Posted on 02/12/2006 10:32:27 AM PST by PatrickHenry
Stating one's belief is never a lie, so watch the personal attacks on this female Freeper and most definitely a non troll.
So, if I am misinformed about your Christian belief in a personal God, why don't you give us your testimony of such now?
Ready...
What about the actual dinosaurs? Were they on the ark? :)
BTW, if the world was covered in water, the salt in the oceans (most of the water) would have killed most freshwater animals and plants. The change in salinity plus the change in PH would have been devastating. Anybody who has ever kept tropical fish would know this intuitively.
Or 3) Parts of the Bible are right, and parts of it are wrong.
Or even more likely:
4) xzins and others are misreading parts of the Bible in a way which is wrong.
And personally, I prefer to learn directly from God's *actual* work (the world itself, and the evidence it provides) than from misunderstandings about the "unshakable word of God" from someone who keeps getting the easy stuff wrong.
Some folks need to get a clue from past mistakes of this same sort:
"The doctrine of the movements of the earth and the fixity of the sun is condemned [by Biblical literalists] on the ground that the Scriptures speak in many places of the sun moving and the earth standing still… I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments and demonstrations." -- Galileo GalileiPop quiz: Who was right -- Galileo, learning from observation and evidence, or the Pope and his entire Church, relying on their reading of the text of the Bible?
Does the Sun actually revolve around the fixed Earth, as the Church was convinced the Bible clearly said?
"And if Your Reverence would read not only the Fathers but also the commentaries of modern writers on Genesis, Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Josue, you would find that all agree in explaining literally (ad litteram) that the sun is in the heavens and moves swiftly around the earth, and that the earth is far from the heavens and stands immobile in the center of the universe. [...] I add that the words 'the sun also riseth and the sun goeth down, and hasteneth to the place where he ariseth, etc.' were those of Solomon, who not only spoke by divine inspiration but was a man wise above all others and most learned in human sciences and in the knowledge of all created things, and his wisdom was from God."And:
-- Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, April 12, 1615 letter to Foscarini concerning Galileo's "heresy".
"Whereas you, Galileo, son of the late Vaincenzo Galilei, Florentine, aged seventy years, were in the year 1615 denounced to this Holy Office for holding as true the false doctrine taught by some that the Sun is the center of the world and immovable and that the Earth moves, and also with a diurnal motion; for having disciples to whom you taught the same doctrine; for holding correspondence with certain mathematicians of Germany concerning the same; for having printed certain letters, entitled "On the Sunspots," wherein you developed the same doctrine as true; and for replying to the objections from the Holy Scriptures, which from time to time were urged against it [i.e. for disagreeing with Bible-based criticisms - Ich.] [...] This Holy Tribunal being therefore of intention to proceed against the disorder and mischief thence resulting, which went on increasing to the prejudice of the Holy Faith, [...] The proposition that the Sun is the center of the world and does not move from its place is absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Furthermore, in order to completely eliminate such a pernicious doctrine, and not let it creep any further to the great detriment of Catholic truth, the Holy Congregation of the Index issued a decree which prohibited books which treat of this and declaring the doctrine itself to be false and wholly contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture. [...] We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, Galileo, by reason of these things which have been detailed in the trial and which you have confessed already, have rendered yourself according to this Holy Office vehemently suspect of heresy, namely of having held and believed a doctrine that is false and contrary to the divine and Holy Scripture: namely that Sun is the center of the world and does not move from east to west, and that one may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined contrary to Holy Scripture. [...] Consequently, you have incurred all the censures and penalties enjoined and promulgated by the sacred Canons and all particular and general laws against such delinquents.If the Vatican itself get get Scripture so freaking wrong when they read it, I have even less confidence in the textual interpretations of amateurs. And I'll take the considered opinion of 10,000 Christian clergy over xzins's impression of whether evolution is compatible with scripture.
-- Papal Condemnation (Sentence) of Galileo (June 22, 1633)
Stating one's belief is never a lie, so watch the personal attacks on this female Freeper and most definitely a non troll.
Okay, that leaves us with "stupid". Thanks for the clarification.
""BTW, if the world was covered in water, the salt in the oceans (most of the water) would have killed most freshwater animals and plants. The change in salinity plus the change in PH would have been devastating. Anybody who has ever kept tropical fish would know this intuitively.""
Makes sense to me.
Nope, Jesus is a religious figure. You are welcome to your belief in him, but that doesn't mean that your belief is true.
Try to prove He wasn't who He said He was.
First, it's impossible to prove a negative, especially regarding a supposed deity. Second, why should I? I have better things to do with my life than to try to prove something like that. You believe in him. Good for you. If you don't try to have that belief disseminated in violation of the law or force anyone else to believe it, and you probably won't have any problem from me.
Since you don't believe in a personal God who can see your heart and knows your inner thoughts, what's bugging you so much?
The attempt by some God-ish folk to force their beliefs into the public schools and lie to children. The assumption that because they believe it, that it's okay to make everybody to listen to it, even in violation of the law. Basically that. Plus, they tend to be closed minded, shallow thinkers without any interest in learning about the real world if it challenges their religious sensibilities.
I think I know.
I'm sure you think you know. I hear all the time about how, deep down inside, I "fear" God. I hope that's not where you're going with this because, trust me, I no more fear your God then I fear Darth Vader or Cap't Ahab. I'm not trying to be flippant (well, very flippant), but I think your God is fictional.
No, stupid is when you don't recognize there is a personal, loving God who loves us all enough to have created this marvelous thing called life -- without needing evolution to help Him.
If God is God, He doesn't need evolution. He needs us to take Him at His word and be an intellectual apologist for same.
And God doesn't call people who don't believe in Him stupid.
He calls them "fools".
As has been made quite clear on this thread, that's hardly the only variety of "stupid".
Nonetheless, you have yet to address the basic point of whether or not theistic evolution shows its face in the bible in the same way as Moses shows up, Jesus shows up, even trinitarianism shows up.
But....theistic evolution does not show up.
That's a fact.
Others might find an emanation or a penumbra to get them there, but in the same way that abortion does not show up in our US Constitution, so does theistic evolution not show up in the Bible.
I imagine that there are far more Christian theologians now and in history who side with me on this.
So, yes, I am "a stranger and a pilgrim in this land...seeking a city....whose builder and maker is God. " Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called my God.
Well, glad you are neither hot nor cold about faith.
Then why bother with conservatism?
Sentiment?
Years ago, I used to spend weeks at a time debating the evolutionists here on FR. I had the respect of a number of them, including Patrick Henry. I stopped for lack of time and weariness over going in circles: The same arguments came up every single time, with the same refutations and counter-refutations.
Re: Sternberg, the fact remains that his career has been crippled because he has dared allowed question of the ruling paradigm to have voice. The fact also remains that there was huge emotional outcry instead of scientific consideration for Meyer's article. Evolutionists have set up a situation where it is impossible for an IDer (let alone a Creationist) to get published and still have a career, and then turn around and deride their opponents for not having a whole lot of peer-reviewed articles and research. Well, duh. That's right up there with Democrats during the Clinton years asking why, if he really did sell our nuclear tech to the Chinese, the MSM wasn't all over the story.
It's a lie to say that evolution is portrayed as the *answer to everything*.
That's a bit of hyperbole on my part, true--but it's not far off. Evolution, the biological theory, has long since branched off into Evolution, the religion, in which everything, from the current forms of animals and plants to the first life to human morality to the universe itself all "evolved." It's become the catch-phrase answer for the non-theist, every bit as much a "god-of-the-gaps" as any Creationist could be accused of:
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.If Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, didn't think evolution explained "everything," including abiogenesis, then it would hardly serve to make him "an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Ergo, he really does think that evolution, in one manner or another, explains everything that the theist points to God for--and more.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, p. 6
CG, it says that Christianity is MYTH.
Wake up.
Any interpretation that accepts that Christianity is MYTH is a story without substance.
That WILL catch up to it before too long.
"Faith is the substance of things HOPED for; the evidence of things NOT SEEN."
"CG, it says that Christianity is MYTH."
It says that your interpretation is wrong. It does not say Christianity is a myth.
And your equating your version of Christianity and theism is nonsense. Not believing your version of Christianity does not make one an atheist. YOU don't get to redefine the meanings of words.
Sentiment?
Because conservatism isn't just about faith. Conservatism, to me provides a way to promote, in basic, practical terms, those policies necessary for a prosperous economic system, a stable and healthy society, a legal system which respects the rights of the individual and a safe and defended United States of America.
Divorce your conservative values from the underlying Christian culture in the US and you get -- India. Why stay here?
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