Raf

This is more of a placeholder than anything else for the moment. It is spawned from a discussion in About the Way about their being no rain before Noah's flood. The consensus on that thread was that TWI got it wrong, that there was rain before the Flood. But other issues were brought up -- for example the teaching by Earl Burton that the universe is encapsulated in a gigantic bubble with water on the other side of it. No, seriously. And when reading Genesis, it is not hard to see where he got this idea. Genesis speaks of a firmament (a solid structure) separating the waters above (in the sky) from the waters beneath. Looking at it from the primeval point of view of Genesis, when they didn't have the slightest inkling what the sky was made of, it's easy to see what's being described here: a flat earth covered by a large dome holding back a wall of water. The sun, moon and stars are IN that dome. Birds fly UNDER it. The firmament is NOT synonymous with what we think of as the sky. If visions of Stephen King dance in your head, you're on the right track, for that is precisely what the Bible describes. Were the authors of Genesis being literal? Or were they being poetic? I don't know for sure. I haven't read all the scholarship on the matter. But I am sure of this: the Bible offers no indication whatsoever that they are NOT being literal. So I'll be describing what the Bible actually says, but I'll keep a very open mind about what it all means -- with an eye on what it meant to those living at the time Genesis was first written. For those not keeping track, let me be clear at the outset of this thread: I no longer consider myself Christian, and I no longer believe in God. But you need not hold the same view to recognize what many -- Christians and atheists alike -- have realized for a very long time: There are actual errors in the Bible. Not errors of interpretation. Real, documentable, tangible blunders that show Genesis does not pass PFAL's criteria for what it means to be God-breathed. For those who remain Christian, the challenge is simple: Deny the evidence and conclude Genesis DOES pass PFAL's criteria, or reject PFAL's criteria. Maybe God-breathed means something else entirely. If the second solution satisfies you, far be it from me to take that away from you. I'm not looking to persuade anyone that there is no God. If it's at all possible, I ask you to separate that proposition from the point I am making, which I will reiterate: There are actual errors in Genesis. What to do with them is up to you. Let's examine them. I probably won't be right about every point I make. But I will be right about many of them, and I suspect if you are honest with yourself, you will agree with that statement (even if you loathe where it has led me). Let us begin...

Closer Clive Owen Inside Man

I didn't hear it in TWI, but it did form part of the syllabus of "His Story: God's Purpose of the Ages," which was the "new" foundational class being offered by Vince F. at around the time I left NY. I seem to recall a diagram showing the Earth surrounded by a layer of water on the outer atmosphere. It was an attempt to depict the cosmology shown in Genesis. Of course, there was no evidence that this was ever real, other than the description in the Bible and Vince's attempt to illustrate it literally. If I still have the syllabus somewhere, I'll post it. I'm pretty sure I tossed it ages ago. Addendum: I started a thread in Doctrinal to explore "Actual Errors in Genesis." My purpose in starting that thread is to keep from derailing this one.

One of the better known moments in this film is a speech that few in the American audience even understood, as it was delivered in a foreign language. Translated, the speech reads: "How did I find myself here? They say my famous lover held down my husband and I cut his head off. But it's not true. I am innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam says I did it. I tried to explain at the police station but they didn't understand." In the same scene, red scarves indicate guilt. But the character who gave the speech above pulls out a white scarf.

The Wizard of Oz of course. Getting to Know You

Read my post again: it was about the firmament and cosmology, not about the progression of creation or the timing of the development of life on earth. Did it rain before Noah? Yes. Absolutely. Of course it did. Is the universe inside a gigantic bubble? As far as I can tell, the premise is untestable, so not really worth debating. But was the Bible describing such a thing when it talked about the firmament? No. That's a late argument designed to explain why the Bible says what it does. The firmament WAS the sky. The concept of a thinning atmosphere giving way to outer space and billions of light years beyond our view was foreign to the writers of the Bible. The firmament was solid to them. A plain reading of Genesis offers no room for any other view save one: They didn't know and didn't pretend to know, but wrote based on what it looked like.

Correct, Twinky. According to TWI, there was a vast period of time between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 that accounts for all the fossils and geological discoveries, etc. After Genesis 1:2, the account is literal -- which makes no sense because Genesis has the creation of the earth and the development of plant life before the making of the sun. Explore the implications of what TWI taught, and you'll find (I believe) that what Genesis teaches still does not fit with what we have been able to gather through scientific research and study. Did marine life and birds emerge on the same day a few thousand years ago? That's what TWI taught. It is not true. Marine life came ages before birds. Did plant life precede the sun? Couldn't have. Is the earth older than the stars? Hardly. TWI managed to cram billions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2, but in doing so, it created an enormous "plot hole" in Genesis, where (among other things) God is now re-creating a new type of life on earth, soul life, different from the life that preceded Genesis 1:2. And then there's the firmament (back on topic), which can make some sense on a poetic level but utterly fails to accurately describe the earth and the universe "above" it.

(Get your popcorn, everybody).

Aaaaaand it's stuck in my head.

Oh no, they do count. But this is the About the Way section, and in The Way, it happened in six days a few thousand years ago. Lots happened BEFORE that, but the earth as we know it, with life as we know it, happened in six days a few thousand years ago. We can quibble about Old Earth creationism elsewhere. I would also note that you have said nothing to refute my on-topic point, which was the relationship between the "firmament" to the waters behind it as it relates to the flood. The fact that someone got addition and subtraction correct does not make that person an expert in calculus. :)

Of course, it all happens in six days a few thousand years ago, but who's counting? It also has days and nights preceding the "making" of the sun, moon and stars, but who's counting? It also has plant life preceding the making of the sun, but who's counting?

Thinking about what you guys said Earl Burton taught: The universe is a bubble with water on the other side of it... Assuming that bubble burst, any water coming down to earth from it (as opposed to just floating off into the whatever, just making a beeline for earth) would take billions of years to get here. So the flood would not have happened yet. I think the problem is reading modern scientific understanding about cosmology into the [let's be honest] ignorant cosmology of Genesis. Read the story on its own terms -- it says nothing about the "universe" being "inside a bubble" surrounded by water. Rather, it was the Earth that was surrounded by a firmament. This is difficult for us to comprehend because we have some degree of scientific literacy. The writers of Genesis did not! For them, the earth was a flat disk surrounded above by a solid dome holding back a wall of water. When the "windows of heaven" were opened, it rained. The sun, moon and stars were INSIDE that dome. That's why the Bible can talk about stars falling from heaven. It was what they knew and understood. When you think of the "waters above" being right up there on the other side of the dome, the notion of that dome opening up and all the water behind it crashing down on us and flooding the earth becomes much easier to understand. Trying to rescue Genesis from the ignorance of its writers is something I no longer try to do (as I implied in another thread). Here's an interesting, non-atheist article on the subject of the firmament. Of course, anyone is free to accept Earl Burton's teaching that the "firmament" really does exist and is billions of light years from earth, but be honest: do you think that's what the authors of Genesis were trying to convey? Which view makes more sense? That they were actually describing the universe as it is, or that they were describing the world around them as they saw it?

" At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them."

One of the better known moments in this film is a speech that few in the American audience even understood, as it was delivered in a foreign language. Translated, the speech reads: "How did I find myself here? They say my famous lover held down my husband and I cut his head off. But it's not true. I am innocent. I don't know why Uncle Sam says I did it. I tried to explain at the police station but they didn't understand."

Pretty in Pink

The 13th Warrior

A Christmas Carol "Exsqueeze me? Baking powder?"

There's something I need to clarify, and I will do so gladly. I acknowledge that I was not forthcoming in previous instances when I was asked point blank whether I was now an atheist. If you look carefully at my responses, I never quite denied it, except by omission (I declined to correct those who asserted that I was a Christian). There were reasons for this. First, I wasn't quite ready to tell everyone in my life, and I wasn't going to tell this board before I told those who are personally in my life. But as importantly, and as I alluded to in my opening post, I wanted my thoughts and observations to be challenged on their merits. It should go without saying that someone who is atheist will reject SIT. But for me, it was the other way around -- someone who rejected SIT later became an atheist. In a sense, I presented you with a step in my journey years after I had taken that step myself. Likewise, in questioning whether the Bible lived up to PFAL's criteria of God-breathed, I did not challenge the notion of whether anything could be God-breathed. Rather, I took PFAL's criteria of God-breathed, applied them to the Bible, and demonstrated that the Bible does not meet the criteria. Is it possible to be a Christian without believing that the Bible is inerrant? Most of the world's Christians will answer with a resounding YES! The Bible has actual errors. Big, fat glaring errors that cannot be dodged, evaded, distracted, ignored... they have to be admitted, acknowledged, and dealt with. But you need not abandon Christianity just because this collection of books is not the "inerrant" masterpiece our mutual religious experience claimed it to be. Naturally, if you look backwards, it's easy to see how an atheist will take the positions I have taken. But that's not how it happened for me. I took those positions because that's where the evidence led me. Only much later did I become an atheist. So I apologize if you feel I misled you. My intention was not to mislead. My priority was to discuss issues, not the big picture. Each issue stands or falls on its own. If you want to discuss SIT, you need not reject Christianity to reach the same conclusion I did (I reached my conclusion LONG before I rejected Christianity). If you want to discuss the inerrancy of the Bible, you need not reject Christianity to find that it does have errors and contradictions (again, I reached that conclusion long before I rejected Christianity). I admit, I coasted on my former reputation in order to get you to consider ideas you might not otherwise have considered, and I did nothing to correct anyone on the status of my faith. The balance has tipped, however, and I will no longer bring up items for discussion without having you know where I stand now. I apologize for not doing this sooner. Thanks.

Didn't think it would. Not you, waysider. :)

Oh come on, this is not difficult at all.

That's it. You're up.

A woman who discovers that her parents are really Snow White and Prince Charming decides to team up with HG Wells for an adventure in the past and future.

Thanks, Excy.

A View to a Kill Bill: Volume One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

License to Kill Bill: Volume One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest