I believe in everlasting life. After I'm dead my body rots in the Earth. In about another 5 billion years when our sun explodes (after expanding and engulfing mercury, venus, earth and possibly mars before exploding) my remains will be scattered into the universe as "stardust". Eventually, with lots and lots of luck, part of me will become part of a new planet where with even MORE luck than before, life will eventually exist and part or parts of me will become a new lifeform.... Repeat Cycle.... Loop

Let us take the example of people who actually had everlasting life from the Gospel according to J.R.R. Tolkien. The Elves were born with immortality, and would spend their physical lives for thousands of years, and if their bodies were destroyed through some horrible circumstance such as the Great War with Morgoth or Sauron, their spiritual essence would reside with Mandos in Valinor, the Blessed Land.

And their lives were long, but they did little or nothing to suggest that their lives were any better. Rather, their lives were more bitter because they could hold grudges for thousands of years. The bitterness of the exile, the unhappiness that lingers in Middle Earth, and finally the sorrowful journey to Valinor as all their great works are destroyed. Even for the immortal elves, the sheer stretch of Time is Death.

And remember the two blessed Elves: Luthien Tinuviel and Arwen Undomiel. The greatest of the Elven women, who received the Gift of Death.The Gift of Mortality.

I think the Elves are proof that living forever in the Blessed Lands is not necessarily desirable.

P.S. Yes, I believe in the Silmarilion and The Lord of the Rings. Its about as sacred to me as your Bible or Qur'an or Vedas or whatever. Do you know why? Because it has irrefutable proof. It made three FRIGGIN AWESOME MOVIES!!!

Did you really just argue against it based on LoR? haha. I'm astonished. Worried for your sanity... but astonished. ha.

I cant believe I'll actually engage in this conversation... but the basic rebuttal is that Elves are still imperfect and they were not in the presence of God. So your analogy just doesnt match.

TylerV,

Here is your last post so that you understand why I am done wasting time on you.

"1. You cite Wikipedia... nice scholarly work there" - it's more than ANYTHING you've sited.

"Did you read even the rest of the sentence that you cited that says "however this position is increasingly criticised by modern scholars"?" Go back and read it again, Genius.
""Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and AD 200. A popular position is that the Torah was canonized circa 400 BC, the Prophets circa 200 BC, and the Writings circa AD 100 [1] perhaps at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia—this position, however, is increasingly criticised by modern scholars." Clearly the part idea criticised by modern scholars is that the Torah was canonized circa 400BC. You call me out for not reading my own quote, but it is you without reading comprehension.


"even your boy Erhman said in a lecture that the existence of Jesus is the single best attested person in all of ancient history" Bullshit. Erhman takes apart as unreliable every supposed extra biblical mention of Jesus. Please provide a documented cite to back up your assertion.

And I don't ASSUME any of those things that I listed as false, not one.
As to creation and the great flood, the entire body of astronomy, cosmology, and geology refute those. Do I need to cite entire fields of study?
Babel and languages are refuted the entire field of linguistics.
The historical veracity of Egypt holding Jewish slaves, the plagues of Egypt, 600k in the desert, and King David are refuted by none other than Israeli archeology. And these people were the ones sent out into the desert with a mandate of proving to the world the truth of theirs beliefs. They now universally agree that their legends are just that, legends.

You pretend the way God works isn't magic. Categories of magic, just means approved of magic and not approved of magic. Still, it is magic but any reasonable definition of the word.

If I can't call God a monster for this list of crimes, no one can call anyone a monster:
Drowning of every person and animal on the planet save one boat load.
Killing or ordering killed:
Every Egyptian first born
the Egyptian army
the Amalekites
the Midianites
the people of Bashan
Jericho and Ai
The Amorites
the Anakim, Moabites, Canaanites
Midianite soldiers
Ammonites
and more and more and more

As to your argument of silence, it isn't even applicable to what I said... I brought up things that absolutely would leave evidence if they occurred, but the evidence does not exist. For instance, if a world wide flood occurred, the ice caps would have floated off the poles. It is plain that they've been undisturbed of > 1,000,000 years (another stake in the heart of creationism)

I could go on and on and in much greater detail. But your failing so far only show to me that it would be a waste of time.

You still miss the point that ALL of the OT books were finished by 400 BC and 1 Enoch was written over 100 years later. Again, to say that 1 Enoch influenced the OT authors is like saying the Gettysburg Address influenced the Constitution. Its just bad history.

I said that he said the EXISTENCE of Jesus is the single best attested fact of history. However, Erhman thinks that the NT portrayal of him was inaccurate and frames him according to Schweitzer who said that Jesus was an apocalyptic preacher, who thought the world was coming to the end and went to Jerusalem to speed up the clock, so to speak. So the content and character of the historical Jesus is up for debate. But even Erhman sees the skeptics who said that Jesus didn’t even exist as foolish. And there is no documentation since this was an answer he gave to a question in a question and answer time at a lecture about 8 years back.

Ok, lets take the doctrine of Creation. That God created the universe. Tell me, what astronomical, cosmological, or geological fact has shown that God did not create the universe? Are you really going to say that there is a fact in evidence of something that occurred before (and caused) the big bang?

As for linguistics, tell me. Did humans evolve at multiple places at multiple times? Or was their one moment of the random mutation that started the human race. You are on the horns of a huge dilemma. Why? Because either humanity began in one place and language necessarily came from one source (thus any argument you bring against Babel will also go against evolution) or that the near impossible probability of the random mutation needed to evolve human life occurred not only once, but multiple times within a small period of time.

Then you say, in regards to the Egyptian holding slaves, the plagues, 600k in the wilderness, and King David, etc., are all refuted and that Israeli scholars “universally agree that their legends are just that, legends.” Actually if you read Kitchen, Waltke, and Hoffmeier it will be clear that the debate is still very much alive and kicking. As for Israeli archeology being universally against it, source please.

Again, only a materialist or philosophical naturalist would confuse supernatural/miracle with magic. It would be like me lumping atheism, agnosticism, secularism, humanism, and communism all together.

Again, you can list off all the “crimes” if you like. But my question still stands. You make an absolute moral evaluation of God and his actions. So tell me, what is the basis for your absolute moral evaluation? Within your atheistic worldview, how do you account for morality?

As for the flood being global. I agree. It wasn’t. It was a large flood but still localized to that area, or maybe to the equatorial regions. The Hebrew words which are translated as "whole earth" or "all the earth" are kol (Strong's number H3605), which means "all," and erets (Strong's number H776), which means "earth," "land," "country," or "ground.” We don't need to look very far in Genesis (Genesis 2) before we find the Hebrew words kol erets.

• The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Havilah, where there is gold. (Genesis 2:11)
• And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Cush. (Genesis 2:13)
•
Obviously, the description of kol erets is modified by the name of the land, indicating a local area from the context. In fact, the term kol erets is nearly always used in the Old Testament to describe a local area of land, instead of our entire planet.

So again, you show that you have actually only read ONE side of the debate because you have ASSUMED that the other is fallacious before you even come to understand their position since you think that ALL Creationists are of the same kind. There are fundamentalists, Day-agers, IDers, Young Earth, Old Earth, Gap, and Framework. Like your “magic” definition, you attempt to lump all together into one category and dismiss them all with the same critique. Sadly, just doesn’t work that way.

2 Thoughts.

First, Godless, you would probably have an easier time understanding the Bible if you read it as literature (I'm talking only about genre not its actual truth/falsity) and not like a science book. I recommend reading Meridith Kline, Gordan Wenham, John Currid, Henri Blocher and Bruce Waltke in specific on Genesis and the creation account. Their Literary Framework seems to clear up most of the false assumptions that anyone seeking to read the text scientifically (Creationists or Atheists) may hold to. (See Kline on Genesis as cosmology not science at http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1996/PSCF3-96Kline.html). The Bible was written in a culture that was simply not concerned with science and thus their language was not scientific. So when the Bible addresses "science" it usually is referring to cosmology or dealing with polemics. To try and make it address something scientifically is simply anachronistic.

Second, to all the people talking about eternity. 2 Things:

1. If the Christian is right in talking about eternal life, then they are also right that it is a time of eternal bliss. C.S. Lewis made a point that those who think like you do (it could never be fun enough) are like children content to make mud-pies in the slums because you cant imagine summer at the shore. Your problem is that you think too small.

2. I think a good illustration is found in the story of a little boy and his mom. The little boy asked his mom, "will there be pears in heaven?" The wise mother answered, "If you want pears while youre in heaven, there will be pears in heaven." What she wisely noted that heaven is a place of perfection, not just of environment, but of us. The little boys desires will be perfect and thus if he has a perfect desire, he will have what he wants. We wont desire wrongly in heaven. Thus you are trying to determine the nature of eternal life, with a corrupted sense of desire (your god is your belly, so to speak).

2.

TylerV, have your read 1 Enoch? It is no longer a canonical book.

It was plainly written as science or cosmology. All those places scattered throughout the OT that sounds like they think the Earth is fixed on a pillar with a dome of sky overhead, they nearly all quotes taken from 1 Enoch. If you want to know what they really meant, you need them in the context from which they were quoted. Guess what, they did mean exactly what they implied.

Genseis *was* read as a science book for well over 1000 years of Christianity. The only reason people like Kline et al are framing it as literature is that we now know it is rediculous wrong. To suggest the first 5 books of the OT were written as anything other than an instruction manual and history is dishonest. These are the very foundation of the Bible. If you don't believe the contents of the Pentitude, there is no reason to continue.

Since not one of us believe that any part of us will survive the death of our bodies, our rambling on eternity are just that.... rambling. Rambling for our own amusement.

You don't establish the existance or non-existance of God with a book of literature. If it can be done at all, it would certainly be with a piece of non-fiction. While it is true, they didn't the scientific method back in those days, they certainly understood the difference between a statement of supposed fact and a story. People don't slaughter each other, nor slice off the end of their cock, for literature.

Grow up.

1. Enoch was never canon until the apocrypha was added almost 10 centuries into Christian history. So its not "no longer" a canonical book. It never was a canonical book to begin with.

2. And 1 Enoch is Apocolyptic literature and clearly NOT science or cosmology any more than Revelation is science or cosmology. Are you going to argue that when Revelation talks about the dragon sweeping 1/3 of the stars from the sky that he is making a scientific statement?

3. It is actually more likely, since 1 Enoch was written AFTER almost all of the OT was written, that Enoch actually was borrowing the language of the OT in its apocalyptic visions. The few times it is cited in the NT have nothing to do with cosmology but rather with redemptive history.

4. The Bible actually says that the earth hangs on nothing and that it is covered by the fermamentm a dome of water something similar to several layers of the atmosphere. Now, it still seems as though such statements arent concerned with a scientific explanation but often are used in order to show the supremacy of God over his creation, even what lay beyond what can be seen with the observable eye. It was a theological point, not a scientific one.

5. Genesis was actually not read as a science book until the advent of modern science. You can see the interpretation of the Rabbis, the Talmud, Augustine, Ireneus, Tertullian, Origen, etc. No one read it as a science book. Unless you are referring to the LAST 1000 years in which case I would argue that many people have tried to make the Bible say more than it asserts on its own.

6. And i never said that the Pentateuch (not Pentitude) wasnt instruction or history. I said that it was a literary and polemical work. No where did I imply that its literary framework makes it FICTION (a genre not even invented at the time). Thus you make the mistake of thinking that literature = fictional. Simply not the case. You also assume that the purpose of the Bible is to prove God. In fact, the Bible NEVER attempts to prove God. It assume that God exists and retells/foretells the working of God in history.

7. Goddless is the one who posted on eternity. So blame him for ramblings. But there are some of us here who DO believe in eternal life. To assume it false is begging the question.

"Grow up" nice since your response was entirely a-historical and blindly irrational in its assumptions.

You're just wrong on everything... including who wrote that post.

I'm the one who wrote it. Guest blogger Scott H, who has written every post since Dec 27.

Oh, sorry, I didnt see anything on the post that indicated that you wrote at and not Godless.

But I find it interesting that rather than making founded and logical statements, you simply white wash it with "you're just wrong on everything" period. Actually I've been studying this very topic for decades (first as an atheist, then as a Christian). Now does that make me automatically right? No. But it does ensure that I have researched enough, read enough, and thought enough about this that I am not some loon and who can simply be brushed under the carpet with a waive of the wrist.

If you are going to say that I am wrong. Then WHY am I wrong? You atheists claim to be the "disciples of the data" or the "apostles of reason." Try actually being one.

Ok, let's pretend I've spent the last several decades reading about homeopathy. I've really studied it. There is one problem, the people who wrote it were wrong, and I'd have been studying a fantasy.

That you can quote fools that are plainly wrong does not impress me in the least. Just because someone has taken the time to write it does not make it correct. Statements and beliefs are correct because they correlates with the real world.

The Bible fails this from top to bottom, not just in a couple details here and there. Not only that, it is mostly disgusting and barbaric. Certainly, there are some beautiful lessons here and there (particularly in parts of the NT), but if you don't go in already knowing good from bad and right from wrong, it isn't even useful as a moral guide.

The portions of 1 Enoch that matter (Book of Watchers) certainly existed (300BC) and influenced those who assembled the Torah as we know it.

Are you suggesting that Exodus wasn't supposed to be history? How about King David?

The Bible is the inspired word of God or isn't. If the actual creator of the universe had anything to do with its writing it would surely be filled with real wisdom and cosmic truth not magic and witchcraft and demons.

Well again, I never said that me studying it made me or it right. I said it made me qualified to speak on the issue and to not be dismissed with the waive of the hand. The problem is that you ASSUME the falseness of the conclusion in your premise and then argue to it. Its called begging the question.

The Bible is barbaric in some sense. It is an accurate portrayal of the human condition and some of the horrific things done in the history of redemption. But you also are mistaken in thinking that Christian think that we get our moral basis from the Bible. We may get the best elucidation of a moral system, but the Bible is NOT the basis for morality. The nature of God is. Just like the Bible assumes God's existence, it also assume that as a human made in the image of God that you are also endowed with moral sensitivities. You are supposed to cringe when Abraham is about to kill Isaac, when the Sodomites threaten to gang rape God's messengers, when the Benjaminites rape and kill the Levite's concubine and then when he uses he body as a political tool. When David forces Bathsheba into bed, etc. You are SUPPOSED To cringe. But you are also to see in it your own human condition as respond, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

1 Enoch for sure in existence by 200BC and MAYBE as early as 275BC. But not before. Considering that ALL of the books of the Old Testament where written before 400 BC and the Canon was FINALIZED around 300... sorry, 1 Enoch may have influenced the Apocrypha, but not the OT in either its composition or structure. (Notice that even the Jews didnt see it as canon. They say it as helpful, but not canon. In the same way the Christians see the Dydache or the Shepherd of Hermas.)

And notice that your last statement ASSUME the conclusion that the Bible ISNT full of wisdom. It also assumes that the Bible is full of magic and whichcraft (interesting since they are expressly forbidden within it) and that demons cant exist. You ASSUME the validity of your position and then argue to it. Arent atheists supposed to be rational? isnt that like the one thing you guys claim to have right? I wouldnt expect such basic logical errors from an apostle of reason and a son of the enlightenment.

Oh, and you make the classic blunder of confusing the indicatives (the what happened) and the imperatives (do this). Yes the Bible tells stories of murder and rape, and genocide, and etc. But that is because those events occurred in history. You clearly misread the texts.

The Canon was not finalized by 300BC... Where the hell do you get your info?

As little as I like using Wiki as a source, this summary pretty much agrees with everything I've seen:

"Evidence suggests that the process of canonization occurred between 200 BC and AD 200. A popular position is that the Torah was canonized circa 400 BC, the Prophets circa 200 BC, and the Writings circa AD 100 [1] perhaps at a hypothetical Council of Jamnia—this position, however, is increasingly criticised by modern scholars."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_the_Jewish_Bible_canon

And I don't ASSUME anything. I've read the Bible and it is false. Every thing in it that might be corroborated today did not happen.

Adam and Eve - didn't happen the whole creation story is complete BS
The great flood - didn't happen
Languages explained by Tower of Bable - Hogwash
Large number of Jews inslaved by Pharoah - didn't happen
The plagues of Egypt - didn't happen, including Passover
600,000 wonder the desert, for decades - didn't happen
The rest of Exodus and pretty much all of Leviticus insane Law.
Numbers a bit of unverifiable history and more insane Law.
All the way to the end of Deuteronomy, not one thing that might be verfiable as history has been, and every single thing that would certainly be verifiable if it had happened has been disproven. Even moving on to King David, if he existed at all, was a at most in command of a town.... not a nation. The NT is no better.... worse in fact.

And all those horrific acts weren't just in there because 'they happened', they were in there because God commanded his poeple to do them. These acts where direct orders from God. A fucking monster.

Also, I don't assume the Bible is full of magic and witchcraft, I've read it. Only you don't call it magic and witchcraft if Jesus or Moses are doing it. Burning bushes, staff to snake, water to wine, demons into pigs and driven off.... magic and witchcraft.

1. You cite Wikipedia... nice scholarly work there. But you also pick and choose what you cite. Did you read even the rest of the sentence that you cited that says "however this position is increasingly criticised by modern scholars"? What do you think the last part of your citation refers to? And then you completely omit when it goes on to show that we have a reference in 2 Macc. (extra biblical source) to the fact that Nehemiah had a collection of not only the the Torah, but the writings of David, other writings of the kings, the prophets, etc.? All of the books that we have in our OT canon are PRE-400 BC and thus 1 Enoch has NO bearing on them! That would be like saying the Gettysburg Address influenced the Constitution. Its just bad history. Interesting how you have selective citation. Kind of like selective hearing. You read what you want to read. (and people said Christians are blinded by faith!)

Then you, again, assume the falsity of the very issue at hand. That entire list of "falsehoods" is the very issue at hand. I can do it too.

Everything came into existence uncaused. Bull.
A random, finite, changing, chaotic universe formed universal, absolute, immutable, eternal laws of logic. bunk.
A living organism spontaniously evolved from non-living matter by mutating EXTRA information not provided for in any non-living material. Eeeeeeee. Wrong.
etc.

Now does my list prove anything? No! because I never argued nor proved a single one of those position, I simply assumed their truth and thus if I tried that list on you, I would HOPE that you would call me on it! Now, does that make either of us right or wrong? No, it just means the form of argument is invalid.

You also confuse the categories of magic which is the use of means (as charms or spells) believed to have supernatural power over natural forces in order to exert your own will and witchcraft (the application of that magic) with supernatual realities (an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe; or departing from what is usual or normal especially so as to appear to transcend the laws of nature). If God exists, then we would actually expect to find him and those whom he works through to be able perform miracles. But there is a strong difference between God working, the existence of miracles, demons, angels, etc. and the cult practice of magic, incantation, spiritism, etc. Only a philosophical naturalist would consider those categories to be one and the same.

Tell me, you call God a monster. This means that you are assuming a universal, absolute, immutable, objective moral standard. But what is the basis for your moral assessment? What grounds do you have in an evolved, closed system for such a moral code?

"Tell me, you call God a monster. This means that you are assuming a universal, absolute, immutable, objective moral standard. But what is the basis for your moral assessment? What grounds do you have in an evolved, closed system for such a moral code?"

Nice you try to dodge when it comes to your invisible friend. Why not use the so-called higher christian moral code here. Your god ordered genocide, rape and pillaging.

I didnt dodge at all. I'm asking a simple question. If one is going to make an absolute claim, their worldview must be able to substantiate it. If one makes absolute moral claims within a worldview that cannot base it, then they are being inconsistent with their own worldview. So before addressing the objection, I'm asking him to support his objection. He make an absolute moral claim (as do you), so what is the basis for your moral assessment without God as a basis?

Dang, you really had me going until this one. I thought you were for real.

So in other words you have no response to the evaluation of or fallacious claims and confusion of simple categories and you are entirely unable to base your moral evaluation within your own worldview and so you become defensive and lash out in insult rather than intellectual integrity?

The Bible isn't a historical document though. It was written during a
time of allegorical writing. Sure it may draw on actual events, but I
wouldn't regard it as a reliable historical source at all. There isn't
much evidence other than the Bible that Jesus existed at all.

godless, even your boy Erhman said in a lecture that the existence of Jesus is the single best attested person in all of ancient history. Now, the details may be up for debate, but the fact that you even say that shows why youre a blogger and not a scholar.

As a person, yes he may have existed. But I was talking about all the
magic tricks he did. The whole water into wine ect type stuff.

What you said was "There isn't much evidence other than the Bible that Jesus existed at all." So I was addressing that. The problem is that in your attempt to exclude what the Bible says about Jesus you must also apply that same critical standard to what we know about Alexander the Great, Socrates, Plato, Homer, Paul, etc. Basically you are saying that we have no ancient documents about Jesus except the ancient documents that we have... but those dont count because they were written by believers. But if being of the same "camp" as the subject you write about makes you so biased that you are disqualified from writing about it, then Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens and your buddy Werleman are too biased to write about atheism or secularism, Americans cant write about Capitalism or Democracy, a Jew cant be trusted to write about the holocaust, etc. The problems with your kind or skeptical reductionism is that it is simply NOT how any sane person evaluates ANY other piece of writing. And yet because it is the Bible, you try to sneak that standard in through the back door as if it is common place.

I'm just trying to argue the fact that these so called miracles are
only mentioned Biblically. If they happened wouldn't there be other
accounts of them? I appologize for my poor phrasing before. I'll admit
it is highly likely there was a physical person, but I think the idea
he was the son of a god is ridiculous.

Well for a son of the enlightenment, you sure are comfortable making 2 major logical fallacies: Argument from silence, and begging the question. Here is how you commit each.

Argument from silence.

1) The Bible documents miracles.
2)No outside sources document the same miracles as the Bible.
3) Therefore the miracles documented in the Bible did not occur.

The conclusion simply does not follow. It would be like saying:

1) Godless says that he like ice cream.
2) No other source documents that Godless likes ice cream.
3) Therefore Godless doesn’t like ice cream.

The second premise in both places is an appeal to a non-existence of verification. In both cases, the argument is appealing to silence on the issue to lead to its conclusion.

Begging the question.

1) The Bible cannot be trusted because it is externally verified.
2) Since it is not externally verified,
3) Therefore the Bible cannot be trusted.

You assume the conclusion in your 1st premise.

We can see this in your assumption that the only way the Bible is true is if it is externally verified but that this same standard is not extended o other ancient people or documents. What other sources do we have about Socrates except the writings of Plato? So is Plato externally verified? Much of what we know about Alexander the Great comes exclusively from his 3 generals (and most of that is solely from Ptolemy)? Well are his three “disciples” verified externally? No not at all. Yet when we come to the Bible, and to the biographies of Jesus, the skeptic says, well the 4 Gospel’s cant be trusted on their own, so unless we have external verification, they must not be true. Again, this is simply not a standard that historians use for ANY other ancient text, person, or event. This absurd standard is reserved only when one wants to reject the Bible.

There is actually another problems with this line of argument. It is that you mistakenly assume that it is not externally verified. In fact, the Bible is heavily corroborated in issues of historical accuracy such as locations, dates, people, wars, people group movements, etc. All archeologists know that if one wants to do any work in the Levant, the Bible is a necessary tool because it has proven to be astonishingly accurate, even on places where it once was thought not to be. (See the attestation of the great archeologist Sir William Ramsey and the massive reliability of the Bible http://www.ucg.org/booklets/BT/bible-archaeology.asp)

The argument from silence is a good one to use here. If MIRACLES were occurring, wouldn't there be more contemporary accounts of them? I need more evidence of a miracle besides one source that is an amalgamation of many writers of hundreds of years. I have trouble seeing the Bible as valid because it was passed down so many times and due to the strict number of modifications to suit those in power. I find it interesting that you are accusing me of using circular logic, that is usually done by theists.
1.The Bible is the literal word of God.
2.Prove it.
3.The Bible says so.
That is how I usually think of "begging the question". We are able to historically verify that Plato existed too, not some anonymous gospels which have been exceedingly difficult to track down at all. Don't extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?