Exodus 20:9-11 (Creation)

[ScottA]

I don't see the connection between this and our earlier exchange about Jesus fulfilling the Jews concert is a Jewish Messiah?

You made the point that the bible does not tell the truth of Jesus (or something to that effect), but then picked out just the parts where Jesus was rather the representation of "a true loving God" and without the wrath that is all throughout the scriptures.

So, my question is simple:

If you believe that God is "true loving", how is it then that you believe that He has left us in this predicament of being subject to false doctrine? Do you not believe that He said that He would not leave or forsake us?

 

[Colter]

Which God?

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

There is only one God.

 

[Colter]

You made the point that the bible does not tell the truth of Jesus (or something to that effect), but then picked out just the parts where Jesus was rather the representation of "a true loving God" and without the wrath that is all throughout the scriptures.

So, my question is simple:

If you believe that God is "true loving", how is it then that you believe that He has left us in this predicament of being subject to false doctrine? Do you not believe that He said that He would not leave or forsake us?

I see your point Scott. The temptation is that, rather than embrace the fact of uncertainty, people actually prefer conformity to fetish and ritual, to forms of relics and idolatry. It's a frustration that I myself have had to accept. As time moves forward we are to enlarge our unified understanding of the cosmos, but when we petrify our deity concepts and ignore material facts in any one age, then we actually stunt the growth of future generations and our own. Petrifying the Bible has stunted growth and even obscured the spiritual truths from educated people living in this age.

It's not the fault of the authors of Genesis that later generations converted their writings into Gods Word. It's not Paul's fault that the church converted his routine letters into The Word of God.

So the answer to your question is this, the Loving God can be discovered in human experience now, but growth will continue for an eternity.

Supernatural events occur, men will later interpret and write about them. You assume the interpreting and the writing is also the supernatural event, I'm sorry, it's not.

 

[rjs330]

That's men writing as if God is talking. It's called preacher speak.


Show me where God claimed to write the bible? I see holy men claiming to speak on behalf of God. The people who mistreated Jesus, the apostles,
prophets actually thought they were doing a service to God.

No one can show you where God claimed to write the Bible and you know that. Unless God came down to you in,person and spoke to you and told to you himself that the Bible is his word you won't believe. Cause if I said that you would think I'm nuts. So for you the only possible way to prove the Bible is the Word of God is for God to tell you himself in person. By the way you will have that experience someday.

The Bible makes many claims that the words therein are from men who were moved upon by God to write what they wrote. Thus they are the words of God.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Allow me to illustrate -- evolution "stories easy enough to make up"



"stories easy enough to tell - but they are not science" - Collin Patterson - atheist evolutionist - scientist

Collin Patterson - Paleontologist British Museum of Natural history


On April 10, 1979, Patterson replied to the author (Sunderland) in a most candid letter as follows:


April 10, 1979 Letter from Colin Patterson to Sunderland
======================================================

“ I fully agree with your comments on the lack of direct illustration of evolutionary transitions in my book. If I knew of any, fossil or living, I would certainly have included them.

You suggest that an artist should be used to visualise such transformations, but where would he get the information from? I could not, honestly, provide it, and if I were to leave it to artistic license, would that not mislead the reader?

I wrote the text of my book four years ago. If I were to write it now, I think the book would be rather different. Gradualism is a concept I believe in, not just because of Darwin’s authority, but because my understanding of genetics seems to demand it.

Yet Gould and the American Museum people are hard to contradict when they say there are no transitional fossils. As a paleontologist myself, I am much occupied with the philosophical problems of identifying ancestral forms in the fossil record.

You say thatI should at least show a photo of the fossil from which each type of organism was derived. I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science, for there is no way of putting them to the test. So, much as I should like to oblige you by jumping to the defence of gradualism, and fleshing out the transitions between the major types of animals and plants, I find myself a bit short of the intellectual justification necessary for the job “

[Ref: Patterson, personal communication. Documented in Darwin’s Enigma, Luther Sunderland, Master Books, El Cajon, CA, 1988, pp. 88-90.]

============================





Wow -- "easy enough to make up stories" for evolutionists --

I will lay it on the line- there is not one such fossil for which one could make a watertight argument.[The reason is that statements about ancestry and descent are not applicable in the fossil record. Is Archaeopteryx the ancestor of all birds? Perhaps yes, perhaps no there is no way of answering the question. It is easy enough to make up stories of how one form gave rise to another, and to find reasons why the stages should be favoured by natural selection. But such stories are not part of science,

Its easy enough to search and search through the words of scientists and find the snippets one can quote that most support an anti-evolution point of view and use them. But these words don't mean what you are trying to say they mean. All these men are saying is . . . . the direct line of descent for the next higher level in evolution might have been through an evolutionary cousin of one of those species instead of exactly one of those species, and one cannot be sure based on bones alone about which was the exact line.

But that is not really an argument against evolution, much as you wish it were.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

I see your point Scott. The temptation is that, rather than embrace the fact of uncertainty, people actually prefer conformity to fetish and ritual, to forms of relics and idolatry. It's a frustration that I myself have had to accept. As time moves forward we are to enlarge our unified understanding of the cosmos, but when we petrify our deity concepts and ignore material facts in any one age, then we actually stunt the growth of future generations and our own. Petrifying the Bible has stunted growth and even obscured the spiritual truths from educated people living in this age.

It's not the fault of the authors of Genesis that later generations converted their writings into Gods Word. It's not Paul's fault that the church converted his routine letters into The Word of God.

So the answer to your question is this, the Loving God can be discovered in human experience now, but growth will continue for an eternity.

Supernatural events occur, men will later interpret and write about them. You assume the interpreting and the writing is also the supernatural event, I'm sorry, it's not.

Men hunger for inerrancy. Where is the absolute truth to which we can cling? Perhaps we can find it in a single, holy person, we can find it in a pope who when he speaks ex cathedra, speaks without error.

Well, that didn't work out.

Perhaps we can find it in an absolute, perfect translation of our scriptures. Hey, lets pick the King James version and declare it to be inerrant.

Hmmm, too many people can tell that was just an arbitrary choice. Oh what to do?

Perhaps we can find it in a absolute, perfect greek and hebrew manuscript of the bible. Yes, lets make that our article of faith.

Hmmm. The greek texts we have don't all agree with each other all the time. The Hebrew does better, but clearly only because the Masoretes massaged the text in the middle ages, after the time of Christ. And we've got differences with the Septuagint, the Samaratan text of the Torah, and the dead sea scrolls . . . .

Hmmm. We can declare that the scriptures are perfect and inerrant in their original manuscripts. Of course, we don't have a single one of them any more, and when you talk about compiled anthologies like the book of Psalms its kind of hard to say what exactly an original manuscript actually is, but . . . we can at least say that.

OK that's the tack we'll take.

Now what about the contradictions? We'll simply interpret a verse that disagrees with the literally correct verse in a non-literal fashion somehow. That will take care of all of those.

Perhaps we'll have some variation between denominations as to how to do that, but its sort of workable. We'll have inerrancy at last! Amen?

 

[Colter]

No one can show you where God claimed to write the Bible and you know that. Unless God came down to you in,person and spoke to you and told to you himself that the Bible is his word you won't believe. Cause if I said that you would think I'm nuts. So for you the only possible way to prove the Bible is the Word of God is for God to tell you himself in person. By the way you will have that experience someday.

The Bible makes many claims that the words therein are from men who were moved upon by God to write what they wrote. Thus they are the words of God.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

I've had many inspirational insights and spoken those truths to others, but I wouldn't call those the Word of God.

When truth is added to untruths, that doesn't make the whole batch the truth. When the Hebrews rewrote their nationalist history after loosing Israel and once again in bondage, by including the prophets and other parts and pieces of real supernatural history, that does not make Hebrew history a miraculous history. The Israelites are NOT a miraculous people no matter how much they may want that to be the case.


But suppose you believe me, what do I have to offer instead of written perfection? Trust God, he is within your own heart. Have the courage to be open minded and let the truth take you wherever it may lead because the truth will always lead back to the Father.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Try disconnecting all the tendons and muscles from it - and see how you do.

Oh sure, things are attached to it now that its there, but they didn't have to be, alternate attachments could have been made. After all, look at the elephant's trunk, all that length and no bone in it anywhere!

I did a little searching and found this mother's post to another mother concerned about a son who was missing a coccyx:

Hi there, I was just looking up information about this condition my son has out of curiosity. He was diagnosed at 3 1/2 with partial sacral agenisis, and is missing his tailbone too. He was diagnosed as a result of gastroenterology treatment for severe constipation. It took 18 months to get the constipation sorted and he is now nearly 11 years old. What problems has the partial sacral agenisis caused? Nothing really. It turns out you don't really need a tailbone & if the spinal cord passes correctly through the deformed sacrum, all is well. He's a good athlete, plays football, runs really fast & is a very fit, healthy active boy. We've always needed to keep his constipation in check which we do. He naturally chooses very good foods, unlike his brother, so this helps.

Good luck with our son. I worried a lot but it was unnecessary in our case. My other son complained of a sore back at one stage. Does anyone else in the family have a sore back? It turned out he was copying his dad. It was very convincing! Hopefully your sons pain resolves itself and his missing tailbone is nothing to concern you.

 

[Colter]

Men hunger for inerrancy. Where is the absolute truth to which we can cling? Perhaps we can find it in a single, holy person, we can find it in a pope who when he speaks ex cathedra, speaks without error.

Well, that didn't work out.

Perhaps we can find it in an absolute, perfect translation of our scriptures. Hey, lets pick the King James version and declare it to be inerrant.

Hmmm, too many people can tell that was just an arbitrary choice. Oh what to do?

Perhaps we can find it in a absolute, perfect greek and hebrew manuscript of the bible. Yes, lets make that our article of faith.

Hmmm. The greek texts we have don't all agree with each other all the time. The Hebrew does better, but clearly only because the Masoretes massaged the text in the middle ages, after the time of Christ. And we've got differences with the Septuagint, the Samaratan text of the Torah, and the dead sea scrolls . . . .

Hmmm. We can declare that the scriptures are perfect and inerrant in their original manuscripts. Of course, we don't have a single one of them any more, and when you talk about compiled anthologies like the book of Psalms its kind of hard to say what exactly an original manuscript actually is, but . . . we can at least say that.

OK that's the tack we'll take.

Now what about the contradictions? We'll simply interpret a verse that disagrees with the literally correct verse in a non-literal fashion somehow. That will take care of all of those.

Perhaps we'll have some variation between denominations as to how to do that, but its sort of workable. We'll have inerrancy at last! Amen?

Good post! Take me to your leader.....are their more like you????

 

[ScottA]

I see your point Scott. The temptation is that, rather than embrace the fact of uncertainty, people actually prefer conformity to fetish and ritual, to forms of relics and idolatry. It's a frustration that I myself have had to accept. As time moves forward we are to enlarge our unified understanding of the cosmos, but when we petrify our deity concepts and ignore material facts in any one age, then we actually stunt the growth of future generations and our own. Petrifying the Bible has stunted growth and even obscured the spiritual truths from educated people living in this age.

It's not the fault of the authors of Genesis that later generations converted their writings into Gods Word. It's not Paul's fault that the church converted his routine letters into The Word of God.

So the answer to your question is this, the Loving God can be discovered in human experience now, but growth will continue for an eternity.

Supernatural events occur, men will later interpret and write about them. You assume the interpreting and the writing is also the supernatural event, I'm sorry, it's not.

Thanks for explaining.

But, I am not assuming, I have had a very unique, personal, real, and unquestionable experience with God, and have been directed to the bible by Him, and had it confirmed point by point.

But, I do think it is a great assumption to abandon the idea that God could and would have providence over all the fraud that you site. He did say that He would send delusion. But how can you be sure that you have successfully sidestepped it, and that your take on it is any different? Because of my own direct confirmation, I would suggest that it is reasonable that there are any number of delusions that God has sent to confound the wicked, and that there is instead another explanation.

 

[ScottA]

Men hunger for inerrancy. Where is the absolute truth to which we can cling? Perhaps we can find it in a single, holy person, we can find it in a pope who when he speaks ex cathedra, speaks without error.

Well, that didn't work out.

Perhaps we can find it in an absolute, perfect translation of our scriptures. Hey, lets pick the King James version and declare it to be inerrant.

Hmmm, too many people can tell that was just an arbitrary choice. Oh what to do?

Perhaps we can find it in a absolute, perfect greek and hebrew manuscript of the bible. Yes, lets make that our article of faith.

Hmmm. The greek texts we have don't all agree with each other all the time. The Hebrew does better, but clearly only because the Masoretes massaged the text in the middle ages, after the time of Christ. And we've got differences with the Septuagint, the Samaratan text of the Torah, and the dead sea scrolls . . . .

Hmmm. We can declare that the scriptures are perfect and inerrant in their original manuscripts. Of course, we don't have a single one of them any more, and when you talk about compiled anthologies like the book of Psalms its kind of hard to say what exactly an original manuscript actually is, but . . . we can at least say that.

OK that's the tack we'll take.

Now what about the contradictions? We'll simply interpret a verse that disagrees with the literally correct verse in a non-literal fashion somehow. That will take care of all of those.

Perhaps we'll have some variation between denominations as to how to do that, but its sort of workable. We'll have inerrancy at last! Amen?

This was all foretold...but then again...the literate, the wise, the suspicious, and those of little faith...would not receive it.
Isaiah 29:11-12

 

[Hoghead1]

The real issue here is the understanding of the word,of God. The only way to believe in evolution is to fundamentally change or twist what the word of God says. Genesis and Exodus can't be any more clear than it is. In order to make evolution work you HAVE to change the scriptures.

I don't know where you came up with the word fundamentalism and applied it to Christianity, but if you mean that if I believe what the Bible says is true then I am fundamentalist then I guess I am guilty as charged.

If you don't believe the Bible is true then what do you put your faith in? How can you believe any of it? If you don't believe the Bible is true then how can you believe in Jesus. It all could be a made up,story. Jesus might never have said "I am the way the truth and the life. No,man comes to the Father but by me." if you don't believe what the Bible says then there might not be a heaven or salvation.

If you get ro,pick and choose what you want to believe you have just placed yourself in the position of determining what truth is and what parts of the Bible are real and what parts aren't. I don't think,they a good place to,be, especially when it is CLEAR what the Bible says.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

Nobody comes to Scripture, with a blank mind. Everyone reads Scripture through a lens. For many, the lens is traditional church teaching. Many come to Scripture , with the idea already firmly affixed in their minds that Scripture is wholly inerrant. That the way the Bible says things happened is exactly the way they did. No question about it. Now that's OK for laity. But that is about the worst possible way to come to modern biblical studies. One should come with an open mind. One should view Scripture through the lens created by a healthy skepticism for traditional teachings. Maybe Scripture is inerrant, maybe not. Let's test it out. Given the fact alone there re about 100 major contradictions in Scripture tells me right there that it is not wholly inerrant. This brings us to either-or thinking. Either Scripture is all inerrant or it is all errant and useless. Now, such either-or thinking is irrational, actually underlies many neurotic problems. It is unrealistic. Reality is a shade of grey. As I recall, Karl Barth, the famous 20th-century neo-orthodox theologian, said he rejoiced over finding errors in Scripture as it makes plain only God is perfect, keeps down bibliolatry, prevents making a paper pope out of the Bible. Divinely inspired as it may be, the Bible is still the product of a prescientific culture. Now, God works like a careful carpenter, works with the grain, not against it. God can move only as fast as we are ready. Hence, it would be ridiculous to expect God intended the Bible to be an accurate geophysical witness and impart advanced scientific knowledge. That would be like expecting God to have given Columbus the pans for a nuclear sub. Also, the truth of teh matter is that most of us do have to cherry pick when we read Scripture. Do you follow all of the OT laws? Do you refrain from eating pork? Are you willing to sell your daughter into slavery? Exod. 21 does sanctify slavery, you know.

 

[Colter]

Thanks for explaining.

But, I am not assuming, I have had a very unique, personal, real, and unquestionable experience with God, and have been directed to the bible by Him, and had it confirmed point by point.

But, I do think it is a great assumption to abandon the idea that God could and would have providence over all the fraud that you site. He did say that He would send delusion. But how can you be sure that you have successfully sidestepped it, and that your take on it is any different? Because of my own direct confirmation, I would suggest that it is reasonable that there are any number of delusions that God has sent to confound the wicked, and that there is instead another explanation.

What a terrible accusation to make against your Heavenly Father.

 

[ScottA]

Nobody comes to Scripture, with a blank mind. Everyone reads Scripture through a lens. For many, the lens is traditional church teaching. Many come to Scripture , with the idea already firmly affixed in their minds that Scripture is wholly inerrant. That the way the Bible says things happened is exactly the way they did. No question about it. Now that's OK for laity. But that is about the worst possible way to come to modern biblical studies. One should come with an open mind. One should view Scripture through the lens created by a healthy skepticism for traditional teachings. Maybe Scripture is inerrant, maybe not. Let's test it out. Given the fact alone there re about 100 major contradictions in Scripture tells me right there that it is not wholly inerrant. This brings us to either-or thinking. Either Scripture is all inerrant or it is all errant and useless. Now, such either-or thinking is irrational, actually underlies many neurotic problems. It is unrealistic. Reality is a shade of grey. As I recall, Karl Barth, the famous 20th-century neo-orthodox theologian, said he rejoiced over finding errors in Scripture as it makes plain only God is perfect, keeps down bibliolatry, prevents making a paper pope out of the Bible. Divinely inspired as it may be, the Bible is still the product of a prescientific culture. Now, God works like a careful carpenter, works with the grain, not against it. God can move only as fast as we are ready. Hence, it would be ridiculous to expect God intended the Bible to be an accurate geophysical witness and impart advanced scientific knowledge. That would be like expecting God to have given Columbus the pans for a nuclear sub. Also, the truth of teh matter is that most of us do have to cherry pick when we read Scripture. Do you follow all of the OT laws? Do you refrain from eating pork? Are you willing to sell your daughter into slavery? Exod. 21 does sanctify slavery, you know.

Not to be argumentative at all, but your comments make it clear just what the Bible or scriptures...are not. Thank you!

However, the word of God in the hands of inspired men is more than a literary work of the time - but rather a collection of parable insights to heavenly matters - which must be spiritually discerned.

So, while men of varied literary and historical talents weigh the scriptures as a literary work...they have missed the proverbial Elephant in the room - they have missed God entirely - nor can they know Him through such measures.

 

[ScottA]

What a terrible accusation to make against your Heavenly Father.

What accusation?

 

[BobRyan]

Men hunger for inerrancy. Where is the absolute truth to which we can cling? Perhaps we can find it in a single, holy person, we can find it in a pope who when he speaks ex cathedra, speaks without error.

Well, that didn't work out.

So then try out blind-faith evolutionism "instead" --

Darwin figured this one out as well.

Why trust the Bible - say some - when Darwinism is there just waiting for your blind-faith in Othaniel Marsh's horse fossil sequence - fraud. Or the whale-of-a-tale fraud.

 

[Colter]

What accusation?

The accusation that God puts delusions into his children. Sounds like the ISIS idea of God.

 

[Colter]

So then try out blind-faith evolutionism "instead" --

Darwin figured this one out as well.

Why trust the Bible - say some - when Darwinism is there just waiting for your blind-faith in Othaniel Marsh's horse fossil sequence - fraud. Or the whale-of-a-tale fraud.

The Hebrews Genesis story requires blind faith, evolution has a fossil record.

 

[rjs330]

The Hebrews Genesis story requires blind faith, evolution has a fossil record.

Belief in the fossil record takes,blind faith because the fossil record proves nothing except that the creature existed. The belief that it is evolved or is evolving takes blind faith.

We see The world and universe around us around us as the evidence of creation.


Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk

 

[Colter]

Oh no! The flood myth didn't make it to China.


Dates (BC) English name Chinese name Modern-day name and location
8500–7700 Nanzhuangtou culture 南莊頭遺址 Yellow River region in southern Hebei
7500–6100 Pengtoushan culture 彭頭山文化 central Yangtze region in northwestern Hunan
7000–5000 Peiligang culture 裴李崗文化 Yi-Luo river basin valley in Henan
6500–5500 Houli culture 后李文化 Shandong
6200–5400 Xinglongwa culture 興隆洼文化 Inner Mongolia-Liaoning border
6000–5500 Cishan culture 磁山文化 southern Hebei
5800–5400 Dadiwan culture 大地灣文化 Gansu and western Shaanxi
5500–4800 Xinle culture 新樂文化 lower Liao River on the Liaodong Peninsula
5400–4500 Zhaobaogou culture 趙宝溝文化 Luan River valley in Inner Mongolia and northern Hebei
5300–4100 Beixin culture 北辛文化 Shandong
5000–4500 Hemudu culture 河姆渡文化 Yuyao and Zhoushan, Zhejiang
5000–3000 Daxi culture 大溪文化 Three Gorges region
5000–3000 Majiabang culture 馬家浜文化 Lake Tai area and north of Hangzhou Bay
5000–3000 Yangshao culture 仰韶文化 Henan, Shaanxi, and Shanxi
4700–2900 Hongshan culture 紅山文化 Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, and Hebei
4100–2600 Dawenkou culture 大汶口文化 Shandong, Anhui, Henan, and Jiangsu
3800–3300 Songze culture 崧澤文化 Lake Tai area
3400–2250 Liangzhu culture 良渚文化 Yangtze River Delta
3100–2700 Majiayao culture 馬家窯文化 upper Yellow River region in Gansu and Qinghai
3100–2700 Qujialing culture 屈家嶺文化 middle Yangtze region in Hubei and Hunan
3000–2000 Longshan culture 龍山文化 central and lower Yellow River
2800–2000 Baodun culture 寶墩文化 Chengdu Plain
2500–2000 Shijiahe culture 石家河文化 middle Yangtze region in Hubei
1900–1500 Yueshi culture 岳石文化