I should probably stop coming to these forums so often

[mama2one]

ot

 

[bèlla]

An atmosphere is only as good as its inhabitants.

 

[lismore]

I don't feel a sense of community here like I do at my church. I mostly just feel hostility and hate. So I might not be posting here as often as I once did.

Hello Strathos. That's a shame. I think the forum is a wonderful resource to meet people on different sides of the world, people that you wouldn't usually meet. To share fellowship with others, especially if someone is in a pretty tough fix in real time. To share ideas, get different perspectives and study the bible together.

Debating entrenched views can be harrowing, it's sometimes best just to share a perspective and move on, if it's of any worth it can plant a seed. Some posts can be frightening and seem to be antagonistic, I often use greetings and smileys to try and show friendly tone.

From my perspective I think the big issue is that many of us judge others through our own lens, by our own experience rather than theirs. We need to judge people by their own experience and see them as God sees them. Look past the appearance to the heart.

As the Scottish preacher John Watson said 'Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle'.

God Bless

 

[John Bannister]

As someone who believes both Noah's Ark and modern science, I'm at odds with most people on earth in this as far as I can tell.

It makes perfect sense when you consider the data instead of the attached ideologies, but the attached ideologies are totally opposed to ever considering anything associated with the other.

The Academic establishment has a metre called Anti-Catastrophism, which prohibits catastrophes from being recorded officially. This means that if there is evidence for a single catastrophic event, it will be assumed in the official narrative to be a collection of smaller similar events which happened over the course of many hundreds of years, simply giving the illusion of a single or small handful of huge events.
The Christian establishment insists on a reading of Genesis assuming that the document is from the perspective of God, or the modern objective perspective, rather than it being from the perspective of Moses using his own knowledge of the world to explain and record visions and instructions given to him by God. It also denies any sort of puzzle to be worked out in the Old Testament, despite Jesus being quite clear on the fact of the book being held in the possession of a culture of puritanical ethnic supremacists who used the Scripture as a law book to justify their own evil acts against others.

Without the attached ideologies though you see that around 12,600bc (the same date given by Homer, and the ancient Egyptians), the sudden end to the last ice age and the resetting of the world climate system to a new pattern (check ice core data on the climate, it goes back a long way); the ice cap in North America melted very suddenly, with a very large flow running off from Washington down to southern California, and leaving geological scarring out as far as Arkansas. This was almost certainly a result of a large comet fragment from the Taurid stream. (A comet impact site was found in Greenland likely with matches the date, but impact sites are secondary to evidences in the sediment for an impactor. A comet fragment from the Taurid stream would likely come in multiple smaller parts impacting a line along the planet, as comets impacting other planets in our system have during the observation era.)
The sea level rise at the end of the last Ice Age was over 100 metres, and a comet impact of an icecap would result in global rainstorms to the intensity to cause flash flooding in upland areas. Though the level of technology at the time is unknown (they had concrete during the time of Gobeklitepe, in the centuries after the flood, which was then a lost technology until re-emerging in various other locations after 2000BC), it is a reasonable assumption that most human habitation would have been around coastlines, which are now under oceans.

The area Noah seemingly inhabited, with 'mountains' described at 15 cubits, and spending months on open water before landing in the land of Ararat (Ararat an Armenian kingdom known to Moses, not Mount Ararat in Turkey); would be the former north western coast of the Black Sea which is now underwater.

Personally I find this an astonishing fact coming from the cutting edge of discovery, finally beginning to connect us back from the past it had such a heavy hand in severing us from. Most people will only read "I'm trying to trick you with Religion." or "I'm trying to trick you with Science."

Personally I don't mind it though. That's specifically why I put my religion here as 'skeptic', even though I have received the Holy Spirit and do my best to follow the Christ.
I'm not really about to argue though, just put out lines of thought that can be picked up by those who find them valuable. I'd rather someone disagree with me independently, than agree with me because of perceived authority, if that makes sense.

I do enjoy pushback and criticism when it comes in properly, because it's very helpful. Usually these days it defaults to "You're wrong and dumb so I don't have to reply" or "this man I watch on youtube disagrees with you and he has an audience behind him"

Chatting to people in real life though - most people will be a lot more reasonable than they will be online.

 

[High Fidelity]

I agree. Politics for example should be banned from this site. Same as current events.

It isn’t edifying and it only divides people after bringing out the worst.

 

[ozso]

It would help if folks had a good foundation on how to discuss. Things like don't be rude, don't make accusations, don't get personal.