... on 15 Topics about Heaven (43 QQ overall)

43 Questions About Heaven
The Atheist Voice | 25.VII.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjSMrsfpp1c

I

1) 0:21 whether you died at 5 or 95, you will probably be anatomically the age of Jesus, the perfect age, 33 years old, once you resurrect.

2) it seems I already answered that one too.

3) Once God assures that the adult we see in heaven is the lost baby, no problem.

9) Disabilities don't exist in heaven. Someone with Downs who was baptised probably still has three chromosomes 21, but it is fixed so this is no longer working out biologically as a disability. Similarily for those of them who die without baptism and go to limbo.

I have heard of deaf who don't want cochlear implants, I have not heard of deaf who will absolutely refuse to get normal ears, if offered, and that is what heaven would offer them.

10) so God fixes their hearing and it will not be against their will.

II

4) Unborn children miss out on baptism and will probably (like babies of pagans) be in limbo. Not heaven, and also not Hell as classically thought of. More like "natural happiness" which seems to be the atheist dream, plus some lesser love for God than the one enjoyed by those in Heaven.

They are neither rewarded with supernatural bliss, nor punished for sth not their fault.

Btw, the decision is not always the mother's it can be the grandparents if the mother is a teen or the mother's shrinks, if she's locked up.

Those are two categories other than unwilling mothers to do infanticide these days.

III

5) Even in limbo, the "partially formed" as you put it babies are grown up to say 33.

Nothing is "littered" with the remains of any man at resurrection, it is only up to then that some mass graves are and some other things (like where certain hospitals put their murder victims.

IV

6) No, jealousy does not exist in Heaven.

No sins do.

The only way to do that is most certainly NOT to make everyone in Heaven equal.

Suppose Little St Theresa (the nun in Lisieux Carmel) is a smaller saint than Great St Theresa (the nun in Ávila), it is certain she will not be jealous of Great St Theresa having more of God's glory.

It is a Communist (or perhaps Capitalist) myth that only way to avoid jealousy against superiority is to make everyone equal.

Variety is the spice of life in Heaven too and uniformity is definitely not the norm in heaven.

Every saint is different, St Bridget of Kildare who said if she were a king, she would offer Christ a swimming pool full of beer and St Bridget of Vadstena who put five red spots on the nuns' headdresses to remind of the five wounds of Christ on Calvary are also very different.

V

7) In Heaven, we do not need to eat food, but we are offered to eat of the tree of life, same tree Adam and Eve did NOT eat of (but they could have before eating of the other tree, it was not forbidden).

I don't think carnivorousness is an option in Heaven any more than it was in Eden, no.

All the first 2242 years of mankind, up to Flood, men were supposed to be vegetarian.

Only Genesis 9:2 after the Flood was carnivorousness generally allowed.

But probably some people transgressed that before the Flood.

I am in disagreement with Robert Carter on whether Neanderthals were pre- or post-Flood, he thinks post-Babel, I think pre-Flood. Neanderthals of Spain, according to analyses of dental plaque, were mainly vegetarian. Those of Belgium were eating woolly rhinos and other men.

And dead animals don't get to heaven.

8) spiders and sarcopts are blissfully absent from heaven, like intestinal worms ....

VI

11) If the person who killed you got to Heaven, and you run into him, first thing he'll say to you is "sorry".

And as you cannot die up there, you will have nothing to worry about, unlike with a murderer released from prison to relatives of victim.

12) If a family member is not bad enough to get to Hell, you will probably be committing a sin if you "really" don't want to see them again.

But as there is infinite eternity to enjoy, perhaps you'll have some thousand years of getting over the traumatism before you run into them. Just kidding, in heaven traumatisms do not remain.

And yes, wilfully rejecting Christ excludes you from this perspective.

Btw, going to Hell to join a loved one is not a solution.

13) so, you'd be happy for not making same mistake.

And whatever you loved in the loved one, you'd find again in God, who is the source of everything which is loveable, while the person in Hell would not retain loveability.

39) No, but whoever is in heaven can watch their loved ones whenever they want or whenever God tells them something is up. And some who have many things to watch are probably experiencing a time much longer subjectively to them, than the timeframe on earth.

40) Some cases of adoption, birth parents were prevented from keeping you.

41) If you have watched your grandson get a son after you died, or a daughter, wouldn't you enjoy it?

Genealogy probably is a great thing (with answers easily accessible) up there.

VII

14) No, you don't have sex in heaven.

15) probably no incapacity as such, but also no desire to use the potential and therefore 16) no need of privacy.

C. S. Lewis once compared wondering about sex in heaven to a child hearing about sex and asking "do you eat chocolate in bed" or "do you make mudcakes on the beach in bed".

17) Answered in the answer that you'd be 33.

18) Islamic views of heaven are anyway not relevant to the topic. Islam is a paganism or a heresy, therefore a false religion and a false view of certain things.

19) answered in previous.

20) answered in previous.

Btw, the fact that people who were widowed and remarried may get to heaven or even some who divorced "remarried" and repented is a reason why there is no sex in heaven.

21) I think you nailed one difficulty in Islam ...

VIII

22 & 23) Giving the word to Christ:

"In my Father's house there are many mansions. If not, I would have told you: because I go to prepare a place for you."
[John 14:2]

IX

24 & 25) Don't know.

Probably sleep will not be needed, adoring God is sufficient rest, but if wanted would not be forbidden or denied.

Before resurrection, you also don't have a body that can sleep. Or it's sleeping all the time in the grave.

X

26 & 27) Not sure you'll want to drive a Tesla in heaven, if you want speed, jumping between stars might be more exciting.

XI

28) Understanding things we did not understand on earth is definitely a thing, and depends both on getting info from the omniscient and on actually being smart fulltime as opposed to stupid most of the time for the first time.

If you don't get tired, if you don't have to delay things because of making stupid decisions or bc someone else does, you definitely can understand things.

Plus, as said, God is available, omniscient and knowledge (some of which is simply the missing key piece of the jig saw puzzle) is available from Him as much as you want. As in heaven you cannot sin, your wanting any knowledge will not be sinful and therefore not refused.

As two people who were raptured and are getting back to earth had millennia to learn any languages they wanted, I absolutely cannot imagine Henoch and Elijah would provide their message (if they were here) with automatic google translate, especially as in heaven they would have learned google translate doesn't translate and so doesn't always work accurately as translation service. I saw one video with such a message and a button offering automated translation, if it were them, why didn't they just write it down in every separate language which has speakers able to read it? Learning a language (unless you are prevented from getting full sleep) doesn't take all that long time even on earth.

So, if Henoch had more than 5000 years and Elijah more than 2000 years, probably close to 6000 and definitely close to 3000 years in Heaven, they will not need to make a document in English only and offer just google translate for those better in Italian or Spanish or German or Swedish. Or Hindi or Maharasthri.

29) Playing piano and proving mathematical theorems (that are correct and correctly formulated) will definitely be on the infinite possibilities list, if seriously wanted.

36) if most interesting stuff involves different opinions, it is partly because most interesting stuff is mystery.

In heaven, God will be fully available, and also the big mystery.

Since I already said one has time to enjoy other tings than the prayer only, actually learning the truth about all mysteries that intrigued you on earth will probably be on the to do list.

When definite truth is available, agreement is too.

XII

30) weather will be to everyone's wishes.

31) individualised weather is one possibility, or uniform taste in weather another one.

XIII

32) yes, in heaven one is happy all the time.

Not necessarily "having fun" all the time, that is more like limbo, but definitely happy.

And getting tired of being happy is already not being happy, therefore, it is not sth which happens in heaven.

[About his example of eating pizza:]

I am obviously not saying we will be eating all the time!

On earth we need breaks from happiness, because our condition is not perfectly happy and happiness is therefore not as appropriate a response as sadness always.

Those who die with a "mixed bag" but still making it to heaven will first be sad in purgatory for their sins and for how little they did for God, and then after a little while (ending Doomsday at latest) eternally happy for God saving them after all.

33) in heaven you have no temple, Christ is your temple.

34) bliss in heaven certainly means worshipping God for all eternity, but not so as to be incapable of enjoying other things, when wanted, but unlike on earth, after Adam sinned, that enjoyment does not stop us from worshipping God more.

If Church is boring, it is because one is inattentive.

If Protestant Church is boring, it is because it isn't even legitimately Church.

Also, eating breakfast before going to Church is a bad deal, like studying also praying is not best done with a full stomach.

In the Catholic Church, if you receive Communion, it is even illegal to eat breakfast first (or was to the time of Pius XII) or to drink anything but water. That's part of why going to Church Sunday evening was not a big thing up to some decades ago, unless it was for another service, Vespers.

35) If you try to avoid Christians who can't stop talking right now, it may partly be your fault, for not at all relating to God, which if you get to heaven, you will be able to avoid, partly their fault for talking badly.

By the way, have you tried Catholics who prefer using the God centred attention to talking to God?

In heaven, they will often be too busy praying to be talkative all the time.

37) Some of the types of music people listen to here probably aren't there.

I abstain from giving what I think my examples are, since some of the music I enjoy might itself be on the no-list.

38) And while weather is perhaps individualised, music arguably is only available if shared.

XIV

42) Most of the things you enumerated to those who would call your concerns strawmen are things which as a Catholic I reject.

If you have bad memories, they will heal, but not by amnesia. They will heal because you will be eternally safe.

You may think of people with bad memories that don't heal even when they are safe.

But part of the reason is, on earth we are no where near eternally safe. There is always at least some theoretic possibility some jerk or his double will start fucking around with you again.

Jews who survived harrassment as youngsters in Auschwitz still don't feel quite safe. Do I think a Nazi resurgence is a likely threat to their wellbeing? No. Do I think some such threat (perhaps where they weren't counting on one) is at least theoretically possible? Yes.

In heaven there is no even theoretical possibility of ever getting harrassed again in a way you don't like.

So, I most definitely think "your mind will be a clean slate" is heresy, for one of the worse things you enumerated as bad answers.

XV

43) No, we can't.

You are reconstructing the genesis of an idea, and one problem is, there is a history which suggests the idea had quite another genesis.

Someone came down from Heaven and told us about it. His name was Jesus, born in Bethlehem, but Nazareth was His hometown.

If "he" hadn't known what "he" talked about, "he" wouldn't have performed the miracles for the sake of which we believe His testimony on many things, including Heaven.

Not saying all I stated previous questions is His testimony, some is my personal favourite where people have guessed different ways.

Actually, the courage for martyrdom is very much needed to make this life worthwhile.

Too many atheists with too little hope being too easily intimidated by the bullies that society has is one reason why ending XXth and beginning XXIst CC are less worthwhile than some other centuries I could think of.

And no, "the real party in the basement" won't be as fun as some guys hope.

Devils in eternal pain and misery will take the one joy they still can have, heaping pain and misery on the ones they seduced. NOT my idea of "real party".

Hemant Mehta took on the Flood ...

39 Problems with the Noah's Ark Story
The Atheist Voice | 21.VI.2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyWcka7drWk

Not always answered in numeric order, sometimes I brought together the ones which belong together thematically.

1) where did Noah find enough trees in the Middle East to build a ship of that size?

• a) why "Middle East"?
• b) what are your views of how many trees there were in the Middle East (or tectonic coordinates to become that) prior to the Flood?

Orthanius

"why "Middle East"?"

Because that's where the stories take place.

"what are your views of how many trees there were in the Middle East (or tectonic coordinates to become that) prior to the Flood?"

Why would the "tectonic coordinates" have changed? And why would they have had significantly more trees than they do today?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Because that's where the stories take place."

Is it? Specifically, is it for the pre-Flood world?

"Why would the "tectonic coordinates" have changed?"

Heard theories of plate tectonics changing?

Well, Flood would have been THE occasion (and perhaps some accelerated movements after Flood too, including sinking of Atlantis).

"And why would they have had significantly more trees than they do today?"

Bc even Sahara was wooded back then. Yes, desertification of Sahara falls within post-Flood range of carbon dates.

For one.

2) when did Noah learn to build a ship? who taught him?

It was not a ship, it was an "ark" meaning box.

God taught him at least general proportions and can certainly have contributed with the details, though we are not given them.

3) How did Egyptians need whole armies of slaves to build the pyramids, but Noah and his three sons were enough to build the Ark?

• a) Egyptians were post-Flood.
• b) As post-Flood, Egyptians needed their work done quicker, while Noah had 100 years to go.
• c) A pyramid involves heavier materials needing more chipping than the Ark did.
• d) we don't even know Noah and his sons were the only builders. Nod can have had some kind of socialist arrangement and Noah's Ark can have been authorised as a sponsored project, everyone was laughing at it (except Noah and his family) but lots were working on it.

Checking this last point with the Bible:

Genesis 6:[22] And Noe did all things which God commanded him.

Doesn't say how many were around following his orders.

7:[1] And the Lord said to him: Go in thou and all thy house into the ark: for thee I have seen just before me in this generation.

The Ark is already built, so I'm not holding my breath for more info ... wait .... no I Paralipompenon (I Chronicles) 1 gives genealogies, but no narrative beyond that.

Orthanius

"Egyptians were post-Flood."

No they weren't, they were pre-Flood and somehow came back post-Flood.

"we don't even know Noah and his sons were the only builders. Nod can have had some kind of socialist arrangement and Noah's Ark can have been authorised as a sponsored project, everyone was laughing at it (except Noah and his family) but lots were working on it."

Then why did none of them get on?

"Doesn't say how many were around following his orders."

So you're making things up that the Bible does not say in order to try and make the story more realistic.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "No they weren't, they were pre-Flood and somehow came back post-Flood."

They were post-Flood, they descend from Mizraim, which is one son or one group of descendants of Ham who was son of Noah.

Carbon dated 3150 BC is only 2000 BC or less, even back to Nabta Playa we have carbon dates compatible with post-Flood.

"Then why did none of them get on?"

In this hypothesis, because they were like you : they interacted with those who knew what was going on and were not willing to learn.

"So you're making things up that the Bible does not say in order to try and make the story more realistic."

You are making up things it doesn't say to make it less so.

4) How did a family of 8 care for all those animals?

Woodmorappe to the rescue ... no, the feasability study is a whole book, here is a farmer's boy from Netherlands on same question:

How could Noah care for the animals?
by Harrie Thom | This article is from
Creation 30(1):50–51—December 2007
https://creation.com/how-could-noah-care-for-the-animals

Orthanius

You want to compare an entire "box" full of animals to 130 sheep?

How did he discharge the waste to the sea when the only holes in the Ark were the single window and the door to get in?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius You don't know those were the only holes, and if they were you are forgetting straw piled over shit in that box and you are forgetting what worms can do with it.

130 sheep would be 50 times less than the animals on the ark, and some of them hibernating.

Orthanius

"You don't know those were the only holes"

There's no reason to think there were more than the two that were said.

"and if they were you are forgetting straw piled over shit in that box"

Bible says nothing about this, y'all are literally putting words into the Bible's "mouth" in order to make it fit your views.

"and you are forgetting what worms can do with it."

Same as above.

"130 sheep would be 50 times less than the animals on the ark, and some of them hibernating."

....there were 2.6, lets say 3, animals on the Ark with one of them hibernating and 8 humans?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius
"There's no reason to think there were more than the two that were said."

With so short a text, there is plenty of reason to imagine it didn't mention all details.

"Bible says nothing about this, y'all are literally putting words into the Bible's "mouth" in order to make it fit your views."

So are you. Except your views are an attack on it.

"....there were 2.6, lets say 3, animals on the Ark with one of them hibernating and 8 humans?"

If 130 sheep are 50 times less than animals on the Ark, the animals on the Ark are 50 times more than 130 sheep.

6500 is more like it, and I was tired, that is more like number of kinds, most of which had one couple. So, 13000 animals. Btw, medium size would be sheep size according to Woodmorappe's calculations on feasability.

5) Why did a loving caring God have to kill off all but two of every living creature?

• a) why not more (excepting pure animals who were aboard seven of a kind? Space on the Ark had its limits and God wanted to save as many kinds as possible, probably all extant in Noah's day.
• b) why the killing at all? Human society was already global and so bad it needed a disaster. Locally, look at Sodom, then imagine same thing world wide.

Water, with lots of mud covering up over corpses, was a fresh start.

Orthanius

"Space on the Ark had its limits and God wanted to save as many kinds as possible, probably all extant in Noah's day."

If he wanted to save them then he could have just sent a plague to wipe out all of humanity but Noah and his family.

"Human society was already global and so bad it needed a disaster. Locally, look at Sodom, then imagine same thing world wide."

Perhaps if he didn't abandon humanity time and time again, none of these problems would ever show up...

"Water, with lots of mud covering up over corpses, was a fresh start."

Mmmm yes, cover up your mistakes when things don't go your way instead of fixing them.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "If he wanted to save them then he could have just sent a plague to wipe out all of humanity but Noah and his family."

Yersinia pestis developed way later.

"Perhaps if he didn't abandon humanity time and time again, none of these problems would ever show up..."

Man isn't a machine and God isn't in that sense a mechanic. We have free will.

"Mmmm yes, cover up your mistakes when things don't go your way instead of fixing them."

Men abusing their free will is not God's mistake.

6) How did he decide which ones made the cut, what did the other llamas ever do to him?

As said, the problem was human society. Animals were killed along with humans, and two creatures of the kind we are considering made the kind survive.

Llamas may be same kind as camels and dromedars, meaning there was just one couple ancestor of all four species (adding alpacas).

Which ones? The ones nearest to the Ark is one option, the best choice for post-Flood genetics is an option, these options are not exclusive, but best option : God knows.

Orthanius

"Llamas may be same kind as camels and dromedars, meaning there was just one couple ancestor of all four species"

So a "kind" is a Family? Which woman on the Ark gave birth to the other Apes?

"Which ones? The ones nearest to the Ark is one option, the best choice for post-Flood genetics is an option, these options are not exclusive, but best option : God knows."

So then if you're invoking that, then a camel went on board, yes? When will we be seeing a camel giving birth to a llama?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "So a "kind" is a Family?"

Often enough when it isn't wrongly classified.

"Which woman on the Ark gave birth to the other Apes?"

None, classifying us as same family as apes is a wrong classification.

"So then if you're invoking that, then a camel went on board, yes? When will we be seeing a camel giving birth to a llama?"

You and I both believe llamas and camels have a common ancestor, I just believe it is more recent.

7 to 8 Assuming God killed off all the other people, except Noah's family, doesn't that mean God murdered a whole bunch of unborn babies?

Acts of God are not murder. Everyone who dies, dies because God decides. God decides quite a few unborn babies die today, as penalty for Adam' sin.

Orthanius

"Acts of God are not murder."

Yes they are.

"Everyone who dies, dies because God decides."

So he murdered them.

"God decides quite a few unborn babies die today, as penalty for Adam' sin."

Such a loving and good god, isn't he?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius You don't get it.

God is NOT our equal.

His deciding a man dies is NOT an exceptional way for a man to die, but the only one. Whichever means is used.

Therefore, God deciding someone dies is never murder on God's part, even if someone is actually murdering in some cases (like 49 Catholic missionaries were murdered in 2018).

9 If God can do it, how can the religious right say women today can't?

Because they aren't God. They are not equal to God, but in a very real sense equal to the babies they are killing.

10 Where did Noah's ark go? We've never found the remains.

Most objects in history we haven't found the remains of, plus the fact claim is disputed. A land formation on Ararat is at least claimed to be mud heaped over the forms of the Ark.

Whether this is true or not, most history does not depend on finding the remains of the objects.

Orthanius

"A land formation on Ararat is at least claimed to be mud heaped over the forms of the Ark."

Would this be the Durupinar site? Or somewhere else?

"Whether this is true or not, most history does not depend on finding the remains of the objects."

But it does tend to depend on the finding of evidence of such events, especially for something that was worldwide.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Would this be the Durupinar site?"

Probably.

"But it does tend to depend on the finding of evidence of such events, especially for something that was worldwide."

The landing on Ararat wasn't world wide and the world wide Flood is documented in lots of fossils.

Evidence is in history more often narrative than material.

11 Since the story of Noah's Ark wasn't written down until thousands of years after it happened, can't the authors have gotten some stuff wrong?

2957 BC = Flood
1510 BC = Exodus (Moses was 80 and had another 40 years to live)
1447 years.

Earliest parts of the 1447 years, very longlived generations (Shem died at 600, 500 years after the Flood ...).

Then check out how short the chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 are. Each one is easy to memorise, rehearse and repeat and keep in continuous memory.

Then it can have been written down even before Moses, since Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph all had sufficient infrastructure to preserve written records within the tribe.

Now, there might be some stuff someone got wrong even so, but not with an inspired text (Moses writing the final redaction of Genesis and showing definite proofs of being a prophet sent by God). Even if we forget about Moses or inspiration, we would not be able to prediect exactly what they could have gotten wrong, so we would need to stick with the story as the best account we could get.

I mean the Gospel writers couldn't agree on details in Jesus' life and they wrote that stuff mere decades after he died.

And rose. They do not contradict each other though. It's a question of different redactional choices into same factual memory.

12 Why does the story of Noah's Ark so closely resemble the Epic of Gilgamesh?

Because it doesn't, the epic is about a post-Flood king who just may have been Nimrod .... wait, you mean the Utnapishtim part?

Because Nimrod's people and later Mesopotamians also descend from Noah. It's an early and geographically close to centre pagan version of it, therefore less distorted than some.

Weren't the 39 points supposed to be problems? This one was an asset!

the world's most famous example of plagiarism

No, Gilgamesh author could have gotten many details (including theology, where he had a radically different take) much better if he had plagiarised Moses ... oh, you mean other way round? No, I don't believe that.

Orthanius

Gilgamesh is older than the Noah story, so that doesn't work.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius Except, where is your proof for that?

Carbon dated tablets put it around where I'd might place carbon date of Exodus.

Orthanius

"Except, where is your proof for that?"

Carbon dated tablets put it around where I'd might place carbon date of Exodus."_ C14 dating puts it at ~1775 BC, the Exodus would've been somewhere in mid 1400 BC at best. So Moses actually plagiarized Gilgamesh if plagiarizing went on. Isn't it strange how the Flood stories don't add up? Not only comparatively between Noah and Gilgamesh, but every single one. Considering everyone came from a group of 8 people, why do their myths disagree and differ so badly? It's almost like they're all separate myths that don't share a single event that made them all.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "C14 dating puts it at ~1775 BC, the Exodus would've been somewhere in mid 1400 BC at best."

Roman martyrology places Exodus at 1510 BC.

Now, it doesn't state it would show the carbon date of 1510 BC.

It could be showing carbon dates like 1700 BC ... some Creationists at CMI (OK, at least one) considers Sesostris III as the pharao who died soon after Moses was born.

The carbon date for the wood in his coffin boat is around 1900 BC.

This is contested as incompatible with chronology.

This 1900 BC is then the carbon date for a real date of 1590 BC.

This leaves it open that a tablet for Gilgamesh carbon dated to 1775 BC is from Moses' lifetime.

There are also LOTS of miles between it and known places where Moses lived.

"Isn't it strange how the Flood stories don't add up?"

Not unless you consider traditions from same event hundreds or thousands of years back should add up like eyewitness testimony in one and same case for sth which happened a week ago.

"Considering everyone came from a group of 8 people, why do their myths disagree and differ so badly?"

There is significantly more agreement between Genesis version and most other versions singly than between them.

"It's almost like they're all separate myths that don't share a single event that made them all."

Except they agree on two very significant points, or they wouldn't be classified as "Flood myths".

• a) a world wide flood
• b) a survivor through obedience to a divine tipping off.

13 Where is the evidence of a global Flood that large, only 4000 years ago?

Tons of fossils, many of the land fossils embedded in shellfish ...

Then there is a dating problem, and 2957 BC (as per Roman Martyrology) is about 5000 years ago.

Orthanius

"Tons of fossils, many of the land fossils embedded in shellfish ..."

What? Like what?

"Then there is a dating problem, and 2957 BC (as per Roman Martyrology) is about 5000 years ago."

Unless you go with the date of 2348 BC, which would be 4,367.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "What? Like what?"

Most fossils at all.

If you meant "embedded in shellfish", Ceratopsians from a place in Mexico (lost reference, sorry) from "Cretaceous" lie below decapodes from "Palaeocene."

"Unless you go with the date of 2348 BC, which would be 4,367."

I go with Roman Martyrology, based on a LXX reading.

Orthanius

"Most fossils at all."

If you meant "embedded in shellfish", Ceratopsians from a place in Mexico (lost reference, sorry) from "Cretaceous" lie below decapodes from "Palaeocene.""

So can you link me to any?

"I go with Roman Martyrology, based on a LXX reading."

You follow what the Catholic Church says?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "So can you link me to any?"

I said I had lost reference.

"You follow what the Catholic Church says?"

Yes, but not Modernist Vatican II Sect.

14 How the hell did they fit on there?

Noah didn't have to take fully adult ones. (Dinosaurs).

Orthanius

"Noah didn't have to take fully adult ones. (Dinosaurs)."

Babies require even more care than Adults, eggs require even more special care, special temperatures, and special humidity levels than babies do. Where did the dinosaurs go, and why were they taken on the Ark just to die if YHWH wanted to "God wanted to save as many kinds as possible" as you put it?

Why do we not find dinosaurs mixed in with modern animals if they died during the Flood with everything else?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Babies require even more care than Adults"

We are not speaking of mammal babies, but probably of reptiles with small sizes. You know, reptiles don't take care of their young.

"Where did the dinosaurs go, and why were they taken on the Ark just to die"

Probably some went to Americas, like some dinos from Morrisson and Hell Creek Formations have carbon dates I think are post-Flood (Armitage made sure it wasn't shellac).

Some survived later to when dragon legends are from, or certain animals in Africa (Mokele Mbembe, for instance) or Americas (thunderbirds = pteordactylic kind).

"Why do we not find dinosaurs mixed in with modern animals if they died during the Flood with everything else?"

Biotopes, plus we do. Birds and small mammals have been found along dinos. NOT just by Creationists.

Orthanius

"We are not speaking of mammal babies, but probably of reptiles with small sizes. You know, reptiles don't take care of their young."

Oh okay, so then those definitely require help.

"Probably some went to Americas, like some dinos from Morrisson and Hell Creek Formations have carbon dates I think are post-Flood (Armitage made sure it wasn't shellac)."

It's nothing more than contamination, there's a blatant reason we don't date anything with C14 dating that we know is over 50,000 years old, that's why we have a plethora of other dating methods. And the great thing about those are that they're dated to 22,000 to 39,000 years old, which doesn't fit in with the Bible timeline.

"Some survived later to when dragon legends are from, or certain animals in Africa (Mokele Mbembe, for instance) or Americas (thunderbirds = pteordactylic kind)."

So where are they?

"Biotopes, plus we do. Birds and small mammals have been found along dinos. NOT just by Creationists."

Yes, we find them with animals of THEIR time, we do not find them with modern animals. Mammals and birds were already around back then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Oh okay, so then those definitely require help. "

On the contrary, they are made so they can take care of themselves.

"It's nothing more than contamination,"

Armitage made real sure to avoid that.

"there's a blatant reason we don't date anything with C14 dating that we know is over 50,000 years old,"

You don't have any reason to believe anything is that old.

" that's why we have a plethora of other dating methods."

None of which even equal carbon 14.

"And the great thing about those are that they're dated to 22,000 to 39,000 years old, which doesn't fit in with the Bible timeline."

If carbon date 37 000 BC is after 2957 BC real dates, we conclude carbon 14 level was real low back then.

If carbon date 20 000 BC is after that, it was somewhat higher, but still rather low.

"So where are they?"

Ask cryptozologists.

And look up in legends from recent premodern times.

"Yes, we find them with animals of THEIR time, we do not find them with modern animals. Mammals and birds were already around back then."

AND some of these mammals and birds of kinds known today.

15 How did the meat eating animals not eat all the other animals?

Could have been fed on fish, for example ... or hibernated, some of them.

Orthanius

How? How are they fishing when all they have is a tiny window?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius It specifically says there was one, it does not say there was no lower orifice to empty waste and get in fish.

16 what did all those animals eat, if not each other?

Plant material, worms and beetles for birds, fish from the surrounding seas ...

17 where was all the food stored and how did it stay fresh?

On the Ark, except what could be gotten from the seas.

Some animals for meat didn't exactly need "fresh".

That was 18 too.

19 Did the animals go to the bathroom at all?

Not those hibernating ...

Apart from that, see again the part the Dutch man's article on CMI, already linked to.

20 where did it all go?

Under straw or into the sea.

21 diseases from piled shit?

See previous.

22 How did Noah collect the tens of millions of insect species alone?

• a) lots fewer kinds,
• b) he didn't, God brough the insects needed for bird food, some of which obviously contributed to both handling shit and preserving kinds after Flood;
• c) to which also insects surviving on floating logs and things like that may have contributed.

For lice, I kind of hope louse eggs were floating around elsewhere ...

23 God knew how to make insects survive, and insects were not "invited passengers" anyway.

They don't have the "breath of life" (they don't have normal lungs tied to normal red blood vessels).

24 and 25 Koalas and penguins are on Australia and Antarctica after Flood, and we still don't quite know the take off was in Middle East, though it would make sense.

I am not sure we know where they lived before the Flood.

26 and after the Flood, how did those animals get back there.

For penguins, probably via Tierra del Fuego.

For koalas, probably via Sahul Sunda strait, during the Ice Age.

27 How did they get all the animals on the Ark that quickly?

God brought them along.

Some being from zoos in Nodian civilisation could explain part of it .... (if you ever do a tunnel under Himalayas like under Mont Blanc, see if you find the cities of Nod ...)

with all the species they needed to get onto the Ark

Kinds. More like family than even genus, with many mammals.

For instance, 16 hedgehog species or these plus 9 species of moonrats (25 species in all) probably evolved after Flood from one couple of hedgehogs.

Snails don't have the breath of life and some could have survived on floating mats of wood or sth.

28 What was the pacing?

I don't know, except that it probably didn't involve waiting for snails to get on board two snails per modern species.

Orthanius

"God brought them along."

Magic never has been and never will be a valid answer.

When you invoke magic, you invoke numerous better ways that all of this should have been done if your god was actually omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent.

"Some being from zoos"

...seriously?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius Magic does happen.

It also means sth other than you think, it means a demon sharing his angelic powers or knowledge with some man who has some kind of direct or indirect deal with him.

"you invoke numerous better ways that all of this should have been done"

Why better?

In fact, I did invoke providence, not necessarily identifiable miracle.

"...seriously?"

Where is your problem?

29 How come they never include the plants?

We don't know exactly what plant material needed the ark to survive and what plant material was needed and brought as food.

Also, plants don't look out of windows, usually.

They wouldn't have been able to live in the water alone

On a log mat of ten tree trunks, one twig doesn't rot, and then that twig gets planted in the mud surrounding the other plants ... no, plants as such don't need the ark to survive and on top of that, they evolve (vary within the kind) lots quicker than animal kinds, look how different apples are from pears and quince or plums from cherries ... or the citrus kind ...

37 Who had time to plant all the plants?

Let's put it like this:

• a) Noah's family were not employees chased 8 hours per day by their employer;
• b) most plants would not have needed them;
• c) some they were very actively planting leading up to agri- and viticultural breakthroughs we know as Neolithic.

30 Which animals on the Ark had lice?

Some which deserved them? Or lice survived as eggs outside the ark (lice eggs in clothes don't die as quickly as lice with no nourishment).

32 How did ants survive?

Perhaps one ant colony of whatever species existed back then was food for the hedgehogs or the birds?

it's not like two of them

As said, not "breath of life" = not invited passengers. = Not necessarily two per kind.

Orthanius

"Some which deserved them? Or lice survived as eggs outside the ark (lice eggs in clothes don't die as quickly as lice with no nourishment)."

Everything was waterlogged, so they couldn't have survived outside of the Ark. Also, they hatch in 7-10 days.

"Perhaps one ant colony of whatever species existed back then was food for the hedgehogs or the birds?"

And they didn't rampage all over the Ark like termites would have?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Everything was waterlogged, so they couldn't have survived outside of the Ark. Also, they hatch in 7-10 days."

Can't they have been dormant?

"And they didn't rampage all over the Ark like termites would have?"

Termites can have developed later from ants or have survived on floating wood outside the Ark.

31 What about gonorrhea?

Pathogens evolve (as in vary within their kinds) even quicker than plants.

Gonorrhea are by gonococci:

Gram-negative diplococci bacteria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neisseria_gonorrhoeae

And back then, Gram-negative diplococci bacteria probably had better ways of living than by doing a gonorrhea on a human host.

They evolved or devolved into that shape much later.

Orthanius

"And back then, Gram-negative diplococci bacteria probably had better ways of living than by doing a gonorrhea on a human host.

They evolved or devolved into that shape much later."

Special pleading with no evidence to back it up I assume?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius Heard of Lenski experiment?

Do you know that bacteriae divide into new ones every half hour?

Do you know that E. coli has in one "tribe" acquired one quality of Salmonella (living off citric acid as well as glucose) and that Salmonella is same type of bacterium?

33 genetical post-Flood diversity?

Inbreeding within several lines of Noachic tribes while they were few would have involved a founder effect.

For Y chromosomes, all lines go back to Noah.

For mitochondriae, all lines go back to his three daughters in law.

For X chromosomes and autosomes, we have three to four versions in Noah and his wife, hence their three sons, and then 3 or 6 more in the daughters in law.

This is where the Neanderthal and Denisovan remains after Flood come in.

Orthanius

"For Y chromosomes, all lines go back to Noah."

Funny, that's not what the science says.

"For mitochondriae, all lines go back to his three daughters in law."

Nope for that one too.

"This is where the Neanderthal and Denisovan remains after Flood come in."

Where did the floresiensis come from?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Funny, that's not what the science says"

Heard of "Y chromosome Adam"? His name is Noah.

"Nope for that one too."

I think the haplogroups divide in three major groups.

"Where did the floresiensis come from?"

Also pre-Flood, probably, and since no human population now has known genes from them, we cannot certainly know they are human, at least from genetic evidence.

Orthanius

"Heard of "Y chromosome Adam"? His name is Noah."

Yes I have, that's why I said it. He was around at best 200,000 years ago, so that doesn't work.

"I think the haplogroups divide in three major groups."

But we have more than that.

"Also pre-Flood, probably, and since no human population now has known genes from them, we cannot certainly know they are human, at least from genetic evidence."

Cool, so it was just some random ape then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Yes I have, that's why I said it. He was around at best 200,000 years ago, so that doesn't work."

That's relying on a "genetic clock" which may be wrong, plus I think he was more recent even to evolution believers. It's the man all now living men descend from, the definition is not the first man there was.

"But we have more than that."

The mitochondrial haplogroups within the three major groups are more recent than the three daughters in law of Noah.

"Cool, so it was just some random ape then."

Flores hobbit could have been an ape or could have been a very isolated human population from before the Flood (perhaps victim of transgenics experiments, perhaps not, we don't even have a sequencing of the genome, as far as I know) which has no identifiable descendants after the Flood.

34 damages to fish ecosystems?

Well, that would explain why trilobites, ichthyosaurs, and (unless we take Nessie seriously) plesiosaurs are gone.

The fish that are around being those surviving that destruction.

Btw, marine fossils, this involving nearly all or all places where oil is drilled for, would be remains of ecosystems finished off in the mud.

Orthanius

"Well, that would explain why trilobites, ichthyosaurs, and (unless we take Nessie seriously) plesiosaurs are gone."

So all of the giant marine creatures just up and died in something they should have been thriving in? All of those yummy humans and animals YHWH killed just floating around.

"The fish that are around being those surviving that destruction."

So he wasn't trying to save as many as possible like you said then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "So all of the giant marine creatures just up and died in something they should have been thriving in? All of those yummy humans and animals YHWH killed just floating around."

Why would overdoses of mud help marine giants to thrive?

"So he wasn't trying to save as many as possible like you said then."

God has allowed some kinds to die off, but land vertebrate kinds were symbolically saved by the Ark.

35 after the flood ended, how did these animals survive long enough to reproduce?

What's the exact problem?

if anything went wrong

God saw to it that it didn't.

Elephants, for instance, live pretty long and their couples are faithful.

Makes sense whether the passengers were mammuths, African elephants or Indian elephants.

Orthanius

"What's the exact problem?"

Animals get hungry, animals eat other animals, "kinds" start dying off. Animals don't have parents to teach them how to survive, animals don't have plants growing that they can eat or that they are specialized in, "kinds" start dying off.

"God saw to it that it didn't."

Do you not see how ridiculous it is that you have to invoke so much magic, and yet he didn't just kill all the evil humans?

"Makes sense whether the passengers were mammuths, African elephants or Indian elephants.

So we come back to this yet again, when will an elephant have a mammoth baby?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Animals get hungry, animals eat other animals, "kinds" start dying off. Animals don't have parents to teach them how to survive, animals don't have plants growing that they can eat or that they are specialized in, "kinds" start dying off."

God saw to it all young needing teaching had such, all hungry animals had other things (like fish) to when kinds were beyond immediate extinction.

"Do you not see how ridiculous it is that you have to invoke so much magic, and yet he didn't just kill all the evil humans?"

He did kill off all evil men (or nearly, Ham could have been evil, he turned bad later, but arguably even he was less bad than pre-Flood evil).

He did it in a documentable way.

"So we come back to this yet again, when will an elephant have a mammoth baby?"

Probably other way round.

Or the common ancestor was on the Ark. We both believe there was one.

36 The Bible says rainbows didn't exist before the Flood ...

No, it just says God gave the rainbow a specific meaning just after the Flood.

38 Where did all the water go after the Flood?

Deeper seas and land piling into higher mountains above them. Post-Flood world being lots more wrinkled and vertical accounts for ... most of it getting to Pacific, sooner or later.

Orthanius

No evidence for any of this I take it?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius Even you would accept that Alps, Himalayas, Andes are "young mountains".

Plus, it answers the relevant question. Which is evidence for it.

39 so how come all of their recorded history, all of their documentation that we have doesn't have any mention of the global Flood?

a) many of them do mention there was a Flood; b) chronology is the least reliable part of it - Greek Flood is perhaps 1000 years before Trojan War, meaning about 2200 BC , which is 150 years too recent for Ussher and 750 years too recent by Roman martyrology; c) we definitely do NOT have any documentation where the chronological succession is both sufficiently reliable and can be put into 2957 BC.

We do have some carbon dated ... like early dynastic Egypt is carbon dated around 3150 BC, but that would correspond to Abraham's time, meaning c. 2000 - 1950 BC.

Orthanius

"many of them do mention there was a Flood"

All they have in common is water, after that the stories start greatly conflicting. Cultures that live by bodies of water have stories about them flooding, because that's what bodies of water do naturally. Similarly to how cultures that live in volcanic regions and earthquake prone zones have stories or gods about them as well.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

​"Cultures that live by bodies of water have stories about them flooding, because that's what bodies of water do naturally."

Not world wide, usually.

"Similarly to how cultures that live in volcanic regions and earthquake prone zones have stories or gods about them as well."

These usually not being about world wide eruptions or earthquakes.

Orthanius

"Not world wide, usually."

Floods don't happen all over the world?

"These usually not being about world wide eruptions or earthquakes."

Oh, so just like many of the flood stories then.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius "Floods don't happen all over the world?"

World wide floods don't happen locally around the world.

"Oh, so just like many of the flood stories then."

Of the flood stories, many enough are about world wide floods.

lennyhipp

@Hans-Georg Lundahl hans, unlucky for you, there's ZERO evidence a global flood happened.

@Orthanius NO you ignorant twat, there is ZERO evidence of a global flood is what he was saying. wow you're stupid

@Hans-Georg Lundahl i challenge you to back the claim that many of the flood myths were global. "World wide floods don't happen locally around the world." They don't happen at all, which is the point he was making. DUH

Hans-Georg Lundahl says many dumb things... for instance:

• "a) many of them do mention there was a Flood" There's over 400 flood legends around the world. Not many of them talk about the same flood. It's not at all remarkable there's so many flood legends, EVERY ancient culture HAD TO live around bodies of water. There are two crucial elements of the genesis flood: 1) it was a global flood. 2) a single man saved all the animals on a boat of some sort. Unlucky for you, the flood legends that have both these crucial elements actually PRE-DATE the genesis story. Gilgamesh predates it by 600 years. It's obvious the noah story was plagiarized from the earlier story as there are far too many similarities to be a coincidence. Gilgamesh was stolen from the story of Ziasudra which pre-dates the bible flood by 1000 years. It in turn was borrowed heavily from Atra-Hasis, it pre-dates teh bible flood by 1400 years.
  
  
• b) WHERE is Japan's flood legend? it's surrounded by water.
  
  
• c) we definitely do NOT have any documentation where the chronological succession is both sufficiently reliable and can be put into 2957 BC.
  
  
• d) "like early dynastic Egypt is carbon dated around 3150 BC" please send evidence of this.
  
  
• e) "correspond to Abraham's time, meaning c. 2000 - 1950 BC" wasn't there a bible prediction that abraman's descendents would be as plentiful as the stars? LOLOLOL there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on every beach and desert on planet earth. Just one of many dozens failed biblical porphecies and ZERO true ones.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@lennyhipp "i challenge you to back the claim that many of the flood myths were global."

I'll take one from the Incas, there are three, I'll actually discuss all. I'm taking them from the page Talk Origins.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html#Inca

• "1) Pictorial records of ancient Incan rulers show that a flood rose above the highest mountains. All created things perished, except for a man and woman who floated in a box. When the flood subsided, the floating box was driven by the wind to Tiahuanacu, about 200 miles from Cuzco, where the Creator told them to dwell. The Creator molded new people from clay at Tiahuanacu. On each figure, the Creator painted dress and hair style, and he gave each nation distinctive language, songs, and seeds to plant. When he had brought them to life, he ordered them into the earth to travel underground and emerge from caves, springs, tree trunks, etc. in their various homes. He then created the sun, moon, and stars. [Bierhorst, 1988, pp. 200,202; Gaster, p. 127; Frazer, p. 271]"
  
  
  • a) for water to rise high on the Andes (which I don't believe existed back in the Flood for real, but that is another story) the Flood would need to be global and leave perhaps some of the Andes and some of the Himalayas uncovered.
  • b) there is a problem of repopulating earth after the Flood, meaning men are not supposed to have survived elsewhere either.
  
  
  
• "2) The creator god Viracocha made the earth and sky, and he created stone giants to live in it. After a while the giants became lazy and quarrelsome, and Viracocha decided to destroy them. Some he turned back to stone, and these stone statues still exist at Tiahuanaco and Pucara. He destroyed the rest with a great flood. When the flood subsided, it left the lakes Titicaca and Poopo, and it left seashells on the Altiplano at elevations of 3660 m. Viracocha saved two stone giants from the flood and with their help created people his own size. He reached down into Lake Titicaca and drew out the Sun and Moon to provide light so he could admire his new creation. In those days, the Moon was even brighter than the Sun, but the Sun grew jealous and threw ashes onto the Moon's face. [Gifford, p. 54]"
  
  
  • a) the Flood seems to cover the living abode of the giants, that is "earth and sky", since only two of them are saved
  • b) there were giants before the Flood (see Genesis 6 for a parallel)
  
  
  
• "3) A large, rich city once existed on the Altiplano. One day, a group of ragged Indians came and warned the proud inhabitants that the city would be destroyed by earthquake, flood, and fire. Most inhabitants just scoffed and eventually had the ragged people flogged and thrown out. Some of the city's priests, though, heeded the warning and went to live as hermits in a temple on a hill. Some time later, a red cloud appeared on the horizon. Soon it had grown and covered the area, and its red glow eerily lit the night. Suddenly, with a flash and a rumble, an earthquake destroyed many of the city's buildings, and a red rain poured down. Other earthquakes and more rain followed, and a flood soon covered the ruined city; this water is Lake Titicaca today. None of the city's inhabitants survived save the priests. The descendants of the prophets became the Callawayas, wise men of the valleys. [Gifford, pp. 55-56]"
  
  
  • a) on the other hand, this one is a local flood, and fire is of equal importance, this is NOT the global Flood of Noah
  • b) but on the other hand, with the fire, and with water covering the area after the fire, this could be the story of Sodom (this presupposes some men came from the Old World after that destruction, and Thor Heyerdahl would willingly oblige to support that theory, were he still alive, at least if he could opt out of the Biblical theology involved (he was a neopagan).

"There are two crucial elements of the genesis flood: 1) it was a global flood. 2) a single man saved all the animals on a boat of some sort."

There are more elements than those, and omission of animals on ark is no more important than including the giants before the flood.

"Unlucky for you, the flood legends that have both these crucial elements actually PRE-DATE the genesis story. Gilgamesh predates it by 600 years."

You are supposing on carbon dates of clay tablets, right?

"It's obvious the noah story was plagiarized from the earlier story as there are far too many similarities to be a coincidence."

The options - I agree on ruling out coincidence - are in fact:

• Mesopotamian story plagiarised the Hebrew one
• Hebrew story plagiarised Mesopotamian one
• both stories go back in more or less fidelity to actual events.

"Gilgamesh was stolen from the story of Ziasudra which pre-dates the bible flood by 1000 years. It in turn was borrowed heavily from Atra-Hasis, it pre-dates teh bible flood by 1400 years."

Again, you are presuming on carbon dating of clay tablets.

"b) WHERE is Japan's flood legend? it's surrounded by water."

Japan was created during or after the Flood by volcanism. The Japanese Shintoist religion actually limits curiosity to creation of Japan and to some ancestry of Emperor Jimmu. This rules out the wider picture in which the Flood actually happened.

"c) we definitely do NOT have any documentation where the chronological succession is both sufficiently reliable and can be put into 2957 BC."

Bible, LXX version and perhaps incorporating corrections from Julius Africanus or Josephus and perhaps based on another manuscript than the current text, plus counting back Genesis 11 genealogies from Abraham born in 2015 BC.

"please send evidence of this."

Of early dynastic Egypt being carbon dated 3150 BC?

"The tomb of Hor-Aha is located in the necropolis of the kings of the 1st Dynasty at Abydos, known as the Umm el-Qa'ab. It comprises three large chambers (designated B10, B15, and B19), which are directly adjacent to Narmer's tomb.[20] The chambers are rectangular, directly dug in the desert floor, their walls lined with mud bricks. The tombs of Narmer and Ka had only two adjacent chambers, while the tomb of Hor-Aha comprises three substantially larger yet separated chambers. The reason for this architecture is that it was difficult at that time to build large ceilings above the chambers, as timber for these structures often had to be imported from Palestine."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hor-Aha

Now, earlier on in article it is stated:

"Hor-Aha (or Aha or Horus Aha) is considered the second pharaoh of the First Dynasty of Egypt by some Egyptologists, others consider him the first one and corresponding to Menes. He lived around the 31st century BC and is thought to have had a long reign."

The wiki article on Umm El Qa'ab doesn't show carbon dates, but here we have some:

Hd-12912 tomb B 40 rectangular beam 2nd king of first dynasty 4430 BP +-60, 3300-3240 cal BC / 3110 - 2920 cal BC Hd-12907 same tomb and king, roof-beam, 4440 BP +- 25, 3260-3240 cal BC, 3100-3030 cal BC, 2970-2930 cal BC Hd-12926 tomb B 19 rectangular beam, 1st king of first dynasty 4535 BP +- 40, 3350-3300 cal BC, 3240-3100 cal BC Hd-12947 same tomb and king, fragment of shrine 4505 BP +- 20, 3330-3260 cal BC, 3240-3220 cal BC, 3190-3100 cal BC

From here:

https://journals.uair.arizona.edu/index.php/radiocarbon/article/view/3738/3163

Considering Genesis 14 actually seems to involve a carbon date of 3500 cal BC, it might be Genesis 13 actually involves pre-dynastic Lower Egypt, before unification of the two Egypts.

"wasn't there a bible prediction that abraman's descendents would be as plentiful as the stars? LOLOLOL there are more stars in the universe"

According to what calculation? Also, there is a certain indication this does not refer to exact numeric equivalence.

"I will bless thee, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand that is by the sea shore: thy seed shall possess the gates of their enemies." [Genesis 22:17]

Exact numeric equivalence or general comparison? Check this:

"As the stars of heaven cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea be measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites my ministers." [Jeremias (Jeremiah) 33:22]

In other words, not same number as, but innumerable as.

Concluding remark:

it's almost as if the whole story was made up, huh?

No. 39 points have been answered, and neither Hebrews nor other peoples with Flood legends (including Indians who displace Flood to c. 10 000 years before Mahabharata) believed it was a novel invented for amusement.

Orthanius

Have a 40th then.

What is the KT Boundary line, what formed it, and why do the dinosaurs come to a dead stop at it? And why do we not find dinosaurs mixed all together with modern animals as we should if the Flood happened?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Orthanius Point by point:

"What is the KT Boundary line,"

Iridium layer from the Flood.

It goes right through a layer of snails in Yacoraite, which is therefore classified as two layers, a Maastrichtian ("late" Cretaceous) and a Danian ("early" Palaeocene) one.

"what formed it,"

Answered.

"and why do the dinosaurs come to a dead stop at it?"

Because they don't. Most places where dinos are found are places where the iridium layer isn't found. Therefore, you cannot correlate the iridium layer as above or below dino layers.

"And why do we not find dinosaurs mixed all together with modern animals as we should if the Flood happened?"

As said, birds are modern ones : ducks. I think mammals involve modern ones like rats too.

If you mean ALL kinds of modern animals, I already answered elsewhere : biotopes. You don't find moose and elephants same places now.

You didn't find either along sauropods back then.

Orthanius

"Iridium layer from the Flood."

How did Noah's Flood make Iridium?

"Because they don't.

Except they do, dinosaurs aren't found past it.

"Most places where dinos are found are places where the iridium layer isn't found. Therefore, you cannot correlate the iridium layer as above or below dino layers."

Except we can, easily, that's how it works.

"As said, birds are modern ones : ducks. I think mammals involve modern ones like rats too."

So you have some evidence for this modern duck and actual modern rats?

"If you mean ALL kinds of modern animals, I already answered elsewhere : biotopes. You don't find moose and elephants same places now."

That's not what I'm wanting. Dinosaurs were worldwide, therefore we should find them mixed in with modern animals and humans. It's not like I'm asking to see an Anyklosaurus mixed in with a Spinosaurus mixed in with a Polar Bear. Speaking of the moose and elephant, why shouldn't we? You said that Koalas and Kangaroos migrated from the Middle East to Australia, so if everything was living together in the Middle East region before the Flood why wouldn't we?

"You didn't find either along sauropods back then."

Why would you not have?

Not only how did the Flood make Iridium, by why do we not find dinosaurs past it where we do find it? And why do we find fossils past it at all if it marks where the Flood happened?

I assume it has something to do with being the layer showing where the flood water evaporated or something?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

​@Orthanius "How did Noah's Flood make Iridium?" + previous words.

More like a meteorite impacting an unpronounceable (to me) place on Yucatan helped bring about both Flood and iridium layer.

"Except they do, dinosaurs aren't found past it."

Let me help you express what you really mean : dinosaurs are not found in layers labelled as more recent than Cretaceous.

Iridium layer is labelled partly as KT and partly as PT (Permian Triassic) boundary.

In the first case, layers around it will be Maastrichtian and Danian or "further apart in chronology" (mostly without fossils esp land vertebrates) and in the second case layers around it will be labelled as Changsinghian and Induan or even Induan and Olenekian, or "further apart".

Either way, you mostly find the iridium layer in spots where you don't find fossils (exception KT in Yacoraite) and fossils in places where you don't find the iridium layer.

"So you have some evidence for this modern duck and actual modern rats?"

At least ducks. CMI has an article:

Modern birds found with dinosaurs
by Don Batten | This article is from
Creation 34(3):48–50—July 2012
https://creation.com/modern-birds-with-dinosaurs

It features displays from museums.

"That's not what I'm wanting. Dinosaurs were worldwide, therefore we should find them mixed in with modern animals and humans. It's not like I'm asking to see an Anyklosaurus mixed in with a Spinosaurus mixed in with a Polar Bear. Speaking of the moose and elephant, why shouldn't we? You said that Koalas and Kangaroos migrated from the Middle East to Australia, so if everything was living together in the Middle East region before the Flood why wouldn't we?"

While dinosaurs were worldwide, they were not every biotope. I am far from sure every animal had Middle East as natural habitat before the Flood and mentioned zoos as a possibility to how God got exotic animals to the Ark : first a Nodian zookeeper bought them from across the globe, then Noah bought it or some young person on internship takes it from zoo to the Ark ... or cages are damaged in a zoo.

"Why would you not have?"

For one thing, I think sauropods may be living half in water, meaning they need water "to the waist"

Hemant telling us how Atheists would sound if they were Protestants (wait, they are!)

If Atheists Sounded Like Christians
The Atheist Voice | 30.V.2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze0PHCMHa1s

"If atheists started talking like Christians"?

Many of you already sound like Protestants, when Protestants lampoon (but never refute) Catholic post-Biblical miracles (honourable exception since Pentecostalism, for some) and Atheists lampoon (but also never refute) miracles in general.

Have you seen Richard Carrier in action when he talks about St John and the bedbugs (whom he was if you read the text not sending off to anyone else, but the companions were fascinated watching the bed bugs stand at attention to the morning when St John dismissed them), or about Legio Fulminatrix?

He doesn't refute St John commanded insects by God's power, nor that the Legion was Christian, prayed to God and got a heavy rainfall on the enemy disbanding them. He just takes it for granted this can't be so, precisely as Protestants do with some Catholic claims.

"I'm not an atheist, I'm just a follower of reason"

Pretty OK spoof on "I am not religious, I am just a follower of Christ", which is a fairly Protestant thing to say, not even Protestantism in common, but specifically Evangelical.

"Hi neighbour, what library do you go to?"

Or how about "what science shows do you watch, do you prefer Sagan or de Grasse?"

"I love believers, I just hate their beliefs"

Kind of what you are about yourself, isn't it?

"I have a personal relationship with reality"

Ah, at least you recognise that a Christian whether "personal relationship" type or more traditional or both, does consider God as the ultimate reality and the ultimate true explanation of every other reality.

"You're religious? Oh, well, I'll think for you!"

If you are a Christian in certain situations and the people who are closest at hand to help you are not, or even are not Catholics, they sometimes do think they have a duty to think for you.

If you started saying things like that to Christians in all kind of positions, you might sooner or later find a Christian forgetting about the other cheek.

Praying for you is not half as patronising as thinking for you. If you are an atheist, you don't believe in the efficacy of prayer. So why bother if he prays for you? But if you are a Christian, you might still have to reckon with people who are in power and position to if not say at least show "I'll think for you".

"You don't act like a Christian."

In Sweden you can as a Catholic hear things like that. At military service, I was asked, if I am really Christian, why was I serving with a gun?

Not all Christians believe in Pacifism - as not all Atheist are either Commies or Rockers or both.

"Well, Darwin explains you!"

Except his explanation has a hole or two ...

"Axial tilt is the reason for the season"

You mean the weather season, right?

"I do good in the world because it is an atheist thing to do"

Pretty close to Swedes telling me they don't need God to do good and even think my goodness as venal if I am expecting a heavenly reward.

I mean, back a few decades ago.

"the universe moves in non-mysterious ways"

Except now that Chinese maths have shown there are "a gazillion" of solutions to the three body problem, how even a Heliocentric solar system with ten major bodies hangs together, as well as what mind is, seems very mysterious to the materialist atheist. The current phrase is not the one you gave, but its synonym "we don't fully understand it yet" or "just because we don't fully understand it yet doesn't mean your God is the true one".

"Reason loves you anyway"

I hope his reason does ... are you personifying some suprapersonal reason as distinct from that of men endowed with reason?

"thank you random chance"

The lameness of the phrase is kind of a reason why gratitude over small things (a fairly healthy habit, per se) survives best in those believing in some kind of deities, including the true God.

"we all have a truth-shaped hole in our brain"

Anatomically misleading, but technically fairly correct. We all do want to know truth (or those who don't seem to be gone fairly far in some personality twisting, not always only their own fault). That is one of the versions of the God shaped hole in our heart or in our soul ...

"Conservatives are waging a war on science"

I think I have heard this one with more specifying that it is about Christian conservatives "Fundies" and "Creationists".

Ah, you admitted it yourself!

"but remember : gravity has a plan for you"

Gravity as you conceive it hasn't. One reason why gravity (with Chinese multiple solutions to three body problem) is inadequate as planner of the supposedly Heliocentric solar system (let alone the Tychonian one which corresponds to our observations).

"I would like to thank my great genes for my team's victory tonight"

Sounds like a fair epithomising of "survival of the fittest".

"because they just don't want to obey the laws of physics"

Laws of physics are not obeyed by people. They are not disobeyed either. They are not about morals. Change it to rejecting Jainism and "laws of karma" and it starts to make some sense ... Christians certainly don't want to "obey the laws of karma" since Reincarnation is not a forgiving taskmaster.

"with science, all things are somewhat probable"

Except, on your view of what science presupposes, miracles, of course.

"then what stops your from murdering people if you don't think altruism guides your biological fitness?"

Klebold may have had a bad report about his health, also known as biological fitness, just before, you know. Most murderers on scales way beyond Klebold who were evolutionists were ALSO altruists. Hitler and Lenin and Stalin thought they were helping altruism along, by eliminating what they considered as egoists.

"[two next ones]"

Whatever is the true cause of our being is also the cause of the being of those who believe sth else is the true cause when it isn't.

Both scientific method on the one hand and reason and morality on the other are to some extent believed by both evolutionist atheists and Christians. The question is: am I better at explaining success of science without making "atheistic methodology" the key asset of scientific method, or are you better at believing you are doing the right thing when (hopefully!) doing the right thing without involving a supra-human and therefore divine morality?

"You don't accept science?"

A fairly common strawman from atheists ....

"a peer reviewed journal said it, I have no reason to doubt it"

If not your own attitude, Hemant, at least fairly common among atheists ...

"thank the farmers"

If you don't thank God, that is at least a start ... by the way, I hope you paid them, the farmers, that is? Sure the inbetweens are not underpaying the farmers?

"I heard St Thomas Aquinas recanted, just before he died"

l o l ... historically nearly plausible. But a very unspecific "recantation" since we don't know exactly what kind of aspect to his works he considered straw.

After that vision.

"there will be fire and brimstone and earth will be destroyed, in several billion years"

S o u n d s as if you thought this very urgent (not really).

"why don't you stop being delusional"

Have Christians ever been exposed to that kind of taunt, have for instance some shrinks ever had some kind of bias against Christians making them more likely to diagnose them? Check out history of psychiatry for some decades of the past ...

"And that is what a lot of Christianese sound like too."

If I do, I blame atheists close to my upbringing ... including a cantankerous granny!

OK, she was on and off atheist, but she aspired, intellectually, to atheism.

Some of the things you brought up were Protestant. In England, they have a habit of being so in relation to Catholics, and then in colonies of being more so than Catholics to Amerindians.

"I mean God won't love you"

Sure? I hope you are wrong.

I mean, if I put this in an article on my blog, I will definitely have shared it with 30 to 150 people, maybe more, insofar as articles on that blog tend to get many readers.

Now, what I would like to have a video about ...

• explain reason with no God (validity and our at least relative access to it)
• explain morality with no God (dito)
• explain ultimate mover of moved or changed objects, ultimate cause of either that or staying same, and what is the ultimate reality on which contingent realitie-S depend for existing, if other than God?
• explain what is the most noble thing, since graded realities (value being one of them) tend to an ultimate maximum (either positively by approach or negatively by remotion), if that is not God?
• explain what keeps and put the astroscale universe or biology in functional order with no intelligent designer?

An Atheist Asking Nominal Catholics to Ditch the Label (Hemant Mehta)

Why Are You Still Catholic?
The Atheist Voice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dblERAfS1HI

My comments on successive parts:

I was asking the other day why English is the language in which HOLYBIBLE adds up to 666 in ASCII.

Now you are answering why English is the language in which CATHOLICS add(s) up to 666 in ASCII.

C 67 060 7
A 65 120 12
T 84 200 16
H 72 270 18
O 79 340 27
L 76 410 33
I 73 480 36
C 67 540 43
S 83 620 46

60 % for gay marriage, 51 % for abortion? You nailed the reason!

(yes, OK, I have also heard US is number 1 country for annulments due to insufficient consent or incomplete consent)

1:06 I do, and most Catholics world wide do - are you going to give stats from US again arguing that US Catholics are mostly not such?

I also believe women cannot be priests. Not only should not, but cannot. As in, even if Sinéad O'Conor was "ordained" by a bishop, she was not ordained, the bishop sinned gravely in trying to, she is not a priest.

I do not believe "the Pope always knows best", but I do believe the Popes usually know better than their opponents, and that when they claim infallibility for a pronouncement, they are infallible.

That said, I don't think "Pope Francis" is Pope. I hope I am right Pope Michael is.

When it comes to real presence, you'd be surprised how many Catholics who are NOT Catholics who believe this and stick to Mass despite doctrinal differences on other matters - because of this, more than because of ritual.

The ritual of the New Mass (1960's, final "promulgation" 1970) could be in some cases invalid and is not beautiful, as it is often performed in US. It has driven people away from the Catholic Church, including a lady I knew to Russian Orthodox Church.

If you stick with that, despite not being doctrinally Catholic, you are arguably a strong believer in Real Presence.

2:09 Catholic schools are very often open to non-Catholic pupils.

I e, no one is becoming Catholic JUST because a Catholic school is best in the area, even if that can be the starting point for some.

2:29 I believe "progress" is a destructive organisation and that the Catholic Church or what purports to be so is not getting half as much in the way of it as it should.

The few real Catholics who know what to oppose are at present to few to make a difference by ourselves, in worldly perspective (by prayer, that is another matter).

[later:]
Are you sure a teacher who "marries" someone of the same sex is a "great teacher"?

I'm not.

As to abuse scandals, why not plea for getting out of normal schools, out of boy scouts or girl guides, boycotting PE and things like that? A few years ago, these were statistically worse offenders than Catholic or "Catholic" clergy.

Hemant on Miracles - Answered

5 Reasons why Your Miracles aren't Really Miraculous
The Atheist Voice | added = "Ajoutée le 20 mai 2014"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRGnV6yWlGs

1:46 OK, your meeting the girl was probably a miracle.

Some of your stuff is a boon to Christians, since on the one hand it is very detailed supposed deunking, and therefore good material for an Apologist like me to use, and on the other hand you are, usually, polite.

Some of the dialogues I have had with atheist have probably earned the blog where I reflect them a media ban in Russia, due to profanity, and that profanity is not from me.

Hemant, thanks for not being like that. Now I'll politely hear why you don't think this meeting was a miracle, perhaps because you aren't dating her any more?

2:23 True, your meeting the girl was not a Lourdes class miracle.

It could not be officially used as one more instance of Our Lady in Lourdes Apparition being confirmed by healing miracles afterwards.

2:38 "something else would have happened"

R i g h t ... (starting to feel less polite) ... there are two options, either that something else would have been a big deal or it wouldn't.

If it hadn't, you would be doing some medical stuff which might be less fun than blogging, for instance.

If it had, you would still be fairly ungrateful to providence in this comment.

3:23 Your quitting med school is a good argument against the wizeacres ...

3:36 Medical records are always involved in an officially recognised Lourdes miracle.

Do you know what more is?

The healing has to be:

• unexplicable by known medical facts
• sudden
• unreversed.

3:46 A cancer going into remission is not recognised as a Lourdes miracle. A cancer totally disappearing and not coming back (not sure if they wait 1 year or a time appropriate for disease - so maybe longer for cancer - or to death from other causes) is.

Not sure if they had many cancer miracles at Lourdes, but before antibiotics there was one or two miracles involving sudden healing of ... had to check, tubercular peritonitis.

Here Tolkien writes on one case he heard about in Church:

And the most moving story of the little boy with tubercular peritonitis who had not been healed, and was taken sadly away in the train by his parents, practically dying with two nurses attending him. As the train moved away it passed within the sight of the Grotto. The little boy sat up. "I want to go and talk to the little girl" - in the same train there was a girl who had been healed. And he got up and played with the little girl; and then he came back, and he said "I'm hungry now". And they gave him cake and two bowls of chocolate and enormous potted meat sandwiches, and he ate them! (This was in 1927). So Our Lord told them to give the little daughter of Jairus something to eat. So plain and matter of fact: for so miracles are.

from his letter 89
Letters, pp 99 - 100

Note, I went to a page - wikipedian or other - on recognised Lourdes miracles, and the boy is not there, since he was healed on the train and not in Lourdes. But a girl who could be that girl is.

I keep the quote with reference on a bibliography page with Tolkien related links and stuff:

Βιβλιογράφικα/Bibliographica : J R R Tolkien related
http://vivlijohrafika.blogspot.com/2008/11/j-r-r-tolkien-related.html

4:58 "let me tell you what God told me the other day"

You don't hear Catholics use that phrase much either.

It has sth to do with Pentecostals and Charismatics not having a certain shyness in culture most other people do have.

"You never hear them talk about miracles that happened to them."

In US that may be because you don't have a sufficient high concentration of Muslims making smaller pilgrimages to shrines or Hindoos going to that particular contributary to Ganges with a temple known for ... etc.

5:02 "at least in America"

You know, you might have some low component of Amerindians among your acquaintances too.

5:40 Yes, there are proven miracles in Lourdes.

Proven cases - at least one girl with peritonitis before antibiotics were available to cure that - where remission is irreversible, sudden and unexplainable.

Since lack of appetite has to do also with peritoneal tissue lacking, this involves a sudden restoration of tissue, as well.

Oh, you might perhaps say "as it was in France, they must have been eating green cheese" (same or similar fungus as for penicilline production, both versions of bread mold - but it tastes much better in cheese than in bread).

OK, go and check how a typical Lourdes menu was c. 100 years ago, and if there was lots of blue cheese available ...

5:48 Lourdes doctors are perhaps not so interested in James Randi's offer?

They are the guys who regularly do the medical examination before a miracle is officially recognised.

5:57 There were two miracles for "Wojtyla".

One of them was not irreversible in healing, that was the French nun.

One of them was not sudden, but took some weeks, even if the healing was lots faster than any known procedure could have made.

I am more impressed by the one healing miracle of Roncalli (Antipope John XXIII), which I had been unaware of since the final "canonisation" used his "Vatican II Council" as miracle number 2.

And you know, your meating that girl seems better qualified as, if not strictly miracle, at least act of God, than Vatican II. So, I was surprised that anything remotely close to a real healing miracle - and the Italian sister seems to have had a real one - even happened in connection to him.

6:04 The natural explanations are probably waiting right there to be figured out ... uh ... naturalism of the gaps?

6:22 God's performing miracles on special occasions is not equivalent of making them a normal pharmaceutic shop.

In other words, you forget that, God working miracles is NOT the kind of explanation which can be "tested by controlled experiments."

So, no. And God's not making them a pharmaceutic shop is also not equivalent of His never making them.

Still at 6:22 "all of our loved ones would never die".

Do you have any idea how annoying it would be if no one ever died? Just because you love someone doesn't mean there isn't someone sitting by a river and happily surprised if seeing his corpse float by (probably a reference to Ganges burials, right?)

Death and diseases are part of God's general punishment for sin.

And not just for personal sins we commit now, also for being children of Adam, who sinned.

It's not as selective of what one calls a miracle as when they really occur.

Getting rid of tubercular peritonitis without antibiotics is much more selective as an occurrence than calling such a thing a miracle. But of course, you can check if it was very likely the girl and the boy (who was cured later) had been eating lots of blue cheese, when they could get something down.

6:57 Why should I, as a Catholic, believe Douglas Hagler?

Especially as, as a Catholic, I do not need to deny miracles occur among non-Catholics.

Like sometimes God prefers leaving some in a false religion over them becoming atheists, which would be the result if no miracles happened.

7:11 "Because they didn't happen to him"

Yeah, right, if this Italian priest cannot bilocate to hear confessions among stranded Italians, like Padre Pio did (the event was verified on both sides, a mystic Italian priest appearing in Chicago, answering to his description on same occasion when he said he had bilocated, and hearing a confession in Italian while no other priest was available), it's because he's a bad priest?

No, and if you don't have stigma, it is not because you are a bad priest either.

Miracles come for God's very selective pruposes, and that selection is diverse from selection to be saved and go to Heaven.

His comment is as inane as if he had said "I don't believe in Fort Sumter, I never saw a war start" or "I don't believe in the Versailles Peace Treaty, I never saw a war end".

Credits for this argument to C. S. Lewis, the book called "Miracles". Can't recall the page.

7:40 You know, Douglas Hagler actually has Protestant tradition since Reformation going for him.

This means, as a Protestant, he is supposed to have a bias against miracles.

The usual consensus among Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists etc is "miracles ceased to happen when the last Apostle died". On their view, they might start again shortly before Harmageddon, unless Apocalypse 11 is just speaking about the Reformation (two witnesses identified as Old and New Testament rather than as for instance Henoch and Elijah returning from whereever God kept them since He took them up).

So, Douglas Hagler is really not a very impressing thing to bring up with a Catholic.

... mainly to Hemant Mehta

Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... mainly to Hemant Mehta, somewhere else : "maybe Zeus does exist"?

Video commented on (with some debates)

The Atheist Voice : 15 things to NEVER say to an atheist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNjEbPfc2d0

I

"atheists don't hate God" ... depends on which ones.

I think Marx and Feuerbach did. I dont think you do yet (or the opposite), but you are a disciple of theirs.

TimSurrey

How can anyone hate something/someone they do not believe exists? It makes no sense.

I am not aware of anything in Marx's writings to suggest he hated God. In fact, Marxist theory is quite clearly a materialist philosophy that does not acknowledge the supernatural in any way.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I think you may not have read the collected works. He wrote some dramas suggesting he considered himself a lost soul and a poem in which he professed to hate God.

Neither of which are Das Kapital of course, but if he was primarily a God-hater and only secundarily an Atheist, is not that the kind of duplicity you would expect?

I have not read the incriminating works by Karl Marx myself, I refer you to a book by Richard Wurmbrandt, called Was Karl Marx a Satanist? - Title in a question mark and conclusion of the book in affirmative.

TimSurrey

Then I suggest you read source material.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I suggest you get the book by Wurmbrandt and read the source material he refers to. I will not agree that Wurmbrandt made himself a liar about Karl Marx, not to mention making himself ridiculous to anyone who could look up the official edition of Karl Marx' collected works which he refers to. I trust his quotes, even though it is a long time since I read them. Karl Marx was an Apostate and he hated God.

II short answer

greatgulffixed

The Bible is God's complete revelation to man. There weren't be more added.

That being said, if you read the Acts of the Apostles (chronicling the activity of the church), you will find that it is not competed. There is a reason for this. We have been basically writing the book down through the centuries since then - in the lives and histories of believers who are spreading the Word.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

In the lives and histories of believers who are spreading the Word ... thank you!

We Catholics call it Church History and we also call those believers Saints.

III

"maybe Zeus does exist"

answered on my blog, giving you short link:

ppt dot li/cp

[somewhere else : "maybe Zeus does exist"?
http://notontimsblogroundhere.blogspot.com/2013/09/maybe-zeus-does-exist.html]

IV

"they were Christians and later in life ..."

Two questions:

- how many of them were Protestants who would not give Catholicism a chance once they discovered where Luther got the Bible from?

- how many were at that later date convinced by Evolution, Big Bang, Heliocentrism ... some of the things that today are really believed in (along with friendship and family and children you teach) instead of God?

V

"we know were all the holes are ..."

Not in religious beliefs like Evolutionism and Heliocentrism I presume? I think Kent Hovind and Robert Sungenis do better than you there!

VI

Answering your questions:

1) I have read most of the Bible. Been rereading part after part as it comes up in debates and in things like Missler's and Skiba's research about Genesis and Apocalypse. Also sometimes follow readings of the Church year.

2) I have read the fifth Surat and know it conflicts with Gospel about Jesus and that Gospels were written much closer to events by people much closer to Him. I have read Mahabharata about Krishna's supposed "ascension", i e of his soul (cremated body)

I have not read The God Delusion, but I have read about half of same author's Greatest Show on earth. Actually learnt some biology from it. "DNA is not like blueprint, more like recipe". I have followed Carl Sagans series Cosmos. I have laid down Origin of the Species after Darwin goes on from Ring Species to supposing all species are related. I have laid down Manuel d'athéologie after Onfray contradicts himself about what Christianity does to its believers - from p. 29 to p. 30.

VII

Do you know how many people who consider me some sort of Satanist and who pray for me?

Problem is they are not praying for the right things. As far as I can see.

I can tell you from experience, prayer does make a difference.

VIII

"bald is a hair colour"

It is the colour of your skin where otherwise there would be colour of hair ... now, atheism as a position in itself is not a religion, because it is only rejection of one, but Evolutionism, Heliocentrism, believing in friends and family and the children you teach - how much difference is there between that and a religion, once you reject any religion higher than that, not mentioning E[volutionism] and H[eliocentrism] are also religious beliefs disguised as "science".

IX

Number 15 - you have pinpointed why I am angry at Judaism, Protestantism and Atheism. Not to mention Freemasonry which infiltrates all of above.

LGBT rights as far as I am concerned is the right to not be LGBT, even if that happens to be how you feel. Just as a cleptomaniac has a right not to be a thief.

Abortion is very clearly murder. "Birth control" is very clearly murder of populations the survival of which depend on getting children.

X, two more responses:

TimSurrey (in reply to someone unknown, since he used new comment instead of reply button)

No, most Christians are claiming we are not moral, by asking this question, by implication.

Morality certainly exists without God. It exists through an honest, and thoughtful examination of the consequences, and contexts, of our actions.

Religion has no moral mechanism, only moral pronouncements, many of which come from a book, the Bible, that is riddled with the most immoral recommendations (about slavery, for example).

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Morality certainly exists without God."

It certainly exists in some atheists without a belief in God.

Whether it came to their and to Christian (and so on) hearts from God or just from nature is another matter.

Also, it exists in them insofar as atheism has not yet corrupted them or opened them to corrupting friendships or goals.

"Morality certainly exists without God. It exists through an honest, and thoughtful examination of the consequences, and contexts, of our actions."

Bad morality and cruelty are quite possible outcomes of such a thing. I was just reading about the medical doctors involved in gassing in euthanasia after 1940 ... their examination of the actions at their value was not honest, but the examination of consequences and contexts was both honest and thougtful. Only immoral. Q not answered.

Anton Martin

Actually, for those who believe there is no proof necesary because they believe whatever the priests tell them, they dismiss the evidence against their beliefs and try to cherry pick what they like. And for the non believers, well we actually care for what's true, so we do need evidence that suggests that there is a god-like being and that the being is the one you believe in.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Evidence of God (whoever he might be): His Creation.

False issue about this: Heliocentrism detracting from non-aleatory construction of universe at large, Evolutionism from non-aleatory arrival of life and diverse species. (Is being answered by Creationists and Geocentrics).

Evidence God is One in Three: the word of Jesus, the Son of the Father.

Evidence His word is Divine and He is God: His Resurrection.

A story, and not two or three hairbrained theories. It has been checked for sources.