you are absolutely right in that. All I wanted to say is this: Dont blame God for the confusion you are in because of what you read in the Bible. If my experience is in any way useful, here it is: If it doesnt make sense, it is not from God. Period. HE is very logical and practical. Most of all Just, never cruel and most forgiving.

Keep that in mind. Anything, anything that contradicts that i, personally, say is not from god since HE also never contradicts Himself i.e. HE is consistent.

this is the problem i am pointed out to you. If you take a trip now to Egypt, you will find solid physical evidence, on the walls and artifacts, to convince anyone beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were people there more than 10,000 yrs ago so advanced to the point of creating art work and paints of sophisticated chemical composition and who wrote their own language on papyrus and used gold not in caves just scratching things or pictures. These were countries called Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. These two countries were united in one country called Egypt 8000 yrs ago. Meena's Declaration plaque of that unification stands at the entrance to the Egyptian Museum at the heart of Cairo. Written on solid Granite. you cant have more solid evidence than that.

You cant rely on times mentioned by people who just say how old persons in the OT were at certain times to draw a timeline between Creation of Adam, his descent to Earth and Now.

Your position on this point makes Darwinists doubt everything. The funny thing is that your position is not supported by anything God or any of the prophets said. It is the Church. and that is not a good authority on humanity's history and development on Earth. The church position on this is no different than their position on Galilio's science and the rest of what they did.

The church should get out of the science business. what difference does it make, religiously that is, whether we been on earth 10,000 yrs or 10 billion yrs? why get involved in science? is that what they are supposed to be doing?

it is not me who say that. It is the text itself. and i always point out that let's take the texts at their own words, be it the Bible or the Qura'an. The Bible ITSELF say that it is a collection of documents by several writers. some of their writings turned out to be incorrect, the Bible itself say that. Qura'an say it is the actual words of God and nothing else. never revised never changed even in one letter. take the texts at their words lula. that is all i am saying. i am not siding for one against the other. i am just pointing out what both texts say about themselves.

why argue with them? why inject our own words in texts that are considered sacred by billions of people. specially if the scientific evidence contardicts what we inject in the text.

TA

Can you elaborate on this more?

I've been reading this book for over 35 years and I don't recall reading this.

After Scripture and faith comes reason which tells me the time frame is short, say 6,000-10,000 years, and not millions of years.

A prerequisite for being a “young earther” is you have to believe that the natural laws and everything we can observe are simple an illusion. The only use they have for science is to fight against its findings. You demand absolute proof of evolution without a single gap because that’s where God exists, He exist in the gaps in human understanding. It has always been that way and there has been and is now many gaps for him to flourish in. We to this day cannot explain, without gaps, what glass is. We obviously know how to make it but we can’t explain what occurs in the process, or if it’s it a liquid or a solid. Our best guess is it’s a very viscose liquid. Does that mean we will never understand it because it’s a miracle of God? No we’re just getting started, by the Age of Aquarius, less than 150 years from now we will be as far ahead of present humans as present humans are ahead the Romans. The explosion of knowledge in the last century will grow exponentially.

Creationist take any finding that appears contradict the established age of the earth or not supporting evolution and hang onto it even if it’s latter proven to be incorrect. I’ve seen them quote data that has been known to be incorrect for 50+ years. The reason the even have this data is because real scientists don’t ignore data that goes against what they believe to be true. You cannot start a journey of discovery thinking you already know the answer.

There’s no credible evidence that supports a young earth, none. There is no evidence that we have a soul or that anything lies beyond death. There’s no way to prove or disprove anything in the Bible. Maybe someday science will find a way to see the soul or peer into the afterlife but now there’s no experiment and no observation that can be made to reveal such clams so they must remain outside the ream of science. Extraordinary clams require extraordinary evidence and for now we have only a belief. Science and religion do not have be at odds. There is an excellent by Dr. Lorence Collins that shows this quite clearly.

Link

KFC, i pointed that out to you several times. Here it is again: In the preface of the current Bible(NRSV) it says "it was found that King James Version contains many errors that called for a revision". It proceeds to mention several more revisions till we reach this NRSV. I dont know how clearly you want them to say it.

OK, this may shock you, TA, but a PREFACE is not actually Scripture. No authority holds them to be inspired.

The preface refers to errors in a TRANSLATION, NOT errors in the Bible itself.

Sorry, but you swung and missed on your claim that the Bible claims to be "just a collection of books" and "found in error".

And they are not at odds. Mutual misunderstanding is at the heart of the problem.

On one hand, some Scientists extrapolate Darwin's theory to prove that there was no direct creation of Adam while ignoring Darwin's own statement that his work does not exclude Creation. On the other hand, some theologians extrapolate on Religious texts to prove scientists wrong about evolution ignoring the fact that nothing that God said implies that Man's time on Earth is 6000-10,000 yrs.

I guess, some people love to create their own controversies so they can argue about it.

Thanks for the enlightenment. However, the preface of any book tells you its origin, authenticity and how it was written and who wrote it. You can ignore it as much as you wish but at least the authority publishing it (and it is the highest christian authority in the USA) were honest enough to tell it as it is.

And you must be kidding. Errors are errors regardless of the reason. And of course it is because of translation, misunderstanding and recollection and so many other reasons. I never said there is no such thing as a "Bible" that contains God's actual uncorrupted words. The current one is not that Bible. The one now being used is what its preface describe as: Collection of translations of religious scriptures of different origins and eras. It never once says that it is the actual words of God or any of the prophets mentioned in the text proper.

And sure enough, when you read it you sure find some verses that clearly are coming from God. but others are just someone is recounting incidents or sayings they heard and/or their expalnation of them.

To hold that ALL of it is the actual words of God is a great misunderstanding of what the Book itself say. And it serves no purpose other than to give others reasons to undermine the whole idea of the religion and its Sacred texts.

ZYDOR POSTS:



LULA POSTS:

ZYDOR, AS PROMISED, HERE IS MY REPLY. YOU CAN SEE IT'S RATHER LENGTHY, BUT I WANTED TO BE THOROUGH.


Zydor,

The Hypostatic Union is an infallible doctrine of the Catholic Church. Infallibe means it the truth and contains no errors.

You say-----”Then to top it all there is the hypostatic union concept to which all the Major Christian Religions signed up to in 451AD..”

In 451, there were no “major Christian religions”. In 451, there was only one Christian religion the one which Christ established in 33AD. It’s now known as Catholicism.

Here’s some background. In Genesis 3, just before Almighty God drove Adam and Eve (who had fallen from grace into Original Sin) out of Garden of Paradise, He gave them a promise of a Redeemer. The Redeemer God promised is God Who so humbled Himself by coming down to earth in the form of true-Man, Jesus Christ (the Incarnation). In the Gospels, we read of Christ’s birth, of His 3 years of public ministry, in which Christ Himself testifies to His Divinity, by doing countless miracles (like raising Lazurus from the dead) and by saying “I and the Father are one”, and of His Death and Resurrection. One might have anticipated that the Founder of Christianity would not leave His Revelation to the uncertain fate---that in order to assure permanency He would make use of obvious means that is to say He would organize a society which after His death would function as a court of appeal and decide controversies about the meaning of His doctrine. Scripture reveals that He did found a society, the Church appointing Peter as its head (our first Pope) and the 12 Apostles as the foundation stones. Just before Christ ascended into Heaven, He gave His own authority first to St. Peter and then the other Apostles, entrusted to them His teachings and His 7 Sacraments, and commissioned them to go and teach that Christ is the Truth, the Way and the Life to all nations until the End of the world. He promised the Holy Spirit would be with His Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail. In 33AD, on the Feast of the First Pentecost, the 50th day after the Pasch, He sent the Holy Spirit down upon the Apostles, disciples and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Pentecost marks the birth of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ.

We read in the Book of Acts of the growth of the Infant Church in spite of persecution by the Jews, of St. Stephen’s martyrdom and St.Paul’s conversion and baptism into the Faith. St.Peter established his See at Rome and St.Paul and the other Apostles and disciples appointed their successors to carry out Christ’s mission.

Shortly before the middle of the first century the fledgling Catholic Church made its appearance on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Within a few years the missionary voyages of St.Paul and other Apostles had carried the new Faith abroad to various communities established by the Jews of the Dispersion. Episcopal sees grew and multiplied; bishops attained an authoritative influence in their own churches and over the surrounding districts and as occasion required, the pope exercised his universal authority.

Concurrently with the spread of the true Faith of Christ, there came a need for clarification of its significance. Under the care of the hierarchy, doctrine was formulated and sacramental discipline organized.

In Acts 15, we read the account of the Church’s first Council which is an assembly of the leaders (Bishops) of the Church to consider and make decisions on ecclesiastical matters on doctrine, discipline, liturgy and the life of the Church. After the missions of St.Paul had brought in many Gentile converts, some of the Jewish Christians insisted that circumcision was still necessary for salvation. and a clamor arose. To settle it, the Apostles held a Council in Jerusalem about 51AD and being guided to their conclusions by the Holy Spirit, issued a decree denying the necessity of circumcision and ruling only that the Gentiles should abstain “from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication. 15:29. The final decree was then sent to the churches of Antioch, Syria and Cilicia.


The doctrines of the Faith in the Church today are the developed form of the teachings communicated first by Jesus Christ to His Apostles and to the Christians in the first century. The Church takes her teaching from Divine Revelation--both the written Word, called Sacred Scripture and the oral or unwritten word, known as Sacred Tradition which together form the Deposit of the Faith. The Dep. of Faith is the fullness of Christ’s religious Truth unmixed with error because it’s guided by the Holy Spirit. Scripture and Tradition are the inspired sources of Christian doctrine while the Church, a historical and visible entity dating back to St.Peter and the Apostles in an uninterrupted succession, is the infallible teacher and interpreter of Christian doctrine. It is only by accepting the this complete Christian rule of Faith that followers of Christ can know they are adhering to all the things that He commanded His Apostles to teach. St.Matt. 28:20. It is only by accepting this Christian rule of faith that the followers of Christ are assured of possessing the whole Truth which Christ taught, and nothing but that Truth.

Because religious truth is real, permanent and invariable, heresy is real for heresy is nothing else than a distortion of religious truth. It’s a corruption of and attack upon the one true Faith of Christ. We know from St.John’s Book of the Apocalypse that by the end of the first century that various heretical sects had developed each attempting to pass off false doctrine for true doctrine.

In the second century, we know from history and the writings of the Church Fathers that the Infant Church endures continuous persecution by the Roman emperors and attacks upon the Faith by pagan and heathen philosophers. The Gnostic and Montanist heresies develop and these are condemned by Pope Eleutherius 175-189.

In the third century, persecution continues and there are many saintly martyrs for the Faith. The Manichean and Anti-Trinitarian heresies develop. St.Augustine refuted Manicheasm and it was finally condemned once for all at the Twelfth General Council, the Fourth Council of the Lateran in 1215. All these heresies agitate against the nature of the divine sonship of Jesus Christ and the three Persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the Divine Unity.

During the 3rd century, the Roman Empire had to fight for life against the barbarian hordes pounding at its frontiers. The Emperors anxious to consolidate their defenses, came to the conclusion that the old Roman gods of which there were many must either conquer or submit. Despite the fury of the persecution the Empire went down to defeat and Christianity continued to grow.

During the fourth century, Christianity spreads. The Church is established in Armenia, Iberia, and Abyssinia. Christians formed so large a percentage of the population, that in 313, Constantine’s Edict of Milan gave freedom to the Church in the hope of restoring peace to the Empire. The Roman empire becomes Christian. Christianity continued to develop its doctrine and its discipline.

Arianism was the first great heresy that rocked the Infant Church. It’s founder, Arius (d. 336) denied that Christ was God, saying He was inferior to the Father. The Church's champion against Arianism was St.Athanasius, and the heresy was condemned at the first General Council of the Church, held at Nicea in 325 who supported the orthodox Faith.

After Arianism, the Macedonians, the Nestorians, Pelagains, and Donatists raised controversial issues denying the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, Original Sin, etc, and again, Councils of bishops met at Ephesus 431, and Constantinople in 381 to define the Faith more precisely, to check these heresies , and to direct the rapidly growing Christian community. The teaching of the Church was more gradually shaped by the Doctors of the Church, Athanasius, Basil, Cyril of Jerusalem, Chrysotom, Ambrose, and etc.

It’s the heresy of Monophysitism also called Eutychianism is named after Eutyches, a monk, who denied the two natures in Christ. It was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 which defined once and for all the doctrine of the Incarnation. Those condemning it were all the prelates at Ephesus and by the theological schools at Alexandria and Antioch some of those were St.Jerome, Augustine, and Pope Leo I.

The history of the 4th and 5th centuries clearly demonstrates the fact that but for the universal authority exercised by the Bishop of Rome, Christianity could not have continued as an undivided Faith. Pope Leo I, the Great, was a man of great action and scholar. He withstood Attila the Hun in his march against Rome, and also defined the Catholic Faith on the two natures of Christ in a letter to the patriarch of Constantinople.

Pope Gelasius made plain the claim of the papacy to the supremacy in the field of doctrine and morals. The Acacian schism of 482 divided Constantinople for 40 years. The emperor attempted to dominate both the religious and political sphere.

The Great heresy and schism was led by Photius who was intruded into the See of Constantinople in 857. He was deposed and condemned by the Fourth Council of Constantinople in 869, but the Schism was later completed by the Patriarch of Constantinople Michael Cerularius who in 1054 rejected the supremacy of the Pope and established the so-called Greek “orthodox” Church which is heretical because it teaches that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone and not from the Father and the Son.

Stubbyfinger posts:



Since the source of all knowledge is God, I agree the explosion of scientific knowledge will grow. As science develops and our knowledge of it, I think that will turn the tide on atheistic science and that will soon reach it's twilight. The future belongs to those who can reconcile God with science.

Evidently from your statement, you don't know that modern science is proving a young earth, much, much, much younger than 4.5 million years Stubbyfinger.

Modern science has shown that radioactive dating is not trustworthy. That uniformaitarianism which is the belief that present day weather and erosion rates have been basically the same for all time can't be proved.

We know the amount of radiogenic Helium in the atmosphere is far too little for the earth to be older than 2 million years old. The human population of the earth suggests a young earth as does the power of the magnetic field and the saltiness of the ocean.

Since the source of all knowledge is God, I agree the explosion of scientific knowledge will grow. As science develops and our knowledge of it, I think that will turn the tide on atheistic science and that will soon reach it's twilight. The future belongs to those who can reconcile God with science. Evidently from your statement, you don't know that modern science is proving a young earth, much, much, much younger than 4.5 million years Stubbyfinger. Modern science has shown that radioactive dating is not trustworthy. That uniformaitarianism which is the belief that present day weather and erosion rates have been basically the same for all time can't be proved. We know the amount of radiogenic Helium in the atmosphere is far too little for the earth to be older than 2 million years old. The human population of the earth suggests a young earth as does the power of the magnetic field and the saltiness of the ocean.

First there’s no such thing as “atheistic science”, there may be scientist whom are atheist but they’re just scientist.

I know that you probable don’t care to read it but a Christian wrote the article I linked and it does address the young earth argument and specifically your statements. But this is exactly what I’m talking about. These are old creationist arguments that were proven false decades ago and your still spewing them out as modern science. A Christian scientist in not a real scientist, they will not look for anything that appears to contradict what they already believe to be true and they rarely do any research at all. They simply try and cast doubt on any science that appears to contradict their truth. If they were to accidentally discover something that didn’t fit with their truth they have and will ignore it. This is not science and you will only find opinions by following it.

Here is a Christian perspective on Radiometric Dating. I will copy the preface and you can decide if you want to read the rest or not.
Link

“Radiometric dating--the process of determining the age of rocks from the decay of their radioactive elements--has been in widespread use for over half a century. There are over forty such techniques, each using a different radioactive element or a different way of measuring them. It has become increasingly clear that these radiometric dating techniques agree with each other and as a whole, present a coherent picture in which the Earth was created a very long time ago. Further evidence comes from the complete agreement between radiometric dates and other dating methods such as counting tree rings or glacier ice core layers. Many Christians have been led to distrust radiometric dating and are completely unaware of the great number of laboratory measurements that have shown these methods to be consistent. Many are also unaware that Bible-believing Christians are among those actively involved in radiometric dating”.

“This paper describes in relatively simple terms how a number of the dating techniques work, how accurately the half-lives of the radioactive elements and the rock dates themselves are known, and how dates are checked with one another. In the process the paper refutes a number of misconceptions prevalent among Christians today. This paper is available on the web via the American Scientific Affiliation and related sites to promote greater understanding and wisdom on this issue, particularly within the Christian community”.

I’m not surprised you mentioned the helium in the atmosphere even as you say it suggest a younger earth but still much older than 10000 years and proof that the Bible is in error. But you don’t care about evidence that proves the earth is 6 to 10 thousand years old. You just want to cast doubt on the prevailing science.

The helium argument is a fatal oversimplification of a complex problem. Some other possible explanations.

“The most probable mechanism for helium loss is photoionization of helium by the polar wind and its escape along open lines of the Earth's magnetic field. Banks and have shown that the polar wind can account for an escape of 2 to 4 x 106 ions/cm2 sec of Helium-4, which is nearly identical to the estimated production flux of (2.5 ± 1.5) x 106 atoms/cm2 sec. Calculations for Helium-3 lead to similar results, i.e., a rate virtually identical to the production flux. Another possible escape mechanism is direct interaction of the solar wind with the upper atmosphere during the short periods of lower magnetic-field intensity while the field is reversing. In the estimated that 20 geomagnetic-field reversals over the past 3.5 million years would have assured a balance between helium production and loss”.

It’s funny I was just watching a program last night talking about the evidence in the genetic record that suggest at least one near mass extinction of humans, down to a few thousand I believe. Life was pretty tough for early humans.

The rest is bad science as well, you a free to believe what you will but don’t try and pass it off as science. If you read for yourself instead of just regurgitating old false arguments made by people who care nothing about the truth, you’ll see how silly it is.

With all due respect, SF, pull your head out of the sand.

Darwinian Evolution Theory is nothing other than an atheistic dogma and has been masqueraded for years in the schools of the world as fact. That is atheistic science at work. It's not the science that I'm griping about no, not at all, but rather the blatantly false interpretation of it. Why in schools, is there no teaching the other side of the debate?

Atheists claim that science has provided them with proofs that religion and the idea of God are superstitions based on ignorance or myths. We don't need those ideas they say. God, Redemption, Original Sin, Jesus Christ, Genesis all belong to the realm of fairy tales.


If science really does have undeniable evidence that our view is fairytales, then where's the beef? There isn't any, it's all been based on false interpretation. Since science doesn't have any proof to support the atheists claims, the use of science against God is a trick...It isn't with me, but it is with many a fifth grader who starts school believing he was created by God and gets indoctrinated in one sided atheistic evolutionary theory and leaves school questioning his faith. That's atheistic science at work.

I'm one of those first in line whose willing to look at the vast realm of science in the essence of obtaining knowledge without prejudice.

We need not be afraid of truth. The objective is to uncover truth both in science and religion.

I'm a firm believer of science, true science will without a doubt in my mind strengthen my Faith.

I appreciate the link.

Bottom line re: radiometric dating 1---did you know that scientists have done radioactive dating on rocks of known age and come up with dates that were wrong by millions and millions of years? 2---It is virtually impossible for scientists to know how much radioactive material was present in the rock in the first place when the rocks were first formed. This means they can't tell how much has decayed. 3--Ever hear of polonium radio halos? what I like to call God's fingerprints? Are these sending shock waves through the true believers of "the earth is 4.5 billions of years old" crowd. In countries all over the world, rocks, generally granite, have been found with these little halos. (what a great description, huh?) These radio halos with only polonium atoms shouldn't be there if the rocks had formed slowly. But they are there.

Yes, Lula, I agree. True Science always leads us back to God. Many scientists over the years have come to Christ as a result of their findings and we don't have to go that far back to find many of the most famous true Scientists were Christians.

Science and Chrisitianity are like matching gloves. The right hand and the left go quite nicely together.

It's when we start talking theories and pseudo science and try to match it up with Christianity we run amok.

Try as they might, Atheistic Science has yet to disprove the existence of God. Not for lack of trying tho.