I don\'t really want to get into what\'s been said over all the past 10 pages. This is something I\'m much better at debateing in person when I don\'t have to wait 10+ hours and wade past 20 different POV\'s before continuing my train of though.
I do notice one prevailing problem with the "scientists" replies though. Many of the atheists here are saying that we\'re using god as a cover for what we don\'t understand.. and that the true answer will eventually be revealed by science in time. Yet isn\'t a basic scientific fundimental, or at least common sence, that "Absence of proof is not proof of absence"? Just because you cannot see god "pulling the levers" that make the universe run it\'s course dosen\'t mean he isn\'t there doing it. A cave man sees lightning strike and attributes it to god, a scientist sees lightning strike and attributes it to a buildup of electrons in the atmosphere, god sees lightning strike and knows that his machine is working perfectly. Or perhaps there is such a thing as fate in that God already knows what is going to happen. He set the machine up, like a computer running a program, and is sitting back and watching as it works. From what my religeon teaches, god rested on the seventh day. Perhaps this IS the seventh day. Science says that light, the universe, the earth, and life was all created over the course of trillions of years... but the bible says it was done in 6 days. So what is a day to god? What meaning does time have to one who supposedly created time? Perhaps it\'s just a metephor because the people who recieved god\'s word we\'re ready to for whole truth.. they knew nothing of life before them and arrogantly assumed that they we\'re god\'s only chosen people. To tell them how it really went down would be pointless. They just wouldn\'t understand at least, and more likely they would simply kill the prophet on the spot. The Romans crusified Christ for something as simple as claiming he was the king of the jews, and had more power than Cesear.. even though Jesus was talking about a totally different kingdom altogether.
Also, I have a question for the scientists here. Many of you claim that the bible is too full of contridictions to be taken seriously. I agree, but so is Science. The theory of the big bang for instance, states that at one time the entire cosmos.. everything in existance.. was compressed to a size smaller than an atom. Huh? How do you explain that? Yeah there are Quarks and subatomic particals, but how can a whole atom.. let alone an infinate amount of them by human comprehension.. be compressed to a size smaller than one? You can\'t. You have to take it on faith... just like the Scientists of the 18th century had to take the very existance of atoms on faith. So why is your faith more vaid than ours? And considering that most scientists now believe that the universe in fact will NOT begin shrinking.. but instead petter out into a mass of subatomic particles and dark matter that will float listly farther and farther away for all eternity.. there\'s still the question of what came before the big bang.
Also Samwise.. the belief that the deitys of multiple religeons are in fact the same god is not invalid IMO. Just look at miracles for instance. Every religeon has they\'re collection of miracles, totally unexplainable by science, attributed to their god. However the theme is also strangely similar. Look at the case of bleeding statues. In St. Luke\'s Episcopalian Church near Philidelphia, a 28 inch plaster model of Christ has often been witnessed bleeding from the wounds on his hands, feet, and head like a Stigmaic. While in the Mahadeva Temple in India, a 1 foot iron statue of Shiva has been witnessed to appreantly menstrate on it\'s ceremonial cloth at irregular invervals on seven different holy days. Both statues we\'re examined by scientists and no explination can be found. Those are just two examples of a rare, but not unheard of phenomenon happening to two religeon icons made out of radically different matereal.
