Ray, you wrote: "I couldn’t see too much light in Job’s long and dark experience, other than the divine revelation that he was vile, and I knew that there was a less painful way to get that."

Where in the story is it revealed to Job that he is vile?

This man was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil. (Job 1:1)

Perhaps you refer to the statement by Eliphaz the Temanite:

“What are mortals, that they could be pure,
or those born of woman, that they could be righteous?
If God places no trust in his holy ones,
if even the heavens are not pure in his eyes,
how much less mortals, who are vile and corrupt,
who drink up evil like water!" (Job 15:14-16)

What did God have to say about Eliphaz's words?

After the Lord had said these things to Job , he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. You have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has. So Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite did what the Lord told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. (Job 42:7-9)

As far as from a human perspective, intervention was certainly warranted, but for some reason there wasn’t a peep from Heaven.

“Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." [1 Kings 18:27]

It does look like we are going that way. Historically it doesn't work however as Johnny's gun was smuggled out of the US by his grandfather in January 1934 when the family moved to Germany. The gun Jack Ruby used was a Colt Cobra Special, a model which was first produced in 1950.

"But death, with its possible consequences, is a stark reality and the fear should awake an instinct for survival. Suppressing that instinct and saying everything is okay prevents you from accepting the gift of eternal life. It is like closing your eyes and walking across the Autobahn, repeating over and over that it will be all right."

Death by definition is the end of life. It is a stark reality and the fear of it awakes an instinct for survival in us all. We all suppress the fear to some extent as many daily activities such as driving a car or eating a meal are potentially fatal. You don't have to walk repeatedly across an Autobahn blindfold to risk death.

The gift of eternal life assumes that you accept the unfounded assertion that some part of us survives death. 'Jesus came back from the dead' you may assert, but your only evidence for this is heresay. According to the gospels, Thomas, who had been one of Jesus' close companions and presumably had witnessed the resurrection of Lazarus, did not believe it had happened. Why should we?

Next time we come here, I'm gonna ask for a different room.

That's correct Ray. Pause to marvel at the precision of the foot which contains exactly 12 inches and the yard which has exactly 3 feet, not a hair's breadth more or less.See how 16 ounces makes exactly one pound.

carl,

Plants evolved. Get over it.

The theory of evolution is not merely the theory of the origin of species, but the only explanation of the fact that organisms can be classified into this hierarchy of natural affinity. Much evidence can be adduced in favour of the theory of evolution - from biology, bio-geography and palaeontology, but I still think that, to the unprejudiced, the fossil record of plants is in favour of special creation. If, however, another explanation could be found for this hierarchy of classification, it would be the knell of the theory of evolution. Can you imagine how an orchid, a duckweed, and a palm have come from the same ancestry, and have we any evidence for this assumption? The evolutionist must be prepared with an answer, but I think that most would break down before an inquisition. Textbooks hoodwink. A series of more and more complicated plants is introduced - the alga, the fungus, the bryophyte, and so on, and examples are added eclectically in support of one or another theory - and that is held to be a presentation of evolution. If the world of plants consisted only of these few textbook types of standard botany, the idea of evolution might never have dawned, and the backgrounds of these textbooks are the temperate countries which, at best, are poor places to study world vegetation. The point, of course, is that there are thousands and thousands of living plants, predominantly tropical, which have never entered general botany, yet they are the bricks with which the taxonomist has built his temple of evolution, and where else have we to worship?"
(E.J.H. Corner 1961, from 'Evolution', p. 97, in "Contemporary Botanical Thought", Anna M. Macleod and L. S. Cobley (editors), Oliver and Boyd, for the Botanical Society of Edinburgh)

Hi Steven,

Hi Steven,

Continuing this line of thought it is also possible to conceive a world in which various species were designed for specific environments. We would reasonably expect to find the same creatures living in identical habitats wherever those habitats happened to be.

If you have to accept this version of events in order to be a True Christian™, I am amazed that there are any Christians at all. You are denying some basic facts about our solar system here. Do you want us to believe that the people who wrote the Bible were so stupid?

Seeing as we are talking about the Jews, the other day I read this story, which apparently was written by Maimonides:

It's a story about a rabbi who sees an impoverished woman without a shabbat meal. The rabbi prays that God will help her. God does, but the rabbi receives the knowledge that the rabbi has forfeited his place in the world to come. The rabbi starts to dance at this news. When asked why he reacts so joyfully at this news, the rabbi replies that he is now able to do service for the Lord without receiving a reward.