re: Texas getting it's own Sharia Law

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The biblical story is fiction

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Prove it

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the biblical story is based on a kernel of a real ziggurat in Babylon

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Wait, you just said the biblical story is fiction. Which is it?

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they still think God got mad at people for building a tall structure out of mud bricks and tar

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Is God not allowed to be unhappy with those particular people for that particular reason at that particular time? Or does God have to follow your rules for existence and preconceptions?

Perhaps you don't understand

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It most certainly is a thing-- for persons who understand, or at least are concerned about the physics and chemistry of greenhouse gases

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Oh yeah, how much carbon is in the atmosphere? What's the percentage? Even scientists are now questioning the mechanisms of AGW. But I bet you knew that already, didn't you

Is the atmosphere warming? Sure. Is it because of human activity? Not to any appreciable degree.

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state-sponsored religious preference

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The Founding Fathers were absolutely not against Christianity being pervasive in government

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Disprove the spaghetti monster

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Ok. Describe it for me

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if i want the jesus shite, i'll send my kid to a parochial or private school

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...then complain about all the crime, corruption, deteriorating cities, communism, substance abuse, LGBT agenda, etc

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the gospels are completely mythical literary works of people highly educated in Greek language, writing, and literature. The miracles and stories attributed to this plausible historical rabbi are obviously fictional.

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Prove it

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we know the real Paul, and whomever wrote Jude, James, 1 Peter, 1 Clement, Hebrews, Revelation, and the Didache had no knowledge whatsoever of a historical traveling rabbi named Jesus on planet earth

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Except that he wrote about Jesus because he went to synagogues all over arguing from scripture that Jesus was the prophecied messiah

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So could there have been a real historical man in Galilee named Jesus that the later gospel stories are loosely somewhat based on? The answer is Maybe

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Except the first followers worshipped him as lord and savior

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Richard Carrier

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If this is who you are following, wow. People like this are amateurs and overtly biased against Christianity. It's clear you have picked out people who share your emotional problems instead of actual experts. Also, I have given you several suggestions of actual scholars on particular topics and you called it a "waste of time." So impartial and factual

You are as big of a fraud as SFP

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You have never once corrected me on anything

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Yet here you are, again, pushing garbage that relies on the long dead documentary hypothesis. I've even explained to you why it's been dead because I know your sources don't tell people the truth about things like this

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ob 26:7 is a parallel to Genesis 1:2, when the earth was Tohu and Bohu (often translated formless and void). In Job 26:7, Yahweh stretches out Zaphon (could be the mountain home of the god Baal) or it could be interpreted as the firmament. You are mistaken if you think this is some kind of special divine information that the earth is a sphere spinning through space. In Job 26:11 it describes the pillars of heaven. The foundations of the heaven sit precisely on the face of the waters he has inscribed with a two dimensional circle. Let me ask you a question. Does heaven sitting on great pillars, or the concept of the firmament itself, align with modern science?

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You seem desperately hung up the use of the word “pillars.” To understand the use and the meaning, you have to look at other places in the Bible where this is referenced. It’s never used as a scientific description.

Revelation 3:12

“The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.”

Galatians 2:9

“James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.”
??
Psalm 144:12

“Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.”
??

No serious person interprets the pillars in Job as a literal, scientific description of the dynamics of earth.

Neither is the “circle of the earth” supposed to be interpreted literally according to most interpretations. My point was even when interpreted metaphorically, this was language that was not used at the time.

So with this, it appears we’re at a common impasse. You’ll adhere to interpretations that confirm your preconceived stance, as will I.

My faith comes down to much simpler aspects than debating the Old Testament verse by verse. Ex nihilo- something from nothing. And the agreed upon historical evidence for Jesus coupled with the extreme, torture filled deaths of his followers. People will die for something they believe is true, nobody will die for something they KNOW is false.

??

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You seem desperately hung up the use of the word “pillars.” To understand the use and the meaning, you have to look at other places in the Bible where this is referenced. It’s never used as a scientific description. Revelation 3:12

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You can quote all the metaphors you want to throw out, but when the pillars involve foundations and measurements of the earth and cornerstones and that the earth cannot be moved, those aren’t metaphorical pillars, but literal pillars.

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Neither is the “circle of the earth” supposed to be interpreted literally according to most interpretations

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Wrong.

And you should make up your mind. In the same chapter you seem to want to argue a literal meaning when it suits you (the earth hanging upon the void aka the chaotic ocean / Tehom biblical cosmological model vs the modern model of a spherical earth in space) and then throw out the rest as metaphor. Try to be more consistent.

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No serious person interprets the pillars in Job as a literal, scientific description of the dynamics of earth.

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Every serious Jew and even every serious Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, and Arab knew the earth was flat mounted on pillars.

ETA:

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My faith comes down to much simpler aspects than debating the Old Testament verse by verse. Ex nihilo- something from nothing. And the agreed upon historical evidence for Jesus coupled with the extreme, torture filled deaths of his followers. People will die for something they believe is true, nobody will die for something they KNOW is false.

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Are you saying you believed in creation ex nihilo? Funny, because the Job 26 chapter you quoted from has all the elements of the creation from combat mythology of Babylonian origin… Job 26 has Yahweh turning earth into order from chaos, including conquering the chaotic sea and killing the sea monster Rahab and Leviahthan.

What are you talking about in regard to the torture filled deaths of Jesus followers? Besides James’ death in Acts, what the hell are you talking about. Cite your sources.

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Are you saying you believed in creation ex nihilo? Funny, because the Job 26 chapter you quoted from has all the elements of the creation from combat mythology of Babylonian origin… Job 26 has Yahweh turning earth into order from chaos, including conquering the chaotic sea and killing the sea monster Rahab and Leviahthan.


What are you talking about in regard to the torture filled deaths of Jesus followers? Besides James’ death in Acts, what the hell are you talking about. Cite your sources.

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Rahab in the Bible (outside of the Rahab in Joshua who was a prostitute) symbolizes rebellion and pride. Interesting you bring that up haha. God “cutting Rahab to pieces” illustrates that anything we take pride in will come to nothing and nothing can stand against the supremacy of God.

Order from chaos has nothing to do with Ex nihilo. The earth was “formless and void” aka chaotic. God brought order to HIS CREATION. He still created it…from nothing. It is now widely known the universe had a beginning. So what’s your explanation of choice?

As far as martyrs…Peter, Paul, James, James, Andrew, Thomas (and many others with less agreement among scholars). Sources are Acts, Josephus (non Christian), and many of the first church fathers, clement, Ignatius, polycarp, etc