JaMDuDe wrote:
It must be confessed that the Scriptures do not explicitly teach the existence of these distinctions. The Bible does, however, allow for this possibility.
The condition of salvation for adults is personal faith. Infants are incapable of fulfilling this condition. For this reason, many have suggested that there is an age of accountability. By this, it is understood that at a certain time in a person's life he/she becomes aware of personal responsibility for wrong actions. This is not simply a recognition of cause and effects, but of personal accountability and responsibility. This "age of accountability" would probably be different for every individual. In deed, some who are mentally handicapped may never become aware of their own struggle against unrighteousness.
Nice copy paste! You didn't even acknowledge it. In the academic world, this is known as plagiarism, and once again you have expertly evaded my challenge to provide the evidence in the bible that supports this claim. For those of you who would like to see the original document, its
here, brought to you by the same folks that supply all of JaMDuDe's earthly knowledge.
JaMDuDe wrote:
Ill make some questions for you to answer. Spark i dont want you to answer these with quotes from your science-fiction books. Or just say "if we turn the clock back billions of years it would be so simple it could pop out of thin air"
We've been asking you to stop answering our questions with quotes from the Bible (with the exception of my request, which actually pertains to the bible itself. It's funny that you'll quote the bible for anything ranging from physics to biology, but when asked about the bible itself you just copy and paste responses from websites). At least our sources are based on some kind of science.
I'm not sure what you're referring to by "if we turn the clock back billions of years it would be so simple it could pop out of thin air", but I'm assuming you're talking about the big bang. I assure you there was nothing 'simple' about it.
JaMDuDe wrote:
How do u explain the scientists and physicists from nasa who said the chances of earth appearing in OUR galaxy are one/one-trillion stars with only 100 billion stars?
I've gone over this already, and frankly I'm beginning to wonder if you even read what I have to say. Do you understand probabilities? Our galaxy is nothing special, theres nothing unique about it. There are 100 billion others very much like it, and the chances of life starting in any of those is exactly the same according to that video. Face it, even if we assume everything in the video is correct, which it probably isn't, the odds still favor life starting somewhere.
JaMDuDe wrote:
How about the prophecies in the bible with amazing detail? They didnt just have so many meanings they had
to happen some time. Like the birth town of Jesus, He would be born from a virgin, and the EXACT date of His public revealment.(they werent written after his birth)
Source? Evidence? Don't you think its possible someone simply read the date of public revealment and told him about it? You make it sound like the Bible is laying this stuff out in amazing detail, when all I've seen so far is a bunch of vague propehecies that wouldn't be hard to fulfill if the people in question knew about them. Besides which, how do we know that there weren't other parts of the Bible (perhaps parts that contained prophecies that did not come true) that were discarded centuries ago.
JaMDuDe wrote:
If man is nothing but the random arrangement of molecules, what motivates you to care and to live honorably in the world?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'living honorably', but if you're referring to humans working together/helping one another etc etc... humans are hardly the only animals that do this. Dogs hunt in packs, dolphins travel in pods, fish school together for mutual protection. Social behaviors are a basic adaptation for thousands of species.
JaMDuDe wrote:
Why do we each have individual personalities? What made us evolve so that we would all be different?
A brain? The ability to learn and adapt? From the moment we are born our environment changes who we are. If you want to talk about the evolution behind being different, if we were all identical it would have only taken one catastrophic event to wipe every one of us out.
JaMDuDe wrote:
How do you explain the fact that a single, relatively uneducated and virtually untraveled man, dead at age 33, radically changed lives and society to this day?
So it was just one man? I thought it was the Bible that changed society to this day. Mohammed changed lives too, does that validate Islam?
JaMDuDe wrote:
Why and how has the Bible survived and even flourished in spite of centuries of worldwide attempts to destroy and ban its message?
Why? Because people believe it and pass that belief onto others. Christianity is a meme however you choose to look at it. I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say 'centuries of worldwide attempts to destroy and ban its message'. Christianity has been pretty popular almost since its inception. If you want to talk about worldwide attempts to destroy and ban its message', you might want to talk to the Jews. I hear they've had problems in the past.
JaMDuDe wrote:
How can one realistically discount the testimony of over 500 witnesses to a living Jesus following His crucifixion?
You can find thousands upon thousands of otherwise educated and intelligent people that would swear they've seen magic. And thats modern day. Of course its not really magic, it's just the power of suggestion combined with the human will to believe. You illustrate the belief part quite well.
JaMDuDe wrote:
How did 35-40 men, spanning 1500 years and living on three separate continents, ever manage to author one unified message?
I don't know where you learned your geography, but I think you just proved my point about the state of your education. Where was the Bible written? Were some parts written in South America? Some in Australia? I don't think so. In fact, unless I am gravely mistaken, it was all written in the general area of the Middle East.
JaMDuDe wrote:
What was the first cause? Why did the universe just explode for no reason at all?
Obviously there was a reason, or it wouldn't have happened. You can choose to believe its God if you want, at least at that point you will have accepted that the Genesis myth is not in fact true. If you want a more scientific explanation, go down to your local library and get some books on physics. Stephen Hawking has done some good work.
JaMDuDe wrote:
If all organisms come from parent organisms, how did the first one get on earth? Scientists have tried and cant make life appear spontaneously.
And they've been trying for what? 20-30 years? Give it time. You and Wannabe_tank_whore are both fond of pointing to scientists inability to recreate events, but seem to have no problem with religions inability to recreate their events. God hasn't exactly been very active lately, unless he's just erasing our memories after he acts.
You're very good at asking random question. How about answering some for a change?