First post, basic questions

[PerpetualSeeker]

Hi all, I'm a 68 y.o. male who has wanted to be a Christian my whole life but have never quite been convinced. I'm surrounded by friends and even family who are not and I've never felt that I have the facts to successfully defend a decision to take the full plunge. My parents were Methodist and I have attended several Churches in my time as an adult, at one I even regularly hosted a Seeker's group in my home. I prefer the more modern non-denominational Christian churches.

So without further ado let me post a couple of questions I hope you can help me with:

1. How do Christians explain the fossil record? I know that Jesus made a statement essentially saying that he wasn't sent to contradict/repudiate what had been written but to validate it. It would be much easier for me to fully accept the New Testament without the Old, but if I have to believe the Lord created every creature as it is now I have a problem with that.

2. I also find it hard to believe that a loving God would create beings and place them in a world based on provable facts that literally trains us to not believe anything we can't verify and then require us to have faith, and if we don't burn us forever in hellfire (there's that Old Testament again).

Those are my biggest sticking points that I'm happy to discuss and I appreciate and feedback.

Alan

 

[tourist]

You posted some interesting questions. I recommend that you create a thread and post these questions in the Bible Discussion Forum. I'm sure that this will start a most interesting dialog.

Glad to have you join us. Welcome to CC.

 

[GWH]

Hi all, I'm a 68 y.o. male who has wanted to be a Christian my whole life but have never quite been convinced. I'm surrounded by friends and even family who are not and I've never felt that I have the facts to successfully defend a decision to take the full plunge. My parents were Methodist and I have attended several Churches in my time as an adult, at one I even regularly hosted a Seeker's group in my home. I prefer the more modern non-denominational Christian churches.

So without further ado let me post a couple of questions I hope you can help me with:

1. How do Christians explain the fossil record? I know that Jesus made a statement essentially saying that he wasn't sent to contradict/repudiate what had been written but to validate it. It would be much easier for me to fully accept the New Testament without the Old, but if I have to believe the Lord created every creature as it is now I have a problem with that.

2. I also find it hard to believe that a loving God would create beings and place them in a world based on provable facts that literally trains us to not believe anything we can't verify and then require us to have faith, and if we don't burn us forever in hellfire (there's that Old Testament again).

Those are my biggest sticking points that I'm happy to discuss and I appreciate and feedback.

Alan

I had those questions in 1968 and found the following answers that are discussed in more detail in my thread "Apologetics: Witnessing to Atheists", but briefly I agree with those who believe God is revealed via creation, which is studied by the physical sciences, including paleontology, and via Truth/Logos, which manifests metaphysical reality. Their intersection is indicated in Genesis 1 and John 1, which speak of God creating the physical world via the Logos/Word, and by Romans 1:20, which says creation reveals God's power and (moral/loving) nature. Permission to believe creation took longer than six 24-hour days is granted by 2Peter 2:8. Science seeks to answer how and when; Scripture answers who and why.

You are correct to believe in a loving God, who created humans who operate via faith rather than robots that operate via being programmed, because that would have been too easy. Because death is verified, it is logical to seek salvation/resurrection to heaven, which is given to all who reflect God's love, logically enough (Rom. 5:5). Hell is where/when justice is achieved via something like reaping karma in accordance with the life for life principle, after which evil souls are destroyed.

Again, my complete answer with Scriptural support is in the other thread, but I can copy and paste it here if you desire.
Welcome to CC!