Ok found some time to answer some things. Ugh this is too long :O
I hope you can find the time to read it, lol.
| Vinco, the church was not upset just because Jesus is not seen as a divine being, but because the church had documents eluding to that, yet decided to hide their documents at any cost. That's how I took it, they wouldn't have been as upset if it was just a jewish movie, but it shows that the church had the knowledge of that, and chose to hide it. |
This sort of statement is why so many Christians are up in arms over the Da Vinci Code. All it takes is for someone to allege anything in a movie, claim to have proof of it without verifying that proof and people will buy into it without question. Keep in mind, the documents the Da Vinci Code puts forth as evidence that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are false testimony, are hundreds of years more recently written than the gospels themselves were.
The early church rejected these new "gospels" because they came from the revisionist Gnostics that sought to radically change the message of Jesus. Jews and Christians alike in those days had no use for the Gnostic movement because the Gnostics were irrational people that desired to change who the real God was. They were taking historical records and altering them to suit their own ends. They wanted to take the Judeo/Christian foundation and turn it into a Stoic/Epicurean abomination.
| I don't accept the argument of religion using the word "faith." It's not practical in any debate on any other subject, why does religion get a special case? You can't go into a court of law, proclaiming that your subject is not guilty just because you choose to believe it. Just because you have faith that he has done nothing wrong does not prove that he has done nothing wrong, just as believing in a higher power does not prove that it exists. |
Well I would be more than willing to argue the facts and scientific evidence of creation over evolution with you. We don't have to include faith in it. But this is not a subject that can be debated in a court of law. This is greater than any court. This is a debate about the origin of man and why we are here. In the end, it does not matter how many facts I provide, still many people will reject anything I say and still cling to their belief system of "I really don't know for certain."
| There is a lot of proof that goes against religion, but the only "proof" that religion has is "faith." Explain how any life before human life can be explained through the bible if the bible is taken to be complete truth? If you say that the bible cannot be taken as complete truth, why do you get to pick and choose the parts that are true? |
You are probably referring to dinosaurs here. Creationist Christians and Jews reject the premise that the world is million/billions of years old or whatever the popular talking points of the culture are of the day. We believe the world began exactly as the book of Genesis described it. We believe that in the Garden of Eden, existed all "kinds" of living creatures. The land animals existed one day before man, the water based animals and birds, two days before man, the concept of day/night three days before man, and the plants four days before man.
There is no actual proof or evidence that dinosaurs existed millions or billions of years before man or that there is any history of life spanning that sort of timescale. Archaeologists use carbon dating and other dating methods to date fossils, yet fail to mention that the basis of those dating methods is assumptions that are far from consistent. We date things that we know for a fact are 50 years old, yet the dating result says it's 125,000 years old. Any number of external factors can contribute to the assumption of a wholly consistent carbon decay rate turning out to be as inconsistent as a girlfriend's attitude. >
Also, in school we're given the impression that fossils form over a period of millions of years, yet that is provable to be false. If a fish dies, does it sink to the bottom of the ocean and slowly become a fossil? No, it floats to the top and the insects and bacteria eat it up. Would it be realistic for the fossils that show fish eating other fish to have formed over millions of years? No. When wild animals die, do their bones become fossils? Not really, they just bleach and crumble.
The fossils we see around the world are not the result of millions of years of "hardening," because we've never observed a fossil forming in the ways you would describe. The only time we can see fossils form is when there is a massive and rapid burial of the living creature, compressing it quickly, causing the actual skeleton or actual creature to become petrified. So how could this have happened to so many creature around the world, such that every year we find more in the ground? I say the Old Testament has the answer. The Great Flood.
| Ignoring the facts about evolution is not the same as ignoring the complete lack of facts in the bible. There have been things proven false from the bible, but the religious scholars provide the same response time and time again, that the scribes exaggerated the stories in the bible, or used their own creativity. |
Well, let's get specific here. What facts about evolution are you citing? What lack of facts in the Bible are you citing? What things have been proven false in the Bible? Which stories are religious scholars saying are exaggerated and which scholars are actually making that case? I really can't answer these points without knowing where you're coming from.
| The problem with this argument is you have someone so blinded by faith that they won't listen to facts, and someone that has studied the facts and fictions that won't be persuaded on something called "faith" in a higher power. |
Well I don't consider myself blinded by faith, because I did not always think this way. I used to be an evolutionist with a little Christian leaning. My mind was eventually changed by this website:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.aspIt does not teach you what to think about the world, it's shows you how to think about the world, by being thorough, meticulous, and checking the facts that you base your opinions on. It does come at it from a Christian perspective, but it also lays out Judeo/Christian creationist beliefs in a straight-forward and logical way.
| I still don't understand why people choose to believe that their life on earth is just a test. How can you live an enjoyable life if you truly believe you're just living a test? |
Well I can tell you that Christians and Jews do not believe life is just a test. We are here to come to know God, but because we rejected Him, we now also need to come to terms with our sin, and atone for it. Christians believe that through faith in the savior Jesus we are forgiven for our sins. By asking for forgiveness and knowing we are saved because of Jesus' sacrifice, we are saved.
Similarly, Jews believe we atone for our sins by following the Law of Moses. Many Christians accuse Jews of saying you have to *earn* your way into Heaven, but I do not see it that way, because the Law of Moses was given to Moses by God Himself, and God is eternal and absolute and His character does not change.
As it was intended in the days of Moses, following the Law did not earn you forgiveness from God for your sins. It meant that you were asking for forgiveness and showed interest in following the Law set forth by God Himself and were willing to make personal sacrifice to the Lord to atone. God looked with favor upon those who followed His Law, not to appease God, but to show God that they do love Him despite their unfortunate rebellion.
In the end, both belief systems say God is granting forgiveness by His Grace, not by our worthiness.
----
Kylera - 60 Discipline Priest - Good Twin
Kyriel - 60 Shadow Priest - Evil Twin
300 Alchemy, 300 Herbalism, 300 Tailoring, 300 Facemelting
