Choosing a faith

No. Firstly I don't see the ultimate goal as being salvation. IMHO our job is to be good stewards of the world we live in and the life on it. As for as the next life is concerned I'll leave that to God but the Biblical message is that ultimately God's heavenly dimension and our earthly dimension unite with the renewal of all things.I do believe however, that the life we freely choose to live here does impact the life in a renewed existence.If it was all that clear we would lose the natural ability to choose between love of self and love of the other.

Frankly for me it boils down to believing that we die physically here in our 4 dimensional universe, but that our consciousness lives on in a renewed physicality. I'd say that is just a bit obtuse. I'll give you an extreme example. History has shown us men who have sent troops into battle to kill others and risking their own lives in order to gain power for themselves. That's self love.
We have also seen those who will throw themselves on a grenade in order to save the lives of others. That is love of the other.The difference is about sacrificing someone else's good to benefit the self as opposed to sacrificing the good of the self to benefit the other. I certainly believe that God doesn't take it away, and in fact has given us the ability to love the other as well as the self. Do unto others what you would have them do unto you, and don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you. Firstly, it's too late as He is already here and secondly I don't have that kind of influence to be able to do that.

Well, I do see it as being a call for all humanity, and I suppose that Christians aren't much or any better at it than any other group.

That's true. However, that view isn't actually Biblical and was a result of the early Platonic influences that crept into Christianity where after death we would be saved from an evil world and enter into some form of non-physical spiritual existence.Those views are fairly rapidly being shed with the actual Biblical view of a marriage between heaven and earth and a renewed creation. The Lord's prayer has us pray "Your Kingdom come on Earth as in Heaven".As Christians we are called to be good stewards of the planet and all life on it. I agree.

I agree that they anticipated Christ's return in their near future but then people have always done that. However, Biblically they did not associate that with the end of the planet. That view came later. Also, since the reformation the passages that warned the Jews about what the results of a violent revolution would be, have been taken as being about the demise of all existence.Mind you, in many ways the end of things as we know them might well come to a form of Armageddon, but it will be us doing it one way or another, and not God.

No, it is ignoring that "still small voice" that drove us off a cliff. We ignore that voice and listen to the voices of self centredness such as greed, lust, thirst for power and influence etc.Do you wish that the whole project of life on Earth had never been initiated? You can dwell on the many negatives but I would also add that there a great many positives about life in general.

I suggest that a good way to look at that question is to consider free will. I heard this rationalized but it makes no sense. If God knows the future then we don't have free will because the future becomes a closed issue. In order to have free will, the future needs to be open.Using a simple example I would say that God does not know what I will have for dinner next Wednesday. God doesn't know the future because the future is open and therefore is not there to be known.

In many ways I think that it is actually pretty clear. I'd suggest that all of us essentially believe that the so called "Golden Rule" should be a rule that we should follow. That "still small voice" simply is the voice that prompts us to love by that rule. The problem is though, that even though we know we should live by that guideline, we as often as not simply don't, and there are those among us who ignore it altogether. I have never indicated that personal guidance is only for some. That "still small voice" is for everyone. Firstly I assume that pshrync is a coined word combining psychic and shrink. I have no doubt that there are atheists or Muslims that respond to that voice more consistently than I do.
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Just curious what you mean by the term evolutionist. Would that term include theistic evolutionists, as my understanding an evolutionists is someone who believes in materialistic evolution?

That goes back to why I started this thread a while back. We all serve something or somebody. It doesn't have to be a deity. If we believe in a deity it isn't the name of the deity that matters. It is the character of that deity and that deity's call on our lives. The name of the deity isn't the point.AS far as Christianity is concerned I agree that the issue becomes what to make of the Bible. As Christians we want absolute answers so it is tempting to understand the Bible as i was essentially dictated by God so that if we want an answer to a question of what we should or could do we have a place to go and get answers. The truth is though, that you can get pretty much any answer you want when you do that.Here is a quote from a book called Testing Scripture - A Scientist Explores the Bible. It is by John Polkinghorne who is eminently qualified as both a physicist and a theologian.Here is a quote from that book:

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The Bible is in many ways a very complex book. The material in it was written over a period of about one thousand Often biblical writers years and the process of compilation ended almost two thousand years ago. The biblical writings originated in a variety of contrasting cultures, all with world views different in many respects from our modern, scientifically influenced understanding. Often biblical writers took over stories and insights from earlier ages, modifying them and developing them in ways that seemed appropriate to their own times and experience, producing a text that is many layered like an archaeological site. Much that we read in the Bible may seem strange to us, particularly in the Old Testament, where there are stories of war and violence that trouble us as being presented as if they were the express will of God. Sometimes when different writers are telling the story of the same events, as in often the case in the Gospels for instance, there are discrepancies of details that make it clear that we are reading human compositions, and not the result of an inerrant divine dictation. Despite these problems, all of which I shall have to confront in what follows, there is a great spiritual truth and beauty to be found in Scripture.

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He also says a little further on:

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I believe, that the nature of divine revelation, (in the Bible), is not the divine revelation of mysterious transmission of infallible propositions which are to be accepted without question, but the record of persons and events through which the divine will and nature have been most transparently made known.

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In reading the Bible from that perspective, the message that I get is that we as humans are called toa life that is about serving others even at our own expense as taught and lived by Jesus.The Gospel writer John tells us that the "Word" became flesh, (clearly we are to understand he meant Jesus). but he did not say that the "Word" became a book of a collection of books.

Thanks for the post. I guess my biggest problem with creationism is that it represents a way of understanding the Bible as being essentially God dictated. As a result we wind up believing in creation 6000 years ago and leaving us with a deity that commands and commits genocide. It essentially makes a false idol out of the Bible and holds the Christian faith up to mockery. If Christianity actually required me to accept those beliefs I wouldn't be able to call myself Christian.Fortunately, that isn't the case and actually even John in his Gospel tells us that he "word" of God became flesh. He didn't say it became a book. It is, as I've said numerous times it is "Christianity", not "Bibleianity".However, I would add that most literalists I know are pretty useful members of society and they don't actually believe the Bible literally anyway. Unfortunately so much of the focus has been on creationism which of course isn't just bad science but not science at all. Your suggestion is part of what I mean by that but also I see people on here that simply come up with something that science doesn't have an answer for yet, but hopefully will some day. However I would also agree that the place to look for the answers in with the scientific method. Goddidit is never an answer to a scientific question.

Am I safe in assuming then that you believe that the Bible should be read literally? Would you agree then that the Bible is essentially a book dictated by God to His followers?

I would suggest that C2 consider the idea that God created evolution and stop trying to replace Jesus with the Bible.

The Bible is 66 books written over 7-800 years. It shouldn't be understood as one book. They all have to be understood in their own time and culture.

Firstly let's look at why this is so important to you. My Christianity is something that I firmly believe to be true as an item of faith. I am not a scientist of any kind but have never seen a reason that I should reject evolutionary theory. Frankly, it is a matter of interest but doesn't impact my Christian beliefs in any way.I assume that you reject evolutionary theory based on a specific way of understanding the Bible which I assume to be attempting to understand it literally. The question is why would you do that?I suggest that one of the prime reasons for doing that is that it allows you to have absolute knowledge of things by believing that the Bible is, for all intents and purposes, dictated word for word by God. I would remind you that John in his Gospel says that the "Word" became flesh. He didn't say that the "Word" became a book.Jesus says in the NT that we are to love our enemies. In the OT we have stories of Yahweh committing genocide and ordering his people to commit genocide and public stoning. Does that sound consistent to you? Personally I go with Jesus on this and reject those messages from the OT.I understand that the Bible is a narrative, written by people over roughly 7 centuries, that shows us the progressive understanding of Yahweh/God by the Jewish nation. The narrative climaxes in the man Jesus as the embodiment of the nature of God and His call on our lives. That call is as Jesus says, the law of love as best described in the "Golden Rule". That's an interesting take on things. Wouldn't it be more likely that He reacted to the situation as things happened.