Jesus didn't believe Evolution - neither should we

Forget Easter Bunnies. As you learned earlier, the origin of life is not part of evolutionary theory. You can pick how you'd like it to be, and evolutionary theory is not affected.

However, Genesis directly contradicts the "Ex nihilo" claims of young Earth creationism, because it says that the earth and waters brought forth living things. But there are forms of creationism that are compatible with Scripture.

You've confused atheism and science. They aren't the same thing.

No. Science makes no claims about the origin of nature. It's beyond the scope of science. As you might know, science cannot approach the supernatural, or even say whether or not it exists. Fortunately, scientists can.

When you read scripture, it's a good idea to let the text tell you what it says. As Augustine observed, it is absurd to believe that Genesis is literal when it has mornings and evenings with no sun to have them.

News to me. Never heard anyone say that before.

 

Barbarian observes:
However, Darwin, who actually came up with the theory, did not include the origin of life in his. The only major reworking of the theory came about when geneticists added their part to it, but that didn't involve the origin of life, either.

In science, a theory is responsible only for the claims it actually makes.

By "races", biologists in that time meant what we would call "species." Some still use the term for ill-defined subspecies or species. He didn't mean humans.

On the other hand, Darwin was, like most Europeans of his time, a racist. He was considererd a liberal in his thinking, because unlike most upper-class English and American people at the time, he thought that all races were fully human and had the right to their own dignity and freedom. His views were pretty much the same as Abraham Lincoln's. He thought that other races were inferior to Europeans, but that they were nevertheless entitled to all the rights and freedoms any human has. Modern evolutionists are not racists, because we have learned that there are no biological human races.

Barbarian observes:
I have no idea what "evolutionism" is, but most Christians admit that scripture and evolutionary theory are compatible.

Fortunately, we accept God's word. And it is compatible with evolution. It is also compatible with some forms of creationism, although Genesis directly contradicts YE creationism.

Barbarian on the origin of life:
You can pick how you'd like it to be, and evolutionary theory is not affected.

If God poofed the first living things into existance, that's not a problem.

But we have human remains and artifacts much older than that, so we know it can't be like that.

The poofing of life isn't a problem. But of course, the fact that there are human artifacts much older than 6000 years. We even have Egyptian hieroglyphics that are about 5400 years old.

No, that's compatible, too, but of course, you have to accept what Genesis actually says. As you know, because a literal interpretation has logical contradictions, and because the evidence from reality shows that the Earth is much older, we know that this is allegory, not a literal history.

Barbarian observes:
I'm pretty sure God had no concern at all for science as a subject. That's not what He is telling us in the Bible.

Which is O.K. It's not a salvation issue.

I don't see any science.

No science there.

Still no science.

If so, we have no support from the Scripture you cited.

 

AAH, at last somebody is actually trying to address the entropy issue, albeit mistakenly.

I'm terribly sorry I have been on vacation an not joining the fray for the past week but I managed to get to a motel that has free high speed internet access so I can post a little right now.

Recall, danrusdad, that evolution depends on organisms surviving and breeding and doing it better than the competition. Therefore, the energy for evolution's decrease in entropy (such as it is) comes from the food eaten by the organisms as they live and breed. No problem.

By the way, both sides already agree that organisms live and die generation after generation. This involves a large amount of energy usage, with or without evolution occurring. But consider a slightly better gene. Just how much energy is involved in getting that slightly better gene established in the population? It takes a few hundred generations per gene to get a slightly better gene into the population . . . and that represents such a little bit of increased order . . . it is quite clear that no big energy problem exists, the energy comes from the life energy of all the creatures of all the generations involved.

 

Barbarian on a magical creation of life:
The poofing of life isn't a problem. But of course, the fact that there are human artifacts much older than 6000 years. We even have Egyptian hieroglyphics that are about 5400 years old.

That would be pointless. The people who dated the artifacts in question wre archaeologists and physicists, not "evolutionists."

But the Bible does not advocate 6000 years. That is a rather odd misinterpretation of Scripture.

On what authority do you think that the Bible is an accurate science book?

Knowing Dr. Meert, I suggest that he had an answer, but you didn't like it. Let's take a look and see if we can find a way to test your idea of 6000 years.

How does a 6000 year creationist explain coral atolls, some of which have been growing many times longer than that. We know this, because coral leaves both daily and annual rings, and cores of nearly a mile deep have been found.

Hmmm... odd. I thought I had discussed this one with him some time ago...

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/97legacy/pompeii.html

In spite of the very short timeline (in geologic terms, Argon/argon analysis got the date of the destruction of Pompeii right.

You sure he didn't tell you about that?

Well, the answer is, they've done it and it works.

Most methods depend on older rocks. But it turns out at least one works just fine one recent ones.

I don't see that as much of an example. You depended on what you didn't know. And it turned out that you were wrong.

Some creationists tend to "adjust" it a little. One who does not is Dr. Harold Coffin. In McClean vs. Arkansas, he very frankly admitted:

""No, creation science is not testable scientifically."

He further asserted that if he went only with the evidence, he would believe that the Earth was extremely old. Although he is a convinced YE creationist, one of his students was able to convincingly debunk the Paluxy "man tracks."

Like Kurt Wise, he's an honest creationist, who refuses to deny that the evidence is against him. His faith in his interpretation of Scripture simply trumps any evidence that could be collected.

Since there is considerable disagreement about much of the Bible among Bible-believing Christians, and since the YE doctrine is only one relatively minor variety of all the others, you can see why that isn't going to be very useful.

Good example. What makes you think it was an apple? This is the sort of addition to scripture that might seem harmless, but enough of those will take you down the path of YE creationism, where you no longer accept God's word on His creation.

All science is inference based on evidence. You might think that's a rather shaky way to do things, but few things humans do works better. Science has been amazingly successful at understanding the physical universe.

On what authority? What makes you think that the compilation of men is more accurate than the means by which they compiled it?

First, He doesn't say what you think He does. The "apple" is just a small example. Second, we are quite capable of accurately inferring things that have happened, but which we did not see.

That's not a bald assertion; people have shown that this is true in many different disciplines. Some years ago, I had to learn about fire investigation for a client. I was astonished at the things a good investigator and lab could discover about what appeared to be a charred ruin.

A friend of mine is the forensics expert for a large city. He has, on several occasions freed innocent people, and has put a few guilty ones away, based on the science he does.

So, I'm not very likely to be persuaded by "the evidence can mean whatever you want it to."

Given the fact that there's no consensus that the Bible even says anything about an age for the Earth, it would seem that anyone trying to do it, would run the risk of assuming his particular interpretation was God's Word, and then denying God's actual creation.

Never heard that. There was an incident many thousands of years ago, when a glacial lake suddenly emptied ,and scoured out huge canyons, but they are very different than the Grand Canyon.

For example, in the Colorado River, we see entrenched meanders, that cannot be formed suddenly. Here's an example:
http://www.hasd.org/hhs/RRWebQuest/entrenched%20meander.jpg

There's no way that this can form in a human lifetime, or even many human lifetimes.

One person tried to convince me that the gullies eroded in soft ash at Mt. St. Helens were canyons hundreds of feet deep, just like the Grand Canyon. I've been there, and I've had a chance to look at them. He was lied to.

Here's a photo of some of the bigger ones:
http://gallery.photo.net/photo/915132-md.jpg

I took this one from Johnson's Ridge, roughly in the path of the eruption. The valley is quite wide, and the gullies are deep, although not hundreds of feet deep. Notice that they are sloped, and when they get too deep, the edge slumps and falls away. There are no features of the kind you see at the Grand Canyon. If the walls get anything like 100 feet deep, they just fall in, as all soft sediments do. It takes a lot of time to do this.

Reality won't go with that. For example, in the middle of the sediments, we see cross-bedded dunes which indicate deserts had formed in the middle of the process of laying down sediment. We know that they are desert dunes, because the grains are polished as all wind-driven grains are, but water-carried grains are not.

The physics won't work for a sudden canyon, either. Soft sediment is not going to pile up a mile or so deep, and have a nearly vertical wall cut into it. As you see at Mt. St. Helens, it merely slumps.

And we know how entrenched meanders happen. And they certainly don't happen suddenly. We can watch them in the process of formation in many places.

Barbarian observes:
I don't see any science.

(other verses, with no science)

bi·ol·o·gy n.
1. The science of life and of living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, and distribution. It includes botany and zoology and all their subdivisions.
2. The life processes or characteristic phenomena of a group or category of living organisms: the biology of viruses.
3. The plant and animal life of a specific area or region.

zo·ol·o·gy n.
1. The branch of biology that deals with animals and animal life, including the study of the structure, physiology, development, and classification of animals.

bot·a·ny n.
1. The science or study of plants.

No. They have trees, animals, and other living things mentioned. However, one can reference living things, and do no science at all. Science is not cows and flowers and horses, and weeds; it's a process and a method of finding out about the physical universe. And there's no sign of that process or method here.

Can't be. The evidence is not consistent with a worldwide flood.

I'll go back and look.

 

That is "secular humanism". Humanism, as you know, is a Christian movement. Let's use "secular humanism" when we mean "secular humanism", and "humanism" when we mean "humanism."

Barbarian observes:
You may be pleased to know that evolutionary theory does not say we arrived here by a random process, or that we are accountable to nature rather than God. Most of us accept God as the Creator of nature and of each of us, albeit by natural means.

You get a soul directly from God. Your physical body, however, is entirely natural. That's how He does most things, here.

Barbarian observes:
No, that's a common misconception. In fact, most Christians acknowledge that evolution is consistent with God's creation.

No. Information was never part of evolutionary theory. Sometimes, evolution results in an increase in information. Sometimes, it results in a decrease.

 

It is a perfectly legitimate use of the word "world" to refer to mankind instead of the physical planet. I refer you to the following verses that show this use of the word "world":

Isa 13:11
1 Thus I will punish the world for its evil
And the wicked for their iniquity;
NASU

John 1:29
9 The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!
NASU

John 7:7
"The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.
NASU

John 16:20
0 "Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will grieve, but your grief will be turned into joy.
NASU

Rom 12:2
2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
NASU

Well, I suppose we Christians had better turn for our hope in eternal life to our religion instead of to science. This is news?

I take that as a blatant confession you are interpreting the scriptures to conform to your point of view.

As interpreted by you.

There is nothing in that verse that is contrary to anything I believe. It is perfectly consistent with both our views. Why do you even bother to cite it as evidence for your view over mine?

It would seem to me that a REFERENCE to THINGS GETTING OLDER is not a DETAILED DISCUSSION OF ENTROPY.

Your allegation would require me to believe that the cause of day and night is the Sun moving around the earth and that all flying insects have four legs. It is the earth that rotates and flying insects have six legs.

Just because God took advantage of the Hebrew's belief that the world was created in six days and that He rested on the Seventh (And we know that God is beyond time and space and never needs rest on a particular day) does not mean we have to assume He is being literal at this point.

God was unable to give men what He really wanted to give them in the law - for example, Moses delivered at God's command regulations concerning divorce, but God's will is that divorce not exist. In the same way, God was not able to literally describe the way the universe and the earth and life came about to men; they were not yet ready for that truth.

And as I stated at the beginning of the topic, all evolutionists, theistic and non-theistic alike, believe that from the beginning of mankind we were always male and female and I wonder why you think this verse is a telling blow in your favor at all . . .

it is only your personal interpretation that makes the creation word refer to all of creation instead of the creation of mankind.

 

We've hit 20 pages.
Time to wrap it up folks and folksesses. You have 24 hours to post your final answer.
Gina

 

"My mistake. I forgot to post the link at the end of the quote. However, notice that I did set the entire thing off in italics."

That's OK. No big deal, I did notice the italics.

I just get tired of big cut and paste jobs. It is sort of a habit of mine when I see a long post to Google a few phrases to see if it is lifted from somewhere. There are some here who will argue with large cut and pastes mixed in with their own stuff and you cannot tell which is which. There are also some who always seem to refuse to give references. I. personally, would rather see someone whittle it down to a few paragraphs in their own words to both make it easier to read and to show that they actually understand what they are copying and then give the reference for those that are interested. But I am digressing so far here...

I think you attempt at devil's advocate is just another example of a slippery slope fallacy. There is no reason to suspect that those of us who do not believe in a literal creation week do not believe the Gospels, for example, outside of your own mind. BTW, you said "I expected you to say something to the effect of "the bible says xyz". But you never did. The closest you come to referring to the Bible is by saying that you believe the Gospels and the OT prophecies." I think your last sentence here gives you your answer to the complaint in the first sentence. I do not see how i could have been more clear, at 3 AM, than saying I believe the NT accounts of Jesus and that He fulfilled the OT prophecies of the Messiah.

"How much have you personally contributed to the observation and formation of the Theory of Evolution?

No, as I have mentioned before, my work is in coal gasification research. But, I do at least have a good, fundamental education in the basic sciences wich I think gives me the ability to evaluate the claims of each side. Remember, for all your talk of bias, I came to this table with a YE bias and was convinced by the YECers themselves that they could not possibly be right. If it was not for their own junk science and blatent misrepresentation, I would have never explored any old earth theories. Your humanist attacks on me just do not fit the pattern of what shaped my thoughts on the matter.

"Evolution describes a process whereby single cell organisms increased in information, changing form and evolving into higher creatures from lower creatures via mutation. Natural selection directionally forced the mutative changes upward through the tree of life molding organisms into simple animals, then complex animals and ultimately into man. It did this by killing off creatures containing non-beneficial mutations, so that only those with good mutations survived to breed and mutate."

Well, close. I would not use "lower" and "higher" creatures. Most of the life on earth is as it has always been, rather simple. And I would point out that all members of all generations of all species die. It is just those with better adaptations are a little more likely to reproduce first. So it is not so much the killing off of the bad as it is the success of the good. That does put a bit of a dent of the red tooth and claw analogy that YECers like to use.

Also since you are still talking information, do you have any response to my claims of new "information" http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/18.html#000263 . I think that it gives a reasonable proposal to where all the new genetic codes came from with a few short examples and a bunch of abstracts where others have traced such evolution? Do you have a response, too, to the problems I found with your "source" for information only coming from intelligent sources? http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/18.html#000259

"AiG has an article on Techtonics that is very interesting."

Baumgardner again I see. Any answers to the objections I have raised to you earlier about this model? One specifically is that his own numbers indicate a heat release sufficient to boil the oceans completely away three times over. Another is his calculation of incredible water velocities (130 to 260 ft/s) over the continents and how could the geology and fossils that we see possibly have been the product of this.

"For example, I have gone toe-to-toe in debates with Dr. Joe Meert - a staunch evolutionist and expert in geomagnetism and geochronology. He had no answers for me when I posed him the question - if ALL rocks on the planet were less than 6000 years old as the Bible suggests, would radiometric dating work? Furthermore, I asked him if ANY radiometric dating methods would work on any rocks where we knew the date of their formation. The best answer that he could give is that there would be no need to do so if the formation of those rocks was recently observed, therefore they have never tested them. I asked him if it wouldn't be a good idea to test radiometric dating on rocks they KNEW the dates of to test and verify the accuracy and viability of the radiometric dating process - again, I got no response."

I believe that Meert is a geologist, but that may be swatting at gnats.

I had my doubts about him being unable to answer such a question. I am no geologist, but even I could tell you that if the world was only 6000 years old then the simple answer is that dating the rocks would give nonsense answers. For instance, with isocron dating you would never actually get an isocron. It would just be random points. You would also not see the pattern of ratios by position in the geologic column that we actually see. You are mentioning godd evidence here, but good evidence for an old earth. Otherwise, just how did those rocks get sorted by the ratios of radioactive isotopes?

Anyhow, I went and found his response. "JM: Nope, the rocks would answer the questions for us. We would not get self consistent ages for the rocks as they appear in the geologic column." Basically what I said but he has the gift of succinctness. http://www.youdebate.com/cgi-bin/scarecrow/topic.cgi?forum=3&topic=2563&page=2

"In fact, most radiometric dating centers publicly advertise that they are not equipped to date young rocks - those less than 1 million years, for example. If the Bible is true, and I believe it is, then all rocks are a maximum of 6000 years old. That means all dates coming from those radiometric dating centers are admittedly inaccurate."

Your statement tells me that you have no concept of using the appropriate ruler when making a measurement nor of proper sample selection. You seem to have a problem that a ruler meant to measure billions of years is a bit off when you ask it to measure less than one hundred years. Yet I doubt that if you are cutting a board to build with that you would use your car's odometer to do the measuring. Nor would you use a yard stick to measure how far it is from your house to the nearest national park. YOu have to use tools appropriate to the scale. Over on the other board you also got caught by the ability of disingenuous YECers to deliberately choose samples they know will date wrong. Snelling is one of the best. I do not know he can sleep at night. I guess he thinks a lie for God is a good lie. Well it was this kind of [] that drove me from YEC. Anyhow, you gave an example of Mt. St. Helens ash dating incorrectly when he deliberately had grains that did not melt tested instead of actual melt products that would have had their ages reset. Of course he does this all the time and no one on your side seems to have a problem with it. This is why I find the YEC leaders morally bankrupt.

"Another actual example of this concept in action is the Grand Canyon. Scientists have always thought that it takes millions of years for canyons to form."

Is this the same claim you made here? http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/5.html#000061

You have never responded to my refutation of your claim here. http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/5.html#000073

At least you were wise enough to remove the direct reference to Burlingame Canyon from this most recent post. Or is that because you want to make the same claim but you know the basis is faulty so you leave that part out?

"Does it not bother you evolutionists that the permission most people have to walk away from the Bible is evolution?"

It bothers me greatly. That is why I continually point out the problems with YEC. Eventually when we can get people to realize that evolution is not at odds with CHristianity, this problem will go away. In the mean time, IMHO the YECers lay the groundwork for such tragedy by their insistence on their own interpretive abilities to say that the two are inconsistent. Any serious look at the facts of the case will convince most people that evolution happen(s)ed. Once you have already laid the groundwork for these people that the two are incompatible, you make it easy for them to reject God over it. But, like geocentrism, this way of thinking shall too pass.

 

Gup, you act as if the physical evidence contradicsts God's word, but that is impossible, because God is the author of not only the bible, but also this physical evidence. Thus, while evolutionists do their best to reconcile the bible and the physical evidence, Creationists like you do your best to look at one 'thing' that God has authored (the Bible) while completely ignoring the other (physical evidence).

Physical evidence doesn't "lie", unless you call God a liar by placing it there.

 

Physical evidence doesn't lie? That's a VERY silly and invalid argument. Evidence can be misunderstood, altered, or able to be understood only partially, as so clearly evidenced by changing technology that shows how much we don't know.
Gina

 

Gup

You must remember, we feel that it is important to look at both the special revelation of creation God gave us in the Bible and the general relevation He has given us through the creation itself. A correct interpretation of the Bible and a correct interpretation of the physical evidence will never be in conflict.

I came to this debate with a strong bias towards a young earth. But I was ultimately convinced otherwise. And there was a whole lot of praying and studying (spiritual and scientifically) involved in that. And I ultimately decided that when everything was put together that the only option that was viable was OEC / TE. I felt that anything else was not intellectually or religiously honest. A young earth was ruled out by the physical evidence. Complete naturalism was ruled out by experiencing God in my live personally and believing the Bible.

You say that we have not ever provided you with any scriptural support. Not true, I did so and The Galatian repeated it recently. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass... And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good... And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so."

You have also been pointed out many indications that the creation account was not meant to be literal. The reference to the "evening and the morning" for three days before there was a sun to give us an evening and a morning. The different order of the creation presented in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. There are many areas where no concern was given to the physical realities. The long discussion on the Jewish geography, for instance. (Which you never refuted. You instead showed where other people believed other things or were wrong about things. You never addressed the issue of the Jews and the other people of the Middle East at the time.) It seemed like it would be unproductive with you to delve into some of the other such areas like the four legged insects and classifying bats as birds.

And I have explained the reason for going to the physical evidence. We both claim to have the right Biblical interpretation. Since the Bible properly interpreted will not conflict with the physical evidence correctly interpreted, the physical evidence can be used to find who is right.

You compound this problem by repeatedly asserting that the physical evidence is in agreement with a young earth. Now, if you were to tell me that you interpret the Bible to mean a young earth based on faith and that you do not care what the physical evidence says, then this becomes a non-issue. I do not think the problem is people who hold young earth views. My problem, is with people who claim that the evidence is for a young earth. In my experience, those at leadership levels have been quite dishonest with presenting the evidence to the masses about this subject. Look at just the example I gave above about Snelling. How many references do I need to give you about him purposefully making dating mistakes so that he can claim that it does not work? Give me a number? 3? 5? And this is what I think is very harmful. First to the believers who are taught for so long that the Bible is incompatible with an old earth and that the evidence supports a young earth. When these people are exposed to the truth, as you said, we lose a lot of them. This is needless. Second, there are the unbelievers who are hard pressed to see how we can have the "Truth" if we must stick our collective fingers in our ears when it comes to the nature of the world.

But you do assert that the evidence shows a young earth. Yet you refuse to lay that evidence out. You assert that there are better interpretations for the data that indicate a young earth. Yet you do not bother to tell us what the problems are with the mainstream interpretations and what the better interpretations are. The few areas in which you do at least mention physical evidence have been easily refuted. You generally do not even bother to support your original assertions once the problems are pointed out. ALthough you will wait until the refutation is stale and then make the same assertion. And you certainly will not allow yourself to lose control of the thread by responding to issues brought up by the OEers.

http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/12.html#000171
This is just a partial listing of the topics you have avoided in this thread. Look above ( http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/20.html#000292 and http://www.baptistboard.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php/topic/28/2710/18.html#000263 ) for a few specific more. The overwhelming evidence from God's own creation indicates an old earth. We do not find anything in scripture that contradicts this.

You expect us to believe the Biblical interpretation of a "fallible man" even when it conflicts with the realities of what we can see around us.

Does that count as a summary?

 

Good point Gina,
It has often been pointed out that the many of the theories of evolutionism (and even creationism for that matter) can't be reproduced, and therefore can't be proved scientificly. That is true: we can not duplicate historic events.

What we really are looking at is "legal" proofs. This means looking at the preponderance of evidences. Legal proofs can be manipulated and skewed by our limited understanding, our personal presupositions and by unscrupulous people.

Lord keep us far from liars and deceivers. (Proverbs 30:7)

Nice ending on this thread guys! You have ALL done good work.

Rob

 

Barbarian observes:
That is "secular humanism". Humanism, as you know, is a Christian movement. Let's use "secular humanism" when we mean "secular humanism", and "humanism" when we mean "humanism."

It's O.K. to have a private definition, if you make it clear you are using it. You would do better to make the distinction.

"There can be no humanism without the Gospels."
Protestant theologian Karl Barth

Barbarian observes:
No, that's a common misconception. In fact, most Christians acknowledge that evolution is consistent with God's creation.

It sounds like aboigenesis. What it does, is completely reject the notion of YE creationism, since it explicitly rules out ex nihilo creation.

Evolution, biochemistry, etc. are nowhere to be found. As you know, it's not a science text, and these things are not discussed.

Fact is, it nowhere says six literal 24 hour (solar) days. You've been misled. Go and look. Not there.

I just looked. It doesn't say that "life only creates more of itself", and it doesn't say that life doesn't turn into other kinds of life. In fact, it refers to life as a "kind", not kinds.

In fact, most Christians know that they are not.

In fact, Strong's say:

"3117 yowm yome from an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term)..."

You've been misled, again.

As you can see above, many of the things you think are in the Bible aren't there at all. They were added by men to make God's creation more acceptable to them.

Of course, it is possible that some portions of the Bible are literal and others figurative or allegorical. Indeed, I know of no theologian who denies this.

Barbarian on misunderstanding "yom":
Doesn't say "literal days". In fact, a litereal reading would rule out literal days, because there would be no sun, no mornings and no evenings.

Sorry, even Strong's points out that the Hebrew word can mean day, or any stretch of time.

Actually, we don't have a statement that time was created. But you can't have mornings without a sun. By definition.

No, that's wrong. We know that even Adam was mortal, since God says so, expressing concern that Adam might become so:

Gen. 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

They are, of course allegorical, since the text tells you so. Anytime a literal translation leads to logical contradictions, we know it can't be literal.

Barbarian observes:
"Solar days" is a non-scriptural addition. Not a good idea.

No matter what the motive, it is never good to add to scripture.

Barbarian observes:
And the "death" as the serpent showed, was not physical, but spiritual. Otherwise Adam would have literally died that day, as God had told him. He did die, of course, but that was a figurative spiritual death.

That's not what God said. God said Adam would die the day he ate from the tree. He did. But not physically. So we know it's not about physical death, because God would otherwise have told Adam a falsehood, which is absurd.

If God is truth, there could be no delay. It would happen as He said. And it did.

Barbarian observes:
That's not scriptural, either. Even if a worldwide flood were true, plants would have to survive somehow. And fish would have to have somehow survived the blending of salt and fresh water, and so on.

I'm pointing out that not all living things died if they didn't go on the Ark, even if you take the allegory as literal history.

But they are animals and living things.

Barbarian observes:
Since we have directly observed the process, any consideration of life on Earth mush account for evolution.

Nope. It's very true. Speciations have been directly observed, the first one in the early 1900s. Would you like to learn about some of them?

I think so, too. But the word of every person who has a personal interpretation of Scripture is less compelling.

I tell them it's right. You just don't like everything in it, and have added a few things to make it more acceptable to you.

Nope. There is no "de-evolving". Devo was a 1970s new wavish band, not a scientific theory. What makes you think of that?

I have no idea what you're talking about...

 

If that response was "supposed to have had substance" I missed it.

Posturing is a good substitute for "proof" in the halls of evolutionism - but it does not work as well in an open discussion forum like this.

You might want to rethink it.

You seem to already have missed 'the detail'. Dawkings is already quotd as "Claiming" that evolutionism claims for itself the "complete explanation for everything...starting with nothing..every step is explained".

I can keep posting it - but if you keep ignoring that detail -- it only increases my opportunity to "Show" that evolutionist (icons) themselves admit that the "Claim" of evolutionism is to start with nothing and then explain away life in such a way that the evolutionist (Dawkings in this case) has no need of inserting a "Creator" into the "story".

Keep reading the thread then. We have a few faithful devotees to that system of belief that will gladly share their faith with you.

And they also worship at Mary's altars and pray to the dead - but as it turns out - they are wrong on all three counts.

However I do agree - that the "majority" seek to marry humanist-beliefs in evolutionism to the Gospel - they are simply "unsuccessful" as this thread points out.

The fact is clear, when the believers in evolutionism are confronted with the glaring contradictions between Christianity and evolutionism they... "change the subject".

In UTEOTW's case - they want to talk about "chalk" instead.

In Christ,

Bob