Proofs of Evolution: A Mediocre Debate (Faith, robinrohan and their invitees)

I know you intend to be joking, but sometimes joking is right on the edge of serious. If you kid me about being "too analytical" I'm sure it's friendly and it's SO nice to have someone recognize that experience. But if it's about my beliefs I'm not so sure. You don't share them after all. Most people DO think they're crazy. I guess as some have said, I'm hypersensitive. Sorry back.Anyway, it's another day when I won't be around much. Eventually I should be able to give more thought to what you've written though.

Unfortunately it isn't. It isn't only Calvinism that says so either. But making a case for it isn't easy.In answer to your next post: OK. I'll work on it. Keeping it in mind I mean. I think I *am* hypersensitive. It's so rare to have made an internet friend of a nonChristian or nonconservative. I'm so used to the insults, and normally I don't care, I can give as good as I get as you know, but I don't *want* to insult *you,* teach. In fact that COULD account for the "sluggishness," as you suggest. Too much niceness is a bad thing.

That's against the Forum Guidelines, RR.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-18-2006 02:44 PM

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deleted.This message has been edited by Faith, 01-18-2006 02:43 PM

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This message has been edited by Faith, 01-18-2006 08:12 PMThis message has been edited by Faith, 01-27-2006 02:04 AM

Except, theistic evolutionists could make a case that if the whole thing was set in motion by God, then that accounts for the arising of mentality at the end of the process. I don't know if they do make this case however. It's a thought that just occurred to me. In a purely materialistic evolutionism the idea that mind could emerge always hits me as ridiculous altogether. But it's the sort of thing people answer by saying Well that's what happened, so it must be possible.{In other words, circular reasoning}. Can you really believe this though? That our minds are mere illusion, byproducts of physical processes? All there is to support that idea is conjectural statements such as you are reproducing here. How it MIGHT be so. There is no actual evidence. If all that example is doing is aping what computers do -- like a graphic illustration of the earliest computers which required huge rooms to house them, and processed millions of manila cards with holes punched in them -- why take it out to such an awkward example? Do you believe that computers could produce consciousness? And what would you expect to be the evidence that consciousness had been produced?Or have I missed the whole point of your example? I admit I'm not following your thought very well.What is it that convinces you that the mind is illusory? Just the habit of thinking in terms of physicality as science so persistently does?This message has been edited by Faith, 01-20-2006 08:17 AM

Context: This is from another thread. What I'm denying is that in the early part of the Bible God is like any tribal god.http://EvC Forum: For percy: setting the record straight on Charlie Rose interview -->EvC Forum: For percy: setting the record straight on Charlie Rose interviewIt's not that God isn't the God of a particular people, it's that he isn't one of the small gods that were the idols of the people all around. Superficially, He puts himself in a similar position, though, which I think is touchingly condescending (in the old sense of the word), in keeping with the humility of Jesus Christ, as He IS the great Creator God and not one of the little demon gods. He has His own people, He makes Himself their King by covenant with them, as kings did with their people, gives them their laws just as Hammurabi did, and so on. Yet He is the God who made all things, and His ultimate plan goes far beyond the governing of these people He has chosen for His own.I hope you don't mind that, after getting this set up, I have to take a break. I have to be gone for an hour or two before getting back to this. There is more to say. I can look up quotes that show that He is the universal God and not just a tribal god for instance.

Which "old parts" are you talking about?Adam and Eve knew one God, Noah knew one God, but then tribal gods start taking over -- as a result of the Fall. Satan seduced the human race and all his legions of fallen angels got to be little gods. Abraham's family worshiped little gods. But it was no competing little god who called Abraham to leave Ur, but one that had real power, that could promise him the possession of a foreign land and the multiplication of his descendants "as the stars of the sky," in other words one that owned ALL the land. Show me any tribal god who has ever done or even claimed to do such a thing.Not to mention that He showed that He rules nature completely in his contest with the Egyptian magicians, and not to mention the miracles He did for the Israelites on their journey to the Promised Land. The contests recorded in the Bible are for the purpose of demonstrating that God IS God. Other gods don't compete with each other, they are all soldiers in the army of Satan, and he runs a tight army. They compete only with the one true God."Somebody" just "came up with the idea of monotheism," huh? I wonder who that genius was. And how he had the power to get the scriptures rewritten to suit his opinion. And when this was done. And why there isn't any evidence of it anywhere.Oh but I really hope this isn't going to be just another war over revisionist Bible interpretations. Yes, and this is to show which is truly THE God.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 05:42 PM

I was afraid this was where you were going to take this. This is just the revisionist redating of the scriptures to suit modern prejudices. What do you know about their dating methods? The Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which includes Genesis, are Moses' books, written in his generation. NONE of them was added later. They were the foundation and everything else followed. Thought you implied that Genesis was written later, in order to bamboozle everyone into thinking that it was all about monotheism from the beginning. Somebody had to have the authority for that to be done. And the idea in the first place. And had to pretend that it was all of a piece with Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and all written by Moses. Some real lying schemer there. When did he live? This "mountain god" spoke to Abraham all the way over in Ur of the Chaldees, and then to Abraham's family wherever they were, and THEN to Moses from Mount Sinai when He appeared in the burning bush, and then many times on the journey in the wilderness, including again on Mount Sinai when He gave Moses the Law, and then in Canaan. Shouldn't a mountain god stay on his mountain? Well, actually he does unless you are discounting Genesis. Of course if you do that you can deny that God rules all peoples. But Genesis makes it clear. Oh but so does Job. Job was a Gentile about the time of Abraham, who also knew the true God. And even afterward, many Gentiles recognized that this God who was leading the Israelites under Moses HAD to be the true God. I'll have to look them all up though. That was one dramatic encounter all right, but this same God met many many others many other places besides Sinai. No, but obviously whoever wrote what you are reading has a vested interest in demoting the true God by reinventing the texts.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 06:12 PM

Nobody knows any such thing FOR SURE, but there's a lot more weight of authority and history on my side than on yours. *"Making up" anything to pass it off as historical truth is bamboozling. To put it politely. Making up an explanation is evil. Call what paganism? And what do you think I called "touching condescension" anyway? Oh, well then it is your OWN reinventions you are imposing on the text.{ABE: By the way, nobody can understand the Bible by simply reading it on his own without help. Even Christians are to pray for God's help every time we look at it, but this need for help is also why the church is equipped with preachers and teachers and seminary professors.}{ABE: * Humanly speaking that is. I DO know it for SURE because I know it through the Spirit. It hangs together in the Spirit, but the modern revisionists fragment it and make a mess of it.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 06:51 PM

I didn't mean to say He was "making out like he was just a little god," but that He was willing to take the role for the sake of ignorant people, in order to show His true nature as anything BUT a little god. Could you be persuaded to pray to God to help you understand it as you read? The things that are known through the Spirit can be explained in plain language by someone who has that gift, but the difficult thing about Spiritual knowledge is that if the person you are talking to doesn't have the Spirit he can't hear the explanation no matter how good it is, and the modern revisionists don't have the Spirit. The Bible cannot be understood without the Spirit. Not because it isn't understandable, but because the "flesh" -- {abe: or the fallen nature -- fights its truth.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 06:59 PM