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Christian Evolutionist debate (using scripture)

Eli G

Well-Known Member
Non-Christians want to make believe that what the Bible says does not have to be accepted as the truth. They try to make Christians believe that its value is only literary, cultural, traditional, etc. but that it is useless when it comes to complex issues such as the origin of humanity, the state of the dead, the fulfillment of their prophecies, the existence of God, etc. They want to deprive the Bible of its real value. They may attribute some "values" to it like the ones I mentioned earlier, and they may even say that some of the things it says are literal or "metaphorically real". Obviously that is a trap to kill the faith of believers.

If the Bible were not what it claims to be, Jehovah's servants would be adrift, at the mercy of any heartless person who, through lies and philosophies invented by humans, distances God's servants from their faithful service to Him. They surreptitiously come to convince Christians that NOT EVEN the words of Jesus contain truth. Be very careful who you let yourself be guided by.

When an honest Christian is deprived of the solid rock on which to stand, the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16,17), he is left without support and any wind blows him away (Eph. 4:14). That is what the enemy wants from God's servants, and he uses many ways to achieve it (1 Pet. 5: 8,9).
 
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Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Non-Christians want to make believe that what the Bible says does not have to be accepted as the truth.
I believe what the Bible teaches should be accepted as truth. Within a correct understanding and context, of course. Ripping meaning out of context from it, and saying that's what it says, is not what the Bible says however. It's your interpretation of it.

What does the Bible say about "rightly diving the word"? Doesn't understanding it in light of modern knowledge about history and science constitute, "rightly dividing the word"? It does to me.

They try to make Christians believe that its value is only literary, cultural, traditional, etc. but that it is useless when it comes to complex issues such as the origin of humanity, the state of the dead, the fulfillment of their prophecies, the existence of God, etc.
I have no problem believing that God created everything, as the Bible says. I just don't believe that the story of "how" it was created is meant for modern people to use to ignore valid scientific evidence of how it actually was created.

The story is meant to convey the meaning that God created us. Not to provide specific details about how that creative process occurs. It's not a technical manual in other words, it's a "storybook" version for the non-technical mind to get the gist of.

This is not a denigration of the texts. It's a better-understood, more realistic context in which to understand the texts you are holding in your hand. It's the "Reader's Digest" version, in other words, told in non-technical terms a child, a non-specialist can understand. That's it's point. To convey meaning, not details!

They want to deprive the Bible of its real value.
Not in my case. I find the real value comes from being able to understand it in a larger, more inclusive context. I do not believe having to ignore and deny sound, valid evidence and knowledge in order to preserve ideas we have from childhood and not allow them to be reconsidered, is what actually deprives the Bible of its value.

It's fundamentalism that denies the value of its truths, not those who understanding it in a larger, more inclusive context, like I attempt to do.

They may attribute some "values" to it like the ones I mentioned earlier, and they may even say that some of the things it says are literal or "metaphorically real". Obviously that is a trap to kill the faith of believers.
I find it actually liberates my faith from needing to burying my head in the sands of denialism, which is spiritually detrimental and leads to atheism.

My point is, there are Christians who are able to understand these things non-literally, and find greater meaning in them because of that. It's not really destroying faith, to rethink how we hold that faith. Beliefs and faiths are two different, albeight related things.

Its faith that allows us to grow, by challenging our thinking and ideas about these things. If we bury our heads in the sand, then that is not growth at all. It's giving into fear, not embracing faith.

Growth is a struggle. But denialism is a refusal to grow. It sacrifices Truth for security.

If the Bible were not what it claims to be, Jehovah's servants would be adrift, at the mercy of any heartless person who, through lies and philosophies invented by humans, distances God's servants from their faithful service to Him.
You believe that your faith in God is based upon believing the Bible teaches that the earth is 6000 years old? You should look at that seriously. That's a sure recipe for becoming an atheist. That's not a sure foundation for building a house of faith. It makes your faith contingient on being right about technical details and ideas of your mind. Faith on the other hand is of the heart. It does not rest in ideas and beliefs, but in the Love in senses from God with the heart.

If you're worried about your faith being shaken, then you should examine what the foundation is that your making it dependent upon. If you can't be wrong about your ideas about God, then you're well-poised to fail in faith. That is the story of countless modern atheists who were once Christians.

They surreptitiously come to convince Christians that NOT EVEN the words of Jesus contain truth. Be very careful who you let yourself be guided by.
I certainly am not saying Jesus words don't contain truth! I certainly, very much believe they do! I find a great, deep, spiritual truth in his insights and teachings, and draw from them constantly.

But I don't mistake his teachings as touching on questions of science. :) They are about Love.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
Jesus believed in the account of the creation of Adam and Eve. Jesus regarded the account of the events in Eden as a true story.

I'm not going to waste my time responding to so much useless verbiage and empty talk. I like to get to the point, and whoever doesn't like it, don't read me. Honest Christians have to understand things clearly.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Jesus believed in the account of the creation of Adam and Eve. Jesus regarded the account of the events in Eden as a true story.
No he did not in the way you think. I started this other thread to ask other Christians for their opinions about the idea that Jesus knew what modern sciences teaches, and so far, none of the responders really believes he did. Are you going to call all of them non-Christians too now?

Would Jesus Have known what Modern Science knows?

I'm not going to waste my time responding to so much useless verbiage and empty talk.
This is hardly empty talk. I give a great deal of detail and support and thought to every single word I post. I'm quite certain no one else here considers my thoughts to be vacuous.

I like to get to the point, and whoever doesn't like it, don't read me. Honest Christians have to understand things clearly.
By clearly, you mean simplistic and not complex? I'm sorry, we live in a world where our knowledge is far more complex that it was 2000 years ago, when it comes to things like understanding the natural world through the sciences. We are lightyears beyond their understandings in that regards.

So for the faith of Christians to survive in this modern world, it has to evolve. Otherwise you end up with either denialism of fundamentalism, or anti-theism of the neo-atheists who see all religious truths as irrational "woo woo" or such, throwing out the baby of spiritual truth, with the bathwater of myth.

Suit yourself for however you want to understand and hold your faith, but you need to not "judge another man's servant" as you are with me and every other Christian out there who believes differently about these things than you do.

At least you are aware now that other Christians think of these things differently. Now, if you can only find it in yourself to respect them. First steps...
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
Jesus believed in the account of the creation of Adam and Eve. Jesus regarded the account of the events in Eden as a true story.

I'm not going to waste my time responding to so much useless verbiage and empty talk. I like to get to the point, and whoever doesn't like it, don't read me. Honest Christians have to understand things clearly.

Did he? Since he often used literary tools in his story telling don't you think it could have been that instead? You now appear to be arguing about the interpretation of the Bible and sometimes one has to go out of the Bible to do so. That would also go outside the topic of the thread. When I was a Christian my interpretation of those was that they were more of an adage or aphorism than a statement of fact.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
The story of Eden is a true story. It was because of the disobedience of our first parents that humanity knew death and the tendency to error. Jesus gave his life to pay the price for what Adam, our original human father, lost.

No non-Christian is going to tell a Christian what to believe. PERIOD.
 

Subduction Zone

Veteran Member
The story of Eden is a true story. It was because of the disobedience of our first parents that humanity knew death and the tendency to error. Jesus gave his life to pay the price for what Adam, our original human father, lost.

No non-Christian is going to tell a Christian what to believe. PERIOD.
So you don't want to find out how we know that you are wrong? I would be happy to have a polite discussion on another thread. And when I believed that Jesus was using literary tools I was still a Christian.
 

Eli G

Well-Known Member
So you don't want to find out how we know that you are wrong? I would be happy to have a polite discussion on another thread. And when I believed that Jesus was using literary tools I was still a Christian.
So you are not a Christian either. Thanks for saying it clearly.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
Jesus knew that the story of Adam and Eve is real (Matt. 19:4-6). Evolution denies not only the Genesis story and many other biblical statements that take the event for granted, but it also denies the teaching of Jesus himself.

Christians are not following people who deny what the Scripture says but they are showing those people that what they say contradicts the Bible.

The very genealogy of Jesus Christ and many of his ancestors is traced back to the first man, Adam (Luke 3:33-38). To deny Adam and Eve is to declare this genealogy an invention, a lie.

To deny part of the Scriptures is to DENY the Scriptures. To deny part of what Jesus says is to DENY Jesus.

Luke 9:26 For whoever becomes ashamed of me and of my words, the Son of man will be ashamed of this one when he arrives in his glory and that of the Father and of the holy angels.

Matt. 10:32 “Everyone, then, who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father who is in the heavens. 33 But whoever disowns me before men, I will also disown him before my Father who is in the heavens. 34 Do not think I came to bring peace to the earth; I came to bring, not peace, but a sword. 35 For I came to cause division (...)"

I am not judging those who view this matter differently, but I am helping them to think sensibly on the matter and rectify their thinking before it is too late for them. Biblical truth has many enemies, and they go around simulating intellectuality to kill the faith of believers.

Adam and Eve can be the first pair of humans even though the general ideas of evolution are true.
 

Brian2

Veteran Member
Why do you believe there were one pair of humans initially, if you accept that evolution is true? I have no problem speaking of Adam and Eve as archetypes of humanity as a whole, but do you think literalizing them is necessary in order to believe we are created in the image of God?

Once I start saying that parts of the Bible are not true it effects other parts also. That is the case with a literal A@E. I would rather say that science does not know for sure what really happened back then.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Without the Scriptures, what basis would Christians have to practice their faith?
The basis of the Apostles’ teaching, the breaking of bread, and the agapé fellowship of the assembly.

I see many religious people, but very few who understand the faith as written in the Scriptures
“The Faith” isn’t entirely, or exclusively, written in “the Scriptures.” “The Faith” lies mostly outside what’s written in the Bible. If you don’t understand that, you understand “the Faith” less than you think.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ. Did Jesus believe that human beings evolved from lower species?

Matt. 19:4 In reply he said: “Have you not read that the one who created them from the beginning made them male and female 5 and said: ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh’? 6 So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together, let no man put apart.”

Or perhaps the question would be: can a true Christian deny any teaching of Jesus Christ? Of course, now anyone can call themselves a "Christian." Jesus Christ can tell the difference between a true Christian and an imitation Christian (Luke 6:46).

"I believe I can say I did not." There you have it straight from the horses mouth.
 

Muffled

Jesus in me
Once I start saying that parts of the Bible are not true it effects other parts also. That is the case with a literal A@E. I would rather say that science does not know for sure what really happened back then.

I believe you should know they took pictures of mutations and how they affected the next generation. Of course that much fantasy is just as likely as the statements they make about it.
 

Balthazzar

Christian Evolutionist
Non-Christians want to make believe that what the Bible says does not have to be accepted as the truth. They try to make Christians believe that its value is only literary, cultural, traditional, etc. but that it is useless when it comes to complex issues such as the origin of humanity, the state of the dead, the fulfillment of their prophecies, the existence of God, etc. They want to deprive the Bible of its real value. They may attribute some "values" to it like the ones I mentioned earlier, and they may even say that some of the things it says are literal or "metaphorically real". Obviously that is a trap to kill the faith of believers.

If the Bible were not what it claims to be, Jehovah's servants would be adrift, at the mercy of any heartless person who, through lies and philosophies invented by humans, distances God's servants from their faithful service to Him. They surreptitiously come to convince Christians that NOT EVEN the words of Jesus contain truth. Be very careful who you let yourself be guided by.

When an honest Christian is deprived of the solid rock on which to stand, the Word of God (2 Tim. 3:16,17), he is left without support and any wind blows him away (Eph. 4:14). That is what the enemy wants from God's servants, and he uses many ways to achieve it (1 Pet. 5: 8,9).

As a written text, documenting historical figures and their lives, the bible is, in part, a history book. It goes much further than this with the teachings and cultural values held by various groups and people written about, including the caananites, who by decree of God were to be destroyed. The same is true and illustrated in Sodom and Gomorrah, with Lot and the drunken stupor spoken of after, as well as with Noah and the state of human-kind in that point of history. Not every story is viewed as an illustration in morality, but also in our weaknesses, both the chosen and those they opposed.

I think the point is that we all fall short, that we're able to reconcile, and further develop as individuals, becoming better able to handle and navigate life in this temporal world. Eden, the coming of age story of two young adults, and the consequences of their actions, which reached far into the future. I don't view them as the first and only two, but as two who made it into the pages of the bible, illustrating a family lineage, and "A day in the life of" stories of their descendants, as well as the descendants from other tribes from that era in human history.

I believe the bible is true - I once hated history - until - I found the detective type work fulfilling - the discoveries in practical understanding - and having a time discerning the texts - coming up with all sorts of creative interpretations - I think most do at some point in life, given they open the book at all to read -

Anyway, the scriptures are profitable. I'm fairly sure you're familiar with Timothy. 2 Timothy it seems - I just looked it up.
 

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
I was just pointing out (slightly pointedly) that none of the Patriarchs had any scripture. Nor did the early Christians have any scriptures of their own, only oral traditions about Jesus. So I think the total reliance on scripture is ironically unbiblical.
So what do you rely on? Just curious.
 
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