WarMonkeyMan

Funny, this whole motif sounds a lot like the Crusades... ...or wait, maybe that was the Inquisition... ...nope, definitely the Salem Witch trials. Honestly yall, the religion that someone is shouldn't generalize them. Christianity is a religion of peace; and yet, somehow all the above events were sponsored and applauded by the Church at the time.

You're kidding, right? Homosexuality is sin. Just like lying, adultery, stealing, coveting... Why should I think differently of homosexuality than I should of any other sin? And really, the law suit was stupid, and not just from a legal perspective.

Now, I knew Joel Osteen was a pansy who just couldn't bring himself to step on anyone's toes... but he's a viper now? Truth needs to be preached. If you're too busy preaching hellfire and brimstone you won't be preaching that God is love.

Oh please yall... If they're using X-rays, they can't see your body. In real life, X-ray vision penetrates skin. It doesn't stop at clothes, unless you happen to LIKE lead-lined boxers. And really, I feel confident enough about my physique not to care whether someone is seeing my x-ray body.

"Jesus Camp" honestly frightens me. Mothers are teaching their kids that other "enemy" children that aren't Christian are all going to become suicide bombers or liberals. What's GOOD about that?

No idea. Probably ignorance on behalf of the real scientists, and blind faith on the PhDs in theology. There is another list, with 791 real scientists called Steve that have signed the folowing: The point remains

Indeed. You're right; it would be more accurate to say he's not using it. If he constantly corrected our actions that wouldn't exactly be free will. Interesting idea about spiritual possession. If the universe is deterministic, yes. I am not sure to what extent it is, though. At one time I was convinced, like Einstein, everything is utterly predictable according to physical laws. But quantum physics seems to tell us otherwise, at least at the moment. If God corrected our actions, even our evils, he would be abridging our free will. So although it might seem sub-benevolent to let the evils of the world unfold, it is necessary. His hands are tied. Agreed. 3. Sub-benevolent seems a bit of a stretch to me. All the evils of the world are our own doing and of our own free will, which He lets us have. He offers us His way, which would essentially keep men from doing wrong intentionally and encourage good for all men. He also has shown that He plans to make everything bad that happens to us turn into something to make us better or into something good. In a way, that's not only benevolent, but that's actively kind.

This always gives me a laugh, but only when atheists think it's a serious argument. I do not know that God is omnipotent. I think he relinquished a lot of his power when he created beings with free will. I would also contend that, by creating beings with free will, he relinquished his omniscience. Think about it: if God knew what humans will do in the future, then they can't have free will. If something is utterly predictable then it isn't free. See my previous answers. I don't think God is an omnimax. This to me seems like a philosophical caricature of God. I just think he is very powerful and very knowing, and perhaps maximally powerful and knowing before he created humans. But when you create something like yourself, something unpredictable, suddenly you disrupt the hard determinism that made the universe knowable in the first place. Created God-like beings changed everything for God. That's a very nice post you've got there, sir. 0. Quite. It's really a bit sad, isn't it? 1. Well, that all depends on how you think of it. Did God relinquish His power, or is He merely not using it? Our free will doesn't really impede on God's power. In fact, the Bible records cases of people being possessed by demons and losing their free will to the spirit. That certainly puts more power in favor of spiritual beings instead of in the free will of man. 2. Again, that all depends on how you define omniscience. Is it possible to know something that hasn't happened? Like I said, I think of God as more of a chess master, who can know what CAN happen and what He can do to respond in the right way. 3. Omnipotent, I can see where you're coming from. Where does omnibenevolence fit into your statement? 4. The main argument I can think of now for that is that we were created in the IMAGE of God, not really God-like. We must work to be godly, while our image is given to us. With sin in our lives, we're not God-like at all.

Angry Dragons, I like your mind. Let's get into this topic, shall we?

You haven

Evolution theory predicts a messy design that works OK. 'GoddidIt' predicts perfection, I'd say. After all, aren't we all in His image? Or have I got that wrong? We do seem to have a messy design that works OK. Have you seen this? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6387611.stm - chimps evolving! Give them a few million years, and they'll have nuclear weapons. Well, some would call that evolving, I would just say they got smart enough not to get into fist fights. You say tomato, I say that's not evolution.

Well, think about it this way: We're made to do the best we can without sacrificing something important. It's like building a laptop. We can go off on the Mac (not really, Mac's are God's gift to Geek-kind) and say that it needs a bigger screen, faster processor, and better speakers. Well, if you give it a bigger screen, it becomes too big. If you get a faster processor, you take up more room and power. If you get better speakers, you can sacrifice your limited space. The body is like that. If we had wings, we'd have to have hollow bones and more muscles around them to be able to get us off the ground. If our ears or eyes were more sensitive the city sounds and lights that we've gotten used to would jump out at us and smother us. Sure, it'd be cool if we naturally came with abilities like that, but I'd rather be intelligent enough to be able to recreate those effects than just have it on my own in the mind of a bat.

Now, what I don't get is that when I state that I'm here to ask the hard questions that takes thinking to answer, when I state that I'm a Christian, when I state what I believe... I still get told I'm "warring against the saints." I still get told that "[i'm] a wolf in sheep's clothing." Am I really so sensitive, or is this the amount of ignorance that I'm seeing it as?

Intelligent Design is a sad attempt to make Creationism into a hypothesis. How do you test ID? Do you send out a cosmic questionaire?

I'm on your side warmonkey, I have nothing against you, and I do respect your posts. I don't take evolution as false just because the bible though, I take it as false because evidence against evolution, I am a creationist, but I try to look into the facts, and there is alot of support for creationism. Well, that makes sense to me. If that's so, why is everyone so scared to post this information when it's asked for? All I've gotten are Bible verses and a serious finger wag. And everyone else, I don't really mind what people think of me, but I'd rather not have people spreading bull malarkey about me around.

I'm not the bad guy here. I really, REALLY don't want to be treated like the bad guy. I've had about 2 days here now, and I've already gotten people somehow convinced that I'm not a Christian, I hate the Bible, and that I must think that evolution explains all. This is after I've said that I am a Christian, do not hate the Bible, and really don't give much of a flip about evolution. I'm sure that that's either supposed to be funny or sad, but at the moment, it's hard to tell. I AM A CHRISTIAN. I don't appreciate the attacks I've gotten for asking the hard questions. The facts are, there are people out there who WON'T take evolution as false just because the Bible says it didn't happen that way. And, facts are, there's support for Creationism out there if you'll go look for it instead of quoting a few irrelevant verses at people. In closing: Christianity isn't about your comfort zone.

Radiocarbon dating and other radiometric dating methods are extremely useful and based on perfectly sound scientific principles. The treatment of radiometric dating data is filtered through a rigorous process of peer review within the scientific community. Also, I must again stress that theories can be and indeed often are facts. Theorys can be fact yes, but if you look into various hypothesis' they are concidered fact without evidence, like abio genises, the big bang, also the age of our universe, they are concidered valid theorys, and stressed that they are fact, yet the evidence doesn't say they are direct fact, evidence is what we can observe, and repeatedly test, evolution has it's gaps and holes, creation as a scientific theory has just as many gaps based on what we know, but the evidence at hand can be interprited into both. I can see how evidence can line up for evolution, but I can also see how evidence lines up for creation. So therefor which side is taken ins cience is based off the majority. I have not seen any valid evidence against Christianity, except the opinions of man. one thing I find interesting that God created man and woman, evolution cannot explain how male and female came to be. there are various things that are overlooked in the realm of science based off the opinion that evolution is true. Someone's been reading up on Lee Strobel, I see.

Let me get this straight... You're trying to tell me that... ...has to do with evolution? And now you're telling me I'm not a Christian with the verse you're quoting, when I have EXCEPTIONALLY stressed that I am? I AM speaking English, right?

I don't get it. I shouldn't be listening to music by secular artists? Heck, it's good music!