+1

The trolling is practically on auto-pilot now.  'God killing people...blah, blah, blah....God doing evil...blah, blah, blah...."

I don't know paris, I think if this guy will use any means at his and our disposal to just plain get personal attention coming his way that's just what he'll do. And this means probably in this case baiting us to do just what it is that we are still doing now.
And that would be continuing to talk about him!
You see, the sickness here is this I think; it really doesn't matter if he gets good and uplifting attention or the reverse of that edifying process.
That being, as long as he can detract from these threads which draws attention to himself.
The fact that he calls attention to a god who is not holy is really only secondary to the facts that I have just stated above as I believe him to be.
I have been rather ill too in my life.
Injuries, surgeries, chromic acid poisoning, knife wound, injured in close combat, pneumonia, tumors, injuries from car wreck, lacerations to the head and concussion. shock from explosion; trauma and swelling, heat exhaustion, heat stroke, shoulder dislocation, hepatitis, crushed fingers, injured in the oilfield, permanent hearing loss..........But through all of this and all of the psychological stuff that goes along with it, I never blamed God for things that would happen to me without at least His prior knowledge about these things which would happen in my life.

These things in  my humble opinion only brought me closer to my Creator, not further away!

Not buying what the guy is trying to peddle for a minute.........Never did!

Are you suggesting a person without specialized or a priori knowledge (say, a bronze age farmer) could be shown a video taken from a space ship traveling at various speeds ranging from 3/4 to 7/8 the speed of light and reasonably be able to back out anything other than the chronology depicted in the video (say, six days by the cam corder clock for instance).  The record of The journey percieved from the traveller's point of view would have to significantly altered to show it from an external timeframe, or annotated with a soundtrack to explain what time is doing in some external reference frame.  




And again, suppose the planet/star visited did not exist at the start of the journey, with no ground to plant a long record camcorder on, there is no recorded external frame to reference and it would need to be estmated/approximated no?  Why tell a fiction when you can just tell the God's honest truth that you flew in the ship for six days, and describe what you saw from your own frame of reference?  If you arrived on your ship at a world that didn't exist when you started your journey, how much time would you spend trying to reconstruct an alternate frame to anchor to this bronze age farmer's history?  And why bother?  Just tell him time doesn't work the same where he is as it does for you and your spaceship no?  Besides, it's not like the peasant has 15 billion years to watch your alternate playback no?  Just tell him you're capabilities are beyond his understanding no?  



It's really not hard to reason through, for a reasonable person.  I'm constantly amazed how the "defenders of reason" tend to have their faculty of reason stopped in its tracks when they run into something that calls them to consider that it may not be all about them or humanity, or that something may in fact "be the boss of them" and have expectations of them.  I still believe it is terror over that prospect that drives such subversion of the faculty of reason.


 

No, all he is doing is presenting the usual GD false dichotomy that people know and love, and using it to troll the Religion forum.

looks like dust on the lense

+1 and 13/16ths

Yeah, the whole 'Suffering disproves the benevolence of God' meme is false on a whole variety of levels.

It speaks more to the character of the person who advocates it than any particular religious belief.

Amen to that.

That case sticks in my mind, because it was so up close and personal. However, there have been a number of others which were not so extreme, but still illustrate the point.

Several years ago my parents died, and both had a rather rough go of it. And in this building, during the last nine months, three people died; in each instance it was a prolonged and obviously very unpleasant experience for those individuals.

I would note that it was Zaphod who started this side track into killing and death, not me. And you are just as guilty as I of continuing it...

What was it you said in your post just preceding that one? Oh, yeah - here it is:

"Leagues off of topic now. Was talking about the glory of God according to His vast and awesome creation..."

I rest my case gentlemen.

No, I'm saying that bronze age people understood that there were longer periods of time than just a single day. The ancient Sumerians had a calendar year which was divided into 12 months. I'm sure they could easily have understood the concept of "a very long time."

However, it is obviously very hard to reason for people who are not adept at logical thought. Your speculation is illogical, because it is not supported by the characteristics attributed to God.

- If God is non-corporeal, he would have no need of a space ship.
- If God is omnipresent, he would not need to travel anywhere, at any speed.

Since it is safe to assume that the author of Genesis would've understood the concept of "a very long time," if he was told by God that Creation occurred in six days, we are left with two possibilities:

1. Creation took place literally in six days; or
2. God lied about how long Creation took.

Having been in the military, and worked in civilian jobs, I have no problem -- let alone terror -- with the idea of having a boss over me.

Where I do have a problem is accepting something as true, in the absence of proof (or even convincing evidence) that it is.

Suffering doesn't disprove the benevolence of God. However, torture and genocide do.

What does it say about the character of Christians, that they condone or excuse behavior by their God which they would find abhorrent if done by a human?

Far less than your trolling here says about your character.  And, I have convincing evidence that it is lacking.

Just for clarification--I never said there is no God.

I am merely trying to reconcile the fact of how big our universe is and creation.

--looking for biblical answers to the age and span of the universe to understand God more.

Well in this, I believe here you may be thinking about this not necessarily with the right point of view.
First off, what is, is what is!
I don't think that the actual age of the earth, or some other question that we may have or contrived within ourselves is going to much help us to understand God any better in the sense of having more knowledge about the creation or its after-effects which might make practical sense to us at all.
Now, the reason that I say this is because there is no absolute and correctly calculated real age of the earth or universe as things stand right now.
But, like many other people, one being myself also, there has been times where I have had a yearning for this same kind of information also.
Our universe as you know is very large and extremely vast.
Scientists believe that it is an astronomical and gargantuan amount of eons of light years from one end to the other.
Yet, as that might be and let's say for just a moment that it is; scientists still do not know where the natural universe begins or ends, or if there truly is a real beginning or end to the thing at all.
You know, like possibly the eternal loop where there is no beginning or an end just looping around and in back on itself or something of that effect!
Its as the Bible states about a thousand years being as a day, and yet a day as a thousand years. But does this really mean a literal 24 hour day is exactly equal to a thousand years in the eternal realm or in the kingdom of God as the absolute truth about the correctness of this Biblical statement?
Seems after some in depth study that many of these things still remain outside of the grasp of man's understanding which means for us for the time being anyway, that they in large part are inherently more God's business right now than what He is letting us accurately in on.

And here too, is the significant sin nature that God decided to vex man with permanently in this condition of corruption; likewise permanently preclude us from knowing much more than we are able to absorb and understand at the present?
The Bible clearly states that man as time goes along will indeed become more sinister and dangerous to himself.
You know, like things are getting now!

Could it really be instead of a thousand; thousands and thousands, or even thousands and thousands and thousands.
Let's see.
That's about a week and a half isn't it?

Learn the best way to preach the word in a way that most all would at least listen, if someone were to ask me how to become closer and more intimate with God.
Right?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e5-0t0pTF0

Monsters of the Cosmos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZGINaRUEkU

The Quantum World

No, it does not mean one day equals 1000 years, in any realm.

Remember the context: To God, a thousand years is as a day, and a day is as a thousand years.

That just means, because God is immortal, existing every where and every when, the passage of time means nothing to him.

religion should NEVER be taken literally. it is basically philosophy and should be treated as such. THE END.
when i see photo's like that, i almost cry and how much i just want to know what is out there. The fact that i know i will never get to see something as extraordinary as a super nova or any kind of alien life, makes me very sad.

LOL aren't self delusions the best

This question just gets a shrug from the LDS readers. We believe God has created "worlds without number". We're definitely not alone, but I don't think any of our neighbors are within our reach.

I have no conflict between science and my religion.  There's room in my beliefs for other worlds, God, dinosaurs, and 4.5 billion years of earth-evolution.

Umm..........no!