When you say it all must be taken on faith concerning Creationist views such as the earth being created in six days and then assert that we are leaving reason out of the way in doing so, you make it sound like faith is Unreasonable.
ANASI WEAVER: Sure. I mean if faith was based on reason then when someone of faith is presented with something that contradicts that faith said person would accept the new information.

That is untrue. Creation, like evolution, is merely a model of how we think reality worked. You can no more prove evolution by concrete evidence and experiment than you can creation. There is no experiment which you could do in a lab to show a reptile growing wings or a fish growing lungs. It is supposed by the evolutionary model, it is not proven by concrete evidence which can be done in a repeatable laboratory experiment. You are setting up evolution as though it can be proven by experimentation when it cannot.
ANANSI WEAVER: Nice try but while there may be no known experiment (yet) that can be performed that I know of it is observable in nature. We have fossils that have been carbon dated that PROVE the earth is greater than 6,000 years old. We have evidence that human civilization did not exist with dinosaurs (more on that later.) We have chains of fossils that show a steady progression from one form to another.
We can see the adoptions that life has evolved to adapt to a certain situation or environment. They recently found a new species of tiger that changed from their cousins simply to adapt to hunting in swamplands.
There is evidence in abundance that supports evolution and an old earth. So far the only “evidence” you have produced about creation are passages in the bible and “God says it is so therefore it must be so.

SARAH SAYS: We find that when you do mutations to the DNA code you end up with freaks and diseases, not the supposed evolutionary positive changes which are supposedly the mechanism which drives evolution. For instance, from the U.S. National Library of Medicine:
How can gene mutations affect health and development?
To function correctly, each cell depends on thousands of proteins to do their jobs in the right places at the right times. Sometimes, gene mutations prevent one or more of these proteins from working properly. By changing a gene’s instructions for making a protein, a mutation can cause the protein to malfunction or to be missing entirely. When a mutation alters a protein that plays a critical role in the body, it can disrupt normal development or cause a medical condition. A condition caused by mutations in one or more genes is called a genetic disorder.
In some cases, gene mutations are so severe that they prevent an embryo from surviving until birth. These changes occur in genes that are essential for development, and often disrupt the development of an embryo in its earliest stages. Because these mutations have very serious effects, they are incompatible with life.
It is important to note that genes themselves do not cause disease—genetic disorders are caused by mutations that make a gene function improperly. For example, when people say that someone has “the cystic fibrosis gene,” they are usually referring to a mutated version of the CFTR gene, which causes the disease. All people, including those without cystic fibrosis, have a version of the CFTR gene.

ANASI WEAVER: The words you should take special note of are “in some cases…” meaning that there can be beneficial mutations. We see this evidenced in nature. We see this when our bodies build up an immunity to a disease (like my immunity to strep throat and the flu.) We see this throughout our biosphere. It is also important to note that mutations appear over a long period of time in tiny increments so it may not be as visually spectacular as Cystic Fibrosis or Down syndrome.
Come to think of it we do have an experiment for evolution the cockroach. Cockroaches slowly change from generation to generation to adapt to pesticides. Eventually you have whole generations of roaches that if left uncheck would eventually become immune to our pesticides. This is why we routinely have to update the chemical formulas for raid to come up with more powerful pesticides.
We also have the antibacterial soap example. If you continue to use antibacterial soap eventually the bacteria will adapt and we would have a new more virulent bacteria floating around our homes.
Further we have the common cold. A virus that evolves so often that we have yet to find a cure for it.

The National Cancer Institute provides additional information about how gene mutations can trigger disease:
Gene Mutations and Disease (see below for link)
Altered DNA, Altered Protein (see below for link)
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/mutationsanddisorders/mutationscausedisease
This argues strongly against mutations as the mechanism for evolution. Again, there are no lab experiments which you can do to prove a new organ (such as wings evolving on a reptile) arise spontaneously from genetic MUTATIONS.
ANANSI WEAVER: Fossils. Mitochondria tracing. DNA mapping.
There is no concrete proof for the addition of organs onto an already existing organism - a change which only could happen if there were the addition of beneficial and useable genetic information to the DNA code.
ANASI WEAVER: Like nicnetating membranes to protect the eyes of reptiles? Or the whiskers of a cat? Venom sacs? Bio Luminous secretions? The capacity for invention?
All I have ever seen as an argument is that some mutations can cause a disease (like sickle cell anemia mutation or individuals carrying the G protein beta3 subunit 825 T-allele mutation) to offer some immune enhancement because an invading organism cannot hook onto the usual protein to establish itself. Because the invader cannot establish itself (because these abnormalities don’t have the “hooks” it needs and uses to proliferate itself) the people live. But it is absolutely farcical to state that these examples of “beneficial” mutations give rise to beneficial MACRO evolutionary change like wings or lungs when there were none before. These abnormal genes cause serious sickness and lack of viability. Sickle cell anemia is a terrible disease where tissues are deprived of oxygen and this causes painful attacks and organ damage http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle_cell_anemia , and the 825T allele carriers have an increased risk for hypertension combined with features of the metabolic syndrome, such as dyslipidemia, hypercholesterolemia, insulin resistance, and obesity. http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.med.56.082103.104625 These are hardly cases of evolutionary ADVANCEMENT..
Even the “beneficial mutations” section of wikipedia can only point to a similar survivability “benefit” which is the result of the DELETION of base pair, not an addition to the genome when it says: “a specific 32 base pair deletion in human CCR5 (CCR5-32) confers HIV resistance to homozygote’s and delays AIDS onset in heterozygote’s.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation Note here that it says DELAYS the AIDS onset in the heterozygote’s - they still get the disease. (That is proof of benefit when they still get the disease and die?)

ANASI WEAVER: I see. So mutation can only benefit if it ADDS an organ or appendage…. Wait that’s not true. There is evidence of vestigial organs that serve no biological purpose (your appendix for one example.)
The point is that this is hardly proving that a dog turned into a cat or a monkey into a deer, or a reptile into a bird… those kinds of vast changes which the evolutionary mechanism must prove in abundance if molecule to man evolution actually happened by such a mechanism. It is an argument for survivability, perhaps, but not for EVOLUTION which is a change in kind like from a fish to a bird. And remember, there is not just ONE missing link from ape to man,
ANANSI WEAVER: Actually the missing link is a misconception. There is no “missing link.” And I have to dig up the correct information for you but if I remember the basis correctly that is a misunderstanding of evolutionary theory.

EVERYTHING supposedly came from a molecule in the ocean… so ALL the animals must have evolutionary changes with the additions of organs and their increasing sophistication… where is the mechanism for this?
ANANSI WEAVER: It’s in our DNA we just evolved to a point where those genes are dormant. It isn’t unfeasible that these dormant genes can be reactivated I mean after all scientists have managed to splice DNA into mice that gives them a bioluminescent glow like certain invertebrates (http://scientificcuriosity.blogspot.com/search/label/Fluorescence) and silk secretions to goats http (://www.exn.ca/sciencenews/story.asp?id=2000061956) turning on the gene for, let’s say gills in a human could be the next step.

As for the idea of natural selection being the mechanism, natural selection also does not work out of the kinds. You cannot breed a fish with a cat or bird nor can you successfully and naturally breed a man with a horse or dog. It doesn’t work. Even when you mate together species which are close genetically like a horse and a donkey, you get a sterile mule.. There are limits to natural selection. As the Bible says, there is reproduction within the KINDS but not outside of them. You can make a lot of kinds of dogs.. but dogs don’t give birth to cats. And DNA mutations give rise to diseases and freaks, not advancement. There is no provable evolutionary mechanism we can test in a lab - it cannot be proven by concrete proof. Evolutionists BELIEVE the Theory of Evolution as Creationists BELIEVE the Theory of Creation. Neither creationists nor evolutionists were there to see the beginning and so we must extrapolate the evidence backwards and postulate a theory of how things came to be. Both require FAITH in those presuppositions without laboratory experiments or concrete visible proof. Therefore, both are not science, but models which require faith in the presuppositions behind them.

ANANSI WEAVER: Natural selection isn’t about interbreeding species. Natural selection is the process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less common. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes. If these phenotypes have a genetic basis, then the genotype associated with the favorable phenotype will increase in frequency in the next generation. Over time, this process can result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species.
You know like darker skin for people living in tropical climates, blubber for animals living in cold.

We both think our models fit the facts better than the other guy’s model.. but don’t fool yourself into thinking the postulated evolutionary mechanism furnishes us laboratory-repeatable concrete proof and creation does not. And the postulated evolutionary mechanism is far less believable to my mind than an Omniscient Omnipotent Creator.

ANANSI WEAVER: It works because (see the above)

As for your argument about us having to do things for ourselves like paying rent, gathering food, and looking for ways to cure our ailments to some degree, yes, that is true. But that does not exclude God is all I am saying.
It does not mean we forget to pray before we eat and thank God for providing the food to gather, or the money to pay the rent, or the drug which is giving us the cure. Faith sees God OVER all these events, even as faith says “Thank GOD!!” when your lifeboat which you have been rowing for a long time spots land. There is an acknowledgement of your work, but that it is God who prospers and blesses the endeavor with what we are hoping for (money, health, etc). Having to do the work does not mean we forget God or His hand over everything, just because He is invisible (actually, He is too large to fit within the creation and is a spirit, so it isn’t that He is invisible so much as His being naturally uncontainable within our tiny sphere. That is why the incarnation was an act of such great condescension.. )

ANANSI WEAVER: It’s one thing to thank your god for whatever you thank god for but it’s another thing to ask god to do these things for you. It is one thing to say that the bible is a source of spiritual inspiration to you but quite another to say it holds all the answers for life’s questions and is infallible. Haven’t you noticed that when you were seeking information about genetics, mutations and the like you didn’t turn to the bible or god but you went on the web or read a book in an attempt to back you claims? You didn’t quote bible scripture then because the bible holds no information on such things and god denied to tell you.

You say, “What I was trying to illustrate with that story was that we are told that god has all the answers but is unwilling or unable to provide them.” I think you have heard of miraculous healings.
ANANSI WEAVER: Well there is that but as usual there is more to it. I’ll let you continue first.
So it isn’t that God is always unwilling nor unable to provide such healing. He has and continues to do miraculous things.. just not on tap or on command. We can ASK in prayer.. but only God can give the answer. It is when we begin to think God is obligated to give or do what we wish He would do that we make a mistake. Your friend was right to ask you to pray.. because perhaps God would hear and heal your mother. But if He doesn’t you cannot fault Him for not providing the answer you were seeking. He has all the answers, but in His infinite wisdom, the answer may not be the one we in our fallible judgement are seeking from Him. It may not be the time to heal, because it may be determined that that person’s time is up. And, as you said, in your mother’s case, it was.
ANANSI WEAVER: First let me clear something up. My mother was not asking to live forever. She was asking god not to die from stomach cancer. Any other way would have been fine just not that way.
Second it wasn’t the answers I was seeking, I understood mortality at the age of 7. My mother did not want to die of stomach cancer. That’s all she asked for.
Third my friend was wrong to believe that God would heal my mother. It didn’t answer her prayers on the subject on not giving it to her. It didn’t answer my family’s prayers or our friends, or the pastors etc. Chances are it wouldn’t answer my prayers or anyone else’s for that matter, more on this later.
When you say that men interpret the Bible wrongly sometimes, that is true. But it does not mean the Bible is unable to be interpreted or that some “enlightened few” in the clergy are the only ones with the magic key of interpretation. It only means that sincere men and women of faith can mistake the meaning of a passage just as people can mistake your meaning when you write a post. It doesn’t mean what you said was not perfectly plain, it was just taken wrongly. The fault is with the interpreter, not the author of the words. It is a normal human failing of men. For instance, when the Bible says,
Mat 12:14 Then the Pharisees went out, and held a council against Him, how they might destroy Him.
Mat 12:15 But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew himself from there: and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all;
I don’t think we have to fear interpreting this passage as saying that it talks of a plot to kill Jesus which, when He learned of it, He didn’t say “God will protect me” and stay there, but He prudently withdrew to a safe place. And we do not have to fear misinterpreting the passage when we say that it says plainly that Jesus healed all who followed Him to that safe place at that time. Both are plainly stated. So a great many things are easily understood by the minds of mankind because the purpose of the communication was to enlighten us and explain things to us, not to mystify and make understanding it difficult.

ANASI WEAVER: It is plainly stated in the bible that it took 6 days to make everything and we were created from the dust of the earth and that for some unfathomable reason god in its all knowing ways, forgot to make a mate for Adam so it took a rib from Adam to make Eve.
You stated that the bible is infallible but here you state that it is possible that whichever mortal wrote the bible (more on this later) could have misinterpreted the word of god. (Which we are incapable of understanding according to you).
You cannot have it both ways. Either the bible is infallible or it’s not.

I do think that when God decided to give an explanation of what He did when He created the universe to a bunch of sheep herders in the desert, He didn’t think they would understand the quantum mechanics explanation (though He knows that too!). Actually, they didn’t have the vocabulary for it or the advanced understanding it would take to “get” it, so He kept it simple and explained it step by step at their level of understanding. But not one thing He said is wrong in that explanation or in the other incidents explained in the Bible.

ANASI WEAVER: So he dumbed it down for us. Hmmmmm. Saying the earth was created in 6 days instead of 4.5 billion is somehow correct? I will say that I find it amazing the hoops you are willing to jump through just so you can claim your bible cannot be wrong.

You asked for examples. Well, let’s see… one instance was on a previous post where it was pointed out to me by Skepterist that the Bible was written on papyrus about 5,000 years ago, but “the Chinese have examples of writing from over 8,000 years ago”. He was using that to prove the Bible was not old, but did you know that within the last 100 years the Bible skeptics once said that the claims of the Bible that it was WRITTEN 5,000 years ago was false because no writings existed that far back? This was given as a proof the Bible was made up by men in more modern times. Then, of course, they found the writings in China which were a full three thousand years older.. thus proving the Bible COULD have been penned by Moses a full 5,000 years ago and that writing was not extraordinary or unknown in that period of history. As even you said, “the bible has not preserved us through all generations as it is a relativly new book by other civilizations standards.” That is an argument NOW - an opposite argument - but it was once the complete opposite argument the church faced. It HAS been preserved for a very long time.. from the time it was written and forward, as it says, Psa 12:6 “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. You shall keep them, O LORD, You shall preserve them from this generation for ever.” - From the time these words were penned “from THIS GENERATION” to forever.. the Bible is kept by God. And there is corroborating evidence from science of that proof.

ANANSI WEAVER: Huh? You know that there are societies that PREDATE Hebrew society in which Christianity was born from correct? And as for there being no writings older than the bible the Epic of Gilgamesh springs to mind.
Also how are “the words of the lord pure” when just a short while ago you said he dummed down the process for us?

Every time the skeptics say that there is something which proves the Bible untrue.. it is disproved. The Dead Sea Scrolls were another proof which just “happened” when the skeptics said that there was no way a book could remain unchanged for 1,000 years of time.. and to postulate 5,000 was ridiculous. Then we discovered the caves with the Dead Sea Scrolls.. proving that one wrong, too. There was one time they said the people called the Hittites were fictional. They said they never existed, though the Bible says they did. Then, of course, they found the entire civilization in an archeological dig. Every time they throw a new “this cannot be true” at the Bible.. circumstances arise to prove that is false.. almost like “Someone” is listening?? The incredible accuracy of the story concerning Egypt in the Bible is validated by the ancient Egyptian writings and artifacts. When the Bible says this is the way it was.. we can go to archeology and prove it true.. because the Bible is a book of Truth.

ANANSI WEAVER: If you knew your history the bible went through A LOT of changes over the centuries and was influenced by the surrounding cultures at the time. More on this later as well.

When it says in the Bible about how the people Moses led out of Egypt came to a mountain and there Moses received the Ten Commandments.. people have been skeptical of that claim, too. This brand new documentary has actual photo coverage of that place with evidence which proves it historic.. though if you went there the Islamics would kill you, so it isn’t exactly something I would recommend you do to verify the evidence yourself. But you may if you wish.. the place exists. Here is the documentary, free, on the web.. proof again to the skeptics of the Bible’s truth in every detail:
http://stage6.divx.com/Lost-Tribes/video/1018573/Mountain-of-Fire
The player should install itself if you do not have it when you click on it, otherwise:
Divx 6
Windows http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download/
Mac http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/

ANANSI WEAVER: Ok I try to be fair and look at all the information with an open mind but I’m not downloading that player. It causes a lot of problems on my system. I’ll do my own digging and comment on this another time.

But when you say that men are “unable to understand your god’s superior mind” - that is true. God is INFINITE and Omniscient and we are finite in our understanding and do not know everything. God had no beginning and has no end. We all didn’t exist 125 years ago.. we had a beginning. How can our understanding ever reach near to His? That is the reason He gave us His revelation in the Bible, because men do very often not understand God’s superior mind.. and it is vastly superior. The realms string theory has only just now postulated to exist and which they think are simple planes of existence are not. They have infinite design in them and are complicated because a vastly superior and complicated mind created them.. as will become understood in time as men learn about those realms.. in the same way they recently learned that there is no “junk DNA” but that it is also a very complicated design which was simply once beyond their ability to understand. It is only when men think that all is simple and without a Designer to it that they err in thinking the DNA we don’t understand is “junk” and the realms of string theory are “simple” and without much intricacy.. or that all they see happened by mere chance.
When you say.. why did God choose not to answer your Mom’s prayers not to die of cancer.. it was because it was her time to die. None of us can stay when God decrees we will go. No one has power over their own lives to choose to lay down their life in death and take it back up again at will.. but Jesus did. Jesus had that power.. not only to lay His life down at will (when He said “it is finished” on the cross and actually DIED because He chose to) and to take it up again:
Joh 10:17 Therefore does my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.
Joh 10:18 No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.
Why don’t you try that.. laying down your life and then taking it back up again? Who could claim that? Who could do it?

Jesus both claimed it and did it. That makes Him beyond men.. and His power beyond what men are capable of. God alone has power over life and death. He chose your mother’s death and will choose ours in His time. And only He can promise eternal life to those who follow Him:
Joh 10:27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
Joh 10:28 And I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
No mere man can claim to GIVE to men who follow them eternal life. This is a claim to Deity, as those who heard Him speak understood, because only a few verses later it says those who heard Him speak these words took up stones to stone Jesus. Jesus said to them:
Joh 10:32 Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father; for which of those works do you stone me?
They answered Jesus:
Joh 10:33 For a good work we do not stone You; but for blasphemy; and because that You, being a man, make Yourself God.
At least they understood what He was claiming

ANANSI WEAVER: Impossible according to your previous posts.

.. to be God and have power over death. Today, many think Jesus was just some good teacher and a healer.. again, something Jesus tried to avoid giving the impression of because He was after the eternal souls of men, not healing their mortal bodies or teaching them some truth which didn’t change their inward lives.
ANANSI WEAVER: I died once and came back. So did my mom and a lot of other people. Ever stop to think that it just wasn’t jesus’s time yet and he was as mortal as you or I?

Your questions:
1) Why are there no mention of dinosaurs in genesis?
Genesis is not the oldest book written in the Bible, Job is. And it mentions dinosaurs.. here is one, an animal whose tail is big as a cedar tree. This is no elephant tail.. it is huge and has power in it. What modern animal could this be describing? But it fits the description of a kind of dinosaur perfectly.
Job 40:15-19 Behold now behemoth, which I made… he eats grass as an ox. His strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moves his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron.
ANANSI WEAVER: Uuuuh… yeeeah…. Question. If Adam and Eve were the first man and woman and Job their descendant how could Job be older than Adam and Eve? Or more correctly how could the book of Job be older than the book of genesis?
Also, it doesn’t fit the description of a dinosaur perfectly. Dinosaurs weren’t mammals so they wouldn’t have a navel. Also since Adam and Eve were appointed the task of naming all of creation wouldn’t said creature have a name?
Furthermore taking the Flintstones as a documentary on prehistoric human life is really really foolish.

2) Why there are two different creation stories right next to each other?
And why are there four gospels with their differing accounts? It can be because it is used as a literary device as we do all the time in our plays and pictures. We often give the overall story once, then go back and give details which we feel make the story fleshed out and real. Also, we have several networks for the news and each of them brings something different to the account, different relevant details.. this is the same. There is no contradiction in the accounts of the gospels or in the creation stories.. all can be reconciled into one story, just with different angles. Just as Fox News and CNN might cover a story quite differently, but it can be the exact same event.
ANANSI WEAVER: Bravo! This is probably the most interesting argument that would hold some weight if only it were true.
Alas!
Actually the answer to that question lies in the story of the Babylonian god Marduk. You see when writer 1 of the bible (we’ll call him “Bob”) wrote Genesis one it was to celebrate the majesty and perfection of a god which he believed in. Unfortunately for Bob this did nothing to explain why the perfect being made a world filled with strife. So to solve this problem Bob looked for a way to explain this to everyone’s satisfaction so he stole the premise from the creation myth of Marduk where the world was created in a haphazard manner and humans were created so they could suffer strife so the gods could live in leisure.
3) Why flood the world to rid it of evil when god knew (he knows everything apparently) that said evil would survive anyway?
You think THAT evil has survived to this day? I think you mistake what evil there was in the world at that time. I think God didn’t explain exactly what the sins were that they committed because He knows men would do it again if they knew what those sins were. So He purposely did not put in the account what they were doing - other than to say their every thought was evil and the earth was filled with violence. Evil happens now, but I do not think it happens now as it did then.
Gen 6:5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
I do not think this is true of all of mankind now. It is not true that EVERY imagination of our hearts are only evil continually.. and it certainly is not true of ALL mankind on the earth. Evil happens today, but it is not as widespread.. nor do we have whatever wicked knowledge they had which God had to destroy.. and it seems likely that it was that which continually corrupted their imaginations and thoughts. And, frankly, I do not wish to know what that evil knowledge they had was… because God didn’t like it, and see how He treated those who had that knowledge? (There is more backup for this from the Bible, but I have learned by experience it is best not to go into detail on evil, some people do take it and run with it and I do not wish to be blamed by God for helping along evil and sin in a person’s life, or their curiosity toward evil.)
ANANSI WEAVER: Ummm yes evil of the past survives today and I ask you if your interpretation is even remotely correct (which it couldn’t possibly be) what was the human race doing that was so bad that god had to flood the entire planet? They certainly couldn’t have destroyed the world with spears and swords.
And even your god noted this when he vowed never to destroy the earth again because apparently we are evil from childhood. Why it didn’t realize it earlier being all knowing?
Also if there were dinosaurs in the book of Job then why aren’t they around today? After all they would have survived the flood being on the ark and all. And there is no mention in the bible that your god smote them.
4) “How could the perfect being that could make no mistakes and knows everything make flawed beings?”
That begs the question.. is the entire enterprise of making mankind a “mistake”? OR, is it planned? I think it is planned because, as you just said, God is a PERFECT being who can make no mistakes. So how could He make flawed beings? I think the flaw you mean is sin
ANANSI WEAVER: Let me cut you off here. I did not mean “sin” I meant turning down the wrong road, picking up the wrong can of soda, banging you knee on the coffee table you knew was there, locking your keys in the car, not getting 100 on your math test kind of mistakes.
If god was perfect then the results of god’s labors would be perfect themselves therefore incapable of making any mistakes much less sinning.

5) Why did god put the tree of knowledge in the garden if it didn’t want man to get to it? Couldn’t it have put some kind of forcerfield around it? After all it can do anything right?
This fits with the previous question.. without choice, how can you know someone loves you and wishes to be with you? Love requires an unforced choice.
ANANSI WEAVER: You mean like believe in me or I’ll send you to hell to live in everlasting torment?
With no tree to test our love toward God, we would only have been robots. Would you like to live with no choice in your life? Would you prefer to HAVE TO believe one way or another? Or to love someone.. to HAVE TO love them?
ANANSI WEAVER: Why would an all knowing being have to test our love unless it was uncertain of the answer? If it knew everything then it would have knew if the love was true or not making the test not necessary.
You ask if I would prefer to have to believe one way or the other but that isn’t the choice religion offers i.e. believe or go to hell.
You also said, “I don’t know. Let’s do this lets ask every subdivision of Christianity there is who has the right interpretation of the word of god and when I get one unified answer then I can tell you.”
You are expecting a unified answer from Christianity when the Bible itself says that for all of time there will be a lack of unity for a reason. Speaking to the CHURCH and not the world, it says:
1Co 11:18 For first of all, when you come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.
1Co 11:19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
The Bible says that there MUST be heresies among the church.. for a reason. To prove which ones are approved. You may not like that answer, but it is Biblical.
ANANSI WEAVER: I am reminded of a saying “while all answers are replies not all replies are answers. You essentially are telling me that god loves unconditionally but the only condition is you have to believe in god
You say, “I imply that by saying that the bible is infallible and possesses all the answers in light of evidence to the contrary is an act of pride.” That would indeed be an act of pride, IF the evidence to the contrary were of any weight.

You may think the arguments you cite against the Bible are worth building your life upon because they appear to you to be true…
ANANSI WEAVER: Riiiing “pot calling kettle, pot calling kettle. You’re black! You’re black!”
but God says you are like a foolish man who builds on sand.. it will fall, and great will be the fall of it.
ANANSI WEAVER: your god is welcome to sit down with me for tea and discuss it but I doubt it will because it says in the holy Lipton label that god prefers coffee and that is the TRUTH. (Note how I don’t have a shred of evidence to back my claims except a tea bag.)
The Bible will be proven to be what it is in the end - TRUTH. And He will “convince” all who are of the opposite opinion of that one day. Why He doesn’t do so now is to give you the chance to choose.. He will not force your love or obedience to the truth.
ANANSI WEAVER: Ummm hello! I stated I was open to the concept of god but I would like proof before I devote my life to something that is as ambiguous and contradicting as you have made it out to be.
You can choose sand if you wish.. but He warns you what will happen in the same way a parent warns a child not to run out in traffic..
ANANSI WEAVER: So if it let’s me have a choice to believe or not why make hell?
When you say, “religon got it wrong. Worse they are wrong for telling anyone who does not believe that they are wrong yet offers no proof as to why. Again faith does not have to be based on logic and reason. Faith can be a good thing but too much faith is a dead end because without questioning our beliefs, our world etc we would never grow. Whether or not you admit to it you do seek your own answers to problems or questions every day.”
I have to ask you.. Do you find what I have penned to you here illogical or without reason?
ANANSI WEAVER: The words “yes, yes I do” spring to mind.
Do you think I have not come up against such questions as you posed here to me and looked for answers?
ANASI WEAVER. You are asking yourself the wrong question. You should ask Whether or not you chose to believe in your religion and bible because it is EASIER than facing the possibility that your belief is flawed. I know that there is the possibility that I could be wrong and fully admit to it. I am open to all possibilities provided there is enough data for me to make an INFORMED decision one way or the other. I do not shy away from answers I don’t like that are uncontrovertibly true, that are proven time and again, that I can perform myself to see the results. What have you offered to sway me to your beliefs?
1: God doesn’t need to provide me with proof.
2: God has a plan but we have free will but if we don’t choose god’s way we are punished for all time
3: Mental acrobatics to keep yourself from facing the truth that you were wrong about the perfection of the bible.
4: An omniscient being that needs to test us to be sure we love it even though it already knows the answer to that.
5: The Flintstones as fact.
6: The book of job breaking the laws of space time and somehow being older that the book of genesis THE BEGINNING OF EVERYTHING YOU BELEAVE!
7: The fact that the perfect being who does everything perfectly and can make no mistakes makes flawed beings.
8: Biblical time’s evil being different from modern evil. Apparently an evil so bad that you god flooded the planet to wipe it out realizing too late that evil is apparent from birth. (But wait it knows everything. How could this be?)
9: God creating itself (I still can’t get over this one.) making itself prefect, (no flawed, no perfect….)
10: Great statements like we could never understand the mid of god and then you translating the word of god for me (us) which you couldn’t possibly understand according to you.
11: Unforced love: believe (love) me or go to hell forever.
12: Flaws in the bible as a literary tool.
13: God being the truth but dumbing down 4.5 billion to 6 days for humans who wrote the bible (no wait god wrote the bible, no wait humans…)
Has the CHURCH no answers to the skeptics?
ANANSI WEAVER: If they did they wouldn’t be skeptics they would be believers wouldn’t they?
. Do you think Christians never took the time to look into it? All men look for proof that validates their faith, creationists or evolutionists, that is why the evolutionists have so much material on the net, to put before the public eye their proofs, as we do for our view and faith. Validating faith is an ongoing venture.. those who believe the Bible do not stick their heads in the sand or believe in spite of good evidence but because of it. Invariably as the Creationist searches and examines the evidence it ends up proving the creationist view right and the skeptics wrong. That is because we don’t trust in man for our answers.. but in the infallible Omnicience of God - and because all He says IS the Truth, “there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord” (Proverbs 21:30) - though some men might need to wait until after they die to become “convinced” of that.
ANANSI WEAVER: See the list above. You’ll have to do a lot better than that if you want to convince me much less any other skeptic that Irreducible Complexity is a science and isn’t the church’s last ditch effort to get into the public school system.
And your proof of your god is essentially the same as the proof of Zeus, Thor, Nayambe, Marduk, Cirnunnos, Amertesaru, etc etc etc. A group of stories and passages written a log time ago long since abandoned as myth.

Before men sinned God created the trees, including the tree of the knowledge of good.. AND EVIL -

Gen 2:9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Who made this tree of good and EVIL - where did it come from? God.
God made a tree of EVIL as well as good? Yes, it says so here.
Does that make Him evil? No, because He said to Adam after He made him:

Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it: for in the day that you of it you shall surely die.

Men were told NOT to do this evil thing, just as God has the choice to be evil, but remains good.
So when you say, “according to you (and apparently the Bible), he was evil already”… I disagree.
The Bible clearly teaches that God was not evil, but had indeed CREATED evil.
There is a difference between creating something and BEING that thing.

Sara.

>Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
> God CREATES evil. You may say He has nothing to do with evil.. how then can that be if God says He creates it?

>Well, that is certainly one answer to the traditional “problem of evil”. Of course it is not one traditionally accepted by Christianity. The Christian definition of God is that he is Perfect, and by perfect, he is all Good, no Evil. Yet if he created evil, that assertion is false.

If it were true that what you consider Christianity teaches that which the Bible itself contradicts, is it real Christianity, then? And will you correct my understanding with the wisdom of men instead of the words of God as recorded in the Bible? If the Bible clearly teaches that the Lord Himself says He creates evil.. He creates it. If it says that, in spite of that creation, God is wholly good and not evil, He is good and not evil. Without the tree of the knowledge of good AND EVIL in the garden of Eden, men have no choice. Obviously, that choice is important to God. If He must make evil to give us that choice, then that is His perogative as Deity to do that.

1Co 2:4 And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5 That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

Either men’s wisdom - including any brand of “Christianity” which ignores this Scripture about God creating evil and does not preach nor believe the Scripture, OR God’s testimony in the Bible itself - is true. Take your pick about which you wish to believe, the words of men, or those the Bible says are penned by God. As Jesus said:

Luk 8:18 Take heed therefore how you hear: for whosoever has, to him shall be given; and whosoever does not have, from him shall be taken even that which he seems to have.

Sara.

If pride is a sin then God is the worst of all! Just look at the first commandment. Oh, and the creation myths in genesis. It doesn’t use the word, but God is proud of his work: “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

Also, you completely missed the point of the studies. It was a scientific question with scientific research and a scientific answer. I think my follow-up post, which should have been posted before yours but wasn’t, might clear up my position somewhat.

And nice job comparing me to Saddam. Good way of trying to get people to hate other people: mention the name of Hitler/Saddam/Stalin/Mao/etc. If you ever had an argument, that killed it.

I also don’t see how citing the bible really helps anything, especially countering a group of scientific studies such as those I linked to. The better thing might have been to counter the evidence, rather than bitch about it, or come up with a better explanation, rather than misinterpret mine.

“You think men approach to God in His Omniscience by their smart intellects?”
Nope. No more than I think men approach to dragons in their awesomeness.

“Jesus said the meek will inherit the earth, not the wisest and smartest.”
Interesting. So the people most likely to mimic sheep and blindly follow the shepherd of the church are promised that one day they will be in control, thus giving them not only a reason to be sheep and follow the church, which derives its power from its followers, but also gives a “them” to hate: the people wise enough to see through the ruse. I gotta hand it to the authors of the bible: they were no gods, but they were no morons either.

“ANANSI WEAVER: I don’t think one can judge intellect by ones religious beleifs [sic] as I have known many smart religious people. They may be unable to objectively debate religious issues logically but the can be smart in other arenas.

I personally think that ones major limitation to ones intellect is the inability to keep an open mind.”

I answered his question by giving him studies that compared the average IQ of those with and without religious belief. The obvious conclusion was that, on average, smart people are less religious, and conversely, on average, religious people are less smart. Smart, that is, as defined by certain tests or gpa levels or some other measurable quantity. If sara was smart, she would have claimed that the methodologies were flawed because men created the test; men who themselves assumed that they were smart.

Keep in mind that these studies are on average, and not absolute. Religious people can be smart, and smart people can be religious. At no time did I deny that. But if I were a betting man walking around MIT campus or any other elite school, and I had a bookie who would give me $100 for every atheist and I would give them $100 for every theist, I would take that bet and I would come out far ahead. Come to think of it, Sara, would you be willing to make that bet with me?