What Do Reformed Christians Believe?

“They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” (NIV)

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” (KJV)



Aapex. lets test your faith. Is the Bible true? Are its verses correct in every word, being inspired by God? Or is the bible mythology, the flawed word of primitive men? Or are some parts inspired, and some parts flawed? If so, which parts are true and which parts are false, and how can one determine which is which? According to the New Testament of the Christian Bible, they (believers in Jesus Christ) can handle snakes, presumably poisonous ones, without harm. With this claim, religious faith enters the realm of testable science, and I hereby call the bluff.

Is Mark 16:18 a lie? Does the Holy Bible contain a falsehood? Is it telling you that you, as a true believer, can do something extremely dangerous without risk? All Christians who truly believe in Jesus Christ are hereby challenged to handle a rattlesnake without physical protection, or drink a glass of arsenic (or any positively lethal substance), and seek no medical assistance afterward. The act must be performed in the presence of skeptical observers, and for authenticity, skeptics should provide the snake and/or poison as well. Well, is your faith strong enough? Do you really believe as strongly as you think you do?

 

vhehn - we have had this discussion. You claim you can falsify the bible. Well take the quotes regarding the flood. Make sure you have the correct translation from the hebrew and prove the old testament to be incorrect.

Go for it.

 

yes, we did start to have this discussion once before. if i remember right you bailed right where i asked you to tell me which layer of the geologic column the global flood laid down. i predict the same this time. still waiting.
it does seem to be a stumbling block for flood believers because it forces them to actually think about what they believe.

 

How did animals that are restricted to certain parts of the earth get to the Ark? Penguins, kangaroos, polar bears, koala bears, and many others would have to have crossed vast oceans. How did animals withstand climatic changes? Snails, sloths, turtles, and so forth--must have started their journey to the Ark before God warned Noah. How did only 8 people feed and water the world's greatest zoo for many months? How was the Ark kept sanitary, since there was only one window and one door? How did the animals know where to go when the time arrived to enter the Ark? After being released, how did they return to their respective regions of the world?

 

Gen. 8:20 states, "And Noah builded an alter unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the alter."

This is quite possibly the most absurd sentence in ANY book. Killing animals of which only two remain after the Flood?????? Uh... how did these animals continue existing????

 

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/8619_issue_11_volume_4_number_1__3_12_2003.asp

About this issue . . .
To many, it will seem bizarre that, in this age of scientific advancement and sophisticated biblical criticism, it would be necessary to provide a point-by-point scientific refutation of the story of Noah's ark. Knowledgeable people are well aware that Genesis 1 through 11 is not scientific or historical but largely mythical, metaphorical, poetic, theological, and moral. All people are not knowledgeable, however. Recent Gallup surveys reveal that 50 percent of adult Americans believe that Adam and Eve existed, 44 percent believe the earth was created directly by God only ten thousand years ago, and 40 percent believe that the Bible is inerrant. No doubt an equally high percentage believe in Noah's ark.

This state of affairs has prompted some to advocate more public exposure to the higher criticism. But fundamentalists are generally opposed to the conclusions of the higher critics, and many other people don't seem interested in studying the Bible that closely. This means that another approach is often needed—one that deals directly with the "scientific creationist" arguments concerning the ark and the flood. Only after the creationist arguments have been scientifically answered will many people consider seriously the conclusions of modern biblical scholars.

This is why Robert Moore, in this issue of Creation/Evolution, has accepted the task of providing a direct and definitive response to the creationist Noah's ark arguments. In performing this task, Moore has found it necessary to take creationists at their word that the Bible must be read literally. He knows this position is untenable, and his article helps prove it. But proceeding in this way has allowed him to better focus on the creationists' scientific errors.

Though Moore uses the Bible as a constant reference point, he actually does not engage in biblical criticism. His critique is rather directed at the leading creationist books and experimental studies that seek to scientifically prove that the ark story can be treated as secular history. He knows how deadly serious creationists are about the historicity of the ark account. This seriousness is evidenced by the large expenditures creationists make on expeditions to Mt. Ararat, the meticulous and weighty tomes they write to answer every possible objection, and the efforts they take to encourage widespread public and private school use of books such as Streams of Civilization, their world history text that treats the ark story as an actual event.

So Moore must take the creationists almost as seriously as they take themselves. The result is detailed but, hopefully, entertaining and informative, with the excellent side benefits of providing fascinating information on shipbuilding, seafaring, zookeeping, zoology, botany, volcanism, and even refuse disposal.
The Impossible Voyage of Noah's Ark
Robert A. Moore

Suppose you picked up the newspaper tomorrow morning and were startled to see headlines announcing the discovery of a large ship high on the snowy slopes of Mt. Ararat in eastern Turkey. As you hurriedly scanned the article, you learned that a team from the Institute for Creation Research had unearthed the vessel and their measurements and studies had determined that it perfectly matched the description of Noah's Ark given in the book of Genesis. Would this be proof at last—the "smoking gun" as it were—that the earliest chapters of the Bible were true and that the story they told of a six-day creation and a universal flood was a sober, scientific account?

Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is no. Even this sensational find is not enough to validate a literal reading of Genesis. Our continuing skepticism is in the tradition of philosopher David Hume, who wrote that "the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their concurrence than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature." As we shall see, the story of the great flood and the voyage of the ark, as expounded by modern creationists, contains so many incredible "violations of the laws of nature" that it cannot possibly be accepted by any thinking person. Despite ingenious efforts to lend a degree of plausibility to the tale, nothing can be salvaged without the direct and constant intervention of the deity.



(more)

 

Vhehn and others first off I am not arguing that you must take every word of the bible litterally. That arguments is for others.

But two things. One I cited you to sites that critiqued your geologic layer concern. The layer itself is sort of speculation.

But more importantly, I pointed out that I do not even know if your tranlation of a world wide flood is correct.

Frankly, it is not a big concern to me. But, like I said, if you think you can do it, go for it, show that the bible said world wide flood and prove it incorrect. I am still waiting.

 

The flood story happened as told in the Bible. The Bible is infallible and reliable and is the Word of God. And so for those reasons you do not argue every Word must be taken literally.With the suggestions you have made above, do you want to be taken seriosly though?

But oh my, I am sooo proud. See, my critisizing has paid dividends. You learned to communicate intended meaning with correct spelling. Be honest jem, did you REALLY go through Law School as you have said you did, spelling cite as site and not realizing their different meanings. Honestly now?

You next assignment is this set by Yannis

vehn,
please list the exact words in the LRRH story that are incorrect. and before you try, should we understand that, since you cite similar fables, an LRRH could not have really happened?
Please don't ask me to stake out my position as I don't want to . Actually I think you need to stake out the position for me. Find the exact text in the LRRH and prove that it is incorrect.
The Word of the LRRH story is reliable and the 'infallable' and I am not arguing that you must take every word of LRRH 'litterally'.

Frankly, it is not a big concern to me. I can prove anything is true because anything is true.
As the LRRH story explains, it is perfectly feasible to fit seemingly impossible things into any space. Also subjecting such things to impossible conditions does not mean it did not happen. Prove it did not , if you can.

Even ALL species of animals and insects and all genus of plants can easily fit and live in one boat according to other stories. Did you know in another fable, someone called Noah was told to gather male and female of each kind. So he gathered some species which are asexual and other species which are hermaphrodites -both male and female at the same time. See?!

Prove the LRRH is not the True Word.!
I say it is, so um, I don't have to prove it.

 

When the student is ready...

...the Teacher will appear.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1038054#post1038054

Jesus

 

What does science actually tell us about …

1. …the origin of the universe? From the ancients until Einstein, people who had not been influenced by the Bible assumed that the universe has existed eternally, relieving them of the burden of dealing with ultimate origins. Today, overwhelming evidence has forced over 95 percent of cosmologists to subscribe to the theory of a big bang creation event. For those who care to think about it, this theory requires a mysterious, prior Cause beyond the universe.

A universal beginning provides the most scientifically acceptable explanation for the observed expansion of the universe. As NASA satellite team leader George Smoot wrote in the foreword to my book on modern cosmology: “Until the late 1910’s, humans were as ignorant of cosmic origins as they had ever been. Those who didn’t take Genesis literally had no reason to believe there had been a beginning.”1

2. …the purpose of the universe? Of course, scientists say this topic is outside the scientific domain; yet their observations have made it difficult for them to avoid acknowledging a mysterious phenomenon called fine-tuning. It turns out that the fundamental forces of nature — the universe’s expansion rate at the beginning, the ratio of the proton and electron masses, and so on — each have values that fall within extremely narrow parameters necessary for life.

Many scientists, with no prompting from theists, speak of the “anthropic principle” as their best explanation. The values of nature’s constants can best be predicted when scientists calculate as if anthros, or humanity, is the purpose behind them. Psalm 66:5 tells us: “Come and see what God has done, how awesome his works in man’s behalf!”

3. …the origin of life on this planet? The theory of evolution has nothing to offer in explaining this event. Though origin-of-life study is an active field of research, no one has come up with a scenario, let alone a theory, that most scientists are willing to accept. One of science’s greatest unmet challenges has been to explain the origin of life’s DNA code, which information scientist Hubert Yockey calls “mathematically identical” to alphabetic language in its specificity and complexity. The most popular hypothesis speculates that RNA-based life provided an interim step, since RNA is simpler than DNA while also using a code to specify the production of proteins; but RNA would require a predecessor as well.

Modern evidence exacerbates these problems by showing that life appeared on earth almost as soon as the planet provided the conditions for it. This leaves little time for what scientists had expected to be the most time-consuming stage of life’s history: the development of the cell and its genetic code.

Modern theories of self-organization and chaos have explained how interesting patterns can be created without intelligence. No theory, however, has been able to overcome the impossible odds against any natural mechanism producing information, that is, meaning.

4. …the origin of the major animal groups called phyla? According to Darwin (and modern neo-Darwinists), life evolved from the bottom up; that is, small changes accumulated into larger ones over millions of years. We should therefore find animal groups with the greatest differences between them (called phyla) later in time, nearer the top of the fossil strata. We should be able to categorize animals into more widely separated groups as time passes, and these groups should become more numerous.

“But that story is not true, according to our fossil finds,” paleontologist Jun-Yuan Chen told me during my visit to seven Chinese sites containing the world’s oldest animal fossils. “The new phyla make their start in the early days, instead of coming at the top.” Also, the number of animal phyla become fewer with time, not greater. New phyla have not continued to appear in all the ages since the early Cambrian period. Naturalistic expectations of a bottom-up pattern are unfulfilled by the evidence, while the actual top-down arrangement observed in the fossil record fits well with the concept of design.

5. …the patterns we find in the fossil record? Neo-Darwinism predicts a gradualistic pattern showing slow transitions from one type of life to another as small changes accumulate. The noted, recently deceased Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote about the true state of affairs: “The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.”2

Rather than seeing obvious connections between organisms fitting neatly into an evolutionary tree, the actual, typical pattern we find for each animal and plant in the fossil record is: (1) sudden appearance, (2) tiny changes over long periods, and (3) extinction.

Again, this mysterious pattern comes as a surprise to naturalistic theorists. We shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the Bible, by contrast, spells out all the creation details, but we can say, very conservatively, that the pattern fits what we’d expect from the hand of God as well or better than a naturalistic theory that ignores life’s actual history.

6. ...the development of intelligence? As evolutionary biologists see it, only one species out of an estimated 50 billion developed high intelligence on this planet after 4.6 billion years. Harvard zoologist Ernst Mayr declared that, if intelligence has such high value, we should see more species develop it.3 Stephen Jay Gould viewed the intelligence of Homo sapiens “as an ultimate in oddball rarity.”4

The biologists’ view, however, contradicts science’s much cherished Copernican Principle, which tells us that we are typical, not exceptional. Faced with contrary evidence, scientists who are honest must admit that they have to give up either the observation that intelligence appears to be almost impossibly rare or unique or the view that human intelligence is typical in the universe. The Bible sides with the evidence: there is indeed something special about us.

Where did our species get the volitional ability to override our natural instincts? How does “differential reproductive success” explain the human ability to write great literature, compose symphonies, create fine art, and do abstract math? We don’t need these abilities to survive.

7. If our intelligence and volition were purposely created, what might be our Creator’s purpose for us? The Creator could have made us like automatons, or like animals, to follow Him instinctively. The fact that He didn’t leads us to wonder why one volitional Being would go to the trouble of creating another volitional being, particularly when we can use our wills to defy His will — unless He wants to have a personal relationship with us. The highest kind of relationship offers parties the ability to reject the relationship. Isn’t it reasonable, then, that the Highest Being would want to have the highest kind of relationship — love — the relationship in which each person willingly gives himself or herself to the other?

The Bible tells how the God who is beyond our universe entered His own creation in order to demonstrate His love for us in the most dramatic, personal way possible. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).