I am the one with the video game anagology, I do not believe God's creation is anything but real, and creating a mature earth would easilly explain the radioistopes....
This is precisely what I mean by
maya theology. The ludicrous thing is that this is the exact same type of proof that atheists use to disprove God. Here's a good comparison:
Scientist: "This sample shows evidence of 5 billion years of decay in its isotopic ratios, as evidenced by this isochron graph."
YECist: "Well, since we can't actually see the atoms decaying we're free to believe whatever we want about what it really is, such as believing that it is a young rock created with an artificially old isotopic ratio."
Christian: "Look at the world around you! Only God could have created it!"
Atheist: "Well, since we can't actually see God, we're free to believe whatever we want about Him, such as believing that He doesn't actually exist."
Disconnecting evidence of appearance from appearance is a very bad strategy. After all I can say that zircons with too much helium were actually created old, and then oversaturated with helium by God; or T-Rex bones with actual soft tissue (which they aren't, by the way) were actually old T-Rex bones with soft tissue recreated in them 5 minutes before the scientists cracked them open, etc ... keep talking like this and you might as well burn your science.
I've thought about them and came to a simple answer.....How many planets are their in our universe? You are telling me that the massive amount of planets couldn't have been inhabited should God feel the need?
Actually, how many
inhabitable planets? AFAIK none within a 10-light-year radius. That's a lotta empty space, you know.
Well that's paradoxical, you can't say anything from the original language that supports your claims. And the way Jesus phrased it was from "But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE" . Nothing in the greek gives hint that it meant the very first thing. So why you keep adding the first day in there, I will never know. I explained before day 6 of 2 million can easily be said to be the beginning. You as an evolutionist even say that God is still creating today, so day 6 of 2 million (for the tenth time) is easily considered by anyone to be the beginning.
How do you explain Jesus' statement? because year 3 billion is hardly the beginning of anything.
This shows that you did not read my statement about arche ktisis properly, and until somebody cares to prove me wrong I think my ideas have some validity. The post is here:
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=19380549&postcount=655 (I shouldn't bother to retype it), and the verb for "made" is simply poeio which doesn't connotate special
ex nihilo creation (although AFAIK the tense there indicates it was an act of God, which isn't a problem for me). An example of another use of that verb is: "I will
make you fishers of men".
arche:
<http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=746&page=1>
ktisis:
<http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=2937&page=1>
poeio:
<http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=4160&page=1>
I know the bible has it's errors, but those errors are in consequencial, such as Mark 1:2 where Mark obviously misquotes Isaiah, and the numbers are slightly different on the esperate accounts of some OT history. But you have to be very very careful when you start saying some stories are myth because you leave the door wide open to call just about anything a myth.
So what?
I don't call just about anything a myth. If anything
you should be very careful about admitting that the Bible does have slight glosses here and there. So why don't I pull your argument over you and say that if the Bible has errors in book attributions, it may also have errors in other minor things like a certain dead man's resurrection?
(Because I'm an ethical debater, that's why.
)
When you call the first chapter of Genesis a myth, what is stopping someone from saying the ressurrection was a myth. I could play devil's advocate and point out that the oldest manuscript we have is over 200 years after Jesus death and that the NT scripture was not kept with the same accuracy of the Tenach because the Jewish scribes were not the ones preserving it. I could also point out the flaws in the other secular historians.
According to your beliefs in Genesis about how myths are formed to show ideals, I could just as easily say the same thing about the resurrection. You can't debate that because I'm using the same methods you are to disprove Genesis.
The same reasons I posted in this post:
http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=19363407&postcount=39
Besides, in the Resurrection, God only needs to rework the laws of science in a very small locality (the region of Palestine where Jesus was crucified and buried) and for a very specific and powerful purpose: to save mankind. Whereas if YECism is true, with our current state of knowledge, it means God had to rework the laws of science over the entire observable universe - to what end? So that we would end up believing something He never intended us to believe in anyway, if you all are right.
It isn't a matter of understanding, I understand fine that you put man's science over God's inspired Word. And don't pretend that TE's are any less close-minded than YEC's. I understand that you go for mythical bible where when things become to hard to believe, then they simply didn't happen.
See? This is precisely what I mean. This is tantamount to saying "If TEs actually read their Bibles they would be YECs; they don't because they let science dictate whatever they believe." I could launch into a sophisticated discussion about interpretations and how I am merely attacking an interpretation of Scripture without ever attacking Scripture itself, but it would probably fall off your ears as a guilty person in rationalization and self-defense.
So place all the souls that you know in their own little box
Quite convenient to handle them that way
You're the only one you know who carries a cross
You don't care what they care about anyway
And you talk to your god
praying for those who sin
for their eyes to be opened ...
You can't find the answers 'till you learn to question
You won't appear stupid, just ask for direction, you're -
insecure and it clouds your perception, so
stop and listen and learn
a lesson in love
without condition.
God desperately lied to them? If the first chapter of Genesis is inspired, then it is completely false if evolution is true. That theory doesnt hold water at all, he could have just as easily told them a generic evolution story to appease them as tell them that he created it in 6 days. Why be specific on the days? Why tell them the animals were created out of order? Why tell them the ocean existed before the land?
Why lie about creation? A theistic evolutionary story would have appeased them just the same.
I
never said lie. I said very clearly that such an accommodation could
not be equated to lying. Do
not put words in my mouth (or on my fingers, lol).
You try making up a theistic evolutionary story that works as well as Genesis 1. One must ask: to
what end was Genesis 1 inspired? If it was inspired to the end of telling us
how the world was created, then indeed evolution is in grave error (as is the rest of science, from the electromagnetism running your computer to the gravity keeping your feet on the ground). But if it was inspired to the end of telling us
why the world was created - you have said yourself that the whole thing points towards the culmination of a holy Sabbath which humans are therefore ordinated to keep, somewhere - then surely another account of
how the world was created cannot contradict with it anywhere.
Oh crap, I didn't answer this? well i guess my whole case is shot. I'm not going to tell you I have all the answers, I've mostly been pointing out that YOU don't have them either. I haven't heard anything about the layers that are flat as a pancake for large areas and flat all the way through.
Which layers? Post number? I'm sorry for having kept you waiting. (Wouldn't those support old-earth geology? After all turbulent, roiling flood waters can hardly be expected to lay down smooth, neat flat layers.)
Remember, until you answer my questions / statements about arche ktisis you have little or no ground to say Mark 10:6 exclusively supports YECism.
Nor do I really care to, the difference between us is that you will defend science to the very end and I will defend God's word until the end. You refuse to acknowledge a difference when it is clear throughout the bible that God does not follow scientific principles. People were cured in an instant, the lame walked, the leprosy infested were cured, the blind saw and the dead were raised. Are you going to attempt to explain that scientifically?
Of course not. Then again, those were done with a clear purpose of glorifying God. How does artificially aging the universe so that there is massive dispute about its age among both non-believers and believers, to the huge detriment and embarrassment of the Body of Christ, glorify God?
Science is in direct contradiction to the work of God, always has been and always will be. Your "scientific" evidence for a old universe contradicts the biblical teaching of a 6 day creation. Well, duh, science will always contradict the bible. Throw all the scientific evidence you want at me, it won't change my view because my faith in science is lacking.
You can call me close minded if you want, personally I don't mind being close minded about God's teachings.
(I should say that if you hate science so much you shouldn't be using computers, but I won't.) Be close-minded about God's word, but be open-minded about what it
says. Did God personally tell you that the YEC philosophy is infallible? (Of course you will answer me by asking when God told me that science is infallible. In one word: consensus.)
You kill your arguement with your own scripture passages. Maybe he didn't explain it, but he certainly acknowledged it as a parable. No one ever acknowledges Genesis (or any other part of the OT) as a parable, myth, or legend.
He didn't acknowledge other parables as parables, He just told them in narrative form as if they really happened.