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Where do Proponents Of Intelligent Design Propose the Designer Came From?

viole

Ontological Naturalist
Premium Member
Calling a man by his name and telling what he would do and how he would do it, 150 years before his birth, is not "vague" in my opinion. And that is but one of many examples of prophecies in the Bible.

Oh well, that is simple. Since the authors of the NT knew the OT, all they had to do is to write a story that follows through anything written in the previous book. Like Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings.

Ciao

- viole
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
The claims you made that the Bible teaches there are unicorns, that the earth was formed before the Sun,etc. are simply not true. The other things you claim the Bible teaches are either not true or twist what the Bible really says.
Well, here's what the Bible really says:

No unicorns? Let me remind you
  • Numbers 23:22 “God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.”
  • Numbers 24:8 “God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.”
  • Job 39:9 “Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib?”
  • Job 39:10 “Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?”
  • Psalms 29:6 “He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn.”
  • Psalms 92:10 “But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil.”
  • Deuteronomy 33:17 “His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth: and they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh.”
  • Psalms 22:21 “Save me from the lion’s mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.”
  • Isaiah 34:7 “And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.”
As for the series of events in Genesis 1, you're evidently saying that the order of the verses in the Bible can be switched around. Take Matthew 3:1-8 as an example.


Matthew 3
1And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying,

8 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance:

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

3 For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight.

5 Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan;

4 Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

6 and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

2 Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.​



Or, in the case of Genesis 1 . . . . . . . .


GENESIS 1
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

2 And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament
from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.​


If not, then you're going to have to accept the fact that the order in which they appear expresses the order in which the events in each happened.

Matthew 3
1And in those days cometh John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, saying,

2 Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

3 For this is he that was spoken of through Isaiah the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make ye ready the way of the Lord, Make his paths straight.

4 Now John himself had his raiment of camel's hair, and a leathern girdle about his loins; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

5 Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about the Jordan;

6 and they were baptized of him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.

7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

8 Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of repentance:

And that first earth (and the heavens) was created,

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

and then,

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness.​


As for the Flood and confusing of languages, no one to date has successfully proven these are not historical events.
All of geology says the flood didn't happen. All of linguistics says the Tower of Babel could not have happened. All you have is the word of a single, fallible, book.

How many stalls and horsemen?
1KI 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

2CH 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.
Value of pi = 30.
"He made the sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it." "It was a handbreadth in thickness... It held two thousand baths" - 1 Kings 7: 23,26
Coneys (hares) chew their cud
Leviticus 11:5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.


Of course we've all heard the silly explanations for these errors, and none are any better than the claims for the flood and the Tower of Babel.
 
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To show all the evidence of the Bible being God's Word would require a book. (There are such books, BTW.) Here are a few lines of evidence I find convincing:

1. The Bible accurately foretells the future. One prophecy in Isaiah foretold the ruler who would conquer Babylon, giving his name, some 150 years before he was born. The God of the Bible points to his ability to fulfill prophecy as proof he is the one true God. (Isaiah 44:26-28)
2. Scientific accuracy. When men in general ignorantly supposed the earth was resting on the backs of elephants or a turtle, the Bible accurately said that God " stretches out the northern sky over empty space, suspending the earth upon nothing.” (Job 26:7) There are many like examples. Those who claim scientific inaccuracies in the Bible often misstate what the Bible says.
3. Historical accuracy. Despite centuries of attacks against the Bible's historical record, archeology has confirmed many Bible events and persons whose historicity was once challenged.
4. The principles and wisdom found in the Bible, when applied, bring benefits to people in all nations, cultures, and time periods.

Hahahahaahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

Your really funny, you know that right.

That is exactly why Jesus did not fulfill all of the Messaih prophecies in the bible, Isiah was not written until after 300 years of oral tradition, the bible (in orignal Hebrew) claims that we are in a bronze sphere, many relgions do not have creaction stories,okay then prove that the Crucifixtion darkness happened, or the great flood, the bible says to kill other people not of your faith.

You really need to realize people can very easily find out whether or not you are spouting nonsense.
 
As I see it, based on the nature of ourselves and our environment, our selves and our environment required a creator (even if we were created by said creator through or partly through evolution).... but for a creator to not require having been created, said creator would have self-created, but also have always had the potential to do so -would always have "been" in some state.

That is not a conclusion, but it is my best reasoning at this point.

We know that WE are not the initial creator because we know we were created by something -even if we credit "evolution" and say it was not initiated by an intelligence.
We also know (or, at the very least, are at least quite sure) that what we are created from was created by what we call the big bang.

What is written of God in scripture indicates something which might be described as self-evolution -but not in the sense of becoming more fit to survive. He has always been perfectly fit to survive, but has caused more reason to survive/survives to cause more reason/whatever.

His overall intent is said to essentially be to increase love -and he does so by reproducing himself (in the "children of God").

I considered what is written about God -what those words actually say -and also the present state of things.

We know we exist. We know we can create. We are beginning to realize we can eventually create beings similar to ourselves.

It appears (to man, generally) that we evolved, but we evolved to create -and cannot say for certain whether evolution was set in motion by a creator.

It is written that the things of God are apparent in what was made, so perhaps evolution is analogous to God's self-evolution.

We wonder about our origin -we know we are not responsible for our own existence -but God would be aware of the fact that nothing was before him -or aware of his self-origin... if indeed that is what happened.

For God to be all-knowing, all-powerful, etc.... his personality would essentially be the mind of all things, and all things his body.

In scripture, God (at least the Word who became Christ) is able to appear in different ways -in different bodies -but is not limited to those bodies (unless by choice for a time).

We are said to have the potential to be given a body similar to that employed by Christ/The Word (who is said to have actually done the creating) when he created all things... ( "like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.") -then we see the glorious being whose back parts Moses saw -then a pillar of fire and smoke -and then we see Christ in a human body -so his mind is able to be represented by -presented through -the environment in any way, and the Father's mind would essentially be represented by all things.

It is also said that God created us to live in us, and us in him, etc.... So our minds would essentially a part of God's mind that he caused to be separate -our bodies separate from his, etc..... by his decision.
That all sounds a bit mental -but it is essentially a multiple personality ORDER rather than disorder.
In order for us to create something new to him, he necessarily -by decision -said that there would be certain things he would keep himself from knowing -and essentially gave over some power by causing us to be able to decide certain things.

God is said to be eternal (as Melchisedek -who was also the Word, Christ, I AM, etc. -is described.... without descent, without beginning of days or end of life), but what is not described is his state throughout eternity.

If something cannot come from nothing, then there was never nothing.

If there was also never no one, perhaps the state of things is indicative of the state of that one.

There would necessarily have always been something to act upon, and someone to act upon it -so the nature of things would reflect the nature of the mind of the one acting.

He calls himself I AM -which doesn't just mean he has always been, but also essentially means he is everything.

God is said to be able to make new things -to create, so he must be able to think new things into being which once were not.

Of Christ it is written that of the increase of his government there will be no end -which makes me wonder how little God might have ruled in the past.

He could not be ruler of the universe before he created the universe -though he inevitably would be.

So -if things are ever-increasing, it makes me wonder how much they can be reduced moving backward in time.

Complicating matters is the statement that the Word (who became Christ) was in the beginning with the Father -and it is stated that God can conceal things from him (such as the hour of his own return).

An eternal God would necessarily be irreducible at some point -but at what point? In what state?

I'unno o_O

That also brings up the question of self-awareness. Even though God always WAS, was he always able to say "I AM"?


If so... how is that possible?

We become self-aware at a certain point, but did God always sense himself and his environment to some degree (some initial "ping" returned leading to more) -, then make more of himself and his environment to be aware of -or was the initial state of all more complex than that?
A certain degree of complexity must have always been -but how simple could that complexity have once been? How complex must simplicity have once been to lead to this?

Some things we'll just have to wait to find out.
If he created everything but himself then that means that there was nothing for him to be aware of.
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
If he created everything but himself then that means that there was nothing for him to be aware of.
That's not actually what I said -but that would be true in that scenario -he would have created that which he was able to be aware of.

I was thinking (not making any claims) more along the lines of awareness and something to be aware of growing and increasing together in proportion. Whatever he is always was -but not necessarily in the same configuration -similar to the elements being an arrangement or rearrangement of what preceded them, but nothing preceded him.
He is both awareness and that of which there is to be aware.
Whatever initial awareness might be -and what it might have initially been aware of....
Awareness would reflect that which there was to be aware of, but the increasingly-aware would drive the increase in complexity, etc...
The more we make of what there is, the more there is to be aware of... similar to that....
so what he is is somewhat reflected in what he makes and what he makes somewhat defines him.
In thinking something new and making something new he technically becomes something new even though his basic self has not changed.
Again -that which is irreducible is beyond my understanding.

God says he is the ALPHA (etc.) -the BEGINNING (etc.) -but what that means from his perspective I don't know.

anyway...... had many responses and type very slowly -make take me a while to address them all.
 
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Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
All of geology says the flood didn't happen. All of linguistics says the Tower of Babel could not have happened. All you have is the word of a single, fallible, book.

How many stalls and horsemen?
1KI 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

2CH 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem.
Value of pi = 30.
"He made the sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it." "It was a handbreadth in thickness... It held two thousand baths" - 1 Kings 7: 23,26
Coneys (hares) chew their cud
Leviticus 11:5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.


Of course we've all heard the silly explanations for these errors, and none are any better than the claims for the flood and the Tower of Babel.

Huh?
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
Nope.

That's not it at all.

Science, its fully name is "Natural Science", meaning it's the study of natural phenomenon explained by natural causes. God is supernatural, meaning natural science doesn't study the supernatural. If supernatural was part of the natural, then God is part of nature, which means that pantheism/panentheism are true. There are many believers among scientists. The only thing is, they don't necessarily believe in the Bible-God.

Science doesn't begin by assuming that there's no God. Science only begins by assuming that natural things can be explained by natural reasons. If God is part of that or not, that's up to the scientist's personal beliefs.
God is natural -and only called supernatural because we do not understand his nature.
What science does not yet know to be possible or true is not unnatural.


Not all of "science" assumes such things -I should have been more clear.
Science cannot assume that which it does not know in making conclusions, but some scientists make conclusions based on incomplete evidence.
There is much science does not know.
 
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Ouroboros

Coincidentia oppositorum
God is natural -and only called supernatural because we do not understand his nature.
What science does not yet know to be possible or true is not unnatural.
Which means that science isn't excluding God since God is natural and science is the study of the natural.

Either way, science doesn't explicitly or intentionally exclude or reject God. Individual scientists might, but science isn't in the business of excluding God. When science started, it was in the interest of studying how God created nature. It wasn't about finding ways of rejecting God.


Not all of "science" assumes such things -I should have been more clear.
Most of them don't even mention or touch the subject of God. There are plenty of scientists who are outspoken about their personal beliefs about God and that science supports their belief or disbelief, but that's not the same as declaring science as such one way or the other.

Science cannot assume that which it does not know in making conclusions, but some scientists make conclusions based on incomplete evidence.
I can agree with you there. Actually, a lot of conclusions are made without complete knowledge.

There is much science does not know.
But there's a lot that science does now. We can't reject what science knows because it doesn't know something else. And we can't say that science as a method of finding out how nature works is assuming that God doesn't exist. Science is a method of figuring out how the natural works, regardless if God exists or not, and regardless of what God is. Natural science is about natural processes and phenomenon, and nothing is said about God.
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
Which means that science isn't excluding God since God is natural and science is the study of the natural.

Either way, science doesn't explicitly or intentionally exclude or reject God. Individual scientists might, but science isn't in the business of excluding God. When science started, it was in the interest of studying how God created nature. It wasn't about finding ways of rejecting God.



Most of them don't even mention or touch the subject of God. There are plenty of scientists who are outspoken about their personal beliefs about God and that science supports their belief or disbelief, but that's not the same as declaring science as such one way or the other.


I can agree with you there. Actually, a lot of conclusions are made without complete knowledge.


But there's a lot that science does now. We can't reject what science knows because it doesn't know something else. And we can't say that science as a method of finding out how nature works is assuming that God doesn't exist. Science is a method of figuring out how the natural works, regardless if God exists or not, and regardless of what God is. Natural science is about natural processes and phenomenon, and nothing is said about God.

Okie dokie, but sometimes science doesn't know what it thinks it knows, or it knows something which is true, but the implications thereof change with continued discoveryo_O

Science doesn't even know what percentage of the knowable is known :eek:

I do get what you are saying, though :)

Science is a bit like religion in that things get blurry when humans get involved, because they don't always follow the rules:oops:
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Hares cheweth the cud. If you can accept that -and explain why it can be both true and false -but is still true, I'd be interested in further discussion.
Not understanding you here, but my point in bringing up the Bible's assertion that hares chew a cud is that they don't, confirming the fact that the Bible is indeed fallible.
 
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Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Oh well, that is simple. Since the authors of the NT knew the OT, all they had to do is to write a story that follows through anything written in the previous book. Like Star Wars or the Lord of the Rings.

Ciao

- viole

No, those books weren't compiled until long after Xianity ''started''.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
No, those books weren't compiled until long after Xianity ''started''.
Don't know what you consider "long" to be, but the first translations of the New Testament were made at the end of 2nd century (before the year 200); however, the writings from which these translations were made were created earlier. For example:

Matthew between 50-70AD,
Mark 55-70AD
Luke 63AD or before
John between 80-90AD.
source
 
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Desert Snake

Veteran Member
Don't know what you consider "long" to be, but the first translations of the New Testament were made at the end of 2nd century (before the year 200); however, the writings from which these translations were made were created earlier. For example:

Matthew between 50-70AD,
Mark 55-70AD
Luke 63AD or before
John between 80-90AD.
source

Agreed. Thanks.
 

Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
Not understanding you here, but my point in bringing up the Bible's assertion that hares chew a cud is that they don't, confirming the fact that the Bible is indeed fallible.
OK -so I will answer even though you didn't meet the requirements.

Ummm but instead they do chew cud -they just do it in a more roundabout way than other animals. It's not about what you think of as chewing cud -it's about what the writer thought of it.
If you are just going to get stuck on a little word like "cud", you probably won't get the more important concepts.

If I say I am cold as hell, you hopefully get the point -and would not see the need to point out that I don't know that there is a hell -what the temperature might be, etc.... so realize that even the bible acknowledges the imperfect nature of human words....
"Zep 3:9 For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent."

Our words are from our limited perspective -God's language will reflect his unlimited perspective -but even if we had accurate words, specific words for all specific things, sentence structure, etc. now, we would still need time to understand the concepts behind them accurately.

Words are fallible -but that's not the same as saying "the bible" is fallible. For example.... when the word "Passover" was translated "Easter", etc... but that's not "the bible" being fallible -and whether or not words are perfectly accurate actually has little to do with truth.

If I "know" my wife, she won't get pregnant -we pretty much have to have some of my stuff get into her stuff somehow. We can't just "know" each other. :oops:
Should I reject the bible because the bible is fallible? No.

Christ is the "Son" of God -but Christ is not the Son of God. Both are true. o_O

I'm not going to even do any research on this one... but just at first glance......

"How many stalls and horsemen?
1KI 4:26 And Solomon had forty thousand stalls of horses for his chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen.

2CH 9:25 And Solomon had four thousand stalls for horses and chariots, and twelve thousand horsemen; whom he bestowed in the chariot cities, and with the king at Jerusalem."

PERHAPS Solomon had forty thousand stalls for horses TOTAL -but only BESTOWED four thousand IN the chariot cities and WITH the king at Jerusalem.

Did a quick search on this one (Wikipedia).... but consider that a cubit was a reference to a forearm and a span to a hand-breadth.... perhaps we are too accustomed to extreme accuracy these days....

"Value of pi = 30.
"He made the sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it." "It was a handbreadth in thickness... It held two thousand baths" - 1 Kings 7: 23,26"

"The Molten Sea or Brazen Sea (ים מוצק "cast metal sea") was a large basin in the Temple in Jerusalem made by Solomon for ablution of the priests. It is described in 1 Kings 7 and 2 Chronicles 4. It stood in the south-eastern corner of the inner court. According to the Bible it was five cubits high, ten cubits in diameter from brim to brim, and thirty cubits in circumference. The brim was "like the calyx of a lily" and turned outward "about an hand breadth"; or about four inches. (Because a circumference could not be taken on the edge of the brim, the line would have been drawn around the basin just below the rim; thus the circle measured would be less than ten cubits diameter.)

Approximation of π

Main article: Approximations of π § Imputed biblical value

The biblical description that the bowl has a diameter of 10 cubits and a circumference of 30 cubits suggest that in the construction of the basin, π was approximated with the integer value 3. This is consistent with the practice in Babylonian mathematics at the time (6th century BC), but it has given rise to debate within rabbinical Judaism from an early period due to the concern that the biblical text might here be inaccurate.


Rabbi Nehemiah in the 2nd century argued that the text is not claiming that π equals 3, but instead that the Hebrews measured the diameter on the outside of the rim of the bowl, while the circumference was measured along the inside of the rim. After accounting for the width of the brim, this results in a ratio closer to the true value of π. Assuming that a cubit was about 18 inches and a handbreadth was about 4 inches, the ratio of the described dimensions of the bowl differs from π by less than 1%.[9]"

Brazen_Sea_of_soloman_From_Jewish_Encyclopedia.jpg




This one was from a quick search of "Why do rabbits eat their poop"?

Coneys (hares) chew their cud
Leviticus 11:5 And the coney, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.

They do the same thing -for the same reason -as other animals -it just goes around instead of back up.

"All rabbits do it. if the do not eat them they will become very sick.....it's not actual poop, it's cecals. Rabbits have a large cecum, which is a blind pouch located at the junction of the small intestine and the large intestine, where the digestible portions of the intestinal contents enter and are broken down by bacteria. Some nutrients are absorbed through the wall of the cecum, but most nutrients are locked up in the bacteria. The rabbit then produces bacteria-rich droppings called ecotropes, which are softer, stickier, greener and have a stronger odor than the regular waste droppings. These cecotropes are eaten directly from the anus as soon as they are produced. The cecotropes are then passed through the digestive tract of the rabbit and nutrients such as vitamins,amino acids and fatty acids are released from the bacteria and absorbed into the rabbit's body. In this way, rabbits are very efficient at producing their own vitamin, protein and fat supply from food that for some animals, such as ourselves, would be totally useless. This is why Rabbit manure is the only manure you can use direct form the animal without composting it first, and it wont hurt your plants by burning them with too much nitrogen."

Talk about yer straining a gnat but swallowing a camel!
(He didn't actually mean straining gnats, by the way.)
:)

I think the most important point of all is that none of that is important -but it is important to understand that.
 
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Etritonakin

Well-Known Member
Please reveal some of this alleged "obvious" evidence.
If I may.... there is much obvious HISTORICAL evidence.
Some use the pervasiveness of flood stories in many cultures to discredit the bible -but perhaps the opposite is true.

There were only so many ways for a deity to do bad things back then in the minds of people who made stuff up -not a lot of sci-fi going on (writing took a while to catch on, too) -but perhaps it is also because many cultures passed down or eventually heard stories of something that actually happened (whether great localized floods or "the" flood spoken of in the bible).
I haven't looked into which flood myths predated the bible account vs. which flood myths actually predated the time the flood was said to happen.
 
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McBell

Unbound
If I may.... there is much obvious HISTORICAL evidence.
Some use the pervasiveness of flood stories in many cultures to discredit the bible -but perhaps the opposite is true.
There were only so many ways for a deity to do bad things back then in the minds of people who made stuff up -not a lot of sci-fi going on -but perhaps it is because many cultures passed down or eventually heard stories of something that actually happened (whether great localized floods or "the" flood spoken of in the bible).
I haven't looked into which flood myths predated the bible account vs. which flood myths actually predated the time the flood was said to happen.
What constitutes "historical" evidence of a world wide flood?
 
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