Yeah, I got angry. I could forgive ignorance but it is so very clear if you really dig deep into the evolution vs. intelligent design debate that the intelligent design proponents straight-up lie. I gave the one example of Behe but there are many more that I just didn't feel like getting into.

Although I am glad that the intelligent design people did lie. It probably snapped me out of my delusion quicker than what could have been done.

Who was your mediator? Behe or Jesus Christ?

I always think its a failure of critical thinking when you attribute fallen men's actions to the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are times when I won't agree with a pastor or religious leader but I never confuse them with Jesus Christ.

Good story, and don't worry, it wasn't a TL;DR. The Joe Rogan intermission helped to keep the story fresh.

"I'm not that retarded!" hahahaha

No, I did and I wanted to believe, trust me. But after careful study, there is a TON of evidence that supports the theory of evolution. And the intelligent design arguments are horrible. Really, really horrible. I was a holy roller. I wanted to change people's minds. Yet the evidence for evolution is so strong that it convinced someone who was as partisan as me. I really wanted to disprove evolution but the evidence is indisputable and if I was to be intellectually honest, I had to admit that there was good reason to believe in evolution.

Did you study theistic evolution? Theistic evolution hasn't come up on this board in quite a while and no one here is proficient on it.

Did you compare hell doctrine with annihilationism and universalism?

Are you talking about the gap concept in Genesis?

Raised in a catholic family, did the church and sunday school up until i was 16. I never actually bought in and believed (though if asked I would have ID'ed myself as Catholic) in part i think because of the general wackyness of the catholic church. When it came time to get confirmed i choose not to go through with it because i didn't believe.

My Grandparents are strong believers, my parents believe but never forced their belief onto me, i have 2 older brothers and not one of us has ever believes today

What evolutionary "positions"?

He doesn't agree with the literal interpretation of a lot of the stories of the bible (like Noah's ark). As we learn more about the universe around us more and more Christians are resorting playing God-of-the-Gaps. Even the Catholic Church allows for man evolving from earlier bioligical forms (1). I'm not really sure how long Christians can keep this up without becoming something closing in on a pure deism.

Theistic evolution is the idea that God guided evolution. I haven't seen anyone make a solid case for it on this board. But Dobzhansky the developer of the Evolutionary Synthesis and Francis Collins the former head of the Human Genome Project are theistic evolutionists.

The last solid annihilationist was Concerto....It's been a while since he posted. I posted most of the Christian Universalist interpretations but people are so locked in tradition I'd be surprised if they reviewed it. Imo universalism is the nuts but you have to have the nerve to buck the establishment.

The only argument I've heard is that you can't definitively say that evolution isn't guided. Of course, you could say that about any physical phenomenon, including something like gravity. It's a nonsensical position.

Most atheists, myself included, try not to concern ourselves with non-testable theology like hell interpretations. In the end, it's just not important to God claims. Well, I suppose it would be important to someone trying to use Pascal's Wager, but barring that, not so much.

The thing is that the bible is very clear on how the world was created and how things were made. To believe that evolution is real, yet guided by God, is to believe that the bible is fallible. If the bible is fallible, what do you believe and what do you not believe? It seems to me that Occam's razor would say that it is just a bunch of stories that primitive people compiled and that none of it can be taken seriously other than for anthropological purposes.

I don't think it's as clear as you think it is. Some people read Genesis literally while some people read it allegorically.

Also some people accept both God and evolution. They don't feel the need to choose between the two of them. They let them co-exist. It's an and not an either/or situation.

Did you know the Catholic Church is pro-evolution?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...atholic_Church

That's kind of the point, if the creation account is allegory, then why not the resurrection account as well?

I was born a catholic and fell out of the church after feeling very uneasy about what was going on inside the catholic church at the time. Although I didn't want t be a Catholic anymore I still wanted to know God, so I joined a prodestant born again church that a close friend of mine was a part of. Youth pastor was very fire and brimstone, a lot of us didn't like him. We thought he was phony.

Anyway

In a lot of our bible study sessions the pastor would put a very literal slant on things, and it just didnt jive with what I knew of reality. Aside from that, there were some very vocal anti gay marriage sentiments that I wasn't comforable with.

One day I was listening to a the pastor preach in youth and he made some sort of reference to evolution and I very clearly heard someone scream out "darwin was wrong" followed by cries of "amen"! I had never really looked into evolution that deeply, and had pretty much just taken the "teach both theories" tact. (I have archived message board posts from about 2007 where I do just this, and its more than a little douche chilling to look back at them) But I decided I wanted to see what it was all about, did some research and found that darwin was right. The biggest pieces of evidence for me were how certain diseases, like sickle cell anemia affect certain groups but not others, the existence of chromosome 2, and the debunking of irreducible complexity.

I wouldnt at all say this information caused my athiesm, but it may have flicked a switch for me. All of a sudden I wanted to investigate other things, like miracle claims, biblical prophecy claims etc. At the time I was taking a course on the bible and saw the commonalities between the stories of the OT and those of earlier religions. (btw anyone who is really interested in those sorts of connectins should read "a history of god" by karen armstrong)

Anyway all of this eventually led me to he conclusion that god (at least the one I hought I knew) probably wasn't there. To be clear, even though I was affiliated with a born again sect, I was always a pretty liberal christian. For gay rights, seperation of church and state etc... so i know certain theists wll probably tell me I wasnt doing it right anyway

oh and tldr

Because the bible isn't that way.


Pardes refers to (types of) approaches to biblical exegesis in rabbinic Judaism (or - simpler - interpretation of text in Torah study). The term, sometimes also spelled PaRDeS, is an acronym formed from the name initials of the following four approaches:

Peshat (פְּשָׁט) — "plain" ("simple") or the direct meaning[1].

Remez (רֶמֶז) — "hints" or the deep (allegoric: hidden or symbolic) meaning beyond just the literal sense.

Derash (דְּרַשׁ) — from Hebrew darash: "inquire" ("seek") — the comparative (midrashic) meaning, as given through similar occurrences.

Sod (סוֹד) (pronounced with a long O as in 'bone') — "secret" ("mystery") or the mystical meaning, as given through inspiration or revelation.

Each type of Pardes interpretation examines the extended meaning of a text. As a general rule, the extended meaning never contradicts the base meaning. The Peshat means the plain or contextual meaning of the text. Remez is the allegorical meaning. Derash includes the metaphorical meaning, and Sod represents the hidden meaning. There is often considerable overlap, for example when legal understandings of a verse are influenced by mystical interpretations or when a "hint" is determined by comparing a word with other instances of the same word.

Some thinkers, such as the Tolaat Yaakov, divide Pardes into Peshat, Remez, Din (law), and Sod. According to this understanding, Derash is divided into the homiletics, which are classified under Remez, and legal interpretations, which are classified under Din.

The Pardes typology is quite similar to the contemporary Christian fourfold allegorical scheme.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardes_(Jewish_exegesis)

You have denominations that push for literal interpretations while other denominations push for spiritualizing the interpretations.