Thats awesome. It kind of reminds me of Shell Silverstein's type poem for children.

Well yeah. In fact if its not in the bible, its probably accurate.

I think it wasnt that it was ever actually explicitly stated in the bible that the sun revolves around the earth or that the world was flat and you could drop off and there were sea monsters there waiting to devour ships, men and cargo. Its how these early church theologists (who commanded a tremendous amount of power and influence) interpreted the bible. They felt that because god had created the planet earth that naturally his divine creation would be at the center of the cosmos. So therefore you just killed people that disagreed.

Well angels themselves come from the bible correct? Its natural to assume that they thought there were tiny ones that tried to manipulate physical objects and thats why when you dropped something, it fell to the floor. They had no other explanations for these things besides the bible (however they interpreted it) probably until Newton, angels sounded pretty plausible. And then if you decided to voice an opinion besides it being tiny angels, then off to to prison you would go as a heretic.

Did you know that on Superman's planet, the gravity is much heavier and that's why he could fly and he was so strong on Earth. Like if a human went to his planet, they would be crushed. Im just making this up by the way.

Tiny angels holding things down? Did they really think that?

Yes and I dont think the Theory of Evolution really interferes with anyone's beliefs. Perhaps only 2.2 of the worlds' population. I dont know though. Im just assuming it only conflicts with those that want to believe that we "poof" just magically arrived on this planet all pre-fabbed and such. The whole "common ancestor" idea is just too intimidating for some reason and it leaves us vulnerable to the possibility of extinction like any other animal.

People who are not really involved with the field of scientific research tend to assume that the word "theory" means you are blowing smoke out of your ass. Its really a bit more involved than that. After a scientific Law, comes a theory. Although the law is useful for engineering purposes, is a lesser achievement than a full blown theory.

Maybe this will help but I doubt it.

A theory, in the general sense of the word, is an analytic structure designed to explain a set of observations. A theory does two things:

it identifies this set of distinct observations as a class of phenomena, and

makes assertions about the underlying reality that brings about or affects this class.

The term is often used colloquially to refer to any explanatory thought, even fanciful or speculative ones, but in scholarly use it is reserved for ideas which meet baseline requirements about the kinds of observations made, the methods of classification used, and the consistency of the theory in its application among members of that class. These requirements vary across different fields of knowledge, but in general theories are expected to be functional and parsimonious: i.e. a theory should be the simplest possible tool that can be used to effectively address the given class of phenomena.

Exactly. I was kind of beginning to think this was one of those classic "moot points."

I have never heard that Charles Darwin "recanted" his theories on his death bed. Why would he? He also never converted to Christianity. The reason I believe this to be a fact is because his wife was a Christian so if he had actually converted before his death, she would have been singing it from the rooftops and she never did as far as we know.

I know he did have a daughter who died rather young and for this, he turned against god in many respects in his despair over losing her.

Well on a serious note, the one thing that women and god have in common is we both create life. It kind of reminds me of the parrot sitting on his perch in the pet store who tells people,

"I can talk, can you fly?"

This thread is beginning to remind me of that Steve Martin film "The Jerk." That part when the new phone book arrives and he's jumping up and down because he's in print. This is the decisive moment for his "special purpose" in life.

How is the story of Jesus remarkable as compared to these other gods that lived before him? Thats the real problem. They all came BEFORE him which leaves the channel for plagiarism wide open.

Its certainly not my position to criticize the beliefs of individuals. Thats an exercise in futility but what I dont fully understand is why Jesus (who there is absolutely no proof that he existed at all) is somehow placed on this pedestal as being the one true messiah put on this earth by god (yet he is god) and then all of these other different gods existed before him like Horus and Krishna and they have nearly the identical backgrounds and historical accounting of their lives? Why are they considered the "impostors" and not Jesus? I guess thats the million dollar question right there.

riding

No I believe he is referring to an Orthodox Christian viewpoint in his book there. He's just saying you could have had Jesus embody both qualities but not all of either which is what the Orthodox view specifically calls for.

Well Im just posting this as a different opinion from a theologian and not to start an argument.

The orthodox doctrine is logically impossible. As Huston Smith, scholar of comparative religion, points out, it would not have been logically impossible if the creed said that Jesus was somewhat divine and somewhat human. But this is expressly what the creed denies. For orthodox Christians, Jesus cannot possess only some human qualities; he must possess all. He must be fully human. At the same time, he cannot possess only some divine qualities; he must have all. He must be fully divine. This is impossible because to be fully divine means one has to be free of human limitations. If he has only one human limitation then he is not God. But according to creed he has every human limitation. How, then, can he be God? Huston Smith calls this a blatant contradiction. In his book The World’s Religions, he writes:

We may begin with the doctrine of the Incarnation, which took several centuries to fix into place. Holding as it does that in Christ God assumed a human body, it affirms that Christ was God-Man; simultaneously both fully God and fully man. To say that such a contention is paradoxical seems a charitable way to put the matter — it looks more like a blatant contradiction. If the doctrine held that Christ was half human and half divine, or that he was divine in certain respects, while being human in others, our minds would not balk.

If it was said that Jesus was partly human and partly divine that would not be logically impossible but only scripturally impossible. The Bible nowhere teaches that Jesus was divine in any way. Furthermore, if he was only partly divine then he was not the One True God of the Old and New Testaments. God is All-Powerful, not somewhat all-powerful; God is All-Knowing, not somewhat all-knowing.

C. Randolph Ross is a Christian. In his book Common Sense Christianity he debunks the orthodox view “not because it is difficult to understand,” he says, but because “it cannot meaningfully be said.” He rejects it because “it is impossible,” he says. His arguments are so persuasive that I can do little better than just repeat them. To be human means to be limited, lacking in knowledge, prone to mistakes, imperfect. To be God means just the opposite: unlimited, complete in knowledge, infallible, perfect. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot say of one person that he was both. Either he was one or the other.

Well very often Pagan female Saints were also incorporated into the catholic church as a means of getting the Pagans on board with Christianity. Saint Brigid of Kildare is an example there. She is STILL to this day known as the "Goddess Brigid" in parts of Ireland and she is steeped deeply in traditional pagan spirituality and mysticism. The same thing would eventually happen to the Virgin Mary.