10:32 AM
@OnlyTrueGod The key words here are "that guide the author in improving the post." Not in writing a whole new post, with different ideas, but in improving the existing post.
@OnlyTrueGod Because it's not based on scientific method. It's based on attempting to support a literal reading of the biblical accounts of creation. That's not how science works.
@Matthew Reading the creation stories in Genesis as if they were about the creation of the material world is, by definition, a Materialist reading of Scripture. The usual debates between Creationists and Evolutionists is a purely materialistic debate on both sides. That's why it is a fruitless debate.
God is necessary, because without God, there would be no universe. God did create the universe, after all, regardless of what particular method God used to do it.
God is not distant from God's creation because in addition to creating it, God sustains it in existence every moment. If God were to withdraw from creation even for a nanosecond, the entirety of creation would instantly vanish.
Further, God designed the universe specifically so that it would produce human beings. But God didn't have to micromanage the universe to make it do that. Rather, God set up the laws of the universe so that it would do that, where there is an opportunity (i.e., a planet habitable enough, and habitable long enough, for human life to develop—which on our planet took about four billion years).
It's also crucial to understand that the universe and its laws don't function separately from God, but sustained by God. Everything the physical universe does is done according to the laws God built into it, but also by being sustained by God every moment, as mentioned just above. Life, for example, would not be possible without God's life flowing in through the spiritual world.
@Matthew Not fictional. Metaphorical. The two are not at all the same. This is a fundamental error of materialists of all types, both atheist and theist. Spiritual things and spiritual meanings are not "fictional." They are, in fact, more real than material things.
Why would God put all that effort into telling us about material things? Why would Jesus bother telling us about eating physical flesh and blood? These things don't help us spiritually at all. Jesus himself said, just three chapters later:
> It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. (John 6:63, KJV)
More recent translations try to finesse this by adding words, capitalizing words, and so on. The KJV at least sticks closely to the original Greek, even if it uses now-archaic language.
1 hour later…
12:19 PM
@Matthew It just occurred to me that the reason more modern translations monkey around with John 6:63, adding words and capitalizing words, is that present-day Christians are so materialistic in their thinking that they cannot accept what Jesus plainly means here, which is that his words are to be understood spiritually, not literally.
He has just been telling the crowds that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood in order to have any life in them. Those who took his words literally were offended, and stopped following him. Only those who understood his words spiritually could accept what he was saying to them. And he confirmed this by his words in verse 63.
3 hours later…
3:05 PM
@LeeWoofenden biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+3&version=ESV is most definitely the chapter I meant.
@LeeWoofenden ...and then lied about it, knowing thousands of years of believers would be deceived. Right. Why? Because "if I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?" Earthly (or "material" as you insist on saying) things are not unimportant. Jesus makes it plain that those who doubt the Word on Earthly matters will get it wrong on spiritual matters as well.
2 hours later…
5:36 PM
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