[X] My Assistant

[jellybean chi]

Ok what i noticed a lot on this forum is that a lot of people seem to think there's a huge black and white difference between a religious person and a "normal" person.
So...i hope to clarify some things.

No, not all Christians think that pokemon is evil or incorrect or whatever. I'm proof.
No, not all atheists are right because they believe in science. a lot of science has been proven false, especially when it comes to evolution (Haekel's embryos?)
No, not all Christians believe that evolution is retarded and totally false 'cuz it's "against God." I believe in evolution. Well microevolution anyway. (humans did not come from apes. that's just what the first impression is by a glance at darwin's "tree of life," but he didn't intend to say that humans are a "higher-up" than chimpanzees.)
Yes, there are many types of Christians and atheists. There are some Christians who may think that pokemon is evil or satanic, but there are some christians who believe music is satanic too. There are some atheists who believe all christians are stupid, but there are also some atheists who believe Jesus as a person never existed (come on, he's a recorded historical figure by many different rulers and nations, you can't really prove that as false without trying to claim a lot of other facts as false as well).
So, please stop overgeneralizing. I look through this and a lot of you talk about christians like we're all idiots. Sure, there are a lot of Christians that are in fact idiots, I know many and I am probably one myself. But I also know a lot of atheists that are idiots. Being atheological doesn't make the atheist an idiot. Being theological doesn't make the Christian an idiot.
I try to be as accepting as possible of everyone no matter how wrong I think they are, but since no one can actually know the truth, please just stop saying stuff like "ooh, those jesus freaks think pokemon is evil that's so stupid they're all so stupid let's make fun of them 'cuz they're all idiots and talk to their imaginary 'friend' and say that science is false 'cuz they're so stupid" because that, people, is, in fact, idiotic. (and on my part, that was meant to be an overgeneralization so please don't call me a hypocrite. I already know i am one.)

Anyway, please share your opinions. ^-^

[The Shadow]

Well, I wasn't specifically referring to you when I said "educate yourself," but you really should educate yourself more. I'll say it and mean it. This is especially because you said that there's no difference between what the bible says and what science has proven -- this is a complete and utter joke. Talking snakes, giants, sea serpents that breathe fire, some guy who walks around doing magic (whose proof of existence isn't documented anywhere outside of any holy book), seas parting, whales that eat people, etc? Yeah, science eats all that up. Except it doesn't. Not to mention that the creation story, even if you don't take it literally, still has the events happening out of order. Science doesn't say that the Earth appeared before other stars, nor does it say that water appeared before land. No sense at all.

Finally, I'm not throwing out a possibility of a god or some kind of higher, supernatural being, but I won't believe in it until I have evidence. I certainly don't think the god of the bible exists (and wouldn't want such an egotistical tyrant to exist, either), though.

Let me make a few points to you about debating the Bible. If only to help you in the future.

1. If you are going to quote the bible, please, at least put where there are sea serpents that breathe fire. I know it's been a while since I've completely read the bible, but I don't recall that at all.

2. If you believe in evolution, how is it not possible for a serpent to have human vocal chords at first and therefore talk. Possibly later finding that it had no use for them and "evolving".

3. How is it also not possible under your theory to state that whales didn't go after bigger prey? Possibly whales had, at first, been a terror such as sharks and ate people. They then evolved finding no need to eat larger prey.

4. If you haven't been to other stars, how could you be sure that Earth hadn't appeared before them? Just because one star explodes doesn't mean it's been there longer than our sun.

5. If the universe started as a bunch of dust everywhere, how did it start spinning and forming stars? How would we know that the Sun was not he first star formed? To quote Newton, "An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force" therefore, the "dust", if you believe in that at all, would have had to be interferred upon by an outside force. Unless you want to throw out Newton.

[Manticore]

Let me make a few points to you about debating the Bible. If only to help you in the future.

1. If you are going to quote the bible, please, at least put where there are sea serpents that breathe fire. I know it's been a while since I've completely read the bible, but I don't recall that at all.

Job 41, specifically verses 19-21. He's describing Leviathan.

2. If you believe in evolution, how is it not possible for a serpent to have human vocal chords at first and therefore talk. Possibly later finding that it had no use for them and "evolving".

I...I just want to call this possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read. Regardless, the issue would be less the vocal capacity for speech and more the mental faculties. I know we don't have a super great fossil record on snakes, but none of them have shown much intelligence, much less anything approaching the ability to understand language.

3. How is it also not possible under your theory to state that whales didn't go after bigger prey? Possibly whales had, at first, been a terror such as sharks and ate people. They then evolved finding no need to eat larger prey.

We already know that some whale relatives do eat prey, orcas? Regardless, as far as I'm aware, no whale has the capacity to swallow a man whole, just physically. Their throats aren't large enough.

4. If you haven't been to other stars, how could you be sure that Earth hadn't appeared before them? Just because one star explodes doesn't mean it's been there longer than our sun.

Here's a fantastic article about the ages of stars. That said, we do have the ability to tell a star's distance in light-years, and when a star is say, 5 billion light-years from us, we know we're seeing that star's light from 5 billion years ago. That is older than our planet, which is about 4.5 billion years old.

5. If the universe started as a bunch of dust everywhere, how did it start spinning and forming stars? How would we know that the Sun was not he first star formed? To quote Newton, "An object at rest will stay at rest until acted upon by an outside force" therefore, the "dust", if you believe in that at all, would have had to be interferred upon by an outside force. Unless you want to throw out Newton.

It didn't start as a bunch of "dust" everywhere. The Big Bang was a quantum event, you can't apply relative physics to it, as far as I'm aware. It's quite hard to explain, and I'm no cosmologist, but this is just a complete misinterpretation of the origin of the universe. If you have the time and inclination to learn something, Talk Origins has a fantastic article about the Big Bang Theory.