So according to what this guy says, you cannot believe that God created the Big Bang and be a good Christian. If you decide to look at scientific evidence and realize that it is correct, “God will enact his vengeance upon you,” even if you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Lord & Savior, Inc.
It is absolute “truths” like this that turn people off from Christianity, and make ALL of it’s followers look like mind-melded zealots.
I know a very good Christian who believes God created the whole universe, and helped things evolve, but he does not think the universe is any less than billions of years old.
In order to believe, I think one must put so many ‘blinders’ on to the facts like you’ve just pointed out that one doesn’t wonder if they are blind completly, ie. ‘blind faith’.
Ignore what heathens and sinners say to you about knowing the true way. Ignore what you can see for your own eyes. Ignore what some equally faithful people say about your holy book. Sometimes Ignore the Holy Book until it coincidedes with what you believe is gods chosen path for you. Just believe and you will go to heaven.
Right.
Ignore your roomates. Ignore that you can see 70 feet down from your 5th story apartment. Ignore the pictures you’ve seen of people crushed. Just believe you can fly.
That’s all you have to do, just believe.
Hmmm…
I think the late J.C. was wacked out on crystal meth. 2000 years ago.
Did God create the world in six literal days, or did He take billions of years, allowing the DNA to work its way up from primeval puddles of snail snot to human beings? Hard to say, since I wasn’t there at the instant it all commenced. God could’ve done it either way; He isn’t limited. Whichever way He did is fine with me; as is whichever way people choose to believe He did it.
[quote]
So according to what this guy says, you cannot believe that God created the Big Bang and be a good Christian.
[quote]
Sure you can. Even the Pope says so. This fellow may not believe it, but that’s only his opinion; he doesn’t speak for the rest of us.
“Lord and Savior, Inc.”? Wow, I knew the televangelists were touting themselves, but I never realized they’d gone quite that far! As for scientific evidence and divine vengeance, they’re two different things. Divine vengeance is reserved for those who willfully disobey God (and let’s not revisit that particular debate again, if that’s okay–we already did that one, and it waxes both redundant and wearisome); but acceptance of scientific evidence is not a sin, or at least it wasn’t the last time I checked…
ALL of them? That’s a rather sweeping statement, don’tcha think? I could say the same thing about Pat Buchanan and all members of the Republican Party, or Marilyn Manson and all devotees of rock music. “I have one example of a fringe extremist here, who declares A, B, and C to be true; therefore, ALL members of the particular organization in question believe exactly the same thing—they are all mind-melded zealots.” Everybody likes to feel like they belong to something, but please do not bunch me in with our friend described in your post above, thank you very much. You can’t apply examples of extremists to all Christians.
[quote]
I know a very good Christian who believes God created the whole universe, and helped things evolve, but he does not think the universe is any less than billions of years old.*
I know one who believes that, too-----me. (I do not, however, make any claim to being a “very good Christian”. I am a very, very, poor one, at best.)
Hopefully not, but if he did, it certainly wouldn’t be for belief in evolution, or in creationism.
Oh, PM, you mistake our Infernal Friend’s motives. In point of fact there are a lot of people who sincerely believe the stuff he posted. A prominent state representative down here is a devout literalist and regularly makes obnoxious noises about including unchristian stuff like evolution and the big bang in the state curriculum. And the result is that nonbelievers of all stripes, hearing these idiots and not folks like you, me, Jodi, and Tom, think that all Christians think like these goombahs.
I think the verse meant they worshipped trees and bushes and stuff like that.(creation).Yep,we do need arg back here to bounce this stuff off of( or anything else to bounce off of him!)
I normally stay out of these threads for obvious reasons, but this one caused me to spurt my coffee –
<< It also predicts God’s vengeance on them. “For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions,” he read. “Men abandoned their natural function and burned in their desire toward one another.” >>
Hey, so the punishment for believing in evolution is that you’ll be gay??
What about women who believe in evolution?
And does it work the other way around? Is the punishment for being gay that you’ll evolve?
Man, you gotta admit, when it comes to being both scarey and funny at the same time, you can’t beat the fundamentalists!
If we allow the teaching of Evolution in our schools, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll start teaching heresies like Heliocentrism and religious toleration!
My apologies to the Dark One if I misread the intent of his post. FWIW, I’m no big fan of guys like Senator Helms either, although he does have a sort of obsolete charm----reminds me of the days when George Wallace and Orval Faubus were in their prime. They were nothing if not entertaining.
Does this mean if we tied George Dubya to a stake and lit him up with coal tar, we’d have a “burning Bush”?
Yes, Ma’am, that’s exactly right. God has something special in mind for you, so he delayed the bridge collapse and killed all those other people instead. I guess it didn’t occur to him to make the bridge, uh, not collapse at all. Some God you got there, lady. Does he make your favorite football team win, too?
BTW, tracer, that was perfect! So who’s going to write a letter to the Kansas School Board asking for its position on Heliocentrism?
[digression]
One of my favorite comedy bits involved someone (and if anyone can remember who, I’d appreciate it) pointing out how amusing a blend Christianity and sports can be sometimes. I’m paraphrasing wildly here:
“It’s funny, you know…you interview the winning football team after the Super Bowl, and all of the players make sure they mention that they never would have gotten this wonderful victory without God’s help. You never see anything like this when you interview the losing team. ‘Yeah, and we would have won this game, if Jesus hadn’t made me fumble!’”
An interesting observation. If I believed in God, and I had a string of bad luck, you’d best believe I’d be blaming him just as much as anyone else. I’d have made a terrible Job.
[/digression]
Most of the Christians I know believe in evolution. Moreover, most of them are politically left-of-center and socially conscious, as well as open-minded about others.
I’d like to believe that you and Brian have underestimated the intelligence of non-Christians. Not all non-Christians who hear people like the Rev. Terry Glidden conclude that all Christians are “mind-melded zealots.” But non-Christians who are predisposed to bigotry might arrive at that conclusion.
You know, I don’t think I see a single Christian opinion on this page. What happened? Were they all driven away? I must say that although I’m not Christian, you don’t seem to be any more charitable or open-minded than they are.
They believe in a god and you don’t (please forgive me if you aren’t atheistic), and that’s where you draw the line. You’ve no more proof than they and are just as close-minded to argument.
You dismiss their arguments as rubbish based on hearsay and faith. They dismiss yours as heretical and faithless. Neither accepts any possibility of truth in the other.
Quite frankly, it depresses me. I find it difficult to express. Are all of those who call themselves free-thinking individuals as close-minded as those I see here?
Do you object to being called close-minded? Look at this “Great Debate!” It started off as a sally against someone in the opposite camp and quickly devolved to insults to prominent figures.
If this is a Great Debate, then I’ve lost all faith in the Straight Dope Message Board.
