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How do you understand God? You don't think God can learn? I'd like to think that if He made us in His image, and we are creatures that learn, then He learns also. But maybe there's implication that in learning there is room for making mistakes. But what if God always gets it right the first time?

An astute point. Have you ever had pleasure in creating something?

I would like to stress that the second time really meant a lot to me (despite the church's misaligned views). I felt I was doing it for the Lord in a renewed spirit of service to Him. I understood the concept of being buried with Him and rising up in newness of life (Romans 6). I think there is...

I was baptized twice...as an adult. The first time was when I got 'saved' at the age of thirteen. Knowing I didn't want to go to hell, I went forward at the invitation of the service at the Baptist church I went to and was led to a back room where a deacon shared me the Gospel and asked me if...

True, John told us that one would come baptizing in the Holy Spirit, but the disciples continued to baptize in Jesus' presence. And in Acts, we have the examples of water baptism with Phillip and the Ethiopian eunuch as well as Peter and Cornelius. Maybe water is symbolic of the baptism of the...

How does one learn to ride a bike? You can know all the physics about leverage and force and balance that goes into riding a bike, but that doesn't mean you can ride it or have ridden it. That's what I mean by experiential knowledge. I'm all for testing a theory. How do you suppose we test...

Perhaps. If God created the world for His pleasure, what kind of pleasure do you imagine He would enjoy?

Could very well be. But as I pointed out, mere belief in God does not constitute adherance (i.e. golden calf). If the athiest is wrong, for example, is the 'fact' that there is a God after all going to change his ways? Maybe. Or maybe there would be resentment to God in not making Himself...

So basically we can do away with the idea of original sin or sinful nature. Free will implies we have the ability to choose between right and wrong, according to how our conscience dictates. But what if our conscience is flawed in the first place (perhaps due to erroneous teachings or a bad...

Hmmm...interesting. I didn't remember that I took this test already, so I went through it today and scored a 13, as opposed to 20 last time according to my previous overlooked post. Must of exorcised a few demons away.

I prefer to think that He guides all aspects of evolution, much as a potter forms clay. Like one continuing experiment. Some would claim that because God is perfect that what He makes ought to be perfect. I see it more as being a scientist in a laboratory, fiddling around with different designs...

Well, play with me, please, for the sake of argument.

If we assume the writer was Moses, we also know that he was greatly familiar with the religion and rituals of ancient Egypt. Armed with this, would it be beyond the pale of reason to suggest that some ideas in the Genesis account could have been derived, in part, with that knowledge? Ancient...

In it's simplest form, the story of A&E is about immortality. As long as they are kept within the confines of the Garden, they could live forever. Once they were banished, they would eventually die. The question was asked why A&E didn't die right away. They way I see it is that they did die...

Re: 'This place is Sacred' - Genuine experience of hallowed ground? Devotional hyperb Yet you don't believe, according to your tradition which you've stated elsewhere, that prophets exists today. Why not? If from the perspective of eternity, if all times are One, why couldn't there be...

Re: 'This place is Sacred' - Genuine experience of hallowed ground? Devotional hyperb We had a similiar discussion of this in another thread, Entangled Atoms, starting with Brian's post #9.

That's precisely my point. If everything is fated or controlled by God, then we couldn't be responsible. I think we are in our present state primarily from the actions of man, ourselves. Divine intervention (that is asking God to intervene) only comes in when we allow it (partly why we pray)...

It does make a difference if you are in a religious tradition that holds one accountable to that particular Deity. Are we responsible for our actions or is God controlling those actions? What does that do in regards to our judgment in the afterlife, and so on?

Forgetting about 'Divine Will' for a moment, it occurred to me that in what we might considered individual free will is actually limited to the collective free will of a society. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" (Spock 4:28). Point being that when we consider the...