Creationists?

[jmothecat]

Hi, i just want to know how many of you here are Creationists (by which i include evangelicals, fundamentalists, biblical literlalists and so on) and how many of you are more liberal 'modern' christians (such as people who accept scientific descoveries even if it contradicts the bible).

So if you will, could you post which of those catagories you fall into, and the reasons why. I fully expect you to argue that my question is irrelevant/wrong, and i welcome you to post why you think so, and why you think my assesment of Christianity is wrong, if you do. Thanks for taking the time to post!

 

[Robinsegg]

I believe the Bible is true. I listen to scientific evidence, and hope that one day it will lead to the Truth found in Scripture.

Rachel

 

[jmothecat]

I believe the Bible is true. I listen to scientific evidence, and hope that one day it will lead to the Truth found in Scripture.

Rachel

Do you believe the Bible is literally true or meaningfully true?

 

[MikeMcK]

Hi, i just want to know how many of you here are Creationists (by which i include evangelicals, fundamentalists, biblical literlalists and so on) and how many of you are more liberal 'modern' christians (such as people who accept scientific descoveries even if it contradicts the bible).

So if you will, could you post which of those catagories you fall into, and the reasons why. I fully expect you to argue that my question is irrelevant/wrong, and i welcome you to post why you think so, and why you think my assesment of Christianity is wrong, if you do. Thanks for taking the time to post!

I'm a Creationist.

1. The Bible says so.

2. I can observe the universe and the world around me and see that it is ordered.

3. An ordered universe implies a designer

Do you believe the Bible is literally true or meaningfully true?

I don't know what "meaningfully true" means, but I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

 

[jmothecat]

I don't know what "meaningfully true" means, but I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

By 'meaningfully true' I mean looking at the stories of the Bible and taking the meaning behind the stories, rather than the stories themselves. For example instead of believing that Adam and Eve literally ate the forbidden fruit, you would take the meaning behind the story, that we are all sinners.

Most books written around the time of the Bible were written in such a meaningful, rather than literal way. Most Christians I know take a meaningful view on the Bible. It can be summed up by Bultmans quote "myth should not be enterpretted cosmologically, rather Anthropologically or better still existentially"

Thanks for replying!

 

[Calminian]

Hi, i just want to know how many of you here are Creationists (by which i include evangelicals, fundamentalists, biblical literlalists and so on) and how many of you are more liberal 'modern' christians (such as people who accept scientific descoveries even if it contradicts the bible).

So if you will, could you post which of those catagories you fall into, and the reasons why. I fully expect you to argue that my question is irrelevant/wrong, and i welcome you to post why you think so, and why you think my assesment of Christianity is wrong, if you do. Thanks for taking the time to post!

The Bible testifies to a God who created an ordered universe, but also of a God that is not confined by that order. IOW, He created the natural laws, but is not subject to them Himself. When Christ walked the earth (our Creator incarnate) He demonstrated His authority over those natural laws almost every day. According to the Bible, God is a miracle-working God. This is where the main rub regarding science stems. Science is based on the assumption of methodological naturalism. It must assume, before any investigation starts, that there have been no additions to nor bypassings of natural processes. That is it must assume there have been no miracles in the particular area of study. When you understand this it is easy to see why there is a conflict in the area of creation. If it was a miracle (or a series of miracles), science, in and of itself, is going to be very ineffective as a methodology. The issue becomes a broader epistemological question rather than just a scientific one.

I'm curious how you, being and existentialist, might react to this. Surely you believe there is truth that is unattainable by science. The million dollar question: Do you believe in miracles??

 

[jmothecat]

The Bible testifies to a God who created an ordered universe, but also of a God that is not confined by that order. IOW, He created the natural laws, but is not subject to them Himself. When Christ walked the earth (our Creator incarnate) He demonstrated His authority over those natural laws almost every day. According to the Bible, God is a miracle-working God. This is where the main rub regarding science stems. Science is based on the assumption of methodological naturalism. It must assume, before any investigation starts, that there have been no additions to nor bypassings of natural processes. That is it must assume there have been no miracles in the particular area of study. When you understand this it is easy to see why there is a conflict in the area of creation. If it was a miracle (or a series of miracles), science, in and of itself, is going to be very ineffective as a methodology. The issue becomes a broader epistemological question rather than just a scientific one.

I'm curious how you, being and existentialist, might react to this. Surely you believe there is truth that is unattainable by science. The million dollar question: Do you believe in miracles??

I believe in Mircacle's, but I don't believe that a miracle is necesarily something that defies the laws of physics. I believe a Miracle is something done as an act of pure love.

The Bible says that Jesus managed to feed 2000 (i may have got the figure wrong, i apologise if this is so) people with enough food for one. To me it is not the fact that Jesus managed to defy the laws of Jesus that is important in that story. The fact Jesus had enough love to feed the starving people, is the important part.

As well as believing in miracle's, I also believe in Quantom physics.

In my opinion Religions purpose is to answer Why, and science is to answer How. If you mix them up, you miss the point.

 

[seebs]

I do not believe much if anything of what's in Genesis is literal. I do believe God created the universe; I just believe that God appears to have taken the scenic route.

I see no contradiction between science and the Bible on this issue, because I do not believe the creation story in Genesis is meant to be taken literally.

 

[jmothecat]

I do not believe much if anything of what's in Genesis is literal. I do believe God created the universe; I just believe that God appears to have taken the scenic route.

I see no contradiction between science and the Bible on this issue, because I do not believe the creation story in Genesis is meant to be taken literally.

Thats the view most my friends who are Christian take. It's also the view i would take if i was a Christian.

 

[MikeMcK]

I do not believe much if anything of what's in Genesis is literal. I do believe God created the universe; I just believe that God appears to have taken the scenic route.

I see no contradiction between science and the Bible on this issue, because I do not believe the creation story in Genesis is meant to be taken literally.

Yeah, that Jesus. He's so silly. Imagine, quoting the creation account in Genesis as though it were a real event.

 

[seebs]

Yeah, that Jesus. He's so silly. Imagine, quoting the creation account in Genesis as though it were a real event.

Yeah, it's pretty weird. Next thing you know He'll be using parables as teaching tools, or talking to people in terms of their own understanding. Wacky!

Pure anarchy. You can see why the Romans felt threatened.

 

[MikeMcK]

Yeah, it's pretty weird. Next thing you know He'll be using parables as teaching tools, or talking to people in terms of their own understanding. Wacky!

Actually, had you read the Bible, you would know that He does do these things, just as He refers to the Genesis account as a real, literal event.

 

[Calminian]

I believe in Mircacle's, but I don't believe that a miracle is necesarily something that defies the laws of physics. I believe a Miracle is something done as an act of pure love.

The Bible says that Jesus managed to feed 2000 (i may have got the figure wrong, i apologise if this is so) people with enough food for one. To me it is not the fact that Jesus managed to defy the laws of Jesus that is important in that story. The fact Jesus had enough love to feed the starving people, is the important part.

As well as believing in miracle's, I also believe in Quantom physics.

In my opinion Religions purpose is to answer Why, and science is to answer How. If you mix them up, you miss the point.

This will reveal the main difference in our thinking. I think you are a little irrational in this area (I say that with humility as we are all irrational at times). I invite you to give it some more thought. You say the love of Christ is the more important point of the story and I certainly agree to an extent. But it was also important to show that Christ is not confined to natural provisions. Let's face it, if Jesus merely provided apart form any miracles, He never would have received the history changing attention He did.

But I find it interesting you looked to the feeding of the 5,000 as an example. You first said you don't believe miracles are something that defy natural law, but then you pointed to a biblical miracle that must have defied natural law (QM certainly can't explain it). And the miracle you point to actually explains the how, not the why. In fact it's a misnomer to think that true miracles ever point to whys. The why needs to be explained by the miracle worker or someone/thing else such as the context of the miracle. But the miracle itself reveals the how. This is key to understanding this issue.

A genuine miracle is a cause in the physical world. In this case, Christ caused a few loafs of bread and fish to multiply in a non-normative way. In fact the story goes on the say that 12 basket-fulls were leftover. If scientists were to then examine the physical evidence in those baskets, they would certainly be off in their scientific extrapolations as to how the the contents came about. Their science would be correct, but the assumption of methodological naturalism would throw them off. There would be a direct conflict between the scientific conclusion and reality (if the miracle indeed happened).

 

[Merlin]

When science contradicts the bible,
I look to find what went wrong with the science.

 

[Calminian]

When science contradicts the bible,
I look to find what went wrong with the science.

I agree. But when it comes to miracles, there's a fundamental conflict that has to be acknowledged. Science cannot function without a naturalistic presupposition. There's an interesting article I found on AiG's website. It's called, Methods of the Creator, by John C. Whitcomb. This very essential aspect of the origins debate has been unfortunately neglected by both sides. It’s a shame really. There's a philosophical side to this debate that needs to be addressed prior to any scientific one. BTW, there’s an atheistic author on the Secular Web that seems to have a grasp on this also. Check out Science and Miracles by Theodore M. Drange. Excellent article. I’m almost in complete agreement with him.

 

[Merlin]

Considering the forum here,
I won't reply.

 

[Sketcher]

In my opinion Religions purpose is to answer Why, and science is to answer How. If you mix them up, you miss the point.

You're ahead of many atheists and agnostics.

There are people who try and take the science of the day and reconcile it with Genesis and declare that their non-literal interpretation of the creation story is what happened. I don't do that. The premise of science is that it is ever-changing and self-correcting, while the premise of doctrine is that its originators got it right the first time and what they knew must be preserved. The two don't mix very well, as Copernicus and Galileo found out the hard way. The church had started to accept the science of the day as doctrine, but then they made their discoveries and all of a sudden there were problems. When I see people today do the same thing with evolution that the medieval church did with geocentrism, I just shake my head. I'll take the literal Genesis story thank you, and maybe in a few hundred years, science will make some discoveries that will vindicate it.

 

[BelindaP]

When science contradicts the Bible, I first look to see if it is really contradicting the Bible, or if I am bringing my own biases into my interpretation of the Bible.

I am a literalist and a creationist, but I also believe science to be correct, as well. I just don't think that God told us the whole story. It probably didn't seem relevant at the time, given that man still needed to be reconciled with God, etc., etc.

 

[Calminian]

...The two don't mix very well, as Copernicus and Galileo found out the hard way. The church had started to accept the science of the day as doctrine, but then they made their discoveries and all of a sudden there were problems. When I see people today do the same thing with evolution that the medieval church did with geocentrism, I just shake my head. I'll take the literal Genesis story thank you, and maybe in a few hundred years, science will make some discoveries that will vindicate it.

and

 

[Acclamator]

Firstly I'm a Christian who believes that God really did create in six days EST (Earth Standard Time if you will) as recorded in Genesis for a few reasons:

1. Because that is how God said that He created everything - whose account would you rather trust: the creator telling the creation how He made it or the creation trying to tell the creator how it came about?

2. What we read in God's Word matches what we see in God's world. I believe strongly that much of the scientific evidence is best interpreted through Scriptural glasses rather than interpreted through materialistic glasses.

You see, for science that relates to the very distant past, I acknowledge that many assumptions are needed to fill the ever present gaps in experiments done in the present that can relate to the very distant past (for example) and that these assumptions are ultimately based on what the scientist presuppositionally believes to be true. This is why an atheist could look at the scientific evidence of the Grand Canyon and believe that only a small amount of water over eons of years formed it and that it did not form during the Great Flood by a lot of water over a relatively short amount of time, while a creationist who looks at the same evidence sees that it is a relic left behind by the Great Flood. They are looking at the same evidence through two totally different glasses with their own underlying bias - the atheist believes and has a commitment to materialism, while the Christian creationist believes in the Bible's account. You see, Dr. Garry Parker (now a creationist) was once an evolutionist and all what he saw when he was an atheistic evolutionist pointed to evolution. But when he became a Christian and believed in Genesis that same evidence pointed to the Genesis account being true ... he was looking at or interpreting the same evidence through two different glasses and thus came to two different conclusions about the origin of that evidence.

It's rather interesting and very important to note that the evidence itself doesn't speak, it has to be interpreted and when dealing with objects from the distant past in the present or doing experiments in the present that indirectly relate to the past, assumptions are needed to fill the unknowns and that these assumptions are typically based on what the scientist presuppositionally believes to be true.

While I enjoy discussion on this topic, this is not the thread for me to continue further.

As to continue with my beliefs, I am a Biblical literalist in the traditional sense, which put simply means that every passage of Scripture is meant to be taken as it is written unless the context or style says other wise, e.g. prophecies and poety, etc, etc.

Because I believe that the Bible is God's revelation to man I find the claims of people that the days in Genesis aren't normal days (EST) laughable and illogical. Why would God's revelation to man be placed in time values that man cannot relate to? Further more, to say that it is from God's perspective is rubbish as God is outside of time. Such people fail to realise that not only is science against them, but so too is logic.