Why not take the Bible for what it says?

rmwilliamsll · Aug 18, 2005

And how does the framework theory suggest that God did not create in six days?

to see how God created in a modern scientific explanatory manner you have to read the book of nature. the how is not in the book of words, only the who and why. as it is by necessity, the how does not travel well through time. look at science it is constantly revising itself and even then requires an immense amount of background knowledge just to understand any small piece.

in the beginning GOD created, travels well through time and is understandable with a minimum of previously acquired knowledge. try doing that with modern cosmology. i can't even begin to decipher the math. and i've had more math than 99% of the population.

....

gluadys · Aug 18, 2005

Floodnut said:
There is no evidence that a man can be dead for three days and then return to life, there is a great deal of evidence that returning from death is imposssible, and there is a great deal of evidence that water cannot become wine.

There is no evidence that a man can be dead for three days and return to life naturally. There is no evidence that water can become wine within a few minutes naturally.

If these things happen they must happen miraculously.

There is no evidence that they did or did not happen miraculously.

Therefore science does not deny that they happened miraculously.

Critias · Aug 18, 2005

And there is evidence that say there is no way God created in six days, miraculously?

rmwilliamsll · Aug 18, 2005

Critias said:
And there is evidence that say there is no way God created in six days, miraculously?

only if you are willing to posit a creation with apparent age.
if you wish to engage in "last thursday" level of speculation then you can have a young earth. otherwise there exists no scientific evidence for a six day creation nor a young earth.

even allowing this "brains in the vat type" of answer is immaterial to science for then it says it is studying the apparent age of the earth as God created it. essentially answering the "brains in the vat" or Decartes demon type of questions with an "i don't care" we can do our tasks in any case.

the biggest problem for YECism to follow this line of reasoning is that it leads to a trickster God.

so, to answer your question, there is no evidence for a miraculous 6 day creation but rather a termendous amount for an evolutionary one, but science can not, as glaudys pointed out, discuss miracles. so if you wish to pursue the elusive omphalos answer, please tell us what you find down that blind alley.

....

statrei · Aug 18, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
only if you are willing to posit a creation with apparent age.
if you wish to engage in "last thursday" level of speculation then you can have a young earth. otherwise there exists no scientific evidence for a six day creation nor a young earth.

Who here is prepared to deny the evidence that Chinese civilization is at least 10,000 years old? Are we going to suggest that Chinese civilization is older than the creation?

rmwilliamsll · Aug 18, 2005

statrei said:
Who here is prepared to deny the evidence that Chinese civilization is at least 10,000 years old? Are we going to suggest that Chinese civilization is older than the creation?

that is a little bit old.
the chinese themselves claim 5K, which is about as old as the first characters.
although i'd be interested in reading your 10K references for i appreciate chinese history.

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

gluadys said:
There is no evidence that a man can be dead for three days and return to life naturally. There is no evidence that water can become wine within a few minutes naturally.

If these things happen they must happen miraculously.

There is no evidence that they did or did not happen miraculously.

Therefore science does not deny that they happened miraculously.

AND science which does not deny that things happen miraculously cannot be our basis for determining how to rightly understand the Scirptures. Your devices are too high and lofty for me to evade the normal grammatical understanding of the Genesis account as literal. I guess I just can't follow why the abandonment of the grammatical historical approach applies to Genesis since Science has "disproven" creation, but it doesn't apply to the miraculous existence of Jesus which has been equally disproven. Thanks for your input and thought on the matter, but I see no reason to take the early chapters of Genesis in any other sense than a straight forward narrative, just as simply stated as the account of Joseph in Egypt in the later chapter. It seems to me that there is no reason not to accept Genesis as historical, with a literal Adam and Eve, conversing and acting as described in Genesis, being married as described by Jesus, having sons as described in the Book of Hebrews; also with a literal Enoch as mentioned in Jude, literally translated as described in Hebrews; also with a literal Noah, and a literal ark, and a literal world-wide flood, just as described by Jesus, Peter, and Paul.

The findings of Science would reject the life of Christ, but I still hold to the literal life of Christ, just as I will continue to hold the literal approach to Genesis, just as Jesus did.

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

rmwilliamsll said:
only if you are willing to posit a creation with apparent age.
if you wish to engage in "last thursday" level of speculation then you can have a young earth. otherwise there exists no scientific evidence for a six day creation nor a young earth.

even allowing this "brains in the vat type" of answer is immaterial to science for then it says it is studying the apparent age of the earth as God created it. essentially answering the "brains in the vat" or Decartes demon type of questions with an "i don't care" we can do our tasks in any case.

the biggest problem for YECism to follow this line of reasoning is that it leads to a trickster God.

so, to answer your question, there is no evidence for a miraculous 6 day creation but rather a termendous amount for an evolutionary one, but science can not, as glaudys pointed out, discuss miracles. so if you wish to pursue the elusive omphalos answer, please tell us what you find down that blind alley.
....

It is not that WE posit a creation with apparent age. All miracles involve the appearance of the passage of time however, and creation is a miracle.
AND I am too ignorant to get all these odd jargonistic terms: "Last Thursday," "brains in a vat," "Descartes demon," "trickster God," "Elusive Omphalos," and "Blind Alley."

So apparently the literal approach to the Historical Account of Genesis can be easily brushed aside, but the literal approach to Jesus of Nazareth cannot. I am not wise enough to abide in such an inconsistency.

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

statrei said:
Who here is prepared to deny the evidence that Chinese civilization is at least 10,000 years old? Are we going to suggest that Chinese civilization is older than the creation?

Now this is a topic that is off the thread, which is the matter of APPROACH TO SCRIPTURE. But if the Bible is to be taken seriously as declaring the earth to be only 6000 years old, then those dating methods which declare the earth to be 4.7 billion years old, and man to be 2 million years old, and chinese civilization to be ten thousand years old, and North Amercia to have received and influx of migration about 10,000 years ago, etc, etc, --these dating methods must be faulty if we are to take the Bible as literal in giving geneologies with ages of patriarchs at the birth of heirs.

statrei · Aug 18, 2005

Floodnut said:
Now this is a topic that is off the thread, which is the matter of APPROACH TO SCRIPTURE. But if the Bible is to be taken seriously as declaring the earth to be only 6000 years old, then those dating methods which declare the earth to be 4.7 billion years old, and man to be 2 million years old, and chinese civilization to be ten thousand years old, and North Amercia to have received and influx of migration about 10,000 years ago, etc, etc, --these dating methods must be faulty if we are to take the Bible as literal in giving geneologies with ages of patriarchs at the birth of heirs.

But the Bible never asked us to do with it what Bishop Ussher tried to do. From the very first verses it dropped the hint but nobody cares to read. How is it that God created the entire universe in 6 days yet BEFORE the first day of creation started the waters were already there. Take the hint. Why are Christians so arrogant and stubborn? Sometimes I am embarrassed to be associated with them.

gluadys · Aug 18, 2005

Critias said:
And there is evidence that say there is no way God created in six days, miraculously?

What rmwilliamsll said. You can posit a miraculous creation if you wish. It doesn't raise any scientific questions. But it does raise theological questions.

Did God create a real world or not?

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

statrei said:
But the Bible never asked us to do with it what Bishop Ussher tried to do. From the very first verses it dropped the hint but nobody cares to read. How is it that God created the entire universe in 6 days yet BEFORE the first day of creation started the waters were already there. Take the hint. Why are Christians so arrogant and stubborn? Sometimes I am embarrassed to be associated with them.

Please don't engage in name-calling. I am not calling you arrogant and stubborn for rejecting the plain sense of Scripture.

You have said the following inflamatory things: "nobody cares to read. . .[the Scripture]"

Creationists can't "take the hint."

Christians (who believe in Young Earth) are "so arrogant and stubborn"

You are "embarassed to be associated with them."

I think your point was that Genesis 1:1-2 indicates that God created the heavens and the earth BEFORE day one even began, an earth with water covering it. And this this is offered as a divine "hint" that 6 days is not literal? It would have been so easy for you to have stated it in such a manner as this, rather than in the attack mode you employed.

statrei · Aug 18, 2005

gluadys said:
What rmwilliamsll said. You can posit a miraculous creation if you wish. It doesn't raise any scientific questions. But it does raise theological questions.

Did God create a real world or not?

There are no such things as miracles. Each being does what is in his power to do. The fact that I am not aware of the laws by which he does it does not make it a miracle. It was just something he does. Much of what we do today would seem like miracles to people from 100 years ago. It is folly for anyone to claim that humans can create objects that now exist but that the universe could not be created. We have demonstrated over and over that creation is a reality; it happens. The fact that we do not understand how it was created or the properties of whoever created it is the worst reason to deny that it was created.

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

gluadys said:
What rmwilliamsll said. You can posit a miraculous creation if you wish. It doesn't raise any scientific questions. But it does raise theological questions.

Did God create a real world or not?

Yes, God created a real world that was then devasted and destroyed (Peter's words) by a world-wide flood.

And Jesus really did rise from the dead in spite of the fact that it is impossible according to sane biology.

Floodnut · Aug 18, 2005

statrei said:
There are no such things as miracles. Each being does what is in his power to do. The fact that I am not aware of the laws by which he does it does not make it a miracle. It was just something he does. Much of what we do today would seem like miracles to people from 100 years ago. It is folly for anyone to claim that humans can create objects that now exist but that the universe could not be created. We have demonstrated over and over that creation is a reality; it happens. The fact that we do not understand how it was created or the properties of whoever created it is the worst reason to deny that it was created.

In this Christians Only section of the forum we ascribe to the Nicean Creed that includes the miracles of the life of Christ as being literal.

Moreover, if you are unaware of the laws by which God created the universe, but they are apparently different laws than the laws of science, and that is what defines a miracle. Redefining miracle doesn't cancel the fact that the Book of John is all about miracles done by Jesus of Nazareth. By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made. That is a miracle. When humans do things that are not in the power of humans to do, that is a miracle.

Nothing is a miracle to God is what I think you are saying.

gluadys · Aug 18, 2005

statrei said:
There are no such things as miracles. Each being does what is in his power to do. The fact that I am not aware of the laws by which he does it does not make it a miracle. It was just something he does. Much of what we do today would seem like miracles to people from 100 years ago. It is folly for anyone to claim that humans can create objects that now exist but that the universe could not be created. We have demonstrated over and over that creation is a reality; it happens.

I love it.

The fact that we do not understand how it was created or the properties of whoever created it is the worst reason to deny that it was created.

We are a long way from understanding it all, but we have learned a lot about how the universe, stars and galaxies, the solar system, life on earth and the diversity of species were created.

btw, you do know that theistic evolution does not deny that the world was created. It sees evolution as a process of creation. Not as an alternative to creation.

gluadys · Aug 18, 2005

Floodnut said:
Yes, God created a real world that was then devasted and destroyed (Peter's words) by a world-wide flood.

Yet there is no evidence that the flood was world-wide and lots of evidence that it was not. In a real world evidence of a world-wide flood would not disappear after the flood. It would leave evidence in many ways. Not just in sediments but in the genes of the creatures saved in the flood.

And even a miraculous wiping away of the evidence for a flood does not explain the creation of evidence that eliminates the possibility that the flood was world-wide. A quick erasure of the evidence might be explained by the need for a quick restoration of livable conditions. But the creation of evidence which is impossible in a flood scenario goes beyond that need. Why make the evidence look as if a flood could not possibly have happened?

As I said, you can ignore science and believe it if you want, but it has theological implications which I am not willing to accept.

And Jesus really did rise from the dead in spite of the fact that it is impossible according to sane biology.

Right.

Critias · Aug 19, 2005

gluadys said:
Yet there is no evidence that the flood was world-wide and lots of evidence that it was not. In a real world evidence of a world-wide flood would not disappear after the flood. It would leave evidence in many ways. Not just in sediments but in the genes of the creatures saved in the flood.

And even a miraculous wiping away of the evidence for a flood does not explain the creation of evidence that eliminates the possibility that the flood was world-wide. A quick erasure of the evidence might be explained by the need for a quick restoration of livable conditions. But the creation of evidence which is impossible in a flood scenario goes beyond that need. Why make the evidence look as if a flood could not possibly have happened?

As I said, you can ignore science and believe it if you want, but it has theological implications which I am not willing to accept.

Right.

So St. Peter is wrong then?

gluadys · Aug 19, 2005

Critias said:
So St. Peter is wrong then?

Depends. Are you speaking about his theology or his lack of scientific information? Not knowing that the flood could not have been global does not mean his point about God's judgment is wrong.

Critias · Aug 19, 2005

Peter did say the flood covered the whole earth and the Greek is quite specific that the whole earth was intended. So, is Peter wrong?

Why not take the Bible for what it says?

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