The Tension of Faith

Actually, that is not the story in Genesis. Genesis says that man was created to live eternally, but due to his own screw-ups lost his unending life on earth. Where Hell came from really is not discussed in Genesis or much of anywhere else in the Bible.I think you can still make a logical conundrum out of all this, but you haven't done that yet.

That is your excuse for posting shite? Very well.

So given your deflection, I conclude I am right, You have no reason for posting absolute crap.

I reviewed the context of my comment. There is a considerable amount of story in Genesis that I did not mention. None of it appears to be essential to my comment to Tangle that his remarks did not match the story.

I made my comment because almost nothing about Tangle's criticism was actually accurate. A bad argument is a bad argument.I do acknowledge that many Christian beliefs can be questioned in a rational manner, however just making crap up is not rational. I believe I can point that out without having a responsibility to respond to arguments no one has even made. Maybe I will do that if he actually makes an argument. I have done so in the past. But I am not going to make up arguments for him and then respond to that.

I commented about a specific statement by Tangle. That statement was totally inaccurate, and so far I have heard nothing but excuses about why he does not have to do better.I even acknowledged that there were better arguments to be made. I doubt either you are he would tolerate the same kind of nonsense from a creationist. But apparently when folks you agree with make a bad argument, that's just fine with you. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

"Sure there is. Ever heard of complementary? Male and Female are a type and shadow of God and humans. We symbolically marry Him, as His Bride."What understanding is gained by trying to model your relationship with Christ as spousal? I have heard of this before, but I find the idea absolutely bizarre.

Sophistry indeed. Particularly when you spread a layer of Calvinism on top of it.

I think Phat was calling himself careless. Maybe that is an explanation for some of the more silly things Phat posts. This part of his morning routine is simply not important enough to get right.

"Again, I see this apparent contradiction between God's choice and our free will as analogous to wave-particle duality"This appears to be short for saying, "I don't understand how this logical impossibility exists, but I'm going to accept it".Calvinism is an unfortunate bit of doctrine, which does, in my opinion, have the fact of excusing behavior from God that we would never tolerate from another human. And there are certainly Biblical verses that are difficult to accept in light of the doctrine. Not sure why it is so popular.

You don't consider, for example, newspaper articles described contemporary events to be evidence? Because that kind of evidence is frequently cited here. Yet your current description does not distinguish the Gospel According to Luke, from a story in the Wall Street Journal. Perhaps a little more care in explaining why Bible stories are not evidence, or at least are not reliable evidence may be in order.

Is that how you evaluate, for example, claims that Jews were tortured during World War 2? Do you think it is important that your descendants require the same kind of original evidence?I think you are expressing a hard line that nobody actually uses for anything and insisting that we apply it to the Bible when we don't apply it to anything else. There is a difference between the accounts of Jesus ministry, his death, and his resurrection, and a story of Lincoln's life and death, but I sincerely doubt that you have accepted one account and rejected the other account based on anything like the line of reasoning you've used here. I am personally suspicious of stories I read in the WSJ. I think there is a tendency to give the stories in our modern publications more credence primarily because they are describing ordinary events. If I read an article in the WSJ or Scientific American about a perpetual motion machine, I would be extremely skeptical.In short, the stories in the Bible are descriptions of extraordinary events, and you rightly or wrongly require stronger evidence before you will believe them. I believe that such behavior is completely logical. I have no idea what point this statement makes. Is there something more here than an expression that you would accept such an account as factual? Should someone reading the same story 1000 years from now make the same assumptions that you make about the stories credibility, or would he simply say that the story is a statement of what people of that past millennium believed to be true?Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Excellent advice, Phat.One thing I can point out is that most of the arguments in the New Testament are intended to reinforce the belief of those who already believe. No one should be surprised when simply repeating such arguments does not stand up to close, skeptical, scrutiny.

For what it's worth, I am surrounded by Christians on a daily basis. I have yet to hear any of them say things like, "I hate you all." They tend to pray for people they consider to be sinners. Yes, there are churches where the opposite is taught. Maybe Faith is from that tradition. This is preached in churches across the country every week. The idea that your neighbors are only the other folk in the same pew as you on Sunday is so far from Christlike as to be unrecognizable.Someone needs to stop "testi-lying".Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

This statement borders on being silly. We can infer your emotions from your speech, facial expressions, and your actions. Now those methods may not be 100% accurate, but those are fairly reliable indicators. People are more than justified in drawing conclusions from those external indicators.On the other hand, folks deceive themselves all of the time, and might well not understand that they are hateful. Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.