A Philosophical Discussion
So what is it about Jesus that offends your philosophy? By stating that Jesus loves you,
I am assuming that Jesus represents an eternal God, a creator, an utmost power. Does that
offend you?
A Philosophical Discussion
So what is it about Jesus that offends your philosophy? By stating that Jesus loves you,
I am assuming that Jesus represents an eternal God, a creator, an utmost power. Does that
offend you?
So, that is to say that you don't believe that a creator or supreme being exists or ever existed, or if a creator does exist, he/she/it is irrelevant to humanity now. Is that correct?
I hate labels, so please forgive me if I use some here for clarification. If you got to this point, you are most likely an atheist or agnostic. Perhaps you are a "Free Thinker"; free from the bonds of an archaic world view built on hundreds of years of pseudo-religious power mongering by European elitists. Maybe you like the bumper stickers that say "The last time we mixed religion and government was the Dark Ages". And you could not, in good conscience, drive a car that didn't have a "Darwin Fish" on it.
Well, brother (or sister), I welcome you. You are the very reason I put this site together. You see, your god has been in power for the last hundred years or so. Yes, I hate to tell you, you do serve a god, just like I do. You see, everyone serves a god whether they know it or not. Even those who don't believe in any god. My God (Please excuse my capitalization. It's an old habit.) is the God of the Bible, the God of the ancient Israelites. He has many names, but my favorite is "I AM". Your god is logic, the human ability to reason, "I think, therefore I am".
If you are here, you most likely serve your god as doggedly as I server mine. You praise your god with your pride just as I praise mine with my humility. You proselytize in schools and universities just as I call the lost to come to church. So, let's talk about our two gods.
Your god has actually been around almost as long as human kind. But in the last few hundred years (since the Dark Ages coincidentally) your god has been gathering a large following. What's really the most ironic is that most of your god's followers are standing on the accomplishments of my God's followers. Many of the great thinkers of the renaissance were devoutly religious, even when the "church" did horrible things to shut them up. (I won't argue with you about that. Sadly, humans can do some terrible things to each other, but that's not God's plan.)
There are a few basic problems with the god of logic and human intellect. First, for human intellect to be your god, you need human intellect to be infallible. Well, ten minutes in front of the evening news will put that to rest. Humans are horribly imperfect. So how can we trust the human mind to come up with anything "supreme"? Aside from that there are many questions that we humans have come up with, but been unable to answer. How did we get here? Why are we here? Where are we going?
"Darwinists" think they have that first one all sewed up. But if you take a broad look at the theory of evolution, and the evidence we've found so far, it's easy to see the gargantuan gaping holes that scientists somehow miss. The fossil record accounts for less than 1% of the time-line to which evolutionists ascribe. Carbon dating has been proven faulty over and over. Darwin himself prophetically summed up what happens when scientists try to string together tiny fragments of fact into a scientific theory, such as evolution:
"Hence arises, as I have found to my cost, a constant tendency to fill up the wide gaps of knowledge, by inaccurate and superficial hypotheses."
Here is a link to over 300 scientific articles that point out the glaring errors in scientific assumptions related to evolution.
Christianity has a simple answer to this first question. Genesis. The more we learn about the big ol' rock we live on, the more Genesis makes sense. How do tropical and oceanic fossils end up on mountain tops? Darwinists say, the mountain must have been under and ocean millions of years ago although, they usually can't agree on exactly when that could have happened. Uh huh... Creationists say Genesis; a global flood. What about dinosaurs? Darwinists say evolution, they evolved from oceanic reptiles and evolved into... well, birds is the latest notion, however, the debate about how dinosaurs got so big rages on. Hmmm... Creationists say Genesis (and Job). Something about early life on earth made it possible for people and animals to live a very very long time. The dinosaur hunters can't figure it out beacause, in their own words, "it would take a reptile centuries to grow [so big]". Exactly!! Read the Bible, guys!
Next, why are we here? Well, even after thousands of years, philosophers have yet to answer that one. Give it your best shot. As a Christian, I can give you my answer. God. God created us in His image to give glory to Him. I think of it as the ultimate social experiment.
And finally, where are we going? An atheist would have to say, nowhere. Death is the end. That sure makes the previous questions more difficult to answer. If there is nothing beyond death, then life is really pointless. The Bible on the other hand makes it very clear. When we die, we will experience eternity with or with out God, based on how we related to Him in life. If you, in life, chose to reject God, he respects your decision and you spend eternity without Him. Eternity with out God is Hell, eternal darkness, hopelessness, and pain. Eternity with God is Heaven, eternal light, peace, and joy.
Any good, scientific thinker must explore all the possibilities before settling on an answer. Don't you agree? Have you given Jesus a chance to prove his case? Maybe you should. Let's start with the basics.