Evolution Poll

[frood]

@NoMercy:

Hey Switch,

as a Chrisitian, I have a general concern for the lost. I will not force anything upon them.

…(snip)…

The bible explains perfectly the situations going on.  And Actually Frood echo’s a lot of people in the bible mentioned. In there mentions the “people” where always looking for “signs”  but they are warned to not look for signs.

Gaa. Don’t you see how empty that is? I can just as easily say “As a Free thinker, I have a general concern for the misguided and muddleheaded.” I’m only lost from the viewpoint of your frame of reference. From my own, I’m recently saved, and you’re the one who needs correction. Who’s to say between the two of us which is right? Me or you? I vote for independent, verifiable reality, not assumptions that have to be accepted “on faith.”

And again with the Bible. Who cares what it says, when the issue is whether the whole thing is true. Let’s see something independent that corroborates it.

I still have no takers on any bets that the Almighty will lift a finger to give me an incontrovertible sign. PM me, name you odds and your bet. I’ll give the Almighty 12 months from today to find some time in her busy schedule.

Don’t you see how convenient it is to say “Don’t look for signs”? You basically explain away the need for proof, and make people feel guilty for asking to see it. Very handy when you have no actual proof.

Consider this analogy. An unfaithful husband comes home from cheating on his wife. His wife is suspicious and demands to know where he’s been. Instead of a direct and honest answer, the husband says “I can’t can’t believe you have to ask. I’m Insulted. Don’t you trust me? You should not be doubting me, what kind of wife are you?” Very convenien, and manipulative. You feel bad for asking, and the husband (or the Church) gets off without having to answer the hard questions.

Once you see it that way, it becomes pretty transparent. From within however, it is impossible to make an informed decision as to the truth. Information is withheld, and you have to go on faith, which only works as long as you accept that system. Once you reject the call for blind faith, the whole system crumbles, and there is no way to rebuild it, because even the need to accept things on faith must be accepted on faith. Well, that doesn’t work for me, so sue me.

[Guest]

@Shining:

Jennifer I’m afraid you and I aren’t reading the same version of the English Bible. The Book of Romans deals extensively with the fact that all men are BORN sinners, and the books of John, and Hebrews, state the fact that Salvation is a permanent thing.

EDIT: That is of course, if you read the King James Version… I have no idea what the other more modernized versions have to say about it.

If that is true, I guess I’ll get stuck in Heaven.  I did the whole “salvation” thing in my pre-teens during a short stint in one of thoe Church of God places with the whole “accept Christ as your Lord and Savior” thing.  So, if it is permanent, then y’all will have more than a few Pagans in Heaven, including me apparently.  :evil:

[MauserBob]

@Avin:

Well MauserBob, Shining Bowie, or Jennifer, if you are confident you can find that in the book of Acts, please enlighten me where it states that Saul was renamed Paul.

I guarantee that you won’t find it.

Saul continues to be called Saul after his encounter with Jesus… see all of Acts chapter 9. No mention of renaming to Paul.

Furthermore, Saul continues to be called Saul when he is sent on his first missionary Journey: see Acts 13:2.

Saul is called Paul for the rest of the book of Acts, and Paul refers to himself by that name in his letters, with no mention of being renamed, even though he recounts his history a couple times.

If you find a reference to him being renamed, I will concede the point but it looks to me like the Bible makes absolutely no reference to Saul being renamed at any point.

Rather the names Saul and Paul are really the same name: the Hebrew form is “Sha-ul”, which is Romanized to Saul, and the Greek form is “Paulos” which is Romanized to Paul. When you first meet him in Acts it is in the Hebrew context, but the bulk of his life he is seen in a Greek context. He is still both Saul and Paul. No renaming takes place.

I have a hard time reading this thread when defenders of the Bible get Biblical facts wrong.

I have no idea what you’re picking nits over. We know his name was Saul; we also know he also went by “Paul”. Our first introduction to this man is in the Book of Acts, where we see him going by both names. So……what is the problem? Am I to understand that you’ve been babbling on now for 3 pages because there is no verse that specifically states when he started using the name “Paul” ? I personally never said that there was. I took your question as asking where you find him using/going by/being called  “Paul”, and I answered you correctly…and to be more specific, Acts 13:9 is the first mention of him being called by both names, though it clearly does not state when the first instance of this occured. I cannot speak for Jennifer, but I interpret what she originally wrote to mean basically the same thing. Surely your whole purpose has not been to nitpick over semantics?

Rob.

[Shining Bowie]

Switch, salvation also only works if you believe, and mean it from your heart, since you don’t appear to believe now, I highly doubt you did then.

[Guest]

I did then.

But does God have a legal requirement about beign of an age to enter into a legally bidning contract?  If so, I was probably too young for it to be enforced :-P

[Jennifer]

@Shining:

By Jesus saying “for such is the kingdom of heaven” in reference to the children, he was basically trying to say, that he came to save all men, not just those who were important, or of a certain age, at the time of his ministry. And bible says in Romans 5:12 that by “one man sin entered the world”. It’s hereditary, because Adam sinned, his seed is not worthy of the kingdom of heaven, though, babies, up to what Baptists consider “the age of accountability” do enter the kingdom of heaven if they die without maturing to the point that they can understand that they are sinners. But you can’t say that children are pure and sinless that’s for sure, a baby that cries just for the attention even if nothing is wrong, is being selfish, a child who lies has sinned, a child who disobeys his parents has sinned. You’re born a sinner by the very nature of man.

Then how do you explain Mary, whom the Catholics call a Virgin because she was free from sin.  If all men are born with sin on their souls through no fault of their own, then Mary would not have been a “virgin” by Catholic standards.

No.  Men make or break themselves in the sight of God.  Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit only resulted in the curse of the soil.  Eve’s resulted only in the curse of painful child birth.  God did not curse all men and women with sin for the act of eating of the fruit.

If he had, then he would have specifically stated in plain terms that we were all cursed with an initial sin on our souls.

Furthermore, if we had original sin on our souls, then why did the Jews not have to atone for this sin at temple like they did for other sin?  After all, the price of sin is death.  So if they were all born as sinners then they would have had to kill something the instant they were born!

No, original sin didn’t start until the Catholic Church.  It was part of their policies of grabbing money, land and power to include original sin and purgatory and a myriad of other things to sucker men out of their money.  The Catholic Chruch’s leadership were very despotic and evil.  This has just kept going even after the fall of teh Catholic Church from a state power to a religious organization.  No where in the Bible does it mention Christening or Original Sin, etc.

When Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is made of people like Children, he meant exactly that.  Those in heaven will be as innocent and pure as children.

[madscientist]

Avin, were you and others looking for where in the Bible Saul changed his name to Paul? Wasn’t it here:

Acts 13:9
Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said,

[madscientist]

Jennifer, doesn’t this verse imply original sin:

Romans 5
12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

[NoMercy]

trust me,

The catholic Religion is a totally different ball-game.
I disaprove of many many many things they do and disaprove many of the customs and teachings they do.

[Guest]

@madscientist:

Avin, were you and others looking for where in the Bible Saul changed his name to Paul? Wasn’t it here:

Acts 13:9
Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said,

That supports the OTHER view, that he went by BOTh names, not that he changed his name.

If he had changed it it woudl read
“Paul, who had been known as Saul…”

Also is inclusive, so BOTH names were used, fitting with Avin’s statements.

And I have to echo Mauser… this is a MASSIVE case of picking a nit!

[Avin]

@MauserBob:

We know his name was Saul; we also know he also went by “Paul”.

If that’s your stance, then I have no issue with you. However I do take issue with Jennifer who seems to think that there was a man named Saul who deliberately changed his name to Paul as a way of indicating his newfound Christianity. Particularly in her last post she clearly espouses this view. This has no precedent in the Bible, and I take issue with her when she is supposedly defending the Bible yet seems to fall prey to basic fallacies regarding it. I am convinced that what I called her on in the other thread, her idea that the Bible endorses the theology that “God provides for those who provide for themselves” (which I do not think is a Biblical doctrine) is of the same sort. It makes me think she has not read and understood the Bible on her own own, but relies on the teaching of others for her theology and often does not check it back to the Bible herself. Some of the other disputes in this thread (such as the concept of original sin) may fall into that category as well, but given that orginal sin is a lot more complex of an issue, I am not picking on her for her stance on that, especially since there are some Christian denominations which either reject the concept or downplay it. But Paul being somehow a “new name” is pretty basic and follows straightforward from a few specific passages and is easily demonstratable from the Bible directly.

@madscientist:

Wasn’t it here: (…)

I was wondering if anyone would actually find that. You will notice I referenced Acts 13 before; I was wondering if Jennifer would actually read it for herself. As you see, that confirms my position, not the “renaming” idea. Paul (Paulos) and Saul (Shaul) were two alternate names that Paul was known by. The verse does NOT say Saul decided to change his name to Paul, it said that he was also called by a different name. The implication consistent with the way Jews were named in the Bible and in that time, as I pointed out in my last post, was that Paul was the Greek name and Saul was the Hebrew name.

[Shining Bowie]

I agree with NoMercy, bringing catholism into this discussion and asking a baptist or 2 to rationalize what they do or what they say is pointless, there is no explaining how they come about with their religion. They even use extracanonical books in what they consider the BIBLE.

Also, when the Bible says Mary was a virgin, it means she KNEW NO MAN, not that she was sinless. Because the Bible states that ALL HAVE SINNED AND COME SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD. not All except MARY were sinners.

[Guest]

Frood- you do not want a sign by GOD. What you want is things that make sense! Well how about this!! And my quotes my not be accurate, but they are roughly right.

The only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is through Jesus.  Could that possibly mean through Jesus’s message??  If you follow the “message”, then you can recieve “peace of mind here ON EARTH”  That is why GOD loved the world so much that he he sent the bum to school us. Anyone that enjoys "peace of mind " here on earth has it going on! They apparently are doing what “GOD likes”. Because if GOD doesn’t like what you are doing, then ye shall recieve no fricking peace of mind. Some people are doing what GOD likes, almost automatically. Some good people are not, due to their seriously flawed nature & they are the ones who most need to recieve the “message”. It is the “message” that is important.

Does this also explain Frood, why people who have never heard of " Jesus" are experincing GOD’S love? They are already doing what repentive christians strive to do. And any GOD that would crucify and sentence to eternal hell an individual who has never heard of the messenger boy, yet does the message instinctively is no GOD that I would ever allow to judge me!

I thought that I would help you christians out, who seem pretty incompetent, other than knowing Bible verses. I have one question for you christians. Do you only know how to quote, or can you explain anything to where it makes good sense??

[Guest]

Come to poppa, I will make sense!!

[Shining Bowie]

MD, it will never make sense if you never give it a chance, it’s called faith because it can’t make sense to a person who doesn’t believe. Also, if the Bible is true than even the Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Meaning that even people who have never heard of Jesus, can tell by looking at nature that some great Creator made all of this. And they have no excuse for not realizing that when the day of judgement comes. But there is a chance for those alive on earth who have never heard of Jesus, to come to repentance during the Tribulation period, the problem is not all of them will.

Also, don’t bother helping us, all your doing is putting you own false spin on what we believe. So either stay on your side of the debate or stay out of it. Don’t try to jump on this ship just so you can sink it.

[Jennifer]

@madscientist:

Jennifer, doesn’t this verse imply original sin:

Romans 5
12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law.

No.  That says that the angel of death was unleashed on the world when sin first appeared in God’s creation.  It goes on to say that all men will commit sin because no man is perfect.

[Shining Bowie]

Now, I must ask again, what version are you reading? And did you come up with all these theories on your own? Or did someone tell you all this?

[Guest]

I’ve been reading the “bugs bunny version”.

[Guest]

kwazy wabbit.

[Guest]

And shining bowie, don’t ever accuse me of “not believing” again. I firmly believe in GOD. And I also believe much of what you christians believe. I just know how to explain it!!