As far as Enoch and the other "lost" and left out books of the bible.... yeah, what a scam... Noah is a story that us as old as man, only his name is Gilgamesh in every other ancient text... oh and it was just regular farm animals he took with.... something new to humans at the time, we were hunter gathers before that, and that is why it was monumental that he saved some cows and goats and sheep....
Ever Read the bible? Who are the "others" mentioned in Genesis, the ones who lived outside of the garden of eden....? I mean if the bible is fact and all..... why were there others if Adam and Eve were the first.... and why don't we all have the DNA of relatives if we all came from them????
what IF the people with wings that come from the heavens and do miracles are just older races of beings from other worlds.... and the ancients had no other way or idea to explain this!?! And what if they mated with the earthly beings of that time.... wouldn't this explain evolution? (for which there is PROOF, not just faith... hundreds if not thousands of examples now, see Lucy for a good example.) Space is litterally way bigger and more vast then we can imigane, if earth was a grain of sand ON earth, and all ot the other stars were too, there isn't even enough sand on all of the planet earth to represent every star out there, and every star has a number of planets orbiting it, like earth orbits the sun... so the # of planted out there is literally UN-IMAGANIBLE.... to think we were bade by god and are the only ones like us anywhere, is just silly really, not to mention a bit nieve.
Ever had a conversation with a devout person about science? It is like listening to someone from Salem Mass. circa 1692 tell you about how all of the women you know are definitely witches..... The people I have discussed this with have been 100% dismissive of radio carbon dating, DNA, facial reconstruction, and the dozens of other methods used to prove the science of the things the we find in the ground that support the sciences.
The bible and other texts gave the ancient people, who didn't have any other way of explaining the Why's in life, a picture they could hold onto in their heads so they didn't go mad wondering..... Keep in mind, these same people thought the world was flat, that the sun relvolved around the earth, and didn't even know that sex is what made baby's.... they had to have something. Now that we have seen the earth from space, most believe it is round, why doesn't the proof that we evolved do the same thing... fear! Just like it always has been.
Also, kind of joking with this one...(kind of) but what if and I am just saying WHAT IF on this one.... what if the virgin mary was merely a functional hermaphodite, and the immaculate conseption was made up to protect her from certain exacution?
I agree, most who claim to be devout spend way too much time and energy trying to convert and therefore JUDGING which, as I understand it, is against their whole gig anyways.... I am agreeing with YOU pinx, but would like to add the words Politics and Prob 19 to you're title, as these are often too heated and hated upon here as well....
And for Padawanbater2... below is a quote from u, I don't now how to add a quote in edit and didnt want to double post....
You're right, as that's an impossible question to answer at this point in time. But I don't claim "there is no God". I am an atheist who doesn't believe there is a God. I really don't know one way or the other, but I do believe there is no God based on my observations with reality. If I simply said "I don't know.." without the conclusion that I also don't believe there is one, then I'd be an agnostic atheist. The terms are a little complicated, don't get hung up on the terms. That's not important.
Just as an F.Y.I. the fact that you have some doubt in your statement about how you really don't know one way or the other... does make you Agnostic rather than Atheist
from dictionary.com,
1.a. One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.b. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism.
2. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something.
