philh

I had a look at your web site it is ridiculous. There have been wars and rumours of wars ever since history has been recorded. Same with earthquakes by the way and famines. Anyone who thinks these predictions mean anything should reconsider their position. Moreover they should check the above failed predictions already outlined above in my previous post.

"The Bible was tested as 97 % unedited or unadjusted (search) " Sorry, is this is a joke? Are you familiar with bilical scholarship? Serious scholars of the bible, whether they are believers or not accept there were many authors of the bible, in the OT alone at least 4 authors are described J,E,P and D. The evidence for this is overwhelming I woukld highly recomend the you read "Who Wrote the Bible" by Professor Richard E Friedman so you can realise how ridiculous your statement is. Even if it were unedited, unaltered that would not in any way make it true. Prophecies in the bibe real and being fulfilled? I don't think so. Ezekiel predicted Tyre would be destroyed and never rebuilt , but yet it still stands to this day. In fact it was in the news recently with conflict in Lebanon. He also predicted Nebuchadrezzar would rule over Egypt. It didnt happen. God promised the land of Canaan to the Isealites as an everlasting possesion, yet they were expelled for many hundreds of years.Jesus predicted he would return within one generation of his contempories, we are still waiting 2000 years later.

What is your point? The debate is whether Bush lied, not others. Bush is in office, the Democrats not. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, Clinton did not. Whats more important is that after 9/11 there could be no more doubts about the level of threat Al Queada reprsented and Us military power should clearly focus on that. Instead the absoloute idiot Bush decded to treat Al Queda as a side show and focus on Iraq, misleading the US people and the world that Iraq had WMd's and was linked to Al Queda both of which were not true.

Our eyes can decieve us. The sun apears to rise every morning, but in fact its the Earth's rotation that creates this illusion. Time appears to pass equally for each person, but relativity tells us it is not so. Personal experience tells us that nothing can travel through solid walls , but quantum mechanics tells us somethings can. Personal experience is very clearly no way to discover deep truths about the universe. As far as "it works for me", I think you should think about the consequences of religios belief. Last year 2.8 million people died of Aids, many of them poor Africans who were encouraged by the Pope not to use condoms because or religious belief. Now how can you shrug your shoulders and say it works for me , fuck the consequences to the world? If catholocism is false, enormous amounts of people are dying for no reason. Doesn't that bother you? Im sure I dont need to detail the inquistition, the use of torture and the denial of various important scientific truths all by the Catholic church.

how do you know it was god that helped you? Imagine this 10 million people enter the lottery, they all prey to god to win. A few lucky people end up sharing a masive jackpot, they're prayers have been answered. They will be convinced of it, doesn't make it so. A lot of experiences seem very real when in fact they are not. A good example is sleep paraylsis. This is a a state where a person awakes but cannot move . It is often assocaited with hallcuinations. These halluciantions seem very real especially when interpreted in a cultural context. See below an abreviated version of Wikipidea's list of cultural interpretations of sleep paraylis: In Chinese folk culture, sleep paralysis is referred as "gǔi yà chúang" (鬼压床), literally: "Ghost press bed": 鬼: ghost, 压: press, 床: bed. The belief is that a spirit or ghost is sitting or lying on top of the individual while they were sleeping, causing the sleep paralysis. This is thought to be a minor body possession by the forces from the dead, and usually doesn't cause any harm to the victim. In India, there are two thoughts about sleep paralysis. One of the signs of approaching enlightenment is "witnessing sleep," that is to say, being lucid in sleep — such as with sleep paralysis. It was also believed within the movement that rakshasas (Hindu demons) may assail those making strides towards their own enlightenment and the good of all mankind. The other thought is a female entity, called Mohini (a demoness from the underworld), comes into the night-time world by means of ascending through a deep well. She is enchantingly beautiful, yet simultaneously horrific, unearthly, and deadly. Like her British Isles counterparts, she also seeks a male lover and human genetic material, presumably for the purpose of bearing a hybrid demon/human child. In Japan, sleep paralysis is referred to as kanashibari (金縛り, literally: "bound or fastened in metal": kana: metal, shibaru: to bind, tie, fasten") In Newfoundland, as a visit from the "old hag" (Irish: Ag Rog) In Mexico, as subida del muerto (the dead climbing on top) In Greek, as mora (in Greek: μώρα), the name cames has a Slavic root. The current popular interpretation in the West at the moment is being kidnapped by aliens. You see the pattern, abnormal activity occurs and we interpret it within our cultural context. So when you say you feel god, you really can't be sure thats whats going on. Although Im sure it seemed real to you. Is it a coincidence that most people inherit the religion of their parents? Im sure that suicide bombers, medieval torturers, conquering genocidal armies all feel god is talking to them also. What makes you so different?

If you read Richard Clake's book "Aganst All Enemies" one certainly doesnt get the impression of an impartial president acting on the information given by his advisers. Its pretty clear that he wanted to use 9/11 as a reason to attack Iraq, not that the evidence pointed to a need to attack Iraq. I highly reccomend checking out: http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/they_knew_0802/

"Murder seem worse if i think about it but i believe that you are looking at this from one side only as you are asking me to answer the question from a more physical-human and more emotional perspective" Its nice to see you have higher morals than Jesus. Shame he doesnt agree with you. Ill let you why I think blasphemy is the only unforgivable sin in the bible . Its becuase when you are setting up a cult you want to make sure your followers are obedient and dont doubt you. That is your key to power. That is why we have the utterly ridicuouls notion in the bible that genocide is forgivable but blasphemy is not. Now given what the bible says surely it would make sense to have the laws of your country (I'm going to take a wild guess that you are American) changed so that blasphemy has a higher penalty than mass murder, would you do that?

I dont think you know your bible very well. Not following jesus is covered by this quote: "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." (John 15:6) Not suprisingly many many Christians have burnt those who dont follow their religiou beliefs. Presumably Jesus could see the future, he knew that people would be inspired by this quote and torture the unbelivers with fire yet he said it anyway. What an asshole, hows that for blasphemy? I couldnt open your link, sorry. Maybe you can give us your own definition. whatever it is you cant escape the fact the bible says its a worse sin than genocide, which of course is not just condoned but postivley encouraged. I'll give you another biblical quote just in case things aren't clear enough already: John,14 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

You are not answering the question. You say Christ offers forgiveness for both sins but the bible does not. So either the authors of the bible are liars or mistaken, which is it? Furthermore you give us the example of a relative killed. But what if the victims were unknown to you? Which do you think is the worse crime , the murder and torture of many people or simple disbelief in the holy spirit? Please tell us your opinion.

My religious beliefs on this matter are: 1) that the holy spirit does not exist. This is blasphemy. 2) That even if the holy spirit did exsit that it would not be worth worshiping as it has a similar character to a fascist dictator ie demanding obedience and worship and killing anyone (including children) that gets in its way. That is also blasphemy. But it is not blasphemy for no reason. I was brought up religious and have considred these issues long and hard. I do not worry about blaspheming the holy spirit. What I do worry about is the effect of a philosophy that believes this to be the only unforgivable sin. A phiosophy that believes a serial killer is worthy of forgiveness but somone who merely thinks negatiely of an unproven spirit is a very dangerous philosophy. "i believe that if one really repents from any sin with your whole heart , you will be forgiven." You can believe whatever you like but I have clearly shown the bible says somethig very different. I wonder why your vies and that of the bible are so different? why do you believe the bible is so wrong? Was the author of Mathew a liar or just a bit mistaken?

Sorry, skysaint i don't understand your argument. Whose sinful life are you talking about?

"I believe God has equal infinite love for every soul on earth no matter their faith. He judges each of us equally and always takes into account our individual culpability." You may believe this , but this view is not consistent with the teachings of the bible. You should read Mahew 12 31: Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. 32: And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come. Now I have 0 faith in the existencce of the holy ghost and 0 confidence in the quality of its charachter even if it did exist. This blasphemy is clearly unforgivable according to the bible. let us contrast that with Jeffrey Dahmer, he was serial killer who ate his many victims. This sin is forgivable, but my religious beliefs are not forgivable, therefore it is not correct (at least within Christian theology) to say god's love is indifferent to one's religious faith. A pacifist Hindu like Gahndi is going to hell, wheareas a Christian serial killer like Dahmer is off to heaven. So if God if he exists, is an asshole.

agree with Drew's comments re Perris. For Eloy, Yoko is one of the best coaches in the world. She is a world freestyle champion but more than that just one of the nicest people in the sport, get her if shes coaching in the tunnel.

I live in the Uk and I can assure you that Bush is the most hated president the US has given us in living memory. Personnaly I dont think Bush is pure evil as many do But I do think he is incredibly stupid. Having ignored Richard Clarkes warning over AL Queda before Sept 11th he decided to make the main stay of his was against terror the invasion of Iraq. Even though Iraq had no connection to AQ and did not pose any threat to the US. This has led to the US losing all its post 9/11 sympathy and giving the biggest recruiting advert for AQ they could have imagined. Invading IRaq after 9/11 is the equivalent of FDR decalring war on China after Pearl Harbour.

Starting a war over a complete lie, squandering the good will the US had around the world after 9/11 and bothcing the war against Al queda becuase he waned to hold his main troops for IRaq. Its hard to think how any US President can be worse than GWB

I cant speak for anyone else but I know why anyone who has religion bothers me. The simple reason is that millions of people die becuase of religion. Now just imagine, if you can, that there is no god . All thsoe people died for no reason. Forgetting histrocial issues such as the crusades, the inquistion, the holocaust, the genoicides described in the old testamnet etc. Look at recent world events. Catholics and protestants at war in northern ireland, islamsists declare war on the west, almost 40 million poeple are infected with Aids many of them due to the Catholic churches prohibition of condoms. in Darfur Islamsist Arabs conduct genocide against the local population. Now suppose just for a second that all this suffering was motivated by a myth. Dont you think those that believe the myth is exactly that, a myth,would want to convivnice others?

" The problem is that selection always gets rid of information. It doesn’t add to it which would be required to change into something different (e.g. code necessary for development of a type of lung). Species diversification leads to a smaller and smaller gene pool which leads to less and less information available for populating a single type. The total information necessary to build on gets smaller and more diversified rather than larger which would be necessary in order to produce something more sophisticated. " ---- How does selection get rid of information. Can you explain yourself? Why would it? Any mutation, any mutation at all,changs the information set of the genome. Selection picks out postivie mutations and propagates them thourgh a population. Your comment that species diversification leads to a smaller gene pool is a huge contradiction. No wonder you cant spot them in the bible. Any branching piece of information that copies itself with errors will lead to a larger set of information and a more diversified one, thats just simple maths. Perhaps what you are getting at is the often repeated creationist nonsense that there are no beneficial mutations. Well even today I was reaidng about one. The New Enhgland Journal of Medicine 350 reported that a German boy was born with a mutation iin his myostatin gene. This gene regulates muscle growth. He is, as a result enormously stronger than the avergae human. The idenitification of this mutation may be able to help us treat muscular dystrophy But according to creationsists we shouldnt bother becuase according to them there no mutations that are postive.good job they dont do any real science.

"None of that points to one species gradually changing into a different species over time. " it absolutley does. Im going to paste a previous passage I wrote about micro evolution becoming macro evolution to demonstrate this.This was in previous debate but no one was able to refut what i said so have a go. Please read below and you will see: You make the disctinction between macro evolution and micro evolution but in reality no such distinction is commonly made in bioligical science. All life on this Earth is made up of a genetic code from RNA and DNA strands. Each strand is a polynucleotide composed of A(adenosine), T(thymidine), C(cytidine), and G(guanosine) residues polymerized by "dehydration" synthesis in linear chains with specific sequences. Evolution occurs becase this code is copied imperfectly and the subsequent copy will either be more or les fit. The more fit will pass on their new change in the code more frequently than the less fit. So the code changes. Its simple maths, small changes will keep adding up and become big changes. please tell me how many changes in the code would qualify as micro evolution and howmany macro evolution? I think it will be a pointless task in trying to come up with a dividing line between the two and that is why biology does not tend to do so. for example: AGCCGTACGGTTCAACCG mutates to: ACGCGGACGGTTCAACCC Is this micro evolution or macro evolution? How many letters have to change for it to become macro and how do you justify your letter count? How many generations do the changes have to be confined to? After all whatever rate of change one has, (and we know roughly what the genetic drift rate is) with enough time the entire code coud easily become nothing like its original version. Whilst biology doesnt usually distinguish between macro and micro evolution it does distinguish events we called speciation. This is the creation of seperate species. What is a seperate species? becuase of the reasons above any defintion can never be objective. But the one that has become consesus is that a seperate species is one that cannot produce fertile offspring with its nearest relative. Speciation has been observed in the wild many times.Here are some references, there are many many many more: Bullini, L and Nascetti, G, 1991, Speciation by Hybridization in phasmids and other insects, Canadian Journal of Zoology, Volume 68(8), pages 1747-1760. Ramadevon, S and Deaken, M.A.B., 1991, The Gibbons speciation mechanism, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Volume 145(4) pages 447-456. Sharman, G.B., Close, R.L, Maynes, G.M., 1991, Chromosome evolution, phylogeny, and speciation of rock wallabies, Australian Journal of Zoology, Volume 37(2-4), pages 351-363. Werth, C. R., and Windham, M.D., 1991, A model for divergent, allopatric, speciation of polyploid pteridophytes resulting from silencing of duplicate- gene expression, AM-Natural, Volume 137(4):515-526. Spooner, D.M., Sytsma, K.J., Smith, J., A Molecular reexamination of diploid hybrid speciation of Solanum raphanifolium, Evolution, Volume 45, Number 3, pages 757-764. Arnold, M.L., Buckner, C.M., Robinson, J.J., 1991, Pollen-mediated introgression and hybrid speciation in Louisiana Irises, P-NAS-US, Volume 88, Number 4, pages 1398-1402. Nevo, E., 1991, Evolutionary Theory and process of active speciation and adaptive radiation in subterranean mole rats, spalax-ehrenbergi superspecies, in Israel, Evolutionary Biology, Volume 25, pages 1-125.

"I have two problems with the whole thing. First, the numbers. You can't prove them , so please don't pretend to know exactly when things happened. Say something like "We really don't know.It could have been anywhere from 10,000 yrs. to 3 million yrs. The other problem is that all of these things happened some time in the distant past. I should be able to walk outside and see transitional species abounding everywhere. " You seem amazingly ignorant of even basic sceintific concepts. Firstly in science we dont prove anything, thats mathematics. In sciences there is evidence, not proof. No one pretends hat we know exactly wen things happened. However we do know within a resonable accuracy the age of many rocks and fossils. This is provided by many forms of independt lines of evidence form magnetic analysis, bio stratification, and radiometric dating. These all agree to margins of error of no more than 10%. When you have indepenet forms of evidene all pointing to the same conclusion, its sensible to accept it. Your comment that it could be anywehre between 10,000 and 3 million is laughable, where do you get this from? I am still waiting for your source, is it a refereed journal? I doubt it. Yes these events happened in the ditance past so what? does that mean they didnt leave evidence of what happened? They did. I dont understnad your comment about seeing transitional forms now. No one knows what the future of evolution holds and so how are we going to detect current transitional forms? what we do see is evolution happeneing. I have a friend of mine who has just recieved her PHD in the biology of the AIds virus. The main problem in coming up with a vaccine is that virus evolves so rapidly we cannot keep up with treatments. Your baby example is a very good example, if three arms leads to a selective advantage and that baby has many more descendants than those with two arms then yes it may lead to evolutionary change. Evolution is the inevtiable result of genetic mutation plus natural selection.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt? NO, nothing is beyond a shadow of a doubt in science. Perhpas you are thinking of your own dogmatic beliefs. But pulled out of thin air? Go and buy a geology text book and come back to me when you have something serious to say.Alternatively provide us witha referreed scientific paper which contradicts all of the palentology, geology and physics that agrees with the standards dates and maybe we can take your argument seriously. Furthermore even if the dates are wrong the fossils show a transition between animals that are more and more whale link so it wouldnt make any difference to the argument as to whether these tranisiotnal fossils exist, only the date as to when the transtion happened and thats not what we are debating anyway.

a Class that teaches ID is not a science class.

sorry inserted in reply to by error thats my text in that section.

"You're kidding, right? Like you said, it's just an analogy. The point has nothing to do with actually jumping from a commercial airliner. Sorry you missed it. " By the way if you dont want to take responsibility for the arguments you cut and paste dont put them up in the first place. You quotes about tranisitional forms in the fossil records are complete lies. I notice you dont quote any refereed sceintific journals. Why is that?Is your best source of science Time magazine? I did a short stint at marine mammal labs in Hawaii and worked on a Catecaen project. I can tell you exactly the tranistional fossils found between modern whales and there ancient ancestors: Pakacetus circa 52million years ago- was a wolf life creature that had an inner ear adapted for directional hearing under water Ambulocetus circa 49million year ago; a cetacean with fingers and hooves but with a rear feet adapted for swimming Rhodocetus circa 47 million years ago has a simliar anatomy to Ambolocetus except the ear region is further enahnced for underwater, the legs are not attached to the pelvis and the neck is shorter all of these are adaptations to improve the animals performance in the water. Basilosaurus cicra 40 million years ago was very much like a whale but it still had left overs from its non whale ancestors, in particualr hind legs that it could not walk on. How do you explain that? Lack of tranistional fossils? Pure and utter BS. When Chrsitians repeat this bold faced lie I know they dont take their own Commandment about not not lying seriously.

"There is urgency to this message. If they die in their sin, they will suffer righteous judgment for their lawlessness." No they wont, thats Christian propganda with no evidence to back it up, other than whats in other bits of Christian proganda. By the way your parachuting analogy - i have something to say on that. first off in the case of a commercial airliner, Do you wear your rig on commercial airliners? I doubt it, the flight will be unconformtable and theres no evidence at all that in the event of a crash it will save. You wont be able to exit the plane anyway. Its a waste of time and effort with only an uncomfortable ride along the way. Just like Christianity. I give you a challenge. Why dont we do a two way? I will use science to save my life eg a parachute. You leave the parachute and use faith. well see who comes off better.

I am fully aware there are many words in hebrewe for kill. My whole point is that there are many words used in the bible and they are used interchably. Just as in English , to say Kennedy was assasinated is the same as to say he was murdered by a marksman, different words same meaning. Your defense relies on the fact that ratsach is only used to refer to unlawful killing . But since I have given you examples within the bible of this not being so, you still have not given any decent refutation of my point. Why is this contradictory? Simple, the bible says dont kill and then says kill, that is a contradiction. The bible, being written by fallible human beings, contains there same flaws. Just as most people say it is worng to lie and then they lie, so the bible contains similar contradictions. "Disregarding whether or not it was justified or not in the case of the Canaanites, how is yours not a racist statement? Germans were responsible for the Holocaust. Should we not trust them as a people? " I think you misunderstood my statement. Im not suggesting everyhting the biblical Hebrews say is a lie. What I am saying is that the propaganda of the Bebrews scribes at that time is not accurate way to asses the practises of their sworn enemies. Just as I would not trust German war time proganda, doesnt I mean I would never trsut a German person. I would think its pretty obvious that when a tribe commits genocide against another tribe their justification for doing so should be questioned a bit more than you are doing. "I’m not making this up. I’m just stating what the Bible says about God. " well of course the bible sasy god is perfect, again you have to see through the proaganda. i could say I am perfect,would that make it so? Re Hosea, you argument is utterly irrelevant. The fact is you said the adultury was this outrageous sin that indeed is punishable by death in the OT and yet here is god commanding Hosea being commanded to take an adulteress as a wife. your comment about god sending them a delusion. You can give us any eason you like why he might do this Its irrelvant,the fact is god does/wil act deceptively so you cannot claim he never lies. He might do it for good purpose, but thats not the point. "God is expressing his authority over everything. Darkness in this passage has nothing to do with wickedness" whos talking about darkness/ it says very clearly in the bible that god creates evil. not the devil, not us, but god.