Why can't people just be honest about religion?

[sealybobo]

Now, if the book of Genesis is an allegory, then sin is an allegory, the Fall is an allegory and the need for a Savior is an allegory – but if we are all descendants of an allegory, where does that leave us? It destroys the foundation of all Christian doctrine—it destroys the foundation of the gospel.”

- Ken Ham

Faulty syllogism after faulty syllogism. Ken Ham is a one-dimensional "apologist," and has no business inserting himself into scientific or philosophical debates. It is very possible to believe in Genesis as a story explaining basic life tenets, and be a wonderful Christian. Millions of Christians do this everyday.

You have no business talking science

 

[basmonahan]

Powerful response. And you're right, which is why I didn't. I critiqued his logic, and posited my own stance about simple daily living.

 

[hobelim]

What does that story tell you?

"And after He had said these things, as they watched, he was lifted up and a cloud removed Him from their sight. As he was going, and as they were gazing intently into the sky, suddenly there stood beside them two men in white who said, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken away from you up to heaven, will come in the same way as you have seen him go." Acts.1:9-11



The first thing I should mention is that if such an eyewitness account is accurate and true, it can only be the eyewitness account of what was seen and heard in a dream. I'm sure you agree that it is not possible for a dead person to float up into the sky in broad daylight except in dreams. The second thing I should mention is that in many of the recorded prophetic visions and stories about the prophets they were not always specifically identified as the recorded events of dreams as when Abraham fed lunch to three angels or when Ezekiel was carried through the air by his hair from Babylon to Jerusalem and dug through a 13 foot thick solid rock temple wall with his bare hands. Sometimes the metaphors and analogies were explained in great detail and sometimes they were not as in the story of the ascension.



So what stands out?

Why would the men in white ask the disciples why they were standing there looking up into the sky and then say that Jesus who was taken from them into heaven would return in the same way they saw him go unless he did not float up into the sky?



So how did they watch him go? He was lifted up, singled out, and a cloud removed him from their sight. Clouds are an established metaphor in scripture for both crowds, as in clouds of witnesses, or clouds that obscure as in clouds of controversy. Being 'taken up' is a euphemism for being killed like Elijah being "taken up" in a whirlwind is allegorical of him being surrounded and killed by a lynch mob.



What become clear is that after Jesus began his public ordeal, he became the subject of interest delight and confusion,(depending on where you were at), Lifted up, and clouds of both people and controversy obscured him from his friends sight; he is a good man, he is a sinner, he is out of his mind, he is the messiah, he is possessed, he opened the eyes of the blind, he is leading the people astray, he is without sin, he keeps company with prostitutes, no crazy person could speak like that, etc, etc. From the time that Jesus came out of the tomb of false religious beliefs that he spent three decades in, was baptized by John and the heavens opened up to him, through everything that he endured until he was " taken away" killed, was the bodily ascension into heaven that they watched.



Him returning in the same way they saw him go means that Jesus will return in these same clouds that originally obscured him from sight, clouds of controversy. Its not about him floating down from the sky even though it clearly states that people saw him disappear in the clouds and were told that he will return in the same way.

Even if the story is entirely made up, wouldn't it be extremely silly for anyone to even think its possible that Jesus would come down from the sky given the men in white essentially said, 'don't look up into the sky" and the fact that the first time that Jesus appeared he said that he came down from heaven but everyone knows he was born into a family like anyone else.

Why would he and how could he come down from heaven in any other way, talk to people, raise the dead, and separate the sheep from the goats?

That's what the story tells me.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure lying buried in a field. The man who found it, buried it again." Mathhew 13:44