Okay, last religious question of the night for me, what are your thoughts about liars?

Question

If an Atheist tells you that dinosaurs roamed the earth long before man did, but a religious expert told you that there are no such thing as dinosaurs, it's just another trick of the devil, who is being more godly?

Also, if that same Atheist told you that the Earth was round and revolves around the sun along with other planets, but the same religious leader said that the earth was flat, set on a foundation, and that there were no other planets, those lights in the sky are all stars set in place by god and the sun goes around the Earth, not vice versa, who is telling god's truth?

What my question boils down to is this, how do you know your religious leaders and holy books are right, when (assuming there is a god) all of his creation is self evident and sometimes opposed to the current religious beliefs? Could it be that Atheists who go by the mere facts of observable and demonstratable reality alone are god's greatest witnesses to the truth?

Bert and Chieko, please see the following links of well known recorded historical knowledge with references in support of my claims, then provide your evidence that this never happened as you say.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heliocentrism#Religious_disputes_over_heliocentrism

http://dinocreationistsfairytale.wordpress.com/tag/dishonesty/

Ramjet, you know I highly respect your opinions on many matters and hold you in high regard.

My question was demonstrating that some teachings of popular religions by religious leaders are provably false. I didn't mention a specific religion or timeframe for a reason, it's of lesser importance than the question itself.

I could easily have brought up many examples and linked scriptures directly supporting everything I asserted, but I was not limiting the question to christians alone, and thus would have unfairly singled them out by doing so.

Answer 1

You can only be counted as a liar if you know the truth, and intentionally tell something that you know to be untrue. Some of these religious leaders you speak of are brainwashed. But, the idea that the earth is only 6000 years old is almost as ridiculous as believing that the earth is flat! There is much that we do not know and can not know, about the time before our written history because billions of records were destroyed. When, we as a species are ready to know these things, when we are evolved enough to know these things, we will. In the meantime, it would behoove us all to admit that we simply do not know all of the answers, and to just accept that none of us know everything there is to know about God, and the universe and the true history of this planet. Let us all except, also, that there is no one right way, and accept that each way is the right way for the person who believes it. *sm

Answer 2

" Could it be that Atheists who go by the mere facts of observable and demonstratable reality alone are god's greatest witnesses to the truth?"

No, what it could be is that religious leaders in the past have read into God's word things which it did not contain. No where in the Bible does it say that the earth is the center of the universe and that everything revolves around it.

The Bible does teach that animals including dinosaurs were created before men, it just doesn't say how long and the "days" of Genesis 1 are open to a variety of interpretions, one of which is that God revealed the truths of his creation on 7 different days and that it is written in poetic language.

The Bible says that the earth is round and that it "hangs on nothing". That was written back when other religions like Hinduism were saying that the earth rested on the back of a giant turtle and centuries before the Greeks taught that it rested on the shoulders of giant called Atlas.

Answer 3

Maybe I'm confused, but what religious leader today do you know that says there were no dinosaurs and that the world is flat and there are no other planets?

I am a Conservative born again Christian and I've never heard anyone say those things.
The obvious answer here is that the "religious" leaders you quote are either lying or desperately misguided.

Now on to other things.
I would say that both the atheist and the conservative Christian have the same evidences to examine where dinosaurs are concerned - all dead fossils which require extensive research and theoretical speculation as to their origins. The bottom line is, we weren't there to observe it, so we just don't know.

the part about the earth and planets is moot

the part about the bible is true. Scripture tells us that all creation is self evident and all of creation cries out to the glory of God. The same evidence is available and observable to both parties.

blessings :)

Answer 4

I'm constantly amazed at the number of questions in Religion & Spirituality in which someone argues that because science does not support the literal interpretation of the Bible, atheists must be correct. While fundamentalist Christians who view the Bible as being literally true are a vocal group, the number of Christians who don't believe in the literal truth of the Bible is much larger.

You can't prove or disprove the existence of God through experiments. The scientific method is perhaps the most reliable way we have for dealing with problems in the material physical world. Religion deals with problems of values, meaning, and existence for which the scientific method is irrelevant as a way of finding an answer. You shouldn't look to religious books as a way of answering scientific questions.

Answer 5

To me, liars are in the same category as cheats, thieves, etc.

You know, many of us who do believe in God, also have gone to school, and have common knowledge regarding the planets & solar system, dinosaurs, the shape of the earth, etc.

The Bible, and many other holy books were written before a lot of discoveries (e.g., dinosaur bones, planets, shape of the earth, etc.) were made. Some of us believe in evolution--that it all is part of God's plan.

Answer 6

Satan is called the Father of Lies. Dinosaurs coexisted with people. The age of the earth is about 6-8,000 years. Earth is the third planet from the sun in a solar system of nine planets, if you count Pluto; but that's another story. Light from the sun takes about 8 minutes to get to earth.

The Universe is expanding, God DID set the stars in the sky, and you will know the Truth when you seek God with all your heart. Observable and demonstratable reality can be viewed here: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4136610474021109864&q=rawlings

Edit:

BERT: Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

Answer 7

what does prepare is the respond your fellow believer is going to furnish you for each of something human beings to study. yay! and then that easy assertion like a cheers, amen. assertion. so whats the diff? Why dont you examine the Pharisees? Then attempt to be certain your individual answer, that's, if somebody doesnt puppet what you will say besides first. guy...all this time i assumed Shakesphere pronounced "to err is human". Oh wrongo...Alexander Pope (by no skill a pope) the poet pronounced that. do you % to renowned the call of THAT e book? as quickly as a individual comes to a decision to love and save on with Jesus, they're below grace, not the regulation you verify with. Jesus frees us from having (suffering) a option to intentionally bypass against the be conscious. i in my view journey this. yet, oh, I dont understand your mantra, so i assume we arent going to furnish one yet another severe fives. authentic believers evaluate themselves blessed to go through for Jesus. We dont anticipate endless nutrition, funds and all the relaxing in the worldwide on each and every occasion we choose to bypass to Walt Disney worldwide or have interior decide to win the Powerball. i think of there are fewer Christians that attack Allah or Muhammed and the Q'uran, than Christianity and the Bible are attacked by making use of believers jointly with your self. Why is that? attempt to renowned love.

Answer 8

Some great minds have been handcuffed by religion. Galileo was imprisoned for the rest of his life when he said that the Earth orbited the sun. Crazy!

Answer 9

that was sooo deep but i havent a clue i have a felling u r confused about your religion honestly i dont think noone really knows i used to think that the bible was just a story made up by someone and people believed and continued to believe it until this day but i think .... well i dont really know and that scares me becuase i think ill go to hell if im wrong

Answer 10

The Bible speaks of dinosaurs. It calls them Behemoth and Leviathan. The Bible also stated earth was a sphere ( can't remember the exact verse but am certainly going to be prepared next time with it ) long before science caught on. Sounds like you might be spreadin' some lies.

Want to know what else is a lie? Evolution.
Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould put it this way"Most species exhibit no directional change during their tenure on earth. They appear in the fossil record looking much the same as when they disappear; morphological change is usually limited and directionless." In other words, Throughout the geologic layers, which supposedly formed over eons - the various kinds of fossils remain essentially unchanged in appearance.They show no evolution over long ages. Paleontologists call this "stasis."
Wouldn't a fossil record, showing all animals complete when first seen, is what we'd expect if God created them whole, just as the Bible says?
Austin H. Clark, the eminent zoologist of the Smithsonian Institution, was no creationist but he declared:
"No matter how far back we go in the fossil record of previous animal life upon the earth we find no trace of any animal forms which are intermediates between the major groups of phyla.
This can only mean one thing. There can only be one interpertation of thisentire lack of any intermediates between the major groups of animals - as for instance betweenbackboned animals or vertebrates , the echinoderms, the mollusks and the arthropods
If we are willing to accept the facts we must believe that there never were such intermediates, or in other words that these major groups have from the very first, borne the same relation to each other that they have today."
.British science writer Frances Hitchens wrote" On the face of it, then, the prime function of the genetic system would seem to be to resist change ; to to perpetuate the species in a minimally adapted form in response to altered conditions, and if at all possibe to get things back to normal. The role of natural selection is usually a negative one : to destroy the few mutant individuals that threaten the stability of the soecies.
Why aren't fish today, growing little arms and legs, trying to adapt to land? Why aren't reptiles today developing feathers?Shouldn't evolution be ongoing?
Evolution Is not visible in the past, via the fossil record. It is not visible in the present, whether we consider an organism as a whole, or on the microscopic planes of biochemistry and molecular biology,where, as we have seen, the theory faces numerous difficulties. In short, evolution is just not visible. Science is supposed to be based on observation.
L. Harrison Matthews,long director of the London Zoological society noted in 1971:"Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parrallel to belief in special creation - both are concepts which believers know to be true, but neither up to the present, has been capable of proof.
Norman MacBeth wrote in American Biology Teacher:
"Darwinism has failed in practice. The whole aim and purpose in Darwinism is to show how modern forms descended from ancient forms, that is to construct reliable phylogenies(genealogies or family trees). In this it has utterly failed...Darwinism is not science."
Swedish biologist Soren Lovtrup declared in his book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth:
I suppose nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory. But this is what has happened in biology;for a long time now people discuss evolutionary problems in a peculiar" Darwinism" vocabulary -- "adaptation","selection pressure","natural selection", etc.--thereby believing that they contribute to the explanation of natural events.They do not, and the sooner this is discovered, the sooner we will be able to make real progress in the understanding of evolution.
As natural selection's significance crumbles, the possibility of God, creation and design is again making a wedge in scientific circles. In a 1998 cover story entitled"Science Finds God" Newsweek noted:
"The achievments of modern science seem to contradict religion and undermine faith. But for a growing # of scientists, the same discoveries offer support for spirituality and hints of the very nature of God...According to a study released last year, 40% of American scientists believe in a personal God---not only an ineffable power and presence in the world, but a diety to whom they can pray."
Author David Raphael Klein may have said it best:
"Anyone who can contemplate the eye of a housefly, the mechanics of human finger movement, the camoflage of a moth, or the building of every kind of matter from variations in arrangement of proton and electron, and then maintain that all this design happened without a designer, happened by sheer, blind accident-- such a personbelieves in a miracle far more astonishing than any in the Bible."