Posted on 03/22/2012 7:44:32 AM PDT by Moseley
Is the important message of Genesis that God is the Creator of all things, or that He is the Creator of all things, in exactly this order, and in exactly this amount of time?
What is the plain sense reading of the text?
It is that He is the Creator of everything ex nihilo and then shaped the earth from a void.
That means He created both time, order, and everything else.
But, the plain sense reading of the text is that He created all things, in a particular, and in a particular amount of time. There’s no escaping the text. One is required to go into interpretation to get anything different than that.
The Bible is from the hand of man, and what is written there is subject to the same limitations of any written language to accurately and completely convey an idea - which is to say, not very well.
You still haven’t acknowledged what the text says happened.
What does a plain sense reading of the text say about the author, the extent of the event, time involved, etc?
Of course there is “escaping the fact that what was written there came from the imagination of the author”. It could be something the author was told, it could be revelation, it could be taking down dictation from God or someone else, it could be ancient record, etc.
Those are all “escapes”.
How can I know that it's impossible for anyone to have witnessed it without acknowleging what it says?
It is an anonymous account of events that no one could possibly have witnessed, attempting to convey ideas within the confines, limitations and ambiguities of the language of whoever wrote it originally. Those limitations and ambiguities are then compounded by the act of translation to other languages.
I do not worship 'text'.
Obfuscation, TL. It’s a simple question.
What does the text say happened?
How much of it do you want me to copy and paste for you?
If you don’t know the stories, then copy/pasting won’t help.
A Christian can’t very well claim to have insight in the interpretive step if he can’t get a passing grade on telling the stories he’s supposedly critiquing.
Well then, you’ll just have to point and yell “Infidel!”
Listen, TL, this isn’t about shouting infidel. It’s about knowing the text your critiquing. You don’t approach it with an evolutionary presupposition any more than with a capitalist one.
How can a person begin to say, “This doesn’t make sense.” if they haven’t read the story they’re talking about?
For all they know, there’s information in there that might change what they’re thinking or details of what they’re thinking.
The assumption seems to be that if I didn’t come to the same conclusion you did, then I must not have read it, and I need to keep reading it until I do. Simple disagreement is not an option.
I never said you had to come to the same conclusions I came to.
But, you do have to read the same story as I did, and the story pretty much is fairly straightforward.
It’s no different than any other story you read. There’s a storyline. What is it?
Is that a rhetorical question or do you really want me to dedicate the time it would take to relate that story to you on this thread?
Every question implies an objective. What is the objective in asking that one?
Do you know what DNA "IS?"
I know you know what it "DOES"; but that's an entirely different question. Anyone who can read can find out what DNA "does." (exDemMom gives a fine description here.)
It seems you can't get your thinking above the cellular level. To me this looks like an example of reductionism, or the expectation that an analysis of the parts of the system will give you the complete description of that system. Rosen illustrated the problem thusly:
Taking a hammer to a watch ... will give us a spectrum of parts all right; these may be separated and characterized to our heart's content; but only by a miracle will they tell us either how a watch works or how to make one. This is because two things have happened: application of the hammer has lost information about the original articulated watch, and at the same time, it has added irrelevant information about the hammer. What the hammer has given us, then, is not so much a set of parts as a set of artifacts.
In short, all information about the watch's organization principle has been irretrievably lost. Even reconstituted parts cannot give you this.
(I don't know wether you will find this analogy helpful or not.)
You aver that to ask "the question about how things happen is 'stupid'."
Jeepers. All I can say to that is: We are polar opposites on that question.
Oh well.
It seems you cannot get your thinking to the level of physical reality.
First it might help if you understood how a watch worked and that it doesn't need divine intervention to work - and that it works through a PHYSICAL mechanism.
You said my question about HOW the evolution you claim to accept can happen on a physical basis was “stupid”.
That is why creationism is useless and leads nowhere and why after years posting on this subject you know next to nothing about the theory you oppose that explains a principle you say you accept - evolution.
Because to you asking HOW something happens on a physical level is “stupid”.
That is why after years spent on this subject you are still so woefully ignorant.
And why after many more years spent on this subject you will still not learn much of anything; not even what the physical basis of the supposedly non-”Darwinian” evolution you say you accept is.
That right there is real funny, as well as being quite illustrative of why creationists are so backwards in terms of educational attainment and knowledge.
Thanks for posting!
A watch is instantiated as a physical mechanism, according to an organizational principle.
One does not need the explanation of direct "divine intervention" to speak of organizational principles. Nature herself appears to be "organized." Nonetheless, we recognize that organizational principles are immaterial, not "physical" or material entities....
I wish you would stop using the word "creationist" as a term of opprobrium. Doing so only displays crude prejudice and ignorance....
DNA is a physical molecule that operates according to physical rules and is in no need of divine intervention in order to fulfill its function.
One can speak of “organizing principles” all they want - but absent an understanding of how a watch works - or how DNA works - any claim that physical mechanisms are not necessary and sufficient to explain their operation must be taken as not credible.
I wish you would stop using the term “Darwinist” as a term of opprobrium and insinuating that anybody who accepts a scientific theory is an atheist. Doing so only displays crude prejudice and abject ignorance.
It seems to me this is not necessarily so. That is, I suspect DNA is not "in" the "dust" — if we take "dust" to mean physical matter. If DNA is "in" the matter, then inorganic minerals should be able to boot-strap themselves into organic life forms. (But we never observe this....)
DNA is a specification of life. As such, I imagine it was given "in the Beginning" according to the Word of God, Logos Alpha to Omega, along with the laws governing material Nature and its evolution in time.
Well, JMHO FWIW. Thank you so much for writing, Moseley — and for sponsoring this wonderful thread!
I have never insinuated any such thing, allmendream. Are you hallucinating?
I'll let you have the last word, allmendream — such as it was.
best wishes!
I hallucinated your Post #73?
“But this problem rarely seems to catch the attention of Darwinists — and other professional atheists”
You insinuate that anybody who accepts the theory of evolution is a “Darwinist” and that Darwinists are among those who are “professional atheists”.
It really is quite prejudicial and ignorant to do so, and even worse to deny that you are doing so.
But act aggrieved if that is your wont - but it still doesn’t excuse the intellectual dead end you drove yourself into with your acceptance of evolution that has some physical component - but you have no idea, nor do you care to speculate - what that physical basis is - and that asking what it is would be a “stupid” question.
So there you are - in your intellectual dead end - with no intention of ever getting yourself out of it.
How typical of creationists - and no wonder they lag so far behind the general public in educational attainment.
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