David B, As for keeping creation out of the classroom as one of the theories to keep “folks like [me] from undermining our school system”… Very open-minded of you, there David.
I do like the anagram Daniel Schwarr / Charles Darwin… That’s pretty cool. I too was wondering how Daniel S. had any connection to David B.
coosa,
I can’t really add much to what Lauralee said. I do know that, like I mentioned earlier, I’ve been through my own “hell on earth” and today even continue to struggle with things in my past. Why? I don’t know - why doesn’t God just take those things away from me? I don’t know. What I do know is that once I finally entered into real relationship with Jesus Christ, all things finally seemed bearable.
I guess what I’m saying is that we could probably never say anything that would mean much to you, unless you could experience it yourself.
“We love Him because He first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 †
Thank you Coosa, I try to be honest in most everything!!
Just for anyone interested in my take on the whole creation/evolution thing… I believe also in a literal 6-day creation. I won’t get into arguments about it though, because I don’t think it matters. It has no bearing on anybody’s salvation. The world was created, and that’s good enough for now. (Of course, there a few Matrix nuts out there who have tried to argue even that with me…)
I am actually very open-minded. As soon as somebody shows good scientific evidence for creationism, then it should be taught in a science class. Until then, it has no place. This is exactly the same way I feel about anything else in science. It is not closed-minded to want to keep religion and non-science out of the science classroom.
Thanks. I tried to drop a few hints – like when I anagrammed Soulfrost’s name and asked him what he could do with mine. Also, my interests were listed as, if I recall correctly, “Animals, like finches and beagles.” Of course, Darwin was famous for his study of finches, and he traveled on the HMS Beagle.
I wasn’t going to get invoved in MKMs’ little rite of passage so he could earn his heavenly wings here, but for gods sake, the more you purge your unformulated banalities the funnier it gets, honestly. You have a lot of respect for science but their theory of evolution has too many holes in it? Like the creation of everything in six days has more credibility? PLease point out the glaring holes that has sidestepped enormous scientific scrutiny…please
The bible is whole and pure?! This little book was written by PEOPLE, who were motivated for many reasons you’ll never accept, and has undergone SUNBSTANTIAL editing over the ages to suit all sorts of agendas. Look, it’s nice and all, but its core messages are based around common sense which the most non-christian humans figured out a long time before your guidebook was written. Your prima facie acceptance of the churches story, not Jesus’ (unless you can point out his contributions for me)is a half assed, lazy interaction with a truly amazing universe.
Don’t confuse our innate ability to do the right thing and to feel good about it with your infussion of gods love from without. And don’t tell me or anyone that I must swear allegiance to Jesus or be punnished forever because that is the dumbest marketing ploy you fear mongerers have ever come with.
Do you have evidence that the Bible was NOT written by people? That it was NOT edited substantially? And that there were NO agendas involved in translations and compilations?
And peace… it was written by people, and yet still inspired… It was edited and yet we have numerous early manuscripts to find where editing may have taken place… A good modern translation (NASB, NIV) will make that information available in the footnotes.
any evidence I could possibly bring up, will be refuted by you and others as circumstantial. I understand that… but I still don’t think you had enough time to read, and digest the link I posted…
I have gone to the link you provided and read the page in it’s entirety. You may call this a scholarly work. To a critical eye, however, it is propaganda. But that’s not what I have a problem with. It is this:
A growing number of years, began in earnest a year or two ago.
Been a Christian since I was 8, and have had varying degrees of backsliding and repenting. I held many of the same questions that you have asked, and have found the answers that satisfy my curiousity.
I posted the link because it summarizes many of my beliefs, I don’t agree 100% with everything he posts, but for a quick synopsis of my position it suits its purpose.
As a short aside, I’ll borrow another one of his catch phrases - “God isn’t afraid of the tough questions.”
Nope, Wally. To your eye, it’s propoganda. AFAIC (and you’re welcome to disagree), it is possible to be critical without being skeptical, and it is possible to be critical while still being Christian and accepting the Bible as the Word of God.
As “fundamentalist” apologies go, the link Nav provided wasn’t too bad at all, IMO.
And, in case I haven’t said it already, welcome, Gator. I know you well by your writings on the LBMB, and I hope you stick around here.
That sounds pretty much like my experience with NTS’s system of “Pure Trusts.” I bought into their program for a whopping $9500, tried to make their Trusts eliminate my income taxes and make my property invincible to lawsuits the way NTS claimed they should, repeatedly failed in doing so and blamed myself each time, and then finally decided that it wasn’t for me and that I should back out into “normal” property ownership. (I’ve subsequently discovered that their whole system is bogus, which is why I couldn’t make it work; you can read all about it at http://www.netcom.com/~rogermw/nts.html .) My decision to back out, at the time, was like admitting that I wasn’t “good enough”; my quest for Trust Law that shows off the holes in NTS’s claims has been an attempt to vindicate myself.
And I might point out that feelings very similar to the hardship you experienced have probably also landed on the shoulders of those who, raised in Christian families, finally decided that atheism was the only thing that made sense for them. (I was not raised in a Christian family; atheism just makes physical and logical sense to me.)
Perhaps I can explain why “Or are you borrowing your opinions from someone else?” might be considered insulting, especially here.
It’s flat-out accusing the other person of not thinking for themselves. And around here, thinking for oneself is the whole point. Among our regulars, I can’t think of anyone who just argues off-the-shelf opinions. For instance, Lib and I disagree vociferously, but I wouldn’t accuse him of arguing libertarianism out of a book; he’s thought it through and made the ideas his own.
Besides, there’s no point to the insult. It’s easy to find when someone has been just stating a borrowed opinion: they can’t defend it worth a hoot. When there’s no thought to back up the initial expression of opinion, that quickly becomes apparent here. (Woe to Dubya if he’d said here that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher! The absence of any thought behind that one - other than ‘that’ll keep the fundies happy’ - would have been scathingly revealed in no time. Maybe the SDMB should host Presidential debates!)
You get the idea. It’s an insult, and even if true, it’s unnecessary, because (here, at least) it’s easy to ‘out’ that truth.
Tracer, while basically I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about, I can point out that I said that was my experience with faith. I see no reason why it wouldn’t be the same throughout the whole spectrum of faiths. As some infamous person around has once said, it’s all a matter of faith. What you choose to have faith in is completely up to you. But you did make me smile while I was blindly wondering about, trying to figure out what you were saying…
I tried to drop a few hints – like when I anagrammed Soulfrost’s name and asked him what he could do with mine. Also, my interests were listed as, if I recall correctly, “Animals, like finches and beagles.” Of course, Darwin was famous for his study of finches, and he traveled on the HMS Beagle.