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So much for that 9th commandment

AronRa

Administrator
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Once again, a science denier commenting on one my videos decided to start a "polite" conversation by calling me a liar as often as he can and never apologizing any of the times it turned out he was wrong.. Once again, I’m documenting that here for ease of future reference, and on the expectation that he shows up here, considering how much he said he loves this conversation. This format will definitely better suit him than the comments section of YouTube, that's for sure.
I'm sorry where was the serpent depicted as a girl? And where did Satan's biological sex come into the picture? A lot of strange logic in that one? Also has he read Genesis 49:17 where it says "Dan shall be a serpent..."? Serpents can often personify adversaries, which of course, is what Satan means. (Strongs H7854) This whole video is one big Gish Gallop which if you look into it point by point shows that all you have to do to win an argument is memorize a lot of not easily disproven lies and halftruths and say them all before your opponent can get a word in edgewise... which is what happens in most of his debates. he didn't let Ray Comfort get more than a sentence out at a time. And most of his statements were... "Aron let me respond please"
There are no lies or half-truths in this video. The serpent was depicted as a woman in almost every rendering from the Renaissance or earlier, most notably on the entrance to Notre Dame Cathedral and on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But Satan is irrelevant to that because the serpent apparently wasn't interpreted to Satan until sometime later.
First "Objective means we all agree on it" Lie. Or at least entirely untrue. In fact that contradicts the definition of objective. Objective does not mean that. Second, God doesn't judge us by what we believe.. he judges us for our actions. If we believe we may escape that judgement.. at least in the Christian flavor of theology. Fourth: the history of atheists is pretty thin... Really? What about the French Revolution? The Mexican Atheist government? Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot? Fifth: Your definition of miracle is wrong. Supernatural is also a word you don't quite define right. Also your diatribe about the appearance of religions is pretty much completely incorrect in its dates, and it's conclusions. There is so much wrong with so much of what you say I have trouble picking one thing to pick on. And you can say with one hundred percent confidence the Bible is wrong? And God did leave evidence when he interacted with the world, you just reject it.
1. Objective means it's demonstrable regardless what either of us would rather believe. Thus we'd both have to accept it and agree on it.
2. In Christian theology, God judges exclusively on what his people believe. An evil-doer can get into Heaven if he believes but an unbeliever can't be saved no matter how wonderful or charitable his works are. Gullibility is the only criteria for redemption.
3. While there have been only a handful of totalitarian despots who were atheists, atheists statistically beat evangelical Christians in all the metrics of what you would call morality. I explain that in a couple other videos if you care to see them.
4. My definition of supernatural is fine.
5. You haven't shown that anything I've said is actually wrong.
6. The Bible is absolutely wrong about virtually everything back-to-front, and I say that with 100% conviction because it is a demonstrable fact.
1. OK I know that you'll say words have usages and not meanings but the dictionary says objective means
"(of a person or their judgment) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts." so you're wrong. On any level personal agreement (personal feelings or opinions see above) has nothing to do with objectivity. That's why its objectivity. Personal agreement has nothing to do with it. That would be subjectivity. It is an objective fact that the world is round. Not everyone agrees on that despite objective evidence of curvature.

2. Ok so your logic on this one is self contradictory. If God exists believing in Him is not gullibility. If he doesn't exist gullibility is irrelevant. Disbelief is not a sin. Faith in Christ pays your debt to God... a death sentence because you have broken His law. The wages of sin are death, recall? All have sinned and fallen short and the penalty for sin is death. If you can at least muster faith in Christ God will give you a pass but the cost is also repentance which means literally turning from sin. Not saved by works but they come from the attitude of repentance. As for evil doers the Bible regularly says that evildoers have no place in the next world and that would mean unsaved people who are lost in their sin. Those who believe repent and change.
Those who don't, don't. For example 1 Corinthians 6:10. Changing your attitude towards sin is an integral part of being able to interact with God. The deathbed conversion is pretty unlikely to work... Matthew 7:22-23 means that even people who professed to be righteous but weren't truly of the faith will be rejected. Jeffrey Dahmer, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart and Robert Tilton probably share the same trailer in hell and rightfully so. This is a huge misstatement and I could spend hours explaining why.

3. I recently heard you use the phrase "Hypercosmic Catalyst" If you don't get that means "supernatural cause" then you don't get what supernatural means. Anything outside of the recognized universal paradigm is supernatural, or hypercosmic. You are just incredulous about it, but you don't display a good understanding of hyperdimensionality and the implications of intelligent design it portents. 4. If we had a couple of hours I could show you how most of what you say about the Bible is demonstrably, factually wrong but I doubt you would admit it even with the evidence right in front of you because I have watched you double down for a long time on most of your conclusions. The one about the abortion thing is a real earsore. You really don't get that Numbers 5 passage. You don't get concordance and exegesis in general either, which is why it is so jarring when you try to teach. Leave out the supernatural... your interpretations and readings are wrong and easily demonstrated to be so. I would be ecstatic to show you one by one. Make a point... It is likely I will be able to show you why you are wrong from even a secular textual examination without any "magic".

5. If the Bible is entirely demonstrably wrong about every single thing then why is it that so much it has been historically verified? Why is the wailing wall there if there was no temple? Why is the fortress of Masada excavatable? Why would Roman historians admit Israel... a Jewish nation... in fact existed and was destroyed? Why have they found David's palace? Why is it that the OT describes the history of the time it represents beautifully in ways that are often verified by archaeology. I'm not talking about some silly sulfur by the dead sea being touted as Sodom and Gomorrah I'm talking about actual facts, verified by actual secular historians and archaeologists. Your absolute certainty that the Bible is wrong about everything then it would not connect to any measurable historical period we can identify. It does and it does so very, very well. In fact it names peoples that weren't even known until recently. Discount the supernatural all you want but the Bible represents history and that is a demonstrable fact. Aside from the fact that the Roman emperor was convinced enough to convert an entire pagan empire on the strength of the conviction of contemporary practice of a persecuted minority. Why would he do that if there wasn't some truth he could see was necessary to preserve? He destroyed the empire by doing so. The empire founded in its own mythos by the God of War yielded to the Prince of Peace. What could make that happen that was 100% wrong? They had a perfect religion to keep the masses pacified... why change it to an ethos of pacifism? That would be like Iran laying down their arms and saying... we embrace Christ!

You profess to be honest and about spreading truth. Objectively much of what you say can be easily verified to be incorrect in your Biblical assessments. Demonstrably, in text, and with citation and absolutely undeniable clarity. Would you admit you were wrong if you were shown to be? Because if you show me to be wrong I will admit it. Even if I don't like it, I have nothing to lose.
1. I am not the one who says "words have usage not meaning". That's Matt who says that; not me. I tend to say that "words mean things". So you don't know what you said you know. I obviously know the definition of "objective". I already explained it. If something is objectively verifiable, then--as your own definition explained also--we'll both be forced to agree on what that is, as would any flat-earther willing to actually employ epistemology or scientific methodology.

2. (a) In your theology, all sins may be forgiven if you but believe. The only sin that will not be forgiven is the sin of disbelief. So yeah, disbelief is a sin. Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin, and no unbeliever can ever get into Heaven. In fact disbelief is such a sin that your sacred story book says that unbelievers may be murdered on the word of one or two witnesses. Whether you're good or evil doesn't mean squat, only whether you were gullible enough to believe impossible nonsense for no good reason. Because (b) To make that even worse, you're supposed to believe on faith. "Blessed is he who has NOT seen and yet believed". So yeah, gullibility is the only criteria for salvation. If your god existed, it wouldn't want or need your faith. The only thing in the universe that requires or desires faith is a fraud trying to scam you.
(c) We all die. It doesn't matter what your religion is or if you have no religion at all. We all face the probability of lying on the floor clutching our chests straining in agony to take that last breath. No religion save you from that, and that's the only aspect of death worthy of dread or that we should like to avoid.
(d) There is no such thing as sin.
(e) My logic is not self-contradictory like yours obviously is. Mine was the not the misstatement either. Just because I interpret the scriptures better than you do doesn't mean that I misstated anything.

3. You say I don't understand what supernatural means? Let's test that.

"things that cannot be explained by science and seem to involve ghosts, spirits, magic, etc."
-MerriamWebster

"Above nature; beyond or added to nature, often so considered because it is given by a deity or some force beyond that which humans are born with."
-Wiktionary British:

"supernatural forces, occurrences, and beings collectively or their realm." American: "supernatural beings, forces, happenings, etc., esp. ghosts, spirits, and the like."
-CollinsDictionary

"Of or relating to existence outside the natural world. Attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces. Of or relating to a deity. Of or relating to the immediate exercise of divine power; miraculous. adj. Of or relating to the miraculous. That which is supernatural."
-Worknik

"used about things that seem to come from a power such as magic and do not have a natural or scientific explanation."
-MacMillanDictionary

Now let's see that in context, as it applies to other definitions.

Miracle:
1. Literally, a wonder or wonderful thing; but appropriately,
2. In theology, an event or effect contrary to the established constitution and course of things, or a deviation from the known laws of nature; a supernatural event. Miracles can be wrought only by almighty power.

Magic: 1. The art or science of putting into action the power of spirits; or the science of producing wonderful effects by the aid of superhuman beings, or of departed spirits; sorcery; enchantment. [This science or art is now discarded.]
—Webster’s 1828 Dictionary

Miracle: An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.
Magic: a. The art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural. The practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to attempt to produce supernatural effects or control events in nature.
b. The charms, spells, and rituals so used.
—TheFreeDictionary.com

Miracle: an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human and natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
Magic: the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assures human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.
—Dictionary.com

I guess I understand supernatural correctly. It is "from beyond" in the sense that it is associated with magic.

4. If we had a couple of hours, you wouldn't be able to show that the Bible ever made any accurate predictions, unless you're talking about such a vague retro-fitted interpretation as people tend to give the quatrains of Nostradamus. I apparently understand Numbers 5 accurately too, and you've already admitted that I can defend that.

5. The Bible is demonstrably wrong about virtually everything, as I said, precisely because none of it was historically verified. You have loads of fanciful stories that take place in real settings or that concern people who occasionally actually existed, even though the stories themselves are false.

"Why is the wailing wall there if there was no temple?" That there was a temple was never in dispute. What relevance does that have to any of the things that are in dispute?

"Why is the fortress of Masada excavatable?" Why should it not be?

"Why would Roman historians admit Israel... a Jewish nation... in fact existed and was destroyed?" Because they like to brag? Do you expect them to keep quiet about that?

"Why have they found David's palace?" Why have they found the tomb of Gilgamesh and the city of Troy? Does either of these discoveries prove the myths based on them?

"Why is it that the OT describes the history of the time it represents beautifully in ways that are often verified by archaeology." Why is it that religious and secular historians and Biblical scholars no longer believe Moses ever existed and now say the Exodus never happened--specifically because none of these things were supported by archaeology. The Bible clearly does not accurately account for the history of the Jewish people. We know for certain that the global flood never happened. The tower of Babel never happened. The exodus never happened. Moses never existed. Isaac never existed. Sodom may have existed, but not Lot, and Jesus apparently never existed either, certainly not as the Bible describes. And we've always known that there was never an Adam and Eve or a talking snake. None of that is real. There were never any resurrected undead wandering the streets of downtown Judea and there was never any necromancer raising an army of the undead either. None of these things really happened. They're not at all historical.

"Aside from the fact that the Roman emperor was convinced enough to convert an entire pagan empire on the strength of the conviction of contemporary practice of a persecuted minority. Why would he do that if there wasn't some truth he could see was necessary to preserve?" Because Christianity is an excellent means of manipulation of the masses. Similarly, Islam is the fastest-growing religion on earth, with a much easier means of conversion than Christianity, largely because it doesn't have anywhere near as much ridiculous dogma for devotees to swallow. It too is an even better means of mass manipulation, forcing the entire populace to submit to the will of its commanders. By your logic, that would make Islam more accurate than Christianity: especially since Islam also cost the Arabic world their status as the leaders of science once upon a time.

You say that much of what I say can be easily shown to be incorrect, yet you've repeatedly failed to do so even once, and your attempts are back-firing. However you have said one interesting thing, something which no believer has ever admitted to me before, and that's significant. You've admitted that if I can prove that you're wrong, that you would change your mind just as I've had to whenever I was wrong. I want to see that put to the test! In your defense of miraculous fables and magical things, do you deny evolution also?
1. a. I concede that I did not predict you would say that “words have meanings.” I am simply so accustomed to hearing Atheists say that about words to justify equivocation.

b. “If something is objectively verifiable, then--as your own definition explained also--we'll both be forced to agree on what that is, as would any flat-earther willing to actually employ epistemology or scientific methodology.” The condition of accepting scientific methodology or epistemology is not given. Personal acceptance of any objective fact or truth is not necessary for it to be objective. Some people choose to believe things that conflict with objective truths. That doesn’t make them non-objective because some people will never accept even the most well demonstrated things.

2. a. “Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit is the one unforgivable sin, and no unbeliever can ever get into Heaven.” Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is not disbelief. It is a specific action… it is attributing evil to the Holy Spirit. “Mark 3:28-30: "Truly I tell you, all sins and blasphemes will be forgiven for the sons of men. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven, but is guilty of an eternal sin. He said this because they [the Pharisees] were saying, 'He has an evil spirit'."” They attributed evil to Jesus. This is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. It’s in plain text.

b. “In fact disbelief is such a sin that your sacred story book says that unbelievers may be murdered on the word of one or two witnesses.” I would ask for the chapter and verse on this one. I do not recall ever seeing this in the Word.

c. “The only thing in the universe that requires or desires faith is a fraud trying to scam you. “ Love requires faith. How can you become so powerfully vulnerable as to love someone if you can’t put some faith into the hope that they won’t destroy you. How can you know? Faith is not just about believing in deities, it is a prerequisite to many human interactions. You have faith in your doctor, that you’ll wake on the operating table… Faith is beautiful and human. It isn’t scientific, it’s just human.

d. (c) We all die. It doesn't matter what your religion is or if you have no religion at all. We all face the probability of lying on the floor clutching our chests straining in agony to take that last breath. No religion save you from that, and that's the only aspect of death worthy of dread or that we should like to avoid. “ I look forward to laying down and seeing my Lord. In the meantime I have a lot of service to do, not evangelism in general… just service. I owe Him.

e. “(d) There is no such thing as sin.” If there is a God there is. If there is no God then you are correct.

f. “(e) My logic is not self-contradictory like yours obviously is. Mine was the not the misstatement either. Just because I interpret the scriptures better than you do doesn't mean that I misstated anything.” Perhaps you do. Well see.

3. Perhaps here it would be more expedient to define natural before we embark on this. Also, do you fully understand higher dimensional perception? In other words, how many more dimensions would a being have to exist in to be considered supernatural? If a being was four dimensional in the sense we are three dimensional and can only perceive a small slice of time whereas the four dimensional being could see whole timelines at once, if a being was like this… would they qualify as supernatural?

b. You misquoted Websters 1828 in an interestingly specific way. You made Almighty lower case almighty. And you omitted the “as when Christ healed lepers, saying, 'I will, be thou clean, ' or calmed the tempest, 'Peace, be still.'” If you did that on purpose it would indicate a very specific kind of deceptiveness. If you didn’t then you’re incorrect due to copying error.

c. “I guess I understand supernatural correctly. It is "from beyond" in the sense that it is associated with magic.” That is a bit scaled down and the definitions you gave didn’t really add much information. I am not sure you do fully understand the implication of supernatural… you think they are just superstition if I read this right. Any external reality which is not rooted in space/time would be considered supernatural, correct? Does this mean they are unlikely or does the multiverse theory imply they exist? If they exist then supernatural forces by definition could and by all accounts should interface with our world, shouldn’t they?

4. I never mentioned predictions. I never use predictions or prophesy to prove someone is wrong about a Bible interpretation… that’s really not appropriate. Your understanding of Numbers 5 is that it speaks to abortion if I’m not mistaken. You are incorrect. The passage never says shes pregnant and the word you keep saying means miscarriage means something else. I can prove this. The Hebrew word for rot is naphal (H5307) and the Hebrew word for miscarriage (Hosea 9:14) is shakol (H7921). Go to Strongs and verify this. The largest amount of scholarship would agree with this. The Mishneh Torah agreed with this. Unless you are a Hebrew Scholar exceeding the skill of Maimonides you are wrong in your interpretation. Your opinion is indefensible.

5. first you say “precisely because none of it was historically verified” then you say “That there was a temple was never in dispute.” The Bible says there was a second temple. The Bible is right about that. That is historically verified. You are wrong.

b. “Why is it that religious and secular historians and Biblical scholars no longer believe Moses ever existed and now say the Exodus never happened--specifically because none of these things were supported by archaeology.” I hope someday we have time to unpack this one. It will take awhile because it is built on false appeals to majority opinion and false appeals to authority but to explain why will take some time. I could begin by saying that you need to amend it to “some scholars” because an awful lot of them do believe it literally. If they didn’t believe it, why would they read it every Sunday in Temple and consider it the basis of the Israeli nation?

c. “And we've always known that there was never an Adam and Eve or a talking snake. None of that is real.” And we can say for certain that there is no fruit which will immediately and miraculously confer upon you knowledge of morality and good and evil. Does that mean the whole thing is just a fanciful story or is it a metaphor used to explain the incredibly complex process of creation to a Bronze age nomad people who mostly couldn’t read? How could you explain quantum physics to a goat herder who lived before algebra was discovered? We tell children babies come from mommies tummy because they can’t and don’t need to understand sexual creation.

d. “Because Christianity is an excellent means of manipulation of the masses.” Roman religion was hands down better at manipulating the people and scads more profitable. The society lived their religion every day and every moment and spent their whole lives in one temple or another making offerings. Christianity would have been a downgrade in terms of viable manipulation. This is doubtful.

e. “Similarly, Islam is the fastest-growing religion on earth, with a much easier means of conversion than Christianity, largely because it doesn't have anywhere near as much ridiculous dogma for devotees to swallow. It too is an even better means of mass manipulation, forcing the entire populace to submit to the will of its commanders. By your logic, that would make Islam more accurate than Christianity: especially since Islam also cost the Arabic world their status as the leaders of science once upon a time. “ First of all the Islamic Empire led the world in scientific achievement. Algebra is named for an Arabic mathematician. Google “House of wisdom”. Islam was the source of incredible knowledge gains. I am curious why you comment on Islam without having read the Quran. What can you know if you haven’t even read the source material?

Do I believe in evolution? That is a complex question. Which part? Do I believe diversity of species can be explained by processes of Natural Selection and mutation? I don’t know enough about it to competently argue for or against it. I know something about it.. enough to know the evidence is copious and complex to debate. I deny abiogenesis categorically on teleological grounds and I believe that life has an intelligent designer. DNA polymerase is proof of that to me. The rest of the process is beyond my level of knowledge. Could natural selection and Darwinian mechanisms have resulted in the diversity of life we see? I cannot say with authority one way or the other.

I don’t believe that evolution and my faith are mutually exclusive however. I am not a fundamentalist. I don’t have to read it literally when it’s meant to be read metaphorically or poetically. Evolution could indeed be the how but not the why. Part of the problem with communicating with people about Christianity is that I spend as much time debating fellow Christians who believe in things the Word does not say as I debating Atheists about what it actually DOES say!
My reply to this posted below.
 
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I deny abiogenesis categorically on teleological grounds and I believe that life has an intelligent designer. DNA polymerase is proof of that to me. The rest of the process is beyond my level of knowledge.

My favourite bit.

i) I deny empirical observations on religious grounds
ii) empirical observations support my denial of empirical observations
iii) actually, I admit I don't know what I am talking about as if the two preceding sentences hadn't already made this apparent
 
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1a. You haven't heard any atheists justifying equivocation because that's what believers do. It's my most common complaint with them, because they mix two different meanings of "belief" and two different contexts of "faith" using equivocation to project thier faults onto those who will not share those faults.

1b. I think we agree on what the definition of objective is, and that flat-earthers and creationists both reject what is objectively verifiable. Case in point, a PhD professor of philosophy at a Baptist theological seminary told me that nothing can ever be objectively verified--because [he explained] that evidence is not evident because facts are not factual. He had to redefine every word I used in order to dodge the point I was making. Because he believes that reality is merely imagined then nothing can ever be objective.

2a. I see a number of sources equating disbelief with blasphemy. In fact the only way they don't do that is by using eqivocation to distinquish denial of existence from a disbelief in that existence, when of course they are the same thing. Some sources even admit as much.

"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the unpardonable sin are the same thing: at their core they are rejection of Jesus Christ (i.e., disbelief)."
http://ichthys.com/mail-unpardonable%20sin.htm

I trust that is plain enough text for you.
“In fact disbelief is such a sin that your sacred story book says that unbelievers may be murdered on the word of one or two witnesses.” I would ask for the chapter and verse on this one. I do not recall ever seeing this in the Word.
2b. Deuteronomy 13:6-11
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

Continued in Deuteronomy 17:2-7
"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.

So your Bible says that merely disbelief is such a sin as to deserve death without even a trial.
Faith is not just about believing in deities, it is a prerequisite to many human interactions. You have faith in your doctor, that you’ll wake on the operating table… Faith is beautiful and human. It isn’t scientific, it’s just human.
2c. Already you're using the equivocation that I just complained about always getting from believers. You know that I'm talking about faith in the context of religion, being a firm belief that is not based on evidence, and you're equivocating that with an erroneous colloquialism that faith = trust. No, in order for trust to become faith there is both a prefix and suffix required. Faith a [a complete] "trust" [that is not based on evidence]. We either base our belief/trust/confidence on reason (evident probabilities, past experience, competence, etc.) or we base it on faith.

When I put my trust in someone, I already know the probability and I have weighed that against the evidence. I do NOT emply faith in anything ever. Faith is not beautiful; it is repugnant. It is the most dishonest position it is possihble to have, and any belief that requires faith should be rejected for that reason alone. The only thing I hate in this world is dishonesty, which means that I loathe faith. Because the world of faith is an auto-deceptive delusion full of not but lies and liars, where everyone is either deceiver or deceived or both.

2d. Your god--like all gods, ghosts, past-life experiences and telepathic aliens--is imaginary. People made it up. You can't owe it anything. Since religion has historically wrought a net negative against humanity, always impeding, retarding or reversing progress in every application it has ever touched, to say nothing of the horrific injustices it still wrings to this day, then I would say your god owes you. Don't hold your breath awaiting payment though.

When we die, the only difference between you and I is that once your conciousness ebbs away forever, you won't have a chance to be disappointed.

2e. Even if you magic imaginary friend really existed, (which he doesn't and can't) there still wouldn't sin, because the word is meaningless. There are number of mutually exclusive definitions applied at the same time, and they contradict each other. Sin is "that which is against God" for example: except that God is also encumbered with half of the seven deadly sins, vanity, jealosy, vengeance and wrath. So that God's very attributes fall short of his own glory?
We'll see.
2f. We'll see alright. You should see it already.

3a. For this discussion, we could define "natural" as non-magical. There is no number of dimensions a being would have to exist in before it becomes magical.

3b. The citation of Websters 1828 that you're referring to was copied into and out of my book. I checked it online for the discrepency you just brought up and saw that it isn't at all what you said it was. Grammatically "almighty" doesn't need to be capitalized. Neither does the word, "he". So my editor might have done that, I don't know. As for the omission at the end, I could have kept it, since it continues to make my point, but it was unnecessary as the point was already made. I had already explained how miracles could only be wrought by ALMIGHTY power. That was the purpose of the surrounding paragraphs.

Do not accuse me of dishonesty. My honesty--more than anything else--is the reason I reject your religious views, all of which are lies. Your belief system is based entirely on frauds, falsehoods and fallacies and there is no truth to it.

3c. In this context, the supernatural is not simply "beyond reality", nor is it any level of physics beyond what we've already worked out; it is magic. Incantations ["Let there be"] how Yahweh created Adam with a golem spell, how Leviticus recommends an elemental spell to cure leprosy, the cursed potion in Numbers 5, the demons that Jesus thought could be evoked by spoken charms and were the cause of diseases, all those things are supernatural, i.e. magic. As we've already seen, anything that is miraculous is magical by definition.

4. (Part 1) You were not the one who mentioned predictions. That was someone called Super Man arguing in the comments of a different video. I shouldn't have gotten the two of you confused.

Otherwise don't say my position is indefensible until you've seen how well I can defend it. I've already refuted your argument many times. Here's how I did that in my book.

American Christian conservatives have taken a very radical “pro-life” stance. That’s already a bit ironic for biblical literalists, considering that the Bible keeps pushing the idea that killing everyone for practically any reason is such a great method of judgment and punishment. Some Christian activists will even kill the doctors who perform abortions. The contradiction is that the Bible actually condones abortion, and this is with God’s direct endorsement and involvement.

Remember, the Bible is Jewish, at least the Old Testament is. But the Tanach is not the only ancient book of Jewish laws. Jewish belief holds that the basic laws of the written Torah were given by God to Moses together with the oral Torah, a tradition eventually recorded in the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Midrash. If this is so, then these can be used to enhance our understanding of the Tanach from the Jewish perspective.

Now while today’s right-wing Christian fundamentalists hold that life begins at conception, and therefore an abortion done at any stage for any reason at all should be considered murder, the Babylonian Talmud Yevamot 69b states that “the embryo is considered to be mere water until the fortieth day.” For a while after that, it still isn’t considered a fully living being. Rashi, the great twelfth-century commentator on the Bible and Talmud, states clearly of the fetus in Mishnah Oholot 7:6: “lav nefesh hu”—it is not a person, not until it is born.

"If a woman was in hard travail [such that her life is in danger], the child must be cut up while it is in the womb and brought out member by member, since the life of the mother has priority over the life of the child; but if the greater part of it was already born, it may not be touched, since the claim of one life cannot override the claim of another life."

Note that the above passage describes a partial-birth abortion, and explains how to perform one in accordance with Hebrew religious law. Jewish tradition holds that the fetus is not considered a separate person until the head or most of the body has passed through the birth canal. This is concordant with Mosaic law because they’re both Jewish traditions believed to be of the same source. The book of Exodus (21:22–23) illustrates how the Bible does not consider a fetus to have value equal to that of a human life.

"If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life."

Dr. Richard Carrier offered me some further clarification in correspondence. “The word rendered “injury” here actually more vaguely means “evil.” So the passage says in Hebrew “if her child goes out without evil, then” a fine will be levied, but “if with evil, then you shall give a life for a life.” So what does “evil” mean? We have to look at what the Jews themselves understood it to mean—after all, it is their language. The Greek Septuagint translation, produced over a century before the time of Jesus by a committee of rabbinical experts, makes the issue very clear. It translates this passage as “if the woman’s child goes out and is not fully formed,” then a fine is levied, but “if the child is fully formed,” then the man who struck the blow pays with his life. Therefore, the ancient pre-Christian Jews understood their own text as referring only to killing the baby in both cases—but only killing a “fully formed” baby warrants death, whereas any other pre-formed baby can be killed and it is a mere property crime.”

There are other references to the “breath of life,” where the movement of air is akin to spiritual essence. The traditional belief is that when newborns take their first breath, they are infused with the spirit and become a living being. According to Rav Moshe Feinstein, considered a supreme authority in Orthodox Jewry, "Once the head appears, however, and the child is able to breathe independently, he is treated as an entity separate from the mother. He is now independent of the mother’s circulatory and respiratory systems. We grant him the full rights and privileges of an adult. The most important of these privileges is the right to life."

From the fortieth day of conception until birth, the fetus is considered to be part of its mother—not a separate entity, but equal to one of her limbs. Sanhedrin 80b of the Talmud describes the fetus as “ubar yerech imo”—the fetus is as the thigh of its mother.

Now bear all of this in mind as you read the fifth chapter of the book of Numbers. When a man suspected a woman of infidelity, he was to take her to the tabernacle, the tent where God was supposed to live. Therein the priest would take “dust” from the floor and mix it with water in a bowl. (Remember that this was also where all the animals were brought to be sacrificed, which might have impacted the quality of the “dust” used.) He would also write a curse on a scroll and wash the ink off into the bowl too. Then they would force the woman to drink the cursed potion of bitterness. If she was faithful and falsely accused, then nothing would happen—but if she was guilty of infidelity and had cheated on her husband, then the curse would cause her belly to swell and her “thigh” to either “rot” or “fall away,” depending on which translation you read.

Obviously they’re not talking about one of her legs. We already know that an unborn fetus was considered to be one of the mother’s thighs, and that it would be referenced that way. That’s why instead of saying “thy belly will swell and thy thigh will fall away,” the New Revised Standard version of the Bible says that the curse will cause the uterus to drop and the womb to discharge. It actually says that God himself will personally cause this to happen.

"Let the priest make the woman take the oath of the curse and say to the woman, “The LORD make you an execration and an oath among your people, when the LORD makes your uterus drop, your womb discharge.” (Numbers 5:21)

Now there is no clear indication that the accused woman is necessarily pregnant, nor is there anything to imply that she is not pregnant. All we have is that the woman is suspected of having cheated with another man. Each of the leading Bible versions hold that she definitely had sex with a man, but that she wasn’t caught in the act and there were no witnesses against her. So how could we be so certain that she had sex with a man, and what reason would her husband have for believing she had cheated on him? The most obvious answer to both questions would be if she becomes pregnant when she shouldn’t be.

This is a time before birth control, when men might be away for more than a month at a time. This was also a culture wherein a man might have many wives and concubines, and he might not “favor” all of them. This culture also made a big deal about knowing when a woman was on her menstrual cycle, to the point that there were prohibitions against even approaching women during those periods. So if an estranged woman skips one or more months with no bloody rags to show, then she would be suspect.

This test is no more sensible nor reliable nor realistic than any medieval test to confirm whether someone was a witch. The point is that the only way to fail this test was for the uterus to drop, for the womb to discharge, and the fetus to rot and fall away. In other words, the only way to fail this test was for the curse to cause a miscarriage. Whenever someone deliberately causes a miscarriage, we call that an abortion.

I have seen steadfast objection to this interpretation from people insisting that the woman in question could not have been pregnant at this time because they can’t admit that the Bible says what it does or that it means what it says. So they argue that it says an innocent woman would still be able to conceive children. At best, that might mean that the innocent woman didn’t happen to be pregnant and literally had nothing to lose.

It could also mean that her fetus survived if there was one. But there is nothing in this chapter to imply that the guilty woman is not pregnant, nor that she could not be pregnant when this test is applied. Maybe not every woman accused of adultery was, but at least some of them surely would be, given the nature of the charge against them, yet I get no answers when I pose the question of what would happen if a guilty woman did happen to be pregnant when this test says it would have left her “barren.”

The only defense I have yet heard is that a pregnant woman wouldn’t be allowed to take this test, but no such prohibition exists. Nor would it be possible back then to know if she were pregnant if it were in the first forty-five days or so. That also ignores the only way the Bible says anyone could fail this test: if she cheated on her husband, the fetus would be aborted. That’s what it says. Remember this the next time some right-wing extremist says that abortions should be treated as murder even for underage rape victims, or in cases of extreme medical necessity.

Remember that God says it’s okay to terminate a pregnancy just because an insecure or underperforming husband gets jealous. Notice also that the last line of this chapter says that the man will be guiltless but that the woman shall bear her iniquity. There is no provision wherein the woman can pass the test and be owed any compensation or apology. If she does pass, she simply won’t be punished any more than she already has been. There is no punishment against a husband for falsely accusing her, and no recourse for her if the roles are reversed. She is his property, little more than livestock, and there is no equality for her.

"Then shall the man be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity." (Numbers 5:31)


5a. Once again, I repeat, all the important stuff in the Bible is fables based on actual places or reflecting actual events and occasionally real people as well. Remember the 3rd movie in the Raiders of the Lost Ark series? Indiana Jones went to Germany and bumped into Hitler. We know Germany exists. We know Hitler existed. So does that mean that Indiana exists and so does the Temple of Doom?

There was never a global flood, tower of Babel, exodus, undead army, hours of global darkness, guys living inside fish, the sun never stopped in the sky. I was not wrong. None of that is real.

5b. I made no appeal to authority nor to anything else. The reason so many experts no longer believe that Moses ever exised is because the facts don't support that, and I will be happy to explain why if need be.

5c. There is no metaphorical interpretation of Genesis that provides the "original sin" necessary for Jesus' salvation. That, and there is no way to know when you fables are allegorical and when they are literal. You have a story about a guy trying to cheat a cattle baron by making pregnant cows look at striped sticks as if that will make them bear striped calves. Not only does that not reveal anything even primitives could understand about genetics, that nonsense is passed off as the infallable word of a god who is shown to be incompetent throughout most of the Old Testament.

5d. Historically we know that Rome had already lost the plot when it came to manipulating people. The Christian religion offered a level of submission and control that their old religion could not.

5d. Read what you're replying to again. I already know what you think you're teaching me. You actually agree with me, except that you failed to distinguish the Arab world which were already leaders in science prior to the influence of Islam, which eventually and tragically undid all that progress.

Note that the contents of the Qur'an are irrelevent to anything I've said so far. I have read some of the Qur'an, enough to show how it has already failed.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2016/01/22/the-cow/

I will read the rest when I can make time over the next couple months, but I've been assured by a number of experts on Qur'anic texts that it will not be redeemed. I want to finish the Qur'an, and soon. I do. The sad thing about time is that I have quite a work-load, and I've already spent more time on YOU than I had to spare for the rest of this month.

On the subject of abiogenesis, you're going to reject scientific evidence and observable processes because you insist on believing that life has a meaning and purpose that it doesn't evidently and can't even possibly have? How could I possibly reason with or teach someone who refuses to reconsider preconceived notions that are both unsupported and indefensible?

I have an important question for you. In a couple weeks, I'll be talking about why believers hate reality so much: why apologists will unabashedly lie in defense of their "truth", and why they publish admissions that no amount of proof will ever change their minds: why you reject abiogenesis on teleology, as if that makes any sense.

I can figure out some reasons why people cling to religious beliefs. I know some people are afraid of death or they want to feel like they have agency over natural laws by imagining they know someone in authority, and there's the thing about religion having the same neurological effect as sex, drugs, and gambling, but this idea of purpose comes up an awful lot and that one's the most confusing for me. I'm at a complete loss to explain that one.

The very idea that life itself has an intended purpose or meaning is just stupid to me. It's like when you visit the fortune teller and she throws down the chicken bones or the tea leaves and then tries to "read" what they "mean". It's completely random! So it doesn't mean anything obviously, and neither does our existence on this planet. But people like yourself really want to believe otherwise--for reasons I couldn't possibly imagine. Can you explain that to me?
 
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Matt Lee said:
AronRa i am excited to return to this discussion and grateful for the exhilarating exchange. When I get back from work I will be glad to answer all of your questions... my views on abiogenesis and teleology I will be happy to lay bare in detail. Talk to you then.

I want to start with an answer to the really interesting question you asked.
First of all when I say the teleological case for intelligent design I do not mean that I infer any purpose or meaning to life. In fact, as far as I can tell, the Bible only tells us why God made us once. Genesis 2:15 "15 And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it." Beyond that I have been unable to infer why God made man other than because He must have wanted to be vexxed regularly. Everything else just seems like speculation to me. We were made to tend the garden and promptly told God to screw Himself, we don't want to be your gardener.

When I say teleology I mean that it is easy to infer purpose many of the structures we see which seem to have a purpose which is obvious, for example, DNA polymerase... You wouldn't build a disk drive unless you needed something which could read and write and copy disks. The purpose of the disk drive is the copy, write and read disks. DNA polymerase is a disk drive for DNA. DNA can't self replicate. RNA has been made to do so in laboratory conditions which were very controlled but in nature this does not happen, to my knowledge. To me this indicates that whatever caused DNA to come into existence needed a way to read, write and copy it therefore built DNA polymerase for that purpose. It is a very high mathematical probability against such a thing simply springing out of the primordial soup spontaneously, especially if DNA could replicate itself. It seems to have a purpose. I also can find no way random mutation or random chemical combinatorics could create such an unlikely enzyme.

Abiogenesis also seems unsupported by evidence. DNA has a short half life compared to the deep time they say has passed so it should be impossible to find strands of original self-replicating peptides or self-replicating RNA to prove this can happen. We can't find any organism in fossils or alive that can reproduce without DNA polymerase and is not a fully formed cell capable of metabolism, photosynthensis (stromatolites by cyanobacteria) and showing evidence that each of it's organelles, membranes, structures and genetic material was fully formed when it was made. Not sure how viruses factor into that as I am not trained in biology and the jury is still out.
Otherwise... that means that DNA polymerase would have to have evolved coincidentally with DNA in the primordial oceans and that pretty darned quickly by the timeline evolutionists give us. Abiogenesis is not supported experimentally, in the fossil record, or by genetic regression which should be able to lead us back to a DNA chain that could self-replicate. Again I would listen to any evidence that seemed to contradict the DNA regression hypothesis I have because I cannot say that conclusively from full knowledge of the latest research. Altogether, this lack of evidence leads me to believe that abiogenesis is less likely than an intelligent designer. If the first life was created, then the rest is still the will of a Creator... evolution or not.
a PhD professor of philosophy at a Baptist theological seminary told me that nothing can ever be objectively verified--because [he explained] that evidence is not evident because facts are not factual. He had to redefine every word I used in order to dodge the point I was making. Because he believes that reality is merely imagined then nothing can ever be objective.
I had always thought that you valued education so I was curious why you were so disrespectful to this mans ideas and opinions. I have watched this and it seemed like he kept saying "philosophers don't use that word that way." Philosophy has their own set of definitions for many words so that when they discuss the concepts laid out in the great works they can all be on the same page. The logic in philosophy requires exact language with specific definitions referring to concepts that are not in general use because they are esoteric. It's not equivocation, it's the terms of their discipline required to discuss higher ideas like ethics, epistomology and a host of other isms and ologies I know little about. Whatever you think of him as a believer, he got his PhD the hard way, I think, with seven years of hard schooling in which he obviously achieved good grades and a dissertation which he would have had to defend. He is not stupid or dishonest as far as I saw you two were speaking different languages. He spoke to you about your use of the word magic as well and from your worldview it makes sense why that didn't work for you two. In an atheist world there can't be miracles in the same way a theist sees them. To a theist miracles exclusively come from God and that's why he said they don't use that word that way. To an atheist magic and miracles might seem the same because they both come from a source which doesn't exist to atheists worldviews. I would counsel you against just dismissing all of what he told you and perhaps recommend you get a dictionary on philosophical language and rewatch the video to concordance what he was actually saying. Philosophy is based on logic, you would probably like it if you gave it a try. You seem to like logic. There are many philosophers who think like you.

2a. From Grudem standard text ‘Systematic Theology’ page 648
“[referencing Mark 3:28-30] These statements are made in a context in which the Pharisees willfully and maliciously attribute to Satan the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that was evident in the ministry of Jesus. Since the Holy Spirit so clearly manifested the presence of God, those who willfully and maliciously spoke against him and attributed his activity instead to the power of Satan were guilty, Jesus said, “of an eternal sin” It wasn’t disbelief in God or Jesus according to standard theology texts.
2b. The context of Deuteronomy is not represented in your interpretation. This passage indicated nothing about belief but rather said if you go to serve and worship other Gods. Serving and worshipping other God’s in Canaan meant child sacrifice, and various other reprehensible behaviors. Having people who served other Gods in your midst also violated the covenant God had with Israel. Faith was not a precondition of forgiveness in Israel. Obedience was. Israel was not justified by Grace… they had to make sacrifices in a Temple or Tabernacle to be absolved.
2c. Faith “complete trust or confidence in someone or something” It’s not equivocation because you said you meant trust and faith is defined as trust or confidence in something external to it’s religious context. If you wish to specify that we only use faith in this context I will consider that the use from now on. I waxed poetic. That was foolish I see. Lesson learned.
2d. “When we die, the only difference between you and I is that once your conciousness ebbs away forever, you won't have a chance to be disappointed.” So basically, if I’m right, or if I’m wrong… I won’t be disappointed! WIN WIN!
2e. Sin has a definition. In the OT is just breaking God’s law but in the new Testament they use the Greek work “hamartia” which is more like to miss the mark… many times I’ve heard this in the context of an archer who aimed for a target and missed. It also means, in this context, to do wrong or to wander from the path of God. (Strongs G266). Not sure where the contradiction is but I would listen to a good argument. Also, the seven deadly sins are Catholic dogma. I have serious problems with Catholicism not the least being that they don’t have Sola Scriptura. The Bible doesn’t mean much to them because they believe the Church has the authority not the Word and they can make up whatever silly thing suits their fancy. Like transubstantiation. No idea where that one is in the Bible. No problem, the Pope said it! Riiiiiiggghhhhht.
2f. We'll see alright. You should see it already.
I do but not quite the way you mean. You don’t really have skills in textual evaluation that even basic Christians are taught. You have to look at the untranslated Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic and then, using concordance and as many resources as you can, try to understand the meaning of the words and phrases from their context and from their usage across the entire Bible. One Passage at a time. It’s not a simple thing and just reading English translations is foolish. I have this debate regularly with KJV only folk. No translation is perfect. You have to do the work to really understand what’s being said.

3a. Perhaps this discussion is beyond our level of common language. I am talking about multiverse, hyperdimensional reality, and pre-cosmic conditions. Magic is not quite enough to contain the ideas. The idea of a being that exists beyond space and time is entirely possible according to science because some universe had to exist for our universe to big bang and come into existence inside it. No magic, physics and cosmology. If two branes meeting created out reality… where are the branes and is it possible a higher intelligence exists there?
3b. Worldview differences explain why Almighty had to be capitalized like I described before.
3c. If Adam was created with a Golem spell there would have had to have been a clay/mud figurine, a scroll to put in its mouth, and a magician. Also, it would have created a golem, not a man. Was Adam a golem or a man? The ‘spell’ didn’t cure leprosy it was actually just a ritual that they did to certify the leper was not contagious anymore and had healed. Read the first part of that particular passage and you’ll see that the priests first diagnose the leprosy, then they send the unfortunate soul far away from the camp and if they don’t die and get better in exile they have to go through the ritual of cleansing to be declared no longer contagious with gross rotting face disease. There was no cure, no magic, no spell. Just a clean bill of health. In fact, the chapter before the one your talking about describes how to diagnose disease. Demons Jesus thought could be evoked by spoken charms? That’s a new one to me. Be interested to hear that one explained. The abortion thing is just not supported by the Hebrew in the Torah. The words for thigh to rot are not the words for miscarrying. I explained that and cited the words. Can you disprove this from the original language? Miracles and magic don’t mean the same thing to you and I, again. And the PhD in Philosophy would agree with me. You should read the book he recommended to you. He gets paid to teach that stuff. Even if you don’t like the message he really isn’t stupid.

4 (part 2) Continued... If she passes the husband would by implication be shamed and the woman exonerated and textually instantly concieve a child... probably a male child which would have been a great honor and blessing. remember that this ritual took place in the direct presence of God who was the one who made the bitter water work because He knew the guilt or innocence. He would bless the woman who was falsely accuse with great honor and fecundity. This was the bronze age, it wasn't Berkeley in the 60's.

5a. You made the absolutely statement that everything in the Bible is wrong. If the Bible is based on actual places which existed and actual people then it was right about something. If you amend your statement to what you said in 5a I would have a much more difficult road disproving you. What you literally wrote was wrong. And there was no undead army, you are 100% right… that was a prophetic vision… sort of like a miraculous acid trip. The other stuff… well… we can agree to disagree lol. Indiana Jones was marketed as fiction, however, so I think that’s a category fallacy.
5b. I agree with your amended statements. I have seen no evidence beyond the Bible for the existence of Moses. I believe in Him on faith and I make no excuse for that. I have my reasons and they are sufficient for me. You should research the history of the documentary hypothesis though from it’s textual criticism origins. A lot of that argument is really just Jesuits trying to castrate Protestantism. No Sola Scriptura.
5c. There is no metaphorical interpretation of Genesis that provides the "original sin" necessary for Jesus' salvation. That, and there is no way to know when you fables are allegorical and when they are literal. You have a story about a guy trying to cheat a cattle baron by making pregnant cows look at striped sticks as if that will make them bear striped calves. Not only does that not reveal anything even primitives could understand about genetics, that nonsense is passed off as the infallable word of a god who is shown to be incompetent throughout most of the Old Testament.
If you can’t tell the difference between an allegory and history that’s fine… I usually can. Jesus explicitly tells you when he’s talking in parables. Also, I don’t know if I believe in original sin. There is plenty of sin in a mans life, who needs original sin? That’s kind of a Catholic thing anyway. Men sin without needing Adam to blame. We lie, and steal and cheat plenty on our own without a mystical transmission of guilt from posterity. The cows thing is funny. I can’t explain that one, I’ll have to look into it more. Neat example though, you do find the most interesting passages. How much I’ve learned about the Bible from debating you.
5d. I don’t think that’s true. Taking an Empire built on conquest and government control of religion and turning it to the worship of a Jew from a destroyed province might be a stretch as a choice for control mechanisms. If that was the goal, it backfired, anyway.
5d. I don’t presume to teach you. I am disagreeing with you and explaining why. We agree that the Quran is irredeemable from any perspective. And I said Islamic Empire. Islam led to an empire that focused on mathematics and science. Your statement, however, completely skipped over the entire Islamic Golden Age which is like saying the Renaissance led to the dark ages. The house of wisdom and people like Al Khwarizmi. The Mongols are actually the only thing that stopped Islam from taking over Europe. That and Catholic greed. See.. I do have things to teach you if you are interested!
But seriously the Quran is a book I have read and studied and I say that I would debate Quran (and have) with Muslims till I’m blue in the face because Islam and Mormonism share much of the the same shameful lies, flaws and doctrine… except Mosques look cooler than Mormon temples and there is no magic underwear in Islam. Oh, and Mormons won’t generally cut your head off for going apostate. You wish they would however with all the phone calls and prayer vigils.
Meaning in life.. my meaning is to love and serve God and to love and serve all mankind with every breath of my strength by extension. Preconceived notions? All my notions are from logic, reason, and serious study of faith and spirituality. You disagree and you have good reasons. We can disagree, and still have our own beliefs and it can be OK. That’s why freedom of religion and freedom of speech are wonderful. We can both disagree and neither of us can make the other think the way we are. Christian theocracy probably scares me more than it does you because I like to debate, I like to argue… I love hard questions and thinking and reading… Theocrats just like to talk. And to make those who think like them stop talking and that’s the death of reason and knowledge. We may not be as different as you think. Just with different opinions. Seriously, you should watch that debate you had with the PhD again with a philosophy dictionary.. the Stanford online one is excellent. I got so much out of what he said.
RNA builds DNA, as you know, and RNA can self-replicate too, with or without enzyme. So the prerequisites you talked about don't seem to exist. Abiogenesis isn't spontaneous generation either. It's actually a collection of overlapping chemical and physical processes having nothing at all do with evolution. There is substantial evidence for it too, not just bio-chemically but even in the fossil record, enough to effectively prove that it happened. I explain that in a video lesson teaching biology to middle schoolers.



So despite this preponderance of evidence that you say doesn't exist, you're arguing instead for a magical anthropomorphic immortal for which there never was and could never be any evidence or indication at all.

Your teleological argument seems no more than an assumed conclusion, which is what all religious belief appears to be. You assume it was done by magic and reinforce that vision however you can and never look at the explanations that are actually possible. Why? Because you give undo credence to the fables of primitives.

If you happened across any of the original cuneiform stories from which the Genesis fables were derived, would you be straining to justify how the story of Enki and Ereshkigal could be true? There isn't even a kernel of truth to that, so neither can there be for the Garden of Eden story, which is just a later revision of it. I suspect you would read those old legends the same way I read the myths in your doctrine; as the works of ignorant superstitious primitives who obviously had no idea what they were talking about and just made shit up.

I like logic very much. So I was frustrated that Reynolds wasn't using any. Did you notice how he made up his own definitions which he could not defend because they didn't apply? That and he got his citations wrong too. I also already checked what Reynolds said against the Stanford dictionary. Their definition conforms to the one I was already using, but doesn't at all allow the one Reynolds made up. He was being logical; he was, just wrong.
You'll find a fuller description of that encounter in my blog.

3a. If you were talking about a multiversal hyperdimensional reality, then you wouldn't have said that our universe had to emerge inside a different one.

My concept of cosmic origin isn't based on any notion of string theory either. I literally cannot imagine what sort of catalysts could have prompted the inflation of 3-dimensional space-time from a 4th spacial dimension, which could only be perceived as a singularity. It is likely we will never know what that was, but if we ever do learn that secret, it won't turn out to be a magical ape-derivative existing before the evolution of the men who made him up.

3b. If your worldview is the reason to capitalize "almighty" then I am under no obligation to do so: especially since I did not use it as a proper noun.

al·might·y
/ôlˈmīdē/ adjective
having complete power; omnipotent.
"God almighty"
synonyms: all-powerful, omnipotent, supreme, preeminent
"I swear by almighty God"
a name or title for God.
noun: Almighty; noun: the Almighty
"I wanted to beg the Almighty for mercy"


3c. Golems did not always require a written spell. The earliest record of them in fact had a collection of Semitic gods "breathe the breath of life" into their clay figurines. Ironically this was the myth on which Genesis 1 is based rather than Genesis 2. In that story the gods essentially said "let us make man in our image". Male and female the elohim created them. Seven male, seven female. Then they killed one of the gods as a sacrifice and the figurines were soaked in his blood. Sound familiar?
Then they became the first people. That's how gods do golem spells.

I obviously have already read the whole of Leviticus 14 and understood that the spell didn't cure anything. It certainly couldn't have cured leprosy, like you thought it could. Scabies maybe, and that's the most their best practice could do. Otherwise the ritual was as pointless as the sacrifices god demanded then too. But it was presented as an elemental spell, incorporating each of the five points on a pentacle, once thought to be the five elements.

Jesus said a lot of crazy contradictory things in the legends about him. For example, he said that we had to follow "every jot and tittle" of the old laws of Moses. Yet he was OK with breaking his own rules. He said that if God meant for men to be circumcised they would be born without foreskins, one of only a couple lines of actual wisdom to be attributed to that character. He also said his followers could work on the Sabbath if they had to, and he countered the old tradition of washing hands before eating. Because Jesus amazingly thought that nothing a man eats could defile him, not filth or poison, drugs, broken glass or infectious pathogens which of course he knew nothing at all about. He said that anything a man eats will be pooped out harmlessly, even though we know better. He said that what defiles a man is what comes OUT of his mouth. This is a man who pretended to exorcise demons. You wouldn't want to get medical advice from that guy.

Think about this. No one knew how to diagnose disease in as much as no one knew what CAUSED disease. If there was any truth to Christianity at all, then Jesus wouldn't have said or done any of the stupid shit he reportedly did and said. At the very least, he should have reversed his own rules and explained how diseases are spread and why we should wash our hands. He didn't know any better.

I suggest that miracles and magic DO mean the same thing to both of us, because they both have the same definition. The only difference between miracles and magic is who does it. A boat may be considered a ship if it’s big enough. When a rich man is neurotic, we call him eccentric. When a V.I.P. is murdered, it’s an assassination. When a god performs magic, he’s working miracles.

4 (part 2) You didn't post part 1. The text makes clear there is a double-standard: that regardless whether the woman passes the test, the man shall be guiltless from iniquity, and this woman shall bear her iniquity. There is not a hint of recourse for false accusers.

5a. I did NOT make the absolutely statement that everything in the Bible is wrong. What I actually said was "The Bible is absolutely wrong about virtually everything back-to-front", and that is a fact. The word, "virtually" is there because I've been having this conversation repeated for twenty some-odd years and someone always has to point out that Nazareth and Egypt and Pilate and Herod actually existed--as if that means that all the fictions written around them are true.

My comment about Indiana Jones is not a category fallacy either, being a fair illustration of this same point.

5b. I studied comparative religions/history of world religions in college and was the only student to get an A. But I already knew about the Documentary Hypothesis before then.

5c. You pretend (or project) that I can't distinguish allegory from history, yet you're defending Genesis? You also bragged that you have to tell Christians what the Bible doesn't say while educating us atheists on what it does say, yet you also thought that the serpent in the garden was Satan?! I think you should take that beam out of your eye? Because--as I already explained to you--the Bible doesn't say that, not even in Revelations.

Do you accept, by the way, that the serpent in the garden was depicted as a women throughout mainstream Christian art well into the Renaissance? Do you know why that is?

You can discard original sin, on which Christianity depends because we have lots of other sins? Yet you praise the morality of a god who condones and promotes slavery? Have you read Numbers 31, and seen where Moses had women and children slaughtered after his men raized a village like barbarians, only to keep the pre-teen virgins as sex slaves?

5d. I'll grant that once the Roman empire embraced Christianity, it destroyed them in turn and they're slaves to it.

Islam did not exist before the Arab world had achieved its foundations accomplishments as leaders in science. Your House of Wisdom is contemporary with the initiation of Islam. Since then, Islam did to the Arabs what Christianity did to the Romans. It destroyed their empire, left them steeped in superstition and caused them to reject science along with all social progress too.

Having been raised in a Mormon family and having debated a few Muslims myself here and abroad, I would agree that those two religions do share some of the same lies and attempts at apologetics.

I have to disagree though that all your notions are based on logical reason. They can't be since you still believe things that even Biblical scholars now reject, and you've already admitted that you hold these beliefs on faith rather than reason.

You didn't reveal any meaning of life either.

Fun as it is to beat my head against this same old obstinate wall, please understand that I have again spent more time on you that I had to spare considering the deadlines I'm facing.
I can respect that. Allegedly imaginary anthropomorphic immortal bless you. I sincerely hope we get to argue again. I enjoy it immensely.
That was 4 days ago. Yesterday he started posting on the comments of another video to pick up the argument again.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
Matt Lee said:
I hope we get a chance to continue the conversation Aron. We were talking about the statement in the video where you say that RNA builds DNA which seems to be contradicted by the central dogma of molecular biology which is that DNA makes RNA makes proteins. If I am wrong I will be happy to admit it when shown proper evidence. I’m not being a troll here but I am at a loss to find citations which support your assertion and I don’t want to lose the thread of the discussion. I am looking forward to hearing the explanation and learning something.
Like I said before, in college level biology courses for science majors, it was commonly phrased this way:
"The RNA command builds rough but potentially large-scale models of single-stranded RNA, given base-pairing information. Nucleotides are laid out schematically to form stems and loops in three dimensions. RNA also builds DNA and RNA/DNA double helices along a specified path."
CQL.UCSF
AronRa that’s Chimera commands. That’s commands to build 3D models of various structures of genetic material in a computer program. That’s not really relevant to this matter. The RNA command perhaps may allow you to model DNA along a specified path in the computer but that is immaterial. Your video said in the real world that RNA builds DNA.

Specifically the statement you made was that activated RNA actually builds DNA. I am asking for direct evidence of how RNA builds DNA in the way you described it. It would seem to me that statement is entirely incorrect. Can you show me how I am wrong and you are right or will you admit that the information was incorrect. It seems like That particular logical linkage informs a lot of the rest of the content of the video vis a vis the RNA world hypothesis. It seems likely that RNA would be the command used to generate the models for DNA in Chimera because from the command list I didn’t see one labeled DNA. The idea of the computer command RNA being used to initiate a 3D model of dna says nothing about the claim you made. You made a claim and I am asking you to defend it or retract it. This is exactly the same standard of evidence you hold Creationists to.

AronRa also you stated that RNA polymerase is made of RNA. Can you substantiate that claim? I’m having trouble doing that but I don’t deny it could be true, I simple need to be shown the right place to look perhaps.
I did already explain that, and I provided a citation from UC San Francisco showing--as I said--that college lessons commonly summarize that to say that RNA builds DNA. At this point, the best I can give you is another lesson for middle-school kids. If you want something more than that, you'll have to look it up yourself.


AronRa what you posted was the command description and argument list for the RNA command in a program called Chimera which uses a computer to MODEL DNA. The command RNA builds DNA models and that’s not what your video claimed. Surely you have to see this does not demonstrate that the molecule RNA can result in a DNA molecule or polymerases in the real world and you posted no citation for the claim that RNA polymerase is made of RNA. Where is the evidence? No biologist would teach at the college level that the CENTRAL DOGMA OF BIOLOGY was entirely incorrect and reversed. it’s everywhere. Google “central dogma” and there it is! It’s that recognized and you directly contradicted it and made a claim that I am asking you to defend. Why are you changing the subject. The claim should be easy to defend. It’s a science claim and science is supported, evidentiary and you are attempting to teach it. Teach me. This is the standard of evidence you require from religious or Creationist claims so pleas demonstrate it. I reject your stated evidence as irrelevant to the question because it does not demonstrate to a scientific standard how RNA builds DNA it only demonstrates that the computer command RNA will create a model of DNA in a program.

AronRa I would also settle for a link to a resource from the specific course you took with a syllabus or a even a handout that specifically states the words you used. “RNA builds DNA.” Where is the evidence?
Just when I get to the point where I wonder if I should start charging you for my time, you tell me what you'll "settle for"? Then you ask me again for what I've already shown? That's it. We're done.
AronRa you’re done? When did you start?! You haven’t provided a shred of evidence for any of the questions I asked!? You claim to know enough to teach this and you can’t demonstrate even the simplest claim you make! You claim to have studied college level biology and you won’t even show me a handout with the stuff you are trying to teach middle schoolers? You are in this moment guilty of everything you accuse Creationists of. You claim but will not prove, you willfully misstate and will not admit you can not verify and then you flee the debate when any pressure is put on your conclusions! You say you value peer review but you can’t even stand up to the smallest amount of criticism or skepticism of your ideas with a logical and evidentiary argument! Why should anyone respect your scientific acumen or your educational materials if you refuse to teach! I asked an honest question and offered no derision, only academic courtesy and honest questions Which you still have not answered!

At this point, I had not realized that the quote I gave actually was talking about a computer program. I'm not a programmer, and Matt has already exhausted more of my time than anyone deserves. So I admit I didn't read his last couple posts thoroughly enough. But I obviously wasn't getting classroom biology lessons from a computer programming course. I said that my instructors said that RNA and builds DNA and I showed Matt a video explaining how. But he already knows about the central dogma, so he surely already knows about messenger RNA. Yet he's still asking me to explain that. Why?

Then I note that in the comments of the video above, he posted this.

fraud
/frôd/ noun
1. wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.
2. a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities.


This in addition to his claim that [he thinks] I said that polymerase was made of RNA. Of course I never said that and I never claimed any knowledge or credentials I don't have either. But it gets even worse than that. Because then he said:
You’re not just a fraud you’re also a coward. You’re the worst kind of human being. There is literally not an honest thing about what you do. You would censor this conversation to make it look like you chased me off. You are a laughable coward repeating an argument with your father vicariously through people of faith again and again like Norman Bates with a YouTube channel. I’m done with you. I have my proof and I will always take with me the evidence that you know less about science than you do about religion.
So Matt, like all creationists, you want to be absolutely wrong about absolutely everything with no accountability. OK.

Notice I did not censor you or pretend that you ran off. Why would I invite you here if that was my intent? I invited you here because I'm certainly not a coward and you have nothing on me.

Right away you accuse me of "strange logic" because of your mistaken interpretation that the serpent in the garden was originally supposed to be Satan. You never conceded that I was right about the Christian church commissioning Medieval and Renaissance painters to depict the serpent as a woman. You failed to concede that Satan's biological sex never had anything to do with that, because they never interpreted that the way you do; nor should you, as your scriptures don't support that.

You accused me of "Gish-galloping" the Australian interviewing me. It's an interview. He asked questions. I answered them. The interviewer never dominates the interview. That's how that works.

In your very first post to me, you accused me of memorizing a lot of easily disproven lies and half-truths, yet after all this impressive verbiage, you've still failed to show one instance of either one. You're desperate to call me out, but you can't find one lie. All you can do is lie to me or lie about me. You have failed to show even one dishonest thing about what I do.

You said I was lying about objectivity meaning that we would all agree on it, until I explained that anyone who accepts science at all will have to agree if something actually is objectively verifiable. Had I said it in writing instead of on the fly, I would have said it better than I did. I could say that I misspoke, because I did (and that wouldn't be a lie either) but what I said was defensibly accurate. So it doesn't matter anyway.

We argued over what supernatural means and what miracle means and a number of other definitions, and I turned out to be right every time--while you evidently don't have any idea what you're talking about--either in theology or science.

You accused me of equivocation when I've never done that, and then you did exactly that yourself almost immediately afterwards.

You said I misinterpreted the Bible calling for the death of unbelievers; not just people who believed in different gods but anyone who didn't believe in your god: regardless what else they did or didn't believe otherwise. Yet again I was right and you were wrong.

You say I lack the skills to even read the Bible and make sense of it, but you can't make sense of it yourself and later admitted that you were learning a lot of that from me. You're welcome.

You didn't realize that the Bible actually endorses abortion even with God's direct assistance. You were quite certain you were right because of a couple translations that had virtually nothing to do with the actual subject as I revealed it.

You ignored everything I tried to teach you about the philosophy of science and you still pretend that there is credence to Intelligent Design or that it is something different than creationism. I can prove they're exactly the same thing.

In addition to your staple god-of-the-gaps fallacy (a combination of arguments from ignorance and incredulity) you've also used a version of the negative association fallacy known as the atheist atrocities fallacy: but as I said, while there have been only a handful of totalitarian despots who were atheists, that had nothing to do with their atrocities. As I said, atheists statistically beat evangelical Christians in all the metrics of what you would call morality--and yes I can prove that too.

You misquoted me again when you accused me of making the absolute statement that the Bible is absolutely wrong about absolutely everything, when in fact I said "virtually everything", and I was still right about that. None of the fables your theology depends on ever happened, and most of that was based on previous Semitic polytheism. There is literally no truth to any of the fables in your compilation that actually matter.

Belief in God does require gullibility, believing too quickly improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. Not only that but gullibility really is the sole criteria for redemption: Because all sins may be forgiven except for blasphemy against the holy spirit, which is another thing you were wrong about. Rejection of or disbelief in Jesus is considered blasphemy--as I already showed, and you never conceded that error either. Is it even possible for you to do that?

The Bible is as clear as the confessions.1 It says God counts humans as worthy of heaven—even though we’re not worthy in ourselves—if we believe specific content about Jesus known as the gospel. In particular, we must believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He died to pay the penalty for humanity’s sin, was buried, rose from the grave, and ascended to heaven, where He reigns and saves. Peter outlined this message on the Day of Pentecost, and all who believed it and turned from their sins received forgiveness (Acts 2:38). Likewise, Paul said people are “saved” from eternal judgment if they “hold fast” to this message (1 Corinthians 15:2).

Many other Bible passages also teach that a person must believe in order to have eternal life in heaven. In every instance, the implied content to be believed is the gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Of course, good deeds are required of every believer, but those good deeds are inevitable fruit of Christian faith, not a means of earning salvation (James 2:14-26).2

Can someone who doesn’t believe in the Christian God go to heaven? No.

-BibleMesh.com

Only believers can be saved according to:
Mark 16:16
John 3:18,36 5:24, 6:40,47 11:25-26
Acts 10:43
Romans 4:5, 10:4
Ephesians 2:8-9
Proverbs 16:25

While unbelivers are damned regardless.
Deuteronomy 17:2,7
Isaiah 64:6
Mark 3:28
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 2:13

So the ONLY way to get into Heaven is to believe impossible nonsense for no good reason, hecause you're supposed to accept all this bullshit on faith in lieu of evidence. How gullible is that!

Now on your last point, the one where you thought that even though you've been wrong about everything up to now, surely you've got something THIS time, right? Of course you're wrong again. You could just look up the simple definition of the central dogma that you kept mentioning to see that I never contradicted it. Or I could show you another video in my series that explains the same thing.



Now regarding your allegation of fraud, I can prove--to your satisfaction--that several, if not all, professional creationists fit this description, but you will never be able to prove that about me. For example, to begin with, (1) what accomplishments or qualities do you think I ever claimed without justification? (2) When have I ever attempted to deceive anyone?

You'd better be able to quote me verbatim, and you'd better be right. I was taught that you never accuse someone else of lying unless you can prove it right then. If you can't, then it's like sinking the cue along with the 8-ball. If you falsely accuse someone of lying, then you're the liar.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
Gnug215 said:
So what's the name of this guy?

Just in case he shows up.
Matt Lee says he has registered his account on this forum and is awaiting administrator approval. Can we make sure that goes through quickly? Because I remember the last guy said he never got a response.
 
arg-fallbackName="Gnug215"/>
AronRa said:
Gnug215 said:
So what's the name of this guy?

Just in case he shows up.
Matt Lee says he has registered his account on this forum and is awaiting administrator approval. Can we make sure that goes through quickly? Because I remember the last guy said he never got a response.

I don't know why our approval system seems to have stopped working.

I'll msg Prole right away.
 
arg-fallbackName="MatthewLee"/>
Alright so I will begin here. This is my first post so I will try to address a large number of claims. If I miss anything essential please cite it and I will address one by one as we go.
The ORIGINAL claim which I had wanted you to prove was that

“RNA BUILDS DNA” which you said verbatim in your video about abiogenesis. For evidence you offered me first a description of how mRNA is made from a DNA template using intermediate enzymatic processes. The you said that in your university level biology classes it was regularly stated. Then you posted a link to a command list for 3D modeling software in which the statement was made that the COMMAND RNA is used to model a DNA molecule along a specified path. From there I continue with where you admit this.

you said

“At this point, I had not realized that the quote I gave actually was talking about a computer program. I'm not a programmer, and Matt has already exhausted more of my time than anyone deserves. So I admit I didn't read his last couple posts thoroughly enough. But I obviously wasn't getting classroom biology lessons from a computer programming course. I said that my instructors said that RNA and builds DNA and I showed Matt a video explaining how. But he already knows about the central dogma, so he surely already knows about messenger RNA. Yet he's still asking me to explain that. Why?”

I had assumed that given the fact that you so often say that from “comfortable memory” you can prove evolution to anyone who will listen that this subject, genetic material… which informs such an important part of evolutionary biology and abiogenetic evidence that you would be able to immediately explain and easily substantiate your claim with a description of a chemical process.
You didn’t. You posted a command list from a computer program… not really knowing what it was and then attempted to assert it as proof of your claim. You also just admitted that you weren’t a programmer so it is likely you are not proficient in the software itself or aware that what you had said was referencing a command in the program and not at all a scientific assertion. You essentially admitted that you quoted an incorrect claim from an unrelated source which not only didn’t prove your assertion but cast doubt on your understanding of the material. I did not see any additional evidence added to your claim that RNA builds DNA but I do see an astounding amount of evidence including the central dogma of all molecular biology that, with only a few trivial exceptions which do not prove your case, information only moves from DNA to RNA to proteins. Your explicit statement that “RNA builds DNA” seems to directly contradict this and you still only offer as evidence that this statement is regularly made (anecdotally until you prove it) in your “college level” biology course for science majors. I expect you to follow through and prove your claim and I will, on my honor, be glad to admit I was wrong on this matter and retract my accusation of fraud if one or more of the following conditions is met or evidence is provided that satisfies the inquiry…
1. Which college did you take this course in? In a university one does need to specify they are taking a college level course. If you’re in college you are assumed to be in a college level course. Explain what the number of the course identifier was so that I can verify that this information would be taught in a similar course because I can find a syllabus for one online at the university you must specify you took this course at.
2. I asked for a syllabus, you did not provide it. How about a transcript showing the credits and the A you said you received?
3. I asked for a handout or any other course material from the class you said you took that proves your claim. How about a quote from a textbook or even a name of the professor so I can email them and substantiate your claim that the professor says this phrase regularly?
4. I asked for any conclusive evidence that RNA builds DNA and you talk about mRNA which is produced from DNA (with intermediate steps and enzymes) and is not used to create DNA in any way that I have found.

You have failed to prove your claim on three levels… you have not proven RNA can build DNA, you have not proven you took a course on biology and you have not proven that they taught that RNA builds DNA in the course you never proved you took. Did I miss some presented evidence? If I did please repost it or point to it in the debate because the central claim we are debating here you keep saying you have conclusively proved and yet in none of the videos you posted is there an example of RNA building DNA. Only the statement that such occurs which I called you out on in the video on abiogenesis. It’s in your words explicitly in the video.
You also failed to prove that RNA can spontaneously self-replicate (with or without enzyme in your words) outside of tightly controlled laboratory circumstances. You provided no evidence of this you only said you did. The videos you posted I have watched thoroughly and none of them contain one instance of either spontaneously self-replicating RNA in nature or RNA building DNA but they do contain multiple examples which confirm the central dogma that you are attempting to contradict. From this one may infer someone who does understand the process created the materials for you but that you yourself did not understand what you narrated. The law of non-contradiction would seem to insist that your statement cannot be true unless the central doctrine of molecular biology is false. You keep telling me you proved things and that is not proving them. Evidence proves them. If you can’t show it, you don’t know it. Specifically point to a timestamp in either of the videos you posted where DNA is built by RNA, please.
Also “Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. Following transcription of primary transcript mRNA (known as pre-mRNA) by RNA polymerase, processed, mature mRNA is translated into a polymer of amino acids: a protein, as summarized in the central dogma of molecular biology.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messenger_RNA
This is why I keep asking why and for proof. You don’t seem to understand the statement you made. Or perhaps I don’t so clarify it, retract it, or provide evidence to prove it.

Now I will address some of the other claims you made and offer the best evidence I can.
“Right away you accuse me of "strange logic" because of your mistaken interpretation that the serpent in the garden was originally supposed to be Satan. You never conceded that I was right about the Christian church commissioning Medieval and Renaissance painters to depict the serpent as a woman. You failed to concede that Satan's biological sex never had anything to do with that, because they never interpreted that the way you do; nor should you, as your scriptures don't support that.”

The first thing we need to establish here is the central Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura
“The phrase sola scriptura is from the Latin: sola having the idea of “alone,” “ground,” “base,” and the word scriptura meaning “writings”—referring to the Scriptures. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

Sola scriptura was the rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had made its traditions superior in authority to the Bible. This resulted in many practices that were in fact contradictory to the Bible. Some examples are prayer to saints and/or Mary, the immaculate conception,transubstantiation, infant baptism, indulgences, and papal authority. Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church and father of the Protestant Reformation, was publicly rebuking the Catholic Church for its unbiblical teachings. The Catholic Church threatened Martin Luther with excommunication (and death) if he did not recant. Martin Luther's reply was, “Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!”

https://www.gotquestions.org/sola-scriptura.html

What this means is that Scripture is the sole resource for truth. Not supplementary material like the Talmud or other Jewish academic writings and CERTAINLY not Catholic Church tradition and dogma or paintings. You are entirely correct that In the SCRIPTURE the serpent is never explicitly specified to be Satan but there is evidence that indicated that it is Satan. This is an inference from a story which is obviously allegory. It is supported in passages such as:
John 8“43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. “
Your assertion that the Bible never explicitly says this is correct to the best of my knowledge because it should not need to be spelled out. The adversary of Humanity.. and that is what Satan means, Adversary… (Strongs 7854) is surely what the serpent can be shown to be. The Serpent in the Garden leads Eve astray with lies.. from the beginning… resulting in death entering the world. He was a murderer from the beginning. That old Serpent Satan.
Was he literally a talking snake? Well, is there literally a fruit that instantly confers knowledge of moral reasoning? Even in the bronze age they probably would have been hip to the idea that this was an allegorical story. Jesus, the Word in the flesh, speaks in many, many parables… which are in keeping with this idea of metaphorical communication of big ideas. Complex ideas and concepts explained through the device of stories which convey the essential information as in when you tell a young child that babies come from Mommy’s tummy. The kid doesn’t need to know more than that because at his age the truth would break his little mind and leave him scarred for life.
In reference to his biological sex… the only necessary indication of Satans biological sex in the Scripture is that both the Hebrew for Satan and the Hebrew for Serpent (Strongs 5175) are both masculine Hebrew nouns. Can you refute this in Hebrew with a citation or the opinion of a Hebrew Scholar of note and specialist in the language? All the other stuff about Lilith or paintings is Catholic nonsense firmly rejected by the Protestant community as not Scriptural. If I am wrong on this notion please cite me a reference of a Protestant Scholar certifying that the serpent in the Garden had a woman’s face.

“3c. Golems did not always require a written spell. The earliest record of them in fact had a collection of Semitic gods "breathe the breath of life" into their clay figurines. Ironically this was the myth on which Genesis 1 is based rather than Genesis 2. In that story the gods essentially said "let us make man in our image". Male and female the elohim created them. Seven male, seven female. Then they killed one of the gods as a sacrifice and the figurines were soaked in his blood. Sound familiar?
Then they became the first people. That's how gods do golem spells. “


I would like to see your citations on the claim that Adam was a Golem. I would like to specifically see a citation which proves that a specifically titled “Golem Spell” predates the Torah composition. I would further like to see your citations on the elements of the spell that conclusively proves that Adam
A. was made of a clay figurine, or in fact clay at all.
B. is described as a Golem in the Scripture anywhere.
Also please cite the text of the earliest record that you speak of and link to the translation so that we can begin to exegete it. You made some interpretations and drew some parallels that would have to be very strongly indicated by reliable translation and exegetical scrutiny. Let’s do that. Because even as you describe it… there were seven first humans and there were obviously multiple gods in that so already we are far off of Genesis. Where is Adam soaked in blood? Where is Eve soaked in blood? And were the seven male and female humans described as Golems or humans because again… trivially… a golem spell should result in a GOLEM or the word golem should be prominently available in the translation manuscript original. Perhaps the definition is at fault. What definition of Golem are you using? Also, if you’re drawing a Jesus parallel there you’ll have to prove that one with more than just a trivial reference to blood play. Jesus’ blood is not used literally as a tool for salvation. I don’t believe anywhere in the Bible it says you have to wait for Jesus to splash fluids on you for salvation literally. He also didn’t stay dead which I must assume the god killed in the legend you speak of did. Also, in common Christian usage and in definition gods don’t do magic, they do miracles. Men do magic. Perhaps there are examples of people misusing these words but magic is done by magicians, wizards, sorcerers, and shaman and the like. These are men, not gods. Gods do miracles.

“I obviously have already read the whole of Leviticus 14 and understood that the spell didn't cure anything. It certainly couldn't have cured leprosy, like you thought it could. Scabies maybe, and that's the most their best practice could do. Otherwise the ritual was as pointless as the sacrifices god demanded then too. But it was presented as an elemental spell, incorporating each of the five points on a pentacle, once thought to be the five elements. “

I NEVER argued that there was a spell much less that the ritual cured anything. That’s a straw man. You specifically claim that this passage reflects a spell meant to cure leprosy. First, it is not a spell by any definition of the word. It is not meant to harness any magical energy nor cure anything. It is a ritual cleansing to declare the person ceremonially clean of the plague. In fact the ritual itself is only ceremonial and needs no supernatural intervention of any kind. To illustrate this point let’s talk about the process described in this passage.

Lev 13” 43 Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh; 44 He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head. 45 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. 46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.”

First, there is a diagnosis of uncleanness. The person who had been diagnosed with the skin disease was sent away from the camp so as to not infect others. Then… after time had passed the priest would go and see if the disease had gotten better…

Lev 14” 14 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest: 3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; 4 Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:”

The ritual only begins after the person has already healed. Read the text, its right there in verse 3. If he is already clearly declared to have been healed where there was no preceding ritual or ‘spell’ and this ritual is only initiated AFTER he is proven to be disease free then there is no way this can be read to indicate that the ritual was the thing that did the healing. This, therefore, cannot be a ‘spell’ intended to cure anything. I have seen this explained to you before and the text is plain as day. Also, the idea of ritual cleanliness is all over the Old Testament. Ritual washing and the like. In fact, at one point in this chapter, after the leper is declared clean he is washed and shaved and his clothes are thoroughly cleaned as well. Why do this if they can just cast a spell and cure him again?

In reference to your assertion that blasphemy against the holy spirit is unbelief:
First off remember that the five or six verses preceding the statement of the unpardonable sin Jesus talks about a house being divided against itself and how it cannot stand that way? Also, he states that to seize the goods from a strong man’s house you must first bind him. This puts the next remarks in context. This is what he means: If you attribute the work of the holy spirit as evil or associate it with Satan then you are dividing the house against itself, this is a problem, obviously.

Mark 3” 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by [k]Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but [l]he is finished! 27 But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. 28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

That is why we are taught from textbooks on the subject thus:
“2a. From Grudem standard text ‘Systematic Theology’ page 648
“[referencing Mark 3:28-30] These statements are made in a context in which the Pharisees willfully and maliciously attribute to Satan the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that was evident in the ministry of Jesus. Since the Holy Spirit so clearly manifested the presence of God, those who willfully and maliciously spoke against him and attributed his activity instead to the power of Satan were guilty, Jesus said, “of an eternal sin”
The word or concept of unbelief is never mentioned or implied. It wasn’t disbelief in God or Jesus according to standard theology texts. The sins were sins. You are convicted of sins that you sin. If you lie, cheat, steal, adulter etc you have sinned and the penalty is death. Faith that Jesus’ death atones for that penalty in Christian theology. Not believing is not the sin that cost you the kingdom… lying, stealing, etc… does that.
And if you read my response to your assertion about unbelief being punished in the OT you must know by now that it was not unbelief that resulted in the penalty. It was serving other Gods and worshiping them. This meant child sacrifice usually, or other reprehensible behavior which God SPECIFICALLY FORBADE. See: Solomon's story or Leviticus 18.

"Jesus said a lot of crazy contradictory things in the legends about him. For example, he said that we had to follow "every jot and tittle" of the old laws of Moses. Yet he was OK with breaking his own rules. He said that if God meant for men to be circumcised they would be born without foreskins, one of only a couple lines of actual wisdom to be attributed to that character. He also said his followers could work on the Sabbath if they had to, and he countered the old tradition of washing hands before eating. Because Jesus amazingly thought that nothing a man eats could defile him, not filth or poison, drugs, broken glass or infectious pathogens which of course he knew nothing at all about. He said that anything a man eats will be pooped out harmlessly, even though we know better. He said that what defiles a man is what comes OUT of his mouth. This is a man who pretended to exorcise demons. You wouldn't want to get medical advice from that guy.”

Cite that quote from Jesus please about circumcision. You make a lot of assertions but then don’t provide the text or any other evidence that your interpretation is indicated, supported, or anything other than your own misunderstanding and a straw man. You haven’t established your own authority in these matters in any way that you can appeal to so you have to cite Scripture, then show how your interpretation is indicated in the translation by showing how it is supported in the original text of the manuscript. This is how you debate theological matters and Scripture. Extraordinary claims require… sing it with me now!
We need to unpack that hand washing thing. The tradition of washing of hands the Pharisees talk about was just that.. a tradition. It was not Scripture. Jesus explicitly says that the substitution of the traditions of men for Scripture is what he is talking about… in Matthew 15:3 (NASB). This is a lesson in parable form not a statement about pathology.

“3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”
Then further he explains what he meant quite clearly about that which goes into a man defiling him…
“15 Peter [f]said to Him, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 [g]Jesus said, “Are you still lacking in understanding also? 17 Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is [h]eliminated? 18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.””
<i></i>

He was making a parable about defilement of the soul, not about food poisoning and he explicitly states this. The tradition of washing hands is not what makes a man ritually and spiritually clean. Another example, by the way, of spiritual cleanliness like the cleansing of the leper. It’s spiritual, not physical or pathological uncleanness that he is speaking of. The language is clear in any language and explicit to the point that you cannot be correct.

“I suggest that miracles and magic DO mean the same thing to both of us, because they both have the same definition. The only difference between miracles and magic is who does it. A boat may be considered a ship if it’s big enough. When a rich man is neurotic, we call him eccentric. When a V.I.P. is murdered, it’s an assassination. When a god performs magic, he’s working miracles."

Your statement is self-contradictory. If the difference between magic and miracles is who does it then they’re not the same thing in any sense. That’s a category fallacy. Men and God’s are not in the same category for obvious reasons. To suggest that a God does magic is blasphemous to a Christian because you put man on God’s level. For a God to perform magic there would have to be an authority higher than Him to appeal to and in the very definition of God we see this cannot be so. That is why the capitalization of Almighty was a big deal. In the definition you posted of Almighty read carefully. When you Capitalize it you speak specifically of the one God and the Websters you quoted was doing just that. Almighty power… a specific manifestation of the power of God is what the definition means when read the way it was written. If your editor missed it that is because either s/he made a mistake or s/he didn’t know this himself/herself. God does miracles, man does magic. A PhD in philosophy tried to teach you this and you stubbornly refused to even entertain the notion that a man with a PhD in meaning, logic, words, and debate (which is really what earning his degree would have entailed) might know something you don’t. Ships aren’t called ships because they reach a certain size… in the Navy a ship is called thus because it carries other boats. That is why submariners call submarines boats. I spent five years in the Navy and served 3 and a half years sea time forward deployed. I am pretty sure of what I just said because I lived on a ship which was docked regularly next to submarines which were always called boats… like for example the position on the submarine called “Chief of the Boat” who is the senior enlisted man and advisor to the command leadership.
Neurotic is a diagnosis with medical criteria. Eccentric is an adjective with a different meaning and no one will medicate you for just being diagnosed eccentric. Your argument fails on each and every level you try. You have to see that even with basic language the exact and specific meaning of the words you are using means your entire argument is equivocation by definition. If you refuse to admit this you are being dishonest, or at the very least disingenuous. The language is clear and you yourself provided the definitions. At the very least this is an argument from incredulity.

“In your very first post to me, you accused me of memorizing a lot of easily disproven lies and half-truths, yet after all this impressive verbiage, you've still failed to show one instance of either one. You're desperate to call me out, but you can't find one lie. All you can do is lie to me or lie about me. You have failed to show even one dishonest thing about what I do.”

I have provided copious evidence to substantiate these claims. You have been shown evidence, argument and logic with citation and correct usage. If you do not concede even one point here without actually thoroughly and conclusively disproving them with anything other than an appeal to your own authority then you are by definition a liar. You have been shown you are wrong and you persist you are right despite all evidence to the contrary defending your belief against all reason. That’s called lying. At least that’s what you call it.

“You say I lack the skills to even read the Bible and make sense of it, but you can't make sense of it yourself and later admitted that you were learning a lot of that from me. You're welcome.”

I said, I believe, that I learn a lot about the Bible debating you and people like you. That’s true. I learn a lot about specific passages by exegeting them to show you you’re wrong. Your interpretations have been shown to demonstrate a lack of any skill in textual analysis or defense of your analysis in an academic standard. This proves my claim.

“Belief in God does require gullibility, believing too quickly improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. Not only that but gullibility really is the sole criteria for redemption: Because all sins may be forgiven except for blasphemy against the holy spirit, which is another thing you were wrong about. Rejection of or disbelief in Jesus is considered blasphemy--as I already showed, and you never conceded that error either. Is it even possible for you to do that?”

If there is a God, believing in God is not gullibility. If there is not a God, then gullibility won’t save you anyway so your point is entirely rhetorical if not entirely irrelevant. I have also answered conclusively from a theology textbook to your assertion on the question of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which you have been conclusively been proven wrong on now. This also demonstrates the truth of my claim that you do not know enough about the Bible to successfully defend your own claims. Your textual analysis skills are insufficient to the task you claim to do with authority. Your claim to authority is made in you attempting to teach these concepts. Sometimes at colleges to university students. Do you preface all of your lectures with a disclaimer that you have no education or specialization in this field or do you make your lectures seem as if they are substantiated in academic fact? I rarely see you offer citations which means that every time you make a statement asserting something you are claiming that it is your authority which substantiates it. If there is no disclaimer you are attempting to teach with authority you don’t have therefore are claiming it falsely. That is fraud.

“Now regarding your allegation of fraud, I can prove--to your satisfaction--that several, if not all, professional creationists fit this description, but you will never be able to prove that about me. For example, to begin with, (1) what accomplishments or qualities do you think I ever claimed without justification? (2) When have I ever attempted to deceive anyone? You'd better be able to quote me verbatim, and you'd better be right. I was taught that you never accuse someone else of lying unless you can prove it right then. If you can't, then it's like sinking the cue along with the 8-ball. If you falsely accuse someone of lying, then you're the liar.”

Several professional Creationists are frauds. We agree entirely on that point. It does not absolve you, that is a red herring.
1. You claimed to have studied biology at a college level implying you have the educational competence to teach it. Your videos contain ostensibly apocryphal information therefore this must not be true. They also contain philosophical interpretations of scientific evidence such as that DNA can only be trivially called “code” or a “program” but is instead just a series of chemical reactions. You made many statements such as this with a graphic behind you which had a 3d model of a handlike appendage assembling genetic material. Do simple chemical reactions produce fingers that assemble 50 base pairs per second according to a code? Did you know that the code is error checked as well? Do chemical reactions check for errors and correct them or might intelligence have been required to create a system which does this? There has to be a code for there to be errors in the code. You are, therefore, a charlatan unless you prove the truth of the claim conclusively that you have the educational authority and subsequent qualifications to teach biology, theology, or philosophy which is what you purport to do in the EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL BIOLOGY you presented me. Show me your credentials or concede.

2. See above. I have quoted you verbatim and I accuse you of lying and misrepresenting yourself as a proven authority (with accompanying credentials) on any subject. I have made this claim in public for all to see because I believe it is true. I have offered evidence, and substantial proof for my claim: Ten typed pages of it. You have accused me of lying. If you cannot disprove this claim what does that make you in your own words? And please don’t just respond that you have already proven me wrong because thus far all you have done is claim you’re right and I’m wrong and offered no real arguments with evidence.

If I am proven wrong on any of these points I will be happy to retract my assertions as is necessary. Please have a good holiday.
 
arg-fallbackName="Gnug215"/>
Welcome Matthew.

Sorry it took a while to get you approved here. We had technical issues with our spam filter.

Seems to be working now. :)
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
Welcome Matthew.

I'd like to reply, but to be honest, it's a real chore trying to work out who said what to whom.

Can you give a precis of your contention, or your concern?
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
They also contain philosophical interpretations of scientific evidence such as that DNA can only be trivially called “code” or a “program” but is instead just a series of chemical reactions.

DNA is not a code, or a program. These are analogies, metaphors, the poetry of language... but DNA is a molecule, and a molecule - by definition - is a group of atoms held together by chemical bonds.

DNA is not a 'series of chemical reactions' (although it both is created by chemical reactions and produces chemical reactions itself) - but it is, undeniably, chemical being a molecule.

You made many statements such as this with a graphic behind you which had a 3d model of a handlike appendage assembling genetic material. Do simple chemical reactions produce fingers that assemble 50 base pairs per second according to a code?

DNA assuredly does produce fingers, but I am not sure what this additional requirement is. Why would fingers need to be able to perform chemical reactions?

Did you know that the code is error checked as well?

It's pretty standard knowledge, so one must assume that AronRa knows very well that there are a series of processes that maintain high fidelity in DNA replication. Of course, that doesn't mean DNA is a 'code', not least because it must then also be its own cipher.

Do chemical reactions check for errors and correct them...

Yes, DNA does so purely chemically.

... or might intelligence have been required to create a system which does this?

Not required, and not evident.

There has to be a code for there to be errors in the code.

There has to be a terrain for there to be a map, but there doesn't need to be a map for there to be a terrain. DNA is not a code - we call it a code because metaphors help people who lack expert knowledge to get some form of grasp on the subject through providing an analogy of something that is more familiar to them. While it might provide some visual aid to think of DNA as a code, it's important not to actually mistakenly assume that the analogy is the reality.

You are, therefore, a charlatan unless you prove the truth of the claim conclusively that you have the educational authority and subsequent qualifications to teach biology, theology, or philosophy which is what you purport to do in the EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL BIOLOGY you presented me. Show me your credentials or concede.

I think that's fucking rude of you, and if you demanded me to perform tricks like that on command, I'd tell you where to shove it. Also, it doesn't follow. You've just written a paragraph where you repeatedly show a misunderstanding of molecular biology, then conclude that AronRa is a charlatan - that's a non-sequitur you're simultaneously using to be obnoxious.

Perhaps rethink your strategy there, because it's not a pleasant look for you. Asking people rather than commanding them tends to net better results.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
MatthewLee said:
Alright so I will begin here. This is my first post so I will try to address a large number of claims. If I miss anything essential please cite it and I will address one by one as we go.
The ORIGINAL claim which I had wanted you to prove was that

“RNA BUILDS DNA” which you said verbatim in your video about abiogenesis. For evidence you offered me first a description of how mRNA is made from a DNA template using intermediate enzymatic processes. The you said that in your university level biology classes it was regularly stated. Then you posted a link to a command list for 3D modeling software in which the statement was made that the COMMAND RNA is used to model a DNA molecule along a specified path. From there I continue with where you admit this.

you said

“At this point, I had not realized that the quote I gave actually was talking about a computer program. I'm not a programmer, and Matt has already exhausted more of my time than anyone deserves. So I admit I didn't read his last couple posts thoroughly enough. But I obviously wasn't getting classroom biology lessons from a computer programming course. I said that my instructors said that RNA and builds DNA and I showed Matt a video explaining how. But he already knows about the central dogma, so he surely already knows about messenger RNA. Yet he's still asking me to explain that. Why?”

I had assumed that given the fact that you so often say that from “comfortable memory” you can prove evolution to anyone who will listen that this subject, genetic material… which informs such an important part of evolutionary biology and abiogenetic evidence that you would be able to immediately explain and easily substantiate your claim with a description of a chemical process.
You didn’t. You posted a command list from a computer program… not really knowing what it was and then attempted to assert it as proof of your claim. You also just admitted that you weren’t a programmer so it is likely you are not proficient in the software itself or aware that what you had said was referencing a command in the program and not at all a scientific assertion. You essentially admitted that you quoted an incorrect claim from an unrelated source which not only didn’t prove your assertion but cast doubt on your understanding of the material. I did not see any additional evidence added to your claim that RNA builds DNA but I do see an astounding amount of evidence including the central dogma of all molecular biology that, with only a few trivial exceptions which do not prove your case, information only moves from DNA to RNA to proteins. Your explicit statement that “RNA builds DNA” seems to directly contradict this and you still only offer as evidence that this statement is regularly made (anecdotally until you prove it) in your “college level” biology course for science majors. I expect you to follow through and prove your claim and I will, on my honor, be glad to admit I was wrong on this matter and retract my accusation of fraud if one or more of the following conditions is met or evidence is provided that satisfies the inquiry…
1. Which college did you take this course in? In a university one does need to specify they are taking a college level course. If you’re in college you are assumed to be in a college level course. Explain what the number of the course identifier was so that I can verify that this information would be taught in a similar course because I can find a syllabus for one online at the university you must specify you took this course at.
2. I asked for a syllabus, you did not provide it. How about a transcript showing the credits and the A you said you received?
3. I asked for a handout or any other course material from the class you said you took that proves your claim. How about a quote from a textbook or even a name of the professor so I can email them and substantiate your claim that the professor says this phrase regularly?
4. I asked for any conclusive evidence that RNA builds DNA and you talk about mRNA which is produced from DNA (with intermediate steps and enzymes) and is not used to create DNA in any way that I have found.

You have failed to prove your claim on three levels… you have not proven RNA can build DNA, you have not proven you took a course on biology and you have not proven that they taught that RNA builds DNA in the course you never proved you took. Did I miss some presented evidence? If I did please repost it or point to it in the debate because the central claim we are debating here you keep saying you have conclusively proved and yet in none of the videos you posted is there an example of RNA building DNA. Only the statement that such occurs which I called you out on in the video on abiogenesis. It’s in your words explicitly in the video.
You also failed to prove that RNA can spontaneously self-replicate (with or without enzyme in your words) outside of tightly controlled laboratory circumstances. You provided no evidence of this you only said you did. The videos you posted I have watched thoroughly and none of them contain one instance of either spontaneously self-replicating RNA in nature or RNA building DNA but they do contain multiple examples which confirm the central dogma that you are attempting to contradict.
Once again, I repeat, I am obviously NOT contradicting the central dogma. My previous explanations and videos demonstrate that. The evidence that my video did in fact present and which you somehow missed despite repeatedly viewing it thoroughly described how "Scientists had already shown that by dripping solutions of amino acids or RNA nucleotides onto a particular type of clay it produced polymers. Nucleotide precursors spontaneously assembled into RNA strands, even without the help of enzymes or ribosomes".

I guess you thought I was lying when I said that, but you should figure out pretty quickly that I don’t lie. That “particular type of clay” is montmorillonite. “It catalyses the formation of oligomers of RNA that contain monomer units from 2 to 30–50. Oligomers of this length are formed because this catalyst controls the structure of the oligomers formed and does not generate all possible isomers. ...This montmorillonite serves as an efficient catalyst for the formation of RNA oligomers, if the exchangeable cation is an alkali or an alkaline earth metal ion. ...Changing the phosphate-activating group from imidazole to 1-methyladenine resulted in the formation of 40–50 mers of A or U in 1–3 days without the need of a primer. These advances were important because they generated longer oligomers with the capability of storing more genetic information as well as having enhanced catalytic capability. ...The formation of two identical copies of the same 50 mer would require the synthesis of 1054 RNAs weighing 1034 g. Two RNAs may be required to catalyse the synthesis of the other. Catalysis provides a solution to this problem of RNA oligomers."

This is according to Montmorillonite-catalysed formation of RNA oligomers: the possible role of catalysis in the origins of life. Since you wouldn't take my word for it before, and imagined that I could just make up something like this, are you now satisfied that I have provided sufficient evidence to show that I was telling the truth?
From this one may infer someone who does understand the process created the materials for you but that you yourself did not understand what you narrated. The law of non-contradiction would seem to insist that your statement cannot be true unless the central doctrine of molecular biology is false. You keep telling me you proved things and that is not proving them. Evidence proves them. If you can’t show it, you don’t know it. Specifically point to a timestamp in either of the videos you posted where DNA is built by RNA, please.
Also “Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a large family of RNA molecules that convey genetic information from DNA to the ribosome, where they specify the amino acid sequence of the protein products of gene expression. Following transcription of primary transcript mRNA (known as pre-mRNA) by RNA polymerase, processed, mature mRNA is translated into a polymer of amino acids: a protein, as summarized in the central dogma of molecular biology.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messenger_RNA
This is why I keep asking why and for proof. You don’t seem to understand the statement you made. Or perhaps I don’t so clarify it, retract it, or provide evidence to prove it.
I took my biology classes at the University of Texas at Dallas. I don't remember the instructor's name; nor would that matter either today or all those years ago. Nor would a syllabus or hand-out detail all the lessons and certainly not everything the instructor every said. But if we were to ask whether he ever said that "RNA builds DNA" or words to that effect, we can determine that from other sources. Since we were talking about abiogenesis at that time, I was referring to the "RNA-first" or "RNA world" hypothesis, which is based on the fact that some of the most primitive quasi-living cells have only RNA while others may have both RNA and DNA. So referencing the Origin and Evolution of DNA and DNA Replication Machineries, I can cite peer-reviewed literature saying that: "DNA can be considered as a modified form of RNA, since the “normal” ribose sugar in RNA is reduced into deoxyribose in DNA, whereas the “simple” base uracil is methylated into thymidine. In modern cells, the DNA precursors (the four deoxyribonucleoties, dNTPs) are produced by reduction of ribonucleotides di- or triphosphate by ribonucleotide reductases (fig. 1). The synthesis of DNA building blocks from RNA precursors is a major argument in favor of RNA preceding DNA in evolution".

Note that the word "synthesis" means "to compose or build". So here we have a handful of professional biologists, (Patrick Forterre, Jonathan Filée, and Hannu Myllykallio) saying that RNA builds DNA. This isn't just in the hypothetical RNA-world but right now today. I've already explained that in the biology lesson that I shared with you, and you've already explained it too.

Remember, I thought you knew this. It took me a while to figure out what your conceptual problem was. Now I think I've figured out that you thought I was saying that RNA builds DNA out of nothing out of base components in the absence of existing DNA. No, as I already explained in my video (why else would I show it to you?) I'm obviously aware that at this time we begin with DNA. Otherwise why would I have explained that in my videos? But different forms of RNA play a number of roles in building DNA back especially from the "building blocks". This is another reason so many scientists suspect that RNA came before DNA and that the origin of DNA was that it was constructed by RNA--because it still is to some degree.

When I accidentally cited a computer programmer saying "RNA builds DNA", yes he was talking about a program they designed... to be consistent with nature. Why else would they design it that way?
Now I will address some of the other claims you made and offer the best evidence I can.
“Right away you accuse me of "strange logic" because of your mistaken interpretation that the serpent in the garden was originally supposed to be Satan. You never conceded that I was right about the Christian church commissioning Medieval and Renaissance painters to depict the serpent as a woman. You failed to concede that Satan's biological sex never had anything to do with that, because they never interpreted that the way you do; nor should you, as your scriptures don't support that.”

The first thing we need to establish here is the central Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura
“The phrase sola scriptura is from the Latin: sola having the idea of “alone,” “ground,” “base,” and the word scriptura meaning “writings”—referring to the Scriptures. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).</I>
Which is obviously incorrect.
Sola scriptura was the rallying cry of the Protestant Reformation. For centuries the Roman Catholic Church had made its traditions superior in authority to the Bible. This resulted in many practices that were in fact contradictory to the Bible. Some examples are prayer to saints and/or Mary, the immaculate conception,transubstantiation, infant baptism, indulgences, and papal authority. Martin Luther, the founder of the Lutheran Church and father of the Protestant Reformation, was publicly rebuking the Catholic Church for its unbiblical teachings. The Catholic Church threatened Martin Luther with excommunication (and death) if he did not recant. Martin Luther's reply was, “Unless therefore I am convinced by the testimony of Scripture, or by the clearest reasoning, unless I am persuaded by means of the passages I have quoted, and unless they thus render my conscience bound by the Word of God, I cannot and will not retract, for it is unsafe for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand, I can do no other; may God help me! Amen!”
https://www.gotquestions.org/sola-scriptura.html

What this means is that Scripture is the sole resource for truth. Not supplementary material like the Talmud or other Jewish academic writings and CERTAINLY not Catholic Church tradition and dogma or paintings. You are entirely correct that In the SCRIPTURE the serpent is never explicitly specified to be Satan but there is evidence that indicated that it is Satan. This is an inference from a story which is obviously allegory. It is supported in passages such as:
John 8“43Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. “
Your assertion that the Bible never explicitly says this is correct to the best of my knowledge because it should not need to be spelled out. The adversary of Humanity.. and that is what Satan means, Adversary… (Strongs 7854) is surely what the serpent can be shown to be. The Serpent in the Garden leads Eve astray with lies.. from the beginning… resulting in death entering the world. He was a murderer from the beginning. That old Serpent Satan.
Was he literally a talking snake? Well, is there literally a fruit that instantly confers knowledge of moral reasoning? Even in the bronze age they probably would have been hip to the idea that this was an allegorical story. Jesus, the Word in the flesh, speaks in many, many parables… which are in keeping with this idea of metaphorical communication of big ideas. Complex ideas and concepts explained through the device of stories which convey the essential information as in when you tell a young child that babies come from Mommy’s tummy. The kid doesn’t need to know more than that because at his age the truth would break his little mind and leave him scarred for life.
In reference to his biological sex… the only necessary indication of Satans biological sex in the Scripture is that both the Hebrew for Satan and the Hebrew for Serpent (Strongs 5175) are both masculine Hebrew nouns. Can you refute this in Hebrew with a citation or the opinion of a Hebrew Scholar of note and specialist in the language? All the other stuff about Lilith or paintings is Catholic nonsense firmly rejected by the Protestant community as not Scriptural. If I am wrong on this notion please cite me a reference of a Protestant Scholar certifying that the serpent in the Garden had a woman’s face.
My mother always wanted me to read the Book of Mormon as if that would reveal the true word of God. She admitted that the it was based on the Bible. So I told her that if her religion came later than the foundations of Christianity, then I should look to the foundation rather than any subsequent off-shoot of that, and if the foundation failed then all the religions based on it must also fail. Martin Luther's heretical departure from Catholicism was not the origin of Christianity. Neither was Catholocism. It wasn't even Orthodoxy as there were many disparate and wildly contradicting sects of early Christian cults before Paul and the Nicene convention began trying to force conformity and achieve unity.

The character of the serpent was adapted from the story of Lilith and Huluppu tree, as you probably already knew. She lived in a tree in the sacred garden of Inanna with "the Serpent who could not be tamed". Gilgamesh came walking through the sacred garden just as Yahweh did in Genesis 3:8, carrying a flaming sword like the one mentioned in Genesis 3:24. This is where part of that legend came from, at least the part with the snake.

Yes, Jesus later on accuses the Pharisees of being snakes too, and the spawn of Satan as well, but clearly he did not mean that any of them were the actual devil, certainly not that all of them were. It was just an insult. He obviously didn't mean it literally.

The reference to Satan as "that old serpent" in Revelations doesn't refer to THAT old serpent from Genesis, because the serpent in the garden had no legs yet that old serpent in Revelations was said to be standing on the beach, and he had seven heads. Did the serpent in Genesis have seven heads? If not then we know we're not talking about the same character.

The first time Satan is mentioned by name is in a story chronologically after that one, and he is said to be walking, which he couldn't be if he was the serpent because the serpent was cursed to crawl on his belly all the rest of his days. So the serpent was just a snake and not Satan.

Another reason we know this is that in that story Satan and Yahweh are friends and have never had a falling out. Clearly then this is not the same guy who's "seed" would have to eat dust and be bruised by the heels of men forever afterward.

Talmudic legend however did the same thing the Christians did, or rather still do. They read between the lines and make up stuff that it doesn't really say or imply. In their version, Lilith was created first as an equal to Adam. Because of that, she didn't want to be submissive to him. She didn't want to be "on bottom". She knew Yahweh's true name and that gave her the power of flight. So she flew out of the garden and had an orgy with demons on the banks of the Red Sea.

Then in another subsequent legend, Lilith returned to the garden in the guise of her former companion, the serpent who could not be tamed. In her absence, God created a second wife, Eve, and now the ex was feeling vengeful about the younger woman. That's why the serpent in the garden is so commonly depicted as a woman.

The "opposer" that you mentioned is based on a Zoroastrian deity. In the Avestas of Zarathustra (circa 600 BCE) it says that the good men will ascend to the Kingdom of Justice and Truth under righteous lord Uhura Mazda while evil men will descend into the Kingdom of the Lie ruled by Ahriman the Opposer, also known as Ha Shaitan, the satan. So that character was invented by the Persians.

Biblical scholars say that Judasim, the basis of Christianity was more influenced by Zoroastrianism than any other source, and that's where they got the concept of Satan. But the story I just told you influenced Christianity directly bypassing the Jewish religion. The Jewish Hell, Sheol was more influence by the Hellenist and Sumerian concepts of a single land of the dead where everyone went when they died regardless whether they were good or bad, and they were dead there too, in the sense that they weren't usually weren't conscious or anything.
“3c. Golems did not always require a written spell. The earliest record of them in fact had a collection of Semitic gods "breathe the breath of life" into their clay figurines. Ironically this was the myth on which Genesis 1 is based rather than Genesis 2. In that story the gods essentially said "let us make man in our image". Male and female the elohim created them. Seven male, seven female. Then they killed one of the gods as a sacrifice and the figurines were soaked in his blood. Sound familiar?
Then they became the first people. That's how gods do golem spells. “


I would like to see your citations on the claim that Adam was a Golem.
"Adam as Golem.
The imagination of the ancient Israelites frequently turned to the birth of the first man, who was formed of dust and not born of woman. A principal passage reads as follows: "How was Adam created? In the first hour his dust was collected; in the second his form was created; in the third he became a shapeless mass [golem];"

-Jewish Encyclopedia: GOLEM
I would like to specifically see a citation which proves that a specifically titled “Golem Spell” predates the Torah composition.
"Scholars in the first half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that the Yahwist was produced in the monarchic period, specifically at the court of Solomon, 10th century BCE, and the Priestly work in the middle of the 5th century BCE (the author was even identified as Ezra), but more recent thinking is that the Yahwist was written either just before or during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after."
-Revolvy: Genesis (Hebrew Bible)

"Written down in the mid-17th century BCE, the Atrahasis can be dated by the colophon to the reign of the Babylonian King Hammurabi's great-grandson, Ammi-Saduqa (1646-1626 BCE) though the tale itself is considered much older, passed down through oral transmission."
-Ancient History Encyclopedia
I would further like to see your citations on the elements of the spell that conclusively proves that Adam
A. was made of a clay figurine, or in fact clay at all.
"How exactly does one create a golem? Although there are many variations in recorded methods and proceedures, there seem to be a number of elements and steps common to most. These are:
The ritual cleansing and high qualifications of those creating the golem.
The use of some form of soil (sometimes clay or dust) to form the body of the golem, particularly soil which has never been plowed or used in any way.
The use of a verbal ritual to form the soil into a human form.
A concluding word or Name of God is used to activate the creature.
....When the body is complete, it is activated by means of placing a word or a name on its forehead or forearm, occasionally in its mouth (in one account an amulet bearing a Name of God is hung around the creature's neck). Popular "activation" word choices were adam (the first man, created out of the earth) and emet (truth). When it came time to deactivate the golem, the first letter of these words would be erased: without aleph, Adam becomes dam (blood), and without aleph, emet becomes met (dead). When the "live" word became a "dead" word, the golem would shut down."

-Practical Kabbalah
B. is described as a Golem in the Scripture anywhere.
"The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word גלמי (galmi; my golem), that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes.
....The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk".

-ipfs.io: Golem
Also please cite the text of the earliest record that you speak of and link to the translation so that we can begin to exegete it.
Do you really expect to translate from Cuneiform? Especially when that is being taken from photographs of 3,800 year-old fragments of clay tablets? All I can refer you to are the already-translated accounts of the Epic of Atrahasis.
You made some interpretations and drew some parallels that would have to be very strongly indicated by reliable translation and exegetical scrutiny. Let’s do that. Because even as you describe it… there were seven first humans and there were obviously multiple gods in that so already we are far off of Genesis.
Not as far as you think. Remember that Judaism is a Semitic religion, which means its roots are in the elder Semitic tradition, and that's where all these older stories come from. Your god, Yahweh began as a Canaanite deity and was blended with the story of the original father-god, El, who Jesus prayed to at his crucifixion. There are elements of Mesopotamian mythos all through your Bible. You just haven't recognized them. Elohim, for example is plural, meaning essentially "the gods". When your god said "Let US make man in OUR own image, he was obviously originally talking to the rest of the Elohim. Elements of several of the Genesis fables are unmistakably paralleled in the Epic of Atrahasis and a number of other pre-Biblical myths too, all written by the grandfathers of the Biblical authors more than a thousand years before the versions you recognize.
Where is Adam soaked in blood?
Obviously not every element translates. The notion of being "soaked in the blood" that Christians talk about is another element that bypassed Judaism. Another element of the origin of Adam is the legend of Adappa. He was taken to see the gods and warned not to accept anything they offer, because the gods might try to kill him. They offered food and he refused to eat, but they did not offer him the food of death like he thought. They offered him the food of life, that if he ate it, he would live forever. This is a prior parallel of Genesis 3:24, where Yahweh had to get Adam out of the sacred garden before he ate of the fruit of the tree of life, because then Adam would have become immortal.
Where is Eve soaked in blood?
Again, that originally polytheist concept skipped the Jews and embraced only by the Christians. Eve's origin is primarily in yet another legend. In this one, the god Enki was walking in the sacred garden eating all the fruit therein. But since the garden was restricted, all the fruit was forbidden. So the goddess Ninhursag caught him and cursed him, and he fell. But then she took pity on him in his fallen state and bore seven daughters, one for each of his wounds. One of them was called Ninti daughter of the rib, for she was born to close the wound to his side--an obvious prior parallel of Genesis 2:21.
And were the seven male and female humans described as Golems or humans because again… trivially… a golem spell should result in a GOLEM or the word golem should be prominently available in the translation manuscript original.
As we've already seen, that's not always the case. The story of the seven male and seven female figurines is apparently the origin or inspiration for Genesis 1:27. That's why there are two contradictory creation accounts, where in one the elohim creates males and females at the same time and in the next one he creates one man all alone and then conjures the rib girl.

Remember - for oh so many reasons, many which should be screamingly obvious, we know for certain that all of these are just fables imagined in the minds of men adopted and adapted from the elder religions of neighboring regions, but there is not even a kernel of truth to any of these ancient myths in any form whatsoever, not even in their original form.
Perhaps the definition is at fault. What definition of Golem are you using?
go·lem
/ˈɡōləm/ noun
(in Jewish legend) a clay figure brought to life by magic.

Also, if you’re drawing a Jesus parallel there you’ll have to prove that one with more than just a trivial reference to blood play. Jesus’ blood is not used literally as a tool for salvation. I don’t believe anywhere in the Bible it says you have to wait for Jesus to splash fluids on you for salvation literally.
True, but that phrase is frequently used as an excuse to justify crimes or escape prosecution. Remember when Bobby Brown was sentenced in court? He shouted in defiance, "I'm soaked in the blood", which to him meant that he was somehow justified by Jesus' forgiveness and therefore somehow innocent of any crime according to Man's law.
He also didn’t stay dead which I must assume the god killed in the legend you speak of did.
Yeah, that's the biggest failure of Jesus' sacrifice. That's why it's not really a sacrifice at all. It's also one of the reasons he failed to meet any of Messianic prophesies. He should have stayed dead, but it's OK. Krishna didn't stay dead either. Neither did Dionysus and a handful of others.

Prometheus is a prior parallel of Jesus. He was crucified for the same crime as the serpent in Genesis, revealing forbidden knowledge so that men would be like unto the gods. Because Prometheus was a proper god, he couldn't be killed. So he was crucified on a rock for 10,000 years, and every day of that time, a vulture tore out his liver, which grew back by the next day.

There's an amusing story of Jesus at a god party talking to Prometheus about his three days in the land of the dead, to which Prometheus replies, "sounds like a bummer of a weekend".
Also, in common Christian usage and in definition gods don’t do magic, they do miracles. Men do magic. Perhaps there are examples of people misusing these words but magic is done by magicians, wizards, sorcerers, and shaman and the like. These are men, not gods. Gods do miracles.
As I already explained, the words "miracle" and "magic" have essentially the same definition, being the evocation of supernatural forces or entities to control or forecast natural events in ways that are inexplicable by science because they defy the laws of physics.

“I obviously have already read the whole of Leviticus 14 and understood that the spell didn't cure anything. It certainly couldn't have cured leprosy, like you thought it could. Scabies maybe, and that's the most their best practice could do. Otherwise the ritual was as pointless as the sacrifices god demanded then too. But it was presented as an elemental spell, incorporating each of the five points on a pentacle, once thought to be the five elements. “

I NEVER argued that there was a spell much less that the ritual cured anything. That’s a straw man. You specifically claim that this passage reflects a spell meant to cure leprosy. First, it is not a spell by any definition of the word. It is not meant to harness any magical energy nor cure anything. It is a ritual cleansing to declare the person ceremonially clean of the plague. In fact the ritual itself is only ceremonial and needs no supernatural intervention of any kind. To illustrate this point let’s talk about the process described in this passage.

Lev 13” 43 Then the priest shall look upon it: and, behold, if the rising of the sore be white reddish in his bald head, or in his bald forehead, as the leprosy appeareth in the skin of the flesh; 44 He is a leprous man, he is unclean: the priest shall pronounce him utterly unclean; his plague is in his head. 45 And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. 46 All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; without the camp shall his habitation be.”

First, there is a diagnosis of uncleanness. The person who had been diagnosed with the skin disease was sent away from the camp so as to not infect others. Then… after time had passed the priest would go and see if the disease had gotten better…

Lev 14” 14 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2 This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest: 3 And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; 4 Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop:”

The ritual only begins after the person has already healed. Read the text, its right there in verse 3. If he is already clearly declared to have been healed where there was no preceding ritual or ‘spell’ and this ritual is only initiated AFTER he is proven to be disease free then there is no way this can be read to indicate that the ritual was the thing that did the healing. This, therefore, cannot be a ‘spell’ intended to cure anything. I have seen this explained to you before and the text is plain as day. Also, the idea of ritual cleanliness is all over the Old Testament. Ritual washing and the like. In fact, at one point in this chapter, after the leper is declared clean he is washed and shaved and his clothes are thoroughly cleaned as well. Why do this if they can just cast a spell and cure him again?
Ritual magic often includes wards. In this case, to prevent reinfection. I note that you didn't mention any portion of this one, because there is no defensible reason to do it and so no real god would command or even permit it.

Leviticus 14:1-7
And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest: And the priest shall go forth out of the camp; and the priest shall look, and, behold, if the plague of leprosy be healed in the leper; Then shall the priest command to take for him that is to be cleansed two birds alive and clean, and cedar wood, and scarlet, and hyssop: And the priest shall command that one of the birds be killed in an earthen vessel over running water: As for the living bird, he shall take it, and the cedar wood, and the scarlet, and the hyssop, and shall dip them and the living bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the running water: And he shall sprinkle upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the living bird loose into the open field.

So the "leper" is already healed, but not "cleansed", as if that was necessary. To cleanse him, they need crimson yarn (why not yellow or blue?), an earthenware bowl (why not wood or glass?), cedar wood (why not aspen or pine?) and a particular middle-eastern herb (why specifically that one?). Then you have to use all of these elements in a ritual which includes a blood sacrifice. Then you have to sprinkle the blood of the dead bird all over everything to "cleanse" the guy you've already healed--as if you wouldn't have cleanse yourself of all that bird blood. Then to get the final element, air into it, you've got to dip the living bird into the dead bird's blood and let it fly. This your god decrees to be how you "cleanse" someone after they've been healed.

That doesn't sound like an elemental spell to you? Maybe you should look it up.

Elemental Spell
It will bring the Elements to you and bring luck it's wake".
Suggested Tools:
Salt. Dirt. Bowl of water. Crystal. Empty Jar. Open Flame.

-Witchipedia

I dated a lot of witches, so I'm pretty familiar with this. Obviously the "suggested" tools may vary.

If that still doesn't sound like a spell to you, remember that they don't do anything that would actually cleanse anyone until after this senseless practice that looks exactly like an elemental spell.

But it gets even worse, because after that, there's another utterly pointless multiple component ritual to "atone" for being ill too. Read what is required for that. Not just the second wholly unnecessary blood sacrifice, but the really stupid stuff besides that. It's inane. Surely not even you believe that your "intelligent designer" came up with that bullshit plan.
In reference to your assertion that blasphemy against the holy spirit is unbelief:
First off remember that the five or six verses preceding the statement of the unpardonable sin Jesus talks about a house being divided against itself and how it cannot stand that way? Also, he states that to seize the goods from a strong man’s house you must first bind him. This puts the next remarks in context. This is what he means: If you attribute the work of the holy spirit as evil or associate it with Satan then you are dividing the house against itself, this is a problem, obviously.
I've already addressed this with relevant citations which you ignored.

"Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and the unpardonable sin are the same thing: at their core they are rejection of Jesus Christ (i.e., disbelief)."
-ichthys.com

Rejection of or disbelief in Jesus is considered blasphemy--as I already showed.

In fact disbelief is such a sin that your sacred story book says that unbelievers may be murdered on the word of one or two witnesses.
.
2b. Deuteronomy 13:6-11
"If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.

Continued in Deuteronomy 17:2-7
"If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. At the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall he that is worthy of death be put to death; but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death. The hands of the witnesses shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hands of all the people. So thou shalt put the evil away from among you.

So your Bible says that merely disbelief is such a sin as to deserve death sentence without even a trial.
Mark 3” 22 The scribes who came down from Jerusalem were saying, “He is possessed by [k]Beelzebul,” and “He casts out the demons by the ruler of the demons.” 23 And He called them to Himself and began speaking to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? 24 If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. 26 If Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but [l]he is finished! 27 But no one can enter the strong man’s house and plunder his property unless he first binds the strong man, and then he will plunder his house. 28 “Truly I say to you, all sins shall be forgiven the sons of men, and whatever blasphemies they utter; 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— 30 because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit.”

That is why we are taught from textbooks on the subject thus:
“2a. From Grudem standard text ‘Systematic Theology’ page 648
“[referencing Mark 3:28-30] These statements are made in a context in which the Pharisees willfully and maliciously attribute to Satan the powerful work of the Holy Spirit that was evident in the ministry of Jesus. Since the Holy Spirit so clearly manifested the presence of God, those who willfully and maliciously spoke against him and attributed his activity instead to the power of Satan were guilty, Jesus said, “of an eternal sin”
The word or concept of unbelief is never mentioned or implied. It wasn’t disbelief in God or Jesus according to standard theology texts. The sins were sins. You are convicted of sins that you sin. If you lie, cheat, steal, adulter etc you have sinned and the penalty is death. Faith that Jesus’ death atones for that penalty in Christian theology. Not believing is not the sin that cost you the kingdom… lying, stealing, etc… does that.
And if you read my response to your assertion about unbelief being punished in the OT you must know by now that it was not unbelief that resulted in the penalty. It was serving other Gods and worshiping them. This meant child sacrifice usually, or other reprehensible behavior which God SPECIFICALLY FORBADE. See: Solomon's story or Leviticus 18.
The Bible is as clear as the confessions.1 It says God counts humans as worthy of heaven—even though we’re not worthy in ourselves—if we believe specific content about Jesus known as the gospel. In particular, we must believe that Jesus is God in the flesh, that He died to pay the penalty for humanity’s sin, was buried, rose from the grave, and ascended to heaven, where He reigns and saves. Peter outlined this message on the Day of Pentecost, and all who believed it and turned from their sins received forgiveness (Acts 2:38). Likewise, Paul said people are “saved” from eternal judgment if they “hold fast” to this message (1 Corinthians 15:2).

Many other Bible passages also teach that a person must believe in order to have eternal life in heaven. In every instance, the implied content to be believed is the gospel: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe” (1 Corinthians 1:21). Of course, good deeds are required of every believer, but those good deeds are inevitable fruit of Christian faith, not a means of earning salvation (James 2:14-26).2

Can someone who doesn’t believe in the Christian God go to heaven? No.

-BibleMesh.com

Only believers can be saved according to:
Mark 16:16
John 3:18,36 5:24, 6:40,47 11:25-26
Acts 10:43
Romans 4:5, 10:4
Ephesians 2:8-9
Proverbs 16:25

While unbelivers are damned regardless.
Deuteronomy 17:2,7
Isaiah 64:6
Mark 3:28
Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 2:13
"Jesus said a lot of crazy contradictory things in the legends about him. For example, he said that we had to follow "every jot and tittle" of the old laws of Moses. Yet he was OK with breaking his own rules. He said that if God meant for men to be circumcised they would be born without foreskins, one of only a couple lines of actual wisdom to be attributed to that character. He also said his followers could work on the Sabbath if they had to, and he countered the old tradition of washing hands before eating. Because Jesus amazingly thought that nothing a man eats could defile him, not filth or poison, drugs, broken glass or infectious pathogens which of course he knew nothing at all about. He said that anything a man eats will be pooped out harmlessly, even though we know better. He said that what defiles a man is what comes OUT of his mouth. This is a man who pretended to exorcise demons. You wouldn't want to get medical advice from that guy.”

Cite that quote from Jesus please about circumcision.

53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"
He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."

-Gospel of Thomas
You make a lot of assertions but then don’t provide the text or any other evidence that your interpretation is indicated, supported, or anything other than your own misunderstanding and a straw man. You haven’t established your own authority in these matters in any way that you can appeal to so you have to cite Scripture, then show how your interpretation is indicated in the translation by showing how it is supported in the original text of the manuscript. This is how you debate theological matters and Scripture. Extraordinary claims require… sing it with me now!
Exactly what I have provided.
We need to unpack that hand washing thing. The tradition of washing of hands the Pharisees talk about was just that.. a tradition. It was not Scripture. Jesus explicitly says that the substitution of the traditions of men for Scripture is what he is talking about… in Matthew 15:3 (NASB). This is a lesson in parable form not a statement about pathology.

“3 And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?”
Then further he explains what he meant quite clearly about that which goes into a man defiling him…
“15 Peter [f]said to Him, “Explain the parable to us.” 16 [g]Jesus said, “Are you still lacking in understanding also? 17 Do you not understand that everything that goes into the mouth passes into the stomach, and is [h]eliminated? 18 But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.””
<i></i>

He was making a parable about defilement of the soul, not about food poisoning and he explicitly states this.
<I>He explicitly lies that "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." He was wrong. There are no demons, no magical incantations, curses or any of that, but there are poisons, pathogens, drugs, and inedible indigestible or filthy things that will not make it through the colon before the defile the man.
The tradition of washing hands is not what makes a man ritually and spiritually clean.
There's no such thing as a spirit anyway. They only believed that because they didn't know that air was particulate matter, but everyone knew you would die if you couldn’t breathe. So they believed that the movement of air was somehow spiritual. YHWH was granted this aspect as well, so when Genesis 1:2 says that only “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters,” it's talking about the wind.

I can explain a lot more about that, but I don't think you're paying attention anyway.
Another example, by the way, of spiritual cleanliness like the cleansing of the leper. It’s spiritual, not physical or pathological uncleanness that he is speaking of. The language is clear in any language and explicit to the point that you cannot be correct.
I can't be correct? You're proving my point for me! These are spiritual rituals, not functional actions with practical application. In other words, it's fucking magic.
“I suggest that miracles and magic DO mean the same thing to both of us, because they both have the same definition. The only difference between miracles and magic is who does it. A boat may be considered a ship if it’s big enough. When a rich man is neurotic, we call him eccentric. When a V.I.P. is murdered, it’s an assassination. When a god performs magic, he’s working miracles."

Your statement is self-contradictory.
No it isn't.
If the difference between magic and miracles is who does it then they’re not the same thing in any sense. That’s a category fallacy.
Wrong for the reasons I already explained and you obviously didn't understand.
Men and God’s are not in the same category for obvious reasons. To suggest that a God does magic is blasphemous to a Christian because you put man on God’s level. For a God to perform magic there would have to be an authority higher than Him to appeal to and in the very definition of God we see this cannot be so.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, yet accuse me of category failure!? When God turns a stick into a snake, that's a miracle--because a god did it, and that's what magic done by a god. When Moses turns a stick into a snake, or when Pharaoh's magi do it, that's magic--because it's done by men, and THEY have to seek that higher power which God does not have to do.
That is why the capitalization of Almighty was a big deal.
Not.
In the definition you posted of Almighty read carefully. When you Capitalize it you speak specifically of the one God and the Websters you quoted was doing just that. Almighty power… a specific manifestation of the power of God is what the definition means when read the way it was written. If your editor missed it that is because either s/he made a mistake or s/he didn’t know this himself/herself.
Yet everything you just said is wrong because the definition I copied already had it in lower case.

al·might·y
/ôlˈmīdē/ adjective
having complete power; omnipotent.
"God almighty"
synonyms: all-powerful, omnipotent, supreme, preeminent
"I swear by almighty God"
a name or title for God.
noun: Almighty; noun: the Almighty
"I wanted to beg the Almighty for mercy"


That definition specified that it is only to be capitalized when it used as a proper noun, which was never the way I used it.
God does miracles, man does magic. A PhD in philosophy tried to teach you this and you stubbornly refused to even entertain the notion that a man with a PhD in meaning, logic, words, and debate (which is really what earning his degree would have entailed) might know something you don’t.
Wrong, wrong and wrong. That gods do miracles and men do magic is what I was trying to teach you. The PhD you're referring was not trying to teach me that, and I always assume that anyone with any apparent education must certainly know something I don't. It wasn't until I followed his suggestion and looked up the things to he told me to check that I discovered how wrong he was.

Well, I knew immediately that he pulled the definition of "fact" out of his ass just so he wouldn't have to admit defeat. That was obvious.
Ships aren’t called ships because they reach a certain size… in the Navy a ship is called thus because it carries other boats. That is why submariners call submarines boats. I spent five years in the Navy and served 3 and a half years sea time forward deployed. I am pretty sure of what I just said because I lived on a ship which was docked regularly next to submarines which were always called boats… like for example the position on the submarine called “Chief of the Boat” who is the senior enlisted man and advisor to the command leadership.
That may be the definition the Navy uses, but it is not the mainstream or common definition I was using.

ship
/SHip/
noun
1. a vessel larger than a boat for transporting people or goods by sea.

Neurotic is a diagnosis with medical criteria. Eccentric is an adjective with a different meaning and no one will medicate you for just being diagnosed eccentric.
The point is that traditionally the very wealthy would get away with acting strange without being diagnosed.
Your argument fails on each and every level you try.
Hasn't failed yet.
You have to see that even with basic language the exact and specific meaning of the words you are using means your entire argument is equivocation by definition. If you refuse to admit this you are being dishonest, or at the very least disingenuous.
Or I'm still right and have been all along, because I adhere to strict definitions and do NOT allow for multiple different meanings, especially not when there is a chance of misleading double interpretation. I haven't done or allowed that once in this conversation so far, and I won't either.
The language is clear and you yourself provided the definitions. At the very least this is an argument from incredulity.
It can't be the incredulity fallacy either, because at no point did I ever imply in any way that any of this was beyond my comprehension, though you seem to have that problem.
“In your very first post to me, you accused me of memorizing a lot of easily disproven lies and half-truths, yet after all this impressive verbiage, you've still failed to show one instance of either one. You're desperate to call me out, but you can't find one lie. All you can do is lie to me or lie about me. You have failed to show even one dishonest thing about what I do.”

I have provided copious evidence to substantiate these claims.
Where did you do that? Because you should have posted that here and you haven't.
You have been shown evidence,
Of what? When?
argument and logic with citation and correct usage.
No, that's what I provided to correct your many errors.
If you do not concede even one point here without actually thoroughly and conclusively disproving them with anything other than an appeal to your own authority then you are by definition a liar.
I have disproved everything you've contested me on, but never on my own authority. I've given sound reasons, evidence and citations for everything.

However, even if I had not, that still wouldn't make me a liar. A lie is misinformation or information misrepresented with deliberate intent to deceive. This includes claiming baseless speculation as though it were fact and pretending to know what no one can know, but it does not include differences in opinion or of interpretation such as you're talking about. Not that it matters, because that's not what I did anyway.

Before you call someone a liar, you have to show that what they said was wrong. Again this can't be just a difference of opinion or interpretation. We're talking about matters of fact here. Then you have to prove that person knew it was wrong when they tried to promote it anyway.
You have been shown you are wrong and you persist you are right despite all evidence to the contrary defending your belief against all reason. That’s called lying. At least that’s what you call it.
So far, I don't think anyone reading this would agree that you've ever shown that anything I've said was wrong, not demonstrably so. You'll certainly never show any attempt to deceive on my part. However that's part of the reason that I like this forum. Believers will often lie on behalf of other believers, but science-minded folks are pedantic. If I actually said something wrong, the scientists who frequent this forum will tell me about it, and then I'll recant retract apologize and whatever else necessary to correct myself. It's happened before, but not with you.
“You say I lack the skills to even read the Bible and make sense of it, but you can't make sense of it yourself and later admitted that you were learning a lot of that from me. You're welcome.”

I said, I believe, that I learn a lot about the Bible debating you and people like you. That’s true. I learn a lot about specific passages by exegeting them to show you you’re wrong. Your interpretations have been shown to demonstrate a lack of any skill in textual analysis or defense of your analysis in an academic standard. This proves my claim.
Again--and I see this way too often--the apologist will say they interpret it this way, as if that means that I have to interpret it that way too. No, if there is scholarship allowing that the way I'm reading could be correct, then I don't have to ignore the issues I see that you won't look at.
 
arg-fallbackName="AronRa"/>
“Belief in God does require gullibility, believing too quickly improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence. Not only that but gullibility really is the sole criteria for redemption: Because all sins may be forgiven except for blasphemy against the holy spirit, which is another thing you were wrong about. Rejection of or disbelief in Jesus is considered blasphemy--as I already showed, and you never conceded that error either. Is it even possible for you to do that?”

If there is a God, believing in God is not gullibility.
Even if there really is a god, credulously believing improbable claims from questionable sources on insufficient evidence is still gullibility. If I tell you that I looked into my crystal ball and saw that there's a strange man in your house rummaging through your things, then you'd be gullable if you believed that. Even if you went home and found some burglar rifling through your stuff, I'd still be in the wrong because there's no way I could have possibly known that. So even if I was accidentally or coincidentally right, I'd be still be wrong and you'd be a fool to believe me.

That's how religion is, people pretending to know things no one even can know, and gullible people who buy that without question, reservation or reason. It reminds me of when George Carlin said that he has just as much authority as the pope, just not as many people who believe that. He was right.
If there is not a God, then gullibility won’t save you anyway so your point is entirely rhetorical if not entirely irrelevant.
Wrong again. Whether God exists or not is irrelevant. Either way, evolution is still an inescapable fact of population genetics and the Bible is still man-made mythology with no truth in it.

But we should note how immoral it is for a god to judge you, not on your actions or your merit, like in the case of Ahura-Mazda, but on the thought crime of what you believed. Your god is not a righteous judge.
I have also answered conclusively from a theology textbook to your assertion on the question of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which you have been conclusively been proven wrong on now.
And I defended my position with a citation from a theological source proving that I was right.
This also demonstrates the truth of my claim that you do not know enough about the Bible to successfully defend your own claims.
You only think you're succeeding because you don't realize how wrong you are about everything and you have badly misplaced your confidence.
Your textual analysis skills are insufficient to the task you claim to do with authority. Your claim to authority is made in you attempting to teach these concepts. Sometimes at colleges to university students. Do you preface all of your lectures with a disclaimer that you have no education or specialization in this field or do you make your lectures seem as if they are substantiated in academic fact?
The first time I was invited to speak, it was at a college. I have great respect for academics and I told them I'm only an undergrad. I got no business telling college graduates anything. But I got an invitation from James (the Amazing) Randi saying they only want me to speak as an activist. So from then on, that is how I presented myself. I've been billed as Southwest Regional Director of American Atheists, author of Foundational Falsehoods of Creationism, and formerly as President of Atheist Alliance of America.
I rarely see you offer citations which means that every time you make a statement asserting something you are claiming that it is your authority which substantiates it.
Once again, I repeat, I don't make claims based on authority. I side with Carl Sagan on that when he said, "There are no sacred truths; all assumptions must be critically examined; arguments from authority are worthless. Whatever is inconsistent with the facts--no matter how fond of it we are--must be discarded or revised."

I'm happy to say that some of Sagan's old friends are my friends too now.
If there is no disclaimer you are attempting to teach with authority you don’t have therefore are claiming it falsely. That is fraud.
Can you find anything I've ever presented "on my authority" rather than my citation of facts or what I expressed as my own opinion? I don't think you can.
“Now regarding your allegation of fraud, I can prove--to your satisfaction--that several, if not all, professional creationists fit this description, but you will never be able to prove that about me. For example, to begin with, (1) what accomplishments or qualities do you think I ever claimed without justification? (2) When have I ever attempted to deceive anyone? You'd better be able to quote me verbatim, and you'd better be right. I was taught that you never accuse someone else of lying unless you can prove it right then. If you can't, then it's like sinking the cue along with the 8-ball. If you falsely accuse someone of lying, then you're the liar.”

Several professional Creationists are frauds. We agree entirely on that point. It does not absolve you, that is a red herring.
It is not a red herring. Since you are a creationist yourself, I figured you would find it relevant that every aspect of that belief system is invariably necessarily dishonest.
1. You claimed to have studied biology at a college level implying you have the educational competence to teach it. Your videos contain ostensibly apocryphal information therefore this must not be true.
Such as? Examples?
They also contain philosophical interpretations of scientific evidence such as that DNA can only be trivially called “code” or a “program” but is instead just a series of chemical reactions.
Ah, so by "ostensibly apocryphal", you mean "accepted by academics".

DNA : When Is A Code Not A Code ?

"The genetic code is not a true code; it is more of a cypher. DNA is a sequence of four different bases (denoted A, C, G, and T) along a backbone. When DNA gets translated to protein, triplets of bases (codons) get converted sequentially to the amino acids that make up the protein, with some codons acting as a "stop" marker. The mapping from codon to amino acid is arbitrary (not completely arbitrary, but close enough for purposes of argument). However, that one mapping step -- from 64 possible codons to 20 amino acids and a stop signal -- is the only arbitrariness in the genetic code. The protein itself is a physical object whose function is determined by its physical properties.

Furthermore, DNA gets used for more than making proteins. Much DNA is transcribed directly to functional RNA. Other DNA acts to regulate genetic processes. The physical properties of the DNA and RNA, not any arbitrary meanings, determine how they act.

An essential property of language is that any word can refer to any object. That is not true in genetics. The genetic code which maps codons to proteins could be changed, but doing so would change the meaning of all sequences that code for proteins, and it could not create arbitrary new meanings for all DNA sequences. Genetics is not true language.

The word frequencies of all natural languages follow a power law (Zipf's Law). DNA does not follow this pattern (Tsonis et al. 1997).

Language, although symbolic, is still material. For a word to have meaning, the link between the word and its meaning has to be recorded somewhere, usually in people's brains, books, and/or computer memories. Without this material manifestation, language cannot work."

-Talk.Origins Index to Creationist Claims

"DNA is not like human language or code".
-The Biologos Forum
You made many statements such as this with a graphic behind you which had a 3d model of a handlike appendage assembling genetic material. Do simple chemical reactions produce fingers that assemble 50 base pairs per second according to a code?
No, those are complex chemical reactions.
Did you know that the code is error checked as well?
I was not aware that codes are error checked just like DNA is. If so, they are analogous.
Do chemical reactions check for errors and correct them or might intelligence have been required to create a system which does this?
The chemicals have been shown to do this themselves. The "intelligence" you're talking about not only isn't indicated, it's not even possible.
There has to be a code for there to be errors in the code.
So nothing that is not a code can have errors in it? Is that the definition of what a code is then? Anything with errors in it?
You are, therefore, a charlatan unless you prove the truth of the claim conclusively that you have the educational authority and subsequent qualifications to teach biology, theology, or philosophy which is what you purport to do in the EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL BIOLOGY you presented me. Show me your credentials or concede.
You obviously haven't watched my videos all the way through to the credits, which read:

Living Science Lessons are prepared by Aron Ra
whose science videos help students to learn biology
at the middle-school and high school level.
They are co-written by Aron's wife, Lilandra,
who is a curriculum specialist with the
Next Generation Science Standards.


My wife, Lilandra was a middle school science teacher when we married. Then she started travelling all over the country teaching teachers on the national science standards. Soon after that, she started writing the scripts for this series.Living Science Lessons was her idea and her creation. We haven't done one of these in a few months because she's been pursuing a Masters degree, in education of course. So I've been working on another series on The Systematic Classification of Life. I feel well-qualified to talk about that in my capacity as Director of the Phylogeny Explorer Project, a ₤30,000 (so far) navigable online encyclopedic depiction of the entire taxonomic tree of life. That will be my contribution to science.
2. See above. I have quoted you verbatim and I accuse you of lying and misrepresenting yourself as a proven authority (with accompanying credentials) on any subject. I have made this claim in public for all to see because I believe it is true. I have offered evidence, and substantial proof for my claim: Ten typed pages of it.
And you have utterly failed. You haven't provided any evidence at all other than your own misunderstanding, mislead opinions and blinding prejudice.
You have accused me of lying. If you cannot disprove this claim what does that make you in your own words? And please don’t just respond that you have already proven me wrong because thus far all you have done is claim you’re right and I’m wrong and offered no real arguments with evidence.
Well then now I can certainly that I have proved you wrong and that I did so with evidence.
If I am proven wrong on any of these points I will be happy to retract my assertions as is necessary.
If you keep your promise, I promise to accept your apology gracefully.
Please have a good holiday.
I've already spent too much of my holiday disproving the false accusations of a bigoted asshole who called me a coward and a fraud and the worst kind of human being. Why? Because I take on all comers honestly for the common good. So completely undeserved.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to roast a different turkey now.
 
arg-fallbackName="MatthewLee"/>
The original start of this debate was my assertion that you “Gish Gallop” if you recall. You have posted dozens of conclusions. Each of these conclusions would require paragraphs to unpack and to disprove… which I assure you that many may be quite substantively. It would take a book to show not just why what much of what you said was wrong but to disprove it with substantive citation. Each time you make a claim you have not substantiated with academic citation from a resource higher than you then you are relying on your own authority which you have admitted is not established by anything the world uses to establish these things. Stuff like degrees and teaching certificates.
Your conclusions are, on the whole, poorly formed and only a handful of them cited with anything close to a useful or comprehensive resource you could even use in a freshman research paper. I’ve written more than a few.

I think you are prone to claim victory a bit too early. First of all… nowhere in your answer did you come close to verifying you original statement which was “RNA builds DNA.” You cited two research publications which were stating hypotheses and attempting to substantiate the need for further review of them with some very good evidence… none of which specifically showed a pathway directly from RNA to DNA without intermediates or incredibly complex mechanisms we can demonstrate happen in nature now or could happen outside of a laboratory which can only speculate on the prebiotic conditions of several billion years ago. It showed some possible pathways through complex and yet unproven routes which would have be verified by peer analysis… and you showed none of the peer review criticism which I assume you read as well before accepting this paper as gospel. Doesn’t science require peer review? Can you post one objection to the posted literature or does it represent the generally accepted factual theory accepted by all biology universally? Or is it just an abstract on one possible hypothesis?

“At this point, I had not realized that the quote I gave actually was talking about a computer program. I'm not a programmer, and Matt has already exhausted more of my time than anyone deserves. So I admit I didn't read his last couple posts thoroughly enough. But I obviously wasn't getting classroom biology lessons from a computer programming course. I said that my instructors said that RNA and builds DNA and I showed Matt a video explaining how. But he already knows about the central dogma, so he surely already knows about messenger RNA. Yet he's still asking me to explain that. Why?”

How did you miss the fact that you said “The RNA command…” in the beginning of your quoted assertion of evidence? I am unaware of any RNA command in the process of replication or transcription. You posted a quote from the resource you cited meaning you read neither the quote nor even fully understood exactly what you posted.

“Once again, I repeat, I am obviously NOT contradicting the central dogma. My previous explanations and videos demonstrate that. The evidence that my video did in fact present and which you somehow missed despite repeatedly viewing it thoroughly described how "Scientists had already shown that by dripping solutions of amino acids or RNA nucleotides onto a particular type of clay it produced polymers. Nucleotide precursors spontaneously assembled into RNA strands, even without the help of enzymes or ribosomes". “

So my statement still holds that :
“You also failed to prove that RNA can spontaneously self-replicate (with or without enzyme in your words) outside of tightly controlled laboratory circumstances.”

I also think that the experiment you cite was a bit more complex than just dripping amino acids onto clay. I believe the resource you posted to this end suggests a far more complex and hard to reproduce process than occurs in nature and it required tweaking by scientists such as in the next quote.

“I guess you thought I was lying when I said that, but you should figure out pretty quickly that I don’t lie. That “particular type of clay” is montmorillonite. “It catalyses the formation of oligomers of RNA that contain monomer units from 2 to 30–50. Oligomers of this length are formed because this catalyst controls the structure of the oligomers formed and does not generate all possible isomers. ...This montmorillonite serves as an efficient catalyst for the formation of RNA oligomers, if the exchangeable cation is an alkali or an alkaline earth metal ion. ...Changing the phosphate-activating group from imidazole to 1-methyladenine resulted in the formation of 40–50 mers of A or U in 1–3 days without the need of a primer. These advances were important because they generated longer oligomers with the capability of storing more genetic information as well as having enhanced catalytic capability. ...The formation of two identical copies of the same 50 mer would require the synthesis of 1054 RNAs weighing 1034 g. Two RNAs may be required to catalyse the synthesis of the other. Catalysis provides a solution to this problem of RNA oligomers.

First off, did you miss the part in the posted citation right at the beginning where it says “Indeed, if life originated on Earth, then little is known about the chemical processes that initiated the first life.”

Next, to disprove my assertion that this does not happen in nature show me WHERE IT HAPPENS IN NATURE and not just under guided and tightly controlled laboratory conditions. Do you have evidence that this has ever been witnessed in nature under natural conditions without any interference from scientific manipulation? This only suggests that some scientist think it is hypothetically possible which is a far cry from your absolute statement about how we know that “RNA builds DNA” which does not occur directly in any of the literature you posted.
“This is according to Montmorillonite-catalysed formation of RNA oligomers: the possible role of catalysis in the origins of life. Since you wouldn't take my word for it before, and imagined that I could just make up something like this, are you now satisfied that I have provided sufficient evidence to show that I was telling the truth?”

Not remotely. Do you know what an oligomer is and how far it is from a fully formed and reproducible strand of RNA with any meaningful genetic information of any kind? You asserted absolute certainty. This paper is even self-described by its author as a discussion and is still under serious peer review which you can read at the footnotes. Did you miss the part in the title where it says the “POSSIBLE” role of… This is still miles off from disproving anything I requested proof of. Proof of something is not showing that it is “possible.”

“I took my biology classes at the University of Texas at Dallas. I don't remember the instructor's name; nor would that matter either today or all those years ago. Nor would a syllabus or hand-out detail all the lessons and certainly not everything the instructor every said.”
Taking one, two or even three biology course still would not provide you with the requisite knowledge of physics, chemistry and other disciplines to be able to fully understand the depth of the conclusion you are proposing. Surely at least one resource (textbook?) would reiterate something you say was REGULARLY SAID but that I can find nowhere else. I grant you that if you took it a long time ago then it make sense that it was hard to find material which reiterates this from the original course. I can accept that perhaps you have no corroborative evidence of the course you took but you still have failed to demonstrate the claim from accepted scientific canon.
“ But if we were to ask whether he ever said that "RNA builds DNA" or words to that effect, we can determine that from other sources. Since we were talking about abiogenesis at that time, I was referring to the "RNA-first" or "RNA world" hypothesis, which is based on the fact that some of the most primitive quasi-living cells have only RNA while others may have both RNA and DNA. So referencing the Origin and Evolution of DNA and DNA Replication Machineries, I can cite peer-reviewed literature saying that: "DNA can be considered as a modified form of RNA, since the “normal” ribose sugar in RNA is reduced into deoxyribose in DNA, whereas the “simple” base uracil is methylated into thymidine. In modern cells, the DNA precursors (the four deoxyribonucleoties, dNTPs) are produced by reduction of ribonucleotides di- or triphosphate by ribonucleotide reductases (fig. 1). The synthesis of DNA building blocks from RNA precursors is a major argument in favor of RNA preceding DNA in evolution".

You said that the phrase was regularly said in your class and implied it was accepted biological canon. You have failed to prove this remotely in any meaningful way.
Building blocks are not fully formed DNA. To amend the original statement or to try and qualify it is to admit it is wrong. If DNA is a modified form of RNA then you might get away with “DNA is built OF RNA” but it still does not in any way verify the idea that “RNA builds DNA”
“Note that the word "synthesis" means "to compose or build". So here we have a handful of professional biologists, (Patrick Forterre, Jonathan Filée, and Hannu Myllykallio) saying that RNA builds DNA. This isn't just in the hypothetical RNA-world but right now today. I've already explained that in the biology lesson that I shared with you, and you've already explained it too.”

So here we have a handful of scientists saying that RNA can compose the building blocks of DNA. That’s a long way from consensus which you state openly is extant. I can make bricks… that doesn’t mean I made a building. There is a serious logical step missing from you even proving this incredibly direct and simple claim and if you can’t see that you are being disingenuous...
“Remember, I thought you knew this. It took me a while to figure out what your conceptual problem was. Now I think I've figured out that you thought I was saying that RNA builds DNA out of nothing out of base components in the absence of existing DNA. No, as I already explained in my video (why else would I show it to you?) I'm obviously aware that at this time we begin with DNA. Otherwise why would I have explained that in my videos? But different forms of RNA play a number of roles in building DNA back especially from the "building blocks". This is another reason so many scientists suspect that RNA came before DNA and that the origin of DNA was that it was constructed by RNA--because it still is to some degree.”

Where in nature, right now, is DNA constructed by RNA? Directly. Not with the use of enzymes but directly from DNA. Show me ONE kind of RNA which builds DNA in the way that say, an enzyme like polymerase does. We are not talking about obscure language. The word BUILD is not a hard one.
“When I accidentally cited a computer programmer saying "RNA builds DNA", yes he was talking about a program they designed... to be consistent with nature. Why else would they design it that way?”
So your saying that the designers of the program used the RNA command to build DNA models because that’s how it’s done in nature? Convenience would be the easiest answer considering that you have still failed to prove that RNA BUILDS DNA. I am not being obtuse. Your claim is basic and you can dance around it all you want but there is nowhere stated clearly and in plain language in anything I have found the statement you made. Not anything remotely close to it in accepted scientific canon. You have posted papers and what seems to be a chapter from a larger manuscript with supposition and hypothesis and big words. You haven’t come close to showing a method by which RNA physically builds DNA in nature. You just made a circular argument which rounded back upon your previously unsupported claim.
“The first thing we need to establish here is the central Protestant Doctrine of Sola Scriptura
“The phrase sola scriptura is from the Latin: sola having the idea of “alone,” “ground,” “base,” and the word scriptura meaning “writings”—referring to the Scriptures. Sola scriptura means that Scripture alone is authoritative for the faith and practice of the Christian. The Bible is complete, authoritative, and true. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).
Which is obviously incorrect.”
It doesn’t matter if you think it’s correct. It’s the doctrine Protestants hold to. Nowhere in the Bible does it say the serpent is a female. This is Catholic dogma at best.
“My mother always wanted me to read the Book of Mormon as if that would reveal the true word of God. She admitted that the it was based on the Bible. So I told her that if her religion came later than the foundations of Christianity, then I should look to the foundation rather than any subsequent off-shoot of that, and if the foundation failed then all the religions based on it must also fail. Martin Luther's heretical departure from Catholicism was not the origin of Christianity. Neither was Catholocism. It wasn't even Orthodoxy as there were many disparate and wildly contradicting sects of early Christian cults before Paul and the Nicene convention began trying to force conformity and achieve unity.”
The collection of Scripture into Canon was to standardize the knowledge and Scripture we all agreed upon so as to create one objective place to start. Catholicism does not attribute central authority to these scriptures which is what I just said. Their doctrines come from the idea that the Church can make it up as it goes along. That’s why there are people who protest this. Your claim was made on what the Bible says and you tried to disprove it using external authority which is not valid.
“The character of the serpent was adapted from the story of Lilith and Huluppu tree, as you probably already knew. She lived in a tree in the sacred garden of Inanna with "the Serpent who could not be tamed". Gilgamesh came walking through the sacred garden just as Yahweh did in Genesis 3:8, carrying a flaming sword like the one mentioned in Genesis 3:24. This is where part of that legend came from, at least the part with the snake.”
How could I know that if it’s not true? I think you also are interpreting something written in a dead language from pictures and scraps of pottery.
Here is one interpretation of one fragment:
“Once upon a time, a tree, a huluppu, a tree –
It had been planted on the bank of the Euphrates,
It was watered by the Euphrates --
The violence of the South Wind plucked up its roots,
Tore away its crown,
The Euphrates carried it off on its waters.

The woman, roving about in fear at the word of An,
Roving about in fear at the word of Enlil,
Took the tree in her hand, brought it to Erech:
"I shall bring it to pure Inanna's fruitful garden."

The woman tended the tree with her hand, placed it by her foot,
Inanna tended the tree with her hand, placed it by her foot,
"When will it be a fruitful throne for me to sit on," she said,
"When will it be a fruitful bed for me to lie on," she said.

The tree grew big, its trunk bore no foliage,
In its roots the snake who knows no charm set up its nest,
In its crown the Imdugud-bird placed its young,
In its midst the maid Lilith built her house --
The always laughing, always rejoicing maid,
The maid Inanna -- how she weeps!”
http://www.piney.com/BabHulTree.html
When you read it all of a sudden it doesn’t seem so similar.
Here is some more:
“Her brother, the hero Gilgamesh,
Stood by her in this matter,
He donned armor weighing fifty minas about his waist --
Fifty minas were handled by him like thirty shekels --
His "ax of the road" --
Seven talents and seven minas -- he took in his hand,
At its roots he struck down the snake who knows no charm,
In its crown the Imdugud-bird took its young, climbed to the mountains,
In its midst the maid Lilith tore down her house, fled to the wastes.

The tree -- he plucked at its roots, tore at its crown,
The sons of the city who accompanied him cut off its branches,
He gives it to holy Inanna for her throne,
Gives it to her for her bed,
She fashions its roots into a pukku for him,
Fashions its crown into a mikku for him”
See… its not so easy to make these assertions especially when you don’t really understand the source mythology or the original language and is this is why you’re so bad at interpreting the Bible.
“Yes, Jesus later on accuses the Pharisees of being snakes too, and the spawn of Satan as well, but clearly he did not mean that any of them were the actual devil, certainly not that all of them were. It was just an insult. He obviously didn't mean it literally.”
So the Bible can be metaphorical sometimes? Then you have to read it that way sometimes.
The reference to Satan as "that old serpent" in Revelations doesn't refer to THAT old serpent from Genesis, because the serpent in the garden had no legs yet that old serpent in Revelations was said to be standing on the beach, and he had seven heads. Did the serpent in Genesis have seven heads? If not then we know we're not talking about the same character.
So you think that the idea of the serpent being a fallen angle metaphor is followed by the literal changing of all snakes with legs to ones without? That is a metaphor as well. I’ll let you figure out for what. Also, recall that Revelation (and it’s the book of Revelation not Revelations I have made this mistake before) is a prophetic vision. It’s not exactly literal in a lot of what it says either so again you don’t’ really know how to interpret Scripture but you double down on absolute convictions as if you have studied this stuff under people who knew what they were talking about. You can’t teach yourself Quantum Physics and expect to really be taken seriously because it requires professors to teach it right… so with textual analysis.
“The first time Satan is mentioned by name is in a story chronologically after that one, and he is said to be walking, which he couldn't be if he was the serpent because the serpent was cursed to crawl on his belly all the rest of his days. So the serpent was just a snake and not Satan.”
Again… magic fruit which makes us able to reason ethically? Suggest metaphors and parables and allegory. You are making an assertion of interpretation which is not, to my knowledge, supported by any critical analysis beyond your own which you have cited. Again, part of the Gallop of Gish… I grant you this and I said it before… it is interpretation to say the snake is Satan because it is never explicitly said. However the gender of the snake is certain. It is male. The Catholic paintings are bunk. They aren’t Scriptural. Catholics can believe the word of the Church without it having to be validated Scripturally.
“Another reason we know this is that in that story Satan and Yahweh are friends and have never had a falling out. Clearly then this is not the same guy who's "seed" would have to eat dust and be bruised by the heels of men forever afterward. “
Satan means adversary. That is a pretty good description of an adversary to me. I’m not sure where the Bible says God and Satan are friends but judging by his actions I would think it is not supported. I would be interested to see where you get the idea that they are friends. Why would a friend try and hurt your kids?
“Talmudic legend however did the same thing the Christians did, or rather still do. They read between the lines and make up stuff that it doesn't really say or imply. In their version, Lilith was created first as an equal to Adam. Because of that, she didn't want to be submissive to him. She didn't want to be "on bottom". She knew Yahweh's true name and that gave her the power of flight. So she flew out of the garden and had an orgy with demons on the banks of the Red Sea.”
Citation, citation, citation. You said a mouthful there. Also, you said “Talmudic legend” Again, not Canon, not Bible, Not admissible on Christian doctrine. Do you know what the Talmud is, how long a period it spans and how many cooks had their hand in that broth? The Talmud is ridiculously large and says a plethora of things Christians won’t agree with. Surprise, we’re not Jewish. Even the Jews debate it… because a lot of the Talmud is just that… Rabbinical debate!
“Then in another subsequent legend, Lilith returned to the garden in the guise of her former companion, the serpent who could not be tamed. In her absence, God created a second wife, Eve, and now the ex was feeling vengeful about the younger woman. That's why the serpent in the garden is so commonly depicted as a woman.”
Citation. Legends aren’t canon and can’t even really be proven to have influenced it unless you have some scholarly opinion you can fall back upon which conclusively proves this because the passages I cited above seem to suggest your understanding of Lillith and the serpent is entirely fabricated and only made rhetorically. Gish. Gallop. It’s not evidence… it’s entirely supposition on your part with absolutely no corroborative evidence.
The "opposer" that you mentioned is based on a Zoroastrian deity. In the Avestas of Zarathustra (circa 600 BCE) it says that the good men will ascend to the Kingdom of Justice and Truth under righteous lord Uhura Mazda while evil men will descend into the Kingdom of the Lie ruled by Ahriman the Opposer, also known as Ha Shaitan, the satan. So that character was invented by the Persians.
How can you prove that the already established Hebrew religion practiced amongst the Babylonians during the captivity didn’t influence THEM instead and that their legends came from Hebrew influences. You realize that before Zarathrustrianism ever was a thing the Hebrews already had practiced their religion for hundreds of years?
“Biblical scholars say that Judasim, the basis of Christianity was more influenced by Zoroastrianism than any other source, and that's where they got the concept of Satan. But the story I just told you influenced Christianity directly bypassing the Jewish religion. The Jewish Hell, Sheol was more influence by the Hellenist and Sumerian concepts of a single land of the dead where everyone went when they died regardless whether they were good or bad, and they were dead there too, in the sense that they weren't usually weren't conscious or anything.”
Which Biblical Scholars? Gish Gallop away from this and cite me a specific author and his evidence and then cite me another who disagrees with him and his evidence or do you not really believe in peer review because these ideas are hardly substantiated without serious, extraordinary evidence. They are your speculation on no authority. And are you aware of what the Jesuits do? There is a longstanding progression of attempts by Catholicism to castrate the Protestant Reformation under the guise of “Textual Criticism” by attempting to assert the Bible can’t be trusted and the Catholic Church itself is the sole source of all truth in having been passed down from Apostolic Tradition and some of this interpretation comes from that process. Also… Again… you are making a MASSIVE claim which would have be written into a paper and submitted for peer review at a university before it could ever be accepted as fact. Your assertion is a massive leap from non-related traditions that would require an entire career to validate.
“3c. Golems did not always require a written spell. The earliest record of them in fact had a collection of Semitic gods "breathe the breath of life" into their clay figurines. Ironically this was the myth on which Genesis 1 is based rather than Genesis 2. In that story the gods essentially said "let us make man in our image". Male and female the elohim created them. Seven male, seven female. Then they killed one of the gods as a sacrifice and the figurines were soaked in his blood. Sound familiar?
Then they became the first people. That's how gods do golem spells. “
Lets look at the Atra Hasis
“'You are the womb-goddess to be the creator of mankind! Create a mortal, that he may bear the yoke! Let him bear the yoke, the work of Enlil! Let man bear the load of the gods!' Nintu made her voice heard and spoke to the great gods, 'It is not proper for me to make him. That work is Enki's. It is not proper that I should make a mortal slave. I shall create a co-worker, a co-creator, but I will not make a slave! This is the work of Enki; he must make everything pure! If Enki gives me the clay, then I will do it.' Enki made his voice heard and spoke to the great gods, 'Wise Mami, mother of the gods your sons, your wisdom is noted and shall be made to pass. On the first, seventh and fifteenth of the month I shall make a purification by washing. Then one Anunnaki God should be chosen for sacrifice, and the gods can be purified by immersion. Nintu shall mix clay with his flesh and blood. Then a god and a man will be mixed together in clay. Let us hear the drumbeat of his heart forever after, let a ghost come into existence from the gods' flesh, let her proclaim it as his living sign, and let the ghost exist so as not to forget the slain god.' They all answered, 'Yes!' in the assembly, the great Anunnaki who assign the fates. On the first, seventh, and fifteenth of the month Enki made a purification by washing. Geshtu-e, a pure young god who had intelligence, they slaughtered in their assembly. Nintu mixed clay with his flesh and blood. They heard the drumbeat forever after. A ghost came into existence from the gods' flesh, and Nintu proclaimed it as his living sign. The ghost existed so none would forget the slain god. After she had mixed that clay, she called up the Anunnaki, the great gods. The Igigi, the great gods, spat spittle upon the clay. Mami made her voice heard and spoke to the great gods, 'I have carried out perfectly the work that you ordered of me. You have sacrificed a god together with his intelligence. I have relieved you of your hard work, I have imposed your load upon man, but only as a co-worker, not a slave. You would have bestowed noise and woe upon mankind, but I have undone the fetter and granted freedom!' They listened to this speech of hers, and were freed from anxiety, they fell down and kissed her feet: 'We used to call you Mami but now your name shall be Mistress of All Gods.' Far-sighted Enki and wise Mami went into the Room of Fate. The wombgoddesses were assembled. Enki trod the clay in her presence; Mami kept reciting the incantation, for Enki, staying in her presence, made her recite it. When she had finished her incantation, she pinched off fourteen pieces of clay, and set seven pieces on the right, seven on the left. Between them she put down a mud brick, she made use of a reed, split it open so that it was sharp, to cut the umbilical cords, she called up the wise and knowledgeable womb- goddesses, seven and seven. Seven created males, seven created females, for the womb-goddess is the creator of fate. Enki paired them two by two, he paired them two by two in her presence.”
Does that sound like Genesis account of the Creation of man in any other way than the trivial similarity that humans came out of the process? I am not sure where you get your interpretation of this passage but the two have little if any similarity even descendently so. A Goddess did this, not Gods.
I would like to see your citations on the claim that Adam was a Golem.
"Adam as Golem.
“The imagination of the ancient Israelites frequently turned to the birth of the first man, who was formed of dust and not born of woman. A principal passage reads as follows: "How was Adam created? In the first hour his dust was collected; in the second his form was created; in the third he became a shapeless mass [golem];"
-Jewish Encyclopedia: GOLEM”
The Bibliography on this was Talmudic across multiple sources. That is not ancient Israel nor is it Biblical. And you only quoted a very small portion of a large treatise we could debate all day but still you haven’t proved Adam was a clay or mud figure… or even unshaped mass. No definition of Golem as you state it refers to Adam even if the occasional Jewish Talmud contributor used the word. The Talmud cannot be used this way. Rabbi’s spend their whole lives studying it to debate it. I have talked with a Rabbi at length about this in an interview I did in a course I took on religion. “
I would like to specifically see a citation which proves that a specifically titled “Golem Spell” predates the Torah composition.
"Scholars in the first half of the 20th century came to the conclusion that the Yahwist was produced in the monarchic period, specifically at the court of Solomon, 10th century BCE, and the Priestly work in the middle of the 5th century BCE (the author was even identified as Ezra), but more recent thinking is that the Yahwist was written either just before or during the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE, and the Priestly final edition was made late in the Exilic period or soon after."
-Revolvy: Genesis (Hebrew Bible)
Can I have a better link to that citation. I can’t find it. It’s neat but this is part of that tradition of “Textual Criticism” I told you about that is based on poor scholarship which is widely debunked. It is part of an ongoing debate which is anything but certain. Your citation is also part of a much larger portion of what I believe is the documentary hypothesis and I hardly think you can call that accepted universally among religious Scholars in the faith. It’s like saying everyone believes that Newton was a Christian or that Einstein was an atheist.

“I would further like to see your citations on the elements of the spell that conclusively proves that Adam
A. was made of a clay figurine, or in fact clay at all.
"How exactly does one create a golem? Although there are many variations in recorded methods and proceedures, there seem to be a number of elements and steps common to most. These are:
The ritual cleansing and high qualifications of those creating the golem.
The use of some form of soil (sometimes clay or dust) to form the body of the golem, particularly soil which has never been plowed or used in any way.
The use of a verbal ritual to form the soil into a human form.
A concluding word or Name of God is used to activate the creature.
....When the body is complete, it is activated by means of placing a word or a name on its forehead or forearm, occasionally in its mouth (in one account an amulet bearing a Name of God is hung around the creature's neck). Popular "activation" word choices were adam (the first man, created out of the earth) and emet (truth). When it came time to deactivate the golem, the first letter of these words would be erased: without aleph, Adam becomes dam (blood), and without aleph, emet becomes met (dead). When the "live" word became a "dead" word, the golem would shut down."
-Practical Kabbalah”
You’re quoting Jewish mysticism. This is hardly a resource for Biblical interpretation any more than trying to say the Gnostics had a good bead on things is supported. Even if we take this at it’s word the Bible is missing half of the requirements not having a verbal ritual not a concluding word. Also, how can you prove this ritual didn’t emerge far after Genesis was canonized? Most Golem traditions emerge from middle age Jewish mystics who were heretics to even their own people.

B. is described as a Golem in the Scripture anywhere.
"The word golem occurs once in the Bible in Psalm 139:16, which uses the word גלמי (galmi; my golem), that means "my light form", "raw" material, connoting the unfinished human being before God's eyes.
....The oldest stories of golems date to early Judaism. In the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b), Adam was initially created as a golem (גולם) when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk".
-ipfs.io: Golem
The Talmud was composed at least 800 years after the latest possible date for the composition of the Torah. This is also proving that Adam was not a Golem because he was certainly finished and formed. The word Golem here cited in Scripture would seem to indicate a metaphor.

“Also please cite the text of the earliest record that you speak of and link to the translation so that we can begin to exegete it.
Do you really expect to translate from Cuneiform? Especially when that is being taken from photographs of 3,800 year-old fragments of clay tablets? All I can refer you to are the already-translated accounts of the Epic of Atrahasis. “
So your saying that can’t translate these languages and have no specific knowledge of them but are willing to make wide reaching claims about the derivative nature of the Hebrew Scriptures relating to them? Yes, I absolutely expect you to support your claim with expertise or retract it. You just attacked the validity of YOUR OWN SOURCES.
“You made some interpretations and drew some parallels that would have to be very strongly indicated by reliable translation and exegetical scrutiny. Let’s do that. Because even as you describe it… there were seven first humans and there were obviously multiple gods in that so already we are far off of Genesis.
Not as far as you think. Remember that Judaism is a Semitic religion, which means its roots are in the elder Semitic tradition, and that's where all these older stories come from. Your god, Yahweh began as a Canaanite deity and was blended with the story of the original father-god, El, who Jesus prayed to at his crucifixion. There are elements of Mesopotamian mythos all through your Bible. You just haven't recognized them. Elohim, for example is plural, meaning essentially "the gods". When your god said "Let US make man in OUR own image, he was obviously originally talking to the rest of the Elohim. Elements of several of the Genesis fables are unmistakably paralleled in the Epic of Atrahasis and a number of other pre-Biblical myths too, all written by the grandfathers of the Biblical authors more than a thousand years before the versions you recognize. “
Elohim is a Hebrew version of the “Royal We”.
“Elohim. God, gods, judges, angels. This word, which is generally viewed as the plural of eloah, is found far more frequently in Scripture than either el or eloah for the true God. The plural ending is usually described as a plural of majesty and not intended as a true plural when used of God. This is seen in the fact that the noun elohim is consistently used with a singular verb forms and with adjectives and pronouns in the singular.”
https://bible.org/question/does-ielohimi-gen-11-mean-god-or-gods

Where is Adam soaked in blood?
Obviously not every element translates. The notion of being "soaked in the blood" that Christians talk about is another element that bypassed Judaism. Another element of the origin of Adam is the legend of Adappa. He was taken to see the gods and warned not to accept anything they offer, because the gods might try to kill him. They offered food and he refused to eat, but they did not offer him the food of death like he thought. They offered him the food of life, that if he ate it, he would live forever. This is a prior parallel of Genesis 3:24, where Yahweh had to get Adam out of the sacred garden before he ate of the fruit of the tree of life, because then Adam would have become immortal. “
You just said you couldn’t translate this, and that it was on cuneiform tablets of which we only have pictures and you want to cite it. First of all if death had not entered the world through sin it’s assumed Adam already was immortal. Adam was also told to eat of every tree in the Garden except The fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Gen 2:9). This included the tree of life. He could eat from it just fine.
Here is the translation of the story of Adapa. I challenge anyone to read it and interpret it as you do or find Biblical parallel.
“https://zsitchinindex.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/the-tale-of-adapa/”
Where is Eve soaked in blood?
Again, that originally polytheist concept skipped the Jews and embraced only by the Christians. Eve's origin is primarily in yet another legend. In this one, the god Enki was walking in the sacred garden eating all the fruit therein. But since the garden was restricted, all the fruit was forbidden. So the goddess Ninhursag caught him and cursed him, and he fell. But then she took pity on him in his fallen state and bore seven daughters, one for each of his wounds. One of them was called Ninti daughter of the rib, for she was born to close the wound to his side--an obvious prior parallel of Genesis 2:21.
Still galloping along, sigh.
“ 254-263. (Ninhursaja asked:) "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "The top of my head (ugu-dili) hurts me." She gave birth to Ab-u out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "The locks of my hair (siki) hurt me." She gave birth to Ninsikila out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My nose (giri) hurts me." She gave birth to Ningiriutud out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My mouth (ka) hurts me." She gave birth to Ninkasi out of it.
264-271. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My throat (zi) hurts me." She gave birth to Nazi out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My arm (a) hurts me." She gave birth to Azimua out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My ribs (ti) hurt me." She gave birth to Ninti out of it. "My brother, what part of you hurts you?" "My sides (zag) hurt me." She gave birth to Ensag out of it.
272-280. (She said:) "For the little ones to whom I have given birth may rewards not be lacking. Ab-u shall become king of the grasses, Ninsikila shall become lord of Magan, Ningiriutud shall marry Ninazu, Ninkasi shall be what satisfies the heart, Nazi shall marry Nindara, Azimua shall marry Ninjiczida, Ninti shall become the lady of the month, and Ensag shall become lord of Dilmun."
281. Praise be to Father Enki.”
http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=t.1.1.1&charenc=j#
All of these born were from different parts. The rib was only one part. You are at least ostensible wrong reading the text. Can you defend this now? It doesn’t seem like such an obvious parallel when you read them side by side. It is not even trivially similar and the word for rib “ti” is a bit of a subject of contention. It came from a dead language after all. Hebrew is not that and in Hebrew rib means.. rib.
“As we've already seen, that's not always the case. The story of the seven male and seven female figurines is apparently the origin or inspiration for Genesis 1:27. That's why there are two contradictory creation accounts, where in one the elohim creates males and females at the same time and in the next one he creates one man all alone and then conjures the rib girl.”
First part, already addressed. Second part… the second account is a restatement of the first hence the phrase (Gen 2:4) “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth.” What does it mean in the Bible usually when it says ‘these are the generations’ like in Genesis 6:9.

“Perhaps the definition is at fault. What definition of Golem are you using?
go•lem
/ˈɡōləm/ noun
(in Jewish legend) a clay figure brought to life by magic.”
But just earlier you posted a completely contradictory definition and this one soundly disproves ANYTHING YOU SAID ABOUT THE BIBLE.
“True, but that phrase is frequently used as an excuse to justify crimes or escape prosecution. Remember when Bobby Brown was sentenced in court? He shouted in defiance, "I'm soaked in the blood", which to him meant that he was somehow justified by Jesus' forgiveness and therefore somehow innocent of any crime according to Man's law.”
Jesus forgiveness says nothing about Man’s law. You still have to pay to Caesar what is his, so to speak.
“Prometheus is a prior parallel of Jesus. He was crucified for the same crime as the serpent in Genesis, revealing forbidden knowledge so that men would be like unto the gods. Because Prometheus was a proper god, he couldn't be killed. So he was crucified on a rock for 10,000 years, and every day of that time, a vulture tore out his liver, which grew back by the next day.”
If Prometheus is the parallel of Jesus… why was he crucified for the crime of a snake? Your statement is illogical and non-sequiter.


“ And ready-witted Prometheus he bound with inextricable bonds, cruel chains, and drove a shaft through his middle, and set on him a long-winged eagle, which used to eat his immortal liver; but by night the liver grew [525] as much again everyway as the long-winged bird devoured in the whole day.”
Hesiod. The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Theogony. Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Where did you get Crucified from?
“As I already explained, the words "miracle" and "magic" have essentially the same definition, being the evocation of supernatural forces or entities to control or forecast natural events in ways that are inexplicable by science because they defy the laws of physics. “
I recall hearing a PhD in philosophy telling you that’s wrong. If you won’t believe him how can I hope to
“Ritual magic often includes wards. In this case, to prevent reinfection. I note that you didn't mention any portion of this one, because there is no defensible reason to do it and so no real god would command or even permit it.”
Circular logic. We have established it was not a spell or even a ward. It was a ritual purity ceremony. If you don’t understand what this means you have no business teaching the OT to anyone because you don’t get even the simplest concepts of Israelite religion.
“So the "leper" is already healed, but not "cleansed", as if that was necessary. To cleanse him, they need crimson yarn (why not yellow or blue?), an earthenware bowl (why not wood or glass?), cedar wood (why not aspen or pine?) and a particular middle-eastern herb (why specifically that one?). Then you have to use all of these elements in a ritual which includes a blood sacrifice. Then you have to sprinkle the blood of the dead bird all over everything to "cleanse" the guy you've already healed--as if you wouldn't have cleanse yourself of all that bird blood. Then to get the final element, air into it, you've got to dip the living bird into the dead bird's blood and let it fly. This your god decrees to be how you "cleanse" someone after they've been healed.
That doesn't sound like an elemental spell to you? Maybe you should look it up.
Elemental Spell
It will bring the Elements to you and bring luck it's wake".
Suggested Tools:
Salt. Dirt. Bowl of water. Crystal. Empty Jar. Open Flame.
-Witchipedia

I dated a lot of witches, so I'm pretty familiar with this. Obviously the "suggested" tools may vary.

If that still doesn't sound like a spell to you, remember that they don't do anything that would actually cleanse anyone until after this senseless practice that looks exactly like an elemental spell. “
But you still haven’t admitted what has been proven. That this was not a spell meant to cure leprosy. It was not meant to invoke any supernatural agency other than to show obedience to the law. Even if we went on in the misguided idea that this was a spell… Don’t spells have effects? This one had no effect but to certify the leper clean under the law. Can you not even see that you’re deflecting an obviously proven point in plain text? Gallop on.
“But it gets even worse, because after that, there's another utterly pointless multiple component ritual to "atone" for being ill too. Read what is required for that. Not just the second wholly unnecessary blood sacrifice, but the really stupid stuff besides that. It's inane. Surely not even you believe that your "intelligent designer" came up with that bullshit plan.”
This is irrelevant and an Ad Deum attack… can’t say ad hominem on this on. It doesn’t prove anything, it’s just spiteful.
"Jesus said a lot of crazy contradictory things in the legends about him. For example, he said that we had to follow "every jot and tittle" of the old laws of Moses. Yet he was OK with breaking his own rules. He said that if God meant for men to be circumcised they would be born without foreskins, one of only a couple lines of actual wisdom to be attributed to that character. He also said his followers could work on the Sabbath if they had to, and he countered the old tradition of washing hands before eating. Because Jesus amazingly thought that nothing a man eats could defile him, not filth or poison, drugs, broken glass or infectious pathogens which of course he knew nothing at all about. He said that anything a man eats will be pooped out harmlessly, even though we know better. He said that what defiles a man is what comes OUT of his mouth. This is a man who pretended to exorcise demons. You wouldn't want to get medical advice from that guy.”

Cite that quote from Jesus please about circumcision.
53. His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision useful or not?"
He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."
-Gospel of Thomas
And the Gospel of Thomas is Canon Scripture? I don’t find it in my Bible. Try again.
“He explicitly lies that "It is not what enters into the mouth that defiles the man, but what proceeds out of the mouth, this defiles the man." He was wrong. There are no demons, no magical incantations, curses or any of that, but there are poisons, pathogens, drugs, and inedible indigestible or filthy things that will not make it through the colon before the defile the man.”
He said it was a parable. His own mouth says those words in the literal text of the citation. You were proven comprehensively wrong and would not admit it. Go read it again and tell me how you missed those words explicitly said. It’s literally there in clear language! You know he isn’t talking about illness he is talking about spiritual defilement. He said it literally… how did you miss that? Oh I remember you don’t get the idea of purity as the Bible says it. That’s why you don’t get the leprosy thing.
Mark 7” For it is from within, out of a person's heart, that evil thoughts come--sexual immorality, theft, murder,”
You think that these things are OK?
“I can explain a lot more about that, but I don't think you're paying attention anyway. “
Perhaps neither of us then because it’s we’re not connecting on any level. You won’t hear what I say even when the text is plain in front of you. You keep doing the thing you accuse us of.
“Another example, by the way, of spiritual cleanliness like the cleansing of the leper. It’s spiritual, not physical or pathological uncleanness that he is speaking of. The language is clear in any language and explicit to the point that you cannot be correct.
I can't be correct? You're proving my point for me! These are spiritual rituals, not functional actions with practical application. In other words, it's fucking magic.”
If it’s magic, what power is harnessed and expressed in the already clean leper? Wow, you and magic.
“Your statement is self-contradictory.
No it isn't.”
Wow, you got me there. What logic.
“Men and God’s are not in the same category for obvious reasons. To suggest that a God does magic is blasphemous to a Christian because you put man on God’s level. For a God to perform magic there would have to be an authority higher than Him to appeal to and in the very definition of God we see this cannot be so.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about, yet accuse me of category failure!? When God turns a stick into a snake, that's a miracle--because a god did it, and that's what magic done by a god. When Moses turns a stick into a snake, or when Pharaoh's magi do it, that's magic--because it's done by men, and THEY have to seek that higher power which God does not have to do.”
Aron held the staff, BTW. God turned the stick into a snake. It was a miracle. If Moses had done it then it would be magic. You admitted this. The difference is in who does it.

“In the definition you posted of Almighty read carefully. When you Capitalize it you speak specifically of the one God and the Websters you quoted was doing just that. Almighty power… a specific manifestation of the power of God is what the definition means when read the way it was written. If your editor missed it that is because either s/he made a mistake or s/he didn’t know this himself/herself.
Yet everything you just said is wrong because the definition I copied already had it in lower case. “
Not the one from Websters which we spoke of. Or the one you just posted… look at it…
“noun: Almighty; noun: the Almighty”

al•might•y
/ôlˈmīdē/ adjective
having complete power; omnipotent.
"God almighty"
synonyms: all-powerful, omnipotent, supreme, preeminent
"I swear by almighty God"
a name or title for God.
noun: Almighty; noun: the Almighty
"I wanted to beg the Almighty for mercy"
“That definition specified that it is only to be capitalized when it used as a proper noun, which was never the way I used it.”
The definition you posted from Websters 1828 DID use it as a proper noun illustrated by the text you omitted for this reason.
“That gods do miracles and men do magic is what I was trying to teach you.”
Then why do you keep denying it? Why do you keep saying God does magic?
“Neurotic is a diagnosis with medical criteria. Eccentric is an adjective with a different meaning and no one will medicate you for just being diagnosed eccentric.
The point is that traditionally the very wealthy would get away with acting strange without being diagnosed.”
This is absolutely unrelated to the point and a red herring. You still won’t admit I’m right even on the smallest point.
“Your argument fails on each and every level you try.
Hasn't failed yet.”
Only if you’re not actually reading what I wrote which you already admitted you don’t do carefully because I’m not worth your time.
“You have to see that even with basic language the exact and specific meaning of the words you are using means your entire argument is equivocation by definition. If you refuse to admit this you are being dishonest, or at the very least disingenuous.
Or I'm still right and have been all along, because I adhere to strict definitions and do NOT allow for multiple different meanings, especially not when there is a chance of misleading double interpretation. I haven't done or allowed that once in this conversation so far, and I won't either.”
Except for neurotic which you completely misdefined and misused.
“If you do not concede even one point here without actually thoroughly and conclusively disproving them with anything other than an appeal to your own authority then you are by definition a liar.
I have disproved everything you've contested me on, but never on my own authority. I've given sound reasons, evidence and citations for everything. “
Again… next round well see but so far you’re pretty much all wrong.
“However, even if I had not, that still wouldn't make me a liar. A lie is misinformation or information misrepresented with deliberate intent to deceive. This includes claiming baseless speculation as though it were fact and pretending to know what no one can know, but it does not include differences in opinion or of interpretation such as you're talking about. Not that it matters, because that's not what I did anyway.”
If I am right on even one of the above points… you are a liar. You have been given these evidences by more than just me.
“Before you call someone a liar, you have to show that what they said was wrong. Again this can't be just a difference of opinion or interpretation. We're talking about matters of fact here. Then you have to prove that person knew it was wrong when they tried to promote it anyway. “
The only way I could say that I believe you’re not a liar is to admit that you are simply incapable of understanding all of what you say.

“You have been shown you are wrong and you persist you are right despite all evidence to the contrary defending your belief against all reason. That’s called lying. At least that’s what you call it.
So far, I don't think anyone reading this would agree that you've ever shown that anything I've said was wrong, not demonstrably so. You'll certainly never show any attempt to deceive on my part. However that's part of the reason that I like this forum. Believers will often lie on behalf of other believers, but science-minded folks are pedantic. If I actually said something wrong, the scientists who frequent this forum will tell me about it, and then I'll recant retract apologize and whatever else necessary to correct myself. It's happened before, but not with you.”
That’s wonderful. A forum full of people who agree with you never seem to find you in fault? That’s not really an endorsement of your prowess. Only that in an echo chamber its easy to hear yourself. I would DEFINITELY call you pedantic.
“Again--and I see this way too often--the apologist will say they interpret it this way, as if that means that I have to interpret it that way too. No, if there is scholarship allowing that the way I'm reading could be correct, then I don't have to ignore the issues I see that you won't look at.”
There is scholarship that says the Earth is flat. Do you have to pay attention to it?
 
arg-fallbackName="MatthewLee"/>
This is going to be a pointless waste of both our times if we keep debating dozens of points at a time. Can we stick to one point at a time because neither of us has this kind of time. And it's getting confusing.

You're Gish Galloping again and it's trying to win through just overwhelming amounts of points that each need substantive address. One point at a time would be far easier on both of us. I don't want to spend hours on each post. Neither of us is worth that much effort to the other I'm sure.
Simply jamming the discussion is not going to do anything but demonstrate you have more free time than I do, and I don't have much.

I know we will likely never agree but I do not change my original stance.
If you wish to debate the specific point in maybe a few paragraphs at a time and substantively with good citations that's fine otherwise well have to agree to disagree.
It is impossible without a little form.

Can we agree at least on that? That smaller posts about very specific topics would help to narrow down the focus and make this far easier for either of us to disprove the other?

You tell me the specific point you wish to debate and we can go on from there. Otherwise I'll tip my hat and leave you to your turkey because this is about as useful as us shouting in each others face and saying "OH YEAH!"

This is not a concession... not at all. It's just a request for a specific format change to facilitate a more meaningful exchange.
 
arg-fallbackName="MatthewLee"/>
"I've already spent too much of my holiday disproving the false accusations of a bigoted asshole who called me a coward and a fraud and the worst kind of human being. Why? Because I take on all comers honestly for the common good. So completely undeserved. "

I missed that part. A bigot is "a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions." I tolerate your opinion. I just disagree vehemently. Only one of us wants the other's opinions censored in public and is trying to get into public office to do that. Only the worst kind of human being believes in censorship. You want to shut off my end of the debate in any way you can and you show that in every piece of art you make. You'd be burning Bible's by the thousands if you could. That's a bigot.

For the record.. I called you a fraud not because I am intolerant of you or your beliefs but because I believe you are wrong and dishonest. I served my country to prove I believe that you have a right to your opinion. I would risk my life to defend your right to speak your mind in public and I hate what you do... but I would die to defend your right to do it.

And I called you a coward because at least five of my answers to your original debate request disappeared from youtube. It left it looking like I simply ran away from your original challenge. Maybe that was a coincidence, not sure. If it was then you're not a coward. Only you know for sure.

I stand by everything else I said and again, one by one we can do this but your jamming, spamming, gish galloping only proves you can't stand the weight of specific critical assessment on any one specific point in prolonged debate. This was what the posts that disappeared from youtube said. If your willing to take on all comers then lets do this and to the end. If not then don't make excuses and just say you won't but don't act sanctimonious like someone who is deigning to speak to me because the only things you have proved so far is that you have little or no formal education and are perfectly willing to accuse Jews of supporting child sacrifice, slavery and evil with a religion they practice today. They call that anti-semitism. That's a bigot.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
MatthewLee said:
This is going to be a pointless waste of both our times if we keep debating dozens of points at a time. Can we stick to one point at a time because neither of us has this kind of time. And it's getting confusing.

You're Gish Galloping again and it's trying to win through just overwhelming amounts of points that each need substantive address.

How is replying to all the points made in your post 'Gish Galloping'? :?
 
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