The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)

wolfsbane

Malty_T said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfsbane
Very interesting video. Thank you.

The guy at the start is quite right - if Genesis is God's story, then it is historical narrative. But if it is the invention of pious Jews in heathen captivity, then of course metaphor would be the only honest intent of the authors. Anything else would be a deliberate deception.

Creationists hold to the historic view of the Church - that it is historical narrative. The problems suggested in the video - supposedly conflicting accounts in Chapter 1 and 2, and the impossibility of day/night without the Sun, have been ably explained by Creationists.

Some difficulties for any Christian holding to a metaphorical view:
1. They disagree with the historic view of the Church.
2. They have a problem accounting for where metaphor leaves off and history begins - Abel? Noah? Abraham? Israel? Moses? David?
3. They have to account for the fact that Jesus and the NT writers appear to refer to Genesis as history.

A Christian would probably be better here than me, but I'm gonna try anyway.

As I understand, they don't see the stories of Abel,Noah, etc etc as objective facts.

I have trouble regarding those who deny the existence of Abel, Noah, etc. as real Christians. May as well deny the existence of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus and have the mature Jesus a theophany.

They also don't follow the Church; the bible is seen as the supreme authority on the message of salvation on Jesus Christ and the understanding of God.

Quite so, but they do take the historic beliefs of the Church into account, and not lightly set aside the consensus of some 1800 years.

However, this does not mean that it is regarded as a scientific or literal text.

It is like any other literature or communication - literal and metaphorical in parts. The key is using a proper principle of interpretation, not an ad hoc system.

Galileo put it succinctly
Quote:
The Bible shows the way to go to heaven, not the way the heavens go.

Galileo was right - just as we in other literature may address facts of nature without going into scientific explanations. The sun rises for all but pedants.

It doesn't explain nature.

But it does give us facts about nature. It does not tell us how water turns to ice, but it tells us it does. It does not tell us how God spoke and the earth produced the grass and the trees in one day, but it tells us that's what happened:
Genesis 1:11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.

(How could it when it contradicts itself?)

No, it doesn't.

I believe, Galileo's philosophy which he got from some theologians (cannot remember who but it wasn't just one generation of them) was that if nature contradicted the teachings in the bible then it was merely the bible's interpretation that had been mistaken : the bible is interpreted by science and knowledge; not the other way around.

I'm not sure what he taught, but if science affirms that something is definitely so, we should of course re-examine our interpretation of the Bible if it's contrary. We are not infallible interpretors.

But that is what Creationists have done. And we see no way to reconcile evolution with the Bible. That has caused us to re-examine the science, and we have found the solid ground of the evolutionists to be a swamp of ideology, or at best a house built on the sand.

I've read Geophysics texts by Christians citing biblical quotes in their introductions and then dealing with science of old earth tectonics that shows how beautifully these citations can interpreted.

So have I. Their interpretations are wildly off, no matter how beautiful they may sound to some.

As for Jesus referring to the Genesis account, it's easy. He told parables all the time didn't He? Do we take these literally or do we learn the "metaphorical" lesson from them? The people at the time of Jesus passed on their teachings through stories and allegories and it is well documented that the people at the time of Jesus didn't even take these stories as objective historical facts; neither did Jesus. So, there would be no need to state to His followers
"Oh and by the way this stuff isn't to be taken literally you know"
because the culture at that time pretty much knew it wasn't meant to be.

So I'm not to divorce my wife because:
a. There's a fictional story about God making Adam & Eve and making them one flesh, so it would not be like the story if I did so.
OR
b. God made Adam & Eve and made them one flesh, so it violates God's intention for us.

Here's what Jesus said:
Matthew 19:4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

He's relating history there, not telling a parable.

Zombrex

wolfsbane wrote: »

So let me have the references. Whoever said it was lying, and I'll be happy to say so.

I sincerely doubt you will, but have a read of this article

http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=1&itemid=106

where it describes first the 1961 assertions that the Ark could hold 2 of every species of land animal, and then later assertions in 1973 (repeated no doubt in your "reprint" :rolleyes:) that the species classification is wrongly describing Biblical kinds.

Oh and any time you want to get back to the misrepresentation and lies on that Whale article you quoted from ...

Turtwig

Malty_T wrote: »

JC, your probably missed this in all the commotion, but can I ask you to give your answer on this..

Hmm JC,

Sorry, If I'm impatient but I'd love an answer to this?

JC,

Just curious (I'm throwing you a bone here), creation scientists worked out to perfection the age of the earth. So I'd image you must know what age was Jesus when He died and when was He born?

Also,
Seeing as you class us as materialists? I'm curious to know what "non materialism" is defined as?
(Specifically with regard to non materialistic process in reality.)

Fanny Cradock

wolfsbane wrote: »

Thanks for that site, Fanny. I've listened to some of it and hope to complete it this week. Good arguments to get my teeth into.

Excellent!

Yeah, there are plenty of talks (usually of quite a high standard) to keep you occupied.

Zombrex

Interesting to note that both AnswersInGenesis and Creation.com have specific section in there Arguments Creationists Should Not Use articles about speciation.

Funny that they would have to signal the argument that it doesn't happen out and tell Creationists to stop using such an argument if, as Wolfsbane claims, they never did use that argument in the first place.

But I digress ... Whale evolution anyone?

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

No, Sam, I'm sure you think they are really intermediates, as the propaganda assures you.

But the reality is another matter:
Whale evolution?
http://creation.com/refuting-evolution-chapter-5-whale-evolution

It's hard to give much credibility to the 'interpretations' put on fossils when we see how it works:
Fossil evidence for alleged apemen—Part 2: non-Homo hominids
http://creation.com/fossil-evidence-for-alleged-apemenpart-2-non-homo-hominids

You keep giving me links to those websites and I keep telling you I have absolutely no interest in their content because of their persistent dishonesty. If you want to give arguments then by all means do so and I will respond but please stop copying and pasting nonsense and expecting me to waste my time refuting it.

Sam Vimes

I decided to have a quick read of the first article and after reading this

Nonsense peddlers wrote:

One myth promulgated by some evolutionists says that some whales have been found with hind legs, complete with thigh and knee muscles. However, this story probably grew by legendary accretion from a true account of a real sperm whale with a 5.5 inch (14 cm) bump with a 5-inch (12 cm) piece of bone inside. Sperm whales are typically about 62 feet (19 m) long, so this abnormal piece of bone is minute in comparison with the whale—this hardly qualifies as a ‘leg!’18

two minutes of googling brought me to this page:
http://edward-t-babinski.blogspot.com/2006/11/dolphin-hind-limbs-response-to-aig.html

Which contains this photo:



and many more direct refutations to the nonsense of the nonsense peddlers at AIG

Edit: also my very own refutation. The above quote points out that the vestigial leg is tiny in comparison to the whale to suggest that it couldn't be a leg but, and I can't believe it's even necessary to point out something so blatantly obvious, the ancestral legs were bigger and the ancestral whales were a lot smaller. It was only possible for them to grow so large once they moved into the sea full time and didn't need the legs anymore. The stupidity and ignorance of that statement is truly mind boggling

pts

I watched "The Whale: Inside Nature's Giants " yesterday on National Geographic. It was about a whale which got standed off the Irish coast. An American scientist flew in and performed an autopsy on it. In the end they found the vestigial organ (the leg).

edit: CONTENT WARNING: contains trace elements of Richard Dawkins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKFqI_ymAPI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUEx99EZTuY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrMUM4UtHGI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DTPlW7Ia9Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtYWMRX0OZU

Sam Vimes

Have pictures and videos of dolphins and whales with little stumpy legs finally left the creationists...ahem, stumped :pac:

monosharp

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Have pictures and videos of dolphins and whales with little stumpy legs finally left the creationists...ahem, stumped :pac:

Waiting on Ray Comforts or another creation scienmotologists expert opinion perhaps ?

wolfsbane

Wicknight wrote: »

I sincerely doubt you will, but have a read of this article

http://www.apologeticspress.org/modules.php?name=Read&cat=1&itemid=106

where it describes first the 1961 assertions that the Ark could hold 2 of every species of land animal, and then later assertions in 1973 (repeated no doubt in your "reprint" :rolleyes:) that the species classification is wrongly describing Biblical kinds.

Here's my original comment:
In all the years I have followed up the creation science case I have never heard them deny speciation/diversification. In fact, they insisted that it was a relatively small number of animals that emerged from the Ark and that from them all the breathing animals have arisen.

There may have been an eccentric here or there who said otherwise, but I'm not aware of them.

Can you give the references?

Here's what The Genesis Flood said:
1961:
Not only so, but also the great numbers of animals of all kinds, and certainly the birds, could easily have moved out of the danger zone also, without having to be stored in a barge for an entire year!

1973:
A barge of such gigantic size, with its thousands of built-in compartments (Gen. 6:14) would have been sufficiently large to carry two of every species of air-breathing animal in the world today (and doubtless the tendency toward taxonomic splitting has produced more “species” than can be justified in terms of Genesis “kinds”) on only half of its available deck space.

Where does it say that speciation did not occur? In fact this phrase affirms it: and doubtless the tendency toward taxonomic splitting has produced more “species” than can be justified in terms of Genesis “kinds” That is, many of today's species have arisen from the much fewer 'kinds' that were represented on the Ark.

wolfsbane

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Have pictures and videos of dolphins and whales with little stumpy legs finally left the creationists...ahem, stumped :pac:

I hope to address the issue shortly, but I'll leave you with this question:
Do you believe nipples prove that males once breastfed their young?

wolfsbane

A couple of interesting news articles:
Birds Did Not Evolve from Dinosaurs, Say Evolutionists
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/06/12/birds-did-not-evolve

Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6905259.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

Turtwig

wolfsbane wrote: »

I hope to address the issue shortly, but I'll leave you with this question:
Do you believe nipples prove that males once breastfed their young?

Wut?

I take it by making this statement you think that nipples are a unique sex trait required for breast feeding?
So the appendix....

Males have nipples because females have nipples (Kinda like the way we both have two hands and two legs).

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Have pictures and videos of dolphins and whales with little stumpy legs finally left the creationists...ahem, stumped :pac:

... don't Evolutionists have great imaginations??!!!!!:):D

Sam Vimes

wolfsbane wrote: »

I hope to address the issue shortly, but I'll leave you with this question:
Do you believe nipples prove that males once breastfed their young?

As Malty said, males have nipples because females have nipples, we're made from the same template and it's only after a few weeks that the foetus becomes male or female. A rush of testosterone makes the foetus take on male characteristics I believe and if that process doesn't go properly you get intersexed children. Giving fully grown people doses of either oestrogen or testosterone can also make them take on the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex, men can grow breast and even in some cases lactate

So no, the fact that we have nipples does not prove that men once breast fed but the two situations are not comparable. At the very least what the photos and videos show is that the author of the article you linked to was lying when he said such things exist only in the imaginations of evolutionists

J C wrote: »

... don't Evolutionists have great imaginations??!!!!!:):D

That photo and tv show look pretty fookin real to me

J C

Sam Vimes wrote: »

As Malty said, males have nipples because females have nipples, we're made from the same template ....

...we sure are made from the same template... exactly like Gen 2:20-23 says

Ge 2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 ¶ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Turtwig

J C wrote: »

...we sure are made from the same template... exactly like Gen 2:20-23 says

Ge 2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 ¶ And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.

Why would an all powerful God need to take someone's else's rib to create something? The mind boggles.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

Why would an all powerful God need to take someone's else's rib to create something? The mind boggles.

...the same reason an all powerful God died on a cross to save YOU ... because He wants to show how special and unique Mankind is!!!!

...and yes indeed, every Human Mind SHOULD 'boggle' (with awe and love) at such a God!!!

Morbert

wolfsbane wrote: »

A couple of interesting news articles:
Birds Did Not Evolve from Dinosaurs, Say Evolutionists
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/06/12/birds-did-not-evolve

It's a typical AiG article filled with the usual vapid retoric that can be instantly discarded. Here is the actual jounral entry, along with a relevant article.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/122395783/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609092055.htm

Charles Darwin and the children of the evolution
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6905259.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1

This article is critical of Darwinism as a worldview built on ignorance of what Darwinian evolution actually implies. It does not address the scientific theory of Darwinian evolution, which is accepted as true by the scientific community.

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

... don't Evolutionists have great imaginations??!!!!!:):D

Yes. We find that infinitely preferable to getting all our ideas on anything and everything from one very old book.

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Yes. We find that infinitely preferable to getting all our ideas on anything and everything from one very old book.

....Creation Scientists DON'T get all of their ideas "on anything and everything" from the written 'Word of God' in The Bible ... they also scienifically examine the spoken 'Word of God' in the Created Universe!!!:)

...and it is eminently preferable to getting all of your ideas from various extrapolations to a (particularly circumspect) 19th Century book

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/biology_evolution/article6905259.ece?token=null&offset=0&page=1


2Co 4:3 But if our gospel be hid, it is hidden to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
5 For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.
6 For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.
8 We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;

...and the capacity of the Human Will for self-delusion is literally infinite ... when one is not indwelt by the Spirit of Truth AKA The Holy Spirit of God.
The following quote from George Orwell's '1984' illustrates how people who pride themselves on being 'logical' thinkers can hold two logically inconsistent ideas simultaneously :-
“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again: and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself. That was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word ‘doublethink’ involved the use of doublethink.”

-Winston Smith, George Orwell’s 1984

...Evolutionists who KNOW that living systems contain vast amount of Compex Specified Genetic Information (CSGI) ... and who also BELIEVE that this CSGI arose spontaneously without any Intelligent input are engaging in 'doublethink' ... and when they demand that the conventional scientific qualifications of Creation Scientists be rescinded by the Universities that conferred them, they are engaging in 'doubleplus doublethink' !!!:eek::D

Turtwig

It never ceases to amaze me how the creationists think we get all our ideas from Darwin's book.
We've moved on well past that book (if it were written today it would be a vast improvement), JC, you clearly haven't.

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

It never ceases to amaze me how the creationists think we get all our ideas from Darwin's book.

...I didn't say that you got all of your ideas from 'The Origins of Species' ....what I said was that you got "all of your ideas from various extrapolations to a (particularly circumspect) 19th Century book"....and these extrapolations and circumspections ... allow all kinds of bizzarre conclusions to be drawn and 'doublethinking' to occur!!!:D

J C

Malty_T wrote: »

We've moved on well past that book (if it were written today it would be a vast improvement)...

...one could be forgiven for thinking that Evolutionists haven't moved on much from Darwin's Victorian 'musings', given all of the "Darwin Worship' and frenzied adulation surrounding the 'double-anniversary' and all of it's associated 'double-thinking' !!!:eek:;)

AtomicHorror

J C wrote: »

...one could be forgiven for thinking that Evolutionists haven't moved on much from Darwin's Victorian 'musings', given all of the "Darwin Worship' and frenzied adulation surrounding the 'double-anniversary' and all of it's associated 'double-thinking' !!!:eek:;)

The guy formulated the first unified theory of biology. Like Newton did for physics but more fundamentally. We've built a theory upon that which predicts a great many things. It hasn't been wrong yet.

J C wrote: »

....Creation Scientists DON'T get all of their ideas "on anything and everything" from the 'Word of God' in The Bible ... they also scienifically examine the 'Word of God' within all aspects of the Created Universe!!!:)

...and it is eminently preferable to getting all of your ideas from various extrapolations to a (particularly circumspect) 19th Century book

Where does Darwin talk about Mendelian inheritence? Or DNA for that matter? Or lateral gene transfer? Or endosymbiosis? Or epigenetics? We've built our models to reflect reality, we've tested and observed and in response we have built upon the parts of Darwin's vision that worked and discarded that which did not. By contrast you've budged not an inch from the letter of the Word. Don't kid yourself J C. We are nothing alike.

krudler

J C wrote: »

...the same reason an all powerful God died on a cross to save YOU ... because He wants to show how special and unique Mankind is!!!!

...and yes indeed, every Human Mind SHOULD 'boggle' (with awe and love) at such a God!!!

That why he spent a lot of the Old Testamtent wiping humanity out with plagues and floods?

J C

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Don't kid yourself J C. We are nothing alike.

...we are alike in that we share a common Humanity ... we are unalike in that I am Saved Sinner though NO MERIT on my part ... and you remain an Unsaved Sinner ... through NO BELIEF on your part!!!!:):D

J C

krudler wrote: »

That why he spent a lot of the Old Testamtent wiping humanity out with plagues and floods?

...God is BOTH Merciful AND Just....He visits His Mercy on those who love Him ... and His Justice on those who hate Him.

..and this was how the people who were wiped out, were behaving before The Flood:-
Ge 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 ¶ And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 ¶ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
10 And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
11 ¶ The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.
12 And God looked upon the earth, and, behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.
13 ¶ And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth

AtomicHorror

I wonder is it possible for you guys to argue your corner without scripture? I mean, if this is science then it should all be demonstrable without unverifiable chunks of blue verse.

J C wrote: »

...we are alike in that we share a common Humanity ... we are unalike in that I am Saved Sinner though NO MERIT on my part ... and you remain an Unsaved Sinner ... through NO BELIEF on your part!!!!:):D

That's the least of our differences, though most of the other differences are also fantasies of yours.