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I believe in and subscribe to evolution. The science is undeniable.

You probably realize that there are good and strong Christians who take different positions about creation and evolution. There are 5 main positions:

• Young Earth, 6-day creation: The Earth is only about 6,000-10,000 years old, and God created the universe and everything we see in 6 24-hr days.
  
• Old Earth, 6-day creation: The universe is 13 billion years old, and the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and God created it all in 6 days 13 billion years ago.
  
• Day-Age Theory: Each of the “days” of creation in Genesis aren’t literal days, but they represent long eras. For instance, the first “day” of creation (creation of light) could have been billions of years in the making. But each age follows the sequence as outlined in Genesis 1.
  
• Gap Theory: Genesis 1.1, like the first phase of creation, happened billions of years ago. Then something cataclysmic happened, and it was all turned “formless and void,” and God started the second phase of creation in Genesis 1.2, which happened more recently.
  
• Evolutionary Creationism: God created the universe and all that we see, but he used the processes of the Big Bang and evolution to created everything we see. If this is the position one takes, Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the universe to function (light functions to give us day, the Earth functions to bring forth vegetation, the heavenly bodies function to give us seasons, etc.), not about how He manufactured it. He certainly created (manufactured) it, but that’s not what Genesis 1 is about.
  
  At the same time, there are 6 different ways to define “evolution.” Only #6 is completely contrary to Christianity.
  
  
  
• The ancient earth thesis, some 4.5 billion years old
  
• The progress thesis: The claim that life has progressed from relatively simple to relatively complex forms. In the beginning there was relatively simple unicellular life. Then more complex unicellular life, then relatively simple multi-cellular life (seagoing worms, coral, jellyfish), then fish, then amphibia, then reptiles, birds, mammals, and human beings.
  
• Descent with modification: The enormous diversity of the contemporary living world has come about by way of offspring differing, ordinarily in small and subtle ways, from their parents.
  
• Common ancestry thesis: Life originated at only one place of earth, all subsequent life being related by descent to those original living creatures—the claim that, as Gould puts it, there is a “tree of evolutionary descent linking all organisms by ties of genealogy.” According to this theory, we are all cousins of each other—and indeed of all living things (horses, bats bacteria, oak trees, poison ivy, humans.
  
• Darwinism: There is a naturalistic mechanism driving this process of descent with modification: the most popular candidate is natural selection operating on random genetic mutation, although some other processes are also sometimes proposed.
  
• Naturalistic origins thesis: Life itself developed from non-living matter without any special creative activity of God but just by virtue of processed described by the ordinary laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.
  
  So how can the Bible and evolution go together? Very easily if we take Christian position #5 and evolutionary positions #1-5. As long as we keep God as the central and necessary sovereign intelligence, power, person, and morality in the process, I don’t see where it’s a problem.
  
  I subscribe to the interpretation of Genesis 1-2 laid out by Dr. John Walton in “The Lost World of Genesis 1” (https://www.amazon.com/Lost-World-Genesis-One-Cosmology/dp/0830837043/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=john+walton&qid=1564575785&s=gateway&sr=8-2). Briefly reporting, in it he asserts that Genesis 1 is about how God ordered the cosmos to function, not how He manufactured it. Certainly God created the universe (as taught in other verses in the Bible), but that’s not what Genesis 1 is about.
  
  The first "day" is clearly (literally) about a *period* of light called day, and a *period* of light called night. It is about the sequence of day and night, evening and morning, literally. Therefore, what Day 1 is about is God ordering the universe and our lives with the function of TIME, not God creating what the physicists call "light," about which the ancients knew nothing.
  
  
  Look through the whole chapter. It is about how the firmament functions to bring us weather (the firmament above and below), how the earth functions to bring forth plants for our sustenance, how the sun, moon, and stars function to order the days and seasons. We find out in day 6 the function of humans: to be fruitful and multiply, to rule the earth and subdue it. Walton contends that we have to look at the text through ancient eyes, not modern ones, and the concern of the ancients was function and order. (It was a given that the deities created the material universe.) The differences between cultures (and creation accounts) was how the universe functioned, how it was ordered, and what people were for. (There were large disagreements among the ancients about function and order; it widely separates the Bible from the surrounding mythologies.)
  
  
  And on the 7th day God rested. In the ancient world when a god came to "rest" in the temple, he came to live there and engage with the people as their god. So it is not a day of disengagement, but of action and relationship.
  
  
  In other words, it's a temple text, not an account of material creation. There was no temple that could be built by human hands that would be suitable for him, so God ordered the entire universe to function as his Temple. The earth was ordered to function as the "Holy Place," and the Garden of Eden as his "Holy of Holies." Adam and Eve were given the function of being his priest and priestess, to care for sacred space (very similar to Leviticus) and to be in relationship with God (that's what Genesis 2 is about).
  
  
  You probably want to know about the seven days. In the ancient world ALL temple dedications were 7-day dedications, where what God had done to order his world was rehearsed, and on the 7th day God came to "rest" in his temple—to dwell with his people and engage with them as their God. That's what the seven days mean.
  
  
  Back to evolution. Therefore Gn 1-2 make no comment on *how* the material world came about, or how long it took. We need science to tell us that. We need Gn 1-2 to tell us what it's there for (God's temple) and how it is supposed to function (to provide a place of fellowship between God and humans, and to bring God glory as an adequate temple for his Majesty).
  
  
  Feel free to discuss this. For those who have never heard these ideas, it takes a little adjusting. But they make a whole lot of sense to me.

I love this question because the why of humanity's existence lays the foundation of our morality. So let's get into it. (Here is an excellent article that might help. Also, this book sums it up fairly well too).

So skimming through the Bible, the main recurring theme is The Glory of God. Let's look at the psalms.

>He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. (23:3)

>For your name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great.(25:11)

>For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me. (31:3)

>Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake! (79:9)

>Yet he saved them for his name’s sake, that he might make known his mighty power. (106:8)

>But you, O God my Lord, deal on my behalf for your name’s sake; because your steadfast love is good, deliver me! (109:21)

>For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. (143:11)

The book of Isaiah is riddled with references to God's glory.

>I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43:25)

>For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another. (Isaiah 48:11)

Isaiah even answers your question in chapter 43 verse 7.
>everyone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.

I can make a ton more references in both the old and new testaments, but I would encourage you to read through the Bible and discover them for yourself.

So let's ask this:

What is the glory of God?

This article says quickly that it is the beauty of God's spirit, that is, the beauty that emanates from His character, from all that He is. The way I like to word it is that the glory of God is making God's holiness known.

In order to make known the holiness of God, God created man in His image to reflect that holiness.

Now, based on your replies, it seems as though, in your mind, there are only 2 answers to this question and for some reason both answers are bad.

Let me explain why the answers that you cam up with aren't bad and why they aren't the only answers available.

First, so what if God acts arbitrarily? He's God. He can do what He wants. The good news is is that what He wants and does are according to His holiness and character. That is, he acts according to His love, mercy, grace, justice, wrath, jealousy, etc. Look at that last one; jealousy.

God doesn't need to express himself or be worshiped. God desires to be worshiped. God also desires intimacy. If God needs my worship, I don't want to worship him.

>I suppose to get right down to it, one of the major things that make me unsure about the Bible is because of how it can be so misinterpreted.

I think that this should make you unsure about people, but not the Bible. People twist things, and in fact we are told that people will twist Scripture within the Bible. Beyond that, even people with good motivations are imperfect thinkers. You, myself, and everyone else, when we approach the Bible, we bring with it our own baggage. Our understanding, our lives, and what we think now affects how we read the Bible. This is normal, but we need to recognize it in order for us to get around it and try to see what the Bible actually says (I'll mention this kind of stuff more below). Even with this in mind, this doesn't have any affect on the trust-worthiness of the Bible itself.

>Of course, one of the biggest things we hear about is that homosexuality is a sin. I don't know how many places it's been mentioned, but the only thing I recall about it is the very famous line "Man shall not lie with man as he does with a woman" or something along those lines.

I referenced a few places where homosexuality is brought up, but I'll link them here. The Leviticus passage (which is what you just referenced) is not the only one.

Romans 1:26-27, 1 Timothy 1:8-11, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-11.


>But while I was trying to learn and understand more about the Bible, what's real and not etc, I have also read several times that this line was something that was difficult to translate from its original texts, and that it originally referred to "sexual satanic rituals" with large groups of people

This is indeed a route people try to go. On nearly every topic you are going to have people telling you things that seem convincing on both sides. I would recommend looking into hermeneutics techniques (how to read, interpret, and understand the Bible). I'll talk more about this in a bit.

For this specific text, I don't think it holds up. I assume that this case is made because Molech is mentioned in the preceding law. Here is that section:

21 You shall not give any of your children to offer them[b] to Molech, and so profane the name of your God: I am the Lord. 22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. 23 And you shall not lie with any animal and so make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it: it is perversion.


The whole chapter is Leviticus 18. The first tip of hermeneutics I'll give you is "Context is King." Always check for context.


This chapter is one long list of things that the Israelites are not commanded to do and which the other nations will be condemned for (this along with the fact that they are restated in the NT are why I think they are still binding).

The law concerning Molech is either in regards to sacrificing children to the false god or dedicate them to him, likely as temple prostitutes. Either way, it does not mean that the following verse is related to Molech, and if it is then we could say the same thing about bestiality, but this (I think you would agree) is obviously sinful. Taken even further, you could argue that incest was okay, but again, this is obviously not the case.

The idea that the immediate context indicates that this is talking about temple sex worship or orgies (I think) is unfounded and it doesn't take the context of the chapter as a whole into account. With that said here is a link to a debate between James White and a guy who holds this view that you are talking about. To be upfront, this is probably the best defense of homosexual acceptance I have ever heard, and he even made me think his arguments were valid for a moment...but as the debate went on and the more I thought about it the less sense it made.

Maybe you'll come away with a different conclusion though.

I'll also link this response post by Preston Sprinkle (who does a lot of work in this with nothing but love). He addresses this concern in point 2. Lastly, here is a short video by John Piper on the topic.

>It's one of those things that make me unsure of what to believe from the Bible.
It's concerning because I keep coming back to thinking "How do any of us know what is really right from the Bible?"

It takes time. My advice to you would be "don't panic, take your time." I have had foundational shifts in my thinking change because of what I realized the Bible was teaching. This is a part of growing and maturing in the faith. Sometimes it can be painful and exhausting but it is worth it and it will help you in the long run.

I think that looking into how to do hermeneutics will be helpful. I'd recommend How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. I'll link a couple of videos that might help as well. Exegesis and Hermeneutics (its a bit choppy, but it has good content). You'll also want to be aware of two fancy-pants words: Exegesis & Eisegesis. Rather than explain those in-depth, I'll just link to this 3 min. vid by Francis Chan that explains the concepts (these are also brought up in the other vid).

The key thing you want to look for is consistency. Is what I believe consistent with this text? the context? the Bible as a whole?

Here is a clip about the textual variants issue I was talking about. I recommend the whole thing, but you'd have to order it.

>I don't want, or plan to give up on my faith, but I'm afraid that even with me believing in God, and that he will save me, I can't help but wonder if he really will save me, or if he even saved departed loved ones who believed in God, but still did small things that seem to sound like they were sinful.



I would again recommend reading Romans 8. And also let me reassure you that we are not saved by our good works or by a perfect understanding of doctrine. We all err in one way or another. Salvation is a gift, we are saved by grace through faith. If you truly wish to seek God, to do as he says, and to love him then there you should take comfort in that. God recognizes that we are not perfect, he has taken that into account. This is the reason he sent Christ. Don't let the fact that you are confused keep you from rejoicing in God. Confusion does not negate salvation.

> That's really implausible. What makes you think any of it is true?

That's a great question! I believe in Christianity for reasons including personal experience, the lack of cogent arguments against it (an area I've studied for some time, and that's not meant as a challenge against you or anything, though I'm happy to answer your questions and objections), the historicity of the Biblical documents (archeologically, especially those of the New Testament and the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Nazareth), the remarkable ability of theism to best explain a wide range of the data in human experience (such as the possibility of our having reliable cognitive faculties and their deliverances, the beginning of the universe, the existence of objective moral values and duties, the "fine tuning" of the initial conditions of the universe for the development of intelligent life and our exorbitant means of observing the world around us, the fact of widespread religious experience, the implausibility of the development of conscious agents from inorganic matter, the irreducibly of certain instantiations of biological complexity to any naturalistic incremental evolutionary mechanism, the existence of regularity and a bias in nature towards simplicity and aesthetic features (which I am happy to elaborate on), the possibility of change (the actualization of potentials and the nature of hierarchical causal series), and a great deal more that space does not permit me to detail).

> It's also a very anthropocentric way of looking at the universe, which has been around billions of years longer than we have.

I don't think so; rather, I think it is a very God-centric way of looking at the universe. I don't believe we were the entire reason God created the universe, and I do believe that it exists for His glory.

> You're suggesting that God created the universe so that we would come into existence on one planet in it,

No, the creation of the cosmos was not entirely done just so that human beings would wind up in it--that would make it a rather inefficient means of creating us. Rather, God has no shortage of paint, and He exercised His creative power here for a lot more than just humans. Luckily for us, we get to be a part of it and observe the living painting He made and praise Him for it.

> for a tiny fraction of the time, so he could save us from punishments he devised?

This is a caricature of Christian theology. God didn't create everything just so He could "save us from punishments he devised". I commend you to read the Gospels and C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity for a better understanding of the Christian system of thought, because the understanding you've presented is in fact confused in many ways.

God created mankind not so that we could be punished, but rather so that we could participate in the wonderful thing that is life and bring glory to Him by living for Him and enjoying Him and His creation. However, we rebelled and continue to rebel against Him and this purpose and bring evil into the world each and every day--perversions to His creation. It is this evil that warrants punishment, punishment which God has done everything in His power to try and save us from by living a human life in the person of Christ and brutally and tortuously dying after resisting all temptation so that we could be vicariously redeemed through Him. By living a perfect life, He did what no man has ever done and so further warrants the right to say what should happen to those of us (all of us) who fail to do the same (which He, by virtue of living perfectly, demonstrated is possible)--and yet His choice, when given even more right to condemn us, is to show us mercy and save us by allowing us redemption before Himself! Hence, His sacrifice and offer of salvation is the greatest example of mercy and love mankind has ever known.

And so He allows us to choose Him, and loves us enough to respect our choice to reject Him and live apart from Him if we so choose (which is what hell is--separation from Him that is chosen by the individual).

> I don't. Thomas Aquinas died 800 years ago and knew nothing about modern neuroscience or psychology. We have a natural tendency to believe whatever we're taught growing up.

I think it's more than just a "tendency to believe whatever we're taught growing up", because virtually all human beings throughout history and in the modern day have believed God exists. And, when you ask them, they will explicitly adduce to you reasons for their believing in His existence--so attributions of human belief in God to uncritical acts of will or psychoanalytic theses seem to me implausible and uncritically formulated or accepted themselves, for they are conceived of without making any account of the individual's reasoning with respect to the question they purport to answer. And Aquinas's sentiment has been repeated throughout the history of philosophy by the most eminent atheists and theist thinkers alike up until the modern day--not that I think that we should reject the ideas of people in the past out of what philosophers call "chronological snobbery", an uncritical bias in favor of contemporary thought by virtue of its being contemporary.

Thanks for the exchange so far, I hope I've helped you understand what I believe and why a bit more. Please note that I do not intend in writing this to sound condescending, so if it comes off that way my apologies.

tldr The Bible writers always expressed the eternal heaven and earth will be concrete/material/earthly etc. The doctrine of resurrection means the old human bodies that will be resurrected will get replaced with perfect concrete bodies, these bodies need to live somewhere and since concrete bodes must live in a concrete context and God says Christians will be in Heaven forever it follows that eternal Heaven and earth is concrete

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Some key scriptures

Mark 10 [biblehub.com] Matthew 19 [biblehub.com], hundredfold>
>29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life

John 14 [biblehub.com], dwelling places>
>2 In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you

Revelation 21-22 [biblehub.com], is filled with material descriptions of the New Earth primarily focused on a city called New Jerusalem and God coming down to earth>


>1Then I saw a new Heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of Heaven from God

1 Corinthians 15 [biblehub.com], immortal bodies>
>53For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality

Romans 6 [biblehub.com], resurrection>
>5For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his

Romans 8 [biblehub.com], resurrection body>
>23...but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies

In my understanding there are two reasons why the eternal Heaven and eternal earth will be material/earthly.One, the language used in the bible. Two, the definition of resurrection

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I've drawn these points from Heaven [amazon.com] by Randy Alcorn [en.wikipedia.org] and the Bible of course

language

Throughout the bible and especially in the New Testament, Jesus and his followers continually describe the eternal Heaven and earth with material concrete language while they hardly attempt at describing them in ethereal spiritualized terms. Jesus says he's preparing many rooms for his disciples and that his followers will receive land and families in eternal life (see above verses). Also, The language in Revelation is emphatic in describing the eternal Heaven and earth as concrete places. The writer describes Heaven coming down to earth and God dwelling on the earth with people. (many bible academics will tell you the technical meaning of Heaven is God's dwelling place, or God's throne. So, if God's throne is on earth then this means that Heaven is on earth because God's throne is the definition of Heaven). Indeed, if you read the Bible without any secular influence it is clear the writers are anticipating an eternal state that is material concrete and earthly, yes this includes Heaven. You must "read into" the Bible to believe the new Heavens and New Earth aren't concrete or material

resurrection

The doctrine of resurrection is essential to understanding our eternal state. Our resurrection is a central theme in the Bible, topical bible entry [biblehub.com]. Christians are constantly told we are to be raised from the dead in resurrection and that our bodies will be resurrected in glory, that we will be resurrected just as Jesus was and that we will be like Jesus.

So, what is resurrection? Here's googles definitions [google.com]

> - restore (a dead person) to life
> - revive the practice, use, or memory of (something); bring new vigor to

Resurrection has to do with restoring things, to bring them back to original form or a better form. In the case of Jesus he died in a body and since his body was resurrected Jesus returned in a body, the old body was restored/resurrected to a new body. If Jesus was "resurrected" without a body would this be called resurrection? No, just by the definition resurrection means his body would have been restored to another one. So if Jesus was resurrected without a body then he was in fact NOT resurrected because there was NO body

Since Christians have been promised many times that we are going to be resurrected just as Jesus was then we can anticipate we will have concrete bodies and we will live in these bodies forever. Since we have concrete bodies it follows they need a concrete place to live, we call this place earth which can also mean the universe (concrete bodies in a spiritual realm cannot exist and cannot make sense). And since these concrete bodies will live forever the universe will also live forever, and since Heaven/God's home is coming down to the New Earth then Heaven will quite literally be on earth FOREVER

misconceptions

• There is only one Heaven, but it exists in two states. First, Heaven is in some temporary state at the moment and will not change until the resurrection of the dead (it's kinda funky and we don't really know if it's concrete or not), I'm calling this temporary Heaven (some say this is Sheol, but I haven't deeply researched this and can't really comment on it). Secondly, Heaven will come down to earth after the resurrection of the dead, this is Heaven's eternal state and I'm calling it eternal Heaven
  
• People get confused when Christians "go to Heaven" but then we also say Heaven will be concrete. Clarification> at the moment Christians go to Temporary Heaven but eventually they will go to the concrete Heaven. Temporary Heaven and eternal Heaven are not the same. If we separate the two we should clear the confusion

> I was convinced that your god existed, and now I am not. It really is that simple.

Not sure if I stated this earlier, but we're way of topic here and I would have never set the expectation to convince you. The topic here was a theological question, which I answered. For the existence of God, you have free will, and no one can convince you other than yourself. That is by design BTW. If you want to find a reason not to believe in God, you will !

Having been on both sides now, I have sort of an anti-argument. The only way that you can recognize God is if you are truly open to it, mind and heart. Like you said, you are convinced that god doesn't exist, so you aren't open to it ! You might say that is because of evidence, but after 30 years as an atheist, I find your evidence extremely unconvincing. For example, you asserted that the mind comes from brain material. I researched that for over 10 years and found no reason to believe that. The problem there isn't that you are skeptical. The problem is that you aren't skeptical enough. Hand-waiving appeals to complexity and faith in "progress" apparently are enough to convince you.

Moreso, connecting with God is not just rational. It is a matter of the heart. It is just like connecting with a real person. If you are into indulgences (vice) like porn, hedonism, and relating things, then the very concept of God will remain out of reach. To connect with God, it takes rationality and striving for virtue. If you are not interested in virtue, then no amount of rationality will ever get you to recognize God.

Not sure if you are married, but imagine a relationship that was based on rationality without heart. It would be cold and empty. Human beings are mind and heart, and therefore total truth involves both mind and heart. God is not just rational, but the very basis of rationality. He's also the basis of your human experience, and your desire to be loved. You'll never find a set of atoms or molecules that are the cause of that. God is so much like a person that he'll avoid you if you are into vices (pride, impatience, envy, gluttony, lust, etc). Any reasonable person would do the same, agreed?

Something you should ask yourself is why you are on this forum, and keep asking me about God. Atoms and molecules don't do such things. LOL.

> The brain appears to give rise to consciousness, and is entirely material. Simply because we do not yet know the exact mechanism of consciousness, does not mean we can assert it is a soul,

Firstly, I didn't say that one should assert that there is a soul.
Secondly, it seems like you are not familiar with the field of neuroscience or consciousness studies. Every material hypothesis that has ever been postulated has failed terribly upon further examination. There isn't even a workable hypothetical model of consciousness.
Thirdly, all lab observations all point to a non-material cause of thoughts and memories. For example, in documented medical cases, such as tumor removal, large portions of brain matter have been removed where thoughts and memories were assumed to persist. The functions of the mind continue without the brain material. Researchers then are left with wild, unsupported speculations like "mind functions are distributed" or "the brain heals miraculously". I checked into these things and found that even atheistic researchers use the word miracle when describing observations.

> Demonstrate that the cosmos is self-aware, or created. Those are baseless assertions.

No, it is the end product of most of these logical arguments:

https://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

BGV's proof concludes that our Universe is finite, including time-wise. There was a time zero, which means there was an immaterial cause. A mind is the only thing that fits as the cause. This 10-minute video is worth watching on that subject: https://youtu.be/_ie9musGEqQ

> I am aware of the fine-tuning argument. I do not find it compelling or qualifying as evidence.

It sounds like you missed the major point of my reasoning. No one argument convinced me, nor should it you. Bayesian reasoning considers the combination of arguments, and the weight of the evidence, like in a trial. I studied Decision Science in grad-school and used that. I don't even think that gets to the point of convincing either, but it should get you to the point where you consider that it is possible.

> Evolutionary psychology can explain why morality was and is an advantageous attribute to select for. No god needed, as far as I can tell.

That's inference and supposition and not science that gets to root cause. To get to root cause, you'd have to model and/or replicate consciousness.

> A god is a simple explanation, but it needs evidence. What is your evidence?

I already mentioned the logical arguments that reasonably show God's existence. The Universe, Life and Consciousness are the evidence, and the logical arguments show why.

> The mind forms the brain? Give an example of a mind without a brain.

Do you deny that new connections form within the brain? If you examine the neuroscience, you'll find that the thought comes first, then signals appear at the base of the brain first (not the higher portions), then new connections form. There are also timing anomalies, which is why some researchers speculate about quantum effects. It just shows how desperate they are to explain the miracle that is right in front of them.

The logical arguments for God show that the Universe itself appears to be within a mind. I realize that you might quickly dismiss those logical arguments, but that is just a sign of impatience. It would take you years to seriously consider them. Dr. Edward Feser was an atheist who had a similar journey to me. He even taught his students that those logical arguments were bad, as part of his philosophy class. One year, he dug deeper and read the originals from Aristotle and Leibniz and found that they were correct. If you haven't done that much work, then you have no basis to dismiss them.

I recommend his book: 5 Proofs for God's existence: https://www.amazon.com/Five-Proofs-Existence-Edward-Feser/dp/1621641333


> If your only example is a god, or anything else we have no evidence for, it is another baseless assertion. Thoughts are physical, so of course they can affect a physical brain.

Where is your evidence that thoughts are physical ? It's funny how your assertion there follow immediately after the words "baseless assertion". BTW, Correlation is not causation. I work in computer science, AI, machine-learning and analytics. All my research into the field of neuroscience pointed to the brain being more of an INPUT/OUTPUT wiring hub. The CPU and MEMORY bank has never been found, which is why materialist researchers like Hameroff and Penrose are left with wild speculations about quantum effects and micro-tubules:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rsta.1998.0254

> The bible claims he resurrected and appeared to his disciples and many others. My question is if he did, are there sources outside of the bible which points to his resurrection being true?

There are no early non-canonical sources for the resurrection of Jesus. Perhaps the earliest you're looking at here are the writings of Polycarp or Clement. Almost by definition, any written document teaching the resurrection of Christ, from an authoritative source, would be included in the NT. Please don't think of the "Bible" or the "New Testament" as a whole though. It really wasn't for the first few hundred years. "The Bible" is not one book, but many books.

>Isn't there a possibility with the bible being refined so many times that, the story becomes more extravagant and perhaps the resurrection was an element that isn't entirely true?

There's the possibility that it was made up, yes. There's also the possibility that it wasn't made up. Careful analysis can show which one is more plausibly true.

To counter the claim that there was an evolution of the story, from a crucified teacher to a resurrected Son of God, all we can point to is the length of time between the crucifixion and the first reports of the resurrection. In the beginning of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul quotes what many scholars to be an early Christian creed, that can be dated to only a few years of Jesus' life. This certainly isn't 'proof', but man, it's really good evidence. Also of note is that Paul inserts this creed into a letter, almost as an off-hand inclusion, ie, he could have not used the creed and said his point a different way. This shows that the content of the creed was not controversial or being invented on the spot.

> How accurate is the bible in terms of the resurrection accounts? From my research, I feel some parts are definitely accurate historically but some aren't and seem to be more like twisted versions of the truth.what are the chances Christianity is the right religion among all. It seems more likely to me that all religions are just partial truths.

Let me quote a piece I heard from New Testament scholar recently, NT Wright. You should definitely look into his work, btw. It was on the topic of the historicity of the Israelite exodus, and he said this:

"There's no doubt in my mind that the account found in the book of Exodus has been written up with considerable theological literary artistry. But like the gospels, that doesn't mean it didn't happened, just that the book of Exodus is not giving us ... and no serious reading should assume it does ... a kind-of "what you'd have seen with a television camera perched on the edge of the pyramids"

(On this point, his book "The Resurrection of the Son of God" would be fantastic reading to get aquainted with these issues. I would recommend buying this book and letting us know what you think about it - https://www.amazon.com/Resurrection-Son-God-V3-Christian-ebook/dp/B00B1VG66E/ref=sr_1_1?crid=62UBH8WWCWTX)

A good example here is the end of Luke's gospel. A naive reading would lead someone to assume that Jesus gave the command to stay in Jerusalem on the day of his resurrection (from Luke 24). We know from Acts 1 (by the same author) that the command to stay in Jerusalem was attached to the ascension, not the resurrection, and now we're being told there was a period of 40 days where Jesus appeared elsewhere.

It's a really good example of how people at the time wrote their accounts. This would not work in modern writing, but they were not writing to modern standards. Simply saying "and then" (as Luke does in chapter 24) wouldn't give us an indication of 40 days. Indeed, Luke probably thought those additional appearances weren't worth including (he knew of the other gospels circulating, for example). Instead, he includes the unique account of the people on the road to Emmaus, and telescopes the entire period up until the ascension. It's a fantastic example of how Christians (and atheists!) should be very careful when reading these accounts.

So that's a whole heap of info for you, but it now gets to my point: what do you mean "accurate"? Do the gospel writers, Paul, Peter and John intend to say they came across a resurrected Jesus? Almost without a doubt, yes. Were they writing to the chronological, forensic standards of the 21st century? Almost without a doubt, no.

>I am a Christian btw, just really struggling.

Keep struggling. "Israel" means "He who struggles with God". My advice would be to question what you know and are being told, including my post, and including any atheist answers you get. No one is beyond your scrutiny.

> I guess what I'm asking is what "best possible world" means.

Just what it seems. I cannot define exactly and comprehensively what that would entail. But, we do have a test for speculation: whatever we imagine, if it can be improved upon, then the inferior should be rejected.

Thus, a creature whose initial nature is morally perfect can have authentic freedom. That, all by itself, is good. But, to the extent that a creature can be more free if he had consented to his morally perfect nature, then the initially morally perfect creature can be rejected as the best kind of creature.

>The mother continuously punishes the child for acting as she knew it would. What part of this is good or not absurd?

The story is absurd, because the child does not deserve punishment. Children are not rational or accountable, and thus cannot incur guilt. Guilt is required for a punishment to be deserved. The mother can and should "correct" the child, but "correction" does not always entail "punishment".

This is not analogous to the question of creation, because it is supposed that the damned will deserve damnation. That much you have never yet disputed.

>A person can incur no fault if they were not created.

But once they have been created, they can incur guilt. If there is a problem, it must be that God was obligated to refrain from creation. You have shown no such obligation.

>The goals may differ, but I don't believe that excuses God from partial fault.

Responsibility, yes. Fault, no. God's ends can justify His means. The creature's ends do not justify his means. Shared responsibility, not shared guilt.

>Good and evil can still exist absent of hell-bound individuals.

The question is not whether evil can exist, the question is whether a sufficient experience of evil can be rendered in order to maximize the quality of the beneficiary's consent, while at the same time minimizing the suffering endured by the beneficiary. In order to know the depths of human depravity, it is not necessary for me, personally to be maximally depraved. I can gain such an experience vicariously through other maximally depraved individuals, whether directly or indirectly, and thus come to an understanding of evil which would not have been otherwise possible. This maximizes my goodness, while minimizing my suffering.

>Assuming you are speaking about the God's wrath against sinners on Earth

I am not.

>If, however, you are talking about the wrath of sending certain people to hell, then no one on Earth is witnessing it.

Whence comes the requirement for those on earth to witness it? None of God's ends are earthly. Those in heaven will have the benefit of seeing the righteousness and power of God's wrath.

>If so, can't he go against His nature since it is just a preference?

It is impossible to go against one's nature. See Jonathan Edwards' "Freedom of the Will". Whatever a person chooses is always the best "good" that they perceive. If a person does what they normally would not, just to prove that they could "go against their nature", this really only demonstrates that they would prefer to be able to "go against their nature" than not. That preference is exactly what they have chosen, and thus have not actually accomplished what they set out to do.

If I generally prefer Coke to Pepsi, but you hold a gun to my head and force me to choose the Pepsi, you have not forced me to go against my nature, because in reality you have only demonstrated that I prefer drinking Pepsi to getting shot in the head.

>We are still working to find common ground, but to me, so far, it has been sufficiently proven.

I am satisfied to disagree on that point. Be that as it may, I am grateful for your courteous engagement, and I appreciate the benefit of your perspective.

>God has physical parts as well. The Trinity involves Jesus who existed spatially. Jesus is God in human form.

This is not quite accurate. The Bible says that Jesus existed, both with God and as God, prior to the first act of creation, prior to His taking on human form. That human form is not what He is, it is merely something that He "put on" or "appeared through".

It is not supposed that the Son is "part" of God. Rather, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all fully and completely God. Thus, the concept of the Trinity does not nullify or contradict God's self-existence.

No -- even if you take the Bible quite literally and think that God created the earth fully formed from nothing, and humans are a special element in creation, there's nothing that I know of which says the same thing couldn't be done elsewhere.

Of course if you are a Christian who thinks that evolution is just the tool God used to create life, then you should expect intelligent life somewhere else in the universe just as much as a non-theistic evolution-believer would expect it.

For a fantastic perspective on intelligent extraterrestrial life from C.S. Lewis, check out his essay (sermon?) "Religion and Rocketry" -- you can find it all over the web, but here's the first link from Google.

Excerpt:

> I therefore fear the practical, not the theoretical, problems which will arise if ever we meet rational creatures which are not human. Against them we shall, if we can, commit all the crimes we have already committed against creatures certainly human but differing from us in features and pigmentation; and the starry heavens will become an object to which good men can look up only with feelings of intolerable guilt, agonized pity, and burning shame.
>
> Of course after the first debauch of exploitation we shall make some belated attempt to do better. We shall perhaps send missionaries. But can even missionaries be trusted? "Gun and gospel" have been horribly combined in the past. The missionary's holy desire to save souls has not always been kept quite distinct from the arrogant desire, the busybody's itch, to (as he calls it) "civilize" the (as he calls them) "natives."
>
> ...
>
> .. But let us thank God that we are still very far from travel to other worlds. ...

His perspective is one I've found unique in Christian thinkers. Another fun fact: Lewis' Space Trilogy appears to be his "grown up fiction" based on his speculation in that essay, and is a tremendously entertaining way to engage with some of Lewis' takes on theology.

>Christians who don't believe in YEC, are you mostly in the Age Gap boat, where you feel that evolution is compatible with Scripture, and you don't take portions of Genesis literally (or some other combination that makes room for deep geologic time)?

I find gap theory fairly unconvincing. I don't think Genesis 1 is actually concerned with giving a scientific chronology of creation, but has more theological interests. My take is generally something like the "poetic framework" view, though I find John Walton's approach very informative. In general I find Biologos a useful resource for examining the origins debate from a Christian and scientific perspective.

>I'm mainly asking out of curiosity, because there seems to be a fair amount of "evidence" on both sides, but I also think that both evolutionists and creationists take a fair amount of truth from evidence on faith rather than facts. What is the main deciding factor in your belief either way (specifically, evidence that points to the truth of your belief other than that the Bible says that it happened)?

There seems to be an overwhelming amount of evidence to indicate that life has common ancestry, earth has a deep geological history, and the universe has an even older history going back to the big bang.

Either God created the universe to appear old, or it really is old.

>In this case I think your argument is invalid, because the fourth premise is not really connected to your first three premises.

I don't think so but I'll re-word it: P4) With logic there's a need to be able to choose objectively between a valid or invalid premise based on its merits.

Conclusion: Under naturalism there is no possibility of objectively choosing between a valid or invalid premise based on its merits as all human actions - thought, word, and deed, are determined by the physical laws.

> The easiest counterexample would be a computer: those are definitely collections of atoms, but they are also able to choose between a valid and an invalid premise, for example in an IF-statement.

There are two major problems with this "computer" solution of yours.

1. As John Searle's Chinese room experiment points out computers do not think. Computers merely mechanically follow instruction; they just simulate understanding, knowledge, an etc.
   
   and that leads to the greater problem for you:
   
   
2. The real work of a computer is done by its programmer; the computer's code and instructions are made by an intelligent designer.
   
   So if you want to go down the road with your computer answer than you'd have to concede that humans need an intelligent designer in order to process If/Then statements
   
   But you could say that some code or instructions happened by "chance" as famed atheist philosopher Antony Flew once tried to show how a 500 word paragraph [and a computer's code is much more complex then this] could come about randomly.
   
   However, according to Flew just getting that done would have taken more time since the beginning of the universe; I believe he said one million "rolls of the dice" per second since the beginning of time. This led him on his journey to give up on atheism and embrace theism. See There Is A God for details.
   
   So you haven'r shown how any of the 4 premises are invalid, nor have you shown how 4 is "unconnected" with the first 3.

1. A liberal, consumer centered democratic society impacts how we view ourselves as the “center” of things, and impacts how we choose what we affiliate or don’t affiliate with. American consumer culture has changed very much over the past 50 years.
   
   
2. Declining participation in other social institutions, “bowling alone,” as Robert Putnam put it, where various non-religious groups have had the same issue (ie, bowling leagues, Freemasons, Elks Lodge). We’re more individualistic as technology (TV, phones, etc) lets us stay indoors. This causes a “delayed adulthood” for especially Millennials, who now have “adult experiences” at a later age than their parents, like getting a part-time job, having sex, or getting a driver’s license (see the work of sociologist Jean Twenge on this)
   
   
3. Increase in toleration as communities diversify on ethnic, sexual and religious grounds. This has lead to “Moral Therapeutic Deism” (coined by sociologist Christian Smith) who found that most “Nones” believe in very vague, “safe” spiritual concepts, ie, God loves everyone, all religion is the same. Relativism, and cultural confusion has played a part in this. MTD, as a “religious” system, is incredibly inoffensive, which coincides with American’s acceptance of “extremes” (homosexuality, communism, anti-theism - again, Twenge has done some research on this that shows we are more accepting of ‘extreme ideologies’).
   
   
4. The sexual revolution and its impact on how we view individual autonomy. Think of the two most contended issues in America between the faithful and the secular: abortion and LGBT. The liberation of the “other half” has changed how we view relationships.
   
   
5. The mixing of politics and religion, starting especially with Walter Rauschenbusch and the Social Gospel.
   
   
6. Decline of humanities in favor of STEM, though this is a more recent phenomenon.
   
   It’s generally assumed by armchair sociologists that “access to information,” is the driving wedge. Data tells us this is not necessarily the case. Most research shows that especially younger people do not possess fantastic research skills. Plus, the issue of “moral relativism” and the problem of hyper liberalism goes back even to Tocqueville, who noticed individualistic Americans would not be able to act properly in a moral sense, rather choosing indulgences than virtue. Writers like Alan Bloom and Christopher Lasch echoed something like this in the 70s.
   
   Sources:
   
   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/our-changing-culture/201603/the-decline-in-religion-comes-home
   
   https://www.amazon.com/Anxious-Age-Post-Protestant-Spirit-America-ebook/dp/B004FGMD4G
   
   https://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/08/the-death-of-protestant-america
   
   http://tonyj.net/blog/2005/02/16/in-praise-of-christian-smith/#sthash.pjq9cu5k.dpbs
   
   https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/05/31/teens-social-media-technology-2018/
   
   https://www.barna.com/spiritualconversations/

Second the Behe comment, and Intelligent Design also gets a bad wrap but it's worth looking into. On the evolutionary side, this is an interesting and helpful book by a Christian scientist: https://www.amazon.com/Creation-Evolution-Do-Have-Choose/dp/0857215787

FYI, sometimes reddit automatically removes a comment that contains links, if the URLs are not in its approved list. In that situation, the comment will not appear to anyone until a moderator notices the situation and manually approves that comment to appear. That's what happened here.

Also FYI, if you give a link to an Amazon product page, it can be shorter, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091214503X/ without all the 'ref=' stuff after that.

well in various books published by ellen white she has predicted that there will be a national sunday law and that people will either choose sunday or saturday plus the adventist church distributes this book for free in thier churches and that anyone who choose sunday because of this sunday law legeslation will not be in heaven and will face various plagues then they are burned up and no longer exist according to seventh day Adventist doctrine

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/091214503X/ref=x_gr_w_bb_sout?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_bb_sout-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=091214503X&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2

​

you can read it here for free

http://www.seventh-day.org/Read_NSL.htm

​

both adventist organizations seeking to convert people to the adventist church

https://amazingdiscoveries.org/S-deception-unity_Sunday_legislation_global_law

https://www.amazingfacts.org/news-and-features/news/item/id/20113/t/poland-s-sunday-law--a-harbinger-

We can agree to disagree on point one. As long as God is getting the glory I don't think it really matters if He did it in 7 days or 7 billion. (I'm curious what "simple research" you're refering to though. I've looked at interlinears and read a book on the subject, but I'm always open to learning more.)

2 and 3 come from Bible scholar Michael Heiser on his podcast The Naked Bible. According to him, those practices are observed in contemporary cultures. I'll see if I can find the episode.

Theism in general because of arguments. YHWH in particular because of the resurrection of Jesus.