I never said it was a science book-science is man's attempt to understand the world, the Bible is God's truth revealed.
If science falls within the Biblical framework, of course we don't 'bat an eye' because it is within the framework of known truth.
God didn't discuss atoms or particles, or the laws of gravity--yet we believe in them just the same, is my point.
You think an atheist or a humanist needs to believe in God to believe in evolution? You may be fitting God into it, but God is not a requirement in evolution for the vast majority of people nor will you find him in evolutionary texts. The whole theory is man made and fits neatly into a Godless world view that made itself through chance random processes.
I think you need to stop injecting 'Godless' atheistic dogma into evolution where it does not belong. Charles Darwin's closest friend happened to be a Reverand in a local parish that he supported. In fact, Charles Darwin himself admitted he did not know what was 'up there' so to say, and that his theory could indeed be proven wrong. Yet, you believe the loud militant-atheist minority that uses science as a scapegoat over the ones who invented the very premise of those scientific theories?
It does not matter if the theory is 'man made'. If we find that fire is hot, yet the bible says fire is cold, the bible nor science is wrong--our understanding of scripture is at fault.
So you feel Genesis is confusing? I think when it is read without thinking that man knows more than God in how things were made, that it is simple enough for a child to understand.
You can read the Torah instead if you wish, it still says God created over 6 days.
God will keep his word intact.
2 Timothy 3:16-17
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Cheeky remark, but the child analogy doesn't exactly work when we're explicitly told to 'put away childish things'. I do not find genesis confusing, my point was that if scripture is in conflict with something that is very likely(but not for certain, as none can say)a reality, then it is our understanding of scripture that is at fault. It would also benefit you to know that the hebrew used for 'days' was not always used to describe a 24-hour long period, and that genesis itself, as I'm sure you know, has two conflicting creation accounts(conflicting because the second account speaks of the creation process in the wrong order entirely).
I do not think God is offended by us observing his work, and I believe it is well within our understanding.
Science is man's attempt at understanding what is around us. It assumes certain things and when it's an experiment that can never be seen or repeated such as the beginning of life or evolition, it relies on an interpretation of the facts. No matter that the same facts can be interpreted in different ways, it's evolutions way or the highway in mainstream science. A fingerprint can be clearly observed, claims such as dinosaurs turned into birds cannot.
If you knew anything about what you were talking of, you'd know that for 1) Evolution, as I said, does NOT make any claim to the origin of life and 2) Dinosaurs did not turn into birds. Birds are closely related to the family known as 'dinosaurs', and we can see this within their bone structure similar to how we can observe tigers and cats to be of similar families.
I don't follow 'church fathers', I only follow God and the Bible. Saint Augustine was a fallible human being, no different to anyone else.
Considering the Church fathers interpreted and handled most of the traditions you and I hold steadfast to this very day, I'd be very careful in insinuating you know better than they. What, do you think the bible simply fell from the sky, already scripted in perfect, accurate english fully compiled? The bible doesn't even mention the bible, because it didn't exist! It was scriptures that were preserved in order to record our history, God's word, and to teach it to others via the church. I mean on a technicality, all you really need to be a good Christian is faith in Jesus Christ and the 10 commandments.
I am using it to show that humans are separate from animals but also because it lists four kinds of flesh. Not 'animals' as a whole but rather four separate groups. Swimming creatures, flying creatures, land animals and people, each unique and separate.
What were you trying to show by the verses before?
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
Not going to reiterate my point if you didn't understand it the first time.
They believe we evolved from a primate which completely contradicts God's word in Genesis.
2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
We share a common ancestor with primates--that is it. Anything more is gratuitous guessing on scientists' end due to the very few similarities we share. More than likely, as I said, we were separated from animals somewhere along the line; likely by divine intervention. I don't know why you're so obsessed with the humans vs animals point, considering biblically the only difference is that we have God's likeness(the modern equivalent of a 'soul')and animals do not. We all have blood, flesh bone and organs...so organically, we're all pretty much the same.
Also, the verse you referenced is in conflict with the first-chapter creation account.
I am sure you know Ecclesiastes is not meant to be used that way.
Or are you saying you actually believe that you have no advantage over the animals? Last time I checked Lutherans believed in salvation by grace through Jesus and in heaven.
First off, I have no idea what salvation by grace has to do with my example--my example had to do with the 'all come from dust, and all turn to dust' segment. 'All come from dust' being symbolic of the breath of life God gave to ALL living things; not exclusively man, as all things are created the same way. Being a living, God-created creature and having sentience/a 'soul' are totally different things.
Evolution doesn't believe in a breath of life. They believe in big bang theories, that life came from non-life, that things mutated and changed over millions of years forming all the intricacies of life.
You must still be living in the 90's, because the big bang theory model is not as popular as you think it is. And I will reiterate for the third, and final time; science DOES NOT make any absolute claims to the origin of life, or even the universe for that matter. All we have are models and theories; that's it.
How do you combine the scripture which says God formed man out of the clay with evolution from a primate who gradually turned into a man? Where does original sin fit into this picture? Where does Adam fit into this? Jesus is the 'last Adam' and 'second man' because there was a first real man called Adam. He isn't second to an allegory.
Romans 5:12-21
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned—
1 Corinthians 15:45
So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
First off, if we assume evolution to be true, it's undoubtedly that Adam and Eve were the first of 'their kind'--in other words, sentient, soul-baring humans. I'm fairly certain that if original sin were to be taken as an allegory, it would be that man, upon achieving the 'knowledge' of good and evil(sentience, in our case--as animals do not possess the knowledge of good and evil)it tainted us with what is called the original sin. Second, you say Jesus isn't second to an allegory...when the term 'last Adam' itself is allegorical. Good job.
In any case, I also forgot to mention that with the recent studies in epigenetics(which is being led by a devout Christian convert, btw)evolution very well could have happened much faster and in a different way than we thought previously. Besides, do you really think a being that created time and space itself couldn't have just...you know, 'sped up' the process?
There is not a single Bible verse that indicates that God used evolution. Which means you and others like you do not get this view from the Bible, you get it from evolutionary science. Which means you believe they are correct and that the scriptures are wrong. Jesus believed in creation so so will I.
Matthew 19
4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,'
No, I believe that if God's physical creation(us and the world around us)ever comes into conflict with scripture, the scriptures are not wrong; we, in our interpretation, are wrong. As I've stated. I mean come now, what do you expect from a book that's been painstakingly translated...how many times again? Furthermore, we know that Jewish religion/tradition was being passed down orally faaaaar longer than the bible or any scripture had existed. I'm sure you've heard of the saying 'tell one person something, let it pass through a hundred more people...and when it gets back to you, it'll be nothing like what you originally said'.
I do absolutely believe in the divinity of scripture. But I do not believe in man's ability to uphold it properly at the expense of his own wants/needs.