So You Say Prove To Me There Is A God

[Iamhe]

The existence of god cannot be proven or dis proven but, the existence of and omnipresent energy can be proven. Atoms make up everything. But what makes atoms. Electrons, male and female static energy. Which not only makes up all solids, it also flies around surrounding every thing at every moment in the air. You can see it out side if you just look. SO this energy that flows through and around every hing in the universe and also reacts intelligently all the time is something comforting to look at.

[rosered]

Hi    Iamhe ,

Acts 17   has  one of my favorite  proofs of that...........

22 So Paul, standing before the council,[e] addressed them as follows: "Men of Athens, I notice that you are very religious in every way,

23 for as I was walking along I saw your many shrines. And one of your altars had this inscription on it: 'To an Unknown God.' This God, whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about.

24 "He is the God who made the world and everything in it. Since he is Lord of heaven and earth, he doesn't live in man-made temples,

25 and human hands can't serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need.

26 From one man[f] he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.

27 "His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.


28 For in him we live and move and exist.

As some of your[g] own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.'

29 And since this is true, we shouldn't think of God as an idol designed by craftsmen from gold or silver or stone.

30 "God overlooked people's ignorance about these things in earlier times, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent of their sins and turn to him.

31 For he has set a day for judging the world with justice by the man he has appointed, and he proved to everyone who this is by raising him from the dead."

[marie glen]

Hi all,

I have to be honest and say this thread could do with people taking some 101 classes in science and in particular evolution.  You have to offer more than 'Gee look at all this neat stuff in the universe - I have no idea how it all works so God must have done it'.

As a non-believer I have spent many years studying faiths (with emphasis on Christianity) and have at least read and studied all the books in the Bible many times over - I would at least expect the same kind of familiarity by the Christian community with the intricacies of opposing views to their own.

Here is a link to a Christian web site that explains why many scientific concepts that Christians generally disagree with (and don't understand too well) are in fact correct (but that doesn't stop him being a Christian).  Mostly it deals with evolution and why flood geology is just plain wrong http://home.entouch.net/dmd/

All the best,

Jeff - The Agnostic Universalist.

I have to agree with part of Jeff, the Agnostic Universalist's ( :HeartThrob: bless his heart) post. I think we should know a bit about this topic.

(Even though most of us "believe" because of an experience we've had with God! hard to prove to us someone we know doesn't exist...)

So I (and I know others have too) looked into it a few years back and found out I LOVE science! It's SO interesting! All kinds of science.. and there are so many many creative and awesome creatures!! colorful and beautiful and all so unique.

These words and ideas are not mine but others have said them or written them, I just, so far, can remember some of it.

"Science" which is observation, does not prove evolution, nor even support it.

Evolution is a belief like any other. Not aLL scientists believe in the theory.

Atheistic evolutionists most often believe that people of faith do not believe in natural selection - do not believe there has been, and is, change. This is a very untrue perception on their part! :smile:

And, they believe natural selection is the same as evolution as to origins of life. Natural selection can be called "mini-evolution" and "origins" as "Maxi-evolution".. world's and worlds away from each other!

By observation it's easy to see that "every thing with its own seed and after its own kind" I.e. within the dog/wolf kind, can be mixing of traits - traits which are present in the genetic code (instructions)
     (where does information come from?) But there are NO dog-cats.

Darwin, or those after him, thought much of the "peppered moth" - on one island they were white, on another they were brown. Voila! PROOF of evolution as origins, yes?! Because they evolved away from each other/apart.
  -- No!! On one island, researchers found there was white lichen on the trees.. the brown moths were picked off and the white ones thrived. Vice versa on the other island, no white lichen on the brown trees.
  -- this is natural selection (selection a` la natural)...

We may have heard that bacteria evolves resistance to antibiotics?? :smile: the antibiotic kills off the non resistant and the resistant multiply. Again trait was present. Not a new trait developed/evolved...

Trees during drought.. with the ability in their dna code to grow deeper roots will survive and multiply, if the ability to not grow deeper roots is not in the code, they will not survive. This is natural selection. (I don't know how they miss that word se-lec-tion.. ..of traits present.)

So.. they say cow evolved from the whale - i kid you not. The bird evolved from the flying squirrel.. no matter that a birds bones are hollow, feather light, perfect for flight.. and a squirrel does not fly he leaps.

Have we heard of Lucy? She was later found to be an orangutan.. Peking man, found with tools, later found to be monkeys the tools were used on (grisly story that)..
-- Piltdown man? pieces of a human skull and an ape like jaw, an out and out fraud.. A few years back time  magazine, blazing headline.. missing link found (again :laughing7: ) - no headline when later discovered pieces were ten miles apart and in different layers in time (in the geologic layers)..

Speaking of the layers.. Precambrian layer, nothing. Cambrian, bursts with variety of life forms..

Richard Leakey, a leading atheist paleo-anthropolist said "..if further pressed I would have to state that there is more evidence to suggest an abrupt arrival of man rather than a gradual process of evolving" - PBS documentary 1990

..That there aRe fossils... all around the world they find billions of dead things buried in mud and sand and carried by water.. looks like a tide in places.. The state of preservation shows very rapid burial.. tracks, ripple marks, even rain drop marks turn up, and can only be preserved by very rapid covering. (A flood handed down legend is present in all lands.. as so was a 'mother goddess' a first 'god' in all lands... fuzzy memories of Eve? handed down..

There ARE other ways of dating the earth than the popular one which can be used to suggest the huGe amounts of time they need for their theory to be any where near plausible.

(Thank God for spellcheck, I shudder to think what my posts would look like without it! :eek: )

HELIUM. Evaporates (rises, like ones voice) so quickly, there should be none in our atmosphere.

There's an element in the middle of granite which is like an alka seltzer.. it fades and fizzles out. Very quickly. If granite evolved over millions of years, it could not be there. Some non-atheistic scientists have called this the "thumbprint of God" - they call something else that too I heard not long ago but I forget what it was..

I could go on and on.. but :faint: so long winded!!

The atheistic branches of science (peer pressure) are in control. Papers written up not in support of their theory are not published in their science journals or what not.. Definitely not listened to.

The 2nd highest law of science, the law of entropy states that all matter (and communication) is in a state of falling apart. Not in a state of improvement.. less order, not better, not more complex or able. (Hence our school room experiment of passing information from one end of the class to the other. Same applies to all matter and the genetic code.) Matter evolved into the so highly complex life? That would be quite the miracle.

Some will say, oh but the sunlight entering the system suspended the 2nd law of science, see that leaf on the tree? how it utilizes the sunlight for energy and increased order? (Improvement.) Proof, matter can suspend the 2nd law of science.

Well, pluck that leaf from off of the living tree.. and what happens to it? It burns up! Same principal as the farmer's compost pile. It heats up, is falling apart.  :Chinscratch: is reminding me of the LOF..

Is it only my drapes the sunlight fades? Only my house, car and body tending toward falling apart? Leave your old chevy in the sunny field for a few decades and just watch what happens to it. (This part I did think of all on my own :laughing7: )

Is it 113 amino acids had to line up exactly perfectly in a specific order in order for that first spark of life to form? The one top mathematicians have said is mathematically impossible. Something like one to the 50th degree.. however that works (i never even conquered algebra..) but seen as impossible no matter how big their god time could be, how many millions, oops now billions.. soon trillions? of years..

Just like the 26 letters of the alphabet make up all sentences, all paragraphs, all books and novels.. so the 110? elements make up all things which are.. If a novel doesn't happen randomly, how could all things that are come about randomly?

So "in the beginning there was nothing.. and nothing exploded and became everything.." Now that's quite an immaculate conception!!

You see, it takes MORE faith to believe in evolution (as to origins). And that faith, as 'they' (God bless 'em) like to accuse Christians of, is just about always, blind faith. They simply believe what they are taught. something christians are ridiculed for..
:blush: :blush:
sorry for the long post! And there's so many more points.. so many facts and trivia..! And it's such an exciting topic!! ..and there is surely no reason to ever have to be defensive on this topic.. but rather can take the offensive, without being offensive :laughing7: Like comparing the Rock to shifting sand! Let it be proved any of the points of this popular theory (which turned christendom on its ear!! the strong delusion and false prophet who helps the little horn, but is not the little horn, imo)

Besides.. most of us "believe" because of an experience we've had with God!

[CST]

I'm a little wary about posting in here because I can see the way the wind is blowing so to speak and now I'm here blowing in the other direction.

Obviously, in the past I didn't believe it possible to prove that God existed because God's a BIG thing and were little things and can't can't our head around such a thing.

And then I discovered something, probably the most controversial argument for the existence of God going. And I did accept it, but that was rather because I didn't understand it. Assertions were being made that I couldn't see how they could be made. But I was aware it was probably due to my own failings that I didn't understand it so I investigated it more thoroughly and revised my position rather. And then I discovered a rare and uncommon version of the argument and I came to believe that actually it does work both in this version and the original. Although it isn't universally helpful to Christians. In case you don't know I am talking about the ontological argument.

Now, in order for me to explain the new version and how, to me, it works I'll need to explain the original as I understand it, but that's difficult because it's an involved argument and can be hard going. But here it is the original ontological argument.

The ontological argument was proposed by Anselm in his work Proslogion as an attempt to present a concise arrangement of a proof for God's existence that he had already presented in his previous work Monologion. Now in order to understand the argument you first need to understand that Anselm defined 'man' as 'rational mortal animal'. He understand the rational human mind was a tool to investigating the world outside which was inherently rational. If you don't believe the universe is rational the argument won't work. But, of course, no one really believes that; if you don't believe that the universe is rational then no argument works.

The argument runs as follows and it is very important that you follow this so that a big responsibility for me. The argument says that god is "that-than-which-nothing-greater-can be-conceived." This description appears in various renderings due to translation but the point is that God is the greatest thing you can ever begin to think about.

But this is just a thought, isn't it? People can think of anything why should we think anything and everything we can think of exists? We know many things we can think of don't exist, why can't Go be one of those things?

Well, Anselm argues, because the idea of God exists in our "understanding" this basically means our reason. We know what the phrase above means and we can analyze it and discern its implications. Anselm points out the we know know the concept of God exists in our mind, we are aware of it, but even as we are aware of it we could have this concept conceived as existing in the world as well and since that would be greater there must logically be a God in reality to correspond to it. The rational world outside must reflect the rational chain of thought in your mind, or it wouldn't be rational.

Anselm later goes on to argue that we could, indeed must, conceive God as a necessary being, that is a being that is the source for its self as much as it is everything else and isn't dependent on anything else for its existence and so can't be threatened by the possibility of one of those things being remove and it losing its existence. Anselm demonstrates this would be 'greater.'

This is the most controversial argument going because if it works it works finally and proves that God exists but people obviously aren't happy to except this certainly not with its implications and it being so simple but no one has actually managed to prove it doesn't work. They just suspect it and try to point out its flaws but no one seems able to finally show it.

The biggest argument against it is that you can't say existence is a property of something since something has to exist before it can have properties at all. So you can't say things have degrees of existence, it can't really be 'greater' to exist in either the mind or the world.

The thing is that this line of reasoning actually makes Anselm's point. The argument comes from a materialistic mindset. The idea that the only things that exist are the things that exist materially in the world. Therefore it only recognizes two states of being either something exists or something does not exist with no middle ground obviously God is not a material being so cannot exist.

But Anselm was a Philosopher and to him there were, very obviously, three states of being. Non-beings, identical to the materialists 'does not exist', greater than this is non-instantiated beings existing only as thoughts or ideas but not in the material world and finally greater than this is instantiated being identical to 'does exist' iof which there is at least one example out there in the world.

The point Anselm has here is that imagine a computer or a light bulb or a car. Easy, yes? You've seen these things you know they exist. But you also know, if you think about it there was a time where someone invented these things. There might have been plans for them expressing ideas for them based on the ideas in the inventor's mind but none existed in the world out they because they hadn't been made yet. But before this there was a time when even the inventor had not conceived the idea and at this point the things were non-beings. They did not exist at all. Imagine trying to talk about a car or a light bulb or a computer to people who've never seen any, you might well struggle to be understood. It's hard for people to imagine such things when they never experienced them which is why existing in the mind is greater than not existing at all things that exist in the mind are comparable and debatable things that don't exist can't even be thought of.  They not even represented as ideas.

But things that exist in the mind usually only exist in the world if someone makes them. They can't instantiate themselves. But the thing is, on Anselm's argument God can and does and must instantiate Himself and thus He must exist.

If there's any interest I'll move on to the newer 'clearer' rendering in the next post.

Sorry if this is a bit of a mess.

[rosered]

  It is not a mess CST ,

  You are just saying simply that    God cannot be understood    except in concepts     of harsh realities ?
  Things the animal mind can taste touch and feel and instinctively    understand      , to reason with an animal   that has limits ?

For instance an animal is instinctively afraid of fire   , so the concept of being afraid of  fire, God has used to describe   punishment ?

so the carnal mind is the   flaw ? or enemy against the Spirit being Life itself ..  Which describes God as  Love or Spirit or even as a  consuming fire

  These things are not tangible , but can be expressed  though   material  objects    that  the   carnal mind  can  grasp in the world  as we know it  ?

Well the thing  is until you  know what a light bulb is  used for  even as a baby  , they have no idea      what it is
Before the invention of that knowledge to  even  make one      none had a clue  as what a light bulb is  .

I am trying can you tell ?

[CST]

I can, friend Rose, I'm not sure whether you're succeeding or not. The Ontological Argument is pretty involved, if I'm knew if you understood it as I'd stated it I'd think it was less of a mess.

The idea is that concept of God while not being able to be completely thought has to correspond to something that exist. The OA fascinates me because to me it really seems to work and there are lots of ways you can frame it to show that it works. But it somehow can't convince even though it works and therefore should convince.

[eaglesway]

Hebrews 1 directs the ontological argument to Jesus, don't you think?

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, 2 in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. 3 And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.

Also John 1:18

No one has ever seen God. The One and Only Son-- the One who is at the Father's side-- He has revealed Him.

and John 14:7

"If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."

Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me?

[Reverend G]

Why would I attempt such a proof?  It is the corollary that needs proving, the proof should be that there is no God.
Yes, it is considered impossible to prove a non-existence.  Not my problem.  How many times have I heard that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs?  "No God" is an extraordinary claim.  Archaeology and history make it clear that even the earliest men had a belief in a god.  Believing in a god is definitely an ordinary,  nearly universal claim.  The extraordinary claim is the one burdened by a need to be proven.

[CST]

I'd agree but it's getting materialists, which is basically who we're talking about here, to recognize that they are making an extraordinary claim. That is how the OA is meant to work, kind of. It's meant to show that the claim 'there is no God!' is as extraordinary as can be and can't be true.

[eaglesway]

Why would I attempt such a proof?  It is the corollary that needs proving, the proof should be that there is no God.
Yes, it is considered impossible to prove a non-existence.  Not my problem.  How many times have I heard that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs?  "No God" is an extraordinary claim.  Archaeology and history make it clear that even the earliest men had a belief in a god.  Believing in a god is definitely an ordinary,  nearly universal claim.  The extraordinary claim is the one burdened by a need to be proven.

I Agree

Proving the non-existence of God involves ignoring a lot of powerful evidence to the contrary.

The  continuing  record in the hearts and minds of men that respond to some "consciousness" of God- tho it may take many different forms in thought and identity- is in itself substantial, tho not perhaps conclusive, evidence that there is a God.

According to a Gallup Poll....


According to Gallup's 2002 Index of Leading Religious Indicators*, 88% of those with postgraduate degrees believe in God or a universal spirit, compared to 97% of those with a high school education or less. More dramatically, postgraduate degree holders are less likely than those with a high school education or less to believe that religion can answer today's problems, by a margin of 51% to 68%. And those with a high school education or less are more likely than their postgraduate counterparts to say that religion is "important" or "very important" in their lives (65% to 53%). All this would seem to confirm that highly educated individuals put less emphasis on the role of religion than less educated individuals do.

The percentage difference is only 12 percent. While the writer of the article tries to slant the conclusion in a particular direction- the actual statistics objectively viewed reveal clearly that the vast majority of people in any educational level believe in the existence of some form of God-regardless of their opinion about the influence of "religion"- which may be a reflection of spirituality among many respondents- not the lack of it.

To ignore this almost universal consciousness in mankind or to attribute it only to "lagging myths and superstitions" from primitive man- is a real denial of evidence that more likely ought to be interpreted as a substantive connection to something universally recognized and therefore real on some level.

[GodIsLove]

 :thumbsup:

[Reverend G]

The author also makes no recognition of the effect of the collegiate environment itself.  Academia has a higher than average percentage of atheists and angry agnostics in its ranks.  This may be related to the high degree of leftist thinkers in academia as well.  These persons, as teachers of young minds, have definitely been known to attempt to impress their worldview on their students.  Considering that factor, the difference between college graduates and non-collegians is rather small.

[marie glen]

I skipped over all other posts besides

the ontological argument.


If there's any interest I'll move on to the newer 'clearer' rendering in the next post.

to keep my mind on course for when CST posts the newer 'clearer' version.. I'm taking the first sort of along the lines of if man can think of it.. it exists.. although some things which exist are still only in the mind (rhetorical - but there's something missing here? As it pertains to God's existence).. but also there has to be that one "greatest" thing.. (mankind right now thinks that is man? also rhetorical, just thinking outloud :laughing7: ) I'm sure I'm not getting it all, but I'm not done trying..

thanks CST, as we know, it's not always easy expressing these things..

I'm going to read the rest of the posts too.. as this is a topic that always interests me. But I'm keeping my mind clear for the newer rest of the version.. (I can get easily sidetracked, lol)

No hurry.. (don't get me wrong.. never pressure! :smile: )

[CST]

My opinion of the best proof of God is in the secret hidden mystery of the Temple deign and the comings and goings of the Temple, what the priests do in officiating the 7 feasts and their promises.

Moses had come down the mountain and he was about to marry God to the whole congregation but when Moses came down and found them committing adultery, and worshipping the works of their own hands, he went back to the mountain and then he brought down something completely different. He brought down a design for the ark of the covenant where one was not needed before.

Israel stood on the mountain under a canopy and they were about to be married and transformed after a symbolic consummation where they would have all given birth, their bodies would have given birth to sons of God.

But since they were committing adultery, and since they were worshipping the work of their hands, God brought down a design for a Tabernacle and an ark of the covenant and this is the great mystery.

The design of the Temple is that of the human anatomy of a woman and the ark of the covenant was put behind a veil that represented the veil inside a virgin where she has no door, and neither is there a door into the Holy of Holies.

The ark of the covenant is a uterus but there was originally no need for this when Moses came down the first time with a law of grace, but he went back up to the mountain and he brought down a harder law that they would try and become pregnant from then on.

Those priests were all dressed in their seed, and they represent the sperm of man going into the Holy of Holies one time a year trying to get a temple pregnant as to give birth to a righteous son.

None of the priests were able to do this until Jesus came and with his last breath, that veil was ripped from top to bottom showing a legal consummation. There has to be a legal witness with the blood and the water, and so Jesus side was pierced and the water and blood flowed out on the earth and it was a witness of consummation. Jesus was then planted in the earth as a seed and he became the first born son into a new kingdom where many sons would follow.

The Earth had literally become pregnant and Jesus was raised as the new Adam, a new guiding spirit within a bride, and the bride is literally that blood and water taken from his own body and these are two witnesses.


The proof that there is a God is that 40 authors were writing about a Temple being a woman and waiting on a consummation but none of the authors knew what they were even speaking about and none of them contradict each other.

That's not humanly possible.

The feast days all teach of a bridegroom and a bride. The bridegroom came and he has betrothed a bride from his own body and the bride waits on Rosh Hashanah as a wedding day and Yom Kippur as a day of consummation and the feast of Tabernacles is for the birth of a new son where Shemini Atzereth is a circumcision, the great eighth day.

40 authors over a 1500 year period all wrote about the Temple being a woman and giving birth to many sons, but none of the authors were actually aware of the mystery they were writing about..

Something so simple was hiding behind all those little laws all that time.

Hmm, you seem to be suggesting that God produced a plan B there because the Israelites took Him by surprise and started committing Adultery and Idolatry with a Golden Calf while Moses was up on the mountain. While I find what you are saying interesting and worth investigation and consideration and could contain much truth and originally took it that the sin the Israelites committed interrupted God's conversation with God and the Tabernacle wasn't a new idea God just hadn't gotten around to telling Moses about it yet. Nevertheless from what I've heard about what some scholars have said about the Tabernacle and its role in the scripture it's certainly incredible interesting.

I'm not sure I agree with your conclusion that the Temple was considered female by all the ancient Biblical writers to be as incredible as you suggest. Remember Hebrew is not a gender neutral language, I don't know but I suspect that the word here for temple may be a feminine one. And then treating and talking about the temple like it was female would be the most natural thing to do.

I skipped over all other posts besides

the ontological argument.


If there's any interest I'll move on to the newer 'clearer' rendering in the next post.

to keep my mind on course for when CST posts the newer 'clearer' version.. I'm taking the first sort of along the lines of if man can think of it.. it exists.. although some things which exist are still only in the mind (rhetorical - but there's something missing here? As it pertains to God's existence).. but also there has to be that one "greatest" thing.. (mankind right now thinks that is man? also rhetorical, just thinking outloud :laughing7: ) I'm sure I'm not getting it all, but I'm not done trying..

thanks CST, as we know, it's not always easy expressing these things..

I'm going to read the rest of the posts too.. as this is a topic that always interests me. But I'm keeping my mind clear for the newer rest of the version.. (I can get easily sidetracked, lol)

No hurry.. (don't get me wrong.. never pressure! :smile: )

Hee, hee thanks. maybe I shouldn't have said 'clearer' this is a tricky argument at the best of times and words like that are prone to mislead.

I think you've basically understood what I've said pretty well which is a mixture of how I perceive the argument to be understood generally and how I think it should be understood from reading Anselm but which I don't think all other readers have spotted.

As far as I can tell, the observation that anything we can conceive exists at least in the mind is unique to me (and maybe Anselm) because Anselm uses the phrase "exists in the understanding" and that statement presupposes existence.

It's like modern materialists like that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are identical in their non-existence but they're not. If told i had to get rid of one of them I could analyse the concept to decide which is 'greater' and therefore more worth keeping (it's Santa Claus for me, sorry Tooth Gal).

But, yes the point is this is to undermine an argument used by detractors of the Ontological Argument who claim it doesn't work because 'existence' is neither a predicate or a perfection and therefore the concept can't be used that way, my observation is that oh, yes it can and the original argument takes that it is. It's not simply an oversight on Anselm's part.

More generally, a lot of people are commenting on the fact that the more 'intellectual' people are the less inclined they are to religion. Atheists love to cleave to this to say that smart people reject God and only stupid believe tend to believe in Him.

I don't buy this. There's a logical flaw in this reasoning in that becoming educated means dedicating a lot of your time to whatever you are choosing to educate yourself in. This can result in religious and spiritual pursuits getting crowed out to the point where they no longer figure in your life. This has nothing to do with being smarter and everything to do with neglecting serious investigation into what might be good arguments for God.

[CST]

That post makes me uncomfortable... are there dolphins in the Bible?

[GodIsLove]

That post makes me uncomfortable... are there dolphins in the Bible?

Yeah it seemed weird to me too--check out Numbers 4...different translations say different animals--one says beaver and one says manatee. I have no idea which animal the passage is truly referring to. I may dig more but for now it seems to be a semi-aquatic animal.

[GodIsLove]

Beaver, manatee, goat, badger, porpoise, deal...ok it's a little weird that every translation has a different animal.

http://biblehub.com/numbers/4-6.htm

Even weirder is the fact that I read that it wouldn't have been badger as it was considered an unclean animal and it also couldn't have been any of those sea animals because they were also considered unclean because they were sea creatures without scales.

It seems to me that the Hebrew word tahash should have been interpreted as a color (blueish/purplish) and not an animal according to this article:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Badger_skins_(Bible)

[CST]

God has used pretty much every creature to show his truth, the outer covering of the Tabernacle is made of dolphin skin and so it was seen as a cloud, that God dwells in a dark cloud, but it is dolphin skin and a dolphin has two lives, one of air and one of water and the sea is sitting right there in the court, the great sea of Solomon has 3 millions gallons.

The alter of incense also has it's dolphin skins and what would come to mind is the colors of the veil because they are taken from two seas. The alter of incense says," Nobody comes to the father but by me." you offer prayers through Christ as he is the alter who lifts your prayers up to God and this alter of incense in carried into the Tabernacle by two poles and a piece of cloth in the way you would carry a dolphin, and with it's own dolphin covering, one might imagine a dolphin standing on his fin as being a creature taken from the water and now he has become a new creature of air.

I believe Moses took Israel through the valley of whales where they would have seen ancient dolphin bones, monsters as they were, and extinct.

Everyone must be taken from the waters, every creature in the sea, and that dolphin fits right in with the Tabernacle. To have seen the Tabernacle moving through the wilderness was to see a dolphin swimming in the sand as they saw that very thing in the valley of whales.

Oh, the Sea Cows! Yeah, they're Dugongs so I understand but like GiL points out it's hard to be sure how we can know exactly what each Hebrew word for each Animal means when we haven't got books, hence why there are so many differences in translation.

However, I've got good news and bad news for you, I checked my admittedly dubious, Hebrew Lexicon and discovered that all the Hebrew words used for Temple (except the ones of the sides of our heads) are masculine so it is curious they kept using feminine terms for it.

But the bad news is that I checked my Bible I discovered that you have misremembered the book of Exodus, Moses goes up the mountain he is given the instructions for the Tabernacle and then he is sent back down because the children of Israel are cheating on God and His covenant. There wasn't a plan B Moses didn't go up the mountain and come up with 'something completely different' the instructions for the Tabernacle were there from the get go, nothing obvious changed in what God was doing.

That post makes me uncomfortable... are there dolphins in the Bible?

Yeah it seemed weird to me too--check out Numbers 4...different translations say different animals--one says beaver and one says manatee. I have no idea which animal the passage is truly referring to. I may dig more but for now it seems to be a semi-aquatic animal.

Sorry, I misread the post slightly and was taking the term "submissive female" negatively, the negativity being reinforced by the repetition. I no longer think that the term was necessarily meant negatively.

Beaver, manatee, goat, badger, porpoise, deal...ok it's a little weird that every translation has a different animal.

http://biblehub.com/numbers/4-6.htm

Even weirder is the fact that I read that it wouldn't have been badger as it was considered an unclean animal and it also couldn't have been any of those sea animals because they were also considered unclean because they were sea creatures without scales.

It seems to me that the Hebrew word tahash should have been interpreted as a color (blueish/purplish) and not an animal according to this article:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Badger_skins_(Bible)

Yeah, I should point out that the other part of the tabernacle roof was goats hair, they don't seem to have the best rep in the Bible either, however they are really valuable which may be the point (or part of it). I think it might be presumptuous to say that our God, who can make all things clean, wouldn't instruct unclean animals to be used for the Tabernacle simply on account of that. But I get that that's not your own claim.

[Reverend G]

No solid proof for a God because it also can be alien intelligence.

Technically God is extra terrestrial.

Moreso, being outside of, and not subject to the laws of nature, He is supernatural.

[marie glen]

Amen, He has to be, really.. or we would have the same question(s)... Also the idea has lodged itself in my head, that anything imperfect fades. That being the source of the Law of Entropy, 2nd law of science.. To be the ever living one, He can only be perfect.. (Which of course He is :smile: )

       (Therefor, surely? the 'end' of all this, human history, etc. can only be the very best one possible!?)

:Chinscratch: maybe that's why evolutionary scientists won't move the debate along to "what sort of designer behind what is?" They know - even though whomever, is essentially an 'extraterrestrial' - to be a mere extraterrestrial just won't cut it!

Of course, what do they care about natural law and the most accepted laws of science? Their whole theory doesn't comply! (As far as I can see, anyway.)
:Peace2: God bless!

[marie glen]

Beaver, manatee, goat, badger, porpoise, deal...ok it's a little weird that every translation has a different animal.

http://biblehub.com/numbers/4-6.htm

Even weirder is the fact that I read that it wouldn't have been badger as it was considered an unclean animal and it also couldn't have been any of those sea animals because they were also considered unclean because they were sea creatures without scales.

It seems to me that the Hebrew word tahash should have been interpreted as a color (blueish/purplish) and not an animal according to this article:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Badger_skins_(Bible)

...I thought this interesting.. the word "tachash" - it is strange all the different meanings!
[pasted from http://studybible.info/strongs/H8476 ]

תּחשׁ
tachash
takh'-ash
Probably of foreign derivation; a (clean) animal with fur, probably a species of antelope


Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Definitions:

תּחשׁ

   1. a kind of leather, skin, or animal hide
       a. perhaps the animal yielding the skin
           1. perhaps the badger or dugong, dolphin, or sheep
Origin: probably of foreign derivation
TWOT: 2503
Parts of Speech: Noun Masculine

[CST]

Amen, He has to be, really.. or we would have the same question(s)... Also the idea has lodged itself in my head, that anything imperfect fades. That being the source of the Law of Entropy, 2nd law of science.. To be the ever living one, He can only be perfect.. (Which of course He is :smile: )

       (Therefor, surely? the 'end' of all this, human history, etc. can only be the very best one possible!?)

:Chinscratch: maybe that's why evolutionary scientists won't move the debate along to "what sort of designer behind what is?" They know - even though whomever, is essentially an 'extraterrestrial' - to be a mere extraterrestrial just won't cut it!

Of course, what do they care about natural law and the most accepted laws of science? Their whole theory doesn't comply! (As far as I can see, anyway.)
:Peace2: God bless!

Ah, Marie Glen the original 'optimist'. That is the definition of optimism you are citing there, you do know that?

Beaver, manatee, goat, badger, porpoise, deal...ok it's a little weird that every translation has a different animal.

http://biblehub.com/numbers/4-6.htm

Even weirder is the fact that I read that it wouldn't have been badger as it was considered an unclean animal and it also couldn't have been any of those sea animals because they were also considered unclean because they were sea creatures without scales.

It seems to me that the Hebrew word tahash should have been interpreted as a color (blueish/purplish) and not an animal according to this article:
http://www.conservapedia.com/Badger_skins_(Bible)

...I thought this interesting.. the word "tachash" - it is strange all the different meanings!
[pasted from http://studybible.info/strongs/H8476 ]

תּחשׁ
tachash
takh'-ash
Probably of foreign derivation; a (clean) animal with fur, probably a species of antelope


Brown-Driver-Briggs' Hebrew Definitions:

תּחשׁ

   1. a kind of leather, skin, or animal hide
       a. perhaps the animal yielding the skin
           1. perhaps the badger or dugong, dolphin, or sheep
Origin: probably of foreign derivation
TWOT: 2503
Parts of Speech: Noun Masculine

I'm not sure that there's any real reason for the animal to be clean given the circumstances it'll almost certainly be some material they plundered from the Egyptians.

[eaglesway]

I believe that just the fact Moses went back to the mountain proves he didn't bring down the same law.

Proves?

While I understand what you are saying and dont particularly object to it, I see no conclusive evidence that Moses returning to the mountain was to alter the law, since according to the narrative, God wrote it.

Even if such a thing were possible, there is no imperative logical evidence to offer, so again, your statement seems to emphatic for its own scriptural validations, or rather, lack of them.

But it is an interesting speculation.

[CST]

Prove it! Prove it! Prove it! OK, I'll try :smile: :mwink:

Let's present the argument thus following a process called adjacent reasoning. Here, first is Anselm's original argument:

1. God is described as being 'That Being Than Which No Greater Being Can Be Conceived' (premise)

That is Anselm's original argument, Thomas Aquinas tried to object to such an argument on the ground that not everyone conceived God such. Neglecting the point that if such a being existed and could be shown to exist it would supersede any god that they did conceive of and would indeed be God.

2. All beings exist (tautology)

A tautology, for those who don't know, is basically a statement where you repeat yourself without contradiction. In the case of logic like this it is equal to a 'truism' which is a statement that must be true.

It's worth mentioning that this statement doesn't 'prove' that there is such a being as God and He exists, the point is that the words 'being' and 'exist' are variants on the same verb and so both describe the same thing. Technically there are no non-existent beings.

3. Any being 'Than Which No Greater Being Can Be Conceived' must be a necessary being' (tautology)

This is the weakest point is the argument because it is not immediately obvious that the statement is correct, it follows the reasoning of the original ontological argument that to conceive of a 'Being Than Which no Greater Being Can Be Conceived' that isn't a necessary being is not to conceive it correctly.

Because this is difficult we will drop this line of reasoning and move on to it's adjacent neighbour.

1. God is described as being 'That Being Through Which All Beings Have Their Being' (premise)

Basically every thing that exists exists because of God. I don't even Aquinas could find objection to this. God made all things, that is what it is to be God.

2. All beings exist (tautology)

Identical to the above that is why this is adjacent reasoning.

3. Any being "Through Which All Beings Have Their Being' must be a necessary being (tautology)

Again, perhaps not immediately obvious in the text as written Anselm argues for the truth of this is his work Monologion. The point here is that a necessary being causes everything except (or perhaps including) it's self. Therefore it can be dependent on nothing for if it created everything but was not necessary it would have to have created something it its self was dependent on and so that wouldn't make sense. So it must have created all things except its self and be dependent on nothing and thus be a necessary being.

So having covered both adjacent paths they can now meant and complete the chain of logic.

4. All necessary beings necessarily exist (tautology)

The most obvious tautology in the chain, that is exactly what a necessary being is.

5. God is a necessary being (tautology)

Following steps 1 and 3

6. God necessarily exists (tautology)

Following steps 4 and 5 and so:

7. God exists (TAUTOLOGY)

The statement 'God exists' is a tautology and a truism and must be true. Therefore the opposite statement 'God does not exist' must be false .

This shouldn't be surprised when addressing a God who, when asked His name simply revealed it to be 'I AM BEING'.

Well, I think it works. They'll be something wrong with it. Someone always finds something wrong with it.

[marie glen]

Prove it! Prove it! Prove it! OK, I'll try :smile: :mwink:

Let's present the argument thus following a process called adjacent reasoning. Here, first is Anselm's original argument:

1. God is described as being 'That Being Than Which No Greater Being Can Be Conceived' (premise)

That is Anselm's original argument, Thomas Aquinas tried to object to such an argument on the ground that not everyone conceived God such. Neglecting the point that if such a being existed and could be shown to exist it would supersede any god that they did conceive of and would indeed be God.

2. All beings exist (tautology)

A tautology, for those who don't know, is basically a statement where you repeat yourself without contradiction. In the case of logic like this it is equal to a 'truism' which is a statement that must be true.

It's worth mentioning that this statement doesn't 'prove' that there is such a being as God and He exists, the point is that the words 'being' and 'exist' are variants on the same verb and so both describe the same thing. Technically there are no non-existent beings.

3. Any being 'Than Which No Greater Being Can Be Conceived' must be a necessary being' (tautology)

This is the weakest point is the argument because it is not immediately obvious that the statement is correct, it follows the reasoning of the original ontological argument that to conceive of a 'Being Than Which no Greater Being Can Be Conceived' that isn't a necessary being is not to conceive it correctly.

Because this is difficult we will drop this line of reasoning and move on to it's adjacent neighbour.

1. God is described as being 'That Being Through Which All Beings Have Their Being' (premise)

Basically every thing that exists exists because of God. I don't even Aquinas could find objection to this. God made all things, that is what it is to be God.

2. All beings exist (tautology)

Identical to the above that is why this is adjacent reasoning.

3. Any being "Through Which All Beings Have Their Being' must be a necessary being (tautology)

Again, perhaps not immediately obvious in the text as written Anselm argues for the truth of this is his work Monologion. The point here is that a necessary being causes everything except (or perhaps including) it's self. Therefore it can be dependent on nothing for if it created everything but was not necessary it would have to have created something it its self was dependent on and so that wouldn't make sense. So it must have created all things except its self and be dependent on nothing and thus be a necessary being.

So having covered both adjacent paths they can now meant and complete the chain of logic.

4. All necessary beings necessarily exist (tautology)

The most obvious tautology in the chain, that is exactly what a necessary being is.

5. God is a necessary being (tautology)

Following steps 1 and 3

6. God necessarily exists (tautology)

Following steps 4 and 5 and so:

7. God exists (TAUTOLOGY)

The statement 'God exists' is a tautology and a truism and must be true. Therefore the opposite statement 'God does not exist' must be false .

This shouldn't be surprised when addressing a God who, when asked His name simply revealed it to be 'I AM BEING'.

Well, I think it works. They'll be something wrong with it. Someone always finds something wrong with it.

Amen!! ..."Adjacent reasoning" :thumbsup:

I believe there has to be something (one) greater than what we see.. and beyond atoms and the like, which we don't see. To me "creator" makes sense. But all that exists - and it's rather awesome and complex, etc - simply "coming about" by chance, and, or, lacking purpose, simply seems to me to make no rational sense.