Posted on 05/11/2003 4:38:14 PM PDT by Junior
It's only fair.
Did Adam and Eve somehow count and record the number of days since their creation? What determines the starting point for counting days? How do you know that God's Sabbath isn't really on a Tuesday?
Also, does the Bible anywhere define where the international date line should be? Should someone in Israel celebrate the Sabbath 12 hours before or twelve hours after someone in California? How do you know?
Clearly one day in seven is to be reserved as a day of rest and worship, and clearly that day is to be celebrated uniformly to the extent possible (though on a fully-populated globe there must necessarily either be people who celebrate the Sabbath many hours apart in actual time, or who celebrate it many hours apart in local time.
To my mind, the notion of evolutionary theory doesn't have to be an either/or proposition. I see nothing wrong with saying or believing that some of the diversity of life on this planet is a result of evolutionary processes while some is the product of Creation.
That is exactly the problem I'm having with all the new thinking and interpretations.
Jesus seemed to believe and teach that most of the events of the old testament were literally true.
I don't have a particular hangup about the length of days. Like someone, maybe you said, before the sun was created, a day could be much longer.
Did Jesus believe that those were just stories in the old testament and use them for reference? I don't think so.
So if the old testament isn't literally true concerning the basics, then it would seem to me that Christianity was built on the foundation of a false religion. Or fulfilled on the basis of a false religion.
Catholics didn't used to believe that way in times past I don't think. If you want it both ways and it works for you, fine (not you, RaceBannon, but the modernists on the forum). It doesn't work for me. Having been reading Christian bashing for so long, I've come to question a lot of what was of God (if anything in the ot) and what was of man.
I never imagined it would come to this in my Christian walk.
An irreducibly complex system cannot be built step-by-step, if the intermediate steps are expected to perform any viable function.
The bible doesn't seem to deal with the whole world as we now know it to be. The flood seems to have been regional also.
I agree. I have not an iota of doubt that mutation and natural selection are responsible for much of biodiversity.
I see nothing wrong with saying or believing that some of the diversity of life on this planet is a result of evolutionary processes while some is the product of Creation.
Neither do I. (but I don't think that can be taught in our public schools.)
Would you object to teaching students that creation did in fact happen and the universe we live in is evidence of that? Would you object to teaching students that nothing absent a catalyst can not equal an EEU without a Supreme Being? If so, could you offer me another explantaion that doesn't violate the laws of physics. thermodynamicss and common sense as we know them?
Yeah, because it was a non-issue. God created the Heaven and Earth ... It wasn't until the 'Enlightenment's' deification of man and post 'Enlightment' Darwinism, that this became a point of dispute.
"For them, the Bible is mostly to teach a religious lesson," said Ernan McMullin of the earliest Christian scholars.
The Bible is the Word of God, and is true. We learn about God, and our hope for Salvation (only through Jesus Christ). And the framework of Creation is witness to an Almighty, Infinite God, and the Fall as to our need for a Saviour.
Christian fundamentalists have long pushed the nation's public schools to teach creationism as an alternative, which in its strictest form claims that the world was created in six days, as stated in the Bible's Old Testament Book of Genesis.
Actually, I think their primary push has been to get the government schools to own up to the fact that 'evolution' is an unprovable hypothesis - and at least to point out some of its major flaws (e.g., no fossil evidence of any 'missing links'; no evidence of 'positive' mutations; no evidence of increasing genetic information in anything - a prerequisite for a simpler organism morphing into a more complex organism; difficulty to reconcile with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics -- other than waving hands about open/closed/controlled systems - as if undirected sunlight would've reduced entropy; etc.).
But McMullin said creationism largely is an American phenomenon. Other countries simply don't have major creationist movements, leading him to ask: "What makes it in the U.S. ... such an issue (over) evolution and Christian belief?"
Because we aren't godless commies ...yet.
< crickets >
Genesis describes global events (creation of seas, etc.) and extra-global events (such as the creation of the Sun, the Moon, the stars in the firmament, etc.)
Personally, I think the creation story in Genesis is a much simplified version of the actual events. Imagine, if you will, that you were trying to tell a six-year-old how television works. You might be able to cover certain technical aspects, but you would of necessity have to considerably simplify many aspects and use metaphors to describe others.
Compared to the mind of God, the mind of Man is nothing--the difference is far greater even than that between an adult and a two-year-old. The Creation Story must almost certainly, then, be a considerably abridged and simplified version of actual events since I don't think the mind of man could fully comprehend what really happened.
The term "evolution" is often used to describe two hypotheses:
The second theory is much more speculative. It is unlikely that there could ever be evidence to completely support or debunk it, though there is little or no reason to regard it as anything other than an interesting theory which has enough inconsistencies with evidence to, at minimum, need refineemnt.
I think understanding the former type of evolution theory is important; it is a useful scientific theory which can be demonstrated through experiment, and has certain practical uses. The latter theory might be interesting to ponder, and should probably be taught as a theory, but students should be told that it is largely speculative.
Tell that to some of the folks on this forum.
He's referring allegorical method. It involves the reader reading meaning into a passage instead of trying to determine the writer's intended meaning (i.e. the literal method.)
It was popular in the ancient world around the time of Christ. Both views (allegorical and literal interpretation) were taught in the early Church. It (allegorical) became the popular method during the dark ages, while literal is most popular in modern times.
It is a little confusing that this priest would try to use that, as an argument against a belief in creationism. All the allegorical method does is allow the reader create any "spiritual lesson" he wishes out of a passage.
When given a choice between the literal method which involves studing word meanings/usage, grammar, context, to determine the writers message. And the allegorical which allows as many "spiritual messages" in a passage as the readers wish to create. It's hard to imagine why anyone would want to argue that the allegorical method is the best way to determine the truth. Unless, of course, you disagree with the writers message.
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