It's all Relative or more accurately, language of appearance. Today, we say "The sun rises in the east and sets in the west", because that's what it looks like to us, not because we don't know better. The fact that we say "sun rise" and "sun set" doesn't mean we are ignorant of the truth. And regardless of what Joshua believed, don't you think God could figure out what Joshua wanted?



This is an unreasonable arguement. Basically, you are saying "Okay, let's assume an all-powerful God, he couldn't possibly keep the sun in the sky for 24 hours without killing everyone." The problem is that if God can create the universe, does it make sense to assume that God couldn't stop the earths rotation or bend the light, so that it appeared to still be daylight in Israel? Also, the centrifugal force of the rotation reduces gravity. If the earth were not rotating, we would weight more and be more forcefully pulled towards the earth, we would not be thrown into space.

There is a lot of great apologetics on this subject, here is one example: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v19/i3/longday.asp

The problem with these kinds of arguments is that all they are really saying is that no matter how absurd the scripture is there’s no reason not to believe it.

But if we take that as a tenant for our beliefs, then why not believe in Greek Mythology with all its absurdities?

In other words, to excuse absurdities by claiming that, “with God all things are possible”, is to do nothing more than say that there is no reason to reject any notion of God no matter how absurd it might seem.

This kind of argument certainly doesn’t support Christianity anymore than it supports any other mythology.

It’s just basically an appeal to ask people to forfeit reason in favor of believing in a mythology at all cost.

Hypocracy to be sure.

Dissimulation, no doubt.

Pomp and ceremony, undoubtedly pprevalent.


I'm talking about the anarchy outside the church.

That is the trend on the streets of America.

Without the benefit, devoid of the lessons and bereft of history that repeats itself in ignorance.

Let us not be blind to the moral decay of our culture.

Exiting one door to enter no other door is what will leave our society in the cold.

Winter is upon America.

But the blind don't see it, don't care to, and will not regard it as fact.

Are we being blind to the moral ‘decay’ of our culture?

Or are we just fooling ourselves to believe that there was a time when things were better?

Not in the least! It's an appeal to reason. If an all powerful God exists, then you cannot rule any miracle out as impossible. Christian apologetics has looked for an explanation as to HOW this could be accomplished, but it is completely unreasonable to take this event out of the Bible and say "This couldn't happen". Well, if you are going to assume that God exists, then you must assume this is possible.

Several of the possible causes for the 24 hour day are...

1) The earth's rotation was slowed down, as well as the rotation of the core, atmosphere and water.
2) Light was bent to make it seem that the sun and moon didn't move for 24 hours.
3) The earth's rotation was changed so that moving in a perfect circle, it moved in an "S", so that the rotation continued, was extended.

If you look at folklore / mythology on the seperate sides of the earth, you find that there are stories of a long day on the Israel side, while the opposite side shares stories of a long night. This is evidence that something happened, but I doubt we will know what this side of death.

Spider:
It's not "an appeal to reason". It's strictly faith. A person is within his/her epistemic rights to reject such fantastical claims when there is sufficient empirical evidence to do so. It's necessary for you to provide sufficient, independently verifiable evidence to justify your claim of a "miracle". The burden of proof is on the one making the extraordinary claim.

It is completely reasonable to take this event out of the bible and say that it couldn't happen because it's based on an unproven and possibly faulty premise that the bible is the literal, inerrant and infallible word of God. Prove those first, then you can have a "reasonable" argument.

Until then, it's an appeal to faith NOT reason. Could your God create a rock so big that even he couldn't move it? Little joke.

Have a good day! :)

You are missing my point.

You either have to reject the God of the Bible as impossible or you have to accept that the God of the Bible is possible. It's one or the other. If you are going to accept that the God of the Bible is possible, then you cannot rule out any miracle as impossible at face value. It's illogical and unreasonable to say "Okay, let's assume that your God is all-power, but I don't believe He could make the sun stay in the sky for a full day". Both sides of the equation must be equal, in a manner of speaking. You if are willing to assume (even for sake of argument) that God exists, then you cannot rule out anything as impossible, because the God of the Bible is all powerful. That is reasoning, pure and simple.

Reject God if you want, that is your right and that has nothing to do with my point.



In my opinion, it is impossible to prove or disprove the Bible. If you could prove the Bible to be literally true, then that would negate the need for faith. Since God wants us to worship him in faith, that will not happen.

In other words, Christianity can only be debating on it's merits as a religion. It is possible to look at some aspects of the Bible which offer evidence for God, but you will never find absolute proof of God's existance.

I have one also....brought it home for me big time. Myself and my 7 year old daughter were coming home from church one day. She looked at me and said, "Mom can I tell you something, and you promise you won't get mad." I said, "Of course honey, what? To which she replied. I love god more then you mommy........I hugged her tight and said praise God. That is for my 7 year old something that just is....It can't be taught and for that I was grateful.

sounds like the same thing to me.

You personally? Don't know. That's why I've addressed your post, abra.

Sounds to me that you neglect to realize what's going on outside your world view which seems much too sequestered by your personal beliefs.

That's not a dig.

I'm not being sarcastic or argumentative, either.

I see the country as failing to grow from anything wholesome and heading back into the anarchy of the expansionist era with all its shortcomings and without the benefit of useful and available information.

To my way of thinking, knowledge without understanding will never lead to wisdom. To find wisdom and exemplify it openly requires apply knowledge usefully, not selfishly.

Community bonds and anarchy's ills are diametrically opposed to one another.

The complacency and apathy that I encounter owes itself to the selfish ambivalence that our cultures infuses on personal endeavor of elitist and priveleged theft of the public good.

I don't attribute that to Christians, but anti-god reverence et al.

I'm a staunch individualist and very independent and autonomous in my mindset. That should be clear, apart from my personal affinity for Jesus' love and attention which is an inescapable reward to me from God.

I never parked my reason and logic behind the barn; I just don't show everyone where the keys to my ride are.

But ignorance of observable reality and the American Lifestyle are not behind the barn.

They're parked in the middle of the road when there is a lot of traffic going in both disections and everyone seems intent on avoiding the inevitable collision of the alteriors.



But hey, no problem. My physician keeps me healthy.

Ignorance can be subjective. Many clearly intelligent and reasonable people have suggested that the idea of religious fundamentalism is ignorant.

So many things boil down to personal opinion.

As far as crime is concerned, those things are meaningless. First off, they are already against the laws of society, so society as a whole neither embraces them nor condones them. Secondly, many of those crimes are actually committed by people who claim to be “religious”.

Much of the ‘moral decay’ that is being referred to takes place in supposedly ‘Christian homes’.

I just don’t see where it’s related to religion one way or the other. There are clearly a lot of non-Christians who live very productive and highly moral lives, and many of those are atheists.

No one has been able to show any direct link between any religion and moral standards. There are just as many divorced Christians as anyone else, for example.

So I don’t see where any hypothetical ‘moral decline’ can be attributed to any particular belief system anyway. Some of the most highly moral people I know are atheists and non-Christian spiritualists. I see absolutely no connection between Christianity and exceptionally moral people whatsoever. On the contrary, I could probably point out more counterexamples.

I agree.

A family that prays together

stays together



You take God out of the equation and it all goes asta la vista....and I have the statistics in my creation vs. evolution thread....if you care to look.....

My great-grandparents from both sides of my family came to America as young adults. That means my grandparents were first generation Americans.

While the great-grandfathers, and my grandfathers, moved around to where ever work could be found, the women made Chicago home.

Chicago, I imagine at those times, was much like a smaller version of New York. A huge diversity of poeple, almost all poor, and rarely in contact with each other group on a personal level.

The city and as the suburbs grew was divided into 'little countries' from this street to this street were the Poles and the Ceszqs and the outer fringes of the Bohemians. From this to this street were the Blacks, here to here the Italians, then the Irish, the Germans and a tiny population of Mexicans.

JOKES abounded. I never once saw either of my parents openly laugh at one of these jokes, not even the ones that made the rounds though family functions.

I never understood the jokes, or why my parents didn't laugh when everyone else did. When I got brave enough to speak, I asked my parents on specific occastions what was so funny to the others.

They explained the 'joke' to me, I still did not find it funny, I still do not find the new one funny today, but I do, much better, comprehend the jokes that are made.

Today, some of the OLD jokes are funnier, but only because, today, we all understand that there was no premise for the joke in the first place, instead we laugh because the joke is false.

I find the kind of 'stories' like the one in the OP, no less offensive than any of the other jokes made at peoples expense, and I also find them 'false'.

A hate crime is a crime committed against a person or persons based solely on unfounded bigotry and prejudice. To cirrculate such articles as the one in the OP, is to do just what Abra has indicated. To rile up, and instill and to continue to approve of the acceptance of bigotry and prejudice.

And Wouldee wonders; where have all the moral gone?

I'll do my best to give your remarks a charitable reading; however, isn't your second & third statements "either/or fallacies"? It's like when C.S. Lewis claimed Jesus was either Lord, Lunatic or Liar. Why not include Legend as well? As with your argument, one must reject/accept God, can't someone accept the God of the Bible, but treat all the miraculous and absurd stories as literary allegories? That seems a more reasonable approach to me, IMO.

The "all-powerful" you mention isn't really all-powerful though, right? He can't make a rock so heavy he can't move it, or create a world where humans have free choice, and always choose the good. Doesn't it follow then, that he's not really "all-powerful"? As such, shouldn't you put limitations on your "all-powerful" God concept?

I'm confused by the statement, "Christianity can only be (debated) on its merits as a religion." On Page 2 of Kal’s “To Those That seek Answers” you wrote, “Christianity is the state of a human heart, not a religion.” It appears that you're equivocating. I'm not saying you're wrong, but your argument needs clarification.

Thanks for your input.

I’ve actually been contemplating starting a whole thread on the narrow-mindedness of C. S. Lewis’ claim.

As you say, he vehemently claims that Jesus was either Lord, Lunatic, or Liar. But this is an extremely closed-minded view of a person who is unable to think outside of the box.

What box would that be?

The box that says that the Bible is the “Word of God”.

You see, Mr. Lewis is only considering the story of Jesus as being either the gospel truth. Therefore if Jesus wasn’t god then Jesus must be a liar for having said all of the things that were attributed to him.

But that thinking is false. That thinking fails to take into consideration that if Jesus wasn’t God then the stories about him are not infallible. In other words, the Bible is not the word of God but merely the rambles of men. Men who had agendas!

Now we have a whole new ball game! That would mean that many of the things that were claimed to be said of Jesus may have never been uttered in the first place!

In fact, this is precisely how I view these stories. I have no problem at all believing that there was a man name Jesus who taught great morals and was eventually crucified by the Romans. I believe that historical event actually occurred. However, what happened in the aftermath is a whole differnet story. The tales that were told of Jesus were indeed embellished and elaborated upon to make it appear that he was bigger than life.

There were two major reasons why writers would be motivated to do this. First, the original writers probably were the oppressed victims of the Roman empire. Perhaps the very men who knew Jesus personally. They would have certainly had plenty of time to collaborate with each other, and to think that they didn’t talk about Jesus with each other after his death would be pretty naïve.

It would have been perfectly natural for them to have elevated Jesus, first to the stature of a martyr and then to that of God himself.

The authoritarians, being aware of the martyr status of Jesus would have been easily motivated to take this martyr turned God, and make him into a full-fledged God completely with church and all. The church became “The Body of Christ”, and the authoritarians won back control over the masses by simply using their official powers to raise the status of Jesus from a rumored martyr into a full-fledged official Godhead.

Based on the history of mankind during those times this kind of tactic would not only be reasonable, but is even highly likely.

Where would that leave Jesus then????

Well, it would certainly widen the birth of possibilities from what C. S. Lewis as narrowed them down to be. Jesus could have simply been a very well-meaning enlightened man who stood up against Roman oppression and taught the religious values of the Eastern Mystics (which most scholars agree match perfectly with the parables he was said to have taught).

All of the references that are claimed in the Bible of him actually claiming to be the God of Abraham were the embellishments that Jesus never genuinely spoke of in truth.

This is how I seriously believe the story unfolded.

C. S. Lewis failed to realize that if Jesus isn’t God, then neither is the Bible the word of God and therefore it’s no longer correct to assume that everything that was written about Jesus was true. Lewis is thinking with a closed mind. (i.e. He considers that Jesus might not be God, but then he refuses to let go of his cherished belief that the Bible is the infallible truth.)

If he’s going to consider that Jesus may not have been God, then he must also consider that the gospels are not perfectly true and that many of the words that were put into the mouth of Jesus may have very well never come from his lips in the first place.

This is how I view the whole thing. As a story that was partially fabricated after the fact, and may have even been re-written intentionally by authoritarians with an agenda.

1. The Bible

The Bible consists of 66 books: 39 in the OT and 27 in the new. (Note: 3 x 9 = 27).

The OT has 23,214 verses. The NT has 7,959 verses.

2. The Bible took about 1600 years to write.

It was written in three languages (Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek) by about 40 authors and is internally consistent throughout.

It was written on three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe.

It was written by a variety of people: prophets, priest, cupbearer, a king, judges, fishermen, etc.

The first translation of the English Bible was initiated by John Wycliffe and completed by John Purvey in A.D. 1388.

The first American edition of the Bible was perhaps published some time before A.D. 1752.

The Bible has been translated in part or in whole as of 1964 in over 1,200 different languages or dialects.

The Bible was divided into chapters by Stephen Langton about A.D. 1228.

The Old Testament was divided into verses by R. Nathan in A.D. 1448 and the New Testament by Robert Stephanus in A.D. 1551.

Old Testament -- a total of 39 books and has 5 main divisions:
Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy), Historical (Joshua to Esther), Poetic (Job to Song of Solomon), Major Prophets (Isaiah to Daniel), Minor Prophets (Hosea to Malachi).

New Testament -- a total of 27 books and has 4 main divisions
Gospels (Matthew to John), History (Acts), Epistles (Romans to Jude), Prophetic (Revelation).

Reliability of the biblical documents.
The Bible is 98½ percent textually pure. This means that through all the copying of the Biblical manuscripts of the entire Bible, only 1½% has any question about it. Nothing in all of the ancient writings of the entire world even approaches the accuracy of transmission found in the biblical documents.

The 1½ percent that is in question does not affect doctrine. The areas of interest are called variants and they consist mainly in variations of wording and spelling.

The OT does not have as many supporting manuscripts as the NT but it is, nevertheless, remarkably reliable.

The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew OT done around 250 B.C., attests to the reliability and consistency of the OT when it is compared to existing Hebrew manuscripts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 also verify the reliability of the OT manuscripts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were ancient documents that were hidden in a cave in Israel about 2000 years ago. The scrolls contained many OT books, one of them being Isaiah.

Before the Dead Sea scrolls, the earliest existing manuscript of the OT was dated around 900 A.D. called the Masoretic Text. The Scrolls contained OT documents 1000 years earlier. A comparison between the manuscripts revealed an incredible accuracy of transmission through copying, so much so that critics were silenced.

The NT has over 5000 supporting Greek manuscripts existing today with another 20,000 manuscripts in other languages. Some of the manuscript evidence dates to within 100 years of the original writing. There is less than a 1% textual variation in the NT manuscripts.

Estimated time of writing of the NT documents
Paul's Letters, 50-66 A.D.
Matthew, 70-80 A.D.
Mark, 50-65 A.D.
Luke, early 60's
John, 80-100 A.D.
Revelation 96 A.D.

Some of the supporting manuscripts of the NT are:
John Rylands MS written around 130 A.D., the oldest existing fragment of the NT

Bodmer Papyrus II (150-200 A.D.)
Chester Beatty Papyri (200 A.D.), contains major portions of
the NT Codex Vaticanus (325-350 A.D.), contains nearly all the Bible.

Codex Sinaiticus (350 A.D.), contains almost all the NT and over half of the OT

No other ancient writing can boast of having copies so close to the original time of writing. With the Bible, the difference is about 50 years. With Plato and Aristotle, for example, the difference is measure in hundreds of years.

Prophecy and mathematical odds of fulfillment.
The odds of Jesus fulfilling 48 of the 61 major prophecies concerning Him are 1 in 10157; that is a one with 157 zeros behind it.

By comparison, the estimated number of electrons in the entire known universe is about 1079; that is a one with 79 zeros behind it.

Inspiration and Inerrancy - The Bible is inspired by God. Inspiration means that God, through the Holy Spirit, caused the writers of the Bible to write the accurate and authoritative revelation of God. It is God breathed (2 Tim. 3:16) through the instrumentation of the apostles and prophets (2 Pet. 1:21).

It is without error in the original manuscripts and absolutely reliable and true in all areas it addresses.

Every true Christian accepts the inspiration and authority of the Bible.

Scientific Accuracies in the Bible.
The spherical shape of the earth (Isaiah 40:22).
The earth is suspended in nothing (Job. 26:7).
The stars are innumerable (Gen. 15:5).
The existence of valleys in the seas (2 Sam. 22:16).
The existence of springs and fountains in the sea (Gen. 7:11; 8:2; Prov. 8:28).
The existence of water paths (ocean currents) in the seas (Psalm 8:8).
The water cycle (Job. 26:8; 36:27-28; 37:16; 38:25-27; Psalm 135:7; Ecc. 1:6-7).
The fact that all living things reproduce after their own kind (Gen. 1:21; 6:19).
The nature of health, sanitation, and sickness (Gen. 17:9-14; Lev. 12-14).
The concept of entropy, that energy is running down (Psalm 102:26).

2. God
God is the only Supreme Being. He is Holy (Rev. 4:8), Eternal (Isaiah 57:15), Omnipotent (Jer. 32:17,27), Omnipresent (Psalm 119:7-12), Omniscient (1 John 3:20); etc.

He is Love (1 John 4:8,16); Light (1 John 1:5); Spirit (John 4:24); Truth (Psalm 117:2); Creator (Isaiah 40:12,22,26), etc.

He is to be worshiped (Gen. 24:26; Exodus 4:31; 2 Chron. 29:28; 1 Cor. 14:25; Rev. 7:11).

He is to be served (Matt. 4:10; 1 Cor. 6:19; Phil. 3:7; 1 Thess. 1:9; Heb. 9:14).

He is to be proclaimed (Matt. 28:19f.; John 14:15f.; Acts 1:8)

"To worship God is to serve and proclaim Him; to serve God is to proclaim and worship Him; to proclaim God is to worship and serve Him."

The name of God is Jehovah, or Yahweh. It is comprised of the four Hebrew consonants . The precise pronunciation of God's name has been lost. In Exodus 3:14 God proclaims His name to be "I AM." "God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'" (NIV)

God is a Trinity - One God who exists simultaneously in three persons. Each is coequal, copowerful, and coeternal with the other. Each person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is not the other. Without either there is no God; all comprise the one God.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is opposed to:
Modal Monarchianism, also known as Jesus Only - There is one person in the Godhead who took three consecutive forms or modes. First there was the Father who then became the Son who then became the Holy Spirit.

Present groups are the United Pentecostal and United Apostolic churches. This doctrine is incorrect. It denies the true doctrine of the Trinity.

Dynamic Monarchianism - Only one person in the Godhead, the Father. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not God.

Present groups are the Jehovah's Witnesses, World Wide Church of God, Christadelphianism, and The Way International. This doctrine is incorrect. It denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and the deity of the Holy Spirit.

Tritheism – the teaching that the godhead is three separate gods: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Christianity is monotheistic - Only one God in existence, anywhere, anytime. See Isaiah Isaiah 43:10; 44:6,8; 45:5,14,18,21,22; 46:9; 47:8; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 8:5-6; Gal. 4:8-9 for verses that teach monotheism.

Christianity is opposed to:
Polytheism - Belief in many Gods.
Monolatry - Belief in more than one God but serve and worship only one, i.e. Mormonism.

Henotheism - Belief in one God without denying the existence of others.

Pantheism - This is an identification of the universe with God. God is the universe. God is creation.

Panentheism - The belief that God is in the universe. It differs with pantheism which states that God is the universe and all that it comprises.

Deism - God exists, but is not involved in the world.

Theism - God exists, and is involved in the world.

Creation
God created the physical and spiritual universe out of nothing (Gen. 1:1f; Psalm 33:6; John 1:3; Rom. 4:17; 1 Cor. 1:28).
He did not make the world out of part of Himself.
He did not make the world out of a substance called "nothing."
Specifically it was Jesus, the firstborn (Col. 1:15), second person of the Trinity, who created all things (Col. 1:16-17; Isaiah 44:24).

Because God created all things, He is before all things and beyond all things. Therefore, the entire universe is under His control.

Because God created all things, He is able to provide for His creation through the means of His creation, i.e. weather, rain, plants, animals, sunshine, etc.

Opinions on the duration of creation differ. Some say six days; others say six long periods.

Man
Creation of man
Man is not only the crown of creation, but also the object of God's special care.

Man was originally made pure, without sin.

"Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them" (Gen. 1:26-27; see also, 2:7,21-23).

"Let us make man..." is a disclosure of the divine counsel before the creation of man, "us" being the Trinitarian counsel. See also Gen. 11:7.

Man was created different than the animals. He had the breath of life breathed into him from God (Gen. 2:7). The animals did not. Also Man was given dominion over the animals. Man can know God, worship Him, and love Him. Animals cannot.

Is Man made of two or three "parts"?
Dichotomy is a term which signifies a division into 2 parts: Body and Soul. The words "spirit" and "soul" are often used interchangeably.

"Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,'" (Luke 1:46-47).

"My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you...," (Isaiah 26:9).

For the term "Body and Soul" see Matt. 6:25; 10:28.
For the term "Body and Spirit" see 1 Cor. 5:3,51.
Trichotomy is a term which signifies a division into 3 parts: Body, Soul, and Spirit.

"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Thess. 5:23).

"For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart," (Heb. 4:12).

There is no official orthodox position on the number of parts of man.

The Origin of the soul
Traducianism: "The souls of men are propagated along with the bodies by generation, and are therefore transmitted to the children by the parents." (Berkhoff, Systematic Theology. p. 197.)

Creationism: "The soul is a creation of God, owing its origin to a direct creative act." (Berkhoff, p. 199).

Except for Adam, the Bible makes no clear remark regarding the origin of the soul.

Man was created in the image of God.

This means that Man has moral and intellectual abilities
similar to God though not as perfect and vast.

"God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...'" (Gen. 1:26)and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Col. 3:10).

Man is above the animals in "rational ability, moral awareness, pursuit of beauty, use of language, and spiritual awareness."

Man before the Fall.

The Law of God was written in their hearts. Adam and Eve were without sin and "endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness after God's own image, with the ability to keep the Law of God." (Westminster Confession of Faith, 4:2.)

In this state man had free and unhindered access to God. This is exemplified in the account in Gen. 3:8 where God was walking in the Garden.

Man, the Fall, and its effects
Adam and Eve rebelled against God and sinned by eating the forbidden fruit.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12, NIV).

What was their sin?
They listened to Satan and ate of the fruit that was forbidden by God (Gen. 3:1-13).

What was the consequence of their sin?
Death (Rom. 6:23) and separation from God's presence (Isaiah 59:2)

Transmission of the sin nature to their (and our) children (Psalm 51:5).

Creation also fell (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:22).

How did their sin affect God?
They became unfit for the presence of God (Isaiah 59:2).

They became unable to do God's will (Rom. 6:16; 7:14).

They became subject to the curse of the Law and death (Deut. 27:26; Rom. 6:23).

Original Sin - The doctrine that we inherit our sin natures from Adam (Rom. 5:12-21).

Adam was the Federal Head of all humanity; that is, he represented all people in the Garden of Eden.
"For as in Adam all die..." (1 Cor. 15:22).

The phrase "in Adam" indicates our relation to Adam, that he represented us in the garden. In the same way, our being "in Christ" indicates our relation to Jesus, that He represent us on the cross (Rom. 5:18; 6:11; 8:1; 1 Cor. 1:2; 15:22; 2 Cor. 5:19).

Our sin with Adam: "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned" (Rom. 5:12). See also Rom. 5:18; 1 Cor. 15:22.

Man after Death and before the resurrection.

The intermediate state
This is the condition of the soul between the death of the body and the resurrection.

There is little spoken of it in the Bible, but it is a state of consciousness (2 Cor. 5:5-8; Luke 16:19-31).

We are self aware and, apparently, with the Lord (Phil. 1:21-23).

For the righteous this is a time of blessedness and joy (Luke 16:19-31).

For the unrighteous this is a time of suffering (Luke 16:19-31) as is exemplified in the account of Lazarus and the rich man.

Hey Feral,

There's another "Bible" with 73 books. Why not that one? It's bigger.

Hey Abra,

Post another thread. I'll check out your arguments

I offered the only two logical possiblities. You can believe in the God of the Bible and deny the truth of the Bible? Then do you believe in the God of the Bible? Nope. The possibility you offered breaks down rather quickly. How about "An all powerful God, who can't stop the earths rotation?" Sorry, but that makes no sense either. You either believe in the God of the Bible or you don't.



God's minor limitations to His power effectively make God all powerful. God can do all things which can be done. You cannot give someone free will and have them never do anything against your will, it's logically impossible. You also cannot make a circular square or a octangular triangle. Could God stop the earth from rotating? Why not? The God of the Bible created the universe in one day, who is to say that God couldn't stop the earths rotation? Stopping the earth's rotation isn't logically impossible, so therefore it is possible for the God of the Bible.



Religion has more than one meaning, I should have been more clear. First quote is religion as in: "A specific belief in the supernatural", whereas the second quote meant "an institution to express belief in a divine power". Sorry for the confusion.

ahhh ha.....because I use that one....tyvm

TO Spider:

You're attacking straw man arguments. It's NOT logically impossible to believe in the God of the Bible, and still think he communicated his words to mankind in the form of allegory and metaphor. Many "Christians" don't take the creation or flood stories as literal truth, and yet they retain a strong faith in the orthodox concept of God. It's not an all-or-nothing deal to them. Historical and empirical evidence would invalidate your argument.

You wrote: God's minor limitations to His power effectively make God all powerful.
Sorry. I don't know what you're getting at, but that claim is nonsensical. Please review.

How is it "logically impossible" for God to put into effect a system where humans have the freedom to choose right or wrong, but choose right without coercion or him intervening? They still retain free will in that instance. An "all powerful" god would have this ability. It's NOT analogous to a square circle though. That argument is illogical by a definitional disproof only.

No problem. Thanks for clarifying your definition to me. Much appreciated.