Posted by Rusty Lee on August 18, 1999 at 18:47:03:
In Reply to: answer posted by Robert on August 18, 1999 at 11:45:28:
::Isn't it a better approach to be skeptical and to withhold belief/acceptance of something until some evidence is found to support it?
Like evolution?
: : Imagine for a moment that the pyramids of Egypt have long since eroded back into the sand. Now imagine that a book that many people considered mythology actually told of their existence. The book gives the proportions and sizes of the blocks used to build it, each block weighing several tons, and the nearest quarry to acquire these blocks is miles away.
: : I have a feeling that the same people who disbelieve the bible would also disbelieve in the existence of the pyramids. As far as we knew there is no way that people of that era could have built such a structure because they did not possess the technology to do it. Well, those people would be wrong. We have been forced to figure out how they did it because they are there. Had they been gone then you people would have written it off as bull and moved on.
: (Robert)It's not always that information in the bible may be beyond what we feel may be mechanically feasible (i.e., how the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids). It is also difficult to accept writings in the bible that we know for a fact are incorrect. Some examples are areas in the bible that get involved in describing elements of zoology. There are passages which state that snails melt, a human being can be made from dust (hey, isn't even against the creationist argument that they wrongly accuse evolutionists of being guilty of? They state that evolution proposes that a living thing can't be created from a non-living thing [which is what they claim evolution says, even though it doesn't]. Genesis makes this same claim; that a living man was created from inanimate dust), another human can be created from a rib bone, bats are really birds, insects have four legs, etc. The bible also implies that the sun revolves around the earth (read the passages that discuss how the "sun's path across the sky" was somehow stopped)
: We KNOW these things to be nonsense, so what is there in the bible to convince others of its veracity? Isn't it a better approach to be skeptical and to withhold belief/acceptance of something until some evidence is found to support it? Or is it better to believe in things without direct evidence pointing to their existence? If so, why not still believe in elves, Santa Claus, Big Foot, etc?