[KenWittlief]

Andy,

we are on page 5 and I apologize if I am starting to mix peoples posts together, was it not you who said you think the universe is knowable, that we are able to grasp everything, and eventaully we will understand everything?

You metioned something about "how could I have faith in something when I know its not true?" I going to assume you are talking about the apparent conflict between science and religion - things that science says are different from what religion says. The age of the earth, or the universe, or the origins of man, evolution.

This is a point where christianity and other religions part. The bible is 66 books written by 40 authors over a period of thousands of years, but its purpose is to communicate a unified message to us, the understanding of our relationship with our Creator. It is not intended to be a physics book. It is not intended to be a history book. Scientific or historical information that it contains is only there as part of the understanding of the ways God and humanity have interacted over the centuries.

People that try to turn the Bible into a science book or a history book end up on their face. Scientific knowledge is in there, history is in there, but its not complete.

A good example that people often bring up is the middle ages, when religious leaders insisted the earth was flat, because the bible speaks of the '4 corners' of the earth - not only was it flat, it was a sqare too!

If you look into this seriously the original word used (in hebrew) actually refers to the 4 quarters of a sphere, the four half hemispheres. The hebrews were not mathemeticians, and did not have a developed language of geometry - these words were not comonly used. You can also find other places that say, viewed from a distance the earth is circular, or spherical, and that God hung the earth in space 'on nothing'.

But if you go back, the text these things were taken from were not discussions about the shape of the earth - it was talking about some aspect of our relationship with God.

That is the message of the bible - the thing that christianity is suppose to communicate - our relationship with God. That message is very clear, and I think you will have a hard time proving that aspect is in error.

As for faith - faith is an emotional issue, not a scientific one. Can you love someone unless you have faith in that person, and faith in human nature? Loving someone and trusting your life to them is not logical. You cannot prove that your loved ones love you back (a problem that wealthy individuals often face). You could test someones love: put them in a contrived situation and see how they respond (but that would be a creepy thing to do - if you love someone you have faith in them, and you dont test them).

The thing I have faith in as a christian is that Gods character is something I should emulate, and that God loves me. Im not especially worried about how old the earth is, whether or not the earth was flooded (totally or locally) or how many generations existed between Adam and Jesus.

Your Creator loves you personally - that is the message. That is the issue of faith. That is what we believe.

Does God exist in the first place? If love is being poured out on you like a river, it must be coming from somewhere.