fhansen said:

Obviously not.

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I understand that would be your viewpoint.

Colo Millz said:

Fair enough.

But either the following is a true statement or not:

Evil is part of God's plan to show forth the glory of both his justice and his mercy, in the glory of the Son.

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“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭8‬:‭28‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

“No one is to say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone.”
‭‭James‬ ‭1‬:‭13‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

““The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and just is He.”
‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭32‬:‭4‬ ‭NASB2020‬‬

What does scripture say?

Amo2 said:

a lot of people do subscribe to the random chance version of evolutionary theory.

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I never met any.

ARBITER01 said:

Sorry, unbelievers don't get a taste.

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And you know this, how?

Always in His Presence said:

The President of every day Americans is holding an event, large numbers of them relate to!

Maybe the left should hold a simultaneous event hosted by Gov. Walsh - Perhaps a nice drag show.

It would be a good way to judge who the middle class is drawn to.

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Maybe I'll give a hypothetical that didn't happen.

I wouldn't go to either but I think playing dress up and dance aeound is healthier than watching people beat the snotty outta each other.

Violence in americna culture is soooo weird compared to nudity and sexuality.

Colo Millz said:

Fair enough.

But either the following is a true statement or not:

Evil is part of God's plan to show forth the glory of both his justice and his mercy, in the glory of the Son.

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Depends on your authority for truth, yourself or God.

Colo Millz said:

You're evading.

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It is evasion to exclude the whole picture.

The Liturgist said:

That only gets you so far. To really understand it you need to learn the original languages, which is possible since Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic and Latin are still spoken and are still taught, so in this respect studying Christian religious texts is much easier than studying religious texts of ancient Mesopotamian, since not only does no one speak Sumerian, but no one speaks a language related to Sumerian, for it was displaced by Akkadian, a Semitic language, and later still by Aramaic and Arabic.

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No. The Holy Spirit of God reveals truth, not the study of languages. Nor has God left humanity dependent on other sinful fallen human beings to understand the truths of His recorded word. This is not to say that the study such languages is not certainly a benefit, but only to reiterate that all who seek a true knowledge of God and His word are far more dependent upon the Holy Spirit, than any education. God has preserved His word for humanity, and seen to it, that it has been translated into and many languages as possible by very capable people who understood and understand the languages you speak of. The truth is not hidden from any who truly desire and seek to understand it. Or do you not believe the following words of our Savior in relation to those He has chosen to translate his word for humanity?

Jhn 14:15 If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20 At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. 21 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. 22 Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world? 23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. 24 He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me. 25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. 26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

I have no doubt that many of those who have translated the holy scriptures, eagerly sought after the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God while doing so. Don't you think? Apart from this of course, a few of them might just contest your claim that God inspired translations are not enough for their readers to actually understand the scriptures. As no doubt, their entire purpose was to perform exactly that task.

Colo Millz said:

It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

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NEWS FLASH!

He's God. . .we're not.

Let wisdom be your guide.

Amo2 said:

It seems appropriate to placing fully intended boundaries upon a time frame shortly to be established, according to that very time frame.

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To what end other than narrative purposes?

Amo2 said:

Not to mention appropriate to the understanding of beings whose only experience will be within those very time frames as well. Having being created after they were established by the word of God.

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No sun required for a period of time defined solely ever based on the movement of the earth vis-a-vis the sun.
Right.

Amo2 said:

As far as the poles go, we do not even know if earths original land masses were at the poles

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We know when the sun was created, though, don't we

Amo2 said:

Why would I want to square Peter away for a reference about God which is no doubt very true.

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Except during the Creation, which had to happen in solar days when there was no sun for the benefit of humans not yet created.
As we used to say in the Old Counytty, "Do what?"/

Amo2 said:

What is time to Him who has no beginning or end.

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Except for Creation, when He had to to it in 6 solar days.

Amo2 said:

Time is relevant to us as created beings according to His own purposes, we most certainly are subject to it this side of heaven.

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And the time it took to create the universe is very important because... reasons.

Amo2 said:

The statement was not made concerning the length of creation days, but rather future scoffers who would deny the global flood and coming future judgement.

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I'm sorry, what? By giving the scoffers something else to scoff at? And thern you quote St Peter saying that God doesn't reckon time as we do yo demonstrate your belief and contention that God must reckon time precisely as we do!

Amo2 said:

Who are you to say that the above scriptures are all I need to know about Creation

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Jipsah, Son of Haeja. And what is lacking in St John's account? He tells us that our Lord Christ Himself created all that exists, and is thus God Himself. Was thetre further information there you believe he should have imparted? Like an extra sun to make the Genesis account "work"?

Amo2 said:

, in direct contradiction to the word of God Himself which provides far more information about it?

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I'm sorry, is John 1 not part of God's Word? Hmmmm...

Amo2 said:

Who do you think you are?

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Jipsah, Son of... oh, we've been over that. So you believe that we desperately need to know how long it took God, in human terms (really?) to create the universe, even if your schedule requires, shall we say, modification, (the addition of a pre-sun sun) for even your lot to accept it as true

Amo2 said:

God Himself said -

Exo 20:1 And God spake all these words, saying

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Yep. based on the Genesis narrative, told in sybolic "days" that weren't human/solar "days" at all. No sun, no evenings, no mornings, and God is not, was not, nor ever will be, restricted by human reckoning of time at all, in whatever increments you choose.

Amo2 said:

Do you really think I am going to ignore the words of God above

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No, you're just going to make them say what youy reckon they should, and then rail at folks who look at God's actual Creation and notice that it sure does look a whole lot older than that. Wow, ya think?

Amo2 said:

, because you have suggested I do so because that is all I need to know?

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WEll yeah, I reckon that it's Really Important for you to "know" that the universe is only 6000 years old because otherwise you might be mistaken for one of those folks who've dedicated their lives to studying the actual universe that God created and found that it's really, really unlikely that it's anything like that new, and that it sure looks like He spent a goof few millions years . Y'all know He got it done in less than a week from preliminary design to final release.

Now it helps a lot that you get to ignore Scripture's insistance that God isn't stuck in time as we are, and that in fact, rather than being bound in time - brace yourself now - He created it. Oh, but a week is a week"! Really? What watch was God looking at? He is, and always has been, always will be.

No sun to reckon time by - He created it. No moon to calculate month'as by. He made them. No animals to be born, grow old,and die. He created them. No ga;axies to spin up and run down. He built them. No seasons. No aeons. Npne of the "stuf" we thkiink of as the universe; no universe. No space; no time.

Oh, but Creation of all that took 6 days, whatever that meant when only God existed.

Six literal, (oh yes, it must be literal) "days:. And then God could knock off and go on to His next project.

Amo2 said:

Get a grip man.

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And you want to tell me to get a grip? You're flogging a religion where God is just this bloke who just created everything, Took Him a week, Pieve o' cake. None of this millions of years stuff; easy peasy.

And this is what Christiians are supposed to believe, literally? Please

Amo2 said:

Why should anyone else be limited in their understanding or sharing of the word of God

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Yeah, all you have to do is reduce it to the level understood by preliterate hunter-gatherers and declare thet to be the eternal truth of God.

Amo2 said:

, by the limitations you have set upon yourself?

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You much prefer placing absurd limits on God and His creation.

Ligurian said:

It's completely a racial thing... do the research:

The correct translation would be "neither Jew nor Hellene*".

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The diaspora completely erased that issue. Jews throughout the world are most similar genetically to the people among whom they live.

Fair enough.

But either the following is a true statement or not:

Evil is part of God's plan to show forth the glory of both his justice and his mercy, in the glory of the Son.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

Neanderthals weren't a race, they were species. Homo Neanderthalensis.

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There's a good amount of controversy about that. They are poised just about intermediate between species and race. I'm inclined to think of the as a race of H. sapiens, but there are authorities who disagree.

Warden_of_the_Storm said:

And Gentiles does not refer to a separate race either. Gentile, in the sense of "No Jew Nor Gentile" in Galatians 3:28 means anyone who doesn't follow the Jewish faith. It's not a racial thing.

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Correct. Gentiles were non-Jews. And "Hellene" was a cultural thing. Even among the classical Greeks, Dorians and Ionians were ethnically different. And the term also included Macedonians and Thracians.

Colo Millz said:

In the New York Times this morning, on this the last day I have set aside for the writing of this book, there appeared a report from Sri Lanka recounting, in part, the story of a large man of enormous physical strength who was unable to prevent four of his five children from perishing in the tsunami, and who — as he recited the names of his lost children to the reporter, in descending order of age, ending with the name of his four-year-old son — was utterly overwhelmed by his own weeping. Only a moral cretin at that moment would have attempted to soothe his anguish by assuring him that his children had died as a result of God’s eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels, and that in fact their deaths had mysteriously served God’s purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created this world. Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words; we would recognize that they would offer no more credible comfort than the vaporings of the most idiotically complacent theodicy, and we would detest ourselves for giving voice to odious banalities and blasphemous flippancies.

And this should tell us something. For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another’s sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them; because what would still our tongues would be the knowledge (which we would possess at the time, though we might forget it later) that such sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God.

Hart, The Doors of the Sea

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Wisdom dictates that such words are spoken only to those who believe in and love God.
It has no meaning to those who do not.
Wisdom also dictates the appropriate time to speak those words.

I'm seeing a need for common sense here.

Clare73 said:

Relevance?

Do you know whether or not the child would be a reprobate sentenced to condemnation if it lived?

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You're evading.

Thea2 said:

That’s Daoism



Jung was familiar with and heavily influenced by Chinese Daoism.

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Just as Aquinas was familiar with and heavily influenced by Aristotle.

So what?

I suppose there are those who would object just as strenuously to Aquinas today as they would to Jung for precisely the same reason.

Colo Millz said:

You're telling me that all Christians, everywhere, agree with your perspective that a child dying of leukemia shows forth God's glory?

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Relevance?

Do you know whether or not the child would be a reprobate sentenced to condemnation if it lived?

Words we would not utter to ease another’s grief we ought not to speak to satisfy our own sense of piety.

Colo Millz said:

“The opposites always balance one another—good and evil, beauty and ugliness, love and hate, spirit and matter. Heaven and hell are born together. The dissolution of opposites is the precondition of the highest consciousness.”

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That’s Daoism

Colo Millz said:

… Jung …

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Jung was familiar with and heavily influenced by Chinese Daoism.

Clare73 said:

Evil is part of God's plan to show forth the glory of both his justice and his mercy, in the glory of the Son.

Click to expand...

It is a strange thing indeed to seek peace in a universe rendered morally intelligible at the cost of a God rendered morally loathsome.

Ligurian said:

It's completely a racial thing... do the research:

The correct translation would be "neither Jew nor Hellene*".

* "From Hellas; a Hellen (Grecian) or inhabitant of Hellas; by extension a Greek-speaking person, especially a non-Jew -- Gentile, Greek."

Strong's Greek: 1672. Ἕλλην (Hellén) -- Greek

Paul defines Jew as a race in Philippians 3:4-6... of the tribe* of Benjamin...

* From phuo (compare phullon); an offshoot, i.e. Race or clan -- kindred, tribe.

Strong's Greek: 5443. φυλή (phulé) -- Tribe

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None of that proves anything at all of what you said.

But it's nice to finally see the mask coming off of you.

In the New York Times this morning, on this the last day I have set aside for the writing of this book, there appeared a report from Sri Lanka recounting, in part, the story of a large man of enormous physical strength who was unable to prevent four of his five children from perishing in the tsunami, and who — as he recited the names of his lost children to the reporter, in descending order of age, ending with the name of his four-year-old son — was utterly overwhelmed by his own weeping. Only a moral cretin at that moment would have attempted to soothe his anguish by assuring him that his children had died as a result of God’s eternal, inscrutable, and righteous counsels, and that in fact their deaths had mysteriously served God’s purposes in history, and that all of this was completely necessary for God to accomplish his ultimate design in having created this world. Most of us would have the good sense to be ashamed to speak such words; we would recognize that they would offer no more credible comfort than the vaporings of the most idiotically complacent theodicy, and we would detest ourselves for giving voice to odious banalities and blasphemous flippancies.

And this should tell us something. For if we would think it shamefully foolish and cruel to say such things in the moment when another’s sorrow is most real and irresistibly painful, then we ought never to say them; because what would still our tongues would be the knowledge (which we would possess at the time, though we might forget it later) that such sentiments would amount not only to an indiscretion or words spoken out of season, but to a vile stupidity and a lie told principally for our own comfort, by which we would try to excuse ourselves for believing in an omnipotent and benevolent God.

Hart, The Doors of the Sea