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Appreciate the input JarBreaker.

I didn't realize that the SoF for each member was showing on the topic. (For some reason it was not for me.) That should now be resolved, I think.

In regards to the rest of your post, I definitely agree about the quote part. Please try and limit usage of the quote feature. For example, if you're addressing the OP (original poster), there is really no need to quote the entire post because that's the point of a thread. I really don't like the idea of resorting to team members here editing that, but we may have to go that route if the trend continues. Please try and use quotes strategically and not just quote the entire post where simply addressing the person by their moniker would do the same job.

Thanks!

You're going to find - to be brutally honest - that there will always be certain population segments that will be more easily "offended" than others. That's just the nature of the beast I'm not going to paint with a wide brush and label all atheists as this type, but it's one of those segments that does complain more than others in my observations. (Hence the litigation and issues we see on a weekly basis where one atheist/agnostic group or individual wants some religious statue or image removed.)

That said, I think praying for others who are not Christians is a good thing. To be honest, I don't care who prays for me in another religion, but I'm not going to offend them by telling them I don't want the prayers. The devil worship thing is a bit of a misnomer because these folks don't quite worship the devil in the sense that we worship and pray to God. (They worship the world of course, but that's another thought.) IE: They are satanists but it's done to mock or offend in many instances. I for one fear nothing from them, so I'm not going to worry about prayers or whatever.

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Right, but let's get back to Evolution as an origin. At what point (and how long) does the living spring from the nonliving? We don't have a timeline for that and given that it has almost definitively not occurred elsewhere based on what we know, the odds are beyond immense. Otherwise, one is left with the notion that regardless of time, there was a Creator involved that laid out an intelligent design/map/etc. for creation. Evolution to an extent may be part of that plan - I don't think anyone here can say that no species/animal has changed somewhat over time - but evolution as an origin is an entirely different matter to which you will find unified disagreement with amongst the Christian faith.

The problem with trying to use Evolution as the antithesis to refute Genesis is that Genesis does not provide a timeline - outside of a very "fundamentalist" view of the book which inserts the ~6,000 year old date as "the beginning." I'm not going to touch the debate on days vs years and so on and so forth, but I don't see how one could argue the Genesis account is wrong and base it on science. Apples and oranges because God (or Moses and his scribe - or Moses as God's scribe) didn't write Genesis to be a scientific account of creation. Instead, it's clearly recounting why we are here and why we are where we are.

I actually find myself in reasonable agreement with Martin on the science part - real science does not discredit Genesis in any way. It only becomes an issue when an ulterior motive is read into the book.

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James you've touched on an issue I see time and again that stirs up some interesting emotions.

I agree with your response, but even more so I'd point out that an "attack" on tongues or healing always seems to end up as an attack on God with certain groups. I've noticed it far too easy to say that healing is a matter of faith and that if your friend or loved one is not healed, they just don't have the faith! I'm even going to put aside the healing part because Christ's response to the Tower of Siloam should show us that it's not always within God's will to heal every bad thing or physical ailment (Luke 13:4). With that though, I'll simply lay aside the healing issue because it's clearly an issue of degrees of belief.

The next topic seems to stir the emotional pot much more.

Tongues is a much more intriguing discussion because something mentioned no more than a handful of times in the New Testament is so tenaciously held on to by some that it becomes maddening. I'm not accusing anyone here of that point, but I love how a disagreement on the interpretation of the term "tongue" can turn into an all out attack on God. I see this red herring time and again, and it often gets ignored even when one is the victim of the invective.

I don't particularly care what the person believes or disbelieves about tongues. I just take issue when it becomes a means of identifying a Christian or true Christian. When it becomes - as we are warned in the verses posted above - a sign. No human needs any kind of sign to determine your Christianity and never let anyone tell you otherwise. That is between you and the Lord and some man or woman "clearing" you because you speak a certain way or perform a certain act is absurd and clearly against the Bible.

Unfortunately the issue is further always addressed in an ambiguous tone as you can see demonstrated quite well above. These tongues are amorphous sounds that sometimes might come out as strange mutterings or really awkward noises are tongues for some; the real point I'm trying to make is you never really know to what the person is saying when they use the word

While, for others, it might simply mean another language spoken elsewhere on Earth where the current speaker simply was not previously fluent in the language.

Instead, the above belief switches you immediately to the bad category where you totally question the Father because your interpretation of one gift out of many is not the same as theirs.