masnergy said:
I do however believe that if there is a belief out there that is trying to mask what our creator has done, we should address that with our scriptural, and if neccessary scientific backing.
Fine. Then address the
belief! The belief is atheism. If you want to fight atheism, then do so. I'll provide some help for you there. But you won't fight atheism by trying to deny or denigrate science.
The debates that I have seen by Kent Hovind have done nothing but strengthen my faith!!
How can false witness strengthen your faith? And that is all Hovind has: false witness.
I do believe that the Bible is completely true, I don't idolize it.
Your first statement contradicts the second.
My only God is God himself, but to revere a creation of his, a book that He has given to us, can not be considered idolotry.
Your "revere" can easily slip over to idolatry. I submit that it has done so.
I do also believe that if we are in a scientific society, and the existance of God is being "proven" to be untrue, that we as Christians have the obligation to Him to spread his "Truths".
Fine. But
how do you do so? By false witness against science? I don't think so. Instead, examine the arguments being used as "proof" and see if they are valid! Are the arguments really science? Does science really say what atheists says it says? I am always puzzled. You don't believe atheists when they say God doesn't exist, but you believe them when they say evolution says God doesn't exist. WHY?? Why didn't you ask yourself: does evolution
really say that? Where?
Instead, you take their word for it and decide evolution is wrong. Why didn't it occur to you that atheists are wrong
about evolution?
People who believe that science has proven no existance of a GOd will not listen to "have faith".
They aren't going to listen to false science, either. The only thing such false science like Hovind presents will be to heap ridicule on Christianity. If you are going to get them to listen, you have to get the science right!
It is our duty to go throughout the world and spread his word, his word is the Bible.
His word is not your literal interpretation of the Bible. Here is where you come very close to, if not committing, apostasy.
How can all of these things tied together to bring non believers to the Lord be bad? I believe that when the world was said to be round, that people were pesecuted, by the church, only to find out that it was true. Don't let our church commit another largely laughed at mistake as that one. Unite, I'm not saying everything that creation scientists is right, but alteast they are trying to reach a section of people who need Jesus just as much as you and me.
False witness is always bad. You aren't bringing non-believers to the Lord this way, but only making Christianity look foolish. Worse, people like Hovind are setting up criteria to enable non-believers to (wrongly) falsify Christianity. Yes, Christianity can't be falsified by science at present. But the warped view of science presented by Hovind does allow Christianity to be falsified.
I think you need to read what St. Augustine wrote about people like the creation scientists around 400 AD. Rather than bringing people to Christ, I maintain that Hovind and colleagues are driving them away!
"Even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to be certain from reason and experience. Now it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men.
If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods and on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion. [1 Timothy 1.7]"
" Augustine, On the Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 1, Chapter 19.
