Christian belief and practice has been very diverse over the years, so much so that it makes it difficult to discern what is or is not traditional Christianity. I don't mind that your beliefs are somewhat different from mine. After many decades as a "traditional Christian", I now allow myself to think outside the box and be informed by biblical, historical and scientific evidence. This apparently bothers you but at long last I am content in my walk with God. I hope that you are too.
It doesn't really bother me at all. What I like about these threads is the stimulating and healthy debate from all sorts of people with different view points. I don't force my views on anyone, but I will state my case for people's information.
Basically, my view is that the Bible is accurate in its history and science. But it is not an exhaustive text book on history or science. There is enough information in the Bible to show us who God really is, and who we really are. It also shows us God's plan of salvation, and that it is the only plan for which anyone can be saved.
There are some who believe in the "young earth" theory. I am not one of them. God could quite easily have taken billions of our years to create the universe and the world we live in. After all, because He lives outside of the limits of our time frame, He can take as long as He likes to create something. There is a statement in Genesis that the earth was "without form and void" before the plants and animals were created. This suggests to me that God created the universe and our world over billions of years, but took six days to turn a planet without form and void into the environment we see now.
Also, it is interesting that God said, "Let there be light" before the sun was set alight which happened a couple of days after He made that first statement. So where did the light come from? It could not have come from the sun because the sun was not set alight yet. The sun and the moon were there of course but remained darkened until He set fire to the sun. So the question is, where did the original light come from when God said, "let there be light?" Interesting question...
So, the geology of the earth might not be inconsistent with God creating it. Also, as one philosopher maintained that there had to be something or someone to start the whole universe off, it is quite conceivable that God created the stars, galaxies and planets out of nothing, and set off the big bang that caused the expansion of the universe. Science tells us that the universe is expanding, and scientists believe that the universe started from one central point. That would not be inconsistent with the Bible - it is just that we are not given that specific information - because it was not the purpose of the Bible to give us comprehensive information about the formation of the universe. But what He has given us is totally accurate.
Scientists are now discovering that mankind originates from one genetic pair. The theory that mankind has been on earth only 6,000 years is disproved by anthropology, because it has been proved that people migrated from Eastern Russia to North America as far back as 20,000 years ago. Some have tried to form a geneology from the Bible, but they have misunderstood the way the Bible has described its geneology. It does not describe generations of actual individuals, but of cultural groups, with great gaps between them; so it is quite believable that human beings have been on earth more than 20,000 years. Yet the geneology of the Bible is accurate if we understand how it is compiled.
So, when we think about all these things, we discover that there is nothing in science or history that actually disproved the accuracy of the Bible in what it does tell us. What science has done is to fill in some of the details that the Bible has not told us, and none of that has been inconsistent with the Biblical record.
It is not a matter of what I believe. This is a characteristic of humanist thought: "You can believe what you want and what works for you, and I can believe what I want and what works for me". This means that one person's moral code can include kindness toward others, and another's (example Adolf Hitler) moral code can include incredible cruelty because that worked for him. Because man is just a machine (according to modernist theology) there is no difference between kindness and cruelty - it all depends on what an individual believes. This is because the basis of people's moral code comes from within themselves, and not from a common moral code from outside of them (such as the Ten Commandments).
So I have no problem with what you believe because you sincerely believe it works for you and it brings a level of peace and hope for you. Good luck on that.
