Ditto!
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Tim,
The way I was immersed in the SDA environment in my childhood and youth developed in me a constant sensation that the Devil is always around me trying to deceive me and do me harm.
For some reason I don’t feel the same attitude from my “good angel” who is supposed to protect me from the bad guy. Here is the guy in red attacking me, and the guy in white is somewhere at the corner of the room having pity on me…
Yes, but only the people on the left were honored by being called “fools” by @ajshep from the pulpit. I still feel honored…
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I believe the whale comment can be attributed to Jonathan Wells, a creationist.
Regarding Duality of the Human, that was “cooked up” by the Greeks. Saying there
was a separation of the Body and the Spirit. Then they “cooked up” the gods of
Hades, and the crossing of the river Stix on the rowboat to work the fires.
The persons who wrote the Bible did NOT look at the human in this way.
Then when GREEK IDEAS later came into the Church, this Duality of the Body and
Soul was made one of the MAJOR Doctrines of the Church. The praying to the Saints,
the ETERNAL TORMENT of the wicked with all the pictures painted, and when the
printing press arrived, the pictures printed and sold. And the ability to sell Indulgences
and to GIVE Indulgences for Masses, for Pilgrimages, for money, etc.
When Protestantism came in, it gave up Indulgences, but DID NOT give up Duality of
the Human. So non-Catholic preachers can preach a person to heaven at the funeral.
One WILL NOTICE at funerals, NO ONE is ever preached INTO HELL. No matter how
evil they were.
Too special.
Way too special.
Our unconscious psychology has us hoist on our own petard.
Just my opinion.
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I seriously think we are not - that is an egocentric self-absorbed fantasy.
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Well, but before science came around, the ENTIRE UNIVERSE used to rotate around us!
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??
Also a fantasy.
Getting burned at the stake for saying otherwise was a true nightmare however…
'Course that was all back in the day where as Trump so truthfully put it, Christians were in the forefront of abolishing civil rights…
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It’s foolish to argue against evolution with those who are truly knowledgeable about it. I may study it pro and con but will never know enough detail to debate it. There are as many theories of evolution as there scientists and pop science does get it wrong at times (the descent of man picture is not accepted by most scientists because of its inaccuracy–but the public is not aware of this.) There are plenty of books out there written by scientists who do believe in creationism and can debate it from scientific data if one is interested. I have never thought the earth was young by human time nor did I learn this is school. I think it came from CRI. The Bible doesn’t address what came before or even during life as we know it. I don’t think God felt it was important…
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I know plenty of evangelicals and none of them believe Trump is “their leader on earth.” Let’s start by not bearing false witness or stereotyping believers. Do you ever read Christianity Today? It’s evangelical and a far cry from your profiling. Sorry to get off the subject, Spectrum, but couldn’t let this nonsense or prejudice go by.
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Sure, not ALL evangelicals support Trump. But I believe most of the public have seen large chunks of them openly supporting him. And I mean several of the major, most influential groups. It’s been on the news - the real images, not just reporting.
Not even the Hollywood video, or over 8,000 lies (and counting fast), or the lies during the SOTU have been able to stop them from supporting an immoral individual. Trump is their guy, this for sure…
Go figure…
(Any evangelicals here who support all that???)
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" If you don’t believe in a young earth because evidence show age, and pain, disease, and death, don’t believe that someday we will become immortal and have an indestructible body because it is impossible from our point of view today."
All very subjective I suppose…somethings have more “proof” than others. 
For the role of president but not for a pastor. Great POTUS. Great SOTU.
I look for a person capable of leading addressing a wide range of problems.
I find him very capable.
He IS my president and not my spiritual leader. It seems some desire that of their President. Not me.
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This should help you understand that:
The founder, Billy Graham, stated that he wanted to “plant the evangelical flag in the middle-of-the-road, taking the conservative theological position but a definite liberal approach to social problems”.
Now that sounds like Trump doesn’t it?
Christianity Today AND Christian Century are both worth reading.
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A good explanation of “Death swallowed up in victory.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50,54.
Part of the Lectionary Readings for Feb 17.
Others – Psalm 1, Jeremiah 17:5-10, Luke 6:17-26.
Seventh day Adventist local communities of believers miss a lot of
Bible to discuss when they don’t do these readings every Sabbath.
Groups I have been associated with over many decades usually
only read one or two verses of the Bible in church worship service.
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My points about death and the difference between a body that at one moment is alive, and another dead was to see what you thought about that if you are a believer in “Panpsychism”. If matter has an inherent force of organization, something that all matter has dead or alive, why are we all not just naturally immortal?
The assertions of those who believe in “soul sleep” has nothing to do with the body, whether it ba scattered about the forest, or in someone’s stomach. It is addressing the idea of a separate entity apart form the body. As you note, the metaphor may be imperfect. But it is addressing dualism, and materialism to a lesser extent. We reside in the mind of God rather than in an entity separate from him.
At the resurrection, is it actually us that are raised, or an exact duplicate? Materialists would say we are not the same, and that once one dies, and their body disintegrates that that individual is gone forever. The only answer I would have to that notion is that when Jesus arose, he said he was the same individual.
I guess I would say to this that you of all folk could understand the meaning of scripture better than most and would be responsible for given a more accurate interpretation. Not that all of your ideas should be accepted at face value (the Bereans were complemented by Paul for not just accepting his word for it…). But with your insight, people could be blessed.
But your example betrays that you are making this too complex. At least in English, “I love her with all my heart” (and i believe it is so in Italian and Spanish as well) is a common metaphor that even children can understand. The Bible is part of the foundation fo Western culture, and so this culture, in a sense, cannot be understood without understanding the Bible.
We are drifting away from biblical understanding. But the influence is still there, and not so difficult to grasp. Hunans use old metaphors all the time, and we do it naturally.
You don’t have to believe anything if you don’t want to. The question here is whether the resurrection promised is a reality or not. If it is just something “you have to believe in”, but is not reality, it is, as Peter said, a cunningly devised fable. We should not delude ourselves if this is the case, and accept our ultimate and final demise as our fate. A more realistic viewpoint.
But if it is so, it is the best news ever.
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Not so fast:
Genetics—Mutations Cause Harm and Do Not Build Complexity: Darwinian evolution relies on random mutations that are selected by a blind, unguided process of natural selection. This undirected process has no goals. Being random, it tends to harm organisms and does not improve them or build complexity. As biologist Lynn Margulis, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences until her death in 2011, said: “New mutations don’t create new species; they create offspring that are impaired.
- Biochemistry—Unguided and Random Processes Cannot Produce Cellular Complexity: Our cells are like miniature factories using machine technology but dwarfing the complexity and efficiency of anything produced by humans. Cells use miniature circuits, motors, feedback loops, encoded language, and even error-checking machinery to decode and repair our DNA. As Bruce Alberts, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Science, observed: “[t]he entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines.”3 Darwinian evolution struggles to explain the origin of this type of integrated complexity. Biochemist Franklin Harold admits in a book published by Oxford University Press: “There are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical or cellular system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”4
Paleontology—The Fossil Record Lacks Intermediate Fossils: The fossil record’s overall pattern is one of abrupt explosions of new biological forms, and generally lacks plausible candidates for transitional fossils, contradicting the pattern of gradual evolution predicted by Darwinian theory. This non-Darwinian pattern has been recognized by many paleontologists. University of Pittsburgh anthropologist Jeffrey Schwartz states: “We are still in the dark about the origin of most major groups of organisms. They appear in the fossil record as Athena did from the head of Zeus — full-blown and raring to go, in contradiction to Darwin’s depiction of evolution as resulting from the gradual accumulation of countless infinitesimally minute variations.
[quote=“thenerdwithin, post:225, topic:17801”]
Neo-Darwinian Evolution Has Been and Continues to Be Critiqued by Mainstream Scientists: Everyone agrees that microevolution occurs. But mainstream scientific and academic literature is saturated with skepticism about the neo-Darwinian claim that microevolution offers an adequate basis for justifying macroevolutionary claims. Günter Theißen of the Department of Genetics at Friedrich Schiller University in Germany wrote in the journal Theory in Biosciences that “while we already have a quite good understanding of how organisms adapt to the environment, much less is known about the mechanisms behind the origin of evolutionary novelties, a process that is arguably different from adaptation. Despite Darwin’s undeniable merits, explaining how the enormous complexity and diversity of living beings on our planet originated remains one of the greatest challenges of biology.”
So, common descent has some critics. Creatures appear abruptly in the fossil record, de novo. That is not a common descent type of process, but more of a creative one.
The issue is the age of the earth. If one rejects the radio dating method, one could argue that common descent was not a viable theory. The fossil record does not show it.
Now if such rejection is considered a “lie”, well, then creationists are a pack of liars. I think they actually take scripture as more accurate than science. If God can tell the future, would the past really be a problem?
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