Something I need to get off my chest about the whole creation/evolution thing.

[Time4Truth]

Nonsense. The majority of the parables are not indicated as such.

Prove this.

 

[Time4Truth]

"worldly interpretation" C'mon, man.

You just assume I don't actually care about the text and am not trying to be faithful to the text. As long as you assume that I'm just trying to argue Genesis 1 away, we're never going to have a reasonable discussion.

Im not talking about Genesis 1.


Im talking about Genesis 2.


Did God create Adam from the dust of the earth and breath life into his nostrils or not?

If not, why?

 

[Tzaousios]

Predetermined? No.

Forgive me, but I think that this is a copout because it is exactly the direction that you are heading with Melethiel and GratiaCorpusChristi. You are demonizing them as evil Darwinists and atheists all because they do not subscribe to a literalist interpretation of Genesis.

I do not interpret all of scriptural literally. For example, Visions, signs, parables, agllegories are usually denoted as such before they are detailed.

Indeed—your methodological inconsistency has been noted. You have taken the predictable escape hatch that all radicals who deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist take when it is pointed out to them that they flip-flop to a non-literalist interpretation when it comes to that issue.

Im not sure why you cant answer this question.

Was the creation of Adam, by God himself, a literal account or not?

Its a yes or no, you can evade all you want.

I have not "evaded" it. You have consistently skipped over where I said that the premise is based upon fallacious reasoning. The Early Church, and most Christians before the Radical Reformation, have preferred to interpret Genesis allegorically. This does not mean that there is no room for the belief in a literal Adam figure.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Wait, you literally think that when you have communion that you are drinking Jesus Christs blood, and eating his flesh, synonymous with the actual blood and flesh of Christ before he ascended??


You are kidding right?


When you were baptized, did the water literally wash your sins away too??

Yes. That has been the historic confession of Christians throughout the world for the vast majority of church history and remains the majority position today.

Once again, I take those texts very seriously because they are teaching texts laid out in the midst of carefully constructed arguments, not poems serving as prefaces to epic narrative.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Im not talking about Genesis 1.


Im talking about Genesis 2.


Did God create Adam from the dust of the earth and breath life into his nostrils or not?

If not, why?

The point still stands. You automatically assume I'm trying to argue away the text because I want to prove evolution in order to impress atheists or something. You automatically assume I do not want to be faithful to the text, and truly believe that I'm being faithful to the text. You're assuming the worst about my intentions and my faith, and I won't bother explaining myself to you until you behave like an adult.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Prove this.

I can't because there is nothing there indicated they're parables. You're the one who made the claim that figurative passages are always indicated. You bloody prove it.

 

[Time4Truth]

I can't

I rest my case.

 

[Time4Truth]

The point still stands. You automatically assume I'm trying to argue away the text because I want to prove evolution in order to impress atheists or something. You automatically assume I do not want to be faithful to the text, and truly believe that I'm being faithful to the text. You're assuming the worst about my intentions and my faith, and I won't bother explaining myself to you until you behave like an adult.

I never said or assumed anything of the sort, I already know you aren't faithful to the text.

Either you believe evolution, or you believe God created humans, beginning with Adam.

 

[Targaryen]

I never said or assumed anything of the sort, I already know you aren't faithful to the text.

Either you believe evolution, or you believe God created humans, beginning with Adam.

God created life. How that life was formed is evolution, it does not deny any spiritual truth written in Genesis.

More non-starters.

 

[Time4Truth]

Forgive me, but I think that this is a copout because it is exactly the direction that you are heading with Melethiel and GratiaCorpusChristi. You are demonizing them as evil Darwinists and atheists all because they do not subscribe to a literalist interpretation of Genesis.

I forgive you.

I never said they were "evil Darwinists" or "atheists".


They just have contrary beliefs, as evolution is in violation of what is written.

Putting the doctrines and beliefs of men before the infallibility of what God has spoken.

God irrefutably disproves evolution.

Indeed—your methodological inconsistency has been noted. You have taken the predictable escape hatch that all radicals who deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist take when it is pointed out to them that they flip-flop to a non-literalist interpretation when it comes to that issue.

Christ himself poured wine and broke bread did he not?

He told us to do that in remembrance of him, did he not?

This does not mean that there is no room for the belief in a literal Adam figure.

Then explain why the Adam account in Genesis is literal, and the accounts in Genesis 1 are not?

 

[Time4Truth]

God created life. How that life was formed is evolution, it does not deny any spiritual truth written in Genesis.

More non-starters.

Evolution is not an explanation for how life formed.

That would be abiogenesis, or biogenesis.


The fallacious hypothesis of "Evolution" is an explanation for the diversity of ever living genome.



Im arguing with people who have no clue what they are talking about.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I rest my case.

Do you not understanding that no one can prove a negative? The only person who can demonstrate that all parables as indicated as such is the person making that claim.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I never said or assumed anything of the sort, I already know you aren't faithful to the text.

Either you believe evolution, or you believe God created humans, beginning with Adam.

Sweet dear Lord.

 

[Time4Truth]

Do you not understanding that no one can prove a negative? The only person who can demonstrate that all parables as indicated as such is the person making that claim.

If you have knowledge to refute my claim, present it.


If not, my claim stands unrefuted.


Present your case and we can discuss it.


You wanna teach people on this forum what you believe to be correct, its best you have a clue about what you are talking about.

 

[Time4Truth]

Sweet dear Lord.

Is that your defense?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

If you have knowledge to refute my claim, present it.


If not, my claim stands unrefuted.


Present your case and we can discuss it.


You wanna teach people on this forum what you believe to be correct, its best you have a clue about what you are talking about.

YOU made a claim first. Back it up.

Moreover, I'm amazed you're still not getting this. If there parables aren't introduced as parables, then there's no introduction that I can point out. There are a few cases, I'll give you that. But for the most part, Jesus just starts talking.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Is that your defense?

No, it's exasperation with your refusal to engage in polite conversion.

But tell you what. If you wanted to talk on your terms, here it goes:

I declare by the Word of the Lord that Genesis 1 is a poetic introduction to the rest of the Grand History of Israel (Gen-2 Kings), all of which is part of the ancient genre of mythic chronicle or epic narrative. I am not lying! I say this by a Word of the Lord!

No one can debate me because I just came on here to shout at other people and interrogate them! I'm a prophet, and I say this in truth by gum! (selah)

 

[Fireinfolding]

I believe he is banned (as his lightbulb is out) so he would not really be able answer anything demanded of him at this point.

 

[MKJ]

"Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by facts. This museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views. In all this great museum, there is not a particle of evidence of the transmutation of species." (Dr. Etheridge, Paleontologist of the British Museum)

"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete; because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long- deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man." (Dr. Albert Fleischmann, University of Erlangen)

"The more one studies paleontology, the more certain one becomes that evolution is based on faith alone; exactly the same sort of faith which is necessary to have when one encounters the great mysteries of religion... The only alternative is the doctrine of special creation, which may be true, but is irrational." (Dr. L.T. More)

"I have come to the conclusion that Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research programme... (Dr. Karl Popper, German-born philosopher of science, called by Nobel Prize-winner Peter Medawar, "incomparably the greatest philosopher of science who has ever lived.")

"Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics, on which life depends, are in every respect DELIBERATE... It is therefore, almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect higher intelligences.. even to the limit of God." (Sir Fred Hoyle, British mathematician and astronomer, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, co-authors of "Evolution from Space," after acknowledging that they had been atheists all their lives)

"The fossil record with its abrupt transitions offers no support for gradual change..." (Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, famous Harvard Professor of Paleontology)

You know, some of these are really quite interesting, and worthy of discussion in context. I perhaps have a slightly different view of science and what it is and how it works than some here do - I would argue that my view is actually closer to what the philosophy of science says quite openly, but which isn't really part of the popular imagination about science.

And while good scientists know quite well that science is a philosophical system first at all, and axiomatic, and faith based, and that popular views tend to be less than accurate, unfortunately not all working scientists have much sense of this. This is something I've discussed quite a bit with my husband, who is a scientist - he feels it is a fault in science education, and one that has become worse over the years. And perhaps more frighteningly, a fault that is likely to lead to all kinds of erroneous scientific conclusions.

However, despite all of this, I think that you are rather misusing those quotes to try and argue against evolutionary theory with them. My religious beliefs are in a real way faith based, axiomatic, and experiential. And a great many Christians misunderstand how that is so. I however still consider them quite rational and the best explanation I have for reality. Seeing science in its proper light does not mean concluding that the things it tells us are not worth taking seriously and believing. (In fact, I think if we see how to understand it properly, it actually becomes much more layered, more poetic, more convincing, and more able to encompass and explain true things, than the old popular 19th century view.)

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

You know, some of these are really quite interesting, and worthy of discussion in context. I perhaps have a slightly different view of science and what it is and how it works than some here do - I would argue that my view is actually closer to what the philosophy of science says quite openly, but which isn't really part of the popular imagination about science.

And while good scientists know quite well that science is a philosophical system first at all, and axiomatic, and faith based, and that popular views tend to be less than accurate, unfortunately not all working scientists have much sense of this. This is something I've discussed quite a bit with my husband, who is a scientist - he feels it is a fault in science education, and one that has become worse over the years. And perhaps more frighteningly, a fault that is likely to lead to all kinds of erroneous scientific conclusions.

However, despite all of this, I think that you are rather misusing those quotes to try and argue against evolutionary theory with them. My religious beliefs are in a real way faith based, axiomatic, and experiential. And a great many Christians misunderstand how that is so. I however still consider them quite rational and the best explanation I have for reality. Seeing science in its proper light does not mean concluding that the things it tells us are not worth taking seriously and believing. (In fact, I think if we see how to understand it properly, it actually becomes much more layered, more poetic, more convincing, and more able to encompass and explain true things, than the old popular 19th century view.)

Unfortunately a ban has prevented his further discussion. I thought he had some good points also. Being overly passionate about things can cause problems tho.