Isaiah 6:8

Interesting... now you would have to prove that all homosexual relationships (not just the specific ones mentioned in this passage in Romans) stem from sin... a tall order... good luck with that! Why is that such a tall order. All lust of any kind stems from sin. Be it homosexual or not. It is still sin.

Gods design for marriage is clearly seen in the way he put us here in the first place. One Man, One women. He then said that they would leave mother and father and become one flesh (man and women) . He did not make two men, he did not make two women, He did not make one many and many women. He made one man, and one women He reiterates this throughout the bible. Using the logic you have provide would also allow, Polygamy as well. Homosexuality, of any kind is deemed unnatural in the Bible, on many fronts. I do not place homosexuality as a sin above any others, but to say it is not, is simply not biblical.

I should have specified, Water Baptism.

Okay here it goes in a nutshell.. My wife and I now live in Norway. We lived in the States for seven years prior, she has a green card in good standing. How ever to keep said green card we need to go to the states once a year, file taxes, keep an address, bank account, etc. another must we need to do is fly back to the states at least once a year, if not every six months, and she has to buy two, expensive one way tickets each time. There is also a "Reentry" permit that allows for us to have 2 years at a time to live abroad. However we missed on getting this before we had no time left as it required two months to apply for it. The other problem with this is that we plan to be here over two years and as long as five years, or maybe a bit more. The reentry permit will not allow for that. We do plan to move back to the States after a time and so will need her to have her residency at that time. The thing is, trying to keep the green card may make officials think that we are trying too circumvent the system, and they may take the card away from here no matter what, if this occurs, it will really hurt her chances of entering into the states even on a tourist visa again. If we surrender the card, it takes a lot of weight off our shoulders, but that again risks us not being able to return to the states when then time comes. But it may help in the long run as we find that honesty helps in situations like this. I have a email in to the US embassy here and we are looking into it. We were planning a vacation/keep green card visit in August but that is looking more and more like a thing that is not going to happen, and if it does, it will be only here, as one, one-way ticket cost almost the same as a round-trip, and is almost twice as expensive. Prayers and advice would be most welcome!

Good to know!

very cool!

I'l respond to that, after you respond to you adding a word to the gospel, when it was not clear. Here. As you see it makes a point that its Jesus, by the Holy spirit does the cleansing. Water is not magic, it does nothing. Now you accuse me of something you have been doing, and have yet to reply to. I'll reply to that once you answer this. How do you justify taking one scripture clearly out of context, and adding your own words, to prove your point. ? You see you have not answered any of the questions but have simply repeated the talking points of those that say you must be baptized to be saved. You are not arguing anything new. You are also going in circles with your debate. Rather then showing me where I am wrong point by point, as I have with you, you simply pick the one or two things you think I did not answer (although I did) and start over. Please answer my points I have made, with out rehashing the same material. Actually better, I am going to shut this thread down as its getting a bit heated, and I'll start another post that you may debate all you want. The OP was already answered, so, closed.

My birth father, who is still alive though I have never met, and lead him to Christ. My Wife's Father, who passed just over a year before we got married. My other siblings from my father that I have never met.

You have taken the word out of context. You show no respect for the word of God. please treat it with more respect. Nicodemus, Was clearly puzzled by term Born again. Not by baptism, which is not mentioned during the whole conversation with him. I found when Jesus spoke of baptism, he did so plainly. He makes it clear with the statement, "he which is born of the flesh, is flesh". Again to make your case you must do violence to the word of God. Please do not do so. I do not understand why you take blows at me? I do not say your understanding is dim or that you are disrespectful of the word of God. Why do you put sin on me? Yes i know that Nicodemus was puzzled by the term born again, and then Christ further explained that you have to be born of water and of Spirit, and he was still confused, and because of that Jesus said your a teacher of israel and you do not understand? As a teacher of Israel he should have been familiar with the cleansings and the jewish proselyte baptism and also of John the baptists baptism. By "water" Jesus meant baptism, why would Jesus say you have to be born of water when he was already born of water? Putting all that aside, Jesus said in mark 16:16 that you have to believe AND be baptized and you shall be saved. Notice in this verse that your not saved till after your baptized? Now lets see who is the one who is does the damage to the scriptures on this verse, because its pretty straight forward. Theres no interpretation required. You added words to the Bible I did not. Jesus says baptized, but he never references water, which is what this whole discussion is about.

You prove my point well The word baptism is not used but then again you have to forget the rest of the verse, as I have already pointed out to make it stick. The flaw in this argument is that you are making a whole doctrine with not even a whole sentence. This is unwise. Here is the full sentence As you see it makes a point that its Jesus, by the Holy spirit does the cleansing. Water is not magic, it does nothing. Lets take it in context, again. Baptism, speaking of the answer of good conscience through Christ. No water is mentioned when it comes to the spiritual aspect.

You have taken the word out of context. You show no respect for the word of God. please treat it with more respect. Nicodemus, Was clearly puzzled by term Born again. Not by baptism, which is not mentioned during the whole conversation with him. I found when Jesus spoke of baptism, he did so plainly. He makes it clear with the statement, "he which is born of the flesh, is flesh". Again to make your case you must do violence to the word of God. Please do not do so.

You have added your own words to the Bible to prove your point. The Bible, DOES NOT us the word Baptism in Titus 3:5. I looked it up in 5 versions. That is your words. This is something that you should not do, it proves that your position is is on shaky ground when you have to twist the words of the bible. Here is what it says, in context As you see he is speaking of the holy spirit, not of water baptism. This is clearly you adding to scripture. Please do not do this. Lets read Peter then as well, in context, as again, you took it out of context by a partial quote It makes it clear that the example of Noah, was an antitype or foreshadow of what Christ would be to us. It clearly states that Christ, is our baptism.

Phillip. You are adding to the Gospel, and quoting scripture out of context. Quoting, one line of text out of context does not make sound doctrine. Please read here For example.. Lets start with John 3 which you took one verse out of context. By only quoting vs 5. As you see by the underlined text Jesus is not speaking of water, he using the term for natural birth. Birth two times, adding baptism would be adding a third time. Yes he says baptized. Baptism at this point was a proof of belief but not a requirement of salvation. Matter of fact, Paul, who wrote 2/3 of the New testament, did not think baptism was a salvation issue. For a more detailed report on this, check out this article. http://carm.org/is-baptism-necessary-salvation

Actually, it was transplanted into already living organism that had its own DNA. The new DNA triggered the destruction of the old DNA and took over the programming for the, yep, already living organism. From the published paper! You see, in the short clip of video's I watched he even states what I said previously, this was just like replacing the software on the computer. Once the new DNA took hold, the new sets of commands took effect thereby creating a new species. So he did not create life, he only created a program that can alter what preexisting living life does.

Ah, yes, controlling the variables, you do have a good point. However there is a difference between controlling the variables and constructing something. Controlling the variables would be taking all the base materials that form DNA, mixing them in the correct amounts, and letting them sit within a controlled environment. This would be akin to taking various sands, and rocks, and water, putting them in a container and applying some force. Doing such you could replicate the raw materials and environmental factors needed to make sedimentary stone. That is controlling the environment. . What Venter did, was take the chemicals, and assembled them into a DNA strand. This is not controlling the environment, this is taking a direct hand in what happens, and forcing it along a pre-planned goal. He did not mix the chemicals, and add heat, light, pressure, things that would be found in nature sans life, he took them, used a computer to set a blueprint and then built the DNA strand, bit by bit. This is way more intrusive then simply "controlling the environment!" This is more like writing a blueprint, that you reversed engineered, from an existing house, then took the materials and built your own house. Obviously if you were walking out in the hills and found a house you would never assume that since wood and stone existed there naturally, that they self assembled into a house. No he did not. DNA in and of themselves are not alive. They are the program for life. Think of a living cell as a computer. You may take the computer, wipe Windows off of it and replace it with Linux. This is what he did. He wrote a new program for an existing cell, he then removed the existing cell's original program, and replaced it with his own. So its more like he took mastodon DNA reversed engineered it, made a copy of it, with his own additions, and then replaced that DNA with elephant DNA to produce a mastodon. He still did not create life, and he did not prove one thing towards life arising from non life. So as you see, what you stated is not true. There has been life arising from non life, it has never happened.

Okay topic has been answered it's going off track and fast and mau confuse the OP who's first language is Chinese. Of you must continue please start this conversation as a discussion I controversial. Closed

This thread has gone to the personal realm, Closed.

Ahh summer bbq, swimming, days at the beach weather!

Thanks, Praying!

It really doesn't because if it did, then creating life out of buliding blocks would not be a doable experiment due to your disqualification of the role that the experimenter would play. This study is what it is. Taking abiotic starting materials (excluding the cell membrane) and making a functional living organism out of it. Presumably it will get more and more hands off, they will get there. Hi Don, The point Isaiah is making is that intelligence has been smuggled into the experiment. 4 bottles of chemicals + 1 computer doesn't produce life. The computer needs software which requires intelligence, and the chemicals need to be arranged in a very specific order in the correct amount, to duplicate what occurs in nature. One might use the analogy of a painter. 1 Canvas + paint will not give you the Mona Lisa. A certain intelligent agent, Leonardo Dicaprio (just kidding) was required to mix the colours in a precise way and apply them to canvas in a precise way. Suppose now a scientist doubts that DaVinci existed and sets out to show that the Mona Lisa occured by natural means. He uses a canvas and 4 bottles of paint (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black), mixes the paint using a computer and applies the paint in a very precise way to the canvas ending up with an exact duplicate of the Mona Lisa. Did he succeed in showing that art can come about by purely natural processes? Not at all. So why is that logic valid for the Venter experiment? Secondly, Venter did not create life. Scientific American is quite correct in that he created a prosthetic genome and inserted it into an already living organism. Having genes does not imply being alive. Dead things can contain genes, but aren't alive. It's possible that scientists will one day be able to create a simple self-replicating organism in a lab, which depending on a certain definition of "life" can be construed as "alive", but what Craig Venter did, is nothing of the sort. Claiming that the SA journalist isn't a scientist seems to me that you place way too much faith in credentials. Credentials alone do not make truth. Exactly.

LOL, but some how I don't think I would get much done that day!

Coffee. Lots of coffee. Thanks sis! Unfortunately I have had to cut back due to my acid reflux!

I am slated for a sleep study in the next month or so! I hope it shows something, I do think I may have sleep apnia, as even when I do sleep, I don't feel rested. I have been tired almost consistently since I was young around 10 or 11 years old.

I don't know if its because I have not had a job in the last seven months, or if its because of me not being fully settled yet emotionally/mentally to living in a new country, or for my lack of sleep, but I a have no energy to get up and get going with what I need to do on a daily basis to change things, such as language learning, and applying for work. I have no energy in the day time, and am unable to sleep at night. most of the days I just feel rather listless. The funny thing is the only thing I seem to have any sort of mind for is worthy, I guess the deep things here relax me! any suggestions for me to have more energy during the day?