"If You're a Christian, Then Don't You Believe The World Was Made in 7 Days?"

[TheMightyPotato]

How did it start though? Some genius asshole wanted to make money and so he wrote a long book and sold it to an idiot. Who spread the word. Who created this disease called religion. 

They didn't teach you much at that private school did they?

[Studious Damon]

They didn't teach you much at that private school did they?

I'm not saying how it started in the bible, but how religion started.

[TheMightyPotato]

I'm not saying how it started in the bible, but how religion started.

Even then I don't think that's true.

[Studious Damon]

Even then I don't think that's true.

k

[michael-]

It seems a certainty at this point that if god does exist, he's an arsehole.

 

Shhh, He'll hear you!

 

i think i am god and the universe is my ass

 

[Major]

You do know what christiansanity is right? Other religions aren't based off fear. Only Christianity is. 

Fear god. That's what your taught, you buy into this bullshit because you need to fear to be able to make sense of things.

 

I went to a VERY religious private school in Denmark, the kind with nuns and graves. And let me tell you, I don't respect them at all for fearing some dude with nails (thats hyperbole, don't worry I know what I'm talking about). How did it start though? Some genius asshole wanted to make money and so he wrote a long book and sold it to an idiot. Who spread the word. Who created this disease called religion. 

 

 

 

Isn't Hinduism based on doing good deeds to appease the gods so that you don't become some shitty rodent or mosquito in the next life or something? That in a way is fear.

[Studious Damon]

Isn't Hinduism based on doing good deeds to appease the gods so that you don't become some shitty rodent or mosquito in the next life or something? That in a way is fear.

All religion is shit. But Christianity is the most direct when it comes to fear.

[Professional Map Painter]

The idea of Earth being flat goes much further back than the 19th century. As far as I can tell from the bit of research I did, it does in fact out date the idea of a spherical Earth.

The Greeks actually did believe that the earth was flat. Evidence can be found in some of Homer's texts.

 

Also, I can't find anything saying that anyone believed Earth was pear-shaped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TDXrpNk3fy4

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Scolumb.htm

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/05/people-in-columbus-time-did-not-think-the-world-was-flat/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11818.html

[t0night]

It's interesting you called just about everything I said "lunacy".  If you're going to speak on the topic of literacy, you might want to at least use proper punctuation and capitalization, because  you have zero credibility right now.  My "opening line" listed the reason that I see as being the source of contention.  You've not only misread my entire post, it seems like you barely skimmed it.  I'd rather that you read and understand what I said if you intend to dispute it.

thanks to you challenging my credibility i'm super duper tempted to screenshot some academic achievements or something. i guess i'll just email my university tutors to tell them that their feedback is irrelevant because in informal online discussion i frequently don't use capitalization (although i'm quite confident that my punctuation is fine other than that particular habit.)

 

i didn't call everything you said lunacy, i agree with you in principle that science and religion are very separate and have different uses; i just think that you are being borderline offensive to say that every religion ever can be boiled down to christianity's golden rule. you misrepresented tons of religions as though you knew about them, claimed that the purpose of parable is to appeal to the stupid, implied that people were simply much less intelligent in a non-specific distant past, and even stated that religion and science were incompatible because people are stupid. you also kind of imply that science is unquestionable truth. all of those are wrong in my view and i would prefer you defended or explained your positions on them rather than attacking one facet of my typing style.

[t0night]

Isn't Hinduism based on doing good deeds to appease the gods so that you don't become some shitty rodent or mosquito in the next life or something? That in a way is fear.

find me a hindu scripture that presents karma as a retributive power to be feared and i will be pleasantly surprised at your research capacity. until then, keep misrepresenting a religion you know next to nothing about.

 

i won't claim to be an expert, but in my understanding the idea of karma is to return to being one with god, and you move up the scale by performing your duty (dharma) according to your situation and role. there are ways in which this could be considered problematic in terms of the caste system and class, and there's no way to aggregate the views of a religion which on one side has far right nationalists and on the other evolved into Jainism (Jains seek to avoid ever doing harm to another creature), but the theological basis is certainly not entirely predicated on fear.

 

you're taking an extremely self-serving perspective without any research to justify a prejudice. isn't that the kind of thing you'd hate if someone religious was to do it?

[t0night]

I'm not saying how it started in the bible, but how religion started.

if you think religion began at a time when money was a thing then you have done no research. seemingly religious sites have existed from some of the first large human settlements, places which would not have a conception of money as we understand it. sure, there may have been people who realised that they would benefit from religious activity, but such an utterly basic and obviously biased perception of the emergence of religion is completely unhelpful.

 

like the other guy i quoted, you're conjecturing without evidence or knowledge in order to support your own prejudice.

[cąℓσceđrus ☁☽]

they wish to suppress your soul

they wish for you to die in this darkness

 

and you defend, with everything youve got, the chains that bind you

[Major]

find me a hindu scripture that presents karma as a retributive power to be feared and i will be pleasantly surprised at your research capacity. until then, keep misrepresenting a religion you know next to nothing about.

 

you're taking an extremely self-serving perspective without any research to justify a prejudice. isn't that the kind of thing you'd hate if someone religious was to do it?

 

 

That's why I ended my sentence with a question mark instead of a period. I never claimed to know much about it.

[¬°BurningKirby]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_earth

http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/stargaze/Scolumb.htm

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/05/people-in-columbus-time-did-not-think-the-world-was-flat/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11818.html

 

I'm not arguing that people believed in a flat Earth back when Columbus lived, I'm saying that the idea of a flat earth outdates that of a spherical one, and existed quite a long time before the 19th century.

 

The second sentence of the Flat Earth Wikipedia page you linked supports what I'm saying:

 

"Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century."

 

The Classical Period of Greece lasted the 5th and 4th centuries BC, which is thousands of years prior to the 19th century.

Following that opening point in the article, it goes on to say that after the spherical Earth idea's emergence from Pythagoras, the flat-earth model was still widely believed in.

Still later on the same page it states that around the 8th century BC, Egyptians and Mesopotamians thought the world was "a flat disk floating in the ocean".

 

So while it's true it does seem that Pythagoras knew what he was talking about early on, there were others before him who subscribed to the flat-earth idea, and to say that it didn't come around until the 19th century is to be honest, kind of ridiculous, given that it was not only generally accepted back in the Classical period of Greece, but older cultures such as the early Egyptians believed in it as well.

 

 

Also, I still don't see anything saying that there was a widespread understanding that the earth was "pear-shaped". The page you linked for that displays how we understand it now, not thousands of years ago.

[t0night]

That's why I ended my sentence with a question mark instead of a period. I never claimed to know much about it.

then perhaps make a small effort to find out before jumping to a conclusion which fits your argument? lol

[Professional Map Painter]

I'm not arguing that people believed in a flat Earth back when Columbus lived, I'm saying that the idea of a flat earth outdates that of a spherical one, and existed quite a long time before the 19th century.

 

The second sentence of the Flat Earth Wikipedia page you linked supports what I'm saying:

 

"Many ancient cultures subscribed to a flat Earth cosmography, including Greece until the classical period, the Bronze Age and Iron Age civilizations of the Near East until the Hellenistic period, India until the Gupta period (early centuries AD) and China until the 17th century."

 

The Classical Period of Greece lasted the 5th and 4th centuries BC, which is thousands of years prior to the 19th century.

Following that opening point in the article, it goes on to say that after the spherical Earth idea's emergence from Pythagoras, the flat-earth model was still widely believed in.

Still later on the same page it states that around the 8th century BC, Egyptians and Mesopotamians thought the world was "a flat disk floating in the ocean".

 

So while it's true it does seem that Pythagoras knew what he was talking about early on, there were others before him who subscribed to the flat-earth idea, and to say that it didn't come around until the 19th century is to be honest, kind of ridiculous, given that it was not only generally accepted back in the Classical period of Greece, but older cultures such as the early Egyptians believed in it as well.

 

 

Also, I still don't see anything saying that there was a widespread understanding that the earth was "pear-shaped". The page you linked for that displays how we understand it now, not thousands of years ago.

https://youtu.be/TDXrpNk3fy4?t=3m4s

 

All of the cultures listed above were fairly isolated at the time (this is Greece before Alexander) and so a very small i.e negligible percentage of the world (barring China) actually believed that the world was flat. As for China, they at least believed that the heavens were round, and shaped like an egg.

[∞Ramses]

I'm a Christian and a scientist.

 

Not all stories described in the Bible are true. Some are used to give answers about things in life people didn't understand back then (like the creation of Earth). Back then, and today still, humans always want to know everything about anything, whether it's out of fear or interest. And believing the Bible (or what the religious people were saying, since most couldn't read) was the easiest solution for a long time.

 

However, I do believe some bible stories have happened. But the "making of Earth"? Earth is still changing as we speak, so you can't fix a certain amount of time whenever the Earth's creation is 'complete'.

[CUD]

When you look back at the Genesis chapter of the Bible, you may notice that the 'days' reflect the many stages of the Earth's creation. The "light" represents the Big Bang, creating the sun and stars... which were coincidentally built on Day 2. As we progress through the days, the Earth does construct over time in an accurately scientific way. Now then, why do atheists still ask why we believe that this all happened literally in 7 days?

 

"in an accurately scientific way"

 

" in an accurately scientific way"

 

" in an accurately scientific way"

 

"Genesis chapter of the Bible"

 

If it wasn't clear enough I'll put it into words for you... The bible is not scientific or accurate. I mean seriously... The bible stating that one day god says there was light, trees, mountains and animals and whatever else is not "accurately scientific" unless you're delusional which I suppose you would have to be to read a book like the bible and not think it's a work of fiction.

[Hyperqube]

On that note ("The bible is not scientific or accurate"), 3 remarks:

1.  the light the OP seems to refer to is Genesis 1:3 ... while He had created the earth in Genesis 1:2
   
   2 When the earth was as yet unformed and desolate, with the surface of the ocean depths shrouded in darkness, and while the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters, 3 God said, "Let there be light!" So there was light.
   
    
2. During the third day God created the plants (Genesis 1:12) - but it was not till the fourth day that He created the sun & the stars (Genesis 1:16).
   
   ... While evidence seems to suggest the sun & the stars predate the earth
    
3. Also, it was during the fifth day that God created birds (Genesis 1:20), and during the sixth day He created land animals (Genesis 1:25)
   
   ... while evidence seems to suggest birds evolved from dinosaurs. and even if you believe this refers to pterodactyls, they to evolved from land animals (as fish first came to shore before they learned to fly, there will always frirst be a land animal before a flying animal)

[SL.DaveTheLad]

From my understanding there are two common views:

 

Literal Christian - God literally took 7 earth days to make the universe

 

Liberal Christian - Lost in translation from Greek/Hebrew. a "day" actaully represents a large perios of time. You tend to find that liberalist christians tend to accept the sciences slightly easier (natural selection, evolution etc.)

 

 

In other parts of the bible, literal Christians may take the teachings exactly to the word whereas liberal Christians learn from the moral within the story.

 

At the end of the day it's all generalisation. It's up to the individual what parts they agree with and what they don't.

[sulker]

The Bible should not be taken literally; it is meant to convey a message through metaphors.  Throughout the Bible are fables which may or may not have happened - for example, the Good Samaritan.  However, they serve to teach a lesson that extends beyond the literal meaning of the story.  This ought to apply for the entire Bible, Genesis included.