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Evidence For God. - The “real” evidence for a living God!

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Read Latest Entries..: (Post #52) by Joshua on Jan 10 2008, 02:51 AM. (Line Breaks Removed)
QUOTE(kamonra @ Jan 9 2008, 07:51 PM) hey man dont let the bible stray your beliefs away .. yes the bible was written by a dark fallen angel they view as the devil ... but it was made to confuse us the first proof is the originall text being written in greek ... how when we new what the greeks believed ... the bibel is bull .... read my post reply on "evidence of god" .... the c... read more.
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Open Discussion > The Real World > Life Talk > Debates

Evidence For God. - The “real” evidence for a living God!

wild20
Please move if needed, there still isn’t a RELIGION forum and I could not find any relevant topics coinciding with this!


Boy, is this consroversial, but I wrote it a while back and thought I would post it biggrin.gif
Some things are beyond our comprehension folks. Things that we will never understand. There are journeys we take in our life that cause us to have mixed feelings, beliefs, and ultimately, big differences between us. We feel as though we are a small part of a vast universe in its travels. We have seen the shame, the evil, and the unjustness. Many doubt that there is a God, many people know there is, but refuse to accept Him. I have myself rejected a loving God. Though I didn’t know it at the time. Raised in a Christian family, I have always believed in God. I took it by faith, and still do. But some people can never believe in something, if they cannot see the evidence, or even the object itself. Forum members, today, I am going to bring you the truth and facts, the evidence, if you will, that shows there IS a God. Let us start.

Evolutionist’s viewpoint:
The evolutionist believes that the world began when a “Big Bang” caused an instantaneous creation of the universe. But wait, there is more. You see we weren’t here yet. We were just organisms in the ocean. What we were before that, I have no idea probably sludge or something. But let’s move on. We evolved, slowly through a process of selection until we started to be perfected, with the fit surviving. Strange huh? Now, with evolutions theory, we will soon become perfect. But there are some flaws.

The flaws:
Evolution says that the organism needs only enough brain or knowledge to become smart. For instance, we are evolved enough that we can do math and other problems, as well as retain knowledge well. The earlier civilizations, by evolution’s standards, were dumb. But here we meet a conflict. An evolutionist took an Indian never in contact with the civilized world, and gave him the best education. In 10 years, he was a world-class scholar. See a problem? There is. The Indian should have never of been advanced enough to be so smart. Here we meet the first problem. But we meet even more going back farther. You see, we find a mysterious link that seems to be missing. Suspicious? Why, yes, yes it is. But we will still find more problems, you see. We find a point in time where we were dumb, and were still meeting the needs we required to stay alive. May I ask why we have knowledge today to have technologically advanced minds, but other animals don’t. If there is a chance for anything to become an intelligent being, than why don’t we see more? Why just us? No answers? But more then that, evolution claims we evolved, working our way up in the “system” until we are here today. If we came from fish, why did we come from them? And if we did, why are fish still here if they are inferior. After all, fish get eaten, we don’t, the fish shouldn’t be here right now, we should have stomped them out through “natural selection”. You see, evolution is just a theory. Science is a fact. I see evolution taught in all sorts of ways, but always in schools. Especially in public schools, but especially in science class. But why when science is out of comprehension and cannot be proven? Like I said, just a theory. Now lets look at some more arguments for God. We start with:

A creationist’s viewpoint:
We believe that God created the earth in six days, taking the seventh to rest, as it says in the Bible. There was nothing before earth. He created the heavens and the earth. This includes the universe. No Big Bang. We believe that God is the intelligent designer behind it all. Why? Because we can see from history that there were people, they came from somewhere. And that God is the one who made us, besides there are miracles out there. What else could it be? But the most influencing reason is because we know that Jesus died for us. Ancient records show it. And, if you look, the Bible showed scientific principles before they were even known. We know the Bible existed for many years before accurate scientific principles even came out. Let me show you some,

What backs it:
These are some scientific principles the Bible talked about before they were known to be true.
An ancient belief was that all stars were the same. But the Bible says different:
QUOTE
1Co 15:41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

Another was that air was weightless. Really, we know differently now and we can also see that the Bible says differently:
QUOTE
Job 28:25 To make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth the waters by measure.

Another belief was that mountains were only on earth, I mean, no one went down that far. They thought there were monsters down there. But Jonah, when he was disobedient to God, was swallowed by a fish, and he got to know what was down there, and here is his account:
QUOTE
Jon 2:5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head.
Jon 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption, O LORD my God.

And again we had the belief that the earth was flat. But again the Bible had the answer:
QUOTE
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

And believe it or not guys, there was also a belief that there were six thousand stars. But again, the bible had the answer:
QUOTE
Jer 33:22 As the host of heaven cannot be numbered, neither the sand of the sea measured: so will I multiply the seed of David my servant, and the Levites that minister unto me.

And finally, if you are getting sick of all the quote tags, we have one more. People didn’t know that there was a water cycle. They didn’t know where it came from. But wait, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, NO, it’s the Bible to the rescue!
QUOTE
Ecc 1:7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.

Can you believe that!? The Bible had it all along. If only we had heeded it. You see guys, God is greater then we, He created this earth, I think He knows how it works. When you put together a bike, by the time you are done, you know how it works. It just blows my mind guys!

You know guys, there is just a great example I love to use. Suppose you found a watch, it was sitting on a rock, the first you would ask is not, where did the rock come from, you would ask, where did the watch come from. Apparently, the watch did not get there on it’s own. It must have had some designer. However, what about the rock? Where did it come from? It didn’t get there on its own as you can imagine. But the first thing you would think is, it’s been there forever. But I know differently. “Something” happened. No, I am not trying to freak you out, but something had to happen in order for it to get there, but back to the watch. Let me propose to you, that the watch was there all along to, it just developed there, all by itself. Now most people would find this ludicrous. But why? Okay fine, I will change that to, it evolved from a tree. Now I would be on my way to a metal institution. You see, if I told you that we came from a fish, it is quite believable. Now, why couldn’t we come from a tree? These arguments may seem dumb, but its all evidence that evolution is another theory that can’t be proven because it isn’t practical, nor is it right. I know it sounds like I am tearing down evolution a lot, but that is because I am. I give arguments on both sides to prove the case. Any people willing to discuss, I am not getting into any debates, or else I would have posted it there. No, I want a discussion. If you want to get into an argument, then fine, I like a minor debate, but nothing big guys. Okay? And please keep your calm during high-tension discussions. Thanks guys!

 

 

 


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niloc
if that is the best real evidence that is available then i will have to remain to be a non believer in god and religion.
you take quotes from the bible to prove that it is a books full of facts on how the world works , unfortunately you do not give any credit to the authors of the bible ... i am sure that they were not dumb people , in fact they were probably extremely clever and had quite a few original ideas themselves how the world worked.
one thing is still unproven to me by your real evidence .... is the bible a literary work of fact or fiction , most likely in my mind is that it is a collection of stories that have been exaggerated over a period time.
the only one thing that religion has brought to this world is death caused by the numerous wars between deffierent religious factions.

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wild20
You forget one thing though Niloc. Let us say that the Bible had been written by someone else. If it was and is not credible, it would still have been put together around the middle ages. Meaning? That whoever wrote what ahead of their time since the early midle age beliefs were still focused on the fact that the world was round, that air was weightless, and that there were only a few thousand stars.

No one without either advanced hidden technology for that day, or super natural guidance would have had the oppurtunity to get ALL of the theories right the very first time they were written down. Thereby in itself backing the Bible as a feature that was guided by something more then just man's imagination. It was inspired, and Christians believe, by God.

By examining both the age that the Bible was written in, (The Bible was written before 1200 ad since the early churches already had parts of the Bible. But interestingly enough it was put together in 1611 in the complete Bible we now have today) and the fact that beliefs even up to the 1400s were contrary to what a book written before then had, we can very well believe that the Bible is true.

 

 

 


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cmatcmextra
QUOTE(niloc)
the only one thing that religion has brought to this world is death caused by the numerous wars between deffierent religious factions.


You think that, eh? I guess you'd love to work right through Christmas this year, not receiving any gifts or enjoying the happiness it brings. Christmas, believe it or not, is around because Jesus was born.

Religion has bought much happiness to this world through the form of celebrations.

Sure, religion is a cause of wars but leadership, money and greed are all other causes. The latter (leadership, money and greed) are the ones which all religions are against.

Also, bear in mind, that the Muslim terrorist organisations which use jihad as an excuse for blowing up western cities, are misinterpreting it. It's their fault not the religion's.

Your view of "religion = death to millions" is ignorant.

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Plenoptic
It isn't that religions has caused any wars because they haven't. It is the failure to accept other religions that has brought war. The Romans for example. When Christianity was introduced they didn't like it. They said that because the people don't accept the Roman gods, that they should be punished. So they killed hundreds of Christians because they had a different religion and they wouldn't worship their gods. It isn't that the religion caused that, it is the Romans who couldn't accept that they believed in things other than what they did. There are many different points of views to this, and that is mine for ya.

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wild20
Right Cmat and Plenoptic. There is such a thing as tolerance. We all have a right to our own religion. Like I said, the Nazis didn't and they made a big mistake and it cost many people their lives. Remember what I said, the Bible says we can't kill. But the problem is some Christians don't follow that.

Just like plenoptic said. Romans killed Christians, and even Christians persecuted Christians. Like the Roman Catholics in the middle ages and the Protestants. Not that it makes it right, because it doesn't, and Christians make mistakes too. That is where God's saving grace and Jesus' death on the cross comes into play.

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moldboy
QUOTE
And again we had the belief that the earth was flat. But again the Bible had the answer:
QUOTE
Isa 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in:

This quote doesn't actualy say that the earth isn't flat, it just says it's round, but if you look at a plate (for eating off of) they are both flat and round. There is also a quote somewhere that says that Jesus (I believe) stood on a mountian and could see all four corners of his kingdom, thus the earth must be flat, and even more so square!

QUOTE
unfortunately you do not give any credit to the authors of the bible ... i am sure that they were not dumb people

The very fact that they could write proves this!

QUOTE
It isn't that the religion caused that, it is the Romans who couldn't accept that they believed in things other than what they did.

I aggree entirly, infact I bet if you could ask the roman gods, they wouldn't have approved of the actions of their people.

Now my point, I believe in being able to argue both sides of the puzzle, it helps to keep an open mind. I believe in God (or at least a body which is better in all ways to myself, and all humanity) in principle, I don't believe that he controls all aspects of my life, I conpaire it to a piece of open source software, God is the origional programer, he made the software to his specifications, but after releasing it on the internet lets it grow and 'evolve' into its own software. Thus is also accept the theories of evolution. You want more Evidence, try this, right now we are faced with the problem of calling it Christmas, it not right because not everybody practices christmas, but many groups have simmilar celibrations, with many of the same themes. It is similar evidence to this that is used to argue atlantis, at about the same time historicaly on diffrent parts of the world (seperated by oceans) stories are carved in stone that a tell a similar thing, of a civilization who had hot running water and many advanced technologies, that sunk under the ocean. It would seem that the only way for this story to be told around the world would be for a group of people to have escaped the sinking and traveled around the world telling their story!

Now Douglas Adams, a person who believes strongly against god says, in one of his books, that the men said I have proven the existance of God, and god said Oh dear, and dissapeared. (This is not an exact quote) you see it is said that inorder for god to exist you must believe, and once you proove beyond a doubt that he does exist you stop believing (As is the nature of belief, belief turns to knowledge), thus killing God from a lack of belief. It is the nature of these posts that claime to give exidence to the existance of God, it is people who feel the need to place their beliefs onto others who start religious wars.

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ciroxyz
QUOTE
  It isn't that religions has caused any wars because they haven't. It is the failure to accept other religions that has brought war.


Same thing. In other words: no religion, no wars!

QUOTE
You think that, eh? I guess you'd love to work right through Christmas this year, not receiving any gifts or enjoying the happiness it brings. Christmas, believe it or not, is around because Jesus was born.

Religion has bought much happiness to this world through the form of celebrations.

Sure, religion is a cause of wars but leadership, money and greed are all other causes. The latter (leadership, money and greed) are the ones which all religions are against.


You are happy for Christmas because you get presents. Period. Aren't presents something that has value (you use money to buy it)?! Are you happy for the money? Or because of the Christmas? I don't think it's Christmas.

In my opinion religion was created by PEOPLE!

Egiptians had their "gods", Romans had theirs, today we have our. Some other day, who knows, we may know more, and think how foolish we were....

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Plenoptic
QUOTE
Same thing. In other words: no religion, no wars!


That isn't true at all. Look at the United States fighting in Iraq for example. They weren't trying to change their religion, they are trying to make Iraq a better place even though others might not see it that way.

QUOTE
You are happy for Christmas because you get presents. Period. Aren't presents something that has value (you use money to buy it)?! Are you happy for the money? Or because of the Christmas? I don't think it's Christmas


Of course everyone is happy to get presents on Christmas. That is not what Christmas was meant to be and a lot of people see it as what is was. It is supposed to celebrate the birth of Christ (for those that celebrate it) The only problem is that over the years people have just started looking at it as a way to get new toys. I go to church on Christmas every year to celebrate the birth of Christ. A lot of people do. It is the busiest day at church of the year. Many people might love Christmas for the gifts but they do celebrate the fact that Christ had been born. For those that don't, well then they don't really know what Christmas is about. We all sometimes let presents get in the way of things sometimes.

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wild20
Looks like this has turned into a debate anyway as you can see. Even moved laugh.gif

So are you saying that World War II was caused by religion? No!

Moldboy:
Well now, if it said that the earth is flat with rounded edges, okay then. But does it? No! It says circle. Is a plate or bowl a circle? No. If it meant that it would say half circle or sphere. And:

Are you saying that I am going to stop believing in God? Remember faith and evidence can co-exist. I have to say that there is nothing wrong that showing God does exist.

ciroxyz:
You perception of Christmas is obviously messed up. It is about giving and not getting. No matter what religion you are! It sounds you are more voicing your opinion rather than ours.

Another thing, although there are many gods, the actual God, is different from the others. He is alive and living, He does not live on earth or in temples, He doesn't accept offerings andfood given to Him, He just wants our lives so He can save our souls, and He one and doesn't need people to take care of Him and is almighty and Holy and just in everything. These are the decisive features characterizing God apart from others and showing that He is the true God. All the others are pagan. The Bible doesn't contridict science, rather, science contridicts the Bible and when it does, it is ALWAYS a theory unable to be proven. But known stuff and FACTS, never ever go against the Bible.

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Joshua
QUOTE(kamonra @ Jan 9 2008, 07:51 PM) *
hey man dont let the bible stray your beliefs away .. yes the bible was written by a dark fallen angel they view as the devil ... but it was made to confuse us the first proof is the originall text being written in greek ... how when we new what the greeks believed ... the bibel is bull .... read my post reply on "evidence of god" .... the creator has broken its energy up into many forms of life .. you are one of them .. a god .... gods are the breakdown of the creator's spirit into an infinite amount of spirits and life.... its in you .. or all of us .. we are truelly all one ....


Greek mythology vanished so quickly precisely because the Greeks recognized the truth in the Bible and Jesus which you call so confusing. I'm assuming it's Greek mythology you're referring to as that which 'we new what the greeks believed". You really weren't very clear there, so I hope you'll elaborate about what you meant there.

As for us, if we're all one, then why do people disagree and hurt one another? Furthermore, if we're a part of God, why don't we have His power? Why can't we do something as simple as make ourselves one inch taller if we're so important?

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kamonra
The evidence is all around us ,, and most importantly,, its all in us! The big bang, evolutionist, creationist, its all proof of the confusion, but soon i will be finished with " Inner Faith " a explanation to life and the reason for it all. To much to explain in this simple reply, but will give a sweet condensed version of truth.

There is only one species...... or..... there is only one life form ...that is "AllPow" or the creator...Allpow is the name i choose for the creator.. standing for all powerfull..... the creator is all and is all powerfull .......the big bang theory is mans futile attempt at understanding this concept..... all the energy contained in one sphere (sun shape) trillions of times smaller than the largest known atom...was the creator at its purest state ..not he/ nor she .. IT... at the moment of big bang "AllPow" had a thought to split his self in two like a sinlge cell molecule....but "AllPow" decided to make two forms of energy when doing so.......masculine energy and feminine energy...the two most powerfull energies in the universe......this was the explotion.. but he first had to create masculine energy and derived the feminine energy from the masculine .. "AllPow" did this buy creating the first SONS or SUNS literally.....they were super galatic sun's or masculine energy...the first fathers of the universe.. or the first order of gods to live...this is where the term god or many gods come from ... the highest of order of spirit after the big bang ...our great galatic anscestors .. or the first fathers/suns imploded creating the first galaxies or the first mothers of the universe ... this this in turn allowed the vreation of feminine energy ... "AllPow's plan now is to create two forms of life ... biological and geological ....suns and planets are naturally represented as geological life forms and when the two mate creates .. biological life ... ........

In a nutshell ..all life are sphere-its ...we all have an atom size sphere within us which is a direct pice of energy from the creator passed throught the birth process of geo-life forms mating, to bio-life forms mating ... all life forms are basically ... a fraction of "AllPow" .. that is where we get stories from the bible of fallen angels . higher spirits .. and so forth .. we all have the ability to raise our spheretuall powers .... so basically every life form is equall to one over infinity(1/infinity) ....so all life bio and geo ..summed together equals "AllPow" or sum of bio-life x sum of geolife = "AllPow" in esence we live within the creator .....the whole purpose of life is for masculine and feminine energy to learn to co-exist ...we live many lives over and over to learn this concept of co-existance...the creator is creating a duplicate self , however at the point of eternity.... there will be two condesened spheres "AllPow's partner" or a companion .. there will then be two potential big bangs , however it is my belief this is when we all will be united as one and all will have a dual opposite sphere-it ... until then we continue the evolutionary process .. which is the process of perfecting this procedure our great creator has started .. so enjoy life ... you will never die ... you live two lives ... physical and sphere-itual .. or complete a circle then start over , again , and again , until this eternity is reached ???? ......so there is only one life , one creator, and one law???? one law? the law of hurt ... obey this only law and it is all you need to raise your sphere-it....dont cause hurt to any life .. physicall, mentall, emotional, etc... for you are causing hurt to the creator,, and yourself since your are also a fraction of the creator we all make up the creator .. so to hurt or to wish to see suffering upon someone is like wishing it upon you and the creator ... love all ... want all to live ...want all to prosper ....because we are all .. or we are "AllPow" "AllPow" is us ....no matter color , prefrences, or any life form from insect to mammall are all equal ....so we should treat all like they are the creator with respect, and they should you ... remember.. the creator is in you so you can not hid from the fact that you are causing hurt you can lie or fool someone else but you know when you have caused hurt .... america should adopt this law as the only law ...." the law of hurt " ..... sorry guys and gals i am now babaling .. so hope this helps .. look at science and ancient cultures it all supports what i am saying ... so look soon for " Inner Faith" and "When Galaxies Collide" two books i am working on .. in the mean time try my newest release ... "Rain Forest Project" ....check iuniverse.com or .. barnes n noble or amazon ..... sorry notice a few typos , but dont care .. not in english class as long as the idea is captured

QUOTE(niloc @ Dec 18 2005, 09:47 AM) *
if that is the best real evidence that is available then i will have to remain to be a non believer in god and religion.
you take quotes from the bible to prove that it is a books full of facts on how the world works , unfortunately you do not give any credit to the authors of the bible ... i am sure that they were not dumb people , in fact they were probably extremely clever and had quite a few original ideas themselves how the world worked.
one thing is still unproven to me by your real evidence .... is the bible a literary work of fact or fiction , most likely in my mind is that it is a collection of stories that have been exaggerated over a period time.
the only one thing that religion has brought to this world is death caused by the numerous wars between deffierent religious factions.


hey man dont let the bible stray your beliefs away .. yes the bible was written by a dark fallen angel they view as the devil ... but it was made to confuse us the first proof is the originall text being written in greek ... how when we new what the greeks believed ... the bibel is bull .... read my post reply on "evidence of god" .... the creator has broken its energy up into many forms of life .. you are one of them .. a god .... gods are the breakdown of the creator's spirit into an infinite amount of spirits and life.... its in you .. or all of us .. we are truelly all one ....

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Joshua
QUOTE(morosophos @ Mar 4 2006, 04:32 PM) *
ON CREATIONISM

By Creationism, I mean the literal belief the interpretation of the creation of the world as found in the book of Genesis and the story of the succession of the human race from Adam and Eve.

There is already a problem. There are in fact two creation stories found side-by-side in the book of Genesis (Gn 1-2:4a, Gn 2:4b-14). The first one, in which God creates the universe in six days and rests on the seventh, explains man coming as the final creation of God. The second story, which includes the creation of Eden, is a very short story, but a very controversial one to itself (more on that later). It is from this second story that the story of Adam and Eve arises. The first story reads as if many humans were created all at once, whereas the second story mentions only Adam and Eve.


Hello, I didn't see the answer I want to give to this given yet, so I'd like to address this. The Scofield notes address it quite well though, so I'm just going to quote them on their note for Genesis 2:4:

QUOTE

2:4 created.

It is often said that Gen. 2:4-25 is a second account of creation differing from that in Gen. 1:1-2:3. In point of fact, however, Gen. 1 tells of the creation of the whole universe, including man and woman; while Gen. 2 specifically describes the origin of man and woman without repeating the story of creation recorded in Gen. 1. Thus Gen. 2 says nothing of the creation of light, of the separation of the waters, or of the formation of sun, moon, and stars. Nor does it actually describe the creation of vegetation or of animals.

Genesis 2:8 is sometimes erroneously interpreted as describing the creation of vegetation, but it only mentions the planting of a particular garden. Verse 19, often misinterpreted as another description of the creation of animals coming after rather than before the creation of man, actually refers back to the creation of the animals that were brought before Adam. To think that the planting of the garden described in v. 8 was not done until after man had been formed, as stated in v. 7, is unnecessary. In both cases (the "planting" of the garden and the "forming" of the animals) the Hebrew verb could be more correctly translated by the English "had planted" and "had formed."
QUOTE(morosophos @ Mar 4 2006, 04:32 PM) *

But let's abandon discrepencies thus far and continue on, for there is more flawed logic in a literal translation afoot. Let's assume that God created the world as stated in the first creation story, except for the part where He creates humans, wherein we'll believe the second one (cut & paste Bible interpretations... hehe). So we have Adam and Eve, who finally eat of the fruit of the forbidden tree and are exiled from Eden into the land where they are no longer able to comprehend the animals, production results only from manual labour, the woman must bear the pain of childbirth, etc. They have two sons, Cain and Abel. Abel seems to be a meticulous young man and has a very good relationship with God, because he offers the best of his crop as an oblation to Him. Cain gets jealous of Abel because God seems to favour him (Cain apparently hadn't been offering the same level of oblations/sacrifices as his brother). So he decides to off him.

And hence we have reached the end of the human race as we know it. If we are indeed to believe that God created the entirety of the human race in Adam and Eve, then we're screwed. Adam and Eve have probably been alive some four hundred years now (Genesis mentions astronomical lifespans), and now one of their only two sons has died. The human population consists of three people: Adam, Eve, and Cain. The Bible only mentions one more child from Adam ("Seth" in Gn 5:3). However, this doesn't solve the problem; the problem, you see, is a lack of females. Neither surviving son is mentioned in the Bible showing Eve their manly chuztpah. So in theory, we don't actually exist.

Yet somehow we do. The Bible also mentions Cain having relations with his wife (Gn 4:17a); where did she come from? Then I guess we have to assume that both creation stories are completely true. There is a problem with this, as mentioned earlier—there are discrepencies. One story (the first) mentions the creation of beasts and animals, and the other (the second) does not. There is a verse, however, that causes even more controversy. "... while as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had sent no rain upon the earth and there was no man to till the soil..." (Gn 2:5). The italicised is the problem—tilling the soil. Man did not do manual labour (according to the Bible) until he was banished from Eden. However, God (whom, translating literally, many believe wrote, or at least dictated, the Bible) mentions the soil as something that is going to be inevitably tilled; that the soil's sole purpose is to be worked by the hands of mankind. If God indeed wrote the Bible, he has little faith in humans.


You make a mistake in not knowing how the Bible approaches genealogies. You assume that because no women are mentioned being born, that none were born. However, you will notice that the Bible only speaks of the males in its genealogies, with only rare exceptions in the entire Bible. It is a mistake to say just because the Bible doesn't mention something that it didn't happen. The Bible can be perfectly correct in all its facts without providing all details.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume there were other women living by the time of Cain, maybe even many. Many may have even been older 'siblings'. Concerning what we would call incest, we must realize the commandments against incest were not given until Moses was given the Law. And as Romans 5:13 says, "sin is not imputed when there is no law." Therefore, it was not then wrong for such relations to occur.

Why was it not wrong? As you yourself mentioned, people lived much longer in Biblical times. We're used to thinking of brothers and sisters being no more than 20 years apart in age, but in Biblical times they could be centuries apart in age, and never even grow up with one another. Therefore, our modern-day ideas of what incest is do not fit the situation those early people lived in. Cain may well have wed a sister 50 or 100 years apart from him in age who he'd never met before becoming an adult.

Therefore, it makes sense that God would not deliver commandments against incest until the human lifespan decreased after the flood.


QUOTE(morosophos @ Mar 4 2006, 04:32 PM) *
ON RECONCILING THE DIFFERENCES

If God indeed wrote the Bible. Believing that God Himself wrote the Bible leads to a literal interpretation of the Bible, for God is believed to be infallible—why would one interpret any way other than literally if He wrote it? However, we can clearly see the contradictions in the Bible, and we have only explored so far as the first five chapters of Genesis! I cannot list all the contradictions, there are so many. This means in no way that the Bible is wrong, however. It just means that a literal approach is not the best way. The Bible is a holy work of literature; it has themes, metaphors, and figurative language like any other work. Proper interpretation is the result of analysing all the above.

For instance, what is the true message of the creation stories? A recurring verse in the first creation story is "And He saw it was good." This means that creation is inherantly benevolent. The crimes of Cain and the subsequent forgiveness from God show the mercy of God and the imperfection of humanity, which struggles to serve Him. All of these inferences are perfectly compatible in both creation stories and throughout the Bible, as well as with the Theory of Evolution.

A contextual interpretation of the Bible means that God inspired the writings found in the Bible. But God did not come down with His almighty Ticonderoga and inscribe the Bible into stone tablets. That's a whole lot of stone, a whole lot of pencil, and a whole lot of date discrepency to account for. The writings found in the Bible are spaced so far apart in respect to their writing chronologically that it suggests many different people wrote the Bible. Carbon-dating of the individual scrolls, a thorough analysis of the Hebrew in which the stories were written, and other methods have found the two creation stories found in Genesis are at least two or three hundred years apart. If God wrote it, why wouldn't he do it all at once? God has no bathroom breaks.

Overall, contextual interpretations of Bible stories can be far more wholesome and less erroneous in relating to other sources of knowledge than literal interpretations. Literal interpretations are very narrow in application; they are full of absolutes, which results in a massive population of infidels. When enemy cultures and religions with these strict interpretations of sacred scripture meet, the Crusades, terrorist attacks, and malevolent cults may occur. Religion itself isn't wrong (I myself, though not Christian per se, am religious), but persecution on behalf of God (who is portrayed as the force of good) is silly.


I think you're misreading again concerning the benevolence of creation. We can look at the garden of eden to see God's intent for creation, His ideal. However, mankind in its sin not only fell from God's ideal, but also corrupted the creation He had made as well. Here are some verses related to mankind's destructive choices and the fall of creation:

QUOTE
Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

Romans 8:21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.


Sin is disobedience towards God. Rejecting His ways and essentially rebelling against Him in choosing our own.

One could say that mankind brought sin and evil and rebellion against God by intentionally rebelling against His commands in the garden of Eden.

God made us perfect. God made creation perfect. God even made Satan perfect. However, God gave us free will, the ability to make choices even though there was no inclination in us to do evil. I think it's because He created us to love Him and love each other. If He didn't give us free will, we'd be robots incapable of love.

Perhaps the only way He could make us at all was to make us with free will, and when He did, we rebelled against Him and created this present world. God intends to bring it back to that original ideal, and the only way He can do that is by separating all who rebel and create evil.

There is a day of judgment coming, and God withholds it now only so that He can save as many of us as possible from our impending fate, before our world rejects Him so utterly by striving to kill all who seek Him and serve Him that it forces Him to destroy it and bring in His ultimate judgment and justice.

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kamonra
smile.gif
QUOTE(wild20 @ Dec 18 2005, 12:53 AM) *
<span style='color:red'>Please move if needed, there still isn’t a RELIGION forum and I could not find any relevant topics coinciding with this!</span>
Boy, is this consroversial, but I wrote it a while back and thought I would post it biggrin.gif
Some things are beyond our comprehension folks. Things that we will never understand. There are journeys we take in our life that cause us to have mixed feelings, beliefs, and ultimately, big differences between us. We feel as though we are a small part of a vast universe in its travels. We have seen the shame, the evil, and the unjustness. Many doubt that there is a God, many people know there is, but refuse to accept Him. I have myself rejected a loving God. Though I didn’t know it at the time. Raised in a Christian family, I have always believed in God. I took it by faith, and still do. But some people can never believe in something, if they cannot see the evidence, or even the object itself. Forum members, today, I am going to bring you the truth and facts, the evidence, if you will, that shows there IS a God. Let us start.

Evolutionist’s viewpoint:
The evolutionist believes that the world began when a “Big Bang” caused an instantaneous creation of the universe. But wait, there is more. You see we weren’t here yet. We were just organisms in the ocean. What we were before that, I have no idea probably sludge or something. But let’s move on. We evolved, slowly through a process of selection until we started to be perfected, with the fit surviving. Strange huh? Now, with evolutions theory, we will soon become perfect. But there are some flaws.

The flaws:
Evolution says that the organism needs only enough brain or knowledge to become smart. For instance, we are evolved enough that we can do math and other problems, as well as retain knowledge well. The earlier civilizations, by evolution’s standards, were dumb. But here we meet a conflict. An evolutionist took an Indian never in contact with the civilized world, and gave him the best education. In 10 years, he was a world-class scholar. See a problem? There is. The Indian should have never of been advanced enough to be so smart. Here we meet the first problem. But we meet even more going back farther. You see, we find a mysterious link that seems to be missing. Suspicious? Why, yes, yes it is. But we will still find more problems, you see. We find a point in time where we were dumb, and were still meeting the needs we required to stay alive. May I ask why we have knowledge today to have technologically advanced minds, but other animals don’t. If there is a chance for anything to become an intelligent being, than why don’t we see more? Why just us? No answers? But more then that, evolution claims we evolved, working our way up in the “system” until we are here today. If we came from fish, why did we come from them? And if we did, why are fish still here if they are inferior. After all, fish get eaten, we don’t, the fish shouldn’t be here right now, we should have stomped them out through “natural selection”. You see, evolution is just a theory. Science is a fact. I see evolution taught in all sorts of ways, but always in schools. Especially in public schools, but especially in science class. But why when science is out of comprehension and cannot be proven? Like I said, just a theory. Now lets look at some more arguments for God. We start with:

A creationist’s viewpoint:
We believe that God created the earth in six days, taking the seventh to rest, as it says in the Bible. There was nothing before earth. He created the heavens and the earth. This includes the universe. No Big Bang. We believe that God is the intelligent designer behind it all. Why? Because we can see from history that there were people, they came from somewhere. And that God is the one who made us, besides there are miracles out there. What else could it be? But the most influencing reason is because we know that Jesus died for us. Ancient records show it. And, if you look, the Bible showed scientific principles before they were even known. We know the Bible existed for many years before accurate scientific principles even came out. Let me show you some,

What backs it:
These are some scientific principles the Bible talked about before they were known to be true.
An ancient belief was that all stars were the same. But the Bible says different:

Another was that air was weightless. Really, we know differently now and we can also see that the Bible says differently:

Another belief was that mountains were only on earth, I mean, no one went down that far. They thought there were monsters down there. But Jonah, when he was disobedient to God, was swallowed by a fish, and he got to know what was down there, and here is his account:

And again we had the belief that the earth was flat. But again the Bible had the answer:

And believe it or not guys, there was also a belief that there were six thousand stars. But again, the bible had the answer:

And finally, if you are getting sick of all the quote tags, we have one more. People didn’t know that there was a water cycle. They didn’t know where it came from. But wait, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, NO, it’s the Bible to the rescue!

Can you believe that!? The Bible had it all along. If only we had heeded it. You see guys, God is greater then we, He created this earth, I think He knows how it works. When you put together a bike, by the time you are done, you know how it works. It just blows my mind guys!

You know guys, there is just a great example I love to use. Suppose you found a watch, it was sitting on a rock, the first you would ask is not, where did the rock come from, you would ask, where did the watch come from. Apparently, the watch did not get there on it’s own. It must have had some designer. However, what about the rock? Where did it come from? It didn’t get there on its own as you can imagine. But the first thing you would think is, it’s been there forever. But I know differently. “Something” happened. No, I am not trying to freak you out, but something had to happen in order for it to get there, but back to the watch. Let me propose to you, that the watch was there all along to, it just developed there, all by itself. Now most people would find this ludicrous. But why? Okay fine, I will change that to, it evolved from a tree. Now I would be on my way to a metal institution. You see, if I told you that we came from a fish, it is quite believable. Now, why couldn’t we come from a tree? These arguments may seem dumb, but its all evidence that evolution is another theory that can’t be proven because it isn’t practical, nor is it right. I know it sounds like I am tearing down evolution a lot, but that is because I am. I give arguments on both sides to prove the case. Any people willing to discuss, I am not getting into any debates, or else I would have posted it there. No, I want a discussion. If you want to get into an argument, then fine, I like a minor debate, but nothing big guys. Okay? And please keep your calm during high-tension discussions. Thanks guys!


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Joshua
QUOTE(Tetraca @ Oct 12 2007, 04:21 PM) *
I am truly sorry for the crunching of your words into larger sections. I'm not allowed to have structured Q-A conversation apparently. Can we get rid of this quote limit?

Evolution itself is a solid FACT, and could be described as a scientific LAW (DIFFERENT than a theory in that it DESCRIBES A PROCCESS WE KNOW that occurs in the natural world, unlike a THEORY, which DESCRIBES HOW SOMETHING OCCCURS). Evolution THROUGH NATURAL SELECTION IS A THEORY, but it is a SCIENTIFIC THEORY, which is well tested and proven through the SCIENTIFIC METHOD before being recognised as a theory. It is NOT a THEORY in the layman's terms of the word, which makes it easy to make a straw man argument against it because you think that it is just as well thought out as a HYPOTHESIS, which is NOT A THEORY.


Well, I want to clarify something really quick. I think many Christians who would be labeled 'young-earth creationists' would actually agree to believing in evolution... to a point.

You see, there's a type of evolution observable in nature, and a type not observable in nature. The terms microevolution and macroevolution are sometimes used to emphasize this difference, but I won't get into that.

Basically, we can see animals and people adapting to their environments. God created us with that ability necessary for our survival, and for us to bring forth after our own kind. We see that He made species able to differ based on their surroundings into what could be called subspecies. Humans get darker skin depending on sun exposure. Their eyes narrow in colder climes. They can even get shorter when living on islands.

However, what remains a theory is the idea that species can completely change into other species. Can a fish change into a mammal? Or a mammal into a bird? Is it really reasonable to think if we dry up a lake that all the fish will suddenly develop legs and learn how to breathe air fast enough to avoid dying? Do we see this in nature?

And where did animals come from? Did plants start crawling around and become animals, as at least one proponent of evolution I know claims? If so, why don't we see them doing it today? Why aren't there at least some plants crawling around? If such a kind of evolution is true, we ought to be able to see such examples of basic creatures still evolving, but we do not.

Darwin himself said the weakness in his theory was the lack of such intermediate forms in the process of evolving, but he thought that as with the element his entire theory depends on, "time" would prove the remedy in showing such forms. He hoped that as scientific progress increased, we would find examples of species changing into completely different ones in the same way his theory suggests basic forms changed. However, a century later there is still no proof, and that may be as he said, the deathblow to his hypothesis.

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