The idea of God is not a bad one. It is nice to know there is someone out there with a plan of why things happen. I also like the fact people take comfort in the idea of his existence. I have no problem with any of that
My problem is religion. The thing people kill over even though almost all religions preach peace. The church also has a choke hold on the minds that go there. I've had debates with people who's only source was their priest or the bible. Many scientific discoveries are disbelieved by the church making further research harder because popular opinion doesn't follow their discoveries anymore.
Even political ideas are influenced by a book created thousands of years ago. The Bush administration is baking a book that states the grand canyon was created in Noah's flood. Something not backed by any scientific knowledge or even common sense. Going against the publishers goal of educating people on how the Grand Canyon came into existence.
To give an example of the book "I told people how the Grand Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time span of millions of years. (Most geologists place the canyon's age at some six million years). Then I met the Lord. Now I have a different view of the Canyon, which according to a biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than a few thousand years old"
The Bible had amazing ideas on how people should treat each other (along with some not so amazing ones <<slaves>>) but you should not use it as a source in a scientific book. If we believed what religions said even after they had been disproven the sun is still moved though the sky by Apollo.
You can have your religion, but please think with your minds not your souls.

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"I need not offend to make my point, but I apologize for stating your intelligence. If though my observations it seems I transgress. Accept my apologies."
"Think with your mind, not your soul"

Those are some very astute conclusions. I always bring up the dinosaurs... why no talk of dinosaurs in the Bible. We Know there were dinosaurs. A book that talks about everything else I'd expect to hear something about all those dinosaurs and how they fit into the big plan. Never anything about dinosaurs...

That would primarily be because a) the book of Genesis is not a literal tale designed to record all of history (so I'm not sure what you mean by "everything else", b) they didn't exactly give a thorough listing of any of the animals of the world even in modern times, c) Genesis skips from creating the "animals" straight to the creation of man. Since "man" as we know him is only a few tens of millenia old, and wasn't around for the dinosaurs, it doesn't really stand to reason that Adam would know anything about the dinosaurs.

What would have been the point of God to tell the Jewish Holy men writing Genesis, "Hey you missed the bit about creatures that have no impact on your life or the lessons I'm teaching you that you have no evidence for."? So they can look good to people who go "Hey, there's no mention of Dinosaurs in Genesis!"? There are problems far more severe and relevant to the Bible's validity than whether or not a Jewish dude 3 or 4 millenia ago bothered to jot down a passage or two about extinct giant lizards he himself had never seen.

That's an interesting explanation but doesn't the fact that dinosours ever existed at all conflict with the biblical time line. Carbon testing shows dinosours to be of an age that acorrding to the bible life didn't exist. In addition according to the Bible God made all things in 7 days. If all things in 7 days... and the dinosours weren't there... but we now know beyond a shadow of a doubt dinosours did exist??? That's where I get to the dinosours... you'd notice and talk about dinosours. It's an obvious break down or gap in the story. Which might lead me to believe that because people creating religion back then didn't know about dinosours they built there religions not around anything "devine" and all knowing but around only what "man" knew at the time. See what I mean.

I'm sure he wasn't checking his timex to make sure he did it in exactly 7 modern days. First off, I don't think we can assume that one of God's days is an exact 24 hours. If you've always been and always will be, then time really has no meaning anyways. And secondly, I wouldn't take the bible, partilarily the old testament, and particularily genesis to be literal. That is where the religions get it wrong, well partly anyways. They concentrate on things like the seven days, and the walking on water, and not on treating your neighbor as yourself and showing forgiveness, and being honest, etc.

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Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars. ... I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask no one to live for me, nor do I live for others. I covet no mans soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

Ayn Rand, Anthem.

I agree but whatever the timeline where are the dinosours? If one day was a millenium there's still no mention. If at some point everything that we now know existed was created by God it's like the elepahant in the room. It would at some point get mentioned. I mean look at all the stuff about the begining of earth and time. All the other creatures that are mentioned. All the stories all the scripture ever written. No dinosours.

Everytime I break it down logically I come up with religion being made up by man to give their particular tribe a special importance over others and a way to explain the unknown. That would explain multiple religions popping up in clusters at varying locations over time.

I'm with you though that the important teachings of Christianity are how live and how to treat others.

It's all very interesting. Faith vs. logic I wish they were more hand in hand. It would make the most important questions the most easy ones.

Why do different religions in different parts of the world have the same stories?

As with the geocentric v. heliocentric theories, the Church never took a stand against science, as some rewriting history have wanted to say. The Church embraced it, but the Church recognized that these were theories and that neither of them could be proven.

No, it doesn't. God existed before the universe, therefore he created time itself in this universe. If you analyze the Bible you will find that the time is different than ours, as by the end of the first day there was not enough in existance that we could measure a day by our standards.


Sure, many don't, but then again there are hundreds and the religion of most people today affirms the Great Flood, as did many now dead religions.

Well, I may as well throw out my best: After reading some Jung and Tiellard DeChardin ( sp) I liked the idea of a Universal Collective Unconscious. That later evolved into the notion that Intelligent Technological Species have an "ecologicl purpose". I came up with this: The Ecological Purpose of intelligent technological species is the preservation of biospheres and habitats when native planets and stars are no longer able to do so. I guess its a variant on the Shepherd King Mythos or Good Shepherd idea. Personally I like it.