MKM, why are you here?
It’s evident that no one will convert you to atheism.
Are you here then to convert some of us to Christianity?
Or is there a third possibility that I haven’t thought of?
David,
I’m not for either Creation or for Evolution to be taught as fact. In my opinion they are both theories and should both be taught as such and let the students make up their own educated minds.
Wally,
I’m not here to convert anyone. And I didn’t come in here to preach either. I admit, I came here out of curiosity based on the supposed “war” that was to transpire. I read a post that had the title “Christians who hate Jesus” and I felt that I should share my opinions and open my self up to questions, and yes jibes, from anyone who would want to question me. You will see I have not done any of the “quote and run” stuff you guys are so bent out of shape about from some of the others. I’m here to engage in honest debate about my beliefs as a “fundy” Christian by simply offering my opinions.
Yes, I know I’m in the great minority here and no I won’t be “converted” to atheism. If anything, debates like this only strengthen my faith.
I doubt I’ll continue here on the boards once this discussion has run it’s course unless Falcon brings up another debate she asked if I’d consider continuing here from “the other board.” So, Wally, if you don’t want to listen to my opinions, just ignore them.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 †
No disrespect to you either, fuzzy, but which parts of the Bible do you follow, and which do you futz around with to make them fail to contradict the parts you believe have it right without reinterpretation? (Gee, we could start the ‘Biblical errors?’ thread all over again.)
MKM said:
See, now this is where we get into problems. Creationism is not a scientific theory. It is religion, pure and simple. Evolution, on the other hand, is both fact and theory (depending on which aspect you’re talking about) and should be taught in science class as such. If you want to teach Christian children your creation religion outside of the public school, that’s your choice and I welcome you to do so, but it has no place whatsoever in the public school science class itself.
Whoops, missed a part. MKM also said:
So then why should anybody bother going through the effort of, for example, trotting out all the evidence in support of evolution? Is there really any reason? This is an honest question. If you have already predetermined that you will continue to believe in creationism, and that this debate will only strengthen your faith, then should any of us bother to talk to you about it at all?
RTF asked:
Do we need to trot out the Bible quotes that make it obvious the Earth is flat? I wonder if he believes that or just says it’s not meant to be interpreted literally…
The first issue that I would touch upon is evolution. I will be honest I don’t believe in six literal days of creation. I believe in a God-guided evolution. I’m a thiestic-evolutionist.
About women and children being killed in the Old Testament. I will be honest, I cannot answer that question. That question is one I struggle with as do Christians and those of you on this board who brought up the question.
The overall fact of Christianity is that it cannot be proven scientifically. Even though it is a historical religion. As a Christian I can talk about the fact that the bible has been proven correct on matters of history and archeology.
No one disputes the fact that Jesus Christ was crucified. The question is whether or not he was resurected. That can’t be proven although all the other explanations for the resurrection aren’t really plausible in my opinion and by some extrapolated evidence.
This is where faith comes in and none of you on here can’t tell me you don’t have faith to some degree. Because everyone of us has faith that we will wake up in the morning or that the sun will rise. Even those who claim to have no religion have religion. Athiesm and agnosticism are based on faith as much as Christianity.
On the issue of heaven and hell. I believe that Jesus is the way the truth and the life. You know why do some people on this board get angry at Christians for what we believe? We are doing what we are commanded to do. Now I don’t condone Christianity being shoved down people’s throat, witnessing like that does not glorify Christ. But what is the harm simply telling others what we personally believe?
Christians are commanded to share the good news of Christ. We share the message and it is up to the individual to accept or deny it.
The simple fact is those who ask for proof in the existence of God. Are often the individuals that don’t believe in God. I ask you where is your proof?
some people on this board call Christians spineless and ignorant I don’t understand that. My question to those of you out there who believe that please explain why you feel that way, would you say that to any other group of faith?
I can argue things like the existence of God philosophically and with the arguments of intelligent design…would anyone like to here them just ask? But all of it comes down to one simple word…faith.
“To everthing there is a season.”-Ecclesiastes
Ok, I’ll try. Where is my stance on Christianity? Not sure what you mean. I may have left it in my top bureau drawer. 
Seriously, I don’t have a stance on Christianity; I’m a Christian, that’s all.
Who is God to me? Well, He’s God. As another poster here put it, my ‘beloved friend and Lord.’
What is the Bible to me? I refer you to 2 Tim. 3:16 again. I don’t think that passage is equivalent to a doctrine of inerrancy, btw. What ‘inspired’ or ‘God-breathed’ means, I’m less than completely sure.
The Bible obviously (to me, anyway) contradicts itself repeatedly; maybe it’s my background as a mathematician, but I want an explanation that makes sense of all that in an elegant way, rather than looking like a bunch of roundabout patches to ‘resolve’ the contradictions, one by one, which is what inerrancy does, IMO. Considering the awkwardness of most of those explanations, a few such patches would be one thing, but dozens of them is something else again; under inerrancy, the Bible takes on a Rube Goldberg appearance. My solution? None yet that’s publicly defensible. Sometimes you can only say what you can’t accept, before you find what you can.
The point is, my relationship with Christ is what I trust in, and the Bible is part of that relationship. But I don’t need Genesis to be literally true in order to hold my relationship with Christ together; that is, whatever is true about the Bible besides the fact that God speaks to me through it. Genesis as a tale, a legend, to say something about God and how He relates to us, doesn’t undermine His speaking through it. IMO, that’s the important thing, not the doctrine of inerrancy.
Nowhere does the Bible say we need to believe in inerrancy to be saved. (Rom. 10:9 gives a much more succinct set of requirements.) And while I recognize the importance of doctrine, it’s a lot less important for an individual to believe precisely the right things, than to have a heart devoted to God. As the hymn says, “who serves my Father as a son [or as a daughter, for that matter!] is surely kin to me.”
Anyhow, enough about me for now.
David, you said
And continued with
First, there are many who disagree with you that Creationism has no scientific backing and that there is concrete evidence for evolution.
Since I’m predetermined in my opinion, why should you bother bringing it up? I don’t know, why do you? I simply stated my beliefs and reasons for it. You can state the same and we can discuss. Neither of us will change the other’s mind, so yes, I guess it would be fruitless, no wouldn’t it.
Then you said to RTF
That was handled quite superbly by Jaltus in looking at the original Hebrew wording when it was brought up before and, if you choose it ignore the explanation, then that’s where we stand. I’m not the scholar and can’t argue the point as he did so again it’d be fruitless to do so on my part.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 †
MKM, your posts clearly show you are a man of reason and intelligence.
It was not my intention to cross-examine you. Merely an attempt to understand your motives. I still so not understand them. Perhaps the fault lies with me.
As an aside, I recently read a series of posts at the LBMB dealing with the Devil. One poster by the name of Bishop expressed some doubt that this entity exists.
He was taken to task for this view and eventually declared that he would leave the board in favour of one with a “calmer” ambience.
That, and other threads, amply illustrate that deviation from the party line is frowned upon. It appears that the LBMB is geared to “preach to the choir”.
This is not the case here. I have had intelligent conversations with both atheists and Christians on this board. As long as you recognize that some of us will express our doubts when presented with absolutes, we’ll get on just fine.
I hope you stick around.
A seminar on time travel will be held two weeks ago.
RTF, Thanks for the explanation. Now atleast I know better where you are coming from. My point is, that if your Christianity is a real relationship with Christ as your savior, then you are a Christian in my book. All the other stuff is different interpretation on what all the rest means.
That I’m a fundy and you are not has no bearing on the end result as we will end up in the same place on somewhat different paths, if that’s what you are telling me.
My beef has been that you, as a Christian, have been, atleast it seems to me, berating my faith, also as a Christian. I’m here not to berate anyone their faith or beliefs, but to stand up for mine.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 †
First, I want to thank MKM for presenting, well, a great debate. You are very level-headed in your arguments and you are a good representative of your board.
MKM:
God gives you “free will,” but if you choose wrong, you receive His wrath? Kinda sounds like the end of Indy and the Holy Grail- Choose wisely and you will live forever, choose wrong and you will die horribly. I think God is better than a supervisor on a power trip. Not very “free” to me.
I am a Catholic, and I beleive in God. But I don’t beleive that if youu screw up in life, you burn in hell for eternity. If God loves us so much, why would He subject us to such horrors.
What you present seems to be that God loves us all, but if you rub hHim the wrong, way, you better watch your ass, cause He’s about to kick it. The two ideas aren’t consistent.
MKM:
I don’t think anyone in this GD forum ever strives to change someone’ opinion, especially given the strong wills of the SD members. It’s a place for debates. No one expects anyone’s opinions to be changed here.
JMcC, San Francisco, JJM’s page from the Bay
If I were beaned with a fastball, fling my limp, lifeless body to first, cause, dammit, I earned it!
Thanks, Mike. I haven’t been trying to undermine your faith, here or on the LBMB. I’ve certainly been trying to open up the possibility, in various discussions over there, that certain doctrines that are generally accepted in certain circles (a) may be wrong, and (b) are certainly not required Christian beliefs.
Personally, I’d be happy to stop debating inerrancy forever, if there were a pledge by the leaders of all major conservative Christian denominations that they would never again say or imply that people who didn’t believe inerrancy weren’t true Christians, were second-class Christians, or whatever, and that they would pass the word down the line that that was unacceptable behavior.
But as long as my faith gets questioned on that ground, I’m not going to be bashful about why I feel inerrancy is untenable.
And questioned it is. Whether it’s Rev. Morris Chapman, then-SBC president (“to not believe in inerrancy is to not believe in God”) in 1990, or fuzzy, earlier today (“what parts of the Bible as a Christian do you follow and what parts do you change to suit your Christianity?”), it happens a lot. Frankly, I hate having to read the Bible for ammunition in debates, rather than to hear the Lord speaking to me through its pages. But if I must do it to defend the validity of my faith, I guess I must. (Sigh.)
Well RTF I was certainly not questioning your belief…or the fact that you are a Christian…my wording and presentation evidently are not the best…MKM asked the same thing…in a different way…and he received the response that I perceived…please excuse my clumsiness on this board…I’ve only been posting for about a month…and I must admit that all the posters here…even in GD…have been outstanding at ignoring my igorance as I find my way around…I learn every day…
Wally, Thanks for the invite to stay. We’ll see where it goes from here… As to LBMB’s purpose being to “preach to the choir” - well, probably more like the “choir preaching to each other”. It clearly has as it’s premise a Christian setting with the majority being fundamentalists. It’s only natural that a site devoted to a series of books that, though they are fiction, are written based on biblical foundations in the view of fundamentalist authors would have thatpremise. So it should be of no surprise to anyone who goes there that there is a strong bias there.
RTF, thanks once again for more clarification. Sounds like we are on the road to peace 
jjtm, you wrote:
Well if that’s what it took to burn in hell, we’d all be there. But the only real way to “screw up” in the eternal damnation sense, in my beliefs, is to reject Him by not acception his salvation.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 †
Mike-
I just want to say what a great job you have done here representing the Christian outlook from the LB boards-and I thnk you for it. Now, maybe people won’t think all of us LB’ers are nuts!
BTW-We are all not Fundamentalist Christians over there either-but, true, most are.
Regarding why MKM might post here someone said above:
“Or is there a third possibility that I haven’t thought of?”
Might be.
(Kirk to Scotty & Spock: “I want that third alternative.”)
Between “Theistic Evolution” and “Literal 6 24-hour Days” approach, there is also emerging a “Progessive Creationism” or “Old Earth Creationism”. Sort of Neo-Middle)In-Between-Like to the first two above.
However, usually “Christianity” does not come to someone’s life as a package-deal of mental assertions on “how the earth got here in its present form” – but rather in a quite subjective experience of:
“How do I respond to this person in history (who may also stand quite outside of history) – this Jesus.”
I heard on the radio that “Jesus just left Chicago”.
(But now “I might be mistaken.”)
Uh how-how-how-how.
What to say, what to say…theyre are so many topics and questions to choose from…
For the questions a few days ago regarding “insane” parts of the Bible…as far as I can tell, God has never said that everything IN the Bible is approved of. (For example, stoning adulterous women, marrying more than one woman, etc.) Just because it appears in the Bible, does not make it “the standard” for Christian living today.
Regarding when God told the Israelites to destroy their enemies…without researching further, from memory, I can tell you that God often did instruct the Israelites to destroy EVERYTHING because it was considered unclean. The same God exists today, and He does not change! What has changed is the uncleanliness of the earth has been pardoned. When Jesus died on the cross, He died for ALL THE SIN OF ALL THE WORLD. Sin is no longer the determining factor for your eternal fate…the acceptance or rejection of Christ’s death and resurrection is.
Smart people shouldn’t act stupid and rich people shouldn’t act poor.
MKM:just one little comment from me…
Well, I know from friends that in Buddhism, you can believe in any god you please, and still be buddhist. So, one can be Christian, and still hold Buddhist philosophies (I find that much of it appeals to me, yet I am still Catholic). This is why there are many different ways of approaching it, from the Tibetan, to the Chinese, to the Japanese, etc. All of them very different in which god(s) they believe in).
Also, on the hell discussion, one thing I like about eastern religions is that even though there is a hell, one eventually can work his way up to the paradise. Unlike the modern christian view, you are not permanently stuck in hell forever.
Mike, I really like this thread and I like this message board. The leftbehind message board will always be my favorite because I feel relaxed as a part of the choir talking to some more of the choir. This message board is full of interesting people too. I’m finding many Christians here, just different from me. My dad believed in evolution. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a Christian. If we have a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ we are saved. I know MBagwell told us to go home but I like it here. I’m looking forward to learning a lot from the people on this message board. You have a lot to offer. Thanks for being here.
Laughter doeth good like a medicine.
MKM, et al…
I see you’re still braving the slings and arrows…well played!
HI LAURALEE!!! Welcome…
About the “why should we bother” question:
Hey, I like a Great Debate. Argument for argument’s sake is not a bad thing…if nothing else, it helps us to refine our own arguments.
Also, besides the principals in this discussion, there are hundreds more who will read, but never reply to, what we post here.
-David