i value your opinion and honestly have nothing against other peoples beliefs, however, how do you know we've had billions of years of evolution? because the scientists told you so? If evidence is what you are after, i'd personally rather follow something more tangible and real as christ is and was when he was on this earth, witnessed by many and accounts written by many at the time and years later, many of whom died for their faith in him.
Lets be honest who would bother to make up and maintain something like the bible? it would be the biggest con of all time!
Faith is what keeps you because at the end of the day we cant go back and check, but those scientists, who lets face it, base everything on theory and guesswork when it comes to evolution, know bo diddly about billions of years ago.
I think the problem is "organised religion". that word "organised" is enough to drive people away and against. People dont like to be told what to do with their lives, thats the fundemental thing, we believe our lives to be ours and dont give a damn what anyone else says or thinks.
Sorry, but I can't let this go. Since you are prepared to tell everyone who believes in billions of years of evolution that there's no evidence to support it, then I want to see your evidence for the Resurrection. Do you have photographs? I want to see you back up your statements about "accounts written by many
at the time and years later", because as far as I am aware, the four gospels were written long after the event and by people who had not witnessed anything in person.
Mark --> circa 70 AD
Matthew --> 70-110 AD (but later than Mark since it uses Mark as a source)
Luke --> 75-100 AD (but later than Mark since it uses Mark as a source)
John --> circa 100 AD
And again, as far as I am aware, the prime source for Mark (and therfore for Matthew and Luke) were the visions Paul had of Christ -- who he never encountered during his life. Ho. Hum.
And yes, it is all a con anyway. Consider all the elements of pagan religions that Christianity adopted in order to promote itself. Consider the fact that from 185 AD to 382 AD, the Catholic Church was carefully editing and re-editing its bible, denouncing texts that didn't fit with their view of the world -- most of which pre-dated your Gospels, and preparing to excommuniate and burn people who refused to toe their line. You would base your world view on the word of those people? Because unless you know different, that is your only source of information that suggests Christ was anything more than a preacher (or "prophet") and philisopher.
After all, this is the same Catholic Church that in the 17th Century tried Galileo for his heliocentric view of the solar system. You know what they said back then? That he couldn't be right, because it wasn't in the Bible; indeed, because the Bible said that the earth was at the centre of everything and couldn't be moved. Skip forward 400 years and while you would not, I hope, argue the geocentric position, you are still seriously arguing that there's no evidence for billions of years of evolution, from single cell organisms to mankind? Get over your ignorance.
While the Big Bang theory and the 15 Billion year age of the Universe cannot be conclusively proved, all the evidence available supports the hypothesis. So I'd say it's a damn sight more likely than some twaddle about changing water into wine. Or the theory that God put the dinosaur fossils there to test our faith.
And there is simply oodles of hard scientific evidence to put the age of the Earth at somewhere between 4.4 and 4.6 Billion years. Similarly, there is plenty of evidence for a history of evolution that spans roughly 4 Billion years and takes in lifeforms like single cells, bacteria, and Cro-Magnon man -- as opposed to the "evidence" of Genesis. And again, I'd much prefer to believe science, which is challenged and tested repeatedly, rather than the word of a long line of old men in dresses who claim to be "infallible". And that's the chain of evidence that you prefer to believe. Pah.
If you want to believe in Gods and Messiahs and so on, then please do. Just don't go burning anyone or invading the Holy Land. And please find a way to make your beliefs fit with what we know to be true. Perhaps your God lit the fuse for the Big Bang? Or maybe it was a Bigger God, who did it to create your God? Maybe that's how Gods reproduce, by Big Bangs. And please stop telling us we're wrong on the basis of your faith, because the "tangible and real" evidence for your faith isn't shit compared to the scientific evidence for evolution.
