Is this good for Christianity?

[Justadude]

You're looking at the forest.

No, I'm looking at a person telling me a story about a magical experience he had.

Meanwhile you are not connecting the dots.

I could just as easily tell you that you're not thinking rationally.

I have told you what it's not, and also what it is.

Exactly. Some anonymous person on a message board has told me a story. That's it.

How are you with crossword puzzles or mysteries? Not so good, I suspect.

LOL. Your suspicion couldn't be more wrong. I'm an avid crossword puzzler and I love a good mystery novel. :)

 

[ScottA]

No, I'm looking at a person telling me a story about a magical experience he had.


I could just as easily tell you that you're not thinking rationally.


Exactly. Some anonymous person on a message board has told me a story. That's it.


LOL. Your suspicion couldn't be more wrong. I'm an avid crossword puzzler and I love a good mystery novel. :)

Nonetheless, what you are doing is not working.
You have approached the mountain, and seen or accomplished nothing.
The mystery of the ages has escaped you.

 

[Paul Christensen]

Thanks for your lengthy and stimulating answer. You have given me plenty to chew on here, and I appreciate your friendly and respectful manner in your answers.

For sure, hypocrisy and "do as I say, not as I do" is a factor.

This is so sadly true. Too many professing Christians shoot themselves in the foot because they do not demonstrate the faith they profess. I can understand if they see a church member being a lying, thieving, blaspheming, fornicating, pornographic viewing adulterer at heart, they rightly see that he is a lying hypocrite when he says that he loves and serves Christ.

I don't think so, since I'm a pretty boring person.

I don't think you are boring at all, given the quality of your answers here. You are an intelligent, thinking person who asks the hard questions which many professing Christians find hard to cope with. I have a friend who was educated in a Christian high school and he was kicked out because he kept on asking questions about the Bible which the Christian educators there couldn't answer. So, instead of giving him the true Biblical answers they should have, they rejected him; so he rejected their Christianity. It was gratifying to me that he saw me as being a genuine believer, yet he continued not to believe what I believe. He reckoned that I let people get away with too much because I am too "nice" to them, when he would aggressively give them a piece of his mind!

Thanks for being honest.

Appreciated.

But how do you know you're reading it the right way?

There are many things in the Bible that are difficult for our logical minds to believe. When I share the gospel with people, I steer away from those things, and concentrate on the issues that people understand, and talk about what the Bible clearly says. For instance, when you read the book of John, it clearly describes the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is clear narrative with no sub-text, just like any other history.

I once had a complete set of Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. I read it right through over several months. I just believed and accepted what he said. I never thought, "Oh, he doesn't really mean this. There must be some deeper meaning that I must interpret". No. What he wrote was what he meant, and he meant what he wrote.

It is the same with the narrative histories of the Old Testament and the Gospels. John wrote clearly what he saw and heard and the reason he wrote his gospel was that we just believe it and believe that Jesus is who He says He is. So there is only one interpretation of what John wrote - exactly what he wrote.

You see, when you read through Romans, which is basically the full gospel of Christ, you just take what Paul has written. There is no subtext to it. Paul clearly points out what he wanted his readers to know. The problem is with many is that they can't accept some of the things Paul wrote because it challenges their lifestyle and hits their conscience. So, to ease their conscience, they tell themselves that Paul didn't really mean what he literally wrote, and that people interpret in ways that suit themselves.

This is the exact reason why there are professing Christians who won't turn away from their lying, thieving, blasphemous, fornicating lifestyle, because when Paul teaches that professing Christians must turn from their sinful lifestyle and live holy lives, they say that Paul didn't really say that and there are different interpretations that show that they can continue as they are and expect to get to heaven when they die.

I have more but I ran out of my allowable characters in a post.

 

[Paul Christensen]

Part 2 to answer Justadude's post:

I'm going to try and help you with this, so please take it in the spirit intended. Also, this topic (whether science can study and draw conclusions about events no one observed) has nothing to do with the Bible or God.

It has everything to do with the Bible, because as science makes new discoveries about how the world works, and archaeologists discover more ruins and ancient writings they discover that the people, places, and the science of the Bible are accurate and true. The Bible talked about "the circle of the earth" thousands of years before scientists discovered that the earth was round and not flat. Similarly, the Bible says that God hung the earth on nothing, long before scientists discovered that the earth is a sphere hanging in space. God told Job about lightning that flashed from one end of the world to the other and spoke - showing radio communication which was not discovered until thousands of years later. These are just some examples of the Bible saying things, that have been shown to be true through scientific discovery.

That is indeed an accurate description of the scientific method. However, you're mistaken in thinking that "make an observation" means "observe the event". Let me try and illustrate this with an example.

What you have described is forensic science. It is a historical science that observes in the present what has happened in the past. The evidence is right there in front of the investigators and it enables them to be led to the offender.

Archaeology is another historical science. We know that dinosaurs existed because we have the present evidence of their bones and skeletons. We don't really know what they looked like, because we don't have photos of them, so any artist's impression is an educated guess. And we don't know exactly when they were alive on the earth because although we have the bones, we don't know how old they are. We know that Babylon existed because we can go and view the ruins, and underneath those ruins, very ancient foundations were discovered that suggest that the tower of Babel once stood there. We go into history and see that Alexander the Great knew of the foundations of the tower of Babel and destroyed them. So we have current evidence through the historical account. We know that Corinth and Ephesus were really there, because we can go and see the ruins of those cities. For centuries no one believed that Pontius Pilate was a real person until an archaeologist found a stone in the ruins of Caesarea that bore an inscription of him. Pilate had fell so far out of favour with the Roman Emperor, that they erased every trace of him in Rome, but they missed the Caesarea stone, because Titus had destroyed that city when he invaded in 70AD.

So I am quoting the same historical science to show that dinosaurs, the people, events, and places in the Bible were really there because we have the evidence that exists right now, in exactly the same way that the forensic team were able to use the evidence in front of them to locate and arrest the offender and get a successful conviction in court.

But Origin science has to be based on guesswork, because no one was there to make the first observation. There is no evidence about how the universe and the world was first formed. But we do know, as we know when we see a large building, that it could not have designed and built itself out of nothing, but someone had to design it; so we look at the world around us, and we can know that someone, somewhere designed it, but we don't have any evidence in front us to show how it happened. So scientists can only make logical guesses based on what they believe happened.

I hope that helps you understand how "make an observation" isn't the same thing as "you have to directly observe the event", and how scientists study events they didn't witness all the time.

The problem with even the most eminent evolutionists, is that cannot provide any evidence that one species of animal has changed into another. When I watched a video of four of the most qualified evolutionist academics in the USA trying to answer the question, I could see their unsuccessful struggle to find definitive proof that even a one-celled bacteria actually changed into an amoeba. All they could talk about were mutations and genetic changes in the same animal or bacteria. Actually, they could not produce one single piece of proof that evolution actually changing any organism into a totally different one.

If you came home and found your house broken into and your stuff gone, but there was no conclusive forensic evidence to show who did it - no finger prints, no blood stains, no shoe prints to lead to a definite person, the case would not have been solved, and the police would not be able to find the offender, because there would be no substantive evidence there. All they could guess is who might have done it, but they would not be able to arrest that person and prove their case to get a strong conviction.

In the same way, evolution would not stand up in a court of law, because there would be no evidence to prove that it happened and the case would be thrown out because all the prosecution would have is just guesswork based on what scientists believe happened.

Sure, but just because it's a religious issue for you doesn't mean it is for everyone else.

Yes. I have my religious foundation based on the literal text of the Bible, and others have their own belief systems. Your foundation is based on your belief that no one really knows one way or another. That is what being agnostic is. So you have your religion and I have mine.

Yes, but being "reasonable" is the key. I'm trying to convey to you how a lot of what you post about science is not reasonable,

Well, the Bible is reasonable, because it was written by a Person who was actually there at the time the universe was formed, and it sets out who He is and his plan of salvation which involves Jesus Christ who died on the cross to take the penalty for our sins. Everything that the Bible says in its science can be proved by the scientific method, both through operational and historical science. Origin science of the Bible is based on God's inspired history of it as spoken to Moses. God's attitude is that He said it, and we have the choice of whether we believe it or not, and one day there is going to be a Judgment on which we all have to account for what we believe, whether it be the literal Bible or agnosticism.

Right, "because of Him", not "because of the silly things Christians say about science".

It is not just what Christians say, but it is what the Bible says concerning the particular science it mentions, such as "the circle of the earth" and "hanging the earth on nothing", and "the lighting that flashes from one end of the earth to the other and then talks", and "the chariots with bright flaming eyes that jostle each other on the broad ways" (showing vehicles with bright lights on wide multi-lane roads which did not exist when that statement was written), and prophecies about world events that were written hundreds of years before they actually happened, and the crucifixion of Christ spoken about by Isaiah who lived hundreds of years before it happened and when before crucifixion was even thought of as a method of execution.

So, we have an abundant amount of evidence that we can view and study in our present to show that the Bible is accurate and true in what it says. But there is absolutely none that shows that evolution actually happened.

Okay, I appreciate you taking the time to explain. :)

I appreciate the time you have taken to answer.

 

[Giuliano]

I have a cousin who's a pastor at a more liberal Christian church and she tells me the same thing. She refers to today's fundamentalists as "latter-day Pharisees". I hope you're both right.

I have my "religious" reasons for thinking that and then there are the practical reasons. We see something similar happening in Islam too when people migrated from areas where everyone was conservative into Western cultures. Muslim immigrants often split into two camps in Europe with some shrilly insisting on maintaining the rigid values of where they came from and with others saying they are not interested in an intolerant form of Islam. Many have experimented with Western culture, liked it and aren't going to grow up like their parents. I joke about it saying Barbie dolls are the thing that radical Imams feared the most. Hey, they are banned in Iran. Barbie dolls really are seen as a threat by some, so why not admit it?

Maybe it's also related to how modern conservative Christianity has become intertwined with modern Republicanism and its belief in individualism and self-reliance?

I think it is.

Either way, I'm reminded of this (don't watch if easily offended):

I found it amusing how the positive message got intertwined with a negative one.

That's exactly the sort of thing I was conveying to Enow a couple of weeks ago. In the church I grew up in all the leaders and teachers were so confident and sure they knew all about God, what God was like, and what God wanted. But when I asked how they knew all that they invariably fell back on what I call magical thinking. The holy spirit told them, they have a vision, God revealed to them during a prayer, etc.

I've never found anything like that to be persuasive, and it's a big reason why I never was a believer.

The Bible says to be cautious about this. I reason this way using logic I think anyone could agree with: If there is a God, He gave us minds to use. Therefore we ought not to believe that we need to abandon reason in order to know about God. This does not mean that God can be found or proved by using logic and reason; but it does mean we can avoid many foolish ideas about God and religion.

My second principle is for people who have religious experiences. Do not be afraid of doubting the validity of experiences even if you think you hear the Voice of God, see an angel, etc. This too is Biblical. This is not doubting God -- it is doubting our own ability to perceive things accurately. The Bible says people can be deceived, to test the spirits, etc.

I saw firsthand how disastrous religious fervor can be. I was about seven or eight. My Mother had several sources of stress in her life; and she leaned heavily on religion. She went crazy. I'm not joking. She had to be institutionalized. I loved her; but I still knew she'd made a mistake, and I told myself never to repeat her mistake.

Later I ran across other denominations of Christianity and other religions. Many of them had "prophets"; many claimed inspiration from God; but they were all teaching different things. How could it be then that they were all hearing from God? It couldn't be. Let me quote the Bible again which says God is not the author of confusion. That is a sensible statement -- even an atheist can agree that if there is a God, He wouldn't be sending conflicting messages to different people. If there is a God who wants people to know about Him, He wouldn't be lying to so many people since at best only one could be 100% right while the rest were wrong to some extent.

Later when I started to have my own religious visions and experiences, I was grateful for not abandoning reason. I was grateful for being skeptical, and I was skeptical about my own. I even remain skeptical about how accurately I saw and heard things in the visions I had. As Paul said, "we see through a glass darkly" -- and that includes me.

You can observe that often the religious experiences and revelations suit the purposes of the person who receive them. Not to pick on the LDS, but the example comes to mind that when Joseph Smith got his revelation about having more than one wife, it suited him to have more than one. That was after receiving a prior revelation that forbid a man having more than one wife that is in the Book of Mormon. Other denominations show it too. With the prosperity gospel crowd, we see the leaders enjoying their wealth that they got by convincing people to give them money.

I think it's safe to put forth the rule: If there is a God, He will not reveal Himself to people with certain personality traits. They would not accept the truth anyway. When we see people claiming revelations, odds are they are either deceiving themselves. If there are demons, there is the possiblity too that they are being deceived by the demonic. I do believe in the demonic; and while I do not want name names, I think there are a few people in this forum under the spell of the demonic. In a way, it doesn't matter that much whether they are deceiving themselves or if demons are doing it. You can't cheat an honest man. No demon could deceive any person unless that person wants to be deceived. Impure motives lie behind that.

 

[Giuliano]

As an agnostic person as it relates to theism as well, I too can speak to this. First, I am agnostic because I have not been presented with any convincing evidence that the god(s) of religious texts actually exist. With that being the case, there is no anointed one (Christ) since no god has been demonstrated to exist to be able to anoint a savior figure. All that said, the real issue is the lack of reality-based, demonstrable evidence that specifically points to the existence of the gods promoted by men.

The question I have for you is, "What are you?" Try closing your eyes and visualizing a black cat. "What" is looking at that cat? What is awareness?

If there is a God, we should expect to find the first evidence within ourselves. What are we? If we cannot perceive "the God in us", the idea of perceiving some "God out there" is absurd and leads to religious delusion. I say the first step is not looking for a "God out there" but searching for the "treasure hidden in the dirt."

What do you know for a fact? So far as I can see, the only thing I can know for sure is that "I am aware." The whole universe could be the product of my imagination. People do imagine things to be there when they aren't. How can I be sure then about physical objects in the physical universe? They seem to be there, but maybe it's all a dream. If it is a dream, my awareness is still real. If the physical universe is there, my awareness is still real. In either case, I can be sure awareness is real.

 

[Justadude]

Nonetheless, what you are doing is not working.
You have approached the mountain, and seen or accomplished nothing.
The mystery of the ages has escaped you.

I can see how it seems that way from your perspective.

 

[Justadude]

Thanks for your lengthy and stimulating answer. You have given me plenty to chew on here, and I appreciate your friendly and respectful manner in your answers.

You're welcome, and the same to you! :)

This is so sadly true. Too many professing Christians shoot themselves in the foot because they do not demonstrate the faith they profess. I can understand if they see a church member being a lying, thieving, blaspheming, fornicating, pornographic viewing adulterer at heart, they rightly see that he is a lying hypocrite when he says that he loves and serves Christ.

To be fair, I think with any large group of people there are going to be hypocrites, and Christians are no exception to that.

I don't think you are boring at all, given the quality of your answers here. You are an intelligent, thinking person who asks the hard questions which many professing Christians find hard to cope with. I have a friend who was educated in a Christian high school and he was kicked out because he kept on asking questions about the Bible which the Christian educators there couldn't answer. So, instead of giving him the true Biblical answers they should have, they rejected him; so he rejected their Christianity. It was gratifying to me that he saw me as being a genuine believer, yet he continued not to believe what I believe. He reckoned that I let people get away with too much because I am too "nice" to them, when he would aggressively give them a piece of his mind!

Thanks for the kind words. By "boring" I meant that I'm not living some sort of hedonistic lifestyle and a fear of having to give it up is what keeps from being a Christian. My lifestyle isn't any different than any of the Christians I know, other than church activities.

There are many things in the Bible that are difficult for our logical minds to believe. When I share the gospel with people, I steer away from those things, and concentrate on the issues that people understand, and talk about what the Bible clearly says. For instance, when you read the book of John, it clearly describes the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus. It is clear narrative with no sub-text, just like any other history.

I once had a complete set of Winston Churchill's History of the English Speaking Peoples. I read it right through over several months. I just believed and accepted what he said. I never thought, "Oh, he doesn't really mean this. There must be some deeper meaning that I must interpret". No. What he wrote was what he meant, and he meant what he wrote.

It is the same with the narrative histories of the Old Testament and the Gospels. John wrote clearly what he saw and heard and the reason he wrote his gospel was that we just believe it and believe that Jesus is who He says He is. So there is only one interpretation of what John wrote - exactly what he wrote.

You see, when you read through Romans, which is basically the full gospel of Christ, you just take what Paul has written. There is no subtext to it. Paul clearly points out what he wanted his readers to know. The problem is with many is that they can't accept some of the things Paul wrote because it challenges their lifestyle and hits their conscience. So, to ease their conscience, they tell themselves that Paul didn't really mean what he literally wrote, and that people interpret in ways that suit themselves.

This is the exact reason why there are professing Christians who won't turn away from their lying, thieving, blasphemous, fornicating lifestyle, because when Paul teaches that professing Christians must turn from their sinful lifestyle and live holy lives, they say that Paul didn't really say that and there are different interpretations that show that they can continue as they are and expect to get to heaven when they die.

I have more but I ran out of my allowable characters in a post.

You may have missed my point. I'm thinking of how Christian leaders in the past have been absolutely sure their interpretations of certain passages about the nature of the earth were correct. They were so absolutely certain, they persecuted any scientist who dared to reach contrary conclusions. But as history shows, it turned out those Christians were wrong and the scientists were right, which caused a lot of Christians to have to revisit those passages they were absolutely certain about.

My point is, how do you know you're not making the same mistake?

 

[ScottA]

I can see how it seems that way from your perspective.

That is a strange outlook you have then.

I mean, if there are those who "know" and those who only "believe" (whether theists, atheists, or agnostic)...then your response simply means you accept not knowing against the possibility of knowing, like "That's really cool, but no thanks, I'll pass."

Very strange indeed.

 

[Justadude]

It has everything to do with the Bible

I'm beginning to appreciate just how true that is for you, and how it sets the stage for why you and I diverge so sharply in our views on science. So if you don't mind, let's try to see if we can come to a mutual understanding of why we see things so differently.

Over in the heresy thread you posted "we are standing on our firm foundation that the literal text of the Bible is absolutely true and accurate and is what God actually said". IMO that says it all, right there. Your viewpoint is that the Bible is quite literally the words of God. The importance of that can't be overstated. I mean, THE...WORD...OF...GOD. I think sometimes I've heard that phrase so often I've lost the sense for what that means to folks like you. If it's truly the word of God, then everything in it is absolutely true and accurate and everyone on earth should know it and believe it, right? It should guide almost everything we do (and importantly for this discussion), including science, and especially science that touches on the past.

So as a result, your view of science is the same as Answers in Genesis': "By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the scriptural record". IOW, if scientists come across data or generate results that contradicts the word of God, then that data/result has to be wrong.

If I have that right, then it's important for you to understand how I hold what amounts to the complete opposite of that view. To tweak AiG's wording, my POV would be something like "If we come across data or results that contradicts the Bible, then the Bible may be wrong". More broadly, my POV is that science must follow the evidence where it leads, regardless of whether or not it contradicts a set of religious beliefs.

Does that make sense? It's those two dramatically different starting points that's behind our disagreements over science. It reminds me of how Ken Ham's creation museum in Kentucky depicts the situation.

And they depict how from their POV, they think proper science should operate.

A paleontologist with one eye on the fossil and the other eye on the Bible. The obvious message there is that according to their worldview, proper science would be where scientists collect data and then check with the Bible to determine how to interpret it. From what I can tell, you share that view.

And to repeat, that is not my view at all. Further, it's not the view of scientists either. Science hasn't operated by anything like AiG's rule for centuries and it isn't likely to anytime soon.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying you should change your mind or that you shouldn't be allowed to have your beliefs. If that's what satisfies and helps you live a more fulfilled and meaningful life, I'm happy for you. But I hope you also appreciate how no one else is obligated to abide by your beliefs, and science is not obligated to change their methods to accommodate them.

With that said, I'll use my next post to you to try again to help you with some of your arguments against science.

 

[Justadude]

The problem with even the most eminent evolutionists, is that cannot provide any evidence that one species of animal has changed into another.

I don't know that you appreciate what's going on in the debates over evolution you're having with your fellow Christians. From what I can see, they're trying to get you to stop making ignorant, and quite honestly, stupid arguments in the context of trying to defend Christianity, because they think you're making Christians look bad. They're basically telling you "stop saying such stupid things in the name of our faith...you're making us all look dumb!" And from an outsider's perspective, I can tell you they're right. Allow me to explain.

When Yehren showed you examples of the evolution of new species, you countered that they weren't new species because (in one specific case) it was "still a mouse" and hadn't changed "into a rat". That's really a poor response. I don't know if you remember the taxonomic system from when you went to high school, but it's like this:

With that in mind, let's look at what the word "mouse" refers to. Within taxonomy as shown above, a typical "mouse" (house mouse) is:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Muridae
Sub-family: Muridae
Genus: Mus
Species: Mus musculus

In the same way a typical "rat' (brown rat) is:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Muridae
Genus: Rattus
Species: Rattus norvegicus

Notice how the mouse and rat are in different genera (Mus for the mouse, Rattus for the rat).

Putting that in the context of Yehren's example of the evolution of a new species of mouse and your reply that it's not the evolution of a new species because it didn't become a rat, hopefully you see how ridiculous your reply is. You're basically saying it's not the evolution of a new species because it didn't become a new genus.

Does that make sense? If so, I hope you better appreciate what your fellow Christians have been trying to tell you, and I really hope you use this information to stop making such silly arguments. I think you're smarter than that.

When I watched a video of four of the most qualified evolutionist academics in the USA trying to answer the question, I could see their unsuccessful struggle to find definitive proof that even a one-celled bacteria actually changed into an amoeba. All they could talk about were mutations and genetic changes in the same animal or bacteria. Actually, they could not produce one single piece of proof that evolution actually changing any organism into a totally different one.

I assume you're referring to Ray Comfort's videos. If that's right, you should know that Ray isn't very honest when he makes his videos. Here is the account of one of the scientists he interviewed.

Ray Comfort confesses

Ray Comfort admits to selectively editing me.

But in “Evolution vs. God” PZ gets to talk as much as or even more than anyone in the entire movie. Of course it was “selectively edited.” That’s what editors do. They remove the mundane and irrelevant and select that which is interesting–and a lot of what he said certainly was interesting. When I do interviews I fully expect to be cut back to that which the producers believe is relevant to their theme. After all, it’s their program.​

Yes, exactly! I’ve done a number of interviews for the media, and it’s not surprising when an hour-long conversation is reduced to a few sentences. I expect that, and it’s no surprise.

What they don’t do, unless they are ideological hacks and liars, is chop up the interview to completely misrepresent the point I just explained to them at length. Comfort came to me asking for the evidence for evolution. The way it went is that he would a) ask for evidence, b) I would give him an example (like the research on sticklebacks or bacteria), c) Comfort would raise an irrelevant objection (they’re still fish! They’re still bacteria!), and d) I would explain why his objection was invalid, and how his expectations of the nature of the evidence were wrong. Somehow, though, in the movie (d) always ended up on the cutting room floor, so that he could announce in all of his promotional materials and in the movie itself that I was unable to provide any evidence for evolution.

That last bit is a lie. That’s not what respectable video producers do. An honest presentation of our interview would say that PZ Myers presented evidence for evolution, but in Ray Comfort’s opinion, it was not adequate…not, “all these scientists were unable to present evidence for evolution!”
​

You can even see for yourself another example of Comfort dishonestly manipulating his interview videos, this time changing the question the person was asked.

I hope you can be more discerning moving forward.

 

[Justadude]

I have my "religious" reasons for thinking that and then there are the practical reasons. We see something similar happening in Islam too when people migrated from areas where everyone was conservative into Western cultures. Muslim immigrants often split into two camps in Europe with some shrilly insisting on maintaining the rigid values of where they came from and with others saying they are not interested in an intolerant form of Islam. Many have experimented with Western culture, liked it and aren't going to grow up like their parents. I joke about it saying Barbie dolls are the thing that radical Imams feared the most. Hey, they are banned in Iran. Barbie dolls really are seen as a threat by some, so why not admit it?

Do you get the sense that it's mostly generational?

The Bible says to be cautious about this. I reason this way using logic I think anyone could agree with: If there is a God, He gave us minds to use. Therefore we ought not to believe that we need to abandon reason in order to know about God. This does not mean that God can be found or proved by using logic and reason; but it does mean we can avoid many foolish ideas about God and religion.

That's very sensible. Most of my friends who are Christian have the same view. My family OTOH....

My second principle is for people who have religious experiences. Do not be afraid of doubting the validity of experiences even if you think you hear the Voice of God, see an angel, etc. This too is Biblical. This is not doubting God -- it is doubting our own ability to perceive things accurately. The Bible says people can be deceived, to test the spirits, etc.

How do you tell the difference between a true, valid experience and a false one?

I saw firsthand how disastrous religious fervor can be. I was about seven or eight. My Mother had several sources of stress in her life; and she leaned heavily on religion. She went crazy. I'm not joking. She had to be institutionalized. I loved her; but I still knew she'd made a mistake, and I told myself never to repeat her mistake.

I'm so sorry to hear that. I guess at least you learned a positive lesson from it. But still, so tragic and sad.

Later I ran across other denominations of Christianity and other religions. Many of them had "prophets"; many claimed inspiration from God; but they were all teaching different things. How could it be then that they were all hearing from God? It couldn't be. Let me quote the Bible again which says God is not the author of confusion. That is a sensible statement -- even an atheist can agree that if there is a God, He wouldn't be sending conflicting messages to different people. If there is a God who wants people to know about Him, He wouldn't be lying to so many people since at best only one could be 100% right while the rest were wrong to some extent.

Exactly! Plus, I don't just consider alleged revelations from Christians, but also from "prophets" from other faiths. It always stands out to me how absolutely certain they all are, even though their messages are so incredibly diverse.

Later when I started to have my own religious visions and experiences, I was grateful for not abandoning reason. I was grateful for being skeptical, and I was skeptical about my own. I even remain skeptical about how accurately I saw and heard things in the visions I had. As Paul said, "we see through a glass darkly" -- and that includes me.

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of experiences did you have?

You can observe that often the religious experiences and revelations suit the purposes of the person who receive them. Not to pick on the LDS, but the example comes to mind that when Joseph Smith got his revelation about having more than one wife, it suited him to have more than one. That was after receiving a prior revelation that forbid a man having more than one wife that is in the Book of Mormon. Other denominations show it too. With the prosperity gospel crowd, we see the leaders enjoying their wealth that they got by convincing people to give them money.

LOL! The fact that so often people's revelations from God just happen to line up with their own views is pretty telling IMO.

I think it's safe to put forth the rule: If there is a God, He will not reveal Himself to people with certain personality traits. They would not accept the truth anyway. When we see people claiming revelations, odds are they are either deceiving themselves. If there are demons, there is the possiblity too that they are being deceived by the demonic. I do believe in the demonic; and while I do not want name names, I think there are a few people in this forum under the spell of the demonic. In a way, it doesn't matter that much whether they are deceiving themselves or if demons are doing it. You can't cheat an honest man. No demon could deceive any person unless that person wants to be deceived. Impure motives lie behind that.

That's very interesting, but I think I'll just leave that to you guys to argue over. ;)

 

[Justadude]

That is a strange outlook you have then.

Interesting, because I think the same about you.

I mean, if there are those who "know" and those who only "believe" (whether theists, atheists, or agnostic)...then your response simply means you accept not knowing against the possibility of knowing, like "That's really cool, but no thanks, I'll pass."

The first part is the key (if there are those who "know"). I've seen nothing to make me believe that when it comes to gods, there are people who "know", so from my perspective you all are "those who only believe".

 

[Paul Christensen]

You're welcome, and the same to you! :)


To be fair, I think with any large group of people there are going to be hypocrites, and Christians are no exception to that.


Thanks for the kind words. By "boring" I meant that I'm not living some sort of hedonistic lifestyle and a fear of having to give it up is what keeps from being a Christian. My lifestyle isn't any different than any of the Christians I know, other than church activities.


You may have missed my point. I'm thinking of how Christian leaders in the past have been absolutely sure their interpretations of certain passages about the nature of the earth were correct. They were so absolutely certain, they persecuted any scientist who dared to reach contrary conclusions. But as history shows, it turned out those Christians were wrong and the scientists were right, which caused a lot of Christians to have to revisit those passages they were absolutely certain about.

My point is, how do you know you're not making the same mistake?

I just accept what the literal text of the Bible says to me, and I know the parts that are written for me, and those parts that are written to me. I don't try to insert some sort of "spiritual sub text" into what is actually said in the Scripture. When I see, "To those who believe in Jesus, God gives them the right to be His children", then I know that because I believe in Jesus, I am a child of God. There is no other interpretation than what is actually written there. What other interpretation could there be? If I believe in Jesus it doesn't necessarily mean that I am a child of God? Some people read it as, "If we believe in Jesus and do good works, then we are children of God", but that is not what the Scripture says!

Of course, people will interpret the Bible to fit in with their imaginary comfortable teddy bear god who just loves them no matter how they behave. So a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer can believe in his imaginary god who will allow him to go to heaven and not to hell as he deserves. In that way, constructing one's own image of god in his imagination is adding idolatry to the rest of the list of his sins.

The God of the Bible literally says what He means and means what He says. The reason why people make up their own imaginary god is that they don't want to be morally accountable to a God who says, "The soul who sins shall surely die." They don't want to accept that the God of the Bible will bring them to judgment when they die, and their conscience tells them that they will be found guilty, so they put that out of their mind and construct a non-judgmental god from their own imagination to ease their conscience. One of those imaginary gods is one who is a God of love and not a God of justice as well. But the God of the Bible is a God of justice as well as a God of love, and He will not compromise His justice if the sinner deserves it, no matter how much He loves the sinner.

 

[Paul Christensen]

I don't know that you appreciate what's going on in the debates over evolution you're having with your fellow Christians. From what I can see, they're trying to get you to stop making ignorant, and quite honestly, stupid arguments in the context of trying to defend Christianity, because they think you're making Christians look bad. They're basically telling you "stop saying such stupid things in the name of our faith...you're making us all look dumb!" And from an outsider's perspective, I can tell you they're right. Allow me to explain.

When Yehren showed you examples of the evolution of new species, you countered that they weren't new species because (in one specific case) it was "still a mouse" and hadn't changed "into a rat". That's really a poor response. I don't know if you remember the taxonomic system from when you went to high school, but it's like this:

With that in mind, let's look at what the word "mouse" refers to. Within taxonomy as shown above, a typical "mouse" (house mouse) is:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Muridae
Sub-family: Muridae
Genus: Mus
Species: Mus musculus

In the same way a typical "rat' (brown rat) is:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Rodentia
Family: Muridae
Genus: Rattus
Species: Rattus norvegicus

Notice how the mouse and rat are in different genera (Mus for the mouse, Rattus for the rat).

Putting that in the context of Yehren's example of the evolution of a new species of mouse and your reply that it's not the evolution of a new species because it didn't become a rat, hopefully you see how ridiculous your reply is. You're basically saying it's not the evolution of a new species because it didn't become a new genus.

Does that make sense? If so, I hope you better appreciate what your fellow Christians have been trying to tell you, and I really hope you use this information to stop making such silly arguments. I think you're smarter than that.


I assume you're referring to Ray Comfort's videos. If that's right, you should know that Ray isn't very honest when he makes his videos. Here is the account of one of the scientists he interviewed.

Ray Comfort confesses

Ray Comfort admits to selectively editing me.

But in “Evolution vs. God” PZ gets to talk as much as or even more than anyone in the entire movie. Of course it was “selectively edited.” That’s what editors do. They remove the mundane and irrelevant and select that which is interesting–and a lot of what he said certainly was interesting. When I do interviews I fully expect to be cut back to that which the producers believe is relevant to their theme. After all, it’s their program.​

Yes, exactly! I’ve done a number of interviews for the media, and it’s not surprising when an hour-long conversation is reduced to a few sentences. I expect that, and it’s no surprise.

What they don’t do, unless they are ideological hacks and liars, is chop up the interview to completely misrepresent the point I just explained to them at length. Comfort came to me asking for the evidence for evolution. The way it went is that he would a) ask for evidence, b) I would give him an example (like the research on sticklebacks or bacteria), c) Comfort would raise an irrelevant objection (they’re still fish! They’re still bacteria!), and d) I would explain why his objection was invalid, and how his expectations of the nature of the evidence were wrong. Somehow, though, in the movie (d) always ended up on the cutting room floor, so that he could announce in all of his promotional materials and in the movie itself that I was unable to provide any evidence for evolution.

That last bit is a lie. That’s not what respectable video producers do. An honest presentation of our interview would say that PZ Myers presented evidence for evolution, but in Ray Comfort’s opinion, it was not adequate…not, “all these scientists were unable to present evidence for evolution!”​

You can even see for yourself another example of Comfort dishonestly manipulating his interview videos, this time changing the question the person was asked.

I hope you can be more discerning moving forward.

So, without any manipulating anything, let me ask YOU the question that Ray asks people:
Why are you an agnostic?

 

[Justadude]

I just accept what the literal text of the Bible says to me, and I know the parts that are written for me, and those parts that are written to me. I don't try to insert some sort of "spiritual sub text" into what is actually said in the Scripture. When I see, "To those who believe in Jesus, God gives them the right to be His children", then I know that because I believe in Jesus, I am a child of God. There is no other interpretation than what is actually written there. What other interpretation could there be? If I believe in Jesus it doesn't necessarily mean that I am a child of God? Some people read it as, "If we believe in Jesus and do good works, then we are children of God", but that is not what the Scripture says!

Of course, people will interpret the Bible to fit in with their imaginary comfortable teddy bear god who just loves them no matter how they behave. So a lying, thieving, blasphemous, adulterer can believe in his imaginary god who will allow him to go to heaven and not to hell as he deserves. In that way, constructing one's own image of god in his imagination is adding idolatry to the rest of the list of his sins.

The God of the Bible literally says what He means and means what He says. The reason why people make up their own imaginary god is that they don't want to be morally accountable to a God who says, "The soul who sins shall surely die." They don't want to accept that the God of the Bible will bring them to judgment when they die, and their conscience tells them that they will be found guilty, so they put that out of their mind and construct a non-judgmental god from their own imagination to ease their conscience. One of those imaginary gods is one who is a God of love and not a God of justice as well. But the God of the Bible is a God of justice as well as a God of love, and He will not compromise His justice if the sinner deserves it, no matter how much He loves the sinner.

Sure, I get all that. But I think you may have missed my point again. Let me see if I can distill it down for you.

Christian leaders were absolutely sure the Bible passages about the nature of the earth depicted a stationary earth that was orbited by the rest of the universe.

Scientists started discovering that the earth moves and orbits the sun, like all the other planets.

Due to absolute certainty in their interpretations of those Bible passages, Christian leaders persecuted the scientists.

Eventually it becomes clear that the scientists were right, and Christians had to re-interpret those Bible passages to be consistent with reality.​

My question for you is, how do you know you're not doing the same thing when it comes to Bible passages about the history of life on earth?

 

[Justadude]

So, without any manipulating anything, let me ask YOU the question that Ray asks people:
Why are you an agnostic?

Because I've never come across a religious belief system that makes sense.

Now that I've answered your question, do you have any response to what I posted for you?

 

[Paul Christensen]

Sure, I get all that. But I think you may have missed my point again. Let me see if I can distill it down for you.

Christian leaders were absolutely sure the Bible passages about the nature of the earth depicted a stationary earth that was orbited by the rest of the universe.

Scientists started discovering that the earth moves and orbits the sun, like all the other planets.

Due to absolute certainty in their interpretations of those Bible passages, Christian leaders persecuted the scientists.

Eventually it becomes clear that the scientists were right, and Christians had to re-interpret those Bible passages to be consistent with reality.​

My question for you is, how do you know you're not doing the same thing when it comes to Bible passages about the history of life on earth?

Christian leaders merely followed what their scientist told them about the nature of the world and the universe. Their system of belief was that the earth was the centre of the universe and that everything revolved around it. It was a dogmatic belief system in the same way that some Christian leaders are dogmatic about evolution, in spite of what the Bible actually says. The early religious leaders misinterpreted the Bible then as present leaders do now. They didn't see that when the Bible talked of the "circle of the earth" it talked of the earth being round, and when the Bible said that God hung it on nothing, it meant it was a sphere hanging in space.

So when Copernicus and Gallileo used the telescope to show that the earth revolved, with created 24 hour days, and that the earth revolved around the sun, the dogmatic Christian leaders viewed them as heretics, when all the astronomers were discovering was what the Bible was saying all along in its literal text.

For example, how would you interpret this:
"He sends his lightning to flash across the whole sky.
It lights up the earth from one end to the other.
After the flashes of lightning you can hear his roaring voice" Job 37:3-4).

This is the one that showed me that God's word was true and confirmed that my faith in Christ was real:
"The chariots rage in the streets, They jostle one another in the broad roads; They seem like torches, They run like lightning" Nahum 2:4).

 

[Justadude]

Christian leaders merely followed what their scientist told them about the nature of the world and the universe.

That's the opposite of what happened. The Christian leaders' view on the nature of the earth was based on their reading of scripture. Did you know that Galileo was charged with heresy?

The early religious leaders misinterpreted the Bible then as present leaders do now.

So again, how do you know you're not doing the same thing when it comes to interpreting scriptures as depicting young earth creationism?

They didn't see that when the Bible talked of the "circle of the earth" it talked of the earth being round, and when the Bible said that God hung it on nothing, it meant it was a sphere hanging in space.

It also says the earth doesn't move and rests on pillars. That's part of what the Christian leaders based their geocentric views on.

So when Copernicus and Gallileo used the telescope to show that the earth revolved, with created 24 hour days, and that the earth revolved around the sun, the dogmatic Christian leaders viewed them as heretics, when all the astronomers were discovering was what the Bible was saying all along in its literal text.

Have you ever considered the possibility that you're doing the same thing now, when you view theistic evolutionists as heretics?

For example, how would you interpret this:
"He sends his lightning to flash across the whole sky.
It lights up the earth from one end to the other.
After the flashes of lightning you can hear his roaring voice" Job 37:3-4).

Job 37 is clearly poetic, so I would never interpret it as being any sort of statement about the physical nature of the planet.

 

[Paul Christensen]

Because I've never come across a religious belief system that makes sense.

Now that I've answered your question, do you have any response to what I posted for you?

Maybe you haven't found a religious system that fits your lifestyle so you don't have to think about whether you might be morally accountable to a righteous God who may exercise justice against you in a future judgment.