Neon Genesis Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 It seems like a contradiction in your argument, David, that you argue on the one hand that everything needs a personal beginning to have meaning but God is somehow the exception to the rule and doesn't need a personal beginning himself to give his own existence being. If God can exist and have meaning without having a personal beginning, then that disproves your statement that all things that exist must have a personal beginning to have meaning. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. With evolution having to begin from nothing, it simply cannot sustain any argument for anything being there.What if God created evolution as the process God used to create the unvierse? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted July 8, 2010 Share Posted July 8, 2010 It seems to me that progressives, at least the ones I know, are in accord with science in that they feel it is reasonable to keep the possibility of a "null hypothesis" in mind when talking about God. As for formal logic, they are aware that this is not an uncontested mode of inquiry. Aristotle is known as "the father of propositions". As a Greek, Aristotle would not have believed in a personal God. The Greeks believed in a pantheon of disinterested gods, not the monotheism of many Christians. It was Whitehead who mounted the most serious challenge to Aristotle in that Aristotle failed to account for final causation in his theory of propositions. Note that "final cause" is also an Aristotlean notion. Most progressive that I know reject "either-or" arguments about the nature of God and, with due humility and respect, substitute "both-and", indicating a a God greater than the human constraints of language, propositions, and logic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 David First, let me say- logic is the science of the formal principles of reasoning; the interrelation or sequence of facts or events when seen as inevitable or predictable (isn't this strangely similar to how the scientific method is related to a hypotheses?) Scientifically, hypotheses testing doesn't give predictable or inevitable results. that since the impersonal has no compelling force, I think Boehme was talking about a dialectic which included ... Differentiation is alive and well. The differentiation is blurry and not entirely certain. Change from impersonal to personal happens, change from inorganic to organic happens, change from simplicity to complexity happens, change from no-meaning to meaning happens. It is the journey that makes the meaning. You have a good sales pitch and I don't disagree with as much as I have confronted but what you say assumes fixity, certainty, predictability. You believe they are available. I don't. Take Care Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Neon Genesis, I can see where there might be some confusion. I should have been more precise. If I hadn't spoken clearly enough, my apologies. God is the Creator and was not created. Nothing existed before God. His nature is infinite. He created all else. His infinite and personal nature answers for, and gives meaning to, all things created, impersonal and personal- all else. It is only His infinite and personal nature that can give meaning to the all else, the individual parts, and as well as to the whole. Conversely, beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. There are no other factors to consider. This leaves us without a clue as to any reason for any individual thing to have meaning. Often, the answer for the impersonal everything is merely a semantic mysticism. 'Pantheism' for example. In Evolution, everything is accidental, which is- impersonal. If it were God's plan, you'd have, well(?)- a plan(!), which is personal. A plan is the antithesis of Evolution. God's omnipotence dispells any idea that all was accidental. Evolution would dispell any concept of a plan. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Minsocal, I agree that there are two possible answers for what exists. One answer is that all had a personal beginning (God); while the other says all had an impersonal beginning. Which adhere's to what is there? -- It's been awhile, but I have spoken of the Greek gods. To say Aristotle would not have believed in a personal God seems a bit presumptuous. I may have missed it, but I don't see Aristotle not believing in the need for the personal. It is more than apparent the Greeks knew they needed a personal beginning to answer for what they knew of the world. However, not having concluded a single god, they did summize numerous gods, all personal, only to find that none were big enough to provide for a sufficient answer. Too much conflict. Then they devised the 'fates' to bring order to the gods, which they too had to abandon for their insufficiency. The progress the Greeks made in philosphy exposed the shortcomings of the impersonal and the numerous personal gods, but the personal itself, still had legs. Aristotle has a very comprehensive account of causes, including the final cause. (I thought universals/final cause was a Platonian notion) Anyway, Whitehead did mount a challenge theory to Aristotle's. It relies on datum. It ran into problems because, in Whiteheads theory, it couldn't be determined whether the datum was true or false. -- Man, regardless of his talents, cannot constrain God. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 This leaves us without a clue A good place to start a journey with God and good companions a plan(!), which is personal. Plans are not evidence of personal Conversely, beginning with the impersonal, everything, including man, must be explained in terms of the impersonal plus time plus chance. Chance and impersonal are inappropriately used here. Chance implies that all possibilities are available at any moment. Only God could offer that. You have tied Impersonal and personal together. As such they are anthropomorphic projections because personal is an attribute of humans. These terms can only represent human experience of God. As such they can only be metaphors or similes and not absolutes. No one can know God absolutely. I know of no such claim in the Bible. This is kinda fun but your position is locked; I learn about myself but not much about you except that you need certainty. Take Care Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 Minsocal, Man, regardless of his talents, cannot constrain God. -- Davidk David, Yes, I belive that is what I said. minsocal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted July 9, 2010 Share Posted July 9, 2010 God is the Creator and was not created. Nothing existed before God. His nature is infinite. He created all else. His infinite and personal nature answers for, and gives meaning to, all things created, impersonal and personal- all else. It is only His infinite and personal nature that can give meaning to the all else, the individual parts, and as well as to the whole. But if God can exist and have meaning without being created by something else, why can't the pantheistic natural God which is one with the universe do so as well? To argue all things expect the creationist god need to have been created in order to exist sounds like a cop-out argument to me. In Evolution, everything is accidental, which is- impersonal. If it were God's plan, you'd have, well(?)- a plan(!), which is personal. A plan is the antithesis of Evolution. God's omnipotence dispells any idea that all was accidental. Evolution would dispell any concept of a plan.-- Davidk The theory of evolution doesn't state all things are accidental. Evolution states that human beings evolved from the primates through the process of natural selection. Besides which, where in the bible does it say everything which exists must have a plan? Wasn't one of the messages of Ecclesiastes that everything is vanity? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted July 10, 2010 Share Posted July 10, 2010 I think we need to (and have been for some time) need to re-think/redefine divine omnipotence. I don't think of God being able to do whatever god wants (raw power). Rather, to say that God is omnipotent and then to identify that God with Love (and not any love but the love exemplified on the cross) is to say that the ultimate power in the universe is that of a power-relinquishing love. And it is only through that kind of love that the kingdom of God is born. I was just meandering through the thread, doing so as my mind was jogged that it began as an attempt to discuss/debate God's Omnipotence. (This in turn had made me open again to thought of the Tao, always attractive to my own mind, being the polar opposite of omnipotence as "power" - "power" as we often envisage it) I saw the post above and it struck gold, and made what I was seeking to articulate redundant. It speaks to my own experience. And "love has no why", as Eckhart has said, somewhere........The Divine as power-relinquishing love, incarnate in all, and we thus find our true selves when we open beyond the power plays of our egos, and see them as the sad games they are. It does seem to me, from my own reading and understanding, that all the faiths of the world explore this theme. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 Dutch, "Scientifically, hypotheses testing doesn't give predictable or inevitable results." True, hypotheses sometimes never bear any resemblence to what results. But I think you'd be hard-pressed to say the scientific method doesn't include logical thinking in its attempt to prove a hypotheses. Chance also means: something happening unpredictably; the assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings. Case in point- hypotheses: "Change from impersonal to personal happens, change from inorganic to organic happens, change from simplicity to complexity happens,... ." Beginning with nothing, or with the impersonal (mass, motion, energy), plus time plus chance, what is the logic supporting a hypotheses of such a change as: the impersonal to personal, or the inorganic to organic, or the simple to the complex. The Big Bang hypothesis is about what must have been a hugely complex, energy laden, astral speck exploding into it's much less complex bits. "Plans are not evidence of personal"- Now your toying with me. Plans depend entirely on the personal. "Only God could offer that." Well, that's kinda the whole point. The impersonal beginning can't explain what is, only the infinite-personal God could offer that. The impersonal and the personal will produce the opposite of conditions. The current conditions of all that is there, can only be from a personal and infinite beginning. The impersonal mass, energy, motion, can't produce anything that is, much less the personality of man, regardless of time or accident. "...without a clue" "A good place to start a journey with God and good companions" Yep. We just don't need a journey with God and good companions to end up "without a clue". -- Minsocal, Yes, you said it. And now, it seems we both have said it. -- Neon, That anything is there and exists in its present form and complexity is the basic question all philosphy and religion ask. In the Judeo-Christian philosphy and religion, the infinite-personal God is the first cause, and it fits the premise that what exists, exists as it does in present time, with its present order, and form, and man, who conforms to that order so he can live in it. Beginning with the impersonal is often called pantheism. But with the root word 'theism', there is a connotation of the personal, an illusion of personality. It's merely a semantic solution, however. Beginning with nature it is really concerned only with the impersonal (mass, motion, energy) plus time plus chance; all equally impersonal. And as soon as this is accepted, you're faced some form of reductionism. That man is defined by reducing him to those impersonal factors. In comes pantheism with it's semantic personality. But that can't divert us from what it is. Pantheism is limited to the factors of the impersonal plus time plus chance. It has no other factors to consider. If all is impersonal, it has a problem finding any meaning for the individual, or particular thing. Without that answer, there is no meaning for freedom or morals. Evolution depends on the accident. Natural selection supposedly occurs unexpectedly, by chance, and without intent, given enough time. - The whole of the Biblical text speaks of God's intentionality. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted July 12, 2010 Share Posted July 12, 2010 -- Neon, That anything is there and exists in its present form and complexity is the basic question all philosphy and religion ask. In the Judeo-Christian philosphy and religion, the infinite-personal God is the first cause, and it fits the premise that what exists, exists as it does in present time, with its present order, and form, and man, who conforms to that order so he can live in it. Even if we presume a personal god created the universe, how do you know it was your god who created it? How do you know your interpretation of Christianity is the correct one? There are 35,000 denominations of Christianity in existence. Why should I believe in your version of Christianity over all the others? Evolution depends on the accident. Natural selection supposedly occurs unexpectedly, by chance, and without intent, given enough time.- The whole of the Biblical text speaks of God's intentionality. -- Davidk Again, how is natural selection chance if God created it? You have no problem believing in implausible miracles like the resurrection yet doubt God's ability to create the universe through evolution. Do you believe all things are possible through God? So why is it impossible for God to create the universe using natural selection? Why can't natural selection be part of God's plan? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 David, This clever fencing is fun but would be faster, easier over a couple of beers. I am arguing for the ultimate freedom of creation and arguing that the more we look for meaning the less we find and the less joy of life we experience. From the very first hydrogen and helium molecules, which didn't happen 'til ages after the big bang, creation is free to evolve, and God in relationship to it. This alone, for me, is a satisfying theodicy. There was going to be a lot of meaning in my suicide which I came much too close to. It is my perception that the less energy I spend thinking and judging the meaning of what is happening the more I can enjoy it. David, is it a new earth creation, an old earth creation, or would you argue for an evolution planned or led by God as preparation for God's own - humans? Take Care Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted July 13, 2010 Share Posted July 13, 2010 “God is love and people’s inherent capacity for love, developed through evolution, organizes human existence.” (Schnarch, 1991) Not a bad idea ... from a textbook on human sexualty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 "Even if we presume a personal god created the universe, how do you know it was your god who created it?" "Why should I believe in your version of Christianity over all the others?" Presuming a personal God, there can be only one. The theory of multiple personal gods was tried by the Greeks and they found what we now know today. Their concept ends in no final answer. It's completely insufficient in providing any real answers. Christianity has only the one God. I'm not sure how you may think there were 35,000 different interpretaions of that. "Why can't natural selection be part of God's plan?" I appreciate your spirit of compromise. I really do. However, Natural Selection, is offered as a substitute for any creation by a god. It precludes Creation. As soon as you attempt to introduce intelligence into natural selection, it ceases to exist. I don't any possible reconciliation, between the two. Where do you think we might find a middle ground? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 The theory of multiple personal gods was tried by the Greeks and they found what we now know today. Their concept ends in no final answer. It's completely insufficient in providing any real answers. You're still not answering the question. If all things need to be created to have personal meaning, why is God an exception to the rule? Christianity has only the one God. I'm not sure how you may think there were 35,000 different interpretaions of that. Here's a list of most of the denominations of Christianity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations_by_number_of_members If Christianity is the one true way, which denomination should we join? However, Natural Selection, is offered as a substitute for any creation by a god. It precludes Creation. As soon as you attempt to introduce intelligence into natural selection, it ceases to exist. I don't any possible reconciliation, between the two. Where do you think we might find a middle ground? If you accept the Genesis creation account is a symbolic account that describes the relationship between humans and God rather than a literal scientific account, there is no conflict between evolution and Christianity. Many orthodox Christians accept evolution as God's means of creating the universe. St. Augustine believed the Genesis creation account was symbolic rather than literal long before Darwin even discovered the theory of evolution. Even the early fundamentalist Christians accepted evolution. The Catholic church believes in biblical infallibility but also believes science and religion are compatible with each other. The majority of Jews accept evolution was created by God and it doesn't effect their faith at all. The supposed conflict between evolution and the bible is one manufactured by modern day creationists and the New Atheists but many orthodox Christians have no conflict in accepting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 Actually, Dutch, maybe a few beers can help I was once at a crossroads. I was trying to find out for what I should be joyous about. With all the uncertainties of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, where work and religion offered me no better answers, and despite all of the "Oms' and various other spiritual meditations and teaching, I was still living empty and confused with all of those quantifying uncertainties surrounding me. Nothing, and no 'church', had ever offered anything I could call real meaning. I couldn't ignore that. From everywhere, only empty silence, no final answers for anything. I was finding no solace in that absence of objective meaning. -- As I understand you're arguing the ultimate freedom of nature, I can only assume here, that it must mean- rather than God. Because(!), there cannot be two final answers to the question of omnipotence. If nature is 'unmolested' by God, nothing has real value. Nature, the created, needs to be guided by God, the creator, to have meaning. I get no satisfaction from nothing having purpose. -- Evolution, Dutch, is an exclusive theory. It strictly seperates itself from intervention by any form of a god. It relies solely on the impersonal plus chance plus time- the accident, for its compelling force. As far as the age of the earth is concerned, there' no definitive way to be precise. All we know is the earth exists and had a beginning. All we can ask is what answers for that. When exactly? All we know is, it was something that happened in an age past. Evolutionists and creationists are both presented with the same presently existent universe. I know that neither camp can pin down the earth's actual age. I'm not sure that having a precise earth's age would be very essential anyway. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 I'll try to explain this, again, but very briefly this time, Neon. The infinite-personal God created all else. All else, that was created, would have no meaning if it were not. There are no exceptions. -- I don't have the time to go through a list, which seems well short of the 35,000 you reported earlier. Tell me which denominations on that list differ with the Christian concept of an omnipotent God? -- "If you accept the Genesis creation account is a symbolic account..." I believe it is an historical account. I don't think science offers anything that can refute this as being historical, as it concerns an omnipotent God's capacity to perform. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JosephM Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 (snip) I was once at a crossroads. I was trying to find out for what I should be joyous about. With all the uncertainties of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll, where work and religion offered me no better answers, and despite all of the "Oms' and various other spiritual meditations and teaching, I was still living empty and confused with all of those quantifying uncertainties surrounding me. Nothing, and no 'church', had ever offered anything I could call real meaning. I couldn't ignore that. From everywhere, only empty silence, no final answers for anything. I was finding no solace in that absence of objective meaning. -- (snip)Davidk And so now i believe i understand why you have made the decision to accept a Book called the Bible as the final answers for your questions including your comments on Omnipotence. Because you could not find meaning in unanswered questions, you made a decision to give up or in other words surrender your questions to a Book you choose to equate with the Word of God and final answers. You required certainty and were without it until you made the certain decision to accept the Bible as The Word. That would seem an easy enough decision. My experience differs as after following that decision of yours myself, I found that the true answers lied not in a book, but in that very empty silence that existed in all humans prior to the publishing of any existing books. And furthermore, that in that silence i found a Life that could not be contained in any book and was not dependent on any answers to fulfill my joy and meaning. In that silence, was my very being from which nothing that exists could exist without. Only that which is temporal and believes it must find absolute answers is trapped in the quest for objective meaning in a subjective world. It lives in a paradox whereby it must fabricate answers to find answers which doesn't exist except as a product of its own mind that it attributes to God. Yes, meaning can be found and applied in mind but it is always subjective and short lived. Life itself which is eternal requires no meaning as it is meaning in itself. Life resides in silence yet all things that are created (life) have their true meaning in it where no questions exist. Therefor you have repeatedly said or inferred that others here could not find joy and meaning without absolute certainty or final answers. This is because it is , in my view, and not to be taken as being condecending, that you identify with life with a small "l" that, in my view, can never truly "know" rather than Life which is eternal and of which you cannot be separated from and in which is hid this mystery i speak of. Just my 2 cents on your comment above, Joseph Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tariki Posted July 15, 2010 Share Posted July 15, 2010 I would just like to thank Joseph for the testimony he has given. A testimony of my own, given in my own words, would not be so comprehensive - as I do not have "the peace that passeth understanding" except in odd moments. I still know (alluding here to the quote that follows) the "body of fear", often the reality of an unopened heart that grasps, often a struggle to control. Yet I feel I do see where the problem is. Underneath all the wanting and grasping, underneath the need to understand is what is called "the body of fear". At the root of suffering is a small heart, frightened to be here, afraid to trust the river of change, to let go in this changing world. This small unopened heart grasps and needs and struggles to control what is unpredictable and unpossessable. But we can never know what will happen. With wisdom we allow this not knowing to become a form of trust. We rest on what Buddhist elder Jocelyn King laughingly called "the Firm Ground of Emptiness." Chogyam Trungpa described this as giving up the ego's territory and trusting in groundlessness. St John of the Cross described it this way: "If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark." Wisdom is not information, but an abiding presence, an intuitive, sensing opening of the body and heart. In wisdom the body of fear drops away and our heart comes to rest. Like love, wisdom needs no explanation......... (Jack Kornfield, excerpt from his book "After the Ecstasy, The Laundry" I do find the "answers" rest in each day of life. In seeing the "body of fear", acknowledging it, not seeking to deny it, but in a sense passing through it. In this way we "plant the seed", and sometimes the time of harvest comes and we know not how.........for the earth bringeth forth fruits of herself Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 Something I found A Deeper Dreamer Then even nothingness was not, nor existence. There was no air then, nor the heavens beyond it. What covered it? Where was it? In whose keeping? Was there then cosmic water, in depths unfathomed? Then there was neither death nor immortality, nor was there then the touch of night and day. The One breathed windlessly and self-sustaining. There was that One then, and there was no other. In the beginning desire descended upon it -- that was the primal seed, born of the mind. The sages who have searched their hearts with wisdom know that which is kin to that which is not. But, after all, who knows, and who can say whence it all came, and how creation happened? The gods themselves are later than creation, so who knows truly whence it has arisen? Whence all creating had its origin, he, whether he fashioned it or whether he did not, he who surveys it all from highest heaven, he knows -- or maybe even he does not know. Rig Veda, X:129 James P. Carse: Breakfast at the Victory, The mysticism of ordinary experience http://www.thepoint.net/~lwolf/books/bfastatv.html The first underline resonates with Boehme's description of God yearning to know God's self. The second underline - I guess that we have to live in this uncertainty occasionally. David, thanks for your sharing your journey. in another translation of the passage above. There was the Uncreated One then, and there was no other. A phrase that is useful in describing God as the first cause. From fencing - Beat (Battement) an attempt to knock the opponent's blade aside or out of line by using one's foible or middle against the opponent's foible. Words! Aren't they great? Perhaps a final "beat" in this thread. I think insisting on the historicity of the early Genesis accounts "rooted in time and place" diminishes their power and restricts their meaning to the the Hebrews and those who call them ancestral. If, however, these profound mythological stories are rooted in the heart and soul of any born to a mother then the stories, in these words or others, offer universal significance to all who want to understand the nature of being human. From enwombed in Eden to sibling rivalry and to cultural identity the power of these narratives are available across ages and cultures, whether yesterday, or 4000 years ago, or 40,000 or 400,000 ya. Take Care Dutch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glintofpewter Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 In wisdom the body of fear drops away and our heart comes to rest. Makes me cry, Thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
minsocal Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 Teeth and Chairs (Phnom Penh) Anonymous, mass produced objects contain a collective and equally extraordinary message: Whoever you are . . . at least in this small way, be well —Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Q: What objects did you leave behind? A: My life. Pain, the unmaking of the world. A city bled of inhabitants, 1970s, only ghosts reside in these halls. Whoever you are mass of anonymous dead, mere objects anonymous mass produced objects… a comb, empty chairs, a piano in the middle of empty streets, open cupboards, stacks of paper in this small way The city barren, no marks of life. And what do I know of pain who receive these flickering images, stereotypical stories decades after the fact, an afterimage, after- fact: a prodigal son’s despair (Rami, did you find your father’s ghost?); young students, architects, artists, engineers, 102 survivors, returned gathering in the shadows, Royal University in 1980, counting their dead kin for the GDR cameramen, recounting their world undone counting their days, ways to make the world make their way this brave new world— What have become of them? Whoever you are The afterlife of trauma Rami, here is your father, a snapshot in time a small image, a small object among thousands, Tuol Sleng, black and white stacks of paper confessions only ghosts reside in these halls Whoever you are Former “Pearl of the Orient,” wats and waterways; chronic, centrifugal, the rivers churn. Now this city, once barren bears no marks of its pain— Night’s neon casing, sulfur; teenage boys—rooster strut hair, laughing speeding ablaze (red tail lights), the long bright boulevard, glimmering high-rises, past the rotten teeth of buildings, humid zoom into the future the past sweats through our pores, almost invisible cooled by dark’s motorcycle throttle rush, sticky skin of billboards, skeleton pile of buildings, construction. The making of the world? Repopulate it: objects in lieu of loved ones lost, chattering sidewalks overflowing, waiting chairs and tables, fluorescent tubes noodles, bread, balloons, exhaust and asphalt. Anonymous mass objects mass graves graven images billboards. Whoever you are Comb, shoe, piano in the street, black and white photographs staring empty into the future which is now decades past… Q. What object lessons will you leave behind? A. My life. Q. What message do you bear? Whoever you are (the least) at least… be well. The rivers churn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neon Genesis Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 -- Evolution, Dutch, is an exclusive theory. It strictly seperates itself from intervention by any form of a god. It relies solely on the impersonal plus chance plus time- the accident, for its compelling force. You should watch this video where Dawkins explains how evolution is not chance: The infinite-personal God created all else.All else, that was created, would have no meaning if it were not. There are no exceptions. It is a cop out to argue that all things are meaningless if they haven't been created but God is an exemption to the rule even though God is supposedly uncreated. Either all things need to be created to have purpose and the same rules apply to God or if God is an exemption to the rule, then not all things need to be created to have purpose. You can't have your cake and eat it, too. I don't have the time to go through a list, which seems well short of the 35,000 you reported earlier. Tell me which denominations on that list differ with the Christian concept of an omnipotent God? Many of those churches claim their denomination is the one true denomination and all other denominations are heretics who are going to hell. If Christianity is the one true way, which denomination should I join? I believe it is an historical account. I don't think science offers anything that can refute this as being historical, as it concerns an omnipotent God's capacity to perform-- Davidk But the two Genesis creation accounts in Genesis 1 and 2 are entirely different and contradictory. In one account, it says God created male and female on the same day after God created animals. In the other account, it says God created Adam first, then created animals and then created Eve last from Adam's rib. These are two entirely different and opposing accounts and I have yet to have met a literalist who can reconcile the two accounts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 Joseph, This sounds like a rerun. It's not that I couldn't find meaning in any unanswered questions, they all were answered in one form or another. It's that, I found no meaning in the insufficiency of the answers I was being given. I didn't give up and settle, but I did surrender, and it was to what provides the sufficient answers for being, for morality, and for knowledge. What I did give up on was the silence. Silence provides nothing, other than a need to look elsewhere. -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davidk Posted July 16, 2010 Share Posted July 16, 2010 Dutch I respect the questions your text raises. But it is only the unanswered questions we all seem to need to ask. I read on, hoping there might be some answer provided; but, alas. To take some issue, I say Genesis being rooted in space and time, strengthens it; it grounds it in truth, gives it life, power, and enlightens man to who God is -- Davidk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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