dragonraid-return-2815-emdelrio=netscape.net@... wrote: ****Hello folks, I'm new to the list and have enjoyed the discussion, but now find it necessary to speak up.**** Greg wrote: Maybe this isn't the time or place to start a debate, but I would disagree with this idea, for all the relevance it has right now. I don't believe that God created the Earth all perfect with no hurts or anything. **** My friend, it does not matter what you or I think, but what God has revealed to us in Scripture. On this subject, Scripture is clear. God said that it was "Good." It can't be good in God's standard if it includes pain, killing and suffering!**** i think when it says that now man will die because he has sinned it talks of spiritual death. ****God said that because of sin, death entered. Now if this is _just_ spiritual death, then the teachings of Christ and the apostle Paul are in big trouble, because they assume not only spiritual death but also physical death.**** There is no feasable way, and God tends to keep things scientifically feasible although just barely, that no death could occur. How could all kinds of animals roam around with out stepping on one amebea? Or crushing one dust mite. We kill things everyday just by moving, things that are neccessary for cycles on the Earth to work. **** Yes God's rational nature is revealed in all of natural law, but there is _absolutely nothing_ "scientifically feasable" about creation, miracles, sin, redemption, resurreection, or God interacting with mankind. I'm afraid you are revealing a fatal bias for a Christian: It must make sense scientifically. No! The author of nature is not bound by the nature He creates. He is TRANSCENDENT to His creation! I suggest you meditate long and hard on the first verse of the Sacred Scrolls because it's the hardest one to believe. If you come to accept that one verse, the rest will follow.**** I believe that when man first sinned it brought spiritual death -- no more direct talks with God. God was now unreachable by man except through sacrifice. **** This is is concert with scripture, but is not complete as per my above comment.**** Which, of course, is why we can all reach Him. ****We CAN NOT reach Him. HE CAN REACH US!**** Its debateable weather lions still killed lamps, but I don't think the world was all peachy keen, no way to get hurt never never land. Besides, if we never died, wouldn't the world become over popualted very quickly? **** The Sacred Scrolls record the Almighty Spirit saying, "Cursed is the land _because of you_." It can't be any clearer: The sin of Adam and Eve brought God's curse on both us and the land, and by extension, the created universe. All you have to do is look around you and consider the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to realize that the universe is dying a death of heat loss as useful energy is continually converted to less useful heat.**** And if you say nothing reproduced, then wouldn't we run out of all animals pretty quickly after they sinned if that brought killing? The predators would soon kill all the prey, and then they would die out. ****Scripture clearly declares that God invented and declared sexual reproduction to be the way of the living universe. There seems to be a struggle of two opposed world-views batteling within you. Either Scripture is correct in stating that God created the universe in a sinless, deathless state, or atheistic-mechanistic-naturalism is correct in stating that matter and stupid-energy is responsible for the universe as we observe it, and that Darwinianism explains the existence of life. You cannot hold to both and be rational. Except for America, (where scientists play to popularity) evolutionists around the world freely admit the TOTAL INCOMPATABILITY of these two opposed views.**** Besides that, killing for food is not a sin, or God would have demanded sacrifice when we did, so lions could therefore have killed lambs well before sin was intoduced into the world. Just my view on things, take it as you will. Greg In the Overlord's Service, Eddy. ____________________________________________________________________ More than just email--Get your FREE Netscape WebMail account today at http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/mail