I dare you to read it all...

[Wreaking]

Wow, I've been gone from reading this thread for quite a while. At least it has people talking. I am thankful that God gave us free will. I explain the value of free will.

Say I leave to go to the store and I leave my daughter at home by herself. I want her to obey my rule of staying in the yard while I am gone, so while I am gone I tie her to a tree in the backyard to make sure she does not go anywhere. When I get home I ask my neighbor if she has been obedient. He says she's been right in the yard.

Now this shows neither obedience nor love. IF on the other hand I leave her in the back yard of her own freedom. Upon returning ask my neighbor the same question. He states she has not left the yard, even when the neighborhood troublemaker came by and tried to get her to leave. This shows true obedience and love.

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As for this comment...

So according to the student all atheists are evil since they don't have the love of God in their hearts? I know that I lead a life that is has far less evil in it than many of the "Christians" that I know. The professor's argument isn't the only one that is flawed here.

If you had a child that was a murderer would you want people using that in their opinion of you? A child of God (one who has been born again through faith by Jesus Christ), is not perfect, just forgiven.

Here is how it works. Most people think sin is black, the Bible says "Though your sins be as scarlet". So sin is red. Take a red marker and write a word on a sheet of paper. Now take the red side of some 3d glasses and look at the red writting. It appears white. So through Jesus (his blood shed for my sin that covers and pays my sin debt) let me finish the Biblical quote. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow.

I, in my imperfections, cannot have a relationship with a righteous God, Jesus is the filter that allows Him to see me redeemed and made righteous. Not by anything I have done or could do. But by the sacrifice of His son Jesus.


Am I "more evil" or less "good" than some Athiest. Probably. Not the point. The "ruler" or measuring stick is Christ and he did not sin. Don't judge my God by my behavior. Be thankful that He is merciful, I don't think sometimes I could put up with me if I were God. I thank God I am forgiven, not free to sin, but free from the penalty.

[Hilf]

evolution is present everywhere in this world and happens everyday, in the form of children. A father and a mother come together to make a child which gets traits from both sides of their respective families. This occurs with all animals as well, not just humans, even the tiniest minute change is in one way an evolution.

In regards to the miracles and old biblical stories, I believe that people did not understand many things so to rationalize the situations, they came up with "miracles" and stories like Moses parting the Red Sea. Just think about when you were a kid and how naive you were. Who did you believe to explain things like how cars work or why the sky is blue? Chances are, you believed your parents and you believed whatever they said until you actually learned the reasoning behind it. Like if your dad said the sun dies out at night, you would believe him until you found a more credible source for the information, like a teacher, or your mother. The same thing applies with most religions and faiths. Long long long times ago, no one had done the research to accurately explain many things, so they went with emotion. Things like droughts and earthquakes were believed to have happened because gods were angry or havent been appeased with sacrifices, human, monetary, food, etc. Sometimes each natural phenomenon was considered to be a god. As smart as the greeks were, they were pretty ignorant too. Zeus and Poseidon and Ares for example. They couldn't explain weather or waves why trees grew, so they attributed gods to these happenings. Christianity same thing, people couldnt explain temptation and sin (still cant really) so they blamed a woman because man dominated society. Ignorance isnt necessarily a bad thing, but its what creates all these stories and miracles. Then they are embellished even further by word of tongue until it is written down and everyone accepts it as a norm. Just remember, that when people experience something new that has no "definition" they begin to rationalize. Many of these things may have happened, but chances are not as grand a scale like Noah's Ark (how the hell do you get animals from north america and asia and africa and australia to all meet in the sameplace when they cant make boats or all fly?)

I have nothing against religion and its ideas, but in my opinion, the ignorance of it is the reason for which people are ostracized, judged and killed as well as kind, moral, and trustworthy. HAHA this brings to mind Mormons, i dont understand the history of their religion at all but man they are truly the nicest, friendliest people ive ever met in my entire life.

[Horcrux]

evolution is present everywhere in this world and happens everyday, in the form of children. A father and a mother come together to make a child which gets traits from both sides of their respective families. This occurs with all animals as well, not just humans, even the tiniest minute change is in one way an evolution.

Using that as a proof for evolution is like using 1+1=2 to prove mathematics. Heck, a I gave a more accurate illustration of evolution earlier, in different breeds of dogs. However, none of these illustrations solve the species to species gaps. And until those are solved, Evolution as a whole cannot be proved. And yet, even if evolution was 100% proved, it would not disprove creationism (would just disprove specific examples of creationism, IE specific religions).

Personally, I have all the proof I'll ever need to believe what I do based on what I've seen and experienced in my life and the lives of others.

[Sothran]

Got into almost that same debate with my sociology professor about 3 years ago at EKU. He challenged me based on the idea of "faith", being that it cant be masured.

I told him if he wanted to sway me to evolution, he would have to prove evolution to me.

He tried to spit out more theory and "scientific evidence"

I inturrupted and said "No, i need you to show me evolution, right now"

He replied "well, evolution of that type takes hundreds of thousands of years"

I quickly replied " Go on, ill wait"

[Antok]

Got into almost that same debate with my sociology professor about 3 years ago at EKU. He challenged me based on the idea of "faith", being that it cant be masured.

I told him if he wanted to sway me to evolution, he would have to prove evolution to me.

He tried to spit out more theory and "scientific evidence"

I inturrupted and said "No, i need you to show me evolution, right now"

He replied "well, evolution of that type takes hundreds of thousands of years"

I quickly replied " Go on, ill wait"

Evolution has very strong predictive power, with verifiable predictions. Creationism does not.

[Jahras]

I inturrupted and said "No, i need you to show me evolution, right now"

You should ask someone in the biology department that question. If EKU has a decent microbiology department, they should be able to show you a HeLa cell culture. Just get some dead ones, drop them about 5 ft onto a glass slide, and do the same with a few of your own cells from a scrape in your cheek. Now go under a microscope with oil immersion, and find a busted cell nucleus and count the chromosomes of each. You'll find that this cell line, which came from a woman who died a while back, has mutated so much it has more than twice as many chromosomes as your own cells. That is pretty easy observable macro evolution.

[Horcrux]

Evolution has very strong predictive power, with verifiable predictions. Creationism does not.

If evolution is 100% true, it has very good predictive properties. If creationism is true, then prophecy is a possible miracle, and therefore obviously has good predictive properties. Just had to throw that in there .

[Wreaking]

http://focusonjerusalem.com/JesusChrist ... ction.html

[Horcrux]

For anyone interested, there is a documentary coming out in theaters tomorrow night called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Here is the synopsis taken from moviephone.com...

'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' starring Ben Stein follows his journey around the globe where he discovers that scientists, educators and philosophers are being persecuted in a modern day witch hunt because they dare to go against the theory of evolution. These pillars of education are being fired, ridiculed and ostracized for merely challenging Darwin's theory; proposing that life on this planet could be a part of some intelligent design and not random chance.

This thought-provoking documentary not only forces us to question what we have been taught but challenges us to ask- what else is being kept from us?

It looks to be pretty interesting. I'll be checking it out with some friends this weekend probably, I'll let yall know what I think after I see it. If you are interested in seeing it, you may have to look around to find a theater playing it. I know the small theater I normally go to that is down the street from me is not showing it, and I will have to go about 15 miles to a larger theater which is.

[Bilnick]

It just goes to show that there are fools on all sides of an arguement. There are those that will never question the Bible's accuracy or validity, just as there are those that are just as devoted to the current theory of evolution.

[Horcrux]

It just goes to show that there are fools on all sides of an arguement. There are those that will never question the Bible's accuracy or validity, just as there are those that are just as devoted to the current theory of evolution.

Yup. It irritates me when someone is asked a question like, say, "Why is killing bad?", and they answer with the coined phrase "Because the bible says so." There are so many times when people use that cheap way out of a question, when just a bit of investigation or thought could produce an answer which actually addresses what the person asked. There are some biblical things I trust purely on faith, but only because a larger proportion of the bible I trust on more than faith. It's like having a friend that you entrusted your car to because they needed one for a day. If you trusted something as big as a car to them, then more than likely you can entrust something smaller to them, even though you don't have evidence of that exact situation.

[Serano]

For anyone interested, there is a documentary coming out in theaters tomorrow night called "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed". Here is the synopsis taken from moviephone.com...

'Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed' starring Ben Stein follows his journey around the globe where he discovers that scientists, educators and philosophers are being persecuted in a modern day witch hunt because they dare to go against the theory of evolution. These pillars of education are being fired, ridiculed and ostracized for merely challenging Darwin's theory; proposing that life on this planet could be a part of some intelligent design and not random chance.

This thought-provoking documentary not only forces us to question what we have been taught but challenges us to ask- what else is being kept from us?

It looks to be pretty interesting. I'll be checking it out with some friends this weekend probably, I'll let yall know what I think after I see it. If you are interested in seeing it, you may have to look around to find a theater playing it. I know the small theater I normally go to that is down the street from me is not showing it, and I will have to go about 15 miles to a larger theater which is.

heh - that reminds me of the persecution Scientists have when they point out research that doesn't support humans impact on climate change.

[Bilnick]

The global warming crusaders are nearly as bad, I agree completely.

[Horcrux]

It may be false, but I remember learning at one point that the introduction of agriculture and raising crops prevented a recent ice age (within last 2000 years). Something about a cyclical ice age thing, that would have recurred again but leveled out during the start of farming. Talk about some good global warming there .

[Bilnick]

With regards to global warming...

Evidence does seem to support human induced global warming, but there is so much more to learn that we cannot place all the blame for a climate change solely on humans.

Things like volcanic activity and sunspots can have as much (if not more) influence on global climate as humans and we have very little knowledge about those pheonomina. We certainly cannot predict either yet reliably.