Posted on 01/12/2008 7:45:31 PM PST by trumandogz
Indeed he was. People lived much longer before the Flood.
Dowd speaking at a Unitarian church? Enough said! He is irrelevant!
You presume they are literal. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Light. No man comes to the Father, but by Me.” He isn’t a light bulb—that is figurative. Can’t be anything else. “No man comes but by Me.” He is the only way to salvation. Can’t be anything else. “I am the Door.” Can’t be literal, like a door swinging on hinges. But it does mean He is the way to get to the Father.
You use Scripture to interpret Scripture.
Catholic School Boy also.
In Catholic School we were taught that Evolution is fact and that the idea of a young earth was BS.
You mean, most creationists respond whereas evolutionists duck and cover.
The fact that he’s preaching to the choir at UU “churches” says a lot.
Why? What changed?
OK, let's look at Noah's flood. Considering that it would be impossible do we assume it's figurative and not literal?
I've noticed the opposite to be the case most of the time.
If flood is figurative, then the Virgin Birth and the resurrection are figurative. Heaven and hell are figurative. God is figurative.
Hello, Richard Dawkins.
May the real Truth win...
If the flood is not figurative then where did all the water come from and where did it go to?
My chief complaint is how the Theory of the Survival of the Fittest has been massaged into the Law that God is Dead in the Public Schools. Darwin at core said that if you are a faster runner than the rest of the rabbits, you will live to pass on "run fast" genes to the herd. This is perfectly reasonable science. But the way this theory has been expanded on and applied has excluded God from being the motive force behind all life, and I think that's wrong. Gravity has Laws because we can observe it in action, and I doubt many Christians would deny gravity; it is one evidence that God engineered Laws into his universe. But we can SEE gravity at work, whereas nobody alive but Jesus KNOWS what the face of the deep looked like a million years ago.
While I believe in an orderly, scientific universe engineered by God, I do object to the modern Godless version of Evolution being taught to my kids as fact. In an era when we can't say "Christmas" for fear of offending some tiny splinter group of humanity, evolution should be presented as ONE of many THEORIES of how we came about.
This thread will be another one of those 1000+ entry firestorms we get on here, so here's my endword: Even though I take the Middle Road on this tempestuous issue, all recall that whatever your take on it, this is not a Salvation Threatening Issue. To some who will argue "pure" Seven Day Creation with their last breath as if their souls depended on it, bear in mind that there are science-believing unsaved humans out there that are going to hear you beating the one beat Creationism drum over their heads and decide that all Christians must be science-hating Luddites, and who go on to dismiss the soul-saving Gospel of Jesus Christ as so much snake oil. I wouldn't want to answer to that at the Judgment.
On the other hand, if you spent as much time and enthusiasm preaching to those scientific lost souls that there is a God who made everything (leave it at that) and that He loves them gently, personally and eternally to the extent that He endured physical death in their place and then defeated it to make them clean before God, you will be doing what God commanded us to do. Let THEM decide if early Genesis is parable or fact after they are in the boat of Salvation, rather than debate them about Creation with their last as they gasp and go under to die.
In any event, and from any angle, if I am wrong, GOD will explain it to me in the hereafter when he goes through the stack of 3x5 cards with all our questions on them, and we'll all know the truth of his mysteries. And you know what? By then I hope to be spending all my time singing, so it probably won't seem all that important anyway.
Clearly, a bazillion years ago, God spoke...and there was Light.
Jesus said, “I am the door.” Did He have hinges? I can see through the imagery.
...and of course, my concern is if their Theory of Evolution is one that allows God was behind it all. If it is a UU church, then maybe Budda was. Or not. Or Mohammed. Or the number six. Or an attractive shade of Blue. Or the Wiccans. Or whatever your Inner Self tells you.
Seriously, I can go with Man being the result of a million tiny changes, but if you take God out of the drivers' seat...it's all pretty pointless.
Well, only if YOU say so. I'm good with those.
The water cycle says Noah’s flood would be impossible. Is meteorolgy imagery?
Which side of this are you arguing?
While I lean on the side of Science in all things, most ancient cultures have a Flood story, and I have to recall that Jesus changed water to wine and healed the blind, so God is not above performing miracles if He chooses to. While I have formed an opinion about the creation of all things, I am not well informed enough on the Flood to have much of one there.
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