Hey Melatonin,

I am afraid that your arguments for the Theory of Evolution are falling on deaf ears with Tanto. Tanto obviously believes that God is such an imbecile that He would leave evidence of the creation spread willy-nilly over the entire landscape. Tanto also obviously missed the large swaths of the Bible that state that God requires true believers to have FAITH. Faith is not something that can be supported by facts or even by miracles. If the existence of God could be logically deduced, then faith would not be required. How could God require faith, and then provide evidence of His existence? It is inconceivable that an omnipotent being could overlook such a glaring error.

The bottom line is that religion is a matter of faith regarding the spiritual, and that science is a matter of fact regarding the physical. There is only a conflict for those without true faith.

Regards,

No Porch Joe

Don't I know it. I realised that at the "willful ignorance" stage.

Even if jesus himself came down to earth and announced that ToE was god's way of creation, YEC'ers would still deny it...

I haven't had time to read through the links in your last post yet, but from reading just your post here's a point to ponder: God created a mature Earth. Just like when He created Adam and Eve, they were fully grown, How old were they? If you studied their bodies you would have an adult age... If you went by when they were created... They would be less than a year old, yet fully grown...
I do have to agree with No Porch Joe that it does take Faith to be a Christian. However I also believe that science can easly align with the Bible. All people do is look at a fact and then interpret the fact. I interpret the facts according to my Faith, you interpret them according to your faith.
"Even if jesus himself came down to earth and announced that ToE was god's way of creation, YEC'ers would still deny it..."
Jesus already said Matthew 19:4 Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female.
So Jesus already told us that this was the beginning, Adam and Eve were the beginning, not microorganisms...
There are so many prophecies in the Bible that have come true. There are many more that will come true. As they do come true, I hope that you can look at it as more than a coincidence. I hope you can be humble with yourself and accept the facts as they are, not try to reason with yourself that there is another explanation. It's a lot more than a set of rules to follow... there is a lot of Love to experience.
Revelation 1:5 And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood.
Ephesians 2:4-5 But God being rich in mercy, because of His great Love with which He has loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.
Romans 5:8-9 But God commended His Love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.


[edit on 10-5-2006 by Tanto]

Just like ancient people thought that the Fire God rode a fiery chariot across the sky, thus creating the Sun, people in biblical times used religion to try to explain the incomprehensible.

How did they explain mental illness back then? Demonic possession. Drill some holes in their head and they'll get better.

How did they explain famine? The gods were displeased, maybe stack a few virgins on the altar and let's get chopping.

Even politicians (heck, ESPECIALLY politicians) used religion to keep in power.

From pharaohs being living gods to the Middle Ages' Papal-Sanctioned Massacres, it's always been like this.

So for me, Creationism is just a way that the non-scientific explained things that were incomprehensible to them.

But, um, we're 2000 years along, time to face up to Evolution. We KNOW so many things that scientifically back up Evolution. The ENTIRE scientific community supports it.

Tanto:

I hope you can be humble with yourself and accept the facts as they are, not try to reason with yourself that there is another explanation.

The Bible is not a book of facts. It is a book of symbolism. It should be read as such.





[edit on 10-5-2006 by Jakomo]

Originally posted by Tanto
"Even if jesus himself came down to earth and announced that ToE was god's way of creation, YEC'ers would still deny it..."
Jesus already said Matthew 19:4 Have ye not read, that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female.
So Jesus already told us that this was the beginning, Adam and Eve were the beginning, not microorganisms...
[edit on 10-5-2006 by Tanto]

No, jesus didn't say anything. It is the writings of people 60 or so years after the fact.

If you really believe this to be fact, then it seems that jesus was wrong.

I hope you can be humble with yourself and accept the facts as they are, not try to reason with yourself that there is another explanation. It's a lot more than a set of rules to follow... there is a lot of Love to experience.

I do accept the evidence, it is numerous and it supports the ToE and an old earth. I experience a lot of love in my life. You again make the fallacy that not having faith means you cannot be a morally good person, cannot experience love, are missing something etc.

Is this the love I'm missing...

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:26

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matthew 10:34-37

You need to be humble to accept that people can live a good and fulfilling life without adhering to an organised religion.

[edit on 10-5-2006 by melatonin]

Infinities simply aren't applicable to the tangible universe.

Frankly, I think this right here is the central theme to this entire question -- one that I've been pondering for as long as I can remember. I don't know if there is, or is not, a God, which one is more correct than the rest, et cetera. I don't know.

I am a meat sack. I recognize this, I understand this. I accept what limitations being this meat sack puts on me -- I am bound to this physical reality. Not considering the 6th sense (which seems to exist for some more than others), the information that my meat sack brain can comprehend is based on my senses.

Basically, I am a tangible being. Now, how on earth (pun intended) am I to comprehend something that's intangible, therefore beyond my senses?? I can ponder, but any idea that I come up with will naturally be flawed, simply because of my meat sack's limitations.

Science attacks from one route, philosophy from another, religion from yet another. Each one is right *up to a point*; this (insert random fact) is correct *so far as we know right now*. Facts should be allowed to change, simply because we (humanity) will never know everything. Our meat sacks simply won't allow it.

So how's about we just sit back and appreciate the ride, and the fact that we can consciously experience it?

(Edited for detail clarification)

[edit on 10-5-2006 by Diseria]

To try and deny what Jesus said, even though it was recorded as such would be like saying George Washington didn't say something which people recorded him saying. You said that "It is the writings of people 60 or so years after the fact," this is inaccurate... some was written at the time and some probably was written later, but it was organized together "60 or so years after the fact."
As for the rest of what you wrote, it needs to be taken in context of what Jesus is saying. It goes on to say in verse 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?
So a good interpretation, taking the whole passage into context would be, your Love for Jesus has to be so great that nothing else seems important, that you are willing to "take up your cross and follow Him." Your Love for Jesus Christ has to be more than anything else so you have "sufficient to finish."
There are also more than one "levels" of love and hate. I love pizza, I love my family, I love Jesus Christ. These are different loves. Just the same with hate.

This was in a devotional I read, I figured it was relevant so I'll post it.
Love is an indefinite thing to most of us; we don’t know what we mean when we talk about love. Love is the loftiest preference of one person for another, and spiritually Jesus demands that this sovereign preference be for Himself (see Luke 14:26 ). Initially, when "the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit" ( Romans 5:5 ), it is easy to put Jesus first. But then we must practice the things mentioned in 2 Peter 1 to see them worked out in our lives.

The first thing God does is forcibly remove any insincerity, pride, and vanity from my life. And the Holy Spirit reveals to me that God loved me not because I was lovable, but because it was His nature to do so. Now He commands me to show the same love to others by saying, ". . . love one another as I have loved you" ( John 15:12 ). He is saying, "I will bring a number of people around you whom you cannot respect, but you must exhibit My love to them, just as I have exhibited it to you." This kind of love is not a patronizing love for the unlovable— it is His love, and it will not be evidenced in us overnight. Some of us may have tried to force it, but we were soon tired and frustrated.

"The Lord . . . is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish . . ." ( 2 Peter 3:9 ). I should look within and remember how wonderfully He has dealt with me. The knowledge that God has loved me beyond all limits will compel me to go into the world to love others in the same way. I may get irritated because I have to live with an unusually difficult person. But just think how disagreeable I have been with God! Am I prepared to be identified so closely with the Lord Jesus that His life and His sweetness will be continually poured out through Me? Neither natural love nor God’s divine love will remain and grow in me unless it is nurtured. Love is spontaneous, but it has to be maintained through discipline.


[edit on 11-5-2006 by Tanto]

Tanto:

To try and deny what Jesus said, even though it was recorded as such would be like saying George Washington didn't say something which people recorded him saying.

Have you ever played Broken Telephone? Where you whisper something to someone, and they whisper it to the next, and by the time it gets to the 8th person, it's pretty much incomprehensible.

Take that, multiply it by 10, add some religious zealots looking to inject their own dogma into their writings, add water, and you have the Bible.

God's Word, maybe, but filtered through generations of disciples before being put together in its' current form.

Let me ask you, which Bible is the right one? St James? Which one is the RIGHT one?

Tanto, I fear that your belief in the accuracy of the Bible is somewhat misplaced. It's been 2000 years since it was written, there is the possibility that Paul of Tarsos fiddled with large chunks of it, much to the displeasure of James in Jerusalem (read some of Paul's letters, which hint at this), and over the years bits have been pruned, like the Gospel of Judas. The languages change a lot too.
And yes, the Church has, shock horror, indulged in politics over the years. I suspect that stressing parts of the bible to do with obeying orders and tithing on time came to mind.

Originally posted by Tanto
To try and deny what Jesus said, even though it was recorded as such would be like saying George Washington didn't say something which people recorded him saying.
[edit on 11-5-2006 by Tanto]

Not a bad example with Washington...

"Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie; I Cut the Tree"

Let me ask you, which Bible is the right one? St James? Which one is the RIGHT one?

Duh ... the KJV!!!

Word of caution ... DO NOT research on how the KJV came about! lol

That's the one thing I've never ever ever once understood ... No one, absolutley literally no one mentions jesus durring his supposed life. Christian, Jew, other religous belief, places jesus supposedly went. There is nothing written untill 30 years after his supposed death. It get's even more interesting when you look at the OTHER "jesus's" that existed PRIOR to the christianized "jesus". For example, compare horus to jesus. Nearly the same damn friggin diety and yet, horus is older. And there are still others.

No christian would dare do this. No christian would dare look at the origins of thier "faith", where their holidays came from, where the concept of hell came from, where the pentagram comes from, what 666 originally meant. They are so blinded, so conditioned, so ignorant that they DON'T want to know.

Originally posted by Prot0n
That's the one thing I've never ever ever once understood ... No one, absolutley literally no one mentions jesus durring his supposed life. Christian, Jew, other religous belief, places jesus supposedly went. There is nothing written untill 30 years after his supposed death. It get's even more interesting when you look at the OTHER "jesus's" that existed PRIOR to the christianized "jesus". For example, compare horus to jesus. Nearly the same damn friggin diety and yet, horus is older. And there are still others.

No christian would dare do this. No christian would dare look at the origins of thier "faith", where their holidays came from, where the concept of hell came from, where the pentagram comes from, what 666 originally meant. They are so blinded, so conditioned, so ignorant that they DON'T want to know.

I find your gift fascinating. Apparently, you can psychically read the thoughts of every Christian in the world and you have drawn a conclusion from your cerebral wanderings that generalizes Christians as ignoramuses.

I think that if you look a little harder, you may find that Christians, largely by definition, are actually seekers of truth. Whether or not they find their prize is a question that is surely not answerable by any man. If you intend to introduce people to similarities between the New Testament Christ figure and earlier historic personas, you may find more people willing to participate in the discussion if you use a less mocking tone.

Zip

I think that if you look a little harder, you may find that Christians, largely by definition, are actually seekers of truth.

Seekers of what truth? They sit there and delude themselve's into believing there is a god, that jesus was real, that noahs flood happened. They are seekers of delusions.

Whether or not they find their prize is a question that is surely not answerable by any man.

I half way agree, sort of. The reason I can't agree 100% being, there are many different religious beliefs all with it's followers claiming to have "personal" proof that THAT religion is the one and only true religion and that their god(s) are the one and only true god(s). That their version of the afterlife is the only afterlife.

It seems pretty damn obvious to me that none of them are true at all period. It get's even more obvious when you start looking into the origins of each. Religion and it's dieties has and always will be nothing more then man made concepts. There's no truth in them and they all preach the same common sense thing's. Be good.

If you intend to introduce people to similarities between the New Testament Christ figure and earlier historic personas, you may find more people willing to participate in the discussion if you use a less mocking tone.

Perhaps, and I've tried this before. Showing the similarities. Unfortunatly, they fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Instead of people looking at the truth, they instead deny it. The devil made it look like that, or put that info there. Or some other lame excuse they convince themselve's of so they can continue in their delusions.