Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

[trophy33]

It is not the 'knowledge' of bible seminaries that matters. Regardless of how elevated that may be above God's word in the minds and hearts of some people. No one needs lack knowledge of creation, God up and told us. Also, what we need for understanding the bible is the Spirit of God. It will then be clear to us that God is neither senile and contradictory and pathetic by giving contradictory versions of creation. Anyone pretending otherwise is indeed talking out of their hat.

A bunch of strawman fallacies mixed with nonsensical claims (like "the bible is the Spirit of God").

 

[trophy33]

Except that the Bible doesnt have a flat earth worldview (start a new thread on that topic)...and the Bible specficially teaches us that Man and Woman were created (in the image of God) at the beginning - they didn't evolve from anything. The purpose of the Bible is not scientific but rather the purpose of the Bible is to record historical events to server a purpose towards Salvation.

Literally the same chapter talking about creation in six days talks also about lights placed into the firmament. You just see only what you want to see.

 

[sfs]

Its a joke if you believe that everything evolved from a single cell organism instead of God creating it.

If you think those are the choices, you don't understand the question. Christians who accept evolution believe that God created everything, including every human, and that humans are the product of billions of years of evolution.

 

[truthpls]

Probably. But possibly not. I don't hang my Christianity on it, the age of the earth, etc. I'll throw this out: I don't think he was a snake.

Looking at the article it seems to focus on how Satan is not an animal. I never suggested he was. No more than Satan is a man like Judas. However he can and did inhabit various bodies for a time in history. That includes the creature in Eden. Also various men. Etc

I've learned, by losing arguments over the decades, to be very careful about what I state from the bible as an absolute fact. As one pastor of a large church with a lot of christian professor members said, the more someone knows about the bible and its origins, the less sure they are about their opinion on secondary issues. And he and I were talking about it because I brought up the unbelievable dogmatism I came up against in the tiny churches I visited in Kentucky when I first moved there from Seattle - on some of the most minor issues. And yet often they simply could not back it up - at all. It was like they were told this stuff in VBS when they were children and stuck with it their entire life with no increase in understanding through research.

There is enough in the bible so that we do not need to wonder so much about some basics.

The guy I bought my house from was a young pastor. He got his first congregation at a small church a few months after we moved here. He told me that in his new church there were members that were elderly and had been going there regularly their entire life, yet they could not tell you the difference between the old and new testaments. He was trying to change that. They fired him a few months later.

He was better off somewhere else where there might be actual believers

 

[truthpls]

If you think those are the choices, you don't understand the question. Christians who accept evolution believe that God created everything, including every human, and that humans are the product of billions of years of evolution.

Adam was a special creation in a special time as was woman. Evolution had nothing to do with it or billions of years.

 

[truthpls]

Check out The evolving role of satan [lowercase]

Your post ended with this quote "he did the temptation (dirty) works for God" Actually, he works against God and the salvation of mankind. God allowed him to do some things over history, but it was more like letting a dog loose for a few minutes than having God tempt us.

 

[Reasonably Sane]

Looking at the article it seems to focus on how Satan is not an animal. I never suggested he was. No more than Satan is a man like Judas. However he can and did inhabit various bodies for a time in history. That includes the creature in Eden. Also various men. Etc
Michael S. Heiser On What Eden Tells Us About Satan | GCD

There is enough in the bible so that we do not need to wonder so much about some basics.

He was better off somewhere else where there might be actual believers

So basically, at the end of the day, you and I are in agreement.

 

[truthpls]

Why do you feel a need to change my words to different words... "in other words"?

The context matters. Holding up what you said to the light was needed.

 

[truthpls]

So basically, at the end of the day, you and I are in agreement.

Great

 

[expos4ever]

The dark matter and energy one is funny. It's invented to help hypotheses hold together. We've never seen it or detected it in any way. It's a faith thing.

I suggest this is a tad misleading. Let's take dark matter. The hypothesized existence of dark matter explains phenomena that will otherwise have no explanation, at least yet. So, yes, we do not detect dark matter directly, but it is a very reasonable hypothesis in that it makes predictions that are consistent with the facts. So I think it's rather unfair to call it "faith" .

Is it "faith" to believe in black holes? I'm no expert, but I believe that the evidence for their existence is all indirect, and yet very compelling.

 

[truthpls]

A bunch of strawman fallacies mixed with nonsensical claims (like "the bible is the Spirit of God").

Not true. I actually said "what we need for understanding the bible is the Spirit of God" Be honest

 

[trophy33]

Not true. I actually said "what we need for understanding the bible is the Spirit of God" Be honest

OK, I misread this one sentence.

 

[trophy33]

The context matters. Holding up what you said to the light was needed.

Saying what somebody said "in other words" is actually how strawman fallacies are produced.

 

[truthpls]

Saying what somebody said "in other words" is actually how strawman fallacies are produced.

Not true once again. You said this

"And you have never heard that those do not need to be literal. If you mean scientific life spans, then those are actually growing."

So the issue to address is the claim here that the life spans recorded in the bible were not factual or real. I addressed that directly and said this

"In other words the scores and scores of precise life spans, when they had babies, when they died, are all false and not to be believed according to you."

Now if that is not precisely what you are saying and you do accept the life spans as real, then just say so. (Although there would be no honest way to reconcile that with what you said)

Whining and pretending you are being misunderstood is childish.

I then went on to point out that recent 'scientific' lifespans don't really matter as far as what the bible records in ancient times.

 

[trophy33]

Not true once again. You said this

"And you have never heard that those do not need to be literal. If you mean scientific life spans, then those are actually growing."

So the issue to address is the claim here that the life spans were not factual or real. I addressed that directly and said this

"In other words the scores and scores of precise life spans, when they had babies, when they died, are all false and not to be believed according to you."

Now if that is not precisely what you are saying and you do accept the life spans as real, then just say so. (Although there would be no honest way to reconcile that with what you said)

Whining and pretending you are being misunderstood is childish.

See? You described well how you arrived to the strawman fallacy. You changed my words from "not literal" to "false", which are from totally different worlds ("not literal" is from the area of genres, "false" is from formal logic)

Again, you will always do better trying to not reformulate the words of others.

 

[truthpls]

See? You described well how you arrived to the strawman fallacy. You changed my words from "not literal" to "false", which are totally different worlds.

If the bible says Noah lived, for example 930 years and had a child when he was say, 40 years old, that is either true or false. Waving it away (and the host of other lifespans given in the bible) as not 'literal' is just a cowardly way of rejecting what is stated clearly and repeatedly.

 

[trophy33]

If the bible says Noah lived, for example 930 years and had a child when he was say, 40 years old, that is either true or false. Waving it away (and the host of other lifespans given in the bible) as not 'literal' is just a cowardly way of rejecting what is stated clearly and repeatedly.

You have created another fallacy - false dilemma. Its not "either true or false", again, you are confusing it with formal logic.

Its either literal or symbolic, either complete or telescoped, either lunar or solar years etc. - these would be proper questions. Not "true or false".

 

[truthpls]

You have created another fallacy - false dilemma. Its not "either true or false", again, you are confusing it with formal logic.

You cannot declare statements repeatedly recorded in the bible to be something other than true or false. Either men had a baby when they were the age the bible states, say, 35 years old, or not. Either they died at the age stated or not.

Its either literal or symbolic, either complete or telescoped, either lunar or solar years etc. - these would be proper questions. Not "true or false".

That makes no difference. If I lived 944 years, and a year was 360 or 365 days is not an issue here. the difference would be something like 13 years. The only question is whether we believe it or not. The same is true of the years given to the time their first child was born. The difference between a 360 and 365 day years is only something like 5.8 months. So If a child was born in the fall, the year, for example would not even change regardless of what calendar we used.
Since we know a year in the time of Noah was 360 years we also know that the life spans were in those years. No mystery. Literally.

 

[trophy33]

You cannot declare statements repeatedly recorded in the bible to be something other than true or false. Either men had a baby when they were the age the bible states, say, 35 years old, or not. Either they died at the age stated or not.

That makes no difference. If I lived 944 years, and a year was 360 or 365 days is not an issue here. the difference would be something like 13 years. The only question is whether we believe it or not. The same is true of the years given to the first child was born. The difference between a 360 and 365 day years is only something like 5.8 months. So If a child was born in the fall, the year, for example would not even change regardless of what calendar we used. Now what we could debate would be the length of the year, I assume it was 360 days at the time of Noah. But as pointed out here that cannot affect the long lifespans recorded, so it would not matter.

You still do not seem to understand that true-false categories are from formal arguments. They do not belong there.

If somebody lived 912 years literally or if its lunar years, i.e. 76 years, it does not make it false or true. It makes it either lunar or solar, for example.

If those years are symbolic, for example divisible by 7, its still not true or false.

 

[truthpls]

You still do not seem to understand that true-false categories are from formal arguments. They do not belong there.

If somebody lived 912 years literally or if its lunar years, i.e. 76 years, it does not make it false or true. It makes it either lunar or solar, for example.

We already know a year was 360 days. So that leaves you with believe it or not once again. They either lived way over 900 years or not. True or false.