Re: The Holy Bible

[email protected] wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Aug 2026 03:48:17 -0700, Samuel Spade <[email protected]> wrote:
> >[email protected] wrote:
> >> On Sat, 15 Aug 2026 22:05:02 -0700, Samuel Spade <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> >(much snippage throughout)

We've been over this pretty well, but I will add a few
comments with much snippage.  It's forgiveable if you don't
reply.

> >Ok, so a evil pharoah destroyed all written references to
> >Jews having ever been in israel.
> 
> Right.

> >> >You can't have 2 million lost Jews wandering the little sinai
> >> >peninsula for 40 years without leaving a trace.
> >> 
> >> Correct. So if they search the right spot, they will get their
> >> evidence. 
> >
> >Sinai pretty much has 1 way in.  Then they wandered down to
> >Mt. Sinai, the route there is pretty obvious.  Then back
> >along the sea and eventually to canaan.  So the diggers knew
> >where to start looking.
> 
> Since they found no evidence and the route is debatable, likely that
> was not the correct path.

Look at the Sinai on a map.  You enter from Egypt, go to Mt
Sinai at least once (pretty much 1 route), go in circles for
40 years, then out to Canaan.  There are certain spots you
can't avoid.


> >> >> >> >God appeared to Abraham (Gen 18)
> >> >> >> >Jacob saw God (Gen 32)
> >> >> >> >Moses spoke with God face to face, as to a 
> >> >> >> >	friend (Ex 33:11)
> >> >> >> >Moses, Aaron & 70 elders saw God (Ex 24)
> >> >> >> >God shows Moses his butt (Ex 33:23)
> >> >> >> >   As illustrated by Michelangelo on the ceiling 
> >> >> >> >   of the Sistine Chapel:
> >> >> >> ><https://www.dailyartmagazine.com/michelangelo-warrior-pope-and-gods-bottom/>
> >> >> >> >
> >> >> >>  
> >> >> >> See above.
> >> >
> >> >God spoke to Moses face to face, or the scripture lies. Using
> >> >angel intermediaries is not face to face.
> >
> >Ok.
> 
> The apostle John plainly said: 
> 
> New King James
> 1 John 4:12  No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another,
> God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. 

You see biblical statements that need to be reconciled at all
costs.  I see contradictions.


> >Why did natural laws require a brain, or consciousness, to
> >exist?
> >
> >Why is pi not 3?  
> 
> Because it is always the circumference divided by its diameter and
> always comes out the same infinite number. Rounded it's 3.1416

Why is it that way?  God or nature might have set pi
differently.  Why that irrational number?  Why not make light
100 times faster in free space so we could travel to stars in
a lifetime?

> Why is the earth rock and not chocolate ice
> >cream?
> 
> Because choc ice cream takes an intelligence to produce, thus it
> doesn't appear in nature.

But making rock requires no intelligence?


> >> So you believe a force with no mind and an IQ of zero, created super
> >> complex things like the human brain? Now who is being silly.
> >
> >Yes, almost certainly.
> 
> Your "almost" leaves some doubt open.

Absolute certitude is religion, not science.


> Right now your future is an average of about 100 years, if that.
> And when you die you make some dust. The Bible says it doesn't have to
> be that way. ETERNAL LIFE is waiting for all, because of Jesus'
> sacrifice.

Most people couldn't believe all that no matter how nice it
sounded.  Faith, as Mark Twain noted, is believing what you
know ain't so.


> >> "NEW VIEW of the young earth covered in oceans of liquid water as
> >> early as 4.4 billion years ago contrasts sharply with the hot, hostile
> >> world typically depicted in textbooks." (Scientific
> >> American)(http://geotest.tamu.edu/userfiles/GEOL106/CoolEarlyEarthSciAm2005.pdf)
> >> 
> >> Thus, scientists are knowingly or unknowingly, supporting the Genesis
> >> account of creation. If this turns out to be accepted as fact, how
> >
> >It doesn't support Genesis.  You just admitted the earth is
> >at least 4.4 billion years old.  So much for Creation.
> 
> The Bible has no problem with that figure. Let's see why not.
> 
> -- King James
> Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
> 
> Does it say how long ago? Nope. Just says the earth didn't pop up on
> its own.

The bible does say indirectly the earth's age is young, see
the geneologies.  Bishop Ussher, being meticulously faithful
to scripture, calculated earth's creation at 6 pm on Saturday
night, Oct 23, 4004 BCE.

No doubt there's a lot of allegory and metaphor in the
creation story.  Like the whole bible, how do you tell where
the factual account ends and the allegory begins?


> Yes, I know it talks about 'days' of the creation. Although a day of
> course is 24 hours, in Genesis the use of the word "day" can mean many
> days. (if you want comments on the Genesis creation account, just ask.
> 
> But back to the topic about a day. After going over each of the six
> 'days', we find this statement at Genesis 2:4:
> 
> -- New King James
> Genesis 2:4  This is the history of the heavens and the earth when
> they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the
> heavens, 
> 
> Notice how the writer summed up ALL the days it took to do the
> creating, into just one day. So at least in early Genesis, a day can
> be an unspecified length.
> 
> The apostle Paul said that the 7th day is still go on in his day. And
> by now that "day" is thousands of years long. (Heb 4:1-11) So the
> creation days could have been the same.
> 
> >
> >> could the Genesis writer have known about such things? You might be
> >> amazed at how scientifically accurate the Genesis creation account is,
> >> once you investigate it. 
> >
> >Days and nights happening before the sun was created?
> >Earth created before the sun & stars?
> >Firmament?
> 
> Do you know when the sun was created? Gen 1:1.

Yes.  The sun formed shortly before the earth did.  Genesis
says differently.


> -- King James
> Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth
> 
> So that starts the beginning. If you were there with a cell phone, you
> would have seen the sun shinning brightly, stars in the heavens, and
> the planet earth. 

No, because the sun & stars weren't created until verse 16,
the 4th day.


> >Most of the OT was oral tradition, finally written down a lot
> >later than most believers realize.
> 
> And your proof?

The evidence is independent scholarly research, history and
archaeology.  See a good synopsis at

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dating_the_Bible>

If you want scholarly citations, see the lengthy reference
list at the end of the article.


> Also, you might be forgetting, the Bible is primarily a RELIGIOUS
> book. And 2 Tim3:16 says that God influenced the writing of it. So
> most of it should be accurate.

Then it shouldn't have wandered into cosmology and biology.

>  The original writings would have been
> perfect. 
> 
> But all we have today is copies of copies written by imperfect men.
> That is why a critical study of the Bible was necessary to prove as
> much of it as possible if God was really behind it. The JW's have done
> that, and continue to do that. 

The copies aren't all that different.  They don't explain the
contradictions.


> Just compare the creation story of the Babylonians with the Bible. 

That brings up a good point.  The Noah's Flood story appears
to be lifted directly from the babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh,
which in turn was lifted from the Sumerian flood mythology.

The biblical flood story is clearly meant as a literal
worldwide flood, not allegory.  It was not physically
possible by the physics we know today.

> The Babylonian creation account says the god Apsu along with the
> goddess Tiamat created other gods.
> Apsu later on didn't like these other gods and tried to kill them, but
> he ended up getting killed by the god Ea. Tiamat was upset at the
> killing of Apsu and thus tried to kill Ea. Instead, Ea's son Marduk
> killed her.
> Marduk split her body in half, and with one half made the sky and the
> other half made the earth. Marduk then with the help of Ra, made
> mankind from the blood of the god, Kingu.
> 
> Whew!
> 
> Now the Bible's account in Genesis. According to Genesis God created
> the oceans first, then land, vegetation, marine life, birds, mammals,
> then man. No, I'm sure you don't agree with the exact order (such as
> birds before mammals) but overall, it should be fairly close. Now
> compare that with the Babylonian account. Which sounds more
> reasonable? Which is more in line with the sciences of today? (please
> answer)

The babylonian story doesn't appear to have much to do with
creation.  Like Genesis, the koran's account has some points
also... earth & stars being made out of "smoke", which is not
a bad iron age description of dust, ash & gas left over from
supernovae.  Some African tribe has also gotten notice for
figuring out centuries ago that the sun is in fact a star.

We all believe as we will, but i'll follow the evidence.