Originally posted by unworthyone
Evolution (the deity) would have to come up from hell and slap me in the face.
So, you think that the physical world is a lie, and that nothing we learn from studying it can be true? For that matter, what "deity"? Evolution isn't a deity, it's a theory about how the world works.
Certainly, the above statement is a compelling argument against the claim that creationism is a "scientific theory" the way evolution is.
Basically, your belief seems to me to come down to the claim that God is lying to us. God made this world, and the things in it are real and true; He did not err in creating them, however he did it.
If I study the physical world, and find that a circle 10 units in diameter is a bit *over* 30 units in circumference, I don't point to 1 Kings 7:23 and declare that the concept of pi is a "god" that would have to come up from hell and slap me before I'd believe it. I say "oh, I guess the Bible isn't a math textbook."
If I study the physical world, and I find substantial evidence suggesting that the earth orbits the sun, I don't point to the sections of the bible that talk about the sun rising and falling, and say "this is obviously false, the Bible says otherwise"; I accept that the Bible uses metaphor and allegory, and talks in the terms people use, even when those terms are not scientifically precise.
So why is it that, when I study the physical world, and find substantial evidence suggesting that creatures in it change over time, and that the creatures that I see today are likely the results of long processes of change, most or all of them from common ancestors, you think I should suddenly conclude that the world isn't like that, and that one of the most poetic and allegorical pieces of the whole book is somehow literal truth?
Are you saying that God *can't* achieve results like this through evolution? I say He can.
The only argument I could see would be "but God would have said so", and I just don't see this as compelling. The creation story is there to make us feel warm at night, not to tell us what happened. We didn't need to know, we didn't really care (except in the vague sense that we wanted to know that we were special), and there was no set of words in Hebrew that would describe what really happened.
God is not in the textbook business. The Bible is not a particularly good source for math, science, economics, or other subjects we can study without it.
Flaws abound...
