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ALIEN LIFE DISCOVERED!
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Reverend: [QB] Oh I son don't want to turn this into a religous argument but...OK, here's what I don't understand about otherwise reasonable and intelligent people who claim to believe in this stuff; why lend so much credence to this book? It's not like it materialised out of thin air with an almighty crack of thunder and burst of light. It was written by men. Many men (and possibly women, who knows) over the course of centuries and probably millennia. Hell, technically it wasn't even written but compiled for a great many sources, their inclusion and indeed reading order voted on by a bunch of bishops who were probably born as pagans. Even at that point, a lot of the text had already been translated several times and has been translates several times since then. Therefore there's no way of knowing how elements--big and small--have been mistranslated, distorted or outright edited (I recall a few instances 'Gods' plural sneaking though) mostly to suit the beliefs of what was at the time an increasingly powerful social political movement that had just effectively taken over what was left of the Roman Empire. Still, even if we ignore all that, the text was written by humans, the really early stuff probably several thousand years BC (maybe more than is thought even) it's just some early cultures' stories of how things came to be and probably came from the same place most creation myths come from...eating funny looking mushrooms and cactus juice in the middle of a hot desert, mixed with a little imagination and some moral parable to make it worth retelling. This document, though fascinating and of great historical significance is no more useful as a guide to the origins of life, matter and the universe in general than something I might scribble down on the back of a napkin. From a linguistic standpoint alone, splitting hairs over what the definition of a "day" did or did not mean to suit a more modern scientific view of things is utterly futile when you have zero idea how much that passage has changed from one translation to the next. Even god does exist and did whisper this in the ear of some tribal story teller somewhere in pre-ice age Africa, ever since then it's been through the mother of all games of Chinese whispers. Seen in it's historical context, this book (of which I might add, there are numerous versions depending on denomination) is full of slanted information, most of it probably not even written down until at least generation or so after the supposed incident(s) took place. Take Joshua for example; if that account of the fall of Jericho (taken at face value in this case) isn't a bunch of propaganda and justification after the fact for what amounts to mass genocide I don't know what is. On the other hand it may or may not also contain what could be the earliest recorded use of cannon fire, but that's another matter... I'm not disputing the existence of god (what'd be the point?) or a person's right to have faith and take great solace and comfort from the bible and other similar holy books, because they are powerful works and offer valid moral and spiritual guidance...but it's not a good source of solid facts. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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