The 15 billion yrs of cosmos & 6 dys of creation r same.

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I say "you have no idea who I am and assume many negative things about me" because instead of actually citing things I've said in their context you cite your own conclusions about the things I've said as if those were actually the same thing. You have used your opinion of me to put words into my mouth that are not there so that you can easily dismiss me. If they are there, go ahead and cite them, but until you do, I will not answer your accusations. My conscience is clear about what I've said about my faith and how I've treated people here on WP. I don't think that I have intentionally insulted anyone calling anyone a "fool" or an "idiot," and I have tried to be peaceful and respectful of other people no matter what they believe.

Firstly, all that you've said is preserved on WP, usually tailing my religious posts like a spiritual hitman. Even when I ignored your baseless attacks, or sought to ameliorate them, you continued harping and whining, post after post after post, about my "style", for instance, when I hadn't even addressed you. I'm not here to rehash the past, and waste time, as you wish me to, explaining something you won't receive. I've said I don't think you're a Christian, I've explained why from Scripture, and that's that as far as I'm concerned.

First you say I'm not citing anything you said -- then you say I'm putting words in your mouth. Which is it?


I never accused you of not being nice to people (well, aside from me). You do that very well, actually, and if being polite was what Christianity was about, you'd be in the clear. But that's not it at all, as I've explained to you several times from the Bible. I thought it was obvious that you're heretical on several grounds, like rejecting creation, rejecting the Bible, and rejecting Christ's lordship over your life. Maybe all this is why many Christians don't think you're one of them once you share your views with them, hmm?

He is making selective facts fit the theory, you need to find the theory that fits the facts.

As cal says straight numerology.

yeah... didnt sound like you just pulled them words out of yer bum ^_^

Or maybe these are just your opinions of what I've said since they completely contradict my actual beliefs.

1. I do believe that God created the world and have said so here on WP. However, I do reject Creationism which is very different. Creationism refers to a system of belief that tries to meld scripture with Science in a way that is forced and unnecessary. At this point I think evolution explains the system by which we developed better than any other. I do have some issues with evolution but not on theological grounds. For instance, I still don't understand how evolution explains increased complexity. I'm still researching that for myself.

2. I have said many times that I accept the entire Bible and it's authority, but not the idea that it must be interpreted literally. I do not think that one can uncritically look at a scripture written thousands of years ago and think that the first meaning that pops into your head is the one to go with or that contemporary cultural mores apply to ancient texts. Taking scripture out of context and taking it literally leads to unnecessary difficulty and misinterpretation. As my Greek professor always said, "context is king", in other words the meaning of scripture is determined by its original context not by our contemporary culture.

3. As far as Christ's lordship over my life... Now you're just making things up. I've never said or even implied that I did not accept Christ's lordship over my life. What I don't accept is your lordship or anyone else's lordship over my life. If that's what you mean then your dead on.

I would just like to make a note that I do not follow you around. Religion obviously interests me quite a bit and you post more often than I do, therefore, it is inevitable that my posts will follow yours and probably be somehow related.

As far as being critical of your style, I have already apologized for having brought that up and asked you to forgive me.

Which words?

That's an oxymoron. Not taking it literally means you don't believe it. You have problems with giving authority to things that Paul says, for instance. When I've brought these up, you've said "Jesus didn't say that", as if that invalidates it.

Nor do I.

Well, it seems that you're misusing the word "literally", to mean "the very first thing that pops into your head", which is of course an entirely different principle. "Literally" means that the Bible means exactly what it says, and in-depth, background study is often -- though not always -- required in order to get the full meaning of the text. If you don't take Scripture to mean what it says, then you don't take it to mean anything. It's either fact or fiction, not something in between.

Obviously.

As in directly challenging tiny nuances in my posts that you have a multi-paragraph problem with -- yes you do.

I don't recall that. Maybe I just doubted your sincerity; that's entirely possible.

Ragtime, I sense now that you are still pretty upset that I criticized your style before. I really am sorry about that, and am very sincere when I ask you to forgive me. I did not mean to hurt your feelings or criticize your personality. My suggestions were uncalled for and unasked for and therefore understandably very offensive to you. I hope that you do know that I'm sorry about that. I did not mean to ask you to forgive me in a flippant way if that is the way it came across. I am really sorry.

Sometimes exactly what the Bible says isn't exactly what it means. For instance, neither of us take the Last Supper literally, whereas many sects of Christianity do, because we see it in its cultural context and see that that scripture does not mean exactly what it says because of its context. If you took this scripture literally, word for word, you would also believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation. Why does this principle, for you, only apply to the Last Supper, and not to other parts of scripture that are also in a specific cultural context?

Does it ever?

And, why is it that this supposed
truth handed down by God needs
to be interpreted?

What a Catholic view.

I explained it, but you're apparently still missing what "literally" means. And you're not stating exactly to what passage you're referring in the Last Supper. However, my instincts tell me you're alluding to Jesus' phrase, "this is my body", in referrence to the bread.

Once again, there's a difference between taking a text literally, and taking it for its "first impression" meaning. "Literally" includes the intended context. "First impressions" are just random interpretations. People use figures of speech, even when they're clearly expressing a literal truth through that figure of speech. When the map at the mall says, "You are here", do you believe that red spot on the map is literally you? And if so, are you still you? Or has the red spot become you? Perhaps there are two of you, etc, etc, etc.
Neither, then, would the Bible need to explain the obvious representation Jesus was making when refering to the bread as His body -- the very bread which he was holding with his body! The point I'm making... doesn't really need to be made at all, because it's obvious that people using expressions doesn't mean those people aren't specifically and definitely communicating a literal truth, and one which is easily understood by his listeners.

So, yes, as I said before, the Bible means what it says. But, also as I said before, we must often study the historical background surrounding the Bible to find out exactly what it's saying. *Do you see how it still means what it says? We just have to study deeply to find out some of those things. But, indeed, not all. Many commandments in the Bible do not become dated to the point they can't be easily understood, such as "don't lie", "don't steal", "don't commit adultery", and the verse in my signature.

Last edited by Ragtime on 27 Jul 2007, 4:32 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Not to mention the motivations
of the men writing it.

One must question to find, and toward finding, the truth, not question for the mere sake of questioning. (Which is an "infinite doubt loop".)
There are two kinds of people:
1. Some people want to find the truth, regardless of what religion they may or may not currently belong to.
2. Others want to search. Not to find, but only to search. "Wanderlust", if you will.

Not at all sure WHAT you're trying to say with
this post, but what I'm saying is that the perspective
of the authors, and just what their motivations are,
are important issues in determining what they are trying
to say.

Now, whether they are trying to tell the truth or not
is a completely separate question. One which DETERMINES
what the motivations might be.

I wasn't referring to the writers of the Bible, just to people in general, and to my "Skeptics" thread.

As far as the motives of the writers of the Bible are concerned, do their writings seem sneaky or underhanded to you? That's what everyone should ask themselves when approach anything in writing. I think it's clear that their main motive, whatever their other flaws are, is to share the truth. Solomon, for instance. He writes about how to be wise in one's life decisions. This could hardly be an underhanded thing to do, for how could it benefit him in some duplicitous way?

Interesting, interesting.

In my opinion, this is a way to change the original view of the creation from the Bible in to a more modern acceptable "scientific" way these days, now that we are all bombarbed with technology and science stuff that explains a lot of things that weren't explained centuries ago.

I don't know if this theory takes history, archeology and anthropology into account, and see how people years ago took the creation in their minds, and how, the people who wrote it, had their knowledge about the earth and the universe, as it was very limited in their society those days.

So I question this, if that really means literally an earth day, or millions of years.
I think the original meaning of the creation must have been literal 6 days, this because judaism and early christianity observed the Sabbath (currently judaism still observes the sabbath while most of christians don't) that day it was considered a holy day, that because it was the day God rested after creating everything in 6 days. That tells me that originally it must have been taken as a literal day.

Well, not necessarily -- they could observe the seventh day as a symbol of the time periods in which God created the Earth. And, Genesis and evolution agree on the order in which things came into being.

Now that I think about that, that's rather interesting... If Genesis was made up by someone, they might well have used a human-centric view, and said that man existed before animals...or that everything came into being at the same time. I mean, as long as you're enlisting the powers of an almighty creator in your narrative, you have no need of saying that he created things from least complex to most. It would make him sound more awesome if he started with man, and worked his way down the food chain. For instance, "In the beginning, God created man. ... Man became hungry, so God created plants." That's a logical storyline, and puts man at the center of it all.