Ok I've been gone for a couple hours, man you guys have been busy...
Please forgive my ignorance (and, no, I did not read your original post, Dooley), but what is this talking about? What in that verse from the Qu'ran is even remotely scientific that a scientist would be baffled by it? Again, please forgive my ignorance.
A fair question to be sure. I realise I didn't explain it enough to make it clear. It's not that verse of the Qur'an in particular that is baffling, nor is it all scientists who are baffled. However there has been a trend of scientists from many backgrounds, when studying the Quran, to have concluded that none of it's verses contradict what we know in the light of modern scientific knowledge. One of these is French scientist Maurice Bucaille.
Some of it's verses indicate kean insight into certain natural phenomenon, which have only recently been discovered through scientific inquiry. I am not including any of these references here, I don't want to take up too much room, and it would not really be in the scope of this thread. If you want more information, I could include some references in my next post.
"If this is the case (that evil had to exist or the universe would be a pointless place, we would all be robots and have no free wil) then what does this say about heaven and the afterlife? According to the Bible, heaven is a place without sin and no evil is allowed there. I am assuming (and, yes, I know this is dangerous) that the Qu'ran teaches something similar about the afterlife. If this is so (according to your logic) then eternity is pointless and those that enter in would have no free will."
Your assumption is right, the Quran teaches a very similar cocept of the afterlife. To me, the Last Judgement and the afterlife are the completion of this existence. All the wrongs which were allowed to occur, are righted, and those who believed and did good are rewarded, while the wicked are punished. So in that sense, Heaven AND Hell, and our choices which determine where we end up, are the point of creation. One without the other would be pointless.
For fun, let's remove lightbulbs from the equation. What is "light"? Can light be derived from, say, energy that is released? Do we need a sun for this? So, if we assume the Bible story is true, then could not God have released some form of energy in the form of light and later replaced this general light with more specific ones (sun and stars)?
This is a real phenomenon called cosmic background radiation. It is measured at some 3 degrees Kelvin and exists throughout the known universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_microwave_background_radiationIf this is the case, then God decided that the vast majority of people will suffer eternally in hell (followed by the Lake of Fire) while only a select few from all of history will make it into eternal bliss.
Dan, I struggle with this idea too, but no matter how unfair we believe the world to be, it is still the world. We still have to decide what we believe, and enjoy, or suffer the consequences, that's reality.
However, if we accept the existence of Hell (even if we consider it to be unfair) we must also accept that God is the most just of judges, and that He really knows what's best, both concepts are presented through the same revelation. The point is that even if we can't understand why there would be a Hell now, once we are in the afterlife, it will be made clear to us. I hope this makes sense, I realise it's a bit of a self fulfilling argument, but in this case I believe it serves.
Paul is saying that believers in Christ are justified by faith APART from the works of the law.
I don't want to shoot down your argument. Of course you can prove Christian doctrine with the Bible. However, my point was that I can also prove Islamic doctrine with the Bible. In either case, I suggest if we want to continue this conversation, we do it outside of this forum, which is supposed to be about whether Creationism should be taught in schools. email me at mkschmidt30@hotmail.com
I then started to understand the bible and could see that it was true and that Jesus was indeed who He claimed to be.
You can start your email by siting exactly where Jesus claimed to be God, as you have claimed.
Well “Smitty” if you where born in an Islamic country you would believe the Muslim fairy tales, so it is just an accident that you were born in raised with christian believes.
So far this thread has been pretty respectful of differing points of view. Your posts have been anything but respectful. However, you bring a logical argument here, so I feel compelled to respond (on Smitty's behalf).
I was raised by Christian parents in the USA, a majority Christian country. However, I never could accept some of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, so I did my own research. When I learned about Islam, I had no trouble believing in it's 'fairy tales', and I converted. So my personal experience would seem to disprove your argument in this case.
Speaking of fairy tales, if you were a scientist, would you have believed in Scandinavian folklore's tales of the Kraken, a giant sea creature with many arms? Science rejected these as 'fairy tales' until they found one washed up on shore. Rather than admitting their mistake, the quickly named it a giant squid, and saved themselves from a lot of embarrasment.
How about the Platypus: (from wikipedia)
When the Platypus was first discovered by Europeans in 1798, a pelt and sketch were sent back to the United Kingdom by Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of New South Wales.[4] The British scientists were at first convinced that the attributes must have been a hoax.
My point is that science doesn't know everything, the platypus is a real animal with a duck bill, a beaver's tail, an otter's feet, and it lays eggs! There are some things which science will only be able to speculate about, because science is limited by what is observable. I've maintained from the beginning of this thread, that science is unable to prove or disprove the existence of God.
At the same time, I also believe that our beliefs should not contradict reality. This is why I don't believe in the Bible anymore.
There's nothing illogical or unscientific, when confronted by all of the amazing things in the world, like the complexity of the living cell, the regularity and predictability in the day/night cycle, or the harmony of the cycle of rain and weather, to conclude that they are the result of an intelligent creator's plan. I think it's illogical to assume otherwise.
