Christians: Does age of earth matter?

UTE;
Thanks, I added it to my 'favorites' list. I will read it some more. Too much info to assimilate at once.

Cotton

 

Pretty hard to "see" the evidence staring you in the face when "any old excuse you can think of" is sufficient to dismiss data that does not please you - eh UTEOTW?

I can see now "seeing the data" is as challenging for you as you say.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Since the title of this thread asks (in essence) if evolution "matters" to the Gospel and to Christianity - or if staying true to the Word of God as it gives GOD's "account" of the making of the earth "matters" -- you would "think" that questions like those asked here --- would have "been the focus" of our evolutionist brethren...

I guess not.. eh?

More facts to be "ignored"?

I guess so.

In Christ,

Bob

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by BobRyan:
Since I already mentioned Romans 8 as a key part of the Gospel message of Paul that refutes such speculation - lets look at it.


18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
19 For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
21 that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
22 For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
23 And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bob responds

Now "again" since this deals directly with the subject title of the thread "Why evolution MATTERS" vs why "God's Word Matters" (Showing how the NT NEEDS the Word of God to be true in this case)... you would "think" that those evolutionists posting here would want to help make the case above.

But they are curiously "consistent" in showing little interest in "Doing the math" showing how these NT anchorpoints in the OT text "remain valid" when the myths of evolutionism are substituted for the Word of God.

Surely there is "some interest" in making their case?

In Christ,

Bob

 

Ever notice how a careful and honest reading of text - so fully refutes the myths of the evolutionary tale?

Read carefully and observe here...

Amazing how Christians scholars keep exegeting these texts to contain the very meaning blind-faith-in-evolutionism so needs to ignore.

So death decay and corruption mentioned in Romans 8 seem to match with todays "extinction, extermination, death, disease, tooth-and-claw carnage" in nature.

But evolutionism "needs" that to be the meaning behind "God spoke and it was - He commanded and it stood firm". Evolution "needs" us to ignore the idea that "decay, corruption, death" came about because of the sin of man as stated by Paul.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Of course that is all pretty "obvious". Especially that last statement.

But Christian evolutionism lives in denial - pretending "to ignore the data" and even "miss the argument" in most cases.

Hence the predictable response

AS if that is not bad enough...the mtDNA argument taking all females back to ONE source instead of "many strains showing many sources" -- is "missed entirely"

The statement above was that "Evolution failed".

Specifically the doctrines of the more clerically minded evolutionists.

Certainly the genesis model of all-from-ONE is the "rule" and the evolutionis model of "many sources eventually reaching critical mass and launching a new type" utterly fails.

Notice that when confronted with such blunders in evolutionisms doctrines and prediction the "defense" is to pretend not to understand the obvious?

Smaller words?

Imagine if you will -- no homosapiens. How do the first colonies come about? Hominids of pre-homosapien ilk must give birth to homosapiens. And they must do so in "sufficient numbers" such that the new group can "meet" can "procreate" and and "thrive" at least in some modest sense. This means that in various parts of the world - they "confluences" should have occurred as the pre-homosapien beings on the verge of the classification change (from the standpoint of taxonomy) were in a position to start having "Some" homosapien offspring.

Now this was the long slow explanation. Please do not continue to "pretend" not to understand the point. That tactic does not work as a kind of "compelling argument" for ignoring the data.

In your response you show how ONE ancestor having MANY generations of children should be "found" by traversing back up the tree. You used a circular argument. The entire "point" was to show HOW MANY ancestors (predicted by Evolutionism) would "look like ONE ancestor" for the ENTIRE population of EARTH.

(Surely this point just is not that hard to understand)

Notice your flawed scenario below ...

The "obvious" problem is that the "population" is "all of planet earth" and the "expected" genesis by MULTIPLE ancestors (ONE for each population group comprising of that ONE ancestors offspring) "fails" to be seen in the data.

I.E. What happened to all the OTHER women that were supposedly contemporary to Eve? Why don't we see THEIR population represented here?

Notice this telling statement in a "confession" published in NOVA

In other words EVERY OTHER STRAIN DIED -- miraculously so that there is ONLY ONE population group today.

So "see" it is "supposed" to look like God created Eve - in evolutionism - because "obviously" ALL populations of ALL EVE-neighbors were "destined to die off so it would like mistakenly as if God created from ONE blood all nations of the earth" when in fact "He did not".

This is a case where evolutionist have to come up with a "story" for why the DATA supports God -but God is still lying in His Word. (Because remember - His word was given to a non-science people - people that you can lie to without that being "a bad thing").

In Christ,

Bob

 

"Pretty hard to "see" the evidence staring you in the face when "any old excuse you can think of" is sufficient to dismiss data that does not please you - eh UTEOTW?"

I believe I have done a good job of showing that the potential problems thrown up are not really problems but misrepresentation of the data, misunderstanding of the data, or a lack of data. I do not think that I generally use "any old excuse you can think of." I think they are generally grounded in fact.

"Imagine if you will -- no homosapiens. How do the first colonies come about? Hominids of pre-homosapien ilk must give birth to homosapiens. And they must do so in "sufficient numbers" such that the new group can "meet" can "procreate" and and "thrive" at least in some modest sense. This means that in various parts of the world - they "confluences" should have occurred as the pre-homosapien beings on the verge of the classification change (from the standpoint of taxonomy) were in a position to start having "Some" homosapien offspring."

And you are arguing against a strawman.

No where in TOE does it predict that anything every gave birth to a different species. It would be just as unlikely to reproduce as what you propose here.

Let me give you the classic example of a ring species. Take herring gulls as one example. There are various populations of herring gulls in the world. Here's the interesting thing. Populations that are adjacent to one another can breed with one another, all the way around the world. So are they one species? But, populations from different sides of the world cannot mate with one another. So are they different species? I don't know. But what it illustrates is that in the void between one species and another related species, there can exist a continuum such that you cannot tell where one species ends and another begins.

The situation in an evolving population would be an analog. The change is gradual and population wide. Though we looking back on things may say that these were part of one species and these were part of another, there was never a defined line where that distinction is made. No H. ergaster ever gave birth to a H. heidelbergensis. But it does seem that ergaster evolved into heidelbergensis. The line between them is fuzzy and broad, not sharp and defined as in your strawman.

"In your response you show how ONE ancestor having MANY generations of children should be "found" by traversing back up the tree. You used a circular argument."

There is absolutely nothing circular about my argument. If you take ANY breeding population and trace it back through either the maternal or the paternal line, you have no choice but to end up with a single individual that was the ancestor of all in the population. I thought my explanation of the math was simple enough. I guess not.

You have a population P0 with a certain number of females in it. The population of the mothers of P0, we'll call them P1, is less than or equal to P0. Do you disagree with this?

If you do, please explain why in detail. If you do not, them we get the following.

P0 > P1 > P2 > P3 ... >Pn where Pn = 1

There is absolutely no way around it. It by no means indicates that she was the only female alive. It is just a quirk of math. The other females have contributed to the genetic diversity of humanity. Just not the mtDNA. The human DNA as a whole does come from "many strains." But not the mtDNA, it is passed down differently than the rest of the genome.

I have shown my math. If you disagree, show me my mistake. Which step has a bad assumption.

You yourself quoted NOVA on what happened to the mtDNA of the others. Someone in their line of descendants had no daughters to perpetrate the strain.

 

Or one could say "interpret the creation narratives as literal for 'non-scientific' purposes?"

The Stone edition commentators do state that they don't treat the Torah as a chronological history; I'm sure they would also say it isn't a science book.

Had a chance this morning to look at how the Stone edition Tanakh translation read. Chapter two reads to the effect that God brought the animals He had formed to Adam to see what he would call them. It doesn't treat chap 2 as chronological, rather it reflects what had already occured. I read from the Complete Jewish Bible trans. by David Stern yesterday, and it appeared to treat chap 2 as forming the animals and bringing them to Adam. So yes, translations read differently.

Whether the Stone edition translation deals "honestly" with the Hebrew text or not, I don't know. I am no where near scholar enough to analyze that!

The phrase "interpreted literally" you used is something to consider: a translation is still just a translation. I don't agree that you can interpret the text as non-literal, but then again we have to ask "which text?" I believe the Hebrew text is absolutely correct and should be taken literally. However, our minds may be incapable of forming the pictures that the words actually convey.

I don't think the passages are in disagreement; though the translations are. One thing that studying God's Word has taught me is that apparent contradictions are not contradictions at all, but "attention getters" to focus on for greater understanding! He hasn't let me down yet! However, studying Hebrew at the 'root' level is a time consuming (though enjoyable) process that unfortunately, I can't do at the moment.

I do believe that the "data" of our world is circumstantial evidence. I think we argue over pieces of a puzzle for which we have a true (but sometimes terse) description of (ie the Bible) but we don't have a complete picture of, or all the pieces for. In both instances (that is to say, either relying on our translation of the Word OR "scientific data") we let our eyes tell our minds (or vice versa) what to believe. Because we have insufficient data, our 'computers' spit out a garbled page.

The King James is a literal translation, and a very good one; however no translation can do the Hebrew justice. I believe it contains more than we know.

Cotton

 

BobRyan,

I am sorry you feel we have ignored your questions. I suppose we have ignored them because (and I suspect Paul and UTEOTW agree, though I don't know) the theory of evolution does not address the issues.

According to Evolution - can God make a city and have it come down from space?

The theory of evolution does not speak about the power of God. It neither proves nor disproves God's existence. The notion that God will one day make a city and have it come down from space is not in my opinion even falsifiable. Therefore, it is an unscientific belief to which science as a whole does not speak, and specifically the theory of evolution does not speak.

According to Evolution - can God raise the Dead? Did He in fact raise the dead?

The theory of evolution does not speak about God's power to raise the dead. The notion that God can raise the dead is unfalsifiable to modern science. The question of whether God has in the past raised the dead is not one which modern science can answer by observation. One would have to choose to trust or not trust the witnesses of the events at the time the events occurred. The decision to trust or mistrust these witnesses is a value judgement. Science cannot and does not make value judgements. The theory of evolution, thus, is neutral as to these questions.


According to Evolution - did He create the World in 6 days as He said and then command us to also work for that same length of time and rest the seventh?

The theory of evolution does not speak to time as it is perceived by God. The theory of evolution does not speak to whether God took an ammount of time He perceived as a full day to rest after creation. The theory of evolution does speak to the time over which organisms became as they are now and does say that life on earth did not evolve from a state of lifelessness to the presence of Homo sapiens over 6 twenty-four hour periods. This assumes we are talking about twenty-four hour periods which are both subjectively and objectively experienced as time today is experienced.


According to Richard Dawkings - evolution leaves "nothing for God to do" - do you see that as a problem when you read the Gospels? John 1:1-4? Colossians 1:5-12? Rev 17:7?

Perhaps it is not the scientific theory of evolution but rather the personal opinion of Richard Dawkings that is wrong. Or, BobRyan, do you find Richard Dawkings an absolutely trustworthy source of information, opinion, and philosophy to which you genuinely adhere?

If you see further problems with the theory of evolution, please describe them in your own words, not merely by reference.

 

Thanks for continuing the dialogue, Cotton! See, I'm even learning to spell your name right

I've been pushing the thought in another thread that our interpretations of scripture are colored by what we know.

The clerics of the middle ages, when confronted with science saying that the reason the sun appears to rise and set is because the earth rotates, called the new theories heresy. They roundly condemned the scientists involved; banned the writings of Copernicus; forced Gallileo to recant; and so forth.

Because they were insisting on interpreting the scriptures literally.

Today we don't flinch at these upstart scientific notions, we swallow them hook line and sinker.

I think the change in our attitude towards the rotation of the earth has nothing to do with what the Bible says - but instead has to do with becoming utterly convinced in our minds that the earth does, indeed, rotate, and this in turn colors our interpretation of the Bible.

Would you agree with that thinking?

 

Paul of Eugene:

Okay.

I believe it was much more complicated than that, but continue.

Actually I believe they trusted their own observations, Aristotle and Ptolemaic astronomy.
The inquisition executed more Christians and Jews than anyone; And in Galileo's case they misused scripture to persecute someone who they considered a threat to their established heirarchy. But continue.

I not sure that is an argument in your favor. Copernicus put forth the theory that Venus and Mars were transparent in answer as to why they weren't visible to the naked eye. Not exactly something to swallow. The Bible says to test everything (yes, even itself).

I'm not sure I follow the last part. If you're saying our interpretation is colored by our beliefs then yes I agree.

Whether that is a good thing would depend upon what our beliefs are, correct?

Cotton

 

This is the great "boogy-man" lurking under the beds and in the closets of our evolutionist brethren. They live in "fear" that they might be "believing too much of God's Word" and then "since will come along and refute them".

In their minds - the gospel itself is "completely negotiable" in the face of science.

The result?

The result is that they have trashed so much of God's Word in their fear and anxiety about what science "might do some day" that they have a totally corrupt and inconsistent model for Christianity itself.

Richard Dawkings is right in his criticism of that model. He is in full agreement with Christians that affirm the Creator's words in Exodus 20 and Genesis 1 -- you can't have BOTH humanism's gospel and Christianity's gospel. They are mutually exclusive.

Notice that each time the "details" of how the doctrines of evolutionism contradict the Gospel writer's text - are brought into view -- the evolutionist "response" is to try to sidetrack onto some "recent speculation by a scientist".

The "key" on this thread is to "Show" that "believing the Creator's Words in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20" actually DOES matter to the Gospel writers of the NT.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Richard Dawkings does not agree with that assessment.

All Christians that take the Creator's "Account" in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 as "literally true" also do not agree with that assessment.

Both the atheist evolutionists AND the Christians holding to the Creator's words on this subject would differ with your blanket assertion above.

Well in the case of Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 "God said let there be..." and there was - and the six days in which this happened are the same units of time in which the people of Sinai were to "Work".

So "in the past" God raised the dead and "in the past" God made the world in six days and said we should work in the SAME time units as God did. (explicitly said that in fact).

But evolution says "oh no He did not".


According to Evolution - did He create the World in 6 days as He said and then command us to also work for that same length of time and rest the seventh?

A good attempt at obfuscation - but very poor exegesis of the text.

In Exodus 20 we find this iron clad "lockdown" of the "Definition" of the unit of time in Genesis 1.

Notice - what follows will be a pointer BACK to Creation week. In fact a summary of Genesis 1-2:3 (no mention of "i hereby make a holy day - the 7th day a holy day and call it Sabbath".)

Rather we are already to "remember it" and then are pointed back in time to when it was made the holy day of God.

.

Again notice the format.

The action commanded - the reason that establishes the commandment

The same unit of time applied to BOTH the timeline for Genesis 1 and the timeline for humanity at the foot of Sinai.

[quote
for in six days the Lord... And rested on the seventh-day therefore the Lord blessed, ...and made it holy

</font>[/QUOTE]Some are required by their traditions to turn a blind eye to this. But many - many others see this text, read it just as it is written and accept its clear concise format showing that the commandment is based on summary of the Gen 1-2:3 facts that God gives - not man. In that summary God "locks in" the "time unit" so that even the most blind can not miss "seeing" that the same author in the same context applies the same time unit to BOTH the people at Sinai and God in Genesis 1.

Oh that everyone would embrace God's Word just as it reads.

[/quote]


According to Richard Dawkings - evolution leaves "nothing for God to do" - do you see that as a problem when you read the Gospels? John 1:1-4? Colossians 1:5-12? Rev 17:7?

Dawkings like all atheist evolutionist "see" the clear contradiction between the claims of evolutionism and the claims of the Word of God.

Bible Believing Christians that accept the Creator's "account" given in Genesis 1-2:3 and Exodus 20:8-11 also "See" the clear contradiction between what is presented in the Creator's Word and what humanists have created in the articles of evolutionism.

I have listed several NT texts above - showing that claims regarding Christ's "Creative Acts" are central to the Gospel and those claims are that "everthing" -- "all things" were created by Him not just "Some tiny gap building exercise to get evolution moving along"

I "do think" Dawkings "knows something about the claims of evolution" and I "do think" Christians are correct when they agree that the two models are mutually exclusively.

I "do think" that Christian-evolutionists avoid the Bible's reliance on the truth of the Genesis 1 account and seek to switch topics whenever it is mentioned.

In John 1:1-3 and in Colossians 1 and in Rev 14:6-7 the claim is made that "God created everything" in fact "The heavens, the earth, the springs of water and all that is in them" --

The the evolutionary-tale it is evolution that accounts (fully accounts) for all of that (as Dawkings observes) and EVEN when Christian evolutionists object and point to tiny gaps in the evolutionary-story they find a much smaller "claim" than the omni-claim found in the texts given.

Dawkings is therefore correct in claiming to "know something about the claims of evolutionism". That is simply not possible to refute.

In Christ,

Bob

[ April 02, 2004, 12:50 AM: Message edited by: BobRyan ]

 

Already posted -- but worth posting "again"

The "obvious" problem is that the "population" is "all of planet earth" and the "expected" genesis by MULTIPLE ancestors (ONE for each population group comprising of that ONE ancestors offspring) "fails" to be seen in the data.

I.E. What happened to all the OTHER women that were supposedly contemporary to Eve? Why don't we see THEIR population represented here?

Notice this telling statement in a "confession" published in NOVA

In other words EVERY OTHER STRAIN DIED -- miraculously so that there is ONLY ONE population group today.

So "see" it is "supposed" to look like God created Eve - in evolutionism - because "obviously" ALL populations of ALL EVE-neighbors were "destined to die off so it would like mistakenly as if God created from ONE blood all nations of the earth" when in fact "He did not".

This is a case where evolutionist have to come up with a "story" for why the DATA supports God -but God is still lying in His Word. (Because remember - His word was given to a non-science people - people that you can lie to without that being "a bad thing").

</font>[/QUOTE]In Christ,

Bob

 

For BobRyan:
UTEOW did a good job showing that as we go back in time in a population there would have to be a unique individual who contributed all the mitochondrial dna for us all. That's the way it would have to be.

You keep calling for an honest exegesis of the scriptures. An honest interpretation and exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 results in a contradiction for the order creation of man and animals. I take this as an indication that a non-literal interpretation is required.

Many have indicated that the alledged discrepancy can be resolved by translating the passage in Genesis 2 in a past tense:

Gen 2:19-20
19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.
NIV

Such an easy solution! If its a past tense, then the past might be pushed back before the time of Adam's creation. But the form of the verb is the regular present tense, which is also on rare occasion translated in the past tense when the context demands it. Thus the concientious scholars of the New American Stand translate the same verse thusly:

Gen 2:19-20
19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
NAS

Those who reconcile the verses in that manner are using a rescue translation to remove the difficulty.

But the honest translation illustrates that the literal translation cannot be true for both chapters at once.

In the time of Moses, all people took the received history as literally true. They took as literally true that there was a solid dome over there heads - the firmament - which had water above it.

Gen 1:6-8
6 Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." 7 And God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so.
NAS

Ps 148:4
4 Praise Him, highest heavens,
And the waters that are above the heavens!
NASU

These are a matter of record. I declare before you all, there is no dome over the earth, there never was, and up over the earth is empty space, not water.

I do this in spite of the fact that I know the Bible says otherwise if literally interpreted.

I do not believe this makes my Bible useless for learning about God. I believe it illustrates that we cannot always take the historically literal interpretation as literal for us today.

I don't understand why you feel you can say these verses don't have to be interpreted literally like the other verses you say have to be interpreted literally. Your position is basically inconsistent in that way.

Unless, of course, you indulge in further rescue interpretation.

It is possible to indulge in rescue interpretation of Genesis 1. One can recall the saying that a day with the Lord is as a thousand years . . . one can consider that if these are ages and not days, with actual passage of many days within each of them, that they need not be serial, they could be overlapping, and merely ordered in the order we have for artistic reasons.

In this way one could build a case for taking the statments that the Lord called forth the living things from the earth as a hint of the evolutionary past of life:

Gen 1:24-25
24 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so.
NAS

But that's rescue interpretation.

It is my belief that God allowed the creation narratives the Hebrews had from their tradition to be the basis of Genesis 1 and 2 because men were not then ready to accept the literal truth. The references you cite from the giving of the law and the words of Jesus do not contradict this view; they merely show that He went along with the beliefs of men about creation in those days as well. I respect the narratives far to much to change what they say; I can only reserve the right to not be required to accept them literally where they aren't consistent with what we know, just like you do when they aren't consistent with what you know.

 

Paul of Eugene;

You are exactly right about what you say about 'resue interpretation'! But, that also goes for re-interpreting it to provide a 'rescue' means for evolution. Either the Word stands or it doesn't (Now obviously, there are spots with hyperbole, allegory and sarcasm which I'm not including). Now, I'm not talking about one or two words that don't fit our 'fiddle', I'm talking about the whole creation accout! When we re-write the whole creation account, we're not rescuing one or two words, we're propping up a whole boatload!!

Cotton

 

Now, I showed you with math why this must be the case. Here I'll give it to you again.

"There is absolutely nothing circular about my argument. If you take ANY breeding population and trace it back through either the maternal or the paternal line, you have no choice but to end up with a single individual that was the ancestor of all in the population. I thought my explanation of the math was simple enough. I guess not.

You have a population P0 with a certain number of females in it. The population of the mothers of P0, we'll call them P1, is less than or equal to P0. Do you disagree with this?

If you do, please explain why in detail. If you do not, them we get the following.

P0 &gt; P1 &gt; P2 &gt; P3 ... &gt;Pn where Pn = 1

There is absolutely no way around it. It by no means indicates that she was the only female alive. It is just a quirk of math. The other females have contributed to the genetic diversity of humanity. Just not the mtDNA. The human DNA as a whole does come from "many strains." But not the mtDNA, it is passed down differently than the rest of the genome.

I have shown my math. If you disagree, show me my mistake. Which step has a bad assumption.

You yourself quoted NOVA on what happened to the mtDNA of the others. Someone in their line of descendants had no daughters to perpetrate the strain."

Now, where is the problem in my math?

 

BobRyan,

First off, I have never been exposed to the theories of Richard Dawkins until you mentioned them in this thread. I neither owe nor give his thoughts any deference. He seems to be a professor of the public understanding of science. That means to me he's sort of a non-scientist's scientist.

If his statements are to be regarded as science, they must be stated in falsifiable scientific form. Or do you now abandon Popper's definition of science? (I seem to remember you quoted him, too, in the past.) So...what scientific statements can you make about any of the things you have previously listed which I have told you science does not speak to? (I am really inquiring, not being rhetorical.)

I think you are on dangerous ground when you say that "All Christians" who believe a certain thing believe also that science speaks to what I believe it does not. I agree with you that atheist evolutionists draw their conclusions from what they see as an absence of evidence. But atheism is as unfalsifiable as theism unless the theory makes predictions which can be tested (not replicated...tested) by reference to the natural world. The true position of "science" is agnostic...that science does not know or demonstrate one way or the other.

I fail to see how you think you have by argument stated that evolution says that God did not raise the dead. Or that evolution or science as a whole speaks to this occurrence.

Bob, I don't understand why that commandment and its basis would not be as completely true if God were outside of time and permitted Himself to perceive time in some sense as a man does but on a different scale, worked for what would be for us 6 days and then rested for what for us would be one day. Only God doesn't perceive time as we do...this is not my attempt at obfuscation, merely my attempt at understanding. Because I know too much data from the real world to ever be convinced, unless God intended that the natural world deceive us, that God created the natural world in six literal days...unless of course a better explanation is offered for the data such that it will be acceptable to most scientists who examine the data without preconceived notions.

I do not think that v. 11 which you quote above in any way says that God's time periods are identical with man's time periods. Indeed, God is so far above us and God's ways so far above ours, that I would find it highly unusual if time to God were what time is to us.

Evolution is now a theory of scientists, not a theory exclusively of humanists and atheists. If humanists and atheists use it as a basis for their belief systems, science cannot of course stop that. If science is perceived as contrary to the Genesis account, it must be because of the way folks like you insist on understanding the Genesis account.

Bob, do you think that just because literalist YEC Christians and atheists agree that those Christians who disagree with both the literalist YECers and the atheists must perforce be wrong? That does not logically follow. Because it is possible that we are right.

Again, I ask you to state in your own words, not merely by reference, what Christian doctrines you find to be contradicted by the theory of evolution and why.

I believe that God created the world and all life in it. I believe that Jesus is God. I don't see how Scripture's claims that Jesus was involved in creation and indeed that in Him all things hold together are in any way contradicted by the theory of evolution.

Bob, am I switching topics when we speak of Genesis 1? Is Paul? UTEOTW? Really? I think that whether the claims of evolution are mutually exclusive with the claims of the Bible is exactly what we are discussing. And in order to have a discussion, we need to say more than that "I believe" that the claims are not contradictory and that "You believe" that the claims are contradictory and think that this atheist's opinions bolster your own.

I don't think the Bible relies all that much on a literalist YEC approach to Genesis 1 in ways that an OE-evolutionist approach would completely undermine.

I agree that God created everything. God created even things that the Bible did not specifically mention. Including viruses. Including bacteria. And including the planets which revolve around stars other than our own sun. I don't think evolution interferes with this understanding of God's creation. Why does it insist that I as an evolutionist-Christian make a smaller claim than the omni claim? I never have in the past.

 

BobRyan,

For now, I still take Adam and Eve as literal truth.

Although forming Eve from Adam's rib I don't quite...though God could of course have done it that way. I see Eve as formed from Adam's genetic content...from his flesh so to speak by crossing him with one of the non-"human" ancestors which existed in antiquity and was not found to be a suitable match for Adam.

Inbreeding is only bad for a species when there are genetic defects in the mating pair. God could easily have prevented that from being so and also prevented the creation of new undesirable genetic code in Eve.

This gives us the Eve of the mtDNA but at a more ancient time than predicted by YEC.

I don't expect that Paul or UTEOTW see this the same way I do. But the interpretation leaves Adam and Eve as literal, which is important to me as Jesus was in a sense the second Adam.

 

Though rib is a legitamit(sp?) translation, I believe 'side' is just as good and possible better.

I wouldn't get too hung up on translations! They do a good job, but what if God meant something in Hebrew that translators cannot wrap their minds around (grasp)?

I've come to see that studying Hebrew isn't the same as simply using a lexicon or concordance (though these are great and invaluable tools!). Also, I don't believe its the same as french or spanish or even greek.

I believe the Hebrew is sacred. Call me crazy (didn't know I could read minds, eh?), but I believe that. Y'shua's words tell us about the "yud and stroke of the pen not passing away...".

Many translations cannot bridge the gap of understanding for many Hebrew words like Korban and Torah. They mean more than 'sacrifice' and 'law'.

Now back to your corners and come out fightin'!

Cotton