Does the Errancy of Fundamentalism Disprove the God of the Bible?

I have no problem with either Jesus or the new testament but I firmly believe the old testament account of the creation to be wrong. I am an advocate of creationism but creationism as in the big bang, followed by eons of evolution. This is the ID which makes sense. I do not support the old testament story and consider those who want science to abdicate in deference to ID to be dangerous fools.Jman

Well Jesus and the NT say the same thing about creation as the OT. Matter and energy, by any way we now no of can never be created or destroyed. Therfore an athiest would have to believe in the eternity of matter that simply always existed (as well as space and time). But if God created matter then why couldn't he put in place right away. Look at the stars one night, they are all put in place like a great work of art, hanging on nothing. The north star is used by sailors to find their way before compasses were invented, even the Bible mentions the constellations (but condemns astrology, as it is worshiping a thing that is created and not the creator). The sun comes up in the morning because people need to walk around without tripping and the moon at night, because most people are tired and feel like sleeping, but if someone needs to be up they have a nightlite. There's nothing random about it, it's a great design (except it is falling apart because of sin.) When you see the things God created do you think he did it by creating a huge explosion and just letting everything fall into place over billions of years?Also in an athiestic version of evolution man would have no soul, but be just the results of complex chemical reactions. And then you have to wonder if we have free will because a chemical reaction cannot controll itself and everything you thought and felt would be random and predetermined. But if God made a soul in the first living thing before it evolved, (lets say a bacteria) then would the same soul that is in bacteria be in us, or would the soul evolve with everything else. And if he could make a soul fully formed in the first life-form wouldn't it be much easier to make a body, which is something even we can understand. If evolution is how one species became all the variety of animals we see today, (from germs to bluewhales), and a squirell and the acrns he eats have a common anscestor, Then it must have reversed before all af our observable history; because every year there are fewer species of animals and the opposite of evolution. And because most evolutionists say that dinosaurs and humans didn't live at the same time even before then because they are (probably) extinct and we didn't kill them. What we see is the opposite of evolution happening.

And where does Jeuss and the NT, or the OT say this? Chapter and verse please.And I think you are misundersanding what 'create' is in the ancient hebrew language for Genesis. You are reading a translation , and looking at it from modern eyes, not from the eyes of someone in the ANE culture.Next, the 'big bang' was not a big explosion. That is a big misunderstanding of what the theory is.

This is the world of polarized opposites. We humans form camps and take sides in almost all aspects of our lives. Seldom do we agree and when we do there is almost always a reason which, when discovered, finds each camp gaining in a material sense from that agreement. Where we came from, in the house of the Father (the spirit world of heaven), it was not so. The human souls then were as advanced as they could become without experiencing the lower physical existence. This was because they had never been separated from God. The story of the prodigal son refers to this. The next part of their training, spiritual evolution necessitated this divorce and so they were sent here. God had already created the heavens but now for us He made the Earth. the story of Adam and Eve tells that tale of the spiritual life in the "garden". It gives an account of our being cast out to live on the Earth. Why? Easy. But in typical fashon men tell this tale and creates sin at the same time beginning the tradition of guilt and fear. Nothing in God's creation be it spiritual or physical is static. All is in motion, growing, changing, evolving. We are all a part of God. What purpose would there be in creating mere supplicants to glory? What Glory? This proposal would reduce the idea of God to a petty jealous being who desired emptyness only, with no wisdom.With the application of God's mind upon spiritual substance, energy was "created". With the focus of purpose God's mind slowed energy and, in so doing, "created" matter. What began then continues now and has never been random or chance. It is the Father who made carbon 14 decay at a predictable rate. It was not chance. The greatest mind even known will not build in illogical ways.The hallmark of the physical world and also of our physical minds and emotions is, as I alluded to before, a world of opposites. Here is where we can experience "free will" because of that fact. Look at any issue in any aspect of our lives and we find warring groups, each with reasoned claims to veracity. Concerning creation vs evolution we find at one end people who claim there is no God and that consciousness itself is the result of chance and at the other end those who claim God made the earth in six days based only upon secondhand information passed orally for thousands of years then, after finally being written in book form, was changed several times. Isn't this silly? The information in the Bible (two part library) comes from God but only through the fallible hand of MAN.Regarding the evolution of species on Earth. In the beginning were the simplest of forms which changed as time went on. Yes species disappeared but the life behind each of those did not. Those spirit lives remained in new forms which reflected the current state of the Earth to continue their association with the planet in accordance with God's plan. What I'm saying is that The lives in the Earth at the beginning are still here and will remain until the end. They simply occupy new forms consistant with the demands of spiritual growth of the Earth as a whole (God inclusive, not exclusive). The vase number of domestic and higher animals in existence today are the same animal lives which were in archaic animal forms before. Like us, they have evolved. The entire planet lives in accordance with God's design. If I wanted to refer to an ongoing process of evolution which has nothing to do with changes forced upon nature by man I could mention the lowly halibut. Plainly this fish used to swim vertically but is in process of changing to swimming flat on the bottom. Look closely sometime at one and you will witness a snapshot of evolution. But all change has purpose. The motivation behind this particular work in progress is to conform to a better food supply for the fish. This is God's Hand in action, caring for and being actively involved with the Earth. The mechanics of exactly how God manages these earthly lives is a separate story which may be of interest to you.My position is that no one really is an athesist but that they only say they are probably to be difficult and thus gain attention. On our deathbeds we will all believe. I'm sure we agree on that at least. For now however we struggle onward. Even in our Faith we find faults. The dogmatic approach chides us to believe. OK says the scientist, I do believe but I want to know the details of how. The middle times Roman church imposed it's world views on the people and the dark ages was the result: years of ignorance and fear. No offense but sounds like the Taliban doesn't it? Now in our day the church (an American protestant edition this time) once again tries to establish primacy but this time the human spirit has grown too much to be dragged backwards (not by God but by churchianity). I plainly remember as a boy asking questions which a minister could not answer. I knew then that his knowledge was no greater than mine. That made me free in my association with God.Forgive me for suggesting that much of the noise making is no more than church people in fear of losing influence over people's minds. After all most of these men and women have heard nothing else their entire lives than the Christian approach to the eternal. How can they be expected to be able to go beyond those limits especially when to do so would mean the rejection of all they hold dear? So is it that they try to hold others to their views. It is always the case that new ideas are reacted to in fear by those who do not think, those who are bound to tradition.To see the truth we need only to step to the center of the arena of live and look each way for perspective. From either extreme we are blind. Here, in the center, away from claims and emotion, we will find God. I've read your comments regarding chemicals and geology before. None of these hold up to serious study and it has been my experience that those points of view are always espoused by mediocre intellects with minimal training and no disciplined field work to back them. For instance the Grand Canyon is supposed to be the work of the flood but simple coring of surrounding lands reveals that the ground under the canyon has been slowly rising. Very slowly it does so and the river cuts through as it comes up and after a while (hundreds of millions of years) a canyon is formed.The Christian scientist never follows through on investigations but stops when he finds what supports the Biblical stories. This is not good science. It is not science at all but a perversion of science.The human being is made in God's image. This statement does not refer to our bodies/emotions but to our spiritual selves, our souls. Those souls are not inside our bodies but are only attached to it. The spiritual human soul does not have emotions as we know them. They are incapable of violence or disagreement. They still reside "in the Father's house" awaiting our destined completion here on Earth. When the Christian speaks of Redemption and Salvation it is unknowingly in reference to our passage back home, in readiness for the future stages in the God/Human story. It is not possible for a soul to be "lost". The soul simply waits patienty for it's physical counterpart to come to completion. When this happenes the soul becomes evevated in it's spiritual position and closer to God.All world scriptures whether writen or not embody these principles. Christ is a great advanced being. He is one who has completed the human experience on Earth and gained His freedom. But, instead of moving on to new challanges,he agreed to stay with the Earth to help his younger kin. One who is far in advance of us. Jesus, was the Man who brought us His message and who, while in the desert, finally rejected the live of the Earth symbolized by Satan and became the embodiment of Christ on Earth instead. As Jesus became Christ so will each of us. This is Christ's purpose and mission to the Earth (in God's name). This we will all do sooner or later. The disciples had no idea of the vastness of that realm which they brought to us. They were taught the basics, adequate knowledge for us to begin on the path home. And I say "us" because we were all there at that time. Few of us are "new" humans. We are re-born time and time again until we are ready to depart. This is in accordance with scripture in very plain words no matter how much the voices of fear and ignorance have claimed otherwise. I can say this and still believe that "being born again in spirit" can certainly refer to the completion of the process however. How can I do this? Because I know that behind all is fulfillment in the CENTER of opinion. To know God we must move ourselves to the middle of all experience and be unemotional. This is why many "holy men and women" live communal lives away from the noise of society. It doesn't matter in the sligthtest which religion or none at all that we adhere to. Christ is in all and is behind every "prophet who ever appeared on the planet". And Jesus smiles when we begin to finally understand and quit bickering about such shallow things as arguements about the Earth or religion.The Earth will be gone and we will all still be alive. This is God's promise. There is no eternal damnation. There is only life.Consciousness pervades all matter because it is the signature of God's body throughout. Free will? Chemicals? Sterile? God is in all. God's life brings the dynamic quality to our planet. The simple forms began the preparation of the planet for man. Yes we all started here on Earth with the creation of the simplest forms of life. The physical form of man took a long time and the hills are filled with the evidence of this fact. When we were ready God caused the human souls to take up residence in these formerly "animal men". This is how it happened! Our souls awaited vehicles with large enough brains etc... Why is that so hard to accept? You see this kind of rational does away with the continual fighting over who's right. But for the same reason man cannot accept it. Man desires conflict. Until he becomes evolved. Then he knows better. I guess that leaves out you and I. Ha HaCan a Christian who wants equal time in science bring him/herself to allow that "creationism" is also "just a theory"? Can a Christian argue "creationism" without referencing either God or the Bible? If not then the arguement is only about whether a particular religion is correct. Now, since religions are man made and are based on faith and since science is based upon impartial observations of the world around us it follows that thinking of the world from within a religion produces a worldview with boundaries.There are many who say that "the practice of religion has always separated people". This is why and how I can accept Christ but not Christianity. Religions are filled with men and women who demand obedience to what they claim to be "truth". I consider the Bible to be man made and fallible.Einstein said: "I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details"Darwin never rejected God, only religion imposing it's view on the world.One last thing brother. Stay with your beliefs because in them you are content. Believe however that I am content in mine. I accept God. I reject religions.Thanks Jman

Hi all; this is my first post here, so bear with me while I learn the ropes.I'm going to second Jman's comment that the Old Testament account of creation is definitely wrong. The first error comes on page 1 of the Book of Genesis when it says that God created the Earth before He created the stars, when we know without a doubt that there are stars out there much older than the Earth.As for being an advocate of creationism as in the Big Bang, I'm going to have to disagree there. There is exactly zero evidence that God even exists, let alone that He made the Big Bang happen. If anything, God's existence is highly suspect. Here's my argument:If someone came up to you in the street and told you that he just saw a vampire or a werewolf, you would rightfully be skeptical. If you were in a good mood, you might even humor him and ask him for some evidence. If he couldn't produce any evidence, you'd continue to feel justified in your skepticism. The idea of there being an omniscient, omnipotent God that created everything and cares about you personally is a much more far-fetched story than a vampire or werewolf. If you admit that you would be skeptical in the first case, and if you want your reasoning to be consistent, you don't have much choice but to accept that you should be skeptical about God's existence as well.

And where does Jeuss and the NT, or the OT say this? Chapter and verse please.Mark10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.Evolutionist don't believe life was male and female in the beginning they beleive early life reproduced asexually, how it made the switch would be an intresting topic.----------------------------------------------
There isn't any proof that there are stars older than the earth. Isn't it a higher impossibility that (well first of all without explaining were anything comes from) that matter with no intelligence of it's own could arrange itself into a solar system, which is like a giant perpetual motion machine. Or a human with thoughts and feelings.

Why, genesis of course. You would have to understand the hebrew. You do realise the word 'create' is a translation. You also have to look at it in the context of the ancient hebrew culture.From the Jewish Study Bible This message has been edited by ramoss, 04-19-2006 09:52 PM

I realize that 'create' is a translation of a hebrew word that means 'create' (bara), well actually it's not exactly like our english word create, but only because God is always used as the subject. To say that God took a chaotic universe and controlled would be fine if you didn't believe the Bible and wanted to create your own God. But the book of Hebrews (written to Hebrews) has a diffrent account of creation. Heb11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The book of Hebrews was not written within a few centuries of Genesis. The Book of Hebrews is a much later Christian book.Your retrofitting concepts that are hundreds of years out of date does not change what the ancient hebrews thought of cosmology during the time period that Genesis was authored

I've been reading this thread for a bit it seems quite fascinating. Might I propose that both sides could be right here. Is it philosophically possible that creationism and evolution could've co-happened? After all, some of the biblical verses need to be interperted and ought not be taken literally. For example, In Matthew 5:30 Jesus says, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into Gehenna." If we took this one literally, then about every man on this earth (if he were God fearing) would be walking around blind. Obviously he didn't mean literally tear out your eye. Further, when you look at the first book of the bible, it is this: very, very symbolic (much like the last book). Therefore, all things essentially in the bible are those truths necessary for following the divine law (not necessarily the laws of physics and biology). Christians (arguably Protestants and Catholics inclusively) made that mistake with Galileo.The Bible is a collection of writings that are the inspired word of God. The old testament tells of salvation history and the new testament tells of the fullfillment of this history. They can cover topics concerning physics and biology, but that's not their aim. Thus in Genesis where it says (2:7) "the Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being." could simply be the best way that the Jewish people could convey the progression of "a cascade of guided molecular collisions ultimately resulting in the steps from inorganic molecules to amino acids, to nucleic acids, to coordinated biological systems to one celled organisms, to coordinated cellular networks, to animals, et cetera." Id est (i.e.) the part where God blew into his nostrils the breath of life could just be the infusion of a human soul (the basic organizing principle of a human being -- the philosophical "form") with matter (the determinable element that enters into the basic physical makeup of all finite beings). Therefore, evolution is possible by the biblical account, only the transition from dirt (inorganic material) to a human body could've taken millions of our years. Besides who knew what a day encompassed before we humans started measuring motion? What does a day mean? A human day? Or a day to God (who, by the way is outside of time). So it is possible.This message has been edited by smak_84, 04-21-2006 06:46 PM

Well the Catholics as a whole are not Christian, the inqusition may have expanded to include Muslims and Jews, but it was first directed at groups like the Donatists and the Albigenses, because they believed the bible and rejected infant baptism. The problem is there is no infant baptism in the Bible, (look for yourself) but they decided they should die, since they were "heretics". So if they call themselves "Christian" and they can't get the Bible right, I don't think they would get science right when they aren't even scientists.And the Protestant Church came out of the Catholic to their credit, but they still weren't like the independent Christian groups that always believed the Bible.Even athiest have said that if there was a God he wouldn't use "natural selection to create things". I would say that most people including evolutionists realize that it is a wastefull inefficient process. One evolutionist said: The bible says a good tree will bring forth good fruits but a corrupt tree will bring forth corrupt fruits. Evolution has just been a fruit-salad of death since the day it was invented. Besides coming to the defence of Nazism, Communism and slavery, people werre actually so decieved they killed thousands of Aborigines in Australia because they believed they were the missing link. There skulls were boiled, their brains pickled and there skins stuffed and then they were put on display in museums. An african pygmy named Ota Benga was put in a zoo and lived with monkeys as a display for evolution, later in life he commited suicide. And today we are capable of being just as decieved as they were.I know many people are in favour of bringing every belief together but at what cost? Say that a town was about to be destroyed by a giant tsunami any minute, one group goes to the top of a mountain were they will be safe,but the ruler of the town wanted everyone to work together to build a wall. The people on the hill know that it won't work though.The people in the town don't understand why the people on the hill aren't helping with there wall, the ruler finishes the wall and gathers his army to destroy the people who left town, just then.... well you know the rest. Not the best metaphor but whatever.....C

You assert that Catholics are not Christian...then who, may I ask, compiled the Bible? Who, may I ask, preserved the sacred texts for 1500 years before Protestant Churches even existed (as the only other Churches are the Orthodox churchs, and that was only a political split within the Church)? Non-denominational churches didn't even exist until at least the 1800's. Look up Christian history. FURTHER, explain to me why you don't take Matthew 5:30 literally!The only existing Christian church in the 500s was using the term Pope. Besides, where the heck to you get the idea for the "Trinity" IT NEVER SAYS "TRINITY" IN THE BIBLE! That was a doctrine defined at one of the CHURCH councils (Vatican II being the most recient CHURCH council).This message has been edited by smak_84, 04-21-2006 07:44 PM

Well the first complete bibles probably were collected in about a.d 150, this first Bible is called the Syriac, or Peshito. Before that they had various books by themeselves, along with word of mouth. Then some guy named Origen made a translation of the Bible in Alexandria Egypt. Most translations come from these two sources, the Peshito being the good one. He took out verses he didn't feel like leaving in, a translation of his bible is what the Catholics use.I don't know if those churches called themselves "non-denominational" but they definatly did exist, it's not like Church History begins and ends with the Catholics, besides someone had to be the heretics, someone had to light Nero's gardens.Usually you can tell true Christians and fake ones apart by seeing if they are persecuting or being persecuted. My hand doesn't offend me, infact I kind of like it, plus a Christian doesn't have to worry about going to hell.Oh yeah the trinity, Jesus said "I and my father are one", so that's them, as for the holy spirit (John4:16-17)This message has been edited by Rainman2, 04-21-2006 08:11 PM

Um...the Bible wasn't complied into one book until the 200s for starters. Secondly, what proof did you have for the existence of the "non-denominational" churches in the early Christian Church? Thirdly what is the CHURCH? And what proof do you have for the Catholics burning Nero's things, anyways?Further where does it ever say that they are Three Persons in one Divine Being, yet one God? It never says anything about that? It never says that the Holy Spirit is in the Father and the Son. Prove this to me (I don't have to, because there are more sources for revelation than the Bible -- where did the new testament exist before it was written down? Sacred Tradition. Right).This message has been edited by smak_84, 04-21-2006 08:35 PM

The Catholic's burned Nero's things? that's news to me lol.Acts 8:1

quote:

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And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except the apostles.

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He says he will send them a comferter who is the spirit of truth, then he says I will not leave you comfertless I will come unto you. It's just common sense God is a spirit, and only God is holy, so who is the holy spirit?Before the NT was written down it existed on two golden plates in heaven until the angel Moroni gave them to Joseph Smith who read them with a magical pair of glasses,....... Oh wait I'm not a Mormon.This message has been edited by Rainman2, 04-21-2006 08:51 PMThis message has been edited by Rainman2, 04-21-2006 09:03 PMThis message has been edited by Rainman2, 04-21-2006 09:04 PM