Does Genesis give a good explanation of how the universe was created?

Genesis does not conform with what we know about how the universe came about. 

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

No, in the beginning there was a singularity that contained all the energy of the universe. The earth was not formed for billions of years after the Big Bang

2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

Much happened before the earth came together. And there cannot be water without a place to contain the water. If the earth had no form, there was no water.

3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

Early stars were among the first objects, but stars did not come together all at once or on a single day.

4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

This is nonsensical. A stars light is constant. The only way to say that darkness is divided from light is to be on a part of a planet where you can't see the light. 

5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

People name things, not imaginary deities.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

Earth had still not been formed. But yes, we know from plate tectonics that land masses were formed. Which did not happen in one day.

7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

There is not and was not a water canopy over the earth. Gravity would not allow waters to hang over the earth.

8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

Ok, where is this heaven that was created with firmament? We have been above the earth and there is no heaven created of a firmament there.

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

Water was not on the early earth, it came later from asteroids crashing to the earth.

10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

Sigh, people name things.

11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.

Plant life on the planet started in the ocean. It did not move to the ground for millions of years.

12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Even after plants came to the ground, fruits were still along way off.

13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

We know astrology has no basis in reality. The planets do not provide signs.

15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Our sun gives us light, starlight would not allow us to grow plants.

16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. The sun came before the earth, not afterwards. The moon was not formed at the same time as the sun. And it owuld be impossible for plants to have been formed before the sun. They need the sun for photosynthesis and without the sun, the earth would be  frozen. 

19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

Life occurred in the ocean before on the land. And birds were not among the early life forms on earth.

21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Fowls were just mentioned in the last verse. Did your god forget and create them twice?

22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.

25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

We know from genetics that mankind did not come from two original people. We also know that man evolved from more primitive primates (no, not monkeys)

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

God has a form? 

28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.

There are many plants that are poisonous to humans.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

It is absurd to say that Genesis is a close account of how the universe or our planet was formed.

Should the Pledge have been changed?

When the Pledge of Allegiance was created it did not contain the words, under God". Therefore, the entirety  of the Pledge was altered  when the words were added. The Pledge was written in 1892. It was not until 1954 that the additional words were added. For 62 years, the Pledge allowed Americans of ALL beliefs to proudly make a statement of allegiance to this great country. The Pledge without those two words, was sufficient to get us through WW I & II and the Great Depression. 

However, now, the original and completely satisfactory Pledge has been altered and made a point of controversy. If it had never been changed, then ALL Americans could still proudly make a statement of allegiance to the USA without compromising who they are and what they believe. 

I am sure Christians feel the Pledge was enhanced with these words, but many disagree. Given that was never necessary to change this Pledge, it is unfortunate that one group in America has hijacked the Pledge that was meant for all citizens.

Does the Hebrew word Chuwg mean a flat circle like a coin or a sphere?

Here is another example of how the bible is wrong.

The Hebrew word Chug (חוג) means a flat-circle like a coin. The Hebrew word for a sphere like a ball is Dur (דור). He will surely violently turn and toss thee like a ball (Dur) into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory shall be the shame of thy lord's house. (Isaiah 22:18) While the Hebrew language lacked a specific term for sphere, we can tell from the way the word is used in other verses, that it is referring to a flat circle. Dur is not exclusively a word for sphere, but it is much closer to describing the earth than a circle is. Is. 29:3 And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee. Obviously the soldier would not camp around a sphere but encircle the city. The root of chûgh (or chug) is mentioned six times in the bible, and it is quite evident from its usage, in context, that it refers to a specific geometrical shape; "A circle as drawn with a compass" or "encompassed". In Job 26:10 and Prov. 8:27, chûgh is used with choq, intending "to inscribe a circle." This nominal infinitive form also appears in Job 22:14, when signifying "the circle of the heavens"In Isa. 40:22, where it denotes "the circle of the earth".43:12 uses chûgh as description of the rainbow.In Isa. 44:13, chûgh appears as mechûghah, which simply means "a compass," in other words the geometrical instrument which you use to can draw circles on a paper. In contemporary Hebrew cosmology the common belief was that the earth was formed as a plano-concave plate with slightly raised edges covered by high mountains, where the heavens were attached to the earth. In the second part of the above mentioned verse by Isaiah this becomes quite obvious when god stretched out the heavens over the earth like a canopy - which completely lose all meaning and become utterly absurd if you try to apply the text to an image of a spherical earth. However, it fits perfectly with a flat earth model. Moreover, Job 28:24, Job 37:3, Job 38:13, Jeremiah 16:19 and Daniel 4:11 all claim that the earth has ends (or edges depending on what version you read) But regardless of translation, a sphere has neither edges, nor ends. But a two-dimensional flat form does. In Job 11:9 you can read: "Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea" which also become quite incomprehensible if you try to apply the verse to a spherical conception of the world, but again corresponds completely with the idea of a flat earth . Finally, in Job 38:44 it says: "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?" If the author would have had a spherical shape in mind, the last question in Job should have read "Who stretched a measuring line around it?"  

Why Jesus could not be used as a sacrifice.

There are several verses that indicate that God is against child sacrifice. God expressly forbids it:

• Deuteronomy 12:31: You must not worship the LORD your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the LORD hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.
• Deuteronomy 18:9-12: When you enter the land the LORD your God is giving you, do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations there. Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire...Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD, and because of these detestable practices the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you.

and its practice is described as evil:

• 2 Kings 16:3: He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, following the detestable ways of the nations the LORD had driven out before the Israelites.
• Psalm 106:38: They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood.
• Jeremiah 19:4-5: For they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods; they have burned sacrifices in it to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew, and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.

The OT doesn't prescribe or require human sacrifice. All the rules concerning what sorts of offerings were acceptable for various purposes mention only animals, birds, and grain - humans are never mentioned as an option. 

The Real Martyrs

 

1546 Etienne Dolet, French printer and bookseller and passionate advocate of learning, was imprisoned several times for his outspoken criticisms of the Church.

Dolet was condemned for atheism and burnt at Lyons, along with his books, leaving his family destitute.

1553 Michael Servetus, the Spanish physician who discovered pulmonary blood circulation (an advance upon Galen) fled the Inquisition and thought himself safe among Protestants.

Big mistake.

John Calvin, the puritanical "Protestant Pope" of Geneva proved his Christian credentials by having Servetus burnt at the stake for heresy. Servetus had criticized the Trinity and infant baptism.

"The Dutch Radicals did not forget to question, when questioning had gone out of fashion for the rest of theology."

– Albert Schweitzer, Geschichte der paulinischen Forschung, 108.

1589 Francis Kett, a tutor at Bene't (Corpus Christi), Cambridge, expressed doubts that JC may not have been the great moralist Christians believed.

For his audacity the professor was burnt to ashes.

 

1600 Giordano Bruno, Italian philosopher who taught in Paris and Wittenberg, paid the ultimate price for thinking for himself.

After languishing for 7 years in a dungeon of the Inquisition, where he was subjected to repeated torture, he was condemned and burned at the stake.

Bruno had had the audacity to suggest that space was boundless and that the sun and its planets were not unique.

1619 Lucilio Vanini (aka 'Giulio Cesare' - 'Julius Caesar').

Philosopher, teacher and freethinker, in 1616 the ex-Carmelite monk Vanini imprudently published his thoughts in “De admirandis naturae reginae deaeque mortalium arcanis” (“of the marvelous secrets of the queen and goddess of the mortal ones, nature."

His ideas included the possibility of human evolution from apes and the denial of an immortal soul.

Vanini rejected Christianity as a fiction invented by priests and argued for natural explanations for miracles. As a result he had to flee from place to place to avoid Catholic persecution.

But he was taken at Toulouse, condemned, his tongue cut out, strangled and burnt.

Thomas Paine (1737-1809) – revolutionary champion of liberty.

"I detest the Bible as I detest everything that is cruel."

Bruno Bauer (1809-1882) – the original iconoclast.

 

Kersey Graves (1813-1883) – Quaker who saw through the Jesus fraud.

Arthur Drews (1865-1935) – one of the great German pioneers in the denial of the historical existence of Jesus.

"The 'historical' Jesus is not earlier but later than Paul; and as such he has always existed merely as an idea, as a pious fiction in the minds of members of the community."

– Drews, The Religious Problem of the Present.

Gustaaf Adolf van den Bergh van Eysinga (1874-1957) – Dutch theologian and New Testament professor who refuted the existence of Jesus.

 

 

 

 

 

The End is Nigh

"Not only has the divinity of Christ been given up, but his existence as a man is being more and more seriously questioned.

Some of the ablest scholars of the world deny that he ever lived at all.

A commanding literature dealing with the inquiry, intense in its seriousness and profound and thorough in its research, is growing up in all countries, and spreading the conviction that Christ is a myth.

Jesus ... will have to take his place with the host of other demigods whose fancied lives and deeds make up the mythology of the world."

– Marshall J. Gauvin (Did Jesus Christ Really Live? 1922)

Philosopher

"Historically it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about him."

- The philosopher Bertrand Russell, "Why I Am Not a Christian". (1927 lecture).

Dead Sea Scroll Scholar

In 1970 biblical scholar and Dead Sea Scroll expert John Allegro argued for the non-existence of Jesus Christ.

Allegro's thesis associated notions of the godman with narcotic-induced visions.

The hallucinatory plant in question was Amanita Muscaria (Fly-Agaric), the phallic mushroom, arguably used by early Christians and interpreted as a virgin (i.e. seedless) birth and "God come in the flesh."

Allegro was subjected to acrimonious fury and ostracised. He died in 1988.

High on Jesus?

Born Again Atheist

Evangelist who "threw out the bath water and discovered there was no baby there."

“There is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, during his entire lifetime.

This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed.”

– Dan Barker, Losing Faith in Faith: From Preacher to Atheist (1992, p. 360).

Historian comes off the fence

"I have come to realize that mythicism is significantly more probably true than historicity. This I consider as radical a departure from my previous agnosticism as my agnosticism was from my previous historicism."

– Richard Carrier, Editor-in-Chief, Internet Infidels, July 18, 2005

 

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/scholars.html

How would stars fall to earth?

“Behold, I have told you in advance. So if they say to you, ‘Behold, He is in the wilderness,’ do not go out, or, ‘Behold, He is in the inner rooms,’ do not believe them. For just as the lightning comes from the east and flashes even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

But immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

Now learn the parable from the fig tree: when its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near; so, you too, when you see all these things, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.“ (Matthew 24: 25-34)"

So, I was reading this verse and this line jumped out at me, "--and the stars will fall from the sky--". 

Now a star is actually a sun and many suns are even bigger than ours. But if a star started to fall, where would it go? Unless it fell to earth, we would not really see anything unless we were tracking it with a telescope. But as a light in the sky, if a star moved somewhere else, we would not really see anything other than the same light in the sky. And what does it mean that a star is falling? There is no up or down in space.

The only way we would be aware of a star falling is if it fell to earth. And if a star fell to earth, our planet would be completely destroyed. Given that the verse says that stars, plural, will fall, then the earth would be inundated by numerous, much larger bodies. One star would destroy us if it hit the earth, and if many stars all fell to earth, the result would just be overkill.

When a Christian says they believe that everything in the bible is completely accurate, ask them how the earth would survive being destroyed by much larger suns hitting us.

Being self-righteous

Self-righteous Christians Defined: Is This the Norm?
by Rich Deem 

Introduction

Christians seem to like to tell other people how to behave and act as if they never do anything wrong. They also tend to focus only upon a few moral issues - namely abortion and gay marriage - seemingly to the exclusion of more important issues, such as justice and care for the poor. Is this the kind of behavior the Bible commends or are these people acting against what biblical Christianity actually stands for?

What is being self-righteous?

To begin the discussion, it would be good to know what the words "self-righteous" really mean. Here is the definition from the The American Heritage Dictionary¹:

self-right·eous (sělf'rī'chəs)
adjective

1. Piously sure of one's own righteousness; moralistic.
2. Exhibiting pious self-assurance: self-righteous remarks.

So, a self-righteous person is one who acts as if he is morally superior to everyone else.

Righteousness and the Christian

If there is anything that is antithetical to Christianity, it is a person who thinks that they can be righteous by their own good works. The Bible says that all people are sinners and that none can meet God's standard for righteousness.²

 

http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/self-righteous_christians.html

 

Yet, wait a minute. God allowed Noah to survive because he was a righteous man.

⁹ This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. <sup>10

How could Noah be righteous, if no one can achieve gods idea of perfection?</sup>

Definition of Conundrum

The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing.
Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America:

1. America is described as capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.

3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives who they elect run the government.

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about -yet they want America to be more like those other countries.

Think about it! And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in
the 21st Century.

Makes you wonder who is doing the math.

These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment:

1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few
lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works.
And here's another one worth considering...

2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money. How come we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money? What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't. Think about it.....

and Last but not least,

3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army to a level lower than before WWII, but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens.

Am I the only one missing something?

Was god justified in killing people in the flood?

The question becomes, does God need a reason for this action? Without warning, the reader is thrust into one passage about his displeasure, and “the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and the beast, and the creeping things, and the fouls of the air; for it repented me that I have made them” (Gen. 6:7). According to God’s rhetoric and subsequent justification for his acts, it is his creation; therefore he may do what he wishes with it. There doesn’t seem to be any lengthy explanation, only the simply rhetoric of what amounts to, “I’m God and I can do what I want.”  Unlike in other sections of the OT, there is little reason given, and this makes God seem not only completely misanthropic, but more importantly, a fickle judge who is prone to making snap decisions that cause widespread damage. Rhetorically speaking, the only justification he deems to offer the reader (and presumably Noah and the rest of humanity that he so quickly wipes out) is that since he is God, this is his right.

But is this a valid argument? I suggest it is not. For example, Mankind is always wrestling with the proper way to handle lab animals. We have decided that treating animals so that they experience as little pain and discomfort as possible is the humane way to deal with them. I would like to think that God would consider us more important than lab animals. Additionally, we are supposedly formed in the likeness of god, so we should have similar perspectives. So, is a worldwide flood the most painless way to kill humanity? Actually, it would be one of the most terrifying.

So, is the point for God to show that he can kill us in a terrifying way? The fact that God could kill us all anytime he wants would be the critical point. He would have accomplished the same effect by turning us all into salt, as he did with Lot's wife. Additionally, he would not have wrecked the entire ecosystem that way.

The story is absurd. Actually, the entire bible is absurd, but I shall focus on this one story. God kills all of mankind for sin. However, he allows Noah's family to survive, even though they would have been doing the same sin. How is that justified? If the sin that he killed all mankind for was so terrible, then Noah's family deserved to die as well.

I submit that God was not justified to kill everyone in the flood. Which is good, since it was only a fable anyway.

Since I wrote this, I had a debate with a Christian who posted this statement.

"God does not & can NOT "MURDER". God FORBIDS man to 'murder'.
"The Lord giveth. And the Lord 'taketh' away."

"... we intuitively know that man & God have different prerogatives.
It is inappropriate for men to take innocent life
simply because we are robbing other human beings of a God-given gift,
& we are not to play God in that regard.
But clearly God can play God.
It is His role & He is not robbing when He takes away what He has given in the first place.
It is something that is under His appropriate control.
He can take a life anytime He wants.
Taking innocent human life is wrong for us,
because taking life is God's prerogative, not ours,
which means it is appropriate for Him to do it,
not us,; & He can dispense & retract life whenever He pleases."
- Greg Koukl

God is the Author of life,
the Beginning & the End,
the Alpha & Omega,
in whom we live, breathe & owe our being.
God may take His own."

My response: But god not only kills people, he commands people to kill other people. If he forbids man to murder, then he is inconsistent when he requires that people kill in his name. If god can kill mankind, then he should do so and not make people carry out his dirty work. He killed people in a flood, by turning them into salt or having the holy spirit kill children like the children in Egypt, so he is perfectly capable of killing anyone he wants.

Pascal's Wager

Whenever I debate with Christians, there comes a point when they will say something to the effect of, "If you are right, then at least I led a good life, however if I am right, then you will end up in Hell." This is, of course, Pascal's Wager. It also begs the question of whether or not they actually led a "good" life. I have known many Christians who cheated, lied, fornicated and stole, among other "sins". Whether their lives were any more moral or better than others is highly debatable. In addition, it assumes that the atheist did not live a good life, which is very insulting.  If you are not familiar with the idea of Pascal's Wager, let me provide some background information. 

Pascal’s Wager is the idea that regardless of whether the existence of God can be proven through rational means, one should live their life as though God does exist, because living your life that way means you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. It was proposed by a French philosopher, mathematician and physicist named Blaise Pascal.

However, there are several problems with this idea. 

First, it assumes that there are only two alternatives to choose from; belief and disbelief in the biblical god. However, that is not accurate. There are thousands of different gods that mankind has dreamed up over the centuries. Therefore, he must also choose the correct deity to believe in. If the Romans, Hindus, Aztecs, Muslims, early Greeks or any of the thousands of other gods were correct, then the Christian is in as big of a problem as the atheist. Now, I am sure the Christian is not worried about whether the Greek or Aztec gods of old are the correct deity. Yet, why not? Millions of people have believed in these gods, with the same devote fervour as current day Christians. It could also be possible that the true god has not yet been revealed. It has been said many times, that there is little difference between a theist and an atheist. A theist does not believe in all of the thousands of other gods that mankind has thought up over the centuries, they just believe in the one they think is correct. An atheist agrees that all the other gods are myths and fables, we just add one more to the list; the one the theist believes in. 

Second,  even if the Christian God is the correct deity, there is still a problem of deciding which of the 30,000 Christian sects worships him the correct way. If the Catholics are right, then the Protestants have a problem, and of course, the reverse is true for the Catholic. If the Mormons are right, then most of the two billions Christians in the world have a huge problem.

Keep in mind that Pascal was a Catholic, and he was advocating for the Catholic version of Christianity. This always make it even more ironic when Protestants invoke his arguments. 

Third, if you only say you believe in order to hedge your bet for getting into heaven, it is doubtful that an all knowing god would let you in anyway, since you really did not believe. You simply went through the motions. 

Fourth, it assumes that God would only reward a believer no matter what other circumstances exist. It is certainly possible that God would reward rational and researched reasoning and punish blind or feigned faith.

Consider this argument given by Thomas Jefferson: "Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."

Richard Carrier adds to this idea with this statement: "Suppose there is a god who is watching us and choosing which souls of the deceased to bring to heaven, and this god really does want only the morally good to populate heaven. He will probably select from only those who made a significant and responsible effort to discover the truth. For all others are untrustworthy, being cognitively or morally inferior, or both. They will also be less likely ever to discover and commit to true beliefs about right and wrong. That is, if they have a significant and trustworthy concern for doing right and avoiding wrong, it follows necessarily that they must have a significant and trustworthy concern for knowing right and wrong. Since this knowledge requires knowledge about many fundamental facts of the universe (such as whether there is a god), it follows necessarily that such people must have a significant and trustworthy concern for always seeking out, testing, and confirming that their beliefs about such things are probably correct. Therefore, only such people can be sufficiently moral and trustworthy to deserve a place in heaven — unless God wishes to fill heaven with the morally lazy, irresponsible, or untrustworthy."

Fifth, it makes the assumption that a person can make themselves believe. This is, of course, nonsense. A person either actually believes something or they do not. You cannot force yourself to believe something. If someone was standing over you with a gun and said you either believe that green Martians are ruling the planet or I will kill you. You might tell them you believe. You might profess it wholeheartedly. You might sign a declaration to this statement. But you would not believe it. 

So, does Pascal's Wager hold up to scrutiny? I wouldn't bet on it.

The age of the Earth

One thing I constantly hear Creationists say is that people only believe in a old earth to allow Evolution enough time for all the changes in species that they claim occurred. This is, of course, nonsense. Darwin published his book on the origins of man in 1859. However Geologists had determined that the earth was far older than 6,000 years before Darwin published his book. 

James Hutton is often viewed as the first modern geologist.^[59] In 1785 he presented a paper entitled Theory of the Earth to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In his paper, he explained his theory that the Earth must be much older than had previously been supposed in order to allow enough time for mountains to be eroded and for sediments to form new rocks at the bottom of the sea, which in turn were raised up to become dry land. Hutton published a two-volume version of his ideas in 1795 (Vol. 1, Vol. 2).

Followers of Hutton were known as Plutonists because they believed that some rocks were formed by vulcanism, which is the deposition of lava from volcanoes, as opposed to the Neptunists, led by Abraham Werner, who believed that all rocks had settled out of a large ocean whose level gradually dropped over time.

The first geological map of the U.S. was produced in 1809 by William Maclure.^[60][61] In 1807, Maclure commenced the self-imposed task of making a geological survey of the United States. Almost every state in the Union was traversed and mapped by him; the Allegheny Mountains being crossed and recrossed some 50 times.^[62] The results of his unaided labours were submitted to the American Philosophical Society in a memoir entitledObservations on the Geology of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map, and published in the Society's Transactions, together with the nation's first geological map.^[63] This antedates William Smith's geological map of England by six years, although it was constructed using a different classification of rocks.

Sir Charles Lyell first published his famous book, Principles of Geology,^[64] in 1830. This book, which influenced the thought of Charles Darwin, successfully promoted the doctrine of uniformitarianism. This theory states that slow geological processes have occurred throughout the Earth's history and are still occurring today. In contrast, catastrophism is the theory that Earth's features formed in single, catastrophic events and remained unchanged thereafter. Though Hutton believed in uniformitarianism, the idea was not widely accepted at the time.

Much of 19th-century geology revolved around the question of the Earth's exact age. Estimates varied from a few hundred thousand to billions of years.^[65] By the early 20th century, radiometric dating allowed the Earth's age to be estimated at two billion years. The awareness of this vast amount of time opened the door to new theories about the processes that shaped the planet.

Some of the most significant advances in 20th-century geology have been the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s and the refinement of estimates of the planet's age. Plate tectonics theory arose from two separate geological observations: seafloor spreading and continental drift. The theory revolutionized the Earth sciences. Today the Earth is known to be approximately 4.5 billion years old.^[66]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology

Atheist charities

http://www.squidoo.com/Atheist...
http://www.thinkatheist.com/no...
http://techskeptic.blogspot.co...

Why do theists disable posts?

One thing that constantly amuses me is when I see some headline on You Tube  or some similar medium that claims that a Christian has won a debate or an argument with an atheist. Or it states that the theist has some compelling argument for their belief. When I click on the link to see what is going on, the ability to post a comment has often been disabled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_zmTpiZEU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck9-nAWjeBk

The links provided above are such examples. I am not stating that atheists have never done this. However, I have never seen an example of when an atheist has done this. I also find the claim that the atheist was bested is humorous. Now, I may be biased, but I think the atheist holds their own, if not actually winning the argument. But regardless of my opinion, why not allow people to post their own view on the debate? Could it be that many people disagreed that the Atheist was defeated? Hmmm.

One of my favorite satires. Letter to Dr. Laura

Dear Dr. Laura,

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him thatLeviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.

a) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?

b) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned inExodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

c) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

d) Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

e) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

f) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an Abomination (Lev 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?

g) Lev 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

h) Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden byLev 19:27. How should they die?

i) I know from Lev 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?

j) My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them?(Lev 24:10-16) Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help.

Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Your devoted disciple and adoring fan.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/drlaura.asp#MBrPmvzUjSYoMLAb.99