The creation of the Universe.

[Zain]

He put it here to see who would take it literally. And then he sends all those people to hell

The atheists end up in heaven

[Zain]

it's a strange combination to not believe in God, but believe in Heaven. Seems kind of Oxy Moron, doesn't it?

-ZainDustin

[Lemur]

Very funny, Sasaki. Reminds me of the South Park episode where all the dead people are insisting that they led righteous lives, full of love and compassion, but the guy at the gate says," Sorry, the correct answer was ... Mormon."

Zain, you're already interpreting the Moses' law away, which means you've just gotten rid of the only part of the Bible which condemns homosexuals. Now you're admitting that the Bible must be contemplated and decoded. It's a very small step from where you're standing to accepting that science has a legitimate role to play, that maybe, just maybe, the Lord's creation is worth the same level of scrutiny and study that the Bible deserves.

So let's not go calling people who believe in the Big Bang and/or Evolution a bunch of non-Christians, okay? It makes you sound like a fundamentalist.

[Zain]

I'm just saying that, why would the bible say, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth" if it wasn't true?

-ZainDustin

[Lemur]

As I said earlier, the big bang does not exclude God. Many astrophysicists are also religious. And just because an early Jewish priest wrote that "God created the heavens and earth" does not mean that particular Jewish priest had the whole story. And how would it sound to everybody else if God did reveal to that guy exactly what happened? Would he jump up and run around the Temple, babbling about singularities, event horizons and the way that plasma converts to matter? His buddies would have said, "Zachariah, you've been sniffing too much incense," and taken him outside to sober up.

I strongly recommend you read up on how the Bible was composed. We know a lot more than we ever hoped to know, thanks to the discoveries of ancient texts in Israel and Egypt. Bible study has come a long, long way in the last 20 years. It won't shake your faith, unless you let it. And a book is much more meaningful when you know something about how it was written.

[Zain]

All I know about how it was written was that God used these people as vessels to write the bible.

[Lemur]

Yes, of course, but how did God use those vessels? And was he using them all in the same way? And since we have been given free will by the Lord, to what degree have we managed to mess these texts up?

It wouldn't kill you to read up on the current state of scriptural study. There's some fascinating stuff out there.

[Zain]

You really should leave alone the whole last comments telling me what I should do, it's getting annoying.

[doc_bean]

All I know about how it was written was that God used these people as vessels to write the bible.

But what about the translators and the editors ? Where they divinely inspired too ?