Christianity and our Nation.

Guns are not violent, people are. The gun in the back of my 68 GTO never committed any violence. What does commit violence are young men who don't know their purpose for being here. The state cannot provide that. God does. The state teaches they are happenstance, a freak accident of nature and evolution. Life is just chance with little value.

 

https://nypost.com/2024/04/16/us-news/anti-israel-protesters-wave-hezbollah-flag-in-nyc/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/prote...-death-to-america-at-michigan-quds-day-rally/
Groups in Michigan as well as New York! That's a little more than your "one guy" comment! Like I say, your friends are catching on. It's cool to come out and say what they have thought all along. God is not allowed in schools but HATE for America is standard in our Universities. It has infected the whole educational process as well as mainstream media.

 

I don't believe that the evolution of man is a slap in the face of God. Very concrete evidence demonstrates our origin.

Do you believe God could not have made these life forms by allowing physics to take its course?

 

True. But, we have white supremacists, muggers, and other kinds of criminals, too.

The point is that Americans who care about our society as well as our constitution don't do that.

 

"I thought everyone believes being born in America makes you a Christian."
--u thought wrong

"Identifying as a "Christian " is one thing. Deciding to follow Jesus is another."
--and who judges that, you? still doesn't excuse supporting the antithesis of His teachings

"You have a "View" description of the Republican Party. Why don't you watch something else?"
--never seen it. my description of GOP is based on their own actions.

"When you try to do right, walk in faith, you will always be viewed as a hypocrite by those who don't."
--nope. not those who actually do those things.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/b...n&cvid=b95dd78a905d4d2996671b4028b8c327&ei=24 Those Americans are called Democrats!

 

We don't limit God to our physics, period. There are things "physics" cannot answer. Sometimes God operates in the realm of "our physics" but he is not chained to them. Your concrete evidence is full of holes. As much as man would like to, he cannot begin to surmount the creation or miracles of God!

 

So you are pure and without impurity. There is no arguing with you there. (in your own mind) So you argue the opposition to Republicans do everything Jesus commanded His followers to do, I get it. You are the hypocrite.

 

No, because evolution doesn't allow for free agency, the fall of mankind, God, the necessity of a Savior, resurrection, or eternal life. Evolution says, don't fret, all is as it should be, enjoy your life, and when you die it's all over. It devalues man to a creature.

 

nope, never claimed to be pure. again, you've made assumptions on everything from my purity to my TV viewing habits. i'm just pointing out the decline of Christianity due to them supporting a political party who represent the exact opposite of Christian teachings. Calling others hypocrites for pointing it out makes no sense and won't stop the decline of Christianity. thanks for playing!

 

So, a literal, interpretation of Genesis is what makes all of that possible?

I don't believe so. One can still view the story in Genesis in allegorical terms, as one concerning Man's emergence from Nature and/or Innocence, and still believe in the existence of all of the things you mentioned (and more).

Given Man's extremely limited understanding of things, there's no reason why we must believe that God, Faith, Reason and Science are necessarily at odds with one another. I can see why Atheists need to believe that but I don't see why Christians must. Some of the greatest theologians and schools of Christian thought were those who believed they were compatible with one another and sought to understand the relationship between all of them.

 

Is this the quote that's not displaying in your Opening Post?

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."

 

There certainly are questions that physics (biology, chemistry, etc.) can not answer concerning how this universe works.

But, that is NOT evidence of God. It is evidence of the limitations of mankind and the tools we currently have for exploring the universe.

As we build better tools and apply energy to addressing these questions, more of these questions get answered.

 

Evolution is one general process of biology. There is massive evidence for evolution, including human evolution. It's not something that stops - evolution is continuing in all life forms including humans.

Accusing evolution of not providing eternal life or "free agency" makes no sense, as that is outside of what evolution addresses.

You want there to be everlasting life after death, but just for humans. That's not a topic related to evolution. Evolution is not the only process.

 

One would think that had God caused us to evolve from an inhuman thing unto a certain human stage of accountability, that it would be a big deal and found in scripture by the hands of his servants. Otherwise, to have evolved by some other means and then discovered by an alien God, we'd have no binding ties. So having our bodies created by God in his image and charged with accountability to him for the blessing of life, makes sense. We aren't merely his creation but his spiritual offspring and are dual in nature, spirit and creature. Being offspring of a perfect God is a big starting point. And is indicative of our beginning as humans in his image, as opposed to being reduced to amoebas or whatever, only to eventually become what we already are or were. And if becoming human was the goal, then that was accomplished long ago. It is redundant and does more to exalt the theory of the evolution of mankind than to advance us in truth or raise us to perfection according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. That said, we are born human and die human. We don't evolve as if we needed it to fulfill Gods purpose. Gods purpose isn't in the perfecting of our creatures, but in the enlargement of our souls via the experience of mortality. Sorry for the verbosity

 

Of course you would say those things.....in the end, you seem to believe man will become God. The "state" being it's vehicle.

 

So you must represent the party that "steals" from working men and women in the way of taxation only to give for the education to university students for the cause of "gender studies". How Christian of you. Laken Riley loved your border policies! And your leaders showers with his daughter molesting her.

 

Evolution in more complex animals, such as humans, takes periods longer than those living at the time would notice. Humans lost about a tennis ball sized amount of brain over the last 20K years. Who noticed that? It's surmised that the complexity of our brains increased over that time, more than making up for the volume loss. Who noticed that? Brains require major amounts of energy, making shrinking brains an advantage. As we know, there have been multiple species of humanoids capable of interbreeding. Humans today have traceable amounts of dna from various of those ancestors. Which of those ancestral humanoids brought us the "image" you speak of?

Evolution does not have an objective. There are filters, such as survival and competition, but there is no definition of perfection. All life forms today are evolving, including humans.

Evolution does not happen during an organism's life. It happens as small differences that occur between parents and their progeny. All organisms die as what they were born. It's thus not shocking that a human living in ancient history would miss that evolution was ongoing.

 

Nope. I don't believe man's relationship to god is something ordered by our government.

We make laws to support our earthly society. We have laws supporting how decisions are made, how our economy works, how our rights intersect with the rights of others, etc., etc.

 

Those laws can be seen at the Supreme Court Building where the 10 commandments are displayed. Those are the anchor for our legal system. Not all aws are good, especially as of late. Laws are manipulated by deception put in place by humans.

 

No they aren't. They are purely symbolic.

The actual ten commandments don't answer the questions that our government must answer, and they certainly do not show anything about how to form good law.

 

I was responding nay to the idea that the theory of the evolution of mankind might be true and part of the purpose of the Judeo/Christian God. That said, were evolution true, creatures becoming human would be all around us in stages. But nowhere on the face of the earth is this evident. Humans are humans and animals are animals. So animals becoming human is fiction. We have a known tangible proof of eight thousand years of humans being human. Nowhere in that time were there animals becoming human, and not today either. That is a foundational benchmark. To abandon that fact is to frolic in delusional nonsense and leap off a mountain as it were, expecting to fly. I won't do that.

I know that God is real and that he lives. I know that he is perfect and divine across the spectrum. I won't abandon that either. And if I did, it would change nothing. The truth would remain the truth, to which I would then become a stranger, and dead in spirit by my own agency. Why would one do that? It is treasonous and adulterous in spirit. I had rather be nothing to the worlds measure, than God be nothing to me in whom is my life. Jesus Christ overcame the world. My trepidation in saying this is due to my own massive shortcomings. So my shame isn't in God, but in myself because I speak of his holiness while I am not.

Everything in life is conditional. So hope is either in something or nothing. In either God who is eternal or in this life which ends. Which set of conditions then is it vain.

 

LOL taxation is not stealing and someday you'll learn that your taxdollars will not go to just the things you want them to go to. And for the third time, you make a wrong assumption. Who said I'm Christian?!? And Laken Riley's murder is completely on the hands of Republicans and their supporters. They are the ones encouraging illegals by yelling the lie 'we have open borders.' Republicans also crave their cheap labor and votes since Latino votes have been trending Republican last few election cycles. And don't forget the border bills they refuse to pass just so they can 'own the libs.' How about stay away from the QAnon bubble. BTW, nice job on completely changing the topic. I'm happy that you accept that Christianity will continue to decline as they buddy up with Republicans.

 

Our ancient forebears ARE around us. They aren't alive, of course, as evolution happens gradually over numerous life cycles, especially for complex animals like humans.

Here is what is known about the evolution of humans so far:

Through evolution, humans developed from a branch of the much larger branch that includes all mammals.

Most of these forebears went extinct, of course. So, we know about their existence from bones, etc. But, we do see Chimpanzees and Bonobos, which are distant relatives.

 

Obviously, any such knowledge of how human beings came into existence and evolved into our current form was beyond the comprehension of the scribes who wrote Genesis over 2000 years ago. Furthermore, I don't think the men who wrote it intended to provide us with a scientific explanation for the birth and evolution of Man. The stories of the Garden of Eden and Noah and the flood were intended to serve an altogether different and more important purpose that was relevant to our lives and relationship to and with God and the people and world around us. For example, the allegory of the Garden addresses the important matter of the fallen, sinful and imperfect nature of Man, and not only has this shaped how we view God, Jesus, Man and the World, it has shaped Modern philosophy, politics and government. It has been said that there are two main streams of political thought in the world today, the one that emerged out of the Anglo-American revolutions and the one that emerged out of the French revolution. One of the core differences between the two is the perception of Man and Nature and the question of whether or not they are perfectible. The Anglo-American perception, articulated by the likes of Hobbes, Locke and our own Founding Fathers, is consistent with the fallen Man and World we find in Genesis, while the French perception articulated by Rousseau, Morelly and Mably is entirely different. The state of Nature and Man in the state of Nature were perfect, thus it was believed that Man and the World could be made perfect once again, and so the deadliest pursuit of the past two centuries began.

But we remain God's creation, thus God is not alien, and as God's creation our ties are bound. We don't need a story in the Bible to substitute for that.

Ahh, but is it God creating Man in His image or is it Man creating God in his own image (i.e., anthropomorphizing God)?

What you say can make sense, but with God ALL is possible.

No apology necessary, my friend - thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree with you that there is more to us than our physical evolution, but if our physical nature began as proteins and amoebas and such, it only makes us and God's creation even more amazing. I, for one, wouldn't put it past God to have us begin from such humble origins. The spark has always been with and in and around us, thus it's only been a matter of time before we reached the point where we could become conscious of it and what it is. Thus, as we have physically evolved we have spiritually evolved, as well. What we believe and hold true today is quite different from what the Ancient Hellenes believed and held true thousands of years ago.