I too consider myself an orthodox protestant Christian. I believe that the scientific evidence screams the universe and life to be the product of an infinite intelligent supreme creator. I believe that this creator has communicated to mankind through many people throughout history. I believe that these things have all been canonized over time into what we now call the Bible and that there are no new revelations coming or old ones left out. I believe that where all other religions and religious writings fail, that the books of the Bible can be demonstrated to be divinely inspired rather than human in origin and that the texts that we have today, though the originals are lost, can be demonstrated to be the texts originally penned by the authors.
In light of the above I believe that the scriptures reveal that God created mankind to have a free will, so He could express His love and giving nature in a relationship with us. And so that we could have a relationship with Him in spirit and in truth. The scriptures tell us plainly that God created the universe and all life in 6 literal 24 hour days and that this occurred roughly 6 to 10 thousand years ago depending on how you interpret the genealogies. I believe despite the claims by many modern scientists, that there is no substantiated evidence for a 14.5 billion year old universe or a 4.5 billion year old earth. Along those lines I also have looked at most of the two lines of evidence normally presented to prove universal common decent (fossil record and biology), and find it entirely lacking and based entirely on conjecture which is the only thing left if you reject special creation.
I believe that the scriptures teach that mankind fell into sin which caused much of the physical creation to also become corrupted from its original design. Spiritually our sin requires the punishment to be paid in one of two ways. The first is that we pay it ourselves by spending eternity separated from God in the torments of a real hell. The second is that we find someone who has lived a perfect life and never once committed a single sin, and have them die for us in our place. Unfortunately the earth is devoid of anyone who is completely sinless. But God loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to pay the sin debt in full. I believe that through faith in the atonement of Christ alone, apart from any works or keeping of laws or ordinances, we receive the gift of complete forgiveness and eternal life.
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