Define what a "good Christian" is?

I think that a “good Christian” would be a person who follows the examples that Christ set. One who follows the commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you.” One who doesn’t judge, who doesn’t “cast the first stone.” One who won’t let a different race or culture prevent them from doing kindnesses. Who doesn’t need to defend themselves with violence. I think that all of these things would apply to any denomination, and that maybe those other differing values wouldn’t be as important.

In Christianity, there’s no such thing as a “good Christian”
“For all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.”
If I were to define a “Good Christian” I would probably have to say it is Someone who wants to and strives to be like Jesus.
It would be a lot easier to answer the question, “What makes a “bad” Christian?” Plenty of examples there!

@Judi ditto, ditto, and ditto! GA!

Simply one that lives by the golden rule and stays the fuck out of everyones business.

A good Christian doesn’t shove it down your throat, & is a good person in general.

@Draconess25 Well of course….that would be sodomy lol! (That was a bad joke…)

@Draconess25 so true…many Christians lead with their mouth, rather than their actions. No person on this earth has anything to brag about…we all fall short. Only Him giving the ultimate sacrfice (sending His only Son do die for us) allows us to be called Christians. Personally, i’m NOT an All-American on His team, a good water boy would best describe me. Just honored to be on the team!

I think someone who let’s the teachings of Christ guide him is a good example of being a good Christian.
Someone who is nonjudgemental, forgiving, empathetic, caring, and generally loves the Lord enough to let Him guide his life.
Not someone who is constantly pushing his faith on others, or representing his beliefs as HIS beliefs. Nothing upsets me as much as some idiot who says things like “God wants us to kill Muslims”.

A good Christian is any Christian.

@meagan Even the ones that protest soldiers funerals?

@Blackberry Not interesting in an internet debate today. Sorry, Sir. :P

@meagan Riiiiiight….....................Ok, no problem.

well, hitler was a christian, sooo

@Blackberry Correction, it would not be sodomy, it would be fellatio. A good Christian loves others without judgment. He does not try to force others to see things his way, but sets an example. He is a shining light that can be seen by everyone.
He is compassionate but not a push over. He can show mercy and forgiveness without being gullible. He can see the faults or wrong doings of others and call them out for errors in a loving manner like a parent correcting a child.
Electrician is here, gotta log off.

@Trillian ” the crime of forcing another person to perform oral or anal sex”, it was a joke lol….

You don’t need to be a “good christian”, you just need to be a good person regardless of what religion you are or even if your agnostic or athiest. “You judge a tree by its fruit”, belief don’t mean anything and doesn’t determine where you go in the next life, the vibration level of your soul determines where you go.

ragingloli ” well, hitler was a christian, sooo” There is the rub Many people who have done great harm to humanity did so in the name of God and were seen as “good Christians”. Jesus drank wine probably safer than the water back in those day, they did not have treatment plants like we do now but many I know frown on Christians who drink wine as “sippin’ saints”, other are against wearing slacks, jeans or anything like that, they believe women in the church should only wear skirts or dresses. I can’t even count how many Christian blasted Tammy Fay Baker for her use of cosmetic makeup. Other Christians won’t even think of oral sex or boinking other than Missionary style, so how can you tell exactly what is a “good Christian” or is that just an artificial benchmark created by man?

@ragingloli understand where you are coming from as this has been debated over the years! Seems maybe, he was like many who claim to be Christians, a lot of lip service. But, having said that, far too complicated for anyone to know that answer. Other than, the Bible says, “you will know them by their fruits!” seems his fruits were rotten! loll

A good Christian is actually a TRUE Christian. A Christian is defined as abeing a follower of Christ, a disciple.
What we have to understand is many people profess to be a Christian but they are lying to themselves and to others. A true follower of Christ will act as such.
Followers of Christ will forgive people who have wronged them, love those who hate them, have a humble attitude, and live to please their Creator. These attributes were not requests from Christ, but commands.

A good christian is a real one. Honestly, there are not many.

Very good answer, @mikey_ca
Welcome to Fluther. I hope you enjoy your experience here.

@eden2eve : Thank you…I was in the middle of reading your comment, and was about to comment on it. We are on the same page my friend.

I think a good christian is someone who lives their life in reflection, stays away from materialism and works on social justice issues that move them while maintaining a personal relationship with god, however they define it without needing to ‘save the souls of all the damned’. I’d say I was a good christian if I believed in god.

@Blackberry, @Draconess25 said something about shoving it down your throat. You called it sodomy, which is anal. I was just having fun with the terminology.
You keep asking about people who are patently not good Christians. Forget about them, they are not the examples to watch. In fact, you could learn from them by not doing what they do.
It isn’t that Tammy Faye wears a lot of makeup, it’s that she’s more concerned with how she looks and the measures of artifice she employs than she is with worship.
People can tell instinctively when others are being “fake”. The reason women were enjoined to cover their hair when worshiping was basically so that they could focus on the worship rather than how their hair looked.
Balance, moderation…these should be watchwords for more people than those who call themselves Christian. Makeup is ok in moderation and in its place. When it becomes a distraction from the message, then it becomes a problem.
Read my above answer…

@Blackberry I just got that! XD
@Trillian And it wouldn’t just be fellatio; it’d be deep-throating! XP

I’d have to say that it’s someone who would follow Christian morales and values for the sake of goodness’s sake or for love of Christ and God, rather than out of fear or ambition. The latter often seems to be the case.

well, i think christian means being a follower, beliver, etc, of Christ, so a good christian to me would be Jesus

@Ludy But Jesus was Jewish, not Christian.

@Draconess25 ; I know a lot of other Christians would disagree with me, but I feel like being a Christian IS being Jewish. Sort of like the adopted kid. Any Christian who abandons his Jewish heritage is missing a whole lot of the picture.

Jesus is Christ @Draconess25 :P

and I totally agree with you @Judi I onle wish they were more welcoming to us

@Ludy Yes, but you said a Christian is a follower of Christ. And a good Christian is Christ. So he follows himself? That’s what I don’t get.

you’re right, I didn’t explain myself very well, i just meant that what a better example of a :good christian” than Christ/Jesus

ga btw

@Ludy Thanks for explaining.

The term “good Christian” is turning out to be quite a nebulous generic term…..

now days anybody calls themselves christian, and then people tags them by their actions, good, bad, etc, but you’re either christian or not, if you are a truly beliver your actions speak for themselves, some people think that being christian is another religion, to me being christian is a lifestyle, a desition of following Him

@Ludy: You speak much truth.

Are you Jewish?

I am a different than most Christians in that I am a Christian who keeps much of the “Jewish” things, like Yom Kippur, Passover, etc. Being Christian is being “Jewish”, in my opinion.
I know many people would debate me over this, but, I came to a pretty neat balance of things via much Bible study.

Four key features

1) A good Christian knows that we make our lives miserable when we hate other people
2) A good Christian appreciates other religions and worldviews
3) A good Christian appreciates other people for who they are
4) A good Christian walks the talk

@mattbrowne very good my friend!

I just wanted to point out how fallacious religion is by this thread, we can’t even decide how to be religious, everyone knows it fake, why the hell follow it?

Most educated people know antireligious polemics is fake.

@mattbrowne Indeed, even more annoying is atheists arguing about how to be atheists lol.

@Blackberry: I am cracking up by reading your strong statements. In fact, you will discover that you, yourself have your own religious belief.

If I believed my beliefs were fake there is no way I would be following it.

You call religion fake, but what you might want to say is “most religions are fake”.

Religion can be defined as “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe”

If you don’t know every single individuals “set of beliefs” it would be fallacious to say that “all sets of beliefs concerning the cause, nature and purpose of the universe” are fake.

In fact, scientific theories concerning the universe would also have to be considered fake, since they are simply another “set of beliefs”. Note that they are theories and not facts.

@mikey_ca
Scientific theories are comprehensive explanations based on facts that make testable predictions.
Like the theory of quantum mechanics, the theory of relativity, the theory of electromagnetism, the theory of gravity and the theory of evolution. All of those have been shown by experiments and/or observations to be true and thus are incomparable to the unfounded beliefs of religion.

Do you really think that the Big Bang Theory can be shown by experiments and or observations?

I could sit down and create my own faulty “scientific” theories about the beginning of organic life by using many scientific explainations. This does not make it true by any means.
A theory is a theory. It can simply be proven false with the next step in scientific advances.

Question for you?

If the Big Bang is what started Time and Space, what caused the Big Bang to Form?

Two particles that collided?

How did they have velocity without time, since velocity is a function of time?

The more time you spend trying to figure the many holes in explaining these things the more you will realize that there is no evidence for these things. The more you wil realize it is a bunch of guesses. Educational guesses. Educational guesses are not FACTS.

Has anyone ever seen an animal change species? Never.

Would you bet your life savings on a weather prediction that was calculated by experiments and calculations?

That fact remains that scientific guesses are not to be taken as facts. If you believe it as a fact, this is your religion. You are taking a risk, just like those who take the risk to believe in God rather than educated guesses.

I love science, true science that can be proven, but I don’t trust in scientific guesses.

@ragingloli : Not all theories have the same level of testable environments. Some theories make very much sense and can almost be as good as facts, yet some are religious.

Comparing the theory electromagnetism to the big bang theory is completely off.
There are also several different types of evolution. Some types of evolution are truthful and pretty much factual, yet some are religious.

Micro-evolution, pretty much a fact.

Macro-evolution, involving the change from one species to the next – we have nothing to prove this, absolutely nothing factual.

here we go…with the same-old religious backdrop

“If the Big Bang is what started Time and Space, what caused the Big Bang to Form?”
We do not know yet. Yes, I know, “I do not know” is not something a religionists would ever admit. (though there are ideas currently discussed, such as the mathematically sound Superstring Theory, or M-Theory)
“Do you really think that the Big Bang Theory can be shown by experiments and or observations.”
Yes and it has, by observing a phenomenon called “redshift” of light. Light of galaxies is shifted to the red part of the spectrum, meaning that they are moving away from us and thus the Universe is expanding. By extrapolating this backwards through time, it has been concluded that the universe in the past had to be unified into a single spot, which then rapidly expanded. That is the gist of the big bang theory, supported by the evidence of redshift.

“Macro-evolution, involving the change from one species to the next – we have nothing to prove this, absolutely nothing factual.”
Of course we have. Thousands of fossils and yes, transitional fossils, too, many of them.
Then there is the genetic evidence, like endogenous retroviruses, genetic sections of remnant viral infections, that are identical, on the same chromosomes and at identical positions on these chromosomes, in both humans and several other ape species, conclusively proving that they and us had a common ancestor.
Then there is the fact that we have observed macro evolution on many occasions

And micro and macroevolution are the same “type” of evolution, the only difference is scale. Macroevolution is microevolution over a long period of time.

If you want to learn something about String theory, watch this video series

@mikey_ca Allow me to rephrase: Any religion that claims to know what their god wants from reading a book that was writtin by primitive men and uses these fake commands of their god to control a group of people instead of simply believing in what is out there that created us without controlling another human being…....is fake and stupid. : D

maybe god was there and he created the big bang, we can never know how God works

@Ludy Larvae for you, that is what I say….......

@ragingloli ” Yes, I know, “I do not know” is not something a religionists would ever admit.” I say I don’t know all the time. People ask me why we can be on the cusp of human cloning and have control over small pox, certain cancers, and amputee repairs but can’t seem to get a grip on the common cold I say I don’t know. Just as there are things I don’t know of science. If I knew everything I would be God and what would I need Him for?

Who or what is a good Christian is more than the sum of if a person can’t admit they don’t know, or if a person avoids or embraces science more than the Bible. As with most data depending on who is looking at it many different interpretations could be made if it. Not every situation we have today was present back then so to do or use some of today’s scientific developments mean you are a bad Christian? I think not, the Lord did command man to subdue the Earth.

Redshift means the universe is expanding??

Not in anyway, my friend. This is another theory. Certain scientists think the universe is expanding. But this is not a fact. Observing these phenomenons prove only one thing, we are observing phenomenons. It does not prove any of the theories.

@ragingloli: You are stating a lot of things that you seem to think are “conclusively proving” things. If they truly were conclusively proving anything, there would be no need for different opinions on many of the items you are bringing to the table. 50% of scientists believe one thing from this so called “conclusively proven” facts, and another believe other things. Anything that is conclusively proven would not be up for debate in the scientific community.

Macroevolution has absolutely never been observed or proven.

What defines the Universe?

Space, time and matter?

So what is outside of this space, time and matter? No more time?
Can you even define time?
Do you think you can understand time scientifically?
You can say that is a way of measuring events, but does that contain the full meaning and understanding of time? No it does not.

If time did not exist my friend, nothing could create it. No measure of time means no event.
I believe time has been here infinitely, no beginning. We can’t understand it.

@Hypocrisy_Central: I always say “I do not Know”. I do not understand God, nor can I grasp the concept of time. I do not know many things.

I do understand that this complex universe has not happened accidently. Nobody wants to believe a Greater Being wants to “control” them, so we hate the idea of a God. The Bible even says this.

I do not avoid science at all, in fact, it is one of my favourite subjects. Certain people came up with the idea that it is science vs God and this is not true at all.

It is hard for us as humans to grasp the concept of God, just as it is hard to grasp the concept of time. Even gravity, we understand that it is here, we feel it, we know it is stronger when there is more matter, but we can’t understand it. We don’t even know what dimension it opereates in.

How then can we understand the Being that created gravity and time? How can we explain why this Being does things?

@Blackberry: Could God not use primitive beings to write things. What was so primitive about them anyway? Because they lacked technology?

They delt with the same issues we do today. Power, wealth, love, hate, wars, kindness. How does the Bible control people? Does not every society need laws and rules to live by.

Do you feel controlled by not stealing and murdering?

Please take a listen to this video at time 41:50 and listen to about 5 mins. I don’t agree with every single thing this guy says but there is a lot of things that are true.

You can listen to the whole video if you have time…enjoy.

I think it is important that everyone knows that any theory they choose to believe, is not factual and has to be based on their own system of beliefs. It will be religious, no individual can prove the beginning of this universe scientifically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMpk7WerFWw

If you can’t watch the whole thing, also check out 1:14 – 1:17

@mikey_ca If you want to believe that, sure. They didn’t just lack technology, they also lacked basic geology, earth science, astronomy, health knowledge etc…......For christ sakes they used to think the world was flat…..I’m on my phone so I don’t want to text a million examples at the moment. No I do not feel controlled because I can’t murder, I feel controlled because I couldn’t marry a man (if I wanted to) and if I moved to certain parts of the south, I would have to worry about my children receiving a proper education in real science.

”Redshift means the universe is expanding??

Not in anyway, my friend.”

Oh yes, it certainly does. Redshift is the electromagnetic equivalent of the Doppler effect, where an object approaching you results in the frequency of sound to increase, resulting in a higher pitched noise, an object moving away from you resulting in a decreased frequency, resulting in a lower pitch.
In the same way light emitted from a galaxy that moves away from us will arrive here with a lower frequency, longer wavelength, resulting in a shift to the red part of the spectrum.
It is not a theory, it is a fact.

”Anything that is conclusively proven would not be up for debate in the scientific community.”
That is why the fact of evolution is not up for debate for any serious scientists. No serious scientist doubts that evolution happens and happened. The things that are debated are how evolution happens, the mechanisms that facilitate it.
That is also why neither the existence of gravity, electromagnetism, atoms, subatomic particles or quantum mechanical effects are questioned. All of those have been physically shown to exist. What is unclear in all of those fields is how it works, not if it exists.

”Macroevolution has absolutely never been observed or proven.”
Yes it absolutely has. The link i gave you had a list of observed instances of speciation, which you yourself said qualifies as macro evolution.

About that video. Hovind is notorious for not understanding what he talks about. He got his “Doctorate” from an unaccredited diploma mill and he started his “dissertation” with “Hello, my name is Kent Hovind.” The whole document, which you can find here is really painful to read.
Now for the video itself.
He compares life to computers, completely ignoring that lifeforms are self assembling, self replicating systems. A computer is neither of these things, it can not assemble itself, nor can it reproduce on its own, thus can not be compared to life.
He compares evolution to religion, claims that we have to take it on faith and that it has never been observed. He is wrong. Whether he simply is ignorant of reality or a liar is anyone’s guess. (He is in jail for tax evasion, so I would bet on the latter option)
The fact is that evolution has been observed, the principles of evolution have been used by engineers to evolve new products, like flower shaped solar collectors shown in this video, and genetics provided hard evidence for evolution.
We do not have faith in evolution, because faith is believing without/in spite of evidence.
We accept the theory of evolution as the only explanation with testable predictions to date that explains and fits the facts that we have discovered.
He also makes the validity of the ToE dependent on our ability to explain the origin of life, matter and the universe itself, which is stupid. It does not matter how the universe, matter and life came to be, the ToE only concerns itself with already existing life.
And sorry, I can not ‘enjoy’ a video that is filled to the brim with falsehoods, lies and ignorance unless it is satire. But unfortunately, that fraud is serious about what he spews.

@Blackberry Well I guess we could all feel controlled in a sense. But should the school teach the Big Bang like it is a fact or let our kids know it is only an educated guess. They should show the two perspectives fairly. They should show the reasons why it could not be true and the reasons it could be true.

@ragingloli: You said “In the same way light emitted from a galaxy that moves away from us will arrive here with a lower frequency, longer wavelength, resulting in a shift to the red part of the spectrum. It is not a theory, it is a fact”

What do you mean by a galaxy moving away from us?

Also, how would a galaxy moving away from us prove anything?

I can’t believe that you don’t know that these things are theories. It confuses me. You sound like you must have done some research or schooling, have you?

You say that no serious scientist would question these theories. These are your standards and they are very ignorant. You have to make a judgement on thousands of scientists who have credentials you haven’t heard, seen or tested. Do you realize how ignorant that statement is?
It is as ignorant as your belief system, which is very religious. Do you realize how many people just take these theories as fact without doing extensive research, it is because they take the mainstream scientific community as their God’s.

This is just as ignorant as religious people who claim to believe in something when they don’t even understand the origins of their religion, nor question their pastors, priests, etc. Our world is filled with lazy people who rather just believe what they hear. This is for the religious community and the atheist community.

Gravity is the explaination of a live, existent force that we experience. It is not the theory of gravity, it is gravity sir. There are many theories on how gravity works, functions or even the dimension it is in (And the name for these theories might be The Theory of Gravity by “yadayada” but this is just a title); however, the idea of the gravitional force is not a theory. A force is a force.

We know the force exists because we can physically test it and run experimentst, therefore it is here, and we try our best to explain it’s properties. So why would anyone question its existence. The debates could only exist on gravitational properties. Do you understand the difference?

A theory that tries to explain the origin of something thousands or billions of years ago is FAR different from a theory that is based on many observable properties, and factual evidence.

”What do you mean by a galaxy moving away from us?”
By a galaxy moving away from us I mean a galaxy moving away from us. What is there not to understand?
And it is not just “a” galaxy moving away from us, it is all galaxies moving away from us.

”Also, how would a galaxy moving away from us prove anything?”
It proves that galaxies that are moving away from each other had to be much closer to each other in the past.

”I can’t believe that you don’t know that these things are theories.”
That galaxies are moving away from us is not a theory. It is an observed fact. The big bang theory explains this fact.

”You say that no serious scientist would question these theories. These are your standards and they are very ignorant.”
It is not ignorant at all. The evidence for the validity of these theories is overwhelming and the predictions they made have all been met in observations and experimentation. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity says that objects with mass warp space and predicts that light that crosses this warp will be deflected towards the centre of the warp. This prediction has been confirmed by loooking at the sun and seeing stars that were in fact behind the sun, showing that the light from these stars was deflected by the sun into our direction. Relativity’s predicted time dilation has also been experimentally verified. You know that humans have one chromosome less than apes, right? The theory of evolution made the following testable prediction: If the theory of Evolution is correct, and apes and humans have a common ancestor, then we will find that one of humans’ chromosome is a fusion of two chromosomes. This prediction has been verified, as you can read here. In fact, we have more evidence for the theory of evolution than we have for all other theories.

”Gravity is the explaination of a live, existent force that we experience. It is not the theory of gravity, it is gravity sir.”
Before Newton, the dominant view was that the ‘force’ that causes apples to fall and the ‘force’ that kept the planets in orbit around each other were two different forces. Newton created the theory that those two forces are actually the same. This unification is not a given, it had to be established as a theory. That gravity is caused by the mass of an object is also not a fact. It is part of Newton’s theory of universal gravity. That gravity is a force is also a theory. The only facts we have is that things fall down and planets are staying in orbit.
For evolution: The fossil record shows a continuous and gradual progression from simple organisms far in the past, to highly complex organisms in the present. Life was simple at the beginning and became more complex over time. That is the fact of evolution. The theory of evolution is the explanation on how it happened (random mutation, natural selection, etc.). Just like a bloody corpse in a room leads to the fact someone died and the investigators explains this fact with his criminological analysis based on all the available evidence.

@Blackberry :-)

@Blackberry I feel controlled because I couldn’t marry a man (if I wanted to).. That is not control that come from certain rules that society deemed fit for it. If you are saying it has it’s roots in the bible there are many laws (most of the major ones) that came from the 10 Commandment. That is why we can’t take stuff that is not ours, we can’t go around letting lies in a official public capacity about people or you can be sued. Still more, we have laws that were created apart from the Bible; I can’t cut lose in my car at 96mph at 1:30am even if I am the only one on that stretch of roadway, if a cop see me I am getting a ticket. I can’t just dump my old sofa out in some field or at the side of the road because I don’t want to pay the dump fee.

What you follow is called a “faith” you believe because you chose to. You have faith in it because like trust, honesty etc you can’t see it or put it in a bottle. Almost like science when they have faith there is particles they can’t see (and in many cases never seen) but believe they exist just the same.

@Hypocrisy_Central
Faith is believing with absolute certainty without evidence.
Those particles (except the Higgs Boson and the Graviton) have all been experimentally verified in particle accelerators.
Scientists do not have faith in the existence of those particles, because their belief is based on evidence of verified particles and mathematical necessity of the theory that predicted the verified particles for the so far unverified particles.

I thought this was about the definition of a “good Christian”?

@Draconess25 It is but people seem to not want to believe there are Christians and if there are we are delusional as if believing in the Easter Bunny or rhwe Tooth Fairy. Science have their belief in stuff that they believe is true because of the experiment but they can’t actually prove because they never seen one. But one can still be a scientist with out abandoning God, and you can be a Christian with out shunning science people just can’t or don’t want to accept that.

@Hypocrisy_Central Wait….they’re denying that Christianity exists? Like I said, a good Christian is a good person in general, & they don’t….force it on anyone. That still sounds perverted…. But that applies to anyone’s opinions. Have your opinions, & let me have mine.

some people actually become a scientist after witnessing all that God has created

Some people actually become atheists after witnessing all that science has created : )

Some scientists actually become religious after witnessing what was created.

Over 90 percent of NAS scientists are either atheist or agnostic.

@ragingloli
Cite your sources, please.

@Draconess25 I don’t think they are out right saying there is no Christianity but that it is fake because the belief in God is more like the belief in superstition; it is what one makes up in their mind so as a result they can’t relate to what a “good Christian” is because they can’t relate to Christians at all, it isn’t scientific.

My deep dive into cosmology actually rekindled my belief in God when I was in my early twenties. And I also realized that deism alone is more or less empty while religions offer meaning and purpose. To me divine revelation is a form of spiritual truth, not scientific truth. A mere belief in a deity doesn’t offer a vision, community, a set of rich symbols, rituals, prayer and a code of conduct. While science can answer a lot of questions, it cannot answer all questions.

The belief in God is not a superstition otherwise the belief in a self-explanatory universe would be superstition as well, because it posits a natural meta law capable of explaining itself. To me that’s not superstition, that’s an act of faith. Superstition is the belief that thunder is the result of an angry God or that tall buildings should not have a 13th floor.

@eden2eve
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/news/file002.html
There you go.

This statement is for those who believe in the Creator of Life, and everything else that we experience. This is a simple scientific law, and it is a great one.

1st Law of Thermodynamics:

Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms.
In any process in an isolated system, the total energy remains the same.

Note that the above Law must be broken in some manner for any “Big Bang” Theory to stand.
Most of these theorists will say “Well, those billions of years ago, the laws of today did not necessarily stand”

So, you tell me if this is not a fantasy or religious belief. This is hope, hope in something that breaks the laws of science. Hope in something without evidence, it is their faith.

You are not against science if you believe in a Creator. I believe our God acts outside of this system, even this dimension, and had put energy into our system by creating all forms of life. For the scientists past or present who don’t want to believe in a Creator, they HAD to or HAVE to create an idea that is void of God, thus, we have these theories that break the standard laws of science.
I don’t blame them for creating something, because they need something to stand on.

@mikey_ca – I agree. Even a multiverse needs some kind of natural meta law driving a universe-generating mechanism (leading to universes such as ours containing laws such as the 1st law of thermodynamics). What is the explanation of such a meta law? To believers the explanation is God while atheists believe the multiverse or universe is self explanatory.

@mikey_ca I don’t believe in an all-knowing, all-seeing God, but a higher power had to spark the Big Bang. I don’t follow a religion. Something made the Big Bang, & then the Universe followed it’s own course. But then what made this higher power? The more you try to answer something unanswerable, the less time you have to answer the things that are answerable.

@ragingloli

Thank you for the link.

Two points I might make:

The article states:
“Because of the relatively small size of NAS membership, we sent our survey to all 517 NAS members in those core disciplines. Leuba obtained a return rate of about 70% in 1914 and more than 75% in 1933 whereas our returns stood at about 60% for the 1996 survey and slightly over 50% from NAS members [1,2].”
“Whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral”[5]. NAS president Bruce Alberts said: “There are many very outstanding members of this academy who are very religious people, people who believe in evolution, many of them biologists.”
To me, neutrality or agnosticism does not represent athiesm. This is just suspending belief, or not taking a position pro or con. So one could say that they are “religious” just as easily as saying they are irreligious. If you delete the agnostics from your statistics, they are much less striking.

@Draconess25 – Right. We either believe in an uncreated creator or an uncreated multiverse (self-explanatory meta law). It’s the only way getting around the issue of infinite regress.

@Hypocrisy_Central “That is not control that come from certain rules that society deemed fit for it. If you are saying it has it’s roots in the bible there are many laws (most of the major ones) that came from the 10 Commandment.”

Huh…...?? I’m sorry man…but there have been many times when your sentences have been hard to comprehend….Can you just try to rephrase it? Because if I answered you by this reply, you would sound very uhhmm…...confusing.

at some point science ends and all you have left is faith on the unknown, I think God is bigger than what we could imagine and sometimes we just don’t understand everything he does :)

and @mikey_ca I am not jewish, and I would like to be call christian but honestly my actions most of the time are “christian”, I love God and wish I could be more like him, not almighty, you know what i mean, the way he wants us to be

@Ludy How does ‘he’ want you to be?

@Blackberry In a nut shell society has rules, laws, ordinances , etc, many of such came from the Bible (at least the major ones). If I have a beef with you or any one else I can’t take a shovel and whack you in the head killing you because it is murder . If you were to go on a lengthy hospital stay for a serious illness or be deployed over seas I can’t help myself to your jet skis because I figure you will die on the operating table or get blown into pizza toppings by an IED because that would be coveting . Many of out laws are spawned of the 10 commandments, just because they are don’t mean the Bible or Christians control people’s actions. We have many laws that control conduct that were not even a part of the Bible like speeding, or food handling, the trading of stocks. The laws, rules and ordinances were put in place by governments and enforced by the military or law enforcement. They don’t give you free will to follow it or not. If you don’t you get gaffed up, shackled and tossed into a cell for a long time if not your whole life. That seems more like control if you are going to call something control.

@Hypocrisy_Central Uhm…Ok. I do not think religion controls every aspect of life and people, but it controls some i.e. homosexuals, and in some places education (on some radio stations they censor the word ‘god’ even). And I am pretty sure society would have determined that stealing and killing is bad without the 10 commandments.

”And I am pretty sure society would have determined that stealing and killing is bad without the 10 commandments.”
In fact it has. The earliest recovered laws date back to 2100 BCE, called the Code of Ur-Nammu and predates the oldest parts of the Old testament by almost 800 years. And that is only law that has been written down. Oral laws maybe much older than that.

@ragingloli Yeah I figured, it just seems ridiculous that all the major moral rules we have came from a few religious texts.

@ragingloli The earliest recovered laws date back to 2100 BCE, called the Code of Ur-Nammu and predates the oldest parts of the Old testament by almost 800 years. And that is only law that has been written down. I will give it that. However it was basically laws for the Sumerian by the Sumerian king Ur. It was not universally for man. How would they have had the capacity to enforce it over all mankind? They didn’t. The 10 Commandments were a covenant between God and man (all man who chose to follow God later on of course but for the Jews 1st) Where as the Code had specific punishments for certain offences with the 10 commandments the penalty for breaking them is the same. Though some of the Code might today seem rather sexist to women 7. If the wife of a man followed after another man and he slept with her, they shall slay that woman, but that male shall be set free. 15. If a prospective son-in-law enters the house of his prospective father-in-law, but his father-in-law later gives his daughter to another man, the father-in-law shall return to the rejected son-in-law twofold the amount of bridal presents he had brought. or pure draconian 2. If a man commits a robbery, he will be killed. I can imagine robberies would drop through the cellar if it were treated like that. The code was made by man for man. So, there is where you have your control, the Bible and or the 10 Commandments do not control by force of loss of immediate life or monetary goods. The 10 commandments are commands you can voluntarily follow. You were not going to fall dead if you committed adultery with your best friend’s wife etc, if you died with it one you un-repented then you would get a punishment for it.

@Blackberry So in short, you were off, man’s own rules, codes, and decrees do more to control you than the Bible ever could.

And as far as it controlling Gays if you don’t believe in the Bible or God then you are in the same position as hetero atheists who chose to commit adultery or cohabitate and fornicate, if there is no God there is no one who will hold you accountable for such activity, right? :-)

@Hypocrisy_Central
The laws contained in the bible are very similar to these earlier laws, including similar draconian punishments for transgressions, that it is almost obvious that biblical laws were based on earlier laws. And the bible’s attitude toward women is no less misogynistic.
”the Bible and or the 10 Commandments do not control by force of loss of immediate life or monetary goods”
Uh, no. Wrong.

Leviticus 20
9“_’If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

10 ” ‘If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.

11 ” ‘If a man sleeps with his father’s wife, he has dishonored his father. Both the man and the woman must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

12 ” ‘If a man sleeps with his daughter-in-law, both of them must be put to death. What they have done is a perversion; their blood will be on their own heads.

13 ” ‘If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

14 ” ‘If a man marries both a woman and her mother, it is wicked. Both he and they must be burned in the fire, so that no wickedness will be among you.

15 ” ‘If a man has sexual relations with an animal, he must be put to death, and you must kill the animal.

16 ” ‘If a woman approaches an animal to have sexual relations with it, kill both the woman and the animal. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

@Hypocrisy_Central

We are all controlled by both religious and ‘real’ laws, this is just common sense and I didn’t think I had to say it. I do not answer to any bible or god, I answer to civil and federal laws because those have consequences, yes. And FYI religious people fornicate, cheat, steal, lie etc. But I’m sure you knew that so I don’t know why you asked me?

@Blackberry It was No I do not feel controlled because I can’t murder, I feel controlled because I couldn’t marry a man (if I wanted to) and if I moved to certain parts of the south, I would have to worry about my children receiving a proper education in real science. No one has to worry about not being able to marry a man or woman if you do mnot believe in God becase as you point out, there is not down side because there is no one to give it to you less socirty which isn’t church or religion.

@Hypocrisy_Central What the hell are you talking about? Marriage isn’t just about god or religion. If two people want to get married, they should be able to like everyone else. It’s about a group of people controlling another group of people over something they have no idea about. Take god out of the equation….people are doing this to other people because of something they think exists just to command them with trivial, bigoted rules.

@Blackberry Short is if you want to have sex before or outside of marriage or marry the same person only societal law controls that and if you don’t believe in God then the worry of sin won’t control your actions either, follow me now? :-)

@Hypocrisy_Central Yes, but I already knew that lol.

#ragingloli And the bible’s attitude toward women is no less misogynistic. On the surface it might seem so to the ungodly but the Lord has set forth a very distinct pecking order, chain of command, ranking, however you want to call it. Having all chiefs and no Indians is as bad as having all Indians and no chief. Every vessel I know has only ONE captain. If Captain James Kirk had to pow wow with Spock and Bones before deciding to raise shields, fire the photon torpedoes, or high tail it to safety the starship Enterprise would have been blown in to cosmic pizza toppings. Order follow as
God
\
Church
\
Man
\
Wife
\
Children
\
Animals.

And if the household follows Ephesians 5:22–33 then it all runs fine. I would explain it to you but that would take quite a bit more writing but I would say it is a voluntary thing on the part of the wife because she know God will judge the man on how he runs his family.

Second Leviticus was written for the nation of Israel (the seed of Abraham), not for Rome, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Canaanites or anyone else. Those were laws that Moses Levies to administer. The law was to have a pseudo representation of Gods kingdom on Earth that is why only pure blemish less sacrifices were used as well as priest without blemishes. Just as we have out laws and they do not govern Mexico or Canada same as those laws were not for everyone. It was to show the seed of Abraham how to be “good Christians” and behave Godly.

Since God was here from the beginning which predates king Ur who is to say the Lord did not send a wise man or prophet to instruct the king on the Code he set up? No one knows how he came to create that.

Lastly, all I am going to say is that maybe the Bible and Christianity is a bunch of hoowee, we won’t know that until we breath our last breath. If it was all some big folly at least the Bible is a blue print to having a drama free, peaceful life. But should you die and find out there is a God you will have a very interesting conversation. For those who care to risk it, fine, I will err on avoiding that talk. Peace……… :-)

@Hypocrisy_Central
@Blackberry
@ragingloli
@eden2eve
@Ludy

”the earliest recovered laws…the Code of Ur-Nammu…predates the oldest parts of the Old testament by almost 800 years…”

I do not agree, and I will show you why below.

Firstly, even if it did, it would not matter what the oldest recovered tablet is that we have today. It certainly does not mean that it is the oldest set of laws. That is equivalent to saying the oldest known skeleton we have today is evidence that it is the oldest human to have ever walked the earth and there were never skeletons that existed before the one we have recovered.

There were oral laws or perhaps even written codes that Noach (aka Noah) knew and understood. This predates 2100BC and is more around 2300–2400BC. The children of Ur are children of Arpachshad who is a child of Shem, and Shem was the son of Noach. Therefore if the children of Ur are descendants of Noach, it is highly likely the oral or written laws that Noach had would have been passed on to his children and could easily have been placed on a tablet of some sort. These Laws called the “code of Ur-Nammu” would be highly influenced by the regulations of their forefather, Noach; and thus under the influence of the Law of Yahweh.

No set of laws predates Yahweh’s (God’s) Laws my friends.
Also, we are all subject to His laws whether we want to follow them or not. We all will answer to Him one day. I agree with Hypocrisy_Central, when he/she states that they will not take the risk of assuming He does not exist.

@mikey_ca
The problem is that Noah stems from the biblical flood myth, which itself is a ripoff of the earlier Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, which was explicitily fictional, had different characters and different motivations of the Gods.
If anything, Noah can at best be considered a retcon of earlier myths.

@Blackberry why do you want to know?

@Ludy I’m just inquiring, you do not have to answer me lol.

@ragingloli Leviticus has nothing to do with Christianity. It is Judiism.

@rangingloli: Did you realize that many mythical stories are based on actual characters and events?

Did you know that the legend of King Arthur is believed to be based on an actual King.

Do you find it strange that so many nations had a “myth” about a divine flood that was sent to destroy mankind?

You might call it a ”biblical fllood myth”, but I call it a Biblical record of factual events.

The Sumerian texts are dated approximately around 1700BC, and this is approx 700 yrs after the flood occured. This leaves much time for glorified and falsified stories to develop; and many of which pagan worshipers would have included pagan gods into the mix.

However; Yahweh preserved the true story by His messengers through the Hebrew Scriptures. You can often have serveral versions of a story that describes factual events, however; only one of them can be the closest description of the actual event if they all contradict each other.

I understand these mythical stories to be more evidence that a flood in fact did cover the earth at some point. I also understand the description of these events as described in the Hebrew Scriptures to be perfect and truthful. I also know that the Creator of this universe is very powerful, full of mathematical knowledge, and is able to work in 4th, 5th even the infinite dimension rather than only the 3rd (which is beyond human understanding). I am certain that Yahweh would have no difficult time with preserving the truth for His children, for those who search for Him, so that they may read and learn about Him and our History. If we are willing to serve Him and love Him, He will be willing to share some wisdom and understanding with us.

@filmfann I am certain many Christians will disagree with me on this, but I believe many of the Levitical Laws have much to do with Christianity. Things concerning the Temple and Sacrifices have been removed, however; the other Laws are still very good for us to live by.

This perspective requires much study by mainstream Christianity, as it has been overlooked due to the fact the early Roman Church desired to disassociate themselves with the Jews as much as possible.

Also, concerning the above Levitical Laws that seem so harsh and cruel, these were for the governing body to enforce, not for each and every citizen to perform. Just as capital punishment today is enforced by the Government and not everyday citizens.

I am just curious to know “why” :)

@Ludy I see, no problem. I wanted to know because I essentially wanted to know what you thought your gods ‘requirements’ were.

@mikey_ca
“Did you realize that many mythical stories are based on actual characters and events?”
Yes I do. But that does in no way mean that it makes the entire myth true.
Do you really believe that King Artus pulled a sword from a stone, and got another sword from a goddess living in a lake?
Do you really believe that there really were 2 huge sea monsters, Scylla and Charybdis, in the Strait of Messina?
Do you really believe that Heracles and all the monsters he fought really existed?
Do you really believe Tengu, Kappa and all the various other Youkai really exist in Japan?

Well, obviously you do not, yet you believe that the biblical myths are all factually true down to the letter, based purely on one book, that we know got a lot of things wrong.

“Do you find it strange that so many nations had a “myth” about a divine flood that was sent to destroy mankind?”
No, I do not find it strange at all. Floods are a very common occurance. Then they get completely blown out of proportions, embellished with fictitious details, characters and subplots by creative story tellers, all before they are written down. I consider the Bible nothing more than a collection of such stories.
We know that a global flood did not happen, because, first, there is no geological evidence for a global flood, which you would with absolute certainty find if a global flood ever happened, and second, there is not enough water on this planet to cover all land including the tallest 8000m+ mountains.

@ragingloli We know that a global flood did not happen, because, first, there is no geological evidence for a global flood, which you would with absolute certainty find if a global flood ever happened, and second, there is not enough water on this planet to cover all land including the tallest 8000m+ mountains. Weeeeeeeell….depending on which scientist you hit up, and evidence they believe they have found there is. Check out http://www.earthage.org/The%20Age%20of%20the%20Earth/scientific_evidence_for_a_worldw.htm.

Well, obviously you do not, yet you believe that the biblical myths are all factually true down to the letter, based purely on one book, that we know got a lot of things wrong. Science don’t have a 100% accurate record either. When I was a kid during science lessons we were told the dark bands that were visible on Mars were giant forest of redwood like trees 400 to 600 ft tall, satellites blew holes in that Also we were told Jupiter had no ring, and not as many moons, that Pluto was the furthest body in our Solar System, that no other planet had any type of volcanic action; they were all dead hunks of rock, again satellites busted holes in that. The Bible was not wrong because no one can ask the writer just where they got their info short of God. The missteps of science were easy to track down in the last 40 years or so.

@Hypocrisy_Central
Most of those arguments rest on the assumption that geologists all assume that all sediment layers formed slowly. Which is of course bunk. We all acknowledge that layers can form quickly locally. A global flood would not result in just a few places with rapidly formed sedimental layers. The entirety of the planet would be covered with such layers, which is not what we find. A rebuttal of the first example of “polystrate trees” can be found “here:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/polystrate/trees.html
More here
And then the author lists marine fossils on big mountains as evidence for the flood… I am sorry, but I can not take someone seriously that does not even know plate tectonics.
Then he lists the presence of large boulders… Seriously, we covered that in geography at school. Ever heard of the Ice age and its massive glaciers that transported all kinds of stuff across the continents, including big boulders?
About the sudden influx of freshwater into the gulf of mexico.
Well duh, at that time the last ice age ended. Ice, frozen fresh water, tends to melt and is then transported by rivers into the oceans, which the site itself states was done via the mississippi river system. Not to mention that the timing is totally off. the 11000 to 12000 year estimate is way older than even the YEC estimate of the entire planet’s age of 6000 years.
That entire site is laced with out of context quotations, and profound ignorance of scientific discoveries that are almost a century old, like plate tectonics and the ice age and ignorance of what scientists in their fields actually believe, hence the straw men arguments about those trees for example.
Honestly. I do not see how anyone with even basic knowledge of geologic science can take this site seriously.

And yes, science has been wrong many times in history. But you know what? That is the great strength of science. When it is wrong, it corrects itself. Science is no mere collection of knowledge. Science is a method to discover truth, a constant process of discovery and correction. Fundamentalist religion never changes its dogma. It will continue to claim that their teachings are correct, even when all evidence speaks against it.

Noah’s Ark is a myth and not a historical event. There has been no global flood in recent history. I’ve shared this quote before:

Myths are about the human struggle to deal with the great passages of time and life—birth, death, marriage, the transitions from childhood to adulthood to old age. They meet a need in the psychological or spiritual nature of humans that has absolutely nothing to do with science. To try to turn a myth into a science, or a science into a myth, is an insult to myths, an insult to religion, and an insult to science.

Here’s what Karen Armstrong, a leading mythology expert has to say:

“We tend to assume that the people of the past were (more or less) like us, but in fact their spiritual lives were rather different. In particular, they evolved two ways of thinking, speaking, and acquiring knowledge, which scholars have called mythos and logos. Both were essential; they were regarded as complementary ways of arriving at truth, and each had its special area of competence. Myth was regarded as primary; it was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence. Myth looked back to the origins of life, to the foundations of culture, and to the deepest levels of the human mind. Myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning. Unless we find some significance in our lives, we mortal men and women fall very easily into despair. The mythos of a society provided people with a context that made sense of their day-to-day lives; it directed their attention to the eternal and the universal. It was also rooted in what we would call the unconscious mind. The various mythological stories, which were not intended to be taken literally, were an ancient form of psychology. When people told stories about heroes who descended into the underworld, struggled through labyrinths, or fought with monsters, they were bringing to light the obscure regions of the subconscious realm, which is not accessible to purely rational investigation, but which has a profound effect upon our experience and behavior. Because of the dearth of myth in our modern society, we have had to evolve the science of psychoanalysis to help us to deal with our inner world.”

“Jews experience this myth every year in the rituals of the Passover Seder, which brings this strange story into their own lives and helps them to make it their own. One could say that unless an historical event is mythologized in this way, and liberated from the past in an inspiring cult, it cannot be religious. To ask whether the Exodus from Egypt took place exactly as recounted in the Bible or to demand historical and scientific evidence to prove that it is factually true is to mistake the nature and purpose of this story. It is to confuse mythos with logos.”

“Logos is practical. Unlike myth, which looks back to the beginnings and to the foundations, logos forges ahead and tries to find something new: to elaborate on old insights, achieve a greater control over our environment, discover something fresh, and invent something novel.”

“Logos had its limitations too. It could not assuage human pain or sorrow. Rational arguments could make no sense of tragedy. Logos could not answer questions about the ultimate value of human life. A scientist could make things work more efficiently and discover wonderful new facts about the physical universe, but he could not explain the meaning of life. That was the preserve of myth and cult.”

“Reading the Bible as mythos does not mean that it is all metaphor. Rather, it means that its truths are not factual propositions, but resonant psychological truths, in the sense that a poem or a work of fiction rings true. Mythos is about accessing the inner recesses of one’s psyche, such as the natural feeling of sympathy and compassion one feels toward someone who has fallen into a ditch. It is not about dogma or factual correctness, it is about symbolism and meaning and drawing intuitive insights and connections between things.”

“The distinction between mythos and logos is not a dichotomy. They are different but not mutually exclusive modes of knowing, roughly akin to the distinction between literary truths and factual truths.”

“Genesis is mythos, not logos as some kind of Iron Age attempt at cosmology in the modern scientific sense is presentism in the extreme. The purpose of Genesis is not to provide a factual account of the origin the universe, it is to define the relationship between Man and God.”