AUTigerking

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Enjoy your stay in the camp.

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When are we ramping these up? Running out of time…

So nothing happened except the dem party going broke. Got it

I’m glad this is being acknowledged. Someone please tell my in-laws 78 is hot. I need a good night sleep

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I was hoping that OP would provide something other than emotional appeal so that we could actually have something reality based to resolve his contention. But since OP is too lazy, and none of the other emotional right wingers will (ever) look for an authoritative source of good information, I looked up the US Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual to see what Trump and Rubio's own State Department says on the issue. here it is:

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You mean they’re following the law (the way it’s currently interpreted)?

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Well actually that’s not entirely correct. You see, God has shown himself and his wonders to everyone, and they just want to suppress their belief in God so that they can sin and do whatever they want. God has shown himself to everyone and so the unrighteous are without excuse. They really do believe in Jesus but they just don’t want to accept eternal life. The way we can be sure about all of this is just to read it in the Bible, because that’s what it says and we know it is the truth because it says it is.

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Mocking the simplest version of Christianity. Tells us all we need to know! You’ll grow up one day

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What’s the purpose of a black hole? What about other galaxies? Why did the intelligent creator create galaxies that are accelerating away from us and disappear from our visible universe as they move away from us at faster than light speed? Why create all that shite if he created it for humans?

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I don't know. What does this have to do with anything?

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DNA is hard evidence of a lack of an intelligent designer.

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Well, that's a new one.

DNA is information, not just chemistry. Not only that, it's sequenced in a function specific order. You appear to take things quite literally, regardless of it's intent. You lean toward what "most likely" happened. You dismiss the Book of Acts because of miracles. What do you think the likelihood of a functional DNA sequence forming randomly without a designer is? If you say effectively zero, you'd be correct. Even over time...time doesn't create information. How did this ability arise in the first place? You emphasize observation and natural laws to explain your worldview. All of that goes out the window here.

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I’ll grant you the possibility of some kind of cosmic creator, and maybe he/she created life. Ok then, who created that intelligent designer? Try to not use special pleading.

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Nice!

And, He would be the Uncaused Cause. A Creator outside of space, time, and matter is a reasonable explanation when considering all aspects and details of our existence.

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Well I surely don’t support “we don’t know how it happened therefore God did it!”

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But you support "we don't know how it happened, therefore I'll go with the atheist flavor of the decade explanation!"

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No, this is projection and false equivalence. Me acknowledging facts of nature is not mere belief in the same sense that you believe things without evidence. Not believing in your deity is not belief. It’s a lack of belief. Saying a lack of belief is belief is simply lying to yourself.

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This is simply not true. You give explanations of things we don't know. A prerequisite of this is placing belief in something. Belief is not owned by religion. You believe there's a natural explanation for everything without proof. You can share the definition of belief if you'd like

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Would a modern Jew or an atheist believe the Holy Spirit came down from heaven and caused the disciples to speak in tongues? What about Peter healing the crippled guy? Other miraculous healings? The guy who fell out the window from the third floor being resurrected? Paul’s immunity to venomous snakes? Angels opening up the prison doors? Those are miracles, and are by definition extremely unlikely, and so any legitimate historian would have to admit that those cannot be historically verified. They are baseless assertions, stories, and myths created for theological reasons - not history.

Acts says upon Paul’s visionary conversion, he went straight to Jerusalem to meet the apostles. Paul however, writing before Acts was written, says he did not go straight to Jerusalem, but went to Arabia for a few years, then went back to Damascus, and when thereafter he went to Jerusalem the only ones he saw was Kephas and James. So Paul was writing a response to some rumor or tradition that said he went to Jerusalem after his conversion and explicitly denied such a thing, saying he was not lying. Sorry, I believe Paul over whoever wrote Acts.

So no, historians do not consider Acts a historical document, rather they consider it a literary document for theological purposes. It’s historians’ jobs to determine what is most likely to have occurred in the past, and so things that are least likely to have happened (miracles) with no supporting evidence, cannot be determined to be most likely what happened. Acts is non-historical to historians. Period. And that’s not a lie.

Can you find a dogmatic Christian who has a PhD in ancient history? I’m sure you can. But that person would not be a legitimate historian. The consensus of historians is that Acts is mostly fiction, though there may be some kernels of historical events, most cannot be corroborated.

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You are correct that miracles cannot be VERIFIED. That doesn't mean they didn't happen nor does it mean historians dismiss them as you insinuate. This is, in no way, evidence that they didn't happen as you so wish. It's simply a limitation of the discipline. Every historian acknowledges this but it weakens or even negates your argument so you can't.

Second, the work, like many ancient writings can contain different forms of literature, including theological interpretations while still preserving historical information. This is so widely known and accepted that I'm not sure if you're being disingenuous or just plain ignorant.

Third, regarding Paul vs Acts, by your standard, we'd have to dismiss a ridiculous amount of historical writings due to a discrepancy. One discrepancy doesn't (nor should it) dismiss the entire book. That's just lazy.

Fourth, dismissing Christian historians is an ad hominem, not a legitimate argument. They are subject to the same standards and peer reviews as your favorite atheists.

Finally, in light of you asking me for sources, I'll need to see some sources verifying Acts is "non-historical" according to scholarly consensus.

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The consensus of scientists is that the universe had no beginning and no end

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No it’s not haha. The consensus is that it did have a beginning. Might want to brush up on that!

It’s also impossible that it didn’t. We would not be here in this moment if the universe didn’t begin. We could never reach this moment because the past is infinite

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ob 26:7 is a parallel to Genesis 1:2, when the earth was Tohu and Bohu (often translated formless and void). In Job 26:7, Yahweh stretches out Zaphon (could be the mountain home of the god Baal) or it could be interpreted as the firmament. You are mistaken if you think this is some kind of special divine information that the earth is a sphere spinning through space. In Job 26:11 it describes the pillars of heaven. The foundations of the heaven sit precisely on the face of the waters he has inscribed with a two dimensional circle. Let me ask you a question. Does heaven sitting on great pillars, or the concept of the firmament itself, align with modern science?

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You seem desperately hung up the use of the word “pillars.” To understand the use and the meaning, you have to look at other places in the Bible where this is referenced. It’s never used as a scientific description.

Revelation 3:12

“The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.”

Galatians 2:9

“James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised.”
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Psalm 144:12

“Then our sons in their youth will be like well-nurtured plants, and our daughters will be like pillars carved to adorn a palace.”
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No serious person interprets the pillars in Job as a literal, scientific description of the dynamics of earth.

Neither is the “circle of the earth” supposed to be interpreted literally according to most interpretations. My point was even when interpreted metaphorically, this was language that was not used at the time.

So with this, it appears we’re at a common impasse. You’ll adhere to interpretations that confirm your preconceived stance, as will I.

My faith comes down to much simpler aspects than debating the Old Testament verse by verse. Ex nihilo- something from nothing. And the agreed upon historical evidence for Jesus coupled with the extreme, torture filled deaths of his followers. People will die for something they believe is true, nobody will die for something they KNOW is false.

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Ezekiel 23:20. “There she lusted after her lovers, whose penises were like those of donkeys and whose ejaculations were like that of horses.”

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The irony of you trying to pull one over is this chapter is about mankind abandoning their covenant with God. Is it age appropriate for say, elementary school? Nope. But anyone in their right mind would now that