Sells,

<<that "evidence" if understood as evidence that the events in the bible actually did happen as told lies is on very shaky ground as biblical scholarship over the last hundred years has shown>>

That is 'biblical scholarship' of liberalism with voices like these:

(1) Tillich, "Christianity prefers the symbol of resurrection" of Christ (1968.1:308);

(2) Bultmann understood "myth" to refer to historical phenomena and "mythology" to a way of thinking. So a "myth" was a report of an event involving supernatural forces or persons. Thus, Jesus resurrection was a “mythical event, pure and simple” (Bultmann 1970.1:15).

(3) Spong, "Did Easter reverse the verdict of Jesus’ death? No, I don’t think so… I think Easter is real, but it is not an event that takes place inside human history” (1994:143).

(4) Crossan, "It was Mark himself who created the empty tomb story and its failed anointing" (1995:185);

(5) Barth, "The resurrection touches history as a tangent touches a circle -- that is, without really touching it" (Commentary on Romans, 6th ed, p. 30).

<<Only the spirit counts. Scripture points to things of the spirit, that is why it uses parable, metaphor, analogy because it is not talking about what we now call "facts".>>

Are you kidding? Do you encourage us to trust your spirit and its interpretation through parable, etc? Is that what you say? Sounds awfully subjective to me.

Do we live in an objective world where my computer can be known, or do I need some subjective experience to be applied here. I'm serious!

<<Again, I must insists that your approach to the bible is a modern one that the premodern or informed scholarship in our own time does not recognise it as a proper approach. It is time for solid food!>>

Would you please quit putting people down who, you say, are not aware of your <<informed scholarship>>? Such scholarship on the resurrection often redefines what the biblical texts state.

Tom Wright, Gary Habermas, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Norman Geisler, Paul Barnett and Ben Meyer in their 'informed scholarship' disagree with the liberals you promote.

//What causes you to reject the Creator God who caused this system to happen with the first human beings and has maintained this process since the beginning of time?//

Since the beginning of time? Try getting your facts straight, Captain Fallacy.

Time began at the Big Bang, 13.799 ± 0.021 x 10^9 years ago; the Earth wasn't formed until about 4.6 x 10^9 years ago. Life got going pretty quickly after the formation of the Earth, but probably not until after the formation of oceans 4.41 x 10^9 years ago. The oldest evidence of life found so far is 4.1 x 10^9 years old, from right here in Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)#2015_data_release
http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/early/2015/10/14/1517557112.full.pdf

Toni,

<<Time began at the Big Bang, 13.799 ± 0.021 x 10^9 years ago; the Earth wasn't formed until about 4.6 x 10^9 years ago. Life got going pretty quickly after the formation of the Earth, but probably not until after the formation of oceans 4.41 x 10^9 years ago. The oldest evidence of life found so far is 4.1 x 10^9 years old, from right here in Australia.>>

Are they proven facts or hypotheses by evolutionary scientists which have YET TO BE PROVED written all over them?

On what basis could you give that time estimate to the Big Bang?

You are making some assertions here that have your kind of certainty written over them:

+ "Time began at..."

+ "the Earth wasn't formed until about..."

+ "Life got going pretty quickly after the formation of the Earth..."

+ "The oldest evidence of life found so far is 4.1 x 10^9 years old..."

At least "the Big Bang" agrees with God's point of view: The earth had a begging. It is not eternal.

//Are they proven facts or hypotheses by evolutionary scientists//

Evolutionary scientists doing cosmology? O.... kay.

//which have YET TO BE PROVED written all over them?//

If you're waiting for scientific theories to be proven, you'll be waiting a mighty long time, Captain Fallacy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Popper#Philosophy_of_science

"Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory"

//On what basis could you give that time estimate to the Big Bang?//

That estimate is based on CMB data gathered by the Planck spacecraft. I did provide a link, although for some reason it appears to not have worked properly. I'll try again:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_(spacecraft)

//You are making some assertions here that have your kind of certainty written over them://

I sure am. My kind of certainty being the kind that says whilst scientific theories are tentative and can be overturned by evidence, they're a still a damn sight better than the scriptural alternatives.

//At least "the Big Bang" agrees with God's point of view: The earth had a begging. It is not eternal.//

No, the Big Bang deals with the beginning of the universe, and has nothing to say about the age of the earth. Current estimates of the age of the earth are based on radiometric dating.

Dear Toni,

«It is exactly of the same nature as the Hindu's view, that the world rested upon an elephant and the elephant rested upon a tortoise»

No, this is not the Hindu view.

Looking it up, I find this to be a private idea of one Hindu mathematician (Jñânarâja) who lived around 1500AD.

«If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause»

No, because God is not a thing.

Viewing God as a thing is the kind of material idolatry which Peter Sells refer to. Better no God at all than a God which is a thing!

---

Dear Alan,

«Along with the evil of celibacy and all that then flows from it and the normal human frustrations that creates!»

Celibacy is a gift and a virtue, not an evil. It offers invaluable freedom from sexual cravings and the turmoil that come with them. The evil you refer to has to do with people who failed to keep their promise to be celibate.
Frustration only occurs during the transition for someone who already lived an active sexual life and is now trying to quit. The frustrations within the dating "meat market" scene are even bigger. When one learns celibacy before puberty, it comes smoothly and easily.

---

Dear Not_Now.Soon,

I enjoy your conversation with Peter.

Please contemplate on the difference between truth and fact.

plantagenet,

<<What I wanna know is what all this inconsequential religious mumbo jumbo has to do with First Fleet How to Invade Australia for Dummies Day?>>

There are people on this forum who don't accept that the OT and NT are reliable historical documents that can be trusted. I presume you refer to my comment about Captain Cook.

The facts are that for those who engage in historical science, when we try to determine anything that happened in the past, distant past, whether Captain Cook, Jesus' resurrection, Joshua's life or the life of Albert Einstein they use tests to determine authenticity of any document.

Historians, as I am, use certain criteria to discern whether a document is authentic or not. My use of Captain Cook was to show that if we check out the criteria historians use to discover what happened with Cook, we have to use the same criteria with historical investigations in the OT and NT.

So, there is no inconsequential religious mumbo jumbo with my mentioning Cook in association with Jesus' resurrection.

As an historian, I use the same criteria for discerning whether the resurrection is an historically accurate account or whether Captain Cook sailed in the Endeavour up the east coast of what was to become Australia.