Sorry A.S.

You left out the ONE important aspect of what you posted, SIN!

His Son went to the cross for the likes of you and I "Freely"

You need to search history of the people you say He destroyed.

God's action are alway "Just"

Everything that God sent on Egypt was directed at each of their "false" gods.

God is not the evil one here, MAN was and to this day IS.

quote:

Dividing the firmiment is a simple way of explaining matter coalescing from the gluon/quark soup or of creating a planet with water and an atmosphere.

That's not what I take from the description of the Firmament, but I certainly must give you points for creativity.

So, we should not take the Earth creation myth literally.

You suggest God may have used evolution to create man, does that mean we should not take Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden literally?

Timber, now you sound like a 9/11 Terrorist. Because the adults had a different god, God was justified in murdering their babies?

In the two instances you mention, there was an easier, kinder solution. During Exodus, it was God who hardened Pharohs heart. God could of skipped this, and the children of Isreal would of been released with a lot less drama and bloodshed. If as you claim, God, is the Alpha, and had an issue with the false gods fo the Egyptian (which God must have created since he created everything), why didn't he take up his issue with them, instead of the innocent children of their follower?

Why did God have to torture his own son to death in order to forgive the sins of men? It would of been alot easier, and kinder if he had just said: "I forgive you!"

You said I need to go read my history. Are you saying the Bible's list of 31 kingdoms put to the sword at Gods command is wrong?

quote:

Originally posted by Antelope Sniper:

You suggest God may have used evolution to create man, does that mean we should not take Adam and Eve, and the Garden of Eden literally?

There are many reasons to disbelieve the species started with 2 people. Nonviable offspring in the 3rd and 4th generation would be an obvous problem. Evoloution would get around this problem nicely.
It would also seem logical that man developed the ability for abstract thinking at some point concerning hinself with ideas like good and evil. Eden would be the place man had to leave after "eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil." Is it a real place with a real tree? A real place maybe but for the tree to be real or symbolic of something real would require a whole new level of fantastical assumptons about aliens or angels interfering in our development. That gets to be a bit far fetched.
What makes more sense is that it is a story that is believable to folks that believe lightning is caused by an angry god.

If I was a 9/11 terrorist I would have no problem killing you based on just your questions about God's purpose's.

But because I have accepted His gift and chose to follow Him you are safe from me!

God did not torture His Son, His Son went to the Cross to pay OUR penalty and create the avenue to get back into fellowship with God.

To understand why God did what He did, you have to account the 400+ years after Joseph had saved Eygpt and how the Eygptian's enslaved the Israelites.

Those 31 kingdoms were as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah had been, God will punish evil, in His time and in His way. His way are not our ways.

Because of what His Son did, God does not punish like He used to, Its called "grace" All have an opportunity to accept, HE leaves it up to the person, "free will"

Man kind suffers from the curse of sin and part of that is we like to beleive in "fairness" and "tolerance" God is not PC!

So Fox, we agree the scientific related passages of the bible should not be taken literally, but, at the very least, read with a flexable mind. So how skeptical should we be of the rest of it?

quote:

Man kind suffers from the curse of sin and part of that is we like to beleive in "fairness" and "tolerance" God is not PC!

so Tolerance and fairness are sin. So to whom should we be less fair and tolerant toward to return to the grace of God?

No! mankind in his present state likes to beleive life is about being fair and tolerant.

God is about being "just", something man can't grasp! We all like to beleive there are second chance's in life.

God is not a respector of person's(race), He has supplied a way out, to ALL! A loving God has left the decision in our court!

quote:

Those 31 kingdoms were as bad as Sodom and Gomorrah had been, God will punish evil,

Really, the only moral reference to the 31 tribes exterminated was one of idolatry. If this makes them worse then the people of Sodom and Gomarrah, then the inhabitants of must not of been that bad.

Now lets deconstruct the thinking behind your next sentence:

God did not torture His Son, His Son went to the Cross to pay OUR penalty and create the avenue to get back into fellowship with God.


So if someone breaks all the windows in your house, and slashes all the tires on you vehicles, you need to shoot your own dog, or let them shoot your dog, inorder to forgive them?

Check the history(practices) behind that "idolatry"!

Your last statement makes no sense at all!!

quote:

Originally posted by Antelope Sniper:
So Fox, we agree the scientific related passages of the bible should not be taken literally, but, at the very least, read with a flexable mind. So how skeptical should we be of the rest of it?

The David and Solomon writings are at least 11 thousand years old. How many times have they been recopied. Every 500 years? Less? How accurate were the copies? I don't have the answer but the bible seems to be at least a reasonable historic document given that there are no autographs. For instance they may have found Solomons copper mine. Not a certanty but it fits the historical time line and was run on a large enough scale that it would almost have to be a state run (kingdom size) operation. They haven't found slave graffity saying Solomon Sucks but research is ongoing.

quote:

The David and Solomon writings are at least 11 thousand years old. How many times have they been recopied. Every 500 years? Less? How accurate were the copies? I don't have the answer but the bible seems to be at least a reasonable historic document given that there are no autographs. For instance they may have found Solomons copper mine. Not a certanty but it fits the historical time line and was run on a large enough scale that it would almost have to be a state run (kingdom size) operation. They haven't found slave graffity saying Solomon Sucks but research is ongoing.

Swamp, you are at least approaching it from a reasonalbe inteluctual position. You are not clinging to a Literal faith that prevents you from accepting modern science, and (hepefully) how modern life is different biblical times. If more Christians would take this approach, they would elicit fewer of the extreme negative reactions, and disarm many of hte strongest arguments against them. By taking these issues away from the liberals we can actually strengthen the conservative cause.

As a historical document, some of the Old Testiment can be disproven, but other parts are consistant with the Archielogical findings. The mines you mentioned look promising. NOVA is running a special on them tonight, it should be interesting.

Ahhh, disprove the Old Testament, fat chance!

modern science would not be where its at without the records of the Old and New Testaments!

Alot of archielogical findings would not have been located without O&N Testament record.

I accept modern science for what it is, guess work at best! Man in his quest for knowledge sometimes get it and sometimes he's wrong!!

The biggest problem in modern science is when they get it wrong, they won't fess up to it!!!

There is an old saying: "If you tell a lie offen enough and long enough, its becomes the truth" at least in some minds anyway!

Your confused, the liberal approach to the O&N Testaments is to take it as just a historical document, the conservative approach is the "literal interpretation" and for that you'll have to study it deeper then you have. Your comments have proven you have only scratch the surface.

quote:

As a historical document, some of the Old Testiment can be disproven...

I'm interested in which historical stories have been disproven?

quote:

I'm interested in which historical stories have been disproven?

Good question Swamp fox, let me clarify. Archaeologist have disproven certain details in the OT. Regarding the Invasion of Canaan, archaeologist has shown has discovered the wall of Jerico collapsed before the time of the invasion of Joshua. The destruction of Ai was also before his time. Evidence at other sites is consistant with the text. IMO this is just another demonstration of what you and I discussed in the science portion, you cannot take every detail as literal truth. IMO, the evidence still supports the general narrative. The Isrealites came to Canaan and killed everyone they could in the name of God. Solomon build 3 cites during an expansion campaign, for two we can say yes, the third looks like it was build later. Another instance where maybe not all the details are correct, but the evidence still supports the general narative. Biblical archaeologist have done alot of interesting work. In general, when we have a OT claim that can be fixed to a certain time. i.e., this city was build by a certain king, this site was burned during this battle ect. about 50% of the time the evidence lines up. You are correct to say Archeaology would not be where it is today without the bible. It serves as a reference, and an inspiration, we just have to appreciate it's limitation.

Timber, as for your quote:
"If you tell a lie offen enough and long enough, its becomes the truth"

That quote is associated with politics, not science. The concept is called The Big Lie, and the phrase was coined by Adolf Hitler. I hope you are not trying to equate modern science with the Nazi?

If you believe science has not changed and does not correct itself, you are greatly mistaken. It's Dogma that does not change, at least not with a force less the Martin Luther and the invention of the printing press.

Yes, the OT has helped historians, but how has it helped Physics and Chemistry?

My quote works in every aspect of life, politics, science, math, etc.

I don't know what book you've read about the finding of the ruins of Jerico, but the ones I've read stated when they found them, the reason for the claim as to being Jerico's,was the massive wall had fallen outward. As the biblical account stated. They also stated that they were not positive it was Jerico BUT because of the Biblical account, they were probalbly right more then they were wrong.

If the archaeologist/scientist used carbon dating to make that assumption, they are way off on their time line anyway.

The most dogma I come across is in the field of sceince, I remember my 9th grade(1970) biology teacher telling class that because of the fast food market using styrofoam boxes, by the year 2000 we would be out of oxygen! I am still breathing!!

I'll say it again, when scientist are wrong, they don't like to let it be known! They would lose grant money if they did admit to making a mistake!

Timber, the science in the artile I was refering to picked up about where yours left off (you are showing your age). They uses a variety of techniques, pottery, building techniques, and carbon dating, to date the destruction of several sights including the fall of the walls at Jerico. The destruction at several sites, including Jerico predated Joshua, but others would of been contemporary with his entry into the region. As far as your science teacher is concerned, the enviromentalist have been running their yaps since the French Revolution. According to them, in addition to Oxygen, we should of also run out of food, oil, water. I remember the Global cooling scare of the 1970, not it's a global warming scare. Of course, I don't consider these views any more reliable then those who belive in a young (4k years old) earth, and that dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time.

I have decided that global warming is caused by the sun.


Warrior

Carbon dating has been proven to be not reliable as a dating method. Dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time, the bibical account and the fossil proves it. The timeline for the planet is more along the lines of 6,000 years. I have never bought into the millions and millions of years theory.

I do have to credit that same teacher in helping me draw some of my conclussions, she spent alot of time on how and what has to happen to get to claiming something as "fact" in science. If it can't make it through the 3 laws of science, it either is abandoned or stays just a theory.

Even bible scholars disagree on the time line.
That's why they think the King David and Solomon stories are 11,000 to 12,000 years old.
Adam and Eve would be older.

quote:

The timeline for the planet is more along the lines of 6,000 years.

This is absolutly not true, and just shows the lengths a literalist must go to fit our world into a literal reading of the bible. In order to claim the earth is 6k years old, you must deny work in every major division of science, chemistry, geology, biology, physics, archaeology, all of astrophysics ect.

For these reasons timber, Literalism is the aspect of Christianity most damaging to the faithful. It damages their creditilibty to such an extend, that the damange extends to other issues. The young earthers allow the Liberals to paint large swatch of Christianity as uneducated, and unenlighted idiots, to discredit Christian values during the public discourse.

This debate is nothing new, the Gnostics believed in a spiritual, not a literal Jesus. This allowed for greater flexability in the stories that lead the believers to a higher state of enlightenment. In response to the Gnostics, early Literalist forged the last 7 letters of Paul (the linguistic style is totally different then the first 6 letters), know as the Pastoral letter, decrying the Gnostics, while his first 6 letters, the earliest known Christian writings, were very Gnostic in nature. The other big debate of the time was one of marketing, should only Jews be admitted, or should the new religion be extended to the Gentry as well? These early debats lead to a loose cannon, and different versions fo the various gospels until a new ruler, Justinian, decided he needed one unified religion to united his lands, and lead to the council of Niceal in 325 A.D. It was here the issues of the day were resolved by vote. The votes were democratic, and included negotiating an compromise. The actual events of hte council do not support the literalist, but does support those who belive these early church traditions contributed to the modern representative goverment.

The Bible and it's surrounding history is a great depositiory of wisdom, but it is not the literalist, but the open minded that has the abiility to through the words on the paper, appreciate the depths of thw widsom, and apply it to our lives today.

quote:

Originally posted by timber ape:
Carbon dating has been proven to be not reliable as a dating method. Dinosaurs and man walked the earth at the same time, the bibical account and the fossil proves it. The timeline for the planet is more along the lines of 6,000 years. I have never bought into the millions and millions of years theory.

I do have to credit that same teacher in helping me draw some of my conclussions, she spent alot of time on how and what has to happen to get to claiming something as "fact" in science. If it can't make it through the 3 laws of science, it either is abandoned or stays just a theory.

Sasquatch
I think you should get your money back from that teacher

quote:

Carbon dating has been proven to be not reliable as a dating method

How so?

What do you have that is more accurate than the decay rate of carbon 14?

You have to remember who makes up the science community "Man" he is falable, he lie's, he try's to justify that there is no God by fabricating research.

Whats hurting Christianity is "liberalism" not literalism! It wasn't Christians back in the day that claimed frogs came from mud! They knew where they came from!

God is not democratic in His thinking or His doings, again Man is like that and screw's up continually

The closed minded liberal considers the Bible just a "depositiory of wisdom" The Christian beleives and knows its the "Word" of God.

A good friend of mine taught the OT at a state university and is not a beleiver, we had lots of discussions about what is truth. He can't accept whats there because his "education" won't let him. I still try.

As far as my credibility is concerned, I don't worry about it, God said it, that enough for me. He will have the "finial" say anyway.

If I am a "literalist" so be it, the sun come up and I know its daytime, sun goes down, moon and stars show up, its nite. Nature itself proves there is a God.

quote:

Originally posted by SR4759:

quote:

Carbon dating has been proven to be not reliable as a dating method

How so?

What do you have that is more accurate than the decay rate of carbon 14?

Archaeologists frequently complain bout the inaccuracys of carbon dating. Shards seem to work as well or better.
Sample purity is the big issue. For instance the Shroud Of Turin was exposed to smoke from a fire. How do you get a clean sample from a textile exposed to smoke?

quote:

Sample purity is the big issue.

Just like any other science, your answer is no better then the quality of your inputs. The carbon dating on the shroud was performed by 3 different labs at the same time, and none of the labs were told the source of the material they were dating ahead of time. All three labs placed the age of the shroud in the middle ages, contemporary with the first recorded reports of the shroud. This argues for the middle ages forgery theory. This also coincided with the height of an industry dedicated to forging holy relics for crusade era pilgrams to the Holy Land.

quote:

You have to remember who makes up the science community "Man" he is falable, he lie's, he try's to justify that there is no God by fabricating research.

So are you accusing the entire scientific community of being liars???
Do you have any idea of the magnatude of the conspiracy you are alleging??
Do you really believe every modern scientist is lying??

quote:

God is not democratic in His thinking or His doings, again Man is like that and screw's up continually

So do you reject your copy of the bible since it's contents were voted on by men??

quote:

The closed minded liberal considers the Bible just a "depositiory of wisdom" The Christian beleives and knows its the "Word" of God.

So let me understand you. The person who believes EVERY WORD of a book written 1700-3500 years ago, and that any research that might suggest other wise is fabricated lies, is the open minded one in this debate???

It is a funny thing, don't you agree, that the Bible is the only ancient religious record that survives with any scientific corroboration as to important dates and places? Only Christianity survives the test of time and human longing for a greater being. Only God as we can define Him appeals to the entire breadth and width of humanity across the globe.

From a purely objective standpoint God has historical "staying power" and the ability to reach out and touch people to their inner core; and motivate them to become better human beings.
A God of fear cannot cause that. I know of very, very few Christians who say they believe because they are afraid of going to Hell or Gehenna when they die. God is to us as we are to our own children. We love them, we nurture them, and in the end, we love them so much we have to let them go on their own. We hope that they make the right choices, but if they choose a life of evil, we have to let them suffer the consequences of their actions. In the extreme, we have to do the "tough love" program and separate ourselves from them, all the while praying that they realize the consequences of bad behaviors before it is too late.

That is how God is with us. If we choose to abandon Him, he loves us enough to let us make even that choice. He does not desert us, we walk away from His presence. If we die, then that separation from God we chose here on earth is made permanent. The Eternal Consequence begins.
That is why we pray for you unbelievers every day and try and show you the way to salvation.

Everything scientist "know" is speculation, based on human understanding that is subject to change on even a daily basis. All scientific facts are based on an unsolvable dichotomy. Matter can neither be created or destroyed is on of the two cornerstones of modern science. The other is the Big Bang Theory. It says for a long time there was nothing, and then one second later, BANG!, there was. What was before the BB? I can find no one to reconcile those two opposing theories. God is, that is the problem. Our limited comprehension cannot fathom that.


God Bless,

Rich

That a boy Rich!!!

Now, something you and I agree on. No proof needed.

Rich there are 3 basic reasons that Judo/Christianity has thrived.
1. They offer the best product,
2. At the lowest price.
3. They have adapted to changing market enviroments

Let take a look at some the critical developments of the Judo/Christian thought, and the practical implication for the followers of the faith.

1. Lets begin with one of the most misuderstood stories of the Old Testiment. Child sacrafice, especially the sacrafice of first born sons was very common among anchient semetic peoples. We have phonecian cemeteries filled with nothing but thousand of cremated baby boys. in Genesis, God asks Abraham to sacrafice his son Isaac as a burt offering, but stops him an provided a goat as a substitue. In this story, God is actually commanding his people to end child sacrafice, and just burn goats instead. This is a huge reduction in the cost of belonging to this religion when compared to it's counterparts of the day.

2. The 10 commandments also offer a huge reduction in cost. When reading the second commandment, Thou shalt not make any graven image, think in terms of the construction projects in Egypt. Pyramids, Spinx, Carnac, thousands of huges statues at an enormous cost, that could bankrupt every individual and the state. Since in the ancient world the church and state were essentially one, this was a probition on huge state funded building projects that glorifing the ruler, and the taxes that went along with them. Add into this a day off (called the sabath), and you can see that Moses was the original founder of the TEA Party.

3. The third Revolution was Jesus Christ. Before Jesus, significant blood sacrafices in the form of livestock were required of the Jewish followers. Temple sacrafices were required three times a day, after all, those priest have to eat. Since, in theory, there can be nothing more holy then the blood of a God, or the son of a God, the Crucifiction signifies the end of animal sacrafice for the newly mented Christians. So the new Christians get to keep more of their most valuable posessions, their livestock, and get to eat the whole cow, not just the front half, and get to add pigs to their diet.

4. Protestant Reformation. During the middle ages, Christian were building churches 12 stories tall, that took 100+ years to complete. The protestant's rejected this and returned to a simple unadorned style, reducing the cost for the followers. Martin Luther and John Calvin were TEA Party supporters.

As for the quality of the product, the character of the folks I'm debating do that for me.

At 33% marketshare, Christiany remains the largest religion in the world today. But when we look at the creent growth trends in the U.S, since 1990 Christianity's growth been half the rate of population growth. Contrast this with the Nonreligios/Secular movement that is growning at 10 times the rate of population growth. Ponder that for a few moments, and what it mean in terms of the continuig need for product innovation within the Christian Community. So where do you thing you are loosing this battle? We can see how well the strict litteralist approach worked for the Jews, they are down to 0.22% share world wide.

Two recent UCLA studies nicely demonstrate the current Christian delima.
65% of all High School graduates now attend College.
52% of first year students frequently attend religious services before college,
By the beginning of the Junior year, this drops to 29%.
Exprapolate this to a full 4 year education, and perhaps half of college students are loosing their religion. THAT'S A LOSS OF 33% MARKET SHARE IN THE NEW GENERATION.
Compare this with another UCLA study that concluded 75% of College students want a spiritual existance, and there is a market opportunity for someone. The question is, will Christianity once again raise to the occasion and adopt to the evolving market conditions, or stick their heads of the sand of literalism and go the way of Zeus, Odin, Ra, Mythra, Dionysus, and Pagan Gods of old.

There comes a time in any debate that it needs to come to an end.

I've tried to answer A.S. but he can not fatham the truth when its presented to him.

I'll leave him to ponder Matthew 10:14&15, even though it sayes "house" and "city" people make up city's and live in house's.

I'll also leave him a search the word "millstome" and what God told certain people to do with it. NOT that your one of them, but someone has feed you one big "hook, line and sinker"

Choose wisely!! eternity is a reallllly long time!!!

quote:

Choose wisely!! eternity is a reallllly long time!!!

Matthew 10:14-15
Let me translate for you: It doesn't matter how good or just you are, if you don't glorify this selfish God, I will burn you, turn you to salt, and send you to hell forever. Just more threats from your God of love. That might work on primatives afraid of lightning, but if you want to convert the new generation educated in history, science and logic, you will need to offer something more.
Since your literalist arguments have failed every every test of logic, history, and multiple scientific disiplines, all that leaves you with in threats, and an argument of incredulousness.

In the coming years, as the level of education continues to increase the abilities of the literalist Christianity to recruit new members will become more tenious.

2/3 of all high school graduates attend college. A typical accredited degree requires two classes in science, with at least on lab. Biology, astronomy, geology, and physics are all common classes to fill these requirements. A class in logic. 2 in history (the crusades and Spanish Inquisition don't help your cause) add a "diversity class" in comparative religions, and one or two in psychology, and 30 more classes that require real thinking. Against this multi-disiplinary challenge, it's no wonder the literalist all-or-none interperation is loosing it's sparkle among the educated youth. At one time Britton was 98% Christian, they are now below 50%. In America, we've dropped to 76%. If we continue on the same course, in 30 years we too will drop below the 50% mark. So the question becomes, will Christianity find it's next Reformation, and remain relevant, or find itself discarded on the ash heap of history?

Last reply to AS

God sends no one to HELL, you send yourself!

He offeres a way out and allows it to be your choice.

Your interpertation is wrong! Those verses are for the beleivers, once we've told you the truth, and you ignore what we tell you, God will do the rest.

Check again, "education continues to increase" as you say, but in all reality, its going the opposite way. The USA is like, 26th in the world now in educating our kids!

Christian as a world wide term is used VERY loosely from its "original" meaning.

Enjoyed the chat A.S. you've helped strenghten my resolve concerning what God say'es in His word about those who are in the "world".

Hope to see you in Heaven, but the choice will be yours and yours alone to make.

Number of students going is one thing, the quality of the education is another.

That chart would show the opposite direction of the lines. Instead of going up they would be going DOWN.

Timber, since 1947 we have tripled the number of High School graduates, and sextupled the number of people with at least a 4 year degree, but somehow, in your mind, this equates to a less educated populace??

Here's a few more details that show the difficulties of the literalist sects:
General point of view: Religious or Secular:
A random selection of Americans were asked to rate their general outlook, ranging from religious to secular: 1

Outlook Young (18 - 34) all adults Senior (over 64)
Religious 27% 37 47%
Somewhat religious 43 38 34
Somewhat secular 9 6 3
Secular 14 10 7
Don't know/ refused 7 9 9


The ARIS survey asked the subjects whether they had changed their religious identification during their lifetime. Some results:

About 16% of adults have changed their identification. Baptists picked up the largest number of any religion: 4.4 million. But they also lost 4.6 million. (that's 200k net negative) Roman Catholics lost the greatest number, 9.5 million. However, they also picked up 4.3 million. (That's 5.2 million net negative)

Retaining the young:
It is common for young adults to drift away from the faith group of their youth. Some never return. The large liberal and mainline Christian denominations seem to lose large numbers in this way. Only between 10 and 12% of those identifying with the Congregational, Episcopalian, Methodist, Presbyterian, and United Church denominations are between the ages of 18 and 29. Islam and Buddhism appear to fare the best in this area; 56 and 58% of persons identifying with these religions are in this age group. 1

Barry A. Kosmin, et al., "American Religious Identification Survey 2008," Trinity College, 2001-DEC-19, at: http://www.americanreligionsurvey-aris.org/


So as you can see, the trend in pretty clear. The old line churches are bleeding members, and young educated are moving in a non-religious/secular direction.

Of course you can deny all of this, just like you deny:

The earth is round,
There is no firmamant,
The earth is not the center of the universe,
The earth was not made in 7 days
The earth is over 4 billion years old, not 4 to 10k years old, ect.

Throw in the thousands of contriditions, evil committed in Gods name, and obsurd arguments to justify these, and you have a loosing handin the market place of idea's when young people are exposed to the study of Biology, Astronomy, Physics, History, Chemistry, Archeology, Philosophy ect.

I went back to college in 2000(age of 46), what was being taught, was pretty much what I had heard when I was in the 9th grade(1970)!

Again quality verses quantity, BIG defference!

Yes the young are moving in a "direction" backwards! Because thats the way they are being lead by our public school system.

You had better go back and read my post, your list of my Denials are not correct.

AS,

if you go to a party and misbehave, they ask you to leave. You are separated from the party, and the people who put it on. For the duration of the party. If you apologize, sincerely, they will let you back in the party. If you sit outside and do not apologize before the party ends, you will not get invited to the next one.

Make Sense?

The deal with God is, he does not limit the number of times you can act out at the party, repent of your actions that got you tossed, and come back in to the party. If the party ends before you come to your senses after being tossed, you do not get a post-party "mulligan" though.
The difference, the next party, the one you don't get to go to, lasts forever. You get sent to a place that is filled with other people who flunked the entrance exam. This group has some, shall we say. "Issues" that they fail to resolve for eternity.

Satan and God had this chat in the garden one day, and Satan says, "of course they're perfect. They are robots and do not know any better. IF, they had free will, they would hang with me." God trusted us and let Satan have a test. Eve and Adam flunked. Every human being since then has flunked. The test is pass/fail. This makes God unhappy. He devises a plan to rescue us. We are conceived in sin, and we sin from the time we draw that first breath. God says, "I got to break that chain of original sin." He places his son in Mary's womb, so the son has no human father. Chain of original sin is broken. Jesus lives a perfect life, so the actual sin chains are also broken. A perfect sacrifice (Christ) is offered, like the Judas/Scape goat. Sacrifice is accepted, and Satan now has to work for his souls. We have this opportunity to accept Salvation, and sin can no longer control us.

We live the best life we can, trust in God that that bill is paid, and go to Heaven when we die. You don't, when you die, you go to a place where God is not. It's an unhappy place to spend "Forever". Humans have this devilish notion that they are the ultimate end result of the evolutionary process. That is true. They just want to place themselves on the pedestal and be the kings (& queens) of the earth. The "NObody owns me" syndrome. If you have children, they get that about age fourteen. Some of them never grow out of it. They are called the "Entitlement Generation". We are God's children, and He loves us so much He will allow us to disown or deny Him. He does exact a price for that, however.

The difference between people who believe as I and other Christians do, and non-believers such as yourself? If I am wrong, I have lived the best life I can before my light flickers out. If you and your crew are wrong, the torment never ends.

The one last thing, I am still waiting for someone here to reconcile the Big Bang Theory and the Basic Rule that says Matter can neither be created or destroyed. You sound like an intelligent human, can you explain that to me?

thanks, & God Bless

Rich