Song, I just dont' "get" your posts. I wonder if we're on the same wavelength. :-)
Peace
JerryB
Yeah JerryB, I've been known for that type of thing or thinking. :o--> Throwing in something that seems to be outside the subject at hand. I think it was def 59 that tagged it "streams of consciousness". My buds at work call it "Steve's World" :D--> and then they strike the pose a rocker on stage and sing "Does anybody remember laughter?". My Blushing Bride tells me, "Steven you're saying things only you understand. Can you be a little more specific?"
So,I threw in "felix culpa" ~~~ the idea that the Fall of man was fortunate because it brought us good (in some views, knowledge; in others, redemption through Christ), so that our end was better than our beginning
In Christian theology the fall is the notion that the original sin of Adam and Eves disobedience of God in the Garden of Eden brought about various changes in the perfectly created world, including illness, strife and death. It is a widely interpreted concept with many implications for other elements of theology.
Although the "Fall" is not mentioned by name in the Old Testament, the doctrine is taught in Genesis 3, and foundational to Paul's teaching of the Gospel in Romans 5:12–19 and 1 Corinthians 21–22.
Felix Culpa (the fortunate fall)One interpretation of the doctrine of the fall is that it is necessary in order human's might benefit from God's grace. It includes the notion that, had mankind not been given the capacity for evil, our choice through free will to either serve God or not would not have been as meaningful.
There is, however, a second interpretation of 'felix culpa.' If Eve had not given the fruit to Adam to eat, none of us would be here to enjoy this wonderful world.
~~~ (Fall (religion)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.)
Or if one wishes a kewl view of this subject ~~~Langland, Milton, and the felix culpa.
Soohhh, I thought "felix culpa" was a nice throw in re the topic, "The Way's views on life/death before Adam".
Now on a "side bar", and since the weekend has, well ended, I'll have a Bud Light and ask if any one is familiar (why is "liar' in familiar?) with what was discovered as a static noise that is evident through all the universe and it was not pigeons.
Dig it JB
&
Peace bacatcha
Steven
there is more to this universe than seems to be. all i can do is see what is evident to me and also to others. but there are so many others viewing. the line is so long we die before we know what we attempt to understand.
author unknown
Woorrd.. :-D
Thanks for the explanation Song. I've heard some thing about the cosmic noise, but never got the specifics.
Yeah it figures. Even that quote Song posted is on AiG.
In fact everything, every single piece of science, every scriture, every authorevery concept that has been mentioned, quoted spit on or even casually mentioned on this thread is on AiG.
Hmmm.....
All of it.
.... and your successful rebuttal is .....?
Oh, by the way, about all those [Carl Sagan mode] billions and billions [/Carl Sagan mode] of light years, ... the fact that they are indeed billions, .....
... now, I'm no mathematical genius (and neither was Einstein, by the way), but I find it rather difficult to cram, even with my handy-dandy Ronco Super Family Sized Cramer (order now for $6.95, and we'll throw in a dicer autographed by Dr. Hovind himself absolutely *free*), 15 billion years into 6,000 years. ... Sideways, even.
--> Please explain!
Now THAT'S a good question! There's an explanation for it in AIG's Answers book, but it's not a very satisfactory one. Although I have been told by an aquaintance who works in a research lab and monitors the fringes of science and technology that one researcher recently reported observing quantaa moving at excess of light speed. He was summarily ridiculed of course. The speed of light is still held to be the maximum velocity of anything and everything in the known universe (despite what we've seen for years on Star Trek), so it's a radical idea to say the least.
But...if it's true then God could have done the Big Bang at more than light speed and spread out the universe in a magestic explosion of creative energy and then allowed everything to slow down.
By the way Lindy, I think you're wrong to dismiss Behe's point about irreducible complexity. The theory of evolution says that animals evolved to the point that they are now, over eons. Some animals have extremely complex mating rituals, some are dependent on other animals in their ecosystems to survive.
In order for an animal to evolve into a complex pattern we see today, the animal must first have 1)survived long enough without said trait to develop it over time
2)must have had all the essential ingredients already dormant within itself for the current trait to function
Behe shows how complex the biochemical reactions are for something as simple as vision to work. There are exact relationships of proteins and enzymes required for an eye to work. The same is true of respiration, blood clotting, etc. If Darwin is right, all of this had to develop slowly. But if it did,then there must have been eons of time during which eyes didn't work, cells didn't respirate, and blood couldn't clot properly.
The simple question is, how does an organism that can't heal form a simple wound, can't see, and/or can't respirate on a cellular level survive long enough to evolve?
But...if it's true then God could have done the Big Bang at more than light speed and spread out the universe in a magestic explosion of creative energy and then allowed everything to slow down.
He also could have created the entire universe 5 minutes ago and given us pseudo-memories, pseudo-evidence, etc. If he did, then he's a deceiver. If he created the universe several thousand years ago and made it look like he did it billions of years ago, then he's a deceiver. What's the difference? Either way, he's a deceiver.
Or maybe not. Maybe it pleased him to create the universe billions of years ago, as all the evidence indicates. Maybe it pleased him to give a simple account that unlearned people could accept, that never was intended to be taken as a scientific explanation. That would be perfectly honest. Heck, if people didn’t yet understand basic geometry, algebra, gravity, inertia, or other such concepts; if they didn’t know a thing about microorganisms or the basics of sexual reproduction (other than the actions) then how in the world could God or anyone else explain the universe or life to them, except simply and figuratively?
You go on about scientific arrogance. What about the arrogance of people who presume to dictate to an almighty creator and limit him to their rigid beliefs, based on their limited and often contrived understanding of a bunch of ancient writings that they accept, completely by faith, as the word of God, when those ancient writings don't even claim to be the word of God all the way from Genesis through Revelation. (They do claim to contain words of God.)
Science is not anti-Christian or anti-Biblical, except to people who arrogantly deprive a supposedly almighty God of the tools human authors use all the time. If Genesis is not purely myth, but rather is inspired by God, then much of it has to be figurative. Either that or almost nothing we think we know is reliable. Heck, the first “day” in Genesis is enough to tell it’s not literal. How do you literally have an evening and a morning being the first 24-hour day (or the second or third) without a sun or stars?
If it weren’t figurative, what would you have? The earth spinning around in space, with one half of the universe lit up (but not by stars) and the other half dark? If so, then God would have to miraculously redo the whole universe on the fourth day, eliminating the light source of the first three days and replacing it with the sun, moon, and stars. Now that would be something! All or most of the energy of the universe concentrated on one side of a large, perhaps infinite, sphere bisected by a plane that was aligned fairly closely with Earth's axis for three days, then suddenly shifted, so that it is fairly uniform throughout the universe. Do young-earth “creation scientists” even consider such things? If not, then they haven’t even begun to develop a creation theory, and certainly not a scientific one.
What about the waters above and below the firmament? Is there a sphere of water some 30 billion or more light years in diameter enclosing the visible universe? If not, then Genesis is not literal. Also, if the firmament is the same heaven that contains the stars, what about the water in the firmament, like comets, water on other planets, etc.? Did God just not mention that? Did that seep in later from the water above the firmament. If so, it sure moved quickly, traveling billions of light years fast enough to be in place when the ancients first observed comets.
What about the question of creating plants before the sun, which provides energy for photosynthesis? Did they just get by without that for a day, or did God provide energy from some other source, like light that wasn’t from stars?
Genesis calls the sun and moon “great lights” but there are plenty of stars greater than the sun, in size, mass, brightness, or any other measure, and the moon isn’t even a light, but a reflector. The description in Genesis is not at all accurate from a scientific point of view.
I could go on, but I'll stop. The point is that it is ludicrous to look to some fundamentalist, literal interpretation of Genesis for scientific truth. At best, Genesis gives the sort of explanation of a complicated matter that one might give a young child, sufficient to give an appreciation for it, but not wholly accurate and certainly not complete.
Heck, Jerry, several people have demonstrated how "irreducibly complex" systems could evolve. Some have actually demonstrated it experimentally. Lindy cited an example.
ID is an old argument with new trappings but the same holes. It's really just an argument from personal incredulity. Someone can't imagine that something can happen unless a god does it. But over and over again, things that only gods (or super-duper, unnamed intelligent agents) can do have been shown to be quite natural. The "only gods can do..." folks keep raising the bar and our knowledge of natural processes keeps growing, going right over each new bar.
ID is not science. If it were, then it would put forth testable theories. Instead, all it does is claim that science can't explain things that science turns around and explains.
ID is not science. If it were, then it would put forth testable theories. Instead, all it does is claim that science can't explain things that science turns around and explains.
Long Gone:
It is obvious from your posts that you consider 'science' to be the highest knowledge available. You speak of 'science' as if 'science' were a living entity, in and of itself. You speak of 'science' with a reverent tone; about what 'it' is and isn't, what it can do, what it is seeking to do.
Your questions and comments have been asked and made for hundreds of years. Yet you, today, still have no answers, only a bunch of 'maybe,' "he could have," and 'IF's.
Then you spit out "how ludicrous it is to look to..." and you use the words 'fundamentalist' and 'literal' as if they were curse words. Then you compare the Genesis account to your obviously beloved 'scientific truth;' placing Genesis in a lower position, I might add. Then YOU, Long Gone, have the unmitigated GALL to explain to all of US what Gensis is, at BEST.
In so doing, you point to and use THE most foundational and universally accepted truth found in any and ALL religious belief systems on this planet to support YOUR singular, self-derived, lofty position. That foudational, FUNDAMENTAL belief that GOD is our FATHER and we, His children. In light of that relationship He, God, treats us as such.
You've told me what I ovbiously and apparently don't know. I know what I see. and I see God as our father, we as His children. I see that...
... and YOU don't like it. NO we can't be just children! We are the highest form of life on the planet! WE must know! WE must be ABLE to EXPLAIN!!! Not only all of 'it' in our own planet, but the entire universe as well.
We know how big it is, how old it is, what it is doing, what it WILL do. How it works, how it DOESN'T work, what it looks like.
According to your beloved science, you are nothing more than a mere blip of momentary breath, on a miniscule, insignificant, ordinary fragment of an ordinary, insignificant grain of dust; which is yet one of billions of equally insignificant specs of dust in an ever moving, constantly growing, pseudo-intelligent, eternal universe.
Yet you, whisp of breath of a spec that you are, seek to explain it ALL. Are you even a peer of the great scientific minds you speak of? Are you even fractionally as knowledgeable of the Bible you dismiss as "mythical" as the men who speak of it as universally faithful, eternal truth?
I think not.
If you were, you would speak of so many IF's and maybe's.
Then again the great and wonderful science you speak so highly of requires that one not speak in difinitive terms, because to do so is NOT scientific. You can't do that unless, you've seen or proved, experimented or scientifically concluded, in and of yourself or the wider scientific community of ordinary, insignificant, momentary whisps of fragments on the ordinary, insignificant, decidedly non-special spec inside the ordinary, insignificant grain of dust that we are in our, ordinary, insignificant spot in the eternal universe.
Even in your scientific "explanations" you can't escape the GODLY concept of eterity. While you spit in God's direction, dismissing HIS explanation (as the one who DID create it ALL) you don't see the hypocracy in your words. Instead you try to align WITH the creator as you dismiss Him at the same time, in your momentary blip of a next breath.
My children often ask me questions, the answers to are often beyond their comprehension. I tell them, "You will be able to understand better, later, when you grow up."
My views are based on actual ANSWERS that are wholly accurate and ARE certainly complete. You don't see it that way primarily because you just haven't read the answers that I have. Those that you have read you dismiss as myths because YOU can't see the truth that is there before your eyes.
God doesn't have to explain 'everything' to us any more than we do, or children. Proble with your position is that He HAS explained more than YOU know and even more than YOU think he has.
You would rather believe that some other creature from some other, equally insignificant spec would someday arrive in a hyper-drive enabled ship bearing notes from HIS insignificant, non-special spec in the eternal universe. On that day we could have a symposium and compare notes; not even beginning to THINK that they would say, "Here's what the specs you've seen look like from the other side!"
MY human Science is TRUTH. You say.
The Word of GOD is MYTH. You say.
I say the more you know about science, the more you know about the word of God, the more you see that the word of God EXPLAINS the science you see.
YOU just don't know enough about EITHER to see that.
Isn't it both scientific and legally accepted to accept the account of an eye witness over all else?
Don't tell me they flew light years across the galaxy to do graffitti in a corn field in Nebraska.
That's plain crazy.
Well, at least we agree about something.
(Just don't ask me to believe that it was some demon playing around in that corn field.)
Fair enough. I'd never ask anything as rediculous as that.
My scientific research on this subject involves about 14 years of living in a farming community. I learned there, contrary to my "city slicker" upbringing that the term "dumb farm boy" doesn't apply to every person who lives and /or works of a farm any more than the term "nigger" applies to every person of African decent.
I found many farmers to be quite intelligent, as intelligent in their field as any person in mine or in other professions that I'd been taught to have more respect for than 'simple' farming. More to it than meets the eye. A more detailed look into what farming involves revealed 'more to it' than I'd seen my entire life to that point from my position of taking cursory glances at it.
Farmers I've seen are a fun loving bunch. They love to play elaborate practical jokes. Some of which are quite imaginitive. Farming can be quite monotomous as you failthly perform the same functions harvesting your crops. Some farmers get quite giggy with geometry as they plan to clear their fields; realizing that they way they go about it can save or take them a lot longer. Time is money; if it takes significantly longer to clear a field than 'necessary' your hourly rate falls and you actually make less money selling your harvest because of more time involved in harvesting it.
Putting that together with the fact that sometime they have a lot of time on their hands and they can also be quite creative at times. My basic position is that those crop circles we "study" and make movies about have a LOT of "good ol' boys" sittin' 'round the breakfast able back slappin' each other 'bout how DUMB we are to think that ALIENS did that with a space ship.
A farmer can look at a sheared stalk of corn and tell you what brand of what type of equipment cut it. I've seen farmers look at the sky, sniff and say, "Boys I gotta go, I got an hour of harvesting to to and an hour and a half before it rains." Looked at my watch & sure enough about 90 minutes later it was pouring.
Them farmers can do some pretty amazing things with their equipment.
The closest thing I might get to your statement is that a demon MAY have been playin' around in the mind of the farmer who cut the pattern in the field.
I'm not inclined to do that either. If I see circles in a field, I see circles in a field. I don't see a puzzle. I don't see potential evidecne of an extraterrestrail incursion. I see some corn is missing.
I see my children are willing to accept my answers to their questions as being beyond (what they CAN'T see) them because they've seen enough love from me (that they CAN see) that they trust me. My children actually WANT to trust me. They feel happy and secure in life because they feel they KNOW they can trust me.
I see the root of all of these types of arguments as being that people just haven't seen enough of God's love for them, specifically, and mankind in general, to trust Him and what He says.
Personally, I use what I call the timeline theory. It hit me over the course of many years of my life according to different experiences. One in particluar was when I was selling one of my babies.
This particular baby was a Datsun 280Z. I had cherished this car and took great care of it after having desired one since high school. When I got it. I loved it. It was in GREAT condition. I reluctantly decided to sell it as my family grew and the kids became too big to stuff in the back deck. Driver & cars seat for the human baby left no room for mom. All things considered, the Z, this manicured classic of a vehicle, it had to go.
This guy came to look at it. I felt he would surely recognize the clasical autmotive beauty we were both in the presence of, I thought surely he'd look it oevr and happily throw me a check for my more than fiar asking price.
Instead he said, in reference to the price. "What's wrong with it?"
My point is he had no actual knowledge of the hours & hours of painstaking care I'd shown the vehicle earlier ON THE TIMELINE than that day. He didn't know that I'd earlier had the car determined to be "flawless." AND I'd determined that I priced it "to sell quickly."
He just wasn't there, but his lack of presence or lack of knowlege of what I knew I'd done did not change anything I did or didn't do.
I realized at later thinking all of these 'bad things' about the buyer that I was no more present earlier on the timeline of his life than he on mine.
If I want others to accept earlier "truths" of facts from my timeline, I must be willing to accept theirs.
Now when I read the Bible. I accept it first. I believe it first. When I actually determined to believe IT rather than what somebody told me IT said, I began to see IT more clearly. IT began to make more sense to me. To this day I have not found IT to be unfaithful. People yes, but IT, God's Word no.
AS they say, one particular verse completely changed my views on it. I was once very closely aligned with the views presented here on this thread.
The verse? The verse, get to the verse you say? OK.
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" Romans 1:20
When I first read that 34 years ago, it glossed over my mind. While in TWI, it was mostly ignored, or spoken of in the "wrong" context. One day I actually read it without reading INTO it.
Invisible things...
...from the creation of the world...
...understood...
... CLEARLY seen ????
..by that which is made... ????
HOW????
I started out by LOOKING at stuff. Really looking a things that are made. Not looking via and through 'wayhead.' I mean looking to see what I see in, like - - everything. I was then that I started seeing things, seeing ne things in things that I already had seen for years. I started learning about the "invisible things of God."
Like what I said above. When I seel how much more willing my children are to listen to me, and determine, by asking them, why... and observing relationships, and comparing and contrasting, and experimenting, and looking at results.
I see stuff. Most people on this planet are basically mad at God. Why? Because people DIE. People hurt. People get sick. Heinous things happen to people whom God supposedly LOVES so God - - damn - - much.
If He loves us SO much how come he Kills so many of us?
The Christians say, "NO! God doesn't kill people the devil kills people!"
What? Shifting the blame.
God, all powerful, all knowing God, the LOVING creator of the universe, in whom there is LIGHT and is no darkness at all; HE only ALLOWS the DEVIL to kill us people types.
Why doesn't God STOP the madness? If He loves us so much He could CERTAINLY save us from all the pain & suffereing, right.
He doesn't, we suffer, we dertermine he CAN'T love us, Therefore we He CAN'T be trusted.
So we figure it out for ourselves. At least we try to.
Lucifer has created the perfect Catch 22. Since God shows himself clearly in things people can see. I'll clearly let them see so much bad stuff that it tears their attention away from him,
I recently had my left knee torn up by an impact from a car. In my months of rehab as I suffereder through the pain, frustration & loss. I LOOKED at the situation. I learned from it (when I didn't have the strength) that I was depending more on my personal muscular ability to move my body and perform martial arts techniques than I was on the technique.
The technique was knowledge I didn't already have, the strength, I already owned. Now, armed with that catharsis, I'm actually a better martial artist now after the injury, than I was before.
There's a scripture to that effect, something about ALL things working together for good to them that love God...
I could go on and on and on and on and on with how, "things just seem to work out" for me in my life.
My faith in God is in NO way BLIND. The entire concept of BLIND faith is a lie from hell. I don't care WHO you've ever heard it from nor where you've ever seen it. Its _ a _ LIE.
This whole thread is on the topic of life & death. Someone makes a simple statement because THEY were LOOKING at the subject:
quote:
If anyone can point me toward further info it would be appreciated.
A simple link is put up to a website that has literally thousands of links to information.
From there the basic bent of the conversation is "You can't beleve them, they believe GOD!" They're FUNDAMENTALIST. They'll ask you to believe in something you can't see! In other words, "Don't even look there for answers you seek, look to me. Don't you read the stuff on their site, after all I HAVEN'T, why should you?"
People admittedly have only skimmed AiG and dismissed it because they don't WANT to believe in God - - at least not completely. They want to hold on to enough of God that maybe... just maybe IF he really is there.... Well I believe he's there I just don't believe I can believe everything he says.
Darwin was mad at God about the death of someone he cared about. That is the root of his research. Copernicus, he didn't WANT to believe in God either.
People who are mad at God for things they've seen in life that they don't like tell you Don't belive God. Don't even look that way cause you'll be decieved.
We who are NOT mad at God for things we've seen in life tell you you CAN believe God. OR at least look in his direction and see what you see.
I really don't have a problem with alternative viewpoints.
MY question is that IF God is so unreliable why do people spend so much time & effort to discredit him and those who seek to believe him?
Even the most cursory study of science and sceintists will show you that people believe things that are crazier than most anything "fundamentalists" believe.
But...if it's true then God could have done the Big Bang at more than light speed and spread out the universe in a magestic explosion of creative energy and then allowed everything to slow down.
He also could have created the entire universe 5 minutes ago and given us pseudo-memories, pseudo-evidence, etc. If he did, then he's a deceiver. If he created the universe several thousand years ago and made it look like he did it billions of years ago, then he's a deceiver. What's the difference? Either way, he's a deceiver.
Not necessarily. We've been TAUGHT that the earth is billions of years old. Who taught us that? Geologists and paleontologists looking at the world through Darwin's prism. It's been proven time and again that carbon-14 dating is a seriously flawed system, but that is the basis for what is now passed off as fact. I see a world and a universe that is awesome in both scope and detail; that, from the interaction of the smallest instects to the glory of the most far flung nebulae indicates a powerful and wise Creator. I don't see anything in it that insists that it's billions of years old. That assumption has been ingrained in us by SCIENCE (let us have a moment of reverence for SCIENCE...) So your asertion that God is a deceiver is without foundation...and a bit arrogant. But such is the minset of SCIENCE.
quote:
Or maybe not. Maybe it pleased him to create the universe billions of years ago, as all the evidence indicates.
As we've been indoctrianted to believe that "all the evidence indicates" See above
quote:
Maybe it pleased him to give a simple account that unlearned people could accept, that never was intended to be taken as a scientific explanation. That would be perfectly honest. Heck, if people didn’t yet understand basic geometry, algebra, gravity, inertia, or other such concepts; if they didn’t know a thing about microorganisms or the basics of sexual reproduction (other than the actions) then how in the world could God or anyone else explain the universe or life to them, except simply and figuratively?
Good question. He didn't. And in the absence of a detailed divine explanation, we have to figure it out. We can learn a great deal about our world by observation and a disciplined application of the scientific method. But there are a lot of things the scientific method cannot reveal. When the universe began is, imho, just one of these. SCIENCE has overreached and attempted to state as fact things which are not only speculation, but utterly unknowable....in my humble opinion.
quote:
You go on about scientific arrogance. What about the arrogance of people who presume to dictate to an almighty creator and limit him to their rigid beliefs, based on their limited and often contrived understanding of a bunch of ancient writings that they accept, completely by faith, as the word of God, when those ancient writings don't even claim to be the word of God all the way from Genesis through Revelation. (They do claim to contain words of God.)
Since when does one justify the other? Would you advocate that every Christian in the world take up arms and murder every Muslim he can find because there are Muslims who kill Christians? I think not. So why should you turn a blind eye to arrogance and over-reaching by scientist because there are arrogant preachers, popes, and presbyters?
quote:
Science is not anti-Christian or anti-Biblical, except to people who arrogantly deprive a supposedly almighty God of the tools human authors use all the time. If Genesis is not purely myth, but rather is inspired by God, then much of it has to be figurative. Either that or almost nothing we think we know is reliable. Heck, the first “day” in Genesis is enough to tell it’s not literal. How do you literally have an evening and a morning being the first 24-hour day (or the second or third) without a sun or stars?
Utter nonsense. You are rebutting a claim I have not made. I have not said that "Science is..anti-Christian". I have said that many prominent scientists have an anti-Biblical mindset and these people affect the objectivity of science and retard its progress.
quote:
If it weren’t figurative, what would you have? The earth spinning around in space, with one half of the universe lit up (but not by stars) and the other half dark? If so, then God would have to miraculously redo the whole universe on the fourth day, eliminating the light source of the first three days and replacing it with the sun, moon, and stars. Now that would be something! All or most of the energy of the universe concentrated on one side of a large, perhaps infinite, sphere bisected by a plane that was aligned fairly closely with Earth's axis for three days, then suddenly shifted, so that it is fairly uniform throughout the universe. Do young-earth “creation scientists” even consider such things? If not, then they haven’t even begun to develop a creation theory, and certainly not a scientific one.
Again, you prove my point. You assume that you have a perfect knowledge of light and the substance and nature of the cosmos. Just because what Genesis chapter one records does not fit with our current understanding of the universe doesn't mean it's wrong or necessarily figurative. God said "let there be light". What, LG, is light? Is it particles--photons? Or is it pure wave energy? As far as I know SCIENCE doesn't know yet. So if we, as technologically advanced as we are don't even know what light IS, how can you claim that you know what God was doing when he created it? Hmmmm. I think that's a pretty good example of that arrogance thing. I'm not saying you're evil or anything, but you've bought into the myth that modern man has figured out the very nature of the cosmos.
quote:
What about the waters above and below the firmament? Is there a sphere of water some 30 billion or more light years in diameter enclosing the visible universe? If not, then Genesis is not literal. Also, if the firmament is the same heaven that contains the stars, what about the water in the firmament, like comets, water on other planets, etc.? Did God just not mention that? Did that seep in later from the water above the firmament. If so, it sure moved quickly, traveling billions of light years fast enough to be in place when the ancients first observed comets.
Again, your trust in SCIENCE has lead you to make easy assumptions that the Bible is wrong. The word "firmament" in the Bible sometimes refers to what we would call space and sometimes refers to the atmosphere. The heavens, biblically speaking, includes what we would simply call the sky. Hebrews 11:7 says that "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,..". What was Noah warned of? Rain.
No one had ever seen rain before because in Eden, God watered the plants with a mist from the ground. (Dew perhaps?) No rain fell on the earth until that which helped flood the planet in Noah's time. So where did that water come from? It had to come from somewhere above the firmament or sky. But that never before seen water fell from the firmament in pretty large amounts. (How much water would you have if you had non stop rainfall for 40 days?)
How far above was it? Where above the firmament was it? I don't know. Was it stored in an ice asteroid belt or a layer of ice that used to orbit the earth? I don't know. And the point is my friend, neither do you. But here's the point you are ignoring. Wherever it came from, it's not there anymore because it fell to earth and wiped everybody out, save those that were with Noah. Perhaps it was stored in God's global water recycling system, which we now refer to as cloud cover. Hence the first rainbow that appeared after the flood. Based on the information that the Bible does give us, we can assume that the waters above the heavens aren't where they originally were. So we can't honestly use our current knowledge of the solar system to judge what God originally created.
As you say, "I could go on", but I trust I've made my point. When you buy into the multiple assumptions of modern science, you make the mistake of confusing what we know and what we think we know. And once again, I'm not proposing that we look to the Bible for scientific truths. I am merely pointing out the sad truth that the advancement of scientific truth is corrupted because truths that might agree with the Bible are resisted, ridiculed, or repressed. Objectivity is being threatened in the battle between the Creationists and the Evolutionists, and science as a whole is suffering for it. It would be nice if someone could say this without having one's arguments distorted beyond recognition. But such is the way of modern rhetoric.
Heck, Jerry, several people have demonstrated how "irreducibly complex" systems could evolve. Some have actually demonstrated it experimentally. Lindy cited an example.
ID is an old argument with new trappings but the same holes. It's really just an argument from personal incredulity. Someone can't imagine that something can happen unless a god does it. But over and over again, things that only gods (or super-duper, unnamed intelligent agents) can do have been shown to be quite natural. The "only gods can do..." folks keep raising the bar and our knowledge of natural processes keeps growing, going right over each new bar.
ID is not science. If it were, then it would put forth testable theories. Instead, all it does is claim that science can't explain things that science turns around and explains.
Have you actually read Behe's book or are you just rejecting the argument because it flys in the face of what you've been indoctrinated--uh..taught? The presentation is based on the detailed operation of biochemistry and the book includes countless observations from other scientists including brilliant mathematicians, who are coming the conclusion that the more we know about how life works, the more implausible Darwinian evolution becomes. Dismiss it if you like, but you are doing yourself a disservice. I would quote more of the specific in the book, but I don't have the time, I doubt it would make any difference to you and Lindy, and that too would be a disservice to you and the author.
So on that note, I'll let you guys go on without me. This seems to be going in circles with no end in sight. Have fun.
And just in case you didn't catch it earlier, the name of the book is "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Micheal Behe.
Oh, one more thing. Garth's statement that the conversion of the famous atheist, Antony Flew, keeps sticking in the back of my mind. So I went and found some information about that. It appears that his "conversion to Christianity" was announced in 2001 and was refuted by Mr. Flew. But since then, he has indeed decided that scientific evidence now convinces him that life is too complex to have evolved on its own without divine intervention.
So the truyh of the matter is, a former atheist--defined as one who believes there is no God--now says he believes there must be one.
Wherever it came from, it's not there anymore because it fell to earth and wiped everybody out, save those that were with Noah. Perhaps it was stored in God's global water recycling system, which we now refer to as cloud cover. Hence the first rainbow that appeared after the flood. Based on the information that the Bible does give us, we can assume that the waters above the heavens aren't where they originally were. So we can't honestly use our current knowledge of the solar system to judge what God originally created.
Very good points JB.
Here's a scientific question.... Has there ever been a study that would determine how much water there would be on the earth if EVERY cloud in the entire sky emptied its entire water content onto the earth?
We all know it as scientific fact that clouds are floating water particles, right? We all know the basic process that naturally causes rain, right?
How much water is actually floating up there?"
Also.
Rainbows happen today any time the correct pyhsical conditions exist. The conditions are, basically, the angle of the sun in the sky at two specific times of day and the moisture content of the air. Given the correct proportion of the two you get a rainbow, any time, every time.
'Combining' those (scientifically discovered) physical characteristics which lead to rainbows mixed with the statements from Genesis... Chapter 9, verses 12 - 17:
"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
I do set my bow in the cloud , and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant , which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."
Hmmm "...when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:" seems to support the science that whenever the conditions exist, "the (rain)bow shall be seen in the cloud."
And "the waters shall no more become a flood" indicates existing water(s) BECAME the flood, because He said, "not again ."
I think it could be reasonable to think the clouds already there emptied all, or at least enough, of their content to flood the entire earth... because "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."
Finished most likely included clouds which were simply referred to later in chapter 9, not mentioned as being a new thing that was made as a result of the flood.
And, given the details listed:
- Noah's age, Gen 7:6
- the amount of days it rained, 7:12
- the dates given, 7:11
- the number of days the flood lasted, 7:24
- that date, 8:4
- the number of days it took for the waters to receed, 8:5
- and when Noah opened the window 8:6.
- the dates when the ground dried, 8:13, 14...
combined with the science of how rainbows work...
Had we not lost the location of the mountain where the ark landed we could determine approximately the day the day and approximate time of day God made the covenant with Noah. Because rainbows only happen at certain times of the day.
The key to understanding things about life is by combining things we see and know from science WITH what we know from God's word.
Not from separating the two and fighting about it.
Satan doth surely know that if we combined science WITH the Bible we could only conclude there is in fact One true, living and Loving God.
kawoteFor those who do not accept by faith what Christ has done for them and do not recognize their sinful nature and need for redemption, the Bible warns that such people will live forever, but will be separated from God in a place of torment that the Bible calls Hell. But for those who commit their lives to the Lord—what a wonderful message! What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful salvation in Christ the Creator! end oh qawote straight from the AIG
Sorry~~~ i have to laugh ~~~ live forever tormented in hell eh!!! Well hell's bells. Just what the devil wants. Do I get a pitch fork, blackish red skin, and one of those pointy tails?
...I suggested that before they could really teach effectively about the other issues, they needed to get the students’ attention that the Bible was the infallible Word of God, and really could be trusted. ~~~
Main Entry: in·fal·li·ble
Pronunciation: (")in-'fa-l&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin infallibilis, from Latin in- + Late Latin fallibilis fallible
Date: 15th century
1 : incapable of error : UNERRING <an infallible memory>
2 : not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint : CERTAIN <an infallible remedy>
3 : incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals
If God created the universe, then who created God? AIG
I like that writing. Nice and neat.
Bring your mind, if one can, to that point of time where there was no point of time, but yet it was always in God's mind, since God knows all things at once. How far back can one go? I think that's why God does not show face and only hind parts.
My question would be ~~~ "How is it that God was,is,will be always God?" To me that question is like staring with unprotected eyes into a total eclipse of the sun. Has anyone ever done that?
I have in the days of my youth, and that experience is burned into my eye parts. That is for proof sure. If there was nothing before God~~~ never stare into a total eclipse of the sun...
It is obvious from your posts that you consider 'science' to be the highest knowledge available.
Not at all. Science, meaning the scientific method, along with scholarly practices common to most fields, is one method of learning and I think the most reliable method we have of learning about the natural world. It is not the only means to acquire knowledge, nor the best means to acquire all kinds of knowledge. I might add that I don’t consider the pursuit of knowledge to be the only worthwhile or most important aspect of learning and certainly not the most important human endeavor. I sometimes also use “science” to refer to generally accepted scientific knowledge and theory or to the broad scientific community.
quote:
While you spit in God's direction, dismissing HIS explanation (as the one who DID create it ALL) you don't see the hypocracy in your words. Instead you try to align WITH the creator as you dismiss Him at the same time, in your momentary blip of a next breath.
I don’t dismiss “HIS” explanation. I do dismiss what some people (not the majority of Christians, by the way) claim is God’s explanation. I don’t dismiss the beliefs of most Christians or most theists. I have never in my life claimed that the God of the Bible or any other supernatural being or beings did not create the universe and everything in it. I am perfectly willing to accept that possibility. But proving (demonstrating, affirming, whatever) that God created the universe or did anything else is completely outside the province of science. My only quarrel with proponents of “creation science” or “Intelligent Design theory” is that they attempt to distort science (and science education) into something it is not and should not, indeed cannot, be. Science can neither confirm nor deny theology. If people would just accept that, there’d be no “creationist-evolutionist” quarrel.
quote:
MY human Science is TRUTH. You say.
The Word of GOD is MYTH. You say.
I have never said either of those.
quote:
Isn't it both scientific and legally accepted to accept the account of an eye witness over all else?
It’s certainly proper in both fields to give due consideration to such accounts, but also to subject them to critical examination. I would love to hear the eye witness account of someone who observed the creation of the universe, the origin of life, or the long-term (on the order of thousands, millions, or billions of years) changes in either.
quote:
MY question is that IF God is so unreliable why do people spend so much time & effort to discredit him and those who seek to believe him?
I can’t speak for “people” but I have never tried to discredit God or people who believe in God. I have never argued that God doesn’t exist or that God didn’t create the universe and everything in it. I’ve never argued against Christianity or belief that the Bible is inspired by God, even though I don’t believe that it is (which is not even close to claiming that it is not). The most I have done is to argue that some factual claims or arguments of some people are false, ill supported, or illogical, and that a few are just plain ludicrous. I have no argument with basic Christian doctrine and I neither want to nor can refute it.
So your asertion that God is a deceiver is without foundation...and a bit arrogant.
I didn’t assert that God is a deceiver, nor did I assert that he did anything. I said that IF he did one thing and made it look like he did another, then he’s a deceiver.
quote:
…how can you claim that you know what God was doing when he created it [light]? Hmmmm. I think that's a pretty good example of that arrogance thing.
I didn’t claim that I know a thing about what God was doing or make any other claim about God. I posed some questions.
quote:
Again, you prove my point. You assume that you have a perfect knowledge of light and the substance and nature of the cosmos.
Hardly. I posed one question, with a few logical extensions based on it. If the Genesis account of the first day is literal and factual, rather than figurative, there are a lot more questions, each of which introduces other possibilities and problems that “creation science” would need to consider to even begin to develop a creation theory that had any semblance to science. Now I don’t much care whether they do or not, as long as they don’t try to claim that creation is a scientific theory. But if they do, and if they’re going to push for it to be taught in schools, then they need to address such questions and offer some valid scientific explanations.
quote:
Again, your trust in SCIENCE has lead you to make easy assumptions that the Bible is wrong. The word "firmament" in the Bible sometimes refers to what we would call space and sometimes refers to the atmosphere.
I didn’t assume that the Bible is wrong. I posed some questions. Note that I said, “if the firmament is the same heaven that contains the stars …” I’ll allow that I should have more clearly qualified the whole paragraph with the same “if,” but that neither affects the validity of the questions, nor the conditional (qualified by another “if”) conclusion of the third sentence. Let me quote the KJV. Gen. 1:8 says, “God called the firmament Heaven.” The very next use of the word is in v.14, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven…” So which is it? Are they different firmaments? Different heavens? Are they the same? Who decides? How? Either way, how do you get a reliable, factual literal reading of the section?
I’m not attacking the Bible. I’m asking a few questions that need to be answered before even beginning to think that it should be accepted as factual, rather than figurative. Figurative is not a bad thing. If a particular section is figurative, then it is no basis for scientific investigation, but it certainly could be a basis for spiritual understanding.
I truly don’t understand why some folks feel so threatened by the possibility that the first few chapters of Genesis are figurative, especially if they acknowledge that the Bible uses figures of speech liberally in other places, and recognize that Jesus’ manner of teaching (parables) was apparently mostly figurative.
Wherever it came from, it's not there anymore because it fell to earth and wiped everybody out, save those that were with Noah. Perhaps it was stored in God's global water recycling system, which we now refer to as cloud cover. Hence the first rainbow that appeared after the flood. Based on the information that the Bible does give us, we can assume that the waters above the heavens aren't where they originally were. So we can't honestly use our current knowledge of the solar system to judge what God originally created.
Very good points JB.
Here's a scientific question.... Has there ever been a study that would determine how much water there would be on the earth if EVERY cloud in the entire sky emptied its entire water content onto the earth?
Yes, many. The water in the atmosphere is about 1.2% of all the water on earth.
According to this creationist site, all the water on earth and in the atmosphere is about 22% of the amount that would be required to cover all land on earth.
Oh, one more thing. Garth's statement that the conversion of the famous atheist, Antony Flew, keeps sticking in the back of my mind. So I went and found some information about that. It appears that his "conversion to Christianity" was announced in 2001 and was refuted by Mr. Flew. But since then, he has indeed decided that scientific evidence now convinces him that life is too complex to have evolved on its own without divine intervention.
So the truyh of the matter is, a former atheist--defined as one who believes there is no God--now says he believes there must be one.
Mr. Flew, according to the first link, has changed his mind several times, and has admitted that his opinion that life couldn't have begun on it's own without divine intervention was based on a misunderstanding of what a physicist said about biochemistry. He did not address evolution, but the appearance of DNA in the first self-reproducing life form.
His concept of God as he describes it is nowhere near the Christian or biblical one; he envisions God has the initiator who sat back and refused to get involved...like the Deists' God.
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Jbarrax
Woorrd.. :-D
Thanks for the explanation Song. I've heard some thing about the cosmic noise, but never got the specifics.
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Jbarrax
Now THAT'S a good question! There's an explanation for it in AIG's Answers book, but it's not a very satisfactory one. Although I have been told by an aquaintance who works in a research lab and monitors the fringes of science and technology that one researcher recently reported observing quantaa moving at excess of light speed. He was summarily ridiculed of course. The speed of light is still held to be the maximum velocity of anything and everything in the known universe (despite what we've seen for years on Star Trek), so it's a radical idea to say the least.
But...if it's true then God could have done the Big Bang at more than light speed and spread out the universe in a magestic explosion of creative energy and then allowed everything to slow down.
"Just a thot"
JerryB
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Oakspear
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Jbarrax
Irreducible Complexity
By the way Lindy, I think you're wrong to dismiss Behe's point about irreducible complexity. The theory of evolution says that animals evolved to the point that they are now, over eons. Some animals have extremely complex mating rituals, some are dependent on other animals in their ecosystems to survive.
In order for an animal to evolve into a complex pattern we see today, the animal must first have 1)survived long enough without said trait to develop it over time
2)must have had all the essential ingredients already dormant within itself for the current trait to function
Behe shows how complex the biochemical reactions are for something as simple as vision to work. There are exact relationships of proteins and enzymes required for an eye to work. The same is true of respiration, blood clotting, etc. If Darwin is right, all of this had to develop slowly. But if it did,then there must have been eons of time during which eyes didn't work, cells didn't respirate, and blood couldn't clot properly.
The simple question is, how does an organism that can't heal form a simple wound, can't see, and/or can't respirate on a cellular level survive long enough to evolve?
Peace
JerryB
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def59
Hey, I didn't hire Calahan.
:D-->
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LG
Or maybe not. Maybe it pleased him to create the universe billions of years ago, as all the evidence indicates. Maybe it pleased him to give a simple account that unlearned people could accept, that never was intended to be taken as a scientific explanation. That would be perfectly honest. Heck, if people didn’t yet understand basic geometry, algebra, gravity, inertia, or other such concepts; if they didn’t know a thing about microorganisms or the basics of sexual reproduction (other than the actions) then how in the world could God or anyone else explain the universe or life to them, except simply and figuratively?
You go on about scientific arrogance. What about the arrogance of people who presume to dictate to an almighty creator and limit him to their rigid beliefs, based on their limited and often contrived understanding of a bunch of ancient writings that they accept, completely by faith, as the word of God, when those ancient writings don't even claim to be the word of God all the way from Genesis through Revelation. (They do claim to contain words of God.)
Science is not anti-Christian or anti-Biblical, except to people who arrogantly deprive a supposedly almighty God of the tools human authors use all the time. If Genesis is not purely myth, but rather is inspired by God, then much of it has to be figurative. Either that or almost nothing we think we know is reliable. Heck, the first “day” in Genesis is enough to tell it’s not literal. How do you literally have an evening and a morning being the first 24-hour day (or the second or third) without a sun or stars?
If it weren’t figurative, what would you have? The earth spinning around in space, with one half of the universe lit up (but not by stars) and the other half dark? If so, then God would have to miraculously redo the whole universe on the fourth day, eliminating the light source of the first three days and replacing it with the sun, moon, and stars. Now that would be something! All or most of the energy of the universe concentrated on one side of a large, perhaps infinite, sphere bisected by a plane that was aligned fairly closely with Earth's axis for three days, then suddenly shifted, so that it is fairly uniform throughout the universe. Do young-earth “creation scientists” even consider such things? If not, then they haven’t even begun to develop a creation theory, and certainly not a scientific one.
What about the waters above and below the firmament? Is there a sphere of water some 30 billion or more light years in diameter enclosing the visible universe? If not, then Genesis is not literal. Also, if the firmament is the same heaven that contains the stars, what about the water in the firmament, like comets, water on other planets, etc.? Did God just not mention that? Did that seep in later from the water above the firmament. If so, it sure moved quickly, traveling billions of light years fast enough to be in place when the ancients first observed comets.
What about the question of creating plants before the sun, which provides energy for photosynthesis? Did they just get by without that for a day, or did God provide energy from some other source, like light that wasn’t from stars?
Genesis calls the sun and moon “great lights” but there are plenty of stars greater than the sun, in size, mass, brightness, or any other measure, and the moon isn’t even a light, but a reflector. The description in Genesis is not at all accurate from a scientific point of view.
I could go on, but I'll stop. The point is that it is ludicrous to look to some fundamentalist, literal interpretation of Genesis for scientific truth. At best, Genesis gives the sort of explanation of a complicated matter that one might give a young child, sufficient to give an appreciation for it, but not wholly accurate and certainly not complete.
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LG
Heck, Jerry, several people have demonstrated how "irreducibly complex" systems could evolve. Some have actually demonstrated it experimentally. Lindy cited an example.
ID is an old argument with new trappings but the same holes. It's really just an argument from personal incredulity. Someone can't imagine that something can happen unless a god does it. But over and over again, things that only gods (or super-duper, unnamed intelligent agents) can do have been shown to be quite natural. The "only gods can do..." folks keep raising the bar and our knowledge of natural processes keeps growing, going right over each new bar.
ID is not science. If it were, then it would put forth testable theories. Instead, all it does is claim that science can't explain things that science turns around and explains.
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HCW
Long Gone:
It is obvious from your posts that you consider 'science' to be the highest knowledge available. You speak of 'science' as if 'science' were a living entity, in and of itself. You speak of 'science' with a reverent tone; about what 'it' is and isn't, what it can do, what it is seeking to do.
Your questions and comments have been asked and made for hundreds of years. Yet you, today, still have no answers, only a bunch of 'maybe,' "he could have," and 'IF's.
Then you spit out "how ludicrous it is to look to..." and you use the words 'fundamentalist' and 'literal' as if they were curse words. Then you compare the Genesis account to your obviously beloved 'scientific truth;' placing Genesis in a lower position, I might add. Then YOU, Long Gone, have the unmitigated GALL to explain to all of US what Gensis is, at BEST.
In so doing, you point to and use THE most foundational and universally accepted truth found in any and ALL religious belief systems on this planet to support YOUR singular, self-derived, lofty position. That foudational, FUNDAMENTAL belief that GOD is our FATHER and we, His children. In light of that relationship He, God, treats us as such.
You've told me what I ovbiously and apparently don't know. I know what I see. and I see God as our father, we as His children. I see that...
... and YOU don't like it. NO we can't be just children! We are the highest form of life on the planet! WE must know! WE must be ABLE to EXPLAIN!!! Not only all of 'it' in our own planet, but the entire universe as well.
We know how big it is, how old it is, what it is doing, what it WILL do. How it works, how it DOESN'T work, what it looks like.
According to your beloved science, you are nothing more than a mere blip of momentary breath, on a miniscule, insignificant, ordinary fragment of an ordinary, insignificant grain of dust; which is yet one of billions of equally insignificant specs of dust in an ever moving, constantly growing, pseudo-intelligent, eternal universe.
Yet you, whisp of breath of a spec that you are, seek to explain it ALL. Are you even a peer of the great scientific minds you speak of? Are you even fractionally as knowledgeable of the Bible you dismiss as "mythical" as the men who speak of it as universally faithful, eternal truth?
I think not.
If you were, you would speak of so many IF's and maybe's.
Then again the great and wonderful science you speak so highly of requires that one not speak in difinitive terms, because to do so is NOT scientific. You can't do that unless, you've seen or proved, experimented or scientifically concluded, in and of yourself or the wider scientific community of ordinary, insignificant, momentary whisps of fragments on the ordinary, insignificant, decidedly non-special spec inside the ordinary, insignificant grain of dust that we are in our, ordinary, insignificant spot in the eternal universe.
Even in your scientific "explanations" you can't escape the GODLY concept of eterity. While you spit in God's direction, dismissing HIS explanation (as the one who DID create it ALL) you don't see the hypocracy in your words. Instead you try to align WITH the creator as you dismiss Him at the same time, in your momentary blip of a next breath.
My children often ask me questions, the answers to are often beyond their comprehension. I tell them, "You will be able to understand better, later, when you grow up."
My views are based on actual ANSWERS that are wholly accurate and ARE certainly complete. You don't see it that way primarily because you just haven't read the answers that I have. Those that you have read you dismiss as myths because YOU can't see the truth that is there before your eyes.
God doesn't have to explain 'everything' to us any more than we do, or children. Proble with your position is that He HAS explained more than YOU know and even more than YOU think he has.
You would rather believe that some other creature from some other, equally insignificant spec would someday arrive in a hyper-drive enabled ship bearing notes from HIS insignificant, non-special spec in the eternal universe. On that day we could have a symposium and compare notes; not even beginning to THINK that they would say, "Here's what the specs you've seen look like from the other side!"
MY human Science is TRUTH. You say.
The Word of GOD is MYTH. You say.
I say the more you know about science, the more you know about the word of God, the more you see that the word of God EXPLAINS the science you see.
YOU just don't know enough about EITHER to see that.
Isn't it both scientific and legally accepted to accept the account of an eye witness over all else?
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HCW
Fair enough. I'd never ask anything as rediculous as that.
My scientific research on this subject involves about 14 years of living in a farming community. I learned there, contrary to my "city slicker" upbringing that the term "dumb farm boy" doesn't apply to every person who lives and /or works of a farm any more than the term "nigger" applies to every person of African decent.
I found many farmers to be quite intelligent, as intelligent in their field as any person in mine or in other professions that I'd been taught to have more respect for than 'simple' farming. More to it than meets the eye. A more detailed look into what farming involves revealed 'more to it' than I'd seen my entire life to that point from my position of taking cursory glances at it.
Farmers I've seen are a fun loving bunch. They love to play elaborate practical jokes. Some of which are quite imaginitive. Farming can be quite monotomous as you failthly perform the same functions harvesting your crops. Some farmers get quite giggy with geometry as they plan to clear their fields; realizing that they way they go about it can save or take them a lot longer. Time is money; if it takes significantly longer to clear a field than 'necessary' your hourly rate falls and you actually make less money selling your harvest because of more time involved in harvesting it.
Putting that together with the fact that sometime they have a lot of time on their hands and they can also be quite creative at times. My basic position is that those crop circles we "study" and make movies about have a LOT of "good ol' boys" sittin' 'round the breakfast able back slappin' each other 'bout how DUMB we are to think that ALIENS did that with a space ship.
A farmer can look at a sheared stalk of corn and tell you what brand of what type of equipment cut it. I've seen farmers look at the sky, sniff and say, "Boys I gotta go, I got an hour of harvesting to to and an hour and a half before it rains." Looked at my watch & sure enough about 90 minutes later it was pouring.
Them farmers can do some pretty amazing things with their equipment.
The closest thing I might get to your statement is that a demon MAY have been playin' around in the mind of the farmer who cut the pattern in the field.
I'm not inclined to do that either. If I see circles in a field, I see circles in a field. I don't see a puzzle. I don't see potential evidecne of an extraterrestrail incursion. I see some corn is missing.
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HCW
Another thing I see....
I see my children are willing to accept my answers to their questions as being beyond (what they CAN'T see) them because they've seen enough love from me (that they CAN see) that they trust me. My children actually WANT to trust me. They feel happy and secure in life because they feel they KNOW they can trust me.
I see the root of all of these types of arguments as being that people just haven't seen enough of God's love for them, specifically, and mankind in general, to trust Him and what He says.
Personally, I use what I call the timeline theory. It hit me over the course of many years of my life according to different experiences. One in particluar was when I was selling one of my babies.
This particular baby was a Datsun 280Z. I had cherished this car and took great care of it after having desired one since high school. When I got it. I loved it. It was in GREAT condition. I reluctantly decided to sell it as my family grew and the kids became too big to stuff in the back deck. Driver & cars seat for the human baby left no room for mom. All things considered, the Z, this manicured classic of a vehicle, it had to go.
This guy came to look at it. I felt he would surely recognize the clasical autmotive beauty we were both in the presence of, I thought surely he'd look it oevr and happily throw me a check for my more than fiar asking price.
Instead he said, in reference to the price. "What's wrong with it?"
My point is he had no actual knowledge of the hours & hours of painstaking care I'd shown the vehicle earlier ON THE TIMELINE than that day. He didn't know that I'd earlier had the car determined to be "flawless." AND I'd determined that I priced it "to sell quickly."
He just wasn't there, but his lack of presence or lack of knowlege of what I knew I'd done did not change anything I did or didn't do.
I realized at later thinking all of these 'bad things' about the buyer that I was no more present earlier on the timeline of his life than he on mine.
If I want others to accept earlier "truths" of facts from my timeline, I must be willing to accept theirs.
Now when I read the Bible. I accept it first. I believe it first. When I actually determined to believe IT rather than what somebody told me IT said, I began to see IT more clearly. IT began to make more sense to me. To this day I have not found IT to be unfaithful. People yes, but IT, God's Word no.
AS they say, one particular verse completely changed my views on it. I was once very closely aligned with the views presented here on this thread.
The verse? The verse, get to the verse you say? OK.
"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead" Romans 1:20
When I first read that 34 years ago, it glossed over my mind. While in TWI, it was mostly ignored, or spoken of in the "wrong" context. One day I actually read it without reading INTO it.
Invisible things...
...from the creation of the world...
...understood...
... CLEARLY seen ????
..by that which is made... ????
HOW????
I started out by LOOKING at stuff. Really looking a things that are made. Not looking via and through 'wayhead.' I mean looking to see what I see in, like - - everything. I was then that I started seeing things, seeing ne things in things that I already had seen for years. I started learning about the "invisible things of God."
Like what I said above. When I seel how much more willing my children are to listen to me, and determine, by asking them, why... and observing relationships, and comparing and contrasting, and experimenting, and looking at results.
I see stuff. Most people on this planet are basically mad at God. Why? Because people DIE. People hurt. People get sick. Heinous things happen to people whom God supposedly LOVES so God - - damn - - much.
If He loves us SO much how come he Kills so many of us?
The Christians say, "NO! God doesn't kill people the devil kills people!"
What? Shifting the blame.
God, all powerful, all knowing God, the LOVING creator of the universe, in whom there is LIGHT and is no darkness at all; HE only ALLOWS the DEVIL to kill us people types.
Why doesn't God STOP the madness? If He loves us so much He could CERTAINLY save us from all the pain & suffereing, right.
He doesn't, we suffer, we dertermine he CAN'T love us, Therefore we He CAN'T be trusted.
So we figure it out for ourselves. At least we try to.
Lucifer has created the perfect Catch 22. Since God shows himself clearly in things people can see. I'll clearly let them see so much bad stuff that it tears their attention away from him,
I recently had my left knee torn up by an impact from a car. In my months of rehab as I suffereder through the pain, frustration & loss. I LOOKED at the situation. I learned from it (when I didn't have the strength) that I was depending more on my personal muscular ability to move my body and perform martial arts techniques than I was on the technique.
The technique was knowledge I didn't already have, the strength, I already owned. Now, armed with that catharsis, I'm actually a better martial artist now after the injury, than I was before.
There's a scripture to that effect, something about ALL things working together for good to them that love God...
I could go on and on and on and on and on with how, "things just seem to work out" for me in my life.
My faith in God is in NO way BLIND. The entire concept of BLIND faith is a lie from hell. I don't care WHO you've ever heard it from nor where you've ever seen it. Its _ a _ LIE.
This whole thread is on the topic of life & death. Someone makes a simple statement because THEY were LOOKING at the subject:
A simple link is put up to a website that has literally thousands of links to information.
From there the basic bent of the conversation is "You can't beleve them, they believe GOD!" They're FUNDAMENTALIST. They'll ask you to believe in something you can't see! In other words, "Don't even look there for answers you seek, look to me. Don't you read the stuff on their site, after all I HAVEN'T, why should you?"
People admittedly have only skimmed AiG and dismissed it because they don't WANT to believe in God - - at least not completely. They want to hold on to enough of God that maybe... just maybe IF he really is there.... Well I believe he's there I just don't believe I can believe everything he says.
Darwin was mad at God about the death of someone he cared about. That is the root of his research. Copernicus, he didn't WANT to believe in God either.
People who are mad at God for things they've seen in life that they don't like tell you Don't belive God. Don't even look that way cause you'll be decieved.
We who are NOT mad at God for things we've seen in life tell you you CAN believe God. OR at least look in his direction and see what you see.
I really don't have a problem with alternative viewpoints.
MY question is that IF God is so unreliable why do people spend so much time & effort to discredit him and those who seek to believe him?
Even the most cursory study of science and sceintists will show you that people believe things that are crazier than most anything "fundamentalists" believe.
I'm NOT fundamentalist. BTW.
Peace.
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Jbarrax
Not necessarily. We've been TAUGHT that the earth is billions of years old. Who taught us that? Geologists and paleontologists looking at the world through Darwin's prism. It's been proven time and again that carbon-14 dating is a seriously flawed system, but that is the basis for what is now passed off as fact. I see a world and a universe that is awesome in both scope and detail; that, from the interaction of the smallest instects to the glory of the most far flung nebulae indicates a powerful and wise Creator. I don't see anything in it that insists that it's billions of years old. That assumption has been ingrained in us by SCIENCE (let us have a moment of reverence for SCIENCE...) So your asertion that God is a deceiver is without foundation...and a bit arrogant. But such is the minset of SCIENCE.
As we've been indoctrianted to believe that "all the evidence indicates" See aboveGood question. He didn't. And in the absence of a detailed divine explanation, we have to figure it out. We can learn a great deal about our world by observation and a disciplined application of the scientific method. But there are a lot of things the scientific method cannot reveal. When the universe began is, imho, just one of these. SCIENCE has overreached and attempted to state as fact things which are not only speculation, but utterly unknowable....in my humble opinion.
Since when does one justify the other? Would you advocate that every Christian in the world take up arms and murder every Muslim he can find because there are Muslims who kill Christians? I think not. So why should you turn a blind eye to arrogance and over-reaching by scientist because there are arrogant preachers, popes, and presbyters?
Utter nonsense. You are rebutting a claim I have not made. I have not said that "Science is..anti-Christian". I have said that many prominent scientists have an anti-Biblical mindset and these people affect the objectivity of science and retard its progress.
Again, you prove my point. You assume that you have a perfect knowledge of light and the substance and nature of the cosmos. Just because what Genesis chapter one records does not fit with our current understanding of the universe doesn't mean it's wrong or necessarily figurative. God said "let there be light". What, LG, is light? Is it particles--photons? Or is it pure wave energy? As far as I know SCIENCE doesn't know yet. So if we, as technologically advanced as we are don't even know what light IS, how can you claim that you know what God was doing when he created it? Hmmmm. I think that's a pretty good example of that arrogance thing. I'm not saying you're evil or anything, but you've bought into the myth that modern man has figured out the very nature of the cosmos.
Again, your trust in SCIENCE has lead you to make easy assumptions that the Bible is wrong. The word "firmament" in the Bible sometimes refers to what we would call space and sometimes refers to the atmosphere. The heavens, biblically speaking, includes what we would simply call the sky. Hebrews 11:7 says that "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet,..". What was Noah warned of? Rain.
No one had ever seen rain before because in Eden, God watered the plants with a mist from the ground. (Dew perhaps?) No rain fell on the earth until that which helped flood the planet in Noah's time. So where did that water come from? It had to come from somewhere above the firmament or sky. But that never before seen water fell from the firmament in pretty large amounts. (How much water would you have if you had non stop rainfall for 40 days?)
How far above was it? Where above the firmament was it? I don't know. Was it stored in an ice asteroid belt or a layer of ice that used to orbit the earth? I don't know. And the point is my friend, neither do you. But here's the point you are ignoring. Wherever it came from, it's not there anymore because it fell to earth and wiped everybody out, save those that were with Noah. Perhaps it was stored in God's global water recycling system, which we now refer to as cloud cover. Hence the first rainbow that appeared after the flood. Based on the information that the Bible does give us, we can assume that the waters above the heavens aren't where they originally were. So we can't honestly use our current knowledge of the solar system to judge what God originally created.
As you say, "I could go on", but I trust I've made my point. When you buy into the multiple assumptions of modern science, you make the mistake of confusing what we know and what we think we know. And once again, I'm not proposing that we look to the Bible for scientific truths. I am merely pointing out the sad truth that the advancement of scientific truth is corrupted because truths that might agree with the Bible are resisted, ridiculed, or repressed. Objectivity is being threatened in the battle between the Creationists and the Evolutionists, and science as a whole is suffering for it. It would be nice if someone could say this without having one's arguments distorted beyond recognition. But such is the way of modern rhetoric.
Peace
JerryB
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Jbarrax
Have you actually read Behe's book or are you just rejecting the argument because it flys in the face of what you've been indoctrinated--uh..taught? The presentation is based on the detailed operation of biochemistry and the book includes countless observations from other scientists including brilliant mathematicians, who are coming the conclusion that the more we know about how life works, the more implausible Darwinian evolution becomes. Dismiss it if you like, but you are doing yourself a disservice. I would quote more of the specific in the book, but I don't have the time, I doubt it would make any difference to you and Lindy, and that too would be a disservice to you and the author.
So on that note, I'll let you guys go on without me. This seems to be going in circles with no end in sight. Have fun.
And just in case you didn't catch it earlier, the name of the book is "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution" by Micheal Behe.
Peace
JerryB
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Jbarrax
Oh, one more thing. Garth's statement that the conversion of the famous atheist, Antony Flew, keeps sticking in the back of my mind. So I went and found some information about that. It appears that his "conversion to Christianity" was announced in 2001 and was refuted by Mr. Flew. But since then, he has indeed decided that scientific evidence now convinces him that life is too complex to have evolved on its own without divine intervention.
So the truyh of the matter is, a former atheist--defined as one who believes there is no God--now says he believes there must be one.
You can read all about it here
http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=369
Or here
...And here
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def59
JB
this is the wonder of the cafe. I know we disagree on the nature of God, but I look at your arguments on creation and it makes sense.
Keep up the good work.
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HCW
Very good points JB.
Here's a scientific question.... Has there ever been a study that would determine how much water there would be on the earth if EVERY cloud in the entire sky emptied its entire water content onto the earth?
We all know it as scientific fact that clouds are floating water particles, right? We all know the basic process that naturally causes rain, right?
How much water is actually floating up there?"
Also.
Rainbows happen today any time the correct pyhsical conditions exist. The conditions are, basically, the angle of the sun in the sky at two specific times of day and the moisture content of the air. Given the correct proportion of the two you get a rainbow, any time, every time.
'Combining' those (scientifically discovered) physical characteristics which lead to rainbows mixed with the statements from Genesis... Chapter 9, verses 12 - 17:
"And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
I do set my bow in the cloud , and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant , which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth."
Hmmm "...when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:" seems to support the science that whenever the conditions exist, "the (rain)bow shall be seen in the cloud."
And "the waters shall no more become a flood" indicates existing water(s) BECAME the flood, because He said, "not again ."
I think it could be reasonable to think the clouds already there emptied all, or at least enough, of their content to flood the entire earth... because "the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them."
Finished most likely included clouds which were simply referred to later in chapter 9, not mentioned as being a new thing that was made as a result of the flood.
And, given the details listed:
- Noah's age, Gen 7:6
- the amount of days it rained, 7:12
- the dates given, 7:11
- the number of days the flood lasted, 7:24
- that date, 8:4
- the number of days it took for the waters to receed, 8:5
- and when Noah opened the window 8:6.
- the dates when the ground dried, 8:13, 14...
combined with the science of how rainbows work...
Had we not lost the location of the mountain where the ark landed we could determine approximately the day the day and approximate time of day God made the covenant with Noah. Because rainbows only happen at certain times of the day.
The key to understanding things about life is by combining things we see and know from science WITH what we know from God's word.
Not from separating the two and fighting about it.
Satan doth surely know that if we combined science WITH the Bible we could only conclude there is in fact One true, living and Loving God.
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Jbarrax
Thanks Def. Ain't the Cafe a groovy place? :-)
JerryB
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
kawoteFor those who do not accept by faith what Christ has done for them and do not recognize their sinful nature and need for redemption, the Bible warns that such people will live forever, but will be separated from God in a place of torment that the Bible calls Hell. But for those who commit their lives to the Lord—what a wonderful message! What a wonderful Savior! What a wonderful salvation in Christ the Creator! end oh qawote straight from the AIG
Sorry~~~ i have to laugh ~~~ live forever tormented in hell eh!!! Well hell's bells. Just what the devil wants. Do I get a pitch fork, blackish red skin, and one of those pointy tails?
I will continue to read.
I love to laugh ya know!
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
...I suggested that before they could really teach effectively about the other issues, they needed to get the students’ attention that the Bible was the infallible Word of God, and really could be trusted. ~~~
Main Entry: in·fal·li·ble
Pronunciation: (")in-'fa-l&-b&l
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Medieval Latin infallibilis, from Latin in- + Late Latin fallibilis fallible
Date: 15th century
1 : incapable of error : UNERRING <an infallible memory>
2 : not liable to mislead, deceive, or disappoint : CERTAIN <an infallible remedy>
3 : incapable of error in defining doctrines touching faith or morals
- in·fal·li·bil·i·ty /-"fa-l&-'bi-l&-tE/ noun
- in·fal·li·bly /-'fa-l&-blE/ adverb
again from AIG
and i'ma gonna keep on reading
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TheSongRemainsTheSame
If God created the universe, then who created God? AIG
I like that writing. Nice and neat.
Bring your mind, if one can, to that point of time where there was no point of time, but yet it was always in God's mind, since God knows all things at once. How far back can one go? I think that's why God does not show face and only hind parts.
My question would be ~~~ "How is it that God was,is,will be always God?" To me that question is like staring with unprotected eyes into a total eclipse of the sun. Has anyone ever done that?
I have in the days of my youth, and that experience is burned into my eye parts. That is for proof sure. If there was nothing before God~~~ never stare into a total eclipse of the sun...
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LG
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LG
I’m not attacking the Bible. I’m asking a few questions that need to be answered before even beginning to think that it should be accepted as factual, rather than figurative. Figurative is not a bad thing. If a particular section is figurative, then it is no basis for scientific investigation, but it certainly could be a basis for spiritual understanding.
I truly don’t understand why some folks feel so threatened by the possibility that the first few chapters of Genesis are figurative, especially if they acknowledge that the Bible uses figures of speech liberally in other places, and recognize that Jesus’ manner of teaching (parables) was apparently mostly figurative.
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LG
According to this creationist site, all the water on earth and in the atmosphere is about 22% of the amount that would be required to cover all land on earth.
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Oakspear
His concept of God as he describes it is nowhere near the Christian or biblical one; he envisions God has the initiator who sat back and refused to get involved...like the Deists' God.
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Oakspear
Oops...the second link uses the term "evolved"...my mistake
:o-->
He is quoted as saying "Follow the evidence, wherever it leads." - which IMHO, many more biblical literalists fail to do than scientists
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