Exposing the underbelly of Armstrongism in all of its wacky glory! Nothing you read here is made up. What you read here is the up to date face of Herbert W Armstrong's legacy. It's the gritty and dirty behind the scenes look at Armstrongism as you have never seen it before!
With all the new crazy self-appointed Chief Overseers, Apostles, Prophets, Pharisees, legalists, and outright liars leading various Churches of God today, it is important to hold these agents of deception accountable.
Herbert Armstrong's Tangled Web of Corrupt Leaders
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Saturday, March 30, 2019
Adult Sabbath School: Helpful, Useful and Understandable Resources for the Church of God Ministry in a World of Critical Thinkers.
For students, the evolution-creation discussion can be a useful exercise, for it can help develop their critical thinking skills.
If we are living in a simulation, then the simulation could have started at any point in our history - plus the rules could change with new programming. We could even have been rebooted a few times. Plus special effects would be miracles to us. Some of us could be avatars for games players and/or scientists. If instead we are what scientists traditionally have thought, then everything is not that clear. Life is complicated, and also we have not found a way to start a life that evolution states was started by accident. Once you get the complexity of cell life created, then maybe evolution can take it the rest of the way. Young Earth and Flat Earth seem like equivalent fairy tales. Intelligent design - why the huge gaps in time? Is time in the Creator's space not mean the same? Time seems to be part of this universe. Maybe it does not exist the same way outside of the universe. I would not rule out simulation. You are a Simulation & Physics Can Prove It: George Smoot at TEDxSalford
Poor Ken Ham. Does he take each of Jesus' parables as literal rather than allegorical? Does he take Song of Solomon as literal rather than allegorical? Does he take every word of Revelation as literal rather than allegorical? Of course he doesn't! He can't, if he wants to have a coherent faith resembling Protestant Christianity.
The debate as to whether or not Genesis is an allegory is an interesting debate. However, for Ham to state that Genesis cannot be an allegory shows just how dull he must be.
Ken Ham, though most likely sincere, is a fanatic with tunnel vision. There are highly varying opinions of him amongst insiders within the Christian community. As such, he is a very poor candidate for strawman, although that is probably how he will be used.
The first three "days" of the Genesis creation account occurred before God made the sun (and other stars), yet they were days. Were these literal days, measured by what would become the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun? Or were these allegorical days? For that matter, where did the first day's light come from, if the Sun and stars weren't created until Day Four?
If the whole Book of Genesis is a literal science book, God really screwed up, because human beings can create a much better science book even with massive gaps in our current knowledge. However, if Genesis is an allegory, we can trust it as carrying God's perfect message, a message far more meaningful than the debate over whether engineers must accept the Bible's literal definition of pi as 3.0 rather than use their human reasoning to correct the Bible's value to the more accurate 3.14 (1 Kings 7:23).
I suppose a little sarcasm is escaping in this posting. Sarcasm has always been seen as anger turned sideways by me. In hindsight my "training" as a pastor was not training at all. You learned as you went and if you had little or no common sense you were in for a ride that was going to prove more than what you needed to experience. There was zero teaching on even how to defend the Genesis stories and if truth be told, no one I knew even seemed to have the capability or interest in even asking the right questions. Questions just gets you in trouble when you are running with people who demand to avoid division , we all speak the same thing.
Ugh...stupid concept, but that's how organizations stay organized. It's also how they fall apart when the questions become louder than the silence.
There are actually gaps in nature, or evolution. Ever hear of the “Cambrian explosion”? Obviously, that is something of which Ken Ham would be totally unaware. He’s probably also oblivious to the sudden forward leap of mankind at about 10,000 BC, when man learned to record, accumulate and share his thoughts through written language. It’s doubtful that Ken knows the significance of ice core samples, or the layers of strata in underwater caves. He’s obviously not too keen on distances calculated based on the speed of light, and I’m sure he’s got his ways of getting around radio carbon dating.
Several years back an ACOG poster insisted on arguing with me over radio carbon dating, and it eventually became pointless when I realized that he had no working understanding of Carbon 14, radioactivity, half-lifes, etc. He just knew that his church told him it couldn’t be trusted, and felt honor bound to defend that position even though he had zero ammunition. Difficult not to feel badly for him, but jeez!
If Christians don’t want to lose their children to Science Class, they should at least consider old earth creationism or theistic evolution. This young earth stuff is about like teaching your kids that the moon is made of green cheese!
Theistic evolution allows for God to get everything started and make adjustments along the way. The problem creationists have is the belief that the Bible is 100% true. Of course when the Bible does not agree with their beliefs they then argue that it really does not mean what was written. For example, Saul talking to the dead Samuel. That has to be fake even if the Bible does not say it is fake. Not only churches reason around things like this.
In the USA declaration of independence, read this: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
How do the nation founders write such a glorious statement and still uphold slavery? Plus women lacked the rights that men did.
It is the human condition to reason around or ignore the things they do not like.
Personally as a Christian and occasional reader of AIG and other creationist material I see nothimg unbiblical or unchristian in those statements of Ken Ham’s as reproduced by Dennis. So I don’t understand the controversy unless your a believer in some version of the theory of evolution.
Ken Ham says that we should interpret science through the lens of Scripture. I would add, through Scripture properly understood. He claims that the Hebrew word for day, yom, always means 24 hours. According to Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler, that is not so. The word yom is used elsewhere in the Bible to mean a period of time longer than 24 hours. So, those days of creations could be a much longer period of time. Ham also claims that there was no death before sin came into the world, referring to a passage by Paul. But the passage deals with sin and the death of man, not animals or plant, which do not sin. So there could have been a lot of living and dying among plants and animals for many years before man entered the picture. According to Archer and Geisler, both old age creationists, God created the world. How? Scripture doesn't tell us. When? Scripture doesn't tell us. These are questions to ask scientists, not theologians. We are told not to add to or take away from the Word of God. Ham does just this, as do many others.
Anon said: " Anonymous said... Personally as a Christian and occasional reader of AIG and other creationist material I see nothing unbiblical or unchristian in those statements of Ken Ham’s as reproduced by Dennis. So I don’t understand the controversy unless your a believer in some version of the theory of evolution."
The ancients who wrote the Bible were scientific ignoramuses compared to today. In turn we are scientific ignoramuses compared to the people of the future. Is it even remotely realistic that God would reveal the reality of how the universe was made and works? Is it even necessary? We would not dream of instructing our babies on adult topics - we communicate in baby language. We take scriptures out of context to try and prove that every word in the Bible is true - and even then our "true" varies. The most important things are to love God and love our fellow man. These are understood by both Jews and Christians to be the two most important commands in the Bible.
Genesis was written in such a way that sheep herders could understand it, and people living in the post-Darwin, post-Einstein era could fill in additional detail as knowledge increased. The original materials seem to have remained largely unquestioned until the time of Copernicus or Galileo.
If we are living in a simulation, then the simulation could have started at any point in our history - plus the rules could change with new programming. We could even have been rebooted a few times. Plus special effects would be miracles to us.
ReplyDeleteSome of us could be avatars for games players and/or scientists.
If instead we are what scientists traditionally have thought, then everything is not that clear.
Life is complicated, and also we have not found a way to start a life that evolution states was started by accident. Once you get the complexity of cell life created, then maybe evolution can take it the rest of the way.
Young Earth and Flat Earth seem like equivalent fairy tales.
Intelligent design - why the huge gaps in time? Is time in the Creator's space not mean the same? Time seems to be part of this universe. Maybe it does not exist the same way outside of the universe.
I would not rule out simulation.
You are a Simulation & Physics Can Prove It: George Smoot at TEDxSalford
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chfoo9NBEow
Poor Ken Ham. Does he take each of Jesus' parables as literal rather than allegorical? Does he take Song of Solomon as literal rather than allegorical? Does he take every word of Revelation as literal rather than allegorical? Of course he doesn't! He can't, if he wants to have a coherent faith resembling Protestant Christianity.
ReplyDeleteThe debate as to whether or not Genesis is an allegory is an interesting debate. However, for Ham to state that Genesis cannot be an allegory shows just how dull he must be.
Ken Ham, though most likely sincere, is a fanatic with tunnel vision. There are highly varying opinions of him amongst insiders within the Christian community. As such, he is a very poor candidate for strawman, although that is probably how he will be used.
ReplyDeleteBB
The first three "days" of the Genesis creation account occurred before God made the sun (and other stars), yet they were days. Were these literal days, measured by what would become the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun? Or were these allegorical days? For that matter, where did the first day's light come from, if the Sun and stars weren't created until Day Four?
ReplyDeleteIf the whole Book of Genesis is a literal science book, God really screwed up, because human beings can create a much better science book even with massive gaps in our current knowledge. However, if Genesis is an allegory, we can trust it as carrying God's perfect message, a message far more meaningful than the debate over whether engineers must accept the Bible's literal definition of pi as 3.0 rather than use their human reasoning to correct the Bible's value to the more accurate 3.14 (1 Kings 7:23).
"Why the huge gaps in time"?
ReplyDeleteCould it be that this earth is not the first time that God has done this?
Kevin
I suppose a little sarcasm is escaping in this posting. Sarcasm has always been seen as anger turned sideways by me. In hindsight my "training" as a pastor was not training at all. You learned as you went and if you had little or no common sense you were in for a ride that was going to prove more than what you needed to experience. There was zero teaching on even how to defend the Genesis stories and if truth be told, no one I knew even seemed to have the capability or interest in even asking the right questions. Questions just gets you in trouble when you are running with people who demand to avoid division , we all speak the same thing.
ReplyDeleteUgh...stupid concept, but that's how organizations stay organized. It's also how they fall apart when the questions become louder than the silence.
I don't listen to him, HAM is unclean! ;-)
ReplyDeleteThere are actually gaps in nature, or evolution. Ever hear of the “Cambrian explosion”? Obviously, that is something of which Ken Ham would be totally unaware. He’s probably also oblivious to the sudden forward leap of mankind at about 10,000 BC, when man learned to record, accumulate and share his thoughts through written language. It’s doubtful that Ken knows the significance of ice core samples, or the layers of strata in underwater caves. He’s obviously not too keen on distances calculated based on the speed of light, and I’m sure he’s got his ways of getting around radio carbon dating.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years back an ACOG poster insisted on arguing with me over radio carbon dating, and it eventually became pointless when I realized that he had no working
understanding of Carbon 14, radioactivity, half-lifes, etc. He just knew that his church told him it couldn’t be trusted, and felt honor bound to defend that position even though he had zero ammunition. Difficult not to feel badly for him, but jeez!
If Christians don’t want to lose their children to Science Class, they should at least consider old earth creationism or theistic evolution. This young earth stuff is about like teaching your kids that the moon is made of green cheese!
BB
Theistic evolution allows for God to get everything started and make adjustments along the way.
ReplyDeleteThe problem creationists have is the belief that the Bible is 100% true.
Of course when the Bible does not agree with their beliefs they then argue that it really does not mean what was written.
For example, Saul talking to the dead Samuel. That has to be fake even if the Bible does not say it is fake.
Not only churches reason around things like this.
In the USA declaration of independence, read this:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
How do the nation founders write such a glorious statement and still uphold slavery?
Plus women lacked the rights that men did.
It is the human condition to reason around or ignore the things they do not like.
Personally as a Christian and occasional reader of AIG and other creationist material I see nothimg unbiblical or unchristian in those statements of Ken Ham’s as reproduced by Dennis. So I don’t understand the controversy unless your a believer in some version of the theory of evolution.
ReplyDeleteKen Ham says that we should interpret science through the lens of Scripture. I would add, through Scripture properly understood. He claims that the Hebrew word for day, yom, always means 24 hours. According to Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler, that is not so. The word yom is used elsewhere in the Bible to mean a period of time longer than 24 hours. So, those days of creations could be a much longer period of time. Ham also claims that there was no death before sin came into the world, referring to a passage by Paul. But the passage deals with sin and the death of man, not animals or plant, which do not sin. So there could have been a lot of living and dying among plants and animals for many years before man entered the picture. According to Archer and Geisler, both old age creationists, God created the world. How? Scripture doesn't tell us. When? Scripture doesn't tell us. These are questions to ask scientists, not theologians. We are told not to add to or take away from the Word of God. Ham does just this, as do many others.
ReplyDeleteThis young earth stuff is about like teaching your kids that the moon is made of green cheese!
ReplyDeleteByker, have you eaten the Moon? Do you put dust and rocks on your pasta? Of course not!
Flying Spaghetti Monster would absolutely create a Moon made of green cheese, not some nasty dust and rock. It's perfectly logical.
Anon said: " Anonymous said...
ReplyDeletePersonally as a Christian and occasional reader of AIG and other creationist material I see nothing unbiblical or unchristian in those statements of Ken Ham’s as reproduced by Dennis. So I don’t understand the controversy unless your a believer in some version of the theory of evolution."
Welcome to Banned. You're new here I take it :)
Spelling Nazi! 😇
ReplyDeleteKevin
The ancients who wrote the Bible were scientific ignoramuses compared to today. In turn we are scientific ignoramuses compared to the people of the future.
ReplyDeleteIs it even remotely realistic that God would reveal the reality of how the universe was made and works? Is it even necessary?
We would not dream of instructing our babies on adult topics - we communicate in baby language.
We take scriptures out of context to try and prove that every word in the Bible is true - and even then our "true" varies.
The most important things are to love God and love our fellow man. These are understood by both Jews and Christians to be the two most important commands in the Bible.
Theistic evolution = 11 Mysterious Human Species?
ReplyDeleteDBP
Genesis was written in such a way that sheep herders could understand it, and people living in the post-Darwin, post-Einstein era could fill in additional detail as knowledge increased. The original materials seem to have remained largely unquestioned until the time of Copernicus or Galileo.
ReplyDelete