Proof of god

[BigO]

So uh, a few more things...

The Catholic church doesn't somehow have the inside line on God's will. I'd hazard a guess that they have been acting quite the opposite in many ways for a long time.

I don't take the Bible literally. There is certainly a TON of truth to it, imo, but I can't believe the whole "if the Bible says it, I believe it" kinda thing.

You can't sit here and tell me that oral traditions that went on for hundreds of years and then were finally written down by one person didn't become, oh, changed a bit in the process. Let's be practical here. Even the creation story in Genesis contradicts itself in the order of which things were created. There are contradictions all over the place, which is to be expected when you have that many authors and viewpoints compiled into one book.

That is why I don't believe the Bible is to be taken as the 100% word of God. Not to mention that SO much of it was written for a particular cultural context, and the meanings have been lost over the years. You know, like Levitical law prohibits men from cutting the hair on the sides of their face. Which I'm sure still has a meaning somewhere, but it isn't like some kind of make or break "zomg I am going to hell" for all those of you who shave your faces and have short hair.

I will never understand why people seem to insist, on both sides, that evolution and creation are somehow mutually exclusive. That makes absolutely no sense. God said "Let there be LIGHT!" Am I the only one who sees BIG BANG written all over that? Oh and then let's go back to the rest of the creation story, which interestingly lines up pretty well with how things would have evolved aside from the whole 7 day thing. Not to mention that you cannot create or destroy energy. Where did it all originate? Before the big bang? Where did all this energy even come from?

SO yeah, the Bible. I think it's a great book, but shouldn't be taken as the literal and complete word of God. Unfortunately it seems that over the last couple milennia especially people have been grabbing a hold of the parts that they want to grab a hold of and then ignoring the other parts and then God becomes this horrible vindictive THING.

Masturbation is a fantastic example of this. Why? Because it is sooooo sinful according to the church but the BIBLE IS TOTALLY SILENT ON THE MATTER.

You would think... if it is such a sin, given the fact that 99.999999999% of the human population has masturbated, it would mention it. The Bible does prohibit us from having sex with animals, though. So seems to me that if this activity that 99.999999999% of the human population has done one time or another is actually sinful, the Bible would actually SAY SO.

So there was this one part where this dude named Onan was having sex with his dead brother's wife but pulled out and God got mad at him for doing that (in case you are interested, it's because, iirc, she had been childless with his brother and he had to marry her but a child she had with him would have been attributed to his brother and he apparently must have not liked his brother much so he didn't want her to get pregnant... bear with me, it's been a while since I read that part).

And that's where the "masturbation is sinful" thing came from.

But look at the CENTURIES of shaming that has come about from church leaders taking that one thing and totally twisting it to mean something it doesn't. And it happens all the time. And then atheists be like... I don't believe in God because of all the shitty things that have been done in his name. AND I CAN'T BLAME THEM.

Really kinda pisses me off sometimes. I mean... I'm certainly not a genius or anything but I know the difference between wanking it vs. having sex and pulling out

God is not a horrible vindictive THING. God is love. Period. He loves us, that's all we really need to know. He made us, he wants the best for us, but he gives us the free will to make our own decisions and sometimes we make crappy ones but we can't blame him for that.

So there, my $.02.

That was more like 25 cents but I agreed with quite a bit if it.

The big bang happened but it was created by God.

[WildBlue]

I respect religion and believers as I truly find there's nothing wrong with it, unless you start claiming idiotic and unscientific things like man was created from a pile of mud and we're missing a rib because Eve over there has it. Or that earth is like 5000 years old.

But with all due respect, people who are always praying for things, albeit there's no harm in it, if you're choking would you want a person to pray for you or do an heimlich?

Yes, this is an exaggeration and what not. To be honest I am not sure if there is a God, but I am sure that even if someone doesn't believe then he can still be a very kind and humble person.

[CUSP82]

Is the Bible the written word of God? Nah I don't think so. I think it's the spirit of God, the conscience of God. Humans interpret everything. That is what we do. Every spoken or written word that comes to our brain we think and interpret. That is the meaning of the Bible; here are My ideas, written so that you may understand them; think about them.


The story of creation; interesting huh? Some read that story and say hey God created 2 people, Adam and Eve and that's it. Well I would hate to really goof you up but if you go back into early Jewish writings Adam actually had a girl before Eve but it didn't work out all that well but I won't get into that.

Okay so we have Adam and Eve and 2 kids. According to the strict written word that's all the folks on earth, just the 4 of them. Well Caine got pissed and bumped off Able,Adam got pissed and threw Caine out of the house and according to scripture Caine went off to a distant land and got married and did his thing.

Okay where did those folks come from in a distant land? Damned if I know.

Th written word says there were only 4 people. The meaning of the written word is God created, a process that still goes on today. Oh yes we can get very close to the beginning of the big bang ( which wasn't big nor was it a bang) but who created, who sparked that small particle that gave rise to all we see now? Hmmm!

[Marlon LGHanger]

Where did Cain's wife come from?

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch... [Genesis 4:17]

These words appear after Cain has been banished from his family's land, as punishment for the slaying of his brother Abel. It is most likely that Cain was married before he was banished, and hence the account here is simply when the couple began to bear children. What follows in chapter five up to chapter six and the flood details the sons of man (Cain's descendants) and the sons of God (Seth's descendants).

Cain's wife had not been previously mentioned nor named - indeed, neither was anyone else other than Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. This, however, does not presume they did not exist, as the author of Genesis had a point in focusing on a select group of people. John Calvin writes that "many persons, as well males as females, are omitted in this narrative; it being the design of Moses only to follow one line of his progeny, until he should come to Lamech." Genesis 5:4 mentions that, besides Cain, Abel, and Seth, Adam and Eve begat many other sons and daughters. Therefore, although other human beings were not named specifically, this first generation of man was much larger than simply four people.

The situations around our verse presents what is to many a large stumbling block: just where did Cain's wife come from? If there were no other women outside the immediate family unit, does that mean he married his sister? These are difficult questions for certain, and from them arise two possible explanations for Genesis 4:17:

1) These women existed outside of the Adam/Eve family unit. This can go one of two ways: a) these women were made by God in the same manner Adam and Eve were; b) these women existed in populations outside Adam and Eve. However, if we permit either of these, we must then ask what becomes of the federal headship of Adam, and how his sinful nature carried down into the rest of mankind. One would have to explain the words of the apostle Paul when he wrote: "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin..." (Rom 5:12). This would also affect the previously mentioned dual lineage seen in chapter five.

2) These women were sisters of Cain and Abel. This will, to many, sound strange, given the ban on incest in the Mosaic Law (Deu 27:22). Many commentators say the reason it was permitted here was necessity, as well as the fact humankind had not fallen into such a state that the health ramifications were a problem. As Albert Barnes writes in his commentaries:

The wife of Cain was of necessity his sister, though this was forbidden in after times, for wise and holy reasons, when the necessity no longer existed.

David Guzik likewise writes in his commentary:

We don’t know where did Cain got his wife. Genesis 5:4 says Adam had several sons and daughters. Cain obviously married his sister. Though marrying a sister was against the law of God according to Leviticus 18:9, 18:11, 20:17, and Deuteronomy 27:22 (which even prohibits the marrying of a half-sister), this was long before God spoke that law to Moses and the world. Here, necessity demanded that Adam’s sons marry his daughters. And at this point, the “gene pool” of humanity was pure enough to allow close marriage without harm of inbreeding. But as a stream can get more polluted the further it gets from the source, there came a time when God decreed there no longer be marriage between close relatives because of the danger of inbreeding.

And the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament writes:

The marriage of brothers and sisters was inevitable in the case of the children of the first men, if the human race was actually to descend from a single pair, and may therefore be justified in the face of the Mosaic prohibition of such marriages, on the ground that the sons and daughters of Adam represented not merely the family but the genus, and that it was not till after the rise of several families that the bands of fraternal and conjugal love became distinct from one another, and assumed fixed and mutually exclusive forms, the violation of which is sin. (Comp. Leviticus 18.)

John MacArthur writes in his commentary:

Cain's wife obviously was one of Adam's later daughters (5:4). By Moses' time, this kind of close marriage was forbidden (Lev 18:7-17), because of genetic decay.

Hank Hanegraaff, in an article related to this very subject, writes:

Furthermore, because genetic imperfections accumulated gradually over time, there was no prohibition against incest in the earliest stages of human civilization. The Levitical law against incestuous relationships was given by God hundreds of years after Cain at the time of Moses. Thus familial relationships were preserved and birth defects were prevented (Leviticus 18:6, 9). [source]

We might conclude from this, then, that at this time it was not only a necessity, but that the human condition had not fallen into such a state that the medical effects of incestuous relationships were worthy of concern. We can definitely see a steady decline in the state of man's health up to the time of Abraham, if ages are to mean anything: Adam lived to be 930-years old (Gen 5:5), while Abraham lived to be 175-years old (Gen 25:7).

John Gill, in his commentaries, presents what may seem to some a more reasonable possibility. Namely, that this woman Cain married could have "descended from Adam by another of his sons, since this was about the one hundred and thirtieth year of the creation." This still does not, however, answer how the other, unnamed son reproduced, and we would have to assume it was through a sister. Therefore, we return to the dilemma we started with.

John Gill likewise mentions a tradition among the Jews and others, that Cain and Abel each had twin sisters when they were born, and that one married the other.

At first indeed Cain could marry no other than his sister; but whether he married Abel's twin sister, or his own twin sister, is disputed; the Jews say, that Cain's twin sister was not a beautiful woman, and therefore he said, I will kill my brother and take his wife: on the other hand, the Arabic writers say, that Adam would have had Cain married Abel's twin sister, whom they call Awin; and Abel have married Cain's twin sister, whom they call Azron; but Cain would not, because his own sister was the handsomest; and this they take to be the occasion of the quarrel, which issued in the murder of Abel.

This would still present something of a problem, as marrying a sibling's twin sister is still technically marrying a sibling - hence, once again, we are back to the original conundrum.

After reviewing this situation and the various solutions, the most likely answer is that Cain's wife was an unnamed daughter of Adam and Eve, being Cain's sister. At the time, this was permissible, both for necessity's sake, as well as for the simple reason man had not fallen into such a miserable condition as they are today.

Many will here ask why God would permit it in one moment, yet ban it later on. God, however, permits and forbids actions or deeds according to His purpose and according to the timeliness of the ban or permit. For example, ravens were declared unclean diet for the Jews under the Mosaic covenant (Deu 14:14), and yet ravens were earlier saved from the flood due to God's mercy on His created animals (Gen 8:7). In fact, there were many unclean foods the ancient Jews were banned from eating under the Mosaic covenant, and yet they are permitted under the covenant with Christ (Mark 7:19). Another example, the looking upon a bronze snake was permitted by God for a temporary time (Num 21:9), but banned later on when it became idolatrous (2 Ki 18:4). These are not contradictions any more than a law enacted by a civil government that limits or bans something which was at one point permitted but has now become an issue or a problem. A city, for example, may keep a public park open 24/7, but because of crimes at night enact an ordinance that bans activity in the park after a certain hour. That, however, is not a "contradiction," and those who argue as such are ignoring the circumstances around the change.

[Jackxxx]

I continue with my research...

After I laid out the two main streams of thinking, the religious approach and the scientific approach of our origins, I needed to go to the next step. Analyze de origin of each. I never went into detail with the scientific side because we all pretty much know who was Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution. We all know the scientific community is well organized in universities, colleges and schools and they are in their own way very similar to a religion. They believe what they believe is right and everybody else is wrong.

So I went to analyze the origin of religion. It turns out, ALL religions with no exception, were established by men. NONE of them is a written code by a divine entity that could be sitting in a throne today supervising that the code is followed.

In the case of Christianity, the one that influences our society the most today, it was invented by the Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. Under Emperor Constantine, all the sacred books were taken, they decided which ones they would include, and which ones leave outside. All this done to their own convenience of course. That way Constantine could become the official representative of God on earth and have absolute control and power of everything. And the Christian religion was born. Now it became the official religion of the state and everyone who opposed Christianity was prosecuted by the sword.

After this research I discovered what led me to the next step. After reading the Quran, Mahabharata, Bible and Torah, one thing that is relevant is that ALL of them , share the same stories. All of them talk about the creation of man. All of them talk about things like a great flood. All of them talk about Gods and the sons of Gods interbreeding with human females.

Another very interesting thing I discover is that when Christianity was reformed and officials established by the Romans, it was ordered to worship from now on, ONE GOD. Before that, it was "The Gods" and it turns out, in the ancient world, it was always "The Gods" ALL humans had the knowledge of the same pantheon of Gods ruling the Earth in the past. Hindus, Greeks, Romans, Mayans, Aztecs, Incas, Asians, Vikings, you name them, they ALL knew about "The Gods" and not just "God"

So here I was with these two big questions:

Who were The Gods?
Where all these sacred texts that founded the main religions come from having the same ancient stories?

One thing that I have to point out, is that all these ancient civilizations talk about the Gods. However, some of them were separated by continents in different parts of the world, without knowledge of the existence of the other, yet they both knew about the same Gods.

I started researching the Romans. They had a pantheon of Gods. Then the Greeks. They had a pantheon of Gods. I went a little further in history: The Egyptians. They had a pantheon of Gods. Well, what was there before, the Babylonians. They had a pantheon of Gods too! before, them, Akkadians and Assyrians. Same pantheon of Gods! What about before them, the Sumerians.

It turns out the Sumerians were the first human civilization. Sumerians came out to the picture all of a sudden, without previous history, from one day to another with the plow, farming techniques, mathematics, geometry, the wheel, written language composed of around 400 characters, astrology, astronomy, concept of city, government with bi-cameral congress, school system, and many more things.

One thing I discovered at the same time, is that ALL these ancient civilizations share THE SAME GODS. Is not just a matter of believing in a bunch of deities. It is not the case. In this case, All those Gods they believed in, were THE SAME. Just with different names, but the same flesh and bone beings.

So having that interesting information, I went to dog even more to find out who were the Sumerians. Where did they come from. If I could discover were did they come from, I would have answered one of MY biggest questions. Where do we come from. And by answering that, perhaps I could answer Why are we here and who are we.

[Marlon LGHanger]

Yo JackXXX -
Pick up this book called "Darwin's Doubt" by Stephen C Meyer. The guy has some serious intellectual science credentials! With regard to answering your questions about creation and where we come from, you can get very detailed study from John MacAurthur Jr. - he is probably the best theologian alive today and has written more about Biblical doctrine and "divine inspiration" and canonicity than any man who has ever walked the face of the earth! He is a historian and knows Hebrew & Latin. You can check out all his study at gty.org
Another book that's in I think it's 29th edition that is the standard for Biblical apologetics is "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" by Josh McDowell.

[Wolfemother]

If god did exist, why would we need one?

[Marlon LGHanger]

If god did exist, why would we need one?

Good question.... only you can answer that. I'am confident you will know the answer one day in the future.

[Jackxxx]

We all are told a little bit about the Sumerians in school. We all are told that Sumerians invented the wheel and writing. But that's pretty much it. The reason why we are not told anything more about the Sumerians, is because the findings of their existence is too recent, and also because the translations of their tablets have never been officially "accepted" They seem to be "mythology" , "science fiction"

In the 1800's, archaeologists found thousands and thousands of clay tables written in Sumerian cuneiform Since nobody ever saw that language before, it was impossible to translate. All tablets were taken to the British Museum were they sat there for decades. Meanwhile, interestingly enough, while excavating archeologists discovered the ancient city of Ur. Before only heard in the Bible, and believed to be "mythology" as the whole Bible was believed to be before.

In separate stories, today for example we know the remains of the city of Troy, which it was thought to be pure mythology before.

Within the Sumerian tablets, there are ancient texts like the Epic of Gilgamesh which talks about the story of Utnapistim surviving a global flood in a vessel. Other text is called The Enuma Elish, describing the formation of the solar system in 7 tablets of creation.

In the tablets, cities, monuments, wall depictions unearthed, different beings are depicted usually with wings. They look human but they clearly seem to be of a royal category above average humans.

Finally the tablets were translated. The story Sumerians talk about, yes sounds unbelievable. However, they wrote it. It is there. It is not a modern invention, is what they wrote. And based on this knowledge, all ancient civilizations based their existence. There was no belief nor faith in those days, there was knowledge.

[lobey]

stephen meyer also wrote "Signature in the cell" ......brilliant guy......and humble...as are many of the people from the discovery institute.

knowing God is top down...not bottom up.....

i have tried it both ways