For me, it's either theistic evolution or nothing.

[Not_By_Chance]

So you, a man with your fallible ideas, did decide what was true in the Bible and what wasn't. You just decided that it was all true.

I made a choice to trust the Bible as being the infallible word of God, just as you and everyone else has to do at some point. You can choose to believe it, not believe it or believe parts of it, that's up to you. I would simply say that those who take the middle ground probably have the most difficult time as they have to decide which parts to believe and which parts not to believe and doesn't that also contradict this verse in the New Testament which says, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" 2 Timothy 3:16 [my emphasis]?

 

[sfs]

I made a choice to trust the Bible as being the infallible word of God, just as you and everyone else has to do at some point. You can choose to believe it, not believe it or believe parts of it, that's up to you.

Exactly. My point is that you have to do exactly what you were accusing others of: applying fallible human ideas to decide whether statements in the Bible are true or not. You're stuck in the same spot as everyone else.

I would simply say that those who take the middle ground probably have the most difficult time as they have to decide which parts to believe and which parts not to believe

Two things to note: first, isn't this difficult middle ground exactly where we encounter every single other issue? Don't we always have to decide what's true and what isn't? Second, simply deciding that you're always going to answer "True" to every statement is indeed easier than weighing them statement by statement, but is there any reason to think it's more accurate? It's not an approach that works in the rest of life, after all.

doesn't that also contradict this verse in the New Testament which says, "All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness" 2 Timothy 3:16 [my emphasis]?

Again, two comments. First, I seem to have missed the part of the verse where it says "and is historically accurate". Do you see that there? Second, I wonder if even you really believe this verse to be wholly accurate. Do you think that (picking a verse at random) I Chronicles 7:36-37 is useful for correcting or training in righteousness? ("The sons of Zophah: Suah, Harnepher, Shual, Beri, Imrah, Bezer, Hod, Shamma, Shilshah, Ithran and Beera.")

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Not really. As mentioned before if there came a point where mankind became aware of their right from wrong and gained a conscious then this may have been the point where sin entered the world.

Some say there are other bigger problems when you try to assert that Adam and the Genesis story are literal such as the age of the earth.

The point about consciousness wouldn't really work in practice would it? I mean, think about it - during the transition period you would have some people aware of and accountable for their sins, while others would not. Imagine a conversation between two young men where one say's "My dad just killed his neighbour." His friend replied, "Oh don't worry, his generation doesn't realise that's a crime in God's eyes - just make sure you don't do anything similar." The first man then replied, "Yes, it's not fair is it, we can't even tell a lie without being condemned." You see how absurd it would all become, plus it's not a concept alluded to anywhere in the Bible as far as I am aware.

Regarding the age of the earth - don't believe all the hype you hear about that. There are lots of things that point to the earth and the solar system being far younger than you've been led to believe. If you're interested in findout out more about hearing a different take on all this then I would recommend the DVD's entitled "What you aren't being told about astronomy" and the dvd produced by some creation scientists called "Evolution's Achilles' Heels."

Not necessarily a myth but allegorical. I don't have any particular view on this at this point by the way. What about the flood, many have tried to prove it but it seems the evidence is against a worldwide flood. People back then could not have known that the world was so big to even make a claim about the flood covering the entire world. But it makes sense that they understood their world as what they could see and heard about being flooded. All the stories from non-biblical sources also have the flood story around Mesopotamia.

Non-biblical stories are probably just distorted versions of the one true account given in the Bible. A local flood wouldn't make sense either - why would the animals and people need an ark if they could just move away from the flooded area?

 

[sfs]

The point about consciousness wouldn't really work in practice would it? I mean, think about it - during the transition period you would have some people aware of and accountable for their sins, while others would not. Imagine a conversation between two young men where one say's "My dad just killed his neighbour.

Or instead you could imagine a conversation between two children, children who are gradually becoming aware of and accountable for their actions. Somehow we don't have a problem with that reality.

Regarding the age of the earth - don't believe all the hype you hear about that.

There's no hype. The age of the earth is simply a fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is utterly detached from reality.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

There's no hype. The age of the earth is simply a fact. Anyone who argues otherwise is utterly detached from reality.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

 

[sfs]

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

No perhaps about it. Some things are just facts.

ETA: It's kind of ironic that creationists often end up shying away from the idea of objective truth, given how much they hate postmodernism.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Don't we always have to decide what's true and what isn't?

Not necessarily - sometimes we have to decide between what we think is true and untrue - non more so than when talking about things that happened a long time ago.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

No perhaps about it. Some things are just facts.

Well, the claimed age of the earth is not one of those facts.

 

[sfs]

Well, the claimed age of the earth is not one of those facts.

Then there are no facts.

 

[stevevw]

The point about consciousness wouldn't really work in practice would it? I mean, think about it - during the transition period you would have some people aware of and accountable for their sins, while others would not. Imagine a conversation between two young men where one say's "My dad just killed his neighbour." His friend replied, "Oh don't worry, his generation doesn't realise that's a crime in God's eyes - just make sure you don't do anything similar." The first man then replied, "Yes, it's not fair is it, we can't even tell a lie without being condemned." You see how absurd it would all become, plus it's not a concept alluded to anywhere in the Bible as far as I am aware.

Yeah, I didn't think of that. That's why I say I don't really know. There are other possibilities though which have been mentioned by various sources including some scholars and believers of God and the bible. It could be that there was a bottleneck of humans of one kind that led to another which seems to fit the DNA evidence. It could be that other pre-Adam humans were more animalistic and soulless and just had no comprehension of right and wrong to compare themselves with Adams kind and eventually died off and were overtaken by Adams descendants. The bible seems to hint that there were other humans besides Adam such as Cains wife or how Cain mentions that he would be a fugitive from others. Who were the people he was a fugitive from.

If you have to massage the bible to fit theistic evolution then what is the difference in having to massage the bible to account for things like Cains wife. If Cains wife is a sister of Cain she is not mentioned. If Cains sister is not mentioned and we have to speculate that this is so then who else is not mentioned that may have been around. This is the problem with trying to understand the stories that seem to be only partly explained and leave gaps that have to be filled in.

Regarding the age of the earth - don't believe all the hype you hear about that. There are lots of things that point to the earth and the solar system being far younger than you've been led to believe. If you're interested in findout out more about hearing a different take on all this then I would recommend the DVD's entitled "What you aren't being told about astronomy" and the dvd produced by some creation scientists called "Evolution's Achilles' Heels."

Non-biblical stories are probably just distorted versions of the one true account given in the Bible. A local flood wouldn't make sense either - why would the animals and people need an ark if they could just move away from the flooded area?

I will look at the links but once again this seems to be having to massage the bible to fit despite the geological evidence. The bible does not state the age of the earth and we have to speculate to establish this. How do we know we are not trying to assume something that is not really there.

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Yeah, I didn't think of that. That's why I say I don't really know. There are other possibilities though which have been mentioned by various sources including some scholars and believers of God and the bible. It could be that there was a bottleneck of humans of one kind that led to another which seems to fit the DNA evidence. It could be that other pre-Adam humans were more animalistic and soulless and just had no comprehension of right and wrong to compare themselves with Adams kind and eventually died off and were overtaken by Adams descendants. The bible seems to hint that there were other humans besides Adam such as Cains wife or how Cain mentions that he would be a fugitive from others. Who were the people he was a fugitive from.

If you have to massage the bible to fit theistic evolution then what is the difference in having to massage the bible to account for things like Cains wife. If Cains wife is a sister of Cain she is not mentioned. If Cains sister is not mentioned and we have to speculate that this is so then who else is not mentioned that may have been around. This is the problem with trying to understand the stories that seem to be only partly explained and leave gaps that have to be filled in.

I will look at the links but once again this seems to be having to massage the bible to fit despite the geological evidence. The bible does not state the age of the earth and we have to speculate to establish this. How do we know we are not trying to assume something that is not really there.

If you take Genesis at face value as I do, then there weren't any pre-Adam "soulless" beings and remember Jesus, who would know about these things as the creator, said, "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them [humans] male and female.'" Mark 10:6 [my emphasis]. The bottleneck you refer to obviously came when the worldwide flood wiped out all but Noah and his immediate family.

I don't think we have to massage the Bible to account for Cain's wife but it's pretty obvious that the Biblical accounts couldn't have covered every person's life at the time. But theistic evolution has massive implications for the reliability of the scriptures because it is allowing man's ideas to influence what God has revealed to us in his account of history as laid out in the Bible.

Regarding the links - I would do yourself a favour and get your hands on those DVDs. If you do, you may find things are not what you have been led to believe and that when you have that knowledge, your faith will be strengthened. They have helped me enormously.

 

[Papias]

The point about consciousness wouldn't really work in practice would it? I mean, think about it - during the transition period you would have some people aware of and accountable for their sins, while others would not. Imagine a conversation between two young men where one say's "My dad just killed his neighbour." His friend replied, ......

Of course you have a transition period - I don't see why you find that odd. After all, people have those kind of discussions, where some people find different thing morally acceptable - today. Plus, you are placing the bounds on morality too wide - we can see that even monkeys have some primitive morality, so our non-ensouled, human-like ancestors would have more than that.

There are lots of things that point to the earth and the solar system being far younger than you've been led to believe.

No, there aren't. You do have a bunch of distortions and outright lies by creationists, which you can see in the hoax filled videos you mentioned, and those are evidence of how low the creationists who made those videos will go to deny reality.

Non-biblical stories are probably just distorted versions of the one true account given in the Bible. A local flood wouldn't make sense either - why would the animals and people need an ark if they could just move away from the flooded area?

Which is why they are often older than the Bible? Along with the many records of the civilizations existing straight through the flood as if it didn't happen? And the other piles of evidence that make a global flood obviously mythical?

Here are just a few:Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

I don't think we have to massage the Bible to account for Cain's wife but it's pretty obvious that the Biblical accounts couldn't have covered every person's life at the time. But theistic evolution has massive implications for the reliability of the scriptures because it is allowing man's ideas to influence what God has revealed to us in his account of history as laid out in the Bible.

Sure you do. Simply provide a verse showing where Cain's wife came from, without making up things that aren't in scripture or ignoring the order of the text.

Theistic evolution requires no more significant an interpretation than you already use. For one example out of many, simply look to the fact that you think we live on a globe, despite the fact that a literal reading of scripture repeatedly shows a flat earth, under a hard dome. The scriptural interpretation needed to get to a spherical earth going around the sun is much farther from a literal interpretation than anything theistic evolution suggests.

The bible does not state the age of the earth and we have to speculate to establish this.

Right. We can get guidance from God's other revelation - His creation itself, which shows through many different dating methods, all of which confirm each other (and are based on different phenomena) that the earth is much, much older than 6,000 years.

It could be that there was a bottleneck of humans of one kind that led to another which seems to fit the DNA evidence.

Like your other ideas, this is an interesting possibility. The DNA evidence do show a moderate bottleneck around 70,000 years ago, perhaps from the Toba explosion (Population Bottlenecks and Volcanic Winter). DNA makes major bottlenecks datable, and is yet another reason the Noah's ark story is not literally true - because a bottleneck of 8 people, just a few thousand years ago, would be obvious (and is not seen).

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Not_By_Chance]

Of course you have a transition period - I don't see why you find that odd. After all, people have those kind of discussions, where some people find different thing morally acceptable - today. Plus, you are placing the bounds on morality too wide - we can see that even monkeys have some primitive morality, so our non-ensouled, human-like ancestors would have more than that.



No, there aren't. You do have a bunch of distortions and outright lies by creationists, which you can see in the hoax filled videos you mentioned, and those are evidence of how low the creationists who made those videos will go to deny reality.



Which is why they are often older than the Bible? Along with the many records of the civilizations existing straight through the flood as if it didn't happen? And the other piles of evidence that make a global flood obviously mythical?

Here are just a few:Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition


Sure you do. Simply provide a verse showing where Cain's wife came from, without making up things that aren't in scripture or ignoring the order of the text.

Theistic evolution requires no more significant an interpretation than you already use. For one example out of many, simply look to the fact that you think we live on a globe, despite the fact that a literal reading of scripture repeatedly shows a flat earth, under a hard dome. The scriptural interpretation needed to get to a spherical earth going around the sun is much farther from a literal interpretation than anything theistic evolution suggests.



Right. We can get guidance from God's other revelation - His creation itself, which shows through many different dating methods, all of which confirm each other (and are based on different phenomena) that the earth is much, much older than 6,000 years.



Like your other ideas, this is an interesting possibility. The DNA evidence do show a moderate bottleneck around 70,000 years ago, perhaps from the Toba explosion (Population Bottlenecks and Volcanic Winter). DNA makes major bottlenecks datable, and is yet another reason the Noah's ark story is not literally true - because a bottleneck of 8 people, just a few thousand years ago, would be obvious (and is not seen).

In Christ-

Papias

So from what you say, I may as well chuck out my Bible because it contains so many errors and downright falsehoods that it's not worth the paper its written on!

Fortunately, I don't accept any of the points you made above and I put my trust in the Bible as being God's revelation to man and as such, 100% trustworthy. Where there is a conflict between secular religions like evolution or websites claiming to be able to discredit Biblical texts, like the nonsense contained on the site to which you provided a link, then I'm prepared to give what is written in God's Holy book the benefit of the doubt. Wasn't it predicted that in the last days, scoffers would come? I believe we live in those times right now and we are seeing another ancient Biblical prophesy unfold before our very eyes (take note Prof. Dawkins El Al).

 

[-57]

Not really. It depends on what role you give evolution. As you stated there is obvious micro-evolution. As this thread is saying that theistic evolution may be a possibility. There may be other possibilities in between who knows. But I do disagree with the fundamental Darwinistic idea of evolution where natural selection is given greater power and that everything came from a naturalistic cause.

That some other method being creation of Adam as he was?. How does another method destroy Genesis?

Not really. As mentioned before if there came a point where mankind became aware of their right from wrong and gained a conscious then this may have been the point where sin entered the world.

Some say there are other bigger problems when you try to assert that Adam and the Genesis story are literal such as the age of the earth.

Not necessarily a myth but allegorical. I don't have any particular view on this at this point by the way. What about the flood, many have tried to prove it but it seems the evidence is against a worldwide flood. People back then could not have known that the world was so big to even make a claim about the flood covering the entire world. But it makes sense that they understood their world as what they could see and heard about being flooded. All the stories from non-biblical sources also have the flood story around Mesopotamia.

I don't think we can say its all assumption.

As I read through your post, once again I see the need for you to distort scripture.
For example you asked "That some other method being creation of Adam as he was?. How does another method destroy Genesis?"

Any method of creation pertaining to Adam, if different than the Genesis account destroys the Genesis account. Either Adam was made from the dirt THEN Eve from Adams rib....like the bible says.....or....the bible is wrong.

 

[Papias]

So from what you say, I may as well chuck out my Bible because it contains so many errors and downright falsehoods that it's not worth the paper its written on!

No, but I am pointing out that you may as well do that if you are insisting on a literal reading. For instance, you didn't answer:

Sure you do. Simply provide a verse showing where Cain's wife came from, without making up things that aren't in scripture or ignoring the order of the text.

Nor did you answer:

Which is why they are often older than the Bible? Along with the many records of the civilizations existing straight through the flood as if it didn't happen? And the other piles of evidence that make a global flood obviously mythical?

Here are just a few:Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

I put my trust in the Bible as being God's revelation to man and as such, 100% trustworthy.

If you are insisting on a literal reading, they you are insisting that the world is flat. Do you?

Any method of creation pertaining to Adam, if different than the Genesis account destroys the Genesis account. Either Adam was made from the dirt THEN Eve from Adams rib....like the bible says.....or....the bible is wrong.

So, still insisting on a literal reading, even though genesis is written in the common form of Hebrew poetry? So then either the earth is flat, under a hard dome, under water, or the bible is wrong?

Maybe try understanding the depth and nuance of scripture?

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Not_By_Chance]

No, but I am pointing out that you may as well do that if you are insisting on a literal reading. For instance, you didn't answer:


Nor did you answer:





If you are insisting on a literal reading, they you are insisting that the world is flat. Do you?




So, still insisting on a literal reading, even though genesis is written in the common form of Hebrew poetry? So then either the earth is flat, under a hard dome, under water, or the bible is wrong?

Maybe try understanding the depth and nuance of scripture?

In Christ-

Papias

I don't need to answer your questions because there is lots of information about these sorts of topics on the Internet, e.g., here or you could get your hands on a book such as this, which will give you answers to many of your questions, or at least, provide some possible explanations, but I will answer your question about the flat earth. I presume you are referring to passages such as Isa 40:22 "He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,". No, I don't believe the earth is flat, but next time you look at the moon in the night sky, does it not look flat, even though we now know it isn't? The same would apply to the earth from a distant observer in space.

As far as taking the Bible literally, I only do that when it is patently obvious that it is meant to be understood in that way, such as the creation account and the great global flood of Noah's day.

I hope you manage to find Biblically-defendable answers to your questions.

 

[SkyWriting]

There are mountains of evidence for evolution. It is corroborated by research in every field.

With God, all things are possible.

 

[SkyWriting]

There is absolutely no proof whatsoever of evolution.

With God, all things are possible.

 

[-57]

So, still insisting on a literal reading, even though genesis is written in the common form of Hebrew poetry? So then either the earth is flat, under a hard dome, under water, or the bible is wrong?

Maybe try understanding the depth and nuance of scripture?

In Christ-

Papias

Yes, I'm still insisting on a literal reading. I've asked before....Paul wrote a letter to Timothy. Part of that letter told Timothy how women should act in church. The reason Paul gave was based upon the creation account and the fall as presented in Genesis.

You see Papias, I applied a little more understanding using the depth and nuance of scripture...and understand Paul wouldn't put limits on people based upon an event that never happened.

 

[-57]

With God, all things are possible.

Why would Gos use evolution...then tell us He did it another way?