White Marlin - Do not forget what Jesus Christ did for us. Remember it is foolishness to those that do not believe.

Danny Clifton - I too am grateful for this conversation and thank you again for asking your questions. We all have faith in something. I place mine in Jesus Christ because I have found none better. For you see, in doing that, I am ok with not knowing everything. I do not walk in fear.

When I waded into the creationism Q on this thread, the Christian biblical explanation was discounted immediately as "stirring the pot." But not that long ago, Christians had a respected place at the table of theological thinkers. Now, not as much.

But trappers have also been under fire for about the same amount of time as Christians.... about the last hundred years or so.

Andrew Linzey, theologian, and founder of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics in 1951
Ronnie Lee started The Animal Liberation Front same year 1951

Modern minds with enlightened "I know better than you what truth is" thinking.
They're everywhere.

So they bash trapping.
They discount Divinity.
They are now in power at many levels and we buy in.... or don't.
Personally, I ain't buying what they're selling.

Some on this forum may not know the great minds behind evolutionary theory and communism and redistribution and animal rights and climate change and....
are all Post-Modern atheists who know best.
They're powerful.

We had a retired Colonel John Albers, Marine, speak to us in chapel last November, a man who's flown 54 different aircraft, (Veteran's day chapel). He was compelling about the need to minister to our military and veterans as a group.

https://voice.dts.edu/chapel/serving-all-people-groups/

His was an impactful message to us, especially since Donna and I have a home in San Antonio, military town USA.
He said he is confident that our society will at some point round up Christians as they do all marginalized people. They do it in other countries and he's candid that they may do that here.

You might enjoy his candor.

I'm still following along, its hard to know where to get back into a conversation after it has progressed so much in ones absence.



I dont sense much animosity, I can only speak for myself when I say I certainly do not intend any but I do not feel the others do either. I think you may "feel" animosity because your personal beliefs are tied to your sense of who you are and the value you have, basically when your ideas or belief are under attack you feel attacked because you are tied to those beliefs or ideas. I do not remember anyone attacking anyone of faith personally, only questioning their ideas, there is a big difference.

I'll have to check that out Mark after I get home from church and checking a few beaver traps. Every Sunday morning I have the pleasure/adventure of introducing the Gospel to 3 to 5 year olds. A blessing when they listen, a hair puller when they don't. I pray they listen this morning.

The entirety of the universe as we know it is but a tiny part of a particle within an atom of hair on the leg of a bug.

And all it will take is one shot of DDT and---poof----it s gone. No matter what you believe in or don't believe in Jesus Christ has had a bigger influence on civilization that anyone figure in history. Do I believe every story in the bible--NO--but it is a inspirational book to read. If mankind would live by the Ten Commandments just maybe maybe we could have a better world.

I care because creationists get all wadded up whenever other possibilities are examined/researched. Trying to prevent school kids from even hearing about any other possibility. If a person is so certain of a creator, why then are they so afraid of evidence that suggests another possibility. Creationists point to our lack of knowledge as proof magic is real. You would think they would be supporting research into how life began so their faith would be validated.

I'm a little late to this thread.

I am a Christian who believes in Divine creation, and a universe that is probably 13 billion years old, and a earth that is probably 4-5 billion years old.
I see no conflict between science and belief in Divine creation. The only people who see a conflict between the two either have an agenda or just haven't objectively looked at the subject.

I think it is a little humorous how people people who don't believe in Divine creation will say things like Christians are "afraid of evidence" or say "our lack of knowledge as proof magic is real". I don't hold either of those views, and I don't know many believers who do.

The Miller-Urey experiment doesn't cause me the least bit of consternation, in fact I find this type of research fascinating. I could easily take the view that the experiment shows that God knew what he was doing by creating a system that allows for the sustained production of the compounds necessary to nurture and sustain life forms.

Science has not explained how life spontaneously (or even gradually) came into existence. I don't begrudge science looking for the source of life. In the last 40 years or so I have noticed the scientific community has become less sure of many assumptions regarding the origin of life. I think it is interesting that science acknowledges that the more they learn, the more complex the issue seems to be. Instead of honing in on the answer, the question just keeps getting bigger.

Christianity is working alongside researchers but Darwinism is being debunked more and more as the decades go by.
Here's some of why that is. Dr. G. is one super laid back guy, but brilliant. From SD. They grow them good up there!
I already linked Institute for Creation Research (ICR- in biz 50 years) earlier in this thread. Their magazine is free and it's high level research that is being developed as we speak.
There latest project is carbon dating. Seems that early research was sketchy also, and needs to be rethought.
But wait, we already have plagues in the Grand Canyon telling us exactly when rocks were made?????

Go figure.

3 answers to the origins of life

https://voice.dts.edu/chapel/great-answers-to-three-key-questions-about-origins/

Randy Guliuzza
Dr. Randy Guliuzza has represented the Institute for Creation Research in several scientific debates at secular universities and in other forums. Dr. Guliuzza has a B.S. in Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, a B.A. in theology from Moody Bible Institute, the Doctor of Medicine from the from the University of Minnesota, and a Master of Public Health from Harvard University. Dr. Guliuzza served nine years in the Navy Civil Engineer Corps and is a registered Professional Engineer. In 2008, he retired as a lieutenant colonel from the Air Force, where he served as 28th Bomb Wing Flight Surgeon and Chief of Aerospace Medicine. He is the author of Made in His Image: Examining the Complexities of the Human Body, Clearly Seen: Constructing Solid Arguments for Design, and Twenty Evolutionary Blunders: Dangers and Difficulties of Darwinian Thinking.

https://www.icr.org/who-we-are/

Whats that? some kind of jehova Mag?lol.

I believe magic is real. Something just exploded from nothing into everything LOL

just consider the mass of ONE planet (Jupiter) in ONE solar system, in ONE arm of ONE spiral galaxy, in our Universe...

go ahead...imagine compressing Jupiter's mass into one infinitesimal point. Can it be done?

maybe...if you can conceive of "Magic".

I'll do you one better, wm...how much does PITTSBURGH weigh? I mean every road, every building, every bridge, every mailbox, every manhole cover, every handrail, every Primanti Bros. sandwich, The Cathedral of Learning, every bus stop sign...ALL of it.

now compress JUST THAT into a single point, smaller than an atom...

Many PMs on this topic.

Some are answered in this long thread, and others I may need a bit of time to get to.

Studying Greek tonight

You don't want to meet any of the issues you raised head-on, as I have done. Instead, you try to distance yourself by saying you were only overviewing the arguments made by great thinkers.

I am not the one playing fast and loose. I am not the one who's moved the goal post.

If you don't want to meet my replies head-on, I understand. I applied logic, and theology is ill-suited to logic.

Jim

I could believe in the big bang theory, but then I wonder who pulled the trigger?

Lee Berger, American paleoanthropologist says this is your cousin Boco



Homo naledi, Berger's find from South Africa that made him rich and famous.

Supposedly Berger found this and 14 other hominids in a buried cavern that was widely published in scientific journals. Berger's book "Almost Human" (love that title), and numerous speaking engagements made Berger wealthy. But world famous hominid paleoanthropologist Tim White from UC-Berkeley and others have revealed they are rejecting Berger's paper because even their grad students can tell that the skull is made up of illegitimate fragments = from different animals, just like previous Berger work was discovered to be (bogus). In fact, they claim, he alone without and of his field assistants (highly suspect), made the discovery, and quite possibly even had the research written, they submit, before the specimen was found (Hey! Hillary does that stuff too!). Pieces of the skull, having never been previously dating tested vary from 33,000 to 849,000 years they claim. It's a fraud.

Bottom line, money rules these dudes. It ruled Darwin and it's still going on.
It's hocus- pocus (I called it out in a lab in Ann Arbor in 1981-82) but was told to shut up and submit.

There's been a plan to induce and create social utopia
And there's been an international plan to eliminate God
since the late 1880's from a bunch of messed up minds.
All those dudes from 1800-1950's are dead but unfortunately they left us a bunch of junk in their wake.
Any one notice today's culture doesn't much question science anymore?
Climate change - climate change - climate change!

It's too bad.
Answers are a really good thing.
Greed, and making a name, and power over others is not.
But it's been around a long, long time.

That's where we differ James. I don't see your logic. I'm sorry. I see rebuke and there's a difference. You would know that as an attorney (retired).
I've written much here in this thread and you write one sentence and call yours logic and mine is blatantly dismissed as illogical. That's a legal tactic James but I smile as I read it because the legal profession is a great calling in itself, we need 'em for sure (my dad is retired also) but they wrap you in bible wrap and tell you it's not tight.

I hold most to the Anthropological, Teleological, and Cosmetological apologetics. They are built on sure ground and while not provable (because none of this is with finite resources) as a whole, one or several, is credible. I listed great minds who don't believe in Divinity as the examples who think so as I'm just a guy with a machete trying to hack his way through life.

But that's not where I place my faith.

"Christianity is working alongside researchers but Darwinism is being debunked more and more as the decades go by." Mark June

That statement is false on both fronts. Christianity is working with no researchers.

It's true to say that some Christians are financially supporting some "scientists" who purport to do legitimate research. Do you recall when tobacco companies used the same strategy to argue cigarets are safe?

Darwinism is being debunked? That's completely false. Darwinism is being confirmed every day by DNA and medical research. Darwinism has withstood 150 years of every sort of science- and faith-based attack that could be imagined in that time.

Darwinism is confirmed by numerous branches of science: DNA, morphology, carbon-dating, radioactive dating, biology--now there's a science that's founded entirely on Darwin's theory!

You must be intelligent enough to tell the difference between science and pseudoscience. Give me an honest answer to one question, please:

Let's say you need heart surgery, and you have two surgeons to pick from. In every respect their qualifications and experience appear to be equal. There's only one difference: One surgeon believes in Darwinist evolution, and the other does not.

Which heart surgeon would you choose?

Jim

P.S. - Taking bets on whether he'll give me a straight answer.

that may be the dumbest question ever asked here.