"Name it."

"Man, I understand, is about to be created. He will need laws."

"What, wretch! you his appointed adversary, charged from the dawn of eternity with hatred of his soul -- you ask for the right to make his laws?"

"Pardon; what I have to ask is that he be permitted to make them himself."

It was so ordered.

Before he had knowledge of good and evil he was not capable of making an informed decision.

No, he wasn't. That's why God took the trouble to informed him.

P.S. Milton was a little wonky, in more ways than one.

In fact, every Aetheist/Agnostic I've argued with over matters of faith has, while not converted, conceded that perhaps there's more to religion than they've been led to believe.

If you ask me, Aetheism is a self-indulgent, ultimately self-defeating stand to take. It's for people who would rather deal with the tough questions by telling themselves there ARE no answers, so why bother looking? But that's just evading the question. The answers are out there, and they make perfect sense, even when exposed to the harsh light of philosophical logic. It's only a matter of having the will to find them.

One idea which intrigued me the first time I heard it was one which combined genesis and evolution. If man was created in his prime, then when the Creator (whomever you believe he is) created him he was already (let's say for the sake of argument) 28 years old. If he did that, then who's to say he didn't create the earth in the same way? If he exists outside of time, then why not create a 4-billion-year-old earth? If the Creator is omnipotent, then he has the power to do that. When time began on earth doesn't have to be the same as when he created it. In fact, an omnipresent being completely invalidates the very word "when."

There is also inconclusive proof for each belief. With the fossil record (for one example), one can "see" animals evolving over time. But just because you can see something doesn't mean it's there. On the Christian side, (for one example) NASA has confirmed through chronological studies that a day is missing from our records, and the Bible accounts for this day as God stopping time. Yet there is no direct proof that this is why our records are off.

One of my favorite fictional examples of this is the movie Dear God starring John Denver. In the movie, God Himself testifies in court, but after He leaves, everything He said has disappeared from the transcript. What's more, His spoken word has been erased from the trial recording. This type of thing is common in all records of all religions that I have ever known.

On a final note, it is not obvious to everyone that man is the only creature on the planet that has a soul. Take Jainists, for instance... they believe so fervantly that every living thing has a soul that they will sweep bugs off the street so that they will not be harmed.

I will not defend or denounce any of the ideas I have presented here. I merely thought they were valid to the discussion and deserved to be a part of it.

Timshau, everybody.

James

SOOOO....being a little bit provocative, and not owning a Bible to reference from, Can you explain to me how The Bible explains Pre-History...
i.e. The fossil record,Amphibians,Fishes,Dinosaurs etc.
Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago.
MAN has been on Earth approximately 1 million years in the form that You and I know as ourselves,homo Sapien!

p.s. I do not believe in a Biblical God, but also I am not Athiest....As someone said above I'll keep my beliefs to myself!
(oh, And I deffinately ain't into any kind of Satanic stuff).

"geez, What is Goofy" - Stand By Me.

timmer

Genesis Chapter 1:

(6) And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
(7) And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
(8) And God called the firmament heaven.

You're correct, Wedge, that the word "firmament" refers to our atmosphere, just as the word "heaven" does. The word "Heaven" is used in the Bible to refer to the earth's atmosphere, as well as to the dwelling place of God.
In this instance it is used to refer to the earth's atmosphere, and it is quite clear that the firmament (atmosphere) divides the waters below from the waters above!

Wedge, this isn't "MY" theory!

Some of the lessons gleaned from Scripture by some Christians are just plain looney, but I really don't mind as long as I am not forced to believe the same. And I don't. And I don't think I'm going to hell for that, either.

This is not about ecstatic evangelizing, as is claimed, but more about the insecurity that demands blind obedience to sometimes peculiar beliefs that really DO NOT HAPPEN on a daily basis. Was there really a time of magic and sorcery and mysticism that just ceased 2000 years ago? I don't think so, but anybody on this board is free to believe that. But, if the Bible is such a literal-minded text, should we not be commanding the women-folk to subservience. And no sex most of the month, and then only for procreating more Christians on an already overpopulated planet. And why didn't the Holy Spirit ever tell the Apostles that the timing of the end of the world was a metaphor, not a factual event in their lifetimes, as they thought? The Gospels weren't even written down for a long time because all the Christians thought the Revelation was imminent daily. Thank God somebody noticed that little error and picked up a pen after a few decades. I don't know the answers to these questions--but I'm sure somebody here will expend much verbiage to correct me. Knock yourself out.

I do believe in God, but I also believe he gave me a brain for a purpose. If he wanted blind obedience to unprovable superstitions he could have commanded it from the beginning. Or he could fire up the cactus in my living room tonight.......................................nope, it didn't happen.

God's reasoning and intentions are truly beyond my comprehension, but I cannot believe he intends me to remain paralyzed by 1st century dogma which has killed at least as many people as it has helped, usually fellow Christians.

I CAN easily place my belief in God in the unfolding revelations of science, which reveal a real-life complexity and scale and grandeur far greater than any visions I have ever read in the Bible. I mean--germs, billions of solar systems, electro-chemical neuropathways, plastic, photosynthesis, perfect pitch, TV/radio transmission through the air, cellular reproduction, thermonuclear combustion in the Sun, geosynchronous orbit, aerodynamics, dreams--beats the Hell out of Revelation any day, and it's all tangibly, reproducably true. AND it is all the handiwork of God, without any reference in the Bible. Science is God's way of saying, "Hey, look at what I've made. Why the Hell are you still wallowing in all that Creation hocus pocus when I am showing you how it was really done? I'm even more impressive than you thought." (I know, somebody will leap to educate me that it's all there in the Bible, between the lines.)

I hope, with all my heart, that we have grown and improved upon divining witches, soothsayers and stoning people in 2000 years. Then I read about that "firmament between the waters" and I really don't know. (Psychic Hotline, anyone?) That's not faith, that's waiting for the flying saucers to land every day, and a lot of fear.

I am daily staggered by the real God I see around me in a cloud, a tree, a dog, the Sun and the stars. I don't need to be browbeat with supernatural legends of long ago to know God. I KNOW he is there because HE gives me the proof, and there's nothing incomprehensible or mystical about it. The explanations and proofs just keep on coming, almost always from science. I get less and less of value from people punching their "God-button," other than a growing unease and a belief that maybe they need to go outside and say hello to God instead of trying to confine him to the pages of a book.

might you now have the slightest clue as to why I thought I should keep OUT OF THIS ONE?

"I'm sure somebody here will expend much
verbiage to correct me. Knock yourself out."

Gladly.

"Sorry for the sermon..."

No need to apologize. You have just as much right to express your views as anybody else here.

"Every generation thinks they have a lock on 'the right way to serve God', and all they ever did was kill people--"

Church history is littered with an unending array of atrocities because evil people have always used the Bible to justify their perverted desires. They always will. And you are also correct about Christians themselves..."The Christian Army is the only one that kills its own wounded." It's true.
No Christian is perfect, and many are far from it, not to mention the wolves wearing sheep's clothing.
What has any of that to do with a handful of us discussing, and yes, disagreeing over Scripture?
I don't sense any hate or ill will at this thread.
There's been no name-calling or flaming here.

Twice you cite "blind obedience" above. There may be Christians who are mentally blind, but I don't believe any of them are here at this thread. God asks for obedience, yes, but never blind obedience.

"...commanding the women folk to subservience..."
"...no sex most of the month..."

There is a great deal of religious tradition that is not grounded in Scripture. Those two statements fall into that category. God's Word does not teach the subjugation of women, although you will find many "Christian religions" practicing it. Makes things so much easier for the men.

"...why didn't the Holy Spirit ever tell the Apostles that the timing of the end of the world was a metaphor, not a factual event in their lifetimes, as they thought?"

The Apostles were a bunch of guys just like you & I. They screwed up quite a bit. They didn't understand much of what Jesus had to say, and were arguing about it all the time. Thank God you don't have to be perfect to be a Christian! Listening to the Holy Spirit requires prayer and meditation, and these guys were a bunch of burly fishermen who needed a lot of training in the spiritual area of their lives. They made mistakes. They missed the mark. So do I.

"I don't need to be browbeat with supernatural legends of long ago to know God."

(a) "If it turns out there is a God, I don't think He's evil. The worst thing you can say about Him is that He's basically an underachiever."

(b) "The devil's got you by the shirttail, Alvin . . . rassle old Satan."

(c) "Have you never wanted to look beyond the clouds and the stars or to know what causes the trees to bud? And what changes the darkness into light? . . . if you talk like that, people call you crazy. Well, if I could discover just one of these things -- what eternity is, for example -- I wouldn't care if they did think I was crazy!"

(d) "Satan is his father, not Guy. He came up from hell and begat a son of mortal woman. And his name is Adrian. He shall overthrow the mighty and lay waste their temples. He shall redeem the despised and reap vengeance in the name of the burned and tortured . . . God is dead. Satan lives. The heir is one."

(e) "If God ever wanted to be a fish, He'd be a whale. Believe that. He'd be a whale."

(f) "What do you think the devil is going to look like if he's around? He'll be attractive and he'll be nice and helpful and he'll get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and . . . he will just, bit by bit, lower standards where they are important. . . . And he will talk about all of us being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women."

ANSWERS:

Jesus looked at his beloved desciples and replied:" Whoever is not against me, is for me."

Scott

That said, let's get down to a little theological investigatory work, shall we! Perhaps those humans who "evolved" are the people who -- according to the Bible, anyway -- should not have existed in the land of Nod...where Cain went after God zapped him. He went and lived among the people of Nod. In fact, the mark of Cain was put there as a warning to "any who might see it" that they must not kill him. WHO WERE THESE PEOPLE? If Adam and Eve (sic) were the first humans...and had two sons...where on earth did all those other folks come from?

And what of dinosaurs? They're not theory. They existed. When was that? And who put them there?

As always, Ron

P.S. I was born and raised as a Southern Baptist, but fell out big time with my home church while attending a Baptist-affiliated college. I had the temerity to question a youth group teacher as to why his neighbor (about whom he had been speaking) was going to hell (the teacher was sad about this). He told me this: "Because he's a Methodist."

As if that were not enough, the same teacher told us the earth was XXXX years old....roughly in the 2,000s...part of the then-fad of computing exactly when God created the earth. I asked how that could be when the ruins of the Incans were some 5,000 years old. The answer I was given: Those were put there to test our faith!

YIKES!

I believe in God. I believe in Christ.

I also believe that man has meddled with the Bible to suit his own ends, not God's.

Too few Christians ever behave the way Christ admonished us to behave. The only words in the New Testament that have any validity are the words attributed to Christ, not any of the "it means this" or whatnot man scribbled out to comprise the books of the NT, few of which were written by the people to whom they are ascribed.

Sigh.

I joined the Episcopal church in 1969. This came after several incidents at the Baptist church including one that contradicted what I'd been learning at college (in a Southern Baptist Convention-approved class, mind you). I had a teacher who insisted that Moses wrote his own books before, and after, the Israelites went into the promised land. She said he probably lived in a cave until he died and that his books would have been found with him by the Israelites who occasionally checked on him. When I pointed out that none of the OT could have been put down on paper before the time of King David, I was told I had been lied to.

I gave it all up in favor of sane, rational, sensible people.

If you'd like to know what the Bible says about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, get a Bible and read Job, chapters 40 and 41. It's all open to speculation, perspective, and argument, of course, but I thought it might be of interest to you.

Sten focused upon hypocrites, and Ron, you focused upon erroneous Bible teaching. I know that there's a perpetual overabundance of both of these...but does that change the TRUTH of a thing? Just because people have a tendency to get it wrong, does that make it wrong to begin with?

"All Scripture is given by inspiration of God" 2 Timothy 3:16

All of it is inspired, all of it is true. But people will still get it screwed up.

It reminds me of an old Yiddish saying:
"If God lived on Earth, people would break His windows!"

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