[Jack O'fagan]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Please do not take offense, brother, I didn't mean to come off as disrespectful. I never said that I knew more than Jesus. Rather, I consider Jesus to be one of the few people in the world that I can trust to look for guidance and support. I merely said that I take his parables to be allegories, and that is a matter of interpretation, not of knowing. Although with respect, I don't believe this is relevant to the mane topic of the thread, of the existence of other planets, which I would like to return to.

But your dismissal of His creation is linked to the main thread topic. I would still like to know how a Christian cannot believe in Adam and Eve but think that Jesus died for our sins? Did He temporarily die for nothing?

YIC

Jack

[Donald C]

Re: other planets do not exist!

But your dismissal of His creation is linked to the main thread topic. I would still like to know how a Christian cannot believe in Adam and Eve but think that Jesus died for our sins? Did He temporarily die for nothing?

YIC

Jack

I believe in original sin, and that Jesus died to save us from original sin. I believe that the Adam and Eve story is an allegory to introduce to us several important ideas in the Christian mythos; that of the benevolent creator, that of paradise and heaven, and that of sin, which if we succumb to it, will lead us away from paradise. That's my take on it, anyway. Again, I do not claim to know the answer, nor do I expect you to take my opinion after this very short debate, I'm merely explaining myself.

[Redeemed Papist]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Please do not take offense, brother, I didn't mean to come off as disrespectful. I never said that I knew more than Jesus. Rather, I consider Jesus to be one of the few people in the world that I can trust to look for guidance and support. I merely said that I take his parables to be allegories, and that is a matter of interpretation, not of knowing. Although with respect, I don't believe this is relevant to the mane topic of the thread, of the existence of other planets, which I would like to return to.

Parables ARE allegories, idiot. By definition. That's why Jesus made it perfectly clear that they were parables so as to not confuse them with the rest of His words which were literally true. You don't need to interpret them because Jesus painfully explains them for the very stupid anyway.

Start to say the rest of the Bible is allegory and where do you stop? How do you stop in the same place as the man next to you? How is it possible to have two people claiming opposite things in the name of the word of God? I'll tell you how! It's because one of them twists scripture to fit his secular agenda and is flirting with the very fires of Hell.

God means what He says or why would He say it? If God says He made the earth in six days and made plants before the sun then who are we to act like cleverclogs and just because we know plants die without sunlight say this doesn't make sense therefore it's allegory. Why you could say people don't rise from the dead and pretty much destroy the entire New Testament.

No! If you cut all the bits of the Bible out that don't make sense you're left with a pamphlet of nice sounding moral guidance that anyone could dream up about loving each other and treating each other fairly. Where's the divinity in that?

I prefer to trust my Lord.

[Donald C]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Parables ARE allegories, idiot. By definition. That's why Jesus made it perfectly clear that they were parables so as to not confuse them with the rest of His words which were literally true. You don't need to interpret them because Jesus painfully explains them for the very stupid anyway.

Start to say the rest of the Bible is allegory and where do you stop? How do you stop in the same place as the man next to you? How is it possible to have two people claiming opposite things in the name of the word of God? I'll tell you how! It's because one of them twists scripture to fit his secular agenda and is flirting with the very fires of Hell.

God means what He says or why would He say it? If God says He made the earth in six days and made plants before the sun then who are we to act like cleverclogs and just because we know plants die without sunlight say this doesn't make sense therefore it's allegory. Why you could say people don't rise from the dead and pretty much destroy the entire New Testament.

No! If you cut all the bits of the Bible out that don't make sense you're left with a pamphlet of nice sounding moral guidance that anyone could dream up about loving each other and treating each other fairly. Where's the divinity in that?

I prefer to trust my Lord.

Right. Absolutely. It makes perfect sense; where's the divinity in being kind to people, regardless of race or creed? What's decent about being kind to people because it's the right thing to do, not out of fear? What's divine about being a good person if I don't give all of my money to this specific cult?

This is pointless, isn't it? I'm getting into an argument on the internet. Do I really have nothing better to do? I'm going to go outside and smile at the person across the street from me, even though they're Jewish, or gay, or black, or mentally handicapped. And when they smile back, I am going to feel more fulfilled that I did something well and truly good than I would by spreading hate and bigotry.

And as long as I'm at it, there's no need to throw out petty insults. I've tried to be as respectful as possible, and I'm genuinely sorry if I offended you; I only offered my opinion. But that's that, isn't it? I'm walking away now.

[Jack O'fagan]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Right. Absolutely. It makes perfect sense; where's the divinity in being kind to people, regardless of race or creed? What's decent about being kind to people because it's the right thing to do, not out of fear? What's divine about being a good person if I don't give all of my money to this specific cult?

This is pointless, isn't it? I'm getting into an argument on the internet. Do I really have nothing better to do? I'm going to go outside and smile at the person across the street from me, even though they're Jewish, or gay, or black, or mentally handicapped. And when they smile back, I am going to feel more fulfilled that I did something well and truly good than I would by spreading hate and bigotry.

And as long as I'm at it, there's no need to throw out petty insults. I've tried to be as respectful as possible, and I'm genuinely sorry if I offended you; I only offered my opinion. But that's that, isn't it? I'm walking away now.

You could do all those 'nice' things without a belief in God. You don't believe much of the Bible. I think you should seriously reconsider if you should call yourself a Christian.
YIC

Jack

[Redeemed Papist]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Right. Absolutely. It makes perfect sense; where's the divinity in being kind to people, regardless of race or creed? What's decent about being kind to people because it's the right thing to do, not out of fear? What's divine about being a good person if I don't give all of my money to this specific cult?

This is pointless, isn't it? I'm getting into an argument on the internet. Do I really have nothing better to do? I'm going to go outside and smile at the person across the street from me, even though they're Jewish, or gay, or black, or mentally handicapped. And when they smile back, I am going to feel more fulfilled that I did something well and truly good than I would by spreading hate and bigotry.

And as long as I'm at it, there's no need to throw out petty insults. I've tried to be as respectful as possible, and I'm genuinely sorry if I offended you; I only offered my opinion. But that's that, isn't it? I'm walking away now.

And your opinion boiled down to the idea that God and Jesus are a convenient fable for us to use to cherry pick ideas we like from while disregarding the rest. Everyone gets to pick their own cocktail of lies and call it unassailable truth from the fable bank. It's ok for others to be deluded into swallowing the whole fable but we smart ones have discernment enough to merely dip our toes into the right little bit here and there. Aren't we clever? Look at the poor luddites swallowing it all hook line and sinker; aren't they quaint. Yet we are just as Christian as they are and we'll still go to Heaven...

Listen to just how patronising that stance is and you'll see why you make me puke!

Why not just admit from the start that you are an atheist who happens to be a cultural Christian? It would have saved a lot of time.

[lukasekman]

Re: other planets do not exist!

I'm afraid this is incorrect. Planets do not orbit in a perfectly circular way. Rather, their orbits are often eliptical. The Earth itself can be as close to the sun as 91,445,000 miles or as far as 94,555,000 miles. Further, as the Earth is rotating it is in fact "wobbling" on its axis, and is never rotating perfectly from pole to pole, in a perfect circle around the sun. So I'm going to go ahead and say that Planets are not used in an argument for creation in the manner that you described.

Further, as far as seeing Planets with your own eyes, it's as possible as you like.

http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/cosmic_kids/AskKids/images/venus_sky.jpg

That bright spot is Venus. The planet was not actually named by scientists after 'pagan' gods, but was named by the 'pagans' themselves. As such, it was not a deliberate act by scientists to offend Christians. They merely adopted the historical name as a matter of convenience.

I'm also going to second Spike's statement, that Pluto was indeed declassified due to size; it was not a matter of miscounting, we still very much accept that Pluto exists in the sky and is continuing its orbit around the sun.

The eccentricity of the Earth orbit is 0.01671123. Eccentricity is how much an ellipse is stretched, where 0 is no stretch (a perfect circle) and values approaching 1.0 mean that a ellipse is extensively stretched or squashed. The number 0.01671123 is very close to 0 on the 0->1 scale. You can also describe the Earth orbit as superior to 98.3% of all possible orbits.

Regarding the wobbling, scientists have calculated that if we had no moon, wobbling would be so great that advanced life on earth would be unlikely.
Contrary to popular belief, it is impossible for planet earth to randomly capture moon floating in space during formation of the solar system. You can test it out on a simulation. Conclusion: Moon must have been placed by GOD.

[Redeemed Papist]

Re: other planets do not exist!

The eccentricity of the Earth orbit is 0.01671123. Eccentricity is how much an ellipse is stretched, where 0 is no stretch (a perfect circle) and values approaching 1.0 mean that a ellipse is extensively stretched or squashed. The number 0.01671123 is very close to 0 on the 0->1 scale. You can also describe the Earth orbit as superior to 98.3% of all possible orbits.

Regarding the wobbling, scientists have calculated that if we had no moon, wobbling would be so great that advanced life on earth would be unlikely.
Contrary to popular belief, it is impossible for planet earth to randomly capture moon floating in space during formation of the solar system. You can test it out on a simulation. Conclusion: Moon must have been placed by GOD.

Earth doesn't have an orbit, being stationary.

[lukasekman]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Yes, the Earth is stationary. My point is that Newtonian physics can't be used as an argument against Creation, since the observed perfection is extremely unlikely (the low eccentricity of all planetary orbits) to impossible (the placement of the moon) to happen without the hands of the LORD.

[Redeemed Papist]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Yes, the Earth is stationary. My point is that Newtonian physics can't be used as an argument against Creation, since the observed perfection is extremely unlikely (the low eccentricity of all planetary orbits) to impossible (the placement of the moon) to happen without the hands of the LORD.

The entirely flawed or fabricated observations...

The measurements made painstakingly by generations of astronomers that lend credence to the idea that God's word is wrong about the firmament are clearly either a mistake or a malevolent conspiracy to suppress and undermine the Truth(r).

[MitzaLizalor]

Re: other planets do not exist!

The entirely flawed or fabricated observations...

The measurements made painstakingly by generations of astronomers that lend credence to the idea that God's word is wrong about the firmament are clearly either a mistake or a malevolent conspiracy to suppress and undermine the Truth®.

I've even heard that false scientists calculate a "red shift" some sort of stretching of light due to the heavens expanding. Light sources near to the earth they say have a lesser red shift and those further away exhibit a greater redshift. Even by their own warped standard this "stretching" is centred on the earth, arranged in shells of increasing red shift the greater the distance from the earth. Now of course we know that the sun is quite close to the earth, but even if we measured this phenomenon as if viewed from somewhere other than the earth, it would always be "out" by the distance of that alternative centre-of-the-universe[sic] from the earth.

Warp and twist as they will, it always comes back to God.

[lukasekman]

Re: other planets do not exist!

The entirely flawed or fabricated observations...

The measurements made painstakingly by generations of astronomers that lend credence to the idea that God's word is wrong about the firmament are clearly either a mistake or a malevolent conspiracy to suppress and undermine the Truth®.

The non-Christian astronomers thought they could come up with a good alternative explanation to the Bible. It appeared to work when describing the current state of the universe. But when asking about how everything was Created, the only viable solution is the LORD. Any attempt to put God out of the equations have resulted in ridiculous large numbers (age of universe), divisions by zero (black holes) and contradictions (cosmological constant which is said to be wrong by a factor of 10^120).

I am just waiting for the scientific community to admit that the answer to those so called unsolved problems is the Bible. With the possibility of a near-future rapture, they really have, or they will be left behind.

[Redeemed Papist]

Re: other planets do not exist!

The non-Christian astronomers thought they could come up with a good alternative explanation to the Bible. It appeared to work when describing the current state of the universe. But when asking about how everything was Created, the only viable solution is the LORD. Any attempt to put God out of the equations have resulted in ridiculous large numbers (age of universe), divisions by zero (black holes) and contradictions (cosmological constant which is said to be wrong by a factor of 10^120).

I am just waiting for the scientific community to admit that the answer to those so called unsolved problems is the Bible. With the possibility of a near-future rapture, they really have, or they will be left behind.

Scientists will never admit their errors. They have adopted a totally faith based position and will not back down no matter how much evidence that they are mistaken is put before them.

Come soon, Lord Jesus and we'll see who admits they were wrong then.

[Rev. Edward Clement]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Do I really have nothing better to do? I'm going to go outside and smile at the person across the street from me, even though they're Jewish, or gay, or black, or mentally handicapped.

Oh, so you arre going to smile at a mirror?

[Terrace Grey]

Re: other planets do not exist!

Oh, so you arre going to smile at a mirror?

Oh wow. How clever.

Tell me, you old coot. Have you ever looked in a mere?