[Super Mario 64]

I'm not bashing anyone's religion, I'm genuinely wondering

According to Wikipedia, "Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago." Anywhere else will give you something similar too.

Given that this is true, why did God only decide to send down Christ only 2000 years to die for everyone's sins?

What about the sins of the dudes that lived 48,000 - 200,000 years ago?

Also, out of all places, why did God choose the middle east out of all places for the likes of Christ and Prophet Muhammad?

Why not choose the Amazon Rainforest or something?

[KCosmo]

Not existing probably has something to do with it

[Otkem]

The world is only around 6,000 years old, and so God has been there since the beginning.

[Super Mario 64]

(Original post by Otkem)
The world is only around 6,000 years old, and so God has been there since the beginning.

oh look, a flying pig!

[chickenonsteroids]

He was sleeping. Why would you want to disturb him during his sleep?

[Bright.Inspiration.]

Lol I love this



PS. I'm an atheist

[chernid]

Well if you think about it, time is like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey... stuff and so somehow 6,000 years equals 200,000 years. Case Closed.

[Martyn*]

Your argument is configured by the Judaeao-Christian interpretation of world history; it rests on the assumption that a) Christ was sent down b) that the only form of Christianity (informing your thesis) emerged only from the Middle East.

[The Epicurean]

They were influenced by earlier religions from the middle east.

Humans were still evolving 48,000 - 200,000 years ago. It wasn't until later in human evolution that our intelligence developed to such a level that we were able to start questioning our existence. With the little science available and a big unknown world, the people tried to explain the meaning of everything through what little knowledge they had. They then came to the conclusion that there must exist a god or multiple gods. The middle east was home to the religion of zoroastrianism, which happened to be the first prophetic religion. They had the prophet zoroaster. He then went on to influence all the other later religions of the people of the middle east which evolved to have prophets also.

[Stiff Little Fingers]

(Original post by Otkem)
The world is only around 6,000 years old, and so God has been there since the beginning.

oh, I do love morons. They make the world so much more entertaining.


As for the - why not the rainforest bit - If he does exist, and did send down prophets or whatever - the most populated areas would be a good choice, so that the message can spread. The rainforest will have been a lot less populated than the Middle East.

[GreenLantern1]

(Original post by zedbrar)
They were influenced by earlier religions from the middle east.

Humans were still evolving 48,000 - 200,000 years ago. It wasn't until later in human evolution that our intelligence developed to such a level that we were able to start questioning our existence. With the little science available and a big unknown world, the people tried to explain the meaning of everything through what little knowledge they had. They then came to the conclusion that there must exist a god or multiple gods. The middle east was home to the religion of zoroastrianism, which happened to be the first prophetic religion. They had the prophet zoroaster. He then went on to influence all the other later religions of the people of the middle east which evolved to have prophets also.

So basically religion is something some guy made up to answer our questions and make him look clever.

Look how his lie has gotten out of hand.

[butterfliesandrainbows94]

If the Amazon Rainforest WAS chosen, you would be all, "And WHY the Amazon Rainforest? Explain THAT"

[The Epicurean]

(Original post by Alofleicester)
oh, I do love morons. They make the world so much more entertaining.


As for the - why not the rainforest bit - If he does exist, and did send down prophets or whatever - the most populated areas would be a good choice, so that the message can spread. The rainforest will have been a lot less populated than the Middle East.

The question still remains as to why he went to the middle east? The majority of people living in the middle east during the early days of Judaism were illiterate semi-nomadic desert dwellers. Whereas in China, there existed a burgeoning society which had invented paper which would of been the perfect medium for documenting and spreading the message rather than by word of mouth. Wikipedia has an estimate of 57 million people around the time of Jesus. Surely all factors should have pointed God to send his message to the people of China?

(Original post by GreenLantern1)
So basically religion is something some guy made up to answer our questions and make him look clever.

Look how his lie has gotten out of hand.

A rather inquisitive person obviously formed the idea of God. It was by far the best and most reassuring answer to the people present at that time. Everything that they could not explain could easily be explained by the concept of God.

[Super Mario 64]

(Original post by Alofleicester)
oh, I do love morons. They make the world so much more entertaining.


As for the - why not the rainforest bit - If he does exist, and did send down prophets or whatever - the most populated areas would be a good choice, so that the message can spread. The rainforest will have been a lot less populated than the Middle East.

The Mongolians and Africans had the fastest growing population. Why not there?

[Bloodrazor]

Where better to send a messiah than to preach to more-or-less illiterate people?

[Reform]

(Original post by Super Mario 64)
I'm not bashing anyone's religion, I'm genuinely wondering

According to Wikipedia, "Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago." Anywhere else will give you something similar too.

Given that this is true, why did God only decide to send down Christ only 2000 years to die for everyone's sins?

What about the sins of the dudes that lived 48,000 - 200,000 years ago?

Also, out of all places, why did God choose the middle east out of all places for the likes of Christ and Prophet Muhammad?

Why not choose the Amazon Rainforest or something?

Huh, in Islam there is said to be up to 123,000/124,000/ Prophets and Messengers. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) was the last prophet. If you read the Quran, it mentions many prophets of the past.

[Arekkusu]

The problem is the Old Testament is mostly about the god of a small tribe in the Middle East about 2000 BC which was unified by being enslaved by the Egyptians. The whole creation myth/Genesis thing is a retcon ascribing earlier traditions to this god, so he gets the custodianship of the entire universe and seems more important.

The religious person would contest your point by saying that God made a good few covenants with his people before Jesus came along. The one before this was promising Abraham land and power when he was devoted enough to want to sacrifice his son (this was about 2000 BC). But their power ended when they were subjugated by the Romans in the first century BC. So God broke the terms of the covenant.

God reckoned the old laws were a bit **** so Jesus taught people to go against the Jewish religious establishment and just try and be nice to everyone, basically. The covenant here was that Jesus' sacrifice was symbolically painful enough to wipe out the sins of everyone there and give them all a clean slate again, because God reasoned that it was a bit unfair making people follow old laws that actually caused them to do bad things, e.g. the time when Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath (obviously a GOOD THING to do) but everyone was outraged because technically it was a sin.

People before presumably got their sins absolved as well.

The Middle East was the cradle of civilisation so of course ideas from there at that time are going to persist, God didn't "choose" that region, it's just that the people who worshipped this particular god happened to be in the right place at the right time to disseminate their ideas.

[harmony_01]

Visit all the tribes in the Amazon and then get back to me.

[Gofre]

(Original post by Otkem)
The world is only around 6,000 years old, and so God has been there since the beginning.

Bless

[Ayshizzle]

(Original post by Super Mario 64)
I'm not bashing anyone's religion, I'm genuinely wondering

According to Wikipedia, "Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago, reaching full behavioral modernity around 50,000 years ago." Anywhere else will give you something similar too.

Given that this is true, why did God only decide to send down Christ only 2000 years to die for everyone's sins?

What about the sins of the dudes that lived 48,000 - 200,000 years ago?

Also, out of all places, why did God choose the middle east out of all places for the likes of Christ and Prophet Muhammad?

Why not choose the Amazon Rainforest or something?

Well, Muslims especially will tell you that God/Allah has sent down prophets since humans existed to all the corners of the Earth.

Which does beg the question why none of the other religions vaguely resemble the Abrahamic ones... Seems a bit fishy to me.