Merged (edited) General thoughts about Christianity and the bible

[Rusty Tyler]

Even though Fundamentalists are explicitly told that it's not okay to lie even if it advances God's work, some people seem so sorely tempted. Maybe it's one of those parts that @Rusty Tyler doesn't believe in.

An accusation of lying infers malice.
Knowingly speaking untruth to one's own advantage.

You can't accuse someone of lying simply because you disagree on some debatable point.

 

[JayUtah]

[deleted; off-topic]

 

[JayUtah]

I need to know more about Theistic Evolution.

Do what @theprestige recommended: find a Jesuit. If you're fresh out of Jesuits, the standard printed reference is The Language of God by Francis Collins. Since you seem to be coming from an Evangelical background, you need to understand that Theistic Evolution is flatly rejected by Evangelicals. You say you're happy disagreeing with your church on certain points. If you decide that Theistic Evolution is an acceptable reconciliation, this will definitely be one of those points. The reason I recommend a Jesuit (i.e., someone who follows a formal tradition of following both science and religion) is that conversations are more productive than passive absorption of claims.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

My experience is that a certain amount of reconciliation is possible, but ultimately the two narratives cannot be made one.

Either you reach a point where you are content to accept the patchwork of rationalization you've worked out so far, stop trying to improve on it, and try to avoid conversations that get into it.

Or you face up to the fact that one of the two narratives has to be discarded. I suspect @Rusty Tyler is speed running option two.

First of all you have to reconcile the two biblical accounts of the sequence of creation in Genesis 1:1–2:3 and Genesis 2:4–25. The is a lot of "explanatory"verbiage trying to reconcile the differences from centuries of Christian Apologetics but it is mostly hand-waving bafflegab. The sequence of events is different. They can't both be correct.

 

[Pixel42]

I know Christians who believe in Science and Evolution.

They just believe God Did Evolution.

But science shows that evolution proceeded by natural selection, an unconscious force with no plan, which is incompatible with God doing it with the intention of producing a specific end result, i.e. homo sapiens. They have to substitute Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection with their own Theory of Evolution by Divine Guidance. So they don't actually believe in Science, even if they do believe in Evolution.

 

[Orphia Nay]

The Christians I'm thinking of believe in Medical Science in that they're not anti-vaxxers or alt-health nuts.

 

[arthwollipot]

In what?
How do I square the 7 items above?

You don't.

Partly because all 7 are straw arguments that do not reflect the reality of evolution.

Six days is metaphorical, or allegorical, or mystical, or otherwise poetic. Maybe the "days" are the incomprehensible time periods before the big bang, wherein God set all the parameters for the universe as we know it, before expanding it out to size. Maybe the whole long history of this planet is all the "eighth" day. Maybe "day" is the closest translation we have, for a transcendental experience will never know and could never understand.

The Bible says that every day is to God as a thousand years to us. Given that the Young Earth is six thousand years old, this means that we're in the seventh day - God's day of rest. No wonder he never answers prayers!

Both can be true.

Except they're not. Evolution doesn't operate by explosion (the so-called "Cambrian Explosion" is explicitly a metaphor). And if Rusty is referring to the origin of the universe, commonly called the "Big Bang", well, it's got nothing to do with evolution, was pretty much the opposite of big, and was not any kind of explosion.

That would work, sort of.
Not sure I would like where I am left.

That's for you to reconcile. Faith is a comfort, but in my opinion it's a shallow one. It's better to know how things really work.

Can I go half&half on each?

You can try, but evolution doesn't make much sense if you accept only half of it.

That something I wondered about. What keeps the sun burning? Thanks.

It's a balance between the force of gravity, which is trying to pull it all together, and nuclear fusion, which is trying to push it all apart.

Yes, I suppose it's one or the other but not both.
Life with God, or life without God.
With no God, who gives a rip where we came from?

Presumably, your parents. Probably also the rest of your family, and your friends.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Rusty, an honest question.

If all gods were proven to be human constructs of the unknown of all of human history. And all religions thus void, would that scare you deep inside?
All this time it was you , your decisions and actions that defined your life experiences.

No.
That would not frighten me.
More likely to cause anger on some level.

 

[Dave Rogers]

No.
That would not frighten me.
More likely to cause anger on some level.

Let's pull that thread a little further, then. Do you enjoy feeling angry, or is it something you'd rather avoid, all other things being equal?

Dave

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

To quote my hillbilly cousins "No fair makin' me think!"

 

[P.J. Denyer]

But science shows that evolution proceeded by natural selection, an unconscious force with no plan, which is incompatible with God doing it with the intention of producing a specific end result, i.e. homo sapiens. They have to substitute Darwin's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection with their own Theory of Evolution by Divine Guidance. So they don't actually believe in Science, even if they do believe in Evolution.

An all powerful being would know the outcomes of the process before starting it and could make minor changes to the initial conditions to get the outcome they wanted. It entirely blows free will out the water of course,

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Let's pull that thread a little further, then. Do you enjoy feeling angry, or is it something you'd rather avoid, all other things being equal?

Avoiding anger, or the associated bitterness would be preferable, yes.
Forgiveness would be the next order of business.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

An all powerful being would know the outcomes of the process before starting it and could make minor changes to the initial conditions to get the outcome they wanted. It entirely blows free will out the water of course,

Omnipotence makes puppets out of people. A "god" who can do ANYTHING wouldn't be too awfully concerned with little meat sacks on a small planet in a backwater galaxy.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Omnipotence makes puppets out of people. A "god" who can do ANYTHING wouldn't be too awfully concerned with little meat sacks on a small planet in a backwater galaxy.

What if those "little meat sacks on a small planet" were created in His image, like human children?

Are you a little meat sack on a small planet?

 

[Mojo]

What if those "little meat sacks on a small planet" were created in His image, like human children?

Do you have any evidence for this?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What if those "little meat sacks on a small planet" were created in His image, like human children?

Are you a little meat sack on a small planet?

What if frogs had wings? They wouldn't bump their ass so much.

And yes, I have a realistic idea of what I am in relation to the entire ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ universe. Damn, child, you do say stupid ◊◊◊◊.

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Do you have any evidence for this?

Biblical evidence.

Genesis 1:26 NIV
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,
so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,
over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all
the creatures that move along the ground.”

 

[Skeptical Greg]

Who is " Us " ?

 

[JayUtah]

Biblical evidence.

So is God a man or a woman?

Who is " Us " ?

Indeed, what's that plural verb doing there!?

 

[Rusty Tyler]

Who is " Us " ?

Great question.
The Word (Logos) the Father and the Holy Spirit.
(or the elohim in general)

John 1:1-5, 14 NIV
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made.
4 him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. ...
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son,
who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.