Why do Creationists Hate Animals?

[Assyrian]

Please explain to me how such a passage can possibly be metaphorical, or how it is "highly figurative"? Did it not occur to you that you are attempting to apply one interpretation across the board? We know that David's dad isn't a tree stump, so that means everything else in the Bible must be figurative, of course!

Yes, the lamb will graze with the lion "metaphorically", the child will play by the viper's den "metaphorically". Hm, I read that the whole earth will be "filled with the knowledge of God, and they shall not cause harm in all of His holy mountain", I guess that is metaphorical too. In fact, I guess the entire Bible is one giant figurative story.

But it is not about the whole bible being metaphorical, the question is about this one passage. Notice how you have the stump of Jesse in verse 1 and a discussion of the shoot that sprouts from it dressed in righteousness and justice running from verses 1-5. Then we have the lions and tigers and bears and the promise they are not going to hurt anybody on the holy mountain in verse 6-9. What it next?

Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples--of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
We are right back again to the tree roots. The lion wolf and lamb passaage is right in the middle of a highly figurative prophecy.

Isn't the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea a simile?

And please, do not reference me as a creationist. Ever. I am no more a creationist than you are, and yes you are if you believe in the Creator. Reason being I've come to know what comes attached with that term, and I cannot stand it. This whole categorizing of fellow believers is absolutely ridiculous in my opinion.

Yet there creationist organisations and preachers, who come up with teachings that get repeated and passed on.So I addressed it as a teaching from preachers who self identify as Creationist that is popular among people who see themselves as creationists too, whether you see yourself as part of that group or not. Did you come up with this idea yourself, or did you hear it from someone else? I don't think many people would read Isaiah 11 themselves see a prophecy about the future, and think this is talking about Genesis. I agree it is a pity that one section of the body of Christ has monopolised the term creationist, or that some seem to give the name a bad reputation. It belongs to all of us.

 

[SkyWriting]

But it is not about the whole bible being metaphorical, the question is about this one passage. Notice how you have the stump of Jesse in verse 1 and a discussion of the shoot that sprouts from it dressed in righteousness and justice running from verses 1-5. Then we have the lions and tigers and bears and the promise they are not going to hurt anybody on the holy mountain in verse 6-9. What it next?

Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.
7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.
10 In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples--of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious.
We are right back again to the tree roots. The lion wolf and lamb passage is right in the middle of a highly figurative prophecy...

I don't agree. I find it a mildly figurative passage with only a couple places that require non literal thought to be understood.

And again, your hang up with "future" and "past" is puzzling since the topic and subject is eternal and in both places at once.

 

[Assyrian]

I don't agree. I find it a mildly figurative passage with only a couple places that require non literal thought to be understood.

Jesus growing out of a trees stump is hardly 'mildly figurative' the issue is not whether literalists take the rest literally, they do that by default, but whether they should. The fact is the lion wolf and lamb passage is right in the middle of a highly figurative Jesus growing from a tree stump passage. If the context is highly figurative what basis is there to reverting back to literalism in the middle?

And again, your hang up with "future" and "past" is puzzling since the topic and subject is eternal and in both places at once.

Unfortunately the universe God created exists in time and has both a past and a future, and this passage is talking about the future. You shouldn't confuse them.

 

[SkyWriting]

Jesus growing out of a trees stump is hardly 'mildly figurative' the issue is not whether literalists take the rest literally, they do that by default, but whether they should. The fact is the lion wolf and lamb passage is right in the middle of a highly figurative Jesus growing from a tree stump passage. If the context is highly figurative what basis is there to reverting back to literalism in the middle?

So then what does than lamb have to to with the stump? I may have a "pea brain" but that doesn't turn my whole body into a vegetable garden. If I described myself, as a pea brain, do you expect me to continue with, artichoke heart, squash feet, cauliflower ear, pumpkin belly, etc?

Are you familiar with literary criticism? Outside of this chat forum I mean.

No matter. Clearly natural selection and Darwinian Evolution is evil and will not exist in the future.
It is certainly not our "Origins" even though it exists in this decaying world thanks to Adam.
Adam was ashamed that people would now have to reproduce like animals so he covered himself.

 

[gluadys]

Adam was ashamed that people would now have to reproduce like animals so he covered himself.

God gave the command for men and women to be fruitful and multiply at the moment of their creation, before the fall. The same command he gave to animals.

Just how else were they to obey that command? And is there any scriptural warrant for saying they would not reproduce in the same manner as we do today?

 

[Assyrian]

So then what does than lamb have to to with the stump? I may have a "pea brain" but that doesn't turn my whole body into a vegetable garden. If I described myself, as a pea brain, do you expect me to continue with, artichoke heart, squash feet, cauliflower ear, pumpkin belly, etc?

Of course not, isolated metaphors a quite common, but if you went on from pea brain and kept taking in terms of artichokes, squash and cauliflower, then your description would be more VeggieTales than very literal. And it you went on to describe righteous clothing and then bizarre animal behaviour before coming back to vegetables, I would have no reason to think your strange animals were suddenly a nature documentary.

Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
...
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb...
10 In that day the root of Jesse.

Of course the bigger problem is your assumption of literalism as the default interpretation which you jump back to at the first opportunity. This has no basis in scripture.

Are you familiar with literary criticism? Outside of this chat forum I mean.

Yes but I haven't gone into it in any depth.

No matter. Clearly natural selection and Darwinian Evolution is evil and will not exist in the future.
It is certainly not our "Origins" even though it exists in this decaying world thanks to Adam.
Adam was ashamed that people would now have to reproduce like animals so he covered himself.

It doesn't actually say that in the passage.

 

[SkyWriting]

God gave the command for men and women to be fruitful and multiply at the moment of their creation, before the fall. The same command he gave to animals. Just how else were they to obey that command? And is there any scriptural warrant for saying they would not reproduce in the same manner as we do today?

I was wrong on that. It was that Adam and Eve were ashamed that they would be producing offspring into the fallen world. My mistake.

 

[SkyWriting]

No matter. Clearly natural selection and Darwinian Evolution is evil and will not exist in the future.
It is certainly not our "Origins" even though it exists in this decaying world thanks to Adam.

It doesn't actually say that in the passage.

That's true. Natural Selection and Darwin are not mentioned.
Though clearly here and in every other word in scripture, "Survival of the Fittest" is an abhorrence to God.

 

[Assyrian]

That's true. Natural Selection and Darwin are not mentioned.
Though clearly here and in every other word in scripture, "Survival of the Fittest" is an abhorrence to God.

Yet oddly enough you dislike for survival of the fittest isn't mentioned either.

 

[Harry3142]

The creation stories do not say that there was no death prior to Adam and Eve's partaking of the forbidden fruit. What it does say is that when God discovered that they now had the knowledge of good and evil, he had to bansih them from the Garden of Eden so that they could not eat the fruit of the Tree of Life and become immortal.

That there has been death for millions of years is a 'given'. A hominid skull has been found that dates back millennia, and that skull has the teeth marks of a leopard, clearly indicating that the cat killed the hominid.

As for those who eat meat not liking animals, evidence indicates that it is we who like to eat meat who are fighting to permit other species of animals to continue to exist. People often confuse the statements made by certain animal-rights groups of, "We want to save all animals from being hunted," and "We want to save animals from being used as a food source," with the statement "We want to save animals." But I have never heard them say "We want to save animals." However, I have been told by them, "It's better that other species of animals be extincted than that they be used as they're being used now."

Cattle, sheep, and other livestock, with the exception of pigs, cannot live in the wild. they need the food and forage that is only available to them through pastures and food sources specifically designed for those animals. So what happens if a law is passed that forbids the eating of meat? Rather than being set free, they would have to be exterminated. They couldn't be permitted to simply roam free in pastures used to grow crops, or else they would destroy those crops. They also couldn't be turned loose in the forests and wild places, because that would be condemning them to slow starvation. So the alternative would be to reclassify them as vermin, aka nuisance animals, and eradicate them entirely.

As for hunting wildlife, the situation in The Commonwealth of Virginia that began in 2010, and is still being fought in their state legislature, should wake up some people. A bill was intoduced in their state legislature in 2010 that would have reclassified every whitetail deer and elk in Virginia as vermin. If that legislation had passed as it was originally written, it would have removed all limitations to hunting them. As it is now the number of deer and elk that may be harvested is limited, only specific weaponry may be used, and the seasons are limited to a certain start date and a certain end date. Also special permits must be purchased from the DNR in order to legally hunt them. But if they had been reclassified they would have been in the same category as rats and mice. There would have been no bag limits, no closed season, and no limitation to what could be used to harvest them. Fortunately, various hunting asociations found out about the bill that would have in effect wiped out those deer and elk, and have joined forces in order to fight it.

And how do certain people reconcile this with their saying that wildlife is not to be hunted? Are Orkin technicians hunters? Do Terminix technicians have to purchase a hunting license + special permits? No, they are not, and no, they do not, because they aren't classified as hunters, but instead as exterminators. And if wildlife is successfully reclassified as vermin, rather than wildlife under the protection of the state department of natural resources, then the same protection afforded rats, mice, and cockroaches will be afforded them.

 

[SkyWriting]

The creation stories do not say that there was no death prior to Adam and Eve's partaking of the forbidden fruit. What it does say is that... <snip>

It's good form to avoid paraphrasing scripture and to link to the original text if paraphrasing.

Romans 5:14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to ... ... Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like
the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come. ...
//bible.cc/romans/5-14.htm - 17k

Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one ...
... Adam's sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned. .... ...
//bible.cc/romans/5-12.htm - 17k
1 Corinthians 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will ...
... For as in Adam death comes to all, so in Christ will all come back to life. .... ...
//bible.cc/1_corinthians/15-22.htm - 16k

Romans 5:17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned ...
... For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. ...
//bible.cc/romans/5-17.htm - 18k

Romans 5:15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many ...
... But there is a great difference between Adam's sin and God's gracious gift.
For the sin of this one man, Adam, brought death to many. ...