Wow. Harsh.

I mean, how many warm fuzzies can you really have about a religion that denies that Jesus is God

I know that, in your post, you later state that there are other reasons for your severe dislike of Islam. However, the concept that Jesus is God is a strictly Christian concept - so if you're using this as one of the factors for your severe dislike of Islam, does that also apply to other faiths? Do you have an equal distate for Judeism? Buddhisim? Paganisim?

Religion is based on FAITH. You obviously have a very strong faith that what is written in the Bible is the word of God, is fact. There is, however, no documentable, tangible proof that the Christian faith is, indeed fact. That's the beauty of faith - it takes such a tremendous leap to throw your core trust into an ideology.

Yet what makes your faith any more or less correct than someone who believes differently than you?

Or is it just easier to pretend that Jesus didn't say all of those terribly uncomfortable things and their troubling implications?

Although I *seriously* doubt that what we have in the Bible is *exactly* what was said - even looking at the differences between modern translastions will show that there is a loss of subtlty in words and meanings. But, even if we take the Bible at face value, you still have to make a leap of faith to accept it as fact. There is no definitive way to say "this is right" or "this is wrong". Just "this is what *I belive* to be right".

As for extremists - there are violent extremests in every religion. Those who argue against fundamental Christianity use David Koresh, Jim Jones, the Crusades and the Inquisition as examples of what people acting under Christian authority do in the name of God. Yet most folks realize that these are extreme examples, and the average modern Christian would not act in such an atrocious manner.

Last, I leave you with this:

"If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." (1 John 4:20)

My New Years' Resolutions
- by Devin

1) Be more bold in my faith.
2) Make extreme statements on my blog that sort of communicate what I think, but obfuscate it behind a lot of seemingly irrational hatred
3) Have better aim when using the potty at night

:-)

Okay, folks, settle in, because this is a bit lengthy. :)

Chris - I would certainly disagree that my statements were extreme, or that my hatred was irrational, especially in the light of evidence. I have a hatred of the things the Nazis did, and of their philosophy; I suspect I am not in the minority in having such convictions, and in saying so I doubt that I would be considered ‘extreme‘. At present, I see little to nothing better in Islam; on the contrary, I see a theology that directly leads to the same variety of horrors, and as we are well aware, few things are more mobilizing than religion, for good or for evil.

(And I’ve gotten pretty good aim - the key is practice, practice, practice.)

All - Before I go any further, let me first reiterate the theme that Inheritor has correctly identified in my original argument: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:12).” My hatred is not leveled against Muslims (the people), but against Islam (the religion). If I hated Muslims, why should I be bothered by the oppression that they live under? I instead would argue that my hatred of Islam is based on my compassion for Muslims. As I said, I hate what Islam has done to these people, leading them toward a bitter and fruitless end, away from understanding of the Living God. My understanding of God leads me to want others to understand Him, and to experience the joy and freedom that He offers. I want people to experience what they were designed for.

How much different would the world be had Muhammed continued to seek out Biblical understanding rather than composing his own doctrine? The earlier portions of the Qur’an seem to suggest that he had respect for Christians and Jews, and recommended that those who wished to submit themselves to God should seek their counsel. Yet at some point, either his understanding of God was polluted by an angelic creature (given the content of the message, I believe it safe to assume that it would have been a fallen angel, especially when one considers the Biblical admonition of Paul in Galatians: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned (Gal. 1:8)!”), or, more cynically, he concocted the whole idea in order to gain legitimacy for his political ambitions.

I am entirely justified in expressing hatred for a philosophy. God himself said “You shall have no other gods before me…You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exodus 20:3, 5-6).” He later said (through the person of Jesus) that the greatest of all commandments was “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:29).“ Note that this commandment is not only emphatically stated, but takes precedence even above “Love your neighbor as yourself.” As the book of Proverbs says, “To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I [Wisdom] hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech (Prov. 8:13).” Hatred itself is not a sin, if the object is worthy of it from a Godly perspective. People, as creations of God and beloved by Him, are to be loved; philosophies and ideas, on the other hand, may be born of sin and deception, and therefore enjoy no such elevated status.

…the concept that Jesus is God is a strictly Christian concept - so if you're using this as one of the factors for your severe dislike of Islam, does that also apply to other faiths?

As I’ve just stated, I must confess that in a general sense, it does. Any religion that denies the true identity of God is problematic at best. Here is a statement that I think summarizes my position fairly well: “There is truth in everything, but not everything is true.” I am in agreement with C. S. Lewis when he spoke of “good dreams” - the idea that God has made a general revelation of His nature to all people in all times, and glimpses of God’s nature can be seen here and there in most of the religions of the world. I do not think that every religion is wholly without merit, born 100% of diabolic deception. Jesus wasn’t the only person to emphasize the importance of personal integrity and compassion. Yet most religions have their exclusive claims, and where other religions contradict what the Bible says, one has to make a choice. I don’t get the luxury of picking and choosing what I like to believe in the Bible; I have no scholarly reason to do so, so either it’s all true or the whole thing is suspect.

For the purposes of this argument, the only contradiction that matters is on the identity of Jesus. That alone, as you have pointed out, sets pretty much every religion apart from Christianity. Islam says that Jesus was a mortal prophet and no more; Hinduism says that his death didn’t atone for the sins of humanity, and that he never rose from the dead; Buddha didn’t even believe in the existence of God. But Jesus said that he was the only way to God (John 14:6, 15:1-6). They can’t all be correct. Either Christianity is false, or the others are.

(Judaism is a special case, since it’s based on the words of God before Jesus, but I can just let Jesus address that issue in his own words: “But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say (John 5:45,46)?”)

Religion is based on FAITH. You obviously have a very strong faith that what is written in the Bible is the word of God, is fact. There is, however, no documentable, tangible proof that the Christian faith is, indeed fact. That's the beauty of faith - it takes such a tremendous leap to throw your core trust into an ideology.

I must take issue with a few statements here.

First - and correct me if I’m mistaken - the notion that “faith” is a blind proposition, taking a leap into the unknown without any guarantees, is not entirely accurate, at least in the Biblical context. On the contrary, the Greek word for ‘faith’, used in the Biblical context, is pistis, which was used as a technical rhetorical term for ‘forensic proof.’ When the Apostles proselytized on the day of Pentecost, they cited examples of God’s interactions with humanity in the past as proof of His trustworthiness, the evidence of the miracles that Jesus had performed in the sight of many people present and living at the time, the evidence of Jesus’s empty tomb, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (Acts 2:14-40); they didn‘t ask people to take them at their word and hurdle the chasm of uncertainty. I don’t see any beauty in committing oneself blindly to an ideology if the ideology has no truth or reliability to it; I see no poetry in the Heaven’s Gate suicides, or the Aum Shiki Ryo subway sarin-bombings.

As to a lack of tangible evidence; I guess that I must ask you what it is that you’re looking for. We have eyewitness accounts written across a span of thousands of years, by numerous different authors - and despite these gaps, they retain a uniform internal consistency. There are the events of Jesus’s life, testified to by eyewitnesses (the Gospel authors) and contemporary historians (Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus); there is the fact that of the 2,500 prophecies mentioned in Scripture - which are very specific, not vague horoscope stuff - 2,000 of them have been fulfilled with 100% accuracy, and 500 speak about events that have not yet occurred. There is archaeological evidence that corroborates what the Bible claims, such as the Sumerian King List (c. 2100 BCE) which backs up the claims of a global flood and decreased lifespans afterward; the discovery and excavation of the city of Ur in the 1800s, stated as being Abraham’s home town in Genesis; the discovery of the Hittite capital of Boghazkoy, which proved false the then-popular belief that the Hittites had been invented by Biblical authors.

Mind you, it does seem to please God when we take Him at His word, and trust Him despite what misgivings or excuses we may have. Yet I would not say that my faith in Christ was made in a vacuum; if the facts did not line up, if His claims did not reflect the reality that I have experienced, if it did not have the ring of truth, I’d toss it in a second. But the claims of Christianity are consistent with history, consistent with science, and consistent with reason, as far as I have seen.

Yet what makes your faith any more or less correct than someone who believes differently than you?

As I hope I’ve demonstrated, not by the sincerity of my faith, but by the truth, consistency, reliability, and historicity of what I’ve placed my faith in.

Although I *seriously* doubt that what we have in the Bible is *exactly* what was said - even looking at the differences between modern translastions will show that there is a loss of subtlty in words and meanings.

Well, I think I should point out that there are two ways in which our modern Bible translations are made: word-for-word (the literal translation, such as the King James Version) and thought-for-thought (which tries to translate ancient idioms and slang into modern versions, such as the New Living Translation). This doesn’t cover paraphrases (like The Message) which are usually individual efforts to provide a new twist by summarizing. Many of these translations are done with a consumer in mind, trying to convey the ideas in different ways to maximize comprehension.

However, this doesn’t mean that there is no uniformity in translation, or that these different translations have different or contradictory doctrines, or that we are at a loss to identify the original meanings of the Biblical text. Translation issues for the Bible are not different from translation issues for any document, and cause no more difficulty. While I would agree that not every translation covers the full range of subtlety in word definitions, the original subtlety is not lost to us. Of the thousands of hand-made copies of the Bible made before 1500 CE, more than 5,300 Greek manuscripts from the New Testament still exist. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 confirmed the reliability of some of the copies of the Old Testament made over the years, with only trivial differences in spelling present, and certainly nothing that altered the doctrine of anything written. The transmission of the ancient texts, the voluminous quantity of manuscript copies, the science of textual criticism, and the always-improving art of translation have ensured that any reputable modern translation of the Bible is an accurate rendition of what was originally written.

But, even if we take the Bible at face value, you still have to make a leap of faith to accept it as fact. There is no definitive way to say "this is right" or "this is wrong". Just "this is what *I belive* to be right".

Insofar as I can weigh what evidence I am presented with to see whether it measures up to reality, this is true. Aside from the physical evidences I’ve mentioned thus far, there are also these considerations:

1. The fact that there is a universal idea amongst humanity about the existence of God suggests that He actually exists.
2. The notion that there must be a First Cause suggests that God exists.
3. The fact that the Universe is not self-creating, and is subject to entropy, suggests that a Creator God exists.
4. The fact that human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong, an internal sense that some things are “unfair”, suggests the existence of a moral Creator.

Now, none of these things prove God, but the weight of evidence points toward Him. And, again, the reality that the Bible presents is entirely consistent with these facts.

As for extremists - there are violent extremests in every religion…Yet most folks realize that these are extreme examples, and the average modern Christian would not act in such an atrocious manner.

This is true, but there are differences in what I’m talking about. This was the case with the argument I had on New Year’s Eve, too: I’m not talking about extremists who take things out of context, I’m talking about the context itself.

There is no doubt that many terrors have been visited upon other human beings by people claiming the name of Jesus as their motivation. Some Christians today do this, and need to repent of it (I’m not in the position to decide whether these people are actually Christians or not, but Paul provides a gauge in his letter to the Galatians (5:19-25) that doesn’t look good for these folks).

The difference here is that David Koresh, Jim Jones, and the perpetrators of the Inquisition can be demonstrably shown to have been acting in defiance and ignorance of Jesus’s originally stated principles, betraying the example of His life. The Bible clearly condemns the actions that these people took. [As for the Crusades, I would argue that they were primarily a political action, and were not entirely unprovoked, but I see no need to try to defend them in the context of this argument (nor would I claim that they were waged according to the principles of Just War, which is a whole other kettle of fish).]

In Islam, terrorists like Osama Bin Laden have been able to legitimately claim that the Qur’an supports their actions because the Qur’an and the example of Muhammed’s life does support them. There are a great number of passages in the Qur’an which are supposedly direct commands from God to Muhammed and the Muslim community, commanding them to kill unbelievers: Sura 2:190-193, Sura 2:216, Sura 3:157-158, Sura 3:169, Sura 3:195, Sura 4:89, Sura 4:101, Sura 5:33, Sura 8:12-13, Sura 9:5, Sura 9:29, Sura 47:4... (I’d give full quotes here, but I’ve spent a lot of time on this already; if you can’t look them up, I can post them in full later; in any case, some of these are pretty hair-raising in their brutality).

Those instances in the Old Testament where God commands the Israelites to kill an enemy are always given with parameters: they are actions to be waged against a specific people for a specific time and a specific purpose. There is not one single restriction placed on any of these commands in the Qur’an; they are for all Muslim peoples at all times.

In closing, I’ll quote a fellow whose writing I respect quite a lot, Francis Schaeffer: “True spirituality cannot be abstracted from truth at one end, nor from the whole man and the whole culture at the other. If there is a true spirituality, it must encompass all. The Bible insists that truth is one - and it is almost the sole surviving system in this generation that does.”

OK - Now that was good stuff. More clear I think.

...goes to go practice some more...

Kudos, Mr. Paker. Excellent explanation.

The trick is to put this stuff up the first time, so people don't have the opportunity to misunderstand.

Thanks...I think.

I'll be honest with you guys, I didn't think I was that unclear the first time, but I'll take your word for it.

Devin,

You are definitely bold, but you are also self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant if indeed you mean what you say. Your post is prime example of the religion-based hatred that is currently plaguing this country.

You make blanket statements about a very large, very diverse group of people, but how much do you really know about Islam? How many Islamic people have you met? Are your sources of information free of bias?

Consider the “great” Christian, Pat Robertson. If someone were to form their opinion of Christianity based on his statements, such as the most recent suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke was divine punishment for "dividing God's land", I don’t imagine they would think highly of it. It’s easy to sit in your own little world and condemn those who live or worship differently--the real challenge in life is to go out and try to see other sides, and realize that the world is very complicated. There are few (if any) absolutes when you look at things with a critical eye.

I know, I know, you have the absolute figured out—it’s God. I’m not even going to get into the issue about guiding your whole life by quoting a book that was written centuries ago by fallible human hands, translated, copied, etc. There have been thousands of religions throughout history and thousands of Gods. How is it that you can be so arrogant about having everything figured out just right? You certainly have a right to think so, but does that mean you have a right to spread hatred of other faiths? It makes you no better than the Islamic sects that push violence and hatred of Western culture.

As “silverstah” stated, Christianity has its share of extremism and questionable actions. The Crusades were an excuse to rape and pillage through eastern Europe and the Middle East. Christians burned “witches”, supported slavery for hundreds of years, and exterminated Native American groups who refused to believe in their God. And recently Christians started a relatively meaningless war for greed and power, resulting in the death of thousands of innocent civilians. But perhaps the death of Arabs is acceptable because they may be Islamic….

You state that people need renewal of their minds, but your views come straight out of the Middle Ages. If nothing else, your post has helped strengthen my resolve to never support an organized religion.

Kham

Yikes and double yikes.

Kham, your arguments are deep seated and clearly come from a lot of anger--I guess there's a lot of that to go around.

Two things I will point out, though, are your ad hominem and poisoning the well attacks. Some small subset of Christians may suggest that Pat Robertson is a "'great' Christian," but most thinking people of faith I know dismiss his more outlandish statements as his own personal issues. I have no reason to think that Robertson speaks for God--and it's rather unfair to peg other believers by suggesting he's the highpoint of Christian belief. Should be hold up Josef Stalin as a "great" atheist?

Secondly, what I assume to be your references to the Iraq War are attributing to "Christians" what are essentially political issues. Because President Bush is a Christian does not mean that the broad category of "Christians" began the war. Perhaps that was not the intent of your statement--that rather you meant that a believer in Christ was the major impetus behind the war--but, again, I wouldn't suggest that any particular believer be held up as the "model" of others. In fact, that's exactly what you accuse Devin of doing: choosing the most extreme or notable of those associated with beliefs and using them alone as the beginning and end of your arguments. Thinking, believing Christians stand on many sides of the War, and almost all of them hold more complex beliefs than you give them credit for--as does Devin.

Devin responded to criticisms of his argument with reasoned discourse, factual information, and an even tone. You haven't addressed his arguments (the strong historical and logical case for Christianity, the differences between Christian and Islamic doctrine, etc.), and are, in fact, fomenting exactly the kind of hatred and attack you accuse him of. I'm afraid you aren't showing that those outside of "organized religion" are any more reasonable than those inside it...

Mike,

You make my point exactly--is it fair to assume that because America started a questionable war that all Christians in America support it? That is the kind of blanket statement Devin makes in his post.

I would never blame all Christians for the ills of the world, in fact I believe that most are very good people, and the basic ideals of Christianity are essential for civilization (thou shalt not kill, etc). The problem is that there will always be those people who would twist it and use it to their own ends. How do you know which Christian leader to trust? There are many who believe Pat Robertson is just following God's laws.

For me to address Devin's historical and logical case for Christianity would be useless---there is also a strong historical and logical case against it. The bottom line is that religions require faith to fill in that which cannot be proven.

You are right, I am angry. I've listened to this kind of religious ethnocentrism long enough. I'm tired of standing by while the pot calls the proverbial kettle black. Christians need to spend less time condemning others to eternal damnation, and more time spreading a message of love and tolerance.

Kham

OK - My $0.02...

The problem with the initial post Devin put up there - aside from anything else - is that angry rants beget angry rants.

Kham and I found this out when we went backpacking... We both started our "political" conversation with angry rants and we filled the pristine Sierra wilderness with a loud, mostly pointless conversation.

Then we settled down and started talking in more even tones, and found a couple of interesting things. For one, we discovered that we agreed on more things that we had thought. For two, we got a deep understanding of *why* the other believes the way he does on things we disagree on.

Posting a ranting, angry blog post like this may feel good, and make you feel like you're "getting it all off your chest" but its undisciplined and unproductive. Kham and Silverstah are the prime examples. Neither is going to be "Anti-Christian" in a normal conversation, but a post like this one can bring it out in them.

The dialogue has gone no where and no one has been convinced of anything. We're all just miffed. Not useful, in my (never very) humble opinion.

Chris

So you say Silverstah and I are "Anti-Christian", but Devin is not. Am I to take it then that his words reflect a Christian view? If so, you can dub me Anti-Christian any day.

Kham

OK... everybody take a deep breath. I wasn't trying to use the phrase as an insult or anything. I've spoken with you and heard from Silverstah enough to know that while you don't always agree with me, we can have good conversations about the stuff.

My point was that I thought that the tone of Devin's post led to the whole conversation happening in an angry way, where in the past we've been able to discuss it in a non-angry way.

I wasn't addressing the content of the post, or your comments since at this point I think the tone is such that a productive conversation isn't going to happen.

I do, however think that you are a Bonehead. :)

Little brother,

You are correct, productive conversation is not going to happen. There really is no point in discussing hatred and religious ethnocentrism if one side is going to base most of their arguments on biblical scripture and Christian belief.

I agree to disagree with Devin.

Instead let's talk about euthanasia, the teaching of intelligent design, the death penalty, abortion, and gay marriage!

Actually, we both like nuclear power, so we're safe talking about that....

Kham,

I'm pretty frustrated right now. You know we agree on more than that. The two of us found a lot of common ground when we discussed abortion, if you'll remember.

We would probably also find a lot of common ground in regards to euthanasia and the death penalty (do you even know what my views are there?).

Reading back over the whole progression, I do regret using the term "Anti-Christian" describing your comments and Laura's. That didn't really convey what I meant. I was just trying to make the point that a "hot" blog post begat "hot" responses.

At any rate - I'm done here. As I said, we're not actually discussing truth any more, we're just arguing.

Chris

Chris - I think you're right; it's my fault for making my post immediately after reading those articles I linked to. I was still in a 'hot' frame of mind, and I could have been a lot more diplomatic in the way I expressed my convictions.

Kham - My responses (again, kind of lengthy):

You make blanket statements about a very large, very diverse group of people, but how much do you really know about Islam? How many Islamic people have you met?

When we moved to Minneapolis, my first job was working for Wells Fargo, in one of their mail distribution centers. The crew I worked with were roughly 90% African Muslims. I got to observe them as they fasted and prayed during Ramadan, and I had some interesting theological discussions with one of them (as well as an atheist fellow). I’ve read web logs written by Muslims living in various places in the Middle East, autobiographical comics by an Iranian Muslim, and firsthand accounts by former Muslims who have become Christians and live in the Middle East, Indonesia, and America. I get my gasoline from a Muslim-operated gas station down on the corner. I’ve read about the history of Muhammed, the Five Pillars of Islam, Sharia law, and Islamic attitudes toward women and non-Muslims from sources both secular and religious.

Having said this, I don’t think that who I know matters. I’ve never met any Soviet Russians, and while I’m sure that many were fine people and loved their children, that didn’t make Soviet Communism more palatable a philosophy. I’m not talking about the people as individuals, I’m talking about the basis of their religion, which significantly influences their governments and cultures (to a far greater degree than Christianity informs American culture). I’m justified in making blanket statements about Muslims in this sense because I’m addressing that which all who identify themselves as Muslims draw their religious identity from.

Once again, let me stress: I’ve been speaking primarily in condemnation against their religion.

Are your sources of information free of bias?

I think that’s a legitimate question, and it’s something that I’ve been concerned about as well. I’ve been learning about Islam and about the cultural system that has developed around it, and the process has been slow; I first started investigating this stuff after 9/11, and I regret that I haven’t had the luxury of time to devote more than a few hours at any given time to researching it. I will admit that some of my sources were most likely biased: they’re people who used to be Muslims and have now rejected that in order to follow Jesus. Yet even they recognize that their biases will make their statements subject to intense skepticism - after all, they’re writing in an attempt to convince their fellow practicing Muslims of what they’ve learned. They’ve thus taken great care to state their arguments (which, I will admit, are far more delicately worded than my original post, but then, I wasn’t writing to Muslims and I wouldn’t speak to them about it in the same way I did on my blog) with copious quotations from the Qur’an and from their own experiences that Muslims would recognize as legitimate.

I’ve been trying to purchase a copy of the Qur’an for myself, but it’s been difficult in that I want to find a reputable English translation…and most Muslims would call that a contradiction in terms, as they would posit that one must read the Qur’an in Arabic to truly understand it. I disagree, as translation is translation, and much of this appears to be “religious ethnocentrism,” as you put it. I’d also prefer not to go through a group like CAIR to get it, because I find their politics questionable at best, and have no desire to be put on their mailing list.

Consider the “great” Christian, Pat Robertson. [snip] The problem is that there will always be those people who would twist it and use it to their own ends. How do you know which Christian leader to trust? There are many who believe Pat Robertson is just following God's laws.

The only way in which we can discern this is by examining the words and behavior of the Founder and see how they match up. The Gospels give accounts of how Jesus lived his life, and Paul summarizes the criteria in Galatians 5:19-26. Similarly, compare Osama Bin Laden to Muhammed and the commands given in the Qur’an and see if they match up.

It’s easy to sit in your own little world and condemn those who live or worship differently--the real challenge in life is to go out and try to see other sides, and realize that the world is very complicated. There are few (if any) absolutes when you look at things with a critical eye.

My experience has shown the opposite to be true. The closer I look, the more critically I assess things, the more absolutes appear. The more I see that politics and human trends are cyclical, temporary, and fueled by the same motivations and human flaws that have existed since the beginning of recorded history. The more I investigate, the more I see that there is a transcendent moral structure built into the warp and weave of the Universe, from which no human being can be exempted.

I agree that it would be easy to sit here and condemn others for being different; that requires no investigation or introspection. What I’m doing, however, is condemning a belief system that I have concluded from examination to be false and harmful. Would you accuse me of doing the same if I had complained about Naziism?

I know, I know, you have the absolute figured out—it’s God.

To the best of my knowledge. That’s far from claiming to know everything, mind you. I wouldn’t say that I completely understand God, either. I still have a lot of questions that I haven’t learned the answers to, and I worry sometimes that I may never find out, that even when I’m brought into the presence of God someday, He may decide not to tell me. But I’m convinced that the God of the Bible is the true God, yes.

I’m not even going to get into the issue about guiding your whole life by quoting a book that was written centuries ago by fallible human hands, translated, copied, etc.

I’ll refer you to the things I said to Silverstah about the transmission of the Bible, and why that’s a non-issue. As for guiding my life according to it, is there an inherent error in trying to live according to ancient principles? Does age negate their applicability to humans? Did the ancients not understand what people are like? If that’s the case, then we really should ignore Plato and Socrates, Aristophanes, Homer, and all the rest…though it does beg the question of where to place the deadline for relevance. When did authors begin to understand humanity, and why? I would argue that while age in itself doesn’t establish whether something is true or not, it would suggest that there is enough truth present within it to withstand the test of time and generations of scrutiny. Thus far the Bible has stood up quite well.

I’m guessing by your implication (and correct me if I’m wrong, please) that you don’t believe that God was involved in the writing of the Biblical books. The writings themselves testify that they were inspired by God, and Jesus himself claimed the same, so either he must be lying or he was mistaken, and thus, shouldn‘t be trusted.

There have been thousands of religions throughout history and thousands of Gods. How is it that you can be so arrogant about having everything figured out just right?

Well, like I said earlier, I don’t think I’ve got everything figured out. Far from it. But I’ve concluded that the God of the Bible is the true God. I’ve been convinced of it by evidence, by example, and by my own personal experience. Being a Christian means taking Christ at his word, trusting that He’ll deliver on it, but as I said to Silverstah, I didn’t arrive by that conviction in a vacuum.

You certainly have a right to think so, but does that mean you have a right to spread hatred of other faiths? It makes you no better than the Islamic sects that push violence and hatred of Western culture.

Well, I haven’t yet sawed anyone’s head off for being an unbeliever, so I’ll argue that I’ve at least got a little farther to fall before I‘m on the “same level” as they. My original post was strongly-worded, and as I was addressing in some part the political situation the world is currently in, I must concede that I am not opposed to our country taking military measures to defend ourselves. But I never advocated the murder of individual Muslims, I never advocated the invasion of Muslim countries over the fact that they are Muslim, and I don’t have a plan for world domination.

I’ll also argue that I have a right to tell others what I’ve discovered about other religions for the same reasons that you say I have a right to think as I do. In fact, I have a right for the same reason that you have a right to tell me how wrong I am.

As “silverstah” stated, Christianity has its share of extremism and questionable actions.

And as I said to her, while that is true and absolutely lamentable, those atrocities were performed in violation of Jesus’s words and example; they are not true reflections of Christianity. Islamic terrorism, as far as I have seen, is not contradicted by Muhammed’s example or his words, but endorsed; it is a true reflection of Islam.

For me to address Devin's historical and logical case for Christianity would be useless---there is also a strong historical and logical case against it.

Kham, I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but that sounds like a cop-out. Could you at least provide me with some examples?

The bottom line is that religions require faith to fill in that which cannot be proven.

In the same way that a person requires faith to sit down in a chair. One may learn the history of the chair, one may become familiar with the materials it’s made from, and one may even observe others sitting in the chair, but until one actually decides to trust the chair and sit in it, one cannot know whether it will support his weight or snap underneath him. At some point, you obtain all the information you can about it, and you have to make a decision one way or another based on that information.

I think it’s just that it feels safer to be a doubter than a believer.

Christians need to spend less time condemning others to eternal damnation, and more time spreading a message of love and tolerance.

I respect you, Kham, but our directives come from Jesus, and he never said anything about tolerance. In my experience, ‘tolerance’ is just a pretty word for apathy: “You can go on believing whatever you want just so long as it doesn’t infringe upon me.” On the contrary, Jesus stressed compassion, part of which means caring enough about other people to share the truth that you’ve been given. Most every healing that Jesus performed was accompanied by a warning: “Go and sin no more.” As Paul explained in his letter to the Romans, God came to us and gave us His laws so that we would no longer be ignorant of how sinful we actually are (Rom. 1:18-3:20); as this was a crucial part of the process of providing a means that we might avoid Hell, this is a great act of love. Jesus told us to “go and make disciples of all nations…teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19-20).” Warning and instruction is part of the job.

Up until now, I haven’t said anything about eternal damnation. I said that I wanted Muslims to know God, to experience the joy of being personally, individually, and corporately enthralled by Him. Yet damnation is something that Jesus mentioned frequently. If Hell does exist, is it compassionate to keep silent about it, never warning anyone about it? I have no power to condemn anyone to Hell, not any more than I have the power to save myself from it. That’s entirely the province of God, and He’s warned us that it will be the destination of those who choose it by rejecting His atonement (as Dorothy Sayers said, “Hell is the enjoyment of our own way forever.”). While I’m aware that there are those who use the horror of Hell as a means to bully people for their own ends, that abusive behavior doesn’t negate Hell’s existence. What good is it if I spread a message of love that doesn’t include anything about God’s holiness, our sinfulness, and His impending justice? What good is it to work to make the world a better place to go to Hell from?

I guess my main point here is that your argument suggests a dichotomy between a message of damnation and a message of love. I’m saying that, Biblically, both messages go together. One cannot fully appreciate the depth and wonder of God’s love until one understands how grievous our crimes against Him and all Creation are, how deeply we’ve wounded His heart, and how far He was willing to go in order to provide us with a reprieve. Our ability to love others is of a limited capacity, tending toward selfishness, until it’s fully realized in loving God, and we’re thus enabled by His Holy Spirit to be truly selfless in expressing it.

There really is no point in discussing hatred and religious ethnocentrism if one side is going to base most of their arguments on biblical scripture and Christian belief.

What other frame of reference would you prefer that I used? You seem to imply that there is a neutral ground from which to argue these things. What is it? You’ve told me that it’s Wrong to preach damnation, but Right to preach love and tolerance; you’ve said that religion-based hatred is Wrong and that hypocrisy is Wrong. May I ask from what source are you deriving this moral code? The fact that you condemn me according to it suggests that it is a transcendent, universal moral code that applies to all people. What is its source?

One more thing: You’ve inferred from your arguments that for one to claim that one knows the Truth is Wrong. Paradoxically, despite the existence of “thousands of religions,” you’ve stated your refusal to support any of them. Isn’t that an arrogant proclamation that You Know Better, according to your own standards?

I agree to disagree with Devin.

Unfortunately, I can’t do this. I apologize; I can’t agree to disagree. The stakes are far too high. I can’t force you to continue this conversation, but I’m always open to picking up where we left off.

What I can promise is that I still consider you my friend, Kham, and that I don’t think any less of you as a human being because we’ve had this argument. I know, magnanimous of me, isn’t it? ;)

Dear Kham,

If anyone around here is going to be self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant it’s going to be me. I’m like the Supreme Queen of Self-Centered Arrogance so don’t go giving my crown away just yet. I’m going to be bold and call things like I see them. Since I don’t really know you I could be wrong, but I’ll chance a guess based on your comments. I mean if we’re not going to be real and speak from our hearts then there really is no point in conversing, right? *She says trying to gently tread upon the ever-so-many already crushed eggshells that litter cyberspace, knowing that at any moment she may have to run for her life.*

You said: “you are also self-centered, arrogant, and ignorant…It’s easy to sit in your own little world and condemn those who live or worship differently…There are few (if any) absolutes…guiding your whole life by quoting a book that was written centuries ago by fallible human hands, translated, copied, etc. There have been thousands of religions throughout history and thousands of Gods. How is it that you can be so arrogant about having everything figured out just right?”

These words you use so passionately sound like words of someone who is angry at God and angry at His church. I would be even so bold as to suggest that you’ve been deeply wounded by the latter and you’ve been looking for a “fight” ever since. My guess is that the above statements are really things you’ve been shouting at God from your heart for a very long time.

It would seem at first that you’ve been looking for a target against which to launch your attack. However, I posit that you are not as upset with Devin as you pretend and that you trust him a lot more than you think. What you’ve really done is put him to the test and you want to know, does he really believe what he says, will he truly act toward you the way a true follower of Christ ought to, and will he be able to give you any answers that satisfy? I hope the answer to the first two of these will be yes, but only God can satisfy your heart.

You said: “The bottom line is that religions require faith to fill in that which cannot be proven.”

Let’s talk about Christianity and faith. I have a different view of faith then you do. I don’t think it has anything to do with what cannot be proven. Let me start at the beginning with Abraham. Well, let me start first by stating that we both must agree for a moment that the Bible is a historical document that is factual to at least some degree. Abraham didn’t look around him and decide there must be a God, he didn’t think “well I’m here and that tree over there is here so someone has to be responsible for that so I’ll just call him God and I think this is what he’s like,” that’s considered idolatry. What happened with Abraham, remember he’s considered to have had great faith, is that God spoke to him, offered to enter into a covenant with him and Abraham believed God. Faith is taking God at His word, believing that God is who He says he is and will do what He says He will do. This is the root of Christianity taking God at His word and believing that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do. The Bible is what it is because it is the divinely inspired Word of God, it is God’s way of communicating to man who He is and what He’ll do. If you don’t think so then ask God. If the root of Christianity is Faith in God’s word then the heart of Christianity talking with God about his word, a.k.a. prayer or developing a personal relationship with God.

If you don’t think God is who He says He is, or that He’ll do what He has promised He will do according to His Word, then tell Him. Test His Word, challenge Him. If there is one person that can take all the abuse you can dish out and still look you in the eye (so to speak) and say with genuine earnest “I still love you,” it’s God. Don’t believe God because we say so, believe God because He, the great I AM, says so.

You said: “Christians need to spend less time condemning others to eternal damnation, and more time spreading a message of love and tolerance.”

I’ll respond to that with the this thought, once again speaking about Christians based on Christian belief in the Bible. Since the fall of the first man and woman all men and women have been condemned to death; therefore, to be fair and just God had to a) inform man of this condemnation to death (or communicate/write down the law) and b) offer man a way to be saved from death (send Christ to redeem us from the law). The message of Christianity is not one of tolerance, if tolerance means denying Christ, there is one way to be saved from death and that is Christ. To suggest anything else would be a lie. (Death meaning eternal separation from God.) But it is a message of love, “for God so loved the world.”

I’ll leave you with my favorite passage of scripture John 3:1-21 (NKJ):
“There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, "Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him." Jesus answered and said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Nicodemus said to Him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?" Jesus answered, "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." Nicodemus answered and said to Him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Are you the teacher of Israel, and do not know these things? Most assuredly, I say to you, We speak what We know and testify what We have seen, and you do not receive Our witness. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God."”

Dude, Devin,

When you take the time to carefully lay out your arguments, you are a skilled apologist. Not that I didn't know this, but these examples really drive it home.

Well done, sir.

Devin

Finally, the guy I wanted to talk to in the first place!

I admire how polite and measured your last response was--you really now how to ruin a good rant.

But I still feel that some of your ideas and arguments are questionable, and have not been "driven home".

I will get back to you at first opportunity....

Kham

This is all very interesting! Great to read that you are such thinkers and want to share.
Remember, Jesus' life was about love.

Since you posted a lengthy clarification post following your first post, I will concentrate on the content of your clarification.
And I will even use your format, which seems to be popular around these parts.

You stated:

"My hatred is not leveled against Muslims (the people), but against Islam (the religion)."

The problem is, you can’t separate the two that easily. Islam is what Muslims choose to practice, therefore it is a part of them. Its current form was molded by their culture. You speak of Islam as if it was an invading foreign entity, but it started right there in the heart of the Middle East.

To put it in perspective, if you were to list the top five words that identify who you are, wouldn't "Christian" be in the top five? I hope you can see that by attacking the religion you attack the people to some degree.

"If I hated Muslims, why should I be bothered by the oppression that they live under? I instead would argue that my hatred of Islam is based on my compassion for Muslims."

A Muslim is not going to see your compassion in using the word hate. It is so important to try to look at things from the other perspective. If someone says, “I hate Christianity”, I think most Christians would naturally feel defensive to some degree. That’s the power of the word HATE. When you use it, you don’t solve anything or help improve relations (which is ultimately what needs to happen unless you believe in genocide), you do the opposite.

"As I said, I hate what Islam has done to these people, leading them toward a bitter and fruitless end, away from understanding of the Living God."

This is a prime example of religious ethnocentrism. Based on the religion you have chosen to believe, you are condemning a group of people to a bitter and fruitless end, since they don’t have everything figured out like you do. Don’t you think people of all religions for thousands of years have been saying the same thing about other religions? Honestly, it’s dialogue like this that comes off as arrogance and pushes people away from exploring Christianity. I can read and enjoy the wisdom in Buddhist material because they have a degree of acceptance for other religions, believing that everyone is essentially seeking the same thing. No one wants to talk to a know-it-all.

more later....

Kham,

I'm hesitant to jump back into this debate because (a) you seem interested in just conversing with Devin, and (b) I'm sure Devin can mount his own defense as he has done a bang-up job of so far. There's also a (c), that I get myself all tied up on knots about discussions like these that simultaneously make me want to stay way the hell away from them while also compelling me to address those things that are of import to me. Therefore, I offer these comments in the spirit of continued polylogue (as opposed to dialogue, see), and I hope that is acceptable.

"To put it in perspective, if you were to list the top five words that identify who you are, wouldn't "Christian" be in the top five? I hope you can see that by attacking the religion you attack the people to some degree."

In some ways I agree with you here, in that such statements immediately inflame response (as we've seen). I'm guessing Devin was writing to his usual audience who would know him and read his arguments charitably, but you're correct--any Muslim who came across the original post might well feel attacked, or at least put off.

On the other hand, your argument that a belief is inseparable from those who hold it, I would posit, is false. Yes, it shapes their character, but their character remains intact and can continue to be molded by other influences as well.

Say you meet a white supremacist member of the Aryan Stormfront named Jed. I'm going to guess that you, as I and most people I can name, would find the philosophy of Aryan supremacy pretty distasteful. Would I be wrong to tell Jed that I am totally and utterly opposed to his beliefs? And if that is so, is it not fair to say that I hate his beliefs? In fact, I'll be so PC as to say such beliefs are wrong and repugnant.

At the same time, I'm not saying I hate Jed for his beliefs. I'd say he was sorely mislead, possibly had a really faulty or ugly worldview and background, but I wouldn't feel hatred of him. In fact, the compassionate part of me would like to see Jed abandon those philosophies and find healthier beliefs in his life.

Or would that be unkind of me? I'm guessing you wouldn't want me to say, "I hate you, Jed, as a person and what you stand for," but I also hope you wouldn't advocate me saying, "Well, I don't agree with you, Jed, but as long as you really, truly, sincerely believe in racism, that's your own business and I respect your choice." At least, I really hope no one's okay with that.

Being a rational, reasonable, and generally peaceable guy in a country of laws and rights, I would not attack Jed to injure him or try to cause him harm in other ways; he would be perfectly within his rights to think and believe anything he wants, and even speak out about it. But I would feel that I had shirked my duty if I merely kept quiet and did not seek to voice my strenuous objections. In an ideal world (far from my apathy and self-centeredness), I'd seek to show him why his beliefs are so hurtful and convince him to give them up. I suspect you believe that educating others as to what you think is right and condemning what you see as wrong is important to you as well, since you are engaged in trying to educate Devin and some others of us as to what you see as the "wrongness" of our stance. That's a good thing.

Would it be better to let Jed continue on, his head and heart full of darkness and hatred, just to preserve some kind of weak-kneed "love" that is really just apathy and a desire to avoid conflict? If so, then why are we fighting sexism, or racism, or terrorism, or any of the many other "-isms" out there? To use Devin's example, would it have been better for the US in the 1940s to just shrug and say, "Well, Nazism isn't for us, but they seem to really put their faith in it and it certainly shapes their character. Live and let live"?

The whole upshot here is, again, that one absolutely can reject someone's beliefs without rejecting the person him or herself. And the compassionate, loving person wouldn't let someone with dangerous beliefs continue holding them without challenge.

On that: any objection along the lines of, "Well, sure, but racism is wrong, while religion is someone's personal beliefs," has no ground at all to stand on. Every set of beliefs is personal in that sense, and simply because a majority of society now deems a particular belief to be "wrong" doesn't somehow give that judgment a greater legitimacy. Likewise, if racism is really "wrong" morally, then it wouldn't matter how much of the population supported it--it would remain morally repugnant.

Therefore, no percentage of the population believing that something is acceptable or unacceptable changes its absolute moral position. If you want to argue against that (in support of moral relativism), then you're forced to accept that slavery in early America was fine, because the majority of the population believed it to be acceptable; likewise, Nazism was just as valid for Germany in the 1930s and '40s as democracy and freedom are for us now in 2006. Are you prepared to defend that position?

"A Muslim is not going to see your compassion in using the word hate. It is so important to try to look at things from the other perspective. If someone says, 'I hate Christianity', I think most Christians would naturally feel defensive to some degree. That’s the power of the word HATE. When you use it, you don’t solve anything or help improve relations (which is ultimately what needs to happen unless you believe in genocide), you do the opposite."

Really? Always?

I hate pornography. I don't hate any actual pornographers (since I'm not familiar with any), but I detest the whole business. If I could shut down the industry and do away with it entirely, I would do so without a regret.

Now, if anyone reading this is a pornographer, I'm sorry, but that is my sentiment, backed by my morality and beliefs. Many is the pornographer who would (and does) defend their trade as legal, morally unobjectionable (heck, some psychologists suggest pornography is healthy), and a legitimate business. But I hate what pornography does to women, inexorably making them objects of lust and unhealthy fantasy. I hate what pornography does to men (and I include myself in that number), the way it warps their view of sexuality and love and feeds a natural impulse until it becomes bloated and twisted.

Yes, there are times when it would be appropriate to sit down with a pornographer and say, "Look, I know you think what you're doing is okay, but I disagree"; however, I'd also argue there's a time and place to simply say, "No--this is wrong. I don't accept that this is legitimate, and even if there are some scraps of arguments that could be made in its favor, its negative consequences far outweigh any purported benefits. It is ugly and reprehensible." Sometimes a dialogue is useful, and sometimes a straightforward, plain and clear condemnation is necessary.

And sometimes bold sentiment can penetrate layers of self-defense and self-certainty in ways that safe, non-threatening discussion cannot. For instance, had Devin simply said, "Yeah, I'm not fond of some Islamic beliefs, but hey--live and let live," I'm guessing none of this discussion would have occurred in the first place, and none of us would have been challenged to engage with others and their beliefs. Unambiguous, direct statements should perhaps be used judiciously and sparingly, but they absolutely have their place. After all, despite all the suggestions on here that Jesus is all about love and tolerance and some kind of meek, milquetoast goodwill toward everybody, the Christ who spoke kindly to the adulteress at the well and ate with tax collectors is the same Christ who cursed the Pharisees as "vipers" and "whitewashed tombs," and turned over the tables of the moneychangers in the temple.

"This is a prime example of religious ethnocentrism. Based on the religion you have chosen to believe, you are condemning a group of people to a bitter and fruitless end, since they don’t have everything figured out like you do. Don’t you think people of all religions for thousands of years have been saying the same thing about other religions?"

This has been an issue that has raised my hackles since the beginning of the discussion. Many of your objections (and most against Christianity that I've ever heard) are based not on logic or reason, but on emotional response. You objection seems to boil down to, "You have to be arrogant to believe you know the truth, and it's mean and hurtful to suggest that other people are wrong." That may sound nice and friendly, but it has no logical basis at all. Trust me--I teach logical argumentation.

Your implicit (and sometimes explicit) stance seems to be that because so many sets of beliefs claim to be true, and they often disagree, none of them can be totally true. That's not a valid argument. It would be fair to argue that since many sets of beliefs contradict one another, they cannot all be true. The number of belief systems claiming to be true has no bearing on how many (if any) actually are true.

The only logical responses to these circumstances are, in fact, these:

1) No belief system is true.

2) Parts of some or all belief systems are true and some parts are false.

3) One (or more than one, if they are compatible) belief system is totally true, and all others are false.

You stated, "I can read and enjoy the wisdom in Buddhist material because they have a degree of acceptance for other religions, believing that everyone is essentially seeking the same thing." This would appear to be because their set of beliefs ("everyone is essentially seeking the same thing"--and my old roommate, now a Buddhist priest, would, I suspect, argue strenuously that this is not true at all) matches with what you feel is good. Tolerance is a virtue you like and treat as though it were a "truth" (i.e.: "We should all tolerate each other's beliefs, and it's wrong not to"); meanwhile, you find no contradiction in condemning what you see as intolerance (and your intolerance of intolerance doesn't seem to upset you).

Tolerance is a moral value, a choice and a belief--one which you place higher than "truth," seemingly because you believe that we can never know what the "truth" really is. Your earlier statements ("...the real challenge in life is to go out and try to see other sides, and realize that the world is very complicated. There are few (if any) absolutes when you look at things with a critical eye.") basically condemns us to never making a choice at all about any beliefs. Therefore, Wiccan, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, atheist, agnostic, Satanist, Little-Blue-Fairy-Worshipper, and all other systems are all correct and acceptable, even though their beliefs totally contradict one another. That's not a rational stance, and where one belief (i.e.: Christianity) claims it is exclusively true, then either it is true and others are not, or it is false and others still may or may not be true.

I'm not sure how the fact that "the world is very complicated" has anything to do with making moral choices. It might make them more difficult to discern, but complication does not somehow give us a pass to say, "Well, it's hard--it's impossible to decide. Any choice is just as valid as any other."

Consider the following statements:

(a) I am a human.
(b) I am a small dog.
(c) I am a toaster oven.
(d) I am American.
(e) I am Pakistani.
(f) I am Canadian.
(g) I am from San Diego.
(h) I am from St. Louis.
(i) I am from Los Angeles.
(j) I am morally conservative.
(k) I am economically liberal.
(l) I am politically centrist.
(m) I like ice cream.
(n) I like fettuccini.
(o) I dislike ice cream.

Now, given all these statements, hopefully it's obvious they can't all be true. But that doesn't mean that some of them aren't true and some of them aren't false. (a)-(c) are facts that should be obvious (at least, I don't think I'm a toaster oven...); (d)-(f) are facts that, while not obvious, you could make logical guesses about, and could check easily with a little work. (g)-(i) you could guess at, but with much less conviction--still, the answer would be obtainable with some work.

(j)-(l) are all statements of stance, and they all happen to be true. Still, one or more of them could have been false. You'd have to investigate my previous statements, check my voting records, and/or ask me outright (and trust my answers) to find out. However, since they don't make exclusive claims or contradict one another (for me, anyway), all possibilities of truth or falsehood are open.

(m)-(o), though, cause us pause. One of them may be right, but they cannot all be right. (m) and (n) could be right, or (n) and (o), or just (m), or just (o). But either (m) is right or (o) is--they cannot both be correct. Their claims are exclusive.

What's the point of this whole dull digression? Simply that it would be illogical to claim that neither (m) nor (o) is true simply because you don't know which is true. Whether you know something to be true or not doesn't invalidate its truthfulness. If it was a matter you cared about, you'd have to find out for yourself.

The statement that, "There are few (if any) absolutes when you look at things with a critical eye," has no logical standing, either, unless you are trying to convey that there are few moral values everybody agrees on. Again, that doesn't have any bearing on whether they are right or wrong. It simply says, "A lot of people claim to be right, and I don't care to investigate whether or not they are correct. Live and let live." Again, your "absolute" virtue of tolerance trumps all, one which you derive (I suspect) from the West's modern humanist set of beliefs, which are a set of moral judgments subject to all the same objections and questions that you have been raising about Christianity all along.

That means you have to engage with any set of beliefs on the level of the facts and logical reasoning that support it, and I'm afraid that meeting Devin's proofs with, "For me to address Devin's historical and logical case for Christianity would be useless---there is also a strong historical and logical case against it," doesn't actually answer anything satisfactorily. Produce the strong historical and logical facts against it, and we'll have a basis of reasoned discussion.

This has gone on far longer than even I expected, and I'm hesitant to even post it, but I will in the hopes that some part of it will contribute to the discussion. I'm more than happy to attempt to clarify any points if anyone has the patience for such a thing. Thanks for your patience.

Mike

I cetainly will post a logical and historical case against Christianity--now that you have invited it. But that is another topic, and I was trying to get back to the issue that inspired me to post in the first place--

Kham

Kham,

I thought I had addressed that original issue as well, in the first two parts of my post. I'd be happy to see a response to those as well (though I'd argue that the logical question is part and parcel of addressing the social and cultural/psychological issues).

Michael said, “Produce the strong historical and logical facts against it (Christianity), and we'll have a basis of reasoned discussion.”

OK

Christianity is a belief system based on the bible as a guiding principle. Effectively then, I would argue, if a logical or historical case is made against the bible, it is made against Christianity as well. Therefore I will use examples from the bible to make my case:

THE HISTORICAL CASE
It seems likely that much of the historical information in the bible is indeed true, or at least reflects the truth. Many of the various kings, nations, and major occurrences referred to have been found to be supported by archaeological evidence. However, it’s the prehistoric data that can be called in to question.

Genesis outlines the creation of all things in seven days. This is not at all consistent with the current near consensus among scientists that it has taken over 4 billion years for earth to take its present form. The estimate is based on the measured age of the oldest rocks on earth (found in Australia).

I have heard the argument that the description is metaphorical, that each day represents a very long period of time as considered a day by God. Let’s assume that each day is an epoch, there still remains a problem with the sequence of creation and the sequence of species found in the fossil record.

On the third day of Creation the bible says “The land produced vegetation; plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds.” Land plants have been found in the fossil record as far back as 475 million years ago.

“On the fifth day the bible states, “So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems.” Assuming we’re talking about God length days still, the fifth day would be considerably later than the third day. But the fossil record shows that the first life actually occurred in the ocean approximately 4 billion years ago, much sooner than plant life on land.

As for humans, the fossil record shows the emergence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa around 100,000 years ago, very recent in Earth’s history. Mark Twain said about this, "If the Eiffel Tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age--and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower was built for”. I like Mr. Twain’s shot at humans for tending to consider themselves the focal point of everything.

Speaking of humans, the fossil record also indicates a gradual evolution of various human ancestor species over time from a common ancestor with chimpanzees approximately 5 million years ago. This relationship not only appears in the fossil record, but in our DNA as well—we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees! This development through time of a modern human is not consistent with the creation of man as put forth in the bible.

My argument assumes that one does not consider fossils a hoax or curiosity placed in the ground by God to stimulate Man’s curiosity (arguments I have heard). If that is the case, then we are pretty much done here. Though there are gaps to fill, and species relationships to clarify, there is an overwhelming amount of consistent fossil data, and the dating methods have been well tested—and continue to improve. The biblical origin simply does not stand up to the mass of tangible evidence we have of a long gradual change of the Earth through time.

It’s late, so the logical argument vs. Christianity will have to wait….

Wow! You guys haven't been slacking, have you?

I'm working on my responses to your posts now, Kham - I'll get back on and post them as soon as I can.

Michael said, “Produce the strong historical and logical facts against it (Christianity), and we'll have a basis of reasoned discussion.”

I have posted my historical case, using the Bible as the literary representation of Christianity. Now—

THE LOGICAL CASE

The Bible is littered with content that defies logic. I will use a few examples again, starting with Genesis:

On the sixth day of Creation “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground” (Adam) and thereafter he made a woman (Eve) from one of Adam’s ribs. The account then states that they had their first two sons, Cain and Abel. After the killing of Abel, the Bible reads, So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch”.

Wait a minute. Where did Cain’s wife come from? Logically, I would assume that there must have been some other parallel Creation in Nod. But then how are Adam and Eve to be known as the father and mother of the human race?

Noah and the Great Flood also presents problems. The Bible states that God directed Noah to build an ark “450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high” (I think the original dimensions were in cubits, but this is what my Bible says. Then God commanded Noah to bring into the ark “two of all living creatures, male and female...two of every kind of bird, every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you and be kept alive”. It’s pretty clear that everything that can’t swim for 40 days was brought on board. Also taken was “every kind of food to be eaten”.

The number of named terrestrial species worldwide is in the neighborhood of 1.4 million. Just to put things in perspective—there are 267 species of gazelle alone; 980 species of bat (no they can’t fly for 40 days), thousands of species of rodents, etc.

And this is certain to be only a fraction of the real number of species, as most insects have not been formally named, and new species are discovered on a continual basis. Estimates of what the actual number may be range from 4 to 40 million. It also does not include species which have gone extinct since the time of Noah—such as the Tasmanian wolf and Dodo.

But even if you go with the lowest number, you have to multiply that number of species by two (male and female) to get a low estimate of the number of creatures/animals Noah had to get on the ark—2.8 million.. And don’t forget space for the 40 days worth of food—elephants and rhinos have big appetites, and carnivores need to eat meat, so you need additional animals on board for them.

There is another problem. The world was flooded by rain water, which eventually would have mixed with ocean water to form a big diluted soup, causing mass extinctions of both sea and fresh water animals suited only to one or the either.. Should have put some aquariums on that ark, Noah!

I’m not going to waste my time doing the math—square footage on the ark vs. mass of animals and supplies. It is simply an illogical tale, and there is no way it could take place as described in the Bible.

Besides all the above, God even asking Noah to do this is illogical. If God can do anything, then just flood the earth and recreate all the animals. Seems much easier than rounding them all up.

CONCLUSION (my last three posts were meant to be part of the same discussion)

I’ll grant that my historical and logical arguments vs. Christianity\The Bible focus solely on the Old Testament. The reason for this is that my primary areas of experience and schooling are prehistory and natural history (though I did study Christianity every Sunday for 12 years as a kid), which are most applicable to the earliest portion of the Bible. But I’m confident that a scholar of history or Middle East archaeology (if so inclined) could find problems with the later content of the Bible, though perhaps not as glaring as those in the Old Testament.

Over time the Bible simply has not held up to the findings of science. Science is based on logic--the scientific method--therefore it cannot be discounted in an intelligent conversation about the validity of a religion outside the realm of pure faith

The only argument I can see for the integrity of the Bible is that only portions of it were meant to be taken literally. Perhaps much of it is metaphors and lessons rather than documented reality or direction from God. Of course, this is essentially accommodating Christianity with science, and has been happening for hundreds of years. Flat--earthers and Geocentrists (Earth as the center of the solar system) based their beliefs on a literal interpretations of the Bible, however they are rare now.

But how is one to be sure of the Truth from a document that includes metaphorical content? If anyone has ever taken a poetry class, consider the different interpretations that are voiced when a particular poem is discussed in class. Is there any one interpretation that is correct? There can be multiple meanings, as there is no way to get inside the head of the author and tell for certain. Perhaps this is true of the Bible as well.

One might argue that priests are the ones whose job it is to determine the true meaning of the Bible, as they have a direct connection with God. Problem is, they are human, and therefore fallible like any other (how many priests have been charged with molestation recently?), and subject to making the meaning fit their own agenda. Indeed this is why I am so skeptical of those who claim to know the intentions of God.

Socrates best represents my view of religious claims to know the Truth. Socrates visited men of his time reputed to be wise, and ultimately concluded:
“Well, I am wiser than this man. Probably neither of us knows anything noble; but he thinks he knows, whereas he doesn’t, while I neither know nor think I know. So I seem to have this slight advantage over him, that I don’t think I know what I don’t know.”

Please note that I have said nothing of proving or disproving the existence of God. This I believe to be an impossible task either way, at least with the current evidence. Also,
though I focused on refuting the Bible and Christianity, the documents and/or teachings of all organized religions can be challenged with logical and historical arguments, though some more easily than others.

Kham,

Devin has been busy with work and preparing for school, which starts on Tuesday. He has been preparing a response and in the meantime I didn't want you to think he was ignoring your posts or anything. I won't even pretend to be able to form any sort of response to your posts; however I have recently come across a couple of things that are slightly related that you (and others lurking around) might find interesting, and something to think about until Devin posts again.

I recently came across a website that attempts to address the evolution vs. creation debate, http://www.answersingenesis.org., from the creationist side of the fence. They have specifically addressed some of the issues you raised. I see that you have done at least a little bit of research into ways that evolution purportedly discredits the Bible but have you done any research into scientific opinion/research/thought that discredits evolution and supports the Bible? I mean as history has shown, there's more to "science" than pure data and imperical evidence. We all have a lens through which we interpret data or even ignore it when convenient. Perhaps you could review their information and see if you think they've come to any conclusions worth considering.

Links directly related to your posts:

Cain's wife: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/tools/cains_wife.asp

Noah's Ark: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/noah.asp

Fossils: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/fossils.asp

And a topical index: http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/qa.asp

On a side note, I recently picked up a book at the library titled "Faster Than the Speed of Light" by Joao Magueijo a professor of theoretical physics at Imperial College, London. I've only just skimmed the first chapter but he seems to suggest that the speed of light may not have always been constant. Basically the Big Bang Theory has some problems (no one denies the problems, Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics have been in disagreement forever) and scientists on both "sides" are trying to solve the issue. What this means is that if these problems are ever solved then the timeline for how long ago the "beginning" happened will change and, if the speed of light has not been constant, then the rate at which things "became" will change which will force geologists to adjust all their theories, which will force biologists/paleontologists to adjust all their theories to match the newer calculations, etc. So it's an important concept to say the least. Besides, I'm enough of a geek to think it's a neat concept.

Argh.

I've been trying to post since earlier today, but my dumb old connection went down. Anyway, here's what I had.

Kham,

I’m really interested in joining this discussion a bit. Hopefully, you won’t feel ganged up on here. Anyway, here’s what I’d like to add so far:

The first point I want to make is that: Although Christians believe that the scriptures were ultimately written for people of all times and places, most recognize that they were written by a specific people living in a particular time and culture. They spoke to the people in their own time and culture using symbols and terms that would have been recognized by those people in order to convey the truths that were intended to have been conveyed by them (which were not primarily scientific truths).

In your historical case against Christianity, you spent a lot of time pointing out scientific fallacies within the creation account of Genesis. I’d propose that the creation account may not have been written to explain the scientific origins of the universe to the ancient Israelites. For the sake of my own time, and of space, I’ll just give one example of how this might work.

When the account speaks of the creation of the sun, moon, and stars, the intended purpose was probably not to explain the amount of time, or the order in which each was created. For the ancient Israelites, the sun, moon, and stars were the objects by which they measured time (sun=days, moon=months, stars=years or ages). Therefore the original audience would have drawn from the text the truth that God created time. God is outside time (eternal), and we are finite. This concept is an article of Christian faith (as well as the faiths of Judaism and Islam), and I might add is not inconsistent with scientific principles.

With regards to Adam and Eve: The account was intended to show that they were created in “the image and likeness of God.” I’m not certain what exactly that means. I imagine it was never understood to have been man’s physical make-up that was created as such (since God is a spiritual being). Rather it probably is meant to be understood that man has a spiritual nature, a soul perhaps, that is created in God’s image and likeness. It probably is meant to convey the fact, too, that God enjoys a special friendship with humans, and has created a covenant relationship with them. Therefore, the fact that humans share 98% of their DNA with chimpanzees doesn’t seem like it should pose a problem for Christians to me. Most Christians would agree that we have a human (animal) as well as a spiritual nature.

Related to our spiritual nature, I’ll only say that when I close my eyes and really think about it, it’s hard to imagine that the images I see, the experiences I’ve had, or even my innate sense of right and wrong are simply due to the organization of atoms within me, or to the firing of molecules in some particular way. How is it that I can ponder the things like stars that are so far from me, or spiritual truths that cannot be realized simply through my five senses? These things seem to me (as well as practitioners of many other faiths) to indicate that we are not simply the sum of our material parts.

Beyond that, it seems to me that humans fit into the world in a different way than other creatures do. We rely on much more work, and far more creative means to survive, and despite our best efforts, we can’t always seem to keep from hurting nature (I’m not saying we shouldn’t try). We humans seem to be in the world, but not of it. On the other hand, we can be extraordinarily creative, expressing ourselves through beautiful art and literature.

If it seems like I’m digressing from your point, I’m only trying to show that there are good reasons to believe in the existence of the soul (and therefore of God). You do make the point that there is no way of proving the existence of God (in your last post). That’s true, but not being able to prove the existence of God does not mean that we are unable to reason the existence of God. Such thoughts as the above can at least move a person to Agnosticism, I would think. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.

Back to your original response: You quoted Mark Twain, saying you enjoy how he puts humans in their proper place regarding time. I do too. It’s a good thing to ponder our smallness, to some extent. Whatever amount of time each of us has been in existence, it should seem small in the scheme of things. I like to think about how small we are in proportion to space as well. It’s amazing to me to think that there are as many stars in the universe as there are grains of sand on all the beaches in the world. I can’t even fathom the existence of a number of stars equal to the grains in a handful of it. Many of the writers of scripture felt the same way, comparing humans to specks of dust, or wondering, “What is man, that you [God] are mindful of him?” To some extent, it’s good to be humbled by these facts (and I believe that’s what God intended them for). Christians, though, believe that God does care for them, despite these facts and our miserable state. This gives us hope, and humbles us to boot.

You’ve made many more points I’d like to address, but I’m going to take a break for now. I may try to write you some more tonight, or tomorrow (if report cards don’t get in the way).

Take care, Kham

I’ll give you credit, Kham - you made me work for this. Science is really Marilyn’s forte; I know snippets of information, but I had to do a fair amount of reading in order to respond fully to your points. Here goes:

I think you make a valid point when you say that a Muslim is likely to take my words personally. What I posted on my blog was not intended for a Muslim audience, but my own circle of friends, the regular readers of my blog. Were I speaking to a Muslim, I would not have used the strong language I used, nor would I have approached my complaints with Islam from the direction that I did (I would much more likely begin by asking them their views of Jesus, and what the Qur’an says about him).

I do identify myself with Christianity; I claim an identity in Christ, believing that only through union with God am I truly who I’m supposed to be, able to reach my full potential. In this sense, I can understand why a Muslim would take words spoken against his religion as a personal attack. There is also the fact that I feel like I’m trying to defend the honor of someone I love dearly. So, in speaking to a Muslim, I would try to be far more diplomatic than I was in my blog post.

(I will also say that I hear "I hate Christians" far more often than I hear "I hate Christianity", with cited reasons being hypocrisy and ‘narrow-mindedness‘. While there is often validity in the charge of hypocrisy, the latter charge, in my experience, is most often meant to accuse the Christian of not being a relativist, instead believing in the existence of objective truth, not that they are necessarily closed to new ideas. I think that when I hear the latter, I am somewhat intrigued, because I wonder if their objections are based on misunderstandings, hand-me-down excuses, or legitimate issues…)

However, I don’t consider personal offense to be that great of a concern, at least when it comes to discerning morality and objective truth. Sometimes we need to be offended; Jesus offended people constantly. I know that many whites were offended by the idea that black people were their equals. For me, the problem is not that the other person may be offended, but that they understand what I’m saying. Granted, when people are offended, they’re probably less likely to listen to an argument…

Anyway, I think Michael covered this argument far more eloquently than I have, so I’ll just refer back to his words on this topic. On to your scientific objections:

Genesis outlines the creation of all things in seven days. This is not at all consistent with the current near consensus among scientists that it has taken over 4 billion years for earth to take its present form.

I think that, before I can go further into this rebuttal, a few words about the nature and practice of science must be said in order to provide a bit of foundation for the rest. Science, as a guide to absolute truth and historicity, has significant flaws.

The first and perhaps greatest limitation of scientific knowledge is that it is constantly changing. Have you ever tried to sell an old science textbook to a used bookstore? I never had any luck with it. Consider the differences in the astronomical understanding of the Universe between Ptolemy, Copernicus, Newton, and Einstein. Science isn’t absolute; it’s only a statement of what we understand of the Universe at this point in time, and as these examples illustrate, everything might be proven wrong later. As Marilyn has been reading, there is some speculation that the speed of light may not always have been the same; such a discovery, if shown to be true, would radically change our understanding of a great many things.

The second problem is that facts, in and of themselves, are not very useful. In order to mean much of anything to us, they must be placed into a sort of grand axiom, a paradigm, which proposes a model of what the nature of the Universe is. Then facts are gathered which support the paradigm, and this usually goes on for a great period of time (though these turn over more rapidly in recent centuries than previous ages). Inevitably (thus far), facts appear that poke holes in the dominant paradigm, and a new paradigm must be proposed. A great many scientists are resistant to the creation of new paradigms because they’ve invested their life’s work in the old one, and understandably don’t want all of their achievements to be considered obsolete. At least one scientist that I read of committed suicide rather than see this happen.

So scientists aren’t exactly unbiased reporters of universal truths. While the question of personal attachment to pet theories is one consideration when weighing the trustworthiness of a scientist’s statements, far more significant is the fact that in order to do their jobs, scientists must go into their experimentation with preconceived notions of the Universe’s nature. Their jobs require them to be biased, taking things on faith (by your definition of the word) rather than by certain knowledge.

Therefore, different axioms/paradigms can cause one scientist to look at a fact and say, “There, evolution,“ and another to look at the same fact and say “There, creation.“

The third problem is that scientists are not only products of their cultures (and their culture’s presumptions), but that they are predisposed to be biased against any kind of theistic explanation.

The late atheist Stephen Jay Gould:
“Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method’, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology.”

Philosopher of Science David Hull:
“…Science is not as empirical as many scientists seem to think it is. Unobserved and even unobservable entities play an important part in it. Science is not just the making of observations; it is the making of inferences on the basis of observations from within the framework of a theory.”

Dr. Scott Todd, immunologist at Kansas State University:
“Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.”

Richard Lewontin:
“The scientific community tends to be biased against [theism of any kind] because they are committed to materialism. They side with the materialistic explanation in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, and in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories. It’s not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”

Therefore, based on these three reasons, your citation of ‘current near consensus among scientists’, even if factual, may not ultimately mean that much.

I have heard the argument that the description [in Genesis] is metaphorical, that each day represents a very long period of time considered a day by God.

There is certainly division on this topic within the Church. However, there are problems with this belief (at least, exegetically), popularly known as the Thousand-Year Day Theory. This idea is taken from mentions in 2 Peter 3:8 and Psalm 90:4. The word “day” in Genesis is yom in Hebrew. However, the contexts of Psalm 90 and 2 Peter are vastly different from Genesis. Yom used elsewhere in the Bible means a 24-hour day, including in the Ten Commandments. There is also a scientific problem, which I think you touched upon: if plants were created on the 3rd day, and bees not until the 5th day, how could they survive a long geological epoch?

In fact, any poetic or metaphorical reading into the “six days” mentioned in Genesis has problems. “Old Earth Creationists” who accept this reading must deal with the problem that this theory relies upon a sudden and arbitrary exegetical shift that the text simply doesn’t justify - the context of Genesis is a straightforward presentation of history, even though (as Dan pointed out) it may not strive to be scientifically-detailed. They also have to contend with the same problems that Neo-Darwinian evolutionists must face, which I’ll go into shortly.

Marilyn also mentioned the Gap Theory, the idea that there may have been a long period of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2. This, to my knowledge of it, involves another flood, called Lucifer’s Flood, but this is purely speculative. Additionally, the Bible says that death and sin came into the world through Adam (Rom. 5:12), which would have prevented any death from occurring during Lucifer’s Flood; Luke 11:50-51 says that the foundation of the world was recognized as Adam’s time.

I currently side with the “Young Earth Creationists”, believing that the six days are literal and that the Earth is around 6000 years old. However, a number of rabbinical scholars on Torah and Talmud, as well as a number of early Christian fathers such as Irenaeus, Origen, Basil, and Augustine didn’t take it as literal. So there is a great deal of disagreement on the topic of the Earth’s origins and actual age even within the Church.

Speaking in reference to the times/ages you listed for each event, there is a great deal of contention about that.

First, there is the question of the reliability of radiometric dating. The Theory of Uniformitarianism, which had been the dominant paradigm for many decades, assumed that the rate of time has been constant since the beginning of the Universe. Yet a degree of Catastrophism - the theory that massive changes in the Earth are caused by sudden catastrophic effects, such as a meteor strike - has been accepted as valid by the scientific community, and have caused more to question this supposed constancy in all areas. For radiometric dating to work, we have to assume that “the clocks weren’t wound more tightly in the beginning.” If you’re going to use the depth of cosmic dust as a geochronometer, for example, you have to know if a layer of dust was present initially.

The half-life of an isotope may not always have been what it is today. There is evidence that the half-lives of isotopes are associated with cosmic ray bombardment (I.e. neutron bombardment) from outer space; thus, although the ‘half-life’ may be constant in the laboratory, there is no guarantee that it will remain so in a rock that is open to the elements. Granted, this particular finding is debated, but it’s another possible consideration.

Second, there are other problems with the listed dates: If things are that old, there should be much more helium in places; many strata are too tightly bent; injected sandstone shortens geological ages; fossil radioactivity shortens geological ages to a few years; Earth’s magnetic field is decaying too quickly, it never should have lasted millions of years, and so on.

At any rate, and as the need for paradigms points out, both the Young Earth/Creationist view and the Old Earth/Neo-Darwinian Evolutionist view requires some measure of belief.

As for humans, the fossil record shows the emergence of anatomically modern Homo sapiens in Africa around 100,000 years ago, very recent in Earth’s history.

This statement has two problems.

First, anthropologists say that the population of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon man was between one and ten million for up to this period of 100,000 years. All this time, they were burying bodies as well as artifacts. That means at least four billion bodies, each one with artifacts. Even if the bones didn’t last, the artifacts would have. What has been found so far suggests a history for Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon men of a few hundred years rather than a 100,000.

They made cave paintings, kept records of the moon’s phases, built monuments like Stonehenge…so why did they wait 100,000 years before using the same skills to start writing their history and developing modern civilizations? The same question could legitimately be asked in regards to agriculture. They were smart enough; why so long a wait?

Second, the fossil record, as it stands, is full of holes…which brings me to:

…the fossil record also indicates a gradual evolution of various human ancestor species over time from a common ancestor with chimpanzees approximately 5 million years ago.

“Missing-link” claims are constantly cropping up, and being discredited at an equally constant rate. “Ape-men” fossils are often based on fragmentary remains, but when more bones are excavated, the specimens are found to be either human or not-human (e.g. australopithecine).

Even if such skeletons were to be found, common appearance doesn’t prove common origin. Even if they were ape-men, they don’t form a smooth sequence in evolutionary “ages”, but overlap considerably. For example, the time-span of Homo sapiens fossils contains the time-span of their supposed ancestor, Homo erectus. Also, when the various fossils are analyzed in depth, they turn out not to be transitional or even mosaic. The morphology overlaps, too - the analysis of a number of characteristics indicates that Homo ergaster, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and H. heidelbergensis were most likely “racial” variants of modern man, while H. habilis and another specimen called H. rudolfensis were just types of australopithecines. In fact, H. habilis is now regarded as an invalid name.

Fossil evidence stands in stark opposition to the theory of common ancestry. In Darwin’s time, no organisms stood midway between other organisms as transitional forms; he himself answered this by saying that they lived in the past and would eventually be discovered. But as paleontologists have unearthed fossil remains, they haven’t found any of these transitional forms; they’ve just found more distinct animals and plants that have died off.

Assuming that Darwin’s theory was true, though, there wouldn’t be a few, rare missing links. Rather, there would be literally millions of transitional forms in the fossil record.

This relationship not only appears in the fossil record, but in our DNA as well - we share 98% of our DNA with chimpanzees!

The DNA evidence actually counts against the Neo-Darwinian explanation you quoted for it.

First, your statement suggests that the dramatic differences between humans and chimpanzees exist due to that 2% difference. But the body-building genes are in the 98%; the 2% are really rather trivial genes that have little to do with anatomy.

Second, when you look at two organisms that are similar anatomically, you often find that they’re similar genetically. Not always; there’s a striking discordance with some species, but this doesn’t really prove a common ancestry. It’s just as compatible with common design as it is with common ancestry. A designer might well decide to use common building materials to create different organisms, just as builders use the same materials - steel girders, rivets, and so forth - to build different bridges that end up looking very dissimilar from one another.

Third, the numbers, though they sound close, don’t give an accurate idea of the complexity involved. Even a two percent difference in DNA means 60 million base pairs of DNA that are different. Population genetics studies have shown that animals with human-like generation times of about 20 years could only accumulate about 1,700 mutations in their genomes in 10 million years. This 2% difference is evolution-defyingly vast.

The main scientific objection to the General Theory of Evolution is not that changes occur through time, nor is it about the size of the change, but the type of change required; to change microbes into men requires changes that increase the genetic information content. The three billion DNA “letters” in each human cell convey a great deal more information than the over ½ million DNA “letters” of the simplest self-reproducing organism. None of the alleged ‘proofs’ of evolution provide a single example of functional new information being added to genes. Rather, they all involve sorting and loss of information. To claim that mere change proves that information-increasing change can occur is like saying that because a merchant can sell goods, he can sell them for a profit.

A common current explanation is that the homologies (underlying similarities) come from similar genes. In other words, the reason two features are homologous in two different animals would be that they’re programmed by similar genes in the embryo. But this doesn’t really work. There are some cases like this, but many, many cases where there are similar genes that give rise to very different features. For example, take eyes. There’s a gene that’s similar in mice, octopi, and fruit flies that is connected to each creature‘s eyes. While there are some surface similarities in the eyes of mice and octopi, the fruit fly’s multifaceted eyes are quite different. Yet you can take that gene from a mouse and put it into a fruit fly embryo, and the fruit fly’s eyes will develop according to the fruit-fly’s multifaceted optical design, not the mouse’s.

DNA itself is a further indication of an Intelligent Creator. It is simply far too complex to come about by chance; it could be said to be (and has been referred to by many scientists) as “God’s signature.”

I agree with you in that I don’t find the explanation of fossils being a hoax to be accurate, and supposing that God placed them in the earth to stimulate Man’s curiosity would be to portray Him as capricious and uncaring whether He misleads people or not, a characterization that I would argue is in contrast to the God of order, revelation, and compassion that the Bible describes.

That’s part one. I’ll respond to your logical arguments as soon as I finish my research and composition.

Testing, testing...just making sure this still works, as someone has had trouble posting.

Devin,

Man, you're a heck of writer, and we could go back and forth on evolution for a lifetime as you have a pretty good grasp of the theory (though your arguments clearly come from Christian-biased sources). But when you state that you believe that the world is 6000 year old, I feel like this is kind of pointless. You are basically ignoring a mountain of evidence to the contrary, the balance of world history and science, to cling to the words of a single book. Where do the dinosaurs fit into this 6000 years?

Anyway, I look forward to the logical argument rebuttal....
Kham

Cool - my last post seems to be working so I'll try again. I had a significant post yesterday (in terms of time required to write the darn thing, not necessarily the value of thinking...) but it vanished without so much as a good-bye. >sigh< But I'll try to do it again. (Devin, I reckon you can feel free to delete the test post I just made.

While there seems to be general consensus that Devin's original post could have been made with more tact - I would argue that the real problem is that the original post lacked enough detail.

Michael and Devin - at a glance it appears that your responses to Kham, along with others who have weighed in, outweigh his challenges by something like 3-1 in sheer volume. Does that strike you as indicative of an offense, or a defense?

Devin’s original post centered on a point worth discussion – the assertion that modern, version 2000.6 Islam is bad/dangerous/wicked. The questions was NOT whether or not modern, American Christianity is bad/dangerous/wicked, and yet that’s been the central point of discussion almost as soon as the first comment was posted. In short, Kham flanked you and offered a slight of hand deception to get you off target.

Let me see if I can simulate the maneuver:
Devin – you’re a racist!
Michael – your comments belie the fact that you are a homophobe!
You Christians are all intolerant, ignorant bigots, too parochial and blinded by foolish faith to comprehend complex matters of science, sociology or international politics!
Jerk!

Devin, your heart, particularly one filled with the Spirit, will want to respond to such attacks by seeking to make peace. You want to say “I’m so sorry! I’ve obviously offended you.” but your brain-gourd won’t let you passively capitulate on a line of thinking that you truly believe in so you’re drawn to patiently explain how you came to think the way you do. In short, where your faith and your relationship with Christ originally lead you to speak up against what you see as evil – that same heart deeply desires peace with all men. - You’re hooked on the horns of a dilemma.

There’s an old saying that if you throw a stick into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one that got hit. I tend to agree with Marilyn’s guess that Kham’s ire probably stems more from a bad experience that has nothing to do with you. He’s transferred his anger (which may be 100% justified) with some given Christian to ALL Christians and perhaps carried it over to God. With all due kindness and respect to Kham, you will never, ever win that fight, because it isn’t yours to win. Folks in that position aren’t really interested in the discussion, they’re interested in the battle – and since victory or defeat is only judged in their own heads, they see themselves as constantly ‘winning’ which only deepens their delusion.

I’d encourage you to return to your original case – that modern Islam is a problem that thinking Christians and Americans ignore or white-wash at their own peril. We just heard again from Osama Bin Laden today – still hell bent on bringing misery and strife to America. Make your point clearly and don’t flinch. Don’t be distracted by name calling, attack-the-messenger, or straw man arguments that diminish your focus.

For me, I’m tired of being the one in a corner. When somebody challenges me by screaming “Prove God exists!” I say “All of creation speaks of God’s existence – you prove to me that He doesn’t exist.” And in the mean time I’ll go on talking to the people who actually want to have a discussion. Nothing you tell Kham will convince him – nothing. His last post indicates that any source you offer is suspect because of its perceived bias. Keep in mind that while faith comes by hearing – he’s already heard. A man isn’t intellectually convinced that God exists – instead a man needs to respond to God’s call to his heart. Once I can see beyond myself, I say “Jesus? How long have you been standing there?”

At several points in this thread, Nazism has been trotted out to make some point or another. The unchallenged implication is that Nazism is an unequivocal evil – with no reasonable dispute. But how did that truism come to exist? It’s because we assert the obvious truth without apology. Over time, the people who would say otherwise wither before the moral weight of the obvious – a tree is known by it’s fruit and Nazi fruit is murder, wreckage, oppression, and poverty. We don’t worry about what the American Nazi Party thinks of those comments, we don’t wring our hands over hurting their feelings, because the strength of our convictions is with us. We can say without compromise that Nazism is evil, because those before us did so with boldness and took the question into the marketplace of ideals...and won.

Michael and Devin, you guys clearly have 16 inch guns and your apologetics in this thread have been well reasoned, well spoken, and comprehensive. But if truly we wrestle not against flesh and blood (read: Kham) but against spiritual forces in spiritual battles, I think you have been fooled to focus your energy on a distraction while the main battle rages on. We don’t have anything to be defensive about! A man who can maintain moral equivalence between a even the most outrageous statements of Pat Robertson and sawing a man’s head off on live TV is not thinking clearly.

The sea change that is happening in America right now, the one that is deeply pissing off the Left, is that Christians are waking up to the fact that we’ve been trying to reason with lunatics So instead we’re going about our business, seeking the policies we believe, and more and more ignoring the yelping of stricken dogs. Of course we want to maintain an answer for the hope in hearts whenever anyone asks – but not to loose sight of the big picture. If Kham and folks like him have concluded a priori that opinions shaped by Christian faith are irrational at their root, then what common ground can you seek in reason?

I presume that Kham reads you blog because at some level he’s interested in what you write. In that case do what you do. Write. Write well. And damn the torpedoes. ;)

Silverback,

Unfortunately this time your post was successful.

Talk about distracting from the topic, you (and Marilyn to some degree) spent your time analyzing me instead of posting any thought provoking arguments. Believe it or not, not everyone who questions hatred or religious beliefs was beaten as a child.

By the way, no one was making this a Right vs. Left thing until you chimed in--which shows your black and white, "my team" vs. your team mentality. Rather than critically think about an issue you'd rather group millions of people together and call them all "lunatics".

Your most ignorant comment was that Christians are seeking the policies they believe and it's pissing off the Left. You speak as if there are no Christian Democrats. What kind of nonsense is that? It's time for you to turn off Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, and work on thinking for yourself.

You believe yourself to be the "sea of change in America", but your waters are polluted with ignorance and arrogance. I may have disagreements with Mike and Devin, but I respect them, you I do not.

Kham

I've got to jump back in at this point. Seriously Silverback - I want you to think about something...

What is a more important to discussion to have? A valuation of Islam or a point by point discussion about the validity of Christ?

I'll give you my answer - I don't care one bit about the first question if we can talk about the other. The validity of Christ is really the *only* important issue as far as I'm concerned. Everything else is just details.

Kham's right - you've jumped into what has been (recently) a very good, measured and logical discussion and you've turned it into a political discussion and an attack on my brother. And I'm sorry, but that pisses me off.

1 Cor 2:2 "For I determined to know nothing among you but Christ, and him crucified".

Think about what matters.

Sigh.

Discussion can be such a difficult thing. Each person's opinion sways us in all sorts of directions.

I have a few last comments before I think I'll keep out of this conversation, simply because everyone wants to go their own way.

Silverback,

We've already discussed this elsewhere, but new voices are always welcome, even if the viewpoints are controversial. I wouldn't necessarily take your approach myself, but it does raise interesting questions which have, indeed, been ignored. In any case, though, I think this conversation has been fruitful and even if some participants walk away unchanged, I know I, at the least, have had to think more clearly and carefully than I have in a while--and you never know who may be reading and what effect lucid, rational defense of the faith may have. It is not the words, but God in the words that will change hearts. Who knows what hearts are being sown with the seeds of faith through this?

Chris,

I invited Silverback to join, and as I said before, I think any intelligent contribution has merits. As Devin's original post was not particularly politic (and that was not its intent), and Kham's first comment was more vehement than cool headed, so Silverback's comment was meant, I think, to grab attention and get response--which it did. So if you are offended by Silverback's post, blame me for asking him to chime in. I would not have him recant.

Inheritor of Heaven,

Yours has been a voice to remind us of the real issue behind these discussion--Christ as Lord and His working within us. Still and all, I am one of those who, while not argued into Christianity, am a far stronger believer because of the logical basis of my faith. Without the reason and rationality which leads me to my faith, I would potentially have drifted into error long ago. I know a great many people who came to Christ because they could not rationally deny Him any longer, faced with the logical consequences of the alternatives. It may not be every person's mission field, and perhaps it could even be argued that it's not that which creates the most believers, but for some important percentage of believers, apologetics is the path which leads to ultimate belief. As I mentioned before, it is God in the apologetics that ultimately leads one to belief, but such logical arguments may be preparing the soil for the seed to be sown. I take Paul as my great example here, who encouraged us to believe on the basis of evidence and who spent his days in debate with those of other faiths. And no lesser man than C.S. Lewis was won over to Christianity based on apologetics far more than (and, indeed, quite against his strong dislike of) emotional appeals. Who knows what path God may choose to make His way into the heart?

Kham,

Of all, you have perhaps been under the most pressure here to represent your side of the argument. I hope you've taken the words written here to heart in some manner, even if only as the intelligent responses of sincere believers who are neither mindlessly reactionary (sometimes thoughtfully reactionary, perhaps...) nor unthinking drones duped into following an absurd and illogical belief system.

But it's also become clear that you are correct: we don't have a whole lot more to debate. You have so much as suggested that there's no use in continuing because you won't accept any arguments that don't originate where you want them to. You suggest that Devin is ignoring "mountains of evidence," but dismiss what evidence he does have as biased (as if yours were magically without bias, or as if there were a pure "unbiased" position available to thinking human beings--Devin addresses this eloquently and I'll leave it at that).

You have picked one point (the creation account) and, by supposedly finding fault with its historicity, have dismissed the entirety of the rest of the faith. You have picked one point (the flood) and, by supposedly finding fault with its logic, have dismissed all the rest of Christianity with it. Yet when we find fault with evolutionary theory, you simply say that, "there are gaps to fill," and, "species relationships to clarify," and it is just a misunderstanding that further research will clear up. You condemn our beliefs because you don't agree with them, but put your full faith in your own because you like the conclusions they lead to. That sounds very much like the kind of thinking you are decrying.

There are reliable ways to determine whether writing is metaphorical or historical; those instances in which there might be some debate are not cause for all the uproar that has ensued, but careful study and consideration. For myself, I'm not certain how to read the creation story--both "old" and "young" Earth theories have their merits, and it's not been my focus of study. But those areas that I am familiar with lead me to give the biblical account the benefit of the doubt. Though I doubt we'll know with absolute certainty the answers to such questions until we meet God face to face, His faithfulness in the accounts we can check are enough for me to believe His assertions elsewhere.

There are certainly further points of discussion (your suggestion that there are "better ways" to do things than the way God chose [even if only suggested in jest]; the possible meanings of the Hebrew terminology used to describe the Flood and its possible scientific implications; God's ability to bring animals together and provide for them for a short period; the origin of the "other people" in the bible [as if God's original creation of Adam were the only one He was capable of]; and others), but I get the feeling that I'd be crafting a defense for myself more than for you. Devin has suggested he will discuss such things, and I trust that he will do a fine job with it.

A discussion in which one side continually ignores or dismisses the other side's evidence and points is, indeed, pointless. I respect your position in the sense that you've put some thought and effort into it (as I respect all those who have thoughtfully reached some conclusion other than mine); I also respectfully believe you are dead wrong, but that is a different matter. I hope that some good has come out of this, and I wish you well in your journey.

I will be praying for you, friend, and I hope it does some good. It can't hurt--after all, if you're correct, it won't do anything, and if I'm correct, it could make all the difference in the world...

Mike,

Can you come right out and say you believe the world is 6000 years old?

I know many Christians who don't believe that. How do you reconcile these differences between what is TRUTH? Doesn't it ultimately come down to individuals or groups deciding how they want to interpret the bible? This begs the question:
WHO IS RIGHT?

I just happen to believe that no one has it all figured out. And those who speak vehemently about being right, are the ones I tend to question the most.

I suppose if you are going to pray for me and "hope it does some good", then I will send you books on natural selection, geology, and carbon dating and hope it does some good as well.

That's a joke
Kham

Kham,

Sounds good. I'll put them with the others. I have a good selection. I have no books on creation theory, actually, but quite a few texts from a naturalistic worldview.

And though I vowed to bow out, I'll answer the simple question simply: I'm not sure.

Let me ask this: What evolutionary model do you hold to? Are you a Neo-Darwinist, believing in the random genetic mutations brought about by chance over vast spans of time, including the jump from unliving to living matter (and this, despite the legions of scientists who now believe this is not possible)? Are you a Pan-Spermist, believing that microorganisms from space "seeded" the genetic model and gave us the basic building blocks of life, upon which natural selection built the whole of biology? Are you a Quantum evolutionist, who believes that "quantum" factors skew random mutation in the direction of useful adaptations? Do you buy Gold's model that life did not begin on the surface of Earth, but somewhere under the crust? Are you a "genes first" or "metabolism first" man?

Which of these theories is the TRUTH? WHO IS RIGHT?

I'm guessing you might suggest that we're not sure, but one of them is probably right. There is no proof for any theory of how non-living material becomes living organisms, but you are certain one of them is correct. Must you abandon evolutionary theory because you're unsure which competing idea is correct?

I'm not certain which theory of creation is most accurate. Can I "come right out and say" that the Earth is 6,000 years old? Yes. I can say that that's a distinct possibility, and I'm perfectly willing to accept it. It has a high probability of being true. But no matter what form creation took, how long it lasted, or which sequence of events is the factual one, I know the ultimate source of that creation, and that is sufficient for me. I'm always willing to hear new information and even seek it out, but I am confident of the First Cause, and all else is interesting conjecture--as it is for evolutionary biologists, except that they lack any assurance.

I have a Person in whom I trust who says He was there and saw it all--your theories have no witnesses whatsoever.

And that's a joke. Kind of.

Mike,

You said:

"..no matter what form creation took, how long it lasted, or which sequence of events is the factual one, I know the ultimate source of that creation, and that is sufficient for me."

The first part of this is essentially stating that you are not certain that the literal creation is true. This is fine, though as I argued before, it is an admittance that the bible is subject to individual interpretation.

Secondly, though I would question your certainty regarding the ultimate source of creation, I really cannot argue that, as I don't think there is sufficient knowledge to prove or disprove it.

You ended with the line:
"I am confident of the First Cause, and all else is interesting conjecture-"

I think it's interesting that the only thing you are really certain of is the source of creation, i.e. God. But there are other religions (Islam for instance) out there that believe the source of creation is God, so why should they be any less valid than Christianity. Do you hold them on equal standing with Christianity? I'm pretty sure that answer would be no--

"I have a Person in whom I trust who says He was there and saw it all--your theories have no witnesses whatsoever."

Actually, I have a great deal of material evidence, which is a better, more reliable witness than a person is (the U.S. court system seems to think so). If you would like, I can outline all of the absolute dating techniques that exist. Of course they all have a margin of error, but for the most part they have been found to be consistent and reliable, particularly if more than one technique is used to date a particular site.

Kham

So how about those favorite books, huh?

answers to all these riddles can be found on the popular video series, "Girls Gone Wild"