When is it time to abandon a sinking ship? (YEC?)

[shernren]

What TE is not giving me is any acknowledgement of TE's inconcistency on important issues in the Bible or in science. Believe what you want about what God expects in terms of how you view reality. But, lets be clear about the inconsistency in claiming to "take scripture seriously" while chucking some measure of plain meaning.

So if we don't subscribe to your interpretation a.k.a. "the plain meaning" of the Bible we aren't taking it seriously? Sweet.

I personally think that I take the Bible very seriously - so seriously that I bring any possible truth that I possibly have, whether philosophical, scientific, or theological, to bear on its interpretation. The more light I can shine on Scripture, from any angle and any source, the better. That is how I measure my seriousness about the Bible - not how much I happen to agree with you.

 

[vossler]

I think it's time to abandon this sinking thread.

 

[theFijian]

I gladly accept being called silly when I believe and follow God. Again, the wold acuses Christians all the time. You have just allied yourself with the world!

There is of course a huge difference between persecuted for your faith and being laughed at for being stupid. I know a lot of Creationists like to pull the persecution complex thing to justify their erroneous theology, but frankly it's an insult to those christians in places like China and Sudan who are truly being persecuted for their faith.

 

[hithesh]

I think it's time to abandon this sinking thread.

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

and everything else revolves around this.

Allow me to explain, if I was telling my Children the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, I would not be doing so that they could wonder about the pattern of the Hare's fur. The moral, is what I want them to understand.

The Word of God is similar, in that God wants us to understand that, "we should love our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves". For the children of the world that focus on the pattern of the fur, are as those whose eyes do not see.

I'll continue waiting for a reply, from even one of you.

 

[keyarch]

But pop, there is no evidence left in the world pointing to a global flood. In fact all the evidence that is here on Earth directly contradicts the entire event.

I really feel sorry for you. Or maybe you should feel sorry for me. Because I take Genesis literally, and if you take the creation account and the Global flood away from me, you will be taking my faith in the Word; for it is faith in the Word that brought me to Christ.

I'm surmising that the (TE) motivation is to give people trained in the sciences (or otherwise inclined) an alternative worldview that allows them to fit faith in Christ in there somewhere; but the danger of loosing people goes both directions.

I am not bothered by shear numbers of those who accept the secular science of the day as fact, and I am not willing to reduce the plain meaning of scripture to allegory when it's clearly not intended that way in Genesis.

Matthew 7:13-15 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Scripture is very powerful, and it all ties together. Please, as Christians, don't try to delude it to just something spiritual. If there are discussion about the meanings or intent fine, but to let your understanding about the "evidence" or lack of it for such things a global flood be the rule for scriptural understanding is not something I believe Jesus would do. In other words, if you are Christians, you should be asking yourselves what would Jesus do or say about this. Frankly, I think he would go into the universities and turn over some tables and give a lecture of his own.

 

[busterdog]

So if we don't subscribe to your interpretation a.k.a. "the plain meaning" of the Bible we aren't taking it seriously? Sweet.

No. Just read what I said.

 

[Servant222]

We should also note that those early Greek astronomers wrote no part of the Bible and apparently had zero influence on those who did. So it is no wonder Church leaders found geocentric models more compatible with scripture.

And don't forget that the geocentric model was the ONLY theory around when Jesus and his disciples were present in the holyland.

Despite the fact that Jesus and his disciplies were able to exercise their right of free speech and debate anything they wanted to, there is no indication in the Bible whatsoever that they ever questioned the validity of a geocentric model for the Universe.

Surely they would have questioned this fundamental belief if they knew it to be wrong.

The point again is that us puny little human beings, who so often seem to think we know it all, have been dead wrong before in our intrepretation of the Bible.

When people take an absolutely rigid position on what is really an issue of intrepretation, and are then proved wrong, there is a real danger that they will abandon not only their rigidly held belief, but also their faith. My guess is that there were all sorts of religious leaders after Copernicus who became disillusioned and abandoned their faith, or quietly faded away and were not longer effective in bringing others to a knowledge of Christ.

This is the real danger in debates like this when someone takes an uncompromising, rigid position- if they are proven wrong, they drop out and abandon everything, including their faith, often taking a bunch of other disillusioned believers with them.

I think this is why in Acts 1:7, Jesus' advice is to be cautious in some of these mattters:

6So when they met together, they asked him, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"

7He said to them: "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

 

[busterdog]

"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself."

and everything else revolves around this.

Allow me to explain, if I was telling my Children the story of the Tortoise and the Hare, I would not be doing so that they could wonder about the pattern of the Hare's fur. The moral, is what I want them to understand.

The Word of God is similar, in that God wants us to understand that, "we should love our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and that we should love our neighbor as ourselves". For the children of the world that focus on the pattern of the fur, are as those whose eyes do not see.

I'll continue waiting for a reply, from even one of you.

This is a commandment for us. Its not "everything."

Whether God had and will have a paradise without death is about His love and His promise in His Word., not His commandments to us.

I would add that loving God should at least suggest a careful pause over things He says that you don't like.

 

[Jase]

I really feel sorry for you. Or maybe you should feel sorry for me. Because I take Genesis literally, and if you take the creation account and the Global flood away from me, you will be taking my faith in the Word; for it is faith in the Word that brought me to Christ.

Well, Jesus is supposedly the Word according to the Bible, not Genesis, so perhaps you missed the whole point of who Jesus is if all your faith is dependent on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

I'm surmising that the (TE) motivation is to give people trained in the sciences (or otherwise inclined) an alternative worldview that allows them to fit faith in Christ in there somewhere; but the danger of loosing people goes both directions.

The Creation/Evo issue is perhaps one of the least reasons people leave Christianity. We don't need to blame a poor interpretation of Genesis on people leaving Christianity, there are plenty of other reasons people leave from lack of evidence, evil, unanswered prayer, Biblical contradiction etc. As someone dealing with a crisis of faith myself, I have plenty of reasons for having doubts with no bearing on my scientific inclinations.

I am not bothered by shear numbers of those who accept the secular science of the day as fact, and I am not willing to reduce the plain meaning of scripture to allegory when it's clearly not intended that way in Genesis.

How do you know it is clearly not intended to be that way? According to most Jews, it's not intended to be literal. And the problem with this view is you don't even take all of Genesis literally. You pick and choose which parts are literal. Do you believe there is a solid dome covering the Earth whereby the stars are sitting? Do you believe the Earth is flat? These types of things were held literal by people until science proved them wrong. If you aren't going to be consistent about them, don't criticize us for not taking the global flood or 6,000 year old Earth concepts literally either. The truth is, no one takes the entire Bible literally - Evolutionists are just quite a few steps ahead of creationists on which parts they don't take literally.

Scripture is very powerful, and it all ties together. Please, as Christians, don't try to delude it to just something spiritual. If there are discussion about the meanings or intent fine, but to let your understanding about the "evidence" or lack of it for such things a global flood be the rule for scriptural understanding is not something I believe Jesus would do. In other words, if you are Christians, you should be asking yourselves what would Jesus do or say about this. Frankly, I think he would go into the universities and turn over some tables and give a lecture of his own.

I guess we have different views then. I think Jesus would be more inclined to help the billions of poor and hungry people in the 3rd world before flipping tables over in universities of people studying God's creation as it exists today. World hunger seems more of an important issue to me than who is right about Genesis.

 

[Servant222]

I really feel sorry for you. Or maybe you should feel sorry for me. Because I take Genesis literally, and if you take the creation account and the Global flood away from me, you will be taking my faith in the Word; for it is faith in the Word that brought me to Christ.

So every religious leader and scholar that existed between about the 2nd century BC to about the 17th century might have done the same and said something like this:

Because I take the Bible literally, and if you take the idea of an earth-centered universe away, you will be taking my faith in the Word; for it is faith in the Word that brought me to Christ.

Better to accept the fact that us puny little human beings will never understand some of these things- that we are like a pet that looks up at a computer screen and will never, ever in a million years be able to figure out how the image got there.

Is it not satan who is trying to bring up these issues that are really not that important to our salvation, but that might cause you to question the fundamentals of your faith?

So I implore you and others not to let issues like this distract you from your faith. I am convinced that when the truth is known, there will be no conflict between science and God; science will have figured it out, and we will have the correct interpretation, and that interpretation will be consistent with the Biblical account.

Right now, though, accept the fact that we are still in the learning stage, and are still trying to figure out what the Bible says about some of these matters.

 

[hithesh]

you should be asking yourselves what would Jesus do.

I know exactly what he would do. He'd build a million dollar museum, showing men and dinosaurs holding hands. He would revise the parable of the seeds, to cater to the pre-tribulation rapture kids, because the ideas of wheat and the weeds growing together to the end of time, does not work for them.

Oh, yea he would also promote miracle water for twenty dollars, and Pat Robertson's Energy drink, and he would also use tithes to buy a private jet, and build a multimillion dollar mansion, and than tell everyone else to tend to the poor.

The fact is that the fruits of the YECs speak for themselves. You would be hard pressed to find even one supposed "faith healer" stealing money from his congregation, and every other supposed minister of God who has cheated his congregation, and made of mockery out of the house of God, that does not promote a YEC way of thinking.

Coincidence? Hardly.

Gullibility and dubious reasoning go hand in hand.

TE did not lead most of us to see Genesis creation, as allegorical. Genesis creation was seen as allegorical even by first century Christians such as Philo of Alexandria, and Augustine. Anytime I see YECs abuse Genesis, I feel disgusted, because the seem to always miss the "point". They turn the will of God, into trite hodgepodge.

 

[hithesh]

This is a commandment for us. Its not "everything."

It's not "just" a commandment for us!

Does Jesus say it's "just" a commandment???

The word of God revolves around these two commandments,
and they are not to be separated. Any reflection on the word of God, must be understood by this, or you are as a blind man

Whether God had and will have a paradise without death is about His love and His promise in His Word., not His commandments to us.

The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher. You are right in saying, 'He is One and there is no other than he.'

And 'to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself' is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."

And when Jesus saw that (he) answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."

Eternal life, is granted to those who understand and follow these commandments. Eternal life is not granted to those who see allegory, or literalism, it is granted to those who find relevance, and walk in the Light of God's commandment. Learn what this means.

I would add that loving God should at least suggest a careful pause over things He says that you don't like.

I don't like it????

I only seek to follow in the light that is opposed to my own flesh.

If the word of God tells me to turn the other cheek, and resist not evil, then I do not lift a sword against my neighbor, even if my flesh desires to do so.

If the word of God tells us, "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God", I don't place the accumulation of man's wealth as priority in life.

"Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members?

You covet but do not possess. You kill and envy but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You do not possess because you do not ask.

You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend
Adulterers!

Do you not know that to be a lover of the world means enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a lover of the world makes himself an enemy of God."

If the Word of God says that "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction" and if the word of God says that the wheat and the weeds grow together till the end of time, I do not invent a doctrine, to please my flesh which fears "tribulation", with doctrines of selfishness such as "pre-tribulation" rapture, that leaves the orphan and the widow behind.

It is the falling away of my brothers from the Light, and the will of God, that leads them to this, and leads me to even engage in such debates. I see a church that is dead, whose light has long been put out, and search for the source of this, and here i find you.

I don't seek a word of God that coddles me, figure out who does.

 

[crawfish]

Scripture is very powerful, and it all ties together. Please, as Christians, don't try to delude it to just something spiritual.

Here is my biggest problem with your statement. Are you seriously downgrading the importance of the spirituality of scripture? Do you seriously think that using the Bible as a science or history textbook makes it more important than using it as inspired insight into the nature and purpose of God?

If looking at the scripture in any other way challenges your faith, then you should leave this forum and all theological discussion altogether. If cutting off a hand or foot if it causes you to sin is valid, then abandoning this type of thought shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice.

 

[KTatis]

Here is my biggest problem with your statement. Are you seriously downgrading the importance of the spirituality of scripture? Do you seriously think that using the Bible as a science or history textbook makes it more important than using it as inspired insight into the nature and purpose of God?

If looking at the scripture in any other way challenges your faith, then you should leave this forum and all theological discussion altogether. If cutting off a hand or foot if it causes you to sin is valid, then abandoning this type of thought shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice.

You make a very good point.

 

[gluadys]

By "they" I meant those Paul was talking about in Romans 1.

Paul mentions several groups of people in Romans 1: Jews, Gentiles, saints, Greeks, barbarians, the wise, the foolish, the wicked. I expect that one or more of these descriptions could apply to each and every geologist.

That's the way it was intended to be done.

Sometimes. And sometimes it is adding to scripture what was not intended, even as prediction. Sometimes it is a gross distortion of the text.

Are you insinuating that human interpretation and the meaning of the text as written cannot coincide?

By no means. You might inform your fellow creationists that human interpretation is not always to be distrusted. They often state otherwise.

If human interpretation of scripture can be true to the meaning of scripture, does it not also follow that human interpretation of nature can be true to the reality of nature?

I take it this is techno-babble for, "I don't know"? Or is there an answer to my question embedded in there somewhere?

It's basically a "We don't know". Some Christians have been eager to identify the moment of creation ex nihilo with the Big Bang. And they may be right.

But science cannot actually determine that they are right because of the event horizon that prevents actually observing the initial stage of the Big Bang, must less anything of the causal conditions or anything concerning the environment/matrix, whatever in which the universe is embedded (if it is embedded in anything at all).

So, "We don't know" is the only scientifically correct answer. We can only speculate and/or believe.

That is correct.

OK. No belly-button on an Adam who never experienced a womb. No annual rings in trees that have never experienced a year of growth. So far, so good.

Now, how about no evidence of long-term radioactive decay in newly-created minerals?

 

[keyarch]

Here is my biggest problem with your statement. Are you seriously downgrading the importance of the spirituality of scripture? Do you seriously think that using the Bible as a science or history textbook makes it more important than using it as inspired insight into the nature and purpose of God?

If looking at the scripture in any other way challenges your faith, then you should leave this forum and all theological discussion altogether. If cutting off a hand or foot if it causes you to sin is valid, then abandoning this type of thought shouldn't be too much of a sacrifice.

Here's an idea: Why don't you come up with a new translation for the Bible and call it the TEV (Theistic Evolution Version) or the ISV (Inspired Insight Version). In it, you could in some way define for the readers which statements, chapters or books should be taken whatever way fits with your worldview. At least that way we could have some reference point of exactly what you believe and what you take seriously.

 

[crawfish]

Here's an idea: Why don't you come up with a new translation for the Bible and call it the TEV (Theistic Evolution Version) or the ISV (Inspired Insight Version). In it, you could in some way define for the readers which statements, chapters or books should be taken whatever way fits with your worldview. At least that way we could have some reference point of exactly what you believe and what you take seriously.

Or: why don't we stop trying to read our beliefs into the Bible, and rather let God's creation allow us to gain more insight into His wisdom. The problem with creationism, especially YEC, is that you're trying to trap the Bible into your own limited understanding. You're uncomfortable with a God that might be beyond you, and as a result you miss out on the full wonders of God's creation.

I take the entire Bible seriously. It is the fully inspired Word of God. I believe that it says exactly what God wants it to say. I believe the lessons taught are as valid today as they were when it was written; but I also believe that much of it was written from oral tradition and parables, either lightly based in reality or not at all, but it's the MEANING of the stories that God holds as important to our lives.

The problem with being a Bible literalist is that it is inevitable that you'll find things that just conflict too much to be true. When you rationalize every conflict, the rationalizations tend to conflict with each other.

To a TE God is larger and more wondrous than any Creationist can imagine, because we see His creation as incredibly complex and uncomprehendingly huge.

 

[keyarch]

Or: why don't we stop trying to read our beliefs into the Bible, and rather let God's creation allow us to gain more insight into His wisdom. The problem with creationism, especially YEC, is that you're trying to trap the Bible into your own limited understanding. You're uncomfortable with a God that might be beyond you, and as a result you miss out on the full wonders of God's creation.

I take the entire Bible seriously. It is the fully inspired Word of God. I believe that it says exactly what God wants it to say. I believe the lessons taught are as valid today as they were when it was written; but I also believe that much of it was written from oral tradition and parables, either lightly based in reality or not at all, but it's the MEANING of the stories that God holds as important to our lives.

The problem with being a Bible literalist is that it is inevitable that you'll find things that just conflict too much to be true. When you rationalize every conflict, the rationalizations tend to conflict with each other.

To a TE God is larger and more wondrous than any Creationist can imagine, because we see His creation as incredibly complex and uncomprehendingly huge.

When we are studying God's Word that He has provided to us, you say "creation allow us to gain more insight into His wisdom". Who's insight of the creation are we supposed to go by?

I see your version of "creation" as "anoretic", the same letters, but switched around and causing a loss of appetite for the Word.

Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

 

[laptoppop]

To a TE God is larger and more wondrous than any Creationist can imagine, because we see His creation as incredibly complex and uncomprehendingly huge.

Oh, please -- let's not get into a "who's God is bigger" contest. Any TE's gonna stand up to correct this?

 

[Servant222]

To a TE God is larger and more wondrous than any Creationist can imagine, because we see His creation as incredibly complex and uncomprehendingly huge.

I find that the more I discover about the world through my science, the more I marvel at how great our God really is!