Origin of Life

[Micaiah]

Well, we can all use our own accusers. Thanks for pointing out my faults, I will try and work on them.

Nice response. It sounds - well, Christian.

 

[artybloke]

2 Peter 1:20 also supports that Scripture is not from man's own thoughts.

No great spiritual writing comes from man's own thoughts. It all comes from God; whether it's the Bible or the Bhagavad Gita, or the poems of George Herbert. But it all gets filtered through human minds and all human minds are fallible, limited and part of the society in which they think and writing. All great spiritual truth is divine, or, as the !alternative reading of I Tim 3:16 has it, "all that is inspired is Scripture."

 

[Critias]

I think a good discussion would be what does "Inspired Scripture" mean to you. I suppose this isn't the forum for that though.

Your statement, Arty, of "But it all gets filtered through human minds and all human minds are fallible, limited and part of the society in which they think and write" seems to be pointing out that even though God can give infallible teachings within Scripture, man recorded some wrongly. Am I close to what you are expressing here? If not, could you explain so I don't misrepresent your thoughts?

 

[artybloke]

Not quite. The Scriptures are the record of what human beings "heard" or perhaps a better word would be "experienced" of God's teaching them. They understood partly, they misunderstood partly; just like we do. In other words, there is no such thing as a totally infallible record, just as there's no such thing as a totally infallible life, or history, or science.

By the way, the alternative inspiration quote (II Tim 3:16) should be "all inspired scripture", which is perfectly acceptable in koine Greek grammar (the adjective and the verb constructions are the same) and makes perfect sense in context, though it doesn't agree with the usual conservative understanding. I wouldn't put it forward as the proper translation because I'm properly suspicious of anything that too easily agrees with my view, but it is a very possible translation of the passage.

 

[shernren]

I read the articles on the aig site. They are interesting but none seem to give an adequate explanation of how starlight so far away could have reached earth if the universe is only a few thousand years old. It seems that this is one of the most perplexing questions for yec.

Yes indeed it is. So far the only really convincing explanation I have heard is that God created that starlight in transit. Which of course raises a whole ruckus of theological-philosophical questions. C-decay and white hole theory have both been knocked out and I can't see anything stepping into that gap.

Of course, there are possible explanations and one of them may be true. I'm not so sure the big bang theory has a very solid foundation either. It seems that they are always patching that theory up to make it meet all the new info that is found by better telescopes and space probes.

It does have a solid foundation, but unfortunately the rest of it is under construction. It's a little like getting to know someone. I have a friend named John, who is an 18-year-old Indian male. But I don't know his favourite colour. Just because I don't, however, doesn't mean I don't know his race, gender and age either. It's something like that. Just because we don't know details here and there doesn't mean the general structure of it is out.

All in all, it is very interesting to say the least and it makes me leave open the possiblity that the universe is older than just a few thousand years. I would think that most yec would also want to leave that possibility open if they are doing honest research. One must always be humble enough to consider the possibility that they are wrong.

Yup. I need to be humble too.