Proofs of Evolution: A Mediocre Debate (Faith, robinrohan and their invitees)

No... more like, "If you really are real, God, then help me understand what you are saying in this book." Then Nothing will answer you, Robin, as you said.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 08:17 PM

Well I've done a LOT of EXCELLENT explaining of the Bible and Christian doctrine on this site, and so have others here, but it doesn't get through despite our EXCELLENT and PLAIN and CLEAR exposition. As I said, if one has the gift one can certainly explain it. But if the hearer doesn't have the gift he can't hear it. Something like that.

Not really. All the ingredients for faith are there. You just have to believe. But it's only when you DO believe that it all begins to make sense.By the way, a Calvinist preacher is not going to tell you to give up smoking and drinking. That's what the kind of preacher you call sentimental is likely to do however.Of course the Calvinist is probably going to require you to leave the building for the purpose.(Oops, I guess this came up on the other thread. Should have answered it there. Oh well.)This message has been edited by Faith, 02-17-2006 09:51 PM

Presbyterians are just as lenient about alcohol as the Catholics in my experience. And I don't know about Baptists in general but Calvinist Baptists are not necessarily teetotalers. Drunkenness is of course forbidden by the Bible itself, but wine or beer from time to time is no problem. Wine is in the Bible practically as a staple, and Martin Luther was a famous beer-drinker they say.Have we finished with the discussion of the tribal god?This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 12:08 PM

Yes. Assuming of course that by "they" you mean modern scholars, the ones I call the revisionists.There is one notorious one where the "scholar" arrived at a very recent date for the book of Daniel based strictly on the fact that he denies the possibility of genuine prophecy and honestly admitted that was his criterion for the date. I don't remember the man's name, I wonder if I can find it. Many of Daniel's prophecies were fulfilled over the next few centuries, so this man dated the book after the events, thus making a liar out of Daniel who clearly lived in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, and destroying the kind of evidence that people need in order to come to faith. I think that is completely a fabrication of modern [Darwinist atheist anti-supernatural] scholarship too. I learned it in school but since becoming a Bible-believer I don't see any evidence for it. There are only three "monotheistic" religions, right? Well the Bible accounts for the first two and partly accounts for the third. In other words it took the revelation of God's word to remind people that there is only one God. Otherwise the entire world had forgotten him and gone for tribal gods.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 12:25 PM

I forget how that discussion went.It is God who chooses whom to save. However, anyone who wants to believe and does everything possible to make belief possible is not going to be rejected. Jesus said simply, "...him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." (Jhn 6:37)But perhaps this is the wrong question. Maybe the question really is "Why do you deserve Hell?" In that case the answer is Because we all do. It's the default position of being human and therefore sinners.But again, the gospel is preached because Jesus said that is how people are to be saved. "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." Read the gospel, ask God to give you faith. If you want to believe, you won't be turned away.

DNA samples? You mean like comparing chimpanzee and human DNA and claiming the similarities are proof of descent? My answer is that descent isn't proved by this, that similarity of design explains it just fine. Not sure where question-begging comes into this or if I've understood what you are referring to. Yes, good old Lewis. Glad you're on top of that. I can't find the specific quote I wanted to find about Daniel, but there's plenty of online discussion of this dating problem.

OK I'm looking at it. You could do what I proposed and find out for yourself: Give yourself to Jesus Christ. Talk to him. Ask him to save you, to take you into His kingdom. Ask him to explain all these things to you. I've found Him to be very very willing to answer my questions about such things. Even to take me back and continue to answer my questions after I've been such a traitor I know beyond a doubt that I deserve hell forever.The formal answer is again something people just aren't going to accept unless they already believe. You can't believe because you are fallen. Being fallen is a state of guilt before God, that we are all born into. Nobody's innocent. There is no such thing as making a mistake in choosing to believe evolution over God. There is enough evidence to make you guilty in that case.It takes a supernatural act of God to give you faith. God can give you that faith at any time.Sometimes he gives it in small increments so that a person simply finds himself interested in knowing more about it and is led to seek Him. There are many ways of seeking. Listening to preachers is a main one. Reading good theology books and the Bible is another. Prayer is a big one. Prayer is just talking to God as you'd talk to any person, but He can hear your very thoughts. He hears them whether you direct them to Him or not but if you direct them to Him, that's prayer. The Kingdom of God grows by stages from a tiny mustard-seed-sized beginning.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 01:50 PM

Really, the fossil evidence huh? I think the fossil evidence is ridiculous. The only thing about the fossils that is a problem, sort of, is their seeming to be arranged from "primitive" to "highly evolved." But I don't think the lower ones are all that primitive really, and I think the arrangement suggests how a Flood would have deposited them -- land animals toward the top. I think it's crazy to suggest they got arranged as they did in such neat layers by type all over the earth by the normal ravages of time.What's so convincing about the "hominid" skulls? They were either human or they were something else. Human beings in our own time come in an enormous variety of sizes and shapes. Human skulls vary enormously naturally in size and shape. There is no such thing as a hominid. What's the evidence that you find so convincing? But this isn't as convincing to you as the fossils. Interesting.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 04:44 PM

They would have been carried by currents and waves to their resting place. Over multiplied millions of years of time settling one by one they couldn't possibly have been preserved in such an orderly way. Especially if you consider that each of those layers is made up of a particular sedimentary deposit that supposedly represents deposition over millions of years and that fossils of the same type within it therefore must have been deposited one at a time over those millions of years and yet they all look the same, no evolution from bottom to top of layer.* And that there are these acute sharp differentiations between most of the layers. That makes no sense at all on the millions-of-years scheme. Oh yeah, a bunch of skeletons that look like they could have descended from a lizard and evolved to a cow or something? Arranging fossils seems to be a particular skill of some evolutionists. To my mind it shows nothing but that they must be good at those puzzles on IQ tests.****Similarity of design does not prove descent.**** * {abe: And that the only "evolution" is seen from one layer to the next although supposedly we're talking about a continuous stream of time. Why wouldn't the "evolved" thing appear in the top of the same layer with the less evolved version of it? But it doesn't}This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 05:10 PM

They have how many of these "hominid" skulls? Found where? How are they dated?This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 04:50 PM

From Message 126: Yeah, Robin, I've seen all that stuff. I'm not up to wading through it entry by entry. I'd just make the point that there are not many examples of these so-called hominids, all come from Africa, most of them are in very bad shape, and until I see all types of known human skulls compared from all over the world I'm not just going to accept that high cranium definition of human. There is no evidence that these skulls were anything but either ape or man.

What's a "modern man?" I suspect there are all kinds of human types in small tribes and jungle villages and who knows where all, and even some of these smaller skulls among modern men too. That's what needs proving. And there are so few of them, 20 or 30? Come on. Right, hardly any. And they even sometimes put the wrong jaw onto a cranium. And they have a job of it matching up the rest of the body parts too. Prove it. So do dogs and horses have features of cows. Prove descent is the explanation rather than simple design of some as yet unnamed species. But very few of these "lizard cows" ?By the way, I already gave my answer to the topic of transitionals back in Message 129.

Nothing Robin. You win.Or, put it this way, I've made a lot of points. If they don't convince then that's that.abe: I also haven't agreed that transitionals or radiometric dating are right, I merely concede the debate. I believe both are wrong. But I can't prove it so I concede the debate for now.This message has been edited by Faith, 02-18-2006 06:12 PM