The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, located in the White Mountains of California, are home to the oldest known living trees on earth, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Pinus longaeva. The oldest tree, nicknamed "Methuselah", is more than 4,750 years old, and is not marked to ensure added protection from vandals. The grove lies in the Inyo National Forest, between 3,000-3,300 m (10,000-11,000 feet) above sea level.

(Thank you Wikipedia.)

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I've often thought about thise, and my thoughts basically boil down to that...^

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The Bible also says that the Earth is only about 6,000 years old. And that is dead wrong.

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Kinda my point. If you cannot put a number on something how can you put a bet on it? If you are going to bet on what choice is right with no proof for anything it is pretty damm hard to say that agnostic is the way to go with an absence of proof for any of the alternatives.

Its like betting at the track with out even knowing if the track is there.


ADD ON: just for revelation. There are fungi out there that are much older than the bible. There are trees older than it too.
Both of them dating back farther than your flood.

http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/Apr20...2005p04-09.pdf

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-i got kicked out of barnes and noble once for moving all the bibles into the fiction section

My Facebook thing. . .

Think You Watch Movies? http://www.halo3forum.com/movies/81621-movies-you-need-see-before-you-die-weekly-review.html

I do have a question though, just out of curiosity. Is radiocarbon dating as accurate as scientists make it out to be, and are there flaws within it?

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Why do you believe that the Jesus of the Bible is different from the Jesus of History?

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I disagree. Religon IS comforting, but is NOT the "easy" way out. As an agnostic, you do not have to follow any rules or any guidleines. As an agnostic, you do not HAVE to DO anything. You are not limited. In religon, however you must follow certain rules and guidelines. You must do what is right and avoid what is wrong.

I have two questions for you. Do you believe that a person that spends his life killing people and causing corruption is equal to a person that spends his life by give charity to the poor and reforming this world. If so, why? Do you believe in right and wrong? If so, what do you base right and wrong according to?, because you certainly do not have any religous text to tell you what is right and wrong.

P.S. If anyone finds any of this offending than please forgive me.

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gamertag: Enigma 90
Send me a f/r for MLG FFA (make sure to include mlg ffa in the text)

and they did...

There is a certain amount of error in it but it is very small considering how large of a time frame it is working with.

It is not accurate for material that is pretty recent but for millions or years ago it is accurate. It is also not the only method of dating organic material we have.

I would say in the last 10,000 years that using other methods along with carbon dating is the way to go. Earlier than that it can stand on its own but help is advisable as well.

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-i got kicked out of barnes and noble once for moving all the bibles into the fiction section

My Facebook thing. . .

Think You Watch Movies? http://www.halo3forum.com/showthread.php?t=81621

It woudn't be wrong, the Bible says that if anyone confess' with his mouth and believes in his heart, thou shalt be saved. It doesn't matter if you have been saved for 100 years or 3 seconds. Also, it would be quite diffucult to all of a sudden believe in God and Jesus dying on the cross and all that stuff after a life of the opposite of that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Following a strict moral code is a small price to pay for the assurance that there is a God who loves you unconditionally and who will reward you with eternal bliss simply for believing in Him. Think about the alternative: not being sure of what's going to happen after death, whether it be Hell or nothingness (both of which are terrible), is a lot harder than following a strict moral code. And I may not have to follow someone else's strict moral code, but that does not mean for a second that I'm a lying, thieving serial killer. Not having a Holy Book to tell me what to do makes it harder to do the right thing because I don't have the extra motivation of pleasing God and getting into Heaven. And you know what? I still do the right thing all the time. Besides refraining from murder and rape, I give advice to people I don't necessarily like, I leave the last cookie for my brother, who I absolutely despise, and I generally help people out without asking for anything in return. I'm doing it because I think it's right, not because I need to be a good person to get into Heaven, not because someone demanded it of me. "In religon, however you must follow certain rules and guidelines. You must do what is right and avoid what is wrong." Since I'm not religious, I don't have to do any of that, but I do it anyways.

A corrupt murderer is of course not equal to a charitable person. That is, of course, unless Christianity or Islam is right and the corrupt murderer repents on his death bed. In either of those cases, the corrupt murderer would be equal to or greater than the charitable person in God's eyes, depending on whether or not the charitable person was a true believer.

I doubt that there are objective moral values. I think that the sense of right and wrong comes from the environment in which you grow up and is generally derived from what's best for society. It's definitely not in the best interests of mankind for people to be killing, raping, or stealing from each other, so people teach their kids that it's wrong to do so. My sense of right and wrong comes mainly from my parents and from myself, and I don't think that my moral standard is ultimately better than yours, just more practical and reasonable in terms of the good of society.

It wouldn't be wrong if the Bible is right, but I severely doubt that.

Jesus of Nazareth wasn't necessarily the son of God and didn't necessarily perform miracles. He could have simply been a guy that encouraged a moral lifestyle and was chosen by the disciples to build the Christian mythology around. The Jesus of the Bible is different because he had to have been the son of God and he must have performed miracles.

When I said that I couldn't put a number on it, I meant that I'd be more surprised to find out that there was no creator than if I found out that there was. I suppose I could give you a rough approximation if you really wanted it, but I think it's enough to say that it's over 50% for the existence of a creator. Also, I'm not really betting on what choice is right, it's more like betting that all the choices I've been given are wrong.

The point is that it would be wrong to choose any one belief system over the others because none of them have proof, or even evidence. If you're saying agnosticism is wrong, which is simply rejecting all the belief systems and saying, "I don't know," then you must think that one of the religions is right (that or atheism). But that would mean I'd have to pick one and say, "I do know." So, which should I choose and how do I know that I'd be right?

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