Evidence Genesis is just a fable

[shernren]

I should let this pass, but I can't resist...

Thomas Hartwell Horne: 1780 - 1862
Joseph Angus: 1816 -
Samuel G. Green: contemporary with Angus.
J. Dwight Pentecost: 1915 -
Milton S. Terry: 1898
Charles Fritsch: 1947
Charles L. Feinberg: 1909 - 1995
F. W. Farrar: 1831 - 1903
James MacDonald: - 2011



Martin Luther: 1483 - 1546

(those are the contributors to the rules of interpretation you referred to that I posted. That would be a real trick if Martin Luther could use their rules for anything)

Will you take a modern geocentrist, then?

Perhaps the strongest geocentric verse in the Bible is Joshua 10:13:

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.
​

Here the Moderator of Scripture, the Holy Ghost Himself, endorses the daily movement of the sun and moon. After all, God could just as well have written: "And the earth stopped turning, so that the sun appeared to stand still, and the moon seemed to stay ... ." That wording would be no more "confusing" to the reader than anything in Job chapters 38 through 41.

There are those who would claim that the language used is phenomenological, that it was not meant to convey the truth of the matter. They like to equate Joshua 10:13 with verses like Isaiah 55:12 where the trees are said to "clap their hands." The problem with that is that everyone since Adam can understand that Isaiah 55:12 is a literary device; but there is not a clue to tell those before Copernicus that Joshua 10:13 is not to be taken literally. (emphasis added)

from Why Geocentricity?

The problem with an argument from "obvious", as you have been trying to mount, is that it is perfectly obvious to some that Scripture speaks literally of a geocentric universe, and that it is you who ignore the obvious. Whither then the grounds for conversation?

 

[Hupomone10]

Yet Martin Luther, started Sola Scriptura, which is the basis on which these following Theologians have obviously based their interpretation methods on. The idea has always been there since sola scriptura was proposed, what you have listed can even be traced in some senses to the Early Church Fathers.

Yes, he accomplished much that the Church can be thankful for.

If he believed in flat earth and if he tried to defend it by Scripture, 1) I would lump that in there with his belief in baptizing infants, and 2) it certainly is not what he's known for and is only being thrown around here because of the lack of real evidence that Genesis is an allegory or metaphor.

I'm sure Luther had guidelines for interpretation. He, like the rest of us (except for Assyrian who has made it clear he has no interpretation principles), probably didn't follow his own guidelines all the time.

I'm learning a lot about evolutionists and their arguments. This recent trip to these C/E threads has been much more beneficial than I imagined before I came. These arguments such as the attack on interpretation principles and the Martin Luther thing help me understand how someone can believe in evolution and argue it to the death.

Blessings,
H.

 

[Keachian]

Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us fear lest any of you should seem to have failed to reach it. For good news came to us just as to them, but the message they heard did not benefit them, because they were not united by faith with those who listened. For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

"As I swore in my wrath,'They shall not enter my rest,'"



although his works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way: "And God rested on the seventh day from all his works." And again in this passage he said,

"They shall not enter my rest."

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, "Today," saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

"Today, if you hear his voice,do not harden your hearts."

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

-- Hebrews 4

So we have here a use of the seventh day as a metaphor for heaven. The writer doesn't seem to have a problem with that. Why do you?

 

[Hupomone10]

It is interesting how steady and vicious the attack has been against something as simple as a set of principles of interpretion, principles that have been tried down through the years and are taught in many Bible colleges and seminaries.

It truly shows how little support there is for the allegorical/metaphorical interpretation of Genesis that they cannot even let a list like this pass without attack.

 

[theFijian]

I picked this verse because it is one I use daily as part of my devotional time. That fits under the definition of "it applies to me." The blue one, not the pink one.

It's interesting how people on a Christian forum interpret a Bible verse shared in a post as being hit over the head with it.

So why doesn't the pink one apply to you? Or does it only apply to us? Why did you deliberately misquote a passage if not to bash you fellow Christians?

 

[theFijian]

It truly shows how little support there is for the allegorical/metaphorical interpretation of Genesis that they cannot even let a list like this pass without attack.

So the reason you came in here to attack an opposing view is because there is so little support for your own?

 

[Assyrian]

It's interesting how people on a Christian forum interpret a Bible verse shared in a post as being hit over the head with it.

You weren't suggesting we didn't have faith and comparing us to the Israelites who died in the wilderness?

Except nobody who is a TE (certainly among these parts) excludes Genesis 1-3 as you're suggesting, therefore you are simply constructing a straw man

Ask them if they believe what it says.

Hebrews 4:2
"but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it." (NKJV)

 

[Mallon]

I should let this pass, but I can't resist...

Thomas Hartwell Horne: 1780 - 1862
Joseph Angus: 1816 -
Samuel G. Green: contemporary with Angus.
J. Dwight Pentecost: 1915 -
Milton S. Terry: 1898
Charles Fritsch: 1947
Charles L. Feinberg: 1909 - 1995
F. W. Farrar: 1831 - 1903
James MacDonald: - 2011



Martin Luther: 1483 - 1546

(those are the contributors to the rules of interpretation you referred to that I posted. That would be a real trick if Martin Luther could use their rules for anything)

I'm referring to your earlier post here where you advocated Luther's approach to Scripture:

“every word should be allowed to stand in its natural meaning and that should not be abandoned unless faith forces us to it... It is the attribute of Holy Scripture that it interprets itself by passages and places with belong together, and can only be understood by the rule of faith.”

“The literal sense of Scripture alone is the whole essence of faith and of Christian theology... I have observed this, that all heresies and errors have originated, not from the simple words of Scripture, as is so universally asserted, but from neglecting the simple words of Scripture, and from the affectation of purely subjective ... tropes and inferences.”

Using this hermeneutical approach, Luther argued that the sun must revolve around the earth because it was obvious from Scripture. Do you believe otherwise? If so, why?

 

[shernren]

There is really no acceptable way of talking to creationists, is there? You can't agree with them, because you actually think they're wrong and need to be honest about it; if you disagree with them but stop talking after a while because you're tired of the whole discussion going nowhere, they think they win because you've stopped talking; and if you disagree with them and keep disagreeing with them, they think they're winning because otherwise why would you be trying so hard to prove them wrong!

Reading through Genesis 1, I find obvious clues that the days being spoken of are not ordinary days:

1. The first three days are said to happen before the creation of the sun and moon. But how can there be evening and morning - sunrise and sunset - without a sun?

2. The flow of the passage is as follows: God creates X, and there was evening, and there was morning, the Nth day. Now nowhere else in the Bible do the words "evening ... morning", in that order, ever signify a full day. They signify the night portion of a day. See the evidence I accumulated in #150, most notably this verse:

​​​​​​​​Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. (Ps 55:17, ESV)
​

When you realize that "evening and morning" refer to the night, then the bolded phrase makes perfect sense: the psalmist cries out both night ("evening and morning") and day ("at noon"). But if "evening and morning" refer to a whole day then surely "at noon" is superfluous.

3. Taken together, then, the picture is of God working throughout the day and resting at night. Now this is quite unlike what we see in the rest of the Bible. God performs lots of miracles during our physical nights, like manifesting over the Israelites in a cloud of fire, or putting the Midianites to flight before Gideon's army, or breaking Peter and Paul out of prison on separate occasions. Furthermore, we have categorical declarations from God that He does not sleep at night, again found in #150.

4. So if God does not stop working just for our nights, then the nights in Genesis 1 must be something different altogether. Not only that, the seventh day appears to be something completely different even from the first six. It has no ending, no "evening and morning" after it; it isn't even announced in the usual way. It is a day of complete rest for God. And it is completely different from the days we experience.

5. As proof of that, the book of Hebrews uses the seventh day to describe God's rest, which some will enter and some will not enter. Now if the seventh day was an actual period of 24 hours a long time ago, then nobody can either enter it or not enter it. It stands to reason therefore that if the seventh day represents any period of human time at all, it must represent a period of human time during which both the Israelites and the readers of Hebrews (which includes us) were alive. Therefore, the seventh day, if it is of any temporal duration at all, is at least two thousand years long. As an additional example, that very passage goes on to say:

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Heb 4:6-7, ESV)
​

It is not as if, when the passages describes "a certain day", God decided on a particular period of 24 hours so that anybody who heard Him within those 24 hours would follow Him and nobody else could! This evidence that "day" can represent a temporally indefinite, but spiritually significant, period of time, comes smack after a mention of the seventh day, which makes it highly significant for our interpretation of Genesis.

6. If the seventh day cannot be 24 hours long (because it is at least two thousand years long), and the first three days need not be 24 hours long (because without the sun, there isn't any intrinsic definition of a day as being 24 hours long), then neither do the middle three days. And indeed, no teaching of Scripture rests on the six days being exactly 144 hours long. You may point to Exodus 20, but: firstly, if the pattern were to be followed exactly, then every person would work exactly 144 hours, and then never work the rest of his life.

Secondly, the pattern is also used to prescribe cycles of seven years (and the seventh year is explicitly called a Sabbath; see Lev 25:1-4). If the analogy in Exodus 20 has force precisely because six days in Exodus 20 are 144 hours long, just like six days in Genesis 1, then the analogy in Leviticus 25 cannot have force, precisely because the six years in Leviticus are not 144 hours long, and therefore cannot be just like six days in Genesis 1. If on the other hand you think that six periods of work and one period of rest is the general pattern being prescribed, regardless of how long each period is - then you are saying that the exact length of the periods in Genesis 1 have no effect on the force of the comparisons in both Exodus 20 and Leviticus 25.

7. The entirely biblical conclusion is one I shall give in the words of theologian C. John Collins:

... the days are God's workdays, their length is neither specified nor important, and not everything in the account needs to be taken as historically sequential.
​

 

[shernren]

You weren't suggesting we didn't have faith and comparing us to the Israelites who died in the wilderness?

It's ok. Hebrews 4 also says the seventh day wasn't over when the Israelites died in the wilderness and that it still isn't over today.

Hupomone10 doesn't believe that, so he must have found some obvious reason to take the text figuratively.

So he doesn't really believe that we don't have faith, either. That's how figurative speech works right?

 

[Assyrian]

1 Corinthians 13:12
"Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

I recognize that this language about the mirror or looking glass is figurative to illustrate the point made above it. So, all I can say brother, is that your attempt to exaggerate my view is simply that, an exaggeration.

This one is obvious in the text; and the text doesn't have to call it a metaphor. You attempt at exaggerating my view is a normal reaction, but it is incorrect. Further, if I did have a question and used the principles of interpretation, I would come up with the same interpretation.

Thanks, I think this is a really good illustration of the problem literalists have with metaphors. You look at the texts you know are metaphorical, and think all metaphors in the bible are obvious and your rules the best way to tell what is metaphor and what is literal. Unless of course there are a whole load of metaphors in the bible that aren't obvious and you are unaware they are metaphors because your rules of interpretation tell you to take them literally. Or they are metaphors you just assume are metaphorical without asking if they are obvious form the text.

Is it obvious that when Jesus said at the last supper 'this is my body' he wasn't talking literally? If it is obvious why have so many Christians throughout the history of the church taken it literally and believed the bread and wine is really transformed into Jesus' flesh and blood?

Why did David take Nathan's parable of the pet lamb literally (2Sam 12) if parables and metaphors are so obvious? How would Pentecost's rules of interpretation have helped David?

Is there anything in the geocentric passages Joshua 10:12&13 or Eccles 1:5 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises, to tell us they were not literally describing the sun going round the earth? Ecclesiastes is of course wisdom literature, but the writer seems for all the world to be describing how the sun moves and going from a straightforward description of the natural world into a description of the human condition.

I agree with you; which is why I didn't say it is a substitution for the guidance and illumination of the Holy Spirit. You will search in vain to find that in my posts. But God does use the written Word, placed into our minds, for the Holy Spirit to use. He also uses the milk of the Word, pre-digested by godly men and women given to the Church as teachers. We always have to take anything they write with a grain of salt, learning to depend on the Holy Spirit to help us separate the fish from the bones; but all through Christian history and through the New Testament the apostles encouraged getting help from those who knew the Lord deeply.

I agree the view of Godly men from earlier generations are very valuable, unfortunately it is in precisely the area we are looking at, a new scientific discovery challenging our understanding of scripture, that the testimony of previous generations fails us. Science asks question today older generations never considered. It failed totally when the church had to deal with the challenge of heliocentrism, because every single church father who looked at these passages interpreted the geocentrically.

Interestingly, we have less of a problem with Genesis because you find both literal and figurative interpretations among the church fathers. Presumably that means either interpretation is reasonable from the text.

I don't see anywhere in the Scriptures where we are encouraged to abandon what godly men/women say interpreting what Scripture really means in favor of what secular man has to say.

Secular men do not tell us how to interpret scripture, though it is reasonable for them to point out misinterpretations of scripture, however godly the misinterpreter. Oddly enough my list of reasons for interpreting Genesis figuratively included plenty of examples where godly men in the bible interpreted Genesis figuratively

Not when it comes to clear excerpts of history or clear teachings.

You mean passages you interpret as clear history and clear teachings? Oddly enough, I would say Joshua's miracle is much more clearly history than the Genesis creation accounts, yet it described the sun going round the earth.

If someone in the Bible seems to give the impression he believes the earth is flat, that is still not actively teaching a principle that the earth is flat.

Reminds me of Cosmas Indicopleustes, he thought the bible clearly taught us that the earth is flat. Interestingly, one of his arguments was that the church shouldn't listen to the pagan Greeks who came up with the round earth doctrine and that Christians who believed it were 'supping at the table of devils'. Your language is a lot more moderate, but it is basically the same argument we should follow the bible not pagan scientists. But the church ignored him and went with the science. A worthwhile lesson from godly men who went before us.

There is a difference. I'm sure you would say this applies to Genesis, though. I do understand your point of view; I just disagree with it.

I showed you an example above where what you are saying is not the case about me.

We do not use mirrors to see Christ, there is no reference to the church meeting to break bread and see Christ in looking glasses, Christ did not commission the apostles to go into all the world and give the natives mirrors to see God in... Then you have the problem that the literal interpretation is a scrying glass. On the other hand the metaphor of an indistinct first century mirror fits beautifully with the message Paul is teaching here about our understanding being limited and partial. So yes, this really is a pretty clear metaphor.

You seem to like taking what I say and placing extremes on it.

Actually, what I find most often with Creationists who follow these rules is that they are actually quite flexible, everywhere except Genesis. And reasons they would used to take a passage metaphorically outside of Genesis could not possibly apply in Genesis.

I presume you do not take Exodus 19:4 literally, You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. What reasons do you see in the text for reading it metaphorically?

And why do you assume metaphors in the bible are always clearly metaphorical?

Because I take the Creation account literally and have a good set of guidelines for interpretation, which were not even devised with strictly Genesis in mind but the entire Word of God, you try to make me out to say that metaphors in the Bible are "always" metaphorical.

"The devil lives in the extremes."

I presume you mean 'metaphors are always clearly metaphorical', because saying metaphors are always metaphorical is hardly extreme

But seriously, once you realise there are plenty of metaphors in the bible that are not clearly indicated, then Pentecost's rules of interpretation don't work anymore and cannot tell you Genesis has to be literal.

For me it is pray about it, learning to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit in my spirit, take my own thinking with a grain of salt and take the writings of others with a grain of salt, especially if they glorify intellect above faith in God's Word. But still, listen to what they say so that you don't make your own opinion the infallible authority. Being a disciple means to be a 'learner.' A disciple's opinions are maybe what must guide his life, but he doesn't regard them as infallible.

(and please, before you respond: I said "above", not "in place of".)

I agree with all of that except discounting your mind and intellect. Of course the most important part is realising our own opinions are deeply fallible and that we will only ever be able to see in a glass darkly. Yet God expects us to use our transformed minds and intellects 1Pet 1:13 Therefore, prepare your minds for action.

 

[Hupomone10]

So why doesn't the pink one apply to you? Or does it only apply to us? Why did you deliberately misquote a passage if not to bash you fellow Christians?

If you want to see an example of bashing fellow Christians, here's an example.
"You need your eyes checked, this place is littered with your 'defeats'"
http://www.christianforums.com/t7559868-3/#post57495567 post #27
You might want to reprove that guy as well.

I don't think I identified any Christian or addressed them personally (as the above post did); I was confronting an idea, the idea of looking to science above looking to and trusting scripture. If it doesn't apply to you, no worries. And I will stand against that idea. I don't respond to personality pressure.

The pink one applies to me whenever I start putting my trust in the world's wisdom instead of God's.

Blessings,
H.

 

[Fencerguy]

There is really no acceptable way of talking to creationists, is there? You can't agree with them, because you actually think they're wrong and need to be honest about it; if you disagree with them but stop talking after a while because you're tired of the whole discussion going nowhere, they think they win because you've stopped talking; and if you disagree with them and keep disagreeing with them, they think they're winning because otherwise why would you be trying so hard to prove them wrong!

And here I thought I only had to stay on the atheistic threads if i wanted to hear condescention!

Reading through Genesis 1, I find obvious clues that the days being spoken of are not ordinary days:

1. The first three days are said to happen before the creation of the sun and moon. But how can there be evening and morning - sunrise and sunset - without a sun?

There was light, Who is to say that the earth was not rotating about its axis from the very beginning, as long as there is light (which there was) there can be evening and morning.

2. The flow of the passage is as follows: God creates X, and there was evening, and there was morning, the Nth day. Now nowhere else in the Bible do the words "evening ... morning", in that order, ever signify a full day. They signify the night portion of a day. See the evidence I accumulated in #150, most notably this verse:

​​​​​​​​Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice. (Ps 55:17, ESV)
​

When you realize that "evening and morning" refer to the night, then the bolded phrase makes perfect sense: the psalmist cries out both night ("evening and morning") and day ("at noon"). But if "evening and morning" refer to a whole day then surely "at noon" is superfluous.

Interesting, so God created the heavens and the earth at night?....Doesn't really have anything to do with them not being real days...

3. Taken together, then, the picture is of God working throughout the day and resting at night. Now this is quite unlike what we see in the rest of the Bible. God performs lots of miracles during our physical nights, like manifesting over the Israelites in a cloud of fire, or putting the Midianites to flight before Gideon's army, or breaking Peter and Paul out of prison on separate occasions. Furthermore, we have categorical declarations from God that He does not sleep at night, again found in #150.

I never thought that God rested at night during creation.....I never thought anything more than that "evening and morning" meant that they were just days in which God did the creating.......sounds like too much is being read into this

4. So if God does not stop working just for our nights, then the nights in Genesis 1 must be something different altogether. Not only that, the seventh day appears to be something completely different even from the first six. It has no ending, no "evening and morning" after it; it isn't even announced in the usual way. It is a day of complete rest for God. And it is completely different from the days we experience.

Not necessarily.....I think that is something that has been read into the passage....

5. As proof of that, the book of Hebrews uses the seventh day to describe God's rest, which some will enter and some will not enter. Now if the seventh day was an actual period of 24 hours a long time ago, then nobody can either enter it or not enter it. It stands to reason therefore that if the seventh day represents any period of human time at all, it must represent a period of human time during which both the Israelites and the readers of Hebrews (which includes us) were alive. Therefore, the seventh day, if it is of any temporal duration at all, is at least two thousand years long. As an additional example, that very passage goes on to say:

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, again he appoints a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.” (Heb 4:6-7, ESV)
​

It is not as if, when the passages describes "a certain day", God decided on a particular period of 24 hours so that anybody who heard Him within those 24 hours would follow Him and nobody else could! This evidence that "day" can represent a temporally indefinite, but spiritually significant, period of time, comes smack after a mention of the seventh day, which makes it highly significant for our interpretation of Genesis.

But does it really mean that the Seventh Day was not a literal day? Because if it was, it would seem that when God says to "Remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy" Then like you said, we should not ever be working again after the Sabbath Day...So why isn't the Seventh Day simply a regular day? And if God has rested of all of His works since the Seventh Day (i.e. the Seventh Day is still going on?)

If God did not rest for a regular day; and if God is still resting, then how was He able to send Jesus to do the work required to save the world? Because Jesus (being God) was involved with the Creation process:
"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." John 1:1-3
Since Jesus was involved with the Creation work, and if Jesus--being God--rested also on the Seventh Day (presumably, correct? Would not all of God rest, or only part?); How then can Jesus do any further work if He--as God--is still in this non-literal Seventh Day of Rest?

6. If the seventh day cannot be 24 hours long (because it is at least two thousand years long), and the first three days need not be 24 hours long (because without the sun, there isn't any intrinsic definition of a day as being 24 hours long), then neither do the middle three days.

In the modern heliocentric world a day is seen as a complete rotation of the eart on its axis....The evening and morning are based on the part of the earth that is exposed to light during its rotation. There is no reason to assume that the first three days were not regular days....

And indeed, no teaching of Scripture rests on the six days being exactly 144 hours long. You may point to Exodus 20, but: firstly, if the pattern were to be followed exactly, then every person would work exactly 144 hours, and then never work the rest of his life.

Secondly, the pattern is also used to prescribe cycles of seven years (and the seventh year is explicitly called a Sabbath; see Lev 25:1-4). If the analogy in Exodus 20 has force precisely because six days in Exodus 20 are 144 hours long, just like six days in Genesis 1, then the analogy in Leviticus 25 cannot have force, precisely because the six years in Leviticus are not 144 hours long, and therefore cannot be just like six days in Genesis 1. If on the other hand you think that six periods of work and one period of rest is the general pattern being prescribed, regardless of how long each period is - then you are saying that the exact length of the periods in Genesis 1 have no effect on the force of the comparisons in both Exodus 20 and Leviticus 25.

Just because the pattern of creation days is used as a comparison for other cycles of time in Scripture does not automatically mean that the 6 days were not 6 regular days....The Exodus and Leviticus comparisons are just that, comparisons....The impact of both comparisons does not rely (in either case) that the 6 days of creation be literal or figurative, since the comparison deals with the cycle of work and rest.....
again, I think too much is being read into this....

7. The entirely biblical conclusion is one I shall give in the words of theologian C. John Collins:

... the days are God's workdays, their length is neither specified nor important, and not everything in the account needs to be taken as historically sequential.
​

Why has your entirely Biblical conclusion been affirmed by an extra-biblical source?

 

[Keachian]

I don't think I identified any Christian or addressed them personally (as the above post did); I was confronting an idea, the idea of looking to science above looking to and trusting scripture. If it doesn't apply to you, no worries. And I will stand against that idea. I don't respond to personality pressure.

I certainly have looked to and trusted scripture. I went searching for the question what is the nature of God. My answer has been that he is holy and perfect, he doesn't sin. So I found the places in scripture where it appears that he sinned both in reference to scripture and in reference to what his creation tells us. I cannot reconcile a literal Genesis to the plain understanding of who God is and what creation is. I do often wrestle with the idea of what if I'm wrong.

However there are a few problems I have encountered with this, God has challenged me to live an active faith, (before I was constantly wrestling with these ideas rather than surrendering to God) due to this and through scripture I am convinced that though some parts of my theology be somewhat unorthodox, I am saved by the grace which comes through the propitiation of his blood to cover all sins. I don't know what I believe yet because I'm still on that journey, finding out who God is and who I am in relation to him.

And as I said in the Creationist Philosophy thread I can't help but think that the whole creationist ideology is saying. I'm not comfortable with not being the center of what the purpose of the universe is. Look to God! he is the center of purpose behind the Universe it is for his enjoyment! I look and ponder the universe and I am seen and loved in my innermost being by God. I am filled with such awe and wonder at the whole thing. What is Man that God is mindful of him, when the Universe existed long before man? Who am I, that God loves me dearly, when humanity has existed before me and will continue to exist after me? I feel as if I'm just this grain of sand on the beach, yet I am precious to God as if I were one of the most beautiful diamonds.

God is such a wonderful and beautiful being don't you think?

 

[Fencerguy]

I certainly have looked to and trusted scripture. I went searching for the question what is the nature of God. My answer has been that he is holy and perfect, he doesn't sin. So I found the places in scripture where it appears that he sinned both in reference to scripture and in reference to what his creation tells us. I cannot reconcile a literal Genesis to the plain understanding of who God is and what creation is. I do often wrestle with the idea of what if I'm wrong.

Where does Scripture indicate that God sinned? That is something that I have never seen in Scripture, certainly not in Genesis. Why do the character of God and the state of creation make you unable to believe a literal creation account?

God is such a wonderful and beautiful being don't you think?

 

[Keachian]

Where does Scripture indicate that God sinned? That is something that I have never seen in Scripture, certainly not in Genesis. Why do the character of God and the state of creation make you unable to believe a literal creation account?

If you follow the creationist thought of the universe being created as is, with all the light from stars and other universe objects coming to earth even though with quite a lot of them it is apparent through basic geometry that they are sometimes billions of years travel away by light. You can't help but think is the God I believe in a liar, come creationists decide to do all sorts of mental acrobatics to decide that, more or less yes he is, but they never phrase it in that way because they know that that will send people away. (please keep in mind that often when I talk about creationists as a whole, I talk about the swindlers who only want to pander and make money out of people) That is my problem with this whole thing as I looked more and more into it. There is also the problem of Joshua 10:4 but this is easily seen as someone writing through their culture and cosmology about a miracle and just because the description of the miracle is wrong, does by no means make the miracle itself wrong.

I don't reject the miracle of a 6-day creation on the basis of there being evidence against it alone, but by the fact that if we are to accept that God created the universe then a belief in the nature of God as seen in the Bible combined with this evidence cannot yield a belief in a literal 6 days.

 

[Fencerguy]

If you follow the creationist thought of the universe being created as is,

Well bro, here is one issue. Genesis is not that specific. It doesn't say that God created the world "as is." Not in a physical or even spiritual way. It leaves that open....for obvious reasons I think

with all the light from stars and other universe objects coming to earth even though with quite a lot of them it is apparent through basic geometry that they are sometimes billions of years travel away by light

True, they are quite far away, but some more research into relativity is due here I think. I have heard some physicists hypothesize that time really has no bearing at all for things travelling at light speed, or faster. So any aboslute statement about how time affects light is not much more than conjecture...

You can't help but think is the God I believe in a liar, come creationists decide to do all sorts of mental acrobatics to decide that, more or less yes he is, but they never phrase it in that way because they know that that will send people away. (please keep in mind that often when I talk about creationists as a whole, I talk about the swindlers who only want to pander and make money out of people)

Pshh, I wouldn't even call such people Christians if pandering and making money is what they are really interested in.......But rather than wonder if God lied; is there any reason to think that when God created the stars (and galaxies and such) in the universe, that He could have orchestrated it so that the Light he created on day 1 was already reaching planet earth? I don't think we need to wonder if God is deceptive, just that He found a way to (supernaturally) make things visible from earth that were so very far away...

That is my problem with this whole thing as I looked more and more into it. There is also the problem of Joshua 10:4 but this is easily seen as someone writing through their culture and cosmology about a miracle and just because the description of the miracle is wrong, does by no means make the miracle itself wrong.

Right, the understanding of people does not invalidate the Work (or even the Word) of God......People just have to "grow into" a fuller understanding of it.

I don't reject the miracle of a 6-day creation on the basis of there being evidence against it alone, but by the fact that if we are to accept that God created the universe then a belief in the nature of God as seen in the Bible combined with this evidence cannot yield a belief in a literal 6 days.

I don't think these things invalidate a 6 day creation period.........they might have some influence on how long ago it was.....but I still don't see any reason why it couldn't have been done in 6 days.......Do explain your position further!

 

[Keachian]

Well bro, here is one issue. Genesis is not that specific. It doesn't say that God created the world "as is." Not in a physical or even spiritual way. It leaves that open....for obvious reasons I think

But the general creationist decision is either that the world has not progressed or is in fact deteriorating. That is what I mean by "as is"

True, they are quite far away, but some more research into relativity is due here I think. I have heard some physicists hypothesize that time really has no bearing at all for things travelling at light speed, or faster. So any aboslute statement about how time affects light is not much more than conjecture...

except the speed of light is a constant (gravity barring) and even when it does get changed due to gravity it is slowed down, not sped up.

But rather than wonder if God lied; is there any reason to think that when God created the stars (and galaxies and such) in the universe, that He could have orchestrated it so that the Light he created on day 1 was already reaching planet earth? I don't think we need to wonder if God is deceptive, just that He found a way to (supernaturally) make things visible from earth that were so very far away...

What is the point of him doing this though? And in any case this is the whole thing I have a problem with, not that God is bound by the laws of physics but that he would deliberately break them in order to create the universe in such a way that as soon as we start looking into it we have to stop and go ok obviously what I have observed is wrong because of mumbo-jumbo.

Right, the understanding of people does not invalidate the Work (or even the Word) of God......People just have to "grow into" a fuller understanding of it.

I agree and I feel that this is what I have gained through my struggles with scripture, God and Science.

I don't think these things invalidate a 6 day creation period.........they might have some influence on how long ago it was.....but I still don't see any reason why it couldn't have been done in 6 days.......Do explain your position further!

The problem with saying something like this is that it introduces "Gap Theory" which is not apparent in the text and this is why I don't subscribe to this idea.

 

[JoeyArnold]

Where did we come from? I am going to start a brand new thread just about that. Instead of complaining about this, about that, or about religion, or about the so-called Creation-fable, how about we talk about what actually happened. We can all come together & talk about where we all came from. That is the one thing that unites us, binds us, connects us, together. We are all related. We should really talk about the universe. How old is the universe? Let's talk about matter. Let's talk about the laws of thermodynamics (about how matter & energy decays over time). Let's talk about however far back as we can go. Let's ask the really tough questions. That is what my brand new thread is going to be all about. We are not all just hear to point silly fingers saying, "Oh you're wrong, I'm right. You're stupid & I'm right...." Let's just take the time to describe why we're right about the origins to the universe. Can we do that?

 

[theFijian]

If you want to see an example of bashing fellow Christians, here's an example.
"You need your eyes checked, this place is littered with your 'defeats'"
http://www.christianforums.com/t7559868-3/#post57495567 post #27
You might want to reprove that guy as well.

No need, juvie and I are chums and go way back. I suppose you agree with his view of God?

I don't think I identified any Christian or addressed them personally (as the above post did); I was confronting an idea, the idea of looking to science above looking to and trusting scripture. If it doesn't apply to you, no worries. And I will stand against that idea. I don't respond to personality pressure.

The pink one applies to me whenever I start putting my trust in the world's wisdom instead of God's.

Your post here is clearly addressing those here who disagree with you, specifically myself in refuting your accusation that TEs trust secular science over scripture. It's a common Creationist tactic to be both disingenuous and dishonest in creating strawmen arguments and accusing people of placing 'human' wisdom above the Bible.

Blessings,
H.

And to you