The Spirituality or Non Spirituality Book List

Originally posted by bbarr
Seing somebody as smart as Plantinga fail again and again is an informative experience.

OK, I'm intrigued. I'll put this book in my queue.

Originally posted by Darfius
[b]My wording was unclear. "It" refers to the Bible, not Christianity.

Oh, I see.

I refer to things like claims of humans living for almost a thousand years,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4003063.stm

the claims that some make that counting back generations gives an age for the Earth of ~6000 years,

That's a literal interp ...[text shortened]... find more if I took the time.[/b]

Please do. I hope I can clear some more things up for you.[/b]

The article that discusses curing aging is perfectly reasonable. One of my friends was working on that at UCLA for a long time. However, I know of no evidence that suggests that humans ever had technology more advanced than we have now and were able to do this. Can you elaborate on how you think people in the past lived for almost a thousand years?

It is inconceivable that an omnipotent God put Adam to sleep, removed his rib, and sped up cellular regrowth into the form of a woman?

Well of course not. Omnipotence is omnipotence. Of course, God would have had to have changed the genes in the cell. In addition, there is much more evidence that human males and females evolved from non-human males and females, as opposed to a human male coming to exist and a human female being created from his body. There's also the problem of the lack of genetic diversity that would come from all of humanity being descendents of two people. Species with little genetic diversity don't live long as a rule.

What parts of the snake did Satan use to make it talk? Snakes don't have the right equipment to talk. There is no evidence that snakes can ever spontaneously attain the ability to talk unless maybe it's through a long, long evolutionary change.

If God is real, then so is Satan, which also explains the high level of evil in the world and Hitler's obsession with killing Jews.

I disagree with all of the reasoning in this sentence. Just because one being exists doesn't mean another does also, and how come evil is caused by Satan? What happened to free will?

Those men were being unfairly killed...

This response does not address my claim that people can run around in a fire without getting burned is not supported by science.

I beg you to stop making the same mistake I made and basing your conclusions on the King James Version.

I'm looking at the NIV and the NAB, not the KJB.

What? Mammals were created after birds. "Everything that creeps on the ground" refers to rodents. "Beats of the earth" refers to predatory mammals.

Your interpretation is not literal. The obvious meaning of "everything that creeps on the ground" includes amphibians, insects, centipedes, etc. "Beasts of the earth" seemed at first to me to imply worms and things like that, though I have heard the word used to suggest mammals specifically. I wonder what the Hebrew was?

Apparently plants as advanced as fruit bearing found a natural process to exist without significant sunlight until God parted the clouds.

"Apparently"? Apparent to who? As far as I understand it, science suggests fruit evolved along after chlorophyll. Do you have scientific backing for your claim?

The "foundation of the earth"...

The Earth rests upon it's formation? This is an odd phrase. The NIV refers to plural foundations, just as the website I looked at originally referred to plural pillars. Is the Hebrew word unclear about whether it's plural or singular? I'll assume that's possible. I'll accept your explanation of this tentatively though it's written with very little clarity.

If God stopped the Earth's rotation, the sun would indeed stand still in the sky.

Is there scientific support that the Earth has ever stopped spinning or that there is a mechanism by which it might have happened?

I'd need to see this verse. Don't remember it.

Isaiah 38:8: [/i]I will make the shadow cast by the sun go back the ten steps it has gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.' " So the sunlight went back the ten steps it had gone down.[/i]

I suppose this may not have been Isaiah's command, but as far as I know science does not support the hypothesis that the Earth reversed it's rotation ever. Do you have a different interpretation of this verse?

That's false. Genesis 2 simply retells Genesis 1 in detail, a common habit in the Bible. Much like Jesus explained His parables to the disciples.

Genesis 2:4-7: When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground- the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

It seems clear enough to me that according to Genesis 2, no shrub or plant of the field at least had come into being when humans were created. Evolutionary theory claims fields were covered in shrubs and plants by this time.

I'm not positive, but I was under the impression that hares eat vegetation, crap it out in pellets and eat it again.

This is true. Whether or not this counts as "cud chewing" in ancient Hebrew I won't challenge.

The Hebrew word for "fowl" means "beasts covered with feathers or beasts covered with wings". Insects creeped on "four legs" (on the ground) and had wings.

Insects creep about on six legs. Are we saying "beast" does not refer to mammals only now? If so, then "beasts of the earth" again implies worms and beetles and things.

Yes, God did that to get the Pharaoh to respect Moses, who was attempting to free his people from Egyptian bondage.

Science does not support that rods can be turned into snakes.

Please cite the verse.

Job 41 describes Leviathan, a scaled, fire breathing "tanniyn" (= dragon).

The only reference to phoenixes I can find on further searching is in Job 29:18, and it's not a claim that they exist. I'll retract my claim that the Bible says phoenixes exist.

Ezechiel 1 describes the four faced creatures.

Originally posted by bbarr
Seing somebody as smart as Plantinga fail again and again is an informative experience.

Where do you think Plantinga failed? I haven't read his book 'Warranted Christian Belief,' but in general, I think all deductive"poofs" of God fail. At least I've never heard one that works. And I don't know if Plantinga makes that attempt in this book but he is well know for his ontological proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga

Originally posted by Coletti
Where do you think Plantinga failed? I haven't read his book 'Warranted Christian Belief,' but in general, I think all deductive"poofs" of God fail. At least I've never heard one that works. And I don't know if Plantinga makes that attempt in this book but he is well know for his ontological proof.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Plantinga

His ontological arguments fail (see Mackie), each and every version, for reason's analogous to those in virtue of which Anselm's ontological argument failed. His theodicies fail. And his notion of warrant (a version of reliabilism in epistemology) is badly mistaken.