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 Pat Robertson: "There was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth, and it was before the time of the Bible."
November 29th, 2012
04:04 PM ET
Pat Robertson challenges creationismBy Dan Merica, CNN Washington (CNN) – Televangelist Pat Robertson challenged the idea that Earth is 6,000 years old this week, saying the man who many credit with conceiving the idea, former Archbishop of Ireland James Ussher, “wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he said that it all took 6,000 years.” The statement was in response to a question Robertson fielded Tuesday from a viewer on his Christian Broadcasting Network show "The 700 Club.” In a submitted question, the viewer wrote that one of her biggest fears was that her children and husband would not go to heaven “because they question why the Bible could not explain the existence of dinosaurs.” “You go back in time, you've got radiocarbon dating. You got all these things, and you've got the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in time out in the Dakotas,” Robertson said. “They're out there. So, there was a time when these giant reptiles were on the Earth, and it was before the time of the Bible. So, don't try and cover it up and make like everything was 6,000 years. That's not the Bible.” Before answering the question, Robertson acknowledged the statement was controversial by saying, “I know that people will probably try to lynch me when I say this.” “If you fight science, you are going to lose your children, and I believe in telling them the way it was,” Robertson concluded. Forty-six percent of Americans believe that God created humans in their present form at one point within the past 10,000 years, according to a survey released by Gallup in June. That number has remained unchanged for the past 30 years, since 1982, when Gallup first asked the question on creationism versus evolution. The Gallup poll has not specifically asked about views on the age of the Earth. Ussher’s work, from the mid-1600s, is widely cited by creationists as evidence that Earth is only a few thousand years old. Answer in Genesis, the famed Christian creationist ministry behind the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky, cites Ussher as proof of Earth’s age. They describe the archbishop as “a brilliant scholar who had very good reasons for his conclusions concerning the date of creation.” For Christians who read the creation account in Genesis literally, the six days in the account are strictly 24-hour periods and leave no room for evolution. Young Earth creationists use this construct and biblical genealogies to determine the age of the Earth, and typically come up with 6,000 to 10,000 years. Most scientists, however, agree that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old and the universe is 14.5 billion years old. The idea of creationism has been scorned by the mainstream scientific community since shortly after Charles Darwin introduced "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By 1880, The American Naturalists, a science journal, reported nearly every major university in America was teaching evolution. The question about Earth’s age has been in the news recently. Earlier this month, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida attempted to walk the line between science and faith-based creationism in remarks that that provoked the ire of liberal blogs and left the door open to creationism. “I'm not a scientist, man,” Rubio told GQ’s Micheal Hainey. “I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that's a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States.” - CNN’s Eric Marrapodi contributed to this report. soundoff (4,408 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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The scariest part is that young earth creationists make up half of the U.S. population and electorate. These people are like a christian verrsion of the taliban.
Don't know who coined the phrase, (wish I had but I stole it and people steal it from me) "Talibangelicals"
"young earth creationists" – what is the distinction you are trying to draw?? A creationist is a creationnist is a creationist (is a dimwit)!
There’s no need to insult the religious. If you’re an atheist than that’s fine but there’s no need to insult those who do believe.
But it's still OK for fundiot nutters to insult science, atheists, and rational thinkers, right?
If someone sat around "preaching" harry potter as the "truth" and argued the physics of people flying on brooms, I hope you agree that they deserve to ve ridiculed – ridiculing "god" is the exact same thing.
You better catch up to your assessments, wonk. You've had 400,000 years to build great civilizations. The ones you did build are always antiFather.
Wonk, wonk, wonk. It is not okay to demean or insult those holding either view. And calling people names, as you did, implies your acceptance of insulting those holding Christian views.
People are worthy of respect. Not all ideas are worthy of respect. If I told you that Elvis was appearing at my window every night and telling me the next day's winning lottery numbers, you'd probably want proof.
Pointing out the fact that your religious beliefs are completely unsupported, is not an insult.
Wow! You all are accusing me of a bunch of stuff I don’t believe in or also wouldn’t condone.
I also believe in evolution but insulting those who believe in God is not helping our cause.
"the religious" and their BS and all their wars and pushing their BS on others is insulting to rational people's intelligence and to humanity as a whole. What about that??
@Primewonk
“But it's still OK for fundiot nutters to insult science, atheists, and rational thinkers, right?”
Has Zoidberg insulted atheists in a previous post?
It takes faith to believe that something has always existed; at any point in time, there was a before and there will always be an after; existence can't be destroyed or created; every living thing on earth came from single organism which created themselves, and to date has not been duplicated in any laboratory, nor cross breeding of any species; fish decided that it needed lungs, so they developed lungs, from feeling the heat of the sun, animals decided they needed eyes, so they developed them; birds and wings... etc. Takes a great deal of faith to believe something that has not come close to being proved. Things that were created by the same designer doesn't mean that they evolved from single cells. Though, it is true that over thousands of years there has been macro evolution, but there has never and never will be micro evolution or species mixing (naturally). The only proof that atheist have that science that existence created itself is that they refuse to believe that there is a God. The ONLY proof.
Cooper – your poor comprehension of evolution leaves little doubt why you still believe in ancient myths.
I just want unity among our fellow belief board members.
I don’t know why you all are so angry with me.
I understand the theory of evolution, I just don't have faith in it explain existence of life. Not just life, but existence. I think everyone believes in God. Even scientist believes that existence can't be destroyed or created, which means that all matter is eternal. I just happen to believe it all comes from an eternal God.
No, you don't. The very fact that you mix evolution up with the origin of life proves it. Evolution is completely silent on the origin of life. It is concerned with changes in species over time.
in reality – it's perfectly OK – and even necessary to openly and boldly ridicule the enemies of reason.
I wouldn't "insult the religious", but I do worry that people who deny science and reject demonstrable, testable facts because they conflict with their "beliefs" (which certainly doesn't apply to _all_ religious people) still have significant influence on public policy questions that are heavily dependent on science. I have no problems if people let their beliefs influence their personal behavior and spiritual views, but when those beliefs intrude into areas in other people's lives – especially areas where fact rather than belief should be operative (be it public education, funding for research, responses to climate change, etc.), then it has gone too far. This is especially true when the "belief" view is not presented as "here is my (testable) evidence and it is better than yours", but as "I have no testable evidence – just my belief – but I choose not to accept your evidence because I don't like it, and require you to accept my view", which is almost always the case for evolution, climate change, cosmology, population growth, and any other area where scientific understanding conflicts either with a literal reading of the Bible or with the Biblical "mandate" that mankind should "be fruitful and multiply" and "exercise dominion over the Earth and everything on it".
"fish decided that it needed lungs, so they developed lungs, from feeling the heat of the sun, animals decided they needed eyes, so they developed them; birds and wings... etc"
You most certainly do not understand the Theory of Evolution.
The accuracy of carbon dating to within a reasonably small window of time is a demonstrated fact. When you apply carbon dating techniques over and over and over again to geological and fossil artifacts of antiquity from all over the world, you consistently get dates spanning back millions and billions of years ago.
There is no room for a Creationism "theory" that has repeatedly been proven to be factually wrong. It's like banging your head against the wall over and over and over again to explain this to these ignorant, uneducated young earth creationist people. These people are willingly ignorant at this point because many realize that the foundation of their lives is a farce, and that they are too weak willed or minded to admit that they have been categorically 100% wrong all of their lives.
Their views are dangerous in terms of policy making and significantly handicap their children succeeding in the modern world.
Oh Yeah??? – Well the almighty and powerful god and his little elves created the lie of carbon dating as a "test" for his subjects, to see who should burn in the eternal hellfire.
You seem pretty intelligent. I have a question for you. Carbon dating seem to prove that the earth is millions of years old. My question is would this mean that if Adam was created, and we could go back in time to the day after he was created, he would be a sperm or a full grown man, one day after being created? If a person believes that the universe, the earth, and man was created, does that mean had to create it through an aging process or aged? How would the creation of earth worked if it was created bairn of life?
MiddleWay14 – You should be more accurate and talk about radiometric dating for dating things back millions or billions of years (like Potassium-Argon dating). Carbon-14 is only good for a few tens of thousands of years.
If you have the power to create a world, why would it not have an age and maturation that is sustainable for humans? On the day after Adam was created would you be able to prove that he was created because he's not a baby?
"If you have the power to create a world, why would it not have an age and maturation that is sustainable for humans?"
Talking about the maturation of the world only makes sense in the context of the scientific knowledge that it took a long time for the universe to reach its present state. If there was an all-powerful creator of the universe, he wouldn't need to age the universe before pulling back the curtains. He could create it in any state he wished. If a god created the universe yesterday, then the universe is one day old, regardless of what "state of maturation" it appears to be in. The mental hoops you are trying to jump through are just silly.
@cooper
Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?
Here, here! In ancient times, before Christianity. Religion and science were one. And durring that time the human race was able to create things that can't even be done today. Examples of this are all over the planet. The great pyramid in Giza is the best example of this. We couldn't build one today if we wanted to. So for what it's worth, humainty has been severely hindered by the separation of science and religion. Hopefully we can "evolve" past this current phase, and "create" a better world for ourselves.
Jeff – Of course we could build another great pyramid today, and in much less time it took the slave laborers of Egypt. Let's see the slave laborers of Egypt build a Large Hadron Collider or a Burj Khalifa.
@ Jeff:
Have to disagree with you on the pyramids! We do have the knowledge to build the pyramids today, what we seem to lack is the will and the money to do so...no one owns that many slaves, or could afford to pay enough people to do it, and no one wants a tomd that elaborate anymore. It can be argued that we understand the positioning of the pyramids at Giza, but it's speculation based on our current understanding of ancient Egyptian life. So, it can be done...just, no one wants to!
@ShannonCT I don't get it? Are you telling me that maturation doesn't matter? Therefore, if the Bible says that God made the first man, it's not really a man, but a baby. I don't understand why you say that maturation does matter. However, I do agree will one thing you stated, God can create it at any state he wished without your approval.
Doc Vestibule@ No. Belly buttons form after the cutting of umbilical cords. They did not have umbilical cords, therefor no belly buttons.
Cooper, I think it's clear that the writers of Genesis thought that Adam and Eve were created as fully-formed adults. That doesn't mean that Adam and Eve would have started off 25-years-old. The age of an object is the time between its creation/origin and the present, regardless of its apparent degree of maturation. Now, in the real world, where gods don't create fully-formed adults out of dust, we can use an object's degree of maturation to estimate its true age. If we say that a particular igneous rock appears to be 10 million years old, it's because we know how fast Potassium-40 decays into Argon-40, and we're assuming that the rock wasn't created by some trickster god who screwed with the Argon-40 percentage to throw us off.
Why do some put limits on God? Surely a God of the universe and beyond isn't concerned about the science of it all, just that you accept his son, Jesus, and then, and only then, will you have salvation. "World without end." Science hasn't scratched the surface of why we live. Or why we exist. Or what happens when we leave our earthly bodies. You who question are just pompous beings, floundering around in the dark, looking for answers in order to justify ignorance. The more we discover scientifically, the more questions. And this is the way it is until His second coming.
Blablabla god god "accept his son as the savior and fighter of all evil, for he shall be the Highlander and we shall all bask in his glory" bla bla bla BS garbage – give me a break!!!
just that you accept his son, Jesus
------
God can't be too overly concerned that humanity accepts Jesus, because he didn't choose to introduce Jesus to the entirety of his human creation. There are large numbers of humans on earth today who have no idea who Jesus is, and never will. People can't accept, or reject, something that they've never been exposed to.
So asking questions and learning is pompous? How ever did you study for tests? How do you ever have an original thought if you refuse to use your brain?
So, you're the one with all of the answers already, and it's scientists and non-believers who are pompous? Yeah, okay. Say, isn't it possible that you don't know ANYTHING, and you're entire belief structure is based on fantasy and myth?...
I don't really exist, I just made up this name to post under. Sorry if you are all confused, it is just a bunch of silly stories that hustlers use to make a buck, including Pat.
believer – i have to assume you are a troll, cause that is just plain funny.
" Science hasn't scratched the surface of why we live. Or why we exist."
Yes it has. You just don't like the answers.
Don't confuse psychology and philosophy with science.
Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.
"Surely a God of the universe and beyond isn't concerned about the science of it all, just that you accept his son, Jesus, and then, and only then, will you have salvation. "
Really, since you seem to know so much about what God is concerned about, can you please enlighten us as to why this god wants everyone to fall to his knees and accept his son? Why can't he just give salvation to people who just follow a good life, and dont harm others? Why this Jesus clause???
Finally one of the wackos realizes that the days are numbered for the ridiculous notion that the earth is 6000 years old.
According to Genesis, the sun was created on the fourth day. Since 24-hour days are a product of the earth's rotation and the sun's light, how do you measure a day in the absence of sunlight? Elsewhere in the Bible (Psalms, I believe), it says that to God, "a thousand years are as a watch in the night." Clearly, God's idea of what a "day" is, is different from ours, and we should not be imposing our limited view on him. he fundamentalists' narrow view of the world betrays a mistaken understanding of the Bible. It contains all the truth we need for salvation; it does not contain all the truth there is.
oid – or the most likely answer is that it is just a collection of the fiction or primitive men.
Good point and that is why most(not all) religious folks take the Bible literally.
It's also possible that it's all made up.....
Unfortunately it specifies in Gen 1 a "morning" and "evening" as a day. Yet, without a sun. Clearly it cannot be taken seriously.
And yet according to Genesis, day and night existed before the creation of the sun. The writers of Genesis can be forgiven for not guessing the correct order of flowering plants and sea life, but to get the order wrong on day/night and the sun is beyond comprehension. I can't think of any civilization around 1000BC that I would but less faith in than the ancient Israelites.
And apparently the Earth was brought into existence before the Sun, Moon, and the stars. Well, OK, they got it right on the Moon part – one out of three ain't bad.
Hmmm..judging who were and were not "inspired by the Lord"... doesn't he understand the First Commandament?
Just as religion has it's extremists who believe that despite any scientific discovery, if it goes against the "grain" of the dogma written and interpreted by man, it cannot be true, the scientific community, with it's old school scholars, who collect grants and continue to preach/teach the accepted version of the history of this planet do the exact same thing. If somene in the scientific community makes a discovery, that turns these current "accepted" ideas on their head, they are emediately discredited, their fundiing is pulled, and they had work they achieved is considered "fringe" science, and they are forever discredited as valid scientists. Hmmmmmmm. What this really boils down to is GREED, the age old part of the human being that hasn't changed at all since it's "creation". Religious leaders make money preaching, professors make money teaching. If you prove that they have been wrong all along, there goes their fat paychecks. People heed to think for themselves once and for all, and stop letting the greed of other humans stand in the way of enlightenment!! It's that simple people. Greed, it part of us, as is fear, hate etc. All you need to do is recognize it, and find a proper balance, No don't need belive 100% what anyone is preaching/teaching to you. Yojust need to be intelligent. Hmmmmmmm, is that so hard?
There's only one thing wrong with your argument. Professors don't get "fat" paychecks. I've been one myself, and my husband is one, so I know what I'm talking about.
Sorry Jeff, you are wrong. While there will always be those scientists that "stick to their gus" regarding older views of "the way things are", it is those scientists that get marginalized and pushed aside, not the scientists with the new, cutting edge ideas. Mush of the grant funding available these days is targeted towards those new ideas. Science challenges itself constantly as it pushes forwards. It is revised continually. Science is not faith, and faith is not science.
...and, as a scientist, I can wholeheartedly reject your notion of "fat paychecks". If it was money I was after, the many years I spent getting my PhD would've been much better served in other endeavors. I do what I do because it fascinates me, it's fun, and I feel that I am making a contribution to something that is much larger than myself.
You re correct, I was refering to "Church Leaders" & "Leaders of Acedamia" such as the Deans, and heads of universities, and the folks who control the flow of knowlege by rewarding grants, tenure, and publishing. Tell me they don't make fat paychecks. Aren't they the ones who at the end of the day, make or break what becomes "accepted" by way of either praising and helping the scientists and scholars who only want to better mankinds knowlege, or shunning, discrediting, and refusing to publish any of these new discoveries in the accepted scientific journals? The church leaders are more obvious about it and don't really care becaouse the "Lord" told them to do it.
I think you’re completely missing the strength of the scientific method. It essentially obviates the kind of dogmatic intellectual somnolence that simply perpetuates a particular way of thinking with no regard for new data. Science is changing so fast today that I really can’t keep up. I think this ability to recognize the meaning of new data and incorporate it into a body of thought is one of the greatest strengths of the scientific method. It is a real counter to any tendency toward dogmatic thought. On the other hand, religion is “true” by authority which is very dogmatic (it is literally dogma).
In addition, I can think of no shorter path to scientific acclaim and fame than to make new scientific discoveries, e.g., Darwin, Einstein, Hubble, Heisenberg, the list is way too long to recite here
" If somene in the scientific community makes a discovery, that turns these current "accepted" ideas on their head, they are emediately discredited, their fundiing is pulled, and they had work they achieved is considered "fringe" science, and they are forever discredited as valid scientists."
Nonsense. Such a person would be celebrated and rewarded. That is, provided they employed actual science in their research and not pseudoscience, like creationism (or its later incarnation Intelligent Design).
As long as people cling to the belief that the bible is the whole truth we will keep having idiots as voters. I find it a joke that people pray and belief in one super deity. This is no difference then pray to multi-Gods, it just sound better to them. Want to believe – fine, but stop mucking up everyone else lives with your unproved believes. Religious people don't think for themselves, that's why Limbaugh as so many followers.
So you're saying: "my belief is better than yours. the sooner you believe like I do, the better."
hmmm. sounds strangely familiar...
Russ: – if your beliefs are untrue, and refuted by sound science -–
then yes... my beliefs are definitely better than yours.
@ AnVIL: so Patrish was rejecting the notion of a transcendent being... something to which science cannot speak *by definition* (metaphysics, not physics)...
so you're first point is baseless... making your second point open hypocrisy.
Seems Pat feels the need to cozy up to the comm'nists and Mohammedans that run Warshington. You're an old fool, Pat. What good does it do ya to curry favor with wordly powers at the expense of your immortal soul? He has just a few years left on this fallen world, and he was a shoe in for heaven, and now, at the bottom of the 9th of the baseball game of his life, he done forfeited his soul. What a pity.
As far as them dinosars is concerned, a good number of 'em are fakes panted by comm'nists. The real ones are no older than a ferw thousand years old. Their mentuioned in the Bible in fact (far example, Leviathan, mentioned in Job, is obviously a brontosaurious).
"The real ones are no older than a ferw thousand years old."
LOL. Oh you gave me a good laugh there. Sources please.
Rev. Kellog:
I certainly hope you are being facetious, yet I fear you are serious. If this is indeed the case, I beg of you to please grow a brain. Stop disparaging facts that even an old school conservative White man like Robertson can acknowledge. "Comm'nists?" "Mohammedans?" Seriously? And who are you to judge anyone else? Isn't that the job of your god?
The only thing "obvious" is your lack of English skills.
kellog – i call BS. you are just a troll pretending to be a christian to make them look ignorant. no one is stupid enough to believe the nonsense you spout.
This is great news!
We all know that the individuals who believed in Creationism were not going to have their opinion changed from the facts and research that is known through modern science.
But, I bet a number of them blindly follow Robertson and will go with whatever he says. If they blindly follow him in the past they could still do so.
I know that many will still be ignorant but who knows, some might have their opinions changed and the “Intelligent Design” community will shrink.
Anyone else seeing a resemblance between Pat and your average ventriloquist doll?
What do you mean by that?
I mean that in the picture he looks like a ventriloquist's doll.
Can you simplify that for me? You’re speaking a mile a minute.
And his lips are moving.
"The idea of creationism has been scorned by the mainstream scientific community since shortly after Charles Darwin introduced "The Origin of Species" in 1859. By 1880, The American Naturalists, a science journal, reported nearly every major university in America was teaching evolution."
Go back farther than that. Geologists had dismissed Biblical creation since at least the 17th century (James Ussher's time). I don't know what they were teaching in places without Abrahamic religions, either.
Anyone else noticing here that it is only Judeo/Christian beliefs being ridiculed by other posters? Though I am a Christian, I am a big boy and can tolerate such ridicule. However, where is the mocking of Islam? I am NOT requesting it but ask yourself, why does everyone feel safe mocking Christian beliefs but not one word on CNN or elsewhere EVER calls into question basic tenets of Islam?
Probably because most people assume the vast majority of readers here are Christian, or at least familiar with the Christian viewpoint. While I am not into "mocking" in any regard, I do not believe in the Bible, or the Koran, or any other religious text as the absolute truth in any regard. I call my viewpoint criticism though, not "mocking". Others are free to believe as they wish in my opinion.
one fact is indisputable, with all the deities, religions and doctrines today and throughout history, man is very adept at inventing god.
Islam is based on the Abrahamic teachings, same with Christianity. Dispel the bible, and you dispel all.
Given that the foundation of Islam is Judeo-Christian beleifs, Islam is an equally poor source of truth. I think it goes without saying that atheists detest Islam at least as much as they detest Christianity.
Here's what I don't understand about Christian beliefs as in regards to the old testament. If a person brings up old testament morals such as slavery and multiple wives Christians say, "That's in the old testament, we follow the new testament." But at the same time they may cling to the old testament tales of creation and the flood.
So which is it? Do you dismiss the old testament and give up on creationism, or do you cling to it and have to apolgize for archaic morals like slavery and killing someone for saying something sassy to their parents?
Islamist are not requesting garbage be taught in our nations schools. Christians are.
Islamists are requesting garbage to be taught in their own nations' schools, and the schools of the European countries they migrate to. Reasonable people should fight this tooth and nail.
Ill tell you why, you tool – because the article is about a CHRISTIAN, not a MUSLIM. Thats why. If the article was about some muslim nut saying that he now accepts that some pretty ingrained part of the muslim faith was BS, then the comments would be mocking that. Whats you point? Are you trying to suggest that athiests have a bias against christianity as opposed to islam? Or that people are afraid to mock islam?? (dimwit!!)
Warren, perhaps you aren't mocking Christians. However, read the posts of others and decide for yourself whether theirs is a mocking tone. I'll leave it to you.
Here's my broader point; when I see people who don't believe travel to Islamic regimes to protest those beliefs regarding women and in other areas, I'll believe in the sincerity of those who find fault with Christianity. Till then, I'll believe their defense of science as a refutation of religion only applies to faiths that don't view women as chattel, view gays as deserving of being stoned, etc. How firm are YOUR beliefs if you are unwilling to stand up for them in the face of personal safety?
Which leads to another point; atheists are just as gutless as Christians who don't act as their faith dictates (and no, I'm often just as gutless). Talk is cheap.
How many fundiot nutter Jews are posting here? How many fundiot nutter Muslims are posting here? How many fundiot nutter Hindus, Buddhists, Animists, Pastafarians, etc. are posting here.
I personally promise you that as soon as a fundiot nutter of another cult starts posting here, they will get the same treatment as our Christian fundiot nutters.
n222s
Seriously? So I'm a coward because I don't travel to other countries telling people they are wrong?
I'd like to think that under duress I'd stick to my guns and maintain my dignity, but everyone has a threshold where what they believe may be sacrificed in the name of self preservation. Kinda hope I never have to find out what mine is.
Warren, I suggest you read Bob's post. No mockery there! And no Bob, I am not suggesting atheists have more of a bias against Christians than Muslisms. I am saying, despite your ridicule, that there is a fear of criticism of Islam. And please, Warren, direct me to the article here, or anywhere else, that calls into dispute Islam beliefs where they deviate from Abrahamic text. And then show me the posts that ridicule that faith to the degree we see in articles on Christianity. I'll sit here reading War and Peace while you search in vain. Let me know how that goes for you.
Damocles, we are probably equal in terms of level of cowardice. I'm not accusing you of acting any differently than do I at times with regards to my belief (sad to say but truthful with regards to me). Atheists could pontificate (yes, I am being ironic) for days as to the evil perpetrated in the name of Christianity. As I often say, the problem with Christianity isn't its beliefs. The problem is with people unwilling to live up to the Christian beliefs.
Please point me, however, to the multiple atheist screeds that condemn evil acts performed in the name of Islam. Again, I'll wait but I'll be waiting forever.
I think there's no doubt that criticizing Islam today is a more dangerous endeavor than criticizing any other religion. It's a testament to hard work of centuries of secularists in the West that Christians don't feel the urge to murder someone for disagreeing with them.
n222 – read just about any book by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Ayaan Hirsi Ali...
ShannonCT, thank you for having the courage to acknowledge what I have said. And I will seek out those authors. I have read atheist material before but they only serve to affirm my faith in Christianity. Faith in something greater than yourself or the collective is never wrong or bad or evil. The only thing we can do wrong with that faith is use it as justification for perpetrating sinful acts against others. If a person is to be converted to Christianity it should never come at the point of a gun, metaphorical or otherwise.
n222s, you buy me a plane ticket and I will go tell the Muslims they are stupid to their faces.
A "day"for a God can be any amount of time. Why try to apply a human form of measurement to something pre-existing the world? If indeed that is the case?
peter – why express it in other than human terms if humans are the intended recipients?
When the bible mentions a day is there an asterik beside day and a note at the bottom that states days may be longer or shorter depending on how we need them to be interpreted?
Because that is what the authors of the Bible did.
The Biblical creation story is a metaphor. its a way of explaining that God created existence that would be comprehensible to the mind of an individual at the time it was first told and recorded thousands of years ago. Treat it as a metaphorical truth, and Christianity and Science need not be at odds in any regard. Scientists say that the universe was created with the Big Bang, but have no idea what caused it. If religious people believe that God created the universe, then as long as they don't get fixated on a fundamentalist analysis of the Bible, they should be fine with what Science is theorizing, simply by believing that God caused the Big Bang 😛
And when they read in Genesis that the earth existed before the creation of the sun, or that flowering plants preceded the creatures of the sea, they should accept that the Bible was not inspired by the creator of the universe, but was written by an ignorant band of nomads in a natural human attempt to explain the unknown with just-so stories.
Its only a metaphor if the writers actually knew the reality and then translated it into a discourse the audience might understand. They did not. The idea of the time involved did not even make sense until the early 20th century when the physics of the nucleus became understood and that you can have massive amounts of energy produced without substantially changing the amount of mass lost. No one in the bronze age knew this. Nor did they know what caused disease. Nor did they know that we circle the sun. Calling it a 'metaphor' is the desperate attempt by the religious to reconcile the scriptures, which made sense in the bronze age, with what we know now about the universe.
Six thousand years old, huh? There are Human remains much older! Nice to see someone finally embracing science and admitting that there may be room for both concepts of how we got here...
Is he embracing science, or just telling older Christians not to argue against it?
Like all of religious arguments, the "faith" answer is used to explain that which seems to contradict reason. That same argument I have always expected to hear when these recent questions popped up in the news on this topic. The answer should still be given here by religious believers. If I were one of them, I would simply say that God intended things to appear that way as one of many tests of a person's faith in him, and that he did create us 6-10,000 years ago along with everything else, but created everything to appear in this manner as to test the faith. The Bible is all about testing ones faith on a regular basis. This answer would end all the discussion without having to provide a true explanation. It would remain consistent with previous explanations of unexplainable matters.
You know, God would not have to test our faith in him if he'd just give us one shred of credible evidence of his actual existence. So far, he has failed to do so.
I would like to comment about a fallacy of many the very intelligent anti-religious people. If a person believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old, that doesn't mean that person believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old. For instance, if I believe that God created Adam yesterday, that doesn't mean that I believe Adam is a newborn baby. If the earth was created to sustain life, it would make to sense to created it without life and only with single cell organisms, just as it wouldn't make sense to create Adam as an embryo, because the creation would fail. If you don't believe the Bible, science explains how life created itself, but if you believe the Bible, science explains how God created life.
correction: If a person believes that the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, that doesn't mean that the person believes the earth to be less than 10,000 years old.
Best explanation I have read. Thank You, for your contribution.
"If a person believes that the earth was created less than 10,000 years ago, that doesn't mean that the person believes the earth to be less than 10,000 years old."
This statement shows a level of mental gymnastics and rationalizing that could only come from a theist. Basically what you're saying is that the earth could have been created less than 10,000 years ago in a state so as to make it appear as if it had been around much longer. Instead of just creating the universe billions of years ago and letting things play out, god created it much more recently with a bunch of false evidence to test our faith in the Bible, and to send all of the reasonable people to hell. In other words, god is a giant d-bag.
we are not alone in the universe, when jesus ascended, he went somewhere. another interesting thing he said, though it is not good to take it out of context, was, "I have other sheep who are not of this fold". satan was cast out of heaven (wherever that is).
He obviously either meant that he had other followers on the planet Kolob,... or was it amongst the American indians?
Yes you are taking it way out of context. Jesus came to the Jews first. The word was presented to them solely. In fact, if you were outside of that people you were not a part of the covenant that God made with Abraham. The sheep other sheep was those outside of the Israelite, not aliens. This is why Jesus told the lady that the bread was not for dogs, and by faith, the lady said that the dogs would catch crumbs that fell from the table. That was the other fold
This is the first time I've heard Pat Robertson say anything I actually agreed with. My respect for him just went up ten-fold.
From a 0.1% respectability to a 1% respectability? 🙂
Me too, but that is ten times a very, very small number!
He also wants to legalize marijuana. Tax it and stop the wasteful spending trying to prevent its use.
Ten times 0 is still 0.