How does that make any difference?
How does that make any difference?
Well you see, the OP was specifically addressing Christianity. I responded to that.
I’m sorry ochaye, I’m not following you here. I was speaking of design. I posted the picture of the peacock feathers, because they look as if they were specifically designed. There are countless examples of this if one opens their mind along with their eyes and looks around them, but in no way does this prove the existence of a creator. That is why I said “possibility”. How exactly are you refuting this? What does the use or non-use of the word “devout” matter?
It wasn’t. It isn’t.
Very fair, if ‘beauty’ inspires only the possibility of a creator.
Why ‘devout’?
Alright, maybe I’m just super-dense, but I still don’t follow. What are you trying to say, ochaye? Anything? What does it matter if I say “devout believer” or just “believer”, in the context of this thread? Are you just trolling, or do you actually have a point to make?
If design, or beauty, or whatever the photo is supposed to represent, inspires only the possibility of faith in a creator, how can it inspire devout faith?
Okay, this I understand 
I didn’t mean to imply that design inspires devout faith.
To someone who is a devout believer, nature itself is proof that god exists. God designed it specifically the way he wanted it to be. I’m not saying seeing design within nature will inspire devout faith, but someone with devout faith will see design within nature. To others, those a bit more skeptical, perhaps a nudge in the “believer” direction.
He or she might do. Most Western believers do not believe in design.
A pretty uncomfortable fact for some people, as it happens.
So…most Westerners who believe in a Creator don’t believe in…design. Okay. I must be confused about what “creator” means.
Possibly, if you have led a very protected life, or maybe just arrived from Mars. Or you may be a terrified, trouble-making troll, evading giving answers. Or something in between. Who can say?
As is very well known, people from Charles Darwin onwards, (and indeed before him, not so well known), believed and believe that creation, if it occurred, could have been via evolution rather than by design. Darwin himself believed that, as have many other biologists. It truly defies belief that contributors to a philosophy forum do not know that; and such people have no place here, if they pretend to be unaware of the common belief in evolution.
Perhaps those who claim to believe via design are lying about it, because they wish to recruit followers to crooked ways by a false prospectus. And perhaps they have their friends here.
Yes, agreed. However, having spent a rather large amount of time in bible-preaching churches for various and sundry reasons, I do know that many people still believe in creation as it’s described in the bible. God said it, it happened just the way he wanted it to. In fact, it was a pastor who first brought to my attention the idea of intelligent design detailed right down to a peacock feather. ‘Creation via design’ is preached to hundreds of thousands of people every weekend.
I don’t necessarily believe in creation via design. It’s a possibility, but a far-fetched one, imo. I’m certainly not trying to “recruit followers”. I’m just having a conversation.
I’m dense like Ms. Blurred, so humor me, if you’d be so kind.
Are you saying (“creation could have been via evolution”) that evolution created…creation?
No. The Kharsag Epics from the Nippur Tablets, stored at University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology give the best evidence of the first Gods (being human) - An, Enlil, Nin-kharsag and Enki - probaby many of our ancestors. The best documentary evidence for their existence is recorded below
The Kharsag Epics
The Kharsag Epics is the name given by geologist Christian O’Brien to a series of epic poems from Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) and are among the earliest known works of literary writing. Some esoteric scholars believe that these texts originated as a series of legends and poems about the earliest mythological hero-gods including An, Enlil, Enki and Ninkharsag in a location called Kharsag.[1][2][3][4][5] The Epics are contained in Sumerian tablets recovered by Dr. John Henry Haynes during the University of Pennsylvania’s excavations at Nippur in 1896-1898 and translated originally by George Aaron Barton.
Several of the epics were translated in 1918 by professor of Semitic languages and the history of religion George Aaron Barton under the title “Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions”. They are dated considerably earlier than the Gudea Cylinders to at least the reign of Akkadian king Naram-Suen of Akkad (ca. 2190 – 2154 BC short chronology) and possibly as early as 2,500BC[8]. Barton originally dated them even earlier to 2704-2660BC according to Breasted’s chronology.
The first Kharsag Epic, as translated by Christian O’Brien begins “At Kharsag, where Heaven and Earth met, the Heavenly Assembly, the Great Sons of Anu, descended - the many Wise Ones”[9][10].
The second Kharsag Epic, a reverse cut cuneiform cylinder, described by George Aaron Barton as “The oldest religious text from Babylonia” mentions Kharsag in the first line of the second verse - “The holy Tigris, the holy Euphrates, the holy sceptre of Enlil establish Kharsag”[11].
The Sumerian text of tablet 8383 (as translated above) amounts to 268 lines of cuneiform though 19 columns of inscription. Of these 268 lines (as numbered for translation purposes) 226 are transcribed in whole or in part, with 42 obliterated lines unresolved. Christian O’Brien explained that there are actually 320 lines of inscription on this cylinder. A further analysis of all columns in the 1980s resolved some of the previous partial-line results and moved many more into translation[12].
From columns I-VIII (1-Cool, three hitherto uninterpreted addresses by Ninkharsag were now evident. From columns IX-XV (9-15) was information concerning Enlil’s great house (the E-gal) at Kharsag. And, from columns XVI-XIX (16-19), were additional details concerning the ‘sickness’ with which Enlil and his brother Enki were stricken. By adding in the supplementary translations O’Brien brought the overall 320 lines to a point of 82.5% completion.
The stories revolve around the arrival of the Annunaki on Mount Hermon, their decision to settle in a nearby plain and establish a head enclosure (O’Brien translates Kharsag literally as “head enclosure”) with reservoir, irrigation channels and agricultural buildings. Christian O’Brien’s translations generally favoured less supernatural explanations, suggesting the epics were an agrarian, historical record of events and the establishment of agriculture at a historical location[13]. His index of the tablets, and their Museum numbers are listed below[14][15][16]:
Tablet one
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 14,005
The Arrival of the Anannage
Tablet two
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 8,383
The Decision to Settle
Tablet three
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 9,205
The Romance of Enlil and Ninlil
Tablet four
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 11,065
The Planning of the Cultivation
Tablet five
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 8,322
The Building of the Settlement
Tablet six
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 8,384
The Great House of Enlil
Tablet seven
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 8,310
The Cold Winter Storm
Tablet eight
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Number 8,317
The Thousand Year Storm
Tablet nine
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Museum Numbers 19,751, 2,204, 2,270 & 2,302
The Final Destruction
Kharsag is overwhelmed by flood water, destroying the dam, reservoir and disabling the great watercourse.
^ archive.org/stream/miscellan … t_djvu.txt Miscellaneous Babylonian Inscriptions by George A. Barton, 1918, Yale University Press
How is that the worshipping following of An, Enlil, Nin-kharsag and Enki is relatively small?
that sentence doesn’t make sense
Wow, good stuff. Thanks for posting this.
What do you mean “inspired by God through revelations”?
The Christians I know base their belief in God on what is written in the Bible.
What are some of the other things Christians base their belief in God on?
If they don’t take the Bible literally, then how do they come to believe in an omniscient & omnipotent being?
What does that have to do with whether or not there is an omniscient & omnipotent being in existence?
Very well said.
The principle attraction of Christianity is the practical difference it makes to those who are converted by it. Drunks, thieves, troublesome people are overnight changed into sober, law-abiding and helpful people. Nobody is converted to Christ by feathers or sunsets; though there are many, particularly in the USA, who would prefer people to say that they are Christian because convinced by such things. The reason for that is that the principle repulsion of Christianity is the practical difference it makes to those who are converted by it. Some would prefer drunks, thieves, troublesome people to remain as they are. Christianity is at least as much proved true by those who oppose it as it is by its own positives.
The Bible is not the best evidence of the Christian God’s existence. Christians are that evidence, just as they were when there was little or no Bible, in practice. Even though Christians are as rare as hen’s teeth in some parts of the world.