Jorge S

What a great idea, Angelkade21! We often concentrate so much in debating that we forget how important it is to remember and testify what the Lord has done in our lives. Now a couple of miracles from my walk with God. 1- Upon coming back from an overseas vacation a female friend contracted Dengue Fever (also known as Breakbone fever.) She spent around three days in bed, not eating, unable to walk, having high fever, palpitations, etc. No relatives around and boyfriend thousands kilometers away. Some neighbours had prepared food for her several times but she couldn't eat. She phoned me on a Friday and I took a 160km night drive to visit her. What I found was really an appalling sight. She appeared debilitated, lost significant weight, was pale, couldn't talk without struggling for air, and didn't have strength to walk. I was consternated. Something inside of me urged me to pray and lay my hands on her, which I did. I then went to the kitchen, prepared a hot soup and forced her to eat some. She fell asleep and I took my place next to her bed just in case she needed me. Saturday morning, as I prepared to go for groceries on her behalf, she stood up and walked off her room! When I came back 3 hour later she was almost her normal self, save the weight loss. She then told me having felt a wam sensation growing up in her chest and spreading all over her body as I was praying and laying my hands on her the previous night. Praise Our Lord! 2- While on call at a rural hospital one Sunday, I received the urgent call from a nurse in the delivery room. A baby was born with asphyxia and she couldn't resuscitate him after 20 minutes or so. Now that was bad news. There was very little hope to bring him back and, even if that was possible, permanent brain damage was a certain sequel to fear. As I entered the room, the sensation of a cold, dark, heavy air greeted me at the door (the air conditioner was off). The mother was recuperating in the delivery bed and right on the opposite wall the nurse stood in frustration with the lame body of the newborn over the infant resuscitation trolley. The only sign of life was a faint, slow heart rate very difficult to hear. I felt compelled to start resuscitative efforts again and prayed in my mind while undertaking them. I know that I did everything I was supposed to do from the technical point of view, but there was 'something else' with me, taking over part of my consciousness and automating my physical actions. After 45 minutes, the child was alive. I did not see him again after that ordeal and often asked myself what finally happened to him. Did he die few days later? Did he develop brain damage? To my amazement, he came for consultation after few months not only alive but also without a hint of developmental problems. Praise Our Gracious Lord! The interesting part of the story is that by then I was only a convert!!!

Hi, Sylvan3 I don

The absolute nature of truth is not denied in this example. The truth continues to be that there was no elephant at all. The person had a perceptual disorder and what he saw is not validated by a fact. Individual faith is not proof of the truth. Any person is entitled to -and in fact does- have a belief. Faith is validated by its object not by the person holding the belief. The problem with this argument is that it implies a conditional determinism upon the source of the evidence. It demands a specific factual proof to the detriment of what is available for examination, and it might even be a reiteration of something that has already been done and is well attested for. When applied to an Intelligent, Sovereign, Willful and Purposeful Being it fares even worst because it considers Him mechanistically. God does not make miracles 'on demand.' (See for example, the passage of Satan's temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, or His reply to those Who demanded of Him a 'sign' that He was indeed the Son of God.) The Bible records many miracles. They all have the common trait of sovereign acts God has performed out of His Own Will. I can have expectations when asking something in prayer but I cannot pretend to force Him to do what I would do. He is God, after all, not me. He has actually surprised me many times by answering in unexpected ways but always perfectly adjusted to my needs, according to His timing and with an amazing economy of resources. We can actually set ourselves out to glance an ant three miles away while blinding our eyes to the elephant standing a feet beside us. Hope this helps.

The only argumentative flaw is to disregard the Bible because one does not agree with what it says. In my passage you quoted I'm simply stating that God is the best guide into His Word. And I'm also saying that the Bible is a completed revelation, never intended to change or being annulled or contradicted by external evidence or human testimony. It is the Word of an eternal God with the attributes and qualities you already mentioned in an earlier post. He did use human writers but He decided what was to be written and who was to write it. You need to have a relationship with God in order to grasp a fuller meaning of the Bible. This requirement not only changes your state of mind when approaching the text but also allows God to lead you into understanding. I

Hi, Sylvan3 I experienced something similar to what you are saying before my conversion; I used the same arguments and some more; but I never found a answer until it happened to myself. What I have realized in retrospect is that God's calling was always on me. Everything in my life was conducted with a purposefulness far beyond any rational explanation. I was being brought to non-random situations, people and books, each one telling me something. I was searching for answers in all places imaginable and deep down I sensed where to find them but resisted to make the commitment. One of the things that really infuriated me by then was talking to Christians of all 'types and categories': the ones who were not able to verbalize their faith and repeated the same 'biblical slogans' like a lethany, the ones who avoided confrontation with a sorry 'sheepish' smile, the judgemental types who assured me of inescapable hell for my blasphemies, or the supermen/women with that overbearing self-assurance. But the problem was not them; they were all testifying of Jesus, each with his/her own individual uniqueness but all collectively serving the same Lord. The problem was me. I was supposed to be one of them but I did not want to. I wasn't really opposing them, I was instead fighting Jesus. There was a spiritual war inside of me demanding a solution. Jesus finally won because I allowed Him to. I thereafter discovered how misled and prejudiced I was about God and Christianity. One can actually be very ignorant about spiritual matters despite high education level, access to information, comfortable socio-economic status or whatever our secular view can impute on people who appear well equipped to understand. God, Jesus said, is Spirit and is Thruth. We have to find Him and worship Him in spirit and in truth. He does not need to 'prove' Himself everytime we want Him to. The whole universe, the course of history and our own very lives are His evidence. The Bible -which has never been historically, empirically or philosophically disproven- records His specific revelation to mankind. Christians testify about Him because He acts in our lives according to the promises He gave in the Bible. The truth is always absolute and works the same for everyone. What changes is our perception about the truth. Of all possible gods we as humans have dealt with, only the God of the Bible proves to have an existence that is external to our senses and fabrications, consistently conforms to the Character and Attributes He has revealed about Himself, and carries to the end what He has announced since the beginning. Still puzzled? Don't be. Perhaps you need to realize, faster than I did, that you are also supposed to be one of us. Blessings.

Hi, Secondeve, Every person has a unique conversion story and that to me was a positive sign. Christ suits everybody, everywere, anytime. It doesn't matter whether you are illiterate or a scientist, rich or poor, man or woman, powerful or powerless, we are humbled by Him and live through Him. His theology was simple and He supported it with the life He lived and the death He accepted. He owned nothing on earth, He spoke with clarity and authority, He performed miracles, He endured torments He did not deserve. But He rose form the dead and gave us the kind of hope that only God could give. In exchange for His physical Pressence He sent us the Holy Sprit to abide with all who believe in Him. All of that understanding came later. I was raised as an atheist with the philosophic backbone of dialectic materialism. Only the here and now mattered. There was no other life after this one and both the natural and social dynamics of history were easily explainable by the tenets of evolution. God was man's self-invented excuse for his intrinsic weakness, fear and ignorance. Religion was like opium for people's minds. Life inequalities were the result of people's greed, particular that of the brutal imperialist capitalism. Mankind could do better if we'd just choose to share and distribute wealth, knowledge and technology. We were to create a better mankind through education, science and social justice. Political willingness was the only requirement to effect that change. Everything seemed clear and rational until... real life woke me up! A string of events inside and around me brought my previous worldview to a point of critical questionning. It wasn't believable anymore because it did not suffice to explain many basic questions coming to my mind in an avalanche. I even discovered there was indeed a spiritual world I was not aware of. I started searching, asking, reading, witnessing. I had read the Bible before for cultural and critical purposes. Now I read it again. I could understand the need for God but the necessity for Jesus escaped my understanding. Why did it have to be through Him only? A close friend became a Christian and started to talk to me about God and Jesus. I wrestled and rebelled and coiled within rationalistic and humanistic arguments. The more questions I tried to answer outside the Bible the more unanswered questions returned. It was madness. You see, I was searching for 'the truth' and not just any but the 'ultimate truth.' I was a man of faith without a central object for it, therefore I wanted to rationalize whatever I was supposed to commit to. The exhaustion of wandering in vain through philosophy, occultism, history of religions, etc. for 8 years brought me down on my knees. I prayed God, whoever He was, to give me a clear path by which He wanted me to worship and serve Him. I couldn't find Him on my own so I asked Him to reveal Himself to me. As a sign that He heard my prayer and would answer I asked for three signs. Three weeks after that I got my first answer. A Christian sister was praying for another person and suddenly the Spirit of the Lord took me. Wow! THAT was something. And not only that, I spent about a week under the influence of the Spirit. It was a constant praising, a profound happiness, a perfect peace, a sudden realization of who I was and what was my mission in life, no more confussion or doubt, only the certainty that from that moment on my quest was over, I could even die right then with a sense of accomplishment. I was adopted into God's Family and nothing else mattered. I devoured the Bible in few days, it made sense now like never before. I was talking to God in my spirit all the time. A number of miraculous events occurred in response to my prayers (particularly in the area of illness healing) and the physical sensation I experienced the first time recurred everytime I was involved in prayers with Christians or alone. I received confirmation after confirmation. One of the most striking occurred when I visited a friend who is an 'advanced' medium. She wanted me to become a medium also and has practised spiritism for most of her life. She often 'prophecised' things to me which really occurred as predicted. I wanted to share with her my newly discovered faith and, eventually, lead her to receive Christ. Upon my arguing with her about Jesus and quoting the Bible, she felt something 'great and powerful' around me which prevented her from connecting with her guiding spirits. I was truly amazed! My remaining initial petitions to God were answered in the span of 4 months. The rest is history. Praise the Lord! I continued studying the Bible, some Christian literature came my way (particularly the apologetic books written by Josh McDowell), I accepted Jesus as My Lord and Saviour, and was baptized into the Body of Christ 3 years after my conversion. Becoming a Christian has been the best decision I have ever made. Nothing in my life compares to that. And I feel the urge to minister to atheists like you because I was there. The purpose of this long testimony is to simply tell you: If I could... you CAN! You will not regret it. Blessings.

Hi, Constant You must definitely go for appropriate diagnosis and treatment. The Bipolar Disorder classifies within the Mood Disorders and there has been progress in assessing it and treating it. Although many mental conditions do not have well structured pathogenesis, alterations in mood and affect are modernly considered biochemical imbalances inside the brain which fare well on Mood Stabilizers. Part of your assessment will obviously include imaging studies in search for organic pathology of the brain. I suggest you don't label yourself a Bipolar until a professional team study your condition. My prayers will be with you. Be blessed.

Hi, Arjuous The root of your problem lies in that statement. I also became a Christian from more or less the same grounding, i.e. a self-imposed presupposition. I'm glad you honestly stated that your decision is based on a personal assumption. You have decided what God you would believe in and the One depicted in the Bible does not match your expectations. If you meditate upon the relationships you have been engaged into during your adult life you may clearly see that assumptions did not do to them any good or were not implicated at all. You needed to know every particular person for who they were and what you objectively knew about them had probably nothing to do with the sketches you assumed. Same happens with God. You need to know Him for Who He is rather than expecting Him to become what you think He should be. Christians have resolved to believe in the biblical God because we have opened ourselves to Him and allowed Him to speak to us, not otherwise. The contradictions you have quoted purport to be logical but they are based on illogical argumentation and/or methodology, e.g.: 1- They are taken out of context, therefore they are forced to say what the critic wants and not what God may have intended. 2- They ignore the historic character of God's Revelation. Certain passages suit an epoch or a situation and cannot be taken absolutely. 3- They are oblivious to the fact that a Supreme Being (with all attributes and qualities with would intellectually ascribe to such a Being) chose to make himself knowable in common language accessible to the majority of people anytime and everywhere. The terms, stories, parables or allegories used in different passages are there to convey an understandable truth and should not be treated mechanistically. 4- The Bible is a very special book written over a long span of time by different people from different backgrounds in different places. The unity of the Book is given by Its Ultimate Author (God) and Its Main Subject (Our Salvation.) The Bible is naturally cross-referenced: it contains its own answers. The level at which you understand The Bible depends on your own level of spiritual progress triggered and sustained by God Himself. 5- Due to reasons 2, 3 and 4, the Bible is more than a list of 'articles' of faith or 'philosophic' concepts to learn by heart, as many critics would like it to be. The Bible is essentially a record of God's historic dealings with Mankind whereby the bases for our faith are seen in operation along time. Needless to say they have endured the test of time. Would you allow God to speak directly to you? I can offer my prayers in this regard. Be blessed.

1- Not at all. A Christian armed with the Word and Spirit of God as well as an adequate level of historic information will easily identify the lies and fabrications Mr. Brown has included in his books as self-reputed researched 'facts.' 2- Not really. Perhaps reading about Leonardo Da Vinci's art or history books will be more useful. Dan Brown can definitely write novels, there's no question about it. Now, has he brought anything unique? I don't think so. He is provocative and chooses controversial subjects but it is more comercial that genuinely literary. He heavily owes a master like Robert Lundlum regarding style and construction in the contemporary thriller genre. If you want thrilling suspense, sound erudition and impeccable technique in religious fiction you should try the modern classic 'The Name of The Rose' by Umberto Eco, which has been also taken to the big screen. For a Christian a good read of the Bible is mandatory with regards to the real testimony of the Gospels; and I think that their simple solemnity, majestic morality and historic accuracy are unsurpassed. O, girl! I still get a knot down my throat in passages like the Mount Sermon and the Crucifixion after having read them so many times! 3- Not beyond what has already been doubted for centuries and not precisely at popular level but in scholastic theologic, phylosophic and scientific circles. The good thing is that many readers/viewers will be stimulated to go into the sources -i.e. the Gospels- to form their own opinion independently.

If you mean theologic or literary background I have none. English is not even my first language and I beg your pardon for any impropriety. I'm just a sinner who acknowledges day after day that Jesus is the best reason to live by. The rest of your post deals, I think, with issues like 'The Person of God', the 'Credibility of Miracles' and the 'Power of Forgiveness.' Emeraldgirl wanted her thread to be about 'Atonement' and perhaps we should not divert into other areas, even when they are obviously related. Nevertheless, your points are recurrent interrogations from Atheism and have probably been discussed before. We'll meet in another thread. Cheers.

I agree with EricH. Secondeve, You cannot judge God for who He is not. And you cannot hyperbolize His Love at the expense of all His Attributes; just as you usually don't do it with any other person. Once you stretch a character trait beyond the limits of a particular person you start misrepresenting who that person really is. You see God's Love as an ideal and not as a concrete attribute. An ideal is something desirable but not possessed, therefore, in your line of reasoning, God must still learn about love. God's Love flows richly through Salvation. Try to see it from the opposing argument: Is God's Unconditional Love Negated By Conditional Punishment? Have a great day.

Sylvan3 and Secondeve, I still owe myself a thorough examination of the doctrine of free will arising from the Bible; therefore, my answer to your propositions may be incomplete at this point in time. What I can say now is that there are three possible -logical- conclusions to be drawn from your reasoning: (1) the anthropomorphization of God (like the rock song says 'what if God was one of us?') (2) the deification of man (we're gods ourselves) or (3) a major God's deception (i.e. God does not make sense and He's just playing chess against Himself with the universe and mankind as chessboard and pieces.) All of them are opposed to reason, the history of mankind and biblical teaching. One thing is certain: God is the only Eternal, Uncreated, Perfect Being there is. He made a finite world and its creatures out of nothing and not out of His Own Nature. We cannot become Him. I'm not in a position to question why He made us if He knew what would happen to us. He is Sovereign and can do whatever He pleases according to His Own Standards. I only know that we are here, the world is what it is and He has said every pertinent thing about why the situation is like it is and how He is going to solve it. God said He made us 'in His Image and after His likeness.' Out of respect for Himself He gave us free will. There cannot be free will without choices upon which it can be exercised. He did not impose a specific choice; He laid out the choices and the consequences thereof. Man could obey or rebel. Adam chose to rebel and his relationship with God became impaired. Genesis tells us, though, that Adam was not the first rebel, Satan was. Our current state is the historic progressive consequence of the sin conflict. God has nevertheless availed in Jesus Christ the means to escape from the vicious circle of sin. We can still make a choice and we are in a better position than Adam was because we have witnessed the results of disobeying God's Word. The hypothetical scenario you and me wish we had in the past will be a reality in future, e.g. a perfect and holy dispensation where sin is not longer possible, God walks again amidst His people and we can see Him face to face. All who walk and die in the Lord are given their citizenship rights into the next world. That's the God's given promise by which History makes sense. Blessings.

Sylvan, I hear ya. For myself personally, I believe the choice for God is more to do good in this world. Like, I wouldn't have "chosen" to marry my husband and love him if he held a fire to my hair and said, "If you don't choose to love me, I'll burn you." Even if I consented to marry him to avoid being burned, I wouldn't love him. I could only love him by it being a totally free choice. But now that I am in a relationship with him, I also choose to do good toward him, because it increases his happiness and our family peace. And, thankfully, he reciprocates. I do believe in an afterlife, but my basis for choosing God doesn't have much to do with the afterlife simply because I only know about this life. I also teach my children to choose God, but I never hang "hell" over their heads. I emphasize God for the good it tends to bring into people's hearts, not to avoid hell. My daughter has only the sketchist knowledge of hell, which she learned from church and/or friends and frankly, I'm glad. Beautiful words...it's encouraging to know there are people like you. God has established covenants. He obliges Himself to act in a certain way according to an arrangement. And He has always been the first not only in offering good things but also in propitiating means of restoring the relationship when we have faulted. He said of Himself to be 'slow in anger' as well as a 'consuming fire.' Which way He acts depends on us. Covenants are given in terms of blessings and curses in respect of behavioural stipulations. We are blessed when we obey and we are punished when we sin. The Bible is clear in speaking about both the blessings and the curses. Interestingly, punishment is conditional. God does not bring it when we repent. That is why warnings about punishment are always coupled with exhortations to repent. To say otherwise is to misrepresent the Word of God with an agenda. God bless.

Hi, Emeraldgirl I understand the subject is difficult to articulate. I suggest you read Romans and meditate upon it. In the meantime, bear with me. The capital sin is to disobey God and it leads to progressively worse wrong-doing, including killing of innocent people. God specifically said: 'and surely the blood of your lives will I require. At the hand of every animal will I require it, and at the hand of man. At the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, his blood shall be shed by man; for He made man in the image of God' Gen 9:5-6. See how Jesus judged Israel also on this basis: 'from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the temple. Truly I say to you, It shall be required of this generation.' Luk 11:51 Atonement is a way of restoring what has been lost due to punishable actions and implies repentance. It then avails God's promise of forgiveness. Unrepented sin brings judgement because it does not offer reparation for the fault. When the Covenant of Law was implemented the killing of people, both deliberate or unintentional, was accounted for as well as many other sins. The severity of the punishment or the value of the atonement depended on the magnitude of the fault. But the Law proved insufficient to regenerate mankind and pure Grace was given through Jesus. The Bible as a whole describes a journey that goes from perfection (Adam and Eve in Eden) to perfection (the new heavens and the new earth of Revelation.) The first perfection was lost due to the disobedience of one man and it led to progressive lawlessness (see how murder followed just in the second generation); the earth was cursed and likewise mankind in the person of its progenitor. The second perfection has been propitiated by One Man who chose to obey amidst rampant sinfulness and offered His innocent blood to atone for the sins of all. Jesus broke the vicious circle of sin that calls for God's Judgement. Jesus satisfied God's standards of holiness, justice, forgiveness, love and grace. Mankind can now be seen not in respect of Adam's weakness but in respect of Jesus' strength. Adam lived, sinned and died; Jesus died, conquered sin and lives. What lies historically between the two perfections is God's Call for repentance that has been ultimately made through Jesus. Hope this helps.

Which means that is not a problem about the evidence before us but how we interpret it. That was another of my points: a philosophic presupposition will influence the way we interpret the evidence in the face of the available knowledge. An atheist will deny the role of the divine inasmuch as a believer will see God. That's the type of claim which requires substantial support. I'll wait for your sources. It looks that self-replicating molecules possess some kind of intelligence that enable them to chose the phenotypical and behavioural traits that will make the offspring fit the environment better, yet there's no goal-directed intentionality in the process. Is that what are you trying to say? If the specific mechanism of Evolution is mutations+natural selection, what oddity do you expect to find in the fossil record if God guided the process? He would have altered the environment and decided which particular allele should be selected. The gaps would not be the evidence for God's influence because the evoutionary conception doesn't care much about them to function, isn't it? Have a nice day.

Thanks for your honesty. My point has always been that our scientific knowledge of the 'evidence' does not warrant an a priori rejection of the Genesis account about 'the beginning.' No guide, no purpose, but no randomness. What do you mean by that? What have you 'seen' in the fossil record that specifically denies God's influence? Cheers.

So, you are purely a Biologist with no philosophic presuppositions. I will then invite you to answer the following questions: 1- Where exactly did Evolution begin? I mean, which lifeforms did you inherit from either Creation or Abiogenesis for Evolution to work upon? 2- If Evolution is a fact, what makes you believe that God did not guide it (as Theistic Evolutionist propose)? Next questions depend on your answers. Cheers?

Hi Emeraldgirl That's a deep question and I'm not sure I can fit my answer to your analogy. I think there are several issues implied in the concept of atonement. One is that all God's attributes work harmoniously and perfectly at the same time. After Adam's sin, God could have annihilated him right away. In doing so He would have been just (punishing a fault He had already announced) but He would have lacked mercy, love, patience and loyalty to His own word (His previous blessings and command to multiply and fill the earth). In condoning Adam's guilt as if nothing had happened He would have been merciful, loving and patient but He would have lacked justice, authority and loyalty to His Own Word (the warning that Adam would die the day he ate from the prohibited tree.) Another aspect to consider is the covenantal equation. God cannot fault, man can. Sin breaks the covenant and becomes therefore punishable. Atonement is the mechanism God uses to restore us back into the covenant. He erases our faults and remains not only just and authoritative but also merciful and caring. Lastly, atonement brings judgement upon a third party not implied in your analogy: Satan. He is not subjected to the usual mechanisms of punishment man is because of his spiritual nature, but he is also a created being. Jesus' atonement for our sins leaves Satan without allegations against God for our sake. We stopped being accused and convicted by God's Law because His Grace saves us from the consequences of sin Satan wants us to dwell in. Hope this helps.

Hi, Brethren I agree with the general sense explained by the previous members. I see that passage as symbolic and prophetic of what Jesus' legacy would mean for the world: the overt conflict between good and evil typical of the end-times. His disciples and followers in general were to see this conflagration in every area of human relationships. Blessings.

Hi, Lepaca. Here we go again. Since most of your reply is an exquisitely gross [and expected] exercise of intellectual bias, I will address just a couple of things: Mind your own understanding. Have you ever really studied a scientific subject? Don't you know that Science is essentially accumulated knowledge over time? You start with a problem, study the evidence, formulate working hypotheses and test how they fit the evidence. New findings increase your chances of establishing a truer explanation for the particular problem and better technology improves your ability to characterize the evidence. A shattered glass will remain shattered but you'll fairly know how it was before and what broke it, with obvious practical implications. That is what Science is all about. Emotional misinterpretation of the evidence to fit a philosophical standpoint does not qualify as Science. The Theory of Evolution is one example of the ups and downs of our scientific wandering. It started off very cohesive and seemed to explain everything. That is why it became a mindset: if it worked for the origin of the species it could work well for everything else. New discoveries, however, have failed to validate it even in its own field. The latest trend is to concentrate only within the biological aspects of the changes without accounting for how exactly those lifeforms came to be. Which is pitifully tangential because the mechanisms that originated them are also implicated in sustaining them. The really laughable thing is to witness the shrinking and eventual collapse of what certain minds proposed as God's substitute. Have a great day.

First of all, my name is Jorge, not Sherlock. Second, it wasn't a boat but a 3-storey rectangular chest referred to as an Ark, designed not for sailing but to stay afloat. It had 300 cubits length, 50 cubits breadth and 30 cubits height. That gives a surface of around 12 square kilometers to host Noah's family, the animals and provisions. Marine animals did not enter the ark for the obvious reason that they could survive in their element. I don't know how much the Earth changed because I don't know how it was before. Extrapolating from the evidence of local floods occurring here and there in modern times one has to assume that the changes were significant. God not only brought rain upon the surface, He also brought floodwaters from beneath the surface and it all lasted forty days with their nights (Gen 7: 11-12.) Noah still stayed in the Ark for another 335 days; that's what it took for the waters to evaporate. God aided the process by making 'a wind to pass over the earth' (Gen 8:1) I cannot predict what else will be discovered in future about the geologic column. What I know is that Science is always discovering something and increasing our understanding of Nature. What makes you think that we possess absolute knowledge about everything right now, thus ruling out any further progress? Your exasperation makes me smile and doesn't add an ounce of truth to your claim. Your failure to know God doesn't rule out His Existence. Atheists hold dear the misconception that Christian faith is not objective because it is confined to 'a religious book' without external evidence to support it. To that I answer that our faith is historic, based on facts and centered in a God who created and rules a finite universe being uncreated and eternal Himself. You concentrate in the immediate causality of phenomena. We know and believe in the Ultimate Cause that God is. Sorry it was too dense an argument for you. Actually, you should be surprised at your own lack of information. Evolution is more than a naturalistic theory. It is a worldview on its own. Since its inception in the second half of the XIX century Evolution has permeated all areas of the intellectual output of man (Natural Sciences, History, Philosophy, Sociology, even Bible interpretation!) Its appeal is understandable. It is certainly more digestible to understand phenomena as spontaneous, self-fuelled, gradual changes from simplicity to complexity. Much tougher for the atheistic mind is to accept that the complexity and diversity of the world were created all at once and out of nothing by an all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal God. Have a nice day.

There aren't two accounts of Creation in Genesis. Chapter 1 gives the general framework; chapter 2 gives additional details on the events of days 3 and 6. There are accounts of a global Flood in mythologic records of different ancient cultures. They represent distorted elaborations of the historic event narrated in Genesis. The biblical account tells us that the highest elevations --Mt Ararat (5 165m high at present) is specifically mentionned-- were covered several cubits up. Modern Science denies the event absolutely or accept it as a local rather than global event on the grounds of lack of geologic evidence. The earth surface has proven to be dynamic and has not stayed the same since the Flood. The more we'll learn about it the more we'll be in a position to understand the evidence. That's not circular at all. Circular, in your sense, would be 'Creation happened because the Bible tells me so and The Bible tells me so because Creation happened.' What I'm doing, as posted in your statement, is referring to the source of the information, a God Who cannot lie and hasn't been proven wrong by the evidence of His Creation. That's pretty much what you do with Science: you have learnt from somebody's testimony in a particular field and refer to his/her authority as the basis for your claims. You might be surprised to know that nothing in the Evolutionary model has been proven. It is time you also know that the universe is not longer the predictable closed system once thought to be. Most of the appealing cohesive naturalistic theories from the XVII to XIX centuries have been brought to critical questionning, not because of religious fanaticism but due to further scientific progress. Evolution, in its widest sense (Big Bang> Abiogenesis> Natural Selection>Man), is part of them. There is absolutely no proof validating the feasibility of the model. It is all a matter of ... would... might... in theory ... chances are... seems logical to assume... could be... appears reasonable... etc. Why, then, holding on to it? Simple; because the alternative is Creation ... and ... not ... just... any, ... but ... Biblical Creation! Have a nice day.

Hi, CS Lewis. Do not allow yourself to be carried away by secularism. Theistic Evolution has only proven one thing to me: how far it can go in supporting a self-perpetuating paradigm that is opposed to a basic Bible teaching. As a Christian you commit the error of doubting and disregarding God's Word. As a Scientist you adopt the unscientific position of assuming that further progress in science will not lead to reconsider the current Evolutionary model. Evolutionists use a big word like 'evidence' to support their claims, but they too often forget that: 1- The evidence is the same, has been there all the time, God created it and is not comprehensively known to man. 2- How much we know about the evidence depends on the level of technology. Increasingly better instruments will lead to more knowledge. You cannot claim we know at this point in time everything there is to know about the evidence. 3- Evidence is one thing; interpretation of the evidence is another. The evolutionary model is only one of the possible interpretations of the available evidence. Imagine you enter a murder scene and find a man holding a gun next to a bloody corpse. You need to consider him as the prime suspect, of course, but you don't have his confession because he claims to be innocent. Will you convict him straight away without further evidence? Or will you allow yourself to be biased by your first assumption in treating the ulterior evidence you may find? Evolution has responded affirmatively to those two questions in judging the available natural evidence, created a paradigm out of it and does not consider other possibilities. Natural sciences are still pretty much descriptive and whatever worldview proposed by them is a speculative inference. Nothing wrong with that because that's the way Science works, except that God says otherwise and as a Christian I trust more His testimony about Creation than human speculation. Read Genesis again without preconceptions and see how it works for you this time. Remember that God inspired the Bible from a position of maximum advantage: He possesses Absolute Knowledge and He Created what Science is investigating. What you read there is there by default and purports to tell us something. Will you not stop and listen to Him? I'm sorry for your pains at the Creation Research Institute. Bad Science is bad Science, whether Creationist or Evolutionist. God, being Perfect Truth Himself, dislikes liars and does not need them to support His Word. It is actually His Word what convicts them. Fortunately for us, God's Word teaches what can be believed and understood by anyone anywhere anytime out of Its Own Authority. The Bible, unlike Science, is a completed, unchangeable and eternal revelation. Genesis literalism is an option available to any reader and need not to be interfered by false human doctrines found in Science, Philosophy or Religion. Blessings.

Theistic Evolution is guiltier of those charges you are making, and I'll tell you why. God created the universe. He summarily said in Genesis how it was done. The natural, unforced, rendering is that the acts of creation took place in six solar days less than 10 millenia ago, elsewhere supported in the Bible. Observable evidence in the last 3 centuries questioned the model and generated a speculative and alternative worldview called Evolution. Fossils, dating methods, stratigraphy and molecular Biology are still inconclusive. Therefore, Theistic Evolution: 1- Attempts to squeeze God into the limited available knowledge science has about His Creation. 2- Stands at odds in supporting Evolution against Genesis literalism as much as it does in explaining to Atheism the need for God within the evolutionary model. 3- Denies Creation its miraculous character. 4- Deprives God's Word of its intended convincing/convicting nature with another option: it can be ignored or stretched to fit man's testimony. It would have been wonderful if God had used Evolution to create the world and its inhabitants. But the idea remains unscriptural. Rather than manipulating self-replicating molecules for billion years, He said He did everything in 6 days much less ago. The wonder of the Genesis account remains unsurpassed. Blessings.

Hi, brother I would like to bring the following elements to your attention: 1- We Christians do not put our faith in our own understanding but in God's Word. Our interpretation of His Word may vary as God's Revelation develops in history, but His Word remains the same, thus enabling correction of any interpretative or doctrinary error we may incur. 2- I would not have any problem with Evolution if there was a hint of it in the Bible. Since there isn't any, I do not consider it a threat but a lie. It drives people's trust away from the Bible to place it in man's testimony. Evolution is an alternative worldview which contradicts basic Biblical teachings. 3- The Christian faith is not based in a mystical god. The Bible does not leave any doubt regarding the Reality of God, of which His Authorship and Rulership of the universe are well established and attested for. The Bible records His historic dealings with Mankind, therefore our faith is historic and objective, our God is knowable to the extend that He wants us to know Him, our relationship with Him embraces all aspects of the human nature (mind included.) 4- Our imposibility to understand how He made the Universe is not proof against the reliability of His Testimony. 5- Adaptation and Evolution are not the same thing. The former is a proven feature of life, the latter is a theory based on a particular interpretation of the available evidence. It looks like the real thing because Satan hasn't ceased to induce us into error in order to make us depart from God's Word. But it is not the real thing because the Bible does not support it. 6- Christians have an obligation to stand against false beliefs and doctrines of men, which can be discerned by the way they depart from God's Word. 7- You will need to assess how much of the Bible you see as figurative. Our faith cannot be valid if it is built upon a confusing, liberally interpreted text. The Bible is important both because of What it teaches and because of Who teaches it. Have a blessed day.