I don't like to double post, but this is baffling...

The Bible says there were periods of light and darkness before planetary rotation and stellar radiation, which means that there would still have been a way to measure a day and a night... not to mention that there is such a thing as cosmic radiation, and light and dark matter.

First off, I don't see how dark matter could be useful in defining "day" and "night". It doesn't emit or reflect radiation. That's kinda why they call it dark matter.

But further, you seem to be arguing for the authority of the Biblical account ... from the authority of the Biblical account. The Bible says there were day and night, so we'll say that there were day and night even before the sun was formed. You're reduced to arguing that cosmic radiation is enough to define a day, even though we're constantly being bombarded with such radiation constantly.

marine fossils on mountaintops

How exactly do you think mountains form?

glaciers at high altitudes

Where else would they be than in higher, cooler altitudes?

an other-than-uniform cloud of vapor around the Earth (clouds)

OK, you lost me. Why would the earth's weather systems, which are driven by atmospheric currents, be evidence of a flood?

the fact that several craters in Yosemite have been discovered to be exploded and collapsed geysers

Again, lost me. How is this evidence for anything, other than the established fact that Yosemite was and is geothermically active?

the recent consensus that the Grand Canyon and Mariana Trench eroded far faster and more violently than once believed,

I'm unaware of any change in consensus about the formation of the Grand Canyon. However, the Mariana Trench is a subduction zone, not an eroded formation like the Canyon or the HSV. Talking about how quickly it formed seems meaningless.

I have yet to see proof of any alternatives, so I can't just bring myself to say "I don't believe it", until all the facts are in.

Just judging from the arguments you present, I question your commitment to the facts.

@angelsofhope2008

Listen, you're preaching the same BS as all the other people trying to convert me back to any religion at all. The fact is, if you really did fall into occultism, it's because you still needed that OCD type of gratification for your anxiety. You needed reaffirmed that there is a supernatural deity out there for ya, and honestly I think it's because you don't have a solid scientific understanding of how the universe works! I have the luxury of understanding that we are specks, and it's OK to be that small, I don't need to have some form immortality to assure myself that I'll mean something. Sorry, im not buying.

@angelsofhope

Crack open a science book before making ignorant, baseless, and thoroughly debunked claims like "The flood: there is evidence to suggest it happened". Anyone can make stupid claims like that and get away with it in the religious circles, but the definition of "evidence" hasn't sunk in over there yet.

angels: The fossils at the top of mountains were caused by tectonic plates crashing together and turning the seabed into mountain ranges. That is where they came from. And this little piece of evidence is not enough to overrule the impossibility of the flood.
Also, as soon as you said 'the Bible says' I disregarded the following sentences as the Bible is not official proof of anything until you can prove that it is in fact the word of God. That's going to be a pretty uphill battle.

This is towards the original post:

I also left Christianity about 2 years ago and had similar problems with sleepless/fearful nights. (Though, I had many more as a Christian, always terrified as to whether or not I was actually saved.)

Those 'sleep attacks' do fade over time, but I found that two things generally helped me:

1. Reading/Studying. The more I read about the Bible, religions, church history, etc, the more I was reminded why I had abandoned my faith in the first place and the more I was convicted that I had made the right choice in doing so. Also, something that helped me quite a bit was reading deconversion stories. It was always interesting/comforting to see the reasons that led others to make the same choice as me.

2. Laughter/Humor. From my own experience, I've seen that the more you're able to laugh at something, the more it loses its power over you. As you said, the fears are irrational, and I think humor can really help you embrace that fact. Perhaps you were once scared of "monsters under the bed." If that fear were to pop into your mind nowadays, you'd laugh at its silliness and quickly fall back to sleep. And though it does take some time, you'll eventually get to the point where you can have the same reaction if a fear of "the monster in the sky" pops into your head.

...And to jump on the earlier side thread... even though he had a bit part, The Boulder is one of the best characters in Avatar. "The Boulder feels conflicted about fighting a young blind girl." Then, after being taunted by Toph, "The Boulder's over his conflicted feelings and now he's ready to bury you in a rock-alanche!" Awesome!

The flood: there is evidence to suggest it happened... marine fossils on mountaintops, glaciers at high altitudes, an other-than-uniform cloud of vapor around the Earth (clouds), the fact that several craters in Yosemite have been discovered to be exploded and collapsed geysers, the recent consensus that the Grand Canyon and Mariana Trench eroded far faster and more violently than once believed, the flood stories around the entire world, etc. I have yet to see proof of any alternatives, so I can't just bring myself to say "I don't believe it", until all the facts are in.

The Census: I believe you're referring to the Census of Quirinius, right, Ty?

The accounts of day and night before the sun: Today, we mark day and night by how many hours of light there are in our area. When the sun is no longer shining on our area of the world, we call it night. Thus, it is the amount of time that our area of the world gets light, which determines whether it's day or night (for another example: the further toward the North pole you go, you'll get approximtely six months of non-stop sunlight throughout the year. However, people still measure day and night by the number of hours that pass. Either way, one could argue, without a clock or watch to tell the hours of the day accurately, that the North Pole gets six months of daytime per year). If we're measuring the day and night by the presence or absence of light (excluding moon and starlight) in a geographical area, as they measured it in ancient Egypt - for one example, - we would then measure the day by whether it was light outside, or not. The Bible says there were periods of light and darkness before planetary rotation and stellar radiation, which means that there would still have been a way to measure a day and a night... not to mention that there is such a thing as cosmic radiation, and light and dark matter.

The existence of planets prior to their stars: if that were actually observed - which is impossible, since no planet has been observed being developed, - how could anything resembling a planet exist without a star to orbit? For that matter, how can any planet switch rotation, and start circling another star? I'm no astronomer, so maybe you could explain that to me...

Not to mention that a planet existing prior to its star violates pretty much every bit of observational evidence we have for how planets form.

Not that anyone should let a silly thing like scientific evidence get in the way of their bronze age mythology, or anything.

“Which parts are those, Nox? You might know about them; but, as you can see, I don't know of any that can't possibly be understood as logically valid or possible.”

I’ll give you one example for the moment (I’ll be happy to provide more if this doesn’t do it for you, but I want to get to your argument on “Jesus-freak, here” first). This example comes from the first chapter of Genesis. In fact you only have to have read the first 19 verses of the bible to have seen this. As everything which follows is a sequel based on the foundation of the creation story, this in itself is enough to call the entire book into question.

Day 1(Genesis 1:1-5)
1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

The important part here is "evening" "morning" and "separated the light from the darkness", remember this is all on day 1. Let's look at day 2.

Day 2 (Genesis 1:6-8)
6 And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."
7 So God made the expanse and separated the water
under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so.
8 God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

Once again god makes a point of telling us that on the second day of creation, the earth experienced "evening" and "morning". The reason this is important comes up on Day 4 (only 14 verses into the bible), but on day 3 we are reminded once again that the earth is already experiencing days (and plants?).

Day 3 (Genesis 1:9-13)
9 And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear." And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas." And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants
and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their
kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.

And there was evening, and there was morning- the third day. And on the fourth day, god created the sun.

Day 4(Genesis 1:14-19)
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give
light on the earth." And it was so.
16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light
on the earth,
18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.

And there was evening, and there was morning- the third day. And on the fourth day, god created the sun.

Aside from the obvious issue that the unit of time known as a "day" is derived from the Earth's position in relation to the Sun, how was the planet experiencing alternating light and dark periods (or any light) if the sun did not exist yet?

The doubts creep in but I don't let them get to me. I'm sure I'm saved because I'm sure of it by not letting the doubts get to me.

Or, if you like New Testament problems, there is always the gospel story of the Roman census that required Joseph and Mary to be traveling when she was giving birth. A thing that, you know, never actually happened.

angels wrote: "Which parts are those, Nox?"

While there are many to choose from, I'll take 'the global flood' for starters. Is that something (from the bible) that you believe angelsofhope?

Which parts are those, Nox? You might know about them; but, as you can see, I don't know of any that can't possibly be understood as logically valid or possible.

"believe the Bible for it's logically valid possibilities and suggestions"

Does that include the parts that are impossible and logically invalid?

Believe it or not, as a Christian, I had the same problem. A well-meaning evangelist got to me when I was about eight years old, and fed me the Jack T. Chick gospel. I had been abused as a younger child, and hoped that praying this magical prayer to Jesus would cause Him to come down with some kind of fiery sword, and defend me from anyone who tried to hurt me ever again. As I grew up, I lost faith in that form of what I now call "churchianity", and went down the path of occultism. Lo and behold, I wound up on the streets. It was then that I realized that neither my formerly empty confession of faith in something I didn't understand, nor my irrational attempt to rectify the differences between occult practices and actual science (to try to control my life), were working. I made a choice to figure out what the Bible said, without paying attention to what it's alleged students believed about it. I eventually realized what I had to do: believe the Bible for it's logically valid possibilities and suggestions, change my ways - in fact, I had to change the kind of person I was pretending to be, - follow Christ according to what the whole Bible said (rather than a piece here and a piece there, as though that were all there were to the discussions), and be baptized to show my faith: having taken that leap of faith, I became a Christian for real. I still have fears that I was wrong, and have given up my faith, and will go to Hell forever... but the Bible backs up what I believe, and I realized that God cares about the intent more than the words or deeds: as long as I proved I was faithful, and a changed man, that would be good enough for God. No reason to beat myself up, or chain myself to dogmatic fears anymore.

It doesn't get any easier; but, the more sure one is about their situation, what they believe, and why they believe it, the less those doubts creep in and cause such problems.

"crippling"

"I have an ankle that barely works..."

Hehe, I see what you did there...

"I found Ty's post about being dangerously without fear to be really interesting. I find myself in pretty much the exact opposite camp, or at least as far opposite as you can get without actually having crippling social anxiety, OCD, or phobias."

Believe me when I say either extreme is fairly crippling. A nice healthy level of fear is a very good thing to have. My wife has some anxiety problems, and through counseling she's learned to intellectualize her way out of it. Basically just telling herself, "I am afraid. But I recognize this is irrational fear, therefore I will act as though I am not afraid even though I am."

I've actually had to do exactly the same thing in the opposite direction. I often have to say, "Wait, this is the kind of thing normal people are justifiably afraid of. I will not do this stupid thing."

It would have helped to have hit upon this earlier in life. I have an ankle that only barely works because I fell down on my snowboard while being towed by a snowmobile at 60mph and hit a tree leg first. When I tell people about it, the usual reaction is, "That was an incredibly stupid thing to be doing." They're right. Woulda been nice to have some healthy fear there.

Yes, Iroh is awesome! How could I forget him?

Zuko: [Through his teeth] What are you doing firebending your tea?! For a 'wise old man,' that was a pretty STUPID move!!:
Iroh: I know you're not supposed to cry over spilled tea, but (sniffs) it's just so sad!

Katara: Do you think we’ll really find Airbenders?
Sokka: You want me to be like you or totally honest?
Katara: Are you saying I’m a liar?
Sokka: I’m saying you’re an optimist. Same thing basically.

Gosh, I only watched that new airbender movie that just came out...

I kid, I kid.

I found Ty's post about being dangerously without fear to be really interesting. I find myself in pretty much the exact opposite camp, or at least as far opposite as you can get without actually having crippling social anxiety, OCD, or phobias.

I'm making this sound really bad now, but I have definitely noticed that the thing I fear more than anything I can think of is "getting into trouble." I fear reprisal from legitimate authority for intentional wrongdoing on my behalf. Early in my life I think this was generally a good impulse. I did very well in school, stayed away from meth, was mostly polite (although I certainly did have a mouth on me when I stopped limiting the sarcasm for whatever reason.) But I didn't do these things from a desire to be "good," I did them from a fear of punishment.

This took me a while to get over. I wouldn't have diagnosed this problem as something specifically related to my theism (rather, I would have assigned responsibility, indirectly, to the way my parents sheltered me from the big scary world, which in turn left me very very inexperienced with getting involved with things that could get me into serious trouble.) But now I wonder if my theism might have had something to do with it. Certainly this fear has diminished as I've gotten more and more critical of Christianity exactly as it was handed down to me. The state my faith is in now, I don't actively fear potential divine punishment for wrongdoing, and (not coincidentally?) I no longer actively fear potential punishment for wrongdoing from civil, business, or other kinds of legitimate authorities.

I also think part of this was simply me growing up. "Getting in trouble" is almost by definition a childish fear. As you become more and more answerable to yourself and less answerable to parents, getting in trouble stops being a primary concern. At any rate, I find it interesting that I don't feel the need to actually protest the idea that religion can create fear in people. I think it definitely could have been a factor in my own personality, and while I think that not all religion has to or should create this kind of response, I think it can.

Uncle Iroh is obviously the best character, guys. Hilarity, wisdom, and badassery in one convenient package.

LOL! I liked it when Toph made blind jokes.

Sokka (finding a wanted poster of The Runaway): What is THIS???

Toph: I donno. Sounds like a piece of paper.

Favorite Toph quote:

Sokka: It's so dark down here. I can't see a thing!
Toph: Oh no. What a nightmare.

:D Aw! I'm so glad to know that I have fellow fans of Avatar here at UF!

:D :D :D :D :D

(5 smilies!!!)

I will say this about the show... I wish that they had stretched out the final four episodes into a fourth "Air" season focusing on Aang's internal struggle. They could have set up Azula losing it better (it felt way too rushed) and Aang could have found out about the Lion Turtle another way (it was way too convenient).

ps I really related to Zuko's struggle with is assh*le father... LOL!

Azula was never funny, though.

My favorite was Azula, totally kick-ass throughout the entire series. Then went batshit crazy in the end, what a way to go.

Oh and thanks for the responses guys and gals.

Sokka?! Really? You like the slapstick humor then, I take it.

Though, I will admit that Sokka said one of my favorite lines ever on Avatar.

Sneering Villager: "Can your science explain why it rains?!"

Sokka: "Yes! It can!"

I never really bought into wholesale religion so I didn't have to deal with fear. Plus, heaven sounded boring.
I like Sokka from Avatar. He's the funniest.

Thanks all y'all (hee hee!) for those kind words. The thing is that as long as I held on to the idea of eternal/ultimate justice against my abusers, I was still tied to them, invested in them. Now I'm freer from them than I have ever been, and it's not because I've forgiven them wholly yet, but because I've realized that we really, truly are no longer tied together... not by God's "justice", not by some required/commanded love of a parent, and not really by biology anymore (except for a little bit of nucleic acid, that turns out to actually be distinctly mine). When I finish grieving for my father (and I'll never grieve for his b*tch c*nt "wife", but I guess I'll stop hating her when I completely stop loving him), I'll be healed, permanently of the pain. No Jesus ever did such a thing for me. I did it all by myself!!!! All because I don't have to honor a parent who is a total sh*thead to begin with. And all because at some point I will no longer care what happens to him, now or in the hereafter.

It's a shame, too, because I have a very deep ability to love, and my father has denied himself that in favor of an invisible sky dictator and his supposed "holy" writings that actually turn out to be cruel, evil, bullsh*t. But at some point I'll truly be able to say that it was his loss, and not mine.

Here's hoping!!! :D

Probably a better choice (though it all depends if Calvin was right about that predestination bit). Tell you what Ty, you repent on your deathbed and take care of Falwell, Calvin, Benedict, Phelps, and LRA's dad (one of us should do it I suppose, ultimate justice and all that, oh and give Pope Paul IV a good shanking too), and I'll keep heathening it up and then go party with Nietzsche and Carlin.

Can I just beat on them for a billion years? Skip the chanting?