Why Acceptance of the Genesis Account is Extremely Important For Christians

BobRyan · Sep 2, 2016

expos4ever said:
Perhaps there is no survey, but I believe it is clear that it is only in the USA that a sizeable fraction of Christians take the Genesis account as literal. So I am quite confident that, worldwide at least, the majority of Christians do indeed take the account as myth.

Do you mean "majority of Christians world wide"?? as compared to Christians in the U.S.?

or do you mean "Majority of Christians in the EU and Australia -- vs Christians in the U.S.??"

If the former - what is your source?

And in either case -- in Acts 2 -- "Pentecost" were the majority of Jews Christians? Did that prove that the sect of Judaism that was Christian in Acts 2 -- was "wrong"???

BobRyan · Sep 2, 2016

Radrook said:
An amoeba into a prancing horse? But will it be able to neigh?

that is funny! - and even worse for the evolutionist - we have "observations in nature" of 50,000 generations "not evolving" from prokaryote bacteria to eukaryote amoeba in all that time! That is equivalent to having 2 million years of "human evolution" as "observation in nature" only to find that humans do not evolve, observed experimental fact sans all the story telling. The more "fact" we have the less the stories of evolutionism survive it.

ViaCrucis · Sep 2, 2016

BobRyan said:
that is funny!

Agreed, watching people who don't have an ounce of understanding about what it is they are attacking is on the humorous side.

If anyone were to observe an amoeba becoming a horse it would disprove the theory of evolution immediately. But don't let facts get in the way of your agenda.

By all means, carry on, ignore St. Augustine's sage advice on these matters,

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.'" - De Genesi ad Litteram, Book I, Ch. 19

-CryptoLutheran

Radrook · Sep 3, 2016

ViaCrucis said:
Agreed, watching people who don't have an ounce of understanding about what it is they are attacking is on the humorous side.

If anyone were to observe an amoeba becoming a horse it would disprove the theory of evolution immediately. But don't let facts get in the way of your agenda.

By all means, carry on, ignore St. Augustine's sage advice on these matters,

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.'" - De Genesi ad Litteram, Book I, Ch. 19

-CryptoLutheran

It was meant as a joke and not as an official representation of my knowledge concerning how the evolutionistic idea is officially explained.

BTW
I find your vehement almost fanatical defense of this evolution idea which surfaced almost two thousand years after Christ died and approx. 4000 years after Genesis was written weird for one claiming to be a Christian.

Why? Well, because for a Christian to believe it demands that he also believe that Christ believed it and there is absolutely no indication that either Christ nor his Apostles ever did.

So it's really irrelevant for those who take Genesis at face value be familiar with the fine nuances of your evolution idea because that would not in any way change our view that neither Moses nor Jesus nor his 1st century disciples nor the majority of Christians who came after during most of human history ever believed or even imagined such an absurdity.

Radrook · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
that is funny! - and even worse for the evolutionist - we have "observations in nature" of 50,000 generations "not evolving" from prokaryote bacteria to eukaryote amoeba in all that time! That is equivalent to having 2 million years of "human evolution" as "observation in nature" only to find that humans do not evolve, observed experimental fact sans all the story telling. The more "fact" we have the less the stories of evolutionism survive it.

Sadder still is the blind belief in abiogenesis which has never been observed in nature and can't be forced to happen in a laboratory under extremely controlled and finely manipulated conditions. Yet, despite all this lack of evidence, they nonchalantly proceed to include it in their calculations of probability of life existing somewhere besides the Earth. Now THAT is definitely an example of totally blind faith if there ever was one. Of course the unwary and trusting youngsters who are routinely exposed to these asinine statements mindlessly assume that they must be based on something much more substantial than mere wishful thinking and so they join in the Alfred E. Newman chorus about this Mother Hen/ Father Rooster idea in order to feel themselves intellectually blessed. However, when pressed for a detailed answer about just how this billion happy accidents, pop goes the statistical weasel phenomenon occurred, all they can do is feebly muster an Alfred E. Newman grin since they simply haven't the slightest idea but are taking the whole Mickey the Mouse and Donald the Duck idea on totally blind faith in those whom they consider their intellectual superiors and mentors..

BobRyan · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
that is funny! - and even worse for the evolutionist

- we have "observations in nature" of 50,000 generations "not evolving" from prokaryote bacteria to eukaryote amoeba in all that time! That is equivalent to having 2 million years of "human evolution" as "observation in nature" only to find that humans do not evolve, observed experimental fact sans all the story telling.

The more "fact" we have the less the stories of evolutionism survive it.

ViaCrucis said:
Agreed, watching people who don't have an ounce of understanding about what it is they are attacking is on the humorous side.

Now SEE!? We don't have to differ on everything! It is great to find agreement.

ViaCrucis said:
If anyone were to observe an amoeba becoming a horse it would disprove the theory of evolution immediately.

ahhh. obfuscation and misdirection added in?

Were we simply 'not supposed to notice' that failure over 50,000 generations of observations in nature cannot even be found to get the prokaryote to become eukaryote amoeba much less the prokaryote to become horse - is proven failure?

If you have some text book saying that in 50,000 generations humans could not have evolved at all just remain human or whatever is imagined to be the state 50,000 generations ago... remaining as is ... then you have an "imagined textbook" and we all know it.

How is it we were simply "not supposed to notice"???

who would fall for that?

BobRyan · Sep 3, 2016

By all means dear T.E. carry on - ignore the details in the Bible and the "observations in nature" telling us that 50,000 generations -- observed yields NO macro EVOLUTION not even from prokaryote to eukaryote

ViaCrucis said:
By all means, carry on, ignore St. Augustine's sage advice on these matters,

"Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of the faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learnt from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although 'they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertion.'" - De Genesi ad Litteram, Book I, Ch. 19

-CryptoLutheran

Here then is the problem that our T.E.'s have -- they must ignore BOTH the Bible AND observations in nature and atheists like Darwin, Dawkins, Provine, Meyers see them doing it - and mock them.

How sad.

BobRyan · Sep 3, 2016

Hieronymus said:
No, those are wrong because
- they are naturalistic models i.e. God didn't do a thing, it's all just natural processes (and that's why they need a LOT of time).
- the naturalistic models have huge gaps and don't explain what we see today.
- the evidence for it is ambiguous
- naturalism is a belief.

that is true. it is the "belief" that "an amoeba will sure enough turn into a horse over time given a talented enough amoeba and a long and talented enough period of time filled with just-so improbable much-imagined events".

Some would try to marry that belief to the bible.

Many just hold to that belief and don't make any attempt at all to marry it to the Bible.

Radrook said:
Sadder still is the blind belief in abiogenesis which has never been observed in nature and can't be forced to happen in a laboratory under extremely controlled and finely manipulated conditions.

Of course the crafty evolutionist knows that such basic experiments in chemistry will instantly disprove their bent toward naturalism yet as you point out - atheist evolutionists have no other option than abiogenesis.

For them I change the statement ever so slightly to this "a pile of dirt will turn into a horse over time given a sufficiently large (earth-sized) and talented pile of dirt and a long and talented enough period of time filled with just-so improbable much-imagined events".

As for life beyond earth ... created life beyond earth ... well we know that Angels do in fact "exist". And I think we all would agree to that.

What is more we know that other planets exist (even atheists know that now) and we know that we don't have a video of what is on everyone of those planets.

That much is for certain.

God says to Lucifer "in the day you were created" -- which proves that God "created" life beyond the confines of this planet.

Even atheists will propose the idea that "life arose elsewhere by the same mechanism that it arose on earth" -- and many Christians agree... "Creation not evolution"

in Christ,

Bob

JackRT · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
As for life beyond earth ... created life beyond earth ... well we know that Angels do in fact "exist". And I think we all would agree to that.

Do we really know that or do we believe that?

BobRyan · Sep 3, 2016

JackRT said:
Do we really know that or do we believe that?

Many saints in the Bible claimed to have seen angels. Your argument is that we cannot actually know about anything at all that anyone else claims to have seen. So it matters not what they find under the ocean or in space - each person must be taken there personally before they can know it to be true.

So while i agree that if you restrict "knowing" to such a wooden rule - you certainly do have one standard for "knowing" but you also would wipe out all of education. So mostly rejected in practical life.

And of course - in our current example we have no atheists.

Hieronymus · Sep 3, 2016

JackRT said:
Do we really know that or do we believe that?

I'd say the evidence (demonology "ufology" etc..) is convincing enough, and many people have experiences with the unseen realm (like myself but i don't consider myself an expert).

Believing something is not the same as blindly assuming things.
People tend to believe things for reasons.

In the big picture i.m.o. one can be quite certain there are angels, fallen angels and demons.

JackRT · Sep 3, 2016

Hieronymus said:
I'd say the evidence (demonology "ufology" etc..) is convincing enough, and many people have experiences with the unseen realm (like myself but i don't consider myself an expert).

Believing something is not the same as blindly assuming things.
People tend to believe things for reasons.

In the big picture i.m.o. one can be quite certain there are angels, fallen angels and demons.

I am far from certain about that. We know, for example, that periods of intense prayer, meditation, chanting, drumming, etc can bring about altered perceptions where people report experiencing things that are not there. Drugs and mental illness can do this as well. During my daughter's mental illness she heard voices and saw people that were not there ---- I know, because I was there too. We have much to learn about the capacities and deficiencies of the human mind.

Radrook · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
that is true. it is the "belief" that "an amoeba will sure enough turn into a horse over time given a talented enough amoeba and a long and talented enough period of time filled with just-so improbable much-imagined events".

Some would try to marry that belief to the bible.

Many just hold to that belief and don't make any attempt at all to marry it to the Bible.

Of course the crafty evolutionist knows that such basic experiments in chemistry will instantly disprove their bent toward naturalism yet as you point out - atheist evolutionists have no other option than abiogenesis.

For them I change the statement ever so slightly to this "a pile of dirt will turn into a horse over time given a sufficiently large (earth-sized) and talented pile of dirt and a long and talented enough period of time filled with just-so improbable much-imagined events".

As for life beyond earth ... created life beyond earth ... well we know that Angels do in fact "exist". And I think we all would agree to that.

What is more we know that other planets exist (even atheists know that now) and we know that we don't have a video of what is on everyone of those planets.

That much is for certain.

God says to Lucifer "in the day you were created" -- which proves that God "created" life beyond the confines of this planet.

Even atheists will propose the idea that "life arose elsewhere by the same mechanism that it arose on earth" -- and many Christians agree... "Creation not evolution"

in Christ,

Bob

Good arguments. Notice also how some go so far as to say that finding life on other worlds disproves Genesis since it proves that we aren't the center of the universe and that the Universe was not created for humanity's sake alone as they understand Genesis to be claiming. It is one false premise after another in an amazing display of genuine, or perhaps in some cases, feigned biblical doctrinal ignorance in the service of atheist assumptions.

Actually, some Christians might indeed be affected in that devastating way by the discovery of life on other worlds if they hold that identical view. But there is no legitimate biblical reason to reach such a conclusion. As you said, the creator could have placed life on other worlds both intelligent and animal kinds for his own personal reasons.

There is also the distinct possibility that that meteoroid, comet, or asteroid impacts have caused Earth life to land on other places within our solar system and beyond. So no abiogenesis need be necessary to explain its presence of life there.

BTW

Atheist scientists smugly go about as if the creation explanation for life is irrational when the exact opposite is case. All evidence points to a creator as the most logical explanation since things which are organized in the manner in which we see in nature are invariably indicative of planning organizing intellect. In fact, if we argue against a simple water pump being designed they would call us irrational, The same holds true for a camera, or a simple computer. But faced with the identical scenario in nature, with the heart, the eye, and the human brain, they suddenly claim inability to see and we are expected not to notice the sudden change in their modus operandi which is indicative of dishonesty.

Sadly the young people who witness such a display assume that they react that way because intelligent design must be the less reasonable option when in reality in many cases it is merely indicative of an hermetically sealed mentality which is pathologically averse to any explanation which might even slightly suggest a creator. Intelligent design, to such minds, immediately engenders the terrifying unacceptability of the term God when the terms God, god, gods, deity, deities, goddesses or goddess aren't even relevant.

Hieronymus · Sep 3, 2016

Radrook said:
Actually, some Christians might indeed be affected in that devastating way by the discovery of life on other worlds if they hold that identical view. But there is no legitimate biblical reason to reach such a conclusion. As you said, the creator could have placed life on other worlds both intelligent and animal kinds for his own personal reasons.

There are no other worlds, Genesis 1:1 and on...

expos4ever · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
Do you mean "majority of Christians world wide"?? as compared to Christians in the U.S.?

or do you mean "Majority of Christians in the EU and Australia -- vs Christians in the U.S.??"

If the former - what is your source?

And in either case -- in Acts 2 -- "Pentecost" were the majority of Jews Christians? Did that prove that the sect of Judaism that was Christian in Acts 2 -- was "wrong"???

I meant to draw a comparison between Christians in the whole world and Christians in the United States.

And, of course, the majority position is not necessarily the correct position. But, in this case, the view that earth is 6,000 or 10,000 years is patently absurd - the evidence is overwhelmingly against such an hypothesis.

expos4ever · Sep 3, 2016

Radrook said:
BTW
I find your vehement almost fanatical defense of this evolution idea which surfaced almost two thousand years after Christ died and approx. 4000 years after Genesis was written weird for one claiming to be a Christian.
Why? Well, because for a Christian to believe it demands that he also believe that Christ believed it....

Not necessarily. You appear to simply assume that Jesus had complete knowledge of "what is true about the world"; only the "Sunday School" Jesus fits that bill. The more nuanced, Biblical, Jesus was very likely not a "cosmic know-it-all" - He became a human being and we have no Biblical evidence that He knew everything that could be known.

Did Jesus know the Universe is 15 billion years old? Or the role played by DNA? I doubt it very much. Either way, there is simply no Biblical evidence that He knew such things. One can only conclude that He did through a series of extremely shaky assumptions.

Here is the problem: In many of these discussions a caricature of the Biblical God / Jesus is transposed for the real article: this is where we get ideas like Jesus knew all possible things (such as the theory of evolution).

expos4ever · Sep 3, 2016

357magnum said:
Are you making things up as you go? If not, give a link for your source. If it's just your opinion, say so. My opinion is that you're wrong.

A study published in Science compared attitudes about evolution in the United States, 32 European countries (including Turkey) and Japan. The only country where acceptance of evolution was lower than in the United States was Turkey (25%). Public acceptance of evolution was most widespread (at over 80% of the population) in Iceland, Denmark and Sweden.

ViaCrucis · Sep 3, 2016

Radrook said:
It was meant as a joke and not as an official representation of my knowledge concerning how the evolutionistic idea is officially explained.

BTW
I find your vehement almost fanatical defense of this evolution idea which surfaced almost two thousand years after Christ died and approx. 4000 years after Genesis was written weird for one claiming to be a Christian.

Why? Well, because for a Christian to believe it demands that he also believe that Christ believed it and there is absolutely no indication that either Christ nor his Apostles ever did.

So it's really irrelevant for those who take Genesis at face value be familiar with the fine nuances of your evolution idea because that would not in any way change our view that neither Moses nor Jesus nor his 1st century disciples nor the majority of Christians who came after during most of human history ever believed or even imagined such an absurdity.

I also have a "vehement almost fanatical defense" of a round earth, and a heliocentric solar system. Neither Jesus nor the Apostles mentioned round-earthism or heliocentrism--so is it wrong of me to defend a round earth and a heliocentric model against those who say the earth is flat or that the sun moves around the earth?

Or is it only a problem when I defend the science you personally don't agree with?

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
Now SEE!? We don't have to differ on everything! It is great to find agreement.

ahhh. obfuscation and misdirection added in?

Were we simply 'not supposed to notice' that failure over 50,000 generations of observations in nature cannot even be found to get the prokaryote to become eukaryote amoeba much less the prokaryote to become horse - is proven failure?

If you have some text book saying that in 50,000 generations humans could not have evolved at all just remain human or whatever is imagined to be the state 50,000 generations ago... remaining as is ... then you have an "imagined textbook" and we all know it.

How is it we were simply "not supposed to notice"???

who would fall for that?

That you are ignorant of the fact that modern humans have continued to evolve since coming out of Africa around 200,000 years ago doesn't mean it hasn't.

Since evolution describes changes in populations over time then here are some examples of human evolution:

Populations of human beings who can digest lactose.
Differences in skin, hair, and eye pigmentation, perhaps you've noticed that sub-arctic populations tend to have fairer skin than populations of people from equatorial regions.

Both are examples of continued human evolution.

But if you think that an amoeba becoming a horse is an example of "evolution" then you are simply ignorant and have precisely no idea what you're talking about.

-CryptoLutheran

ViaCrucis · Sep 3, 2016

BobRyan said:
How sad.

When you start to have a clue, let us know.

-CryptoLutheran

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