Silent Bob said:
Actually I disagree. Firstly God's creation as imagined by creationists was never perfect, after all Adam, Eve and the snake where all flawed.
I see no reason to accept this point of view. This is your interpretation. God made an environment where He and man had fellowship--why would God make man flawed after declaring He would make him in God's image? Doesn't make sense.
Even if you can't buy that, you have no more evidence that they were flawed than I do that they were perfect. Except of course, that I don't think our God is an idiot. If He made it, I would imagine this is sufficient to assume perfection.
After the faaaaaallllll we see a God who is no longer loving in a tree hugging sense and is much more violent than eons of evolution has been. E.g. the Flood, raining fire in Sodom and Gomorrah, killing the firstborns of Egypt just to name a few atrocities attributed to our loving God.
A far cry from the truth. God is and always has been loving--you see it from Genesis to Revelation. All you see is love. If you miss the point of the love--you miss the point of Scripture. The Bible repeatedly reinforces the idea that love is all that matters--between us and likewise between us and our Creator.
All of the atrocities you listed were far from surprise judgments that took mankind by surprise. In each of those cases, man stood defiantly before God and refused to repent. They deserved the judgment and brought it on themselves.
All in all, your fallible interpretation of morals and ethics do not apply to God--who IS the moral and ethical standard. He alone is King, Judge, Redeemer. Not man.
As for just there is nothing more balanced than evolution. You either live and work with your environment, or you become a fossil. No warnings, no probations if the gazelle can't run it becomes lunch (like the US economy). Evolution is completely blind and fair, it doesn't care about anything other than the continuation of genes everybody else is expendable including the almighty humans.
God IS justice--He alone is judge. I'm quite sure he is more balanced than any man could ever be. Evolution--and actually I'm assuming you mean natural selection, which is not really evolution--may be "blind" but it is far from just. Natural selection and evolution did not bring forth justice for the Jews during world war II--but it did bring death to them. Evolution can never be "just".
God can be though. You should put faith in Him.
The omnipotent card is a double edged sword. God could have done everything that Genesis says BUT He also went into a considerable amount of trouble to conceal His tracks.
We'll see where you're going here...God most definitely did not "conceal his tracks." Far from it--all of creation testifies to his existence. It is your interpretation of facts that is at odds with God's Creation, not the facts themselves.
If we accept a young earth then we have light from distant galaxies being created en-route, plate tectonics moving fast enough to boil the oceans. Also He creates a very large number of animal species and kills them all with unknown methods since the flood couldn't have killed the trilobites, He makes too many creatures sharing the same genetic material (ok re-inventing the wheel is bad for programmers but where are the tripods?), He makes all of our dating methods lie to us, He creates false records in ice cores, tree rings and on top of all that He summons forth a HUGE mass of water to drown everybody and then He makes it disappear (David Copperfield style).
Like I said. All your interpretations. Not the facts.
We have light from distant stars because the stars were used for navigation, marking the seasons, etc. (As stated in Scripture). Although, I would admit that the distant star light is the single greatest problem YECs have to deal with.
Problems with killing species, boiling the oceans, etc. don't even make sense. These are not problems at all.
God did not create several species--he created kinds and the multiplied, diversified, etc. to get the many "species" we have today.
I don't know why the flood would not have killed trilobites. I've never heard this. I would think the great heated waters that burst forth when the ground opened up would have killed pretty much anything. Currents and cataclysmic tectonic activity during the flood would have likewise been deadly to all life.
I've never heard anyon complain about "too many things made with the same genetic material." Its kind of stupid. Evolution would have predicted easily if multiple life systems were present--but there aren't, there is only one. This testifies to a Creator. All life has the same genetic material so that the human can eat the cow who eats the green grass. If we all had different genetic materials, we couldn't eat anything.
Oh, and finally--he doesn't make your dating methods lie to you. Your dating methods are faulty and fallible. They are built on assumptions. Your own dating methods lie to you. Not God--there's not a lie in Him.
Then we have genetic mapping and comparative anatomy which shows that as a designer God is lazy. Instead of redesigning our backs for upright walking He altered the spine He used in apes, for no reason whatsoever He broke the vitamin C producing gene in both humans and apes, He makes our jaws smaller than the number of teeth they are supposed to carry.
Any problems you do perceive--and I doubt most of them are design problems as opposed to understanding problems--are probably the result of genetic mutations and lost information.
The other side of the blade is that God used the laws of physics to shape His creation according to His will. No need to drawn everyone, no snakes and apples, no magical floods. Sure it makes God appear as if He doesn't care much but then again if His creation is perfect why would He need to tinker with it in the extend that creationists want to believe?
Well, if God could do that then why come and save us? Why did Jesus need to come? Why do you call yourself a Christian?
First of all, I believe that God could have just as easily created all life in 5 milliseconds or less at the mere thought. The truth of the matter is that He CHOSE to create it in six days and rest on a seventh in order to set the pattern for man--who was the only creation made in God's image. This is exactly what Scripture says. Exodus 20.
Secondly--why in the world would you exchange a loving God who could create the entire universe intelligently for an idiot god who doesn't care? Who merely set up the physics and let chance processes create the whole universe and the life therein?
I agree with Guy Consolmagno who says that believing in a literal 6-day creation is a form of paganism. It reminds me too much of the mythology I was read to go to sleep when I was young which told of Zeus who brought forth the flood, of earthquakes caused by a giant buried under Olympus and waves created by Poseidon's wrath. In fact if you take all the Greek gods and combine them into one the story reads a lot like the OT (with less sex, no women and no [FONT="]illegitimate[/FONT] semi-gods). Although I must say that when it comes to mythology the Greek one is much better than the Hebrew, at least as far as the plot goes.
[sarcasm dripping as droul] Yes that makes sense...
OK, I take the Bible literally when supposed to, you INTERPRET it non-literally at your whim. I do not compromise scientific interpretation and Scripture, but see how all science supports Scripture. I do not believe in things contradictory to scripture, you do.
Yes I see exactly why I believe in paganism.
