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u/Shorts28 · 18 pointsr/AskAChristian

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.
u/pjsans · 3 pointsr/AskAChristian

>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.

u/DJSpook · 2 pointsr/AskAChristian

> 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.

u/BobbyBobbie · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

> 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.

u/JJChowning · 4 pointsr/AskAChristian

>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.

u/ses1 · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

>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.
u/Weemz · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

Others have stated that you shouldn't start with the OT, opting to go for the gospels/NT books instead. While that's fine, just know that much of what is in those books draws on or is pulling symbolism/reference from OT books.


If you would like an easier experience with the OT, I would highly recommend reading them in the Jewish Study Bible. It has fantastic commentary made up of scholars, rabbinic essays, archeological data, etc. It really brings the text to life in a way that is not possible with just a casual reading of the text.

u/himalayansaltlick · 2 pointsr/AskAChristian

It's not just the age difference, so keep that in mind. You've heard the phrase "don't shit where you eat?" Churches are great networks for meeting new people, but it's also incredibly social fraught, especially if it's a relative of church leadership that you're interested in!

Grab this book and give it a read. It reminds you that, even though you are tired of being alone (and I feel that, brother, I feel it), you have to be careful about making poor choices.

Online dating isn't for pretty people, either! I say give it another try with some other platforms. Go start a hobby––take up dancing or crossfit or something social. That's a great way to meet people your age AND boost your confidence.

u/Righteous_Dude · 5 pointsr/AskAChristian

You should know that there are at least these three views about hell that Christians hold:

  • (1) Universal reconciliation - A person who was not saved during life is in hell for some time, but can wise up and accept Christ as Lord. Eventually, everyone will be reconciled to God.

  • (2) Conditional immortality - A person is normally mortal, but Jesus gives eternal life to some (those who accept Him). Those who don't meet the condition to get the gift of eternal life go to hell and have a finite period of punishment, followed by annihilation.

  • (3) Eternal suffering (of some type) - this has been traditionally taught among some Catholics and Protestants (see link about views).

    There are some Bible verses that support each of these views.
    While (3) has been taught for such a long time, (1) and (2) are gaining popularity these days.

    There are also various views on whether the experience is "fiery" or whether it's mostly about "separation from God."

    See this image which depicts attributes of the three views about hell.

    Each of the three views has some verses to support it.
    See this book for a discussion of the arguments for/against each view.

    My own position is 'annihilationist' - that people in hell have a finite proportional punishment and are then annihilated. I also hold to 'conditional immortality' - that people's existence is by default finite, and that God gives a gift of eternal life only to some people.

    This article by Greg Boyd explains his reasons toward annihilationism. I recommend reading it.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------

    To respond to your second question:

    > 2) why is believing the divinity of Christ the apparent benchmark for passing God's test?

    It's not the case that God does a 'test' which some people 'pass'.

    Instead, the Bible teaches that salvation is by God's grace - that is, He gives salvation to some people as a gift which they don't deserve. I believe that those who have some faith (that is, who have some trust in God), and who remain faithful until the end of their earthly lives, are those whom God saves and who avoid hell.

    I'd disagree with an idea that 'believing the divinity of Christ' is a necessary condition to avoid hell.
u/declawedboys · 4 pointsr/AskAChristian

Except there are better ones out there.

When I say Aslan's scholarship isn't there, the issue is he uses flawed scholarship and presents it as fact. Some of this scholarship has actively been discredited, others are widely criticized for methodological issues (using circular logic to back up their conclusions), and is very contentious on some fundamental problems. Aslan makes a lot of claims as if they're truth but which cannot be proven because we lack the evidence to make such conclusions.

I'll be upfront on my bias here: Aslan relies on 19th century German scholarship and the Jesus Seminar and I simply think these sources of the historical Jesus are not sound. I contend that the streams of scholarship he relies upon tends to present speculation as fact (and a lot of the speculation has been treated as fact). The Jesus Seminar in particular is roundly criticized for using circular logic to make conclusions. I think these critiques are fair and do suggest that the conclusions of the wider Jesus Seminar should be handled as suspect. I believe archeological evidence disproves assumptions made by the Jesus Seminar when it comes to aging texts. This matters because the Jesus Seminar went through texts and voted on each one's authenticity based on their unproven assumptions -- deeming passages inauthentic (and thus later additions) based on criteria that were unproven and perhaps even disproven.

Aslan is a bad starting point because he uses questionable scholarship, doesn't question it, and then presents this "historical" portrait of Jesus based on his reading of this scholarship. Scholarship which archeological evidence actively contradicts at times.

I haven't read this book, but I've read some of his articles, and E.P. Sanders is commonly seen as a good starting point who makes good use of archeological evidence to draw conclusions.

N.T. Wright and Marcus Borg co-author a book which goes through various aspects of the search for the historical Jesus. Wright and Borg are friends (and I think went to school together? They both had the same mentor, anyhow) but have very different views. Wright is highly critical of the Jesus Seminar, Borg was part of the Jesus Seminar but is also a bit of an outlier due to his more mystical understanding.

The point is that there's much better starting points. I think any of the links I've provided are good ones. But Aslan simply because if Aslan is your jumping off point, you're mostly going to get scholarship that he agreed with to make his point.

u/Justanothergamerwife · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

Outside sources help confirm that - if you wish to explore this idea more I really recommend the book The Case for Christ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310350034/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_lCZTDbDCV0B3B

u/InternationalSilver1 · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

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-

u/JamesNoff · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

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.

u/2Panik · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

I had, thank you. Same to you.

>Is humanity at peak prosperity? Yes, probably so. Why? Because it’s already the direction we were headed in.

I think is important to establish why we were headed in. Is because we discover ways to make our real, natural life better. Not because we discover ways to improve our spiritual life. Even though we tried with thousand of Gods and religions.

​

>It’s not like we’ve been walking in circles for the last ten thousand years.

We actually kind of were going in circles:

"Copernicus (1473-1543)1,2, Kepler (1571-1630), Galileo (1564-1642)3,4,5, Newton (1643-1727)6 and Laplace (1749-1827)7 all fought battles against the Church when they published scientific papers that enraged the Church by writing that the Earth might orbit the sun, rather than the idea that it sat at a central position in the Universe. These and other scientists suffered torture, imprisonment, forced recantations and death at the hands of Christians5,8. The source of the Church's confidence was the Bible.

.....

"2,500 years ago, there was a glorious awakening in Ionia: on Samos and the other nearby Greek colonies that grew up among the islands and inlets of the busy eastern Aegean Sea. Suddenly there were people who believed that everything was made of atoms; that human beings and other animals had sprung from simpler forms; that diseases were not caused by demons or the gods; that the Earth was only a planet going around the Sun. And that the stars were very far away. [...]

In the 6th century B.C., in Ionia, a new concept developed, one of the great ideas of the human species. The universe is knowable, the ancient Ionians argued, because it exhibits an internal order: there are regularities in Nature that permit its secrets to be uncovered. [...] This ordered and admirable character of the universe was called Cosmos. [...]

Between 600 and 400 B.C., this great revolution in human thought began. [...] The leading figures in this revolution were men with Greek names, largely unfamiliar to us today, the truest pioneers in the development of our civilization and our humanity.”

"Cosmos" by Carl Sagan (1995)37

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When did the Catholic Church officially accepted the fact of a moving Earth? Can you believe it was 1992

The idea is Christianity proposes and imposes a system in which reality works because of supernatural forces. Which has been proven wrong so so many times when it tried to defend it.

So I can say that Christianity is false because it's claims has been proven false in all its history. The sun doesn't burn because of supernatural forces, volcanos, thunders, earthquakes, floods, desises, disasters are not the wrath of Gods. From here I have big doubts about claims about soul, haven, angels, demons, etc.

u/Revelasti · 3 pointsr/AskAChristian

This book has been around for decades and has a chapter on meditation, check it out.

u/poorfolkbows · 3 pointsr/AskAChristian

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

u/thowawaygoaway123 · 2 pointsr/AskAChristian

Context is what you are missing out on. Life is vastly different today than it was in biblical times.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0310431581?aaxitk=Sg0pijqQ8SEasKqkZsS.4g

u/BruceIsLoose · 1 pointr/AskAChristian

>Dying for one's beliefs shows that those beliefs were held sincerely and strongly.

Correct, and not how true they are.

If I contacted 10 people who claim they've seen UFOs and bring them to a field, tie them up, and point a gun at their head and tell them "if you don't confess that you're lying and that you actually didn't see a UFO then I will kill you," then one by one shoot them in the head when they hold true to their claims...that doesn't mean that what they claim is actually true. The UFOs would still need to be demonstrated. Their belief, however genuine, is irrespective of the claim.

>If Christ's death and resurrection was untrue, the apostles (at least some of them) would know better, and would not choose to die rather than recant.

We know extraordinarily little about the martyrdom of the apostles and we have really no reason to think Romans arrested the apostles, told them to admit they were lying/denounce their beliefs, kill them if they didn't, or let them go if they did. The closest and earliest case of this would be with Pliny the Younger in AD 100 (after the time of the apostles) when he wrote to Emperor Trajan asking how to handle Christians who were brought to trial for sedition against Roman authority or rejection of the Roman Imperial Cult in Anatolia where he was an imperial magistrate; not the Roman Empire as a whole.

The stories we do have about them are not only centuries later but are also contradictory (one account says an apostle went somewhere in Africa and died while another might say they went off to Europe and died) and contain absolutely fictional elements. I highly recommend Sean McDowell's (a conservative evangelical apologist) book The Fate of the Apostles which goes through all the various historical texts/mentions we have of their martyrdom.

For example, you know the story of St. Peter how he was crucified upside down? That comes from the apocryphal "Acts of Peter" in which in addition to the claim of him being crucified that way also includes talking dogs, raising sardines from the dead, and battling a magician who can fly and whisper in people's ears to kill them.

The martyrdom of Phillip as shown in the Acts of Phillip describes that prior to being executed Phillip prays and the following happens:

>And, behold, suddenly the abyss was opened, and the whole of the place in which the proconsul was sitting was swallowed up, and the whole of the temple, and the viper which they worshipped, and great crowds, and the priests of the viper, about seven thousand men, besides women and children, except where the apostles were: they remained unshaken. And the proconsul was swallowed up into the abyss

I think that speaks for itself about the historical weight of these accounts and why we should weigh the historical reliability of such accounts low.

Another good compilation (not in book form like the source I mentioned above) of the accounts of the apostles' martyrdom can be found here.

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Edit: Changed out URL to Amazon store page for the book recommendation.