Paradise on Earth

[onewithhim]

When I learned that the Bible speaks of a restored Garden of Eden and the restoration of mankind to the perfection and endless life that Adam forfeited, I was thrilled. Who doesn't want to keep living on this beautiful earth, with our loved ones, and being able to do all the things we love to do---endlessly?

If God said to you today, "When do you want to die?" would you say "now!!"? I don't think very many people would say that.

We CAN live forever here on Earth. The Bible tells us that we can.

Matthew 5:5
Psalm 37:9-11,29

[JehovahsWitness]

Thanks for writing this because you've explained where you are making an error.

No, thank you, I can now see where you are wrong.

This is rather naughty of you since you have omitted an important clause that RESTRICTS the statement. "While the earth remains" carries a strong suggestion that it WON'T always remain.

The bible repeatedly indicates the earth will remain forever, indeed the permanence of the earth is frequently used hyperbolically in Hebrew as s symbol of that which is perpetural and everlasting, so both linguistically and contextually your conclusion is faulty. Your mistake is that you are projecting your personal theology into the clause, a common mistake but rather naughty of you nevertheless.

Now what I am wondering is, if you can so easily and readily err in a simple case like this, what greater errors do JWs make over the whole of Scripture? A BIG question, no?

Now that you have been shown to so easily and readily err in the simple matter of understanding a sentence, what greater errors may you be making: A big question no?


You're welcome

JW

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 437 by JehovahsWitness]



[center]Denying science .... AGAIN[/center]

Jehovah's Witness do not believe the "sun will die" because we believe in an omnipotent God.

Unfortunately, nature isn't affected by beliefs.
Nature just seems to chug along regardless.

[marco]

The bible repeatedly indicates the earth will remain forever,

You misunderstand. Your error was in missing out an important part of the sentence:

"While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease."

You might as well write: winter shall not cease - which would be incorrect because you would have ignored other words. You wrote:
"summer and winter shall not cease" which is the same mistake. When you add the clause: "While the earth remains" this modifies your quoted words. I'm sure you know this without my having to explain it.

You are now claiming that you can rightfully ignore the clause because, somewhere else, you've heard that the Bible says the earth will last forever. That has nothing to do with the sentence under review, even if we accept this absurdity.

Now that you have been shown to so easily and readily err in the simple matter of understanding a sentence, what greater errors may you be making: A big question no?

Well at least you made me smile. Interpreting sentences and constructing them grammatically - without splitting infinitives as you've chosen to do here - have been my involvement for many years. I can understand that if one invests a great deal of faith and effort in a belief system it is not easy to shake it off when flaws are found. I have made no error in interpretation but if I started with the belief that finite things last infinitely long I'd have no problem seeing miracles in the simple words. We've exhausted the discussion, therefore, since I'm not going to change your mind, nor indeed do I want to. Happiness is a huge desideratum in life and if your faith provides this, then you are fortunate. Go well.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 436 by marco]

I interpret words from what they obviously say not from what I would like them to say.

I can see that and of course doing so I can understand that a verse that says " summer and winter [...]Shall not cease." can be interpreted as meaning that there will be no more winter (ie winter will cease).

Jehovah's Witnesses however take the words "summer and winter ...will not cease" to mean, (and I can understand this will be controversal and some people will not understand how we can possibly come to such an absurd and unjustified interpretation) but we understand the verse that says "summer and winter shall not cease" to mean "summer and winter... will not cease". I know it's confusing but that is how we interpret the verse.

Thanks for writing this because you've explained where you are making an error. You haven't quoted the entire statement. For example, if a doctor says:

"I am not saying the patient will die," and you quote him IN PART as saying "the patient will die," it is clear an error is being made.

Now let's go to Genesis and we'll see you have done exactly that.


The actual statement is:

"While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease."

and YOUR take on it is:
" Summer and winter shall not cease."

This is rather naughty of you since you have omitted an important clause that RESTRICTS the statement. "While the earth remains" carries a strong suggestion that it WON'T always remain. But you forgot to mention this. Tsk tsk.

Now what I am wondering is, if you can so easily and readily err in a simple case like this, what greater errors do JWs make over the whole of Scripture? A BIG question, no?

IMHO, that is absurd. The verse clearly states that the seasons will not cease. The Bible teaches that the earth will always remain, so the seasons will always remain as well.

Ecclesiastes 1:4


.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 437 by JehovahsWitness]



[center]Denying science .... AGAIN[/center]

Jehovah's Witness do not believe the "sun will die" because we believe in an omnipotent God.

Unfortunately, nature isn't affected by beliefs.
Nature just seems to chug along regardless.

Yes, and it's just by chance that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun---exactly how far it should be to care for life on Earth, no farther and no nearer, just exactly right; and the moon just happened to fall into the exactly right place to influence the tides without too much tendency to overwhelm the shores or not affect them at all; and the planet just, coincidentally, happened to rotate on its axis at exactly the right speed to facilitate the seasons, and without being tilted too far one way or the other......all of that by mere chance. Yup.

[marco]

IMHO, that is absurd. The verse clearly states that the seasons will not cease.

It doesn't. The verse restricts this statement, as I keep saying. You can't ignore some words in a sentence.

The Bible teaches that the earth will always remain, so the seasons will always remain as well.

Ecclesiastes 1:4

We are now in a different argument and in a different verse requiring another interpretation. The profound scientific statement in Eccclesiastes is:

"Our generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth forever."

MEANING: human life is transient, lived on a lasting earth. The words "for ever" are not a prediction. The tense used in the verb is present, meaning this is what happens; we die off but the cold earth doesn't. It is a poetic statement about the transience of existence and the poetic use of "for ever" is not a conclusive fact. Wecan easily see this by reading on....

Evidence that we cannot take the statements in Ecclesiastes as absolutely literal is the fact that some statements in their literal form are completely untrue.

"All rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not full" ignores rivers that flow into inland lakes.
"Is there anything whereof it may be said: See, this is new?" In the time of the writer this was so; it is not true now. There is plenty that is new.

"That which is crooked cannot be made straight," is demonstrably false.

Why then take the earth abideth to be a scientific fact, ignoring the finite nature of the sun. The writer was not a scientist and wrote about things as he understood and observed them.

The absurdity, dear onewithhim, is reading science into simplicity.

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 444 by onewithhim]


[center]
Bible vs science... again[/center]

IMHO, that is absurd. The verse clearly states that the seasons will not cease. The Bible teaches that the earth will always remain, so the seasons will always remain as well.

What do you think will happen to the seasons when the sun becomes a red giant?

The scientists tell us it's already started to, but very slowly.. The sun is GROWING very very slowly. Soon, ( in astronomical terms ), it will engulf the earth.

Even though the Earth could expand to an orbit 50% more distant than where it is today (1.5 AUs), it won't get the chance. The expanding Sun will engulf the Earth just before it reaches the tip of the red giant phase, and the Sun would still have another 0.25 AU and 500,000 years to grow.

http://www.universetoday.com/12648/will ... red-giant/

[Blastcat]

[Replying to post 445 by onewithhim]




[center]Belief in design, Goldilocks, and the Snowman[/center]

Yes, and it's just by chance that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun---exactly how far it should be to care for life on Earth, no farther and no nearer, just exactly right

You find the idea of "happening by chance" unacceptable, don't you?
I suppose if you roll the dice, you think that every result must have been planned?

If you think that nothing occurs by chance, then the term loses all meaning. We could not make a distinction between chance or design if we were to discard the word "chance".


If nothing happens by chance, then everything was designed.


Nothing in the whole wide universe happens by chance?
Nothing at all?

So, your task right now is to demonstrate that nothing happens by chance.. if that's your claim. I'm not sure that it is... but just in case.

But if that IS your belief, you have a huge task in front of you.



There aren't any coincidences, either:


A lot of people ( WAY too many, for my taste ) tell me.. or INSIST that "there is no such thing as a coincidence". They don't seem to BELIEVE that two rather unconnected events can happen simultaneously. I beg to differ. BUT my disagreement is not the point. The point here is that some people BELIEVE that there are no coincidences. That's a belief. Oddly enough, I have plenty of evidence for two things happening at the same time that aren't related.

The Goldilocks zone and human life ARE connected. They ARE related. That's what the Goldilocks Zone MEANS. These are coincidental events. One is a certain environment, and the other is a species that thrives in that environment.


How did these two happenings interact?
You say it's a plan, it's a design.


I say.. two things happening at the same time might happen quite accidentally.
I'd say "it just so happens that" we live in a place where we can survive ( for now, because it's slowly getting warmer ).


I'm going to use the snowman example from now on in this post.
Conditions have to be just right for those.


The Human "Goldilocks zone" happens.

It's there.
We live in it.

We have just the right conditions for us.


We can only live the way that we happen to in a place that allows for that to happen.
Just like snow only happens when it's cold enough.

The Snowman Goldilocks Zone" also happens.

It's there.
Snowmen exist in it.

We have just the right conditions for them, or they melt.

Call the cold a plan.. call that perfect snowman making weather a design.
Don't call it "chance".

If I use your reasoning, that humans being on this planet just perfect for our existence the weather being just right on a certain geographical location on earth can't possibly be happening by "chance". It also had to be "designed".

In the summer where I happen to live, there aren't too many snowmen out there.. I guess summer wasn't designed for snowmen. But maybe, in another location, the conditions are just right. When Goldilocks found a bed that was just right for her.. do you think that the 7 dwarfs planed it that way for her?

Or did they design it for THEMSELVES?
She just fits in a bed that just fits.

But in order for your reasoning to work, we would have to believe that the perfect bed was just planned for HER in particular. But that's a mistake. The dwarfs didn't even know her before.

You might not believe that snowman weather can happen by "chance", if nothing happens by "chance".

The snow didn't happen JUST so that snowmen can exist, though. Why does it snow, exactly? Why is it that sometimes, on the planet Earth, conditions are perfectly designed for snowman building?

Sometimes, somewhere in the world, the conditions are just right.. not too hot, not too cold.

Another Goldilocks zone but this time.. for snowmen.

You are mistaken here because you start off with the PLAN ( building a snowman or humans existing ) and work backwards. I might PLAN on making a snowman, but just because it's cold enough today, and there is nice sticky ( maybe even perfect for snowman design ) snow, doesn't prove that the whole entire universe was PLANNED or DESIGNED for those delightful snowmen.

But at 5 years old.. it might seem that way.

But it's a mistake to project our thoughts, our plans, and our designs onto the universe without first, checking it out. So.. how do we check out that "plan"?

I think the PLAN, the DESIGN, is in the EYE of the beholder, and nowhere else.
We are the ones who thought up the concept "Goldilocks Zone".

That's just a description.. a quite human way to look at things. It's not an actual OBJECT... It's a label. it's a term.. a very useful one, as it's used to look for planets that might also have life.

Conditions have to be just right for carbon based life to exist, and that's the only kind of life that we know of.. there might be different kinds, but on earth, anyway, that's all we found. Some people speculate that life also might be based on other compounds, like Silica.

Just like the child who may think that a snow day was PERFECTLY DESIGNED to make snowmen and snow angels, projecting our ideas into the universe is not thinking well. We all know that the PLAN to make snowmen comes FROM the child, and NOT from somewhere else. The DESIGN comes FROM the child. The idea that the universe was invented for snowmen or humans is a bit.. shall we say "snowman" biased.

To say that there is a grand design OUT THERE somewhere to make conditions perfect for snowmen is a bit.. putting the cart before the horse. It's upside down.

It gets confusing.



What do you think?

1. Where is the DESIGN for life?

2. How do we check for that?

3. Who do we know who can actually THINK of designs?

Maybe if you tried to answer those questions you might see how your reasoning is wrong about the "Goldilocks zone".

I also suggest that you take a look at "the teleological arguments for the existence of God". That's where your "design" idea comes from. Worth a look.

You might also be interested in the rebuttals.


Just trying to be helpful, folks.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 444 by onewithhim]


[center]
Bible vs science... again[/center]

IMHO, that is absurd. The verse clearly states that the seasons will not cease. The Bible teaches that the earth will always remain, so the seasons will always remain as well.

What do you think will happen to the seasons when the sun becomes a red giant?

The scientists tell us it's already started to, but very slowly.. The sun is GROWING very very slowly. Soon, ( in astronomical terms ), it will engulf the earth.

Even though the Earth could expand to an orbit 50% more distant than where it is today (1.5 AUs), it won't get the chance. The expanding Sun will engulf the Earth just before it reaches the tip of the red giant phase, and the Sun would still have another 0.25 AU and 500,000 years to grow.

http://www.universetoday.com/12648/will ... red-giant/

Jehovah, IMHO, will never let the sun become anything other than what it is now.

That is the faith I have in God.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to post 445 by onewithhim]




[center]Belief in design, Goldilocks, and the Snowman[/center]

Yes, and it's just by chance that the earth is 93 million miles from the sun---exactly how far it should be to care for life on Earth, no farther and no nearer, just exactly right

You find the idea of "happening by chance" unacceptable, don't you?
I suppose if you roll the dice, you think that every result must have been planned?

If you think that nothing occurs by chance, then the term loses all meaning. We could not make a distinction between chance or design if we were to discard the word "chance".


If nothing happens by chance, then everything was designed.


Nothing in the whole wide universe happens by chance?
Nothing at all?

So, your task right now is to demonstrate that nothing happens by chance.. if that's your claim. I'm not sure that it is... but just in case.

But if that IS your belief, you have a huge task in front of you.



There aren't any coincidences, either:


A lot of people ( WAY too many, for my taste ) tell me.. or INSIST that "there is no such thing as a coincidence". They don't seem to BELIEVE that two rather unconnected events can happen simultaneously. I beg to differ. BUT my disagreement is not the point. The point here is that some people BELIEVE that there are no coincidences. That's a belief. Oddly enough, I have plenty of evidence for two things happening at the same time that aren't related.

The Goldilocks zone and human life ARE connected. They ARE related. That's what the Goldilocks Zone MEANS. These are coincidental events. One is a certain environment, and the other is a species that thrives in that environment.


How did these two happenings interact?
You say it's a plan, it's a design.


I say.. two things happening at the same time might happen quite accidentally.
I'd say "it just so happens that" we live in a place where we can survive ( for now, because it's slowly getting warmer ).


I'm going to use the snowman example from now on in this post.
Conditions have to be just right for those.


The Human "Goldilocks zone" happens.

It's there.
We live in it.

We have just the right conditions for us.


We can only live the way that we happen to in a place that allows for that to happen.
Just like snow only happens when it's cold enough.

The Snowman Goldilocks Zone" also happens.

It's there.
Snowmen exist in it.

We have just the right conditions for them, or they melt.

Call the cold a plan.. call that perfect snowman making weather a design.
Don't call it "chance".

If I use your reasoning, that humans being on this planet just perfect for our existence the weather being just right on a certain geographical location on earth can't possibly be happening by "chance". It also had to be "designed".

In the summer where I happen to live, there aren't too many snowmen out there.. I guess summer wasn't designed for snowmen. But maybe, in another location, the conditions are just right. When Goldilocks found a bed that was just right for her.. do you think that the 7 dwarfs planed it that way for her?

Or did they design it for THEMSELVES?
She just fits in a bed that just fits.

But in order for your reasoning to work, we would have to believe that the perfect bed was just planned for HER in particular. But that's a mistake. The dwarfs didn't even know her before.

You might not believe that snowman weather can happen by "chance", if nothing happens by "chance".

The snow didn't happen JUST so that snowmen can exist, though. Why does it snow, exactly? Why is it that sometimes, on the planet Earth, conditions are perfectly designed for snowman building?

Sometimes, somewhere in the world, the conditions are just right.. not too hot, not too cold.

Another Goldilocks zone but this time.. for snowmen.

You are mistaken here because you start off with the PLAN ( building a snowman or humans existing ) and work backwards. I might PLAN on making a snowman, but just because it's cold enough today, and there is nice sticky ( maybe even perfect for snowman design ) snow, doesn't prove that the whole entire universe was PLANNED or DESIGNED for those delightful snowmen.

But at 5 years old.. it might seem that way.

But it's a mistake to project our thoughts, our plans, and our designs onto the universe without first, checking it out. So.. how do we check out that "plan"?

I think the PLAN, the DESIGN, is in the EYE of the beholder, and nowhere else.
We are the ones who thought up the concept "Goldilocks Zone".

That's just a description.. a quite human way to look at things. It's not an actual OBJECT... It's a label. it's a term.. a very useful one, as it's used to look for planets that might also have life.

Conditions have to be just right for carbon based life to exist, and that's the only kind of life that we know of.. there might be different kinds, but on earth, anyway, that's all we found. Some people speculate that life also might be based on other compounds, like Silica.

Just like the child who may think that a snow day was PERFECTLY DESIGNED to make snowmen and snow angels, projecting our ideas into the universe is not thinking well. We all know that the PLAN to make snowmen comes FROM the child, and NOT from somewhere else. The DESIGN comes FROM the child. The idea that the universe was invented for snowmen or humans is a bit.. shall we say "snowman" biased.

To say that there is a grand design OUT THERE somewhere to make conditions perfect for snowmen is a bit.. putting the cart before the horse. It's upside down.

It gets confusing.



What do you think?

1. Where is the DESIGN for life?

2. How do we check for that?

3. Who do we know who can actually THINK of designs?

Maybe if you tried to answer those questions you might see how your reasoning is wrong about the "Goldilocks zone".

I also suggest that you take a look at "the teleological arguments for the existence of God". That's where your "design" idea comes from. Worth a look.

You might also be interested in the rebuttals.


Just trying to be helpful, folks.

I never said that "nothing at all ever happens by chance." You are making an argument even where there is none.

Why do you include ME in with people who say that "nothing happens by coincidence"? I've never said that.

And I have explained quite recently, in fact, how I can see design in nature. You rejected my explanations, and I see no reason to go through it again.


.