Shootings will promote more bigotry

For Peter:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/RESOURCES/WIENS.html

Please read and explore site - it is written by and for Christians.

Important passage:

"We now turn our attention to what the dating systems tell us about the age of the Earth. The most obvious constraint is the age of the oldest rocks. These have been dated at up to about four billion years. But actually only a very small portion of the Earth's rocks are that old. From satellite data and other measurements we know that the Earth's surface is constantly rearranging itself little by little as Earthquakes occur. Such rearranging cannot occur without some of the Earth's surface disappearing under other parts of the Earth's surface, re-melting some of the rock. So it appears that none of the rocks have survived from the creation of the Earth without undergoing remelting, metamorphism, or erosion, and all we can say--from this line of evidence--is that the Earth appears to be at least as old as the four billion year old rocks.

When scientists began systematically dating meteorites they learned a very interesting thing: nearly all of the meteorites had practically identical ages, at 4.56 billion years. These meteorites are chips off the asteroids. When the asteroids were formed in space, they cooled relatively quickly (some of them may never have gotten very warm), so all of their rocks were formed within a few million years. The asteroids' rocks have not been remelted ever since, so the ages have generally not been disturbed. Meteorites that show evidence of being from the largest asteroids have slightly younger ages. The moon is larger than the largest asteroid. Most of the rocks we have from the moon do not exceed 4.1 billion years. The samples thought to be the oldest are highly pulverized and difficult to date, though there are a few dates extending all the way to 4.4 to 4.5 billion years. Most scientists think that all the bodies in the solar system were created at about the same time. Evidence from the uranium, thorium, and lead isotopes links the Earth's age with that of the meteorites. This would make the Earth 4.5-4.6 billion years old."

More from him:
"You must realize that scientists from the start, assume that only natural processes are what governed our past. Scientists assume that God has not played any part in the history of our world. So because of this, they are only looking for answers that agree with natural processes. They have essentially solved the evolution/creation problem by definition!"

"Scientists almost never look for indicators in nature that might speak of a very young age for the world's history. Why would they? Most scientists do not believe that the short chronology of the Bible has any validity at all and most would consider it counterproductive to pursue such a course of investigation. If in fact such an answer were found, it would be quickly dismissed. It would be assumed that there was something wrong with the idea or the data, and a new scenario would be sought."

Not true, of course. Science is very old, and began in a time when all men were religious. They fully expected their studies to confirm what religion taught them, and sought knowledge to enhance God's glory. Following the evidence, however, eventually led to different conclusions.

Then, after castigating actual scientists for their presumed bias, he has the temerity to say:

"So, I have become excited with the prospect to conduct rigorous scientific investigations, to look for evidence that the Earth could be quite young. As a Molecular Geneticist, I have been looking for alternate Pseudogene origins."

And he whines:

"Another issue for me was the direction of my possible future in science, the strong political nature of science itself loomed up in my mind. Did I really want to be known as a creationist. Because creation science is considered to be a pseudoscience by most scientist and many think that most Creationists are either not honest in their work and/or are just not competent. Having the Creation science stigma to my name means that many or most scientists will not even consider my position as being a viable option."

I've been exploring that guy's Web site ever since my last post - I can't tear myself away from it. It has the same kind of fascination as, for instance, lying in bed watching a large spider walk along the ceiling above you, wondering if it will drop.

Especially intriguing to see what he considers "miracles." At one point he has chronic fatigue syndrome and can't get out of bed. He loses his job and is facing bankruptcy, but doesn't have the money to file. Even so, he's driving miles each week to do missionary work (!!!)

He gets a little money from a fortuitous class action suit, and people bring him food - he now has enough to file for bankruptcy and buy gas to get to his mission.

This is a miracle - even though he still had CFS and no job.

Every page of his site is full of equally credulous stuff. Astounding.

Sorry - that big paragraph should have been in quotes.

For your edification and entertainment, gentlemen, a display of hoop-jumping extraordinaire! (Where is William of Ockham when you need him most?)

http://www.creation-science-prophecy.com/extinct.htm

Love the way he comes right out and says that it has to be made to fit in the time frame.

This bit is good:

(K/Ar) Potassium Argon Dating dates the rocks, not the fossils. However the age of the rock is not actually dated; Instead, we supposedly date the time when the rock was last reset or set to zero (Argon-40 is released in the reseting process when the rock is heated than cooled.). Many of these rocks are thought to have been heated then cooled during the time of the flood. So these dates should also result in ages since the time of Creation week, more specifically, the time of the flood. Again, everything must fit within the time since Creation week.

Pray tell, what about 40 days and nights of rain would cause rocks to become molten? And how was this particular tidbit somehow left out of the bible story?

peter,
just to be clear: i'm not saying you're being dishonest. i'm saying the purveyors (the high priests) of that kind of text-book creationist rhetoric are being dishonest.

any geologist/paleontologist knows how it works and knows that the "circular reasoning" critique of fossil dating is bogus.

peter, you said (to pam),
"Uniformitarianism says that the fossils are dated according to the rock layers, and rock layers according to he age of the earth. So if you find a fossil in a certain layer of rock it must be a certain age.”

man...that is straight out of the High Priests of Deception's textbook. it's somewhat clever-sounding rhetoric, with a tiny kernel of truth, but just dishonest.... it's duanne gish...

PH: “You can't reason on isolated facts. Circularity plays a big part. Uniformitarianism says that the fossils are dated according to the rock layers, and rock layers according to he age of the earth. So if you find a fossil in a certain layer of rock it must be a certain age.”

Not quite. Rock layers are dated in various ways, some of which I’ve mentioned before. These dating methods are used to determine the age of the Earth. That’s not circular. Circular would be if the age of rocks was determined by the fossils it contains, and the age of the fossils determined by the layer of Earth that contained them. This is not the case.

PH: “Science uses science to prove science.”

This might sound circular to you, but it isn’t. “Science” is from the Latin scientia meaning “knowledge”. Using knowledge of one thing to prove another is not circular.

ME: You find this compelling, do you? Peter, the scientific method can only be applied to that which is observable, measurable, testable. None of that applies to something that is "just because it says so."
PH: “But it is testable by logic Pam.”
And it fails thereby.

PH: “To coin/paraphrase John A. Frame again in, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, p. 130, all systems of thought and philosophy are based on basic/foundational presuppositions/commitments ‘that control their epistemology, argumentation, and use of evidence. Thus a rationalist can prove the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. A empiricist can prove the primacy of sense-experience only by some kind of appeal to sense-experience.’ “

I don’t see the need for all these little boxes. It’s one of the reasons that I’m not fond of philosophy in general. I see no reason why one can’t be rational, logical, and empirical, depending on the subject at hand. According to philosophy, a rationalist thinks that all truth comes from the processes of the mind. An empiricist thinks that everything has to be experienced. I think you use both.

PH: “And the funny thing about empiricism, the crutch of natural humanism, is that it shoots itself in the foot from the start, for even though it points to empirical, sense data, it uses something beyond the senses, that is non-physical, to do just that - and that is ideas and rational logic. How is logic empirical?”

Again with the boxes. Logic and rationality are the tools you use to make sense of the experience. Not mutually exclusive at all.

PH: “The absurdity of evolutionary thought is that truth and meaning can be accounted for by impersonal forces. How does an impersonal force produce such things? It just does not correspond to a coherent view of what we see, persons seeking truth and meaning. Everywhere we look we see people, not rocks or inorganic compounds, as the only ones able to give truth and meaning validity and meaning.”

“Truth” is just what’s real. No need for that to be “personal.” “Meaning” is another kettle of fish. Some people seem to feel lost if there isn’t some outside source of meaning. This has always seemed strange to me. You create your own meaning for your life. There isn’t an automatic one, and there doesn’t need to be one.

PH: “To coin/paraphrase John A. Frame again in, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, p. 130, all systems of thought and philosophy are based on basic/foundational presuppositions/commitments ‘that control their epistemology, argumentation, and use of evidence. Thus a rationalist can prove the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. A empiricist can prove the primacy of sense-experience only by some kind of appeal to sense-experience.’ “

I don’t see the need for all these little boxes. It’s one of the reasons that I’m not fond of philosophy in general. I see no reason why one can’t be rational, logical, and empirical, depending on the subject at hand. According to philosophy, a rationalist thinks that all truth comes from the processes of the mind. An empiricist thinks that everything has to be experienced. I think you use both.

PH: “And the funny thing about empiricism, the crutch of natural humanism, is that it shoots itself in the foot from the start, for even though it points to empirical, sense data, it uses something beyond the senses, that is non-physical, to do just that - and that is ideas and rational logic. How is logic empirical?”

Again with the boxes. Logic and rationality are the tools you use to make sense of the experience. Not mutually exclusive at all.

PH: “The absurdity of evolutionary thought is that truth and meaning can be accounted for by impersonal forces. How does an impersonal force produce such things? It just does not correspond to a coherent view of what we see, persons seeking truth and meaning. Everywhere we look we see people, not rocks or inorganic compounds, as the only ones able to give truth and meaning validity and meaning.”

“Truth” is just what’s real. No need for that to be “personal.” “Meaning” is another kettle of fish. Some people seem to feel lost if there isn’t some outside source of meaning. This has always seemed strange to me. You create your own meaning for your life. There isn’t an automatic one, and there doesn’t need to be one.

PH: "If He were changeable, like evolutionary thought, then what He said one minute could change the next..."

Precisely. Just as his decision to destroy everything he’d made because he suddenly decided that he didn’t like it and regretted making it. But then relenting, choosing the one good person on Earth, who, as soon as his mission is accomplished, gets drunk (and naked).

And what did this accomplish? Nothing. People were just as bad in the second iteration. So then comes Jesus, and (according to you) ushers in the Kingdom of God (which most of your co-religionists don’t agree has yet happened), and saves all the sinners. But has sin stopped? Nope.

And God knew all this from the beginning – knew every choice that every last person would make. So where is free will? In fact, where is God’s free will? If you know the future, you have no power to change it.

Not just that, but he knew all of the suffering that would take place – all of the starving, and disease, and pain, and maiming, and burning… and he still chose to make it happen. And you think he’s loving and benevolent.

You ask where everything came from, by my reasoning – how something could come from nothing (it didn’t), but have no trouble with a humanoid God – a very complex being with no origin – who is outside of space and time, but who nevertheless manages to act locally and temporally – making the entire universe out of nothing.

And you talk to me about logic?

"Without me doing homework, can you tell me what version are you quoting from? The KJV?"

No, the NASB. That's why I wanted to know, so we could use the same text. The NIV is even more flamboyant as to God's emotions.

Tell me, Peter, do you believe that God is omniscient? That he knows all - past and future?

Walter - the KJV was deliberately written with that type of language (no longer spoken in James I's England) to make it seem more special, awe-inspiring, and "of the ages."

peter, pam,
are we arguing over the translation to "sorry" vs "grieved"? (remember that episode where fonzi had to say "sorry" for something. remember how he just couldn't get his lips to produce the words. in the end he somehow managed to fumble out some sort of apology without uttering the words "i'm sorry". that's like god here being "grieved".

or it's like the politician who apologizes for any hurt feelings his insensitive remark (or whatever) has caused. he doesn't apologize for doing it, he's just sorry someone took it the wrong (ususally right, actually) way.

pam,
it really doesn't matter what it says here, in other places the inerrant bible says god is eternal, unchanging etc... it's kind of hard for us to grasp, but He is so great He can do both without being contradictory. or the apparent contradiction could be a sign of his immense incomprehensibility, in a good way.

i've always prefered the king james, or new king james for sound. it sounds so much more epic. i think i recall a difference where in the KJV it said abraham "lifted up his eyes", and the NIV had "looked up"... there are other differences. that "pascal's wager" website has an analysis of a few of them.

Hi Pam,

PAM: "I decided to explore whether God was a creature swayed by his emotions, and found this blog"

First off, God is not a creature; He is the Creator.

I read about half of the website.

One of the posts had this, I think from one of the Confessions of Faith but I could be wrong:
"God is a Spirit,[1] infinite,[2] eternal,[3] and unchangeable,[4] in his being,[5] wisdom,[6] power,[7] holiness,[8] justice, goodness, and truth.[9]

1. John 4:24
2. Job 11:7
3. Psa. 90:2
4. James 1:17
5. Exod. 3:14
6. Psa. 147:5
7. Rev. 4:8
8. Rev. 15:4
9. Exod. 34:6"

Unchangeable in His Being, does not mean that He is a being without love or compassion. The Bible makes it clear that He is these things.

PAM: "6(E)The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was (F)grieved in His heart."

PAM: "7The LORD said, "(G)I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for (H)I am sorry that I have made them."

I've come across this attack before. Let me see if I can find out the original Hebrew meaning of the words here, for that should clear up the matter.

Without me doing homework, can you tell me what version are you quoting from? The KJV?

The NIV says, concerning Genesis 6:3,5-8,

"Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal, his days will be 120 years....The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that He had made man on the earth, and His heart was filled with pain. So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth...for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD."

Showing grief or anger does not change His Being, His nature, His goodness, His eternality, His essence - what makes Him God.

I decided to explore whether God was a creature swayed by his emotions, and found this blog:
http://www.puritanboard.com/f17/does-god-have-emotions-10189/

Here's my favorite part:
"On the point of God's absolute Sovereignty and human moral responsibility, I believe that they are compatible even though I cannot really, completely understand how. So also, since the Bible shows us a God Who has feelings yet Who is omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, eternal, immutible, etc. I must affirm that all are true and compatible though, again, I may not see how."

Well, of course you can't see how, you silly twit - it doesn't make any sense!!

6(E)The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was (F)grieved in His heart.

7The LORD said, "(G)I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for (H)I am sorry that I have made them."

He's sorry? He, what? Changed his mind? He feels grief?

Hi Pam,

The Flood was the judgment of God against great perversity and ungodliness.

I will get the quotes, hopefully tomorrow. I have to get ready for work. Sorry.

4.

PAM: "I can't even imagine accepting something so uncritically as you accept the bible."

That is because you place more credences in your own limited knowledge of how things have transpired. Your world view has more absurdity in it than mine. On an infinite scale you and I know a drop in the bucket's worth of knowledge about a limited number of things. The only reason why we can know truth is because we have been created in the image and likeness of God, and to correctly perceive that truth we have to think God's truth/thoughts after Him, so that what is known does not contradict what He has revealed.

PAM: "You know that it was written by men, that men decided which texts went in, and which were thrown out, and you decide that all these men are right (even though they're in conflict with one another) because something invisible and undemonstrable that you call the "holy spirit" guided them."

You are reasoning in the circularity of your natural philosophy, that nature is all there is, that there is nothing supernatural, because that is all your world view limits you to. Your mind is not open. It is closed to a particular view of things. To deny your natural philosophy is to deny your basic premises and you cannot do that. You would come to a dead stop as an atheist. That is something you are unwilling to do.

God decided and guided the process. Written by men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Again, the reason you do not accept the Spirit of God is because to do so would be to deny your man made philosophy. You would have to admit you have been lied to all this time. You would have to leave your autonomy behind you and trust in Him, which you are unwilling or incapable of doing unless God is gracious to you (Romans 10:17). Instead you will make the evidence fit your world view.

PAM: "And your only means of knowing that there is such a thing,is the writings of these men!!!"

Under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit, preserved by God so that we have a written record and testimony from God about Himself, mankind and the means by which we can find meaning and purpose and share true love and relationship with God, to His glory!

PAM: "Amazing. Just amazing."

Yes, it is!

3.
Robert Reymond documents it in Faith's Reason for Believing, p. 335-336,

"Today many of the "practicing atheists" believe with the greatest leap of the imagination - against both the sine qua non ("without which nothing") of all scientific inquiry that "out of nothing, nothing comes" and its corollary that if something now exists then something (and the biblical God is certainly something!) has always existed - that the entire material universe of which they themselves are a part accidentally "decayed" (MIT Alan Guth's term) into being OUT OF NOTHING according to established laws of physics and that this universe is therefore the product of an impersonal beginning plus time plus chance and is thus the sole and final reality: intelligence does not stand behind this universe. Sir James Jeans believes he could assert without fear of refutation that "into [the] universe [the human race has] stumbled, if not exactly by mistake, at least as the result of what may properly be described as an accident." Sir Arthur Eddington declared that the human race is "one of the gruesome results of [Nature's] occasional failure [to take] antiseptic precautions." The Nationa Association of Biology Teachers here in the United States has explicitly declared that all life is the outcome of "an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable, and natural process," that is to say, all life originated by chance. Atheist Quentin Smith asserts: "...the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing, and for nothing." And Oxford biologist Richard Dawkins states that Darwin's theory of natural selection "makes it possible to bean intellectually fulfilled atheist." But does it? In my opinion, these assertions are laughable, for Darwinian scientists have to believe, at bottom, that,
Nothing produced everything,
Random chance produced a finely tuned universe,
Non-life produced life,
Mindless matter produced the conscious mind,
Chaos produced cosmos,
Non-reasoning produced reason, and
Non-purpose produced humans who are obsessed with purpose."

End of quote

As you can see, such ideas are for the gullible of heart.

2.

ME: "[from the Reymond quote] "They have pre-defined their task as biologists to be the discovery of the most plausible - or least plausible - naturalistic or materialistic explanation of how biological evolution occurs. This approach, of course, rules out an intelligent Creator, requiring adherence at the outset to the Darwinian worldview that assumes that the material universe is all that exists. This is hardly doing 'unbiased science' as it should be done."

PAM: "You find this compelling, do you? Peter, the scientific method can only be applied to that which is observable, measurable, testable. None of that applies to something that is "just because it says so."

But it is testable by logic Pam.

What isn't tested by logic or reason is some of the absurd statements made by scientists and philosophers on the origin of the universe, that made your idea of evolution a possibility.

Hi Pam,

I'm trying to get caught up on the back issues. There are a lot of things to discuss in your statements about the Bible, but first, November 14, 2009 1:42 AM

ME: "Walter, I have news for you. We all use circular reasoning. Science and rationale are what you atheists tend to fall back on."

PAM: "Show us how that's circular, please."

To coin/paraphrase John A. Frame again in, The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, p. 130, all systems of thought and philosophy are based on basic/foundational presuppositions/commitments "that control their epistemology, argumentation, and use of evidence. Thus a rationalist can prove the primacy of reason only by using a rational argument. A empiricist can prove the primacy of sense-experience only by some kind of appeal to sense-experience."

And the funny thing about empiricism, the crutch of natural humanism, is that it shoots itself in the foot from the start, for even though it points to empirical, sense data, it uses something beyond the senses, that is non-physical, to do just that - and that is ideas and rational logic. How is logic empirical?

The absurdity of evolutionary thought is that truth and meaning can be accounted for by impersonal forces. How does an impersonal force produce such things? It just does not correspond to a coherent view of what we see, persons seeking truth and meaning. Everywhere we look we see people, not rocks or inorganic compounds, as the only ones able to give truth and meaning validity and meaning.

You can't reason on isolated facts. Circularity plays a big part. Uniformitarianism says that the fossils are dated according to the rock layers, and rock layers according to he age of the earth. So if you find a fossil in a certain layer of rock it must be a certain age.

Science uses science to prove science.
Reason uses the rational (logic) to prove reason (Well it should, theoretically to be logically consistence and in order for the statement to be understood and sensible).

PH: "If He were changeable, like evolutionary thought, then what He said one minute could change the next..."

Tell me, Peter, why was there a flood? What does scripture tell you about that?

PH: “Why do you find sea creatures at the top of mountain ranges?”

Because mountains weren’t always mountains. Remember the post where I told you to look for tilted layers in road cuts through mountains? Tectonic plates, butting up against one another, push what was once seabed up into mountains. The proof is right before your eyes in those road cuts.

ME: What is the definition of a "kind?" What characteristic(s), in your opinion, prevents apes and humans from being the same kind?

PH: (after a Genesis quote) So you have sea creatures, birds, land animals that move along the ground, wild animals, and livestock, and a variety at that, each according to their own kinds.”

Well, I’m pretty sure you’re not trying to tell me that there were only 10 animals on the ark, so…

PH: “And lastly you have man, who is different from animals in his ability to reason, know, love and have an intimate relationship with his Marker.”

(Buzzer sound) sorry, wrong answer! Ability to reason is not a humans-only trait. Even birds do it (trying to avoid breaking into Cole Porter here).

You weren’t supposed to use things that were a matter of degree, or that had to do with a soul. And if having an intimate relationship with one’s “maker” is it, then I guess I’m not human. Although, come to think of it, I get along well with my mother…

PH: (quoting John Frame – emphasis and interpolations mine) “When we seek to know God obediently, we assume [we all know what they say about assuming…] the fundamental point that Christian knowledge is a knowledge under authority, that our quest for knowledge is not autonomous but subject to Scripture. And if this is true, it follows that the truth of (and to some extent the content) of Scripture must be regarded as the most certain knowledge that we have.”

The whole point of the exercise is to determine whether there is any reason to believe that it is true.

PH: “You put your trust in the abilities of men to correctly interpret the evidence. My trust is in God’s word.”

No, Peter, you trust the men who wrote down the legends. Just men. The only reason you have for believing that it’s true, is that they say so – all logic to the contrary notwithstanding. It’s an amazing gullibility. I have some bridges…

ME: What about all those fossils? Remember the page that calculated that if they had all been alive at once (i.e., at the time of the flood) that there would have been thousands of animals per acre?

PH: “Fossilization requires quick burial. Bones or a carcass left to rot on a plain disappears rapidly by the elements and by other animals and organisms that feed off it. Genesis 1:22 says God gave the command “Let the water teem with living creatures…”
Teeming oceans would be a lot of creatures.”

Had you bothered to read the reference page, you would know that they were talking about land animals only, and the dry land area. That you understand that fossils are rare (because of fossilization requirements) makes it all the more compelling. The site went on to say that the thousands per acre was based on known fossils. If we were to include all the likely ones that we haven’t found, estimating conservatively, the pre-flood Earth would have had 50 land animals per square foot, ranging in size from tiny shrews to massively huge dinosaurs.
Read it again – second section: http://www.religioustolerance.org/oldearth2.htm

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "pam, not very satisfying answers from peter there on your "bone" questions."

Sorry, I don't have time to open up the can of worms at this moment. I'll probably do that later.

ME: "You put your trust in the abilities of men to correctly interpret the evidence. My trust is in God’s word."

WALTER: "has god been down here lately to look at the evidence?"

In the sense that Jesus walked among men, no, but in the sense that He is always present, yes. Also in the sense that He created the evidence and made the facts what they are, so if He says, which He does, that He created animals to their kinds and man different from the animals, then that settles it.

WALTER: "if he did, i daresay he'd change his mind and "back" evolutionary theory."

That would be to compromise His nature, for He would have been lying, something that is impossible for God to do. If He were changeable, like evolutionary thought, then what He said one minute could change the next, and we could put no stock in His Word, just like it is hard to put stock in evolutionary thought. You never know when it is going to be revised, such as Steven J. Gould did with his theory of Punctuated Equilibrium.

WALTER: "remember, his last correspondence was ~2000 years ago - back when we thought a lot of crazy things about the cosmos."

Man did not have the understanding/ gadgets/instruments/technology that we do now, but God's Word was as true back then as it is now. It did/does not change.

ME: What version of the bible do you use? (Walter has asked twice.) Is it the ESV? Geneva? It would be nice if we could all be literally on the same page.

PH: “I'm sure that is not the only reason you are asking, but I prefer the NIV and NASB for different reasons.”

Actually, that was precisely why I was asking. Why else? I just want to know what you’re seeing in the verses that you refer to, and what you might read when I refer to some. I don’t try to deceive.

Me: What about the arm, wrist, and hand bones in a whale's flipper, all those joints that he can't use? Why does he grow hind limb buds as an embryo, and then lose them? Why does he grow a hair coat, and then lose that? Why does an embryonic horse have 5 toes, and then lose all but one…

PH: “Because a body part has a similar arrangement the popular view of the evidence is looked at as it having evolved because it fits nicely into an evolutionary science framework. I don’t operate on an evolutionary science framework. All this knowledge involves interpretation in some sense.”

Similar arrangement?? Interpretation?? No, Peter. They are exactly the same bones, in exactly the same arrangement - humerus, (elbow joint) radius and ulna, carpals, metacarpals, palanges. The same. No interpretation required. The same bones that exist in every land mammal, all reptiles except snakes and a few lizards (that nevertheless show vestiges of having once had them), and all birds. They are useful in all these animals. Then we have the whale – also a mammal – that you believe has always been a sea creature – yet he has these same bones, encased in a flipper where they are of no use whatsoever. Why would God do this?

For me it’s easy – the fossil evidence shows that he evolved from a land animal. For you, not so easy, because you believe in design – and what kind of piss-poor design is this?

And all those other embryological evidences show the same thing – animals evolved. And you can drop the evolutionary “framework” stuff. The evidence led to the knowledge of evolution – it wasn’t the other way around.

You had a long time to pray on this one, Peter, I'm surprised that God didn't give you better material.

pam, not very satisfying answers from peter there on your "bone" questions.

peter, you said,
"You put your trust in the abilities of men to correctly interpret the evidence. My trust is in God’s word."

has god been down here lately to look at the evidence? if he did, i daresay he'd change his mind and "back" evolutionary theory. remember, his last correspondence was ~2000 years ago - back when we thought a lot of crazy things about the cosmos.

Hi Walter,

When this dries up that sounds like a plan.

Pam again,

3. What about all those fossils? Remember the page that calculated that if they had all been alive at once (i.e., at the time of the flood) that there would have been thousands of animals per acre?

Fossilization requires quick burial. Bones or a carcass left to rot on a plain disappears rapidly by the elements and by other animals and organisms that feed off it. Genesis 1:22 says God gave the command “Let the water teem with living creatures…”

Teeming oceans would be a lot of creatures.

Why do you find sea creatures at the top of mountain ranges?

4. What is the definition of a "kind?" What characteristic(s), in your opinion, prevents apes and humans from being the same kind?

“So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind….Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind…Then God said, “let Us make man in Our image and likeness…” (Genesis 1:21, 24, 27)

So you have sea creatures, birds, land animals that move along the ground, wild animals, and livestock, and a variety at that, each according to their own kinds. And lastly you have man, who is different from animals in his ability to reason, know, love and have an intimate relationship with his Marker.

Hi Walter, Pam,

You are giving me more to handle than I have time for so please be patient. On your biblical questions I will take the time to research and document (especially Pam) where necessary.

PAM: "1. What version of the bible do you use? (Walter has asked twice.) Is it the ESV? Geneva? It would be nice if we could all be literally on the same page."

I'm sure that is not the only reason you are asking, but I prefer the NIV and NASB for different reasons. Let me explain. I have a "Rainbow Study Bible" in the NIV which, when I was a new Christian, I found useful because it breaks the verses down as to different subjective matter. It was the version most commonly used in my church.

In the Rainbow edition a verse in purple signifies something to do with the theme of God, blue signifies a verse of passage that carries a theme of salvation, silver signifies a verse with a theme on historic narrative, olive signifies a theme on commandments, black - sin, orange - faith, gold - prophecy, etc. It is just an old habit that much of the time helps me in identifying what the verse or passage is conveying.

I also like to use the NASB. It is a good modern translation from the original Greek.

2. What about the arm, wrist, and hand bones in a whale's flipper, all those joints that he can't use? Why does he grow hind limb buds as an embryo, and then lose them? Why does he grow a hair coat, and then lose that? Why does an embryonic horse have 5 toes, and then lose all but one (except for a few, who retain three or more)? I'm not interested in what you can dig up from some apologist, Peter. I want to know why you think God would do this.

Because a body part has a similar arrangement the popular view of the evidence is looked at as it having evolved because it fits nicely into an evolutionary science framework. I don’t operate on an evolutionary science framework. All this knowledge involves interpretation in some sense.

With any knowledge the important thing is whether you use the knowledge correctly. As John Frame put it in The Doctrine of the Knowledge of God, p.44-45,

“When we seek to know God obediently, we assume the fundamental point that Christian knowledge is a knowledge under authority, that our quest for knowledge is not autonomous but subject to Scripture. And if this is true, it follows that the truth of (and to some extent the content) of Scripture must be regarded as the most certain knowledge that we have. If this knowledge is to be the criterion for all other knowledge, if it is to govern our acceptance or rejection of other propositions, then there is no proposition that can call it into question. Thus when we know God, we know Him more certainly, more surely than we know anything else. When He speaks to us, our understanding of His Word must govern our understanding of everything else.”

You put your trust in the abilities of men to correctly interpret the evidence. My trust is in God’s word.

Sure, that sounds fine.

pam, peter,
pam that thread you suggested is only 5 days "younger" than this one. i will be on vacation from nov 22-28 (so peter can really catch up...), so i'm afraid if we go to that one it will be expired when i get back. i'd recommend this one
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_mouw/2009/11/the_need_for_moral_clarity.html
which just opened today and has no comments.

thoughts?

Since this thread is likely to close soon, why don't we move on to her next thread, which has only 4 comments?

peter,
i don't want you to focus on this most recent "liar, lunatic, lord, legend" thing - for now. answer those other questions first.

continued:
The Egyptian God Osiris was divinely fathered, performed miracles and was resurrected – all before 2000 B.C. Egyptians believed that upon death we would meet our maker, and with our eternal fate in the balance, be judged. In ancient Persia, Zoroaster’s virgin birth was said to mark the beginning of the apocalyptic end times, and the return of the Coming Savior, the World Messiah, to reestablish the pristine creation of God. (Zoroastrians assure us this is not expected to occur until around 2400 A.D.) These beliefs were well-known throughout the Biblical lands.

Around 700 B.C., King Amuluis, fearing his daughter-in-law, Rhea, would produce a son with a rightful claim to the throne, made her a Vestal Virgin. Nonetheless, by divine impregnation, she conceived and bore Romulus and Remus. The king ordered the Twins killed. Instead, to protect Them, a servant placed Them in a basket and sent Them down the Tiber River. They were rescued and raised by a shepherd, and went on to found Rome. Romulus and Remus were born into nobility and raised by poor people, whereas Moses was born to poor people and raised by nobility. See? It’s different.

Hinduism is to Buddhism as Judaism is to Christianity. Around 500 B.C., a Hindu prince named Siddhartha Gautama was born. Some followers ascribed virgin birth, miracles and divine heritage to him. They gave him the title “Buddha” (enlightened one) and named a new religion after Him. When Alexander the Great conquered Palestine in 320 B.C., he brought with him the ancient Greek story of Dionysus’ virgin birth as the son, or Son, of Zeus. Zeus must have enjoyed that experience, as He fathered numerous children this way. Alexander, or his subjects, eventually came to claim that He, too, was fathered by Zeus.

Most of these were real people around whom legends grew. There are twists and variations on the theme, but these God characteristics – virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, second coming – were so common in the old days, no self-respecting God would be found not having them. They are practically requirements for being God. It was into this environment that Jesus was born. As Greg Kane says, “Believing scholars like to bring up differences between Jesus and the earlier Pagan godmen. Attis’ faithful hung his likeness on a pine tree, not on a cross, so Jesus can't be Attis. Osiris’ mother was a Goddess instead of a mortal woman. Believing scholars are right, Jesus wasn't Attis, and He wasn’t Osiris. Jesus was a “new” God, the same way the first Honda Accord was a new car. He was a “new” version of God, built from old ideas.” God characteristics are story-making tools of the religion genre. Once they’ve accepted the similarities, Christians will say God orchestrated these precedents to prepare the way, so Palestinians would recognize Jesus as God when He came…

http://www.pocm.info/pagan_christs_osiris.html

pam, you said,
"...the genealogy of Jesus to David (in order to fulfill the prophecy), through Joseph. Never mind that he wasn't (supposedly) related to Joseph at all."

right, why bother with genealogy at all? but the the authors did - because they thought it was important to fulfill the "son of david" prophesies. at the same time, any god who was anybody in those days was divinely fathered. a disinterested observer might look at all this as evidence that the whole virgin birth thing was ADDED to the story - to give jesus the proper god credentials.

here's something i once wrote responding to c.s. lewis's famous liar, lunatic, lord false trilemma: (lewis left out "legend")

Many pre-destined leaders were saved as babies from evil rulers. King Sargon of Akkad, which included the Palestine, Assyria and Babylon, ruled around 2300 B.C. He too was either a liar, a lunatic, Lord or a legend. He was born of a mortal woman impregnated by a God. His mother put Him in a basket, and floated Him down the river to protect Him from other Gods. Obviously this presages Moses’ (and Horus’) birth story, but also the Massacre of Innocents which, according to one Biblical account (Mt2:13), caused Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt to protect the baby Jesus from King Herod (though according to another Biblical account (Lu2:39) they went right back to Nazareth).

"i've heard of apologists trying to explain the discrepancies in the two genealogies by saying one of them is through mary... it's kind of a difficult sell though because there are similarities in the genealogies - they just don't match exactly... "

They match fairly well from Abraham to David (Luke has an extra generation), but that's where the wheels come off the bus. They have him descending from different sons of David, one in 27 generations, the other in 42 (!!) generations.

I know that there are almost limitless hoops that apologists are willing to jump through to make the bible infallible, but there's no legitimate way to make this one wash.

A) Every name in the genealogies is male. And then you're going to stick Mary in on the end?
B) The bible says that both are a genealogy of Joseph. No way around that.
C)Luke 1:36 says Elizabeth is a relative of Mary. But Elizabeth is descended from Aaron (L 1:5), which means she's of the priestly tribe of Levi, so it's highly unlikely that her relative, Mary, would trace her lineage to the tribe of Judah.

How about it, Peter?

pam, you said,
"both Matthew and Luke took a stab at tracing the genealogy of Jesus to David (in order to fulfill the prophecy), through Joseph."

i've heard of apologists trying to explain the discrepancies in the two genealogies by saying one of them is through mary... it's kind of a difficult sell though because there are similarities in the genealogies - they just don't match exactly...

"well, actually, the names of the women are never given. we know them only as "wife"..."

Ah, yes, so true. And typical of this, and other patriarchal religions. Which is why both Matthew and Luke took a stab at tracing the genealogy of Jesus to David (in order to fulfill the prophecy), through Joseph. Never mind that he wasn't (supposedly) related to Joseph at all. Too demeaning to try to do it through a woman.

This attitude persisted for quite some time. I dabble in genealogy myself, and I can trace my line to some families that Burke's Peerage assures me "died out" at some point. Well, no, they didn't - I'm living proof - but they did have a generation of only daughters. Might as well have died.

pam, you said,
"So how is it that none of the world's peoples remembered this monumental event except for those in one tiny area of the Near East, who remembered it so well that they knew the exact dimensions of the ark, the sequence of events, and the names of all the people aboard?"

well, actually, the names of the women are never given. we know them only as "wife"...

pam, you noted,
"But, gee whiz, Walter, that puts the Sumerian story before the ark! How could a whole civilization have been in place so early?"

indeed, puzzling to presuppositionally-blinded mainstream (PBM) minds like ours. can't wait for peter to explain it all.

"And weren't they the ones who first came up with "snow-globe" Earth beneath a tin dome?"

well, we can't really say if they figured out snow-globe earth theory first, but being the first to write things down, they're the first we know of to, well, write it down.

presuppositional scientists are conducting experiments to determine whether the dome is tin, bronze or some sort of crystalline/mirrorized material. they're having trouble getting public funding for this important research and consider themselves victims of the PBM scientific community's bias against biblical (and sumerian) theories.

But, gee whiz, Walter, that puts the Sumerian story before the ark! How could a whole civilization have been in place so early? And weren't they the ones who first came up with "snow-globe" Earth beneath a tin dome?

Hmmmm, sounds like some pretty heavy borrowing going on...

pam, you asked peter,
"So how is it that none of the world's peoples remembered this monumental event [the flood] except for those in one tiny area of the Near East...?"

peter, if i may...

pam, as we know just about every culture has some kind of flood story. (i mean, people live along rivers, lakes and coastlines...and floods happen.) but don't forget about sin. these other flood stories are sin-corrupted versions of noah's ark.

presuppositionally-blinded mainstream (PBM) archaeologists have found a sumerian flood story from 2600 b.c., an akkadian one from 2100, a babylonian one from 1800 and the israelite one from, say 1000 b.c.** what's interesting about these is the evolution of the stories. when arranged chronologically, each one gets better, bigger, more fantastic. a PBM historian would think the israelites built on and improved these other stories. but i suspect peter's view is that sin caused these other cultures to corrupt the story, curiously making it less spectacular with each iteration.

**granting 1000 b.c. is actually generous of me as those ather flood stories are "dated" based on actual texts. the oldest actual text of noah's ark is from ~200 b.c., and most PBM scholars think noah's ark was written during the 500s b.c. while in babylonian exile (where they were exposed to "gilgamesh"). if we grant that noah's ark is older than 200 b.c., we should grant that the other stories are older than those dates i gave.

"if you have other theories on post-flood human migrations, i'd like to hear them."

And as a corollary to that, please, how did all these descendants forget about God?

You would think that in that short a span of time, with such an amazing heritage -having an ancestor who was one of only eight people saved from worldwide destruction - that it would be the sort of story that wouldn't be forgotten. How did you put it, Peter? Oh yeah - "oral testimony was very often reliable because that is the way people remembered things back then."

So how is it that none of the world's peoples remembered this monumental event except for those in one tiny area of the Near East, who remembered it so well that they knew the exact dimensions of the ark, the sequence of events, and the names of all the people aboard?

pam, you said,
"I'm sure there are many more that you've "forgotten" (maybe Walter can come up with more), but those are some I'd like you to answer soon."

peter, i'd like hear your (not a website's) theory on post flood human migrations.

you place the flood at ~2400 b.c. - after which there were 8 humans in the world - right? according to biblical theory, peleg was born ~100 years after the flood and the "dispersal" of humans happened during peleg's 240 (!) year life span - btwn 2300 and 2060.

how do you square this with the evidence we have for civilizations going back long before that, continuing right through the flood and on down through history to today. consider chinese, indian, egyptian, akkadian and sumerian civilizations. i see only two possibilities for you to evaluate:

1)some remains are pre-flood and some are post flood. noah's descendents migrated back and developed the same culture (language, architecture, clothing etc...) as existed there before the flood.

2)archaeologists' dates are all off, and all of the remains are post flood.

if you have other theories on post-flood human migrations, i'd like to hear them.

Just a couple more things - then to bed...

PH: "Walter, I have news for you. We all use circular reasoning. Science and rationale are what you atheists tend to fall back on."

Show us how that's circular, please.

PH: [from the Reymond quote] "They have pre-defined their task as biologists to be the discovery of the most plausible - or least plausible - naturalistic or materialistic explanation of how biological evolution occurs. This approach, of course, rules out an intelligent Creator, requiring adherence at the outset to the Darwinian worldview that assumes that the material universe is all that exists. This is hardly doing 'unbiased science' as it should be done."

You find this compelling, do you? Peter, the scientific method can only be applied to that which is observable, measurable, testable. None of that applies to something that is "just because it says so."

I can't even imagine accepting something so uncritically as you accept the bible. You know that it was written by men, that men decided which texts went in, and which were thrown out, and you decide that all these men are right (even though they're in conflict with one another) because something invisible and undemonstrable that you call the "holy spirit" guided them. And your only means of knowing that there is such a thing,is the writings of these men!!!

Amazing. Just amazing.

Now - a few of the questions that you haven't yet answered, Peter:

1. What version of the bible do you use? (Walter has asked twice.) Is it the ESV? Geneva? It would be nice if we could all be literally on the same page.

2. What about the arm, wrist, and hand bones in a whale's flipper, all those joints that he can't use? Why does he grow hind limb buds as an embryo, and then lose them? Why does he grow a hair coat, and then lose that? Why does an embryonic horse have 5 toes, and then lose all but one (except for a few, who retain three or more)? I'm not interested in what you can dig up from some apologist, Peter. I want to know why you think God would do this.

3. What about all those fossils? Remember the page that calculated that if they had all been alive at once (i.e., at the time of the flood) that there would have been thousands of animals per acre?

4. What is the definition of a "kind?" What characteristic(s), in your opinion, prevents apes and humans from being the same kind?

I'm sure there are many more that you've "forgotten" (maybe Walter can come up with more), but those are some I'd like you to answer soon.

PH: “Is it logical to believe that order came from chaos, for without a Mind to organize information why would it take to following any law, or for that matter, a mindless process deriving a law such as logic or gravity in the first place?
Is it logical for mindless matter to have intent?
Is it logical from mindless matter that personality should be derived?
Is it logical that chemicals mixing together produce Mind?
Is it logical that chemicals mixing together produce life?
Where do you see these things happening in nature?”

Yes, it’s logical to believe that order came from chaos because this is the way that things happen at the atomic and sub-atomic level. Did you ever study chemistry or physics, Peter? Do you know anything about the periodic table of the elements? Do you know that heat and cold and pressure affect things (like turning carbon into diamonds)?

Mindless matter doesn’t have intent. Who ever said that it did? Your mistake is in thinking that intent is a requirement.

It is logical that chemicals produce mind and life, because here we all are, and we are made of chemicals (not dust, not clay, not rib). Isn’t that wonderful?

That life is not still arising from scratch on this planet is simply because the conditions have changed. Earth’s climate and atmosphere are nothing like what they were when life began. For instance, there was no oxygen in Earth’s early atmosphere. The first forms of single-celled life were anaerobic. Clostridium Botulinum (from whence Botox) is a holdout from that time – oxygen quickly kills it. We have the earliest photosynthesizing cyanobacteria to thank for our current air supply.

PH: “…the explosion or whimpering (as Pam likes to say) of the Big Bang…”

Nope, I’ve never called it that – that’s all you. I said that astrophysicists characterize it as an expansion, rather than an explosion. This page will explain the difference:
http://astrophysics.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_universe_and_the_big_bang

I didn’t quite get to all of Peter’s arguments before leaving work, so here’s the rest.

PH: “And with evolutionary science the fossils do not come stamped one million years old. The evidence is based on interpretation and relied on as true because scientific instruments do not make mistakes, do they?”

You might have a leg to stand on with this argument if any one “instrument” was used, but that isn’t the case. Just as Darwin’s theory doesn’t rest on one finding alone, but has been reconfirmed with every advance in science (like genetics and DNA), so dating fossils and the rocks they rest in doesn’t depend on one single method, but on several that are used to crosscheck each other. These are such as stratigraphy (the geologic column), comparison to predictions generated by the expected sequence according to the phylogenetic tree of life, absolute dating by the known breakdown rate of radioactive isotopes (carbon-14 for things younger than 70,000 years, rubidium/strontium, thorium/lead, potassium/argon, argon/argon, or uranium/lead for things up to 46.6 billion years).

A key point is that it is no longer necessary simply to accept one chemical determination of a rock’s age. Age estimates can be cross-tested by using different isotope pairs. Results from different techniques, often measured in rival labs, continually confirm each other.

It’s been known since the 1960s that the famous Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, the line marking the end of the dinosaurs, was 65 million years old. Repeated recalibrations and retests, using ever more sophisticated techniques and equipment, cannot shift that date. It is accurate to within a few thousand years. With modern, extremely precise, methods, error bars are often only 1% or so.

I know that a favorite creationist argument is “how do we know [pick an isotope] didn’t decay at a different rate 4500 years ago (or whenever you think the “flood” happened)?"

The answer is that all of these isotopes (including Carbon-14) have a half-life greater than that, and even if that weren’t true, this special pleading would have to apply to every isotope. Not rational.

WALTER: "(note that implicit in "mislead by presuppositions" in the idea that given scientific presuppositions, the evidence really does look like evolution occured.)"

PH: “From a naturalistic framework that does not take into account a supernatural beginning or a supernatural hand along the way.”

Well, no, of course not, since there is zero evidence that anything supernatural exists.

peter, continuing with those questions:
# If God exists, how would this impact my life?

IF we discover evidence for god, the answer to this question depends son what we find out about god. right now, we don't really know anything about him - there being no evidence yet.

Is it possible to intellectually believe God exists but my life to remain unchanged by knowing this intellectual fact?

again, this depends on what we find out about god, what, if anything, he wants from us, and what we and he are capable of. i mean, what if, once we have evidence for god, it turns out he's NOT omnipotent or NOT omniscient, or not in control of our eternal fate? (of course, given the hunger and terribly "cruel" diseases in the world he can't be both omniscient and omnipotent.)

What’s the point of evidence if I’m not willing to be transformed by the reality of God?

here, yet again, you're presuming atheists don't WANT there to be a god. really, most atheists HAVE transformed our reality. most of us began as believers, did some truth-seeking, and transformed our realities in response to evidence.

# Does God want more than just an acknowledgment of his existence?

at the moment, there's no way of knowing. we have no reliable communication from god.

What if God wants an I-you relationship with individual humans?

well, that would be really cool, huh? and imagine - what if god wants me to participate in some great plan he has? that would be way cool. and what if the plan meant i never had to die, and in fact get to play golf every day (with my hook divinely cured) after i'm done here on earth? THAT would totally rock.

but alas...there's no evidence for any of that. it's just wishful thinking so far.

peter,
i'll take a stab at a few of these:

#What kind of an attitude does truth-seeking require?

well, obviously an open mind is needed for truth-seeking. therefore "biblical presuppositionalism" is out as a truth-seeking endeavor.

Does the fact that people want to disprove evidence for God actually reveal an attitude of non-truth-seeking?

evidence?! what evidence? the book of the dead? that's evidence for some people. the koran? the book of mormon? the bible? what slays me is how christians are easily able to discern the silliness of those other books, but can't see how their magic book is exactly like those others.

#Could it be that I am looking at the evidence for God in the wrong way—like the duck-rabbit scenario? Perhaps God seems hidden from humans because we aren’t paying attention or because we don’t want God’s authority “interfering” with our lives or because we’ve determined the height of the bar over which God must “jump”?

ah, yes... pam addressed this - the idea that we don't want to believe because then we'd have to behave.

i really don't think people who are now atheists set out to become atheists. i really don't. i know i didn't. it's just where truth-seeking led me. believe me, if there were real evidence for (your conception of) god, i'd be first in line to repent.

# Do I have a right to demand evidence of God if I am unwilling to go undergo personal transformation?

here you make that same assumption (projection, actually) that atheists don't want there to be a god. but, really, for me, and i'd say probably most atheists, the evidence comes first. if you want to call that making god "jump", well, so be it. why can't god just give us plain evidence?. why must we be satisfied with 2000 yr-old heresay and potato chips that look like jesus? why not a 1000-mile-wide hologram in the sky? he could do that, right? then we'd all believe. instead we're supposed to be happy with "mark said peter said jesus said"?

2.

WALTER: "did you even notice that? the circular reasoning? your answer to "why so much paul?", is "paul says...." it's just like how your answer to "how do we know the bible is true?", is "the bible says it's true."

Walter, I have news for you. We all use circular reasoning. Science and rationale are what you atheists tend to fall back on.

You and Pam seem to think that you come at this all from a neutral and unbiased perspective. Yet, you both fight tooth and nail to dismiss the Bible as anything other than myth or fairy tale, legend that got twisted over the years. That is your reasoning, not mine.

As I have said many times, you appeal to your highest authority and if I were to appeal to something outside of God's word as my highest authority, then God's word would no longer be it.

As for you, I like what Robert Reymond said in Faith's Reason for Believing,

"They presuppose as a matter of first principle material processes do all the work of biological evolution because, according to their philosophy, nothing else is available. They have pre-defined their task as biologists to be the discovery of the most plausible - or least plausible - naturalistic or materialistic explanation of how biological evolution occurs. This approach, of course, rules out an intelligent Creator, requiring adherence at the outset to the Darwinian worldview that assumes that the material universe is all that exists. This is hardly doing "unbiased science" as it should be done. Rather, this is prejudicial naturalistic philosophy of science that is biased to the core and that dictates the materialistic outcome of all scientific pronouncements before the facts are even known and considered." p. 336-337

I'll leave the rest for another day.

Hi Walter and Pam (November 13, 2009 7:45 AM),

This will probably be my last post until Sunday night. We have company this weekend plus I'm working 12 hour shifts.

Okay Pam, you want the hard core evidence. That will take time to dig it up. I'll answer your last posts in detail if I can.

WALTER: "peter, pam said,
"It’s amazing to me that Christians rely so heavily on Paul. Jesus supposedly upheld all of the old Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17), yet Paul abandons it, most likely to make it all more palatable to Romans ...."

Yes, Jesus upheld the Law because that is what He came to do along with making God known to humanity in a personal way.

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the prophets; I have not come to
abolish them but to fulfill them." (Matthew 5:17)

PAM: "Why don’t you call yourselves “Paulians?”"

WALTER: "it's funny that in answering these you quote PAUL: in galatians, corinthians, romans, etc..."

It is you who want to exclude and omit Paul from the passages of Scripture, not I. I consider what he said as from God, like I do the rest of Scripture. God used him more that any other apostle in framing our understanding of the work of Christ. You are the ones trying to separate his teachings on Christ from that of what Jesus taught. That is a weak argument.

Paul and Barnabas were given the hand of fellowship by being welcomed and called 'brothers' at the meeting of the Jerusalem council recorded in Acts 15:4,6,12. Paul was accepted as one who formally persecuted the church and was now part of it. The apostle Peter endorses Paul in 2 Peter 3:15, 16 and even calls Paul's writings Scripture.

"Bear in mind that our Lord's patience means salvation, just as our DEAR BROTHER PAUL also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction."

PH: “The other thing to bear in mind is that the Holy Spirit did cause the apostles to speak in other tongues during the Day of Pentecost in order to confirm the ministry of these men being from God as He did on other occasions with miraculous signs.”

Oh, yeah – one of my favorite things – speaking in “tongues.” Too funny, Peter. I’ve seen video of this. People fall down in something like a grand mal seizure and gurgle out unintelligible gibberish. Is this supposed to impress someone? Am I to think that they’re anything other than scary fanatics? Now if someone suddenly started speaking in an actual language that he could be proven never to have learned…well, that might make me wonder… (at least enough to look for a scientific reason) 

PH: “From the traditional cosmological argument (BB) we have the universe springing from Chance, for without a Being to create, organize, plan, and purpose, things just happen chaotically, which makes the whole concept of probability meaningless. If there is nothing besides matter then how does matter show intent, how does it organize, how does matter convey information, how does it purpose laws into being?”
Things don’t happen chaotically – they follow the laws of physics. These “laws” don’t require a law-giver – they’re just the way things relate to one another on an atomic (or sub-atomic) scale. Energy – which is eternal – produces matter. It organizes – without intent – according to those laws. Matter didn’t create the laws, it’s the other way around. It’s about atoms exchanging electrons, etc. under certain conditions.

PH: “Chance governs nothing. It has no intelligence. How/why from empirical beginnings do we get non-physical, reason and logic?”

Reason and logic are products of the human (and to some degree, the non-human brain. These properties didn’t arrive by chance – far from it. They were naturally “selected” because brains that had them caused their possessors to succeed in the game of life.
If you want to know how the brain works (chemically and electrically) to produce them, I can point you to some books. Let me know…

PH: “The other philosophical question is how does something create itself? It would have to first exist before it could create, and yet the universe had a beginning according to the most highly praised and popular theory today, the BB.”

You just can’t get away from the anthropomorphic, can you? It didn’t “create,” it happened. We think that the universe we know came from the BB, but no one knows what preceded it. Maybe there have been many such. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed (FIRST law of thermodynamics – the one creationists DON’T like to talk about).

PH: “…only to confirm later in his mind that the human authors inspired by the Spirit, were accurate historians because what they said, the places they listed, the people they wrote about were confirmed by artifacts found in the digs in these regions that they wrote of.”

You then give me links to three quotes – here is the first, by Freeman:

"The pick and the spade are to be humble instruments of illustrating and authenticating the Word of God. Already, through their agency, important discoveries have been made. Ancient tablets covered with strange characters have been brought to light; by patient labor and wonderful ingenuity these characters have been deciphered, and made to tell the secrets which for ages they had kept concealed. The tombs of Egypt, the palaces of Assyria, and the royal records of Moab, have been compelled to speak, and now, in different languages, they bear testimony for God and his truth."

According to archaeological evidence there is ‘no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about A.D. 80.’"

All three are just words. They offer not one tiny bit of evidence, nor do they even give a clue as to what sort of evidence they’re talking about. This is very weak, Peter.

Then there are your questions from yet another link. I found this one interesting:

“#What kind of an attitude does truth-seeking require? Does the fact that people want to disprove evidence for God actually reveal an attitude of non-truth-seeking?”

Let’s turn it around, shall we? What kind of an attitude does truth-seeking require? Does the fact that people want to disprove evidence for evolution actually reveal an attitude of non-truth-seeking?

I think it applies much better in this iteration. We read/have read your books and sites. I’m willing to bet you’ve never read a single book on evolution.

On Mosaic Law (no longer in effect), you quote:
“And so He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be FULLY MET in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit."

Do I read this correctly – no believer is a sinner? Nothing he does is wrong? Wow.

PH: “So, as recorded by the early church fathers, Mark as a companion of Peter could have written down what Peter dictated to him. There is no reason to believe that Peter could not have later learned to write the Greek language as he says in 1 Peter 5:12 , "With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a true brother, I have WRITTEN to you briefly”

First, no one knows who “Mark” was – no, not even the “early church fathers,” who knew neither Peter, nor Mark – or whatever his real name was.

Second, you make my point for me - Peter had to seek help in order to write briefly.

PH: “What you do, as a person looking in on the information 20 centuries removed, is to discredit whatever it says because you do not like the idea of the Bible being right in what it says. You discount that someone could write historically on events that they were not eyewitness to see from eyewitnesses or secondhand witness passed down to the historian.”

Nope. If someone could demonstrate that the bible was true, we would accept it. We see no evidence that it’s any better than the other religions long since discarded. It has all the same elements of magical mystery mess. Nor can you show that there were any eyewitnesses who contributed to it anywhere along the way. As I said before, the gospels are anonymously written. The names were arbitrarily assigned much later. That doesn’t count as “eyewitness.” Most biblical historians put their writings as later than 70 CE, too. Mentioning the fall of the temple is seen as an “after-the-fact” prediction meant to bolster the other predictions of Jesus, to impress the Gentiles.

And what about all the Jews who supposedly witnessed all of the miracles of Jesus? Why did they remain silent? The whole thing was pretty much forgotten until Paul pulled its fat out of the fire.

PH: “Yet this happens so often in the world today in records of events that the author was not there to see, but in which he/she employed eyewitnesses or secondary witnesses who heard from eyewitnesses what took place. Do you discount those too? No, it is only the Bible, not the works of Plato or Aristotle or the historical accounts of Julia Caesar, because you have a certain bent, a bent against the Bible.

There are people today who try to discredit the Holocaust. Does that discount it because you personally were not there to witness it? You take other peoples accounts on what happened as true unless highly unlikely to do so. You go by second hand evidence because you were not there.”

Oh, Peter, you can’t be serious. None of these things depend solely on one anonymous book. There is archaeological evidence of cities and of battles fought, historical records, coins with likenesses, corroborating accounts from contemporaries and from enemies. In the case of the Holocaust, there are yet-living eyewitnesses, photographs, standing concentration camps, ovens, requisition records for Zyklon-B, mass graves…

PH: “You miss the point again and again Walter. These accounts by these historians confirm what the Bible is saying, not necessarily whether they are true or false, but are another independent source of evidence that says these people, places, events are as the Bible says they are. These accounts give pieces of information about people, places and events that are from outside the Bible that verify information found in the Bible such as a person called Pontius Pilate or of crucifixion as a means of punishing insurrection.”

No, you miss Walter’s point, Peter. You can put facts into a story, but that doesn’t make the story true. Novelists do it all the time – it’s called “historical fiction”. We know, as a matter of history, that the Romans crucified people. That doesn’t mean that they crucified one named Jesus of Nazareth, and it certainly doesn’t mean that he rose from the dead afterwards. For those things there is absolutely no outside corroboration.

PH: “You are constantly having to revise the way you see things. Truth is an ever shifting mirage. You think you see it, and wisely point out your findings to others, just as the mirage evaporates and you are on to the next one. Pontius Pilate was such a case that skeptics thought he was a fictitious figure that the Bible made up until archaeologists found a stone with his inscription carved into it.”

Truth is not “an ever-shifting mirage,” but neither is it a matter of swallowing hearsay whole and without question. Skepticism is healthy, Peter. It keeps you from buying snake oil. The world would be a great place if we all went around wide-eyed and gullible, believing everything we heard, wouldn’t it?

PH: “…whereas your starting points of origins are totally illogical, and from there you build your house of cards, in suppression of the truth of God's word. You know that if His word is true you will be judged and are accountable. This is something the independent, judging unbeliever does not want to consider. He wants freedom to live life on his own terms as he is the determiner of his own fate and what is truth…”

This is what you religionists would love to believe, isn’t it? That we all really deep down know there’s a God, but we just chafe under the yoke, and want to be free to live our lives of depravity and debauchery, and we’re all afraid of judgment. A pretty story from your point of view, but with one handicap – it just isn’t true. We just really don’t find the story even faintly credible. That’s all. We live pretty much like you, and we aren’t afraid.

PH: “Ravi discusses in his message to atheists how they misinterpret the Pascalian Wager. The refutation is somewhere in the message…”

What?? I was talking about Mark’s utter screwups in discussing the geography of Galilee, and I sent you a link to a map so you could see how little he knew about it. It was on a site that had something about Pascal’s Wager in the title (and thus in the URL), but the page had nothing to do with that. So you send me to a Ravi lecture about atheism that supposedly refutes the atheist view of PW? You didn’t even go to my link, did you? Or read what I’d written before it, apparently. Glad to know you’re paying attention. Here it is again. Try actually looking at it. http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/markauthor.html#geography"

PH: “Very logical: three eternal Persons, each a distinct Person, unchangeable in their nature/undivided in essence (in that each has 'Godness' for they have the same essence), so that they do not exist interdependently or in disunity of each other, hence the one living and true God.”

That’s your idea of logical?? No wonder we aren’t getting anywhere. As Luke (Cool Hand) would say “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

PH: “Every good church historian points out that it is unlikely that Josephus wrote some of these things, that they were inserted later, but the fact is that he does mention Jesus and His followers and quite possibly the reason for those who followed Him, His crucifixion and resurrection. Josephus also writes a lot on the history of the Jews that the Bible gives account of other than of Jesus.”

Nobody’s questioning the historical things – they prove nothing about Jesus. It’s quite likely that the entire paragraph is an interpolation. For one thing, it says that Jesus drew over to him both Jews and Gentiles. He did not. Nor did he wish to. In Mt 10, he says “5 These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand."

Again, this Gentile thing is Paul overturning what Jesus said.

peter, pam said,
"It’s amazing to me that Christians rely so heavily on Paul. Jesus supposedly upheld all of the old Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17), yet Paul abandons it, most likely to make it all more palatable to Romans ...."

and

"Why don’t you call yourselves “Paulians?”

it's funny that in answering these you quote PAUL: in galatians, corinthians, romans, etc...

did you even notice that? the circular reasoning? your answer to "why so much paul?", is "paul says...." it's just like how your answer to "how do we know the bible is true?", is "the bible says it's true."

3.

So what Paul was teaching is that following the law is good, but it is fully met in us by Jesus Christ, in the place of the believer. We don't need any more sacrifices for our sins, for Christ is the final sacrifice, the perfect sacrifice without blemish or spot. How can you better that? You can't. So as Paul teaches, either you live by your own merits in obeying the law, or you live by the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ, who met every letter/merit of the law. We are justified, sanctified, glorified through Him alone. That sets us free from the letter of the law which brings death, from achieving merit by our works of obeying the law, because once we fail in the slightest effort we are now guilty before the holy God. This is some of what Paul is teaching. Christ has set us free from the letter of the law, of keeping it ourselves, for He has done that in Himself and our identity, our union is in Christ. He is our life, our old nature was crucified on the cross with Him as the law was nailed there. As Paul said in Galatians 2:20,

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God [what He did for me], who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be obtained through the law, Christ died for nothing." (Galatians 2:20-21)

No, Paul taught about the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

Take it for what it is worth, and hopefully the grace of God will help you to see.

PAM: "Why don’t you call yourselves “Paulians?”

Because we follow Jesus, just as Paul did. He wrote about Him and was given the hand of fellowship as recorded in the book of Acts.

2.

PH: “That is your assumption, not mine. Greek was the prevalent language of the region.”

PAM: "The Jews of Galilee spoke Aramaic. The more highly educated, those of the priestly class, would have known Hebrew, but it was not the common language. The Roman occupiers would have spoken Latin or Greek. The humble working class men who reportedly followed Jesus would not have spoken anything but Aramaic, and would not likely have been able to read and write. This is not my “assumption,” but the considered opinion of historians who specialize in these studies."

Please see my response above.

ME: “No, the Book of Mormon is a false gospel. It contradicts the Bible in many ways and came over 1800 years later.
'But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!' (Galatians 1:8, see also 2 Corinthians 11:3-4)”

PAM: "Said, of course, by Paul - not Jesus. It’s amazing to me that Christians rely so heavily on Paul. Jesus supposedly upheld all of the old Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17), yet Paul abandons it, most likely to make it all more palatable to Romans (how many adult male recruits do you get when you insist on circumcision?). Go ahead, eat bacon, indulge your sassy kids, stop stoning those who gather sticks to stay warm on Sunday… The only part anyone clings to today is the admonition about homosexuality – and most don’t even stone them."

No, what he was confirming was that the law was a "school teacher" to lead us to Christ. The law was good, and it had been fully met in Jesus Christ. We died to the law in Christ (Romans 7:4) for in Christ the whole law was fulfilled (Galatians 3:13-18). Christ was the completion of the law. The law came through Moses, grace and mercy through Jesus Christ. The law was/is good, for it shows us what sin is, but the law does not acquit us from guilt, it produces in us things that we do not want to do (Romans 7:7-25), things we know are wrong. As Paul says, since we now know we have broken the law and are guilty before God, who will rescue us? "Thanks be to God - through Jesus Christ our Lord!...Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering (a principle taught throughout the OT). And so He condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be FULLY MET in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit." (Romans 7:25, 8:1-4)

Hi Pamsm (November 10, 2009 2:30 AM ),

I thought I would take a quick stab at one of your posts.

PAM: "They were written in Greek - a language that it's extremely unlikely that an apostle (if such existed) could have written. Reading literacy in that place and time was 10% or less, and writing literacy was only 2-3%."

You make a lot of assumptions. First, that the apostles could not have learned Greek, second, that none of them could speak and write Greek, third, that they could not use someone fluent in Greek to write down the message, fourth, that the Holy Spirit did not supernaturally intervene, as He did in the book of Acts 2:4,7-12.

The Greeks were interested in education, in the intellect and knowledge, so when they conquered Greek became the common language of their sphere of influence, just like the Romans were interested in fast access to their territories so they built roads.

Therefore, these two means that God provided were the means of spreading the gospel to the known world and Greek was the language used. So either the apostles would have to learn to write Greek or get someone who was able to. You'll notice that the missionary journeys and the cities in which Paul wrote and stayed were all Greek speaking.

As for the apostles all being illiterate, that might not have been the case with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, for he was a rich man who had servants working for him. The Scriptures also tell us that John wrote (1 John 1:4). Paul was definitely not illiterate. He talks about writing in large letters, possibly because on the Damascus road he was temporarily blinded and this could have effected his sight, but this is just an inference from the text, nothing definite as to what cause him to write in such large letters.

So, as recorded by the early church fathers, Mark as a companion of Peter could have written down what Peter dictated to him. There is no reason to believe that Peter could not have later learned to write the Greek language as he says in 1 Peter 5:12 , "With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a true brother, I have WRITTEN to you briefly, encouraging you and testifying that this is the TRUE grace of God. Stand fast in it."

The other thing to bear in mind is that the Holy Spirit did cause the apostles to speak in other tongues during the Day of Pentecost in order to confirm the ministry of these men being from God as He did on other occasions with miraculous signs. But this was especially for this generation in order to aid in the spreading of the Gospel, since these tongues and prophetic ministries did cease. (1 Corinthians 13:8)

If you want to pursue this further I would be glad to.

keep going peter. you're doing fine.

Hi Walter,

I'll start on Empirical Adequacy and Experiential relevance together by looking at your world view to see how empirically adequate/experiential relevant it is sometimes by paraphrasing some insights by Robert Reymond again, in his book Faith's Reason for Believing.

From the traditional cosmological argument (BB) we have the universe springing from Chance, for without a Being to create, organize, plan, and purpose, things just happen chaotically, which makes the whole concept of probability meaningless. If there is nothing besides matter then how does matter show intent, how does it organize, how does matter convey information, how does it purpose laws into being? What is the reason that matter would organize itself when matter does not have reason? It just is. Chance governs nothing. It has no intelligence. How/why from empirical beginnings do we get non-physical, reason and logic?

The other philosophical question is how does something create itself? It would have to first exist before it could create, and yet the universe had a beginning according to the most highly praised and popular theory today, the BB.

To be continued - no time left Walter.

Here is a lecture on logical consistence by Ken Semples, who just so happens to hold to an old earth view of creation. How he can logically deduce this from the Bible is beyond me, but he is a good listen on other subjects, in my opinion.

http://links.christreformed.org/realaudio/A20071109.mp3

This is part of his series in Putting Christian Truth-claims to the Test.

http://apologetics315.blogspot.com/search/label/Kenneth%20Samples

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "i grant that the n.t. is MUCH better than the o.t. regarding mundane things like people, places and events.

The time line is much older for the OT so many of the artifacts and historical evidence is harder to find. That does not necessarily mean that things/people/places/events described in the OT are not as the Bible says they are.
It just means that the evidence has not been found or no longer exists, it's perished.

http://www.bible-history.com/subcat.php?id=36

Along the lines of earlier, when I questioned your world view concerning the evidence of the OT and NT, I would also ask you to examine whether you really have a desire to know the truth of God or whether it is just a mental exercise to prove your point of view is best, in as far as your world view can determine what best is. Here is a little essay that brings some of these points to bear. Ask yourself if any apply to you.

http://www.epsociety.org/blog/2009/11/god-evidence-and-will.asp

Here are a few of the questions,

#What kind of an attitude does truth-seeking require? Does the fact that people want to disprove evidence for God actually reveal an attitude of non-truth-seeking?
#Could it be that I am looking at the evidence for God in the wrong way—like the duck-rabbit scenario? Perhaps God seems hidden from humans because we aren’t paying attention or because we don’t want God’s authority “interfering” with our lives or because we’ve determined the height of the bar over which God must “jump”?
# Do I have a right to demand evidence of God if I am unwilling to go undergo personal transformation?
# Am I open to evidence for God in whatever form it comes—or do I insist that evidence must be a certain way?
# Does my will have anything to do with my actually benefiting from evidence?
# If God exists, how would this impact my life? Is it possible to intellectually believe God exists but my life to remain unchanged by knowing this intellectual fact? What’s the point if my life remains unchanged and self-centered rather than God-centered? What’s the point of evidence if I’m not willing to be transformed by the reality of God?
# Does God want more than just an acknowledgment of his existence? What if God wants an I-you relationship with individual humans?

And the topper offer,
God isn’t interested in just changing our beliefs. He’s interested in changing *us*! A loving, authoritative God made us to relate to us. Are we willing to receive evidence on God’s terms?

You are not, or at least not yet.

peter,
i grant that the n.t. is MUCH better than the o.t. regarding mundane things like people, places and events.

3.

Time after time the Bible has held its ground on those scoffers who tried to disprove what it was saying, such as Sir Walter M. Ramsay, only to confirm later in his mind that the human authors inspired by the Spirit, were accurate historians because what they said, the places they listed, the people they wrote about were confirmed by artifacts found in the digs in these regions that they wrote of.

http://www.bible-history.com/quotes/james_m_freeman_2.html

http://www.bible-history.com/quotes/william_f_albright_3.html

http://www.bible-history.com/quotes/sir_frederic_kenyon_1.html

2.

What you do, as a person looking in on the information 20 centuries removed, is to discredit whatever it says because you do not like the idea of the Bible being right in what it says. You discount that someone could write historically on events that they were not eyewitness to see from eyewitnesses or secondhand witness passed down to the historian.

Yet this happens so often in the world today in records of events that the author was not there to see, but in which he/she employed eyewitnesses or secondary witnesses who heard from eyewitnesses what took place. Do you discount those too? No, it is only the Bible, not the works of Plato or Aristotle or the historical accounts of Julia Caesar, because you have a certain bent, a bent against the Bible.

There are people today who try to discredit the Holocaust. Does that discount it because you personally were not there to witness it? You take other peoples accounts on what happened as true unless highly unlikely to do so. You go by second hand evidence because you were not there.

Some of the early church fathers obtained information that verified the Bible from people who were in contact with the disciples or one generation removed.

You also discount the fact that oral testimony was very often reliable because that is the way people remembered things back then. There are a lot of doxologies from early Christians that are used in the Bible, such as Rom 16:27; Eph 2:20; 1 Tim 1:17; Jude 1:25; Rev 5:13 as commonly cited ones.

As usual, it is whatever fits into your framework that you accept, based on your presuppositional bias, just like I do with mine, but I base my faith on Someone who can make sense of this world, whereas your starting points of origins are totally illogical, and from there you build your house of cards, in suppression of the truth of God's word. You know that if His word is true you will be judged and are accountable. This is something the independent, judging unbeliever does not want to consider. He wants freedom to live life on his own terms as he is the determiner of his own fate and what is truth (John 18:38). That is something I cannot change, but I can point out the glaring deficiencies of subjective opinion 20 centuries removed from the facts that has no immovable fixed reference point.

You are constantly having to revise the way you see things. Truth is an ever shifting mirage. You think you see it, and wisely point out your findings to others, just as the mirage evaporates and you are on to the next one. Pontius Pilate was such a case that skeptics thought he was a fictitious figure that the Bible made up until archaeologists found a stone with his inscription carved into it.

Hi Walter,

ME: “Secular historians in addition to the Bible have confirmed many things recorded in the Bible as historic, such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the persecution of His followers”

WALTER: "it's not exactly true. there's NO "confirmation" of the "crucifixion of jesus christ."

Whether true or false it confirmed what the Bible said, giving credence that what was recorded in the Bible was also recorded as happening in other writings.

WALTER: "there are reports of christians, not christ. i suppose you can call those confirmation of the existence christians in first and second century judea. but that's not really at issue. i will happily grant, with no argument that there were christians as early as 93 a.d."

You miss the point again and again Walter. These accounts by these historians confirm what the Bible is saying, not necessarily whether they are true or false, but are another independent source of evidence that says these people, places, events are as the Bible says they are. These accounts give pieces of information about people, places and events that are from outside the Bible that verify information found in the Bible such as a person called Pontius Pilate or of crucifixion as a means of punishing insurrection.

http://www.bible-history.com/quotes/flavius_josephus_4.html

http://www.bible-history.com/quotes/flavius_josephus_1.html

WALTER: "“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not extinct at this day.”

WALTER: "Oh my God. Here we have a Jew, not a follower of Christ, reporting Jesus’ “wonderful works,” His crucifixion and His resurrection. “He was the Christ”! It’s almost too good to be true, and easy to see why Christians love this passage."

Every good church historian points out that it is unlikely that Josephus wrote some of these things, that they were inserted later, but the fact is that he does mention Jesus and His followers and quite possibly the reason for those who followed Him, His crucifixion and resurrection. Josephus also writes a lot on the history of the Jews that the Bible gives account of other than of Jesus.

You are right, the parts that speak glowingly of Jesus are discounted, but that still leaves information that confirms what the Bible is saying, and therefore additional information ranging from outside the Bible.

peter,
i didn't write anything about suetonius because i arbitrarily decided not to consider "testimony" from after 115 a.d.. suetonius wrote in 121 a.d., so his is not "eyewitness testimony" either. as i mentioned earlier, NONE of these people were ALIVE when jesus was.

so, when you say,
“Secular historians in addition to the Bible have confirmed many things recorded in the Bible as historic, such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the persecution of His followers”

it's not exactly true. there's NO "confirmation" of the "crucifixion of jesus christ."

there are reports of christians, not christ. i suppose you can call those confirmation of the existence christians in first and second century judea. but that's not really at issue. i will happily grant, with no argument that there were christians as early as 93 a.d.

peter, part 5:

The next extra-Biblical mention of Christ comes from Tacitus (57 – 117 A.D.). In 115 A.D., he wrote The Annals, a historical review of the reigns of Roman Emperors. He reports that Nero blamed Christians in 64 A.D. for the burning of Rome, and that

“Christus, the founder of that name [Christians], was put to death by Pontius Pilate.”

As with the writings of Josephus and Pliny the Younger, Tacitus is writing many, many years after the events he describes. Here, Tacitus is 58 years old, “reporting” on something that happened when he was seven. Unlike the Bible, but in concert with other descriptions, he portrays Pilate as an unjust ruler who relished executions. That Tacitus used “Christus,” a religious title meaning “anointed one” or “messiah,” indicates he based the Pilate account on Christian testimony, not Roman records, which would have said “Jesus” or “Jew” if they recorded anything at all. The charge that Pilate put Jesus to death was a common Christian belief by 115 A.D., so this provides no new information.

Many first and second-century historians had no reason to write about Jesus. They were not specifically from Judea or not interested in religion or politics. But there is at least one who was – Philo (25 B.C. – 47 A.D.). Unlike Josephus, Pliny, Tacitus and Thallus, Philo was born at just the right time. He was an adult for Jesus’ entire life. He lived near Jerusalem during Herod’s Massacre and the crucifixion. Like Josephus, he was Jewish and wrote Jewish apologetics and political commentary. Nearly all of his voluminous works survive. He was familiar with Judea and visited the Temple in Jerusalem. He even wrote about local religious figures, Jewish culture and persecution of Judean Jews at the hands of Pontius Pilate. If ever someone were a candidate for contemporary extra-Biblical corroboration it is Philo. But, there is nothing from Philo. It is a miracle none of the early Church Fathers, who were familiar with Philo, tried to corrupt his works to include a Jesus reference.

(end part 5)

peter, part 4:
Pliny the Younger (62 – 113 A.D.) was a Roman governor in what is now Turkey. In a letter to Trajan, written 80 years after the crucifixion, Pliny relates how he has forced Christians to curse Christ and worship the proper Roman leaders and Gods. Christians’ favorite part of the letter is where Pliny says,

“...they were accustomed to meet on a fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god, and bind themselves by oath not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, not to falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust when called upon to do so.”

Remember, Pliny the Younger was born 30 years after Jesus died. And, doesn’t it seem weird that Pliny, bragging to Trajan about how he’s oppressing Christians, would say such nice things about them? Anyway, this is a quote about Christians, not Christ. It does imply that Christians had meetings, songs and moral codes as of 112 A.D.

A more relevant passage on Jesus’ life might be found in the works of Pliny’s uncle’s. Pliny the Elder (23 – 79 A.D.) was actually alive when Jesus was, and wrote Naturalis Historia – a collection of facts and observations from all around the Roman Empire, including Judea, about earthquakes, eclipses, volcanic eruptions and other natural phenomena. About Jesus and the earthquake and darkness that accompanied His resurrection, Pliny the Elder said, “ .”

(end part 4)

peter, part3:
The second Josephus passage is from Book 20, chapter 9.1. It says:

“And now Caesar, upon hearing the death of Festus, sent Albinus into Judea, as procurator. But the king deprived Joseph of the high priesthood, and bestowed the succession to that dignity on the son of Ananus, who was also himself called Ananus. Now the report goes that this eldest Ananus proved a most fortunate man; for he had five sons who had all performed the office of a high priest to God, and who had himself enjoyed that dignity a long time formerly, which had never happened to any other of our high priests. But this younger Ananus, who, as we have told you already, took the high priesthood, was a bold man in his temper, and very insolent; he was also of the sect of the Sadducees, who are very rigid in judging offenders, above all the rest of the Jews, as we have already observed; when, therefore, Ananus was of this disposition, he thought he had now a proper opportunity. Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the Sanhedrin of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned: but as for those who seemed the most equitable of the citizens, and such as were the most uneasy at the breach of the laws, they disliked what was done; they also sent to the king, desiring him to send to Ananus that he should act so no more, for that what he had already done was not to be justified; nay, some of them went also to meet Albinus, as he was upon his journey from Alexandria, and informed him that it was not lawful for Ananus to assemble a sanhedrin without his consent. Whereupon Albinus complied with what they said, and wrote in anger to Ananus, and threatened that he would bring him to punishment for what he had done; on which king Agrippa took the high priesthood from him, when he had ruled but three months, and made Jesus, the son of Damneus, high priest."

Many scholars think “the brother of Jesus, who was called the Christ” is a later “scribal edit.” But even if it is authentic, it only tells us that Josephus knew that Christians called Jesus “Christ.” It doesn’t say anything about Jesus (except that He had a brother). It doesn’t say anything about whether he was a/the Christ, or give any details of His life.

56 year-old Josephus is “reporting” on something that happened before he was born. It’s not “extra-Biblical eyewitness testimony,” or “independent corroboration.” Again, it really just tells us there were Christians in 93 A.D.

(end part 3)

peter, part 2:

But we don’t even have to speculate on Josephus’ theology to discern the relevance of the passage. The first thing to note is that Josephus was not alive when Jesus died. Josephus wrote Antiquities 60 years later. So, at most, it would convey what Josephus had read or heard about Jesus. If authentic, it only tells us that in 93 A.D. there were people who worshipped Jesus as Christ.

Another thing to note is that early Church Fathers Justin the Philosopher (ca. 140), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 192), Tertullian (ca. 193), Arnobius (ca. 200), Origen (ca. 230), Cyprian (ca. 258) and Irenaeus (ca. 330) did not mention the passage, although each of them quoted Josephus extensively. They wrote long apologetics arguing for the historicity of Jesus, and would have used this quote had it existed. Origen even references Book 18 without mentioning the Jesus passage.

The passage is first “quoted” in the writing of Eusebius* (ca. 315), who is known to endorse falsehood if to promote Christianity. And remember, we are reading a ninth-century translation of a second-century work “preserved” by seven centuries of Church Fathers. Nearly all scholars consider the “Jesus part” of, if not the whole, Testimonium Flavium fraudulent.

(*Eusebius was especially guilty of “exaggerating.” For instance what are we to make of this claim?
“that on some occasions the bodies of the martyrs who had been devoured by wild beasts, upon the beasts being strangled, were found alive in their stomachs, even after having been fully digested” (as quoted by Gibbon, History, Ch. 37; Lardner, iv, p. 91; Diegesis, p. 272).)

(end part 2)

peter,
here's something i once wrote about josephus et. al.

Christians’ most cherished references are two passages from Flavius Josephus (37 – 100 A.D.). In 93 A.D., he wrote Antiquities of the Jews. The first passage, known as the “Testimonium Flavium,” is from Book 18, chapter 3.3, where Josephus “writes:”

“Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, is not extinct at this day.”

Oh my God. Here we have a Jew, not a follower of Christ, reporting Jesus’ “wonderful works,” His crucifixion and His resurrection. “He was the Christ”! It’s almost too good to be true, and easy to see why Christians love this passage.

Sadly, there are no original manuscripts from Josephus. Anything “Josephus” was preserved for us by Early Christians. This passage first appears in a ninth-century translation. Almost nobody (except Yamauchi, whom Strobel interviews in his “balanced analysis”) thinks this passage as quoted above is authentic. Most think it was inserted into Josephus’ Antiquities by those with access and motives similar to the Apocrypha’s authors. Some say parts of it are authentic and parts (shown bold above) were added/edited later. Many critics discount it merely because Josephus was a devout messianic Jew, a Pharisee no less, and would not have spoken so glowingly of Jesus.

False Testimonium: http://ptet.dubar.com/ecw/josephus.html

(end part 1)

Hi Pam,

Two comments,

PAM: "Now check out the map:
http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/markauthor.html#geography"

Ravi discusses in his message to atheists how they misinterpret the Pascalian Wager. The refutation is somewhere in the message,

http://static.veritas.org/media/files/vts-zacharias-1995-indiana-vf1smp10a.mp3

ME: “Secular historians in addition to the Bible have confirmed many things recorded in the Bible as historic, such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the persecution of His followers.”

PAM: "Name one. I’m not aware of any such."

Flavius Josephus, Suetonius, Pliny the Young, Tacitus.

Well, as you can see, I am still playing catch up and am physically exhausted (recovering from a midnight shift) so it is off to bed. I want to work on Empirical adequacy and experiential relevance next Walter, before answering your and Pam's statements on the Bible posted in the last couple of days.

As you can see, by the time I get done answering your one set of posts, there are five to ten more on top of them. Hence, I am always behind, but that can be the nature of a dialog.

Time is again going to be limited this weekend, what with family life and another 12 hour a day work weekend starting Friday. That is just the way it is Pam. Sorry.

Hope we are able to hold onto this forum until next week. I have no idea where we have traveled the last few months in cyberspace but I have a backlog of unanswered posts on file, unsure of whether some have been responded to or not.

My wife wants me to strip the kitchen floor tomorrow and I have Bible study tomorrow night. Not sure if I will get time to reply. Friday or Saturday night might be my next post. Sorry.

Walter cont.,

WALTER: "but no, the director-on-high evaluates on the basis of belief in him. not logical."

The only logical way of being both just and righteous is for Him (Jesus) to meet all God's righteous requirements as Man, for man was the one who brought sin into this world, then take the punishment due the believer upon Himself in order to satisfy the penalty for sin - death - and credit His righteous life lived before God on earth as ours. That is why the believer is identified as dying with Christ on the cross and being raised with Christ into new life.

Logically, if God were to compromise His justice by not punishing evil He would sacrificing His righteous standard, then He would no longer be good for He would be condoning evil by leaving it unpunished.

As for the logical consistence of your world view, that is a mystery to me. I've said it many times before and it is something that you do not have any answer for, let alone a logical one, and that is how does personality come from mindless matter, logic from the irrational, good from shifting standards with no fixed reference point, sense from the senseless origins of nothingness, meaning from the meaningless, thought from non-thought, life from non-life?

None of this makes sense. None. And you want me to believe such tripe Walter?

WALTER: "(i can imagine peter here saying well, i'm judging "logicalness" by human standards. well, that's all we have. presumably those are the standards ravi said dallas was using.)"

I let God's standard be the guide.

As Robert Reymond put it in "Faith's Reasons for Believing" quoting from John M Frame,

"empiricism cannot jusify a general proposition, such as 'all men are moral,' ...cannot justify any statements about the future,...cannot justify any statements about ethical values [for one can never move from 'is-ness' to 'oughtness' - R. Reymond]...Therefore empiricism cannot justify empiricism. For empiricism is a view of how one ought(an ethical "ought") to justify his beliefs, and on an empirical basis, we cannot justify from sense-experience the proposition that we ought to justify our beliefs in that way."

"Thus those who begin with sense-experience [i.e. the universe and everything in it coming from matter - me], having traded the infallible biblical axiom of revelation for the fallible secular axiom of sensation, fail to realize that such beginning can provide us with no knowledge at all." End of quote.

You, as an atheist rely on a system of knowledge that came from empirical beginnings, the explosion or whimpering (as Pam likes to say) of the Big Bang into being and the subsequent matter created from the "explosion" making possible everything that now exists in the universe. But how do you get from matter to logic, from something physical to the non-physical, intangible, such as laws of logic that cannot be touched, tasted, heard, seen or sensed? You talk about irrationality? Your belief is it.

Hi Walter (November 4, 2009 9:41 AM),

Logical consistence:

WALTER: "among other flaws, it has jesus taking the blame for past and future sins. not logical."

Entirely logical that if the Almighty God, in the form of the Son, decides to live the just and perfect life before God and also pay my sin debt that He would pay for not only the sins of the past and future, but also for the sins of the present. Otherwise, in my own merit, one slip-up and I'm guilty before God again.

The sacrifice of the Son on behalf of the believer, in order to satisfy God, would have to cover every sin the believer would ever commit, or else God would still have to condemn the believer on the grounds of the sins Jesus did not die for. The logic is that if Christ has paid for my sins then I don't have to pay for them, the payment has brought my freedom from sin. Any other way is double indemnity, that Jesus would pay completely for my wrong doing and then I would have to pay for it to.

WALTER: "the trinity - not logical (even christians admit this)."

Very logical: three eternal Persons, each a distinct Person, unchangeable in their nature/undivided in essence (in that each has 'Godness' for they have the same essence), so that they do not exist interdependently or in disunity of each other, hence the one living and true God.

You and I are both human beings, so we both have the same essence or nature, that of humanness, but the difference is we are not eternal nor do we exist in complete unity with each other, or are we all-knowing and immutable.

WALTER: "according to the story, the relevant thing for all of us is that there's eternal heaven or hell awaiting our time here on earth. so our lives here are sort of an audition, a tryout. surely if this were logical, gandhi would go to heaven and pat robertson would go to hell."

As I said earlier in answer to this statement, those who live independently of faith in Jesus will be judged independently of that faith and will be judged on their own merits and shortcomings before God - eternal separation from God and the wrath of His judgment.

"pam, that we see all kinds of problems with these flood geology theories is only a testament to our imagining god's powers are in any way limited. we of little faith."

Yeah, that must be it...

pam,
peter thinks all those "sub-human" fossils lived concurrently, pre-flood, and were all deposited during the flood in that perfectly sequential order you described, giving the appearance of evolution.

what's so funny? pam, stop laughing....

they could have settled in that order by differential hydraulic sorting. also, smarter (what we'd call more evolved) sub-humans would have fled to higher ground, and thus appear higher in the fossil record. the smarter they were the higher they climbed (doesn't explain why these sub-humans are BELOW many other not-so-smart species, but...).

pam, that we see all kinds of problems with these flood geology theories is only a testament to our imagining god's powers are in any way limited. we of little faith.

Me: Don't you think it odd that we have, in chronological order, a chimp-sized ape with long arms and chimp-like toes, and a chimp-sized brain that walks erect and has human-like wrists and slightly more human-like dentition; then another like the first except with shorter arms and straight, human-like feet; then another like that one but with more human-like hands, a flatter face, and a larger braincase; then another like that one with a still flatter face, taller stature, more forebrain room, less brow ridge...shall I go on?

PH: "Walking erect to me does not mean change of kind, just adaption of kind."

I mentioned far more than just walking erect. And did you notice that it was a chronological continuum?

PH: "We share a common environment so it is not hard to believe that we would share similar features."

What common environment?? Earth? Chimps live in the trees in tropical areas. So do birds, but they aren't much alike. Chimps have more in common with whales (both are mammals), but their environments couldn't be more different.

PH: "God also created the ability of a kind to adapt to its environment, as we see alone by the difference in human beings, hence the variety in kinds, but not change from one kind to another."

OK, Peter, time for you to define (precisely, please) what a "kind" is.

Tell me what separates humans from chimpanzees (let alone all the extinct hominids, including Neanderthal) in "kind," where the difference is more than a matter of degree.

You may not use "souls" as an example, unless you can show me one, or empirical evidence of one.

Bear in mind that chimps have shown the ability to use language (in case you're tempted to use that) by signing, they just lack a small adaptation (lowered larynx) that allows us to better vocalize.

I could make a case for all mammals being of a "kind." We all are warm-blooded, give birth to live young, suckle those young with milk, and have hair (yes, even whales and dolphins have hair before birth. A few have small amounts as adults, and all have hair follicles.

Hell, I could make a case for all vertebrates being a "kind" - or all animals, as opposed to plants...

by darwin's time the idea of evolution had been around for a while. (heck, around the time of buddha, anaximander proposed a theory of biological evolution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_evolutionary_thought ) people, nearly all of them scientists who were christian, had already noticed the progression of fossils in the geologic column. they had already realized that "like breeds like" - that we inherit things from our parents. before darwin, there was lamarck's idea of evolution - inheritence of acquired traits, a giraffe stretching his neck. it kind of makes sense. if you lift weights then have a baby, it might be a strong baby....who knows. it didn't seem to work out that way, though. darwin proposed natural selection. even "natural selection" doesn't rule out inheriting acquired traits. the discovery of genes allowed this idea to be tested once and for all, and it turns out stretching one's neck doesn't change ones DNA. if it could, atheists would all worship lamarck.

pam, to peter you said,
"Most atheists are raised just as you were. Our parents were religious, and did their level best to indoctrinate us. We went to church and Sunday school. We went to public school with lots of little Christers, and were taught almost nothing about evolution.
So it’s not correct, I don’t think, to talk about our presuppositions in the same way that you talk about your own. We don’t decide that we’re going to accept Charles Darwin as our ultimate source of Truth, and build everything else on that foundation."

it's funny how people like peter think people like us worship darwin. they think it's a religion. i guess it's all they can imagine. creationists call us "darwinists" for christ's sake! (that, and words like "evolutionist" and "uniformitarian", is always a big clue they think the earth is 6000ya.)

darwinism is a religion that began is 1859 (we have excellent eyewitness testimony of this), whose founding scripture, "on the origin of species", was revealed to darwin-el on mount beagle. like judaism "set the stage" for christ, the atheist religion of the enlightenmnet prepared the way for darwin. darwinism has apostles in huxley, wallace et. al., and modern-day preachers in carl sagan (god, i loved him), steve, and richard dawkins.

Hi Pam and Walter,

I see I have a lot to catch up on, you've bombardiered me. I'm finishing up another midnight shift then I'll start responding to your wild flights of the imagination. (^8

pam,
you beat me to the punch (line) with that holiday inn joke. good one. it sure HAS been awhile...

PH: “there were other types of ‘primates’ scattered among the find on the Ardi site. The bones themselves are not well preserved in some cases and the skeleton is pieced together and not whole.”

Rarely are fossils this old found complete and fully articulated. That would be a real miracle for an animal this size. But you needn’t fear that monkey bones were confused with Ardi’s (monkeys were the “other primates” you speak of). Monkey bones are much smaller, and clearly wouldn’t have fit. The bones were “preserved” just fine, but they were broken and, in some cases, crushed. That’s why they had to be glued before removing them from the rock. But that doesn’t stop them from telling their tale.

PH: “God is not someone that we see in the physical realm for God is Spirit.”

Then why is he constantly referred to corporeally (is that a word?) in the bible?

“And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:8)

“high above all, upon the throne, a form in human likeness” (Ezekiel 1:26, New English Bible).

“Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56).

“And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne” (Rev. 4:2).

God said he would “cover thee with my hand while I pass by; and I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33:22–23).

“the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11).

“Jacob called the name of the place Peniel [Hebrew for “the face of God”]: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Genesis 32:24–32).

There are many more.

PH: "In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and TAKE you to be with Me that you may know where I am.”

It’s taken him an awfully long time to prepare those rooms. Safe to say that Holiday Inn wouldn’t be eager to add him to their housekeeping staff.

PH: (on Golden Rule) “What makes you think that it came before Jesus (John 8:58)? What makes you think that it came before the Old Testament books of the law were written? How do you know that these teachings were not passed down from the Jews to the tribes around them first and then they got into the writings of these men?”

Because it is known to predate the supposed birth of Jesus by millennia. And to come from much farther away (Ancient China, for one) than any Jewish people ever traveled.

PH: (To Walter) “As I have said all along, mislead by presuppositions. It is their starting point that causes them to look at the evidence from a set perspective. I have also said before that no one comes to the table neutral. We draw on our most basic foundational beliefs.”

And where do those come from, Peter? I’ll grant that on your side of the fence, they come early and often – taught by parents and the community – repeated so often that your brain is overwhelmed.

Not so for us. Most atheists are raised just as you were. Our parents were religious, and did their level best to indoctrinate us. We went to church and Sunday school. We went to public school with lots of little Christers, and were taught almost nothing about evolution.

So it’s not correct, I don’t think, to talk about our presuppositions in the same way that you talk about your own. We don’t decide that we’re going to accept Charles Darwin as our ultimate source of Truth, and build everything else on that foundation.

We just have good BS radar, and when the Christian stuff just doesn’t ring true, or we actually (horrors!) read the bible, we start looking into science, and find that it just makes so much more sense.

PH: “ When their presuppositional bases is challenged, as it has with ID, these scientist who believe they have good evidence to challenge the long held paradigm are ridiculed into non-existence. They are mocked and shut up by those who have much to lose. So in this respect I believe there is a conspiracy under foot to silence any opposition to their prized foundation - evolution. The evidence is not treated in the same manner, because judgment is clouded.”

No, not because judgement is “clouded,” but because their “challenges” are risible. They don’t use the scientific method, they offer no testable hypotheses, they perform no experiments. They are clearly just apologists pretending to be interested in science.

Me: He calculates time using a Roman method (4 watches instead of 3), his language contains Latinisms, and he has a faulty knowledge of Palestinian geography (5:1, 7:31, 8:10).

PH: “What are you suggesting from these verses?”

That, as I said, Mark didn’t know Jack about Palestinian geography, as he should have if he were an eyewitness to the ministry of Jesus.

Here are the quotes from those verses:
“They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Ger'asenes.”

“Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, through the region of the Decap'olis.”

“…and immediately he got into the boat with his disciples, and went to the district of Dalmanu'tha.”

Now check out the map:

http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/markauthor.html#geography

PH: “Secular historians in addition to the Bible have confirmed many things recorded in the Bible as historic, such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the persecution of His followers.”

Name one. I’m not aware of any such.

PH: (To Walter) “I never denied that many atheists behave better than many Christian's, just that the atheist has no ultimate standard, no objective measure for good or bad, it's just nothing more than feelings - lalalala.”

This is getting old, Peter. Of course we do – the (oft) afore-mentioned Golden Rule that is ingrained in us by natural selection for traits that enhance social function and cohesion.

Me: They were written in Greek - a language that it's extremely unlikely that an apostle (if such existed) could have written. Reading literacy in that place and time was 10% or less, and writing literacy was only 2-3%.

PH: “That is your assumption, not mine. Greek was the prevalent language of the region.”

The Jews of Galilee spoke Aramaic. The more highly educated, those of the priestly class, would have known Hebrew, but it was not the common language. The Roman occupiers would have spoken Latin or Greek. The humble working class men who reportedly followed Jesus would not have spoken anything but Aramaic, and would not likely have been able to read and write. This is not my “assumption,” but the considered opinion of historians who specialize in these studies.

PH: “No, the Book of Mormon is a false gospel. It contradicts the Bible in many ways and came over 1800 years later.
'But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!' (Galatians 1:8, see also 2 Corinthians 11:3-4)”

Said, of course, by Paul - not Jesus. It’s amazing to me that Christians rely so heavily on Paul. Jesus supposedly upheld all of the old Mosaic Law (Matthew 5:17-19, Luke 16:17), yet Paul abandons it, most likely to make it all more palatable to Romans (how many adult male recruits do you get when you insist on circumcision?). Go ahead, eat bacon, indulge your sassy kids, stop stoning those who gather sticks to stay warm on Sunday… The only part anyone clings to today is the admonition about homosexuality – and most don’t even stone them.

Why don’t you call yourselves “Paulians?”

PH: “…the difficulty in researching and finding answers for many of your evolutionary postings from a Christian perspective (It is a field that has been dormant for a long time and is just resurfacing again and I'm sure will definitely put a challenge to the powers that be, whereas evolutionary dogma has over two hundred years of cooking the books)”

No books have been cooked. Where is your evidence supporting that statement? And as for the Christian perspective being “dormant” all this time, what a hoot! You guys have been trying your best to discredit it from the very beginning. Your best just hasn’t been good enough. We’ve got all the evidence on our side.

PH: “Your errors on the Bible show me that you have taken the opinion stemming from liberal theology that came into its own during the Enlightenment”

I can’t help but laugh when I read that sentence. You do know the definition of “enlightenment”…?

You don’t think it might just be that modern theologians have a lot more tools at their disposal?

Me: How do you know this? The gospels were anonymous and undated, and there are no originals. The words "according to Mark (or whichever)" weren't added until well into the 2nd century. Nowhere in them do the authors claim to be apostles.

PH: “Apostle:
1. Apostle One of a group made up especially of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus to preach the gospel.
2. A missionary of the early Christian Church.
3. A leader of the first Christian mission to a country or region.

Mark and Luke were with Peter and Paul respectively. We can deduce this from the New Testament writings and the testimony of some of the early church fathers.”

We were talking about eyewitnesses, Peter, so obviously only definition one would apply.

Those “early church fathers” were nowhere near early enough to have known Paul, let alone any of the definition-one apostles.

Paul was not an apostle. He claimed to have spoken to those who knew Jesus, but isn’t it odd that he never got any sort of physical description of the man? The idea that people have about what he looked like is based entirely on medieval artists’ conceptions – European features, chestnut locks, blue eyes, and all! Wouldn’t you have thought he’d ask?

PH: “I think you'll find that the Crusades were a response to repeated Muslim aggression”

Aaah, c’mon, Peter. Aggression against whom? Most of the crusaders were English and French – no Moslems were aggressing against them. They wanted to liberate the “holy” city of Jerusalem because they believed they could thus buy their way into heaven (and they liked to fight, rape, pillage). The worst rapscallions of them all, back then, were also the largest donors to abbeys and monasteries – they thought it would ensure their salvation.

PH: “But don't think that you have given a satisfactory explanation for metaphysics, epistemology or axiology from an evolutionary perspective.”

Not satisfactory to you, because you demand that everything be known, all questions answered. But even religion doesn’t do that – else why am I always hearing about God’s “mysterious ways?”

Epistemology – the scientific method. Axiology – the exigencies of living in social groups. Metaphysics – energy as first cause.

My philosophy is naturalist.

PH “You give criticism to the Bible for the very same things that are deficient in your natural/evolutionary scienfic world view. That is you accept testimonial evidence from like minded individuals that has not been put to the empirical test by your own hands, so you too borrow your facts from others who in turn borrow them from others, down the line until you arrive at the subjective opinion of the originator of the experiment. And many of you facts cannot be verified because nobody was around to witness them. Therefore, you rest your assumptions on faith, just like I do.”

Nonsense, Peter. I can read about scientific discoveries directly from the discoverers – so can you. Just subscribe to the journal Nature. I can go to museums – anyone can. I can see photos. If I want to, I can repeat experiments, or go out into the field to make discoveries myself. In some cases, this might mean going back to school for the requisite degrees, and then getting the proper position in the field, but this is closed to no one.

Science is absolutely not about “subjective opinion” – it is the very antithesis of that.

And don’t forget peer review. No scientific discovery or experiment is made in a vacuum. Remember the big flap when a study (Canadian, I think) showed that Saccharin caused bladder cancer in lab rats? Have you noticed that Saccharin is still on the market? That’s because no one was ever able to repeat the experiment and get the same result.

about the "logicalness" of original sin:

you said,
"Because one sin from one individual bought others and a knowledge of evil that was passed onto each additional generation."

like i said - not logical. knowledge of anything can't be passed on in fruit. are you sure this isn't figurative?

what's wrong with the "knowledge of good and evil"? a thoughtful person might say you really can't have one without the other.

it's not fair - any kindergartener will tell you that. it's not good (according to atheist morals anyway) to visit the inequities of the father upon the child.

while we're on the subject of logical consistency, god contradicts himself on this elsewhere: in some places he says the visits the inequities on sons and in other places he says he doesn't. i suppose it really doesn't matter what he says, because he DOES still visits us with the consequences of adam's sin, right?

peter,
please read mt24&25, mk13, & lk21. just read the text. don't check 3 websites about what it means. just read it like a story, an eyewitness account.

2 reasons why "stars falling", coming a cloud etc... were not meant figuratively.

1) remember, they thought it was possible for stars to fall to earth. today, it sounds like it HAS to be "figurative" because we all know that any star we can see is much bigger than the earth and the whole idea of stars falling to earth is preposterous. BUT biblical authors didn't know this. they thought stars were little ornaments hung from the firmament dome. remember earlier, they spoke of the "maji" following a star...to bethlehem - as if the magic star detached from the dome and helpfully hovered over bethlehem. anyway, my point is that stars falling and people coming on clouds didn't seem as crazy as it does today.

2)the whole scenerio of the tribulations/second coming/judgement is illustrated with parables and figurative language. read closely, i'm sure you know this at heart, and you'll see how he talks "plainly" about "the coming of the son of man" (mt24:29-31), then he tells them the parable of the fig tree. he goes back to "plain" talk about how no one nows exactly when (in their lifetimes) all this will happen, and illustrates with a few more parables. then i 25:31, he goes back to "plain talk" about how when he comes back he'll divide us into groups (like a shepherd does sheep and goats - there's the figurative part) for heaven and hell.

i quoted mt: "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." (mt24:34,35)

and you said,
"Until all "these things" - what things, in relation to what? The things that happen before the end of the age or things that happen before the end of the world?"

well, ALL of the things jesus talked about - including his second coming (i don't care whether there is a cloud or not, but jesus plainly promised he'd be back). you only break it up into little pieces because IT DIDN'T HAPPEN. jesus said ALL THESE THINGS. "ALL". come on...you're a literalist... did he use "all" figuratively...?

Sorry, that's all the time I have.

Hi Pam,

Your knowledge and understanding of evolutionary science is amazing Pam, granted. But you still come at this from a mindset that is different from mine. We both use our reasoning, but from different starting points. You use your reasoning to make everything fit into your starting points, as I do mine. Neither one of us are neutral. We both have beliefs that are based on faith, and both world views are reasoned out in different ways.

My view of evolution, on the other hand, is outdated and basic. It is something I have not examined for possibly twenty years, since the question was settled in my mind a long time ago.

PAM: "Don't you think it odd that we have, in chronological order, a chimp-sized ape with long arms and chimp-like toes, and a chimp-sized brain that walks erect and has human-like wrists and slightly more human-like dentition; then another like the first except with shorter arms and straight, human-like feet; then another like that one but with more human-like hands, a flatter face, and a larger braincase; then another like that one with a still flatter face, taller stature, more forebrain room, less brow ridge...shall I go on?"

Walking erect to me does not mean change of kind, just adaption of kind.

We share a common environment so it is not hard to believe that we would share similar features. God also created the ability of a kind to adapt to its environment, as we see alone by the difference in human beings, hence the variety in kinds, but not change from one kind to another.

You look at the evidence and because of similarity see evolution between kinds. I look at it and see adaption within kinds.

PAM: "The progression is clear, Peter. You can't just wish them all away as pre-flood (which, of course, they would have to be, in order to be fossilized, no?), including Neanderthal, with his burial ceremonies and campfires. Pretty tough to write him off as just an "ape."

It is clear to you Pam, based on your naturalistic world view. To you that is the only option. You have to answer the more difficult questions that I see evolution not having an answer to before evolution and naturalism could ever become a viable world view - life from non-life, how origin by random chance beginning (for either these things happened by design and intent or originated randomly and hence from chance), an objective standard for ethics, otherwise it is just based on feelings and there is nothing good or bad about it, meaning from meaninglessness, sense from senselessness, logic from the illogical, from matter the immaterial. It cannot make sense of itself.

pam,
you mentioned "seals". seals, sea lions etc... are a great example of a "transition species", and also an example of why "transition species" is a subjective term - depends on where you stop the evolution film.

the seal is a perfectly viable species in it's own right, but we could see it as going from land mammal to sea mammal.

cont'd.

As for putting them back together properly, you must know that all terrestrial vertebrates, including birds and the marine ones (seals, whales, dolphins) that returned to the sea, have the same basic bone structure. The "head bone's connected to the neck bone,"
etc. There just aren't that many ways to do it.

Speaking of which, the cervical vertebrae connect to the skull at the foramen magnum - a large opening at the base of the skull. The location of this opening tells us whether a creature walks upright, or on all fours. The shape of the pelvis, the knee joint (called the "stifle" joint in most quadrupeds), and the angle of the femoral neck also tell this tale.

We have all of these from Ardi, except the femoral neck. We do, however, have much of the femur, which shows the curvature typical of a bipedal animal.

Don't you think it odd that we have, in chronological order, a chimp-sized ape with long arms and chimp-like toes, and a chimp-sized brain that walks erect and has human-like wrists and slightly more human-like dentition; then another like the first except with shorter arms and straight, human-like feet; then another like that one but with more human-like hands, a flatter face, and a larger braincase; then another like that one with a still flatter face, taller stature, more forebrain room, less brow ridge...shall I go on?

The progression is clear, Peter. You can't just wish them all away as pre-flood (which, of course, they would have to be, in order to be fossilized, no?), including Neanderthal, with his burial ceremonies and campfires. Pretty tough to write him off as just an "ape."

Walter, I will not be available for a couple of days, except maybe for a brief couple of minutes here and there. I'll finish up with empirical adequacy and experiential relevance later (hopefully, the Sovereign Lord willing). Take care.

Hi Walter,

So logically, is it more logical to believe non-rational, mindless, matter as the cause of logic or a changeless, eternal omniscient Mind as the cause of logic?

It it logical to believe that subjective, varied, revised opinion is the standard for truth or that truth can ever be known as it really is outside of One who knows all things?

Is it logical to believe that without a fixed/unchanging, objective measure for good there is such a thing? Is it not logical to believe that without an objective moral lawgiver good is impossible to measure because its standard is always shifting?

Is it logical to believe that order came from chaos, for without a Mind to organize information why would it take to following any law, or for that matter, a mindless process deriving a law such as logic or gravity in the first place?

Is it logical for mindless matter to have intent?

Is it logical from mindless matter that personality should be derived?

Is it logical that chemicals mixing together produce Mind?

Is it logical that chemicals mixing together produce life?

Where do you see these things happening in nature? Where are they experientially relevant?

How does sense come from the senseless?

How does meaning come from the meaningless?

How from natural phenomena do you get logic?

My answer is that life comes from the living, personality from the personal, intent from mind, logic from a rational being, goodness from an objective moral being, love from relationship with another being, justice from the Just, mercy from the merciful, the temporal from the eternal, matter, information, order, from mind and being and that Being is God. Is that logical on my part to think such things? If not, please give me examples of the other and how you know these things with certainty?

I've just managed to read through all of these posts (busy weekend) and don't have time to answer much right now, but I do want to clear up the bit about Ardi.

Peter, I know that paleontology isn't your thing (too bad, because you're missing out on a lot of fascinating stuff), so perhaps your misinterpretation of the slides about the Ardi find aren't totally disingenuous.

It's too bad you didn't watch the Discovery channel 2-hr. program, but you can see bits of it here:
http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/ardipithecus-discovering-ardi/

First, fossils are buried under millions of years worth of sedimentary and/or volcanic deposits. They would be way too deep for us to ever find, if the Earth were geologically static. But it's not. Earthquakes and crustal movements bend and break the layers, tilting them out of their horizontal alignment. Pay attention when you drive through the mountains - the tilting is visible in the road cuts.

Then, wind and water begin to wash away the sediments and expose the harder fossilized bone. Palentologists go to the places where this is known (through geology) to have happened, and walk around looking for bits of bone.

Sometimes "bits" are all they find. They may have weathered all the way out and been scattered. But where there's smoke, there's fire. If they're persistent (and this may mean decades of searching), their patience may be rewarded by finding a more complete skeleton in situ.

Such was the case with Ardi. A small piece sticking above the surface, where it had weathered out of the rock, led to more of the skeleton beneath it that was still contained in the rock. These weren't pieces that had "washed" anywhere - they were in their proper relationship where they were found, and clearly all from the same animal. The picture you saw of the pieces was after literally years of painstaking extraction from the matrix.

3.

WALTER: "among other flaws, it has jesus taking the blame for past and future sins. not logical."

Logical for God to voluntarily agree to save us in the only way (that I know of) that will satisfy His justice and righteous requirements, by the Son volunteering to do so, and that in willing submission to the Father as a Man, without using the prerogative of His Godhood.

WALTER: "the trinity - not logical (even christians admit this)."

Not illogical, just not fully understood. The Nicene Creed explains the Trinity.

WALTER: "according to the story, the relevant thing for all of us is that there's eternal heaven or hell awaiting our time here on earth. so our lives here are sort of an audition, a tryout. surely if this were logical, gandhi would go to heaven and pat robertson would go to hell. but no, the director-on-high evaluates on the basis of belief in him. not logical."

Logical for God to meet His justice and righteousness in sending His Son. Gandhi did not accept the Son on his behalf, the only acceptable sacrifice before God. Logically that if you do not accept the only means that God has provided, then you will be answerable for your own actions and will meet that payment on your own behalf, judge accordingly to all your wrongful actions.

Logically that is justice, you pay the penalty for your wrongful actions, or someone else, voluntarily acting in your place pays the penalty.

WALTER: "(i can imagine peter here saying well, i'm judging "logicalness" by human standards. well, that's all we have."

Is that an absolute? How is it logical that logic can come from mindless matter? Is there any logical consistency in such a thought? Where do you see this happen? It fails both the test of empirical adequacy and experiential relevance. You don't see it at all. How does it happen?

WALTER: "presumably those are the standards ravi said dallas was using.)

The standards that God has given man in order for man to know about God. But to know Him requires faith in Jesus Christ. Please notice the distinction between know about and know relationally.

Yes, we judge as humans, but either from a heavenly/Godly perspective or one that we make up. As Christians we judge empirically, logically, experientially through the only One who can make sense of these things.

2.

Since we all come from the seed of Adam we all carry this propensity to sin and live self-willed and selfish lives apart from God.

We have broken His law, His commands, of which are always in our best interest to follow, for God is good and always does what is right. He is self-sacrificing in His willingness to save us.

As a just Judge He will not let the guilty go unpunished once a man has broken His perfect standard. Hence we are condemned. But God is also graceful and merciful. He will not compromise who He is by doing something evil Himself, that would be a denial of whom He is - an immutable/unchanging holy, pure, Being. His solution, the only one that I can see that does not compromise who He is, is to send His Son in human form, a man, to live a life of perfect obedience to the Father in our place to reconcile us back to Himself, at the same time taking the punishment that should have been ours upon Jesus. In this way He satisfies His justice as well as His righteousness, something that man is incapable of since the Fall. Either we pay the price ourselves for our guilt and wrongful actions or Jesus pays it for us through faith in what He has done on our behalf; that is cleansing us from our sins by paying the penalty for us completely and giving us new life, a new nature, a spiritual nature that is united to Him.

In the temporal realm, the here and now, it is not apparent as to what He has done, but in the eternal realm we are blessed in every way in Christ Jesus. He is our life, our righteousness, our payment for sin, our justifier before God, our sin offering, our sacrifice, our all in all - the Man, Jesus Christ. He is also the Second Person of the Trinity, who voluntarily, before the foundation of the world, agreed to humble Himself and step into His creation on the behalf of those who would believe to save them from the wrath and justice that were due them. That is love.

Back to you Walter (November 4, 2009 9:41 AM ),

ME: "Ravi Zacharias borrowing from Dallas Willard's thoughts (I think) lists three tests for truth, 1) logical consistence, 2) empirical adequacy, and 3) experiential relevance."

WALTER: "i think christianity totally fails on the first 2 tests, and partially fails on the third.
1)logical consistence:
what's logical about cursing all mankind for the sins of one, waiting 4000 years, then sending your "son" (or possibly, sort of, yourself...) to be sacrificed (killed for god) back to you (or sort of back to yourself) to even up the "sin tally sheet", then waiting 2000 (and counting) years to make good on your "son's" clear promise to be back "soon"? there's really nothing in there that's logical."

Because one sin from one individual bought others and a knowledge of evil that was passed onto each additional generation. The two trees in the Garden represented a choice for Adam and his offspring. It wasn't an and/both choice but an either/or choice. Adam as the representative of all that would come after him could choose to eat of the Tree of Life (Christ) and live in relationship with God forever, or from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (human independence) be separated from God.

God warned Adam that if he chose the one set of actions he would surely die.

Logically we see man's evil and inhumanity to man all around us in this temporary realm. Logically in order for there to be evil there must be good and a standard of measurement for good that does not change, otherwise all you have is personal preference, one man's feelings over another's. That is what you see in the world. Without an absolute standard there is no good or evil about it, and yet man constantly thinks in these terms. Therefore, logically, there must be a moral lawgiver who is objective for there to be moral laws.

God teaches mankind through human history that man cannot live without the moral guidance of God without perpetrating horrendous evil on his fellow man, for when the definition of good is blurred by the breaking of fellowship with God and subsequent and supposed autonomous man decides for himself what he will call good, all manner of evil is possible as each man tries to force his view of good on others. This is the witness of human history from the beginning of the Fall unto now. You see it all around you.

Hi again Steve,

STEVE: "Respectfully, you need to ask a deeper question than "You need to ask the more important question - is it true?"

What would that question be?

STEVE: "I would ask - Quo warranto? Or, who made you the boss? And if not you, who is? Who is the authoritative and canonical authority who can state for all Americans as to the truth and falsity of metaphysical concepts?"

God - without Him there is nothing that can be made sense of - no certainty, just subjective opinion. The authority is Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18; Colossians 2:3)

STEVE: " Were this Iran, one could ask the mullahs, who offer to do so. If we turn to our main-stream media to tell us "the People's Choice," how different is that from the mullahs?"

What do they know? They are subjective men. Unless we interpret or think God's thoughts after Him we are going to be in error.

Christianity and Islam are not compatible, they both make different and contradictory truth claims. Both cannot be true.

STEVE: "Jefferson offered: But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."

Falsity is injurious to any neighbor. The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom.

STEVE: "I welcome your reply, and appreciate your comments."

Thank you!

Hi Steve,

STEVE: "Your metaphysical dilemma boils down to - what if other people choose to believe falsity?"

I tolerate their false belief. They can believe it if they so choose, but that doesn't make it true, and as one who loves truth I can point that our to them. That would be the loving thing to do. Would you want to intentionally believe a lie?

STEVE: "You offer the two prongs of "a form of anarchy, everybody has the right to choose," and intellectual bullying, which is others"employing their standards of belief on another individual, group or culture without the freedom of choice."

No, I think there is a difference between anarchy and tyranny. But I think that living in a relative age, a postmodern era, it can lead to one of these options in large measure. That is one reason why truth needs to be stood up for.

STEVE: "You must offer a better answer than "We are the good ones, because and pursuant to the fact that we are Right. They are Wrong, with all the intolerance which we do not have."

What do you mean by intolerance? If I was intolerant I would make you believe my way or the highway. I cannot do that. All I offered was a biblical perspective on morals that can make sense of them and ask you how you can make sense of them?

Subjective opinion is not a fixed standard or a standard that good can be derived/determined by. Whose subjective idea of good are you going to fix your ideal of good on. Please point to it? If you give me the Golden Rule, I will suggest that it first came through the revelation of the God of Christianity. Subjective opinion is only person preference. We need an absolute, objective, omniscient reference point in order to make sense of morals - a moral lawgiver - God, and not just any god, the true and living God.

STEVE: "That is right out of the New Testament - the beliefs of the Pharisees. Jesus was damn near unmannerly in his contumely about such attitudes."

Because they were twisting the Scriptures to their own minds and living by a system of 'works-righteousness.' They were hypocrites trying to get others to follow a system of good works and righteous deeds that even they could not follow. The Law was put in place as a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, to make us realize that we do not have the ability in ourselves to live a perfect life before God, only His Son was/is able to. That makes the Son different from Buddha or Mohammad or Confucius or any other religious person in history. Mohammad was a murderer. His religion was spread through violence as he subjugated the peoples of the region to submit to his idea of God. For a religion of peace it started out bloody. The point of the matter was these peoples never made the claim to be the Creator or the universe. Jesus did. He equated Himself with God in that the very things that only God had the prerogative to do He did.

Jesus said in John 14:2-6,

"In My Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and TAKE you to be with Me that you may know where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.' Thomas said to Him, 'Lord, we don't know where You are going, so how can we know the way?' Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.'"

He went to prepare a place for them, that He could take them to be where He was. And what was the way to that place and into the Father's presence - He was/is.

http://www.americanvision.org/article/signs-in-the-heavens-return-for-the-umpteenth-time/

http://www.americanvision.org/article/the-prophetic-paradigm-shift/

WALTER: "somewhere, i said,
"while i'm sure the destruction of the temple was a horrific event for local Jews, it can hardly (with any intellectual honesty) be compared to Jesus' end-of-the-world prophesies."

Where do you get the end of the world idea? The KJV uses this terminology but the Greek word is aion - age, not kosmos - world.

http://www.americanvision.org/article/why-its-not-the-end-of-the-world-/

Please read.

WALTER: "jesus gave me the end of the world idea when he (supposedly) said, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." (mt24:34,35)"

Until all "these things" - what things, in relation to what? The things that happen before the end of the age or things that happen before the end of the world?

And the sentence that heaven and earth will pass away is possibly another way of saying that His word is eternal, it stands forever (John 6:68; Psalm 119:89; 160; 1 Peter 1:25). Or it could be in relation to the final judgment or the coming of God's people into the kingdom, which is more likely, not the judgment of Israel in this particular case (see Isaiah 65:17-25; Rev. 21:1-5) in which the "former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." In a sense, that is a passing away,
or if you are not convinced of this argument then Rev. 21:4b,5 says "for the old order of things has passed away. He who sits on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'"

What is the old order spoken of? When did or will it happen? Could it be the old covenant system of works???

WALTER: "the end of the age MEANT the end of man's time here on earth, after which jesus would return and take the good guys to heaven and send the bad guys to hell. it was all supposed to be over by now. since it didn't happen, we now have invented eschatology."

The end of our time on earth could be when we pass through the veil, which is the death of our bodies, for in Christ the Christian lives on in eternity.

It depends what the end of the age signified, the end of the age of Jewish temple and sacrifice, the judgment of Israel - end of the Old Covenant - or the final judgment and the coming of the New Jerusalem.

Hi Walter,

WALTER: "in your examples, yes, "cloud" is figurative. but in THIS case, mat24, jesus is saying "look up" - at the sky, where i went after being resurrected - and you'll see me coming back."

Matthew 24:30/Rev 1:7 I believe refers to Daniel 7:13 of the vision Daniel saw that would happen in the time of the fourth kingdom - Roman - the time of Jesus' coming to earth as the Son of Man.

Daniel 9:24-27 speaks of the transgression of His people and putting an end to sin, atoning for wickedness and bringing an everlasting righteousness to His people.

In Jeremiah 4:11-22 speaks again of judgment in the use of the word clouds.

"Now I pronounce My judgments against them." Look, He advances LIKE the clouds, His chariots come like a whirlwind, His horses are swifter than eagles. Woe to us! We are ruined!" vs. 12b, 13

And the same account in Luke (21:5-33) is also concerning the judgment of the Jews of that day and age in rejecting Jesus.

"For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written." (Luke 21:22)

Mark 13 starts,

"As He was leaving the temple, one of His disciples said to Him, 'Look, Teacher! What massive stones! What magnificent buildings!' 'Do you see all these great buildings?' replied Jesus. "Not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down....'Tell us when will these things be and what will be the sign that they are about to be fulfilled?' (Mark 13:1-2, 4)

These things tie in with Daniel and the desecration of the temple. Nero was known as the Beast and so on.

steve,
"McIslam"

love it!

Your metaphysical dilemma boils down to - what if other people choose to believe falsity?

You offer the two prongs of "a form of anarchy, everybody has the right to choose," and intellectual bullying, which is others"employing their standards of belief on another individual, group or culture without the freedom of choice."

You must offer a better answer than "We are the good ones, because and pursuant to the fact that we are Right. They are Wrong, with all the intolerance which we do not have."

That is right out of the New Testament - the beliefs of the Pharisees. Jesus was damn near unmannerly in his contumely about such attitudes.

Respectfully, you need to ask a deeper question than "You need to ask the more important question - is it true?"

I would ask - Quo warranto? Or, who made you the boss?  And if not you, who is?  Who is the authoritative and canonical authority who can state for all Americans as to the truth and falsity of metaphysical concepts?  Were this Iran, one could ask the mullahs, who offer to do so.  If we turn to our main-stream media to tell us "the People's Choice," how different is that from the mullahs?

Jefferson offered: But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Jefferson does not dabble in the ontology of the matter - and neither should you.  He lives with what you call "modern anarchy" most cheerfully.

I welcome your reply, and appreciate your comments.

Hi Steve (November 8, 2009 3:19 PM ),

STEVE: "Today, the debate centers on "What will we tolerate?" rather than "Do I have any right to interfere?" That is the difference between tyranny and liberty."

Tolerance used to be putting up with something even though you knew it was wrong. Today it is putting up with anything without the consideration of whether it is right or wrong because the line or standard has been blurred. Everything is relative to the individual, which means a form of anarchy, everybody has the right to choose, such as "it may be true for you but not for me" instead of true regardless of my opinion on the matter.

Tyranny on the other hand is one person, a small/large group employing their standards of belief on another individual, group or culture without the freedom of choice. But the deeper question is why is their opinion the "right" or "good?"

Without God, and I only refer to the Christian God as true, what objective standard is there to point to and how do you make sense of good?

STEVE: "We decide that ANY group is tolerable, as long as it has a sweet vanilla-cream filling."

That is relativism for you, where the line between good and evil is blurred. It is the Postmodern way. The philosophical issues have not been thought out well.

STEVE: "America is interested in tolerating Islam, as long as it follows certain external rules of behavior dictated by conventional American society, culture, aims, goals, and values. If it will turn into McIslam, then we will embrace it with both hands! We already love McJews, McChristians, McCatholics, McBuddhists - any sort of belief that does away from the prickly "beliefy" stuff. If only Islam will give up any pretense to meaning or individuality, it is welcome here!"

You need to ask the more important question - is it true?

peter,
re: coming on a cloud:
"How is the word cloud used in judgment in some other Scriptures?"

in your examples, yes, "cloud" is figurative. but in THIS case, mat24, jesus is saying "look up" - at the sky, where i went after being resurrected - and you'll see me coming back.

somewhere, i said,
"while i'm sure the destruction of the temple was a horrific event for local Jews, it can hardly (with any intellectual honesty) be compared to Jesus' end-of-the-world prophesies."

and you asked,
"Where does He mention anything about the end of the world???? What do you think the "end of the age refers to???"

jesus gave me the end of the world idea when he (supposedly) said, "Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away." (mt24:34,35)

the end of the age MEANT the end of man's time here on earth, after which jesus would return and take the good guys to heaven and send the bad guys to hell. it was all supposed to be over by now. since it didn't happen, we now have invented eschatology.

2.

WALTER: "well, of course you are - because it DIDN'T HAPPEN! but you've got to admit, a plain reading of the text sure doesn't sound figurative. the fact that these verses are distinguished from surrounding verses which ARE introduced as parables, further indicates are (were intended, anyway) to be literal."

Do you not think that God can use figurative language in the course of a narrative?

WALTER: "again, must be nice to "pick and choose" your literalism."

It is determined in the context whether something is literal or figurative, also in the context of other verses that relate to the same verse, if there are any, and Daniel 7 happens to be the reference Matthew is citing.

I could say in literal reference to grass that 'the grass is green' and in the same context 'and I am green with envy in its vibrant color.' In the first reference you understand the literalism I'm using as in the second the figurative, poetic language, and both in the same sentence on the same subject - grass.

WALTER: "nonetheless, i'll play along for a second. you claim these are figurative, but grant they were supposed to occur in the generation of jesus's listeners, right? (or are "this" and "generation" figurative too?)"

No, I believe literal, although many dispensationalists would argue that it is in reference both to events within the near future as well as distant future events. That is a hard case to prove, especially since it was only incorporate in the 1800's, but here is the pivoting point, I think, in their line of thinking,

"As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came up to Him privately. "Tell us," they said, "when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age?"

Do you see how they separate the two different questions into two different dispensations? When will this happen as separate from what will be the sign of His coming (another dispensation).

I'll have to catch up later. Company is coming for supper.

Hi Walter,

I'll get to the discussion on logical consistence between your world view and mine one of these days (maybe later tonight).

WALTER: "peter, re "coming on a cloud" in "this generation" you said,
"I'm of the view point that this coming of the Son of Man on the clouds with great power and glory is figurative language..."

Yes, based on other verses of the Bible that use it in a figurative sense, I see this as being fulfilled in the spiritual realm in Christ Jesus because obviously it did not take place in the temporal earthly realm and as you pointed out on occasion, and validly in my opinion, the use of terms such as "this, soon, you, in a little while, shortly, etc., laced throughout the New Testament, shows that these early disciples and followers believed in the imminent return of Christ in their lifetime. I think that link I gave you explains it well,

http://www.americanvision.org/article/seek-first-the-kingdom--part-iv-/

How is the word cloud used in judgment in some other Scriptures?

Lamentations 2:1, "How the Lord has covered the Daughter of Zion with the cloud of His anger!"

La. 3:44, "And You have covered Yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can get through."

Psalm 97:2, "Clouds and thick darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne."

Job 3:5, "May darkness and and deep shadow claim it once more, may a cloud settle over it; may blackness overwhelm its light" in reference to his birth.

Clouds have either a literal or a symbolic meaning depending on the usage signifying the presence of the Lord in some instances.

In Exodus 40:34-38 clouds are mentioned as where the presence of God was among His people.

But Matthew 24:30 is in reference to Daniel 7 in which Daniel is referring to a vision of Jesus, in which Jesus goes into the presence of the Ancient of Days and where He is given "authority, glory and sovereign power..." (and the context again is in judgment, just as the Jews are judged for their refusal to believe in the Messiah, the One who was promised, and for their hand in putting Him to death in their minds as well as through the religious body of the day).

God is not someone that we see in the physical realm for God is Spirit. Also 'Son of Man' is a title or reference used of Jesus many times in the OT also.

I note with some sad agreement:

In America, groups work hard to assimilate into the so-called mainstream culture, and so people within a group work hard to make sure everyone "acts right." Whenever something heinous is done, like this most recent event or like the Virginia Tech shooting a couple of years ago, members of marginalized groups hold their breath, waiting to see who the culprit is.

Nobody wants that culprit to be a member of its group.

As a visibly conformist member of the majority - straight white male, house in suburbs, station wagon and dog, etc., I notice that America itself has fallen far away from its ideals of individual tolerance - even during my lifetime.

Today, the debate centers on "What will we tolerate?"  rather than "Do I have any right to interfere?"  That is the difference between tyranny and liberty.  We decide that ANY group is tolerable, as long as it has a sweet vanilla-cream filling.  Some groups have their "fringe" people who don't seem to obey, seem edgy - the Spike Lee type, you understand?  But the rules are the same, don't matter the skin color or religion.  Don't be too different, don't be too outspoken, don't raise the alarm of the authorities, don't be a loose cannon.  In America, you have the freedom to be yourself - as long as you obey society's rules, eschew thoughtcrimes, blend in, be nobody.

America is interested in tolerating Islam, as long as it follows certain external rules of behavior dictated by conventional American society, culture, aims, goals, and values.  If it will turn into McIslam, then we will embrace it with both hands!  We already love McJews, McChristians, McCatholics, McBuddhists - any sort of belief that does away from the prickly "beliefy" stuff.   If only Islam will give up any pretense to meaning or individuality, it is welcome here!

Hi Walter,

Here is a lecture that I think will point out some of those glaring differences between the logical coherence of biblical theism and the irrational incoherence of atheism. It touches on such subjects as meaning and morality. Please especially listen to the question period at the end of the lecture and the illustrations he gives from thinkers used during the lecture. They are classics.

Remember to think deeply on the questions of how you as an atheist differentiate between what is right and wrong. As Ravi says, and I summarize, the atheist chooses to give life whatever meaning he so pleases, and on this bases, although he differentiates between good and evil there is nothing logically that he can set his standard upon other than his feelings, his sovereign assessment. If there is no moral law giver there is no (ultimate) moral law and if there is no moral law there is no good because if there is no objective point of reference it is just one preference over and against another. I may choose to see good in an entirely different light than you do, so why "Should" your evaluation be the one that is valid? Please respond.

Do you think it is logical from an atheistic position to dictate that something is good or evil based on just plain personal preference, subjective opinion or experience, relativistic, subjective conjecture, because you feel it to be so?

He illustrates the diversity of opinion not only in the world on ethical values, but in America itself in a typical city. Driving from point A to point B you may cross over five or six distinctly different zones on ethical relativity. How do you determine which one is relevant? Anyway, here is the link,

http://static.veritas.org/media/files/vts-zacharias-1995-indiana-vf1smp10a.mp3

peter, re quirinius, i presume you mean this:
"In addition to this, An inscription found in Antioch tells of Quirinius being governor of Syria around 7 B.C. (evidently he was governor twice!)"

the site offers no references or translations or anything of the "inscription found in antioch" and LIES when it says the inscription "tells of quirinius being governor of syria around 7 b.c.".

the inscription says:
GAIUS CARISTA[NIUS...]
SON OF GAIUS, SERGIUS FRONTO
CAESIANUS JUL[IUS...]
OFFICER IN CHARGE OF WORKS, PONTIFEX,
PRIEST, PREFECT OF
PUBLIUS SULPICIUS QUIRINIUS THE DUUMVIR,
PREFECT OF MARCUS SERVILIUS.
BY THIS MAN, THE FIRST OF ALL [WITH A]
PUBLIC DECREE OF THE DECEMVIRATE COUNCIL, THE STATUE
WAS SET UP.

that's it. they're NOT talking about syria (antioch is 300(?) miles away - a long distance in those days), and quirinius is NOT called governor...sheesh. also, we HAVE a list of governors:

from Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible, p. 403:

M. Agrippa 23-23 B.C.
M. Titius ca. 10 B.C.
S. Sentius Saturninus 9-6 B.C.
P. Quintilius Varus 6-4 B.C.
C. Caesar 1 B.C.-A.D. 4 (?)
L. Volusius Saturninus A.D. 4-5
P. Suplicius Quirinius A.D. 6-7 (or later)
Q. Caecilius Creticus Silanus A.D. 12-17

the lengths some go to harmonize.

for that website to say the inscription show quirinius was governor of syria around 7 b.c. is a LIE. a responsible apologist would say, "we just don't have evidence for a quirinius/herod alignment," and add hopefully, "yet."

for a nauseatingly complete analysis, see:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/quirinius.html#Antioch (see particularly about 1/3 of the way down a part titled "the antioch stones".)

peter, re "coming on a cloud" in "this generation" you said,
"I'm of the view point that this coming of the Son of Man on the clouds with great power and glory is figurative language..."

well, of course you are - because it DIDN'T HAPPEN! but you've got to admit, a plain reading of the text sure doesn't sound figurative. the fact that these verses are distinuished from surrounding verses which ARE introduced as parables, further indicates are (were intended, anyway) to be literal.

again, must be nice to "pick and choose" your literalism.

nonetheless, i'll play along for a second. you claim these are figurative, but grant they were supposed to occur in the generation of jesus's listeners, right? (or are "this" and "generation" figurative too?)

how have these been "figurative" verses been fulfilled?

+"sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven" (mt24:29)

+"they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory" (24:30)

+"Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left." (24:40,41)

AFTER these verses, jesus begins to speak FIGURATIVELY. he tells two parables about how he'll come back for us, then gets back to plain talk. it's judgement day:

+"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left." (mt25:31-33)

the sheep get to "inherit the kingdom" (mt25:34) while the goats go to "the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels".(25:41).

ok, so all that was supposed to happen literally. it's not cloaked in parables (parables are even included in the narrative as if to distinguish from the literal parts....), but you say it was figurative. so how was any of this even figuratively fulfilled?

given that "coming on a cloud" etc... IS NOT presented as figurative in the bible, if it is figurative, then jesus must have been trying to confuse his apostles.

WALTER: "anyway, all those ardi uncertainties are "around the edges". the fact is we've found (yet another) fossil of a bi-pedal "ape-man". what do you "do" with this info?"

Wait and see. You never know when the evidence is going to be "revised" as more is unearth on the subject (forgive the pun).

WALTER: "are ardi lucy et. al. preflood? "die out" in the flood? descendents of cain? or created earlier on day six among the "beasts"? or is it just a mis-assembled ape. please don't link to a website. tell me what do YOU think."

Probably preflood. I don't know enough about Ardi, but from the evidence the consensus of creation scientists is that Ardi is not human but ape.

WALTER: "where do you draw the line? homo? homo habilis? homo sapiens? homo sapiens sapiens? hard to decide? how 'bout neandertal? there are so "ape-men" many along a spectrum, how do you decide?"

I draw the line on God creating man unique from the animals.

ME: "You start from the evolutionary framework, I from the biblical, creation framework. But logically, from your starting framework means natural plus matter has produced all we see and know. Such an idea does not hold up under intense scrutiny."

WALTER: "you mean "under intense RELIGIOUS scrutiny."

Under logical scrutiny. How do you get personality from chemicals mixing together? Your magic ingredient is millions and billions of years of TIME.

ME: "...much of the evidence you accept is based on eyewitness testimony, and not yours, that of another and another and so on..."

WALTER: "ha! are you kidding?! this is SO MUCH less a problem in science than theology. ALL biblical theories are based on eyewitness testiony."

There is quite often a difference between theory and actuality. We have God's word as our standard. That is our starting point. You have changing fallible man as your starting presupposition. We have eyewitnesses who spoke as lead by the Holy Spirit. That is our starting point. You have scientists who constantly are modifying their standards as they learn more about the world. That is your starting presupposition as to epistemology. As Christians we have an experiential relationship with God through the Person who is the Lord Jesus Christ. As unbelievers you have an experiential relationship with empirical data for that is all you are, matter in motion. That is your identity, your significance, your starting point, whereas ours is so much more as children of God who are loved and are of great worth, created in His image.

Sorry, I have to go to bed.

Well Walter, I'm trying to get to other posts but you keep raising issues that I feel compelled to address so they keep getting pushed back. This happens to me all the time since I can't be on here all the time. And I'm feeling the time crunch again this weekend.

I'll try to cover your November 7, 2009 10:58 AM post with another on the logical consistence of Christianity and the flaws of naturalism.

WALTER: "this site invents all sorts of "could be"s and "not impossible that"s, but the ONLY evidence for the "quirinius ruled twice" "theory" is biblical: matthew's claim that jesus was born during the reign of herod. you see at the end of the quote, they hold out hope for archaeological "vindication". is there other evidence i've not heard of?"

Did you follow the link I provided about Quirinius? Scroll down the page about half way.

http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/The_New_Testament_Is_Verified_Archeologically

Please see Hebrews 9:14 in reference to the last part of the last post.

WALTER: "And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other....So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near - at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

As He did when Jerusalem fell. Those dead, the OT saints, along with those alive at this time saw the ushering in of the kingdom. Those living at that time knew this, the fulfillment of prophesy.

WALTER: "do you really think "stars falling" and "son of man coming on the clouds of heaven" refers to the temple? really?"

No, to the end of the age and the setting up of the eternal dominion of God for the believer. The destruction of the Temple put an end to the covenant of works, the sacrificial system used by the Jews to make atonement for their wrongful/sinful actions against God. Now they had no where to offer a sacrifice for the sins because all the sacrifices in the OT were pointing to the only sacrifice that had eternal worth in that it cleansed completely those who put their faith in it (Jesus). As Jesus said, "It is finished." To make this plain Jesus talked about a time of Israels judgment and the end of the sacrificial age, for upon His death no more repeated sacrifices for sin were needed (Hebrews 7:24-28 and 8:8-13). Notice that Hebrews 1:2 says,

"but in THESE LAST DAYS He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe."

This writer, and many believe it to be Paul because of the similarity in style, speaks of these last days in reference to the Old Covenant age.

As for "the coming on the clouds" this article may explain things to you more clearly,

http://www.americanvision.org/article/seek-first-the-kingdom--part-iv-/

http://www.americanvision.org/article/signs-in-the-heavens-return-for-the-umpteenth-time/

Hi Walter,

We missed the 2PM show, sold out, but bought tickets for 4:30PM.

WALTER: "while i'm sure the destruction of the temple was a horrific event for local Jews, it can hardly (with any intellectual honesty) be compared to Jesus' end-of-the-world prophesies."

Where does He mention anything about the end of the world???? What do you think the "end of the age refers to???

WALTER: "review mt24. AFTER predicting the destruction of the temple, jesus talks of "signs" of famines and plagues and war (always safe predictions...). then he says,"

Yes, signs that point towards the end of the age and the coming of His kingdom in power and glory. The destruction of the temple ushered in the New Covenant age in which the prophet Daniel spoke about.

WALTER: "Immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory."

I'm of the view point that this coming of the Son of Man on the clouds with great power and glory is figurative language for the fulfillment of setting up of His kingdom (Daniel 2:44; 7:13-14) because the four kingdoms talked about before the setting up of the eternal kingdom were Babylon, Persia, Greece and Roman, and it was in the time of the fourth kingdom, Roman, that the eternal kingdom is established.

Jesus said that His kingdom is not of this world in the sense that it is a spiritual kingdom that one day will be again physical, as explained in the Book of Revelation. But at present the believer is blessed by Christ in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing in Christ (Ephesians 1:3)

The saints of old, those looking forward to the fulfillment of the coming of Jesus and the establishment of the kingdom are said to be

"living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.....God had prepared something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:13-16, 40)

Christ has made the believer perfect by His sacrifice in our place and now in the heavenly realm, the unseen, eternal realm, the greater realm, we have our identity even while our earthly bodies waste away!

darn it,
typo... @ 6:37 PM i MEANT to say...

"this shows you don't know how science works. a conspiracy (maintained for 150 yrs!) is impossible. scientists live to develop new theories. they're all over the place. the problem/GOOD thing is they love nit-picking each others' theories to death...."

peter,
i asked,
"i'm wondering what's not convincing [about ardi]?" and you pointed me to that website. i checked it out. one great line for creationist quote-miners is from slide 13:

"The paleoanthropologists wrote in one of the articles that Ardipithecus was, "so rife with anatomical surprises that no one could have imagined it..." they might leave out the subsequent, "...without direct fossil evidence."

anyway, all those ardi uncertainties are "around the edges". the fact is we've found (yet another) fossil of a bi-pedal "ape-man". what do you "do" with this info?

are ardi lucy et. al. preflood? "die out" in the flood? descendents of cain? or created earlier on day six among the "beasts"? or is it just a mis-assembled ape. please don't link to a website. tell me what do YOU think.

where do you draw the line? homo? homo habilis? homo sapiens? homo sapiens sapiens? hard to decide? how 'bout neandertal? there are so "ape-men" many along a spectrum, how do you decide?

you said,
"You start from the evolutionary framework, I from the biblical, creation framework. But logically, from your starting framework means natural plus matter has produced all we see and know. Such an idea does not hold up under intense scrutiny."

you mean "under intense RELIGIOUS scrutiny."

you said,
"...much of the evidence you accept is based on eyewitness testimony, and not yours, that of another and another and so on down the line until you get to those who have actually done the experiment that you are taking as gospel truth, which in turn is based on statements like "we believe" or "at present this is the best explanation" or "the findings suggest" and words to this effect."

ha! are you kidding?! this is SO MUCH less a problem in science than theology. ALL biblical theories are based on eyewitness testiony.

peter, you said,
"When someone does an experiment and his/her findings are published we take it as true based on their eyewitness accounts and the reasoning behind them, even though we have not done the experiment ourselves and even though we don't know for certain whether the dots have been connected at the right places. In this sense we rely on eyewitness evidence in the sciences."

but in science anybody can go check it out. and surely some other smart-*ss scientist WILL challenge him and try to duplicate the experiment. if it doesn't hold up, we'll find out quickly. remember the south korean cloner? took about a month to expose him. (he's in serious trouble now, i think.)

you said,
"They [creation scientists] are mocked and shut up by those who have much to lose. So in this respect I believe there is a conspiracy under foot to silence any opposition to their prized foundation - evolution."

ahh..conspiracy... are you generally a conspiracy theorist? or just about science? is AIDS a govt. experiment gone bad? moon landing? vast left (or right) wing conspiracy?

this shows you don't know how science works. a conspiracy (maintained for 150 yrs!) is impossible. scientists live to develop new theories. they're all over the place. the problem/god thing is they love nit-picking each others' theories to death. they'll say, "you didn't control for this or that variable or whatever." so you can throw any theory out there you want, but it will be picked to death. evolution has been assaulted for 150 yrs but still "sticks" - in fact sticks better than ever. so, any biologist would LOVE to be the one who overturned evolution with scientific evidence. he'd instantly be the most famous scientist since einstein.

peter,
"This will have to be quick, we're taking our granddaughter to see the new Jim Carey 3D @ 2PM."

hope that was fun. my wife's out of town and my daughter had a sleepover at our house last night.

peter, you said,
"[eyewitness evidence is empirical evidence] when it is written down and passed on to preceding generations. Empirical evidence is something that is physical...."

come on. it's so funny, so fundamentalist, of you think that writing it down makes it "physical" evidence. i mean, i guess it's "physical" in the sense that i can touch it....

the physical artifact under glass in museums is empirical evidence about what people believed, NOT whether it is true. its remarkable preservation and reproduction over the years is evidence that we've taken this belief very seriously. it's also physical empirical evidence about mundane things like how they made paper and ink, and the language they spoke and so forth. same goes for the babylonian artifacts in museums, shakespeare and the book of mormon.

play a game with me here. imagine if we found a 65,000,000 year old book that said, "an asteroid hit earth last week and all the dinos are dying off".

this "rabbit-in-the-precambrian" find would have a lot of implications, but it WOULD NOT be empirical evidence for or against asteroid/extinction theory. empirical evidence would be an irridium layer, and impact site, a before/after change in fossils etc...

writing it down doesn't make it empirical.

4.

When you start from a particular premise your findings are going to mirror your starting proposition much of the time. You start from the evolutionary framework, I from the biblical, creation framework. But logically, from your starting framework means natural plus matter has produced all we see and know. Such an idea does not hold up under intense scrutiny.

ME: "Why do you wish to impose a double standard on anything that disagrees with your evolutionary framework? (Romans 1:18, 25???)"

WALTER: "no, no, no. i apply the same standard to all evidence: the bible, the book of mormon, the fossils etc... YOU apply a different standard to the bible than to any other evidence."

Yes, a naturalistic, subjective, changing standard. And yes I do apply a different standard to God's word because my starting presupposition is that God does not lie and therefore there is certainty in life; it is what God has revealed as true. His word is my highest authority. Your mind and the minds of others is yours. As I said earlier, much of the evidence you accept is based on eyewitness testimony, and not yours, that of another and another and so on down the line until you get to those who have actually done the experiment that you are taking as gospel truth, which in turn is based on statements like "we believe" or "at present this is the best explanation" or "the findings suggest" and words to this effect.

3.
WALTER: "you said once that you didn't find ardi "convincing". i'm wondering what's not convincing? what DO you believe about ardi? pam mentioned ardi was found pretty much intact."

Please click on the slide show on the website address,

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/10/arts/television/10ardi.html

Look at slides 3,5,10,12,13. Now from this information we see that these scientists came back to the same site year after year. While extracting the fossils there was a flood that scattered the evidence over the area, there were other types of "primates" scattered among the find on the Ardi site. The bones themselves are not well preserved in some cases and the skeleton is pieced together and not whole.

Here is what the author of this particular article had to say (from website provided),

"Despite how quickly the film follows on the official unveiling of Ardi (short for Ardipithecus ramidus), it’s not a rush job. The first fragments of the new creature’s bones were found in the early 1990s, and the television production company Primary Pictures began documenting the research team’s progress in 1999. For 10 years, filming took place at dig sites in Ethiopia; in laboratories in Tokyo and Berkeley, Calif.; in artists’ studios and on motion-capture stages.

This means that “Discovering Ardi” has an awful lot of material to choose from, and at times the viewer may feel a case of information overload coming on. It’s as if years of pent-up nerdy excitement were spilling onto the screen, with at least six scientists talking about their own roles in what’s known as the Middle Awash research project.

The film alternates between two primary story lines. The more immediately appealing and visually interesting is its account of the project’s years of labor. This includes the excavations at various sites near the Awash River, digging through hills and gullies with small tools that look like what a dentist uses to clean teeth, and the additional years of laboratory work to reconstruct what Ardi looked like and how she moved.

(Why “she”? Because the relatively complete skeleton of an individual Ardipithecus that was eventually assembled, and then modeled through years of CT scanning and artists’ renderings, was female.)

Among the interesting lessons here are the reasons it’s so difficult to find bones of our oldest ancestors (who all lived in Africa). Even the earliest hominids were smart enough to avoid dying in the open and being trapped in sediment. Those that did were likely to be torn apart by hyenas.

The more important, if less television-friendly, aspect of the film is its explication of the big ideas: what Ardi tells us about ourselves and our early evolution. (Among her other accomplishments, she has buttressed the notion of evolution itself.)"

2.

ME: "Some people who believe in evolution have never been to a museum to see a fossil, yet they take the word of the experts none the less. Likewise, there are many early copies of the Bible, of which I have actually seen physically under glass in the London Museum of Natural History, along with fossils in other sections."

WALTER: "you really don't see the difference? i've never been to australia, but i "believe" the "experts" when they say it's there. i've never seen ardi's bones, but i "believe" they're really bones. i "believe" scientists have done as good a job as they can in assembling them. do i have to personally perform medical trials before i trust "experts" who say "take this medicine"?"

"Done as good a job as they can" is precisely the point, based on the bias they have towards the fact or artifact/evidence.

No, you rely on eyewitness testimonies and the reliability of those in the know. Yet you do not do the same with the historical records we call the Bible. It is based on eyewitness testimonies and knowledge too, and carefully reasoned thinking.

WALTER: "do you think evolution "experts" are:
1)stupid or
2)lying (conspiracy protecting failed theory) or
3)mislead by presuppositions?"

As I have said all along, mislead by presuppositions. It is their starting point that causes them to look at the evidence from a set perspective. I have also said before that no one comes to the table neutral. We draw on our most basic foundational beliefs. And that is why in your framework there is no 100% certainty. It could and does change. God is necessary for something that is unchangeable.

When their presuppositional bases is challenged, as it has with ID, these scientist who believe they have good evidence to challenge the long held paradigm are ridiculed into non-existence. They are mocked and shut up by those who have much to lose. So in this respect I believe there is a conspiracy under foot to silence any opposition to their prized foundation - evolution. The evidence is not treated in the same manner, because judgment is clouded.

WALTER: "i don't think there are any other explanations for 99%+ of "experts" to "believe in" evolution."

There is no doubt that Darwin was brilliant and meticulous, but was he right?

It always took a new fresh way of thinking to change the modeled paradigm. Darwin and his ilk were such so it is possible that this could happen again in the near future as the theory is now again, after all these years, under closer scrutiny by those who do not think along the same paradigm.

WALTER: "(note that implicit in "mislead by presuppositions" in the idea that given scientific presuppositions, the evidence really does look like evolution occured.)"

From a naturalistic framework that does not take into account a supernatural beginning or a supernatural hand along the way.

Hi Walter,

This will have to be quick, we're taking our granddaughter to see the new Jim Carey 3D @ 2PM.

ME: "Your fossil evidence is testimonial evidence that many rely on for its accuracy."

WALTER: "you really don't see the difference between a fossil and a book?! a fossil IS NOT "testimonial" evidence - i any normal definition of "testimony". it's not created by humans, doesn't talk and it has no agenda."

Yes, I see the difference, but both are physical evidences that not everyone has seen. For those who have not seen the actual physical evidence, they take the eyewitness testimony of others as true based on the reasoning provided. That is my point. This happens in science all the time. When someone does an experiment and his/her findings are published we take it as true based on their eyewitness accounts and the reasoning behind them, even though we have not done the experiment ourselves and even though we don't know for certain whether the dots have been connected at the right places. In this sense we rely on eyewitness evidence in the sciences.

And with evolutionary science the fossils do not come stamped one million years old. The evidence is based on interpretation and relied on as true because scientific instruments do not make mistakes, do they? All the interrelated facts have to be put in the right context before a correct determination can be drawn, do they not? That is why the facts are constantly changing. As more is made known it has to be weaseled into the commonly perceived vantage point that is evolutionary science.

peter, to pam, you said,
"Note how many times that Jesus mention the shortness of time before the great tribulation and the end of the age of that particular covenant. He said that "This generation shall certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Matthew 24:34). Take a look at the list in Matthew 24 and take a look at what started the conversation in Matthew 23:36 and 24:1-3. Notice in His language He says numerous times "you, you will, you see" in reference to those disciples He was talking to."

indeed! jesus was very clear and emphatic about the "shorness of time". i know you're supposed to say he meant the destruction of the temple, because jesus hasn't returned yet, so far as we know, but he promised the destruction of the temple AND his second coming (on a cloud, with trumpets, no less!).

while i'm sure the destruction of the temple was a horrific event for local Jews, it can hardly (with any intellectual honesty) be compared to Jesus' end-of-the-world prophesies.

review mt24. AFTER predicting the destruction of the temple, jesus talks of "signs" of famines and plagues and war (always safe predictions...). then he says,

"Immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other....So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near - at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

do you really think "stars falling" and "son of man coming on the clouds of heaven" refers to the temple? really?

re quirinius's two tenures:
this biblically-inclined website is honest enough to concede the "problem":

"Here we may gather up the evidence to present a composite picture: (1) Luke’s census is not a historical impossibility.49 Rather at all points, historical analogies can be drawn.50 (2) Quirinius was not the official governor of Syria at the time of Jesus’ birth. The Syrian records and the current accepted chronology of Jesus’ life simply prevent this conclusion. However, Quirinius’s personal chronology is not fully known, particularly around the years of Jesus’ birth. Thus, it is not impossible that he held another office at the time which Luke appropriately describes with (h[gemoneuontoj thj Suriaj) hegmoneuontos tēs Surias, a description as we saw which could also appropriately describe the office from which he took his well-known census. In short, it is most likely under this otherwise unattested office that Quirinius officiated over what Luke describes. To say more would go beyond the present evidence; to say otherwise, would, as we saw, strain the syntax. As such, I. Howard Marshall is probably right when he suggests that Luke’s full vindication lies buried somewhere, waiting to be unearthed.51"

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/11/01/Once-More-Quiriniuss-Census.aspx

this site invents all sorts of "could be"s and "not impossible that"s, but the ONLY evidence for the "quirinius ruled twice" "theory" is biblical: matthew's claim that jesus was born during the reign of herod. you see at the end of the quote, they hold out hope for archaeological "vindication". is there other evidence i've not heard of?

peter, you said,
"...eyewitnesses who went to their death, believing what - a fairy tale? Do you honestly believe that His band of followers and those who believed in Him after would go to their excruciating deaths believing in fairy tales..."

well, yes. people die for fairy tales all the time. some people fly planes into buildings for fairy tales...it's weird to me. people do irrational things because of faith all the time. in his faith-induced state, muhammad atta was being heroic, in a way. i say "in a way" not to be politically correct but to remind that since atta believed in heaven, he DEVALUED life here on earth. as a believer, you must have a grudging respect for his devout sincerity, right? i mean, sure his religion is a fairy tale, but he died for it. my point is that people dying for a religion doesn't make it true.

peter, i said,
"i know that sounds scary to you. we look inward (i know that sounds egotistical to you) and outward. we make up our morals (scary, again, i'm sure), basically based on what we'd want done to us."

and you said,
"You said it. Your ultimate (HIGHEST) authority is your feelings, your emotions, what you want done to you. Thank you for that statement. Another one of those I'll store away for future reference."

dont' thank me! thank buddha, lao tse, confucius and, yes, jesus. that was "do unto others" - as you would have done to you.

then you said,
"Now if someone else comes along and bases his feelings on what is "good" for himself rather than "do unto others".....

again, i paraphrased jesus (and the other guys). it's the golden rule. you're misquoting us. it's not what's "good for myself", but "as i would have done to myself". who can really think hitler would have wanted to be starved and gassed? he broke the golden rule.

peter, thanks for the responses. my faith in you was rewarded. much work ahead, though...

you said,
"Your fossil evidence is testimonial evidence that many rely on for its accuracy."

you really don't see the difference between a fossil and a book?! a fossil IS NOT "testimonial" evidence - i any normal definition of "testimony". it's not created by humans, doesn't talk and it has no agenda.

you said,
"Some people who believe in evolution have never been to a museum to see a fossil, yet they take the word of the experts none the less. Likewise, there are many early copies of the Bible, of which I have actually seen physically under glass in the London Museum of Natural History, along with fossils in other sections."

you really don't see the difference? i've never been to australia, but i "believe" the "experts" when they say it's there. i've never seen ardi's bones, but i "believe" they're really bones. i "believe" scientists have done as good a job as they can in assembling them. do i have to personally perform medical trials before i trust "experts" who say "take this medicine"?

do you think evolution "experts" are:
1)stupid or
2)lying (conspiracy protecting failed theory) or
3)mislead by presuppositions?

i don't think there are any other explanations for 99%+ of "experts" to "believe in" evolution. (note that implicit in "mislead by presuppositions" in the idea that given scientific presuppositions, the evidence really does look like evolution occured.)

you said once that you didn't find ardi "convincing". i'm wondering what's not convincing? what DO you believe about ardi? pam mentioned ardi was found pretty much intact.

you said,
"Why do you wish to impose a double standard on anything that disagrees with your evolutionary framework? (Romans 1:18, 25???)"

no, no, no. i apply the same standard to all evidence: the bible, the book of mormon, the fossils etc... YOU apply a different standard to the bible than to any other evidence.

Continuing,

WALTER: "sound familiar? it should - if you've read ancient the chinese philosophies of buddha, lao tse and confucius. 500 years later jesus, bless his heart, said it too. "doing unto others" probably IS harder without the carrot/stick of heaven/hell, but it seems to work for most atheists."

What makes you think that it came before Jesus (John 8:58)? What makes you think that it came before the Old Testament books of the law were written? How do you know that these teachings were not passed down from the Jews to the tribes around them first and then they got into the writings of these men? (Exodus 22:21-27; 23:4-5,9; Leviticus 19:9-18; 33-34; 23:22)

WALTER: "(any study of criminals etc... shows atheists "behave" at lest as well as christians.) it also gets an atheist in the mindset of caring for others - just for the sake of caring for others, with no promise of heaven. it's arguably a "higher" kind of morality than just following god's rules."

I never denied that many atheists behave better than many Christian's, just that the atheist has no ultimate standard, no objective measure for good or bad, it's just nothing more than feelings - lalalala.

There again, what makes it higher? You are contradicting yourself from your previous statement. You just admitted that you have no higher authority other than your personal feelings, so how can it be a "higher" kind of morality?

Because you say so? Well, I disagree. Now whose right?

Hi Walter (November 4, 2009 10:49 AM),

ME: "point to the Christian's highest authority, for He has spoken to His creation through the pages of the Bible. The atheist points to his highest authority, evolutionary science, his god..."

WALTER: "an atheist has no "higher authority". there's no pointing going on."

Walter, if you have no higher authority then you must base everything on feelings, nothing more than feelings. And you do recognize in your own mind at least an authority higher than that of the Bibles, so you do have one after all - yourself at any rate, for your question the truth of God's word. But if you do not look to science as your higher authority then your claim is based on your subjective feelings which you have determined are more valid than those of the Bible.

WALTER: "i know that sounds scary to you. we look inward (i know that sounds egotistical to you) and outward. we make up our morals (scary, again, i'm sure), basically based on what we'd want done to us."

You said it. Your ultimate (HIGHEST) authority is your feelings, your emotions, what you want done to you. Thank you for that statement. Another one of those I'll store away for future reference. Now Hitler did the same thing, he based his sense of what was good on his feelings, even as they were guided by the feelings of others, both his contemporaries and those before him. Now if someone else comes along and bases his feelings on what is "good" for himself rather than "do unto others" what is good or bads about it? It is just the particular way his chemicals are mixing together, in your framework.

These kind of statements again confirm to me that moral values are meaningless until you make them meaningful by force. You are the one who makes them true, so in such a moral relevant world, why can't I make my moral values that counter yours true also, and may the best man win? Can you imagine a society in which everyone did what he saw fit in his own eyes? (Judges 17:6)

Continuing Walter,

WALTER: "by citing this evidence, you're confusing two aspects of storytelling - "setting" and "plot". the n.t. mentions "pilate" as a character in the story. this is just a detail about the setting. but, for the story to be true, this detail ABSOLUTELY MUST "check out". and it turns out there really was a "pilate" who ruled at the "right" time for the story to be true. so this detail does not disprove the story. note that this doesn't prove anything about the PLOT of the story either."

There is a plot there, running throughout the whole Bible, a revelation of Jesus Christ, in the Old Testament contained, in the New Testament explained, but you are missing the point also. We know from history that Shakespeare's writings were stories. Parables were also stories told by Jesus, but each gospel contains historical narrative of His life and times by eyewitnesses who went to their death, believing what - a fairy tale? Do you honestly believe that His band of followers and those who believed in Him after would go to their excruciating deaths believing in fairy tales and yet saying that they had seen Him risen from the dead? Would you like to buy some swamp land?

WALTER: on the other hand, if the bible says quirinius and herod were rulers at the same time when jesus was born (it does), and we later come to find that they NEVER ruled together (we have)...well...then..the plot is disproven."

Where did you get your information?

Actually, Quirinius was governor to Syria twice.

http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/The_New_Testament_Is_Verified_Archeologically

Hi Walter (November 4, 2009 2:00 PM ),

ME: "God has testified about Himself through the human writers, some of whom were eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ. That is empirical evidence that many find compelling and adequate."

WALTER: ""eyewitness evidence" IS NOT empirical evidence."

It is when it is written down and passed on to preceding generations. Empirical evidence is something that is physical and the apostles writings circulated to the different churches, if not by the original manuscripts, then by copies made from the original manuscripts.

WALTER: "empirical evidence would be something like a "transitional" fossil or jesus' sandals. eyewitness evidence is notoriously unreliable."

Your fossil evidence is testimonial evidence that many rely on for its accuracy. Some people who believe in evolution have never been to a museum to see a fossil, yet they take the word of the experts none the less. Likewise, there are many early copies of the Bible, of which I have actually seen physically under glass in the London Museum of Natural History, along with fossils in other sections. Why do you wish to impose a double standard on anything that disagrees with your evolutionary framework? (Romans 1:18, 25???)

ME: "...the evidence is all around, by the internal integrity of the actual people, places, events described in the Bible."

by this logic, shakespeare's stories are true: they mention real people and places an events. this kind of "evidence" (real historical people places and events), is very dangerous for apologists. it can ONLY disprove the story."

Again, passages like Luke 1:1-3 and
Acts 1:1-3 are historical accounts of what took place. Secular historians in addition to the Bible have confirmed many things recorded in the Bible as historic, such as the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and the persecution of His followers. Do you want to pretend that such things did not happen based on the findings on the "enlightened" crowd of humanists 18 centuries removed?

Continuing Pam,

PAM: ""Mark" may have been Roman, or at least writing for a Roman audience."

Mark definitely wrote for a Roman or Gentile audience, as Matthew wrote for a Jewish audience and each gospel had a particular aim in it. Luke wrote an orderly historical account and John wrote from the perspective of the deity of the Lord.

PAM: " He calculates time using a Roman method (4 watches instead of 3), his language contains Latinisms, and he has a faulty knowledge of Palestinian geography (5:1, 7:31, 8:10)."

What are you suggesting from these verses?

PAM: "Not to mention that the gospels were written much later than would be believable for apostles - especially John."

Most conservative authorities date them written before 70AD, because there is no mention of the destruction of the Temple, the very thing that the Jewish religious life centered on. Note how many times that Jesus mention the shortness of time before the great tribulation and the end of the age of that particular covenant. He said that "This generation shall certainly not pass away until all these things have happened." (Matthew 24:34). Take a look at the list in Matthew 24 and take a look at what started the conversation in Matthew 23:36 and 24:1-3. Notice in His language He says numerous times "you, you will, you see" in reference to those disciples He was talking to.

PAM: "Do you believe in The Book of Mormon? It was supposedly given directly by an angel, so if not, why not?"

No, the Book of Mormon is a false gospel. It contradicts the Bible in many ways and came over 1800 years later.

"But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8, see also 2 Corinthians 11:3-4)

Hi Pam (November 4, 2009 4:39 PM ),

ME: "God has testified about Himself through the human writers, some of whom were eyewitnesses to Jesus Christ. That is empirical evidence that many find compelling and adequate."

PAM: "How do you know this? The gospels were anonymous and undated, and there are no originals. The words "according to Mark (or whichever)" weren't added until well into the 2nd century. Nowhere in them do the authors claim to be apostles."

Apostle:
1. Apostle One of a group made up especially of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus to preach the gospel.
2. A missionary of the early Christian Church.
3. A leader of the first Christian mission to a country or region.

Mark and Luke were with Peter and Paul respectively. We can deduce this from the New Testament writings and the testimony of some of the early church fathers.

http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/Marks_Gospel_Is_An_Early_Memoir_of_Peter

http://www.pleaseconvinceme.com/index/mn37350/The_Power_of_the_Book

(Scroll down the left hand side for specific attacks on the veracity of the Bible.)

PAM: "They were written in Greek - a language that it's extremely unlikely that an apostle (if such existed) could have written. Reading literacy in that place and time was 10% or less, and writing literacy was only 2-3%."

That is your assumption, not mine. Greek was the prevalent language of the region.

So in summery, there are a few reasons for my tardiness Pam, one, a holiday to Florida, another a visit for ten days from my brother-in-law, I'm a 12 hour shift worker, my wife wants some of my time, the amount of posts that I feel obliged to answer (just from you and Walter alone, let alone Arminius, JTTN, and others is overwhelming), the difficulty in researching and finding answers for many of your evolutionary postings from a Christian perspective (It is a field that has been dormant for a long time and is just resurfacing again and I'm sure will definitely put a challenge to the powers that be, whereas evolutionary dogma has over two hundred years of cooking the books), and just taking some time out for the ordinary things of life instead of being here five hours a day like I was in the summer during holidays. I don't have that luxury any more. I respond more easily to philosophical threads for they don't take an absorbent amount of time for me to answer.

Your errors on the Bible show me that you have taken the opinion stemming from liberal theology that came into its own during the Enlightenment, and that you appear to be lacking in a good conservative evaluation of the history of the Bible. You have jumped on the popular band-wagon again and are seeing everything from that perspective.

Hi Pam, Walter,

I see I am under fire and I do apologize. I know I have probably hundreds of threads to catch up on.

PAM: "I've noticed, not just over the last couple of months, but also in earlier discussions with Peter, that when it comes to the really tough questions, he can't find the time to post.

You're right, it takes more time in a subject that I'm not as familiar on (evolution).

PAM: "By the time his schedule eases, he's conveniently forgotten them."

Inconveniently, for there is just to much for my brain to take in at the moment.

PAM: "Yet he always manages when the discussion is on his favorite turf - a need for an absolute source of moral right and wrong."

Yes, philosophical questions and those relating to the Bible are my strong suits, just as evolutionary ones are yours. But don't think that you have given a satisfactory explanation for metaphysics, epistemology or axiology from an evolutionary perspective.

You give criticism to the Bible for the very same things that are deficient in your natural/evolutionary scienfic world view. That is you accept testimonial evidence from like minded individuals that has not been put to the empirical test by your own hands, so you too borrow your facts from others who in turn borrow them from others, down the line until you arrive at the subjective opinion of the originator of the experiment. And many of you facts cannot be verified because nobody was around to witness them. Therefore, you rest your assumptions on faith, just like I do. And as much as you think that the Christian faith is built on the blind leading the blind, it is not. We have our reasons for belief, including experiential knowledge, just like you do. They are confirmed by the one and only living and true God, and they are able to make sense of the deep questions of life, whereas you can't in a logical or consistent manner point to your assumptions as workable.

Everything you know comes from other subjective, limited, human beings. As a Christian I see God's all-knowing, objective, controlling, just and loving hand in everything. Yours comes from a natural perspective, mine from a supernatural perspective.

Hi Susan,

You said: "Is their history of violence any more so than the history of violence in Christianity? Remember the Crusades? The Inquisition? Is there no recollection of how Christians were often the forerunners and leaders of KKK terrorist attacks on black people and Jewish people in this country?"

I think you'll find that the Crusades were a response to repeated Muslim aggression, the Inquisition was responsible for very few deaths (Although that does not make what was done right)and aberrant Christian teaching is responsible for many of the errors of people professing the name of Christ. Violence is not the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, Islam started out as a violent religion by its founder, Mohammad.

As Fort Hood Tragedy Unfolds, Obama Is Politician in Chief

Friday, November 6, 2009 9:19 AM

By: Frank Gaffney Jr.

Perhaps the president publicly handled this attack as he did because he was unsettled by the fact that the alleged shooter is a devout Muslim, Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who evidently adheres to the theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.”
Actually, Shariah not only justifies such violence but also demands it.

To cite but one example of the requirement for individual Muslims to wage jihad, Shariah expert Andrew Bostom observes that the influential Ottoman cleric, Sheikh Shawish, wrote in 1915:

“To whoever kills even one single infidel of those who rule over Islamic lands, either secretly or openly, there is a reward like a reward from all the living ones of the Islamic world. And let every individual of the Muslims in whatever place they may be, take upon him an oath to kill at least three of four of the ruling infidels, enemies of Allah, and enemies of the religion. He must take upon him this oath before Allah Most High, expecting his reward from Allah alone, and let the Muslim be confident, if there be to him no other good deed than this, nevertheless he will prosper in the day of judgment and we ask the Most High to extend the People of the Faith by the favor of their Lord.”

In short, the Fort Hood “outburst of violence” (to use the president’s formulation), looks like the first successful incident of jihadist mass murder in America since 9/11. This could not be a message happily conveyed by a chief executive committed to “outreach to the Muslim world” and so deprecating of his predecessor, who had managed for seven years to prevent such incidents here in America.

peter,
our most recent thread:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/c_welton_gaddy/2009/10/hate_is_not_a_religious_value.html

the one before that:
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/greg_m_epstein/2009/10/disarmament_begins_with_ourselves.html