Posted on 10/11/2002 6:10:44 AM PDT by apackof2
No. I'm not saying that at all. I just quoted a serious question which you might want to ask yourself, before you continue your derision of things you don't understand.
btw, I love that you called me a twit. It reveals much about the level of your ability to conduct a reasonable conversation.
You began your discussion with me by claiming that the Scripture claims a flat earth because of a dream by a Babylonian king........showing that you are either ignorant of what's really in the Bible or (more likely) are using what little you know in a twisted manner to 'prove' that it's invalid. How could the dream of a non-believer be construed by anyone seriously seeking truth, as 'proof' that the Bible supports a flat earth? That one question, in and of itself, proved your insincerity.
Everything in your following 'questions' has been a continuation of your pre-disposed hostility to the Word of God.
Taking the risk that there's no point in this, because of the clear idiology you're coming from, I'll take one shot at helping you understand the difference between the Bible and any other body of 'religious' literature.
I will frame it in the person of Jesus Christ.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders to have claimed to be God, leaving the only choices to be that he was either insane, a liar, or was indeed God.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders to have lived a sinless life.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders to have sacrificed His life for the Redemption of sin.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders who rose from the dead (with hundreds of credible witnesses), and is alive today, and He is the only one of the so-called prophets who desires a relationship with us.
There are many historic and archaelogical ways to prove that the Bible is a valid historical text, but God has given us free will, so that we may choose, as you have, to deny the truth that He has given us.
You have read the Bible. You have seen the truth. It's not condescending for me to pray that you some day recognize it for what it is. Not at all.
I think you've underestimated it. As I understand it, the earth's rotation is slowing approximately .005 seconds per year, which would add up to half a second per century. That still doesn't present a problem, even extrapolating back 4.6 billion years. I'm not at all sure what you're trying to argue.
Say....it's been nice talking with you andy.
I can back up my claims with plenty of facts and references, but you know, subjecting myself to the ridicule of a cynical atheist, is not my idea of a good time, so I'm going to pass. If you want to have a discussion some time without the sarcasm, I'll be happy to give you all the facts you'd like.
You have your faith......in yourself, and your gods. I have faith in the Almighty and Sovereign God, His Love and His goodness, and in His Son, Jesus Christ. There's no common ground here, so consider this dialogue finished.
Sorry. I think is meant to be used to know God. It's written in parables so that only the people He wants to understand will understand. He left the scientific discoveries up to us. I don't think it was His intention to write the bible as a scientific encyclopedia, it would've digressed from the points He was trying to make. The ancients would've got caught up in all of the science of it and lost the wisdom He wanted His people to know. Someone like Solomon who had wisdom from God can decifer the science out of it, and Solomon became rich because of it, but it's mostly meant to draw His people.
If you believe in a universal flood, and the impact that the waters from above and below caused, you can see that what 'scientists' claim was caused by billions of years of evolution, could indeed have occurred in a 40 day flood. The eruption of Mt. St. Helen's is evidence of that. What occurred there in a few hours from the water and lava flow duplicates the geologic strata of the Grand Canyon......which 'scientists' claim took millions of years to form (and although credible scientists know that it is impossible to have happened, our 'educational' institutions still proclaim that erosion caused it to form). The point is, if you believe in an Omnipotent God, creation in 6 days would not have been difficult.
Neither would creation by evolution with intermittent divine intervention.
It is perfectly reasonable then, (and not the thought of 'wackos') to believe in a young earth, especially when you know that the so-called dating methods of scientists are filled with error and assumption. (It also is possible to believe that the Creation story is allegorical, and the earth is indeed older than the chronological years listed in Scripture). However, you have to have a whole lot of faith to believe the ridiculous claims of evolutionists. I prefer to have faith in the Creator, and the truth of HIS word.
Like I said, I believe that setting he conditions for evolution to take it's course to today takes more genius than to just snap all the animals into being at once.
There are two things wrong with that statement. First, many people have claimed to be God over the years, including, of recent note, both David Koresh and the DC-area sniper. Second, there's no source outside the Bible that Jesus claimed to be God in the first place, so it could turn out to be just another one of the many errors or fabrications contained therein.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders to have lived a sinless life.
How do you know he lived a sinless life? Oh yes, the Bible told you so. How do you even know what sin is? Oops, there's the Bible again. Citing a source to prove itself wouldn't get you far in any field other than theology.
He is the ONLY one of the religious leaders to have sacrificed His life for the Redemption of sin.
There's the Bible again being used to prove itself. Brilliant.
(with hundreds of credible witnesses)
None of whom, oddly, bothered to leave any accounts outside the Bible. And actually, literally dozens of religions have resurrection myths if you'd bothered to check. Castor and Pollux, Osiris, Zalmoxis - even Lazarus - were all supposedly brought back from the dead.
There are many historic and archaelogical ways to prove that the Bible is a valid historical text,
Yet no one has bothered to do so.
[sigh] You are making a common mistake of thinking that since we're adding a leap second every ten months that the earth's rotation is slowing by a second every ten months. The earth has slowed by about 2 milliseconds in the last 179 years. When you consider the tidal frictions generating heat in wind, magma, and the oceans, it should be slowing more. It's x amount of milliseconds per day per century!
That is not to say that it can be proven that it was, nor that the creation story in Genesis is not allegorical.
While I agree with you that Scripture is not a scientific textbook, there is nothing in it that is not scientifically valid. There is no conflict between true science and Scripture.
I disagree that the Bible is no more than parables. It has been historically validated by concurrent historical texts, and the facts in it have been proven and reinforced by history and archaelogy.
The New Testament is actually a far more valid historical text than the writings of Julius Caesar, or any other number of ancient texts.
The danger of seeing it as merely parable (though it certainly contains parables), is that we can be tempted to believe only what makes sense to us, and not struggle to understand what it really says.
The Bible is a historical and scientifically accurate document, but as you said, it's purpose is to reveal the truth of God, and His Son, to show us how to live, and how to obtain eternal life through Jesus Christ. It provides great literature and great psychology as well, but it's purpose is to reveal God's LOVE for us, and show us how to come to him.
We can debate the details of Creation vs. Evolution for a very long time, but for me the critical point is that it is God Who did the creating, and that HUMANS were created separately, and in God's image.....not as the result of a chance, and biologically impossible evolution from slimy algae to ape to man.
Yes they have. You just haven't bothered to find out about them.
As I said.....if you're ever interested in some serious facts, without the patronizing rhetoric, I'll be happy to supply you with some.
I agree. But we must remember that the bible is written in parables. The engineers and scientists of the world are our servants, many cannot grasp the bible nor were they meant to. That's why it's not written as an encyclopedia, but the science is there for those that have wisdom, as Solomon proved.
I disagree that the Bible is no more than parables.
I didn't say it was no more than parables, I said it is written in parables, not necessarily all of it. The important stuff.
It has been historically validated by concurrent historical texts, and the facts in it have been proven and reinforced by history and archaelogy.
I agree. Why are you telling me this?
The New Testament is actually a far more valid historical text than the writings of Julius Caesar, or any other number of ancient texts.
No argument here. ??????
The danger of seeing it as merely parable (though it certainly contains parables), is that we can be tempted to believe only what makes sense to us, and not struggle to understand what it really says.
Nowhere did I say it was merely parables. You're putting words in my mouth.
The Bible is a historical and scientifically accurate document, but as you said, it's purpose is to reveal the truth of God, and His Son, to show us how to live, and how to obtain eternal life through Jesus Christ. It provides great literature and great psychology as well, but it's purpose is to reveal God's LOVE for us, and show us how to come to him. We can debate the details of Creation vs. Evolution for a very long time, but for me the critical point is that it is God Who did the creating, and that HUMANS were created separately, and in God's image.....not as the result of a chance, and biologically impossible evolution from slimy algae to ape to man.
You weren't there and neither was I, whats the point. I believe the earth is 4 billion years old, and I think I have the biblical and scientific proof to show it and it's a miracle either way. The big bang is impossible without an imbalance, something caused this imbalance. You believe the earth is 6000 years old and that you have the biblical and scientific proof to show it. Niether one is going to change the other's mind so we're at a point of irrecincilable differences.
That was the reason I made the points I made as to it's historical validity, and the fact that it contains historical facts. I did not mean to imply that you didn't know or believe that, and there was certainly no intent on my part to offend you (which I apparently did). I have just heard people claim that 'it's just parables' to try to discredit the truth of it, so I made the point as I did......again, knowing that that was not what you were doing or saying.
As to the evolution/creation argument, please reread what I said. I didn't say that I believed in a 6,000 year old earth. There is no reason to believe that the chronologies listed have no exclusions. What I said is that over the years, I have come to believe that there is no reason not to believe in a young earth.
I have no criticisms whatsoever with those who don't, as long as they believe that God is Creator, and that Man is a unique creation, made in the image of God. I didn't mean to imply in any way that you didn't believe that. In fact, I assumed that you did.
I certainly would not be interested in fighting to the death about a young earth........it's just what I have come to believe about how God chose to create the earth.
Some things should be self-evident. Obviously not all of it is written in parables.
That was the reason I made the points I made as to it's historical validity, and the fact that it contains historical facts. I did not mean to imply that you didn't know or believe that, and there was certainly no intent on my part to offend you (which I apparently did). I have just heard people claim that 'it's just parables' to try to discredit the truth of it, so I made the point as I did......again, knowing that that was not what you were doing or saying.
I think the most important thing to remember is that the bible wasn't written in English originally, it was written in Hebrew and Greek mostly. The King James translators did a good job translating it but they warned the reader to check out things for themselves. By concording the King James back to the original manuscripts we can take verses that are unclear or don't make sense back to the original language to make sure it is what they said it is. The second line of the bible is mistranslated. It should be "the earth became void", not the earth "was" void. So even if you were right about the six-day creation being 6000 years ago, the bible says that there was some kind of existence before that and the earth was destroyed. And of course the "days" can be any time period and I believe it's a parablic reference.
As to the evolution/creation argument, please reread what I said. I didn't say that I believed in a 6,000 year old earth. There is no reason to believe that the chronologies listed have no exclusions. What I said is that over the years, I have come to believe that there is no reason not to believe in a young earth.
If you've spent years looking, there's nothing I could say to change your mind.
I have no criticisms whatsoever with those who don't, as long as they believe that God is Creator, and that Man is a unique creation, made in the image of God. I didn't mean to imply in any way that you didn't believe that. In fact, I assumed that you did.
Well, I believe that Adam was created on the eighth day and was made a spiritual being. Adam and his immediate progeny lived extremely long lives while it appears the rest of mankind was living the short 72 year lives so I can believe that Adam was created independently of evolution. I don't know about the rest of mankind though and I really don't think it's important. We throw these flesh bodies away after a short 72 years anyway. We existed before this flesh life and we will for a time after this flesh life. This is simply a testing arena with the flesh bodies as tools of the test. I don't see the importance of the argument of exactly how these flesh bodies were created, it's just important that they were for the test.
I certainly would not be interested in fighting to the death about a young earth........it's just what I have come to believe about how God chose to create the earth.
It seemed you were saying that if I didn't believe that the earth was 6000 years old, I must not believe in much of the bible and that's not true. I believe that my understanding of the bible comes from years of hashing this stuff out in my mind, ever since I was ten years old, even before reading the bible, I didn't really start doing that until just about 5 years ago. The bible makes points that make intuitive sense to me that nothing else does, including science. It's something that can't be explained except to say that the way things are are the only way they can be. By "things", I mean everything. The universe, the beginning, the fall, multi-dimensional space, quantum mechanics, good and evil, the physical plane, the spiritual plane. Andy looks for answers in the way a rabbit chews his food, he doesn't think of the universe in terms of possible existences. If he did, he would realize that this existence is the only one that is possible. The only thing I can do with people like him is argue technical points, he can't see the deeper meanings of things.
As to your 'changing my mind,' I'm not sure what you're referring to. The only point with which I would disagree is that the word for 'day' in Genesis 1, is the word than means a 24 hour period, i.e, day/night. I'm not saying that it definitively means that it was a 6 day creation. I'm (once again) saying that I have no reason to believe it was not a 6 day creation.
And once again, I did not say I believed in a 6000 year old earth, which you continue to say that I did. And I most certainly did not say, or even remotely imply that if you didn't believe in a 6000 year old earth, that you must not believe in much of the Bible. Please reread what I really said.
As to andy, I completely agree that he cannot understand the depth and breadth of the truth of Scripture. The only difference is that I chose not to argue the technicalities (though you are right to do so), because regardless of the truth and logic of what we say, he will just argue with and make fun of it, and I don't particularly enjoy hitting my head against brick walls.
Carry on trying to communicate the truth. You are doing a fine job of it. We are on the same side, #3Fan, and I hope you see that you have read things into my comments which were not intended. The nuances with which we disagree are not important in relationship to the truth which we both understand.
Oh yes I am aware of them however I didn't know they were called nephilim, thanks
The further contents of this thread have left me with a *splitting* -- you wouldn't mind if I borrowed your advice to that other poster, popped a couple of Excedrin, now, would you?? :)
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