Yet you said “Jesus was raised ‘from death’ — NO he wasn’t!”
I’ve highlighted in red the eleven words immediately prior to your partial quote which hopefully will aid you in understanding the CONTEXT of the fuller statement… hopefully you can grasp this.
The… “— NO he wasn’t!” was/is directly related to “from the dead” which literally in the Greek = “dead ones” NOT “death” — AGAIN in relation to the verses directly being dealt with.
Davo, I watched some of the presentation that you suggested. However, I turned it off after about ten minutes. No offence, but I don’t believe in the evolution theory. They pint out that women are enjoying more freedom today as if this proves their claim. According to Genesis, God created male and female, and they were one flesh. In the ancient Egyptian culture, women were viewed as equals. They enjoyed just as much freedom as the men. It was often taught that Columbus was ahead of his time in thinking that the world was round. However, this was known thousands of years before. To say that we are becoming more enlightened as time goes on, is simply not true.
As John says, the word was there in the beginning, and the Spirit of God has been producing fruit ever since. The harvest may not be as great in some years or generations as compared to others. But it does not come back void.
That’s a shame… the actual ‘evolution’ under discussion if you’d stuck with it was in fact societal evolution. Never mind 
"Jesus remaining a human being refutes your entire eschatology
for if Christ is physical then the resurrection is physical
if the resurrection is physical it did not happen in 70 a.d.
Hello
Kiss your eschatology goodbye"
Davo - you and perhaps others might be interested in Robert Bellah’s “Religion in Human Evolution”, which I’ve been tempted to read myself. You can read some reviews at amazon.com/Religion-Human-E … op?ie=UTF8 to see what it’s all about.
According to what I’ve read about that book, Bellah believes that religion has a real role to play in society, though he definitely does not believe in any god, nor supernatural beings. As humans and their societies and cultures evolved, so I gather, so did their necessity for the explanatory power, heuristic guidance, and the comforts of a transcendent Power.
When I studied Post-Modernism - as a philosophy - I became acquainted with the concept of meta-nattarive, and wary of PoMo’s insistence on the destruction of all meta-narratives:
(Definition: an overarching account or interpretation of events and circumstances that provides a pattern or structure for people’s beliefs and gives meaning to their experiences.
“traditional religions provide stories that deliver a metanarrative about how we should live our lives”) - wiki
Post-moderns (Pomo’s) believe that there is NO overarching story; no background reality against which we can measure meaning, or goodness, or beauty - all of that must be ‘deconstructed’, taken apart, so that we can see only the immediate, the surface, and not worry ourselves about meaning, etc.
I have not read Bellah, but I have read similar approaches, from Evolutionary theory to sociobiological theory among others, and the significance for me was their attempt to develop a meta-narrative that explains (almost) everything - including religion. Something ‘outside’ religion, something ‘bigger’, something that is the whole enchilada. Evolution theory, for me, whether societal or biological, is such an attempt at meta-narrative; so is myth, in many respects; sociobiology definitely is as well.
Now whether those explanations are true or not, it’s easy to see what the result is, when religion is subordinated to any other controlling narrative. I leave that exercise to the reader.
The narrative I am most comfortable with, intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, is this one:
-Creation by God the Father
-the Fall
-Israel
-the glorious appearance, life death and resurrection, and the seating at the right hand of the Father, of our Lord.
-the Church as the body of Christ, a Form that is ongoing from Pentecost to the Day, seeking to heal the world’s wounds, and may that Day come soon!
-the Life after ‘life after death’!!
My feeling is that ALL other narratives are measured by that one -it is the meta-narrative, and lesser narratives no matter how lofty, how speculative, how thrilling to the imagination and intellect, do not have the power to deconstruct that one; and what power they do have can be assessed as to its worthiness and meaningfulness only as it fits under sovereign Love.
I do not discount the impressive world-building speculations of a Darwin, a Descartes, a Hegel, E.O. Wilson, or Bellah - I just try to keep the hierarchy of Heaven and Earth intact and in focus.
$.02
If you read Bellah let me know.
Thanks Dave, that’s really interesting… also might have to check out Bellah’s “Religion in Human Evolution”.
Why don’t you log in to CARM & ask the expert on this topic, namely TomL (who i quoted)?
While you’re at it you could post some of davo’s imaginative Pantelistic interpretations & get TomL’s refutation of those too.
Seeing as davo has chickened out of the challenge to go there, debate TomL himself & be thoroughly schooled.
OK Davo, I went back and watched the entire video in order to give it a fair shot, thinking I may have judged prematurely. However, I still find myself in disagreement. My problem stems from the fact that I don’t believe in the progressive evolution theory. Going from form to formlessness thinking is just another way of saying things that have already been said for centuries, e.g. have the mind of Christ Jesus, put on the new man, “Be holy as I am Holy”, Do unto others… love your enemies, become righteous, follow Jesus, etc. etc. Societies have been changing since the beginning of time. They don’t always change for the better. Just as I mentioned before about the ancient Egyptians; what happened to this society? Obviously, what was a commonly held belief at that time was taken over by another belief that wasn’t all that great. To say that the war monger mindset is all in the past, that the temple was destroyed and now we are moving on to bigger and better ways of thinking, makes no sense to me. Evilness still exists and forms evil things. Even if society were to all come around to this formlessness thought, how long would that last until the next generation rejects the idea and tosses it out in favor of something else? Humans are human. Until we no longer exist as such, it’s never going to be a perfect society.
Disagreement is fine… at least you considered it.
Again, that’s fine… I’m not sold on biological evolution out of zilch, but it could be true; this however is more about societal evolution or change.
Well you got me scratching my head a little on that one, i.e., seemingly having a problem with those biblical concepts.
True re changing since the beginning of time… but for the most part I think the evidence suggests an overall improvement AND YET heaps to go.
I think you’ve misheard… given time, any stage ‘as a whole’ will be in the past, but that never stops those heads from rearing up on occasion.
Of course… but they are all human and inevitably such evilness is seen and demonstrated mostly via self-interest.
That’s where it’s cyclical… where an established position in itself becomes the new “traditional” stage etc.
I’m not right up on all this, though I have seen smatterings of it and as I said previously gravitate in that direction. That presentation was but a mere skimming across in broad strokes what can be quite developed — anyway, interesting I think.
I can perceive the real reason (spirit behind) why you feel that way.
But you really don’t get it, do you?
Just like you don’t get that heaven won’t be hell.
I’ve find myself scratching my own head as well. All this philosophy makes my head spin. 
So from what I understand, formlessness means God has no form, that He is in all people. I agree with this as it says in the Bible that “God formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”, and “God is in all and through all.” Viewing others as God’s children causes us to see them in a different light. But, there is still a difference between right and wrong. Am I misunderstanding?
Indeed… but I don’t recall that coming up as a specific issue in that presentation.
LLC, davo has sent a very viable presentation of God and scripture, though admittedly the presentation that davo sent may well be best viewed with viewing the previous videos(I think that the video in question was #3) or if you want to see Doug King’s whole presentation on the subject, you can see it here. The understanding or at least the acknowledgement of the spiral dynamics understanding goes a long way to where Doug is coming from. You’ll find that in earlier vid’s (from davo’s post) or in Doug’s presentations I mention below.
Doug’s integral theology presentation is a seven part series. I think you may find it interesting. It is here: http://www.presence.tv/integral-theology/ If you allow yourself to at least consider alternatives, much of the conundrum of the scriptures can be at possibly explained.
Good luck. 
[size=150]^^^^Excellent Chad!!^^^^[/size]
MM,Davo, I watched the first 3 episodes to try to get a better understanding of what Mr. King is trying to say about integral theology. Maybe it’s just me, but I still can’t see it. 
Again, I think my inability to comprehend stems from the theory of evolution. If I understand him correctly, King states that Adam’s eyes were opened and saw God as separate. He seems to think this is a problem. Adam realized he was not God, which is true. We are not God. We can’t just make up our own rules because God has already established them. Although God is separate, He is also a part of us. I believe Adam knew this as well. King seems to think that it took thousands of years, moving through stages of history to come to know God. I see it the other way around. These men of old had the wisdom of God. They knew Him from the start, and were passing this information on to the children of the ages to come. Of course, not everyone was wise in the way, nor did all follow what they were taught. This hasn’t changed. I do see evolution taking place in the material world( meaning change and not always for the better), for example we go from horse and buggy to cars etc. etc. However, this has little to do with the spiritual state or our standing with God. Just because people no longer fight with swords and arrows doesn’t mean evil has disappeared. Men of evil intent moved into the modern age as well. All the same evils that existed long ago still exist today.
Hi LLC, I’ll take a crack at this 
Doug Kings father Max, was an innovator of looking at the scriptures in a different way. He had two big books, ‘The Spirit of Prophesy’ and ‘The Cross and the Parousia of Christ’. These were incredibly eye opening books. In a nut shell, what Doug is doing is presenting the Biblical narrative in a way that not only makes sense, but allows for human ingenuity, frailty and free will. You said:
But you somehow separate these things from a ‘spiritual’ state of our standing with God. I’m not trying to be difficult, but I would say that the evolution of the material world would have to parallel the evolution of the spiritual world. Well, if God allows and advances our material world, why would he not advance our ‘spiritual world’? I realize the use of the term ‘evolution’ is repulsive to many Christians. But it need not be if we see it in the proper context. Watch all seven vid’s… think and pray about it and watch them again. It’s just 3 1/2 hours all together.
Thanks 
MM, From what I understand, the expansion of the spiritual world depends on whether or not man follows the Spirit God and lives righteously.
Matt.6:33 " Seek first the kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously and He will give you everything you need."
On the other hand, the advancement of the material world could be caused by consumerism and covetousness.
I will watch all 7 videos as you suggest.