I believe.. why do I need to put that

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

The people who want me to put it say that because they think I am wrong. I have been told this several times while in talking of Creation and Christianity. The Very Usage of the 'I believe' is that I don't know that it is real.

I will use an example of How I think and Why I will not use 'I believe'. The Wind blows, and you can not see it. You feel it, and hear it. You can not see atom, but does that mean it does not exist. You will probably use this as a basis that Evolution COULD be true. I have capitalized the key word for you.

I don't rely on flukes. I rely on an almighty God who can do all things. If you are told to say 'I believe, the person is already Biased against that belief. To be Baised is to be unfair, and we will all agree that this is intolerant.

This is why I do not use the word 'believe' except when I am talking to someone who believes in Evolution. Evolution is not True. It is a Theory. A THEORY. Nothing more than that. Charles Darwin was not a scientist.

Science is ALL things OBSERVABLE. I would like to point out that the continual use of 'believe' is saying 'I don't know for a fact'. I know for a Fact that God is real. If you are wondering why, READ C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

I would like to hear what you think of the Word I believe and if you want too, debate if God exists. It is simple to understand, and I will gladly tell you why.

---Aim for Heaven and you get earth thrown in; Aim for Earth and you'll get neither. ---C. S. Lewis

[EveningStar]

People say they believe for a Christian reason. If you saw God create the world it would not be counted as righteousness for you to believe His Holy Word. It is not righteousness to believe the sky is blue because anyone can glance up at it and tell for themselves. But to accept God's word about the unseeable and unknowable act of Creation is to put your faith in Him. And that is a belief about which you can be justifiably proud.

Jesus asked Thomas to look at the nail prints in his palms and put his fingers in his side. Thomas was overcome. "You believe what you have seen, but how much more blessed are those who believed without seeing."

Faith and belief are ways Jesus gives you to show your love and trust in him. That is much like the first time your parents went off and left you home alone without a baby sitter. They put their trust in you, and it really felt good.

The word you are looking for is "certainty" and yes it is worth the surprised looks to say, "I'm certain God created the world." That shows belief outside the presence of doubt.

ES

[The First Joke]

The people who want me to put it say that because they think I am wrong. I have been told this several times while in talking of Creation and Christianity. The Very Usage of the 'I believe' is that I don't know that it is real.

I will use an example of How I think and Why I will not use 'I believe'. The Wind blows, and you can not see it. You feel it, and hear it. You can not see atom, but does that mean it does not exist. You will probably use this as a basis that Evolution COULD be true. I have capitalized the key word for you.

I don't rely on flukes. I rely on an almighty God who can do all things. If you are told to say 'I believe, the person is already Biased against that belief. To be Baised is to be unfair, and we will all agree that this is intolerant.

This is why I do not use the word 'believe' except when I am talking to someone who believes in Evolution. Evolution is not True. It is a Theory. A THEORY. Nothing more than that. Charles Darwin was not a scientist.

Science is ALL things OBSERVABLE. I would like to point out that the continual use of 'believe' is saying 'I don't know for a fact'. I know for a Fact that God is real. If you are wondering why, READ C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.

I would like to hear what you think of the Word I believe and if you want too, debate if God exists. It is simple to understand, and I will gladly tell you why.

---Aim for Heaven and you get earth thrown in; Aim for Earth and you'll get neither. ---C. S. Lewis

Darwin was a scientist! maybe you don't believe what he says, but he did make som scientific advances.

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

Study the guy, man. He was a Preacher who lost his faith. Read about it.

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

People say they believe for a Christian reason. If you saw God create the world it would not be counted as righteousness for you to believe His Holy Word. It is not righteousness to believe the sky is blue because anyone can glance up at it and tell for themselves. But to accept God's word about the unseeable and unknowable act of Creation is to put your faith in Him. And that is a belief about which you can be justifiably proud.

Jesus asked Thomas to look at the nail prints in his palms and put his fingers in his side. Thomas was overcome. "You believe what you have seen, but how much more blessed are those who believed without seeing."

Faith and belief are ways Jesus gives you to show your love and trust in him. That is much like the first time your parents went off and left you home alone without a baby sitter. They put their trust in you, and it really felt good.

The word you are looking for is "certainty" and yes it is worth the surprised looks to say, "I'm certain God created the world." That shows belief outside the presence of doubt.

ES

I know what you mean, but the truth is self evident. I do not change it by saying I believe.

[Neevil]

Wait... I'm confused... what are you asking exactly? :confused: Are you saying you don't use the word "believe" because that means your decision is based on faith, not facts?

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

The Evidence (Your mind, Science, Right and Wrong, Etc) All say there is a God. Only one of the Religions have an answer for Everything. For Jesus to Proclaim he is the Christ, knowing he would be killed, would have to be a lunatic. Butthis was not so. Read the Scriptures.

Truth in Reality is that the Christianity is the Most Manly and most logical religion.

Sorry if I insulted anyone by the said remark. I will not withdraw it for it TRUE.

[EveningStar]

Sir Benjamin, et al, we have a failure to communicate.

You say the truth is self evident. A certain degree is self evident through natural theology...but some things can only be revealed through revelation. You might think it is self evident that Jesus is the Son of God but when Peter said he thought he was the Son of God, Jesus said that he could only have known that because the Father revealed it to him.

So "self evident"? Well, maybe. Matter of factly it is only self evident when God takes the time and love to reveal himself through his works. Otherwise it's just stuff and we're just observers. Never discount how much of the "self evident" nature of God's handiwork is God's deliberate attempt to make your heart strangely warmed.

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

Sir Benjamin, et al, we have a failure to communicate.

You say the truth is self evident. A certain degree is self evident through natural theology...but some things can only be revealed through revelation. You might think it is self evident that Jesus is the Son of God but when Peter said he thought he was the Son of God, Jesus said that he could only have known that because the Father revealed it to him.

So "self evident"? Well, maybe. Matter of factly it is only self evident when God takes the time and love to reveal himself through his works. Otherwise it's just stuff and we're just observers. Never discount how much of the "self evident" nature of God's handiwork is God's deliberate attempt to make your heart strangely warmed.

My dear sir, We have observed the Nature of Man for centuries. We know for a Fact that there is such a Thing as Good and Evil. Not everything is Self Evident, but a lot of the proof that there is a god exists. Eleminate and you start losing Religions that have no right and wrong. Christianity Explains everything. Christianity starts with the despair that you can not obey the law, and thus are doomed to spend eternity in hell. THen it goes to Joy and happiness that Jesus Saved us.

Is there any other Religion like Christianity?

[Copperfox]

I agree with Sir Benjamin that no other belief system can equal the Christian faith in answering the hard questions. Only, we must not expect everyone else to understand it all in advance. We begin from common ground, as Paul did in Athens, and give what evidence we can to encourage others to accept that which must be believed without sight.

[Son of Adam]

The Evidence (Your mind, Science, Right and Wrong, Etc) All say there is a God. Only one of the Religions have an answer for Everything. For Jesus to Proclaim he is the Christ, knowing he would be killed, would have to be a lunatic. Butthis was not so. Read the Scriptures.

Truth in Reality is that the Christianity is the Most Manly and most logical religion.

Sorry if I insulted anyone by the said remark. I will not withdraw it for it TRUE.

I just want a clarification here. As a pastor of over 30 years I never heard of Christianity being referred to as the Most Manly religion. Are you using that in the maculine gender sense, and why?

[The First Joke]

Study the guy, man. He was a Preacher who lost his faith. Read about it.


i did study him. he was studying to become a preacher, but then he served as a naturalist on the HMS Beagle. have you seen the journals he's written? that's science to me!

[Copperfox]

Evolutionary science was based on a colossal error: the belief that living cells are simple objects, which therefore could be expected to form by chance from a few chemicals. But the FACT, revealed after Darwin's time, is that every biological cell is as complex and sophisticated as a supercomputer. Each cell has multiple mechanisms for nutrition, excretion, self-maintenance and reproduction. ALL of these mechanisms have to be present at THE SAME time for the cell to live at all; cells could not have started out with just one of the mechanisms and then evolved others later. This is indisputable fact, and it is one of the strongest of all arguments for intelligent design. It was not known in Darwin's time, but it is known now.

Given this information, the only form of evolution which is at all conceivable would be theistic/deistic evolution. But once you realize that God _must_ be real, then, although theistic evolution is plausible, it is not a logical necessity. I started my Christian life believing in theistic evolution (as did Mr. Lewis), but evidence I've seen over time has inclined me more to special creation. If it still exists, there's a ministry someplace called "Stand To Reason" which offers material on this very topic.

By the way, I believe I know what Benjamin meant about Christianity being manly. Without excluding or despising women, the Judeo-Christian tradition has the virtue of defining manhood for men better than any other belief system can. Other beliefs lead men to be either too hard or too soft, too cruel or too compromising; but in the gospel of Jesus we find the right balance--what G.K. Chesterton described as the lion lying down with the lamb inside a man's soul.

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

i did study him. he was studying to become a preacher, but then he served as a naturalist on the HMS Beagle. have you seen the journals he's written? that's science to me!

He did not become a Scientist. He did not take a single course in the subject. He knew nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Saying something scientific does not make you a scientist or else by the standard you and I would both be a scientist. We are not. Science is ALL THINGS OBSERVABLE. We observe proof. Darwin only observed the mere difference in beaks between the same bird. If I shaved a cat, it is still a cat. This is Called Micro Evolution, and this is the only true evolution. There are six types.

[The First Joke]

He did not become a Scientist. He did not take a single course in the subject. He knew nothing, nada, zip, zilch. Saying something scientific does not make you a scientist or else by the standard you and I would both be a scientist. We are not. Science is ALL THINGS OBSERVABLE. We observe proof. Darwin only observed the mere difference in beaks between the same bird. If I shaved a cat, it is still a cat. This is Called Micro Evolution, and this is the only true evolution. There are six types.

he studied medicine at the university of endiburgh. is that not science?

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

I must inform you that Science is All things Observable. Evolution is millions of years, we had God see it. Evolution does not have Man until Billions of year later. He was not a Scientist. He did not come up with the Theory which makes it complete nonsense since it is a THEORY. That is not observable. You must back the Theory up with evidence for it. In the Debate between Evolution and Creation thread I proved the Earth had a young age.

[The First Joke]

there is lots of evidence

"The admirals were scouting out someone to accompany Capt. Robert FitzRoy on his two-year survey of coastal South America. FitzRoy, only twenty-six himself, wanted a young companion, a well-bred 'gentlemen' who could relieve the isolation of command, someone to share the captain's table. Better still if he were a naturalist, for there would be unprecedented opportunities. The ship was equipped for 'scientific purposes' and a 'man of zeal & spirit' could do wonders, Henslow enthused. Charles might not be a 'finished naturalist,' but 'taking plenty of Books' would help, and he was the obvious choice."2
Needless to say, though there was some anxious moments, Darwin was accepted by those responsible for the voyage. The plans for the cruise of the Beagle were extended, in that it was to take place over the best part of five years (1831-36) and was to take in the southern islands, the South American coast and Australia. While aboard the vessel, Darwin served as a geologist, botanist, zoologist, and general man of science. It was rare to have aboard a sailing vessel of the early 19th century a person who could read and write, let alone one, such as Darwin, who could appreciate the necessity of applying scientific principles to the business of gathering data and carrying out research on it. I am sure that the telling of Darwin's travels and observations, while aboard the Beagle, would be an interesting topic in itself, but for my purposes here, I need only say, that Darwin gained an experience which would prove to be a substantial foundation for his life's work; the almost immediate result was the publication of his findings in 1840, Zoology of the Beagle.
"When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision." (Darwin's opening paragraph to The Origin of Species, 1859.)
It was likely Darwin's reading of Adam Smith which led Darwin to his decisive breakthrough.3 ("Adam Smith was the last of the moralists and the first of the economists, so Darwin was the last of the economists and the first of the biologists.") Darwin read not only about those "laws" that govern the accumulation of wealth, but also those "laws" which lead to being poor. In regards to these poor "laws," Darwin read Malthus' Essay on Population:
"In October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus' Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence [a phrase used by Malthus] which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be a new species. Here then I had at last got hold of a theory by which to work."4
Personally speaking, Darwin, directly on account of his early adventures (with his evidence and his conclusions: zoological, botanical, geological and paleontological), could no longer subscribe to the teachings of Genesis, viz., that every species had been created whole and have come through the ages unchanged.5 All the evidence supports (and none exists that disproves) the proposition that life on earth has evolved; life started out slow and small, and our current state of existence is as a result of some process working upon natural materials throughout a period that consists of millions and millions of years. The question for Darwin is what is this process, a question which, for twenty years, Darwin worked on. He considered his own personal experiences which were considerable and the data that he had gathered. He read and read widely; he abstracted the learned journals; he talked to breeders of domesticated animals. And only after years of work did Darwin feel himself ready to express himself. More years were to pass, during which he gathered more and more evidence, when, in 1859, Darwin came out with his scholarly presentation, The Origin of Species.6
In 1859, Darwin's shattering work, The Origin of Species, came out ("a sell out in one day"); it is now recognized as a leading work in natural philosophy and in the history of mankind. Simply stated, Darwin's theory is that things, and, in particular, life, evolves by a process which Darwin called "natural selection."

[The First Joke]

"Currently we accept the general idea that biological development can be explained by mutations in combination with natural selection. In its essential parts, therefore, Darwin's theory of development has been accepted. In Darwin's time mutations were not known about; their discovery has led to extensive modifications of his theory, but it has also eliminated the most important objections to it. ...
We are beginning to see that the awesome wonder of the evolution from amoeba to man - for it is without a doubt an awesome wonder - was not the result of a mighty word from a creator, but of a combination of small, apparently insignificant processes. The structural change occurring in a molecule within a chromosome, the result of a struggle over food between two animals, the reproduction and feeding of young - such are the simple elements that together, in the course of millions of years, created the great wonder. This is nothing separate from ordinary life. The wonder is in our everyday world, if only we have the ability to see it."7 (Alfvén's Atom, Man, and the Universe.)
Darwin's "evolutionary and comprehensive vision" is a monistic one, it shows that our universe is a "unitary and continuous process," there does not exist a "dualistic split," and that all phenomena are natural. Darwin's idea, it is written,
"is the most powerful and the most comprehensive idea that has ever arisen on earth. It helps us understand our origins ... We are part of a total process, made of the same matter and operating by the same energy as the rest of the cosmos, maintaining and reproducing by the same type of mechanism as the rest of life ..."8 (Sir Julian Huxley.)
The theory of evolution is no longer just a theory; an overwhelming amount evidence has accumulated since Darwin. Darwin's theory has never been successfully refuted. Darwin discovered a law just as surely as Copernicus, Galileo and Newton discovered laws: natural laws. Just as the earth is in orbit and has come to be and is depended on the force of gravity, a natural law; so life has come into being and exists and is depended on the force of natural selection. One need not necessarily understand the why or the how of it, but a natural law such as gravitation or selection nonetheless exists, whether a particular puny human being, or group of them believe it or not.
The theory as presented in Darwin's The Origin of Species, I should say, was not new to the world and it cannot be attributed to Darwin. The theory, contrary to popular belief has been around since Aristotle and Lucretius. Darwin's contribution is that he gathered indisputable evidence, and he set forth a theory on how evolution works, the theory of natural selection. Darwin: "It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life. We see nothing of these slow changes in progress, until the hand of time has marked the long lapses of ages, and then so imperfect is our view into long past geological ages, that we only see that the forms of life are now different from what they formerly were."9

We will let Julian Huxley sum up Darwin's place in the history of science:
"Darwin's work ... put the world of life into the domain of natural law. It was no longer necessary or possible to imagine that every kind of animal or plant had been specially created, nor that the beautiful and ingenious devices by which they get their food or escape their enemies have been thought out by some supernatural power, or that there is any conscious purpose behind the evolutionary process. If the idea of natural selection holds good, then animals and plants and man himself have become what they are by natural causes, as blind and automatic as those which go to mould the shape of a mountain, or make the earth and the other planets move in ellipses round the sun. The blind struggle for existence, the blind process of heredity, automatically result in the selection of the best adapted types, and a steady evolution of the stock in the direction of progress...
Darwin's work has enabled us to see the position of man and of our present civilization in a truer light. Man is not a finished product incapable of further progress. He has a long history behind him, and it is a history not of a fall, but of an ascent. And he has the possibility of further progressive evolution before him. Further, in the light of evolution we learn to be more patient. The few thousand years of recorded history are nothing compared to the million years during which man has been on earth, and the thousand million years of life's progress. And we can afford to be patient when the astronomers assure us of at least another thousand million years ahead of us in which to carry evolution onwards to new heights."

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

there is lots of evidence

"The admirals were scouting out someone to accompany Capt. Robert FitzRoy on his two-year survey of coastal South America. FitzRoy, only twenty-six himself, wanted a young companion, a well-bred 'gentlemen' who could relieve the isolation of command, someone to share the captain's table. Better still if he were a naturalist, for there would be unprecedented opportunities. The ship was equipped for 'scientific purposes' and a 'man of zeal & spirit' could do wonders, Henslow enthused. Charles might not be a 'finished naturalist,' but 'taking plenty of Books' would help, and he was the obvious choice."2
Needless to say, though there was some anxious moments, Darwin was accepted by those responsible for the voyage. The plans for the cruise of the Beagle were extended, in that it was to take place over the best part of five years (1831-36) and was to take in the southern islands, the South American coast and Australia. While aboard the vessel, Darwin served as a geologist, botanist, zoologist, and general man of science. It was rare to have aboard a sailing vessel of the early 19th century a person who could read and write, let alone one, such as Darwin, who could appreciate the necessity of applying scientific principles to the business of gathering data and carrying out research on it. I am sure that the telling of Darwin's travels and observations, while aboard the Beagle, would be an interesting topic in itself, but for my purposes here, I need only say, that Darwin gained an experience which would prove to be a substantial foundation for his life's work; the almost immediate result was the publication of his findings in 1840, Zoology of the Beagle.
"When on board H.M.S. Beagle as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species- that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision." (Darwin's opening paragraph to The Origin of Species, 1859.)
It was likely Darwin's reading of Adam Smith which led Darwin to his decisive breakthrough.3 ("Adam Smith was the last of the moralists and the first of the economists, so Darwin was the last of the economists and the first of the biologists.") Darwin read not only about those "laws" that govern the accumulation of wealth, but also those "laws" which lead to being poor. In regards to these poor "laws," Darwin read Malthus' Essay on Population:
"In October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus' Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence [a phrase used by Malthus] which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be a new species. Here then I had at last got hold of a theory by which to work."4
Personally speaking, Darwin, directly on account of his early adventures (with his evidence and his conclusions: zoological, botanical, geological and paleontological), could no longer subscribe to the teachings of Genesis, viz., that every species had been created whole and have come through the ages unchanged.5 All the evidence supports (and none exists that disproves) the proposition that life on earth has evolved; life started out slow and small, and our current state of existence is as a result of some process working upon natural materials throughout a period that consists of millions and millions of years. The question for Darwin is what is this process, a question which, for twenty years, Darwin worked on. He considered his own personal experiences which were considerable and the data that he had gathered. He read and read widely; he abstracted the learned journals; he talked to breeders of domesticated animals. And only after years of work did Darwin feel himself ready to express himself. More years were to pass, during which he gathered more and more evidence, when, in 1859, Darwin came out with his scholarly presentation, The Origin of Species.6
In 1859, Darwin's shattering work, The Origin of Species, came out ("a sell out in one day"); it is now recognized as a leading work in natural philosophy and in the history of mankind. Simply stated, Darwin's theory is that things, and, in particular, life, evolves by a process which Darwin called "natural selection."

Name the Two Books and that might tell you what went Wrong.

[Shadow Hawk]

First off lets not get angry. darwin went to Harvard to become a preacher, but instead he broaded the Beagle. his father Erasmus Darwin started the evolutionary theory Darwin modified it. while on the beagle darwin got to visit the Galapagos Islands. it was there he began to modify the theory, mainly because of the animals there. this theory of evolution that is completely false, because there is on proof of animal actually seen evolving into something else. Darwin created his own Idea of what he thought.

[Copperfox]

The observable evidence verifies MICRO-evolution. It does not prove that you get a really new species. To have a species change you would have to get a generation which could not back-breed with a previous generation.

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

You know I think we are way off subject, but I don't mind. Mods don't do anything to my beautiful thread. Jones, If I may still call you that? You know that there are several types of Evolution and only one is true Micro, the changes within a speices. Like my mother is blue eyed, and I am brown. :D

You can prove that the earth is young. You can prove the universe is young. You can not prove that The earth was created a billion times over. You keep calling Darwin a Naturalist which is a type of Scientist. HE IS NOT A SCIENTIST.

Okay I am glad we cleared that up. :D

[Sir Benjamin the Lion]

Now, Back to my Question. Why do I need to put I believe?