<p>Whistle Pig, why do you feel like you have to go after the Christian faith ON the Christian schools section? If you were an American, you would leave this section of CC alone as different people have different beliefs. I don’t have a problem with you debating on the general college life forum for example, but unless you really have a genuine question about Christian colleges, you probably shouldn’t be on here. There are people who believe in the basics of Christianity and wish to find a school that share those beliefs. Those may not be your beliefs but they are of most people in this section of CC.</p>
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What I didn’t like was the statement above. I think this is something more than just disagreeing with my opinions. For what it’s worth, I, too, think that my religious beliefs–at least the central ones–are the truth and that contrary beliefs are erroneous. I just try not to be too much of a jerk about it.</p>
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<p>But reality is reality. If you believe that yellow is objectively the best color, then you believe that someone who does not believe their is a best color is wrong, by construction. Or that blue is the best color. Whereas if you admit that there is no right or wrong choice, obviously people can disagree. But it would strike me as odd for someone to say that X is universally true while admitting that Y is also universally true given that X and Y are mutually exclusive.</p>
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<p>I am in total disagreement with this statement.</p>
<p>Assuming you are evangelical Christian, Princeton’s student body is around 15% evangelical christian and IMO has the most balanced classroom atmosphere of the Ivys. It would be my pick.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt is not Ivy league, but has a large number of evangelical students. like >30%</p>
<p>Agree, Vandy is a totally different beast than the Ivies.</p>
<p>How did you make an institutional conclusion about Princeton being the best of this bunch relative to acceptance, if not nurturing of the Christian faith? I"m curious.</p>
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Humans didn’t evolve from monkeys, that’s an oft-stated mistruth, they both evolved from a common ancestor. I should also point out that the Big Bang was discovered by a very devout priest, and hailed as the moment of Creation.</p>
<p>And if the only acceptable point of view is Young Earth Creationism, how would we explain the archeological evidence of human civilizations predating 9am, Sunday October 23, 4004 BC? Or the body of geological/biological evidence? Did God create it all as it was to trick people?</p>
<p>Science is a way to understand and exult in God’s Creation, no? It isn’t an enemy, it shouldn’t be hated, it is a tool for understanding. Someone who doesn’t want to understand God’s universe may go to Liberty University if they like; however, I doubt that’s the level of academic rigor the OP is asking for.</p>
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The truth of God, of morality, or how to treat our fellow man. Not, if I recall correctly, the truth of the date/time of the creation of the universe. Of course, if you would like to disprove me, simply cite the words of Christ where he lays that down.</p>
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Believe it or not, but thems is merely theories Eddie. lol And it makes no diff out “devout” that priest was nor how loud he was “hailing.” lol</p>
<p>Trust me, I’m not chuckling at what you choose to believe. I’m chuckling at the notion that you’ve traded in one bunch of baloney for another. One set of former facts for another set of hoping-for future facts. That’s the chuckle you’ve given. Are you kidding? Some of us will buy anything, as long as it’s labeled “science” and is new, not used.</p>
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“Theory” doesn’t mean “guess,” it entails a lot of scientific backing. Or maybe the theory of gravity is wrong…</p>
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You’re right, it does not make a difference to the scientific accuracy of his work. It is, by all accounts, accurate, though.</p>
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Well, one is an old Jewish folk tale that goes against the body of history and science, and one is a scientific explanation drawn from the state of the universe, background radiation, general/special relativity, and such. Belief in Young Earth Creationism is not necessary for belief in God or Jesus Christ. You seem to want to lose Christians. 2 billion Christians out there, but how many do you think are “real”? 1 million? 2? I’ll content myself knowing that you don’t get to call the shots on that.</p>
<p>Nice folk tale. But put simply, you are fully entitled to believe what you will. But you are not fully entitled to portray what you believe as either facts or truth. </p>
<p>Science is neither good nor bad. It is merely a tool. Conversely scientists are not so benign, all having vested professional interests, paths, and funding streams. Many have bought into … and been bought … into the theory (not fact) of Darwin. And a great many of them have concurrently if not coincidentally determined that this decision cannot coincide or even compete with Creationism and the Genesis story. Many have abandoned science and faith, working like madmen, literally violating all science and Scripture, in trying to marry the theory of evolution and the story of Creation. You’ve come to your own commitment, accepting the notion that we and monkeys came from the same mud puddle. I and a whole bunch of people equally ignorant perhaps, find that neither scientifically feasible and in complete disbelief of Scripture. </p>
<p>So … you and I are both entititled to our own opinions. We are not entitled to our own facts. You’ve backed off from trying to slip by your opinion as fact. And thus the implication that your conclusions about such things as monkey/people origins and Big Bang are truth. Here’s what we know: Yours are not facts. They are opinions. And therefore we know that we do not know that they are true. </p>
<p>But please, don’t try to portray your ideas as somehow intellectually superior because you’ve somehow concluded scientists are either truth-seekers or truth-tellers. And if you do believe those 2 things? Let me show you my science book from a few decades back, that like your tactic, tried and sadly succeeded in persuading us that their findings were true. Remember the monkey evolution into man … yea right.</p>
<p>As for your conclusion that somehow part of Scripture about morality is somehow “true” but the Creation story is somehow something else? Well, C.S. Lewis called your hand on that. He noted that’s precisely what got Adam, you, and me into this fix. We wanted to “edit” God’s instruction. It’s called original sin. Or maybe the “Bible According to Eddie and/or Whistle Pig: Picking and Choosing from God’s Word”. At least I’m willing to recognize the truth of my folly in that one.</p>
<p>My issue was that you were saying that believing in evolution/Big Bang was incompatible with Christianity, which it is not. I won’t try to convince you of my views, I merely felt you were being intolerant.</p>
<p>Yes I suppose so. In fact, the notion of tolerance has been so kidnapped by the culture. Christ’s tolerance was indeed because He knows we’re all incapable of living like Him, perfect and pure. Even when we try, and try hard in many instances. Doesn’t matter. He had tolerance for our sin. But he had NO TOLERANCE for worshipping idols and portraying that as Christian. The very definition of truth, which the culture abhors, is that for something to be true, it must be so for you and for me. And so it is. I have chosen to accept and surrender to the notion that the Bible is true. THE Truth. All of it, not merely part of it, those which seem to “make sense.” C.S.L’s contention is pure logic… all of it, or none of it. I prefer all. And thus I believe that is true. Therefore as a Christian I should have tolerance for you, and none for what I believe is the clear rejection of that Scripture. And my responsibility, like yours it to pursue godly explanation for that. There is none I can see for either your notion of monkey n me being cousins … or the physics of
some Big Bang notion.</p>
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<p>OK, let’s not assume that science = truth. But instead WP, let’s consider the means by which you and Edd arrived at your differing opinions. I can tell you that I will be far more impressed by an opinion that is based upon an objective assessment of data, evidence, and reason, as opposed to one that is based upon a faith generated by emotional, rather than logical responses. Edd’s argument seems to me to be a rational effort to weigh strong evidence in light of tradition and determine whether they can be compatible. From what logical evidence or process does your rejection of evolutionary science and an ancient planet stem?</p>
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I suppose you’ll also keep the bits about stoning homosexuals and enslaving non-Jews, then? Of course, these are parts of the Old Testament, replaced by the New Testament (when Jesus decries executions and tells us to love our neighbors), but doesn’t that show that the real truth in Christianity is in the morality laid down by Christ, and not in parables used to teach said morality? The story of Adam and Eve has a message; it is not “the Earth was created in 6 days, begging on Sunday, October 23rd, 4004 BC.” It is, instead, the love of God, the obedience to God, and the need for moral regulation.</p>
<p>Of course, I do not particularly care if you choose to believe that the Earth was made 6000 years ago or 4.6 billion, as it should have little to no effect on how you live your life, given that you are (presumably) not a geologist or physicist. My issue here isn’t teaching you those scientific disciplines, it is protesting your comments that the pursuits of men of science are contrary to the pursuits of men of God, and that one cannot be a Christian and subscribe to the theory of the Big Bang (or Evolution). Being a Christian means following the words of Christ and believing in His divinity; no more, no less. It is not “tolerance” being hijacked, it is the religion itself. Christianity doesn’t mean hate and ignorance, it means love and acceptance, and it says absolutely nothing about science, I’m afraid. So while I, personally, don’t have a problem with you believing the Earth to be however old you want it to be, as it does not affect me, I do object to your intolerance and narrow-mindedness.</p>
<p>The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go.</p>
<p>Some rather interesting spins on the Scripture here, it seems. </p>
<p>gadad, your fundamentally flawed assumption and a place for starting your own search might be that science is “objective.” That is rather naive, imo. But, knowing you’re sold out to the idols of the campus, understandable, perhaps. (I do confess to knowing some who’ve lived in academe and remain clear on its “religion.”)</p>
<p>You see, where one begins this exploration ultimately determines where one ends. That doesn’t mean both are relevant and/or true. Our outcomes essentially expose our beliefs though. Scientists (not science) would effectively prefer to eliminate and nullify the need for faith. And in doing so, ironically position themselves and their worshippers such that they must have far more of that faith than Christians believing what the message of sin and the origins of real life requires. But the notion that scientists are somehow inherently “objective” is dangerous. </p>
<p>It’s always intriguing to me to ponder how people purporting to buy the notion that a man could assume all the sins of the world, past and present, claim to be God on earth, be brutally murdered in my stead and yours, and then to come back to life and ascend to Heaven … yet remain persuaded that there has to be some evolutionary creation of men, monkeys, and more and that the entire universe (all of them) were created by some scientific process analogous to manufacturing an atomic bomb. Baffling, especially when those latter developments require more massive leaps of faith than the previous Christian claims.</p>
<p>Because one truth is … cannot “prove” either of these until we discover our own eternities. Until then? Pure faith … and it seems that gadad and Eddie are committed to far different theories than me. They wanna hedge their bets. I’m all in. Guess that sums this up.</p>
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And the hard scientific evidence referring specifically to the fate of Jesus Christ is… Where? One might wonder that if God created the universe 6000 years ago, why He put so much damn evidence there that it had existed for 14 billion years. I’m not one to call God a liar, and if He decided to put so much evidence of a universe billions of years old, well, I’ll believe that. Because, you see, the universe is Creation, while Genesis was written down by a man after being passed down orally for hundreds/thousands of years. Shall we trust Man or God? Paper or Creation itself?</p>
<p>Ultimately, all of this is apologetics, trying to explain the unexplainable, at least the essence of it. But the explainations we commit to expanding and articulating expose our hearts and our capacity for logic, as Lewis the ultimate atheist-turned-Christian apologist explained. All or none. Beginning to end. JC was God or goofy. Pick our poison and drink it all.</p>
<p>But I do appreciate your showing your hand in noting your view that the Bible is a man-authored manuscript. Just paper purporting some mythology manufactured by men. Were that the case? Well you and I would BOTH be given license to devise and fictionalize our own “intuitive” religions and lean on that “objective” scientific community to explain where we and our environs came from. I’ll stick with my own baseline … Bible as inspired Word of the God who made both of us. Science a tool to provide a set of rules to understand and explain our world. Both can be abused and misused.</p>
<p>I’m working at slaying my idols, not putting them on pedestals.</p>
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He could be a God who created all over billions of years, no? And therefore, a modern scientific view is still compatible with Christianity. Maybe not with your denomination, but with Christianity as a whole.</p>
<p>He could be Santa Claus or Harry Potter. But His Word doesn’t indicate either.</p>
<p>btw, I long ago got over my denominationalism, man-made much about little. Arguing about #s … like how many camels thru the eye of a needle, the stars in the sky, or angels prancing on a pinhead.</p>
<p>Whadya think about the flood and Noah’s sailboat?</p>
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Yes, but Straw Man arguments aside, can you please quote where Jesus himself stated that the world was 6000 (or 4000 in his case) years old? A direct quote would be nice. Otherwise, bringing up “His Word” in this argument is a little silly, no?</p>
<p>Can you please tell me what “faith” or perhaps denomination proclaims that only what Jesus allegedly said is the only truth in the Bible? I take it yours is a red-lettered edition, with all the rest removed? </p>
<p>I confess. In my Christianity, the Bible is THE go-to source of truth. Certainly not Einstein or his kind. Btw, altho not a Christian, even he read and embraced the Bible. He said of Jesus,“…No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.” So he knew Jesus was real And he carefully read the Bible. Do you suppose it was his rendition of the Harry Potter series? Me neither. Where it fell apart for even the alleged “smartest” man who ever lived (do you think he was smarter than Jesus?) was that he made the fundamental error that any scientist should immediately grasp, i.e. he assumed the world was to be God’s perfect creation and the Bible certainly doesn’t portray that, does it. To the contrary, it illustrates perfectly that chaos comes from perfect order. And one fundamental rule of science that violates evolution, the Big Bang is that order comes from chaos. To the contrary, as the world illustrates despite Darwin’s claim, chaos follows Creation and something as spectacular as man and this universe cannot come from nothing. Except for one, unmistakable Phenomenon.</p>
<p>Were your notion valid, man would be getting “better” all the time. Careful (and otherwise) observation would call that baloney, I’m afraid.</p>