Evidence for God from Science

There is no evidence that prayer does anything. There are one of two outcomes that can occur when one prays. Either the thing they prayed for will happen or it wont. There is nothing to prove that prayer itself is responsible for an affirmative outcome, and scientific studies have actually shown th...

There is a lot of confusion with terminology when it comes to objective morality, morality, objective moral values, etc. Distinguishing between moral epistemology and moral ontology is a big one. What an atheist is justified in believing, it depends exactly how you frame it... and usually it seems l...

Personally I just don't know. Being a sci-fi/futuristic literature fan anyway I always enjoyed Revelation (maybe not always in the way you're supposed to, frankly), but I don't know what the solution is. It always was a little puzzling to me that huge division occurred over pre-, mid-, and post-trib...

Its ok, kind of simplistic once you get into philosophy.

I think this is a pretty good example of why you can't be too reactionary. My natural reaction is usually something like "How can they do this? This is America!" But waiting for details is usually a good idea.

But more serious replies . . . Well this depends what you mean by "full meaning". It has "a" meaning and that meaning is not incomplete, but you can't extrapolate the Gospel from one Scripture. One Scripture does not fully express everything that God has to say. Heck, that's how...

Something else- couldn't these verses be taken as evidence for determinism? Seeds don't control where they are thrown, after all.

I don't take it that way, but couldn't it be taken that way?

Another thing to keep in mind is that this parable is in two other Gospels, and neither of those use the word "believe". Do I think that shows that the word believe doesn't belong there? Absolutely not! But in my opinion, if you pretend that other texts don't exist, you are less likely to...

Rick- you interpreted it that way because you believe in eternal security already. How would you interpret it if you had never read any other chapter in the Bible before? I have no idea, that's why I think the sort of objective exegesis that gets every detail right in a neat, tidy way is a pipe drea...

So when someone says that the middle two groups are condemned, they go far beyond the text. When someone says that it is impossible to believe only for a little while, or that it is impossible to fall away once you believe, then they contradict the text. When someone says that the people in Luke 8:...

Of course you let Paul be Paul and Luke by Luke. But they don't preach different Gospels. If I extract a general theological principle or "favorite doctrine" from Paul, what do I do if Luke or John appears to contradict that principle? Do I decide that Scripture is fallible, or perhaps tha...

But Jesus says that only the first is unsaved. That's not true. He doesn't say only the first is unsaved, he only says that the first group is unsaved. You can argue that the latter strongly implies the former, but that's not the same thing. Since the charge of eisogesis constantly comes up, that i...

I should actually say what I believe on this. I absolutely believe in eternal security. I believe in absolute assurance. I believe in Perse- ok not going there again. A couple things that Rick said/alluded to that I want to agree with- It seems like most of us are sure that we're saved, its almost l...

No need to apologize Phillip, I didn't mean to sound terse or overly sensitive. We all get passionate about these things.

Frankly, all this Protestant infighting, is getting to me. I'm contemplating crossing the Tiber, and going home to Catholicism. At least they have a final authority that can be called upon to settle disputes. If I disagree with someone on Catholic doctrine, we would have an authority to settle the ...