You’ve been on these boards for quite some time. And yet your recent writings are more like someone who has just arrived. Is there something in particular that you would like your readers to learn from you? Or is there something in particular that you are hoping to learn from participants here?
It is indeed likely that we will not agree on life on the planet. But I’m rather curious about your phrasing in the first sentence.
- Are you stating that you would agree with me on the age of the planet?
- Why do you use the term “your science”?
It is certainly not my science. Science is accumulated evidence collected by the work of hundreds of thousands of individuals currently and throughout history. There is not a separate science for every individual that is open to interpretation however one sees fit.
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There could be an infinite number of ways to put an organism together. For example, why do our arms have one bone, then two bones, then a bunch of small bones, and then 5 phalanges? Why not 4 bones, then 1 bone, then two big bones, and then 7 fingers? Why use the same pattern as that found in all other tetrapods?
Also, why do chimps look so much like we do? How do you explain that?
That’s not what you say in other posts. You say just the opposite:
“God is spirit, yet like the angels (who too are spirit), he has a form. We, physically, are in that likeness.:”
So why would God have mammary glands? Why would God have an inverted retina? These are very strange claims.
I am still wondering how you explain the features we share with other species. Why do we share 95+% of our DNA with chimps? Why do we have the same bone structure and organs as other mammals and other tetrapods?
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@still_learning, while you are ‘still learning’ I hope you have found your calling in the teaching profession. So many of the ideas that I have previously posted you have phrased in much more convincing fashion than I did. I just hope that the writers of the next edition of the Catholic Catechism will ‘plagiarize’ the wording of some of the ideas you have expressed.
This is an extremely important question: Does God want us to die for our faith or live for it? Who should we (including Muslims) admire most: a suicide bomber who kills dozens of ‘infidels’ for the glory of Allah, or the medical technician who loses his/her life trying to vaccinate Pakistani children so they don’t get polio? I am not surprised that God did not spell out his will so completely in Scripture that anyone with common sense would know it completely. I believe that God intends humankind to keep ‘advancing’ for the nest 1,000 yrs. But as far as knowing His Will, we will be ‘still learning’.
Al Leo
Most Muslims believe that suicide is sinful. There are verses in the Qur’an that prohibit suicide. Just because some twisted Muslims do suicide bombings, it shouldn’t be considered part of the Islamic Faith. Not any more than the atrocious behavior of the [Westboro Baptist Church] (http://godhatesfags.com/) is part of the Christian faith. All faiths have their extremists.
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Do you really think it is so easy for God to be blasphemed to the point he will destroy you? There was once an Arab soccer team that got all twisted out of shape because the symbol of their faith, the Crescent, was applied to their soccer ball … and it caused quite a turmoil because they objected to people kicking the sacred image of their faith…
Do you think God cares about such matters? Do you think God is worried about you getting the process right for how he attaches his image to humanity?
Hi brother,
It’s not clear who this comment is directed at, since you didn’t use the reply feature, but since you reference post #98, I’ll assume I’m the intended recipient.
I don’t see where I expressed “concern for you.” I’m not particularly concerned with people who have a difference of opinion with me. (Otherwise the load of concern that I would be carrying around all day would be great indeed! Far better for me just to live and let live.) I merely expressed that you failed to convince me. This failure to convince me may concern you, but it doesn’t concern me.
If anything, my concern is perhaps that my tone may have somehow been needlessly inflammatory. You seem worked up in this reply, which was not my intent. I should probably back away from the confrontation — it really gains nothing. You needn’t get worked up on my behalf. I’m quite confident that I’m not in “peril” for my belief that the God of the universe is far too transcendent to have a physically human form. If I were in peril, then God would surely have smitten most of the early Church fathers that I cited above. No, I have many other things the Lord is working through with me that would be more likely sources of peril to me than a belief that I share in common with most of the Church.
This whole “intermediate steps” thing is really puzzling to me, I’ll admit. Can you tell me where I suggested something so odd? I mean, if you care to continue the conversation, which I’m happy to drop.
Deem away, my brother! You wouldn’t be the first or the last to consider me a heretic (though most are too polite to tell me to my face). I’m okay with that… it’s part of this messy thing we call Christian life in community, particularly of the American Protestant persuasion.
I’m sorry if it bothers you, but I do continue to maintain (my personal opinion) that it’s actually idolatrous to imagine the transcendent God as having a human form. And I believe that the verses you have cited work just as easily for me as for you. We are not image-bearers because of our physical form. In conclusion, as I said (as an olive branch to you!): We evolutionary creationists have plenty of issues to work through—I’ve spent most of my adult life so far slowly cranking through them—but this is not remotely one of them. You can write me off if you like, but please don’t lose sleep over my damnation. I’m confident of my adoption into God’s family, and we’ll work this all out for good when we see him “face” to face.
Have a peaceful evening —
AMW
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Thanks for the kind words sir. I think for now, I’ll keep to flying the friendly skies. Unless or until God calls me into the teaching field as I am not a great speaker, but am slightly better with typing and editing as a much slower process. Though I am aware that Moses wasn’t the most confident speaker either before being called by God, so I don’t rule out anything with God.
Feel free to always plagiarize anything I say. I don’t need or deserve any credit, give God the glory if He was able to speak to you through my words. Any thought (that is worth anything) that I have comes from God.
Your “original gift” idea is he first time I have heard that idea and that interested me, but I didn’t quite adopt it yet (I don’t even think I believe in evolution at the time). But it wasn’t until hearing from many lectures from N.T Wright explaining the scriptures so well that this idea and evolution made such overwhelming sense with so many other biblical passages and things I struggled to explain or understand.
Even using this logic doesn’t rule out evolution.
If a human son is in the physical image of a human father…at what age does he Son take up this image? Surely Seth was not poofed as an adult in the physical likeness of Adam? What about as a fetus? Or a 3year old? What about as a zygote? With no arms or legs…Seth was still in the image of Adam right?
So could not a single cell billion years ago that eventually became a human or a monkey that will become a human still fit humans being physically in His likeness?
Of course that cell didn’t “turn” into a human nor did a money. Rather it was an earlier stage of the human species developmental process, brought about through evolution, like a zygote is an earlier stage of the birthing process brought about through gestation.
Both have a process with an end state, like a painting or a snowman that has an intermediary step that resembles very little of the final product, but had the final product in mind before the first step began.
I am not sure if biologos aligns with this theory or not or if they think Homo sapiens just had the mental capacity ideal, so God bestowed image bearing status to them, but evolution was random and did not have an end state in mind.
I am not sure which I believe yet, nor am I convinced that we share God’s physical form or not. As being made in His spiritual image is also a logical interpretation supported by many verses as well.
I’m just presenting how evolution can be in line with the beliefs of a being created in His physical image too.
Though if we have a the same physical form as God, how would you explain Col 1:15? “The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation?”
Or Heb 1:3”The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. ”
Why have a form if your form if invisible? And Jesus existed before humans. Jesus was the image of God. We saw Jesus’ perfect spirit, and the perfect image bearer. We also saw Jesus took the physical form of human. But who is to say that Jesus wouldn’t have taken a different physical form if we were different?
I lean more towards image being spiritual, but I’m not adamant on either side.
But an analogy I like to use, is that God is light, and Jesus is a prism, that allows us to see all the facets of God’s glory. Like Heb 1:3 speaks of.
The significance of if we look like His physical form (which might be true), that is pale in comparison to our spirits being in His image. A paraplegic (born without limbs) is fully spiritually capable of still being in His image I think.
I agree with you. Faith is trusting in God, which means loving God and loving others. Love and faith are having a trusting relationship with God, even when you are not sure you are right. Selfishness and fear are sin and death, because they result in separation from God, just as they did in the Garden of Eden.
People who are trying to serving honor God and love others, but don’t always succeed are in a much better relationship with God than people who are sure they know what is right.
Jesus tells three parables about judgement in Matthew 25. A. Ten Bridesmaids telling us to be Ready and not be weary of doing right. B. The Talents telling us what it is important is not so much the gifts that we have, but how we use them to serve . C. The Judgment of the Nations telling us that when we help the least of the brothers and sisters of Jesus you do it to Him.
Jesus tells us that we need to be in right relationship to Him and to others with the understanding that we will often fail, but to be humble enough to keep on trying. We are not to judge others by looking down at them, but to remember we are all brothers and sisters living in this world together.