Hi Mike,
: OK, I will try again to answer your questions. This time I hope my answers are acceptable to you because I doubt I will have the time to answer them again. I do have to work for a living. And I have an awful lot to do in the next few days.
You can only do so much. However, my feeling is that in your post here you got so far into mysticism that it's really not worth anyone's time to pursue this topic further.
: You wrote; I'll present why the Bible itself seems to invalidate your reasoning. First, Romans 5:12 is quite clear about the origin of sin: quote: Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. (NASB) This "sin" is obviously what we're talking about -- the inherent inability of humans to fully obey God, whether they want to or not. If through the "one man" Adam this sin "entered," then until he committed his first act of sin, this inherited sin was not in the world, i.e., "inherited sin" did not exist. Furthermore, if upon Adam's sinning, "death through sin" entered into the world, then human death did not exist prior to Adam's sin, i.e., humans did not die until Adam sinned. Indeed, Romans 5:14 emphasizes this idea: "Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam." But because we know that humans have existed in one form or another for hundreds of thousands of years, and depending on how we define "human," for millions of years, and they certainly died, and unlike the JWs and various young-earth creationists you admit that humans existed long before any "Adam" of a few thousand years ago, then you must admit that your ideas conflict with the Bible's direct statements.
: No, I do not admit this. "The Fall" of mankind doctrine, which you refer to, is based on what I believe is a misunderstanding of the apostle Paul's words in Romans 5:12-20 and 1Corinthians 15:21,22.
We shall see.
: Romans 5:12 tells us that "sin entered into the world through one man, and death through sin." But as we read further we find that the kind of "sin" that first entered into the world through Adam, the "sin", which was responsible for bringing about his "death", was the "sin" of "breaking a command".(verse 14) And we are told that the kind of sin committed by Adam "is not taken into account (or imputed KJV, NAS) when there is no law."(verse 13)
: Nevertheless, verses 13 and 14 clearly tell us that "before the (Mosaic) Law was given," "from the time of Adam to the time of Moses," "sin was in the world." So, since the kind of sin committed by Adam "is not taken into account (or imputed) when there is no law," the "sin" that "was in the world" "before the (Mosaic) law was given" must have been a different kind of sin than Adam's sin. It must have been unimputed sin.
By "unimputed sin" I assume you mean "sin that God did not charge against anyone". This seems to me to be a rather meaningless concept. I mean, sin does not exist in some disembodied state, as if it were something divorced from the physical world. Bottom line, "sin" is the commission of an act that God doesn't like.
What you appear to be saying here is that God allowed pre-Adamic mankind to do all sorts of things he didn't like, but didn't hold them accountable. Then when Adam showed up, for some reason God decided to change his way of dealing with humans and use Adam as a vehicle for doing it. He then held Adam accountable for one act of sin, and used that to condemn the rest of mankind. Have I got that right?
: And since Romans chapter 5 makes it clear that the kind of "sin" that first entered into the world through Adam was "imputed" sin, it leaves open the possibility that unimputed "sin" may have been "in the world," not just "before the (Mosaic) law was given," but also before Adam disobeyed God in Eden.
I don't think you can make a distinction between different kinds of "sin". Sin is "missing the mark" before God, period. What God decides to do about it -- including charge someone with sin by making them accountable and punishing them -- is a different thing altogether.
The verses in Romans 5 do not say anything about different kinds of sin entering the world -- they say that sin, period, entered. After that, death entered. They say nothing about different kinds of death existing. It seems quite clear: after Adam committed an act of sin, death spread to all men. There is only one kind of death -- cessation of the life processes. If as you seem to be saying, human death existed long before Adam, then after Adam sinned, nothing changed. Humans died before, and they died after Adam sinned. Yet the scriptures say that death entered. Frankly, Mike, I think that you're doing a fair amount of twisting of rather clear scriptures because you see that they don't make sense unless you fool with their meaning. This is no different from what you do with Genesis with respect to creation and the flood.
: Because these verses tell us that Adam was the first man to sin by "breaking a command" from God,
They don't say that. You're reading into the verses what you wish to be there, because they don't make sense as written. They're very clear: Adam committed a sin; Adam was charged with that sin (sin was "imputed" to him); Adam became subject to death ("death reigned"); all mankind became subject to death because they "all sinned". In other words, the scriptures are saying that because Adam committed a single act of sin, God "imputed" sin to everyone else. No matter how you cut it, that's not fair, and that's why you want to change the obvious meaning of the verses.
: it follows that the "death" that "entered into the world" as a result of Adam's new kind of sin would have been Adam's new kind of death, death as a penalty imposed by God for "breaking a command" from God.
What's the difference between someone dying of old age by processes that have gone on for millions of years, and dying of old age as the result of some kind of "penalty"?
: However, Romans 5:15,17 and 18 do tell us that "many died by the trespass of one man," "death reigned through that one man" and "as a result of one trespass was condemnation for all men." 1Corinthians 15:21,22 repeats this same thought by saying that "death came through a man" and "in Adam all die."
Precisely what I'm describing. These ideas are simple and clear. Completely crazy, in my opinion, but still clear.
: With these verses in mind, many feel that Adam must have been the first man and we must all be his descendants because, they say, these verses clearly indicate that all people inherit a "fallen" nature from Adam. And they say that it is this "fallen" nature inherited by us because of Adam's disobedience that brings upon us God's condemnation. They maintain that these verses prove that human beings were not "sinful" creatures until after Adam's spiritual, physical and genetic natures were somehow radically changed at the time he disobeyed God in Eden. Then, they say, when Adam fathered children after his nature had been corrupted, his children and all their descendants inherited Adam's "corrupted," "fallen," "sinful" nature.
Right. That's the JW view and I don't know who else's. It's all completely crazy.
: Advocates of "The Fall" doctrine also insist that Adam must have literally been the first man. Because if he was not, then we are not all Adam's descendants. And if we are not, then we could not all have inherited Adam's "fallen," "sinful" nature. And if we did not, then they say, we do not all need God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ, as the Bible tells us we all do.(Romans 3:23,24; 1John 2:2)
Agreed.
: However, I contend this doctrine of "The Fall" of mankind must be an incorrect understanding of Scripture because it contradicts several clear teachings of the Bible.
: For instance, though the Bible tells us God does not hold children responsible for the sins of their parents (Deuteronomy 24:16; 2Kings 14:6; Ezekiel 18:20),
Sure it does: "I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me." (Exodus 20:5) This certainly appears to be a very general statement of how God operates. The scriptures you cited obviously have only to do with a provision of the Mosaic Law, "according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses". (2 Kings 14:6)
: the doctrine of "The Fall" of mankind says that all who have not accepted Christ as their Lord will be eternally condemned by God because of something Adam did.
Which is why it's a stupid doctrine.
: Some may argue this point, reminding us that God has taken the lives of "innocent" children along with their "guilty" parents when executing a judgment in the past. However, those Divine judgments were not eternal judgments. For Jesus Himself told us that everyone who lost their lives in such past judgments by God will receive a resurrection from the dead. And He told us that they will then all be judged as individuals, and not by their parents past behavior.(Matthew 11:20-24; John 5:28,29)
Fair enough.
The Bible also clearly tells us that God will hold each one of us responsible for his or her own unrighteousness, not for Adam's. (Romans 14:10-12, 2Corinthians 5:10)
Those scriptures say nothing about Adam nor do they imply anything. You're reading into them what is not there. Indeed, a straight reading combined with scriptures that do talk about Adam indicate that humans are condemned both for specific misdeeds and for general "sinfulness".
: And the Scriptures say that we all need the forgiveness God offers us through Jesus Christ, because we have all personally "sinned" and have all personally "fallen short of the glory of God."(Romans 3:23)
: The doctrine of "The Fall" must also be an incorrect understanding of Scripture because it is in conflict with proven science. The science of genetics has determined that information coded within the nucleotide sequences of human RNA and DNA is fully responsible for determining what characteristics will be inherited by a couple's children. And this branch of science has proven conclusively that a human being's genetic code cannot be altered by actions as ordinary as those performed by Adam in the garden of Eden.
Precisely why the JW notion of "the ransom" is out to lunch. I pointed this out to the Watchtower Society ten years ago. I shouldn't have wasted my time.
: I do not believe the Bible teaches that mankind "fell." Rather, I believe it tells us that God originally created the human race as free people. Free to do both right and wrong. In the exact same way we are free to do so today. Unfortunately we often choose to do what is wrong rather than what is right. God, however, cannot do wrong. For God is "incorruptable".(Romans 1:23) So, because we can and often do behave unrighteously, and because God cannot and never does behave unrighteously, we are less righteous than God. And, because "all unrighteousness is sin" we are all born "sinful." (1John 5:17, New American Standard Bible; Psalms 51:5)
You have a major error of logic here. Being "less righteous than God" does not automatically make someone unrighteous. Angels are supposed to be less righteous than God, but you wouldn't call them "sinful", I suspect. For if you did, then they would need more or less the same kind of fixing up that you're arguing humans need.
: Being able to do wrong, Adam was, from his very beginning, also less righteous than God. And he later proved his "sinful" condition by his behavior. Because Adam in paradise could not manage to obey one simple command from God, he clearly demonstrated that he and the entire human race, including those who had lived before him and those who would live after him, were far less righteous than God.
Major error of logic here. The fact that one man and one woman committed an act of sin does not automatically prove anything about anyone else. It would be like observing someone commit a murder and then saying, "See! All humans are murderers!" You might try arguing that Adam's act simply illustrated what all other humans would do under similar circumstances, but then you'd have to prove that somehow. And if you claim that Adam's genetic makeup is similar to that of every other human, so that genetics proves that what Adam did is common to all humans, then there would have been no need of a test in the first place, because the fact that humans are "unrighteous" is written down in the Creator's design specifications. All God has to do to prove your point is refer to his design manual and show it around. I think that this is a major flaw in your overall theological view here, as you repeat it below (I've bolded it).
: So, with these things in mind, Paul accurately referred to Adam when he wrote, "by one man's disobedience many were constituted sinners."(Romans 5:19, Amplified Bible) This is true because Adam's disobedience demonstrated that the entire human race was not only capable of doing wrong but incapable of not doing wrong. So, after Adam failed a simple God given test of his righteousness, God had good reason to retroactively condemn the entire human race as being deserving of the deaths they had been suffering, and undeserving of eternal life, a gift God had not yet given to any human being.
So you have a problem: either God condemned the entire human race for something that they didn't do -- for God created them exactly as they were, due to no fault of their own -- or God performed a useless experiment on Adam that could easily have been settled by looking up human specs in the design manual.
: So, if mankind did not "fall," what did happen in Eden? I believe those who adhere to the doctrine of "The Fall" also basically misunderstand the events which transpired in Eden.
I don't know that they misunderstand the Bible account, but in any case their idea is bogus.
: The Genesis account clearly indicates that Adam and Eve were created mortal with a dying nature just like us.
I don't think that it clearly indicates anything of the sort. If it were clear, it wouldn't need to be discussed to death for several thousand years. Something that is clear is not disputable.
: The story of Adam and Eve told in Genesis makes clear that their being able to live forever was not a part of their original physical nature.
That's a lot more sensible than the JW view. They like to say, "Look at the human body. Scientists don't know why people die." They like to argue that because the human body repairs itself, it ought to live forever. Well duh. Exactly the same can be said of all plants and animals.
: Rather, Adam and Eve's ability to live forever depended entirely on their eating from a tree "in the middle of the garden" of Eden, "the tree of life."(Genesis 2:9)
How do you know that? How do you know that Adam and Eve ever ate fruit from that tree? The Bible doesn't say so, so you're again reading into the text what is simply not there. Again you're fitting your own ideas to the text because the text as written is not sensible.
: Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were going to be allowed to continue to eat from that tree only if they passed a God given test, a test which we are told they failed. After failing that test God expelled Adam and his wife from the Garden of Eden and prevented them from ever again eating from "the tree of life."
Again, how do you know what Adam and Eve ate?
: Genesis indicates that had Adam and Eve been allowed to continue eating from "the tree of life" their lives would have been prolonged indefinitely. (Genesis 3:22-24)
The text says nothing about continuing to eat from that tree. Indeed, the obvious meaning of the text is that a single act of eating from the tree would have let the pair "live forever" (NASB).
: But when God prevented them from ever again eating from "the tree of life" they died what were apparently natural deaths. A careful reading of the Genesis account shows us that living forever would have been as unnatural for Adam and Eve as it would now be for us.
Actually it's more like "a careful reading into the account of what is not there" shows that.
: Genesis does not indicate that Adam and Eve originally had eternal life programmed into their genetic codes by God and later had their genetic codes reprogrammed by God in order to remove eternal life from those codes. Rather, Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve would have lived forever only if God had graciously given them eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life."
I agree that the text indicates these things.
: Of course, that "tree of life" was meant to picture Jesus Christ. For, as we have seen, God was going to give Adam and Eve eternal life from an outside source, "the tree of life," only if they passed a very simple test. And the Bible tells us that we will be given eternal life from an outside source, Jesus Christ, only if we pass a very simple test. That test is to simply believe in our hearts that Christ's death was sufficient payment to buy every human being God's full forgiveness, forgiveness for both our sinful nature and our sinful acts.
Well, that's not exactly a simple test. With the large amount of information that indicates that much of Genesis is fairytale, and that some of the supposedly historical accounts simply did not happen as written, and a host of other problems, a person has to either be born into the proper Christian religion, or put aside a great deal of factual information to pass this "test". If the test on Adam was clear and simple, the test on humanity today is quite the opposite.
: I see no other way to understand the Bible's story of Adam and Eve.
I do. It's an allegory based on ancient creation myths, whose origins are so old that they've been lost.
: And the traditional concept of "The Fall," I am convinced, is in conflict with several clear teachings of Scripture, proven science and a natural reading of the events which took place in the garden of Eden.
No disagreement here.
: You wrote: Second, according to everything I've read in the New Testament, Jesus himself certainly never had to experience an inability to obey God in order to understand "why God's ways are best."
: Of course not. Because, as nearly all Christians believe, Jesus was God. Thus he has always known "why God's ways are best."
But that's not what the Bible says. Indeed, it says outright that Jesus had to learn God's ways: "Although he was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect [or complete]..." (Hebrews 5:8, 9) If Jesus had to learn obedience, and had to be made perfect, then he could not be God, since as you say, God has always known why God's ways are best (this is obvious but I'm stating it for the record), and of course, God is already "perfect". This is also a proof that the earliest Christians didn't think of Jesus as God, which idea came later, early indications of which are in the Gospel of John.
: You wrote: But if Jesus was that different from other humans, then he could not have been an exact substitute for Adam.
: The JW version of the Ransom doctrine is quite different from the Christian version of the Ransom doctrine.
It's nonsensical alright, but here is where you start to get mystical:
: The Christian version of the ransom doctrine is this: God allowed his only begotten Son to pay for the unrighteousness of billions of human beings with his own life. But how could God consider only one death, a death which only lasted from Friday afternoon until the following Sunday morning, to have equal or greater value than many billions of human deaths, deaths which would last forever? He could do so because he considered the three days of life which his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, gave up to be more valuable than many billions of eternal human lives. Why? Because God knew that Jesus Christ was far more than a human being. God also knew that Jesus Christ was far more than "a perfect human being," or "Adam's equal" as some of the cults like to call him. God knew that Jesus Christ, as his only begotten Son, was also God. And because Jesus Christ was God, his father considered his death, and his three lost days of life which followed his death, to be a far greater loss than many billions of eternal human deaths.
All well and good, but I see no particular justification for all this in the Bible. Again it seems like a reading into the texts what isn't there, in order to avoid the obvious logical pitfalls of a straight reading.
: Some say that God requiring the life of his own Son to pay for our sins was an example of "primitive thinking." Christians say it was an example of God's great mercy and his amazing love. For the Bible tells us that God loves us all so much that he was willing to buy us all eternal life, even though to do so he had to pay for it "with his own blood." (Acts 20:28 NIV, NASB, KJV)
People can anything they like. You have not provided a single bit of justification for this thing that "Christians say".
: The JW NWT has rearranged the word structure here and added the word son in brackets to this verse, to make it say that God purchased us, "with the blood of his own [son]" rather than "with his own blood."
I have no interest in what the JW NWT says. Nevertheless, some scholars support their rendering on various textual and theological grounds. In any case you can't use texts that are disputed by scholars to prove anything. To illustrate, both the RSV and NRSV read, "... he obtained with the blood of his own Son." The New Jerusalem Bible (produced by Catholic scholars) reads similarly and contains a footnote that states: "lit. 'which he acquired for himself by his own blood'. Since this cannot be said of God, either it must mean 'by the blood of his own (i.e. own Son)' or Paul's thought slips from the action of the Father to that of the Son." In Jesus as God the trinitarian author Murray J. Harris concludes a section on Acts 20:28 with this:
I have argued that the original text of Acts 20:28 read [Greek snipped] and that the most appropriate translation of these words is "the church of God which he acquired through the blood of his own one" or "the Church of God which he bought with the blood of his own Son" (NJB), with ho idios construed as a christological title. According to this view, ho theos refers to God the Father, not Jesus Christ. If, however, one follows many English versions in construing idios adjectivally ("through his own blood"), ho theos could refer to Jesus and the verse could therefore allude to "the blood of God," although on this construction of idios it is more probable that theos is God the Father and the unexpressed subject of periepoiesato is Jesus. So it remains unlikely, although not impossible, that in Acts 20:28 ho theos denotes Jesus.
In any case, the scriptures are clear that the "blood" used for purchase was of great value.
: You wrote: [So according to you] God deliberately created humans so that only a small, random fraction of them would end up gaining the prize of eternal life. ... Why not just create ALL of them with the desire to choose to live a perfectly righteous life?
: I guess you know the standard answer to this question. God wanted to give us free will. If he created us all with a built in desire to live a perfectly righteous life we would not really have "free will."
But you're claiming the converse: that God created the majority of humans with the desire not to live a perfectly righteous life. That's not creating them with free will. To create a sentient being with true free will requires that there be no tendencies, either to obey or to disobey God or to do anything else in some moral direction.
And of course, you've steadfastly ignored a problem I keep alluding to: just where did that tendency for the majority of humans to disobey God come from?
: You wrote: My point is that the practically complete randomness of genetic tendencies plus the virtually complete randomness of environmental factors, which factors are incorporated into the final human product solely via genetic programming -- all of which effects would be known to an omnipotent Creator God -- result in whatever choices each person makes.
: From what you just wrote it seems that you believe there is no such thing as free will.
I don't know where you got that idea. It is certainly not implied by anything I wrote.
: Our every move and every decision is fully determined by a combination of our genetic programming and our environment.
Not likely. These things produce tendencies, but actual actions have a truly random component. Some brain researchers think that quantum mechanical effects on a molecular level ensure a truly random -- and completely indeterminable in advance -- influence on our minds that is a major component of free will. If what you wrote is true, then a fully omnipotent God could in principle calculate or somehow know every move that every particle in the universe would make from the instant of creation. If all moves can be known, then the universe is deterministic and free will is a mere illusion.
: You wrote: Since God created humans with all their abilities and tendencies, including being affected by environmental factors, the final result must be according to God's will. And if you claim that the final result is that only a small fraction of humans will want to obey God, then that is according to God's will.
: Again, your questions seem to based on a certainty that true free will does not exist, that our genetics and environment fully determine all of the choices we make in life. I do not believe this is true.
Nor do I.
: I think your belief
These are not my beliefs -- they are logical and inevitable consequences of your own statements and certain ideas that, for purposes of this discussion, we have agreed upon. I don't believe that you disagree with the above two statements. If you do, then which parts and why?
: is influenced by the JW teaching that we are purely physical beings. The Bible teaches differently. The Bible teaches that we all have spirits within us which return to God upon our death. (Eccl. 3:21; Acts 7:59) I believe these spirits within us are not affected by things such as "bad genetics" and allow us all to exercise a truly free will in spiritual matters.
Here you've fully dived into mysticism and I'm not going to follow. However, I'll say this: if these "spirits within us" are unaffected by physical things and are what actually determine our actions, then all you've done is to shift the argument from purely physical humans over to these "spirits", whatever they are.
: You wrote: [All things] are entirely according to the will of the Creator. You can't possibly disagree with this, because to do so would be to say that humans were created to act opposite to the will of the Creator -- a logical absurdity.
: I believe that humans were not created TO act opposite to the will of the Creator. I believe we were created with FREEDOM TO ACT opposite to the will of the Creator.
But you're ignoring an important part of your own claim: that God created humans with a strong tendency to act opposite to God's will. A created tendency is by definition according to God's will.
: You wrote: infant snakes know instinctively how to hunt and what to hunt for. ... the basics are the same: creatures act entirely according to the way they were created.
: As I stated earlier, I think your belief is influenced by the JW teaching that we are purely physical beings. The Bible teaches differently.
You haven't answered my question. So be it.
: You wrote: you're saying that the observation that few people today, who don't have the ability to live perfectly righteous lives, actually choose to try to obey God is proof that if they had the ability, they wouldn't choose to. Don't you see how silly this is?
: No, I don't. I believe that any person who would choose to live a perfectly righteous life, if they had that ability, would now, lacking that ability, choose to live their life as best they could.
Ok, you've ignored another serious problem and given another non-answer.
: You wrote: What do you think the "nature" is that God pre-programmed into humans throughout human history, going back as far as you care to go, down through Adam and Eve, through Jesus' day, and up through today?
: Our nature is and always has been one which craves and enjoys things such as affection, security and physical pleasure. Protecting and defending ourselves and our loved ones has always been a very important part of our nature. Curiosity has also always been a big part of our nature. If we are told something is bad for us by someone else, our nature is such that we usually insist on finding out for ourselves if it really is bad for us.
And who put that tendency into us?
: If we are told something is bad for us and we think that doing that something may bring us affection, security or physical pleasure our nature is such that we will probably do it anyway until we find out for ourselves that it really is bad for us.
Again, who made us with that tendency?
: Or if we believe doing something we have been told is bad for us may result in helping ourselves or our loved ones we will probably do it anyway until we find out for ourselves that it really is bad for us. I believe God gave us all this nature because he wants all who decide to do things his way to know why his way is the best way.
: You wrote: You're postulating that most humans, even if created "incorruptible," would still choose to disobey God.
: No, I am not. To be incorruptible means to not have the ability to do wrong.
I think I've been misunderstanding what you mean by "incorruptible". You're talking about someone who has no choice -- a robot. In fact, you're saying that God has no choice, that God is, in effect, a robot.
: I have said that I believe that if most people had the opportunity to become incorruptible they would pass on that opportunity. I said, "Once we are given incorruptibility we will no longer have the ability to do wrong." You sort of proved my contention when you replied, "I don't think I'd ever want to give that up."
By which I meant that I would never want to give up my free choice, which would be giving up my free will and would make me into a robot.
: I wrote: I believe that when Christ said most of us would end up on the road to destruction he was only predicting the future. Knowing the future and purposefully creating the future may be very different things, even for God.
: You replied: What you're saying is that God created a world without purpose, since he has no control over what the future will bring. If he has no control, then he is not omnipotent. If he has no desire to control it, but wants to let it roll on randomly, then he is responsible for whatever nasty things happen due to "time and unforeseen circumstance."
: I do not see how God giving people freedom to make choices and encouraging us to make good choices by offering us eternal life if we will constitutes God creating "a world without purpose" and letting things "roll on randomly."
You're ignoring the point of my statement again. So be it.
: I wrote: But now we get into questions of man's "free will" and "predestination," subjects which I told Jan I prefer to let professional theologians argue about.
: You replied: Well, I think that to be a complete human being you have no choice but to consider these things.
Here comes the biggest dive into mysticism of all:
: Actually, I have. As I think I told Jan, I believe that for God it is possible to have both predetermined all of our futures and at the same time given us all total free will to determine our own futures. To us this sounds like an impossible contradiction.
That's because it is an impossible contradiction. It's no different from saying that God can make three equal six. He can't.
: But I believe doing both of these things at the same time was and is entirely possible for the God who created our universe. Just as Christians believe that when Jesus Christ walked this earth he was both fully God and fully man. Christians do not consider such things to be contradictions.
Most every religion believes in certain impossible things. That's why they're religions, not systems of rational thought.
: Rather we consider them to be "divine paradoxes." For as Jesus said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." (Mark 10:27)
You can apply nice sounding labels all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that in order to justify your religious belief, you must believe the impossible.
I'm weary of this discussion and will not pursue it further. It's not worth anyone's time to try to deal with mystics who believe the impossible.
AlanF
