So much to add where to start?
The history, the Philosophy the Science?
Before I get into this thing I think it's important to note I was raised in a Protestant Lutheran family with ancestry well engraved into the History of the church.
First off as is the case with a lot of the forum prattle people seem to think the use of an strong verb and an uncommon predicate will ad logic to their statement. I agree with a lot of the statements made, and a lot I don't. Some of its plain garbage on all accounts. Some people need to look further than the first page of Google and actually fact check themselves before posting but I'm not here to flame.
Religion itself from a literal standpoint is nothing more than a set of beliefs or guidelines to help a society function. It doesn't necessarily have to be related to the the presence, acknowledgment, belief or worship of a supernatural force. Religion is one answer to the question of how we should act? I only read replies on pages 4-6 but I didn't see the polytheistic vs monotheistic can of worms kicked--its not the direction I want this thought to head but I don't think you can talk religion without at least mentioning it.
While the other major belief sets throughout history have spent time trying to discredit the others the people of the Hindu religion continue to literally take the leap[spoil]
[/spoil] and accept
many different "paths to God or the afterlife" while worshiping several deities. It has always fascinated me how some of them can bathe in this filth day in and day out without contracting an infection--I am sure the answer to some extent lies with the biological evolution of genetics but still--it's kind of like radically handling venomous snakes in the Christian religion, if any have seen that maybe its just the camera angles and other factors but both certainly have a kind of "mysterious" or "super natural" aire to them.
If you are curious as to an accurate time line of the biblical redaction process here is one from an credible source.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/a/canon.html
From what I know the canonization was very carefully documented. Let me remind you the bible was not originally written on paper, key stroked on your lab top at 80 wpm or any of the above better options--rather the mere process of producing the scrolls was painstaking long. The delete key consisted of scraping the whole thing. The fact it took most of the "prophets" tasked with authoring the synoptic gospels(Matthew, Mark, Luke) more or less the better part of their life to transfer their eyewitness accounts to rawhide over fifty years should contest to that. Could "Q" be Yahweh? I do know at least some the existing illustrations depicting the marathon events show the author with a direct link to arch angels feeding them verbatim.
From an historical standpoint the stories of Jesus, his teachings, even his "miracles" were such common place in verbal circles and in action that the fact their are so many different concurring accounts of the same event leads to the creditability of what is held between the bindings of your New Testament NIV bible today. Over 200 people report seeing him resurrected in the flesh.
Perhaps the fulfilled prophecy, or therein, to be completely impartial the "perceived fulfillment" is what really gets me. Another little FYI tidbit--Isaac Newton spent many a sleepless night trying to decode revelations his prophesy isn't a far stretch from what the Mayans came up with--especially considering the new published opinion they could have had an error margin of 50-100 years.
I'll address the physics and cosmos with my last thought here. Newtons first law of motion will be referenced--and it could be wrong. [spoil]Every body remains in a state of rest or uniform motion (constant velocity) unless it is acted upon by an external unbalanced force. This means that in the absence of a non-zero net force, the center of mass of a body either remains at rest, or moves at a constant speed in a straight line.[/spoil]. The favored current astronomy(last 10 yrs) theory says the universe is in fact expanding which alone doesn't mean anything but it has been determined things are expanding at an increasingly rapid rate which would go against everything we know. The only explanation is something is acting upon it with force and this they call "Dark Energy" in Astronomy. Dark matter is a something else too, bit of an older topic in the field but if you didn't know 90% of mass in outer space is completely undetectable.
Interpret it as you will but to me that information could certainly be used to strengthen the case of the creationist--and most defiantly should get your wheels spinning about the parallel universe angles. Both arguments have a strong suit but for those of you wanting to continue to try and debate on the other side of the street hang onto the evolution theory it's your trump card relative to the rest of the junk in your hand.
Just don't forget what you're claiming
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Tyler
