As man evolves so do his worshiping practices
The Old Testament depicts Jews sacrificing animals & sprinkling their blood on the altars & veils of the tabernacle believing such blood offering would cleanse & sanctify. Why did God encourage or at least not discourage such behaivor? If God is perfect why did he allow those who worshiped him to practice such barbaric rituals for so long? Why has the way God is worshiped changed so much over the years? Shouldn’t it have been correct from the beginning and still carried out in the same way today?
Doubting Thomas' Weblog 
December 13, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Look The blood of the animals was a sacrifice of atonement to pay for the sins that the jews had commited, Now we dont do that because Jesus has died for our sins and his sinless blood covered our transgressions.
And just for fun lets take a look at science:)
I love science it is an amazing subject and yet.
First they thought the world was flat, then they thought it was round then they thought we had perfectly circular orbits, then they thought we were the center of the universe, then they thought the sun was the center, then they thought that there was “ether” for time to flow thru, then they abandoned that Idea, then they thought we came from monkeys, then they thought the earth was 13.5 billion years old, now they think that religion is the fall of civilization even though around 1.4 billion people on earth are religious and religious families are pro creating enough to sustain the worlds population. so before you lay out a pathetic flow chart that comes from ignorance please do some research.David
December 15, 2007 at 11:54 am
You constantly perplex me, David, as once again you failed to address the questions in my post in your response. The ‘fact’ that God sent his son to be butchered for our sins in place of the barbaric animal sacrifices and blood rituals that were standard practice simply reinforces my belief that this being is, one; NOT the same ‘loving’ god of the New Testament, and two; a vile beast not worthy of worship. And do I need to remind you that a ‘perfect’ god is consistent and never changing by definition?
I do love your attempt at a point about Science, however. Yes, SCIENCE is ever evolving. Scientific knowledge is a direct result of study. The more you study a thing, the more you learn about it. The Theory of Evolution is just that; a Theory. But it is a theory based on scientific study and every year we learn more and more about our world, all of which supports this theory (although, admittedly, constantly altering it as well) while absolutely NO real evidence is discovered to support Intelligent Design/Creationism. Both ID and Evolution are theories, but while Evolution is supported by an ever increasing archive of fact, ID is supported only by hope (faith).
January 2, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Well aside from the fact that if you had been living under the same ritual practices for hundreds of years you would not have any type of problem with killing a lamb, and the fact that now we have such organizations as P.E.T.A. to defend our animals and elevate them to human levels out of ignorance, then I can see why you have a problem with animal sacrifices. And about ID only being supported by faith(which is not hope) im afraid that you may be behind in some of the more recent scientific findings. These finding point out that science has no clue how to explain the origins of the universe, and while I am not entirely sure what you mean by “ever increasing archive of fact” I will assume(and correct me if I am wrong) that you reffer to such findings as The Miller experiment, and such and that you believe that the Darwinian tree of life actually fits into a realistic view of the world. Ohh and just for kicks I have been reading on some athiestic scientists for quite a while and turns out that even they say that the Darwinian tree of life is incorrect. They state that at the very best the tree of life should be turned upside down due to the Cambrian Explosion which happened “530 million” years ago, in which the “process of evolution” changed in rapidity and cause “advanced lifeforms” to hit the earth in astonishing numbers with no transitional forms to speak of. And to end this comment I would like to say that I do believe in a certain kind of evolution. Microevolution, because that is the only form that has any evidence to back it up and because I can see it working in the world around me, whereas Macroevolution falls to pieces under the true scrutiny of science.David
January 2, 2008 at 7:28 pm
1. ID is at best a hypothesis, the word Theory is reserved for hypothesis that make claims that have been tested and verified (like evolution, gravity, QM). Here is a claim that evolution made: the fossil record should line up with the geological records and any modern animals will not be found in ancient era rocks – experiment confirms theory.
2. Name the atheistic scientists refuting Darwin – and more so name any JOURNALS they have been published in. Peer review works to keep BAD science out.
3. Evolution is not about macro and micro – they are one and the same theory and work by the exactly the same process.
4. As for Cambrian explosion: see http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CC/CC300.html
A good resource for all pseudo-scientific creationist claims is http://www.talkorigins.org/ where they compile a dissection of all claims made thus far and why they don’t hold to the light of inquiry.
January 3, 2008 at 4:42 am
Hello Ian, a pleasure to see your voice on my site. This site is fairly new and it’s nice to have a fellow rational thinker express himself so well. And thanks for the links, although I doubt David and his fellow god worshipers will even take the time to visit them.
And David, Faith is ABSOLUTELY the same thing as hope. Also, I’m neither a vegan nor a member of P.E.T.A. (truthfully I find P.E.T.A. to practically be a terrorist organization). My disgust at the depictions of the brutal treatment of animals in the bible isn’t because I place them on the same level as humanity but because these barbaric acts were done to satisfy a god’s bloodlust, a bloodlust that was so mighty that he had to father a human child for no other reason than to torture him death.
January 3, 2008 at 2:45 pm
well ian you asked me to list some scientists who refute darwin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_signatories_to_%22A_Scientific_Dissent_From_Darwinism%22
Thisis a list of scientists that stated that they are skeptical that there is any scientific proof of the THEORY of evolution. You will notice that it contains signatures from such people as Nobel Nominee, and third most cited chemist in the world Henry F. Schaefer.
You will notice the last signature is that of Johnathan Wells. He has been published in such journals as Origins & Design, The Scientist, Touchstone, and many others.
And please state how the theory of evolution has been verified, all I ask for is lets say half a dozen, “discoveries” that have made evolution to be a tried and true fact.
!)avid.
January 3, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Here’s the Steve project: http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/3697_the_list_2_16_2003.asp
Over 800 scientists named Steve who support evolution.
Also you’re scientists are published, but ID is not.
Evidence for evolution: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/lines_01
1. Fossils
2. Homologies or similarities in species predicted to have a common ancestor
3. Distribution of fossils follows explained evolutionary tree
4. Artificial Selection
More (in a video) http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
29 evidences for Macroevolution: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ (so thats almost 5 times what you asked for).
But I think this is not really supposed to be a debate blog, so I’ll refer you to those sites and you can launch a quest of discovery from there.
January 7, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Mmk so I have looked thru the links that you have so kindly supplied, and I would like to make a few points.
1. Fossil Record.
The Berkely link you provided me with did not really so much provide evidence, as it did list points and say,”hey this is why this is true”. While they say that the fossil record has proved evolution. However even Darwin stated that “If a missing link is not found within 30-40 years then my theory goes down the tubes” So in essence I would like to ask where is the missing link?. I see alot of big numbers and some shells but I miss how they came to their conclusion on the ages of things. I understand radiometric dating slightly, and carbon dating, and I still dont see how you can come up with a number so rediculously large, perhaps you can explain it to me.
2. Homologies.
Well, I would like to say something here. Take a computer and put the same shell on it, and a few of the same mechanisms inside. Give it to Two different companies and tell them to build a computer.When you recieve the computer you will likely put a price on it. Now lets say for humors sake that Dell and Microsoft made the computers. Dell simply dropped the ball and made a terrible computer, while Microsoft made the best computer on the market, Now it would not make sense for Dell to say, “well we have the same fan in our computer, and we have the same type of screws, so that shows that these computers are the same in design and we should sell them for the same price”. The same goes for the “evolutionary evidence” of homologies. I can look at a whale flipper, horse leg and human hand and see bone structure similarities, But I can also look at the rest of those animals body parts and see no resembelance whatsoever. In my opinion the homology argument is alot like those abstract art paintings, If you stare at it long enough and have someone telling you what you should see… odds are you’re gonna see it.
3. Artificial selection.
Wow.. you just took an evolutionary process and applied thousands of years of human knowhow in the breeding process, and said its support for evolution… wow…
I’ll get to the rest of them later but for now thx for the links.
!)avid
January 8, 2008 at 8:36 am
[[[I can look at a whale flipper, horse leg and human hand and see bone structure similarities, But I can also look at the rest of those animals body parts and see no resembelance whatsoever.]]]
David (whiteman0o0), I’m going to give you the opportunity to review your statement and reconsider it. No intelligent person can possibly ‘see no resemblance whatsoever’ in the skin, muscle, fat, bones, lungs, heart, eyes, etc. of these animals. And your contention is that your god created the world for us? We who have no gills, on a world that is 90% water?
January 14, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Well aside from the fact that your last statement is a direct argument against natural selection rather than against God, Yeah.. If we were truly evolving for the better on a world that is 90% water why dont we have gills? Seems like that would solve some of the problems that we face as humans on the earth, But maybe im just being naive, anywhoo, I will submit that there are similarities in these body parts. However, similarities do not make a common ancestor. I see similarities in the cellular structure of a plant and a human, and yet I dont recall ever hearing about any animal evolving from a plant. You see there are only a limited number of types of cells,(a large number but limited none the less) the odds are that if these cells are making up all of life, some of it is going to look the same. !)avid
January 15, 2008 at 12:06 pm
First, Whiteman0o0, I deleted your post regarding the origin of life from my main page and created a new post. You can find it here:
Now, David, come on. You believe your god CREATED a world that is 90% water for man who has no gills. That’s different than a species of land dwelling mammals surviving on a world that is 90% water who have no gills. Please remember, evolution is NOT WILLFUL. Think of evolution in a species more like a series of beneficial accidents. It’s not like I can stand on the beach and think, gee, I really want to swim across the ocean without ever coming up for air and concentrate really, really hard and – Pop, Pop, pop-pop-pop, what’s this? Sweat! Gills! We don’t NEED gills to survive. And remember (and I don’t personally agree with this), but many evolutionists believe ALL life (including plant life) originated from the same goop.
Keep checking back on that origin of life post and we’ll see if anyone can come up with a decent answer to your query. I doubt they will, as I’ve never heard an explanation that was anything more than WILD conjecture.
June 11, 2008 at 7:58 pm
While I just wanted to blow up at the simple advances in science being pointed out, I realized there is no use in trying to tear that apart. Where you (WhiteManOoOo) stand firm, you stand firm. Let us think of the advancements in religion:
-LESS barbaric acts
-Continue to worship something that can never be proven – much like scientific theory.
It is very simple everyone just looks at what they believe as fact. In all reality, no live being will ever be able to understand that.
Here is something to carry that home:
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”
-John Lennon
July 16, 2008 at 10:28 am
Lee, quoting John Lennon:
“I believe in everything until it’s disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it’s in your mind. Who’s to say that dreams and nightmares aren’t as real as the here and now?”
-John Lennon
It is precicely this flawed logic that provides the wellspring of religion. If two non-disprovable and contradictory hypothesis are postulated:
A: there is only one invisible god.
B: there are many invisible gods
Then the result is a contradiction, because to have A, it is necessary that B be false, yet to have B, it is necessary for A to be false. Since J. Lennon advocates, and you apparently support, believing everything that has not been disproven, you both simply confess you are illogical.
if A, then ~B;
if B, then ~A;
~(A and B)
(A v B)
The better, and more logical option is to
1) not believe in anything that is not disprovable, because no contradictions or tautologies can be discovered, therefor the hypothesis is worthless;
2) not believe in anything that is disprovable, and has been disproven, duh;
3) not (not believe) but continue to test, anything that is disprovable, but has not been disproven, the fact that you can disprove something, but all tests have failed to so far, tends to support its consistency with the observed universe, yay!.
Now, this assumes that at some point repeated testing of disprovable hypotheses will begin to narrow the spectrum of the entropic probability that the hypotheses are false. HOWEVER, that assumes that our test methods are valid, and can or do accurately test the hypotheses. Science discovers this is not the case all the time, when we create new tools like calculus and the electron microscope, and big ol’ cern particle accelerators and such things, and find out that our testing method was wrong.
Such could be the case with the theory of evolution, but so far this “theory” (which is the strongest form of hypothesis possible, implying testability and replicability of results, so don’t think that this moniker weakens it, as there are only theories in scientific language, no hypothesis becomes fully proven fact, ever.) has withstood every test, with only minor modification in the methods assigned to it (DNA). and..WE DON”T COME FROM MONKEYS!!! monkeys and priimates share a common ancester that we both share traits with, but we are mor dissimilar to monkeys than to our common ancesters, they have developed away from our common ancester, and so have we (although I sometimes think we are evolving closer based on what I read in some posts).
If a new tool could disprove evolution tomorrow, I would rejoice in the thought that human knowledge is advancing! Evolution is not a belief that I cling to, it is just the most logical conclusion available from my examination of all the phenomena posed.
Religious people seem to think that their beliefs are on an equal footing with scientific theories, but they are not. Religion cannot be concluded from consistent logical processes. Religious tenets are immutable to the believer, Scientific tenets are accepted by the scientist, for now. Science (but maybe not the scientist) is always open for change, for a new piece of the puzzle that could change everything, and help humans resolve questions about processes we don’t yet understand.
Religion is by nature closed to new discoveries, dogma and doctrine state that the questions are answered, that the system is closed, so any new “discoveries” not covered by the religion are naturally a threat and quite possibly destructive to the religion.
I dont “worship” science, I don’t “worship” anything. and its not a problem that science cannot be proven, because NOTHING can be proven objectively. Science can only disprove the disprovable, and logic can only highlight contradictions.
It is the merging of these two tools that gives us rational thought.
It is the rejection and misunderstanding of these two tools that bring us superstition and mystic gods.
-Q