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When God created life on Earth what was his original plan?
There is no evidence to support that there was ever a 'plan' by anyone or anything. Galaxy formation such as our Milky Way is not an unusual event in the Solar System. There are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe.
When Earth was formed around 5 Billion years ago it went through a series of transformations. When it first formed it was devoid of oxygen. Over time, the planet cooled and formed a solid crust, allowing liquid water to exist on the surface. The first life forms appeared between 3.8 and 3.5 billion years ago. The earliest evidences for life on Earth are graphite found to be biogenic in 3.7-billion-year-old metasedimentary rocks discovered in Western Greenland and microbial mat fossils found in 3.48-billion-year-old sandstone discovered in Western Australia.Photosynthetic life appeared around 2 billion years ago, enriching the atmosphere with oxygen. Life remained mostly small and microscopic until about 580 million years ago, when complex multicellular life arose. During the Cambrian period it experienced a rapid diversification into most major phyla. Although more than 99 percent of all species that ever lived on the planet are estimated to be extinct, there are currently 10–14 million species of life on the Earth.
The Dinosaur era is certainly one of the most interesting times on planet earth before humans evolved.
This, ashleynj is the proverbial yellow brick road. READING and just as importantly LISTENING to what others believe and think will create understanding for us.
There is another theology that has special people getting their own planets and ruling over them after populating them with spirit children conceived with their after-life wives...
Glad we can agree on something. This is a Christian discussion forum which ought to be for Christians to discuss their faith. I don't believe it should be an open ground for non-Christians to pick the Christian faith apart and until the moderators do something about it - I'm protesting. There is a double standard going on and everyone knows double standards are unjust.
This is not the Christian forum. It is the Christianity forum. It exists for discussions about issues related to Christianity. Any City-Data member can post in any forum on City-Data. Since the creation of this forum, there has been no policy to restrict posting to professed Christians. Nothing has changed.
My pleasure, zthatzmanz. I feel you're one of the more level-headed honest Christians posting here. I have to repeat time and time again that I am NOT an atheist. I do believe in God because I see no way this universe and this incredibly complex diversity of life could have evolved on its own. That's why deism makes the most sense to me. It explains the presence of a God who does exist but it also explains why everybody--Muslims, Hindus, Buddhas, Krishnas, et al have their prayers answered favorably at exactly the same rate as Christians. God is no respecter of persons, and likewise he's not respecter of particular religions.
My pleasure, zthatzmanz. I feel you're one of the more level-headed honest Christians posting here. I have to repeat time and time again that I am NOT an atheist. I do believe in God because I see no way this universe and this incredibly complex diversity of life could have evolved on its own. That's why deism makes the most sense to me. It explains the presence of a God who does exist but it also explains why everybody--Muslims, Hindus, Buddhas, Krishnas, et al have their prayers answered favorably at exactly the same rate as Christians. God is no respecter of persons, and likewise he's not respecter of particular religions.
Here is an amazing statement for the evangelicals---
I believe folk who have been there, prayed that and waited for God's "answer" and it never came, are true siblings in Christ and LOVE..even though some may not admit it publicly--they are the honest face of Jesus, Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit, Grandfather, what ever name one uses, the PERSON and the message is always the same.
LOVE is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow--THAT IS WHAT NEVER CHANGES! And it doesn't matter how we find it--because we will all travel the same road to get there...
I greatly appreciate you and others who dare to speak the truth and ask honest questions and force the rest of us to actually THINK.
Don't let that "level-headed" image go too far, as I walk among the TV Evangelicals, Pharisees and Sadducees my tendency is to reach for the sword, a bit too quickly sometimes...
When God created life on Earth what was his original plan? The Christian story is that the garden of Eden was a perfect place and then the humans made a choice to sin so things went downhill from there.
If Adam and Even never made the choice to sin what would of happened then? How would things be different?
Ashlyn, you got it right when you referred to the Christian story. Because that is clearly what Genesis is: an allegorical story designed to convey important truths, not designed to be a factual historical account. So it is a bit amusing to read others debate this topic as though it actually happened.
But we can discuss what would have happened differently in the same way we might discuss what Juliet might have done if Romeo had not killed himself. If Adam and Eve don't sin, then the story loses alot of its relevance for us, since we are naturally sinners and deal with the consequences of that nature the same as Adam and Eve did in the story. If you change the story in that way, it no longer conveys to us the lesson: that we should avoid sin, but if we do sin God will forgive and provide a means of redemption.
Here is an amazing statement for the evangelicals---
I believe folk who have been there, prayed that and waited for God's "answer" and it never came, are true siblings in Christ and LOVE..even though some may not admit it publicly--they are the honest face of Jesus, Allah, Buddha, the Great Spirit, Grandfather, what ever name one uses, the PERSON and the message is always the same.
LOVE is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow--THAT IS WHAT NEVER CHANGES! And it doesn't matter how we find it--because we will all travel the same road to get there...
I greatly appreciate you and others who dare to speak the truth and ask honest questions and force the rest of us to actually THINK.
Don't let that "level-headed" image go too far, as I walk among the TV Evangelicals, Pharisees and Sadducees my tendency is to reach for the sword, a bit too quickly sometimes...
Well, it'd be interesting to hear what the more conservative fire-breathing fundamentalists have to say about your stance. I, for one love it, but many here will roundly condemn you as being as heretical as they seem to think I am.
As a side note, I take no firm position on Jesus anymore. He may be the Son of God he may not be. He likely existed, but I highly doubt his story is getting transmitted properly via the gospels, which were written by very well-educated Greeks somewhere in Greece or the Roman empire--not in Aramaic, the language of the apostles, who couldn't even read or write. The stories likely were highly embellished or even made up, as is the case with the woman taken in adultery. Everyone recognizes now that it was not a part of the original gospel of John but was added circa the 8th century AD by scribes. Same with the closing 20 verses of Mark, which were added many centuries later. So we can take that bit about "He that believeth not shall be damned" Mark 16:16 and throw it out because Jesus never said it; a scribe did.
George Ritchie (see his YouTube video) had one of the most profound NDE's ever recorded during WW2 and he seemed to think there was a Son of God. He doesn't specifically say his name was Jesus and he never called the Presence Jesus during his NDE; he kept referring to this presence as the Son of God: "Stand up. You are in the presence of the Son of God".
Every book of the Bible was written under God's inspiration. No single human has written any of the 66 books without God's approval, if that was the case, there would be endless errors and confusion due to man's imperfection.
Mmmm... isn't that pretty much exactly what we have? 90% of the traffic in this forum comes down to people disagreeing about what the bible says and means.
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