wheels5894

I am puzzled a bit why we even needed to define 'faith' here at all. It is obvious that faith is significant in different parts of our lives from waiting for a bus (you don't see faith like this anywhere else!) or in trusting your wife / husband when they go away to a conference. There is clearly a proper use for the word. Of course we put our trust and have faith in many people but a surgeon occurs to me and the anaethetist -they takes us unconscious into the theatre and revive us afterwards but it is by faith that we hand ourselves over to them. However, I would contend that its use in one context is wrong. Christians / all religious people believe in their god and we call this having 'faith' as they are trusting and acting as if the god existed while no knowing for certainty. Faith implies something we don't know. Now when we get to atheists / secularists / humanists the word gets bandied about again in the it is only by faith the an atheist says there is no god and, of course, he cannot be sure. Faith used in this way is wrong. A base position, given god does not reveal himself is that there is not a god. An atheist needs no faith to go as he senses tell him and can leave thoughts of gods to others. It is something that would not even occur to him and, of course those questions of life after death would not either. Just thought

but where is the evidence for the global floods? I don't mean in the Bible I mean on the ground. If you are not sure try this.

but where is the evidence for the global floods? I don't mean in the Bible I mean on the ground. If you are not sure try

.... but if 'only the father knows the time' how can we who are not God know?

you've still got this the wrong way round, Brandon's Pop.I am using the contrast against those who claim the Bible is right and Creationsism is true. I do not hold that position - I accept the truth of evolution - an explanation that works and of course one that doesn't exclude God at all as some on this board claim. As for the healing part, I suspect to avoid getting into trouble we had better not discuss that any more on this thread though I would be delighted to carry it on in a new thread.

Brandon's pop, I am merely using this as an alternate reference. There are enough passages in the NT to show that Jesus tells us tht 'whatever we ask God will give' Now, Creationism is entirely founded on the principle the the Bible is the exact and complete word of God. Accepting creationism is fine as it doesn't actually make and physical difference to a person/ By contrast, accepting the concept that God will answer prayers and in particular heal people and if people actually believe the Bible is as I describe above, thne clearly they don't need a health Service. My point is t look critically at the attitude of trust people have wen an issue makes a difference to them or not. I think that for man who accept Creationism, the belief is not strong enough for trusting for medical matters and this reveals how much belief people really have.

I hate to be fussy here but are we talking about actual people or theorising?Whilst the point that atheists d not acknowledge a 'higher authority' it surely doesn't entail doing immoral things. Look, an atheist could easily turn the tables on you. You only do right to avoid a fiery burning afterlife whilst atheists do right because they choose to. As mentioned above, our Law comes mostly from Roman Law and our morals - well not many from the Bible I would say. The Bible is happy with people keeping slaves for example and I suspect not many Christians do so. After all just because someone has different beliefs from us hardly means they are scarey. you meet them everyday in street, in shops and other places. Have been scared lately?

Sorry, Brandon's pop but am not quite sure what you are asking me to do. Could you explain please?

Hi again, Artslady I see. You contend that if God does not chooser to heal you you need health insurance. Yet is you read mark's Gospel wee find, Why would God not heal you if this text is true? I don't get it! Of course, if God didn't want you to be healed I suppose you ought not to do anything as He is calling you home. Well, what s your argument in favour of young Earth Creationism? You are going to show that the Bible is something that is true to demonstrate the answer here.

Well I looked at Answers and did some quick searches. I think it only fair to quote something about the Creation Science Foundation. Now what does this quote amount to? It means in simple terms that whatever research says and what ever facts arise, if the facts differ from the Biblical descriptions, the Bible is always right. How is this science? how can 'research' be done when the answers to it are already there in the Bible and the facts discovered have to match the biblical texts? Calling this scientific research is clearly and oxymoron. Nonetheless, this is the text to which Andrews A Snelling subscribes and it really means that whatever he discovers will always match the Bible because anything else will be lost. Unless one wants to accept the same beliefs as him, it is hardly possible to take what he does seriously. of course, if he published in the major journals like Nature it would be different, but that is not going to happen.

thanks for the info Artslady, but the thing I hoped you could refer me to is to published articles in proper journals to read. The problem with websites is that one can never know just who is running it and what standard they work to, whilst a perr reviewed journal article gives on confidence. Incidentally, don't forget you need to be arguing in favour of creationism if it is your belief not against evolution. they are not alternatives and disproving one doesn't validate the other.

Hi Artslady. One point to start with. If you are arguing the case for Creationism, then you really should stick to doing that. Even if you have the piece of evidence that could destroy Evolution in your hand, that act of destroying the theory would not make creationism the right solution. You would still need to argue for it yourself. I am not very au fait with creation Theory as I thought it was just based on biblical texts. If there is more to it could you point me to a site or a book where I can read up more please? Of course, it is easy to try and pick holes in someone else's theory though, remember, we are talking about evidence of 150 years of research. Nonetheless maybe you have come across something that argues against evolution. have you, or others, submitted a paper about it to a peer-reviewed journal. Nature has had a few anti-evolution papers published but on a couple of hundred compared with the 13 thousand or more for evolution. Perhaps you could point me to any articles like that to read. Now, to turn to the originator of the idea of evolution - Hi Mr Darwin. That was a very interesting video and ought to give everyone cause to think. The real problem here is that in the USA about half the population belief in the Bible and Creationism or the New Creationsim, ID. many have not learned much science and so stick to their views. The other problem is that there are various ways of accepting the Bible. Many, perhaps more liberal, accept the Bible as written by men who were inspired by God but the text is still from those men. On the other side, there are those who claim that every word of the text is waht God 'dictated' to the writers and they believe in is infallible - but only in the original version which of course we don't have. The degree that a person beleives in Creationism will depend on their view of the Bible. The worst anomaly I see, though, is that while those who believe the Bible as the literal Word of God don't really quite believe it when they act. For example, why would a person which such beliefs need health insurance? God has promised to heal them is they pray and ask. Then again, they are happy with all sort of scientific and medical breakthroughs abd take advantage of them even when the Bible has a different idea. Even weather forecasting ignores the doors in the heavens which are opened to ler the rain out! I think this might be a hard job to argue away Creationism.

Well guys, no one has to explain anything they don't want to and that covers this topic on evolution. The problem that is bugging this thread is, though, that no one much has studies evolution and, I think, the term theory is being misused. let me explain. In science, everything starts with observation, (well not theoretical physics buts that's a bit odd.) An individual notices something that isn't explained wants to understand it more. There comes over time to be a collection of facts to be explained and that is how Darwin was when he came back to the UK from his voyage in the beagle. the next stage is to come up with a hypothesis to explain the facts. Then the hypothesis is published and opened up to other people to look at. Others can try and find evidence that acts against the hypothesis while other facts come in that are in favour. Finally, when enough facts have been assembled to support the hypothesis, science calls it a Theory. [This is not theory as you or I might have to explain some odd thing, this is a formal declaration of the hypothesis that explains the facts] Of course, since Darwin, facts have been falling in as research was done and the great part about a theory is that it can predict and those predictions can be checked. Anyone who wants to know about evolution can find some good text book in libraries to find out more. The main papers on the subject are published in the magazine 'Nature'. All papers in nature are peer reviewed by other scientists to make sure the paper is OK. nature has published over 13,000 papers, maily facts, which support the Theory of Evolution. It is a great Theory that has helped out all sort of areas of study including medicine. have you ever though about the current study of genes and DNA? Why do you think we have som many odd genes that don't do anything in our own DNA? inheritance from common ancestors explains it but I am unaware of any other explanation. So, that's a very small nutshell of Evolution Theory. Now none of this goes against religion. It could do but it doesn't have to. It is perfectly reasonable that God kick started the process and then watched it develop. It would explain the various extinct animals, like dinosaurs better than God creating them and then destroying them again. the only problem is the time. Evolution took a huge amount of time - time which was available as can be shown by the age of rocks. Other scientific theories can date rocks but we can't go into that now. A few billion years is what is needed. Summing up, if you care to take the Bible and conclude the age of the earth is 6000 years you are going to gave to just believe it without any evidence because there is no evidence. For example, if you do believe the young age fro the earth, can you make predictions from that as to how the earth ought to look? Does you theory explain whynthe rocks appear to be so much older? If not, you are lacking any evidence to base a hypothesis on never mind a theory. Atheism is nothing to o with evolution at all. Of course, science works with the natural world. It cannot take into account anything else. Yet the science that is done provides very good explanations of the world around us. gosd is not excluded per se although, of course, He does not appear in the theories as it is hard to demonstrate His presence as He is in another dimension. I think the answer is, that if you cannot accept the 150 years work on the Theory of Evolution and prefer a 6,000 year old earth then maybe the medical offshoots and modern medical science in particular are not for you and you should resort to prayer only to heal yourself and your families. Nonetheless, the Theory does not exclude God who invented and started the system. It s not atheistic to go with Evolution - it is just a further revelation of the work of God.