To believe in only one deity means that you denounce all others as false.
And I completely agree with Alderian (is that the planet blown up at the start of A New Hope?). It doesn't really matter. Assuming he existed, we don't know if he/she/it takes an interest in us, and whether praying to him will gives us any benefits/cursing him will ruin us (or the other way around if he/she/it is a masochist).

@largeham - that is a false premise. I can believe in one God and view all deities worshipped as aspects of the same God. Vishnu (the supreme god of the Hindu religion) has a thousand names and appears in many forms, but he is the one and same Supreme God; Paramatma (supreme soul) and Parameshwara (supreme God). Whose to his many forms don't include Jehovah and Allah?

I truly believe in ONE god, and that it's all the fucked up humanity/so called cultures that make it obscure, so in short: there is only ONE God, and our cultural and ethnic differences dictate how we worship the same God.

:)

live game starting in 4 minutes get a spot please

Exactly my point, OBL.

+1 OBL

@ Draugnar- at least someone here has some sense!!!!
well said- now having said that, this is why i am not a practicing RC. i despise ORGANISED religion

use the live games thread thanks RSTAR

I agree. When Genesis descibes the creation story, the author (probably Moses), uses the term "days". Seven "days". In this case, I believe "days" is not an objective term. 7 "days" could really mean 7 billion years. We don't know.

Maybe Genesis does not mean 7 literally either, it could be a metaphor for 13.5.

if you times 7 by 6 you get 42! *gasps*

which if you halve is 21! which has two digits! so you add two with is 23!!

Not to be snarky or anything, but divine-image humans "merging" with animal humans... wouldn't that be a form of bestiality?

Isn't that what a lot of Straight guys delve in? forms of bestiality?
How has this got off topic?????

fro God to Bestiality? i don't see a link

@De Gaulle: the internet is a wonderful place isnt it?

no better or worse than the REAL world we live in sadly

Now everybody thinks I'm sick :(
My thought was that the difference between humans and animals was the divine image, so non-divine-image humans would essentially be animals...

Divine image means we have a soul. Our bodies are just convenient carriers for our souls. Presumably, having sex with a clone would also be bestiality by that definition.

Wouldn't the clone also have his/her own soul?

unanswerable questions ftw?

Prove to me humans have souls, and then maybe I'll believe you.

@baumhauer - why would a man made creation (not through some form of procreation) have been endowed with a soul?

@ray - Some things have to be taken on faith. If you don't believe in a soul, that's your loss and your decision. I need not prove anything because I don't care if you believe me.

@CM, a couple of times you said that the bible doesn't contradict the scientific evidence (assuming you make some pretty broad creative licenses about days and eras and such)... but you haven't responded to Thucy's assertion about the direct contradictions between the relative dates of the appearances of land plants and sea creatures and birds and land animals... in the bible vs. scientific evidence (see 5th post in this thread). I can understand why you skim past and ignore his assertion... it does, after all, prove you wrong. But be a man and look at the evidence.

I would like to note a few more biblical absurdities: day and night on day 1, but sky waits until day 2... fruit on day 3, but the Sun, moon and stars wait until day 4... fruit on day 3 (fruit appeared in the early Cretaceous about 140 Mya), birds (in the late Jurassic - 160Mya, more or less) but they are listed on day 5... and here is one of my favorites... Livestock appear before creatures that move along the ground and before wild animals and, get this, before man... hahaha... livestock *before* man... (all on day 6, but in that order). Oh- and the creatures that move along the ground? let's see... insects were the first animal colonizers of land about 450 Mya and the first amphibians were about 360 Mya and both are listed on day 6, and these two day 6 events happen just before the first seed bearing plants about 350 Mya... listed on day 3. These are but a few of the problems.

Look... just pat your ancient forebears on the back... they did pretty darn well for uneducated guesswork. But leave it at that. Move into the Age of Enlightenment, for crying out loud.

See... the corner you and your brethren have painted yourself into is the assumption and assertion that the Bible is literally true and infallible. So, since you want to hang onto your belief in Christ and love and heaven and forgiveness and eternity and such (all very nice) you feel that you must defend even the most indefensible and ridiculous portions of the Bible - no matter how much you have to twist your brain into a pretzel to do it. I don't blame you either... the legacy in American culture of hanging on to these bronze age beliefs is strong... it's hard to uproot something that you've been told all your life and that your parents believe... even when presented with evidence. It's quite a mental and emotional conflict to have. Here's my advice... don't feel you have to hang onto the placenta that baby Jesus came from... Jesus is the key theme (as a non-believer I would argue love and hope are more central, but we can agree to not agree on that)... anyway - Jesus is the baby... toss out the freakin' 3,000 year old bath water. Genesis is the thumbnail sketch prologue... it's not the main plot. Heck, Paul had everyone kind of set aside/reinterpret most of the old testament as old news or something like that anyway, didn't he? We don't go around slaying and raping and sacrificing and slaving and eschewing mixed fabrics like we used to before Jesus provided the update, right? Why not let go a bit the old Genesis tale too? ...especially when it is *provably* wrong.

@Draugnar, regarding the soul thing... since I don't see the physical world as a dead and lifeless thing that has to be populated by a spirit world then I see no reason for a soul and no need... were there a "soul" by my definition it would be inseparable from our physical being - it would simply be an aspect of us - a way of looking at us - not some kind of ghost that inhabits a piece of meat. Matter and energy are after all the same thing in some elemental way... and given enough complexity and billions of years you get some pretty amazing things... emergent things... things that can think about things that have never existed... things that can think about thinking... Why create a separate realm to explain it? To me that takes away from our reality - not adds to it.

@Dexter - As I mentioned before, the sun and moon already existed on Day 4, there was just ash and stuff in the atmosphere (I believe scince says this also) that went away on Day 4, revealing the sun and moon. (God did say "Let there be light" On day one after all.)

svenson said: "Is it not enough to just be a good person with good morals? Why should I go to church every Sunday? Why should I make the woman in my culture only show their eyes? Why should I not eat meat at certain times? Why should I not eat pork? Why should I not drink alcohol? Why should I not be able to love another of the same sex? (I'm not gay) Why should I do/don't do a large number of other things?"

The first part I totally agree with. Does it matter to me if there is a God looking over my shoulder? No, I'm a good person regardless. For those of you that need God to exist to be good, what does that really say about you?

Regarding the rest, there are actually reasons for all of those rules. A lot of them are no longer necessary with our better understanding of how the world works. A lot of them are cultural rules intended to reduce problems. A lot of religion is about how to live in a thriving society. Problem is that the rules that no longer make sense are still kept because blind devotion keeps people from realizing that those rules are no longer needed.

@CM, yes, I realize you mentioned the ash idea... how exactly do you have vegetation (and all the life dependent on it) when the sun is blotted out for thousand or millions of years (if each "day" is really thousands or millions of years)?

*And* you haven't answered any of the other issues I brought up... nor have you answered the ones that Thucy brought up. Not that I expect an answer consistent with Biblical teaching... I simply would like you to acknowledge that there is an apparent disconnect between the bible and the scientific evidence... because, frankly, its self-evident.

@CM, I go to the trouble of constructing a 4 paragraph post directed to you - the guy who started this very conversation, the least you can do is read it carefully. In it you will find a number of clear instances of direct contradiction between the bible and science. If you will not read it and respond I must conclude that you are being a troll on this topic... and not worthy of further consideration.

@Dexter - I view our self-awareness as our soul. And yes, I believe there are self awre animals and that they too have souls. My basic view is that the "soul" is an itnegral part of our body as it is what makes us unique and individual as opposed to the automatons of the hive mind like bees and ants have, but that the individuality is not lost just because we die, instead it is transformed or metamorphs or something unexplainable (why do we have to have an explanation for everything in the universe?) and leaves this plane of existence to pass into the afterlife.

But while we live, our souls are as attached to our bodies as any other limb and, in fact, could just be called our consciousness.