Posted on 12/04/2009 8:07:39 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
In May 2009, a remarkably well-preserved extinct primate, nicknamed “Ida,” was hailed as one of the most important fossil finds ever. It had features that some interpreted as a link between two primate body forms. At the time, ICR News suggested that its evolutionary significance was far overblown, predicting that the scientific consensus would offer retractions. Those retractions came three months later, confirming that the fossil―called Darwinius―was really just an extinct lemur variety...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
Why not?
Of course. I was a school-boy at the time I was describing my thoughts.
Because a sinful human being cannot save other sinful human beings.
No. Do you assume that all religious leaders tell the truth?
Who said anyone was going to be saved?
Jesus, you know, that one you claim is only a great moral teacher.
Either He’s a great moral teacher and He’s right, or He’s lying about it, which makes Him neither great, nor moral.
Hey. If you can't trust a Southern Baptist preacher, who can you trust?
Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know you had a direct line to Jesus.
Or you have been lied to.
Read the Bible. It’s in there for all to see.
The Bible was written by man.
Well, now we know what Mr. Hildreth (b. 1807 d. 1865 – is that the one?), apparently sometime historian, sometime journalist, sometime political theorist, thinks about Mr. Jefferson’s religious opinions. The question remains, what does Mr. Jefferson say about Mr. Jefferson’s religious opinions?
“. . . To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other. At the short interval since these conversations, when I could justifiably abstract my mind from public affairs, the subject has been under my contemplation. But the more I considered it, the more it expanded beyond the measure of either my time or information. In the moment of my late departure from Monticello, I received from Dr. Priestley, his little treatise of "Socrates and Jesus Compared." This being a section of the general view I had taken of the field, it became a subject of reflection while on the road, and unoccupied otherwise. The result was, to arrange in my mind a syllabus, or outline of such an estimate of the comparative merits of Christianity, as I wished to see executed by some one of more leisure and information for the task, than myself. This I now send you, as the only discharge of my promise I can probably ever execute. And in confiding it to you, I know it will not be exposed to the malignant perversions of those who make every word from me a text for new misrepresentations and calumnies.
“I am moreover averse to the communication of my religious tenets to the public; because it would countenance the presumption of those who have endeavored to draw them before that tribunal, and to seduce public opinion to erect itself into that inquisition over the rights of conscience, which the laws have so justly proscribed. It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others; or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. It behooves him, too, in his own case, to give no example of concession, betraying the common right of independent opinion, by answering questions of faith, which the laws have left between God and himself.”
. . . . . Thomas Jefferson, letter to Doctor Benjamin Rush, April 21, 1803. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, in 19 volumes, Memorial Edition, edited by Albert Ellery Burgh, Vol 10, pg 379
Certainly, Jefferson was an unconventional Christian in that he eschewed much of the formalism of any particular Christian sect and concentrated his thoughts on the actual words of Christ. His views were therefore “the result of a life of inquiry and reflection, and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.” The experience of having views imputed to him that were very different from what he held, by people who knew nothing of his real opinions, appears to have continued unabated from his day to this present day.
In any case, Jefferson knew himself, and he was unequivocal on the issue of who he was and who he was not, as a letter to John Adams bears witness. Jefferson was not an atheist; he worshiped the Christian God (to Adams: ‘. . . the God whom you and I acknowledge and adore’). This is quite a blow to those who slander Jefferson as ‘Godless’ because his Christian doctrine was not the same as theirs, and therefore not entirely to their liking. It is equally a blow to those who are eager to declare Jefferson either Atheist or Deist in an effort to put distance between the Judeo-Christian tradition and the Anglo-American tradition of constitutional government. Jefferson not only makes clear his faith in Christianity, but also in what some would today call ID (Intelligent Design), but what I chose to identify simply as Creationism:
“. . . I think that every Christian sect gives a great handle to atheism by their general dogma, that, without a revelation, there would not be sufficient proof of the being of a God. Now one-sixth of mankind only are supposed to be Christians; the other five-sixths then, who do not believe in the Jewish and Christian revelation, are without a knowledge of the existence of a God! This gives completely a gain de cause to the disciples of Ocellus, Timaeus, Spinosa, Diderot and D'Holbach.
“The argument which they rest on as triumphant and unanswerable is, that in every hypothesis of cosmogony, you must admit an eternal pre-existence of something; and according to the rule of sound philosophy, you are never to employ two principles to solve a difficulty when one will suffice. They say then, that it is more simple to believe at once in the eternal pre-existence of the world, as it is now going on, and may forever go on by the principle of reproduction which we see and witness, than to believe in the eternal pre-existence of an ulterior cause, or Creator of the world, a Being whom we see not and know not, of whose form, substance and mode, or place of existence, or of action, no sense informs us, no power of the mind enables us to delineate or comprehend.
“On the contrary, I hold, (without appeal to revelation) that when we take a view of the universe, in its parts, general or particular, it is impossible for the human mind not to perceive and feel a conviction of design, consummate skill, and indefinite power in every atom of its composition. . The movements of the heavenly bodies, so exactly held in their course by the balance of centrifugal and centripetal forces; the structure of our earth itself, with its distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere; animal and vegetable bodies, examined in all their minutest particles; insects, mere atoms of life, yet as perfectly organized as man or mammoth; the mineral substances, their generation and uses; it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe, that there is in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a Fabricator of all things from matter and motion, their Preserver and Regulator while permitted to exist in their present forms, and their regeneration into new and other forms.
“We see, too, evident proofs of the necessity of a superintending power, to maintain the universe in its course and order. Stars, well known, have disappeared, new ones have come into view; comets, in their incalculable courses, may run foul of suns and planets, and require renovation under other laws; certain races of animals are become extinct; and were there no restoring power, all existences might extinguish successively, one by one, until all should be reduced to a shapeless chaos.
“So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent, that, of the infinite numbers of men who have existed through all time, they have believed, in the proportion of a million at least to unit, in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a Creator, rather than in that of a self-existent universe. Surely this unanimous sentiment renders this more probable, than that of the few in the other hypothesis.”
. . . . . Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, in 19 volumes, Memorial Edition, edited by Albert Ellery Burgh, Vol 15, pg 425
Mr. Burgh’s splendid work of 19 volumes was not published until 1905 (and later), so I cannot entirely fault Mr. Hildreth for his failure to account for Mr. Jefferson’s own words in his assessment of Mr. Jefferson’s religious opinions. However, we should also note that many such writings as the above did exist and were available in his day to scholars such as Mr. Hildreth, even though they may not have been compiled in one convenient source.
Jesus, thankfully, did not leave open the possibility of being “a great moral teacher but not the Son of God”.
“Hey. If you can’t trust a Southern Baptist preacher, who can you trust?”
Maybe another Baptist preacher... or maybe any one that takes the time to engage his brain. There are plenty out there you’re just too lazy to look.
And thank you, again for totally ignoring the point. I guess if you volley the ball enough times and you still lose the game, at least it looks like you were playing.
Funny, funny!
Why do you assume I'm an "evo"? Another erroneous conclusion based on failed attempts to discern original intent?
The Scriptures (the Hebrew Bible had been long established by the time this letter was written to the Corinthians)....When the Apostle Paul wrote this to the church at Corinth, his audience knew exactly what he meant and what was being referred to. Old Testaments prophets, like Isaiah and the psalmists, foretold of Christ's death on the cross as a payment for sin (Isaiah 53) and also foretold of His resurrection (Psalm 2).
Luke makes this clear in Acts 13 when it is stated:
26"Brothers, children of Abraham, and you God-fearing Gentiles, it is to us that this message of salvation has been sent. 27The people of Jerusalem and their rulers did not recognize Jesus, yet in condemning him they fulfilled the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath.
28Though they found no proper ground for a death sentence, they asked Pilate to have him executed. 29When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. 30But God raised him from the dead, 31and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. 32"We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers 33he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: " 'You are my Son; today I have become your Father.[b]'[c] 34The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words: " 'I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.'[d]
35So it is stated elsewhere: " 'You will not let your Holy One see decay.'[e] 36"For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. 37But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. 38"Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses. 40Take care that what the prophets have said does not happen to you: 41" 'Look, you scoffers, wonder and perish, for I am going to do something in your days that you would never believe, even if someone told you.'[f]"
Christ's resurrection is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to the Christian faith.
“No. Do you assume that all religious leaders tell the truth?”
Did you even read the post?
No wonder you guys science is so screwed up.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.