I have read, with great interest, the comments posted on this blog regarding the Cameron documentary.  One of my cardinal rules is that I never discuss religion or politics with friends or family (or even strangers) unless I am sure of their beliefs because I do not want to offend them or appear to be forcing my beliefs on them.

But I feel compelled to share a few comments just as the rest of you have passionately shared your feelings.  I beg your indulgence.

I believe that great evil has been done in the name of "religion".  From the earliest times until the present day we humans murder, torture and enslave our fellow human beings because they do not share the same religious beliefs that we hold dearly.  Often these beliefs include "Love thy neighbor", "Thou shalt not kill" and teachings of universal brother-hood, kindness and generosity.  Somehow all that gets lost in our over-zealousness.

I believe in true "Freedom of Religion".  I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever mythology brings them comfort and gives meaning their existence.  They have the right to practice those beliefs, or not, as it suits themselves.

I believe even more strongly in "Freedom FROM Religion".  No one has the rights to force their religious beliefs on me or anyone else.  Not in public schools, or the workplace or on the street as I go about my daily business.

If I choose to believe that the earth is a living vessel on which we are all briefly passengers through the dark and lifeless void of space and time.  If I choose to believe that humanity is the greatest single threat to this precious living cosmic entity.  If I choose to believe that humanity is a self-delusional cancer or a virus that has infected this planet.  That's my choice and I won't attempt to inflict it on you.

I truly believe that I see "god" in the soft gray eyes of my four year old Bearded Collie dog.  She is the kindest, gentlest and most loving creature I have ever  known.

I do not believe in UFO's, Reincarnation, Big Foot, Satan or God.

I do believe that if my Collie isn't going to "heaven" then neither am I.  Like Will Rogers said.  (I paraphrase) "I don't know where dogs go when they die, but if they aren't going to heaven, neither am I, I'm going where the dogs go."

Shalom

And the debate heats up!  I view this article as science trying to come to grips with Christianity (or maybe destroy it if they can).  By explaining away various parts of Bible history as hoax or non-events, non-christians can justify whatever it is they are trying to justify.  I'm not quite sure what that is, but maybe someday these people who are creating these pseudo-documentaries will get to the point I think they're trying to make, "They don't like people who don't believe they same way they do."  Sounds like religious (science is the only answer) fanaticism to me.  

And on a side note.  There are people who regularly write in this blog that continue to call people of religious faith ignorant, stupid, and/or childish.  If all they have as an argument to any discussion is to call people names, they need to go post their hate somewhere else.  I consider this blog a place where people can freely voice their opinions on scientific matters, as well as the related side topics that come up in the articles that are posted on this website.  Hateful fanatics, on both ends of the spectrum, need to back off and let the discussions do what they're intended to do, inform and enlighten.  

I always enjoy observing the clash that seems to present itself whenever human beings try to pit science and faith against one another.  As a Christian, it used to make me nervous, thinking somehow that someday scientists would find a way to prove what I believe is wrong, but I don't feel that way anymore.  Their pursuit for scientific explanations of the mysteries of the universe is necessary, whether they believe that we are created or evolved.  It may be ironic, but doesn't it make sense that if we are created beings, our creator made us able and willing to conduct these pursuits with the ability to accept or reject him?  We must tolerate people who disagree with the Bible if we expect others to be tolerant of us as believers.  Would I present a person in that position with an opportunity to believe and receive Jesus?  Certainly.  I have a responsibility as a follower of Christ and the hope I have in him to offer the same thing to those around me.  They must have a chance to accept it or reject it.  If they accept or reject Christ, they accept or reject Christ, not me.  In much the same way, I've been presented with a chance to believe what scientists believe and I had the opportunity to accept it or reject it.  If I accept or reject their theories, I accept or reject the theories, not them.  

I truly believe that the dialog is healthy and inspired by God himself.  How many of you would be sitting around thinking in depth about who Jesus was, claimed to be or who his present believers say he is?  God, as Creator of we human beings, gave us the ability to think this deeply about things, even in instances in which the conclusions we reach conflict with the truth of his Word.  I believe it's one of God's most endearing qualities.

Man saw the sun come up in the morning. he saw it leave at night. when it came up, it would warm him and give him light to see. then at night it left. he realized his life was better when he could see so he wanted to have it all the time. what did he do? rituals and sacrifices to make it come back, thus he prayed to the sun. then man realized there was a smaller sun at night that was bright white sometimes and allowed them to see. the same thing follows. now they pray to the sun and the moon. then the stars and the trees and the birds and the snakes and anything else they could not readily and logically understand or explain. So we have polytheism for centuries and then someone says "the real god is the god that created all this" and we get monotheism all over again (sun). so now we have a problem. "we used to pray to all this stuff but now we need to pray to the creator of all of this" and another one says "well that's all well and good but what are we going to call it? i mean what are we praying to?" it's a catch 22. humans, to our credit, have never just accepted the fact that they can not explain something. But at the same time humans throughout history have come up with explanations to scenarios they can't explain by exploiting other's ignorance to the subject. (a physicist could read a high school student formulas and theories that he made up just before the conversation. if the physicist sounds convincing and hangs his master's degreee in physics on the wall behind him, what high school student is going to stand up and call him an out right liar?.) this is a rough example but you get the point. nobody wants to believe we are here for no reason and that there is no pearly gate just waiting to let us in so long as we're behaving. Like god has a list and he checks it twice to make sure he knows whose naughty or nice or something. We would much rather think that everything happens for a reason and that if we just accept that as fact GOD will reserve us a spot in eternal bliss. So rather than teach our children to enjoy every single second of their life because that's all we know for certain we have, we scare them into conforming to a christian belief system with depictions of fire and brimstone. but then our western society promotes freedom and individuality.so kids are born, scared into church and then told to go out and get that american dream. what happens to the ones that go out into thsis wonderful world and find out that christianity isn't for them. that they don't belive in GOD much less just not in christianity? they aren't treated the same by the friends and family that loved them unconditionally while they were "good god fearing christian americans." i am not trying to make a generalization about another group of people so i can't say this is common practice, but to say this has never happened in your community would be rather questionable i think. CHRISTIANS : do yourself a favor and research the impact Constantine had on your fabulous religion today and tell me if that doesn't sound like using fear and ignorance to corral a people and create conformity through the promise of eternal life. I'm not saying i am particularly fond of my beliefs. i see christians live good lives under the auspices of organized religion, but i do not live under the guise that a book (that we have no actual factual basis for confirming it's authenticity)is going to take care of me so long as i follow it's principals. how does one rationalize death? by believing it isn't real. "but i saw a guy die and tit wasn't a myth. he was dead. he's not coming back." no one wants to try and rationalize that so we come up with "oh no his body is dead but his spirit endures forever!" come on. read the book "Aesop's Fables". teach it to your children. it teaches the same moral and ethical values your compilations of fairy tales do. the best part about it? there is no way to manipulate this book and it's contents to fuel greed and empirialistic conquests.

I've read your comments,
Paused on tiny cat feet,
And then I moved on.

believe none of what you read and half of what you see. When we die we die. If heaven was church for eternity... would you really want to go? i bet Hell has better golf courses. i guess the down side is the beer's warm. just live life in a positive and (whenever possible) benevolent way, and don't be malicious. there. I just saved you all those sundays picking the bible apart. Get out and live life. it is certain and tangible. don't hold back for something you can't see with your own eyes. the human mind is very powerful. sometimes we create what we need to feel secure.

We do not know when any of the gospels were originally written.  We can tell only, to a degree, when certain copies were written.  I also find it a mystery that it is claimed that the four gospels in the biblical canon and the others, 32 of them I believe, are considered forgeries where there is no proof that they were written by men they are credited to.

Most people of that time were illiterate and most, if not all of these stories, were passed on by word of mouth before they were ever written down.  They have been written in several "official" languages such as anchient Greek and Latin and there is no absolute consensus on how those languages translate into the modern languages.

The Bible is also full of errors, contradictions, and accounts that cannot be supported outside of religious writings.  First off Jesus's name was not Jesus.  Jesus is a Greek name.  There is no record of Augustus or any other Roman emperor calling for a census of all the realm.  It was a tale invented to get him from Nazareth to Bethlehem so that he could claim lineage from David (this was required to be the authentic messiah).  Again there is no evidence that Joshua bin Joseph (aka Jesus) claimed to be divine.  It would be doubtful that he was ever known as Joshua bin Maryium (Jesus Son of Mary) because that would have to declare him a bastard, and as such, an unclean person who would be barred from the temple.

Even if you take any given statement that he was divine, there is his statement that he came not to change the Laws of the Prophets but to fulfill them.  Then he immediately sets about changing the laws.  He allowed work to be done on the sabbath, he allowed the eating of unclean food, and he challenged the concept of unclean people.  He also condemned the law where it did not serve the needs of man, as in the story of the Good Samaritan.

The Bible has been altered to support political points of view.  Paul commands that women should cover their heads when they pray and prophesy and then a few paragraphs later in the same letter he commands them to be silent.  The custom in those days was to pray aloud, and even if it were not, how does one give witness in silence.

My version of what happened during the first Easter was that Jesus (I'll bow to convention) got out of line by chasing the money changers out of the Temple.  He was arrested and taken before Pilate who ordered him crusified.  From what is known of Pilate, he was not one who believed in guilt or innocence, he believed in making examples.  He was not one to listen to the crowd; he dispersed demonstrations by setting his legions on them to kill all that could be laid hands on.  Yes, Jesus was scourged and made to carry the cross beam to the site of execution, that was the custom.  He was not crucified between two thieves; thievery was not punished by crucifixion.  Crucifixion was reserved for the rebellious and trouble makers.  It was not the custom to return the body to the families but it was also not unheard of.  Some cooler heads than Pilate probably noted that to leave the bodies on the crosses would undoubtedly cause the demonstrations that the Romans were trying to prevent and had the bodies taken down before sundown.  Whether Jesus and the others were buried by friends and family or thrown in a common pit is unknown, but Jesus died and stayed dead.

Two other things are known.  One, Imperial Rome has been reduced to a bunch of ruins and stories in history books.  Jesus's teachings continue in the traditions of two of the world's main religions and that is the resurrection.  Not the physical resurrection of a dead Jewish prophet from the grave but the survival of the Word of God which he brought.

Is it so hard to believe that Jesus was a man, with a family, that he took care of and loved just like every man on earth, how can he stand up for us , for what we believe in if he didn't live like us, or would it just be easier to think that he was like god and get mad at the fact that people say he was human to.?

Resurrection was not unique to Christianity. It was part of the Egyptian myth of Osiris for a long time before it became part of the Christian myth.

number one the first greek new testament books were not translated into greek until around the year 323 A.D.the roman church is known to have the hebrew new testement books from 30 to 50 A.D.Constitine had the greek copies of the new testament books altered. several places have the name jesus or it's greek form ieosus which means zeus. constantine had the name imaneul erased because constantine was a sun god worshiper and had the roman catholic church formed.the actual birth name is imanuel which is in matthew and used in isaiah "he will be born of a virgin and his name is imaneul." (imaneul is a hebrew word meaning "god is with us".god showed himself in front of over 3 people in a physical body in the old testament books. read your history. even turkey has a complete new testament in hebrew from 30-50 A.D. Now for the science, a man at N.A.S.A read the bible and found that a whole day is missing in time.(universal time) you have to put that information of missing time into the math hence. the bible is needed in order to launch a rocket to the moon. which is why the russians couldn't do it because the Russian goverment tried to erase G-D from their people. most of your science other than the evolutionist camp is due to scientist finding out that G-D is right. not one religon other than judaism the religoon that christians branched from has expanded our scientific knowledge.It is a known fact the countries who read the bible in school find their science rises above other countries. only israel does this. it is known in scientific circles that 95% of the science in the united states is from the cohen family "sons of moses brother" or coming from israel. thousands of people are alive due to this bible science. show me one person whose life was saved by evolution. All beleivers in the bibical G-D are told by paul to go and read the words of moses read every day.Those that do find more science in the first five books of the bible then any other book.All of the ten commandments deals with both spiritual and physical health. also the 613 other regulations that if observed will lead to better heath. Example a virus that killed over 60% of all troop deaths on the europian front in wwII  was linked to eating pig meat. the bird flu in asia was also inked to pigs.The birds had the virus the pigs ingested the bird droppings the pigs got it. the people ate the pig. then  people gave it to other people. If you do all that G-d says regarding the ten commandments and 613 reguations. You wil live healthier. the black death was also caused by eating pig meat. note this virus does survive insineration. and some forms of virus carrying magets from unclean animals do to. if you look at the pork chop and see small round spots looking like human finger prints.take a micro scope and look inside. You would see the magets.G-D gave us rules to live by not to ruin our fun but like a loving parent that tells you to look both ways before crossing the street so we don't get hurt or possibly death. more americans die every day from eating unclean animals ex: Pork then 3-months in iraq. G-d created the universe and knows it better than we ever could. G-d gave us a way to live,and also that if you read the bible as much as enstien did you would find the science of everything. so in closing just because a man claims to find the son of G-D/G-D in a box doesn't mean he does. jews don't bury their dead in a stone box in 30 A.D. They set them in a tomb in a cloth (burial clothes)one long peice of cloth. a year later after the skin and flesh has been turned to dust. They place the burial cloth in a niche in the wall with a mantle created with their name in hebrew. the stone box is said and apears to be greek. Only hellinised jews of the year 325 A.D. used greek names at all.

Comfort, one of the issues I've not seen addressed here. Religion offers comfort to it's embracers and it really doesn't seem to matter which religion. Belief is so personal and belief gives comfort. Whether or not various religious beliefs are debunked by science it's a basic human need to believe in something.

Wow, my head is spinning from reading this endless blog relating to... SCIENCE?  As a lover of the sciences I am glad to see all the discussion, even if it has diverged a little into religious debate and bantering.  

As for the empty tomb of Jesus, the longstanding claim is that it is a factual (based on the witnesses and evidence attested to) / historical event.  So it may have happened or not... and science will never prove, or really disprove it.  I have not found any video footage of it on ebay or a handy time machine so we're stuck having to decide not on the basis of good science but whether we can believe what we know or have been told.  Darn!  This gets personal.

I must admit there is a lot of 'faith' in science as there is a lot we can't absolutely prove using the scientific method, though we seem to be getting better at it with some things.  It would do us all good to keep that in mind, whether one believes in God or not.  

My bet is that in 50 years or so most of what we assume as scientific 'fact' might end up 'changing' like it seems to do every few decades or centuries.  Face it.  We just are not as smart as we like to think ourselves to be at any given moment.  If there is a Supreme Intelligence (God) behind all reality that we know in this life, at best we all must humor Him with our efforts and wisdom, or at worst really p--s Him off (Bible term: "wrath") with our own brand of arrogance and disregard for the apparent 'fingerprints' all around this universe.  

Not that anyone cares but the more I study physics and other fields I am more convinced that there is more out there behind the universe.  Too much of it just makes too much sense to be just chance.  Know what I mean?

get'em Doug.

It is so sad and insulting to note that a lot or many unbelievers just don't want to believe Jesus or God for no logical reason other than being brainwashed by some scientists. I also study Science from high school and until today at university. The theory of evolution which makes unbelievers laughing at religion especially God's existence is completely full of imagination and lot of gaps and less concrete proofs. Can we find fossils of intermediate animals or other creatures that have evolved before thier present forms? Of course not and will never be showing that there is a lot of guessworks in evolution theory. Theory about Jesus and God is much better and has real many evidences which unbelievers will always just ignore because of their ignorance. The bible and all the historical facts in it are all true, the miracles which can still be performed by some great religious people and many more. Also the bible is not meant to be a history book nor a philosophy text and that is the great mistake of unbelievers when they consider it as such. If they are willing to spend time studying the bible carefully, then I am sure the truth will be revealed to them.

Let me ask unbelievers. What happens before the big bang? Where all the energy or mass come from that created the big bang? So Scientists/physicists can not answer that and they never admit the shortfall of the big bang theory in this case. Maybe it's time we must believe that there is a beginning of everything all created by God- and I am sure it was God who started the big bang.

It is also stupid for non-believers to believe more strongly in hypothetical scientific theories that lack concrete evidence other than supported mainly by imaginary facts! Why they want to believe in dark matter, black hole, etc? The fact is that these new scientific beliefs are nothing less than religious beliefs - beliefs into the unknown. I am really sure then that these dark matter, etc theories may also concern the existence of God, or religious beliefs. just think about it carefully.

In particle physics, scientists are trying to match and relate the fundamental forces of nature but they face a great difficulty. why is this because there is another great force, and that is the force of God that they need to consider in the theory and then all things will match automatically and smoothly!

Amazing ye?

However, to believe in God doesn't really need evidences but faith and that is also shown in the bible.

I wonder when the unbelievers will die as all everyone (death theory already explained in bible) may be no pastor will attend to their funeral, just bury them like animals. but more sadly, hell is their only place if they persist to disprove the existence of God/Jesus.

"We just are not as smart as we like to think ourselves to be at any given moment." The advantage that science offers it that it is self-correcting. As a human enterprise, it examines even its most fundamental assumptions in the light of experience and reason. Just because we don't pretend to have absolute Truth as many religions do, does not mean we should pretend that we don't know anything at all. All human knowledge - feeble, incomplete, error-prone - is still among the most important things we possess.

The fact that so many of the people who recommend God demonstrate such profound and willful ignorance and such poor reasoning skills is sufficient cause to be suspicious of their judgment . There are plenty of intermediates.

Reply to: "It is so sad and insulting that unbelievers don't want to believe Jesus or God for no logical reason other than being brainwashed by some scientists... -Tiante" 

  It's sad - and insulting - that you've been led to believe that scientists are brainwashing people. [...] 

  Jesus was an ordinary human being. He happened to live during a time when Roman persecutions became so vicious, victims turned to "End of the World cults" that promised a Divine Intervention - let me get this straight - when "the Son of Man appears in the clouds with thousands of angels"??  When the dead are resurrected in new bodies and then all who reject Christ are sentenced to an eternity of torment in a fiery pit? 

   Don't you understand WHY we reject this version of Jesus?  Because it's Total Nonsense. It's a con game.  Christianity has no more credibility than Applewhite handing out poisoned Kool-Aid so human spirits can leave their physical bodies and travel out into space to meet the Flying Saucer traveling behind Haley's Comet. 

   There is no Hell.  There is no Day of Judgment. Those are Fairy Tales to ensnare the gullible and the desperate. I wish I could get behind the Jesus Family Tomb Story, but I think the corpse of Jesus was left to rot outside in the elements, and not even the bones were preserved.  The fact that Jesus wasn't around made it so much easier to create a Mythology around his memory.   

   About 56 AD, Paul wrote a letter to the Romans which began "... Jesus Christ who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh..."   

   Can't you see that a supernatural conception where the virgin Mary "had not known a man" was a LATE addition to the story?  Because Peter's cult was moving into Gentile (non-Jewish) territory where having a god for a father worked for Hercules as well as Alexander the Great and Augustus Caesar. Our Gospel of Mark shows the early version (which became Matthew with the addition of 400 new verses.) 

  You complained about "hypothetical scientific theories that lack concrete evidence other than supported mainly by imaginary facts! Why they want to believe in dark matter..." 

   No concrete evidence for dark matter? Imaginary facts? Or, have you been brainwashed into thinking you should stand up and give testimonty about your own beliefs, whether they have any credibility or not?      

Believing in God doesn't mean someone is willfully ignorant.  It shows that they are intelligent enough to understand that life didn't just happen & that any God-less big bang would be a destructive force, not a creative one.  

Science is a wonderful thing, but not when people place all of their belief systems in what has just been described as a self-correcting system.  God's Truth needs no correcting.

I didn't say that believing in God implies one is willfully ignorant.  What I said was "The fact that so many of the people ..."  These people are attempting to move the unbeliever to accept their judgment about God - but we have every reason to suspect that their judgment about what *IS* and *IS NOT* of God is flawed.

"God's Truth" may need no correcting, but what we're talking about is OUR knowledge of that alleged Truth, which, because we are fallible human beings, is necessarily and inherently flawed.  If OUR JUDGMENT about what is and what is not God's Own Truth is flawed, then it's hardly a bragging point, if we say that it's not subject to self-correction.

One example where some religious people demonstrate profound lack of understanding is when they repeat untrue and poorly reasoned arguments regarding various topics of social interest and go on to make assertions that are contrary to any rational understanding of the subject, often thereby demonstrating a profound incomprehension of the fundamental aspects of the subject on which they're pontificating.  Examples of this are the oft-repeated assertions that "there are no transitionals" or "evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics."  These are claims that are not just wrong, but outright stupid.  Ironically, they actually think the fact they have read a grossly over-simplified and deeply flawed creationist web site on the subject constitutes "having done a significant amount of homework" and that they are now sufficiently well-versed in the subject to refute the highest echelons of our scientific geniuses.  It's difficult to decide whether it's more funny or pathetic that someone with a comic-book understanding of the second law of thermodynamics thinks he knows enough to embarrass nobel prize winners.

These conversations invariably come back to what we believe about the origins of life.  Based on the intricate complexity of the universe and human life and the human soul, I have to believe in God.  Because of this, it causes me no problem when people have complete faith in Him without being 'rocket scientists'.  We all have different intellectual levels and it seems to be harder for the intellectual elite to accept that they don't know & will never be able to prove everything.

For those who do not believe in God, many are placing their beliefs entirely on scientists who although being incredibly intelligent, are continually proving and disproving their own theories.  No one has proven evolution, but the scientific world, much of the media, and our educational system force it down our throats as if it were fact.  Doesn't that fly in the face of the definition of science?  Complete belief (faith) in something that isn't proven?

There are lots of people who have faith in science.  However, that doesn't mean that one has to have faith in science to believe it.  Those who are willing to put in the effort to understand it are rewarded with belief, sans faith.

Science does correct itself.  This separates it from religion, where people just make up stories and then stick to them in the face of all good sense and all evidence to the contrary.

No one has proven the existence of electrons in the sense that creationists use the term "prove."  However, those who have actually done a little homework on the subject know that despite creationist propaganda to the contrary there is a vast array of evidence that supports and is explained by evolution - and not one iota of evidence which refutes it.

Evolution *IS* science, not only that, it is some of the most brilliant science the human mind has conceived. Maybe if you spent as much time trying to understand what real scientists mean when they use the term "science" or "proof", you would understand why you disagree with them.

In fact, the only thing that's being asked of students in schools is that they actually learn what the theory of evolution actually says - as opposed to the comic-book version of the theory that creationists circulate.

OK. . . enlighten me.  Give me some of the evidence that supports & is explained by evolution.  I have no problem with species adapting to their environment, but there is no proof (by my definition or science's) of any species actually turning into another species.  

Here's one problem I see with evolution:  a complete change in the respiratory system of our so called "ancestor", the fish (according to the Discovery Channel last month), to allow for breathing air could not have evolved bit by bit over time.  The system would have had to be functioning in its entirety all at once.  Otherwise, why would the ineffective bits continue to evolve when they were initially worthless.

And our students are not being asked to learn what evolution says, they are being told that it is true.  And those that don't believe in God are so scared of creationism, they won't allow it to be uttered in the classroom.  I thought science was supposed to be open minded.

  Earlier, we were talking about the odds of a man named Yeshua being married to a woman named Mary.  And what I said was, "It only had to happen once." 

    Imagine the entire planet called Earth, about 400 million years ago.  How many fish swim in Earth's oceans?  A large number.  Billions and billions and billions, as Carl Sagan used to say. One particular type of fish was able to breathe air.  Not all of them, just one. It's much easier to take oxygen from air than from water.  There are websites that explain the process in detail.  Do some research.  I'm sick of the Creationist trick of "If you can't explain a process in simple terms that I can understand, I don't think it every happened."  You're sitting at the Internet.   

    Tiktaalik roseae (link) was found in northern Canada.  There might be great fossil evidence buried under the ice. Or not.  The best evidence is in our own DNA. 

    The idea of one species changing into another, for the most part, didn't happen.  A great variety of new lifeforms appeared when HOX genes allowed limbs to migrate to different places along a spinal cord.  Those tiny lifeforms grew larger.  One of them turned into all of the mammals you know. Humans share 83% of their genome with cows, and 99% with chimps. Did more than one variety of fish have the ability to breathe air?  or did all air-breathers come from a single ancestor? 

   Science is open-minded.  However, personally, I've grown up in a country where 83% are Christian.  That means every time I try to have an intelligent conversation with another person about the Bible, EIGHT other people interrupt us, saying "Let me tell you what I believe."  I no longer care what you believe.  If you're too lazy to do a Google search and find out HOW fish turned into land animals, it doesn't mean that I'm scared of you.  Just that I'm tired of listening to your nonsense.  It's like really loud background noise that makes it difficult to talk.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12168265/

"but there is no proof (by my definition or science's) of any species actually turning into another species. "

Fortunately for the progress of science,  your definition doesn't appear to correspond very closely to the definition used by scientists.   But here's a link anyway:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html

"The system would have had to be functioning in its entirety all at once."

No. It would not.  This is the unscientific argument from irreducible complexity which relies on a gross misunderstanding of evolutionary processes.  The evolutionary steps that produced a system that does X don't all have to be useful for X.  They have to be useful - or advantageous - for something, but not necessarily for function X.  Evolution works by coopting functions - a subsystem that is useful for doing Y suddenly getting to a state where it can be useful for doing Z.

Here's a link to a refutation of "Dr" Michael's Behe's argument that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdwTwNPyR9w

"And our students are not being asked to learn what evolution says, they are being told that it is true."

The students are being asked to learn it, because so far as we can tell it IS true.  The only nay-sayers are people who continually demonstrate they haven't done any homework on the subject.  What they are not being told is believe in it.  The problem, of course, is that a lot of the actual education that kids get is being countered at home by the barbershop gossip their parents and religious leaders feed them when they get home.

"And those that don't believe in God are so scared of creationism, they won't allow it to be uttered in the classroom. "

Creationists are attempting to do an end-run around the scientific process, because they can't support their ideas with actual science.  So they take it directly to the common man who has a comic-book understanding of science and whose "understanding" of evolution amounts to barbershop gossip.

"I thought science was supposed to be open minded."

Open-mindedness doesn't mean that you suddenly drop your scientific outlook and adopt myths on the basis of people who have a comic-book understanding of science.

I have an idea for a project. The Origin of Species is one of the most important books ever written; however, surprisingly few people have read it carefully. While the Internet is a bottomless cesspool of stupidity, though, there are also a number of quite valuable resources available, some of which have considerable potential for helping us - all of us - contribute something important and of lasting value to human knowledge.

There is a site called Youtube that allows people to post 10 minute videos of their own making to the web. My idea is to use Youtube to create an "Origin of Species Redux." The 1st idea is for me to create a series of videos that would summarize the main points from each of the 14 chapters of OOS. The truth is, however, I don't know how much time I'm going to have for doing this - it might take me a year or more to do this. Moreover I really suck as a public speaker and so it would be really cool, if someone listened to my first video and said to herself, "Dear God, but this sucks. I can do better than that." and then she goes out and does it. And then maybe someone else thinks, "Hey, I'm very fond of chapter II" and so on. At the end, some adept video editor might take the best chapter ones and produce a collage that serves as a really good intro to chapter one. Same for each of the other chapters.

In this way, we could really contribute something useful. I also think it would be fun. I'm anticipating that my "challenge" will go ignored and that I will continue doing this by myself until I get bored with it or move on to another project. But if anyone would like to give it a try, the first installment is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KrRGEw5X48

The fact still remains that evolution is only a GUESS until you can replicate it in the lab. And where are all the observers who saw these changes take place? Without those observations, your measurements are only guesses. And the theories based on them, however elaborate, are guesses as well. Your conjectures prove nothing.

"The fact still remains that evolution is only a GUESS until you can replicate it in the lab."

ALL theories are guesses - ALWAYS - even after they've been "replicated in the lab."  The Theory of Gravity is a guess, but like evolution, it is one that supports and is supported by the VAST preponderance of available evidence, and refuted by NONE.

"And where are all the observers who saw these changes take place? Without those observations, your measurements are only guesses."

Where are all the observers who have seen electrons?  And yet when our teachers discuss them in class, they give no hint at all that their existence is entirely based on inferential reasoning.

"And the theories based on them, however elaborate, are guesses as well. Your conjectures prove nothing."

That's right.

1. Conjectures aren't supposed to prove things.  2. Science isn't about what you can prove - it's about what you can disprove.  3.  When you clearly understand points 1 and 2, you'll be ready to continue this discussion.

Before I'm accused of interrupting an intelligent conversation, let me remind everyone that the title of this conversation is "Revisiting the Tomb".  A discussion is expected of whether Jesus Christ was resurrected or not which means Christians are invited to respond.  However, early in the postings, Mr. Boyle is blasted for starting a religious discussion on a site for science and the religious are harshly criticized for their beliefs.  Why the anger?

I appreciate the links provided to try and help epxlain evolution.  I followed the links and studied what they had to say.  Here's some of what I learned:  There has been exhaustive research on plants that proves that they can be altered by human intervention and environmental change to the point that they no longer can reproduce effectively with plants in their original form.  Some scientists would say this constitutes a new species (I also found that scientists disagree on what defines a species).  This is a far cry from saying a fish evolved into a human.

As for the Tiktaalik roseae . . . cool.  There's a creature that looked kind of like a fish and kind of like a crocodile, that swam in shallow waters, and whose fins had bones in them like an arm that allowed it to pull itself around.  Does this make me believe that human life is nothing more than millions of years of adaptations?  Absolutely not.

An expert on one of the links even admits "it's impossible to tell if Tiktaalik was a direct ancestor of land vertebrates . . . but if a scientist set out to design a plausible candidate, you'd probably come up with something like this."  Christians and creationists have been accused of making up stories and believing in fairy tales when , in reality, our accusers are doing the same.  They are starting with a theory and trying to make scientific findings fit into the mold.

I'm all for science.  I believe God gave us the intelligence to understand many things. . . but not everything.  When science resorts to speculation and that speculation is treated as truth, it's no longer science - it's faith in the unknown.

Again, it all goes back to our beliefs of the origins of life.  Many believe in the ideas of a man named Darwin.  I believe in the teachings of the Bible.  Either way, we have blind faith.  So it's time to quit insulting the intelligence of creationists.

Keep watching and real science will continue proving the historical accuracy of the Bible.  Are Jesus' bones in the ossuary?  I say "NO". . . thanks for playing. . . try again.

Reply to:  This is a far cry from saying a fish evolved into a human...Does this **make me believe**  that human life is nothing more than millions of years of adaptations?  Absolutely not." 

   At some point, I anticipated a Christian would entertain us with another recital of their beliefs. At least I didn't have to wait until September, the way "Dallas" did with "Who Shot J.R.?" Let me try this another way. Either human life is the end result of millions of years of adaptations, or it is not.  Either way, your beliefs are not important. If I was going to pass a collection plate later and ask you to contribute to the building fund, I would CARE about your beliefs. I really would. Or, I would make you think that I do. 

    I don't think a fish turned into a human being, but they had common ancestors.  Must SMALLER common ancestors. Smaller than a paper clip. That's the explanation for long stretches of identical sequences in the genome.  Today's fish has "evolved" for four hundred million years since we shared a common ancestor, even if it looks the same.  Please get the image of one species changing into another one out of your mind. That's not how it happened.  Two modern species had a common ancestor, but one never changed into the other. 

     There is no God, so God didn't give you intelligence. That Myth prevents you from appreciating the millions of years of struggle that your ancestors went through to reach our current level of sophistication and civilization.  If I choose to honor my ancestors instead of pretending a God "formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and man became a living being"... ie, created a modern human being out of inorganic materials through a supernatural miracle... well, I have nothing to apologize for.  God is a con game. Heaven is a way to pretend that your great-grandparents aren't really dead, just waiting behind the clouds for some great reunion. 

  The teachings of the Bible about the origin of life on earth are wrong.  That's the TRUTH, whether you believe it or not.  Our planet is ~4 Billion years old, and life has been around for 3.5 Billion of them. Get the time frame right and you'll see why evolution is the Correct Answer.

"I also found that scientists disagree on what defines a species"

This is one of the central problems that Darwin addresses in Origin of Species.

"This is a far cry from saying a fish evolved into a human."

The only thing this shows is that new species have formed.  No one expects that we would be able to replicate evolution on that scale in a laboratory.

"creationists have been accused of making up stories and believing in fairy tales when , in reality, our accusers are doing the same."

No, they are not.

"They are starting with a theory and trying to make scientific findings fit into the mold."

You didn't read those links very carefully.

"When science resorts to speculation and that speculation is treated as truth, it's no longer science - it's faith in the unknown"

Evolution is vastly more than speculation.

"Many believe in the ideas of a man named Darwin."

We accept a theory that is supported by the vast preponderance of available evidence and refuted by none.  It has nothing to do with beliefs.

"So it's time to quit insulting the intelligence of creationists. "

It's time for creationists to do some honest homework.

"Keep watching and real science will continue proving the historical accuracy of the Bible. "

Hasn't happened yet except in the minds of the bottom 1% of "scientists."

From talkorgins:

"The paleontologists who discovered Tiktaalik roseae http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/) didn't just get lucky: they predicted beforehand that if an intermediate like Tiktaalik existed, it should be found in that spot, in that approximate stratum."

Evolution has made many predictions of this sort which have born out.  In creationist pseudo-science, ANY CONCEIVABLE thing found is explained simply as "well, that's the way god decided to do it."

Check out:

http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/
article.cfm?archiveDate=12-06-05&storyID=22912

Scientists used to believe that Komodo dragons were not poisonous - they just had dirty mouths.  Evolutionary biologists examined their genome and found they were most closely related to a poisonous snake...so they actually went back to check and BINGO...they DO have poison!  Evolutionists made a stellar prediction that turned out to be true.

The thing is evolution could be disproved, if it were false.  That's why it's actual science instead of pretend science like creationism.

  In my last post, I appeared to be arguing with ONE other person, which wasn't my intent at all. 

  In my mind, I see a collective group of about 200 Christians.  William Lane Craig, N.T. Wright, the student leaders of Campus Crusade for Christ and other campus outreach groups, Craig Hazen at Biola, and many other Christians that I don't remember by name. That's who I'm talking to, that entire group. I don't have much patience for their nonsense because they all seem to make the SAME mistakes. 

   (1) Mistakes in basic evolutionary theory. ie,  The idea that a modern fish somehow changed into a modern primate.  That's called a Straw Man argument because it's easy to shoot down. Until you've sat down with a victim of Christianity and asked them to explain exactly what they don't believe, you can't appreciate the degree of deception involved. 

   (2) Logical mistakes.  Let me quote a familiar argument from one of Josh McDowell's books:  "Aristotle wrote his poetics around 343 B.C., yet the earliest copy we have is dated AD 1100, nearly a 1,400 year gap, and only five MSS are in existence.  Caesar composed his history of the Gallic Wars between 58 and 50 B.C. and its manuscript authority rests on nine or ten copies dating 1,000 years after his death.  When it comes to manuscript authority of the New Testament, the abundance of material is almost embarrassing in contrast… Over 20,000 copies of New Testament manuscripts are in existence today (McDowell, More Than A Carpenter, pp. 47-48)." 

   What does this term "Manuscript Authority" mean? 

   Accordng to Josh, if we have 20,000 copies of a book, it's more likely to be Historically True than a book with only 5 copies. Large numbers = Authority.

   Anyone out there agree with Josh? 

   Anyone care to guess how many copies of James Bond novels still exist? How about the Hobbit-fest in "Lord of the Rings"?  Superman comics? 

   One thing I've discovered about Christians like William Lane Craig and Josh McDowell is, after they have been proven WRONG, they simply go on to the next seminar and tell the same LIES.  Exactly the SAME LIES, which is why I've had exactly the same discussion with different Christians twenty or thirty years apart.  The only real difference is that today, I can link to published genomes of humans, chimps and rhesus macaques, and the idea of a "Last Common Ancestor" is easier to grasp.

 I still get Christians asking me to explain simple concepts that should have been covered in their high school science classes.

This two-sided debate seems to have developed a third argument.  On the one hand, we have William who is completely anti-Christian but also does not believe in the widely held theory of evolution whereby species supposedly evolved into other species.  

My question for William is this:  If you don't believe in creationism and you don't believe any species ever evolved into another species, how do you explain where we came from?  You say today's similar species (based on genome sequences) had a common ancestor smaller than a paper clip, but how did they develop? How did they grow into their current form?  Of course, my exlanation is that our Creator made everything so the fact that he gave different species identical genome sequences doesn't make me want to run out and hunt for a common ancestor.  And I know, William, that you don't care what I think, but if you're going to join a public forum, you have to expect public comment.

The other side of the anti-Christian argument comes from TheFallibleFiend who appears to believe in evolution as it is presented so often in the media:  humans have evolved from other species over millions of years.  He says, "Evolution is vastly more than speculation."  Since speculation is 'A conclusion, opinion, or theory reached by conjecture;Reasoning based on inconclusive evidence', I have to disagree.  The evidence for evolution is not conclusive.  He also says "The thing is evolution could be disproved, if it were false."  Guess what?  The same can be said for creationism.  

He says, "It's time for creationists to do some honest homework."  To what end?  Why spend your life poring over studies trying to prove where we came from? It doesn't matter how many fossils are found or how many genome sequences they match up.  I think we can all agree that it will never be proven...we weren't there.  So where does that leave you?  In the same place you started ... always searching.

He never said that species don't evolve into other species.  He said that fish did not evolve into humans.  

"The evidence for evolution is not conclusive."

The evidence for evolution is overwhelming if you get past the sound-bites from the creationist pseudo-science web-sites.

"Why spend your life poring over studies trying to prove where we came from? "
The only correct end is to try to understand correctly what the situation is with respect to the available evidence.  If people attempted to understand, before they came to their conclusions there wouldn't be an argument.  Instead creationists have a very strong emotional interest in disproving a theory of which they haven't the slightest comprehension.

Guess what ... creationism COULD NOT be disproved, if it were false.  Some few creationist claims could be disproved, but not the "theory" itself, which is why it's NOT a scientific theory at all.   Of course understanding this would require reading about philosophy of science instead of religious pamphlets, so maybe that's out of the question.

"I think we can all agree that it will never be proven...we weren't there. "

Scientific theories are never proven 100%.  Instead, they fail to be disproven (that's why falsifiability is so important).  How many gravitational fields have ever been seen?  How many electrons?  How many genes have been directly observed?  And yet we don't teach any of these theories as being questionable.  The central problem is that creationists base their uninformed opinions on a comic-book understanding of what science is and how it works.

When youngest daughter was in 7th grade, I was very pleased to walk into her science classroom and see the following sign above the chalkboard, "Science ISN'T about what you can prove, it's about what you can DISPROVE."  I knew right then she was in good hands.

Of course there are things we are searching for.  Science is a continual search.  But there's no sense at all in pretending that evolution is not a fact.   It's the best science there is.

When you look at the scientists who are behind it you see nobel laureates and and members of the national academies.  On the creationist/ID side, you see guys with a PhDs who were the head of this institute or that, but whose actual scientific work has been minuscule - and in some cases almost non-existent.  And yet creationists won't even do the basic homework to figure out that with a literal handful of exceptions, their  "experts" are 10th tier nobodies.

Hi, Diana, I've decided that it's completely useless to argue with atheists about evolution, and undoubtedly everything else as well. In studying their statements, I first noticed that they are completely unscrupulous. They can be true, partly true, or totally untrue. Then I began to discern a method. When I looked up the word 'propaganda', there it was. Propaganda is a form of communication used to confuse, disorient, and weaken your opponent (not to say 'enemy'). It is NOT a method used by scholars when they debate the merits or demerits of their case. Then I realized that that was why William's arguments resonated so strongly with that Communist I'd met back in the 70's (see Cosmic Log: The Future of Faith). They were both engaging in propaganda. This leads me to suspect that, since the anti-Christian's method and the Communist's method match, they've been following the same handbook, namely the Communist Manifesto or perhaps Chairman Mao's. As far as I'm concerned, their credibility is on a par with a Walt Disney comic book. I'm sure any worthy (i.e., scrupulous) scholar will know this.

OK, guys, I'm done.  You've talked yourselves into a corner and are contradicting each other & yourselves, and your continuing resorting to name-calling is getting old.  I leave you with these thoughts:

William did negate species evolving into other species with these statements:  "Two modern species had a common ancestor, but one never changed into the other.", "The idea of one species changing into another, for the most part, didn't happen."

If the only correct end is to try to understand what the situation is with respect to the available evidence, then you have to start with an open mind...one that does not rule out intelligent design.

TheFallibleFiend says that because evolution "cannot be disproved" we must accept it as true.  He then turns around & says that because creationism "cannot be disproved" it is not a scientific theory.  Why the double standard?  Because you're starting with a biased opinion.

He also says we should believe in evolution as fact because it's the best science there is.  At one time the best theories from the world's highest intellects stated that the world was flat.

In conclusion, there are plenty of Christians and creationists who have put in the homework you seem so fond of and I hope you'll follow a couple of these links:

 http://www.doesgodexist.org/Phamplets/Mansproof.html ,

http://www.allaboutcreation.org/proof-of-god.htm ,

http://everystudent.com/features/isthere.html?
gclid=CIDVw-CVwIsCFQ-5SgodWi6E0A

The last one is by a former atheist & here's part of what he had to say:  "It might be that the underlying reason atheists are bothered by people believing in God is because God is actively pursuing them."

God Bless!

I haven't talked myself into a corner.  Nor have I name-called.  I stated very clearly you have not done enough research on this to judge the issue.  You and other creationists have very firm opinions in an area where you have not done an honest day's actual research into the subject.

I *never* said you should believe the theory of evolution.  I said it was a fact regardless of what you believed.  It is good science - and if you fail to recognize that, then you haven't done your homework.  Creationists continually say they've "done their homework" and then immediately start making statements that demonstrate unequivocally to anyone who IS informed that they haven't.

I'm not bothered that people believe in God.  On the contrary religious people are bothered by the fact that atheists don't believe in god.  I *am* bothered by the fact that creationists want to keep kids ignorant under the pretension of keeping them "fully informed."

I never said that evolution cannot be disproved.  I don't know if you're mistaken here or just outright lying.  I said it CAN be disproved, but that it was not yet disproved.  You don't even understand the argument and you won't do the homework necessary to figure it out.  You won't do the homework to understand the simple stuff, but  then you want me to treat your opinions as if they were just as good as any others.

I know it's wasted breath, but I hold out hope.  [...] You can actually do real homework - it takes some effort, but once you get into the habit of careful study, it gets easier and easier.

If Jesus was buried in a box some distance from his death at the cross when it was joseph his great uncle who ask Romans for the body that it might be buried between the sabaths. The text says he was buried in  a borrowed tomb of a rich man of which Joseph was.
  Concerning the text of Matthew there is  copy of the text which reads in part that it was dictated to Nichols the deacon immediately after his resurection.  He was seen alive by many eyewitness other that the writers of the bibical text.
   If we step outside the English text to text from north Africa and Arabia and the middle east we find that they agree. Jesus died and rose again the third day after being in the grave 72 hours on a Saturday night about 8 PM. remember to convert to the Jewish time line, The dawning of a new day was after sun down about 6PM not on sunday morning.
    Of all the present world religions he was the only one who said that he was from heaven and that he was going back again. That the world problem of sin could only be fixed by his death and the only proof he would give is that he would rise again after 72 hours in the grave.  He said that God was his father and that it was the Jews want to kill him for that reason.  If Jesus is God then worship him for that reason alone, Any reason to attempt to discredit his earthly journey only proves that you are spiritually dead and leads you to distruction.  

I never expect so much debate on the issue of 'Science and God'. I hope we will not revive the 'old debates' in the 1800s between supporters of evolution theory and creation theory. My only hope here is to reveal and share the truth to our unfortunate ignorant brothers. Before continuing, let me first thanks everyone for a good discussion. However, I feel sorry for those hardened-minded people who still believe that there is no God. To begin with, let me quote a famous remark by the great physicist Einstein:

"God does not play dice with the universe..."

This remark has a profound implication and meaning. Simply, it reveals the fact that the complex universe can never, and ever be formed by chance. Chance is a flawed concept that is being championed by supporters of evolution and the big bang theory just to avoid the    
God-concept or creation belief. It's not surprising that these two great Science theories are related; their common theme is to deny the existence of a supernatural force.

I hope to clarify my position to avoid confusion by others:
1. I strongly believe in Science and it is Science that brings many marvels alongside economic benefits on earth. These range from x-rays or radiations, electrons and neutrons, antibodies & stem cells, organic and non-organic molecules, etc, all these have  
countless significant technological applications, and it is in fact are the basis of modern economic development. Yet Science has limitations.

2. Evolution theory for example is flawed and should never be called Science. By contrast, it is nothing comparable to the thermodynamics, or electromagnetism, or special relativity or even genetics and microbiology theories. Evolution cannot be tested experimentally and even over the life of the universe it will never be. Think about it, is that science or just myth-science?

2. What really surprise me is the fact that a number of notable physicists and astronomers are beginning to
believe that there might be 'aliens' or extraterrestrial beings living outside our universe! Some have started to make contact to this unknown regions in space. Think about it carefully. It's really interesting to me, because these astronomical searches are just the beginning to prove that there is
of course life out there beyond our comprehension - this is no different to believing in the unknown dimensional universe of God.

3. I can't comprehend why Scientists would tend to believe in aliens and not believing in God who is really the alien of their discovery. Isn't that amazing?

4. God theory is not nonsense, no! If you think so, then you're saying that the black hole or string theory, etc, are nonsense as well. If fact, these theories including particle physics and other cosmology theories must reconcile to one another and to the God theory. This is the only way to get to the whole picture of the universe and the elementary particles world. No wonder some physcists have started in these directions! There are few but interesting books written by scientists on these kind of subjects and I urge you to find them and read.
-the Bible Code
-Physics of God (not real title but close to it as I forgot the title). Unfortunately, I can't recall the authors of these books.

4. I still challenge those who believe in evolution to
come up with concrete evidence of man's transition from ape, let alone from fossils. In addition, don't you know that whenever a new discovery of old human fossil skulls or remains is made, scientists just make
up imaginary unscientific connections to evolution theory? It's just a game of fixing a puzzle.

5. In fact, when I don't wear shoes and used to walk over rough surfaces, the skin of my bottom feet will increase in thickness. This is just evolution at work due to the environment much the same as that used by Darwin to explain the beak differences for finches species on Galapagos islands. I challenge evolutionists to review and correct the evolution theory by Darwin and others. What I can only see is that evolution doesn't change an organism like a mammal but only changes cells to certain limited
scales! I pause here for now.

Any one interested in my article 'Have You Recognised Yourself"?Took eight years to develop,still six questions remain unanswered.Contact:alibadsha48@yahoo.com and alibadsha@hotmail.com

anyone who argues against the fact that there is a living God.... has and is missing out on life, and life after death, those who do not understand the power of prayer have never lived, never will, are void of the love of God, it'S SO VERY SAD AND PATHETIC.

For what it's worth, I'm a retired engineer/scientist with the academic credentials and work experiences to back it up. However I can truly say there I have not experienced anything in my scientific endeavors that is more real to me than my faith in Jesus Christ. He is without a doubt, Lord of my life.The following is a simple poem I wrote years ago which expressed my belief that there is indeed a GOD whom I discovered was Jesus Christ.

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD
1. Form a hypothesis that can be tested.
2. Obtain sample data for assessment.
3. Examine the results for significant trends.
4. Draw inferences regarding the hypothesis.

1. I hypothesized there was no God.
2. I gathered facts from all of creation.
3. I examined the data and was startled.
4. I found in creation my Creator.
cc. RDC February 26, 1978

Sceptics can deny it and believers can profess it but the day will come when every knee shall bow before Him. Here's hoping you experience this great event with joy and not regrets.

I would have to say anything is possible.. I watched a program a few years ago where the christians took out many parts of the bible and it referenced that jesus had kissed mary on the mouth. so I would say that it is true that jesus had a family. Most christians to me are a bunch of loonies who seek their own truth not the actual truth. I am glad the truth is finally coming out instead of being brainwashed in to believing in one thing.

I do take notice of how some people despise the use of the very word "God".  Those people want the word removed from public view. I looked into my pocket today to view the words enscribed on the U.S. currency that I in witness and surely, I find the words, "In God We Trust" and because the word "God" is mentioned, there are those who want it removed.  But, there are those of us who believe that it should NOT be removed and here our opposition is freely stated, as to why:

Money! There are those of us who lived long enough in this world to learn that money, to some, is the only god that these people trust. It's very fitting to be enscribed on currency. We say, to those of you who have made "money" your god and money, only, is that which you trust,... your currency has a well fitted phrase and we see nothing that transforms its use into a holy religion.
 
The people of the world have raised up to themselves all kinds of gods. Since the term, "In God We Trust" can be interpreted to mean any kind of god in whichthe bearer's trust is believed to be placed and that god could be whatever or whoever that may be, how can there can any argument that the phase promotes, as a fact, a specific kind of religion in particular when there is nothing religious about money which is their only trusted god.

So, why remove the phase, "In God We Trust" from the U.S. currency? The phrase, "In Whatever God We Trust" would not be a phrase fitted for currency. The phrase, "In Almighty God We Trust" might be the kind of phrase that anti-god people could up their argument with religion. But just because there is a people who do place their trust in a God, that is trusted and worship above any and all other kinds of gods before them, and who refer to their God as, the "Almighty God" or the God of Moses", etc. is no reason to have the, "as worded" phase on U.S. currency removed.

Each person who has an opportunity to be fortunate enough to possess U.S. currency can actually see, touch, and feel that which is the trusted god of many; yet further, give witness to the power of such god, when possesed, what it can do or bring.  Some people say that it is the kind of god that is deeply rooted into all that is evil.

If the issue to remove from U.S. currency, the phase, "In God We Trust"  is ever presented to the U.S. Justices of the Supreme Court, I hope some lawyer involved will pass along the public voice of those who say, "Render under Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser, so let the fitted phase be."

 
 

In response to 'how is it possible we still live with people who believe in gods'- look up your history and your constitution. First, we have the right to believe in whom or whatever we want if anything at all. And two; not every god is a primitive god that requires a virgin sacrifice for rain. In fact, even the christian god was partial to sacrifices in the old testament.

I've been studying this find for years, long before it became public knowledge following the mass media exposure. I believe that it's a serious find, which warrants further study.

The critics of this find's magnitude basically argue:

1. That the Jesus family would be buried in Nazareth, not Talpiot;
2. That the 'Jesus' ossuary would have been inscribed 'of Nazareth';
3. That the Jesus family couldn't have afforded a tomb like the Talpiot tomb;
4. That the "Jesus son of Joseph" ossuary is not inscribed "Yeshua" (Jesus) at all;
5. That the names inscribed on these ossuaries were supposedly common;
6. That the "Mariamne" ossuary didn't contain the remains of Mary Magdalene, but of two other women;


I believe the first five of these allegations against the book's premise don't carry much water. The sixth argument actually supports the conclusion that this is the real thing. My comments:

1. Talpiot is the right place for Jesus' family tomb- Per Luke, 2:3-4, the family's LEGAL residence was Bethlehem, not Nazareth. The fact that Joseph and the pregnant Mary could not take the census in Nazareth but had to take it in Bethlehem indicates that Bethlehem was their DOMICILIUM under Roman Law. That basically means that they had no intention to reside in Nazareth permanently. Therefore it would have made little sense for them to have a family tomb in Nazareth, that they wouldn't be able to frequently visit at a later stage in their lives. They would have wanted a family tomb close to Bethlehem and Jerusalem, easily accessible also to future generations of the family. The fact is indeed that Mary and her children moved to Jerusalem around 30 AD.

2. The traditional name of Jesus in Hebrew, as reflected also in the Talmud, is "Yeshu Hanotzri." This appellation stems from "Netzer" (Shoot or Branch). It alludes clearly to Isaiah 11:1, indicating the Royal birth of Jesus, to substantiate his claim for Jewish messiahship. Not to indicate the place he comes from.

There's actually no evidence in Jewish sources, such as the Old Testament or the Mishna and Talmud, that a place called "Nazareth" even existed in or before the first century. I'm not disputing the evidence per the NT, that there was indeed a place called Nazareth. But to the best of my knowledge, there's no mention of Nazareth at all in any ancient writings outside the New Testament. So the place existed, but nobody knew about it. And those in close proximity in Galilee who did know about it, obviously thought derogatorily of it , cf. "can anything good come from Nazareth?" (John 1:46.) Therefore there was no reason to call Jesus "of Nazareth." Either in life or on an ossuary. He was called "Jesus the Branch" (of David) in Hebrew/Aramaic.

The line of argumentation detracting this discovery around the supposed Nazareth origin of Jesus' family may therefore be based on a very shaky foundation.

3. Talpiot is located about 2.5 miles North of Bethlehem. Jesus' family, of Davidic descent according to the New Testament, could have held the burial cave there even before it moved to Nazareth. Davidic birth was absolutely the most exalted in Judaism, always. The suggestion that any person of Davidic descent could be of the lowest social echelon, that couldn't fund or get funding for a burial cave, doesn't make much sense, if any. There's substantial evidence to the contrary, e.g. 1. Jesus had some very wealthy active supporters like Joseph of Arimatea and Nicodemus (known as Nakdimon ben Gorion in post biblical Jewish sources-one of the richest Jews in Judea;) 2. Josephus, A.J. XX, 9:1. Note the prominence of James, brother of Jesus.

4. The inscription on the Jesus ossuary does say "Yeshua bar Yehosef" ("Jesus son of Joseph")to my eye. All letters but one are quite clearly there. The only letter which is somewhat more difficult to discern at first blush is the second letter- "Shin". That's because it's written in a somewhat irregular form (in a regular Shin there are three teeth in the fork, pointing upwards. Here there are two teeth, pointing sideways to the right.) But that particular irregularity appears also on other ossuaries- notably numbers 9 (this one has two "Shin"- one with three teeth pointing to the right, and one with TWO teeth pointing to the right. Exactly like the subject inscription) and 121 in the Rahmani catalogue, which both feature also a "Yeshua."

Still, the name "Yeshua" on this ossuary is among the most, if not the most, difficult to read names of all ossuaries listed in Rahmani's catalogue of Jewish ossuaries. It is almost written as a person's complex signature on a check. Contrast that with the patronymic following the first name. This is written in a simple straightforward fashion, which is very easy to read. There's no other example in Rahmani's catalogue of a first name that has to be deciphered, and a patronymic that's so plain and clear. Is this merely a coincidence?


5. Some critics make the following comment to my post:

"The inscription, Pfann said, is made up of two names inscribed by two different hands: the first, "Mariame,'' was inscribed in a formal Greek script, and later, when the bones of another woman were added to the box, another scribe using a different cursive script added the words "kai Mara,'' meaning "and Mara.'' Mara is a different form of the name Martha.

According to Pfann's reading, the ossuary did not house the bones of "Mary the teacher,'' but rather of two women, "Mary and Martha.'"

Here's my thought about that:
If the Mariamne ossuary indeed housed the bones of Mary and Martha, these are two sisters of NT fame. One of them could have been married to "Jesus son of Joseph." -Whether or not she was Mary Magdalene (Maybe the Mary who anointed Jesus' feet and then dried them with her hair- very intimate scene.) The other sister would than also automatically belong in the family. It still fits. Actually it increases the statistical odds that this is the real thing quite substantially.
This is a very intriguing possibility indeed, fitting perfectly with John 12:3. Intimate contact with a man, as described in this NT passage, was allowed only to a woman who was an immediate blood relative of that man, his wife (...or a working woman.) That's all. Therefore Mary of Bethany was quite possibly by elimination Jesus' wife or in the process of becoming his wife. In that context, Margaret Starbird already theorized that similar anointing with spikenard oil was part of pre marriage ritual of a Davidic king, per certain passages in the Song of Songs. Note also that intercourse by itself was sufficient under Jewish Law in certain circumstances to constitute valid marriage. That practice, termed Bi'ah marriage, was abolished in the 6th century, but it was lawful in Jesus' time.

Mary of Bethany could have become pregnant by Jesus while he stayed at her house, shortly before his crucifixion. In that case it's quite possible that she bore Jesus' son posthumously and named him "Judah." And in that case both she and her sister Martha would have become part of Jesus' family, which earned them a place in the Talpiot family tomb..

Reminds me of the reaction to this find of a BBC reporter in 1996- It seems like all balls in the national lottery coming one by one.




I have no knowledge of Greek, so I can only discuss the two propositions. Assuming that the ossuary does say "Mary and Martha", here's what I think the names are:
* 1."Jesus son of Joseph"("Yeshua bar Yehosef" in Hebrew/Aramaic script;)
* 2. "Mary" ("Marya" in Hebrew/Aramaic script);
* 3. "Joseph" ("Yose" in Hebrew/Aramaic script. Precise nickname of Jesus' second brother- cf. Mark 6:3);
* 4. "Mary and Martha" ("Mariame kai Mara" in Greek)-they must have been sisters because Jewish law didn't allow burial together of two unrelated women;
* 5. "Matthew" ("Matya" in Hebrew/Aramaic script)- Name of Jesus' first cousin, son of his father's brother Alphaeus/Clophas. As James Tabor suggests in a different context, Matya could also well have been Jesus' half brother, considering a certain specific rule of the Torah (Deuteronomy 25:5-10.) This rule was applied in Jesus time- see Matthew 22:24-28;
* 6. "Judah son of Jesus"("Yehuda bar Yeshua" in Hebrew/Aramaic script.)
* Therefore out of eight names actually inscribed on these ossuaries (including the "Joseph" father of Jesus on the first ossuary) four names undoubtedly relate to Jesus' immediate family, and three other names relate to the same with a somewhat lower probability. In any event, they all relate to Jesus' extended family. Note that first century Jewish family tombs were usually a clan thing.
* The eighth name is "Yehuda bar Yeshua"- must have been the son of Jesus and one of the sisters Mary or Martha. More likely Mary, as explained above.

6. While the full versions of all these names were indeed common in Jesus' time, the derivatives, nicknames and contractions were not. Thus "Yeshua" for Jesus was less common than "YeHOshua;" ditto "YeHOsef" instead of "Yosef" for Joseph; "Marya" for Mary was extremely rare in Hebrew/Aramaic script; "Yose" for Joseph is unique. Therefore out of these eight names, two are irregularities, one is a particularity, and one a singularity.

BOTTOM LINE- Ask yourself inversely a hypothetical question- If the Talpiot tomb hadn't yet been found, how would Jesus' family tomb have looked , which ossuaries would it have contained, to when would it have been dated and where would it have been located.

I would have thought of a tomb just like the tomb we're discussing. It fits perfectly with what I'd have expected Jesus' family tomb to be. Right place, right period, right names. I therefore believe that this matter, delicate as it obviously is, warrants further investigation. This could include opening and examination of the adjacent tomb, and forensic examination of the skeletal remains found in the Talpiot ossuaries, and apparently reburied back in 1980. These could hopefully be relocated by comparison to the mithochondrial DNA samples already taken from two of these ossuaries.

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