So why was the Creation thread closed?

I think you're asking her way too much.
You want her to teach you much of modern physics here? :laugh:
People spend their lifetime learning that.

Rob

 

Sounds exactly like creation ex-nihilo to me.

That was one of the main early criticisms of the Big Bang Theory when it was first proposed by Roman Catholic priest and theist George Lemaitre, that it sounded too much like creation ex-nihilo. The following quote is from Lemaitre talking about the spiritual significance of the Big Bang Theory.

 

Do we believe that physical life existed before Christ's one act of righteousness? From that I would suggest that the life and the death discussed in Romans 5 are not talking about physical death but spiritual death.

 

I admit that it "sounds ... like" , however the present Big Bang Theory is an attempt to leave the Creator as a personal entity out of the creation scene.

IMO Big Bang/Creative evolution theology is an act of condescension, an orwellian doublethink philosophy provided to believers to sugar coat a lie.


Once the sugar disolves the poison remains.


No where in any contemporary Big Bang statement have I ever seen the words :

Genesis 1:3 And God said, Let there be...
Genesis 1:6 And God said, Let there be...
Genesis 1:9 And God said, Let the waters...
Genesis 1:11 And God said, Let the earth...
Genesis 1:14 And God said, Let there be...
Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters..
Genesis 1:24 And God said, Let the earth...
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image

It shouldn't surprise anyone that representatives of the Catholic Church such as George Lemaitre and Henri Bergson are among those who have paved the way to the making of an unholy ideological alliance with the antichrist religion of Secular Humanism.


HankD

 

I think it is fair to say that Stephen Hawkings' "Brief History in Time" is one of the most widely read modern presentations about the Big Bang Theory. Here is a quote that does the exact opposite of trying to leave the Creator out of the creation scene.

 

That's wonderful Dragon, I am happy to see this statement.

Keep proving me wrong in this manner, I don't mind.

However this doesn't negate the 7 sidereal day creation account of Genesis 1.

But this kind of statement from Hawkins is very important because it is the first and most significant step a scientist can make in terms of "origins".


Thanks
HankD

 

I'm glad it doesn't. My aim in creation/evolution discussions is not to negate any of the commonly held interpretations of Genesis but to correct commonly held misunderstandings about Theistic evolution/Evolutionary creationism and the surrounding theories of evolution, Big Bang and abiogenesis.

 

Do you admit that Hawkins is in the minority of contemporary scientist in that he attributes the Big Bang "creation" to the mind of God?


HankD

 

I simple think that people failed to distinguish what science is and what scientists believe (it deserves to be capitalized, BELIEVE).

There's NO a scientific account for the beginning of these universe yet. There is only an assumption of how this universe was formed which accepted by a large portion of the circle of scientists. While other scientists simply disagree.

%90 scientists believe/accept/<whatever> Big Bang theory
%10 scientsts disagree with the Big Bang theory

Now how will you be able to define it to be something scientific?!!!!!! By voting? :laugh: Those accepted by over 50% scientists will be considered scientific?

That's not what science is. Science can bare a much stricter sense, while Big Bang is rather the 'faith' of the 90% scientists, which remains part of the history (should be capitalized, HISTORY). Even scientists are futile about how to make it falsifyable and testable in order to be considered as scientific.

To simply put, it is not about how science differs from what the Bible says. It is all about the scientists' faith differs from the Christians', at most.

 

I don't think Hawkins believes in God. He has been private about his personal religious convictions. My guess is that he is an agnostic.

I think he would be in the majority of scientists whether atheist, agnostic or theist that recognizes that the Big Bang Theory says nothing about the existence or non-existence of God. If you are a theist, then the Big Bang is how God did it. If you are an atheist, then that is how it happened without a god.

Hawkins recognizes this and makes that statement in his book that recognizes the spiritual significance of the Big Bang Theory to the 90+% of his audience that is theist of some variety.

 

Hmm, I see he had much of his education in "religious" schools.

After read Henri Bergson's book Creative Evolution this is the conclusion I came to for Bergson.

His elan vital being a kind of impersonal force moving though what is (time being a part of the force).

It seemed more a metaphysical treatise on origins than scientific. It was a hard read for me.

Thanks.

HankD

 

And the "Reformed" "church" was any better?

The oracle speaks:
[John Calvin, Sermons sur l'Epitre aux Corinthiens, I Cor. 10:19-24]

Those that say the sun does not move, but the earth, are frenzied, monstrous, and devil-possessed?

Really?

Sola Scriptura indeed:laugh:

 

This Is WHAT I BELIEVE

... thanks for all that you have presented. I want you to know that I appreciate the spiritual/mental gymnastics you must have went through to arrive at your theory, HOWEVER, I believe the Bible to be as it says.

For me there is no other explanation. God is beyond theory, human understanding, and all our ability to comprehend His abilities in anything He does.

If the Word of God says a big fish swam up, swallowed Jonah, and than dropped him off at the beach in Nineveh, than that is what happened. I just would have liked to been there to see how the sun-bathing crowd on the beach that day reacted when that whale dropped Jonah off on the sandy beach where they were all spending a relaxing day under the sunny Nineveh skies!

If God created this earth in 6 days, than so be it. No need to try and explain it, understand it, or, even defend it to non-believers. God is God, and if he could make you and I out of the elements lying around on the ground, than making this earth in 6 days is not something worth questioning, because He is the God of Creation, and nothing is impossible for Him, absolutely nothing.

Any God who can send His Son to earth to take my place for my sin. Die. And above all other things, raise Him from the dead, and 40 days later cause Him to ascend into the heavens, is the kind of God I'll never question as to how He made the earth in just 6 days.

There are a lot of things about the supernatural realm from which we will one day reign along side of God in, that we'll never understand in our finite minds. When it comes to God and the supernatural realm of things that He controls, I just don't question. It is, what it is! God did it, God said it, and I am only needing to believe it.

That is what faith is my dear sister. You need to read the entire chapter of Hebrews 11. Here is but a brief look at this dynamic chapter of what it means to believe!

Hebrews 11:1-3 - "NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. For by [faith--trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report. By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible." the Amplified Bible


Shalom,

Pastor Paul :type:

 

You know Dude, that’s an comment that’s worth commenting on!

Some people may be able to rest on their faith and search no further, not exploring the depths of what their beliefs means.
But to equate that with faith (as you did in the quote from Hebrews) is erroneous.
Both groups have faith, one group chooses to explore its implications, the other group chooses to rest silently in it. I don’t think either is wrong.

What I do know is that our youth are abandoning the faith upon entering their adult years in great numbers.
As pastors and educators we need to look for answers why.

I believe that one of the reasons is that our generation has put up road blocks to the exploration of their faith that hinders their ability to search for answers within the Christian worldview so they search for answers outside of Christianity and abandon their faith.

Bruce Waltke, as a biblical scholar chose to explore the implications of his beliefs.
He is to blazing a path among theologians as he looks for answers. (Those in sciences have seen this for generations)
He, and men like him, are the future of Christianity.
I applaud him and am deeply discouraged that an academic institution choose to desert their pursuit of truth and limit their students ability to pursue answers to their questions about their faith.

Rob

 

You cannot just abandon your faith ( 1 John 2:19). The problem is that those who leave never had any faith. Far to many in the church give false assurances of salvation. And it is those who we see leaving the church. The rich young ruler believed in Christ, new He had salvation to offer, and wanted salvation and asked for it. In today's church we would pronounce any such person as saved giving them a false assurance. But there was one element missing from the situation of the rich young ruler, he was not willing to make Christ Lord. And scripture says he walked away sorrowful.

It is weird how some place such a great importance on answering questions. It seems to be a tool used to justify all the hyper-pragmatism in the church which always sets aside the Holy Ghost.

Hebrews 11 is all about those who believed without all this so called need for answering questions. Again there is a role for the Holy Ghost in all of this and when we have these discussions and never bring Him into the equation then it is clear we do not want Him in the conversation. Why?

 

No Reverend, the problem lies in the ignorance and unwillingness of theologians to tackle issues that lay before them.

Evolution is not a bad word, it is a theory that has proven itself in many different fields of study with amazing accuracy.

Many of the medical advances happening today are occuring through evoloutionary theories.

We find new sources of oil and gas through technology that is denied in many Christian circles.

Christians are marginalizing themselves in the ignorance of their minds and calling others, "not of the faith" when they look into the wonderful complexity that our mighty God used to create our world.
We are alienating our youth and forcing them to deny the faith with our narrow-minded ignorance.

Rob

 

That Is Prophetic...

I have an answer for your concerns about the number of young people falling away from their faith. The answer, you suggest we Pastors look for is in: Matthew 24:9-11 (Amplified Bible) - "Then they will hand you over to suffer affliction and tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for My name's sake. And then many will be offended and repelled and will [a]begin to distrust and desert [Him Whom they ought to trust and obey] and will stumble and fall away and betray one another and pursue one another with hatred. And many false prophets will rise up and deceive and lead many into error."

2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 (King James Version) -"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God."

2 Timothy 4 - (A)I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to (B)judge the living and the dead, and by His (C)appearing and His kingdom: preach (D)the word; be ready in season and out of season; (E)reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great (F)patience and instruction. For (G)the time will come when they will not endure (H)sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and (I)will turn away their ears from the truth and (J)will turn aside to myths."

Romans 1:20-32(Amplified Bible) -"For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). this sounds a lot like the affirmation of Hebrews 11:1 So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],(B) Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and [c]godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves]. And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin], Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it).(C) For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one, And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another--men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own [d]bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution. And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome, Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers, Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents. [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless. Though they are fully aware of God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them."

As I see it Deacon, our entire walk is to be based upon faith. Faith in something you can't see is probably the most difficult part of following Jesus, and with our young people growing up in a society that demands physical evidence to back up their convictions, it is easy to understand just why there is going to be a "great number of believers who fall away from their faith in the end times."

I believe we are closer to the return of Jesus than we have ever been since He ascended, and it is also a time when believers will have to believe in more in that which is not seen in order to hold fast to our faith in God to save.

There will be many things that will come out of science, and other fields that will deceive and shake the faith of believers, like never before. If young people can't believe in the Gospel as it is written, without tangible prove and validation that they can hold in their hands and see with their eyes, than they will lose the battle before it ever begins.

Faith is the key, and it is the only key. Yet today's church is looking for something more easily understood in order to explain what they want to believe. This will result in a groundswell of false-prophets, sent by the devil to "tickle" their ears!

That is not much of an answer, but, it is Biblical and necessary that we help our youth to under that "FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, [a]the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]." Hebrews 11:1 is the root of holding on, keeping the faith, and the essence of all things held to be true.

Shalom,

Pastor Paul :type:

 

I think it is a little extreme to be placing the blame for youth not wanting to be Christian because of a perceived conflict with evolution. Most could care less if evolution were true or not or Creationism for that matter.

I do agree that youth and people in general may be turned off to Christianity because some Christians have been unwilling or unable to have thoughtful discussions/dialogue about difficult issues like evolution, where is God in suffering, different religions, homosexuality or just plain differences of opinion without resorting to medieval calls of heresy, antagonism or dismissive trite answers.

Ultimately, many of these issues require faith and disagreement. But I think it is possible to have faith and disagreement while still being thoughtful and gracious to those who differ.

 

That may be your issue, holing on to the lie of evolution which is losing support as the days go by, but it has nothing to do with why our youth leave the church.

 

Evolution is "science falsely so called" that Paul warned us about. Evolution is not based on science or sound scientific principles and it has never, ever proven itself in any way shape and form.

Evolution is a false religion that is based upon nothing more than a desire to prove the bible wrong. It is sad that so many Christians cannot see this. Why was the world so eager to embrace such a ridiculous theory introduced by a hack like Darwin? It was because they wanted something, anything that refuted the bible and understood what so many Christians today do not - if we can refute Genesis chapter 1, the account of creation, we can erode the bible and the basis for Christianity away in the eyes of many. That's exactly what happened.

There is no evidence whatsoever that proves large scale evolution. Scientists have theorized that this animal changed into this animal over time, but they are missing the crucial fossil remains for the intermediate steps.

Evolution is not compatible with the bible. The bible says that every creature was created "after his kind" and "after their kind." Evolution says that is wrong. The bible says a fish will always be a fish, a cow will always be a cow, a leopard cannot change his spots, etc. Evolution says in a few millions years (the earth hasn't been here that long) the change can take place. Nonsense.