What is wrong with atheists?

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
reply to post by adjensen

 

What do you think about Genesis 6:17?

When God says "all flesh" does He not really mean "all flesh", but some flesh?

King James:

And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein [is] the breath of life, from under heaven; [and] every thing that [is] in the earth shall die.

See the word "earth" there a couple of times? That tells me, once again, that you are taking something that says nothing about life beyond the Earth and drawing your own conclusion from it.

I don't get it, why are you so determined to shove God and his creation into a box of your liking and making? There is nothing in the Bible that is impacted, in the slightest, by the possibility of life existing outside of the Earth. Because I draw no conclusion as to whether life exists or not, simply the possibility of it, the only thing it affects is your preconceived notion that God could not have created life elsewhere.

How is the glory of God diminished by his creation being grander than even we can imagine?

reply to post by adjensen

I don't get it, why are you so determined to shove God and his creation into a box of your liking and making?

Straw man. I don't. But on the other hand, I treat God's Word as the final authority. It says God magnifies His Word above His Own Name. In layman's terms = "most important to Him." I don't propose conjecture without Biblical support.

Okay, let me try another avenue.

What verse are you claiming for your conjecture that God created other non-angelic life outside the Earth?

I'm an atheist, but I'm also open-minded to the paranormal, just not gods or deities.

My bf however isn't as open to the paranormal as I am, he's a staunch atheist...I'm talking about mainly the possibility of reincarnation, an afterlife, other realms of existence.

But then again, I don't go around telling people to believe what I do...or threatening them with eternal damnation.
I can get along just fine with atheists and spiritual/religious people alike, so long as they don't try to shove their beliefs around.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Straw man. I don't. But on the other hand, I treat God's Word as the final authority.

No, you don't. You've demonstrated in this thread that you treat your interpretation of God's Word as the final authority. Not the word itself, but what you take away from it. There is nothing wrong with that, because so much of scripture is open to interpretation and reconciliation with the remainder, but here you are taking completely unrelated passages and using them to convince yourself that God could not have done something that he clearly could have.

If you truly take God's Word as the final authority, then the conclusion that you must arrive at is that life on other planets is possible, because there is nothing in God's Word that says, directly, without interpretation and inference, that it is not, God is the creator, and God can do whatever he wants. He wants alien life, he makes alien life, and what business is it of yours to tell him "no"?

What verse are you claiming for your conjecture that God created other non-angelic life outside the Earth?

I'm not, because I'm merely saying that this is a possibility, not a certainty, and I do not believe in a limited God -- he is not bound to conform to scripture or your interpretation of it, so unless it says "there is no life, outside of the Earth", the possibility exists that there is, indeed, life outside of the Earth.

One does not need scripture to define reality -- reality is what God made it to be, and whether it is spoken of in the Bible or not spoken of has no impact, whatsoever, on what reality is.

Again, it seems like you're being kind of bullheaded about this for no reason other than it offends something in you, and it's not my intent to insult you, so sorry about that.

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Straw man. I don't. But on the other hand, I treat God's Word as the final authority.

No, you don't. You've demonstrated in this thread that you treat your interpretation of God's Word as the final authority.

My scholarly interpretation however is NOT limited to the English rendering of the ancient texts. It appears from the posts in this thread that your's is. That's fine for the most part in matters pertaining to salvation and other essential doctrines the English suffices nicely. I like to get into the Greek and Hebrew for the fact that these languages the NT and OT were written in carry FAR more precise details than the English could ever attempt to.

If you truly take God's Word as the final authority, then the conclusion that you must arrive at is that life on other planets is possible, because there is nothing in God's Word that says, directly, without interpretation and inference, that it is not, God is the creator, and God can do whatever he wants. He wants alien life, he makes alien life, and what business is it of yours to tell him "no"?

Okay, I'm sold. Following your rationale, vampires, Transformers, Santa Claus, Smurfs, the Jedi, Mary Poppins, and Sonic the Hedgehog could all exist in this universe or in an inter-dimensional one. The biblical text doesn't deny their existence, and we both know God is capable of creating them.

Based on that logic alone, where is the line drawn?

I'm not, because I'm merely saying that this is a possibility, not a certainty, and I do not believe in a limited God -- he is not bound to conform to scripture or your interpretation of it, so unless it says "there is no life, outside of the Earth", the possibility exists that there is, indeed, life outside of the Earth.

Straw man again. I've never claimed I trust in a 'limited God' or that He is bound to 'conform to my interpretation of scripture'. At best you don't know what a straw man is, at worst you're being deceitful in claiming I've taken those positions. I have never.

God is omnipotent, He can do as His will decides. And I don't believe in "my interpretation" of scripture, but in scripture as He Himself has already revealed. I've never been 'limiting God", merely speaking about Him in matters He has already revealed.

One does not need scripture to define reality -- reality is what God made it to be, and whether it is spoken of in the Bible or not spoken of has no impact, whatsoever, on what reality is.

"Reality" is simply a digital simulation that appears to us by way of electromagnetic properties of atoms. Nacmanades proposed the universe exists in 10 dimensions in the 6th century just by reading Genesis. He stated "four are knowable and six unknowable". It's taken modern man billions of dollars with particle colliders to come to the same notion just in the past couple decades. 4 observable dimensions, and 6 that exist at the quantum level. Everything you view around you is not really solid, it's mostly empty space by a factor of 10 to the 15th power. 10 to the 15th is so large that if the nucleus of an atom were the size of the head on a pin the nearest photon would be over a football field away.

Again, it seems like you're being kind of bullheaded about this for no reason other than it offends something in you, and it's not my intent to insult you, so sorry about that.

I have no self-esteem, I get offended when people who claim Christ and then place little importance on His Word. Especially in light of His statement that "not one jot or tittle shall pass away" and that He magnifies His word above His own name.

Originally posted by NOTurTypical

Originally posted by adjensen

Originally posted by NOTurTypical
Straw man. I don't. But on the other hand, I treat God's Word as the final authority.

No, you don't. You've demonstrated in this thread that you treat your interpretation of God's Word as the final authority.

My scholarly interpretation however is NOT limited to the English rendering of the ancient texts. It appears from the posts in this thread that your's is. That's fine for the most part in matters pertaining to salvation and other essential doctrines the English suffices nicely. I like to get into the Greek and Hebrew for the fact that these languages the NT and OT were written in carry FAR more precise details than the English could ever attempt to.

Fine. Provide me with the Greek or Hebrew text in the Bible which says "there is no life, except on Earth." I will be happy to do the homework and sort out the translation myself.

Okay, I'm sold. Following your rationale, vampires, Transformers, Santa Claus, Smurfs, the Jedi, Mary Poppins, and Sonic the Hedgehog could all exist in this universe or in an inter-dimensional one. The biblical text doesn't deny their existence, and we both know God is capable of creating them.

Based on that logic alone, where is the line drawn?

Who says that you need to? Help me out here, is it your claim that if it isn't mentioned in the Bible it can't exist? Of what relevance does the Bible have for the existence or non-existence of anything?

Straw man again. I've never claimed I trust in a 'limited God' or that He is bound to 'conform to my interpretation of scripture'. At best you don't know what a straw man is, at worst you're being deceitful in claiming I've taken those positions. I have never.

God is omnipotent, He can do as His will decides. And I don't believe in "my interpretation" of scripture, but in scripture as He Himself has already revealed. I've never been 'limiting God", merely speaking about Him in matters He has already revealed.

No you have not, you have been speaking about him as you believe the text represents him.

Let's do this again...

Me: There is nothing in scripture that says extraterrestrial life cannot exist
You: Read your Bible, ignoramus, Genesis 3:20
Me: That talks about Eve being the mother of humanity, nothing about life in the universe
You: You have disdain for the Word of God, read Genesis 6:17
Me: That is about the flood on Earth, nothing about life in the universe

And so it goes. You aren't even being true to a fundamentalist read of the Bible, because there's nothing in there that says that there is no other life in the universe, you're just relying on your personal opinion. And yet you have the gall to say that I have "disdain for the Word of God", which, I guess would be the word that he didn't speak, since it isn't in scripture.

So my argument isn't a "Straw Man", because you show, quite clearly, that you have no scriptural basis for claiming that there is no other life in the universe and yet not only cling to that belief, but you insult me for saying otherwise. That says that you don't really care whether God created life somewhere other than Earth, you cannot accept it, so it cannot have happened.

There is no place in the Bible that says "there is no life, except on Earth", so your conclusion that this is the case can be nothing BUT interpretation on your part, by necessity. Similarly, since there is no reason that God could not have created life elsewhere in the universe your interpretation that leads you to conclude that he did not is an instance of you determining what God can and cannot do, regardless of the facts.

This sort of inflexibility, even to a theoretical, is the inherent difficulty in taking a strictly fundamentalist position, and one of the reasons that I moved away from my own holding of those beliefs, although, ironically, in this case it is I who is holding to the literal word of scripture ("With God, all things are possible") while you cannot allow for it.

At the very least, can you explain why you are so unwilling to accept the notion that life might exist elsewhere in God's creation?

reply to post by adjensen


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