Hey Fred

I quit being instructed to believe anything at about age 14. I feel sorry for those that believe blindly. The Christian theology can and has stood up to each and every challenge since its inception.

 

Vito, I apologize for my smart-aleck comment. I respect you and value your friendship a great deal, and that remark was out of line.

I do have a few points I'd like to discuss with you, though...

These two statements seem irreconcilable to me, unless you're asserting that all religions boil down to a standard of ethics with no authority -- in other words, a suggestion on the best way to live. That works for Confucianism, but as soon as a god figure enters the picture, authority comes with it, as does control (at least in the cases of Islam, Buddhism, ancient Judaism, and maybe Hinduism).

 

I agree that most people have an instinctive hunger to know the reasons for things, and definitely to know what happens when we die. But take it a step further -- if this life is all there is, all there ever has been, why the curiosity? Why do we have that thirst for the unknown, and indeed, the unknowable? Why do we seem to have this default setting to keep looking toward what is beyond our senses?

 

Why was that? What was your mindset going into your process of studying? And what, exactly, did you study? If it was the Bible, what did you find impossible to believe? And could you expand on "grand theological trappings" for me please? I'm not quite following you there.

 

I think this question was directed at Sly, but I'd like to answer it for myself.

I did not place my faith in Jesus on an emotional high (or low), and I wasn't bullied or intimidated into it. My investigation began because of an emotional low, but it continued in as much objectivity and logic as I could muster because I did not want to have an experience like Builder and countless others have had. I wanted truth, not a make believe story to make me feel better.

I was more of an agnostic than anything else (wasn't sure if God was real or not), so I started with creation. I found that Darwin's theory (macroevolution) breaks down very quickly. There are some "leaps of faith" there that even the most outlandish religions haven't asked for. And I've also read that late in his life, Darwin himself actually recanted his own theory (source -- The Case for Faith, by Lee Strobel). Then I started looking into some astrophysics and was introduced to the Big Bang Theory, which is (as far as I know) the most agreed-upon theory to explain the existence of the universe. More on this later. Then I started looking at biochemistry, and was introduced to the Law of Irreducible Complexity, which roughly states that a living organism can only be reduced so far and still survive, and even at that level, it's far too complex to have come into existence sporadically.

This made a lot of sense to me -- a lot more than the alternatives, which left so much up to chance, that chance might as well be just another name for God. Taking into consideration the complexity of living beings, even at the most finite levels, it took a lot less "faith" to accept the strong possibility of intent than it did to accept random happenstance. This realization led me to the the Theory of Intelligent Design.

So now I was contemplating the probable existence of God as a creator of the universe. There are several characteristics a God like that would have to incorporate -- He would have to exist outside of the confines of the physical realm and the limitations of time, as both have had starting points. Therefore, a being like that could conceivably be eternal.

The more I researched the science, the more the evidence pointed toward what I knew of the God of the Bible. So I started to investigate the validity of the Bible.

Dang -- I've got to log off for today. I'll pick this back up tomorrow...

 

I didn't know I was allowed to post here!

 

Hasbeens a sniper. Hasbeens a sniper.

Off with his head!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

It really only takes one...Jesus' resurrection. The resurrection myth is as old as the oldest books in the Bible and is a wonderful story full of hope and promise for new beginnings. Is it literal truth? In my opinion, no.

Basically, HB, you can list any of the Biblical miracles and I don't believe they happened in the context given in the Bible.

 

HB, gets a free pass from me. You, on the other hand...pick a finger.

 

Except that there were witnesses to the resurrection. Mark, the earliest gospel, is generally accepted to have been put down on paper about 60 years after the crucifixion of Christ (which is not in doubt). Realistically people were still alive who knew Christ at that point. Also not in doubt is the manner in which the apostles were executed. They were all given chances to recant what they said about Christ in exchange for freedom or at least a quick death. Peter chose to be crucified upside down instead so as not to be compared to Christ.