₦airaland Forum

LiberaDeus:
Why are you christians lazy. An article i read yesterday.
Now i am going to give you excerpts from the article and you can tell me what they mean

[/b]"It probably was a bad day," Ballard said. "At some magic moment, it broke through and flooded this place violently, and a lot of real estate, 150,000 square kilometers of land, went under."

The theory goes on to suggest that the story of this traumatic event, seared into the collective memory of the survivors, was passed down from generation to generation and eventually inspired the biblical account of Noah.[b]

[/b]Ballard does not think he will ever find Noah's Ark, but he does think he may find evidence of a people whose entire world was washed away about 7,000 years ago. He and his team said they plan to return to Turkey next summer.

"It's foolish to think you will ever find a ship," Ballard said, referring to the Ark. "But can you find people who were living? Can you find their villages that are underwater now? And the answer is yes."[b]

The above shows that he believed that a catastrophic flood happened within that region a while back. Now where in the account does he claim that he believes that a flood wiped out all life on earth as stated in the bible.

Please i challenge you to show me where in the whole article where it was stated that the accounts of Noahs flood in the bible actually happened as stated. No place in the article claims that the world was destroyed by a flood.

Scientists worldwide accept that at the end of the ice age, floods occured as a result of melting ice sheets. These floods were experienced by various cultures. This cultures created stories out of it, the mesopotamian version inspired the jewish account. Michael Ballard is only trying to discover the ruins of an ancient flood that destroyed life in the middle eastern region of the world. I believe that if he searches well, he will most likely find because its not a coincidence that so many cultures have their own flood myth. This doesnt in any way prove the biblical account of Noahs flood that claimed that the world was destroyed totally by water.

Michael Ballard doesnt believe in the biblical account but he knows a real flood inspired the embellished biblical account.

Please you havent proven anything with this article. Read the article again and show me how you have debunked me. You christians are unbelievable. DO you actually know that lying is a sin according to the bible?

LaDolceVita:
If those reasons seem like good arguments to you, then i can see why you're religious. Completely makes sense.

fkdmods:
Actually, i have already graduated from the depravity and squalor you still experience. How did i do it? I was able to achieve it by using logic, common sense, math, the understanding of probability, and the awareness of luck. While you are still on your knees praying to an imaginary God, i am on my feet, breaking boundaries and applying all these tools and experiences to make informed decisions in my daily life. It might behoove you to take a page from this else you will continue to be at a standstill for the rest of your life.

LiberaDeus:
Guy please read this whole article and tell me how it supported Noahs flood. The title was just sensational and intended to attract a lot of christian folk.

The investigator clearly stated in the article that he doesnt believe in the noahs flood story but in a flood that happened before it that gave rise to the flood myth in the middle east.

Please this is not evidence but actually a proof of my claims.

Back in the Black Sea, Ballard said he is aware that not everyone agrees with his conclusions about the time and size of the flood, but he's confident he's on the path to finding something from the biblical period.

"We started finding structures that looked like they were man-made structures," Ballard said. "That's where we are focusing our attention right now."

...

Still, Ballard said the find gives him hope that he will discover something older "because there, in fact, the deep sea is the largest museum on Earth," he said.

Ballard does not think he will ever find Noah's Ark, but he does think he may find evidence of a people whose entire world was washed away about 7,000 years ago. He and his team said they plan to return to Turkey next summer.

LiberaDeus:
I have done more research than you can imagine. Stop selecting christian sources as objective sources because they come from your standpoint of conviction and blindfaith and will use science in a deceptive, dubious way to prove their already preconceived notions.

In case you feel i have not done research, let me post the widely acclaimed conclusions on the biblical claims that i posted earlier

1. The resurrection - no objective scientist disputes the fact that there was a jesus of nazareth. But no objective scientist can provide any evidence of any resurrection. The evidence points to a Jesus that wasnt popular at the time of his death and thats why there have been no contemporary mentions of Jesus within the timeframe of his existence by all the notable historians that lived alongside him. The later mentions came when christian doctrine was spreading. There is no institution or reputable historian that will apply the scientific method and get to the conclusion that a Jesus of nazareth died, resurrected, appeared to disciples and ascended into heaven. Only christian converts or apologists do that. Remember that this is your belief and so the burden of proof rests on you. Please show me any scholarly evidence that supports the fact of the resurrection and please dont show me articles from career christian websites or apologists.

2.The most notable egyptologists all agree that there is no comprehensive proof of any enslavement of israel and exodus. In case you think the egyptians would be biased in their records, then consider the fact that notable Jewish historians and archaeologists like Norman Finkelstein who dedicated years of their life to unearth the exodus story have reached the conclusion that no such thing like the exodus happened. Once again the burden of proof is on you, post any evidence from objective( non christian apologetic) materials confirming the exodus story. The whole thing from the enslavement to the 10 plagues to the red sea crossing and the wilderness encampment have no basis in modern archaelogy.

3. Historians and archaeologists have been looking for the famed temple of solomon and his famed wealth. Till today the search is still going on. The conclusive scientific proof is that solomons golden temple was purely mythological. Solomon was never known as the richest man in the world during the time period he should have existed. Once again the burden of proof is on you. A simple google search will suffice and show you that solomons temple has not been found and that solomons wealth was only mythological.

4. The time of king herod was known as the Pax Romana. It was also the classical roman period where literary explosion occured. There were tons of writers, poets, historians etc. A genocide of jewish babies in search for a jesus would have caught attention of people. Once again i can confidently tell you that such an event never occured and it is widely accepted in the scholarly world that such an event never occured.

5. The empire of david. Read on Norman Finkelsteins "unearthing the old testament".

6.Noahs Flood. There is no geological proof that a worldwide flood occured 6000 years ago. A simple google search will suffice for you. Use your initiative and think of how possible it is for 8.7 million species of animals to be stuffed into an ark the size of a storey building, what will the carnivores eat? and if the lions and tigers ate the other animals then some species were lost in the ark since yahweh instructed that just a male and female of each kind should be put in an ark.

Guy all i have to tell you is " Do your research yourself"

ScepticalPyrrho:
Well, good observation.

My position is not dependent on the popularity of the story of the death and resurrection of christ stories.

Why is this so?

If you read through history, there have always been cases where an entire race can be wrong. And a single person is right.

Besides that the growth of knowledge and technological advancement have always been championed by people who are not shy but bold enough to challenge the existing customs and beliefs.

In the field of jurisprudence, it is absorbed that the truth of a matter may not be determined by the higher population in support of a claim. Accepting the opinion of majority as definitely true is considered a fallacy in logic and law (argumentum ad populum).
It took a bold Copernicus to inform the whole world that the world is spherical and not flat. Even the bible writers thought the world was flat(unarguable!).

That being said. I believe you can understand why the fact that our position is unpopular doesn't flutter us.

That asides. It can still be argued that christianity is not the most popular of religions when we can assume that China having about 30 percent of the world's population are majorly Buddhists. And a good number of Indians, Thai, Vietnam, and other far-Eastern countries are Buddhists.

Lastly, Buddhism was earlier practised. And the story of the life of Gautama Buddha is similar to that of Christ, who were all from the same continent. I'm sure you never knew this. But read about the similarities of the two interesting stories then tell me who is the likely copy.

Read more bro, read more.

Elchappo:
Magu the mugu..

Your anti corruption fight is one sided and u dont deserve that seat any longer...

I hope u dont get confirmed...

LiberaDeus:
Guy read before you lost something.

This just shows that at the beginning of Christendom, resurrection was a central belief in the early church. Please when does having a belief equate to reality.

We can also say since most Greeks in the classical era believed in mount Olympus, that means mount Olympus must have existed and since most Greeks believed in Hercules then that means Hercules must have existed.

What you posted doesn't prove the fact of a resurrection occurring the same way the existence of Islam doesn't prove that prophet Muhammad rode to heaven in a flying horse named buraq.

Ambling through the parched and scarred landscape of eastern Washington state is the 60-mile-long Grand Coulee, the largest of the stair-step canyons that give the region called the Channeled Scablands its character. Looking out over this majestic scenery, a visitor feels compelled to throw open both arms, take a deep breath, and say, "Wow! How did this get here?"

That turns out to be a deceptively simple question. It's the same one that J Harlen Bretz, a geologist from the University of Chicago, asked in 1922. And it's the question that led him to propose one of the boldest ideas in all of 20th-century geology.

A river runs through it

To the trained eye, the terraced profile of Grand Coulee's cliffs says, "Water was here." So do the crisscrossing, stream-like paths carved into the floors of many of the lesser coulees. It's no surprise, then, that geologists in the early 1900s concluded Grand Coulee had been carved by a river, probably the Columbia, slowly etching its way down through layer upon layer of dirt and rock.

That was the mainstream view when Bretz went to the Channeled Scablands in 1922 to do field studies. And his first impression of the terrain was consistent with that thinking. When he came across hills of gravel 10 stories tall, for example, he considered them terrace remnants—the remains of a riverbank that had been slowly worn away.

But the more Bretz investigated the region, the more unusual landforms he found: winding channels that split off into smaller and smaller branches, crisscrossed each other, and sometimes joined together again; here and there inside the canyons, peculiar hills shaped like the prow of a boat; fan-shaped fields of debris on the canyon floors; and more.

He began to realize that slow-acting erosion by a river could not adequately explain it all. Something sudden and much more violent was required. And the massive proportions of the scabland features, often measuring hundreds of feet, meant that whatever had formed them happened on such a gigantic scale, nothing like it had ever been seen.

The best fit for all the evidence, Bretz concluded, was a catastrophic flood. This hypothesis was so contrary to the collective wisdom of hundreds of years of geology, however, that even Bretz doubted it at first.

The key to the past

The slow, steady action of erosion was quite familiar to geologists of Bretz's day. Eons worth of its handiwork could be seen worldwide, and geologists were busily observing the process in full swing. Thus, erosion fit nicely with "the present is the key to the past," a phrase that had practically been the slogan of geologists since being coined in the 1830s by Charles Lyell, one of the founders of modern geology.

The story of Noah's Ark and the Great Flood is one of the most famous from the Bible, and now an acclaimed underwater archaeologist thinks he has found proof that the biblical flood was actually based on real events.

In an interview with Christiane Amanpour for ABC News, Robert Ballard, one of the world's best-known underwater archaeologists, talked about his findings. His team is probing the depths of the Black Sea off the coast of Turkey in search of traces of an ancient civilization hidden underwater since the time of Noah.

See photos from her journey HERE

Ballard's track record for finding the impossible is well known. In 1985, using a robotic submersible equipped with remote-controlled cameras, Ballard and his crew hunted down the world's most famous shipwreck, the Titanic.

Now Ballard is using even more advanced robotic technology to travel farther back in time. He is on a marine archeological mission that might support the story of Noah. He said some 12,000 years ago, much of the world was covered in ice.

"Where I live in Connecticut was ice a mile above my house, all the way back to the North Pole, about 15 million kilometers, that's a big ice cube," he said. "But then it started to melt. We're talking about the floods of our living history."

The water from the melting glaciers began to rush toward the world's oceans, Ballard said, causing floods all around the world.

"The questions is, was there a mother of all floods," Ballard said.

According to a controversial theory proposed by two Columbia University scientists, there really was one in the Black Sea region. They believe that the now-salty Black Sea was once an isolated freshwater lake surrounded by farmland, until it was flooded by an enormous wall of water from the rising Mediterranean Sea. The force of the water was two hundred times that of Niagara Falls, sweeping away everything in its path.

Fascinated by the idea, Ballard and his team decided to investigate.

"We went in there to look for the flood," he said. "Not just a slow moving, advancing rise of sea level, but a really big flood that then stayed... The land that went under stayed under."

Four hundred feet below the surface, they unearthed an ancient shoreline, proof to Ballard that a catastrophic event did happen in the Black Sea. By carbon dating shells found along the shoreline, Ballard said he believes they have established a timeline for that catastrophic event, which he estimates happened around 5,000 BC. Some experts believe this was around the time when Noah's flood could have occurred.

"It probably was a bad day," Ballard said. "At some magic moment, it broke through and flooded this place violently, and a lot of real estate, 150,000 square kilometers of land, went under."

LiberaDeus:
Guy Gary Habernas is a renowned Christian apologist.

You could as well cite William Lane Craig, David Wood and Frank Turek as objective scholars. All these are renowned Christian apologists.
And even if Habernas won the debate then, it still doesn't move the scholarly consensus in the side of the resurrection. Do you know how many debates Bart Ehrman has won?

several notable scholars have maintained that the early Christians had a thoroughly "Jewish" outlook on the nature of the resurrection. Contrary to Carrier, N.T. Wright argues that the earliest Christian belief concerning resurrection was thoroughly physical and very much related to the common Pharisaic doctrine of resurrection.

On the belief in resurrection in early Christianity, Wright says,
“Christianity began as resurrection movement... there is no evidence for a form of early Christianity in which the resurrection was not a central belief, as it were, bolted on to Christianity at the edge. It was the central driving force, informing the whole movement. In particular, we can see woven into the earliest Christian theology we possess—that of Paul, of course—the belief that the resurrection had in principle occurred and that the followers of Jesus had to reorder their lives, their narratives, their symbols, and their praxis accordingly.

"Gary Robert Habermas (born 1950) is an American historian, New Testament scholar, and philosopher of religion who frequently writes and lectures on the Resurrection of Jesus.

Habermas is Distinguished Professor of Apologetics and Philosophy and chairman of the department of philosophy and theology at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia.[1] He holds a Ph.D. (1976) from Michigan State University in the area of History and Philosophy of Religion and an M.A. (1973) from the University of Detroit in Philosophical Theology.[2] He has specialized in cataloging and communicating trends among scholars in the field of historical Jesus and New Testament studies.

In 1985, Dr. Gary Habermas and Antony Flew debated the question of Jesus' resurrection as a literal and historical/physical event, before a crowd of 3000 people. Five philosophers and five professional debate judges judged the debate. Of the philosophers who judged ON THE CONTENT OF THE DEBATE, four voted that Habermas won and the other was undecided. Of the debate judges who voted on debate technique, three voted for Habermas while two voted for Flew.."

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”

Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe.

Jew demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

LiberaDeus:
1. Your first claim that god is perfect but humans arent debunks christianity already. If imperfect humans corrupted gods word then how do you know the extent to which it was corrupted. What if the whole religion is corrupted. Lets examine this facts
- The over 50 messianic prophecies werent fulfilled by Jesus in any way
- The claim of god being loving is totally contradicted by the behavior of yahweh in the old testament and the existence of a place of eternal torment for sinners
- The historical claims of the bible are very bogus and inaccurate
- The scientific claims of the bible are questionable and primitive

The above mentioned errors are not just slight errors that we can attribute to human failures but humongous monumental contradictions that cant be glossed over. These contradictions show that the whole stuff is man made.

2. There are 2 billion christians in the world. According to the gospel of mark, christians should heal the sick, raise the dead, drink poison and generally perform miraculous feats. Even if half the christians are heretics, the number is so large that we should see real life effects of this power. Independent investigations into faith healing claims have proven that no miraculous healing can be confirmed only remissions, psychosomatic effects of religion etc. This isnt rocket science. We all know that christians are normal human beings that can be sick, poor, rich, dumb, wise etc. There is nothing in your lifestyles and belief that show there is a seperate effect or power working on the life of the christian.

3. Many in which fields. The only people that put proofs forward are christian apologists like Ken Ham, Institute of creation research, discovery institute etc. Please show me any reputable unbiased scientific body that has confirmed biblical claims as fact. Let me list some biblical claims for you
- The resurrection claim
- The exodus of israel
- The wealth of Solomon
- The genocide of King Herod on babies in the gospels
- The miraculous stunts of Jesus
- The empire of David
- The existence of the garden of eden
- Noahs Flood
- Tower of Babel

There is no reputable institution or scientist in the fields of history, archaeology, geology, linguistics, anthropology etc that can confidently tell you that these claims are facts. The claims above are totally unscientific, unverified and outright mythological.

There is no paradigm affecting me, the facts are clear for everyone to see and a proper observation and weighing of the facts lead to the conclusion that these things never happened.

ScepticalPyrrho:
I've never said you can't believe whatever you like.

Your beliefs doesn't count as facts.

But don't use the word "know" ignorantly.

LiberaDeus:
Ok since you asked, let me reply you.

These are your claims and correct me if i am wrong

1. You know God the father and you have a relationship with him
2. His name is Yahweh and his sons name is Jesus.
3. He created the world 6000 years ago and created the first 2 human beings named adam and eve
4. He sent his only son to die for humanity and cleanse humanity of its sins.
5. He has given you his spirit and spiritual gifts like speaking in other languages etc
6. His word is the holy bible which is the inerrant, perfect word of god.

Am sure as a christian you believe all the above.

The empirical evidence you can show me should start from the last of the above claims

1. Prove to me that the holy bible is the inerrant word of an almighty creator. If i am to analyze the book, i will find over a 1000 errors and contradictions which have been documented http://www.answering-christianity.com/101_bible_contradictions.htm in the link. The biblical errors already destroy one of the major claims of christianity

2.If you have the spirit of god and other christians have the same spirit then lets see some of the spiritual gifts you guys claim to have. You ar the one making the claim so you should be the one showing us the proof of your supernatural powers

3. Prove to us scientifically that the claims in the bible concerning the age of the earth, the beginning of death and original sin, the claims of the exodus etc can be verified.

I dont need to ask you for much proof. There is already a branch of christianity dedicated to this stuff and they are called christian apologetics. It has been going on for centuries. I doubt if you can bring any tangible proof since your predecessors havent been able to do that. In the end you guys always revert back to internal conviction and blind faith which is no proof at all.

ScepticalPyrrho:
This is a pathetic one.

I'm sure you got my point.

You are new here. Many have come and gone back as diferent persons.

Read through the posts over again and again.

Mirallas:
He lied about being omnipotent. Omnipotence has some prerequisites, you this right? Omnipresence for instance, god claims he is everywhere and everything and yet he wasn’t there to prevent a poorly designed rib-girl from eating from a poorly placed tree? He claimed to be omniscient (all-seeing and all-knowing, with the power of future sight as weell) but couldn’t see that Eve was going to eat from the tree’s fruit. He didn’t even have the foresight and common sense to put some sort of obstruction barring Eva’s access to the gate.. Even an idiot would know to put a gate up or something. Even YOU would know better, YOU would put a fucking gate. Don’t lie to me and tell me you wouldn’t, because you fucking WOULD. And even create a talking snake? Did the creater of all the known universe really get the wool pulled over his eyes by an animal? Use your brain common boy.

LiberaDeus:
You Christians are so so funny.

Let me ask you a question

How do you know your divine revelation of god is the real one ?

You claim god revealing himself to you will let you know the original and the fake , now think for yourself, do you think members of other religions don't have that conviction that they are in the right place and god has revealed the right thing to them.

If God reveals himself to me, why would I think my own divine revelation is better than that of others. In the end, you can't use internal conviction to determine truth cause then you would have over 1000 truths.

Why do you Christians feel you are the only guys with a deep conviction and the only ones that receive divine revelation. If you realize that many other Muslims, Hindus and members of other religions receive divine revelations and have convictions of truth then you would look to the only thing that can be used to determine truth which is - EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE.

If your God is real then the truth of his existence must have an effect on reality that can be measured.

ScepticalPyrrho:
These line of arguments have been used several times on this forum.

And you've emphasized my point in the bolded part.

Religious claims are unreasonable!

This is deduced from your bolded statement above. At least you agree to that. And THAT is my point.

To your advice. If you seek God well enough, beyond your present religion., you'll become an atheist!

I challenge you to try, if you are sure of the certainty of your religion.

You are still caught I the webs of an average Nigerian religionist mentality.

Perhaps, you have reached the walls of doubt, and thought within yourself, "life will be meaningless without a God" and crawl back accepting dogmatic suppositions and ancient jewish myths as truth when every other cultures of the world still has their religious standings which works for them.

Believe it or not, I've been on your side of this argument.

Read about other religious claims, assess yours and make logical deductions.

They are all anchored on strong believes, and unverifiable assertions.

No difference!

Add this as a bonus. The story of the world being saved by a "son of God" isn't special to the Hebrews.

ScepticalPyrrho:
there is no point asking what your experience is.

Because every other religious person of other religion claim to av had a special experience of a supernatural being... God.

Your "how" doesn't matter. Because there are thousands of how others experience God, before yours and even now.

The most appropriate question is; What makes yours different?

How can you reject other claims like yours?

What makes yours any more authentic?

randomperson:
So because I don't know all things, there must be a god who does?? This is a new level of fvckery

ValentineMary:
It is because of Christians like this that I no longer frequent the religious section. U can't even see intelligent debates again. Only display of ego and religious bigotry.