If God is good...

quote:

---

Originally posted by ekimklaw:
The question, "If God is good and loving, why is there so much evil in the world?" is often used by Atheists to disprove his existance. The answer is simple. God is love and we are seperated from him by sin. We live in a sinful world of death and tragedy. Since God is love, he provided a way for us to be redeemed. His son Jesus came and died for our sins. Without this "out" there would be no hope. Thank God he provided a way for us. I urge all non-believers to please read the Bible with an open mind and an open heart. I mean this in love and without accusation. We can debate all we want (and I love debating) but the real story here is you must try it. If you read the Bible honestly, and find NOTHING of merit in there, then put it away forever, but at least try. Then you can say (in all honesty) "I studied it and it is not good". It's about credibility. More than that it is about salvation. We can debate, but God is good and being a Christian is good. Try it.

---

Atheism has nothing to do with the validity of a scientific theory, so I'm not sure why you bring this up here.Since you asked, though, I have yet to talk to any non-theist or non-Christian who thinks that there isn't anything "good" in the Bible.Speaking for myself, an Agnostic (recovering Catholic), I find a great deal of beauty, poetry, and wisdom in many parts of the Bible, just like I find in other great works dealing with the human condition.There is also a great deal of violence, depravity, cruelty, and oppression to be found in it's pages, perpetrated in many cases by God or by humans following God's command.There are also many contradictions in the Bible, such as several different crucifiction stories, one of which has Christ dying before Passover, and the rest having him die after Passover. Absurdities, such as talking donkeys are in there, too.These things point to a human origin, as well as the similarity to several earlier pagan religions to the early Christian cult. (There was a Roman religion in which they worshipped a god which took the form of a white bull, which died and came back to life after three days)There is a difference between reading the Bible because one believes it to be true, and studying the Bible in the context of a study of world religions. One can read the Bible and still be ignorant of much surrounding it's origins. IOW, there is the simple way to read the Bible, and the scholar's way. That's not to say, of course, that reading the Bible the "simple" way isn't worthwhile. It just isn't the only, nor nearly the most educated or complete, way to study it.Second of all, I do not really see how any of what you say pertains to the Theory of Evolution, a single scientific theory out of thousands of scientific theories in existence.Why not argue against the Theory of a Heliocentric Solar System? That the Earth was the center of the solar system used to be Church doctrine, you know.How about the Germ Theory of Disease? God and demons were considered the cause of disease back when the Church had sway over science. Do you deny that bacteria cause disease?Do you believe that the stars and the heavenly bodies are set into "the (dome-like) firmament"? It says that they are in the Bible, just like it says that the Flood happened, so you have to believe that the firmament exists if you are going to be consistent.All of this is to make the point that in the past, as now, religions resisted scientific advancement.Fundamentalist Christianity, as well as other extremist (and not-so extremist) groups, have frequently profited from keeping it's followers ignorant and fearful of science and technology; an uneducated, non-critical-thinking group is easier to control and direct.

quote:

---

If anyone has any problems written in the bible I am positive there you are misunderstanding, or trying to make it point to something rediculous like the world is flat because it says in the bible something about the 'circle of the earth' He didn't say the earth is a circle, any person if he went into outer space could look at the earth and say hey it is a circle by appearence but we know that by perceiving depth we can see that it is a sphere and we can go around it and see that it is a sphere.

---

If God didn't say that the Earth was a circle, then why does the Bible say that God talks about the "circle of the Earth"?Nowhere in the Bible is the Earth even remotely alluded to as being a spere or a planet.So, this leaves me with an interesting observation.You allow the interpretation of "circle" in the Bible to mean "sphere", so this means that you don't mind interpreting God's word to fit scientific theory when you see fit to.The problem isn't, then, that you take the Bible literally, because you obviously do not.The problem is that you pick and choose which parts to interpret and which parts not to. [QUOTE]Many of the versus in the bible are written by appearence. Many people expect the bible to be a science book explaining why things are the way they like gravity or any scientific aspect of the universe.[/B][/QUOTE]Why do you, then, expect the Bible to be a science book explaining the scientific Theory of Evolution?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Jet:
[b][QUOTE]Originally posted by schrafinator:
"Speaking for myself, an Agnostic (recovering Catholic)..."***Without attempting to comment further on the entirety of the statements in your post, I think I finally can understand your animosity, (if that is the correct term), towards Christianity and your inevitable switch to a reliance on science rather than God. A thorough study of the history of the Catholic Church, from its' inception and into present day, as well as the teachings they continue to espouse, (not to mention the pedophilic rapists they continue to protect), begs the question......."Why do so many continue to follow Rome?" Had I been raised in the Catholic Church, I might very well be standing at your side, promoting the virtues of science over the vicissitudes of Catholicism in particular, and Christianity in general. In order to stave off unwarranted comments from any Catholics who may become offended, I acknowledge that the Catholic Church is not alone in their bastardization of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.***Jet Shalom [/b][/QUOTE]You know, the funny thing is that I am not at odds with the Catholic Church with regards to science. They are pretty much on board, albeit they took quite a long time to acknowledge that Galileo was right and that the ToE is an accurate description of the origin of species.The problems I first began to have with Catholicism were with the cultural and social rules which Catholics are to follow if they are to be considered faithful, such as rampant discrimination, disrespect and fear of women, the unhealthy, oppressive attitude towards sexual expression, and the emphasis upon guilt as a major motivator to follow the rules.These factors are generally even more prevalent and even more pronounced and aggregious in other Christian sects, with the addition of many of them being completely off the wall with regards to science.I was taught to believe this way, I realized, just as most Chinese are taught to be Buddhists, and most Indians are taught to be Hindus, and most Saudis are taught to be Muslims.I eventually realized that I had simply outgrown the belief in some undetectable entity that had a special interst in my life.I most certainly do not consider science to be any kind of replacement for religion at all. It's a very useful tool, but it isn't a moral guide. Philosophers of all stripes, incliding Christian, have contributed greatly to the puzzling out of moral and ethical problems.
They are all useful, but ultimately, I am responsible to myself and to those I come into contact with.------------------
"We will still have perfect freedom to hold contrary views of our own, but to simply
close our minds to the knowledge painstakingly accumulated by hundreds of thousands
of scientists over long centuries is to deliberately decide to be ignorant and narrow-
minded."-Steve Allen, from "Dumbth"

quote:

---

Originally posted by TrueCreation:
A good comparable, is the ToE, we did not see it happen, we only have indirect evidence of it. Not direct, contrary to popular belief, you did not observe any single operation or process which controlled the evolution of life and the earth. What we do have for Evolution is indirect evidence. We look at the earth and piece together its characteristics and the findings, patterns and ordered observations. We find that it is reasonable to believe that some process has ordered the fossil record, and some process has geodynamically churned our Earth. This obviously requires some degree of faith no matter where it is taken, no matter how obvious you may think it is because this is irrelevant to the question of indirect vs. direct evidence. This is my reasoning by which my assertion that if you have to see God to believe it, that it is irrational, is supported. My reasoning for the latter (and if there is no other way, it is ignorant), is that if you are denying the possibility of indirect evidence. Also, I know of absolutely nothing you would learn in your physics, chemistry, calculus, or biology class that should be ignored if you are a Christian.

​

---

TC, you and Cobra are throwing around the term "indirect evidence" for God a bit.You can't be using it in a scientific sense, because you are not using the simplest explanation for why things are the way they are in nature when you invoke magical, supernatural powers to make them happen.BTW, we have quite direct evidence for Evolution. It has been observed.