Posted on 06/12/2007 8:29:09 AM PDT by mjp
“Ah, the “my way or the highway” approach to faith and religious belief. A shame, really, that some are unable to recognize truth from allegory.”
Whatever.
Exactly! As I type this I am sitting in a basic chair. I did not see it happen, but I know that, at some point, several people sat down and designed it taking into account things like surface seating area, angle of the back rest, height of the arm rests, etc. Someone else made the parts of the chair and them someone else assembled it. I know this chair did not just come into existence accidentally - it was designed.
Yet some would have me believe that the human body (or our planet, solar system, etc.), something infinitely more complex that this chair, came into existence by pure accident.
I don’t think so.
Can't explain it because it is all BS. It sounds technical to non-technical people, but to those of us that do science for a living, this guy is a quack.
Whatever.
___________
Exactly my point. You will not engage with those who think differently than you on a topic near and dear to your heart. You are simply dismissive.
Enjoy.
Who claims “pure accident” is the reason for our existance?
Those who think chairs are self-replicating? (I know coat hangers are, but not chairs!)
Coat hangers have to self replicate - it balanced the self disappearing socks.
I joined the Church (Baptist) when I was 6 (not knowing I had already been baptized as a baby). I went to church when even my parents stopped going. God gave me a mind, created in his likeness (not just the physical body). Beyond just hearing his Word, we are to actively think about it. It is only by actively thinking that God reveals His great wisdom and power. We are not the animals, who live constantly "in the moment"; we are above them.
We could get into a really really really long Bible discussion, and maybe we should on another thread. As for His Word, you know that it has been interpreted and re-interpreted and sliced and diced by Men over 4000 years. Not to mention how language changes over even a single lifetime. This is why, to me, God commands me to think. To make sense of His Word and the world He has put me in.
Big Bang Theory.
Cells that, by sheer chance, came together in some primordial sea/ooze and then land based organisms were formed.
These things are in my kids textbooks......
Many, of us, feel that some scientists have put questions in the minds of God’s people, just as satan put the original question in Eve’s mind.
While we all love learning, and the benifits of most knowledge, we must never forget that God gave us these gifts.
Mr. (Dr.?) Tipler feels that there is a point, while many seek to disprove God’s Word, they cannot. God does not want us to prove his Word. We must only believe in It, to to be filled by it.
We are not to fear “global warming”. We are only to trust in God.
Do you trust in God to heal you or do you go to a doctor?
Ditto!
>>If you don’t believe Genesis, then you don’t believe God.<<
I’m curious, as a Christian, as to how you derive that requirement. Consider the gentiles that Jesus directly converted, who believed in Him and were saved. Does this mean they didn’t believe in God since they likely had never read Genesis?
I think that there is a difference between having read it and saying it is not true, and to have not read it.
The main point is that to denounce the Word of God is to call God a liar.
How convenient to couch God in terms that can neither be proven nor disproven.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
BUMP
Actually, God is just a guy in a different universe who runs a Hooters and gets his kicks by scaring people in other universes.
You sure you want to mess with a “licensed” preacher?
“Coat hangers have to self replicate’
Not as such. They metamorphose. The larval form of coat hangers is the paper clip.
Tipler wrote the general physics text book I used in college. I believe it is a widely used book. It cost a lot of money. I believe Tipler probably makes much more money from book sales than salary from his day job.
By the way it was a very good, well laid out text. It’s the only text that I can remember the author’s name. Plus it was very heavy.
>> I think that there is a difference between having read it and saying it is not true, and to have not read it.
The main point is that to denounce the Word of God is to call God a liar.<<
I see the distinction you are making.
And one the one occasion that God spoke directly to me (that I’m aware of) it would have been wrong to deny Him, of course but that wasn’t even a reasonable choice - when God speaks directly it is beyond powerful.
But when when I read and hear of other’s encounters with God I do consider that it is filtered through a human. God didn’t reveal any new science to me so I think its quite reasonable that he didn’t reveal to the writers of Genesis any math or science beyond what they already knew in the 5th century BC.
They had no concept of what a billion years was. Or how man came to be or radioactivity or many other things.
Besides, isn’t it arrogant to think that a man could remember and record all of God’s understanding about the history of the earth, even if it was shown to him?
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