Theology

[william]

Yes, a theological thread that you created, which is Christian, is provocative towards Muslims, but you're wasting your time; I don't think there are any Muslims on this forum.

I don't intend to continue this discussion with you. The moderation team is mostly Christian, and I believe all religions are bad.

I think it's a pretty even split on who is Christian.

I believe all religions are bad. Elegance to the state, not God

 

[william]

It's up to you.

But I prefer what science says:

The age of the universe: Science estimates the age of the universe at approximately 13.7 billion years, while a strict biblical genealogy suggests a few thousand years.

In Genesis 1:1, we are told that “in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The Bible gives no date for the creation; the only hint is that it happened “in the beginning.” In Hebrew, the word for “beginning” is bereshith, literally meaning “head.” Many scholars and Christian scientists believe the word day in Genesis refers to a literal, 24-hour day. This would explain the repetition throughout Genesis 1 of the statement “and there was evening, and there was morning.” One evening and one morning make up one day (in Jewish reckoning, a new day begins at sunset).​

Think I'll go with what God says not man.

Evolution: Biology demonstrates the evolution of species and a common ancestor, which contradicts the instantaneous creation of humankind from a single couple (Adam and Eve).

The Bible does not directly mention biological evolution; instead, it presents God as the Creator in Genesis 1–2, and Christians interpret these passages in different ways—Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, and Theistic Evolution.​

The Bible teaches that God is the Creator, humanity bears God’s image, and creation is purposeful. It does not describe evolutionary mechanisms.
For a long time, my human feeble brain tried to understand what I had been taught in school to what I had been taught in church, so I believed in "Old Earth Creationism." However, I have "evolved" (pun intended) to believe in what the Bible actually says not a "theory" of man.

The structure of the world: The biblical texts reflect the cosmology of their time (a flat or fixed Earth surrounded by celestial waters), refuted by modern astronomy.

Biblical Christianity holds that all truth is God’s truth, whether discovered through scientific inquiry or revealed in Scripture. Consequently, the shape of the planet (as discovered through exploration, long-range transportation, satellite imagery, etc.) poses no contradiction to biblical teaching. Instead, these scientific demonstrations bear testimony to the grandeur of God’s handiwork.

Many historians, including those who study faith and science, have noted that a widespread acceptance of a spherical earth was present centuries before the scientific revolutions of the modern era. Medieval Christian scholars also accepted a spherical earth, recognizing that the Bible does not demand flat-earth cosmology. Early theologians, such as Augustine of Hippo, approached Genesis with an understanding that biblical references to cosmic phenomena often employ figurative or phenomenological language.
The Bible does not teach a flat earth. Passages using terms like “four corners” are best understood as idiomatic and poetic. Texts mentioning a “circle” (Isaiah 40:22) or God’s suspension of earth in space (Job 26:7) align comfortably with the understanding of a globe. When read in context, Scripture remains consistent with observational science, without turning its divine revelation into a physics treatise. Essential to the biblical message is not the shape of the planet but the sovereignty of the Creator who designed the heavens and the earth, and who calls humanity to acknowledge Him.

The consistent testimony of Scripture, supported by a vast array of manuscript evidence and archaeological findings, affirms the authority of the biblical texts and their overarching themes: God made the world, sustains it by His power, and redemptively acts through Jesus Christ-crucified and resurrected-to bring salvation to all who believe. No verse promotes a flat-earth cosmology. Rather, the Bible’s language points to a loving, omnipotent, and all-knowing Creator whose works declare His glory in every corner-and curve-of the earth.

 

[william]

Just one more point on the "Theory of Evolution" and "Cosmology."
I believe this to be the greatest success by the great deceiver in human history. And we all know who the great deceiver is!

 

[GBS61]

Just one more point on the "Theory of Evolution" and "Cosmology."
I believe this to be the greatest success by the great deceiver in human history. And we all know who the great deceiver is!

The guy complains that I attack Christians, and he does exactly the same thing to non-believers.

 

[william]

I found this VERY interesting.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2091699865222865374

 

[DEFCON Warning System]

An hour? Is there a tl;dw?

 

[william]

An hour? Is there a tl;dw?

What is tl:dw?

 

[william]

This is the prayer George Washington said every day when he got out of bed:

"O eternal & everlasting God, I present myself this morning before thy Divine majesty, beseeching thee to accept my humble thanks, but to daily frame me more into the likeness of thy son, Jesus Christ."

I do think he was a rather important man in US history.

https://twitter.com/x/status/2091656001808175130

The post presents an excerpt from George Washington's 1752 handwritten prayer journal as his daily morning prayer, focusing on gratitude to God and a request to be shaped daily into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

This sharing by a tradition-oriented conservative account highlights Washington's documented early religious writings to emphasize the role of Christian devotion in the character of America's founding leaders.

 

[william]

It's Sunday again! Wow! Where does the time go!

Creation or Evolution?

The Societal Consequences of Darwinism​

The consequences of accepting Darwinian theory have been profound. Enormous moral and social damage has been wrought in classrooms and to society. The theory that led Darwin to discard the Bible and reject the existence of God has had a profound effect on millions of other people.

It is no coincidence that Karl Marx, the father of communism, out of gratitude to Darwin, sent him Das Kapital, his principal book on communism. "Although developed in the crude English fashion," Marx wrote to his communist colleague Friedrich Engels, "this [Darwin's Origin of Species] is the book which in the field of natural history, provides the basis for our views." To another he wrote that Darwin's work "suits my purpose in that it provides a basis in natural science for the historical class struggle" (Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, 2002, p. 188).

This evolutionary backing eventually helped establish the philosophical framework for the twin scourges of communism and atheism in Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Cambodia, North Korea and many other nations.

"Genocide, of course," writes Phillip Johnson, "is merely a shocking name for the process of natural selection by which one gene pool replaces another. Darwin himself explained this in The Descent of Man, when he had to deal with the absence of 'missing links' between ape and human. Such gaps were to be expected, he wrote, in view of the extinctions that necessarily accompany evolution.

"He coolly predicted that evolution would make the gaps wider in the future, because the most civilized (that is, European) humans would soon exterminate the rest of the human species and go on from there to kill off our nearest kin in the ape world. Modern Darwinists do not call attention to such passages, which make vivid how easily the picture of amoral nature inherent in evolutionary naturalism can be converted into a plan of action" (Reason in the Balance, 1995, p. 144).

Later Adolf Hitler indeed applied the Darwinian concept of the "survival of the fittest" to the human race. During World War II the Nazis forcibly sterilized more than 2 million people and began systematically exterminating people whom Hitler considered to be inferior. The Nazis justified their atrocities by rationalizing that they were doing mankind a service with "genetic cleansing" to improve the races.

As long as evolution—with its implications of amorality and the survival-of-the-fittest mentality among "superior" and "inferior" races —is accepted and believed, genocide, as sporadic ethnic cleansings in various parts of the globe show, will have a scientific justification, even though most believers in Darwinian theory would object to this conclusion.

The Bible foretells that, before Jesus Christ's return, a worldwide commercial system will include the trading of "bodies and souls of men" (Revelation 18:9-13). Could this really happen? One only has to remember the Nazi holocaust. Hundreds of thousands were pressed into slave labor. Those too weak, ill, young or old to work faced a merciless death.

Remember, such events happened barely a generation ago in what were considered to be the most advanced and enlightened nations. It could happen again, especially in a world in which so many have adopted a belief in moral relativism and a survival-of-the-fittest outlook.

There is ALOT more information on this subject here for those who care to learn more about it.

https://www.ucg.org/learn/bible-stu...lution-does-it-really-matter-what-you-believe

 

[Publius]

Jane Goodall, Edison, Jobs, Twain, Ramanujan, Fossie, Farraday, Tesla, Buckminister Fuller, GW Carver, R Carson, Musk.
These are all individuals who shaped our academic and real world who did not attain or even try to attain a PhD.

Enough with the academic snobbery.
How many things have doctoral experts failed at or gotten wrong.
Sixty five years ago doctoral academics were convinced that the Vikings never reached North America, It was 16 years ago that Neanderthal and humans mated with each other. The origins of Clovis point is still a disputed question.
Thor Heyerdahl Completely rewrote today’s understanding of archaic human open ocean transits and history. Also no degree.

I’m not saying advanced degrees are unimportant or counter productive.
Just that they are NOT the be all and end all in academic rigor.