[avenger9000]

Hey Clough do you want me to answer this or should I let an expert like you take over for a while?? Since I have a test tomorrow and need to study...

[Capuchin]

He's gone to bed, I suggest you go and study mate, we can carry on any time :)

[RubyPitbull]

I find it very unamusing that everyone here is taking what i am saying as a big joke and making fun of not only me but God the creator. I know I am not the one to judge you guys but you need to really think abou what you say and use your head before you say it and actually think whether it offends people. The purpose of my post was so everyone could have a chance to hear about Jesus not so some people who obviously have way too much spare time and can't think of anything productive to do could make fun.

I am sorry you are offended by MY being offended that you are using this forum in an attempt to impose your personal beliefs onto me. Jesus may be YOUR God, but he isn't mine. To assume that everyone here will be open to your "wonderful" sharing of YOUR God, is quite frankly, self centered and short sighted. We have many members here who are born of different faiths and beliefs. I am insulted and disgusted by your original post. I would never assume or attempt to do what you have done here.

However, I will leave you to your theological discussions. I know Capuchin well enough to know that he is being sincere in his requests for answers.

Personally, I have been through too many of these conversations in my life to know that you will not accomplish your goal in definitively answering his questions, no matter how many years you try. The questions being asked and answered here, are the same questions and answers that have been discussed and debated for 2000 years. The simple answer to it all is, there are no definitive answers. You can quote chapter and verse until you are blue in the face. It comes down to FAITH. Faith in your God, your religion, and all that you have been taught. The reward for that faith, the reward for acceptance, without doubting or questioning the events described in the Bible, will earn you your rightful place in heaven. Hallelujah.

[AKaeTrue]

Feeding of 5000 and 4000, Walking on water, Cursing of the fig tree, Raising of Lazarus, water into wine.

Here are a few more to add to Capuchin's list... maybe you can explain these too:
Virgin?Mary
Noah's Ark? Gathering Two of every animal from around the whole world and loading them on a boat that he made himself?
Eve? Being made from Adams rib bone?

I'm not making fun... I really want to know HOW this can be explained.

Thank you

[Allheart]

Here are a few more to add to Capuchin's list...maybe you can explain these too:
Virgin?Mary
Noah's Ark? Gathering Two of every animal from around the whole world and loading them on a boat that he made himself?
Eve? Being made from Adams rib bone?

I'm not making fun...I really want to know HOW this can be explained.

Thank you

Great questions and there are so many more. What I rely on the most, is faith. Blessed are those who believe without having to see ( I worded it differently).

In my heart, I trust and believe and have faith. Some of the answers that we seek, we may never receive the answers while we are here on earth. Perhaps that is because
Our "human" minds could never fully understand the actual answers.

To me, (keep in mind I am Catholic and went to Catholic School). If it is beautiful and touches my heart and makes sense to me on a "spiritual" level, I don't question, I believe.
For instance, I believe God loves me :) and loves all of you. I believe He is kind, merciful, loving and forgiving.

Actually, I save all the head banging questions, for how can I become a better person. How can I be kinder and more loving. Seems as I am getting older, I am losing some of that ability to love easily... if that makes sense.

Sorry if I am taking this in a different direction. For me, when it comes to God, and the many questions, I just rely on my faith. I don't need to be shown or have proof, I just can feel it to be true in my heart.

I know these are not answers to any of your questions, but maybe there is an answer in there somewhere :)

[nindzha]

Here are a few more to add to Capuchin's list...maybe you can explain these too:
Noah's Ark? Gathering Two of every animal from around the whole world and loading them on a boat that he made himself?
Eve? Being made from Adams rib bone?

I'm not making fun...I really want to know HOW this can be explained.

Thank you

As far as I remember, when I visited Sunday school(roman catholic curch), the priest told me that this is not acknowleged by the church as a holy truth. But rather as a "story".
I am not 100% sure...

[Wangdoodle]

Mate apologies if I sound like I am making this a joke, but I am not, I am just trying to understand what it said in the Bible. Nobody seems to want to address the issue that I bring up about how rubbish a sacrifice Jesus made for our sins.

The fact that you are all avoiding it are just making me think I am right, this is not what I want, I just want to understand.

I think you may be put value to Jesus's sacrifice as the death of Jesus. Witch is the sacrifice; however what makes it a great sacrifice is the effect. That is opening the gates to heaven.

[Allheart]

Yes,

That God the Father, gave of His only son, to suffer and die for our sins. The suffering
And death of Jesus the man, is the sacrifice. The suffering that Jesus did endure is more than I think I can even try and imagine.

[DrJ]

On the point of Jesus' sacrifice... He did in fact die in his humanly form. He was resurrected for a very short period to show that He was who He said He was. He didn't stay alive like a magic trick. How many people have claimed to be a god or a son of a god or whatever, been persecuted, killed, and NEVER resurrected? The answer is A LOT! What about them? We don't hear about them because all they did was die. They didn't come back. They were just human... not a divine spirit. Jesus was. He is risen and has taken his place in Heaven.

At least that is the way I see it.

As for truths, Holy Truths, errors, etc of the Bible... these are all chosen by the "church" according to their "religion" and quite frankly is a bunch of crap (this really calls for a stronger adjective but I shall refrain). This is a bunch of political bull that should not be boughten into. The Bible should be taken for what it is... nothing more... nothing less.

[avenger9000]

So are you saying that the Bible is a bunch of lies?? Because I disagree with that

[rudi_in]

Well, I feel the need to chime in here with a few thoughts.


I believe the bible to be true in every respect.

I believe that evolution is another religion. At least the part that the universe as we know it came from nothing.

I do believe in microevolution which is the variation within a species but not in evolution as it is understood in general conversation.


I make claim that evolution is a religion so I shall begin by making some similarities..



Creation

In the beginning was God and God created the universe

Break down the word "uni" ONE
"verse" SPOKEN SENTENCE

Genesis 1:3 "And God said...

The biblical account of history explains all the events in the creation.


This is considered religion. That is OK.



Evolution

In the beginning there was nothing, no energy, no matter, nothing
The origin of the singularity spoken of in this religion is unknown.
Why it is here is unknown.
Where it is located is unknown.

When nothing exploded, it created a seriously complex system of order.
All other explosions that have been recorded are shown to have created disorder.


This is considered science. That is not OK.


I think that beief in either one of these requires serious faith.
I think they both qualify as religions.

[Capuchin]

I'm saying that there's no reason that I can see to regard the bible as truth.

Rudi there are some glaring holes in your understanding of what we are talking about:

1. Evolution does not posit anything about the beginning of the universe, and can only be applied to living species.
2. The theory of the big bang gives us scientific data that can be explained and recorded today.
3. The "verse" part of universe comes from the latin "vertere" which means to turn. Literally it means "turned into one", but should be interpreted as "entire, all". Nothing to do with speaking. Unless you ignore the roots of the word as you decided to do.

[rudi_in]

My bad if I am taking this astray but I thought the tide slowly shifted towards evolution.

1. Evolution does not posit anything about the beginning of the universe, and can only be applied to living species.

Only to living species, yes. We, did not come from nothing.

Aren't evolution and the big bang linked together? Ultimately, I thought it was believed that everything was evolved from there.

I feel there are several types of evolution, only one of which I believe. The adaptations to a species such as the superbugs you referred to does happen, it has been observed and I do not dispute that. -but they started as "bugs" and they are still "bugs".

This does not suggest to me that there is any reason to believe that the superbug which is resistant to penicillin or something will one day become human or that at one point I was once a superbug myself.

2. The theory of the big bang gives us scientific data that can be explained and recorded today.

Please share.

3. The "verse" part of universe comes from the latin "vertere" which means to turn. literally it means "turned into one", but should be interpreted as "entire, all". Nothing to do with speaking.

Fair enough, I was thinking more in dictionary terms than in word origin terms.

[Capuchin]

Please share.

1. Hubble's Law Expansion.

Galaxies and stars in all directions are moving away from us, as we would expect from big bang theory.

2. Cosmic Microwave background.

The night sky gives off radiation of a black body at about 2.726K, remnant energy from the Big Bang.

3. Large scale structure of the cosmos.

The formation of entities, clusters etc line up with our models of how they should from the big bang as an initial condition.

4. Abundance of light elements.

In the first 3 minutes of the big bang, there was enough energy for nuclear fusion to form light elements (H-1, He-4). That is why we see such an abundance of these elements in the universe. Using the initial conditions from big bang theory, we find that the universe should be ~75% H-1, ~25% He-4, trace Li, Be and H-2. This is consistent with what we see today (taking into account stellar nucleosynthesis, etc.).

Now I have reasoned the above very shortly, but there is tons of evidence and calculation and years of research for each of them, the vast majority fitting with the big bang theory as we have it today.

Aren't evolution and the big bang linked together?

The theory of evolution only explains how we have evolved from the first tiny bacteria or plankton or whatever to how we are today. We still don't know how the very first creature was created, but there are well backed theories and practical experiment is coming closer slowly. The Earth was a very different beast when life first formed :) (if it did form on earth).

The big bang has NOTHING to do with the formation of life. Only to the extent that it created a universe where life was possible.

[NeedKarma]

I make claim that evolution is a religion ....

That part can be easily reasoned away: religion deals with faith in something unseen that cannot be proven, evolution is a product of science whereas someone like yourself could do reseach today and uncover the same results as the millions of other scientists.

Feel free to visit your local library and peruse the sections 573 and 575 under Dewey Decimal system. Please note: these books will not contain parables nor will thousands of people interpret the same line differently due to the archaic language... as opposed to the Bible.

[DrJ]

so are you saying that the Bible is a bunch of lies???? coz I disagree with that

No, Im not saying it is a bunch of lies whatsoever. What I believe the Bible is needs a whole 'nother thread just to see the tip of the iceberg

I believe the bible to be true in every respect.

That's a pretty bold statement. Even the leaders of whatever religion you abide to will disagree with that.

[rudi_in]

1. Hubble's Law Expansion.

Galaxies and stars in all directions are moving away from us, as we would expect from big bang theory.

I will concede that Hubble's Law provides evidence to support that the universe is expanding but it does not provide evidence that expansion is due to a big bang.

2. Cosmic Microwave background.

The night sky gives off radiation of a black body at about 2.726K, remenant energy from the Big Bang.

While there may be some recorded energies out there, it is an assumption that this energy originates as a result of the big bang.

3. Large scale structure of the cosmos.

The formation of entities, clusters etc line up with our models of how they should from the big bang as an initial condition.

Weren't the entities and clusters already there before our models? It would seem then that our models were created based on the pre-existing conditions not predictions of the future.

4. Abundance of light elements.

In the first 3 minutes of the big bang, there was enough energy for nuclear fusion to form light elements (H-1, He-4). That is why we see such an abundance of these elements in the universe. Using the initial conditions from big bang theory, we find that the universe should be ~75% H-1, ~25% He-4, trace Li, Be and H-2. This is consistent with what we see today (taking into account stellar nucleosynthesis, etc.).

An abundance of something doesn't prove another.

The theory of the big bang gives us scientific data that can be explained and recorded today.

There is nothing scientific about the initial conditions of the big bang theory.

The initial conditions of the big bang indicate that there was nothing; no space, no time, no matter, no energy, no nothing and then a singularity, a supposed infinitely dense and infinitely small, spinning mass with an astronomical amount of energy that included all of the matter in the universe as we know it all in the size of a period appears out of nowhere and begins expanding.

Can we agree that energy and matter are neither created nor destroyed but are conserved and move towards a state of increased entropy?

Law of conservation of energy
1st Law of thermodynamics
2nd Law of thermodynamics

The second law also indicates that entropy in a closed system can never decrease.

By the law of conservation of energy then the universe represents a closed system, right?

How is it then that there was nothing and then something and then energy to cause the movement? If we started with nothing, where did the matter come from? Where did the energy come from? How is it that these things can become more orderly and complex?

[rudi_in]

Even the leaders of whatever religion you abide to will disagree with that.

True some leaders probably would.

There can be no compromise.

It is either all true or all false but not some of each.

To indicate that any part of the bible is false would be to say that God has not given the truth.

I do believe that there can be incorrect interpretations (why some leaders would disagree)
But the bible itself speaks only the truth.

As imperfect people, we are bound to misinterpret.

Many scientists have made many misinterpretations in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

It was once taught that the world was flat and that heavy objects fell faster than light objects too.

I believe that there are many misinterpretations being made in the theory of evolution too.

[Capuchin]

I very much dount that any scientist you talk to will agree that the understanding of the big bang was that out of nothing came something. Before the big bang we cannot know what there was, because the beginning of the big bang was a gravitational singularity. There could be a few way that this formed:

1. A prior universe collapsing under gravitational acceleration until reaching the singularity that formed "our" universe.

2. Something outside our universe, providing the energy, for example brane theory.

Please understand that the big bang theory is not a "model that fits the pre-existing conditions". It is formed by taking the evidence we have today, and extrapolating back in time. The first formulation of the big bang theory were formed from the observation of hubbles law.

If the universe is expanding, then what happens if we reverse the time? Do we get a singularity?

Then, we work out what else we could see if this model were true.

If the big bang theory is true, then there must be a time where the universe was in thermal contact shortly after the singularity. This must mean that wherever we look into the universe, we should see the same temperature.

Now, it took many years for technology to develop to the point where we could do an accurate survey of the sky. And when it did, we saw things that correlated remarkably well with our model which was formed from a completely different observation.

The models aren't just about making something up that fits what we see today, like Creationism is. It's actually about forming a theory, making predictions from those and then observing those predictions to see if the theory holds up.

This is what makes the big bang such a powerful model.

[rudi_in]

That part can be easily reasoned away: religion deals with faith in something unseen that cannot be proven, evolution is a product of science whereas someone like yourself could do reseach today and uncover the same results as the millions of other scientists.

Has anyone witnessed the big bang?

It remains unseen and unproven.

I would think it takes just as much faith to believe that we all ultimately developed from a big bang as from God.

Also please understand that I do not debate evolution in the sense of adaptations within a kind.

As I understand it, modern evolution theory includes 6 types of evolution...

1. Cosmic evolution - big bang

2. Chemical evolution - formation of the elements

3. Stellar evolution - star formation

4. Organic evolution - life from not life

5. Macro-evolution - change of one animal to another

6. Micro-evolution - variations within a kind

I am OK with number 6 just not 1 through 5.

Numbers 1 through 5 remain unseen and unproven.