(January 31, 2014 at 6:47 am)Carnavon Wrote: I agree, there are a great number of different interpretations, although my experience is that many seem to approach the Bible from a preferred position, rather than doing proper exegesis. It seems that topical preaching is often the typical sermon, rather than exegesis. I know in South Africa (where I live) apartheid was defended from the Bible - in clear contradiction of Scripture itself.
It may be useful to study the origin of modern science. You will be surprised.
Ah, of course, all those other Christians are interpreting from convenience, but not you.
Q: Who knows the proper and true way to interpret scripture?
A: Whichever Christian you last spoke to.
Quote:Killing people because of their beliefs - I know that they were not willing to recant. Thus they were dying for what they believed in. Would you?
No. Dying for your beliefs is stupid. All the moreso when your beliefs are stupid.
Quote:You are not stating fact my friend. Fiction does not get reported in history by historians of impeccable credentials.
Neither does most of the Bible. What a coincidence.
Quote:You have faith that nothing exploded into something, the big bang happened and that your great-great-great grandfather was an ape?
I have faith that you have no idea what the either the Big Bang or the evolutionary theory actually suggest, given your childishly stupid and incorrect way of describing them.
I have faith that the universe as we know it began, probably from a singularity (not from nothing; all the stuff of the universe was already there in a vastly different form) roughly 13.7 billion years ago, and I have faith that I share a distant common ancestry with apes, because both ideas are supported by overwhelming amounts of evidence verified over and over to the point where it doesn't take that much faith to see what the facts have to say.
You have faith that nothing became something at the snap of a divine finger and that you're descended from a guy who was made out of dust, with your only 'evidence' being a book of myths written by people who clearly had no idea what they were talking about.