Posted on 03/20/2009 7:59:40 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
In a recent book review, Jerry Coyne, professor of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, admitted that the secular worldview of macroevolution (the development of complex life from “simpler” forms) is at odds with Christian faith...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
Simple way to prove me wrong:
Find out where some of the ancient text is today, and then tell me where it came from.
Can you do that?
Where did Lazarus go?
He did not go to Heaven and stay, he did not go to Hell and stay.
Maccabees and other books were considered Christian by the Church, more than 500 years before the Eastern Schism, and more than 1000 years before Catholic Priest Martin Luther.
My grandparents owned a farm. I grew up surrounded by farms. So, yes, I've not just "been to" farms, I've worked on them. Have you? "Been to" implies that you view them as a destination, sort of like Disney World, so I'll say not.
You're tying yourself up into knots, trying to prove some strange point here. Dung is not a living creature, LomanBill. Not in my world. Think. Try to understand even that which you reject.
I do not accept evolution. I believe in Creation. But, Bishop Ussher's time line is very subjective, just like the 6 days of Creation. At what point does a day become 24 hours?
If God can make the sun stand still (yes, I believe He did), He can Speak anything into existence any way He wishes, without the limits of "science"? Fod is light. He provided the sun for warmth and comfort, just as he made the rotation of the earth to provide gravity. But first, it was "without form and void".
I believe the "Big Bang" theory is likely. God spoke and it came spewing from His mouth. Life did not begin until later. First came the physical presence we call the "universe".
Evolution is sciences way of denying God's very Being. It is truly incompatible with Scripture, BUT, that does not make a 24 hour period, for a Genesis day. God doesn't work on man's time frame. He Is!
I believe we are alone in this universe. I don't see God changing His mind, nor making "mistakes". His ways are unknown to us, they are hidden. Some day we will know. Now we have faith...
I have to admit to an act of plagairism. That was a quote from Thomas Paine.
“You claim all Christians in that time period were ALL Catholics...What a bunch of bunk...
Name a Christian faith, at the time the first Bible was canonized, in 397, that was NOT in full union with the Roman Catholic Church, would you please?
Are you?
(worn keyboard, hunt & pecker!)
You say that everyone knew which books belonged and which didn't, in the early Church? The early Church HAD NO BIBLE!
In fact, God is never known in the Bible to command the Bible be written, and there is no Scripture, anywhere in the New Testament, saying that a Bible was to be written, and there is no Scripture, anywhere, saying which books were and were not be a part of the Bible that the Catholic Church first created, under the Divine inspiration of God.
Also, Geography is not the point.
Some of you seem to think that if Catholic monks preserved ancient texts, in Ireland, or if the Catholic Councils in 397 AD obtained Scripture from Africa or met somewhere other than Rome, that this was not under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
You hate the Catholic Church so much that you have no use for reason, on this subject.
I have never once claimed that the Catholic Church has always been perfect in its actions, or in its Stewardship of the Faith -— Neither were the Jews in the Old Testament.
However, without the Jewish Faith, and the Catholic Faith, there could be no Christian Faith.
Resorting to ad hominem rather early on a Sunday, I see.
Handy trick, that, Catholics suddenly not identified as such when in the wrong.
No mere scientist, even today, knows where the center of the universe is, starlifter. The Catholic hierarchy persecuted, venally. They persecuted because their power was threatened. But, after all this time, truth be known, as far as we're concerned, the center of the universe actually is here, in God's Creation.
If you're surrounded by the infinite, where is the center? Where you are.
Is your pope not a Creationist, starlifter? Does he seek to remove God from our origin? I'm certain he does not.
As far as Hinduism, actually I do have more than a passing familiarity. If you've bothered to read the rest of the thread after your saddening little screed, I suppose you know that by now.
Have a nice Sunday, starlifter.
DANG! I went over that post so many times to correct errors and still I made that basic one. Thanks for the correction.
I agree with the rest of your post as well. Well done again!
It does contain about 20% living bacteria (mostly E. coli)by weight. They are needed and produce a vitamin (K I think) that is needed by humans. Ever get the runs when taking antibiotics? That's caused by the antibiotic killing off a lot of the bacteria in your gut. A big problem occurs when your appendix ruptures, filling your peritoneum with bacteria. Soil is mostly worm poop. The best fertilizer is dung. When we eat plants, we are eating dung that waas processed by plants.
Been there, done that.
I don't "hate" the Catholic church, Kansas58. I'm just not inclined to apologize for it when in the wrong, and it certainly has been, grossly, at times, and I'm not inclined to give it praise where none is due.
It's a huge, manmade organization, that occasionally loses sight of it's Godly mission, due in large part to excessive concerns over political power and money. I'll be the first to admit that it's done far more good than harm to and for Christians, though. European "Christendom" would not have existed without it.
The earliest known, written record of my surname comes from a Knight of the Temple, listed in the Inquisition of 1185. As a result, I have some knowledge of the history of the Catholic church, particularly in England, both good and bad. Perhaps not quite so intensively as a Catholic, but with the objectivity of an outsider. I also have some knowledge of the origins and history of the English church, both good and bad. The majority of my people, my paternal ancestry, played some role, mostly small but not all, in that episode.
So, again, I do not "hate" the Catholic church. In that you are mistaken.
No Church can claim as much direct lineage from the translations YOU claim to be authoritative as can the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Orthodox have NO problem with using the word “Father” for Priests:
-—— “Modern usage The Orthodox Church often refers to presbyters in English as priests (priest is etymologically derived from the Greek presbyteros via the Latin presbyter). This usage is seen by some Protestant Christians as stripping the laity of its rightful priestly status, while those who use the term defend its usage by saying that, while they do believe in the priesthood of all believers, they do not believe in the eldership of all believers. Presbyters are often referred to as Father (Fr.), though that is not an official title. Rather, it is a term of affection used by Christians for their ordained elders. In this context, a priest’s first name is generally used after the word Father. Priests are often styled as the Reverend (Rev.) and therefore referred to as the Reverend Father (Rev. Fr.). Higher in bestowed honor and responsibility, Archpriests and Protopresbyters are styled as the Very Reverend (V. Rev.), while Archimandrites can be styled as the Very Reverend (V. Rev.) or as the Right Reverend (Rt. Rev.). It is also appropriate and traditional to refer to a clergyman as “the Priest Name” or “Archpriest Name”. This latter practice is especially prominent in Churches with Slavic roots, such as the Church of Russia or the Orthodox Church in America. Monastics who are ordained to the priesthood are known as priest-monks or
hieromonks.” -——
http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Priest
The Orthodox pay close attention to the Roman Catholic Church, to this day, but consider the Bishop of Rome an equal with all other Bishops, and as I understand it, they think that the “authority” of Rome was to be the administration of decisions made by an official Council of Bishops, and objected to full Papal authority. Also, the “Filioque” controversy was another sad time when a fight errupted over translations:
“-— Filioque, Latin for “and (from) the Son”, was added in Western Christianity to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed. This insertion emphasizes that Jesus, the Son, is of equal divinity with God, the Father, while the absence of it in Eastern Christianity emphasizes that the Father is the only one cause of the two other persons. Et in Spiritum Sanctum, Dominum, et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit. (And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.) The doctrine expressed by this phrase, as inserted into the Creed, is accepted by the Catholic Church,[1] by Anglicanism[2] and by Protestant churches in general.[3] Christians of these groups generally include it when reciting the Nicene Creed. Nonetheless, these groups recognize that Filioque is not part of the original text established at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 and they do not demand that others too should use it when saying the Creed. Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church does not add the phrase corresponding to Filioque (καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ) to the Greek text of the Creed, even in the liturgy for Latin Rite Catholics.[4] Pope John Paul II recited the Nicene Creed several times with patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Greek according to the original text.[5] At the 879-880 Council of Constantinople the Eastern Orthodox Church anathematized the “Filioque” phrase, “as a novelty and augmentation of the Creed”, and in their 1848 encyclical the Eastern Patriarchs spoke of it as a heresy.[6] It was qualified as such by some of the Eastern Orthodox Church’s saints, including Photios I of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, Gregory Palamas, who have been called the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy. On the other hand Saint Maximus the Confessor wrote in defence of the Roman use of the Filioque,[7] maintaining that it was a legitimate variation of the doctrine that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son;[8] and Metropolitan John Zizioulas has declared that a recent document of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity “constitutes an encouraging attempt to clarify the basic aspects of the Filioque problem and show that a rapprochement between West and East on this matter is eventually possible”.[7] The Filioque became a point of contention between the Eastern and Western Churches in 867, when Patriarch Photios I of Constantinople declared it heretical. The controversy over the phrase contributed to the East-West Schism of 1054 and, despite agreements among participants at the Second Council of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Florence (1439), reunion has not been achieved.[9] A Greek Orthodox theologian has pointed to the 1054 schism as the most striking example of how practice, rather than theological differences, causes schisms: “The local Churches coexisted for centuries with the ‘Filioque’ before Church events brought the problem to a head in the period of Photios the Great, but there was no schism, and in the 1054 period the ‘Filioque’ was dormant. It came back and was intensified after this to justify it and make it fixed.”[10]” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filioque_clause So, the Eastern Orthodox, from the ancient Greek, and the Western, Latin, Roman Catholic Church are very close in their understandings of what caused the Great Schism. You will notice that VERY FEW differences exist, between the two, today. Both sides have worked hard towards Unity, in modern times, on theological issues. Scholars and Theologians, on both sides, have made the point that Geography, Language and Culture, as well as war and other events, had much to do with the original split. The split was really not theological, but was a translation issue that was blown out of proportion to meet the political needs of the leaders in that day. Now, haveing said this: It is EASY to understand why the Protestant Church went to the Eastern Church to obtain access to the ancient texts and early, Greek, translations! First, there was a huge political problem in that Protestants and Catholics were literally at war with each other, off and on, through out this Reformation period. Next, the political value of SKIPPING the Latin and going directly to the Greek appealed to those Protestants who wished to diminish the authority of the Latin Church. Amusing, then, that the Protestants RETAINED the “Filioque clause” in the Nicene Creed, since the Protestants went to the Greek Text for translation purposes. It is also amusing that you base your ENTIRE argument on the your belief that the Latin translations are wrong. How, then, do you explain the fact that the Eastern Rite and the Latin Rite, that the Greek Church and the Latin Church, are nearly identical in theology, today? The Protestants who worked on the King James Bible were FORCED to go the original Greek, since the historical manuscripts in Latin were largely unavailable to them. The Protestants who worked on the King James Bible were eager to diminish the authority of Latin, and therefore Rome, so those translators jumped at the chance to go directly from Greek to English. However, the translators involved in the King James Bible STILL referenced every other Bible translation, as proofs and checks against there own work. Every translator involved in the King James was familiar with the Vulgate Latin Bible and the English translations, from the Vulgate, and copies of those translations were available to those translators. Proof of this is easy to find. For starters, why does nearly every verse in the King James correspond DIRECTLY to every verse in the Latin Vulgage and other versions and translations of the Catholic Bible? Greek and Latin are so different from each other, and so different from Old English and from Modern English, that it is absurd to think that the verse numbers would match, perfectly, sentence by sentence, verse by verse, without a great deal of “proof checking” back and forth between the various translations. Language changes over time, quit acting like the Latin translation was ever some kind of conspiracy. Read Shakespeare and ask yourself what anyone would think of you, if you used an earlier version of English, in modern times, would you? The fact is, the Ancient Greek transcripts are the basis of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The fact is, the Roman Catholic Church is based on the earliest Latin translations. The fact is, the Eastern Orthodox and the Western Latin Churches have come to an agreement on 99% of what divides us, one from the other. And the Orthodox use the term “Father” all the time!
The dung itself is not alive. To suppose that it is, due to the presence of life within it, is rather like the Gaia Hypothesis, that the Earth is a living organism. The component of “soil” that is decayed plant and animal matter is known as humus. Deeper into the soil itself, however, below the various surface layers, it’s comprised of minerals, rocks, silica, etcetera. If a literal reading is followed, the proportion of humus to soil would be considerably lower to nearly nonexistent, early in Creation. I’m trying to point out the differences in the world, that would be necessary, in order for the Biblical account of Creation to have been possible, in light of current understanding. Not having much luck, though. I’ve been immersed in the evolutionary, materialist view all my life, and am familiar. But, there is quite a bit of brain-lock going on here, when looking at the other side of the coin.
I recall that “Friday the 13th” comes from the day when the King of France wrongly crushed the Knights Templars, pretending it was over heresy, when in fact, it was probably over money.
I also agree that the Inquisition was, in many ways, a disgrace.
However, heresy was a REAL concern for the Church, and the paranoid attention that the Church showed, in protecting against heresy, did not pop up out of no where.
It took weeks to travel from one area of “Christendom” to another. There were no telephones, no radio, no TV, no printed text. A far flung congregation could easily come in contact with false or heretical material and not know it was false, and have no means by which to test its validity.
Still, the crushing of the Templars was a horrible event. The Pope should have prevented it, he had the power to do so.
Pope John Paul II nullified the ex communications of the Eastern Metropolitans.
I wish our current Pope would nullify the judgments against the Templars, most of whom were probably innocent of all charges and faithful servants.
ya but so what??? They may be Christian but they aren't inspired by God and they aren't any part of the inspired scriptures...
There are many proven errors in the writings and the Hebrews did not accept them as the words of God...
How is it that you do not know???
Luk 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Abraham's bosom was the compartment next to Hell which is where all OT Saints went up to the time of Jesus' ascension...
Ya, Ya, Ya, you want to call this purgatory...Problem is, Abraham's bosom is currently empty...
Luk 16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
Lazarus had cool water at his figertips...
Luk 16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
Lazarus was living in comfort, not some made-up fiery purgatory......
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