pointless discussion surely???, page-57

Wafflehead,

"What did you get moderated over? I thought the post I'm able to read was quite reasonable."

Someone blubbed to the mods I guess?


"A couple of examples would include the likes of Benny Hinn knocking over groups of people with 'a power of God blast' from his divine little multi-million dollar fingers. I'm sure God wants the whole world to fall over for Benny. A free thinking soul would laugh in his face at such pathetic theatrics."

Benny (and his ilk) prey on the very vulnerable and desperate and the very gullible. People who are gravely ill will do anything for the hope of being cured. IFAIK Hinn has not had even one medically verified 'miracle' healing. Still, all that says nothing about the pertinent facts of the argument, whether God exists or the Bible is reliable is not dependent upon the credibility of people. Especially modern day carnies like Benny Hinn.

"Noah's Ark and the great flood is another example of a moving symbolic tale being considered by some as a literal truth. Scientific evidence, come proof, clearly informs us that such an event is impossible."

In what way has science informed us of that 'impossibility'?
What is the symbolic message that we are supposed to learn from it?

"First rainbow ever after the flood. This is still believed by a considerable number of fundamentalists. I was taught this at school and thought it was BS when I was about 8. The implications are that God would have to have altered the elector-magnetic spectrum just to put on a show. Basically white light did not contain 7 colours till the flood."

Or the make up of the planet was COMPLETELY different prior to the flood? You say "God would have to have altered the electro-magnetic spectrum" as if that were the ONLY option open to us?

"Had never rained on earth until the creation of Adam and Eve."

No, until after the flood.
And again, no offence but this is the type of basic lack of Bible knowledge that most of the opposition demonstrate. And yet they all seem to proclaim the inadequacies of that Bible as if they know what's in there?

"We already have spoken of the mighty coal seams hundreds of metres under the earth. The coal comes from organic matter. Plants need rain. The coal clearly was not formed within the last 6,000 years etc, etc."

Or possibly so, as per the link I posted previously, plenty of websites out there that can explain such objections for those who care to search. And you keep repeating 6000 years as if that's a firm number that's written in the Bible somewhere whereas it isn't. You're smart enough to know where that figure came from and why it might not be accurate. I guess it's required to complete your straw-man?

"Creation occurring 6,000 years ago and Adam and Eve being the first humans from which all humans descended. Once again the scientific evidence is generally without question that this is simply not possible, so we must look for other meanings from this divine book."

So again, the claim is made but no reasons are given that we should believe that claim. What 'scientific evidence' exists that proves that it is 'impossible' that the human race has descended from two people? From what I've seen, science has hinted at the opposite being true, the study of mitochondrial DNA strongly hints that the whole human race has descended from one single female. Of course Darwininst ideology insists that that female was the predictable 'ape-like ancestor' but as they can't prove that then it's safe to believe that it was simply A SINGLE FEMALE.

"Clearly these are teachings contrary to scientific understanding if taken literally. The evidence come proof is overwhelming. Only a blinkered and dogged faith could still hold to these erroneous precepts."

And there's where your assumption falls down. Believing those things might be contrary to 'scientific understanding' (science being defined as it is these days by philosophy of course) but they ARE NOT contrary to scientific EVIDENCE. I hope you can see the difference. And where there IS scientific proof or overwhelming evidence then the controversies simply don't exist. You don't see people arguing that plants don't contain chlorophyll for example or that silicone isn't an excellent conductor.

"That's the kind of stuff that science has enabled us to go back to the bible and look at it with fresh eyes to glean the deeper truths. "

What deeper truths? What are they? I keep hearing about them but not much is being given by way of example. I guess saying and believing it though gives one the impression of superior wisdom? Of course the Bible IS full of deeper truths and those truths have ALWAYS been there for those who are ready to see them, 'science' is completely irrelevant to that equation however. Though it has gone a long way to confirming what is written in the Bible either directly or by lack of evidence to the contrary. As someone in this thread already mentioned, everything is in the eye of the beholder and we see and interpret everything through the lenses that society has crafted for us or those that we have crafted for ourselves. The FACT that we can do so tells me that the 'science' is not all that's in cracked up to be, at least not in this area, in other areas, those that are based on real science it's doing just fine.