In the earliest dawn of man, humans have beleived that the earth was flat..the sky being the end all be all of northly position and the ground itself being the base. Most not knowing the earth was a sphere and that land mass's reach 10's of thousands of miles, most believed in their diameters being the bounderies. even in christ's time, this was the belief with the sun and moon rising, and the stars are little spheres afixed into the air. that god resides on the clouds and satan and his minions under our feets deep within the earth.. and yet

here in 2004 alot of people still believe this!! how primitive... we now know the earth is round.. <and depend on where you live on the planet, when you point up, you may be actually pointing down or sideways...> we are just one of a few billion planets around a 100 billion stars just within our galaxy..and now we know there are hundreds of billions of galaxies all spinning and flying through space away from each other... now if there are a hundred billion planets in one galaxy and there are 100's of galaxies, then space has to be an inconcieveable vast emptiness.. and to think that god "sits" on a throne on one small speck in the spectrum i just described means most people are thinking with prehistoric minds.

Tex,

Everyone I know who believes in God believes that He is a spiritual being, and that Heaven and Hell are spiritual places. If there are those who believe that God lives on a cloud, that you can dig a tunnel to hell, or take a rocket to Heaven, then you're right, they're idiots. That's never been the Judeo-Christian belief, however.

Thanks for writing,

David

then why does the bible say that jesus asended "into" heaven ..skyward as the apostles looked on, and his physical body was missing from the tomb. and the story of elijah being taken to heaven on a cloud of flame... people always point towards the clouds and talk about god. the story of jacob wrestling god.. could you wrestle a spirit?????? there are a million problems with any religions beliefs in god, and death.

There are problems with any religion's beliefs in God and death, especially if you don't understand them. Jesus' ascension into Heaven wasn't an upward movement into the physical sky, but His transformed body going into the spiritual realm. And you can wrestle a spirit if it manifests itself physically, as God has done on occasion.

We do tend to think of God as "upwards" and hell as "downwards" since God and Heaven are in a state that is better than this one, and hell is a state worse than this one. Just like we talk of celebrities "rising" to stardom and "falling" from stardom. It doesn't mean we think the celebrities are up in the sky or beneath our feet, except in the metaphorical sense. Again, if you can point to people who really think that you can take a rocket to Heaven or dig a tunnel to hell, then feel free to ridicule them. But I've never met anyone who believes such nonsense.

David

in revelation, doesn't it say all eyes will see christ coming from above?

Yes. And "Revelation" is an almost entirely symbolic book. It speaks of "candlesticks" which clearly represent churches, and "stars" which represent angels.

David

do you believe that revelation is inspired by the book of daniel and that most if it, if not all has come to pass... in an entirely natural form not supernatural. with NERO being the beast spoken of in the book. do you believe the influence on christianity from storys of istar and gilgamesh, zoroaster and egyptian deities like OSIRIS??? and do you believe that christ was a miracle worker and was resurrected from the dead? if so, my point the other day about asend and decent being physical. if it's spiritual, why was christ's mortal body missing from the tomb?? if he could be manifested into a spirit and mortal at the same time, why then need for birth??

i like talking and debating what i know, and maybe pick up things here or there that i don't know, so if you feel like dropping me an IM sometime.. go ahead. are you an apologist?

later

do you believe that revelation is inspired by the book of daniel and that most if it, if not all has come to pass.. in an entirely natural form not supernatural. with NERO being the beast spoken of in the book.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I haven't really studied Revelation that much. I think the arguments for Revelation having come to pass hold water. So do the arguments that it's something that has yet to come. I definitely don't think that the events are nearly as literal as they're portrayed in the "Left Behind" series of books (and even that series acknowledges that it's mostly metaphorical).

do you believe the influence on christianity from storys of istar and gilgamesh, zoroaster and egyptian deities like OSIRIS???

Not on Christianity itself, though it may have influenced some of the Old Testament writings, some of which I'm convinced are parables, not actual events (such as Adam and Eve or the story of Job). But I definitely do not believe that the Jesus story was influenced by Zoroaster, Osiris, etc. I've seen no evidence that it was.

and do you believe that christ was a miracle worker and was resurrected from the dead? if so, my point the other day about asend and decent being physical. if it's spiritual, why was christ's mortal body missing from the tomb??

He was resurrected into a transformed body, one with both spiritual and physical properties. He ascended bodily to Heaven in this transfigured body. Being spiritual and physical at the same time, such an ascension was possible. I believe that in Heaven, we will have bodies that are similar.

if he could be manifested into a spirit and mortal at the same time, why then need for birth??

Because in order to be the perfect sacrifice for human sins, He needed to live a human life, which includes birth, growing up, etc.

i like talking and debating what i know, and maybe pick up things here or there that i don't know, so if you feel like dropping me an IM sometime.. go ahead.

I may do that. I do most of my web surfing under the name KingDavid10. So if you get an IM from that name, it's me.

are you an apologist?

Yes.

later

Nice talking to you.

Peace,

David

how would you be different if you were an athiest? at some point there has to be some doubt about GOD and CHRIST as well as the accurate history of buddha, lao tsze, moses, mahavira, and others. at those points in history when science was nill, it had to be easy to get behind idea's of god and nature. but having the hubble, and the knowledge of science we have now, and the points of contradiction of religion plus the proof that each probably borrowed from the other, due to certain cultures becoming overtaken by others... it is hard to preach a messsage of divine. we have 9 planets encircling a sun.. but there are billions just within our galaxy. now we know there are hundreds of billions of galaxies maybe more..each with a few billion stars.. so the planet number has to be mind boggling.. and to think that WE are the only life is absurd. so if you believe that we are unique.. why the hundreds of billions of planets with no use? and don't forget that these galaxies are FLYING into each other and flying apart.. spinning.. black holes.. do you have a take?

how would you be different if you were an athiest?

I was an atheist for most of my life. Personality-wise, I don't think I was really different then. I think I was a tad more self-centered, but not horribly so.

at some point there has to be some doubt about GOD and CHRIST as well as the accurate history of buddha, lao tsze, moses, mahavira, and others.

I actually have doubt about God and Christ. I'd say I'm 99% convinced that something which we may call "God" exists, and about 95% convinced that this being is quite like what the Bible describes. I'm about 85-90% convinced that Jesus' resurrection is historical fact, so I'd say there's a 10-15% chance that it never happened. I take the balance of each item on faith.

at those points in history when science was nill, it had to be easy to get behind idea's of god and nature. but having the hubble, and the knowledge of science we have now, and the points of contradiction of religion plus the proof that each probably borrowed from the other, due to certain cultures becoming overtaken by others... it is hard to preach a messsage of divine.

I disagree. It was actually science that turned me from atheism to a belief in God. In a college astronomy course (at a secular college), I realized that there was too much evidence of purpose in the universe for it's existence, and ours, to be the result of mere chance. The more I learn about science, the more I'm convinced that the universe isn't a fortunate accident. It could be, sure. Just as the Mona Lisa could be the result of an explosion in a paint factory. It's just very, very, very, very unlikely.

And as for the "proof that each probably borrowed from the other", that kind of thing is quite common in pagan religions, but there's no evidence that Christianity itself borrowed heavily from other religions. It certainly built upon Judaism, since Jesus was the foreseen Jewish messiah, but Christianity (at least the Jesus story itself) can't be shown to have borrowed from other religions.

we have 9 planets encircling a sun.. but there are billions just within our galaxy. now we know there are hundreds of billions of galaxies maybe more..each with a few billion stars.. so the planet number has to be mind boggling.. and to think that WE are the only life is absurd. so if you believe that we are unique.. why the hundreds of billions of planets with no use? and don't forget that these galaxies are FLYING into each other and flying apart.. spinning.. black holes.. do you have a take?

So God requires a tiny universe in order to exist? First of all, I think it's quite possible that there is life on other planets. And since it was astronomy that brought on my belief in God, it's hard for me to say that the universe outside of our planet has no purpose. It had a HUGE purpose for me. Even if we never get to the far reaches of space, we have a lot to learn from it all.

David

Click here: Did Jesus Christ Really Live?

I'll send more on this site later, but its basic points are pretty much nonsense. The idea that Christ never existed was unheard of until about 1800. No one ever argued such a thing before then. It seems like a certain amount of time had to pass before such an argument could be taken seriously (just like some people are now arguing that the Holocaust never happened, no one could have argued that before 1970 or so, because too many knew it had happened). It's also highly unlikely that so many 1st century Christians would have faced persecution under Nero for someone they had to have known never existed.

On top of that, the idea that the Gospels are all 2nd-century creations is downright laughable, and not held by any serious scholar. There are a few serious scholars who might place John alone around 100-110, but Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all known to be well earlier. I've never seen any scholar date any of them past 90 A.D. at the latest. We even have some fragments of those Gospels that date to the 1st century. Also, we know that Mark was written before Luke, and that Luke was written before Acts. We also know that Acts was written before the death of Paul and the fall of Jerusalem (67 and 70 A.D., respectively), since it never mentions either major event when it obviously would, which means that Mark and Luke had to have been written before 67 A.D. And we do have at least one portion of Matthew's Gospel which is dated to earlier than 70 A.D. (the Magdelyn Papyrus).

I'll send more on this page later. Gotta get the kids up for school.

Peace,

David

i don't believe totally that an accident caused the universe, because even if it started from a single point, who or what made the singular? but i do not believe in god as a creator, so therefore i do not believe in a purpose for OUR existance nor an afterlife, but being a secular science student let me ask you. as planets revolve around a star.. similar to the layout of atoms... now this is reaching, could we be the atomic make-up for another being?? does that make sense?

i don't believe totally that an accident caused the universe, because even if it started from a single point, who or what made the singular?

I agree that the question of who or what made the singular is almost beside the point. Obviously I believe God did, but I don't have a good argument or clear-cut evidence that I could use to convince someone else. I think the evidence for an intelligent, purposeful creator is in what happened after it started expanding. Without a god, the results would be random. Just like if I stuck a bomb in a paint factory, you wouldn't expect the explosion to create something like the Mona Lisa. Yet the results of the "big bang" (which I do believe in) are a universe which shows a great deal of order. In fact, it seems to be set up so that the creation and long-term survival of life was inevitable. It could have happened by chance, I suppose. I just don't find it logical to suppose it did.

but i do not believe in god as a creator, so therefore i do not believe in a purpose for OUR existance nor an afterlife, but being a secular science student let me ask you. as planets revolve around a star.. similar to the layout of atoms... now this is reaching, could we be the atomic make-up for another being?? does that make sense?

In some sense, I think what you're describing is darned close to the way it is. We think of God as something completely outside of nature. Personally, I think God is natural on a level we can't comprehend (at least yet). What we see as "nature" is just the tip of the iceberg. We know that there are dimensions that exist, but are unavailable to our human senses. We know that we're incredibly limited, but science is expanding the limits. Some think that science is pointing away from God. I think science is pointing towards Him.

Peace,

David