Im not a Bible literalist. is that even a word
Why do others have proof, and you can go to opinion?
Wait until you meet him 
Maybe, but you wouldnt me hard pressed to find someone who isnt a Christian in an audience
You mean when you siad he was “likely lying” without any proof?
I didnt see him say that. This is what devalues your posts. Rebuke what he says, dont make things up.
In many cases, 1st person accounts are considered evidence, even in scientific investigations.
First person accounts of “feelings” would only be considered scientific evidence if there was no other plausible explanation.
There can, by definition, be no scientific evidence or proof of God. Science does not, cannot, deal with the supernatural.
He specifically stated:
What did you see him saying?
There’s a reason why this is called The Straight Dope message board and not the Atheist Alliance message board. People come here for factual answers and opinions based on evidence. If there are a lot of non-believers here it’s because, for most people, that’s the ‘straight dope’. There’s just no evidence. GEEPERS, the list you give for evidence that there’s a god is not going to make us scratch our heads, and say; “Wow, maybe he’s right!”
[QUOTE=Lobohan;14998287 ]
I was thinking video, it’s much, much harder to manipulate video evidence of stuff close up. But of course, you never saw a demon, since they don’t exist.
Like you and evolution?
[/QUOTE]
I see, so you have hardcore proof that everyone who has had a supernatural experience is either lying or insane, huh? I certainly wouldn’t put it past atheists to manipulate “scientific” evidence either.
We’re not talking about a random event. A woman that he never met was told by God to bring a white rose to the concert. Anyone with a non-biased perspective wouldn’t casually dismiss such a story as mere randomness.
I understand that you need to believe that it is a BS story. Your comment only demonstrates a thinly veiled hatred of God. Reminds me of the atheist who finally admited that if God was real, he rather burn in hell than ever worship him. For once, I found honesty from an atheist.
Show me a verse where the Bible talks about sky dome. You toss the term “fact” around loosely. Sorry, but you can not conclusively prove as fact something like the worldwide flood unless you personally witnessed the events. The topic wouldn’t be a matter of debate if it was factually disproven.
Yet, of course, you ignore the many things the Bible gets right well before mankind figured it out. No surprise, I certainly wouldn’t expect an atheist to play fair.
Ex. hydrologic cycle in Job 36:27-29
Earth is round - Isaiah 40:22 - and yes, the word “circle” translates as sphere.
Fine then, just admit that there is no possible evidence that will ever convince you, and let’s be done with it.
I’m not sure what you mean. I would agree with John that personal experience is a type of evidence. I just don’t think it’s very good.
Well, actually, it has been factually disproved beyond reasonable argument. The fact that certain people still repeat it shows just what type of discussion this really is. Of course, you are yet again employing the same strange double standard. You put faith in a book written centuries ago, but we can’t look at actual evidence and draw a conclusion unless we “personally witnessed the events.”
Heads you win, tails we lose.
Must be because of them thar “atheists”. Ya know, like the one who you mentioned above, the one who believed in God.
Science at one time couldnt deal with DNA. It didnt have the tools. Even when DNA was discovered, Science determine it wasnt the genetic generator, and that proteins were.
Science can be wrong. Science is only as accurate as the tools it has.
Your interpretation is that Prophecy means God did it. All it means is God see’s it and warns of its coming. Not everything that happens is God. That doesnt mean God doesnt see it.
In what dictionary does this definition exist? If a claim is made of a deity doing anything anywhere any time in this universe, then it is possible that evidence exists of such an interaction. When a claim is made that the Natural has been effected in any way by the Supernatural, science gets to have a looksee.
We agree that 1st person evidence can be discounted. But it is still evidence, and to discount it, you must have supporting evidence. The thing about 1st person evidence is that perception can skew how that evidence is related. This can steer conclusions based on opinion
If god had the power to deceive us all with false evidence that contradicts with what’s presented to us in the bible, and appeared before us, then you might have a case.
I wasn’t directing that at you.
Others need evidence, the dude said that God gave his little girl a flower. That’s a bold statement, since God lets people die in agony every single day. I’m not saying I have evidence he’s a liar, I’m saying he has no evidence that what he’s saying is true.
Didn’t you read the part about how it might be a random occurrence?
Thank you for assuming I’ll burn in hell forever and smiling about that. Particularly grotesque, that.
Surely, but I was taking issue that in America there are a lot of non-Christian audiences. Especially for a treacly, feel good, tune my guitar, sort of dude.
This betrays a common misconception. Dude is making a claim, that God gave his daughter a flower. Either he’s lying, he’s mistaken or God, in fact, gave his daughter a flower. Since there is otherwise no evidence for God, I’d go with the first two.
He said:
Implying that God, via the bible, knew that the holocaust was going to happen, and let it come to pass. Ignoring that the bible certainly doesn’t say that, he’s suggesting that Hitler was necessary to fulfill prophecy.
Mind you, this is for a supposedly omnipotent God, who doesn’t need to torture people if he doesn’t want to.
Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
Here’s a fairly wiki on it.
Very little in this life can be known with the absolute certainty you seem to be demanding. We can be reasonably certain that a world wide flood did not occur, and for several reasons.
?
I’m not entirely sure what your point is here, many of these things were known for quite some time - for instance that earth was a sphere. That said, your interpretation of Isaiah is simply incoherent - it makes sense under the prior cosmology that I linked to, but not as you are putting it:
40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in: