Answers in Genesis promotes UFO book, aliens are really demons

[Biliskner]

There is a HUGE difference between their being other life in the universe and that life visiting this planet in the form of UFO's. I am honestly appalled that you guys, who all seem intelligent people, are actually condoning such stuff.

Now, seriously, do you think it is even remotely possible that these UFO sitings are genuine examples of either life from other planets or demon activity? Seriously?

Before I became a Christian I loved conspiracy theories and Roswell-type stuff. I still have those 'documentry' type books at my parent's place. I was taken in, I LOVED (no, I really LOVED) the X-Files. It was my everything. Then I became a Christian. And about 1 year after I 'stumbled' across my UFO books. I re-read a few pages and remembered some stuff - and was thinking: 'what the heck, I can't believe I used to believe this stuff'. It's so unscientific and dogmatic - at the same time, i remember it seeming so believeable in my youth.

There were also re-screenings of X-Files season 1 in AUS last year. I'm always up to midnight anyways and watched a few of the new ones (which i'd never seen before). I think, being a Christian and watching the X-Files, is actually more scary then being a non Christian. When you're a non-Christian you don't know what all this stuff is about, and "simply dismiss it as "superstition"" getting so involved with the weekly storyline striving to be the Scully to explain everything in scientific terms. At heart though, I'd always be a Mulder. And to think we used to talk about it every wednesday at school, it is sad.
So is Chris Carter the ExProd. a devil I hear some asking. No, of course not.
Could he possibly be an instrument of the devil? Sure, by all means. Just read the book of Job.

We know that a spiritual realm exists. that every time we sin it is the devil behind the sin, exploiting our desires of the flesh, luring us away from God's Light and into the darkness of Hades. These are real things, that the Lord Jesus spoke about. All these things oppose the God of this Universe and gives 'superstition' and fanciful fabrication of such engimas which we cannot know - like the example of angel worship rebutted in Hebrews 1. "even angels long to see what was revealed of the Son of Man so fix your eyes on Jesus!" I think UFOs fall into this category; somehow it has this same 'feel' like those who want to worship angels (not that i do).

I ran SETI for 2 years straight prior to becoming Christian.
I've studied astronomy at uni (for those who know it, Drake's equation hypothesizes that we should have 'contact' with at least 150 other 'civilizations' to date but we have not seen 1 bit 'intelligent life out there')
but none of these activities were fruitful. Interesting, but unfruitful. More like, interesting, and distracting.

I've come to the conclusion that these things exist to distract us for as long as they can, so that we cannot "seek God while he still may be found" - yes I believe that the devil uses these things to turn our hearts, eyes and minds away from the foot of the Cross, anything to make us stumble in our faith.

are UFOs "demonic"? that's anybody's guess, but if the city of melbourne had one, guess what? it'd be the talk of the town, that is, not only in papers but everywhere, news, radio, in my weekly Bible study groups and at Church on sundays. some distraction huh? even during the sermon everyone would be thinking about this "ufo".
and i can certainly say that that would NOT be a doing of God's.

Cartesian mechanism might go a long way in explaining the 'natural world' but demonic activity has become subtler than ever, in this materialistic Western world where most of our Churchs are sleeping the devil is harvesting away at the lost souls preventing them entering God's Kingdom.

Mt. 4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour.
Mt. 4:9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”
Mt. 4:10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: `Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’“ [Deut. 6:13]
Mt. 4:11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

The devil opposes God in everyway, if UFOs turn ppl blind towards something 'superstitious' then AiG has every perogative to refute it and kick some satan butt. i mean, who else is going to do it? TEs? not likely.

I wasn't interested when I saw the AiG catalog with this book in it, now i just want to buy it to see how "good" or "bad" it apparently is.

 

[Biliskner]

I don't think you give the average non-believer enough credit. I am a Gideon and spend a lot of time on college campuses handing out testaments and taking the opportunity to share God. I find that most of them are open to the idea of the supernatural, but can see a quack a mile away. To the extent that we, as Christians, allow the legitimate fact of demon activity to be associated with such things, the more likely those non-believers will dismiss the one as they dismiss the other. I am absolutely convinced that the presentation of this book the way the author does in his product description and AiG's promotion have done more harm that any good it has done for those actually reading it.

Now, could alien "events" be demonic activity? I see absolutely no reason to think so. There is no Biblical basis for thinking demons act that way. Look at how demons act in Scripture. And, with my father as a pastor, we had a few incidents of demon possession that had to be dealt with in the course of his ministry. So, I have seen it first-hand and this is not at all based on a disbelief in the problem. But, this entire area of "alien" phenomenon is rife with fraud and hoaxes and delusions. To the extent people actually DO see things, it is almost assured that they are seeing something else, like military activity, etc. And the incidents of alien abjuctions should be denounced as delusions or fraud, not actually GIVEN CREDIBILITY by proving some demonic explanation. I see this as a simple attempt to cash in on the UFO fascination, and to promote yet another bizzare creationist angle, which does nothing at all to aid the Creationist cause since it will not be accepted by any other than those which already tend to accept such stuff. Consider AiG's statements about Wyatt above, and I see this as the same thing.

You can believe what you want, but this is just ridiculous.

wow, that was a superb paragraph Vance.
if the opening's post paragraph was that one above, you wouldn't be.. err... "flamed" as much as you are now.

let me encourage you to speak in those words/grammatical structure alot more - imagine us YECs as your ministry area; in some sense that will not be too hard, since we do not believe in your Origins worldview... much like your fields of harvest on campus do not believe in our Savior God.

In Christ

 

[Vance]

wow, that was a superb paragraph Vance.
if the opening's post paragraph was that one above, you wouldn't be.. err... "flamed" as much as you are now.

let me encourage you to speak in those words/grammatical structure alot more - imagine us YECs as your ministry area; in some sense that will not be too hard, since we do not believe in your Origins worldview... much like your fields of harvest on campus do not believe in our Savior God.

In Christ

I am glad you appreciated the tenor and content of this post, but if you read more of my posts, you would see that that IS how I post and my general approach to this whole forum. My OP in this thread simply did two things: it quoted from reviews and promotion of the book and bemoaned the fact, in one sentence, that this was the image non-Christians might have of us. I still feel exactly the same way. Regardless of what any of the rest of you think, I find it damaging to the Gospel message to associate Christianity in any way, shape or form with the phenomenon of UFO's.

As for AiG, Glenn Morton, a former highly regarded Christian scientist and now a Theistic Evolutionist and regular on this forum, has stated that he has often attempted to discuss the areas in which they are mistaken on purely scientific grounds, but they have turned not only a deaf ear, but basically a hostile ear. I am sure he can give more details.

 

[Biliskner]

My OP in this thread simply did two things: it quoted from reviews and promotion of the book and bemoaned the fact, in one sentence, that this was the image non-Christians might have of us. I still feel exactly the same way. Regardless of what any of the rest of you think, I find it damaging to the Gospel message to associate Christianity in any way, shape or form with the phenomenon of UFO's.

For the sake of leveling the playing field, I will say that that is how I feel about TEs and OAEs about evolution, not only is the theory of evolution unscientific, but it's underlying metaphysical doctrine is to create the notion of a totally naturalistic world, a world that CAN in ALL respects, exist without any sort of God, thus undermining Christianity.
So we both know how we both feel.. success

 

[Vance]

Then you admit you are conflating evolution and naturalistic philosophy. That type of mistake is usually at the heart of the entire Creationist error.

 

[Biliskner]

Then you admit you are conflating evolution and naturalistic philosophy. That type of mistake is usually at the heart of the entire Creationist error.

I might have made the mistake with you, but 99.9% of Christians who say they "believe in evolution" have 100% no knowledge of what that means.

So what are you saying... you believe God created the world using the mechanism of evolution? (I'm saying the mechanism of evolution is flawed.)
if that is correct I say tread carefully, you're walking in the valley of shadows, because evolution does give rise to nihilism, which is the logical outcome of believing evolutionary theory, many of which people (secular or otherwise) do not go through with because it ... well, just seems "so heartless".

 

[Vance]

I might have made the mistake with you, but 99.9% of Christians who say they "believe in evolution" have 100% no knowledge of what that means.

So what are you saying... you believe God created the world using the mechanism of evolution? (I'm saying the mechanism of evolution is flawed.)
if that is correct I say tread carefully, you're walking in the valley of shadows, because evolution does give rise to nihilism, which is the logical outcome of believing evolutionary theory, many of which people (secular or otherwise) do not go through with because it ... well, just seems "so heartless".

You are the one person on this forum at the moment who has shown a complete ignorance of what evolution means. As for the "logical outcome", you better talk to those millions of Christians around the world who accept evolution without a problem, going along without any nihilism, loss of faith, or any other theological issues. In short, there will be TONS of people in Heaven who had no problem accepting evolution whatsoever.

 

[Biliskner]

You are the one person on this forum at the moment who has shown a complete ignorance of what evolution means. As for the "logical outcome", you better talk to those millions of Christians around the world who accept evolution without a problem, going along without any nihilism, loss of faith, or any other theological issues. In short, there will be TONS of people in Heaven who had no problem accepting evolution whatsoever.

You can believe in something that is wrong all your life and still make it into heaven.
Isn't that why Christ died for us?

 

[Biliskner]

Evolution:

• [size=-1][size=-1]development: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage); "the development of his ideas took many years"; "the evolution of Greek civilization"; "the slow development of her skill as a writer"[/size][/size]
• [size=-1][size=-1](biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms[/size]
  
  [/size]

[size=-1] yep, that's what i'd always had. [/size]

 

[Vance]

Evolution:

• [size=-1][size=-1]development: a process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage (especially a more advanced or mature stage); "the development of his ideas took many years"; "the evolution of Greek civilization"; "the slow development of her skill as a writer"[/size][/size]
• [size=-1][size=-1](biology) the sequence of events involved in the evolutionary development of a species or taxonomic group of organisms[/size]
  
  [/size]

[size=-1] yep, that's what i'd always had. [/size]

Well, first, no that is not what you always said. Look at the definition of evolution you just gave in another thread. Second, you are mixing up the various definitions of the word "evolution".

 

[nephilimiyr]

You called their argument idiocy. If you have forgotton what you have said you can see your words in post #16. These arguments you called extreme stupidity, for that is what idiocy means. That seems to me to be a personal attack and not being polite and respectful enough to just say I disagree.

I agree, it's a personal attack but to do otherwise would go against the spirit in which the origins forum has always run itself. It's the major reason why 99% of the christians here at CF don't post here.

 

[Biliskner]

I agree, it's a personal attack but to do otherwise would go against the spirit in which the origins forum has always run itself. It's the major reason why 99% of the christians here at CF don't post here.

well actually i've yet to see a forum (real life/cyber world) that debate topics like these in 'good spirit' - this one however, is surprising that some of us actually refer to Scripture and use that as our cornerstone

if you know of any better forums, please PM me

 

[SBG]

I agree, it's a personal attack but to do otherwise would go against the spirit in which the origins forum has always run itself. It's the major reason why 99% of the christians here at CF don't post here.

I completely agree. This is the spirit of the origins forum, one of hate. Whether it is against the person, their words, their stance, their beliefs, the Bible, God, or whatever, it is hate. This place demonstrates the war of the flesh, very well.

 

[Vance]

I completely agree. This is the spirit of the origins forum, one of hate. Whether it is against the person, their words, their stance, their beliefs, the Bible, God, or whatever, it is hate. This place demonstrates the war of the flesh, very well.

That is odd coming from the person who makes the most personal and vitriolic attacks here.

Personally, I seem to be the only one calling for unity on the essentials. TE's discuss the positions and the issues, YEC's tend to attack the people taking the positions. This has a very long history.

 

[SBG]

That is odd coming from the person who makes the most personal and vitriolic attacks here.

Personally, I seem to be the only one calling for unity on the essentials. TE's discuss the positions and the issues, YEC's tend to attack the people taking the positions. This has a very long history.

Yes, I do love your call to unity. "We can all read differently and all be correct...." Sorry, I don't subscribe to that theory, either.

I don't hold bitterness for you Vance, I never have. I have never meant anything personal against you. I am against your theology that you have continually pushed for all to accept.

You have said you don't care how the early Church (Church Fathers and Apostles) viewed the Scriptures, when concerning Genesis, because they don't know what we know today. Somehow, I don't think today's knowledge affects the outcome of how Genesis is written and meant to be taken.

Even though there are Christians here that say if they Bible is shown to contain lies, they will lose their faith, you still continue to push that the Bible (ie. Genesis) is wrong, if read as literal history.

That tells me you don't care, at all, about their faith since you have continued to undermine their faith by pushing your neo-theological view.

 

[Vance]

But you are forgetting that TE's are the ones who are saying that the Bible does NOT contain lies, even if evolution is true. YEC's on the other hand very often say that if God did not create the way THEY believe He created, then God DID lie and Scripture can't be trusted. What we are saying, that YEC's do not say, is that Scripture is TRUE regardless of how God created. TE's say that there is NO chance that God lied, or that Scripture is not correct. YEC's leave the door open for Scripture to be false, if God created differently.

 

[SBG]

You are forgetting that many us trust the Apostles to be correct in what they say, and what they say is Genesis is literal history. We trust them, more than we trust you or science, for God spoke to them. And God does not change, nor does His Word.

And if the Apostles are wrong and what God told them is wrong, then the Bible is wrong. Thus, why many yec's say they couldn't trust the Bible anymore.

That is what you seek to damage.

 

[Vance]

You are forgetting that many us trust the Apostles to be correct in what they say, and what they say is Genesis is literal history. We trust them, more than we trust you or science, for God spoke to them. And God does not change, nor does His Word.

And if the Apostles are wrong and what God told them is wrong, then the Bible is wrong. Thus, why many yec's say they couldn't trust the Bible anymore.

That is what you seek to damage.

First of all, you need to distinguish between the Apostles writings in Scripture and the early fathers. There is no proof in Scriptural writings that the Apostles believed that the creation and flood accounts were strict literal history. As for the early fathers after the Apostles, I have shown you that even those who hold them in the highest esteem and with the greatest authority do not have a problem with theistic evolution. This is in the Eastern Orthodox thread, if you have not yet checked it out. Regardless, there is specific evidence FROM the early fathers themselves that they were not in full agreement on these issues. Are you going to start picking and choosing among them? Augustine, for example, may have accepted a young earth, but he utterly rejected a six day creation, saying that it was just written that way to help people be able to grasp it.

As for the damage done, I have shown the intense damage to people's faith in Scripture by the dogmatic teaching of YEC'ism. You have not shown a single instance of someone actually losing faith in Scripture as a result of TE teaching. While both approaches can show testimonials of how the teaching bolstered their faith, only YEC has been shown to have specifically damaged others' faith.

 

[SBG]

First of all, you need to distinguish between the Apostles writings in Scripture and the early fathers.

I did. I said Apostles.

There is no proof in Scriptural writings that the Apostles believed that the creation and flood accounts were strict literal history.

Then you deny what Peter says in 2 Peter.

As for the early fathers after the Apostles, I have shown you that even those who hold them in the highest esteem and with the greatest authority do not have a problem with theistic evolution.

Of course, not they have compromised. Why would they have a problem, they have their cake and are eating it too.

This is in the Eastern Orthodox thread, if you have not yet checked it out.

Thanks, but no thanks. You have said you don't care what the Apostles or Church Fathers say on these subjects.

Regardless, there is specific evidence FROM the early fathers themselves that they were not in full agreement on these issues.

They are in full agreement on the flood. Try reading their writings, all of them.

Are you going to start picking and choosing among them?

Like you do with Scripture?

Augustine, for example, may have accepted a young earth, but he utterly rejected a six day creation, saying that it was just written that way to help people be able to grasp it.

He never rejected six day creation, and you are fully aware of that. Try not to lie Vance, it doesn't help your argument. Read City of God where Augustine talks about creation in six days and says these days must have been impressive.

As for the damage done, I have shown the intense damage to people's faith in Scripture by the dogmatic teaching of YEC'ism.

You have shown that Genesis was just one of the reasons, not THE reason. Are you that ignorant that people first have a problem with Jesus, not creation. After all what is Christianity about, creation or Jesus Christ?

Let us see what Peter says about stumbling blocks:

"They stumble because they disobey the message - which is also what they were destined for."

You have not shown a single instance of someone actually losing faith in Scripture as a result of TE teaching.

Because I don't see the pofit is pasting someone elses fall from Chistianity as support for me being right. I don't have that much pride to prove I am right.

While both approaches can show testimonials of how the teaching bolstered their faith, only YEC has been shown to have specifically damaged others' faith.

That is your opinion. But yec has never been THE reason for peoples fall from Christianity. Where is the power in Christianity Vance, creation or Jesus Christ? And if they fall, why did they fall, creation or Jesus Christ? And if you say creation, then you have put more power into creation when it should be in Jesus Christ.

 

[Vance]

Yes, and TE has never been ANY part of a reason for someone losing their faith, based on any evidence anyone here has shown.

As for Augustine, let's just go straight to the source:

"In this narrative of creation Holy Scripture has said of the Creator that He completed His works in six days, and elsewhere, without contradicting this, it has been written of the same Creator that He created all things together . . . Why then was there any need for six distinct days to be set forth in the narrative one after the other? The reason is that those who cannot understand the meaning of the text, He created all things together, cannot understand the meaning of the Scripture unless the narrative proceeds slowly step by step . . . For this Scripture text that narrates the works of God according to the days mentioned above, and that Scripture text that says God created all things together, are both true."

So, Augustine did not think the six days of Creation were historically literal, but they were still TRUE. And, again, this is what TE's say. We do not say that the six day narrative is false. It is true in the sense that it truly conveys what God intended it to convey, a method for us to grasp and hold on to the great truths of God's Creative work. If it is not MEANT to be literal history, then it is still TRUE even if it is not literal history.

Here is what two eminent commentators on Augustine had to say. Aquinas discussed Augustine's view of immediate creation, and contrasted it with other commentators view that the six days were literal. In his Summa, he said "So as not to prejudice either view, we must deal with the reasons for both." Thus, he realized that Augustine's view was contrary to those who held a literal six-day view.

In the words of Louis Berkhof, Augustine "was evidently inclined to think God created all things in a moment of time, and that the thought of days was simply introduced to aid the finite intelligence."

and, btw, would you not consider calling a fellow Christian a liar and "intellectually dishonest" a personal attack? Kind of ironic when you consider some of your statements earlier in this very thread.