So Tyre will never be rebuilt? I'm sure the hundred thousand odd people currently living there may have something to say about that! There has been a city there for the last 2000+ years.
Also, Tyre was not destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar. The siege was ended politically and he never occupied it.
So the prophesy fails on at least two counts.
This is a problem I often encounter with the more dogmatic apologists. They simply accept a claim if it seems to support their existing position and don't bother to do any research to see if it is in any way factual.
What?!
Genesis does not remotely accurately describe the Big Bang! Moreover, some of the description is categorically wrong.
What you are experiencing is called "confirmation bias".
Test it yourself.
Learn only the two first verses.
But learn them properly, in Hebrew.
If after that you find them remote from the big band description, I will happily accept your "What?!"
Not really.
I am far from being biased. The other way around actually.
I started studying it to prove my friend it is not related even a bit to the scientific description.
Test it yourself.
Learn only the two first verses.
But learn them properly, in Hebrew.
If after that you find them remote from the big band description, I will happily accept your "What?!"
1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Wrong. The earth did not form until some 10 billion years after the Big Bang.
2 "And the earth was without form, and void; "
Then it was not the earth.
"and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
Water could not exist for millions of years after the Big Bang. It probably didn't exist for billions of years.
Therefore the description is demonstrably very different to the Big Bang.
Not really.
I am far from being biased. The other way around actually.
I started studying it to prove my friend it is not related even a bit to the scientific description.
But as the description of creation in the Bible bears no resemblance to the Big Bang, there is clearly something that is making you accept superstitious nonsense over scientific knowledge.
What do you think that could be?
Test it yourself.
Learn only the two first verses.
But learn them properly, in Hebrew.
If after that you find them remote from the big band description, I will happily accept your "What?!"
If you think the Hebrew will make enough difference, then you're basically saying that all the English translations are fundamentally wrong (because none of them are in the least bit like the big bang). However, do explain what you think it says in Hebrew and tell us why all the English translations have got it so wrong....
Even great minds have a right to choose and adhere to a religion (or religions). I don't think that their greater intellect sways me to believe as they do. Some of the greatest scientists of all time are theists.
Scientists sometimes have leaps of faith, as well, though often this leap of faith has nothing at all to do with God. For example, scientists can't explain the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, so they assume (based on Friedmann Equations) that there is some unseen and hitherto (at the time) undetected dark energy that somehow repels matter (rather than attracting it with gravity as normal matter does). I understand that dark energy has been detected now, but does it have the property to repel matter? Scientists make the leap of faith that it does (until a better theory comes along).
Scientists do sometimes make assumptions as part of their process, especially at the beginning of the process. but those assumptions play no part in the method that validates idea. A scientists has to properly demonstrate sufficient testable evidence, their assumptions to get there are worthless in getting their idea validated, and any scientists whose work included subjective bias would see their reputation damaged irreparably. All scientific ideas also have to be falsifiable, if they're not then they are rejected as unscientific.
By comparison religions only have unevidenced assumptions, the process goes no further than faith based belief, and unfalsifiable concepts.
Test it yourself.
Learn only the two first verses.
But learn them properly, in Hebrew.
If after that you find them remote from the big band description, I will happily accept your "What?!"
The big bang is a scientific model, that is testable, makes predictions about reality, is supported by objective evidence, and of course is falsifiable.
The creation myth in the bible can get no closer to the 4.571 billion year age of our solar system than 6 days, ditto for the koran. It can't even get the most basic chronological order correct, claiming the earth existed with vegetation before the sun.
I also find the idea that an a deity exists with limitless knowledge to create a message, and limitless power to communicate it, but can only do so effectively as a monoglot using existing human language, the most risible nonsense.
It's a pithy way to say that science hasn't needed to invoke a god in any of its laws or theories, and as it proceeds, the places where a god might be needed are vanishing (god of the gaps).
And it's a position some theists take seriously. I would say that those theists wanting their youth to avoid university are afraid of an education killing religious belief, as are those that want their children in Christian schools, and why they want prayer and creationism in the public schools. They're afraid that secular education will turn their children's heads away from God, hence “God is dead, Science has usurped Him.”
Scriptures vs science is a false dichotomy significant only to those who, having rejected faith in God, look to science to fill the hole they have created for themselves.
Once I left Christianity, I was able to develop the skills necessary to live outside religion. I shed the magical thinking. I shed the idea that I was always being watched and judged according to a received moral code that really didn't address modern ethical issues and learned the rational ethics of secular humanism. I learned to live knowing that death may bring the extinction of consciousness, that nobody was hearing my prayers, that I might be watched over and loved by nobody not on earth, and the like. I replaced faith-based thought with critical thought. If that's what you mean by filling a hole, then no argument here, except that it was not filled with science, but with reason. I see it as an improvement in my life.
I've always liked this, written by a man named Richard Banford, called Read About My God:
"Do you know his name? Sure you do. He talks to you every day. You could not live a normal life without him. You believe in him, whether you like it or not. Unless you abandon him completely, you cannot deny he exists.
"My god is a more personal god than yours can ever be, for if you have enough sense to understand these words, my god lives within you. He lives within us all, to some degree. A heartbreaking few cannot understand him, but this is not their fault. The real tragedy is the multitudes who ignore much of his counsel, particularly when he questions your god too deeply.
"My god has been around longer than your god. He was here before the many other gods that preceded your god. Though you will likely scoff at the notion, my god was the father of your god, as he was to all gods. But that was long ago when he was young and not yet sure of himself. Though many of your god's followers try to hold him down, my god grows stronger and more independent each day.
"When your god expelled us from paradise for eating an apple, my god taught us to grow our own fruit.
"When your god forbade knowledge, demanding we live in ignorance, my god created books.
"When your god smote cities like a tantrum-prone child, my god helped to rebuild them.
"When your god insisted the world was flat, my god showed his followers it was round, to their peril at the hands of your god's followers.
"While your god watched in silence as children sickened and died, my god created medicines to make them well.
"When your god winked and nodded at slavery, my god argued passionately against it.
"While your god represses half the human race, my god considers woman to be the equal of man.
"When your god only helps those who help themselves, my god rolls up his sleeves and actually does help until your god decides to join in, and then steals all the credit.
"When your god inspired great buildings and great art, my god made them possible.
"While your god says we are all born sinners, tainted before we even draw breath, my god says we are all born innocent; a clean slate with limitless potential.
"While your god offers dubious allusions of an afterlife, my god provides for us here in this life.
"While your god makes amazing promises, but offers not a shred of proof, my god performs amazing deeds, and the proof is there to be seen by all.
"While your god demands blind faith and obsequious obedience, my god encourages questions, even about himself.
"When your god says "Thou shalt not," my god says "You can do anything."
"My god is reason. He does more in a day than your god will ever do."
It has been offered the proof of God is the Messenger, their life and the Message, in that order, which makes them One in God. So be honest, how deep have you looked into that evidence?
How deeply do you think one has to look to discover that there is nothing in that life or writings that isn't human? If this is offered as evidence of divinity, it's not that. It's evidence of humanity.
Don't you think you could write about being good and loving God in poetic and emotive language? If so, ...
Goeth then, and seweth the seed of God in the hearts of men, always with thine eyes heaven-bound and thy gaze fixed firmly on His righteousness. You will be known by your fruits. Is not the rose but a fleeting moment, and all eternity but an instant to Him? If thou encounterest a hardened heart, kick the dust off thy sandal and seek the seeker of God and his infinite truth. For the word of God is a soothing balm. Exalt it and knoweth peace. His love is sweet as honey, and his wisdom like a fine wine.
This isn't hard. You probably find it disrespectful, but that isn't my purpose. I'm just illustrating how easy it is to write words like these - vague, flowery, hortative. If they were in your writings, wouldn't you would consider them wisdom and evidence of a God sent by a Messenger, or would you recognize that these words were just human?
Actually, they're not close. The Genesis creation stories completely overlooked the singularity, the expansion of the universe, the inflationary epoch, symmetry breaking, particle condensation, nucleosynthsis, the decoupling of matter and radiation, the hundreds of millions of years before starlight, the 9 billion year delay before the formation of the sun and earth, the moon creating impact event, the cooling of the earth with crust formation, and the evolution of life.
All it seems to have gotten right is that the universe had a beginning - just like every other creation myth - and the order of some things right, but many things in the wrong order. Light would have existed long before the sun and earth, the universe before the sun, the sun before the earth, seeded plants existed long before flowering plants, which existed before grasses, there would have been sea creatures before before land plants, etc..
Given the errors and omissions, we can't say that the Genesis account "describes the big bang quite well." Do you know the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy? : "an informal fallacy which is committed when differences in data are ignored, but similarities are overemphasized. From this reasoning, a false conclusion is inferred."
Please note Quran verse 21:104 "The Day when We will fold the heaven like the folding of a [written] sheet for the records...." I interpret "fold the heaven like the folding of a sheet" such as space being bent for wormholes".
Hmm. My first interpretation was that this scripture anticipated origami. On further reflection, I began to see it as a prophecy of the air postal service, where letters are folded over and put in enveloped with folding flaps, then sent through the heavens. Now I'm wondering if this isn't Einstein's gravity as geometry.
Are you familiar with pigeon chess? You're playing chess with a pigeon, you've got it hemmed in (like Reshevsky in 1958, it fell for Bobby's Trap), and suddenly, it knocks all of the pieces over, craps the board, and flies off.
sceptics do try to ignore them and make up other explanations which of course have to be true, because prophecies are fake. Other explanations include that the prophecies must have been written after the events or the stories of events were made up so that a prophecy could be said to have been fulfilled or the prophecies are too vague and any event could be the fulfilment of it,,,,,,etc This is part of the atheist/sceptic propaganda that is spread around about Biblical prophecy and the Bible.
Propaganda? If one wants to claim that prophecy is evidence of a superhuman prescience, don't you think the prophecies should be superhuman? Biblical prophecy isn't even as good as scientific prophecy, and nobody claims that it is evidence of divinity. Consider the prediction of the Higgs boson. It was extremely specific, specifying the mass, spin, charge, etc., it was improbable, and it definitely preceded the discovery. So great was the confidence in this prophecy, that an extremely large, complicated, and expensive machine was built to find it, and lo and behold, as foretold, there it was.
"Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?" - Carl Sagan
As you note, skeptics object to anything weaker than this.
The big bang is a scientific model, that is testable, makes predictions about reality, is supported by objective evidence, and of course is falsifiable.
The creation myth in the bible can get no closer to the 4.571 billion year age of our solar system than 6 days, ditto for the koran. It can't even get the most basic chronological order correct, claiming the earth existed with vegetation before the sun.
I also find the idea that an a deity exists with limitless knowledge to create a message, and limitless power to communicate it, but can only do so effectively as a monoglot using existing human language, the most risible nonsense.
Please allow me to kindly interject. You mean the Bible, not the Koran, gets the chronological order of how life formed on Earth wrong with errant assertion of vegetation existing before the Sun. Right?
I've always liked this, written by a man named Richard Banford, called Read About My God:
"Do you know his name? Sure you do. He talks to you every day. You could not live a normal life without him. You believe in him, whether you like it or not. Unless you abandon him completely, you cannot deny he exists.
"My god is a more personal god than yours can ever be, for if you have enough sense to understand these words, my god lives within you. He lives within us all, to some degree. A heartbreaking few cannot understand him, but this is not their fault. The real tragedy is the multitudes who ignore much of his counsel, particularly when he questions your god too deeply.
"My god has been around longer than your god. He was here before the many other gods that preceded your god. Though you will likely scoff at the notion, my god was the father of your god, as he was to all gods. But that was long ago when he was young and not yet sure of himself. Though many of your god's followers try to hold him down, my god grows stronger and more independent each day.
"When your god expelled us from paradise for eating an apple, my god taught us to grow our own fruit.
"When your god forbade knowledge, demanding we live in ignorance, my god created books.
"When your god smote cities like a tantrum-prone child, my god helped to rebuild them.
"When your god insisted the world was flat, my god showed his followers it was round, to their peril at the hands of your god's followers.
"While your god watched in silence as children sickened and died, my god created medicines to make them well.
"When your god winked and nodded at slavery, my god argued passionately against it.
"While your god represses half the human race, my god considers woman to be the equal of man.
"When your god only helps those who help themselves, my god rolls up his sleeves and actually does help until your god decides to join in, and then steals all the credit.
"When your god inspired great buildings and great art, my god made them possible.
"While your god says we are all born sinners, tainted before we even draw breath, my god says we are all born innocent; a clean slate with limitless potential.
"While your god offers dubious allusions of an afterlife, my god provides for us here in this life.
"While your god makes amazing promises, but offers not a shred of proof, my god performs amazing deeds, and the proof is there to be seen by all.
"While your god demands blind faith and obsequious obedience, my god encourages questions, even about himself.
"When your god says "Thou shalt not," my god says "You can do anything."
"My god is reason. He does more in a day than your god will ever do."
Yes that's very interesting and he does make some good points. A couple of observations though;
1) I do not recognise the God he calls "your God", and
2) I value reason, certainly, but I do not call it God. Rather, I call it God given.
Hmm. My first interpretation was that this scripture anticipated origami. On further reflection, I began to see it as a prophecy of the air postal service, where letters are folded over and put in enveloped with folding flaps, then sent through the heavens. Now I'm wondering if this isn't Einstein's gravity as geometry.
My bad, sorry, I followed the Shahih translation of Quran 21:104, which mistranslated the Arabic word for rolled-up as folded. Also, I took a phrase in Quran verse 21:104 totally out of context, this verse is in context of Allah's Judgement Day, which I'm guessing would have nothing to do with my conjectured notion of a wormhole.
I suspect Sheldon confused the Bible with the Quran, ( reference post #311 ) nowhere in the Koran does it claim vegetation existed before the Sun. Right?
I suspect Sheldon confused the Bible with the Quran, ( reference post #311 ) nowhere in the Koran does it claim vegetation existed before the Sun. Right?
