I use the example of the Pope to show the blind fanaticism of many of the cretarded set and to do a “reducto ad absurdum” argument, reducing their hateful argument to its (ill)logical conclusion - the Pope is going to Hell.
They say ‘you cannot be a Christian and accept Evolution’ or one of a thousand permutations of the same zealot argument of ‘Agree with me or you are going to go to Hell’.
I point out the Pope's view on evolution and ask them if they consider the Pope a Christian.
If they don't consider the Pope a Christian, and think Pope John Paul II is burning in hell as we speak; well to me (and to many others I imagine) it takes a bit of the sting out of their accusation that I too will share that fate. At least I will be in good company! ;)
It's baiting.
They say ‘you cannot be a Christian and accept Evolution’ or one of a thousand permutations of the same zealot argument of ‘Agree with me or you are going to go to Hell’.
Follow this logic. The Bible is the Word of God. It is true. Someone who believes in God believes what He says and that His word is true.
Jesus spoke of creation and the Flood and other events in the OT as true. Peter did as well, as did other writers of the NT.
If you're going to say that they aren't true and didn't really happen, you are going to have to either call the Bible a lie, or Jesus a liar, or the writers of the Bible liars.
The problem most creationists have with this is the how someone who calls themselves a Christian, which means they claim to have believed and trusted Christ for salvation, can say that Jesus lied about what He spoke about.
That is a just too much of a stretch for someone who claims to believe God. If you believe that He is who He said He is, then you must take Him as His word.
If you pick and choose what parts you want to believe and don't trust that all of it is true, then there's no basis for believing that ANY of it is true.
If it's not reliable enough to trust in some parts, how does one reconcile the belief that it's reliable enough to believe for salvation?
It's not a matter of believing in evolution will send one to hell. It's a matter of the person claiming to be a Christian and not believing God.
Yes, it is an appeal to authority. Otherwise, you wouldn’t pick the pope for your argument.
You pick him because you think that no one would dare say the Pope is going to hell for not believing God and that if anyone on the planet is a Christian, he is.
Insisting on reading evolution into the creation account is reading more into it than it says.
Claiming that God used evolution to create man from lower creatures denies what the Bible and Jesus clearly say otherwise.
How anyone can claim to be a Christian and have faith in God and then go on to deny the truth of what He tells us in His Word is beyond me.
How someone can do the mental gymnastics necessary to reconcile believing God and calling Him a liar at the same time is beyond me, but it just doesn’t fit that someone who trusts Him enough for salvation doesn’t trust Him enough to take Him at His word, even when it doesn’t fit with what other people say.
And the ToE is nothing more than a human construct in an attempt to explain some of what they saw that doesn’t require belief in God. IT is not written in stone. Trying to adjust God’s Word to fit man’s explanations is a precarious position to be in.
If God and His Word are not trustworthy enough to believe when compared to human constructs, how can you consider it trustworthy enough to trust Him for salvation?