How conservative are Homelanders really?

[Eric the Green]

(04-08-2020, 11:06 PM)Cocoa Puff Wrote:

(04-08-2020, 04:06 AM)Blazkovitz Wrote: I definitely believe in evolution and big bang because I'm an agnostic.

That is interesting. I do not believe in evolution or the big bang, but rather that God created the world in six days. I am a Christian who believes in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I keep inviting people to go down the middle on this. I find it so much more interesting and rewarding.

I can go a long way with both sides. I certainly believe that evolution has happened. It's a remarkable story, with much science behind it. There is evidence for the big bang, though probably not conclusive. But the background noise discovered in the sixties was certainly good evidence for it.

But does evolution have to be interpreted or explained as a mechanical cause and effect set of events? I have definitely concluded that neo-Darwinian explanations leave out the nature of life and consciousness. I have preferred terms like the evolution of consciousness or creative evolution. Teilhard de Chardin and Henri Bergson are heroes of mine. I loved their versions of the evolution story.

Bergson as far back as the early 1900s posited "an original impetus" for the evolutionary movement, and it continues to create us, through us. Was that the big bang, or was it the spiritual springing forth of the divine in all things? What happened before the big bang, and what could have caused it? To me, the infinite regress of efficient causation implies a first cause, which must be "God."

But did God create the world in six days instead? A problematic belief, since in the earliest of those days described in Genesis there was no sun or earth yet. A "day" is a long period indeed in the life of the Lord. That he took six of them could be stretched to be called evolution. The creation story in Genesis can be interpreted as unfolding in stages over time. Scholars agree that the writers of the Bible intended it to be symbolic rather than literal.

I can go a long way toward the Christian beliefs about Jesus, much further than many of my more-agnostic friends. I doubt Christianity could have taken off and become the greatest religion in the world without many of the exploits of Jesus described in the Bible. It was his resurrection, and his return to his followers in body and spirit in the days afterward that gave Christians their fervor; not just his teachings. With Jesus' help, they learned to do miraculous healings like Jesus did and speak in tongues. Jesus said that you too will do the things I have done, even after I have gone back home to the Father. I don't have proof that these things happened, so some skepticism remains. But I lean toward the idea that the power of Jesus' deeds and words lived on because they were so powerful. Jesus proved the possibility that humans can learn eventually to survive death. In the New Age circles, this is called "ascension." It is recounted in the fictional account called The Celestine Prophecy. I am not disposed to say it's not possible, and in fact it probably has happened other times, probably among some Eastern adepts. 

Does that mean I must accept Jesus as my only personal savior because he died for my sins? That seems a holdover from archaic notions of sacrifice. Should I proclaim that non-Christians are infidels destined for "hell"? No, I disagree with dogmatic exclusivism. I am a universalist and an eclectic who values both science and all the world's religions. It just means that Jesus is worth a read and a consideration of admiration. From my experience and those of others I know, Jesus is a Spirit that lives on and appears to those who seek him, and who can bring new life to them. Sometimes people become convinced that they can't live well just by themselves, so they turn to Jesus, and they find him. For others, there are other divine sources, including awareness of our interconnection with all and the magical love light that is always there but oft-ignored. What an amazing miracle life is, after all. And so rare in this huge, bleak cosmos created in six divine days from an original impetus.