Pyramids

[glfredrick]

Do you think? Ok. I think there are area's of agreement which I'm glad you spotted. But I still reserve from the literalness of the Genesis creation account.

Then, simply, you are at odds with Jesus, Himself. who saw Genesis as literal in the very sense that we are debating.

Its called an example and obvious one at that I could have used poetry to the same effect. However, the apocalyptic literature was more obvious for the example.

I thought you were having a fit when I gigged you about calling Genesis apocalyptic. Now, you're right back there doing it again. If you mean that Genesis is a certain genre of Scripture, one of which being apocalyptic, another being poetry, then say it that way. Lesson in hermeneutics is free...

Yes I often want my cake and eat it too. Otherwize I'm just being teased.

So figures of speech are beyond you in common English usage, but you can figure them out for the ancient Hebrew in Genesis... Right... :wavey:

not only also Phenomenological as well. Its true. One can see a bright flash in the sky and say I saw a falling star. which is true save that a star hasn't really fallen. Another can describe that event as a meteor. Its true either way you say it. However, the literalness of the "falling star" is in question.

Guess that depends on the context of the viewer. Yes, we know that a meteor flashing across the sky as it enters the atmosphere of earth is not a "falling star" but in the common parlance of our culture, it is in fact a "falling star" and much has been written in that context.

The bigger picture here is not semantics -- and I do not believe you are arguing semantics -- it is the literal truth of what was said. A meteor, called a falling star or a meteor, is still the same thing and everyone knows what it is. Why is that not true for Genesis?

A couple of things you must keep in mind these are the verses you are refering to. And for the most part that is it. First what you see is referrences to other stories in Genesis and none refer directly to creation. The Closest is the discusion about making them male and female. None of these verses say whether Jesus considered the Genesis account of Creation to be literally true or not. Also if I were to make a comparison people today people often refer to ie.. "The boy who cried wolf" and other stories the same way yet they don't consider those stories to be literally true. However, their value of revealing a truth like you get caught in a lie several times people will end up not believing you. It is these values that Jesus brings to the fore by quoting Genesis. Like Marriage, how people behave before their destruction etc.... So just because he quoted them is not necissarily hold that he held they were literal just like I don't hold the literalness of the boy who cried wolf. Context is important.

So, in essence, you are saying that Jesus did not hold Genesis to be literal... What was it that drove you to that opinion, against all odds, and against virtually every scholar that has said otherwise down through the centuries?

Why not? If I say light travels at a constant speed of 299 792 458 miles per second and state that the distance of a certain star can be assertained by this factor of being more than 200,000 light years away which if this holds constant then it would seem there is evidence the universe is older than 10,000 years and you tell me I'm a heretic because I don't believe the bible. What am I to think?

See, here is where you have a problem... You can test the speed of light NOW and factor what it is. Can you test the speed of light all the way back to Creation? (The answer is, no.) Upon what are you basing your faith that the speed of light was always the same? Especially when some scientific evidence now suggests that it has not always been the same.

BTW, I don't believe that I've actually called you a heretic (yet, we may be getting close to that point). I believe that i have said that some of the views that you hold are heretical in nature. There is a difference in those two statements, and seeing as how we are arguing some fine nuances of language, I would expect you to grasp that difference lest you prove yourself even more incompetent to continue this debate.

Let me ask you a question. Does your faith exclude reason? Or can your reason enhance your faith?

My reason is informed by my faith and my faith is informed by my reason. I do not exclude reason in any means. I have been using it in this series of arguments all along, which you, frankly, dislike very much.

Maybe or maybe not. since we are at the point at which we look out at the universe what we see in a 360 area around us it would seem we are at the center but are we in reality? More data is required. Yet either way which ever is true I'm not going to say its not true because of my "faith". Truth is truth.

I have no qualms about all truth being God's truth. As far as we being the center of the cosmos, it does indeed appear that way from our vantage point, doesn't it... That would mean that the writers of Scripture, writing under the guidance of the Holy Spirit spoke truth when they placed the earth at the center of all things in the cosmos -- that may indeed be literally true -- and if not, how could we possibly measure it if, from all practical appearances, it is indeed reality?

I can show you many verses that describe the earth exactly that way.

You can show me verses that say the earth is flat? :laugh: I can show you verses that speak of the curve of the earth. I'd like to see the ones you think speak of a flat earth. (BTW, that the Church saw the earth as flat is a myth promulgated by a historian of Columbus that wanted to make the Church look stupid. Check it out...)

I concure I was just responding to your statement which required a review of string theory. However, I concur with this statement.

String theory is but one of the ways that current cosmologists are attempting to use to get around the fact that the cosmos had a beginning and that things that began had a beginner. The First Cause argument is a very powerful argument indeed.

Check out the Kalam Cosmological Argument while you're at it... Many have sought a way around it and have failed. The only way to get around that argument is to invent something like the string theory or a multi-verse theory, but in fact neither actually accomplishes their designed intent, for all they do is press the actual beginning of the cosmos to a place where it can never be tested, and in so doing, they make the argument one of metaphysics (religion or philosophy) and not science, for how can one test what one cannot ever disprove or falsify? That is not science -- it is faith, and as long as we're going to apply faith anyway, why not keep it simple and claim the Revealed Creator God?