Jonathan Davis

The bible says God created the universe through Jesus, that Jesus is the exact imprint of his nature, and then became flesh. He always was, but was given a name that had been prepared for him from the beginning, with hints even recorded in Genesis 1 and 3. Genesis 1, in the beginning God spoke saying, "Let there be light." For the first time in all physical history, God -a transcendent and all powerful being- spoke to a blop of dark potential matter and mass that had a form like water saying, "Let there be Light." God not only made his presence directly known to a super cosmic void, the making of his presence at all brought a type of energy and force that the material blob had never experienced before.. sonoluminescense is cool here because we can use it's principles as a potential analog. Genesis 3, the curse to satan that through the woman's "seed," which later passages expand the meaning of "seed" to include reproductive material like sperm, not just lineage, which means in Genesis 3, seed could be seen as an oocyte by modern understandings. God knew the specific oocyte that he would use for his body way back in the garden. Redemption was his mission not his purpose. His purpose is to reveal the full glory of God; which is done through the redemption and restoration purchased through the cross. It sounds like im just trying to argue a small thing, but the distinction that Jesus's purpose was redemption vs Jesus's purpose is to reveal the full glory of God is important.

"When we tried to define what an animal is." So we started with the premise that humans are animals because we see correlations? Obviously but my point being towards man constructed classifications vs God's classifications. Mankind was made from the dust, atoms, not evolved from animals. By modern definitions of mammals yes, humans are mammalian. Just because things are similar does not mean they are directly related. Animals and humans can be related without humans being animals.

@LogosFunction When we tried to define what an animal is. Biologists looked at all the animals we could find and saw what they all had in common such that a definition wouldn't arbitrarily exclude something. Do you accept that you are a mammal?

To mirror my previous post. Of course evolution has taken place, denying it makes you look like a fool. Does this in any way, shape or form force you to deny that God exists? Of course not! Evolution is one of the best supported scientific theories in all of human history!

@LatFilosof When did animal become defined by being a multicellular eukaryotic organism again? These are ultimately human constructed models and classifications, right?

@LogosFunction A bunch of atoms yes. Biologically we are animals, because an animal is a heterotrophic multicellular eukaryotic organism. You are those things, therefore you are an animal. You may disagree on some other metric, but biologically you are an animal.

Think in terms of expanding fractals. It parallels and rhymes, it doesnt exactly copy. There are jews today in israel desperately trying to keep the torah as best they can and are looking to rebuild the temple so they can sacrifice again. There are christians following correctly in various ways all the same and looking forward to the second coming. Look for parallels, like the rise and fall of the nation of israel and the rise and fall of the church age.

@LogosFunction That's one of the things I'm not sure about in terms of timing. In the OT, the remnant was faithful Jews who maintained the sacrificial system etc. That doesn't seem to make sense now, after Christ. So what is the remnant? What would be the purpose of a temple?

The children of Noah were born and alive during the lifespans of people who knew and likely directly talked with Adam and Eve. Noah was alive almost to the birth of Abraham, with some traditions saying they did live together at some point although most accounts are that Noah died just before Abraham was born. Adam was not generations removed Noah, nor was Abraham generations removed from Noah. These people just lived incredibly long lives. The information and knowledge of God and the pre-flood world was preserved, although distorted. The earth may look old scientifically, but by generations the earth is not billions of years old. The universe is not billions of years old. Humans are just arrogant thinking we know our heads from our feet just because we do big things as small fragile creatures. We deny the foundational reason for why we are capable of such things: that we are made in the image of God.

@LatFilosof Correlation doesn't equal causation? We are all floating atomic particles in the void of space, arent we?

@LogosFunction Oh, I guess you aren’t a multicellular eukaryotic organism then.

This has always been portrayed as a fault of humanity tho, not God. The bible shows that even in the church, hierarchies naturally emerge and a form of slave/master relationship emerges. The jewish leaders during the day of Jesus were often idolized as being symbols of religious perfection, yet Jesus called them hypocrites. That is the whole point of becoming a slave of Christ instead. Everyone serves someone or something else. Rather serve the Lord and let him give to you according to his blessings.

While Christians historically (or according to the Bible) believed slaves and masters were equal in their churches, they rarely argued for equality in society.

The bible says that women went to go finish the burial rites of Jesus after the double sabbath holiday weekend and when they got there, all the guards were as if they were asleep or gone, there possibly was an earthquake or an aftershock of the mega quake that just happened 3 days earlier, the stone was rolled away, a figure of light appeared on the stone, the tomb was discovered empty except for the burial shroud. Then it's reported that a woman saw him first, and these women believed first before the actual disciples. Only then do the disciples come and see for themselves. This is not insignificant. In ancient cultures, reporting that women discovered the tomb and believed first would be highly embarrassing. In fabrications, then men would have discovered it first or been focused on. Before Jesus's final ascension to heaven at the great commission, it's recorded that Jesus appeared to a multitude on the mountain at once. Perhaps what Paul references in 1 Corinthians 15, even if his 500 number is an exaggeration or over estimation? Acts records the final words of Jesus to his closest disciples as well, along with the immediate historical aftermath and early events of the church. The author of Acts is the same who wrote the book of Luke, and both must have been written before the deaths of Peter and Paul by wit that Acts records Paul being on house arrest in Rome (testified in non biblical letters from early writers/historians) yet records nothing of Peter in Rome or both their executions. The book of Acts records the martyrdom of Stephen and James, but not two of the biggest apostles? Unless they just hadnt happened yet or the author was unaware. If Acts and Luke were written early to mid 60s, that puts at least Mark and Matthew way earlier.

The fairy tale says that there were eyewitnesses to a fictional occurrence

Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not always with the water baptism. It usually precedes and leads one to a water baptism. The Ethiopian believed before he asked to be baptized. The first gentile believed and was baptized by the holy spirit before the water. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is one of fire, not water. A fire for the Lord, a conviction of sins, a thirst for righteousness, and a longing to be close to the words and ways of the Lord, and a hope to the day of his return where he will make all things new.

@MarkJGrice The TOTC was on deaths door, hanging on a cross. He was a very rare exception as there was nothing else he could do at that point.

So Jesus was lying in Mark's Gospel when he said he who believes and is baptized shall be saved?

@badendave A remnant are always preserved, right? Jerusalem is and always will be the time clock. When the temple starts going up, a lot of heads and hearts will turn

@LogosFunction I remember hearing a preacher say "If God doesn't soon judge North America (and basically this goes for all of western culture) soon, He's going to owe Sodom and Gomorrah an apology". We are living in a civilizational moment. Will we decline, or correct course and restore?

@heymike33 @SpeedWatkins @Pirroli_ Insignificant specks that can recreate the sun on earth 😇 but possibly one of my favorite pop culture quotes...

@LogosFunction @SpeedWatkins @Pirroli_ Humans are such an apparently insignificant speck and yet are able to consciously determine our actions... truly ironic either way

It is an invalid inference from "each member of the set is dependent" to "the whole set is dependent." That's the fallacy of composition. Every silly goose in the flock has a mother (per accidens), but it does not follow that the flock also has a mother (per se).

Jesus is God as a human. He is the "logos" of God, but still fully God. It's like your mind vs your soul vs your spirit. They are all very closely linked and united in one body, but distinct. The mind is your conciousness and intellect; your soul is the greater you that has wants, desires, a will; and a spirit that is the spark and lifeforce behind it all. Being made in the image of God, we then use that as an analogy for understanding Jesus as the Logos. Jesus is the expression of God. He exists eternally with God inside, just as you are able to hold a thought or express it, but was externally expressed at the beginning of creation when God spoke and made his expression physical in our universe. Jesus brought the first light and life into this universe and guided it along creation is what the bible paints. And at the right moment in history, Jesus was sent into the prepared oocyte of a humble and accepting young virgin and the physical life of Jesus began. He, being the eternal metaphysical expression of God in a physical body, lived among us and among his people perfectly without any sins. He didn't break a single law yet willingly and obediently went to the cross for our sins instead. But because He was eternal, and because in the flesh he committed no sins or crimes against God or man, Jesus was the only human not truly worthy of death. God forced Satan to either face immediate defeat or unrighteously kill the only Son of God, to which... By this, Jesus defeated Satan and death and was resurrected to eternal life. Now Jesus stands as judge over all. If you do not live a life more perfectly or as perfectly as Jesus then he himself will find you guilty unless you come to him now and trust him when he says he forgives you

It has to do with the incompleteness theorems. Our universe has true axioms that cannot be proven from within but can be proven by moving to a higher meta-framework outside the system. This does not fully resolve the problem as this outside system will also have true axioms that cannot be proven, but for us being inside the system, us appealing to God outside the system without full understanding is not inconsistent. It is simply an epistemological limit on human knowledge. How do Christians say God is a part of creation though? Through His son, Jesus. God is able to stay out of the system while acting within the system through His son, Jesus.

The sorrow and regrets Adam must have lived with, I'm sure. To me what's crazy is people who lived through the tower of Babel although lifespans by that point and after were already way shorter than Noah's generation and that of his kids/ first generations off the boat. I personally think the tower of Babel was a bigger event than anyone realized, just as Sodom and Gomorrah. I think their falls are more civilization reset events than anyone realizes do to how much physical time destroys evidence and how much isolation warps time perception. The world has not always had 7 billion people at any given time. The world only reached 1 billion people by around the 1800s. India and China both have populations exceeding around 1.4 billion today. We talking maybe sub 50 million people, at most, spread around the earth during the fall of Babel? Shoot.. California alone today has almost 40 million people living in it. We have no way to know for sure without going to dig in war torn or highly tribal deserts, but it is what it is. It's important because history parallels. Nothing happening today around us is anything new. It's all just old knowledge repackaged and regurgitate as new. What did nimrod seek to do? Unite earth against God; to establish a name for man so that they could never again be wiped out by a single act of God; to enter into the heavens and seek God himself. Those same aspirations are still among us today but across various people in greater forms. What's Elon's goals and ambitions for example? What is the purpose of Ai? Every other time humanity has gotten to this point, God directly has come down and intervened. Why would he not now? Yet like one knows a fig tree is about to be in season..

@LogosFunction Adam experienced life before sin, walking with God, in the garden of Eden, and lived until a time when the Bible records "every intention of their heart was only evil continually". You wanna' talk contrast?! Wow! How do you even start to describe that?

@badendave It's funny to think about how much the world has changed from 1995 to today and imagining what people born in the 1920s and 30s experienced; but imagine living 900 years and all the growth/change you would see in that time.

@LogosFunction Noah's grandfather was alive at the same time as Adam. It isn't hard to think that people would have wanted to see and talk to "the original" so he very well may have spoken with Adam and passed on these conversations to Noah, his grandson. Same after the flood.

🕊️ Chuck Norris has died at 86. tmz.me/N3EVxQe

You look it up. Hebrew words are layered and carry additional meanings much like greek words like "logos." The bible is not clear on what the firmament is scientifically nor does it claim to be. You are inherently reading Genesis from the perspective of a human and not God, 100%. It is from God to an earlier generation of man, and man wrote it down so that all men would be able to read it and understand to the best abilities of their time. It isn't pseudoscience. Yet when God's word directly tells you that God is not bound by human understandings of time, and that a day to God is like a 1000 years, and 1000 years is like a day or but a moment, why do you then assume God's definition of a day in Genesis 1 exactly matches your definition of a day today? What is a day when there is no planet earth, sun, or any orbital mechanics? What is a day without a relativistic anchor like Cesium? A day then becomes entirely arbitrary on whatever God declares it to be. "Evening and morning" marks a transition / oscillation, not a period of time.

@LogosFunction Bible is completely clear on what the firmament is... Have you studied the Bible? Hebrew: רָקִיעַ (Raqia) Look it up and it's not from "man's perspective" it's from God to man and man wrote it down... Not from pseudoscience perspective.

I still can't find that verse.... 🤔

@LatFilosof @SpeedWatkins Because we are inside the system while God is outside. Again to Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. It isn't inconsistent.

@LogosFunction @SpeedWatkins If I can’t posit something uncaused, then why are theists allowed to? That’s inconsistent.

Humanity is arrogant. "Look at what we've done! Look at what we've built! Look at what we think we know based off our man-made studies and tests! We see no evidence of your god nor do we see a need for it!"

More or less leading into the, "well where does God come from then," issue to which Gödel comes in; in that our universe is heavily math based and by extension, contains axiomatic truths that can never be fully understood or explained within our universe yet be perfectly explained by something greater outside without logical inconsistencies. Tldr, humans are microscopic on earth in the grand scheme of the universe; why should we then expect to be able to empirically demonstrate an entity transcendent of all the universe? It's hubristic.

@LogosFunction @SpeedWatkins @Pirroli_ Which raises an excellent question of whether every mover is moved... Can the naturalist be open to the possibility of unmoved movers, but what follows is an empirical dilemma as such a thing is unobservable.