Is There Any Reason to Believe the Biblical Story of Creation?

You insist on conflating events from more than a thousand years apart. The prophecy to which you refer says there will be a drought and the waters will dry up. There was no drought, and the waters did not dry up, they were simply diverted. Your prophecies are horseshit. Don't expect me to go into more of your BS about prophecies. They have nothing to do with whether or not there is reason to believe the biblical account of creation. That is a subject which you just won't address.

I kind of like the New Living Translation which reads "A sword will strike her water supply" , or the. "New World Translation which reads "a devastation will strike her waters". Kind of sheds more light on the words, eh?

Kind of sheds no light on the question of the thread at all. But you never intended to answer that, did you?

You see a reason and I don't - stalemate.

One can try and impose one's sense of logic on each and everything one experiences, sees, reads, hears, and thinks about and still end up believing things that are not true. If you don't think this has ever happened to you, I'm not going to gainsay your conviction.

One can also believe in God, despite concrete physical evidence, and not find oneself believing in Atlantis, Unicorns, George Bush ordered 9/11 and Elvis Presly is still alive. This is the sort of condescending "logical"assumption and assertion that I find insulting. Again, if you worry that once you find yourself believing in something for which there is no evidence you'll also find yourself falling through the rabbit hole, fine. I don't.

I didn't arrive at the sense that it is not necessary to deconstruct and proof everything by some identifiable process of logic. That I have this sense doesn't "allow" you or cause you to say anything. You can, of course, say whatever you please, and if you wish to defend it by saying, "I have no physical evidence to support it, but it seems right to me," that's your choice. Depending upon what the "it" is and whether or not there is evidence to refute what you belief, I will formulate an opinion about the validity of your belief.

I appreciate that you desire to live a life wherein your thoughts are shaped only by that for which you find evidence for existence, and I'm not going to tread on your reasons for wanting to debate these things. You like to and if other engage, that's fine, but the only time that I would agree that it is truly important, or even necessary to raise the issue or call someone out (and again, please do not infer that I am asserting that you are calling anyone out) is if they attempt to force people to believe what they believe or base actions that affect people in a physical, not philosophical way based on their beliefs. I can't resist challenging beliefs in ESP, Aliens, outlandish political conspiracies and the like, but I'm not going to do anything but write posts in this forum, unless I think these beliefs are being used in a potentially dangerous way. (And before anyone rushes in to raise the point, yes, belief in God can be used in dangerous ways.)

There would be no point, in the context of this thread to do so, but have you started other threads that question the reason to believe God does not exist? Do you find that belief to have supporting evidence while belief in God does not? I ask out of curiosity, not as an argument.



I hope your use of "you" is not specific to me. I've never said that I don't want my beliefs debated and, quite obviously, if I didn't I wouldn't be writing this or any other post in this thread. I have questioned the point of debating a particular belief, and expressed less a disinterest in debating the existence of God than an admission that I can't do so with any hope of "winning". I don't assume that you don't want to debate a belief of yours: "That debating the belief in God is of some value."

There are very few passages in the Bible directly dealing with creation. I thought it more efficient to address other issues.

But if there are passages relating to creation I have missed, perhaps you would be so kind as to direct me.

The idea that there is a supreme being who created the universe is a very specific fact about the universe which is either true or false. Great that it doesn't bother you to believe things with no indication that they're true, but it's a practice which just doesn't work. You end up being right only randomly. It cannot be justified by reason.

It cannot be justified by known facts. That does not mean I am not right, only that I could also be wrong.

Believe in whatever keeps you 'together' Brandon.
One man's wisdom is another man' folly.

But, that's the question Brandon9000 is asking: If you could also be wrong, what reason is there for believing ' the Biblical Story of Creation'.? You might as well pick any story, from swimming turtles to great eggs falling out of the stars.

If you're picking this one called 'Genesis' because you're comfortable with it, you're wasting our time and yours.

Joe(still lurking about)Nation

What utter horseshit. We know those passages. Quoting them does not constitute a reason to believe them. That is the question of the thread. That is the question you have never addressed. Instead, you have, as Brandon has noted, attempted to divert the discussion.

You have never answered the question of this thread.

Well, there are plenty of reasons for picking one over the other. Ask an atheist the same question.

I didn't pick my belief out of a hat, and it's ridiculous to suggest that my belief in a supreme creator is the equivalent of believing that turtles dropped creation eggs from the cosmos, or any other nonsensical myth, since you have no idea of what my belief entails.

Without knowing the extent of someone's belief, comments about swimming turtles, the Easter bunny, and the Tooth Fairy are simply smug condescension.

I also explained my reason for believing. I'm not comfortable with "I don't know" for as significant an issue as this. There being a God makes more sense to me than the alternative and so that's what I go with. My belief hasn't opened the door for me to question science at every turn, to deny evolution, or the Big Bang theory. It doesn't in anyway inform my skepticism about the extent of claims about climate change, and it hasn't even led me to an organized religion or much of any religious practices at all.

I could be wrong of course, but so far I don't think my belief in God has harmed anyone else. Unlike too may progressives, my idea of tolerance doesn't mean agreement with or acceptance as true. It doesn't mean that you are required to "support" that with which you don't agree or take issue with. It means accepting these things within the context of the right to exist free of your persecution or assault, as long as there isn't demonstrable harm being done, including the imposition of beliefs.

There is a lot of intolerance from the left when it comes to religion (or should I say the Christian religion).

My belief in God (nor anyone else's) does not create a rending in the fabric of reason that one might say is at the center of Brandon's religion.

I think I'm in a better position than you to determine whether I am wasting my time and, quite frankly, I don't care much if I'm wasting yours, and if you had read all my comments in this thread you would know that I haven't "picked" Genesis as a foundation of my belief.

That seems to be just your own personal view (I got a very different one on a seminar in the Evangelical Academy in Berlin about that. They, however, didn't focus on the right and their hate on religion and churches but one point was as well that "a fundamentalist understanding of Christianity is in the vicinity of an exclusionary and authoritarian concept of society. [I admit that the Evangelical Church of Germany is predominantly what you, Finn, would call left.])

Actually I meant the American left. I should have been more specific.

Atheists are not, of course, peddling a story. If this thread impinges on christianity, it should come as no surprise, considering the titular question. When it comes to politics, i know of no one more intolerant than you, with your constant whining about "the left," and armies of straw men you erect to show us just how depraved "progressives" are. (I had never heard contemporary remarks about "progressives" until i came to this political fantasy land. To my mind, progressives referred to the three successive presidents--Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., William Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson--which is to say, two Republicans and a Democrat.)

In your mouth, progressive just another term of contempt. What was that phrase you used? Ah yes, a term of smug condescension.

I doubt Finn believes the Genesis story literally... He's talking of God creating the universe, I think.

In the end, we all believe in things without a shed of evidence behind them. Even the most rationalists among us believe in something, if only the power of their own reason.

Or bias?

The disgusting hypocrisy of you talking about bias is just unbelievable.

We all have biases, but that's another issue. My point is that this wholesale rejection of beliefs by A2K rationalists is simply ridiculous and oh so dated... Positivism has been dead for a hundred years out there, but it still lives on in A2K...

Now, I have to join glujohn in wondering why you are so nasty all of the time. You might want to try something for your serious acid reflux problem.

Obviously, by my definition of tolerance, agreement or support of an opposing belief is not required, a lack of persecution and assault is. It doesn't come as a surprise considering the thinness of your skin and your general paranoia concerning comments with which you disagree that you would classify my posts as persecution or assault.

Liberals have chosen to adopt the title “progressives” irrespective of Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson. I am merely acceding to their wishes.

As for straw men, this is constant go-to accusation of yours despite your being a master of their usage.

Atheists believe something they cannot prove. That is a "story" whether peddled or not. You just choose to peddle the additional and insulting stories of how believers are deluded fools.

We've been on a rather nice roll of late, essentially ignoring one another, what do you say we keep it up.

Other than wishful thinking? None that I know of.


I don't think we should: It's a very big assumption. It explains barely anything. And none of the empirical evidence we have supports it over the standard model of cosmology.