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Well, if it wasn't hatred, then the result wouldn't be eternal torture, would it? You can't overstate Hell.

But I believe the general belief (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you get to hell by your own choice, not God's.

You wouldn't get to hell because God hates you.

Hey, not I believe in Hell myself. I rejected the idea a couple of years ago.

Yup, LV, that's pretty much how it be.

It's man's choice not to accept Christ that seals his fate, so to speak.

God made a way out of love, He died on the cross. That's definitely NOT an act of hate.

Is this going to be threadjacked again?

I know, I keep looking at the title to see if I am braking rule number G.

I think that's why conversations about the existence of God are so noble: Books and books have been written on the subject, and never any answers. Always more questions. Proving things leads to uncoverings of false proof, and the like.

Really, all these threads should be woven together.

Entitled: Can God Be?

God is omnipotent. Even if I "choose" to go to Hell, God can stop me from going there. Ultimately, if he doesn't want me to be damned, he can prevent me. It's not my choice in the long run.



Right, so he clearly doesn't hate you. What about me? I haven't accepted Jesus. Does God have any back-up plans of love in store for me?

You missed the point, Upsilon. Jesus IS the back-up plan.

Before Christ's sacrifice, man had to live a "perfect" life, he had to rely on things he did to atone for his own sins. You would have to use the blood of an innocent spotless animal, a lamb, to carry the punishment of your own sins.

God, therefore, sent his Son to be that sacrifice, but we've already been through that in another thread.

God made a way to life with the death of Jesus, and it's the only way. You no longer had to atone for your own sins, because if you believe on Christ, your sins are atoned automatically.

If you're not forgiven, your covered by your own sin, like a stain, and God can't look upon sin. He looked away from his own son upon his death, because Jesus was taking on the sin of mankind.

If God won't even LOOK at sin, what makes you think you can live in his paradise if you stink of it?
Time to use some "Christ-o-centric" terms now, as I like to call 'em:

If you are "covered in his blood", which means believe on Him and whatnot, you're washed clean from all your sins. You have no stain, no odor of sin around you. It makes you able to be in the presence of the pure and holy one that created everything.

Christ died for sinners, which we all are. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Great, great, now can you talk about it somewhere where it's more relevant? I'd be happy to debate that point if it were somewhere else. But whether or not Christ died for our sins is NOT RELEVANT to evolution or creationism in any way, shape, or form. (Even if you are a creationist, you can't just say, "Christ died for our sins, therefore evolutionism is a lie", since the conclusion does not follow the premise.)

Oopsers.

I believe in creationism.

(does that help?)

Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species representing changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeeezing one's eyes shut and wailing "DOES NOT!" --- Dr Pepper


This sums up my view.

Honestly, Creationism seems almost purely a US issue, its a view held by a only a tiny minority in the rest of the western world. I mean, there are a few here in Holland, but its perhaps one out of every ten thousand people or so.

Now, this doesn't mean there aren't any christians around here. But you can't believe in everything in the bible anyway. Not only does it contradict itself every once in a while, set absurd laws such as forbidding to wear clothes made out of two different materials, calls for death from anything to homosexuality to adultery, and is full of flagrant scientific errors. (Bats being birds, snakes eating dust, beetles having four legs.) and even condones human sacrifice once in judges. (I could look up the examples for all of this.) But if you ask me, being christian is about believing Jesus will save you from your sins by hearkening unto him. Not to mention that one thing the bible IS pretty clear on, is that christians are not to judge others, as only god may judge.

Now personally I'm not a christian, but I don't have a problem with christians, as long as they don't seek to convert me, and as long as they can respect that I don't care much for their faith. Some can, some can't, I suppose. But as far as Creationism goes... Eh, I'd have to say that anyone who wants to take genesis literally is either uninformed or just doing what the little quote atop of my post says.

I mean, if you believe God guided evolution, fine. If you believe in God thats a pretty logical view. And in fact its what I'd probably expect a believer in God to have. No problems with that whatsoever. But if you are one of those types who believes God literally molded everything out of clay and that dinosaurs either were an invention of Satan or drowned in the (scientifically impossible) great flood.... Then I'm not going to take you very seriously on the subject.

That quote at the top of your post was great, Pardalis. Nice summary.

AgentSeeThroo: I'm taking this discussion into "Can God Be?" See you on the other side...

I got it from Holysmoke.org.

I figured someone might have used the quote, so I first checked if someone had. It seemed very appropriate.

I agree.



I already pointed out to fahooglewitz that the Bible doesn't really say that. He pretty much squeezed his eyes shut and wailed "DOES TOO!"



Judaism and Christianity are very strongly against human sacrifice; I'd like to see this example.



Some people can't face the possibility that they even might be wrong, even though statistically they are probably wrong (see my thread on religious conviction)...

For the most part, I agree with you.

- Kef

Kef, please do not lampoon me. I do not like that.

There's many degrees of "literally," and I'm not just saying that to be argumentative or philosophical-sounding.

For example, "dust" (in English) under your bed is actually dead human skin cells you've exfoliated. For God to make the first man from that dust is circular. Also, "day," though it means a single sunup/sundown, preadates the creation of both in the story. So we have to be introspective, all of us.

Having not been an eyewitness of the creation of man, I've got to understand it from those who were if I'm to understand it at all. While I will not die defending the fact that the earth spun at the exact same rotation it does now 6063 years ago, and that may not even be meaningful without a sun, I think that the creation of light in the concept of a "day" is the best way to understand it. In fact, Big Bang theorists believe that in the early stages of the event there was light so think it was opaque. The expansion of the universe was also an expansion of time itself if you buy into general relativity. So the real issues in this discussion have to be 1)the order of the emergences and 2)the separateness of each creation.

So, here's one for you that I think divides some of the degrees of literalists into one group and the mostly non-literalist Christians who not only don't take the chapter literally, but don't take it seriously:

Were there plants before the sun and stars? If you say yes, then you are in the same group as I, since plants were on Day 3 (v. 11), and the sun was on day 4. If you say no, then the only thing you're gleaning from the story is a vague notion that God made it all and the details aren't important to you.

If you're not a Christian, then this isn't the central issue, and I'd like to talk about more important things with you before hashing out minutiae

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Interesting Fact: The big bang theory was first proposed by a Belgian priest Georges Lemaître in 1927. Yes, you read correctly a priest, a Catholic priest to boot...

It doesn't surprise me terribly much. Darwin himself was supposedly a devout Anglican and died in the good graces of the Church. He's buried in Westminster Abbey. Now, of course, you might want to define "devout" a little carefully...

As for literal interpretation of the Bible: my rule of thumb is that, unless the Scriptures themselves give me good reason not to, I go with the literal meaning of any particular text. The Gospels, for example, read like a biography or a historical account. For that reason, I interpret them literally. Most of Genesis reads like a history (at least one of that time period).

But Genesis 1 is poetic in nature. It doesn't read like a history, but more like a song (heck, there's even a chorus!). For that reason, I tend to go with a less literal interpretation of the creation account. What's really important about Genesis 1 is that: (1) there is one God, and (2) the universe is not an accident, but a part of His plan.

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Can you offer an alternate interpretation of your words?

Just to play Devil's Advocate (no pun intended), if you're going with a literal interpretation of the Gospels, they don't always agree with one another. As a Christian, I probably shouldn't point that out!....

But I agree with what you said about Genesis.

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The Gospels contain different information, but not necessarily contradictory information (except for that whole thing about the relation of the Crucifixion to the Passover, but that's more confusing than contradictory). The thing to keep in mind is that they are different accounts with different emphases, but regarding the same subject.

St. John, for example, was a much closer friend to Jesus than St. Matthew, so it stands to reason that he would include information that St. Matthew left out. St. Mark and St. Luke were not even part of the original group of disciples. Mark relies on St. Peter and St. Paul for his account, whereas Luke did a thorough background check before writing his.

Now some people might argue that these Gospels were not even written by the supposed authors. They have a good point. The only ones we know for sure are St. John and St. Luke. Both of these books are anonymous, but internal evidence points to these two men as the correct authors. However, we really don't know for sure who wrote Mark and Matthew, although internal evidence suggests that Mark was written the earliest (around 50AD), and that Matthew was written by someone thoroughly familiar with Jewish culture.

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On the contrary, I'd say you should. One cannot ignore facts or even "mere" unproven evidence to the contrary to his (or her) beliefs, because to do so would mean that the beliefs are ill-considered. I remember once we were told that perhaps we shouldn't poke holes in each other's arguments, and I responded that I do no such thing, rather, I expose holes that are already there. If you have a hole, it's going to be there whether you acknowledge it or not -- so you had better do something about it, right? And as I said before, I invite anybody to do the same to me. They just probably won't have an easy time doing it because my arguments usually don't have glaring holes unless I'm caught saying something while not thinking -- which does happen more often than I'd prefer to admit.

And, fahooglewitz, this is why I savagely derided your argument, because you have not so much as considered patching up the holes you, I am sorry to say, obviously had in yours. If you cannot demonstrate how it is not a hole, I cannot assume it to be otherwise: my presentation of evidence shifted the burden of proof over to you. Just to be clear, I'm not deriding (or "lampooning") you, and I mean you no harm whatsoever. But I feel it is among my purposes in life to tear erroneous thinking to shreds -- be it yours, someone else's, or my own.

- Kef

To quote Dave from Bob and George, "THERE ARE NO PLOT HOLES!"

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If only we were talking about plots...

I am a creationist, Fhqwgads, and if I didn't believe in at least some advancements in science, I wouldn't be having this conversation with you. I also happen to love MP3's (obtained ethically, of course), VSTi plug ins for my music software, and my truck.

For evolution: it has been demonstrated that living organisms do have the innate ability to adapt to their environments. That is not in contest here. What is in contest is whether this process occured randomly to result in human existence, or whether there was any sort of divine plan that brought about humanity. I prefer the latter.

For cloning: there are ethical questions involved in cloning that even geneticists are asking. It is not as cut and dry as you try to make it sound. When even the scientific community has ethical and moral quandries about a certain technical advancement, it might be better to take a good long look at it before implementing it.

Stem Cell Research: As much as I hate to admit, this issue seems to be a smoke screen for the more controversial abortion issue. The primary means of harvesting stem cells seems to be that of partial birth abortions. I myself am firmly pro-life and would not wish to see abortion clinics turned into some sort of meat market for stem cells. However, I would be willing to support stem cell research if they could find a means to harvest stem cells without producing such a meat market.

So you see, it's not the advancement of technology itself that bothers us; it's the fact that some people embrace those technologies without considering the moral and ethical consequences of those technologies.

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OK, it's time to haul out the big guns... DANCE CON -- I mean, uh, WEBSITE!

http://www.vuletic.com/hume/cefec/index.html

A fairly comprehensive database of creationist claims and counterarguments.

- Kef

That site is pretty interesting...

I think it's be more interesting to find a site created by an evolutionist and a creationist doing the same sort of thing. Like...a recorded debate...sort of.

That'd be cool, cause it'd be biased in BOTH directions. Or neither? whatever.

Another web site: http://www.besse.at/sms/evolutn.html

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Hehe! Funny website, Didymus. I might adopt the picture of the Tyrannosaurus Rex for my little "inner Tyrannosaur". Don't forget that the next page, "Descent of Man", has more to say on the issue. The other pages are pretty clever, too. I hope I'm not expected to take any of it seriously.

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I got a website: http://www.talkorigins.org

I found it when I was looking for websites about people who think the Earth is flat that I could laugh at.

Take a look at it.

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"They've taken Mr Rimmer! Sir, they've taken Mr Rimmer!"
"Quick, let's get outta here before they bring him back!"