Originally posted by GottaBigOne+Nov 1 2005, 02:03 PM--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(GottaBigOne @ Nov 1 2005, 02:03 PM)</div><div class='quotemain'><!--QuoteBegin-Freddie53@Nov 1 2005, 02:37 PM
Woah. you said evidence that God doesn't exist and you are using a Bible that you don't believe in and there is more than one religion and a peRson can beieve in God and never read the Bible.
The Bible never says how old the earth is.No where does it say that. And the church's pronoucments are not scientifiic evidence. The Catholic Church, the Angican Church and the Methodist Church all accept evolution fact. So well over half the world's Christians belong to a church that believes in God and accepts evolutio as fact.
BUT YOU ARE SKIPPING THE MAIN POINT. You said that there is billion years of evidence that PROVES God does not exist. SCIENCE CAN'T PROVE OR DISPROVE THE EXISTANCE OF GOD. I can't "prove" that God is not here. You can't "prove" he isn't here. You can prove that we humans can't make God do what we want him to that is for sure. If they were so, I woud be winning the 250 million dollar lottery somewhre. Since man can't control the actions of God, then man can't prove he exists.
Fossils don't prove that there is no God. Fossils prove that organisms lived a long time ago and left a record of thier existence. Let's not read something into fossils that is not there.
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Fossil evidence contradicts literal interpretation of genesis, and it implies that primitive man made the genesis story up because he didn't know better. It seems to me that if genesis was divinely inspired it would have included dinosaurs, since god knows everything. It was left out because genesis was written by men who knew nothing about the prehistoric world.
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there are two problems here. One, the last few posts have assumed that if there is a god, then it has to be the Christian one in the Bible. There are other gods and goddesses out there that some people believe really exist.
Secondly, Genesis stories weren't written to be historical fact, but were myths and legends to make certain points. The point of Genesis is that there was a God before the creation and that there is order in creation which happens to follow the evolutionary order. Those days stand for periods of time and cover millions, billions or who knows how many trillion years.
Yes, I believe that the writers were lead by God to write what they wrote. They werent' given some special power to see things that other people could not see however.
The Noah story is a perfect example. Every ancient culture has a flood story. Noah is mythical. The point of the story is not the flood at all. It is the last statement that God looked down and decided not to ever punish people again with floods. The Israelites were told and many believed that the floods were direct punishment from God for something they did wrong. So the whole big flood story sets in motion a story for all the people to hear and be glued to as the ancient story tellers sat around the camp site And the people needed to remember the story, so it was strung along until the final conclusion that God has decided that floods aren't the way to punish people. Instead God gives a rainbow.
A beautiful story. But the fundies and literalists destory the real meaning of the story and get caught up in the details earlier in the story and never read the final conclusion that God doesn't punish people with floods.
Yeah. I know there are some stories about God not being to kind in other stories, but if you keep reading the Bible you see the people come to a better understanding of God that shows a loving and forgiving God, not a wrateful God. That is a progessive revelation and understanding.
In conclusion, many years ago I questioned the fundie Christianity that I had heard from some adults. It is this so called, "mainstream Protestant" understanding of God that kept me in the Christian faith. I couldn't go to some of the fundie churches. I would just miss church if that was all that was available.
It is a little presumptive of us to believe that we are the first creation in the universe and that with eternity of time before our time and after our time that we right here in the last 10,000 years are the only "civilized" people. There may be space alians or creatures or whatever that far exceed the intelligence of humans here on earth. We don't know. We haven't met them. At least I haven't. Thsoe other galazies out there. What creatures inhabit them?
I realize there are the fundies who believe the Bible as a literal book with no legends, myths, parables and stories. I disagree with them. I consider myself Christian and I realize some of those fundies would say I am going to hell in a handbasket myself because I don't subscribe to their canon of law.
I believe each person is a priest unto himself. That means each of us have the ability to search for God on his own. It is not my duty to tell anyone else they are wrong. I will explain what I believe.
And many of these discussions have kept me thinking and evaluating my own beliefs. That is good. Everyone should do so. It is good for us to really evaluate what we believe and why and why others believe what they believe and why. It helps us understand ourselves and understand others.
