Religion or Science - How do they compare?

OK. Give me a verse.

It is your fallible judgement that the Bible should be understood the way that you do. It is your fallible judgement that says that the Bible is essentially dictated by God and is inerrant. Do you think that I haven't? I have shelves full of theological books that I have read. I am currently reading a book of over 1600 pages all on Paul. I too have read authors with various view points including those who think like you do. While actually there is a nation of Christ followers. It just isn't defined geographically or culturally. Then why don't you do that?
You have decided that with the new covenant that some of the OT laws are no longer in force and some are. You pick and choose according to what you believe. There are numerous laws about the sacrifice of animals in the OT but Jesus said that He desires mercy and not sacrifice. He corrects the law that Moses, (not Yahweh) gave on divorce. He corrects the law concerning an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and says instead to turn the other cheek. You pick and choose and rationalize away all that does not fit your understanding of how the Bible is to be understood.

Read through Genesis 1 and just look at the number of times where it says God said let there be whatever the next act of creation was. The Hebrews used the idea that God spoke the world into existence. That is the Word of God which metaphorically includes God’s wisdom, creativity, nature etc.

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.
4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.
5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morningthe first day.
6 And God said, Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.
7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so.
8 God called the vault sky. And there was evening, and there was morningthe second day.
9 And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And it was so.
10 God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.
11 Then God said, Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so.
12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
13 And there was evening, and there was morningthe third day.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years,
15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so.
16God made two great lightsthe greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.
17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth,
18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And there was evening, and there was morningthe fourth day.
20 And God said, Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.
21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.
23 And there was evening, and there was morningthe fifth day.
24 And God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind. And it was so.
25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.
27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.
29 Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the groundeverything that has the breath of life in itI give every green plant for food. And it was so.
31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morningthe sixth day.

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Then we come to the Gospel of John Chap 1.

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1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

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That is very different than how the term is used in this passage from 1 Kings 12.

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22 But this word of God came to Shemaiah the man of God:
23 Say to Rehoboam son of Solomon king of Judah, to all Judah and Benjamin, and to the rest of the people,
24 ‘This is what the LORD says: Do not go up to fight against your brothers, the Israelites. Go home, every one of you, for this is my doing.’ So they obeyed the word of the LORD and went home again, as the LORD had ordered.

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If you notice too, when John uses it Word is spelled with a capital W whereas in 1st Kings it is spelled with a small w.

OK. Here are the original 2 posts on this. There is a big difference in the way it is used. When it uses the term Word of God with a capital W for Word where the 3 words form a noun on their own, it is quite different from this quote from Kings 1 but this word of God using a small w for word, and the word is a noun on its own with the of God part of the phrase acting as an adjective.
However, you agree that John is referring to the Word as Logos so the point is pretty much moot anyway.

I'm going to try this again but you are so focused on your own understanding that it is difficult for you to accept other points of view as having any possibility of value.In order to understand the New Testament you need the Old Testament. In order to understand what God has to say in the Old Testament, you need to look at it through the lens of the New Testament, and particularly the teaching of Jesus.Here is an example of understanding the new from the old. In Acts 1 it tells us that He (Jesus) was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. Now with our 21st century way of reading this we see him disappearing into an actual cloud. However when we go to the OT we can see stories as in Exodus with God leading the Israelites in a pillar of cloud. Even more clearly we read again in Exodus the following 2 quotes.

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While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.

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The LORD said to Moses, I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you. Then Moses told the LORD what the people had said.

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So now when we go back to the ascension we can see that it isn’t about Jesus going into a cloud but it is Jesus going into the presence of God.Now when I want to understand things like the claim that Yahweh had commanded genocide and public stoning I can look at it through the lens Jesus and the NT. We are to understand that people are capable of claiming vile things in the name of God to suit their own purposes. That tells us that we should be wary when people make those claims and keep our eyes focused on the true representative of God which is Jesus and not an inerrant Bible.The Word or nature that we see in Jesus with the message to love our enemy tells us that Yahweh would never have sanctioned, let alone commanded, either public stoning or genocide. It is clear in the Gospels that Jesus saw the enemy as evil itself and that the weapon against such evil, (in this case the Romans), was love. He told His followers to love them, turn the other cheek and go the extra mile. He commanded His followers to infect, not just their fellow Jews, but the whole world with God’s love by allowing the love that He has for us, to flow through us, into the world.

Absolutely, but so has nationalism, greed , lust for power etc. Actually I would say that when the Bible is used as justification for evil there is actually another motivation such as the ones I named behind it. In other words those atrocities, including those in the Bible, would have been justified by something else. Even the stories in the OT can be seen as lust for power and control over neighbouring tribes. Yes, but slavery was not the same as we think of slavery from more modern history and in the case of the Jews was not usually race based. In many ways it was similar to what a paid employee is today. Also, if you read the short book in the Bible called Philemon you can see that Paul writes a letter to Philemon asking that he treat his slave Onesimus as no longer a slave, but more than a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. (Philemon 1:16) Firstly it doesn’t say that women can’t teach men and when you read through the NT there are numerous cases of women holding authoritative positions in the early church. Also, Paul is part of his culture, but after he talks about wives submitting to husbands he goes on to say that husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave up his life for it. In other words a husband is to put his wife’s interest above his own. I think that is true in some cases in the bible but I don’t think that is always true. I do believe that God, with His still small voice or Holy Spirit, does speak into our hearts and I believe that to be the case in many of the writers of the OT. In the NT the picture of morality is based on the life and teachings of Jesus which I believe to be the embodiment of the moral nature of God. If that is correct then the moral values of the NT writers are based more upon Jesus than they are upon their own understanding. Just look at how Paul’s moral values were changed by his encounter with Jesus. But there is a criteria given to us by the Bible which fundamentalist Christians such as Faith ignore. The Gospel John starts out by telling us that in Jesus the Word, wisdom or nature of God became flesh, namely in Jesus. The question then is why do we give that statement credibility? I give it credibility because I believe that God resurrected Jesus into a life that is associated with, but distinct from the life that was taken from Him on the cross. God confirmed Jesus’ life and teaching. Taking that as a given, (which I am fully aware you don’t), then I can read through the OT where it has God commanding genocide and public stoning and be able to confidently say that those commands were not of God but of very fallible humans. I’m not so sure that I agree with the last statement. I think in many ways that we are just as self centered as we ever were but it just looks different. However, we have no real evidence that our evolved set of social and moral standards are the result of an evolutionary process set in place by intelligence or by mindless processes.
In order to accept the concept of an actual right and wrong ,then we pretty much have to accept that something beyond ourselves is a basis for that fact. If our understanding of right and wrong is simply evolved from mindlessness then there is no universal right and wrong and our views are then based on what seems to work best for us now. In the future we may come to the conclusion that it is morally right to commit genocide because our tribe needs the resources of some other tribe and that becomes our moral imperative.BTW. Your approach reminds me a lot of Chris Hitchens who in general I thought asked all the right questions, and in a lot of cases sounded more Christ like than a lot of Christians.

I’m prepared to accept that social and moral standards can evolve through natural processes. I would even agree that these natural processes are the memes of Dawkins’ world. However the question that can only be answered by belief is whether the foundations for these evolutionary processes are intelligent or not. Once again, you believe,(as I understand you), that consciousness, intelligence, morality etc evolved by chance from mindless particles. I believe that these natural processes have come from an intelligent root. Different cultures have different ideas of what is right and wrong. If there is no universal standard then who are you or I to say that what ISIS terrorists do is wrong. They believe that what they are doing is the right thing to do. If there is no universal standard then it is only what we as individuals or to a lesser degree our own cultures decide what is right or wrong. If there is a universal definition for right and wrong then it means that there is an external basis for that. Morality changes because we as humans can adapt our sense of morality as to what works for us best right now, as individuals and societies. In my view universal morality is a morality based on a type of love that is able to always desire positive outcomes for others and to be prepared to act unselfishly to respond to that desire. Well, we can look at different societies and see that isn’t true. However, let’s accept your statement as it stands. It only shows that nations can naturally evolve more empathy and compassion. The question still remains about why that is. Does it only involve processes that are mindless or is there an intelligent root cause for the them.

The vast majority of people on this forum including most of us theists agree that we have evolved. However, this forum is called evolution vs creationism. If we want to say that creationists aren’t allowed to post their views because they’ve been proven wrong then just maybe the name of the forum should be changed. Calling someone a liar because they express their firmly held views, whether they are right or wrong, is just plain rude and IMHO doesn’t have a place on this forum.

Like I said, just plain rude. You make my point perfectly.

C'mon jar, everyone knows that she is simply stating her beliefs.Edited by GDR, : missed a word as you can see in jar's quote

It doesn't however constitute a lie.

No. Here is the Oxford definition.

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to say or write something that you know is not true

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So you criticize things you don't be;ieve are true and call them lies and then you complain when you're proven wrong with facts.Just what do you know about my moral sense?

If you want to believe that there is no difference between being wrong when you believe that you are right and being wrong when you know that you are wrong then so be it. Lying however, requires intentionality .As for your other comments it is typical of your method of debate to use put downs, disparaging remarks, insults and name calling such as liar.

You called Faith a liar for posting what she believed to be true.