Maybe you missed the fact that I stated that Noah didn't have one of every species, but rather one of every kind. Another thing is that at the time of Noah, the world was one continent, so there was no need for Noah to go continent hopping to find the various kinds. How many kinds exist? There are millions of species, but not nearly that many kinds. You don't need all 4500 species of frogs, you need one species of frog and you allow the kind to micro-evolve to their new environments. A study done by Nina G. Jablonski showed that human ethnicities could have formed in 1000 years or less, we can assume that similar changes could take place in all of the existing animals species.



A shotgun argument is when you post many different issues in one post. Like your huge list of scriptures without any arguments presented, you expected us to do the research and figure out what your arguments were for you.

They are called translations, because most people don't read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek. There are minor changes from one to the next, but the main themes are in tact, because regardless of their doctrinal differences, the translators all loved God and respected the Bible.

Exodus 20:4. "You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea."
Leviticus 26:1 "Do not make idols or set up carved images, or sacred pillars, or sculptured stones in your land so you may worship them. I am the Lord your God."

Exodus 25:17-22 Then make the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—from pure gold. It must be 45 inches long and 27 inches wide. Then make two cherubim from hammered gold, and place them on the two ends of the atonement cover. Mold the cherubim on each end of the atonement cover, making it all of one piece of gold. The cherubim will face each other and look down on the atonement cover. With their wings spread above it, they will protect it. Place inside the Ark the stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, which I will give to you. Then put the atonement cover on top of the Ark. I will meet with you there and talk to you from above the atonement cover between the gold cherubim that hover over the Ark of the Covenant. From there I will give you my commands for the people of Israel."


So I guess it's ok to make a graven image or idol so long as the God of the Bible commands you to do so?

Wow - after reading all this, I just can't understand why more people didn't believe Charles Manson????

The Ark wasn't an idol, it was an ornate box. Engravings, statues, ornate boxes, buttons, telephones and just about any other manmade object is just fine, so long as it is not worshipped.

The Catholic Bible has additional books, (The Apocrypha) that Protestants do not recognize as a part of their Holy Bible. The Mormans have a totally different Bible called The Book of Morman as well as The Old and New Testament. And the Gideon Bible is simply a King James Version of the Holy Bible that is given out by an organization called Gideons International. I would also like to acknowledge that there are other Gnostic texts out there like The Lost Books of the Bible, The Pistis Sophia, and The Nag Hammadi Library. There are many other sources to get "God's Word." Blind sheep are taught to believe that the Protestant Bible is the only one that should be acknowledged.

And goats will eat anything they find, while sheep will only eat the grass their shepherd leads them to.

I guess it all depends upon your interpretation of the scriptures and your definition of a graven image and an idol. In my opinion, the commandment is pretty clear... no graven image of anything within the earth or the heavens... yet God commanded that his people make a graven image (the ark of the covenant).

"so you may worship them." is really clear. If you aren't worshipping it, then it isn't an idol.

Hail Baphomet! Hail!

This is an excellent example, of an inconsistency in the Bible Jarhead, and one of my favorites.

There you go Rambill – explain this one away!!!

God supposedly gives man free will, but then controls the pharaoh’s heart so God can have an excuse to bring plagues on the people.

Some God you have their Rambill. Sounds like he gets his kicks form being sadistic and controls other people to make excuses for his sadistic pleasures.



The fact that anyone thinks that this story might have actually been literal amazes me to no end. There are plenty of allegories in the Bible, why people wouldn’t realize that his is just another allegory is beyond me.

It wasn’t even supposed to be about how the whole world became evil like everyone suggests. Its supposed to be a story about having faith in God even when it appears that the whole rest of the world is evil.

Sometimes I think religious people really exhibit how naïve they can be by trying to take some of this stuff literally!!!

It was a moral story, not intended to be a literal piece of history!



There you go Rambill, you’re going to have a pretty hard time explaining those blatant inconsistencies away.

Boy ain't that the truth!!!

I used to overlook all this bad crap when I read the Bible because I was always searching for answers to deeper questions.

I never found the answers I was looking for and this is why I rejected the Bible.

But looking back on it now I can't understand why I didn't just reject it for its pure inconsistencies alone.

I guess, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Had God actually acted reasonable somewhere in the Bible I might have been compelled to overlook the bad stuff. Unfortunately that never happened.

Even Jesus acted unreasonable on several occasions. Totally unlike the 'perfect example' that many claim he was.

Actually Mahatma Gandhi has Jesus beat as a near perfect example of a human. At least Gandhi didn’t go into churches and upset tables!

Miracle of the Staff

Plague of Blood
Plague of Frogs
Plague of Lice
Plague of Flies
Plague of Disease
Plague of Boils - God hardens Pharoah's heart
Plague of Hail
Plague of Locusts
Plague of Darkness
Plague of Death

God gave Pharoah six miracles, including five of the plagues before God hardened Pharoah's heart. Eventually, God decided to stop taking mercy on the Pharoah and instead used the Pharoah to show God's power to the world. During the plagues, the Pharoah would agree to free the Israelites, but when the plague was gone, he would refuse. Five times Pharoah did that. At that point, God decided that Pharoah would be made into a vessel for wrath.

New Living Translation Deuteronomy 27:22 "'Cursed is anyone who has sexual intercourse with his sister, whether she is the daughter of his father or his mother.' And all the people will reply, 'Amen.'"

New Living Translation Leviticus 20:17 "If a man marries his sister, the daughter of either his father or his mother, and they have sexual relations, it is a shameful disgrace. They must be publicly cut off from the community. Since the man has violated his sister, he will be punished for his sin."

New Living Translation Abraham replied, Genesis 20:11-13 (Abraham talking to Abimelech) “I thought, 'This is a godless place. They will want my wife and will kill me to get her.' And she really is my sister, for we both have the same father, but different mothers. And I married her. When God called me to leave my father’s home and to travel from place to place, I told her, 'Do me a favor. Wherever we go, tell the people that I am your brother.'”

New Living Translation Genesis 17:15-16 "Then God said to Abraham, 'Regarding Sarai, your wife—her name will no longer be Sarai. From now on her name will be Sarah. And I will bless her and give you a son from her! Yes, I will bless her richly, and she will become the mother of many nations. Kings of nations will be among her descendants.'”



Why didn't God consider Abraham's relationship with his sister as incestuous and sinful? Why did God bless this blatantly obvious incestuous relationship between brother and sister?

God brought an end to incest when the law was given to Moses. Brother's and sister's marrying was how the second generation of humans were born. Until the number of harmful genes had reached a high enough point, there was no danger in marrying a close relative or even a brother or sister.

Spidercmb,

No…read again. I did take into consideration that you stated that he took only one “kind” of species. In fact I calculated only .0001 of all 300 million species (we could go less, if you like). One minute\per to board the ship, when standing right in front of the ship itself - and it would still take over 11 years. That first species will sit on the Arc 11 years before the last one gets on.

Quote from Nina herself: “That (color) it's not about race — it's about sun and about how close our ancestors lived to the Equator. Skin color is what regulates our body's reaction to the sun and its rays. Dark skin evolved to protect the body from excessive sun rays. Light skin evolved when people migrated away from the Equator and needed to make vitamin D in their skin. To do that, they had to lose pigment. Repeatedly over history, many people moved dark to light and light to dark. That shows that color is not a permanent trait.” - Nina G. Jablonski

-Source:
Dreifus, Caudia (2007, jan 9). Human skin is an anthropologist's map. Retrieved November 19, 2007, from International Herald Tribune Web site: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/09/healthscience/snskin.php

Color does not differentiate species. My skin and hair change color every season. A dog can change color in a generation, but to fundamentally change into another species? That takes quite a bit more than 1000 yrs.

I summerized the topic for every one of those scriptures I referred to. I already did the research for you. But you’re right; I could only list a summary. You can take my word for it..not suggested. (heck you would be doing that even if I had listed the scriptures in detail), but if you want even more detail that would be up to you.

.....I was just trying to make it quicker reading.

Ram - is sharpening his pencils, give him a moment, the he has to sharpen a lot of penciles. Could be a while, he needs water for the hone, and there's a hole in his buckett. Dear Lila, dear Lila

Then mend it dear Georgie, dear Georgie,
then mend it dear Georgie, dear Goergie - mend it.

There's a lot of verses - don't make me sing them all, Ram....

Dear Jarhead, Really, really enjoyed your comments. I was a gung-ho praise and worship team musician for a couple of years in this church down the street from here. I got so gung-ho, I went and read the bible. Big mistake. You have enumerated many of the problems a thinking person - thinking person - will run into whilst reading the inerrant word. It stunned me, bro. And you know what the funniest part of it was for me? The unbridled violence that God supposedly instructed the Jews to commit, all over the so-called holy land... I cannot get behind the God described in the Old Testament. "God told me to do it" justifies brutal action after brutal action. These guys with dynamite strapped to their bodies cause us unmitigated horror now -- and they all claim divine instruction, don't they? What makes the violence in the Old Testament somehow o.k., when we claim at least to abhor it these days? Andrea Yates killed her kids to insure their entrance into heaven, remember? Are we thrilled about her commitment to her faith? And are we now stoning people to death for working on the Sabbath, say, or committing adultery -- and if we're not, shouldn't we be, if we want to adhere to the Bible entirely? The Bible is knee-deep in inconsistencies, the Emperor is naked. The apologists have answers to every single little thing in the Bible, it has been honed to a razor's edge, a science of rebuttal, but in the end the 'supporting statements' come from the same book that causes the contention in the first place!
The motive? Manipulation! for power, for profit, for control. Think of it as prototypical politics. Can't beat your opponents in combat, fine, put the fear of hell fire in them. Bishops are powerful pieces on the chessboard, aren't they?

Eventually, God decided to stop taking mercy on the Pharoah and instead used the Pharoah to show God's power to the world. During the plagues, the Pharoah would agree to free the Israelites, but when the plague was gone, he would refuse. Five times Pharoah did that. At that point, God decided that Pharoah would be made into a vessel for wrath.


It looks like here god displayed vanity, vengeance, and wrath.

He didn't even display the vengeance and wrath on the Pharaoh, but the Egyptian people, and their children?

Are these some of the qualities of the chritian god? Is this an example to follow?

What's your source for 300 million species? I found one million described and probably 10 million total. How many are fully aquatic? They wouldn't be on the Ark. The majority of those species are insects, so they don't take up much room.

http://texasnature.blogspot.com/2003/10/how-many-animal-species-exist.html