Lee - taking your thought of God's grace being the only qualifier for an afterlife, and accepting that God 's way is beyond our comprehension to fathom, why is there such a disdain for other religions?  If Jesus was sacrificed for all mankind to allow God's grace to be the primary entry, does your religion contemplates that it knows what the parameter of God's grace is? This has been a confusing aspect that I haven't been able to discovery where humans suddenly are on the same mental plane as God.

Apostle Paul is quite interesting to me. He never studied under Jesus, his understanding of Jesus and his teachings were second hand oral sayings, he testifies that the conversion written in Acts by the Disciples is in error and he did not meet with them as noted but went outright to another land, met Peter and James for one week and for 15 years he had no interaction with the leaders of his theology. He claims his authority on his own, states that he had a vision, which gave him authority. Yet he is given almost primary authority over the disciples. If there is a disagreement with the Disciples, he is given the final word, yet the others actually lived, loved, and learned from Jesus. He is the one of Grace, not the disciples.

He also lived with the silversmiths and their religion and different Gods. But he did not debase their Gods, the even testify on his behalf when questioned about the "truth"  that he was telling. If he could accept another religion as being viable, why does this generation unable to do so?

They can come to know the same God as he reveals Himself in scripture.

Anxiety - I agree on your definition per historical proof, the problem comes in when the history happened before there was any manner of documentation. 

The American Indians chose to pass on their history verbally, and they were only written down sometime in the 1800's.  The historical accuracy is based on the current oral historian. For practical reasons we assume that they are true. But there is factual documentation. So goes any historical events that occurred prior to the ability to document.

The question invites the need or lack of the Fall and other stories be historically true for faith.

Lee has noted that to him I thought I answered your original question in post #10? The fall must be true otherwise there was no need for Christ to die and the entire Bible falls apart. Or, in other words the Bible is just a bunch of fairy tales and Christ would be a lair.



While I tend to disagree with Lee on his analysis, it does not mean that it is absolutely true to him. The second sentence of his, I find to be more sarcasm then his belief.  But that is more a perspective of mine.

Which leads me wonder what happens to a belief pattern so entrenched in defending past history documentation over the moral, societal discovery of evolving influences and traditions, if one part is documented to be false. Is it a faith or a defense of a hypothesis that is the main purpose?

Get with the admin team.  Hear it's moving forward but not ,much else.

Any word on this?

From Wikipedia: Eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time and/or infinite space. The concept initially inherent in Indian philosophy was later found in ancient Egypt, and was subsequently taken up by the Pythagoreans and Stoics.


Assuming an eternally recurring, infinite and boundless universe, evil will also persist eternally. Christianity solves this problem with the apocalypse. This appears to greatly undermine the dissonances between theodicy & evil, for the greatest thing God could ever do is rid the World of all evils, and (according to the Bible), he will do this. An important question follows from this, does eliminating infinite evil absolve God for permitting finite evil?

Any other thoughts?

If they experience God differently, then how can they ever come to really know the same God?


I don't think I understand what you're trying to explain here. You can give a historical account of the events, but historical accounts are generally based on some sort of evidence (written accounts generally qualify). It's up to the historians and scholars to compare these accounts with other accounts to verify the validity of their claims and narratives. Does this method differ from what you're proposing?

The definable would be the actual persons and location. `Next would be the 3rd person discussions, 3rd in line would be person in charge of keeping history of the clan.  At this time science is unable to split time itself to verify the actual sequencing.  Just because we cannot discern the original, doesn't mean that it didn't happen, Just that it is questionable and you have a theory that it didn't. 

As you note, this is historical fact, not scientific which means different proof patterns are afforded the fact.

What is true for all persons at all times and everywhere is absolute truth,by definition. Truth is not relative according to perspective. What is true from one observer's perspective may not be true from another observer's perspective. For example, "The pencil is to the left of the pad" is true or not true depending upon the perspective of the observer.

I agree with you that people may apprehend God in many different situations. A person may come to faith in God through the death of a loved one or someone my find God through an addiction of some sort. My problem is not necessarily with the different situations in finding God or God finding us my contention is with what people believe to be the one true God. Belief is what makes us who we are. It's critical!