Faith vs. Fact (Creation vs. Evolution)

[John T 744]

If you look at the news you will see that people put religion way up there. They Live by it and they will die for it. 9-11 for example.

Why do people have blind faith?? My Nephew who is very intelligent and somewhat religious attends Rutgers University. He went to an organize debate titled EVOLUTION v. CREATION. Evolution is more or less stating that we came from a cell and went from there. Creation is that God put us here(Adam and Eve) and we came from there.

The debate in a nut shell went like this....All the facts that the Evolution side put on the table the Creation side tried to tear it apart but the Creation side really couldn't put up any facts for themselves since there side is built on faith and hearsay(Bible which is past down thru men/women)

So I ask why do people put faith ahead of fact? Is it a character flaw that we as humans have?? Is it the guilt that is bread in us that if we don't believe in God we are terrible people and we will go staight to.......

In the shortest words possible since most of us can write a book about this ---Why do you think Faith does thru-out the Planet beat Fact most of the time when it comes to Religion???

[John T 744]

Those answers sound nice and I wish I could believe them like you guys do but I always look at both sides of the coin its just the nature in me.

On the other side of that coin is all those people suffered greatly and they came from a very religious country Columbia.

Its like last year when a Tornado swept down in one of the midwest states and heads towards 2 churches that were full of people. The Tornado hits one of those Churches and kills a bundle of people in Church no less.

You get the picture with me. I look at things for better or worse with an even eye. If the lucky can thank the Lord then the others should be able to blame the Lord because the Lord made us.

I do respect your answer of course but at this time in my life they don't make complete sense to me.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

I'm not sure I see it as something you can factor logic or rationale into. But then, I have faith. Faith can be a very peaceful and beautiful thing, but it's someting that lives in your heart and it touches your soul. (to me)

Maybe someday you'll find it in your own way. I don't think everyone finds it the same way. And I also have to wonder if it's harder to find, in your line of work. I would think cops, firemen, doctors, anyone who has to deal with alot of death and sensless acts would potentially have a hard time.

Beth

[Mike Williamson 198]

John:

As I said, it isn't as simple as "Why didn't God stop the suffering, or avoid it altogether."

Part of the problem is our perspective...It is very limited. All we can see is the man who died and left his family alone, or the church full of people who were killed worshipping God. God sees everything, and knows every miniscule impact that every eventuality has. He may see that the man who died and left his family alone was the catalyst for the rest of His family to begin searching for and finding God...Or it may be any number of other things. The church full of worshippers killed by the tornado may have been the thing that it took for many others in the town to reach out for God..As I said, only God knows it all, and only He knows the outcome of everything that happens.

[HotShot 34]

Its like last year when a Tornado swept down in one of the midwest states and heads towards 2 churches that were full of people. The Tornado hits one of those Churches and kills a bundle of people in Church no less.

You get the picture with me. I look at things for better or worse with an even eye. If the lucky can thank the Lord then the others should be able to blame the Lord because the Lord made us.

I do respect your answer of course but at this time in my life they don't make complete sense to me.

Hey John, I'm going to try an answer this to the best of my ability. I know this is an old thread, but it's a really good one. I've been pondering how I can best answer your question for the last couple of days and today I'm going to take a stab at it.

The Bible says in Matthew 5:45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. In other words, bad things are going to happen to good people. Read the book of Acts....These are men that walked with the Lord himself and each of them were beaten, thrown in jail, stoned all kinds of crazy things. Todays gospel message has been reduced to....If you become a Christian, you'll have a wonderful life and your pockets will be full of money and you'll never get sick.....BOLOGNA. That's not what the word of God says, these people that teach this stuff are false teachers. I know that sounds a little harsh, but I can prove it, over and over again using the Bible.

Bad things happen because of sin. (period) We have all sinned against a Holy God and deserve death, it's only by his mercy that we are around now. He is a very merciful God. Ask yourself: have you ever told a lie? Ever stolen anything? What about, have you ever looked at another woman with lust? Jesus says that if you just look at a person with lust, then you have already commited adultery with that person in your heart. God's standard is perfect and of course we're not so what's a person to do? Well, instead of God crushing us with his wrath he stepped out of heaven, became one of us and paid our death penalty for us. What a loving God. All we can do is repent of our sins and trust in him. That's what the Bible says that we have to do to be born again. Repent (turn from your sin) and Trust Him. Does this mean that we won't sin anymore.....certainly not! But, we do not practice sin willfully.

There is a story in that Jesus talks about (I can't remember where off the top of my head, but I'll find it) when a building fell on a bunch of people and killed them. His disiples asked why this happened, was it because they were bad people? And Jesus said that's what we all deserve (basically). There is none good, save Christ. I'll find it for you....

John 3: 36 says that God's wrath abides on us if we're not saved. A lot of people picture God as this big, lovable god that is just going to wink us all through to heaven, but the Bible paints a totally different picture. God is a just God and MUST punish evil and sin. Yes he's loving, more than we can even imagine in our little finite minds, after all, he hung on a cross for you and me, but he's also just. All I can ask John is that you examine yourself, look around at the creation---that's the proof for the Creator. If their is a painting there must be a painter, if there is a clean sidewalk, there must have been a pw :) I can get into all kinds of scientific stuff, but I just wanted to talk about what matters most....

hope this helps, hope I didn't come off like a know it all. If you have anymore questions, I would be glad to try an answer them.

[CCPC 26]

Religions have been present ever since mankind developed the ability to reason. After evolving into intelligent animals, yet still driven by our innate animal instincts of survival at all costs, humans had to reason out acceptable explanations of death to achieve peace in life. Not knowing exactly what goes through the mind of other animals, but one thing is clear; survival is the most important thing. Humans are probably the only animals on the planet that have knowledge of death very early on in life. Fear of non existence is what drives faith in an after life. It’s not our fault. It’s just the intelligent human mind using abstract thinking to reason out an acceptable outcome from the thought of something so unbearable.

[kevinw 14]

What an interesting thread. I was surprised to find it here, and encouraged by the responses. I am a Christian, and my faith in God sustains me from day to day. Much of what I see here are the responses to Christians everywhere. I'd like to share a story from my experience, and then a response to some of the postings on this thread.

My first son was born on Jan 3, 1983. We'd lost several children to miscarriages prior to this and had been holding our breath, day to day, until the morning he was born. Shortly after his birth, the dr. called us and told us that there was something wrong with our son...his temperature had spiked. He asked permission to do a spinal tap to see if our son had meningitis. Then he came back and told us it was meningitis, they'd put him in isolation and on antibiotics while they tried to determine what bacteria was causing the meningitis. He told us our son had less than a 50% chance of survival and, if he survived, he would have brain damage resulting in loss of sight, hearing, or motor skills...or any combination of those to the point of being in a complete vegetative state.

I was a Christian then, but didn't know what to pray...I didn't want to ask God to let my son live a miserable life, and wasn't sure I was capable of being a father to a child with those types of problems...and I couldn't ask God to take him. So, I asked God to do His will and help me accept it. If one of you had stood next to me at that time, and hugged me, and told me it was going to be alright...it would have been no less real than what God did at that moment. I felt Him there, I heard His voice...and I was instantly at peace. I went back to my wife's room and found that she was no longer crying. I told here everything was going to be okay, and she told me she had felt the same thing.

The doctor told us that if our son recovered, he would experience respiratory failure, heart failure, and convulsions. None of that happened. As we left the hospital with our son, 17 days later, the doctor followed us out of the hospital and told us the following...when our son was born, he had no reason to think anything was wrong but he knew something was wrong and told the nurses to take his temperature every hour. When the temperature spiked, he had no reason to believe it was meningitis, but he knew it was meningitis and performed a spinal tap. The bacteria that caused the meningitis rarely causes that disease infants, and requires a specific test to diagnose...he ordered that test. The normal course of antibiotics would have been a broad spectrum antibiotic, which the bacteria would not have responded to...he ordered the specific antibiotic for this bacteria. Our son should have had respiratory failure, cardiac failure, and convulsions...but he didn't. His last words to us were, "God has plans for your son." He also told us to monitor him for brain damage which would show up later in life.

I had no health insurance at that time, and 17 days of neo-natal intensive care was very expensive. When I called the hospital to arrange payments, they told me the bill had been paid.

My son is 23 now. He played on his high school varsity soccer team, he's a talented guitar player...and a newly commissioned 2 LT in the Army. No sign of brain damage! The Bible describes Faith as the Hope in things unseen...I have Faith.

God allows each of us to make our decisions, and be accountable for them. He doesn't order our lives, he doesn't operate us as puppets. We have the gift of choice. He wants what is best for us, but He doesn't force us to accept it.

The things we do in our lives have consequences that affect others, which isn't "fair". But the fact that we did something isn't God's fault...it's ours, we made the decision. The effects on others aren't "fair", but that isn't God's fault either...we made the decision and took the action. It isn't fair that a baby is abused by his father...it's the father's fault...not God's. God allowed the father to make his own decision. God offered the father the same thing He offers each of us, the father chose his path and the consequences began...and consequences almost always affect the innocent. The Bible refers this as the sins of the fathers being visited on their children.

However, He is God. He makes the rules, we don't. One of those rules involves consequences and accountability. We can decide He doesn't exist, we can decide we don't like the way He does things, we can even decide to re-make Him into the kind of god we want Him to be...but it doesn't change Him. He is God whether we believe in Him or not, whether we accept Him or not. He doesn't change to please us, we were created to please Him. His desire is to have a personal relationship with each of us...He provided the Way for that to happen.

We get to decide whether we accept Him. When someone comes to my door at an inconvenient time to share their Faith...I admire them! They have the courage to do what many of us don't have the courage to do...talk to a total stranger about "things unseen". Think of it this way...if I knew the bridge was out down the road, and saw you driving toward it at 70 mph, wouldn't you want me to let you know what was ahead? Wouldn't that be my responsibility? That's what they're doing, trying to let those that are barrelling down the road at 70 mph know that there's something ahead they need to know about it. What courage! They don't even know you, and they're concerned about your future. Sometimes people just don't want to know the bridge is out, they'd rather believe that everything ahead is the way they want it to be.

There are things down the road that we are all going to have to face. We get to decide whether we believe there's something up there to prepare for...or we can decide that the road is what we want it to be.

[Mike Williamson 198]

Religions have been present ever since mankind developed the ability to reason. After evolving into intelligent animals, yet still driven by our innate animal instincts of survival at all costs, humans had to reason out acceptable explanations of death to achieve peace in life. Not knowing exactly what goes through the mind of other animals, but one thing is clear; survival is the most important thing. Humans are probably the only animals on the planet that have knowledge of death very early on in life. Fear of non existence is what drives faith in an after life. It’s not our fault. It’s just the intelligent human mind using abstract thinking to reason out an acceptable outcome from the thought of something so unbearable.

This is exactly why religious debates really ought to be avoided in an online forum such as this. I find what you're saying to be offensive, since you're basically saying that my entire experience with God (which is fairly extensive and quite interactive) has been nothing but a delusion of my mind. I can assure you that it is not, for very valid reasons I'll not go into here.

That's all I'll say on the issue, since I do NOT want this thread to get ugly as I believe it did in the past. Religion and politice (and the proper roof cleaning chemical) are the WORST topics for discussion in the relatively anonomous online world. They are topics some people feel VERY VERY passionate, regardless of which "side" you are on. That passion often translates into hurt or offended feelings, and much too often, an offensive or very personal response. It's too easy to say things at a keyboard that you would NEVER say to a person's face.

[PressurePros 248]

In my time here I have never seen this thread. Maybe I wasn't supposed to until today. I have only read this page thus far and I think Beth's post about faith (in anything) was very well stated.

I have come from both sides of the coin. In college I was an atheist. At that time I would have discounted any of you as God freaks and at the very least explained a faith in God and the afterlife exactly as Lance did above.

There were many things that had to happen to humble me. I had to experience the downside of life to open my eyes and understand the guidance of divinity. It is a source power from which today I draw most of my energy. Even still being a person that is driven by both logic and science I find to much order for the patterns of life to be totally random.

To touch briefly on as to why God may allow suffering to happen. Unfortunately our intellect, egos and pace of life get in the way of learning. It seems the only way one can learn is from the negative. In bettering (evolving) a species, mistakes have to be made and motivation from negative events have to guide that species towards bettering their habitat, morality or what have you. Plane crashes push us towards bettering the planes. Losing someone in a plane crash will wake up a person and make him appreciate his loved ones more. I think God's will and plan of action are way above our understanding. We would need to be omnipotent and open minded to accept the fact that we lost a child so that a larger numbeer of children can be saved later.

My life would be very bleak without faith. My daily struggles would not be as surmountable without faith. Even if I am completely dissillusioned and when I die there is nothing but darkness, my life today is much more complete and I am a much better person for having accepted a higher power.

[Mountain View 14]

To me it come down to this: We are complex enough to ask questions but not sophisticated enough to know the answers. Because of this inability of our species to answer all of the questions we pose, we have developed a series of 'belief systems' to fill in the gaps. It really comes down to what makes you feel comfortable and able to live a fufilling life. What happens after our life here? I have no idea, and I'm cool with that.

[Celeste 341]

Kevin, thank you for sharing that. Reading an experience like that will jerk you back to the reality of faith and prayer - sometimes I find prayer falling to the bottom of my "to do" list. Thank you again for the reality check.

Celeste

[Mike Williamson 198]

I'd like to share a story from my experience, and then a response to some of the postings on this thread.

WOW! Stuff like that is a clear reminder that He is able! And that He cares for us. Thanks for that story.

[Captain 14]

Real life, personal experiences that are not explainable by any other factual means. Divine intervention on a personal level that means that you know, that you know , that you know that there is a LOVING God that cares for you and only wants the best for you and not to punish or destroy you.

Testimony: Clean and sober for 3 yrs because God did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Best life I, and my family, could have ever imagined!

[Mike Williamson 198]

Real life, personal experiences that are not explainable by any other factual means. Divine intervention on a personal level that means that you know, that you know , that you know that there is a LOVING God that cares for you and only wants the best for you and not to punish or destroy you.

ExACTly! I can tell you what God has done for me, I can tell you how I've experienced God, but unless you experience Him for yourself, my words are just words...A skeptic will either think me a liar, or delusional, or both. God is a personal, one-on-one God, and the things I have experienced leave no room for doubt in this non-delusional very analytic mind.

[Mike Williamson 198]

Real life, personal experiences that are not explainable by any other factual means. Divine intervention on a personal level that means that you know, that you know , that you know that there is a LOVING God that cares for you and only wants the best for you and not to punish or destroy you.

Testimony: Clean and sober for 3 yrs because God did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Best life I, and my family, could have ever imagined!

Captain: by the way, excellent first post! Welcome to the board!

[Russ Spence 76]

proof of evolution....this mat offend some....sorry

[Mike Williamson 198]

proof of evolution....this mat offend some....sorry

Or there's this one...

[Russ Spence 76]

thats good mike

[Guest Danebob]

Charles Darwin, Father of Evolution, was a Christian. His daughter became ill and died at a young age. Darwin became angry at God. And asked the question manny others ask. "If God is a god of love, why would he let him or her or my loved one suffer or die?"

Well, Say i walk up to your door and offered you a crisp 100 dollar bill. your not expecting it and your very greatful. Next day i come again with another 100 dollar bill for you. Wow you weren't expecting it. Next day again 100 dollars and the next for 30 days. 31st day i go to your neighbor and hand him/her a 100 dollar bill. you, seeing this, come running out of your house, "Were's my 100 dollar bill."

My point is we take for granted the time God gave us on earth. Thank him for the time he has given us thus far. Yet Charlse Darwin became angry and removed God from his thoughts. He has lead others into his idea that there is no God. Evalution was the result of his anger towards God. God is a god of love and he wants us all to know him. In is mercy he has given us the choice to accept him or not.

I hope i'm staying to the point but I am a CHristian and i believe in Chist's Death, Burrial, and Rserection. It is a free give for you to accept or reject.

Creation vs. Evolution is a sticky topic.

[TNT Pressure Washing 14]

I am a Christian and (as in my signature) " I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." Phil 4:13 All these "people" say that we evoloved from monkeys. Just a question, IF that was true (which I know it aint) why are there still monkeys? Just kinda food for thought.

[Guest Danebob]

LOL i know I alwasy thought that kinda interesting too. I love that vs.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

"If God is a god of love, why would he let him or her or my loved one suffer or die?"

God is love, we just haven't learned how to do it ourselves. We are hindered by past, history, pre-conceived notions and those who wrote what we follow.

"The noose around the neck of humanity is our tendency to pass judgment upon each other"

Rod!~

[HotShot 34]

Not only is God a God of Love, but also of Wrath, and justice. Acts 17:31 Because He has appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has ordained; whereof he has given assurance to all men, in that he has raised him from the dead.

God is not some little fairy floating around loving everybody....He doesn't love everybody!! If you are not born again then His wrath abides upon you-John 3:36

You are an enemy of God in your mind through wicked works...-Colossians 1:21

Not to take away from you post danebob, it was a very good post, but it's important that sinners know that because of their sin, (breaking the laws of God) God is not going to turn a blind eye to it...they must Repent and Trust in the Saviour

[John T 744]

What ever works for you no matter what the religion or non religion is that is fine with me...We just need to all try to find a way to get along or this world will come crashing down...and God or No God that will not be good.

With that being said I'd still hunt down the ones who have hurt us bad such as Osama Bin Laden and any Priest that has molested a child. These people should be dealt with with swift and accurate justice..

Next batter up..........

[PressurePros 248]

I'll pass the microphone on this topic.

[Mike Williamson 198]

With that being said I'd still hunt down the ones who have hurt us bad such as Osama Bin Laden and any Priest that has molested a child. These people should be dealt with with swift and accurate justice..

Why specify priests? Yes, there are a few priests (and ministers of other denoms) who have molested children, but the vast majority have not, would not, and feel as strongly against that behavior as you do. Why not just say "...and any person who has molested a child." Whether it be a priest or not.