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March 28th, 2014
01:22 PM ET
Does God have a prayer in Hollywood?By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-Editor Los Angeles (CNN) – Forgive Darren Aronofsky if he’s begun to identify with the title character of his new film, “Noah.” Like the infamous ark-maker, the 45-year-old director has weathered a Bible-sized storm – and it’s not over yet. Aronofsky’s epic, which stars Russell Crowe and boasts a $130 million budget (with marketing costs to match), rode a swelling wave of controversy into American theaters on Friday. Despite fierce criticism from some conservative Christians, "Noah" was the top box-office draw last weekend, raking in $44 million in the United States. Part Middle-Earth fantasy flick, part family melodrama, the film is an ambitious leap for Aronofsky, director of the art-house hits “Black Swan” and “The Wrestler.” Both of those films were showered with praise and awards. “Noah,” on the other hand, has sailed into a stiff headwind. Glenn Beck and megachurch pastor Rick Warren blasted the film. The National Religious Broadcasters insisted “Noah” include a disclaimer acknowledging the filmmakers took “artistic license” with the Bible story. Several Muslim countries have banned the movie, citing Islam’s injunctions against depicting prophets. Even Paramount, the studio releasing “Noah,” has agitated Aronofsky, testing at least five different versions of his film with focus groups. “I can understand some of the suspicion because it’s been 50 years since an Old Testament biblical epic has come to the big screen,” Aronofsky said recently. “And in that time a lot of films have come out of Hollywood that have rubbed people the wrong way." Box office report: 'Noah' wreaks Old Testament havoc on its competitors 2014 is supposed to be the year Tinsel Town reversed that trend and finally got religion. A decade after “The Passion of the Christ” surprised Hollywood, rankled liberals and raked in $600 million worldwide, big studios are backing a flotilla of faith-based films. In addition to “Noah,” there’s “Son of God” from 20th Century Fox, which came out in March and is culled from the History Channel’s megahit miniseries, "The Bible." In April, Sony Pictures will release “Heaven is For Real,” based on the bestselling book and produced by Bishop T.D. Jakes, a Texas megachurch pastor and multimedia entrepreneur. The movie “Exodus,” directed by Ridley Scott and starring Christian Bale as Moses, is scheduled for December. So, too, is “Mary, Mother of Christ,” which is billed as a prequel to Mel Gibson’s “Passion.” More biblical epics may be on the horizon. Steven Spielberg is reportedly in talks to direct another movie about Moses, and Warner Brothers recently bought a script about Pontius Pilate. The box office hasn’t seen this many faith-based films since Charlton Heston delivered the “The Ten Commandments” in Technicolor. And that’s not even counting “God is Not Dead,” the indie sleeper that took in $8.5 million last weekend. So what’s behind Hollywood’s religious revival? “The biggest factor is the dynamic growth of the box office in international markets,” said Paramount vice chairman Rob Moore, one of the forces behind “Noah.” MORE ON CNN: A flood of reviews for 'Noah' Moore pointed to the $14 million his film has made in Mexico and South Korea, two of the more than 20 countries where “Noah” will run this year. As Hollywood’s supply of comic-book heroes seems to run dry, studios know the Good Book comes with a built-in audience of billions. The Bible’s heroes and villains are jeered and cheered on nearly every continent. Its morally complex stories are rife with blockbuster-ready special effects like locust plagues, apocalyptic floods and talking donkeys. But the controversy over “Noah” illustrates the promise and the peril of bringing the Bible to the big screen. Yes, there’s a ready-made audience that loves the book, but will they tolerate a script that strays from Scripture? On the other hand, will increasingly secular young Americans flock to see films that look and sound like sermons? "The earlier emphasis of faith-based films was to sacrifice quality for the message," Jakes said in a recent interview. "But it's dangerous to divide entertainment from evangelism. You're not going to connect with the average movie-goer if you're not putting out good stuff." But even Jakes, a longtime pastor and film producer, said it's not easy to turn a religious text into a movie.  Megachurch pastor and multimedia entrepreneur Bishop T.D. Jakes' latest film, "Heaven is For Real," releases in April. The author of "Heaven is For Real" has been adamant that the movie mirror the bestselling book. And Jakes cautions that the film's depiction of heaven does not comport with Christian orthodoxy. "It's a little boy's vision of heaven," he said. "It's not a theological film by a council of scholars." Like Jakes, Mark Burnett said he sees the silver screen as an evangelistic tool. "We believe that over the next few decades, billions of people are going to see 'Son of God'," the reality-show producer said. "This is not just some film to us." Burnett pitched his movie hard to religious leaders before its release. Evangelical pastors like Rick Warren rented out entire theaters, and Catholic bishops endorsed the film – which hews to the New Testament telling of Jesus’ life. The Christian push lifted “Son of God” to No. 2 on its opening weekend in February when it made more than $26 million in the United States. Since then, sales have fallen sharply. But Burnett cautions filmmakers against bowdlerizing the Bible to succeed at the box office. “There’s a big price to pay for departing from the sacred text,” he said. Just ask Universal Pictures, the studio behind Martin Scorcese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ,” which sparked outrage in 1988. Not only did Christians boycott the movie, in which Jesus fantasizes about married life, some sent death threats to studio executives. “These stories hit really sensitive areas,” said Elijah Davidson, director of the Reel Spirituality program at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. Noah’s tale is a prime example. Just four short Bible chapters, it’s more sketch than story: The protagonist doesn’t speak until the boat finally lands ashore. “And yet it’s a foundational story for many Christians,” Davidson said. For centuries, theologians have taught that God’s covenant with Noah and post-flood promise to be merciful prophesied Christ’s later arrival. Building Noah’s arc Aronofsky, who describes himself as culturally Jewish but not especially religious, said he respects how important the Noah story is for believers. “We tried very hard not to contradict anything in the Bible,” the director said. “But we also wanted to bring the story alive for a 21st century audience.” Wiry and intense, with a shaved head and a Brooklyn accent, Aronofsky looks like a man who’s just finished one fight and is girding for another. “What’s been missing from the whole controversy is my personal passion for the film,” the director said. “I’ve been thinking about this for 30 years.”  "Noah" director Darren Arnofsky's previous films have included the art-house hits "Black Swan" and "The Wrestler." When he was 13, Aronofsky’s middle-school class in Coney Island was asked to write about peace. He penned a poem about Noah called “The Dove” that was recognized by the United Nations. (As a thank you for setting him on the creative path, Aronofsky gave his teacher, Ms. Fried, a bit part in “Noah.”) Even as a child, the director said, the Noah story unsettled him. Aronofsky didn’t see the happy tale of rainbows and doves told in children’s books. He saw the humans and animals consumed by the waters – the world drowning in the deluge outside the ark. As he began his film career, the director grew obsessed with telling the Noah story from that perspective – and employing the power of modern special effects to portray Earth’s first apocalypse. “It’s one of the oldest and most famous stories in the world,” Aronofsky said. “And yet it’s never been told on the big screen.” There are good reasons for that. After all, it’s a dark story. God, distressed at human wickedness, decides to hit the cosmic reset button. His waters wipe all life from the planet, except for the fortunate few on the ark. After the storm, Noah gets goodly drunk – perhaps the first known case of survivor’s guilt – and curses the descendants of his son Ham to slavery. To understand Noah, and to give his character a story arc, Aronofsky and his co-writer, Ari Handel, spent 10 years poring over the Book of Genesis and the midrash – stories written by rabbis to fill out the Bible’s narratives. They also read texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch, a work ascribed to Noah’s great-grandfather. Handel, who studied neuroscience, is known as an obsessive researcher. The script’s bibliography runs five pages long, single-spaced. “We had to figure out how Noah and his family would get through this, and what it would feel like,” Aronofsky said. The studio also hired a Christian consultant for the film. John Snowden is a former youth pastor at Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church, where Moore, the Paramount executive, is a member. Snowden, who was pastor to Moore's son, said the filmmakers’ questions ranged from the sublime (Why did God create human life?) to the ridiculous (Would Christians be upset if Noah wears pants?). “I gave them a sort-of manifesto of Christian theology,” said Snowden, 38, who now lives in Nepal. “The most important part of the story is why God created humanity, which is basically to reflect God’s glory. Those are the kind of conversations we would have.” Script or Scripture? Several evangelical leaders have posted positive reviews of the film, and, with the help of a Christian marketing firm hired by Paramount, are spreading the word that nothing in "Noah" belies the Bible. But others aren’t so sure. On March 16, megachurch pastor Rick Warren tweeted this message to his 1.3 million Twitter followers:
For the record, Aronofsky said he’s made the “least biblical biblical film ever made.” That is, don’t expect the camel-and-sandals settings of last century’s Bible movies. “We wanted to smash those expectations, Aronofsky said. “We are reinventing the biblical epic for the 21st century.” Count conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck among the unimpressed. Before he even saw the movie, Beck, who is Mormon, called “Noah” a “slap in the face” to religious people. “It’s dangerous disinformation,” he told his 10 million radio listeners. After Paramount screened “Noah” for Beck last weekend, he acknowledged that blasting the film sight unseen was “kind of a dirtball” move. Then he blasted the movie again, calling it a “$100 million disaster.” Beck’s biggest problem with “Noah” was Noah himself, whom Mormons believe is the angel Gabriel in human form. “I always thought of Noah as more of a nice, gentle guy, prophet of God,” Beck said, “and not the raving lunatic Paramount found in the Bible.” MORE ON CNN: Is 'Noah' film sacred enough? Jerry Johnson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, said he has the same problem with Aronofsky’s depiction of Noah. The Bible calls Noah a “righteous man,” Johnson said. In the movie, his character is much more complex. Noah begins the film as a rugged environmentalist who teaches his family to respect the Creator and all of creation. As he becomes increasingly zealous, Noah seems bent on destroying life rather than saving it. “I understand that the writers want to create tension and resolve it, but they push it to a spot where if you haven’t read Genesis, you wouldn’t know whether Noah is really a man of faith or not.” Moore, the Paramount executive, said focus groups had similar questions: How much of the film is from the Bible and how much was invented by Aronofsky? At Johnson’s urging, Paramount agreed to include a disclaimer before the opening credits and in marketing materials stating that the film is “inspired” by the Bible and true to its values but takes certain liberties with the story. (The language mirrors Dreamworks' disclaimer for “The Prince of Egypt,” which was based on the Book of Exodus.) “People needed to know upfront that this is not a literal re-telling of Scripture,” Moore said. “It helped set their expectations for a movie about a guy who goes on an intense journey. This is probably not the Noah they remember from Sunday school.” Aronofsky and Handel insist, however, that their film never directly contradicts Genesis, and even takes pains to remain faithful to it. The ark, for example, is built to the Bible’s specifications, down to the last cubit. Ultimately, though, the director has little patience with literalists on either side of the believer-atheist divide. It's ungenerous to insist, as some Christians do, that there is only one way to interpret Genesis, according to Aronofsky. But it's also pointless to argue, as some atheists have, that no ark could possibly hold all the animals. The story of the flood has lasted for millennia not because it’s "right" – or wrong – but because it’s deep and alive and unsettling, the director said. The artist's job, like Noah's, is to make sure those kinds of stories survive – to prepare us for the next storm.
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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 bible thumpers are going nuts with this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0-04VDrCbM
It really doesn't take much to set the thumpers off.
And the Hinn/Hill thing is comedy gold.
Fictional story about fictional character depicting fictional events. What seems to be the problem?
You're going to need a bigger boat....
Here's to swimming with bow legged women...
You know, I can't take Glenn Becks beef with any seriousness. I plan to see the movie just to check out the effects. I am DEFINITELY not religious, and I can't tell you how much less hassle my life has been and time saved on Sunday mornings. Am I going to hell, as my proselytyzing bud from high school constantly warns me? I have no idea. I figure if God is forgiving, and I'm not a mass murderer, I should be good. Or at least get some kind of chance to earn my way out of hell after a couple hundred years of penance.
Glenn Beck complained before he even saw the movie because that's what his type do: overreact for his audience. He said doing that was a dirt ball move; a rare moment of self-awareness that will most likely never be repeated again.
Glen Beck is a moron LOL
He's also a Mormon, but there's little difference, other than an extra "m" in the word.
primitive man wrote some fantastic stories, for sure. I like the one where they guesses how the universe was created.
Why did the bible miss out on explaining facts? Why does the bible, new and old testaments, not understand humanity?
I guess we are finally evolving. The more we understand, the more the bible becomes the fiction it really is. Great bedtime stories for kids. As long as we remind the children, they are only stories.
The Bible is beyond fiction. There is no explanation how primitive man was so correct in some of the scientific facts that was displayed in this very old book. Evolution now thats pure imagination of one man that many after him who refuse to believe in a God so they can feel better about themeselves continue to push on today's society. Evolution and the Big bang is far more silly than anything in the bible and is a good attempt to push God out of the picture.
DNA is the one thing that clearly destroys evolution. Life never originates from non-life. This is the first rule of biology and there are no known observable exceptions.
Evolutionists must insist that there is at least 1 exception – millions (or billions?) of years ago, back when there was a theorised "primordial soup", some sort of mysterious action (perhaps a lightning strike) produced the very first life cell and then everything on this earth evolved from this one cell. But very intelligent people have tried creating life from non life in the laboratory without success. But even if they could create life from basic chemicals, what would that tell you? That it requires intelligent intervention to make it happen!
The Bible was written by man through God there is no other explanation of this for there are many truths in the Bible written by men who clearly did not have the technological advancements we have today and still gets the science that could only be proven by technology today. Lot of scientific truths in the Bible and clearly the events that were described in the bible DID actually happen. So in conclusion the Bible is far from fiction and far from a fairy tale that you claim it to be.
@justpro86,
The Theory of Evolution does not cover the origin of life, but the development of life on this planet once life began. Although only a precursor to today's Modern Synthesis, Darwin's book was called "On the Origin of Species", not "On the Origin of Life".
There are many things in the Bible that, if taken literally, are scientifically inaccurate.
Evolution has nothing to do with origin of life. Evolution is a fact supported by overwhelming evidence. The exact origin of life is not known but there are several proven possibilities.
Are you seriously going to argue that Evolution is a fact? It is not its only a theory and yes it covers the origin of life. Evolution says we came from a single celled organism that evolved over time. Its in the book the origin of species and the origin of life too Darwin are two of the same thing... There is no facts in Evolution only theories. More atheists trying to come up with anything to get rid of God and the bible. Evolutionists think we evolve from apes and presented many finds. However Evolutionists present much of their finds as if they were compelling and factual explanations to human evolution. In fact, they base their conclusions on mere speculation and often the flimsiest of 'finds'. Many discoveries of supposed hominids consist of only a mouth fragment, a leg bone, a hip bone, or a knee joint. On this alone, they have considered it to be a hominid. They even name it, reconstruct what it looked like, and present it to the public as a fact. Some of these finds have turned out to be those of a pig, donkey, or the result of a hoax.
Piltdown Man, which may be the biggest scandal in the history of science, is a typical example of this method.
There are more pitfalls in Evolution than there are in the Bible I am sorry to disappoint.
justp
"More atheists trying to come up with anything to get rid of God and the bible"
Now you are just flat out lying.
Science shows us truth...and changes and gets more accurate over time. Science does not set out to disprove the bible, but inevitable, science shows the bible is wrong, as in the case with Noahs myth. It is impossible, and we can see that it never happened. Browns BS is ridiculous, claiming the land was very different during Noah's time, yet it is still only a few thousand years old. The geologic record proves he is an idiot.
pro, I know it's Sunday and you're all pumped up on Jesus juice but you are just spouting baseless nonsense. Do some research on abiogenesis and evolution – you'll see that not only are they different, but that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming. While you're at it look up theory when used in a scientific context not the vernacular.
"The Bible is beyond fiction."
That's true. Even as fiction it's a ridiculous story. Any halfway decent editor would throw it out for lack of continuity and its schizophrenic main character.
What makes the Bible fiction? Nothing, in the bible events actually occured and there is scientific facts that support it. So what makes it fiction? My answer is none of it. Its more legit than half of the science books in schools today.
"What makes the Bible fiction? Nothing, in the bible events actually occured and there is scientific facts that support it."
Please provide the citations from the peer reviewed scientific journals that prove the global flood and Noah's ark occurred.
"So what makes it fiction? My answer is none of it. Its more legit than half of the science books in schools today."
Perhaps you should have actually read one of those science books.
Please provide citations to the peer reviewed scholarly articles that disprove science in favor of the bible.
justp
How about telling if my wife is unfaithful by having her drink magic water mixed with dust, and if she is pregnant by the other man, she will abort...that is true, right?
How about having mating pairs of goats stare at striped objects so they will have striped goats...that works too right?
How about a man who ra.p.es a young woman...all he has to do to make it ok is to remove HER stain for not being a virgin by giving her father 50 sheckles of silver, and then the ra.p.e VICTIM is forced to marry her attacker... a practice right out of your bible and still practiced in Morocco, where it results in many young women commiting suicide to get away from the abuse....by your figuring, that's all ok, right?
(igaftr
justp
How about telling if my wife is unfaithful by having her drink magic water mixed with dust, and if she is pregnant by the other man, she will abort...that is true, right?)
Are you that stupid? Only God did that ONE time. He and only he developed us in his own image... Only God could place orgins in the correct spots. Only God could make it so that if you get intimate with your wife she can produce a child. Only god could have made it so that our brains worked and operate in the fashion that it does....
So we all humans are an accident that some mysterious big explosion magically made us into existence? Are you monkey thumpers really that arrogant and stupid? Seriously you guys can throw all your theories out there and what not but there IS NO PROOF of evolution theory... There is more proof of the bible...
DNA is encoded information. Information cannot originate by random chance – it requires an intelligence and there are no known observable exceptions.
Learn how INFORMATION is 100% proof that materialism cannot be true and really proves the existence of the Creator God! The challenge is now out to the evolutionists!
Once again our unique DNA is further proof... Take us as like a computer program... It takes an intelligent mind to put together a code for your very lap top to operate like it does... Same goes with DNA... DNA cannot just magically appear out of thin air... Once again Evolution IS JUST A STINKIN THEORY and makes little to no sense....
" Once again Evolution IS JUST A STINKIN THEORY and makes little to no sense…."
If you don't understand what a theory is and haven't picked up a real science book since third grade, maybe you'd think this way.
Now if you want a TRUE book written by man go pick up a science book.... I have my bible which already explains what is in the science book...
You're right that science books don't have talking animals, a flat earth, the world being populated by two genetically identical males, time standing still and a man living in a fish for three days.
@justpro86,
"Response: Scientific theories are explanations that are based on lines of evidence, enable valid predictions, and have been tested in many ways. In contrast, there is also a popular definition of theory—a “guess” or “hunch.”"
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IIAjusttheory.shtml
Sorry for the copy pasta, but this is an old and ridiculous argument.
DNA is not "encoded information" is is a protein template, or protein negative.
justp
"DNA is encoded information. Information cannot originate by random chance – it requires an intelligence and there are no known observable exceptions."
You claim "cannot"...why not. Have you managed to disprove the possibility of abiogenesis? There could be a Nobel Prize waiting for you. But since you havent't , and then leapt to an unjustified conclusion, where NO conclusion is warrented, it simply shows your bias and why you would never make it as a scientist.
You further go on to try to explain that complex things need a "designer"... a false premise, but if you are correct, then the"designer" would be even more complex, reuiring a "designer" and that dsigner would need a designer, and so on and so forth. So what designed your deasigner.
Stop with your trite, long been disproven premises.
You clearly do not understand scientific threory, or how to make valid hypothesese and theories. You are getting you "information" from places that are very biased, so not scientific at all, and make stuff up in an effort to throw smoke.
PLease by all means, keep posting. It is a prime example of the mental gymnastics that believers have to go through when their beliefs are shown to be false. Your delsuion needs to grow each time we find the bible is wrong.
"Life never originates from non-life."
First, that is not proven by any stretch. It may well be true that life CAN come from the elements and atoms that make up the matter. To claim it is not possible is irresponsible at least.
Second, you god, is it alive? Where did it come from then if not non-life? You may claim he always was, but then so could matter have always existed. There is no indication of any gods or sentient ent!ties outside of our universe. NONE.
Stop trying to get your science from creationist sites. They are not science even a little bit.
The common evolution theory states that there was matter and energy, already in existence, that exploded 15 billion years ago and has expanded into the present state of the universe. That basic science means that if I take the bicycle out in my garage and leave it sitting around and expose it to energy for 15 billion years it could turn into a living, breathing, ferocious tiger! Pretty stupid, huh? But that’s really what they’re trying to sell us, minus all the unproven “scientific evidence” that they say they have. Hard matter and energy somehow turned into biological life? And how do we explain the fallacy that two co-existing elements that can't live without each other (proteins and nucleic acids) spontaneously came into being at the same time? How far from logic do we have to turn in order to allow this to slip by our theories? Evolution is a belief, not a science.
It actually takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in Creation!
(from http://www.prophecyandtruth.com)
Lucilius, the ancient Roman (160-102 BC), had worked out for himself without any help from either Christian or Jew – he attributed the design, creation and maintenance of the universe to that Creator who:
'...is, as Ennius says, "the father both of gods and men", a present and a mighty God. If anyone doubts this, then so far as I can see he might just as well doubt the existence of the sun. For the one is as plain as the other. And if this were not clearly known and manifest to our intelligence, the faith of men would not have remained so constant, would not have deepened with the lapse of time, and taken ever firmer root throughout the ages and the generations of mankind.'
This statement of faith is in complete agreement with the Bible's Book of Romans, written a couple of hundred years later:
"... since what may be known about God is plain to men, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
@justpro86,
"The common evolution theory states that there was matter and energy, already in existence, that exploded 15 billion years ago and has expanded into the present state of the universe. '
While many scientific theories speak of evolution, the Theory of Evolution deals with biological evolution.
"That basic science means that if I take the bicycle out in my garage and leave it sitting around and expose it to energy for 15 billion years it could turn into a living, breathing, ferocious tiger! Pretty stupid, huh?"
Yes it is pretty stupid to try to argue a non sequitor.
That is not what evolution shows at all.
Try posting an actual argument instead of your "pretty stupid" argument.
"It actually takes more faith to believe in evolution than it does to believe in Creation"
No, since there are mountains of proof for evolution, more daily...there is no evidence at all for creation, so again...false.
You have no evidence of any gods, especially that it is YOUR god.
We know for fact. that evolution is on going, we just do not have all of the specific working of it, but we see it constantly.
You clearly do not possess critical thinking skills, and I seriously doubt if you understand sciences, especially genetics and epigenetics, which proves that we are all the product of evolution. Don't bother posting the non scientific BS such as that Brown idiot, since you clearly have no idea what you are talking about.
just p
"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen"
I wonder if you can spot why that sentence makes no sense at all.
Keep posting this garbage. It clearly shows how ignorant one must be to accept the bible as if it were true.
So basically, justpro, you believe the bible because you don't understand science.
I understand science completely apparently evolutionists don't under stand science...
@justpro86,
"I understand science completely ...."
Wow, I don't think even actual scientists would make such a claim.
No you don't, justpro. You have chosen to believe lies that support your religion. You conveniently ignore reality. You don't understand science. You don't even acknowledge science.
Ok pal what is science? the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.
Creationism goes hand in hand with science... I understand completly what science is... To say creationism not science is like saying a football is not a football... Creationism is out there too like evolution in trying to find out the truth but they use the Bible as a guide and there is nothing wrong with that sense the bible carries a lot of scientific anomalies in it and you cannot tell me it does not....
"Creationism goes hand in hand with science"
LOL.
Not even a little bit. You clearly do not understand science. You have set the premise, that "god" created everything, and then you try to fit observation to that hypothesis. That is not science, that in the opposite of science.
In science we observe and THEN create and test hypothesese. You hvae already jumped to a cause, and are trying to fit reality into it, rather than taking our observations of reality, and going forweard.
With each post, you are proving you do not comprehend logic, nor science.
"I understand science completely apparently evolutionists don't under stand science..."
Translation: My pastor says evolution is bunk and then we sing nice songs. I feel good when I sing nice songs, so whatever Pastor PassTheCollectonBasket says just has to be true!
Modern Parallels to Noah’s Day
4 “Just as the days of Noah were, so the presence of the Son of man will be.” (Matthew 24:37) With these words, Jesus indicated that the time of his invisible presence would be similar to the days of Noah, and that has truly been so. Particularly since 1919, a warning message similar to the one given by Noah has been declared to people of all nations. In general, their reaction has been similar to that of people in Noah’s days.
5 By means of the Flood, Jehovah took action against a world “full of violence.” (Genesis 6:13) That Noah and his family refrained from taking part in such violence and instead peacefully went about the work of building an ark was obvious to all who saw them. Here, too, we see a parallel to our day. Sincere people can now “see the distinction between a righteous one and a wicked one, between one serving God and one who has not served him.” (Malachi 3:18) The honesty, kindness, peacefulness, and diligence displayed by Jehovah’s Witnesses are admired by unprejudiced onlookers, and these qualities distinguish God’s people from the world in general. The Witnesses reject violence in all its forms and let themselves be motivated by Jehovah’s spirit. That is why they are blessed with peace and why they pursue a righteous course.—Isaiah 60:17.
6 Noah’s contemporaries failed to appreciate that Noah had divine backing and was acting at God’s direction. So they did not take his preaching seriously and act on his warning message. What about today? Although many are impressed by the work and conduct of Jehovah’s Witnesses, most do not take the good news and the Bible’s warnings seriously. Neighbors, employers, or relatives may speak highly of the fine qualities of true Christians but then lament, “If only they were not Jehovah’s Witnesses!” What these observers overlook is that the Witnesses manifest such qualities as love, peace, kindness, goodness, mildness, and self-control because they are led by God’s holy spirit. (Galatians 5:22-25) This should add credibility to their message.
8 During the final period of the “ancient world” that perished in the Flood, Noah was a faithful “preacher of righteousness.” (2 Peter 2:5) In these last days of the present system of things, Jehovah’s people are making known God’s righteous standards and are declaring good news about the possibility of surviving into the new world. (2 Peter 3:9-13) Just as Noah and his God-fearing family were preserved in the ark, survival of individuals today depends on their faith and their loyal association with the earthly part of Jehovah’s universal organization.
Many different branches of science prove the the story of Noah to be a myth. It never happened.
According to Brown, the earth was an extremely different place before Noah’s flood. Oceans were much shallower and mountains much lower. He notes that it is no coincidence that more than 230 flood legends – with many common elements such as a sole surviving family in a boat – exist from every corner of the earth. In fact, the flood of Noah is the very device that sets Brown’s hydroplate theory in motion
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/does-science-prove-noahs-flood/#EUxFhXGkrq0j6oCP.99
The small spiel I posted above explains scientifically how science proves the flood did actually occur. Well it is really part of a very compelling article that explains how science can and does actually prove the flood. Atheists will try at anything to prove God and the Bible is just a month when in all actuality the bible is more scientifically correct than the Evolution theory.
After the flood exactly how did the marsupials get to Australia?
There is no evidence for a "hydroplate".
There overwhelming evidence for the age of the earth, in geology, being much greater than 10,000 years.
Just pro.
For the flood to occur as written:
There would need to be 5 times the water on the planet.
Noahs Ark would never withstand the grreat pressres and would not be able to compensate for the flooding of his boat, espaecially considering he had stone tools , and perhaps some crude copper, but unless he was wealthy, he would not have even had any copper tools.
The death of all plants and all the ocean creatures due to the salinity change and the fact that not enough light would penetrate into the oceans, would end all food chains on the planet, something that would take an extremely long time to get going again, if even tiiny pockets survived, but your book says they did not...thewre would be no ffod for years after the flood.
The ocean current conveyer belt would stop. It would be extremely difficult to get it started again, again causing an interuption of the food chain.
There is no indication of any wordwide flood event ever happening...as a matter of fact, the geological record shows that it never happened.
There is not enough room on the impossible ship as built to accomodate all of the animals, their food and drink, and the sanitary conditions would overwhelm the few humans required to take care of it.
The list goes on and on.
Science has proven Noah's flood never happened.
To believe the flood happened, is just accepting the often wrong bible, and is the willful ignorance argument.
justpro
I just looked at the fairy tales that are Brown's hypothesese...Hilarious, wioth nothing backing up his BS. We kknow that some of the garbage he proposes is not reality, He is just making stuff up to give fake ammunition against proven data " Brown’s decades of research has been his quest to give Christian students answers that will withstand scrutiny when challenged by Darwinist theories within the classroom. "
He is giving answers, but wrong answers. He may have credentials as a scientist, but he is not applying any form of science to his hypotheses...it is ridiculous made up BS.
Here's a hint for the future. If there is creation in the name of the person or the place they work, it is NOT science in the least.
You're using WND as a source? Seriously? WND is a right-wing propaganda source.
This is the perfect example of what Christianity is really all about: rationalizing. There is no evidence whatsoever to support some pure speculation you claim proves something, You people are soooo dumb and soooo gullible.
"The small spiel I posted above explains scientifically how science proves the flood did actually occur."
Until I get tough questions and then I will run away and hide....
I always am entertained by how genocide is justified by the religion of peace and "love your enemies"...
This could have been written at so many points over the last 2000 years it isn't even funny. You people are sooooo dumb. Christians have been talking like this for nearly 2000 years. I have a CD titled 1000: A Mass for the End of Times. It's music written in anticipation of the end of the world in the year 1000.
As a Christian, there are two theories that are totally accepted by people that really irk me. The first is the theory of evolution and the second is the va.ginal birth of human beings. I’m pleased that so many have pointed out the flaws in the former, so allow me to address the latter.
It is OBVIOUS to me that storks bring babies! I have never seen a woman giving birth, but I have seen a lot of storks. If you ever go to the beach, you will lots of storks carrying babies. They look just like pelicans because they carry the babies in their mouths. If women gave birth to babies, there would be no need for a navel, but that is how the stork picks the babies up from HEAVEN.
There is no REAL evidence that women give birth to babies. It is just a THEORY. If they did, why is it that men never give birth to babies? Why just women? Where do boys come from? It makes no sense. There is also the problem of the missing link, because there are only ever midwives and never “mid-husbands.”
If women gave birth to babies, why are there still women and babies? And why is it you never see a half-woman, half-baby!! Explain that evolutionists and va.ginal birth believers! Bet you CAN’T.
If you look at a stork, it is INTELLIGENTLY designed to carry babies. Why would that be if it didn’t deliver babies? And what about twins and triplets? What, do some women have 2, or even 3 uteruses? That is stupid. A stork can EASILY carry two or three babies, but a woman couldn’t.
Why is it that for every 50 boys born, there are 50 girls. What, can a va.gina count? Ha, how stupid. But a stork could. And, what about all the GAPS in the birth record. One time I took a peek at my mother’s va.gina, and it was so small and babies are SO BIG.
You evolutionists are so dumb. Your think babies JUST HAPPENED in their mother’s womb. What, do you think they just appeared out of yucky, slimy blood and stuff ? Fred Hoyle once calculated that the chance of a baby spontaneously appearing in a woman’s uterus was the same as a storm blowing through a junkyard and creating a Boing-747. That’s harder to believe than that the stork brought them!
You might like to think you came from a mere zygote, but I KNOW I came from a glorious stork.
My father insists that I was born because he slept with my mother. I derisively call this the Big Bang theory, because he cannot tell me what happened BEFORE the Big bang. And what caused the Big Bang? It must have been a stork.
You might ask, ok “what caused the stork?” Well the stork was always there.
Well said. Bless you, my son.
This should appear in The Onion.
According to Matthew it is possible to work even as a Christian up to the second coming of Christ, but according to Revelation everybody who doesn't worship the icon of the beast will get beheaded.
How to unite this two seemingly opposed statements of the Bible?
Solution: Even today it is hardly possible to live as a faithful Christian in a totally Antichristian world. It will certainly become impossible within a short period of time. The only outlet (to live without denying Christ) for a Christian could be that Israel converts, and accepts Jesus from Nazareth as the Messiah. Christian could go there, and live under the protection of the state of Israel. Finally, the Antichrist together with the whole world will attack Christian Israel, and then Jesus will return, and kill the Antichrist and his Prophet (the pope?) in order to save the believers (faithful Jews and gentiles).
Of course no one really knows who authored Matthew.
Or why the choose the revelation of John over the apocalypse of Peter... hmmm....
Ponderously Boring Rainer Helmut Braendlein, sequester your mustard and abolish your putrid leotards. Don't obfuscate the primary prenuptials with rasberries. Often, the pertinent cat presents fabled necessities in the parking chamfer. Realize your net precedent. Triangulate! Save the best for the alligators. Ever the bastille notches the orchestra but Wendy is not green and horses will capitulate. Filter out the log from the turnstile and cry prevalently.
So there brown stare. Feed your inner walnut and resolve. Subject your lemon to the ingenious door in the presence of snow and animals. Aisle 7 is for the monetary cheese whiz. Faced with the kitchen, you may wish to prolong the sailboat in the cliff. Otherwise, rabbits may descend on your left nostril. Think about how you can stripe the sea.
Regale the storm to those who (6) would thump the parrot with the armband. Corner the market on vestiges of the apparent closure but seek not the evidential circumstance. Therein you can find indignant mountains of pigs and apples. Descend eloquently as you debate the ceiling of your warning fulcrum. Vacate the corncob profusely and and don’t dote on the pancreas.
Next up, control your wood. Have at the cat with your watch on the fore. Aft! Smarties (12)! Rome wasn’t kevetched in an autumn nightie. (42) See yourself for the turntable on the escalator. Really peruse the garage spider definitely again again with brown. Now we have an apparent congestion, so be it here. Just a moment is not a pod of beef for the ink well nor can it be (4) said that Karen was there in the millpond.
Garbage out just like the candle in the kitty so. Go, go, go until the vacuum meets the upward vacation. Sell the yellow. Then trim the bus before the ten cheese please Louise. Segregate from the koan and stew the ship vigorously.
And remember, never pass up an opportunity to watch an elephant paint Mozart.
Let us pray for the conversion of Israel as a whole, that they may recognize Jesus from Nazareth as their Messiah. What a joy would be that event.
Today Israel faces more and more international, political isolation. Maybe the pressure will become so strong that it actuates them to call to Jesus for help, the one whom they deny for 2000 years.
What unbelieveable arrogance that you would suggest that Isreal call on YOUR god. And you even suggest they deny YOUR god, when you are denying the thousands of other gods.
I really wish you would meet some christians so they could teach you some things about your beliefs. You clearly have not learned anything from your Jesus character.
May Israel recognize the God of Noah: Jesus Christ.
It plays no role that Noah probably did not know his name (Jesus), but simply called him Lord.
Psalm 110: 1
The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
This Lord is Jesus from Nazareth.
And may you realize that there are no signs of ANY gods, and that your inflammatory statements are part of the problem with religion...especially your twisted version of it.
Hopefully , men will wake up from the delusions of gods and simply work on humanity.
You realize that "Lord" is just an english usage right? In the originals these would have been "Yahweh", not "Lord".
So much confusion from a perfect guide.
Of course, Rainier and his religious bigotry once again.
The only person in the entire world who has it right. Uh huh.
I don't presume to claim that I would perfectly practice what I believe. I would be very happy, if some real Saints would admit me in their fellowship. I need rebuke, confession, counsel, etc.
You need help, all right. Your view on Christians is skewed.
And your apparent need for a hairshirt is appalling.
"I don't presume to claim that I would perfectly practice what I believe."
You do however claim that what you believe is perfect...
Koo koo.
Israel will NEVER be a Christian state. NEVER. Israel will never convert to your version of Christianity. Never. Their reason for existence is as a Jewish State.
My, you have the most absurd thoughts.
I only cite the Bible (Epistle to the Romans by St. Paul).
So you worship St. Paul. You're a Paulian. That explains a lot.
Still isn't going to happen.
Rainer
Almost a third of the whole world is Christian. How do you see it as an anti-Christian world then? Are most of them the "wrong" kind of Christians for you?
Many Bavarians are Catholic, and many Bavarians are drunkards, but according to the Bible Christianity and alcoholism are not compatible. Consequence: Most Catholics are only nominal Christians. That is also valid for most of the Protestants (cheap grace). Anabaptists are anyway no Christians though they presume to be the only Christians. Muslims are anyway Antichristian. Forget this world.
You, sir, are an intolerant religious bigot. A judgemental bigot. The manner in which you judge will me the manner you are judged.
I only judge bigoted beliefs (Islam, Catholicism, Anabaptism, etc.); I don't judge single persons no matter what they belief.
And drinking to exess is what the Bible is talking about as the sin, Rainier. You're just using your interpretation to demonize the different denominations of Christianity that you don't like. Again.
In daily life I only meet extrem sinners. Where are all the so-called Christians? Do they have the same life at Sunday and during the workweek?
Your beliefs are bigoted, Rainier! How do you not see that?
I am not bigioted at all. You err thoroughly. I share the liberal atti-tudes of Benjamin Franklin and Frederic the Great, King od Pruzzia and leader of Enlightenment.
You clearly do not know what bigoted means.
People probably run from you when they see you coming; if a person I was around daily condemned me for breathing the way you seem to, you would not learn one thing about my beliefs...
Ben Franklin owned slaves, was a womanizer, and stank heavily.
You have odd idols.
Everybody knows that Benjamin Franklin was a great man. He had got great insight.
Franklin, by your own standards, was a great sinner.
Apparently owning slaves, fornicating, and drinking to excess is permissible if they possess great insight.
You have differing standards for different people?
Maybe there was a time when he converted?
Maybe you're grasping at straws?
He was a Deist who still considered Christian. He wasn't the be-all to end all saint that you'd like him to be, intellect aside.
He's worth admiring as an intellect. He is not the perfect Christian ideal, and if you are going to pattern your behavior after his, you are giving yourself license to be very, very badly behaved.
And as the Nazi regime admired Frederick the Great, and his style of warring despotism, I will have to respectfully disagree that he was the idea of Christian perfection...
Conversion by force? This is what you aspire to?
Does God have a prayer in Hollywood?
Lolololol....all one has to do is look at the mid-west and south and see how those phony preachers are raking in the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ FROM THEIR SHEEP.......anything including the CREATIONIST MUSEUM as long as it has anything to do with the fictional bible will clean up....those bible backs can't throw their $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ fast enough when they think its a bible story.....lolol....who was it that said....THERE'S A SUCKER BORN EVERY 10 SECONDS?
When Neil deGrasse Tyson warns of the 15% of brilliant scientists who believe in a personal God, one has to wonder about some of the types that make up that group. If I look at geologist Andrew Snelling, I have to wonder about his real commitment to his god when it's clear as day that he has sold (literally) two different stories about dating methods at the same time. He obtained his credentials and has consulted with teams of scientists dating rock around where uranium deposits were in the hundreds and thousands of millions of years. Yet, sometimes simultaneously in his career, he was working for the Institute of Creation Research as "Associate Professor of Geology". His publications promoting the young-earth view are easily found on the Answers in Genesis website just by searching for his name there. Dr. Alex Ritchie, geologist, University of Edinburgh has asked "Will the Real Dr. Snelling Please Stand Up?"
The a in G site is hilarious. They specifically say that if something goes against the bible, then it must be wrong. Hilarious.
Not so funny as it is pathetically and sadly stupid.
Right Doris....sadly many times these scientist will sell out reality to make a buck...and then others have friends and families and they can feel unwelcome WHEN being too scientific ...but the anonymous surveys I'm seen list 96% of scientist believe in the LAWS OF PHYSICS.
People would rather believe that we beat the mathematically absurd odds of everything falling together with chance, than believe a story that makes sense, and from evidence that is getting clearer, is true. Yet they call it a fairy tale. You look at a car and you know it has a designer. You look at a painting, and you know it had a painter. You look at a building, and you know it had an architect. But yet all these things are infinitesimally less complex than the simplest cell of life and you cant see that it needed a designer? Who really has their heads in the clouds.
Which would be true if any evolutionary biologist or abiogenist believed it happened in one step. But they don't. Nobody does. The only book I know that makes the absurd assertion that life popped into existence from nonliving matter in an instant is the Bible.
All those things were designed, by men. Gods and religions were also created by men. There have been thousands of them, you must agree that man has created thousands of Gods and religions, right?
how does a creator imply a God?
James
If your premise is true, that complex things need a "designer" which is a false premise, but let's say you are right. Then your creator must be even more complex, so would need a "designer" and that designer would need a designer, etc. etc. etc.
Your argument holds no weight.
Hahahahahahahhahahahahaha.......you BIBLE BACKS always mix apples and oranges to arrive at the answers you NEED.
"People would rather believe that we beat the mathematically absurd odds of everything falling together with chance"
No one is saying that everything fell together by chance. You're lying.
"than believe a story that makes sense"
The idea of man coming from dirt and god spit makes sense to you? Talking snakes, voices from burning shrubbery and a man living inside a whale make sense to you?
"and from evidence that is getting clearer, is true."
Show us this evidence, and become rich and famous. No one has been able to do it so far.
Don Quixote, Huck Finn, 1984, War and Peace, Catcher in the Rye, Moby Dick, etc., are all fiction. Fiction can be a very effective way to teach us about ourselves. Ancient fiction can still teach, e.g. the Iliad and the Odyssey. It's best if you don't forget they are fiction.
CNN has it wrong, what is Hollywood going to do without God? Does Hollywood have a prayer
I wonder why God caused you to misspell his son's name?
Why does Hollywood need a prayer? A good mayor would be better.
PS: Jesus is Lord is 100% Pure Bullshit!
Prayer takes people away from actually working on real solutions to their problems.
Prayer has been shown to have no discernible effect towards what was prayed for.
Prayer makes you frothy like Rick Santorum. Just go to http://santorum.com to find out more.
Prayer prevents you from getting badly needed exercise.
Prayer makes you fat, pale, weak, and sedentary.
Prayer wears out your clothes prematurely.
Prayer contributes to global warming through excess CO2 emissions.
Prayer fucks up your knees and your neck and your back.
Prayer can cause heart attacks, especially among the elderly.
Prayer reveals how stupid you are to the world.
Prayer exposes your backside to pervert priests.
Prayer makes you think doilies are exciting.
Prayer makes you secretively flatulent and embarrassed about it.
Prayer makes your kids avoid spending time with you.
Prayer gives you knobbly knees.
Prayer makes you frothy like Rick Santorum. Just google him to find out or go to santorum.com
Prayer dulls your senses.
Prayer makes you post really stupid shit.
Prayer makes you hoard cats.
Prayer makes you smell like shitty kitty litter and leads you on to harder drugs.
Prayer wastes time.
Love this....the truth be told...PRAYER is for the passive aggressive sitting on the sofa wanting to feel empowered as if they are actually involved and can influence the situation making a GOOD DIFFERENCE when actually IT'S A FORM OF useless SELF-MASTURBATION.
We do very well in Hollywood without god.....thank the universe..
As long as there are millions of Christians with loose pursestrings out there, willing to watch, read, listen to and attend anything that agrees with their beliefs, Hollywood will be right there like everyone else with looking to make a buck.
Ponderously Boring Rainer Helmut Braendlein, sequester your mustard. Don't obfuscate the primary prenuptials with rasberries. Often, the pertinent cat presents fabled necessities in the parking chamfer. Realize your net precedent. Triangulate! Save the best for the alligators. Ever the bastille notches the orchestra but Wendy is not green and horses will capitulate. Filter out the log from the turnstile and cry prevalently.
So there brown stare. Feed your inner walnut and resolve. Subject your lemon to the ingenious door in the presence of snow and animals. Aisle 7 is for the monetary cheese whiz. Faced with the kitchen, you may wish to prolong the sailboat in the cliff. Otherwise, rabbits may descend on your left nostril. Think about how you can stripe the sea.
Regale the storm to those who (6) would thump the parrot with the armband. Corner the market on vestiges of the apparent closure but seek not the evidential circumstance. Therein you can find indignant mountains of pigs and apples. Descend eloquently as you debate the ceiling of your warning fulcrum. Vacate the corncob profusely and and don’t dote on the pancreas.
Next up, control your wood. Have at the cat with your watch on the fore. Aft! Smarties (12)! Rome wasn’t kevetched in an autumn nightie. (42) See yourself for the turntable on the escalator. Really peruse the garage spider definitely again again with brown. Now we have an apparent congestion, so be it here. Just a moment is not a pod of beef for the ink well nor can it be (4) said that Karen was there in the millpond.
Garbage out just like the candle in the kitty so. Go, go, go until the vacuum meets the upward vacation. Sell the yellow. Then trim the bus before the ten cheese please Louise. Segregate from the koan and stew the ship vigorously.
Matthew 24: 37-39
But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. 38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
So, this Old Testament story of Noah has something to do with us according to Apostle Matthew. Noah was called a "preacher of righeousness" (by Apostle Peter). Regretably, the contemporaries of Noah, save some relatives, did not accept the message of Noah about the Redeemer to come (today we know his name: Jesus from Nazareth). This Redeemer had instructed Noah to construct the ark. Noah and his relatives were like a little church – they did not commit the sins of their contemporaries, but practiced love of neighbour, and loved God. People knew that they had to repent, if they wanted to join Noah's little community, but that had meant some disadvantages for them because the multi-tude would never repent, and remain proud and brutal. How to survive as a meek and humble believer amongst a bulk of brutal and proud beasts?
We today know the Gospel of Jesus Christ who died and rose for us in order to set us free. But we consider too much the disadvantages we had to face, if we would repent. Of course, we had to face some material loss, loss of some beneficial relations, honor and power, if we would repent. But on the other hand God would give us an eternal reward: Everlasting fellowship with God who is the source of life, love, happyness, health, fellowship, etc.
Accept Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as your personal saviour right now. Repent, believe, and get sacramentally baptized, and the sacramental baptism will carry you through by connecting you with the releasing power of Jesus death and resurrection. A baptized person has died for the sin, and entered Christ. In Christ we are able to live a life of love of neighbour and righteousness despite our sinful, selfish nature. If we keep this faith up to the end of our life, God will not judge us, but we will inherit the Kingdom of God.
Of course no one really knows who authored Matthew.
2 Peter 2: 4-8
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment; 5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; 7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: 8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
Of course no one really know who authored Peter 2. And that doesn't say much for the alleged approval stamp given their for Paul and his "Word".
given there
Ah, yes....
Where would any discussion be without The Voice Of God (TM) (a.k.a. Rainy) bloviating on and on about sin?
1 Peter 3: 18-22
For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit: 19 By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison; 20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water. 21 The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ: 22 Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject unto him.
Boring Rainer Helmut Braendlein, sequester your mustard and abolish your putrid leotards. Don't obfuscate the primary prenuptials with rasberries. Often, the pertinent cat presents fabled necessities in the parking chamfer. Realize your net precedent. Triangulate! Save the best for the alligators. Ever the bastille notches the orchestra but Wendy is not green and horses will capitulate. Filter out the log from the turnstile and cry prevalently.
So there brown stare. Feed your inner walnut and resolve. Subject your lemon to the ingenious door in the presence of snow and animals. Aisle 7 is for the monetary cheese whiz. Faced with the kitchen, you may wish to prolong the sailboat in the cliff. Otherwise, rabbits may descend on your left nostril. Think about how you can stripe the sea.
Regale the storm to those who (6) would thump the parrot with the armband. Corner the market on vestiges of the apparent closure but seek not the evidential circumstance. Therein you can find indignant mountains of pigs and apples. Descend eloquently as you debate the ceiling of your warning fulcrum. Vacate the corncob profusely and and don’t dote on the pancreas.
Next up, control your wood. Have at the cat with your watch on the fore. Aft! Smarties (12)! Rome wasn’t kevetched in an autumn nightie. (42) See yourself for the turntable on the escalator. Really peruse the garage spider definitely again again with brown. Now we have an apparent congestion, so be it here. Just a moment is not a pod of beef for the ink well nor can it be (4) said that Karen was there in the millpond.
Garbage out just like the candle in the kitty so. Go, go, go until the vacuum meets the upward vacation. Sell the yellow. Then trim the bus before the ten cheese please Louise. Segregate from the koan and stew the ship vigorously.
I guess the second coming of Christ is very near. Never in the history of the Western World all the churches turned apostate like today: Gay bishops, gay priests and pastors, gay church goers. Ain't I right that that causes God's wrath.
The current world is about to become meaningless in God's eyes, and He will abolish it soon save He sends us a great Reformer like Luther or a great king like Constantine the Great or Frederic the Great. But if such kings could assert oneselves today is extremly questionable.
No, it's not. And your assertion the other day that Jesus really knows the date but is choosing not to tell is complete hogwash. You completely disregard the Scripture you constantly use to back up what you say.
That you think Christianity needs to be reformed says just a bit about you...
A world without a lively church is meaningless in God's eyes. Why should God's patience still wait for the conversion of the sinners, if there is no more lively Church which could lead them to conversion (through the presence of the Spirit)?
Tell me one place on earth where the Holy Spirit is still present. No change, no life without the Spirit and God's presence.
The Holy Spirit dwells within. You desire a *place*. Don't you get it? YOU are the church.
Let people alone. You preach from a bully pulpit.
And you continue to presume to speak for God. You are the worst example of a Christian, not the best.
This movie is based on mostly fiction, not religious or biblical story lines. For starters, flood stories were common in antiquity because people had no way of predicting them or guard against them. So when a flood came it was mostly catastrophic. The further back you go in history, the closer you get to the ice age when the climate on earth was vastly different and more wet. Melting ice sheets must have caused frequent flooding. Since early agriculture took place in flood basins of rivers early civilizations were exposed. I'm sure other commentators have brought this up before, Noah appears to be based on Gilgamesh, an ancient Mesopotamian legend that was actually recorded 5000 years ago, amazingly so. According to biblical timelines Abraham wasn't even born then. He was supposed to have been a resident of Ur, an old Sumerian port city in the Mesopotamian region. Most likely Abraham brought the flood story with him when he immigrated to Palestine, assuming the Abraham story is true. Btw, Ur is located in a river basin that has produced so much sediment that the remains of Ur are now located well inland.
Come on! Here are a few of the many, many reasons why we know the Noah story is sheer nonsense.
Of first and most obvious importance is the fossil record. The fossil record is much, much more than just dinosaurs. Indeed, dinosaurs only get the press because of their size, but they make up less than 1% of the entire fossil record. Life had been evolving on Earth for over 3 thousand million years before dinosaurs evolved and has gone on evolving for 65 million years after the Chicxulub meteor likely wiped them out.
Layered in the fossil record are the Stromatolites, colonies of prokaryotic bacteria, that range in age going back to about 3 billion years, the Ediacara fossils from South Australia, widely regarded as among the earliest multi-celled organisms, the Cambrian species of the Burgess shale in Canada (circa – 450 million years ago) the giant scorpions of the Silurian Period, the giant, wingless insects of the Devonian period, the insects, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, clams, crustaceans of the Carboniferous Period, the many precursors to the dinosaurs, the 700 odd known species of dinosaurs themselves, the subsequent dominant mammals, including the saber tooth tiger, the mammoths and hairy rhinoceros of North America and Asia, the fossils of early man in Africa and the Neanderthals of Europe.
Indeed, the fossil record shows a consistent and worldwide evolution of life on Earth dating back to about 3,500,000,000 years ago. There are literally millions of fossils that have been recovered, of thousands of different species and they are all located where they would be in the geological record if life evolved slowly over billions of years. None of them can be explained by a 6,000 year old Earth and Noah’s flood. Were they all on the ark? What happened to them when it docked?
Not only did a Tyrannosaurus Rex eat a lot of food, but that food was meat- which means its food would itself have to have been fed, like the food of every other carnivore on the ark for the entire 360 odd days Noah supposedly spent on the ark. T-Rex was not even the largest carnivorous dinosaur we know of. Spinosaurus, Argentinosaurus and Carcharodontosaurus were all larger and ate more even meat. Even they were not large enough to bring down the largest sauropods we know of, many species of which weighed in at close to 100 tons and were about 100 feet long. This is in addition to the elephants, hippopotamus, giraffes, and other large extant animals (not to mention the millions of insects, bacteria, mites, worms etc. that would have to be boarded). A bit of “back of the envelope” math quickly shows that “Noah’s Ark” would actually have to have been an armada of ships larger than the D-Day invasion force, manned by thousands and thousands of people – and this is without including the World’s 300,000 current species of plants, none of which could walk merrily in twos onto the ark.
Coming on top of that, of course, there are the various races of human beings. There were no Sub-Saharan Africans, Chinese, Australian Aboriginals, blonde haired Scandinavians, Pygmies or Eskimos on the Ark. Where did they come from?
Oh, second, there are those little things we call oil, natural gas and other fossil fuels. Their mere existence is another independent and fatal blow to the creationists. Speak to any geologist who works for Exxon Mobil, Shell or any of the thousands of mining, oil or natural gas related companies that make a living finding fossil fuels. They will tell you these fossil fuels take millions of years to develop from the remains of large, often Carboniferous Period forests, in the case of coal, or tiny marine creatures in the case of oil. For the fossils to develop into oil or coal takes tens or hundreds of millions of years of “slow baking” under optimum geological conditions. That’s why they are called “fossil fuels.” Have a close look at coal, you can often see the fossilized leaves in it. The geologists know exactly what rocks to look for fossil fuels in, because they know how to date the rocks to tens or hundreds of millions of years ago. Creationists have no credible explanation for this.
Laughingly, most of astronomy and cosmology would be wrong if the creationists were right. In short, as Einstein showed, light travels at a set speed. Space is so large that light from distant stars takes many years to reach the Earth. In some cases, this is millions or billions of years. The fact that we can see light from such far away stars means it began its journey billions of years ago. The Universe must be billions of years old. We can currently see galaxies whose light left home 13, 700,000,000 years ago. Indeed, on a clear night, one can see the collective, misty light of many stars more than 6,000 light years away with the naked eye, shining down like tiny accusatory witnesses against the nonsense of creationism.
In fourth, we have not just carbon dating, but also all other methods used by scientists to date wood, rocks, fossils, and other artifacts. These comprehensively disprove the Bible’s claims. They include uranium-lead dating, potassium-argon dating as well as other non-radioactive methods such as pollen dating, dendrochronology and ice core dating. In order for any particular rock, fossil or other artifact to be aged, generally two or more samples are dated independently by two or more laboratories in order to ensure an accurate result. If results were random, as creationists claim, the two independent results would rarely agree. They generally do. They regularly reveal ages much older than Genesis. Indeed, the Earth is about 750,000 times older than the Bible claims, the Universe about three times the age of the Earth.
Next, fifth, the relatively new field of DNA mapping not only convicts criminals, it shows in undeniable, full detail how we differ from other life forms on the planet. For example, about 98.4% of human DNA is identical to that of chimpanzees, about 97% of human DNA is identical to that of gorillas, and slightly less again of human DNA is identical to the DNA of monkeys. This gradual divergence in DNA can only be rationally explained by the two species diverging from a common ancestor, and coincides perfectly with the fossil record. Indeed, scientists can use the percentage of DNA that two animal share (such as humans and bears, or domestic dogs and wolves) to get an idea of how long ago the last common ancestor of both species lived. It perfectly corroborates the fossil record and is completely independently developed.
Sixth, the entire field of historical linguistics would have to be rewritten to accommodate the Bible. This discipline studies how languages develop and diverge over time. For example, Spanish and Italian are very similar and have a recent common “ancestor” language, Latin, as most people know. However, Russian is quite different and therefore either did not share a common root, or branched off much earlier in time. No respected linguist anywhere in the World traces languages back to the Tower of Babel, the creationists’ simplistic and patently absurd explanation for different languages. Indeed, American Indians, Australian Aboriginals, “true” Indians, Chinese, Mongols, Ja.panese, Sub-Saharan Africans and the Celts and other tribes of ancient Europe were speaking thousands of different languages thousands of years before the date creationist say the Tower of Babel occurred – and even well before the date they claim for the Garden of Eden.
Seventh, lactose intolerance is also a clear vestige of human evolution. Most mammals only consume milk as infants. After infancy, they no longer produce the enzyme “lactase” that digests the lactose in milk and so become lactose intolerant. Humans are an exception and can drink milk as adults – but not all humans – some humans remain lactose intolerant. So which humans are no longer lactose intolerant? The answer is those who evolved over the past few thousand years raising cows. They evolved slightly to keep producing lactase as adults so as to allow the consumption of milk as adults. This includes most Europeans and some Africans, notably the Tutsi of Rwanda. On the other hand, most Chinese, native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, whose ancestors did not raise cattle, remain lactose intolerant.
I could go on and elaborate on a number of other disciplines or facts that creationists have to pretend into oblivion to retain their faith, including the Ice Ages, cavemen and early hominids, much of microbiology, paleontology and archeology, continental drift and plate tectonics. Even large parts of medical research would be rendered unusable but for the fact that monkeys and mice share a common ancestor with us and therefore our fundamental cell biology and basic body architecture is identical to theirs.
In short, and not surprisingly, the World’s most gifted evolutionary biologists, astronomers, cosmologists, geologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, historians, modern medical researchers and linguists (and about 2,000 years of accu.mulated knowledge) are right and a handful of Iron Age Middle Eastern goat herders copying then extant mythology were wrong. Creationists aren’t just trying to swim upstream against the weight of scientific evidence; they are trying to ascend a waterfall.
All this is probably why evolution is taught in every major university and college biology program in the World. Not 99% of them, but EVERY one. Universities with extensive evolutionary biology departments include Oxford University, Cambridge University and the Imperial College in England, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Germany, the École Normale Supérieure and École Polythecnique in France and Leiden University in the Netherlands and the Swiss Federal Insti.tute of Technology in Switzerland. This is just a sample. ALL university and colleges in Europe teach evolution as a fundamental component of biology.
The number of universities and colleges in Europe with a creation science department: ZERO. The number of tenured or even paid professors who teach creation science at any of these universities or colleges: ZERO
In the United States, the following Universities have extensive evolutionary biology departments staffed by thousands of the most gifted biologists in the World; Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Colombia, Duke, the Massachusetts Insti.tute of Technology, Brown, Stanford, Berkley, and the University of Chicago. These are just some of the more prestigious examples. Again, ALL university and colleges in the USA with tertiary level biology classes teach evolution as a fundamental component of biology.
The number of universities and colleges in the United States with a creation science department: ZERO The number of tenured or even paid professors who teach creation science at any of these universities or colleges: ZERO
In Australia and Asia, the following universities and colleges have extensive evolutionary biology departments manned by more of the most gifted biological scientists in the World; Monash University in Melbourne, The University of New South Wales, Kyoto University in Ja.pan, Peking University in China, Seoul University in Korea, the University of Singapore, National Taiwan University, The Australian National University, The University of Melbourne, and the University of Sydney.
The number of universities and colleges in Australia and Asia with a creation science department: ZERO The number of tenured or even paid professors who teach creation science at any of these universities or colleges: ZERO
The most prestigious scientific publications in the Western World generally accessible to the public include: The Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, Scientific American, Science, New Scientist, Cosmos and Live Science.
Every month, one or more of them publishes a peer reviewed article highlighting the latest developments in evolution. The amount of any creationist science articles published in ANY of these prestigious publications; ZERO.
I could repeat the above exercise for the following disciplines, all of which would have to be turned on their heads to accommodate creation science – paleontology, archeology, geology, botany, marine biology, astronomy, medicine, cosmology and historical linguistics.
Nearly every scientific society, representing hundreds of thousands of scientists, have issued statements rejecting intelligent design and a peti.tion supporting the teaching of evolutionary biology was endorsed by 72 US Nobel Prize winners.
Number of creation science Nobel Prize winners: ZERO
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society with more than 130,000 members and over 262 affiliated societies and academies of science including over 10 million individuals, has made several statements and issued several press releases in support of evolution.
Number made in support of creation science: ZERO
According to The International Federation of Biologists, there are more than 3 million biological scientists globally who rely on the 5 laws of Darwinian evolution for their jobs every single day.
There appears to be three possible explanations for all this:
(i) there is a worldwide conspiracy of universities, colleges and academic publications, including all their hundreds of thousands of professors, editors, reviewers, and support staff, to deny creation science;
(ii) creationists have a startling new piece of evidence that was right before our eyes that will turn accepted biological science and about 10 other sciences on their heads if ONLY people would listen to them, no doubt earning them a Nobel Prize and a place in history beside the likes of Darwin, Newton and Einstein; or
(iii) your average creationist is a complete blowhard who has never studied one subject of university level biology, never been on an archaeological dig, never studied a thing about paleontology, geology, astronomy, linguistics or archaeology, but feels perfectly sure that they know more than the best biologists, archaeologists, paleontologists, doctors, astronomers botanists and linguists in the World because their mommy and daddy taught them some comforting stories from Bronze Age Palestine as a child.
I know which alternative my money is on!
NAA NAA NAA NAA NAA !!! (eyes closed, fingers plugging ears) NAA NAA NAA NAA !!!!
Si.
Haven't you heard? God put all those fossils in the ground to test our faith. The Bible says so. Oh wait, it doesn't. But he could have, and that proves it's true, right?
I thought it was Satan who put the fossils in the ground as a preemptive strike to try to mislead people. Christianity is confusing.
The ark story is a fairytale for children. Possibly more than any other biblical tale it ignores science and hard realities on a grand scale, forcing Christians to engage in a flood (pun intended) of speculation unsupported by anything in the biblical telling of the story to address glaring inconsistencies between the story the bible tells and what we know about the earth, plant and animal species and how they are distributed on the planet.
Regardless of the question you pose to Christians about the ark story the answer is always the same: "Well, God could have blah, blah, blah." It's always speculation unsupported by any facts, evidence or even the biblical account itself.
It's a story you can get a child to believe because the average child knows nothing of biological diversity and probably thinks there are no more than 50 species of animals and assumes they all lived close to where Noah supposedly build the ark. Nor would a child think to question how Noah could store enough food to feed all of those animals for 40 days. The panda pair alone would need 40 tons of bamboo shoots and leaves.
Let's see, there were eight people available to care for more than 20,000 species of mammals, reptiles and birds, so each one of those people was responsible for the care of at least 5,000 specimens a day, or about one every 17 seconds if that's all they did for 24 hours a day.
"But God could have..."
Yeah, sure he could have. Or the whole story could be a fairytale that never happened. That would explain everything in one felled swoop.
guess that is why it is called faith
YEs, and why it is called a delusion. Dawkins could not have named his bestseller, "The God Delusion," any better.
Two blowhards... Colin and Dawkins. What a laugh. Never seen a more bitter elitist such as. Dawkins.
You post above must of take an hour to type out, it was so long. Does it prove anything really?
It proves that many believe in evolution, even macro evolution, an unproven theory.
Intelligent design could have happened through evolution.. Did you ever think about that?
Where can we find your scholarly article successfully debunking evolution? Please point to a single scholarly article in a reputable peer reviewed scientific journal that successfully concludes with some (alleged but never proven) god did it.
sane
There is no such thing as macro and micro evolution. That is just a smoke screen by creationists.
While it is possible there is a "creator", it is also possible that it is not at all sentient, and there are many , many other possiblities. To date, there is asbolutely no sign of any sentient "creator" anywhere, so all you jave is a god hypothesis...there isn't enough to go on for it to even be a theory.
saneandreasonable – it took me an hour because that's how much evidence there is out there against the infantile "six days and a talking snake" view of the World. Honestly, in any country other than the USA, sites like CNN would not even see these debates. The USA is the only developed nation on Earth where Bronze Age Jewish mythology is still believed by some otherwise educated people.
That intelligent design still has legs in the USA today is not just evidence, it is proof that the education system in this nation is a dismal failure.
And I challenge you to rebut Colin's post point by point. I don't think you can but there might be some entertainment value in the drivel I expect you will present, if you present anything at all.
I expect he won't HAA, they rarely do. All I ever get is "wow, you must be bitter" or "but, but, but, evolution is only a theory." The latter is even more nauseating than the former because it betrays a gross ignorance of what a scientific theory is. It also ignores mountains upon mountains of evidence.
Agreed on all points. I figure he's about 2 hours away from running away. They just don't make believers like they used to. But he might be back if his Sunday School teacher can buck him up.
Yeah, I miss the good old days when you could find a Christian who could articulate an argument. I even miss that guy "Chad". At least he knew more than your average Christian.
@insaneandillogical
You must not have much confidence in your story if everyone who disagrees with you is "bitter". LOL. Are you a junior high school girl? That's pretty much how their "logic" works too.
@saneandreasonable: "Two blowhards... Colin and Dawkins. What a laugh. Never seen a more bitter elitist such as. Dawkins."
Ad hominem and name-calling. Not very Christian behavior, more like evidence that Christianity is a fraud.
"You post above must of take an hour to type out, it was so long."
First, it's "must've," a contraction of "must have," not "must of." If you're going to base your entire defense on insulting other people's intelligence try to avoid really dumb grammatical errors.
Second, this is a truly childish comment, more evidence that you have no counterargument and that Christianity is a fraud.
"Does it prove anything really?"
Does your comment?
"Intelligent design could have happened through evolution."
Ah yes, a "could have" argument, pure speculation in an attempt to justify clinging to what you believe.
"Did you ever think about that?"
Did you ever think about the fact that you are representative of your Christ, and that your behavior is evidence that even you don't believe what you claim to believe?
So, eight hours later and saneandreasonable has not rebutted anything Colin posted. And no other believer has jumped in. One can only conclude believers cannot rebut Colin, that he is correct on all points. Congrats, Colin!!
That's why it's called a fairytale. People like you call refusing to accept reality "faith" because that makes an inability to accept reality sound noble.
Obviously, you are thinking like a ignorant human. Who said the animals were adult animals?!?!? And God didn't need to save every variation of a species. For example, only one male and one female horse needed saving. MICRO-evolution is possible WITHIN it's OWN SPECIES! It's the stupidity of atheists that believe in MACRO-evolution, that one species can change to another.
You fvcking simpleton. Learn some middle school biology. Only religious nuts draw that artificial distinction. No biologist does.
totaire
Ahhh, another one who claims micro and macro evolution. That is just a smoke screen used by creationists. There really is no such thing. There is evolution...there is not micro or macro evolution.
Two animals of every species boarded the Ark and resided for several weeks. Many were carnivores . So I suppose they must have become vegetarian during that phase , otherwise there would be no antelope, deer, goats etc etc. But quite a bit of inbreeding no doubt .Nothing viable came off the Ark. Maybe Noah and his inbred family.
The story is a fable , much like the rest of the Bible or other holy books from the various religions. Be governed by its teachings if you like , interpreting it literally is narrow minded and completely and utterly without any foundation. Bling Faith is a dangerous thing!
A film based on a fairy tail seems OK to me even if "artistic license " is taken.
That Glen Beck deems it sacrilegious , in all likelihood means I will see the film – thanks Glen.
Obviously you aren't thinking at all, and are just vomiting back whatever you hear from the pulpit.
You're thinking like a good Christian, which means you're speculating with no supporting evidence and rationalizing. Then anyone who doesn't just accept your unfounded speculations is ignorant and deserves ridicule. Your behavior is hardly a shining example of Christian teachings. You did exactly what I said Christians always do.
If Hollywood would follow the Bible and Christian beliefs, then Biblical movies would be the biggest hits ever!!! They could make billions!!!! But, no, liberal Hollywood doesn't want to give popularity to Christianity! They just want to undermine the Bible and mock Christians. And that's what they did with the movie "Noah".
The ark story is so unrealistic that any telling of it makes Christians look like fools for believing it actually happened.
Isn't that Hollywood's agenda, to make the Christians look like fools ?
Well, to be honest, they do a pretty good job all by themselves....
A Hollywood agenda is not required – christians do it by themselves, no assistance required.
The point is they have to.
Otherwise how do they reconcile their beliefs in decadence and decay.
no, i think that is the agenda of christian posters to these blogs
their beliefs in decadence and decay?
yikes
"The point is they have to. Otherwise how do they reconcile their beliefs in decadence and decay."
Another one who regurgitates whatever Pastor PiousAss says from the pulpit. This one is laughable.
How right you are. I bucked it when I was 8 yo and nothing has come close to swaying me differently over the past 35 years since.
Right. They are turning down the possibility of making the "biggest hits ever" so they can push an agenda.
I suppose if you start your own film company and make such movies, you can be rich and famous
Better yet, avoid all that capital cost and write a movie based on what (you think) would be bible based priciples.
Consider how much you will be in favor with god for bringing billions of people to his side
Get working on it now. Don't waste time on the CNN blogs a$$wipe
It's already in the works.
"God and the mystical kingdom of gaydom"
staring Tom Hanks and Lady Gaga.
coming soon to a theater near you.
You're awfully hung up on "gaydom", log jam eyes.
There he goes protesting loudly again...
I bet if they filmed some of those Old Testament stories verbatim they'd be hits. Like this one:
"And he smote the men of Bethshemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD, even he smote of the people fifty thousand and threescore and ten men: and the people lamented, because the LORD had smitten many of the people with a great slaughter." (I Samuel 6:19)
Or this one:
"And he brought forth the people that were therein, and put them under saws, and under harrows of iron, and under the axes of iron, and made them pass through the brickkiln: and thus did he unto all the cities of the children of Ammon. So David and all the people returned unto Jerusalem." (II Samuel 12:31)
Or this:
"Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." (I Samuel 15:2-3)
This one sounds a little more introspective/art house:
"The righteous shall rejoice when he sees the vengeance. He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (Psalms 58:10)
People love violent movies.
Reblogged this on Perspectives and Musings.