To 'An Eternal now' and others who have read his article.
Being a christian myself straight away brings out the point that i
would be bias towards christianity, but i guess we have to respect
each other's beliefs here.
My Main issue with his link was that the writer had a very
direct approach towards the bible, meaning that he took everything
in it by its literal sense, which is obviously the wrong way to
read the bible. In fact, i would be touching on this problem in the
next few paragrahs
I would like to bring to your attention the 4th chapter of
'An Eternal now's link "Chapter 4: God or Buddha - Who is the
Highest?"
1st para
What does God look like? The Bible says that God created man
in his own image (Gen 1:26) so from this we can assume God looks
something like a human being.
God creating man in his own image does not mean that God
looks like man. the 'Image' written here is the characteristics or
personality of God. to sum it up is his "Perfectness".Men used to
be perfect, like God, without Sin. But when men sinned by eating
from the Tree of knowledge of the Good and Evil, they had become
sinners and evil-doers, and were banished away from God until Jesus
Christ came down to save us. That is why men are no longer
perfect.
The Bible tells
us that God has hands (Ex 15:12), arms (Deut 11:2), fingers (Ps
8:3) and a face (Deut 13:17). He does not like people seeing his
face but he doesn t mind if they see his back.
Now i would like us to take a look at every single verse and
spot out why all of them do not apply to what the writer
says:
(in King James Version)
Ex 15:12
9The
enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the
spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them; I will draw my sword,
my hand shall destroy them.
10Thou
didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead
in the mighty waters
11Who is like unto
thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
12Thou
stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed
them.
The setting of this verse is one which Moses and
the Israelites were praising and worshiping God
after they escaped from the Pharaoh of Egypt. In the last
few verses, Moses was talking about how Pharaoh thought
he could use his hand and sword to wipe out the Israelites.
But instead Moses draws comparison to God, when God stretch out his
'hand' then the water came down on the Egyptians. The 'hand'
used here is just a comparison between Pharaoh and God, nothing to
do with God's physical being.
This shows that when we are reading a particular verse, we
must base it not only on what it says, but also what is it's
context. in this case, the verses before it.
Duet 11:2
1Therefore
thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his
statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments,
alway.
2And
know ye this day: for I speak not with your children which have not
known, and which have not seen the chastisement of the LORD your
God, his greatness, his mighty hand, and his stretched out
arm,
3And
his miracles, and his acts, which he did in the midst of Egypt unto
Pharaoh the king of Egypt, and unto all his land;
4And
what he did unto the army of Egypt, unto their horses, and to their
chariots; how he made the water of the Red sea to overflow them as
they pursued after you, and how the LORD hath destroyed them unto
this day;
The setting of this verse still involves Moses, after he had
received the two tablets which bear the Ten commandments from God
on top of Mount Sinai. In fact, in this verse, i can draw another
reason which would make it simple to understand why 'his mighty
hand and his stretched out arm' cannot be read literally. In the
earlier part of the verse, Moses said that 'I speak not with your
children which have not known'. If i was to read this using the
writer of the article's method. i would be thinking that this would
mean that i cannot talk with anyone who is not a christian? Of
course not! This actually means that Moses would not follow the
ways of the world, such as worship false Gods and idols, and so on.
So the 'mighty hand and outstretched arm' is basically something
for the reader to understand God's power more easily. What i would
think when i read 'mighty hand and stretch out arm' would be such
as; God is so powerful and almighty, and he reaches to everyone of
us and helps us ' outstretched arm'.
This shows that we cannot read the Bible in the way we would
read a children's story book, but instead by the way we read our
literature books and poems.
Psalms 8:3
1O LORD, our Lord,
how excellent is thy name in all the earth! who hast set thy glory
above the heavens.
2Out
of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength
because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and
the avenger.
3When
I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the
stars, which thou hast ordained;
4What
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou
visitest him?
5For
thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned
him with glory and honour.
This is pretty similar to the earlier verse from Duet 11:2
(please refer)
Duet 13:17
16And
thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street
thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil
thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap
for ever; it shall not be built again.
17And
there shall cleave nought of the cursed thing to thine hand: that
the LORD may turn from the fierceness of his anger, and shew thee
mercy, and have compassion upon thee, and multiply thee, as he hath
sworn unto thy fathers;
18When
thou shalt hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, to keep all
his commandments which I command thee this day, to do that which is
right in the eyes of the LORD thy God.
This verse does not show that God has a face in the first
place. it just says that God can become merciful and compassionate
though he has been angered terribly (of course by us doing
something wrong). This verse says nothing about his face but his
mercy and Compassion for us.
On the whole, I personally feel that with such lack of true
understanding of the Bible and what it teaches, one should not
believe it, let alone criticize it, you just bring yourself to
self-ridicule. These simple literature skills are thought in
schools to 14 year olds. much younger than the writer himself. He
should honestly be ashamed. I personally would not go and criticize
any religion unless i have completely read and understand whatever
it teaches.
Now i would like to touch on atheists or free
thinkers.
You guys often say i don't believe in this, i don't believe
in that. but as timothy keller has said in his book, you still have
to believe in something. Most Atheists believe in Evolution and the
Big Bang, which basically points to "the
scientific explanation for ourselves". The basic theory of
Evolution, by Charles Darwin, is basically that everything forms,
happens, changes by CHANCE over a long period of time. I’ll be
touching on 2 main aspects, Evidence against Darwinism, Why it is
so widely accepted in modern times.
Why it is so widely accepted in modern times
Darwinism is considerably a huge part of a person’s everyday
life, whether we are studying or working. We can see the evidence
of it in what we watch, hear and see in the world around us. But
imagine what was life like before 1859, before
the whole idea of evolution and darwinism was brought about by the
man himself. The world was still the same, people were still
people, scientist were still scientists, animals were still
animals. Why would any commoner believe in it? When there were in a
sense, ‘better’ and ‘proven’ ways of why the earth was created and
how man came to be. In the next 150 years, more and more scientist
began to believe in darwinism. Scientists, of course are of higher
intellect and are the ‘equivalent of church leaders’ in the atheist
society. Because Scientists are at such a high position in society,
and because they are pretty neutral against all religions, they
have the most exposure to the media, have the most books and are
constantly writing in newspapers, they are less criticized and
their works and understandings are more widely accepted among free
thinkers. Most free thinkers think that there is no such thing as
god but instead everything relies on chance and nature, which
points to darwinism and the theory of evolution. But if most free
thinkers think that darwinism is not a religion, then they are
wrong. The definition of religion in www.wikipedia.org is
“A religion is
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the
universe”. Now, think to yourself, is darwinism
a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the
universe? Of course it is! Now, what sets darwinism or rather
degrades darwinism apart from the rest of the religions, is that it
was inspired by a 100% human man! Charles Darwin himself! So if
Charles darwin created darwinism, does that make him God? Or rather
does that make him a person who has seen everything happening from
the start and till the end? Did he witness the first cell growing
into something 1 billion times bigger than it? Of course he did
not. What Charles Darwin did was basically draw conclusions from
things he saw around him, which is the reason why there is so much
evidence for his theory. But again, Charles Darwin is still a human
after all, and a human’s understanding of the world around him is
only limited to a certain amount. For me, it’s harder to believe in
a fellow person who has that certain amount of knowledge and power
instead of a celestial being who has infinite amount of knowledge
and power.
Coming back to my topic, the main reason why darwinism is so
widely accepted in the world, is because it is endorsed by most
scientists. Many people who have less intellect capability than
scientists would probably think “since they are smarter than me,
then they are probably right and i should believe in whatever they
believe in”. But the main reason why darwinism is so widely
accepted by scientists around, is because Charles darwin was
practically one of them. Average scientists would look up to the
better scientists and say “these people are smarter and more
experienced than me, therefore they are correct”.
Evidence against Darwinism
Most believe in Darwinism simply because it is much easier
to comprehend and understand it. But, in reality, these people are
lazy and just want to lay back and say “this is where i come from,
but since it is such, it does not affect me presently and i should
go on living life just as i did”. Darwinism is basically believes
that “Life on earth evolved gradually beginning
with one primitive species—perhaps a self-replicating molecule—that
lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over
time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism
for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural
selection.” Now what this means is that it took
3.5 billion years (in other words: a very very very long
time) for a single species to
branch out into millions and millions of species, and currently the
leader of it all are humans. So the whole basis of darwinism and
the evolution theory is that things CHANGE over a long long PERIOD
OF TIME through a course of
‘natural selection’. This is basically the assumption that
time allows for change through
natural selection. If you take out time out of this equation, there would not be
change and no natural selection. How Charles Darwin brought up this
approximate time of 3.5 billion years was by looking at fossil
remains deeper and deeper into ground and examining them for age
and therefore finding at what time
would these fossils have been still alive and kicking. How he based
this time was by the basic
explanation that for things to be fossilised, it would take
time and tremendous pressure to
prevent decomposition. So if time
was again taken out of this equation, Darwin’s theory of evolution
would be completely wrong. Simply because, if things did not take
alot of time to fossilise, then Darwin’s approximate time of 3.5
billion years would be wrong and the whole length of time would be
shortened alot, and that would mean there could not have been
enough time for evolution to occur. That basic explanation that the
only way to fossilise something was by time and
tremendous pressure was accepted during Darwin’s time, but is
something that now is considered wrong. For example, a cat or dog
can be fossilised in 2 or 3 years as long as there is a huge amount
of pressure and the right conditions, with the exception of time.
This link shows how it’s possible:http://www.creationinthecrossfire.com/Articles/Fossilization.htm.
Therefore, Darwinism is false. This proves that as new discoveries
are made, and new theories are brought up, old theories and beliefs
have to be removed from the ‘scientific library’, and evolution and
Darwinism are one of them. For more information,
please read: http://www.discovery.org/a/10661
Hi Douglas
I quote your final conclusion:
////////////////"That
basic explanation that the only way to fossilise something was
by time and tremendous pressure was
accepted during Darwin’s time, but is something that now is
considered wrong. For example, a cat or dog can be fossilised in 2
or 3 years as long as there is a huge amount of pressure and the
right conditions, with the exception of time. This link shows how
it’s possible:http://www.creationinthecrossfire.com/Articles/Fossilization.htm.
Therefore, Darwinism is false. This proves that as new discoveries
are made, and new theories are brought up, old theories and beliefs
have to be removed from the ‘scientific library’, and evolution and
Darwinism are one of them. "/////////////////////////
You have raised a point in fossilization in matter of million
years versus artificial fossilization using pressure and such.
May I know your view on carbon dating on the following
samples:
a) fossil dug out from deep ground;
b) fossil done by artificial means.
What will the cabon dating reveal for sample (a) and (b)?
sincerely
laffin
