I have taken the liberty of copying what I believe to be the relevant parts of a post of NewChapter to start, well a new chapter, or rather a new thread. The full post can be read in the original thread, shown below. Its as good a place to start as any.
About me: I live in the UK and was brought up in a non-Christian, agnostic-leaning family. (The UK simply isn't like large sections of the USA: in the UK Christians, even Church-going nominal-only "Christians" are very much in the minority and have been for at least 50 years. This side of the Atlantic evolution is the religion and you can see the consequences in your newspaper every day.) I was brought up to believe in evolution. I went to private schools which generally have slightly more Christian input than state schools.
When I was 8 to 12 years old, though there wasn't any Christianity on open display, we did read the Bible in one class each week, but no comment was made whether it was true or not, nothing was applied to us, because the teacher wasn't a Christian. But it did make me think the Bible is worthy of people's attention.
At secondary school from 13 to 18, evolution was taught in Biology class and yet Christianity (of a sort) was taught on RE: but the RE teacher didn't challenge the "truth" of evolution.. perhaps he was asked not to, but most likely he believed evolution himself. The RE teachers seemed more Christian, but I don't remember them telling us anything really useful, either about science or about the way of salvation through faith in the work of Christ.
By the time of University I was a thorough-going evolutionist; I studied psychology as part of my degree and evolution was studied there; I read evolution books such as "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins, and, as part of the course work, reviewed it approvingly. There was a stange thing in psychology though, one of the teachers would give examples of peculiar animals that looked as if they couldn't have evolved, and would proceed to show how maybe they might have evolved: it was difficult to escape thinking it sounded all a bit improbable, and I was brought to wonder if the teacher actually believed himself what he was saying: but even this didn't shake my confidence in Evolutionary Theory as a whole.
Then I was saved while at University. The Christians around me, most of them it seems were Theistic evolutionists - God has used evolution to bring life to its current forms. It was about 4 years after being saved I looked into evolutionary theory, and after quite a long struggle, it finally dawned on me: it is just a lot of smoke and mirrors, the evidence for evolution simply isn't there. It is just as reasonable on scientific grounds to believe the Bible on Genesis, creation, the fall, the flood, and because I knew the Bible in other areas is reliable, "more powerful than a double edged sword", and clearly the Word of a God that "is not a man that He should lie", I choose to believe the Bible on Genesis 1 to 9 as well. It is because of this I start this thread.
A word, though, of warning. I am not going to pretend I can answer every problem, and nor am I going to continue answering every complaint for ever. When I am happy with what I have said I shall stop: others can have the last word and hold their swords aloft with joy, the battlefield cleared of pesky Bible Fundamentalists: to the Atheists - perhaps you will be happy to know and encouraged to know you can have that victory right now.
NewChapter
Post 8852 of 8853
Since 1/25/2011
On Page 42 of “Christian Apologists - please watch this and tell us why it is wrong?”
In what way or ways do you believe the god described in the bible is finite and limited?
Well first of all, that creation story. It has been completely debunked. However if I were a bronze-aged nomad thinking about my origins, then it would have really made sense. Had this god not been limited, he could have given a simple version of evolution. but he couldn't---cuz evolution had not been invented yet---so he was only able to give a bronze-aged guess, because he was limited by bronze-age knowledge, because bronze-aged humans created him.
I already can hear some believer's response to this. Ancient Israelites would not have understood---blah, blah. Okay, maybe they would not have understood the science of it, but certainly a simplified version could have been offered that while not going into great detail, would not have come into direct conflict over the truth of it. This is All Powerful God after all---and we humans do it for children all the time. But he wasn't all powerful, so that's the explanation.
The worldwide flood. And IMPOSSIBLITY. But they didn't know that 3000 years ago, so they could make up stories like that. Had their god really been all wise, he would have known better.
Virginity! Yes, there was a 'test' for women's virgiinity. But not a man's. Biologically---you understand. If virginity was such a coveted commodity, then I think this god could have figured out a way for both female and male virginity to be obvious. But he didn't. Because he didn't exist. So bronze-aged humans made him up and worked with what evolution gave them. Women have a hymen, men don't, so there was no penalty for a nonvirgin male marrying---because there was no virginity test. Very limiting.
