I think Romans makes this clearer. Everyone who has heard of Christ and what He did must make a choice as to whether or not to accept Christ's death on the cross as his sin sacrifice and follow Him. It is your free choice, and the Bible is clear that if you don't choose Christ after hearing about Him, there is no other sacrifice that is acceptable to save you from eternal damnation. In the case of people who have never heard of Christ, they will be judged based on what their consciences told them were right and wrong. The Holy Spirit works in every person's heart trying hard to guide them to make the right choices and warn them away from wrong choices. Those who never heard of Christ will be judged on the basis of whether or not they obeyed the Holy Spirit's leading.
As far as babies and kids are concerned, it is fairly clear that everyone starts out written in the Lamb's Book of Life. When you reach the age that you are accountable for your actions (which varies with each individual) you must make a choice to accept Christ as your Saviour or reject Him - for those who know about Him - and for the few who don't in this day and age - see the first paragraph. If you reject Him, your name is blotted out of the Lamb's book of life. That's a paraphrase of what I believe the Bible says, but I think it is a consistent reading of the Word.
Limbo was an invalid concept that should never have come about. Before Christ died on the cross, you either went to hell or paradise. They were close enough that people could be identified from one to the other and could talk with each other. There was a gulf preventing passage from one to the other though. While Christ was in the grave, He went to paradise, identified Himself as the expected one due to Jewish prophecy, and took all the people there to heaven with Him. Post resurrection, you go to heaven to be with Him or to hell, reserved until the great white throne judgment. There is no limbo that you can be prayed or bought out of and there never was.
Saul did meet Jesus on the road to Damascus.
The evangelical and pentecostal branches of the church believe in the continued working of the Holy Spirit which gives direction via prophecy, messages in tongues and interpretation to its followers today just as He did to the early church and Paul.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His standards in the Old Testament stand just as true to condemn mankind as the New Testament. Nonetheless, the irritation over Leviticus is irrelevant. There are many passages in the New Testament which continue to voice His displeasure with homosexuality. He does love everyone, but He demands righteous living.
None of us are perfect as we all started with an inherited nature of sin that Christ didn't have. We are all saved by grace through faith in Christ. I am far from perfect, but have faith in Christ to have provided the sin offering once for all that I have done and will yet do that displeases God. I try to live better each day than I did the day before. I'm not always successful. What I do with my life, however, doesn't change God's standards a bit. In both Testaments He has declared certain things to be at enmity with Him.
As a Christian, I must love everyone equally, even when it is hard. I can't, however, tell people God really didn't mean something He declared in many places He hated just to make them feel better about their life and what they're doing. God can forgive anything if they will ask, but repentance must come after that. That doesn't mean I hate them. It should always be done in love. But you just can't say I will accept the bits and pieces of the Bible that I like and form a religion around that and ignore the inconvenient bits. The law was harsh. The Old Testament times were harsh outside Israel as well. But Hell is much harsher, and if I believe the Bible bits about salvation, then I have to believe the Bible bits about judgment as well. I don't know how far God's grace will extend. But when the consequences are eternal, it is better to err on the conservative side than the lax side.
I suspect there are many reasons that some Christians don't like the thought of stem-cell research, primarily due to the sources of some stem cell lines.
Please don't paint with too wide a brush, however. I'm Christian, and have absolutely no problems with research that is primarily conducted to better the conditions of humanity. God gave us a pretty fantastic mind, and a desire to use it, and I think it is a shame that some oppose the advancement of the medical and scientific knowledge base for shaky at best Biblical reasons.
That said, change comes hard for most people in some subject. How many people are afraid to try Linux because they've always known Microsoft to use a slashdot appropriate example?
I know someone very well who went to a doctor and was told she had two possible things wrong with her, neither of which was curable or good. For possibility 1, there was medicine that could give some symptom relief, but the body would eventually adapt and it would lose its effectiveness. She was directed to a specialist to rule out problem number 2.
Before going to see the specialist, she went forward for prayer to a lay person at the front of the church during worship. When she came back to her seat, she was no longer exhibiting symptoms. That was months ago and she hasn't had any recurrence.
I would counsel everyone with a terminal illness to see a doctor, and certainly to follow what the doctor suggests doing. Your pastor isn't a doctor. He may have had quite a bit of formal and on-the-job education about dealing with people going through rough stretches in their lives, however. Terminal illnesses certainly qualify in that regard.
But I also know of enough healings (X-rays showing lung cancer after going to a doctor with coughing, prayer, no more coughing, subsequent X-rays show clear lungs..., individuals who have been confined to wheel chairs who walk out of service healed) that have happened in churches that I attended involving people that I know, that I have no problem accepting that God is, and that He wants to glorify the Son by having Spirit filled people carry out His will.
Relying on God is never a bad thing. There are lots of things doctors can fix, and if you want to take that route, there's nothing wrong with that. There's still lots of things that doctors can't fix though. Don't rule out God for those. He'd still help with the little things as well, if we'd let Him. He might be even more likely to do so if He knew He'd get the glory. His promises (for those who satisfy the preconditions, are still yea and amen.
Luke 1:27-38... And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Sorry. It certainly wasn't in her plans to get pregnant before marriage, but when Gabriel spoke with her, she said yes - let it be so. You may not believe the account, and that is your right. But if Mary had told Gabriel no, God would have respected that. He gave everyone free will.
While you are correct that we live under grace and should have love instead of hate in our hearts, I actually find that Christ's standards for how we should live are stricter than those given to the Israelites. How many times does Christ say something like -- "You have heard it said..., but I say unto you..." where what He said was a much tougher standard to meet.
It should be noted that certain of the commands to wipe out a particular people were based (according to Biblical accounts) on God's desire to wipe out races which were descendents of offspring of angels and women where Satan was trying to wipe out a pure blood line from Adam to Christ (pre-Noah and later). You may not agree with this, but if this Biblical interpretation is correct, you'll have to take it up with Him someday. Now that Christ has come, Satan isn't active in this regard, leaving no need to exterminate large blocks of humans.
While we aren't expected to live under the strictures of Old Testament law, with its penalties and sacrifices, that doesn't mean God has lowered His standards for what He judges right and wrong. The only basic commandment for righteous living that isn't found in the New Testament in some form versus the Old Testament is "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Every other thing that God detested in the Old Testament, you'll find in the New Testament, and it is clear He hasn't changed His feelings about them from the time of the law to the New Testament writings. I doubt things have changed any in the last 2,000 years either. People get to hearing that God is all love, and forget that He is also righteous and just. He's not going to let modern man get away with stuff He came down on the Old Testament people for. That wouldn't be just. I am pretty sure the only reason the Sabbath observance wasn't included was that Christ was so fed up with what the Jewish religion had become that He wanted nothing to do with it. He wanted worship from the heart and not the form and ritual without substance that it had become (at least to the religious leaders in his time). I hate to think what He thinks about what some parts of Christianity have become today. He may be thinking the same thing. I'm certainly imperfect as well, saved only by faith in Christ and the Grace of God.
One of His replies: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. sums up His requirements pretty well.
I'm not sure what the behemoth was, but it wasn't a dinosaur.
God made some decisions about how the universe was going to operate when He did the whole Genesis 1:1 big bang thing. He has pretty much followed them ever since.
I know He could have done a lot of wild stuff by making fossils appear old and by placing every single subatomic particle in the universe at a particular consistent point and state to make the universe appear old (by virtue of the fact that we can actually see stuff that far away at all) even if He created everything only a few short millenniums ago. The rest of the Bible just doesn't paint Him as that sort of a being. Those sorts of tricks sound like something Satan would do (had he that power). Since he doesn't, he's just stirring up confusion and destroying harmony in Christianity where the subject is concerned - what he's best at.
I'm firmly convinced that at the Great White Throne judgment God isn't going to put up with any rubbish like "the rocks measured out at being x million years old and the Bible said they couldn't be over 10,000 so I decided you couldn't exist and it's all your fault I didn't believe.". He made the scientific laws work a particular way for a reason and if that messes with Christians' views of the Bible, then it is probably our view of the Bible that is wrong and not His scientific laws.
If you read the Bible, and interpret it correctly, you have to find a place for Satan to have ruled it to lead his assault on Heaven. This didn't happen since Adam's time. That pushes it before. Other scripture references require more than one huge flood and planet wide destruction to have occurred. There are just too many references to everything getting destroyed that simply didn't happen in Noah's flood. The net result of that is that Gen. 1:3- points to the world in a destroyed state after God's judgment on Satan, and God's restoration of it to a habitable state rather than recording the actual initial creation.
It's interesting to me that we find several early human lines that all drop out of the fossil record around the same time that modern man starts, and at a time period that would be consistent with the record in Genesis if God got fed up and started over after a cataclysmic flood judgment. It also is entirely consistent with the scientific record.
I am a firm believer in the Bible too. I freely admit that due to deterioration in the original texts, there have been various small translation errors over the last several thousand years. Yet it remains a very consistent book in the message it is trying to portray - Christ, the Savior, came and died for our sins and wants to draw all of humanity to Him - He's coming back for His church - His church needs to be ready. I've seen God do too many things in my time that couldn't be rationally explained (people being healed on the spot and the like) to have doubts about either His existence or the veracity of the Bible.
Christians need to study the Bible with an open mind, see all of what God has done, and realize that there aren't conflicts with true science. We need to get back to preaching the Word of salvation and let the Holy Spirit deal with the hearts of those who scoff. Pray for them, but don't argue for the funky Creation Science - it just isn't what the Bible declares.
Like Paul, we need to preach the crucified Christ and not get bogged down trying to force wrong scientific ideas based on a misunderstanding of the Bible down people's throats. I know that this has strayed a bit, but I've read so many comments to this original article, mostly summarized as "Those crazy Christians and religion are the real problem" that I finally had to respond, and your thread was the one I happened to hit where I reached my limit.
I work on computer systems for many hours a day. Giving my fingers, wrists, and eyes a break for just the cost of some newspaper ink is a good deal. The local and national newspapers I read solved the ink issue long ago.
Actually, all ads are largely ignored. No matter the medium - print, TV, movies (blech!), on-line - unless I am looking for a particular item to buy. Then, I look at the relevant ads. I am a typical customer, anywhere in the world. The only people who actually look at ads frequently are people in the business of making ads.
On the other hand, do you know what product names I remember. I remember Texaco and Hallmark. Why? Because in the past they have completely sponsored shows that I considered worth watching. I'll never remember that product X was shown on show Y, because I zap commercials. On the other hand, I'll always remember Hallmark from the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies that are really some of the few decent things to watch on TV. Same with Texaco (although much longer ago).
All ads are overpriced. I won't argue with you there. But if you want to reach me as a customer (and your business isn't the type that does trade shows as your advertizing medium), you'll need to reach me in the newspaper. I block on-line ads. I zap TV ads for the few shows I watch anymore. I get my news from the newspaper, so about the only TV program people might watch live is also useless to reach me. I only occasionally listen to the radio on a short commute to work - but usually listen to CDs while driving anyway. I never look at ads in magazines. But if I'm looking for a product to buy locally, I'll look through newspaper ads. You may not like the prices the newspapers charge, but you do reach a local market in ways that you won't otherwise.
This is the primary reason that the newspaper industry must survive. Ad revenue is what supports the media industry (whatever media you choose to pick). Everyone ignores ads to a greater or lesser extent. But it is easier for the publishers to sell companies on the idea that their ads might be seen in a physical media than an on-line media. This is the primary reason that the TV industry is so against the time shifters - be it VCRs or more modern variants. If my commercial is zapped, why should I pay to put it on your show? It's a point that is even harder to sell on-line.
When there is no revenue from ads, the subscribers won't pay a high enough price to cover your operating costs. How many on-line news sources do you actually subscribe to? How many do you subscribe to if the "cost" is nothing more than an on-line registration? I'd guess pretty few. So you are a content leach. That works fine for you, since there are still enough people paying money in print (or cable TV subscriptions, or on-line equivalents) to pay people enough to produce content that they can distribute in its entirety or in reduced form to the on-line world.
If the revenue flow ceases to exist, there isn't going to be much content worth reading. As things become tighter, you can be assured that those providing content will seek to protect it further. The cost of litigation is something that the on-line bloggers haven't had to deal with much yet. You can rest assured it will happen.
Those editors have lots of job functions. I'll be the first to agree that the quality of the newspapers has declined somewhat. The editors might be just as good, but the reporters ability to write correct English has declined. More mistakes are getting through edit. Another important job function is to keep the content fresh. A particular blogger may have an agenda, but if he or she never extends beyond that agenda - do you keep coming back? A third job function is to keep the paper from being sued for libel. That is another litigation expense that the on-line only crowd hasn't had to deal with much yet.
On-line will always have a place. It is convenient to find news about a particular subject during the day when the newspaper is not at hand. But at the end of the day of looking at a computer screen for 8 hours, I'd much rather sit down to a nice local newspaper and a nice global newspaper to read the pieces of news I'm interested in. I personally can't stand the talking heads on TV blathering the same 1 minute sound bite every 15 minutes. I'd much rather skip around and read what I want from print.
Actually, Lucifer (one of the chief angels) demonstrated that even the angels have free will and he showed his exercise of it by rebelling against God along with many others. They lost, but they do have free will just like we do.
Yes, of course my argument is based on the fact that God exists. In my time, I have seen the gifts of the Holy Spirit as described and used by Christ and the New Testament church alive and well in today's church. I wish I saw as much fruit of the Spirit as gifts, but that is a subject for another time. These workings, including words of knowledge (people saying things they would have no knowledge of on their own but that are 100% accurate), messages in tongues and interpretation that are independently verified as being given and translated correctly when the person(s) involved don't know the human language being used but some visitor happened to, and healings have happened many times over the course of my life. I can't say I've seen a miracle unless you count people delivered from long term habits like smoking or something as a miracle instead of a healing. Some of them have happened on a weekly or monthly basis. God does these things for many reasons, but one of the reasons is to eliminate doubt in the minds of man that He is.
Many of these are debated at length by people who don't believe in God. For example, when someone gives a word of prophecy and says that something will happen in the future and it does, there is always the criticism that having heard the prophecy people move in that direction and it becomes self fulfilling. There is some truth to that. For messages in tongues and interpretation there is also the lingering suspicion that the persons involved really knew the languages but weren't telling anyone. When you don't know the people but are just looking from the outside that is easy to say. But words of knowledge where something is said by someone about something you've done that you know only you and God knew about is a lot harder to dismiss.
People who are outside the church always dismiss reports of healings. They call them staged because they know nothing about the people involved and it is easier to claim that it's all a show than accept that the supernatural really exists. The healings I'm talking about are those of people that I personally know, who had been verified as having a disease by doctors, who are prayed for, and who get a clean bill of health after. This has included people who had gone to the doctor with coughs, had X-Rays that showed cancer starting on the lungs, were prayed for and went back for the next appointment with a healing message that the doctor didn't believe and then proved with a new set of clear X-Rays. This includes a church member who was in a wheel chair for 8 years, was prayed for, and got up out of his wheel chair and walked out of the service. It includes more than one person with a leg that was physically deformed in the past by an accident or by birth to the point where they used braces to walk or walked with a limp being prayed for and walking out of the services without a limp or without the need for braces. God cares about some little things too. His healings have included instances in my own family where my kids started feeling sick during the service and were prayed for at the end and had their stomachs stop hurting (two instances) and my wife who had also seen a doctor for an issue and had been directed to a specialist who was prayed for and received immediate relief. It is easy to scoff when you aren't involved with the church and know the people and their character.
Everyone isn't healed. I know that faith comes into that and not necessarily the faith of the person being prayed for. All God wants is some faith from someone there. Sometimes there may be sin issues. And sometimes, He knows that something worse will happen if they are healed so He chooses not to. I don't pretend to be able to answer why He does some things for some and doesn't intervene in other situations. But I don't doubt for a second that
No. The ultimate responsibility rests with the one making the informed choice.
Do you have children? Would you be happier as a parent with a child who had no choice but to do what they were told to do like a robot with no chance of any self programming or would you be happier if your creation instead chose to do right instead of wrong out of love for you? Hopefully, the second choice would be the choice you want. If you don't have kids yet, are you happier as a young adult having choices instead of living a totally pre-programmed existence? Are you a better person who is more productive today because you are doing some of the things you want to do rather than knowing for example at the time of birth that you were going to be a garbage collector in the second ward - get married at 18 - have six kids - et cetera? As a father, I can assure you life would be easier if our creation came with an instruction book that we could follow till they're on their own with answers to every question and with every day planned out. It would also be boring. If I can say that as a father of just a few, how can you sit there and criticize God for not wanting a bunch of robots as His creation?
I'm not saying that is merciful. I don't think that that enters into the discussion at all. But you really don't have much basis for criticizing the way God did things. He came to fellowship with Adam and Eve routinely. They were created to keep Him company. But the bright shiny things of life looked too good to them to just go about the boring old walks in the garden - so they picked bright and shiny and paid the price. They discovered that God really did mean what He said. The same day that the sin was discovered, however, God shed the blood of animals to make them clothing and uttered the prophecy that in due time (a few thousand years as it turns out) He would send a redeemer to restore a right relationship between all mankind who would accept the means of justification and God and to restore that communion with Him that originally existed. He was still being merciful to them and their descendents even when He had just been wronged. Sounds pretty good to me.
Remember that God is merciful, but He is also just and many other things. You have to make the same choice that Adam and Eve did, in essence. Choose the pleasures of sin for a season and eternal loss, or choose His way of salvation. The choice is yours. But now that He has sent His son to be a sacrifice for sin, there are no other ways of reconciliation that are available. You've heard about Christ and salvation and you must choose. Take the advice of the knight of the Round Table on the Indiana Jones movie and choose wisely.
Getting back to the original thread - yes God could protect everyone from crime, disease, and all bad things. That was His original intent. Mankind left, so God picked plan B. He's carrying it out day by day, prophecy by prophecy. There's basically just a few chapters to go. Choose wisely before you have to live through God's wrath being poured out on those who didn't choose wisely.
Um. Actually, according to the Bible God did initially create a paradise and put man in it. Man chose disobedience after explicit warnings. Don't blame God for man's choice.
The Bible states that God created the Earth "In the beginning". Nowhere does it state that this was 4,000 years ago (or even 4,000 B.C.). It is perfectly reasonable, and some fundamentalists would say required, to accept the fossil record and to accept the age of the earth as dated by scientists as approximately correct. Our interpretations of the fossil record may not match yours 100%, but we accept it as evidence of all the critters that have existed in the past. For us, there is no place to put Satan's rule of the planet as noted in some non Genesis portions of the Bible except before Adam. There are more than the Amish who are disgusted with parts of the ID theory. It doesn't fit with a complete reading of the Bible.
There's a lot there and I don't intend to wade through it all. If there are one or two items that particularly bother you, point them out and I may take a crack at an answer.
You see, I've seen God's hand at work in the lives of people I know well. My wife had been to the doctor for a health problem that she had. It was visible. The doctor had verified the problem and directed her to a specialist. Before she went to the specialist, she went up and was prayed for and God healed her instantly. I know that she wasn't faking the illness just so I could write about it here. It was real, and her healing was real. The results were directly visible. Another person at the church was wheelchair bound for years and was prayed for and healed and walked away. I don't claim to know God's timing in why some prayers take longer than others to be answered, but once you've seen God's miraculous power work - and know that it was real - then all the silly jabs at inconsistencies in the Bible become really quite irrelevant. As I said in my last comment - the Bible does have a few inconsistencies due to mistranslation or fragmentation of the original texts. That is acknowledged. But in its main purpose, it is completely consistent. If you've never been in a setting where you see God move in a miraculous ways, then I can understand why you prefer to look with skepticism at the whole thing. Once you've seen God at work, it resets you heart.
Did you ever wonder why there are never any lawsuits about the other religions being taught in school? Why don't atheists go after school systems that teach about the Greek gods or about Hinduism or Islam? Satan isn't worried about those religions because the power of God isn't present in them. He doesn't fear when others are led astray to religions he controls. But Christianity is actively opposed because he hates it when people draw close to the living God.
I repeat - if you've never seen the hand of God work, it is easy to look at the few minor inconsistencies and reject everything. But when you do that, you are rejecting the basic message that the Bible is there to proclaim. God exists. Christ came to provide a sacrifice for sin. Everyone is a sinner and needs to accept that sacrifice for eternal life. The gift of salvation is free, but must be accepted. God is holy and sin separates you from God. Accepting the blood of Jesus as your sacrifice for sin is the only thing that is acceptable to God to have an eternal relationship with Him.
Miracles and healings aren't done to make our lives better - although that is a nice side benefit. They are done to show that God is still working in His people today. I know that there are a lot of places where the church isn't very effective today. That is true both in the U.S. and around the world. But there are also places in each country where God is working miracles and moving in mighty ways. I can't compel anyone to go check them out, and I can assure you that there are a small number of staged events that are not real. But the genuine thing is happening as well. Seek God and He'll make himself real enough to you that your doubts will be erased forever.
Evolution as theory..: I happen to like science a lot - got straight A's - it was neat. But the thing about evolution is that you can't conduct an experiment to prove it. You can show species adaptation to an environment. You can show from fossil records that horses have changed sizes from the past to today. You can show lots of things. But you can't show total evolution from one critter to another significantly more advanced critter. You also can't show, via the fossil record, that evolution from one species to a completely different thing occurred. It may or may not have happened, but it wasn't directly observed by anyone present today. People are just proposing their theories based on what they think the fossil record says because they won't accept any other way to explain what they see. I think the disclaimer should be made any time there isn't a directly observable result that can be reproduced today. Not every country is going to have a super-collider and I'm willing to accept research going on elsewhere in the world as sufficient to not require the claim for every theory expressed. But evolution requires way too much faith to accept without qualifications.
I don't feel that school is the place for religious beliefs to be taught. They should be taught in a religious setting or at home by the family. However, the reality in U.S. public education is that you hear of the religious beliefs of the American Indian, you are exposed to each of the major faiths (mostly as cultural events as peoples but always with some religious information as well) and you are exposed to all of the Greek mythology with their gods, et cetera along with their creation stories. This is called literature.
Yet Christianity can't be discussed. If they are going to allow some, they should allow all, equally. The trouble is there is never enough time to allow all, because there are so many around the world. So I'd be fine with none. That may not be uniform across the entire country, but it was what I experienced.
I don't have a problem with my kids being exposed to other religions. It is good to be aware of what is out there in the world. It helps to understand where other people are coming from. But when, at the same time, they are told that they can't even invite someone to a church Christmas program during recess because we can't have anyone talking about God I get frustrated. That's the dichotomy Christians face all around the country today. Can't offend anyone by mentioning anything about God at school, but better know the right answers about Zeus to pass your English literature exam. It is all right to expose kids to other people's religious beliefs. Just not the majority belief. It's ridiculous!
The Bible stands by itself. I do defend the whole of it. I am not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, so I have to take it based on a translation I can read, and there are times that some parts are hurt by the translation process. Some parts aren't particularly popular today, but overall I try to understand it myself with the help of any study aids I find useful. I also don't claim that the preservation process was 100% successful. The Hebrew writing system had lots of jots and tittles that sometimes were lost but which changed numbers slightly so there are places that the best translation from the surviving bits of manuscript give slightly different results in different places. What the preacher, Pope, or anyone else says is fine if it appears to line up with what the Bible says. Otherwise, I ignore it. There are parts of prophecy that I don't fully understand and that was true for those who heard prophecies that have already come about. It is easy to look back and say - well that was clearly what was meant there because it all links together now that the prophecy is fulfilled. Looking forward isn't always so easy. There is also a lot of figurative language in prophecy where the prophet tried to explain what he was seeing as best he could using the words he knew. If we were to see the same things today, we might explain them diff
I'm a Christian. Let me be one of the first Christians in this thread to say that Creationism (or its hideous offshoot Intelligent Design) should not be taught in science class. The teachers do have too much to do to get bogged down in debates. There are a couple of conditions though.
Clearly identify evolution as a theory of scientists that explains the facts as they see it.
In the literature classes where the "world's major creation myths" as you put it are described, be sure to include Christianity. You see, one of the reasons Christians get so fed up with the school system is any world religion can be discussed with the exception of Christianity. You can talk about American Indians and their beliefs in grade school. You can talk about Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and their beliefs in the middle grades studying geography or cultural studies. You can study Greek, Roman, and Egyptian creation myths and the whole pantheon of their gods and goddesses in various literature classes. More than that, you have to memorize the facts about them and regurgitate them for a grade. But you can't discuss Christianity or some atheist will be up in arms suing the school district.
Separation of church and state sounds good in theory, but what it really boils down to is exclusion of Christianity, just because it happens to be the majority religion at the moment. All other peoples and their belief systems are OK to study under the context of broadening the mind and multi-culturalism. Just don't let the mind of any kid who isn't fortunate enough to go to Sunday School get his or her mind broadened to include Christianity. That would be a violation of church and state, for heaven's sake.
And before you lump me in with the crowd who says the earth was created a few thousand years ago, I would go on record that you won't find that anywhere in the Bible. I've argued the subject recently and won't repeat myself here.
Yes. Mr. Obama was in the academic environment. He was a Senior Lecturer in constitutional law, which I think would be a pretty good background for executive office. he might actually respect what the U.S. Constitution says and follow through with the oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Might be a welcome change of pace.
I don't know about the church she attends in her home town now, but the A/G denomination would frown on putting God to the test by intentionally handling snakes. We fall back on Jesus words "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
Speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues is Biblical and is evidenced in A/G churches today. It might interest you to know that messages in tongues are given in human languages and interpreted to the native language as a witness to unbelievers. You obviously qualify. There have been many times that there was another person in the audience who could independently verify that the message in tongues was given correctly and translated properly since they spoke the language used where neither the person giving the message nor the interpreter knew the language. God is still working in His church today. You may choose to disbelieve, but don't knock something you know nothing about.
Not bizarre - just frequently interpreted out of context from the rest of the scripture in the Bible. If you study the whole thing, you will find ---
It supports the big bang theory - "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth." You should note that a different Hebrew word is used for create here than in the rest of Genesis 1. This could well indicate a difference between an initial creative act and a restoration to a habitable state after a catastrophe.
It supports instances of major flooding, just like the geologic record. Both Genesis 1 and Noah's flood (Gen 6. and ff) could easily parallel the time in history when the Mediterranean basin filled and the Black Sea filled. The language used in describing Noah's flood could easily be referring to a local major event like the Black Sea filling wiping out all known inhabitants and wildlife in the surrounding area without the requirement of Noah actually saving all of the creatures around the entire world as is sometimes argued.
One individual in the Bible has a name that when translated indicates a time when the continents were split apart.
It supports an age of the Earth older than the commonly argued few thousand years based on the ages of people recorded in the Bible from Adam on. Isaiah tells that when Lucifer led his rebellion against God there were cities on the Earth that were then destroyed by God with no living survivors when Satan's rebellion is crushed (Jeremiah 4 is the only other spot the earth is described as void). This hasn't happened post Adam, so must point back before Adam's time. 2 Peter states "Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished." The world mentioned here is "social system". That didn't happen in Noah's flood, so another flood is required along with a social system. Gen. 1 is the best candidate.
There is nothing in the Bible that precludes a long time between the Earth's creation and the time of Adam. The above references would indicate a civilization before Adam. The Bible simply records human history from Adam on. This gives ample time for a wide variety of creatures to come and go and be recorded in the fossil record, with accurate very old dating and no conflicts with the Bible.
The fossil record of man is interesting. There are many branches that extend for a time and then there is a gap - at about the time period of Adam - where modern man then starts up. Seems like that matches the Biblical record as well.
Regardless of whether I have raised some points you might want to actually study from the whole Bible before declaring Genesis an embarrassment, it was a decision that the project made, for their own well considered reasons. Yes, it's intolerant of some other religions. It is, however, consistent and accepted by a large body of the people on Earth today, being common in three of the major world religions. It's a document that has carried down from before written records through several thousand years, so it's likely it will continue. I can't say the same for some of the documents you listed as alternatives. You're welcome to start your own translated archive of whatever documents you'd like.
The events weren't something that happened - like the current Democratic and Republican conventions - and were forgotten about 3 months later (if remembered that long).
The events that happened were life changing events for an entire culture. They were fulfillment of prophecies that were uttered thousands of years before. The stories were told and retold in the Early Church and debated at length in the Synagogues. They were teachings and doctrines reinforced with visible miracles and healings that were observed by thousands and thousands of individuals and birthed a religion that is still in existence 2,000 years after they happened. They weren't just written down from one person's memories 70 years later. They were reinforced as multiple people recounted their shared experiences and observations.
I don't like to speak for God, but I'm pretty sure from reading both the Old and New Testaments and the standards He set out, that God isn't sitting on a cloud laughing about the mess His children are making of the planet or about the things they are doing to each other. I suspect He is far closer to righteous anger at what His children are doing. You need to also realize that most of the mayhem being caused isn't being done by people He would call members of His church - even though some may claim to be Christians. I also suspect the party is about to end. If He's laughing at anything, it's probably at me trying to be very careful in what I say. The people He chose in the Old Testament weren't very careful with their words when they saw wrong being done.
I'm sure you could go on for hours. I won't. I've seen people visibly healed first hand. I wouldn't doubt the Bible (correctly interpreted, BTW - some of the major objections on/. are simply due to not studying what it really says) even without the visible miracles, but they're nice to have as reinforcement.
I'm also pretty sure God isn't too happy with what the Early Church has morphed into. You obviously have heard a lot about the Bible. If that comes from early training in a dead branch of the current Christian church, you really should go to a church where the Holy Spirit is at work performing the same miracles and healings that were done in the Early Church.
All the people there won't be perfect, either. None of us are. But you will have direct audible and visible evidence that God is, and is still at work in the church. You might have to attend more than one service, and I'd suggest attending a service other than Christmas and Easter when there is way too much going on by the congregation. But if you're patient, you'll see the truth. With your bitterness, you may still reject it. But you'll at least have made an informed eternal decision. If you listen carefully to Him, you'll pick the right church the first time. If you don't try again. It's important and the time is short.
Given the state of our current medical knowledge (admittedly orders of magnitude above where we were even 100 years ago), I'll stick with using the Bible. Medical and scientific knowledge changes much to fast to use as a basis of comparison. If you have any doubts, just pick up a physics or chemistry textbook from 100 years ago which will be long out of print.
The Bible is easy to read and provides a good basis for translation. The fact that so many versions exist already in so many languages makes it an even better choice. The fact that it will be around in whatever language people are using in another 2,000 years is good as well. Yes, the words used in the current versions are changing slightly over time, but the basic thoughts and structures remain true to the original written word.
I don't eschew medicine and my wife works in the medical field, but I've also personally witnessed healing by God occur in people I know well. There was nothing faked about it and the results were visibly observable. An antibiotic is only useful until resistance is developed. At that point, it is worthless for fighting a particular foe. The Bible is eternally useful and God can and does heal regardless of the situation or man's medical knowledge.
Yes, people have been making up religions since time began. Don't knock the religion of the Bible. If you've had a bad experience at church, maybe you should find a church and denomination that bases its beliefs and actions closer to what Jesus and the Early Church were doing rather than the feel good mega churches or denominations that reject the work of the Holy Spirit today. Once you've seen God at work and realize that the Bible wasn't just a bunch of words someone strung together a long time ago in a country far, far away, the Bible takes on a whole new meaning.
The old truism - sometimes the bulls make money, sometimes the bears make money, but the pigs - they never make any money.
I still sleep better with buy low, sell high - at least my loss is limited if I end up in the hospital and can't close out a losing position.
"When someone can prove to me why one god is any more real than any other god, I'll believe."
Jehovah (one of His many titles), the God of the Christian Bible, is real, existing as three divine beings operating in harmony with one another. The other gods aren't real. I accept that as a matter of faith and a reflection on the historical accuracy of the Bible.
I've also seen, heard, and read evidence that proves that fact to me beyond any doubt. I don't have to go any farther than my local church to find God's hand at work today. You choose not to believe the evidence of the Bible, and probably refuse to go to a church denomination where you could witness what God is doing today firsthand. Fine. I believe that God will be perfectly happy to show you that He is real. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should be saved.
The question is... are you ready for Him to do so? Do you really want to declare - as the fool - that there is no God? Believe me, faith is a much better method!
If you're really serious about wanting proof, He'll supply it. If nothing anybody else is going to say, the testimonies of people who are being healed today or seeing miracles performed today just as in the days of the apostles, or the history you could read will matter to you or be accepted by you - so be it! So many are demanding signs today. That spirit hasn't changed much in 2,000 years. Faith and grace are the best way to go.
Be as fair with Him as you would be with any of the science you are so fond of. He probably won't stop the earth from revolving just for you. But if you decide on something that wouldn't mess up any of His other plans, put it before Him. Just be careful what you ask for. He is God, after all. The Old and New Testament are filled with examples of how he reacted to presumptuous individuals.
Remember that God really doesn't care much for religion. He created man for fellowship. The religious guidelines didn't come till man messed things up. Jesus reduced all of them back down to two commands. Love God. Love your neighbor.
Best wishes. I'd say - reply with the results - but there would be too many posting false negative outcomes and too many posting false positive outcomes to be relevant. What matters is what you decide in your own heart.
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I think Romans makes this clearer. Everyone who has heard of Christ and what He did must make a choice as to whether or not to accept Christ's death on the cross as his sin sacrifice and follow Him. It is your free choice, and the Bible is clear that if you don't choose Christ after hearing about Him, there is no other sacrifice that is acceptable to save you from eternal damnation. In the case of people who have never heard of Christ, they will be judged based on what their consciences told them were right and wrong. The Holy Spirit works in every person's heart trying hard to guide them to make the right choices and warn them away from wrong choices. Those who never heard of Christ will be judged on the basis of whether or not they obeyed the Holy Spirit's leading.
As far as babies and kids are concerned, it is fairly clear that everyone starts out written in the Lamb's Book of Life. When you reach the age that you are accountable for your actions (which varies with each individual) you must make a choice to accept Christ as your Saviour or reject Him - for those who know about Him - and for the few who don't in this day and age - see the first paragraph. If you reject Him, your name is blotted out of the Lamb's book of life. That's a paraphrase of what I believe the Bible says, but I think it is a consistent reading of the Word.
Limbo was an invalid concept that should never have come about. Before Christ died on the cross, you either went to hell or paradise. They were close enough that people could be identified from one to the other and could talk with each other. There was a gulf preventing passage from one to the other though. While Christ was in the grave, He went to paradise, identified Himself as the expected one due to Jewish prophecy, and took all the people there to heaven with Him. Post resurrection, you go to heaven to be with Him or to hell, reserved until the great white throne judgment. There is no limbo that you can be prayed or bought out of and there never was.
Saul did meet Jesus on the road to Damascus.
The evangelical and pentecostal branches of the church believe in the continued working of the Holy Spirit which gives direction via prophecy, messages in tongues and interpretation to its followers today just as He did to the early church and Paul.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His standards in the Old Testament stand just as true to condemn mankind as the New Testament. Nonetheless, the irritation over Leviticus is irrelevant. There are many passages in the New Testament which continue to voice His displeasure with homosexuality. He does love everyone, but He demands righteous living.
None of us are perfect as we all started with an inherited nature of sin that Christ didn't have. We are all saved by grace through faith in Christ. I am far from perfect, but have faith in Christ to have provided the sin offering once for all that I have done and will yet do that displeases God. I try to live better each day than I did the day before. I'm not always successful. What I do with my life, however, doesn't change God's standards a bit. In both Testaments He has declared certain things to be at enmity with Him.
As a Christian, I must love everyone equally, even when it is hard. I can't, however, tell people God really didn't mean something He declared in many places He hated just to make them feel better about their life and what they're doing. God can forgive anything if they will ask, but repentance must come after that. That doesn't mean I hate them. It should always be done in love. But you just can't say I will accept the bits and pieces of the Bible that I like and form a religion around that and ignore the inconvenient bits. The law was harsh. The Old Testament times were harsh outside Israel as well. But Hell is much harsher, and if I believe the Bible bits about salvation, then I have to believe the Bible bits about judgment as well. I don't know how far God's grace will extend. But when the consequences are eternal, it is better to err on the conservative side than the lax side.
Sorry for the long reply.
I suspect there are many reasons that some Christians don't like the thought of stem-cell research, primarily due to the sources of some stem cell lines.
Please don't paint with too wide a brush, however. I'm Christian, and have absolutely no problems with research that is primarily conducted to better the conditions of humanity. God gave us a pretty fantastic mind, and a desire to use it, and I think it is a shame that some oppose the advancement of the medical and scientific knowledge base for shaky at best Biblical reasons.
That said, change comes hard for most people in some subject. How many people are afraid to try Linux because they've always known Microsoft to use a slashdot appropriate example?
I know someone very well who went to a doctor and was told she had two possible things wrong with her, neither of which was curable or good. For possibility 1, there was medicine that could give some symptom relief, but the body would eventually adapt and it would lose its effectiveness. She was directed to a specialist to rule out problem number 2.
Before going to see the specialist, she went forward for prayer to a lay person at the front of the church during worship. When she came back to her seat, she was no longer exhibiting symptoms. That was months ago and she hasn't had any recurrence.
I would counsel everyone with a terminal illness to see a doctor, and certainly to follow what the doctor suggests doing. Your pastor isn't a doctor. He may have had quite a bit of formal and on-the-job education about dealing with people going through rough stretches in their lives, however. Terminal illnesses certainly qualify in that regard.
But I also know of enough healings (X-rays showing lung cancer after going to a doctor with coughing, prayer, no more coughing, subsequent X-rays show clear lungs..., individuals who have been confined to wheel chairs who walk out of service healed) that have happened in churches that I attended involving people that I know, that I have no problem accepting that God is, and that He wants to glorify the Son by having Spirit filled people carry out His will.
Relying on God is never a bad thing. There are lots of things doctors can fix, and if you want to take that route, there's nothing wrong with that. There's still lots of things that doctors can't fix though. Don't rule out God for those. He'd still help with the little things as well, if we'd let Him. He might be even more likely to do so if He knew He'd get the glory. His promises (for those who satisfy the preconditions, are still yea and amen.
Luke 1:27-38 ... And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.
Sorry. It certainly wasn't in her plans to get pregnant before marriage, but when Gabriel spoke with her, she said yes - let it be so. You may not believe the account, and that is your right. But if Mary had told Gabriel no, God would have respected that. He gave everyone free will.
While you are correct that we live under grace and should have love instead of hate in our hearts, I actually find that Christ's standards for how we should live are stricter than those given to the Israelites. How many times does Christ say something like -- "You have heard it said..., but I say unto you..." where what He said was a much tougher standard to meet.
It should be noted that certain of the commands to wipe out a particular people were based (according to Biblical accounts) on God's desire to wipe out races which were descendents of offspring of angels and women where Satan was trying to wipe out a pure blood line from Adam to Christ (pre-Noah and later). You may not agree with this, but if this Biblical interpretation is correct, you'll have to take it up with Him someday. Now that Christ has come, Satan isn't active in this regard, leaving no need to exterminate large blocks of humans.
While we aren't expected to live under the strictures of Old Testament law, with its penalties and sacrifices, that doesn't mean God has lowered His standards for what He judges right and wrong. The only basic commandment for righteous living that isn't found in the New Testament in some form versus the Old Testament is "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy." Every other thing that God detested in the Old Testament, you'll find in the New Testament, and it is clear He hasn't changed His feelings about them from the time of the law to the New Testament writings. I doubt things have changed any in the last 2,000 years either. People get to hearing that God is all love, and forget that He is also righteous and just. He's not going to let modern man get away with stuff He came down on the Old Testament people for. That wouldn't be just. I am pretty sure the only reason the Sabbath observance wasn't included was that Christ was so fed up with what the Jewish religion had become that He wanted nothing to do with it. He wanted worship from the heart and not the form and ritual without substance that it had become (at least to the religious leaders in his time). I hate to think what He thinks about what some parts of Christianity have become today. He may be thinking the same thing. I'm certainly imperfect as well, saved only by faith in Christ and the Grace of God.
One of His replies: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. sums up His requirements pretty well.
I'm not sure what the behemoth was, but it wasn't a dinosaur.
God made some decisions about how the universe was going to operate when He did the whole Genesis 1:1 big bang thing. He has pretty much followed them ever since.
I know He could have done a lot of wild stuff by making fossils appear old and by placing every single subatomic particle in the universe at a particular consistent point and state to make the universe appear old (by virtue of the fact that we can actually see stuff that far away at all) even if He created everything only a few short millenniums ago. The rest of the Bible just doesn't paint Him as that sort of a being. Those sorts of tricks sound like something Satan would do (had he that power). Since he doesn't, he's just stirring up confusion and destroying harmony in Christianity where the subject is concerned - what he's best at.
I'm firmly convinced that at the Great White Throne judgment God isn't going to put up with any rubbish like "the rocks measured out at being x million years old and the Bible said they couldn't be over 10,000 so I decided you couldn't exist and it's all your fault I didn't believe.". He made the scientific laws work a particular way for a reason and if that messes with Christians' views of the Bible, then it is probably our view of the Bible that is wrong and not His scientific laws.
If you read the Bible, and interpret it correctly, you have to find a place for Satan to have ruled it to lead his assault on Heaven. This didn't happen since Adam's time. That pushes it before. Other scripture references require more than one huge flood and planet wide destruction to have occurred. There are just too many references to everything getting destroyed that simply didn't happen in Noah's flood. The net result of that is that Gen. 1:3- points to the world in a destroyed state after God's judgment on Satan, and God's restoration of it to a habitable state rather than recording the actual initial creation.
It's interesting to me that we find several early human lines that all drop out of the fossil record around the same time that modern man starts, and at a time period that would be consistent with the record in Genesis if God got fed up and started over after a cataclysmic flood judgment. It also is entirely consistent with the scientific record.
I am a firm believer in the Bible too. I freely admit that due to deterioration in the original texts, there have been various small translation errors over the last several thousand years. Yet it remains a very consistent book in the message it is trying to portray - Christ, the Savior, came and died for our sins and wants to draw all of humanity to Him - He's coming back for His church - His church needs to be ready. I've seen God do too many things in my time that couldn't be rationally explained (people being healed on the spot and the like) to have doubts about either His existence or the veracity of the Bible.
Christians need to study the Bible with an open mind, see all of what God has done, and realize that there aren't conflicts with true science. We need to get back to preaching the Word of salvation and let the Holy Spirit deal with the hearts of those who scoff. Pray for them, but don't argue for the funky Creation Science - it just isn't what the Bible declares.
Like Paul, we need to preach the crucified Christ and not get bogged down trying to force wrong scientific ideas based on a misunderstanding of the Bible down people's throats. I know that this has strayed a bit, but I've read so many comments to this original article, mostly summarized as "Those crazy Christians and religion are the real problem" that I finally had to respond, and your thread was the one I happened to hit where I reached my limit.
But in a management position you have to form at least one committee...
I work on computer systems for many hours a day. Giving my fingers, wrists, and eyes a break for just the cost of some newspaper ink is a good deal. The local and national newspapers I read solved the ink issue long ago.
Actually, all ads are largely ignored. No matter the medium - print, TV, movies (blech!), on-line - unless I am looking for a particular item to buy. Then, I look at the relevant ads. I am a typical customer, anywhere in the world. The only people who actually look at ads frequently are people in the business of making ads.
On the other hand, do you know what product names I remember. I remember Texaco and Hallmark. Why? Because in the past they have completely sponsored shows that I considered worth watching. I'll never remember that product X was shown on show Y, because I zap commercials. On the other hand, I'll always remember Hallmark from the Hallmark Hall of Fame movies that are really some of the few decent things to watch on TV. Same with Texaco (although much longer ago).
All ads are overpriced. I won't argue with you there. But if you want to reach me as a customer (and your business isn't the type that does trade shows as your advertizing medium), you'll need to reach me in the newspaper. I block on-line ads. I zap TV ads for the few shows I watch anymore. I get my news from the newspaper, so about the only TV program people might watch live is also useless to reach me. I only occasionally listen to the radio on a short commute to work - but usually listen to CDs while driving anyway. I never look at ads in magazines. But if I'm looking for a product to buy locally, I'll look through newspaper ads. You may not like the prices the newspapers charge, but you do reach a local market in ways that you won't otherwise.
This is the primary reason that the newspaper industry must survive. Ad revenue is what supports the media industry (whatever media you choose to pick). Everyone ignores ads to a greater or lesser extent. But it is easier for the publishers to sell companies on the idea that their ads might be seen in a physical media than an on-line media. This is the primary reason that the TV industry is so against the time shifters - be it VCRs or more modern variants. If my commercial is zapped, why should I pay to put it on your show? It's a point that is even harder to sell on-line.
When there is no revenue from ads, the subscribers won't pay a high enough price to cover your operating costs. How many on-line news sources do you actually subscribe to? How many do you subscribe to if the "cost" is nothing more than an on-line registration? I'd guess pretty few. So you are a content leach. That works fine for you, since there are still enough people paying money in print (or cable TV subscriptions, or on-line equivalents) to pay people enough to produce content that they can distribute in its entirety or in reduced form to the on-line world.
If the revenue flow ceases to exist, there isn't going to be much content worth reading. As things become tighter, you can be assured that those providing content will seek to protect it further. The cost of litigation is something that the on-line bloggers haven't had to deal with much yet. You can rest assured it will happen.
Those editors have lots of job functions. I'll be the first to agree that the quality of the newspapers has declined somewhat. The editors might be just as good, but the reporters ability to write correct English has declined. More mistakes are getting through edit. Another important job function is to keep the content fresh. A particular blogger may have an agenda, but if he or she never extends beyond that agenda - do you keep coming back? A third job function is to keep the paper from being sued for libel. That is another litigation expense that the on-line only crowd hasn't had to deal with much yet.
On-line will always have a place. It is convenient to find news about a particular subject during the day when the newspaper is not at hand. But at the end of the day of looking at a computer screen for 8 hours, I'd much rather sit down to a nice local newspaper and a nice global newspaper to read the pieces of news I'm interested in. I personally can't stand the talking heads on TV blathering the same 1 minute sound bite every 15 minutes. I'd much rather skip around and read what I want from print.
Actually, Lucifer (one of the chief angels) demonstrated that even the angels have free will and he showed his exercise of it by rebelling against God along with many others. They lost, but they do have free will just like we do.
Yes, of course my argument is based on the fact that God exists. In my time, I have seen the gifts of the Holy Spirit as described and used by Christ and the New Testament church alive and well in today's church. I wish I saw as much fruit of the Spirit as gifts, but that is a subject for another time. These workings, including words of knowledge (people saying things they would have no knowledge of on their own but that are 100% accurate), messages in tongues and interpretation that are independently verified as being given and translated correctly when the person(s) involved don't know the human language being used but some visitor happened to, and healings have happened many times over the course of my life. I can't say I've seen a miracle unless you count people delivered from long term habits like smoking or something as a miracle instead of a healing. Some of them have happened on a weekly or monthly basis. God does these things for many reasons, but one of the reasons is to eliminate doubt in the minds of man that He is.
Many of these are debated at length by people who don't believe in God. For example, when someone gives a word of prophecy and says that something will happen in the future and it does, there is always the criticism that having heard the prophecy people move in that direction and it becomes self fulfilling. There is some truth to that. For messages in tongues and interpretation there is also the lingering suspicion that the persons involved really knew the languages but weren't telling anyone. When you don't know the people but are just looking from the outside that is easy to say. But words of knowledge where something is said by someone about something you've done that you know only you and God knew about is a lot harder to dismiss.
People who are outside the church always dismiss reports of healings. They call them staged because they know nothing about the people involved and it is easier to claim that it's all a show than accept that the supernatural really exists. The healings I'm talking about are those of people that I personally know, who had been verified as having a disease by doctors, who are prayed for, and who get a clean bill of health after. This has included people who had gone to the doctor with coughs, had X-Rays that showed cancer starting on the lungs, were prayed for and went back for the next appointment with a healing message that the doctor didn't believe and then proved with a new set of clear X-Rays. This includes a church member who was in a wheel chair for 8 years, was prayed for, and got up out of his wheel chair and walked out of the service. It includes more than one person with a leg that was physically deformed in the past by an accident or by birth to the point where they used braces to walk or walked with a limp being prayed for and walking out of the services without a limp or without the need for braces. God cares about some little things too. His healings have included instances in my own family where my kids started feeling sick during the service and were prayed for at the end and had their stomachs stop hurting (two instances) and my wife who had also seen a doctor for an issue and had been directed to a specialist who was prayed for and received immediate relief. It is easy to scoff when you aren't involved with the church and know the people and their character.
Everyone isn't healed. I know that faith comes into that and not necessarily the faith of the person being prayed for. All God wants is some faith from someone there. Sometimes there may be sin issues. And sometimes, He knows that something worse will happen if they are healed so He chooses not to. I don't pretend to be able to answer why He does some things for some and doesn't intervene in other situations. But I don't doubt for a second that
No. The ultimate responsibility rests with the one making the informed choice.
Do you have children? Would you be happier as a parent with a child who had no choice but to do what they were told to do like a robot with no chance of any self programming or would you be happier if your creation instead chose to do right instead of wrong out of love for you? Hopefully, the second choice would be the choice you want. If you don't have kids yet, are you happier as a young adult having choices instead of living a totally pre-programmed existence? Are you a better person who is more productive today because you are doing some of the things you want to do rather than knowing for example at the time of birth that you were going to be a garbage collector in the second ward - get married at 18 - have six kids - et cetera? As a father, I can assure you life would be easier if our creation came with an instruction book that we could follow till they're on their own with answers to every question and with every day planned out. It would also be boring. If I can say that as a father of just a few, how can you sit there and criticize God for not wanting a bunch of robots as His creation?
I'm not saying that is merciful. I don't think that that enters into the discussion at all. But you really don't have much basis for criticizing the way God did things. He came to fellowship with Adam and Eve routinely. They were created to keep Him company. But the bright shiny things of life looked too good to them to just go about the boring old walks in the garden - so they picked bright and shiny and paid the price. They discovered that God really did mean what He said. The same day that the sin was discovered, however, God shed the blood of animals to make them clothing and uttered the prophecy that in due time (a few thousand years as it turns out) He would send a redeemer to restore a right relationship between all mankind who would accept the means of justification and God and to restore that communion with Him that originally existed. He was still being merciful to them and their descendents even when He had just been wronged. Sounds pretty good to me.
Remember that God is merciful, but He is also just and many other things. You have to make the same choice that Adam and Eve did, in essence. Choose the pleasures of sin for a season and eternal loss, or choose His way of salvation. The choice is yours. But now that He has sent His son to be a sacrifice for sin, there are no other ways of reconciliation that are available. You've heard about Christ and salvation and you must choose. Take the advice of the knight of the Round Table on the Indiana Jones movie and choose wisely.
Getting back to the original thread - yes God could protect everyone from crime, disease, and all bad things. That was His original intent. Mankind left, so God picked plan B. He's carrying it out day by day, prophecy by prophecy. There's basically just a few chapters to go. Choose wisely before you have to live through God's wrath being poured out on those who didn't choose wisely.
Um. Actually, according to the Bible God did initially create a paradise and put man in it. Man chose disobedience after explicit warnings. Don't blame God for man's choice.
The Bible states that God created the Earth "In the beginning". Nowhere does it state that this was 4,000 years ago (or even 4,000 B.C.). It is perfectly reasonable, and some fundamentalists would say required, to accept the fossil record and to accept the age of the earth as dated by scientists as approximately correct. Our interpretations of the fossil record may not match yours 100%, but we accept it as evidence of all the critters that have existed in the past. For us, there is no place to put Satan's rule of the planet as noted in some non Genesis portions of the Bible except before Adam. There are more than the Amish who are disgusted with parts of the ID theory. It doesn't fit with a complete reading of the Bible.
There's a lot there and I don't intend to wade through it all. If there are one or two items that particularly bother you, point them out and I may take a crack at an answer.
You see, I've seen God's hand at work in the lives of people I know well. My wife had been to the doctor for a health problem that she had. It was visible. The doctor had verified the problem and directed her to a specialist. Before she went to the specialist, she went up and was prayed for and God healed her instantly. I know that she wasn't faking the illness just so I could write about it here. It was real, and her healing was real. The results were directly visible. Another person at the church was wheelchair bound for years and was prayed for and healed and walked away. I don't claim to know God's timing in why some prayers take longer than others to be answered, but once you've seen God's miraculous power work - and know that it was real - then all the silly jabs at inconsistencies in the Bible become really quite irrelevant. As I said in my last comment - the Bible does have a few inconsistencies due to mistranslation or fragmentation of the original texts. That is acknowledged. But in its main purpose, it is completely consistent. If you've never been in a setting where you see God move in a miraculous ways, then I can understand why you prefer to look with skepticism at the whole thing. Once you've seen God at work, it resets you heart.
Did you ever wonder why there are never any lawsuits about the other religions being taught in school? Why don't atheists go after school systems that teach about the Greek gods or about Hinduism or Islam? Satan isn't worried about those religions because the power of God isn't present in them. He doesn't fear when others are led astray to religions he controls. But Christianity is actively opposed because he hates it when people draw close to the living God.
I repeat - if you've never seen the hand of God work, it is easy to look at the few minor inconsistencies and reject everything. But when you do that, you are rejecting the basic message that the Bible is there to proclaim. God exists. Christ came to provide a sacrifice for sin. Everyone is a sinner and needs to accept that sacrifice for eternal life. The gift of salvation is free, but must be accepted. God is holy and sin separates you from God. Accepting the blood of Jesus as your sacrifice for sin is the only thing that is acceptable to God to have an eternal relationship with Him.
Miracles and healings aren't done to make our lives better - although that is a nice side benefit. They are done to show that God is still working in His people today. I know that there are a lot of places where the church isn't very effective today. That is true both in the U.S. and around the world. But there are also places in each country where God is working miracles and moving in mighty ways. I can't compel anyone to go check them out, and I can assure you that there are a small number of staged events that are not real. But the genuine thing is happening as well. Seek God and He'll make himself real enough to you that your doubts will be erased forever.
Best wishes
Evolution as theory..: I happen to like science a lot - got straight A's - it was neat. But the thing about evolution is that you can't conduct an experiment to prove it. You can show species adaptation to an environment. You can show from fossil records that horses have changed sizes from the past to today. You can show lots of things. But you can't show total evolution from one critter to another significantly more advanced critter. You also can't show, via the fossil record, that evolution from one species to a completely different thing occurred. It may or may not have happened, but it wasn't directly observed by anyone present today. People are just proposing their theories based on what they think the fossil record says because they won't accept any other way to explain what they see. I think the disclaimer should be made any time there isn't a directly observable result that can be reproduced today. Not every country is going to have a super-collider and I'm willing to accept research going on elsewhere in the world as sufficient to not require the claim for every theory expressed. But evolution requires way too much faith to accept without qualifications.
I don't feel that school is the place for religious beliefs to be taught. They should be taught in a religious setting or at home by the family. However, the reality in U.S. public education is that you hear of the religious beliefs of the American Indian, you are exposed to each of the major faiths (mostly as cultural events as peoples but always with some religious information as well) and you are exposed to all of the Greek mythology with their gods, et cetera along with their creation stories. This is called literature.
Yet Christianity can't be discussed. If they are going to allow some, they should allow all, equally. The trouble is there is never enough time to allow all, because there are so many around the world. So I'd be fine with none. That may not be uniform across the entire country, but it was what I experienced.
I don't have a problem with my kids being exposed to other religions. It is good to be aware of what is out there in the world. It helps to understand where other people are coming from. But when, at the same time, they are told that they can't even invite someone to a church Christmas program during recess because we can't have anyone talking about God I get frustrated. That's the dichotomy Christians face all around the country today. Can't offend anyone by mentioning anything about God at school, but better know the right answers about Zeus to pass your English literature exam. It is all right to expose kids to other people's religious beliefs. Just not the majority belief. It's ridiculous!
The Bible stands by itself. I do defend the whole of it. I am not a Greek or Hebrew scholar, so I have to take it based on a translation I can read, and there are times that some parts are hurt by the translation process. Some parts aren't particularly popular today, but overall I try to understand it myself with the help of any study aids I find useful. I also don't claim that the preservation process was 100% successful. The Hebrew writing system had lots of jots and tittles that sometimes were lost but which changed numbers slightly so there are places that the best translation from the surviving bits of manuscript give slightly different results in different places. What the preacher, Pope, or anyone else says is fine if it appears to line up with what the Bible says. Otherwise, I ignore it. There are parts of prophecy that I don't fully understand and that was true for those who heard prophecies that have already come about. It is easy to look back and say - well that was clearly what was meant there because it all links together now that the prophecy is fulfilled. Looking forward isn't always so easy. There is also a lot of figurative language in prophecy where the prophet tried to explain what he was seeing as best he could using the words he knew. If we were to see the same things today, we might explain them diff
I'm a Christian. Let me be one of the first Christians in this thread to say that Creationism (or its hideous offshoot Intelligent Design) should not be taught in science class. The teachers do have too much to do to get bogged down in debates. There are a couple of conditions though.
Separation of church and state sounds good in theory, but what it really boils down to is exclusion of Christianity, just because it happens to be the majority religion at the moment. All other peoples and their belief systems are OK to study under the context of broadening the mind and multi-culturalism. Just don't let the mind of any kid who isn't fortunate enough to go to Sunday School get his or her mind broadened to include Christianity. That would be a violation of church and state, for heaven's sake.
And before you lump me in with the crowd who says the earth was created a few thousand years ago, I would go on record that you won't find that anywhere in the Bible. I've argued the subject recently and won't repeat myself here.
Yes. Mr. Obama was in the academic environment. He was a Senior Lecturer in constitutional law, which I think would be a pretty good background for executive office. he might actually respect what the U.S. Constitution says and follow through with the oath: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Might be a welcome change of pace.
I don't know about the church she attends in her home town now, but the A/G denomination would frown on putting God to the test by intentionally handling snakes. We fall back on Jesus words "It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."
Speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues is Biblical and is evidenced in A/G churches today. It might interest you to know that messages in tongues are given in human languages and interpreted to the native language as a witness to unbelievers. You obviously qualify. There have been many times that there was another person in the audience who could independently verify that the message in tongues was given correctly and translated properly since they spoke the language used where neither the person giving the message nor the interpreter knew the language. God is still working in His church today. You may choose to disbelieve, but don't knock something you know nothing about.
Not bizarre - just frequently interpreted out of context from the rest of the scripture in the Bible. If you study the whole thing, you will find ---
Regardless of whether I have raised some points you might want to actually study from the whole Bible before declaring Genesis an embarrassment, it was a decision that the project made, for their own well considered reasons. Yes, it's intolerant of some other religions. It is, however, consistent and accepted by a large body of the people on Earth today, being common in three of the major world religions. It's a document that has carried down from before written records through several thousand years, so it's likely it will continue. I can't say the same for some of the documents you listed as alternatives. You're welcome to start your own translated archive of whatever documents you'd like.
The events weren't something that happened - like the current Democratic and Republican conventions - and were forgotten about 3 months later (if remembered that long).
The events that happened were life changing events for an entire culture. They were fulfillment of prophecies that were uttered thousands of years before. The stories were told and retold in the Early Church and debated at length in the Synagogues. They were teachings and doctrines reinforced with visible miracles and healings that were observed by thousands and thousands of individuals and birthed a religion that is still in existence 2,000 years after they happened. They weren't just written down from one person's memories 70 years later. They were reinforced as multiple people recounted their shared experiences and observations.
I don't like to speak for God, but I'm pretty sure from reading both the Old and New Testaments and the standards He set out, that God isn't sitting on a cloud laughing about the mess His children are making of the planet or about the things they are doing to each other. I suspect He is far closer to righteous anger at what His children are doing. You need to also realize that most of the mayhem being caused isn't being done by people He would call members of His church - even though some may claim to be Christians. I also suspect the party is about to end. If He's laughing at anything, it's probably at me trying to be very careful in what I say. The people He chose in the Old Testament weren't very careful with their words when they saw wrong being done.
I'm sure you could go on for hours. I won't. I've seen people visibly healed first hand. I wouldn't doubt the Bible (correctly interpreted, BTW - some of the major objections on /. are simply due to not studying what it really says) even without the visible miracles, but they're nice to have as reinforcement.
I'm also pretty sure God isn't too happy with what the Early Church has morphed into. You obviously have heard a lot about the Bible. If that comes from early training in a dead branch of the current Christian church, you really should go to a church where the Holy Spirit is at work performing the same miracles and healings that were done in the Early Church.
All the people there won't be perfect, either. None of us are. But you will have direct audible and visible evidence that God is, and is still at work in the church. You might have to attend more than one service, and I'd suggest attending a service other than Christmas and Easter when there is way too much going on by the congregation. But if you're patient, you'll see the truth. With your bitterness, you may still reject it. But you'll at least have made an informed eternal decision. If you listen carefully to Him, you'll pick the right church the first time. If you don't try again. It's important and the time is short.
Given the state of our current medical knowledge (admittedly orders of magnitude above where we were even 100 years ago), I'll stick with using the Bible. Medical and scientific knowledge changes much to fast to use as a basis of comparison. If you have any doubts, just pick up a physics or chemistry textbook from 100 years ago which will be long out of print.
The Bible is easy to read and provides a good basis for translation. The fact that so many versions exist already in so many languages makes it an even better choice. The fact that it will be around in whatever language people are using in another 2,000 years is good as well. Yes, the words used in the current versions are changing slightly over time, but the basic thoughts and structures remain true to the original written word.
I don't eschew medicine and my wife works in the medical field, but I've also personally witnessed healing by God occur in people I know well. There was nothing faked about it and the results were visibly observable. An antibiotic is only useful until resistance is developed. At that point, it is worthless for fighting a particular foe. The Bible is eternally useful and God can and does heal regardless of the situation or man's medical knowledge.
Yes, people have been making up religions since time began. Don't knock the religion of the Bible. If you've had a bad experience at church, maybe you should find a church and denomination that bases its beliefs and actions closer to what Jesus and the Early Church were doing rather than the feel good mega churches or denominations that reject the work of the Holy Spirit today. Once you've seen God at work and realize that the Bible wasn't just a bunch of words someone strung together a long time ago in a country far, far away, the Bible takes on a whole new meaning.
Well said.
The old truism - sometimes the bulls make money, sometimes the bears make money, but the pigs - they never make any money. I still sleep better with buy low, sell high - at least my loss is limited if I end up in the hospital and can't close out a losing position.
Jehovah (one of His many titles), the God of the Christian Bible, is real, existing as three divine beings operating in harmony with one another. The other gods aren't real. I accept that as a matter of faith and a reflection on the historical accuracy of the Bible.
I've also seen, heard, and read evidence that proves that fact to me beyond any doubt. I don't have to go any farther than my local church to find God's hand at work today. You choose not to believe the evidence of the Bible, and probably refuse to go to a church denomination where you could witness what God is doing today firsthand. Fine. I believe that God will be perfectly happy to show you that He is real. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should be saved.
The question is... are you ready for Him to do so? Do you really want to declare - as the fool - that there is no God? Believe me, faith is a much better method!
If you're really serious about wanting proof, He'll supply it. If nothing anybody else is going to say, the testimonies of people who are being healed today or seeing miracles performed today just as in the days of the apostles, or the history you could read will matter to you or be accepted by you - so be it! So many are demanding signs today. That spirit hasn't changed much in 2,000 years. Faith and grace are the best way to go.
Be as fair with Him as you would be with any of the science you are so fond of. He probably won't stop the earth from revolving just for you. But if you decide on something that wouldn't mess up any of His other plans, put it before Him. Just be careful what you ask for. He is God, after all. The Old and New Testament are filled with examples of how he reacted to presumptuous individuals.
Remember that God really doesn't care much for religion. He created man for fellowship. The religious guidelines didn't come till man messed things up. Jesus reduced all of them back down to two commands. Love God. Love your neighbor.
Best wishes. I'd say - reply with the results - but there would be too many posting false negative outcomes and too many posting false positive outcomes to be relevant. What matters is what you decide in your own heart.