Why do some Christian's dismiss evolution?

[gluadys]

How many sources do you demand, for there was John and James as well who saw what happened?

I guess, my faith in what is written has no doubts that it is the truth and I treat it as such. Sorry...

That's my point. You believe their testimony. You do not have any corroboration of it. You don't know this actually happened. But you believe it nevertheless, as I do. (Amazing what we have in common. )


Corroboration means the same event is documented by an extra-bibilical source. e.g. the biblical account of the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians in the days of Hezekiah is also documented independently in the Assyrian records. That is corroboration.

 

[gluadys]

There are so many different formulations of the trinity but this is my favorite: "Man knows God the Father when he knows God as infinitely distant, man knows God the Son when he knows God as infinitely close, and man knows God the Holy Spirit when he experiences God penetrating existence and history." The late great Karl Rahner.

Thanks for this: one for my quote collection.

 

[shernren]

I believe man has been quite capable of telling about his history. Even cave paintings point to this.

So cave paintings are your idea of history? If you're taking history so loosely then I could probably say "Genesis is history" with a clear conscience. In the "history" of cave paintings where are the recorded dates? Names? Numbers? Causes and effects?

If you had a cave painting how would you say where myth ends and history begins? What can you deduce from a cave painting about the actual event it is supposed to commemorate?

Perhaps we can look at Genesis in this way. It is not a news report; it is a dramatization, maybe. In fact I find that for me it's conceivable that the Genesis accounts were pointing to how darn old the earth is. Why? You must remember that the human life expectancy and age of history (we have written records dating back to the first few centuries AD and probably beyond - I'm no archaeologist) today is vastly longer than the Jews'. They probably did not live long and they probably had no records dating to more than a few hundred years ago during the time of the Exodus. (Note probably. I could be wrong.) So to them, having the earth created thousands of years in the past might have been beyond their imagination. It might have been that "time immemorial past" that 5 billion years or 13 billion years seems to us now. I always thought that way especially reading stories like those of Methuselah: how unspeakably remote the beginning of the earth must have been!

Since the Bible doesn't tell me much about medicine it would be rather difficult to go there for medical information. However, it does tell me everything that is essential to my life.

Actually, the Torah sets quite a lot of important medico-legal precedents. For example, if you suspect your wife is having adultery today, do you write down a curse and wash it into her morning milk?

 

[stumpjumper]

And I can rebel against God while believing in Him. I know I do everyday, even when I try not to.
It is not the unbelief in Him or His message, it is the fact that we do know and believe, yet still sin.
When you sin, is it because for that moment you lost belief that there is a God, or that you lost belief of His message?

Hi Critias

I really think you are confusing original sin with actual sin. This is one of the reasons why I believe a literal reading of the early parts of Genesis to be inaccurate. Original "sin" (and I put it in quotes for a reason) is our estrangement from the ideal. It is not our falling from a once perfect world but it is the fact that we are somewhat separated from God in our physical state even though we will meet in the future. It is the future in which we will see perfection not some mythic past from whence we fell.

We do sin all of the time. But, love covers a multitude of sins.

You specifically said that in order for God to express His love, He must create something "other" than Himself. Yet, God the Father expresses His love of God the Son. Likewise, the Son expresses His love of the Father. Either, you didn't mean what you said, or there are problems with what you stated.

Do you think the Father is spiritually empty because He expresses love to the Son?

God the Son and God the Father are one. They are just different manifestations of God and although God is love and penetrates all those manifestations it is not an outward expression of love. That is why we exist. Yes, I think that God would be spiritually empty if He only expressed love to Himself. Like Einstein said: "I don't think God had a choice when He decided to create the universe."

Simply put, it means Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father.

Yes, I will agree. But why is that the case? Is it because to know the Father is to know God as infinitely close? or Is it because of substitutionary atonement?

The passage I first quoted is from The Gospel of John which is somewhat vague about how one comes to know the Son.

 

[Critias]

i should not be surprised that so little real communication happens here.
but i continue to be.
you missed the whole point, by a wide margin.
hint: canon

...

Thank you for the compliment.

If you want to be understood, sometimes it is just best to state what you want to say. It also seems that my point failed to hit the mark.

Jokes, sarcasm, and "read my mind" comments aren't always going to be understood on an internet forum. And when you are not clear about what you are stating, it isn't always the best form to blame someone else.

 

[Critias]

I really think you are confusing original sin with actual sin. This is one of the reasons why I believe a literal reading of the early parts of Genesis to be inaccurate. Original "sin" (and I put it in quotes for a reason) is our estrangement from the ideal. It is not our falling from a once perfect world but it is the fact that we are somewhat separated from God in our physical state even though we will meet in the future. It is the future in which we will see perfection not some mythic past from whence we fell.

We do sin all of the time. But, love covers a multitude of sins.



Well, we will have to disagree then. What I think you are doing here is stating that God has created us to be sinful instead of it being our choice to be sinful.



You state above that we didn’t fall from a perfect world, but I believe Adam and Eve brought evil into the world where it did not exist. God gave man a choice to live in a Very Good world without Evil, or to rebel against Him and bring Evil into the world.



I do not agree with the theology that states God created an evil world and placed man into the world, creating Him sinful from the beginning. Thus, God is the reason for sin, not man, because man never chose to sin against God, he has been born into sin that was already in place before his existence.



God the Son and God the Father are one. They are just different manifestations of God and although God is love and penetrates all those manifestations it is not an outward expression of love. That is why we exist. Yes, I think that God would be spiritually empty if He only expressed love to Himself. Like Einstein said: "I don't think God had a choice when He decided to create the universe."



Again, I disagree. As much as I like Einstein and enjoy his work, I also disagree with him. I believe God did have a choice. I wouldn’t limit God to say He had no choice in the matter.



What do you mean by “outward” expression of love? We can see an outward expression of love from God the Father to Jesus Christ when He was here on earth. God, being omnipresent, was in heaven while He was walking the earth as Jesus Christ. There is expressed love between the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. They are not spiritually empty and I honestly don’t see how a Christian could call God, if mankind did not exist, spiritually empty. God is love.



Yes, I will agree. But why is that the case? Is it because to know the Father is to know God as infinitely close? or Is it because of substitutionary atonement?

The passage I first quoted is from The Gospel of John which is somewhat vague about how one comes to know the Son.



If you know the Son, then you know the Father. They are One as Jesus said.

John does tell us how to know the Son, Jesus Christ: through their (Apostles) testimony of Him.

 

[vossler]

does your Bible contain it's own Table of Contents?
that is where in Scripture is the list of books that comprise it written?
i would assume that the table of contents is essential.

to be more specific in what book is it written that the book of tobith is not Scripture and the book of Jude is?

Quite an interesting response. I take it you are not sure whether the canon of scripture is truly God's. Quite fascinating!

When God isn't looked upon as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient its quite easy to surmise that He isn't in total control and therefore wasn't able to ensure the canon's content.

Coming from an evolutionist, this doesn't really surprise me.

 

[Critias]

So cave paintings are your idea of history? If you're taking history so loosely then I could probably say "Genesis is history" with a clear conscience. In the "history" of cave paintings where are the recorded dates? Names? Numbers? Causes and effects?

Cave paintings are a form of history. We have learned what these people hunted and what types of weapons they used to hunt with. That is history of these people.

So, in your opinion, in order for something to be history, it must have a recorded date, names numbers and causes and effects; if one is missing, it is not history?

If you had a cave painting how would you say where myth ends and history begins? What can you deduce from a cave painting about the actual event it is supposed to commemorate?

They hunted. They used weapons to kill prey. It can give us an idea of what they hunted. Have you not seen pictures on walls that the American Indians used to paint showing them hunting buffalo? Because it is a painting, will you suggest that the American Indians never hunted buffalo and that is a myth?

Perhaps we can look at Genesis in this way. It is not a news report; it is a dramatization, maybe. In fact I find that for me it's conceivable that the Genesis accounts were pointing to how darn old the earth is. Why? You must remember that the human life expectancy and age of history (we have written records dating back to the first few centuries AD and probably beyond - I'm no archaeologist) today is vastly longer than the Jews'. They probably did not live long and they probably had no records dating to more than a few hundred years ago during the time of the Exodus. (Note probably. I could be wrong.) So to them, having the earth created thousands of years in the past might have been beyond their imagination. It might have been that "time immemorial past" that 5 billion years or 13 billion years seems to us now. I always thought that way especially reading stories like those of Methuselah: how unspeakably remote the beginning of the earth must have been!

Are you suggesting that you can comprehend millions of years? I am willing to bet you can't comprehend 6,000 years; all mankind for that matter. We are limited to our own perspective and that perspective is a life expectancy of around 60-100 years.

In the 1980's, much of science talked about the year 2000 as a time that would be like a world presented in the minority report movie. Some even speculated that we would have flying cars. The problems is, we have enough trouble figuring out what it is going to be like in a year from now, let alone in 1000 years from now or 1000 years ago.

Some scientists say in 20 years we won't be able to live on this planet because of global warming. That may come sooner or may come later than what they predict.

My point is, is that man has a hard time having a good understanding of time.

Actually, the Torah sets quite a lot of important medico-legal precedents. For example, if you suspect your wife is having adultery today, do you write down a curse and wash it into her morning milk?

And does the Bible teach us to worship a golden calf?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Quite an interesting response. I take it you are not sure whether the canon of scripture is truly God's. Quite fascinating!

When God isn't looked upon as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient its quite easy to surmise that He isn't in total control and therefore wasn't able to ensure the canon's content.

Coming from an evolutionist, this doesn't really surprise me.

A helicopter was flying around above Seattle yesterday when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communications equipment. Due to the clouds and haze, the pilot could not determine the helicopter's position and course to steer to the airport.

The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign, and held it in the helicopter's window. The pilot's sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters.

People in the tall building quickly responded to the aircraft, drew a large sign, and held it in a building window. Their sign said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER."

The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map, determined the course to steer to SEATAC airport, and landed safely.

After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position.

The pilot responded "I knew that had to be the MICROSOFT building because, similar to their help-lines, they gave me a technically correct but completely useless answer."

interesting that no one has answered my question about where in the Bible is the table of contents (the canon). apparently something as simple and essential as this is missing and no one cares....


...

 

[Critias]

Maybe because we have faith that God preserved His word as He said He would....

Do you not trust that He did as He said He would?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Maybe because we have faith that God preserved His word as He said He would....
Do you not trust that He did as He said He would?

So, which translation or set of manuscripts is God's TRUE Word?

I trust that God has preserved all that is needful for salvation.

I believe that God trusted that by the time we work out basic planetary mechanics that we would also be able to use our brains to figure out that maybe verses describing the Sun and Moon standing still were not meant to be taken completely literally despite the fact that they are not terribly poetic and they are in a historical passage.

 

[Critias]

So, which translation or set of manuscripts is God's TRUE Word?

Which translation did God keep His message as He wanted it to be? Are you suggesting that one of the translations doesn't have God's message in it?

I actually know of one that I would say God's message is not presented well in it. I don't remember if they have released it yet or not.

I trust that God has preserved all that is needful for salvation.

I believe that God trusted that by the time we work out basic planetary mechanics that we would also be able to use our brains to figure out that maybe verses describing the Sun and Moon standing still were not meant to be taken completely literally despite the fact that they are not terribly poetic and they are in a historical passage.

Well that is great Robert!

So tell me about these Hebrew passages that you say teach of the sun and moon standing still.

Is Scripture inspired by the Holy Spirit?

 

[gluadys]

Quite an interesting response. I take it you are not sure whether the canon of scripture is truly God's. Quite fascinating!

When God isn't looked upon as omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient its quite easy to surmise that He isn't in total control and therefore wasn't able to ensure the canon's content.

Coming from an evolutionist, this doesn't really surprise me.

Are you deliberately skirting the issue? Surely you are aware that there is no Christian consensus on the canon of the OT. For 1500+ years the church used the Septuagint as the basis of the canon. Then Martin Luther decided not to and switched to the more restrictive rabbinical Tanakh instead. But, of course, not all Christians agreed with him. It is perfectly reasonable to ask why books considered scripture for a millenium and a half should no longer be included in the OT.

Which is God's canon? Where in scripture does it say to include or exclude the books of Tobit and Judith and other parts of the Septuagint which are routinely included in some bibles and excluded in others?

And who knows? Maybe it is the massive 80 book OT canon of the Ethiopian Coptic church that is really God's canon.

 

[seebs]

Maybe because we have faith that God preserved His word as He said He would....

Do you not trust that He did as He said He would?

Misquoting a psalm about the faithfulness of God does not mean God promised to preserve the Bible.

In any event, if God promised to preserve the Bible, then the fairly large set of people who have discarded a few books are clearly a problem for our theology.

 

[Critias]

Misquoting a psalm about the faithfulness of God does not mean God promised to preserve the Bible.

In any event, if God promised to preserve the Bible, then the fairly large set of people who have discarded a few books are clearly a problem for our theology.

So God didn't say He would preserve His word, aka the Bible?

Did God preserve His word, aka the Bible?

Do we not have access to those books now? I know I do.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

there is no universal NT canon either.
see:
http://www.metalog.org/print/Metagosp.doc

The New Testament canons of the Western (Catholic/Protestant), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic, Armenian, Syrian/Nestorian, and Ethiopian Churches all differ significantly from one another— and even these were under dispute within the various branches of Christianity until many centuries AD; previously there were only widely diverse opinions recorded by various individuals well after the Apostolic era, regarding not only today's commonly accepted works but also such writings as the Epistle of Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas, the Gospel of the Egyptians, the Gospel of the Hebrews (in which Christ calls the Holy Spirit his Mother), the Traditions of Matthias, the Apocalypse of Peter, the Didakhê, and the Acts of Paul. Thus the Codex Sinaiticus of the mid-4th century includes both Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas, while the Codex Alexandrinus of the early 5th century contains I and II Clement as well as the Psalms of Solomon. There was no church council regarding the NT canon until the Synod of Laodicea (363 AD), which indeed rejected John's Apocalypse or Book of Revelation. Twelve centuries later (!), the Western Canon was finally settled by the Council of Trent (1546 AD), which designated the present 27-book listing as an article of Roman Catholic faith (although episcopal councils have never claimed to be infallible; the vote at Trent was 24 to 15, with 16 abstentions)— and which the various Protestant Churches subsequently accepted. The sundry Eastern Churches have equally complicated records on establishing their respective NT canons: thus, the Armenian canon includes a Pauline III Corinthians; the Coptic NT contains I & II Clement; the Syrian/Nestorian Peshitta excludes II & III John, Jude, and Rev/Ap; the Ethiopian Bible adds books called the Sínodos, the Epistle of Peter to Clement, the Book of the Covenant, and the Didascalia; and John's Rev/Ap is still not included in the Greek Orthodox Bible! (see Biblio.35)

for instance.

is it ignorance that has people thinking that "God preserves" is a complete answer to this problem?

 

[Critias]

there is no universal NT canon either.
see:
http://www.metalog.org/print/Metagosp.doc


for instance.

is it ignorance that has people thinking that "God preserves" is a complete answer to this problem?

Wow Richard, you really are full of insults for me, aren't you.

Well, if you want to call my faith ignorant, then so be it.

I just believe that when Jesus Christ said heaven and earth would pass away, but His word would never pass away, that He meant it.

 

[Critias]

Are you deliberately skirting the issue? Surely you are aware that there is no Christian consensus on the canon of the OT. For 1500+ years the church used the Septuagint as the basis of the canon. Then Martin Luther decided not to and switched to the more restrictive rabbinical Tanakh instead. But, of course, not all Christians agreed with him. It is perfectly reasonable to ask why books considered scripture for a millenium and a half should no longer be included in the OT.

Which is God's canon? Where in scripture does it say to include or exclude the books of Tobit and Judith and other parts of the Septuagint which are routinely included in some bibles and excluded in others?

And who knows? Maybe it is the massive 80 book OT canon of the Ethiopian Coptic church that is really God's canon.

Who knows. Maybe even their stance on marijuana, that it is a Godly creation meant for us to smoke in sacrifice to God, is what God intended for all mankind.

You gotta be at least a bit skeptical when their elders of the church make formal statements for the church such as these: "The political worldwide organizations have framed mischief on it(marijuana) and called it drugs"

Next, it will be cocaine that should be able to be snorted as God originally intended.

But, besides that, I think it is safe to say that the Books within the Bible (non-Catholic) are what God wanted to keep for us to know of Him. Personally, I think the book Enoch should be in the Bible. Jude quotes it and it was highly respected in the first few centurys, A.D.

Just because some books were not cannonized or aren't in the non-Catholic Bible today, doesn't mean that they don't contain truth.

 

[shernren]

Cave paintings are a form of history. We have learned what these people hunted and what types of weapons they used to hunt with. That is history of these people.

So, in your opinion, in order for something to be history, it must have a recorded date, names numbers and causes and effects; if one is missing, it is not history?

Not history as I see it. For me it is history if it can allow us to accurately reconstruct the events of the past. I think we are disagreeing here on the details of definitions and on little else. I'll show you what I mean below.

They hunted. They used weapons to kill prey. It can give us an idea of what they hunted. Have you not seen pictures on walls that the American Indians used to paint showing them hunting buffalo? Because it is a painting, will you suggest that the American Indians never hunted buffalo and that is a myth?

I'm not sure which painting you're referring to and I probably haven't seen them. But let's assume we're talking about a picture of a stick-figure humanoid throwing a spear into the heart of a buffalo.

When you look at the picture you say, "From this we can deduce that American Indians hunted buffalo with spears." Because of that you would say it's history, right?

When I look at the picture and hear your explanation I would say, "But we cannot deduce that on one specific day, one thin American Indian killed one buffalo by spearing it in the heart." I wouldn't draw such details from the painting without separate evidence. Thus for me it wouldn't be history.

I find it kind of ironic (no insult intended) that our positions on history seem reversed. It should be the YEC who has a strict, rigid, high-accuracy-needed idea of history. For then you would say, "Genesis is history; therefore I can reconstruct the past in high detail from it, meaning that God really created in 6 days, that on the first day He really made light and separated darkness from it ... "

And the TE on the other hand would have the looser definition of history saying "Genesis is history. But while it tells us many things about God and what He intended for His creation perhaps we cannot deduce from it that God created in six days, that He started with a primeval ball of water ... but even if we cannot deduce such detail it is still history."

But to each his own. I enjoy being surprised!

Are you suggesting that you can comprehend millions of years? I am willing to bet you can't comprehend 6,000 years; all mankind for that matter. We are limited to our own perspective and that perspective is a life expectancy of around 60-100 years.

I find that I can imagine 6,000 years in the context of a few billion, heh. Like I said, I was just conjecturing. Interesting thought. Go ahead and destroy it if you want.

And does the Bible teach us to worship a golden calf?

No, why?

 

[shernren]

But, besides that, I think it is safe to say that the Books within the Bible (non-Catholic) are what God wanted to keep for us to know of Him. Personally, I think the book Enoch should be in the Bible. Jude quotes it and it was highly respected in the first few centurys, A.D.

Uh oh. Are you doubting the verbally inspired infallible inerrant holy sacred canon of the Scriptures of God?

(Personally for me, I remember having read online The Prayer of Azariah. Liked it. Wonder why it's not in there either?)