EWolf writes:
Because there's conflict between the sights I found and shared and those you found and shared about teenage pregnancies, I will give you the benefit of the doubt rather than to argue even though I still trust those on the sights I gave.
Not sights. Sites. As in websites.
I don't need you to give me the benefit of the doubt. Your sites were lying and I showed that conclusively. Time to be a big boy and face facts. There's no Santa Clause, there's no Easter Bunny, and there are a lot of liars for Christ out there. Either rebut what I showed, or admit you're wrong and that teenage pregnancy rates have been dropping for decades.
If you're right that there's a connection between prayer and teenage pregnancy rates, that means that one of the results of the Supreme Court ruling on prayer has been a decline in teenage pregnancy rates, the exact opposite of what you claimed. The Supreme Court ruling had a very positive outcome.
Since you only made the one claim, this reduces your list of the bad side effects of the Supreme Court ruling to zero.
Of course, the other possibility is that there's little or no connection between the two.
However, that does not negate Biblical scripture (which I yet boldly speak for) that sternly warns against offending the "little ones (Matthew 18:6)" by keeping “religion” (Jesus, that is) away from our children in Education or anywhere.
You're preaching again.
Such is part of Karl Marx’s vision for the coming generation.
And now you're calling people who disagree with you communists again. You just can't seem to help yourself. No matter how many times you're called on your behavior, you just keep doing it.
Religious truth is part of the whole that should never be left out. You probably by now read my last post to Paulk where I stated that I do not buy any of your or his claims against God and the Bible because your whole life and heart do not appear consistent with them.
Who here is promoting lies and calling people names? That would be you, wouldn't it?
I don't know why you're editing the quote markup. I'm editing it back to be more readable.
The free exercise and expression of Biblical religion is not a forced, inappropriate teaching of its doctrine, but freedom to exercise its good fruit.
It is indeed wonderful that Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists and Jews are all free to exercise Biblical religion.
Of course Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Jews are free to exercise Biblical religion! That fact that unbiblical practices such as “honor” killings, the "untouchable" status of Hindus, and female circulation are prohibited here in America because of Christian based law makes them even more free here.
You're as oblivious to sarcasm as Marc. You argued for "the free exercise and expression of Biblical religion" in schools while ignoring all other religions. Are you also in favor of the free exercise of Islamic religion in schools? Of Hindu religion? All other religions? Will you allow Muslim children to pray toward Mecca during lunch and then again later in the day?
Is God murderous when He judges societies including its children,..
Uh, yeah! I guess you think being God makes it okay to commit atrocities.
Has scripture not clearly shown God’s reason for judging cultures? Have you forgotten God's mercy to the repentant city as shown in the book of Jonah?
You're avoiding the issue. Do you think being God makes it okay to commit atrocities? Or maybe you think scripture makes it okay for God to commit atrocities? And do you really see God refraining from committing an atrocity as an expression of mercy?
Isn’t there a difference between murder and execution for crime?
So you're a believer in capital punishment then.
God judged the cultures and the people because the people saturated their culture only with what God is against and had no intention to repent despite the fact that God gave them much time.
Hey, he warned them, they had it coming. Great guy!
Look at the declining state of our society and those around the would today.
I'm looking at the declining state of our country at the hands of over politicized evangelicals.
Judgment has not yet arrived only because it is not yet time. But there’s still time for repentance for all.
Thank you, preacher. Can I assume you'll be explaining to us what we have to do to repent?
But when a person asking for the proof is asked will he believe God if proof is given to his satisfaction, his answer is generally "no." Is it really scientific proof that he wants?
But the answer is not, "Generally 'no'." You're just making that up. You've been accepting lies as truth for so long that you believe you have proof in your book.
I’m speaking what I have seen many times.
What you're describing isn't rational, and rationality is the default position of most people who don't believe in God. They accept that for which there is evidence. If you asked them if they would believe God exists if provided evidence, they would say yes. So you're making this up.
Look, preach, you're developing a pretty bad track record for accuracy and honesty. Want to clean it up a bit?
There's no such thing as "faith versus science."
We've said that many times, including to you in this thread. Faith deals with the spiritual and means having no evidence but believing anyway, while science deals with the real world and requires evidence, explication, replication, consensus.
But faith deals with the natural also. Isn't the word, “faith” synonymous with the word "trust?" A merchant cannot survive without the faith (trust) of his customers.
I would say you've gone a fair ways toward destroying any trust people might have had in what you say.
Even the above claims you made about science require faith (trust) in those involved do they not?
Are you nuts? Of course not. When replicating an experiment you usually start by accepting what the paper describing the original experiment states, but if your own results do not match then you start looking for explanations. Perhaps you failed to follow the experimental protocols? Perhaps sources of error crept in? Perhaps there was contamination? You might even repeat the experiment. Once all the sources of a differing results have been explored and none found then no, you do not trust the original results.
But if they do successfully replicate the experiment then the beginning on a consensus might start to form that we've found something likely true about the natural world. If ongoing replication provides additional confirmations of the results then the consensus grows stronger and stronger.
Faith and trust do not really have a place within science. Just as evidence and replication do not really have a place within religion, or at least are not provided one.
On the spiritual side, spiritual birth brings the natural man into realization and fellowship with the spirit of God. Isn’t fellowship far beyond evidence? It is as easy to have faith (trust) in God as it is in your favorite merchant. Genuine faith is not blind.
Sure, preach, sermonize away. You got evidence of God then I'm listening. If all you got is sermons, please take it elsewhere.
The phrase, “not seen” as spoken in Hebrews 11:1 is the description of the state of God as seen in cultures alienated from God. As in the case of the people of Mars Hill (Acts 17:22-34), people of darkened cultures need to trust and be made familiar with vital truth unseen in the culture.
Hallelujah!
You're just going down the list of long ago debunked arguments one by one. The argument that you have to see something or it didn't happen is really brilliant. When you come home to a broken living room window and a baseball on the rug do you say, "There's no way to know how this window was broken because we didn't see it happen." No, of course you don't, that would be idiotic.
And what about all the work detectives and forensic technicians do? Would you just ignore it. Would you say, "How does one know how his fingerprints got on that gun? Did you see him put them there?"
But eye witness accounts are much more powerful are they not?
No, they're not. Eyewitness (one word, not two) accounts are notoriously unreliable. For example, about half of all wrongful convictions are due to mistaken eyewitness testimony. Check out
How reliable is eyewitness testimony? Scientists weigh in, for example. There are plenty of sources of information about the unreliability of eyewitness accounts, just do a Google search.
God Himself witnessed His own work of creation.
Did you see God witness His own efforts at creation? No? Then how do you know?
Speaking about forensic analyses, why is it that the scientists whose findings support the Bible tend to be marginalized?
What makes you think they are?
And yet evangelical Christians are among the most vehement of climate change deniers. They want to be good stewards of the environment because it is God's creation, but they don't believe God's power would permit human destruction of climate and so tend to be on the side of exploitation of resources. They're in favor of use of coal and fossil fuels, and in favor of opening up national parks and pristine wildernesses to economic exploitation.
Aren’t we cautious against the danger doomsday scares that may be used to bring about tyrannical mandates because of the scare?
You're using scare tactics right now to turn people away from what science tells us about the impact we're having on the planet. There's no tyranny since any actions we take in the face of climate change will be carried out democratically. You're just creating false fears of tyranny to allow the rape of the environment and our climate to continue. You know what should scare you? You're only 20 feet above sea level and right in hurricane alley.
What about the past fear of population explosion and the consequent one-child policy that backfired?
You're confusing two different things. Overpopulation is a very real threat because the planet's ability to sustain so many people is being exhausted. On the other hand, China's one-child policy was not developed scientifically but was by the Chinese Communist Party in response to fears of overpopulation. Controlling overpopulation isn't really a science. All science can do is measure and predict, for example that the world population will peak at 10.9 billion around 2100. What we do know is that the economically richer a nation the lower the birth rate.
But if you're in favor of burning coal and exploiting pristine wildernesses for economic gain then you're complicit in the rape of our environment.
Does true science demand the marginalization of Bible believers because of such mandates?
Falsely claiming victimhood - good show!
Don't we remember the rainbow as God’s promise to Noah that the world will not be again destroyed by water (Genesis 9:13)? With no mention of climate change, the Bible does prophesies coming judgment of which man may escape only by repentance.
Thanks again, preach. Nice sermon.
Yes, we Christians believe in proper stewardship of the earth and its resources.
Sure you do. That's why when I brought up the environment and climate change that you denigrated science. You didn't address my specific points. Are you in favor of burning coal and exploiting pristine wildernesses for economic gain or not? Your silence is the answer.
You talked about trust earlier. Will you begin behaving in a way any time soon that gives people a sense of trust in what you way?
Our lengthy experience is that Christians are big on message and short on Biblical knowledge.
But you know better than to lump all of any group into one bad group. Don't you?
Statistics show that as a group Christians are poor readers of the Bible, and that is reinforced by our experience here. Some Christians here did seem well read Biblically, but they also tended to have the most extreme interpretations, for instance like you claiming that when God does it genocide is okay.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Replace a pronoun with a real noun for clarity.
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