If you think the general assholery that you display on a daily basis here is anything that your Jesus would be proud of.... then a. it means that like many in your religion it means you're actually pretty unfamiliar with what's written in your holy book and b. you must be confused and think that Jesus commanded you to do your utmost to get people not to join your religion, since you're being singularly effective with that! If heaven if made up of people like you who never matured past 1990s 8th grade and are general assholes and hell is made up of people like Stephen Hawking (and Richard Dawkins), most of the scientists in the world, and the "fags" as you call them (you will let the lesbians come hang with us too won't you, even though you like watching them in porn?) then you can have your streets of gold and continual singing of praise to a sociopath, I'll happily hang out out in hell! As Gandhi apocryphally said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
If you could point out one of those things, and the verse in Genesis you're referring to, then I'd be happy to have a conversation about it. One of the first pushes for 15 year old me to start asking questions was this kind of amorphis claim that you just made, which is rife amongst the fundamentalists. When actually pushed to specifics, the "elders" get defensive and start questioning your faith. At some point I realized they had a good point and started questioning it myself!
There are many examples like this. If you Google Nephilim, which are spoke of in Genesis, I don't know of a better explanation of how these incredible structures were built. What I do know is that this really convinces me, among other things that there is a greater power and it is worth your time to really examine it before disbelieving in God for things that God's imperfect creation has done in the world we live in. What if the Bible holds a lot of truth, what if there is eternal life, then, what if you're wrong?
This is exactly what I'm talking about. On the one hand you have a self-described conspiracy theorist YouTube video that claims, with absolutely nothing to back him except he said so, that Inca's shouldn't have been capable of building what they built. An example of this nonsense, was his assertion that a hole in a stone had to have been bored by a vibrating tool, and engineers have backed this up. What engineers? When. Source anyone? That's pretty much how the whole thing goes. I've actually hiked the Inca trail and seen these structures myself, they are spectacular. But the consensus of everyone who's studied them is that they were constructed by the human Incas and while it required enormous amounts of labor, much of it slave labor, it was eminently doable using the technology they had. What's really baffling to me, though, is that even if you believe some kind of inhuman folks built the Inca Trail, what in the world does Genesis 6 have to do with it? Genesis 6:4, which to refresh your memory states "4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown." Pretty much every religion that's ever existed on earth, from Ra the sun god to the Greek and Roman Pantheon to Norse mythology had some kind of super human heroes. Even if the conspiracy theorist was right, it no more proves christianity than it proves Norse mythology. And this is the crux of your particular kind of "proof" of Christianity that's exactly what I saw as a teenager. You never make the connection between A and C. You say look at the world and the animals and how everything works together, God must be real. Maybe. Maybe a god is real. Is it the god who was ever fine with you selling your daughter into slavery? Exodus 21:7-11 7 “When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she will not be freed at the end of six years as the men are. 8 If she does not satisfy her owner, he must allow her to be bought back again. But he is not allowed to sell her to foreigners, since he is the one who broke the contract with her. 9 But if the slave’s owner arranges for her to marry his son, he may no longer treat her as a slave but as a daughter. Is it the god who was ever fine with stoning your son if he was disobedient? Deuteronomy 21:18-21 18 If someone has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, 19 his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. 20 They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a glutton and a drunkard.” 21 Then all the men of his town are to stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid. Is it the god who gave a crap about you eating shrimp or being gay or being a glutton. (funny to hear the 300lb woman at the church potluck with 3 plates of food trot out the anti-gay thing but never quote Proverbs 23:3 " and put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony.") See here's the thing, even if everything your favorite conspiracy whackjob says is true, it still does nothing to support following a particular religion, especially fundamentalist christianity. Basic logic says that it's a fallacy to say A=B therefore B=C. Which is exactly what you're doing. Don't feel bad, it's very common among fundamentalists and is the reason why so many of us who were raised fundamentalists left once we started questioning it and realized it was a pile of crap. So just a little tip for you, it's a bit foolish to try to convert a person with a science or engineering background, who knows your holy book far better than you apparently do having read it cover to cover a number of times and memorized big parts of it, by throwing down some conspiracy theories and telling them to Google Genesis. At least don't try it and expect anything other than them laughing at you, or if they're more polite pointing out the fallacy of your beliefs. I think you're a reasonable person, unlike fhl, so I think it is important that you understand that I and everyone else like me who affirmatively rejected fundamentalist christianity (which is very different from rejecting christianity) did not do so because we wanted to be able to "sin" In fact we try (and like all humans occasionally fail) to live by a moral code that is very similar to overarching "do unto others" code that many Christians (except the fhl's of the world) live by, although we usually go by a categorical imperative version which adds to do only as you would wish to become a universal rule. I didn't reject christianity or "have never been saved" or "not have a relationship with jesus" so that I could cheat on my wife, lie, cheat, steal, covet my neighbor's slave or make "graven images", even though the temptation on those graven images sometimes just kills me! It's convenient for you to dismiss us in that way, but couldn't be further from the truth. In fact it's people like fhl who are complete assholes in the name of god who start you wondering, it's people like you who wave your hands around but never have a solid answer that start you really investigating, and it's our own intellect that allows us to realize that the whole thing is not only wrong but actually evil in many cases and something we want nothing to do with. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus that makes your life brighter and you use it as a force for good rather than exclusion, more power to you, I wish you the best and I know lots of great folks like you who I respect. The respect only stops when religion is imposed on those who not only don't share it but rationally reject it, which is sadly all too common in the U.S. these days.
LOL, I didn't watch the video, I just grabbed one that I thought would include some of what I was talking about. But that's fine, if you want to base your existence on your own personal beliefs because of things that were in the Old Testament that's fine. I'm not a theologian and am not interested in a debate on the subject. We will all know in the end who was right. I don't base my beliefs on the technology that was used in ancient times; I have, as many have had real life God encounters. You haven't that sucks!
That's funny because I could have sworn you just wanted to "ask them how come all the unexplained, ancient things that are being discovered all around the word that took technology as great or greater than we have today, to build, are explained in Genesis." and now you're "no theologian" and "not interested" in what's in the Old Testament. Pet peeve number 20 of fundamentalist behavior, quoting the Old Testament when it suits them, then claiming it's all moot or not worth debating when the truly horrid things there are pointed out. Without doubting your real-life God encounters, I do wonder how they led you to believe they were with the same God who wrote every verse in the inviolate Christian Bible that we must follow literally. If you're not a fundamentalist I apologize for the question, because as I mentioned I do have friends I respect very much who've had encounters like you which have given them faith. For them though, it didn't lead them to the idea that we need to blindly follow what they're the first to admit is largely the oral tradition of goatherds chosen and written down by various rulers in a manner that made it easier for them to maintain power. As a result, they don't try to impose what's in that book on others simply because it's written there.
I think the key point here is that there is probably nothing much wrong with the idea of faith. It's a profoundly personal choice and nobody could possibly deny anyone the right to believe. The issue I've always had is the leap that one must take to get from faith, which is inherently individualistic, to organised religion, which is collective. How is it logical that one's faith necessarily requires congregating in large groups to perform specific rites?
I am totally not being disrespectful here.... but do you care to share any? Strange things happen all the time... but are they "God encounters"? Take those people sitting at that red light in Florida when that bridge fell on them last week.... its weird.... maybe they were at the McDonald's drive-thru and because the person in front of them asked for an extra napkin... those extra 15 seconds placed them under that bridge at that red light the exact moment the bridge fell. Or maybe someone left their briefcase in the house and because they went in to get it... they weren't under that bridge at that exact moment. How many people have missed a flight for whatever reason and that flight perished? Beats me. But if you'd care to share... I'd love to hear some God encounters.
I certainly understand that what many experience, as the examples you just stated, could very easily be a coincidence of luck. I never write this and normally don't share it, but here it is. In 2002, with two small children, I was wanting to cut down our party life and was, for some reason, starting to think more about God, but my wife had no interest. She would then go party with her co-workers, as I watched the kids. We quickly drifted apart and divorced in 2003; I don't know what you know about divorce, but I had to give up almost everything, including my lake home and investments, to keep my waterfront main home. The divorce caused me to lose custody of my two young boys, which put me in a depression, which had a devastating effect on my business. I was out of money and no money coming in. I got a call from potential clients to meet on a business deal. I prayed and my pastor's wife prayed for me, right before the meeting. After two hours with clients I had never met before, they committed to a deal that handed me $85,000. This is the part of the God encounter that could be coincidence and luck or my skill at selling what I do. After they left, I dropped to my knees, with tears flowing down my face, thanking and praising God. After a few minutes, I pulled my emotional self together and walked out of my office. Immediately upon stepping out of the office door, I could hear music coming from my truck and it was loud. It was a Saturday afternoon so the parking lot was empty except for my truck. As I walked to my truck, I could tell that is was my favorite song by Darlene Zschech, a Christian artist. I walked to my truck, keys in my hand, in disbelief; when I got to the door, I just stood there, keys in hand, doors locked with my favorite Christian song blaring out of the truck; tears started to, once again, stream down my face. I unlocked the door, sat in my truck and listened to the song, as I stared at the empty ignition and the keys in my hand. I told God that I understood and that I am His. God did this to make me understand for sure that it was Him that helped me, He put an exclamation mark on that fact. That was the second God encounter I had experienced in two weeks, which has given me no choice, but to believe. The radio didn't have a short, it had never done that before and never did it again and no I wasn't on drugs or drinking. There is so much more to the story that is equally incredible, involving Satan using others to try and destroy me. So there you have it, believe it or not I know this is real and our world is in the greatest Holy war of all time. There are only two sides and I know which side I am on. Why God chose to reveal Himself to me in such a undeniable way and doesn't to everyone? I don't know, but maybe there is a reason.
Sig; I don't know what type of Christian I am; I believe Jesus died for my sins and that He is my Lord and Savior and there is a true God. I believe Satan is in control on earth, tempting all mankind and is behind all evil. You would not believe what so called Christians have done to destroy me and my business, but that doesn't make me want to turn away from Jesus. I attend a church that uses much of the offering money to help those in need. all over the world, all religions and we are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. That, to me, is what a Christian does, helps those in need, no matter the color of their skin or their personal beliefs.