POLL: Evolution vs. Creation by God

[studentofthemarkets]

@themickey
Over most of my life, as far back as I can remember people well, I've been very involved with a total of 7 churches and one Christian organization. The combined number of leaders comes to around 40, give or take a few. Pastors, youth pastors, elders and some deacons are included in the count.

Of those leaders, I have only known of three people where an immoral issue surfaced. One was an elder and there was an issue with another woman and I do not know the extent since he left the church. One was the pastor who I mentioned in a few posts ago and there are other reasons to think he was going along with things for personal reasons but not a believer in his heart. In his situation there were no known instances of physical immorality but several claims of inappropriate emotional relationships and some lying and he did not stay at the church after the various situations came to light. The other was a pastor who gave a prolonged, inappropriate hug to a married woman he was counseling and had developed a closer-than-should-have-been friendship with. It came out because the woman reported it to the elders and he admitted it and they told it to the church and he also did not stay at the church any longer. Both pastors are still currently married to their same spouses, but the elder is not.

I have never been in a church or Christian organization where any claims have been made that leadership was involved in any child sexual abuse of any form.

I can tell you, off the top of my head, of many people I have known who are outside of Christian circles/churches who have done much, much worse.

I think most born again Christians who are trying to live according to the Bible are going to try to follow what the Bible says to avoid immorality.

Now the overseer is to be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach...
1 Timothy 3:2 NIV​

 

[themickey]

Simpleton's rhythm.
I used to believe this nonsense once.

1. I have decided to follow Jesus;
   I have decided to follow Jesus;
   I have decided to follow Jesus;
   No turning back, no turning back.
2. The world behind me, the cross before me;
   The world behind me, the cross before me;
   The world behind me, the cross before me;
   No turning back, no turning back.
3. Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   Though none go with me, still I will follow;
   No turning back, no turning back.
4. My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
   My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
   My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
   No turning back, no turning back.
5. Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
   No turning back, no turning back.

 

[stu]

 

[studentofthemarkets]

@stu and @themickey

I have decided to follow Jesus! He has delivered me from the dark side!

If I were to lose everything I will still have Jesus and Jesus is worth losing everything for!
He gave up everything He had in heaven to rescue me, one who was set against His rulership.
He has turned me from being against Him, to being His friend.

Your unfailing love is better
than life itself;
how I praise you!
Psalm 63:3 NLT​

 

[themickey]

If you look deeply, christianity is a religion of fear.
First off, it attempts to scare everyone into being 'saved'.
Second, it then attempts to scare christians from deserting.
The use of the word 'punishment' is frequent in the bible.

If one uses logic, they will see the myth of christianity.
Humans are frail and error prone, we make frequent mistakes in all areas of our lives.

The bible likes to portray God as a loving just Being, but nothing is further from the truth.

God, according to the bible creates humans, we are born error prone, because of that he will not only judge and destroy but ensure error prone humans live in painful hell for eternity.
That's love for you.

As I've mentioned previously, christians are psycho sociopaths with their beliefs.
No wonder evangelicals in US love promoting NRA and mass distributions of freely available weapons into the community.

 

[themickey]

......I have decided to follow Jesus; I have decided to follow Jesus; I have decided to follow Jesus; No turning back, no turning back.

No turning back, because brainwashed to staying, shit scared to leave, shit scared to admit that your beliefs of God and 'rightfulness' are wrong.
Shit scared to admit church is a giant con with truth intermingled to make it look legitimate.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

If you look deeply, you can see evidence of the validity of the Biblical account within us and around us. We see around us what is good: beauty in nature, order in the laws of nature , design in living things and the intricate coordination all things need to function. We also see corruption everywhere. If evolution gave the best explanation for the existence of living things, then why aren’t there more and more species evolving fast enough to outpace those going extinct?

Instead, even animals and plants going extinct bear witness to the biblical testimony that all things on earth were at one time good but now bear the marks of corruption, the consequences of God's curse when humanity chose to rebel against a good God and continues in their rebellion to this day. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil gave people experiential knowledge of good and evil, and one day, there will be an eternal separation of those who desire to go their own way, apart from God’s way, to an eternity knowing the absence of good, which is evil, as well as the anger that arises when One who is good judges those who have done evil. Others, who choose God’s way over their own way (which means receiving Jesus as Lord and Savior, since He is the way that God gave for us to be reconciled to Himself), will know nothing but good for all eternity. That is because God is completely good.

Anyone who wants to pretend that there is no such thing as danger, is living in a delusion. Anyone who ignores legitimate warnings of danger or consequences may end up in trouble. Anyone who ignores the warnings given by God that there are consequences for every evil action and thought is also living in a delusion.

We were created as beings with the ability to discern, to judge between good and evil. Every society has some form of moral accountability.

You don’t have to look far to find evidence that humans often call good evil and evil good. An example of this can be seen in what’s going on in San Francisco with those who think it is good to steal from stores in San Francisco and those who think it’s good to allow them to steal, without consequences. There is something that’s gone wrong in the human race and the Bible declares that this moral decay began when the first humans stole from God what they were told not to take, and they did it anyway, fully aware that the consequences would be death.

What is death? Death is separation.

The Bible presents death as separation: physical death is the separation of the soul from the body, and spiritual death is the separation of the soul from God.
https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-death.html​

People ask the question, "If there is a God, why doesn't He reveal Himself?" Well, He used to reveal Himself to Adam and Eve before they rebelled. It would seem that He came and talked to them in the evenings, from what it sound like in the Genesis account. Now our rebellion and sins have separated between us and God.

The one who practices sin [separating himself from God, and offending Him by acts of disobedience, indifference, or rebellion] is of the devil [and takes his inner character and moral values from him, not God]; for the devil has sinned and violated God’s law from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil. 1 John 3:8
​

"Wretched and miserable man that I am! Who will [rescue me and] set me free from this body of death [this corrupt, mortal existence]? Thanks be to God [for my deliverance] through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
Romans 7:24, 25 Amplified Bible

 

[stu]

Dude, it's really quite clear the world has exactly the properties that should be expected if there were no God.

 

[studentofthemarkets]

Dude, it's really quite clear the world has exactly the properties that should be expected if there were no God.

That doesn't explain beauty, music, tastes, and other things that we enjoy. Evolution tries to explain things by survival of the fittest over long periods of time, but how can something like the ability to enjoy a complex musical composition be explained by survival? Instead it bears the mark of purposeful creativity and design...by God.

Evolution did not create the sound cycles that we arrange to make music. Cycles bear marks of mathematically-based design. It makes sense that God created sound cycles to be able to form recognizable patterns AND gave humans the ability to recognize and appreciate the beauty.

Think about it. A few thousand years ago people would have had the same ability to enjoy today's music, but few opportunities to ever hear complex musical arrangements. The ability to appreciate music hasn't evolved, it was already designed and implanted within each of us.

 

[themickey]

Christianity, when presented with common sense questions such as, "Why allow devil to live thousands of years and to rein again for another thousand years, while humans get three score years and ten, then eternal punishment [revenge on humans] from a loving creator" christians will avoid the subject, other than that, christians will stick to their cultist guns and defend the stubborn horse which has blinkers on.
The bible, a users manual to stubborness.