Creation Thread

[LINUS]

Bingo.

Faith is useless and prayer doesn't work. God doesn't heal amputees and miracles don't exist.

To you.

You'll never find what you aren't actively seeking.

I'm sure I'll see a few negative responses & get branded the "fire & brimstone zealot" - but I'm fine with that. Nobody is going to change anyones' mind, and hopefully my flavor of religion doesn't result in a "timeout".

I have personally seen miracles, not the TV stuff either. Real life. Sadly, I've seen & experienced enough of 'em, that I forget most of them. It becomes part of a normal day.

Here's where the whole "faith not tested is no faith at all" thing comes into play.

It's like sports. If you could just go out & swing like Tiger Woods, there would be no real reward in it. Everything is based on where you came from & where you are supposed to head. If you could just jump to the front of the pack, the FedEx Cup would have roughly the same number of winners as people alive who could hold a golf club.

Religion works a lot in the same manner. You can't initially see a demon, or a bad situation coming - BUT -- and here's where it gets good -- you get some sign that what you intend may not be a good idea, or somehow you get a little extra clarity just before a situation goes a direction you never saw coming.

You get knocked down sometimes, but the struggle produces the gain through Jesus.

Nobody is really ready for for the full monty of religion the 1st day you start questioning the deeper meanings of life. I'm probably not ready for alot of what is to come, but I can say without any hesitation that the Devil HATES when someone can step up & just say it plain:

The Holy Trinity exists.
Heaven exists.
Hell exists.

Lucifer, the ex-angel cast out of Heaven exists. Give him any name you want, he exists. And by all accounts he's a real beautiful SOB, and crafty. He's had a couple thousand years to try & convince the world he doesn't exist - because by doing so he wins your soul.

If you cruise through life without any struggle, guess what?
You never made a wave.

You also get new levels of struggles for the gain you recieve. New level, new devil - You don't see the reward, but along the way it builds like a snowball to the point where you just couldn't deny what becomes your faith. God doesn't just jump out & bless people, that's not in his Word. He can't act unless you ask for it, at least when it comes to earthly gain.

Now - just to follow my own example - these are just MY views. Hopefully John Hagee would approve as I think MY views are directly in line with exactly what is written in God's scripture.

So obviously I'm in favor of creation.

Call me when you find one of those "transition" animal skeletons,until then - I'm betting my soul I'm standing with those who are right.

----
Turf - not picking on you personally, I know you have a tough enough hide for this sort of thing.



Rant Off/// --Like it did any good anyhow.

[CorvallisBMW]

I don't have a problem with Creationism being taught in schools, as long as it's teached in a religion class. Creationism is a theory invented by christians and based in the christian faith. Hence it is a religious entity. And seeing as how there is zero evidence (outside the bible) that creationsim is real, I don't see it's place in science/biology courses. Everything taught in those courses can be tested, researched and observed. Creationism, by definition, cannot be any of those things; it's just a different animal altogether and I think it belongs in a religion class, not a science class.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Perhaps before the universe as we know it formed, there was another one and when it 'banged', there was not enough force and it eventually collapsed on itself. This may also happen to our universe.

There is a theory (Gap Theory) that postulates that there were other events before the "Adm" or adamic events. Kinda, again to use the reference, when The Architect in the Matrix says Neo is the fifth or sixth iteration of the messiah in ithe movies terms. Thus showing Neo there was events preceding him and his even though to his own understanding that he was the first and only.

I have no issue grasping the fact that there is a God, and he smashed some stuff together to make it blow up, forming something else for him to work with.



Turf, another angle used is that those prayers and faith are not going in a worldly Bank, but accruing interest in the bank of eternity.

[devonjordan]

Bingo.

And to the rest - I was simply pointing out that god is an unexplainable creator that supposedly explains otherwise unexplainable events. I don't see how this is more believable than the big bang theory. Faith is useless and prayer doesn't work. God doesn't heal amputees and miracles don't exist.

Faith is not useless, foolish faith is.

Prayer does work, just not in the way most people want it to.

[z31maniac]

You're not bad farbin.

I'd like to see a non biased world religion class - but that's not going to happen.

Ummm, I took one in high school. My professor was freakin' awesome, way smart guy.

[TwoJ's]

Yeah, I remember reading that. And I think it is. All of our scientific models (specifically Einstein's general theory of relativity and anything based on it) fail to explain the way things would behave in a singularity (black hole, or all of the matter before the big bang). It is understood that we will likely never be able to know the answer to that because it is just not possible. Perhaps before the universe as we know it formed, there was another one and when it 'banged', there was not enough force and it eventually collapsed on itself. This may also happen to our universe.

But yeah, I'm not religious at all, but for this very reason I do not completely refute the idea of intelligent design. BUT, the topic of this thread was about teaching it in school. The fact that the current "creation theories" have absolutely no evidence makes me very opposed to teaching them.

[nando]

This is also an interesting idea. But why is it that we even consider God? Tradition? Fear of not knowing? Religion was used to explain things that we couldn't understand thousands of years ago (along with some other, less admirable motives). It is followed today simply because it was before.

I think a good reason is "before" the big-bang, before "time", how exactly do you explain that? there are theories and new and interesting techniques for obvserving data closer to the beginning, and exactly what caused it - but basically up until several hundred million years after when the universe began to cool and electromagnetic radiation (light) was able to travel through space, we have a limited means of collecting data. The argument now has actually moved on though, to was all information from "before" really lost, and is there a way we can observe any of it?

[Turf1600]

This is also an interesting idea. But why is it that we even consider God? Tradition? Fear of not knowing? Religion was used to explain things that we couldn't understand thousands of years ago (along with some other, less admirable motives). It is followed today simply because it was before.

I'm not denying the idea that we were created by some being, but I like to think of it as intelligent design. I attribute nothing to any kind of religion or God. In my very humble opinion, that just seems foolish.

Plus, certain prominent religions believe that the earth is 5000 years old or whatever. Where's the sense in that? Or do they simply modify their beliefs as science proves them wrong?

Bingo.

And to the rest - I was simply pointing out that god is an unexplainable creator that supposedly explains otherwise unexplainable events. I don't see how this is more believable than the big bang theory. Faith is useless and prayer doesn't work. God doesn't heal amputees and miracles don't exist.

[TwoJ's]

:stupid:

I think - if you are suggesting that God and the Big Bang are not mutually exclusive . . .

This is also an interesting idea. But why is it that we even consider God? Tradition? Fear of not knowing? Religion was used to explain things that we couldn't understand thousands of years ago (along with some other, less admirable motives). It is followed today simply because it was before.

I'm not denying the idea that we were created by some being, but I like to think of it as intelligent design. I attribute nothing to any kind of religion or God. In my very humble opinion, that just seems foolish.

Plus, certain prominent religions believe that the earth is 5000 years old or whatever. Where's the sense in that? Or do they simply modify their beliefs as science proves them wrong?

[TwoJ's]

Do you think treaching Creation in schools is controlling the masses with religion? Since we, as a society, cannot agree upon where we came from we should teach the different options that people do believe. One really big option that a lot of people believe is Creation. Hence, why I think it should be taught along side the rest of the options.

I agree without you very slightly. But there are problems because how would we determine which version of "creation" to teach? Christianity? And I would have a huge problem as a teacher when I would teach one thing one day, and then this creation thing the next day which is a complete contradiction. How can we teach our kids two different things that are contradictory and ask them to choose one?

I think that what should be taught is something with scientific evidence to back it up. There is simply way too much ambiguity when it comes to creationism. Religions each teach that if you're not a follower, you will be going to hell. So if Christian principles are taught, all of the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists etc. may interpret it in such a way that their religion is wrong.

On top of all of that, creationism shouldn't be taught because it's probably not right. I'm not saying that it is, but all legitimate evidence points that way.

[Dave]

How not can the first two items co-exist?

:stupid:

I think - if you are suggesting that God and the Big Bang are not mutually exclusive . . .

[Farbin Kaiber]

That wasn't my point - but i guess they can in someone's mind.

But it would cancel your statement because if they both occurred, then both are true and important, AND explainable.

[Turf1600]

How not can the first two items co-exist?

That wasn't my point - but i guess they can in someone's mind.

[Farbin Kaiber]

How not can the first two items co-exist?

[Turf1600]

When it comes down to it it's all not worth talking about. There's 5 ways to look at it;

God is real.
The big bang is real.
God is fake.
The big bang is fake.
NEITHER of them are explainable - thus making them equally unbelievable.

However, there's much more evidence supporting evolution and the big bang. God is an unexplainable solution to an unanswerable (currently) question. ie useless.