Liberal Christians only believe some "fundamentalism?

[AlAyeti]

There are now political Christians wanting to "re-claim" Christianity from whatever the "Right" is, or has done to it. Claiming that their way of Christianity is more like what Jesus would want.

But many of these Liberal positions hold to funadamentalism on the poor, the needy and anti-war and violence, but oppose Biblical truth on many other issues.

Why do Liberal Christians deny the truths of the New Testament on marriage and children as defined by Jesus himself?

Liberals will teach about condom usage but decry the Biblical truth about abstaining from sex until marriage as something ignorant or intolerant?

Why are not Liberal Christians funding missionaries to go to Muslim and other countries to spread the Gospel exactly the way Jesus described and exactly the way it is presented in the Gospels?

How can Liberal Christians support a womans right to kill her unborn child and encourage a woman to go and do it, while at the same time, denying the same rights of choice on the matter be given equal recognition to the father of the child?

How and why can Liberal Christians call themselves Christians while only preaching and teaching some immutable Christian positions and not all?

[redstang281]

I think you might mean 224 to 651 BCE would be closer. That would be 600 years before Christ.

My source is -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassanian.

Look on the right side of the page it marks the Sassanian period in the AD not BC.

[MagusYanam]

However that doesn't do much to prove who borrow from who sense we can't prove the content of their oral recordings. I could just as easily claim they copied everything from the Jews and the Jews being a valid faith copied nothing from them.

We Jews influenced (and were influenced by) many religions and many types of thought throughout our history as an ethno-religious group. Look up Akhenaton on Wikipedia sometime - the Egyptian cult of Aton (<= Heb. El Adonai), started by that king is a direct borrowing from Judaist monotheism - and the date corresponds, since most historians now believe that the Exodus happened before Akhenaton's reign, since 'Habiru' incursions were occurring in the desert east of Egypt during the reign of Akhenaton.

The faith of my forefathers - no use in denying it - did evolve over time. They had their problems with polytheism (as much of the Old Testament seems to indicate), and the priesthood had trouble establishing our national identity, though they did succeed in the end. During that time, they were almost certainly exposed to a lot of ideas and no doubt some of them thought, 'Hey, this aspect of Mazdaism sounds cool, and it fits with our conception of one God and his nature' so they tacked it on and fit it into the religion.

Should I believe God or believe man when he slaps some plaster on an ape fossil to make it look more human like? Evolution is a safety net theory for atheist that some Christians have been intimidating into accepting.

The naturalists who proposed evolutionary theory were Christian - Darwin himself was a devout High Churchman when he proposed evolution (though in later life he became somewhat indifferent to religion as a result of personal loss).

We have good evidence the world was not created 10 minutes ago. I do not believe we have good evidence that life came from non living material, or that the universe and it's laws could have just always existed, or that all life has a common ancestor especially with things like dogs and oranges. With good evidence I will draw the line.

Exactly my point. But the fossil record, radiometric dating and biological experimentation do indicate strongly an older earth (billions of years), lines of descent that indicate common ancestry and the mechanism of microevolution that differentiates population according to biological niche. That's all very strong evidence. Abiogenesis, I will not deny, is a proposition at present which is not easily proven. But it is fallacious thinking to discard it solely on the basis that it is difficult to prove.

And who's to say, if abiogenesis is proven reasonable, that the moving power behind that first spark of life, the bolt that struck the seas with a force that would echo for aeons, was not the will of God? My faith will not be shattered by a possible scientific breakthrough in this area.

Yes, I'm fully aware of this and I have heard this many times. I think I can speak for most fundamentalist when I say it's not that I don't understand what you're saying, it's that I don't accept it. How evolutionist play their words around doesn't convince me that evolution is not a theory in the way that I regard a theory or any other layman regards the word theory. Word play is not a sufficient replacement for evidence.

That's because it's a hypothetical theory that is not falsifiable.

No, I don't think you do understand what I'm saying (as your latter quote proves, since I specifically stated that theory is neither hypothesis nor conjecture), and the ol' Clue-By-Four is itching for some action.

As a philosophy major, I can't begin to express the dire importance of correct usage, correct stipulation and correct vocabulary (what you term 'word play'). Ninety-percent of philosophy is expressing yourself clearly and dismissing something by saying it's 'just an unproven theory' is misuse of the language and misuse of the word 'theory'. This is what 'theory' means - what happens when what is formerly an hypothesis has withstood enough criticism and external testing to be widespread almost to consensus in its acceptance in the community. It may still be refuted, but it is, given our current level of knowledge, unlikely in the near future. Changing the definition for semantic purposes to hoodwink 'laymen' is irresponsible and infantile. You are not helping your cause by demonstrating a complete lack of regard for intellectual honesty in the debate.

Well that's the idea behind science, but not scientist advocating molecules to man evolution. If the facts don't fit with evolution they don't reconsider evolution they just conjure up a supporting band aid theory or they sweep it under the rug and don't report it.

By saying this you demonstrate a complete and utter ignorance of the way the scientific community works. As someone whose parents are both scientists (one a geophysicist and the other an evolutionary biologist, both Ph.D.'s), allow me to clue you in: in science, if you're caught 'sweeping' something 'under the rug' or supporting a bad hypothesis with a 'band-aid' conjecture, you are called to task for it in no uncertain terms. Scientists peer-review each other's work most critically and try to reconstruct the lines between data and conclusion in the most narrow manner, and if it doesn't stand the test, the work is called in for a re-write or a re-experiment. It isn't the political fray or action committee you think it is - most scientists don't give a damn about politics or religion, or if they do they keep it from influencing their work for the sake of their academic futures.

It's hard to promote a theory that is wrong, that's why there's so many forgeries involved with evolution theory such as nebraska man.

And guess what happened to the 'discoverers' of Nebraska man and Piltdown man in their respective communities? I'll give you three and the first two don't count.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

This doesn't represent the opinions of the vast majority of scientists, including my parents (both of whom are also devout Christians). The scientific method is materialistic only insofar as it doesn't reach the immaterial - therefore all as regards the immaterial is left to the realm of philosophy. There can be no scientific proof for or against God because God as a Being is not amenable to testing by the scientific method - it's that simple.

That is why faith, even the Christian faith, and science can co-exist and both be accepted by the same people. In fact, the strongest faiths will be present in those for whom science represents no threat, but an agent of wisdom in that faith.

'Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.'

'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

- Albert Einstein

Well if people have been trying and failing to prove something true for a long long time and yet have no reason to rationally believe it true to begin with, it's common sense it's false.

Neither of which is true for evolution, so it's still fallacy to say it's false because it hasn't been proven. We do have good reason to believe evolution (both my parents work with the evidence on a daily basis), and we've been trying since the 1800's to try and come up with something that better represents what data we have than evolution and nothing has worked.

Common sense would dictate that, for our intents and purposes, evolution is true.

I'm sorry but I don't believe our Christian fore fathers were convinced Genesis was an allegory by anything other than political pressures.

Then the burden of proof is on you to show what political pressures there were on the likes of Horace Bushnell, Albrecht Ritschl, William Adams Brown, Henry Emerson Fosdick et cetera to accept evolution, when the modus operandi of most theologians of the time was belief in a special creation. Also explain why, in every public debate up until the present time between religious conservatives and religious modernists, the modernists won and the conservatives fled into the hills. From the Great Depression all the way into the 1970's we had no voice from religious conservatives in the public sphere, and even when they reemerged there was no serious discussion between modernists and conservatives since the conservatives had basically decided to make their own schools and their own rules.

Also, note that in St. Mark 10, Jesus is discussing divorce with the Pharisees and makes a passing reference to creation (understandable considering those with whom he is dealing and the subject matter he is discussing: the Pentateuch) and elaborates on it no more than to say 'God made them male and female'. The meaning of this verse, at any rate, is clear. It would appear that you are prooftexting and that given the context this section of Scripture is not meant to be an apologetic for creationism.

And as regards Basil, when has any evolutionist ever expressed any belief in reincarnation, to say that he or she personally had been 'a dog', 'shrubs' or 'fish'? This looks like a straw-man argument to me - not only that but a misuse of a quote to support a straw-man argument.

Debating fundamentalists can be fun, with all the logical and factual fallacies they like to make, but, to paraphrase Jane Austen, of some pleasures a little goes a long way.

[AlAyeti]

Then the burden of proof is on you to show what political pressures there were on the likes of Horace Bushnell, Albrecht Ritschl, William Adams Brown, Henry Emerson Fosdick et cetera to accept evolution, when the modus operandi of most theologians of the time was belief in a special creation.

Politics and the Bible? Nahhh. With evolution you get "relaitivism." With relativism you get to silence relig - - - umm, Christians. Most theologians know that politics and religion do not mix because Christians point out sin and sinners. Of course evolution making that point of view not only stupid but "intolerant and uneductaed." But of course evolutionists never looking at the sciences violated by evolutionists.

Also explain why, in every public debate up until the present time between religious conservatives and religious modernists, the modernists won and the conservatives fled into the hills.

Because politicians make the laws. Now Christianity is a hate crime. In every debate I have ever had against a modernists they look like the agendaists that thye are. And always after the pat ad hominem attack they run.

From the Great Depression all the way into the 1970's we had no voice from religious conservatives in the public sphere, and even when they reemerged there was no serious discussion between modernists and conservatives since the conservatives had basically decided to make their own schools and their own rules.

Rather then to send their children to schools where Christianity is the only bad thing on earth. Abortion unrestrained sexuality and abomination is not "politically correct." Cristians point out the insanity being taught in public schools and the ho's and pimps laugh out loud along with their professors. Please watch MTV during "spring break."

Also, note that in St. Mark 10, Jesus is discussing divorce with the Pharisees and makes a passing reference to creation (understandable considering those with whom he is dealing and the subject matter he is discussing: the Pentateuch)

and of course "Jesus" a new ape man thought to leave this debate until the Prophet Charless Darwin came along. Ooops, Darwin rejected Christ.

. . and elaborates on it no more than to say 'God made them male and female'.

Insert liberal licentiousness and all it licenses . . .

The meaning of this verse, at any rate, is clear. It would appear that you are prooftexting and that given the context this section of Scripture is not meant to be an apologetic for creationism.

Of course not. What was Jesus thinking? Maybe marriage is a man and a woman? This nice little moralist has no chance in the Democrat Party. And of course we see Him asked to leave.

And as regards Basil, when has any evolutionist ever expressed any belief in reincarnation, to say that he or she personally had been 'a dog', 'shrubs' or 'fish'? This looks like a straw-man argument to me - not only that but a misuse of a quote to support a straw-man argument.

Evolution is the religion of reincarnation as much as it is the religion of the supreme egotist. Who and what is on top of the evolution pyramid? Hmm, how convenient. No wonder that racism followed Darwins fairy tale.

Debating fundamentalists can be fun, with all the logical and factual fallacies they like to make, but, to paraphrase Jane Austen, of some pleasures a little goes a long way.

Debating anti-Christians is even more fun. It all boils to down to childish temper tantrumming behavior of "you can't tell me what to do, I'm gonna run away."

Like I said watch MTV at spring break.

[MagusYanam]

Politics and the Bible? Nahhh. With evolution you get "relaitivism." With relativism you get to silence relig - - - umm, Christians. Most theologians know that politics and religion do not mix because Christians point out sin and sinners. Of course evolution making that point of view not only stupid but "intolerant and uneductaed." But of course evolutionists never looking at the sciences violated by evolutionists.

None of my mom's or dad's colleagues (all evolutionists) think them 'stupid', 'intolerant' or 'uneducated' just because they're Christian.

As for the politics and religion debate, tell it to Chan Chandler. He shouldn't get to decide that George W. Bush = Christ.

Of course not. What was Jesus thinking? Maybe marriage is a man and a woman? This nice little moralist has no chance in the Democrat Party. And of course we see Him asked to leave.

Care to explain why so many Democrats follow him then?

Now Christianity is a hate crime.

Care to elucidate? Care to present one piece of legislation making Christianity criminal? I haven't seen one.

In every debate I have ever had against a modernists they look like the agendaists that thye are. And always after the pat ad hominem attack they run.

Doesn't explain your track record here. You're on probation because you don't debate civilly. And I haven't seen the modernist yet on this site who backed down from your bullying (I know I haven't).

Cristians point out the insanity being taught in public schools and the ho's and pimps laugh out loud along with their professors.

Uh, right. Professors who also happen to be Christians having their kids learn (gasp) real science and critical thinking in public schools. [sarcasm] Insane, I tell you! Insane! [/sarcasm]

and of course "Jesus" a new ape man thought to leave this debate until the Prophet Charless Darwin came along. Ooops, Darwin rejected Christ.

Ad hominem. Doesn't count.

Evolution is the religion of reincarnation as much as it is the religion of the supreme egotist. Who and what is on top of the evolution pyramid? Hmm, how convenient. No wonder that racism followed Darwins fairy tale.

Straw man and indirect ad hominem. My parents a.) are die-hard theistic evolutionists, b.) disbelieve reincarnation, c.) are not egoistic and d.) not racist. And they are representative of most educated Christians.

Debating anti-Christians is even more fun. It all boils to down to childish temper tantrumming behavior of "you can't tell me what to do, I'm gonna run away."

Like I said watch MTV at spring break.

I don't particularly care for MTV. Nor do most liberals I know. That being said MTV is not representative of liberal politics or the liberal mentality. MTV, if you want to look at it as being representative of something, is more representative of the commercial capitalist mentality than anything else.

[AlAyeti]

AlAyeti wrote:
Politics and the Bible? Nahhh. With evolution you get "relaitivism." With relativism you get to silence relig - - - umm, Christians. Most theologians know that politics and religion do not mix because Christians point out sin and sinners. Of course evolution making that point of view not only stupid but "intolerant and uneductaed." But of course evolutionists never looking at the sciences violated by evolutionists.

None of my mom's or dad's colleagues (all evolutionists) think them 'stupid', 'intolerant' or 'uneducated' just because they're Christian.

How tolerant of them to allow Christians to believe in the Bible as not something written about evolved apes, including the One God used to dwell with his evolved ape creatures. Luckily for God He exists outside of time so waiting for all of those mutations to finally become Christ wasn't a tedious process.

As for the politics and religion debate, tell it to Chan Chandler. He shouldn't get to decide that George W. Bush = Christ.

I have no desire to compare insanities. It's tough enough dealing with liberalism and its nutiness.

AlAyeti wrote:
Of course not. What was Jesus thinking? Maybe marriage is a man and a woman? This nice little moralist has no chance in the Democrat Party. And of course we see Him asked to leave.

Care to explain why so many Democrats follow him then?

A false Jesus was predicted. Liberal Democrats prove once again the Bible is fact-based. Traveling the wide road with so many other unrepentant people.

AlAyeti wrote:
Now Christianity is a hate crime.

Care to elucidate? Care to present one piece of legislation making Christianity criminal? I haven't seen one.

Homosexual cannot be Pastors because they are homosexuals. Sexual perversion should not be given a parade permi and homosexuality is wrong, bad and deviant behavior and homosexuals cannot find legal means to marriage.

Speech tolerated today?

AlAyeti wrote:
In every debate I have ever had against a modernists they look like the agendaists that thye are. And always after the pat ad hominem attack they run.

Doesn't explain your track record here. You're on probation because you don't debate civilly. And I haven't seen the modernist yet on this site who backed down from your bullying (I know I haven't).

Bernee? Scrotum? You? I stand quite staright even yet.

AlAyeti wrote:
Cristians point out the insanity being taught in public schools and the ho's and pimps laugh out loud along with their professors.

Uh, right. Professors who also happen to be Christians having their kids learn (gasp) real science and critical thinking in public schools. [sarcasm] Insane, I tell you! Insane! [/sarcasm]

Are rectums and palates sex organs? The insane "used" think they were." Now they are afforded civil rights. Children are no longer being taught the truth.

AlAyeti wrote:
and of course "Jesus" a new ape man thought to leave this debate until the Prophet Charless Darwin came along. Ooops, Darwin rejected Christ.

Ad hominem. Doesn't count.

Doesn't count? My dear Magus, Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this." Very appropriate and it does count.

AlAyeti wrote:
Evolution is the religion of reincarnation as much as it is the religion of the supreme egotist. Who and what is on top of the evolution pyramid? Hmm, how convenient. No wonder that racism followed Darwins fairy tale.

Straw man and indirect ad hominem. My parents a.) are die-hard theistic evolutionists, b.) disbelieve reincarnation, c.) are not egoistic and d.) not racist. And they are representative of most educated Christians.

Their Jesus is an evolved ape-man. Not the Jesus of the Gospel.

AlAyeti wrote:
Debating anti-Christians is even more fun. It all boils to down to childish temper tantrumming behavior of "you can't tell me what to do, I'm gonna run away."

Like I said watch MTV at spring break.

I don't particularly care for MTV. Nor do most liberals I know. That being said MTV is not representative of liberal politics or the liberal mentality.

My dear Magus, Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this."

MTV, if you want to look at it as being representative of something, is more representative of the commercial capitalist mentality than anything else.

And, and, and? Sexually licebtiousnees, lasciviousness and "liberalism."

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this."

Or in science and empiricism "cause and effect."

Liberalism = ungodly actions based on what liberals believe based on ungodliness.

[MagusYanam]

How tolerant of them to allow Christians to believe in the Bible as not something written about evolved apes, including the One God used to dwell with his evolved ape creatures. Luckily for God He exists outside of time so waiting for all of those mutations to finally become Christ wasn't a tedious process.

Christ wasn't conceived by humans, so I don't see how evolution would affect faith in Christ. Two different things.

Their Jesus is an evolved ape-man. Not the Jesus of the Gospel.

That's not what they or I believe and it's not necessitated from evolution, since Jesus (of the Gospel) is both God and man. Stop presenting straw men or I'm breaking out the Clue-By-Four.

Doesn't count? My dear Magus, Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this." Very appropriate and it does count.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy which is also known as 'false cause'. And it does not count.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc

Or in science and empiricism "cause and effect."

Not when the cause is false or hidden. Scientists are careful never to use post hoc, ergo propter hoc because they realise (like statisticians do) that correlation does not equal causation. They make the observations and draw cautious conclusions based on what they see, not what they think they see.

[AlAyeti]

AlAyeti wrote:
How tolerant of them to allow Christians to believe in the Bible as not something written about evolved apes, including the One God used to dwell with his evolved ape creatures. Luckily for God He exists outside of time so waiting for all of those mutations to finally become Christ wasn't a tedious process.

Christ wasn't conceived by humans, so I don't see how evolution would affect faith in Christ. Two different things.

Jesus was quoted as asserting Adam and Eve as fact and not myth. Either Jesus, or the Gospel writers or your parents and you are mistaken about mankind.

AlAyeti wrote:
Their Jesus is an evolved ape-man. Not the Jesus of the Gospel.

That's not what they or I believe and it's not necessitated from evolution, since Jesus (of the Gospel) is both God and man. Stop presenting straw men or I'm breaking out the Clue-By-Four.

Stop ducking your opinion when you have to look at it. Your Jesus is an ape-man new version. Funny that His family history stopped at humans huh? Why not trace it back to the pool of ooze? God didn't know about evolutionary principles in the Bible? He just neglected to tell the writers?

AlAyeti wrote:
Doesn't count? My dear Magus, Post hoc ergo propter hoc is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this." Very appropriate and it does count.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy which is also known as 'false cause'. And it does not count.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc

AlAyeti wrote:
Or in science and empiricism "cause and effect."

Not when the cause is false or hidden.

I have been so blunt in presenting facts that some people have asked me to tone it down.

Scientists are careful never to use post hoc, ergo propter hoc because they realise (like statisticians do) that correlation does not equal causation. They make the observations and draw cautious conclusions based on what they see, not what they think they see.

Pitiful use of lexicon. I was never on the OJ Simpson jury. Cause and effect. It is not what you "think you see" when you observe certain acts. on. There are absolutes "even" in science. You have to fall on relatativism to feel supported.

Why not just look at facts.

[MagusYanam]

Jesus was quoted as asserting Adam and Eve as fact and not myth. Either Jesus, or the Gospel writers or your parents and you are mistaken about mankind.

And where was this? In redstang281's argument, he cited Jesus' passing reference to creation in light of a conversation with the Pharisees about divorce as apologetic for creationism. That didn't stand up to scrutiny, since Jesus obviously wasn't talking about creation and the way he presented it could have been mythologically based.

Stop ducking your opinion when you have to look at it. Your Jesus is an ape-man new version. Funny that His family history stopped at humans huh? Why not trace it back to the pool of ooze? God didn't know about evolutionary principles in the Bible? He just neglected to tell the writers?

Jesus was fully man and fully God. Funny how your little straw-man argument leaves that latter bit out, isn't it? Even in an evolutionary world-view, no pool of ooze was ever fully God to be Jesus - God chose to place his Being in a human being. How that human being came about seems immaterial (so to speak).

Another thing. Inspired scripture doesn't mean dictated scripture and has never in history meant dictated scripture - no Hebrew authority, no rabbi, no priest and no pastor until the 1600's decided to interpret 'scriptural inspiration' to mean word-for-word dictation from the mouth of God. This is a Lutheran / Calvinist invention meant to justify sola scriptura ex post facto from the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

I have been so blunt in presenting facts that some people have asked me to tone it down.

This doesn't justify use of logical fallacies to connect them to your argument.

Why not just look at facts.

Fine - here's the facts. MTV, being a corporate broadcaster, is driven by one thing and by one thing alone: money. It doesn't make sense to tie them into liberal ideology, because that's not fact, that's supposition based on fallacious reasoning. MTV is the consumer culture at work - the only major broadcaster which actively works to expound an ideology is FOX News, and that's a neoconservative ideology - even FOX News is driven primarily by monetary concerns (which explains the 'reality' and 'game' shows). The only broadcaster period which appears not to be driven primarily by consumeristic or ideological concerns is PBS.

I don't see what's so hard about this.

[AlAyeti]

AlAyeti wrote:
Jesus was quoted as asserting Adam and Eve as fact and not myth. Either Jesus, or the Gospel writers or your parents and you are mistaken about mankind.

And where was this? In redstang281's argument, he cited Jesus' passing reference to creation in light of a conversation with the Pharisees about divorce as apologetic for creationism.

I don't use other people's opinions to make me feel warm and fuzzy. I believe that the beginning of the Gospel of Juhn is a good enough place to make ape-men saviours the foolish nonsense that they are.

Jesus is the Creator and not an accident bumping into random processes.

That didn't stand up to scrutiny, since Jesus obviously wasn't talking about creation and the way he presented it could have been mythologically based.

Hebrews and Jesus share things in common Magus. Creation being one of them. Marriage was definately defined in the little divorce teaching as well.

AlAyeti wrote:
Stop ducking your opinion when you have to look at it. Your Jesus is an ape-man new version. Funny that His family history stopped at humans huh? Why not trace it back to the pool of ooze? God didn't know about evolutionary principles in the Bible? He just neglected to tell the writers?

Jesus was fully man and fully God. Funny how your little straw-man argument leaves that latter bit out, isn't it?

You reliance on the concepts of freshman indoctrination "jargon" is fun to see presented as free thought.

Even in an evolutionary world-view, no pool of ooze was ever fully God to be Jesus - God chose to place his Being in a human being. How that human being came about seems immaterial (so to speak).

Bingo. Where did "humans" come from? Your ape-man saviour. Not mine.

Another thing. Inspired scripture doesn't mean dictated scripture and has never in history meant dictated scripture - no Hebrew authority, no rabbi, no priest and no pastor until the 1600's decided to interpret 'scriptural inspiration' to mean word-for-word dictation from the mouth of God.

OK. But what liberals have done is to throw out every little thing that will not license sodomy and godless behavior. There is far more absolutes theologically speaking then excuses for what you liberals want to do do the lord of Glory. You rely on emotional relativism so arguing Biblical truth is not going to be easy.

This is a Lutheran / Calvinist invention meant to justify sola scriptura ex post facto from the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Sola scriptura is something gleaned from the mouth of Christ Jesus. "It is written" denotes an absolute. Such as marriage and the deity of Christ.

AlAyeti wrote:
I have been so blunt in presenting facts that some people have asked me to tone it down.

This doesn't justify use of logical fallacies to connect them to your argument.

You have just relocated every prophet to the loonie ward. They definately equated cause and effect. I'll trust them and not your evolving defintions to suit sexual sociopaths and sick egotists.

AlAyeti wrote:
Why not just look at facts.

Fine - here's the facts. MTV, being a corporate broadcaster, is driven by one thing and by one thing alone: money.

Like politics.

It doesn't make sense to tie them into liberal ideology, because that's not fact, that's supposition based on fallacious reasoning.

No, that would be NOT denying empirical truth.

MTV is the consumer culture at work - the only major broadcaster which actively works to expound an ideology is FOX News, and that's a neoconservative ideology - even FOX News is driven primarily by monetary concerns (which explains the 'reality' and 'game' shows).

I have no problem with you condemning both. BUT, FoxNews allows anyone to speak on thier satation. MTV does not. Unless you are a sick sexual freak "BABY!"

The only broadcaster period which appears not to be driven primarily by consumeristic or ideological concerns is PBS.

That would because they are driven to drive Christianty into mythology.

I don't see what's so hard about this.

You as a Christian would rather children watch MTV without any trying to help tham with alternatives to bitches and ho's.

WWJD?

[redstang281]

redstang281 wrote:
However that doesn't do much to prove who borrow from who sense we can't prove the content of their oral recordings. I could just as easily claim they copied everything from the Jews and the Jews being a valid faith copied nothing from them.

We Jews influenced (and were influenced by) many religions and many types of thought throughout our history as an ethno-religious group. Look up Akhenaton on Wikipedia sometime - the Egyptian cult of Aton (<= Heb. El Adonai), started by that king is a direct borrowing from Judaist monotheism - and the date corresponds, since most historians now believe that the Exodus happened before Akhenaton's reign, since 'Habiru' incursions were occurring in the desert east of Egypt during the reign of Akhenaton.

If other religions borrowed from Judaism that's not a concern for whose who hold the Bible as the word of God.

The faith of my forefathers - no use in denying it - did evolve over time. They had their problems with polytheism (as much of the Old Testament seems to indicate), and the priesthood had trouble establishing our national identity, though they did succeed in the end. During that time, they were almost certainly exposed to a lot of ideas and no doubt some of them thought, 'Hey, this aspect of Mazdaism sounds cool, and it fits with our conception of one God and his nature' so they tacked it on and fit it into the religion.

If anything, I believe mazdaism copied from the Jews. Sense you can't tie down who copied from who the only reason people have to assume the Jews copied is in order to diminish the value of the Bible.

redstang281 wrote:
Should I believe God or believe man when he slaps some plaster on an ape fossil to make it look more human like? Evolution is a safety net theory for atheist that some Christians have been intimidating into accepting.

The naturalists who proposed evolutionary theory were Christian - Darwin himself was a devout High Churchman when he proposed evolution (though in later life he became somewhat indifferent to religion as a result of personal loss).

Darwin's influence of Lyell's Principles of Geology his shipboard reading while on the beagle was what led him to disbelief with it's subtle ridicule of the Bible. The fact that Darwin was exposed to Christianity earlier in life has nothing to do with development of his atheistic theory.

redstang281 wrote:
We have good evidence the world was not created 10 minutes ago. I do not believe we have good evidence that life came from non living material, or that the universe and it's laws could have just always existed, or that all life has a common ancestor especially with things like dogs and oranges. With good evidence I will draw the line.

Exactly my point. But the fossil record,

Fossils do not speak for themselves, they don't come with labels. They have to be interpreted to mean anything other then just old bones in the dirt.

radiometric dating and biological experimentation do indicate strongly an older earth (billions of years),

radiometric dating and the geologic column collaborate each other. It's circular reasoning, not raw science.

lines of descent that indicate common ancestry

I disagree. From the mouth of evolutionists themselves...

"Darwin himself, ...prophesied that future generations of paleontologists would fill in these gaps by diligent search ...
One hundred and twenty years of palaeontological research later, it has become abundantly clear that the fossil record will not confirm this part of Darwin's predictions. Nor is the problem a miserably poor record. The fossil record simply shows that this prediction is wrong. The observation that species are amazingly conservative and static entities throughout long periods of time has all the qualities of the emperor's new clothes: everyone knew it but preferred to ignore it. Paleontologists, faced with a recalcitrant record obstinately refusing to yield Darwin's predicted pattern, simply looked the other way." Niles Eldredge & Ian Tattersall, 'The Myths of Human Evolution', 1982, p. 45-46

and the mechanism of microevolution that differentiates population according to biological niche. That's all very strong evidence.

You mean adaptation, which is also consistent with the idea of a creator who imbedded the ability of his creations to survive in mixed environments. It's not evidence for either creation or evolution sense it fits in both models.

Abiogenesis, I will not deny, is a proposition at present which is not easily proven. But it is fallacious thinking to discard it solely on the basis that it is difficult to prove.

How are we supposed to believe it without proof unless we take it on pure faith?

And who's to say, if abiogenesis is proven reasonable, that the moving power behind that first spark of life, the bolt that struck the seas with a force that would echo for aeons, was not the will of God? My faith will not be shattered by a possible scientific breakthrough in this area.

Well then you are a victim of the atheistic agenda. They mean to push Christians into accepting everything they believe while leaving them with only a shred of their belief left. Then, once the stage is set they'll take that way too. There's no reason to believe the Bible once I destroy it's foundation. If there wasn't a literal fall of man then Jesus didn't need to save us. Atheist know that and they are dead set on eradicating Christianity. I don't know why any Christian would join forces with them. Are you with Christ or against him?

"Christianity has fought, still fights, and will fight science to the desperate end over evolution, because evolution destroys utterly and finally the very reason Jesus earthly life was supposedly made necessary. Destroy Adam and Eve and the original sin, and in the rubble you will find the sorry remains of the son of god. Take away the meaning of his death. If
Jesus was not the redeemer that died for our sins, and this is what evolution means, then Christianity is nothing." G. Richard Bozarth, "The Meaning of Evolution", American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30

"Atheism is the philosophy, both moral and ethical, most perfectly suited for a scientific civilization. If we work for the American Atheists today, Atheism will be ready to fill the void of Christianitys demise when science and evolution triumph. Without a doubt, humans and civilization are in sore need of the intellectual cleanness and mental health of Atheism."
G. Richard Bozarth, "The Meaning of Evolution", American Atheist, 20 Sept. 1979, p. 30

redstang281 wrote:
Yes, I'm fully aware of this and I have heard this many times. I think I can speak for most fundamentalist when I say it's not that I don't understand what you're saying, it's that I don't accept it. How evolutionist play their words around doesn't convince me that evolution is not a theory in the way that I regard a theory or any other layman regards the word theory.

Word play is not a sufficient replacement for evidence.

No, I don't think you do understand what I'm saying (as your latter quote proves, since I specifically stated that theory is neither hypothesis nor conjecture), and the ol' Clue-By-Four is itching for some action.

As a philosophy major, I can't begin to express the dire importance of correct usage, correct stipulation and correct vocabulary (what you term 'word play'). Ninety-percent of philosophy is expressing yourself clearly and dismissing something by saying it's 'just an unproven theory' is misuse of the language and misuse of the word 'theory'. This is what 'theory' means - what happens when what is formerly an hypothesis has withstood enough criticism and external testing to be widespread
almost to consensus in its acceptance in the community. It may still be refuted, but it is, given our current level of knowledge, unlikely in the near future. Changing the definition for semantic purposes to hoodwink 'laymen' is irresponsible and infantile. You are not helping your cause by demonstrating a complete lack of regard for intellectual honesty in the debate.

How the word theory is defined is irrelevant to the controversy. The point is molecules to man evolution is not a fact. Arguing over the use of the word in it's scientific context compared to layman understanding has nothing to do with what point each side is trying to get across.

In the same way that the secular scientific world considers evolution a theory I consider the Bible a theory. Meaning I decided to believe it first and treat it as fact until anything can disprove it. I will trust in God not in men.

redstang281 wrote:
Well that's the idea behind science, but not scientist advocating molecules to man evolution. If the facts don't fit with evolution they don't reconsider evolution they just conjure up a supporting band aid theory or they sweep it under the rug and don't report it.

By saying this you demonstrate a complete and utter ignorance of the way the scientific community works. As someone whose parents are both scientists (one a geophysicist and the other an evolutionary biologist, both Ph.D.'s), allow me to clue you in: in science, if you're caught 'sweeping' something 'under the rug' or supporting a bad hypothesis with a 'band-aid'
conjecture, you are called to task for it in no uncertain terms. Scientists peer-review each other's work most critically and try to reconstruct the lines between data and conclusion in the most narrow manner, and if it doesn't stand the test, the work is called in for a re-write or a re-experiment. It isn't the political fray or action committee you think it is - most scientists don't give a damn about politics or religion, or if they do they keep it from influencing their work for the sake of their academic futures.

The goal of evolution is to come up with a naturalistic interpretation not necessarily to follow the truth where ever it leads. If results of testing something comes out unexpectedly then the findings are not reported because of criticism from peer review. No one wants to look like a creationists. So evolutionists know what methods produce the results they want and they come up with a support theory to explain why another method gives results in favor of creation. It's all a huge theoretical
systems that is designed to interpret things within itself.

redstang281 wrote:
It's hard to promote a theory that is wrong, that's why there's so many forgeries involved with evolution theory such as nebraska man.

And guess what happened to the 'discoverers' of Nebraska man and Piltdown man in their respective communities? I'll give you three and the first two don't count.

So how do we know any of them are correct? What's to say other examples are not frauds that have not been exposed yet?

Richard Lewontin wrote:
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how
mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

This doesn't represent the opinions of the vast majority of scientists,

Because of indoctrination not all evolutionists think outside the box.

including my parents (both of whom are also devout Christians).

Didn't you say you were Jews? Messianic Jews possibly?

The scientific method is materialistic only insofar as it doesn't reach the immaterial - therefore all as regards the immaterial is left to the realm of philosophy. There can be no scientific proof for or against God because God as a Being is not amenable to testing by the scientific method - it's that simple.

That is why faith, even the Christian faith, and science can co-exist and both be accepted by the same people. In fact, the strongest faiths will be present in those for whom science represents no threat, but an agent of wisdom in that faith.

Science poses no threat to my faith either, evolution does, but unlike you I draw a distinction. The Christian faith is no way compatible with evolution. My God is a god with the ability to create things perfect from the beginning. He doesn't need millions of years of death and suffering to create man.

redstang281 wrote:
Well if people have been trying and failing to prove something true for a long long time and yet have no reason to rationally believe it true to begin with, it's common sense it's false.

Neither of which is true for evolution, so it's still fallacy to say it's false because it hasn't been proven. We do have good reason to believe evolution (both my parents work with the evidence on a daily basis), and we've been trying since the 1800's to try and come up with something that better represents what data we have than evolution and nothing has worked.

You're speaking of adaption/micro evolution again, which is compatible with both the creation model and the evolutionary model.

Common sense would dictate that, for our intents and purposes, evolution is true.

That's true in a way, but I wouldn't call it common sense. We have all been programmed by society to accept evolution without question.

redstang281 wrote:
I'm sorry but I don't believe our Christian fore fathers were convinced Genesis was an allegory by anything other than political pressures.

Then the burden of proof is on you to show what political pressures there were on the likes of Horace Bushnell, Albrecht Ritschl, William Adams Brown, Henry Emerson Fosdick et cetera to accept evolution, when the modus operandi of most theologians of the time was belief in a special creation.

They were alive after the appearance of Lyells, Darwin.. etc

Also, note that in St. Mark 10, Jesus is discussing divorce with the Pharisees and makes a passing reference to creation (understandable considering those with whom he is dealing and the subject matter he is discussing: the Pentateuch) and elaborates on it no more than to say 'God made them male and female'. The meaning of this verse, at any rate, is clear. It would appear that you are prooftexting and that given the context this section of Scripture is not meant to be an apologetic for creationism.

Mark 10:6 - But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.'

Jesus is making a statement about creation. Believing that Jesus literally meant what he said in this statement does not violate the context of the chapter. Jesus not only affirms that God made man Male and Female but also that he did that in the beginning of creation. There is absolutely zero room for evolution.

And as regards Basil, when has any evolutionist ever expressed any belief in reincarnation, to say that he or she personally had been 'a dog', 'shrubs' or 'fish'? This looks like a straw-man argument to me - not only that but a misuse of a quote to support a straw-man argument.

Basil lived AD 329-379. So he was not referencing the theory of evolution, at least not in it's modern day terms. I'm just making the point that there have always been pressures from the outside world to compromise on the Bible.