- I’d have to check
- No
- Probably
Now prove that an honest person who is not a Christian must answer yes to #2.
As an atheist and as a scientist who lives in a predominantly Christian society (i.e. the US), this site interests me for pretty obvious reasons. I also work with scientists who are Christians, and I find I share their wish that there weren’t hurdles put in place between believers and science.
If it is the decision of moderators that only Christians are allowed to post, I will gladly honor their wishes. Until then . . .
2 Likes
Nicely stated. That “understanding of how to read scripture” isn’t even honest to scripture – it requires far too much eisegesis, reading in things that aren’t there.
Or anywhere . . . .
Not necessarily – it’s a piece of a “garden story”, something common in the ANE and the purpose of which was not to tell history but to tell about the relationship between deity and humanity. A garden in the ANE was a place where deity came to be accessible to humanity, and a human placed in such a garden was a special “child” of (the) deity. Gardens were associated with deity because deities would “obviously” only live someplace where nothing was lacking and everything was beautiful.
Who says? As Someone asked Job, “Who has begotten the drops of dew?” Sounds like God has a personal relationship with dew, so why not “pea soup”? Or, “And the frost of heaven, who has given it birth?” Sounds like God has a personal relationship with frost, too!
Now that’s some interesting theology – pre-incarnate Christ, the “second power of Heaven”?
1 Like
God hunched over to knit together David’s body. David declares, “For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth” (Psalm 139:13–15).
That could also be taken as an explicit historical statement. God didn’t crochet, didn’t sculpt…knitting is intimate, personal, physical. To write this, David must have retained a pre-birth memory of seeing his Creator’s hands as they delicately formed his body.
Or perhaps it’s a beautiful and evocative picture of David’s belief that God created him and has always had a personal interest in him.
After all, Adam wasn’t the only person God formed from a piece of earth. That’s how God made Job (Job 10:9), Elihu (Job 33:6), Isaiah (Isaiah 64:8) and everyone else too (Job 34:14–15; Isaiah 29:16; 45:9–12; Psalm 103:14; Ecclesiastes 3:20). Paul says that all people come from dust just like the first man (1 Corinthians 15:47–48). And God’s breath/Spirit (in Hebrew it’s the same word) is what enlivens every creature, not just the first man or even just humans (Psalm 104:29–30; Ecclesiastes 3:19; 12:7; Isaiah 42:5).
As Moses (Psalm 90) and David and Solomon (or the anonymous Teacher) and Isaiah and Job and Elihu and Paul all understood, God created all of us. They may use the imagery of being formed from dust, knit together in the womb or breathed into by God’s Spirit, but all convey the same meaning. We should all feel God’s touch in our existence and sniff God’s presence in our past.
God making humans in the divine image, forming a human from dust, blowing breath into earthen nostrils – that’s our story. Adam, it should come easier for you than most of us to find yourself reflected in the Bible’s first story of humanity.
3 Likes
Actually, no – Tyson has spoken on the matter, and has said it wouldn’t be a problem for him if somehow he ran into God, he would just have some questions for Him.
Why is it a delusion to give a rational response to someone’s objective observation?
Well you’re doing a fantastic job of making a case for not being a Christian! If you’d been the first Christian I ever met, I’d almost certainly have chosen the atheist column.
Actually it comes down to poor assumptions = make Christianity look foolish, and you excel at that.
I call that heresy. Paul says Christ cancelled the debt at the Cross! That’s Christian theology, and not just from Paul; Jesus said so when He declared τετέλεσται (teh-TEH-less-tie), “It is [now and forever completely] finished!”
Which BTW is why ancient Christains wrote τετέλεσται as “♱ε♱έλεσ♱αι” with each tau as a cross – the Cross was and is the victory.
The Bible disagrees with you on that claim.
Christian truth is not binary.
Richard
Adding to the text again I see.
Stop the lie – you know by now that I reject interpreting the scripture by science, whether it’s done by you and your YEC or by anyone else.
False dichotomy.
sorry about the late reply, but redundancy got in the way.
I did not talk about self awareness but about the way that will/information moves matter/energy. Sentience in its most basic basic form is response to stimuli via sensory perception and does not necessarily imply a central nervous system, the processing of pain, let alone consciousness. our moral perception of sentience is more related to our perception of something responding like perceiving pain.
sorry, redundancy got in the way.
there is a difference between defining life at the level of an organism compared to a species.
The core question is that if life did not exist prior to its creation by God, god can not be living as he created the state of living, so it would declare that God to be dead, With the purpose of evolution to be the propagation of life it would mean that the process ensures replication of objects / organisms capable of propagating life.
As @T_aquaticus noticed, infertility does not render an individual dead, so life does not seize with the inability to reproduce, and if I were to render botulinum to become non culturable it would still kill you via accumulation of toxin in the food product as it is still alive. Below is the classification of bacterial viability indicating that with the cells albeit still intact will fail to reproduce, because they have “the snip” or in many cases kill themselves by fast oxidative metabolism…
In most cases we cant grow the bacteria because of the complex growth requirements, sometimes only growing is symbiotic relationships or dependent on others to condition the medium for example by reducing the pO2 and limit metabolism
- Where did the apostle peter claim to get his revelation from?
- Was Christ an eyewitness to creation (the answer is in the 1 john 1)
- Do bible concordances link 2 leter 2:5 and Mathew 24: 37-39 with moses flood account in genesis 6 and 7?
Well lets take a look at the order of events…
- Women borught to him who has been caught in adultery
- Demand that Christ judge her according to the law
- Christ begins writing in the dirt with his finger
- As he wrutes, the accursers begin to leave until Christ and the women are left…
Do you think Christ was drawing meaningless random squiggles in the dirt?
What does your scientific brain tell you he was likely writing that caused the accusers to leave?
He wasnt drawing pornography was he amigo…because if he was, they have likely grabbed Christ and attempted to stone him as well!
The scene was set by the statement she broke the law and comitted adultery. That is why its believed he was writing the sins of the acusers in the dirt…it could be he went so far as to also write the names of those among the acusers who she had slept with!
We determine that by cross referencing via other bible writings…its the most likely thing Christ was writing in the sand given the circumstances and history of the law.and the old testament tabernacle services regarding this particular event presented to Christ.
Under the Old testament sanctuary model, unconfessed sin could not be forgiven…hence the accusers before Christ and the women melted away knowing that they held hidden sins that had not been confessed, therefore not fogiven…they new the problem there according to their religous customs and immediatly began to leave.
oh btw…we don’t find the trinity in the bible either…so clearly that vast majority of Christianity has added that to the text right!
the point is that if God possesses the property of being what is life as the ability of manipulating material/energy by his will it would make him the eternal life everyone talks about and the core of the “mind body problem”
A predominantly Christian society?
The US population is 340.2 million as of 2024
I will bet that the total number of individuals who actually attend church is no where near 153.09 million!(45%)
There is a huge chasim between identifying as and actually practising. The Bible is quite explicit on that notion. A lot of gangsters identify as God fearing, how many actually demonstrate the fruits of the spirit?
Of those left that do, how many follow islam, bahai, hinduism…?
Im thinking about Arahams statistical straw plucking with God over the fate of Sodom and Gomorah now!
We probably don’t have enough common ground to understand what the other means let alone reach agreement. But I don’t think of God as having ‘properties’ since I don’t think of God as being separate from anything else. What matters is how God manifests in us and what we can do for one another. It isn’t an even playing field, we certainly gain much more but what we do matters to God too.
My lowly scientific mind tells me that we do not know what Jesus was writing in the dirt.
We have often great hopes to know what happened in this kind of situations, and a mind that can speculate about the various possibilities. Speculations are speculations, not facts or truths. Any claims about what Jesus wrote in the dirt are speculation, interesting possibilities but not trustworthy information.
1 Like
i think we can be about as certain as a court is when convicting a criminal on circumstancial evidence…that can be pretty compelling.
As i said, given the following facts:
- The Old Testament sanctuary model REQUIRED sins to be confessed otherwise tuere was no forgiveness
- The acusers broguht the women to Christ claiming that under the law she must be stoned to death
- All jews knew the law 100% they did.
- As Christ bent down and began writing in the sand, the acusers began to melt away.
I think its fairly obvious what ue was writing…clesrly it caused discomfort even embarrassment in each of these acusers such that they did not continue with the accusation and certainly were no longer interested in seeking for her to be judged under the law…what was it Christ also said…“he who is without sin cast the first stone”.
I think the case is easily proven on the weight of evidence there. It doesnt matter whether or not we know the exact words, but tue gist of it is very very compelling and in favour of their sins.
Ouch
That really is going beyond the text.
The traditional, and probably accurate, undesanding is that no one dared to claim to be sinless. it is clearly the intended understanding. To claim Christ somehow influenced thosw people is unecessary at best and claiming deviuos cohersion at worse.
If i know God at all, I would claim that He does not coerse. He asks, and we have the right to refuse. Which is why I tend to frown at people threatening others with Hell. That is not the God i know, so if you get that from Scripture you must be reading it wrong. (But maybe we should not go there on this thread)
Richard
The speculation could be true but it is not proven to be true - there is still reasonable doubt.
In court, a defendant should not be convicted on suspicion or speculation. It is not even enough to show that someone is probably guilty. As long as there is reasonable doubt, the case remains open and the defendant should not be convicted.
1 Like
I think there is a great danger in legalism, even if you are changing the rules .
The Bible is not a proof. It is not legal evidence. It is a book of faith and needs to be read with that in mind.
Richard
Reasonable.doubt?
the accusers withdrew their case…do you suppose they just got hungry and left because it was lunchtime? I doubt it…there is more than enough evidence there and to be honest i think this is why so many comentators say he wrote their sins in the dirt…whether sins, grubby secrets…it was enough to have them silently move away without Christ seemingly noticing (because when he got up he asks the women…“where are your accusers”?)