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rmwilliamsll

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Critias said:
Do you think this helps in creating a relationship with yecs or makes it even worse?

Would you get a good laugh if yecs starting posting sites where you were the butt of the joke?

Just another example of "Christian" love.....

AiG routinally does it:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/CreationWise/Cartoons/July98CW2.gif
http://www.answersingenesis.org/CreationWise/CW_Pages/CW_TOC.asp

and i look forward to every one....

if you can't laugh at yourself then you are taking yourself way too seriously.

in fact, Genesis is full of puns and sophisticated humor
God Himself has a wide sense of humor
see:
The comic vision and the Christian faith: A celebration of life and laughter
by M. Conrad Hyers

in fact, AiG spawns lots of parodies
http://www.animecritic.com/_temp/
the ones labelled parody are directed at specific AiG cartoons.
and an nice essay on how AiG reacted to the parodies at:
http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000137.html


Would you get a good laugh if yecs starting posting sites where you were the butt of the joke?
hey, post some, i really love a good, visual, well thought out cartoon.

btw
Just another example of "Christian" love.....
how can i show love?
by speaking the truth. and sometimes humor is just the best way to do it. .....
.....
 
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I would hope an intelligent man, such as yourself Richard, can understand the difference between humor and making fun of people.

And if one person or persons is doing it, it isn't a license for all people to pick up and begin doing it.

I have no problem laughing at myself in good humor, or even being laughed at. But to create a thread just to make fun of people who think differently then you and then wonder why there isn't unity amongst yecs and tes....
 
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rmwilliamsll

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from: http://www.swordandspirit.com/LIBRARY/FUNNY/YECCH/index.html

....
 
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rmwilliamsll

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Critias said:
Was this a unity builder?

one of the main themes of the Sunday School class i am teaching now is the:
unity, purity and peace of the Church.

it's a 3 legged stool, where each leg is important.
The general evangelical churches long ago gave up on the issues of purity, there is no attempt to come to grips with the extraordinary diversity of theological opinion even among those who claim to be Biblically orientated.

it is not possible to even strive for unity and peace without a basis in good theology. YECism is bad theology, not that YECist are bad Christians or bad people, but the theology is not just wrong but seriously wrong. If cartoons can get through that shell that too many conservatives think is a requirement to ward off information from the world, then i'll post links to cartoons. if good science works, as it did for me, i moved from OEC to TE about 5-6 years ago, then i'll post links to good science and argue them.

My point is that the only way to gain back the unity that the Lord requires of us as a Church is good theology first, not a generalized good feeling-experientialism, or even worse a general institutional peace in a broad churchism.


.....
 
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Bad theology? Theology being the study of God, the One we have learned of within the Bible, how is a six day creation bad theology?

Remember, this is theology you are making your claim on, not science. So, theologically, how is it bad when the text says six days for one to take the author's meaning as it is written instead of implying our own meaning into the text?
 
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rmwilliamsll

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it is bad theology because Christianity relies on historical claims. they are a necessary but not sufficient part of faith.
the claims of the virgin birth, the crucifixion and the resurrection are crucial physical miracles that happened in our time and space.

why didn't we teach our kids about Santa Claus?
because we didn't want them to confuse stories like that with the truth of the Gospel.

YECism is a extrabiblical story about how old the earth is.
this claim is confirmable in real time and space, in fact, it was thoroughly disproved 200 years ago. a earth of 10K years old is the same thing as telling my kids that Santa Claus delivers presents under the Christmas tree (no we don't have one of those either), it is factually wrong. (likewise a universal flood in the last 6K years)

now, a consistent atheist is perfectly right in looking at the claims of YECism and understanding that these people are teaching Santa Claus and discarding their entire message, including the Gospel as false.

to hold to more than the Scriptures teach is as false as holding to less than it requires. there is no age of the earth, no age of the universe encoded in Scripture. Gen 1 has no date attached. period. a young earth is a Santa Claus analogy.

The seven day creation week is a grand motif, to prove that the LORD God is the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. it is not to show that C14 or any other radioactive dating method is wrong, nor to argue against tree ring, coral layers, ice core, etc etc data. By extending the YECist argument to hold to a young earth you cast doubt on the actual historicity of those things most necessary to the Faith, the historicity of Jesus.

So by telling the Santa Claus like story that the earth is 10K years old you convince those who know the earth is 5 orders of magnitude older than you simply don't know what you are talking about in a field that they understand, and by good reasoning they discard your claim that Jesus rose from the dead.

that is why it is not only bad theology but dangerous theology in an age where scientism and its associated epistemology rules the commanding intellectual heights.


.....
 
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Wait, wait, wait. You are now changing the goal posts. I said show how six day creation is bad theology. The Bible says nothing about how old the earth is.


All I have ever seen from TE's is this assertion, yet without proof of their claim. I am still waiting, can you show how Genesis is not a Hebrew narrative?


Richard, we aren't even talking about Santa Claus, nor are we talking about the age of the earth. We are talking about God creating in six days. You said it is bad theology. Can you prove it?
 
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rmwilliamsll

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my argument is with Young Earth Creationism.
not with OEC, which i believe is a stable position for most Christians. Especially if all they desire to avoid is the evolution of Adam and mankind.

my discussion with OEC with regards to the order of the days especially light before the sun etc is that it is logically incoherent to think of the days as scientific or historical order and diverts the Church from the real meaning which is understood by framework interpretation.

but i seldom debate OEC or the order of creation because my real battle is only with YECism, which i think is the 3rd largest problem i have in evangelism.
1-theodicy
2-denominationalism
3-YECism
4-why aren't the heathen saved?




...
 
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rmwilliamsll

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Critias said:
So, the Bible's order of creation is the real problem for you, correct?

light before light bearers.
the earth before the sun
liquid water existing without a sun to warm the earth.
liquid water on the earth before stars.
a solid firmament with waters above and waters below, exactly the same cosmology as Babylon. which doesn't look at all like the real world.
light is day and the darkness night even though these are terms tied to the rotation of the earth, not absolute terms as described.
the firmament is Heaven yet there exists water beyond it.

that's just to verse 8
none of this bothers you?

.....
 
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Why should it? I am confident that God knew what He was doing and what He is doing now.

You see, I desire to be taught by the Holy Spirit, more than being taught by man. Because of this, I will take the author's meaning and accept it, instead of making up my own meaning and assigning it to the text.

So no, it doesn't bother me because I figure God knows many things that man does not know, including creation.
 
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artybloke

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You see, I desire to be taught by the Holy Spirit, more than being taught by man.

You mean rmwilliams doesn't desire to be taught by the Holy Spirit, don't you? Typical parsing of this verb:

I am taught by the Holy Spirit
You are taught by man
They are influenced by Satan

And you mean to say that the Holy Spirit can't teach us through human beings?
 
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You TEs are very quick to begin accusing people of things.

I did not say Richard does not desire to be taught by the Holy Spirit, I was speaking for myself and myself only.

Who is this Hoky spirit you speak of?

Why is it you take issue with how I desire my own teaching to be?

Is it ok that I choose my way of learning and leave you to yours?

If so, why then the accusations?

I also did not state man cannot teach by the power of the Holy Spirit. I did not state the method of teaching done by the Holy Spirit. I stated man because I am not interested in "man knowledge" but rather in Spiritual knowledge.

Would you like to chastise me for desiring this?

Would you like to accuse me some more because I desire God and His teachings?

By this display, all you do is show that you are in opposition of what I desire. That cannot be true sense you are a Christian, so why present it this way?
 
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artybloke

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I wasn't accusing you of anything; but it's funny that you claim to be taught by the Holy Spirit (and by the way, you have heard of slips of the finger haven't you? It's now corrected) as if rmwilliams was not. That's the whole tenor of your claim to be taught by the Holy spirit: that you're implying that your opposition is not taught by the Holy Spirit.

Why are you so sure that it isn't rmwilliams or the TE interpretation rather than your own interpretation that is the one that is taught by the Holy Spirit. Personally, I think the whole fundamentalist mind set has more to do with 18th C Scottish Common Sense Philosophy than the ways of thinking that would have been recognised by the writers of the Old Testament or the Gospels. Underlying everything you say is the assumption that myth and story cannot be as "true" as "fact" or "history." I would say that it is irredeemably Modernist in its assumptions, and scientistic to boot. So I would say there's a lot more "man-knowledge" in what you think than you are capable or desirous of acknowledging.

I don't restrict God's ability to teach the truth to us to any single method; and don't see anything wrong with myth and story and poetry as a vehicle for truth. I'd disagree with rmwilliams in thinking that Gen 1 is narrative, however, though I'd say Gen 2 is. Gen 1 to me has all the hallmarks of a liturgical hymn: from the repeated refrains to the very tight rhythmic structure. It seems to me to have been written to be sung, or chanted, possibly for worship in the Temple. (I'm speaking as a poet and an expert in poetry, by the way.)

Now, unless I'm very mistaken, poems shouldn't be taken literally.

Personally, I suspect that poetry is God's usual way of speaking. How else can we understand eternal things? It's not possible to measure God in a test-tube.
 
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