But you did not answer the question. Let me repeat the question (It is a "Yes/No" Question:
If I might ask, have you allegorized the creation story sufficiently in your mind that you believe (based on the evidence of dry bones), that man was not a special creation of God, but that he descended from lower forms of life and ultimately from some simian non-human ancestor?
Yes or No.
You are perpetuating a shame to Christ.
By believing his words?
Hell, if I wasn’t a Christian, I’d be seriously offended by your failure to dialog, by your failure to address my questions, and by your manner of taking what I say as something completely different than what I did say.
It appears to me that you ARE seriously offended. BTW I don't believe I have failed to answer any of your questions. You may correct me if I am wrong. Further, I don't see where you have answered mine.
and before you take THAT as a “sign of weak faith” let me say my faith is NOT dependent on you, but on the living Son of God, Jesus Christ.
Did I accuse you of having a "weak faith"? I don't believe so. You have accused me of many things on this thread; of not having faith, of being a fool, of perpetuating a shame upon Christ. All I am doing is expressing my belief in his words. I honestly don't understand your visceral reaction.
If I say God created the Heavens and the Earth and all that is within them in 6 days am I perpetuating a Shame upon Christ. Weren't those the same words that were inscribed by God on the Ten Commandments? Was God perpetuating a shame upon Christ by inscribing them?
Yes, they were. And I don't think they are shameful. They describe reality and real events. I don't pretend to know all about the reconciliation of creation and the doubts of those who are theistic evolutionists, but I do know that I believe the biblical record to be true.
I doubt the theistic evolutionary take on it, because it requires a radical reinterpretation of God Himself. The way I see it, theistic evolution necessitates that God be viewed more as a cosmic tinkerer than an Omnipotent Sovereign.
I don't think the biblical record supports the view of God as cosmic tinkerer.
>If I might ask, have you allegorized the creation story sufficiently in your mind that you believe (based on the evidence of dry bones), that man was not a special creation of God, but that he descended from lower forms of life and ultimately from some simian non-human ancestor?
No.
Let me present a similar question: “Have you quit beating your wife yet?”
...
Do you see the problem with this sort of question? It operates on flawed assumptions, such as you having a wife at all. Also, no matter how you answer it (it is a simple yes/no question), you admit to beating your wife.
>>You are perpetuating a shame to Christ.
>By believing his words?
No, by behaving like a fool. Is it not a fool who answers questions as they are being asked, but before the sentence is out of the mouth? Is it not a fool who can offer a reason greater than seven wise men?
>It appears to me that you ARE seriously offended. BTW I don’t believe I have failed to answer any of your questions. You may correct me if I am wrong. Further, I don’t see where you have answered mine.
Ok, now, I am a programmer, I KNOW what literal means. I am also an amateur writer, I like to write and tell stories, so I know that mode of linguistics as well.
1) A day is defined as the rotation of the Earth in relation to the sun. How then is a day possible before the Earth was created?
1b) Using the definition from 1, how is it possiblel to have a day when the Earth existed but the sun had not yet been created?
2) First, The Hebrew word used to describe God’s creative work is “to stretch;” Second, We observe that relativistic time dilation DOES exist, meaning that the faster an object is going the slower time is experienced to a stationary observer. Third, given the first and the second, as God created the universe the edges He was stretching out would be moving at a greater speed then the center. Therefore, couldn’t the time experienced by some portions of the universe be millions of years, while some other place only experienced a day?
3) In the previous question we assumed that time was uniform, yet applied relativity to generate a question. (Meaning that even though time was slower at faster speeds, the same rate of speed would result in the same ratio of “slowness”.) Now, what if the assumption that time is uniform is false? This would mean that “patches” of the universe are experiencing time at different rates, which we can “sort of” get with relativity. How would a specific time-descriptive word adequately explain reality?
4) How can I offer a defense if I am already condemned, if you will not listen? (This relates to your yes/no question; I answered it by refuting the premises you were basing your question on, and yet you said I did not answer your question.)
Also, I asked if Jesus’s saying of “You must be born again.” to Zacheus was literal; you said “No”. So, if Jesus is God, and I assume we agree there, and He is using allegory and metaphor then isn’t it also reasonable to think that God might use metaphor as well?
If no, please explain the relation of marriage as an institute and a relationship and how Jesus relates to His church. It would be most interesting to see how someone could fail to see metaphor in marriage and Christ/church interaction.
>Did I accuse you of having a “weak faith”? I don’t believe so.
You did not, I merely saw the opportunity for you to do so and said “Before you accuse me of having a weak faith”... Perhaps this was unjust of me.
>You have accused me of many things on this thread; of not having faith, of being a fool, of perpetuating a shame upon Christ.
I have called you a fool. I have NOT said your faith was weak, nor have I said it was strong. I DID say you were perpetrating a shame to Christ, and as I explained, by acting like a fool.
>All I am doing is expressing my belief in his words.
And have I done anything different? Honestly? There are more ways to read than literal, and sometimes reading them literally makes no sense, as was the case of Zacheus and Jesus. (”What? How can a man be born again? Can he enter into his mother’s womb a second time?” is a perfectly valid question to the literal reading of Jesus’s words “You must be born again.”)
>I honestly don’t understand your visceral reaction.
Let me explain it to you, as best as I can with a story:
Today, I had breakfast with my father and, while eating, the alarm on my phone went off and I pulled it out of my pocket, turned it off and returned to breakfast. My father then asked; “Is that your phone? Is that your phone ringing?” I said “It’s my alarm. It’s nobody.” After answering “it’s my alarm.” I got yelled at about it being a yes/no question, so I answered ‘no’. I got yelled at because “I’m not stupid, I saw you pull your phone out of your pocket!”
What was I supposed to do? If I answered “yes” it would be true that it was my phone, but false that it was ringing; likewise, if I answered “no” it would be false because it WAS my phone, but false that it was a call.
Both answers were losing answers.
Do you now see why I dislike the treatment?
>If I say God created the Heavens and the Earth and all that is within them in 6 days am I perpetuating a Shame upon Christ.
Should that be a question-mark instead of a period? But that’s irrelevant, I did not say that a literal six 24-hr days was shameful. I said your treatment was.
>Weren’t those the same words that were inscribed by God on the Ten Commandments?
No, actually those would be “Have no other Gods before me”, “Do not blaspheme”, “Observe the Sabbath and keep it holy”, “Do not murder”, “Do not covet”, “Do not steal”, “Do not commit adultery” and so forth; there is nothing in the Ten Commandments that says anything about the creation.
>Was God perpetuating a shame upon Christ by inscribing them?
What? You seem to be thinking that I’m saying that I think you’re stupid/foolish because you are reading things literally. I never said that, in fact I wanted you to answer my questions regarding how you believe that they should be read literally. I never said that they WEREN’T 24-hr days; I just said that it makes more sense to me to read them as figurative days, after all the sun didn’t exist in the beginning, nor the earth, and those are what defines ‘day’. (Think about it this way, if the Earth rotated once in 28 hrs, would 28 hours then be a day?)