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Except, apparently, where they are compatible with evolution. As you should know, YE creationism is incompatible with a literal reading of Genesis.
Is turning the entire Bible into a metaphor a necessary end, though? I take it you read the Scriptures that refer to earth sitting atop pillars as metaphorical, no? What about the passages that say God knit us within our mothers' wombs? Or the passages that refer to a firmament above our heads that's "hard as a mirror cast of bronze"? Surely you don't interpret that literally, do you? If not, are you in fear of falling down the same slippery slope?
It might be worth pointing out here that most evolutionary creationists are, in fact, less prone to reading the Bible metaphorically than most YECs. After all, when the Bible speaks of there being a firmament in the sky, we believe the author meant it literally, given that was a common cosmological understanding in those days. When the writers of the Bible speak of preformatism, we believe they were speaking literally, given that was a common biological understanding in those days.
As I said to MiserableSinner earlier, it isn't similarity alone that evolution accounts for. It's the hierarchical distribution of similarity that only evolution predicts. You'll learn more about this if you choose to pursue it in school.
I'd love to see you start a thread about this.
God bless you, UnderHisWings1979. AND HAPPY DARWIN DAY!!!
I think it is fantastic to see God's hand in Evolution. The science of evolution is so detailed and intricate it is amazing. The diagram on the following link shows how Christians can believe in Evolution. http://thinkuni.startlogic.com/page6.html
So do you think Paul crossed a line when he turned Sara and Hagar into metaphors of the Law and the Promise? Did John the Baptist cross a dangerous line when he called Jesus the Lamb of God? Did John the evangelist cross a line when he spoke of the Word made flesh as "tabernacling" among us? Did Jesus himself cross a line when he said "This bread is my body broken for you?"
Somewhere, a portion of the church took a wrong turn when it invented and nurtured the notion that "metaphor" is equivalent to "imaginary" "not real" "false". I can understand that if the word "metaphor" conveys these meanings to you, you are fearful of admitting that much in the bible is metaphor. But the problem is not with metaphor; it is with the false equivalence of "metaphor" with "not real".
As we see from Paul's use of the wives of Abraham, people can be absolutely real and also metaphors. An event can be described in metaphorical terms and still be an absolutely real event. Nothing requires that metaphorical meaning be any less true than literal meaning. Metaphors can and often do refer to reality, just as literal descriptions do. And plain, literal descriptions can and often do refer to fiction, just as some metaphors do.
And in this you are no different from your brothers and sisters who are more accepting of metaphor in scripture. We too believe that the scriptures are true in their entirety, that we are not capable of understanding our Creator in all his glory, and that while we may have some technical knowledge of how we came to be, by no means are we capable of understanding how we were created.
Creation remains a great mystery, even when we can describe much of it in scientific terms. And the creation of humans in the image of God is a mystery well beyond science.
That's very interesting, but I very much doubt that it is being ignored. Isn't this the sort of conundrum that piques the curiosity of scientists and leads into active research?
It is somewhat more nuanced than that as you will see if you read the later part of the thread on the new whale fossil. We got into a discussion of homologies and analogies. Not all similarities are considered evidence of common ancestry. Some (homologies) are and some (analogies) are not. Of course that means you need a way of figuring out which similarities are homologous and which are analogous.
Don't you see the obvious contradiction in your position? Even you don't read the entire Bible literally!!! As I asked before, do you really think the earth literally sits atop pillars? Do you really think God literally knits us together in our mothers' wombs? Do you think Jesus was a literal lamb?I do not find interpretting the Bible literally to be a slippery slope. It does raise some questions, yes. But then again, so does the entire idea of God to begin with. If the entirety of scripture can not be held as literal and infallible, then where do we stop? Where do we draw the line between what is literal and what is metaphorical, what is true and what is not? Was Christ 'literally' the Son of God, or is that just a metaphor?
Only if you insist that the Bible is trying to teach us matters of science rather than matters of the spirit. But why would you assume that??? The Bible never makes that claim. And Jesus himself taught very real truths using very non-literal imagery.I don't see how any of that is incompatible with creationism. The current biological understanding of the times was wrong, so your interpretation of those scriptures requires scripture to be fallible.
Not really. The basic framework has remained unchanged for quite some time. Sure, the details are still in a state of flux, and they will be for the foreseeable future as we continue to gather fossil and genetic evidence, but that is to be expected, given the tentative nature of science.I've learned plenty about that in school. I do understand the hierarchical distribution of similarities. I also understand that the hierarchy is constantly changing.
I agree. But as I said, evolutionary theory predicts this hierarchy. Special creation does not. You have to devise some ad hoc explanation for this pattern to incorporate it into your non-evolutionary model.However, the fact that there is a heirarchy in creation does not implicitly rule out creation.
Nonsense!
“The unfortunate condition of the persons, whose labour in part I employed, has been the only unavoidable subject of regret. To make the Adults among them as easy & as comfortable in their circumstances as their actual state of ignorance & improvidence would admit; & to lay a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born; afforded some satisfaction to my mind, & could not I hoped be displeasing to the justice of the Creator.”(George Washington. The Only Unavoidable Subject of Great Regret)
"He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warefare, the opprobrium of INFIDEL powers, is the warfare of a CHRISTIAN king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce". (Thomas Jefferson The Declaration of Independence: Original Draft)
This is why I am convinced that TE is nothing more then a secular philosophy masquerading itself as a Christian view. Some of my neighbors, back in Indiana, were in the Ku Klux Klan and I rejected their distorted logic for many of the same reasons I reject yours.
Like you have room to talk.
These are clearly different from the idea that a book of history is a metaphor. If Genesis 1 is a metaphor, what about Genesis 50? Was Joseph a metaphor? Was Jacob a metaphor?
And there is a difference between metaphors and types.
John the Baptist's reference to Jesus as the Lamb of God was clearly not a statement that Jesus was literally a lamb, and to draw a comparison between that and the creation account in Genesis is nonsense.
My problem is that the current context of the creation story as a metaphor does mean "not real." TE necessarily requires that the story told in Genesis did not happen as told, which makes it false.
We more or less agree on this point, with the one major exception that I do not think any aspect of the Bible is fiction.
I apologize if I have given the impression that I think I am better than you, or even different, because of my belief in literal creation, for that is not my intent. However, many in this thread would make it seem that I am less than them for my beliefs, which I do have a problem with. I am simply trying to defend my own beliefs and explain why I believe what I do.
Yes, but always from the assumption that evolution is correct. True scientific research should be done from the assumption that you are wrong (the reason why in every field other than evolution, research is conducted from a null hypothesis).
I am quite aware of the difference between homologues and analogues. This, however, is one of my biggest problems with evolution. It is nothing more than a way of explaining every exception to the rule. If similarities are found that do not fit into the "hierarchy," they are simply called something different. The fact that wings (or fins, or any other feature)that supposedly evolved from different sources have such similarity is greater evidence of Intelligent Design in my opinion.
Nonsense!
The unfortunate condition of the persons, whose labour in part I employed, has been the only unavoidable subject of regret. To make the Adults among them as easy & as comfortable in their circumstances as their actual state of ignorance & improvidence would admit; & to lay a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born; afforded some satisfaction to my mind, & could not I hoped be displeasing to the justice of the Creator.(George Washington. The Only Unavoidable Subject of Great Regret)
You misunderstand. We need not observe the entire history of evolution to know that it has taken place any more than we need to see someone's entire life history to know that they developed from a baby. In science, the evidence for a theory must to be observable, and as for evolution, it is.so who observed evolution? science is supposed to be observable.
And was there anything good said about Native Americans by those presidents? A racist who happened to treat black slaves well, while considering an entire continent's worth of aborigines as savages and second-class humans, is nonetheless a racist.
Or this quote, which I think sums up the hypocrisy of America trying to rewrite its racist history:
"The only good Indians I ever saw were dead." - Gen. Philip Sheridan
Indeed, not racist at all to consider a whole people ignorant and improvident and alleviate their unfortunate condition by submitting their children to assimilation and cultural genocide.
This is about as far as most enlightened European minds came to at that time. This was, for the time, liberal and progressive thinking. Assume that the native way of life was totally inferior, that native peoples, because they did not adhere to a Protestant work ethic, were lazy and improvident, and because they had no Euro-centric education, they were ignorant--and the best way to "help" these poor unfortunates was to turn them into imitation Englishmen/Americans.
Today, we would call that racist arrogance.
Darwin was at least as enlightened as George Washington.
That is not saying much, but it does point to the fallacy of using a term like "racist" to discredit people like Washington, Jefferson and Darwin. As the meaning of the word changes "time makes ancient good uncouth."
You do realise shernren is Malaysian?Yea like the Australians treated the aborigines so much better:
An expansionist and rapacious capitalism — economically and militarily far stronger — was bound to embroil itself in permanent conflict and smash the Aboriginal hunter-gatherer communities through violent conquest. In the process, Australian capitalism erected a full-blown system of racial oppression, not only towards Aborigines, but against all non-white people. This was then legitimised and justified by a rich literature of racist ideology. Australia's racist past and present
Yea right, like your history is something to brag about:You preach Darwinism like it's gospel and pretend that it's the creationist that harbors racist tenancies. I've seen how you handle scientific evidence and I've seen how your incapacity for theology bends Scripture to your secular philosophy. If you truly condemn racism then you will reject Darwinism.
At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla (1874, p. 178).
And oh by the way, did you know that America just elected a President who is of African decent. How many aborigines have the Australians elected to office?
Have a nice day
Mark
Yea right, like your history is something to brag about:
Let's see... the most influential creationist in modern times...You preach Darwinism like it's gospel and pretend that it's the creationist that harbors racist tenancies.
Not all of you are racists. But note that when a prominent scientist made a racist statement, he was condemned and lost his position. When Morris made a much more vicious attack on blacks, no creationist raised his voice in protest. It's no accident that racism was most entrenched in areas most hostile to evolution.I've seen how you handle scientific evidence and I've seen how your incapacity for theology bends Scripture to your secular philosophy. If you truly condemn racism then you will reject Darwinism.
(Darwin laments the treatment of other groups by Europeans)Darwin was angry about this, because he thought that all men were entitled to freedom and the right to make their own way. His opinion:
At some future period not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes...will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest Allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as the baboon, instead of as now between the Negro or Australian and the gorilla (1874, p. 178).
Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil.
Charles Darwin The Descent of Man
Let's see... the most influential creationist in modern times...
Yet the prophecy again has its obverse side. Somehow they have only gone so far and no farther. The Japhethites and Semites have, sooner or later, taken over their territories, and their inventions, and then developed them and utilized them for their own enlargement. Often the Hamites, especially the Negroes, have become actual personal servants or even slaves to the others. Possessed of a genetic character concerned mainly with mundane matters, they have eventually been displaced by the intellectual and philosophical acumen of the Japhethites and the religious zeal of the Semites.
Henry Morris, director of the Institute for Creation Research
Yep. They've got a serious problem with racism.
Not all of you are racists. But note that when a prominent scientist made a racist statement, he was condemned and lost his position. When Morris made a much more vicious attack on blacks, no creationist raised his voice in protest. It's no accident that racism was most entrenched in areas most hostile to evolution.
Eugenics, as Mark should know, was demonstrated to be scientifically invalid by Darwinists like Punnett and Morgan. About 90% of Hitler's final solution for the Jews can be found in Martin Luther's The Jews and Their Lies. And the Nazis openly acknowledged it.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler listed Martin Luther as one of the greatest reformers. And similar to Luther in the 1500s, Hitler spoke against the Jews. The Nazi plan to create a German Reich Church laid its bases on the "Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther." The first physical violence against the Jews came on November 9-10 on Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) where the Nazis killed Jews, shattered glass windows, and destroyed hundreds of synagogues, just as Luther had proposed.
http://nobeliefs.com/luther.htm
You do realise shernren is Malaysian?
You cannot be serious, George Washington was no Darwinian. He was, like others in his day, a deist. Racist views are not supported by Scripture but it was very common in the so called 'enlightenment' or 'liberal' mindset to support it scientifically.
It certainly does. BTW, Darwin was also vigorously opposed to slavery; it got him into a terrible row with the creationist captain of the Beagle, who thought slavery was God's will.Your statement does not line up with the quote.
Charles Darwin AutobiographyWe had several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he [FitzRoy] defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything?
Me too. Blatant racism, so often seen among creationists. I'm pleased you aren't one of them. But why do the rest of you tolerate them?Sounds like idle speculation to me and honestly I am repulsed by what he says there.
No. It's not OK that Lincoln thought that blacks were inferior to whites, either. They were both wrong. But you have to understand people in terms of the times they lived in. Both Darwin and Lincoln were liberal for their time, because they thought all men were free, and opposed people who stole the fruits of their labor.Right, when a creationist says something like that its racist but when Darwin says it it's ok.
Unless it's Charles Darwin, then he gets a pass.
Does that sound like Luther or Darwin?
Quote, cite and if possible link your source.
Or facts, either.I don't play these games and I don't respond well to generalities.
Perhaps I know a little. Try me. BTW, genomics is not about anatomical comparisons. But I know a little of that, too. Feel free to ask.By the way, you never answered my question, how well read are you on genomics, genetic and anatomical comparisons of humans and apes?
Don't you see the obvious contradiction in your position? Even you don't read the entire Bible literally!!! As I asked before, do you really think the earth literally sits atop pillars? Do you really think God literally knits us together in our mothers' wombs? Do you think Jesus was a literal lamb?
You might ask yourself the same question about how we distinguish literal from non-literal passages, and whether your non-literal interpretation of some biblical passages keeps you from accepting Christ as your very real saviour from very real sin.
Only if you insist that the Bible is trying to teach us matters of science rather than matters of the spirit. But why would you assume that??? The Bible never makes that claim. And Jesus himself taught very real truths using very non-literal imagery.
Why are you so insistent on the Bible being scientifically correct? Do you subscribe to positivism?
Not really. The basic framework has remained unchanged for quite some time. Sure, the details are still in a state of flux, and they will be for the foreseeable future as we continue to gather fossil and genetic evidence, but that is to be expected, given the tentative nature of science.
I agree. But as I said, evolutionary theory predicts this hierarchy. Special creation does not. You have to devise some ad hoc explanation for this pattern to incorporate it into your non-evolutionary model.
(And I should point out that evolution is not contrary to the doctrine of creation. It is entirely possible to be both evolved and created, just as we are each an individual creation of God, despite having developed in the womb completely naturally.)
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