Christians

[Cussin hacker]

  jlh1508 said:

your question had nothing to do with your original post.

So you are condemded to hell for your own sins. God, to you made the rules so in the end it is God that condems you for not being Christian. It's all the same.

[Brugz7]

msd3075, I respect your post and understand it. The thing is, God tells me to have faith, not facts. I don't need to see Him to believe in Him. I live by faith, not by facts.

[Silzildrummer]

  Brugz7 said:

msd3075, I respect your post and understand it. The thing is, God tells me to have faith, not facts. I don't need to see Him to believe in Him. I live by faith, not by facts.

I've always felt you can live by both faith and facts and still be a Christian.

[msd3075]

  Brugz7 said:

msd3075, I respect your post and understand it. The thing is, God tells me to have faith, not facts. I don't need to see Him to believe in Him. I live by faith, not by facts.

As long as you understand that. Too many "religious" people I know confuse the idea of faith and of fact and put them both together.

You say that you "believe Him"; most people confuse that with thinking they know for sure and can prove it.

[Brugz7]

Silzildrummer, I don't agree with the Pope.

Evolution contradicts the Bible and the Christian faith, I'll leave it at that.

[Brugz7]

That becomes a problem when a Christian tries to justify their faith with facts.

[msd3075]

  Brugz7 said:

Silzildrummer, I don't agree with the Pope.

The only thing that evolution contradicts is an absolute literal interpretation of the Bible, just the same as the literal interpretation contradicts almost all scientific facts.

That being said, evolution does NOT contradict the idea of a higher being or any of the "spiritual" aspects of Christianity. The ideas within Christianity have to do with origins of our existance; evolution has to do with the process by which we made it from that origin to our current state.

[Brugz7]

In the Christian faith and in the Bible, we believe that God created man in His own image. Evolution contradicts this by saying we were formed from apes.. so by evolution stating something that doesn't agree with the Christian faith, it is therefore contradicting it.

[jlh1508]

  Cussin hacker said:

So you are condemded to hell for your own sins. God, to you made the rules so in the end it is God that condems you for not being Christian. It's all the same.

So when someone goes to jail, its the law condemning them. They didn't condemn themselves in committing a crime? Way to complete remove any personal responsibility from the choices we make

[msd3075]

  Brugz7 said:

In the Christian faith and in the Bible, we believe that God created man in His own image. Evolution contradicts this by saying we were formed from apes.. so by evolution stating something that doesn't agree with the Christian faith, it is therefore contradicting it.

Two things:

- What is God's image? I'm not saying this from a sarcastic, I'm-trying-to-prove-a-point way. I really don't know. I played golf on Sunday mornings growing up so I really don't know all the little details. - Evolution DOES NOT IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM say we came from apes. What it says is that all life came from a common ancestry and that no two animals alive today came from each other but that they might have come from otehr species that existed previously. To say "we came from monkeys" is so oversimplifying the theory that it states somethign completely different than what is correct.

[msd3075]

  jlh1508 said:

So when someone goes to jail, its the law condemning them. They didn't condemn themselves in committing a crime? Way to complete remove any personal responsibility from the choices we make

No, but the people (at least in the free world) create the law, not an ominpresent, superior being that we are jsut supposed to trust. Not only that, people are free to move from state to state or from country to country to live where the laws are acceptable to them.

[jlh1508]

  msd3075 said:

No, but the people (at least in the free world) create the law, not an ominpresent, superior being that we are jsut supposed to trust. Not only that, people are free to move from state to state or from country to country to live where the laws are acceptable to them.

But the discussion is not whether to agree with God's law or not.

The discussion is does God condemn people to help? The answer is no, our choices condemn us to hell.

[jots]

  None said:

Yep! Here's another interpretation! Welcome to the discussion.

Zeg, you are right. There are all kinds of interpretations made by man, but as a Christian, I believe Jesus is still the only source of truth. So what He has to say concerning salvation is not complicated at all in my opinion.

As I see it, the only sin attributable to man is the sin of un-belief. That's the only sin that can truly be repented of. It can't be forgiven, it can only be repented of. It is the unpardonable sin. In John 16:7-9, Jesus tells his disciples that he is going away and that he will send a helper to them, (the Holy Spirit). In verses 8 and 9 it says; "And when He (Holy Spirit) has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgement: Of sin, because they don not believe in me ;" So the worlds sin according to Jesus is un-belief in Christ. So in the old testament you had the Father who was testifying of the Son who was coming; you have in the Gosples the recordation of the Son who came; and then the Holy Spirit's role in our lives today is to testify about the Son who came and who is coming again. You've now denied the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus was able to say that the world's sin is un-belief in me. As far as differing interpretations among Christians, I just don't see how this is difficult to interpret. Again, it comes down to Jesus question, "who do men say that I am?". If I believe he is God, then I take what he say's at face value, that salvation is found in Christ and Christ alone. Just remember, just because someone proclaims to be Christian doesn't mean that they are. There are plenty of "professors" but not "possesors". This statement isn't directed at anyone personally on here, just at your quote.

[sacm3bill]

  Brugz7 said:

In the Christian faith and in the Bible, we believe that God created man in His own image. Evolution contradicts this by saying we were formed from apes.. so by evolution stating something that doesn't agree with the Christian faith, it is therefore contradicting it.

No. As msd3075 correctly points out, the only conflict the Bible has with evolution is if you adhere to a literal interpretation (which again, is not a necessary condition for being a Christian.) There is nothing in the Bible that contradicts the possibility of God creating initial conditions that led to the ascent of Man through evolution. That could still be considered the act of creating Man.

Incidentally, "in His own image" does not need to be taken literally either. It could be interpreted in a metaphorical sense, as in man has the same traits as God (compassion, capacity for humor, knowledge of good and evil, etc.)

[msd3075]

  jlh1508 said:

But the discussion is not whether to agree with God's law or not.

If you look at it in a one-sided way, yes, you are correct. To everyone else that is looking at all sides, the very first question is absolutely going to be whether or not to agree with the "law".

[sacm3bill]

  jots said:

Zeg, you are right. There are all kinds of interpretations made by man... Just remember, just because someone proclaims to be Christian doesn't mean that they are. There are plenty of "professors" but not "possesors". This statement isn't directed at anyone personally on here, just at your quote.

For the record, my quote that Zeg used when he responded with "here's another interpretation" was referencing the fact that you can be a Christian withouth subscribing to the the infallibility of the Bible. That is not an interpretation, that's a theological fact. There are certain common beliefs you must have to call yourself a Christian - a literal interpretation of the Bible is not one of them.

[Brugz7]

Re-read my post. In the Bible it says that man was created in the image of God.. so I'm assuming God would somewhat resemble a human, or a man.

I was trying to state the obvious that evolution tells us we came to be from something that previously existed. This completely contradicts what I believe in my Christian faith: "So God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. -- Genesis 1:27. The Bible doesn't tell us that humans came to be over billions of years. Because of this, Christians cannot believe in evolution because it DOES contradict our faith and belief in God.

[Phil McGleno]

  Brugz7 said:

In the Christian faith and in the Bible, we believe that God created man in His own image.

And what's God's image? Is it an ape-like guy that couldn't even stand erect like modern man? The dude second from the left?

  Brugz7 said:

Evolution contradicts this by saying we were formed from apes.. so by evolution stating something that doesn't agree with the Christian faith, it is therefore contradicting it.

You do realize that evolution exists. Species evolve. It's a known thing. You do accept that, do you not? I'm not talking about primordial soup into man, I'm talking about giraffe's necks and the various millions of other changes species have undergone in order to adapt to their environments.

Look at the evolution of moths in Detroit. They basically changed in two generations from white to dark grey or something (IIRC).

  Brugz7 said:

The Bible doesn't tell us that humans came to be over billions of years. Because of this, Christians cannot believe in evolution because it DOES contradict our faith and belief in God.

A) Christians include more people than those who literally believe everything in the Bible (a book, again, written by man)

B) Humans as we kind of know them today are only 200,000 years old. Not billions.