Unbelievable Unbelief!

Late_Cretaceous said:

Do a quick google search on Gamla camel needle and guess what you find.
Here I already did the work for you. http://www.google.ca/search?q=gamla+camel+rope+aramaic&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=

It seems that, yes indeed, Gamla means both camel and rope. Camels were very common in ancient Judea, quite understandable that whoever translated it into Greek thought "camel" instead of "rope". Besides, this way it is more literal.

Oh and please indicate to me where I said anything about scripture being a lie. I said scripture can be scientifically incorrect, I never said it was a lie.

And also, please either address my questions instead of simply attacking me. You are welcome to attack me and call names if you like, but at least have the courtesy to answer the question.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=gamla+camel+rope+aramaic&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&meta=

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Now that is a confusing statement.

ThePhoenix said:

P.S. What would be the problem with women writing the bible? Obviously the authorship of large parts of it is unknown. It could be a man or a woman writing there (to paraphrase Virginia Woolf: 95% of the time anon. is a woman).

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Some scholars have speculated that the anonymous author of the letter to the Hebrews was Priscilla who, together with her husband, was a well-known teacher in the early church. Since, uncharacteristically, the NT always sets her name before her husband's name, it is thought to be likely that Priscilla did most of the teaching.

You are right of course. Camel, rope, it does not matter. THe message is the same.. It does, however give proof to the idea that there is more then one interpretation of biblical passages (literalism being one type of interpretation). It also demonstrates that those who claim to be biblical literalists are really quite far from it when pressed.

How does belief in a literal Garden of Eden vs a figurative one affect someone's salvation. Answer is it doesn't.

Why is it important for people to accept evolution? Well from a spiritual perspective - it doesn't matter. However, we all need to accept the fact that we live in a technologically sophisticated society and a knowledge of science - to some degree - is necessary. So, from a practical day to day perspective - it is very important that people not reject sound science.

Gander said:

Apart from the usual flat earth, pillars, and windows of heaven you have managed to come up with some new (to me) beauties.

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But you haven't addressed the old ones either. On what basis do you deny that the bible literally describes the sky as a solid structure with window in it to let rain fall?

Women writting the bible? Nero the anti-christ? No demons causing sickness? These along with the usual stuff only prove my point.

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What point? That in spite of your affirmation that the bible is to be interpreted literally, you actually make many exceptions to this principle? On what basis then do you condemn others for doing exactly what you are doing---reading the bible from a non-literal perspective when the literal one is not acceptable to you.

If you compromise your faith on one part of God's word you compromise it on all. That is why T.E's have no spiritual understanding. They have no word foundation because of unbelief.

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I generally find TEs to have a more consistent approach to scripture. Again and again I have seen literalists tie themselves into mental and logical knots trying to defend a non-literal understanding of scripture as literal. (One person's final shot in regard to a metaphorical passage whose metaphor she could no longer deny was "It's literally figurative". That's extreme, but I honestly think many literalists do not even understand the term "literal".)

The main difference between those who believe in creation and those who believe in T.E is not a disagreement over how God created the world.

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There is no such thing as "those who believe in creation" as distinct from "those who believe in TE". Theistic evolutionists do believe in creation. That is why they are theists.

The main difference is creationist have faith in God and His word

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Actually, they don't. They don't have faith in the word of God in creation. They don't have faith in the word of the Holy Spirit. I sometimes wonder if they even have faith in the word made flesh. And when it comes to the written word, they have more faith in a human interpretation of that word, a human interpretation which is utterly fantastic and unreasonable, than they have in the actual scripture.

while T.E's only have faith in their understanding, believing the bible to be as accurate as "Lord of the Rings".

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Wrong again. TEs do recognize that the bible is accurate in many things, and that much "inaccuracy" is merely a matter of the original writers being ignorant of the facts about geology, astronomy, medecine and other sciences. Remember, TEs are Christian, and the bible is for us an authoritative text in what it reveals about God, human nature, our broken relationship with God, our need for redemption and the redemptive power of Christ's sacrifice and resurrection. So it's not modern science. So what? It was never intended to be a science text-book.

No one has yet given a coherent answer to why a God who can create a spiritual body in a twinkling of an eye would not create man as part of creation in 6 days.

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Because God is free to choose whatever means of creation God wishes and the evidence is that God did not choose to create in 6 days. Is that coherent enough for you?

If creation is not the truth why did God allow it to be in His word?le

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Creation is the truth. That is why it is there--in the bible and in the creeds, ancient and modern, of the church. Creation in 6 days is a poetic framework for describing the process of creation to people not yet scientifically knowledgeable enough to comprehend what science has discovered about the means of creation.

Are you telling me that God is not powerful enough to stop error being written as part of his word, in His Name?

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Are you telling us that God is forbidden to speak poetically? Or that speaking metaphorically is equivalent to lying?

Mis-interpretation of science and the limits of our tiny brains do not cut it as valid excuses.

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Matter of opinion.

You can not pick and choose what you believe in the bible. Its either God's word and you have faith in it or you compromise and wallow blindly in unbelief.

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Agreed. But if you insist that it is to be intepreted literally, then you can't pick and choose what to interpret literally, while giving yourself licence to ignore the principle of literal interpretation when it becomes personally inconvenient----which takes us back to those foundations on which the earth sits immobile under a solid heaven.

Well, you have not addressed any of my other challenges.
What exactly is your interpretation of the Earth being "fixed in place" and "resting on pillars"? Is science wrong on this account too?

BTW, well said Gluadys

Gander said:

I do not think that T.Es realise that when they compromise their faith over creation, they compromise their faith over the whole of God's word.

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Gander, who created? God, wasn't it? Then why do you say TEs compromise their faith over creation? Where is the compromise of faith? God created by evolution. The only "compromise" can occur if you worship the Bible as a god. But that is way past compromise and into idolatry. TEs simply avoid idolatry.

Let me give you an example.

T.Es generally do not believe that God could create Adam in a single day.

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Incorrect. Why do you bear false witness against TE position when we have repeatedly told you what it is? Yes, God could have created Adam in a single day. However, God did not do it that way. God's choice. God created not by either creation story, but rather by evolution.

They generally believe that the creation story is symbolic of an evolutionary event regardless of scientific evidence. My question to them is how did Adam evolve a spirit?

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1. No, we don't believe the creation stories are symbolic of an evolutionary event. It is creationists who believe they are literal regardless of the scientific evidence against them. Also regardless of the Biblical evidence against a literal reading. The creation stories are theology and were never meant and do not symbolize evolution.
2. People (Adam is not literal but allegorical) did not evolve souls. Souls are a gift from God. Good grief, even Darwin said this!
"He who believes in the advancement of man from some low organised form, will naturally ask how does this bear on the belief in the immortality of the soul. The barbarous races of man, as Sir J. Lubbock has shewn, possess no clear belief of this kind; but arguments derived from the primeval beliefs of savages are, as we have just seen, of little or no avail. Few persons feel any anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what precise period in the development of the individual, from the first trace of a minute germinal vesicle, man becomes an immortal being; and there is no greater cause for anxiety because the period cannot possibly be determined in the gradually ascending organic scale." http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-descent-of-man/chapter-21.html The Descent of Man

Man is a spirit that possesses a mind and lives in a body. If you deny that God is the true creator of the body how can you have faith that He created the spirit man.

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God is the true creator of the body. God created the body by evolution.

However, the idea of mind/body duality has been out of Christianity for a couple of hundred years.

Then of course you have 1 Cor 15 where we are told that at the resurrection we will be transformed into a new spiritual body in the twinkling of an eye. This must be a major problem for T.Es because they are unable to believe God created the body we have in a day let alone a spiritual body in the twinkling of an eye.

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Remember, Gander, it's not that God could not do it, but that God did not do it. Those are two very different things. But it's a lot easier knocking down strawmen than facing the real thing, isn't it?

Gander said:

This is even more unbelievable. God could have created the world in 6 days, but he did'nt; He waited for it to accidently happen then claimed the glory for it in his holy word? C'mon, don't make me laugh.

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You should be laughing at the funny strawmen you are making. We never said God did not create the world, but that He didn't do it in 6 days!

The evidence does not show that. What you mean is that you believe an interpretation of the evidence that contradicts what God says in His word.
Evolutionists have no real evidence. They have theories. Theories based in humanistic belief.

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Gander, at least half the evolutionary biologists in history have been Christians. Even Darwin, when he wrote Origin of the Species, was Christian. Theories are always tested against evidence. This is what happened to YEC in the period 1790-1831. And it was Christians, many of them ministers, that showed that a literal reading of Genesis 1-3 was wrong. The earth was not young. There was no world-wide Flood that could explain geology. Even before Darwin, the idea that each species was created separately was in trouble. Deep theological trouble as well as scientific trouble.

Now, if you want to go over the evidence/data for evolution, we'll be happy to do that. Let's start out with observed speciation, shall we? New species arising from old either in the lab or in the wild. Then we can to to retroviral insertions and work our way to series of fossil transitional series of individuals showing how one kind transformed to another.

When you say "contradicts what God says in His word", what you mean is "contradicts my literal interpretation of the Bible". A fallible interpretation made by fallible humans. Or worse, you have set up that interpretation to be worshipped as infallible and as a god.

Evolution is anti-christ.

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"The scientific evidence in favour of evolution, as a theory is infinitely more Christian than the theory of 'special creation'. For it implies the immanence of God in nature, and the omnipresence of His creative power. Those who oppose the doctrine of evolution in defence of a 'continued intervention' of God, seem to have failed to notice that a theory of occasional intervention implies as its correlative a theory of ordinary absence." AL Moore, Science and Faith, 1889, pg 184.
"The one absolutely impossible conception of God, in the present day, is that which represents him as an occasional visitor. Science has pushed the deist's God further and further away, and at the moment when it seemed as if He would be thrust out all together, Darwinism appeared, and, under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend. ... Either God is everywhere present in nature, or He is nowhere." AL Moore, Lex Mundi, 12th edition, 1891, pg 73.
"The last few years have witnessed the gradual acceptance by Christians of the great scientific generalisation of our age, which is briefly if somewhat vaguely described as the Theory of Evolution. ... It is an advance in our theological thinking; a definite increase of insight; a fresher and fuller appreciation of those 'many ways' in which 'God fulfills Himself'. JR Ilingsworth, Lex Mundi, 12th edition,

"II. Affirmations
1) We testify to our belief that the historic Christian doctrine of the Creator God does not depend upon any particular account of the origins of life for its truth and validity. The effort of the creationists to change the book of Genesis into a scientific treatise dangerously obscures what we believe to be the theological purpose of Genesis, viz., to witness to the creation, meaning, and significance of the universe and of human existence under the governance of God. The assumption that the Bible contains scientific data about origins misreads a literature which emerged in a pre-scientific age.
2) We acknowledge modern evolutionary theory as the best present-day scientific explanation of the existence of life on earth; such a conviction is in no way at odds with our belief in a Creator God, or in the revelation and presence of that God in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. " UNITED CHURCH BOARD FOR HOMELAND MINISTRIES: Creationism, the Church, and the Public School, 1992

"Resolved, the House of Bishops concurring, That this 67th General Convention affirm its belief in the glorious ability of God to create in any manner, and in this affirmation reject the rigid dogmatism of the "Creationist" movement," 67th General Convention of the Episcopal Church, 1982.

"If the world is not God's, the most eloquent or belligerent arguments will not make it so. If it is God's world, and this is the first declaration of our creed, then faith has no fear of anything the world itself reveals to the searching eye of science.

Insistence upon dated and partially contradictory statements of how as conditions for true belief in the why of creation cannot qualify either as faithful religion or as intelligent science. Neither evolution over an immensity of time nor the work done in a six-day week are articles of the creeds. It is a symptom of fearful and unsound religion to contend with one another as if they were. Historic creedal Christianity joyfully insists on God as sovereign and frees the human spirit to trust and seek that sovereignty in a world full of surprises." EPISCOPAL BISHOP OF ATLANTA, PASTORAL LETTER, The Rt. Rev. Bennett J. Sims, Episcopal Bishop of Atlanta A Pastoral Statement on Creation and Evolution

"As religious leaders we share a deep faith in the God who created heaven and earth and all that is in them, and take with utmost seriousness the Biblical witness to this God who is our Creator. However, we find no incompatibility between the God of creation and a theory of evolution which uses universally verifiable data to explain the probable process by which life developed into its present form. " LEXINGTON ALLIANCE OF RELIGIOUS LEADERS

I have many more. It appears that you, Gander, our out of touch with Christianity. We hope you can come back to the fold. But I fear that you, in your pride, will continue to cut yourself off from God and continue to ignore Him as He speaks in His Creation. Too bad.

Gander said:

This is evidence of why no women wrote the bible. It would be twice as long!

Seriously though, I have noticed that as soon as you challenge a T.E their standard argument is that you (me in this case) are a literalist. Then as I have indicated before they trot out the same feeble arguments about windows, pillars, doors, and a flat earth.

Why do they do this? Because they do not know what a literalist really is, but they go ahead and set the rules for literalists anyway.
The first rule they set is that no literalist can acknowledge the bible uses symbolic, figurative, representative, or poetic language.
Why not? Because if any lieralist were to acknowedge this, T.E's see it as a vindication of their right to change fundamental truths in God's word, while declaring His word to be a defective work of man.

Well lets break rule one. The bible is the literal 100% truth, and yes it uses symbolic language in places. The form of language used communicate the truth.

What I see T.E's doing is change the truth to suit their understanding. It is a fundamental truth that God created the world in 6 days. It is a fundamental truth that God created Adam and Eve as the first man and woman. You can not justify denying that just because some of the language used in the bible is symbolic.

How do you tell the difference? Most of the time it is common sense.

For example. The bible does not claim there are actual windows in solid sky. The word used for windows in Genesis actually means "sluice" in this context. Or water way. The expression "the heavens opened" is still used today following a downpour. That does not mean the person using the expression believes there are little windows in the sky. Neither did the people who were used by God to write the bible.
In Job, the earliest book written, chapter 26:8 the writer shows he knows rain comes from clouds.

C'mon, use some God given sense.

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Brilliant! Some folks have this ability to put things out so clearly. I envy that, Gander!

I think that there is an issue of faith that is totally disregarded in the Genesis account with TE. We are told what happened and the implication of how it happened is not explainable or understandable without faith. Thus, we have TE, our very own scientific classification and explanation of God.

Gander said:

This is evidence of why no women wrote the bible. It would be twice as long!

Seriously though, I have noticed that as soon as you challenge a T.E their standard argument is that you (me in this case) are a literalist. Then as I have indicated before they trot out the same feeble arguments about windows, pillars, doors, and a flat earth.

Why do they do this? Because they do not know what a literalist really is, but they go ahead and set the rules for literalists anyway.
The first rule they set is that no literalist can acknowledge the bible uses symbolic, figurative, representative, or poetic language.
Why not? Because if any lieralist were to acknowedge this, T.E's see it as a vindication of their right to change fundamental truths in God's word, while declaring His word to be a defective work of man.

Well lets break rule one. The bible is the literal 100% truth, and yes it uses symbolic language in places. The form of language used communicate the truth.

What I see T.E's doing is change the truth to suit their understanding. It is a fundamental truth that God created the world in 6 days. It is a fundamental truth that God created Adam and Eve as the first man and woman. You can not justify denying that just because some of the language used in the bible is symbolic.

How do you tell the difference? Most of the time it is common sense.

For example. The bible does not claim there are actual windows in solid sky. The word used for windows in Genesis actually means "sluice" in this context. Or water way. The expression "the heavens opened" is still used today following a downpour. That does not mean the person using the expression believes there are little windows in the sky. Neither did the people who were used by God to write the bible.
In Job, the earliest book written, chapter 26:8 the writer shows he knows rain comes from clouds.

C'mon, use some God given sense.

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Then how do you explain the poetic structure of Genesis? The repetition indicates strongly that it was meant to be read or chanted, like a poem. The contradiction (Genesis 1 contradicts Genesis 2) and symbolism used in the passage suggest strongly that it was a poetic piece, and therefore symbolic of a deeper meaning. It is not a fundimental truth that God created the world in six days. If Adam was the first man, why was he named "Man?" (the literal translation of Adam) It would be a lot like naming your dog "dog." So why would anyone (much less God) choose such a demeaning name?

Gander said:

This is evidence of why no women wrote the bible. It would be twice as long!

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Maybe women take communication more seriously.

Why do they do this? Because they do not know what a literalist really is, but they go ahead and set the rules for literalists anyway.

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Actually, I think literalists don't understand what literalism is.

The first rule they set is that no literalist can acknowledge the bible uses symbolic, figurative, representative, or poetic language.

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No, that is not a rule. We are quite familiar with literalists' acceptance that some language in the bible is not literal. The problem lies with literalists having no clear principle for distinguishing literal from symbolic or analogical or poetic language or genres.

Why do we focus on "windows, pillars, doors, and a flat earth"? Because it is clear from the text (and confirmed from contemporary non-biblical sources) that the original authors did not consider these to be poetic or symbolic terms.

By contrast when a psalmist speaks of hills leaping and mountains clapping their hands, or when the lover of the Song of Songs compares his beloved's teeth to a flock of freshly washed sheep, and her breasts to twin deer, it is clear that the ancient writer is speaking metaphorically.

No one will dispute your claim to be a literalist when you interpret intentionally symbolic or poetic language according to the author's intention.

But how do you justify interpreting as metaphor language which the author originally intended to be literal?

And if it is permissible to interpret metaphorically what was originally considered to be literal, how does one decide where the limits are?

Why is it ok to transform a flat earth into a sphere, a fixed earth into a mobile earth, a solid heaven into interstellar space, but not ok to transform 6 days into 13 billion years?

What I am asking for is some consistency among literalists in the application of their principles.

For example. The bible does not claim there are actual windows in solid sky.

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Reference?

The word used for windows in Genesis actually means "sluice" in this context.
Or water way.

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What difference does this make? These are still physical structures for conveying water from one place to another.

The expression "the heavens opened" is still used today following a downpour. That does not mean the person using the expression believes there are little windows in the sky.

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But why don't we believe this? Our ancestors did. Is not the only reason we consider the phrase metaphorical instead of literal, the scientific knowledge which falsified ancient cosmology?

If advancing scientific knowledge is the basis for falsifying windows/sluices/waterways in heaven, why is it not an acceptable basis for falsifying a 6-day creation and a global flood?

Neither did the people who were used by God to write the bible.

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Unsupported assertion.

In Job, the earliest book written, chapter 26:8 the writer shows he knows rain comes from clouds.

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Job is far from being the earliest book written. The biblical text is post-exilic, probably 5th century BCE.

It is true that the biblical story of Job derives from much earlier sources. A comparable story is found in Sumerian literature and Job is a proverbial figure in ancient Mesopotamian culture generally.

The relationship is similar to that of Goethe's Faust to earlier medieval Faustbuchs and Marlowe's Dr. Faustus. The story is much older than Goethe, but that doesn't make Goethe's story old. Nor does it make it the same story, using the same words and concepts.

And, of course, rainclouds are not incompatible with sky-windows anyway. Where did the clouds come from if not through the windows of heaven?

Finally, let's also note that literalists frequently intepret literally even what the original author intended to be symbolic. Case in point: John's visions in Revelation, which he clearly identifies as a vision and in which he clearly uses a richly symbolic language.

Again, what principle of interpretation permits you to interpret a passage differently from the intent of the author?

One thing that often amuses me about biblical literalists is how they will twist scripture to fit thier interpretations.

Examples of this are literalists who claim that rapid and dramatic continental drift and mountain bulding occured after the flood, or that an ice age occured after the flood, or even (get this) that hyper-fast speciation within "kinds" occured after the flood. I have even encountered literalists who insist that God did such things as magically transport llamas to South america and marsupials to Austalia. Marine fossils on mountain tops are apparently also a result of the flood.

Yes NONE of these things are supported by scripture, unless one really does some creative interpretation of a few passages.

Come on, Maimonides back in 12th century was questioning if Genesis should be taken literally, based on inherint contradictions in the text. Even taken without any outside interference Genesis is inherintly contradictory.

And I'm still looking for a reason why it's so unbelievable that there might have been women writing the bible.