Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
You are so right. It's way too hard for God to get two penguins into a ark. You have proved to me that God does not exist. Well done Dennis. Pravo. Thank you Banned.
Don't you know that everything written in the bible is "God breathed" including the story of the ark. Never mind the fact that the ark wasn't nearly large enough to be able to fit the millions of species of animals on it. That animals from Australia, animals from the Amazon rain forests and remote areas of the globe had to travel thousands of miles, swim across oceans cross deserts and scale mountain peaks to get to the ark. Never mind the fact that many of the animals that would have had to travel through unfamiliar habitat that didn't even have the food that they had to eat to live. You just have to accept the story of the ark as fact. God can make anything happen. If you don't believe that the flood happened you just lack faith!
I think the logistics would have been overwhelming. They would have spent all day feeding and cleaning up after the animals. How much of the space inside was for hay, what were the meat eaters fed, did they have to haul all the poo all the way to the top and dump it overboard? Maybe the animals were put in some sort of hibernation mode for the entire time and woke up when it was time to leave. I bet the smell of urine was overpowering down below. Too many questions and not enough answers. Not saying it didn't happen but there's more to the story than just simply putting animals in a boat and off you go.
Anonymous said... You are so right. It's way too hard for God to get two penguins into a ark. You have proved to me that God does not exist. Well done Dennis. Pravo. Thank you Banned.
Glad to help however, I am detecting a note of sarcasm! lol. But I get it. God could have also prevented everything and everyone on earth from being thrown at over 1000 mph due east when:
"The Day the Sun (Earth) Stood Still Joshua 10:
…12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down almost a full day.” 14There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man, because the LORD fought for Israel.…
and too... an author must have realized along the way in the edits that the story needed to address the fact that if only two of every clean thing were taken, they risked a good chance of going extinct when eaten by man shortly after landing. Thus..
Gen 7:2 "Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,"
I'm not sure if Penguins are clean or not
The "God could have" apologetic is simply rewriting the story to our need and tastes but is not really part of the tale. I can imagine Noah wondering more than not "What the hell is this creature and how do I take care of it!" since I doubt unfamiliar creatures brought in from all over the planet because God could do it, came with instructions and associated warnings about possible danger. Oh wait, God could have tamed them for the trip. My bad :)
It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that the pair of mosquitoes on the ark brought with them the malaria virus, and all the other diseases that they transmit to humans. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that the pair of flies had the diseases they transmit to humans. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure the breeding pair of rats had fleas carrying the black death virus. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that head lice was on the ark, parasitic eye worms were on the ark, and all other parasites and diseases were on the ark, so that none of them would die out. Noah and his family must have been one sickly, disgusting family to have all those diseases and parasites infesting them. All so they could be transmitted to future descendants.
Penguins wouldn't have drowned in the Flood. Noah only had to preserve those animals that could neither swim nor fly.
On the other hand, there are some animals, including many worms and insects, that do not swim but do not have male/female gender divisions. If you believe in a literal reading of the Bible, Noah could not have obeyed God's instructions to save those animals that reproduce without two genders. Also, Noah could have saved room on the ark by including just the female of the various species that have male and female gender but that can reproduce without the male if necessary. But that would have been rebellion against God's instructions.
well, since penguins live in an environment similar to whales and dolphins and such, it's unlikely there was any need for them to be on the ark....just sayin'
The modus ponens that you are intended to derive from this is: "If the Flood account is untrue, then there is no God." This post is about affirming the antecedent. The problem is that this instance of modus ponens is untrue. In fact, the consequent is a non-sequitur in this context. The Flood account, as described, can be decidedly false and this does not prove that there is no God.
Currently, in the USA, belief in the Bible as the literal word of God is in decline. But belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God is on the increase. This is an inconvenient trend for atheists. So the do not speak to such trends - they instead rant about easier targets that are passing from the scene.
The Flood may have been entirely allegorical. My belief is that it is likely that a flood did happen but was a local disaster that wiped out some villages in the Tigris/Eurphrates basin. These villages were inhabited by many of the descendants of a man called Adam. This local event was mapped into the OT as a global event. Hebrew words have multiple meanings, so there is room for translators to make decisions and yet seem to be faithful in their art. Local and global versions in this case can be derived from the same Hebrew Flood account. The point of the account is theological and not geological.
The problem with atheists is that they are always denying god but can't really seem to define who god is. And they are always claiming profound victory based on some argument of mistaken applicability.
Dennis Diehl reminds us what an incredible miracle God pulled off "The Day the Sun (Earth) Stood Still Joshua 10) when he kept everything from being "thrown at over 1000 mph due east."
It would be almost impossible to do now. At that time it was a slick trick, but not all that miraculous, considering that this all happened before God had updated the Universe. The earth still consisted of an immovable flat disk at the center of everything, with the sun, moon, and stars ensconced on a firmament that rotated overhead. All he had to do was stop the rotation of the firmament long enough to give Joshua's army enough light to gain a great and noble victory by hunting down and killing all the defeated enemy soldiers trying desperately to leave the battlefield and go home to their families.
The more astonishing mystery is how God kept this adjustment in the length of one day out of the historical records of every other culture on the earth. How did he redirect everyone's attention long enough to keep them from noticing? Or did he let them notice and afterward send angels who looked like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith dressed in black and carrying one of those memory-deleting devices to erase the episode from the minds of all witnesses? Absolutely amazing the things an omnipotent god can accomplish.
If you were an extraterrestrial visitor, with the technology to fly to Earth from your home planet many light years away, you could easily put into place some kind of light deflector/dampener that would create the effect described in Joshua.
You could also give Moses a very heavy energy-beam weapon, as dscribed in Exodus, that would vanquish Israel's enemies but only for so long as Moses could hold up his arms to operate it (it was obviously designed to be operated by taller, stronger extraterrestrials).
Human beings are creative. If we want to explain something, we can come up with ways to do so. Especially when we aren't bound by Ockham's Razor to come up with the most logical or most efficient explanations.
The day the earth stood still in Joshua 10 could have been achieved by bending the light hitting the earth. So there's no lost time or days. All this ongoing poking of 'holes' in the bible. Why bother if the bible is a sopposed fake.
It's also interesting that civilizations flourished all over the world during that time, including Central America without so much as a burp and never noticed or mentioned the flood. In just a few years, according to that impossible account, millions of people were suddenly all over the earth like nothing ever happened. It takes centuries to build up populations through natural birth cycles. Faith wipes out reason and makes in incomprehensible in the mind of true believers. It surprises me that I was ever deluded enough to take this fanciful tale seriously. Such is the power of truly blind faith.
The more astonishing mystery is how God kept this adjustment in the length of one day out of the historical records of every other culture on the earth.
There remains one planet-wide mystery not addressed by your considerations. Why is it almost universal that civilizations existing in the second millennium BC and earlier make use of a 360-day solar year and 30-day lunar month, but only in the first millennium BC get around to the problem of reconciling those numbers with the 365.2422-day year and 29.53 day lunar month? Was there some cosmic disturbance ca. 800 BC that threw old calendars into disarray? Or were ancient civilizations just lazy, despite what we have learned about the Babylonian astronomers and their supposed love of precision? The Bible doesn't give us a clear answer, but then again neither do any other ancient records.
History, both secular and religious, is a fable, conceived in self-serving deceit and promulgated by those who perceive benefit. After perusing documents from the Vatican library Napoleon said history was a fabrication. Henry Ford commissioned a group of scholars to study the real powers behind governmental and religious institutions, then stated, "History is bunk." Today, American school books are being rewritten to credit the accomplishments of White people to the colored races. It appears that future generations will be taught that Martin Luther King was the central figure in American history, that Oswald assassinated President Kennedy, that David Koresh and the innocent victims of Federal murderers at Waco, Texas were dangerous child molesters, and that the alleged holocaust of six million Jews in World War 2 is the most important event in history. This is only a tiny example of the falsity of history as related in just the twentieth century. The fact is power systems, both secular and religious, have created, altered, invented, slanted, back-dated and propagandized historical and current events for political purposes always. The propaganda of the victors becomes the history of the vanquished. We must remember this maxim when reading establishment versions of past events. Had England won the American Revolutionary War, George Washington would have been hanged for treason and for over 200 years his name would have been reviled in school textbooks. Had the followers of Woden/Odin/Wotan won the 1,000 year war between Roman Judeo-Christianity and the followers of the White man's organic, native religion, Christianity would have been labeled a religion of superstitious ignorance and the White race would not face near-certain extinction from infiltrators who brought us mass immigration from the third world.
Dennis, as usual, you spark interest and inspire comments, but you will never open a closed mind. But please don't stop trying. The Noah myth is a doozy! And Ken Ham is special--"special needs" that is. Seth Andrews and "The Thinking Atheist" have some interesting you tube videos. Another fundamentalist who left the faith/woke up.
Anon June 12 at 10:19, don't forget that back then pi was an even 3.00. Something must have happened to geometry at the same time years and months (and probably days) were changing in length.
As I said before, amazing what an omnipotent god can accomplish.
If there is a God and he is all powerful, he could have moved the animals to the ark much as he did Elijah. Up, up and Away!!!! As for the number of animals, he didn't need pairs of each type of dog, only one set of dogs, or wolves, etc. He could have put them all in hibernation so that they didn't need to be fed or cleaned up after. If, there is a God, he could have figured out a way. As for the sun standing still, well, we say that they sun rises and sets each day, though that is not what happens, it just appears to do that. Perhaps the sun standing still is just a figure of speech. There are reasonable answers to these objections to what we read in Scripture. Plus, we may not be correct in our understanding of what we read, this may cause problems for us also.
The nut on the wheel says, this thread was perfectly designed just so I can fit onto it. I am the purpose of the universe. The bolt says, rubbish, the nut was designed for me. I am the purpose of the universe. The axle says, you are both wrong, the design of the whole car revolves around me. I am the center of the universe.
The atheist says they are all wrong. They are all egotistical. So the atheist concludes the car could not have been designed. It must have evolved. Even the raw material evolved. In fact the whole universe evolved. Even the laws of physics evolved. Nobody knows how or what they evolved out of, but that's irrelevant. Carl Sagan is always right. He is God. The fact that the laws of physics make cars and life possible is immaterial. Take it on faith.
Here is further evidence that Christianity was designed by aliens to make Europeans stupid. The first paragraph is from Manly P. Hall's monumental work "The Secret Teachings of All Ages":
"There are few mature minds in the world, so the philosophical religious structures of the ancients were divided to meet the needs of two fundamental groups of human intellect, one philosophic, the other not capable of appreciating the deeper mysteries of life. To the discerning few were revealed the esoteric teachings while the unqualified masses received only the literal or exoteric interpretations. In order to make simple the great truths and abstract principles of natural law, the vital forces of the universe were personified, becoming the Gods and Goddesses of the ancient mythologies."
Adepts, of course, having created the mythologies, did not believe that a physical Thor caused thunder with a magic hammer, or that a physical Zeus threw lightning bolts from Mount Olympus, or that Isis brought a dismembered Osiris back to life, or that the earth stopped spinning so the Israelites could have extra sunlight in which to slaughter their enemies, or that a physical Jesus raised others or himself from the dead. Undoubtedly, a few of the credulous or simple-minded did indeed take the mythologies literally, just as a few still do today. However, under the Mystery or Pagan religions all were free to pursue deeper knowledge, to "believe" or to ignore both science and religion altogether. This arrangement permitted freedom for the masses and enlightenment for those inclined toward intellectual pursuits. Then came the disaster of 325 AD when decadent Romans led by Constantine conspired with wealthy Jews to force a universal religion on the world.
Tyrannies teach what to think [Armstrong cults, political correctness, Islam, feminism, TV, news media, Holocaust proponents, etc]. Free men learn how to think. Since the words of political and religious prostitutes of the ages and the propaganda they call history have little relation to fact, we must learn how to think if we are to decipher history with any accuracy at all. When judging the writings one encounters, some philosophical principles should be employed. First judge the words, actions and results of all power systems by "who benefits."
Who benefited from Armstrongism? Did the powers-that-be decide to shut it down after it out-lived its usefulness to them?
Retired prof The 360 day solar year is messy in that they had to add a month every so often in order to maintain the relationship with the seasons. Imagine trying to get a univsersal consensus on the details.
Anonymous said... "Dennis, ... you will never open a closed mind."
Especially his own.
I assume you possess the most open and true mind here? Others, especially my own are "Open minds falsely so called"? Remember, one man's scoffer is another's mere observer of what is actually so.
Wow. George Washington would be hanged? What would have become of the slaves he owned. Contemporaries described them as bad dressers too.....and that was when he was alive.
Good point about the "wealthy jews". They disguised themselves as poor persecuted 3rd class passengers in order to force christianity upon america.
And yes those Wotan adherants should have won the war. Ireland is soo much closer and cheaper to find slaves instead of having to haggle with Arabs in Africa.
Yes indeed, this whole slavery thing was just another attempt to get into america without all the red tape and green cards.
Everyone has an open mind. Some are simply open in areas where others are closed. An accusation of closed-mindedness is usually leveled on another individual whom we have been unable to sway to our own beliefs. But, it's a two way street. We are closed minded to his point of view as well. So, open-mindedness and closed mindedness are simply a matter perspective.
I am strongly closed-minded towards Armstrongism, Hitler and his Nazism, communism, racism, and several other very evil and detestable things. And, it is good to be closed-minded towards bad things!
Anonymous said... "I assume you possess the most open and true mind here?"
Maybe, but that was't the point. Just more open than yours.
In what are you more open minded than myself. I consider myself to be still open to all topics, mostly those that pass the test of the scientific method, and can actually be show to more likely true than not. I am more closed to others such as Bible literalism and those who speak for the gods as if they knew. To what do you consider my mind closed? At least give me a chance to say , no I am open to that or , you're right, that one I have generally put aside.
We fought WWII to rid the world of Hitler who we regarded as evil partly because of his act of genocide against one group, the Jews. If the story of the flood is truth, (which I don't believe is) then isn't God many times more evil then Hitler because he almost exterminated "all" races from the face of the Earth! Don't forget that the Nazis convinced the German people that the Jews where vermin that needed to be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Wasn't that the same reason stated in the flood story that God needed to eradicate all races from the face of the Earth and start over again with a handful of people he would use to repopulate the Earth.
The old joke about an open mind is that if you look through one ear you can see daylight on the other side. Dennis- have you considered intelligent design even if the designers are not God? The design of the cell looks like it has been programmed by an intelligence vastly superior to ours.
1. There is no geological evidence of a worldwide flood within the last 6,000 years. 2. If everybody in the world were descended from Noah, all the men in the world would have the same Y chromosome haplogroup. The Ark would have been the world's greatest and most limiting genetic "bottle neck." 3. At the time of the flood, the world was heavily populated with all kinds of people with all kinds of Y chromosome haplogroups. Those haplogroups are still around. The Natufians (12,000 BC to 9,500 BC) were haplogroup E1b and E1b is still extant today. So the people of the globe were not expunged.
Three points on exegesis:
1. In some cases, the Bible uses literary devices such allegory to convey meaning. 2. The Hebrew word eretz may be translated as the "earth" or the "globe" or simply "homeland." The scope of the flood pivots on this term. 3. The Bible is about the Jews. It is not about the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French, the Russians or the Outer Mongolians. All those people are subsumed under the term "Gentile" and Gentiles are bit actors. 4. PBS/Nova has a show on building a ark. It should be watched so and impression can be formed about how technically difficult it is to build such a boat and keep it afloat. And this was a smaller boat than the Biblical Ark.
So consider this simple story arc:
A disastrous flood struck the homeland of the proto-Jews in the Tigres/Eurphrates flood plain (it still floods there today). It killed everybody in these villages except a few who escaped, with their farm animals, to a boat built ahead of time. The ancestral Jews are descended from the people who rode out the lengthy storm. This story was then ornamented and translated until we have the rendition, a mix of history and allegory, we have today as a global account. Whether the story is global or local, the essential principles conveyed remain the same. Atheists will have a field day with this because they are not interested in meaning or insight or morality but in technical minutiae that will permit them to assert deniability.
I should add that some of my ancestors, members of a Plains Indian Tribe, have a version of the Flood account as part of their origin story. The story is that the tribal god caused a great flood to come because the earth was inhabited by wicked giants. The giants were wiped out and a few good people escaped in a big boat.
These Plains Indians crossed to North America from Beringia about 15,000 BP. I have no idea how this story developed. Maybe just and interesting coincidence with the Hebrew story.
2.56 AM The reason people condemn God for the flood is that they know that their own poor character would make them one of its victims. How dare God destroy evil people.
"We fought WWII to rid the world of Hitler who we regarded as evil partly because of his act of genocide against one group, the Jews."
We did not fight Hitler to save the Jews; the holocaust story did not come out until after the war.
But, before the war we knew that Stalin was killing a lot of civilians. Yet we sided with him anyway. He ended up killing at least 20 million civilians. We all know it's true but we don't talk about it much. Why not? Who gains by ignoring the Commie killers? Maybe the Commies? And who controls communism?
The abhorrent Jew-hater at 11:17 AM seems unaware that Western media had begun to report on Nazi genocidal efforts as early as 1939, and even as early as 1944 reported more than 1.7 million confirmed dead in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Meanwhile, ask yourself why Senate leader Mitch McConnell takes money from the Chinese communists who killed 40 million of their own people under Chairman Mao, and why the Clinton Foundation took in more than $100 million of Chinese money. I know there are some sick ex-WCGers who believe that former GTA aide Robert Kuhn is somehow running Chinese communism, and who wonder about LCG evangelist Stuart Wachowicz's role in the Confucius Institute, but the fact that Chinese communists can purchase a greedy minister or two has nothing to do with the historical fact that both Hitler and the USA tried to form alliances of convenience with the Soviet Union.
Anon 11:23 AM is such a toxic anti-Semite that he will never believe what follows, but the truths is that he is misquoting a Talmudic statement. Those words are taken from a Talmudic disputation about the conduct of war. Ordinarily, within Jewish jurisprudence, the "God-fearers" (Gentiles who follow many of the Judaic precepts but without circumcision) are classed as allies of the Jews. The Talmud clarifies, however, that when Egypt pressed the God-fearers' chariots into service (usually piloted by their God-fearer owners), even the God-fearers ("the best of the Gentiles") were to be killed in war.
Using Anon 11:23's method, here are some excerpts from HWA's Mystery of the Ages:
"Become a murderer and a liar."
"Murder, but until caught."
"Kill the Christ-child."
Each of those is an unedited quote presented from HWA's magnum opus, but without the surrounding context, just as Anon 11:23 has done.
9:33 AM seems unaware of Jesus' teaching about the Tower of Siloam. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes the worst things happen to people who aren't the worst.
I was me who reported fron Osh Kirgiztan flipping channels on chinese state television. Suddenly RK was flashed as one of the top 10 foreigners to have influenced the course of modern china.
That was chinese state television heaping that praise upon a man who left BB wondering that WCG was to double in size and triple its income AFTER BB defected for mathematical reasons. (ot didnt add up for him anymore)
Now we are talking a quarter of the world population here!
BTW China is not communist at all, never been communist. It is State Capitalism after a stint of Maoism.
Dr K is an advocate of SME's and the middle class and therefore democracy. However the Chinese decided to pick and choose from the lessons he brought to China through the CEO's of consultancy firms that consulted dr K.
He is a hero of mine and on behalf of his influence on my life I paid respect to the victims of the Armenian death trail at the Deir es Zor monument on Syria just before it was destroyed by Isil.
I said a short prayer there because I know it is a cause dear to his heart.
48 comments:
First of all, that video of the atheist ark encounter was hilarious! Thanks for that Dennis!
It's interesting that Ken Ham is suing his insurance company for flood damage. Perhaps this flooding will go down in the "Epic of Build-a-mesh"
You are so right. It's way too hard for God to get two penguins into a ark. You have proved to me that God does not exist. Well done Dennis. Pravo. Thank you Banned.
Dennis, Dennis, Dennis....
They used their cell phones to get Uber!
The dinosaurs tried Uber too, but they kept eating the drivers, which is why we don't see dinosaurs today.
Don't you know that everything written in the bible is "God breathed" including the story of the ark. Never mind the fact that the ark wasn't nearly large enough to be able to fit the millions of species of animals on it. That animals from Australia, animals from the Amazon rain forests and remote areas of the globe had to travel thousands of miles, swim across oceans cross deserts and scale mountain peaks to get to the ark. Never mind the fact that many of the animals that would have had to travel through unfamiliar habitat that didn't even have the food that they had to eat to live. You just have to accept the story of the ark as fact. God can make anything happen. If you don't believe that the flood happened you just lack faith!
I think the logistics would have been overwhelming. They would have spent all day feeding and cleaning up after the animals. How much of the space inside was for hay, what were the meat eaters fed, did they have to haul all the poo all the way to the top and dump it overboard? Maybe the animals were put in some sort of hibernation mode for the entire time and woke up when it was time to leave. I bet the smell of urine was overpowering down below. Too many questions and not enough answers. Not saying it didn't happen but there's more to the story than just simply putting animals in a boat and off you go.
Anonymous said...
You are so right. It's way too hard for God to get two penguins into a ark. You have proved to me that God does not exist. Well done Dennis. Pravo. Thank you Banned.
Glad to help however, I am detecting a note of sarcasm! lol. But I get it. God could have also prevented everything and everyone on earth from being thrown at over 1000 mph due east when:
"The Day the Sun (Earth) Stood Still Joshua 10:
…12 On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to the Israelites, Joshua spoke to the LORD in the presence of Israel: “O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon.” 13So the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance upon its enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? “So the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down almost a full day.” 14There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man, because the LORD fought for Israel.…
Piece of cake.. :)
and too... an author must have realized along the way in the edits that the story needed to address the fact that if only two of every clean thing were taken, they risked a good chance of going extinct when eaten by man shortly after landing. Thus..
Gen 7:2 "Take with you seven pairs of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and one pair of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,"
I'm not sure if Penguins are clean or not
The "God could have" apologetic is simply rewriting the story to our need and tastes but is not really part of the tale. I can imagine Noah wondering more than not "What the hell is this creature and how do I take care of it!" since I doubt unfamiliar creatures brought in from all over the planet because God could do it, came with instructions and associated warnings about possible danger. Oh wait, God could have tamed them for the trip. My bad :)
It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that the pair of mosquitoes on the ark brought with them the malaria virus, and all the other diseases that they transmit to humans. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that the pair of flies had the diseases they transmit to humans. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure the breeding pair of rats had fleas carrying the black death virus. It was very thoughtful of God to make sure that head lice was on the ark, parasitic eye worms were on the ark, and all other parasites and diseases were on the ark, so that none of them would die out. Noah and his family must have been one sickly, disgusting family to have all those diseases and parasites infesting them. All so they could be transmitted to future descendants.
Dennis,
Penguins wouldn't have drowned in the Flood. Noah only had to preserve those animals that could neither swim nor fly.
On the other hand, there are some animals, including many worms and insects, that do not swim but do not have male/female gender divisions. If you believe in a literal reading of the Bible, Noah could not have obeyed God's instructions to save those animals that reproduce without two genders. Also, Noah could have saved room on the ark by including just the female of the various species that have male and female gender but that can reproduce without the male if necessary. But that would have been rebellion against God's instructions.
I do believe in Quantum Mechanics.
nck
We are little Apps and god runs in the Cloud.
nck
well, since penguins live in an environment similar to whales and dolphins and such, it's unlikely there was any need for them to be on the ark....just sayin'
but you folks have such fun mocking God...
The modus ponens that you are intended to derive from this is: "If the Flood account is untrue, then there is no God." This post is about affirming the antecedent. The problem is that this instance of modus ponens is untrue. In fact, the consequent is a non-sequitur in this context. The Flood account, as described, can be decidedly false and this does not prove that there is no God.
Currently, in the USA, belief in the Bible as the literal word of God is in decline. But belief in the Bible as the inspired word of God is on the increase. This is an inconvenient trend for atheists. So the do not speak to such trends - they instead rant about easier targets that are passing from the scene.
The Flood may have been entirely allegorical. My belief is that it is likely that a flood did happen but was a local disaster that wiped out some villages in the Tigris/Eurphrates basin. These villages were inhabited by many of the descendants of a man called Adam. This local event was mapped into the OT as a global event. Hebrew words have multiple meanings, so there is room for translators to make decisions and yet seem to be faithful in their art. Local and global versions in this case can be derived from the same Hebrew Flood account. The point of the account is theological and not geological.
The problem with atheists is that they are always denying god but can't really seem to define who god is. And they are always claiming profound victory based on some argument of
mistaken applicability.
Dennis Diehl reminds us what an incredible miracle God pulled off "The Day the Sun (Earth) Stood Still Joshua 10) when he kept everything from being "thrown at over 1000 mph due east."
It would be almost impossible to do now. At that time it was a slick trick, but not all that miraculous, considering that this all happened before God had updated the Universe. The earth still consisted of an immovable flat disk at the center of everything, with the sun, moon, and stars ensconced on a firmament that rotated overhead. All he had to do was stop the rotation of the firmament long enough to give Joshua's army enough light to gain a great and noble victory by hunting down and killing all the defeated enemy soldiers trying desperately to leave the battlefield and go home to their families.
The more astonishing mystery is how God kept this adjustment in the length of one day out of the historical records of every other culture on the earth. How did he redirect everyone's attention long enough to keep them from noticing? Or did he let them notice and afterward send angels who looked like Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith dressed in black and carrying one of those memory-deleting devices to erase the episode from the minds of all witnesses? Absolutely amazing the things an omnipotent god can accomplish.
Retired Prof,
If you were an extraterrestrial visitor, with the technology to fly to Earth from your home planet many light years away, you could easily put into place some kind of light deflector/dampener that would create the effect described in Joshua.
You could also give Moses a very heavy energy-beam weapon, as dscribed in Exodus, that would vanquish Israel's enemies but only for so long as Moses could hold up his arms to operate it (it was obviously designed to be operated by taller, stronger extraterrestrials).
Human beings are creative. If we want to explain something, we can come up with ways to do so. Especially when we aren't bound by Ockham's Razor to come up with the most logical or most efficient explanations.
Dennis -- you are ridiculous! Haven't you heard of the PITTSBURGH PENGUINS???
The day the earth stood still in Joshua 10 could have been achieved by bending the light hitting the earth. So there's no lost time or days.
All this ongoing poking of 'holes' in the bible. Why bother if the bible is a sopposed fake.
It's also interesting that civilizations flourished all over the world during that time, including Central America without so much as a burp and never noticed or mentioned the flood. In just a few years, according to that impossible account, millions of people were suddenly all over the earth like nothing ever happened. It takes centuries to build up populations through natural birth cycles. Faith wipes out reason and makes in incomprehensible in the mind of true believers. It surprises me that I was ever deluded enough to take this fanciful tale seriously. Such is the power of truly blind faith.
911. Bending the light? That's a new one! How exactly would that lengthen daylight for a whole day?
NEO. If one denies the existence of a God, one need not define the empty space left by one that is not there . Maybe it's just me..
Retired Prof wrote:
The more astonishing mystery is how God kept this adjustment in the length of one day out of the historical records of every other culture on the earth.
There remains one planet-wide mystery not addressed by your considerations. Why is it almost universal that civilizations existing in the second millennium BC and earlier make use of a 360-day solar year and 30-day lunar month, but only in the first millennium BC get around to the problem of reconciling those numbers with the 365.2422-day year and 29.53 day lunar month? Was there some cosmic disturbance ca. 800 BC that threw old calendars into disarray? Or were ancient civilizations just lazy, despite what we have learned about the Babylonian astronomers and their supposed love of precision? The Bible doesn't give us a clear answer, but then again neither do any other ancient records.
History, both secular and religious, is a fable, conceived in self-serving deceit and promulgated by those who perceive benefit. After perusing documents from the Vatican library Napoleon said history was a fabrication. Henry Ford commissioned a group of scholars to study the real powers behind governmental and religious institutions, then stated, "History is bunk." Today, American school books are being rewritten to credit the accomplishments of White people to the colored races. It appears that future generations will be taught that Martin Luther King was the central figure in American history, that Oswald assassinated President Kennedy, that David Koresh and the innocent victims of Federal murderers at Waco, Texas were dangerous child molesters, and that the alleged holocaust of six million Jews in World War 2 is the most important event in history. This is only a tiny example of the falsity of history as related in just the twentieth century. The fact is power systems, both secular and religious, have created, altered, invented, slanted, back-dated and propagandized historical and current events for political purposes always. The propaganda of the victors becomes the history of the vanquished. We must remember this maxim when reading establishment versions of past events. Had England won the American Revolutionary War, George Washington would have been hanged for treason and for over 200 years his name would have been reviled in school textbooks. Had the followers of Woden/Odin/Wotan won the 1,000 year war between Roman Judeo-Christianity and the followers of the White man's organic, native religion, Christianity would have been labeled a religion of superstitious ignorance and the White race would not face near-certain extinction from infiltrators who brought us mass immigration from the third world.
Wait a second Maybe he had to do like Bill Cosby said in his famous "Noah"skit-go out and gather all the animals himself
Dennis, as usual, you spark interest and inspire comments, but you will never open a closed mind. But please don't stop trying. The Noah myth is a doozy! And Ken Ham is special--"special needs" that is. Seth Andrews and "The Thinking Atheist" have some interesting you tube videos. Another fundamentalist who left the faith/woke up.
Anon June 12 at 10:19, don't forget that back then pi was an even 3.00. Something must have happened to geometry at the same time years and months (and probably days) were changing in length.
As I said before, amazing what an omnipotent god can accomplish.
If there is a God and he is all powerful, he could have moved the animals to the ark much as he did Elijah. Up, up and Away!!!! As for the number of animals, he didn't need pairs of each type of dog, only one set of dogs, or wolves, etc. He could have put them all in hibernation so that they didn't need to be fed or cleaned up after. If, there is a God, he could have figured out a way. As for the sun standing still, well, we say that they sun rises and sets each day, though that is not what happens, it just appears to do that. Perhaps the sun standing still is just a figure of speech.
There are reasonable answers to these objections to what we read in Scripture. Plus, we may not be correct in our understanding of what we read, this may cause problems for us also.
The nut on the wheel says, this thread was perfectly designed just so I can fit onto it. I am the purpose of the universe. The bolt says, rubbish, the nut was designed for me. I am the purpose of the universe. The axle says, you are both wrong, the design of the whole car revolves around me. I am the center of the universe.
The atheist says they are all wrong. They are all egotistical. So the atheist concludes the car could not have been designed. It must have evolved. Even the raw material evolved. In fact the whole universe evolved. Even the laws of physics evolved. Nobody knows how or what they evolved out of, but that's irrelevant. Carl Sagan is always right. He is God. The fact that the laws of physics make cars and life possible is immaterial. Take it on faith.
See how stupid people are?
Mr. Obtuse (but not dogmatic).
Here is further evidence that Christianity was designed by aliens to make Europeans stupid. The first paragraph is from Manly P. Hall's monumental work "The Secret Teachings of All Ages":
"There are few mature minds in the world, so the philosophical religious structures of the ancients were divided to meet the needs of two fundamental groups of human intellect, one philosophic, the other not capable of appreciating the deeper mysteries of life. To the discerning few were revealed the esoteric teachings while the unqualified masses received only the literal or exoteric interpretations. In order to make simple the great truths and abstract principles of natural law, the vital forces of the universe were personified, becoming the Gods and Goddesses of the ancient mythologies."
Adepts, of course, having created the mythologies, did not believe that a physical Thor caused thunder with a magic hammer, or that a physical Zeus threw lightning bolts from Mount Olympus, or that Isis brought a dismembered Osiris back to life, or that the earth stopped spinning so the Israelites could have extra sunlight in which to slaughter their enemies, or that a physical Jesus raised others or himself from the dead. Undoubtedly, a few of the credulous or simple-minded did indeed take the mythologies literally, just as a few still do today. However, under the Mystery or Pagan religions all were free to pursue deeper knowledge, to "believe" or to ignore both science and religion altogether. This arrangement permitted freedom for the masses and enlightenment for those inclined toward intellectual pursuits. Then came the disaster of 325 AD when decadent Romans led by Constantine conspired with wealthy Jews to force a universal religion on the world.
Tyrannies teach what to think [Armstrong cults, political correctness, Islam, feminism, TV, news media, Holocaust proponents, etc]. Free men learn how to think. Since the words of political and religious prostitutes of the ages and the propaganda they call history have little relation to fact, we must learn how to think if we are to decipher history with any accuracy at all. When judging the writings one encounters, some philosophical principles should be employed. First judge the words, actions and results of all power systems by "who benefits."
Who benefited from Armstrongism? Did the powers-that-be decide to shut it down after it out-lived its usefulness to them?
"Dennis, ... you will never open a closed mind."
Especially his own.
Retired prof
The 360 day solar year is messy in that they had to add a month every so often in order to maintain the relationship with the seasons. Imagine trying to get a univsersal consensus on the details.
Anonymous said...
"Dennis, ... you will never open a closed mind."
Especially his own.
I assume you possess the most open and true mind here? Others, especially my own are "Open minds falsely so called"? Remember, one man's scoffer is another's mere observer of what is actually so.
"I assume you possess the most open and true mind here?"
Maybe, but that was't the point. Just more open than yours.
Wow. George Washington would be hanged? What would have become of the slaves he owned. Contemporaries described them as bad dressers too.....and that was when he was alive.
Good point about the "wealthy jews". They disguised themselves as poor persecuted 3rd class passengers in order to force christianity upon america.
And yes those Wotan adherants should have won the war. Ireland is soo much closer and cheaper to find slaves instead of having to haggle with Arabs in Africa.
Yes indeed, this whole slavery thing was just another attempt to get into america without all the red tape and green cards.
Astute observations.
Looking forward to hear more of you.
Nck
Everyone has an open mind. Some are simply open in areas where others are closed. An accusation of closed-mindedness is usually leveled on another individual whom we have been unable to sway to our own beliefs. But, it's a two way street. We are closed minded to his point of view as well. So, open-mindedness and closed mindedness are simply a matter perspective.
I am strongly closed-minded towards Armstrongism, Hitler and his Nazism, communism, racism, and several other very evil and detestable things. And, it is good to be closed-minded towards bad things!
Dennis open minded? He habitually ignores arguments that refute his claims. Parroting apostate books does not qualify for open mindedness.
Anonymous said...
"I assume you possess the most open and true mind here?"
Maybe, but that was't the point. Just more open than yours.
In what are you more open minded than myself. I consider myself to be still open to all topics, mostly those that pass the test of the scientific method, and can actually be show to more likely true than not. I am more closed to others such as Bible literalism and those who speak for the gods as if they knew. To what do you consider my mind closed? At least give me a chance to say , no I am open to that or , you're right, that one I have generally put aside.
"Just more open than yours" tells me nothing.
We fought WWII to rid the world of Hitler who we regarded as evil partly because of his act of genocide against one group, the Jews. If the story of the flood is truth, (which I don't believe is) then isn't God many times more evil then Hitler because he almost exterminated "all" races from the face of the Earth! Don't forget that the Nazis convinced the German people that the Jews where vermin that needed to be eradicated from the face of the Earth. Wasn't that the same reason stated in the flood story that God needed to eradicate all races from the face of the Earth and start over again with a handful of people he would use to repopulate the Earth.
The old joke about an open mind is that if you look through one ear you can see daylight on the other side.
Dennis- have you considered intelligent design even if the designers are not God? The design of the cell looks like it has been programmed by an intelligence vastly superior to ours.
To all the "open-minded":
1. There is no geological evidence of a worldwide flood within the last 6,000 years.
2. If everybody in the world were descended from Noah, all the men in the world would have the same Y chromosome haplogroup. The Ark would have been the world's greatest and most limiting genetic "bottle neck."
3. At the time of the flood, the world was heavily populated with all kinds of people with all kinds of Y chromosome haplogroups. Those haplogroups are still around. The Natufians (12,000 BC to 9,500 BC) were haplogroup E1b and E1b is still extant today. So the people of the globe were not expunged.
Three points on exegesis:
1. In some cases, the Bible uses literary devices such allegory to convey meaning.
2. The Hebrew word eretz may be translated as the "earth" or the "globe" or simply "homeland." The scope of the flood pivots on this term.
3. The Bible is about the Jews. It is not about the Americans, the British, the Germans, the French, the Russians or the Outer Mongolians. All those people are subsumed under the term "Gentile" and Gentiles are bit actors.
4. PBS/Nova has a show on building a ark. It should be watched so and impression can be formed about how technically difficult it is to build such a boat and keep it afloat. And this was a smaller boat than the Biblical Ark.
So consider this simple story arc:
A disastrous flood struck the homeland of the proto-Jews in the Tigres/Eurphrates flood plain (it still floods there today). It killed everybody in these villages except a few who escaped, with their farm animals, to a boat built ahead of time. The ancestral Jews are descended from the people who rode out the lengthy storm. This story was then ornamented and translated until we have the rendition, a mix of history and allegory, we have today as a global account. Whether the story is global or local, the essential principles conveyed remain the same. Atheists will have a field day with this because they are not interested in meaning or insight or morality but in technical minutiae that will permit them to assert deniability.
I should add that some of my ancestors, members of a Plains Indian Tribe, have a version of the Flood account as part of their origin story. The story is that the tribal god caused a great flood to come because the earth was inhabited by wicked giants. The giants were wiped out and a few good people escaped in a big boat.
These Plains Indians crossed to North America from Beringia about 15,000 BP. I have no idea how this story developed. Maybe just and interesting coincidence with the Hebrew story.
2.56 AM
The reason people condemn God for the flood is that they know that their own poor character would make them one of its victims. How dare God destroy evil people.
"We fought WWII to rid the world of Hitler who we regarded as evil partly because of his act of genocide against one group, the Jews."
We did not fight Hitler to save the Jews; the holocaust story did not come out until after the war.
But, before the war we knew that Stalin was killing a lot of civilians. Yet we sided with him anyway. He ended up killing at least 20 million civilians. We all know it's true but we don't talk about it much. Why not? Who gains by ignoring the Commie killers? Maybe the Commies? And who controls communism?
"To what do you consider my mind closed?"
Just listen to a few of your detractors. You have already been told and told.
According to the Talmud: TOB SHEBBE GOYIM HAROG! (The best of the Gentiles is to be killed!).
The abhorrent Jew-hater at 11:17 AM seems unaware that Western media had begun to report on Nazi genocidal efforts as early as 1939, and even as early as 1944 reported more than 1.7 million confirmed dead in Auschwitz and Birkenau.
Meanwhile, ask yourself why Senate leader Mitch McConnell takes money from the Chinese communists who killed 40 million of their own people under Chairman Mao, and why the Clinton Foundation took in more than $100 million of Chinese money. I know there are some sick ex-WCGers who believe that former GTA aide Robert Kuhn is somehow running Chinese communism, and who wonder about LCG evangelist Stuart Wachowicz's role in the Confucius Institute, but the fact that Chinese communists can purchase a greedy minister or two has nothing to do with the historical fact that both Hitler and the USA tried to form alliances of convenience with the Soviet Union.
Anon 11:23 AM is such a toxic anti-Semite that he will never believe what follows, but the truths is that he is misquoting a Talmudic statement. Those words are taken from a Talmudic disputation about the conduct of war. Ordinarily, within Jewish jurisprudence, the "God-fearers" (Gentiles who follow many of the Judaic precepts but without circumcision) are classed as allies of the Jews. The Talmud clarifies, however, that when Egypt pressed the God-fearers' chariots into service (usually piloted by their God-fearer owners), even the God-fearers ("the best of the Gentiles") were to be killed in war.
Using Anon 11:23's method, here are some excerpts from HWA's Mystery of the Ages:
"Become a murderer and a liar."
"Murder, but until caught."
"Kill the Christ-child."
Each of those is an unedited quote presented from HWA's magnum opus, but without the surrounding context, just as Anon 11:23 has done.
9:33 AM seems unaware of Jesus' teaching about the Tower of Siloam. Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes the worst things happen to people who aren't the worst.
12:30
Excellent posting.
I was me who reported fron Osh Kirgiztan flipping channels on chinese state television. Suddenly RK was flashed as one of the top 10 foreigners to have influenced the course of modern china.
That was chinese state television heaping that praise upon a man who left BB wondering that WCG was to double in size and triple its income AFTER BB defected for mathematical reasons. (ot didnt add up for him anymore)
Now we are talking a quarter of the world population here!
BTW China is not communist at all, never been communist. It is State Capitalism after a stint of Maoism.
Dr K is an advocate of SME's and the middle class and therefore democracy.
However the Chinese decided to pick and choose from the lessons he brought to China through the CEO's of consultancy firms that consulted dr K.
He is a hero of mine and on behalf of his influence on my life I paid respect to the victims of the Armenian death trail at the Deir es Zor monument on Syria just before it was destroyed by Isil.
I said a short prayer there because I know it is a cause dear to his heart.
Nck
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