Your thoughts on prayer

This is the verse you refer to, Sue: 

40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in...

For a very full answer to your question, read this:

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/febible.htm

Here's the specific comment on 40:22, but the entire article is worth reading. It shows that the bible assumes a flat earth, not a spherical one.

Those who claim Biblical support for a spherical earth typically ignore this forest of consistency and focus on one or two aberrant trees. Some take refuge in audacity. Henry Morris, president of the Institute for Creation Research, cites one of the more explicitly flat-earth verses in the Old Testament Isaiah 40:22, the “grasshopper” verse quoted earlier as evidence for the sphericity of the earth. Quoting the King James version “he sitteth upon the circle of the earth” Morris ignores the context and the grasshoppers and claims “circle” should read “sphericity” or “roundness” [1956, 8]. This divide and conquer strategy is poor scholarship and worse logic. 

As for: I should have made myself clearer: How does scientific investigation undermine the bible. 

... I hardly know where to start. There are literally hundreds of statements in the bible that are factually false. I'll highlight some of them in a later post. (We have friends coming and I have orders to clean the house - even with a broken arm! My wife knows no mercy.) 

Hi John:  Here I am goofing off on the computer while you're sitting there reading the Bible!  LOL!  Just kidding, but we need to keep this light.

You sound awfully sure of what you posted above, John.  Almost as sure as I am about what I believe. 

This was in one of my daily devotionals called Living Faith.  The writer is Fr. James Stephen Behrens.

"God has written his law, his very self, into the heart of each person who has ever lived.  God may seem far and his language hard to pin down.  But remember that he writes on the heart.  If you move through life with a generous measure of love, the text of God becomes all the more clear."

One must make the leap, John, from the brain to the heart.

Now, John, you know I wasn't talking about the organ that pumps blood.

As for words being vague, whether scripture, or commentary on it, the way I cut through the stuff that seems strange or contradictory or vague or not in keeping with what I perceive to be a loving God, that's where my prayer life comes in.  I know I can't understand completely on my own.  I ask for the grace to understand.

We are special because we have a large, complex brain....

You can say that again, John!  I read once that it has been described as the most complex thing in the Universe. There are still many mysteries yet to be discovered about it. Strange isn't it, to imagine the brain studying and examining itself.

There is no vanity involved is believing we are special. It stands out a mile.  Here I am talking about the ability to speak, (incredibly complex in itself) sing, paint, compose, construct, recall, plan, think ahead etc. etc. you get my meaning. I could go on and on! You call that evolution, I know it is from God. You can never disprove him.

Hi Sue:  LOVELY avatar!  I take it that's one of your watercolors?

Now, John, you know I wasn't talking about the organ that pumps blood.

What does the word 'heart' mean to you in that context?

I'm not being picky here: it's an important point. Many of your posts have indicated that I'll never appreciate what God means to you until I open up my heart to him. But what does that mean, Ruth?

It seems to me to mean something like this:

Abandon Reason. Accept things without evidence. Stop asking questions. Have Faith...

Can you give me a clearer understanding of what you mean? 

LOL Ruth...I wish!!!  No, I got this off a website I came across the other day.....wish you could read the words on the right hand side.! I will put up some of my paintings later....well everyone is changing theirs!

But the fact that I can never disprove him means nothing, Sue.

As I said before, if I tell you there is an invisible unicorn living on Mars - you can't disprove him, either!

We can invent any supernatural being we like, say that He / She / It is the Creator of the Universe, and say we know with certainty that He / She / It exists. Nobody can ever disprove it.

Millions of people who believed in Odin knew Odin was real. Millions of people who believed in Zeus knew Zeus was real. Millions of people who believe in the Christian God know God is real.

What's the difference?