Since we are all men here, it seems to be a reasonable idea to seek the opinion of respected theologians. It is no more taking the word of man over God than it would be for me to accept your interpretation. No disrespect, but I imagine that you are not as well respected as St. Augustine.
Yet still YOU are personally responsible for what YOU personally believe. Would you rather believe what God says, or what other men say that God says? You should never trust the opinion of any person who puts knowlege, academia, or human intelligence before scripture.
We have SHOWN you why - based on scripture - we believe what we believe. You have said that you believed something else and based that on man's observation, and man's opinion OF the scripture, yet you still have given no scriptural basis for your belief.
Apperently the key part because they deny the possibility of time dialation up front. That is the key part for Humphrey
In fact, they do not deny the possibility of time dialation as you suggest. They state that time dialation has nothing to do with their paper - that it is a factor they have not at all considered. You have tried to portray it as a factor they considered and dismissed. In fact, that is not true.
I pointed out that their paper supports humphrey's cosomology... not that it was identical to humphrey's cosmology.
Paper, book, whatever. You know what I meant.
So are you granting me free lincense then to interpret your mistakes any way I see fit, or would you rather attempt to be correct, or say what you really mean?
Augustine, who was entirely convinced of God and the supremacy of scripture over science, pointed out that the text was inconsistent with literal days.
I notice there continues to be no Biblical verses to back up these claims... I expect there never will be, as the Bible paints a very different picture from start to finish. So it is your 'word of man' against our quoted scripture.
No, I'm taking Augustine's opinion over yours. You aren't God.
No, I am not God... I am simply quoting God to you - something which you are unable to do in support of your argument.
I know you claimed this, but each time I looked, none of them say that Genesis is literal.
You should probably go back and read it again. For example, Mat 19:4
And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,. Jesus quotes Genesis 1 as a literal text. He says "haven't you read this?" His entire reasoning for what he was preaching was because what was written there was real. He says "haven't you read the Bible says that God created a man and a woman". For THIS REASON, the institution of marriage came to be. The religous leaders of Jesus' day were trying to redefine marriage and ask Jesus if divorcing your wife was ok for any reason.
We see the definition of marriage being challenged today as well. Many Biblical principles are being challenged. Like marriage, many of them have their foundation in literal interpretation of the scripture. For example, if Genesis is not literally true, then God didn't really create a man and a woman distinctly, and anything regarding marriage is ok - including homosexual marriage - because God didn't create a man and a woman... God created a bowl of lively primordal soup. On the other hand, if God created a man and a woman distinctly, then we have pretty good reason for marriage to be between one man and one woman.
Many issues, like this one, stem from a literal or non-literal Genesis in conjunction with the whole of scripture.
As you learned, the text itself says that it cannot be literal.
As you have learned... repeatedly... no where in the text does it say that it cannot be literal. As a matter of fact, the text shows time and time again why it is indeed literal (for example, Jesus and Paul quoting it as literal. Your interpretation that the 'text itself' says it's not literal is based on a naturalistic judgment of the validity of scripture. You have decided for yourself what God can and cannot do. For example, you say that Noah's flood couldn't have happened because the boat would be leaky. Yet the scriptures say that God himself sealed it. So then, you disblelieve that God has the capability of sealing the ark, despite the fact that the scriptures clearly describe this. You are attempting to rationalize a supernatural event based on purely naturalistic criteria.
What it always seems to boil down to is that you do not believe what God says in His Word. You do not beleive God is capable of what he says he did. You do not believe that God did what he says he did. You, rather, beleive in an agnostic view of the earth... that God set everything in motion and nature took over from there.
Indeed, as you demonstrated, literalists have to add material to the text to make it more acceptable to them
Gal, we have not added anything. I sure hope you will get this and acknowledge it. You see, the scripture says six days... it confirms it self... it repeats itself. We echo that it was six days, and suddenly you cry that we have added something. No, Galatian, we have added nothing. We have simply echoed scripture to you.... quite a bit of it, in fact. You pretend like you are arguing with us, but we are simply echoing the clearest, plainest reading of scripture.... so then it is not US you are arguing against, it is God's Word.
Is it not hard to 'kick against the pricks'?
The text itself rules that out.
It does no such thing. It declares that is exactly what happened. YOU have ruled out the possibility, not the scripture. In fact, you still have shown us no scripture that advocates your position, or affirms that the 'text rules itself out'. As I stated previously, you are applying your human knowledge of NATURE to a supernatural (divinely influenced) event and are trying to judge the validity of the supernatural even by it's natural probability. You are wrong.
In fact the scripture describes creation and the flood as actual events. The rest of the word confirms that they are to be treated as actual events, yet you claim they were not actual events. You give no scriptural basis for your claim other than to say 'it is not possible' (which is what you are saying when you state that the text rules itself out). You have no scriptural or Biblical basis for your claim. Your claim is based on a humanistic reading of scripture - that because know what happened there doesn't happen in nature it couldn't have happened in scripture.
You are using humanism to prove the Bible doesn't mean what it says. You are using the ideas of man (evolution did not originate from scripture) to trump scripture! You are using man's word as absolute, and God's word as flexible, allegorical, fairy tale, non-literal, or whatever else you want to call it. In fact, however, the opposite is true. Man's ideas are fallible, God's word is Absolute. Man's ideas must flex and bend when they come in conflict with God's Word. Man is wrong when he says millions of years because God says six days.
I know you want us to believe that, but in each case, they don't say it's literal. They just cite it without saying one way or the other.
Lets look at the scripture -
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, [it was] very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
Day here clearly means literal day (by the context of Morning, Evening, number).
Exd 20:9 Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
Exd 20:10 But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates:
Exd 20:11 For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.
From the context of Ex 20:11 we see that they are referring to literal six days (a literal week) and a sabbath. The six days of creation mentioned there are literal just as they are literal in Genesis 1.
Mat 19:4 And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made [them] at the beginning made them male and female,
Mar 10:6 But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his [own] image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Looks like a pretty literal translation to me - if God din't create them distinctly as Genesis says, then this makes no sense. If it isn't literal, then Adam and Eve are no different from any other animals. That suggests then that we should mate with as many females as possible to insure the survival of our genes. Yet Jesus says "they Two shall be one flesh". Two for life has never been the model of 'survival of the fittest'.
2Pe 2:5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth [person], a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
Hrm... that sounds pretty literal - like he actually believed in Noah and the flood.
Mat 24:38 For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
Mat 24:39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Here the Bible says that the 2nd coming of Christ is 'as was the flood'. Hrm.... if the flood wasn't literal, then the 2nd coming of christ must not be literal either, eh?
You're now assuming what you proposed to prove.
And I will continue doing so because I am keenly aware that you will not be able to show me any scriputre to the contrary of a literal Genesis. I have indeed read it all, and there is nothing that contradicts a literal Genesis in scriputre.
You, however, have been soundly defeated in this debate, as you (and any other evolutionists) have been unable (and will be unable) to produce scriptural evidence showing that Genesis is not literal. We have produced a large ammount of scripture showing you how/why it is indeed literal, while you guys haven't shown even one verse that says otherwise.
You're now assuming what you proposed to prove.
IN fact, we have scripturally proven what we proposed because you have offered nothing from scripture with which to disprove it.
I and others showed you how Genesis cannot be literal, since a literal interpretation gives you logical contradictions.
And how logical is it to contradict God? He says he did it a certian way... he says he influenced it supernaturally... what natural argument can you give that can logically disprove that the God who created the universe didn't do what he said He did? I choose to beleive God rather than man. God says He did X. Man says X is impossible. I believe God.
Luk 1:37 For with God nothing shall be impossible.
You have seen that the text cannot support a literal interpretation, but you rely on the opinion of men who think it's all right to add material.
You have yet to show me a single scripture that supports a non-literal interpretation, I have shown you many that insist you do take a literal interpretation. Furthermore, you have not demonstrated where we have added material to scripture. We have shown you at great length much scripture that supports our position. You have shown us no scripture that supports your position.
I get what you are doing here, Galatian, and it's a pretty lame debating tactic. You are simply repeating everything I say and twisting it to support your own position. However, in this case, it can't work because we actually HAVE shown you quite a bit of scripture that agrees with our position, whereas you have shown none. As a matter of fact, the ONLY time you have ever brought up scripture was to say that you didn't believe it.
The only time I can remember you bringing up any scripture was to bring up verses that speak about Noah and say that they contradict themselves because no one has ever built a boat that size that didn't leak. So you didn't even use the scripture to advance your point, but you used it as a whipping post example to tear apart and show how untrue it is. You never showed scripture which describes Genesis as non-literal. You never showed scripture which described the flood as a non-real event. You never showed Jesus or Paul speaking about Genesis as though they were 'good stories of non-literal events'.
In contrast, we showed you how Genesis portrays itself as literal by linguistic and grammatical rules. We showed how Genesis potrays itself as literal by logic reasons (for example the day referred to in Genesis is described as the period of time which the sun was created to rule). We showed how God Himself (in giving the 10 commandments) gave us a literal time frame in the commandment about the Sabbath in Exodus 20:11. We showed how Jesus, Peter, and Paul all quoted Genesis as literal events in their teachings.
Do you think some Muslims hate God?
Tough question. I guess my statement needs some qualification -
Those who actually know who God is, and hate him, all believe in evolution (the group I had in mind is atheists). While Muslims do hate God, they do so because they mainly are decieved into believing Satan (or one of his representatives) is God.
Let me give you this perspective:
All atheists say there is no God. The Bible says "the fool has said in his heart there is no God". All atheists believe in evolution. Therefore we can mathmatically prove that "All those who believe in evolution are fools".
Lets check my math...
Atheist = X
evolutionist = E
fool = F
So then, if all X = F, and all X = E... then all E = F!
Ok... that was for entertainment purposes folks... don't take it personally.
How sad that you have to attribute evil to science, and to the Christians who first understood evolution.
I didn't say science was evil... I said the religion of Humanism (and it's subdoctrine 'evolution') is evil.
If you are a Christian, you have nothing to fear from the truth.
Yet we all agree that evolution doesn't come from scripture... therefore evolution didn't come from truth... it came from 'something else other than truth'.
Darwin, when he wrote his book was a Christian.
Darwin rebelled against God because he thought God cruel and merciless for the death of his daughter. He decided then that God was not a loving, caring, or present God... therefore he went down the path to believing in Millions of years and developing his 'origin of racism' book.
