Originally posted by jeremiah
Yes and preety much everyone, especially Born again Christians can tell you of direct experiences with God or the Spirit of God. However you can dismiss them all as unreasonable, I suppose.
It would be most helpful if you wouldn't make assumptions about what I personally would or would not "dismiss." If you would like to
know whether or not I'd dismiss any particular claim, please just ask.
I care what people think because I observe that ideas have consequences and that people's minds can be swayed to believe that which is not true.
Whenever you are presented with a new piece of information, you must judge for yourself whether or not to accept it as "true." Personally, I think that it is best if this decision be made on the basis of evidence and reason, as I can think of no particularly good reason against this approach, and many advantages to it. If someone follows such a course honestly, then they will remain open to accepting any new information that
is so supported, and similarly will reject anything they currently believe if and only if it is shown to be incorrect. So what is wrong with this method? IF it is applied consistently and honestly, then the truth will win out in the end, will it not?
As a young student in high school and college I was persuaded to believe that evolution was true. Almost everything that I was taught as true evidence of evolution has been refuted by creation scientists.
That's very interesting. I would have to say that personally, I have yet to find a "refutation" that has been made by a creation "scientist" (and I do believe the quotation marks here are justified) that upon examination met the criteria of being presented fairly and honestly. Among other things, simply the fact that I was being presented with arguments that were apparently being made either through ignorance or a conscious attempt to deceive me caused me to place much less weight on what these people were saying. So I would be very curious to know just what arguments you found so compelling.
However modern evolutionists laugh at that and say. "That is not the real evidence for evolution, we never believed that either, here is the real evidence."
Do you really believe that this is what "modern evolutionists" say? Do you have examples?
More importantly, I would again wonder why the whole "evolution vs. creation" debate is one that you find either important or relevant in the context of this one.
Then when some of that is refuted then it becomes something else. It goes on and on. The evoltionists will always have a new theory and something that can not be absolutely falsified or absolutely proved to support their claims. Evolution is unfalsifiable, no one can go back 5 billion years or less to falsify it absolutely.
But if this form of "unfalsifiability" is to be pointed to as a fatal flaw, then we must recognize that it exists on both sides - and so cannot be used to distinguish between the two. So what would be the point?
I have said it a couple times before and I will repeat it again. Scientists are very intelligent and studious humans who are discovering and reverse engineering the processes of God's Creation. They then purposely MUST leave God out of the equation {to remain true objective Scientists} and then say this is how everything works. See there is no need for a god to explain how everything came into being.
Correct. But as I've said before, this by itself says nothing at all about whether or not there IS a God behind it all. Even if science should manage to answer all of the questions about "how," it does not address the issue of "why" - and THAT is the true domain of philosophy and theology.
BUT they seldom seriously ask themselves the two remaining questions. 1. What is the mathematical model for the random events. 2. Who, or how is it, or why, do the chemical and elemental laws and invariability of them always apply.
I'm not sure I see your point in question #1 - "random events" are mathematically modelled all the time. I use such models fairly regularly in my own work. Question 2 is, as I said, not GOING to come up in scientific research, since it is not the domain of science, but rather of philosophy or theology. Whoever said that science (or rather, the scientific community) thought it could tackle ALL questions?
But if evolutionary lies are accepted as truth, then young minds and impressionable minds will not seek God, they will not have a Saviour and they will die in their sins.
Sorry, but the evidence is against you on this one - there are a very, very large number, likely even the majority, of professed believers, who claim to believe devoutly in the same saviour you do, who apparently HAVE "sought God," and yet are also able to accept the evolutionary model as a satisfactory explanation of the "how" questions. So apparently it is not the case that simply accepting these answers as to how the world came to be what it is necessarily prevents one from also accepting God as the "why."
Man, not God is real, but he is also ultimately unnecessary and irrelevant. God is only a remote possibility and speculation. Man is a mere speck of life in a billion galaxies with a trillion more possible highly evolved and intelligent lifeforms. Man is nothing, man is dead. Welcome to the wonderful world of death. This is what evolution ultimately teaches. I have children, I do not want them to believe in lies, especially lies that lead to a culture of death.
But again, such a bleak outlook is hardly inevitable. You have apparently chosen to accept the idea that "evolution" (being used here as a VERY broad label) MUST force one to the above sort of depressing thoughts of insignificance. I have a very hard time accepting that, myself, since clearly I accept the evolutionary model and yet do not find my personal beliefs on philosophical or "spiritual" matters anything at all like this bleak picture. I am sure any number of others will tell you the same thing. I'm forced to conclude, then, through my own personal experience, that your characterization of "what evolution ultimately teaches" is mistaken.
Even if the belief in the God of the Bible and or any god was responsible for all the evil some men have alleged, then if evolution and atheism be true, then a belief in God is a mere brief chapter in the long history of life, and it is really evolution that is ultimately responsible for all death, and every evil of a species it happened to bring about.
If that be true let us get rid of evolution and not trifle with the mere figments of mens minds?
I'm afraid I don't understand that one at all; you begin with the assumption that evolution ("and atheism," although again there's no real reason to tie these together) is true, and then conclude that one should "get rid of it." But if it's true, it's true - you can't "get rid of it" except by deceiving yourself into imagining otherwise.
Just like Aussie Thinker was sick and tired of hearing the same Bible verses quoted over and over. I am sick and tired of hearing about the wonders of science and evolution. Evolution sucks. Evolution is death. Why are you atheisits and agnostics so fond of it? At least be HUMAN and say that you believe it is true, but you really don't like it either!!!???
What would be the point? Reality is reality, whether reality includes a God, or if creationist notions are true (again, the two are not at all required to be tied together), or if the evolutionary model is true, or if there is no God. What we like or dislike is irrelevant to what IS. You should certainly recognize this; it is often said by believers that atheists believe as they do simply because they "dislike God," but then that simply disliking something does not make it untrue. Similarly, liking a particular idea does not bring that concept into existence (despite any number of supposedly "New Age" sorts of nonsensical belief systems that would assert otherwise, that we can somehow "create our own reality"). No, sorry, another cornerstone of my particular "belief system" (and there's a clumsy phrase if ever there was one!
) is that reality is reality, like it or not. The best that we can do, and perhaps the sole purpose of our existence, is to try to discover just what the reality IS and to deal with it on that basis.
Seek God and look for Him as diligently as you look for the next scientific discovery that supports evolution.
But this, more than anything else, simply demonstrates the gulf between the religious and scientific approaches to determining "truth." You assume that I am looking "for the next scientific discovery that supports evolution," when this is not the case at all. In science, we are supposed to determine our beliefs from what the evidence tells us, rather than looking for evidence to support our beliefs. I won't accuse all believers of doing the opposite, but I have certainly seen enough to suggest to me that religious establishments tend more to work to support their own existing belief system.
