Posted on 05/12/2006 12:13:47 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.
In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."
Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.
Good, so we'll ignore it and move on.
Remember the Epistle to James:
The problem with calling on James here is that you're mixing a number of things that don't mix. Sanctification and justification are not the same thing, yet you seem to be mistaking the two. Further, James is not talking about salvation. James is talking about faith in general. Faith afterall, is not salvation. Salvation comes through faith; but, Faith is like a car battery. It fuels what it will for the moment. Problem is, that as with a battery, until the circuit is closed, the battery does nothing but sit there. Thus, in strict terms, Paul's provision and case for salvation by faith alone as opposed to faith + works still involves flipping the switch. Romans 10:9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. Romans 10:10 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Paul states that you have to believe and confess christ. The confession is the switch here. It is action combined with energy to produce work. Belief + confession = salvation. How then do you imagine that you get saved then work continually to get saved? How many times are you saved? The answer is once. So, either Paul is right and James is wrong, or James is speaking to something else.
James is merely saying what we say today - Actions speak louder than words. If you put batteries in the flashlight and never turn it on, the batteries will lose their strength over time and in the end are wasted. But, if you turn the flashlight on, the batteries are able to serve their purpose. Thus, you can brag that you have batteries in your flashlight - even the best batteries made. So what, if you never turn the thing on, it is waste and vanity. Thus, I do not brag about my Batteries; but, show that I have them by using my flashlight.
That is a modern representation of what James is saying. But, James is speaking of Spiritual things. If you claim to have great faith and yet do nothing - who cares, the batteries are sitting idle and losing their power while you do nothing. If I, having faith, proceed to heal the sick by the laying on of hands, I do not need to vainly brag and my faith is shown by my putting it to use. Can faith save? Yes. And in fact it does - spiritually. Does it save physically? No. If you're dying and need food, you can have all the faith in the world that you'll survive; but, your body will die without nourishment. So, if you're looking to the poor who are starving and have faith yet do not feed them, your faith that they might survive is great; but, without any work added to getting them food, praying for them, etc, that faith produces no fruit.
James is in no way contradicting Paul. Nor is he supporting a faith + works salvation. He is merely stating the obvious. If you sit on your butt on the bleachers instead of gaining recruits, healing people and the like, your faith in God produces no results for others. You may be saved; but, God didn't save you to be a bench warmer. With God, you have a purpose. If you don't use your faith to that purpose you're a tool rotting on the field. Saved; but, rotting.
To repeat, faith is not salvation. Faith is the means to salvation. Faith also powers miracles and the moving of God in our lives otherwise. If we fail to put action behind faith, the batteries die and we are useless to God. Saved; but, useless. Bragging about how much faith we have is vanity. You can brag about your faith. I show mine by healing the sick, raising the dead, etc.. See the point. Greater things will you do because he went to the father. But doing great things isn't what saved you. Believing and confessing saves you. And there is no other possible way. If people are going to know that you are saved, your faith should be exhibiting itself rather than your mouth bragging about it..
We aren't putting ourselves in His place by looking at doctrine and determining if it is of God or not. And, indeed, if we are not making those judgements, we are laying down on the job and leaving the flock unprotected from the ravening wolves that seek their hides.
Many if not most would warn a brother that he was about to touch a high voltage line when he wasn't paying attention. Many would go out of their way to prevent him from touching it and save his life in the doing. On the other hand, It is considered the height of kindness to see someone in error on their theology and say nothing so that they may touch the bare exposed wire and fry their eternal souls. To this end, we should all be friends together and practice the doctrine of highest esteem "NonRockaBoatus". I say to hell with that doctrine because that is precisely the author of it and where it belongs.
Catholics accept Christ as Savior--- I'll guess that's why Martin didn't say the Catholic Church was a cult.
Catholics accept A Christ as Savior. The Christ accepted by Catholics is an entirely different critter than the God of Christianity. The name is the same. The definition and who he is in Catholic theology is what betrays the difference. The Christ (anointed) of Christianity told us 'Believe and confess'. Catholicism says, No - preach that and you are accursed. It is, in Catholicism, Faith + Works. The Christian version is accursed by Catholics.
The Christian faith has no blood sacrifice. In point of fact, a Blood sacrifice by Christ is what sealed Christianity into existance. The day he ascended, he presented this sacrifice to god and purchased - past tense - our salvation. He owns it and has owned it every since that day. There is nothing more to purchase and no further need for a presentation of that sacrifice. It was currency used for a purchase one time for all of humanity. The purchase was made. The currency changed hands. And the Chief high priest of Christianity sat down. This is made clear In Hebrews over and over and is repeated, bolstered and fortified by the entirety of the New testament. But not so in Catholicism. Catholic salvation is a continual grace injection whereby one must get Grace from a storehouse or "treasury" as Vatican II puts it that is managed by the church and doled out in parcels such that no one ever knows if they are saved for sure, going to heaven or 'purgatory' which Christianity also knows nothing of.. etc.
The more we go along in examining the differences the wider the gap and the more apparent the differences are. Furthermore, the differneces are so vast, no one could ever get to Catholicism from the Bible. It isn't possible. Try it. Ignore the councils, ignore the pronouncements, bulls, and traditions. Sit down with your bible and try to find Roman Catholicism in it. The closest you will come is the Pharisees and the Judaizers. But doctrine wise, you'll never reproduce the doctrines of Catholicism. That takes philosophy. And Christianity is not a construct of philosophy. It is a covenant derived from revelation. These are the differences. Not all of them, they are vast. we could be here for years going over it all detail by detail and not cover it all.
Catholicism is a religion. Catholicism looks similar to Christianity. But Catholicism is not Christian. It may have started out Christian. But to the extent it did, it's gone far afield from where it started. Alas, we aren't interested in that - only in what it is right now. It isn't Christian. It won't be Christian until it's doctrines are Christian instead of philosophical constructs that replace the Christian ones.
"I am talking to you,..."
Good. I'm not talking to you. Have fun talking to yourself.
"And BTW there is plenty of evidence, other posters have made the same observations of you."
Bring it on.
Entertainment.
You seem to have taken it up as your burden to give me advice. I warn you, it will be an ungrateful task. I did not claim at any point claim that Jews were massacred in the Papal States.
Fair 'nuff. I still haven't gotten around to Carrier's work on Plain Talk...I've got several other good things to read from this thread to get to as well.
Did you check out the book The Nazi Seizure of Power from my post 479?
No insistence,as I am not sure whether you are merely interested in the "Hitler was / wasn't a Christian" debate as an adjunct to your atheism, or a military / history buff, or some of both. But the book is fascinating.
Cheers!
A girl in one of my classes is Coptic Christian from Egypt. Coptics share many of the beliefs and rites of Catholicism because their modes of worship have changed very little over the centuries.
She has gone through things to remain true to Christ that I can't imagine. I can't see how she's not a Christian.
That may seem like an overly emotional response that doesn't address your points, and in fact it doesn't address them.
However, that's my point--- doctrine has its place, but you're putting way over actual faith in your estimation of others.
And you're doing more than even that... You're claiming that you know whether others refer to God.
This is from Lewis's The Last battle. Yes, I'm sure you don't consider him a Christian either, and yes, I'm using a source other than the Bible to make a point. But I think the point about the distinction betwen what someone means and someone refers to is well made.
As I said, various prophets of the Old Testament didn't know that their propecies referred to Christ--- but they did.
Anyway, he's the passage from the "Last Battle":
"Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he had truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.
"Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that, he said not much but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in. Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone suddenly" (204,206).
So you reject the Bible as the divinely inspired word of God?
So you reject the Bible Vedas as the divinely inspired word of God Brahma?
Such a stupid game ...
Well, you’re right about Fred Hoyle being that.
However, while it’s true that going out on a limb doesn’t make someone a trailblazer anymore than, as leftists never cease reminding us, President Bush’s unpopularity doesn’t make him a Lincoln* it’s also true that trailblazers are often those who go out on limbs.
Hoyle’s discovery of nucleosynthesis in stars deserved the Nobel and his pushing of the steady state thesis, though mistaken, pushed Big Bang supporters to step up their game.
*It’s his steadfastness in the face of unpoularity that does that
Man, you refuse to answer a direct question, don't you? BACK UP THIS STATEMENT. Point to ANY Evo, much less me, who has demonstrated anti-catholic AND anti-christian bigotry AND has based that in discussions about TToE.
Put up or shut up.
In any event you have made some pretty wild a** bald assertions (on a religion thread even) that you never backed up.
This isn't a religious thread. And again, BACK THIS STATEMENT UP. I have quoted you.
YOU are the one who is making broad and baseless statements. I have quoted you. BACK THEM UP.
Please do show where I have ever posted anything from any Freepmail onto the public forum...and I never ping anyone on any thread to anyone elses Freepmail...you just love to make things up, dont you?...
Unless you can show exactly how, when and where and about whom, I ever made a freepmail public, I will conclude that you are lying...
I am going to take back my last post...yes, one time, in 5 yrs, when I posted a private Freepmail to someone, I accidentally posted it to the thread..and I also took responsibility for it, and expected to be banned for it...
But I have never made anyone elses Freepmail public on thread...so I take it back, you were not lying...
However, do note, it was not what someone else Freepmail to me that was made public, it was what I sent to someone else via Freepmail, and I accidentally hit the reply button instead...
I make mistakes...as does everyone else on these threads...
That's true -- no one claims it isn't possible. Until, that is, it's put forth as a hypothesis. And then it becomes, somehow, a "non-scientific" position. And therein lies the complaint: that the unarguable validity of the hypothesis is dismissed out of hand.
Verification of the hypothesis is, of course, another matter. However, the "anti-ID claim" is that, essentially, it would be impossible to detect design. Perhaps -- or perhaps not -- but the claim itself is completely unscientific: is it really impossible to detect it, or merely rhetorically convenient to make the claim?
The fact, however, is that design is a perfectly valid hypothesis, precisely because it has been demonstrated.
Should you chose to believe Running Wolfs characterization of me, that I allow Freepmails(you will notice he said the plural form, insinuating, that more than once I have allowed a private Freepmail to go on the public thread), to go public, and you hesitate in talking to me via Freepmail, I will understand...
Do take note...one time, in my five years here, I sent a Freepmail to someone, and I accidentally hit the 'reply' button, instead of the 'private reply' button...immediately, I realized my mistake but it was too late to retreive this Freepmail...it was a one time accident, as can be proved by any moderator of this forum...and what is more, I called 'abuse' on myself for having done so, (which can also be verified), apologized, Freepmailed Jim Robinson, as to what I had done, and took full responsibility for my own stupid error...I expected to be banned, but was not...all of this can be verified...
I do not make public, any Freepmails, that anyone has ever sent me, as I said, I mistakenly made public a Freepmail, that I sent to someone else...
Thanks, and whatever you chose to do, via this Freepmail conversation is fine with me....
Thanks very much...
I've observed this board for some time now. At no point have I found you to be other than honorable. I cannot say the same for your accuser.
Thanks very much...its appreciated...
The pejorative meaning of "cult" has connotations of (usually sinister) mind control and total reliance on a leader. There is often isolation from nonmembers. I'd say the Amish et al meet the isolation standard, but not the devotion to the leader one.
It has been argued that the Branch Davidians are a Christian cult, but I think a lot of that was simply propaganda to try to make the massacre look better. (EG, there is no real evidence that Koresh had relations with underage girls; the sensational congressional testimony from one girl appears to have been instigated by her father, who blamed Koresh for the failure of his marriage)
The Jehovah's Witnesses come close to the negative definition of a cult, IMO.
None of these groups are as controlling as the Scientologists, Hare Krishnas, Children of God, and so forth.
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