Religious People Maby should Not read this.

[Just A Girl]

Well God is not In question here.....
its the bible more than anything.

Im all for people beleving what they like,
But i dont like the bible as some dirty old monk who liked a bit of incest wrote it.

And now its the basis of more than 1 religion.

[Papewaio]

I can't believe nobody's brought up Lot and his daughters. That's some freaky stuff. They get him drunk, then they decide to have sex with the old man so that their family won't die out. And they do it in a cave, right after mom turns into a pillar of salt.

Single man, salt, lime and tequila... anything happens.

[Lemur]

Well, for starters you can leave monks out of it. If memory serves, the first monastary was founded in the Desert of Skete somewhere between 100 AD and 200 AD (if I could be bothered to go to Wikipedia, I'm sure I'd have the date down better). The Old Testament pre-dates the first monks by at least 2,000 years, and probably much more.

So we can talk about dirty court scribes, or dirty village storytellers, but the monks are blameless.

Just a Girl, if you're really curious about the OT, there are some wonderful books you could read. Forensic linguistics have done a lot to tell us when certain parts of it were written, and quite a lot is known about the later editings and revisions (Almost all of which pre-date Christianity).

Remember, the Bible is not a book -- it's a library. A subtle but important distinction.

[edit -- addendum]

I see Pape has finally decoded the true meaning of Lot and his daughters. "What happens in Sodom stays in Sodom."

[Just A Girl]

Hey dont get me wrong.
thi bible's great as a history referance (new testament)

But thats Not the bible in my eyes.

The bible is the old testament. And any thing els is just an addition,

So the OT was the definition of the lords word, before the new testament came allong.

And every 1 beleved in it's literal meaning And vilagers were hapy to say that there daugter was posessed by a demon cos she was hot to the touch.
And white as a sheet.
"cours science would call this a fever. But back then people were Reallly dumb, so they called it Demons, and Tried to preform exorzism"

Thats not bad, Cant blame them At the time thats The best explanation they could offer as to why Little suzie was 120 degrees and Throwing up green bile.

But thats how most of it goes.
Simple things, they could not explain get put down to either Miracles or act of god,

If it realy was anything to do with god.
Dont you think he/she would have pointed out...

"Well there not actualy the devil there viruses...
If you just collect some of that mold and make some penicilin.."

i mean its obvious... Now what caused them back then to beleve in such things,

These days Weve explained that the stars ARENT heaven.
(dont know where you guys think heaven is now)

weve showed that people Dont get posessed by deamons,
there viruses and colds.

A mental illnes does not mean you ar satan's love child.

Yet this Book is THE fundimental building blocks of some of the most influential religions today.

And its just a load of dumb storys strung together To try and explain The mysterys of life before science arived.

[Papewaio]

And your Input to this thread Is not needed Nor wanted Papewaio.

maby the new members dont Mind your Antagonistic belitteling and Patronizing remarks.

But i wont take any of it,

if you have a problem with me Spit it out.
Stop hiding behind This bull shit.

Its obvious You have been offended by Mo topic,
Which you shouldnt have read if your Religious,.
The Damn Topic name name is enough for that.

Its not like You needed to check to make shure it was all ok in here As you dont even mod the back room,

Your intentions seem to be obvious.

1. Insult grammer Insite of topic debate and Distrupt topic.

2. Antagonize response which could warrant thread closure.

3, Be happy in knowing that your presious religion hasent come under close scrutiny.

Im gonna ask you 1ce more,

If you dont have Anything worth will to add to this topic PLEASE dont post in here,
You are distrupting a civilized conversation,

Well atleat it was civilized till You arived.

I have been very upfront, it is deciphering the sentences that is annoying. I am very direct with people.

I don't require perfect grammar or spelling, the occasional mistake is overlooked because I can get the context of what is meant by reading the entire sentence. However when entire sentences have to be deciphered it brings into question what is the idea that is being tried to be delivered.

I am not the kind of person who clings to religion, and I am quite happy to take an idea that I cherish and examine it in the light of day. I just prefer to see ideas under a decent wattage. If you wish to enlighten your fellow man, please try and post something that is understandable.

When you are the Emperor of Rome or a master poet you can freely ignore grammar.

[Just A Girl]

Friends romans.... Genetlmen and ladies.

i have but this quote to post in my defence.

Papewaio: Admittedly, that post wasn't the cleanest but I don't see how lacking a single apostrophe renders the sentence unintelligable.

[Just A Girl]

Actually.
Ive recently deleted most of the pm's I had.
now i only have 11 pm's that i wish to keep.

This means theres no reason as to why we cant take this OFF-TOPIC debate to PM's

Honestly though I type what i type and then i hit ALT and S
(icq habbit)

Then i re-read what i just posted. Usualy i would go edit it to make it more understandable,
But unfortunatly I dont have an edit button at the moment.

And I doubt il be able to stop a 5-10 year old habbit, Just becous it gives you a head ache.

Aslong as 1 person other than I can read and comprehend what i have said.
It is adequate for all English speaking cultures.

[Lemur]

I second Pape's motion -- you would do us all a great kindness if you would follow the basic traffic rules of written communication. In fact, you would do your arguments more justice if your readers didn't have to struggle so much.

Or I suppose you could go the opposite route -- abandon convention completely! The comma was another invention of those monks you dislike, so get rid of it! And putting spaces between words only came into vogue after the Roman Empire -- who needs them? Rock out, J.A.G., and show us the new/old form of English!

And its just a load of dumb storys strung together To try and explain The mysterys of life before science arived.

This seems to be the crux of your objection. You don't see any value to pre-science systems of belief, correct? And you don't see that they add any value to modern life.

It's very important to understand everything a tradition does before you throw it away. The French found this out in their revolution. The Russians found this out in theirs. It's no accident that the biggest auto-genocides in history happened in atheist states.

Human beings respond to a belief in a higher power. I don't care whether you are religious or not, you can't argue with this demonstrably true aspect of human nature. Since not everybody is going to be a super-evolved I-don't-need-no-stinkin'-belief-sysem kind of person, what do you propose they believe in? Science has no answers to ethical/moral problems. Science just examines what is, not what ought to be. Science is a methodology, not a religion. So why does religion bug you, J.A.G.?

[Papewaio]

Spellchecked variant:

Right. If you get offended don’t blame me. You probably didn’t pay attention to the title of the post topic.

Anyway here’s my problem.

It’s with the history of man "or the bible version". Now in the bible it says there was Adam and eve. God made Adam from dust. Then God used one of Adams ribs to make Eve, (guess you can’t make a woman from dust).

Now let us suppose that’s just some liberal interpretation of how Adam and eve were created. (So I can actually believe they existed now it says they had Children (Good step towards populating the earth). But there children happened to be 2 males......(See a problem arising yet?)

And then one of them kills the other one....so for the world to have been populated. Eve would have had to sleep with her own son. Or give birth to a daughter who could then sleep with her brother or father???

So does this mean incest is something that God smiles upon? Or does it just show how much BS goes into the bible?

Personally I think it shows the amounts of BS, which goes in to the bible.

Perhaps others have different views or more insight on the matter.

And don’t give me that metaphor bull. It says Adam and eve had 2 kids blatantly. Its not a metaphor that’s saying 2000 people had 4000 children between them. The bibles already tried to get out of saying categorically that the world was made in 6 days, and that the planet is only 6 thousand years old by stating that time in the bible is relative to 100's of years.

More BS if you ask me.

Any way chew on it. Mull it over and tell me what your opinions are.

So which number wife was Eve?
And was Eve the first woman too?
What happened to Seth the third son of Adam and Eve?
Or the mentioning of other sons and daughters?

[Just A Girl]

Human beings respond to a belief in a higher power. I don't care whether you are religious or not, you can't argue with this demonstrably true aspect of human nature. Since not everybody is going to be a super-evolved I-don't-need-no-stinkin'-belief-sysem kind of person, what do you propose they believe in? Science has no answers to ethical/moral problems. Science just examines what is, not what ought to be. Science is a methodology, not a religion. So why does religion bug you, J.A.G.?

I hope you guys arent religious...

Cos i realy didnt intend on discussing this with religious people.
I respect that your allowed to beleve what you like,
and its a lot les bleak than what i beleve in.

So i really wouldnt want to end up making some 1 who was religious not religious.

Well God is not In question here.....
its the bible more than anything.

Im all for people beleving what they like,
But i dont like the bible as some dirty old monk who liked a bit of incest wrote it.

And now its the basis of more than 1 religion.

I think its catagorically clear, that its the use of Silly storys dumb people wrote to explain things they did not understand, That is buging me.

All the reasons for having beleif in the old testament as the word of gone have disipated since the advent of science.
As now we can explain away The Deamons, and speaking in toungs, as mearly being viruses or fevers.

Now i know i just said its the old testament that bugs me but other things bug me to.

like the old soothe sayers "i think"
Who saw visions, but spoke in riddles.

Just so u know who i mean il describe them,

They were always women, Who were deemd to be able to have visions,
they were given a special room in there monestrys "or whatever they were"
Where thwy would go to receve these visions.

These days we Know why they had visions...
Its becous they built the damn room on natural gas vents!


I mean,
these things are The VERY foundation of these religions.
yet even when they are gone and proven to be nothing but a bunch of storys to explain things that werent possible to explain yet. The religion still professes they are correct.

It makes no sence to me.

I beleve in logic.
Things CAN be explained. We just havent figured it out yet.
Like they hadnt figured out little suzie had a feever, So they said she was posessed.

I beleve in the big bang,
We can watch stars die and come to life out there in space. So theres no reason not to beleieve in that.

but, il also admit that The matter to create the big bang must have come from some where.
And then you can say God created it, And he was always there.
To me that means i can use the same argument.

The matter to create the big bang was always there.

But Thats Illogical.
Just like saying God was always there is illogical.

Any way like i said Im not against religion per say,
more against its foundations.

[Just A Girl]

i dont see any referance to anything other than 1 eve here in this book....
And your edit of my post is missing a
)
and the sentance that starts after the ) you deleted Should be in a new paragraph as thats how i worte it...

[Just A Girl]

Thats Cheating.
I didnt see you edited.

I will need to read more in to the bible to answer your new aditional questions.

So dont be suprized if theres no reply in here for a while and then I post a 6 page essay.

[Papewaio]

“We have also arranged things so that almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in our faces.”

The story of Adam and Eve relates to this in that it is primarily a morality tale about easily gained knowledge sans effort.

The story also relates to Summerian tales as well.

As for the Big Bang... the matter did not exist before it. Neither the matter, energy, space or time existed. In all likely hood the Big Bang also defined in its start what the laws of physics would be for this universe. So even the laws of physics are not considered to have existed in their current set prior to the Big Bang.

[Just A Girl]

Ok.
Just for reference...

This is what i will be using as my referance. If any 1 cares.

The day Yahweh God made the earth and the heavens
5 no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung; Yahweh God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground.
6 but streams arose from the earth and watered the entire surface of the ground.
7 And Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being.
8 Now Yahweh God planted a garden in Eden in the east, and there he put the man he had formed.
9 And Yahweh God made every kind of tree grow from the ground, trees pleasant to the sight and good for food. And the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the garden.
10 And a river flowing from Eden watered the garden, and from there it divided and became four headstreams.
11 The name of the first is the Pishon, and it winds through the entire land of the Havilah where there is gold.
12 And the gold of that land is good; aromatic resin and onyx stone are also there.
13 And the name of the second river is the Gihon; it winds through all of the land of Cush.
14 And the name of the third river is the Tigris; it runs the east of Ashur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
15 And Yahweh God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and care for it.
16 And Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat.
17 But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat, for on the day you eat of it you will die."
18 And Yahweh God said, "It is not good that the man is alone. I will make for him a suitable helper."
19 Now Yahweh God formed from the ground all the animals of the field and all the birds of the air and he brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man named every living creature, that was its name.
20 So the man named all the cattle, and the birds of the air and every animal of the field. But for Adam he found no suitable helper.
21 So Yahweh God made the man fall into a deep sleep. And while he slept, he took one of the man's ribs and closed its place with flesh.
22 Then Yahweh God made a woman from the rib he had taken from the man, and he brought her to the man.
23 And the man said:
"This is now bone from my bone
and flesh from my flesh;
She shall be called woman,
for she was taken from man.
24 For this a man will leave his father and mother and will unite with to his wife, and they will become as one flesh."
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, but they felt no shame.


Chapter 3: 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than all the animals of the field which Yahweh God had made, and it said to the woman, "Did God really say you were not to eat from any tree of the garden?"
2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden. 3 But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, 'You must not eat from it and you must not touch it, or you will die.'"
4 And the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die!
5 for God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will he opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
6 And the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to the eyes, and desired to gain knowledge. And she took some fruit and ate it, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it.
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from Yahweh God among the trees of the garden.
9 But Yahweh God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?"
10 And he answered, "I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid."
11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree I commanded you not to eat from?"
12 And the man said, "It was the woman you put with me; she gave to me from the tree and I ate."
13 And Yahweh God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me and I ate."
14 And Yahweh God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this,
"Be accursed above all cattle,
and all the animals of the field.
On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat
all the days of your life.
15
And I will put enmity between you and the woman:
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He 3 will crush your head
and you will strike his heel."
16 To the woman he said:
"I will greatly increase your pains in childbirth;
in pain you will bear children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he will rule over you."
17 And to Adam he said, "Because you listened to the voice of your wife and you ate from the tree I commanded, saying "you must not eat from it,"
"Cursed be the ground because of you.
With painful toil you will eat from it
all the days of your life.
18
It shall produce brambles and thistles for you,
and you shall eat wild plants.
19
By the sweat of your brow
will you eat food,
until you return to the ground,
since you were taken from it.
For dust you are
and to dust you will return."
20 And the man named his wife "Eve" because she would be the mother of all the living.
21 And Yahweh God made garments out of skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.
22 And Yahweh God said, "See! The man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now he must be prevented from reaching out his hand and taking also from the tree of life and eating and so living forever."
23 So Yahweh God sent him from the garden of Eden, to work the ground from which he had been taken.
24 And he drove out the man, and he placed on the east side of the garden of Eden the cherubim and a flaming sword flashing around to guard the way to the tree of life.

Chapter 4: 1 And the man had knowledge of 4 Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, "I have brought forth a man with the help of Yahweh." 5
2 And she continued to bear his brother, Abel. Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil.
3 And in the course of days Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering for Yahweh,
4 but Abel brought the fatty portions from the first-born of his flock and some of their fat as well and Yahweh showed favor to Abel and his offering.
5 But on Cain and his offering he did not show favor, so Cain was very angry and his face was downcast.
6 Then Yahweh said to Cain, "Why are you angry and why is your face downcast?
7 If you do rightly, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do rightly, is not sin crouching at the door? It desires you, but you must master it."
8 Now Cain said to his brother Abel, "[Let us go into the field.]" And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
9 And Yahweh said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" And he replied, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?"
10 And he said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
11 Now you are cursed by the ground that has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
12 When you work the ground she will no longer yield to you her crops. You will be restless and wandering over the earth."
13 And Cain said to Yahweh, "My punishment is greater than I can bear.
14 See! You drive me today from the face of the land, and from your presence I will be hidden, and I will be restless and wandering over the earth, and every one who finds me will kill me."
15 But Yahweh said to him, "Very well; 6 if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times greater." Then Yahweh put a mark on Cain, so that anyone who found him would not kill him.
16 So Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh and he lived in the land of Nod, 7 east of Eden.


17 Cain had knowledge of his wife, and she became pregnant and bore Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named the city after the name of his son, Enoch.
18 And to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.
19 Lamech married two women: the name of the first was Adah and the name of the second was Zillah
20 Adah bore Jabal: he was the father of all those who live in tents and raise livestock.
21 And the name of his brother was Jubal: he was the father of all those who play the harp and the flute.
22 And Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain who forged every kind of tool from bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah.
23 And Lamech said to his wives:
"Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice,
wives of Lamech, hear my word:
For I killed a man for wounding me,
a youth for injuring me.
24
If Cain is avenged seven times,
then Lamech [is avenged] seventy-seven times."
25 And Adam again had knowledge of his wife, and she bore a son and she called his name Seth, 8 "for God has granted me other offspring in place of Abel, since Cain killed him."
26 And to Seth was also born a son, and he called his name Enosh. Then he began to call on the name of Yahweh

[Papewaio]

Yeap and there is a difference between chapters 1 and 2... which is because the Book of Gensis is a grouping of like books... there is a hint that Adam is a name for more then one person, and that God created man and woman at the same time... this and other books hint that Eve is the third option for Adams wife (apparently wives made the sameway as Adam are too independent).

Anyhow most of the stories can be traced back in pieces to other older civilisations.

[Just A Girl]

I dont see where cane found a wife, to have a son...

And where did the son get a wife to get his son. and so on...
"seems to say they all had a wife, dosent say where they came from, so to me = BS"

[Papewaio]

Its like a movie, you don't get a listing of all the extras running around in the background.

[Just A Girl]

You may not get a listing,
But you know there there.

there is only referance to 1 woman, eve,
And then Several men,
Adam is called man.
not men.
but this sentance is strctured in the old fasioned way

"And Yahweh God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being."

Being so vague you can draw your own conclusions.

(they were good at that back then, Saying things with multiple meanings so even if they were wrong they were technicaly right)

But if we take that above sentance to mean, that Man as in all human males.

Then this...
"And the man had knowledge of Eve"
Implys eve was pounced on by the entier male populous.
So i guess we can dissregard Man as meaning all men.

they even HAD to have children as they couldnt manage the old farming..

"and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, "I have brought forth a man with the help of Yahweh." 5
2 And she continued to bear his brother, Abel. Now Abel kept flocks and Cain worked the soil."

So i dont see how You can say it's
"all the men and women in the world were just given the name adam and eve to save having to mention the extras"

They went on to mention all the sons....
and not 1 daughter
but there were these 2

"Lamech married two women: the name of the first was Adah and the name of the second was Zillah"

But, i must admit.
The bible isnt the best for having women in it.
actualy there usualy vilans...

Still.
I dont see how you can Build a religion on a bunch of storys.
And then when there shown to be improbable/faulse/Ludicrous.
or the miracles/possesions are easily explained by science.

The rligion does not re evaluate its position.

2 me
religion is a science,
Its a really basic science, Its just people want an explanation for stuff.
Religion is a nice few storys with a happy ending.
Unless you dont do what society wants you to do to make it richer that is,
then its a hell fire n brimstone ending.

But unlike Scienece, Religion dosent re asses its position on the matter when new evidence comes to life.

religion puts the blinkers on and Choses ignorence over knowlage.

And that bugs me 2.

[Papewaio]

Literature normally has multiple layers of meaning... otherwise Oscar Wilde could be a tad boring if taken literally to the nth degree.

Also remember that the bible is a reduced collection of many other books and versions of other myths of times even older.

As a method of describing the world given its time period it isn't too bad.

BTW we are all formed of at least 3rd generation star dust.

[Just A Girl]

Literature normally has multiple layers of meaning... otherwise Oscar Wilde could be a tad boring if taken literally to the nth degree.

Also remember that the bible is a reduced collection of many other books and versions of other myths of times even older.

As a method of describing the world given its time period it isn't too bad.

BTW we are all formed of at least 3rd generation star dust.

Well atleast we agree on something.

although for some 1 who seems to understand that we wernt literaly made as the bible says.
you seem to have a hard time with what i am saying.

You have stated this.
Also remember that the bible is a reduced collection of many other books and versions of other myths of times even older.


Which isprety much what I mean...
myths arent real. There usualy based on some actual event but thats not always true either.
And then they go and add lots of exiting things to keep the story's interesting and memorable.

From this came some religions.
And now we have proven that most of whats writen is not fact.
And the rest is probably metaphore.

yet the religions still insist that they are correct,
Even though The very foundations of the religion have been removed.

I beleve its time for religion to Moove on from this pre historic version of religion.
Where all the diferent things of life are explained my silly little storys.

There are Logical ways to explain these things now. Scientific ways.

And although they technically undermine the teachings of the bible.
They in actual fact dont.

They just say well actualy thats wrong. But its a nice story and has a good ending and a nice morral to it.

Science Hasent disproven god.
And if anything will ever prove there is a god it will be science.
So i beleve religions should take a more scientific aproch to life.

And beleve in the big bang,
and evolution.

But it does not mean they cant belive in god.
After al i have already said, something must have created the big bang.
now the way i figure it, there has to have been something to beable to create dust,

I know that space sonsists of matter and anti matter.
and its not actualy just empty space at all.
its full to the brim with all kinds of stuff,
(dont ask me what anti matter is, Il tell you when the scientists know)

so i guess they could have caused the big bang just by there being amtter and anti matter.

But then again There still has to be a source for this matter and anti matter.

so that is why i dont tell you there is no god.
i just say i dont think there is one.
"atleast not in the conventional sence"

As far as i know there is only 1 creature in the universe that can make something out of nothing.

And thats a woman.

And you guys say god is a man.

[Byzantine Mercenary]

Your central point in this thread seems to be that the Old Testament is a story about what actually happened, but you must remember it was written a long time ago and includes stories from even long ago, one of which may be genesis.

The fact it that the naming system back then was different, Adam could have been the tribe led by Adam with all the associated slaves wives and children.

That is a possible explanation however I prefer this one:
The process of evolution works on single individuals so at one point there was one ''human'' who was the child of successive mutations through the first generations. In early human history a certain degree of incest would have been needed in order to increase the frequency of the unique human genes. So the model of Adam then eve is fine as their children could have easily married proto humans who were themselves slightly genetically different. Incest was not as large a problem in the past as it is now because natural selection would have killed off any mutants with disadvantageous genes, indeed it is used in dog and other animal breeding regularly and is only a problem when those with defective traits are allowed to reproduce.
Evidence of this is furthered by science apparently all the Native American populations are descended form 6 men and 4 women (don't ask me how that works!) this is also furthered by mitochondrial DNA evidence which alludes to a singe female descendant for the entire human race!

The fact is there was a great catastrophe in our ancient history which you have already alluded to and this could either be the basis of the Noah's arc story or the story of Adam and eve as after a freak disaster that has changed the world, the few human survivors feel as though they are in a newly created world.

[Navaros]

Yes there was incest after Adam and Eve but as far as I know, it was not God's intention or an endorsement by God of incest.

You see, Adam and Eve orginally were never meant to be reproducing new humans via sexual relations. At least not until such time as God would have told them he wanted them to. Whether God would have done that or not, I do not know.

When they committed original sin and had sexual relations against God's will, that is when corruption and evil came into the world and made way for things like incest.

Before that, incest was not necessary, nor were sexual relations of any kind.

[Sardo]

So... make a thread about the Bible, but bar religious people from the discussion. Contributors to the thread are also not allowed to give the "metaphore b(ovine excrement)". The idea of the thread being, what? To have a big atheist lovefest to quack on about how dumb this origin story is because it must be taken at face value, and the resulting idiocy of all religion? Mind you, I'm not religious at all, but this doesn't really seem to me at all like a sincere effort at starting a decent discussion.

Apart then from all that, the heaps of vague personal pseudo-science about (for instance) evolution, casually defining the 'Bible' as only being the Old Testament because that's how you like it, and the outrageous insults thrown at people now dead who tried to make sense of their world long ago, and therefore were "dumb" - I would just like to ask why it must be absolutely impossible for it to be meant in a metaphorical way. Just because the authors of the text didn't attach any footnotes along the lines of "just to clarify, folks, we didn't actually mean that God made the world in literally six days or that Eve was grown from a rib - it was just metaphore"? Why should they have bothered with the metaphores in the first place, if they were then required to explain the whole thing all over again for those who didn't get it? Maybe some people did and do believe that all of the Bible should be taken at face value, but that doesn't mean you can simply throw all the other interpretations out the window, just because they don't fit your anti-religion crusade.
On another note, I don't think many people would agree that religion became obsolete when modern science reared its head. Science can not nor will it ever disprove religion. Even if all the Universe were explained from the tiniest neutron to the vast expanses of space, you could still always claim that yet, there is more to this world than science can measure. That's not my position - I don't have to believe it, but I can't refute it.

Now, I do apologise if all this has been offensive or insulting to some, I just felt the need to write something when the implication was made that all of our ancestors before, say, the 17th century were just plain "dumb". That sort of thing never goes down well with me, is all. It may also be part of my big procrastination scheme, I should really be studying instead of writing stuff here.

[Vladimir]

I can't believe nobody's brought up Lot and his daughters. That's some freaky stuff. They get him drunk, then they decide to have sex with the old man so that their family won't die out. And they do it in a cave, right after mom turns into a pillar of salt.

You beat me to it. I think though that somethings should be kept in the family because they're just too much fun.

[Reenk Roink]

I still maintain that whatever theory you accept about the origins of life, there had to be a degree of incestuousness. The theory with the 2000 men and 2000 women has a point, but it would be quite a strech that all those groups evolved in the same lifetime...

I still think that there is incest and maybe even bestaility in our ancestery...

[Byzantine Mercenary]

I still maintain that whatever theory you accept about the origins of life, there had to be a degree of incestuousness. The theory with the 2000 men and 2000 women has a point, but it would be quite a strech that all those groups evolved in the same lifetime...

I still think that there is incest and maybe even bestaility in our ancestery...

there must be im afraid, but as i have said it does have less bad effects when natural selection is around to mop up any mutations and it has been proved that we are decended from a single female individual who lived a long time ago (nicknamed Eve!)

bestiality would have had no effect on our species evolution unless it was a close animal relative (we may be able to breed with chimps, to my knoledge n o one has tried, thank god)

[Reenk Roink]

there must be im afraid, but as i have said it does have less bad effects when natural selection is around to mop up any mutations and it has been proved that we are decended from a single female individual who lived a long time ago (nicknamed Eve!)

bestiality would have had no effect on our species evolution unless it was a close animal relative (we may be able to breed with chimps, to my knoledge n o one has tried, thank god)

Then again, all of this is conjecture, and so the truth could be weirder still...all the more reason to go and eat some ice cream...

[Byzantine Mercenary]

yeah, go eat frozen cow juice, thats not one bit weird

[Reenk Roink]

yeah, go eat frozen cow juice, thats not one bit weird

I've always wondered, who was that guy who first decided to squeeze udders just to see what would happen...

Still, I would definitely shake his hand...

[master of the puppets]

...would'nt it be funny if god got distracted and arrived to late to save Issac, he would be sacrificed by his own pater ( ) i wonder where the bible would have gone from there.