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There is nothing that is really hidden in an agenda that starts by comparing Christian creation with a belief that we are flecks of vomit.Perhaps so, but to regard his silence on the matter as as evidence of some sinister hidden agenda seems excessive.
Maybe you would trust in a God that calls for what those people do, but not me.
I keep telling some of you, you must use a little common sense. yet.....
Refer to the prior comment on common sense.
Must be terrible not to know at least one person you can trust that much...the concept really isn't all that that far fetched.
And what was that you said about Tom Cruise?
Oh, I know, we only run with the "stay on topic" defense when it's convenient and necessary to shush the offending party because we have no other defense.
Typical.
That's neither what he asked nor how he asked it.
There are many here with whom I disagree on nearly all subjects, but they can at least engage in civil discourse without unwarranted condescension. We all know your version of creation. We choose to believe God's version. We are rational and intelligent enough to know that a supernatural entity speaking the universe into existence violates natural law. We also know that has no bearing on whether or not it happened.
It's a little bizarre to ask a Christian why they prefer Christian beliefs over another.
You could say that most (if not all) Christians adhere to their faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible as the word of God which houses the origin of the heavens and the earth and everything in it.
While the Christian creation myth (as you put it) may have importance to a relative number of Christians, to many other Christians it is not as important.
Personally I believe the Darwinian myth will one day be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.
Where was the insult?It might be different if you had come here for civil conversation. It's obvious you prefer to insult our faith.
You believe using the Bible to justify the Bible is circular? I disagree. The best approach is to treat the Christian scripture as a secular scholar would treat it: as any other historical document from antiquity as well as other non-Christian sources and how they line up, especially in regards to Jesus Christ.
Also there have been many archaeological discoveries that authenticate the Bible, so to treat it as circular reasoning is a false statement.
When you accumulate these many "little pictures" and piece them together, the bigger picture ultimately ends up being about Jesus' death and resurrection.
From a scientific standpoint on the evidence that the Genesis creation account is likely true really goes back to a much broader and different discussion dealing with Noah's flood and the theory of evolution.
If Noah's flood is true
and the theory of evolution can be falsified
then the viability of the Biblical creation account being a historical narrative goes up by perhaps 20 to 45%
There is nothing explicitly contradictory with Genesis 1 and our current understanding of the earth and the order of it's life forms. There are implicit contradictions depending on your knowledge and interpretation of Hebrew grammar/culture/tradition however there are no explicit contradictions that I have seen.
Perhaps you know the Bumba language better than I do but at least from your description it appears to have explicit contradictions with observable facts. However that said the Bumba account does have advantages over the popular scientific models of creation. Namely it doesn't lack a frightening amount of Aristotelian causes. If we are talking about which model is more likely, the Bumba, or the popular scientific models, I would say the Bumba is more likely because it has something whereas the popular models violate the axiom, "out of nothing nothing becomes".
As I mentioned it requires an understanding of Hebrew grammar/culture/tradition. The sun doesn't come into existence on day 4, it reaches completion on day 4, that being for days, seasons, years, festivals, as it mentions. What is written in English as "Let there be" is "become" in Hebrew. The sun didn't begin as we see it now, it was 70% of it's current brightness, neither was the moon at it's current position. It was closer to the earth and days were shorter, as it drifted away it eventually reached a resonance with the earth and gave us a 24hr day. It's not a book you can just read and then scientifically criticize, it needs to be earnestly studied in Hebrew.It has life existing before the sun.
Just one example that invalidates your claim.
It also claims all humans are descended from a single breeding pair with no biological ancestry. That's flat out in contradiction with the facts as well.
There are many more such examples.
Nothing in science actually says that.
Ex nihilo is a thing that creationists believe in, actually.
Which amounts to life (like photosynthesizing plants) existing before the sun, still.The sun doesn't come into existence on day 4, it reaches completion on day 4
What is written in English as "Let there be" is "become" in Hebrew. The sun didn't begin as we see it now, it was 70% of it's current brightness, neither was the moon at it's current position. It was closer to the earth and days were shorter, as it drifted away it eventually reached a resonance with the earth and gave us a 24hr day.
"Adam" is not a personal name until after the Garden of Eden. The name she is given isn't "Eve" either. As I said, you need to understand Hebrew/culture/tradition to legitimately criticize it.
I have heard all the other examples. There are lists of them on "Atheist Answers" websites that get propagated throughout the community.
Their motivations unfortunately do not extend into properly understanding Hebrew/Culture/Tradition etc
Hopefully from these two points you can get a sense for the importance of understanding the language, culture, and tradition when looking at these ancient texts.
Creating Ex Nihilo is not the same as Ex Nihilo, nihilo fit. The later has a grammar structure referring to nothing as the source. Creation has a causal agent. There are models that claim our universe came from nothing.
Lose the "re-". They just define their nothing. That's a sensible thing to do when talking about something so vague / alien.However they redefine nothing to do so.
I am not a yec. From what I read before I quit I can see you didn't understand anything I said nor attempted to in your highly tonal reply/diatribe. Believe what you want to believe, I won't waste my time in dialogue with someone who chooses rhetoric through ignorance with no interest in a true understanding of a text.Which amounts to life (like photosynthesizing plants) existing before the sun, still.
And an actually livable planet. Some 3 billion years ago, this planet was not really a nice environment for complex organisms like us.
Maybe you should tell your evangelical YEC friends that....
So, what is YOUR understanding of this story then?
Do humans descend from a single breeding couple, that itself had no real biological ancestry, or not?
If not, what DO we descend from?
Sure. And they are actual responses to actual YEC beliefs. You might not subscribe to such beliefs, but surely you can acknowledge their existance?
That's what those responses are about...
I wouldn't use such an argument in a debate with the pope for example, because I know that the pope is not a YEC and actually happily accepts evolution theory.
They extend to respond to those people who actually have these beliefs.
If you do not hold to such literalist / fundamentalist beliefs, then those arguments are not against your beliefs. In fact, if you do not hold such beliefs, then you can actually use these arguments yourself to argue against those who DO hold such YEC beliefs.
I have no problem putting things in perspective.
But hopefully you will understand how you interpret these texts is clearly different from how other people interpret these texts... And that "objections" to interpretations are only relevant to the interpretations that they actually target.
Not a "causal nothing" either. These models very much assume that there is a "trigger" or explanation for that event.
Also, the models you refer to are, first of all, not presented as "Truth" like religions do.... But rather as hypothesis that may or may not be accurate.
Secondly, the only model I know of that "claims" this, is the same model that actually says that the universe itself is "nothing", in the sense that the total net energy of the universe is actually 0, in context of it having "positive" energy as well as "negative energy" that cancel eachother out.
Put extremely simplisticly...
Start with "nothing", which would be 0.
Then *something* happens, which splits this "0" into a +1 and a -1.
Now, you have two things where you had none before.
Add the two together, and it makes up for "nothing".
At least that's how I understood it.
But all that is advanced theoretical physics at the frontier of our scientific knowledge. It may be accurate, it may not be. Considering the history of scientific discovery, I'll put my money on it not being accurate. But the importan thing is that it doesn't matter, because it's not being presented as some kind of dogmatic truth that one HAS to believe.
Lose the "re-". They just define their nothing. That's a sensible thing to do when talking about something so vague / alien.
The concept of "nothing" has been changed throughout time, btw. As we learned more about the world, the concept of "nothing" has been shrinking with every discovery.
A long time ago, when you had an empty box, you could say "there is nothing in this box".
But in reality, the box is filled with air (=many many molecules), bacteria, etc.
Then we discovered the vacuum and then that became "nothing". But again in reality, that "empty space" actually weighs something. There is still energy there. There are quantum fluctuations, virtual particles, there is "space" and "time" there, etc.
So today "nothing" means "no space, no time, no molecules, no particles".
But what is that? Is that "nothingness"? Who knows...
And like Lawrence Krauss once said to a panel of "philosophers" quibling about his definition of "nothing"...
He said that a theologian tends to define "nothing" as "that from which only god can create something". By which he meant that it doesn't matter how he defines "nothing", because theists will never be satisfied with it anyway, as long as it doesn't include that part in its definition.
That was on topic. I was giving examples of beliefs that people hold, in context of not being justified to hold them. Just like in the OP, the point is that there is no reason to believe the christian creation myth above any other creation myth.
It has life existing before the sun.
Historians recognize that most writings of antiquity (before 500AD) contain factual errors and propaganda, but they can still identify kernels of the historical truth by comparing sources with other sources be it historical documents or archaeological finds. If they eliminated a source completely because of bias or error, they would know next to nothing about the past.Authenticating certain aspects of those stories (like existing cities, existing people, etc) don't make the whole of it correct.
It's a tired example, but imagine an archeologist 2000 years from now discovering marvel comics. It would mention New York, The United States, some other real countries and places, perhaps a few real american presidents, etc.
But that wouldn't mean that Spiderman actually exists - eventhough I'm sure several Peter Parker's live in New York.
Seems you are confusing the context of the position I hold. If Noah's flood (a worldwide flood for specificity) turned out to be true and the theory of evolution being falsified, then the viability of the Biblical creation account being a historical narrative goes up by perhaps 20 to 45%. Probably an innocent mistake of misrepresenting my position by quote mining and taking my words out of context...This is another thing that creationists seem to keep getting wrong. When you are trying to justify your belief in creation - the theory of evolution should never come up.
You don't provide positive evidence in support of your claim, by trying to discredit an alternative claim. That's not how it works.
If evolution in fact IS falsified, then the effect on the biblical creation account (or ANY OTHER creation account) will be exactly zero.
I am not a yec. From what I read before I quit I can see you didn't understand anything I said nor attempted to in your highly tonal reply/diatribe. Believe what you want to believe, I won't waste my time in dialogue with someone who chooses rhetoric through ignorance with no interest in a true understanding of a text.
@DogmaHunter
You make a lot of statements that you believe are true, but you have not provided any premises and conclusions to justify your belief that your statements are true.
Historians recognize that most writings of antiquity (before 500AD) contain factual errors and propaganda, but they can still identify kernels of the historical truth by comparing sources with other sources be it historical documents or archaeological finds.
So your analogy is false
It's all about identifying the context and the type of literature to understand the historical significance of the find.
Seems you are confusing the context of the position I hold. If Noah's flood (a worldwide flood for specificity) turned out to be true and the theory of evolution being falsified, then the viability of the Biblical creation account being a historical narrative goes up by perhaps 20 to 45%. Probably an innocent mistake of misrepresenting my position by quote mining and taking my words out of context...
Overall, I believe teaching the creation account in public schools is unnecessary
Teach the theory of evolution is schools but also show the many problems with the theory of evolution. Let the kids decide and come to their own conclusions whether it be true or not.
Just teaching one side of the argument is indoctrination not education.
While there is much debate about specific aspects involving evolution, there is NO debate regarding the core principle that life HAS evolved on earth.
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