On Aug 9, 12:35 pm, Free Lunch wrote:

Again, the evidence is not the issue. The issue is being
able to perceive it. If you will, let me quote a verse or two
of scripture to illustrate my point...

For the wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in
unrighteousness because that which is known about God is evident
within them; for God made it evident to them; For since the creation
of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and Divine
nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been
made....

I'll stop short of quoting the whole section of Romans 1:18-20
for the moment.

Let me put this in the first person. Before I came to
accept the tenets of the Christian faith, I knew that
something was amiss. I kept trying this or that to
scratch an itch. This itch was complicated. It was
part alienation. I wanted to be accepted. It was
part sufficiency. I (nor anyone else) is self sufficient
in and of themselves. Now for both of these, I sought
various means of satiating myself. We all pursue this
same "satisfaction" as Mick unknowingly made reference
to, but never finally achieve it. Capitalism is built
upon the foundation of the reality of the "Itch."

I pursued satisfaction through sex, through drugs,
through "higher education and learning," through
marriage and bringing a family into the world, through
a workaholic life stashing away more and more
money into the bank, through even gardening and
kayaking, experiencing nature. But nature is not
Nature. (Ever read Francis Crick? He starts out
with nature but can't help himself as he goes to
finally writing Nature.)

Now much of this was obviously externals, but not
all. Marriage and children involved much internal
change. Education and getting older had changed
my mind from thinking like a child (unfortunately).
But the Itch isn't in about mind, emotion or volitions.
It's about the soul. Something in my "soul" never
got scratched, was never satisfied or satiated until
I came to rest in the fact that what is written and
taught in the Bible is true. THis includes the Genesis
record for it is foundational to a true understanding
of "faith."

If God exists, He must disclose Himself because
the lower can never ascend on its own. He is
infinite. I am finite. He is beyond all that I know
or experience. He is simply, incomprehensible.
Therefore, He must disclose Himself (and God,
capital "G" must be truthful) and all that is left up
to me is to accept Him at His word. There's that
"faith like a child" thing. Do you have children?
When you tell them, "Go clean up your room,"
do they need an exhaustive detailing of all that
is involved? "But dad, I moved my socks off the
floor and put them in the drawer. You didn't
specify how much was expected of me." Would
you accept that as an answer? I wonder.

God declares (because no one was there) that He
created the universe in 6 literal days.*** He said it,
that settles it.... whether I chose to believe it or not.
That is the basis of faith -He said it. Faith is based
upon Authority, not empirical reproducible evidence.
That does not equal to say that faith is unreasoned
or lacking in sensibility. It just means that its
primary foundation is the Object it refers to.

The reason I have been asking where does morality
come from, where does personal being come from when
one starts from the evolutionary idea that everything
began out of nothing-nothing exploding, eventually,
somehow, unexplainably, producing rock and this
big cosmological machine that we see in the night
sky, is that there is neither reasonablity nor authority
to base such a conclusion. I have a meteorite here
on my desk. It is unimaginably heavy. People see
it and go, "Oh hey, what's that?" and then try to pick
it up like they would an ordinary earth rock. I keep
it here because it reminds me that this is what the
evolutionary model requires life being projected out
of. Call me daff, but I just don't seek how either
personality or a moral consciousness, both clearly
upper echelon energies, could have arisen from it
self. For me, at least, then, the universe declares
that there has to be SomeONE outside who created
me with my moral compass and personality of
mind, emotions and will, not to mention this thing
we often call a "soul."

The end of that Romans passage concludes by
stating.... "so_that_they_are_without_excuse!"

Christianity isn't a get out hell insurance card. It
is a cold slap in the face as to the reality of reality.
Man is given his greatest measure of dignity and
worth by the above stated conclusion. To paraphrase
it a bit, it just amounts to, "you were created with
such a mind and stature that apart from self willed
delusion, you would recognize this reality that I
have created for you. But because you stubbornly
refuse even the most obvious revelation, being
made a moral being (responsible) you will also
be held accountable for your failure."

Admittedly, what theologians term, "general revelation"
or what Paul here describes in Rom 1, only leads
to condemnation. For it has no power within it to
raise one's consciousness any more than nothing
nothing can turn this fascinating rock into some
imagined goddess to satisfy all my insatiable
appetites.

Therefore, God sent His son, to live and die as
an example of His love for a creation that had
gone bad. There is a power granted to the believer
in Christ that isn't available to one who simply
acquiesces to the magnificance of the physical
universe or the marvelous workings of the make-up
of man. For the later, one remains oriented to
himself in independence. Of the former, man
recognizes and accepts the fact that he is finite
and is therefore in dependence upon the Infinite-
Personal. And when he passes from the one to
the other, the evidence is all authenticated.

___________________
*** There is an Israeli physicist who has taken Einsteins
theory of relativity and projected that if God is in the
center of His creation, He can be creating in literal
24 hour days at the center while on the out edges of
outward flowing universe, time can record billions of
years. It is a mathematical projection but it does
offer another rabbit to chase.