Prayer is useless?

[Green_Manelishi]

how do you think the man who kicked over the stalls on the Temple would
react when he comes into your church and sees the collection platters
being passed around?

i don't think he'd approve.

Apparently you've not read about tithing and offerings to support the church/temple?
I thought you are a biblical scholar?

And this Jesus that you claim to be interested in, according to the Bible, made some incredible claims about himself; He is God, He has power to forgive sin, He changed water into wine, He believed very much in the content of the Old Testament, etc.

But wait ... you don't believe the Bible. So, what "historical" Jesus is it that you study?

 

[H2Andy]

I thought you are a biblical scholar?

don't know what gave you that impresion. i myself have stated that my
knowlege in this field is "basic."

i'm afraid most of my knowledge is quite basic; i don't have the
time to do the real serious research (or learn Greek to be
able to read the original sources).

http://www.scubaboard.com/showpost.php?p=1462616&postcount=191

but yeah, i have training on close readings of texts, with an English
bachelor's, English Masters, and a law degree, and i have been reading
the Bible since, literally, i could read. so i do feel i have some knowledge
regarding these issues.

but that was an ad hominem attack you made, distracting the argument
from its merits to make it about the person ... it's not about me, dude,
even a fool can say a smart thing every once in a while.

again, my point is that Jesus was anti-organized religion. he despised
what the priests had done to Temple worship.

i think he wouldn't be too happy with the state of organized Christianity
in the world.

you should know this, if you paid attention to your daily Bible readings

 

[Green_Manelishi]

so basically, there's two answers to how the universe came to being:

1. we don't really know; and

2. God created it

i take 1, being the more honest one, and also since 2 can neither be
proven nor disproven.

Please counselor.

Evolutionary "scientists" do claim to know. They pile one untestable, alleged, "theory" on top of another in order to explain how nothing became something and then from simple something came incredible complexity all without a single verifiable interim lifeform, observable event, or repeatable experiment to prove or disprove their hypothesis.

Talk about incredible leaps of faith.

The Bible also clearly states that a fool says in his heart that there is no God.
What reason would anyone have for writing that considering they would be dead long before many others ever read it and began to argue about whether it was true.
Or perhaps it was written by men, inspired by God?

Later

 

[dherbman]

hmmmm...... would anyone like to see catherine96821's dog? He actually is a nice looking dog, though she tends to dress him oddly. I also suspect he spends too much time locked in her trunk.

 

[H2Andy]

Please counselor.

Evolutionary "scientists" do claim to know. They pile one untestable, alleged, "theory" on top of another in order to explain how nothing became something and then from simple something came incredible complexity all without a single verifiable interim lifeform.

how abominably pedantic... "please counselor" (and yet another ad hominem...
since i am a lawyer, that ipso facto makes me a bad person)

yikes..

anyway, obviously you don't undesrtand the difference between cosmology and
evolutionary biology, so go do some reading before we can have a meaningful
discussion

 

[Green_Manelishi]

again, my point is that Jesus was anti-organized religion. he despised
what the priests had done to Temple worship.

i think he wouldn't be too happy with the state of organized Christianity
in the world.

Mea culpa.

Well as they would say in court, and pretend it never happened, "I withdraw the question" (statement in this case).

Jesus was "anti organized religion?" How so. He was a Jew. That is hardly an unorganized religion. And He did not come to abolish the law but to fullfill it.

 

[berty]

Green_Manelishi,

I'm curious, are you one of those folks that believes the earth is less than 6000 years old? Sorry to be off-topic.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

how abominably pedantic... "please counselor" (and yet another ad hominem...
since i am a lawyer, that ipso facto makes me a bad person)

yikes..

anyway, obviously you don't undesrtand the difference between cosmology and
evolutionary biology, so go do some reading before we can have a meaningful
discussion

Your edges are beginning to fray; now you are accusing me of attacking you personally because you are a lawyer? I don't care whether you are a doctor, lawyer, indian chief, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, tinker, tailor, soldier or spy.

And yes I do understand the difference. I also understand the relationship. That before the biological was the physical and the lightning "struck" the primordial earth and amino acids were formed and they had an orgy in the soup and proteins formed and blah blah blah.

And for what it's worth I really enjoy science fiction; all that talk about warping time and quantum singularities, etc. But my favorite are The Borg. They are relentless, they do not quit, ever. I too am relentless; I do not quit. Nor do I take anything personally ... unlike some lawyers I don't personally know. (insert wink here)

 

[H2Andy]

And He did not come to abolish the law but to fullfill it.

ah.... thus abolishing it

tell me, do you operate under the law or under grace?

sounds to me like Jesus did abolish the law

Your edges are beginning to fray; now you are accusing me of attacking you personally because you are a lawyer? I don't care whether you are a doctor, lawyer, indian chief, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, tinker, tailor, soldier or spy.

fine, so leave my occupation out of it. you're the one who brought it up.

And yes I do understand the difference. I also understand the relationship. That before the biological was the physical and the lightning "struck" the primordial earth and amino acids were formed and they had an orgy in the soup and proteins formed and blah blah blah.

no, you don't understand the difference. you're talking about evolutionary
biology. i was talking about cosmology. two different things.

if you understood, you would see that the big question is not how life on
earth came about, but how did the unverse in which earth finds itself
came about.

that's the tough one. that's the one no scientist has the answer to.

 

[Green_Manelishi]

Green_Manelishi,

I'm curious, are you one of those folks that believes the earth is less than 6000 years old? Sorry to be off-topic.

I never added the life spans, etc. I think though for those who have, it's a bit more than 6000 years old. A complete answer will take some time.

If you want, I can return to this question.