Replies

Sorry to be so late in getting back to this thread.

Soliton at 251: You don't seem to understand the meaning of faith. I wouldn't be surprised if my chair broke. It has happened before. It has never happened because of supernatural reasons however.

It appears you have faith in the natural but not in the supernatural.

I suspect that “reality” for you begins and ends with your sensory perceptions and reasoning.

metmom at 254: Not true. You [Soliton] believe that science can prove things and lead one to the truth. That takes faith..

Indeed. It also takes faith to believe that he exists and that science exists.

betty boop at 266: Why do you [Soliton] think that Christians "are rude, semi-literate goobers?" Do you not know the magnificent history of the Church, its amazing legacy to mankind in the sciences and in philosophy? Which originally conceived the idea of the university? And whose members have articulated the most profound discoveries WRT man and his place in the universe over the past centuries? Who is the "semi-literate goober" here, Soliton?

LOLOL! But not surprising that he excludes inconvenient historical evidence. He appears to be very selective.

YHAOS at 278: May I say something here? I don’t think being a rude, semi-literate goober is necessarily a Christian characteristic (or that of an Atheist, etc). It’s a human characteristic that afflicts Christians and Atheists alike (Evolutionists even). So whenever I get assailed as “a rude, semi-literate goober” (actually, I’ve never been hit with those particular pejoratives), I’m pretty well assured that something else is bugging my assailant, and, you can be reasonably certain that a drive for political domination plays its part in the assault.

So very true – people assault others for cause, often because they are seen as a threat or needing to be controlled in some sense. Others are rarely noticed at all, like the background in a portrait.

TXnMA 283 quoting Soliton: "Looks like God Himself timed His days to the rotation of the earth."

TXnMA: That is the simplistic, childish, man-centered viewpoint. With a FRname like, "soliton" are you not familiar with relativistic time? How could God's timeframe be Earth; He existed before he made Earth (and everything else)... (Interesting how you "nonbelievers" can't resist referring to the Bible... ;-) Good for you!)

I very strongly agree with you on both points, dear brother in Christ!

The word concept of “day” in Creation week has deeper meaning. First the prophetic meaning in Scripture:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. – Genesis 2:17

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died. – Genesis 5:5

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. – Psalms 90:4

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. - 2 Peter 3:8

Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath [days]: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body [is] of Christ. - Colossians 2:16-17

And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath. – Mark 2:27-28

And the early Christian understanding of the prophesy from the ancient manuscript The Epistle of Barnabas:

Of the Sabbath He speaketh in the beginning of the creation; And God made the works of His hands in six days, and He ended on the seventh day, and rested on it, and He hallowed it. Give heed, children, what this meaneth; He ended in six days. He meaneth this, that in six thousand years the Lord shall bring all things to an end; for the day with Him signifyeth a thousand years; and this He himself beareth me witness, saying; Behold, the day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years.

Therefore, children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, everything shall come to an end. And He rested on the seventh day. this He meaneth; when His Son shall come, and shall abolish the time of the Lawless One, and shall judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he truly rest on the seventh day. .

Yea and furthermore He saith; Thou shalt hallow it with pure hands and with a pure heart. If therefore a man is able now to hallow the day which God hallowed, though he be pure in heart, we have gone utterly astray. But if after all then and not till then shall we truly rest and hallow it, when we shall ourselves be able to do so after being justified and receiving the promise, when iniquity is no more and all things have been made new by the Lord, we shall be able to hallow it then, because we ourselves shall have been hallowed first.

Finally He saith to them; Your new moons and your Sabbaths I cannot away with. Ye see what is His meaning ; it is not your present Sabbaths that are acceptable [unto Me], but the Sabbath which I have made, in the which, when I have set all things at rest, I will make the beginning of the eighth day which is the beginning of another world.

Wherefore also we keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the which also Jesus rose from the dead, and having been manifested ascended into the heavens. - chapter 15:3-9

And additional insight into the meaning of the ancient Hebrew terms for evening and morning in the words of Jewish Physicist Gerald Schroeder:

Age of the Universe

Nachmanides says the text uses the words "Vayehi Erev" - but it doesn't mean "there was evening." He explains that the Hebrew letters Ayin, Resh, Bet - the root of "erev" - is chaos. Mixture, disorder. That's why evening is called "erev", because when the sun goes down, vision becomes blurry. The literal meaning is "there was disorder." The Torah's word for "morning" - "boker" - is the absolute opposite. When the sun rises, the world becomes "bikoret", orderly, able to be discerned. That's why the sun needn't be mentioned until Day Four. Because from erev to boker is a flow from disorder to order, from chaos to cosmos. That's something any scientist will testify never happens in an unguided system. Order never arises from disorder spontaneously. There must be a guide to the system. That's an unequivocal statement.

The words of God are spirit and life. The words of men are neither spirit nor life.

It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, [they] are spirit, and [they] are life. – John 6:63

For that reason, the words of God can only be spiritually discerned. The ones Jesus is addressing below were physically hearing Him but they could not spiritually hear Him:

Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. – John 8:43

But we Christians do hear Him:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: - John 10:27

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know [them], because they are spiritually discerned. - I Corinthians 2:14

To God be the glory!

Lots of angels on the head of that pin.

Nice analysis. And thanks for the references.

Let me re-iterate, though, that the objections offered by a skeptic are rarely the reason that they reject the Christian God of the Bible.

You folks are approaching this with the mindset of
“if only I address the objections that this skeptic is bringing up, he’ll see the light and accept God”.

Hardly. There are usually (99%+) simpler issues for which the objections are simply cover.

What would the skeptic have to give up if he truly accepted the God of the Bible?
Some selfish little sin, usually, and usually linked with PRIDE.